Australian Politics
Sunday, July 31, 2022
Plans to light up one of Australia’s most famous war memorials in rainbow colours are SCRAPPED after ‘hateful’ threats and abuse aimed at staff
Plans to light up Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance in rainbow colours have been abandoned after staff were subjected to 'hateful' threats and abuse.
The display was intended to commemorate LGBTQI people in service as part of the upcoming exhibition Defending with Pride, which chronicles their stories of denial and exclusion, along with recognition and inclusion.
The Shrine of Remembrance organisation announced on Saturday afternoon that while the exhibition and Last Post service scheduled for Sunday would go ahead, the lighting of its colonnades would not.
'Over several days, our staff have received and been subject to sustained abuse and, in some cases, threats,' chief executive officer Dean Lee said.
'We have seen something of what members of the LGBTIQ+ community experience every day. It is hateful.'
In the interests of minimising harm, the shrine sought guidance from partners and others including veteran associations, the Victorian government, and representatives of the LGBTQI veteran community.
Some media commentators and members of the community opposed the light show.
Mr Lee noted that, 50 years ago, creating a memorial to women's service was controversial and opposed by many, as was the introduction of an annual service commemorating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
'We are proud to recognise and celebrate the history and service of LGBTIQ+ people, something that has traditionally been absent or under-represented within Australia's war memorials,' he said.
'A decade ago, conversations around veteran suicide were taboo, yet today it is the subject of a Royal Commission.
'Society's values change, and the Shrine is a participant in that change and will continue its efforts to honour the service and sacrifice of all who have served Australia.'
The shrine's pride exhibition officially runs from August until July 2023.
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Crazy primary curriculum
Stressed school principals are demanding changes to the new national curriculum, warning it is “impossible to teach” and can be nonsensical to students.
Blasting education bureaucrats for imposing “cruel’’ workloads, the Australian Primary Principals Association has blamed a confusing curriculum, red tape and “micromanagement’’ for driving teachers out of the profession.
“The current primary and early childhood curriculum is too crowded (and) impossible to teach if taken literally,’’ APPA has told the Productivity Commission review of the national school reform agreement.
“We call for rethink of the primary and early childhood curriculum (to create) a curriculum which is coherent and makes sense to teachers and students.
“Where is the space for play, for wonder?’’
Criticism of the curriculum, which was updated in April after a two-year review, comes as federal Education Minister Jason Clare prepares to meet his state and territory colleagues next month to troubleshoot the teacher shortage.
APPA said principals and teachers felt “confined by a morass of measurement which kills initiative and creativity’’.
“In recent years, the intensification of the workload for principals has been cruel,’’ it states in its submission to the Productivity Commission review.
“When the bureaucracy is organised in silos, each of which transmits their edicts to schools without the crucial test of practicality, this adds to the intensification of work.’’
APPA said education departments were “constantly measuring … in the hope that results come from increased micromanagement’’.
“Instead of creating flourishing organisations, this results in mediocrity, in a measurement-induced mire as schools struggle to respond,’’ it said.
APPA president Malcolm Elliott said literacy and numeracy must remain the “the foundation stones of learning’’.
But Mr Elliot described the revised curriculum – which had its content cut by 20 per cent in April – as a “millstone around people’s necks’’.
He said teachers were disappointed that former Coalition education minister Dan Tehan’s pledge to “take a chainsaw to the curriculum’’ had failed to make it much simpler.
“It’s a huge document and teachers are overburdened,’’ he told The Weekend Australian.
“The volume of the documentation is less, but the workload has been little reduced, if at all.
“It has to be cut back considerably and expressed much more simply in ways that everyone can understand and follow and implement.’’
The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority did not consult directly with APPA in revising the curriculum, but met regularly with the National Peak Parents and Principals Forum, of which APPA is a member.
ACARA chief executive David de Carvalho said the new curriculum had involved “extensive consultation and input from subject, curriculum and teacher experts, including primary teachers and experts’’.
“The primary years’ content was reviewed through two dedicated primary reference groups,’’ he said.
“In addition, 47 volunteer primary schools and their teachers tested the updated primary curriculum … to ensure it was user-friendly for generalist primary teachers.
“During the project, primary teachers said the new curriculum was more manageable and they particularly liked the separation of the Foundation year (kindy or prep) and appreciated the focused time to plan and develop a deep understanding of learning areas across Foundation to year 6.’’
The ninth version of the curriculum – the first update in six years – appears to be clearer than the previous version.
For example, the previous year 8 syllabus required students to “recognise that vocabulary choices contribute to the specificity, abstraction and style of texts”.
