My beef with QR code menus and other digital stomach turners

I quite agree with Helen Pitt's rant below. I walk out of a restaurant if they refuse to take my order in person. Doing things on the net is usually murderous. I am using the net right now but I am using a process that I am very familiar with. Doing any unfamiliar task on the net is to subject yourself to great frustrations, without any guarantee of eventual success.

I of course sound like an old cumudgeon in saying all that and perhaps I am, given that I am pushing 80, but I wrote my first computer program in 1967 so I am not unfamiliar with computers. It is just that some tasks are not really fit to be computerized. The programs I wrote were to do statistical analysis and computers are brilliant for that. But for dealing with government departments? Not so much

Permit me if you will a moment to share my beef about a dining trend: the QR code menu.

It’s the COVID-19 hangover that annoys me most. I’ve seen it in restaurants all over Sydney – most of them high-end – which like everyone in the hospitality game may be struggling to return to post-pandemic profitability; but this is not the way to do it.

I understand why the QR code gained traction during these past few years because of the need to minimise points of contact between patrons and restaurant professionals. Yes, I get that a paperless restaurant provides a more sanitary alternative to physical menus, and means waiters don’t need to touch potentially germ-laden credit cards. But for me, ordering from a digital waiter is dehumanising and disconnecting.

Not only do I not like ordering this way, but I am appalled that after you use the app to order, it asks for a tip. Really?! They should be giving ME a discount for moonlighting as my own waiter.

Surely I’m not the only one to feel that the joy of restaurant dining comes from the personal touches: the interaction with the waitperson who can recite the menu like a piece of poetry, or the sommelier who can explain the slope of a valley where a wine comes from and why it goes with a particular dish.

I still get misty-eyed at the memory of some of the best meals of my life in France and California, and it has not just been the food, wine and setting, but the wait staff that have made them special. I’m happy to tip for the part people play in creating the ambience. But to tip an app? That’s a bit rich.

Not only that, I can’t help but hear myself as a parent insisting the phone, like any screen, should not be a dining table utensil. I find it loathsome in my home, so why should I feel differently at a dining establishment? Not to mention elderly people who don’t have a mobile phone or know how to use it, or others who simply refuse to use it for such purposes.

As we know too well, technology often lets you down. Often the app doesn’t work, or you are asked for a PIN that has to be entered and re-entered on your phone and has you going around in digital circles. Surely getting up and walking to the bar and ordering from a real bar tender is quicker in this case.

I’m equally miffed by self-checkouts at supermarkets, especially during COVID-19 lockdowns when a trip to the grocery store was as close as it got to a fun outing. I’ll still queue up in a long line at my local Woollies to have a real-life exchange (and say hi to Di and Deidre) rather than the impersonal checking of every item yourself, which invariably doesn’t work and requires a staff member to come help anyway.

Any mental health expert will tell you it is these small but meaningful daily exchanges with people in real life in your own community that help as much as authentic honest intimate relationships with family and friends, fulfilling work and an optimistic outlook.

As for other digital discourtesies, don’t get me started with Uber. Have you noticed it defaults to not just rating your trip and driver, but adding a tip? This is deceitful carpetbagging and enough to make me want to go back to using taxis and tipping if I have a good experience.

I’m also finding the latest update to Google maps most frustrating. Perhaps it is a user fail but I’ve found myself lost so often lately because of incorrect directions. It’s enough to make me retreat to the reliable old Gregorys’ I still keep sentimentally in the back seat of the car.

And have you tried to book an airline ticket other than online lately? It’s enough to make me waltz to the local shopping centre and walk into a Flight Centre just to talk to a real-life travel agent (those who still have jobs) and pay them handsomely to sit on the telephone to the airline for me.

As for online banking – now we have banking apps I wonder what must have happened to the legions of bank managers. They already take their own form of compulsory tipping in the ridiculous fees they charge to keep our money.

I lost interest in Wordle a few months back because, despite joining an online community to humble-brag results with, it wasn’t real. It was a digital creation. I’d rather return to an old-school crossword or paper quiz where you can ask your coffee companion, or waiter or barista at your local cafe for input in real life.

Try asking that of a QR code.

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/my-beef-with-qr-code-menus-and-other-digital-stomach-turners-20220816-p5ba83.html

******************************************************

From firing to hiring: universities now on hunt for staff

The nation’s top universities are promising to fill hundreds of jobs cut during Covid-19, after spending the last year letting staff go while boosting expenditure on ­advertising and consultants by millions of dollars.

The University of NSW, the University of Sydney and Monash University in Melbourne told The Australian they planned to rehire staff after “better than expected” financial results last year.

The Australian examined the financial results and staff cuts at seven universities across the country amid warnings from Education Minister Jason Clare that universities could “do better” in the way they treated staff.

The increased spending on ­advertising and consultants last year, while staff budgets were cut, also comes amid questions about teaching quality at many universities, with The Weekend Australian revealing on Saturday that half of the nation’s student teachers are dropping out of university courses.

Higher education bosses have defended spending decisions and bumper surpluses experienced by many institutions in 2021, and University of Sydney vice-chancellor Mark Scott says a renewed push to bump up staffing numbers will improve teaching and ­research.

“Unlike a business, we don’t seek profits or pay out shareholders – all our surplus is reinvested back into the university to support teaching and research, ­including the recruitment of more academic and professional staff,” he said. “Our work has a positive effect across the whole country by addressing the biggest challenges, equipping students from diverse backgrounds with knowledge and skills, and creating new opportunities and jobs.”

Sydney University recorded a surplus of more than $1bn while the University of Melbourne ­recorded a surplus of more than $500m. Monash, UNSW and the University of Queensland reported surpluses of more than $300m.

The University of Western Australia posted an operating ­result of about $203m in total comprehensive income and Curtin University reported a $113m ­result.

The National Tertiary Education Union estimated 40,000 jobs were lost in public tertiary education in the 12 months to May last year. President Alison Barnes said investment in staff in NSW universities had fallen by 10 per cent since 2008 and the rate of ­casualisation was at about 70 per cent across the sector.

