RSL branch bans Aboriginal flag and welcome to country at ceremonies

ANZAC day is when Australians remember family members who have died in war.  Intruding other concerns into that solemn occasion is offensive

A state branch of the RSL has taken the extraordinary step of banning the Aboriginal flag and traditional indigenous ceremonies on Anzac Day.

The Western Australian branch of the RSL has taken the extraordinary step of banning the Aboriginal flag and performance of welcome to country at its ceremonies honouring war heroes.

A report by the ABC today claimed that some RSL members last year were upset after an Aboriginal professor read the Ode of Remembrance, traditionally recited on Remembrance Day ceremonies, in an indigenous language last year.

The reading on last year’s Anzac Day ceremony by Professor Len Collard in the Noongar language reportedly sparked the change in rules. Professor Collard had translated the Ode himself. Members told John McCourt, the chief executive of the RSLWA, that reading poem in another language wasn’t appropriate.

After receiving complaints the RSLWA board developed new policies to control Anzac and Remembrance Day ceremonies held in the state.

“While having utmost respect for the traditional owners of land upon which such sites and memorials are located, RSLWA does not view it appropriate that a Welcome to Country is used at sites that were specifically established to pay homage to those who died and who came from a wide range of cultural backgrounds,” the new policy reads.

The new policy includes guidelines that all content be delivered in English (except the New Zealand National Anthem); only flying the Australian, New Zealand and WA flags and; having no welcome to country ceremonies.

The policy, which outlines rules for the RSL’s commemorations regarding “culture”, recognises Australia as a diverse and multicultural nation, before going on to acknowledge a “trend among sectors of the Australian community to seek to include specific cultural and ethnic elements into major commemorative events” including Anzac and Remembrance Day.

“While it is important to recognise cultural and ethnic contributions to the defence of Australia, it is also important to maintain Anzac Day and Remembrance Day as occasions to express unity, a time when all Australians – irrespective of race, culture or religion – come together to remember and reflect.”

A welcome to country is performed at the beginning of events in Australia to bring awareness about the traditional history and cultural owners of an area. A welcome to country is usually performed by an indigenous elder.

Mr McCourt said these ceremonies are only banned on Anzac and Remembrance Day. “All the RSL is asking for is two days,” he told the ABC.

He said the RSLWA “remains appalled” at the discriminatory treatment of indigenous Australians who returned after serving in World War I.

SOURCE  





Anthony Albanese bets leadership on zero emissions

Labor has decided to live or die by climate change. Anthony Albanese has bet his leadership and the Labor Party on the bushfires shifting our political culture such that the public accepts the gains from net zero carbon emissions by 2050 outweigh the losses.

Labor asks people to accept this act of faith. It is a tactical gamble by Albanese that the summer has shifted Australian values. The 2050 target is transformational in its consequences. Its logic is a carbon price but Labor rejects that.

Albanese pledges the target without a plan, guidelines, implications for industry and regions or the slightest explanation on how to manage the millions of winners and losers, what compensation — if any — he envisages, and how it would be financed. The big emitters have yet to embrace this target.

The detail will come before the next election. This means Labor must build its economic policy around its climate change agenda, an epic step. Albanese seeks to prevail where Julia Gillard and Bill Shorten failed.

The upshot is the Morrison government and the Business Council of Australia will release their own road maps for this 2050 journey before Labor.

By this decision Labor pins its future as a party on climate change and its economics. Albanese has doubled down on Shorten’s 2019 stance but adopted a more distant 2050 target to minimise the upfront electoral damage.

The tactic makes sense but is high risk. Setting a 2050 benchmark to transform the economy, energy markets, prices and emissions is a grand hoax without any of the policy mechanisms to achieve it.

Telling the Australian people that the scientists, economists and modelling experts can show that net zero at 2050 will be a nirvana of more jobs and cleaner energy might not be as easy a sell to a cynical electorate as Labor thinks.

Albanese is following the Kevin Rudd method from 2007 — elevate climate change to define yourself as a leader of the future as opposed to Scott Morrison (or John Howard then). This must constitute a political threat to Morrison. And Albanese will have plenty of allies.

The 2050 benchmark is winning global and local acceptance. It has international momentum. It is backed by global finance, multinationals, the Australian states, the business council, banks, corporates, environmental groups and the progressive media. There will be rebel Liberals who want to sign up, a disciplinary test for Morrison’s side.

But Albanese will face immediate pressure on the question: is his pledge credible? This is because, as the UN points out, many nations pledge net zero by 2050 but have no game plan to get there.

Morrison unleashed an immediate attack: Albanese can’t say what it costs, what industry will be affected, how many jobs will be lost. The prospect of Morrison pledging the 2050 target this term — he has it under review — is now even more unlikely. The climate change war will continue.

Albanese invokes Ross Garnaut’s idea of Australia as a clean energy superpower. His vision is Australia at 2050 with more jobs, lower emissions and lower energy prices. He bets the Australian people will now decide “the cost of inaction is too great”.

Labor, it seems, took this decision influenced by the bushfires, the polls and the belief that sentiment had changed decisively on climate change. It is, however, highly unlikely this summer’s mood will be permanent.

SOURCE  





Unions at root of Holden death spin

If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is, and eventually the artifice crumbles.

This week, the utter folly that is enterprise bargaining claimed another high-profile victim. Another business cuts its losses, sacks all the staff, turns the lights off and leaves the country. In this sorry situation there are no winners.

Looking back, the wages and conditions granted by managers at Holden were irresponsible and absurd. Restrictive, old-fashioned, totally out of touch with reality, too good (for the unions) to be true, and so here we are, at the point where we were always going to arrive; after billions of dollars and so much wasted time and effort, the cupboard is bare and the air is thick with angry grief.

Back in 2013, this column exposed, in a series, the embarrassing detail of various enterprise agreements in the car manufacturing sector. At the time, the federal government was deliberating the issue of further support. The Productivity Commission had recommended against it, and after the columns were printed, senior car industry types appeared before various politicians in Canberra, red-faced and spluttering.

As The Weekend Australian had provided links to the enterprise agreements, everyone could read them. There was no hiding from the ludicrous details.

It may make sense to subsidise an industry, for security or economic reasons, or it may not. That is for policymakers to ponder. However, when subsidies are granted, it does makes sense to scrutinise how the money is spent or wasted.

Way back in the old days, before enterprise bargaining at Holden began, the wage of an entry-level process worker was $462.80 a week. In 1992, enterprise bargaining began, and by 2013 a worker at that same classification level had a base rate of $1194.50 a week.

This represented a 158 per cent increase, or a compound increase of 4.4 per cent year on year for 22 years. By 2013, wage rates for process workers were in the $60,000 to $80,000 a year range, while modern award rates for such workers were in the $37,000 to $42,000 range.

By 2013, union privileges were beyond the pale. The union controlled Holden sites, it vetted who was employed and dismissed, how they worked and how much they were paid. Union delegates worked full time for the union on the company’s time and acted as paid onsite enforcers for the rules. To hone their skills, Holden was compelled to pay them to attend 10 days of union training a year. The best two delegates, as nominated by the union, were entitled to one paid month off to “further their industrial and/or leadership development”.

An ex-employee from Adelaide was interviewed and described the workforce as “over-managed”, with one team leader for every six workers on the production line, when one for every 25 workers would suffice. He admitted their work was worth about “20 bucks an hour” and detailed how, years earlier, some of his mates had taken redundancy packages in the order of “$280k plus”.

Today, the foolish arrangements at Holden continue. The latest GM Holden Warehousing Operations Enterprise Agreement 2018, available on the Fair Work Commission website, does show that in the past three years (2017-2020) the base rate increases moderated to 2 per cent a year. However, the plethora of other payments and restrictive arrangements make for sorry reading. The document, more than 140 pages, is a case study in how enterprise bargaining will kill a business.

All enterprises with fluctuating workflow need to hire casuals or agency staff in the peaks to supplement their permanent workforce. People are called on as the need arises, but at Holden a staggering list of requirements — more than one page long — must be met before the company can even consider hiring an extra body.

Providing the criteria are met, a shift plan must be given to the union, which must give its agreement before extra people can be hired. If a casual is hired and works full-time hours continuously for three months, Holden is compelled to give them a permanent job.

The union has to agree on which labour-hire company can be used — this is a clear pathway to potential corruption as union officials can set up labour-hire companies, take part-ownership or just demand kickbacks.

Holden’s provisions for forced redundancies are staggering in their largesse. Separation payments of four weeks’ pay per completed year of service are capped at 90 weeks’ pay. On top of this, add four weeks’ notice, another week’s additional separation payment per week of service, uncapped, a maximum of eight weeks’ unused sick leave payment, and pro rata long service leave payments from five years.

To put it simply, long-term employees can expect redundancy payments of two years’ pay or more. In stark contrast, Australia’s National Employment Standards provide redundancy payouts of no more than 21 weeks’ pay.

Perhaps the most telling section of the agreement is labelled “Information Sharing”. In a stunning display of idiocy and delusion, Holden management is compelled to provide updates for union officials four times a year, covering its business plan, business plan performance, key forward activities and events, continuous improvement activities, meetings of state committees and union meetings in each facility.

Considering a handful of union officials were running Holden, they should pack their bags and leave with the rest of the executive team.

SOURCE  




 
New wave of coral bleaching raises concerns for Great Barrier Reef

Given the Greenie lies about the last bleaching  -- Peter Ridd won a court case over his criticisms of them --  this report is fit only to be ignored

Perhaps the most amusing part of the previous scare was when the Federal minister visited the reef to see for herself how bad it was.  She found it looked fine.  We read:  "The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has supported Environment Minister Sussan Ley's appraisal that the reef is "good" and has "a vibrant future"."

