Australian Politics
The Nazi boogeyman
The Left are trying to show that anybody who opposes their views is a Nazi-sympathizer. There certanly are in Australia people with antisemitic views. I have good friends with such views, even though I myself am a firm supporter of Israel.
But it has yet to be shown that people with such views have any political influence. They may be among those who support various conservative causes but political causes commonly gain support from a variety of people. What is implied but not shown below is that antisemites influence others to their views.
My intensive studies of neo-Nazis years ago showed them to be thoroughly marginal and I can see no change since. See:
http://jonjayray.com/antisem.html
for detailsMelbourne’s far-right are agile and adaptive at spreading their message of hate
Though small, they practise a nimble strategy to develop support, concealing their activities in encrypted channels, leapfrogging from issue to issue as they attempt to insert their antisemitism and white supremacist view into conservative movements.
First it was multiculturalism, then the pandemic and vaccine mandates, now trans rights.
Deakin University extremism expert Dr Josh Roose explains it’s a process called “breadcrumbing” – where a person drops nibbles of interest with the aim of engaging with someone else – and it’s effective in both polarising the debate and growing the far-right movement.
On Thursday, Roose joined a confidential meeting of more than 100 council representatives and police, all of them desperate to understand how to manage the hate manifesting at their meetings and drag queen story times.
The briefing was convened to cope with “threatening and unpredictable” behaviour that mayors across Melbourne had seen in the past few months, and Roose was up in the middle of the night on a work trip to Denmark to provide advice and skills to protect democratic norms now under siege.
For the last few years, most prominently since the Reclaim Australia movement emerged in 2015, far-right activists have targeted particular issues in an attempt to surreptitiously introduce their beliefs into public discourse.
These conversations, buried deep in encrypted Telegram channels, happen every day – some explicit, others implicit – and attempt to draw people already in thralls of conspiracy into a community of violence.
Inside the Melbourne boxing gym with a neo-Nazi underbelly
Roose says the far-right members participate in online debates about hot topics and slowly attempt to introduce extreme ideas with the aim of eventually shaping the debate and “increasing the pool of potential recruits”.
“They continue to have a base due to their presence on social media and encrypted messaging apps: skilful tactics to gain media notoriety and anger and alienation amongst at least some of the community,” he says.
Almost 24 hours before the meeting, on Wednesday afternoon, a demonstration petered out against a drag story time celebration at Eltham Library, in Melbourne’s north-east.
Far-right activist Jimeone Roberts posted a message in a Telegram channel called MyPlace, warning people about “medical experiments”, deriding vaccine mandates, and making comments pejorative of rainbow activists campaigning for trans rights, according to screenshots collected by researchers from the White Rose Society, which tracks neo-Nazis online.
MyPlace, a fast-growing anti-government group targeting councils across Victoria, is a forum of mixed purpose.
There are some who use it to sell organic meat and vegetables; others complain about vaccine mandates and plug holistic medicine retreats; and several share their political aspirations, discussing ways to animate and organise voters in Victoria they believe share their views.
There are now more than 100 MyPlace groups throughout Australia, 49 of them in Victoria. Not all MyPlace groups or members are from the far-right or neo-Nazis.
But the rise in the number of MyPlace groups is an example of what researchers and police have been observing for years, the tendency for far-right activists to target groups with strong views on conservative subjects.
Entertainer Dean Arcuri, who dons his alter ego drag queen Frock Hudson for story time at suburban libraries, has been a target of demonstrators this week.
“It’s insane to think that this harassment is happening. And then someone says the word Nazi, and you just think … what? It is absolutely surreal,” Arcuri says.
Felicity Marlowe, the Rainbow Families manager at LGBTQI+ support service Switchboard Victoria, says the group’s Zoom meeting last week was gatecrashed by protesters who posted vulgar comments in the chat.
Roberts, who has a swastika Hakenkreuz tattooed on his chest, wasn’t the first National Socialist Network (NSN) member attempting to steer the conversation inside the MyPlace network. In early April, Stefanos Eracleous, a former Young Liberal and also a member of the NSN, more pointedly asked members to begin exploring the encrypted channels popular among neo-Nazis and the group’s leader, Thomas Sewell.
“Add yourself to an active Aussie chat for Australian patriotic discussion and freedom rally updates,” said a message on April 4. It was forwarded from a group called “Australian Meditations 51″, the 51 being a figure celebrated by the group because it is the number of people killed in the Christchurch massacre.
