More protest needed

Judith Sloan

I find myself doing a lot of head-shaking these days. Does anyone really believe that governments know best? Why do people put up with being bossed around even when they know the rationales for the directives are false? (OK, losing your job, massive fines, being arrested – these things do matter.)

I am just staggered by the extent of illiberal policies that are now put forward and, in far too many cases, actually implemented by governments and other bodies. These policies ride roughshod over the legitimate preferences of ordinary folk and seek to impose actions or behavioural changes that sensible people object to. In most cases, they are highly regressive, placing the greatest burden on people who already find it hard to make ends meet.

I first went to university in the 1970s. Looking back on those days, I realise that it was a nirvana of free thought and anti-authoritarianism. People seriously objected to being told what to do. There were demonstrations against compulsory military conscription. People were free to choose their living arrangements – marriage was not the only option. They smoked if they wanted to and took other substances if they were available. Censorious judgement was out; live and let live was the guiding principle.

It was such a contrast with my earlier years of growing up in narrow-minded, straight-laced, sectarian Melbourne. Societal norms were strictly enforced and ostracism, at best, befell those who tried to buck the trend.

Sadly, those days of free-thinking rebelliousness of the 1970s, and for a while longer, seem so far away. Maybe I should take up protest song-writing? Now, plenty of the citizenry simply accept the avalanche of restrictions and rules thrown at them by governments and big companies, in particular.

Of course, it was on neon-highlighted display during Covid, even though most people surely knew that most of the restrictions were rubbish and simply made up to ensure a compliant population.

How did it ever make any sense to close down playgrounds? Why restrict people to travelling five kilometres from their home? What about the absurd curfews, something which the police had never sought? And what about close-to-compulsory vaccines and mask-wearing, again not supported by the evidence?

But too many politicians, as well as business leaders, have developed a taste for high-handed bossiness and are very keen to stick to the formula. To be sure, false rationales will be still given such as saving the planet or ensuring the safety of citizens.

Take the example of the attack on the use of cash. The big banks, in particular, have decided that allowing their customers to withdraw some of their own cash is beneath them. Many branches – there are far fewer now – will not now allow customers to take out cash. These same banks are also withdrawing from providing ATMs, finding that they are costly albeit highly convenient for their customers.

Try transferring a sizeable amount of money to another account – say of a relative – and the bank will start asking all sorts of questions. Who is this other person? Why are you transferring the money?

To be fair, one of the reasons that banks engage in this intrusive and annoying process is the suite of government regulations designed to rid of us of the scourge of money laundering – as if. But the bank executives will also mention reducing the risk of scamming, although it’s not clear that this is the most effective way to reduce its incidence.

Let’s be clear: the government has an interest in eliminating cash as far as possible in part because it will provide a comprehensive data base of what the citizens are getting up to. You know the sort of thing: what you are buying, when you are buying it, where you are buying it.

There will be a bit of blather about reducing tax avoidance, but the beauty of a cashless society is obvious: it offers the scope to ban or limit certain types of spending while enforcing others. It’s China’s social credit system rolled out in a country that is ‘one and free’.

It’s clear where this is all heading. Take three interstate flights this year and you will get a message that you are exceeding your carbon budget. Pay a gas bill and get another message suggesting you switch to electricity. Spend a truckload down at Dan Murphy’s and who knows what will happen.

In addition to turning their backs on cash, the banks have also been getting up to all sorts of other invasive tricks. I recently received multiple messages from a bank where I have an online account. It was necessary to confirm my details, evidently.

When I logged in, there were some weird questions, including where I had got my money from. I did the obvious thing and transferred all my funds out of the account. None of their business.

And what about this latest wheeze from the major banks that runs along the following lines: ‘In addition to any other limit which may apply, we may in our discretion limit the amount each user may transfer or pay from all accounts to accounts and/or merchants which we reasonably believe may be owned or controlled by a cryptocurrency or digital asset exchange or being used to purchase cryptocurrency or digital assets to no more than AUD$10,000 in a calendar month’.

