Brain dead call for a monopoly on an Australian fruit

The Fascist below won't get his way, fortunately.  Overseas growers will eventualy get their hands on seed and grow it commercially, thus sending the price down and making it more affordable for all

It's the richest known source of Vitamin C, richer than the blueberry in antioxidants and is native to Australia. So why haven't we heard more about the kakadu plum?

Grown across the top end of Northern Australia, the kakadu plum (also known as the Billygoat Plum, Gubinge or Murunga) has long been used by indigenous Australians for its medicinal properties, but has recently garnered the attention of cosmetic and health food companies around the world.

So much so, David Boehme of the wholesale supplier of the plum Wild Harvest NT -- is concerned we are at risk of losing the crop to offshore production -- a development which would undoubtedly impact the local indigenous communities who harvest it.

"The amount of retail inquiries are almost unbelievable at the moment," Boehme told The Huffington Post Australia. "We can't deal with the demand.

"We have inquiries all over the world for seeds and have to say they are not available. Look at what happened to the lemon myrtle. That's an amazing plant, native to Australia, and where do you think the plantations are? Malaysia. It’s gone. The Australian industry has been compromised because the federal government has not come to the party in identifying and protecting these Australian plants.

"Unless something to that effect comes into play, I believe, in the long term, it will be very devastating for remote indigenous communities.

"What this plant is and what it’s evolving as -- it's a resource that could be the wealth of many communities in the top end of Australia."

So what is so great about the kakadu plum?

First of all, its extreme vitamin C potency, measuring 100 times that of an orange. This is particularly attractive to cosmetic companies developing skin treatments.

"Vitamin C greatly assists the process of collagen synthesis, which, in turn, protects our skin from premature aging," nutritionist Michele Chevalley Hedge told HuffPost Australia.

"The amount of vitamin C found in the kakadu plum is extraordinary compared to what the normal consumer is used to. Yes, blueberries are highly concentrated as are oranges -- but the kakadu plum blows them out of the water."

The fruit is also so high in antioxidants, Western Australian researchers believe it could emerge as the most powerful antioxidant treatment in treating Alzheimer’s disease.
Furthermore, the kakadu plum contains phytochemicals such as gallic and ellagic acids, known for their antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal activities.

Previous efforts to supply the plum on a large scale have been hampered by its remote growing location and the fact it can be an unreliable harvest.

"Larger companies are bursting at the seams, wanting to do things, but they don't have confidence in supply and rightly so,"
Don’t have confidence in supply and rightly so," Boehme said.

"If they are going to market a product, they want an ongoing high volume of supply, and that confidence is not in wild harvest.

"The whole thing is variable in a wild harvest situation. You would just need to have a cyclone come through and lose the whole crop.

"We developed the first [kakadu plum] orchard 15 years ago. I know there are orchards happening with two [indigenous] communities in Broome. They aren't big orchards but they are a start."

Despite the difficulties associated with harvest, it didn't stop an American cosmetic company patenting the compounds found in the fruit, further fueling Boehme's fear it could be lost to overseas markets unless efforts are made to protect it here.

"The solution is to have the federal government protect Australian native species," Boehme said. "I don’t want to lose them like the macadamia and the lemon myrtle.

"There are so many unique plants in Australia indigenous people are so aware of that we don't know about. We have no idea what we are letting go.

"We need to see sustainable horticultural practices in Australian native plants. If we don't, we are really set to marginalise the economic opportunities for indigenous people to work on their own land."

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More Greenie lies exposed -- coming from "respectable" people

Dr Sarah Laurie has been the voice for rural communities set upon by the wind industry. For over 5 years, she has been advocating for an Australian ‘fair go’ for people trying to get a decent night’s sleep in their own homes; and, to that end, has relentlessly sought to get relevant, meaningful and enforceable noise standards drawn up to cover all industrial noise sources, including wind turbines

Set upon by the attack dogs that help run media and political interference for the wind industry, Sarah has been subjected to more than her fair share of utterly unwarranted, vilification and abuse. And the lion’s share of that has been generated, or orchestrated, by a former tobacco advertising guru and his mate, Vestas front man, Ken McAlpine.

The guru, along with fellow wind power propagandists, McAlpine, Infigen’s Ketan Joshi and the Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hannam sent Tweets to their band of intellectually challenged followers, asserting that Dr Laurie had been “deregistered”; implying that she had engaged in professional misconduct, causing the Medical Board to chop her registration.

For no apparent reason – save malice – Joshi and Hannam sent the malicious Tweet (first sent by McAlpine) around once more during the guru’s appearance before the Senate Inquiry. In a “we’re not going to take it any more” move, in response, Sarah Laurie sent in her legal team, who ultimately forced the lot of them to banquet on a very generous helping of humble pie.

Sarah’s first slimy-scalp was none other than the guru, and it’s no small pleasure for STT to pop up his mea culpa, once again:

CORRECTION & APOLOGY FROM PROFESSOR SIMON CHAPMAN TO SARAH LAURIE

I am a Professor of Public Health at the University of Sydney.
On 20 March 2014, I retweeted the following tweet concerning Sarah Laurie:

NOT DROWNING, RANTING: Deregistered “Dr” Sarah Laurie doesn’t like the medicine dished up by @ama_media Waubrafoundation.org.au/resources/open”

My tweet implied that Ms Laurie had given cause to the Medical Board of Australia to deregister her as a medical practitioner, on account of unprofessional conduct: that she is not entitled to use the title “Dr”; and that she does so in contravention of the laws that govern the conduct of medical practitioners.

These allegations were implied without foundation and are entirely false. Ms Laurie is not deregistered and has never been sanctioned by the Medical Board of Australia. Sarah Laurie allowed her registration as a medical practitioner to lapse for personal reasons; and accordingly, does not currently practice.

I sincerely apologise to Sarah Laurie for the harm, embarrassment and distress caused by my allegations, which I unreservedly retract.

Professor Simon Chapman
University of Sydney
NSW

Sarah’s next back-down was wrung out of Vesta’s McAlpine.
McAlpine’s fitting apology exposed a long-running campaign to discredit Dr Laurie, who has spoken out for residents affected by noise from wind turbines and other industrial sources through the Waubra Foundation.

What Sarah said about the guru’s personal attacks on her professional integrity apply with equal force to McAlpine, Ketan Joshi and Peter Hannam – as “just [another] example of a broader strategy employed by the wind industry to denigrate, marginalise and, therefore, exclude from public and political discourse anyone sincerely investigating a worldwide public health issue”.

With the respect and admiration STT holds for Sarah, it would rude not to run McAlpine’s apology, at least once more:

CORRECTION AND APOLOGY FROM KEN MCALPINE TO SARAH LAURIE

I am a consultant Special Advisor to Vestas Australian Wind Technology Pty Ltd. On 19 March 2014, I uploaded the following allegations on Twitter concerning Sarah Laurie:

NOT DROWNING, RANTING: Deregistered “Dr” Sarah Laurie doesn’t like the medicine dished up by @ama_media: waubrafoundaton.org.au/resources/open

At the time that I uploaded the Tweet, I was employed by Vestas Australian Wind Technology Pty Ltd. The thrust of my allegations is that Sarah Laurie had given cause to the Medical Board of Australia to deregister her as a medical practitioner, on account of unprofessional conduct and that Sarah Laurie is not entitled to use the title “Dr”.

These allegations were made without foundation and are entirely false. Laurie is not deregistered and has never been sanctioned by the Medical Board of Australia.

I understand that Sarah Laurie allowed her registration as a medical practitioner to lapse for personal reasons; and, accordingly, does not currently practice as such. By reason of her academic qualifications, Sarah Laurie is entitled to use the title “Dr”.

I sincerely apologise to Sarah Laurie for the harm, embarrassment and distress caused by my allegations, which I unreservedly retract.

Ken McAlpine
Special Advisor, Public Affairs,
Vestas Australian Wind Technology Pty Ltd

Next on the list of wind industry backed liars was the Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hannam. Hannam has been an overweening mealy-mouthpiece for wind industry propaganda from the get-go. His articles drool for the these things; and are drenched in fairy-tale fantasy

Hannam, if not posing as a ‘journalist’, could be forgiven for simply being infantile and gullible; but Sarah wasn’t about to let him off the hook for repeating his buddies’ and benefactor’s lies. Hannam, too was forced to withdraw his calumny; and apologise for the harm caused. Here’s scalp number three:

APOLOGY TO DR SARAH LAURIE

On June 29 I retweeted a tweet concerning Dr Sarah Laurie that was the subject of questioning by Senator Xenophon at a Senate inquiry into the health effects of wind farms. In doing so, I did not intend to convey any suggestion in the original tweet that Dr Laurie was not a doctor nor that she had been deregistered. If any readers interpreted my retweet in that way, I withdraw any such suggestions and apologise to Dr Laurie for any embarrassment caused.

