Many Aborigines are their own worst enemy

A case in point. He paid the ultimate price for his foolishness.

If you want the police to be civil to you, you have to be civil and co-operative with them. And running away is the extreme of non co-operation

The police have an important job to do and we must expect them to do what it takes. And in this case they clearly followed their rules

Dwayne Johnstone was handcuffed, shackled and running away when he was shot in the back and killed by a corrections officer outside Lismore Base Hospital, an inquest has heard.

State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan will take submissions on Wednesday on whether the threshold has been met for her to refer the case to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The inquest into Mr Johnstone's 2019 death, which began on Tuesday at Lismore Court House, heard the 43-year-old Aboriginal man had been taken to hospital while on remand after suffering an epileptic seizure in the cells of Lismore Court House, where he'd been denied bail on assault charges.

Counsel assisting the inquest, Peggy Dwyer, said Mr Johnstone had a history of drug addiction and involvement in the criminal justice system – mostly over property theft, minor assaults and possession or trafficking of drugs. He had twice been convicted of escaping lawful custody.

Because of his history of escape, Ms Dwyer said he was classified E1, meaning "an inmate in those circumstances was to be handcuffed and ankle cuffed and treated as high risk at all times".

Ms Dwyer told the inquest Mr Johnstone, described as "a much-loved partner, son and stepson", had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and had been sexually abused as a child by the principal of his primary school, and again at the Burnside boys home.

A nurse who treated Mr Johnstone at the hospital described him as "compliant" and "appreciative of hospital care", Ms Dwyer told the court.

But as he was escorted back to the van on March 15, 2019 by two corrections officers – one of whom was armed with a revolver – he "elbowed" the unarmed officer who had a grip of his pants, throwing him off balance, and started running. The officers cannot be named for legal reasons.

Ms Dwyer said the inquest would hear multiple accounts, including from the corrections officers, that Mr Johnstone was moving fast despite being shackled and handcuffed.

The officer carrying a revolver told police in an interview that he called out "stop, stop, or I'll shoot" before firing a warning shot into the bushes, Ms Dwyer said. Mr Johnstone kept running, so he said "f---ing stop" and fired again.

The officer told police he aimed a second shot "in Dwayne's direction but not at him". When he still didn't stop, the officer aimed a third shot "at the centre of mass". The bullet entered the middle of Mr Johnstone's back and went through his aorta, liver, and diaphragm, Ms Dwyer said.

The officer who fired the shots told police he was surprised at how fast Mr Johnstone could run, and didn't think he or the second officer would be able to catch him.

But Ms Dwyer said the second officer told police his partner had told him to "get out of the road", and asked if he thought he could have caught up, he said he "didn't know" and hadn't been given the chance.

Ms Dwyer told the inquest that armed corrections officers carry guns but unlike police, are not equipped with non-lethal weapons, such as Tasers, extendable batons, or capsicum spray.

She said corrections officers may legally discharge firearms in a number of circumstances, including "to prevent the escape of an inmate" – with a number of provisos, including that a warning must be given and there cannot be reasonable grounds to believe the shot could hit another person.

However, she said the use of force must be the "option of last resort" and officers "may use no more force than is reasonably necessary in the circumstances".

Ms O'Sullivan said the question of whether the threshold for the matter to be referred for criminal prosecution had been met "is certainly a live issue".

She adjourned the inquest until Wednesday, when she will hear submissions from the parties before making a decision as to whether to continue or have the matter referred to the DPP.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/dwayne-was-fatally-shot-in-the-back-while-running-away-inquest-hears-20201027-p568xk.html

TV star-turned Perth Lord Mayor, Basil Zempilas, has been condemned for his 'insensitive' opinions about transgender people

The breakfast host, 49, who was elected in mid-October, told listeners of his radio show on Wednesday that it was 'wrong' for a person to identify as a gender that was not the same as their physical anatomy.

'If you've got a penis mate, you're a bloke. If you've got a vagina, you're a woman. Game over,' he said.

Mr Zempilas, a former Weekend Sunrise host, was encouraged to undergo transgender awareness training to assist in his role serving the broader community.

Hunter Gurevich, who chairs TransFolk WA, described the comments as unacceptable and 'repugnant'.

'These comments are repugnant, bigoted, narrow minded, parochial and fundamentally deny contemporary science,' he said. 'Further, it puts LGBTQIA+ people at increased risk of harm, when we are already a vulnerable group in society.

'It is especially disappointing when The City of Perth has long supported the LGBTQIA+ community of Perth. 'For Mr Zempilas to now betray not only the community, but our relationship with the city, is beyond inexcusable.'

Curtis Ward, from Pride WA, suggested Mr Zempilas hadn't quite grasped the difference between sex and gender. 'It is possible to appear one way and feel another and when someone says they're transgender, they are simply saying they feel differently to how they appear,' he said.

'[That is] sex being your physical appearance and your biology whereas gender is how you identify psychologically, whether you're feminine or masculine.'

Mr Ward said Zempilas' comments only fueled stigma surrounding the LGBTQIA community and perpetuated misinformed, hurtful and damaging opinions.

'I think people need to be educating themselves about what they're speaking about and if they do have that stage, and they are commanding such a large audience, they should be making educated statements,' he said.

During the segment, Mr Zempilas encouraged 'any women with a penis' to ring the radio station to win a $100 voucher.

Mr Zempilas told Out In Perth he would apologise if his comments had caused offence, and insisted that was not his intention.

But Mr Gurevich already said it would be difficult for members of the community to accept the apology. 'No apology will be accepted until Mr Zempilas confronts the damage his comments can and have done,' he said.

He will quit his presenting role on the radio show at the end of the year after stepping into the role of Lord Mayor.

The latest controversy came after he wrote in a column piece in August that he would 'forcibly' remove homeless people from the city centre if he was elected. 'I make no apologies for this, the homeless need to be moved out of the Hay and Murray Street malls and the surrounding areas,' he wrote.

'Forcibly, if that's what it takes. I'm sick of being told by people who don't live and work in the city like I do that it's not that bad — actually, it's worse. 'The look, the smell, the language, the fights — it's disgusting. A blight on our city.'

Mr Zempilas was forced to apologise after copping widespread backlash over the comments, with critics accusing him of being 'disconnected from the city'.

'Those comments were made in frustration over nine months ago after an incident with my wife and my six year old daughter and a man exposing himself at 11am on a Sunday,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'But the comments weren't appropriate and I have apologised.

'I've spent a good deal of the last six months educating myself by speaking with people who are homeless, trying to understand their situation better and by speaking with service providers. '

Mr Zempilas is a famous face in West Australia, and in March 2018, he was co-host of Weekend Sunrise, replacing Andrew O'Keefe. In September 2019, he stepped down as regular host of Weekend Sunrise, however continued to appear as a fill-in presenter.

The TV star is has been married to longtime partner Amy Graham since 2009, with the pair tying the knot in Greece. They share two daughters and a son.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8888957/Newly-elected-Perth-mayor-Basil-Zempilas-slammed-LGBT-groups-insensitive-comments.html

‘Hermit nation’: World’s astonishment at Australia’s response to COVID-19

The world is flabbergasted by our response to COVID-19, but one major newspaper reckons strict rules have turned us into a “hermit nation”.

Articles published internationally over the weekend highlighted our monumental success, reporting that Saturday was the first day of no community transmission cases of virus in 145 days.

The New York Times ran a piece saying Australians now embrace the isolation they tried to escape for so long, but that our rules are so strict they’ve essentially turned us into a “hermit nation”.

The author wrote that our rules were so strict they “seem like something out of China or North Korea”.

“The virus has turned this outgoing nation into a hermit. Australia’s borders are closed, internationally and between several states.” the author wrote.

“Rather than chafing against isolation, though, Australians these days are more willing to smile in the mirror. Island living looks like a privilege when the world is pestilent. “

American current events opinion website Business Insider said we had an advantage over most countries from the start.

“It’s an island with relatively low population density,” they wrote. “But its rules were still far stricter than in many other countries.”

With Victoria reporting another day of zero cases on Sunday, it appears the state is on track to easing restrictions this coming weekend.

More rules are set to be scrapped on November 8, including the 25km travel radius for Melburnians, and now it has been revealed that even more restrictions could be eased than previously thought.

Chief Health Officer Professor Brett Sutton said on Sunday that some of the rules around gatherings could also be changed on November 8.

“We can always make consideration of what the caps might be in certain settings, what the density quotients might be and some of the specific industries that might come on board in terms of being able to operate,” he said.

Australia’s success comes amid sharp rises across the rest of the globe.

The US reported 99,321 new Covid-19 cases today – the highest single day number of cases recorded for any country to date. It marks an alarming jump of almost 11,000 more cases compared to yesterday.

Meanwhile the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced a national lockdown after passing one million coronavirus cases, and France is recording around 50,000 new cases daily.

https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/australia/coronavirus-hermit-nation-worlds-astonishment-at-australia/news-story/1f4b4b491a3d4f2c3c75833ad6347403

Conservative Daisy Cousens on social media trolls, Q+A and a Trump win



Less than four years ago, Daisy Cousens was firmly embedded in the performance arts community. As the daughter of music theatre royalty Peter Cousens and film and television actor Suzanne Roylance, it was only natural that her friendship circle comprised theatre thespians.

