Australian Politics
Faith-Based Schools Can’t Maintain Ethos Under New Religious Discrimination Bill: Opposition
It is actually the Bible which is the problem. It describes homosexuals as an abomination and says that God will judge them (Romans 1 & 2). And Christians are commanded to preach Christian teachings actively (Matthew 28: 19 & 20). Legislating against the Bible is surely a vast cultural leap that can only end badly. Christian beliefs must be allowed or there will be big consequences. Albanese is already headed for the boot. If he enacts this he will go out in a landslide
Faith-based schools could find themselves getting bogged down in litigation as a result of the Labor government’s religious discrimination bill, according to the federal opposition.
Shadow attorney-general Michaelia Cash has taken aim at the Albanese government’s upcoming religious discrimination protections, which she said could obstruct religious schools from maintaining their religious ethos.
What Is The Proposal About?
The bill, which was initially introduced by the former centre-right Coalition government in 2021, set out to protect Australians from discrimination on the basis of religious belief.
However, the Coalition failed to pass the law prior to the 2022 federal election after five Liberal MPs crossed the floor to support amendments by the then-opposition Labor Party, which were designed to prevent discrimination against gay and transgender students by religious schools.
On the other hand, faith-based groups have expressed concern that the bill would do little to legislate protections for religious Australians, arguing the protections were too narrow to be effective.
The topic would soon resurface in public debate as the Australian Law Reform Commission prepared to release a long-awaited report in March 2023 that would recommend “making discrimination against students on the grounds of sexual orientation … unlawful.”
This would be done by repealing section 38(3) under the Sex Discrimination Act, a move that could potentially bar faith-based schools from preferencing candidates who share the schools’ spiritual outlook during recruitment. It could also prevent schools from asking students to abide by the school’s belief system.
The shadow attorney-general warned that under Labor’s religious protection bill, faith-based schools wouldn’t be able to conduct themselves in a way that is consistent with their values.
“What they’re saying to me is ‘Michaelia, we just want to educate; under Mark Dreyfus and Anthony Albanese, we’re going to wind up litigating,’” Ms. Cash told Sky News on March 17.
She also said she had heard “very concerning things” about the new amendments, adding that this would likely include an anti-vilification provision, which criminalises speech that is considered hateful.
‘A Cure That Is Worse Than The Disease’: Think Tank
Similar concerns have been voiced by Morgan Begg, the director of the Legal Rights Program at the Institute of Public Affairs. He said the religious freedoms of Australians would be under siege due to the “weaponisation of anti-vilification and anti-discrimination laws.”
“This notoriously ambiguous concept creates an opening for bureaucrats and courts to tie up supposedly legitimate speech in legal limbo,” he wrote in an opinion article for The Epoch Times.
“For example, saying ‘marriage is between a man and a woman’ is something that many religious Australians believe, but saying so could be considered ‘hateful’ by some in the community.”
Mr. Begg warned the religious discrimination bill would “add more laws on top of bad laws” and described it as “a cure that is worse than the disease.”
Pressure To Conform
In recent years, faith-based schools have been facing mounting pressure to compromise on their spiritual values with LGBT groups.
The conflict was highlighted during the controversy surrounding Citipointe Christian College in 2022, which saw the school’s principal stand down over an enrolment contract that described homosexuality as a sin.
The contract, which stated that the college would only enrol students on the basis of the “gender that corresponds to their biological sex,” had attracted public protests and criticism, with some parents accusing the school of stigmatising a “vulnerable community.”
Former Principal and Pastor Brian Mulheran said at the time that his intention was “only to offer families a choice about how their children educated, and to be open and transparent about our religious ethos.”
“I am sorry, sorry that some students felt that they may be being discriminated against at Citipointe. We would never discriminate against any student on the basis of their sexuality or gender identity,” he wrote in a letter.
Ahead of the 2022 election, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised he would resume addressing the religious discrimination bill during their term of parliament.
“We’ll do it in a way which is much more consultative and brings people together in a way that I hope characterises the way my government functions,” Mr. Albanese said, adding that he “respected people of faith.”
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Police bodycam footage shows why young woman rightfully won $320,000 pay out from NSW cops after being bailed up on the side of a street
Extraordinary: A woman was imprisoned for something someone else did with no involvement from her. It offends aginst natural justice, among other things. Some truly poisonous policing. Nobody is safe under such circumstances. And the cops concerned are apparently still employed
A young woman thrown in prison for six months following a routine 'stop and search' by police was awarded a $320,000 pay out, with bodycam footage revealing the officer's actions were unlawful.
The video shows Ebonie Madden in 2019 being bailed up with her companion, Dylan Turner, on a South Penrith street, in Sydney's west.
Mr Dylan is seen holding a black bag which is confiscated and searched by Senior Constable Michael Darnton and another officer.
