Australian Politics
A much acclaimed speech about Covid
Newly-elected Member of the NSW Legislative Council, the Hon. John Ruddick, has given his maiden speech. It has been censored by YouTube but is widely available elsewhere, e.g. on Bitchute. Transcript below:
Mr President, there was another occasion I was to speak … and the strict convention then (as now) was I be heard without interjection. That was my inaugural speech at the Young Liberal Council, a few blocks from here, in 1994. This was just before your time at that forum Mr President … but despite being a newbie, I launched into the most bitterly contentious factional brawl of the day. That ‘no interjection thing’ was wantonly discarded.
Thus began … 27 years of a highly dysfunctional relationship between the NSW Liberal Party and John Ruddick. This involved:
Multiple candidacies for the Young Liberal presidency.
Multiple candidacies for state and federal party president.
Endless violations of that party’s prohibition against talking to the media
Dozens of unsolicited emails to the entire membership about one righteous cause after another.
Multiple expulsion attempts (all deftly dodged).
Two constitutional reform crusades that went on for years … climaxing in apparent triumph … only to see the factions soon devise ways to skirt the new rules.
And to top it all off Mr President, in 2018 I wrote a book explaining how everything the Liberal Party organisation did was completely wrong.
But I do sincerely thank colleagues here … from my former party … for their warm welcome to this place … there is no surer way to mend years of factional strife than … quitting for good and joining a better party! I feel like Switzerland – peace with all.
I first heard of the Liberal Democrats in 2012 when Clinton Mead (here tonight) was elected mayor. I devoured the website … and said ‘Hallelujah!’ I was tempted to defect a few times but didn’t quite bite the bullet … still betting, the best bet for small government was reform of the Liberal Party.
Mid-2021 was the final straw. State and federal Liberal governments did four things that made me throw in the towel:
The authoritarian Covid police state … all over a bad flu. Bad flus are bad. Bad flus happen from time to time … but we treated Covid as though it was Ebola. The Covid fatality rate in NSW was 0.13 per cent … at the upper end of what we expect each winter, maybe a little bit more … but to call Covid a pandemic is an insult to pandemics. The average age of a Covid fatality in Australia is higher than average life expectancy. The NSW government locked citizens in quarantine just for being near a Covid positive person.
Many want to move on from Covid … I don’t. Elements in the media tell us, ‘There is another pandemic around the corner – it’ll be worse than Covid!’ I’m sceptical but if true … surely we need a Royal Commission into the last time a pandemic was declared … so we can learn.
Sweden alone resisted the hysteria … masks, lockdowns, and vaccines were recommended but not compelled … Sweden trusted its citizens … and Sweden has had Europe’s lowest increase in excess deaths over the past three years. I have respected Peter Costello and Tony Abbott most of my life – both have now spoken out forcefully about the madness of Covid … but the Liberal Party’s best … only found the courage to do so after the crisis had passed.
The police … and even the army and helicopters… forbade us to leave our homes to get sunshine, fresh air, and exercise … but that radical right-wing newspaper, the New York Times told us in July 2021 that not one person in the world has caught Covid in outdoor environment.
The second disappointment was … vaccine extremism. On June 26, 2021 the Liberal Premier of NSW announced a ‘two-week lockdown’… Two weeks morphed into many months and a diabolical catch was added – ‘we won’t let you out until you take multiple injections of not only a rushed vaccine but of an entirely new class of vaccine’.
Most relented … but everyone got Covid anyway. Last year, the NSW Health published weekly data showing, the fewer vaccines you had, the less likely you went to hospital or ICU. The fatality rate was similar for the vaxxed and the unvaxxed.
Since the vaccine rollout there has been a 15-20 per cent increase in excess deaths in nations like Australia that had mass mRNA injections. Is it the vaccine or is it the bitter hangover from locking people up for so long? We don’t know … but either way, it’s almost certainly the result of poor governance … yet another reason for a Royal Commission.
Much more here:
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/make-australian-politics-great-again/
***************************************************Woman’s $50 note rant resonates with thousands as cash rebellion grows
Putting all transactions online would enable more government surveillance of us all. Given the many failures and follies of government, that is a concern
Thousands of Australians have praised a woman who penned a letter to her local newspaper warning about the dangers of moving towards a cashless society.
In a letter to The Age in mid-June titled ‘Note the logic’, a Melbourne woman named Julie Christensen revealed why she preferred to use banknotes.
“If some people want to rely solely on digital financial transactions, let them. But don’t take away cash for the rest of us,” she wrote.
“My $50 note can’t be hacked. If I’m robbed, I lose $50, not my entire life savings. If my $50 note is accidentally immersed in water, it still works.”
Her letter then took aim at the faults or perceived impracticalities of digital banking by phone.
“My $50 note doesn’t need batteries, it can’t be “out of range”, and it won’t break if it’s dropped. If the system is down, I can still use my note,” Ms Christensen continued.
“My $50 note can be put into a charity box or given to a homeless person.
