Australian Politics
Nurses, midwives at call for 24/7 onsite security after violence, threats in regional SA hospitals
The area has an extensive Aboriginal population and there is no doubt that is the principal problem. The Left never stop stirring up trouble among Aborigines. The "Voice" controversy is just one example. As a result, many Aborgines are angry and take it out on nearby whites
Staff are being spat at, kicked and threatened with violence at a regional South Australian hospital and urgent action is needed, the state's nursing union says.
The Riverland General Hospital is one of the few remaining large regional hospitals in SA without 24/7 onsite security.
Hundreds of signatures have been added to a petition calling for round-the-clock, restraint-trained security staff to be stationed at the hospital.
Calls for more security measures to protect healthcare workers in regional areas have been ongoing since the death of outback nurse Gayle Woodford in 2016.
Ms Woodford, 56, was raped and beaten to death while working on-call alone in the remote APY Lands community of Fregon.
The inquest into her death found the lack of security made Ms Woodford vulnerable to and exposed to patient violence.
There has since been a continuous stream of reported violence toward on-call regional healthcare staff, including areas such as Port Lincoln and Mount Gambier.
Kicked, punched and spat at
Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) SA branch chief officer Elizabeth Dabars visited the Riverland General Hospital and said staff shared firsthand reports of violent incidents in the workplace.
"We know the nursing staff and midwives here have been suffering for a long time now," she said.
"It's been devastating to hear their stories, [about] the violence and trauma they have been dealing with.
"People [being] kicked, punched, spat at and threatened — their lives have been threatened by patients … windows have been smashed and objects hurled."
Ms Dabars said it was completely unacceptable behaviour and needed urgent action from the local health network.
"The risk isn't only to physical health, but it takes an extreme toll on mental health as well," she said.
Ms Dabars said the nurses and midwives just wanted to be able to do their jobs.
"[They want to focus] on giving good care," she said.
"But at the moment, they're being forced to look over their shoulder, every minute of every day and it really it isn't fair to them, or the patients and visitors either."
The union is also calling for round-the-clock, restraint-trained security staff at hospitals at Wallaroo and Murray Bridge.
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The real reason Anthony Albanese is refusing to answer questions about the Voice Australians WANT answered - and why his tactic could backfire
It's one of the big questions on everyone's lips about the Voice to Parliament - why are there so many questions Anthony Albanese is determined not to answer?
Since rolling out the wording of the question that will be asked of all Australians in the referendum later this year, the PM has appeared intent on not getting bogged down in the nitty-gritty of the Voice.
In fact, he has been downright snappy when pesky journalists or political opponents have asked for specifics of the proposed indigenous advisory body.
While more than happy to talk about the big picture imperative, the need for the Voice to 'address the injustices of the past' and 'move Australia forward', Mr Albanese has been far less willing to go into detail about its exact power and authority.
Critics have expressed concerns that there has been little clarity from the PM, who frequently appears fed up and bristly over the nature of the questions he's asked.
In the past week he's swatted away questions about whether the Voice could provide an input on climate, defence or foreign affairs matters and slammed anyone questioning his pet project as 'disingenuous'.
Political commentator and professor of politics and public policy, Peter van Onselen, told Daily Mail Australia the PM appears to be relying on community goodwill and his own popularity to gain support for the Voice.
'He's in a bind because not answering questions makes it look like he's concerned about providing details... but I think he knows that if he answers these questions, it only raises more questions and possibly more concerns,' he said.
'He's hoping to carry the Voice on his personal popularity and community goodwill toward Indigenous Australians rather than because people are relaxed and comfortable about the contents of the policy.'
The questions Mr Albanese was not impressed to be asked about The Voice
1. Will the Voice have a say on climate matters
2. Will the Voice have sway on interest rates and the economy
3. Will the government release legal advice from the solicitor general on the Voice
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has described questions like the above as 'disingenuous
Here, Daily Mail Australia looks at some of the key questions about the Voice so far, and how the government has tackled them:
What kind of advice can the Voice provide the Parliament and Government?
