Australian Politics
Marcia Langton accuses No campaign of racism and stupidity
Aborigines are in general very polite people so she is not very Aboriginal in her speech about this matter. But her father was a Scotsman so her Aboriginality is much diluted. That may explain where her politeness went
Linda Burney has been forced to intervene and call for care and respect from both sides of the voice referendum debate after Marcia Langton accused the No case of racism and stupidity, undermining the Yes campaign’s strategy to win over five million undecided voters.
Race became a central feature of the campaign on Tuesday in the wake of Professor Langton’s comments to an audience in regional Western Australia, as Noel Pearson urged fellow Yes supporters to “be respectful of the reservations that people have”.
The Australian understands there is a view among senior ranks of the party that if the Yes campaign manages to win over undecided people and add them to the Yes voters already locked in, they can achieve a majority on October 14.
Professor Langton in Bunbury on Sunday called out No campaign “lies” such as a voice enshrined in the Constitution will lead to treaty and compensation for Aboriginal people. “We’re really down to the wire. We’ve got four weeks to win this now and if there are people thinking, ‘Oh, but I read that (West Australian columnist) Paul Murray said that they’re going to use this as a sneaky way to get treaties’, we’re already well on the way to treaties, just tell them that,” Professor Langton said, adding that compensation would only ever be paid if the courts or governments said it should be.
“What are they (the No campaign) talking about? See, ‘Aborigines are bludgers, Aborigines steal everything, Aborigines aren’t entitled to the compensation that everybody else gets because they’re lying’. Do you see my point? Every time the No case raises one of their arguments, if you start pulling it apart you get down to base racism – I’m sorry to say it but that’s where it lands – or just sheer stupidity.”
The Minister for Indigenous Australians refused to directly criticise the comments but told federal parliament: “I want to say this very clearly – I call on everyone involved in this referendum to act respectfully and with care for their fellow Australians.
“We are a great country. We are enhanced by listening to a diversity of views and opinions. Fundamentally the voice is all about the act of listening … Of course there is no room for racism of any kind in this country,” Ms Burney said.
Professor Langton, an architect of national, regional and local voice models, defended her comments, saying No campaigners were using racist tactics but she didn’t believe the majority of Australians were racist.
“I have not said that No voters are racist. The No campaign is using racism to peddle their deceitful wares,” she told The Australian on Tuesday.
“No one gets compensation unless a court or authority has ordered it. There are treaty processes well under way in Victoria. Queensland and the NT. The Calma Langton Report states unequivocally that the Voice structure we recommend would not interfere in existing bodies or processes.
“It is an advisory body only. The No campaign is deliberately lying about matters that are on the public record and duping the public.”
Opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Jacinta Price – a leading campaigner for the No case – said the comments provided an “insight into the mindset and agenda of the Aboriginal activists pushing the divisive voice.” She warned the remarks from Professor Langton would be highly offensive to about half the nation.
“Whichever way the referendum goes, the result looks like it will be extremely close and any suggestion No voters who are unpersuaded by their proposed voice are siding with racism or stupidity is highly offensive to at least half the country.”
Ken Wyatt, who was Indigenous Australians minister in the Morrison government and has worked with Professor Langton for years on the issues of constitutional recognition and a voice, did not wish to comment on her remarks first reported by the Bunbury Herald.
However he characterised some of the claims of the No campaign as “stupid”.
“People are now becoming more uncertain because of the strategies that are being used by individuals who are pushing fears and concerns into the minds of people,” Mr Wyatt said.
“Last night in Melbourne I learned there are messages being given to cultural groups saying stupid things like ‘if you vote Yes you will have to pay Aboriginal people for the use of your land’ or ‘you cannot go to the beach if the voice is established’.
“These are blatant mistruths and that is causing people to become concerned and that is sad when this should have been a debate about the merits of an advisory body to government because that is all it is it is – an advisory body – it has no extraordinary powers.
“The political leaders opposing this in the Liberal Party and the Nationals will have a say on the legislation that is drafted to create the voice.”