They completely walked back their cries of doom.  I guess not all Greenies are crooks but most of them seem to be


Another wave of coral bleaching is hitting the Great Barrier Reef as temperature levels surge above average.

The federal government’s lead reef protection agency on Wednesday discovered significant bleaching on three reefs in the far north of the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem.

“That is the first time we’ve seen significant bleaching so far this summer,” said David Wachenfeld, chief scientist with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

“It is a confirmation of our growing concern about what is happening out on the reef at the moment.” Heat stress that has built up on the far northern, central and southern parts of the reef over the summer has intensified over the last week. “These levels of heat stress are definitely capable of causing coral bleaching and we are now at a heightened level of alertness for what is happening out there in the park,” Dr Wachenfeld said.

A bleaching warning has been issued for large parts of the Torres Strait and far northern management areas of the marine park, where significant bleaching across multiple hot spots is likely.

Most of the area covered by the marine park was 0.5 to 1.5C above average as of February 11, with some central and southern parts being 2 to 3C warmer. “February is the hottest month of the year on the reef so these anomalies are really very concerning,” Dr Wachenfeld said.

The reef authority has been told of bleaching in other areas and is sending staff to survey the damage.

Further heat stress is expected over the next few weeks as temperatures remain high.

SOURCE  

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

State government to block new coal-fired power station?

The Greenies are happy.  See below. But Qld. Premier Palaszczuk is facing an election in October and blocking the Collinsville proposal would lose her the whole of the North.  She would be out on her ear. So she won't do it.  Coal mining is popular in the North -- which is why Scott Morrison won federally

Premier Anastascia Palaszczuk is absolutely right to question the impacts of a coal fired power station on the Great Barrier Reef says the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS).

The Premier echoed the sentiment of Labor Federal leader Anthony Albanese when she said she was open to blocking a planned coal-fired power station at Collinsville.

AMCS Great Barrier Reef spokesperson Shani Tager said: “The Premier is right to highlight the impact that coal-fired power stations have on our Reef. The single greatest threat to our beautiful Reef is climate change and coal fired power stations are a big part of the problem.

“Our Reef supports 64,000 jobs and is home to thousands of incredible animals, let’s not throw them down the drain for an uneconomic, unwanted and polluting coal fired power station when we could be building clean, renewable energy.

“It would be absolutely irresponsible to build a new coal fired power station at a time when we need to be moving beyond coal to give our Reef a fighting chance.

"Our Reef is still a dynamic, vibrant, awesome place but it’s in deep trouble and it’s time for politicians of all stripes to be standing up and taking steps to protect our Reef.”

Email.  Contact: Jo Manning 0405 567 228 / jomanning@amcs.org.au





Government waste over disability scheme

THOUSANDS of dollars a day stolen from vulnerable clients on the National Disability Insurance Scheme are automatically reimbursed without being investigated, a whistle-blower has revealed.

Former senior fraud investigator John Higgins, who spent decades working for the Australian Federal Police, has spoken exclusively to The Sunday Mail to blow the whistle on the extent of fraud dogging the multibillion-dollar agency.

Mr Higgins was one of a dwindling number of full-time fraud investigators chasing crooks ripping off the NDIS when he left the agency last year, frustrated by inaction.

He said investigators were swamped with tip-offs they did not have the resources to chase as dodgy providers bill clients on a daily basis for services they do not provide.

In 2018, the Federal Government established the NDIS Fraud Taskforce to tackle serious fraud, which NDIS Minister Stuart Robert says is proof of the Government's commitment to finding scammers. "Perpetrators can and will be dealt with through the criminal justice system," Mr Robert said.

But Mr Higgins said the taskforce focused on large-scale corruption and investigators were failing to deal with hundreds of smaller scams happening each day. In one case he said a so-called provider was invoicing a client for two hours of cleaning to drop off a loaf of bread and a packet of cigarettes.

"These are not geniuses doing this - it is so simple to rip off," he said. "People have got (assistance) plans worth hundreds of thousands of dollars ... but the money isn't going to those who need it."

Mr Higgins said clients who noticed money missing from their plan were automatically reimbursed and the missing money was rarely chased up. "There are almost no checks and balances," he said.

Mr Higgins claimed in cases where scammers were pursued, investigators were improperly using what was known as section 55 orders to obtain documents such as bank statements and pay slips. Section 55s can be used to gather evidence for compliance issues, but not if it ultimately ends up as evidence in a criminal matter.

The NDIS said its taskforce did not obtain evidence under section 55 of the NDIS Act for criminal investigation. But it was unable to say how many investigators it had on staff, how much was lost to fraud last year or reveal the on-going operation cost of the fraud taskforce.

From Brisbane "Sunday Mail" of 16 Feb., 2020






Labor party rediscovering the workers

Joel Fitzgibbon and Anthony Albane­se met at a Young Labor conference in 1985. Both were elected to federal parliament on March 2, 1996, the day that John Howard became prime minister.

Even though they hail from differen­t ends of the party, as is often the way with MPs elected at the same time, Albanese and Fitzgibbon­ became and remain friends. Despite everything.

That “everything” includes the dinner for 20 right-wing Labor MPs — held at Kokomo’s in Canberra­, not Otis — on the Sunday­ in between sitting weeks, now cast as a sub-faction to pursue the interests of workers, residing­ within the party explicitly created to pursue the interests of workers, raising all sorts of questions for modern Labor.

Attendees have since told colleagu­es they thought it was an invitation to socialise or that they were trying to find ways of helping the Opposition Leader, something Albanese has struggled to see. They also insisted it was not driven by malice, there was no intent to undermine Albanese, and nor did they mean for it to become public.

It leaked because of the accid­ental inclusion of a government staffer on a group email. Oops. The idea for the group originated at a much more intimate dinner at Otis, the favourite restaurant of powerbroker Don Farrell.

The group subsequently opted to call itself after the venue where it was conceived, rather than after the more funky Kokomo’s, both in the hope of avoiding the puns and word games which could flow from a classic cock-up rather than conspiracy, and because the founders have a serious mission which they want taken seriously.

Revelation of their existence became a mitigated disaster. Both sides of politics took comfort from the other’s misery. Labor MPs were consoled by the fact that at least they weren’t plotting to get rid of their leader or his deputy while Coalition MPs rejoiced that at last Labor’s differences had erupted to the surface.

If anything good has come out of the exposure for Labor (and many senior opposition figures say none has) courtesy of The Australian’s Peter van Onselen, who broke the news on the Ten Network, it is that Albanese has got the message. Because if he hasn’t by now, he never will.

Sensible Laborites see clearly where the party went wrong. They saw what happened with Bill Shorten, a deeply flawed politician with flawed policies to match. They saw what happened with Jeremy Corbyn, also a flawed politician with flawed policies. And they can foretell Bernie Sanders’s fate if he wins the Democrat nomination.

They are entitled to ask how many suicide missions do there have to be before progressive-socialist leaders accept they have strayed too far from the centre, desertin­g the workers their parties were born to represent.

In the wake of the bushfires, Australians profess to care more about climate change and are less wedded to coal. But at the ballot box last May they showed they care more about their hip pockets, their jobs, their tax, their cost of living and their economic security.

Otherwise Shorten, regardless of his shortcomings, would have been elected. Labor would have won Higgins and Kooyong, Kerryn­ Phelps would have held on to Wentworth and perhaps Trevor Evans would have been turfed out of Brisbane. They cared about climate, but not enough to choose higher taxes and a leader they neithe­r liked nor trusted.

This is what Albanese’s colleagues, including Fitzgibbon, have been trying to tell him, believing that while sentiment in some parts of Australia has streng­th­ened, in other parts it hasn’t.

The right worries that despite its greater numbers in caucus it has lost its clout, and Albanese will be more susceptible to the arguments of his natural allies in the left.

Reflecting the tensions, Alban­ese has struggled to articulate a convincing position on coal. Early in his leadership he flew to Queensland to begin the tricky task of repositioning, trying to sound more accepting of it. Yet when Fran Kelly asked last week if he would support a coal-fired power station funded by industry, he replied: “You may as well ask me, Fran, if I support unicorns.”

Albanese risks being branded by the government as Bob-Each-Way Albo, or as Mr Inbetween, the likeable hit man on the TV series who tricked up a horse to look like a unicorn so he could impress his daughter.

Morrison, his authority weakened by his sorry summer, is trying to reweight his arguments with greater emphasis on climate change and less on coal. Thanks to the pressure from rebel Nationals, and his fight to save Michael ­McCormack’s leadership, he faces greater risks in the short and medium­ term.

SOURCE  






Women denied final step in cancer surgery

When they rely on public hospitals

SCARRED cancer survivors who have waited eight years for a breast reconstruction are among nearly 4000 Queenslanders in the queue for plastic surgery, as short-staffed hospitals hunt for surgeons overseas.

In a devastating Sunday Mail expose, brave women reveal their scars and their souls, telling how they have been left in limbo by Cairns Base Hospital, the epicentre of the surgery delays.

The State Government has been aware of the problems in Cairns, where at one point well over 100 women were on the waiting list In 2017 the Health Depart-ment injected $4 million into the hospital to clear the list. Brisbane surgeons were flown in but in the end they only cleared the assessment list, leaving many women still without surgery appointments.

