Banned by La Trobe University

An email from Bettina Arndt

Big excitement here this week. I'd been invited by the La Trobe Student Liberal Club to speak about whether there was a rape crisis on our campuses. My gig was supposed to be on August 14 until the university administration earlier this week pulled the plug, claiming my talk didn't "align with the values of the University and the strong campaign they've been running against sexual violence on campus."

La Trobe, like all our universities, has been promoting the fake rape crisis for years now, even after the Human Rights Commission release their survey results showing there was no such problem.

I ended up having a very entertaining exchange with various members of the administration and asked them a series of embarrassing questions seeking their evidence that there was a rape problem on campus. Eventually they backed down and said the event can go ahead, although they are making noises about the Liberal Club being charged for extra security. So we will see how this all plays out.

It looks like we will put back the date to sometime in September, to give the students time to sort everything out. Other Victorian universities are also keen so it may be that we will end up doing a Melbourne event sponsored by a number of the Liberal students clubs. Do spread the word. I am keen to speak about this issue on any Australian campus that offers an invitation. I think it is appalling that our universities are too lily-livered to take on the feminists and call out their lies on this issue. 

I've  written about all this for The Australian - published today. It would be great if subscribers could go online asap and make comments supporting the article. It's been very hard for me to get my articles into the paper recently and it really helps if there is a strong response when I do, particularly if you suggest you would like to see me in the paper more often!

 I'm giving two talks in Perth later this month. The first is an evening event on Wednesday August 29 - Bettina Arndt - Casualties of a Male Bashing Society. Here's your chance to hear about what's happening to men in Australia. I promise a gripping account of many of the recent issues I have been covering, I'll be telling stories, keeping you thoroughly entertained. Do try to come along and bring all your friends. We need lots of people to book in soon, so we can be sure the event will happen. 

Wed. 29 August 2018

7:00 pm - 9:00 pm AWST

HELLENIC CLUB OF WA

75 STIRLING STREET, PERTH

Book here - Bettina Arndt - Casualties of a Male Bashing Society

The second one is a lunch event on Thursday August 30 where I will be talking about helping men enjoy their sex lives after prostate cancer - lots of funny, sexy stories in this one! I spoke at a lunch in Perth about this topic some years ago and brought the house down! I gather people still talk about it. Do tell your friends - believe me, it is not just for people with prostate cancer. Every man - and their partners - should know more about this vital issue.

LUNCH WITH BETTINA ARNDT
12:00pm-2:30pm
Thursday, 30th August 2018

The Dining Room at the Subiaco Football Club

246 Vincent Street, Leederville, WA 6007

Book here - https://www.eventbrite.com.au/o/prost-exercise-group-8699046032

I hope to get a chance to meet many Perth people during the trip.

Via email from bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au






Young women are quite safe at university, and should be told that

BETTINA ARNDT (This is the article Tina refers to above)

"There is officially no rape crisis on our campuses." That was the headline of the news story that ran in The Australian exactly a year ago after the Australian Human Rights Commission released the results of a million--dollar survey into sexual assault and harassment.

It was disappointing news for feminist activists who had con-ducted a long campaign arguing that campuses were unsafe for young women.

Yet they managed to influence media coverage to disguise the reassuring survey results showing only 0.8 per cent of students claimed to have been sex-ually assaulted in the previous year, even using a broad definition that included being "tricked into sexual acts against their will" and incidents during travel to and from campus.

All they came up with was a high incidence of low-level harassment - mainly -involving staring and sexual jokes or comments.

Hardly a rape crisis - yet my news story was the sole mainstream report to promote the positive news. Such is the grip of these social justice warriors that stories everywhere presented the survey results as disturbing evidence of women under attack.

Vice-chancellors around the country promised new measures to address violence on campus, neatly fudging the evidence to present the worst possible picture. Writing in Guardian Australia, Lenore Taylor -denounced my news story, repeating Madeleine Albright's famous barb about "the special place in hell for women who don't help other women".

These bullying tactics have succeeded remarkably well in browbeating the university sector into an emperor's-new-clothes state of denial about our remarkably safe campuses. The survey results were ignored, reassuring evidence buried. The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research found universities to be about 100 times safer than the general community.

