Australian Politics
Your bureaucracy will not protect you. (Their priority is to protect themselves)
A Tasmanian mother whose child has been living on a property with a man alleged to have sexually assaulted her two other children has been reunited with her child, after what she says is years of inaction from child protection authorities.
Ashley* signed her children into her mother's care about 12 years ago, when she was experiencing severe health issues that saw her go into a coma. "I basically signed them over because child protection came in and said, 'If you don't, we're going to have to put them into foster care'," she said.
About two years ago, one of Ashley's children disclosed her step-grandfather had been sexually abusing her for about a decade. Since then, Ashley says another one of her children has made a similar disclosure, and reported it to police.
Those two children came back into Ashley's care but her third child still remained at the property. Ashley said she had been contacting Tasmania's Department of Communities about her concerns for the third child's welfare since April 2020 but no action had been taken.
In June, she told the ABC that child safety officers had decided not to act because the step-grandfather was no longer living at the home. He had instead moved into a caravan parked on the property.
But soon after Ashley shared her story with the ABC, the department started investigating the grandmother and the child was returned to Ashley and her ex-partner's care.
"I went to the media. They only reacted and they only got involved again because [of it]," she said. "I wouldn't have got a call back at all if I didn't bring this to the media's attention."
Ashley said although she had been advised by a child protection worker that her case had been closed, she held "a lot of anger" that the department "didn't step in" sooner.
The Department of Communities said it was "inappropriate to discuss individual case matters relating to specific children and families".
More than 1,000 people from across the country came forward as part of a major ABC investigation into child protection failures this year.
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The picture that shows what it's REALLY like to have an electric car in Australia
The alarming photo, taken in Millers Point, in Sydney, exposes the potential safety issues raised by charging electric vehicles for some drivers - a problem only set to get worse as ownership increases.
The makeshift charging set-up involves a a yellow extension lead hanging off an upstairs balcony, then looped around the branch of a tree and plugged into a powerboard.
From there another lead lays in some bushes and in a gutter before being plugged into the Tesla.
The photo was posted by 2GB's Ben Fordham on his Facebook page, who described it as 'plate of spaghetti' and argued that makeshift set-ups like this are an 'accident waiting to happen'.
Fordham claimed the 'bizarre' scene raises the question of whether the infrastructure exists for people who don't have garages, or designated parking spots, to own EVs.
The man who took the photo told Fordham it looked like a scene from a third world country. 'I was walking down the street to work and couldn't believe my eyes
The radio host said a pattern is emerging of people trying to get involved in the EV 'revolution' but facing 'roadblocks'.
Those include people who don't have off-street parking to charge their car at night.
Fordham said scenes such as the 'bizarre' scene in the photograph will be even more common when millions of EVs are on the roads.
'Tangled power lines from people's houses - hanging along fences and dangling down trees. 'It's something you'd expect in a third world country.'
Even when charging stations are attached to power poles demand for access would cause problems, Fordham said.
NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean responded to the photo, saying 'fast charging infrastructure' would avoid owners having to take such drastic measures.
Fordham also claimed power supply would also be an issue. He said with coal fired power stations set to close the already overloaded system might not cope with millions of EVs charging at once.
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Europe detransitions: Australia left behind as Europe distances itself from extreme gender affirmation
An Australian obstetrician first warned the world of the dangers posed to unborn babies by the (then) widely prescribed maternal anti-nausea drug Thalidomide. Australia was relatively slow to halt its use – with devastating consequences still being felt decades on.
Today, despite warnings from clinicians in Australia and abroad, Australia risks repeating the same mistake over the medical treatment of children questioning their gender identity or suffering from gender dysphoria.
NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard, John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle, and Maple Leaf House Transgender and Gender Diversity Clinic for children were all scrutinised by committee chair Greg Donnelly in the Budget Estimates Hearing for Health last week.
Donnelly rang the alarm: ‘What we have in plain sight is an absolutely scandalous situation playing out in real time.’
Such warnings are not new. In 2019, the National Association of Practising Psychiatrists backed a call by paediatrician Professor John Whitehall and 257 other doctors for then federal Health Minister Greg Hunt to hold an inquiry into paediatric clinical interventions for gender dysphoria.
Since that unheeded call, the UK’s Cass Review into gender identity treatments for children, led by eminent paediatrician Dr Hillary Cass OBE, found puberty blockers have ‘unknown impacts on development, maturation, and cognition if a child or young person is not exposed to the physical, psychological, physiological, neurochemical, and sexual changes that accompany adolescent hormone surges’.
The UK’s Tavistock children gender clinic is now facing imminent closure as its service model was found by Dr. Cass to be fundamentally failing to provide appropriate care. Finland, France, and Sweden are urging extreme caution, with the renowned Karolinska Institute so alarmed by serious adverse effects and physical deformities in youth three to four years after the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones that they have discontinued their use outside of strict clinical studies.
UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid strongly reacted to the revelations of the Cass Review: ‘I’m deeply concerned about the approach to gender identity services for children.’
‘It’s already clear to me from her interim findings and from the other evidence that I’ve seen that the NHS services in this area are too narrow, they are overly affirmative, and in fact they’re bordering on ideological.’
‘As Health Secretary, I was determined to protect vulnerable children from being failed by gender identity services at the Tavistock. This is welcome news and absolutely the right decision based on the independent evidence gathered by Dr Hilary Cass.’
