Coronavirus: Sweden defied zealots and never met its Waterloo

Sweden’s impressive legacy — ABBA, dynamite, Ikea, for instance — has expanded significantly in 2020, having provided the world with an example of a sane response to what’s turned out a relatively mild pandemic.

The Scandinavian nation deserves enduring credit from reasonable people everywhere for resisting the destructive authoritarian mindset that enveloped democratic nations this year. Sweden was viciously attacked by supposed experts and mainstream media all year that if it didn’t crush commerce by fiat and suspend civil liberties indefinitely, as has occurred in Europe, many US states, and of course Victoria, more than 90,000 Swedes would die.

The army of lockdown zealots will never be able to say lockdowns are essential to avert disaster, if that wasn’t already clear enough from Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.

Historians will struggle to see a public policy disaster in Sweden. The number of deaths there from all causes so far this year, just less than 68,000, is fewer than over the same period in 2015, adjusted for population size. Far from an apocalypse, the total death rate from January 1 to September 20 is barely distinguishable from recent years, notwithstanding a jump from 2019, during which it was unusually low.

While its European neighbours, which bludgeoned their economies for months, now battle “second waves” (albeit with far lower death rates), Sweden has barely had any COVID-19 deaths since mid-July alongside a much milder uptick in so-called cases, which in any case often mean little.

The feared “exponential growth” never occurred (it never occurred anywhere). Swedish hospitals were never “overwhelmed”.

But Sweden’s GDP, which plunged 8.3 per cent in the second quarter, tanked anyway so should it have locked down too and “saved lives”? It’s a fatuous argument, faulty on its own terms, even assuming lockdowns do “save lives” overall.

For a start, its economy suffered in part because its larger neighbours, which themselves endured far bigger drops in GDP, locked down. Second, media fear-mongering left people unreasonably terrified, which, naturally, saw Swedes curtail economic activity.

In any case, looking at GDP over three months is hardly definitive. Sweden’s economy is expected to grow 4 per cent next year, twice as fast as ours, according to the Reserve Bank.

Having inflicted less economic chaos, Sweden’s gross government debt won’t rise beyond 40 per cent, according to its September budget papers, while Canberra’s debt ceiling will be lifted to the equivalent of 55 per cent of GDP along with far bigger budget deficits.

The bigger point is this: the short-term trajectory of GDP matters little. As I’ve argued for years in this column, it’s a flawed, dated measure of prosperity.

In Sweden, no one will be cowering in masks for years; Swedish police are not dragging people screaming from cars or invading homes to stop Facebook sharing. They aren’t shutting internal borders, stopping weddings, funerals or undermining children’s education. The Swedish parliament, unlike Victoria’s, isn’t using the pandemic as an excuse to increase police power. And the Swedish people never had to endure rambling, ridiculous daily press conferences for months about “cases” that belong in a scene from Nineteen Eighty-Four.

And the Swedish government hasn’t set a precedent, which will hang over business investment considerations here for a generation, that whenever a virus emerges, businesses and households will be shut down for months.

None of these factors is reflected in GDP.

There was never a health crisis in Sweden. And there hasn’t been one in Australia, either.

In the first six months of the year, there were 134 fewer deaths from respiratory diseases in Australia, which includes pneumonia and influenza, and 617 additional deaths from cancer compared with the average over 2015-19, according to the ABS’s provisional mortality statistics, released last week. Doctor-certified deaths are within the normal range.

Sweden hasn’t hitched its economic future — and the mobility of its people — to the prospect of a vaccine, either.

As our budget will make clear, forecasts of a return to normality will be contingent on an effective vaccine emerging, and one people will want to take. Given the survival rate for people under 70 is about 99.9 per cent — if they get the virus — it’s unclear how many will want to. Drug companies, under immense pressure to find a vaccine in months rather than the usual eight to 10 years, are understandably trying to wriggle out of liability if something goes wrong.

There are 243 candidate vaccines, of which nine are in stage-three trials, where the wider population testing takes place. There’s no guarantee of success. There’s been no vaccine developed for HIV, for instance.

“It is likely individuals will need two doses of a vaccine and this may need to be repeated every year,” says JP Morgan analyst David Mackie, who took stock of vaccination developments last month. “With a global population of 7.8 billion, this would require 4.7 billion individuals to be vaccinated with two doses each, separated by three to four weeks, and possibly repeated every year.”

Australia’s coronavirus elimination strategy leaves many questions unanswered. How long will we be prevented from leaving, if there’s no effective vaccine? Given the virus is contagious, is it realistic to keep it out forever (assuming it’s not prevalent here)? If not, why has Victoria imposed a 20-week lockdown on its biggest city?

Nations that don’t lock down their populations for months have been cast as immoral, but the truth is more complex. Leadership requires balancing competing objectives, governing for the long term, and being honest with people when new information emerges.

It will require a few more years of data to work out the optimal strategies to fight future pandemics. But what’s clear already — certainly to citizens of Victoria, New Zealand, Israel, the UK and Europe — is that one lockdown, as promised by proponents, does not eradicate the coronavirus.

And let’s drop the idea Swedes care less for their elderly than we do. Sweden spends the equivalent of 3.2 per cent of GDP on its aged-care facilities, compared to about 1 per cent here.

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Permitted NSW fire-prone clearing doubled

About time

The NSW government will more than double the amount of native vegetation that can be bulldozed around fire-prone homes — from 10m to 25m — ahead of the upcoming bushfire season, according to leaked documents.

The proposed amendments, contained in a cabinet-in-­confidence memo obtained by The Australian, fall significantly short of the 50m buffer sought by some senior Berejiklian government ministers, setting up further division over contentious environmental policies.

“Amendments include … 25m of vegetation clearing along fence lines according to a yet-to-be- ­approved code covering clearing in endangered and threatened species habitats, riparian ­corridors and clearing for non-­bushfire risk mitigation pur­poses,” the document reads.

Cabinet will on Tuesday consider the government’s response to the NSW bushfire inquiry that was established in July in response to the catastrophic Black Summer bushfires.

The fires, which lasted four months, killed 34 people and destroyed more than 3000 homes across the country.

The cabinet documents also reveal that funding required to put in place the inquiry’s 76 recommendations would reach $220m in 2020-21 and $1.09bn in the next four years.

The most significant costs this year would include $28m for a state strategic fire trail network, $27m for protective clothing and equipment and $18m for a tanker fleet upgrade.

While the inquiry, led by former NSW police deputy commission Dave Owens and former chief scientist Mary O’Kane, made no findings in relation to land clearing, it did make observations about the current scheme.

Under the “10/50” policy, homeowners are allowed to clear trees within 10m of their property and underlying vegetation — but not trees) up to 50m away. “Many question the effectiveness of the scheme, given many properties cleared in accordance with the scheme were still affected by the fires,” the inquiry report noted.

The cabinet submission will propose 25m of vegetation clearing to take place along fence lines “to simplify complex vegetation clearing requirements”.

“The (Rural Fire Service) case is that 25m is needed for effective firefighting regardless of the state of the boundary,” it reads.

Sources with knowledge of government discussions said moderate-aligned ministers, including Environment Minister Matt Kean and Planning Minister Rob Stokes, were pushing for as little change as possible to the existing scheme.

Others, including Deputy Premier John Barilaro and Emergency Services Minister David Elliott, wanted more clearing.

Critics of the “10/50” rule contend that it has been misused by landholders to enhance development opportunities, scenic views and property values.

In its submission to the inquiry, the National Parks Association of NSW recommended repealing the rule in part because it relied on self-assessment.

The NSW Wildlife Council agreed, saying: “Allowing clearing without expert approval risks environmental considerations, threatened species and ecological communities being either disregarded or inadequately assessed.”

Mr Barilaro and the Nationals publicly brawled with Gladys Bere­jiklian over another environmental policy — the protection of koala habitats — only last month.

He has since taken mental health leave and is absent from parliament, meaning he will miss the cabinet discussion.

Mr Elliott, Mr Kean and Mr Stokes all declined to comment, citing cabinet confidentiality.

“(The) financial impacts for the state government will be substantial,” the document reads. “The plan would implement all 76 of the report’s recommendations over several years to spread financial impacts (sic) over several budgets.”

Cabinet will also discuss whether the government should compensate landowners for damage caused to fence lines, a question that featured prominently during the inquiry.

It heard that public land managers — including the NSW Nat­ional Parks and Wildlife Service and Forestry Corporation — were often perceived as “bad neighbours” because they did not always reduce fuel loads on their side of the boundary.

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University funding reforms set to pass Senate after Centre Alliance confirms support

The new funding will prioritize STEM courses

An overhaul of university funding that will see fees for humanities courses more than double will soon become law, after minor party Centre Alliance threw its support behind the changes.

Centre Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie confirmed on Tuesday morning the party would support the reforms, handing the federal government the crucial vote it needs to pass its Job-Ready Graduates bill through the Senate.