Peter Hannam
Sydney Morning Herald

Gee, that must have hurt! But Sarah wasn’t content to let it rest there. Oh no, the good Doctor was also after Infigen’s top propaganda parrot, the insipid Ketan Joshi.

Joshi parades as the fountain of all knowledge, when it comes to espousing the ‘wonders’ of wind power; ‘properly’ paid to do so, of course (for a giggle, why not check his ‘ode to wind’ website). But, in truth, is just another vacuous ninny, who apparently amuses himself (as most walking jokes tend to do) with an endless stream of inanities on Twitter.

Although he did manage to amuse STT with his ‘submission’ to the Senate’s wind farm Inquiry, which was a moaning missive, entirely dedicated to STT. Apparently, Joshi hasn’t twigged to the fact that Australians have no time for whingers (you’ll need to Google it, Ketan).

And Sarah Laurie, quite rightly, has no time for nasty little liars, like Joshi. Here’s scalp number four:

Clarification from Ketan Joshi to Sarah Laurie

I am a Research and Communications Officer employed by Infigen Energy, which operates wind farms in Australia.

On 29 June 2015, in the context of a series of tweets describing the proceedings of a public hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Wind Turbines, I published the following tweet:

In the interests of avoiding confusion, I would like to re-state that the allegation contained in the tweet by Ken McAlpine, linked to in my tweet that Sarah Laurie is a “deregistered” medical practitioner, is without foundation and entirely false.

I would like to reassert that Sarah Laurie is not deregistered and has never been sanctioned by the Medical Board of Australia. Sarah Laurie allowed her registration as a medical practitioner to lapse for personal reasons.

Ketan Joshi
Research and Communications Officer
Infigen Energy

“Without foundation and entirely false”, hey! Who would have thought: wind industry operatives caught out spreading nasty lies?

An industry that is built on a series of fictions – and peopled by malicious liars – has only one tactic when it comes to people with honesty and integrity, like Dr Sarah Laurie; and that’s to crush them with falsehoods about their true motives and character. More power to Sarah for calling them out for precisely what they are: a pack of lying hounds.

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Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane labels Hizb ut-Tahrir views 'absurd'

Hizb ut-Tahrir held a large conference at Bankstown in south-western Sydney on Sunday and told the more than 500 men, women and children who attended that Muslims were being demonised over their faith.  "Deradicalisation has come to mean making Muslims less Islamic, more Western, more secular, more submissive to secular, Liberal political ... norms," Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman Uthman Badar said.

"It is nothing more than an agenda of forced assimilation justified by exaggerated fears of a security threat."

But Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane said this was "absurd".

"Hizb ut-Tahrir's views on citizenship are a rejection of our liberal democratic values and a denial of Australian multiculturalism," he said. "They further confirm this group's extremist agenda."

Dr Soutphommasane said that when migrants became citizens, they chose to become a part of the Australian community.

"There's nothing oppressive about committing to our democracy, abiding by the law, and respecting the rights of others.

"Our multiculturalism means that everyone has a right to express their cultural heritage but also accepts the responsibilities of being an Australian citizen."

The federal government has reportedly abandoned plans under consideration by former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Federal Social Services Minister Christian Porter told Sky News earlier this week the Hizb ut-Tahrir comments were "unhelpful, divisive and fundamentally ill informed".

"The recruitment process of radical organisations is to put in the mind of the people they seek to recruit that there is widespread prejudice amongst Australians against Muslim Australians.

"That level of prejudice simply does not exist in Australia."

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Australia to Strip Dual Citizens of Citizenship for Terror Activities

At a time when legislation introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)  to deprive Americans who join terror groups of their citizenship faces Democratic opposition, Australian lawmakers have passed a comparable measure.

Australian terror suspects with dual citizenship will now be stripped of their Australian citizenship if they are involved in terror activity abroad, or convicted of a terrorism offence at home.

Legislation passed by the federal Senate late on Thursday will affect any person aged 14 or older, and in the case of a suspect whose activity takes place overseas, no conviction of a criminal offense will be necessary for the citizenship to be lost.

The legislation also allows the authorities to prevent any terrorist with dual nationality located abroad from returning to Australia, and to expel dual nationals who engage in terror activities in Australia, wherever possible.

The government estimates that as many as half of the at least 100 Australians who are fighting for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) or other terror groups in the Middle East, mostly in Syria and Iraq, have dual nationality.

Attorney-General George Brandis and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said in a joint statement that the legislation “updates and modernizes a long standing provision of Australian law to reflect the new age of terrorism.”

“The changes to the existing legislation were necessary to reflect the current threat that Australia and the rest of the world faces,” it said.

“Dual nationals who engage in terrorism are betraying their allegiance to this country and do not deserve to be Australian citizens.”

The Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill passed its third reading by a vote of 43-13, supported by the two major parties. Opposition came from the liberal Australian Greens and a handful of independents.

Greens Senator Nick McKim argued during the debate that the legislation “does not provide judicial fairness or natural justice to potentially-impacted Australian citizens” and runs contrary to Australia’s international obligations.

“The best place for Australian citizens who are violent extremists is prosecuted, convicted, locked up in Australian prisons for a long time where they can do no further harm – not exported into a global marketplace of disenfranchised, violent people,” he said.

Australia’s threat level is currently set at “probable” – the third-highest ranking after “certain” and “expected.”

According to the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), that means that “credible intelligence indicates that individuals or groups have developed both the intent and capability to conduct a terrorist attack in Australia.”

Several other Western countries have made similar amendments to citizenship legislation in recent years in response to the growing terror threat, including Canada and Britain.

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Tax Deal With Greens gets important bill through the Senate -- enraging the ALP

After acquiescing to government legislation on terror and surveillance, Labor is now furious at the Greens for doing a deal with Treasurer Scott Morrison. Ben Eltham explains.

“Traitors.” “Dirty deals.” “Gutless Greens.”

Labor is rather upset today. As often happens in politics, the cause of the ALP’s umbrage is not its erstwhile enemies in the Coalition, but the party on its own side of the political spectrum, the Greens.

What’s this all about? The Greens have done a deal with Treasurer Scott Morrison to usher through new laws to crack down on tax avoidance.

This means the government now has the numbers to pass its Tax Laws Amendment (Combating Multinational Tax Avoidance) Bill 2015 in the Senate.

The laws will improve tax transparency, force hundreds of private companies to publicly report their tax affairs for the first time, and impose country-by-country reporting on big multinationals – long a holy grail for anti-tax avoidance campaigners.

In particular, the new laws will capture some 281 private companies with a turnover larger than $200 million. They have so far been excluded from tax disclosure since the 1990s, the result of a law dating back to the Hawke-Keating years.

The bill will also force multinationals making more than $1 billion a year globally to file so-called “general purpose” accounts, which are much more detailed than the sketchier “special purpose” returns many big companies have been filing. Importantly, general purpose reporting will allow for “country-by-country” breakdowns of revenue flows, which will allow much greater transparency of companies shifting their money between jurisdictions.

So, on the face of it, this is a win for those campaigning to reduce tax avoidance by the wealthiest individuals and companies.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale certainly thinks so.

“This is a huge win for tax transparency,” he wrote in a media release. “If we hadn’t got this bill passed today, multinational companies would have enjoyed another full year of not having to disclose their tax on a country-by-country basis.”

“We had a choice to either criticise from the sidelines and let multinational tax avoiders off the hook, or pass laws that force much greater tax transparency. The Greens chose action.”

Labor takes a different view. The ALP’s Chris Bowen, Andrew Leigh and Penny Wong were scathing of the deal, taking to the airwaves and the Twittersphere to condemn the Greens for their perfidy.

The gist of Labor’s chagrin is that the Greens should have held out for a better deal. According to a spokesperson for Andrew Leigh who spoke to New Matilda this morning, Labor had the cross-bench senators on board. Working together, the Greens and the ALP could have forced the government to a much more stringent deal on tax avoidance.

We’ll never know, of course, because with the Greens on board, Morrison has all the numbers he needs.

“The Government has played Richard Di Natale like a banjo on this issue,” Chris Bowen said this morning at a media doorstop. “He’s fallen for their tactics and he has sold out the Australian people.”

Bowen argues that the deal excludes the bulk of the private companies that could have been forced to reveal their tax affairs. “We know from evidence from the Australian Tax Office that one in five private companies with turnover over $100 million paid zero tax,” he said. “The Greens and the Liberals have conspired together to see that situation continue.”

So who are we to believe? As usual with Greens-Labor spats, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle of the competing positions.

On the one hand, the Greens are right to point out that there is now a bill going through. As of yesterday there was no provision to force private companies to report their tax affairs: now there is. Country-by-country reporting is also a win for tax transparency, any way you look at it.

But Labor may be right to argue that the Greens could have secured a better deal if they had held out for longer. Bowen, Leigh, and Wong are correct in pointing out that the transparency requirement was a Labor policy, passed in 2013. After all, this is a deal cut with Scott Morrison, a minister the Greens have long painted as a right wing antichrist.

