High Court rules in favour of Cardinal Pell on final appeal

This is already evidence that the case is an unusual one.  A conviction based on one uncorroborated allegation is very rare for a start

Australia’s final arbiter has granted disgraced cardinal George Pell special leave to appeal his five convictions for molesting two choirboys in Melbourne in 1996, and almost immediately the public defence of the 78-year-old has ramped up.

The High Court of Australia this morning ruled that it would hear Pell’s appeal after it was earlier rejected by the Victorian Court of Appeal. It is rare for the High Court to grant an appeal and the decision keeps Pell’s chances for an early release from prison alive. He has been in prison since March this year.

He is within his rights to apply for bail, but the chances of bail being granted are very slim.

Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt wasted no time in taking aim at Pell’s accusers and the judges who put him away and kept him there. He directly questioned the credibility of the two judges of the Court of Appeal — president Chris Maxwell and Chief Justice Anne Ferguson — who ruled against Pell in August. “Their credibility is now on the line,” he wrote, before taking aim at Pell’s accusers.

“At the very least, the improbability (of the crime being committed the way Pell’s accusers said it was committed) is so very high that no-one should convict a man on that evidence just because his accuser seemed to be so nice or honest.”

Bolt wrote that the third judge, Mark Weinberg, “seemed to accuse his fellow judges of putting too much faith in the demeanour of Pell’s sole accuser”.

The most senior Catholic to be found guilty of child sex abuse crimes was not in the Canberra courtroom when the decision was handed down, nor did he appear via video link.

Instead, the news was relayed to him inside his cell at Melbourne Assessment Prison where he spends his days in protective custody.

A unanimous Victorian County Court jury in December found Pope Francis’ former finance minister guilty of molesting two 13-year-old choirboys in Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the late 1990s shortly after Pell became archbishop of Australia’s second-largest city.

Pell’s lawyers argued in their 12-page application for a High Court appeal that two state appeals court judges made two errors in dismissing his appeal in August.

The judges made a mistake by requiring Pell to prove the offending was impossible rather than putting the onus of proof on prosecutors, the lawyers said.

They also said the two judges made a mistake in finding the jury’s guilty verdicts were reasonable. Pell’s lawyers argued there was reasonable doubt about whether opportunity existed for the crimes to have occurred.

Pell’s lawyers also argue that changes in law over the years since the crimes were alleged have increased the difficulty in testing sexual assault allegations.

They argue Pell should be acquitted of all charges for several reasons, including inconsistencies in the complainant’s version of events. But prosecutors argue there is no basis for the appeal, and the Victorian courts made no errors.

In their written submission to the High Court, prosecutors wrote Pell’s legal team was asking High Court judges to apply established principles to the facts of the case, which were already carefully and thoroughly explored by the state appeals court.

Pell was largely convicted on the testimony of one victim. The second victim died of an accidental heroin overdose in 2014 when he was 31 years old without complaining that he had been abused.

The surviving victim said after Pell lost his appeal in August, “I just hope that it’s all over now.”

Pell must serve at least three years and eight months behind bars before he becomes eligible for parole.

As a convicted paedophile, he is provided with extra protection from other inmates and spends 23 hours a day in solitary confinement.

SOURCE  






Some of Australia’s most maligned addresses are set to become some of our most sought-after, thanks to a dramatic turnaround

A benefit of lockout laws

Australia’s ‘new Soho’ Kings Cross, Potts Point and surrounding suburbs set to boom

Kings Cross’ lockout laws are here to stay, which means one of the less-desired addresses in Australia is set to become one of the most sought after.

The former red light district’s reputation as one of Sydney’s seedier areas meant it was never top of the list of suburbs to live in or to move to.

But since the lockout laws were introduced in 2014, Kings Cross and surrounding areas have left their night life ways behind to embrace a more liveable and cosmopolitan feel.

That will only continue after a NSW parliamentary inquiry last month declared the controversial lock out laws will be retained in the Cross, putting an end to any chance of the area recapturing its crown as the heart of Sydney’s night life.

That ensures the area is set to become one of the most desirable districts in the Harbour City due to a number of factors — leading it to being dubbed Australia’s ‘new Soho’ – an area akin to its famous ‘namesakes’ in New York City or London.

Those areas have enjoyed a revitalisation through gentrification, and as a result, property values improved considerably.

Elizabeth Bay, which borders Kings Cross to the east, is one area already enjoying a dramatic surge in popularity.

Unit prices there have risen an incredible 24 per cent rise, year-on-year to the end of July, as much of the rest of the market continued to fall before the very recent upswing.

Nearby the more affordable Darlinghurst, where the median unit price is $932,500, compared to Elizabeth Bay’s $1.11 million, prices increased 6.9 per cent.

Over the same period the median home price in Sydney fell by 4.8 per cent, and this came before the future of the lockout laws were confirmed.

Jason Boon, a Director at Richardson and Wrench Elizabeth Bay/Potts Point has been selling real estate in the area for more than two decades and is ideally placed to talk about its future.

“To give you a correlation, Elizabeth Bay is like Bronte to Bondi, you’re not far from the action,” Mr Boon said.

“It’s in the middle of the triangle, of the beach, the city and the airport. It’s right in the thick of it all. It’s close to the city but not in the city. People don’t want to get in their cars. “Around Kings Cross and Potts Point, they don’t have to do that and they can still have a view of the harbour, to the beaches and to The Heads.”

“The face of the area is changing. It’s the New Soho of Australia. It’s always been eclectic and still is but it’s becoming more relevant,” Mr Boon said.

“With the lockout laws it has become more relevant. (Sydney Lord Mayor) Clover Moore has helped to change the area.

Mayor Moore she has changed the parks, lit them up with smart poles like (former mayor Rudy) Giuliani did in New York.

“Now that Kings Cross has changed everyone wants to come here. You only have to look at the buildings that have been built here and are being planned.

“The part still to change is the Kings Cross strip. There are a lot of developments planned there. It will be the biggest change in property in Australia. It will be a whole different strip. It will be very cosmopolitan.”

The area has already developed a well-known and well-respected food scene that continues to grow, and boutiques and galleries are also increasingly proliferate in the area.

Buyer’s agent Simon Cohen of Cohen Handler saw the potential in Kings Cross and its surrounds when he bought into the area three years ago. “It’s a great area,” he said.

“It’s close to the city, full of cafes and restaurants. It’s a very desirable area. You can enjoy city living there with water views, so it is very unique. Ever since it started getting cleaned up it is a different place.”

Mr Cohen’s clients have also identified the area as hot property.

“A lot of our clients want to be there and if they can afford it, we suggest they do. “It’s a great investment — you get great returns and great tenants — and it’s a great area to live.

“There is such great demand. People from all stages of life love it. It’s very sought after, there’s not a lot of stock so it can be hard to get into.”

Penthouses in Potts Point are in considerably high demand. Mr Boon said they can sell for around $35-40,000 per square metre as opposed to the rest of Sydney which averages around $20,000 per square metre.

For those who aren’t in the market for a penthouse, or even super contemporary living, there are also a number of beautiful art deco buildings and Victorian terraces in the area. And even though the night life has calmed, it still exists.

First National Real Estate CEO Ray Ellis said he could also understand the lure the area. “Potts Point is a groovy area,” he said. “It is tightly held, it’s expensive to buy into. But you can get good rental returns and a lot of people want to live there.”

SOURCE  






Green bureaucracy blocking big natural gas developments

Two world-class liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects valued at $40 billion and owned by some of the world’s biggest oil companies, including Shell, BP and PetroChina, are at risk of being permanently marooned by a complex “economy v environment” dispute in Australia.

The Browse and Scarborough projects will only be developed if final government approvals can be obtained and that could mean satisfying the carbon emissions requirements of an international climate-change agreement.

Unfortunately for the companies behind the projects, which have taken more than 30 years to reach the point of a final investment decision, different layers of government in Australia can’t agree on whether local or international rules apply.

At a political level there is support for both Browse and Scarborough because of the economic and job creating benefits from investment.

But at an administrative level there are government officials who argue that approval is not possible for any big resource development, including oil and gas, unless the proponents can demonstrate how they will offset all emissions of carbon dioxide, one of the gases blamed for global warming and climate change.

Australia, like many other countries, is a signatory to the Paris Agreement on climate change which includes a set of recommendations designed to limit carbon dioxide pollution.

But, for a country which is heavily dependent on mining and oil production the Paris deal has become a logistical nightmare and, in the case of natural gas a two-edged sword because while it might be a fossil fuel it is far less polluting than the coal or oil it can replace.

Asian countries such as China, Japan and Korea are major buyers of minerals and energy products produced in Australia and are keen to see a continuation of a reliable LNG supply from a relatively risk-free supplier.

But, if the civil servants working in government departments, such as the Environmental Protection Authority of Western Australia (EPA), both Browse and Scarborough will be subjected to onerous emissions offset requirements which could jeopardize their development.