Right-oh – it’s your money but you are not allowed to transfer more than a set amount to accounts associated with cryptocurrency or digital asset exchange – in the bank’s opinion, of course. Evidently, the bank thinks it’s OK to behave like some sort of overbearing parent.

Don’t get me onto the federal government’s proposed Digital ID where all your records such as driver’s licence, passport and Medicare number will be assembled – for your own convenience. And to think that people actually fought hard to prevent the Australia Card from being introduced. How soon will it be before you are required to provide your Digital ID to leave home?

There are far too many examples of autocratic behaviour by governments and big business hell-bent on telling us what we can and can’t do. Have a second house? You should pay double taxes on that. Thinking of installing gas heating in your new house? You won’t be allowed to do that in Victoria. Thinking of giving a vaccine a miss? Watch out, you may be punished.

The end result is more head-shaking around here as too few objections are raised about magisterial directives linked to a view of the world where government knows best and it’s necessary to protect vulnerable citizens. Tears of laughter will be accompanied by the head-shaking – as well as paying for things by cash; so there.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/08/getting-grumpy-should-i-buy-a-guitar/

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Our schools are failing – this is why

Kevin Donnelly

The news earlier this year that the Labor government in Victoria will use schools to promote a ‘Yes’ case for the Voice to Parliament should not surprise. Neither should it surprise that some Australian school students, instead of saluting the Australian flag and taking the oath of allegiance, are told to memorise the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

There is nothing new or unusual about schools being used as vehicles to indoctrinate students with neo-Marxist-inspired cultural-left ideology. It’s been happening over the last 30 to 40 years. As I wrote in Why our schools are failing (2004), instead of viewing education as something objective and impartial, Australian schools have been pressured to adopt ‘an ideologically driven approach that defines education as an instrument to radically change society and turn students into politically correct, new-age warriors’.

While the expression ‘the long march through the institutions’ has become clichéd, it does not alter the fact the phrase, attributed to the German student radical Rudi Dutschke and before him to the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, very much describes what has occurred in education since the late 1970s.

At a Fabian Society meeting held in Melbourne in 1983, Joan Kirner, who later became Victoria’s Minister for Education and then Premier, argued education had to be reshaped as ‘part of the socialist struggle for equality, participation, and social change, rather than an instrument of the capitalist system’. In the same speech, Kirner argued schools must be used as ‘a catalyst for system change rather than the legitimisation of system maintenance’.

Kirner’s socialist beliefs explain her mantra of ‘equality of outcomes’ instead of ‘equality of opportunity’ and her campaign to replace the then Higher School Certificate with the Victorian Certificate of Education. Given its academic focus and competitive end-of-year examinations where students are ranked in terms of performance, Kirner argued the HSC unfairly favoured privileged students attending wealthy non-government schools.

The Australian Education Union (previously named the Australian Teachers Federation) has, over the last 40 years, argued that Australian society is riven with inequality and injustice and that teachers, in the words of a teacher training resource popular at the time, must decide whose side they are on.

The union’s 1985 curriculum policy paper condemns Australian society for its ‘pronounced inequality in the distribution of social, economic, cultural and political resources and power between social groups, which restricts the life development of many’. Teachers were told the purpose of education was to reveal to students ‘the role of the economy, the sexual division of labour, the dominant culture and the education system in reproducing inequality’.

In order to improve equity and overcome disadvantage, the Australian Education Union has consistently spoken against Year 12 certificates, standardised tests like the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), and what is described as the competitive, academic curriculum. This curriculum is apparently guilty of reinforcing capitalist hierarchies and disadvantaging at-risk, low socio-economic status (SES) students.

The Union’s 1998 curriculum policy paper states:

‘Reliance on competition is a primary cause of inequalities of educational outcome because students from certain social groups are advantaged by competitive selection methods. Competitive selection also sets students against each other rather than encouraging co-operative learning methods.’

Once again, the primary target are Catholic and Independent schools that generally achieve the strongest academic results as measured by the Year 12 Australian Tertiary Entrance Rank (ATAR).