Ms Sharkie, the party’s education spokeswoman, said Centre Alliance had negotiated a deal with the Morrison government that would secure more places for South Australian students and more protections for students who failed first-year subjects in exchange for its support.

“These legislative reforms are by no means perfect but overall Centre Alliance recognises what the government is trying to achieve and what the university sector is calling for, which is funding certainty following the 2017 indexation cuts,” Ms Sharkie said in a statement. “Without change, many universities were at risk of significant job losses and campus closures going into next year.”

The government needed one extra vote to pass its reforms, which will be debated in the Senate on Tuesday, after striking a deal last week to secure One Nation’s two votes.

Centre Alliance senator Stirling Griff emerged as the make-or-break vote last week, after Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie ruled out her support, saying the reforms would “makes university life harder for poor kids and poor parents”.

Labor, the Greens and Independent senator Rex Patrick also oppose the bill.

With Centre Alliance’s support, the Job-Ready Graduates bill could pass the Senate as early as this week. The changes will cement a major restructuring of university funding by hiking fees for some courses, including by 113 per cent for humanities, to pay for fee cuts for STEM, nursing and teaching courses.

The government says the reforms will create 30,000 new places next year, while cheaper fees in certain fields will deliver more graduates in areas of expected job growth.

Under the amendments negotiated by Centre Alliance, South Australia’s three public universities – Adelaide University, the University of South Australia and Flinders University – will be given up to 3.5 per cent extra funding to grow the number of student places at their institutions.

The minor party said it had also secured more protections for students who, under the reforms, would be cut off from accessing HELP loans if they failed 50 per cent of their first-year subjects, through an amendment that would legislate the criteria for exemptions for “special circumstances”.

Senator Griff said the deal was “an excellent outcome for South Australia”.

“This means substantial extra funding for our three universities over four years, over [and] above current funding allocations, and an additional 12,000 students will have access to a university education over a four-year period,” Senator Griff said.

Greens education spokeswoman Senator Mehreen Faruqi slammed the deal, saying Centre Alliance had “chosen to sell out students, young people and our universities”.

“They’ve bought the government spin hook, line and sinker. They should be ashamed of condemning generations of young people to decades of debt,” Senator Faruqi said.

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Police camera ruling ‘denies courts critical evidence’

Victoria Police officers cannot be compelled to release footage from body-worn cameras in civil proceedings following a County Court decision last month which has prompted calls for urgent reform of the laws that regulate their use.

The court ruling is expected to deny crucial evidence being tendered during civil trials that could prove an abuse of power or potentially exonerate a police officer against such an allegation.

It could also have significant implications for other civil cases, including Transport Accident Commission claims, where a law enforcement officer or paramedic was present and equipped with a camera.

Lawyers and civil libertarians have urged Attorney-General Jill Hennessy to amend legislation from 2017, when the cameras were first trialled in Victoria in response to recommendations by the Royal Commission into Family Violence.

Robinson Gill lawyer Jeremy King warned of a serious miscarriage of justice without government intervention.

“It is in the interest of plaintiffs, police and the TAC that this gets fixed straight away,” he said.

“There is a massive black hole in the legislation regarding courts being able to access and utilise body-worn camera footage in any civil proceeding. Courts are being denied critical evidence that may determine the outcome of a case.”

Mr King is representing former prisoner Konstantin German, who claims in court documents to have been bashed by prison guards and bitten by a dog during riots at the Melbourne Remand Centre in 2015.

Two of the guards were wearing body-worn cameras, but lawyers for the Victorian Government Solicitor’s Office opposed the release of the footage to the plaintiff.

In her judgment on September 25, County Court judge Sandra Davis found there were no specific provisions in the Surveillance Devices Act for the footage to be handed over in civil proceedings.

Liberty Victoria president Julian Burnside, QC, called on the government to change the legislation.

“If this is the law, then it’s wrong. Video footage from these body cameras is precisely the type of evidence that should be available during civil litigation,” Mr Burnside said.

Ms Hennessey said body-worn cameras were an important way to ensure greater accountability and create a safer environment for officers, staff and the community.

“I am aware of this case and will consider the legal implications of the ruling,” she said.

More than 8000 frontline police and protective services officers are now fitted with cameras, which are also worn by some prison guards and Ambulance Victoria paramedics.

Police claimed the technology helped provide “better and more efficient justice outcomes by streamlining evidence gathering and corroboration” at a a briefing to IBAC in February 2020.

It was also claimed the cameras would encourage “more transparent interactions between police and the community while enhancing member safety,” according to the briefing by Superintendent Jason Kelly.

However, The Age revealed last year that police officers could deactivate their body-worn cameras at their discretion and edit footage before court cases, while the Andrews government had given police the power to deal “in-house” with any potential breaches.

Gregor Husper, principal solicitor at the Police Accountability Project, said the use of body-worn cameras had failed to make police more accountable.

“It’s completely useless to members of the public wanting to allege misconduct by police. You can’t get the footage under freedom of information laws. And now the footage can’t be obtained during discovery in civil cases,” Mr Husper said.

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Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

You can see that she is just about as Aboriginal as I am. And my ancestry is entirely British. She’s just a far Leftist approval-seeker. But she is in the right party. The Australian Greens are far-Leftists.

The question remains whether she is appropriate to sit in our parliament. Before sitting, all members have to make the oath of allegiance. It is a constitutional requirement. It reads:

“I do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’ Her heirs and successors according to law. SO HELP ME GOD!”

If she doesn’t like Australia, she surely would not like swearing allegiance to our Head of State. But she must have taken the oath to be seated. So she is a fraud and an impostor

An incoming Greens senator has revealed she has never sung the national anthem and found the Australian flag to be offensive.

Lidia Thorpe will next week become the first-ever indigenous senator for Victoria when she swears an oath of allegiance to the Queen.

The 47-year-old activist and grandmother from Melbourne, who is replacing former Greens leader Richard Di Natale in federal Parliament, has declared she doesn’t associate herself with Advance Australia Fair.

‘I’ve never participated in the Australian anthem,’ she told the ABC’s 7.30 program.

Ms Thorpe has also expressed misgivings about the Australian flag, especially when it is displayed on Australia Day, January 26. ‘Yeah, and I feel that pain in terms of, I know what it’s like to feel offended,’ she said.

‘When I see Australian flags all over the media on the 26th of January and drinking and partying, when that day represents so much loss to our people. ‘I feel that pain too.’

Like some left-wing indigenous activists, Ms Thorpe regards the 1788 arrival of the British First Fleet as an ‘Invasion Day’ and the start of land being dispossessed.

Last year, she told UK-born actress Miriam Margoyles’ Almost Australian documentary she saw herself as an indigenous woman and not an Australian.

‘I don’t identify as being Australian. It’s a concept that’s been imposed on our people since we’re invaded,’ she told the program, which aired on the ABC in May. ‘The colonisers came and set up the colony which they now call Australia. ‘Mass genocide occurred.’

When she takes an oath in the Senate, Ms Thorpe will become just the eighth indigenous member of federal Parliament since Federation in 1901.

Ms Thorpe, who is the granddaughter and great-granddaughter of female indigenous activists, said she was more than just a campaigner for Aboriginal rights.

‘I know that people see me as this radical angry black woman and, yes, I can be that, but I am a nice person too and I’m a mum, I’m a grandma, I’m a sister, auntie,’ she said.

Ms Thorpe, who became a mother at age 17 and lived in public housing, will be among five indigenous MPs in Canberra, alongside Labor’s Linda Burney, Malarndirri McCarthy and Pat Dodson, and Liberal Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt, who in 2010 became the first Aboriginal member of the House of Representatives.

Neville Bonner made history in 1971 as Australia’s first indigenous senator when he filled a casual Liberal Party vacancy in Queensland.

Aden Ridgeway in 1998 became the next indigenous senator with the Australian Democrats in New South Wales.

Olympic hockey gold medallist Nova Peris in 2013 became the first indigenous senator for the Northern Territory after Labor prime minister Julia Gillard insisted she replace Trish Crossin at the top of the party ticket at that year’s election.

Ms Thorpe in November 2017 became the first Aboriginal woman elected to the Victorian Parliament by winning the Melbourne inner-north seat of Northcote.

Ms Thorpe lost her seat a year after that by-election victory, sparked by the the death of Labor minister Fiona Richardson.

That led to her in June defeating Queens’s Counsel barrister Julian Burnside for Greens preselection to replace Senator Di Natale in Parliament.

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Needle-free vaccine system to be made in Brisbane

A WORLD-CLASS medical technology company will manufacture a needle-free vaccine in Brisbane under a partnership with the State Government set to create up to 140 jobs over the next decade.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will today announce her Government’s partnership with Vaxxas to manufacture its High-Density Micro-projection Array Patch (MAP) vaccine delivery system in greater numbers in Queensland.

