It wasn’t just race and politics that motivated people who opposed a black "Voice" in Parliament. Here’s what we found when we dug deeper

Jonathan Bartholomaeus didn't dig deeply enough. The only scales he used that gave a substantial correlation with attitude to "Voice" were RWA and SDO -- both of which were strong measures of conservatism.

http://jonjayray.com/sdo.html

http://jonjayray.com/altdef.html

So all he has found is that is was mainly conservatives who opposed the "Voice" idea, which we already knew. There were no other substantial correlations

It is in any case absurd to say that people who defied all the aurhorities on "Voice" were authoritarian. That's what comes of using defecive measuring instruments in your research. Bartholomaeus took his measurement instruments at face value instead of researching their validity. He clearly didn't even look at the questions he was asking. Very foolish. His conclusions below are rubbish

The outcome of the referendum has been chalked up to deepening political polarisation, Australian’s entrenched racial prejudice and the rise of populism.

In short, opposition to the Voice to Parliament has been characterised as a conservative populist backlash with racist undertones. In the wake of a 60/40 “no” vote majority, this message only serves to deepen the post-referendum divide.

However, new research indicates the story is a little more complex. Findings show it was fundamentally the esteem of authority, the desire for an ordered society, and perceptions of justice and fairness that dictated how people engaged with this emotionally charged political issue, and ultimately how they voted.

It is only by a greater understanding of people’s attitudes towards the referendum (even if we disagree with them) that Australians can move forward and have a more productive bipartisan conversation.

Hierarchical status quo

We collected survey data from 253 people before and after the referendum. We wanted to get an idea of the way people’s worldviews would influence their vote and opinions about the outcome of the referendum.

In June 2023 (roughly 16 weeks before the vote) we asked about people’s attitudes towards authority, their opinion about social hierarchy, and their perceptions of justice in society. In October (immediately after the vote) we asked how people voted and whether they thought the outcome of the referendum would be good for Australia.

Our findings show people who voted “no” and who were pleased with the outcome were more willing to submit to authority. They also preferred a hierarchical society where the social status of different groups is maintained.

These attitudes were more important in predicting voting behaviour than a person’s age, gender, ethnicity, income, education, religion or even their political orientation.

Whereas social hierarchy beliefs are broad and refer to a person’s general view that it’s a “dog-eat-dog” world, racism relates more narrowly to discrimination against people based on their ethnicity. While there’s often a complicated relationship between preference for social hierarchy and racism, these findings counter the widespread claims that those who voted “no” were entirely racially motivated or were simply voting along political lines.

In understanding why some people voted “no”, these findings can promote a more open discussion.

For example, in the future when discussing profound and potentially momentous changes to the country (the current debate around nuclear energy, for example), it will be helpful to remember that people differ drastically in their willingness to follow along with authority.

Some will be quick to cotton on to messages from leaders and may act passionately (even aggressively) on these convictions. Others will be slower and more cautious in their support for ideas expressed by authority.

It will also be helpful to remember people have different ideas about how society should be structured. Some people will prefer a society with a clear pecking order, perhaps fearing the chaos of a disordered society. Others are less concerned with a clear structure in favour of things like social mobility.

Our findings show we shouldn’t reduce support for complex issues simply to one’s political orientation or demographic characteristics. We need to seek first to understand a person’s worldview and attitude towards societal change. Only then can we have a productive conversation about what is best for the country.

Perceived (in)justice

Populism is the idea that a small group of elite people are trying to force change on society. A populist backlash occurs when ordinary people rebel against the powerful minority and exert the popular will of the people. Voting down the referendum has been characterised in such terms.

Our data show people who voted “no” view society as a just place in which people are generally treated fairly. They didn’t accept the fundamental premise on which the referendum was sold: that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are, and have been, unjustly treated. This finding provides a helpful insight into the populist explanation for the referendum outcome.

At its heart, the populist narrative is a story of justice. The idea that the elite are pursuing their own agenda to the detriment of the people strikes us all as unjust.

But it is people who already see society as a just and fair place who are especially sensitive to this perceived injustice. These people can act out in sometimes extreme ways. Consider, for example, the January 6 storming of the US capitol.

By understanding the populist account in terms of justice, we can clearly see how the post-referendum divide in society has formed: those who voted “no” feel vindicated at having avoided an unjust change to society, while those who voted “yes” become wary of these people for their extreme and seemingly unwarranted reaction. Understanding not only the important role that justice plays in people’s lives, but also that people can have differing views of what justice is, is crucial to keep in mind.

In a world where political polarisation is increasing and where we are confronted with news (some real, some fake) that continually seems to deepen this divide, taking the time to understand the complexity of people’s worldviews and political opinions – even those you might disagree with – is more important than ever.

Jonathan Bartholomaeus does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

https://www.inkl.com/newsletters/morning-edition/news/it-wasn-t-just-race-and-politics-that-motivated-voice-to-parliament-no-voters-here-s-what-we-found-when-we-dug-deeper

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Economic downturn there for all who have eyes to see

Inflation doesn’t stem from external forces or market failures, nor is it an unpredictable ‘black swan’ event, as described by Nassim Taleb. Inflation rather results from poor government policies. It’s more like a ‘pink flamingo’, an obvious problem that everyone sees but neglects to address until it’s too late

Nobel laureate Milton Friedman astutely commented that, ‘Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.’ This observation may provide insight into why, despite claims to the contrary, the Albanese government seems to be implementing policies that perpetuate and sustain inflation rather than mitigate it. After all, inflation can generate the tax revenues needed to fund the government’s extensive and expensive spending programs.

The government and its economic advisors appear hesitant to recognise that the era of fiscal and regulatory irresponsibility, which has been cushioned by the deflationary effects of globalisation and the accommodating monetary policies of central banks, is rapidly approaching its end.

Treasurer Chalmers frequently refers to the evolving global economic and strategic landscape as ‘churning and changing’. Yet despite acknowledging this shift, he has not adapted his policy toolkit to meet the new challenges. As the saying goes, to a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and the government continues to tackle every economic and social issue with the same combination of increased spending and more legislation.

Within government, the default response to any situation, whether the economy is thriving or struggling, seems to be the same: increased government spending and regulation. There never seems to be a compelling economic argument or appropriate moment to reduce either.

Since the early 2000s, Australia’s prosperity has been underwritten by the dividends of globalisation. Record commodity sales and prices, along with the deflationary effects of China and other Asian countries becoming manufacturing hubs, have helped keep consumer prices low. And when poorly conceived policies threatened economic growth, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) would swiftly intervene with accommodating monetary stimulus to mitigate the damage.

This benign environment is rapidly coming to an end. The landscape is indeed ‘churning and changing’. And given the government’s refusal to reconsider its policy settings and foundations, it should not be surprised that inflation remains stubbornly high. Rather, it should be surprised that it isn’t rising further.

In the little over two years since the Albanese government took office, nearly every economic policy that might have previously had minimal impact has instead contributed to inflation – from sovereign interventions in commodity markets; to increases in middle-class welfare; to labour market interventions that reduce productivity; to unprecedented levels of spending, particularly on out-of-control and fraud-riddled social programs; and energy market deformations. The government’s actions, individually and cumulatively, are entrenching inflation.

Friedman was awarded his Nobel Prize for his work on monetarism, famously stating that, ‘inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon’. Often overlooked, however, is the second part of his insight that ‘inflation… can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output’.

This imbalance was evident in the RBA’s latest Monetary Policy Decision statement, which noted that, ‘higher interest rates have been working to bring aggregate demand and supply closer towards balance’. This statement also reaffirms Say’s Law, which observes that supply creates its own demand, and changes in aggregate demand only affect the price level, not real gross domestic product or employment.

Yet while much of the current economic discourse focuses on aggregate demand, there is scant discussion on enhancing aggregate supply through promoting productivity and production. Instead of pursuing policies that enhance productivity and production, it has become increasingly common for governments to label every new spending or regulatory initiative as an ‘investment’ or ‘productivity’ measure without any evidence to support such claims.

The notion that universal government-funded childcare enhances productivity is as credible as suggesting that government-owned petrol stations would lower fuel prices. Such policies are more likely to destroy businesses and jobs than to create them.

If a business were to invest like government, it would rapidly go broke.

Unfortunately, the unfounded assertions made by our politicians and governments often go unchallenged, despite the noticeable correlation between the increasing size and frequency of so-called government investments and productivity measures, and declining actual productivity and frequency of economic dislocations. For more than two decades, it has been bipartisan policy at all levels of government to consistently undermine productivity and production.

Just as the era of globalisation-driven economic windfalls is coming to an end, so too, it seems, are the days of frank, fearless, first-rate economic advice from Treasury. Earlier this year, Treasury Secretary Stephen Kennedy praised the inflation-powered system of bracket creep tax increases as an ‘automatic stabilising influence’, arguing that adjusting tax brackets for inflation during a period of rapid price increases would feed money back into the economy, making it harder to control inflation. Conveniently, Kennedy failed to mention the crucial alternative to increasing taxes to ameliorate inflation: reducing government spending, a response which could help bring inflation under control without surreptitiously and usuriously taxing Australians.

Addressing Australia’s economic challenges requires a fundamental rethinking of government and government policy. This shift includes altering the political incentives that encourage unchecked spending and excessive regulation. If an investment manager or business director made representations akin to what our politicians did, they would be rapidly prosecuted and jailed. Asic and the ACCC would be on to them faster than a hawk spotting prey in an open field. Yet conveniently, the statements and financial projections made by politicians are not subject to the same civil and criminal liabilities imposed on private sector actors. Making unfounded and unsubstantiated claims about the benefits of higher spending and wasteful programs is how elections are won.

For far too long, governments at all levels and across the political spectrum have been aware of Australia’s economic issues; problems that call for less government, not more. Unfortunately, the political incentives are to deliver more and more government, irrespective of the costs and consequences.

A cognitive and policy reset is urgently needed. Australia’s next significant economic downturn won’t be a sudden, unexpected event but rather a ‘pink flamingo’—a clearly visible issue that is rapidly gaining momentum. The warning signs are evident. At question is whether there will be the will to act before it is too late.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/08/eyes-wide-shut-2/

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Our abused Sexual Discrimination Act

A decision in the Federal Court last Friday confirmed a shocking reality that many of us already knew; it is now illegal for women to publicly make a single-sex space in Australia under the current operation of the Sex Discrimination Act (1984) (SDA). The SDA is no longer fit for purpose, or rather, its purpose is now to threaten women into submission.