The irony of it all is that the current deal was only made possible after the government managed to pass its so-called “kidnap” amendment in October. That bill struck out Labor’s previous transparency requirement, voted up in 2013, on the dubious grounds that wealthy individuals could be kidnapped if disclosure laws forced them to reveal their personal wealth.

The amendment passed because of a stuff-up: Labor and the Greens mismanaged their Senate processes. After Nick Xenophon and a number of Labor senators didn’t turn up to speak on a Coalition amendment the speaking list “collapsed”, meaning the bill was passed on the voices. This forced Labor and the Greens to tack a new transparency bill onto a Coalition bill later in November.

Whatever the complicated provenance of the current legislation, it’s hard to see what Labor is so upset about. The deal is an incremental improvement in tax transparency. Yes, it could be better. Yes, the deal excludes many companies from disclosure. On the other hand, it does improve matters from the status quo. This is the sort of steady-as-goes legislative improvement that the ALP normally trumpets.

One thing is for sure: Labor’s complaints that the Greens “sold out” on this bill can’t be taken too seriously, when compared with the ALP’s dismal history in this term of parliament. The ALP has passed a raft of Coalition national security and data retention measures since 2013. All parties compromise when they think it is in their interests.

The Greens-Morrison agreement echoes a previous deal cut between Di Natale and the Treasurer in June, over pension changes. That deal also sparked a skirmish between the two left-leaning parties over who had sold out, and who had stood firm.

Then, as now, the real winner is Scott Morrison, once again demonstrating his cunning. No-one is talking about Morrison today, even though he will get the benefit of higher revenues from company tax in future budgets. Meanwhile, he can sit back and enjoy the spectacle of the Greens and Labor fighting each other over a tax bill few ordinary Australians will understand.

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MP Bob Baldwin uses speech in Parliament to criticise Muslim community leaders

BOB Baldwin has questioned why male refugees fleeing war-torn countries don’t “stand and fight” and says he would expect his two sons to defend Australia from terrorism.

Speaking in Parliament on Monday night, Mr Baldwin criticised Muslim community leaders for their response to acts of terrorism, and said he was concerned some were seeking to prevent the celebration of Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter. He also questioned why “males aged 18 to 45” were fleeing countries like Iraq and Syria.

“I have to ask the question on behalf of my constituents, why are they not staying [and] training to defend their land, their lifestyle [and] their rights,” he said.

Mr Baldwin said if Australia was attacked by a terrorist group like Islamic State he would “stay to fight” and he would “expect the same of my sons”.

He said it was “a bit rich” to expect soldiers from other countries to “lay down their life for you if you are not prepared to stand and fight”.

But Paul Power, chief executive of the Refugee Council of Australia, said refugee numbers suggested many men were staying behind.

“Almost a quarter of the families that have sought refuge outside Syria have a female as their head, suggesting many males have stayed behind to defend their homes and their lives,” he said. “Many single men are continuing on to Europe in the hope they can send some financial assistance to the family members they leave behind.”

An estimated 220,000 people have been killed in the conflict in Syria since it began four years ago, and Mr Power said for many “staying and fighting is simply not an option” in the face of bombings, chemical weapons and Islamic State brutality.

“We would like to meet with Mr Baldwin and discuss with him some of the many challenges that those who are in the midst of the conflict face,” he said. “We have written to him on a number of occasions to offer him briefings and remain hopeful we will have the opportunity to meet him in the near future.”

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Climate mumbo jumbo

This reminds me of medieval controversies about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.  I know the answer but I'm not telling

Environment Minister Greg Hunt says Australia will back a call from small island nations for a Paris climate change agreement to include an aspirational goal of capping global temperature rises at 1.5 degrees celsius which is lower than the United Nations current target of 2C.

Pacific states and other nations vulnerable to rising sea levels are calling for a tougher cap on global warming at the UN Paris talks taking place over the next fortnight. Their concerns are heightened by the series of national carbon reduction pledges made in the lead up to the UN conference which will not be enough to meet the agreed goal of keeping warming to within 2C of pre-industrial levels - estimates suggest the current commitments add up to about 2.7 degrees of warming.

The government's attitude towards its smaller regional neighbours came into question this week after an attempt by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to ridicule Labor's Tanya Plibersbek backfired. Ms Bishop accused her rival of wrongly claiming the island of Eneko had "disappeared" but instead got the name of the island wrong herself.

However, the Alliance of Small Island States, whose members include Fiji and Jamaica, has used Australia as broker in its discussions with bigger nations about including the 1.5C aspiration in the wording of any agreement. The 1.5C goal cannot be included as a firm target because it would be vetoed by larger developing nations who argue it would put too much pressure on the their growing economies which require fossil fuels to overcome issues such as access to electricity.  

"The small island states would obviously like to see a clear goal for 1.5 degrees," Mr Hunt said. "Some of the largest developing countries are more resistant to that. Australia is happy to have a reference to 1.5 degrees with obviously the clear over-arching goal fo the agreement being below 2C. We are acting as a broker in that space. Our approach is to be flexible and construtive."

Mr Hunt said one of the main challenges for the more than 190 countries represented at the Paris summit will be agreeing on "genuine" five-yearly reviews of national carbon reduction targets. Developed countries such as the US, Australia and France - as well as some fast-growing economies such as China - believe reviews are critical to ensuring nations meet and then progressively improve their carbon reduction targets for 2030.

"I think that the central element to a solution here will be the review mechanisms," Mr Hunt said.  "We have said that genuine five-year reviews beginning with a review that takes real effect in 2020, 2025, 2030 is the right way to do it."

France has set a Saturday deadline for the various negotiating groups to come up with a draft document that eventually could form the basis of a formal agreement. The text of this preliminary document will be at the heart of further negotiations between countries - Australia will be represented by Ms Bishop - during the second week of the conference.

Mr Hunt caused a minor commotion when he appeared to suggest the host nation had already produced a "French text". Smaller nations are sensitive to suggestions that France and other richer countries have pre-judged the process. However, Mr Hunt's office later clarified his reference was meant to refer to the text that would be produced as a result of the negotiating groups.

Mr Hunt said he remained confident that India - which is resisting strict five year reviews - would not be an obstacle to a binding agreement. 

"I remain confident it will be hard fought two weeks but at the end of the day we are likely to achieve - and will achieve - an agreement," he said.

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Climate Wankathon Begins

A comment from Australia here featuring typical Australian irreverence.  Note:  A "wanker" is the Australian version of "jerk"

In the lead up to the Paris climate conference, I suggested that Obama thought people in Syria wouldn’t be so angry if global warming hadn’t made it so damn hot over there.

Perhaps having taken my encouragement, Prince Charles then chimed in and said that climate change was the ‘root cause’ of the Syrian war (yes, really).

The only thing missing now are claims that we’re ruining the solar system, galaxy and universe in some sort of butterfly effect (I sincerely apologise if this encourages some climate nut to seriously make this claim).

Now that the conference has started, we can easily see what this campaign been designed to do – extract money from us:

Chinese President Xi Jinping is calling for rich nations to honour their commitment to provide $US100 billion ($A138.98 billion) a year to developing countries to tackle climate change.

‘Developed countries should honour their commitment of mobilising $US100 billion each year from 2020 and provide stronger financial support to developing countries afterwards,’ Xi said, according to an official translation of his remarks.

I wonder if Jinping is including China, which is responsible for around 25% of worldwide emissions and which will keep building more coal power plants and ‘maybe’ reduce its emissions by 2030? (PS: I don’t blame China one bit – I would be doing the same if I saw a bunch of idiots hell bent on parting company with $100 billion a year).

And where is this $100 billion a year going to go I hear you ask? (Don’t ask too loud, or else the climate police may come and haul you before a climate court):

That includes $US53.8 billion annually to reduce emissions and $US39.9 billion to deal with more extreme weather and rising seas, according to a report from the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

And here I was getting worried that there wouldn’t be a proper account of where the money was headed. I just wonder which section of that budget the travel and hotel expenses for this conference (with 40,000 attendees) will be booked under? (NB: 40,000 at a conservative $10,000 per person is $400 million).

At least the $800 million pledged by Turnbull so far is coming out of our existing foreign aid budget. So we’re in the clear, for now…

Buckle in, there’s another 10 days of this crap to go and the only guarantee is that a lot money will be pissed against the wall.

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Sydney raids: Police storm homes in Merrylands as the line between Jihadis and Middle Eastern crime blurs

POLICE say the line between Middle Eastern organised crime and extremism has blurred after they uncovered threats to shoot up Merrylands police station.

The homes of two well known Sydney families, the Hauochars and the ­Alameddines, were raided by police yesterday after Facebook threats were uncovered.

The Alameddines, relatives of the man accused of supplying the gun that killed Curtis Cheng, and the family of one-eyed Osman Haouchar, detained on returning from the Middle East last week, brawled just hours after the 26-year-old landed. Neither family would help police.