But then came a huge falling out, and long-time friends disappeared overnight. Her crime? During a highly-publicised appearance on the ABC panel program Q+A in February 2017, for which she was heavily trolled afterwards, Cousens revealed she was a staunch conservative.

“I was so terrified of how my friends would react,” she tells Stellar.

“I didn’t tell any of them that I was going on the show because I knew they were massively left wing – and not informed left wing, either. They’re the type of people who read a two-line headline from The New York Times, and make an opinion based on that and think everyone who disagrees with them is a hateful bigot.”

The subsequent backlash stung. “I don’t really care about what people I don’t know say about me online, but I really care about friends who will just completely delete you from their universe if you say something they disagree with politically.”

Whatever the appearance on Q+A may have cost her personally, it gave back tenfold professionally. In the years prior, Cousens had been feeling directionless. She had left university with “a bunch of ultimately useless arts degrees” and after discovering there was limited work available in the industry, she went back to school to get her masters in creative writing..

That led to a writing position with an online women’s magazine and her spot on Q+A, which, in turn, led to a several television appearances, a successful YouTube channel that now has almost 200K subscribers and, ultimately, her current role as a Sky News contributor.

“I’d aligned my whole sense of self from [when I was] a little kid to being a musical theatre performer and a singer, and I had to let that go,” Cousens says. “Also, my fiancé and I wouldn’t have met had I kept doing the theatre route.”

She met her partner, Calum Thwaites, at a book launch in Sydney in early 2017. Since he lived in Brisbane, and Cousens in Sydney, they dated for 10 months by long distance. “I figured that doing long distance would get easier because we’d get into a routine, but actually it gets harder as you get more attached,” Cousens says.

Given the nature of her work, it was easier for her to make the move interstate to join him in Brisbane. “I count my lucky stars every day,” she says. “We try to keep politics separate from our day-to-day life. Sometimes he’ll change my opinion, sometimes I’ll change his. What’s great is that it never gets personal.”

The same can’t be said for the comments online. “Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. You have to not care what other people say or think about you, particularly anonymous people on Twitter,” she tells Stellar. “I mean, who really cares if XYZ Bot with two followers said Daisy Cousens is a racist Nazi white supremacist?”

Cousens may dress in uber-feminine clothing (“I’ve always been really, really girly”) but that doesn’t mean she’s in any way a shrinking violet.

She admits to poking the proverbial bear – like the time she said, “I called myself a feminist before I started, you know, thinking”, or the time she pointed out there were reports stating that “people on the right are on average better-looking than those on the left”.

And while she admits that politics is particularly “grubby” at the moment, that hasn’t deterred her from getting into the boxing ring.

“I’m hoping for Trump to win,” she says of the upcoming US elections. “I have faith he can, and I picked his victory last time. But I’m not betting on any horse just yet.”

So with her propensity to shock people, is Daisy Cousens the public persona the same as Daisy Cousens the person?

“I think the best way to describe a commentator is that it’s the same person but with the volume turned up,” she says with a laugh. “You’re a bit more theatrical and provocative. The way I am in The Bolt Report or in my YouTube videos is very me. I try to stay really true to who I am.”

https://www.couriermail.com.au/lifestyle/stellar/conservative-daisy-cousens-on-social-media-trolls-qa-and-a-trump-win/news-story/886038968222f24b83dbf2f2bce87951

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

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Queensland Election: How One Nation propelled the Labor party to victory

Queensland is my home state. All four of my grandparents were born here. And I am delighted that I don't have to move elsewhere in search of a better life.

I agree with the analysis below. I am myself a One Nation voter but I too thought Leftist Premier Annastacia has been doing a great job in keeping our borders closed.

Aside from businesses in the tourist industry, life has remained pretty normal in Queensland -- while most other places were suffering heavy lockdowns. Queensland has been an oasis of civilization amid authoritarion repression elsewhere

We actually have done even better than Sweden in continuing to lead normal lives. They have had thousands of deaths while we have had hardly any

One Nation is one of two genuinely conservative minority parties. The other being KAP. KAP has it base up in the Far North where I come from. So I was delighted to see that they got 3 seats

It was a move straight out of Pauline Hanson’s playbook that helped Labor to a surprise majority government win at the election. Ironically, it came with the help of One Nation supporters.

Annastacia Palaszczuk has cruised back into office with the help of One Nation, ironically borrowing from Pauline Hanson’s parochial playbook of slamming borders shut to outsiders.

One Nation’s vote collapsed across the state, with Labor seen as a major beneficiary.

Analysts believe older One Nation voters worried about their health amid the COVID-19 pandemic turned to Labor because of Ms Palaszczuk’s tough stance on border closures to ‘keep Queenslanders safe’.

It was a domestic nod to Ms Hanson’s rise to power in the mid-1990s on a strong anti-immigration platform.

Last night, One Nation had recorded just 7 per cent of the vote statewide, down from nearly 14 per cent in 2017.

Strong swings against the party were recorded in many north and central Queensland seats including traditional strongholds such as Hervey Bay and Pumicestone, where it suffered swings of 13 per cent.

Labor legend Graham Richardson said it was no surprise that the One Nation vote moved towards the ALP. “I don’t think Palaszczuk’s ever been thrown off course, she just keeps going in the same direction,” he said. “Pauline mightn’t like it but Queenslanders obviously do.”

One Nation admitted its major focus was holding its only Queensland seat, Mirani, west of Mackay. “I think we had net zero game,’’ party spokesman James Ashby said. “The primary focus was to re-elect Stephen Andrew in Mirani.”

One Nation, whose resurgence impacted on a host of seats in the 2017 election by way of preferences, was recording a plummeting vote in seats right across the state in early counting.

Senator Hanson called for Queensland to reopen the border early in the pandemic, saying it was “destroying people’s lives’ and threatening a High Court challenge to the ‘unconstitutional’ border closure

She also urged vulnerable Australians to ‘lock yourselves away’ so the borders could reopen to provide relief for suffering tourism operators.

But Senator Hanson was largely invisible throughout the election campaign.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/state-election-2020/parties/how-one-nation-propelled-labor-to-victory/news-story/e77ccd0de807e225a530777d4c96c0eb

In the case of Peter Ridd, we’ll soon learn whether academic freedom matters

Prof. Ridd was critical of alarmist utterances about the Barrier Reef coming from his university colleagues

This week there were whoops of delight from Republicans over the appointment of conservative lawyer Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court. It will, they say, buttress democracy for decades to come. The Democrats were inconsolable, marking the rushed appointment as the end of democracy. The divide is fundamental: is it the role of America’s highest court to interpret law in humble deference to what the law says, or to change the law to suit social ­engineers who have grown ­impatient with the democratic process?

Everyone agrees on one thing: judges on the US Supreme Court can alter the country in profound ways.

By the way, two new judges were appointed to Australia’s High Court this week, although few will know their names. For the record, Simon Steward from Melbourne and Jacqueline Gleeson from Sydney, both former Federal Court judges and both in their early 50s, will serve long stints on our most influential court until they reach the mandatory retirement age of 70. Steward will join the court in December, and Gleeson, the daughter of former chief justice Murray Gleeson, will take up her seat in March next year.

Both judges will be watched closely by those who understand that the High Court can fundamentally change the direction of our country, too. Eighty per cent of its cases are mundane, having little impact on the country. The other 20 cent are the Big Bang cases. Through the intersection of law, politics and values, they can cause seismic shifts throughout the country.

Will Steward and Gleeson become roaming judicial adventurers making decisions like philo­sopher kings rather than humble judges? There are no guarantees. After all, the court’s most recent appointment, and disappointment, is Justice James Edelman. Part of the recent 4-3 majority decision in Love v The Commonwealth, along with fellow justices Michelle Gordon, Geoffrey Nettle and Virginia Bell, Edelman dreamt up a legally bogus racial privilege to exclude two men from the normal application of our non-citizens laws.

Chief Justice Susan Kiefel’s scathing rebuke of the majority should be inscribed somewhere along the hallowed halls of the High Court for the newcomers.

“Implications are not devised by the judiciary,” Kiefel said, because they are “antithetical to the judicial function since they involve an appeal to the personal philosophy or preferences of judges”.

The departure of Nettle and Bell means that, without the support from the new appointees, Edelman and Gordon might be relegated to minority dissents the next time they choose to cook up propositions to suit their preferred outcomes, and pronounce them as the law of the land.

All eyes will be on the newest judges especially if the High Court decides to hear the case involving physics professor Peter Ridd. In August, Ridd lodged a 13-page ­application for special leave to ­appeal a 2018 Federal Court decision that upheld his sacking by James Cook University. On Thursday, the High Court agreed to hear oral arguments about special leave in February next year. This is interesting. The vast maj­ority of applications are rejected “on the papers” — in other words without an oral hearing.

Next, the High Court will decide if the Ridd case is sufficiently important to warrant judgment from the nation’s highest court. There is, as former High Court judge Michael Kirby once said, no point pretending that it is a logical or scientific process. In other words, it’s down to whether the court finds a matter interesting. The test is subjective, their decision unappealable.

