Australian Left announces racist plan for Indigenous Australians, help for failing students and push for more Aussies to get degrees

Anthony Albanese's Government today announced a massive shake-up of the higher education sector, unveiling an affirmative action plan to double the number of Indigenous students at university over the next decade.

A raft of recommendations the Government will adopt includes universities guaranteeing funding for all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who achieve the grades required, help for failing students and a push for more young people to get degrees.

'More and more jobs require a university degree,' said Education Minister Jason Clare.

'That means we will need more people with university qualifications in the years ahead.'

At the moment, only Indigenous students in rural and remote areas are guaranteed funded spots, which the Government says disadvantages those living in urban areas.

Mr Clare estimated the measure will cost $34 million over the next four years, representing a 'pretty good investment'.

'If you're a young Indigenous person today you are more likely to go to jail than you are to university,' Mr Clare told ABC Radio.

'The cost of having somebody in jail every year is about $120,000. The cost of a university place is $11,000.'

He added: 'This is not about lowering standards: you need to get the marks and qualify for the course.

'If you do qualify for the course, you're guaranteed to get access to a Commonwealth-supported place.'

Nearly 50 per cent of people under 25 are enrolled in a bachelor degree in Australia, while only about seven per cent of Indigenous people in their 20s and 30s have a university degree, according to Productivity Commission data.

The new affirmative action scheme could double the number of Indigenous students entering university by 2034 – from 5,000 to 10,000.

The Universities Accord, which will make more than 70 interim recommendations later on Wednesday, will also see the Albanese Government invest $66.9 million to double the number of university study hubs across the country.

This is designed to tackle a major barrier to study for many young Australians: the cost of moving closer to a campus or a long and expensive commute.

The report calls for greater certainty in university funding by extending the Commonwealth Grant Scheme, guaranteed to December 2023, into 2024.

It will also extend tertiary education access to rural and regional students and abolish the 50 per cent pass funding rule, which sees students lose government funding if they failed more than half of their subjects.

The rule was introduced as part of the Morrison government's job-ready graduates scheme and requires students to pass at least 50 per cent of total attempted units to remain eligible for fee assistance.

It's estimated more than 13,000 students had been forced to quit due to the rule - the majority of whom were from poorer backgrounds.

Mr Clare said he would look to introduce legislation to abolish the 50 per cent pass rate rule when parliament resumes.

'We shouldn't be forcing students to quit we should be helping them to pass and universities should be putting those supports in to help students who need that assistance,' he said.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12313103/Anthony-Albaneses-university-revolution-Jason-Clare-announces-affirmative-action-plan-Indigenous-Australians-help-failing-students-push-Aussies-degrees.html

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Covid: Gambling with Australian lives

At the beginning of the Covid vaccination rollout in Australia on 21 February 2021, then Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared the vaccines to be ‘safe and important’. The official narrative is that the vaccines are safe and efficacious. Yet there is compelling evidence that the official narrative, fanatically promoted by politicians and health bureaucracies, and ruthlessly enforced by politicised police forces, is misleading and neglectful in the light of the side effects.

Freedom of information documents acquired by Senator Alex Antic show that the former Morrison Government, under domestic terrorism response protocols, colluded with social media companies to censor people who dared to question the safety of vaccines, the utility of lockdowns and vaccine mandates including doctors who disagreed with official public health information. Deregistering doctors who provided vaccine exemptions and/or prescribed ivermectin to treat COVID was especially egregious. According to Emeritus Professor Robert Clancy AM, the nation’s leading clinical immunologist:

As patients were being treated in Sydney and Melbourne with impressive results … the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in Australia made the extraordinary move to shut down the prescription of IVM by front-line doctors for the treatment and prevention of Covid-19. The TGA had form, as they made a similar ruling for hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), the other re-purposed off-patent drug shown to be effective in treating Covid-19.

The UK government admits that the vaccines damaged the natural immune system of those who were vaccinated. In its ‘COVID-19 Vaccine Surveillance Report’ for Week 42 the UK Department of Health Security states, on page 23, that ’N antibody levels appear to be lower in people who become infected after two doses of vaccination’ and the reduction in antibodies is essentially permanent.