In the current version, they must “identify and use vocabulary typical of academic texts”.
The ACARA website describes the new curriculum as “three-dimensional; it includes learning areas, general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities’’, with an “inline glossary with in-built definitions’’.
Mr Elliott warned that Australia’s teacher shortage was at crisis point, with a relief teacher in regional NSW having to teach five combined classes this week.
“In some schools in NSW, positions have been left unfilled for longer than a year because they’re unable to find people to take up those roles,’’ he told The Weekend Australian.
“Schools in NSW that would usually be regarded as very highly desirable are unable to fill positions because teachers can’t afford to live within commuting distance – they can’t find anything to rent and they can’t afford to buy.’’
Mr Elliott said some states had underestimated the teacher shortage because out-of-date teacher registration lists included those who had retired or died.
He said APPA’s survey of 2590 principals last year, conducted by the Australian Catholic University, found that half worked at least 56 hours a week, with a quarter working at least 61 hours a week during school term, and work during school holidays averaging 21 hours a week.
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Trapped in a climate fantasy: We actually need coal and gas
Here are four fundamental, unacknowledged realities underlying our energy, climate change and economic situation.
One. Coal is not a stranded asset. It is booming worldwide. The amount of traded coal is increasing. The share of global electricity coal generates has barely moved in 30 years, despite intense Western efforts to end financing for coal.
Two. This is true of fossil fuels generally. The percentage of global electricity generated by gas is rising.
Three. Australia’s economy is totally dependent on exports of gas, coal, iron ore and other minerals. Nothing can replace this. Without it, our social spending, defence, aid would all be unaffordable.
Four. The push for renewable energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is overwhelming in developed countries and strong in developing countries. However, if the world, or Australia, is to get anywhere near net zero, this will come at enormous financial cost and reduced living standards. This may be a sacrifice worth making to save the planet, but enormous costs are inevitable.
It is perhaps surprising that the political leader making the strongest effort to integrate these disparate realities into some kind of coherent policy is actually the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. It’s important if Australian policy is to have any coherence that Albanese holds sway within his own party. It’s a perplexing feature of the new government that Albanese seems to be alone in making the case that new coal and gas projects should be approved because Australian coal is cleaner – that is, generates fewer emissions per unit of energy – than any coal that might replace it. And gas is cleaner than coal. That Albanese seems alone in advocating this proposition, which is Labor policy, is dangerous for the ALP.
It may be that his long involvement with the infrastructure portfolio has endowed Albanese with a deeper familiarity and appreciation than most left-wing politicians have of wealth creation rather than just redistribution.
A great deal of our climate debate is based on falsehoods, ignores fundamental facts and avoids realistic international comparisons. It’s commonly claimed Australia has lost a decade due to the climate wars and most other nations are thus far ahead of us. This is complete baloney based on a failure to take note of the most elementary facts of international life. In most developed nations, including Australia, greenhouse gas emissions have been either steady or declining for more than a decade.
The great big growth in emissions is in developing and middle income nations like China, India and Indonesia. In case those who claim we are uniquely disadvantaged haven’t noticed, most of Western Europe, which has gone much further in de-industrialising and embracing renewables than we have, is suffering a crippling energy crisis.
Western Europe depends on Russian gas. Germany used Russian gas to enable it to close coal-fired power stations and, very foolishly, nuclear power stations. The most stable nation in energy is France, because it relies so heavily on nuclear energy. Germany, like other Europeans, has restarted coal-fired power stations.
Germany wants to sanction Russia, but then objects to Russia not selling it more gas. Germany demonises fossil fuels but is completely dependent on gas. There is a parallel in Australia. Victorian Premier Dan Andrews wants more Queensland gas. But Victoria would be producing its own gas if his government had not placed so many prohibitions, restrictions and moratoriums on gas.
Russia is making as much money as ever from its energy exports. It sells energy to non-Western nations which are not boycotting it, such as China and India. And the gas it still sells to Europe it sells at sky high prices. Far from the West crippling Russia through energy sanctions, Moscow has intentionally turned down the volume of gas it will send to Europe, both to put Europe under pressure and to prevent Europe from filling up its gas reserves heading into winter.
As a result, the European Union has made a deal among its members to voluntarily reduce gas consumption by 15 per cent. But if it’s a cold winter in Europe, watch out for big domestic political trouble. In Britain, Tory leadership front runner Liz Truss is promising to cut green energy levies because of soaring energy prices, and inflation generally.
And in the United States, far from the climate wars being over, Joe Biden cannot get his climate plans legislated. The Democrats won the White House and both the Senate and the House of Representatives and yet the US political system will not pass Biden’s climate measures. Republicans are overwhelmingly likely to win the House in November and more narrowly favoured to win the Senate. That puts Biden’s climate agenda into complete reverse.
