Australian libertarian senator advises Green senator to 'stop shagging men' during women's safety debate

A classic case of theGreen/Left distorting what their opponents say. Donald Trump gets it daily

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has accused senator David Leyonhjelm of telling her to “stop shagging men” during a debate about women and violence, and then swearing at her when she confronted him.

Senator Hanson-Young told parliament the Liberal Democrats senator made the remark on the floor of the upper house during a division on a motion about arming women with tasers to combat violence.

She said Leyonhjelm refused to apologise for the comments, which she says are offensive and sexist.

Later Leyonhjelm confirmed his words but denied he shouting them out.  He said he was responding to Senator Hanson-Young’s interjection in the debate, which he claimed was “along the lines of all men being rapists”.

“I responded by suggesting that if this was the case she should stop shagging men. I did not yell at her,” Leyonhjelm said.

“Following the division, Senator Hanson-Young approached me and called me a creep. I told her to f*** off.”

He said if the Greens senator took offence, it was an issue for her.

“I am prepared to rephrase my comments. I strongly urge Senator Hanson-Young to continue shagging men as she pleases,” Senator Leyonhjelm said.

SOURCE 





'Sick of the man-hating PC brigade': Customers vow to stop shopping at Peter Alexander after the sleepwear company pulls 'boys will be boys' jumper from its shelves - because ONE mum claimed it was sexist

Peter Alexander's decision to stop selling a jumper after one customer complained has prompted a widespread backlash by customers of the iconic Australian brand.

The sleepwear company removed the controversial 'boys will be boys' jumper from its catalogue on Wednesday, one week after a mother said its message was 'sexist' and promoted 'toxic masculinity'.

Customers have since expressed their anger and disappointment at the decision to stop selling the top on the company's Facebook page - with some vowing to stop buying the brand completely.

'My family have over the years purchased many pyjamas from your business. Unfortunately, with your company bowing to the PC brigade and removing the 'boys will be boys' jumper, we will no longer be purchasing from your company. We are so sick of the Man hating PC brigade, but even more feed (sic) up with businesses that placate these groups. Thank you,' one man wrote.

'This is disappointing. If people want to be offended by everything fine, just don't buy it. I don't understand the offence or the response. Instead of removing it, why not introduce a top 'girls will be girls,' another customer suggested.

The top was removed after Melbourne woman Bridie Harris complained the top was sexist.

'Boy won't be boys. Boys will be held accountable for their actions. I hate to see an Australian store, who makes such great pjs, put such a sexist statement on a t-shirt intended for young boys. Excusing boys of their behaviour is not a step in the right direction. It's 2018,' she wrote on the business' Facebook page.

The jumper had been marketed online with the tag line: 'Boys will be boys, so leave them to it in this warm and cosy quilted sweater. Perfect for winter adventures'.

Known as the 'Pyjama King', Peter Alexander is famous for the unique themes he uses to design his pyjamas. His inspiration comes from his travels around the world such as Paris, New York, and African Safaris.

A Peter Alexander Sleepwear employee initially responded to the complaint, saying the feedback would be passed onto the design and production team. Within a week it was pulled from their catalogue.

'I just wanted to update you and again thank you for taking the time to get in touch with us and bringing this to our attention. We do not tolerate the behaviour that is being associated with this slogan,' a Peter Alexander Sleepwear employee wrote.

'In the light of your feedback, we have decided to withdraw this item from sale.' 

Ms Harris, who has a two-year-old daughter, told The Sydney Morning Herald she was glad the jumper was no longer being sold, as she did not want her little girl 'to think if someone pushes her on the playground it's just 'boys will be boys'.' 

'I want her to stand up and tell someone and be able to feel safe, playing in playground or walking home at night as an adult,' Ms Harris said.

Ms Harris' concerns were followed up by another complaint on the day the jumper was withdrawn from sale. 

A domestic violence victim, Jenny, told 3AW the decision to axe the jumper was 'ridiculous'.  'It has to stop. This has gone too far. There's so many rules that nobody can be themselves any more,' Jenny said.

SOURCE 





Labor claims ‘secret deal’

In Parliamentary excerpt on afternon of 28th.

They kept hammering it but Turnbull showed himself to be a very good parliamentary performer -- being well-briefed (as one would hope of a barrister) -- and getting in a pretty powerful last word every time.  He never answers the question, of course


Labor’s Chris Bowen asks Malcolm Turnbull if he will reveal the “secret deal” with One Nation before the July 28 by-elections.

The Prime Minister dodges it and goes into counter-attack.

