Victor Dominello: 'What is happening to our country?'

This guy hasn't got a clue.  The crimes have nothing to do with us ordinary Australians.  The culprits were respectively a Muslim and Africans whom we unwisely let into our country.  If he had a clue he would be moving to stop such immigration

A NSW minister has revealed how he wept while overseas and questioned his conviction that Australia was the best nation on earth when he heard the horrifying news about two NSW girls – a 14-year-old allegedly gang raped in a park and a 12-year-old whose father allegedly condoned her illegal "marriage".

"I shed a tear, more than one," Victor Dominello, the Minister for Citizenship and Communities, told the Premier’s Multicultural Media Awards on Thursday night.

He told the audience that he came to the event "with a heavy heart". He had just returned from India, where he had heard the stories about the girls.

Mr Dominello admitted he wondered: "What is happening to our country?"  Despite his long conviction about the greatness of Australia, he thought: "We may not be the best country on earth."

He despaired at what led boys and men to harm girls and women.

"We need to be raising boys to be gentlemen, who will protect our women, not raise a hand against them," Mr Dominello said to wide applause from the audience.

The alleged rape at Doonside ignited some racial tensions after the victim, from the Pacific Islander community, described her attackers as African.

Mr Dominello did not mention any ethnic groups but he stressed such crimes were not new, and he pointed out that the killers of Anita Cobby, who was abducted at Blacktown in 1986, had the names Murphy, Murdoch and Travers.

However, he implored the gathered media – as members of "the fourth estate" – to put the spotlight on the unacceptable treatment of girls and women.

A 16 year-old boy has been refused bail over the alleged gang rape.

The Premier's Multicultural Media Awards recognises excellence in journalism across media outlets in NSW's multicultural community.

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Carbon tax figures add to pressure to repeal

Australian companies paid $6.6 billion in the first full year of the carbon tax, with the seven biggest electricity producers each slugged more than $250 million.

The first annual tally of carbon tax liabilities, released on Friday by the Clean Energy Regulator, was largely as forecast.

But the Abbott government seized on the sheer scale of the figures to increase pressure on Labor to "get out of the way" of its election promise to abolish the tax. Opposition leader Bill Shorten has vowed to block the government's carbon repeal bills in the Senate.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt said the "hit on the economy" from the tax was worse than Labor had predicted when the Gillard government introduced it last year.

He said the cost to the economy was $7.6 billion once reduced fuel tax credits and charges on the refrigeration and aviation industries were considered.

Of the 348 companies that paid the tax, NSW-based Macquarie Generation had the biggest bill at nearly $470 million. Great Energy Alliance, the company behind Victoria's Loy Yang power plant, paid $425 million.

Sixteen of the top 20 carbon tax contributors were power companies, with a combined bill of $4.1 billion, according to the six-monthly update by the Clean Energy Regulator.

Manufacturing companies paid a total $1.1 billion.

Mr Hunt used the numbers to renew the attack on Labor which has defended the tax.

"All Australians can blame Bill Shorten [for] helping to push up electricity bills and the overall cost of living," he said. "It's time for Labor to get out of the way and support the repeal of the carbon tax."

Mr Hunt said the $7.6 billion paid by companies had resulted in only a 0.1 per cent fall in emissions. Proof, he said, that "it doesn't even work".


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NSW national parks open to amateur shooters

The first hunt by licensed amateurs in a NSW national park will take place on Saturday near Griffith as police continue to search for shooters who illegally gunned down six brumbies in a state forest to the north.

On Saturday, four volunteer hunters will target feral goats at the Cocoparra Nature Reserve under National Parks and Wildlife Service supervision as part of a controversial three-year state government trial.

The reserve is one of 12 parks opened to amateur hunting by the government after Premier Barry O'Farrell struck a deal with the Shooters and Fishers Party to get electricity privatisation legislation through the Parliament.

National Parks said the hunting was designed to help protect the Cocoparra Pomaderris, a native shrub, and the Inland Grey Box woodland endangered ecological community.

The reserve will be closed while the hunting takes place.

Licensed hunters were allowed to resume unsupervised shooting in about 200 state forests this month following a six-month hiatus. The Department of Primary Industries, which oversees licensed hunters, said almost 700 permits had been issued within nine days of the ban being lifted.

But by Sunday, six wild horses - two mares and four stallions - were found illegally shot dead at Newnes State Forest near Lithgow. Police are investigating and have ruled out two hunters who had permission to shoot in the forest around the time the horses' bodies were found.

Investigators nonetheless believe the fatal shots were the work of experienced marksmen.

The Chifley local area command crime manager, Inspector Luke Rankin, said police had spoken with both hunters registered through the Department of Primary Industries to shoot in the area. "We're pretty certain that they weren't involved," he said. "We believe this is an instance of illegal hunting."

Police are appealing to the public for assistance. "People that were camping there would have heard [the rifle shots]," Inspector Rankin said.

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The Federal Government uses a comic book to stop the boats

THEY are the Government’s new secret weapon to stop the boats: comic books.  News.com.au has learned this picture-based novel, written in the dominant Afghan languages Dari and Pashto, has been distributed overseas as part of an effort to discourage asylum seekers from coming to Australia by boat.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said the book was distributed under the Abbott and Rudd governments.  He said the book was originally developed and distributed under the Rudd administration.

It has an emotional plotline.  Meet our protagonist. He’s an asylum seeker. He lives in squalor and works as a mechanic.

He dreams of new beginnings. Perth, in particular.

The lead character pays to flee his country.  And has a tearful goodbye.

He flies to another nation.  And he meets up with a stranger. That person, who we assume is a people smuggler, shows him a photograph of a boat.

With a worried look in his eyes, he boards a crowded vessel headed for Australia.

It all goes wrong.  The asylum seekers encounter dangerous swell

The asylum seekers are picked up by the Navy ...

And are taken to a detention facility.

He longs to go home and imagines dancing at a party.

The final page contains a stark warning.  “If you go to Australia without a visa on a boat, you won’t be settled in Australia”.

The Government has launched similar advertising campaigns in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Vietnam and Indonesia “using a range of channels and languages”, including TV, radio and press advertising.

Diaspora communities here in Australia have also been targeted by a campaign.

SOURCE  (See the original for graphics)