Coalition same-sex marriage plan changed?

Dumped cabinet minister Eric Abetz has unleashed a blistering attack on a proposal to have the current Parliament vote in favour of same-sex marriage ahead of a 2017 plebiscite, describing it as a "thought bubble" and "ambush to boot".

And Senator Abetz, a vocal opponent of gay marriage, warned the idea would do nothing to heal the wounds caused by the September leadership spill.

The Coalition's most prominent advocate of gay marriage, Queensland backbencher Warren Entsch, wants the current Parliament to introduce and pass legislation which would legalise gay marriage but only be triggered by public approval in a plebiscite. Mr Entsch has discussed his idea, which includes mandating a plebiscite within 100 days of the next federal election, with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who is considering the proposal.

"I have said to him that I think we need to be looking at progressing this issue," Mr Entsch told the ABC.

"Generally a plebiscite was not generally binding. In this case, it would be binding and that would become law."

Under the leadership of former prime minister Tony Abbott, the Liberal Party decided in a marathon party room meeting to retain the traditional definition of marriage until the next election and hold a plebiscite after that, possibly in 2017.

Senator Abetz was dumped from his cabinet position and role as leader of the government in the Senate following Mr Turnbull's ascension to the prime ministership.

In an interview with the ABC on Thursday, Senator Abetz said pre-empting the result of the plebiscite was an attempt to override the party room's decision to maintain the Coalition's support for traditional marriage until the next election.

"It seems a bit of a thought bubble and an ambush to boot," he said.

"To try to force MPs to vote for legislation contrary to that is against that which the party room so overwhelmingly decided.

"Secondly I believe we'd get into uncharted waters and very complicated situations if we try to bind the next Parliament by a vote of this Parliament."

Senator Abetz said Mr Entsch had put Mr Turnbull, who supports gay marriage, in a "very difficult situation" by proposing the idea.

"It is not the actions, if I might say, that will help unity...which will help to heal some of the wounds of that which has happened over recent weeks," he said.

Queensland Liberal National senator Matt Canavan also expressed concerns about the idea of a current Parliament dictating a future one. "I think it has some merit however I have concerns about how one Parliament could bind a future Parliament," he told Fairfax Media.

"I will respect the view of the Australian people whatever that view may be in the plebiscite but I don't pretend I can impose that view on a future elected member of Parliament."

And Liberal backbencher Bob Baldwin, who was also dumped from the frontbench, lambasted the idea.

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The boom that’s sweeping Australia: why beef is the next iron ore

IT’S been a long time since Charles Wooley saw so many farmers with huge smiles from ear to ear.  The veteran reporter has grown rather more accustomed to telling stories about hard times on the land — the droughts, the tears, the uncertainty.

But on 60 Minutes on Nine on Sunday night, Wooley uncovered the new boom sweeping Australia that’s leaving cattle farmers very rich and very, very happy.  Beef is being hailed as the new iron ore, as Indonesia and the rapidly expanding Chinese market drive up demand for our cattle.

And that demand — coupled with favourable grazing conditions — is turning Top End livestock stations into multi-million dollar businesses.  It’s even been tipped to be as big as the minerals boom.

Wooley told news.com.au he couldn’t remember the last time he saw so much optimism in rural Australia.  “Farming in Australia, especially in the outback, is where the heartbreak is. It destroys families, it destroys lives, it destroys fortunes. Only the banks survive. But suddenly there’s some good news,” he said.

“I haven’t seen such optimism across the Top End for a long time. The Top End has done it very tough and suddenly Asia can’t get enough beef. Everybody is delighted. And that’s nice to report back.”

Australian farmers are selling Brahman cattle for about a thousand dollars each, and about 400,000 have to be produced for Asia between now and Christmas.

Not surprisingly, smart money is jumping into the livestock industry, including advertising baron Harold Mitchell, whose West Australian cattle station, Yougawalla, is a whopping 1.4 million hectares — bigger than some European countries.

Wolley went out to visit the remote station, which Mitchell bought in 2008. “In 2008 he had 2000 cattle, and you can see how much the market has grown because he’s now running 45,000 and in the next few years he plans to get to 80,000,” Wooley said.

“The carrying capacity is enormous in the Kimberley because we’re not into the wet (season) yet, we’re coming out of the dry, and there’s more feed than the cattle can eat.

“The thing that had made life difficult there was water, but the technology to pull water up from 18 metres down is much better now. It doesn’t cost Harold anything, he’s got solar pumps and they just constantly pumping away using the sun. There are watering points everywhere.”

Mining moguls are following suit. Gina Rinehart recently outbid global and domestic interest in Western Australia’s iconic Fossil Downs cattle station, which was believed to be bought for $30 million, while Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest expanded his pastoral interests in August with the purchase of two stations near Carnarvon.

“The big dough is getting in on it and they say it will be bigger than the mineral boom,” Wooley said.  “Actually, because of that, our national herd next year will be at the lowest numbers it’s ever been.

“So there’s your problem — do you retain the herd in order to breed more, or do you go for the money while it’s available? Because you never know what will happen, with the cruelty allegations and the closing down of the live trade. There’s always a wildcard in there so I think people are saying let’s sell while we can.

“The shortfall then works its way up the market, and that’s why you’re paying so much for beef in Sydney. But that beef is not the same kind of meat.”

Australians generally consider Brahman beef too tough to eat — as Wooley points out, any attempt to barbecue it turns it as tough as leather in moments.  But Asian consumers love it for slow cooking.

Wooley said the big question was whether there was room for smaller family farms to cash in on the demand, or if the boom would only benefit big, corporate farming.

He met one couple who have managed to elbow their way in — Damian and Kirsty Forshaw, whose station occupies a strip from the edge of the Sandy Desert to the Indian Ocean.

“The Forshaws are very happy folk,” he said.  “They’re a lovely family and theirs is only a little family farm — it’s only a half million acres (200,000 hectares), which is small by Kimberley standards, but it’s still bloody huge. They’ve got 5000 cattle but that’s worth millions.

“They got into (cattle farming), lying awake at night worrying about the bank, and all the years of stress and strain, and suddenly things appear good for them and that’s nice.”

But will the good times last? Wooley said the live cattle export issue could complicate matters, and a lot was riding on Australia’s relationship with Indonesia.

And we have seen things go belly-up with the resources boom.  “I’ve reported rural affairs over the years and it’s like mining, it’s either boom or bust — going gangbusters or getting burnt,” Wooley said.

“Drought doesn’t help but we don’t seem to be having a dough in the Kimberley, but I wouldn’t want to be trying to produce a hell of a lot of beef in the southeast at the moment, especially in this El Niño year.

“These animal cruelty issues are always a problem … In the interests of the industry Australia should monitor and encourage where they can practices which are more acceptable to the Australian public.

“But when the country is going well it is reflected in the overall economy, as it will be here. It will take a lot of heat off the economy from the slowdown of the minerals and suddenly you can stop digging into the ground and graze on top of it, and it’s certainly good news.”

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Australia: the not-so little economy that can

Reserve Bank deputy governor Philip Lowe says we shouldn't succumb to "chronic pessimism" about this country, and he is right. Australia has been getting a lot of things right for a long time, and has a good chance of continuing to do so.

Lowe began a speech in Sydney on Tuesday by noting that while real income per capita is much the same as it was in 2008 when the resources boom was raging, it is still  60 per cent higher than it was in the early 'nineties.

That's a result of more adults being in work, more jobs being offered, and two special trends: above-average productivity growth in the nineties, and the resources boom in the noughties, and the huge increase in Australia's terms of trade and income that it served up.

That was then, however. The terms of trade doubled during the resources boom as commodity export prices soared, but half of that gain has now been given back. Lowe says you can't dismiss the possibility that the commodity price boom will return, but that you would be a mug to rely on it.

Demographics are also bearing down on the labour market participation rate, and undermining income that way.

That puts the weight squarely on getting productivity up, like the glory days of the 'nineties when Australia cashed in on its first big wave of economic reform.

Can we do it? Well, Lowe says we have several things going for us.

We have what he calls a strong institutional framework – government, regulations and law that work, in other words. We also have a high quality population: we might not have world-leading education, income, savings, innovation and risk-taking credentials and have been sliding a bit on the league tables, but we aren't dead-beats,either.

Our minerals wealth is a less important economic factor than it was when the resources boom was happening, but is still a huge asset that on its own brings in enough income to cover half our import bill.

The value of our agricultural base is also becoming increasingly apparent as Asia's middle class expands, and our proximity to Asia is a comparative advantage for our services sector,which has not only covered a net loss of about 100,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector since the early nineties, but led the creation of about 4 million new jobs.

Working the advantage

It is one thing to know what Australia's advantages are, and another thing entirely to work out how to leverage them, however. That's because the future is very difficult to predict. A Reserve Bank publication in 2000 that gathered the thoughts of geniuses of the day about the future didn't mention China once, for example.

Lowe's conclusion is that if you can't know what's around the corner, you need to be able to react quickly when you find out – and he says there are four golden keys, none of which his organisation holds: competition, innovation, the labor market, and education.

So it's complicated – but in my opinion, we are well placed. We are actively talking now about how to get the economy growing at its potential again for starters, just as we did at crucial times in the past. And while Lowe agrees with the Productivity Commission that Australia's industrial relations system should be simplified and updated, he also appears to agree with the commission that it does not need to be junked.

It displayed its flexibility during the global crisis, when jobs were saved by a shift towards part-time employment. It showed it again during the resources boom, when a wage explosion in the resources sector was largely quarantined from the rest of the economy. It is doing it now, as employment is supported by a moderation in wage growth during a period of economic weakness.

Lowe's comment that competition rules need to encourage new entrants, innovation and rapid competitive responses is also broadly in line with reality. The small size of Australia's economy has resulted in companies building what by international standards are large market shares, but the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is an active, pro-consumer regulator under chairman Rod Sims, and will be even stronger if the Turnbull government backs changes recommended by the Harper Review including  the prohibition of conduct that has the effect of substantially lessening competition.

Innovation is a harder nut to crack. Not so much at the research stage where Australia is finding niches, but at the development stage, where domestic market size and depth are missing.

