The disability commission was split on special schools. Some with lived experience want them closed

Some disablement is pretty severe. Where are you going to put those students? Putting them into mainstream schools will require a lot of teacher attention and hamper the education of other students

It has long been fashionable to get handicapped students into regular schools. It is part of the idiotic Leftist dogma that all men are equal. But in practice such transfers are oftem problematical to both the handicapped student and other students in his/her class. So the experiment has often had to be abandoned and the handicapped student moved to a school better equipped to meet their needs. But Leftists resist learning from experience, of course. They just KNOW! And we see that obduracy in some of the opinions described below


Disability Royal Commissioner Dr Rhonda Galbally said governments should give significant weight to her own and two colleagues’ lived experience with disabilities when deciding whether to back their call for all special schools to be shut within 30 years, after the commission split over the future of segregated education.

The division among the six commissioners about the future of special schools was a key feature of the landmark 12-volume final report of the Disability Royal Commission, with a three-three split among the experts leaving governments without a clear authority on the issue and facing a choice about the best way forward.

In an interview following the public release of the report on Friday, Galbally acknowledged that the lack of consensus on segregated education had diluted the commission’s influence on the matter, as she stressed that the three commissioners urging the closure of special schools had direct experience with disabilities.

“But on the other hand, the two commissioners with disability are recommending this and the other commissioner who is recommending it is a parent of a grown woman with a disability,” Galbally, a former board member of the National Disability Insurance Agency, said.

“I think governments will give really significant weight to lived experience, to the expertise of people with disabilities. I think that will really be very weighty for them.”

Over the course of the 4½-year commission – which cost $600 million and received evidence from more than 9000 people with disabilities, their families, carers and advocates – no dedicated public hearings were held on special schools.

Hinting at friction among the commissioners on this issue, Galbally said this aspect was “very disappointing”, adding: “some of us raised it many times and would have wished it was different.”

Galbally and commissioner Alastair McEwin, who both live with a disability, joined with commissioner Barbara Bennett in recommending that no new special schools be built from 2025 and that all existing schools be closed by 2051. Bennett’s daughter was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 12 years old.

In a joint position, they concluded that “segregated education stems from, and contributes to, the devaluing of people with disability” and the continued maintenance of segregation in education settings was “incompatible” with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

But their position diverged with that advocated by the commission’s chair, Ronald Sackville, and commissioners John Ryan and Andrea Mason, who found that separate settings did not need to – and should not – involve people with a disability being isolated from their peers or the general community. They recommended a range of measures aimed at ensuring there was regular interaction between students at special schools and those at mainstream schools.

But Galbally said this approach risked being tokenistic and would not drive the attitude change needed for people with disabilities to be seen as equal to able-bodied people.

“Students having contact that’s not gritty and day-to-day and in the process of doing what one does at school, which is learning and playing, it can become a little token,” Galbally said.

She said it was clear that the dual system of education was “failing” children with disabilities, pointing to modelling done by the commission.

“If you go to a special school, you’re 85 per cent more likely to end up in a sheltered workshop and with very limited living options as an adult,” Galbally said.

The three commissioners’ proposal to phase out special schools was welcomed by peak body Children and Young People with Disability Australia, and Down Syndrome Australia, but they also expressed disappointment at the long timeline to 2051.

Galbally said that she understood the dismay from those groups, but said it was driven by a need to ensure there was as much consensus as possible and encourage governments to embrace it.

“If governments feel they could do this sooner, that would be really great. We were aware that out of all the settings we’ve addressed … this schooling one is the one governments would probably find most difficult and so it was an attempt to really try and allow them time to get this done,” she said.

However, some experts have questioned the feasibility of closing all non-mainstream schools and removing choice for parents, while others say the lack of unanimity from the royal commission could erode the political will and substantial funding commitments required to overhaul the education sector to remove segregation.

Former NDIS board member Martin Lavery, chief executive of one of Australia’s largest charitable providers, said he was “really concerned that the royal commission has outlined a destination that we as a society haven’t yet grappled with how to pay for”.

“If we see the end of special schools too, the end of group homes too suddenly, and supported employment being turned off too suddenly, our society hasn’t yet got the mechanism to meet those costs,” he said.

Laverty said the taskforce established by the federal government in response to the commission’s findings needed to hear the message that segregation must end, and determine the “pace at which the taxpayer, the families, the charitable organisations, but most importantly, the people with disabilities want that transition to occur.”

