Gillard renews gender push

Pissing off male voters seems to be her shtick.  That half the voters are men seems to have escaped her.  Does Kevvy harp about  discrimination against men?  There's plenty of it.  See the divorce laws.

Her rant against Tony Abbott for his conventional views about sex differences got her adulation from feminists and puffed her up so next time she went all out against any man who wears a blue tie!   Quite insane and perceived as such

This latest push (below) will further reinforce her image as an obsessed feminist and confirm doubts among men about her fitness to lead the nation as a whole

She is just an angry screecher.  At least Kevvy smiles sometimes.  The ALP have got to  dump the shrew and bring  back Kevvy

The Gillard government will make a new pitch to female voters by announcing an inquiry into workplace discrimination against women taking parental leave when they are pregnant or caring for a baby.

Concern that women are being demoted, sacked or having their hours unfavourably "restructured" while on parental leave, or after their return to work, has prompted the inquiry by the Australian Human Rights Commission.

It will be announced on Saturday, less than three weeks after Prime Minister Julia Gillard tried to put gender at the centre of the election by suggesting women would be marginalised under an Abbott government.

The commission will conduct a national survey on the prevalence, nature and consequences of discrimination relating to pregnancy at work and return to work after parental leave.

After taking evidence from industry, employers, unions, other groups and victims of discrimination, Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick will make recommendations on whether new laws are needed.

Ms Gillard said the inquiry, will be "pivotal" in assessing the scale of the problem and what should be done.

"It's very concerning that there are even anecdotal reports that people, particularly women, feel discriminated against when they are caring for young children," she told The Saturday Age.

The inquiry follows pressure from the ACTU to respond to evidence that one in three Australian women leaves the workforce permanently while pregnant or after having a child.

The chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Peter Anderson, welcomed the inquiry, saying: "Provided it is not a witch-hunt with preconceived views, this is a timely investigation."

It was supported by former attorney-general Nicola Roxon before she left the portfolio earlier this year. It will be announced on Saturday by her successor, Mark Dreyfus, Families Minister Jenny Macklin and Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten.

The Prime Minister's standing with male voters dropped significantly in an Age/Nielsen Poll this week after Ms Gillard warned in a speech at the launch of the Women for Gillard support group that abortion could become the "plaything" of male politicians if there were a change of government.

ACTU president Ged Kearney said the inquiry was needed because too many families were struggling under a system that had "not evolved to take into account the modern family".

Ms Kearney said women continued to experience discrimination in the form of job loss, missed opportunity for promotion and training and even demotion when they returned to work "because many bosses out there just don't get it".

An ACTU survey of 42,000 women last year found that employer unwillingness to consider flexible work arrangements to help women return from parental leave was a primary cause of stress, forcing many to quit their job.

"It's illegal to discriminate against women for being pregnant but this hasn't stopped one in five women reporting that they have been disadvantaged in the workplace," Ms Kearney said.

A national online survey will be conducted in August ahead of an interim report by the commission in October. After three months of consultations with affected groups and individuals, the commission's final report will be presented in May next year.

SOURCE 





The racism that adopted children endure in Australia (?)

I imagine that most of what the self-righteous woman below reports is roughly true, if exaggerated, but the issue is one of perspective not of truth.  All kids get picked on by other kids any time they are different.  I used to be abused at school for having no interest in sport, an almost criminal offence in a small country town.  But it was like water off a duck's back.  There is no stress-free life.  You just have to learn to cope with adversities that are beyond your control.  That she has so little to actually report shows in the fact that her last 3 paragraphs refer to things that happened in the 19th century!

And if people looked at her askance while she was changing a baby in the middle of a plane might there not be reasons for that other than the shape of the baby's eyes?  She is just a whinger determined to proclaim what a do-gooder she is

Susan Murphy

Changing a nappy on a plane isn’t easy and it didn’t help to know we were being watched. The eyes of our fellow passengers bored into the backs of our heads - the novice moves of new parents; alternative entertainment to the in-flight film. Our newly adopted son looked over my shoulder, and through eyes that might have been painted on with two strokes of black ink and a calligraphy brush, he watched them back. I like to imagine he was thinking, “Who are you to make judgements about me?”  Strapped into seats in a mass of genetic sameness, the cargo of people remained anonymous.  But we had committed a public act.  No longer protected by our middle Anglo ordinariness, we had adopted a baby from another country and joined a minority group.

