The sinister suppression of the Freedom of Speech in China is  not too dissimilar to the restrictions of freedoms in Australia and New Zealand

Ron Owen

While Israel Folau explores legal avenues, the broader fight for freedom of religion and belief continues.

Supposedly, the new federal parliament is now in session and the government is promising religious freedom legislation. I will only believe that their intentions are honourable when not just 18 C of the Racial Discrimination Act is removed, but when all of this Act is removed, plus the all inclusive State Anti Discrimination Acts are removed.

These Acts do not just suppress the freedom of speech, they create public funded witch hunt inquisitions that use the power of the State to create legal precedents that nullify any safeguards that were put in these Acts to sell them to the dumbed down majority.

Just recently, a man described as the “UK’s Israel Folau” recently won a similar case, the British Justice system must not be as polluted as ours in Australia.

Christian student Felix Ngole was expelled from his social work course at Sheffield University for posting comments critical of homosexuality on Facebook.

After fighting a four-year legal battle, the UK Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of Ngole.

The decision, which overturned an earlier High Court ruling in the university’s favour, found that “the University adopted a position from the outset… which was untenable” and that the university “wrongly confused the expression of religious views with the notion of discrimination.”

The presiding judges pointed out that “The mere expression of views on theological grounds (e.g. that ‘homosexuality is a sin’) does not necessarily connote that the person expressing such views will discriminate on such grounds.”

Ngole’s comments were made in the course of a debate on Facebook over the jailing of US marriage registrar Kim Davis. Davis, you might recall, refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in Kentucky and was jailed briefly for contempt of court in 2015.

Our Australian courts have always taken the opposite view ‘that if any person could be offended, no matter how slightly then there is breach of the Act which has to be prosectured.

Senator Eric Abetz describes this sort of  discrimination correctly:

“In an exercise of Orwellian proportions, these sports stars were targeted for exclusion in the name of inclusion and discriminated against in the name of tolerance. You don’t have to agree with Izzy to agree with his right to express his religious views, or his wife’s right to back him.”

The Senator then outlined why the Folau precedent is a threat to our freedom.

“Today it’s Izzy’s religious views and his wife’s loyal support. Yesterday it was the Professor Ridd’s scientific views. Tomorrow it might be somebody’s political view. The next might be someone’s environmental view. This is a fight for freedom of speech which impacts us all. The government must, and I am confident will, respond to the expressions of the quiet Australians on 18 May and ensure our freedoms, which were bought with the highest of prices, are not sacrificed and squandered on the altar of political correctness.”

Any normal Australian who does not have the financial backing or profile of Andrew Bolt or Israel Folau stands no chance before government selected Tribunals, composed of one person.

Their selection is not based on their knowledge but on their opinion and in most of the Tribunals the Rule of law and the Rules of evidence do not apply. One Tribunal member in my case bragged from the bench that he could take his opinion on evidence presented from what he read in the morning papers and ignore whatever I presented in my defence.

We do not have a Constitutional Monarchy, or a Constitutional democracy when we cannot comment or we are prevented from reading comments from others, without the freedom ot interchange information we are no better off than the Chinese people, or the Hong Kong people, the difference in the degrees of suppression we are in is just academic debate.

One Law For All

We are either one nation with equal justice for all, or no justice for those without government support. Government now will support Muslins, homosexuals, and people with a darker skin colour, but won’t support Christians, firearm owners, and white skinned people. That is Discrimination in itself.

If we had a correct justice system we are all at liberty to take any offence of Libel or Defamation to the civil courts, if the government wanted to do something right for once they could easily make the Justice system more affordable. Instead, they increase court fees and work to keep the legal profession exclusive.

Without Justice we have nothing to fight for, we are just slaves and unfortunately very soon we are going to have to fight to exist in our troubled world.

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Australia’s growing dam crisis

Australia is a dry continent – that is a fact of geography and global climate.

However, per head of population, we have abundant fresh water resources in rivers, lakes, dams, soils and underground. But we do not conserve enough of it, and much of what is conserved is wasted by foolish policies.

Politicians welcome (and sometimes subsidise) population growth, migrants, refugees and tourists but they neglect or prevent water conservation. And green schemers and globalist politicians are deliberately turning occasional water shortages into an on-going crisis.

Our main problem is that enormous volumes of flood water flow into the sea during rain events while the same rivers run dry during droughts. Sensible people would moderate both floods and droughts with well-planned dams and weirs.