Other examples illustrating the wider cultural-left’s ideology and opposition to the belief education should be impartial and unbiased include denouncing the Howard government’s involvement in the Iraqi war and suggesting students are entitled to strike in protest; arguing it’s okay for students to wag school to attend climate change demonstrations; telling teachers they must embrace a neo-Marxist inspired LGBTQ+ agenda, and arguing non-government schools should not be funded.

Given the AEU’s history of cultural-left activism, it should not surprise that the teacher union is a strong supporter of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. In its submission to the ‘Indigenous Voice Co-Design process’ the union argues:

‘The AEU strongly supports The Uluru Statement and Voice. Treaty. Truth. Specifically, the AEU wishes to emphasise the importance of Truth-telling in schools through and in the curriculum and in the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.’

As I detail in the chapter on school education in Cancel Culture And The Left’s Long March, subject associations have also been instrumental in radically reshaping the curriculum and what happens in the classroom. Some of these groups also oppose standardised tests like NAPLAN (in relation to literacy) on the basis such tests stifle creativity by privileging correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, and standardised English instead of the language students bring to the classroom.

Drawing on the work of the Brazilian Marxist educator Paulo Freire, who toured Australia in 1974, and the concept of critical literacy, one teaching association argues that the purpose of teaching English is to liberate and empower students by enabling them to critique texts and to discover how language is employed to reinforce what Louis Althusser terms capitalist society’s ideological state apparatus.

In an editorial in the 2004 edition of English in Australia published by the AATE, it is argued that the re-election of the Howard-led government demonstrated teachers had failed to properly teach critical literacy and, as a result, they had to redouble their efforts as so many young people had voted the wrong way. ‘What does it mean for us and our ability to create a questioning, critical generation that those who brought us balaclava-clad security guards, Alsatians, and Patrick’s Stevedoring could declare themselves the representatives of the workers and be supported by the electorate?’

Critical literacy and a rainbow alliance of cultural-left theories including postmodernism, deconstructionism, radical feminist gender, and post-colonial theories have also had a profound impact on how literature is taught in the English classroom. Australia contains teaching associations that condemn the concept of a literary canon involving those enduring works that are well crafted and have something profound to say about the human condition. Instead of acknowledging the moral, emotional, and aesthetic value of literature students are made to deconstruct texts in terms of power relationships and how the voices of marginalised groups, including women, people of colour, and LGBQ+ people, are ignored and silenced.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/08/our-schools-are-failing-this-is-why/

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Some awkward truths about the white settlement of Australia

There’s a wonderful scene in the movie A Few Good Men when Jack Nicholson loses his cool and exclaims: ‘You can’t handle the truth!’ Everyone who has seen this film remembers that dramatic courtroom segment when a young and relatively inexperienced lawyer played by Tom Cruise verbally challenges a high-ranking US Army veteran played by Jack Nicholson. Great acting!

I wonder whether the ‘First Nations’ activists who claim to represent all 300+ Indigenous groups in Australia will be able to handle the truth if we eventually meet their demand to implement the Makarrata Commission (as cited in the Uluru Statement from the Heart) which is planning to undertake the supposed ‘truth-telling’ of Australian history?

Presumably, their aim is to establish a similar body to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission that followed the democratic election of President Nelson Mandela in 1994. This body was created to investigate gross human rights violations perpetrated during the period of the Apartheid regime in South Africa – and it did a great job of exposing the evil of Apartheid.

The stated objective of the Australian version will be ‘…to bring to light colonial conflict and dispossession, and also to acknowledge the strength and resilience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and cultures.’

In other words, how they suffered – nothing about how the settlers, who arrived starting in 1788, also suffered at the hands of aggressive and often warlike Indigenous people.

Firstly, I hope no one seriously believes that the Indigenous people in Australia suffered to the same extent experienced by South African peoples during the Apartheid years, because that would be a gross distortion of the truth. I’ve experienced Apartheid firsthand and fought against it, so I know what its perpetrators did to so many innocent people.

