Adam Goodes isn’t booed for the colour of his skin. He is booed for acting like a pillock

The controversy over part-Aboriginal footballer Adam Goodes continues.  The crowds boo him a lot and the powers that be are trying to stop that.  It has just been handed down from on high that such booing is "racist".

What the wise-heads are ignoring is that Goodes is aggressive, confrontational and a whiner.  He has done a lot to make himself unpopular. He recently did some sort of Aboriginal war dance on the football field, complete with an imaginary spear thrown in the direction of the opposing fans --  Not exactly the "mature discussion about the state of race relations in this country" that his Leftist supporters have called for. 

The latest episode in the uproar is here. It seems that he just has to run onto the field now to get booed.  He has made himself an oppositional figure.

MIRANDA DEVINE (below) summed Goodes up pretty well a month ago.  I am not sure why she uses British slang but "pillock" translates roughly into American slang as "jerk".  Old-fashioned Australians might say "galah".


I’m sorry, but people are not booing Adam Goodes because he’s Aboriginal. They’re booing him because he acts like a pillock from time to time.  And if Sydney Swans CEO Andrew Ireland is genuinely interested in race relations then he shouldn’t cry “racist” with no evidence.

It’s obvious to any footy-lover that the fans boo Goodes because:

1. It’s become a thing;

2. He deliberately taunts opposition fans;

3. He is accused of staging for free kicks, in contravention of the rules of fair play

4. No one has forgotten how he singled out a 13 year old girl in the Collingwood crowd and sicced security onto her after she called him an “ape”;

5. He was rewarded for outing this powerless little girl with the honour of Australian of the Year which he then turned into a grievance pulpit to bag Australia as a racist nation.

Unlike most sports gurus in this town, I loved Goodes’ indigenous war dance last month as the Swans beat Carlton. For one thing, it’s about time we beat the Kiwis and their haka at their own game.

For another, he just did it so well. Bravo, I say. He stole the show.

But he also served it up to the opposition fans, deliberately riling them up. That’s what he does.

So when he gets booed, it’s just the crowd’s natural response to his invitation. It’s a tough game that Goodes started and only he can finish.

But for sports administrators and sanctimonious journalists to denounce the crowds as somehow anti-Aboriginal is the real racism. It’s that sort of patronising victim-pandering that holds Aboriginals down.

If Adam Goodes wants to be a pillock, good for him. He will be booed like any other pillock, no matter what the colour of their skin.

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Vietnamese asylum seekers sent home after Australian Navy detention

A group of 46 Vietnamese asylum seekers who almost made it to Australia by boat have been flown home, arriving on Sunday afternoon, according to a Vietnamese community group in Australia.

"The locals told me they saw them taken one by one into the police station for questioning," Trung Doan, secretary of Voice Australia said.  "They had lost weight, they looked gaunt and very sad."

Mr Doan said he had been told the group, which included men, women and two babies, was interviewed on an Australian Navy ship and then taken to an on-land airstrip, flown to Ho Chi Minh City and transferred overland to Binh Thuan Province — the starting point for their journey by boat to Australia.

Forty-three of the asylum seekers were released by local police, but two men and one woman were driven in a police vehicle to a provincial detention centre, according to Mr Doan.

The asylum seeker boat was spotted off Dampier in Western Australia at first light on July 20.

Since then, the Prime Minister, the Immigration Minister and the Immigration Department have refused to provide information, saying they do not comment on operational matters.

Mr Doan said he was told when the asylum seekers were interviewed by Australian authorities at sea, they were assured that they should feel at ease, because what they said would not be given to Vietnamese authorities.  But according to relatives, the information was then passed on, he said.

"That is contrary to the promise that the Australian authorities gave to these people when the interview started," Mr Doan said.

The asylum seekers were mainly fishermen who had pooled their money to buy a boat and spent around three weeks at sea before being intercepted, according to Mr Doan.

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FactCheck: is 50% of all income tax in Australia paid by 10% of the working population?

Ben Phillips, Principal Research Fellow, National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM) at University of Canberra, finds that is pretty close

According to the 2015-16 Federal Budget, Australians paid around A$176 billion in personal income taxation in the 2014-15 financial year (Table 5 of Budget Paper 1). The Treasurer, Joe Hockey, claims that around 50% of this taxation is paid by the top 10% of the working age population as ranked by their income.

NATSEM’s STINMOD model of the Australian tax and transfer system can be used to evaluate the accuracy of such a claim.

STINMOD, which stands for Static Incomes Model, is NATSEM’s model of taxation and government benefits. It simulates the taxation and government benefits system and allows us to evaluate current and alternative policies and how they would affect different family types on various income levels.

STINMOD is based on ABS survey data (Survey of Income and Housing) which provides a statistically reliable and representative snapshot of household and personal incomes and demographics.

Since the survey is a few years old, NATSEM adjusts the population in accordance with population and economic changes since the survey.

STINMOD is not publicly available, but as a NATSEM researcher, I was able to use the model to check Hockey’s claim against the evidence. STINMOD is benchmarked to taxable incomes data from the latest Australian Tax Office taxation statistics on the distribution of tax payments by income.

When I restricted the STINMOD base population to the working age population only (aged 18 to 65) and rank these people by their taxable income, I found that the top 10% (those with taxable incomes beyond $102,000 per annum) do pay around 52% of all personal income taxation.

Different measures, similar result

Since high income earners usually have greater scope for minimising tax through deductions, such as negative gearing, we can use an alternative income measure called “total income from all sources” to rank personal incomes. On this ranking, the share of personal income taxation paid by the top 10% drops to 50.5%.

Australia’s personal income taxation system is strongly progressive, with higher income earners paying both a higher marginal tax rate and average tax rate compared to lower income earners. According to STINMOD, the 90th percentile of working age taxable income is $102,000 per year, while the median taxable income is $39,000 per year. The average tax rate of the 90th percentile is 26.7% while that of the median tax payer is less than half that at 12.3%.

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Christian lobby groups claim ‘radical sexual experimentation’ is being promoted in schools

IT WAS devised to stop bullying and create wider acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) students but Christian lobby groups claim all it does is promote “radical sexual experimentation”.

Since Safe Schools Coalition Australia (SSCA) was launched, more than 360 Australian schools have signed up to the program, which provides training and resources for teachers and staff to build a more inclusive and safe environment within their schools.

Some of those resources are available to students, such as the “OMG I’m Queer” information pack, which lobby groups claim is not only inappropriate but corrupts young minds.

Under the section “Doing It”, activist Alice Chesworth talks about sex and includes this description.

“It may come as a surprise, but there is no strict definition for virginity, especially if you’re queer,” she writes. “Penis-in-vagina sex is not the only sex, and certainly not the ultimate sex. If you ask me, virginity is whatever you think it is.”

In another section, Scott, 17, who is bisexual, writes about the first time he realised he was attracted to men and how his dad reacted when he was caught cuddling his friend in his room: “Scott, you like boys and girls, I like Asian women. Neither of us can help that, it’s just who we are.”

Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) spokeswoman Wendy Francis said while she agreed that bullying of children who were struggling with their sexual identity was wrong, she did not think teaching children about “queer sex” and “cross-dressing” was right.

“Our society is already over-sexualised without extreme sexual material and gender theory being promoted in schools,” she said. “Children have the right to their innocence. The political ideology carried by this program denies children this right.”

She claims schools that have signed up to this program teach students that it is OK to “change gender, for boys to wear girls’ school uniforms and that they should be allowed into girls’ toilets”.

“Girls’ toilets should always be a safe place for them and should be off limits to a boy who might be transitioning into a girl,” Ms Francis said. “No one should be bullied at school, including children grappling with same-sex attraction or gender confusion. But promoting radical sexual and gender theories to children without parental consent is not the role of the federal or state governments.”

ACL and Family Voice Australia have called for Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne to withdraw $8 million in funding that was allocated to SSCA to administer the program throughout Australia.

The groups claim that instead of stopping homophobia, the SSCA program teaches students that heterosexuality is not the norm, and encouraged them to explore sexual and gender diversity.

They also say the program material includes graphic descriptions and tips for gay and lesbian sex.

The recent push comes after former National Party senator Bill O’Chee penned an opinion piece for Fairfax Media this week claiming children were at risk from online predators as a result of the SSCA program.

In his column, he says young people are encouraged to sign up to Minus 18, a website for young LGBTI Australians.

The site provides information on support networks, activities and interests for the LGBTI youth. It also acts as a social networking and dating site, which Mr O’Chee claims exposes them to sexual predators.

He claims that, despite Minus 18 having a rule that users over the age of 25 are not permitted to use forums “without direct permission from Minus 18”, when he inspected the site he found a number of users who were older.

“Minus 18 does not enforce its own rules,” he wrote. “When this was put to Tim Christadoulou, the relationships manager at Minus 18, he stated that ‘rather than actively refuse registrations for certain age groups, we respond to individual profiles and users on a case-by-case basis’.

“Minus 18 management was unable to answer how many users were refused registration in the past 12 months. That is particularly disturbing given some of the profiles from men aged 30 and over who seem to have an interest in underage users.”

