Bill Glasson meets Leftist hate

I am enrolled in the electorate of Griffith, Kevin Rudd's old seat.  I used to get a nice Christmas card from Kevvy every year while he was there.  So I will be voting in the by-election caused by Kevvy's retirement. 

The LNP candidate for the by-election is Dr. Bill Glasson, a most energetic campaigner and an ophthalmologist by trade.  His father, also Bill Glasson, was a minister in the long-running Bjelke-Petersen government of Queensland.  So the present Bill has name recognition.

I was sitting in my usual Buranda brunch destination about mid-morning yesterday when Bill and a campaign assistant walked in -- also seeking brunch.  The assistant was a nice-looking young lady who might have been his daughter.  She had "Vote Bill Glasson" written all over her t-shirt so she was at any event a helper.

Bill & Co. sat down beside a lady in a green dress.  The restaurant was busy so some tables were right up against one another.  Bill chose one such table.  As the lady beside him got up to leave, she launched a furious verbal assault on Bill:  Quite egregious behaviour in a restaurant. 

I was too far away to hear what she was saying and I am pretty deaf anyway but a professional actor could not have done a better job of portraying rage and hate  than this woman did  -- finger pointing, tensed-up body and all other conceivable hostile body  language.  Bill just sat there.  She gave up after a few minutes and walked out.  She must have thought of more things to say, however, as she shortly thereafter came back into the restaurant and resumed her angry tirade at Bill.

It was a most remarkable assault on a man the woman did not know personally and who has never been a member of any government.  She appeared to have been blaming Bill for something some government had done but why she blamed Bill for it was  obscure.

When I had finished eating, I went over, shook Bill's hand, introduced myself as a Griffith voter and said I would be voting for him.  I then asked him what the lady had been on about.  He said it was confused but it was something about hospitals.  All Australian public hospitals are in a mess so that might be understandable.  The government that got Qld. hospitals into a mess was however the recently departed Leftist government.  So again, why blame Bill?

I then said to Bill:  "She was full of hate, wasn't she?".  He agreed.  Just his conservative political identity was enough to fire her up.






Green power was useless in this heatwave. Praise coal - and the “gold-plating” Gillard attacked

The worst heat often occurs when there is not a breath of wind, which is a problem if you rely on wind power for your airconditioning to survive a heat wave:

"WHEN electricity demand peaked at the height of this week’s heatwave in southern Australia, the total power output from the fleet of wind farms across Victoria and South Australia was almost zero..."

Figures supplied by the Australian Energy Market Operator show that between 11.30am and 4pm on Wednesday, as demand hit a daily peak of 33029 megawatts nationally, wind’s share of supply fell as low as 0.3 per cent. When the electricity price peaked at $6213 in South Australian on Wednesday in the half-hour to 4pm, wind was contributing 0.7 per cent to total demand.

And solar power remains more a green gesture than a major source of energy:

More than $2 billion of subsidised investment in over 2 million rooftop solar systems contributed less than 5 per cent of peak power demand in ­Victoria and South Australia during the worst of this week’s heatwave.

This goes straight to the madness of Labor’s crusade against cheap coal-fired power and of the Renewable Energy Target that is still backed by the Abbott Government. Why are we taxing cheap, reliable power and giving handouts to expensive, unreliable power that can’t even power airconditioning in a heatwave?

But this week exposed another fraud of the Left. Julia Gillard as Prime Minister tried to deflect anger at her carbon tax by attacking utilities for their high spending on making our power system able to cope with days of highest demand - typically days like the ones we have just had:

Ms. Gillard pointed her finger at the “gold-plating” of electricity infrastructure being a major driver of price hikes, rather than the carbon price and green initiatives such as supporting the uptake of solar panel systems:

“These energy price rises are well above the cost of the introduction of the carbon price and taking action on climate change. 9c of every dollar in an electricity bill is for the carbon price - and that’s fully compensated - while 51c is for the poles and wires.”

The Prime Minister also pointed out a quarter of all retail electricity costs is spent to meet the costs of peak events that last for a few days a year.