First hint of a standoff between elected and unelected government officials emerged earlier this year when the EPA said all new LNG projects could only proceed if they could demonstrate “zero net emissions” and needed to meet so-called Scope 3 emissions, or those emitted by countries which consume resources sourced from Australia.

The resources industry has rejected that position even if it does comply with the Paris agreement and Australia’s obligations, warning that all new resource projects face an insurmountable hurdle, especially when it came to Scope 3 because Australia cannot control what a foreign customer does with raw material even if it is sourced from Australia.

Elected government officials are slowing waking to the trap into which they have been led by not reading the fine print of the Paris agreement and by allowing civil servants, many with strong views on environmental protection, commit the country to a set of international rules which do not appear to be in Australia’s best interests.

An attempt to tone down the early EPA ruling has been made by the State Government of Western Australia but that position will soon be tested by the imminent development application for the Scarborough project led by Woodside Petroleum and BHP.

They plan to extract gas from the offshore Scarborough gasfields and pipe it to the onshore Pluto gas processing plant which is, in turn, being connected to the North West Shelf gas plant owned by Woodside, Shell, BP, Chevron, BHP, Mitsubishi and Mitsui.

The next stage in a process to create a major LNG “hub” is to develop the Browse gasfields owned by Woodside, Shell, BP, PetroChina, Mitsui and Mitsubishi.

Sorting out the ownership of the different stages of the projects has been likened to herding cats, a near-impossible task, but that process appears to have been settled, leaving the the challenge of dealing with government which is split between pro-and-anti development positions.

Last week, the Scarborough project took two big steps towards formal approval by its owners. The amount of gas in the fields was recalculated to deliver a 52% increase to now stand at 11.1 trillion cubic feet, just short of Browse with its 13.9tcf, and a contract was signed to build an inter-connecting pipeline between Pluto and the North West Shelf gas processing plants.

With design and ownership issues largely settled the LNG projects have moved to within sight of investment commitments, setting the stage for a showdown between elected and unelected officials over the question of Australia’s economic interest and its international climate-change obligations.

SOURCE  






Labor party lost in climate fog

Most of the fatal flaws exposed by the internal review of Labor’s ­emphatic electoral repudiation were so obvious that many of us had been pointing them out ­before, during and after the campaign. None of which detracts from the hilarity of watching the majority of players and commentators who argued Labor had a plausible agenda, campaigned well and would easily win the election now also say the findings are ­obvious.

Still, there is one glaring exception — a planet-sized blind spot — wilfully ignored by the review and much of the analysis. Yet even this hopeless oversight was predictable, simply because of who the ALP chose to conduct its review.

It was dubbed the climate election by many in Labor who were eager to accentuate the choice ­between targets and plans, yet the ALP chose as one of two reviewers Jay Weatherill — he was the premier of South Australia who pushed his state to a 50 per cent renewable energy share and allowed coal and gas-fired generators to close, delivering some of the world’s highest electricity prices but leading to the lights going out in the first statewide blackout.

When one of the most contentious policy choices in the campaign was about whether to embrace Labor’s plan to more than double the national renewable ­energy target (to the same level that created chaos in SA) and ­almost double the national emissions reduction goal, how could a renewables zealot such as Weatherill give an objective assessment? For him to call out the recklessness of Labor’s federal climate policy would be for him to admit his own costly legacy.

Labor has twice gone to a ­national election with radically more ambitious emissions reductions plans than the Coalition — in 2013 and this year — and the results speak for themselves. But Weatherill is deaf and blind to this reality; if he and others have their way, the next election will offer a similar choice.

On Thursday, delivering the review he conducted along with the pedestrian former trade minister Craig Emerson, Weatherill said it was clear Labor must continue to “stand for strong action on climate change” and that this was a “bedrock principle” for the party.

Yet elsewhere in the review there is clear evidence that its anti-coal rhetoric and climate evangelism contributed strongly to the party’s abysmal performance in Queensland, NSW’s Hunter ­Valley and elsewhere in regional Australia.

To be fair, sensible people might argue this nation had long been engaged in “strong action” on climate change, so Weatherill’s aim could easily be satisfied by ­offering bipartisan support for the Paris emissions reductions targets. But we know this is not what Weatherill and other members of Labor’s Socialist Left want.

The policy “bedrock” will be interpreted as something close to the extreme and uncosted policies Labor put to the people on May 18, which means one of the most obvious lessons from the election will be rejected by large elements of the party. Only Hunter Valley MP and Labor resources spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon seems willing to urge his colleagues to see sense.

Labor has made itself a victim to its own straw-man strategy. The review finds: “A modern Labor Party cannot deny or neglect human-induced climate change. To do so would be wrong, it would cause enormous internal instability and it would be a massive electoral liability.” This is true but pointless because no major party argues this position.

By pretending its opponents proffer denial and inaction, Labor locks itself into reckless policies and indefensible arguments. It is conned by its own hyperbole, hemmed in by its own hype.

The review goes on to say that the way forward for Labor is to focus on jobs from renewable ­energy and on the “costs of inaction”. But this is exactly what Bill Shorten and others did during the campaign, especially to avoid talking about the costs of their policies.

And the reality is that renewable energy jobs have not materialised to the extent promised anywhere, and voters are wise enough to understand the costs of climate inaction in Australia are approximately zero. No matter how dramatic Australia’s cuts, they cannot improve the global environment while global emissions continue to grow substantially — our costly policies will not stop a single storm, ease a drought or avoid a flood.

The only benefit they deliver is a down payment on international action. Obviously, then, there can be no financial or economic cost to inaction.

While the climate cannot be ­altered by anything we do alone, the only price to pay for inaction would be possible diplomatic repercussions for rejecting multilateral climate gestures. The “cost of inaction” argument is an exercise in stupidity and, as the election demonstrated yet again, mainstream voters tend to be smarter than that.

On climate, the ALP review is alarmingly myopic; it effectively recommends Labor sticks with the same extreme policies and inane arguments. It is unclear how it expects voters, who have repeatedly seen through this, to suddenly fall under its virtue-signalling spell.

Yet Anthony Albanese is sticking with this rhetoric; at the ­National Press Club on Friday the Opposition Leader continued with the pretence that additional climate action will create jobs rather than cost them. And he regurgitated Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young’s line from the day before about how the government’s drought response failed to mention climate change — does Labor argue a higher renewable energy target can end the drought? This is absurd stuff.

At Tony Abbott’s farewell dinner on Thursday there was some well-received triumphalism from conservative forces, especially from Peter Dutton, who was received as a hero for bringing on the move to take down Malcolm Turnbull. But ­Abbott made the most incisive point; he said that without Morrison’s victory this period of Coalition government would have gone down in history as an “embarrassing failure”.

Abbott then pointed out that both he and Turnbull owed Morrison a debt of gratitude. Yes, the Morrison win means all three can bathe in some of the success of a tumultuous period that has restored border integrity, rescued the budget, axed onerous taxes, struck significant free-trade deals and ushered in same-sex marriage.

Climate is the issue that repeatedly has divided the Liberal Party and is always a chance to do so again. This is where the Prime Minister has been proven right and others, including me, got it wrong. The proposition that he should abandon Paris as a means of ­accentuating policy difference has been proven unnecessary. His pitch of “Paris and no more” has seen him pick the economic, environmental and political sweet spot where Australia is doing enough but not too much, in a cautious but prudent response.

Taking extreme action on climate is to impose certain economic harm for dubious or non-existent benefits. Best leave that to Weatherill and Labor.

SOURCE  

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

Greens playing politics with fire, say Labor and Coalition

Senior Coalition and Labor MPs have launched a bitter attack on the Greens for suggesting climate change policies are responsible for the catastrophic bushfire threat confronting NSW and Queensland.

As firefighters braced for the arrival of high winds and low ­humidity that threaten some of the worst conditions seen since the Black Saturday bushfires a decade ago, Greens leader Richard Di ­Natale sparked fury from both major parties when he said the ­nation’s emissions policy had caused the fires that killed three people and injured 100.

Senior Nationals turned the ­attack back on the Greens, suggesting that environmental opposition to backburning, particularly in national parks, had exacerbated the bushfire threat.

NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro criticised his state’s ­National Parks Service for contributing to the catastrophic threat facing the state by failing to carry out extensive backburning in the lead-up to bushfire season.

“We need to do more hazard ­reduction, (burning) in national parks to manage the fuel load,” Mr Barilaro told The Australian. “Everyone knows that this is a real issue and I’ve got the guts to say it.”

Senator Di Natale sparked the row on Monday when he said: “Every politician, lobbyist, pundit and journalist who has fought to block serious action on climate change bears responsibility for the increasing risk from a heating planet that is producing these deadly bushfires.”