What we are seeing is not the ‘unintentional consequences’ of gender identity protections. The legislation that Justice Bromwich ruled on in the Federal Court regarding the Tickle v Giggle case is the SDA operating exactly as it is intended to operate by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), who have been slowly re-purposing the SDA for decades.

The Federal Court ruled that Sall Grover and Giggle for Girls Pty Ltd had engaged in indirect discrimination by removing Roxanne Tickle from the social media App that Grover had created for female people.

All the arguments mounted by Grover’s legal team failed, except for the argument that Grover could not have ‘directly’ or intentionally discriminated on the basis of gender identity, as gender identity can’t be discerned on sight because gender identity is invisible. Gender identity is essentially a legally protected sexed soul built from stereotypes.

Significantly, Bromwich declared ‘that in its contemporary ordinary meaning, sex is changeable’. Bromwich based this on a few cases in the last 30 years where this had been applied to trans-identified people for compassionate reasons.

No one thought to gather all the cases and legislation where women and girls are dealt with by the law as humans with a specific reproductive path. The Sex Discrimination Act, under which Sall Grover and her business were sued, was once such a piece of legislation.

The SDA originally recognised that the female body had a reproductive path that placed women and girls at a structural disadvantage in society. In the 40 years since its inception, the SDA has been the victim, like so many women and girls, of unbridled molestation.

The SDA came into effect under the Hawke Labor government in 1984 after years of campaigning by women’s rights activists. The legislation wasn’t original, but a type of civil rights legislation that was being trialled in Western nations to encourage full participation of women in society, free from discrimination and male pattern sexual harassment.

The SDA has been altered 56 times since 1984, almost always at the instigation of the Australian Human Rights Commission who administer the Act, and most famously by the Gillard Labor government which removed the definitions of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ from the SDA in 2013.

It was clear in the Explanatory Memorandum of the 2013 change that the definition of man and woman was removed from the SDA specifically to include trans-identified males in the definition of women. The memorandum states:

These definitions are repealed in order to ensure that ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are not interpreted so narrowly as to exclude, for example, a transgender woman from accessing protections from discrimination on the basis of other attributes contained in the SDA.

When Julia Gillard was asked last year about the 2013 amendments by Women’s Rights Network representatives, her rationale for the change was that there are a ‘number of people who genuinely believe that they are trapped in the wrong body and they want to be recognised as the gender their mind and soul have always told them that they are’.

The second key piece of legislation Justice Bromwich relied on in his decision was the newly minted Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration (Act 2023) (BDMRA), which only came into effect between the trial in April and the judgment last week.

Because the validity of the (BDMRA) was challenged constitutionally by the Giggle legal team, and against international women’s rights treaties, and failed, the implications of the use of the act go much further than birth certificates.

The legislation that the Federal Court just recognised as constitutionally valid, and in no way contravenes international human rights law, states in black and white that the kind of ‘internal’ gender identity that is protected over sex, the kind of gender that changes sex, can exist in ‘name, dress, speech, and behaviour’.

A male trying to gain access to women’s formerly safe spaces, doesn’t even need to have a certificate, because gender identity protections under the Qld BDM Registration Act, protects a man performing female gender via a hat, a garment from Millers, a tilt of the head, or a higher octave of voice. Any sign of ‘woman gender’ allows a man to access all areas for any reason and he can’t legally be removed if he claims a gender identity, unless he breaks the law, he doesn’t need a certificate because gender identity is an internal soul evidenced by words.

In my opinion, the way constitutional validity of gender identity legislation has been handled, combined with the discarding of international human rights concerns, has left the courts as the enablers of women being removed as a sex class.

We call this a culture war, but this is a class war, playing out in our institutions.

How many working-class fathers do you think would accept grown men identifying into the change rooms where their daughters are compelled to change while the child is in the custody of schools and sporting institutions? All schools and sporting institutions will fall under the authority of this ruling, and we need to take away its structure piece by piece.

When Shannon Fentiman introduced the Qld BDM Registration Act to Parliament she said, ‘I am proud to rise to introduce the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Bill 2022. I want to start by acknowledging the many trans and diverse people and their allies in the gallery today. These are the people this legislation is for.’

Under the Queensland constitution, members of Parliament are bound to make laws for the people of Queensland, not fringe interest groups or invisible gender souls. The Qld BDM Registration legislation redefines human sex categories against criteria the government itself provides. The mandate to allow the government to redefine human sex categories in law was never given to the Queensland Labor Party.

Individuals simply won’t be able to fight these dictates in court. In the process of Giggle v Tickle, Sall Grover’s business has been ruined, and if she didn’t have a group of supporters to fund her, she would certainly be bankrupted by the legal fees. Combined with the $10,000 awarded by the judge to Tickle personally, Sall Grover is obliged to pay Tickle’s costs (that are only partially capped). The legal fees that Sall is facing, including her own, will come close to $1M, and that is not including the High Court challenge she is about to embark on, which will likely exceed an additional 500K. You could almost buy a house in Brisbane for that.

Tickle was funded by the Grata Fund, which is listed as a legal aid charity, that fund social justice causes.

In endeavouring to interpret the correct intention of gender identity protections, Bromwich adopted the terminology, without which, it is impossible to make gender identity make any sense at all but that makes human sex a birth condition that is subject to change. He stated:

‘…cisgender refers to a person whose gender corresponds to the sex registered for them at birth. That is to be contrasted with a person whose gender does not correspond with their sex as registered at birth, commonly referred to as transgender. The respondents do not accept the legitimacy of the terms cisgender and transgender. I find both terms useful and convenient for the purpose of deciding and discussing the relevant facts and in accordance with the gender identity discrimination provisions in the SDA.’

The problem with ‘assigned at birth’ as a sovereign concept in law, over the more scientific understanding of human sex as an immutable characteristic, is that sex is not a birth condition, sex is a life condition. Furthermore, the life condition of sex is authoritative in the life of girls and women in a way that places them at a structural disadvantage.

If you have been saying to yourself ‘surely this won’t get through the courts’, you can stop that now. We should all support Sall Grover and her crowd funder to continue her fight to the High Court, but personally I have little hope of this being changed in the courts.

This issue, I believe, will only be ultimately fixed through the political process, through bringing our politicians to account, and for the conservative parties to take up this cause in earnest.

People are in favour of gay rights, we already know that, but not this is not that.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/08/our-abused-sexual-discrimination-act/

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40°C in August? Why is Australia so ridiculously hot right now?

Blaming the heat on global warming is absurd. It is mere unprovable assertion. And note that is was as hot in 1910, long before the modern industrial economy was widespread

It’s winter in Australia, but as you’ve probably noticed, the weather is unusually warm. The top temperatures over large parts of the country this weekend were well above average for this time of year.

The outback town of Oodnadatta in South Australia recorded 38.5°C on Friday and 39.4°C on Saturday — about 16°C above average. Both days were well above the state’s previous winter temperature record. In large parts of Australia, the heat is expected to persist into the coming week.

A high-pressure system is bringing this unusual heat — and it’s hanging around. So temperature records have already fallen and may continue to be broken for some towns in the next few days.

It’s no secret the world is warming. In fact 2024 is shaping up to be the hottest year on record. Climate change is upon us. Historical averages are becoming just that: a thing of the past.

That’s why this winter heat is concerning. The warming trend will continue for at least as long as we keep burning fossil fuels and polluting the atmosphere. Remember, this is only August. The heatwaves of spring and summer are only going to be hotter.

The Bureau of Meteorology was expecting many records to be broken over the weekend across several states. On Thursday, bureau meteorologist Angus Hines described:

A scorching end to winter, with widespread heat around the country in coming days, including the chance of winter records across multiple states for maximum temperature.

The amount of heat plunging into central Australia was particularly unusual, Hines said.

On Friday, temperatures across northern South Australia and southern parts of the Northern Territory were as much as 15°C above average.

Temperatures continued to soar across northern parts of Western Australia over the weekend, with over 40°C recorded at Fitzroy Crossing on Sunday. It has been 2–12°C above average from Townsville all the way down to Melbourne for several days in a row.

Bear in mind, it’s only August. As Hines said, the fire weather season hasn’t yet hit most of Australia, but the current conditions — hot, dry and sometimes windy — are bringing moderate to high fire danger across Australia. It may also bring dusty conditions to central Australia.

And for latitudes north of Sydney and Perth, most of the coming week will be warm.

What’s causing the winter warmth?

In recent days a stubborn high pressure system has sat over eastern Australia and the Tasman Sea. It has kept skies clear over much of the continent and brought northerly winds over many areas, transporting warm air to the south.

High pressure promotes warm weather — both through clearer skies that bring more sunshine and by promoting the descent of air that causes heating.

By late August, both the intensity of the sun and the length of the day have increased. So the centre of Australia can really warm up when under the right conditions.

High pressure in June can be associated with cooler conditions, because more heat is lost from the surface during those long winter nights. But that’s already less of an issue by late August.

This kind of weather setup has occurred in the past. Late-winter or early-spring heat does sometimes occur in Australia. However, this warm spell is exceptional, as highlighted by the broken temperature records across the country.

The consequences of humanity’s continued greenhouse gas emissions are clear. Australia’s winters are getting warmer overall. And winter “heatwaves” are becoming warmer.

Australia’s three warmest Augusts on record have all occurred since 2000 — and last August was the second-warmest since * 1910 *. When the right weather conditions occur for winter warmth across Australia, the temperatures are higher than a century ago.

The warmth we are experiencing now comes off the back of a recent run of global temperature records and extreme heat events across the Northern Hemisphere.

This warm spell is set to continue, with temperatures above 30°C forecast from Wednesday through to Sunday in Brisbane. The outlook for spring points to continued above-normal temperatures across the continent, but as always we will likely see both warm and cold spells at times.