The Sunday Mail has spoken to four of the forgotten women left hanging for a shocking number of years. They feel ugly, lonely, depressed and on the scrap heap as they are desperate for the healing surgery so they can feel whole again.

Single mother-of-two Kate Yeoman, who has been on the waiting list for eight years, considered selling her home to pay for private surgery but chose to put her kids first. "I've waited so long that I sometimes think I should just live my life without them (my breasts), but my kids are growing up and I have got my life back, I deserve to feel like a whole woman," she said.

"Women left without breasts feel unfeminine, uncomfortable and vulnerable, unable to complete the healing process. In the end I realised that my children's future was more important than raising the $25,000 needed for the double breast reconstruction surgery so I stayed on the waiting list. "It's now been eight years and I still live with the scars that remind me every day of the trauma of breast cancer."

Ms Yeoman appealed to Health Minister Steven Miles last year and was sent a letter from the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service (CHHS) in November stating that while the delay was "regrettable", her condition was not life-threatening and therefore not urgent

"In Queensland, there are only a small number of highly skilled plastic and reconstructive surgeons who work in the public system and their priority is the patients with life-threatening conditions or who require the reconstruction surgery to restore function," the director of intensive care, women and perioperative services, Susan Henderson, wrote on Queensland Government letterhead.

"Due to increasing demand, coupled with the subsequent unsuccessful attempts to recruit to this specialty over many years, patients like you have experienced delays while waiting for an appointment/ surgery, which is regrettable.

"I recognise that you have been on the waiting list for a considerable time and I apologise that you have not received the breast reconstruction surgery you require. I am also sorry I am unable to offer you an appointment at this time."

The letter reveals the Cairns Base Hospital hired an extra surgeon last September and recruited another from overseas, who cannot start work until August this year "due to registration and medical requirements for international medical graduates".

Ms Yeoman has now received a surgical consultation appointment for next week. She is one of 56,176 Queenslanders on the surgical waiting list, which has grown by 7 per cent in the past two years despite record spending on public hospitals.

Health Departinent data reveals 3807 Queenslanders are still waiting for plastic and reconstructive surgery after accidents or cancer surgery.

From Brisbane "Sunday Mail" of 16 Feb., 2020

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

UN, WHO, Lancet report says every Australian child under threat from climate, poor diet

This is just more Green/Left propaganda from the usual suspects.  It's an enchiridion of Green/Left moans.  "The Lancet" is highly political. It criticized the Iraq war and is very "Green".  And the less said about the UN the better.

If Australia is such an unhealthy environment, how come we have one of the world's longest life-expectancies?  That's the bottom line

Australia has been singled out for scathing criticism by the World Health Organisation for threatening the future of its children through disproportionately high carbon emissions, undermining positive scores in child health, socio-economic equity and education.

A major joint report by the WHO, UNICEF and the scientific journal The Lancet concludes the future of children around the world, including Australia, is being threatened by ecological degradation, climate change and predatory marketing practices that drive obesity.

Australia’s children were ranked 20th in the world on a ‘flourishing’ index, which takes into account poverty, health, education and protection from violence, but Australia’s performance on an index of sustainability was dire, with a rank of 174 out of 180 countries.

The poor sustainability rank was driven by high CO2 emissions per head of population, with the WHO estimating that Australia’s emissions would be 524 per cent above a global target by 2030.

It’s the first time the WHO has included a country’s sustainability score as a measure of the future wellbeing of children. The report says if global warming exceeds 4 degrees Celsius by the year 2100 in line with current projections, “it would lead to devastating health consequences for children, due to rising ocean levels, heatwaves, proliferation of diseases like malaria and dengue, and malnutrition.”

The nations ranked top in the world on the score of child flourishing were Norway, South Korea and the Netherlands. The flourishing index measures the mortality of children younger than five years old, access to child and maternal health services, basic hygiene and sanitation, growth and nutrition, prevalence of extreme poverty and educational achievement.

However, the report – compiled by a Commission of 40 child and adolescent health experts from around the world – found that no single country is adequately protecting children’s health, their environment and their futures.

Co-chair of the Commission, former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, said children were facing future “existential threats”.

“Despite improvements in child and adolescent health over the past 20 years, progress has stalled, and is set to reverse,” Ms Clark said. “Every child worldwide now faces existential threats from climate change and commercial pressures.

“Countries need to overhaul their approach to child and adolescent health, to ensure that we not only look after our children today but protect the world they will inherit in the future.”

Australian academic Peter Sly, Director of the Children’s Health and Environment Program from the University of Queensland, was a local author of the report. He singled out excessive exposure of Australian children to fast food and gambling advertisements for particular criticism.

The report found children’s exposure to predatory commercial marketing of junk food and sugary beverages is associated with purchase of unhealthy foods and overweight and obesity. The number of obese children and adolescents increased from 11 million in 1975 to 124 million in 2016 – an 11-fold increase, with dire individual and societal costs. An estimated 28 per cent of Australian children are overweight or obese.

“The various governments and regulators responsible need to impose restrictions that truly protect children,” Professor Sly said. “Self-regulation is not working and did not work with the tobacco industry. A complete ban on advertising for all forms of alcohol and all forms of gaming during any program, including all sporting events likely to be watched by children, broadcast before 8:30 pm will be required to protect children. We did it for tobacco, so why not alcohol and gambling?”

The Director-General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the landmark report was a “wake-up call”.

“This report shows that the world’s decision makers are failing today’s children and youth: failing to protect their health, failing to protect their rights, and failing to protect their planet,” Dr Tedros said. “This must be a wakeup call for countries to invest in child health and development, ensure their voices are heard, protect their rights, and build a future that is fit for children.”

Local academics responded to the report by saying Australia had been “disgraced” on the world stage.

Anthony Okely, a researcher in child health and education at the University of Wollongong, said the report should concern Australian politicians.

“While we like to believe we are putting our children first and meeting their needs, our ranking on the Sustainability Index shows that our actions are not meeting our words,” Professor Okely said.” Australia’s very low score on this index is eroding many of the advances we have made in ensuring our children are flourishing.

“Our children are growing up in environments that are not supporting their right to an active, healthy life. The high levels of child obesity testify to this. Children are living more sedentary lifestyles, spending large amounts of time using electronic media for entertainment. This exposes them to marketing of unhealthy foods, displaces time they could spend being physically active, and compromises healthy sleep patterns.”

Liz Hanna, an academic at the Australian National University who also chairs the Environmental Health Working Group at the World Federation of Public Health Associations, said it was no wonder young people around the world were organising mass protests.

“This rigorous study married the voices of children with global metrics,” Dr Hanna said. “It further explains why the world’s children are uprising, demanding governments protect their future.

“Australia’s poor ranking provides powerful evidence that Australia has lost its way. Ranking 174th out of 180 countries on the Sustainability Index is as shameful as it is stupid.

“Decades of wilful neglect of the environment and the erosion of compassion have transformed the lucky country to an international laggard that is failing its children. By taking our natural advantages for granted, Australia is squandering its opportunities to secure a safe and healthy future for our children.

“Pandering to the sugar industry, and refusing a sugar tax, needlessly renders children at high risk of obesity, diabetes and a life plagued by chronic disease and disability.

“Similarly, steadfastly clinging to fossil fuel industries, against solid scientific evidence, unfolding climatic crises and environmental degradation knowingly accelerates climate change and robs children of their future.”

SOURCE  







Students of Western Civ will have to see through a mash of diversity propaganda

Let’s start with good news. Something truly remarkable will happen during the next fortnight. Students at two Australian universities will begin a bachelor of arts in Western civilisation. The aim is for students at the University of Wollongong and the University of Queensland to learn what past generations of university students in Australia have never learned on campus. Even more remarkably, the narky union for academics that launched, then withdrew, legal action last year over the Western civilisation course has settled down.

So they should. There is nothing objectionable, or threatening, about students learning about Western civilisation in a chronologically ordered fashion, undertaking a philosophical adventure through the major periods and epochs of intellectual and artistic change in the West. The list of subjects in the curriculum is impressive and brave, a grand intellectual sweeping story from ancient Greece to the Bible, taking in Western masterpieces in art and architecture, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and the philosophy of democracy.

This is what all publicly funded Australian universities should be doing. Instead, this gaping vacuum in Australia’s tertiary education sector is being filled with five-year bachelor degrees at two universities offered to 60 students and funded by a private bequest by businessman Paul Ramsay through the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation.

The University of Wollongong’s curriculum guide for this degree in Western civilisation says its aim is to “create articulate graduates who are critical, creative thinkers that embrace and respect open inquiry. Our students will become well-rounded, free thinkers with … the intellectual skills and social virtues needed for conducting reasoned discussion, analysis and argument … (skills) necessary for all capable future leaders and good citizens.”

Make no mistake, the intention of the Ramsay Centre is to shake up the entire university sector. When students see a tremendous new degree at a few universities, they will demand that same impressive education at more.

This could be a groundbreaking degree, a shard of intellectual light in a dismally stupid period of Western self-loathing when even Yale University is pulling its famous course, Introduction to Art History: Renaissance to the Present. Course instructor Tim Barringer told the Yale Daily News that it is now problematic to put European art on a pedestal. Barringer’s new syllabus note says the course will now cover art in relation to “questions of gender, class and race and its involvement with Western capitalism”. “Its relationship with climate change will be a key theme,” Barringer wrote.

Now for the bad news. The fingerprints of the diversity and inclusion police, who are deeply anti-Western, wedded to identity politics and afraid of freethinking students, are all over the curriculum design document for Western civilisation degree at the University of Wollongong.