The Voice will advise on matters that directly relate to Indigenous people.
It will respond to requests made by the government, while also having the power to engage proactively on matters that they believe impact them.
The group will have its own resources to research matters and engage with communities at a grassroots level to ensure it is best reflecting their needs.
How will members of the Voice be chosen?
Members of the Voice will be appointed by Indigenous communities and will serve on the committee for a fixed period of time, yet to be determined.
The way the communities choose their representatives will be agreed upon by the local communities in tandem with the government as part of a 'post referendum process' to ensure cultural legitimacy.
Who can become a member of the committee?
Members of the Voice must be Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.
They will be chosen from across each state and territory and have balanced gender representation nationally.
The government has also guaranteed that young people will be included in the committee to ensure representation across the broad scope of the community.
Will the Voice be transparent?
The government states the Voice will be subject to scrutiny and reporting requirements to ensure it is held accountable and remains transparent.
Voice members will be held to standards of the National Anti-Corruption Commission and will be sanctioned or removed from the committee if there are any findings of misconduct.
Will the Voice have veto power?
No.
Will the Voice work independently of other government bodies?
The committee must respect the work and role of existing organisations, the government says.
Will the Voice handle any funds?
The Voice will not directly manage any money or deliver any services to the community.
Its sole role will be in making representations about improving existing government programs and services, and advising on new ideas coming through the parties.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11909817/Why-PM-going-way-not-answer-questions-Voice.html
******************************************************Human rights advocates and bills of rights did nothing to stop goverment abuses during the pandemic
Former UK Supreme Court judge Jonathan Sumption argued from near the start of the Covid pandemic that what democratic governments were doing to their citizens in the way of lockdowns, mandates, closing businesses, restricting travel and visiting sick relatives, weaponising the police – the list goes on and on – constituted the greatest infringements on civil liberties in the West in the last 300 years. I mention that because from March 2020 I was on the record in this newspaper, in The Spectator Australia and in outlets around the world, arguing precisely the same thing. Now readers can agree or disagree. Likewise, readers might think the costs were worth it for the benefits (though I think not, not with the data out now, including Sweden having the OECD’s lowest cumulative excess deaths from the start of the pandemic to now while we in Australia are currently running at 15-17 per cent excess deaths).
But one thing that is beyond debate is that the self-styled human rights lobby said not a peep about this government heavy-handedness. Nada. Nothing. Zero. Not the usual lawyerly caste that finds rights-infringements everywhere, many of microscopic proportions. Nor any of the eight members of the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) who made not a single condemnatory comment about Dan Andrews’ authoritarianism, about former Prime Minister Morrison’s preventing citizens from leaving their own country, about any of the myriad intrusions into our civil liberties over two years. And for what it’s worth all eight, the President and the seven Commissioners, were appointed by the Coalition – even the so-called Freedom Commissioner. All of them.
I start this article with that background because the AHRC has recently decided to wade yet again into the bill of rights debate in this country. (Did I mention that all eight were appointed by a political party that claims to be overtly against a bill of rights?) Actually, ask around and you learn that the seven Commissioners and President are not unanimous on this initiative. It is mostly being pushed by President Rosalind Coucher. It recycles all the tired and wrong-headed old arguments in favour of handing power via a bill of rights to unelected judges over our elected Parliamentarians; all of them churned out back when Labor was last in power under Rudd-Gillard-Rudd. They were wrong then and they are wrong now. Buy a bill of rights, statutory as well as constitutionalised, and all you are buying is the druthers and policy-preferences of the lawyerly caste from which the judges are chosen. This model even moots social and economic rights. The proposal is as bad as you’d expect under Rudd and Gillard, though possibly your expectations of what AHRC Commissioners appointed by a Liberal/Coalition government might desire would be different from this. (Remember Douglas Murray’s criticism of all anglosphere conservative political parties, that they are congenitally unable to appoint anyone who shares the views of their core voters to anything.)