Construction will take place in a building owned by Economic Development Queensland in the Northshore Hamilton Priority Development Area, with manufacturing to begin in early 2022.

Ms Palaszczuk said Vaxxas expects to deliver 300 million doses each year.

“Over the next 10 years, this rate of production is expected to contribute $497m to the Queensland economy,” she said.

“This partnership will give a great boost to our economic recovery strategy in the weeks and months to come.”

Vaxxas chief executive David Hoey said Vaxxas would be able to ramp up production and put the company and Australia at the forefront of vaccination technology worldwide.

Vaxxas has been backed by the World Health Organisation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the pharmaceutical multinational company, Merck.

It grew out of the Australian Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology at The University of Queensland, before relocating to the Translational Research Institute in Woolloongabba. State Development Minister Kate Jones said medical manufacturing was a multi-trillion-dollar industry.

“Through this partnership, we’ll create jobs in Queensland by tapping into this sector,” she said.

“Queensland boasts some of the world’s leading experts in medical technology.”

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Australian death rates have fallen despite the coronavirus pandemic

So far, COVID-19 has killed 888 people in Australia – a fatality rate of 3.3 per cent from 27,096 cases since January.

A closer reading of the overall death statistics, however, shows overall fatalities during the first six months of 2020 were lower than average, with fewer people dying of the flu, respiratory illnesses and even cancer.

Between January and June this year, 68,986 deaths were certified by a doctor.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics said deaths since mid May had been ‘below historical averages’, with more social distancing most likely reducing flu cases.

Fatality levels had also been ‘below baseline minimums’ since the week to June 9.

Deaths from respiratory diseases and heart diseases were below historical minimum counts throughout June.

During the first six months of this year, 225 people died from a respiratory disease, compared with the average of 293 between 2015 and 2019.

The same time period saw 41 deaths from influenza, a fraction of the 400 people who died in 2019 and the 70 who died in 2017.

Even cancer deaths have fallen, despite fears the lockdowns would discourage the sick from getting a check-up.

Between the New Year and the end of June, 23,571 people died from, a level below the average of 22,954 between 2015 and 2019.

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Pauline Hanson calls for a ‘Minister for Men’ to tackle soaring male suicide rates as she claims blokes are ‘overwhelmingly disadvantaged’ and targeted by feminists

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson says a new office needs to be established in the government to deal with high rates of suicide and homelessness among men.

The Queensland-based politician called for the appointment of a ‘Minister for Men’ on Friday.

‘Political parties have long called for equality across both genders, but only a Minister for Women exists across all levels of government,’ she said.

‘But as we focus on strengthening women’s economic security, their involvement in leadership positions, and ensure that women and their children are safe from violence, the plight of Australian boys and men is on the decline.’

Ms Hanson cited a 2019 report that compared the rates of suicide, homelessness and workplace deaths between men and women.

The number of men dying in workplaces outpaced women by more than 1,000 per cent.

For every 100 women who die at work there are 1,294 deaths among men.

There are more than 240 men living rough on the streets for every 100 homeless women.

There are also 1,000 men living in adult correctional facilities for every 100 women.

‘On the subject of alcohol, drug addiction, overdoses, suicide, murder, violent crimes, and incarceration, boys and men are again overwhelmingly disadvantaged,’ Ms Hanson said.

‘As a mother of three boys and one girl, this raises significant concern for my own children, let alone my young grandchildren.’

The study also showed an imbalance between the number of school boys and girls who are expelled and who suffer from emotional trauma.

For every 100 girls who are expelled, 291 boys are turfed out.

Around 355 boys also report an emotional disturbance for every 100 girls.

‘If we truly want equality in society, it’s time to drop the hardline feminist attack on men and start treating each other with the same level of support, based on need,’ Ms Hanson said.

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Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

Qld government and builders to collaborate to create "affordable" accommodation

What a joke! This has played out often elsewhere so we know what will happen. One scenario is that smarter people will quickly grab the cheap apartments with no guarantee that the occupants will be in any sense poor

The other is that some income limits will be imposed -- meaning that there will be great competition for the places, which the savvy will win, probably excluding the real poor. This is the most likely outcome.

The third option is that standard welfare housing limits will be imposed, which will tend to create the near slum condions that arise in high rises that accommodate welfare tenants -- a quite miserable result. Welfare accomodation needs to be created in small blocks

More than 400 jobs will be created in two build-to-rent apartment projects in popular inner Brisbane locations that the State Government says will deliver affordable housing to hundreds of people who miss out on social housing.

It comes almost two years after the Government announced the scheme, which Treasurer Cameron Dick claimed was slowed down by the COVID-19 pandemic.

And it follows a question on notice released in June, which revealed the Government was yet to spend any of the $70 million allocated to the project and had not delivered any rental properties.

But Mr Dick, with local member MP Grace Grace, today announced that Frasers Property Australia and Mirvac would construct the projects in Fortitude Valley and Newstead.

The build-to-rent program aims to deliver affordable housing for tenants who don’t necessarily qualify for access to social housing.

Mr Dick said the pilot program would support 440 full-time jobs over two years.

“The build-to-rent properties in Fortitude Valley and Newstead will offer around 750 apartments in total, with up to 240 of the dwellings to be provided at a discounted rent,” he said.

Asked why it had taken so long, Mr Dick referred to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I became the Treasurer in the second week of May and in the first week of October, about five months later, I’ve now delivered this project,” he said.

Under the agreement, Frasers Property will develop 354 apartments in a 25-storey tower at 210 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley, near the train station.

Upon practical completion, Frasers Property will own and operate the development with the State Government subsidising the rental of 144, or 40 per cent, of the apartments by 25 per cent. The remaining 210 apartments in the building will be offered at market rental.

Frasers Property Australia’s chief executive Anthony Boyd said the build-to-rent project will encourage further partnerships between government and the private sector and stimulate institutional investment in the new asset class,

“The outcome will be a greater diversity and supply of affordable rental housing and that’s a positive thing for the community and the economy,” he said.

Construction will commence in mid-2021 and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2024.

There will be 99 apartments in the proposed scheme, which will be offered to eligible tenants also at a 25 per cent discount to market rent.

Mirvac’s managing director Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz said the company had a deep commitment to establishing the build-to-rent sector in Australia.

“Our (build-to-rent) platform and operating model, LIV, has been designed to elevate the customer experience and offer our residents greater security, flexibility and housing choice,” she said.

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University of Queensland barred from holding hearing over medical student rape allegations

A small blow against a university kangaroo court -- but via some very complex and questionable jurisdictional reasoning -- with the costs award not reflecting the verdict

University of Queensland cannot hold a disciplinary hearing into allegations that a medical student sexually assaulted a fellow student two years ago, after losing an appeal.

The university disciplinary board’s appeal against a judge’s decision barring the hearing was dismissed, because the accused male medical student graduated at the end of last year.

The Court of Appeal found the former student, only identified as Y, who has never been charged with a criminal offence, is no longer subject to the university’s disciplinary process.

However, it found the male student’s Supreme Court bid to block the disciplinary hearing should have been dismissed last year, under the facts and circumstances that then existed.

It was alleged the female student was digitally raped by the male student while both were staying in student accommodation, while doing a clinical placement in a regional town in 2018.

After being told the allegations involved a number of acts of “unsolicited physical intimacy’’, the male student applied to the Supreme Court for an order to prevent the disciplinary hearing.

The student’s lawyers claimed the proposed inquiry was unlawful, because it was into an allegation of a criminal offence of rape and the board did not have jurisdiction.

The university disagreed, claiming it was a hearing to determine whether student integrity and sexual misconduct policies had been contravened.

Last year, Supreme Court Justice Ann Lyons said the particulars of the alleged sexual assault could be categorised as including at least three counts of rape and a number of counts of sexual assault.

Justice Lyons said the university only had jurisdiction in relation to criminal acts of a sexual nature where the alleged offence was proved.

However, in the Court of Appeal, Justice Philip McMurdo disagreed with that interpretation of the university’s sexual misconduct policy.

The policy said the university did not have jurisdiction over criminal acts, but could take action in respect of breaches of its rules, policies and procedures.

Justice Lyons said the policy removed the university’s jurisdiction to determine whether acts occurred, if commission of those acts constituted a criminal sexual offence.

But Justice McMurdo said the policy did not remove the university’s jurisdiction to decide whether there had been any breaches.

Justice McMurdo said Justice Lyons should not have concluded that the disciplinary proceeding was beyond the university’s power.

As a result of that finding, the Court of Appeal unanimously set aside a previous costs order against the university.

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'No evidence' Melbourne's draconian curfew keeps coronavirus cases down - admits the senior bureaucrat who extended the policy

Melbourne's night-time curfew was extended despite there being no evidence the measure would slow the rate of COVID-19 infection on its own, according to the senior health official who renewed the draconian rule.