Assistant Commissioner Mark Jenkins said raids were organised crime-­related but there was no longer a definitive line between Middle Eastern organised crime and homegrown Islamic radicals. “The lines have blurred,” he said.

Mr Jenkins would not say if the counter-terrorism unit was involved in the raids but said despite “no items of interest” being found at ­either premises, police would continue investigations.

“(The Parramatta attack) has increased the threat environment for police and that threat environment is high … we will act very, very quickly in relation to specific information that we receive on those particular threats,” Mr Jenkins said.

No one was charged after the raids or in relation to the incident between the families.

NSW Police said the searches were being “conducted under the powers of firearms prohibition orders which were previously served on a number of men linked to the addresses being searched”.

The MEOC squad began an investigation into the alleged threats two weeks ago.

It is understood that a number of people at both houses were subject to the Firearms Prohibition Act, which gives police the power to swoop without a warrant.

“We will use a suite of powers when it comes to these types of threats and we make no apologies for that,” he said.

Assistant Commissioner Jenkins said the operation was about ensuring the safety of police and the community, and followed information about the threat against a police station in greater Sydney involving a firearm.

“Any threat to police officers or police premises is of major concern and taken extremely seriously, as demonstrated by the operation we undertook today,” Mr Jenkins said.

“We will continue to take every precaution necessary to protect our officers and the safety of the wider community, and will respond swiftly to any specific threats that are received.

“As this is an ongoing operation, no further details are currently available but we will endeavour to provide an update later today.”

This morning’s raids follow on from a family feud between the Alamaddines — the relatives of the man accused of supplying the gun which killed Curtis Cheng in the Parramatta shooting — and the family of one-eyed Osman Haouchar, 26, who was detained upon returning from the Middle East last week.

The operation is being led by the Middle Eastern Organised Crime squad and is not believed that counter-terrorism police are involved.

Osman Haouchar told The Daily Telegraph he was angered the raids had been branded as terror-related and that they had been a waste of “taxpayer money”.

Police were called to the Haouchar home just hours after Mr Haouchar landed in Australia last week, to break up a heated argument between members of the two families. Neither party co-operated with police at the time.

Mr Haouchar told family and friends he moved to Antakya on the Turkish-Syrian border in February. He posted pictures taken in the town to social media and listed his occupation as “humanitarian aide”.

He was questioned by Australian Federal Police for more than four hours when he touched down at Sydney airport from Dubai but was released without charge.  He had been travelling with two women, thought to be his mother and sister.

Talal Alamaddine, 22, was recently refused bail after he was charged with supplying the gun which was used by teen terrorist Farhad Jabar, 15, to execute Mr Cheng in October.

Police are urging anyone with information in relation to this incident to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 while Assistant Commissioner Jenkins urges anyone with knowledge of threats to police or police stations to call triple-0.

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Target Australia praised for using real women in latest catalogue



WOMEN of Australia are rejoicing and heaping praise on Target Australia for breaking away from tradition this Christmas.

Their latest Christmas catalogue features their new range of summer bikinis being modelled by women of varying sizes and body shapes as well as differing ages. And women of Australia were quick to notice and thank the retailer for showing “real women”.

Their Facebook page has been inundated with people applauding the retail giant’s decision, something Target Spokesperson, Kristene Reynolds is more than happy to see.

“We’re thrilled with the amazing response that has been generated on social media for the new swimwear catalogue as we are continuously committed to promoting diversity and celebrating all women,” Reynolds said.

“In August of this year we launched the Every Body campaign with the introduction of size 16 mannequins in store and women of all shapes and sizes across our TV, digital and print campaigns. Both initiatives are small but vital steps in continuing Target’s promise to make quality style and fashion not only more affordable but also more accessible and relevant for women.”

But it’s not just the “real women” getting a run in Target’s new advertising, regular blokes are also appearing in their pages.

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Behind the ‘white student unions’ springing up at Australian universities

SO-CALLED white student unions are springing up at universities across Australia, charged with supporting and defending the interests of white students who they say are becoming marginalised from on-campus life and political debate.

At least seven unofficial unions have formed at rapid speed in the past week, claiming to represent students of European descent at the University of Queensland, the University of Southern Queensland, the University of Technology, Sydney, Macquarie University, Western Sydney University, the University of NSW and the University of Western Australia.

However, there are allegations that the movement is in fact an elaborate attempt to troll universities and the media, by the likes of users of online bulletin boards 4chan and 8chan.

If it is a hoax, it is a pretty sophisticated one, with members reaching out to news.com.au to share their views on the need to “advance our interests as white students”.

The proliferation of white student unions follows a similar trend in the US, where groups have built considerable support on social media and many intend to establish an on-campus presence in the new year. However, this has also been dismissed as a hoax.

Australian universities have distanced themselves from these unofficial groups, which are copping backlash on social media by fellow students and others who accuse them of white supremacy and racism. Responses to the groups on social media have ranged from “be proud of your heritage!” to “f*** off Nazis”.

Others have responded with utter incredulity: “This page is satire, right?” one person asked.

But the students behind the unions deny white pride is akin to racism, and argue they have as legitimate a place in university life as any other student group.

‘ALL WE WANT IS EQUALITY’

The White Students Union at the Western Sydney University, which formed over the weekend and is already “into the double digits” of members, is “not out to antagonise anyone”, according its spokesman.

The spokesman, who approached news.com.au to write a story, said he was a 24-year-old journalism student and gave us his name, but we have chosen not to publish it because we could not verify it.

He said the group, which will seek formal registration with the university in 2016 and already has a six-person committee, was designed to “advance our interests as white students and promote a safe space where we can come together as a community and organise”.

“We’re a genuine group, we’re not doing it to troll anyone,” he told news.com.au.

“If you roll up to any university these days you’ll have gay safe spaces, Muslim safe spaces: in the last four or five years it’s become very politically correct.

“That’s great. I’m as PC as they come. We’re staying within the narrative. All we want is equality.”

He said he was “absolutely” expecting a backlash, but wanted to “test the boundaries of what they’re willing to acknowledge”.

“We just thought, why not? Everyone else is doing it, why can’t we do it? Anecdotally we have a lot of support from the ethnic students,” he said.

“Our main antagonists are actually the older, white academics. These people say they’re all about equality. The academics try to build this narrative that nobody supports this stuff, but it’s happening. We’re just using that language ourselves.”

Despite the hoax claims, universities are taking the rise of these unions seriously.

In a statement, a spokesman for Western Sydney University said the group was not an official or authorised student group, adding: “The university prides itself on the diversity of its university community and condemns any action that seeks to undermine this.”

The University of Technology, Sydney, and Macquarie University both said white student unions formed by their students were not official and did not reflect the views of the universities or the majority of their students.

In the “About” section of the Facebook page for the UTS White Student Union, it says the group was “advancing the rights for the people of European descent” and “anyone from any background can join”.

A spokeswoman for Macquarie University said it had publicly contacted the administrators of the page yesterday, requesting that they remove the campus image and refrain from referring to themselves as “a student organisation at Macquarie University”.

“We understand this page is likely to be part of a wider hoax, stemming from North America, nevertheless we are continuing our investigations into the origin of this page,” the spokeswoman told news.com.au.

A spokeswoman for the University of NSW said a Facebook page for the UNSW White Student Union was “in no way related” to UNSW or its student groups. “The university will be asking Facebook to delete the page,” the spokeswoman said.

The University of Queensland went so far as to condemn the University of Queensland White Student Union, which was formed last Tuesday, as a “racist web hoax”.

On its Facebook page, which has 378 likes, the University of Queensland White Student Union group rails against university overcrowding and “rich international students” outbidding white Australian students for rental housing and casual work.

“We’re forced to put up with an overcrowded campus that hosts thousands more students than it was ever designed for. Not enough parking, not enough toilets, not enough computers, not enough study spaces,” a post dated November 24 reads.

“We’re forced to do group work with internationals who can’t speak English, we carry the load and do all the work while our marks are dragged down.

“We’re forced to put up with the anti-social behaviour of a particular group of students who treat study spaces as social spaces and constantly attempt to ‘reserve’ public resources such as computers. Enough is enough.”

The founders of the UQ group asked not to be identified but said they represented white students “who’ve had their voices silenced by political correctness”.

“Individual people can be bullied into submission but as a group we can’t be silenced,” the group told news.com.au

“Political correctness and free speech are issues that are becoming more and more important.”

The group said existing student organisations were “obsessed with catering to minorities” and they planned to establish their own society on campus in 2016.

“We’re very clear on our position that white people have every right to organise themselves and act collectively to further their mutual interests,” they said.

“We don’t think whites are inherently ‘superior’ and definitely don’t think they should ‘rule over’ anybody else.