More recently, the actions of a group of neo-Nazis spilled onto Melbourne’s streets. They gatecrashed a Let Women Speak rally in March and two members were arrested during an anti-immigration protest in the CBD last Saturday, when police used capsicum spray. On both occasions, the group members wore all black and most concealed their identities while doing the Nazi salute.
The topics the far-right use to steer their message has varied depending on the political issue of the day, says Dr Mario Peucker, an associate professor at Victoria University, and depends on what they believe is strategically useful.
Peucker says that during the moral panic around Islam in mid-2010, the far-right organised around anti-Islam messaging. A few years later, it was the “African gang” panic. Then, for a short time, they organised around bushfires and climate crises before the pandemic emerged as their dominant theme.
“Now that this has been exhausted, neo-Nazi groups, probably inspired by white supremacy groups in the US, saw a new opportunity in targeting LGBTIQ+ friendly events,” Peucker says, “and most recently they seem to have moved to the issue of housing crisis in combination with relatively high levels of immigration.”
The Andrews government has announced it will ban the Nazi salute but is unsure how far away the legislation is. Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes said this week it was not a straightforward process as it collides with free speech issues.
Other countries, including Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland – all of whom have far-right movements – have banned the salute.
In the meantime, though, it means police have limited powers to act. Assistant Commissioner David Clayton, who attended the online forum with councillors on behalf of Victoria Police, summarised the dilemma succinctly: “Some of this stuff is awful, but it’s not unlawful.”
Police confirmed they monitor the activities of the far-right but couldn’t comment on operations specifically, except to say that they were appalled by recent events.
“Everyone has the right to feel safe in our community regardless of who they are – hate and prejudice have no place in our society.”
Flanked by two security guards on Wednesday, Arcuri was invited to Parliament House for a short reading with Premier Daniel Andrews before being ferried out to Eltham.
It was a nervous arrival. He didn’t know, of the people attending, who was there in support, or to disrupt. “People were making jokes on Wednesday going, it’s like a Beyonce moment. And I’m like, well, that sounds more fun than the experience I had,” he says.
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Rebel doctors speak
From the Australian Medical Professionals Society
We have seen censorship unparalleled in the scope of its reach in human history, especially in the treatment of Covid. Doctors who have dissented from official state-sanctioned treatment diktats have been and continue to be sanctioned by the medical regulator, and egregiously unfairly fired from their positions.
The restrictions on prescribing ivermectin have recently been dropped by the TGA. The provisionally approved Covid vaccines have been associated with unprecedented harm and demonstrated negative efficacy; alarmingly, there are still official recommendations for their continued usage.
The unprecedented squashing of scientific debate by the regulatory authorities enabled by MainStream Media and social media censorship, which continues to this day, is a major block to the advancement of healthcare in this country and around the world. This is highly destructive to the foundations of an open and free democracy. If the medical profession is happy to unquestioningly accept the dictates of health bureaucrats instead of scientific debate, this is to the detriment of patients’ health.
The doctors at the Australian Medical Professionals Society have invited the doctors of the Australian Medical Association to a public debate on the government’s response to Covid with a particular focus on the safety and efficacy of the provisionally approved Covid vaccines. Health Professionals must be free to publicly debate public policy using the most up to date scientific evidence and their clinical judgment, unhindered by government regulatory censorship. We would also like to debate the ethical egresses forced on the medical profession and the public by the imposition of mandates.
In modern medicine, our symbol is that of a Physician’s staff with an Asclepiusian snake wrapped around it. Asclepius was the Greek God of healing, and Hippocrates was a student of his. Asclepius made use of a magic potion, which when drawn from the right side of the Gorgon would kill, and from the left side could cure. It speaks to the duality as our role as healers, we seek to heal, but we also have the capacity to harm. The way we minimise harm to our patients is to always allow open discourse, and courteous dialogue amongst health professionals so that the best ideas can prevail.
Dr Aseem Malhotra, a prominent British cardiologist who famously reversed his position on Covid vaccines, is touring Australia with doctors from AMPS from May 27, 2023. Whilst many of the events are open to the public, there are some events planned in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane only for health professionals. In Melbourne and Sydney, whilst addressing healthcare practitioners, Dr Malhotra will be joined by Emeritus Professor Robert Clancy, a distinguished Australian Immunologist. In Brisbane, he will be joined by Professor Wendy Hoy, another distinguished Australian physician whilst addressing healthcare practitioners. We urge all interested healthcare practitioners, regardless of their union affiliations, to come to these events with an open mind. One of the Malhotra’s tour goals is to get the scientific discussion and debate happening amongst a much larger section of the health professional community. Not only to discuss what went wrong with the Covid response but how we can improve systems management and improve healthcare in the future and avoid the policy and decision making disasters that occurred in Covid from ever happening again. Our profession will benefit from this, and ultimately so will our patients.