A SSCA spokeswoman said research shows that 75 per cent of LGBTI youth experienced homophobic or transphobic abuse and discrimination and that 80 per cent of that abuse will happen in school.

“Safe Schools Coalition Australia uses a whole-of-school approach to support schools across the country to challenge bullying and discrimination,” she said. “Our approach draws on research and evidence on how we can best promote a focus on safety and the protection of young people in schools while at the same time promoting inclusion and acceptance.

“Research shows that students at safe and supportive schools have better educational outcomes and are less likely to have poor mental health.”

Since the program was launched last year, the organisation has trained more than 7500 school staff members and next week it is set to host the National Safe Schools Symposium, which will discuss the outcome of the program so far.

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Germany, France, UK may bid for frigate contract for Australia

A fierce international competition to build a $20 billion frigate fleet is expected after the Abbott government dumped a tainted "low risk" option ahead of the release of next month's defence white paper.

The plan, which was detailed by former Defence Minister David Johnston in May, last year would have utilised the hull of the troubled, 6500-tonne air warfare destroyer which is currently being built in Adelaide as the basis for the new fleet.

The destroyer hull would simply have been fitted with lower capacity radar, armaments and combat systems than those aboard the destroyer and a follow-on build would have preserved jobs.

Defence argued at the time that using the destroyer hull would be less risky given three destroyers are already being built for the Navy and build shortcomings should be overcome by the early 2020s when frigates are due for replacement.

However, the $8 billion destroyer project has been plagued by cost overruns and delays and the destroyer hull is considered too noisy for a submarine-hunting role.

The dumping of the option opens the way for a competition and a field of ready contenders with the project to build a fleet of up to nine frigates to be included in next month's white paper.

It is also understood there were concerns Australia could have been vulnerable to the build-up of regional submarine fleets without an effective frigate fleet.

"It was a sensible decision given the destroyer hull was not really suited to the submarine hunting role of a purpose-built frigate," Australian Strategic Policy analyst Dr Andrew Davies said.

"It was supposed to be a low-risk option but it was also more about preserving jobs than the Navy getting the warship it needs," he said.

Dr Davies has suggested splitting the fleet between destroyers and frigates and smaller corvettes to perform all the roles short of war  that Navy warships are now expected to perform.

The UK is the latest country to show interest in supplying the Royal Australian Navy with a purpose-built frigate even before the project details have been released.

The first of the 6400-tonne Type 26 frigates which is being developed for the Royal Navy is to be delivered from 2022 – a timeframe which suits the Royal Australian Navy with the current Anzac fleet expected to be phased out by the mid 2020s.

The BAE Systems warship has been designed with international export orders in mind.

German-based TKMS may offer its Meko 600 escort frigate or larger F125 for the project.

TKMS Australia chairman Dr John White told The Australian Financial Review the firm could offer several warship designs to the Royal Australian Navy.

Dr White said he also believed the ships could be built in Australian shipyards.

Dr White was involved with Tenix (now BAE) and the successful build of eight Anzac class frigates for the Australian Navy in the late 80's and early 90's.

"TKMS has a range of designs it is building for German and other foreign navies and could offer a warship which meets the requirements of the Royal Australian Navy," Dr White said.

"We showed with the Anzac project that you can successfully build ships in Australia and there is no reason why such a model could not be reprised," Dr White said.

French bidder DCNS may also put up its 6500-tonne FREMM European multi-role frigate.

DCNS Australia chief executive Sean Costello said earlier this week  that the firm was interested in bidding for the frigate project and was involved in designing building and maintaining all the French Navy's warships and exporting designs around the globe.

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The high cost of Australia’s housing "obsession"

It's an "obsession" that people want a house to live in?

The stockbroker below is an economic moron.  Negative gearing is normal accounting.  It means that the cost of earning income is deducted before you are taxed on that income.  Any other system would be hugely destructive,  It would mean taxing people on money that they do not have.  There is no "subsidy" involved, just normal cost accounting.

And we read below: "“If someone borrows money to buy residential property, it doesn’t create any jobs,” he said."  How does he think residential property gets built?  By fairies?  The housing industry is in fact a major employer.

The guy is a vivid testimony to the sad state of modern education.  He might make a good hewer of wood and drawer of water but he is a disgrace to his present occupation.  A very low-wattage brain indeed

AUSTRALIA spends 20 times more money on subsidising negatively geared property than funding start-up businesses and this could cost us jobs and our economic future, one senior financial analyst says.

Ivor Ries, a Morgan’s stockbroking firm analyst, said one of the greatest weaknesses in the Australian economy was the lack of investment in infrastructure and early stage businesses.

“We are miles behind places like the US in financing young, growth businesses. We’re pathetic really compared with the US,” he told the ABC this week.

He said about $250 million was available in venture capital for young entrepreneurs each year. This was about 20 times less than what taxpayers spent subsidising investment properties, which do not create jobs.

“We currently give $4 billion a year to investors via the tax system to subsidise people buying negatively geared rental accommodation,” he told news.com.au.

Mr Ries said Australia was basically a country that subsidised nonproductive capital.  “If someone borrows money to buy residential property, it doesn’t create any jobs,” he said.

“We’re giving already well-off people subsidies to buy more property, whereas the country in total spends $250 million a year on venture capital. There’s something wrong with that balance.”

It also meant that Australia was basically “exporting jobs”.

“It just means there will be less jobs here in the longer term. We’re just exporting jobs at the moment,” he said.

The money spent on venture capital was even less than the $1 billion Australians spent buying luxury sports utility vehicles (SUVs) every year. A high proportion of these vehicles will be used as private cars but written off as a business asset, which the taxpayer pays for.

“The reality of life in Australia today is we subsidise people buying high-end SUVs but we don’t give as much to venture capital,” Mr Ries said.

Mr Ries said the tax system should be tilted back towards things that actually created wealth and jobs. He saw at least two businesses a week that had developed some fantastic technology but could not get funding.

“I’ll give them a list of 25 venture capital funds in Australia and I will say to them, ‘Don’t expect to get any money out of them because they are fully committed’ and I think any small business that’s got great new technology, or a great new business idea in Australia at the moment is probably getting that advice from multiple sources around the country,” he told the ABC.

“We just don’t have the capacity to fund these businesses at the moment.”

If Australians did start investing in venture capital at the same rate the US did, spending would jump from $250 million to $4.9 billion a year.

The risk of not doing this could condemn the country to low employment growth and a sticky unemployment rate, which is hovering about 6 per cent.

He said more tax concessions should be made available.  “I think the government needs to make it much more attractive to invest in these things which, by their nature, are much more risky,” he told news.com.au.  “Nine out of 10 of them will fail but the one that succeeds will often be hugely successful.”

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Those who live in glass houses...

Bronny's helicopter had a lot of precedents -- as "New Matilda" points out below.  Why the hate for the Labor Party?  The Matildas hate everybody.  It's what they do.  They are so far Left that they hate the ALP nearly as much as the Liberals

Angry with Bronwyn Bishop over her diddling of her travel expenses? Fair enough. But save some of that outrage for the other side.

If you’re waiting for the Abbott Government to ‘do the right thing’ and remove parliamentary speaker Bronwyn Bishop for trying to fleece Australian taxpayers $5,000 for a chartered helicopter flight to a party fundraiser, don’t hold your breath.

In 2013, the Gillard government’s Attorney General Mark Dreyfus drew up legislation which ensured that government departments which provide services directly to the parliament are no longer subject to the Freedom of Information Act. That obviously includes the Department of the House of Representatives, which processes the travel claims of politicians.

In other words, if politicians diddle their ‘entitlements’, you - the taxpayer – are not entitled to access the documents that prove it.

The legislation was a response to a scoop from Fairfax Media in June 2013. After the Sunshine Coast Daily was refused an FOI application*, The Herald decided to test the FOI legislation, and found a loophole. It got its hands on the spending of former speaker Peter Slipper’s office.

Traditionally, parliamentary services had always been exempt from FOI, but a change in laws in 1999 left a hole. The Herald tried to tear it open, but had their FOI application rejected. They appealed to the Information Commissioner, Professor John McMillan, who presides over all things FOI.

McMillan ruled in Fairfax’s favour, and hence we found out this juicy nugget: “Mr Slipper's new coat and tails cost taxpayers $1,248, while his total travel bill in his first six months as speaker was more than $18,000. He had also spent more than $8500 on catering.”

In hindsight, Slipper was quite the miser compared to his eventual successor – Bishop’s tally for 2014 was $389,139.25 in travel expenses alone, and just over $800,000 to run her office.

In any case, Labor - and the Coalition, despite their hatred of Slipper - were having none of it. Dreyfus hastily prepared a piece of legislation – one page in length - which closed the loophole.

You might remember Dreyfus from such parliamentary scandals as ‘I billed the Australian taxpayers $466 for two nights accommodation in Perisher for a family ski holiday’.

His bill was rushed through parliament with the support of the Coalition, despite the fact a review on the issue, commissioned by the previous Attorney General, Nicola Roxon, had yet to deliver its final report.