“We need university management to step up to the plate and deal with systemic problems that their business models have ­created,” Dr Barnes said.

Mr Clare identified casualisation and the treatment of staff as an issue, arguing that “the way that universities work with their staff is one of the things I want the Universities Accord to look at”.

He said the sector “can do better”, particularly when it came to high rates of casualisation and staff underpayments.

UNSW led the charge on staff cuts last year, with figures revealing 726 fewer full-time-equivalent jobs when compared to the previous year.

At the University of Sydney, the number of academic staff fell from 3743 to 3514 due to voluntary redundancies. Monash’s full-time-equivalent employee numbers fell from 8017 to 7719, while Melbourne University saw 210 staff leave through voluntary redundancies and 168 via involuntary ­redundancies.

However, most universities said they would now begin rehiring staff thanks to their better than expected 2021 financial results.

UNSW said it was aiming to ­increase investment in staff in 2022 by 16 per cent. Monash said its staffing numbers had grown by 4.5 per cent compared to last year and were “projected to slowly grow further by the end of this year”. The University of Sydney said it was “actively recruiting new staff in areas where there is demand and will continue to ­invest in our staff going forward”.

But Frank Larkins, a former deputy vice-chancellor of research at Melbourne University, said universities would likely struggle to refill jobs. “The challenge will be whether universities can rehire high-quality people to cover the breadth of their curriculums,” he said. “University employment is an international profession, and the US and UK have also reported shortfalls, so there’s competition.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/firing-to-hiring-universities-on-hunt-for-staff/news-story/ef223cc3d3c152d638c57901ba14df89

*************************************************

The High Court of Australia has changed the game on contract work

On the eve of the Jobs Summit, enterprises and individuals wanting to work under a contract relationship are starting to understand that a High Court ruling earlier this year has dramatically changed the rules.

Subject to one simple rule – that there is a detailed contract – enterprises and individuals can decide whether they want tasks undertaken via a contractual relationship or whether they want employment and an award.

The old complex tests as to whether a relationship between an individual and an enterprise is employment or contracting have been thrown out the window by the High Court. Working under a contact or under employment awards becomes a choice for individuals and enterprises. Contracting is set to boom.

But the unions and the new government had planned an attack on the contracting economy – often branded gig economy – so are furious because the High Court ruling will be extremely difficult to change by legislation. The looming Jobs Summit can make union-led pronouncements but the High Court has set clear rules.

For the last four or five decades, to determine whether a person was an independent contractor or an employee courts have used what is known as the multifactorial test – a basket of behavioural indicators only one of which is the written contract.

Those indicators include a consideration of whether a person could work for another company, which party provided the necessary equipment, and the multitude of other tests.

These multifactorial tests have been used by unions and lawyers for decades to run cases to declare that a contractor is an employee. The Australian Taxation Office embraced a similar policy.

The lawyers and unions were able to effectively retrospectively examine behaviour and enterprises were often forced into employment relationships because contracting was too hard.

The High Court has ruled that the lower courts have misunderstood the situation and that it has always had the view that the written contract is supreme. The High Court cited a 1983 Privy Council ruling – an Australian payroll tax dispute – in support of its interpretation.

In the nation changing case, a 22-year-old British backpacker who had travelled to Australia on a working holiday visa obtained a white card, which enabled him to work on construction sites. He contacted with Perth labour hire company Personnel Contracting stating that he was prepared to do any construction work, and was available to start work immediately. He worked under the supervision and direction of builders, Hanssen, who had contracted with the labour hire company. The backpacker signed a very detailed contract with Personnel Contracting setting out his obligations, rights, warranties and entitlements as a contractor. In turn the labour hire company set out its rights and responsibilities.

The CFMEU claimed that Personnel Contracting was paying labourers 25 percent below the required award rate. Personnel Contracting said that it was operating under independent contracting rules. As such, the workers were independent contractors, not employees and therefore the award rates did not apply.

Using the multifactorial test, lower courts led by the Federal Court ruled that the backpacker was an employee and the awards applied.

Personnel Contracting appealed to the High Court which agreed with the lower courts that he was an employee in terms of his on the job actions but said the multifactorial test “is apt to generate considerable uncertainty, both for parties and for the courts”.

“It is the task of the courts to promote certainty with respect to a relationship of such fundamental importance,” the court found.

The High Court therefore declared in this case that the terms of the relationship were “comprehensively committed to a written contract … there is no reason why the legal rights and obligations so established should not be decisive of the character of the relationship”.

Elaborating, the court declared that “where there is a written contract between the parties whose relationship is in issue, a court is confined, in determining the nature of that relationship, to a consideration of the terms, express or implied, of that contract in the light of the circumstances surrounding the making of it; and it is not entitled to consider also the manner in which the parties subsequently acted in pursuance of such contract”.

These simple words are a massive win for individuals, business, and the economy because it brings certainty and clarity to what is a commercial contract.

Enterprises and the self-employed need to make sure they have proper commercial contracts when undertaking work. Sham contracts will not hold up.

Smarter businesses will use the contracting system to gain flexibility rather than to cut payments.

Following the High Court ruling, a worker with Caelli Constructions and drivers at Avert Logistics were declared to be an independent contractors. A decision that Deliveroo drivers were employees has been overturned. The game has changed.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/the-high-court-has-changed-the-game-on-contract-work/news-story/e85347d31d2a17a50287a977a7185dd9

*************************************************

The alarming precedents set by Chairman Dan

In her media realise dated August 17 and headed ‘Applications Open for Premier’s Spirit of Democracy Tour’, Minister Natalie Hutchins states:

‘The Premier’s Spirit of Democracy tour is an amazing opportunity for young critical thinkers to learn about the origins of Australian democracy.’

Forget about inviting students to learn about how ‘classical Greek thinkers’ have contributed to Australia’s democracy. It’s obvious that if anyone needs to be educated about democracy it’s Premier Daniel Andrews (aka Chairman Dan).

Last Friday’s example of refusing to answer questions about the real cost of the multi-billion-dollar suburban rail loop is only the most recent example. Chairman Dan arguably has form when it comes to acting as El Supremo and denying citizens’ expectations regarding transparency and honesty.