Anthony Albanese told caucus on Tuesday that MPs needed to talk to as many people as possible in the weeks ahead, while it is understood Mr Erickson also said Labor members should use the final month of campaigning to make the case for the Indigenous voice.
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Inquest to examine apparent suicides of five trans and gender diverse Victorians
The apparent suicides of five people who were undergoing a gender affirmation process before they died will be investigated by the Victorian coroner.
The inquest, scheduled for November, will consider the otherwise unrelated deaths together, as the coroner is likely to make recommendations that could help prevent future suicides.
While the suspected suicides are not directly linked, the coroner believes investigating the deaths during the one inquest will lead to better informed recommendations.
All five of those who died were born between 1987 and 2001. The lead case involves Bridget Flack, whose body was found in bushland in the Melbourne suburb of Kew two weeks after she was reported missing.
The 28-year-old was last seen by her friend on the morning of 3o November 2020 in Lygon Street, Carlton. She had said she was going to take a walk in a park in Fairfield, but despite contacting people via phone later in the day, Flack never returned home.
Flack’s disappearance made national headlines and more than 120 people helped her family search for her, before her body was eventually found by a member of the public.
The Victorian coroner, Ingrid Giles, has issued an order on how the five people should be publicly referred to during the inquest.
“In July 2023, I assumed carriage of the investigation into the deaths of five young people who were undergoing a gender affirmation process prior to passing, and who had died by way of apparent suicide,” the order said.
“In order to assist the court in referring to the deceased persons in a respectful and culturally appropriate manner in these proceedings, the loved ones of the deceased were consulted in relation to the names that were in use by the deceased prior to passing, and which had been chosen by the deceased to correspond with their gender identity.”
“I have determined it appropriate to refer in this proceeding to each deceased by what the evidence supports as their chosen name, even where this had not been legally changed.”
In one case, a pseudonym of “AS” will also be used, Giles said in the order.
Shortly after Flack’s disappearance, her sister described her as an incredibly intelligent and articulate person.
“She’s artistic, she sings, plays music, writes music, DJs. She writes beautifully, beautiful poetry and stories. She loves her job, she loves studying,” her sister said at the time.
A directions hearing will be held on 13 October before the inquest begins in late November. Three days have been set aside for the inquest.
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Northern Territory Police to open Zachary Rolfe complaint inquiry
Politically correct detective apparently did his best to "get" an innocent cop. That may now be investgated
The Northern Territory Police Force has vowed to investigate Zachary Rolfe’s allegations of serious misconduct against a Darwin detective involved in his failed murder prosecution despite recently telling the complainant no further action would be taken.
In June, the former police officer formally complained to Police Commissioner Michael Murphy about the conduct of Detective Senior Sergeant Wayne Newell during the criminal investigation into Kumanjayi Walker’s death and asked the police chief to initiate a thorough investigation into the matters raised.
NT Police’s Professional Standards Command wrote to Mr Rolfe last month, advising him his complaint against police fell to the Office of Ombudsman NT to investigate but that the Ombudsman had declined because it was not in the public interest and Mr Rolfe’s one-year time limit to complain had expired. The letter, sent in early August, said PSC believed no further action was required.
In a confusing backflip, NT Police on Tuesday told The Australian, in response to questions about PSC’s decision, that “police are investigating the allegations”.
“As the matter is ongoing no comment will be made at this time,” a spokesperson said.
Sen-Sgt Newell, the senior investigating officer for the criminal investigation – codenamed Operation Charwell – into Walker’s death, also declined to comment with an investigation under way.
In May 2022, two months after Mr Rolfe was acquitted of murdering Walker at Yuendumu, he complained to police, in writing, about certain aspects of the criminal investigation before detailing his “very serious concern” over Sen-Sgt Newell’s conduct in relation to “evidence collecting” and nondisclosure in June.
The 11-page complaint, sent by his lawyer, Luke Officer, alleged the experienced detective “may have engaged in criminal conduct, such as, for example, perverting the course of justice”, and included excerpts of court transcripts from his trial, as well as emails and other internal police material – including coronial reports – supporting his claims.