Instead we have witnessed an Orwellian display of doublespeak and deception over the issue. The campaign pretending young women are at risk of rape on -campus continues unabated. Last month Universities Australia -announced new "tools for dealing with sexual assault and harassment" that it hoped would lead to an increase in disclosures.

Reports on these new tools -detailed -numerous measures for encouraging more rape disclosures while neatly avoiding any mention of -actual AHRC findings. It was all strangely reminiscent of Tim Soutphom-ma-sane's efforts to solicit complaints about the -fam-ous Bill Leak cartoon just -before Leak died in March last year.

Later this month I was supposed to be speaking at a La Trobe Liberal Club student event, discussing whether universities really faced a rape crisis. Early this week university administrators told the club the talk could not take place because the topic didn't "align with the values of the university and the strong campaign they've been running against sexual violence on campus".

During subsequent discussion with the administrators I was told they were concerned about providing support and counselling for students who might be upset by my talk. Yesterday the university backed down in response to questions I'd posed asking it to justify shutting down -debate over the issue and to provide evidence to support its campus rape campaign. It belatedly agreed to allow the event to take place. However, it warned there might be security costs for the organisers. The Liberal Club is hoping the -August 14 event still may happen but many details need to be settled with the university.

La Trobe, like universities around the country, has introduced new sexual assault services, training for staff and students in dealing with sexual assault and harassment and sexual consent courses for all students. A BendigoAdvertiser article in April quoted La Trobe spokesman Tim Mitchell pledging still more -action, feebly adding "the university's campuses and residences were overwhelmingly safe places to be".

"End Rape on Campus" was the slogan for yesterday's national rally against sexual violence at universities funded by the Nat-ional Union of Students' women's -department, using compulsory student union fees.

Tanya Plibersek joined the media clamour -promoting this event with her -womensagenda.-com.au article -titled "The time for decisive action on campus assault is now", noting the anniversary of the release of the AHRC survey data. "This disturbing -report found there are too many sexual assaults happening, too many going unreported and -nowhere near enough is being done to prevent and punish this abhorrent behaviour," she wrote. Her misleading tirade failed to -report the tiny sexual assault -numbers found in the survey, -instead claiming 145 reported rapes at -universities over the past five years.

Ironically, the justification for the expensive AHRC survey was the -dubious nature of such reports that were never subject to proper investigation.

Facts do not cease to exist -because they are ignored, wrote Aldous Huxley. There's a Stasiland quality to this conspiracy -between most mainstream media and universities as they kowtow to feminists and deny the truth about our safe university cam-puses - demonising young men in the process. Lying to young women about their safety is a sorry start to higher education for our bright young women.

SOURCE 





Hot summer on the way: map shows just how bad Australia's drought really is

These predictions are just speculation based on models that frequently get it wrong. It's just one of the routine scares that the BoM put out regularly to promote their global warming beliefs.

And note again the North/South split in rainfall, a regular oscillation.  Most of NSW and half of Victoria is in drought but rain is fine in nearly all Queensland. We have had quite a few rainy nights in Brisbane (Qld.) during July, even though our winters tend to be dry. The rain will swing South in due course and Brisbane will be dry



This is the map that shows just how desperate some areas of Australia are for drought-breaking rain - and there's no relief in sight with a hot, dry summer a certainty.

Looking at the past six months, large areas of NSW have experienced their lowest rainfall on record, and most of the rest of the state isn't far behind.

Almost all of NSW has received less than 20 per cent of its usual rainfall since January, and Australia as a whole just experienced its warmest and driest July in 20 years.

Weatherzone reports that Forbes, in NSW's central west, only received 0.8mm of rain at the beginning of the month and did not record any rainfall for the rest of July.

Meanwhile, extreme temperatures already recorded in NSW and south-east Queensland this winter look set to continue amid concerns a 'hot and deadly' summer is on the way.

ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes heatwave expert Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick told Weatherzone that Australians should be expecting extreme weather considering the dryness and warmth of the past few months.

'We are heading towards an El Nino summer, so we are more likely to have hotter and more extreme weather,' Dr Perkins-Kirkpatrick said. 'We should certainly be worried.'   

