Gillard is a heartless bitch

By diverting billions into her NBN white elephant she has condemned to death hundreds of people who might have been saved had the money been spent on upgrading our dangerous roads

The death of Margaret Thatcher demonstrates the double standards among sections of the left. In Britain, Thatcher-haters are running an online campaign to push the song Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead to the top of the charts. Apparently it's acceptable to brand Britain's first female prime minister, and its longest-serving leader in the 20th century, as a "witch".

In Australia the word usage has been even more offensive. Last Wednesday The Age ran an opinion piece by Michael Lynch. He wrote that "for everyone who painted her [Thatcher] as a dynamic moderniser … there was another who regarded her as a heartless bitch". Lynch made it clear that he was in the latter category.

So it seems it's OK to use the "b" word with respect to the conservative Thatcher. This would be unacceptable - and properly so - if such a term of abuse was used against a leading social democratic politician like Julia Gillard.

And then there is the act of celebration. When Q&A presenter Tony Jones announced on the program last week that Thatcher had died, visiting academic Brooke Magnanti immediately interjected: "And me with no champagne". It is understandable why the likes of Magnanti want to criticise Thatcher and her legacy. However, it is scarcely a triumph when a political enemy dies at the advanced age of 87.

Thatcher's death has ushered in a moment of fool-headedness among the left. Eco-catastrophists, who warn about global warming, have condemned Thatcher for presiding over the closing of dirty and inefficient coal mines in northern England and Wales in the 1980s. Yet it was these closures which made it possible for Britain to meet its emission targets under the Kyoto agreement.

Then there are the leftists who have depicted Thatcher as a war-monger because in 1982 she refused to accept the invasion of the Falkland Islands, which is British territory, by Argentina. This despite the fact that, at the time, Argentina was ruled by a corrupt right-wing junta.

Glenda Jackson, former actor and now left-wing Labour parliamentarian, used the time allocated in the House of Commons for tributes to Thatcher to declare: "The first prime minister denoted by female gender. OK. But a woman? Not on my terms." So, according to Jackson, Thatcher was not a woman because she did not fit a leftist feminist stereotype.

Thatcher was admired by many because she stood up to the communist totalitarian dictators in the Soviet Union, to General Galtieri in Argentina, to Colonel Gaddafi in Libya, to the violence-prone thugs who ran the Provisional Irish Republican Army at the time and job-destroying militant union leaders.

On Insiders last Sunday, David Marr referred to Thatcher as a "notorious racist". There is no evidence for this. She was a strong supporter of the rights of Asians in Hong Kong and of Muslim Bosnians in the former Yugoslavia. Thatcher may have been right or wrong on the efficacy of imposing sanctions on South Africa during the apartheid regime. But she worked hard privately to get Nelson Mandela out of prison and he visited Thatcher at 10 Downing Street to express thanks for her efforts on his behalf.

SOURCE





Welfare tragic for aborigines, says black activist


And he really is black. unlike the white "Aborigines" that the Australian media usually favour

ABORIGINAL leader Noel Pearson says welfare entitlement has been "a tragic disability" for his people.

Mr Pearson has backed comments by indigenous academic Marcia Langton that a sense of entitlement had poisoned Aboriginal society.  "It's been a tragic disability," he told ABC TV on Monday.

"The flipside of the opening up of the doors of citizenship to our people, was the provision of welfare. What should have been provided was opportunities to engage in ... the mainstream economy."  Australia was now "reaping that tragedy".

He also echoed Professor Langton's statements about mining being a quiet revolution for indigenous people.

"The revolution she is talking about is one that is absolutely tectonically happening," he said, adding that it was a strange irony.

Mr Pearson reflected on his "bitter" negotiations with Rio Tinto in his early years of work in the Cape York and how the changed paradigm was now creating a new Aboriginal middle class.

"We've got to embrace Aboriginal success," he said.  "Money and materialism shouldn't be an anathema to Aboriginal people."

He said indigenous people needed to be striving for a better life.

"We still haven't gotten out of the mindset of Aboriginal people being the poor, benighted victims in Australian society," Mr Pearson said.

Mr Pearson is frustrated his far north Queensland Cape York welfare reform trials had not been able to achieve home ownership for any indigenous people in the trial communities.

"There are complexities of home ownership on Aboriginal land involving tenure," he said.

"Many of the Aboriginal people in these communities earn full-time wages, work for adjacent mining companies, but they can't own a home on their own land."

The federal government was yet to heed his message that the focus on social housing should move to home ownership, Mr Pearson said.

The trials, under way in Coen, Aurukun, Mossman Gorge and Hope Vale, aim to restore local indigenous authority and improve living conditions and the local economy.

SOURCE






Going, going... Gonski?

NOT one state has committed to the Federal Government's plan for education reform.

While some states have indicated in principal agreement to the national plan, noe of the premiers hve said they would sign up at Friday's Council of Australian Government's meeting.

This is despite the Commonwealth's offer to double every dollar spent by the states to reach a targeted increase of $14.5 billion over the next six years.

Labor premiers have joined a chorus of criticism over how the Gonski reforms are being implemented, as Western Australia insists it will reject the proposed changes.

With no national agreement, the Government will negotiate with individual states to implement the reforms, a situation the Federal Opposition describes as a fiasco.

"The idea that we would have different states being treated differently by the Commonwealth is anathema to anyone in education sector and to the coalition and if the Prime Minister continues down that track she will demonstrate that she has finally lost the plot," said opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne.

Mr Pyne also confirmed that if agreement were reached at COAG, the Coalition would not repeal any changes to education funding should it win Government.

A national agreement is increasingly unlikely, however, Labor Premier Jay Weatherill saying yesterday that he believed South Australia deserved a bigger share of the funding and that "there's been no deal done".

"This negotiation about Gonski and whole range of other issues is a very substantial discussion and it is not concluded," Mr Weatherill said.

"There is a long way to travel and we will be protecting South Australia's interests in those negotiations."

The premiers of Queensland, NSW and Victoria remained uncommitted and said any increase in education funding would mean cuts to their state budgets.

Outspoken Liberal Premier Colin Barnett said the "grossly unfair" proposal would see a reduction in spending on schools in Western Australia.

Dr Ken Boston, former director general of the NSW Department of Education and one of the five member Gonski Review panel, said even if Western Australia opted out of the agreement, the state would be able to sign up to it later.

"We never envisaged that every state had to adopt it at the same time," Dr Boston told News Ltd.

Meanwhile, universities have continued their criticism of Government plans to move $2.3 billion from tertiary education and $500 million in tax breaks for education expenses into schools funding.

Universities Australia Chief Executive Officer Belinda Robinson warned the deep cuts would likely deter disadvantaged students - those whom the Gonski review is seeking to support - from taking up tertiary studies.

"It will make it more difficult for some students," Ms Robinson said of the cuts which include scrapping scholarships for poorer students.

"It's going to affect those students who are probably most needy of having some support of being able to take themselves on this higher education path."

SOURCE



Another triumph of multiculturalism

The article that originally appeared here under the heading above is no longer appearing in its original source at the Daily Telegraph. I have now deleted it here also.