Given that, I also really hope that the Makarrata Commission will include in its ‘truth-telling’ the following facts so that a balanced and genuinely truthful outcome will be achieved:

1. According to one survey, 48 per cent of Australians believe that James Cook arrived in Australia in 1788 with the First Fleet and was therefore, in their view, a member of the white colonial force that supposedly ‘invaded’ this continent. As a result, Cook’s statues have been attacked and his memory defiled. Moreover, the landing of the First Fleet on 26 January 1788 has been named ‘Invasion Day’ by these same people.

The truth is James Cook arrived in Botany Bay on 29th April 1770 and was not involved in any activity that could be even remotely called an ‘invasion’. Cook and approximately 40 members of his crew stepped ashore – hardly an invasion force. He was under strict instructions from the British government to: ‘…endeavour by all proper means to cultivate a friendship with them…shewing (sic) them every Civility and Regard.’

Unfortunately, the Aboriginal people who met them on that day were aggressive and threw stones and spears at Cook and his crew. They in turn fired muskets to scare them away. The shot used was a light, non-lethal load and meant only to ‘sting’ and scare. No one on either side was seriously injured. Even when Cook offered small gifts there was no positive response, unlike that provided by other local people in several of the Pacific islands that Cook visited and was used to trading with.

In summary, James Cook was not only a great mariner and cartographer, but also a good, humane, and prudent man. He deserves to be remembered as such.

2. When the First Fleet arrived at Port Jackson nearly two decades later on 26th January 1788, much the same applied in terms of the British government’s instructions to Governor Arthur Phillip. He was ordered ‘…to endeavour, by every possible means to open an intercourse with the natives, and to conciliate their affections, enjoining all our subjects to live in amity and kindness with them. And if any of our subjects shall wantonly destroy them, or give them any unnecessary interruptions in the exercise of their several occupations, it is our will and pleasure that you do cause such offenders to be brought to punishment according to the degree of the offence.’

These are hardly the words that could be attributed to an ‘invasion’. Moreover, if the British government was truly intent on invading this newly discovered continent, there would likely be very few Indigenous people alive today. And that would certainly have applied if other European nations such as Spain, Portugal, Germany, or Belgium had colonised this continent instead of the British. Look at their track record as colonisers!

3. The First Fleet comprised many nationalities and at least 12 were black people from Africa, West Indies and America. In total, there were approximately 1,400 people who arrived with the purpose of establishing the British colony that is now called Australia.

At that time there were approximately 750,000 Indigenous people distributed over some 500+ different groups comprising many clans. There was no overarching Aboriginal ‘nation’ as such. There was clearly room for a much larger population. During this time, both groups could have learned more from each other than they did – with the settlers offering leaps in technology while the Aboriginal people had knowledge regarding how to survive and manage on the land.

4. The arrival of settlers certainly brought death to thousands of Indigenous people, primarily as a result of diseases such as smallpox – there’s no denying that. But does anyone believe that this vast continent would have remained isolated for 200+ years? Of course not, it was only a question of time before one nation or another discovered this amazing place and chose to have its people settle here. Whilst death from disease and conflict came with that settlement, it certainly wasn’t all bad. It is claimed by some that Indigenous people now enjoy the benefits of modernity since British settlers have arrived. Improved health leading to longer life-spans, education, rule of law, and all the facilities of modern life have all been positive outcomes of British colonisation – but none of this is ever acknowledged by left-wing activists, it’s all doom and gloom as far as they’re concerned and they love to portray themselves as victims, even those who have become successful!

And many Indigenous people have been highly successful, including the current 11 elected federal MPs and numerous others from all sectors of the community such as government, business, art, and sport. The opportunities are there for all Indigenous people, not just a few. It’s hardly anyone else’s fault if some choose not to take full advantage of those opportunities and the vast sums of money that are invested every year by taxpayers aimed at improving Indigenous people’s lives. In excess of $30 billion is being spent annually and many people are asking where exactly does that money get spent? It’s pretty clear that those out in the bush certainly don’t see much of it. There are a large number of Indigenous bodies already established to help their people at the grassroots level – perhaps they should be asked that question and also required to account for it?