But here is where it gets galling to the point of rank hypocrisy. In the position paper announcing this initiative and its launch at the law firm Gilbert and Tobin (where else I muse?) the Commission (or perhaps just the President of the AHRC) had the gall to suggest a bill of rights might have helped protect civil liberties during the pandemic. Are you kidding me? First off, look at all anglosphere countries with potent and even constitutionalised bills of rights – so Canada, America, and Britain (with a strong statutory model). There is not one single example anywhere of a bill of rights being used by the judges to lessen or eliminate any of the myriad governmental pandemic inroads on civil liberties. Not one example anywhere! To suggest that a bill of rights would have helped flies directly in the face of what is known in the philosophy of science as ‘the facts’. (There are a few examples in the US of state courts using old-fashioned administrative law principles to say that some executive actions taken during the pandemic were ultra vires or beyond the power of the conferring statute.) That line of attack has a chance because it leaves the elected Parliament with the option of passing a new, more delegatory statute. But in times of panic (especially when the judges are panicking at least as much as anyone else) it is folly to think a bill of rights will help. I repeatedly doled out that advice throughout the pandemic to those against lockdowns who thought a trip to court would be a magic bullet and help. It didn’t in any jurisdiction with a bill of rights.
So this suggestion by the AHRC is as audacious as it is wrong on the facts – ‘during the Covid pandemic, there was a lack of clarity about rights of Australians and how to balance them with public safety measures. A Human Rights Act would have helped navigate those challenges’. No, it would not have helped. What would have helped was an AHRC President who could summon up the courage to speak up about the many inroads on our civil liberties in the way Lord Sumption did in Britain. But instead of the slightest criticism of the police thuggery in Victoria, of the idiocy and heartlessness of many of the pandemic rules, of anything or anyone, we get this after-the-fact attempt at redemption. The problem is that a bill of rights would not have helped (again, see every democratic country on Earth) and meantime it brings it with a massive empowerment of the judiciary and of the lawyerly caste.
This is hypocrisy on steroids I’m afraid. And it’s combined with the tired old prescription of a bill of rights so beloved by the lawyerly left of the Labor Party.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/03/hypocrisy-on-steroids/ ?
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Climate wars rekindled
So, apparently the climate wars aren’t over quite yet. Thank goodness for that! That’s not us rekindling the battle, by the way, it’s the Greens’ ‘Treasury spokesman’ federal Senator Nick McKim who has discovered a new term of abuse: ‘ecocidal’ to describe opponents of net zero. Definitely a word for Kel Richards to strip bare, but obviously a contrived new term designed to imply somebody is guilty of genocide if they don’t subscribe to the climate cult’s nihilistic net-zero agenda.
This is good news. As far as we are concerned, the climate wars are desperately needed: an ongoing battle for common sense, reason, proportionality and above all science – real science, as opposed to ‘The Science’ aka left-wing political propaganda of the sort which caused so much unnecessary suffering (and death) during Covid.
Put simply, it has never been shown that human beings have any ability whatsoever to influence let alone to ameliorate or reverse global climate trends and patterns. The precautionary principle suggests that if the theory of anthropogenic global warming is valid, then heavily industrialised nations should do what they can to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, but – and this is critical – to do so in a way that does not cause equal or more harm in other areas. This is where ongoing proper cost-benefit analyses are required to influence genuine political debate and corporate decision-making, but they are entirely absent. For example, what is the cost to the working poor if energy prices rise versus what is the actual benefit to the planet for that sacrifice? What is the cost to Third World countries when they don’t have access to cheap electricity versus what is the benefit to them of a potential and purely academic ‘modelled’ reduction in global temperatures? Or on an even more immediate topic: what is the genuine cost in terms of carbon emissions output involved in the manufacturing of an entire global fleet of electric vehicles, batteries and the infrastructure needed to power them versus the cost of simply carrying on with business as usual? What is the cost to entire societies of reducing the nitrogen in their soil versus the measurable benefit to the planet? What is the military and security cost of achieving net zero versus the hypothetical environmental benefit?