Why are they hanging their hat on this awful and confusing document? The curriculum guide reads like a narrative of a fierce battle between two forces. On one side are those promising a “bold, innovative initiative” that will offer students a “degree … unlike any other program of study currently offered at UOW”. On the frontline of the opposing side are diversity and inclusion police and other entrenched interests who seem determined to unwind, before it even starts, an exciting and new way to educate students about the story of Western civilisation.

For every short sentence in the curriculum that talks about a degree that “focuses centrally on the study of great works of Western civilisation” there are long paragraphs trying to refocus this degree on non-Western under-represented voices and perspec­tives. From a feminist retelling of the Iliad to the “golden age of Islam” there will apparently be myriad “opportunities for students to examine contemporary thinking on gender, race and class”. After another short sentence that promises “the BA WCiv’s predominant focus is on studying exemplary masterpieces of the West”, another 13 paragraphs promise to turn this innovative degree into the study about other cultures — something already on offer at just about every major Australian university.

One reference, in particular, blows the lid on how anti-Western ideologues aim to emasculate this new degree in Western civilisation. Drawing on the idea of a “great conversation” by American philosopher Robert Hutchins, the curriculum design document says it is “trying to cultivate sympathy in many ways”.

No serious high school history teacher, let alone a university professor, would talk about history in terms of trying to cultivate sympathy. At my public school in Adelaide I was lucky enough to have a brilliant history teacher in Year 10 who taught me that there is a world of difference between sympathy and empathy. History is not about feelings, he said. It is a study of people, ideas, facts and events to gain a sense of empathy about the past and its people. Empathy, not sympathy, provides a deep understanding of our history.

Maybe all this diversity and inclusion bumf was included as a superficial, and overblown, nod to placate the forces who tried to derail the course in a courtroom last year. Only time will tell.

But the very good people, the heroes, at Wollongong University who fought to bring this new degree to students should not misjudge the insidious influence of diversity activists embedded in university bureaucracies and academe. Neither should the Ramsay Centre and its board. Wollongong University’s Diversity and Inclusivity website says the school of liberal arts is fully committed to promoting diversity and inclusion in both its staff appointments and curriculum. It promises that the Ramsay-funded degree will “bring diverse voices and perspectives into the great conversation in half of the mandatory subjects … rather than relegating diverse voices to elective subjects”.

More superficial kowtowing? Once again, we will wait and watch. But it pays to remember that at universities across the country their history curriculums are saturated with teaching “diversity and inclusion” to the Orwellian point where they exclude, and denigrate, the teaching of Western civilisation in any kind of comprehensive, integrated, chrono­logically ordered program.

University of Sydney provost and deputy vice-chancellor Stephen Garton tried to make this point when negotiating with academics opposed to a Ramsay-funded degree in Western civilisation. But facts and reason were no match for the dogmatic zeal of his campus opponents.

In a statement last December, Ramsay Centre chief executive Simon Haines announced the end to negotiations after Sydney University’s revised attempt to secure $50m in funding. Haines said “the centre and its board had misgivings about the level of commitment of key stakeholders within the university in supporting the implementation of the curriculum and the associated scholarship program”.

Haines is not a man who resorts to hyperbole. His careful words are an indictment of the intellectual leadership of Sydney University vice-chancellor Mich­ael Spence.

No one should underestimate oppositional forces at UOW and UQ, or the intellectual leadership required at both universities to ensure that students embarking on this new degree are not subjected to the same tediously anti-Western dogma that drives the diversity and inclusion police. The peak union body for academics may be quiet now, but there are already signs that diversity and inclusion ideologues stand ready to sully these degrees. If they succeed, the Ramsay Centre will need to seriously rethink its noble aim to change things from within Australian universities.

SOURCE  






Greens will preference Coalition not Labor in NT

Greens could be responsible for electing conservatives!

A FIGHT about onshore gas fracking will see the Greens direct preferences to the Coalition ahead of Labor in a Northern Territory by-election later this month.

Greens leader Adam Bandt confirmed the controversial decision to put the ALP last 'below conservative parties Territory Alliance and the Country Liberal Party (CLP) but said it was a decision of the state branch.

Labor slammed the move, describing it as "petty" and called on Mr Bandt to intervene in the decision. "The Greens are putting petty politics ahead of real action on climate change," Labor MP Pat Conroy said. "The CLP sit with Barnaby Joyce in Canberra, by not intervening Adam Bandt is saying Labor is worse than Joyce and his ilk."

The Greens argue the decision to dump the longstanding policy of preferencing the Labor Party above conservative parties was due to the ALP's decision to lift the moratorium on gas fracking. "Fracking the Betaloo Basin is like building the Adani mine and people in the NT are angry at Labor lighting the fuse on this giant carbon bomb," Mr Bandt said. He said the outcome of the by-election would not change the territory's government.

From Brisbane "Sunday Mail" of 16 Feb., 2020







Anti-dam policy coming in Queensland

A chunk of Queensland could be subject to strict new environmental protections under a State Government proposal that the LNP says would stop its New Bradfield Scheme in its tracks.

The Government is looking to impose new environmental standards in the south-west of the state in a move that the Opposition has warned will make it harder to build dams.

The proposed strategic environinental area in the Lake Eyre Basin would mean that water storage projects in the region would have to meet a set of criteria before they could get the go-ahead.

LNP leader Deb Frecklington has hit out at the proposal, claiming it would prevent new dams and irrigation projects in what could be "one of the most fertile regions of the country".

"There is no bigger issue in Queensland than water security and it is shameful that Labor are trying to stop the LNP's NeW Bradfield Scheme in its tracks," she said. "Queensland needs a stronger economy and the only way to deliver that is to back our regions and build job creating infrastructure like The New Bradfield Scheme.  "The LNP will unlock the potential of the outback, but all Labor wants to do is lock it up and throw away the key."

Environment Minister Leeanne Enoch insisted it would still be possible to apply to build a dam in a strategic environmental area.  The proposed environmental area is being considered as part of consultation with stakeholders she said.

From Brisbane "Sunday Mail" of 16 Feb., 2020

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

Greens’ deal pie in sky

Greens leader Adam Bandt wrote this week to leaders of business groups calling for support for a local version of a New Green Deal to revive the Australian economy and reshape our industrial base.

To receive a letter from Bandt was a pleasant and welcome surprise. The Greens’ dialogue with industry has traditionally been sporadic, haphazard and not particularly rewarding.

The letter was a bold attempt to reframe the debate and discussion on energy, climate and industry policy for the next 10 years. It lacked one clear thing — any prior discussion or understanding with industry to determine where the economy is at, what change it can bear and where it should be in a decade.

Bandt recognises the importance a stronger economy is to lifting the living standards and environmental sustainability of Australians. Too often, environmentally minded leaders seem indifferent to the economy or oppose growth. Were the Greens on board, the prospects of a path that is pro-growth and pro-environment would be greater.

Bandt’s letter is extraordinarily prescriptive. Some elements appear to be ambit claims rather than goals to be pursued.

A 10-year timeframe to phase out fossil fuels across the economy is staggeringly unachievable. It would cause economic disruption and alienate significant sections of our community.

READ MORE:Bandt bids to woo big business|Greens are off with the fairies|Greens attack dog takes the helm
It means not only retiring the overwhelming bulk of our existing electricity generation cap­acity and replacing it with a mix of variable and flexible new resources but also retiring our existing steel industry and replacing it with new technologies that haven’t been used at commercial scale anywhere. It would mean replacing today’s passenger and road freight fleets. Taken literally, this is not a crash program but a program for a crash.

Bandt’s letter is conspicuously silent on how Australia’s emissions reductions can contribute to the international effort required to meet the Paris temperature ambitions. What matters for an economy that contributes less than 2 per cent of global emissions is to have our contributions leverage sufficient international effort to solve the climate problem. Without this dimension, unilateral action of the scale and speed implied by some of Bandt’s proposals is extraordinarily risky.

The widely supported goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 will require substantial technological change across the economy. All of today’s power stations will retire. All of today’s cars and trucks will be replaced. Australia could have enormous opportunity in a decarbonised world. The idea of a dramatic 10-year effort to accelerate this transition through technology, investment and reform is being seriously discussed in the US and implemented in Europe. But 10 years to complete the transition is a slogan, not a plan.

Australian climate effort needs to be compatible with a dynamic, innovative and profitable business sector. We need to do climate policy efficiently and we need to do taxation, workplace relations, regulation and skills development more efficiently.

Of course, as Bandt puts it, “we cannot allow Australian businesses to be decimated by the climate emergency”. We have had a bitter foretaste of the climate-related impacts we all want to avoid. But neither can we allow businesses and jobs to be trashed by hasty, ill-conceived responses.

There are gaps and anomalies in Bandt’s letter, but an opening is not an ending. Those concerns should not prevent us from welcoming his offer to work more closely on how to achieve environmentally sustainable ad­vances in living standards. We’ll all learn from each other in the process. But for any dialogue to succeed there must be room to compromise. The question for the Greens is what they’d be prepared to give ground on. History tells us not much.

Innes Willox is chief executive of the Australian Industry Group.

SOURCE  





Matt Canavan prepared to cross the floor, calling zero CO2 emissions target ‘fantastical’

Nationals Senator Matt Canavan has warned he would cross the floor and vote against the Liberals on key issues like climate and energy, calling a target of zero net emissions by 2050 being explored by the government “fantastical”.

The former resources minister, who quit the Nationals front bench amid leadership ructions last week, said he had the right to challenge legislation that was not in the interests of his constituents.