5. Much has also been said of the ‘stolen generation’. The truth of the matter is far more complex, with many of the so-called stolen children being taken into care by well-meaning and caring settlers who were horrified by the living conditions experienced by the children. As is the case to some extent even now, there was a high level of domestic violence perpetrated largely by family members as well as frequent conflict between the various clans.

Having said that, there is no doubt that government policies were poorly implemented and monitored and much unnecessary suffering eventuated as a result. It was devastating to many Indigenous families. And the same is happening today.

It is hoped that a balanced outcome will be achieved as a result of any truth-telling process that takes place and that settlers won’t be seen to be entirely to blame because that would simply be untrue.

6. Finally, in relation to the Voice, truth-telling by the Federal government would be well-received by those amongst us who value truthfulness. The Albanese Labor government and ‘Yes’ supporters have stated that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people asked for the Voice in the Uluru Statement from the Heart. What they did not point out is that the Uluru Statement was adopted at a convention that was attended by only 250 delegates, hand-picked from about a dozen community Dialogues. Moreover, a number of convention delegates rejected it and walked out! The two leading Indigenous ‘No’ campaigners Nyunggai Warren Mundine AO and Senator Nampijinpa Jacinta Price both criticised the process and the outcome. Many Indigenous people agree with them.

It should also be noted that there are currently 300-plus so-called ‘First Nations’ traditional owners groups in Australia. Surely this means 300-plus ‘voices’ need to be heard by the government; one national Indigenous Voice comprising selected (i.e. unelected) representatives should clearly not be allowed to speak for all of them just because left-wing activists and the Australian Labor government wants it to.

Deception by our federal government and its supporters has provided a false picture to those of us who will be voting in the referendum. Hopefully enough voters will recognise this and vote ‘No’.

The facts are very clear: the proposed Voice is racially divisive. It will lead to decades of litigation through High Court activism. It has the power to challenge every government decision because all government matters affect Indigenous people – not just those few named by the government. It violates the sacred democratic principle of one person, one vote. And it will lead to the allocation of critical social and economic resources being based on race, rather than need, as has happened in New Zealand.

Professor Ramesh Thakur from ANU’s Crawford School of Public Policy and former UN Assistant Secretary-General stated recently that: ‘Permanently codifying racial grievance into the Constitution will guarantee it is weaponised and monetised by activists … it will be the beginning of fresh claims for co-sovereignty, treaty, and reparations, using the Constitution’s authority as the enabling mechanism.’

Prime Minister Albanese would be wise to reflect on all the above as well as consider the words of his acknowledged hero, former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke, who stated that in this country there must be ‘no hierarchy of descent’ and ‘no privilege of origin’.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/08/you-cant-handle-the-truth/ ?

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A very Leftist government

‘Should Israel refer to Australia as occupied Aboriginal territory?’ asked Stephen Flatow in the Jerusalem Post on 13 August.Flatow asked the question because the Albanese government has announced that it will resume using the term ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’.

Flatow points out that Jerusalem, which the Albanese government ceased to recognise as the capital of Israel last October, has been the holiest city of the Jews since the 10th century BC. Palestine was a name imposed by the Roman conquerors after the Jewish-Roman wars (66-136AD) to efface the Jewish identity of Judea which dated back to the Kingdom of Judah established in the 6th century BC.

‘If you want to find some genuinely occupied territory, look no further than the country of Australia,’ argues Flatow. ‘“Occupied Territories?” “Illegal settlers?” Australia’s Labor party government ought to take a look in the mirror before hurling false and insulting accusations at Israel,’ he writes.

Flatow’s only error is imagining that his accusation that Australia is illegally occupied would insult or surprise Australia’s Prime Minister or his comrades.