Since the arrival of the China virus nearly three years ago, Victorians have suffered under a despotic regime where fundamental and long-cherished freedoms and liberties were ignored or completely trashed.

By giving a master class in the dark arts of self-serving Machiavellian politics, Australia watched a government perfectly illustrate the maxim ‘power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely’.

Closing Parliament, stopping duly elected MPs from entering the building, throwing recalcitrant ministers under the bus, acting as a one-man Cabinet, refusing to take the blame when hundreds died in aged care facilities, and the ongoing theatre surrounding the infamous red-shirts rort – there was no end to Labor’s subterfuge and misdeeds.

Worse still, while one of the central tenets of Western liberal democracies like Victoria (unlike totalitarian communist China and Russia), is the right to freedom, Covid saw police authority supercharged as an instrument to enforce political orders that directly infringed on liberty.

A pregnant woman suffered a home invasion for daring to express opposition to inflexible and cruel lockdowns, demonstrators were fired upon with pepper balls and smothered in tear gas by police, citizens were fined for sitting in the open air in parks, and teachers were summarily sacked for not taking the jab.

Much like East Berlin under communist control where citizens suffered privation and hardship, Victoria’s health system has collapsed. Patients are finding themselves denied much-needed medical treatment, ambulances sit banked up outside emergency departments, and the failure of the state’s triple-zero system is leading to multiple deaths.

Victoria is now the antipodean Venezuela where government debt has skyrocketed, small businesses crushed, and the only solution – like Stalin’s five-year plan – is to announce grandiose, multi-billion dollar infrastructure plans that will bankrupt the state.

Instead of being the ‘education state’, Victorian students have missed months of schooling while suffering a teacher shortage because of draconian jab regulations that have also led to teachers and students suffering record anxiety and stress.

Like in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, where propaganda ensures compliance, Chairman Dan is a master media performer. Like Big Brother’s slogans ‘war is peace’, ‘freedom is slavery’, and ‘ignorance is strength’ Chairman Dan appears to enforce language control and groupthink by arguing ‘staying apart, keeps us together’.

At a time when Melbourne was the most locked-down city in the world, curfews were enforced, and citizens denied freedom of movement – Chairman Dan painted himself as a stern but caring figure.

In daily media appearances, the Premier described the China virus as a deadly and sinister beast and assured citizens that only he had the power to safeguard Victorian. Like one’s favourite uncle, Chairman Dan tried to come across as compassionate and deeply concerned.

Ignored were those Victorians trapped over the border or the people denied the right to attend dying relatives and funerals. Instead of displaying Christian charity and concern for the acute suffering around him, Chairman Dan hid behind ‘the science’.

Any probing media questions or requests for information were met with the rejoinder, ‘that’s irrelevant’ or ‘my only job is to safeguard Victorians against this deadly infection’. Questions about government duplicity were replied to with some variation of, ‘It’s subject to an inquiry, I can’t answer.’

While Scott Morrison is rightly being criticised for ignoring Westminster parliamentary conventions and traditions, the reality is that Chairman Dan is also arguably guilty of trouncing the institutions and safeguards underlying our democratic system.

Family businesses have been bankrupted, friends and neighbours pressured to dob one another into the police, Victoria’s social fabric damaged, and people’s trust in government lost.

Chairman Dan is a typical ALP, socialist-left, union apparatchik who has never had a real job and is thus incapable of knowing the value of real money and what constitutes honest, hard work.

A politician much practised in the maxim ‘the ends justify the means’ where self-interest and political subterfuge is the order of the day. Instead of Victorian students studying the ancient Athenian contribution to democracy, what they should be studying is Chairman Dan whose behaviour mimics that of a third-world despot.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/08/chairman-dans-antipodean-venezuela/

************************************

Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

***************************************

The Leftist Holy Trinity is a vengeful god

The "Sea Eagles" reference beolow is to the fact that some Polynesian football players refused to salute homosexuality.

It is amusing that a couple of writers below revive the old Margaret Mead myth that Polynesians were originally sexually permissive. Experienced anthropologist Derek Freeman debunked that long ago. The authors concerned skate over the fact that the very traditionally-minded Polynesian footballers today show no such permissiveness.

Everyone attributes that impermissiveness to their Christian faith. But how come few other Chritians are so adamant? The plain fact is that in the Pacific islands Christianity fused with traditional beliefs to create strongly-held convictions

As usual, Christians and conservatives are discriminated against in the name of "tolerance". Only a Leftist could make sense of that

The Manly Sea Eagles rainbow jersey saga represents the new ‘progressive’ Holy Trinity of diversity, inclusion, and equality with a steep social penalty for failing to toe the line.

Anyone declining to affirm this new godhead, even if remaining neutral, find themselves denounced as heretics and subjected to public shaming. Progressives claim to promote tolerance but hypocritically exclude those with different views or beliefs, including those who do not actively demonstrate allegiance to progressive orthodoxy.

Identity politics has been weaponised to divide the believers from the non-believers and manufacture divisions that create unnecessary polarisation within society.

The Australia of today is accepting, open-minded, and very far from the bastion of homophobia and transphobia that fringe rainbow activists would have you believe. In 2017, over 60 per cent of the population (myself included) voted in a plebiscite to approve changes to the Marriage Act 1961 allowing same-sex couples to marry. Same-sex couples now enjoy equal rights with heterosexual couples under the law, and many Australians have celebrated the joy of seeing loved ones able to marry their same-sex partners.

People with same-sex orientation are protected from discrimination under an array of federal and state laws. They also enjoy significant funding and support from all levels of government in addition to the private sector contributions.