For the punters, the raw odds are about one in 10: last year, of a total of 445 special leave applications, the court granted leave in 52 cases.

Insiders give Ridd a 50-50 chance of making it over the next hurdle. The case, after all, is not just about the “substantial injustice” of JCU’s termination of Ridd’s career, claiming he acted in an uncollegial manner in breach of the university’s vaguely drafted code of conduct when he raised questions about the quality of climate research at JCU.

If the High Court grants Ridd special leave to appeal, the court’s final determination is likely to ­reverberate across the country. Many universities have intellectual freedom clauses in their ­enterprise agreements with academics. And most universities have ambiguously drafted codes of conduct that could be used to restrict these same intellectual freedom clauses. Where does that leave academic freedom in this country?

Ridd’s case is being led by Melbourne QC Stuart Wood, while JCU has Bret Walker SC in its corner. Ridd’s claim for special leave to appeal includes a powerful observation from legal scholar Ron­ald Dworkin that “any invasion of academic freedom is not only harmful in itself, but also makes future invasions more likely”.

There is another harm to ­society. If JCU’s infringement of academic freedom is allowed to stand, it will have a chilling effect on other academics. We will never know what research escapes rigorous testing by academics who do not want to jeopardise their jobs.

The High Court is being asked to rule on the core mission of a university: is it, first and foremost, to defend academic freedom and further research, to seek the truth by challenging orthodoxies that can become dangerously inaccurate over time?

If, on the other hand, universities are allowed to sack academics in circumstances similar to Ridd, with obvious impacts for the quality of research and learning, then Australians are entitled to confirmation of this dystopian brave new world at Australian universities from our highest court.

And dystopian it certainly is. Along with making 17 findings against Ridd, two speech directions and five confidentiality directions (even prohibiting him at one stage from speaking with his wife about the matter), JCU also issued a “no satire” direction against Ridd demanding he not make fun of the disciplinary proceedings.

No satire? It’s hard not to make fun of a taxpayer-funded university that censures, then sacks, a respected professor of physics, and employee of 27 years, a man ranked in the top 5 per cent of researchers globally for raising questions about the quality of climate science research at the Great Barrier Reef.

Only this week, this report slipped under the ABC News’s ­Armageddon radar: “Researchers have found a new reef that is as tall as a skyscraper in the waters off Cape York in north Queensland.” As Ridd told Inquirer this week, “we are constantly learning new, and incredible things about the reef”.

The shoddy, disproportionate treatment of the physics professor by JCU has become the centrifugal force to better protect academic freedom at universities, not just via the courts, but by parliament too.

Ridd’s sacking led Education Minister Dan Tehan to initiate a review into free speech and academic freedom at Australian universities in 2019 by Robert French. Nothing had been done prior to Tehan taking the portfolio. This week, Tehan tabled the Higher Education Support Amendment (Freedom of Speech) Bill 2020, which gives effect to legislative changes suggested by the former chief justice. The bill requires that universities commit to “academic freedom” — as defined by French — in return for getting registration, and taxpayer funds.

These are indeed interesting times for academic freedom, with a review under way by Professor Sally Walker into the implementation by universities of the model code on academic freedom also recommended by French.

The model code is intended to operate as an umbrella-like standard to fall over all university policies, codes, pronouncements, etc. If a particular enterprise agreement has a broader definition of academic freedom, that is great for academics at that university. If an EA offers less protection than French’s model code, then that model code will lift the standard of academic freedom protections. That will be a terrific boost for academic freedom across the country because, as experts who have trawled through EAs of Australian universities told Inquirer this week, none of the EAs offer more protection than French’s model code.

When Walker’s review is completed late next month, we will discover which vice-chancellors have dragged the chain, more cowardly corporatist controllers than defenders of robust intellectual excellence.

Their incalcitrant approach to academic freedom should firm up the minister’s resolve to stop the rot. Tehan’s next move might be to legislate that every university implement the full French model code as a requirement of university registration. Even if not legislated, the minister has a backdoor way to secure the same outcome. Under section 136 of Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act, Tehan can direct the university regulator to use the model code when enforcing the educational standards to Australian universities. With oversight from Senate Estimates, this could well transform TESQA, known as a wet-lettuce regulator, into a genuine guardian of university excellence acting in the best interest of academics, students, taxpayers and the country.

In other words, with the model code in place, either by law or ministerial directive, what happened to Ridd can never happen again. That, of course, will not help the unassuming, but determined, professor. His final appeal for justice, and common sense, rests with the High Court next year, when at least one new judge, maybe two, will be on the bench. No wonder we will be watching closely.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/in-the-case-of-peter-ridd-well-soon-learn-whether-academic-freedom-matters/news-story/e9989ee75d014de015f7551ad8ed4e66

Bank's climate policy reveals steps away from coal to support net zero emission by 2050

But not shifting support away from family farms

ANZ has released its new climate change policy that will see the bank take steps away from financing thermal coal and towards supporting the transition to a net zero emissions economy by 2050.

Under the 10-year strategy, ANZ has committed to stop directly financing any new coal-fired power plans or thermal coal mines including expansions by 2030.

It will also "wind down" existing direct lending to coal-fired plants and thermal coal, and help existing customers with more than 50 per cent exposure to thermal coal create diversification strategies by 2025.

ANZ group executive Mark Whelan told investors via its blog Bluenotes that the new approach committed the bank to "taking strong action to support the Paris Agreement".

The big four bank has pledged to no longer provide services to any new business that makes more than 10 per cent of its revenue from thermal coal.

The bank also made changes to how it would finance the construction of large-scale office buildings, saying loans would only be provided if the buildings were highly energy efficient and had a 5-star energy rating.

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack released a statement on Thursday condemning ANZ's policy for being "sheer virtue-signalling".

Mr McCormack said banks should be focused on "supporting our agricultural producers, not adding an extra layer of administration".

"Imposing largely Euro-centric standards to satisfy shareholder activists while our nation recovers from a global pandemic is grossly unfair," he said.

ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott told investors via Bluenotes on Thursday afternoon the bank was not shifting support away from farmers.

"ANZ's climate change statement is focused on the top 100 carbon emitters, and will have no impact on the bank's farmgate lending practices," Mr Elliott said.

He said the policy was about the bank's "major agribusiness customers" becoming more energy efficient and was "not about family farms".

The new policy adds ANZ to a growing number of businesses that are ahead of the Australian Government when it comes to commitments to stop the effects of climate change.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-29/anz-climate-policy-steps-away-from-coal-toward-carbon-neutrality/12825934

Democracy under attack from the censorious Left

Democratic politics, which can only function within a system of representative government, turns on the successful and peaceful regulation of difference. In other words, democracy is all about ­debate and discussion.

In contemporary Western societies, this concept is under attack, primarily from the left, by means of de-platforming individuals. This amounts to non-violent silencing, or political censorship.

In Australia, it exists within such institutions as universities, and can even be found within ­sections of the ABC.

Division and disagreement is essential to the proper functioning of democracies. Yet you would not know this judging from some recent contributions to the political debate. On Tuesday, federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, the member for the Melbourne seat of Kooyong, delivered one of the best speeches heard in the House of Representatives in decades.

The story is now well known. Labor Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese attempted to surprise the Coalition government by introducing a motion before Question Time commending “the people of Victoria for the sacrifices they have made in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic”. The motion was introduced following the reductions to the harsh lockdown in Victoria introduced by Premier Daniel Andrews’ Labor government, which were announced on Monday. Not surprisingly, Albanese’s motion had a political message. It noted the people of Victoria had succeeded because they “have heeded the advice of dedicated public health officials” and resolved that this message be conveyed to the Premier of Victoria.

Most motions of this kind are rejected by the government. Not on this occasion — apparently to Labor’s surprise. Prime Minister Scott Morrison not only accepted the motion but said that, if asked, he would have seconded it. Morrison then proceeded, in a strong speech, to point out Victoria’s failure to handle hotel quarantine which led to close to 100 per cent of Australia’s second wave infections. He added that the commonwealth provided “$200m every day of support to see Victorians through this crisis”.

Then it was the regional Vic­toria-based Labor deputy leader Richard Marles’s turn. He saw fit to praise the Victorian government, which he declared had “been a source of crystal-clear decisions at the heart of which has been the very best medical advice which has guided us from where we were back in July to where we are right now”.

In his speech, Marles compared the situation in Victoria favourably to that in Britain. Albanese had made a similar comparison.

Following Marles, Frydenberg showed considerable passion, if not anger. He declared that the ­reduction of the virus in his home state was a victory for the people of Victoria — “and no one else’s victory”. He said that Victorians have suffered so much but that “it should never ever have come to this”. And he reminded the opposition that the proper comparison “is not with the United Kingdom (and) not with the United States; the comparison is with NSW, Queensland, Tasmania and South Australia”.

Frydenberg referred to school closures, business failures, COVID-19-related deaths, job losses and mental health impacts of the stage four lockdowns necessitated on account of the Andrews-led Labor government’s failure with respect to hotel quarantine and contact tracing.

This was modern politics at its best as the leaders of the Labor Party and the Liberal Party confronted each other on the floor of the House of Representatives. It is sometimes said that modern politics in the Westminster system is too bland. Well, this wasn’t the case on Tuesday.

