Rugby Australia is between a rock and a hard place

They are facing  the prospect of penalizing Bible quotations.  What Folau said is straight from Romans chapter 1. An attack on   the Bible is normally swerved away from by even the most "correct" bodies.  On the other hand the intolerant Left WANTS them to penalize Bible quotations they do not like.

And there are two additional factors.  Tearing up Folau's contract could end up sending them broke.  Rugby does not have a big following anywhere.  The big football codes in Australia are AFL and League.  So Rugby cannot afford to get it wrong. 

And the second factor is that there are a lot of Polynesian players.  Polynesians are often big men who are good at football.  And many Polynesians are also strong Christians who agree with Folau about homosexuals.  Some have threatened to strike if Folau is penalized.  So losing their best players is a prospect facing Rugby.  Will the fans turn out for second-string players?

So you see why the negotiations are not getting anywhere.  I think Rugby will have to back down.  If they do they will probably find that the Leftists are just a paper tiger after all


Israel Folau's family have defended him as his code of conduct hearing is set to continue for a third day, after no decision was made on whether his multi-million dollar contract should be ripped up.

The landmark hearing will resume on Tuesday following a weekend stalemate at Rugby Australia (RA) headquarters in Sydney.

The 30-year-old's loved ones have spoken out in support of his controversial social media posts, insisting it comes from a place of love, not hate.

Just four months into his four-year contract, Folau turned down a lucrative $1million settlement offer to end his row with RA, 7NEWS reported.

'The important thing for us is not so much the outcome, but how the glory of God is revealed throughout this situation and that his truth is preached to the whole world,' his cousin Josiah Folau said.

His father Eni Folau, a pastor at the family's Christian church insists that his son has done nothing wrong.

'Israel does not do any wrong at all, all the words he posted doesn't come from him, it comes from the Bible,' Mr Folau said.

Both his family and fellow church-goers insist the rugby star is pure at heart and a decent man.

They believe what he posted is not 'hate speech' but comes from a place of love, trying to 'save souls'. 

A three-person panel, with representatives from RA and the Rugby Union Players' Association, are determining Folau's fate on the field.

RA chief executive Raelene Castle was asked to provide further evidence on Sunday, with NSW Waratahs supremo Andrew Hore also called on as more than 15 hours of legal jousting wasn't enough for the three-person panel.

Folau is fighting to save his career after Castle issued the dual international with a 'high-level' breach notice last month and threatened to tear up his four-year, $4 million contract following his latest round of inflammatory social media posts.

Last month Folau took to Instagram to proclaim 'hell awaits drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolators' unless they repent and turn to Jesus.

The full-back of Tongan descent was warned by RA last year after sharing a similar homophobic post that claimed gays were destined for hell.

Folau is being represented by high-profile solicitor Ramy Quatami and barrister Adam Casselden, who recently worked on the coronial inquest into the murder-suicide of Sydney family Maria Lutz and her children Ellie and Martin at the hands of their father Fernando Manrique in 2016.

The three-person panel is made up of chair John West QC, RA representative Kate Eastman SC and the Rugby Union Players' Association-elected John Boultbee.

If the tribunal determines that Folau has breached his contract, the panel must then decide if the breach was severe enough to terminate his career.  

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UnelectaBill: voters still baulking at unpopular Bill Shorten, poll reveals

Leftist Professor Peter van Onselen is grieving:

After a week in which the Coalition was plagued by candidate problems, notwithstanding Labor having problems of its own, and the opposition appeared to find some momentum, it is interesting that the two party vote of the government didn’t slip in the latest Newspoll.

It stayed steady on 49 per cent compared to Labor’s 51 per cent.

The explanation has to be the unpopularity of the Opposition Leader Bill Shorten. It sharply cuts through with voters. His net satisfaction rating is minus 18 compared with Scott Morrison who is on minus one. And Shorten trails Morrison on the better PM rating by a full 11 points. It really does seem like some voters are baulking at the idea of a Shorten prime ministership.

Yes Morrison is a one-man band, and his lack of a team should concern voters. But in presidential style campaigning Shorten’s strong team around him can’t paper over the perceived limitations of the leader.

All that remains to be seen is whether Shorten’s drag on Labor’s vote turns the victory into an ugly win, or the unthinkable happens and Morrison manufactures the biggest political comeback in Australian history.

The former remains the most likely outcome.

With only one more Newspoll to go before Election Day, were the Coalition to get back to level pegging, or even edge in front, it really would be the political equivalent of the try after the siren in a football match.

Most people have lost count of the number of consecutive Newspolls the Coalition has trailed in. When Malcolm Turnbull surpassed Tony Abbott’s fail in this respect it seemed like the Coalition would never work it’s way back into the lead.

When Turnbull started to defy the nay sayers and clawed the government back to within striking distance — four consecutive Newspoll results of 49-51 per cent — the geniuses on the had right of the party orchestrated a coup to try and install Peter Dutton as leader.

Fortunately for the viability of the Liberal Party that attempt failed, and Turnbull supporters realising their man was damaged goods threw their support behind a third candidate, Morrison.

In the aftermath of the coup the government’s polling support slipped well away, but it has now twice matched Turnbull’s final four polls, doing so less than two weeks out from the election.

We’ll see if Morrison can score that last minute try next week, snatching victory from the jaws of what has long looked like certain defeat.