At new mothers’ group Cherie liked to talk about the size of her baby’s penis and her sister’s plastic leg. She was good for me. She gave me insight into how some people think and I learned to refine my answers to the questions we would be asked for years to come about our children; to find a balance between lightness and brevity. I tried not to take myself too seriously. When she asked me: “How do you know he doesn’t have AIDS?” or “Was his mother a prostitute?”  I answered her patiently and refrained from snarling in return, “How could you call your child Talon?” When I saw her husband’s death notice in the paper a few years ago, I remembered Cherie and the early lessons she’d taught me.

But the lessons weren’t all about me. Racism emerged early when my son was called Ching Chong boy in the toilet block during his first week of primary school. He sensed that this was unchartered territory and was reluctant to tell me what had happened. The grade six perpetrator's path would intersect with ours again years later, in the inevitable way of country towns; with mine as a teacher of students who had dropped out of school and with my husband’s as the young man’s defence lawyer in court. The primordial urge to tear the boy apart with my bare hands, as I might have done had I got to him at the time of the  attack on my child, had subsided by then.

Racist comments have peppered the children’s school years and ranged from old favourites (I learnt as a child that ‘Chinamen’ kept coins in their ears), to the more creative, ‘Koreans fuck dogs to make bread’. My son has been called an Asian faggot on Facebook and told to go back to where he came from by strangers in the street. I have witnessed people talking to our children in the loud slow voice some people use when talking to people who don’t speak English, sometimes despite having just heard them speak. I have seen drastic improvements in helpfulness when someone on the other side of a counter realises we are together.  My son doesn’t leave the house on Australia Day; the Cronulla riots of 2005 struck a particular chord with him.  

People who live within the confines of an Anglo-Celtic world (many politicians for example) don’t believe Australia is a racist country because they don’t see it up close. We see it; sometimes blatant, often subtle. Ethnicity is worn like a national costume with judgments and assumptions attached. Negative stereotypes are slapped on the wearer like an armband. We squirm when we see North Koreans goose-stepping in a military parade or people destroying chickens during an outbreak of bird flu in China. We cringe when we hear politicians banging the populist drum about asylum seekers or 457 visas. Our hearts sink when we see footage of a woman on a train screaming at two young men that her grandfather had fought in the war to “keep black c---ts like you out of the country”.

In 1886 the anti Chinese cartoon named ‘The Mongolian Octopus’ reached across the pages of The Bulletin, his tentacles poised to squeeze the life out of ‘white’ Australian men, women and children.

The body depicts a menacing Chinese character with shaved head and bad teeth; the tentacles labelled with names of diseases, debauched pastimes and drugs. One of them is wrapped around a piece of furniture and labelled ‘Cheap Labour’.

Racist policies in Australia are no longer enshrined in laws such as the White Australia Policy but scratch the surface of commonly held views and the octopus still lurks. So spare a thought for the non-Anglo-Celtic Australians who live here too, particularly children; and remember: dog whistlers don’t bother whistling if there is no-one to whistle.

SOURCE





NSW criminals back on streets after five-minute parole hearing

The State Parole Authority is deciding to release murderers, sex offenders and other serious criminals based on initial deliberations lasting only five minutes "at the most", it has been claimed.

Noel Beddoe, who voluntarily left the authority at the end of last year, has written to Attorney-General Greg Smith outlining concerns that the "safety of the community wasn't always uppermost" in the parole process. On Friday NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell said he would like to see violent offenders locked away forever after a woman was allegedly assaulted by a criminal on parole, Terrence John Leary, on Wednesday evening.

A former secondary school principal of 20 years, Mr Beddoe said it was increasingly difficult to give complex cases the attention they deserved.

After "a minute's deliberation" at private meetings, authority members would make initial decisions on whether prisoners should be given parole. "The more complex ones [take] five minutes at most", he said. On one day before Christmas last year, authority members examined 106 matters in three hours.

Initial parole decisions for serious criminals who have served 12 years' jail or more go to a public hearing, where the Crown, Corrective Services, victims and the offender can make their case.