Notably, that report - and the parliamentary departments themselves - recommended against a blanket FOI exemption. They got one anyway.

At the time, Labor’s Anthony Albanese was quoted in the Herald article defending the indecent haste with which the legislation was pushed through. He described it as "an interim measure" before the review's completion. No prizes for guessing whether the exemptions remain in place today.

And of course, you may remember Albanese from such expenses scandals as ‘I charged taxpayers to get to a couple of NRL games’. ‘And then I charged taxpayers to go to the AFL grand final. And the Australian tennis Open.’

That was roughly around the time when it emerged that Tony Abbott had charged taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars to attend a host of sporting events, along with more than $9,000 for travel he claimed while on a private book tour. Plus all the travel claims he made when he was ‘volunteering’ in remote Aboriginal communities.

It was also around the time when it emerged Abbott and others had charged taxpayers to attend private weddings, including those of ousted Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella and, believe it or not, Peter Slipper.

Also quoted in the Fairfax story was Bronwyn Bishop who defended the closing of the loophole by complaining that a parliamentary librarian had been placed in a "very difficult position" after the Information Commissioner’s ruling that the service was subject to FOI.

Now here’s the rub.

Unlike Slipper, who was prosecuted – unsuccessfully in the end – for trying to steal less than $1,000 in cab fares to tour wineries just outside of Canberra, Bishop does not have to stare down the Australian Federal Police.

Instead, her matter is being investigated by the Department of Finance, led by bureaucrat Jane Halton, who you might remember from such scandals as John Howard’s ‘Children Overboard’ affair’.

As for the Information Commissioner, who ruled that Fairfax’s FOI application on Slipper’s expenses was valid, you won’t remember him in a few years.

Professor McMillan’s position was abolished by the Abbott Government last year, in their very first budget.

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Banning political donations will run foul of free speech protections in the constitution

Unfortunately the simple solution to the potentially corrupting influence of political donations - banning them altogether - is not as simple as it seems.

The inquiry into political donations laws in NSW headed by Kerry Schott found that only Tunisia has adopted a total ban and that virtually all Western democracies allowed fundraising from the private sector.

For a start, a total ban would likely drive donations underground and shunt political campaigning into third party identities, giving rise to the new problem of establishing whether the groups were independent or linked to political parties.

Second, most Western democracies regard financial support for political ideals as part of the democratic right.

A total ban would almost certainly fall foul of the implied right of freedom of political communication in the Australian constitution.

Even partial bans have run foul. Bob Hawke's attempt in 1992 to ban television advertising in an effort to curtail the burgeoning costs of campaigning, was knocked on the head by the High Court. So was former NSW premier Barry O'Farrell's attempt to ban donations from unions and corporate donors.

The latest freedom of speech challenge is coming from former Newcastle mayor and property developer Jeff McCloy, who is challenging NSW's ban on developer donations. The ICAC heard allegations that McCloy had paid $30,000 in secret donations to local Liberal MPs in breach of NSW laws which ban certain classes of people, including property developers from making political donations. The ICAC report and the High Court decision are still pending.

The thinking behind NSW's approach of banning certain classes of donors is that the profits of developers, the alcohol industry and the gaming industry are directly affected by state decisions and so the risk of corruption is much higher.

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ALP conference 2015: Bill Shorten’s wins comes at a cost

Bill Shorten has strengthened his leadership by winning vital policy fights at Labor’s national conference, using the support of key unions to fight off vigorous challenges that would have damaged his authority.

The Opposition Leader got his way in debates to endorse boat turnbacks, allow a free vote on same-sex marriage and take a cautious approach to party reform­ in outcomes where the Labor Left splintered on crucial decisions.

But Labor’s internal tensions were laid bare in disputes over support for Mr Shorten on key questions, fuelling talk that Tanya Plibersek and Anthony Albanese were positioning themselves as potential leaders.

The jostling for personal positio­n cast a cloud over Labor’s attempts to use the conference to assure voters that it could be trusted to form government at the next election and could manage­ border protection once in power.

The Opposition Leader’s victories also came with promises that will require generous budge­t spending, including programs to help workers who could lose their jobs under his risky new target for renewable energy.

A deal on tougher border protectio­n policies, including turning back boats where safe to do so, came with a pledge to spend $450 million over the next four years on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Mr Shorten relied heavily on key unions on the Left of the ALP to prevail in the conference debates, including the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy­ Union. The CFMEU added its voice to support for Mr Shorten in Left faction meetings on boat turnbacks, reinforcing his authority.

While that debate was not linked directly to others, the union movement is expecting Mr Shorten and shadow ministers to campaign hard against a free-trade deal with China in order to extract changes that toughen the safeguards against easier visas for skilled migrant workers. Unions fighting the China trade deal include the CFMEU, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, the Maritime Union of Australia and the Electrical Trades Union.

The Opposition Leader declared­ last night that the conference proved to voters that Labor was serious about taking social and economic reform to the next election.

“In every chapter of our platform we have offered views and propositions for change for a brighter future,” Mr Shorten told the closing session. “We will leave here with the fundamental challenge of the next election establish­ed. We believe that hope can triumph over fear, that optim­ism defeats pessimism.”

Mr Shorten named health, education, jobs and renewable energy as key areas where Labor had update­d its policy platform with new propositions that would secure­ support among voters.

While small changes were made yesterday to democratise the party, union leaders helped to dilute the reforms to retain their power in the party’s peak councils, an outcome seen as a win for Mr Shorten and a defeat for the Left.

Mr Shorten also got his way on a softer line on the recognition of Palestine, despite attempts by the Left to dictate policies that would hamstring the leader. But his decision to embrace an emissions trading scheme triggered a dispute yesterday over whether the impost could be labelled­ a “tax” — a question that helped bring down the last Labor government.

The personal tensions now shape Labor’s preparations for the next election amid calculations over whether the Left has the numbers to seize the leadership one day.

A vote on same-sex marriage late yesterday turned into a test of authority for both Mr Shorten and Ms Plibersek. All sides conceded that the Left had a majority to enforce­ the deputy leader’s call for a binding vote for all MPs to support­ same-sex marriage despite­ their personal views.

But with some members of the Left at odds with the deputy leader’s position, including Mr Alban­ese and Victorian powerbroker Kim Carr, the faction agreed to a retreat that helped Mr Shorten.

The result was an amendment that approved conscience votes on gay marriage for the next two terms of parliament, by which time most expect the matter to be settle­d in federal parliament.

All parties sought to portray the compromise as a win for their side, highlighting the underlying contest for leadership status.

The conference infighting includ­ed attacks on Ms Plibersek for playing a “double­ game” in the debate over boat turnbacks in a way that could diminish her influence within the Left. While she did not oppose the turnback policy in shadow cabinet and argued for it in meetings of the Left, she gave her vote to a proxy who cast it against Mr Shorten’s position.

The Opposition Leader’s allies also took aim at Mr Albanese for openly voting against the tougher line on boat turnbacks, even though he did not challenge the policy when shadow cabinet agreed on the tougher line.

The Australian was told that only one frontbencher, Penny Wong, expressed reservations about supporting boat turnbacks when the stance was decided in shadow cabinet. Senator Wong’s vote at the party conference was also given to a proxy who cast it against Mr Shorten’s position.

Caucus members described the positioning within the Left as a quest to succeed Mr Shorten, with several arguing that Ms Plibersek had lost ground as a result of her handling of the passionate differences over asylum-seekers.

Mr Albanese gained acclaim within the Left for taking his stand against turnbacks, raising suggestions that he could one day capitalise on the growing power of the Left to take the leadership.

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How Starbucks thrive on an Australian invention

STARBUCKS said its quarterly profit jumped 22 per cent as pricier drinks like flat whites and food helped lift sales at its U.S. cafes.

The Seattle-based coffee chain said sales rose 8 per cent in its flagship Americas unit. In the U.S., which makes up the majority of the unit, the company has been pushing up sales with price hikes and offerings like S’more frappuccinos and flat white espresso drinks that cost a little more.

Flat whites are an Australian invention that were introduced to American Starbucks menus at the beginning of the year

Starbucks chief financial officer Scott Maw said in a phone interview that people are even “trading up” to newer, pricier breakfast sandwiches, such as one served on a croissant bun. Maw noted that more people are getting food with their orders as well.

Customer visits are increasing too, boosted by the company’s mobile app. The app, which incorporates its loyalty program, encourages people to return by rewarding them with “stars,” which can be used toward free drinks and food.

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Does Australia lock up too many blacks?

The wail below is written by a lawyer, not a social scientist -- and shows no knowledge of the people concerned at all.  All he knows is how to look up simple statistics.  When he finds that they look bad what does he do?  Does he ask why?  There's no sign of it.  He just seems to to assume that we are all somehow at fault.  That makes him a good Leftist but also what Australians call a drongo -- very stupid.

So as someone who has written quite a lot in the academic journals on race-relations, sociology and criminology, let me point out what is really going on.