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-disability-commission-was-split-on-special-schools-those-with-lived-experience-want-them-closed-20230929-p5e8np.html

***************************************************

Children’s Health Defense Australia: saving our kids after Covid lockdowns

Julie Sladden

Few would disagree that the health of the children today foreshadows the health of the population tomorrow. With that in mind, the past three years of pandemic fear and dystopia have upset any preconceived ideas that the health of the people is on solid ground. In a worldwide response that saw nations lockdown, mask up, and mass vaccinate – ‘to protect grandma’ – it seems scant regard was paid to the cost incurred on the future generation.

Australia was ground zero for many of the more tyrannical restrictions of freedom and it didn’t go unnoticed. ‘The whole world is alarmed by what’s happening in Australia,’ said Robert F. Kennedy Jnr., founder of Children’s Health Defense US. With many states enforcing closed schools, masking of children, social distancing, and mandates, it will be years before the full impact of these actions is known.

As early data emerges on the impact on education, health, and social development it seems those who might pay the greatest price are the next generation. It is timely then that the Australian Chapter of the Children’s Health Defense was officially launched on August 26 this year.

With a board packed with expertise – Professor Robyn Cosford, Emeritus Professor Ramesh Thakur, lawyers Julian Gillespie and Peter Fam, Dr Astrid Lefringhausen, AMPS secretary and registered nurse Kara Thomas, and medical freedom advocate Cloi Geddes – Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Australia is well placed to bring light to, and stand against, the incursions on children’s health over the Covid years. But the story doesn’t begin there. The Covid response may simply be the catalyst, in Australia at least, for a light to be shone on the deterioration in the health of children over recent decades.

‘What we’re seeing in our children now … is an epidemic of chronic disease,’ explains Professor Cosford. ‘The sorts of things that we used to be seeing in older adults, in our grandparents, and our great aunts and uncles. We don’t expect to be seeing them in our children. We’re seeing an epidemic of immunological disorders where nearly half of the children have some kind of allergic-type disease, and we have autoimmune diseases occurring in our children which never have been seen before… We have an epidemic of mental health … (with) some 40 per cent (suffering) with depression, anxiety, OCD, panic disorders, and so on.’

‘And then there’s a big epidemic we’re seeing of neurodevelopmental disorders … one in ten diagnosed with ADHD, one in five with learning disorders, (and) one in 36 with autism. These (figures) have increased dramatically over the last 20-30 years and were unheard of before now.’

With a mission to ‘end childhood health epidemics’ the road ahead looks long. These alarming trends in the health of our children have been brewing for years and now may well have been exacerbated by the additional insult inflicted by the Covid response.

‘I ask as a grandparent: Why did we use children and adolescents as human shields to protect the supposed grown-ups and elderly?’ asks Ramesh Thakur, in his presentation titled Our Enemy the Government. ‘A major study recently concluded that lockdown harmed the emotional development of almost half of all British children.’ With lockdowns, closing of schools, restricted socialising, and masking it seems the price was paid by the young, who were least at risk, ‘…for a few more months of existing without living by the elderly most at risk,’ concludes Thakur.

More concerning and down-right disturbing, information is delivered during the launch by fellow presenters including the adverse effects of the Covid injections, censorship of free speech in science and medicine, DNA contamination in the Pfizer Covid injections, and legal cases in process which aim to protect our future generations.

Julian Gillespie described the heartache of ‘being belted by a judiciary that’s not acting like a judiciary’ in the recent AVN Babies case. Despite this, an unexpected benefit was the growth in support as the story spread around the nation.

‘Even though we didn’t get the correct and proper decision from the High Court, there was a massive outpouring of donors who told their friends who watched our videos with Maria Z, or Graham Hood, Health Alliance Australia, and AMPS. Parents would (start to) question (as) those videos… were pushed out across the country.’

Speaking to supporters Gillespie is clear, ‘It is correct to feel good that you participated. It did make a difference. You’ve enabled us to get the message out which is just the most important thing to allow the court of public opinion to make its mind up. (And) there are millions of us who can share the information and (help) save lives.’

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/10/childrens-health-defense-australia-saving-our-kids-after-covid-lockdowns

****************************************************

The niche, elitist research of universities: a waste of money

Each year more than $12 billion disappears into the abyss vaguely described as ‘research and development’ in the higher education sector. By way of return on this ‘investment’, there has been a steady flow of research projects demonstrating an unhealthy fixation on the niche, the ideological, and the political.

