Salvation Army in Victoria Supports "Safe Schools" Initiative

The program is ostensibly an anti-bullying program but its far-Left authors expanded it way beyond that. It actually promotes homosexuality. From Karl Marx on, the far-Left have hated the family and this is yet another attack on it.  Some of its features:

* Teaches girls to bind their chests so their breasts won't develop

* Encourages student cross-dressing

* Teaches kids gay and lesbian sexual techniques

* Encourages kids to use either boys’ or girls’ toilets

* Integrates gender theory and sexual themes across all subjects

I have on various occasions in the past donated to the Sallies.  Because of their welfare work in wartime, military men tend to have a soft spot for the Sallies and I certainly have always thought well of them. 

Anne, the lady in my life, used to sing with the Sallies on street corners when they still did that and I have always regarded that history as a great credit to her.

Time does however tend to corrupt organizations that started out as idealistic and it seems that the Sallies have drunk the Leftist Kool-Aid now.  They are not who they were.  They now support a program that valorizes homosexuality and devalues the traditional family. 

Morgan Cox writes: "I just phoned the Salvation Army. They confirmed that they reviewed the "safe" schools program (the full unedited Victoria state version) and fully support it. I highlighted to them some of the reasons why as parents we hold grave concerns about the program. I was told that they feel sorry for me and my view. They think its a great program"

Until recently their front page said:  "However, same-sex relationships which are genitally expressed are unacceptable according to the teaching of Scripture. Attempts to establish or promote such relationships as viable alternatives to heterosexually-based family life do not conform to God’s will for society." 

The have always of course ministered to sexual deviants as being persons in need, but they have never until recently approved of homosexual practices. Like the Anglicans, they have now let go of Bible teaching and adopted a secular do-gooder philosophy. It will not end well.  They will fade away as the Anglicans are fading away.

They will never again get a donation from me and I hope that others concerned for healthy families will follow suit.  Politically, what they have done is asinine.  Conservatives are the big charitable givers and they will now choke a lot of that off

Below is the Salvation Army press release.


The Salvation Army supports the Safe Schools Coalition Victoria in its initiative designed to reduce homophobic and transphobic behaviour and create safe learning environments for all students. The Salvation Army is concerned by the very high level of bullying, higher levels mental health issues and the highest rates of suicidality of any group in Australia for same-sex attracted and gender diverse young people. The Salvation Army’s Victoria State Council (VSC) has been aware of the negative claims about the Safe Schools program and its related materials but believes these to be unfounded.

Chair of VSC, Major Dr Geoff Webb says “Our social policy unit has reviewed the official teaching resources provided by the Safe Schools Coalition and the four official guidelines. It has also studied the independent review commissioned by the Australian government, together with other materials. None of the negative claims made about the program accurately reflect anything in the official materials reviewed.

“Provided schools adhere to official teaching resources and the official guidelines, there should be no issues with Safe Schools. We support the provision of safe learning environments for all students,” Webb says.

Dr Webb notes that a Federal Government independent review found that the four official guides are consistent with the aims of the program and are appropriate for use in schools. “Our findings are consistent with the government’s review,” Webb says, “and the resource All of Us is consistent with the aims of the program, is suitable, robust, age-appropriate, educationally sound and aligned with the Australian Curriculum.”

The Salvation Army in Victoria has welcomed the Andrews Government commitment of additional funding to ensure that every Victorian secondary school is involved in the Safe Schools programme by the end of 2018.

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Coding Will Be Mandatory In Queensland Schools From Next Year

This is of a piece with the bright idea that every kid should be given a school laptop computer.  It achieved nothing.  As a former programmer of statistical analyses, I can tell you that only about 2% of the population have the IQ to be a real coder.  Perhaps 5% will be able to do some sort of simple work, but, either way, this will waste the time of most students. If you have the requisite ability, you don't need to be taught it at school.  I learnt FORTRAN coding in just 4 mornings of teaching.

In every classroom from prep to Year 10, children in schools will learn coding skills and get hands-on with robotics in Queensland as the state becomes the first in Australia to mandate in-depth computer programming training.