Mr Rolfe’s concerns were distilled into five issues, including that email correspondence between detectives – including Sen-Sgt Newell – and American criminologist Geoffrey Alpert suggested the investigation team was editing its expert’s report.
The Australian revealed in April last year NT Police had paid Mr Alpert $100,000 to produce a 12-page report supporting the murder charge against Mr Rolfe and that he repeatedly altered his conclusions at the request of detectives.
The second matter raised was that Sen-Sgt Newell had allowed pathologist Marianne Tiemensma to give expert evidence at trial about the lethality of the scissors Walker had stabbed Mr Rolfe with despite Dr Tiemensma expressing that it may be inappropriate because she had performed Walker’s autopsy and may be accused of bias.
Two complaints were about Sen-Sgt Newell being aware of or withholding supplementary expert opinions from trauma surgeon Keith Towsey and forensic pathologist Paul Botterill that would have helped the defence and were only revealed in the course of the trial.
The fifth complaint was that Sen-Sgt Newell withheld evidence of a conversation with Australian Federal Police forensic analyst Timothy Simpson seeking a supplementary opinion and that the conversation only came to light during the trial.
Before Mr Rolfe’s trial started, his lawyers learned of the existence of police coronial investigation reports – which were critical of the criminal investigation including the use of particular expert witnesses – that had not been provided to the Director of Public Prosecutions or the defence. Mr Rolfe’s legal team had to subpoena then police commissioner Jamie Chalker for their production.
Commander David Proctor wrote in his coronial investigation report that the criminal investigation was biased against the accused. Commander Proctor claimed the prosecution’s use-of-force expert, Detective Superintendent Andrew Barram, was subject to “confirmation bias”, that he was “firmly ensconced within the investigation team” and that his independence as an expert was “compromised”.
Mr Officer this week told The Australian “the highest-profile murder trial in recent times” was plagued with issues of nondisclosure from the start.
After receiving Mr Rolfe’s complaint in June, police also referred it to the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption but Commissioner Michael Riches refused to confirm whether he is investigating the allegations.
An ICAC spokesperson this week said “the Commissioner does not comment on such matters”, despite having publicised other investigations it was conducting.
Mr Rolfe was dismissed from the NT Police in April “due to serious breaches of discipline” during his policing career. He has lodged an appeal.
The 32-year-old will be called to give evidence at Walker’s inquest when it resumes at Alice Springs next month.
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BS 24.7 The next Covid variant?
Rebecca Weisser
Once again, New Zealand is leading the world in the pandemic stakes. While Australian premiers are still hung up on pretending Covid vaccines are ‘safe and effective’ TM, New Zealand’s Prime Minister and former Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins has moved on to the stage of denying that the mandates were mandates. As he puts it, ‘In terms of the vaccine mandates… (people) ultimately made their own choices… There was no compulsory vaccination.’
Did he get the idea from Pfizer’s man down under, Dr Brian Hewitt, who tried it on Senator Pauline Hanson in a recent Senate Committee Hearing saying, ‘No one was forced to have a vaccine’, people were offered an ‘opportunity’ to get vaccinated. Fair point. We should be more positive. Being held up at knifepoint in a dark alley isn’t being mugged, it’s an ‘opportunity’ to donate your valuables to a masked bandit.
In Australia, the vaccine efficacy that preoccupies state premiers – who imposed the mandates – is getting re-elected. As Premier Andrews put it when he won the Victorian election in a ‘Dan-slide’ last November, ‘Vaccines work!’ In Queensland, Premier Palasczcuk is so keen to repeat the act that she’s hired Andrews’ adman.
But who will last longer? The mandates or Palasczcuk? On Friday 1 September, Health Minister Shannon Fentiman (mooted to be a front-runner to replace the Premier) announced two-week consultations on removing the mandates, two years after they were imposed in September 2021.
Queensland’s Chief Health Officer (CHO) has already said they should go but the power of the CHO which seemed almost unlimited at the height of Covid hysteria has diminished now that he is proposing something sensible.