But not all were happy. Katharine Murphy is the political editor of the left-wing Guardian Australia online newspaper. Writing after the parliamentary debate had finished, the Canberra-based journalist came to the view that Victorians following the debate would have experienced “alienation or possibly revulsion”.

According to Murphy, Frydenberg not only “puffed like a pool toy at full inflation” but was also “vibrating with outrage”. She added that, when responding to Marles, the Treasurer “had taken up residence behind the bike sheds and started swinging”. Murphy also made reference to “junkyard dog politics” and “the revenge of the knockdown clowns”.

And then there was more. According to Murphy, “instead of sober acknowledgment unifying the country, adolescent rancour, either sheathed or naked, prevailed”. And she accused Frydenberg of “the deliberate infla­mmation of societal divisions”.

All this demonstrates just how out of touch some members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery are. All democratic societies are divided to a greater or lesser extent. This is particularly the case with the COVID-19 pandemic, which is the greatest socio-economic disaster to hit Australia since the Spanish Flu a century ago.

The fact is that the ACT, where Murphy lives, is doing well. There is little virus around. No public servants have lost their jobs due to the pandemic — some have received pay increases. The quality of housing in Canberra is high, which makes life relatively easy for professionally educated and technologically literate types who can work from home.

Meanwhile in Melbourne, very small and medium businesses have closed down, maybe never to reopen. Schoolchildren have lost experiences that they can never regain. The unemployment numbers are devastating. Families cannot get together if they live outside a restricted area. Victorian Police are behaving in a manner which has led to the imposition of excessive force on normally law-abiding citizens. People were locked up in rooms and apartments for 110 days in a row. And so on.

But Murphy reckons Frydenberg has no right to express restrained anger at the plight experienced by his fellow Victorians in general, and young families in particular, due to the incompetence of the Andrews government’s management of health.

Andrews is on record as saying of Frydenberg: “He’s not a leader, he’s just a Liberal.” This overlooks the fact that such long-serving Australian leaders as Robert Menzies and John Howard were Liberals. Andrews also seems to overlook the fact that Frydenberg has spoken out strongly in defence of his fellow Victorians — which is what leaders are expected to do in successful democracies. A point missed, apparently, by The Guardian’s political editor.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/democracy-under-attack-from-the-censorious-left/news-story/4a5f1375b63dca73acefb85ecdb74905

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

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The African problem comes to Darwin

The video clearly depicts Africans

A group of out-of-control youths have been terrorising Darwin, leaving residents feeling like prisoners in their own homes.

Armed with knives and rocks, the group of children - some just eight years old - have been wreaking havoc across this city every night this week.

Over the past 24 hours cars, cafes and homes have been broken into by the same group.

Blue Taxi Company has been posting images of the carnage they've experienced at the hands of the group. Their latest post shows glass scattered across the backseat of a taxi after a window was smashed. 'And another day in the war zone,' the post read.

Blue Taxi Company owner Helen Pachos told Daily Mail Australia the crime was so bad residents felt like prisoners in their own homes. 'It's just getting more and more out of control,' she said. 'During lockdown it quietened down, I'm not sure what changed in the last week but they are out and about.

'We get told by the police that it's just a group of youths - they call them youths, I call them thugs - that are repeatedly doing it.

'What is really concerning is they've got 10 and eight-year-olds tagging along, I call them ''crims in training''.'

She said she had put additional security measures in place to deter criminals but it had't stopped them from being targeted.

'We now have cameras everywhere. 'It doesn't stop them, it just gets the evidence that it's happening, that's not what I want, I want to feel safe. 'It's very scary. We're prisoners in our own home.'

Rick Hall shared a picture on Facebook on Thursday showing his car which had the window smashed in. 'That lovely little, but growing band from Karama just smashed my car with rocks as I was going past Casaurina Square,' he said.

'When I stopped and got out about ten kids pelted me with rocks and two threw their scooters at me.'

Another horrified homeowner discovered a knife left behind in a car after it was broken into this week. 'To the people of McMinns Lagoon, the little terds are armed,' the post read. 'They raided our cars and got cash. They left their knife in there so it's now in the hands of the police for fingerprints.'

Fresh Point Co cafe was also targeted by the group, with CCTV footage capturing the brazen thief in the act. The popular cafe was broken into at 2.45am on Friday after crooks smashed in the front door. The group made off with 10 bottles of alcohol.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8895853/Residents-claim-Darwin-overrun-control-youths-armed-knives.html

Can the new broom remove the feminist tentacles strangling TEQSA?

Bettina Arndt

We’ve had a very lively few days, with interesting developments in our campus campaign.

The good news is we have learnt that the new CEO of TEQSA, Alistair Maclean, might be the new broom the university regulator needs to clean up its act, given its shameful history of pandering to activists by bullying universities into setting up the regulations to usurp criminal law.

Maclean’s previous job was CEO of Victoria’s anti-corruption commission, IBAC, and he was also once senior adviser to former PM John Howard. This should be a man interested in ensuring regulators do their job properly rather than allowing universities to indulge in ideologically driven policies aimed at punishing men.

We can only speculate that this was a deliberate government decision to provide some proper oversight of this regulatory authority which has so clearly run amok. Dan Tehan must be frustrated that TEQSA chose to ignore his advice at their conference last year telling them to instruct universities to leave sexual assault to the criminal courts.

The Government has also set up an TEQSA integrity unit. No, that’s not a joke! Apparently the idea is to encourage the regulator to rein in the unscrupulous behaviour exhibited by many of our universities, with the kangaroo courts coming in for particular scrutiny.

On Wednesday our campus justice group sent a long background document to Maclean, outlining the whole history of TEQSA’s shameful role in this quasi-judicial mess.

Lo and behold, the letter ended up featuring in a highly entertaining Senate Estimates session that night, where the brilliant Queensland Senator Amanda Stoker grilled Nick Saunders, Chief Commissioner of TEQSA, about TEQSA’s role in the establishment of these courts.

Regular readers may remember that last year Stoker’s inquisition left Saunders and his colleagues squirming as she waved before them one of the TEQSA documents on adjudicating campus rape cases, pointing out it contained not one word about the rights of the accused.

We’ve put together a video about all this, which starts with an extraordinary confrontation where Saunders emphatically denies that TEQSA’s initial Guidance Note to universities on this matter was intended to push them to adjudicate sexual assault. He claims he’d never heard of such a notion, apart from the letter they had received that very afternoon – which was, of course, the email from our campus justice group. Watch Saunders’ normally flushed tones turn a vivid shade of puce as he mentions the offending email!

Clearly TEQSA is not at all happy that their new CEO is being exposed to the truth about their meddling on this matter.

Anyway, please watch my video and promote it widely.

I am sure you will find the Stoker/Saunders confrontations riveting and very revealing. We need people to know about all this.

Bettina Arndt newsletter newsletter@bettinaarndt.com.au

Australia’s gas plan will push the Reef to extinction

A brainless Greenpeace emission below. Give them their assumptions and they would be right. But all their assumptions are at best dubious.

For instance, bleaching is mostly caused by sea-level fluctuations: Low level episodes in particular. They make no effort to look at that, They just regurgitate concentional assumptions

And coral is very good at regrowing so bleaching from whatever cause is never permanent. Even Ove Hoegh Guldberg noted that rapid regrowth

After three mass bleaching events in the last five years, the Great Barrier Reef is not as great as it once was. Now, as Australia attempts to rebuild from the economic fallout of COVID-19, a new threat has emerged which could threaten the world’s largest living organism even further.

Scientists have made it clear that the blame for warmer and more acidic oceans lies on coal, the number one driver of climate change. But now that the Australian Federal government is pushing for a so-called “gas-led recovery” from the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of gas in the Reef’s demise can no longer go unscrutinised.

Rather than heeding the best advice of scientists and switching Australia from polluting coal and gas to clean energy sources like wind and solar, the Australian Federal Government is instead laying the groundwork to replace one destructive fossil fuel with another. If the government’s gas dreams become reality, the implications for the Reef could be cataclysmic.

In its 2019 Production Gap Report, the UN warned that in order to keep global heating at 1.5 degrees, gas production must decline by 20 percent by 2030.

“The continued rapid expansion of gas supplies and systems risks locking in a much higher gas trajectory than is consistent with a 1.5 degree Celsius or 2 degree Celsius future,” the report reads.

“These declines mean that most of the world’s proven fossil-fuel reserves must be left unburned.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on the impact of 1.5C of global warming found that coral reefs would likely decline between 70% and 90% if the temperature increased to that level. If global warming reaches 2C, more than 99% of coral reefs could be wiped out.

Climate change expert and researcher at the Australian National University, Professor Will Steffen, was unequivocal that gas has already damaged the Reef and expanding the industry would only make that damage worse.

“There is no doubt that climate change is the primary driver of the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef,” Professor Steffen said.

“Climate change is caused by the burning of fossil fuels like gas, so there is a direct link between the greenhouse gas emissions from Australia’s gas industry, whether the gas is burned in Australia or elsewhere in the world, and the degradation and destruction of the Great Barrier Reef.”