The city's five million residents were on August 2 banned from leaving their homes between the hours of 8pm to 5am except for work, medical or care-giving reasons.

Health officials extended the curfew on September 14 but with shortened hours from 9pm to 5am.

The curfew - which was only removed on Monday evening amid a rapid decline in daily case totals - was one of a range of sweeping coronavirus restrictions brought in as part of Victoria's state of emergency powers.

Department of Health and Human Services senior medical adviser Michelle Giles admitted at a Supreme Court hearing on Thursday there was no physical evidence the policy alone reduced transmission.

Bourke Street is pictured deserted after a citywide curfew was introduced in Melbourne on August 2. The bureaucrat who signed off on the measure has admitted there was no evidence it would slow the rate of COVID-19 infection on its own +4
Bourke Street is pictured deserted after a citywide curfew was introduced in Melbourne on August 2. The bureaucrat who signed off on the measure has admitted there was no evidence it would slow the rate of COVID-19 infection on its own

'What I say is the curfew is part of a package of directions that aim at reducing movement and interactions between people and there is evidence that reduces transmissions,' she said.

But Associate Professor Giles - who had final say on the extension while standing in as Victoria's Deputy Public Health Commander - told the court there was no proof the policy by itself would be effective.

Professor Giles also said she disagreed with the premier's assertion when the curfew was announced it would help Victoria Police enforce the lockdown.

'I actually considered the curfew in relation to public health,' she said, according to The Australian.

'I don't agree with those comments, particularly the law enforcement one.'

The Supreme Court case has been brought by Mornington Peninsula cafe owner Michelle Loielo - who is suing the government claiming COVID-19 restrictions have caused a 99 per cent drop in her revenue.

'Every time I see the premier, Daniel Andrews, on the television and every time I hear the premier speak, I feel a sense of dread and anxiety,' she said.

Last month, Mr Andrews said he decided to bring in the unprecedented 8pm curfew even though it was not recommended by scientists.

'That's a decision that I've made,' he said on 10 September, adding governments are 'free to go beyond' advice given to them by doctors.

The previous day Victoria's chief health officer Brett Sutton said he did not recommend the curfew.

Ms Loielo, a Liberal Party supporter, claims the curfew violates her rights to freedom.

She says her business in Capel Sound used to bring in up to $20,000 a week in earnings.

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Trump is fighting the culture wars

The US president has exposed the racket of racism

By James Allan, a Canadian who has made aliyah to Australia

Earlier this month the president of Princeton one Christopher Eisgruber, a former constitutional law professor of exquisite progressive lefty sensibilities, published a declaration saying that racism was embedded in the structures of the university he led – Princeton being perhaps, student-for-student, the greatest of the Ivy League American universities and one-time home of Albert Einstein.

Eisgruber’s declaration included the claim that ‘anti-black racism has a visible bearing upon Princeton’s campus make-up’. This is just the sort of thing you expect from the virtue-signalling ‘wokerati’ who infest the upper echelons of virtually all Anglosphere universities (most definitely including here in Australia too). And in Britain, Canada and here that sort of bumper sticker moralising declaration would be allowed to pass uncontested. Certainly no Coalition government would do anything about it. Nor would Boris in Britain.

Not so in the US where President Trump seems to understand that ultimately everything is downstream of the culture and that fighting the culture wars is by far the biggest battle that matters. So in response to the president of Princeton the federal Department of Education said, in effect, ‘if that’s true, then Princeton has been receiving tens of millions of dollars of federal funding in violation of the Race Discrimination Act.’ The department also announced it is opening an investigation of Eisgruber and of Princeton. It has sent a formal records request, which means the president and all his top people will have to produce every single email and communication they’ve sent. Ouch! The Princeton president and other head honchos will likewise have to give evidence under oath. And what the Department of Education will be looking for is what, if any, evidence there was that Princeton relied on to claim the university is racist.

It has also demanded a spreadsheet identifying each person who has, on the ground of race, colour or national origin, been excluded or discriminated against as regards any program or activity at Princeton. Oh, and Princeton must also respond to all written questions regarding the basis for claiming that racism is embedded in the university.

To quote the Bard in Hamlet, Eisgruber has been hoist with his own petard. All sentient beings know that there is no racism on any university campus, at least none against the usual minority groups portrayed as victims. (There may well be some against Asian Americans who require much higher marks to get into top US universities than blacks, but that is patently not what Eisgruber meant as these are university-imposed roadblocks.) But there is no way Eisgruber can now come out and say ‘Nothing to see here folks. Just kidding. A little bit of harmless virtue-signalling on my part.’ Nor can he admit there is real, actual racism. This is just wonderful. And from what I’m hearing behind the scenes some of the (extremely) large Princeton donors are fuming mad at Eisgruber and threatening to withhold the big bucks. The only palatable play Eisgruber has is to try to run out the clock in the hope of a Biden win when he, and everyone else, knows that this will be quickly dropped.

But notice what happened here. Trump adopted the street fighting tactics of the Left and fought back. This is basically unheard of amongst right-of-centre politicians around the rest of the Anglosphere.

Seven years of Coalition governments have not fought back on a single front of the culture wars – not on free speech, not on the universities, not on the ABC, not on appointing a few real conservatives to important posts. Nada, nothing, zippo, zero. Sure, with Trump you’re buying a brawler who’s a vulgarian. But you know what? For a long time now I’ve been ready for anyone who’ll fight back. Give me a brawler any day! Lord knows there is not a scintilla of evidence of any fight in the dog in any Coalition party (federal or state) in this country.

Or take appointments to the top court in the US. No other right-of-centre anglosphere leader would have stood by Brett Kavanaugh, the man Trump nominated for the Supreme Court and who the Left then attempted to destroy based on, well, zero evidence. Or take the Supreme Court vacancy that has just come up with the death of Ruth Ginsburg. All the Vichy Never-Trumpers urged the president to wait to make a nomination. Nope, Trump said he’ll make a nomination and he expects the Senate, controlled by the Republicans, to confirm the nominee before the election. This puts incredible pressure on these Republican senators, most of whom need the Republican base much more than they need a few inner- city Christopher Pyne type voters.

It gets better. Trump opted to nominate Amy Coney Barrett, the person most hated by the left wing of the Democrats because she is solidly interpretively conservative, a practising, devout Catholic (with seven kids, five her own and two adopted from Haiti). There were others on the shortlist less inflammatory to the Left. Trump went for the most inflammatory pick. He did this in direct response to what the Democrats shamelessly did to Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings. Now we have two High Court of Australia openings coming up here. In the aftermath of the woeful Love judgment, where Coalition Brandis appointees were way to the left of Labor appointees, who is confident that A-G Porter and Mr Morrison will make two solid, not-inner-Melbourne-progressive type picks? Not me, I can tell you.

Last point worth making. You won’t hear this on the ABC or any mainstream US media. Ginsburg, darling of the Left who insulted candidate Trump before the 2016 election, spent 27 years on the Supreme Court. Each US top justice hires about five top law student law clerks each year. So that’s about 150 clerks hired by Ginsburg over the years. How many blacks did this darling of the Left hire during all that time? If you guessed ‘one’ (and zero in her 13 years as a federal appeals court judge before that), you’re a winner.

Now don’t get me wrong. If Ginsburg hired based solely on what she saw as merit I applaud that. I am stridently opposed to affirmative action. The trouble is that in her judicial decision-making Ginsburg consistently voted to uphold affirmative action type requirements that stopped all sorts of others from doing what she did. One out of 150 would be deemed, by her (not me), to constitute solid evidence of systemic racism.

What’s the word I’m searching for in describing that sort of behaviour? Ah yes, ‘hypocrisy’.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

How coronavirus is linked to an increase in complex mental illness, including psychosis, in young adults and older people

I can relate to that. Around February, I was hit with a triple whammy. The lockdowns were beginning, I lost my relationship of 14 years and my son moved out of my place into a place of his own. And at 77 my physical resources were much depleted.

So I did fall into a depression, which is always dangerous. But with the help of friends and family I survived. And amid all the restrictions I have actually found a new lover. So my depression has vanished. Amazing what can happen in your 70s.

A counselling psychologist I know has also sent me some remarks on the matter. See following:

“Social isolation might be increasing psychosis more than covid is. For most elderly ladies, old age is one big social event. Their social routines mark the hours and days of the week…. Church on Sunday, followed by lunch with the church ladies, then Monday lunch with the Monday lunch ladies, water aerobics Tuesday morning followed by bingo at the RSL in the afternoon, Wednesday morning is the appointment with the handsome physiotherapist, the afternoon is the card playing group, Thursday is lunch with the Thursday lunch ladies, Fridays is shopping and cuppa with Myrtle, Agnus and Ethel at the cafe, and Saturday is RSL lunch. During the covid lockdown many elderly ladies have been getting disoriented, losing their sense of what day of the week it is. Men and younger people too, benefit mentally from socialising and getting out doors. Just walking and getting out of the house can be greatly therapeutic. Outdoor scenery and distractions break the in-home thinking patterns and ruminations. And walking activates the brain both sides and overall, and so emotion can be more easily subject to reason when walking and thinking, and when walking and talking.”