“Talking about personal discussions and conversations, I just noted in the shadow minister for Small Business’s interview with Alan Jones today. He was slipping and sliding, failing to defend his leader’s captain’s call,” Turnbull says.

After being fobbed off on his last question, opposition Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen tries the same one again.

“Has the government reached any agreements with One Nation within the last 48 hours?”

Malcolm Turnbull says he will not reveal negotiations with the crossbench, an answer that led to lots of noise from Labor MPs.

“We never discuss negotiations with the crossbench, we don’t,” the Prime Minister says.

“And we have found that the most important thing to do when negotiating with other members of parliament is to treat them with respect and that’s what we do.”

Labor MP Rob Mitchell yells out “Pauline’s puppet”, which earns him a rebuke from Speaker Tony Smith.

Opposition treasury Chris Bowen asks Malcolm Turnbull if the government has done any deals with One Nation in the past 48 hours.

The Prime Minister congratulates Bowen for adding the portfolio of small business to his responsibilities.

“There are many ways to create a small business. Most people start off with no business at all and build it up,” Turnbull says. “Others, and I think the shadow minister would fall into this category, would start with a large business and turn it into a small one. That’s exactly what he will do to Australia’s economy.”

Bill Shorten asks Malcolm Turnbull if he will bring back the big business tax cuts and strike a “secret deal” with One Nation after the by-elections.

The Prime Minister says the only secret deal around was the Opposition Leader’s announcement to increase taxes for businesses with a revenue of more than $10 million.

“The honourable member kept his assault on small business a secret from his shadow cabinet, from his caucus, from his mystified colleagues, including the Deputy Leader,” Turnbull says.

“Kept a secret from them until he dropped that bombshell and announced he was going to put at risk five million jobs.”

SOURCE 







Shorten on the ropes? Second Labor MP refuses to endorse his "captain’s call" on tax

Some can see that being anti-business is also being anti-jobs

Labor MP Gai Brodtmann has repeatedly refused to endorse Bill Shorten’s captain’s call to raise taxes for businesses earning more than $10 million.

Ms Brodtmann, a former small business owner, refused to rule out crossing the floor if a future Labor government went further with repealing already legislated tax cuts on business — despite Labor MPs being barred from voting against the party position.

The Labor leadership group met this morning amid growing anger in the caucus and shadow cabinet at not being consulted about the policy.

Ms Brodtmann dodged several questions from Radio 2CC presenter Tim Shaw on whether she agreed with the Opposition Leader’s impromptu announcement this week.

“We are continuing to consider businesses up to $10m turnover but we have always been crystal clear that we put schools and hospitals ahead of tax cuts for big business and the banks,” Ms Brodtmann said.

She also refused to reject suggestions Mr Shorten made the wrong call in vowing to increase tax on business.

“Well there has been internal discussions on this issue, those discussions continue, and we will continue to consider whether those businesses on up to $10m turnover should be addressed,” she said.

When asked if she would cross the floor if a future Labor government also tried to raise taxes on businesses with a turnover of up to $10 million, Ms Brodtmann said: “I’m not going to speculate on any of that, the conversations are still being had within the leadership group.”

It came after Labor MP Ross Hart refused to endorse Mr Shorten’s position 13 times in an interview yesterday.

Shaw: Do you agree and do you support your leader in the winding back of tax cuts for medium business that he announced this week?

Brodtmann: We are continuing to consider businesses up to $10m turnover but we have always been crystal clear that we put schools and hospitals ahead of tax cuts for big business and the banks.

Shaw: Gai, I asked you specifically, do you support Bill Shorten’s position when he said ‘yes’ to the winding back tax cuts for medium businesses? And I remind you that you are a former small business person yourself.

Brodtmann: Yes I am and a proud former small business person and, as I said, we are continuing to consider up to ($10 million) turnover.

Shaw: So the leader was wrong to announce to the media that, yes, the policy of the Australian Labor Party was to repeal already L.A.W. law tax cuts for small business?

Brodtmann: Well there has been internal discussions on this issue, those discussions continue, and we will continue to consider whether those businesses on up to $10m turnover should be addressed.

Shaw: If Bill Shorten as Prime Minister and the front bench in government decided to repeal those small business taxes that have been applied by the Coalition government, would you be prepared to cross the floor to support those Canberra businesses with lower taxes?

Brodtmann: I’m not going to speculate on any of that, the conversations are still being had within the leadership group. We are going to take our time to consider this issue and making an announcement once those considerations have been made.

SOURCE 







Share bikes a failure in Australia

A Greenie dream dies.  Many people who hire them are too lazy to return them

Bike-sharing service oBike is staying in Sydney despite piles of the disused bicycles ending up dumped in streets and waterways across the city.