Overall however we are in with a chance. You only need to spend time overseas to know that in many respects, Australia is already a modern economy, with fewer rules, regulations and roadblocks than many of its peers.

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Peanut allergy breakthrough: New Flinders Medical Centre technique letting at risk kids munch on nuts with ease

CHILDREN who were so allergic to peanuts they needed emergency adrenaline injections are now happily munching nuts daily as a result of a world-first medical trial in Adelaide.

The Flinders Medical Centre project by paediatric allergist Dr Billy Tao uses a two-step technique, initially boiling peanuts for two hours to make them less allergenic.

Children are fed these peanuts to partially desensitise them, then when they show no signs of allergic reaction, the children are fed roasted peanuts to further increase their tolerance.

Of 14 participants aged under 16 who all had serious allergic reactions, 10 have completed the first stage and are now eating roasted peanuts daily, while four continue to eat boiled peanuts daily. The ethically approved trial has not been attempted anywhere else.

“One patient who had to be administered three adrenaline injections after consuming peanuts is now eating roasted peanuts every day without problems,” Dr Tao said.

His idea was based on German researcher Professor Kirsten Beyer’s observation that peanut allergies are less prevalent in China than the western world, and Chinese children tend to eat boiled peanuts rather than roasted.

Dr Tao was on the verge of retirement but instead decided to pursue this project, remembering that babies in his native China are fed peanuts boiled for so long they become soft, before progressing to roasted nuts when older.

Dr Tao’s partnership with Dr Tim Chataway, Head of the Flinders Proteomics Facility and Professor Kevin Forsyth from the FMC Paediatrics Department proved peanuts boiled for at least two hours are much less allergenic.

He cautioned against families trying the method at home and stressed children with a nut allergy should see an allergist.

The team is planning a project where peanuts are boiled for 12 hours to treat the most severe cases of allergic reaction.

“Desensitisation is temporary — if the patient stops eating peanuts the protective effect will gradually wear off,” Dr Tao said.

“However, if the patient continues to eat peanuts regularly, they may reach the status of oral tolerance and be considered as cured. This is the holy grail of allergy treatment.”

About three per cent of Australian children have a peanut allergy.

Kirstin White, of Cumberland Park, has constantly worried about son Rory, 12, having contact with peanuts after he was diagnosed as a baby and he has carried an EpiPen adrenaline needle as a precaution.

“It is quite terrifying — you worry there will be some minor contact causing a reaction, and now he is almost a teenager there is a bit of stigma about it, worrying about going on excursions and to parties,” Mrs White said.

“He now eats a handful of roasted peanuts a night and has a letter from Dr Tao that he no longer needs the EpiPen — we are thrilled.”

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Labor finally approves China-Australia free trade agreement

It's a freer trade agreement rather than a free trade agreement, but any move towards freer trade is to be welcomed

The China-Australia free trade agreement will come into force before the end of the year after a compromise deal was finally struck between the federal government and opposition.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has hailed the compromise over the "historic trade deal", declaring it "absolutely critical for Australian jobs in the future".

He said Australia's opportunities in the Chinese market are "limited only by our imagination and enterprise".

"We have 23 million extraordinary Australians and their imagination and their enterprise will ensure that we have access to and benefit from this market in a way that even the architects of this agreement, principally the Trade Minister Andrew Robb, would not imagine," he said.

He also paid a back-handed compliment to Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, noting that he had been "a cork bobbing along in the slipstream of the CFMEU" but that ... "today the Leader of the Opposition has struck out from the slipstream and charted a course that is plainly in the national interest".

Mr Shorten conceded he may have angered sections of his power base in the union movement by reaching the agreement, but said a deal had been struck because "we're satisfied there is a better deal for Australian jobs than before today".

"Labor's always believed that trade should benefit all Australians, not just some people," he said.

"That's why Labor has stood up and expressed our concerns that there was insufficient legal safeguards and protections for Australian jobs."

"Labor now has achieved what we believe to be satisfactory legal protections which weren't previously proposed, which means that Labor can now support the speedy passage of the China-Australia free trade agreement."

Unions including the Electrical Trades union and the Manufacturing Workers union criticised the deal for not doing enough to strengthen labour market testing requirements, vowing to continue their campaign against aspects of the deal.

Last week Labor unveiled three specific amendments to the trade deal it would seek in order to agree to the deal and wave through enabling legislation. The bill will be brought forward for debate immediately in the lower house and is expected to pass into law by the end of the year.

Those changes would have seen a revision to rules that meant there would not have been mandatory labour market testing applied to investor facilitation agreements (IFAs) for projects over $150 million, lifting the base pay threshold for 457 visa workers from $53,000 to about $57,000 and stricter licensing conditions for tradesmen and women looking to come to Australia.

Minister Robb and his Labor shadow, Penny Wong, negotiated the compromise and a special meeting of shadow cabinet approved the deal on Tuesday night, with caucus giving the deal the rubber stamp on Wednesday morning.

Labor believes all three of its concerns have now been addressed and the changes will be put in place by making changes to migration regulations but not, as originally proposed, through changes to the act.

The changes still have the force of law.

Under the deal, labour market testing will apply to people who enter Australia on work agreements, including workers brought in on 457 visas under the China-Australia deal as part of an IFA.

Secondly, 457 visa market salary requirements will be strengthened to reflect wage rates paid under enterprise agreements, a move that means 457 visa workers will be more expensive to hire as pay rates on enterprise agreements are typically higher than the minimum award rate.

And thirdly, there will be new visa conditions for people on 457 visas in licensed trade occupations such as electricians and plumbers.

Satisfied with compromise

Mr Robb said the federal government had been happy to provide assurances to Labor that labour market testing requirements could not simply be changed by government fiat in the future.

During informal conversations with Chinese officials, Mr Robb said, "they were satisfied that it in no way halted what we'd agreed and it didn't discriminate against them".

"We should now be on track to be able to have an exchange of letters with the Chinese before the end of the year."

If passed by the Senate in 2015, two tariff cuts are in prospect before the end of the year and then immediately after on January 1.

Senator Wong described the deal as a "comprehensive package of safeguards for Australian jobs".

"What we've got is policy being turned into legal obligation. So I think that is a substantial strengthening of the safeguards."

The new conditions will require that 457 workers in those occupations cannot work until they get a trades licence, and they will have to get that licence within 90 days of arriving in Australia and report to the Immigration Department if their licence application is refused.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott accused the ALP of running a racist campaign, in concert with the union movement, against the trade deal, but the Turnbull government has taken a more conciliatory approach.

ETU national secretary Allen Hicks condemned both sides of politics for reaching the deal and said "We have no faith that the Department of Immigration as it is currently resourced has the capability to enforce the licensing requirements for 457 workers".

"We will be seeking a public commitment from Bill Shorten and his shadow cabinet that the inadequacies of this deal will be addressed as a matter of urgency under any Labor government."

And AMWU national secretary Paul Bastian struck a more conciliatory note, stating the strengthened safeguards were "a step in the right direction to protect foreign workers from exploitation and ensure local workers are not shut out of local projects".

"The government and Labor should not think that this political settlement is enough. Our campaign will continue until Australian workers can be confident that [the China free trade deal] and trade agreements generally deliver for their interests."

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Geert Wilders launches Australia's 'first freedom party' (and  it's anti-Islam)

Far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders has launched an anti-Islam party in Perth, claiming it is Australia's "first freedom party".

The Dutch politician said on Wednesday that the Australian Liberty Alliance (ALA) provided hope in its commitment to "stop the Islamisation of Australia".

"At the end of the day it's all worth it as we have the truth on our side," Mr Wilders said, amid a loud protest.

He said his supporters in Holland were concerned citizens and "not extremists, they are not bigots".

'A totalitarian ideology'

The new party has been inspired by the Mr Wilders-led Party for Freedom which is currently polling strongly and holds seats in the Dutch parliament.

The Australian party's "manifesto" has detailed policies on several issues, such as support for privatising the SBS and "non-core" sections of the ABC; however it is its anti-Islam policies that dominate its political ideology.

Its manifesto reads: "Islam is not merely a religion, it is a totalitarian ideology with global aspirations. Islam uses the religious element as a means to project itself onto non-Islamic societies, which is manifest in the historical and ongoing expansion of Islam."

Mr Wilders noted that "like minded parties" were having great success in Austria, Sweden, France and Switzerland. Heated debate over immigration policies in Europe  appears to have resulted in increased support for some of the far-right parties.

The ALA is preparing to run several candidates in the next federal election.

Mr Wilders, who travels with heavy security protection, was the main speaker at the launch of the ALA conference held at a secret location in Perth on Tuesday night. Supporters met in Perth city before getting on a bus, organised by the ALA, to be taken to the event.

"Everywhere in Europe, the people, not the political elite, not the governments, but the people are saying enough is enough, let us reclaim our country," Mr Wilders said on Tuesday night.

"Stop the mass immigration from Islamic countries. No more, we say no more to the governments and the Islamisation process."

The prominent Dutch politician said he was pleased to be at the "birth" of the country's "first freedom party".

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Which planet are our MPs living on?

THE words Islam or Islamic were uttered six times in federal parliament before it rose for the week on Thursday — but not once in reference to terrorism.

The only “I” word being embraced by the Turnbull government is “inclusive”, which makes one wonder — just which planet our parliamentarians living on?

It’s over a year since the Government raised the national terrorism public alert level to high, last September 12, and it has not been shifted since.

The system rates four levels of risk. They are: low — terrorist attack is not expected; medium — terrorist attack could occur; high — terrorist attack is likely; extreme — attack is imminent or has occurred.

Yet two innocent people were killed in an Islamist terrorist attack in the heart of Sydney last December when shotgun-wielding Man Haron Monis made hostages of patrons of the Lindt Café, and Curtis Cheng was ruthlessly murdered by a 15-year-old boy in front of the Parramatta police station as he was leaving work on October 2.

As it happens, that same morning, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull publicly signalled his much-heralded break with his predecessor Tony Abbott’s hard-line approach to Islamism.