However you look at it, the lockdowns have been a foolish and evil thing. The jurisdictions where there have been no lockdowns show a death rate that is in the middle of places that did have lockdowns. Lockdowns were originally a Chinese idea, well suited to a Communist country but inappropriate in a democracy

Back in March, that question was playing on the minds of mental health researchers such as counselling psychologist Ellie Brown.

Dr Brown and colleagues at Orygen Youth Health and the University of Melbourne wanted to know whether the numbers of people presenting with psychosis would increase either from coronavirus itself or from social isolation, and how people with complex mental health issues would cope.

“We wondered what was out there in the evidence, and what could we pick out that might help us understand what was coming down the track,” Dr Brown says.

Early studies warn COVID could increase psychosis
While it was still very early days in the pandemic, evidence from a handful of papers from other viral diseases, including SARS and MERS, and studies from the unfolding situation in Asia suggested coronavirus might actually lead to an increase in people experiencing psychosis.

What is psychosis?

Psychosis describes a group of experiences that relate to the loss of contact with reality.

This can include one or more of the following:

Feeling confused about what is real and what is not real (psychosis)

Hearing voices when no one is there (hallucinations)
Seeing, tasting or smelling things that other people do not (hallucinations)

Believing things that others find strange (delusions)
Feeling that people are going to hurt you when this is not the case (paranoia)

Speaking in a way that others find hard to follow (thought disorder)

An episode of psychosis describes a time when someone has these symptoms lasting for more than a week, which negatively affects their day-to-day life.

The onset of psychosis is usually seen in people in their late teens to early 20s.

But the data coming out of China suggested there was also a significant increase in people in their 50s and 60s experiencing psychosis for the first time.

“It’s really the older people who were more isolated who were presenting with a first episode, which was very unusual,” Dr Brown says.

But it’s not just the pandemic’s potential to trigger a first-time episode that health professionals are worried about.

Isolation, the mass psychology of fear, and other stressors can exacerbate symptoms or cause relapses for vulnerable people already living with chronic illness.

While the numbers are hard to pin down, months down the track there is a sense that there has been a rise in the number of people accessing mental health services.

According to Orygen there has been a 17 per cent increase in referrals to youth mental health services in north-west Melbourne over the past four months, up 8 per cent from the same time last year. There has also been a 14 per cent increase in contacts with clinicians compared to the months before the first lockdown began.

“We’re just getting the data in the increase in the number of people presenting with psychosis. And that’s just going to be the young people,” Dr Brown says.

Carmel Pardy, who oversees the telephone and online support centre for mental health charity SANE Australia, which supports people 18 and upwards, has also noticed an increase in people accessing the service since the pandemic began.

“We have had an interesting cohort of people who’ve come to us for the first time during COVID,” Ms Pardy says.

The charity is also seeing an increase in the number of carers calling.

But, she says, we won’t truly see the fallout of COVID on mental illness until next year.

The impact of isolation and anxiety
Isolation, disrupted routines, and lack of access to care are some of the themes emerging.

“A lot of people we work with struggle with relationships, so a relationship with a therapist might be the one constant and safe relationship in their life and if they can’t do that it’s been really, really problematic,” Ms Pardy says.

When SANE set up new services for COVID-19, they found many people needed a daily chat.

“You have to remember some of the people we work with may not get incoming calls, so this is an opportunity for someone to call and just check in on them.”

Increasing anxiety is a common report.

SOURCE

Women know all about pushing men’s buttons

Bettina Arndt writes

It is good to see that the Federal Government now seems likely to force the universities to address academic freedom issues raised following the violent protests against me at Sydney University. Many of you will remember that the riot squad was needed to remove protesters blocking the entrance to the venue where I was speaking out about the campus kangaroo courts.

That led to Education Minister Dan Tehan appointing former Chief Justice Robert French to enquire into free speech on campus. French originally suggested legislation guaranteeing the rights of staff and students to engage in free-flowing commentary and discussion and enjoy freedom of association. But he backed down after pressure from the sector and ultimately promoted a voluntary code which has led to little discernible change in the culture of our universities– as the Drew Pavlou fracas clearly demonstrates.

Now the courageous Pauline Hanson is horse-trading for her One Nation votes that the government needs to pass its new tertiary education bill by demanding the government include legislation on the free speech issue – as explained in the SMH today, which reports the predictable whining from the universities.

Although Hanson’s controversial views attract a barrage of criticism from our captured media, she is a rare politician in speaking out about important issues like this and also the impact of false violence accusations in family law matters. She was the one who pushed for the current Family Law Inquiry and is prepared to use her political muscle to ensure real change on key issues – so don’t write off this inquiry yet.

Mark Latham and the looming coercive control battle.

Her equally brave One Nation colleague Mark Latham is heralding that he proposes a fight-back against efforts to introduce coercive control laws into law in NSW.

See how Mark Speakman is playing lackey to the feminist groups demanding this change. Speakman is the NSW Attorney General who earlier this year regurgitated all the manufactured feminist bile against me, whilst demanding my award be rescinded.

Coercive control is all about psychological abuse – manipulation, surveillance, degrading putdowns, humiliation, threats – that perpetrators use to dominate their partners. Over the last few years coercive control laws were introduced into England and Wales and more recently Scotland, with predictable results.

The laws are supposed to be gender neutral which made the feminists rather nervous. This ABC article spells out there were initial concerns that “women might be misidentified as the perpetrator of abuse” but quotes reassuring research from Deakin University reporting that in England and Wales males comprised 106 out of the 107 offenders convicted of this new crime.

Now if I was to interview ordinary folk about which gender is more skilled at psychological manipulation, what’s the bet most people would say the fair sex are past masters at this tactic? Women are the ones who tend to show up in psychology research as more tuned into their partner’s vulnerabilities. We know exactly which buttons to push to drive our partners crazy.

There’s no question that any objective study of this issue would conclude that women are more likely than men to exert this type of control in destructive relationships. But laws like this will never result in large numbers of convicted female offenders because men are reluctant to put themselves forward as victims and they know they won’t be taken seriously if they report a coercive partner to the police. The feminists have the justice system sewn up and everyone knows it.

That’s all the more reason to do our bit to help Mark Latham stop this pernicious legislation from being introduced in NSW next year. Last week Latham was busy on social media spreading the word about what is happening. “The NSW Orwellian Liberals are now aiming to put marriages and families on trial for the newly invented DV offence, coercive control,” he tweeted. “A shocking, misleading grab for power.” Latham pointed out that under the proposed legislation husbands could be jailed for 14 years for withdrawing money from a joint bank account and driving the family car without permission.

As a starting point we are gathering a group of clinical psychologists and other experts to conduct a literature review, gathering evidence that women are just as likely as men to exhibit behaviours characterizing perpetrators of “coercive control”. We’re looking to launch a campaign, hopefully recruiting eminent social science experts and academics as well as practitioners – psychologists, psychiatrists, counsellors – who will speak out about this effort to further tilt laws to demonise men, denying the reality of couple relationships. Please contact me if you’d like to come on board.

Violence orders dominate small-town justice systems

Recently I was contacted by a lawyer who works in small town on the South Coast of NSW. Neill McCarthy was briefly a public prosecutor but then went into private practice working mainly in criminal law. He wrote telling me that the working life of a small-town lawyer is now consumed by protecting men from false accusations of violence, which are generally being used to gain advantage in family law battles.

I’m doing a live chat on thinkspot with Neill on Wednesday Oct 7 morning, at 11 am AEST. Here’s the link to book in – https://www.thinkspot.com/products/GyuK9a?category=Event (Don’t worry if you can’t make it at that time. You can watch a recorded version on thinkspot, probably later that day, and eventually I’ll have it on YouTube)

Neil will talk about some of his recent cases. He has fascinating tales to tell of a broken justice system where police are given no option but to take action against accused men, even when there is no evidence and they suspect the woman is lying. Magistrates and prosecutors don’t dare speak out about the miscarriage of justice occurring every day in their courts. And women bear no consequences from perjuring themselves in court.

Amy Coney Barrett on campus due process rights.

Now for some fascinating news about Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s new Supreme Court nominee. I was delighted to discover that Judge Barrett has spoken out about lack of due process for college students accused of sexual assault.

Ruling in a lawsuit against Purdue University, which has been accused of discriminating against a student suspended from the college after sexual assault allegations, Barrett condemned Purdue’s ‘fundamentally unfair’ adjudication of sexual assault claims. Barratt said that it was plausible Purdue officials chose to believe the female accuser “because she is a woman” and to disbelieve the male student accused “because he is a man”.Barratt’s truth-telling on this issue is one more reason for the Democrats to oppose the nomination of this conservative judge, particularly as Joe Biden is the major architect of the campus kangaroo court system.