OBike is no longer in service in Melbourne after the city council started issuing fines for illegal dumping.

The company has also announced it would stop operating in its home base of Singapore.

An oBike spokesperson told the ABC it was 'not leaving Australia'. 'Our service is as usual. Meanwhile we are also working closely with local authorities in Melbourne for a detailed discussion on how we can better provide our service.'

The company's decision to withdraw from Melbourne comes after the  Environment Protection Authority announced steep new fines of $3,000 per dumped bike, payable by the business.

There are at least four bike-sharing companies in Melbourne and Sydney including oBike and ReddyGo which were launched last year after being popularly used overseas.

The heavily criticised share bike industry, which also operates in other major cities across the country, often leaves pedestrians frustrated as the bikes are left strewn across footpaths or thrown into trees.

Port Phillip Mayor Bernadene Voss told radio station 3AW she had been informed the bikes were on their way out of Melbourne.

'We've been told they are going,' she said. 'We do understand though that there is a new operator coming in.'

Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp asked people to stop using the rental scheme after the company confirmed it was pulling out of Melbourne, following controversy and hefty fines over bikes dumped on streets, up trees and in waterways.

'oBikes have decided to withdraw from our market here in Melbourne and we are working very closely with them to remove oBikes from the city streets,' she told reporters.

SOURCE 





Real reason teachers walk away

Unending, deadening, bureaucratic interference with their work

HALF of our teachers are quitting within five years of graduating. We’re at crisis point, and as one teacher explains, it’s not changing.

THOUSANDS of Australian teachers are abandoning their careers every year, leaving our students much worse off. Something is seriously wrong in our education system.

Gabbie Stroud had high hopes walking into her career as a teacher. She was dedicated, and loved working with kids. But over a decade, she was worn down by the system. Below is an extract of her new book, Teacher, showing why it’s more than the daily grind that’s pushing our educators to the brink:

I HAD arrived at school earlier than usual, signing a form at daycare agreeing to pay the extra fifteen bucks for an early drop-off. I needed to prepare an activity for my class. We had been reading Where Is The Green Sheep? by Mem Fox and Judy Horacek, and today we were going to search the school for a lost green sheep. It would be a chance for students to get familiar with the layout of the school as well as engaging them in a rich literacy task. Boxes ticked. One day closer to maternity leave.

On coloured paper I had drawn and laminated sheep — a blue sheep, a red sheep, a yellow sheep, an orange sheep — and I was dotting them around the school. One had been taped to the underside of the slippery dip. Another had been pinned to the tuckshop menu board. I would deliver a couple to classrooms as well. The green sheep himself, a plush soft toy, would be waiting for us in the Principal’s office. The Principal seemed bemused by the entire activity, but had agreed to play along.

I hustled into Gretel’s class and explained the activity while she started up the bank of computers against the back wall of her classroom. “Sounds great,” she said, never looking up. “Sit it on my desk and when you bring your class down to find it. I’ll do the whole shocked and surprised routine.”

“Thanks.” I dropped off the orange sheep and lumbered out the door. I glanced at my watch. Twenty minutes until show time. One sheep left to deposit.

“Hey, Lana.” I knocked on her door, but didn’t wait for her welcome. “Can I please leave this sheep in here with you? And then later this morning I’ll come down with the Kindies?”

“I can’t do this,” Lana said, and for a moment I thought she was talking about my activity.

“Okay.” I took a step backwards. “I can ask someone else.” There was something about her face I didn’t recognise, even though I’d been teaching with her for years. But then it clicked and I did recognise it and I was terrified. It was stress. And defeat. And possibly desperation. All brought to life on the pale, frowning face of my long-time colleague and friend.

“No,” she said and slumped forward in her seat. “I can’t do this. I can’t do this anymore.” She shoved at the paperwork in front of her. “None of it!” She shook her head.

I moved towards her, abandoning the red sheep and putting my arm around her shoulders. Outside a child shouted, Too bad, so sad! and there was the tattoo of school shoes across the concrete.

“I know, it’s so exhausting,” I said, rubbing my hand across her back. “Let’s just take a minute and have a cry and then we’ll get our s**t together, hey?”

“No,” she said. Her stare was defiant. “I can’t do it anymore.” Tears started streaming and I felt panic grip me. I glanced at my watch. Fifteen minutes.