Federal Labor agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon, who is facing fire threats in his NSW seat of Hunter, lashed the Greens for politicising the catastrophe.

Mr Fitzgibbon said it was ­“absolutely the wrong time to be looking for political opportunity and it’s also hypocritical given the Greens opposed the CPRS (the Rudd government’s carbon pollution reduction scheme)”.

“But if Scott Morrison wasn’t sitting back and allowing emissions to increase every year there would be less political tension in the necessary community conversation about the need to act and adapt to our changing weather patterns,” he added.

Deputy Prime Minister ­Michael McCormack criticised the Greens’ comments as the “disgraceful, disgusting” behaviour of “raving inner-city lunatics”.

The Nationals leader said Australia had experienced bushfires since “time began” and he found it “galling” that people linked the ­catastrophe with climate change. “What people need now is a little bit of sympathy, understanding and real assistance, they need help, they need shelter,” Mr McCormack said. “They don’t need the ravings of some pure, enlightened and woke capital-city greenies at this time when they’re trying to save their homes.”

However, Greens MP Adam Bandt said Mr McCormack was a “dangerous fool” who was putting lives at risk through the government’s inaction on climate change.

“Thoughts and prayers are not enough; we need science and ­action too,” Mr Bandt said. “They’ve done everything in their power to make these catastrophic fires more likely. When you cuddle coal in Canberra, the rest of the country burns.”

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd hit out at the Greens’ comments, pointing out it was the Greens who had blocked action on climate change when they ­opposed the CPRS in 2009.

“Seriously? If it weren’t for the Green party’s political opportunism in 2009-10, we would now be 10 years into an emissions trading scheme, a fully functioning carbon price, a long-term transition from coal and leading global action on climate,” Mr Rudd told The Australian.

“Instead, what did the Green party do? To try and score political points off my government, they hypocritically jumped into bed with the Liberals to defeat my legislation in the Senate. The rest is history.”

NSW Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall echoed Mr Barilaro’s sentiments, saying: “More needs to be done to clear fire trails, back burning operations and allow controlled stock grazing to keep fuel loads down. Better management would help enormously and lack of good quality local management has contributed.”

Mr Marshall told parliament three weeks ago that he had written to state Environment Minister Matt Kean “requesting a full and immediate review of fire management in the state’s national parks”.

“It is clear that landholders felt that there is a ‘lock it and leave it’ approach to management in ­national parks, which is not good enough,” Mr Marshall said at the time.

Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce said it was “infuriating” the Greens were attempting to score political points by saying the government’s “inaction” on climate change had contributed to fires that had killed three people.

Mr Joyce said climate change action in Australia would do nothing to reduce the bushfire risk ­unless there was also action taken by China, India and the US.

Australia produced 1.3 per cent of the planet’s emissions, compared with China’s 27.5 per cent and the 14.75 per cent that comes from the US.

Mr Joyce, a former deputy prime minister, said people were “once again talking about indigenous land management” because there were too many regulations around controlled burning ahead of bushfire season.

“We haven’t had the capacity to easily access (hazard) reduction burns because of all of the paperwork that is part of green policy,” Mr Joyce said.

Shine Energy chief executive Ash Dodd, an indigenous businessman trying to build a coal-fired power station in central Queensland, said traditional owners had undertaken hazard ­reduction to manage the fire risk “since time immemorial”.

“The responsibility of the build-up of surplus fuel must lay at the hands of state governments which do not allow seasonal burning based upon the traditions and customs of Australian traditional owners such as the Birri people,” Mr Dodd said.

Hazard-reduction burning has also been a contentious issue in Queensland.

A Queensland Audit Office ­report issued last year ­revealed the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services had missed key deadlines to improve the state’s bushfire readiness.

The report, itself a follow up to a highly critical audit of QFES in 2014, had “improved its visibility and oversight” of bushfire risk, ­including establishing the Office of Bushfire Mitigation and area fire management groups. However, the audit office said the authority had not fully implemented any of the original 2014 recommendations despite committing to do so by the following year.

SOURCE  






Feminists demonize male sexuality

Bettina Arndt

It’s rather timely that I planned this week to post a video of a talk I gave at the Chicago International Conference on Men’s Issues (ICMI 2019), speaking about the successful feminist campaign to rein in male sexuality.

The campus rape tribunals are the result of effective lobbying by these activists which has succeeded in making university campuses unsafe places for most young men, with any sign of healthy male lust leading to male students being targeted and sometimes thrown out of university.

But campus rape allegations are simply the tip of the iceberg. Men are in trouble for looking at women in the wrong way, for not keeping their trousers zipped, for viewing pornography, for showing normal male sexual curiosity and expecting sex to be part of a loving marital relationship.

Men today are not just chaste – they have been neutered. “Leaving sex to the feminists is like letting your dog vacation at the taxidermist,” said Camille Paglia. That’s right. Men are now totally stuffed.

Here’s the new video. I hope you enjoy it.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrgqkKbKgHk

Via email from Tina: Bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au





Our choice is between insansity and survival

TERRY McCRANN

We now have a very simple choice. We can join the US — and effectively, also China — in walking away from the Fake Paris Climate Accord and begin the journey back to energy and indeed environmental and even more critical fundamental civilisational sanity.

Or we can join Professor Mickey Mouse and his 11,000 or so decidedly mixed assorted colleagues -7 curiously dubbed "scientists" by the media and run screaming into the streets, crying "the sky is falling" and the "seas are rising" and so "oh, woe is us, we are all going to be squashed between".

The lunacy of the world that we now live in was exactly captured by the gushingly hysterical — or should that be hysterically gushing? — coverage given right across the mainstream media to the fakest of fake news of the climate emergency proclaimed by this fakest of fake cohorts, and the almost zero coverage given to the formal commitment by the US to exit Paris.

I have to say I saw it both as incompetent and biased media as usual, while also being more than a tad surprised. Surprised, as it wasn't the springboard for another immediate eruption of the mass media hysteria, better known as Trump Derangement Syndrome. I waited in vain for the first default to Godwin's Law: indeed, not just comparing Trump to Hitler but how he was so much worse.

After all, Hitler "only" killed tens of millions; Trump has sentenced untold billions to death, if not Gaia herself. Yet there was clearly an apprehension that to even report what the US had done might give heart to those wicked climate unbelievers and indeed could even trigger copy-cats.

President Trump had avowed before his election he would take the US out of Paris. However, the Paris rules signed just days before his election in 2016 meant no country could exit for three years. On the very first day that the US could formally move to draw — last Monday — it will take effect on November 4 next year — the day after President Trump will almost certainly have been re-elected.

The two countries responsible for nearly 50 per cent of the entire world's emissions of the plant-food and planet-greening carbon dioxide will effectively be out of Paris. The US will be actually out and China, whose emissions are approaching double those of the US, will effectively be out.

It is specifically mandated under Paris to keep increasing its emissions to 2030 — by which time, according to noted climate scientists like Greta Thunberg and the aforementioned Prof Mouse, it will be too late. The great irony — and sheer, pathetic lunacy of this is that the US out of Paris has actually been the country which has cut its emissions by more than any other in absolute CO2 volumes.

As the withdrawal statement noted, the US cut its CO2 emissions by 13 per cent from 2005 through 2017. It has also cut its emissions of real air pollutants — like the dirty bits of grit that the climate liars try to pretend is CO2 by calling it "carbon pollution" — by a thumping 74 per cent since 1974. The reason is simple: prosperity, human health and better treatment of the environment are all based on the massively increased use over the centuries of coal, oil and gas.

The only thing that is going to stop China, while in Paris, increasing its emissions, or at the very most plateau them is the Chinese economy going back to a 1980s future.

Now various overexcited local climate loons they might even have been among the 11,000 with the renowned Prof Mouse —were hailing mid-week that for the first time ever, for all of 10 minutes, renewables provided more than 50 per cent of the power into the national grid. An amazing 24 per cent was coming from roof-top solar, some 16 per cent from wind, 9 per cent from large-scale solar and just enough from hydro, 2 per cent, to tip it over 50 per cent Hmm.

What would happen, what happens every day, when the sun goes down? One-third of the grid's power supply would -- correction, will evaporate. And if the wind also didn't blow? Another one-sixth would go missing in action. Suddenly that 51 per cent would become 2 per cent — at least, so long as there was water in the dams.

Oh right: I forgot batteries will be included, including Malcolm Turnbull's Snowy "big battery". Well, that's now going to cost $lObn; and that will get you all of perhaps 2 per cent of the power we need — until again, the water has all run down the hill and is waiting for the wind to blow to pump, it up again.

You are going to need an awful lot of big Tesla batteries to make up for the 33 per cent that was coming from solar, and need it every day. Also, solar doesn't just fall straight to zero at dusk, it falls away rapidly over the afternoon, assuming the sun has been shining in a cloudless sky. But rest assured, once all those Tesla batteries kick in, they'll probably be good enough to get us from, say, 7pm to 7.20pm. And then its lights—and everything else— out, North Korean (and California?) style.