Prominent LGBTQ+ charity ACON receives over $12 million annually from the New South Wales Minister for Health to promote their agenda, with an additional $12 million earmarked earlier this year specifically for the New South Wales LGBTQ+ Health Strategy including ‘gender-affirming care’. The City of Sydney is hosting World Pride in 2023, assisted by a generous grant of $500,000 from Lord Mayor Clover Moore. The annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras (that has its roots in 1978 when gays and lesbians were shamefully subjected to police brutality and arrested on Oxford St simply for protesting for equal rights under the law) is now a fully corporatised, sponsored, ‘family-friendly’ televised event that is attended by politicians, businesses, and government departments. During Pride Month, the Sydney CBD and Town Hall are festooned with the ever-more inclusive ‘Progress’ flag. On Transgender Day of Remembrance, New South Wales Police fly the trans flag over their headquarters for a week. The taxpayer-funded ABC also has an entire platform, ABC Queer, dedicated to LGBTQ+ issues.

The battle for LGB rights has been won with the achievement of equality under the law, yet fringe activists operating under the ever-expanding LGBTQ+ rainbow umbrella are acting as if we are back in the dark ages of the 1970s when being gay or lesbian meant you could lose your job, be shunned by your community, excommunicated from your faith, denied healthcare or housing, lose custody of your children, be arrested, bashed, or even murdered.

Activist groups needed to pivot their ideology to continue to justify their oppression status, bloated taxpayer-funded budgets, and generous remuneration packages for professional activists.

Adding the T, I, Q, A, and the plus was a stroke of marketing genius as it created new ‘oppressed’ minorities to fight for. The legacy sympathy of the general public was capitalised upon, meaning that the previous acceptance of ordinary Australians for the legacy movement was no longer enough. Fringe activists using the rainbow as a cultural sword have morphed into an aggressive and retaliatory movement that denounces anyone as transphobes, homophobes, or bigots if they do not actively demonstrate allegiance to their ideological zealotry.

The demands of the LGBTQ+ movement know no bounds and they wield an inordinate amount of power in both public and private institutions through Diversity and Inclusion programs.

In New South Wales, ACON uses their Pride in Diversity program to lobby for ubiquitous influence within organisations, corporations, and government departments. Organisations that have signed up to the scheme are ranked on ACON’s Australian Workplace Equality Index with trophies handed out at a glittering annual awards night. Points are earned for the index by the implementation of policies and procedures detailed in a lengthy compliance form that embeds an LGBTQ+ centric worldview.

Sport is not immune from this activism. ACON’s Pride in Sport program, launched in October 2020, saw the NRL sign on as one of the nine major sporting codes to get involved. This has resulted in the prioritisation of LGBTQ+ activism about above all other minority groups. It has also had the unexpected consequence (from the public’s perspective) of removing sex as the basis for sporting categories while granting access to facilities and resources on the basis of a self-declared gender identity. Women and girls are no longer assured of female-only teams, competitions, or change rooms.

Ian Roberts is an NRL champion who had the courage to ‘come out’ in the 1990s when the gay community was still suffering the aftershocks of the AIDS epidemic. It was a tumultuous time for Roberts, exacting a personal toll with some players and sections of the media refusing to accept him. Roberts was recently used as the spokesperson for the Manly Sea Eagles Pride jersey announcement. Reportedly, it was an initiative of the marketing department where the shock announcement was foisted on players without consultation and, apparently, without the knowledge or consensus of the Sea Eagles players, the team’s board, or major sponsors.

This tale should come as no surprise to those who are familiar with the modus operandi for institutional capture by Pride activists. Policies and campaigns are deliberately negotiated by stealth to avoid scrutiny or criticism, then presented as a fait accompli – a common tactic used to prevent the involvement of other stakeholders who may object. Arguably, little or no consideration is given to other minority groups.

There is no suggestion that the Manly Sea Eagles marketing department was lobbied by ACON’s Pride in Sport, but Roberts was a spokesperson for the Pride in Sport launch in 2020 when nine major Australian sporting codes, including the NRL, announced policies displacing biological sex as the characteristic for sporting categories in favour of self-declared gender identity.

Australia is a liberal democracy, and people are free to hold beliefs and practise religion without interference by the state, even if that includes offending those who believe in the LGBTQ+ orthodoxy.

Professor Peter Kurti said:

‘Religious discrimination bills that were presented in the last Parliament were not about upholding the right to religious freedom but rather provided an anti-discrimination framework that would protect religious people from discriminatory practises in public life.’

Kurti added:

‘In a modern society such as ours, such legislation really should not be necessary, however, Christians are being singled out for attack and vulnerable to discrimination.’

Other religious practises do not attract the same opprobrium when their followers make decisions based on the tenets of their faith. AFLW player Haneen Zreika, for example, did not attract the same level of vitriol when she declined to wear the Pride jersey due to her Muslim beliefs earlier this year.

According to professor Jioji Ravulo, the practise of the Christian religion in Pasifika culture is intertwined and indivisible from family and community. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, same-sex relationships were not shamed or othered, but regarded as ‘an expression of connecting socially and relationally with others’. The notion of fear and shame about homosexuality was imported into Pasifika culture by the colonisation of the West.

Kat Karena, a Maori woman of Rangitāne and Ngāti Kahungunu, Lesbian, and founder of LGB Defence said:

‘With many Polynesians, Christianity is a major part of family life and culture. If these Pacific Islanders choose family life and culture over sports, it’s their right of choice. It seems strange to me that Westerners are quick to cast slurs on those of a Polynesian culture who have had a longer history acceptance of homosexuality, than they.’

Karena went on to add:

‘And it wasn’t so long ago, it was the waving of the crosses and demands by their forefathers to kowtow. Nothing’s changed, now people are waving rainbow symbols instead of crosses and behind all of it is still about compliance over choice. I know that NRL signed up to ACON’s Pride In Sport’s compliance audit. Under that rainbow audit most club players and members aren’t aware that public marketing of LGBQTIA is not a choice, as well as allowing males in women’s changing rooms is not a choice for clubs, allowing me in women’s sports, celebrating the many days of LGBQTIA, are not choices either under that audit. As a gay woman those are my reasons to reject Pride in Sport’s rainbow agenda, it’s not good for women, culture, or freedom of choice.’

To their credit, Manly coach Des Hasler and the Manly Sea Eagles acknowledged that they had made a mistake in being insensitive to the culture and religion of the Manly Seven, although it came too late for the games against St George Illawarra Dragons, where the benching of those key players resulted in a 20-6 loss.