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2257705-australias-gas-plan-will-push-the-reef-to-extinction/

Politician in hot water over ‘racist’ Chinese post

CONTROVERSIAL Whitsunday MP Jason Costigan has been accused of racism after sharing a post about Chinese LNP candidate for Stretton Peter Zhuang.

Mr Costigan shared a message from Moreton Young LNP to his personal and official Facebook pages last night opposing advertisements Mr Zhuang placed in Chinese newspapers asking for support ahead of this Saturday’s state election.

The group’s Facebook page has since been deleted.

In sharing the post to his followers, Mr Costigan wrote, “Anyone for Chinese? If so, vote for the LNP”.

The comments sparked a heated debate over whether the words used were offensive or even racist.

Facebook user Dennis Charters commented that the NQ First leader had invoked “racist comments”.

“Jason you must be clutching at straws,” he said.

Fellow Facebook user Peter Hood said the comments crossed “the boundaries of acceptable behaviour”.

“Racism is never acceptable and I’m now assured that the Italian, Chinese, Greek, 1st Australian and other ethnic North Queensland (First) supporters in Mackay are not happy,” he said.

Mr Costigan stood by his comments, saying “anyone who thought it was offensive is most likely sympathetic to the pro-Chinese Liberals”.

“As the son of an immigrant, who helped build the nation, from the Snowy Mountains to the Bowen Basin, I’m very proud of who I am, where I have come from and the special role that immigrants have played in the development of our country,” he said in a statement.

https://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/news/regional/costo-in-hot-water-over-racist-chinese-post/news-story/63d98d22dd1efbc3c704aa01f9b12cfc

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

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Football association bans the Australian national anthem from major series

The NRL has abandoned the national anthem for the game’s biggest showpiece event, the State of Origin series.

It will be the first time in 40 years the anthem will not be played before the kick-off when the series begins in Adelaide on Wednesday night.

The independent commission made the controversial decision at a meeting on Wednesday after consultation with the chairmen of the NSW and QLD organisations.

The explanation given was that the event is not a contest between international countries.

However the NRL has confirmed the anthem will remain for grand finals and Test matches.

The anthem became a huge issue in the NSW camp last year when Blues stars Latrell Mitchell, Cody Walker and Josh Addo-Carr spoke out before the game about their refusal to sing.

The Daily Telegraph understands the NSW Rugby League was against scrapping the anthem but bowed to the wishes of the NRL.

While Indigenous Blues opted against singing the anthem last year, NSW stars including captain Boyd Cordner, Jake Trbojevic and Damien Cook said they would sing the Australian national anthem “loud and proud”.

NSW Origin coach Brad Fittler had vowed to support any indigenous Blues players who wish to remain silent for Advance Australia Fair in 2020, saying: “Our anthem, it definitely needs work”.

Earlier this year, the ARL Commission scrapped the national anthem at the annual All Stars match on the advice of the game’s indigenous players.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/nrl/nrl-bans-the-australian-national-anthem-from-state-of-origin-series/news-story/d2261b7542ac498d3e444be53edb8868

Coronavirus: Sad side-effect is our meek acceptance of Premiers’ power grab

And so the recovery begins. Lily-white Victorians are emerging from their homes, their forearms shielding themselves from the sun as they take tentative steps. Young children are discovering there is another world outside their five kilometres radius.

Cafés and restaurants on Carlton’s Lygon Street are chockers, families amble through the botanical gardens, crowds flock to St Kilda beach, and in the city’s south-east region marauding gangs will once again commit home invasions and carjackings.

Normality will not be restored overnight, however. Paradoxically, the absence of circling police drones will keep many awake who are accustomed to hearing their sound. Likewise, it will be a disconcerting experience for motorists to drive without stopping at checkpoints to produce papers. People will chat with their neighbours over the fence as opposed to reporting them to the authorities. East Germany made the transition, and surely Victoria can. Assuming of course there is no third wave.

Artists, musicians, and poets are probably writing peans for the Andrews government. You can expect soon to hear actor Magda Szubanski will be narrating the upcoming production “Dan, the Musical” in honour of the Victorian Premier.

The official Victorian version of the state’s recovery will make for amusing reading.

Yesterday Health Minister Martin Foley claimed the state’s contact tracing system had withstood the “stress test of the real world”; while Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton maintained it was the best in the country. Spare us. This is the same department which only two months ago was using spreadsheets, pen, paper, and fax machines for contact tracing.

It would be premature to talk of Australia having beaten COVID-19, but not so to talk about the virus’ legacy. Sadly, it is a depressing one overall. To begin with, it has shown how ill-suited a federation is to deal with the crisis. Unlike New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who presides over a unitary system of government, the preferred approach of Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his cabinet largely meant naught when it came to the issue of a co-ordinated response.

Even calling our country a federation is a stretch. We are at best a confederation. Apart from NSW, the states have become fiefdoms. Almost overnight, being an Australian meant nothing if you attempted to cross a state border. South Australia, for example, at one stage was denying entry to Victorians in border towns who needed lifesaving medical treatment in Adelaide, while at the same time making plans to fly in 800 foreign students to its three universities.

Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein even ordered all non-Tasmanians to leave the island in March, declaring “I make no apologies for working hard to keep Tasmanians safe”.

Presumably he does not plan to expel GST allocation, which makes up 40 per cent of the state’s revenue.

A panicked response that leads to an arbitrary closure is one thing. But premiers playing to populist sentiment in closing their borders is another, as demonstrated by Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in her re-election campaign. As someone with a reputation as a vacillator and a mere figurehead, she seized on the virus to portray herself as a resolute leader. In doing so she shut out far north NSW residents, many of whom are dependent on Queensland hospitals for treatment.

In his maiden speech to Western Australia’s Parliament in 1996, a young Mark McGowan made much of his background as an officer in the Royal Australian Navy, a role in which presumably he put aside provincial yearnings. “It was Labor that successfully led this nation through the darkest days of both World Wars,” he said, lauding in particular the leadership of Prime Minister John Curtin.

As leaders, both Curtin and McGowan shared a couple of traits. Both were elected by the citizens of WA, but neither was born or raised in that state. That is where the similarity ends. Curtin was a principled man who unified the country under his leadership. Conversely, McGowan has opportunistically used the greatest threat to Australia since World War II to pick a fight with the rest of the country, having closed WA’s borders since March, even to residents from states and territories that have long recorded no cases of community transmission of the virus.

McGowan has insisted he is acting on health advice. But being a parochial braggart, he gave himself away earlier this month with his audacious declaration that opening WA to South Australia and the Northern Territory would bring no economic benefit. “All we would do is lose jobs, were we to open to those states,” he said. “They’re only saying all this for very self-interested reasons because we have higher incomes and people who are more used to travelling and therefore we will have more tourists from West Australians go to the east.”

As they say, if you wish to ascertain a man’s character, give him power.

Every Australian has a constitutional right to cross state borders, but that means little if the federal government does not act against those who would infringe it.

By and large, the Morrison government has only made token efforts to defend this right, instead relying on a proxy, that being mining billionaire Clive Palmer, who has initiated proceedings in the High Court against the WA Government.

According to Attorney-General Christian Porter, the Commonwealth simply wanted to realise “moderate middle ground” when it intervened when the matter was before the Federal Court, but he later withdrew from proceedings. It was both pusillanimous and disheartening. As such, any subsequent protest by Morrison against state closures merely emphasises his government’s impotence.

But only a fool would leave it to governments to protect civil rights, and this is an area where Australians have let themselves down badly. This virus has proved the anti-authoritarian element no longer exists in the Australian psyche. We have largely accepted questionable restrictions on our liberty but have condemned journalists who have insisted leaders account for these decisions. As evident in polling regarding support for border closures, premiers such as McGowan and Palaszczuk have delighted in our malleability.

And it is not just the politicians who increasingly exercise control over our lives. Thanks to the creeping effect we largely accept that officials in the form of anti-discrimination tribunes and human rights commissioners will regulate our behaviour. Now the virus has accelerated the rise of the bureaucratic class. Who could forget Queensland’s chief health officer Jeannette Young, who, having blocked interstate relatives from attending funerals, decided to admit Hollywood actor Tom Hanks because “entertainment and film bring a lot of money into this state”. Excuse me?

That is not to say that everything that follows this virus is bad. For example, it is refreshing to see people have little time for the climate change evangelists and rent-seekers. Yes, I am talking to you, Zali Steggall, the federal MP and self-proclaimed “climate leader” who is desperately seeking relevance. And for us OCD types, it is joyful to see the proliferation of automatic soap dispensers.

But perhaps the most evident legacy is the burgeoning government debt, which is expected to rise to $1.5 trillion by the end of the decade. We simply cannot continue this taxpayer-funded largesse. Instead we need innovative ideas to instigate an economic recovery.

On that note, it is vital when deciding that issue to utilise those parts of industry that have been dormant because of the virus. My big idea is to lobby Parliament to allow the deportations of non-citizens in cases when the person commits an offence that results in six months or more imprisonment (currently the minimum is 12 months).

This could be the answer to Qantas and Virgin’s recovery. Just think: we would need to commission an entire fleet of planes for the trans-Tasman route alone. I am not sure what is the most attractive proposition: the recovery of our airline industry or the thought of Jacinda losing it. What is your big idea?