Before the arrival of the white man, Aborigines were well adapted to a stone-age life.  They had been adapting to it for around 50,000 years so the adaptation was extreme. Their visuo-spatial abilities were (and are) simply wonderful.  Such adaptations helped them to capture and eat furry animals. But adaptations favourable to stone-age life are not at all suited to modern Western society.  People originally from the Eurasian continent evolved very differently.  The much larger population there produced innovation -- and that gave us the modern world.

So how are Aborigines disadvantaged in Australia today?  The mother and father of their handicaps is low IQ.  They are the race with the world's second lowest measured IQ (South African bushmen are the lowest). They survived by sharpening their perceptual abilities, not their reasoning abilities -- and basically are therefore very bad at dealing with anything new and complex.

I have known many of them and admire good qualities in them.  They are for instance very polite, unaggressive and tend to have a good sense of humour.  But some of their qualities are good yet also their undoing.  In particular, they have evolved as a sharing culture.  When some hunter succeeded in bringing down a big animal, it was shared around in the assurance that other such fortunate kills by others would also be shared around.  There was  no refrigeration so no other system made sense.  You COULD not keep your kill to yourself.

So, like other native peoples (e.g. the Maori) the concept of private property is just not there in them.  If you want something it seems simply right and just to take it, regardless of a property claim that someone else might have on it.  I have seen it happen.

An Aborigine in fact just CANNOT keep substantial assets to himself.  He must share any windfall, even if that windfall is in fact the proceeds of his own hard work.  So you can see how strongly our concept of theft clashes with Aboriginal instincts.

Then there is the alcohol problem.  We have had perhaps 60,000 years to learn how to handle our booze.  And even then we sometimes do a rather bad job of it.  But Aborigines never had alcohol until the white man came.  So their use of alcohol is often catastrophic and lies behind perhaps the majority of their arrests.

I could say much more but the sad truth is, I think, clear:  Aborigines are just not adapted to the world in which they now find themselves -- so are constantly breaking its rules.  All that we CAN do is to enforces the rules.  If we exempted Aborigines we would produce huge uproar and disruption.  As it is, some judges DO punish Aboriginal infractions more lightly -- but that DOES produce big criticism. Physical abuse of women and children -- sometimes extreme abuse of women and children -- is a big sub-set of Aboriginal crime.  Do we WANT to condone that?

With pitifully simplistic thinking, the drongo below says that better education is needed for Aborigines. Does he have any idea how hard and how unsuccessfully many governments have tried to get Aboriginal children into school?  And how is education going to change attributes built up over thousands of generations anyway?

Everything that could be tried to make Aboriginal behaviour  more adaptive has been tried and has failed -- from paternalism to giving them maximum autonomy.  You won't undo millennia of evolution just by wishing it. The only thing that has ever had much success is when the missionaries ran Aboriginal settlements.  Aborigines are a very spiritual people so religion does influence them. But bringing the missionaries back would be impossible.  So Aborigines will continue to violate our rules and will continue to be treated like other breakers of the rules -- often by imprisonment

They are locked up often because they often do wrong things.  There is no other reason


The US might be the home of mass incarceration – and it is, with 5 per cent of the world's people, it has a quarter of the world's inmates – but America has nothing on Australia in its enthusiasm for disproportionately locking up black people.

Indigenous Australians are imprisoned at a rate 13 times that of other Australians, according to figures collated by the Productivity Commission. That's not 13 per cent higher, or twice as high, but 13 times the rate, 1300 per cent of the rate for the rest of the population. At any one time, over 2 per cent of the Indigenous population is locked up, which doesn't remotely compare with the figure for the rest of us.

The effect of that proportion of people out of one group over time is almost unfathomable, the disruption to the prisoners' lives, their futures, their families.

It's not as if this is a new problem, but it's a rapidly deteriorating one. In 2000, the Indigenous imprisonment rate was merely 8 times as high. Those where the golden days.

So not only do we jail Indigenous people at a far higher rate than even the US imprisons black men, we're speeding things up, putting a greater proportion away. We're increasing this most self-defeating of gaps.

A particular point of Australian difference is our ability to do it harsher for children. For young people, who are meant to be locked up only as an absolute last resort, Indigenous children are jailed at a rate 24 times that of other children.

When Obama turns his attention to a justice system that seems anything but colour blind, the world listens. When Mick Gooda, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commissioner, late last year proved Aboriginal incarceration to be every bit the catastrophe he labelled it, Australia scarcely rolled its eyes. Most didn't even notice.

His figures put the difference in rates at 15 times, and found the reoffending rate for children in detention – 58 per cent within 10 years – was higher than the proportion of children who stayed at school until year 12. "We do better at keeping Aboriginal people in prison than in school," Mr Gooda told the ABC.

If most of us continue to ignore this catastrophe, as the country seems determined to do, we will deepen this social disaster. Every year it gets worse, or merely stays the same, or only marginally improves, is another year squandering the potential of an enormous fraction of the Indigenous population and wasting hundreds of millions across the country on unnecessary incarceration.

The Productivity Commission called out four major factors contributing to this shameful reality – education, drugs, child neglect and employment. We need to fix all of them, but surely education is the low-hanging fruit.

Cutting education reforms, like the short-lived Gonski package, is one way to perpetuate the catastrophe. The absence of opportunity leads, for far too many, to the absence of anything but a life hurt by crime – as both victim and perpetrator.

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Students in public schools twice as likely to be bullied as private school pupils

Parents are choosing private schooling for many reasons.

Sending your child to a public high school doubles their risk of being bullied, compared to private school students, and girls are more likely to be victims, one of Australia's most comprehensive surveys has revealed.

The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics Australia (HILDA) survey commissioned by the Federal Department of Social Services interviewed more than 13,000 people each year from 2001 to 2012.

On Wednesday, the researchers from the University of Melbourne revealed growing disparity between the prospects of male and female students, those with university qualifications and those without, as well the reasons why up to 14 per cent of Australian parents continue to choose private education over public schools across the country.  

The report's authors found that 22 per cent of parents of high school students at public schools believed their children were bullied while at school, compared to 11 per cent at independent schools and 15 per cent at Catholic schools.

Girls were more often affected by bullying across the nation's public schools, according to the report's authors, bucking the trend for girls' generally higher educational outcomes.

"Parents and guardians on average report worse educational outcomes and prospects for boys, the notable exception being the experience of bullying [girls] in high school," wrote University of Melbourne professor Roger Wilkins.

Parents of children at independent schools reported higher satisfaction with education at primary and high school levels, with 68 per cent believing their child would go on to study at university compared to 49 per cent at public schools.

The CEO of Independent Schools Victoria, Michelle Green, said the survey didn't only address academic results.

"They appreciate independent schools' emphasis on pastoral care, personal development, teaching quality, and discipline and safety which helps lift results, it also helps reduce bullying and other behavioural issues," she said.

A spokesman for the NSW Department of Education said it had zero tolerance for bullying and had developed an Anti-Bullying Plan developed in consultation with the school community.

The report also revealed that while many high school students aspire to attend sandstone universities such as the University of Sydney or the University of Melbourne, graduates of those universities stand to earn up to 10 per cent less than the graduates of technical universities such as RMIT or UTS.

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CFMEU official charged with blackmail

CONSTRUCTION union organiser and former NRL player John Lomax is the second person to face blackmail charges in connection with the Canberra hearings of the royal commission into union corruption.
ACT police said the 49-year-old was arrested on Friday morning "in relation to the Canberra hearings" of the royal commission.
The CFMEU organiser was charged with one count of blackmail and granted watch-house bail.

He had been expected to give evidence before the royal commission next week, but it's unclear whether that will go ahead.

Lomax is a former Canberra Raiders prop who also played short stints with North Queensland and Melbourne. He represented New Zealand in 15 Tests, including a Rugby League World Cup in the mid-1990s.

He is the third person to have been arrested by the police task force attached to the royal commission, and the second to be arrested in relation to the hearings in Canberra.

Former CFMEU organiser Halafihi "Fihi" Kivalu was arrested last week and has pleaded not guilty to two charges of blackmail.

The royal commission on Friday heard construction company director John Domitrovic was allegedly pressured into writing $30,000 worth of cheques addressed to Kivalu's wife. Mr Domitrovic said Kivalu visited his Queanbeyan work site in 2011 demanding $60,000 in cash but he instead offered him $30,000 in cheques.  He said Kivalu asked that the cheques be made out to his wife with the full amount to be paid by Christmas.  Copies of the cheques by All Kiwi Constructions made out to Halaevalu Maureen Kivalu were received into evidence.

The hearing was also presented with Mrs Kivalu's bank statements, which showed $30,000 worth of deposits, corresponding with the dates on the cheques.

Mr Domitrovic said he wasn't surprised by the demand, having heard of similar cases in the industry.  But he was surprised Kivalu accepted cheques, given they could be traced.  "(I was) somewhat surprised that Fihi agreed to take a cheque to his wife, that surprised me the most."

He said he paid the money to avoid getting on the wrong side of the union.  "It's a purely business decision for economic reasons," Mr Domitrovic said.  "They could have put a lot of pressure on me on the job."