Australians overwhelmingly support LGB rights and are entirely comfortable with people of same-sex orientations, but the forced teaming of LGB with the T and the mandatory demonstrations of allegiance are creating a backlash. It is no longer possible to accept the existence of difference in our multicultural society. The Pride flag has morphed from representing gays and lesbians into a catchall Progressive banner which now includes self-declared Woke identities – trans, queer, intersex, asexual, questioning, two-spirit, and any of the multitude of gender identities to be found in social media bios or on Tik Tok.

Rainbow activists profess to represent the most vulnerable and oppressed. Yet the refusal of the Manly Seven – Pasifika men of faith – to acquiesce to activist demands drew abuse, and they were sidelined. The hopes of Sea Eagles fans may have been dashed for the season, demonstrating to us all that LGBTQ+ activists are not the exemplars of diversity, inclusion, and equality that they claim to be. Rather, they are nothing more than authoritarians draped in rainbows and glitter.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/08/the-progressive-holy-trinity-is-far-from-divine/

************************************************

It was once called the “ticket” out of lockdowns but now Australians are being urged to uninstall this app

Australia’s privacy chief will investigate whether the $21 million CovidSafe app, once sold as being Australians’ “ticket” out of lockdowns, is no longer collecting information from its users.

Australians with the app still installed are also expected to receive “push notifications and SMS texts” to encourage them to uninstall what is now widely seen as a white elephant.

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner announced plans to investigate the app on Monday, after incoming Health Minister Mark Butler formally announced the end of the app in August, saying the former government had “wasted more than $21 million of taxpayers’ money” on it.

Following its launch, in April 2020, the contentious app identified just two Covid-19 cases that weren’t identified by manual contact tracers, as well as 17 close contacts.

That is despite more than $10 million spent to develop the app, $7 million on advertising it, and $4 million on its upkeep and staffing.

The CovidSafe app was officially shuttered on August 16, and the OAIC said it must now stop collecting data from its users, and must no longer appear in app stores.

All the data it collected must also be deleted, it said, and users must be told this has occurred.

“The OAIC will undertake an assessment to provide assurance that the CovidSafe app information management requirements have been met,” the organisation said in a statement.

Commissioner Angelene Falk is also tasked with ensuring all app data collected by the app is deleted from the National CovidSafe Data Store.

Users do not have to do anything to do anything to ensure their private information is deleted, but will be encouraged to uninstall the defunct app.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/technology/online/covidsafe-app-privacy-investigation-launched-after-21-million-app-officially-shut-down/news-story/a7f521916a638c4ed7ab376cd9e178a2

****************************************************

I've just been DENIED entry to NZ

Avi Yemini, Rebel News

I've just been advised by New Zealand immigration that they are DENYING ME ENTRY into Wellington to report on what's happening in the country.

When I went to check-in, Qantas told me that my passport had been FLAGGED and after an hour with an NZ immigration officer, I was advised that she wasn't going to let me board.

Why, you might ask?

She told me that she was going to use the authority given to her by the Immigration Act to stop me from boarding the plane because she cited a recent FABRICATED, wildly INACCURATE and UNSUBSTANTIATED news article a New Zealand newspaper wrote about me.

You can even read for yourself what they wrote. It's a complete hit job without any real basis in TRUTH.

No wonder I've had so many New Zealanders ask me to come over and report on what's going on. Their media cannot be trusted to get the basics right.

We've already instructed lawyers in New Zealand to appeal this incredibly unjust decision. I'm not going to let this stop Rebel News from telling the other side of the story about what's happening in NZ.

Jacinda Ardern clearly doesn't want any reporting outside her tightly-controlled New Zealand media apparatus

https://www.rebelnews.com/avi_yemini_denied_entry_to_new_zealand

***************************************************

Avoiding plastics and using a reusable coffee cup to save the environment? Maybe you've been duped

He has got it that Greenie claims are mostly a scam but he exonerates governments, Green politicians and grant-hungry adademics. Bizarrely, he blames big busines

Melbourne author Jeff Sparrow argues that, when it comes to environmental impacts, big corporations have engineered a sense of individual responsibility – to distract from their own.

"One of the reasons why we feel so despairing about the [climate] situation that we're in is that we are made to feel that we are the problem," Sparrow tells ABC RN's Big Ideas.

"We're told we consume too much, we're too greedy, we're too lazy, we surround ourselves with disposable plastics and we're spoiling the planet."

Humans can even be seen as at fault "merely by existing", he says. "Sometimes the argument extends to suggesting that humans are kind of a plague … infesting nature and bring[ing] ruination on the planet."

There are experts, such as environmental scientist Professor Ian Lowe, who argue for limiting the number of children we have, for environmental reasons.

Sparrow disagrees. "If we are the problem, then there's nothing we can do other than just make things worse," he says.

The CSIRO has put adapting to climate change at the top of what it identifies as the seven mega trends that will determine our fate. We need to be "leaner, cleaner and greener", it says.

Sparrow argues that it can't be left up to individuals to make that happen. History offers clues as to why.

"To start to think about what solutions might be available, it's really crucial that we understand where the problem came from and who was responsible," says Sparrow, who explores this topic in his latest book, Crimes Against Nature.

Take the term 'carbon footprint'. You've almost certainly used it, but do you know where it comes from?

The familiar notion, that we should consider how much carbon we are individually responsible for, was dreamt up as a marketing strategy, Sparrow says.

"This [carbon footprint concept] was actually cooked up by a PR company that was employed by BP as part of a campaign to rebadge itself once people became concerned about climate change.

"By getting people to look at their own individual responsibility for climate change, it meant that people stopped focusing on corporate responsibility. And so, rather than looking at BP's part in this horrific damage to the environment, people started thinking … 'What am I doing?'"

The world's scientists declare climate change is now a threat to human wellbeing, warning we are about to miss the window to "secure a liveable and sustainable future for all".

While corporations have such widespread impact – BP, for example, manages around 19,000 gas and oil stations worldwide – Sparrow believes than an individual approach at carbon reduction is ineffective.

