Turnbull intends to call election if legislation is not passed

This is the right decision and a credit to Mr Turnbull.  It will unblock the Senate and rein in the rogue unions in one go

PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull is playing a “high risk poker game” in threatening senators with a double dissolution election.

Professor John Wanna told news.com.au that the tactic could backfire if the senators actually passed two pieces of legislation that Mr Turnbull plans to use as a double dissolution trigger — rather than rejecting them.

Mr Turnbull announced this morning that politicians would be recalled to parliament on April 18 to reconsider the two bills aimed at addressing union corruption in the building and construction industry.

If they did not pass, Mr Turnbull said he would call an election for July 2.

While this puts the Prime Minister firmly back in the driver’s seat and gives him space to have an election if he wants it, it could also blow up in his face if the Senate actually passes the new laws.

“He’s playing a high risk poker game, assuming that senators like Xenophon, Lazarus or Lambie might not vote for it,” Prof Wanna said. “If all crossbenchers voted together they could pass it, then Turnbull will look silly.”

During his speech, Mr Turnbull said that if the Senate did pass the new laws, he would not call a double dissolution election, but the government still intended to bring forward the Budget.

The government would need the support of six of the eight crossbench senators to pass the bills.

If this happened, colleagues would have plenty of time to question Mr Turnbull’s judgment ahead of a “full term” election in September.

“When things start going wrong, people start to say your judgment is not good,” Prof Wanna said. “There would be a lot of time for discussion about how he mismanaged the double dissolution.”

The chances of the laws passing appear slim as crossbench senators have reacted angrily to Mr Turnbull’s decision. But many face losing their seats if a double dissolution is called as it would involve all seats in the Senate being declared vacant.

If there is an election in September, only half the Senate will go to the polls and new senators such as Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party’s Ricky Muir, will still have another three to four years in parliament.

So far Family First senator Bob Day is the only one to say he would back the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) bill.

Independent Nick Xenophon said he would support the bill with amendments.

Liberal Democrats senator David Leyonhjelm said he wanted a sunset clause on the ABCC bill and guarantees they would not breach the right to silence.

Palmer United Party senator Dio Wang told ABC radio he would be seeking to amend the ABCC bills, but had not yet decided how to vote.

Independent senator Glenn Lazarus said he remained opposed to the ABCC and instead wanted a national anti-corruption commission covering all areas of business, industry and government.

Victorian Senator John Madigan has not commented but has voted against the bill in the past. He also does not have as much to lose because he was already up for election this year.

Senator Jacqui Lambie and Ricky Muir have also not commented but have voted against the ABCC in the past.

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Public sector servants strike across Australia -- and hardly anybody notices

Federal departments have been thrown into chaos with thousands walking off the job in the first of a series of strikes over failed pay talks.

The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) expect thousands of public servants from Centrelink, Medicare, Australian Taxation Office, Bureau of Meteorology, Defence Department, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Bureau of Statistics to strike for 24 hours after ongoing pay disputes with the Federal Government.

CPSU National Secretary Nadine Flood claims family-friendly work conditions are being threatened by the ­government and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has ignored offers of talks.

Easter travellers are being warned to expect delays as Border Force officers at international airports are set to begin striking from Tuesday, with a 24-hour strike planned for Thursday

The Federal Government has criticised the strike action.

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South Australia's seventh successive crop above 10-year average

How awful for the Greenies.  They are always warning that we are about to run out of food due to global warming

South Australia's grain producers have produced their seventh crop in a row above the state's 10-year average.

The state's total 2015/16 winter crop was 7.2 million tonnes with an overall value of $1.6 billion.

However, grain account manager for Primary Industries and Regions SA (PIRSA) Dave Lewis said crop performance was not uniform, with the west of the state making up for the tough season experienced in the south-east.

"It is a tale of two parts of the state; one part doing quite well, which is generally the west, and the south particularly, the upper south-east, which produced about 50 per cent of their average," Mr Lewis said.

South Australia's 10-year average grain production is currently 6.9 million tonnes and Mr Lewis said, given seven of the 10 years have been above average, it could influence the average.

"I've got to do the calculations to see what the impact of a 7.2 million tonnes crop is [but] we might see it marginally move up," he said.

Overall, there was 4.3 million tonnes of wheat produced, 2 million tonnes of barley and even though there was less area planted to canola, 293,000 tonnes were produced.

"South Australia is also now Australia's largest producer of lentils, and we may see further increase in area sown in the mid-north and Yorke Peninsula," he said.

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Heterosexual men who lean Right are the PC hate target of choice

By Dr. Jennifer Oriel

Any doubt that Labor is captive to neo-Marxism was dispelled by its campaign to enforce compulsory queer political programming of schoolchildren under the misnomer “Safe Schools”.

Queer acti­vists trashed conservative senator Cory Bernardi’s office on Friday after Green-Left politicians, ­including Labor leader Bill Shorten, called him homo­phobic for opposing the strategy. Unlike Bernardi, state-designated minorities are protected by discrimination and affirmative action laws. Such laws provide a permanent position of victimhood to justify bigotry against the PC hate target of choice: heterosexual men who lean Right.