Temperatures so far this winter have been unusually high, with Sydney and large regions of eastern Australia encountering an average high of 19.8 degrees last month - 3.4 degrees more than what was expected, according to Weatherzone.

Sydney recorded 13 days where temperatures reached 20 degrees. The last time Sydney experienced such warm temperatures in July was back in 2013 with a record high of 19.5 degrees. 

With such a dry and warm July and above-average temperatures expected, the chances of El Ni¤o forming in spring is at 50 per cent - which is double the normal chance, according to Weatherzone.

Five of eight models indicate El Ni¤o levels will be reached in the southern hemisphere's springtime, while a sixth model says El Ni¤o will be reached in December.

This means Australia could be expecting even drier months and hotter temperatures as it heads towards spring and summer.

SOURCE 






Bureaucrats told: use gender-neutral speech

A major Victorian government department is promoting the first Wednesday of every month as "They Day", asking its 10,000 employees to avoid "gendered" language and instead refer to others using neutral pronouns such as "they" or "them".

In a move criticised for pushing political correctness and identity politics under the guise of inclusiveness, the Department of Health and Human Services has issued staff with stick-on badges featuring preferred pronouns and produced a short film to highlight the issue.

In a memo emailed to staff, which has been seen by The Australian, They Day is promoted as a "new recurring calendar event" aiming to create awareness of "gendered pronouns". "Non--binary identities are just as valid as binary gender identities," the email says. "Names don't always correspond to a person's gender. There may be a gap between a person's gender identity and your perception of the person. Saying `they' is more flowing and inclusive than saying `he' or `she'."

An initiative of the department's Pride Network, They Day follows the contentious -release of the government's Inclusive Language Guide in 2016 that discouraged the use of "heteronormative" terms such as "husband" and "wife".

Also aimed at public sector employees, the guide cautioned against assuming that everyone was heterosexual and recommended the use of alternative gender-neutral pronouns of "zie" and hir".

Victorian Equality Minister Martin Foley, a strong proponent of the language guide, declined yesterday to comment on They Day or whether he would encourage its rollout more broadly. A spokeswoman for the department said the Pride Network did not receive government or departmental funding for the event or the film, which features staff from various departments speaking about their preference for neutral pronouns.

"DHHS is proud to be an inclusive workplace," the spokeswoman said.

According to its latest annual report, the department is in the process of working towards achieving a "bronze" employer award in the Australian Workplace Equality Index in recognition of its LGBTI inclusion initiatives.

It is also considering labelling bathroom facilities to meet the specific needs of LGBTI employees who are non-binary, gender-fluid, transgender or intersex. The Pride Network is a volunteer organisation that has previously received one-off department funding to help acknowledge events of significance, such as World Aids Day and the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia.

It is understood that other departments will consider adopting They Day.

Opposition spokesman Tim Smith criticised the initiative yesterday, accusing the Andrews government of being "obsessed with political correctness". "The Department of Health needs to spend more time on running hospitals and less time on gendered pronouns," he said. "When or if they reduce surgery waitlists to zero, then they can worry about `pronoun badges'."

Centre for Independent Studies senior research fellow Jeremy Sammut described the initiative as a push by activists to "enforce speech codes to promote gender ideology".

"If you were speaking directly to someone you didn't know, you wouldn't rudely refer to them in conversation as `he' or `she', let alone `they': you would say `as you said', or `where are you from' which is natural and polite," he said. "They Day is therefore just politicising the language of everyday social interactions to promote the gender ideology and embed identity politics into daily life.

"I therefore think many people will resent this kind of kindergarten-style indoctrination and conscious-raising that is being dressed up as inclusiveness."

SOURCE 






Lessons for Italy from Australia

by Giulio Meotti

Four years ago, the Australian government sparked criticism after it ran an advertisement aimed at discouraging asylum seekers from traveling illegally to the country. "No Way", the poster read. "You will not make Australia home. If you get on a boat without a visa, you will not end up in Australia. Any vessel seeking illegally to enter Australia will be intercepted and safely removed beyond Australian waters".