He points to an MIT study that demonstrated Americans couldn't reduce their own carbon footprint as carbon pollution was embedded in American society as a whole.

The idea that we can reduce carbon emissions as individuals creates a "crippling demoralisation", Sparrow says. People seeking to reduce their personal carbon footprint "set themselves a task that they cannot possibly fulfil".

"It's good that people want to be part of the solution, but we have to think of what real solutions might look like and not just cripple ourselves with individualised guilt that doesn't make any difference."

Another example of individual responsibility gone awry is in recycling, according to Sparrow.

It was recently revealed that significant amounts of home recycling is ending up in landfill.

Yet individuals are instructed to conscientiously recycle – for example, by checking the numbers of the bottoms of containers, and taking soft plastics back to the supermarket.

Sparrow argues it's misspent energy.

"Not only are we being distracted from the real issues, but we are learning to interiorise this sense that it's our fault. It's not the government's fault. It's not the corporations' fault," he says. "I think that is incredibly destructive."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-22/jeff-sparrow-big-ideas-corporations-environment-responsibility/101318704

************************************

Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

***************************************

Calls for shark nets to be removed at Australia's busiest beaches - just months after a man was mauled to death by a shark while swimming

This is an old issue. The Green/Left care more about animal lives than human lives. So even sharks they don't like killing. The talk below is about higher tech instead of trapping them but why not do both?

A mayor has led calls for shark nets to be removed from Sydney's world-famous beaches this summer to protect marine life, just months after a man was mauled to death.

Waverley mayor Paula Masselos has divided opinion on her push for beaches in Sydney's east to go without nets this summer, including Bondi Beach.

Beaches will be without shark nets for the first time since they were introduced 85 years ago if the mayor gets her way.

The calls come six months after former British RAF engineer Simon Nellist was mauled to death in front of horrified beachgoers at nearby Little Bay by a 4.5metre great white shark during his daily swim.

It was Sydney's first fatal shark attack in 60 years and prompted the Department of Primary Industries to install 15 SMART drumlines from Little Bay to Bondi.

More than 50 nets are usually installed along beaches between Newcastle and Wollongong from September to April.

But Cr Masselos said locals are 'very concerned about the bycatch' getting caught in shark nets and argued they're ineffective.

'Shark nets are only 150m long. They're 6m high and set at a depth of about 10m. They're not there to actually create a barrier between swimmers and sharks, but they sort of help disrupt some of the swimming patterns,' she told the Today show on Thursday.

'We actually often see sharks on the inside of the shark nets. When you look at Bondi, it is actually a kilometre long. So the shark net isn't creating a huge barrier at all.

I think it's actually creating a false sense of safety. There are other technologies like smart drumlines and aerial surveillance that are far more effective in spotting sharks and advising people.'

She understands beachgoers' concerns but argued shark nets were old technology.

'We're driven by the science and the data and we believe that there are far better ways of actually keeping our community safe, because we take that responsibility very, very seriously,' Cr Masselos added.

'I'm an ocean swimmer myself. I totally understand the issue and people's concerns.

'Shark nets are very old technology. They were first introduced in 1937. We're in the 21st century now. I believe we can do much, much better.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11121359/Calls-shark-nets-removed-Sydneys-Bondi-Beach.html

******************************************************

How Australia got Covid WRONG: Top doctor reveals the major mistakes made during the pandemic that robbed us of our freedom

Discussing the matter on the Today show, the former deputy chief medical officer defended Mr Morrison, arguing some state leaders made worse decisions.

'Yes, he erred with not telling the community and cabinet about his five portfolio authority, but Scott Morrison didn't shut down playgrounds,' Dr Coatsworth said on Monday.

'Scott Morrison didn't issue fines to children for crimes against disease control, and Scott Morrison didn't shut down two towers full of refugee and migrant Australians.

'There were very real democratic rights that were trammelled in the course of this pandemic.'

Around 3,000 Victorian residents across nine public housing towers in Melbourne were thrusted into a hard lockdown in July 2020 in response to Covid outbreaks.

Over the following 12 months, around 500 children under 15 in NSW were fined a total of $20,000 for not wearing face masks.

Dr Coatsworth said Labor will likely proceed with the commission as promised during the election, but fears it will be used as an opportunity to point blame at the former federal government rather than focusing on key issues, such as violations of rights.

Under public health principle, Dr Coatsworth said authorities should implement the least restrictive interventions to achieve disease control. 'If we start with that principle [at the Royal Commission], we will get the right answers,' he said.

'I'm absolutely crystal clear on where the focus needs to be at this Royal Commission and I'm just not confident that the current Prime Minister has the same level of clarity.'

Dr Coatsworth said current narratives about Australia's Covid response emphasise the federal government's shortcomings, such as the vaccine rollout, while downplaying state leadership issues - both of which he says are 'simply not true'.

'We by and large did well, but the real problem with this pandemic was when our rights as individuals were trammelled upon for too long,' he said.

'The focus needs to be on states and territories. They are the ones who had the major disease control powers.

'Of course the federal government needs to come under scrutiny, but I fear the way we are hearing scrutiny at the moment, that that scrutiny would be unfair and unbalanced and focused more on the federal government than the states.'

Announcing the commission, Mr Albanese said it was important to assess the roles of different governments in the decisions made during the pandemic.

'Clearly you need to look at the response of all governments ... the different jurisdictions,' the prime minister told Sky News on Sunday.

'The pandemic exposed (the fact that) some of the issues with our federation can often be quite difficult with overlapping responsibilities.'

Mr Albanese said he could not envisage a circumstance where a once-in-a-century global pandemic and in response, the largest economic stimulus Australia had seen, was not evaluated.

An investigation would make sure governments learned how things could have been improved and what lessons could be learned.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11132505/Dr-Nick-Coatsworth-reveals-major-mistakes-Australia-pandemic.html

****************************************************

Clive Palmer breaks silence on coal mine refusal

Mining magnate Clive Palmer has broken his silence on the Albanese Government moving to knock back his proposed central Queensland coal mine, accusing Labor of being “irrational” and “captured by the Greens”.