“Every backbench member of the coalition has the right to form their own position on legislation … if it is against the interests of my constituents,” Senator Canavan told Sky News on Sunday.

“I would ever only cross the floor if it was a severe issue that was against the interests of the people of Queensland.

“I have crossed the floor before, I don’t do it lightly though. It just depends – hopefully it doesn’t get to that situation but … while I’m on the backbench I’m not intending to take a back seat.”

Asked about the target of net zero emissions by 2050 the government is reportedly considering ahead of a UN climate summit in Glasgow at the end of the year, Senator Canavan was scathing, calling it a ploy “to try and hoodwink people that they might do something”.

“How as a country can we commit to net zero emissions in 30 years time, where we’ll receive our last diesel submarine in 35 years time? I mean it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense,

“I haven’t looked at the modelling or costs and benefits of net zero emissions closely because it just seems so fantastical to me. It seems like the kind of things that governments say, because they’re not doing much today but they’d like to try and hoodwink people that they might do something in 30 years time,

“It’s exactly the same as saying ‘look, I’m going to lose 10 kilos in 10 years’ time but I’m not going to do anything about it today, I’m not going to go for a jog, I’m not going to go down to the gym, but trust me, in 10 years time I’ll do something’. It doesn’t really sound real to me.

“Obviously that doesn’t work across the world. If every country signed up to net zero by 2050 who are you going to buy the credits from? Mars?

Nationals leader Michael McCormack also blasted the idea of the government committing to net zero emissions by 2050, the target recommended by the International Panel on Climate Change, saying Australia is “not run by international organisations”.

“The IPCC is not governing Australia. The Liberals and Nationals are,” Mr McCormack told the ABC on Sunday.

“We took all of the emissions policies to the election last May and we were re-elected. The Australian people have spoken. We’re not run by international organisations. We’re run by Australians. We’re run by Scott Morrison and we’re run by myself.

“Of course you’ve got to listen to the scientists but what you’ve also got to do is listen to the workers. Listen to the workers who put on a high-vis vest in a coalmine.”

Mr McCormack, who is under pressure following a failed bid to oust him from the leadership last week, denied he would be stepping aside to make way for deputy David Littleproud to take over, insisting he would lead the Nationals to the next election.

“I’ve now put myself to the party room as a leader three times in less than two years. And three times in less than two years, I’ve been endorsed as the party’s leader. That should be enough to draw a line under that discussion.”

“Barnaby Joyce has stated that he will support me. Matt Canavan has...I always believe country people when they look me in the eye and say something. And you’ve got to take people on their word.

Asked if he should have promoted Nationals who voted against him in the party’s recent spill to ease their dissatisfaction with him, Mr McCormack said: “I think that that might look self indulgent and me trying to protect the leadership.”

“More inclusivity needs to happen. And my door is always open to my colleagues. My door is always open.”

“When it comes to the front bench, I’m very happy with those who I selected for those ministerial roles. And certainly, they are going to do a good job. I’m blessed with talent in the National Party room, and I’m very thankful for that. I’ve got some tremendous people.

Senator Canavan, who quit cabinet to support Mr Joyce’s challenge against Mr McCormack said the party had “moved on.”

“It’s been a rough couple of weeks. But a decision was made in the party room and I said the day of the decision that Michael has my support. He’s the elected leader of the party room, and that’s what we’ve got to move forward with.

“Now I think it’s always the case that it takes longer for the media to move on from these kinds of events than it does political parties because the media loves to keep reporting on it. David Littleproud is a great bloke, he’s a nice fella. But Michael McCormack is leader of the Nationals party and I expect that to remain so,” Senator Canavan said.

However Senator Canavan refused to rule out supporting a different leader over Mr McCormack if another leadership spill was called.

“I’m not going to predict events in the future but I cannot see that happening. Michael has our full support and we’re getting on with it.

“We’ve now got a campaign against having one coal fired-power station in North Queensland (a proposed site in Collinsville) … In light of that we really do need to fight for it.

SOURCE  





Coalition may use government contracts to crack down on environment protests

The Coalition is considering using federal government building contracts to pressure companies not to engage in or to cave in to environmental boycotts.

In a sign the government is looking for innovative ways to implement Scott Morrison’s threat to crack down on environmental protests, the attorney general, Christian Porter, has sought views on whether the federal building code could be used to “prevent multiple secondary/environmental boycott demands and behaviour”.

The question is contained in an industrial relations discussion paper on the code, released on Tuesday.

The code, last updated in 2016, governs the federal government’s engagement with construction companies and is usually used to influence industrial conditions and the role of unions, rather than environmental groups.

It has been used to ban union flags on worksites, to force employers to reject clauses allowing unions access to worksites for inductions, and to ban clauses limiting the use of contractors.

The paper notes the code already requires companies to report “actual or threatened industrial action and secondary boycott demands as soon as practicable, but no later than 24 hours”.

Although the code directly applies only to companies bidding for government work, those companies must adopt preferred work practices in all their private sector agreements and impose the same conditions on subcontractors in order to comply.

If the code were used to prevent secondary or environmental boycotts, the government could potentially put pressure on a company to build a rail line to Adani’s Carmichael coalmine or lose all its government work, for example.

Asked about the proposal at a press conference in Melbourne, Porter incorrectly claimed the word “environmental” did not appear in the paper, before conceding the government is interested in how to combat “secondary boycotts which would include any number of different reasons” for boycotts.

“We have come across a range of instances where businesses have been damaged by behaviour that could be described as secondary boycotts,” he said.

“In the context of the Commonwealth as a purchaser of construction services … we’re interested in hearing from all of the parties if there is a role for the code to ensure businesses don’t get damaged by unfair secondary boycott behaviour.”

Porter agreed that companies losing work for engaging in or caving in to a secondary boycott were “all possible options”.

A wide range of businesses have been targeted for Adani-related boycotts including banks, such as Westpac, and many other companies outside the construction sector.

In January Greyhound ruled out any extension of work on the controversial Adani coal project after it was targeted for providing transport to workers for the construction company BMD, which is building the railway to take the coal to Adani’s Abbot Point port.

In November Morrison branded environmental protesters “anarchists” and threatened a radical crackdown on the right to protest in a speech to the Queensland Resources Council, claiming progressives were seeking to “deny the liberties of Australians”.

Porter explained that a crackdown could include moves to limit access to litigation funding and environmental litigation and to prevent secondary boycotts by groups such as Market Forces.

He accused the group of attempting to “impose their political will on companies across the country through widespread, coordinated harassment and threats of boycotts”.

The Competition and Consumer Act already contains civil penalties for secondary boycotts, which target one business in order to prevent provision of goods or services to another, including if they cause “substantial loss or damage” or substantially lessen competition.

However, secondary boycotts for the “dominant purpose” of environmental protection or consumer protection are permitted.

SOURCE  






Australian public broadcaster loses legal challenge on free speech grounds

Australia's national broadcaster has lost its legal challenge to controversial police raids on its Sydney newsroom last year.

In June, police searched the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and the home of a newspaper journalist over articles which relied on leaks from government whistleblowers.

The raids sparked a public outcry and protests across the nation's media.

However, the Federal Court of Australia has ruled the searches were legal.

ABC's managing director David Anderson said the decision was "disappointing". He said the raids had been a high-profile "attempt to intimidate journalists for doing their job".

Why did police raid newsrooms?

Australian Federal Police alleged the stories and reporters at the centre of its searches had breached national security laws.

In the raid last year, they seized thousands of documents over a 2017 ABC investigation which alleged Australian armed forces had committed war crimes in Afghanistan.

Police also raided the home of News Corp reporter Annika Smethurst. In 2018, she had reported an alleged attempt by a government agency to spy on Australian citizens.

Australia's conservative government tightened its security laws in 2018 to make it a criminal offence for journalists to receive classified information from military or intelligence sources.

Canberra has previously said it backs press freedom but that "no one was above the law".

What was the ABC's challenge?

The ABC tried to challenge the legality of the police search warrant, arguing that it breached an implied constitutional right for free speech on political matters.

However, the court rejected that argument. It said "the purpose of the warrant in this case was entirely legitimate" as police had been investigating "valid" national security offences.

The court also said the few legal protections for journalists' sources were not applicable in this case.

The industry's union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance said the case's dismissal showed "ongoing and serious threats to the public's right to know".

Mr Anderson, from the ABC, said the ruling was "a blow for public interest journalism".

Police have not ruled out prosecuting Ms Smethurst, and ABC reporters Sam Clarke and Dan Oakes over their stories.

SOURCE  

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

Female tradies want their OWN range of hi-vis workwear - saying being 'forced' to wear men's clothes is DANGEROUS

Quick! Call the feminists.  Men and women are the same!

Female tradeswomen say the male-oriented clothing used on work sites is not only ill-fitting but could put them in danger.

Research from Bisley Workwear has found nine out of ten tradeswomen have struggled to find protective workwear which fits properly.

Major issues include loose clothing snagging on ladders and frustrations around trying to remove a pair of overalls from inside a portaloo.  

Of the women surveyed, a third felt they couldn't work as hard in poorly-fitting uniforms.

Nearly half of all workers resorted to wearing their own casual clothing to worksites rather than proper workwear.

Former Block contestent Kara Demmich told the Today Show when she first showed up she was excited by the clothing options but soon encountered problems.

'I was given a bag of clothes and I thought we had hit the jackpot with free clothes but they didn't fit me. They were a bit big and when you're on a work site and climbing over joists you want something that fits and is not going to get caught,' she said.