I’ve got to get her together. I need another teacher in here, but I don’t want to leave her. S**t! She’s got car keys in her hands. She is really sobbing. This isn’t a brief breakdown, this is something else.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” I said with a voice that was warm and confident and reassuring. It was my teacher voice — Lana had one too — but she looked at me in the same way a little one does when they’ve spilled an entire tub of yoghurt down their front. “I’m going to call Pip because her class goes to the library this morning and she’ll come and take your class. So we can stop worrying about that.”

Lana looked at me, nodded, and asked for some tissues. I found the box and passed them to her.

“Then I’m going to ring the Principal. I’m going to tell him to get a relief teacher for your class for the rest of the day.”

She nodded again. “Thanks,” she whispered. “You’re probably just really tired,” I said and squeezed her arm.

“No!” Her voice was loud. Wild. “This isn’t tired! This is something else. This is … This is … I can’t do this anymore.” New tears came and she leaned over her desk, over the books and the papers and the laptop and the awards and the stickers, and sobbed.

I made the phone calls and our teaching community rallied. Madge offered to take my class for a bit and I sat with Lana until she had stopped sobbing and shaking. “I’m so sorry,” she was saying. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

The Principal came to her room, sat beside her and found his teacher voice, too. He talked about stress leave and mental health and going home right now and not to worry — we would sort out the details later.

“I’m sorry,” Lana said again. “It’s okay,” he said. “And don’t apologise. Happens to the best of us.”

I found her bag and phone and I watched her go, bent over and frail like someone sick, very sick, about to die.

That’s me, I thought. That’s going to happen to me. And the baby rolled inside, uncomfortable under my skin.

***

“I can’t believe it,” I said. We were in the library after school, waiting for the staff meeting to begin, debriefing about Lana and wondering how she was feeling now.

“I mean, Lana’s so steady and calm and bombproof. She never seems stressed or frazzled. You never see her busting someone’s arse at the photocopier because she’s left things to the last minute and needs to jump the queue.”

“Appearances can be deceiving,” Jule said. “We all wear stress in different ways,” added Madge. “She’ll come good,” the Principal said. “Eventually.”

“You reckon?” I could still see her face — that was the face of a teacher having a breakdown.  “I’ve seen it before,” he said. “Plenty of times.”

Something about the way he said it, that nonchalant, casual manner, made me feel like exploding all over the room. I wanted to see my body fly against the walls in wet, red, meaty splatters. I closed my eyes for a moment, wondered at this anger that kept flaring inside me. Then, I took a breath and asked, “So what are we doing about it?”

He shrugged, opened his diary. “Nothing we can do. Okay — let’s start this meeting. First up, funding cuts.”

***

“Are you okay?” I was lurching out of my car, willing my body to move faster to get to my friend, to hold her and hug her.

Lana nodded and watched me, framed in her doorway. She was in trackies and uggies, and her face was bare. “I’ve never seen you in trackies,” I said.

“Or without make-up, probably,” she said. She tried to force a laugh, but it turned to a sob, and I stood there and hugged her as close as I could with the buffer of a baby between us. “Thanks for coming around,” she said, ushering me inside.

“I’m worried about you,” I said. About me, I thought.

“It’s stress,” she said simply, flicking on the kettle and pulling mugs from the cupboard. “I’ve seen the doctor; even saw a psychologist today. I just can’t seem to find a way to make my work and my life manageable.”

I nodded, watching as she moved about her kitchen. There was a weariness to her, like she was just out of hospital and recovering from surgery.

“Let me,” I said and took her place in the kitchen, making tea and finding biscuits.

“I mean, I’ve got some hormonal stuff that needs sorting out,” she said. “At my age, that’s pretty normal. But I just can’t see how I’m meant to go on being a teacher for another 20 years. I think about those professional teaching standards coming in and I just think, When am I going to get those done?”

“I try not to think about them,” I said. “Or the national curriculum.”

“Oh, my God,” Lana said. “That as well. I’m a teacher with over 25 years of experience, but these past few years none of that seems good enough. I’ve got to learn this new teaching technique and integrate new technology and promote the school at this thing on the weekend and help that student manage his emotions …” She sniffed. “I just wonder where it’s all going to end?”

“Me too,” I agreed.

“I bet you’re getting excited about the baby.”

“Yeah,” I said, touching my belly. “Probably for all the wrong reasons though.”

“Maternity leave?”

“Yep,” I admitted.

“I get it,” she said. “I get it.”

I stayed until Lana’s husband came home from work, watched as they embraced and she found fresh tears. Driving home, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d just had a glimpse of my future. This baby would buy me time away from the classroom, but then what? I would have to return and continue the battle, slogging it out day after day with big dark shadows of standardisation lurking over my head.

Part of me felt like sobbing, just like Lana.

SOURCE 

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