Bettina Arndt newsletter: newsletter@bettinaarndt.com.au

Reports of Reef’s demise greatly exaggerated

If we are to believe the Queensland Labor Government, sugarcane farmers are evil and are destroying the Reef in their pursuit of greater profits with their use of fertilisers.

To counter this, new regulations are going to be introduced.

These will have the handy effect of allowing the Government to trumpet its environmental credentials while at the same time pandering to the Greens, the latter being an article of faith held dear by Labor governments.

Given this, it was intriguing to hear the head of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Paul Hardisty, concede under questioning before an ongoing Senate inquiry that only 3 per cent of the Reef, the inshore reef, was affected by farm pesticides and that even that 3 per cent was at “low to negligible risk”.

This in effect means that 97 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef, which lies 50km to 100km off the coast, is completely unaffected.

It is also worth noting that while scientists regularly shriek warnings that the Reef is dying and in so doing damage the tourism industry, no one has bothered to measure coral growth or the lack of it for the past 15 years.

Marine scientist Peter Ridd, who questioned the validity of claims made regarding the imminent death of the Reef by his peers, was sacked by James Cook University for his impertinence.

James Cook has since spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of university funds pursuing him through the courts.

AgForce reef taskforce chairman Alex Stubbs says cane farmers have been persecuted by the Queensland Department of Environment and Science over the issue of water quality and the health of the Reef.

The proposed legislation, he said, had been cooked up by bureaucrats, was fundamentally flawed and would do untold damage to the sugar cane industry. Guess which political party cane farmers will be putting at the bottom of their ballot papers at the October 31 state election.

If sugarcane farmers are the bad guys, then coal miners are the devil incarnate which is why the State Government keeps stalling approval of a planned expansion of the New Acland mine near Oakey.

There is also the small matter of pandering to – you guessed it – the Greens.

Coal is bad, we are told. Coal kills. It causes climate change, bushfires and if it continues to be mined, will lead to the extinction of civilisation.

The world, we are lectured, is abandoning coal and it’s pointless for Australia to keep mining it because nobody wants the stuff.

Companies that do business with coalminers are threatened with consumer boycotts, and cowardly executives acquiesce in the face of the baying of the mob and divorce themselves from coal.

Driven by fear, not reason, they abandon their responsibilities to their shareholders in their desperate efforts to appear to be ”woke.”

The Chinese, who don’t care in the least about being woke, must be more than a little bemused by all this as they continue to build and approve coal-fired power stations at a record rate.

Germany recently commissioned a new coal-fired power plant, Japan has plans to build more than 20, India is increasing its coal-fired electricity generation by more than 20 per cent, while Indonesia, Mozambique, Malawi, Bangladesh, Pakistan, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Philippines, Vietnam and Serbia are all building coal-fired power plants.

The Age of Reason may be dead, but on the evidence it appears that coal is not.

The Reef also stubbornly refuses to fulfil the prophesies of its imminent demise, even when it is forecast by such towering intellectuals as Leonardo Di Caprio, who has never seen the Reef but pronounced it to be near death in 2016, as did then US president Barack Obama when he treated Australians to his ignorance in 2014.

This brings us to politicians. Is it true or false that a person like, let’s say Victorian Premier Andrews, would lie after swearing on the Bible to tell nothing but the truth?

Have a guess.

SOURCE

Anti-discrimination commissions have tyranny built into their design

God deliver us from the hands of zealots.

They exist in different guises in every age, lay claim to being the era’s moral guardians and demand no more than complete obedience to their ordained order. They only burn heretics in sorrow, for their own good and that of society.

Zealots know those who defy them are sinners. So, any means is justified in the restless hunt for evil.

Arthur Miller explained it in The Crucible: “… the necessity of the Devil may become evident as a weapon, a weapon designed and used time and time again in every age to whip men into a surrender to a particular church or church state.”

Now the bureaucratic state dictates morality and the devil is discrimination, in all his endlessly evolving forms. The crime is giving any perceived offence. The weapon is the law.

There is now a witch hunt afoot in Tasmania.

The witch is Liberal Senator Claire Chandler. On July 17 she wrongspoke in the pages of The Mercury: “You don’t have to be a bigot to recognise the differences between the male and female sexes and understand why women’s sports, single-sex change rooms and toilets are important.”

This elicited a response from an unnamed Hobart man who emailed the senator confronting her crimethink. The senator doubled down: “I do understand the difference between sex and gender. That’s why I’ve made the point in my article that women’s toilets and women’s change rooms are designed for people of the female sex (women) and should remain that way.”

The article and email were referred by the constituent as a complaint to Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Sarah Bolt. Ms Bolt then wrote to Senator Chandler, noting that the complainant was not a member of the trans-community and dismissing the argument that the article had offended the law.

But Ms Bolt determined the complaint about the email had merit. She found, “a reasonable person is likely to anticipate that a person who is a member of the LGBTIQ+ and gender diverse community would be humiliated, intimidated, offended and insulted”.

Having identified the possibility of an anticipated offence Senator Chandler has been called to a hearing before the commission on October 1.

The senator made a fuss in the media. This drew a second missive from the commission. It noted that it was also an offence to “hinder” or “use insulting language” against the commissioner.

A few issues arise.

First, Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Commission, and all such commissions, have tyranny built into their design. It is meant to be a mediation service – and often is – but can also be advocate, prosecutor, judge and jury in one. This invites quasi-judicial bodies to become star chambers. They now deny a keystone democratic right of a fair hearing before an impartial tribunal. The right to freely complain about this injustice has also been removed by law.

Second, the senator is expressing what was, until recently, a pretty conventional worldview. What has changed is a new protected group has evolved, the trans community, whose advocates demand that those who self-nominate a gender must be accepted as male or female.

Laws are being made about this so debate is demanded, starting with when should someone be considered to have transitioned? Is it after reassignment surgery or just on the strength of nominating the change? This is no small difference and both are claimed.

In a free society, an individual’s right to make personal choices about the course of their lives should be respected and defended. But why should someone else’s subjective truth become an objective reality for the whole of society and the law used to enforce it?

This highly contestable, and evolving, space runs far deeper than a fight over public toilets. It involves questions of truth and identity, which concern us all. There has been little community debate, yet bureaucracies everywhere are conforming with demands in fear of being branded transphobic, the latest in a long list of identity crimes.

But here there is also a clash of ideologies, on what it means to be a woman. Some old-school feminists fear their homeland is being colonised by strident activists. The author J.K. Rowling is one. For defending her truth she has been vilified and “progressive” bookshops have banned Harry Potter from their shelves. And how are these book burners morally superior to the many who marched before them through history?

There is much to debate but that is being silenced in the name of defending human rights, and who dares mount an argument against such a righteous cause?

Because, above all, it is forbidden to question a victim, as Miller wrote, “Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God’s fingers? I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem – vengeance is walking Salem. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!”

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

A solution to Australia’s toad problem?

Cane toads, bufo marinus, come originally from Brazil. They were imported into Australia in the hope that they would eat cane beetles, which attack Australia’s sugar cane crop. They did eat some cane beetles but they ate lots else besides — including small rodents, reptiles, other amphibians, birds, and even bats.

So they have now proliferated mightily. They threaten the survival of many native species and are poisonous — so they kill birds and dogs which are unwary enough to eat them.

Much has been tried to reduce their numbers but nothing works well. Though some predators have emerged. The snake described below might be just what we need.

Pity the toads that encounter Asian kukri snakes in Thailand. These snakes use enlarged, knifelike teeth in their upper jaws to slash and disembowel toad prey, plunging their heads into the abdominal cavities and feasting on the organs one at a time while the toads are still alive, leaving the rest of the corpse untouched.

While you’re recovering from the horror of that sentence, “perhaps you’d be pleased to know that kukri snakes are, thankfully, harmless to humans,” amateur herpetologist and naturalist Henrik Bringsøe, lead author in a new study describing the gruesome technique, said in a statement.

This grisly dining habit was previously unknown in snakes; while some rip chunks from their prey, most snakes gulp down their meals whole. Scientists had never before seen a snake Bury its head inside an animal’s body to slurp up organs — sometimes taking hours to do so, Bringsøe and his colleagues reported.

The victims of this horrific organ-slurping were poisonous toads called Duttaphrynus melanostictus, also known as Asian common toads or Asian black-spotted toads; they are stout and thick-skinned, measuring about 2 to 3 inches (57 to 85 millimeters) in length, according to Animal Diversity Web (ADW), a wildlife database maintained by the University of Michigan’s Museum of Zoology. During the deadly battle, the toads fought “vigorously” for their lives, with some defensively secreting a toxic white substance, according to the study. The snakes’ grisly evisceration strategy could be a way to avoid the toad’s poisonous secretions while still enjoying a tasty meal, the researchers wrote.