The commission has heard allegations the union pressured businesses in Canberra to sign its EBA, threatening they wouldn't get work if they didn't and using safety checks as an excuse to disrupt their work sites.

The union's lawyer John Agius on Friday rejected the claims, saying safety on construction sites in the ACT was "appalling" and the CFMEU had been a driving force to improve it.

The hearing continues on Monday.

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Police seeing Muslim extremism in kids ‘as young as 14’

POLICE have revealed that teenage extremists are becoming common, after allegations surfaced that a 17-year-old has been preaching extremists views at a Sydney high school.

Counter-terrorism police are investigating allegations that the boy has been preaching extremist Islam in the playground of Epping Boys High School, in Sydney’s northwest.

“We are conducting an investigation into an allegation that a young man is attempting to influence students in his school to adopt his extremist views,” NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Murdoch told The Australian.

It’s understood the investigation was prompted after police received information the boy of Afghan heritage was delivering religious sermons to other pupils.

Sources told The Australian that the boy is an “acolyte” of Milad bin Ahmad-Shah al-Ahmadzai, an alleged Sydney jihadist in jail awaiting trial on a string of charges, including the near-fatal shooting of a man outside a gay club and a ram-raid in shopping centre.

Police believe the student in question has twice tried to travel to Syria, but he was stopped at the airport each time.

Speaking to reporters this afternoon, Assistant Commissioner Murdoch said police were receiving more and more reports of teenage extremism, both in boys and girls.

“We are seeing this in children as young as 14 years old,” he said.

He said parents should be on the lookout for changes in their children’s behaviour.

“I think if parents know their children and they’ve invested enough in their upbringing, they know when they need to be concerned,” he said.

“The bottom line is if they become concerned about the changing behaviour of their young children and teenagers, they need to put their hand up and flag that there’s been a changed in behaviour.”

Assistant Commissioner Murdoch said police were taking the allegations very seriously and that officers were in constant communication with schools to ensure students and staff were safe.

Epping Boys High principal Tim O’Brien posted to the school’s website that student safety was “our absolute highest priority at all times”.

“I would like to reassure the whole Epping Boys High School community that the school continues to be in close liaison with the Department of Education and a range of law enforcement agencies to uphold our exemplary levels of student safety and student wellbeing.

“School counsellors are available for all boys, if required, today or in the future.

“All normal lessons and activities are proceeding today according to timetable.”

Meanwhile, NSW Premier Mike Baird has expressed his concern about “increasing radicalisation of young people”.

“The issue reported this morning is highly disturbing and I have asked for an urgent briefing from both the Department of Education and NSW Police,” he told The Australian.

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Labor supports gay adoption rights

LABOR has promised to give gay, transgender and intersex parents the same rights as heterosexual couples to access IVF, adopt children and enter surrogacy arrangements.

FORMER federal senator Louise Pratt, whose partner is a transgender man, moved two successful motions to commit a federal Labor government to seeking national agreement on these matters.
The party will also seek to make sure gay, transgender and intersex couples get equal recognition in any inter-country adoption agreements Australia is part of.

SOURCE

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG is amazed that the Labor part conference has completely ignored the financial situation.






Facebook REFUSES to shut down 'racist' 'Humans of Sunnybank' group which mimics Asian accents and labels the Brisbane community 'dog meat eaters'

Ethnic self-segregation is a common thing and the Brisbane suburbs of Sunnybank and Sunnybank Hills seem to have been adopted by East Asians, mainly Han Chinese.  And the Asian presence really is amazing at times.  I remember standing in a queue outside a popular Japanese restaurant there with my son -- and noting that my son and I were the only exception in a sea of black hair around us. We were taller than most of them so we could see that sea.

I was actually pleased by that.  Asians are a lot more peaceful and patient than we Anglo-Australians are.  My son and I in fact were not patient.  We decided not to wait and went to another less popular restaurant instead.

And there is no doubt that the food in the area is great value.  My son and I often go to a Japanese fast-food joint there called "Mos burgers".

Because they tend to be exemplary citizens by any standard, there is in general very little hostility to Asians in Australia these days.  There are a lot of them and they fit in seamlessly. Just this morning on an outing I saw a Chinese lady rush up to an  old-Australian lady and give her a big hug.  They were obviously old friends. And I know of no physical attacks on Asians aside from what emanates from our small African sub-population.

The sort of negative comment about Asians that you get from old-Australians is mild criticism and the site objected to below is in that mould.  It is clearly jocular. With their history of persecution elsewhere, it is understandable that the site makes overseas Chinese nervous but all it is likely to lead to is laughs

Far-Leftists like The Matildas of course believe that all Australians (except them?) are deeply racist.  It's an article of faith for them.  But they are just projecting.  They see their own hate-filled personalities in everybody else. It's called, "Judging others by yourself" and is a well-worn fallacy. Every single article on "New Matilda" is full of rage so the hate is there in plain sight

An advocacy group have called on Facebook to take down a ‘xenophobic’ page that they believe perpetuates ‘incorrect stereotypes’ about the Asian community in a Brisbane suburb.

The group Global Asians for Action and Social Change (GAASC) have slammed the ‘Humans of Sunnybank’ page for posting ‘harmful and offensive’ images that ‘insult the English language abilities’ of Asian migrants and ‘falsely’ portray the community as dog meat eaters.

The page, which has amassed 16,000 followers, is loosely based on the popular blog Humans of New York and has published more than 60 images, accompanied by captions that 'crudely mimic' an Asian accent.

GAASC said this is a clear attempt to ‘create an atmosphere of xenophobia’.

‘Unlike the ground breaking Humans of New York which showed faces which build New York as a cosmopolitan destination and shares enriching human interest stories, Humans of Sunnybank instead insults and offends by using various incorrect and offensive stereotypes regarding Asian people, and posts it in a fashion that promotes continued racism,’ GAASC said in a statement.

According to GAASC, Sunnybank is home to almost 3,000 residents of Asian heritage, making up approximately 35 per cent of the region's population.

The page, which predominantly use stock images of Asian people, claims to use 'genuine first-hand interviews' to paint a picture of the culturally diverse suburb- 'one story at a time'. 

Others play on the stereotype that Asian people are bad drivers

One posts uses a stock image of seven Asian men squatting in a circle, a common practice in Vietnam.

The caption reads: ‘Wei, Brother Chow, I see you shaking.. You going to give up so easiry? Do the squat is wery important! We no skip the leg day in Sunnybank. Even the white boy can do better than you!’

Another used a stock image of an elderly man who appears to be driving a car.

The caption reads: ‘Before I come Australia, I no learn to use car. So I have 8 try for pass driving test. But my wife even worse, one day she do a 15-point turn to get out from garage. That’s why she only allow to drive Toyota Camry. She go to Market Square a lot, please be careful, don’t crash her.’

Erin Chew, a founder of GAASC, reported the page to Facebook administrators for ‘promoting hate speech’, however it was found the page did not violate Facebook’s community standards.

The posts are written in broken English which Erin Chew said encourages racist stereotyping

Ms Chew said Facebook needs to have a ‘deeper evaluation of its community standards’ if they want to become a ‘more responsible and conscientious global citizen.'

She said the social media giant should understand the difference between allowing free speech and allowing a group to use its platform to racially vilify another.

'I understand about freedom of speech and expression, and I believe in that, but at the same time there has to be a limit when it starts to offend a race or community,' Ms Chew told Daily Mail Australia. 'You can have artistic expression but this is just in poor taste.'

A spokesperson from Queensland's Anti-Discrimination Commission told Daily Mail Australia that some of the material that features on the 'Humans of Sunnybank' Facebook group would be considered vilification under the Anti-Discrimination Act 1991.

'The Act states that a person must not, by a public act, incite hatred towards, serious contempt for, or severe ridicule of, a person or group of persons on the ground of the race, religion, sexuality or gender identity of the person or members of the group.'

She said anyone who believes they have been subjected to 'unlawful vilification' can lodge a formal complaint to the Anti-Discrimination Commission Queensland.

'They would need to provide the identity of the person who they allege has vilified them, rather than just naming the Facebook page. This can sometimes be difficult.'

She said the only other alternative is to continue lobbying Facebook to have the page shut down.

GAASC have started a change.org petition demanding Facebook to remove the page from its site.

Ms Chew said she plans to lodge a formal complaint with Anti-Discrimination Commission Queensland and the Australian Human Rights Commission on Friday.

Daily Mail Australia contacted Facebook and the administrators of 'Humans of Sunnybank' however neither were available for comment at the time of publication.

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ALP conference 2015: big on promises, short on financial reality

Labor under Bill Shorten seeks to win the next election by re-fighting the climate change issue with a renewable energy spearhead, pledging a fairer nation and using progressive identity politics — yet its fatal flaw is economic policy.

It is an extraordinary situation. Labor intends to recontest the battles of the Rudd-Gillard era, asylum-seeker boats being the likely exception.

Rather than reform itself because of the Rudd-Gillard experience, Labor has decided it was essentially right. It will ask the Australian public to think again and this time vote down Tony Abbott.