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/coronavirus-sad-sideeffect-is-our-meek-acceptance-of-premiers-power-grab/news-story/fd7f2a9b961dc78fa1d4baae35873edd

Lloyd's insurer Apollo to stop underwriting Adani coal mine from Sept. 2021

Adani is big enough to self-insure

Lloyd's of London firm Apollo has written insurance for Adani Enterprises' Carmichael thermal coal mine which expires in Sept 2021 but is not planning to provide any further insurance for the mine, according to a memo seen by Reuters.

Carmichael has provoked controversy in Australia because it would open up a new thermal coal basin at a time of growing concerns over global warming, in a region that is in need of jobs.

Adani has begun construction at Carmichael, which will start by producing 10 million tonnes of coal per year together with an associated rail project, and expects first production in 2021.

"We participate in one construction liability policy in respect of Adani Carmichael...this particular policy terminates in September 2021 after which we will no longer provide any insurance cover for this project," chair of Apollo Syndicate Management Julian Cusack said in the memo.

"We have recently declined to participate in an additional policy relating to the port and rail extension and have agreed that we will not participate in any further insurance policies for risks associated with this project."

Cusack confirmed to Reuters via LinkedIn that he had written the memo. Adani did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Many insurers, mainly in Europe, have scaled back their exposure to coal.

Lloyd's of London, which has more than 90 syndicate members, does not have an overarching policy on coal, though the Stop Adani campaign says 17 Lloyd's insurers have ruled out insuring the mine.

"It is encouraging to see that 27 major insurers, including those which have previously underwritten this disastrous project - like Apollo - are now refusing insurance to Adani," said Pablo Brait, campaigner at Australian action group Market Forces.

"The project will help open up a massive new thermal coal basin in the midst of a climate crisis...any insurer that provides coverage for Adani's coal operations in Australia is seriously risking its reputation."

https://www.miningweekly.com/article/lloyds-insurer-apollo-to-stop-underwriting-adani-coal-mine-from-sept-2021-2020-10-28

Australia defies international pressure to set emissions targets

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he will not be dictated to by other governments' climate change goals, declaring he is not worried about the future of Australia's exports despite four of the country's top trading partners adopting net-zero emissions targets.

China, Japan, Britain and South Korea, which account for more than $310 billion in Australian annual trade between them, have all now adopted the emissions target by 2050 or 2060, ramping up pressure on Australia's fossil fuel industry. Coal and natural gas alone are worth more than 25 per cent of Australia's exports, or $110 billion each year.

"I am not concerned about our future exports," Mr Morrison said on Wednesday. "Australia will set our policies here. Our policies won't be set in the United Kingdom, they won't be set in Brussels, they won't be set in any part of the world other than here."

As the Prime Minister spoke in Canberra, the South Korean President Moon Jae-in was addressing his own parliament in Seoul announcing his country would also pursue a net-zero target by 2050.

"Transitioning from coal to renewable energy, the government will create new markets, industries and jobs," Mr Moon told the National Assembly on Wednesday.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a phone call on Tuesday encouraged Mr Morrison to take "bold action" on climate change and "emphasise the importance of setting ambitious targets to cut emissions and reach net zero".

Responding to the UK government's version of the phone call, Mr Morrison said Mr Johnson understood that Australia would make "sovereign decisions" on the targets it set.

"It shouldn't come at the cost of higher prices for the daily things that our citizens depend on," he said.

"One thing the British Prime Minister and I agree on is that achieving emissions reductions shouldn't come at the cost of jobs in Australia or the UK."

Major Australian export companies such as Rio Tinto, BHP, major agriculture groups and multinational food companies are pursuing carbon neutrality, which experts say is a move to avoid being stung with trade tariffs or charges by countries that have set net-zero targets.

The Morrison government has argued it will comply with the terms of the Paris climate agreement by reaching net zero by sometime in the second half of the century but has not set a firm target.

Mr Morrison claimed on Wednesday that Australia's emissions had fallen by 14 per cent since 2005, compared to 1 per cent for New Zealand and 0 per cent for Canada. The comparison of emissions reduction between different countries has been disputed with differences over methods and the use of carryover credits. Mr Morrison said the world would "not really make a lot of progress" without widespread renewable technology to ensure developing economies like India and Vietnam could also reduce emissions.

"Our record on this speaks for itself. When we make commitments in Australia's interests then we will meet those commitments as well," Mr Morrison said.

But top scientists contend that for Australia to honour the Paris agreement - which requires countries to follow the best available scientific advice on how to limit global warming to less than two degrees — the country must reach net-zero emissions before 2050.

The federal government’s opposition to commit to reaching the target by 2050 also puts it out of step with all states and territories, which are pursuing carbon-neutral goals.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australia-defies-international-pressure-to-set-emissions-targets-20201028-p569ed.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

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'We're full!' Overwhelming number of Australians say the country doesn't need any more immigration as voters reject 'leftist elites'

An overwhelming majority of Australians oppose high immigration, fearing it could affect their way of life, a study has found.

Before the pandemic saw the border closed to non-citizens and non-residents in March, Australia's net annual immigration rate was approaching 200,000.

Australia's population also surpassed the 25million mark in August 2018 - 24 years earlier than predicted in the federal government's inaugural Intergenerational Report of 2002.

With Sydney and Melbourne among the world's least affordable housing markets, 72 per cent of respondents have told The Australian Population Research Institute (TAPRI) Australia was full.

The survey of 2,029 people was taken in October and November 2019 - four months before Prime Minister Scott Morrison closed Australia's border to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Half the people polled wanted a reduction in immigration, fearing it caused more pollution and congestion.

Study authors and sociologists Katharine Betts and Bob Birrell said rapid population growth before the pandemic had worried a majority of Australians, who regarded both major parties are representing the interests of 'leftist elites'.

'High immigration was responsible for the deterioration of the quality of life in Australia's big cities, as well as stressing its natural environment,' they said in an opinion piece for News Corp.

'Moreover, at least half the electorate do not support the progressive cultural values that left elites (including Labor’s leaders) regard as legitimating high immigration. 'This is a key finding since it shows that there is only lukewarm support for the core Big Australia strategy of high immigration.

'We can say with confidence based on our and other surveys that half the electorate are prepared to say, within the safety of an anonymous survey, that immigration should be reduced.'

Former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd a decade ago declared himself to be a supporter of a 'big Australia', with business leaders also favouring high population growth.

His Liberal predecessor John Howard two decades ago increased net immigration levels to the six-figures, putting them well above the 20th century average of 70,000 a year.

The TAPRI survey however found people no longer believed it was 'possible' to accommodate more immigrants.

'The conditions that made it possible to sustain a Big Australia and ignore this concern no longer exist in the post-Covid environment,' the study read.

'If the Coalition, or Labor, does try to revive a Big Australia many of these voters would respond readily to any attempt to mobilise them.

Australia's population stood at 25,715,134 as of October 27, 2020.

The survey found that most respondents who took a stance against more immigration were not university educated, while those with a degree were more likely to back immigration.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8882601/Overwhelming-number-Australians-say-country-doesnt-need-immigration.html

While our schools coach kids in social activism, literacy takes a back seat

School students are being groomed for social activism while too many are still functionally illiterate as they leave the classroom.

A new OECD report shows that Australia’s school system has an excess focus on students developing “awareness of global issues”.

Little wonder our students’ performance in the OECD-run Program for International Student Assessment has plummeted faster than almost any other country. More than one in five 15-year-olds don’t have the essential literacy and numeracy they will need to be successful in work or further study.

It provides yet further evidence that Australia’s school system has got its priorities upside-down. Of course we should encourage our children to be good global citizens. It’s heartening to know they are inclusive and aware of diversity. They report more positive attitudes about immigrants and embrace the perspectives of others than in most OECD countries.

The problem is that efforts of the school system to engineer ­increased “global competences” comes at a cost — namely the education of our young learners — and for two reasons.

First, there is only so much time in the school day and year. And Australian students already spend more time in the classroom than in most countries. The problem is that this time is not being used well. For decades, teachers and educationalists have warned that the school curriculum has become bloated and overcrowded. Flirting with fashionable but untested teaching trends, entertaining fringe educational issues and bringing woke causes to the classroom are all part of the problem.

Despite this obvious progressive march through the education system, concern over infiltration of those ideas into the curriculum and schools has been routinely dismissed as little more than “conservative hysteria”.

There are now multiple reviews of school curriculums under way across the country, but there is ­little hope the malign and wasteful influences will be struck out.

A central element of the Australian curriculum — which sets the pace for the states and territories — is the focus on so-called “general capabilities”. The competences that are taught and assessed include: personal and social capability; ethical understanding; and intercultural understanding — nice-to-haves, but surely not the centrepiece of schooling.

We need to focus on addressing our students’ literacy and numeracy deficits, with a drive for higher academic standards and expectations from our educators.

The second problem is that, while the curriculum has embraced global issues, it has resisted any effort to reinforce Australian ones. Our students are unfamiliar with our own history, how our democracy works, and have decreasing (or little) national pride.