“One sixth of our national electricity networks - $11 billion in infrastructure - caters for peak events that last for barely four days per year.

I thought it astonishing that so many journalists fell for this red herring. Ask yourself: do you begrudge that investment now? Or would you have been happy for the power in Melbourne and Adelaide to have failed this week, at the cost of who knows how many lives of the elderly and frail?

SOURCE






Boys hospitalised after circumcision rite

The ritual is not really circumcision.  It is subincision, but it is still a gross form of child abuse.  Why can "culture" be deployed to excuse it?
           
A TRADITIONAL circumcision ritual that ended with three teenage boys in hospital was neither criminal nor child abuse, an investigation has determined.

The boys were part of a group of 20 circumcised in Borroloola shortly before Christmas as part of ancient rite of passage into manhood.

Garrawa elder Keith Rory told the ABC he believed the injuries - which were serious enough to require a 700km trip to Royal Darwin Hospital- were caused by a visiting family member who was still learning the ritual.

RDH would not comment on the extent of the injuries for privacy reasons.

Department of Children and Families CEO Jodeen Carney said the matter was investigated by the Child Abuse Taskforce, which included two police officers and a medical practitioner from the Department.

"CAT received an email in relation to concerns about the ceremony - the information contained in the email was inconsistent with information uncovered by the completed investigation and inconsistent with information provided by health staff involved in the treatment," she said.

Ms Carney said there had been no similar incident in recent history, but health professionals were now consulted before ceremonies because of past concerns.

The ritual is commonly practised in traditional communities. "This ceremony is really strong, it goes way back ..." elder Keith Rory told the ABC.

"People used different sorts of stuff with young men ... these days we get it from the clinic but in those days they used stone and stuff, they made it themselves.

"It is traditional stuff and it's sacred stuff."

It was also reported that while one of the boys had no regrets, his grandfather was very angry.

NT Attorney-General John Elferink said the finding meant it was no longer a matter for the Department.

"So long as it isn't child abuse - and it isn't- and so long as it isn't criminal - and it isn't- it is a matter for the parents."

 SOURCE







State government minister says teacher selection criteria should be more strict

If he can get better candidates -- and that would be difficult.  Big money would be needed

Education Minister Adrian Piccoli says NSW needs to enforce stricter benchmarks for its teacher training courses, despite already having the toughest entry requirements in the country.

Mr Piccoli last week visited Finland, widely recognised as one of the world's leading education systems, where he says a highly-trained teacher workforce had been key to maintaining high standards.

Under the state government's new guidelines for teacher training to be implemented next year, school leavers will be required to score at least a band five, or more than 80 per cent, in three HSC subjects, including English.

But, after spending time in Finnish classrooms and meeting with the country's education bureaucrats, Mr Piccoli said "we then need to go to the next level".

"What I get out of what Finland does is that we need to take the measures we've already brought in and take them several steps further," he said.

"We need to have a much closer relationship between the universities and schools and have a very responsive approach. As soon as there's a change in what happens in schools, we've got to make sure that that change happens in universities in terms of what they're teaching."

The vice-chancellor of the University of Sydney, Michael Spence, said the government's focus should not be on who is allowed into teaching courses but who is admitted into the profession.

"I think the question about the quality of the employees in the NSW teaching workforce is not an issue for the universities to solve, it's an issue for the NSW government as an employer to solve," Dr Spence said.

"If he's interested in selection criteria, then he ought to be looking at the selection criteria for the teachers he employs. Why is there still a system in NSW where you can put your name down on a list and end up as a teacher? "

The head of the University of NSW's school of education, Chris Davison, said she was troubled by ongoing "public pronouncements by key stakeholders denigrating the quality of teacher education".

"We're concerned that that's actually having the opposite effect to what's intended, in that it's putting off people that do have a very strong interest in teaching because they think it's low on the pecking order in terms of public confidence and esteem," Professor Davison said.

Mr Piccoli said the main factor damaging the status of the profession was "the perception that anyone can get into teaching".

Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne has said he will set up a ministerial advisory group on teacher quality.

SOURCE