The ABC reports that Queensland will join Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Estonia and England in bringing computer coding into the state's primary school curriculum. Parents won't be able to opt their children out of the classes if they disagree with the amount of screen time their kids are getting, either -- this is a full-force effort from Queensland's education system to educate kids in the skills needed to live and work online.

The classes that Queensland schoolkids take won't necessarily be aimed at getting them jobs in coding or software development, though; students will instead get a general knowledge of digital literacy that they'll use in every aspect of their learning from English to maths. iPads won't be completely replacing pens and paper, either. Coding and programming will be an integral part of the jobs that these kids eventually move into in the future.

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Leftist bureaucrats oppose competition in the provision of health insurance

They hilariously claim that a monopoly would keep costs down.  Leftists are incapable of learning.  It sounds like they can't even read economics textbooks

In a Guardian Australia investigation into the industry this week, health policy analysts and economists called for the private health insurance system to be abolished and replaced by a single insurer.

Graeme Samuel, a former adviser to the federal government’s private health insurance review, Jennifer Doggett, a fellow with the Centre for Policy Development, and health policy analyst Ian McAuley described private health insurance as outdated and in need of serious reform.

The federal health minister Sussan Ley is in the midst of a comprehensive review of the system, and has acknowledged consumers should be getting better value for money from their policies.

But the chief executive of Private Healthcare Australia, Dr Rachel David, criticised the experts’ comments, which she described as “one-sided” and “at odds with the majority of the population who value the fact Australia has one of the highest quality and most affordable health systems in the world”. Private Healthcare Australia is the peak body for the industry, representing 19 health funds.

“This one-sided story only creates further misunderstanding about the private health sector in Australia and anxiety among those who value their private health insurance, which is, among other things, the major funder of non-emergency surgery and inpatient mental health in Australia, and funds more dental health than the federal government,” David said.

“The Centre for Policy Development wrongly claims the rebate [the subsidy paid by government to the private health industry] is between $7bn to $9bn when in fact a review of the Australian Taxation Offices’s taxation statistics for 2013-14 shows that the actual net rebate paid by government that year was $3.7bn.”

This figure has been disputed by Doggett and John Menadue, who was head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under both Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam.

They argue the tax office’s costing of the private health insurance taxpayer subsidy at $6.3bn in 2015-16 did not take into account revenue forgone through the exemption of high income earners from the Medicare levy surcharge. Accounting for this, the rebate cost taxpayers closer to $11bn annually, they say.

But David said that those “ideologically opposed to the private sector will always cite the need to redirect the private health insurance rebate to public healthcare and grossly exaggerate the amount of rebate paid to consumers”.

“Abolishing the rebate will have an immediate negative impact on public hospitals and set the health budget back decades,” she said.

“More than 13.5m Australians have some form of private health insurance and almost half of them have an annual disposable income of less than $50,000. They value their private health insurance and right to choose where and when they have medical care, as well as a fully-trained health professional to be responsible for their care.”

But individual private insurance companies acknowledged that consumers were frustrated. A spokesman for Bupa said the organisation understood that rising health insurance premiums were affecting many people.

The fund was looking at a number of ways to keep member costs as affordable as possible and deliver better value, he said.

“While we believe that in many ways Australia has a world-class health system, there are several areas of waste and inefficiency which flow through to consumers and ultimately increase the cost of insurance premiums,” the spokesman said.

“We welcome the federal government’s announcement that it will reduce prostheses list pricing to improve affordability for Australia’s 13 million private health insurance customers from 2017 and beyond.”

But more could be done to improve the health system by encouraging improvements in quality, cost-effective care and appropriate service, he said.

“This includes giving people more choice of receiving care in the home, delivering more coordinated, holistic care and reducing duplication of tests and avoidable readmissions and procedures.”

Medibank’s chief customer officer, David Koczkar, acknowledged consumers wanted better value from their health insurance.

“We’re listening,” he said. “So far this year, more than one million of our customers have seen increased value through new and extended benefits within their policies.

“In preparing our premium proposal for next year, we have kept our customers front of mind, particularly how we can provide affordable and better value private health insurance in an environment of rising health needs and costs.

“Medibank is committed to returning every dollar of the recently-announced prostheses list savings to our customers.”