“We think the ideas and issues we’re raising have become more relevant to students as a new strain of political correctness has swept across the Western word over the past few years promoting ideas like ‘white privilege’. There are all these nasty ideas around now that white people, particularly white men, are always ‘privileged’ regardless of their background and personal circumstances and that if they suffer hardship they deserve it, and that white people are the cause of everything that’s wrong in the world.”

News.com.au asked the spokesman to prove that he was a legitimate student at the university, but he said he thought it was in his best interests to “maintain anonymity” due to death threats the group had received.

Third-year University of Western Australia student Michael (who did not wish to reveal his last name) said he founded the UWA White Student Association on the weekend.

He said ensuring all students and staff spoke fluent English, making sure “the full breadth of white, European holidays and festivities” were celebrated on campus, getting racist attacks on white students recognised as racism, and having the recently dumped European studies major reinstated were among the issues his group intended to lobby for.

“Our basic aims are to represent the interests of white students on campus, as well as do our bit to reverse what we view as the rapid decline of Western civilisation, caused by mass immigration resulting in a clash of values, and the decline of family values,” Michael told news.com.au.

A spokesman for UWA said the university did not endorse “behaviours and actions which are deemed to be racially and culturally intolerant or offensive”.

“UWA has a strong track record on promoting cultural and religious diversity and the university is committed to produce graduates who are intellectually and emotionally comfortable with difference,” the spokesman said.

In response to accusations of racism, Michael says he and the group were not racists and “we never will be”.  “Supporting white students doesn’t imply hatred of other races, it’s not a logical accusation,” he said.  “We would be happy to work with other ethnic clubs to fulfil mutual goals.

“(Groups that represent ethnic minority groups) are nothing new, and we don’t have an issue with them. What is new is the increasing difficulty white students face in expressing their views, identity, or culture on campus without being shouted down and labelled.

“White students are not a minority, but they are currently being treated worse than most minorities, if they break rank with the left-wing multicultural orthodoxy that is hellbent of persecuting expression of whiteness.”

On its Facebook page, the UWA White Student Association points out that the university already has a Singapore Students Association and an African Student Union, among other groups, so it was “about time white students organised and started working together”.

A RISING TREND

The emergence of white student unions at universities in the US, including Berkeley and Harvard, have been suggested to be a response to a wave of recent anti-racism protests. One such union at the University of Illinois sprung up hours after a black solidarity event was held on campus. Others, however, have been revealed as hoaxes.

Dr Peter Gale from the David Unaipon College of Indigenous Education at the University of South Australia told news.com.au the parallel emergence of such groups in Australia was not the first time mainstream society has attempted to redress what many perceived to be “reverse racism”.

He said it was “not unrelated” to our current political climate.

“We can go back to the late 1990s with the rise of Pauline Hanson and the One Nation Party where there was a backlash from groups within mainstream Australia who even claimed there was reverse racism,” he said.

“Then we had an intensification of what I term as a politics of fear following September 11 so discourse around reverse racism increased following that.

“And unfortunately there’s a perception problem where many people don’t recognise the ongoing inequalities and difficulties that many minority groups within Western countries generally are still experiencing, which contributes to a level of resentment when we have affirmative action programs for those seeking to address disadvantage that’s been experienced by some groups.

“So where we may have a scholarship program for indigenous students, or we may have programs that seek to enhance the experience of international students on campus, and that’s perceived at discrimination, it’s very disappointing when people take that position.”

Dr Gale said it was also disappointing some people who were part of mainstream Australia didn’t “have an appreciation for the privileged position” of being at university.

“They certainly don’t have the experience of many minority groups that have had to overcome many difficulties and inequalities to get to a privileged position of being able to study at a tertiary level,” he said.

“There are many groups within Australian society where there is an ongoing inequality in terms of the participation rates in just getting to university. There's still an ongoing inequality for indigenous people in accessing university.

“We need far more of an emphasis on improving relations between groups within society rather than responses that are going to create further divisions.

“I’d be concerned that there’s an emphasis on what are the benefits for one particular group over another particular group. we should be working together to enhance interculturalism rather than further separation and segregation between groups.”

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Government contributions to private schools

This is a hoary Leftist whine below.  Typically of Leftism it looks only at superficialities.  The underlying point that parents who send their children to private schools relieve the public sector from educating them is overlooked.  That is a big saving for the public system so the Australian Federal government reimburses the private schools part of what their kids would have drawn from the public system. Monica seems unaware of that point -- a point that is something of a "third rail" in Australian politics -- As Biffo Latham discovered when he tried to cut it back.  It is in other words fair and seen as fair

American conservatives would wonder at Australia's system. Where they struggle to get voucher programs going, the Australian Federal government has for decades done the equivalent. They directly give all private schools substantial taxpayer money!  And that gives wider choice. Where such programs get up in America, it mostly means parents get the chance of sending their kid to a poor Catholic school.  In Australia you can send your kid to the top private school in town and only pay part of the costs.  So 40% of Australian teens in fact go to a private High School

Monica Dux

It is a myth that elite private schools are entitled to all the bells and whistles they enjoy because parents have paid for them. This quickly falls apart if you think about it. Private schools receive huge sums of money from the public purse; very nearly as much money as government schools. If that money was being used to keep struggling private schools afloat, then it might be justified. But in many cases it is in fact used to fund the educational "excellence" that we hear about in private school advertising campaigns – state-of-the-art sports grounds, pools, outstanding facilities of every kind. As commentator Jane Caro recently observed, one school is now providing on-site baristas, subsidised by our taxes.

The myth that underpins this – that parents are simply making a choice, and are themselves funding that choice – serves to obscure the gross inequality at the heart of our education system. The implication is that parents who send their kids to state schools should stop complaining about the under-resourced, overcrowded public system because they have chosen it. They weren't willing to pay, so their kids deserve what they get.

As a teenager I was acutely aware of this divide. It was first pointed out to me in grade 6, when one of my classmates informed me that the high school I'd be attending was a "dog school", the crap Catholic school where no one really wanted to send their kids.  She, on the other hand, was going to the superior private school with hats, pressed uniforms and various state-of-the-art facilities.

Naturally, I was upset by the revelation that my school was for canines, as I'd naively assumed that my parents had chosen to send me there because it was closer to our home. But my classmate's spitefulness put me in my place, reminding me where I was from and what my parents could afford.

I don't know whether my nasty classmate got a better education than I did, but I'm pretty sure she would have come away with a greater sense of entitlement, and the self-confidence that typically goes with it. For entitlement grows naturally out of the myth that justifies the system. Her parents paid for her superior education, made sacrifices to afford it, so she was entitled to the benefits that it brought her.  

Yet once you recognise that the taxpayer is footing a very substantial part of the bill, and that elite private schools are effectively siphoning away funds that could have gone into the state system, you see the equation very differently. Far from being entitled to anything, children who benefit from expensive private educations are in fact indebted to the ordinary taxpayers who subsidised their swimming complexes and their baristas. It's everyone else who made the sacrifice – sending their kids to underfunded state schools, while the private sector hogged the education dollar.

As we grow older most of us stop believing in myths such as citizen's arrest. When will Australia grow up and see through the education myths that are doing a disservice to all our children?

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$1,300 bonus offered as part of Queensland public servant pay offer


So what did they do to earn a bonus?  Support the ALP of course.  They did nothing else.  At the time it was elected, it was said that the Palaszczuk government would be in the pocket of  the unions and now we see evidence of it

Public servants will receive a $1,300 cash bonus under a pay offer from the Queensland Government.

Treasurer Curtis Pitt said the Government had reached an in-principle agreement with 48,000 state employees and key unions.

But the bonus will not be paid before Christmas, as the deal must still be ratified by a union ballot, due early next year.

The revised wage offer is for a 2.5 per cent annual pay rise over the next three years.

Mr Pitt described the agreement as financially responsible, saying the bonus was back pay to compensate for the stall in wage negotiations under the LNP government.

"There's no magic or voodoo to this, this is essentially a process that we've tried to reach an in-principle settlement on before going to arbitration," he said.

"If this doesn't work, we go back to the drawing board and continue to negotiate, or alternatively it becomes an arbitrated matter.

"This isn't [as] though we're shelling out bonus payments left, right and centre here."

Mr Pitt said the offer was a reward for public servants "forced to endure three years of intransigence and attacks on their pay and conditions from the LNP".

"It's hardly surprising Campbell Newman and the LNP were unable to secure a replacement agreement given they were busy sacking public sector employees and cutting services.

"The LNP denied Queensland core public servants any pay rises for 16 months but the good news is that there's relief in sight prior to the Christmas break."

He said public servants would now get appropriate pay for their efforts.

"That's something I think all Queenslanders will support."

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Australia's astonishing economy does it again

24 years of continued economic growth. But the doomsayers never stop.  I suppose they think they have got to be right some day

Australian economic growth accelerated in the September quarter of 2015, increasing 0.9% leaving the annual rate of growth at 2.5%. Markets has been expecting a quarterly increase of 0.8%, with the annual rate ticking up to 2.4%.