But when Senior Constable Darnton uncovers a knife inside, he places Ms Madden in cuffs - and she was later charged with resisting arrest, possessing a knife and theft.
'You are under arrest for custody of a knife in a public place,' Senior Constable Darnton told Ms Madden before Mr Turner interjected and said: 'It's mine, chief.'
Senior Constable Darnton, who ignored the comment, later told a court that he and the other officer 'did not hear' Mr Turner.
The clip also shows a third officer, Danielle Munt, telling the pair, 'that's what happens when you're mouthy, you get searched'.
The officer later admitted in court the comments were 'unprofessional'.
Ms Madden spent six months behind bars in 2020, but in December 2022, she won a $320,000 compensation payout from NSW Police after a judge found that Senior Constable Darnton did not have reasonable grounds to justify conducting a search.
The court also ruled that she had been subject to malicious prosecution and false imprisonment, saying 'the clear inference is that Darnton's motivation was other than a legitimate exercise of police powers'.
That ruling was upheld on appeal in February.
A spokesman for NSW Police told the ABC the force will review the Court of Appeal judgement and consider ways to improve the way they handle such matters.
However, new data has revealed that there may be thousands of unlawful searches being conducted around the state.
Civil litigator and criminal lawyer Peter O'Brien and UNSW Professor Vicki Sentas fear police officers may be abusing their powers, saying it's likely that the vast majority of searches in this state are conducted unlawfully.
'[Australia] has one of the largest per capita police populations in the world … so when there's a quiet night, police often feel the need to be proactive,' Mr O'Brien said.
'And what that actually means, in many instances, is that they are overstepping their mark.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13209525/Police-bodycam-footage-search-unlawful.html
*****************************************************Feminist lawyers a danger to justice
It was a riveting moment. Here was Tasha Smithies, a lawyer for Channel 10, appearing as a witness in Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation action.
This is the lawyer who advised television celebrity Lisa Wilkinson to go ahead with the disastrous Logie Speech praising Brittany Higgins for her “unwavering courage,” which ended up delaying the criminal trial for four months.
It was advice that clearly left Justice Michael Lee unimpressed.
“It is inconceivable to me that any legally qualified person could have given [such] advice,” he told the court, describing the advice as “inadvisable and inappropriate” and suggesting this was something that “someone who did a first-year criminal law course” should have known.
So, what was it that inspired this bizarre action from Ms. Smithies, the senior litigation counsel for one of Australia’s largest media organisations?
She told the court that she greenlit the speech because she felt it was important for Ms. Wilkinson to show she was not “wavering” in her support for Ms. Higgins.
“It was my view that from the time after the broadcast of the story, Ms. Wilkinson was inextricably intertwined with Ms. Higgins,” she said.
Even when she was grilled about the damage caused by that advice, she was unapologetic.
“I am not professionally or personally embarrassed by the advice I gave Ms. Wilkinson,” she said.
It was astonishing watching this woman, eyes shining as she proudly proclaimed that it was more important to support the celebrity journalist in her believe-the-victim crusade than to give appropriate, lawyerly advice that would not prejudice the fair trial of an accused person.
Bruce Lehrmann has made a complaint to New South Wales (NSW) Legal Services Commissioner, stating that Ms. Smithies has “displayed legal conduct that is wholly inadequate, deceptive, unacceptable and that breaches her obligations as an officer of the court to uphold the fundamental principles of the rule of law.”
Activism Over Professionalism
This appears to be the latest in a new breed of female lawyers.
Women who make no effort to disguise their feminist goals, from blatantly discriminating against men in the workplace, to flagrantly ignoring important principles in our criminal justice.
Thank goodness they are a small minority. But with women comprising the bulk of law graduates for the last 30 years, there’s been a huge wave of female lawyers flooding into every sector of the legal system.
Many are excellent, extremely competent, and appropriately focussed simply on doing their job in the best possible way. But examples keep popping up of feminist lawyers exploiting the legal system with all sorts of antics which show where their real commitment lies.
These are just the ones we hear about—heaven only knows what chaos such women are creating behind the scenes.
Remember Annette Kimmitt, CEO of Australia’s largest law firm Minter Ellison, who was fired after sending out an email to staff saying she felt “triggered” by the company’s decision to act for then Attorney-General Christian Porter after he was subject to a historic rape allegation?
Ms. Kimmitt emailed 2,500 staff expressing her displeasure that a senior partner was acting for Mr. Porter.
In her email, Ms. Kimmitt said the matter “has certainly triggered hurt for me. I know that for many of you it may be a tough day and I want to apologise for the pain you may be experiencing.”
She claimed the decision to act for Mr. Porter should have been considered “through the lens of our Purposes and Values.”
Ms. Kimmitt apparently had substantial support from young members of the firm, who obviously also support these “Values”; values which happily ditch the principles that everyone is entitled to a presumption of innocence and legal representation.