It was an extremely tough message, but it worked. "Australia's migration rate is the lowest it's been in 10 years", said Peter Dutton, Australia's Home Affairs Minister. Speaking last week on the Today Show, Dutton added that the drop was about "restoring integrity to our border". The Australians are apparently happy about that. A new poll just revealed that 72% of voters support Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's immigration policy. Australia, a Western democracy, has for years, tried to deal with a migration crisis from the sea.

"Europeans think it's easy in Australia to control our borders, but they're just making up excuses for doing nothing themselves," said retired major general Jim Molan, co-author of Australia's asylum policy.

In 2013, Tony Abbott was elected Prime Minister under the slogan "Stop the boats". "Stop the boats" is now also the slogan of the new Italy's new Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini, who, since the formation of a new government last month, has been totally focused on curbing immigration from "the world's most lethal" route: across the Mediterranean.

It would seem that the best possible model for Europe to implement is a skills-based immigration system to curb the illegal one.

Last year, EU officials came to Australia for help. At a recent summit, European Union member states agreed to copy the Australian model of turning back the migrant boats and sending them to third-countries, to centers there run by local authorities, on the model of the Manus Regional Processing Centre in Papua New Guinea, which was used to house migrants turned away from Australia. Italy is now looking to create similar reception centers on the southern border of Libya.

Fran‡ois Crepeau, the U.N. special rapporteur on migrant human rights, urged Europe not to view Australia as a model; he labelled the idea "cruel, inhuman and degrading". Stopping migrants from dying at sea, however, is the opposite of cruelty; it is humanity. "We have got hundreds, maybe thousands of people drowning in the attempts to get from Africa to Europe", Abbott said. The "only way you can stop the deaths is in fact to stop the boats".

Australia's Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, explained that "we are not going to accept people who have sought to come to our country illegally by boat". Humanitarians, as Abbott put it, were helping them in the name of a "misguided altruism".

Under the government of Australia's former Prime Minister Julia Gilliard, in May 2013, Australia excised even the mainland from its migration zone. This meant that migrants might be sent to the detention facilities abroad even if their ships landed.

The Australian model is not only based on keeping the borders safe and prioritizing highly-skilled immigrants. It also revolves around the idea of a cultural legacy that migrants have to embrace. Prime Minister Turnbull says he wants a test, for immigrants, of "Australian values", including questions on whether it is acceptable to strike your spouse, ban girls from education, or carry out female genital mutilation (FGM).

In multicultural Europe, the same test would be taboo. Turnbull has called to "defend" these Australian values. Preserving the nation-state and its cultural Western tradition, he says, is necessary to assimilate the migrants. "My long experience in Australian politics has been that whenever a government is seen to have immigration flows under control, public support for immigration increases, when the reverse occurs hostility to immigration rises" former Australian Prime Minister John Howard wrote.

As Italy is now dealing with boats from Africa trying to reach its shores, it might be helpful to remind the public that Australia also started with the "Tampa Affair": In 2001, Australia prevented a Norwegian boat, which had rescued hundreds of asylum-seekers in the Indian Ocean, from bringing them to Australia. It is called, "the boat that changed it all". The immigration minister at the time, Philip Ruddock, warned Australians that 10,000 people from the Middle East were preparing to embark boats from Asia to Australia. The Australian government ignored a request by the United Nations to let the refugees set foot on their island.

Public opinion stood behind the government. Since, several decades ago, the first wave of "boat people" from Vietnam (1976-81) was received by the Australian public with sympathy, new arrivals quickly became a matter of increasing concern, as is happening now in Europe. Since then, Australia's policy to solve its own migration crisis has been, "no resettlements, no boats".

Following the Tampa Affair, the defining elements of Australia's future policy were put into place:

"Islands were excised from the Australian migration zone to prevent asylum seekers lodging visa applications; detention centres were set up on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island and the tiny and bankrupt republic of Nauru; and a reluctant Navy was engaged to intercept and turn back vessels containing asylum seekers".

Italy faces a new potential wave of 700,000 migrants currently in Libya. The Italian government should now follow Australia's example.

It is with a heavy heart that I am making these suggestions. It must be crushing to live in a country where governance might be questionable at best, and economic opportunities limited, if that. People know they are risking their life in search of a better break. But if the West is not to be overwhelmed, these problems seriously need to be addressed.

Illegal immigration is bad for Europe -- and bad for migrants, as well.

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