After discussions with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Justice Minister Michael Keenan, who both urged him to take the fresh approach, he wheeled out his new, more inclusive tone for future dealings with the Islamic community.

Needless to say, it was warmly embraced by the ­country’s Muslim spokesmen, and according to GP Jamal Rifi, the “larger Muslim community” would “respond with open arms”.

Dr Rifi told The Australian newspaper that the Muslim community was “elated” at Mr Turnbull becoming prime minister, as the relationship with the government under Mr Abbott had become “extremely tense and hurtful”.

Though clearly not as hurtful as the lethal relationship between Mr Cheng and his teenage murderer was to be just hours later.

Since then, police officers have been told not to wear their uniforms to and from work, just like servicemen and women, out of fear they may be targeted when they are not carrying their service-issue weapons.

But not a flicker of the ­terrorist threat meter, just more baloney about Islam as a religion of peace from a gaggle of self-important so-called Muslim community leaders and clerics and apologists who want to blame anything but absolutely barbaric Koranic verses as reasons for the ­constant global incitement of Muslims to murder the ­non-believers.

The federal Government had been moving for months to introduce laws that will lower the age at which control orders can be applied from 16 to 14 years of age — even as we learn that a 12-year-old was among the 17 extremists named in court papers as a close-knit Western Sydney group, lured into the Islamist death cult and willing to commit murder or die for the ­Islamic State.

Extremist hate preachers and fake sheiks speak at mosques and Islamic schools and Canberra assembles a congregation of multi-faith ministers to sing kumbaya and have a group hug.

Mr Turnbull has confirmed that over the past five months the federal Government has trained more than 300 “specialists” who will be embedded within the nation’s frontline departments and agencies to intervene and divert individuals from radicalisation.

He didn’t mention the particular group which the agencies were concerned about but you can be fairly certain it is not the Amish.

He said that individuals and extremists “seek to denigrate other groups in the community, often within their own ­religion, other religions and other ethnic groups, and they seek to turn us against each other”.

Which religion, Mr Turnbull — Buddhism, Christianity or Judaism?

Guess again, because he didn’t say.

There were plenty of omissions from Thursday’s debate in Canberra, not least being Labor MPs Maria Vamvakinou and Melissa Parke, who managed to totally ignore the ­current wave of terrorist stabbings and shootings targeting innocent Israelis and the torrent of hate speech pouring out of the West Bank as they ­talked up the cause of Palestinian statehood.

But the extraordinarily high number, per capita, of young Australians who have chosen to join fellow jihadists in Syria and Iraq would indicate that relying on local Muslim leaders to cooperate with the ­security agencies has not been entirely successful.

The motherhood view was outlined by Muslim MP Ed Husic on Friday, when he said the aim of terrorists was to ­divide communities with fear.  “We need the broader community to feel secure,” he said.

Just imagine.

The broader community won’t feel secure until those who follow Islam show they wish to assimilate and adopt Australia’s liberal democratic values just like earlier new Australians from northern European, southern Europe and south-east Asia.

Having embraced the nonsensical policy of multiculturalism, the federal Government is stuck with the problem of dealing with a growing group of individuals who show little sign of observing their oath of loyalty to ­Australia.

Congregating in essentially non-English speaking ghettos clustered around a profusion of mosques in which English is not heard, taking satellite news from Arabic-language broadcasts, will not help this migrant group become part of the broader community and it will not make Australians feel more secure.

Millions have now been spent, and tens of millions more are earmarked to go to Islamic projects, but it is difficult to see how a single cent of the money will help remove the cultural barriers that are core to Koranic teaching.

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Democracy tested by same sex-marriage plebiscite, Archbishop Anthony Fisher warns

The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney has warned of a future in which bishops are jailed, political dissent is all but silenced, scripture lessons are banned, and religious tax exemptions are eroded, should same-sex marriage be legalised.

In an address to the Centre for Independent Studies on Wednesday night, Anthony Fisher suggested "religious freedom" in Australia's democracy is at a turning point, and hinges on the upcoming plebiscite on gay nuptials.

In the next decade, Australia could potentially become a bleak place for people of faith, Archbishop Fisher said.

"Many clergy and teachers in faith-based schools have been cowed with threats of prosecution for 'hate speech' if they teach that divine law limits marriage to people of opposite sex," he said in a prepared speech.

"There are also actions pending against evangelical Christian and Maronite​ Catholic business owners for failing to provide photography, stretch limousine and hospitality services for 'gay weddings'."

Archbishop Fisher started his speech by transporting the audience to a hypothetical 2025. But said this imagined future that he feared need not come to pass. Australians could instead opt for a future where terms such as "man and wife" and "mother and father" remained the norm.

"A robust but courteous debate continues, but most agree the decade-long exercise of patience and respect in pursuit of a moral consensus in this area has demonstrated democratic maturity and strengthened, not diminished, common life," he said.

In the 2015 Acton Lecture, titled "Should Bakers Be Required to Bake Gay Wedding Cakes?", Archibishop Fisher said proponents of same-sex marriage had failed to listen to detractors.

"Closed-mindedness is, of course, no monopoly of people engaging on same-sex marriage. "But I think the refusal to listen is presently mostly on one side," he said.

"Advocates of gay marriage seem to think no reasonable person could think other than as they do; that not only are they right on this issue, but that their opponents are irrational and operating out of blind traditionalism or, more likely, hatred."

He warned that "ordinary believers and their businesses are given no leeway, and even religious institutions such as schools, hospitals and welfare agencies are expected to toe the PC line" on gay marriage.

Earlier this year, the owners of a bakery in the US state of Oregon were ordered to pay almost $200,000 in damages after they refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple.

"The baker couple faced vilification, boycotts of their business, violent protests and even death threats, and were forced to close their shop and work from home," Archbishop Fisher said.

He said this was a test of democracy itself.

"Even if it would not have been unethical for bakers to assist a same-sex wedding in so remote a way, democracy degenerates into despotism when it licenses such vilification of people's conscientious beliefs."

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The old hater is still at it

Abuse is Keating's forte, as it generally is on the Left.  But he has a point.  Prince William would be much more popular as the next monarch.  The Queen's mother, however, lived to 101 so it may be a long time before the issue has to be addressed

Former prime minister Paul Keating has urged Malcolm Turnbull to save Australia from Prince Charles becoming head of state, calling the prospect "deeply sick".

In a conversation with ABC journalist Kerry O'Brien at the Sydney Opera House on Tuesday night, Mr Keating reiterated his call for Australia to become a republic.

"No great country has a monarch ... of another country as their head of state," he said. "And no great country has a flag of another country in the corner of their flag."

The former Labor prime minister said he expected Mr Turnbull to win the next election and said the issue should be addressed in his government's next term.  "It requires a prime minister to take it on," he said.  "You can have all the republican movements you like, but if a prime minister doesn't want to take this on, it won't happen."

He said the idea of ending up with Prince Charles as Australia's head of state after the reign of Queen Elizabeth II ended was "deeply sick".  "What are we going to end up with?" he asked.  "Charles and Camilla, for God's sake."

He said Mr Turnbull faced other problems within his party after wrestling the leadership from Tony Abbott. "The real question is, can he take the now very right-wing Liberal Party anywhere back near the centre?" he asked.  "That'll be the real test ... or whether he's stuck with the Loony Tunes show on the right."

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Even an exemplary Muslim can be a wife-basher

Though some of the prior praise of him may well have been a form of "affirmative action".  The Left are all on about wife-bashing at the moment but they also heart Muslims -- so I expect great silence from them over this.  If, on the other hand,  he had been an Anglo ....



Rugby league legend Hazem El Masri has been charged over an alleged domestic violence assault on his new wife. 

A NSW police spokeswoman said the former Bulldogs winger, 39, was charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm and common assault on Monday evening.

The charges relate to an incident with his 25-year-old wife around 7:30pm at his south-western Sydney home, police said.

An AVO has been lodged for the protection of his wife Douah El-Cherif for the next 28 days. He must not approach or contact her by any means, the order said.

Mr El Masri, who won the premiership in 2004 with the Bulldogs, was granted conditional bail and will appear at Bankstown Local Court on Thursday.

He split from his previous wife of 14 years, Arwa, in 2014 and has since remarried. He and Arwa had three children together.

El Masri, who was sometimes known as 'El Magic', retired from rugby league in 2009 with a reputation for being one of the game's most prolific goalkickers.

He grew up in Tripoli during the Lebanese civil war and moved to Australia at age 11 and was widely regarded as a positive role model for youth in Sydney's west.

Since his retirement, he has worked in the community service sector and spent time as an ambassador for the White Ribbon Foundation, a movement to stop violence against women.

A 2006 Fairfax profile described him as 'league's pin-up boy for good behaviour' and the 'best role model the game has'.'

In an interview with Australian Story, Nine commentator Ray Warren described him as 'one of the real gentlemen of the code'. 'In 41 years of sports commentating, I've seen a lot of footballers come and go. 'But I have no doubt Hazem El Masri will leave a lasting impression on rugby league, as he will on Australia. He's the man we call 'El Magic'.'

A Bulldogs club award for Player of the Year is named in El Masri's honour. 

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Turnbull government backs Murray Review, setting up major overhaul of Australia's financial system

Shops, cabs, and other merchants will be banned from imposing unfair surcharges on credit cards, and inactive bank accounts and life insurance policies will only be defined as unclaimed after seven years, rather than three, in a huge overhaul of Australia's financial system.

The Turnbull government has responded to the Murray Review of Australia's financial system, agreeing with the vast majority of the review's recommendations.

The review represents the biggest overhaul of the financial system since 1997, when the Wallis Report on the financial system led to the creation of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), which helped Australia through the financial crisis.

The review touches on everything from credit card fees, superannuation, cyber security, and crowd funding regulation.

It has also set up the next three years of political fighting in Canberra at least, with the 'point' of the super system promised to be enshrined in legislation so consumers and industry have policy certainty.

The Turnbull government will ask the Productivity Commission to develop an alternative model for a 'formal competitive process' for allocating default super funds to members.

It will also ban merchants from charging surcharges on credit cards that are greater than the cost of accepting payment by card.