However, the authority makes the final decision.

For less serious criminals, the authority's earlier recommendation can lead to their release.

Mr Beddoe, who was appointed to the authority in June 2009, said the focus seemed to be getting inmates out of jail rather than whether they still posed a danger to the community. He also questioned the efficacy of inmate rehabilitation programs.

"The majority of inmate re-habilitation programs had never been evaluated," he said. "I raised the issue in policy planning meetings more than once only to be rebuffed. It always bemused me why a clear educative process wasn't entered into."

Terrence Leary, 46, is back in jail over the alleged attack on Wednesday, which happened while he was on parole for the murder of a 17-year-old girl in 1990. The parole authority had denied his bid for parole six times, believing he had not dealt with his offending behaviour.

However, he was released in August as he approached the end of his sentence.

"It's an appalling situation," Mr O’Farrell said. "Like members of the community, I’d like to see these people locked up forever and the key thrown away.

"But unfortunately, that’s not how the legal system in this country works."

After the Jill Meagher murder case in Melbourne, Mr O’Farrell said that Mr  Smith had asked Corrective Services NSW for a review of the handling of serious sex offenders on parole and other related matters.

Mr Smith has also asked retired Justice James Wood, QC, to examine the circumstances of Leary’s release. “I also have put the State Parole Authority on notice of the community concern,” Mr Smith said.

Martha Jabour, who has spent six years on the parole authority representing the interests of victims, said she believed the decision to release Leary was the right one.

She defended the parole release assessment. "It’s a very transparent process," she said.

SOURCE





Tony Abbott to detail plans to 'substantially increase' population of northern Australia

Shades of Albury/Wodonga and Whitlam's decentralization!  Still, it is true that Northern Australia is spectacularly under-used.  It is an enormous potential asset in theory but turning theory into practice is another thing.  Don't hold your breath

AUSTRALIANS could be offered new tax perks to move to north under a Coalition plan to "substantially increase" the populations of cities including Cairns and Townsville.

Public servants from the CSIRO and AQIS could be forced to move north and defence facilities in the region expanded as part of the plan.

Funds from Australia's foreign aid budget could also be used to pay for research into tropical diseases to tackle the risk of malaria and tuberculosis entering the country.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott will today outline a raft of options to dramatically boost investment in northern parts of Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

A Coalition policy options document sets targets to double Australia's agricultural output, attract two million foreign tourists a year to northern Australia and boost energy and resource exports. 

The plan does not commit the Coalition to any changes or provide any costings.  But Mr Abbott will pledge to produce a white paper with detailed proposals within 12 months if the Coalition wins the election.

The calls to boost investment in the north come as the Liberal National Party is actively wooing preferences from Bob Katter's party, especially in regional Queensland seats.  Mr Katter is a strong advocate of increasing population and economic activity to turn the north into a "food bowl" for Asia.  [Obsolete thinking.  Asia is now a net food EXPORTER.  It is its own food bowl.  Bob knows the North but he doesn't know the world well]

Options in Mr Abbott's plan include investigating new dams and groundwater projects to support an expansion of farming in northern Australia.

Infrastructure Australia could audit of all major projects in the region to set priority improvements over the next 15 years as part of the plan.  The Coalition will also soon commit new funding to the Bruce Highway, along with a faster timetable of upgrades.

Cairns, Townsville, Darwin and Karratha are targeted for massive population boosts, with a review of existing relocation payments and regional tax perks planned to encourage people to move to these cities.

Premier Campbell Newman and his WA and NT counterparts will be consulted on the plans and will be asked to audit regulations that discourage people from moving north.

"For too long, families have been reluctant to move to northern Australia because of the absence of adequate infrastructure and governments and the private sector have been reluctant to invest in major projects because of insufficient population," Mr Abbott said.

The Opposition Leader said developing northern Australia was the best way to tap into the booming economies of our Asian neighbours.

"We want to capitalise on northern Australia's existing strengths and natural advantages in agriculture, cattle, and energy as well as to seize opportunities in tourism, education and health services," he said.

"We are determined to break the ongoing development deadlock that has held northern Australia back for so long."

SOURCE