We saw exactly this in the UK during the week. Wind there can produce more than 50 per cent of the power, when the wind is... Well it wasn't for much of Wednesday and so was producing around 3 per cent. The coal the UK supposedly got rid of had to kick in.

Along with so-called biomass, the burning of even more CO2-releasing wood, the two were producing as much as four times as wind for most of the day. Some 60 per cent or so was coming from CO2-emitting gas and 17 per cent from nuclear. That's some renewable future. Our choice: European style insanity or US and China-style reason and survival.

From "The Weekend Australian" of 9/11/19







Tax more at the top if you must, but it ends in tears

Does the top marginal rate of income tax matter? It’s an important policy question.

At this year’s federal election, Labor proposed that the top marginal tax rate should be increased by two percentage points until the budget had been repaired, with its precise duration unclear.

This followed on from the Coali­tion’s initiative of the temporary budget repair levy, introduced in 2014 but rescinded on July 1, 2017. Labor voted for that levy.

The issue flared after the election, with former prime minister Paul Keating arguing for a top marginal rate of about 39 per cent, recalling that he had pulled the top marginal rate down from 60 per cent to 47 per cent in the late 1980s.

Former ACTU secretary Bill Kelty agreed with Keating that the top marginal rate was too high: “If the marginal tax rate is too high, the consequence of that is that people seek to avoid paying that tax and get into other tax arrangements.

“(The) top marginal tax rate is absurdly too high compared to the company tax rate and compared to the capital gains tax. The wedge is simply too great.”

Are they right? Should we be aiming for a lower top marginal tax rate that is 47 per cent, including the 2 per cent Medicare levy? Are other features of the income tax schedule also important?

It’s useful to look at top marginal tax rates in other developed economies, although it’s also important to note the income levels at which these kick in.

Our top marginal rate applies from $180,000 a year, about twice the average wage.

In the US, the top marginal rate is just under 44 per cent but applies above 9.3 times the average wage. Canada and France have higher top marginal rates — 53.5 per cent and 55.2 per cent, respectively — but in Canada the top rate applies to income four times the average wage and in France it is 14 times.

New Zealand has a very distinct income tax schedule. There, the top marginal rate is only 33 per cent but it applies at just over 1.2 times the average wage.

Some left commentators maintain that raising the top marginal rate is desirable because this would reduce the degree of income inequality and would have little impact on people’s economic decision-making.

Economists Thomas Piketty and Peter Diamond maintain that the optimal top tax rate is between 70 per cent and 80 per cent, for instance.

In the US, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat member of congress from New York, advocates a top marginal tax rate of 70 per cent, although it would apply only when annual income reaches $US10m ($14.5m).

The point is made that in the 1950s and 60s, similarly high marginal tax rates prevailed and the sky didn’t fall down. The reality is that very few American taxpayers ever paid the top marginal rate.

The key to the debate is whether high marginal rates affect people’s work efforts and their willingness to invest and take risks. A few natural experiments allow us to reach a conclusion.

In France in 2013, for instance, Francois Hollande, the president at the time, introduced a 75 per cent marginal income tax on annual incomes greater than €1m.

The tax resulted in significant emigration of high-income individuals, with estimates suggesting that at least 22,000 fled in the first two years.

The expected revenue from the higher tax rate also failed to materialise, with tax collections almost half those forecast. Corporate tax and consumption tax revenues also declined relative to expectations.

The tax change was rescinded in early 2015, but some of those who left France never returned.

A more micro-example has emerged recently in respect of doctors working for the National Health Service in Britain. With some poorly considered changes to pension tax arrangements, a number of doctors faced extremely high marginal tax rates if they worked longer hours or, indeed, continued to work at all. In some instances, they could go backwards.

There was a surge of resignations and early retirements, forcing even more resignations as the workload was transferred to other doctors.

Rather than working for the love of the job or to fulfil a public duty, many doctors reacted as most economists would predict — by significantly reducing their work effort. Britain has been forced to adjust these arrangements.

This debate feeds directly into the Australian case, with our relatively high top marginal tax rate cutting in at a relatively low income level.

And because our capital gains tax is levied at an individual’s marginal tax rate, albeit with the capital gain discounted by 50 per cent, it’s possible our tax arrangements deter risk-taking that could lead to substantial capital gains.

Having said this, it’s not only the top marginal tax rate that affects taxpayers’ behaviour. The complication of the low and middle-income tax offset also has an impact.

John Humphreys of the Centre for Independent Studies has shown the most recent tax changes have increased the marginal income tax rate for those earning between $90,000 and $126,000 a year — from 39 per cent to 42 per cent.

The broader point is that when assessing the impact on revenue of tax changes, it’s important to model behavioural changes in response to the new scales and arrangements rather than draw straight lines.

According to Humphreys, the later phases of the government’s tax package will reduce revenue by $145bn across a decade, almost 40 per cent lower than the Treasury’s estimate of the revenue forgone.

“When marginal tax rates are changed, at least some people will change some of their behaviour some of the time,” Humphreys says. “Treasury continues to rely on a static tax model that makes the absurd assumption of zero behaviour changes.”

As Labor reviews the complicated policy package it took to the electorate, one change that needs to be ditched is the increase to the top marginal tax rate, temporary or not.

Labor’s support for the government’s tax package being brought forward, however, has merit.

SOURCE  

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

How the world has reacted to the NSW, QLD bushfires

Brain-dead Lefty journalists who know nothing about Australia (or anything else much) say: "Climate change" did it.

Australia has always had big forest fires, with some of the biggest many years ago.  So there is no way you can tie the present fires to global warming.  It is just empty assertion by brainwashed dupes

Where the fires mainly are at the moment -- Southern Queensland and Northern NSW -- is normal for spring, which is where we now are




Media outlets around the world have been reacting to the fires burning across Australia’s east coast, saying climate change is to blame.

Three people have been confirmed dead, five are missing and 40 have been injured, with 150 homes already destroyed — and the worst is yet to come.

“We’re not even in summer yet,” NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said.

“I’m quite concerned that … we’re going to see more fires as we close through the season.”

Mayor Carol Sparks told the Sydney Morning Heraldthat her community has been “devastated” and the entire country is at risk from dangerous climate change.

Sparks, a member of the Glen Innes Severn Council, has no doubt that global warming is increasing the number of fires and their intensity.

“We are so impacted by drought and the lack of rain,” she said.

“It’s climate change, there’s no doubt about it. The whole of the country is going to be affected. We need to take a serious look at our future.”

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian told the Today Show that the discussion around climate policies being to blame is not one that will be had “for the next weeks.”

“We need to focus on saving lives,” the Premier said, and “the communities who are doing it tough.”

“Often, the first couple of days when I meet someone whose lost everything, they seem resilient.

“But you know that in the next few days when the shock wears off and they face reality, that’s when we really need to provide our support and I just asked everybody to put politics aside and just consider the human toll and what we can do as humans to support people in our state.”

Readers of the BBC’s coverage on the fires have shared Sparks’ concerns. While some shared “thoughts and prayers”, many others blamed climate change and the Australian government for the situation, with one reader writing, “Climate in peril as the world burns.

“Governments are to blame,” wrote Suzanne G Kelly on a BBC post.  “They have ignored climate change even though all of the experts including Risk Analysts have been talking and warning about this for over two decades. “It’s now gone beyond blame. Governments have to be held to account and have to act now. They have been warned for decades of this and have done very little. “It’s shameful and heartbreaking.”

It was a sentiment echoed by other readers, with another writing, “Climate change is truly the topic now. Government should take this seriously. But some take climate change as their advantage to win elections.”

The Guardian have also provided significant coverage on the fires — where readers have also pointed out there’s no denying climate change is the catalyst for the blaze.

UK’s The Times coverage included quotes from Adam Bandt of the Australia Greens party, who accused Prime Minister Scott Morrison of inaction in the face of the global climate crisis, saying that he hadn’t done enough to reduce carbon emissions.

“I’m not saying the Prime Minister is directly responsible for the fires and the loss of life but he has contributed to making it more likely that these kinds of tragedies will occur,” he said.

SOURCE  






Cancel that privilege before lecturing the rest of us about how bad we are

We need to talk about privilege. No, not about “white privilege” or “straight privilege” or “cis privilege” or any of the other made-up privileges that the woke lobby bangs on about endlessly. And I don’t mean we have to check our privilege, either.

Checking one’s privilege is one of the weirdest rituals in the cult of identity politics. It is essentially a form of self-flagellation, where supposedly privileged people — especially white men — must metaphorically whip themselves across the back for having allegedly enjoyed super-comfortable existences.

Identity politics is an extremely binary system. It sees only two kinds of human beings.