Hardworking Australians would be justified in asking where their money goes and who oversees its dispersal.

The allocation of grant largesse is decided by the team of bureaucrats at the Australian Research Council (ARC). The fate of the intellectual culture of our nation rests in their hands.

Yet, research released by the Institute of Public Affairs in 2019 confirmed the extent to which university grants are focused on class, race, and gender and just how much Australians are paying for it. The IPA report Humanities in Crisis: An Audit of Taxpayer-funded ARC Grants found the ARC had distributed $1.34 billion in funding to humanities research between 2002 and 2019. The dominance of identity politics in successful grant applications raises questions about the objectivity of the allocation process.

The ARC claims its mission is ‘to grow knowledge and innovation’ for the benefit of the Australian community. However, the audit found that ‘identity politics’ and ‘Indigenous history’ were the two most common themes in successful grant applications. In contrast, the ‘rule of law’ and ‘free speech’ were among the least common themes. This more than suggests that post-modernist themes are being promoted at the expense of the values, culture and history of Western Civilisation.

In fact, tertiary research that fails to pay tribute to postmodern thought is disadvantaged on two fronts. Not only is it less likely to secure a grant, but it is further undermined by the funded postmodern research which attacks rather than promotes Western thought.

When the IPA first released its research there was a justified outcry, but the caravan moved on quickly and to this day taxpayers continue to receive a very poor return on their money.

One of the most glaring examples is that of the Sydney Environment Institute’s (SEI) 2024 collaborative grants. From calculating the carbon footprint of medical procedures to interrogating the environmental narrative around the Botany Wetlands, SEI grants highlight the decline of research into a process of propaganda production.

The first grant tackles the theme ‘environmental justices’ which is part of the SEI’s broader goal to ‘reconceptualise justice’ itself. ‘What would justice across the human-more-than-human world look like and entail?’ SEI researchers ask. It must be ‘sufficiently capacious’ to accommodate ‘climate change, Indigenous rights, resource depletion, and industrial farming.’ This leads them to conclude, conveniently, that the solution to injustice is more collaboration between academics like themselves, artists and activists.

A second grant examines the theme of ‘biocultural diversities’ which focuses on finding ‘inclusive solutions’ to issues like biodiversity loss and social inequality. ‘This theme champions and values biological and cultural diversities by elevating Indigenous knowledges and exploring diverse ways of engaging with our living world,’ SEI researchers explain. ‘We aim to better understand and cultivate appreciation for diverse human and non-human lives, knowledges and cultures.’

A third grant falls under the theme of ‘climate disaster and adaptation’. SEI researchers note that ‘communities and ecosystems are increasingly threatened, disrupted, and displaced’. They continue: ‘Mitigation and resilience are no longer sufficient and new climate realities require adaptation, and radical shifts in how diverse communities respond to disasters.’

These research themes raise a few important questions. First, in the case of ‘environmental justices’ has the SEI manufactured a problem and then a solution? If justice is not reconceptualised, the problems they discovered disappear rather quickly. Second, why does the ‘biocultural diversities’ theme emphasise ‘Indigenous knowledges’? Is there a hidden political agenda at play here? Third, why does the SEI’s description of ‘climate disaster and adaption’ use language like ‘radical shift’ and ‘disaster’? The apocalyptic language and sense of urgency evoked does not appear to suit the tone of a research institute.

According to the SEI, based at Sydney University, its research addresses ‘some of the greatest challenges of our time’. However, designing a ‘carbon footprint calculator’ or the ‘implications for justice’ linked to mangroves would be considered a top priority by very few.

These vanity projects highlight the gulf between mainstream Australians and those individuals who hold positions of power in governments and the tertiary sector. Ultimately, the millions spent on research and development each year do little to serve the public interest.

Mainstream Australians have every right to ask why they should fund projects which, far from benefiting society, are designed to undermine the values, principles and knowledge that made the West as free, prosperous and successful as it has been.

What is more, Australian universities are established by government legislation, built on public property and largely backed by government grants and state-subsidised loans. Consequently, universities are effectively public institutions dependent upon and, therefore responsible to, taxpayers.

Finally, IPA research reveals a two-fold problem. Firstly, with the prioritisation of certain research themes in the grant allocation process. Secondly, with the flow-on effects on researchers who are likely aware there is a higher chance of being awarded a grant if they focus on issues of class, race and gender. The evident bias represents a profound problem for the integrity of tertiary research in Australia.