Proliferating minority groups claim special protection under ­affirmative action law while constructing the form of society it was designed to prevent: a society governed by codified inequality. Under the aegis of special measures, they use affir­mative action to enact new forms of exclusion on the basis of inborn biological traits such as race and sex.

In the recent Queensland University of Technology case, male students were barred from a computer room allegedly because of their race. Former administrative officer Cindy Prior, an indigenous Australian, asked the students whether they were indigenous ­before asking them to leave. In court documents, she cited the need for “safe space” on campus.

The race discrimination commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission, Tim Soutphommasane, stated he would not comment directly on the QUT case to news.com.au but referred to special measures under the Racial Discrimination Act. The AHRC referred the case to the Federal Circuit Court.

Its website page devoted to RDA special measures states they are for indigenous people, some migrant and refugee groups. Impor­tantly, the AHRC differentiates formal from substantive equality. Formal equality is equa­lity of all citizens before the law and commonly ­associated with equal opportunity. Substantive equality is inequality under the law in favour of state-designated minority groups ­towards equality of outcome. Substantive equality thus reverses genuine equality. It is a prime ­example of the neo-­Marxist double­think that characterises contemporary Left thought and undermines universal human rights. Instead of sunsetting special measures past their use-by date, the hard Left uses them to justify ever more extreme forms of ­exclusion and bigotry.

The only group of citizens wholly ­excluded from the attri­butes list that comprises minority status under law are heterosexual, able-bodied men classified as “white”. The racial classification “white” is attributed generally to people of Celtic, ­English or European descent. In academe, it is common to find statements about the group that would be classified as hate speech if applied to any other. When I was an undergraduate, the phrase “the only good male is a dead white male” was ubiquitous in the humanities.

In an article on The Conversation, education fellow Sarah Pett complained about canonical wri­ters such as Shakespeare, Tennyson, Eliot, Sophocles, Ovid and Homer, calling to “push dead white men like Shakespeare out of the limelight”. In response to the Safe Schools ­debate, sociology lecturer Lucy Nicholas wrote: “While white, cisgender, heterosexual male politicians are quibbling over whether or not we should expose young people to the term pan­sexual … young people have never been queerer.”

Neo-Marxists use the minority politics of race and gender as communists used class, sowing envy and victimhood to create a revolutionary mass primed to attack a ­selected target. An extreme consequence of the PC bigotry came to light last year when academic journals ­refused to publish research demonstrating a steep rise in the suicide rate of white men.

Nobel laureate Angus Deaton co-­authored a paper with econo­mist Anne Case showing a spike in premature deaths and suicide among white, middle-aged men and women. According to Deaton, the research was rejected by academic journals on spurious grounds. Rather than offer sympathy for the suicide victims and their families, sections of the Left blamed the victims, claiming the premature deaths were caused by men losing their “white privilege”. The spike in suicide among middle-aged white Americans was thus reframed as an act of self-­indulgence, even when research suggested its cause lay in structural disadvantage owing to factors such as low education rate leading to mass unemployment.

The term “white privilege” is a corollary of neo-Marxist politics whose experts pervade critical race and postcolonial studies in universities. The term is used to justify bigotry towards people with racial, religious or cultural attri­butes deemed politically incorrect.

The AHRC recommends courses that advance the idea of white privilege as best practice for anti-racism education. In America, academic symposiums are ­devoted to it, including the Wisconsin National White Privilege Conference whose content illustrates the underwhelming intellectual prowess of the field: “The session begins with mind and body grounding in processes, proceeds to examining the biological wisdom of the human cell, moves to an analysis of race and class ­oppression/liberation dynamics … with particular attention to class supremacy and white privilege”.

Griffith University lecturer Marcus Woolombi Waters ­recently won praise on social media for his criticism of white privilege in Australia. After travelling overseas to deliver a keynote address, he wrote: “Generally every staff member is white on every major Australian airline. So here we are as black people, jumping on an aircraft of white people being served by white people, ­immersed back into a world of whiteness.” The perception that white people serving black people constitutes white privilege does seem rather at odds with reality.

The greatest erosion of human potential arises from the belief that some of us are born more equal than others. The creed was captured best by George Orwell in his satire of the Russian Revolution, Animal Farm: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” In the 21st century West, affirmative action ­regimes bestow state-approved minorities with rights and advantages ­denied their fellow citizens. They are more equal than others. We used to call that inequality. We once fought against it.

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Indigenous Australians take Apple, Facebook, Google to Human Rights Commission for racist game

No good saying "It's just a game", I suppose.  They want money

A group of high-profile Aboriginal Australians is taking Apple, Facebook and Google to the Australian Human Rights Commission for supplying a notorious online game that promotes the killing of Aboriginal Australians.

The complaint of racial vilification, lodged on Monday with the Human Rights Commission against the multinational suppliers of 'Survival Island 3 – Australia Story 3D', is made under Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA).

The complainants include poet Ken Canning, filmmaker and rights campaigner Sam Watson, climate campaigner Larissa Baldwin, student Murrawah Watson, former NRL player and suicide-prevention youth worker Joe Williams, and Georgia Mantle, who started a change.org petition against the game in January.

