Anti-Islam leader who staged a mock beheading outside council offices to protest the building of a new mosque appeals 'hate speech' charges in court

No free speech in Australia

An anti-Islamic leader has launched an appeal in court against his conviction as the first person to be charged with 'hate speech' in Australia.

Blair Cottrell was found guilty after staging a mock beheading outside council offices in Bendigo in protest to permission being granted for a new mosque.

The carpenter from Melbourne says he is determined to carry on sharing his far-right views until 'they lock me up or kill me' as he kicked off his appeal on Wednesday.

He launched an appeal against the conviction which carries a maximum sentence of six months in prison and appeared at court on Wednesday.

He and two others, Neil Erikson and Christopher Shortis, carried out what Cottrell described as 'an Islamic-style beheading' of a dummy.

Cottrell told Daily Mail Australia he was 'confident' he could overturn his conviction. 'We have a very fair justice system in this country, unfortunately some judges are making some bad decisions, especially in recent years,' he said. 'But the majority of judges are very fair and professional.

'Even if I'm found guilty again I'll never stop speaking, they'll have to lock me up or kill me.'

Earlier, he posted a video appealing for donations to fund his legal challenge in which he denies being an extremist. He said: 'I've never done anything violent yet I'm called extremist simply because I speak.

'I chose to appeal the conviction to a higher level of court and that's what I'm doing today.

'If you're a white person in a Western country and you speak your opinion, you're regarded extremist so long as your opinion isn't left wing. 'What have I done that's extremist? I've given speeches. I've never called for violence.'

The leader of the United Patriots Front and his accomplices in the stunt were the first people to be charged and convicted under the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act in Victoria.

The video was posted on Facebook in which Cottrell appeared and thanked the Bendigo City Council for allowing to build a mosque.  He is then shown to behead a mannequin stuffed with pillows with a toy sword.

The next part shows them spread red liquid over the council's footpath and throw the 'bloodied' head at a wall while chanting 'Allahu akbar'.

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Greens leader admits he agrees with arch rival Tony Abbott about one thing – Australia MUST lower its immigration intake

Greens are anti-people so that figures

Greens leader Richard Natale has admitted he agrees with former prime minister Tony Abbott's call to cut immigration.

The left-wing party leader told journalists in Canberra big business was behind the push for high population growth.

'The notion that we need a big Australia based on economic drivers is not one we support,' he told the National Press Club on Wednesday.

'Often this is an argument that is run by the business community.'

With Australia's population set to surpass the 25 million milestone this year, Tony Abbott has called for the nation's net annual immigration rate to be slashed from 190,000 to 110,000.

However Senator Di Natale, who hails from Melbourne, declined to explicitly confirm he agreed with the former Liberal PM even though reducing population growth is Greens policy.

'I don't buy into the debate that Tony Abbott is trying to run at the moment,' he said.

'He is not having a debate about population, he is having a debate about the leadership of the Liberal Party. It is not a sophisticated debate about immigration.'

Under Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's watch, Australia's population is growing at 1.6 per cent a year, which is more than double the United States' 0.7 per cent and well above the world average of 1.1 per cent.

Millionaire businessman Dick Smith has called for Australia's net annual immigration rate to return to the 20th century average of 70,000 a year, a position shared by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson.

Like them, the Greens agree 'population policy should not be primarily driven by economic goals or to counter the effects of an ageing population'.

'The current level of population, population growth and the way we produce and consume are outstripping environmental capacity,' the party's policy platform said.

Despite agreeing with Tony Abbott, Senator Di Natale said the debate about reducing population growth should not be held as the former Liberal prime minister makes efforts to destabilise Malcolm Turnbull.

'We are very happy to have that debate but let’s not have it in an environment when what is ­actually happening is a proxy war between the Prime Minister and the former prime minister,' he said. 

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With more than five per cent of Australians looking for work, you would think someone would be interested in taking up a $165-a-day job

But Queensland couple Ian and Sharon Brown recently advertised for part-time workers on their farm, and have been shocked by the lack of response.

The employment ad was placed in print and online asking for workers to help maintain their 2,000 acre property located near Maryborough about three hours north of Brisbane.

'We used to be known as a hard working country and now we're not because there's nothing to force these young people to get out,' Mrs Brown told the Fraser Coast Chronicle.

The national unemployment rate is 5.5 per cent according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, while Wide Bay Burnett's unemployment rate, where the Brown's farm is located, sits at 9 per cent.

National youth unemployment rate is at a huge 27.9 per cent.

Mrs Brown told Daily Mail Australia that many of the people they have employed in the past simply could not handle the hard work, with one 19-year-old lasting only an hour before he quit and her husband had to drive him back the farmhouse.

'Society is growing soft, everything is push button, our body's aren't conditioned for hard work,' she said.

Wide Bay MP Llew O'Brien said, ' did whatever I could to earn a living from picking crops to labouring and working on the factory floor.' 'I would encourage any jobseeker in Wide Bay to look at all jobs on offer, meet with prospective employers and see if they can do the job.'

After word got out about the lack of response following the job ad, Sharon said that they have received several calls enquiring about the position and hopes they will be able to find people willing to work and stick with the job.

'You would think most people would jump at the opportunity to earn $300 dollars for a couple of days work,' she said.

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Universities need charters of intellectual freedom

The latest politically correct madness at the University of Sydney — gender, race, sexuality, and class background quotas at the nation’s oldest debating club — is another demonstration of the extent to which ‘Unlearn U’ has mainlined postmodern identity politics.

It isn’t just the violation of core liberal principles of merit, equality of opportunity, and respect for the individual that is of concern — despite later day converts to the diversity agenda dismissing the importance of such ‘philosophical beliefs’.

What is also at stake are the foundational freedoms of speech and thought which universities ought to uphold as bastions of civil debate, rational discussion, and intellectual freedom.

Underpinning identity politics is an ideological agenda that seeks to shape, set and enforce the boundaries of acceptable, as opposed to so-called offensive ‘racist, patriarchial or homophobic or transphobic’ thought and speech.

This is creating a hostile and intolerant intellectual environment for students with the ‘wrong identity’: witness the Student Union-led a counter protest that took violent direct action to ‘unlearn’ conservative students who supported traditional marriage at Sydney University during last year’s marriage equality plebiscite campaign.

Australian universities are highly likely to follow the US path towards a full-blown campus free-speech crisis unless intellectual freedom is properly protected.

This should be the responsibility of university governors. But greater external accountability may be required, given the propensity of modern administrators to indulge in identity politics and view their mission as making universities less “old, white, male”.

Perhaps it is time to investigate requiring universites to sign up and comply with —  as a condition of taxpayer funding — a  charter of intellectual freedom, which could be based on the University of Chicago’s Stone Committee Report of 2015 on freedom of thought and expression at the university

Because the University is committed to free and open inquiry in all matters, it guarantees all members of the University community the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn.

These words would serve as worthy credo for all Australian universities — if they are to remain worthy of that name.

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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