It was evident within months of vaccination that the vaccinated can still catch and transmit the virus. A study conducted by the Upper Midwest Regional Accelerator for Genomic Surveillance, which is founded by the Rockefeller Foundation, confirmed that they are as likely to infect others as the unvaccinated.

Writing in The Lancet, Carlos Franco-Paredes, an American professor of infectious diseases, comments:

There is growing evidence that peak viral titres in the upper airways of the lungs and culturable virus are similar in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals… [R]esearchers in California observed no major differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in terms of SARS-CoV-2 viral loads in the nasopharynx, even in those with proven asymptomatic infection.

A member of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisations (ATAGI) has acknowledged that ‘the more doses you get, the less benefit you derive from them, and then we start to worry about causing side effects’.

It’s not just that you get less benefit, according to a study by Cleveland Clinic researchers of 48,344 Cleveland Clinic employees, people who received two or more doses of the mRNA vaccine are more likely to get Covid and those not up-to-date on vaccination had a lower risk of infection.

This makes vaccine mandates incomprehensible and immoral. As Dr Jayanta Bhattcharya, a professor of medicine and health research and policy at Stanford University put it, ‘If a vaccine fails to stop disease transmission, then the idea that you need to vaccinate other people so that I’m protected is just false.’

It gets worse. There has been a surge of sudden and unexpected age-inappropriate deaths in at least 30 countries in the industrialised world. In his book Cause Unknown: The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths, Ed Dowd argues that ‘The sudden deaths in young people in industrialised countries are due to mRNA vaccines.’

The suspicion that official claims of safety and efficacy are false has been strengthened by the discontinuation of official reporting on unvaccinated and vaccinated populations. For example, New South Wales ceased to publish weekly surveillance reports about the vaccination status of those who were hospitalised at the end of 2022. The data in the last two weeks showed that of the 1,779 patients admitted to hospitals with a COVID-19 diagnosis, none of those who died were unvaccinated. In addition, mathematician and Covid commentator Igor Chudov calculated that the risk of hospitalisation increased dramatically with each dose and was highest for those who had received four or more doses and had a 217 per cent relative risk of death compared with the unvaccinated.

A cost-benefit analysis by a senior research scientist at MIT looked at publicly available official data from the UK and the US for all age groups to determine all the factors leading to the risk of dying from COVID-19. She writes,

All age groups under 50 years old are at greater risk of fatality after receiving a COVID vaccination than an unvaccinated person is at risk of a COVID death…. (And ) all age groups under 80 years old have virtually not benefited from receiving a COVID vaccine, and the younger ages incur significant risks.

Yet the Australian government continues to listen to ATAGI which recommends COVID-19 vaccination for everyone starting with babies aged 6 months and advises parents to tell their children that, ‘The COVID-19 vaccine is a safe way to protect you, your family, and your friends from getting sick,’ and that parents would allow their children to be injected if the vaccines ‘were not safe’. This is deeply disturbing because some children have died directly after vaccination.

On 19 July 2021, the UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advised the UK Department of Health Security against the mass rollout of vaccines to children under the age of 18 warning that,

JCVI is of the view that the health benefits of universal vaccination in children and young people below the age of 18 years do not outweigh the potential risks.

One serious risk is myocarditis – inflammation of the heart. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledges that mRNA vaccines have caused many types of heart conditions, including myocarditis. Even Pfizer scientists acknowledge that there have been increased cases of myocarditis after vaccination. On 24 November 2022, Dr Ross Walker, a practicing cardiologist with 40 years of clinical experience said:

I don’t think we should be having the mRNA vaccines. I’ve seen in my own practice as a private cardiologist 60-70 patients over the past 12 months who have had similar reactions to this. Whether it’s pericarditis or the more serious myocarditis. I’ve seen a lot of people get chest pain, shortness of breath, heart palpitations.

Given the already known potential harms of the Covid vaccines, of which myocarditis is just one, and their entirely unknown long-term adverse effects, the decision of the Australian Government to continue to vaccinate everyone, regardless of age or health conditions, is wrong. As Gareth Iacobucci wrote in relation to the vaccination of teens aged 12-15 in September 2021 in the British Medical Journal:

From a public health standpoint, it makes poor sense to impose vaccine side effects on people at minimal risk of severe COVID-19. The argument that it protects others is weak or contrary to the evidence.