There are the oppressed, who are Good. These include Muslims, black women, brown women, some gay people (not white male gay people) and, of course, trans people.

And there are the privileged, who are Bad. These include white men, especially old white men, who are behind every ill on earth. White women are privileged, too. Remember the woke fury visited upon those sisterhood-destroying white women who had the temerity to vote for Donald Trump or Brexit in 2016.

Cis people are also privileged. Cis is short for cisgender, a word invented by people who have blue hair, degrees in queer studies and way too much time on their hands. It refers to people who remain the sex they were born. So, er, the vast majority of humankind.

No, we need to talk about the meaning of the word privilege. The real meaning, not the warped meaning dreamt up by woke warriors who are hellbent on organising humanity into lists of The Oppressed and The Privileged.

Because it strikes me that one of the most unfortunate consequences of identity politics has been its hollowing-out of the word privilege and the way this has made it impossible to have a serious debate about where power and authority really lie in 21st-century Western society.

This was brought home to me while watching Mona Eltahawy’s excruciating appearance on the ABC’s Q&A on Monday night. I cringed so hard as I watched Eltahawy, an Egyptian-American feminist and author, spout the F-word and boast about being uncivil. It was all so adolescent. I can’t believe someone over the age of 14 thinks it’s cool to say f..k.

But even more striking than that was how try-hard it felt. It came across as extraordinarily performative. It felt like an act.

Then it struck me. Eltahawy is playing at being oppressed. She’s donning the garb of the downtrodden to distract attention from the fact she has had a very nice, comfortable and, dare I say it, privileged life. Consider her Q&A comments on Barack Obama’s sensible criticisms of woke culture and the trend for “cancelling” people who hold different views to our own. Eltahawy slammed Obama. She said she often went online precisely to say “f..k off” — cringe! — to people who criticise her.

She said: “I do not have the luxury or the privilege to sit there and be civil with people who do not acknowledge my full humanity.”

In short, she’s a member of the non-privileged. And therefore she is good and you must listen to her.

There’s only one problem with this: it isn’t true.

Eltahawy has had a privileged life. And I’m using the word privilege in its true sense here. She grew up in a middle-class family in Egypt. Her parents had PhDs. They worked in medicine. They even got government grants to study and work overseas, including in Britain and Saudi Arabia.

A third of Egyptians live in extreme poverty. In contrast to them, Eltahawy grew up in great comfort. And that’s an inconvenient fact for someone who’s super keen to be a member of the woke, where being oppressed gives you moral power and social influence. So Woke Mona must pose as someone who lacks “luxury or privilege” and who cannot be expected to be polite to her detractors.

This is a woke form of blacking-up, where middle-class people self-identity (to use politically correct language) as oppressed to improve their social standing in PC circles and give themselves the right to lecture the rest of us, especially white men, about how dumb and prejudiced we are.

Indeed, Eltahawy insisted on Q&A that words such as civility and respectfulness were invented by white men for the benefit of other white men. Which white men? Rich, powerful white men such as Donald Trump? White men such as my father, an immigrant to Britain who worked on building sites his whole life? The white men who fix the plumbing in Eltahawy’s no doubt lovely apartment block in New York City?

The woke elite’s sweeping, dehumanising category of “white men” erases everything to do with class and wealth. It views all white men, whether dirt poor or filthy rich, as culturally problematic.

So Eltahawy, from her lovely, privileged background, is oppressed while white men, including the ones who have no money or power, are privileged. This is morally perverse and historically illiterate.

Woke Mona isn’t alone in using the language of oppression to disguise her privileged origins. The woke universe is full of plummy Guardianistas, feminists from wealthy backgrounds and Ivy League activists who all claim to lack privilege.

Identity politics increasingly looks like the revenge of the elites against the masses. It is the disguise well-off people wear as they lecture the throng, including working-class white men, about our moral defects.

That’s the great irony of wokeness: it poses as a revolt against old power structures but it is itself a new power structure, one of moral censorship and social control led by posh people pretending to be victims. And no matter how many times Eltahawy says f..k, she can’t hide this fact.

SOURCE  





Opposition realises they need conservative votes

It’s a brave Labor Party parliamentarian and self-declared “progressive” who admits to being “on the same side of an argument as Alan Jones” — on occasions at least. But that’s what Clare O’Neil, the Labor MP for Hotham in southeast Melbourne, told the John Curtin Research Centre on Thursday.

O’Neil has not embraced the fan club of the Macquarie Radio (2GB in Sydney, 4BC in Brisbane) and Sky News presenter. It’s just that, in the wake of the Bill ­Shorten-led Labor defeat last May, O’Neil has recognised that she and her colleagues “need to take people with us”.

It’s not that O’Neil has become a convert to political conservatism. Rather her concern turns on tone. She recognises that many Australians regard themselves as being talked down to by progressives. And they resent it.

She added: “Not everyone with a concern about the immigration rate is a bigot; not everyone with a concern about changing gender roles is sexist; not every social change is inarguably a good one.”

There is no reference to the ABC in O’Neil’s speech. But the tone to which she refers inhabits the conservative-free zone, progressive hangout that is the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster. On the other hand, unlike the ABC, Labor has to win the support of conservatives.

The recently retired Melbourne ABC radio presenter Jon Faine went from being a left-wing activist at Monash University to a left-wing activist lawyer and then to more than two decades as an ABC presenter, of the leftist bent. In his much-hyped final show on Melbourne Radio 774 on October 11, Faine described those who regar­d the ABC as out of touch as “hypocrites”.

Faine seemed unaware that, earlier in the week, Gaven Morris (the director of ABC News) told The Australian that the ABC could definitely improve its coverage of suburban Australia. Morris asked: “Are we tuned in to what people are interested in in Bankstown (in Sydney’s west), or Ipswich­ in Brisbane, Frankston in Melbourne, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast?”

He could well have added such areas as northern Tasmania and northern Queensland.

From a political perspective, O’Neil has recognised the problem­ of being out of touch with those who live outside the inner cities or suburbs close to the CBD.

In her John Curtin Research Centre speech, she specifically looked at the seat of Capricornia in central Queensland. She ­described it as “a blue-collar, ­regional electorate of Australians Labor strives to represent”.

O’Neil then reminded her audience that the primary vote swing against the Labor Party in the May election in Capricornia (which includes the city of Rockhampton) “was a full third of the electorate”.

She was polite enough not to remind the comrades at John Curtin Research Centre that much coalmining takes place in Capricornia — and that the electorate’s town of Collinsville was the target of Bob Brown’s ill-fated and counter-productive Green Left convoy to northern Queensland of recent memory.

In her address, O’Neil did not specifically focus on belief. This issue was addressed by Labor frontbencher Michelle Rowland last September. She told Nine newspapers that Labor “didn’t get it right with religious voters”. Rowland added: “I don’t think it’s lost on anyone that there was clearly an issue with Labor and people of faith at the last election.”

Rowland is the popular ­member for Greenway, in western Sydney. It is home to many recent migrants of numerous faiths. Greenway was one of the electorates that had a majority vote “No” in the 2017 same-sex marriage postal survey. Rowland clearly underst­ands her electorate.

And then there is Joel Fitzgibbon’s speech from early October. He argued that the modern Labor Party needs to adapt to the reality that “Australians are inherently conservative”.

Fitzgibbon holds the seat of Hunter, north of Sydney, in which there are significant agricultural and mining industries. Fitzgibbon urged Labor to understand the interests of “coalminers and retired­ mine workers”.

In the past four decades, Labor has won a majority of seats in the elections of 1983, 1984, 1987 and 1990 (under Bob Hawke’s leadership), 1993 (under Paul Keating’s leadership) and 2007 (under Kevin Rudd’s leadership). All three leaders had an appeal to economic and social conservatives at the time of their victories.

The likes of O’Neil, Rowland and Fitzgibbon understand that, to win more elections than it loses, Labor needs to respect conservative views. Even if, like O’Neil, it calls itself progressive. The alternative position is offered by the left-wing faction operative senator Kim Carr. Carr told The Australian this week that Labor’s message at the May election was sound — but poorly communicated. That’s political denial.

The breakthrough in O’Neil’s speech is a recognition that, being identified with what are called “progressive” causes, Labor also identifies with those who call themselves progressives.

As she put it: “There is a culture developing in the progressive movement where membership is granted with a box of ideas. And if you don’t accept one of those ideas in the box, you do not merely have a different opinion, you are obviousl­y wrong, probably stupid and possibly subhuman.”

Many in the electorate resent the condescending tone of the self-proclaimed progressive voice. The sneering secularists who mock religious believers. The born-again eco-catastrophists who rant against mining, agricult­ure and industry while living off the products of such enterprises. And the inner-city types who live close to work and benefit from subsidised public transport while berating those who rely on cars and who love their four-wheel drives.