The increase extends Australia’s phenomenal economic record, having not experienced a technical recession – two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth – since the June quarter of 1991.

That’s not a bad performance at all – 24 years of continued economic growth through period of turmoil such as the Asian and global financial crises.

The largest contribution to economic growth during the quarter came from exports of goods and services, up 4.6%, contributing 1.0 percentage points to the final growth figure. Imports fell by 2.4%, contributing 0.5 percentage points to growth.

The ABS note that the increase in exports was concentrated in commodities, which reflected strong growth in mining activity having been impacted by adverse weather conditions during the June quarter.

Household final consumption expenditure, the largest part of the Australian economy, increased 0.7% which contributed 0.4 percentage points to the quarterly GDP increase. Government consumption expenditure rose by a similar margin, contributing 0.1 percentage points to growth.

Gross fixed capital formation, both from the public and private sectors, partially offset the positive contributions to GDP listed above, largely due to weak mining and non-mining business investment and a reversal in government investment following a temporary boost military expenditure seen in the June quarter.

For the private sector, non dwelling construction dipped 5.3%, detracting 0.4 percentage points from growth, while machinery and equipment spending slid 4.6% in line with the weak business capital expenditure report released late last week. It detracted 0.2 percentage points from growth.

Public sector investment dropped 9.2% on the back of a fall in military spending, slicing 0.4 percentage points from the final GDP figure.

Elsewhere inventories subtracted 0.1 percentage points.

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Some advantages of living in "The lucky country"

I'm thankful, for instance, that I live in a country where unemployment is lower than almost any other place on the planet. Even if you exclude the developing world, we still do better than Canada, France, New Zealand, Britain and the US. And significantly better if you include other Western nations such as Greece and Spain where a quarter of the population still cannot get a job. Joblessness is a brutal experience but I'd rather it happen to me here than almost anywhere else.

And let's say that, after spending time in the unemployment queue, the best job I could find was one that paid only the minimum wage. I'm really thankful it'd be a minimum wage determined by an Australian commissioner, since ours is more generous than any other in the OECD. We pay nearly 13 per cent more than Ireland, 52 per cent more than the US, and 844 per cent more than Mexico.

While I'm at work, I'm extremely thankful there's a lower chance of being injured because workplaces here are governed by robust occupational health and safety laws. People working elsewhere aren't as fortunate. Our rate of workplace accidents is half that of Canada and Portugal, and almost a third of what Spanish employees endure. In terms of fatalities, our rate is 3.2 deaths for every 100,000 workers. In the US it's 5.2, in Canada it's 6.4, in Morocco it's 47.8.

I'm also thankful that my colleagues are more likely to love their work, to feel connected to their employer and to be innovative, all of which are encapsulated by the term "engagement". Levels of engagement are 50 per cent higher here than in Canada, and 2½ times greater than they are in France, the Netherlands, South Africa and Indonesia. Things get really bad in places like China (we're 400 per cent more engaged) and Croatia (800 per cent).

I'm thankful, too, that Australia is an incredibly fertile ground for the launch and growth of new businesses. Sydney, for example, ranks 16th on the list of the world's most start-up-friendly cities. That ranking is determined not only by the performance of start-ups but also by the funding they attract and the talent they employ. In regards to the annual growth in seed funding, we're second in the world – ahead of London, New York, Tel Aviv, Singapore, Paris and Silicon Valley.

Let's also take a look at productivity. The measure preferred by the OECD is the amount of GDP generated by every hour we work. Using that model, we're more productive than Britain and the European Union. In comparison with our friends across the Tasman, our productivity is almost 50 per cent higher.

So, are any of my comments a reason to become complacent? No. And have I cherry-picked only the most favourable statistics to tell a good story? Yep.

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Feminist gets a man fired for free speech

What the man said was undoubtedly an offence under Australia's hate speech laws and it would be hurtful for most women to be so described.  But if this had happened in the USA, it is probable that the speech would be regarded as protected by the 1st Amendment.  Though a defamation action could succeed if the utterance were held to be a serious claim rather than mere abuse.

I am not too critical of the outcome for Mr Nolan, however. He should learn some manners and stop abusing people he disagrees with. He will now have learnt that lesson, I assume.  Users of foul language tend to reveal themselves as unpleasant people and Mr Nolan's employers would appear to have seen it that way. 

The amusing thing, however, is that they may have fallen foul of Australia's unfair dismissal laws.  Firing a man for a single offence without warning is not normally allowed.  If he puts in a claim Mr Nolan might end up a few thousand dollars in front.

I don't think Ms Ford is beyond criticism in the matter, however. I think feminists are insane.  Any claim that there are no significant inborn differences between men and women betrays a severe lack of reality contact. And a lack of reality contact is the defining feature of insanity. 

So if Ms Ford is a feminist in that sense, I claim that she is insane.  Is that as bad as calling her a slut?  Rather worse, I suspect.  But it is a serious and reasoned claim by a Ph.D. psychologist with extensive academic publications on mental health issues so it will be amusing if Ms Ford takes issue with it. If she does not however she would appear to have let the claim stand.

We are often told that fat is a feminist issue too so how is it that the pictures of her in the newspapers show a slim person (as far as we can tell) when her appearances on TV show a woman who is -- dare I say it?  -- FAT.  That seems to me to show a certain hypocrisy


A SYDNEY man as been fired from his job as a hotel manager after calling popular feminist writer and commentator Clementine Ford a ‘sl**’ on Facebook. On Friday, Ms Ford shared a screenshot of her interaction with Michael Nolan with her 80,000 Facebook followers and tagged Mr Nolan’s employer Meriton Apartments in the post.

“I wonder if the folks over at Meriton Apartments are aware that a man listing himself as a supervisor for their business likes to leave comments on women’s Facebook pages calling them sl**s. I wonder if they are also aware that he is a racist,” she wrote. Mr Nolan has posted several racist jokes and memes on his personal Facebook page.

In a statement to Ms Ford, Meriton Apartments said they do not condone Mr Nolan’s behaviour and he has since been let go from his job. “Michael Nolan was removed from the Meriton site on Saturday 28th November pending an investigation, and as of 2:30pm today 30th November 2015, he no longer works for the Meriton Group,” the statement read.

Ms Ford hit back against those who criticised her for getting Mr Nolan fired.  'To anyone who suggests I have caused a man to lose his job, I’d like to say this: He is responsible for his actions. He is responsible for the things he writes and the attitudes he holds. “It is not my responsibility to hold his hand and coddle him when he behaves in an abusive manner just because it might have consequences for him.

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Paris climate talks: As world leaders open UN COP21 summit, Malcolm Turnbull rejects fossil fuel pledge

PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull won’t sign an international agreement to phase out fossil fuel subsidies amid concerns voiced by Nationals MPs it could jeopardise Australia’s diesel fuel rebates.

Mr Turnbull has opted out of signing the key fossil fuel subsidy reform communiqué at the international United Nations climate summit COP21 in Paris, a government spokeswoman confirmed.

The call to phase out the subsidies is being labelled the “missing piece of the climate change puzzle” and is led by New Zealand Prime Minister John Key.

More than 30 countries and hundreds of businesses have signed the communiqué calling for the ultimate elimination of fossil fuel subsidies, saying the cost should reflect both environmental costs and supply costs.

“The majority of fossil-fuel subsidies are also socially regressive, with benefits disproportionately skewed toward middle-and upper-middle income households,” the communiqué states. A partial phase out could generate 12 per cent of the emissions reduction needed by 2020 to be on the path towards limiting global warming to two degrees, it says.

However, Mr Turnbull won’t bow to international pressure and join the call after MPs back home raised concerns the agreement could harm diesel subsidies claimed by farmers and miners.

National’s MP George Christensen took to Twitter to vent his anger, saying the end of the rebate would cost jobs.

The Australian Conservation Foundation labelled the communiqué an early test for Australia at the major climate change conference.

“The diesel rebate is notorious because it means while Australian motorists pay 38 cents in tax on every litre of fuel they buy, some of the world’s biggest mining companies pay not a single cent in tax for the diesel they use in their mining operations,” foundation economist Matthew Rose said.

But National’s MP Barnaby Joyce maintains the diesel fuel rebate is not a subsidy. “Farmers and miners don’t use public roads, so why should they pay a public road tax?” he told the Australian newspaper.

The G20 and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation group agreed to phase out inefficient fuel subsidies in 2009.

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Paris climate summit: US hard line opens split on carbon

Deep divisions resurfaced ahead of last night’s opening of the Paris climate talks, with the US and Australia digging in to insist that developed nations’ historical responsibilities for carbon dioxide emissions be scrapped.

The issue has been a “red line” for developing nations led by India, which is pushing ahead with economic development to bring millions of people out of poverty.

A change to how historical carbon emissions are treated would require India and other nations to contribute more to future emissions cuts and climate finance.

A confidential “non-paper” discussion document issued by the US sets out the hard line that the US and Australia intend to take in the Paris talks.

