Delenda est Australia

The two law academics writing below do slightly misuse the Latin. It is true that "Delenda est Cartago" literally means that "Carthage is destroyed" but it was used with imperative force -- meaning that Carthage MUST BE destroyed. One hopes that the writers below did not mean that Australia MUST BE destroyed. Though perhps they were summaizing the attitudes of our elites

Gabriël A Moens AM and Augusto Zimmermann

Cato the Elder’s rhetorical phrase comes to mind when reflecting on the present sorry state of Australia. The left’s propaganda against our country seems to proceed relentlessly according to their schedule. Every day more and more Australians are feeling embarrassed to celebrate their own history and achievements. We are becoming a nation with no practical sense of patriotism and pride in our history.

Australians have become a people with only a distorted memory of the past. Arguably, a people without a clear understanding of the past can be much more easily manipulated. The indoctrination of our children by the illiberal ‘elites’ serves this purpose of not only erasing our history, but also vilifying and degrading it.

In fact, the intention of the ruling classes is precisely to turn everyone into haters of their nation and haters of their neighbours, as well as into complacent and submissive slaves of the oppressive ruling classes.

In this context, the week leading up to Australia Day has become a distasteful concoction of constant whining, recriminations, and accusations. It results in the excoriation of those who want to proudly express their Australian nationality.

This year, we have again witnessed the protracted and unrelenting denunciation of Australia Day – a day which supposedly should bring Australians together to celebrate our democratic system of government, the ‘fair go’ attitude of Australia’s people, and the personal freedom enjoyed by its citizens. However, this idyllic view of Australia Day has been brutally disrupted by those who regard Australia’s national day as ‘Invasion Day’, a day of mourning to lament the arrival, on January 26, 1788, of Captain Arthur Phillip in Sydney Cove.

Considering the unabated racial hectoring it is not so surprising that big corporations have waded into the political debate by shadow-banning Australia Day as if it were a toxic product. In unashamedly promoting the politics of the Indigenous lobby, these corporations disregard the real function for which they were established and misuse the financial resources of their shareholders.

For example, supermarkets decided not to stock Australia Day products ahead of January 26, ostensibly for commercial reasons, but also because the celebration of our national day was deemed insensitive to the Aboriginal industry.

Likewise, just a few weeks ago, Australia’s High Commissioner in London cancelled the traditional Australia Day celebration because it was too ‘sensitive’. Surely, this cancellation is as imprudent as it is unhelpful because it effectively prevents people from celebrating Australia Day with pride and enthusiasm…

Last week, it was also rumoured, if not argued openly, that the next Governor-General should be Aboriginal. If the rumours are correct, then they would further provide evidence that ‘race’ – a characteristic over which people have no control – largely decides what opportunities are available to Australians.

These racial considerations represent a retrograde step that makes the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 – a federal law aimed at making ‘race’ irrelevant in the distribution of burdens and benefits – an embarrassing remnant of a saner past. The intrepid Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Jacinta Price, commenting on this rumour, has already said that race should not be considered in the selection of the next Governor-General.

Of course, the nation’s ruling classes have a vested interest in fomenting a divisive racialist agenda that seriously undermines political equality. Their primary goal is not social amelioration but, as Senator Price puts it, to divide Australia along ethnic and cultural lines by entrenching racial separatism and legally enshrining ‘the idea that Aboriginal people are perpetual victims forever in the need of special measures’.

Consequently, as the protests on Australia Day indicated, Australia has gradually become a racist county, where a person’s opportunities no longer depend on merit, but on the colour of their skin. Talking about race all the time is itself a sign of cataleptic racism and indicates that Australia is inexorably becoming a racist country. The racialist bureaucracy needs to promote racial hatred and discord as a Machiavellian mechanism for gaining more power and control over society.

However, if you dare to criticise the ubiquitous Welcome to Country ceremonies, you are likely to be labelled a racist. There are professional people who refuse to take the top job in their organisations because they do not want to demean themselves by repeating these meaningless references to ‘past and present (and sometimes even emerging) leaders’ because, in addition to compromising free speech, it would entrench the policies and philosophy of victimisation in the Australian psyche, and make all Indigenous Australians into perpetual victims of discrimination.

In continuing the victimisation narrative, reconciliation becomes impossible because there will always be new reasons for maintaining, even nurturing, the victimisation story. The stranglehold that Aboriginal politics is exerting on Australian society has caused these Woke actions, so prominent in the week leading up to Australia Day.

An analogy is helpful here to elucidate this point. There was a time, not so long ago, when females, simply on the basis of their sex, were effectively denied an opportunity to serve in the Parliament. David Furse-Roberts’s book Menzies: The Forgotten Speeches has an entire chapter on the ‘Status and Role of Women’. The first section in the chapter, entitled ‘Women for Canberra’, is based on a broadcast delivered by Menzies on 20 January 1943. There, Australia’s longest-serving Prime Minister said:

Of course, women are at least the equals of men. Of course, there is no reason why a qualified woman should not sit in Parliament, or on the bench, or in a professional chair, or preach from the pulpit, or, if you like, command an army in the field. No educated man today denies a place or a career to a woman because she is a woman.