The Turnbull government says it accepts that Australia's banking system is uniquely run by a minority of powerful banks that source much of their funding offshore, and which provide 90 per cent of the domestic credit to local firms, and that this creates "some concentration of risk in the system."

It says that is why Australia's banks need to be "stronger than those of comparable countries," and why their mortgage risk weights need to increase - a key reason why Westpac Bank lifted rates last week.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the review's recommendations would make Australia's banking system stronger while giving retirees "choice and security" in their retirement years.

He also said it would protect consumers from being charged unfair card surcharges.

"These are some of the important outcomes from the Government's response to the Murray inquiry," he said.

The government will ask Australia's financial regulators - APRA, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), and the Reserve Bank's Payments Systems Board - to meet regulatory performance benchmarks.

It will also review ASIC's powers, and ask industry to help develop a new ASIC product intervention power that could be used to modify products or remove harmful products from the marketplace.

Such system-wide reviews of the financial system do not come around often.

A similar report in 1981, the so-called Campbell Report, led to the historical floating of the dollar and the deregulation of Australia's financial system.

That was followed by the Wallis Report in 1997, which helped to streamline financial services regulation and led to the creation APRA and the current form of ASIC.

The current review focuses on Australia's super system, following years of scandals in the financial advice industry that have seen hundreds of Australians lose their life savings.

The Turnbull government says it will make the financial advice industry 'professional' for the first time, requiring advisers to hold a degree, pass an exam, undertake continuous professional development, and subscribe to a code of ethics.

"These higher standards will, for the first time, place financial advising on a similar footing to other professions and in doing so increase consumer trust and confidence in the sector," Mr Turnbull said.

The government's response to the review comes 11 months after it was handed down by its chair David Murray, a former chief executive of Commonwealth Bank.

The government says it has agreed to senate amendments to extend unfair contract term protections to small businesses, covering standard form contracts where at least one of the parties employs less than 20 people and where the upfront price of the contract does not exceed $300,000, or $1 million for contracts longer than 12 months.

"Australians can now be confident that our financial system remains the best in the world," Mr Turnbull said.

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Senators accuse SBS of campaigning against Australian law by supporting same-sex marriage

SBS has been accused of abusing its position as a public broadcaster by joining a corporate campaign in favour of same-sex marriage.

During Senate estimates hearings on Tuesday, Liberal National Party senator Matt Canavan said SBS had taken sides on an issue of "political contention" by joining companies such as Google, Qantas, Optus and the big banks by supporting same-sex marriage.

We are an organisation that does everything we can to support equality

Fellow Coalition senator Chris Back questioned whether the broadcaster would be able to provide balanced coverage during a plebiscite on same-sex marriage given its corporate stance.

The SBS logo featured among other major brands published in full-page newspaper advertisements supporting marriage equality published earlier this year.

"Why is it appropriate for a public broadcaster to involve themselves in a political campaign on issues such as this?" Senator Canavan asked SBS managing director Michael Ebeid.

"I do feel this is a little bit of of an abuse of your position, Mr Ebeid, to have come to a corporate position based on no legal advice and little understanding of the different views in the debate other than 'it's all just about equality'."

Mr Ebeid responded by saying he did not believe same-sex marriage is a political issue. He said the broadcaster's corporate stance would not influence how it covers the issue in its news and current affairs programs.

"SBS, in its whole foundation and purpose of being, is about promoting cultural diversity and social cohesion," [That sounds rather self-contradictory] he said.  "We are an organisation that does everything we can to support equality.

"As an employer, we have joined other employers to say we support equality in all its forms and don't discriminate against our employees.

"I don't think this is an issue that's a political issue. It's a societal issue, not a political issue at all."

Senator Canavan said he "completely" disagreed that support for same-sex marriage was not a political issue.  "You're actually an employee of the Commonwealth of Australia and the Commonwealth of Australia has a Marriage Act saying marriage is between a man and a woman," he said.

Senator Canavan said private organisations were free to campaign on political issues but that government agencies such as SBS should not.

Senator Canavan quoted an episode of Media Watch from earlier this year which claimed the Australian media's coverage of the same-sex marriage debate was biased against supporters of traditional marriage.

Mr Ebeid said SBS has a "long history" of airing both sides of the same-sex marriage debate. "As a public broadcaster we cover all issues in a completely balanced and objective way," he said.

Politicians, including those who support same-sex marriage, criticised SBS earlier this year for pulling an anti-same sex marriage advertisement from its telecast of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade.

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Local ticks likely responsible for Lyme disease in Australia, breakthrough Perth research finds

A national study led by a Perth-based researcher could be one step closer to ending the Lyme disease debate in Australia for good.

Lyme disease is caused by a bacterium - borrelia burgdoferi - passed on by ticks.

Prevalent in the United States and parts of Europe, it causes symptoms such as fatigue, muscle pain and various neurological symptoms.

The Government and the Australian Medical Association (AMA) have not recognised the existence of Lyme disease in Australia.

Key points:

Lyme disease is caused by a bacterium passed on by ticks

The Government and the AMA have not recognised the existence of the disease in Australia

There are 70 species of tick in Australia

New research finds a home-grown bacterium is likely responsible for Lyme-like symptoms in Australia

But now Murdoch University Professor Peter Irwin believes a home-grown bacterium is responsible for Lyme-like symptoms in Australians.  "We have about 70 species of tick in Australia," he said

"The vast majority - well really all except three or four - have evolved here with our unique wildlife and don't occur anywhere else in the world. "So you can't draw parallels with work that's been done overseas, because nowhere overseas has the Australian ticks."

Using breakthrough technology, the team from Murdoch is examining thousands of native Australian ticks.  "We applied new molecular techniques to these ticks called next generation sequencing," Professor Irwin said. "This is a technique that allows us to look inside the tick and find the DNA, the genetic code, of organisms that live inside the tick."

In some cases, Lyme disease is identifiable by a rash called a bulls-eye rash for the way it appears.

Several medical practitioners across Australia claim to have diagnosed the illness in patients who have never travelled to areas where it is endemic.

But positive laboratory results have been disputed. WA President of the AMA Michael Gannon said there had been no evidence to prove its existence here. "The borrelium bacteria that causes Lyme disease has never been isolated from an Australian vector, like a tick," he said.  "And it's never been isolated in an Australian patient that hasn't travelled to somewhere in North America or Europe."

But for those suffering - who have had no official diagnosis for years - the controversy surrounding the issue leaves them with no answers and no treatment.

Professor Irwin said his research was ongoing. "We can find organisms in ticks, we can find DNA," he said.  "But attributing disease causation to those bacteria is really another step all together.  "Unless they're already known to cause disease how do you know they cause disease?"

He said it would require more research before any answers, or treatment, was readily available. "It might be linking the types of bacteria you find in ticks with the types of bacteria in people," he said. "Then you can start to close the circle."

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Why don't Australians think they took the country away from the Aboriginals?

More Pilger fraud.  Pilger couldn't lie straight in bed

Tim O'Neill

I think the question is actually asking "Why don't the particular Australians questioned by known polemicist and controversial contrarian John Pilger and then carefully selected in the editing of his extremely slanted and simplistic documentary 'Utopia' think they took the country away from the Aboriginals?"

I'm left wing and extremely sympathetic to the plight of modern Aborigines as well as better informed than most about the tragic history of the destruction of indigenous culture and the atrocities against indigenous people since white settlement.  But Pilger's documentary was so clumsy, badly presented, biased and actively stupid that it had me shouting at the TV.  If all you knew about black/white relations in Australia was based on that documentary you would certainly come away thinking:

(i) White Australians don't think their ancestors stole the land from the original inhabitants

(ii) White politicians do pretty much nothing to try to remedy the problems of indigenous communities

(iii) The average Australian knows nothing of indigenous culture or history or the history of disenfranchisement and marginalisation

(iv) Most indigenous people live in the third world squalor like that in the community of Utopia featured in the documentary.

This is all warped and simplistic nonsense.  But that's how Pilger likes his documentaries - nothing is too complex or nuanced for him to avoid reducing it to some sweeping banalities, with plenty of shots of him looking outraged, disgusted, sanctimonious and morally superior.

The idea that all or even most Australians share the ignorant and blinkered views of the people Pilger edited into his opening sequence is just laughable.  Anyone with even the vaguest grasp of the role of indigenous affairs in the Australian political landscape knows there are a wide range of views on this subject as any other.  This means that there are far more people who fully acknowledge the displacement of indigenous people as a historical fact and as a lamentable and shameful one at that.  The Australian Government is currently working on making recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the original inhabitants and custodians of the county part of our Constitution.  If the attitudes of the morons and bigots who Pilger carefully selected for his documentary were the norm, such a move would be doomed or at least highly controversial.  It isn't.  Polling on the issue shows consistently that it is extremely well supported, with one recent poll showing that 82% of Australians are supportive or strongly supportive of Constitutional recognition of Aboriginal custodianship and only 13% in any way against it.

The same goes for recognition of and sorrow for the past wrongs against indigenous people.  When Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made his apology on behalf of the Australian Government to the "stolen generation" removed from their families in the early to mid twentieth century in February 2008, polls showed that 78% of voters approved strongly of the apology and only 16% didn't agree with it.  In May 2000 myself, most of my friends and about 300,0oo other people took part in the Reconciliation Walk across Sydney Harbour Bridge in solidarity with our indigenous brothers and sisters - one of the largest demonstrations in Sydney's history and just one of many held around the country on the same day. 

And these are just a few examples of the awareness of Aboriginal history and issues and the massive support they have across a wide section of the community.  The people that Pilger showed are a minority on these and related issues, but you would not get the faintest hint of that from his ludicrous documentary. 

The same goes for the idea that Aboriginal history, culture and issues are not taught in schools.  Compared to the United States, these issues get vastly more time and detail in Australia, so the claim that they are ignored is absolutely ridiculous.  Robert Russell's answer to What kind of history does Aussie teach their children in school? Do they talk about the sad history of aboriginal? shows just how wrong that idea is.