Together with more than 100 world leaders, Malcolm Turnbull was due to address the Paris conference to outline Australia’s position early today.

Australia has pledged to cut carbon dioxide emissions by ­between 26 and 28 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.

The Prime Minister has said tougher cuts may be possible in future and has supported a UN process under which country pledges are reviewed every five years and progressively tougher measures agreed.

Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt has said he believes a deal is possible in Paris. “It won’t be a perfect outcome but I think it will be a critical outcome and it will be a success,” Mr Hunt said.

Big differences remain over whether a Paris agreement should be legally binding and how it will deal with the issues of historical ­responsibility for carbon dioxide emissions and who should fund and administer a $100 billion-a-year fund.

Underlining one of the major challenges to reaching a universal deal, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned last night that poor nations had a right to burn carbon to grow their economies.

Chinese intransigence on the issue of historical responsibility was largely blamed for the breakdown of the 2009 UN climate change talks in Copenhagen.

The US discussion paper brought the most contentious ­issues to the surface on day one.

At the previous round of ­climate talks in Bonn, Germany, last month, negotiators representing 80 per cent of the world’s population walked out when references to historical responsibilities were left out of the negotiating text.

They were subsequently ­reinstated, more than doubling the size of the text that has now made its way to Paris.

Leaking of the confidential US discussion paper has caused a ­furore in India, which has made keeping the issue of historical ­responsibility on global carbon ­dioxide emissions a condition of its agreement at the Paris talks.

US President Barack Obama and Mr Modi were due to share the stage at the opening ceremony of the Paris conference to announce new measures on ­research and development.

Behind the scenes, negotiators face significant hurdles in finalising a Paris text. A report in India’s Business Standard said that in the US discussion paper, the US said it wanted each country’s greenhouse gas reduction pled­ges determined independently by each nation rather than through a process of international negotiation.

The report said any move to remove the wall of differentiation between developed and developing countries would end any ­notion of historical responsibility.

The US position paper also wants developing countries to contribute to the climate funds in future and not just the developed countries as is required under ­existing UN arrangements.

Mr Modi issued his challenge as the 12-day conference opened.  “Justice demands that, with what little carbon we can still safely burn, developing countries are allowed to grow,” he wrote in the Financial Times. “The lifestyles of a few must not crowd out opportunities for the many still on the first steps of the development ladder.”

A spokesman for the ­Department of Foreign Affairs said Australia was aware of the US discussion paper.

“Like the US, we want a common platform for all countries to take action from 2020, moving past binary differentiation between developed and developing countries, and allowing for continuous improvement over time.”

In India, the US and Australian position is considered against the spirit of the UN negotiations. The existing UN convention distributes the burden of emissions reduction and other actions based on the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities, respective capabilities and national circumstances”.

Maintaining this position was fundamental to India agreeing to the Paris round talks. India claims it is not responsible for historical emissions and therefore should not be penalised in efforts to develop and alleviate poverty.

The US and Australia now wants the Paris agreement to focus only on existing economic capabilities of countries and their existing circumstances.

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Around 1 in 10 teaching students fail trial numeracy, literacy exam

It's mainly desperates who would want to teach in Australia's chaotic State schools -- and you can't expect much of desperates.  The States would have to get a handle on classroom discipline if better quality candidates are to be attracted to teaching 

About 10 per cent of teaching students failed to meet required standards of literacy and numeracy, results from a trial exam show.

About 5,000 students sat the test, which is designed to ensure teaching graduates are in the top 30 per cent of Australians when it comes to literacy and numeracy.

Of the students who took part, 92 per cent passed the literacy test and 90 per cent passed the numeracy test.

The testing was conducted in capital cities, as well as in Albury in New South Wales and Ballarat in Victoria.

If the results from the pilot study were replicated nationally, potentially 1,800 teaching graduates last year would have failed to make the grade.

The test will be mandatory from July next year and students will have to pass before they can graduate and go on to work in a classroom.

The Australian Education Union said the results showed a need for a minimum entry requirements for teaching courses.

Union president Correna Haythorpe said the Federal Government should focus on how students are selected for teaching training.

"We have had concerns for a number of years that entry standards for teaching courses are too low," she said.

"Students need to be identified and supported at the beginning of their teaching course, not find out at the end that they have not made the grade.

"We believe if the Government is serious about attracting the top 30 per cent, then they need to ensure minimum entry standards apply at the beginning of a teaching course."

Education Minister Simon Birmingham said the findings justified the Government's focus on teacher quality.

"Parents, principals, all stakeholders in school education should have complete confidence that graduates from our universities with teaching qualifications are among some of the best and brightest in the land," Senator Birmingham said.

"We are really putting it on the universities who are training our teachers to make sure they have confidence in the capabilities of teachers before they graduate.

"It's quite fair and reasonable that universities — as the providers of teaching graduates — should be providing teaching graduates that are of the highest possible standard."

From next year, it will be up to universities to decide whether to set the test as an entry requirement or to provide it during teaching training.

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Leftist moral blindness rolls on at New Matilda

Lissa Johnson, the tame psychologist at New Matilda, ignores most of the facts in her latest essay.  Someone has criticized her writing without getting to the heart of what she gets wrong so she gives a rather supercilious reply.  I excerpt the introduction to it below.  The last paragraph below encapsulates what she refuses to see and it doesn't get better from there on.  She deplores the Islamist attacks in Paris but adds:

"Our grief must be grief for all humanity, and all innocent victims, including victims of our own collective violence. I cited civilians killed and injured by US drone attacks in Yemen as examples"

Get it?  American attacks ON terrorists are as bad as attacks BY terrorists!

To adapt a saying by Mao, terrorists are fish that swim in the sea of the people so they are hard to kill without killing bystanders.  But we have to kill them before they kill others.  And the solution to that dilemma adopted by the American forces has been a very consistent one.  The Obama administration has been most careful in vetoing strikes where there is a likelihood of civilian casualties involved.  On some accounts two out of three target requests from the military are turned down.

The information available to U.S. military planners is of course not always perfect so some civilian casualties do occur.  The only way of totally avoiding civilian casualties would be to do nothing and let the terrorists continue on in their murderous ways. I guess that's what Lissa Johnson wants.

And American caution is not a recent development, the "JAGs" were regularly a great problem for American military men on the ground in Afghanistan.  Has Lissa ever heard of the JAGs?  If so, she promptly forgot it.  JAG stands for the Judge Advocate General's Corps, a branch of the U.S. military that aims to keep the actions of U.S. troops ethical and legal.  And in JAG guidelines, killing civilians is NOT legal. So in Afghanistan they refused many targeting requests on terrorists because it was not totally clear that they were terrorists -- sometimes leading to loss of life among American troops.

So our Lissa sees no difference between the actions of an armed force that goes out of its way to AVOID civilian casualties and an armed group who deliberately aim to INFLICT civilian casualties. Can there be bigger ethical blindness that that?  I can't see it.  She is not so much a disgrace as a pathetic Leftist fraud


I have recently been asked by news website the Tasmanian Times to respond to an article by freelance journalist Shane Humpherys, critiquing my analysis of the psychology behind the tragic Paris attacks.

Given that replying offers the opportunity of a case study in the psychology of systemic violence, and the metaphorical head-kicking that can come from challenging the status quo, I thought it was worthwhile providing a response.

My initial article outlined the shared psychological foundations – and human cost – of all intergroup violence, state-sanctioned or not. One main point was that victims of Western violence are just as human, just as dead or injured, and their families just as bereaved as victims of terrorist attacks.

I argued that if the Paris attacks are to be an attack on all humanity, then our grief must be grief for all humanity, and all innocent victims, including victims of our own collective violence. I cited civilians killed and injured by US drone attacks in Yemen as examples.

SOURCE






Turnbull government wants power to make internet companies do 'things' for national security

This is dangerous legislation. The powers it gives could fall into the hands of a future Leftist government and be used to censor criticism of that government

The Turnbull government is aiming to pass controversial new laws by 2016 that will give Attorney-General Senator George Brandis unprecedented powers to make phone and internet companies do unspecified "things" if he believes they are hindering national security.

Senator Brandis and Communications Minister Mitch Fifield on Friday afternoon released the second draft of the Telecommunications Sector Security Reforms (TSSR) Amendment Bill, which is designed to stop spies and criminals from using equipment and services to hack into telecommunications network.

But industry sources are worried the bill also gives sweeping and unspecified powers to the Attorney-General to force phone and internet providers such as Telstra and Optus to do whatever the government of the day wants.

"The Attorney-General will be provided with an additional directions power to direct a [telco] to do or not do a specified thing," the bill's explanatory memorandum says. "The types of things the Attorney-General can direct a [telco] to do or not do are not specified or limited, with the exception of the limitation imposed in section 313B.

"Section 315B provides the Attorney-General with the option to give a written direction requiring a [telco] to do, or refrain from doing, a specified act or thing within the period specified in the direction."