Australia’s rainfall is not well distributed – usually there is abundant water on the coastal side of the ranges, but the vast inland is largely dry land and desert.

More than 80 years ago, Dr John Bradfield, the great Australian engineer who designed the Sydney Harbour Bridge, could see what was needed – build dams to catch water on the rainy side and transfer it to the dry side, preferably generating some hydro power in the process. Water transfer could be achieved using tunnels and/or pipes-pumps assisted by syphon, wind or hydro energy. We have engineers and equipment able to drill huge traffic tunnels – let’s show similar skill in water management and transfer.

Once we had people with the determination and skills needed to create farsighted water projects like the Snowy Mountain Scheme, the Ord Scheme, the Gordon Dam, the Burdekin Dam and the Perth Kalgoorlie Water Pipeline. Those days are past.

Today we have far more people but we are not conserving more water. It is 30 years since we build a large dam in Australia. And we neglect or waste underground water resources.

Urban dwellers demand cheap, clean, abundant water for long showers, washing dishes and cars, public and private pools, verdant lawns, fountains, gardens, parks, golf courses and weekend retreats.

However, many of these same people tend to lead the vocal opposition to any proposal for a new dam. They criticise farmers who conserve water to grow our food and fibre, and promote high water prices in order to crush farm demand for it.

A sensible society would identify the best dam sites and have a long-term plan for acquiring and storing the land rights needed for them. We do the reverse. Decisions are postponed until the need is critical. Then landowners with vested interests, green busybodies and media stirrers manage to scare the politicians, and the water conservation proposal is killed.

Then the “No Dams” Mafia takes over, trying to sterilise the site for all future dams by quietly changing land-use and vegetation classifications.

Sydney shows how to create a water shortage such as the current one that caused the sudden weekend imposition of water restrictions. We need to remember the history of this crisis.

Back in 2002 the Carr Labor government killed the proposal to build the Welcome Reef dam on the Shoalhaven River near Braidwood. To ensure this proposal never arose again Premier Carr gazetted 100 new national parks between the Bega Valley and Nowra.

Green destroyers have also grossly mismanaged stored water by insisting on excessive and ill-timed “environmental” flows. This is a scheme where you build a dam to catch water and then try to manage the water as if the dam did not exist. It is very slow and expensive to get this lost water back from the sea using the Flannery desalination plants.

We have businessmen who can spend millions of dollars on election advertisements and casinos, and politicians who can contemplate spending billions of dollars on games and stadiums, but they can always find an academic to debunk expenditure on a new dam.

American pioneers learned from the beavers how to preserve the life blood of rivers by building weirs. Our stressed Darling River has such a low gradient that a string of weirs could preserve the river environment and sensibly ration available water supplies for fish, farmers and wildlife. And it has tributaries that could support dams.

However Greens and fellow travellers can be guaranteed to oppose every new dam or weir proposal. Judging from overseas trends, they will soon be suggesting that existing dams be destroyed. If they can find a rare frog or a native plant, or can invent a dreamtime story, any dam proposal can be delayed for decades.

It is time for real conservation – conserve our water.

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Stop Sarah Jane Parkinson getting early parole

Bettina Arndt

First some news about the Sarah Jane Parkinson case. You may remember that Parkinson was sent to prison in January for false rape allegations she made against Dan Jones. I made a video with Dan and Sixty Minutes did a whole programme on her outrageous attempt to destroy Dan and his family.

The latest development is that Parkinson has applied for early parole and has requested she is transferred to the NSW Parole Board for administration, which means she will be close to her boyfriend, the crooked NSW cop who helped with her vicious campaign.

At the time of the parole hearing on September 3 she will have served only 8 months of her two-year non-parole period. As a result of her lies, Dan spent four months in jail plus three months home arrest and the family spent over $300,000 on legal fees defending their son.

The ACT Department of Public Prosecution has written expressing concern about her parole application, noting she has a history of manipulating the system. But I hope many of you will help alert the public to what is happening here. Canberra people can help by writing to local newspapers, lobbying MPs, and ringing radio stations.

It’s worth trying to get the word out through social media. Perhaps also write to the ACT Attorney General, Gordon Ramsay - RAMSAY@act.gov.au – who claims publicly to be working with the Jones family regarding compensation for wrongful imprisonment but fails to respond to any of their correspondence.

The Jones family has legal help to pursue Dan’s case for compensation, but no decision has yet been made in relation to the ex-gratia payment from the ACT Government.