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Here’s a warning: voter beware of that old vision thing

Let’s face it, campaign launches are like really bad theatre. Staged, corny, silly plots, bad jokes and all the while the politicians think we should be ­impressed. Here’s a hint: most voters aren’t even interested.

But the parties will go through the motions, wheeling out former party luminaries like an extended Weekend at Bernie’s.

In the case of Labor, there didn’t seem to be any embarrassment about bringing out arch-enemies Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, whose combined terms of government were associated with some of the costliest and least effective policies ever introduced by any government. We are just expected to ignore the fiscal fiasco those six years involved.

And there was former treasurer Wayne Swan, in the front row, whom Rudd described as not being up to the job, had not grown in the job and had only got the job because of a factional deal. That’s what friendship and loyalty must mean in Labor circles.

The most depressing thing about Labor’s launch in Brisbane yesterday is that nothing seems to have been learnt from those chaotic Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. There is no realisation that the vision thing is akin to the failure to concede that big government interventions have a habit of going off the rails — they cost a fortune without achieving their aims.

Take an oldie but a baddie — another wage subsidy scheme to assist the unemployed get jobs. Labor is proposing to subsidise small businesses with turnover up to $10 million that take on young or older unemployed persons or parents or carers trying to get back into the workforce. Businesses will be able to claim an extra 30 per cent tax deduction on the salaries for up to five employees.

We know where these schemes end: they are rorted, one class of worker gets jobs at the expense of others and the net effect on the unemployment rate of the subsidised groups is close to zero. Yet Labor is rolling out yet another version at the same time that its advocacy of a living wage will make it harder for small businesses to employ workers.

Reintroducing demand-driven university enrolment is also another expensive mistake. We have seen graduate employment prospects and salaries plummet with the increasing number of graduates, many from courses of dubious quality and content. Opening up the flood gates again will make this situation even worse while exacerbating the crisis hitting vocational education.

Finally, there is an element of high farce in Labor’s Australian Investment Guarantee that provides a 20 per cent instant asset write-off for capital expenditure over $20,000. Evidently, we are expected to believe that 77,000 new jobs will be created and average earnings will rise by 2.4 per cent.

Here’s the thing: if Labor believes this, it must also believe lower company taxes create new jobs and increase earnings. Yet it refused to pass cuts to company tax while in opposition even though Bill Shorten is on record as supporting them.

Add in lots of economic pie-shrinking additional taxes as well as the 45 per cent emissions cut and the scene is set for a re-run of the RGR years or possibly worse. As they say, cave suffragator — voter beware.

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Contradictions aplenty among top-end-of-town Greens

If the Australian Greens were called the Australian Browns, or the Australian Purples, would so many people vote for them? I doubt it, and I reckon a lot of people vote “green” because they don’t like to think about politics — who can blame them? — and, well, the word green sounds nice. Grass is green, trees are green. It’s the colour of nature, growth and life.

But most Greens voters don’t live anywhere near greenery. They are surrounded by brown, and grey, in the hum of traffic congestion, as far removed from ­nature as possible, in the centres of our large and crowded cities.

The typical Greens voter worries about climate change but lives in a concrete jungle where the evidence of damage to the environment is all around.

The typical Greens voter is happy to limit enterprise and growth to allegedly save the ­planet. But through an app on their smartphone, they are likely to pay someone on a motorbike to bring them a vegan burger.

Your typical Greens voter likes to echo feel-good theories and support the introduction of rules that other people should pay for and live by. But just how far will they go when it comes time to vote? When it comes down to it, at this election, will Greens voters cut into their own incomes and ­assets by voting to increase their own tax bills?

The Greens party is not doing as well as it used to. The latest Roy Morgan Poll (of 1533 electors Australia-wide) shows Greens support at 9.5 per cent. At the 2010 federal election, Greens support reached a peak of 11.8 per cent. Roy Morgan research shows that Greens supporters are increasingly female (60 per cent). Eight years ago polling showed ­female support at 55 per cent. In 2010 under two-thirds of Greens supporters lived in capital cities but now more than 70 per cent of supporters live in them. In the past decade the share of Greens support coming from NSW, South Australia and Tasmania has dropped.

Now nearly a third of Greens supporters reside in Victoria; their numbers have swelled from just over a quarter in 2010. Greens leader Richard Di Natale has ­focused on inner-urban seats in Victoria’s capital, including Melbourne, Batman/Cooper, Melbourne Ports/Macnamara, Koo­yong, Higgins and Wills.

Roy Morgan data gathered from more than 4000 Greens ­voters in 2010 and last year shows that the party’s supporters are quite well off. Greens voters are pushing increasingly into higher income brackets at a faster rate than everyone else.

Roy Morgan figures on household income show that in 2010, while the median household ­income of all electors was $88,540, the median household income of Greens voters was $93,910.

Last year the figures show the median household income of all electors is $106,930. This is an ­increase of $18,390, or 21 per cent. However, the median household income of Greens voters is $120,880, representing a rise of $26,970, or 29 per cent.

So Greens voters earn more than everyone else and their ­incomes are rising at a higher rate. Greens voters are the dreaded “top end of town” and they are contributing to, and benefiting from, the terrible widening inequality that their chosen party keeps going on about.

Green, the colour of nature, is the colour of American money, too.

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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