“Sure I use a card sometimes for large purchases, but for everything else, please leave me the option of cash. It simplifies life.”
The letter resonated with tens of thousands and was splashed across social media where it quickly went viral.
Almost 10,000 people shared the photo on Facebook, with hundreds writing “well said” and “totally agree” in the comments section.
In another act of defiance, “Pay Cash Only” flyers have circulated among tens of thousands on Twitter and Facebook, which call for no digital or card payments between July 3 and 10.
The letter and cash campaign come as banks, business and even local councils posture towards a move away from cash.
Earlier this week, a Queensland mum claimed to have cut ties with her bank after being told she couldn’t withdraw cash from her local branch.
Brisbane woman Taryn Comptyn revealed she had visited her local branch to withdraw $3,500 to pay for renovations on her home.
When she arrived, she realised she had forgotten her bank card, so she went inside in a bid to withdraw the lump sum using a teller.
But she was shocked to learn that tellers had no access to cash whatsoever and that the only way to withdraw funds was via the ATM.
“If you can’t get your own money from a branch, what’s the point of a bank?” she told Today.
Efforts to promote a cashless society have recently increased by Australian banks forging partnerships with fintech (financial technology) start-ups and encouraging regional communities to embrace cashless events.
Bank bosses stated their positions on the trend at the Australian Financial Review Editors Forum in April.
The National Australia Bank and the Commonwealth Bank are in favour of keeping their branches open. At the same time, ANZ Bank and Westpac prefer digital banking services as alternatives to in-person banking.
A controversial cashless policy was implemented without community consultation in Far North Queensland’s Cassowary Coast region, which was ill-received across the last year.
The policy, which came into effect on July 1, 2022, prevents residents from using cash for payments, including at council facilities, events, and services.
But over 3,000 locals believe this policy harms the community, with critics arguing the policy disregards the needs of elderly residents who rely on cash for budgeting and parents of children who are too young for bank cards but require access to council amenities.
The council offered multiple payment options, including EFTPOS, online portals, telephone banking, and Australia Post outlets.
“There was huge backlash, but the comments were ignored, and there was no consideration for the people who still rely on cash,” said Tara Garozzo, event organiser for the Cassowary Coast Action Network
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Universities on notice for poorly trained teachers
This sounds like buck-passing. Governments that make effective classroom discipline difficult are the real problem
Universities will face sanctions over teaching degrees that produce graduates who cannot control rowdy classrooms or instruct children to read and write, in a national push to improve teaching standards.
A teacher training fix, a national ban on smartphones in classrooms and rules on the use of artificial intelligence in schools will be revealed after a marathon meeting of federal, state and territory education ministers in Canberra on Thursday and Friday.
State and territory ministers, who control teacher registration, will finalise plans to force universities to improve the quality of teacher education degrees.
Ministers will consider the final report of a teacher training review chaired by University of Sydney vice-chancellor Mark Scott, who began his career as a high school teacher before heading the NSW Department of Education.
Professor Scott has recommended that the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership draw up new national “performance measures’’ for teaching degrees.
Universities would have to focus on training teachers in the science of learning, teaching children literacy and numeracy, and keeping classrooms under control.
Each university’s performance would be made public, and those that fail to meet the new standards could risk losing funding or full accreditation for their courses.
School students have expressed their desire for calmer classrooms, in a federal government survey of 2790 students that found 40 per cent wanted schools to do more to “manage classroom disruption’’.
The survey, to be discussed by ministers on Thursday, shows that more than half of the 8494 parents surveyed wanted small-group tutoring to help their children at school.
And three-quarters of nearly 14,000 teachers said “reducing workload’’ must be a priority, by reducing administration tasks and hiring extra support staff.
The impact of classroom disruption on student learning is also detailed in a consultation paper released by federal Education Minister Jason Clare on Wednesday.
“Students who do not engage with classroom learning or who are disruptive in class are more likely to perform poorly in reading and numeracy than their more productive peers,’’ it states.
“Analysis of NAPLAN (the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) has shown that a year 7 student who is attentive in class could be six months ahead in their learning by year 9, compared to a student who is disruptive or breaks school rules.’’
The document also raises concerns about university degrees for teachers, noting that 37 per cent of would-be teachers who started an education degree in 2016 had failed to complete their studies six years later.
Education ministers will deliberate on a long list of reforms that include controls over the use of AI in schools, a national ban on smartphones in class to reduce cyber bullying and distraction, and strategies to turn around record rates of truancy.
Mr Clare will also chair the first meeting of his newly appointed advisory group of 54 education leaders, researchers, charity and union representatives – as well as eight school teachers and eight high school students.
The group will be a “sounding board’’ for the next School Reform Agreement, which will set priorities for taxpayer spending on education from 2025.
Mr Clare said he was committed to working with state and territory governments to increase funding for schools that are still not receiving 100 per cent of the money deemed necessary for a basic education.
“Funding is critical, but so is what it does,’’ he said. “That’s why we want to hear what practical reforms are needed to help students who fall behind, and help more students finish high school.’’