But there is a converse proposition which I state with all respect but with proper firmness. No woman can demand a place or a career just because she is a woman. If it is outmoded and absurd to treat a woman’s sex as a political disqualification; it seems to me equally absurd to claim it as a qualification in itself…

Menzies’ argument could equally be applied to the current ‘race’ debate. Indeed, following his argument, people should not be preferred simply because they are Indigenous, or because of the colour of their skin.

It appears that the overwhelming majority of Australians support Menzies’ view. The lobby group, ADVANCE, recently released the results of an exclusive national polling that shows 69.5 per cent of Australians support laws that would stop politicians from changing the date of Australia Day. It noted that this is: ‘…a massive majority of Australians who support enshrining January 26 in law, and guaranteeing it can only be changed after a vote of the Australian people.’

Subject to the correctness of the poll’s results, Australians may well be interested in ensuring that Australia remains (or rather ‘becomes’) a colour-blind society. Such a result might be achieved if Australia were to repeal section 51(xxvi) of the Constitution, which confers legislative power on the Parliament to make laws for the ‘people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws’.

In this context, the proposal of Liberal Senator, James Paterson, to amend the Constitution to remove the race power altogether is a sensible, even a most urgent task, to make this country colour-blind and unite all Australians. But the implementation of his proposal would require a referendum – not precisely the most exciting prospect right now.

Why not call the week in which Australia Day falls ‘Australia Woke Week’? During that week, Australia’s Wokerati ‘elites’ would then be able to celebrate and propagate their race-based policies. Provided they restrain themselves for the remainder of the year, the recognition of Woke Week would be a welcome development, which might free Australia from the racialist bureaucracy for the rest of the year!

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/02/delenda-est-australia

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Australian Surf Brand’s Wipeout Over Transgender Surfer Shows Fed-Up Americans Are Winning

It’s been a week to forget for surf company Rip Curl, the latest brand to risk consumers’ wrath with a pro-transgender marketing campaign.

Its January post urging people to meet “waterwoman” Sasha Lowerson, a biological man in a bikini, lit a literal fire under fans, who took to the internet to burn everything from surf booties to boards. Days after deleting the reel, with international outrage at a peak, headquarters decided to do something that Bud Light still hasn’t: apologize.

In a revealing move, management issued a mea culpa late Wednesday night, just five days into the dust-up. “Our recent post has landed us in the divisive space around transgender participation in competitive sport,” a spokesman told Shop-Eat-Surf late Wednesday night. “We want to promote surfing for everyone in a respectful way, but recognize we upset a lot of people with our post and for that, we are sorry. To clarify, the surfer featured has not replaced anyone on the Rip Curl team and is not a sponsored athlete.”

If Americans want to know who’s winning the war with corporate bullies, look no further.

A reversal like this is majorly significant—not only because of how intense the backlash was, but how quickly executives responded. If anything, the wave of corporate pushback that was sparked by Bud Light has only intensified over time. In fact, it’s so powerful that even the media is starting to admit that the grassroots may actually be winning this fight. “Big corporates may finally be learning that ‘Go woke, go broke’ is real,” commentator Nicolle Flint pointed out.

“ … [T]he once iconic Australian surf brand is living proof that women are finally fighting back against companies using transgender women to promote products for women and girls,” she wrote. “What is most significant about the Rip Curl campaign featuring Sasha Lowerson that was removed from Instagram just five days after being posted, is that this is the first time a major brand has responded to female backlash. … Whether the company ‘woke up’ soon enough to the fact that the backlash from women was serious and potentially financially damaging remains to be seen.”

That’s a blow to the company’s relatively new CEO, who, pre-Bud Light, told The Sydney Morning Herald of Australia when she was hired in 2021 that her goal was to drift left. “You still want to be cool enough to recruit that next generation,” Brooke Farris said, “but I think by approaching it from a place of inclusivity, people will be attracted to that.”

Turns out, people were not attracted to that—and willing to sink her brand to prove it.

Meanwhile, Bethany Hamilton, the courageous face of Rip Curl from 1999 to 2023, is surely looking on with satisfaction. A year into her renewed contract with the company, the two sides abruptly parted ways last year, almost certainly because of Hamilton’s opposition to the new rules allowing biological men to compete in women’s surfing. The devoted Christian and shark-attack survivor, whose comeback story inspired the world, reiterated her stand at the height of the Rip Curl controversy, posting, “Male bodied athletes should not be competing in women’s sports. Period.”

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/02/02/rip-curl-brands-wipeout-transgender-surfer-shows-fed-up-americans-winning

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Workplace law changes allow union ‘thugs and criminals’ on to job sites

Labor has been accused of sneaking in a loophole to its controversial workplace laws that would allow “thugs and criminals” on to job sites under the guise of health and safety.

