Sydney siege ends: Family of ex-wife furious gunman on bail

The family of Noleen Hayson Pal, the slain ex-wife of the Sydney siege gunman, have expressed their anger that he was not behind bars.

Man Haron Monis, 50, who was shot dead by police in the early hours of Tuesday morning, was on bail after being charged with being an accessory before and after the fact to the 2013 murder of Pal.

Pal's "god brother" Talat Khalik, who lives in California, posted a series of furious comments about Monis on Facebook.  "Thats systems tere f***d up but im still happy he.died [sic]," Mr Khalik, who refers to Pal as his sister, posted on his Facebook page. "Fu**n lucky tey got u before we did now.rest in hell f****n asshole [sic]."

He also posted a picture of himself with his arm around Noleen, writing: "Noleen miss u [sic]".

His mother, Momina Khalik, who also lives in California, said Monis should have been in custody.  "y the first place they let him free on the sydney streets they should have let him rot in the jail his a f****n sick animal [sic]," she posted.

Pal, 30, was stabbed multiple times and set alight in a western Sydney unit block in April 2013.

Monis and his then partner, Amirah Droudis, were both charged over the murder but they were given bail on December 12 last year.  "It is a weak case," Magistrate William Pierce said at the time of the bail application.

Pal's godfather Ayuut Khalik said the first time he met Monis he didn't like him.  "They should have put him away and thrown away the key," he told NBC News.

"Who do you blame? The Australian government? The judicial system?" he said.

Mr Khalik said that Monis and Pal had two sons.

Monis, a self-styled sheik, made Pal wear a hijab and stopped her from contacting non-Muslims, he said. "We found out he was hitting her and stuff, and he was telling his kids white people are bad."

Mr Khalik said when Pal came to stay with his family in California for a month last year he told her to be safe.

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Sydney siege: A failure of gun control

As ever, the crooks can get guns.  It's the decent people who are prevented from protecting themselves

The siege in Sydney's CBD and its terrible end received saturation coverage on American cable news, with at least one commentator lamenting Australia's tough gun laws.

Speaking on Fox News after police stormed the Lindt cafe,  Charles Hurt, a writer with the conservative newspaper The Washington Times and a Fox News contributor, said: "These people are hell bent to kill innocent people … In a free society there is nothing you can do about it. You can't prevent all these things from happening, which is why most Americans, when they see this stuff play out … they think about guns and it is why they think about personal gun ownership and being able to protect yourself, protect your family and protect your neighbours.

"I think it is sort of interesting that, in Australia, they have banned guns, just about all guns, for personal ownership, yet somehow this insane killer managed to get himself a shotgun," Hurt said.

The host of the program added that after "a couple massacres in Australia there was massive gun control in that country, where people turned in their weapons because they did not want to have them any more and this was sort of hailed by gun control advocates as the poster child for the way things should be.  "A number of folks said this should be in the United States."

Another guest noted that this was something that could happen anywhere, with or without gun control.

An Australian who occasionally appears on Fox programs, Nick Adams, wrote a piece for the Fox website saying: "Monday's events have also prompted Australians to revisit their gun laws.

"The United Kingdom has had two beheadings of members of the public in the last two years, with neither police nor civilians able to prevent it. It also has prohibitive gun laws," he wrote.  "Australians are looking to America, and not the UK for guidance."

The gun debate was also raised on CNN, when host Chris Cuomo said to Democratic Senator Chris Murphy: "You get a plus/minus from situations like this on a signature cause of yours, namely gun control in the United States.

"We believe the man in Sydney has a shotgun, an old-fashioned shotgun. If he did, that would be an illegal weapon there."

"When you look at what the risk is in the United States, generally men like this are involving themselves with weapons but it also creates pressure on people who want weapons so that they can defend themselves against citizens who decide to lose it and become sympathisers of terrorism.

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No terrorists here








Greenies harassing banks over carbon

ANZ Bank's lending to big carbon emitters is set to come into focus at this week's annual meeting of shareholders, after other banks have boosted their disclosure of climate-change risks.

Investors will on Thursday vote on a proposal to change the constitution to force ANZ to publish the amount of greenhouse gas emissions the company is financing via loans and investments.

It comes as banks globally face growing pressure to consider the financial risks they may face from lending to companies with large carbon footprints.

Proxy advisers are recommending shareholders vote against the resolution, which was also put to CBA investors and rejected by a large margin.

Nonetheless, ANZ's rivals have also taken steps to disclose more information about their carbon exposure.

NAB, which also has its annual general meeting on Thursday, was facing the same resolution, from the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, but it was withdrawn after the bank agreed to publish more detail on its exposure to climate-change risks in 2015.

CBA also agreed to provide more detail on how much of its loan book is exposed to fossil fuels. At its annual general meeting last month, 3.2 per cent of shareholders voted in favour of the resolution.

In a note to investors, CGI Glass Lewis says ANZ could face some risk through its financed emissions but it may not be practical or even possible to collect all the information required by the resolution. It is advising shareholders to vote against the proposal.

"Given the trend in increased regulation and a heightened sense of awareness among some regulators concerning ensuring the mitigation of the effects of climate change, it is likely that part of the company's loan book could be affected," the note said.

"However, we are not convinced that adoption of this proposal is in the company or its shareholders' best interests at this time."

The lobby group behind the proposal argues that of the big four banks, ANZ is the most exposed to climate-change risks  because of its role as a big lender to the resources sector.

The debate is occurring amid a growing focus on banks' exposure to borrowers who would be affected by climate change policies.

The Bank of England this month reportedly commenced an inquiry into the risk of a "carbon bubble" – a financial shock caused by efforts to mitigate climate change.

Westpac did not face the resolution because ACCR research has found it was the least carbon-exposed to climate risks of the big four. All the same, a significant share of the questions put to chairman Lindsay Maxsted at the bank's AGM on Friday focused on how the bank was responding to climate change in its lending decisions.

Aside from carbon, ANZ investors will also have a non-binding vote on chief executive Mike Smith's remuneration, which rose 3.7 per cent to $10.7 million.

NAB cut the pay of its its former boss Cameron Clyne by more than $1 million to $6 million after disappointing financial results for the bank.

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Must not mention the absence of Aborigines

The developer who partnered with the Aboriginal Housing Company to redevelop The Block in Redfern has been forced to explain why an advertisement for a development completed in 2012 stated that Aborigines had "moved out" of the suburb.

The owner and director of DeiCorp Construction, Fouad Deiri, says that the statement on the website of Sydney-based Great Fortune Investments had "not been worded correctly". Great Fortune Investments was engaged by DeiCorp in 2010 to market Redfern's 19-storey Deicota Apartments to local and international Asian investors.

But Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda says that the developer is "guilty-by-association" and that the incident should lead to a rethink as to whether they're the right partners for The Block.

"I've been out and about in Redfern and they're pretty pissed off," says Mr Gooda. "They reckon there's got to be some sorting out of this."

The advertisement, which was removed from Great Fortune Investment's website earlier this week after being flagged by The Australian, said that: "'The aboriginals [sic] have already moved out, now Redfern as [sic] the last virgin suburb close to city, it will have great potential for the capital growth in the near future."

Mr Deiri points to their Chinese origins and says that it was grammatical failure. "The Block was being relocated at the time and it was a point about the relocation," he says. 

That doesn't wash with Mr Gooda who says that he's both outraged and saddened by the comments in the advertisement. "What were they trying to say by referencing Aboriginal people?" he says. "What are we? Noxious weeds or something?"   [No.  Problem people who are often drunk and pestering in public]

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