In a statement released on Monday, Mr Canning says, "I am 63 years of age and have had first-hand experience of violence against Our Peoples. Given the history of the massacres of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, I find such a game to be highly offensive."

'Survival Island 3 – Australia Story 3D', developed by NIL Entertainment, was made available worldwide online including for download in Australia via a number of app stores including Apple iTunes, Amazon, and Google Playstore.

In a press release issued on Monday, the group behind the complaint says that it hopes that by taking this action it will help clarify whether making available games of this kind is acceptable under Australian law. 

"The game creators and developers are located overseas and it is not suggested that they are affiliated in any way with the companies that are subject to the complaint. The basis of the complaint is that companies that have provided or are providing access to the App have made available material that contravenes the RDA," the statement said.

The complainants seek to compel Apple, Google and Facebook to:

*    modify their policies and procedures to ensure that they do not make apps/games available on their platforms which contain material that is likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate on the basis of race.

*    publicly denounce NIL Entertainment for developing the Game.

*    publicly apologise to Indigenous Australians for making the Game available on their platforms and services.

*    make a donation to an Indigenous charity that educates the wider Australian community about issues related to cultural pride

The group is also asking Facebook to remove the Group Page 'Survival Island 3 Hunt the Aborigines.' Mr Canning had written  to Facebook to request that it voluntarily remove the Group Page but Facebook responded that it did not contravene its community standards.

The group is being represented by a prominent pro bono legal team including Sydney barrister Craig Leggat SC and instructed by human rights lawyer Benedict Coyne from law firm Boe Williams Anderson.

Mr Coyne said, "My clients have launched their claim under section 18C of the RDA alleging that the app is offensive, humiliating and intimidating on the basis of race and that its promotion should not be supported in the public domain. It is hoped that this action will assist in defining the bounds where free speech ends and where racial vilification begins.

"Whilst there has been significant controversy and misconception about the scope and application of section 18C in recent years, our law entitles people in our country to take action where public statements or content goes beyond free speech and enters the realms of racial vilification.

"It is important that we reflect on the intergenerational trauma of Indigenous Australians. The RDA seeks to protect vulnerable and marginalised minorities from racially based offensive, insulting and humiliating conduct by publicly outing such malicious mischief and sending a strong and educative message to the broader Australian community that racism is not acceptable in a civilised country such as ours."

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Redheads

Bias against redheads is a real problem in England but I have seen nothing of it in Australia.  My father was a redhead and my son has a red beard so I think I am pretty aware of the matter

YOU can’t call someone a racist name, or make fun of their sexuality or weight.  Yet "gingerism" is alive and well with red-headed people regularly teased, bullied or constantly joked about due to their colouring.

That is the view of Buderim Ginger, the organisers of Australia’s first Ginger Pride rally, which aims to unite red heads across the country to fly ‘the freak flag high’.

As part of the Melbourne rally, organisers are calling on gingers everywhere to celebrate their greatest difference — their hair — and bring an end to gingerism once and for all.

Hang on, what’s gingerism?  According to Buderim Ginger spokeswoman Emma Pryor it is "definitely a thing", adding that being a red-headed kid at school isn’t a walk in the park.

Between one and two per cent of the world’s population have red hair, yet rather than being celebrated the point of difference is often ridiculed, she said.

The rise of gingerism, defined as prejudice or discrimination against people with red hair, sparked the introduction of ginger pride rallies across the world with Edinburgh among the cities celebrating all things red.

The US city of Chicago even held its own rally last year which attracted thousands of red-heads.

That event is an offshoot of a massive festival in Breda in the Netherlands called Roodharigendag which runs for three days in September each year.

It may sound like a laugh, but the Melbourne rally has a serious side with most gingers admitting they’ve been teased or ridiculed or in extreme cases even bullied due to their colourings.

Ms Pryor said there’s still a perception that it’s okay to tease gingers because it’s just hair and it seemed to be seen as the last acceptable prejudice.

"After South Park showed an episode about kicking a ginger day, kids in the UK actually reported an increase of being bullied after people tried to do it there," she said.

"Red-headed people have been an object of ridicule forever and instead of celebrating this difference we make fun of it."

Buderim Ginger Marketing Manager Jacqui Price said the teasing has to stop.  "It’s no secret that gingers are used to being teased for their flaming locks and freckles, experiencing unfair prejudice and misrepresentation since the dark ages," she said.  "And it’s time we say enough!"

The festival is also supported by Bully Zero Australia Foundation and The Red and Nearly Ginger Association (R.A.N.G.A), "the peak special interest body for Ginger issues".

Participants will be encouraged to donate a gold coin with proceeds going towards Bully Zero.

Foundation Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director, Oscar Yildiz JP, said the team was excited to take a stand against bullying and celebrate the diversity of our community. "We will take a united front to shed light on the fact that bullying affects children through to adults for such trivial factors such as hair colour or freckles, and make it very clear that bullying is never OK," he said.

"We hope the Ginger Pride Rally helps to foster acceptance and diversity in the community, because we should all celebrate and be proud of what makes each person an individual."

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Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here