It is clear the system requires comprehensive reform. With the future of higher education hanging in the balance, mainstream Australians need to exert pressure on politicians to demand more from universities, and to hold them to a higher standard and deliver research that benefits us all.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/10/the-niche-elitist-research-of-universities-a-waste-of-money

*****************************************************

Welcome to country: the racism of ‘arrivalism’

Recently, I attended an outdoor painting festival. At the opening of the exhibition, the white Caucasian blonde MC did the usual ‘Welcome to Country’. That, in itself, was insane because from my observations there was not a single Aboriginal person in the audience of more than 200 artists and guests. Later the mayor came to the podium and did another ‘Welcome to Country’, but this time in a dialect of the local Aboriginal tribe. Almost no one understood what was being said.

The concept of a Welcome to Country for residents is offensive. Most of the audience were Australians, so the mayor was essentially welcoming us to our own country.

What, after 183 years since my namesake John Hartnett landed in Busselton, as a convict from Ireland, courtesy of His Majesty’s UK government, I need to be welcomed to the country I was born in and all my ancestors before me? And what about all the newly arrived migrants? Isn’t this their country too? Why is it important to incessantly welcome non-Indigenous Australians to their own country?

The mayor also talked about how the Indigenous people had to walk up and down the coast from the North West of Western Australia down to Mandurah over the past 60,000 years. More total nonsense!

The 60,000-year figure claimed by the mayor, as well as some activists and academics, is a ludicrous one. A few even say Aboriginals first arrived in Australia 80,000 years ago. Age-dating methods for the oldest evidence of occupation of the continent are highly debatable. The primary method used for dating rock art is thermoluminescence.

Age dating using thermoluminescence on silica grains (sand) is about as flawed a process as you might imagine. It involves unprovable assumptions and is largely driven by the belief that Aboriginal rock art is at least 20,000 years old.

‘The major source of error in establishing dates from thermoluminescence is a consequence of inaccurate measurements of the radiation acting on a specimen. The complex history of radioactive force on a sample can be difficult to estimate.’ Thermoluminescence Dating

I would say ‘impossible to estimate’ is more accurate.

The past history of radiation acting on the specimen cannot be known. It must be guessed and that guess is based on how old you think the specimen is. The specimen could be sand dug up from beneath the rock art under investigation, or a sample of rock inside a rock face or wall. The big assumption is that the specimen under investigation has been buried, or shielded, from external radiation (the sun for example), for its entire history until the researcher uncovered it. The method works well when you know the radiation history of the sample but that doesn’t help in measuring the age of an unknown sample, especially one believed to be more than 20,000 years old.

Then there is the carbon-14 dating method. This could be used to date the burnt charcoal found in old Aboriginal fireplaces. But carbon-14 dating also involves unprovable assumptions about the past unknown history of the sample. More circular reasoning. But it is worse than that.

For many decades scientists have searched the Earth for carbon bearing minerals, formed either from past living creatures like limestone, or from non-organic origin like graphite, which contain no carbon-14. They have never found any. This is a big problem because it means all carbon-bearing fossils, rocks and charcoals contain carbon-14. And using standard assumptions, the amount of carbon-14 in those samples never gives an age greater than 45,000 years. There is too much carbon-14 in the samples. But the technology exists to date a sample out to 90,000 years old, so it is not a limitation on the equipment. That means any Aboriginal site with burnt wood could never accurately yield an age of 60,000 years or more.

Thus, considering the uncertainty in these dating methods, it is unreasonable to hold claims of 60,000 years and beyond as certain or accurate. These figures are then used to solidify a privileged status for Indigenous Australians over others. I can imagine how this would be enhanced even more if the ‘Voice to Parliament’ referendum succeeds and installs some unelected bureaucrats to lord it over the rest of us.

It is nothing short of racism! Call it ‘arrivalism’ and argue over who arrived first. Just like kids playing on the street might argue over the rules of the game because of who first thought of playing a certain game, or who was the first one out on the street.

The ‘Welcome to Country’ is not a welcome to this country. It is propaganda designed to undermine the cohesiveness of the community. It is used for political gain, to bring in a communist agenda. Even many of the Indigenous people can see it. They don’t want to create division but live as equals with whoever calls Australia home.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/10/welcome-to-country-the-racism-of-arrivalism/

************************************

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

***************************************