Female landscaper Coralie Stuart said the lifespan of clothing had also been an issue for her.

'If you have to climb a ladder and if you're not wearing gear that fits properly it's dangerous,' she said.

'And the clothing I was wearing through it in the space of a couple of months and the menswear doesn't fit. So it's good to have something that is fitted to my body not going to get caught on anything and tear things.'

The research also found about 45 per cent of women surveyed felt self-conscious wearing uniforms which weren't designed for the female body. 

The rising number of women working in trades and research around workwear has prompted changes to the uniforms.

New gear has been created that is more form fitting with a feminine design twist to eliminate the risks associated with women wearing men's workwear.

The managing director of Bisley, David Gazal told the Australian that women's clothing is traditionally adapted from men's with very few changes.

'So we then got a men's silhouette and a men's garment and we put in nips and tucks and called it a women's style. It still didn't fit but we called it a ladies style.'

But he said the company's new female workwear was designed for women from the ground up.

'When we put this range together, we put it together knowing that the garment needs a completely different silhouette, and completely different fabric,' Mr Gazal said.

'Fabric needs stretch, it needs wearability, and functionality in the workplace. It needs to be durable and not be restrictive.'

SOURCE  






Bandt has Labor in awkward corner

Would Richard Marles welcome a New Australian coal-fired power station? The ABC’s David Speers asked the question of Labor’s deputy leader at least a dozen times last week before giving up and answering himself.

“So that’s a maybe?” he suggested. Marles voiced no dissent.

The place called “maybe” is dangerous terrain for an opposition, particularly on an issue on which passions run high. Just ask Jeremy Corbyn whose maybe/maybe not policy on leaving the EU is the principal reason the British Labour Party is looking for a new leader.

It is a while until our next federal election but we can already predict that climate policy will be one of Labor’s principal sources of grief, just as it has been at every election since 2010, when Julia Gillard received a mandate not to ­introduce the carbon tax she promptly did.

In last year’s election campaign, inviting Bill Shorten to share the costings on his 45 per cent emissions target was the surest way to make him lose his rag. His unsteady performance on the issue was one reason voters considered him shifty or worse.

His climate platform has been repudiated by his successor, leaving a great dollop of jelly where Labor’s policy ought to be.

Today Labor faces its own divisions while the Coalition, at least around the cabinet table, is united on climate and energy, probably for the first time since John Howard was in government.

Labor has spawned a ginger group that brands itself the friends of coal. They meet at Otis (the restaurant, not the elevator) in an ­attempt to move Labor back to the sensible centre.

That is the point on the spectrum where every Labor politician who aspires to win the next election wants to be, armed with a policy that unites the Collinsville miners and the knitting nannas of Marrickville in one happy family.

A cool, damp summer might have given Labor some breathing space. Instead, the climate debate has been charged with a new ferocity. Anthony Albanese is being challenged from within his party to hitch his wagon to the climate emergency.

He has wisely resisted, knowing that the moral argument is not one Labor can easily win.

Labor’s discomfort

Adam Bandt’s elevation as the Greens leader has increased Labor’s discomfort. Bandt is taking the Greens further towards the extreme as he shapes a clearer divide between the parties of the left.

“Ultimately Labor’s got to ­decide where it stands,” Bandt told Michelle Grattan recently. “If Labor thinks it can continue to walk both sides of the fence, they’re going to stay in opposition for a very long time. The script that we saw playing out at the last election will just play itself out at the next election.”

Last week, after the existence of the Otis Group was revealed by the media, Albanese retreated further into maybe land. His claim that the party “is united in our position that climate change is real, that we need to act on lowering our emissions” these days counts as a motherhood statement. It puts him on a unity ticket with both the Coalition and the Greens while being slightly less convincing than either.

His rhetoric on coal, that it will continue to play a part in Australia’s economy for decades to come, is almost identical to Tony ­Abbott’s, as Bandt delights in pointing out. Brand differentiation is all but impossible.

The Coalition is offering Labor few favours by charting a steadier course on energy policy.

Malcolm Turnbull’s departure relieved much of the tension in the Liberals’ partyroom, while Scott Morrison’s anointing of Angus Taylor as the minister for bringing down ­energy prices gave a practical sense of direction to the policy challenge that has been lacking for more than decade.

A vocal group in the partyroom wishes the Prime Minister was driven less by the Paris target. Another vocal section urges him to do more. Yet the party has seldom been more comfortable in its own skin on climate policy, having re­framed the question in economic rather than scientific terms.

Crucially, the energy policy challenge has evolved in the past three years since the closure of coal-fired power stations in South Australia and Victoria brought home the vulnerabilities of wind and solar.

The gap in the market is now supply that backs up renewables, rather than baseload, reducing the reliance on coal and putting the focus on the supply of gas. Labor shows no signs of coming to terms with this development.

The government is at last starting to parade its achievements, dispelling the myth that it has been sitting on its hands.

Labor had expected to contain emissions at 635 million tonnes by now by imposing a carbon tax. The Coali­tion has managed to reduce emissions to 532 million tonnes without one. Wholesale electricity prices are down 35 per cent year on year. The retail price has fallen for four consecutive quarters. The carbon footprint of the average Australian is well on its way to being half as big as it was in 2005.

It makes it almost impossible for Labor to take a position sufficiently different from the Coali­tion to make a fight of it. Entering a bidding war with the Greens, as it tried to do last time, would put blue-collar seats in danger.

It is little wonder that a growing group in Labor is urging Albanese to sue for peace by adopting policies close to those of the ­government and seeking a bipartisan solution.

A couple of years ago the Coali­tion would have jumped at the chance to neutralise climate as an election issue. Its elevation as a party-political issue in the first place puts Australia at odds with most other Western democracies.

Right now, however, there is little enthusiasm in the Coalition for extending an olive branch. Much better to watch the opposition squirm.

SOURCE  





Qld Labor MP condemns Jackie Trad, Premier Palaszczuk ahead of caucus meeting

Trad is a Lebanese wheeler-dealer

Queensland’s longest-serving Labor MP and former Police Minister Jo-Ann Miller has unloaded on Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Deputy Premier Jackie Trad, accusing them of ostracising her, saying “Trad is a four-letter word”.

Labor MPs are due to meet this afternoon for a caucus meeting where they’ve been encouraged to share any concerns they have about Ms Trad’s leadership and role in cabinet, amid backbench angst that her ongoing presence is dragging down the government’s popularity.

In a radio interview this morning, Bundamba MP Ms Miller – who has been in Queensland parliament for 20 years – said Ms Palaszczuk had not spoken to her on the phone since she was forced to quit cabinet as Police Minister in 2015.

“Certainly I believe the Labor Party has ostracised me because I had the temerity, so to speak, to do this (raise corruption concerns about Ipswich City Council),” Ms Miller told ABC Radio Brisbane, in an interview recorded a week ago.

“In the Labor Party there appears to be a view that it’s OK to call out corruption and misconduct with the LNP, or the Tories, but it’s not OK to call it out if it’s on your own side.

“Labor people should be better than that, and it’s up to Labor people to always call out corruption, misconduct, bad behaviour, on their own side, because that’s expected of us.”

Asked by interviewer Rebecca Levingston whether Ms Trad had “damaged Annastacia Palaszczuk’s chances of a third-term in parliament,” Ms Miller answered: “Well, Trad is a four-letter word, isn’t it? Maybe I should leave it at that.”

Ms Miller said she did not have much of a relationship with Ms Palaszczuk since she left cabinet.

“Well, she doesn’t speak to me very often,” Ms Miller said. “I think that when she made it very clear that I had to go as Police Minister, after raising these issues of corruption, I think there was an expectation, certainly I was told to leave the parliament, as well.”

“So that morning I was told to get out, I was told to get out of not only being the Police Minister, but also of the parliament, but I refused to get out of the parliament.”

Before her resignation, parliament’s ethics committee found Ms Miller had demonstrated a pattern of reckless conduct which did not meet ministerial or parliamentary standards, relating to her disposal of confidential documents.

Trad responds

Outside this afternoon’s left faction meeting, Ms Trad was asked to respond to Ms Miller’s comments, that her surname was a “four-letter word”.

“Can I say that I think Queenslanders are sick of politicians talking about politicians? I think they want us to be focused on making sure they have the jobs, the roads, the hospitals, and the schools for their children, and that’s what I’m focused on, putting this budget together.”

Labor’s factions are meeting this afternoon, ahead of the caucus meeting. Both sets of meetings are typical for a Monday afternoon ahead of a parliamentary sitting.

‘Go and have a cold shower’

Ms Palaszczuk has warned disaffected Labor MPs to stop focusing on Deputy Premier Jackie Trad’s job and focus on their own futures, ahead of a crucial caucus meeting.

Ms Palaszczuk said if MPs had concerns to raise, they should do it in this afternoon’s caucus meeting, but said she was certain Ms Trad would remain Deputy Premier at the end of it.

“Look, as I said on Friday and I’ll say it again, caucus is the place where MPs can raise any issues they have. I expect it to be a very calm meeting today … (Ms Trad) will be Deputy Premier (at the end of it),” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“I think everyone should go and have a cold shower, it’s pretty hot out there.”

Of backbencher Jo-Ann Miller’s comment in a radio interview, broadcast on Monday morning, that “Trad is a four-letter word,” Ms Palaszczuk said MPs should have higher standards of behaviour.

“I don’t think MPs should be speaking about other MPs like that … (Ms Miller) is just over there,” she said. “I think people should have a higher standard of behaviour and everyone should be respectful to each other.”