On the eve of the May election, the oh-so-progressive Faine warned Josh Frydenberg that Shorten and Greens leader Richard Di Natale would soon address a Friends of the ABC rally protesting at cuts to ABC funding. Faine seemed to believe that this collection of inner-city progressives would cause the Coalition problems at the forthcoming election. They didn’t.

Labor’s immediate task is not to appeal to progressives but to win back as many economic and social conservatives as possible — quite a few of whom follow Jones.

SOURCE  






Demerits to bust rogue union chiefs

Union officials who breach workplace laws would be banned from holding office under a new demerit-points system the government will adopt in a bid to get its union-busting "Ensuring Integrity Bill" through parliament as early as next week. The new system would involve a 180-penalty-unit threshold for law-breaking trade unionists, and could lead to Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union officials being banned for just one breach of civil laws, while other officials would be exposed to ban applications for multiple, minor breaches.

Attorney-General Christian Porter told The Weekend Australian that proposed amendments, resulting from negotiations with Centre Alliance, meant penalty units would accumulate for breaches across three separate pieces of workplace legislation. Centre Affiance senator Rex Patrick said on Friday he was "close to an agreement" on the bill, which significantly expands the grounds for banning union officials and deregistering unions.

The government said on Friday the bill could be brought on for a Senate vote as early as next Wednesday.

One Nation is due to meet Mr Porter on Tuesday. A spokesman for senator Malcolm Roberts indicated on Friday that One Nation supported the demerit-points system in principle but had questions about how it would work in detail.

Senator Jacqui Lambie declined to comment but her office maintained she intended to vote for the bill if CFMEU Victorian leader John Setka continued to refuse to resign.

Senator Patrick confirmed the 180-penalty-unit threshold for union officials under the deal with the Coalition. He said officials could be subject to a ban application for "multiple, minor breaches". He said the proposed trigger for a deregistration application for a union was 900 penalty units but that figure was "ball-park" and yet to be agreed.

Under laws applying across the building and construction industry, conduct including coercion and unlawful industrial action and other offences attract 200 penalty units, meaning a CFMEU official would be exposed to a Federal Court ban application if found guilty of one civil breach.

"Many of the serious breaches that we see by members of the CFMEU — and which have prompted Federal Court judges to describe the union as one of the most recidivist offenders in Australia's industrial landscape — can now attract 200 penalty units per contravention and so, under the proposed approach would, if the CFMEU officials continue to reoffend, give rise to potential disqualification action," Mr Porter said. The points system would apply to breaches under the Fair Work Act

From "The Weekend Australian" of 9/11/19





"The Conversation" is a Leftist rag

On November 1 the Prime Minister addressed the Queensland Resources Council in Brisbane. Some media reports drew attention to Morrison’s presence in Queensland as a sign that he was intent on holding the seats of Herbert and Longman, which were won in the May election in a state heavily reliant on agriculture and mining along with gas production. That’s true.

But it’s also true that the Coalition would not be in a majority government without the two seats it won in northern Tasmania, Bass and Braddon. They happen to be areas that have some of the lowest incomes in Australia. In other words, the Coalition’s support for mining in this year’s election was an important factor in its victory. But not the only factor. Labor failed to connect with its traditional base in many parts of Australia.

Towards the end of his Brisbane speech, Morrison said the ­Coalition was “not interested in closing down the mining industry but building it up”. He spoke about mining as a hi-tech industry that created good, high-paying jobs. And he spoke about “a new breed of radical activism” that was “on the march … sneering at wealth-creating and job-creating industries” in the regions.

While acknowledging that “there should always be a place for peaceful protest”, he argued that this was not “an unlimited licence to disrupt people’s lives” and said there was “no place for economic sabotage dressed up as activism”.

Morrison went on to express concern about “the escalating trend towards a new form of secondary boycotts in this country”.

Currently, secondary boycotts are banned with respect to trade union activism. This was one of the few industrial relations reforms of Malcolm Fraser’s Coalition government four decades ago. When he was minister for business and consumer affairs in the early years of the Fraser government, John Howard introduced legislation banning secondary boycotts.

A secondary boycott applies with respect to a situation where Company A is in dispute with a trade union. The union takes industrial action against Company B, which trades with Company A, to put pressure on Company A to settle with the trade union. Secondary boycotts have been outlawed as a trade union leverage tactic for many years.

However, the legislation provides an exemption concerning environment and consumer groups. They can engage in secondary boycotts by putting pressure on Company B to act against the interests of ­Company A.

There is no logical reason a trade union should be prevented from engaging in a secondary boycott but an environmental activist group is free to do so. As the Prime Minister put it: “Environmental groups are targeting businesses and firms who provide goods and services to firms they don’t like, especially in the resources sector.” He added that businesses of all sizes are being targeted.

The Prime Minister acknowledged the difficulties of legislating to stop secondary boycotts initiated by environmental and/or consumer groups, but added that he was working with Attorney-General Christian Porter to “identify a ­series of mechanisms” to outlaw such practices.

Also, Morrison recognised that the Australian government “cannot force one Australian company to provide a service to another”.

All up, this was a considered speech that raised a real problem without offering a dogmatic immediate solution. Yet it has led to a storm of opposition.

Writing in The Conversation on Tuesday, University of Queensland law professor Graeme Orr criticised the Prime Minister’s speech and suggested that it might be mere “kite flying” in an appeal to small businesses.

This was a reasonable critique. The same cannot be said for the howl of outrage that appeared on The Conversation’s comments page.

There were references to “Fuhrer Morrison”. The Prime Minister also was referred to as a “cunning mongrel”. And then there was a sneering reference to Morrison as a “rancid creationist” and he was told “get your head out of your bum”.

Now if this were social media it would be par for the course. But The Conversation’s editor, Misha Ketchell, takes its comments section seriously, so much so that he has banned anyone he regards as a climate sceptic from taking part in the online journal’s discussions.

Yet The Conversation readily runs commentary on its website comparing Australia’s democratically elected Prime Minister with the one-time leader of the Nazi Party.

So debate in Australia has come to this. A journal funded by many Australian universities provides the opportunity for Morrison to be compared with Hitler.

SOURCE  

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

Kapow! Take that, campus feminists!

By Bettina Arndt

Great news - Senator Amanda Stoker has fired another round. I reported last week on her blast at TEQSA, our university regulator, for failing to protect the legal rights of people, usually men, accused of sexual assault on campuses. Last night she was speaking to Peta Credlin on Sky News and brilliantly exposed many of the flaws in the appalling university regulations governing this issue.

Here’s the link to the Sky program - https://www.facebook.com/SkyNewsAustralia/videos/986580348360639/

Please help me circulate this, particularly to people working in higher education and those who can spread the word about what’s happening here.

Amanda Stoker is a former barrister and criminal prosecutor and was able to spell out the lack of procedural fairness in current regulations, explaining that the basic rights of the accused person are being “completely squashed” under the current system which offers none of the normal protections available in criminal law courts.

Stoker listed those missing protections, namely that the accused had no access to evidence against them, there was no effort to ensure the reliability of that evidence, no power to call evidence in their own defence, no legal representation, no presumption of innocence, no right of appeal.

A secretive, unsupervised committee would determine guilt on the balance of probabilities with power to impose serious penalties including expulsion from the university. As Stoker pointed out this means students thus punished have wasted money and time invested in their degrees and are likely to be excluded from chosen professions – all penalties not found in the criminal justice code.

We should be really troubled by this, said Stoker explaining that universities established these unjust rules in an effort to make sure women feel safe. But the resulting one-sided procedures are resulting in gross injustice, she said.

She added an extra serve for TEQSA which is supposed to be responsible for making sure universities are well governed. “They have entered the fray ..gone out on a limb to endorse a set of processes that are really unbalanced.” And they have done this “in circumstances where it is their job to ensure they are delivering balance and fairness as the corollary of public funding and public support that goes to our universities.”

TEQSA is supposed to provide the checks and balances but instead “they are jumping on one side of the argument to the unfairness of others. That’s just not right.”

Wow, those squirming bureaucrats must be still smarting from Stoker’s treatment last week and now she piles on this lot.

Well, as you can imagine I am absolutely delighted to have Stoker out there fighting the good fight on the issue I have spent the last year trying to get onto the public agenda. My campus tour was aimed at drawing public attention to this feminist tilting of sexual assault regulations to favor the victim and ensure more rape convictions.

My only concern is Stoker is offering to help TEQSA “work through the principles of natural justice….and deliver fairness.”  But how will we ever know whether these unsupervised, secretive committees of untrained people are offering fairness to the accused?

It’s far better that we persuade universities to get out of the rape adjudication business and leave that to the criminal courts. No doubt this former criminal prosecutor is capable of getting the higher educator sector to see reason and vacate the territory.

Via email from Tina: Bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au






'She only heard praise' Woman whose patchwork quilt of 24 Golliwogs won top prize at a country show has no idea she's been slammed as a racist



The woman whose patchwork quilt of 24 Golliwogs won top prize at a country show has no idea she's been slammed as a racist, because she's off making more quilts.