Last week, Minister Hazzard responded by simply dismissing bilateral radical mastectomies being performed on young girls in NSW as ‘complex’, quibbling over party politics and belligerently jousting with Committee member Mark Latham.
Hazzard is typical of those supporting or taking a path of least resistance to the transgender narrative – signalling Woke credentials to avoid the ire of gender ideologues and the rabid left media. Raising concerns about these experimental interventions attracts narcissistic projection from trans-activists who demonise, deplatform, and destroy. I should know, I have first-hand experience.
Both here and overseas, the absence of evidence of the long-term safety or efficacy for these experimental treatments, along with the mounting body count of detransitioners, is alarming. Australian gender clinics, modelled on the Tavistock, are continuing to persist with the ‘affirmation pathway’ to permanently alter the minds, bodies, and genitals of children and young people.
Active Watchful Waiting, a new network of Australian health care practitioners formed to share information on the harms being done to minors from so-called ‘gender-affirming care’, said normal scientific protocols have been overridden due to ideological pressure, and that young people with gender dysphoria or confusion should be helped with active, compassionate, respectful, and exploratory therapy.
Despite a serious three-year mental health history, Jude Hunter’s child was denied this approach by NSW Health. Jude says she declined a referral from John Hunter Hospital for her 17-year-old mentally unwell daughter to the ‘multi-disciplinary team’ for testosterone treatment. But, she has claimed, that the discharge summary from John Hunter Hospital falsely recorded that she had consented. Jude’s daughter was prescribed testosterone after two appointments, and has recently returned home after a three-year estrangement from her family, suicidal with regret over irreversible changes to her body.
Jude and her husband desperately pleaded for help from the multi-disciplinary team now located at Maple Leaf House, but says they were turned away after being told it was not a crisis service. Jude now funds her daughter’s therapy. ‘This is a medical scandal, my daughter should never have been prescribed testosterone as a mentally unwell teenager.’
Maple Leaf House continues to claim puberty blockers are reversible and should be started young. They fail to disclose puberty blockers are contested, experimental, and have not been tested on humans for adolescent gender dysphoria. The three animal studies conducted found harmful impacts including increased anxiety and despair-like behaviour.
During questioning, Minister Hazzard championed the pro-trans charity ACON saying ‘they are doing a very good job’, and ‘I am certainly not going to insert myself into the most complex of complex issues for youngsters who might be suffering from gender dysphoria’. ACON receives an annual special grant of $12 million directly from the NSW Minister for Health with a further $8 million announced this year, partially for establishing a new gender clinic for children at Saint Vincent’s Hospital in Darlinghurst.
ACON runs a website, Transhub, targeting minors and parents for social, medical, and surgical interventions. It claims puberty blockers are an ‘effective and safe part of the hormone therapy toolkit for young trans people’. Several pharmaceutical companies are ACON sponsors, including AstraZeneca Pty Ltd, manufacturer of Goserelin sold as Zoladex, used for puberty suppression in male children, and promoted on Transhub.
Given that medical negligence litigation is being prepared both here and overseas, political apathy and the influence of a taxpayer-funded charity should not be the reason we continue to sacrifice children on the altar of an ideology that sells a false panacea of affirmation, pharmaceuticals, and surgery as a cure for distress.
Donnelly urged a more careful, considered, and multi-disciplinary approach, ‘It will remain to be seen what detailed responses will be forthcoming.’ Let’s not wait until Hazzard is enjoying his taxpayer-funded parliamentary pension in retirement before we get an answer.
Australia must urgently conduct an inquiry into what will be a medical scandal akin to Thalidomide. We must stop fearing attacks from trans activists – if I can do it, surely the government can put on its big girl pants and do the same. Decades from now, do we really want to be looking back having failed to act when we should have, again?
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/09/europe-detransitions
*********************************************Feminism resisted
A recent story on news.com.au that revealed gender equality for chief executive roles at Australia’s top public companies is still 100 years away for women attracted more than a hundred comments with many labelling it as “absolute rubbish” and “nonsense”.
The “striking” findings came from a report released last week by Chief Executive Women, which showed that just 14 ASX 200 companies were led by women in 2022.
It also revealed that there were 46 public companies, including a number of well known Aussie brands, which had no women in their executive leadership team.
But calls to address the “disturbing” trend and set gender balance targets, among other initiatives, were hit with a slew of comments criticising the moves.
‘It’s called discrimination’
The comments described the initiatives as discriminatory, claimed companies would be less profitable if led by women, accused females of only wanting “cushy” roles and alleged that if the gender pay gap existed then women would be hired more to save money.
“Yet more BS about hiring someone based upon gender. It is called discrimination. As a share holder of any company I would expect them to hire the best person based upon their skills and merit rather than choosing second or third best due to their gender,” one person wrote.
“Probably why they are still solvent. No wasted money on diversity programs and promoting poor staff based on gender/race,” another claimed.
“All quotas do is saying you’re deliberately going to hire a worse candidate than you have the opportunity to,” wrote one commenter.
“Probably has something to do with a lower percentage of women that are prepared to put in the sacrifices to climb the corporate ladder,” said one man.
‘Go woke, go broke’
Many of the comments were adamant that people should be promoted based on merit rather than gender coming into play.
“Maybe they know “go woke, go broke” and prefer to promote based on talent rather than race or gender,” one person wrote.
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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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