Pilger is not an unbiased documentary maker, he is a propagandist.  He happens to be a propagandist with views very similar to my own, but the biased, simplistic and slanted way he presents his case is actually counter-productive.  To someone from overseas with no grasp of his simplistic approach, the stupidity of Utopia would not be apparent.  To anyone with any knowledge of the complexities and variety of views on this subject, his clumsy caricature is nothing short of pathetic.

Which is a pity, because the plight of many remote indigenous communities does need to be better addressed.  And government policies on Aboriginal matters do need further reform and refinement.  And there are many racist and ignorant people who do hold the views Pilger highlights.  But these things won't be advanced or remedied by crap like Utopia.

Before any Americans get too haughty about Australian treatment of their indigenous culture, try this - how many of your indigenous music stars could the average American name?  Because any Aussie could rattle off names of popular singers and musicians like Christine Anu, Jessica Mauboy, Archie Roach, Yothu Yindi or Gurrumul Yunupingu without blinking.  And these are people who have had mainstream charted hits and won the highest awards in the Australian music industry.  How many Native American actors and TV personalities can you name?  Because, again, any Aussie could talk about Ernie Dingo, Deborah Mailman, David Gulpilil, Aaron Pederson or Jack Charles without any prompting.  Or indigenous sports stars?  Any Aussie you meet could tell you about Cathy Freeman, Adam Goodes, Nova Peris-Kneebone, Nicky Winmar or Evonne Goolagong.  The 2000 Reconciliation March in Sydney was the equivalent of 571,000 people marching across the Brooklyn Bridge in support of Native American issues.  Has that ever happened?  Is it likely to happen any time soon?

Relations between our peoples are far from what they could or should be, but I don't think we need lectures from Americans on the subject and we certainly don't need them on the basis of a piece of biased junk like Utopia.

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ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG is enjoying  Bill Shorten's death in the polls





Reclaim Australia group wins hearts

Plenty of abuse too -- in the usual Leftist way

An interview with the mums and dads that founded the Reclaim Australia movement has caused a fiery divide on social media.

Reclaim Australia's founders, who call themselves 'patriotic Australians' and claim to be stopping the 'spread of Islam' in Australia, appeared on Channel Seven's Sunday Night program in their first ever television interview.

But attempts to expose and challenge their controversial views may have backfired with support for the group growing on social media to 40,000 followers. 

Co-founders Wanda Marsh and John Oliver, as well as Sydney mum Catherine Brennan, explained how the movement was started by concerned parents who believed the Martin Place siege was an act of Islamic terrorism.

But the Facebook group quickly attracted aggressive anti-Islam campaigners and an Australia-wide protest turned violent when groups like the United Patriots Front (UPF) showed support.

The show on Sunday night was billed as an in-depth look at how the group began and its founders who claim to be ordinary Australians.

'I can't let my kids grow up in a country where kids are getting murdered in the streets. It's just not Australian,' Mr Oliver told Sunday Night.

Ms Brennan said: 'I'm just an everyday mum living in the suburbs doing the best job that I can for my family.'

#ReclaimAustralia started trending on social media immediately after the story aired as thousands showed support for the group's views, while others criticised Channel Seven for giving them publicity.

A viewer poll asking whether Reclaim Australia represents Australian values was sitting at 78 - 22 in support of the group before changing to 37 - 63.

'#ReclaimAustralia I will say this once how many more people will have to die before we kick Islam out of this nation,' one user wrote on Twitter in support of the group. Others were quick to condemn it.

'I'm so ashamed/embarrassed that#ReclaimAustralia is trending. I apologise profusely to my Muslim friends for the racist bs that is flying,' one wrote.

'If #ReclaimAustralia represents Aussie values, then Aussie values suck. We truly are a nation of self-righteous, xenophobic hypocrites.

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Media bias against Christians

Liberal senator Eric Abetz has ­unleashed an attack on the Canberra press gallery, arguing it is hostile to conservative, Christian politicians while giving favourable treatment to left-leaning or Muslim MPs.

Senator Abetz said the media had treated him and his conservative colleagues, in particular former prime minister Tony Abbott, “unfairly”. He said the media felt comfortable vilifying politicians like Mr Abbott because of their Christian faith, but would never dare speak the same way about people of other religions.

“Journalists will need to ­explain why they do this, but it is very clear that if somebody swears their oath on the Koran, this is a wonderful expression of diversity and to be encouraged, whereas if you swear your oath on the Bible then you’re an old fart and not to be taken seriously. Well, excuse me, what’s the difference?” he said. “There is a special negative-sentiment override for those that profess the Christian faith.”

Senator Abetz referenced a ­description of Mr Abbott as the “mad monk” that often appeared in the media. “Just imagine making fun of somebody else’s religion of a different nature, as in if you are a Muslim, Buddhist or a Hindu,” he said. “There is the double standard that you can basically vilify anyone from the Christian side of the tracks but don’t you dare touch anyone else.”

Senator Abetz, an employment minister under Mr Abbott who was dropped from cabinet by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, said Australian political reporters did not give fair treatment to conservative policies, such as stopping the boats, scrapping the carbon tax and opposing gay marriage, often mocking the conservative point of view.

He indicated that compared with other prime ministers, the media had treated Mr Abbott and John Howard far more harshly.

“The public can make up their own mind as to the coverage and treatment by the media of John Howard and Tony Abbott as prime ministers in comparison to others,” he said.

Members of the Canberra gallery gave more positive coverage to politicians and policies they agreed with, Senator Abetz said, arguing that journalists hardly ever referred to the far Left or the extreme Left when discussing the Greens or the Labor Party, but frequently referred to him, Cory Bernardi and other conservative politicians as being from the far, extreme or religious Right. “I’ve been referred to as from the ­religious Right a number of times in the media and when I’ve thrown out the challenge, when are you going to report on the godless Left? The answer is never,” he said.

The ABC was one of the worst offenders, he said, providing coverage that was markedly different for the politicians it supported. “I’m terribly loyal to my new leader but you might comment on the flirtatious approach of Leigh Sales when she interviewed Turnbull. Just ask yourself the question, did Leigh Sales ever apologise for interrupting Tony Abbott?” he said. “If you’re a conservative, you’re fair game to be interrupted.”

Senator Abetz said that when ABC host Tony Jones interviewed Joe Hockey on Lateline, he interrupted him 33 times. However, when he had Wayne Swan on the previous evening, there was barely an interruption.

“Then they say Joe Hockey is unable to sell the message. Well, with 33 interruptions in one interview, one might understand why it is difficult to sell the message,” he said. Senator Abetz found the “groupthink” of political journalists had worsened since he entered federal parliament in 1994. And it was to the detriment of democracy, he said.

“If you promote conservative policies, you are immediately demonised and conservative policies are demonised,” he said.

“If you have a Christian, conservative point of view to offer, the media will have this negative-sentiment override which will simply be critical of any views that you may seek to express and that has, regrettably, been the case now for many years in the media gallery.”

The result, Senator Abetz said, was that some politicians were too intimidated to admit they agreed with conservative policies. “Parliamentarians are intimidated from stating their point of view because they know, no matter how sensibly they present it, it will somehow be misrepresented or a negative picture, negative commentary will be presented,” he said.

“I think the groupthink of the media gallery has got worse as the years have gone by and the concept of a diverse range of opinions or interpretations is now lacking.”

When asked if journalists were reflecting the view of their audience, particularly when it came to issues such as gay marriage, Senator Abetz said he did not subscribe to the view that conservative Christian values were unpopular with the public. He said they were unpopular with the media, which was unrepresentative of the Australian people.

“If you go to the footy, you’re a man or woman of the people, but if you go to church, what a strange individual you are. Yet around Australia, as I understand it, a lot more people go to church on a Sunday than go to football on a Saturday.”

Senator Abetz said the press gallery tended to report on issues in the same way. “The genuine diversity of ­reporting just does not seem to be there as one would have hoped it might,” he said.

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Malcolm Turnbull in fresh push to curb union power

The federal government will ­restart talks to legislate tougher sanctions against aggressive ­industrial tactics as it responds to a surprise deal to merge the ­nation’s most militant unions and to reshape a political fight over the economic damage from workplace disruption.

Malcolm Turnbull is redoubling the effort to impose the new curbs on workplace power after last week’s decision to launch the mammoth union merger, as his government appears within reach of a Senate deal to pass stronger laws.

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash said the government would press ahead with reforms to prevent “thuggery, intimidation and stand-over tactics” on building sites.

Industry groups called last night for a swift response to ­Friday’s agreement to combine the Maritime Union of Australia with the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union to ­create a united force with more than 100,000 members.

The government believes the merger will heighten the need for the restoration of the Australian Building and Construction Commission and separate controls on registered organisations, helping to sway the Senate to pass laws that were narrowly rejected two months ago.

In a sign of Mr Turnbull’s scope to strike deals in the upper house, key crossbenchers have praised his approach to negotiations, in contrast to that of his predecessor, Tony Abbott, raising the government’s hopes of legislating its agenda.

Parliament resumes today with Mr Turnbull also gaining ground in the electorate, with a Fairfax-Ipsos poll released last night showing that his leadership has given the government a convincing lead over Labor of 53 to 47 per cent on a two-party-­preferred basis when applying the preference flows seen at the last election.

Mr Turnbull leads Bill Shorten as preferred prime minister by 67 per cent to 21 per cent, according to last night’s poll, an even bigger gap than the result of 57 per cent to 19 per cent in a Newspoll published in The Australian a week ago.

The union merger has startled industry executives and fuelled government concerns about the power of the enlarged union to disrupt workplaces in sectors ­ranging from forestry to construction and the waterfront.

Senator Cash said the merger proposal emphasised the need for the restoration of the Australian Building and Construction Commission to prevent projects being “needlessly delayed” and ensure law and order in the sector.

“Unlawful practices in the building and construction industry come at a very high economic cost to Australia and Australians,” she said.  “They result in higher infrastructure costs, delayed projects and a culture of fear and intimidation.

“The social and economic ­importance to Australians of the building and construction industry functioning properly cannot be underestimated.”

While Mr Turnbull has dismissed the idea of “waging war with the unions” on workplace ­reform, his government has ­recommitted to Mr Abbott’s policies on the ABCC and registered organisations.