That’s if the AGW theory is valid. This week, in Kiwi Life, Amy Brooke analyses the claims of the climate catastrophists and concludes: just follow the money. David van Gend, meanwhile applies not only his clinical but his satirical skills to offer a diagnosis of Mother Earth herself.
Despite the relentless propagandising across virtually all media and from the major political parties here in Australia the simple fact remains: none of the doomsday predictions going back some three or four decades has come true. Not one. Indeed, weather patterns have often done the complete opposite of what was so stubbornly predicted. Much like the now-exposed fraudulent modelling on Covid, climate modelling is self-evidently deeply flawed as a ‘science’. A gypsy queen with a crystal ball in a Louisiana fairground probably has a better track record at peering into the future than Al Gore, Tim Flannery, Greta Thunberg, King Charles, Klaus Schwab and all the rest of them put together.
With wall-to-wall Labor governments across mainland Australia, we are now entering an extremely dangerous period in our history. The ideologues and the dreamers are now in charge. Sadly, due to the cowardice of the Liberal party under former prime minister Scott Morrison, the opposition has twice the task in front of it than it had during the Rudd-Gillard years when Tony Abbott was able to use climate madness as a cudgel against the Left.
Peter Dutton now faces a formidable task. He has to wage war first against the bedwetters within the Liberal party, the likes of Simon Birmingham, Andrew Bragg and Matt Kean – he who wreaked such destruction on the Liberal brand at the weekend. Then he has to convince his colleagues to either abandon net zero or abandon the nuclear moratorium. And then he will need to launch a comprehensive political campaign to explain to the average Aussie just what this prosperity-destroying concept really entails and what a world of energy poverty means for our children and grandchildren. And he has to do it all within the next eighteen months
Can he? Make sure you read James Allan and Judith Sloan this week..
The Labor victory in NSW at the weekend probably helps. Now, Labor has no excuses. They can implement all their lunatic policies and reap the whirlwind. Sadly, we will all be collateral damage but public sentiment will shift very rapidly once the net-zero agenda starts to bite and the Liberals need to be fully prepared to take advantage of that shift. As Mark Higgie points out, many Europeans are already turning against the craziness of electric vehicles. As winter approaches, how many Aussies will struggle to pay their energy bills? One study in Britain revealed a staggering number of households forced to sit in the dark without heating during the long winter months. This is what awaits Australians as our zealous Labor governments hurtle down the same path.
It is now up to the Liberals and Peter Dutton to re-engage in the climate wars. It’s a fight that can and must be won. We’re certainly up for it!
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/04/climate-wars-rekindled/
********************************************Not such a terrible result in NSW after all
Labor did NOT get a majority and the swing against a long-incumbent government was normal. So no big lessons to learn from it.
The newly-elected NSW Labor government will not secure a majority in parliament, with counting in three close seats pushing two into Liberal territory.
A week after the state election, the close contests of Terrigal and Holsworthy were called for the Liberal Party on Saturday, ending all hopes the government could secure the 47 seats in needed.
The Central Coast electorate went the way of incumbent Adam Crouch shortly after lunchtime, by ABC Election Analyst Antony Green’s reckoning.
“The Liberal Party’s Adam Crouch will retain Terrigal,” he said. “Widens lead today after a very strong result on postal votes.”
Soon after, Mr Green called the southwestern Sydney seat of Holsworthy for new Liberal Tina Ayyad.
“Having gone backwards and forwards over the figures, I can’t see how Labor closes the gap,” he said. “Tina Ayyad is the new Liberal member for Holsworthy.”
The results come after a number of other close seats including Goulburn, Pittwater, Miranda and Oatley were retained by the Liberal Party throughout the week, despite swings to Labor.
It leaves Ryde the only outstanding electorate, where Liberal candidate Jordan Lane took the lead over Labor’s Lyndal Howison by 232 votes.
Ms Howison had been holding a slim majority of just over 200 throughout the week.
If she can win, the government will have 46 seats or one short of a majority.
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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)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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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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