Under the current laws, the Attorney-General can already shut down any service that causes or helps acts that hurt Australia's national security.

But the new overarching laws add more layers of nuance to the off-switch, potentially affecting everything from the equipment being bought by telcos to the executives they hire and everything in-between.

This means Telstra could be ordered to stop buying network equipment from certain Israeli or Chinese vendors if ASIO, with the support of the Attorney-General, decided they were potential security threats. Companies failing to obey would face fines of up to $10 million.

The original version of the bill raised the ire of telcos who warned that stopping vendors from certain countries could limit the pool of potential suppliers and jack up the price of equipment.

As first revealed by Fairfax Media in July, tech and telco giants alike united against the bill, which they described as "regulatory over-reach".

But the bill does come with fresh safeguards, which the government believes will prevent any abuse of power.

The Attorney-General will have to speak with the Communications Minister and negotiate with the telco affected before going ahead with the action. They will also have to work out the potential financial cost of the actions and face the potential of merit reviews.

"The intention is that government agencies and [telcos] continue to operate in the current environment of co-operative engagement," it says. "If national security outcomes cannot be achieved on a co-operative basis, the Attorney-General can consider requiring compliance through the issue of a formal direction."

The government recognises that its moves could raise the cost of doing business and go against the duty of publicly listed companies to do the best thing for their shareholders.

"Fiduciary duties to shareholders can operate as a disincentive to invest in security measures for the purpose of protecting national security interests," it says. "For these reasons, a company board may prefer a clear mandate to govern its decision making."

The Communications Alliance is the telecommunications industry's peak body and its chief executive John Stanton told Fairfax Media that his members were "still digesting" the revised draft bill.

"The amendments that have been made to the draft bill are reflective of the concerns that Communications Alliance and other stakeholders expressed about the original draft, and certainly represent a more balanced approach to meeting the objectives outlined by government," he says.

"Communications Alliance and our members will work through the detail and look forward to engaging with government and the Parliamentary Joint Committee of Intelligence and Security to make any further necessary refinements to the legislation."

SOURCE






Police prey on victims of domestic violence

Victorian police officers have been sexually preying on victims of domestic violence in a dramatic widening of the sexual harassment scandal facing the force.

A Fairfax Media investigation can also reveal that a soon-to-be-released report by the state's human rights agency has found that levels of harassment or discrimination inside the Victoria Police may be on par or worse than that previously discovered inside Australia's Defence Force.

It is understood the abuse or harassment of vulnerable victims of crime, including domestic violence victims, by a small number of police officers has been detected by the force's professional standards unit and Victoria's anti-corruption agency, IBAC. 

Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton was recently briefed on the issue and the force is considering announcing how it will deal with it when it responds in the next fortnight to the separate harassment and discrimination inquiry conducted by the Victoria's Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

The abuse of victims of crime involves a small number of police officers attempting to form sexual or social relationships with victims of domestic violence who the officers have met while investigating the victim's abuse.

The abuse of civilian victims of crime by police and the problem of sexual harassment and discrimination inside the force are viewed by senior police as over-lapping issues because they share a root cause - the abuse of power by some police to prey on, harass or discriminate against others. Those harassed or abused are mostly female and victims often do not formally report their abuse, believing it will not be taken seriously.

It is understood some of victims of crime have made initial complaints to the police's internal affairs unit about their alleged abuse or harassment by police, but have later decided not to press criminal charges or make a formal statement.

Police sources have described one of the perpetrators - a suburban officer who formed a sexual relationship with a domestic violence victim he met while on duty - as having repeatedly harassed female colleagues.

"He is a serial offender," said an official who had reviewed the case.

In response to questions about the abuse of vulnerable victims of crime, a Victoria Police spokeswoman said: "Any police member who exploits their position or takes advantage of a vulnerable person will be investigated by Professional Standards Command.

"We do not believe that this issue is widespread across the force. The majority of our officers joined the job because they want to help people.

"We encourage any person who feels that they have been mistreated by an officer to contact Professional Standards Command or IBAC. Protecting and supporting victims is an absolute focus for Victoria Police."

Sources close to Victoria's  Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission told Fairfax Media that senior police officers were recently briefed by the agency and warned that its findings were damning.

"It's going to be a sad day for the police force," a source said. "Some of the issues discovered are even worse than what was found in the ADF."   

Thousands of police officers have reported incidents of discrimination or harassment to  the commission when they filled out a survey sent to them as part of the agency's inquiry.

The  commission's inquiry was set up by former commissioner Ken Lay, who also formed a police taskforce, Salas, to investigate officers for abusing or harassing colleagues. Salas is investigating around 35 cases, including one historical allegation of rape.

 The commission's Victoria Police report has made some similar findings as the 2012 report by the national human rights commission into the Australian Defence Force.

The ADF report, which caused significant fall-out for the defence services, found an entrenched culture of discrimination against women. This culture also discouraged the reporting of sexual harassment.

SOURCE






"Paywave" problems: Whatever happened to personal responsibility?

Why in 2015 are people still leaving valuables, including credit cards, unattended in their car?

Did anyone else cringe and shake their heads when WA's top cop Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan hit the front page wanting to ban "tap and go" credit cards, claiming the lack of security around the technology is helping fuel the state's rising crime problems?

Commissioner O'Callaghan says the tap-and-go or PayPass cards, which enable purchases up to $100 without a PIN, are highly sought-after by criminals and this was helping to explain why theft offences were soaring.

Why don't we put that another way? We have a cohort of Perth residents who simply lack common sense when it comes to leaving valuables, especially visible ones, in their cars after years and years of advice not to do so. 

We do indeed have a rising theft problem but experience tells us that many of these car break-ins are opportunistic crimes triggered at the spur of the moment when the thief spots a 'golden opportunity'.

How many times do people need to be told not to leave handbags or briefcases on front seats, not to leave car doors and windows unlocked, not to leave visible cash or coins in the console, not to leave sunglasses, not to leave their GPS visible, not to leave mobile phones, not to leave iPads or tablets in full view for thieves to spot and snatch?

Seriously, regardless of whether there is a current increase in the crime rate, for at least the last 20 years people have known not to leave belongings in their car to tempt passing criminals.

When you park in places like train station car parks, sadly, it is a fact of modern life that you do run the risk of your vehicle being broken into. But you also know that by not leaving things on the front or back seats in plain view to an opportunistic thief you are immediately minimising your risk of becoming another statistic.

Even if an offender does smash your window and search through your car they will leave empty-handed and disappointed. But more often than not, if they can't see any 'loot' to tempt them they will just move on.

The Commissioner's comments whipped up a week of media debate about which tap-and-go cards were more at risk, were they attached to credit or debit, whether or not a person's bank could disable the mechanism on the card and the usual range of conspiracy theories triggered whenever banks are in the news.

None of this should matter. The fact is, I don't know anyone who leaves a tap-and-go card by itself in a car in full view to passers-by. Most people would put these cards in their wallets or purses.

If someone is then silly enough to leave a wallet, purse or handbag in full view for a thief, then what on earth do they expect will happen?

Credit card fraud cost the banks nearly $400 million last year. However, that figure is quite low compared with the $650 billion spent by Australians on their cards.

While $400 million is indeed a huge amount, it needs to be put into perspective.

We are living in a society now that is always trying to find a myriad of excuses for things that simply don't deserve any excuses. 

If you do not know by now the common sense rules of life in not leaving your valuables in sight in your vehicle, then if you become a victim of car theft, then you only really have yourself to blame.

WA Police do not keep specific statistics on credit card fraud. The Australian Bankers Association denies there has been a significant increase in frauds linked to the tap and go technology.

PayPass cards are popular because consumers want the quick convenience of literally tapping and going.

Card providers also guarantee to fully reimburse their customers if they become victims of card fraud which increases the appeal of the cards but paradoxically this benefit may be encouraging people to not look after the card as well as they could.

We instinctively don't leave cash lying around. Years ago we were all told that when we got a cheque book we should treat it like cash and always protect it. The same message came with the advent of more traditional credit cards that required a signature which ironically back then at time of purchase was often not done properly anyway.

So why on earth are people leaving these tap-and-go cards all over the place and not treating them like cash, or cheque books or traditional credit cards?

Life is a risk but if you don't heed repeated warnings and choose to flout the well-known rules as if they don't apply to you then you are simply asking for trouble.

Most of us have been victims of theft at some stage of our lives, whether it be our own stupidity or not. I do share Commissioner O'Callaghan's concerns that just over 8,000 cars were broken into last month.

But he needs to call a spade a spade and banning tap-and-go is not the way to go. He needs to tell West Australians to stop being so naïve and slack and start taking more personal responsibility for many avoidable situations.

It is unfair to deny the vast majority the convenience of tap-and-go technology because of the slackness of a few people who won't accept responsibility for their actions and choose not to secure a valuable possession. 

SOURCE