The ABCC bill seeks to restore the commission put in place by the Howard government to stop illegal conduct by unions on building sites. The Senate rejected the bill in August by 34 to 33 votes after the Coalition was unable to get the support of crossbench senators Jacqui Lambie, Ricky Muir and Glenn Lazarus.

The bill to amend the Registered Organisations Act would introduce criminal penalties for officials who abuse their positions, including union leaders as well as industry group executives. The Senate also rejected this bill by 34 to 33 votes.

Both bills are now potential triggers for a double-dissolution election, having been rejected by the upper house twice in the same form, but the government’s strategy is to reopen talks to try to impose the changes if possible.

“The benefits brought by the ABCC while it was in operation cannot be undervalued,” Senator Cash said, adding that the commission led to major economic benefits.  “The building and construction industry is far too important to the national economy for us to see this happening.’’

Labor and the union movement disputes that assessment, citing independent experts to argue that the ABCC never achieved the boost to productivity or the cut to costs that the government claimed. When in opposition, Mr Abbott said the restoration of the ABCC could add $6 billion a year to economic growth.

The union merger heightens the clash over the two bills at a time when Labor insists the reforms are driven by a political agenda to discourage union activity and reduce membership.

Miners and gas exporters have been some of the strongest critics of the CFMEU and the MUA, arguing that union tactics have increased the cost of building major facilities and slowed the shipping of supplies to projects in Western Australia, where the MUA is especially strong.

Liberal Democratic Party senator David Leyonhjelm said yesterday that there was a “lot more love in the air” in parliament since Mr Turnbull had replaced Mr Abbott, with eight ministers talking to him in the past week on their reform proposals.

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Famous Australian sportsman says traditional Australian frankness is being destroyed by political correctness

He's famously been dubbed the 'King Of Spin' ever since his international cricket Test debut in 1992.  And with his success on the pitch and a string of high-profile girlfriends, retired cricketer Shane Warne has learned controversy is a word he's often linked to.

More than two decades since he made his mark, the 46-year-old says Australia is not what it used to be, with the population too reticent to push the boundaries when it comes to national conversation.

'I believe Australia was, not now, but was, the best country in the world,' the father-of-three told Sunday Herald Sun.

Explaining he believes that the country's views towards parenting and education have changed drastically, he also spoke of the dangers of social media, which allows people to speak their mind, but also share negative messages with a devastating affect.

Shane is most concerned, though, about the right to carefree commentary 'the Australian way', without giving too much thought to political correction all the time.

'I just feel that over the last bit of time everyone is being careful of what they say, everyone is really careful of saying the wrong thing or rubbing someone up the wrong way,' he told the publication. 'Australians say it the way it is and that’s the Australian way.  'I think if we lose that we’re losing our DNA of what we are.'

No doubt Shane has had his fair share of controversies over the last two decades, the sportsman choosing to retire from all forms of cricket officially in 2013, after having lost his vice-captaincy many years earlier and also being given a one-year ban in 2003 following a drug test.

Nowadays, when he isn't spending time with his kids, Shane is still out on the pitch commentating on the performance of cricket's next generation.

He also has his own charitably body called The Shane Warne Foundation, which commits to enriching 'the lives of seriously ill and under privileged children and teenagers in Australia'.

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Should school prayer be abolished?

Industry minister Christopher Pyne has come under pressure because of remarks he made about school prayer. Pyne’s critics want to see religion banished from Australian schools — and from society in general.

But religion doesn’t lead directly to radicalisation any more than a glass of red wine with dinner leads to rampant alcoholism.

So praying is not the problem. People should be free to speak to their gods and to listen to what they think their gods as saying to them. That’s not the problem.

The real issue is how people respond to what they think those gods want from them.

Far from driving prayer out of schools and away to the shadowy margins, religion needs to become a mainstream subject in the classroom.

But religion needs to be handled in our schools with great care. Many fine Australian Muslims deplore what a few extremists are doing to us in the name of Islam.

They and their families want to enjoy all the benefits of our free and open society, to enjoy our lifestyle, and to splash around in the surf on weekends like everyone else.

And they know this way of life is under threat when the deadly antics of fanatics fuel suspicion and fear. Teenage assassins are a scourge here and now.

So religion in schools can’t just be about prayer. Children also need to learn from responsible teachers about the historical, social and cultural elements of religion.

Our children need to learn about religion; what it is, why different religions appear to teach different things, and why some Aussie teenagers are prepared to kill in the name of their god.

Teaching about religion, teaching about prayer, and teaching about citizenship go hand in hand. Leaders of our churches, synagogues and mosques need to work with our teachers to open the minds of our kids, and to dispel the evil idea that a god commands murder.

Substituting ethics classes for religion is not going to hack this problem. Like it or not, religion is a hot topic in our society.

Pretending it’s not relevant, or dismissing it as meaningless bunk is to miss the point completely. No one is asking you to be a believer too; you are just being asked to open your eyes.

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Fiji targets Australia for more tourists after ending diplomatic cold war

Sanctions against Fiji were always absurd.  Fiji has had several coups but none of them shed blood. Fijians are fine people.  Sanctioning a whole range of Muslim states would be more rational

Fiji prime minister Frank Bainimarama seemed to put a decade of diplomatic tensions with Australia behind him on Friday when he looked out from a conference in Sydney and anticipated a simple walk on the beach.

"I can't help thinking how times have changed. The so-called pariah is now a welcome guest and is able to parade along the Manly Esplanade with the surfers and the seagulls," the one time military strongman said to laughter at the Australia Fiji Business Council gathering.

The conference represented a coming out parade for Fiji after the boycotts and travel bans by Australia and New Zealand following the 2006 coup with key ministers and senior officials turning up in force to rebuild relations with Australian businesspeople.

And Bainimarama then used a speech to the Fijian community in Sydney at the weekend to go on to even apologise for hardship caused by the serial political upheaval in the country – although he seemed to put the blame on the government turmoil in 1987 and 2000 rather than his own later effort.

Switching from an ineffective boycott to a policy of engagement has been one of Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's signature moves in the South Pacific. And the new international development minister Steve Ciobo was keen to reinforce the message to Bainimarama from the new Turnbull government telling him: "Your presence here today is a marker of Australia and Fiji's progress in rebuilding this important Pacific relationship. We want to let bygones be bygones, and ensure that our official relationship reflects the warmth of the relationships between our people."

Australian businesspeople and Fiji officials say that business relations between the countries survived the political tensions quite well and Australian tourists kept coming.

RECONCILIATION RATIONALE

But with Australia still Fiji's biggest foreign investor, aid donor and source of tourists, the basic economic rationale for a reconciliation was clear at the conference with the Fiji officials talking up a more stable economic climate for tourist operators and manufacturers..

In an interview with The Australian Financial Review Trade and Tourism Minister Faiyaz Koya said Fiji was focused on the potential for pulling in even more tourists from Australia and had no intention to trying to reduce its dependence on Australia by turning more to emerging tourists from places, such as China and India.

"We will not be taking our emphasis away from our big traditional tourist market. We simply will not cannibalise what we have."

In fact Fiji officials outlined plans to double their share of tourism spending by Australians from the existing 3 to 4 per cent prompting some debate at the conference about the affect of the weaker Australian dollar on the outlook for travel to Fiji.

"Certainly the weakening of the Australian dollar means more Australian travellers are more focused on where to travel," Virgin Australia chief commercial officer Judith Crompton said.

She warned the Fiji government and travel industry representatives that Indonesia and Thailand were getting more competitive and Fiji had to be cautious about any new tourism industry taxes.

But Koya said he was confident that Fiji would be able to maintain its image as a short haul overseas destination, which was much closer than the big Asian holiday destinations.

NEW INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING

With soft lending from aid agencies back on track after last year's election, Fiji is touting about $500 million in new infrastructure spending on hotels and airports as paving the way for tourism to be a $2 billion a year industry by 2020, compared with $1.4 billion now.

But some traditional Australian food suppliers to the tourism sector may be about to face a squeeze with Koya flagging a push to replace food imports with a bigger emphasis on domestic production of fresh vegetables.

With just over a third of GDP coming from tourism, Tourism Fiji chairman Truman Bradley says: "It's an industry we need to make sure we manage better."

Bradley says he is also putting more effort into developing the online marketing and booking capabilities of Fiji's local tourist operators so they can capture more of the visitor revenue. "We need better digital competence in Fiji so more of the bookings can be done locally," he says.

But foreign airlines have received another rebuff from Fiji over complaints that they can't get enough capacity into the country to deliver the visitor increases the government says it wants.

Business council president Greg Pawson, Westpac's Pacific chief, says industry growth is being constrained by the current air services agreements and Fiji should be opening up more capacity.

But Koya says Fiji is not going to do anything to hurt Fiji Airways and that the foreign airlines know that if they can show they need more flights in the peak season they will always get a favourable response from the government.

Bainimarama said he welcomed the way many ordinary Australians had maintained a warm relationship with him during the diplomatic freeze, which saw a growing list of top government officials excluded from Australia.

And he welcomed Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's appointment of Ciobo as Minister for the Pacific as "a clear sign of a renewed commitment by the Turnbull government to give the island nations a higher priority."

But while the business council meeting was full of renewed bonhomie, there was more than a flash of the old Fiji strongman with Bainimarama reiterating that he still wanted to wind back the Australia and New Zealand participation in the regional peak group the Pacific Islands Forum.

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Hate speech overhaul in NSW to try to stop spread of racial vilification

The government will overhaul hate speech laws in NSW following the terror attack at Parramatta police headquarters and calls from the opposition for stronger laws to clamp down on "radical preachers".

Attorney-General Gabrielle Upton said the government will strengthen and streamline racial vilification laws, defying right-wing commentators who have previously said proposed reforms were "straight out of the Leninist playbook".

Ms Upton said recent events had "reinforced the necessarily of being vigilant to and guarding against the spread of racial vilification".

"Make no mistake, words are dangerous weapons for race hate preachers and violent extremists," she said.