The ALP will prioritise climate change action via higher prices, operate in lock-step with the trade unions, flirt with quasi-protectionist economics, downplay market-based reforms and champion a litany of progressive causes: female equality, same-sex marriage, indigenous recognition and the republic.

At a time when Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens warns that Australian growth is falling to permanently lower levels — the implication being that stalled economic reform has diminished living standards — Labor offers phony words and hollow policy.

It is locked into the old politics and mistakes, playing to its loyalists and institutional interests.

Shorten is a weak leader trying to look strong. He is conspicuously devoid of policy strength. The lesson of Shorten’s leadership, illustrated by his speech yesterday, is the limits of leadership. Nearly everything he does is about adaptation to Labor power realities, ideological orthodoxies, trade unions and polling. He is driven to defy party sentiment on asylum-seeker boats for only one reason: the current policy is a veto on election victory.

These tactics overall should deliver Labor a formidable election campaign. It will be competitive. But Shorten’s latest ploy, the 50 per cent renewables electricity target by 2030, reveals all the problems.

This is plain irresponsible policy. It means Labor has no interest in the most cost-effective method of tackling emissions across the next 15 years.

It has no interest in trying to combat climate change consistent with a competitive growth economy. Labor can duck and weave but it cannot escape financial reality: the cost of renewables remains vastly more expensive than fossil fuels.

Anyone with half a political brain sees through this ploy. Because Shorten knows he must fight on climate change and because he knows pricing carbon risks another “carbon tax” scare, he wants to redefine the contest to “who loves renewables the most”.

Abbott’s ineptitude invites such easy exploitation.

The upshot is that Shorten has shifted much of Labor’s policy response on to the single most ineffective and high-cost mechanism.

He will punish Australian households and businesses with high costs in the interests of his own political convenience and vote-buying. It is the essence of trashing the public interest for party political gain.

At least when Abbott was being irresponsible he merely promised to abolish a tax.

In his speech yesterday, Shorten’s election vision was “more solar panels on Australian rooftops” and more farmers “putting wind turbines on their land”.

It sounds like a joke from a satire program. Sadly, it’s not. The party faithful, evidently, think this is terrific. It is the latest example of how far Labor has sunk.

Shorten pretends he’s being bold. In fact, he’s being weak. Expect that the carbon pricing commitment via an emissions trading scheme will be downgraded. Instead of Labor relying on carbon pricing with the renewable energy target becoming less necessary, Labor seems to be moving in the opposite direction. This is Shorten Labor: 100 per cent political expediency and defective policy.

He pretends this will create investor confidence. What nonsense. Investors will know that renewable energy policy is a volatile political war. The proof is the fact the Coalition and Labor cut a compromise a few weeks ago for a 23 per cent RET and Labor has turned that upside down.

In a re-run of history, the climate change lobby, vested interests and much of the political media will applaud Shorten — meanwhile, the Australian public, concerned about climate change but sceptical of costs, will be far harder to persuade than Labor believes. At this point, Labor has no details, no modelling, no analysis. Its self-obsession is revealing.

A fight over renewables is exactly the wrong fight Australia now needs for good policy. It is being staged solely for politics. The need is to reduce the overall carbon footprint by the most cost-efficient method (obviously including renewables) but both sides now have highly dubious policies.

If the Abbott government has the brain and skill to publish a credible study of the massive income transfer this policy involves from the Australian public to the renewable sector then it will ­destroy the policy.

Is Labor actually pledged to the 50 per cent target? Who knows? Shorten called it an “aim”. This implies it is qualified, but qualified ­according to what conditions? Is such a policy feasible? What are its economic consequences? What are the costs? What business and industry groups did Labor consult about such a long-run distortion of financial resources?

None of these questions is ­answered. It is folly for Shorten to conceal the holes in his 50 per cent pledge with phony “bring it on” bravado. Labor has had 20 months since the last election to prepare a structured policy and, to this point, it has failed to produce any such model.

As for Abbott, his mistake has been monumental: his scepticism towards renewables has been projected as prejudice rather than founded in rational policy.

Indeed, his inability to explain himself on renewables has been a free kick to Labor. But Shorten, in turn, has now tried to make too much of the political opportunity Abbott has given him.

Just as carbon policy was pivotal in ruining the economic standing of the Gillard government, so Shorten embraces the same risks. The combined signals Labor sends on economic policy are damaging and point to policy regression.

There was no mention in Shorten’s speech of the core reality — that Australia faces a growth slowdown, that living standards growth is being reduced, that the budget faces a challenge on both the tax and spending side, and that new measures are needed to ­improve productivity.

Is reality too unpalatable for the Labor Party? More to the point, is the platform agenda and party ethos singularly out of touch with the challenges that would face a new ALP government?

Shorten says higher taxes are a sign of Abbott’s failure. Pardon? Labor tax policies so far involve tightening superannuation concessions at the top end, a new tax on multinationals with the ALP premiers, as their preferred choice, backing a hefty increase in the personal income tax burden via the Medicare levy to fund future health costs.

It is true Shorten pledges to cut tax for small business but Labor’s overall thrust is unmistakable: its strong preference, facing a budget deficit and pressure on core ­services, is for the adjustment to be made via taxation rises.

Shorten says Labor believes in free trade and new markets. Pardon? The ALP conference endorsed yesterday a strong union-driven campaign against the Australia-China free trade agreement on the grounds that it will see Aussie jobs lost to the new Chinese workers coming into this country.

Michael O’Connor, from the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, said the FTA “smashes our labour market”.

Opposition trade spokeswoman Penny Wong is now pledged to improve the agreement, a high-risk ­exercise.

There is no sign the government will seek changes. Labor needs to be careful of these tactics, preserve its flexibility and avoid being trapped in a situation where it has condemned the agreement but cannot change it.

Shorten’s speech signalled his symbolic priorities. His first pledge was to indigenous recognition in the Constitution. His second ­declaration was to trade union ­fidelity. Shorten sang from the Julia Gillard songbook.

After a week that saw many iconic ALP figures call for fundamental reform of the Labor-union relationship, Shorten lauded the unions, mocked the royal commission into union governance and, by implication, repudiated the calls for internal reform.

In truth, Shorten’s position is becoming more dependent on the trade unions, a repeat of Gillard’s situation, and anyone who thinks this won’t have policy conse­quences is a fool.

Shorten depicted his policy on renewables as creating the “jobs of the future” and claimed that it meant “cutting power bills for ­consumers”.

This claim arises because the electricity generation market is currently oversupplied and more renewables will add to supply and reduce prices. That is true.

It avoids, however, the bigger reality that the higher cost of renewables compared with fossil fuels means a higher cost structure that consumers will have to meet.

Labor has switched priorities — it has moved from using price to decarbonise the economy to a massive prioritising of renewables without proper regard for costs involved and the consequences for households and business.

This runs against the real interests of workers, families and capital. It will extract, over time, a fearful toll on Labor.

Meanwhile, try not to be ­deafened by the guaranteed ­applause.

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Another thug union doesn't want Chinese competition

ETU joining the CMFEU.  Similar union agitation birthed the White Australia policy in 1901. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

More than a thousand union and community members will protest against the China Australia Free Trade Agreement tomorrow morning at a rally outside the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, ahead of the opening of the ALP National Conference.

Electrical Trades Union national secretary Allen Hicks, who will speak at the rally alongside academics, and representatives of GetUp, the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network, and the Australian Council of Trade Unions, said opposing negative elements of this agreement did not make unions anti-trade.

“The China Australia Free Trade Agreement removes the mandatory skills testing that currently ensures overseas workers in high-risk trades are able to perform their tasks to Australian safety standards,” Mr Hicks said.

“It also removes the requirement for labour market testing, meaning employers will no longer need to advertise jobs in Australia before they advertise them in China.

“Many of these workers, who are entirely dependent on their employer for their residence in Australia, will be at risk of exploitation, with bosses demanding they cut corners on safety, work inhumane hours, or sign contracts that are illegal under Australian law.

“The Immigration Department’s own figures show that less than seven percent of the businesses that use the 457 visa scheme are monitored, but even among that small number a third have been found to be breaching their obligations.

“Perhaps most worryingly, the ChAFTA deal removes the ability of future Australian Governments to legislate in the interests of the public, providing foreign companies with the right to sue if new laws impact on their profits.”

Press release






Leftist fool

Australians have had a gutful of refugees so this will b e a big vote-loser

Labor leader Bill Shorten is reportedly expected to reach out to the left of his divided party today by promising to double Australia's refugee intake.

Mr Shorten recently pledged to adopt the Coalition policy on "turning back the boats" of asylum seekers.

The move has angered some factions within his party, and his olive branch at the ALP conference in Melbourne is reportedly an attempt to mend the rift.

The new pledge is likely to cost Australians $450 million, News Corp has reported.

The conference is also expected to debate same-sex marriage with some delegates seeking a binding vote on Labor MPs before a cross-party bill being presented to the parliament next month.

Lunchtime rallies are planned involving refugee advocates and same-sex marriage supporters.