Kukri snakes in the Oligodon genus are so named because their slashing teeth resemble the kukri, a forward-curving machete from Nepal. While kukri snakes aren’t a threat to people, their teeth can cause painful lacerations that bleed heavily, because the snakes secrete an anticoagulant from specialized oral glands, according to the study.

“This secretion, produced by two glands, called Duvernoy’s glands and located behind the eyes of the snakes, are likely beneficial while the snakes spend hours extracting toad organs,” Bringsøe explained.

Macabre mealtime

The researchers described three observations in Thailand of kukri snakes (Oligodon fasciolatus), which can measure up to 45 inches (115 centimeters) long, consuming Asian common toads. In the first incident, which took place in 2016, the toad was already dead when the witnesses discovered the scene, “but the soil around the two animals was bloody, indicating there had been a fight which eventually killed the toad,” the scientists wrote. The snake sawed through the toad’s body by swinging its head from side to side; it then slowly inserted its head into the wound “and subsequently it pulled out organs like liver, heart, lung and part of the gastrointestinal tract.”

In a second event, an epic battle between a kukri snake and a toad on April 22, 2020 lasted nearly three hours; the snake attacked, withdrew, and attacked again, deterred only temporarily by the toad’s poison defense. After finally subduing the toad, the snake extracted and swallowed organs while the toad was still breathing, according to the study.

On June 5, 2020, a kukri snake took a different approach and didn’t disembowel the toad at all, instead devouring it whole. But in a fourth observation this year on June 19, the snake eviscerated its toad prey, slicing into the abdomen to reach its organ meal.

Young toads potentially produce less poison than adults do, which may have enabled the snake in the June 5 observation to safely gulp it down in one piece; another possibility is that kukri snakes are immune to the toad species’ toxins, but they disembowel adults anyway because the toads are simply too big for them to swallow, the researchers reported.

However, there’s not yet enough data to answer these questions, Bringsøe said in the statement.

“We will continue to observe and report on these fascinating snakes in the hope that we will uncover further interesting aspects of their biology,” he said.

The findings were published online Sept. 11 in the journal Herpetozoa.

SOURCE

African child snatcher

A young mother has spoken of the terrifying moment a stranger snatched her two-year-old daughter and tried to pull her away while she was riding her tricycle to childcare.

Rebekah, 32, was cycling with her daughter Keirah, 2, and Brodie, 5, in Harkness in Melbourne’s far-west at 9.20am on Tuesday when she saw a man grab her youngest child – who had been riding behind her family.

The would-be abductor only let go of Keirah and ran off towards a nearby primary school when Rebekah chased him down suburban Weeks Avenue on her bicycle.

‘My son wanted to race me so I sped off with him. Keirah wasn’t far behind me – but when I stopped and turned around I saw there was this man grabbing my daughter and spinning her around,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.

The mother said she and her children had never felt like they were in danger in their neighbourhood until Tuesday.

CCTV footage showed the man – who is described as being of African appearance, in his early 20s, wearing dark clothes and a white baseball cap but no mask – stood beside the child before bending down to her height.

Seconds before the offender grabbed the young girl, he had calmly walked past her mother and her brother – raising no alarm bells for Rebekah who thought he was just a normal pedestrian.

Rebekah said the youngster bravely went to childcare despite what happened, but struggled to sleep on Tuesday night.

‘She was scared the man was going to come and get her again so her dad had to lie with her to get her to go to sleep,’ Rebekah said.

Victoria Police said on Wednesday they were increasing patrols in the Harkness area and are treating the incident as ‘extremely serious’.

SOURCE

Australian scientists insist hydroxychloroquine COULD prevent people catching COVID-19 after giving the controversial drug to hundreds of health care workers

Australian scientists have vowed to continue investigating whether taking hydroxychloroquine can stop people becoming infected with coronavirus.

Researchers from the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne believe the drug could prevent people catching SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19.

Hundreds of health workers in NSW and Victoria have been given the drug in the Institute’s COVID SHIELD trial in an effort to try and determine its effectiveness as a prophylactic.

Hydroxychloroquine was brought to public attention when US President Donald Trump said he was using the malaria drug to ‘protect’ himself from coronavirus.

Prescriptions for the drug subsequently skyrocketed, before it was removed from major testing trials as it proved to be ineffective in reducing the impact of COVID-19.

Scientific journal The Lancet published and later retracted a study based on false data that claimed coronavirus cases taking hydroxychloroquine had an increased death rate.

COVID SHIELD co-lead investigator Marc Pelligrini said researchers were not considering the drug as a treatment, but as a preventative.

‘The evidence that shows that the drug doesn’t particularly help with treatment really never deterred us because we always thought that … if the drug did have a role in preventing people from getting COVID-19, it has to be even before they were exposed to SARS-CoV-2,’ he told The Australian.

Test tube studies have found hydroxychloroquine can work to impede the replication of COVID-19 and discourage proliferation.

Claire Lobb is an emergency care nurse at The Alfred Hospital and among about 230 frontline healthcare workers signed up for the four-month trial.

‘Hydroxychloroquine is a drug that is cheap and readily available, with very few side effects. If there is a chance this drug could help prevent frontline healthcare workers from getting COVID-19, I think it is important that we do a proper clinical trial to test it,’ she said.

Ms Lobb said she was keen to be involved and excited at the prospect of finding out whether the drug was useful as a prophylactic.

‘To have a drug that is cheap and widely available to reduce transmission of the virus to frontline healthcare workers would be really helpful, especially while we are waiting for a vaccine,’ she said.

While the Australian researchers remain hopeful hydroxychloroquine could prevent COVID-19, a U.S. study found on Thursday the drug offers no protection.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found about 6.3 per cent of hospital workers who took the drug regularly caught the virus, compared to 6.6 per cent of people who didn’t.

The effect, they said, was ‘negligible’ and although a slightly higher proportion of people without the drug became sick, it was not a big enough difference to suggest hydroxychloroquine worked.

Whether or not the medicine could help treat people who already had Covid-19 was not studied.

SOURCE

Leftist Qld. government inks deal with coal miner, days out from election campaign

The Palaszczuk government has finally struck a deal with Adani for royalties from its controversial $2 billion Carmichael mine, days before the government goes into caretaker mode before the October election.

Treasurer Cameron Dick confirmed the government “settled terms for a royalty agreement” this week, more than one year after it was originally intended to be finalised.

“I can assure you that Adani will pay every dollar in royalties that they have to pay to the people of Queensland and the taxpayers of Queensland, with interest,” he said.

“That is absolutely locked in now and that is something we have now concluded as a government.”

“Obviously you spend a lot of time negotiating royalty agreements, not just in relation to this mine but to many mining projects across Queensland, because we want to work through the details.”

A deadline for the deal, which Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk pledged to have finalised a year ago, was extended to November last year. That date also passed without any confirmation.

The project has led to divisions in the Labor Party at state and federal levels for years, after Ms Palaszczuk and then-Queensland treasurer Curtis Pitt agreed to a royalty holiday for the company without cabinet approval in 2017.

Former treasurer Jackie Trad later blocked the deal with the backing of the party’s Left and Centre factions. Labor’s deputy federal leader, Richard Marles, conceded the party’s “clumsy” attempts to “walk the tightrope” on Adani during the federal election campaign had left its traditional voter base feeling abandoned.

The exact details of the deal will remain confidential, but it was reached under the government’s Resources Regional Development Framework (RRDF).

The framework, drawn up after months of tense negotiation with the Labor caucus in 2017, allows mining companies to defer payments to the state government and then repay their debt in full, including interest.

A company may be eligible to defer royalties if it shared infrastructure and if it “assisted in opening up undeveloped resource basins”.

A 388-kilometre track linking the project to Adani’s Abbot Point coal terminal was originally slated, but later swapped out for a cheaper option.

Adani now plans to build a 200-kilometre rail line, valued at about $1.5 billion, to link its mine to Aurizon’s Central Queensland Coal Network, near Moranbah, in central Queensland. The company will be required to share the rail line with other proposed mines in the Galilee Basin.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

A controversial gas project in northern NSW has been given the green light to go ahead

A controversial gas project in northern NSW has been given the green light by the state’s independent planning authority.

The NSW Independent Planning Commission has given “phased approval” for Santos’ $3.6 billion Narrabri gas project in the north east of the state.

The decision allowing the coal seam gas project comes more than six months after the state’s planning minister referred it to the regulatory body.

Phased approval has been granted for the project with 134 attached conditions.

Santos has said the project will create up to 1300 construction and 200 operational jobs.

“Following its detailed deliberations, the commission concludes the project is in the public interest and that any negative impacts can be effectively mitigated with strict conditions,” the commission’s statement said.

“The commission has granted a phased approval that is subject to stringent conditions, which means that the applicant must meet specific requirements before the project can progress to the next phase of development.”