Canada has less political division over the issue but its big adjustments are ahead.
More here:
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Calls to review transgender treatment for kids after British Tavistock Clinic is closed
Australian gender clinics are under fresh scrutiny and face calls for an independent review of their prescription of puberty blockers to teenagers after a leading British clinic was closed down over safety concerns.
The ordered close of the Tavistock Clinic – the model for treating trans people around the world – on Thursday followed concerns raised by doctors that young patients were being referred on to a gender transitioning path too quickly and that there was insufficient evidence as to the long-term cognitive and physical impacts of puberty blockers.
With several major Australian gender clinics based at children’s hospitals having been strongly influenced by the Tavistock Clinic, some doctors say the findings of the British review by Dr Hilary Cass are likely to apply equally in Australia amid a dominance of a “gender affirming” approach to treating gender dysphoria.
Some of the nation’s leading trans clinics, including the centre at the Royal Melbourne’s Children Hospital, defended their methods on Friday and said they followed best Australian practice.
Queensland paediatrician Dylan Wilson said the closing of Tavistock should lead to Australian authorities reconsidering the treatment of children experiencing gender dysphoria.
“The concerns that have been raised with the UK Tavistock Clinic translate directly to the same concerns that can be applied to gender clinics here in Australia,” Dr Wilson said.
“The fact that Dr Cass noted that there is insufficient evidence to recommend puberty blockers but they have been used by gender clinics in Australia is of huge concern.
“They are now only going to be used in the UK as part of research trials with significant ethical oversight which is the same pathway that Sweden has followed, but the gender clinics in Australia continue unabated to prescribe them on a regular basis without any oversight or scrutiny whatsoever.
“The concern is that children are, as the Cass report found, instantly socially and medically affirmed without any exploration of any other diagnoses or contributing factors to their gender identity being considered, which means as soon as they are affirmed as children that are transgender, they are placed along a pathway which leads them to medical treatment, and medical treatment pathway leads them to lifelong medicalisation.”
The National Association of Practising Psychiatrists – which has adopted a cautious, psychotherapy-first approach to treating gender dysphoria – is also calling for a review of gender clinics in Australia.
“The longer-term studies of what happens to children and adolescents when they’re treated with puberty blockers is not known. The evidence base is lacking,” said association president Philip Morris.
Public gender clinics in Australia all say puberty blockers and hormone therapy is prescribed only after comprehensive clinical assessment.
The Royal Melbourne Hospital’s gender clinic led by Michelle Telfer, head of the hospital’s Department of Adolescent Medicine and director of the RCH Gender Service, developed the Australian standards of care for the treatment of gender dysphoria.
The hospital says the clinic’s service “is underpinned by research methodology to monitor outcomes that will continuously inform best practice”. Critics say published research on the long-term outcomes of hormone treatment of children is non-existent.
“We will continue to closely monitor how services nationally and internationally develop and evolve, and welcome all actions that ensure that trans children and young people continue to receive the highest possible quality of care, regardless of where they live,” a hospital spokesman said.
The Children’s Hospital at Westmead in Sydney, which has a trans and gender diverse service, said all patients referred to the clinic underwent a specialised and comprehensive assessment involving consultation with specialists in psychological medicine, adolescent medicine and endocrinology.
“Children are only ever considered for stage 1 treatment (puberty blockers) once this assessment has taken place and in close consultation with the patient, parents and treating medical teams. This treatment is reversible,” a hospital spokesperson said.
Transcend Australia, an organisation that supports trans, gender diverse and non-binary children, rejected the calls for a review and said Australian standards of care had been developed by best practice.
Transcend Australia chief executive Jeremy Wiggins said treatment often gave young people a chance to consider their identify for longer and said the effects of puberty blockers were reversible.
“The treatment is highly considered and given to people who demonstrate that they meet the criteria for gender dysphoria. It is considered for them to be lifesaving treatment so they can continue and get on with their lives,” he said.
“I’d be concerned for any government in any country to remove access to treatment for a highly vulnerable population.”
The close of the Tavistock Clinic comes as Dr Cass recommends a shift to a more “holistic” mode of care amid concerns that other clinical presentations including mental health issues were “overshadowed” when gender was raised by children referred to the clinic.
Puberty blockers will now only be able to be prescribed in the UK as part of a clinical trial that follows children until adulthood.
“Puberty blockers, rather than acting as a “pause button” allowing children time to explore their identity, seem to lock them into a medicalised treatment pathway,” Dr Cass’s interim report said.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
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