Mr Palmer’s Central Queensland Coal Project, located 130km northwest of Rockhampton, was expected to create $8.2 billion in export from thermal and metallurgical coal.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek earlier this month issued a preliminary refusal of approval for the project due to it being just 10km from the Great Barrier Reef, with a 10 business day public comment period required before being finalised.

That period ended on Thursday evening and a spokesman for Mr Palmer confirmed his company had made a submission.

But in a statement on Sunday morning, Mr Palmer claimed it was “the first time in Australian history” a coal mine in central Queensland had been refused approval.

He said it showed the Greens were running the government.

Greens leader Adam Bandt says new coal and gas projects will not only make the “climate crisis worse,” but they can also “blow any chance” of Australia meeting the government’s “weak targets”. The Albanese government will introduce several…
“To reject $80 billion shows economic irresponsibility,’’ Mr Palmer said.

“Especially so when the entire production was destined for export markets and the alternative is the replacement in the market of inferior Indonesian coal which will result in three times greater emissions than what would have been the case with our coal.

“It’s clear the Albanese Government is irrational and is captured by Adam Bant and The Greens.”

He seemed to attempt to link the situation with former Prime Minister Scott Morrison having issued himself five secret portfolios by asking “how many secret portfolios has (Mr Albanese) given to (Greens leader) Adam Bandt”.

There is no indication Mr Albanese has issued any “secret portfolios” and he has strongly condemned the actions of Mr Morrison in doing so.

The Greens are continuing to push for a ban on new coal mines and coal-fired power stations.

Special Envoy for the Great Barrier Reef Senator Nita Green said Mr Palmer had to pass the same environmental approvals as anyone else, and refuted the billionaire’s claims that Labor was “captured by the Greens”.

“I have not seen the reasons for the proposed decision, but I am fully aware that poor water quality is an ongoing risk to the Reef and the jobs it supports. It’s up to any proponent to show how they can mitigate such risks,” Senator Green said.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/business/qld-business/clive-palmer-breaks-silence-on-coal-mine-refusal/news-story/be232fd33eac8a67eb178cd95c39d727

********************************************************

Asset Energy in push to overturn block on PEP-11 gas exploration permit

Asset Energy will lobby Anthony Albanese and Dominic Perrottet to overturn Scott Morrison’s unprecedented refusal to proceed with its offshore NSW gas project, pledging to direct all reserves to the domestic market and address forecast gas shortfalls.

The company is challenging Mr Morrison’s role in scuttling its PEP-11 exploration permit off the coast of Newcastle in the Federal Court amid revelations he was granted powers by Governor-General David Hurley to overrule then resources minister Keith Pitt.

Court documents show the National Offshore Petroleum ­Titles Administrator provided ­advice in April 2020 for the federal-NSW joint authority, which Mr Morrison led from April 2021, to “approve the application”.

The documents reveal that on April 15 last year Mr Hurley handed Mr Morrison administrative powers over the entire ­Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources.

Mr Morrison, under pressure from Liberal MPs and candidates facing threats from teal independents and Labor in seats between Sydney and Newcastle, claimed authority over the PEP-11 decision from Mr Pitt, who had indicated he would ­approve the permit.

After making public statements between March and ­December last year pledging to block the project, Mr Morrison and the joint authority formally rejected the offshore exploration permit in March, weeks ahead of the election campaign.

Letters obtained by The Australian between Asset executive director David Breeze and NSW Deputy Premier Paul Toole ­reveal the company has asked the state government to reconsider the decision to block its gas exploration plans 30km off Newcastle.

Mr Toole told Mr Breeze last month that “while global events may be impacting on gas supply in Australia”, the NSW government would not change its opposition to offshore exploration and mining.

“Regarding the issues you have raised in relation to PEP-11 and the decision of the former prime minister and joint authority, it is not appropriate that I provide any comment on the matter while it remains before the courts,” Mr Toole wrote.

In his letter to Mr Perrottet, which was passed on to Mr Toole, Mr Breeze asked the Premier to allow “limited, safe and sustainable activity”.

“In light of significantly changed circumstances in the international energy market in the wake of Russia’s war on Ukraine and the prospect of sustained higher energy prices and imminent gas shortages in Australia, we would ask you reconsider,” Mr Breeze wrote.

The Perrottet government, which faces a tough election fight in March, has moved aggressively away from fossil fuels and towards renewables under the leadership of Energy Minister Matt Kean.

A spokesman for federal ­Resources Minister Madeleine King said the government would consider its legal options if the Federal Court found Mr Morrison “may not have made this ­decision according to law”.

“The Albanese government respects the rule of law and role of the independent judiciary in Australia,” Ms King’s spokesman said.

“If the courts find that the former prime minister, Scott Morrison, who personally made this decision, may not have made this decision according to law, then the government will work to find a legal solution to this issue.”

Mr Breeze told The Australian on Monday that the project had the potential to supply 20 years’ worth of gas for NSW.

“We acknowledge the widespread discussion around the ­potential impacts of gas exploration and future production, ­including in PEP-11,” Mr Breeze said.

Deputy Nationals Leader Perin Davey says she doesn’t understand why former prime minister Scott Morrison took…
“But all too often that discussion is distorted by false and exaggerated claims and ignores the long track record of Australia’s offshore petroleum industry and the ongoing need for gas to meet power generation, industry, and domestic demand.

“Our project can be advanced in a safe and sustainable manner that will protect the environment and deliver gas to the domestic market.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/asset-energy-in-push-to-overturn-block-on-pep11-gas-exploration-permit/news-story/b576535fe9912d032a633bc74ed1de00

************************************

Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

***************************************

Hard lesson for dropout university teacher degrees

Teacher training courses have always had easy entry and dumbed down teaching but it is chronic now that the classroom experience has greatly deteriorated. So university education departments have to enrol just about anyone who has a head

The only real solution is to make the teaching experience more attractive -- and that means a revival of discipline. But Leftist dogma forbids that -- so it won't happen in schools that they control.

Smart young people will always opt for a more congenial environment than teaching in chaotic government schools. Private schools are much more orderly so dedicated teachers will always gravitate there.