A group called Doctors Against Mandates mounted a legal challenge to the mandates on 12 March 2022. Within a fortnight of receiving 13 affidavits from medical professionals and six reports from international experts, the CHO revoked the mandates for health workers in the private sector. Unfortunately, mandates which cover the public sector health are still in force.
One of the most damning indictments of vaccine efficacy was filed in relation to the doctors’ challenge to the mandate in the Supreme Court of Queensland early this year by the state’s Chief Health Officer Dr John Gerrard. It revealed that once 80 per cent of the population were vaccinated and the borders opened in December 2021, not only did Covid cases explode, peaking at 18,500 per day in January, but 80 per cent of the 176 Covid deaths were in people who had had one or more Covid vaccine jabs. Most were double-vaxxed but 13 were triple-vaxxed and one died after five shots. In other words, the vaccines were duds. They failed to stop the pandemic or prevent the vulnerable from dying. All the bullying of the unvaccinated, preventing grieving Australians from comforting their dying loved ones or attending their funerals, denying a pregnant woman in New South Wales permission to cross the border and get urgent medical treatment which meant she waited 16 hours to fly to Sydney, and lost one of her twins – it was all for nothing.
Did the Premier rush to apologise for the damage done by the ‘failed vaccines’, to quote Bill Gates who profited heavily from his investment in the Pfizer jab? Of course not. The information was only made public last month by Rebekah Barnett in her excellent substack Dystopian Downunder.
Far from apologising, Queensland Health is still threatening disciplinary action against ‘hundreds’ of workers who ‘did not comply with their employment contract’ by getting jabbed.
Infectious disease physician Paul Griffin supports ending the mandates but thinks the biggest risk is that ‘people will think the initial rule was wrong, which,’ according to him, ‘isn’t the case’.
That’s the nub of it. The government doesn’t want to admit that the vaccines are useless and the mandates were morally, scientifically and practically wrong.
The only reason it is ending the mandate is because it can’t replace the more than 2,100 healthcare workers who were stood down or forced to resign.
‘We have global workforce shortages, so I think it makes sense now to reconsider this mandate,’ Fentiman says.
‘If someone wants to now reapply for a job with Queensland Health who is not vaccinated for Covid, they’ll be treated the same as any other worker.’
Despite a massive increase in Australia’s international immigration intake and wage hikes in the health sector, acute shortages persist, not least because the repeatedly vaccinated healthcare workers repeatedly get Covid-19. This was observed in a study of more than 50,000 US healthcare workers in the prestigious Cleveland Clinic, which showed the more often you were jabbed, the more you caught Covid.
Interstate migration into Queensland, predominantly Victoria, and NSW, the states worst affected by lockdown lunacy, has increased demand for health services.
National excess mortality of over 13 per cent this year has increased pressure on hospitals.
The dramatic spike in ‘dying suddenly’ is recorded under ‘other cardiac conditions’ in Australia’s provisional mortality data. Deaths from January to May are 15.5 per cent higher than the baseline average and 1 per cent higher than the same period in 2022.
Deaths due to diabetes were 22 per cent above the baseline average in May 2023, and 1.4 per cent higher than in May 2022
Deaths due to dementia including Alzheimer’s were 18 per cent above the baseline average in May 2023, and 2.1 per cent above May 2022.
Each of these causes of death has been linked in studies to the spike protein in the virus and/or the vaccine. For example, a paper from Larson et al. at Linkoping University, Sweden published on 1 September presents evidence for the initiation or acceleration of Alzheimer’s disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease by the spike protein.
When the mandate for health workers ends in Queensland, flagged for 25 September, only NSW, Victoria and South Australia will be left. Will that be the end?
Who knows? In the US some colleges and hospitals are trying to bring back mask mandates.
Scott Gottlieb, former head of the US Food and Drug Administration and now on the board of Pfizer is talking up the next booster.
The latest variant has been named after Eris, the Greek goddess of ‘strife and discord’. What is the plan? A rerun of lockdowns and Black Lives Matter on the rampage in the run-up to the 2024 Presidential election? Skeptics have their own name for the variant – BS.24.7.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/09/bs-24-7/ ?
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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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