The design by quilter Helen, which depicted golliwogs from 24 countries around the world, won first place in the Whittlesea Show's quilt category in northern Melbourne last weekend, and was widely criticised.

Helen's design was called 'offensive' by the chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission Dr Dvir Abramovich, but Helen's husband said she received 'only comments of praise of the work' at the show.

Helen's husband Michael appeared on Melbourne's 3AW radio on Friday afternoon to tell the story of how the golliwog quilt came about.

'A very elderly lady had that quilt and she had that in her house for such a long time and she was visually impaired and suffered from arthritis, she asked Helen to put it together for her, which she obliged,' Michael said.

'Her quilting friend suggested she enter it into the show because it was such fine work and we're very sorry that people are offended by it.'

Some of the dressed up golliwogs on the quilt include a a Spanish matador, an English Beefeater, a golliwog doing the haka and an Egyptian pharaoh. 

Dr Abramovich suggested the quilt was celebrating racist images, but Michael said that wasn't the intention of the artist.

Michael said that Helen was over the moon to have won the top prize at the show, but hadn't been able to speak with his wife about the criticism of her work because she was busy with another piece. I haven't spoken to her 'cause she's quilting!' Michael said.

The golliwog was originally a character in an 1895 children's book but has since been associated with the racial stereotyping of black people. The word 'golliwog' has also increasingly been seen as racist due to the term 'wog' being used as a racial slur for foreigners.

The design follows the Royal Adelaide Show being forced to remove three dolls from a display last year which were accused of being caricatures of African-Americans.

SOURCE  






Muslim trouble again

They're so full of themselves

Sarah Aslan, 23, her new husband Muhammed and 20 of their wedding guests were booted off flight JQ36 from Bali to Melbourne on Monday night.

They claim they were unfairly targeted by 'racist' crew because of their 'beards and headscarves'.

But Jetstar says some members of their group were being abusive and were kicked off for safety reasons because they refused to take their seats while the plane was taxiing.

The disruption started when one wedding guest complained to staff that his entertainment screen was not working.

The argument became heated and resulted in members of the wedding party refusing to follow crew instructions to take their seats and put on their seatbelts, a witness told Daily Mail Australia.

At one stage in the argument, some members of the wedding party 'played the race card,' the witness said. 'Is it the beard? It feels like it might be,' one man asked a flight attendant, according to mobile phone footage.

A Muslim flight attendant then told the group she was not being racist and she was of the same faith. According to multiple witnesses, one member of the party called her a 'bad Muslim'.

'The flight attendant was encouraging them to comply with safety procedures but she was racially vilified,' a witness said.

A passenger told Daily Mail Australia the attendant was shocked by the comment. 'She was denigrated for being a "bad Muslim". She moved to the front of the plane and was quite visibly upset,' the passenger said.

'The party members were arrogant and entitled and disrespected staff simply doing their job,' the passenger added.

The group, including a four-month-old baby, was escorted off the plane by security guards to the cheers of other passengers who were eager to get home.

They were put on another Jetstar flight to Melbourne via Sydney at no extra cost the next day.

Mobile phone footage shows some members of the group arguing with staff in the airport lobby after they were kicked off.

'I didn't do anything. I don't need you to speak to me like this, do you understand?,' Mrs Aslan can be heard saying in video.  Possibly referring to the flight attendant who was allegedly called a 'bad Muslim', she said: 'Where's the lady that started this s*** before?  'This is very racist,' she added before a staff member said: 'She's crying'.

Speaking to 9News, Mrs Aslan claimed members of her group were mistreated because of their religion.  'Personally, it did feel like we were being attacked for looking ethnic and being Muslim,' Mrs Aslan said.

Selim Tutunca, one of the 22 passengers escorted off the plane, claimed the group was unfairly targeted. 'We were racially, verbally and physically assaulted by both Jetstar crew members and Bali airport officials. We have footage of all of this,' he wrote on the Jetstar Australia Facebook page. 'We were kicked off the flight even though we hadn't even spoke a single word to the crew members.'

Mr Tutunca said he and his young family, including a seven and a three-year-old, were stranded in the terminal and that his children 'were put through hell'.

A Jetstar spokesman told Daily Mail Australia: 'Whilst taxiing to the runway a number of customers became disruptive and failed to follow crew instructions. 'The safety of our customers and crew is our number one priority and we do not tolerate any kind of disruptive or abusive behavior.

'We take these allegations extremely seriously and are investigating the matter, however our crew dispute the claims made by these passengers.' 

SOURCE  





Time frame set for ban of exported recyclable waste from Australia

Recycling is costly and is about to become more so.  For a time a useful cost minimization strategy was to pay poor Asians to recycle the stuff. But they have recently become embarrassed by that role so are now refusing to take the waste


The bulk of recyclable waste is sent from Australia to other countries for processing at a huge cost, but not for much longer.

Australia will ban the export of recyclable waste from its shores, with a phase-out of the expensive and controversial practice beginning in July next year.

A meeting of federal, state and territory environment ministers today has devised a timeline to cease sending plastic, paper, glass and tyres internationally.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison flagged the ban after the last Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting in August, and today’s agreement has set in stone a staggered process to allow jurisdictions time to adjust.

“Ministers will further test the timetable with industry and local government, while also developing response strategies and undertaking independent market analysis,” the agreement states.

At present, when households and businesses put rubbish into recycling bins, just 12 per cent of that material is processed in Australia.

The remainder has been shipped to other countries – until recently most of it has wound up in China and Indonesia – at a hefty cost.

Last year, China banned imports of Australian waste and Indonesia has sent back shipments that were contaminated with non-recyclable waste, including soiled nappies and food.

From July 2020, glass waste will be banned for export, followed by mixed waste plastics the following year and all while tyres in December 2021.

All remaining waste products, including mixed paper and cardboard, will be banned no later than June 30, 2022.

“This timetable reflects the unique challenges of each jurisdiction, and the preparedness of some jurisdictions to complete the phase-out ahead of schedule,” the agreement states.

“All jurisdictions acknowledged resourcing, from Commonwealth, states and territories, and ndustry will be required to effectively implement the ban.”

Today’s agreement also committed to an ambitious waste reduction target under a new National Waste Action plan.

It aims to make Australia a world leader in waste management and recycling and includes an 80 per cent recovery rate of material across all waste streams. “All ministers have committed to identifying any significant procurement opportunities over oming months such as major road projects that could use significant amounts of recycled material,” the agreement states.

“The Commonwealth agreed to take a leading role. This reflects a wider commitment from the Commonwealth and states to drive procurement strategies for recycled material.

“The Commonwealth Government will prioritise work with states and territories and relevant industry and standards bodies to develop engineering specifications and standards to support

the use of recycled materials in building, construction and infrastructure development, for use across all jurisdictions.”

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Andrew Cooper on the absurd bureaucracy threatening to prosecute him

As of midnight on Tuesday, I am subject to referral to the Australian Federal Police, who may charge me with criminal offences that attract up to six months’ jail. My crime? Well, I haven’t committed one. The best way I can ­explain it is that I’m in some cruel trap — one that’s been legislated into law, utilised by bureaucrats and sprung upon me out of nowhere with seemingly no chance of escape.

Trouble started on the morning of October 22, more than two months after my not-for-profit think tank LibertyWorks hosted the successful Conservative Political Action Conference in Sydney — CPAC as it is known. A strange email landed in my inbox that day. It was titled “Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme” and included a s45(2) notice. No, I hadn’t heard of it either. I often dismiss emails like this — they can be spam — but one line raised my eyebrow: “Criminal penalties apply for a failure to comply.”

Inside was coercive language and just 14 days to comply with extraordinary demands: “I write to require … LibertyWorks to give ­information and make and produce copies of documents to ­satisfy me as to whether LibertyWorks is liable to register under the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme.” To satisfy me!

The documents requested relate to a perceived arrangement between LibertyWorks and our co-hosts, the American Conser­vative Union, a prominent Washington think tank that handles the famous US version of CPAC.

The letter does not ask “is there an ­arrangement” but demands all documents, emails and understandings between ourselves and the ACU, ourselves and speakers and delegates at CPAC and, perversely, between the ACU and speakers and delegates at CPAC.

When I first read this, I couldn’t comprehend it. They want us to obtain, reproduce and send them copies of ACU’s correspondence to all speakers? That would include ACU’s correspondence to CPAC speaker Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party in the UK. It also would include correspondence with US congressman and CPAC speaker Mark Meadows.

This is why I am in a trap with no means of escape. I cannot ­obtain communications between the American ACU and a US congressman — the ACU would not produce that material for fear of breaking US laws.

And so the trap is sprung. They have sent me a demand for documents, they have threatened me with imprisonment if I do not provide them and they have given me 14 days to do so.