She said she still said “hello” to Ms Miller at events, and her office was in contact with the rebel backbencher during the last sitting of parliament.

But she said Ms Miller had disappointed Labor MPs when she was photographed hugging Pauline Hanson during the last state election campaign.

“I think a lot of people were very disappointed when Jo-Ann went and embraced Pauline Hanson during the last state campaign, and I was disappointed in that as well,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

Ms Palaszczuk said she would not be distracted by the backbencher angst over Ms Trad’s political future. “I will not be distracted by it, and I’ll give a very blunt message to everybody today: get focused on your job and not worrying about everyone else’s jobs,” she said.

SOURCE  





Joaquin, Osher, Greta and Jane show ignorance can be blissfully rewarding

First they came for the coal, then they wanted our milk. While the demonisation of coal ignores how this mineral has probably done more for human prosperity and progress than any other, we at least can comprehend why climate activists have turned on coal — even if their plans are reckless and impractical.

Extinction Rebellion protesters are so committed to shutting down the coal industry that they lie on polystyrene foam mats made from fossil fuels while they use acrylic resins made from fossil fuels to super-glue themselves to the road with chains and pipes manufactured with coal-fired energy. Soon they’ll be doing the same in dairies.

Because now the woke are turning on milk. They want to make us guilty for feeding milk to our kids.

“We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and steal her baby, even though her cries of ­anguish are unmistakeable,” Holly­wood actor Joaquin Phoenix said accepting his Oscar on Monday. “Then we take her milk that’s intended for her calf and we put it in our coffee and our cereal.” Perhaps he was trying to distract from how he makes millions eliciting cries of anguish from filmgoers as he glorifies a fictional serial killer.

While Scott Morrison is pilloried for waving a lump of coal around in parliament, heaven help the next leader caught supping on a glass of pasteurised full-cream. Apparently we are heartless, arrogant bigots against other species, we are speciesists who steal milk from cows, and we need to be told.

Remember when fashionable political stances could be summarised as a resistance to instruction, a push for freedom? There was a libertarian approach, embraced especially by the young and focused on the rights of individuals — they railed against young men being conscripted to serve in Vietnam, disrupted social norms and demanded equal rights for women and indigenous Australians.

Activists defied and challenged edicts handed down by moralising church leaders, conservative institutions or paternalistic governments. There was a healthy disdain for anyone telling others how to live their lives.

But now the fashion goes with the zeitgeist, advocates for groupthink and shames individuals into conforming. Now the woke are the preachy ones.

Who are we to decide how to run our lives when there are Hollywood A-listers prepared to set an example by wearing the same designer tuxedo to more than one awards dinner? Why should we enjoy breakfast when an actor equates the rights of people, countries, races and genders with the rights of individual ­species?

“We’re talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender, one species, has the right to dominate, use and control another with impunity,” said Phoenix. Presumably he will boycott next year’s Academy Awards because in all their history they have not so much as nominated a single other species; it’s been a Homo sapiens clean sweep.

And once Phoenix succeeds in his equal pay battle for the full cast of Doctor Dolittle, perhaps he could head to the Serengeti to campaign against lions imposing their will on wildebeest, a clear-cut case of speciesist exploitation if ever I saw one.

“We go into the natural world and we plunder it for its resources,” the actor said. “We fear the idea of personal change because we think we need to sacrifice something, to give something up.”

He ought to know. After all, the poor bloke was wearing the same suit he had worn a week or so ­earlier. Jane Fonda too made a virtue of wearing a dress she had worn six years earlier. As if that weren’t hardship enough, after she was glammed up by her spartan team of just three stylists (hair, dress and make-up), Fonda posted on social media that she was wearing ­“Pomellato jewellery because it only uses respon­sible, ethically harvested gold and sus­tainable ­diamonds”.

Ah, sustainable diamonds, the thinking woman’s carbon sink. Mother Teresa has nothing on these people. This year’s Nobel Peace Prize will be hard to pick.

We get much of the same closer to home, of course. On the ABC’s Q&A this week, one of their panellists was reality television host Osher Gunsberg (he fronts The Bachelor) who was chosen, wouldn’t you know, because he proselytises for climate action and claims to practise what he ­preaches.

“I wouldn’t call it sacrifice at all,” Gunsberg said of his vegan, non-internal combustion and ­carbon-conscious lifestyle. “The benefits that I get in my life for the choices that I make around my impact on the world are extraordinary … I’ve been driving electric cars since 2011, and they’re an extraordinarily exciting … they’re really fun to drive. I have an electric bike as well, a moped that I get around on. It’s super fun.”

This is nirvana, all the fun of the carnival and saving the planet at the same time. I don’t know Gunsberg’s travel habits so can’t say whether he is a globetrotting climate hypocrite like Prince Harry, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore and so many others, but I did find some articles featuring him with his pet dog — now this is a carbon extravagance. Studies show pet dogs can have the annual carbon footprint of a car, so surely any climate radical with a pet is a fraud.

Naturally enough I reckon Gunsberg is free to live his life as he likes, and back any cause he chooses. But it is the preaching that grates, and exposes him, along with the way the media (in this case the ABC) then presents him as an authority.

He suggested to the Q&A audience that Australia’s export coal market would soon collapse, which is just not true.

International Energy Agency figures show our coal exports have reached record levels and are set to plateau or ­increase slightly into the future.

Just in our two largest markets there are more than 100 new coal-fired power stations under construction in China and more than a dozen in Japan. I look forward to The Bachelor episode where they explain how these generators will function without coal.

Preaching is everywhere. This week Greta Thunberg admonished the entire global population when she tweeted about record carbon dioxide levels and said, “no one understands the full meaning” because this is the “crisis that’s never been treated as a crisis”.

The 17-year-old, who has yet to finish her schooling, also tweeted that “Indigenous rights = climate justice”.

Then, right on cue, the BBC announced it would be producing a TV science series with Thunberg. Again, this teenager should feel free to spruik her views wherever she likes but the worry is how her silly hectoring is ­embraced and amplified by adults, politicians and public broadcasters. It will be amusing when she loses one sandal and they all adopt that as a sign.

Australia’s Chief Medical Officer, Brendan Murphy, admonished the nation for xenophobia and racism this week, referencing unspecified incidents directed against Chinese-Australians, apparently triggered by coronavirus panic. When I pressed for details Murphy referred to incidents “reflected widely on social media” and noted that “individual in­stances have not been recorded”.

Labor MP Andrew Giles called for a national anti-racism campaign suggesting the coronavirus was being used as an “excuse” for racism. Just like those who created an “I’ll ride with you” campaign based on a fabricated incident after the Lindt cafe siege, Giles was quick to think the worst of mainstream Australians — he wanted a publicly funded national lecturing campaign.

Like brainwashed cult members, the new woke left loves to receive instructions and be lectured. And, in turn, it likes to lecture us.

Fortunately, mainstream people in a host of Western democracies who are sick of sanctimony on climate change, energy, border protection, Brexit and, yes, even veganism have been able to express their will through the ballot box. Just because the so-called elites are enraptured by the sound of their own exhortations, it doesn’t mean they’re resonating.

SOURCE 

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here

This fire season, areas of Australia have burnt that used to be too wet to burn

Australia is a land of natural climate extremes.  Always has been. And we had one of our periodic extremes recently. A combination of severe drought and unusually high temperatures  amplified our usual summer bushfires.

A historical perspective is missing in most commentary on it.  Claims that the 2019/20 fires were unprecedented simply show how short memories are. The area burnt, for instance, was much greater in 1974/75.  And who remembers that in the Sydney of 1790 (Yes. 1790, not 1970) bats and birds were falling out of the trees from heat exhaustion?

But weather is highly variable from place to place and time to time so some areas were drier than usual. Some areas had dried out that usually remained damp -- resulting in the events described below

I have deleted below all the claims that the fires were influenced by global warming.  The floods that have immediately followed the fires and put them out are also a great extreme.  Were they caused by global warming too?  Even Warmists have seen the incongruity of claiming that global warming could cause both drought and floods in quick succession so have generally gone silent about climate change.  But if climate change did not cause the floods, how can we know that it caused the drought? We cannot.

There is absolutely no way we can prove that climate change had any influence on the fires.  Claims that climate change did have an influence are mere assertion, mere opinion, mere propaganda.  There are well-established methods in science for establishing causes. None of them were applicable to the recent extreme events.  So there is no reason to believe that the recent events were anything more than normal variations


Binna Burra Lodge in the Gold Coast hinterland was 81-year-old Tony Groom’s life. His father founded the mountain hiking retreat in the 1930s, Tony ran it in the 60s and 70s, and his daughter, Lisa, 52, grew up there.

The lodge’s wooden cabins, bordered by rainforest on one side and eucalypts on the other, were a touchstone for people’s lives: for weddings, wakes and walks around the ancient world heritage forests of Lamington national park.

Next door, Tony and his late wife, Connie, lived for almost 40 years in Alcheringa, a stone-walled house with a deck where Lisa and her brother would dangle their feet out over the Coomera Valley

On the morning of 8 September 2019 the lodge, the heritage-listed cabins and the Grooms’ family homestead were razed to the ground by a bushfire. About 450 hectares of rainforest burned around Binna Burra that day – the kind of lush forest that doesn’t usually burn.

Firefighters use the forest fire danger index to tell them how bad conditions are. The index combines the key ingredients that influence a bushfire – temperature, wind speed, humidity and the dryness of the “fuel”, including grasses and fallen wood from trees.