Also on the sidelines, Australian of the Year Rosie Batty will lead a panel discussion on preventing family violence.

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Muslim critic Kim Vuga on ABC TV

Vuga hosts a Facebook page called "Stop The Boat People" and in promos for the SBS show she declares "Australia is under attack. We already have the terrorists here. We are already living amongst the enemy."

Asked by panel co-host Natarsha Belling if she would say she was a racist, she said she was not. "I believe that we actually need to change the term and the definition." Vuga also said she believed in equality.

The Project ran big promotions for Vuga's appearance tantalising viewers with the possibility that she could be "the most racist woman in Australia".

In one teaser co-host and Fairfax writer Waleed Aly said: "Staunchly anti-refugee and anti-Muslim. I can't wait." Yet, Aly didn't ask Vuga anything, letting Meshel Laurie, Natarsha Belling and Lehmo handle the interview.

She was asked whether she believed Australia was "under attack from refugees", and she said "we are under attack by terrorists ... let in by Labor." She brought up Martin Place gunman Man Monis, saying that he "definitely didn't have any mental health problems. He had over 14,000 followers and a lot of them were in Australia." This led to a confusing exchange about Muslim-Australians and mental health problems with Laurie.

Talking about what she got out of Go Back From Where You Came From — 25 days with five other participants exploring the refugee experience — Vuga said it strengthened her existing convictions.

 Vuga said she felt guilty when she left Kurdish fighters in Syria behind. "I believe we need to have more boots on the ground over there."  And that's when Waleed Aly finally got his say: "Kim, thank you very much for joining us tonight."



Vuga lives in Townsville and describes herself as a freelance journalist.

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Bill backtracks on illegals

But many in his Leftist party are livid over it

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has announced he supports a change to Labor’s asylum seeker policy to turn back boats.

Mr Shorten made the announcement on ABC television on Wednesday night, conceding that it was the only way to save lives.

‘Labor wants to defeat the people smugglers and we want to prevent drownings at sea,’ he told 7.30 host Leigh Sales.

‘Therefore one of the options which we believe has to be on the table, if we’re given the privilege of forming government, has to be the option to turn back boats.

Shorten said he decided on the policy change to stop giving people smugglers 'sustenance' who 'exploit vulnerable people'.  'I can't support any policies which do that,' he said.

'It's a big problem and we've got to be humane and we've got to make sure that the issue is not refugees, the issue is making sure people are safe.'

Mr Shorten also conceded that his party had made mistakes in the past about their asylum seekers policy. He admitted the Coalition's take on the issue appeared to be working.

'I think it's clear that the combination of regional resettlement, with offshore processing, and also the turn back policy, is defeating people smugglers,' he said.  'It's not easy, though, because it involves the admission, I think, that mistakes were made when Labor was last in government.'

A potential turn back policy will be debated at the ALP national conference later this week and Mr Shorten hopes his colleagues will back his new position.

The Opposition Leader made the announcement following the publication of Labor immigration spokesman Richard Marles' opinion piece in the Herald Sun, which said that the former Labor government's asylum seeker policy resulted in 'terrible loss of life'.  'I believe, provided it can be done safely, a future Labor government must have the option to undertake turn-backs,' Marles wrote.

But not everyone was impressed by Shorten's U-turn on the policy, with opposition expected from Labor's left faction.  Former Labor MP Steve Gibbons criticised the announcement on Twitter, suggesting that 'gutless' MPs in Sydney's west had let 'rednecks' inform the policy.

Labor supporters also aired their displeasure over social media, with some suggesting they would lose formerly staunch members of the party.

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young also took to Twitter to criticise the move, writing that 90 per cent of those seeking asylum by boat are found to be 'legit refugees'.  'Turning them back doesn't stop them needing safety or save them from death,' Hanson-Young wrote.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton was also unimpressed, but for different reasons.  'Labor giving themselves the "option" to turn back boats is what they promise at every election,' he wrote on Twitter.  'Labor is weak on border protection.'

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's announcement comes amid the Senate Inquiry into Nauru Detention Centre, with allegations revealed of self-harm and sexual assault.

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Sydney business owner attacked on Facebook for offering job seekers some logical advice

A SYDNEY small business owner who was sick of prospective employees turning up to interviews in dodgy clothing and sometimes even eating took to Facebook to offer some well-meaning advice but was quickly shot down by disgruntled job seekers.

Gordon Carlsen is a successful business owner in Western Sydney who has built up three separate companies over more than a decade.

With a hobby shop, online store and call centre operations, Mr Carlsen is often on the hunt for new staff.  But after interviewing a number of applicants for a position on the weekend, he'd had enough.

"In the last couple of years we have done a lot of interviews and I've read a lot of resumes and it's become apparent that there are some people who genuinely want a job they just don't know how to approach it," Mr Carlsen said.

"Only on the weekend I interviewed for staff and there were a couple who came along that you could tell they really needed work and if they had actually presented better or put themselves forward better they probably would have had a better opportunity of getting work."

One particular man turned up desperate for a job but the way he presented himself made it almost impossible for Mr Carlsen to take him seriously.

"On the weekend I had a guy turn up who looked like he'd just mowed the lawn with a milkshake in his hand," he said.

"He told me he really needed this job to turn his life around and he did everything but beg but he just didn't present properly."

Thinking he would use his many years of experience to offer job seekers some important advice, he posted a note to a local community noticeboard on Facebook.

"Probably wasting my time here, but if i can help one person then i will take the risk that i am probably going to get some haters over this," he started off.

He went on to advise applicants to put some effort into their application and take some time selling themselves if they really want the job.

Don't just send a resume with no cover letter and avoid using templated forms that simply require you to cut and paste your name, he wrote.

And if you do make it to the next step, make it count.

"Show the interviewer that you give a dam and yes you WANT this job. DONT eat and drink at the interview, talking to someone that is sucking on a milkshake screams to me zero interest," Mr Carlsen advised.

While the advice was all fairly logical and would put job hunters in a good position heading into an interview, some people didn't see it that way and Mr Carlsen's intitial predictions of `haters' came true.

"I actually took it down because of the haters, unfortunately because it got to the point where it just turned into a manhunt at the end," he said.

"I got attacked where people were having a go at the employer about their rights and what the employers should be doing for them and it got quite nasty."

People who been unsuccessful in the past also took the opportunity to tell Mr Carlsen to `go f--- himself'.

But it's not just Mr Carlsen who is seeing this trend.  Jane Lowder, career coach and founder of MAX Coaching, said the issue of poor preparation and execution during the application process seemed to be an `odd phenomenon'.

A lack of career counselling in schools that help prepare students for the workforce and a way into it could be partly to blame, Ms Lowder said.

"There's not to my knowledge a specific career curriculum in schools to help people to develop their employability skills," she said.

"Well they're still around but they're the history teacher that has been given the job of providing career guidance so it's a bit-part of their role and they may or may not be trained in that field."

Stories such as those experienced by Mr Carlsen were all too common, according to Ms Lowder.

"You hear of people turning up in thongs to interviews, leaving their phone on, turing up somewhat dishevelled or inappropriately," she said.

Attention to detail and putting in the effort before you apply for a job are key to being successful.

"It really is having a strong grasp of your (potential) employer and what they're looking for and making sure you show up demonstrating that you have it," she said.

Attitude is also important and some jobseekers needed to change their view on applying for a job and ensuring they head into an interview knowing exactly what it expected and what is happening in the process, according to Ms Lowden.

"A lot of job seekers make the mistake of thinking it's all about them but in fact it's all about the employer and what they're looking for and you proving that you can bring that," she said.

A growing infatuation with smart phones and tablets could also play a part in this lack of preparation.

"I think an addiction to technology also has a lot to answer for. We are so atuned to being connected to our smart phones or our devices that they consume our attention and we're not very good at being in the moment," Ms Lowder said.

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Head Of Alice Springs Paramilitary Group Gary Hall Says Aboriginal People 'Stuck In The 1700s'

Stuck in the Stone Age would be more like it

The man behind an Alice Springs vigilante group has hit international headlines, describing Aboriginal people as “stuck in the 1700s” and vowing to carry out “beatings and shootings” against people committing crimes in the Central Australian town.

Gary Hall first came to public prominence in April this year after he emerged as the public face of the Alice Springs Volunteer Force, a small paramilitary group asking for NT residents with firearm experience to start patrolling the streets of Alice.

In a new interview with the Belfast Telegraph, Hall denied being a racist but went on to accuse Aboriginal people in Alice of committing assaults, burglaries, and rapes.

“There are basically two communities where I live — the whites and the Aborigines who are stuck in the 1700s,” he told the paper.

“It is true that the media over here (in Australia) have tried to portray the AVF and myself as racist. But the fact is that race plays no part in who the organisation targets.

“The Aborigines carry out their own form of punishment beatings by spearing the kneecap of someone who has wronged them. I don’t see what the big fuss is about the AVF doing similar.”

Hall originates from Ireland, and has claimed partial involvement in the Ulster Volunteer Force, a paramilitary group responsible for hundreds of deaths during the Irish troubles.