The announcement comes as hardline political group Hizb-ut Tahrir steps up its fight against the Australian government, launching a slick advertising campaign for a conference next month titled Innocent Until Proven Muslim?

Thousands of glossy posters have been splashed around Sydney's suburbs in recent days, showing Muslims being locked up for selling halal meat, praying at school and "being a Muslim citizen".

A promo trailer depicts a man who can't visit his dying mother in Lebanon because his passport has been cancelled and a woman in a hijab bashed by two hooded white men in a carpark.

"The Australian government's relentless barrage of interference and harassment towards the Muslim community has led to an entire community being criminalised through ant-Muslim 'terror' laws, phoney charges, monitoring of children [and] imposing values," the promo says.

One Muslim leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said hate speech has gone "mainstream" in Sydney, with several prominent Muslim leaders saying they'll attend the conference.  "These groups won't openly advocate violence but they'll push young guys right to the edge then wash their hands of it," he said.

Earlier this year, the DPP decided not to charge Hizb-ut Tahrir's Sydney leader, Ismail al-Wahwah, over two speeches calling for a "jihad against the Jews".

It was one of more than 30 cases that have been referred to the DPP under the Anti-Discrimination Act yet there has never been a prosecution, leading to criticisms that the act is a toothless tiger.

A review, comprising politicians from all major parties, found in December 2013 that the act was full of unnecessary obstacles to criminal prosecution and the penalties were too low.

One of the review's authors, Greens MP David Shoebridge, previously said the government had ignored the recommendations because they were "frightened by right-wing commentators".

Radio presenter Alan Jones had decried the recommendations as "beyond ludicrous", while conservative commentator Andrew Bolt said it was "straight out of the Leninist playbook".

Opposition Leader Luke Foley has called for a new offence that would lower the threshold for charges of advocating violence and enable prosecutors to seek court orders to gag people pending the outcome of a trial.

"As it stands, the law makes it virtually impossible ... to secure a conviction against someone advocating violence through hate speech," he said

On Sunday, Ms Upton indicated for the first time that the review recommendations would be implemented.  She said the government would consult widely and introduce an exposure bill in January, before introducing legislation in the 2016 Budget Session.

"Change is needed to disarm [hate preachers] and to safeguard our inclusive, pluralist and harmonious community," she said.

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Leftist fabrication about Nauru woman

REFUGEE advocates “fabricated’’ claims that a 23-year old Somali woman allegedly raped on Nauru still wanted an abortion in Australia, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has said.

The cost of her charter flight to Australia for the abortion, which the Prime Minister insists she “changed her mind’’ over could be over $100,000.

The Sunday Telegraph understands she was the only asylum seeker passenger on the international charter flight to and from Nauru for the purpose of travelling to Australia for an abortion, but was accompanied by security and medical escorts.

Two asylum seekers have alleged they were raped on Nauru. The woman flown to Australia for the termination has never made a formal complaint to police according to Naurun officials.

The 23-year old is believed to be around 14 weeks pregnant.

In an earlier privacy breach, a second alleged rape victim, 26, had her name and intimate details of her case was published by an Australian based PR company working for Nauru.

The 26 year-old Somali woman’s alleged rape was reported and investigated. However, Nauru police have closed the case arguing there is insufficient evidence. Her lawyers have argued the perpetrator is a member of the Nauruan police reserves, suggesting it may have contributed to a lack of enthusiasm for investigating the matter.

Refugee Action Collective yesterday claimed the 23-year old woman had told advocates that she had not “changed her mind’’ about the termination as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull asserted but had simply sought counselling.

However, in an strongly worded attack, Mr Dutton said last night some advocates should “ashamed of their lies’’ over her pregnancy termination.

“A woman was flown by charter flight from Nauru to Sydney for a pregnancy termination,’’ Mr Dutton said. “The woman has decided not to proceed with the termination. Comments from some advocates to the contrary are a fabrication, while others appear to be using this woman’s circumstance for their own political agenda.

“They should be ashamed of their lies. The woman was chartered back to Nauru. The woman was bought to Australia for medical attention not for a migration outcome.’’

Lawyers for the Somali woman raped on Nauru who had asked for an abortion in Australia have flatly rejected Prime Minister Turnbull’s claim the woman decided against an abortion after she was flown to Australia for the procedure.

“The information I have is that woman in question changed her mind about seeking a termination and was deemed fit to fly,” Mr Turnbull told reporters in New Zealand on Saturday.

Mr Dutton warned that Australia would now allow medical treatment to be used by lawyers as a ruse to deliver legal outcomes.

Last week he accused some refugees of running “a racket’’ to use medical treatment as an excuse to come to Australia and then seek legal injunctions to prevent their returns.

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Violent extremism part of contemporary Australia, says Victoria's Leftist Premier

He is clearly untoubled by Muslim attacks

Two weeks after a radicalised teen fatally shot a police worker in NSW, Victoria has not ruled out supporting Commonwealth plans to lower the age at which a control order can be obtained against a terrorism suspect, but says it requires more information from the Turnbull government.

However, back at Spring Street, a war of words erupted late last week, with Mr Andrews accused of "waving a white flag" by candidly suggesting that violent extremism is here to stay.

"We've got a range of work going on at the moment and I wouldn't pre-empt any announcements that we might make," the Premier said when asked if he supported lowering the threshold, "but all of us, as Victorians and indeed Australians, have to accept that violent extremism is part of a contemporary Australia."

The comments come as a ministerial taskforce led by Deputy Premier James Merlino works behind the scenes on a range of initiatives to counter radicalisation among disengaged youth, and to strengthen ties with faith communities.

But the state Coalition seized on the Premier's views, accusing Mr Andrews adopting a defeatist attitude rather than showing leadership on the issue.

"Daniel Andrews by his comments... appears to be waving a white flag and saying to Australians that they should accept violent extremism as a part of Australian life. Victorians should not have to accept that violent extremism is here to stay," said the opposition's shadow attorney general John Pesutto. "Victorians expect and deserve a government that aspires to a safe and tolerant community."

The ongoing debate over violent extremism intensified this month following the shooting of NSW police accountant Curtis Cheng, who was killed by 15-year-old Farhad Jabar​ outside the NSW police headquarters in Parramatta.

In the wake of the tragedy, the Baird government wrote to Malcolm Turnbull pushing to lower the age in which control orders can apply, from 16 to 14 – a move that was adopted by the federal government last week.

New laws to be introduced in the next fortnight mean that terrorism suspects as young as 14 would soon be subject to special orders restricting their movements. Authorities will also be given the ability to monitor subjects more closely to ensure they are complying with the orders, and a new offence against "incitement of genocide" has been proposed.

Asked if the Victorian government supported reducing the threshold age for control orders, state Attorney General Martin Pakula replied: "The federal Attorney-General has not raised these proposals with me and I look forward to receiving further information from the Commonwealth government about their bill. There have been preliminary discussions at officer level but no agreement has been reached."

NSW has also pushed for law enforcement agencies to be allowed to hold terror suspects without charge for 28 days – double the current 14-day period. On that front, Mr Pakula said: "The NSW government hasn't provided the other states and territories with detail of their proposal. Clearly this requires further discussion between all states and territories."

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Australia wins World's Best Steak in first ever global challenge

The steaks were high, but the word is in: Australia has the best steak in the world.  Australia picked up four gold medals and the title for the World's Best Steak in the first ever World Steak Challenge, held in London's Hyde Park.

The competition judged 70 steaks from 10 different countries including England, United States, Canada and Japan.

The top prize was awarded to Frank Albers for a Jack's Creek Wagyu Angus cross that was 450 days grain fed.  There were 11 gold medal-winning steaks, with Australia claiming four medals; more than any other country.

The judges found that Australia's grain fed Angus and Wagyu steaks had the best quality of beef of all the contenders.

The chair of judges, George McCartney, told event organisers in a video that all entries were of a high quality. "It was a difficult task to find one that was a level above the rest," Mr McCartney said. "It's very important to show worldwide of the good eating quality of steak."

Another judge, Professor Jeff Wood, said all the judges had different perspectives in the decision-making process. "But my perspective is I want flavour, and I want tenderness, and I want them in the right ratio. Those are the things I'm looking for," he said.

In the end, Australian beef was proved to be a cut above the rest, delivering on both flavour and tenderness

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A defence of Muslim hostility from "New Matilda"

Using a typical Leftist strategy, Michael Brull looks at only part of the story in his article below.  He addresses in general terms what blind Freddie knows is in fact an issue about Muslims.  The plain fact is that Muslims constantly demand that we change what we do to accommodate them and express so much hostility to Australian society that some of them go out and randomly shoot innocent Australians who have done nothing to them.  There are some peaceful Muslims but there are a lot of creeps too.

So it is reasonable to suggest that if they dislike us and our arrangements so much, why don't they go elsewhere?  And representatives of both major Australian political parties have done just that recently. Even Neil El-Kadomi, the chairman of Parramatta Mosque, who condemned extremists in his Friday sermon last week was worried enough to say: “If you don’t like Australia, leave". He was a rare Muslim in saying that, however.  He was obviously worried about backlash.

And in making such comments, all three were saying that Australia's tolerance has its limits, as all tolerance must.  It was saying that our patience with a troublesome subgroup was running out.  And there is no doubt that in saying that the speakers were saying what a great majority of Australians think.

But Leftists like Muslims.  They are united in hate. Leftists share with most Muslims a great dissatisfaction with current Western society generally -- and Australian society in particular.  Both groups want to destroy the existing arrangements in this country -- what Leftists used to call "the system".  I imagine that some far-Leftists still use that term.

So that is where Brull comes in.  He mounts an attack on "go back" talk under the pretext that such talk is intolerant and bigoted.  And he makes his case by saying that such talk is IN GENERAL intolerant and bigoted -- which indeed it can be. 

But circumstances alter cases and Muslims are a particular case. A major reason why we have courts and judges is that general principles don't cover equally well all the cases they might be applied to.  And that is where the Muslim situation is going.  So far we have put up with their antics but there are limits to tolerance.  Brull seems to think there should be none.