Albanese presides over the most left-wing government in Australia in a generation. It is largely because the Western world has shifted so dramatically to the left and become so authoritarian and intolerant of free speech that the political orientation of the Australian government has escaped greater comment.

While the timing of the slap in the face to our ally is conveniently calculated to still be smarting by the time Labor’s National Conference convenes on Thursday, it is wrong to imagine that it is the advent of the conference that is driving the charge left.

Albanese has always been a stalwart of the left faction but he is loyally supported by the right faction which has always supported the leader. The right wing of the Labor party has always been driven by the sort of pragmatism best summed up by Graham Richardson’s motto, ‘Whatever it takes’.

With a left-wing prime minister and a world where pandemic panic and climate catastrophism have been used to justify economically ruinous policies, authoritarianism and censorship, the right wing of the Labor party has pragmatically adjusted to the policy parameters of the times.

Labor’s 2021 National Platform proves the point. For example, on the Voice, the Prime Minister is doing his best to say different things to different people but the National Platform is unequivocal – ‘Labor supports all elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, including a constitutionally enshrined Voice to parliament, a Makarrata Commission for agreement-making and a national process of truth-telling.’

The Voice is anti-democratic, empowering a tiny group to speak for all Aboriginal people including to negotiate reparations and a treaty, but that should surprise no one because Marxists scorn bourgeois democracy as a deception of the ruling class. That’s why co-architect of the Voice, Thomas Mayo paid his respects to ‘the elders of the Communist party who I think without a doubt have played a very important role in our activism’.

The whole point of creating a Voice to parliament is to create a partner with whom Albanese can negotiate a treaty and to whom he can hand over an Aboriginal sovereign state. And if the ‘partners’ in this project give any indication of the future character of this state it will probably recognise China before it recognises either Australia or Israel.

What is interesting about the government is not just that it is attempting to mainstream the ideas of communists but that so many erstwhile stalwarts of the party’s right-wing are channelling their inner-lefties.

Most people become more hardheaded and right-wing as they age and take on greater financial and social responsibilities but some people who reach the pinnacle of power and then move on become more leftist in their twilight years.

On Israel, with a few notable exceptions, Labor has been shifting leftwards. Former NSW premier Bob Carr, also of the NSW right, long ago moved from a pro-Israel to a pro-Palestinian position. Former foreign minister Gareth Evans, of the Victorian Centre Unity faction, has been pro-Palestine for a long time. Tony Burke, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, and for the Arts, also of the NSW Right, is pro-Palestine.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating, who led the NSW Right in his day, has become increasingly shrill in his anti-American and pro-Chinese stances and is leading the charge against Aukus. As a result, the conference will be a Keating-free zone. It is Labor’s commitment to this Morrison government initiative that gives the government a mainstream appearance. But in almost all other policy areas it has veered sharply to the left.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has adopted a national wellbeing framework, the first step in the transition to a ‘wellbeing economy’, an economic approach endorsed by the Club of Rome and expounded in an updated version of The Limits to Growth called Earth4All. This is the view that resources are finite and their consumption is unsustainable. It has been discredited by economists such as Julian Simon who point out that what is considered a resource changes over time. No one should be surprised that former NSW treasurer Matt Kean also adopted a ‘wellbeing’ approach.

One thing Labor doesn’t worry about exhausting is taxpayer dollars. Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen, also of the NSW Right, has adopted a pursuit of renewable energy that is clobbering the economy and the environment at huge cost.

Minister for Communications, Michelle Rowland, also from the NSW Right, has introduced the Misinformation Bill that will pressure social media companies to censor speech that runs counter to government policy for fear of facing massive fines. It is essentially the bill tabled by her predecessor, but worse.

Minister for Health and Aged Care Mark Butler is a member of the left faction so there is little surprise that he is comfortable allowing the World Health Organisation to take a dictatorial role in pandemic management.

Given how far to the left the Liberal party moved while it was in government adopting a net-zero goal and tabling a Misinformation bill it is hardly surprising that Labor is dishing out more of the same.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/08/left-right-left

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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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