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Solar power uses more energy than it produces
In Australia, great reliance is being placed on electricity generation from solar panels, both roof-mounted and solar farms. The aim is to replace generation from coal and gas to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Researchers recognise that, for this to succeed, the electricity generated and used must be greater than the electricity expended in making and installing the panels (embodied energy). The number of years it takes for this energy recovery is called Energy Pay-Back Time (EPBT). It is clear that pay-back times should be short because, until the embodied energy is replaced, there cannot be any positive output.
Numerous studies have determined that the pay-back time is between one and five years for rooftop solar and longer for solar farms. This is all very well, but solar panels alone are not a practical, generating system. Nothing is generated from late afternoon through the night to the next morning. No electricity every night… Clearly, a battery has to be added for continuous supply and the embodied energy from the manufacture of the battery has to be included in the analysis. Electricity consumed overnight is replaced when the battery is recharged by the solar panel during the next day.
What happens if the next day is cloudy? Clearly, a bigger battery and a bigger solar panel would be needed. The embodied energy of the bigger battery and panel must be included in assessing pay-back time and the viability of the system. What if the day after that is also cloudy? An even bigger battery and panel than needed. How many cloudy days need to be accounted for?
Any electricity generation system that cannot recover the energy embodied in its manufacture, in a short time or not at all in its lifetime, cannot be considered viable for electricity supply or for emissions reduction.
Yooko Tsuchiya et al reported on two cases of PV electricity generation systems in sub-Saharan rural Tanzania, concluding that EPBT analyses showed unsatisfactory performance. They reported that: ‘At one site, the EPBT even exceeded the lifespan of the PV panel, indicating that energy recovery was impossible.’
The question arises as to whether PV electricity generation can replace coal/gas generation in Australia. This study examines the energy recovery potential of rooftop solar for three cities in Australia representing the extremes of climate, viz. Melbourne, (worst case state capital for sunny days, excepting Hobart), Perth, (best case state capital for sunny days), and Alice Springs (central Australia).
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has records of solar radiation day-by-day for years 1990 to 2022. These data sets show that, of these 33 years, 16 have radiation below average and that May, June, and July are the months most likely to risk electricity shortages, ie. blackouts.
Using these data, a new study has calculated the sizes of solar panel and battery which give the least, combined, embodied energy, then calculated the Energy Pay-Back time for Melbourne, (least sunny days capital excepting Hobart), Perth (most sunny days capital), and Alice Springs (central Australia). Full details of the study are available on request.
The results show that:
The Energy Pay-Back time for roof-top solar generation of electricity is 22 to 24 years for Melbourne, 14 to 15 years for Perth, and 14 years for Alice Springs.
For Melbourne, Perth, and Alice Springs, EPBT’s exceed the lifetime of the battery, therefore, batteries have to be replaced twice in the 30-year lifetime of the solar panel.
Accounting for this, the energy embodied in the manufacture and installation of the system is not recovered in the lifetime of the system.
Storage of excess summer generation for practical use requires very large batteries, resulting in unfavourable EPBT.
The following conclusions can be drawn:
Since prior research indicates that solar farms are worse than rooftop solar, solar farms are not a feasible replacement for traditional coal/gas-based electricity generation.
Given equal dollar value eg dollars per kWh, assigned to both input and output electricity, the cost results will echo the energy results, that is to say that the cost incurred in manufacture etc. will not be recovered in the lifetime of the system. Given that, within that lifetime, the batteries would be replaced at additional cost, it follows that electricity generated by the solar system will always be more expensive than the input coal/gas electricity which established the system. Statements by politicians such as, ‘the reason electricity is more expensive now is because we do not have enough renewable energy’ is the reverse of the facts. The more solar generation we have, the more expensive electricity will become.
Subsidies to adjust input and/or output dollar charges do not change the costs. They transfer costs to another element of production, for zero added value. Such subsidies are therefore inherently inflationary.
Continued purchase of solar panels and batteries from low-cost, coal/gas-based producers while, at the same time, inhibiting and closing domestic coal/gas-based electricity, presents national security issues, for no economic or environmental benefit.