They’re encouraged to identify as global citizens, rather than as Australians — witness the constant undermining of our national holidays and traditions. Students are often misled to believe our country is racist, sexist, and a selfish polluter. Our school system should educate away foolish misconceptions, rather than promote them in the name of postmodernism and critical theory.

It’s true that the continued pace of globalisation will mean our teenagers need more global awareness than in decades past. But the progressive left has twisted this to mean exclusion of nationhood. We need more, not less, ­emphasis on Australian civics and citizenship — something that successive governments have promised but failed to deliver.

Not only does the education of school students suffer, but so does their wellbeing.

It’s not standardised testing and end-of-school exams that has resulted in the heightened anxiety of our teens but rather the obsessive preaching of celebrity activists, such as Greta Thunberg, who are preoccupied with building students’ political activism.

We must put an end to the needless sacrificing of our young learners’ futures in service of progressive globalism. In its place, we need to remodel a rigorous and ambitious education system that doesn’t continue to ignore national aspirations and needs.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/while-our-schools-coach-kids-in-social-activism-literacy-takes-a-back-seat/news-story/f1ad98394a2a8043cbcdabc00e41e319

Negative prices: South Australia solar farms had to pay to produce in September

Perverse. Their output has no relationship to the need for it -- so it is often worthless

South Australia’s three large scale solar farms had to effectively pay to produce in the month of September – as the average price of solar power in the state’s grid fell to minus $9.70 a megawatt hour over the calendar month.

“Record low wholesale prices in September resulted in South Australian solar farms having to pay $9.70/MWh to generate,” the Australian Energy Market Operator notes in its latest Quarterly Energy Dynamics report.

Over the whole quarter, the volume weighted average price of large scale solar was $23/MWh, down some 62 per cent from the same time in 2019, while the average price for all electricity produced in South Australia for the quarter was $40/MWh.

There are several reasons for the negative price of South Australia solar – firstly the increase in output from large scale solar, as Bungala 2 finally reached full output, the continued rapid expansion of rooftop solar, which in turn is dramatically reducing operating demand in the middle of the day, and grid constraints which limited the amount of exports from South Australia into Victoria.

South Australia has three large scale solar farms, the 110MW Bungala One installation near Port Augusta, the neighbouring 110MW Bungala Two (which has only just reached full output after nearly two years of delays due to technical issues), and the 95MW Tailem Bend solar farm near the town of the same name.

Tailem Bend usually ducks negative pricing events, turning its output down to zero under the terms of its long term power purchase agreement with Snowy Hydro.

But the two Bungala solar farms, under long term contracts with Origin Energy, plough through the negative prices. The exact nature of the contracts is not known, but it is not necessarily a bad thing for either party, but it’s not a great market signal for more solar, or for more off-take agreements – although it is for storage.

Across the National Electricity Market, which comprises South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, NSW and Queensland, the average price for solar fell to $29/MWh in the September quarter, and the average price for wind fell to $38/MWh, both representing falls of around 50 per cent from the same period a year earlier.

AEMO’s QED report notes that curtailment of wind and solar farms across the NEM rose to 5.5 per cent in the September quarter, a result of the record levels of negative pricing events in South Australia and Queensland, and newly emerging system strength issues in north Queensland.

In Queensland, two solar farms and one wind farm were told of system strength issues that would cause their output to be reduced significantly, or down to zero, depending on conditions, and then another nine solar farms were told the same thing as new modelling unveiled new problems.

In Queensland, the average constraint for wind and solar over the whole quarter was 49MW, up from 5MW in the same period last year. Ironically, the situation was worsened by increased outages at the state’s coal fired generators. New synchronous condensers may alleviate that issue.

Economic constraints – the decision by generators to “self-curtail” in the face of negative prices – meant that on average there was 50MW of curtailment of wind and solar farms through the September quarter. AEMO says 70 per cent of that curtailment occurred in daytime hours between 7am and 7pm.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/negative-prices-south-australia-solar-farms-had-to-pay-to-produce-in-september-77375/

Queensland police say officer acted appropriately in incident that injured Brisbane refugee protester

The cops were trying to get him away from a fence he was trying to pull down

Queensland police say a video in which an officer appears to hit a refugee protester in the head at a Brisbane rally on Sunday makes the incident "appear far worse than it is".

But Jeff Rickertt, the man who was injured in the incident, rejected the police assessment of the incident as "complete nonsense".

"I felt the force of the blow. My initial reaction was that I'd been hit by a fist," Mr Rickertt said after being released from hospital on Monday afternoon.

He said a CT scan had found no serious head injury, and that he had a laceration on his ear and a dull headache but "otherwise I'm fine".

Tensions between police and activists had been building over a series of protests against the ongoing detention of refugees and asylum seekers at a hotel in the Brisbane suburb of Kangaroo Point.

Protesters provided the ABC with video of what some activists believed was a police officer hitting Mr Rickertt without provocation.

Mr Rickertt was standing by a fence that been erected around the hotel exterior. He was taken to the Mater Hospital after the incident.

"I was struck on the side of the head and for about two hours thereafter the side of my head and my ear were numb with the force of that impact," Mr Rickertt said.

On Monday, Acting Assistant Commissioner Brian Conners told a media conference he believed the actions of the officer were "appropriate".

He said the officer did not strike Mr Rickertt in the video and that the camera angle of the video made the incident "appear far worse than it is".

"The officer didn't strike the male person directly, he reached out with an open hand and grabbed the male person on the back of his clothing to pull him back from the fence," Assistant Commissioner Conners said.

He said other footage available online showed the incident from different angles and he encouraged people to review it. "The circumstances are what they are — review the footage."

One protester, Ruby Thorburn, said she was among the crowd on Sunday afternoon, standing one person away from Mr Rickertt.

Protesters told the ABC a group of 15 to 20 people were slapping their hands against the fence to make noise the men inside the hotel could hear.

"The man who had been targeted by the police officer wasn't actually touching the fence at the time, he had stepped back, and that's when I saw an extremely charged officer who sprinted up and hit him with full force on the left side of his head," Ms Thorburn said.

She said she stayed with Mr Rickertt while he was on the ground. "He looked really hurt. It was a terrifying few seconds when he hit the floor, because it was a really big thud.

"He was quite slow in responding. When he started to respond, we noticed that there was blood coming out of his ear and he was sweating and shaking a lot."

'Directions of police were ignored'

Superintendent Andrew Pilotto said the protest was unauthorised and that many in attendance "were not cooperating with police".

"Prior to the police moving in to safeguard that fence, quite a number of directions were given to protesters to release the fence, step back stand down and re-join the group, and those directions of police were ignored over a considerable period," Superintendent Pilotto said.

"A lot of these people are in police officers' faces for long periods of time, yelling at police officers, throwing things in their faces."

Mr Rickertt said he was not grabbed by the shirt or the neck, and was not near the fence when he was targeted. "I was also conscious throughout the whole process," he said. "I was very aware that I fell to the ground and I'm also very aware that I did not strike my head on the ground.

"The force of the blow to my head by the police officer was what caused the injury that I have."

Police are reviewing the matter internally.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/queensland-police-say-officer-acted-appropriately-in-incident-that-injured-brisbane-refugee-protester/ar-BB1ao0Jt

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

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Cop to stand trial for murder after an Aboriginal teenager was shot dead as prosecutors allege he was right to pull the trigger once - but not three times

It's easy to miss when firing a pistol so it is normal to fire off a string of shots to ensure an effective hit. And a person who is hit often does not react immediately so may give the impression that further shots are needed to subdue him

All that is perfectly normal and unremarkable so why is this phony charge being levelled at the cop? It is just to placate black activists who are baying for blood. It reflects the huge racial sensitivities of the era. The authorities have to be seen as taking the death very seriously

The deceased was an habitual law-defying criminal so his aggressive behaviour was in keeping with his record. But because he was black there is a furore. He was released from prison in October last year after serving eight of a 16-month sentence for unlawful entry, property damage and stealing offences with the remainder suspended. But he had allegedly breached his parole by removing an electronic monitoring device, among other offences.

There was “face-to-face combat” between him and the two officers. One officer was reportedly stabbed, which allegedly led to the teen being shot.

A Northern Territory police officer who shot dead an Aboriginal teenager will stand trial for murder, with his lawyers arguing he acted in self-defence.

Constable Zachary Rolfe, 29, was charged with murder after shooting Kumanjayi Walker, 19, three times during an arrest in the remote community of Yuendumu in November last year.

The teen's death was protested at rallies around Australia in the wake of African-American man George Floyd's death in the United States in May.

Judge John Birch on Monday ordered Mr Rolfe to stand trial following a three-day preliminary hearing in the Alice Springs Local Court.

Prosecutors agree that the first shot fired at the teenager was self-defence, after the officer was stabbed and attacked with scissors.

But they claim the second and third shots, fired just 3.6 seconds later, were murder.

Mr Rolfe was part of a four-member elite Immediate Response Team that drove 290km from Alice Springs into the Tanami Desert to arrest Walker.

The preliminary hearing in September heard evidence that Mr Walker wounded Mr Rolfe and his partner Adam Eberl with a pair of scissors in a darkened room.