But I doubt that he really thinks that.  I think he implies that as a way of defending Muslims only.  Does he think racism should be tolerated, for instance? I am pretty sure he doesn't.  But if we reject racial supremacism, why should we tolerate Muslim supremacism?  Why should we not tell them to take their supremacist attitudes elsewhere?

Religious supremacism is not exactly the same as racial supremacism but both are obnoxious to non-members of the groups concerned.  They are both offensive.  And we don't tolerate offensiveness these days do we?


Malcolm Turnbull may be a sophisticated lawyer, but it didn’t take long for him to join in the national dog-whistle. That is, “It is not compulsory to live in Australia. if you find Australian values are, you know, unpalatable, then there’s a big wide world out there and people have got freedom of movement”. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, unable to oppose official racism from the Coalition, rushed to agree: “If you really hate Australia, well then you should go.”

Though it is in a sense predictable, it should be regarded as strange that in the name of Australian values, the major parties are embracing intolerance. Though we are supposedly a secular country, mainstream political discourse is approaching consensus on political dogmas that shouldn’t be challenged. Those who adopt “Australian” values – whatever those might be – can stay in Australia. Everyone else should leave.

There are lots of reasons someone might want to live in a country. I don’t see that one reason is more valid than another. One person might live in Australia because he loves the country. Another might do so because she loves her family. Another person might just live her because that’s where she was born, and out of inertia isn’t interested in looking into living in other countries. Any citizen of Australia can live here for whatever reason they want.

Attorney-General George Brandis once scandalised many Australians with the comment that we have the right to be bigots. Brandis expressed horror that a man could be taken to “federal court merely because he expressed an opinion about a social or political matter”. Yet it seems to be perfectly acceptable to repeatedly, openly state that people with unpopular political views should leave Australia. It seems only those who adhere to official orthodoxies are welcome.

Saying that those who don’t share Australian values should leave contains within it a certain dog-whistle. Suggesting that dissidents should leave implies that there is something less Australian about them than the rest of us. It doesn’t quite go so far as to say that they are foreign. Just that they would be happier somewhere which is foreign. And as it so happens, this rhetoric is targeted at Muslims who don’t like Australian values.

Though this may offend Australian patriots, if intolerance of political unorthodoxy is to be an Australian value, I think Australia should change. Indeed, I think we would benefit from importing values from another country. That is, from revisiting principles of freedom of thought established over 70 years ago in the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

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1000 crimes on building sites

The Turnbull government will today use evidence of rising “lawlessness” and union militancy on building sites revealed in the ­industry watchdog’s latest annual report to launch a fresh attack over the CFMEU’s influence on Bill Shorten and the Australian Labor Party.

The Fair Work Building ­Industry Inspectorate investig­ated ­almost 1000 breaches of federal workplace laws in the year to June — overwhelmingly by Construction Forestry Mining and ­Energy Union officials — and its report cites “alarming rates” of lawlessness and an “increasing battle” against the militant union.

Penalties levelled against unionists by the courts for right-of-entry breaches jumped tenfold in 2014-15, and those imposed for coercion jumped 64 per cent. There was a 50 per cent rise in legal action, mostly directed at the CFMEU, the report states, noting that Queensland was a “hotspot” for new complaints.

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash said yesterday that the Fair Work Building and Construction report, to be tabled in federal parliament today, “further confirms the disturbing reality that has been obvious in the building industry for far too long”.

“The independent regulator, the courts and the police have all expressed their serious concerns about the CFMEU’s culture of contempt for the law,” Senator Cash told The Australian.

“This is the same union that Bill Shorten relies on for his leadership and who the Labor Party relies on for their policy direction.”

Unlawful behaviour resulted in higher infrastructure costs, delayed projects, lost jobs, lost opportunities and stalled growth, she added. “We must end the ingrained culture of fear and intimidation.”

In his forward statement to the report, inspectorate head Nigel Hadgkiss says: “I regret to report that the 2014-15 financial year has been marked by alarming rates of lawlessness in the building and construction industry.

“I believe the contents of this annual report demonstrate two important points: firstly that the rule of law is severely lacking in the industry; and secondly, that the agency is doing all it can within its jurisdiction and means to curb that lawlessness.”

Mr Hadgkiss says the agency is “winning many battles in court against unlawful behaviour but we are not winning the war to stamp out this unlawfulness or the notion by some participants that it is ­acceptable to break the law in this industry — it is not.”

The FWBC report reveals the agency has been instrumental in supplying material to the trade union royal commission, referring more than 125 incidents dating back to 2006 to the inquiry.

The commission requested further details for about half of those matters.

Of the 948 breaches of commonwealth workplace laws investigated by the FWBC in 2014-15 — up from 890 the previous year — 40 per cent were contraventions of right-of-entry laws, with freedom of association, unlawful industrial action and coercion the “other significant” areas.

Penalties imposed as a result of FWBC litigation in 2014-15 totalled $1.4 million — the fourth year that penalties yielded by the ­agency and its predecessors topped $1m.

Overall, new investigations fell from 327 in 2013-14 to 197, as the FWBC referred more complaints about wages and conditions to the Fair Work Ombudsman to focus on “core” activities such as unlawful industrial action, coercion and right-of-entry breaches.

Yet the number of new investigations in Queensland rose as the state remained dominated by “hot spots” of unlawful industrial ­action, leading the agency to ­redeploy staff to Brisbane.

The number of legal cases commenced rose to a record.

The FWBC intervened 26 ­separate times in the past year in Fair Work Commission decisions on issuing right-of-entry permits for union officials.

It received more than 3000 requests for assistance, with more than 2000 coming through the agency’s 1800 hotline.

The agency also relied heavily on hard-won compulsory examination powers, which Mr Hadgkiss said had become a “critical tool in breaking down the walls of silence in the industry”. The report notes that the government extended the agency’s compulsory powers for two years before they were due to expire in May. The government is likely to use the findings in the report to bolster its case in its battle to restore the more powerful Australian Building and Construction Commission, which held tougher penalties, after its legislation was blocked in the Senate.

Mr Hadgkiss quotes Federal Court judge John Logan’s June decision against the CFMEU that notes that an industrial organisation persistently “engaging in unlawful conduct cannot expect to remain registered”.

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Europe prepares to kick off free trade talks with Australia

As part of a new trade and investment strategy announced on Wednesday, the European Commission said it would seek authorisation from its 28 members to open separate negotiations with "close partners" Australia and New Zealand.

Any deal with the EU would have big implications for Australian farmers which have long been pushing for lower tariffs and greater access to a European market of some 500 million customers.

However, the EU announcement said any deal would need to take into account "agricultural sensitivities" with European farmers likely to oppose any substantial relaxation of protectionist measures for sheep, beef and dairy imports.

Agriculture in the EU is heavily subsidised, with payments under the Common Agriculture Policy accounting for 40 per cent of the organisation's budget.

According to the European Commission, Australia ranked as the EU's 21 largest trade while the EU represented Australia's third largest trading partner after China and Japan in 2014. Total trade in goods amounted to €38.7 billion in 2014.

Australia's exports to the EU have traditionally been dominated by mineral commodities and energy as well as agricultural products while EU's exports to Australia are predominantly manufactured goods such as cars.

The European Commission said the new trade and investment policy was a direct response to the "current intense debate on trade in the EU - including on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership".

Australia this month signed the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement, which will create a free-trade area covering 40 per cent of the global economy aimed at addressing "21st century trade issues" such as intellectual property protections, digital trade rights and protections for investors. The TPP followed another high-profile free trade deal struck with China in June.

Trade Minister Andrew Robb said a deal with the EU was a "missing piece" after the conclusion of the other agreements.

A number of steps must be completed for formal negotiations to begin. First, the EU will conduct an impact assessment of the FTA. Second, it will commission a study to examine areas of negotiation. The European Council's 28 members must also give their permission to open negotiations but EU officials are confident previous consultation mean this stage is a formality.

One of the goals of the EU trade policy is to "expanding measures to support sustainable development, fair and ethical trade and human rights".

The potential focus on human rights clauses has been a source of tension in the past. Former EU ambassador Brendon Nelson has previously argued Australia should never sign a free trade agreement with the EU if talks included demands for tough clauses on human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

A trade deal with Europe was discussed at last November's G20 meeting in Brisbane

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Australia’s jobless rate steady at 6.2%

Australia’s unemployment rate remained stable at 6.2% in September, data showed on Thursday, with some analysts suggesting it may have peaked as the economy moves away from a dependence on mining.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed that in rounded terms, some 5,100 jobs were lost from the economy, with full-time positions falling by about 13,900 and part-time roles increasing by around 8,900.

The seasonally adjusted reading was better than analysts’ expectations of an increase to 6.3%, although the market was disappointed with the decline in the number of jobs.

In unrounded percentage terms, the data were more positive, with unemployment dipping slightly from 6.22% in August to 6.16% in September.

The Australian dollar slipped by a third of a US cent to 73.06 US cents.

“It’s moving in the right direction,” JP Morgan economist Tom Kennedy told AFP, adding that the latest unemployment figures reinforced positive readings from forward-looking labour force surveys. “We’ve probably seen the worst of it in terms of the rise in the jobless rate.”

The participation rate - which measures the proportion of adults in work or looking for work - eased from 65% to 64.9%. [currently 62.6 percent in the US]

The unemployment rate has fluctuated between 6%-6.4%, a decade high, over the past year as Australia emerges from an unprecedented mining investment boom that has helped the economy avoid a recession for 24 years.

The central bank has slashed interest rates to a record low of 2% to boost economic activity outside the resources sector, but such industries have so far been slow to fill the gap left by the fall in mining investment.

Despite this, the unemployment rate has yet to hit the 6.5% peak that the Reserve Bank of Australia forecast amid the transition to non-resources driven growth.

“Two per cent year-on-year employment growth is not bad,” Deutsche Bank’s Phil O’Donaghoe told AFP, adding that he expected the cash rate to remain unchanged for some months amid “reasonably robust” jobs growth.

The figures came as new consumer and business confidence indicators recorded modest rises after multi-millionaire former banker and businessman Malcolm Turnbull became prime minister when he ousted Tony Abbott in a party coup last month.

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