Persistence with the widespread installation of PV panels and batteries and closure of coal or gas-fired power stations, will result in greater not lesser emissions of carbon dioxide, higher electricity charges, and higher inflation.
Put simply, Australia mines coal and exports it to China where coal-fired power stations generate electricity, which is used to manufacture PV panels and batteries, which Australia buys and uses to generate electricity from the rays of the sun. In their lifetimes, the solar panels never generate enough usable electricity to replace the coal/gas electricity they originated from.
Reliance on solar combined with closing down coal and gas generation is definitely premature and will lead to power shortages, inflated energy costs, compromised national security, and increased carbon dioxide emissions. Australia would be better off for supply reliability, emissions, costs, and sovereign security, to use coal and gas domestically for electricity generation.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/05/solar-a-risky-waste-of-time-and-money/
****************************************************‘Boarding saves so much time’: Why city student Sabine chose to live at school
When Sabine Walton enrolled at a boarding school in Normanhurst three years ago almost all the girls in her shared dorm room were from the state’s north-west.
“Our family home is in the city, so I definitely stood out among the boarders who are mostly from farms and regional towns,” says Sabine, whose family home is in Dulwich Hill, about a 50-minute drive in peak hour from the all-girls private school.
“It was daunting at first. I definitely could have been a day girl, but boarding saves so much time commuting,” she says.
The year 10 student at Loreto Normanhurst in Sydney’s north-west is one of about 5900 boarding students across the state. They include about 1000 students whose families are from metropolitan areas but are enrolled in boarding schools.
Australian Boarding Schools Association chief executive Richard Stokes said city-dwelling parents who opt to send their children to boarding school – either as weekly or full-time boarders – are attracted by the lack of travel time and the extra academic support that schools can provide with supervised study time.
“Especially in year 11 and 12, boarding provides great structure for kids and that study time with tutors or homework helpers,” he said.
Across Australia there are about 20,490 boarding students and, while the number of boarding schools has grown from about 150 a decade ago to about 200 last year, enrolments have remained consistent since 2012. The impact of the pandemic meant international boarding student numbers halved and are yet to recover, said Stokes.
“International students are just not returning as energetically as we would have hoped,” he said, adding that three boarding schools in Victoria and Tasmania were forced to close in the past three years when overseas students disappeared.
There are 47 boarding schools in NSW, most being high-fee private schools that charge up to about $73,000 for boarding and tuition at schools such as Kambala and King’s. At the co-educational Red Bend Catholic College, in the state’s Central West, fees are about $25,000 to board in the senior school.
The NSW state president of the Isolated Children’s Parents’ Association, Tanya Mitchell, said the cost of boarding school was now “out of the realms” of what most families could afford.
Mitchell said of three public boarding schools in regional NSW, which generally charge about $13,000 for the year, two are co-educational and one is an academically selective all-boys school in the state’s north-west. “Especially for families from the north-west of the state, there are no public all-girls boarding options. And some fees are making it difficult if families want or need a boarding option.
“Families are telling us they really would like that public all-girls boarding school option,” she said.
But in Sydney, schools including Loreto Normanhurst and Knox Grammar, both of which charge upwards of $60,000 for tuition and boarding, principals claim that demand for living on campus is on the rise. At Loreto, where there are about 200 boarders, the school is planning a $130 million redevelopment as part of its 30-year master plan that will include a new four-storey boarding house.
Knox Grammar principal Scott James said most boarders at the all-boys school were from rural NSW or overseas. “Even though boarding is declining in some countries, there is still demand from parents, and from families with current day students wanting to change to boarding,” he said. “It generally reflects the busyness of parents.”
All-boys St Joseph’s College in Hunters Hill was a boarding-only school until about 25 years ago, with more than 900 students, principal Michael Blake said. “With numbers declining, the school began to enrol day boys to remain viable. The school now opens to day students with extracurricular activities until 8pm,” he said.
About half of the 1000 students at St Joseph’s are boarders, many from Dubbo, Hunters Hill, Tamworth, Gladesville and Mudgee. “But there are boarders from Hunters Hill too ... there are some whose bed at home is less than 100 metres from their bed in the dorms,” Blake said.
When Sabine started at Loreto in year 7, she was just one of two boarders who were from the city. “We now have girls from the Central Coast area, and even the inner city from Roseville and Paddington.”
“I enjoy having the independence; the only downside is homesickness, but I go home most weekends, which makes it easier,” she 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)
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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