Such winter warmth is exceptional and already breaking records. Climate change is already increasing the frequency and intensity of this kind of winter heat — and future warm spells will be hotter still, if humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions continue.

https://www.inkl.com/newsletters/morning-edition/news/40-c-in-august-why-is-australia-so-ridiculously-hot-right-now

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All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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Australia should heed Robert F Kennedy’s health policy deal with Trump

There is good evidence that ultra processed foods are NOT bad for you:

https://pcwatch.blogspot.com/2024/05/fresh-health-warning-over-ultra.html

But RFK's view is popularly accepted so should win votes

When Robert F. Kennedy Jr decided to pull out of the US presidential race he approached the Democrats to do a deal. The backing of the great Kennedy name would have probably locked in a Kamala Harris victory.

But the Democrats rejected Kennedy so he turned to Donald Trump and they made an incredible deal that means that if Trump wins, the global food industry and US health will be transformed. Australia will follow.

Kennedy was called a traitor by the Democrats but, according to the opinion polls, the Kennedy support has put Trump back in the presidential race although, as Paul Kelly points, out he has been campaigning badly.

The presidential race in the US is too close for an Australian business commentator to fpredict the outcome. But Down Under we can pick up potentially world changing events in the campaign that get missed in the frenzy of US political reporting.

The Kennedy-Trump deal is one such event.

The Kennedy campaign received high levels of support in some states because he was backed by a massive team of volunteers. Kennedy has agreed to use that team to campaign for Trump in the five key US swing states led by Pennsylvania.

And what makes Kennedy so dangerous to Harris is that his team will concentrate on one issue – the food processing deal Kennedy secured with Trump.

Kennedy has a passion about the health of Americans and believes his Trump deal, if implemented, is a key to improving US health. To illustrate the passion he will take to the electorates I will use his words to describe what is happening on the US health scene and what he will do about it.

Australia has similar problems.

Kennedy: “Today, two-thirds of American adults and half of children suffer chronic health issues. Fifty years ago, the number for children was less than one per cent.

“In America, 74 per cent of adults are now overweight or obese, and close to 50 per cent of children. In Japan, the childhood obesity rate is three per cent.

“Half of Americans now have prediabetes or type 2 diabetes.

“There’s been an explosion of neurological diseases that I never saw as a child. ADD, ADHD, speech delay, language delay, Tourette’s, narcolepsy, ASD, and Asperger’s.

“In the year 2000, the autism rate was one in 1,500. Now, autism rates in kids are one in 36 nationally, and 1 in 22 in California. The screening has not changed. Nor has the definition. The incidence has changed.

“About 18 per cent of teens have fatty liver disease, a disease that primarily used to be found only in late-stage alcoholics. Cancer rates are skyrocketing in the young and the old. Young adult cancers are up 79 per cent.

“One in four American women is on an antidepressant medication: 40 per cent of teens have a mental health diagnosis. Today, 15 per cent of high schoolers are on Adderall and half a million children are on SSRIs.

“So what’s causing all this suffering? I’ll name two culprits. First is ultra-processed foods. About 70 per cent of American children’s diet is ultra-processed – industrially manufactured in a factory. These foods consist primarily of processed sugar, ultra-processed grains, and seed oils.

“Lab scientists concoct thousands of other ingredients to make these foods more palatable, more addictive. These ingredients didn’t exist 100 years ago, and humans aren’t biologically adapted to eat them. Hundreds of these chemicals are banned in Europe, but ubiquitous in America’s processed foods.

“The second culprit is toxic chemicals in our food, medicine, and environment. Pesticides, food additives, pharmaceutical drugs, and toxic waste permeate every cell of our bodies. The assault on a child’s cells and hormones is unrelenting.

“It is crippling our nation’s finances. When my uncle was president, our country spent zero dollars on chronic disease. Today, government healthcare spending is mostly for chronic disease, and it is double the military budget. And it is the fastest-growing cost.

“The good news is that we can change all of this, and change it quickly. America can get healthy again. To do that we need to do three things. First, root out the corruption in our health agencies, all of them are controlled by huge for-profit corporations.

“Second, change the incentives of the healthcare system. And third, inspire Americans to get healthy again.

“With President Trump’s backing, I am going to change that. We are going to staff these agencies with honest scientists and doctors free from industry funding. We will make sure that the decisions of consumers, doctors, and patients are informed by unbiased science.”

Back to my words.

If Trump wins and honours the deal (highly likely) allowing Kennedy to transform US food products we will also change because most of the food processors in Australia are foreign owned and follow US patterns.

Like most Australians I am greatly concerned at the health issues that are emerging in our youth. I don’t know whether the Kennedy remedy is the answer but he may be right.

Meanwhile Kennedy will also use his heritage and words skill to add power to his health campaign.

“My uncles and my father both relished debate and prided themselves on their capacity to go toe-to-toe with any opponent in the battle over ideas. They would be astonished to learn of a Democratic Party presidential nominee who, like Vice President Harris, has not appeared for a single interview or unscripted encounter with voters in 35 days,” he said.

“This is profoundly undemocratic. How are people to choose, when they don’t know whom they are choosing? And how can this look to the rest of the world?

“My father and uncle were always conscious of America’s image because of our nation’s role as the template of democracy and the leader of the free world,” Kennedy concludes.

There is lots more to come in this US election campaign.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/australia-should-heed-robert-f-kennedys-health-policy-deal-with-trump/news-story/9eadd18d01cab8fc53cc3e393171d959

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Smart politics sends university Group of Eight a clear message

The Albanese government has done what it was always going to do and will regulate international student numbers from next year.

This is smart politics, plus it is an improvement on existing ineptly managed immigration rules, and it sends vice-chancellors of old and rich universities a clear message – they can protest as much as they like (and they have) but their opposition is politically irrelevant.

It is also ordinary policy. The creation of international enrolment quotas for universities and vocational colleges demonstrates the government is back in the business of regulating higher education and training – there will be more of this very soon. It is also in the business of blaming universities for the national housing shortage and immigration rackets that bother voters.

The first is ridiculous – inter­national students paying top rental dollar occurs in inner-cities and has nothing to do with skilled labour shortages delaying housing starts across the country.

The second is blame shifting – student visa rorts are mainly a problem in the training sector where bodgy colleges pretend they are educating so-called students who are actually in Australia to work.

While the new quotas rightly apply to training colleges, including universities demonstrates the government is on to immigration and housing problems. It is also why the opposition will be wise to wave the student caps bill through the Senate, unless it wants to give Labor the chance to blame the ­Coalition for both.

Yet all universities enrolling international students have their quotas and the losers are already complaining. There will be warnings of a collapse in Australia’s international research ranking as international student fees stop funding new science kit, and of job losses as casual teaching staff will not be needed.

It won’t occur all at once and not everywhere. The cash cut will hurt worse Group of Eight capital city campuses (the universities of Sydney and Melbourne are standout examples), which have used international student fees to fund opulent building programs and capital-intensive research.

Early estimates put their 2025 international quotas at around pre-pandemic numbers, but 20 per cent plus down on this year.

In contrast, there are vice-chancellors who hope their universities will pick up international students the big metro campuses cannot accommodate.

This is unlikely: students in China know about Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and that’s about it. Yet hope springs eternal and some universities have already supported the new scheme.

It’s one reason the government will get away with it – the higher education system is split on caps.

All up, this looks like an immediate win for the government with another to follow.

The government has a new agency, the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, ready to go. It would have powers to regulate Australian student admissions, allocate funding and create closer links with training. If vice-chancellors think international student caps is peak interference, they ain’t seen nothing yet.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/smart-politics-sends-university-group-of-eight-a-clear-message/news-story/e1b773147f7692ca0cf5241dc869f718

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40°C in August? Why is Australia so ridiculously hot right now?

Blaming the heat on global warming is absurd. It is mere unprovable assertion. And note that is was as hot in 1910, long before the modern undustrial economy was widespread

It’s winter in Australia, but as you’ve probably noticed, the weather is unusually warm. The top temperatures over large parts of the country this weekend were well above average for this time of year.

The outback town of Oodnadatta in South Australia recorded 38.5°C on Friday and 39.4°C on Saturday — about 16°C above average. Both days were well above the state’s previous winter temperature record. In large parts of Australia, the heat is expected to persist into the coming week.

A high-pressure system is bringing this unusual heat — and it’s hanging around. So temperature records have already fallen and may continue to be broken for some towns in the next few days.

It’s no secret the world is warming. In fact 2024 is shaping up to be the hottest year on record. Climate change is upon us. Historical averages are becoming just that: a thing of the past.

That’s why this winter heat is concerning. The warming trend will continue for at least as long as we keep burning fossil fuels and polluting the atmosphere. Remember, this is only August. The heatwaves of spring and summer are only going to be hotter.

The Bureau of Meteorology was expecting many records to be broken over the weekend across several states. On Thursday, bureau meteorologist Angus Hines described:

A scorching end to winter, with widespread heat around the country in coming days, including the chance of winter records across multiple states for maximum temperature.

The amount of heat plunging into central Australia was particularly unusual, Hines said.

On Friday, temperatures across northern South Australia and southern parts of the Northern Territory were as much as 15°C above average.

Temperatures continued to soar across northern parts of Western Australia over the weekend, with over 40°C recorded at Fitzroy Crossing on Sunday. It has been 2–12°C above average from Townsville all the way down to Melbourne for several days in a row.

Bear in mind, it’s only August. As Hines said, the fire weather season hasn’t yet hit most of Australia, but the current conditions — hot, dry and sometimes windy — are bringing moderate to high fire danger across Australia. It may also bring dusty conditions to central Australia.

And for latitudes north of Sydney and Perth, most of the coming week will be warm.

What’s causing the winter warmth?

In recent days a stubborn high pressure system has sat over eastern Australia and the Tasman Sea. It has kept skies clear over much of the continent and brought northerly winds over many areas, transporting warm air to the south.

High pressure promotes warm weather — both through clearer skies that bring more sunshine and by promoting the descent of air that causes heating.

By late August, both the intensity of the sun and the length of the day have increased. So the centre of Australia can really warm up when under the right conditions.

High pressure in June can be associated with cooler conditions, because more heat is lost from the surface during those long winter nights. But that’s already less of an issue by late August.

This kind of weather setup has occurred in the past. Late-winter or early-spring heat does sometimes occur in Australia. However, this warm spell is exceptional, as highlighted by the broken temperature records across the country.

The consequences of humanity’s continued greenhouse gas emissions are clear. Australia’s winters are getting warmer overall. And winter “heatwaves” are becoming warmer.