The trends show not only that conditions are becoming more dangerous, but that the fire season is starting earlier.

The number of severe bushfire danger days has increased in spring for large parts of Australia

Australia’s spring months are September, October and November. The spring of 2019 was the worst year on record for high-risk bushfire weather in south-east Queensland, and for the entire country.

The conditions that helped a fire take hold at Sarabah, north-west of Binna Burra, had been building since the beginning of the year.

Rainfall was well below average, the ground was unusually dry and, in the days before the fire struck, daytime maximum temperatures were at near-record levels after months of hotter-than-average weather.

Then came the winds.

Australia’s devastating fire season of 2019 and 2020 has so far burned through more than 7.7 million hectares in the south-eastern states, claiming 33 lives and almost 3,000 homes. Firefighters have never experienced anything like it.

Neither has Australia. 2019 was the hottest and driest year on record.

The kind of conditions that have delivered devastating and deadly major bushfires in the recent past are going to increase, according to Dr Richard Thornton, the chief executive of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre.

“People tend to base their risk perception on what they’ve experienced before – a bushfire every 50 or 100 years,” Thornton says. “Their risk perception is based on history. But history is not a good predictor of the future.

As for the home at Alcheringa, and Binna Burra Lodge, there are plans to rebuild in a way that will minimise damage from future fires. But they know the future will be different.

SOURCE  






Everyone's got a victim story - so here's mine

Bettina Arndt

I have a strange little story, an interesting side-show to the bombardment I am receiving in the press.

The main accusation against me, from Victoria Attorney General Jill Hennessy, Rosie Batty and numerous media commentators, is that my views are an insult to victims of sexual abuse.

That’s pretty funny really because that’s exactly what I am – a victim of sexual abuse. Fifty years ago, as a nineteen-year old university student, I was one of many victims of a Canberra doctor who fiddled with me in his surgery and was eventually charged with molesting his patients.

I’ve never chosen to see myself as a victim, but I have had enough of people like Hennessy telling us how we are allowed to talk about such experiences. In 1997 I wrote a long newspaper article in the SMH talking about what that doctor did to me, outlining the complexities of his case, why a judge and then the full court determined he should not be charged, and how I felt about that.

Now selected quotes from that article are being used as part of the endless media pile-on, as feminists react to news of my award. The usual suspects, particularly Nina Funnell, have spent the past fortnight dishing out dirt about me. The story of the Canberra doctor is classic of their tactics – picking unrelated phrases from my writing to try and show me in the worst possible light.

So, this was a quote in an article about me, co-authored by Nina Funnell and published in New Matilda on Australia Day weekend:

In 1997 Ms Arndt defended a Canberra doctor who had molested multiple patients, including a 12 year old child, arguing that the sex offender should not be charged over the molestations, because in another context masturbating a person would be a “loving and pleasurable” act.

Notice how deceptively the authors fail to acknowledge I was a victim of this man – because that would have undermined their argument that my views are damaging to sex abuse victims.

Now let me tell you what actually happened. I went to see this unknown doctor because I thought I might be pregnant and picked a medical practitioner working on the other side of town from my parents, as teenage girls tend to do.

He suggested an orgasm might be just the thing to bring on my period and in a detached, professional manner he proceeded to try, unsuccessfully, to achieve just that with his fingers. I thought it was a bit odd at the time, but it wasn’t a big deal for me, and I barely thought about the experience until a quarter of a century later, when the first accusations appeared in the press about the doctor.

In 1994, 13 women laid sexual assault charges against him. A judge ultimately granted a permanent stay on the proceedings, noting that by then the man had retired from medical practice. The Judge said he would be prejudiced by the long delay and relevant medical records had been destroyed. A full court supported that decision.

Then, amazingly the doctor sent a written apology to two of the victims, expressing his grief that he had caused them pain and suffering. I ended up interviewing a number of his victims, some of whom said an apology was all they wanted from the man. That’s what my long, careful article was all about. What do victims want from a perpetrator? Is an apology ever enough? 

I urge everyone to please read it – it’s here, on my website. I agreed with some of the victims who said that because he’d given an apology, and was no longer in practice, that was enough for them. That said, I clearly spelt out in detail how important it is to prosecute and remove from practice doctors who betray their patients’ trust.

But I breached the feminist playbook by suggesting there’s a difference between violent rape and what this man did to me. That happens to be the truth as far as the outcome of such experiences on victims, as the research clearly shows.

Feminists are forcing us all to lie and pretend all sexual offences are equally damaging – even though the psychological literature clearly shows victim impact and recovery is very much related to the type of offence, as well as many other factors. It’s been wonderful this week to hear from so many psychologists applauding me for daring to speak out about the silencing of this type of research.

I’ve made a video about the Canberra doctor story. I have every right to define my own experiences and to write about them without zealots distorting what I say and shutting down conversations about these important topics. They are deliberately creating moral panic to fuel the outrage industry with their ill-informed, ideologically driven misinformation.  Here’s the video. Please help me circulate that.

Bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au






‘No place’ for ‘1950s professional sectarianism in corporate Australia’: Porter

Attorney-General Christian Porter is “resisting” a “push on” from devout leaders who want the government to go further with draft religion freedom legislation, Sky News Political Editor Andrew Clennell says.

“The Anglicans want the law firms and medical practices, corporate, to be able to discriminate, if you like, on the grounds of religion,” he said.

In response, Mr Porter said “enabling religious schools, hospitals and aged care centres to preference people from their own faith when making employment decision is a sensible measure that is supported in the draft of the Religious Discrimination Bill.”

“But the government does not support extending the same rights to private commercial organisations such as law firms and doctors surgeries, as some faith groups have faith groups have advocated."

Mr Porter described the suggestion as a “retrograde step” which could see “a return to the bad old days when young lawyers and other professionals were awarded opportunities on the basis of their religion, rather than their ability.

"There is no place for this sort of 1950s professional sectarianism in corporate Australia."

Attorney-General Christian Porter is “resisting” a “push on” from devout leaders who want the government to go further with draft religion freedom legislation, Sky News Political Editor Andrew Clennell says.

“The Anglicans want the law firms and medical practices, corporate, to be able to discriminate, if you like, on the grounds of religion,” he said.

In response, Mr Porter said “enabling religious schools, hospitals and aged care centres to preference people from their own faith when making employment decision is a sensible measure that is supported in the draft of the Religious Discrimination Bill.”

“But the government does not support extending the same rights to private commercial organisations such as law firms and doctors surgeries, as some faith groups have faith groups have advocated."

Mr Porter described the suggestion as a “retrograde step” which could see “a return to the bad old days when young lawyers and other professionals were awarded opportunities on the basis of their religion, rather than their ability.

"There is no place for this sort of 1950s professional sectarianism in corporate Australia."

SOURCE  






'What a pathetic joke... absolutely disgusting': Parents' fury as a Perth school bans CUPCAKES at birthday celebrations for 'cultural reasons'

Parents have lashed out at a primary school after its principal said students weren't able to bring cupcakes and lolly bags to class to celebrate their birthday. 

Arbor Grove Primary School in Ellenbrook, Perth issued a letter to parents saying the food would no longer be allowed due to health and cultural reasons.

Principal Glen Purdy said students who brought in unhealthy food items would have their stash confiscated by their teacher and returned at the end of the day.

In the lengthy letter warning parents of the new rule, Mr Purdy said the ban was due to an increasing amount of students with allergies as well as the 'cultural diversity' of its students.

'Whilst teachers at Arbor Grove are happy to celebrate the birthdays of students in the classroom, we must do so in the most inclusive, practical and appropriate way,' he said.

'During our deliberations we have been mindful of the increasing number of students with food allergies and intolerances, the cultural diversity of the school and the beliefs and traditions of these cultures.

'As of Monday 17 February we would ask that parents no longer send students with cupcakes, lolly bags or other unhealthy options for students to share with their classmates for their birthdays.'

The principal said that while it wasn't a 'universally popular decision' it would help avoid the risk of a child suffering a 'life threatening health issue' if they had any allergies.

Mr Purdy also said the rules were 'respectful to the cultural diversity within the school', which has students from 14 different nationalities.

The letter was flooded with criticism from parents, with some saying they should have been able to vote before the ban was put in place.

'Why didn’t they ask the parents to vote? Out of a school over 500 students, let’s say 125 are of cultural difference. What ever happened to majority rules. Man I’m p****d,' one mother said in a parents Facebook page for the school.

'Absolutely disgusting. There are a lot more important issues this school should be concerned about & trying to fix NOT STOPPING OUR KIDS FROM BEING KIDS,' another parent wrote.

'What a pathetic joke of a school. Bowing to the minorities once again!!! This school should be ashamed of itself!' someone commented.

Many were outraged that they had to change Australian traditions to meet those of other cultures.

'So we can send the kids to school with healthy/toy loot bags and that would still be deemed as breaching cultural diversities? I’m calling racism and unfairness on our Aussie traditions here and I am extremely offended by this action,' a father said.

'I don’t put my children through our Australian school to be told that we have to abide by other beliefs, traditions and cultures against and over our very own. It is bloody Australia and we have traditions of our own.'

'Don’t even get me started... so it’s okay to sell soft drinks at a school disco for fundraising but not ok to bring a cupcake to school for a birthday,' a mother wrote.

One parent suggested children be allowed to bring in non-food items like balls or coloured pencils. 'It would be a very sad day when a child is not allowed to celebrate their birthday at school,' they said.

SOURCE  

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here