Then there was Emma Covacevich, Clayton Utz’s first female chief executive partner, who announced when first appointed that she had firm views about how to achieve gender parity.
“It’s about more women coming in and more men going out,” she explained.
What about the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Sally Dowling SC, who had a melt-down when District Court judge Robert Newlinds claimed her office was taking a “lazy and perhaps politically expedient” approach to rape cases by failing to interrogate complainants’ allegations and sometimes putting hopeless cases before the court.
(His comments occurred in relation to a case where a man had spent eight months on remand in jail—and the jury took one hour to throw the case out. Then it turned out the woman had made similar allegations against about eight other men.)
Three other judges had made similar comments last year about unmeritorious cases being pushed through into court.
Then, a few weeks ago, another District Court judge, Peter Whitford really went to town, pointing out that pushing through such cases risks “drawing the criminal justice system into disrepute.”
Ms. Dowling’s response was once again an emotional attack on Mr. Whitford, before she finally backed down and announced an audit of all NSW sexual assault cases committed for trial.
Women Over Men
Female lawyers have been out in force publicly celebrating the demolition job Labor inflicted on our Family Law Act.
Canberra family lawyer Debra Parker was quoted in a local online paper praising the “overdue” and “transformative” overhaul of family law. She proudly proclaims that the move takes the law back to 1976—when the “best interests of the child principle” was central.
Oh yes, those were the glory days of uniform maternal custody, before parliament was convinced into thinking dads actually matter.
The only time fathers rate a mention in Ms. Parker’s comments is through posing a risk of exposing children to family violence, as she justifies the new laws that toss out the assumption of shared parental responsibility, let alone equal shared time.
Perhaps ironically, given the historical underpinnings of feminism, what most of these women have in common is a disdain for the principle of equality before the law.
Their goals appear to be primarily about promoting and protecting women’s rights at the expense of men’s rights. Their priorities are to do everything they can to protect and cosset women, believing their every story.
Too often, the effect of their actions is to undermine long-standing and legitimate legal safeguards. Safeguards that are designed to ensure that innocent men are not convicted.
There are very good reasons for men to be nervous about the increasing power of feminist lawyers.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/beware-the-latest-wave-of-feminism-5607078
*****************************************************Every school in NSW to offer gifted education programs
I am all in favour of this. It will be a great help to many students in crummy State schools. It is probably not important to really high IQ students, however. They will do well in any system. I did not go to school at all for my Senior exam. I just taught myself all in one year. Others in my IQ bracket should probably do the same
High potential and gifted education will be rolled out in every public school in the state under a new plan to challenge the students who are not reaching their full potential.
Such programs were available in only half of the state’s public schools, Education Minister Prue Car told the Sydney Morning Herald’s Schools Summit on Thursday, but fixing that would depend on tackling the state’s teacher shortage.
She said teachers had been “gaslit” by the previous government into thinking there was not a crisis in the sector.
“Parents deserve to see high potential and gifted education inside the doors of every local school,” Car said.
“Parents want confidence that regardless of their choice of school, that the learning environment will bring out the best in their child.
“Our vision is that in NSW, high potential and gifted education will be delivered in every public school, in a high-quality offering, in a way that is valued by students, parents and teachers alike.”
Under the plan, public schools will identify high potential students across four domains: intellectual, creative, social-emotional and physical.
A 2021 policy was supposed to make gifted education training available at all schools to ensure gifted students were extended even if they did not attend a selective school or opportunity class. However, only half of the state’s schools have the programs in place.
University of NSW researcher Professor Jae Jung said the extent to which the current gifted program was being taken up was highly variable.
The Sydney schools that have surged past 3000 students
“There needs to be a follow-up process and assessment to understand to what extent it is being implemented,” he said.
“One way to ensure gifted education practices are implemented is to guarantee all teachers have gifted education training at the pre-service teacher training level. There also needs to be a mandatory requirement that gifted education programs are available in all schools.”
Gifted education can take different forms including grade skipping, gifted classes and curriculum differentiation within the regular classroom, Jung said.
Car told the summit the challenges the public school system had faced, such as a lack of staff or resources, had left some communities wanting their schools to deliver more gifted education programs.
She said teachers felt “gaslit” by those supposed to support them, and that their challenging experiences in the classroom were being dismissed.
“They were told there was no shortage. That it was a beat-up,” Car said.
A research review by the NSW Department of Education previously found gifted children comprised the top 10 per cent of students, but up to 40 per cent of them were under-achieving.
If at least 10 per cent of students are gifted, 80,000 students in NSW public schools have high potential.
It found that without help to turn their promise into achievement, the students might never achieve their potential.
Car also announced at the summit that she had asked the NSW Education Standards Authority to conduct a review into professional development requirements for teachers and whether they were preventing them for undertaking learning that met their individual needs.
“I asked that NESA consider the administrative burden for teachers … as well as the professionalism of teachers in being able to identify their own professional learning priorities,” she said.
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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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