Australia’s three warmest Augusts on record have all occurred since 2000 — and last August was the second-warmest since * 1910 *. When the right weather conditions occur for winter warmth across Australia, the temperatures are higher than a century ago.

The warmth we are experiencing now comes off the back of a recent run of global temperature records and extreme heat events across the Northern Hemisphere.

This warm spell is set to continue, with temperatures above 30°C forecast from Wednesday through to Sunday in Brisbane. The outlook for spring points to continued above-normal temperatures across the continent, but as always we will likely see both warm and cold spells at times.

Such winter warmth is exceptional and already breaking records. Climate change is already increasing the frequency and intensity of this kind of winter heat — and future warm spells will be hotter still, if humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions continue.

https://www.inkl.com/newsletters/morning-edition/news/40-c-in-august-why-is-australia-so-ridiculously-hot-right-now

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Peter Dutton has the Anthony Albanese government rattled and it shows

Several poor poll results and a drubbing in the NT election on the weekend has the Labor government lashing out in an increasingly nasty fashion.

Labor has decided that the best way to deal with the serious issues afflicting the country – from the cost of living crisis to the Gaza visa furore to suicidally stupid energy policies saddling households and businesses with crippling bills – is to attack the Opposition Leader. Typically it’s opposition leaders who are accused of being overly negative and in permanent attack mode, but Labor has flipped the playbook and is targeting Dutton as if he’s the prime minister.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers intensified the government’s attacks against Dutton when he launched into a particularly shrill diatribe at the John Curtin Research Centre in Melbourne on Monday night.

“Leadership which is destructive, and divisive, is not really leadership at all.

“And that’s what we are seeing from Peter Dutton. He is the most divisive leader of a major political party in Australia’s modern history – and not by accident, by choice,” Chalmers said. “It is the only plank in his political platform. He divides deliberately, almost pathologically. This is worse than disappointing, it is dangerous. His divisiveness should be disqualifying.”

To call Dutton dangerous and the most divisive leader in modern Australia is not just hyperbole but stinks of desperation and delusion.

Polls show that despite the consistently harsh treatment Dutton receives from the bulk of the mainstream media, he is cutting through on consequential issues from the economy to national security to cultural issues.

Dutton’s response to Chalmers’ astonishing attack hit the nail on the head.

“If Australians were doing so well, and if the economy was running as great as Jim Chalmers claims it is, why is he dedicating his speech to me?” he said.

And, it’s rather rich for Chalmers, or anyone on the Left, to call the Liberal leader “divisive” when it was Labor who tried to enshrine racial division into the Australian constitution.

Far from being the sensible centrists they claimed, the Albanese government has proved to be radically Left and willing to back reckless, irrational policies.

Ideology is trumping reality and reason, and that never ends well.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/rita-panahi-its-rather-rich-for-jim-chalmers-or-anyone-on-the-left-to-call-the-liberal-leader-divisive/news-story/2caa61c341f05e219fe1576ac559aa68

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Australia’s gold standard attack on religious freedom: Churches must remain free

As the flame goes out on the Paris Olympic Games, one image left smouldering in the minds of those of faith was the overt mockery of Christ at the opening ceremony on 26 July.

The grotesque parody of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting The Last Supper, saw Jesus Christ, portrayed by a lesbian DJ, surrounded by drag performers and a near-naked man painted blue. While the painting depicts one of the most profound moments of the Gospel stories, the Olympic organisers saw fit to parade writhing cross-dressers over what Christians hold sacred.

Despite the overtly profane performance, its artistic director, Thomas Jolly, hurriedly denied it was so, and Paris2024 spokesperson, Anne Descamps, apologised for any offence caused by the ceremony, stating, ‘I think (with) Thomas Jolly, we really did try to celebrate community tolerance…. If people have taken any offense, we are, of course, really, really sorry.’

In Australia, attacking Christianity has become a sport for the elites and the political class.

Just as in Paris, the evocation of ‘tolerance’ and ‘love’ is eerily resemblant of attacks on Christianity in our own country. Indeed, in Australia, the most savage attacks on our religious institutions are carried out in the name of ‘inclusivity’ and ‘equality’.

In March, the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) released its report into religious educational institutions and anti-discrimination laws as proposed by the Albanese government. While entitled Maximising the Realisation of Human Rights, the ALRC in reality acknowledged that within ‘progressive’ politics, some rights are more equal than others. It concluded that while its changes would enhance many other rights, religious freedom should be limited in order to better protect the rights of others, noting ‘the recommended reforms may limit, for some people, the freedom to manifest religion or belief in community with others and the associated parental liberty to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions’. It proceeded to propose sweeping changes that would render religious schools seriously vulnerable to activist attacks.

The report recommended that faith-based schools be stripped of their current exemption under Section 38 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, which allows them autonomy in hiring and enrolments so long as their decisions are made ‘in good faith in order to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of an adherent of that religion or creed’.

The proposed changes would hand a sword to activists seeking to undermine faith-based education by making faith-based schools vulnerable to litigation. Under the ALRC’s proposed changes, if a teacher conducted lessons contrary to the school’s religious ethos, it would have had no protection to ensure staff members honour the fundamental principles of the institution’s values.

Under the current laws, schools are protected from litigation under Section 38. However, if a future federal government successfully enacts the ALRC’s recommendations, the school would be left with little choice but to acquiesce to the teacher’s demands, or face litigation.

Having failed to convince the federal opposition to buy into its attack on Australia’s religious institutions, the Prime Minister appears to have contracted a serious case of cold feet on changing Australia’s religious discrimination laws, of which changes to Section 38 were believed to be a part. The PM said rather sheepishly, ‘The last thing that Australia needs is any divisive debate relating to religion and people’s faith…. I don’t intend to engage in a partisan debate when it comes to religious discrimination.’

While it seems this front of the elite’s war on religion has gone quiet, the battle still rages. In July, the Productivity Commission, now led by former Grattan Institute CEO Danielle Wood, released recommendations in its Future Foundations for Giving Inquiry report that seeks to diminish the ability of religious groups to attract philanthropic support.

Despite all evidence suggesting that religious entities enrich lives and provide a vital source of support in the community, the Productivity Commission does not consider them to be in line with the federal government’s philanthropic goals. It declared that there was ‘no strong case for government support’ of activities which seek to advance religion through the deductible giving recipient system.

The Commission instead recommended the federal government expressly exclude ‘all activities in the subtype of advancing religion’ from deductible giving recipient status, ‘primary, secondary, religious and informal education activities’ and school building funds.

Worse still, the Report recommends the abolition of the ‘basic religious charity’ category and related exemptions. This would empower the regulator, the Australian Charity and Non-for-profits Commission, to suspend, appoint, and remove leaders of religious institutions if it declared they violated certain governance standards. Currently, basic religious charities have autonomy over their own leadership.

The report justifies this as an effort to bring basic religious charities into line with the regulatory framework, citing that ‘inconsistent treatment of basic religious charities lacks policy rationale’. However, the Productivity Commission’s proposal is not merely a regulatory technicality, but rather the deliberate blurring of the line between church and state.

The autonomy to select, appoint, discipline, and remove religious leaders is fundamental to religious liberty. The logical extension of the state being empowered to appoint and dismiss religious leaders is that it would be positioned to select ministers sympathetic to its political goals, and to remove others that challenge its authority.

As Australia drifts ever further down the path of moral relativism, it is crucial that the church remain free to proselytise its faith and ethos. The idea that some government bureaucrat would be empowered to appoint or dismiss a religious leader is anathema to liberal democracy, and is an eerie echo of the Council for Religious Affairs appointing priests across the Soviet empire.

The race to nobble religious liberty in our own backyard is being vigorously contested. While Australia’s aggressive breed of institutional secularism may not be covered in sequins and blue body paint, it has the same finishing line.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/08/australias-gold-standard-attack-on-religious-freedom/

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Sydney University accused of ‘gold plating’ campus with foreign enrolments around 50 per cent

Sydney University has revealed its proportion of international students is about 50 per cent this semester as it fronted allegations it was swimming in “rivers of gold” from foreign enrolment fees.

Vice chancellor Mark Scott’s comments came at a Senate hearing into the proposed international student caps, which university chiefs say amount to giving the government “sweeping emergency powers”.

Scott said the university’s senate had in 2021 determined that about 50 per cent should be the ceiling for the proportion of international students at the institution, which is heavily reliant on Chinese enrolments.

“Our era of solid growth in international students was drawing to a close,” Scott said

“At Sydney, for some years now, we have not planned to move further beyond where we are now.”

In a fiery exchange, Liberal senator Sarah Henderson said the institution was getting “rivers of gold” and told Scott he was “gold plating” the university from foreign students’ fees – pointing to a $650 million medical research project – while smaller universities were “on their knees”.

Scott said revenue from foreign fees – $1.4 billion last year – propped up teaching, research and infrastructure projects.

“I don’t think there is a magic number here,” he said. “I don’t think social licence disappears suddenly when you pass a certain threshold.”

International students have become central to Labor’s plan to slash net migration from 520,000 in 2023 to 260,000 by June next year.

The bill to cap international students, introduced to parliament in May, was a significant escalation of the government’s bid to reduce foreign enrolments, which rebounded strongly after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The proposed legislation would give Education Minister Jason Clare sweeping powers to cap international student numbers at both an institution and course level.

Universities and other higher education providers are expecting to be told this week what next year’s proposed caps are.

Treasury officials told the hearings they had not undertaken detailed modelling on the impact of the caps on Australia’s economy, but would do so after they are announced.

After the hearings, Group of Eight universities chief executive Vicki Thomson labelled this a “scandalous admission” that showed international education was the subject of a “reckless gamble” by government.

University of NSW chief Attila Brungs said the institution had been forced to halt enrolment for three popular degrees due to uncertainty about the caps.

“That will have long-term ramifications for those courses. They won’t come back for three to four years,” he said.

“The international education market is such a complex, such a large and long-term thing, making changes at this late stage is very problematic to Australia’s reputation.”

Western Sydney University vice chancellor George Williams, a constitutional lawyer, said the international student caps bill was poorly drafted and not fit to be passed.

“When I look at this bill it’s remarkable in many respects … the concentration of power is surprising,” he said.

“It’s unfettered, coercive and being concentrated in a minister in a way that you would normally associate, in my experience, with a biosecurity act or a piece of national security legislation.