There is no natural justice in their requirements — if this is the law, then the law is an ass.

At midnight, the clock expired and I am now liable for referral to the AFP for arrest and criminal prosecution. As a happy coincidence, I am flying to the US as the deadline passes and I would be lying if I said there was not some small relief in that.

I want this to go away. I don’t want the stress, the prospect of legal fees, of a criminal conviction or of going to jail. But I feel a certain burden of responsibility to draw a line in the sand for all of us, to protect the next citizen in the sights of the unelected modern-day Stasi.

Tony Abbott, when rejecting an invitation to register under the scheme, said: “We have got ­ourselves into all sorts of predicaments over the years because reasonable people have been too accommodating to unreasonable people.”

I’m a single father who has tried to explain this predicament to my girls aged 15 and 12, but struggled to find the right words. So I simply asked them what they would think if their father had to choose between a difficult and risky path that was in keeping with his values and principles, or an easy path that sold out on those. Their response was swift and heartwarming: “Stick to your principles, Dad.” So that’s that.

I am now in breach of the s45(2) notice and if the AFP await me upon my return in a couple of weeks then so be it. I will take my day in court and will find a way to test the validity of this great illiberal leap into authoritarianism. I have been asked to kowtow in front of bureaucrats who no longer see themselves as servants of the people but controllers of the people. I now await their wrath.

SOURCE  

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

Another big Queensland Health cost blunder

Amazing. This appears to be a re-run of the time when the premature rollout of a new Queensland Health payroll system was so badly bungled that it took over a billion to fix it.  Has nothing been learned?

Queensland's Auditor-General has been asked to investigate the performance of the state's troubled hospital ordering system. The Opposition has written to Brendan Worrall with its concerns around financial waste and mismanagement of the $135 million project known as S/4HANA following rolling issues exposed by The Courier-Mail.

Opposition Health spokeswoman Ros Bates wrote this week asking Mr Worrall to consider a performance audit that would make recommendations on how to fix shortcomings and ensure suppliers are being paid on time.

The Courier-Mail has exposed multiple occasions in which medical suppliers have put a hold on hospitals' credit line over unpaid bills. Their complaints forced Queensland Health to set up a special phone line to help them get paid that was receiving 100 calls a day.

Surplus money had also been used outside the project's $135 million budget to pay for extra staff to handle the troubled bailout, including 30 temporary staff to support accounts payable and the call centre. Additional shifts have also been put on at the state's distribution centres.

"The LNP is gravely concerned about the cost blowouts and rollout of this project," Ms Bates' letter reads. The new system, S/4HANA, was launched on August 1 and crashed two hours after its launch in what was dubbed a "critical incident". That launch had been previously delayed so that staff could be properly trained.

Health Minister Steven Miles and Queensland Health have repeatedly said the project was "working within expected parameters", despite complaints from hospital staff.

Specialist staff support is continuing past the contracted "rollout phase", which was meant to end on October 31. The system is used to order everything from cleaning sup-plies to medical goods, food and drugs.

From the Brisbane "Courier Mail" of 6/11/19





BOQ blunder in closing account: Tattoo artist "treated like a criminal"



For generations, Australians have split their savings between several banks. This is one example of why

A GOLD Coast tattoo artist says she has been treated like a criminal after Bank of Queensland froze her accounts without notice, leaving her unable to pay suppliers or run the business.

Inkspired Tattoo & Beauty owner Bianka Roggensack was left shocked this week when her BoQ business accounts were suddenly frozen. Ms Roggensack, who has been a BoQ customer for seven years, said the bank had given her until November 11 to remove thousands of dollars from her accounts before they were dosed under its policy of not providing services to tattooists.

The Coolangatta business owner said she had no trouble with the law or blemish on her banking record, and declared there was no reason for BoQ to shut the accounts. "It makes you feel discriminated against like I'm some sort of criminal," she said. "I'm a small business owner who's an active part of the community but my money's not good enough for Bank of Queensland."

It is understood the bank's policy of not providing services to tattooists is currently under review. A BoQ spokeswoman apologised for the "error" and said all services were reinstalled. "Unfortunately the customer's accounts were incorrectly frozen due to a failure in our processes," she said.

Four tattoo artists and three apprentices are employed at Ms Roggensack's tattoo studio, which lists hundreds of clients on its books.

The 31-year-old business owner is considering whether she will start the arduous task of switching banks. "All my accounting software, my direct debits, rent and insurances are locked in with BoQ," she said. Ms Roggensack was disappointed BoQ's decision came six years after the Newman State Government introduced a crackdown of the sector to combat organised crime.

"I am a licensed operator-of a studio, a recognised business and there was no reason to close down my accounts." she said.

From the Brisbane "Courier Mail" of 6/11/19





Cup day a good bet to release damning report of politicians over-riding official advice

TAXPAYER cash was splashed out on a project that was found to be ineligible for 'funding under a grants program meant to create jobs in regional areas. A damning independent assessment of the Regional Jobs and Investment Packages program found one in every five [bureaucratic] financing decisions — worth more than $150 million — were overturned by a ministerial panel.

The report which was released by the Federal Government during  the Melbourne race, found there was political interference, little accountability and almost no conflict of interest management in the grants program.

The highest number of discrepancies in the national program were in the Bowen Basin and Wide Bay/Burnett regions, covering five electorates, all held by the LNP.

Little reason was given for overturning departmental advice, other than that the assessment was wrong, the Australian National Audit Office found. Despite the criticism, the ANAO. did not identify which projects had funding approved or rejected against advice, only saying "there was no bias clearly evident in the decision making". 

From the Brisbane "Courier Mail" of 6/11/19






Calls for elite school old guard to resign

Hiley's trangressions were minor but the PMSA board went way too far in exonerating him and forcing a whistleblower out.  Previous post on this matter on May 9th.. Christian humility would have avoided all the heartburn

CHURCH elders who were at the helm during an elite school scandal face fresh pressure to resign over an alleged fraud linked to the peak body of four of the state's most prestigious private schools.

Parents and alumni are demanding the axing of the "old guard" of the strife-torn Presbyterian and Methodist Schools Association board after its hand-picked former executive manager last week faced court charged with fraud.
Hiley

Ex-PMSA executive Rick Hiley, who was given a six-figure payout, appeared in court on a fraud charge after a two year-long investigation by police into alleged data theft from Somerville House Foundation.

It comes after The Courier-Mail exclusively revealed an alleged cover-up by the besieged PMSA board which refused to release a secret internal investigative report into the scandal and publicly exonerated Mr Hiley in 2017.

Lewd texts about a nude Korean [Many Koreans are Presbyterian] bathhouse between Mr Hiley and Police Inspector Rob McCall, then PMSA chair, also revealed a job offer and secret merger plans of the four schools.

Somerville House school principal Flo Kearney was sacked by the PMSA when she questioned their handling of the embarrassing saga but has since won a public apology and an undisclosed payout from the PMSA. Yesterday it emerged the heads of senior, middle and junior schools will also be exiting the historic all-girls private school at South Brisbane.

"Beyond PMSA", which represents 4000 supporters, said the PMSA "old guard" who presided over the debacle including chair Greg Adsett, Anne Bennett, Helen Murray, Greg Skelton and Jim Demack, should resign effective immediately.

The PMSA owns Somerville House, Brisbane Boys College, Clayfield College and Sunshine Coast Grammar School.

From the Brisbane "Courier Mail" of 6/11/19




Australia Flicks Switch on First New Power Station in 7 Years

Fascinating that the Greenies have not opposed this.  The dire blackouts that South Australia suffered when they demolished all their coal-fired generators must have focused a few minds

AGL Energy Ltd.’s Barker Inlet gas-fired power plant began operations Monday, Australia’s first major new power station since 2012, with its quick-start capability designed to back-up fast-growing wind and solar generation.

The A$295 million ($204 million) facility in South Australia has 210 megawatts of capacity and will help supplement renewables, which regularly meet more than 50% of the state’s power demand, the company said in a statement. The plant is capable of reaching full capacity within 5 minutes, AGL said.

“This is important, because it will allow us to provide a rapid response to changes in renewable generation supply and demand -- particularly wind generation here in South Australia,” Chief Executive Officer Brett Redman said in the statement. Barker Inlet is part of AGL’s A$2 billion pipeline of infrastructure projects aimed at bolstering the grid.

Australia will likely need around A$400 billion in new utility-scale generation assets over the next 30 years as aging coal-fired power plants retire, the Grattan Institute, a think tank, said in a study last month. However, the industry has complained that the lack of policy certainty at a national level is hampering investment.

The government has short-listed 12 projects under a program to underwrite investment in new generation, and is also giving financial backing to the A$5 billion-plus Snowy 2.0 pumped-hydro project that will provide large-scale energy storage to back-up renewables.

SOURCE  

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