Via email from Bettina Arndt: Bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au






Federal, state ministers strike deal on building reforms

The Morrison government says it has thrashed out a deal with the states to introduce tougher regulation of the nation’s construction industry, paving the way for the possible resolution of a crisis in insurance coverage.

Industry Minister Karen Andrews said today the government had reached an agreement with her state counterparts to implement all 24 recommendations of the Shergold-Weir report on the state of the building industry.

The most critical recommendations of the report co-authored by the former top Howard government bureaucrat were to improve compliance with approved building materials, site documentation and rectify all buildings identified to have combustible cladding.

Ms Andrews confirmed an agreement had been reached prior to a meeting in Sydney with state building ministers.

Insurers, who have refused to renew indemnity policies for many building certifiers or significantly increases premiums because of a flood of claims, said they welcomed an agreement.

But their support would depend on the speed with which the agreement could take effect with all recommendations put in place.

States warned cladding their problem

Earlier Ms Andrews warned states not to shirk responsibility for fixing millions of dollars worth of flammable cladding and other defects, citing the billions in revenue they have received from the construction boom over the past decade.

The warning comes ahead of an emergency meeting of building ministers today in Sydney, as Ms Andrews ramps up her opposition to any push by states for the commonwealth to provide funding to fix buildings.

The ministers will also discuss the inability of construction certifiers to obtain insurance, following several cladding-fuelled fires in Melbourne apartment buildings and structural faults that have caused the evacuation of a number of buildings in Sydney.

On Tuesday, Victoria’s Andrews Labor government announced a $600 million cladding rectification package, but pressured the Morrison government to fund half of it.

Victorian Planning Minister Richard Wynne argued yesterday that it was “only fair” for the federal government to contribute $300m. His Coalition counterpart, Tim Smith, accused him of trying to absolve Victoria of responsibility after Mr Wynne unsuccessfully asked him to sign a bipartisan letter­ to Ms Andrews calling for a “nationally led” solution.

While Ms Andrews has indic­ated the federal government is happy to lead a process to ­harmonise state and territory building regulations, she said the states had the capacity to ensure the safety of their own buildings.

Victoria’s stamp duty revenue from property grew to more than $7 billion in the 2018-19 state budget, doubling over the past decade, with overall property taxes repres­enting approximately 17 per cent of total state revenue.

“States have been big beneficiaries of the building and construction boom over the past decade,” Ms Andrews told The Australian. “Now is not the time for them to shirk their responsibilities.”

But Labor’s industry spokesman Brendan O’Connor turned the accusation against the Mor­rison government, saying it had been “shirking responsibility” by refusing to provide funding for rectification works and failing to address the inability of building surveyors to obtain insurance.

“Each day the Morrison government fails to take leadership and respond to the building industry crisis, businesses are closing down, the safety and lives of Australians are put at risk,” Mr O’Connor said. “The regulatory and enforcement regime is broken, and leadership on this issue is needed to improve compliance with the national construction code and toughen up penalties.”

Ms Andrews said today’s meeting was a chance for the states and territories “to demonstrate once and for all that they are committed to working together to ensure a nationally consistent building sector”, and imple­menting the recommendations of the federal government-commissioned investigation into compli­ance and enforcement in the nation’s construction industry, completed last year by Peter Shergold­ and Bronwyn Weir.

“I will again offer to fund a taskforce that will work with the states and territories so they can implement the recommendations of the Building Confidence ­report,” Ms Andrews said.

The letter from Mr Wynne, circulated to Mr Smith last month and obtained by The Australian, says “state protections can only go so far”, calling for a “nationally led solution”. It asks the commonwealth to “help support those Australians caught up in this crisis through no fault of their own”.

“As representatives at a state and national level, we are all responsible for giving people more faith in the building system. Even more importantly, it’s up to us to help keep people safe,” it says.

Mr Smith told The Australian: “The letter is littered with political points trying to absolve the Andrew­s government of any responsibi­lity for a mess they’ve created, and I refused to sign it. “It was clearly designed as a political manoeuvre to wedge me and the federal government.”

Mr Smith said there was a role for the federal government in regul­ating the building industry nationally. “But the federal governme­nt’s role is not to bail out state governments, particularly this state Labor government here in Victoria,” he said.

He also warned that $600m would not be “nearly enough” to address the problem, citing an RMIT University estimate suggest­ing it would cost at least $2.6bn to fix flammable cladding in Victorian buildings alone.

Mr Wynne said flammable cladding was “an international issue that should be above polit­ical point-scoring”.

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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