“You would not expect it in a piece of industry policy, particularly something directed at higher education.”

Education Department deputy secretary Ben Rimmer said he was confident providers would “find it possible to live with” the caps when they received them

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-university-accused-of-gold-plating-campus-with-foreign-enrolments-around-50-per-cent-20240826-p5k5eo.html

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Business goes to war on Labor’s IR laws

Business has launched a fresh attack on the Albanese government, labelling a suite of “radical” workplace laws taking effect on Monday as a “hellishly complex minefield” that will undermine productivity.

The Business Council of Australia, Minerals Council of Australia, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Australian Industry Group condemned the impact of multi-employer bargaining, after the Fair Work Commission on Friday compelled three NSW coalmining companies to collectively negotiate workplace agreements with a union.

“What’s alarming about this decision is that it essentially says all of the businesses in any sector can be roped together and subject to the same determination because of these new laws,” BCA chief executive Bran Black said of the Friday decision, impacting Whitehaven Coal, Peabody Energy, and Ulan Coal Mines.

“Businesses should be on edge about this precedent, because it will slash productivity and undermine enterprise-level engagement between employees and employers.”

From Monday, employers will be bound by new laws that limit them from contacting workers outside normal work hours, clamp down on the use of independent contractors, provide an easier pathway for casual workers to become permanent, and empower the FWC to set minimum standards for gig economy employees.

Unions are calling on BHP to negotiate with them by using a loophole in the Albanese government’s workplace laws.
Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt said the reforms were part of Labor’s pre-election platform of “getting wages moving again”. He claimed wage growth was “running above inflation on an annual basis”, despite wages in the year to June being lower than prices growth.

“When we think about cost?of?living, we need to be thinking about how much people are paying for things, the tax cuts they’re receiving from our government, the energy bill relief they’re being provided with as well,” Senator Watt said on Sunday. “But what’s just as important is what they’re earning at work. Some of the changes we’ve already made have been assisting to lift people’s wages, make their jobs more secure, to enable them to deal with those cost-of-living pressures.”

Ai Group chief executive Innes Willox said running a business would become “even harder with a new wave of confidence-sapping industrial laws rolling out across our workplaces, making employing people more difficult and achieving productivity growth even more elusive”. Writing in The Australian, Mr Willox warned the real consequences of the reforms would “only reveal themselves in the months and years ahead as unions weaponise them”.

“Nowhere in this mass of legislative change is a word on how our pathetic productivity performance will be improved. In fact, all of this is anti-productivity,” he writes.

“Without turning our productivity outcomes around, we condemn ourselves to falling living standards and risk perpetuating high inflation and an elevated cost of living.”

ACCI chief executive Andrew McKellar said the new laws would “crush productivity”.

“I think there’s also a significant risk that this could mean increases in input costs for some businesses, and of course in some cases that’s going to mean those costs will be passed on to consumers,” he said.

Opposition employment spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said the new laws were “designed to create confusion in workplaces across Australia”.

“The Coalition has promised to repeal the right-to-disconnect laws when in government,” Senator Cash said.

“Mr Albanese’s changes to casual employment are designed to destroy casual jobs … For small-business employers in particular, those employing casual workers can no longer rely on their employment contract to determine their employment status.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/business-goes-to-war-on-labors-ir-laws/news-story/5e0e1c76d6690e669c0701ed66d511b2

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Albanese’s inevitable slide into a Whitlamesque economy

A common mindset held by too many on the left is that production is inevitable, and will be maintained irrespective of the taxes levied and regulations imposed upon productive processes.

For many, the issue for activist politicians is simply how do we divide people’s incomes between the part they are permitted to retain, the part for promoting the political class’s preferred ideologies, and the part for the all-important task of maintaining themselves in power.

This may explain why the first and immediate act of the Albanese government was to grant favours to Labor’s key paymasters, the union movement, including putting in place arrangements which make the non-unionisation of the workforce more difficult to avoid. This has been followed by pay increases for certain workers, initially those in childcare, but only if their employer is union-friendly.

In requiring greater unionisation, there has been little concern about the effects of this on costs to the governed as both consumers and taxpayers. Nor is productivity a high priority… In the case of construction unionisation, we have seen reductions of 30 per cent as a result of the conditions required by the government including granting designated unions monopoly rights over who may work and the conditions of the working arrangements both for direct employees and subcontractors’ workers. National productivity, according to the latest figures, is falling.

In concert with this, we see with the CFMEU that alleged corruption is apparently tolerated until it is exposed for all to see and politicians’ averted gaze can no longer be sublimated to the notion that the prerequisite of an omelette is breaking eggs. Even then, politicians who have worked side-by-side with the miscreants now profusely claim ignorance of union misdeeds with political leaders straight-facedly insisting that they are unaware.

A rapid increase in spending is the hallmark of Labor governments other than (for the most part) the Hawke-Keating era. Albanese has been no exception, with the size of the Commonwealth rising to comprise over 26 per cent of GDP – and with even less of this than previously devoted to the most important feature of government – national defence. And arrangements are in train for further damage in providing greater scope for the government to control and therefore expand the money supply by suppressing interest rates with its attendant implications for inflation and wealth destruction. Depreciating the currency for short-term gain is the eternal temptation of governments and the Treasurer is only just getting started.

Politicians’ lack of awareness of (or indifference to) the drivers of increased income levels brings the sort of decisions that Tanya Plibersek has recently made regarding a $1 billion gold mine program near Orange. Thinking that she can remove some of the bricks supporting the project without the venture totally collapsing, in defiance of the very development approval processes which she has in place, she capriciously required additional regulatory conditions to appease particular anti-development mini interests, promoting clearly confected issues.

The mindset behind such arbitrariness owes much to the fact that very few politicians, particularly on the green-left, have ever had to make the trade-offs, cost savings, or search for solutions that confront those in the private sector.

We see the very same contempt for those involved in production with squeezes on water supply from the Murray Darling (again part of the Plibersek portfolio). Similar measures crippling productivity are seen in Queensland, where avocado farmers are suddenly losing their water rights within a pristine river system in spite of having used them for generations. And gill net fisherman are being denied access to the fisheries, which have been sustainably harvested for many years, because of confected fears about loss of the Great Barrier Reef, which is in excellent health and in any event is hundreds of miles away

Using access to the machinery of government to perpetuate themselves in office is a primary goal of all politicians but those without the awareness of the damage that overrides commercial market forces are less prone to abusing their power.

Thus, forms of arbitrary regulatory damage compound that being fomented in subsidies and grants to non-commercial wind, solar, and hydrogen energy and to facilitating the collection and distribution of that energy via transmission networks. Previous governments had built those subsidies to a level costing over $9 billion a year, but the Albanese government immediately stepped this up to $16 billion a year with its Safeguard Mechanism, the direct renewable energy purchases through the $68 billion Capacity Investment Scheme, its Hydrogen Headstart scheme, and a massive new build of transmission to deliver the diffuse power these schemes entail.

The mania of decarbonisation is also being used to justify proposals to force off-road vehicles to pay the fuel excise that funds roads. While also providing short-term revenue gains to government, this means long-term damaging costs to competitiveness.

Ideological preferences were also behind the Voice to Parliament. Under this, a parallel government would be in place across large swathes of economic activity with all the additional work-gumming and patronage this would bring in its wake. And there has been the reckless attitude to Gaza visas where Australia, a nation that is geographically just about as far away from the conflict as any in the world, is granting 95 per cent of the visas to this troubled community.

All governments naturally seek self-preservation and this will always and appropriately mean setting policies that align with some form of majority opinion. And it is expected of those in power to exercise leadership on emerging issues. But the ALP has finely honed the notion of assembling the right array of interest groups to ensure a survival oblivious to the consequences of its policies on general welfare.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/08/albaneses-inevitable-slide-into-a-whitlamesque-economy/

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Diversity is not our strength

It was encouraging to see Albo’s government recently appoint a Special Envoy for Social Cohesion, Wills MP Peter Khalil, in a nod to community harmony, which has been taken for granted in Australia for far too long. Equally, it was discouraging to see the same regime recklessly importing relatively unvetted Gazan migrants from a war zone, given that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has become the violent edge of ethnic division here. Stoking a problem at the same time as staunching it, then? Despite the protestations of our multicultural lobby, it is self-evident, after the 7 October massacre in Israel, that not all communities can coexist peacefully – or even want to.

Yes, Australian generosity and tolerance has created a successful multi-ethnic society, but growing divisions are emerging, as separate group identities, funded and promoted by multicultural ideologies and agencies, strain the ties that bind. Divisive Welcomes to Country, locking up ‘country’ such as Mount Warning away from other Australians, unruly pro-Palestinian protesters, two-tier policing, and massive migration numbers are straining this nation’s social fabric like never before.

At issue is our 50-year-long policy of multiculturalism: are we creating too many rival groups and enclaves, at the expense of a shared Australian national identity? One of the first great social philosophers, the 14th-century Arab Ibn Khaldun introduced a concept called ‘asabiyah’, the unifying feeling that binds a group and makes collective action possible. It can be religious, or racial, cultural or military. It’s the glue that makes a society work. The asabiyah of the terrorist group Hamas is the destruction of Israel and the Jews, for example.

A 2023 book, Out of the Melting Pot, Into the Fire, by US economist and researcher Jens Heycke, contrasts ethnic separatism (‘Multiculturalism’) throughout world history with a more integrationist (‘Melting Pot’) approach. Across the globe and through history, societies that preferenced separate identities fared far worse, sometimes catastrophically so, than more integrated ones. It is a woeful tale that makes you wonder how modern multiculturalism ever took hold.

The Roman and Ottoman Empires, Islam, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, the Balkans and more come under Heycke’s gaze. Expanding, successful Rome was assimilationist, explicitly including conquered peoples as citizens; the Greek Aristides wrote: ‘In your empire all paths are open to all.’ But separatism rose after the mass immigration of Goths and Huns in the 4th and 5th centuries; they failed to integrate or gain citizenship and in 476AD Rome fell.

Similar stories play out elsewhere. In Rwanda the Tutsi-Hutu enmity turns out not to be an age-old rivalry but a product of Belgium’s divide and conquer approach, in which the colonialists gave out ID cards distinguishing Tutsis from Hutus, and gave Tutsis job and educational preferences, thus setting the stage for an explosion of racial violence that killed up to one million people in 1994. A modern success story, Rwanda now has a strongly colour-blind policy, in which all must be Rwandans, no longer Tutsis or Hutus.