During the hearing process communities and scientists raised concerns the project would put the area’s water resources at risk.

In its consultation phase, the project attracted approximately 23,000 submission, with opposing views that it would hinder the quality of the groundwater and concerns surrounding greenhouse gas emissions.

Australian Workers’ Union national secretary Daniel Walton said the Narrabri project would ensure NSW was provided with lower gas prices, which would mean cheaper electricity for households.

“Our union has never accepted the false choice between gas and renewables – you need the reliability of the former to allow the latter to flourish,” he said.

“New South Wales should be a thriving global heavy manufacturing hub, and that’s exactly what we can become if we better harness our gas wealth. This approval is an excellent step.”

SOURCE

State Government funds research into ‘game changer’ in fight against COVID-19

Aussie scientists are on the verge of a major breakthrough in the fight to track and control coronavirus that could see a return to normal life.

A leading coronavirus expert in the UK has pointed to research showing children display a different set of COVID-19 symptoms to adults.

Researchers at Xing Technologies are developing an ultra-rapid coronavirus test that can detect whether a person is infected and contagious within moments.

The State Government has already invested $1.5 million into the project and the company has also received $1 million from the US Government.

The Courier Mail reports that trials for the test are already underway in the US.

Brisbane-based Xing Technologies CEO Tom Esplin told the newspaper that a rapid test could pave the way for a return to normal pre-COVID activities, including travel.

“People are saying we need a rapid point-of-care test to let people get on aeroplanes,” Mr Esplin said.

“We’d like to be able to offer it. The highest viral loads occur in the three days before you develop symptoms. This test is perfectly suited for those who’ve got the highest risk of spreading it.”

The test has been designed to use a nasal swab that those who have taken COVID-19 tests are familiar with.

A solution would then be applied to the swab to produce a rapid result.

The Today show reports the test “could be used to test people before they go into high risk areas” like “aged care facilities, shopping centres, planes and hospitals”.

Queensland Innovation Minister Kate Jones told the Courier Mail that funding the project through the Palaszczuk Government’s Industry Tech Fund was an important step in moving forward with the lingering threat of COVID-19.

“It could be a real game changer in the fight against this pandemic,” Ms Jones said.

The test could cost as little as a cup of coffee, 9 News reports.

There are hopes that it could be used in a spray to be applied to personal protective equipment like face shields and face masks.

SOURCE

Why ‘micro’ courses are catching on

When Michael Elwan’s commute disappeared when Covid-19 prompted him to work-from-home in March, he decided to invest his freed-up time in a 10-week “micro-masters” in leadership at the University of Queensland (UQ). The contracts manager at the not-for-profit Uniting WA was already completing a Masters in Social Work but wanted to focus on leadership for more immediate career progression plans.

Despite the entire course being online, he was “amazed” by the networking opportunities he had with fellow students from all over the world.

“The course taught me how to lead teams from different backgrounds in turbulent times, which was especially relevant,” he says.

Elwan isn’t alone.

UQ’s leadership course saw a jump of almost 300 per cent in enrolments this year compared to the first half of last year. A total of 40,000 people have enrolled in the university’s top three micro-masters courses in 2020.

It comes as hundreds of thousands of Australians stare into one of the grimmest consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic: higher unemployment and underemployment, and greater anxiety about job security.

Like in previous recessions, demand for higher education and skills training is tipped to rise – in part because there aren’t many well-paying alternatives, but also due to necessity in a more competitive and changing jobs market.

However, not everyone has the financial means or appetite to tackle an entire degree. And with many industries undergoing profound upheavals, it’s difficult to know whether the skills learnt will be relevant by the time they are acquired.

Micro-credentials, by contrast, offer a short, sharp and cost-effective opportunity for learning. Course length varies from a couple of hours to several months and anything from email etiquette to data analytics can be learned.

“Micro-credentials offer a way to rapidly refresh your professional profile. It could help you scale some kind of career hurdle, get a pay rise, change jobs or move into an adjacent area,” says Dr Robert Kay, Executive Director of Incept Labs.

In April, Education Minister Dan Tehan announced that the government would subsidise six-month micro-credentials in nursing, teaching, health, information technology, with fifty-four universities responded by creating micro-credential courses. The government is now creating a nationally consistent digital platform to compare micro-credential course outcomes and credit point value, among other things.

This is important, because a current lack of standardisation means that outcomes and even quality can vary, says Kay.

“Ultimately, the value of a micro-credential is determined by who recognises it and for what. The risks relate to their currency at present, because micro-credentials aren’t mapped to the Australian Qualifications Framework. It’s therefore difficult to find an equivalence with other forms of qualifications,” Kay says.

Nonetheless, many employers already recognise the value of micro-credentials as a form of professional development. For example, Westpac in 2018 rolled out The Business Institute, an internal “school” for business bankers developed in consultation with leading business schools that delivers educational content, access to world-class teachers and credits towards external qualifications.

Laura Tien, digital content and partnerships associate at co-working hub Workit, says micro-credentials can help differentiate businesses from competitors, “especially during tough times like now”. She recently completed a six-hour micro-credentials course in Google Analytics, using her newfound skills to help Workit leverage data to make better decisions on ad spending. She also has a digital badge to add to her Linkedin profile.

“It was really interactive – I had to click through the actual application before being able to move onto the next part, which helped me retain the information,” she says. “My university degree taught me theories of marketing, but it wasn’t useful in terms of technical skills, which are so important these days,” she says.

UQ Associate Professor Tim Kastelle, who runs the corporate innovation micro-masters course, believes that micro-credentials will be a disruptive force in Australia’s education system and much needed add-ons for professionals.

“The idea that an undergraduate degree gives you the skills you need for the rest of your career is obsolete – if it was ever really true. The nature of work is changing and there is an almost constant need to be learning new things: and shorter forms of learning can accommodate that,” he says.

“Someone might say to themselves, ‘I’ve just been promoted to team leader, so I’ll do a course on leading high performing teams.’ It’s about figuring out how to do a specific thing, rather than wanting to develop an integrated body of knowledge as you get from a degree.”

SOURCE

Why your health fund premium is rising

Health fund premiums will rise by as much as $400 a year from tomorrow with many fund members slugged more than twice the promised average 2.9 per cent increase.

The nation’s largest health fund Medibank is raising the price of some of its Gold policies by 6.7 per cent and many Silver Plus policies by 5.9 per cent.

Bupa, Australia’s second largest insurer is raising the cost of one Silver policy by 5.6 per cent.

Some HCF members are facing premium rises of 3.2 per cent on their family cover, while

NIB’s Silver and Basic plus policies will increase an average of 4.3 and 3.9 per cent respectively.

It comes as News Corp can reveal the so called “average” 2.9 per cent premium rise figure – used by the government — is not an average of the premium rises of the policies offered but instead the percentage rise in premium income health funds receive.

“The percentage change in forecast contribution income is considered to be the most appropriate way of reflecting the price change in premiums that will be received by an insurer,” the Department of Health said.

Health Minister Greg Hunt and the insurance industry used the 2.9 per cent figure to boast that this year’s average annual premium rise was the lowest in two decades.

“From 1 April 2020, a single person will pay an average of $0.68 extra per week ($2.72 month $35.36 a year) family on average will pay $1.99 ($7.76 month $103 a year) more a week,” Mr Hunt claimed when he announced the premium rises.

But consumer group Choice said the five to six per cent rises most fund members face from tomorrow will hurt far more than advertised.

“That figure is almost, I guess, misleading it’s definitely not how people will interpret that figure,” Choice health spokesman Dean Price told News Corp.

“And it helps explain some of the shock that people feel when they get that notice from a health insurer notifying them of the increase, which is above the publicly stated average increase that there fund is passing on,” he said.

Health funds delayed their annual April 1 premium rises for six months after the government imposed surgery bands due to COVID-19 so now their members face two rises in six months.

Insurers have saved hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of the COVID-19 lockdowns and surgery bans.

Professor of Health Economics, University of Melbourne Yuting Zhang has calculated payouts for hospital treatment fell 7.9 per cent in dollar terms between December and March and a further 12.9 per cent between March and June.

Payouts for extras cover plunged 32.9 per cent between March and June this year.

Private Healthcare Australia chief Dr Rachel David said since the surgery bans were lifted in states outside Victoria surgery rates lifted to up to 124 per cent above normal as doctors sought to catch up on their treatment lists.

Health funds have offered their members hundreds of millions of dollars worth of rebates for telehealth consultations, automatic coverage for COVID-19 illnesses and discounts if members lost their job and could not pay premiums.

Medibank’s said across its hospital products, the lowest premium increase is 0 per cent and the highest is 7 per cent.

Seventy one per cent of Medibank customers on a singles policy will get an average increase on their premium of $3 or less per week ($12 per month), while 77 per cent of family policies will get an increase of $6 or less per week ($24 per month), the fund said.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here