The emergence the Alice Springs Volunteer Force coincided with an upsurge in reported incidents of [black] youth vandalism and rock throwing, and a corresponding upsurge in racist rhetoric in Alice, with white residents taking to social media to express their anger.

Alice Springs’ only Aboriginal councillor has linked the acts of youth anti-social behaviour to cuts to community services in the NT.

Police have monitored the activities of the AVF, while NT Chief Minister Adam Giles said the group’s activities were “not welcome in the Northern Territory”.

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GREENIE ROUNDUP

Three articles below

Millionaire British Tory brands Prime Minister Tony Abbott's climate change policies 'illogical'

A lot of rich people think they are obviously superior and therefore should control the "peasants" -- which is what the global warming scare is good for.  He makes no mention of any evidence for global warming, probably because he knows of none

A prominent British Tory MP has lashed out at Prime Minister Tony Abbott over his climate change policies, labelling them a misrepresentation of true conservative values.

Former British environment minister Richard Benyon wrote in an opinion piece for Sydney Morning Herald that Mr Abbott's decision to become the first world leader to abolish a carbon price is 'illogical.'

The conservative MP urged the prime minister to speak for common sense ahead of a global summit on climate change in Paris at the end of the year.

Declaring that Mr Abbott's policies go against the grain of true conservative values, Benyon writes: 'true conservative values include distaste for over-regulation and enthusiasm for entrepreneurialism.

'But they also include a respect for sound science and economics, a belief in protecting the natural world and a responsibility to do the best for the biggest possible number of one's citizens,' Benon writes.

The former British army member said the issue transcended a national scale, urging the prime minister to speak for common sense in the climate change debate.

'This is more about a global issue where many of us want to see sensible politicians on the centre-right recognising that climate change is a clear and present danger to our world,' he said.

The article is one of the most scathing critiques on the government's environmental policies from the a right wing politician to date.

Mr Abbott's government is due to reveal its post-2020 carbon reduction targets in August, ahead of a global summit on climate change in Paris at the end of the year.

Last year, Mr Abbott declared climate change was not the most important problem the world is facing, after UN climate change spokesman Dan Thomas labelled it the 'defining issue of our time'.

In November American president Barrack Obama piled pressure on the Abbott government to act on climate change, declaring that natural wonders such as the Great Barrier Reef were under direct threat from climate change.

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Conservative politician To Host 'Carnival Of Coal' To Make 'Eco-Lunatics Lose Their Minds'

The New South Wales government's Whip in the Legislative Council really loves coal, and he’s hatching a plan to “make the left lose their collective mind in impotent rage”.

The Liberal MP Dr Peter Phelps will be hosting a ‘Carnival of Coal’ at New South Wales Parliament next month “to declare support for coal and associated industries and to send a loud and clear message that action is needed now to protect a secure, inexpensive energy future”.

“The event was inspired by a lunch with a couple of mates from my federal staffer days in Canberra,” said Phelps, who assured New Matilda he is “always happy to assist the fourth estate where [he] can”.

“The question came up: what could we do that would make the left lose their collective mind in impotent rage?

“Naturally, there is nothing the green/left hates more than coal, so I thought it would be a nice way of trolling the eco-lunatics and their fellow-travellers, especially those in the left-wing media who are always the first to hit the 'hysterical outrage' button whenever anyone challenges the efficacy of their pet pieties.”

The event appears to be a parody of an earlier invite, to another ‘party with a purpose’, from Greens MP John Kaye.

“I will be hosting a Solar Shindig at NSW Parliament House to declare support for solar and other renewable technologies and to send a loud and clear message that action is needed now to protect the clean energy future,” Kaye said in an email to parliamentarians.

Just a few hours later Phelps followed suit, managing an impressive turnaround speed to offer “I liked carbon before it was coal” stickers for parliamentarians who can’t make it.

Himself an avid distributor of stickers - only, with a slightly different message - Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham slammed the New South Wales Libs for their “complete disregard for all those who want to see our food bowl in the Liverpool Plains saved from coal mining”.

Buckingham, former Independent MP Tony Windsor, the New South Wales Farmers Association and a host of others have unleashed a blitzkrieg of criticism against the Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce over the federal government’s approval of the Shenhua Watermark coal mine in the food bowl of north west New South Wales.

Having declared “the world has gone mad” because of an approval his government issued, Joyce is unlikely to attend. But state Liberal MP Scott MacDonald will be there – he *accidentally* sent an email ostensibly aimed at a staffer to all of Parliament within six minutes.

MacDonald will likely be rubbing shoulders with the big boys of big coal at Phelps’ ‘carnival’, which will be held at Parliaments’ Waratah Room on August 11.

Phelps tells New Matilda there’ll “probably [be] drinks, nibbles, unremitting mockery of green/left lunacy and their hatred of human achievement,” too.

“I also hope that there will be free samples of coal for MPs to be able to take away and place in their office for a display of solidarity,” he said.

“As for industry people, I hope they all come, but I don't have any confirmations from them yet - perhaps because I haven't asked any of them yet. Which I should get around to doing, now that I think of it. Thanks for the reminder.”

Phelps said coal needs mates “because it has been demonised by the extreme green movement, despite it being the safest, cheapest and most reliable source of power in Australia and around the world”.

The coal-loving Coalition member said he does not want to see the industry scaled back in New South Wales, which is a view shared by the Premier Mike Baird.

“I reject the quasi-religious mysticism of anthropogenic global warming, and the increasingly fascistic tendencies of its disciples,” Phelps said.

And yes, he does worry about “what lunatic Socialist governments will do in an attempt to appease the extreme green agenda”.

He said that the response to his event has been “pretty good, so far”.

“But the really interesting thing will be to see how many ALP people turn up, given their putative support for blue collar workers (remember what the 'M' in CFMEU stands for!), especially those that purport to represent miners in the Hunter Valley and Illawarra.”

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Astonishing renewable energy target turnaround by the Australian Labor party

In politics nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems, as they say, but Tony Abbott will wonder if it ever gets any better than this.

Bill Shorten has just gifted the Coalition the most simple and effective mantra for the next election - vote Labor and you get higher electricity prices.

Given Labor's intention to return to a price on carbon this was always likely to be the case but it has now been amplified - put up in bright lights if you like - by Shorten himself.

By promising to more than double the share of renewable energy in the economy over the next decade and a half, Labor cannot escape the reality of higher electricity prices.

It is an extraordinary policy announcement - without any detail.

Having voted in parliament last month to lower the nation's guaranteed renewable energy share to about 23 per cent by 2020, Labor is now saying it will boost that share to 50 per cent by 2030.

Labor's spokesman Mark Butler seems to have no idea how the target will be achieved, what it will cost or whether it will increase the country's emissions reduction performance.

"When we get into government and look at putting the finer detail of this," he told SkyNews in an amazing interview, "obviously the cost of power for households and businesses is absolutely the top of the list as well as making sure that energy supply is secure."

In other words, elect us and then we will work out how this policy works and what it will cost you.

On the weekend I wrote that the difference between the government and opposition on climate change was an illusion: "Labor postures as alarmist and evangelical, while the Coalition postures as cautious and sceptical, yet they promise identical emission outcomes through different methods. It is beyond parody."

And I even suggested that despite the rhetoric Labor might not promise to do much more because the downside was obvious; "the higher Labor sets its sights the higher the costs it will have to impose."

Well now Labor has taken a massive risk - and in my view one it will soon regret.

It is promising to do much more on climate change, and it is promising to do it with your money.

Yet, of course, because of Australia's tiny share of global emissions (just over 1 per cent) it can't deliver any discernible environmental benefit. It is all for show.

Just how much extra it will cost is anyone's guess.   But remember these are government mandated targets - if renewable energy was cheaper it wouldn't have to be mandated, investment would flow there naturally.

If wind energy was really more cost-effective than coal and gas, Labor would not have been complaining just days ago about the government directing Clean Energy Finance Corporation investment away from wind projects.

If wind energy really drove down prices, Labor would not have agreed in parliament just weeks ago to not only reduce the 2020 renewable energy target but exempt industries where jobs were under threat.

The cost pressures and threatened job losses that Labor pragmatically tried to alleviate in that decision are now back on the table - with double the impact - thanks to today's announcement.  It is an astonishing policy turnaround.

The sudden change, the lack of detail and the timing all suggest this is about Bill Shorten desperately seeking to appeal to the Green Left of his party in order to head off the aspirations of his deputy and potential leadership rival Tanya Plibersek.

This is Labor turning its back on household costs, manufacturing jobs and economic prosperity in order to appeal to the inner city green left.

For all his problems over almost two years of government, Abbott must be thinking good things really do come in threes: Kevin Rudd destroyed his prime ministership when he dropped his commitment to an emissions trading scheme aimed at meeting what he called the greatest moral challenge or our time; Julia Gillard blew herself up when she broke her carbon tax promise; and now Shorten has put a carbon price and a massive (uncosted) renewable energy target on the table.

Whatever is happening to the climate, politics doesn't seem capable of changing.

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