Yet about half of all Australian children aged 5 to 15 are now vaccinated. This might explain why the TGA has been ‘slow to update‘ the country’s Database of Advance Event Notifications (DAEN) despite the deaths of children aged as young as 7 and 9 being reported to the TGA as being suspected of being caused by the vaccine. As Professor Clancy noted:

There is a push to vaccinate children under 12 who neither get severe disease nor significantly spread it. The cost/benefit of immunising children has been widely criticised, while misinformation continues to be delivered through the press.

According to Dr John Ionnidis, professor of medicine and epidemiology at Stanford University, the fatality rate for Covid for most of the population could be as low as that of influenza when adjusted for age and the fact that more than 80 per cent of those who get the virus have mild or no symptoms.

With such low risks for most people, why has the entire population of Australia been coerced into getting vaccinated with experimental vaccines? This question is important given the potential for side effects that can lead to death.

Australia closely followed the WHO guidelines during the pandemic and, by the end of 2021, 80 per cent of the population was vaccinated. Yet last year, there were 190,775 deaths according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which was 25,235, and 15.3 per cent more than the historical average. This represents the highest number of excess deaths on record since the end of the Second World War.

So why does the website of the Department of Health and Aged Care tell all Australian adults they should get a booster for ‘additional protection against severe illness from COVID’ and why parents are advised that their children aged 5 to 17 years should get a booster dose ‘if it has been 6 months since their last dose or COVID-19 infection’.

The official government narrative which placates people’s concern about the safety of the vaccines is based on research conducted by the pharmaceutical companies selling the vaccines. Unsurprisingly, it has financially benefited the pharmaceutical companies, with the stock price of Pfizer and Moderna soaring. The question which should be asked however is why this pharmaceutical research has been accepted unquestioningly by the government, academia, and the media. Professor Clancy writes:

The media has a concerning role in the propagation of misinformation, preferring to support an ideological narrative, rather than to engage in responsible journalism. Misinformation driven by pharmaceutical companies to protect their vaccines, and strongly reinforced by academic, government, and health authorities leads to many unnecessary hospital admissions and deaths.

It is difficult to know how many Australians have died from these vaccines. The many accounts of the tragic consequences of Covid vaccination, mandatory or voluntary, are entirely credible. Those responsible must be held fully accountable for the loss of Australian lives and livelihoods.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/07/gambling-with-australian-lives/

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When there is a Presumption of evil not innocence

Gross injustice in Australia

How can it be that a man of impeccable character in his late 70s is convicted of 28 nasty sexual and physical abuse offences between 1964 – 1973, simply on the say-so of half a dozen late middle-aged women who were juvenile delinquent inmates at an institution?

Because if you are named in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, you are guilty, right? The legal process is just a formality. From the start you are referred to as an abuser and the complainants as victims.

From being so named in the Royal Commission to being charged, tried and found guilty by a jury, the process is guilt by accusation. It replaces the presumption of innocence with the presumption of evil.

The law relating to sexual abuse allegations is now so deformed as to allow such miscarriages of justice to occur with ease. The innocent get shoved in with the guilty.

That is what happened to Noel Greenaway, now in his mid-80s, sentenced (in 2020) to 20 years in jail. Attracted by the promise to be believed, some unscrupulous women joined the thousands of genuine abuse victims to claim rewards (tangible or otherwise) on offer.

On 8 February 2018, Malcolm Turnbull made a short statement to Parliament about the Royal Commission’s work. ‘Reading some of the witness statements, it’s clear that being heard and being believed means so much to the survivors, so much more than many of us would imagine. Three words: “I believe you,” coming after years, often decades of authorities’ denial of responsibility.’

On 23 October 2018, Scott Morrison apologised to victims of child sexual abuse in a speech in Parliament. ‘I simply say, I believe you, we believe you, your country believes you,’ he said.

On 22 October 2020, Anthony Albanese echoed that sentiment in Parliament: ‘We will always hold in our hearts those who didn’t live to hear the words, ‘We hear you. We believe you.”’

Bill Shorten added his voice to the chorus of shame: ‘But know that today Australia says sorry. Australia says we believe you,’ he said.

The sentiment is right and commendable, but the application of it has led to other injustices.