Similarly Sri Lanka, where the Tamils and Sinhalese had long coexisted relatively peacefully. After independence in 1948 a ‘Sinhala only’ language campaign arose, the linking English language was abandoned, and separate education systems for Sinhala and Tamil ultimately divided the two populations. The percentage of Tamils employed in the armed forces fell from 40 per cent in 1956 to one per cent in 1970. Finally in 2009 a bloodbath left some 40,000 Tamils dead.

Botswana’s story is extraordinary. Founder and first president, the black prince Seretse Khama, had to overcome British government skulduggery and racism in order to marry London clerk, Ruth Williams. As a result, Khama’s movement was welded to colourblindness, resolutely opposing racial, ethnic and tribal distinctions. Questions about race, tribe or ethnicity are banned from the official census, for example.

Heycke notes that the Botswana, Mauritius and Rwanda constitutions all mandate colour-blindness, and are among Africa’s freest, and most prosperous nations.

The economist then ‘costs’ ethnic division: ‘the data… suggest that ethnic diversity is strongly correlated with extensive violence, rampant corruption, poor economic growth and abysmal living standards’. The happiest countries, such as the Nordic nations, also turn out to be the most homogeneous.

A key insight concerns public goods such as health, sanitation, law enforcement, education and infrastructure. Highly divided nations do very poorly at providing such public services, with ethnic communities tending to focus on their own people, at the expense of the country at large. This impoverishes everyone. In this he builds on the work of sociologist Robert Putnam, as quoted in the New York Times. His 30,000-strong study across the US found ‘the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote, and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects’.

Heycke concludes: social unity is fragile; ethnic division elicits evil from ordinary people; group preferences favour powerful elites over the needy (as we see with the Aboriginal industry, where the monies never seem to reach those living in the dirt); ethnic preferences never solve the problems they were created for, and in practice are usually there forever.

The problem turns out not to be people’s diverse origins but tying benefits or disadvantages to group identities. This is the toxin that poisons societies. Heycke writes, ‘When a society maintains group distinctions, and particularly when it bolsters them with group preferences, people hunker down, adopting an “us versus them” outlook.’ Australia indeed dodged a bullet with the Voice referendum, which, had it succeeded, would likely have expanded society-inflaming race-based benefits. Such toxins can include, for example, the barring of non-indigenous from some parts of ‘country’, or, in the UK, ‘Two-Tier’ Keir’s punitive policing of native Brits, while allowing gangs of recent migrants, masked and brandishing weapons, to rampage without hindrance.

I grew up in a 1950s and 1960s white bread Australia with a level of safety, harmony and peacefulness unimaginable to young Australians now. My community had the second-densest migrant concentration in post-war Australia; I had Ukrainians over the road, Russians and Maltese on either side of our house; and local Aborigines at our school. The migrants were called New Australians then, an innate acknowledgement that we were all involved in building a new Australia. It was our asabiyah.

What is the point, then, of all this diversity, that is straining infrastructure and unity for everyone already here? It is past time to focus on our commonalities and unity, not ethnic and cultural differences.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/08/diversity-is-not-our-strength/

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Decolonising the nation’s history in pursuit of ‘truth’

It’s nearly a decade since Geoffrey Blainey, Australia’s leading historian, dismissed “talk of the history wars raging in Australia”. Writing in The Weekend Australian on February 21, 2015, he commented that the usage of the word war in this context was mistaken.

Blainey’s point was that “controversy, not war, will continue for a long time to come” since argument was part of “the nature of history and of most intellectual activities”. All the more so in Australia, “a nation where the main strands of history – Aboriginal and European – are utterly different”.

It’s much the same with usage of the term “the end of history”. Writing in The Australian on August 20, 2022, I made the point that the suggestion that someone was on the wrong side of history was just another way of shutting down debate. These days this word weapon is primarily embraced by the left – or liberals in US parlance.

History is in the news again following the revelation that, so far, 19 volumes of the Australian Dictionary of Biography are under revision. The initial general editor was Australian National University academic Douglas Pike. The inaugural publisher was Melbourne University Press, then managed by Peter Ryan.

The publication of the ADB was a terrific achievement for a nation of around 12 million of which only a small percentage of the population had a tertiary education. Moreover, it was essentially put together by those who devoted their time free of charge.

It came as some surprise, then, to hear ADB general editor Melanie Nolan say this on the ABC about the publication (which has been published by ANU Press since 2012): “Of the 14,000 ADB articles, probably a third will stand the test of time and won’t need much changing; a third of them are dreadful (and) a third of them need significant work.”

It’s a long time since a general editor of a historical dictionary fanged their own publication. Sure Nolan, who is a professor at the ANU’s National Centre for Biography, has been in the ADB position for only a few years. But she presides over a publication that gets about 1.2 million visits a year. Not a bad result for a publication the general editor of which reckons contains close to 5000 “dreadful” entries.

On August 19, Nolan was interviewed about the ADB by David Marr, the newly appointed presenter of ABC Radio National’s Late Night Live. The session was advertised as “Fixing up Australia’s written history”. The blurb declared: “History is subjective but in Australia we have a history of not just sanitising the past and its characters but censoring or at least covering up.” It was suggested “one significant project” to do with the de-sanitising was the proposed revision of the ADB.

Then Marr introduced Nolan by saying that “decolonising those 20 volumes, nine million words and almost 14,000 biographies can’t be done overnight”.

Nolan told Marr the project was overdue. She spoke about the need for “revisionism” and made the obvious point that “our values change”. She added: “It’s a long time since historians have been completely objective.” But she did not say when such a (utopian) time existed. Nolan acknowledged that the ADB was an unusual publication of its type in the 1960s in having the lives of representative Australians covered. By this she meant that not all entries were about the rich, powerful and famous. But Nolan criticised the ADB for having a celebratory past and added “people who were seen as disreputable were not included”.

The last claim is not the case. Bushranger and police killer Ned Kelly gets coverage (volume five), as does Sydney’s madam criminal Tilly Devine (volume eight) and murderer Jean Lee, the last woman hanged in Australia (volume 15). Nolan states that only 170 convicts are in the ADB. But it’s not zero. And she said women had been dreadfully underestimated.

The last matter has been addressed in recent years. And Nolan has foreshadowed already planned volumes on colonial women and convicts plus greater coverage of Indigenous Australians. Moreover, in 2005, when Diane Langmore was general editor, the ADB put out a supplementary volume covering people who were missed in the period 1788-1980. Also, through the years there have been a number of corrigenda issued.

In private correspondence about a late friend who has an ADB entry, Nolan advised me in writing that “the ADB does not unilaterally change an author’s text without their permission”. But it does so on occasions. After all, some errors have to be corrected.

It makes sense that, from time to time, historical dictionaries have to be brought up-to-date. The problem with what Nolan told Marr is that the ADB – which is largely funded by taxpayers’ money – now has an agenda to revise Australian history so it can present what Nolan has referred to as “truth”. Which would seem to mean truth as perceived by her and her contemporary colleagues.

Nolan told Marr that while the ADB “has patriotic origins … it’s in a university”. As such, “we are not just telling stories about people we value in the past but also analysing those because we are social scientists”. In view of the state of social science in most Western universities, this suggests that what Marr described as Nolan’s decolonisation project will involve yet more voices of alienated left-wing intellectuals condemning their own societies while on the taxpayer teat.

Then there is the question of what, in Nolan’s view, requires revision. Take historian Manning Clark, a key player in promoting the left-wing interpretation of Australian history. The current entry on Clark in the ADB online refers to his Meeting Soviet Man, published in 1960, as “a controversial book on the Soviet Union”.

It was more than that. Clark compared Bolshevik revolutionary Vladimir Lenin to Jesus Christ and made no substantial criticism of the communist totalitarian dictatorship that prevailed in 1960 under the heirs of Lenin and Stalin.

The Clark entry could do with substantial revision. But do not expect any. It doesn’t fit an Australian decolonisation project.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/decolonising-the-nations-history-in-pursuit-of-truth/news-story/ada866f12c309b33a2dfdfbbf166b01b

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Sydney school shows that old-fashioned teaching methods work best

Tracy Considine has made countless changes at Canterbury Public in her six years as principal, but she finds it easy to pinpoint those that have helped to lift the school’s maths and reading scores.

The latest round of literacy and numeracy exams shows the school has gained ground in both measures: the proportion of year 3 children above baseline standard in reading is up from 59 per cent to 87 per cent.

“We’ve targeted teacher practice with intensive professional development and making sure every teacher is trained in phonics instruction,” she said. “Parents have come along with us. We run workshops for families on core maths and reading concepts so they can help their kids at home.”

Considine said the school, which uses explicit teaching methods, had also worked hard to shift perceptions among teachers and parents that children “were either good at maths or they weren’t”.

“We’ve debunked myths and changed attitudes. We dispelled myths that only boys can achieve at the highest level in maths. Teachers now have high expectations of all students.”

The NSW Education Department has identified Canterbury for achieving significant growth in both reading and numeracy in the past year. About 80 per cent of year 3 students achieved proficiency in year 3 maths.

Last week’s release of the 2024 NAPLAN results painted a bleak picture of academic achievement across the country. One in three children in NSW failed to reach benchmarks in reading and maths. Ten per cent of year 9 pupils are functionally illiterate.

About 40 per cent of year 3 students did not meet expected standards in grammar tests, meaning they struggled to point out the correct location of a full stop or to identify proper nouns.

While Canterbury’s results are showing signs of bucking the statewide trend, outcomes nationally remain unchanged compared with 2023. The results once again lay bare the glaring gap between rich and poor students, and those in cities and remote areas.

The national scorecard has also intensified the fight between federal Education Minister Jason Clare and his state counterparts over the next schools funding deal.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-sydney-school-debunking-myths-and-bucking-naplan-trends-20240822-p5k4fa.html

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Gazan visa scheme is a sign of weak PM’s desperation

Peta Credlin

Be thankful you don’t have to watch parliament for a living like I do, because the past week has been a shocker.