The managing director of HCF, Shaun Larkin, said private health insurance could be confusing and that the company believed in transparency. HCF had improved the information provided to the public to assist them in making informed decisions about their private health insurance, he said.

“Private health insurance gives people peace of mind in case something happens that requires hospitalisation, allowing them to choose your own hospital and doctor without lengthy waiting periods,” he said.

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A moderate response to a stream of abuse upsets the abuser

A Leftist female with an Arabic first name abuses an anti-immmigration Senator and is enraged when he responds with great brevity.  He sent no abuse back but that was not good enough, apparently.  The sense of entitlement on the Left is gargantuan

This afternoon she sent the Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Senator an email “imploring him to block the lifetime ban on refugees bill”, and within three minutes she had a response.

Just two words:

“Go away.”

"I was so shocked", the 25-year-old told Mamamia after receiving the reply.

"I couldn’t believe a grown man and public servant, who is being paid with my tax dollar to represent my best interests in parliament, would have the audacity to treat a citizen with such disregard and so childishly. A man who has been elected by the people, telling the people to 'go away' is the exact opposite of democracy."

"Seeking asylum is a basic human right, and this proposed bill is a deliberately cruel and unusual measure added to already cruel and obscene policies enforced by the Australian government," she said.

It should be noted that Nour's email to the Senator contained some strong words. She wrote, "I understand that you are a One Nation Party senator, which obviously means you are a racist, close minded, outdated neanderthal but I’m hoping that somewhere in your hateful, horrible heart there is a tiny smidgen of goodness that is willing to do the right thing and BLOCK the Life Time Ban On Refugees Bill – as is your duty."

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Peter Dutton attacks Malcolm Fraser's refugee legacy

In case it is not clear below, Dutton was referring principally to the large number of Lebanese Muslims admitted under Fraser

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has attacked the  refugee policies of former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser, saying they are partly to blame for Australia's struggle with foreign fighters travelling to international conflict zones.

Responding to criticism from right-wing commentator Andrew Bolt, Mr Dutton said on Thursday many foreign fighters travelling to conflict zones in the Middle East were the children or grandchildren of migrants who settled in Australia during the Fraser government in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Immigration Minister has put the blame for the grandchildren of Australian migrants travelling to fight in overseas conflict zones on former Liberal PM Malcolm Fraser's immigration policies.

"The reality is Malcolm Fraser did make mistakes in bringing some people in the 1970s and we're seeing that today," he told Sky News. "We need to be honest in having that discussion. There was a mistake made."

Mr Dutton said Australia should learn the lessons of past migration programs as it settles new arrivals in the community today.

During the Fraser government, as many as 200,000 migrants arrived in Australia from Asia, as part of policies focused on multiculturalism and resettlement.

More than 16,000 Lebanese migrants arrived in Australia following Lebanon's 1976 civil war, prompting warnings from immigration authorities about the risk of temporary changes to eligibility standards for new arrivals.

Cabinet records released in 2007 showed officials believed many of the Lebanese refugees lacked qualities considered important to integration in Australia, while some were viewed as unskilled, illiterate and of poor character.

The Fraser government also resettled about 50,000 Vietnamese refugees and boat people in Australia.

Before his death in 2015, Mr Fraser defended his government's policies and rejected links between refugee arrivals and racial tensions in contemporary Australia. 

Mr Dutton linked recent gang activity in Victoria involving young people from newly arrived African communities, including former Sudanese refugees, with "weak" law and order policies from state Labor governments.

"If it can be demonstrated that we have a significant proportion of a particular community - we're talking about the Sudanese community in this instance - then we need to work out what's gone wrong," he said.

"We do review the program each year, and if we feel there are problems with particular cohorts, particular nationalities, particular people who might not be integrating well and not contributing well, then there are many other worthy recipients who seek to come to a country like ours and make an opportunity their own."

The federal government is working with state police forces to try to identify people of poor character and will seek to cancel visas if necessary, Mr Dutton said.

The comments came as a newly established parliamentary inquiry prepares to consider resettlement outcomes for migrants to Australia, including community services, the importance of English language skills and whether existing migration processes adequately assess resettlement prospects.

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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