Under a last-minute change to the proposed laws made on the final sitting day of parliament last year, the government “disapplied” a rule that required union officials to have an “entry permit” to enter work sites to assist workplace health and safety representatives.

Entry permits, granted under the Fair Work Act, are normally required of union ­officials to ensure they meet various tests including that of being a “fit and proper person”.

However, these are often ­revoked by courts in the wake of bad behaviour.

In 2022, a former CFMMEU official was fined and had his permit revoked after saying words to the effect of “shut up” and “f--k off” to two managers at a WestConnex project site before blowing cigarette smoke in a third manager’s face.

That same year, another CFMMEU official had his entry permit stripped after blocking concrete trucks and abusing and intimidating workers at a Gold Coast building site.

Current laws allow health and safety representatives, who are workers on a site chosen by fellow union members, to request an “assistant” from the union provided they hold a permit.

Industry leaders worry that, without the requirement for an entry permit, “thugs” could be sent on to work sites to intimidate managers and staff.

Minerals Council of Australia CEO Tania Constable said: “Under these changes, there will be nothing stopping union officials with criminal records or history of abuse, harassment or intimidation, from being given access to a worksite, ­despite not holding a right of entry permit.

“This loophole, snuck into the government’s legislation under the cover of Christmas, will put both employers and workers in danger, given the history of union thuggery and intimidation in certain ­industries.”

Master Builders Association CEO Denita Wawn said: “These changes are simply a wolf in sheep’s clothing, opening the door even further for unions to exploit safety as grounds to circumvent the normal right of entry obligations.

“Exploiting safety to pursue other industrial purposes has been commonplace in the sector, and this is only going to make that worse.”

Opposition workplace relations spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said: “The fact this government has implemented a law that will potentially allow union thugs and convicted criminals into workplaces is an absolute disgrace.”

A spokesman for Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke said the change had been recommended by a review commissioned by the Coalition.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/workplace-law-changes-allow-union-thugs-and-criminals-on-to-job-sites/news-story/89e2426309e5219df34727acb743c63d

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Why I’m tempted to stop building in Sydney amid building woes

HARRY TRIGUBOFF

Councils and planning authorities must listen to developers in order to address the housing crisis, as prices will keep increasing unless they act to fix problems plaguing NSW.

I am the state’s largest apartment builder but if I have to waste years building in Sydney, and not in other places, I will not build here except to finish on my empty blocks of land.

The problem is that there is not enough action to back up the official sentiments on housing. I see that our authorities in NSW are promising that production of units will increase, but for this to happen blocks of land for many hundreds of units must be sold.

At the moment, developers don’t have enough money to buy sites, so I believe that governments can rezone whatever they like, but there won’t be action. When authorities rezone land, they must ensure that profit can be made. The basic problem is that they don’t know how to do it, nor do they care. They think they know the answer. That is why we have too many offices and not enough apartments.

Authorities must stop being arrogant and must understand the market. If developers come with problems, they must be helped – not told what the law says. Laws have to be changed very often because conditions change. When making rules and deciding on density, profits must be protected.

Our developers are going broke more than anyone else. They can’t all be dumb. So I believe authorities must consult with developers, otherwise, we will never catch up with demand.

And investors are still quiet. At present, the income for an investor if he buys a unit is 2.5 per cent net. And this is not exciting. We sell very few units to investors – they are only about 25 per cent of the market.

For units to be taken by investors, council costs have to be brought down. But the councils have no intention to do that either. So, there will not be much sold for rent. Besides, the banks are refusing to provide finance for builders.

So, nobody cares about all these added costs. Everyone wants units to be built, but few will be. Thus, rents will keep going up. The price of units will also go up because there is no supply.

What of the big solution?

We’ve all heard of build-to-rent, but we can’t see it. And we won’t until everyone concerned ensures that costs will be reduced. Unfortunately, both political parties are very happy with this situation. Their advisers give them the same advice. So, people are struggling and employment and spending are down.

This apathy has to stop. I am building more than 2000 a year and could build 4000. But councils fabricate problems for which I would gladly take them to court, but our present rules don’t allow me to do so.

And the planning department is not at all helpful. I have almost stopped buying in Sydney, and I am just using up my empty land.

Of course, we have some councils that are better, but many rules applied to them are awful.

Because I can’t get approvals, I now provide finance to people who are not accepted by the banks, even though I may not be the builder. The result now is that the banks don’t earn much, and neither can the government earn much from housing.

In the last quarter, I completed three blocks of serviced apartments, and I am active in Brisbane and Surfers Paradise. But we need more approvals.

It is most interesting to try and understand how much longer they will allow production to drop and for supply to fall further and further behind in NSW.

And prices are rising and rents are going up.

All the planners here (in Sydney) have to do is act normally and I will be back.

But I don’t like my chances.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/property/triguboff-tempted-to-stop-building-in-sydney-amid-building-woes/news-story/7501b7a09caf76fd5a8868097669e390

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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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