We’ve got a weak Prime Minister who’s getting more and more desperate to hold onto power despite the real sense it’s slipping away from him. We’ve got ministers who are failing to get the basics right, like Health Minister Mark Butler who has allowed Australia to run critically low in essential IV fluids needed by our hospitals. And you’ve got those well-heeled Teals claiming misogyny because they don’t like the tone of political debate but, at the same time, are using slurs like “racist” against Peter Dutton.

What the Left don’t understand (and I include the Teals here as they are Gucci-Greens, not pseudo-Liberals) is that calling the Opposition Leader a “racist” because he wants security checks on people coming to live in Australia brands every one of us a racist.

Nearly every Australian has a migrant background of one sort or another. Migrants who’ve come the right way know just how rigorous the requirements were: the documents, the checks, the time taken before they got their visa.

So, when they learn that Anthony Albanese has granted 3000 tourist visas to people out of a terrorist-controlled war zone, they want assurances they were properly checked. Imagine their concern when they learn that these online applications were approved in as little as one hour, without a face-face-interview and that, once here, Gazans are already applying for permanent refugee status and all the taxpayer support that comes with it?

What’s more, the Albanese Government never actually told us they were doing this.

Australians only found out by accident when the story leaked out in the Muslim community. There was no official announcement, no transparency and no special visa class created, as done in the past, to properly vet any new arrivals.

What troubles me the most is the statement by ASIO chief Mike Burgess that “sympathy with Hamas” is not a deal-breaker when deciding the fate of these Gazans. Hamas is a listed terrorist organisation. That’s done under special legislation against a whole set of criteria that confirms it is the worst of the worst when it comes to the harm Hamas wants to do to countries like Australia.

In the past, we used to deport people that were sympathetic to al-Qaeda and Islamic State (both also listed terrorist organisations), so what’s changed? Was Burgess freelancing here or was he reflecting new government policy? Worryingly, when asked twice in parliament last week: “Does supporting Hamas pass the character test for an Australian visa?”, the Prime Minister completely evaded the question.

Can you imagine John Howard dodging a straight forward question like this? Instead of answering it, Albanese accused Dutton of being “divisive” and “negative”, but this is a big deal. Why is the Prime Minister and his government so reluctant to say that support for Hamas has no place in this country?

So, the question that must be asked, why is Albanese doing this?

Because Labor is under huge electoral pressure. In every major poll over the past eight months, they are behind and, at best, headed for minority government. They are facing a backlash in outer urban seats where cost of living is biting hard. The Greens have used the pro-Palestinian issue to drag young voters away from Labor and in a raft of seats in Western Sydney and Melbourne, Labor incumbents are vulnerable to a new pro-Muslim vote movement.

I don’t think they thought it would go like this. I know how the inside of government works, and I think this was something cooked up quickly last year by Albanese and then Immigration Minister Andrew Giles to trade visas-for-votes among the pro-Palestinian crowd. I think they thought they were being clever and used the backdoor (and fast) route of tourist visas without getting advice from our security agencies (remember at the time, the PM had thrown ASIO off his National Security Committee) or even the immigration department, as a former senior immigration official said last week. I doubt it even went to cabinet, there was no caucus debate, and certainly no public announcement, and it’s now all blown up in the government’s face.

As it should.

No one can call himself a leader and put at risk Australia’s national security. But that’s exactly what Albanese has done here. Hamas is deeply anti-Semitic; it also hates the West and thinks all westerners are evil. It exalts in depravity, slaughters women and children in ways I can’t even describe in print, and it won’t rest until it destroys Israel, or Israel destroys Hamas.

Not every Gazan is a supporter of Hamas but reputable polls say that the vast majority supported what Hamas did on October 7. It’s also an undeniable fact that Gazans elected Hamas as their government.

This is why asking legitimate questions about why we are now letting these Gazans into Australia without proper security checks isn’t racist at all. And anyone trying to claim it is, has something to hide.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/gazan-visa-scheme-is-a-sign-of-weak-pms-desperation/news-story/ed527ed770f116bf00dd6be00af21e6f

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All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://john-ray.blogspot.com/ (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC -- revived)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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World’s biggest study finds array of harms from common plastics

This is yet another foray in the war against BPA etc. It appears to be based on a "report" that accepts as proven the harms alleged, depite the repeated failures of the central correlations to reach significant levels in research. See the originating article below:

https://annalsofglobalhealth.org/articles/10.5334/aogh.4056

The world’s first major scientific review into the effects of plastics and microplastics chemicals on human health has found that the chemicals in many common products are associated with a wide range of health risks, including poor birth outcomes and miscarriage, infertility, metabolic disease and endocrine dysfunction.

Australian researchers who carried out the study say it “categorically proves” that none of the chemicals examined, including BPA, flame retardants, PFAS and an array of other common chemicals found in plastics that infiltrate people’s bodies in small quantities every day, can be considered safe.

“This is a red flag for the world,” said Sarah Dunlop, head of plastics and human health at the Minderoo Foundation. “We must minimise our exposure to these plastic chemicals, as well as the many that haven’t yet been assessed for human health outcomes but are known to be toxic.”

The peer-reviewed study published in the Annals of Global Health by Australian doctors and academics associated with the Perth-based Minderoo Foundation was an umbrella review – considered the highest level of scientific synthesis – of almost 800 published studies and 52 systematic reviews into the effects of plastics chemicals.

“To our knowledge, this study is first to investigate the complete, high-level, evidence for human health effects of plastics and plastic-associated chemicals across a broad range of plastic chemical groups,” the authors of the study said.

It follows a Florey Institute study earlier this month that for the first time established a biological ­pathway between the plastic chemical bisphenol A (BPA) and autism spectrum disorder.

The umbrella review investigated five classes of chemicals including bisphenols and phthalates, PBDE, PCBs and PFAS, known as a ‘forever chemical’ used at defence bases that has been found in several crucial water supply plants. Also included were plasticisers and flame retardants – two classes of functional additive with the highest concentration ranges in plastic.

The study found that none of the investigated classes of chemicals are safe with statistically significant harmful impacts found for fertility in men and women, birth weight in babies, children’s neurodevelopment, and the development of Type 2 diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and asthma.

Bisphenol A (BPA) – commonly found in food packaging, water bottles and cosmetics – was found to be associated with genital changes in infants, type 2 diabetes in adults, insulin resistance in children and adults, polycystic ovary syndrome, obesity and hypertension in children and adults and cardiovascular disease.

Phthalates plasticisers – found in a wide array of plastic products including nail polish, children’s toys, cosmetics and medical products – were associated with spontaneous pregnancy loss, genital changes in boys, and insulin resistance in children and adults.

There were additional associations between certain phthalates and decreased birth weight, type 2 diabetes in adults, precocious puberty in girls, reduced sperm quality, endometriosis, adverse cognitive development and intelligence quotient (IQ) loss, adverse fine motor and psychomotor development and elevated blood pressure in children and asthma in children and adults.

Other types of chemicals were similarly associated with pregnancy loss, decreased birth weight, endometriosis, bronchitis in infants, obesity, and the cancers Hodgkin’s lymphoma and breast cancer.

It is next to impossible for an individual to limit completely their exposure to harmful plastics chemicals, although experts advise reducing consumption of water in plastic bottles, reducing consumption of packaged food, and not heating plastic containers in the microwave.

Regulation of production and plastics chemicals in products is the only way to protect human health. But there is very little regulation of plastic chemicals in Australia or most other countries.

A Global Plastics Treaty is currently being negotiated that advocates of reform hope will set the stage for recognition of the substances’ harmful health effects and increase pressure on governments to regulate.

Professor Dunlop said there was now no doubt that plastics chemicals were harmful to human health.

“Plastic is not the safe, inert material we thought it was,” she said. “It’s made of 16,000 chemicals or so. We are exposed. We’re exposed across our lifespan, and there are health impacts across our lifespan.

“We’ve got to pull together and act fast, because plastic production is soaring. We need to really get the cause of the problem and reduce or cap plastic production.

“The second thing is to take a really good, hard look at the chemicals, because at the moment, unlike pharmaceuticals, which are highly regulated, industrial chemicals are being produced at a rate that is from this just outstripping our ability to identify what’s being produced and outstripping our ability to find out whether or not it’s harmful.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/health/worlds-biggest-study-finds-array-of-harms-from-common-plastics/news-story/09d9382f70c7db3b4edc199946bc0bb9

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Coalition to launch an all-out blitz on teal seats

Peter Dutton will launch an all-out assault to wrestle back seats lost to the teals and edge the ­Coalition closer to winning government, with the Liberal Party bringing forward preselections, ramping up fundraisers and ­attacking Climate 200-backed independents.

The Australian can reveal ­opposition frontbenchers are preparing blitzes of teal-held seats in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia, with Kooyong and Curtin emerging as the top targets for the Liberal Party.

With Amelia Hamer, Tom White, Ro Knox and Tim Wilson already locked in for Kooyong, Curtin, Wentworth and Goldstein respectively, the NSW Liberal Party on Wednesday opened nominations for the northern Sydney seats of Mackellar and Warringah.

Nominations for the Labor-held central coast seat of Robertson close at 5pm on Thursday.

While winning Allegra Spender’s seat of Wentworth in ­Sydney’s east is considered ­unlikely, senior Liberal Party strategists have not given up on reclaiming historic blue-ribbon territory. If former NSW planning minister Rob Stokes or another high-profile candidate nominates for Mackellar, Liberal strategists are hopeful of ousting Sophie Scamps.

Senior opposition sources said there had been strong fundraising and volunteer support for Ms Hamer and Mr White, who are running in Monique Ryan’s inner-Melbourne seat of Kooyong, which she took from former treasurer Josh Frydenberg, and Kate Chaney’s Perth seat of Curtin.

Institute of Public Affairs' Daniel Wild has slammed the Teals calling them “cashed up Greens”.

Amid tensions among teals on key issues and recent attacks ­targeting Mr Dutton, Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley attacked the independents for “betraying” their traditionally conservative electorates and teaming up with Labor and the Greens.

Ms Ley, the most senior woman in the Coalition who has visited the six key teal seats 31 times since the 2022 election, will travel to Kooyong next week and make her ninth visit to the Perth seat of Curtin.

Following recent scandals, the federal Liberal executive is increasingly likely to take control of preselections in NSW ahead of the election.