Mr Rolfe allegedly shot Mr Walker with a Glock pistol three times as Walker grappled with Eberl.

Prosecutors alleged the second and third shots were not justified, arguing the IRT 'disregarded' an arrest plan by Sergeant Julie Frost from the Yuendumu police station.

A criminologist said that two of the shots were 'excessive, unreasonable and unnecessary'.

The case comes amid rising tensions about the treatment of black and indigenous people by police.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8881545/Cop-shot-dead-Aboriginal-teenager-stand-trial-murder.html

Scientists all at sea with alarmist barrier reef warning

Fancy theories preferred to the real world

A new scientific paper, received with great fanfare among inter­national media and Australia’s public broadcaster, the ABC, claims half the corals of the Great Barrier Reef are dead.

The paper is by academics at James Cook University’s ARC Centre for Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. It is a scary headline. But is it true?

This finding is not based on any tried and proven method. Rather, the researchers from James Cook University have come up with a new method of statistical analysis based on a complicated “proxy” to estimate “colony size”.

The study itself was undertaken in 2016 and 2017, just after a coral bleaching event at cyclone-damaged reefs. If they had used traditional methods and longer time frames, it would likely be found that there is actually nothing wrong with the Great Barrier Reef.

Great Barrier Reef photographer Julia Summerling wrote recently about how a section known as North Direction Island, saying that the island’s corals were “savaged beyond recognition” due to Cyclone Ita in 2014, cyclone Nathan in 2015, and a coral bleaching event in the summer of 2016. So it was probably not the most representative time to be sampling. But the headlines are based on proxy measures from just a few reefs at that time.

She now says those areas have since recovered. “What I saw — and photographed — I could hardly believe. Young dinner-plate-sized corals were crammed into every available space on the limestone plateau as far as I could see, bristling with iconic fish life, from maori wrasse and coral trout to bumphead parrotfish and sweetlips. I swam a long way on the dive, checking to see how far the coral shelf stretched. The further I swam, the denser the coral fields became.”

For a new Institute of Public Affairs film, in January this year I visited the Ribbon reefs with Emmy award-winning photographer Clint Hempshall to follow the edge of Australia’s continental shelf to find and film coral bleaching. It was meant to be one of the worst-affected regions — 60 per cent dead from bleaching, which the same scientists say is caused by climate change. But we could not find any significant bleaching. We mostly found jewelled curtains of coral, appearing to cascade down underwater cliff faces. So colourful, so beautiful, all in crystal clear and warm waters.

The problem for Professor Terry Hughes, who co-authored the research, is that his study was undertaken in 2016 and 2017 then extrapolated out to cover other years. All of the research and subsequent media attention points to a narrative that the Great Barrier Reef is at risk of imminent collapse from climate change.

It was for questioning this claim, and the quality of science behind it, that Dr Peter Ridd was eventually sacked from James Cook University. Part of those claims by Ridd were that a lot of the science coming out of JCU’s ARC Centre for Excellent in Coral Reef Studies “is not properly checked, tested or replicated, and that is a great shame because we really need to be able to trust our scientific institutions, and the fact is I do not think we can anymore.”

Neither James Cook University, nor Hughes, have ever rebutted Ridd’s criticisms of the research.

This is what objective observers need to put into context when examining Hughes’s most recent claims. Ridd also said: “I think that most of the scientists who are pushing out this stuff, I think that they genuinely believe that there are problems with the reef, I just don’t think they are very objective about the science they do. I think they’re emotionally attached to their subject and you can’t blame them the reef is a beautiful thing.”

One quick glance at Hughes’s Twitter account and you will find he is critical of the Morrison government’s gas-led recovery, cheerleading for a royal commission into the Murdoch media and constantly criticises the Adani Coal mine.

The new paper by James Cook University scientists claims both the incidence of coral bleaching and cyclones is increasing, but there is no evidence to support ­either contention. The available data from 1971 to 2017 indicated there has actually been a decrease in both the number and severity of cyclones in the Australian region.

Coral-bleaching events tend to be cyclical and coincide with periods of exceptionally low sea levels. As discussed in a new book, Climate Change: The Facts 2020, there were dramatic falls in sea levels across the western Pacific Ocean in 2016. These were associated with an El Nino event.

Until recently, coral calcification rates were calculated based on coring of the large Porites corals. There are well-established techniques for coring the Porites corals and then measuring growth rates. So why do Hughes and his colleagues stray from these tried and tested methods?

Since 2005, the Australian Institute of Marine Science has stopped using this technique to measure how well corals are growing at the Great Barrier Reef. The few studies still using the old technique suggest that, as would be expected, as water temperatures have increased marginally, coral growth rates have also increased.

But rather than admit this, key Great Barrier Reef research institutions have moved from such ­direct measures to new and complicated “proxies”. They thus have more flexibility in what they find because the measurement is no longer one that represents coral growth rates or coral cover.

As proxy votes are something delegated, this gives the researchers at JCU the potential to generate what might be considered policy-based evidence. And yet without question, the media reporting of the most recent research is that “there is no time to lose, we must sharply decrease greenhouse gas emissions”.

Far too frequently, climate science has demonstrated noble cause corruption — where the ends justify the means. We will only know exact coral calcification rates, and changing trends in coral cover, when our once esteemed research institutions return to more traditional methods of measuring such important indicators of coral health and growth.

We need a return to real science that is based on real observations and real measurements and then we may find written in journals what we see in the real world when we jump off boats and go under the sea.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/scientists-all-at-sea-with-alarmist-barrier-reef-warning/news-story/3b910197797f59e3761d1c9e55ef6155

Elite $33,000-a-year grammar school enrages parents and students with new ecological uniform design - as it is slammed as being ‘reminiscent of wartime Europe’

An elite $33,000-a-year grammar school has come under fire from some parents and students for the 'dowdy' look of its new eco-friendly uniform.

Firbank Grammar School in the affluent bayside Melbourne suburb of Brighton last week unveiled an Eco Uniform designed from fully biodegradable materials like nut corozo buttons in place of plastic and 'upcycled polyester'.

Firbank touted the outfit - made in collaboration with designer Kit Willow - as the world's first sustainable school uniform but the big reveal on its Instagram page attracted criticism.

One unhappy student set up a petition to protest the design, saying the new uniform was 'reminiscent of wartime Europe', 'impractical' and 'unflattering.'

The petition has garnered almost 900 signatures since it was first launched over the weekend.

'I fully support sustainable uniforms, but please listen to the people wearing them to make the uniform appropriate for the 21st century,' one person wrote.

'I graduated 33 years ago and our uniforms were less, dare I say it "dowdy",' another added.

An e-brochure released by Firbank last week showed a complete overhaul to the existing uniform in both the senior and junior school - covering winter and summer - plus student sportswear.

Willow became a household name in Australia in the early 2000s before making a comeback with her KitX label in 2015 - a brand priding itself on sustainable materials.

The school's principal Jenny Williams told parents in an e-mail the school board would meet on Monday to review the feedback to the designs.

'Changing a uniform is one of the most controversial things a school can do,' she said in the email seen by the Leader.

'All I ask is you remember our values and respond in a manner expected from members of our community.'

Firbank is a co-educational school at primary level, and a girls-only school at secondary level.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8879009/33-000-year-Melbourne-grammar-school-enrages-parents-new-sustainable-uniform-design.html

AFL Grand Final sees Qld lockdown hypocrisy hit new heights

As political rallies go, it was one of the better ones, with live music, fireworks, television coverage and a wildly enthusiastic crowd of tens of thousands.

The venue was the Gabba and the event was the AFL Grand Final, presided over by an empress-like Annastacia Palaszczuk smiling benignly from the grandstand as a conga line of players and officials read from their cue cards and thanked the Queensland Government for allowing them to play footy in the Sunshine State.

Thirty thousand people poured into the Gabba, and it was plain to see from the broadcast that many of them were packed shoulder-to-shoulder, caught up in the euphoria of the moment.

The state’s strict entry restrictions for Victorians were bent so far out of shape as to be barely recognisable to facilitate this one game of Australian rules.

Taxpayer dollars had been thrown at the AFL to facilitate it.

When asked on which date the Premier would prefer the game to be played, she indicated that she would prefer October 24, precisely one week before the election.

October 31 would hardly do, as the polls would have closed.

Her Government’s ineptitude plunged the pre-COVID state economy into a debt spiral that will make the post-pandemic recovery that much more difficult, but it can help organise a football match.

We should be thankful for small mercies.

My mother didn’t watch Saturday night’s game.

She passed away quietly in her sleep the previous evening at the ­tender age of 93, God bless her, and is now in a better place.

We are in the process of organising her funeral, but when it is held those attending will, by state government decree, be limited to 100.

There will be hundreds more who will wish to pay their respects to a woman who touched so many in her long life, but they will be forbidden from doing so.

Tens of thousands can hug and ­celebrate and slurp beer in a football stadium, but only 100 can stand in prayer, 1.5m apart, in the respectful ­silence of a church. What towering hypocrisy.

We will never know how the ­number of 100 was decided upon.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-afl-grand-final-sees-qld-lockdown-hypocrisy-hit-new-heights/news-story/369c94a090a07cc5bea14ffac8c1457b

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

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