The consultation paper proposes that student wellbeing – including physical and mental health and happiness – be as much of a priority for schools as academic achievement.
It cites data that students with mental health problems miss twice as much school as other students, and are on average 1.5 to two years behind classmates in literacy and numeracy outcomes by year 9.
“Wellbeing and learning cannot be decoupled,’’ the paper states. “Schools that support good mental health and wellbeing are not only meeting their duty of care requirements but also delivering the environment required for students to learn.’’
The paper says many aspects of student health and wellbeing “need to be addressed outside the school gates’’.
Australian Education Union deputy federal president Meredith Peace said Australia has one of the most segregated education systems in the world. “Resources delayed are resources denied. Public schools need smaller class sizes (and) real improvements in one-on-one support.’’
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Free speech dying in Australia
In many ways the federal government’s proposal for Acma to regulate the content of social media platforms – via the Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation bill – is simply another attempt to restrict freedom of speech by limiting expressions of political opinion. There is nothing new in this.
There are various terms used by critics and regulators to describe the kind of material that they would like to see prohibited on social media and in more traditional forms of publication, including: ‘misinformation’, ‘disinformation’, ‘malinformation’, ‘fake news’ and ‘hate speech’.
Largely, however, these terms do no more than reflect disagreement by politically correct critics and regulators with the view being expressed. And it should be noted at the outset that there has never been any issue about imposing penalties on incitements to violence against individual or groups in the community. This has always been a criminal offence under the common law and an offence under various state statutes. But this kind of conduct is different from expressions of opinion that may be offensive to many, sometimes to almost all, members of the community but that do not advocate any form of action in reliance on those opinions.
In addition to their distaste from all opinions contrary to their own, those who propose restrictions on freedom of speech have a basic distrust of members of the general community because they fear that some of those members might be influenced by those contrary opinions. This fear was reflected in the 2012 report, commissioned by the Gillard government, into the subject of media regulation by former Federal Court judge, Ray Finkelstein.
The report recommended that a government body be established to supervise the news media. The report noted the observation that ‘citizens must have the capacity to engage in debate, in the form of the relevant critical reasoning and speaking skills’ but added that there is ‘real doubt as to whether these capacities are present for all, or even most, citizens’.
It also suggested that ‘even armed with full information, people do not necessarily have the means for weighing and evaluating that information’. Ultimately the report was not implemented at that time but the view that members of the community cannot be left to form their own judgments when confronted with conflicting opinions is still widely held in some quarters.
It is when views that are abhorrent to most members of the community are publicised that the sternest test for freedom of speech occurs. The use of Nazi salutes would fall into this category, being offensive to an overwhelming majority of the community and, of course, particularly to Jews. But, as the American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes said in a judgment of the US Supreme Court in 1919: ‘All life is an experiment…. While that experiment is part of our system I think we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe’.
Where does banning stop in the case of discredited regimes? What of the hammer and sickle under which millions in the Soviet Union were killed or sent to gulags? Or the Confederate flag under which the Old South fought a war to preserve the institution of slavery? 600,000 lost their lives.
Hate speech and misinformation have often been suggested as targets of section 18C of the federal Racial Discrimination Act, which makes it unlawful to do an act that is reasonably likely to, amongst other things, offend or insult another person or group of persons because of their race, colour or ethnic origin. It is important to note that this kind of legislation is a significant restriction on freedom of speech because it is aimed at expressions of opinion on political and social issues.
It is very different from the law of defamation which allows proceedings to be brought where there has been an allegation of specific misconduct but there is a complete defence to the proceedings if the allegation can be proved to be true. Section 18C does not deal in facts but with opinions and it makes the expression of those opinions unlawful if they fall within its terms.
Those who complain of ‘misinformation’ and ‘hate speech’ are essentially saying that they want opinions contrary to their own to be supressed. As already observed, there is nothing new in this and in the days of the Inquisition people were burnt at the stake because they held dissenting opinions. Those who lit the fires felt entirely justified because, in their view, their own beliefs were the truth and error – or heresy as it was called in the religious context of that time – had no right to exist.
This is the same view of the modern inquisitors. They are no longer able to have dissenters burnt – however much they might like to – but they can subject them to all manner of legal penalties, as well as portraying them as dangers to the well-being of the community.
There was a time when a robust defence of freedom of speech might have been expected from academics and administrators in universities but these bodies are now bastions of political correctness. Currently an associate professor at Melbourne University has to be escorted to and from her lectures by a security guard to avoid harassment by hostile students.
Universities were originally established as places where ideas could be exchanged and challenged. What has been the response of Melbourne University? It has been to set up a procedure for students to complain about courses of which they do not approve. It is not enough that they do not have to attend those courses but in the spirit of the Inquisition, their very existence remains an affront.
Freedom of speech is the starting point for all other political liberties but it is an endangered species here in Australia where it once had a long-established history.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/07/free-speech-dying/ ?
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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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