Notorious Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s undoing as a serial abuser of women set off the rush to ‘believe all women’, with society licensing the courts to reverse the onus of proof from the accuser to the defender. But there was an important element in the Weinstein case that has been abandoned by the courts in recent years, notably in Noel’s case.

That was the testimony from supporting witnesses. The purpose of such witness testimony was ‘to show when the disclosure was made to someone, that a disclosure was made, and that it was made against the defendant,’ as the Weinstein prosecution argued. There was no such testimony in Noel Greenaway’s case. On the contrary, the claimants all said they never told anyone at the time in the 1960s, when they were youngsters, or since. Until the Royal Commission.

Greenaway’s life began to unravel on the eve of ructions that would catapult sexual abuse to the top of the world’s consciousness. What the Royal Commission started, the #MeToo movement turbocharged. Like a volcano building up its explosive load, the topic engulfed corporations as well as institutions and the Catholic church, until it blew its top in 2017, ejaculating Harvey Weinstein.

Under current rules in Australia, when it comes to sexual abuse, it is innocence that must be proved, not guilt. Innocent men have become collateral damage. Teen Vogue columnist and outspoken feminist Emily Lindin came under fire on social media in November 2017 after tweeting that she was ‘not at all concerned about innocent men losing their jobs’ over false allegations of sexual assault or harassment.

In his summing up to the jury, the judge at Greenaway’s trial explained: ‘The evidence comprises the answers that witnesses gave to questions asked of them. So the evidence then is the answers that the witness gives in the course of their evidence and the exhibits that you will have with you in the jury room. On that material, and on that material alone, you arrive at your verdicts.’

Greenaway writes from his prison cell, notepad on his knees: ‘The prosecution of individuals was also designed to appease those in the community who were naïve enough to believe the fabrications, lies and general criticism which was designed by ex-inmates and their supporters to name individuals out of revenge and to enhance their chances of claiming redress for concocted crimes committed against them.’

The Board of Inquiry into the Justice System in the ACT, chaired by Walter Sofronoff KC, was established in the wake of the abandoned prosecution of Bruce Lehrmann, accused of rape by Brittany Higgins. Chief Justice Lucy McCallum was critical of the intense media response and that much of the material had ‘obliterated the distinction between an allegation and guilt’. Police told the inquiry that they have been operating under ‘victim-centric’ guidelines for some time. Perhaps it’s time to amend those guidelines to urge investigations to be ‘evidence-centric’.

It was lack of evidence that has kept the fires of outrage burning against the conviction of then 56-year-old Sue Neill-Fraser, charged with the murder of her then 65-year-old partner Bob Chappell. She was arrested 14 years ago this August, sentenced to 23 years, and released on parole in October last year.

Long story short, their brand new yacht was found without Bob on board on the Derwent River in Hobart on Australia Day 2009. His body has never been found – yet at trial, the prosecutor speculated about what sort of injuries might have been found on him.

The prosecution could not establish a credible motive. The prosecution speculated how Bob might have been killed with a wrench. No wrench was produced in evidence. The prosecution could not place her on the yacht at the relevant time – because it had no evidence as to when Bob Chappell was murdered – or even if he was dead. The prosecution speculated how Neill-Fraser would have dragged the body up from down below deck (where she had left him at work before she went ashore for lunch with his sister), bundled him into the dinghy, and then dumped him in the water. Somewhere. On her own. The trial judge went along with the prosecution’s case. (He mentioned the imaginary wrench six times in his summing up to the jury.)

There was DNA found on the deck, traced to a then homeless 15-year-old girl. Clinging to the Crown’s case theory and fearing the DNA would upend its case, the prosecution dismissed the DNA as a red herring. They had their suspect. The only suspect.

She was characterised as cold and scheming because the prosecution case demanded it. But the prosecution’s presumption of evil doesn’t comfortably fit Neill-Fraser. Like Noel Greenaway, she has impeccable character references and lived an average, middle-class life free of blemish.

Lawyers have challenged the conviction – and the judges’ 2:1 decision to dismiss her appeal. A former Hobart prosecutor felt obliged to challenge his ‘legal family’ to correct ‘this injustice’. It hasn’t gone down well with his ‘legal family’.

A report co-authored by a lawyer and a barrister about the police investigation tabled in Parliament in 2021 reveals incompetence and withholding of evidence.