Amid expectations of a hung parliament following the next election and the Coalition needing to win back a swath of seats, Ms Ley accused the teals of becoming the “official opposition to the opposition” and having no right to “critique” parliamentary standards.

“It is clear we now have an official opposition to the opposition. This is a betrayal of the communities the teals were elected to represent – they promised their communities they would fight for them and their local issues, but instead all these communities have seen is an unhealthy teal ­obsession with Peter Dutton and the Coalition,” Ms Ley told The Australian.

“These members have enabled Labor and the Greens to evade scrutiny, reduce transparency and get away with policy decisions that specifically disadvantage Australians living in teal-held seats.

“By regularly giving Labor and the Greens cover in the parliament and in the media, the teals have clearly decided their pathway to re-election isn’t by holding this bad Labor government to account but by launching slurs at us.”

Sky News host Chris Kenny says the hypocrisy and cynicism was “flowing thick and fast” in Canberra today.

After a group of teal independents attacked Mr Dutton for what they claimed was poor parliamentary standards, Ms Ley said “the reality is that the House of Representatives is a robust chamber, a unique workplace, where MPs are sent here to fiercely advocate for their communities”.

“The fact is that the teals have not lived up to the tests they have set on ‘parliamentary standards’ in their comments about Peter Dutton and that is not good enough. Until they do that, I find it hard to accept their critique of the parliament.”

The attack on the teals came as the government introduced legislation establishing a new Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission – a watchdog recommended in the review into parliamentary workplaces conducted by then sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins.

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher told ABC radio the IPSC was a “significant structural reform” that would help to “change the culture in this workplace”.

The IPSC would be led by a “chair commissioner” who would be supported by between six to eight other commissioners.

All would be appointed on a part-time basis, with their pay set by the remuneration tribunal.

Current or former MPs, staffers, journalists, lobbyists, cafe workers, volunteers or interns employed within a commonwealth parliamentary workplace could be subject to allegations lodged with the IPSC.

If an allegation related to a current parliamentarian, the investigating commissioner could refer a finding of a serious breach to the Privileges Committee, which could recommend a fine of 2-5 per cent of an MP’s annual base salary, a discharge from a parliamentary committee position and a suspension from the parliament.

Teal MP Zali Steggall on Wednesday expressed concern the IPSC would investigate only allegations of conduct that did not form part of the proceedings in parliament.

She said she and many of her colleagues had experienced “heckling, bullying, shouting (and) intimidation” in the ­chamber.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/coalition-to-launch-an-allout-blitz-on-teal-seats/news-story/51878c039e8e2b397def21a8b86488fe

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DNA whistleblower ignored

She should have been first pick

The scientist who exposed Queensland’s DNA lab disaster has been left ouf of the new authority tasked with overseeing forensic testing in the state.

Forensic biologist Kirsty Wright, who uncovered disastrous testing practices at the ­government-run lab that compromised thousands of criminal cases and potentially allowed killers and rapists to escape justice, has been excluded from the new advisory board overseeing the lab.

In parliament on Wednesday, Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath announced the 11-member council would be chaired by former District Court judge Julie Dick SC and include representatives from forensic services, law, policing and victim support.

The authority was a key recommendation of retired judge Walter Sofronoff in his 2022 commission of inquiry into the DNA testing debacle.

Mr Sofronoff’s inquiry was launched as a result of Dr Wright’s revelations on The Australian’s Shandee’s Story and Shandee’s Legacy podcasts, and prompted the state government to invest $200m to rebuild the lab.

Dr Wright said she was “obviously disappointed” her application to join the authority had been unsuccessful.

“I haven’t put a foot wrong so I am at a loss to understand what else I need to do to be considered,” she told The Australian.

“I want victims of crime and Queenslanders to know that I am not giving up on them and I am not going away. I will continue to represent them even if it has to be from the outside.”

Based on the Gold Coast, Dr Wright works for the Australian Army developing forensic capability for counter-terrorism and national security needs, and as an RAAF reservist squadron leader helps recover and identify fallen soldiers from historic and current conflicts.

She is a visiting fellow with the Genomics Research Centre at the Queensland University of Technology, was involved in the response to the 2002 Bali bombings, led an international team identifying victims of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, was manager of the national DNA database, and was pivotal to identifying the remains of schoolboy Daniel Morcombe.

Premier Steven Miles said he was unaware Dr Wright had expressed interest in the role. Ms D’Ath said 45 people applied for positions and appointments were made “following a highly competitive international search”.

In his final inquiry report, Mr Sofronoff found catastrophic testing problems at the lab may have been avoided if a forensic science advisory board had existed.

“Indeed, it is difficult to see how many of the mistakes dealt with in this report could have lain undetected for long if there had been such oversight,” he wrote.

Forensic experts on the authority include forensic services director at the United Kingdom’s Metropolitan Police Christopher Porter and Adjunct Professor Alastair Ross, who is foundation director of the National Institute of Forensic Science.

The manager of the Queensland Police Service’s DNA unit, David Neville, who began to quietly review the lab’s unusual failure rate in ­detecting DNA in late 2021, was also appointed.

Other members include victim advocates Cathy Crawford and Rhea Mohenoa, Queensland Health’s chief medical officer Catherine McDougall and solicitor Patrick Quinn as well as representatives from police, the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, and Legal Aid Queensland.

Crown prosecutor Gregory Cummings has been promoted to a new deputy director role at the DPP, which will focus on cases requiring retested DNA evidence.

Ms D’Ath said the establishment of the council was a “significant step toward reforming Queensland’s forensic services”.

“The council will monitor and review all FSQ policies and procedures relating to the administration of criminal justice, which should help to restore the community’s confidence in our state’s forensic services.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/dna-expert-kirsty-wright-will-fight-on-despite-snub/news-story/a2e83799ac8d2d95d0ef86a5c94cf460

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Facebook removes pro-nuclear energy content

Dozens of Facebook users promoting pro-nuclear lobby group Nuclear for Australia’s content have had posts removed for being “misleading”, triggering claims some people are trying to “suppress vital information that could change the future of our country”.

Months out from the federal election – in which nuclear will be a key issue – and after anti-nuclear groups had their content blocked or accounts temporarily deleted across social media platforms, Nuclear for Australia has received 44 complaints from supporters who have had posts taken down.

The users had shared a ­Nuclear for Australia petition to legalise nuclear energy and a video interview between the organisation’s founder, Will Shackel, and businessman Dick Smith supporting the energy source in June and July.

But a Meta spokeswoman played down the issue, denying it had censored the two posts The Australian was able to share with it.

“Based on the information available, we believe the content was removed due to a technical error by our automated systems. The error was identified and fixed in late July and all impacted posts were reinstated,” the spokeswoman said.

Facebook users were told their posts were removed because “it looks like you tried to get likes, follows, shares or video views in a misleading way” and “your post goes against our community standards on spam”.

“We want you to share freely with others. We only remove things or restrict people to keep the community respectful and safe,” Meta says in an automated response.

Mr Shackel will email supporters on Wednesday asking for contributions to “help us bypass the roadblocks and bring the truth to light”.

“The truth about nuclear energy could transform Australia’s future but has been blocked from reaching the people who need to hear it most,” he says in a copy of the email.

“This isn’t just a minor inconvenience – it’s a clear indication of the political will of some to suppress vital information that could change the future of our country.”

Mr Smith, whose face and voice have been used in fraudulent ads online, said it was impossible for the government to legislate against removal of material but they needed to step in and treat Meta and other tech giants as publishers, ensuring they were liable for what they put on their platforms.

“You end up with this situation where they let through fraudulent ads run by criminal gangs but at the same time they delete genuine posts,” Mr Smith said.

Renew Economy, which posts clean energy news and analysis, had the same automated response from Meta as Nuclear for Australia did when a post sharing analysis by University of Queensland economist John Quiggin was removed on July 22.

The analysis was headlined “Czech nuclear deal shows CSIRO GenCost is too optimistic, and new nukes are hopelessly uneconomic” and found building two to four megawatt nuclear plants in Australia would “probably cost $50bn-$100bn, and not be complete until well into the 2040s”.

The Climate Council had a TikTok video hitting out at the Coalition’s nuclear energy policy taken down on July 21 for violating community guidelines of “integrity and authenticity”.

The video reappeared a few days later after a staff member appealed, saying the video was ­science-based and had been reviewed by researchers at the organisation prior to it going live.

The Climate Council says it understands TikTok pulls videos only after users lodge complaints and is investigating how many complaints it takes to get a post removed.

The Australian Conservation Foundation had its account on X suspended on July 22 for violating the social media platform’s rules “against evading suspension” after a user reported them.

The organisation appealed the decision and after the ACF made contact with an Australian-based employee at X, the account was switched back on that night.

ACF’s X profile was suspended for a second time on August 4 with no warning and was down for nearly two days, with the social media platform saying its account had been flagged as spam by mistake.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said at the time he didn’t always agree with the ACF but the suspension was “another outrageous example of social media trying to shut down voices for climate action”.

Mr Shackel posted on X: “Breaking: Australian Conservation Foundation has had its X account suspended. Perhaps the disinformation caught up with them …”

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the Parliamentary Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Online Safety was examining the influence and impacts of social media on Australian society, including how digital platforms influenced what Australians saw and heard online.

“Digital platforms have a range of community standards, terms of service and policies to support the integrity of the information and accounts on their platforms,” she said.

“Debate on matters of public interest is a hallmark of our democracy.”

Opposition communications spokesman David Coleman said social media platforms should not censor legitimate political debate, noting freedom of expression was fundamental to society.

“The last thing we need are digital giants telling us what we can and cannot say but the Albanese government sees things differently,” he said. “If its deeply flawed misinformation bill had become law, political censorship by big tech would have become rampant.”

Mr Bowen was approached for comment but his office referred The Australian to his previous remarks attacking the removal of Renew Economy’s Facebook post and the ACF’s X account.

Opposition climate change and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien said: “Labor and others should not rob Australians of their right to a mature conversation about the role zero-emissions nuclear energy could play in Australia as part of a balanced energy mix.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/facebook-removes-pronuclear-energy-content/news-story/03f0994c82eb006062be542a7898276f

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All my main blogs below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

http://jonjayray.com/select.html (SELECT POSTS)

http://jonjayray.com/short/short.html (Subject index to my blog posts)

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