To add insult to injury, Tasmania’s Attorney-General has resisted many calls for a review of the case – preferably a Commission of Inquiry – making excuses that don’t hold water.

Greenaway and Neill-Fraser are but two sorry examples of a criminal justice system trampling the rule of law. There are plenty more. The criminal justice system spends little effort to repair the damage caused by wrongful convictions. In many cases, the appeal system actively hinders efforts to correct mistakes.

As someone once said, ‘Justice won’t be served until those not affected are as outraged as those who are.’

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/07/presumption-of-evil-displaces-presumption-of-innocence/

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Coal-fired Power Station's life set to be extended

Delta Electricity could extend the closure of Vales Point Power Station from 2029 to 2033, amid concerns about delays with renewable energy projects and the "early closure" of other coal-fired plants.

The company said it had advised the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) of "a 2033 technical life assessment" for the power plant on the southern shore of Lake Macquarie.

Delta's interim chief executive David Morris said Vales Point "continues to provide high levels of availability to the system and is expected to continue to do so through to 2033".

Nature Conservation Council of NSW CEO Jacqui Mumford said a 2033 closure for Vales Point would "make it almost impossible for NSW to reach its emission reduction targets".

"If this extension goes ahead, Vales Point would therefore account for 70 per cent of NSW's electricity emissions," Ms Mumford said.

Greens MP and spokesperson for climate change Sue Higginson said extending Vales Point would be "reckless, dangerous and foul play".

"Have we forgotten the climate induced fires and floods? We are in a climate emergency, young people are suffering from climate anxiety and many across the country are doing all that they can to ensure we have a liveable planet in the years ahead," she said.

Delta said the purpose of the plant's assessment was to examine the condition of "the existing generation equipment, ash dam capacity and general condition of the facility".

The previous closure date had been set for 2029, based on "a nominal 50-year asset life".

A Delta statement noted the "delays being experienced by new generation and transmission projects, along with earlier closure dates being announced by owners of other coal-fired generators".

"Given the uncertainties surrounding the capacity of electricity resources over the next 10 years and the urgent need to maintain system security throughout this period, Delta considers it a responsible step to advise AEMO of the availability of Vales Point Power Station's capacity."

Ms Mumford said it was "incredibly disappointing that the community hasn't even been asked if they want such an extension".

Billionaires Trevor St Baker and Brian Flannery sold the Vales Point plant in December last year to Sev.en Energy, a company owned by Czech billionaire Pavel Tykac.

"We know that Sev.en has been lobbying the government to extend the life of this plant since they acquired it earlier this year," Ms Mumford said.

"And why wouldn't they - the exemptions granted to this power plant are a bonanza for a company willing to profit from causing serious harm to our climate and human health."

Ms Mumford urged the NSW government to "rule out any support to keep Vales Point operating longer than 2029".

"In an era of increasing climate catastrophe, we cannot allow such reckless disregard for our future."

Delta's statement said its announcement "does not denote a commercial commitment to operate the facility".

"The energy system is in transformation, and this brings higher levels of uncertainty when forecasting market conditions for the longer term," Mr Morris said.

Delta said the Vales Point plant "continues to be a key asset in the transitioning energy market".

It provided "essential firming capacity" to support the "growing integration of renewable energy" and ensured "a reliable and secure source of electricity".

"Currently the Vales Point Power Station generates approximately 10 per cent of NSW electricity needs," the company said.

Ms Higginson said there was also speculation about Eraring Power Station remaining open beyond 2025.

"If we let Eraring and Vales Point coal fired power stations continue beyond their planned closures, we lose hope of reducing our emissions and meeting our net zero targets. We need to make big, bold changes and we need to make them now," she said.

The Newcastle Herald reported on Wednesday that the federal government had declared the nation's second offshore wind zone off the Hunter coast.

Power-generating wind turbines will cover 1800 square kilometres from Port Stephens to Swansea, 1000 square kilometres smaller than the zone proposed in February.

The declared area will start 20 kilometres from the coast at Port Stephens, about 9km further offshore than first proposed, and more than 35km from the coast at Swansea.

The Hunter Community Environment Centre released a report in May, titled Delta's Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.

The report said Vales Point was responsible for the loss and degradation of vast areas of seagrass and marine life, but Delta dismissed it as misleading

https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/8270648/vales-point-power-station-life-set-to-be-extended/

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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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