I have taught in both a high discipline (Catholic) High School and a low-discipline ("progressive") High School and there is no doubt about where the pupils learnt more

I sent my son to a private school, which even featured male mathematics teachers! Partly as a result of that he majored in mathematics at university

Is it any wonder that private schools are so numerous in Australia? About 40% of Australian teenagers go to them

Universities that lower entry ­standards for teaching degrees to cash in on students doomed to fail will be targeted in a government review of courses with high drop-out rates to make them “fit for purpose”.

Education courses have the highest drop-out rate of any ­degree except hospitality, an analysis of federal Education ­Department data reveals.

As schools grapple with a worsening teacher shortage, The Weekend Australian’s analysis shows a clear correlation between low Australian Tertiary Admission Rank scores and high drop-out rates among student teachers.

But universities are refusing to raise the bar for admission to teaching, with the Australian Catholic University declaring that higher standards will only worsen the teacher shortage.

At one university, just 20 per cent of students completed a four-year teaching degree within six years, including those studying full-time or part-time.

Students enrolled in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) courses are twice as likely as engineering or science students to drop out of their degree.

One in three ITE students who started university in 2015 had dropped out by 2020 – including one in seven who failed to return after the first year of study.

The high drop-out rate results in a waste of taxpayer funding for university degrees, as well as ­tuition debts for students who still have to repay their loans despite abandoning study.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare on Friday pledged to review the quality of university teaching degrees to boost the number of graduates. Universities with high drop-out rates or poor course quality risk losing commonwealth cash.

“At the moment, only about 50 per cent of students graduate from a teaching degree,’’ Mr Clare said. “That needs to be higher if we want to tackle the teacher shortage. I will work with universities on this to make sure they are fit-for-purpose and delivering quality education for students.’’

Mr Clare said ITE degrees would be examined in a review by University of Sydney vice-chancellor Mark Scott, who is a former teacher and NSW Education Department secretary.

The Australian Catholic University, one of the biggest providers of teacher training, is resisting calls to raise the bar for ITE students. ACU enrolled students with a raw ATAR of 50 to its teaching degrees last year – school leavers in the bottom 20 per cent of academic results in NSW.

Universities often inflate the raw ATAR scores with bonus points to compensate for illness or social disadvantage.

ACU has told the NSW parliamentary inquiry into teacher shortages that the “blanket imposition of a minimum ATAR for entry into ITE will exacerbate the growing teacher shortage’’.

“(It) does nothing to attract more high-achieving school ­leavers into teaching, conveys a negative message to all students considering enrolling in ITE (and) disregards the capacity for ­student growth over the course of university study,’’ ACU states in its submission.

“ITE candidates, irrespective of their background, are alienated by the suggestion that the teaching profession is increasingly ­populated by unintelligent or ­underperforming students that necessitates the need for a minimum ATAR.

“Many academics in ITE know from their own experience that numerous students who performed poorly at school end up becoming great teachers.’’

ACU says most ITE students enrol through non-ATAR pathways – such as mature-age entry or on the basis of a diploma – and there was no evidence to support higher ATAR entry barriers.

However, university data provided to the federal Education Department shows that universities that admit students with low ATARs suffer some of the highest drop-out rates.

Across all university ITE degrees, one in three students dropped out of a degree started in 2015, with barely half graduating within six years.

University of Sydney associate professor Rachel Wilson, who analysed the link between ATAR scores and teacher performance in a 2018 report, The Profession at Risk, declared it wrong for universities to be allowed to enrol students unlikely to finish a degree. She said more students were studying ITE online, and were less likely to finish their degree than students attending lectures on campus.

Associate Professor Wilson said Australia had been “complacent and let the system slide’’.

“I think it is unethical for governments not to monitor these things,” she said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/hard-lesson-for-dropout-university-teacher-degrees/news-story/2f47e3b9077310ca9a60bdfc3e1f27b5

*************************************************

Leftist tax-grab stymies mining

Mining giant BHP has shelved plans for a $1 billion Central Queensland coal mine, predicted to create 2000 jobs, as it pauses investment in the state due to the Palaszczuk Government’s controversial royalties regime.

BHP CEO Mike Henry made the shock announcement to the stock market on Tuesday as the global mining giant released its results for the year.

BHP Mitsubishi Alliance also noted in its results that it could close some mines earlier due to both the royalties increase and the long-term outlook for metallurgical coal shifting as key countries announce new climate policies.

But Treasurer Cameron Dick hit back, saying the company had been moving away from coal “for the last 20 years” and that the proposed project’s construction is not due to start until the end of the decade.

The Blackwater South metallurgical coal mine, near Emerald, is currently going through approval processes. But Mr Henry said this should not be mistaken for a decision to invest.

“We’ve had the changes with the Queensland royalty regime, which were quite sudden, (and) didn’t involve any engagement with industry which has been a significant increase in the sovereign risk associated with Queensland,” he said during a press conference.

“(It) has caused us to say, we really can’t deploy further capital into that business for the time being and we’ll go back and reassess what the plans for the business are going forward.”

The mine was expected to be a $1 billion investment, create up to 750 construction jobs and 1200 operation jobs over a 90-year life as it extracted coal for steelmaking, with a construction start date of 2029.

Mr Dick said he congratulated BHP and its workers for achieving record profits “thanks to Queensland coal assets”.

“While BHP has been moving away from coal mines for the last 20 years, other coal companies have already confirmed new bipartisan progressive coal royalty arrangements will not have an adverse impact on mining investment decisions,” Mr Dick said.

“BHP’s own submission to the Queensland Coordinator-General says construction on the Blackwater South project would not start before 2029, so a final investment decision would be many years away.”

BHP completed its sale of its 80 per cent stake in BHP Mitsui Coal to Stanmore Resources earlier this year.

It is the latest salvo fired at the Queensland Government over the royalty regime by BHP.

Mr Henry has previously warned the royalty changes “threatens investment and jobs”, while BHP Mitsubishi Alliance asset president Mauro Neves reached out to the Electrical Trades Union saying the tax would undermine the industry’s ability to deliver jobs.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/business/qld-business/moving-away-from-coal-for-20-years-treasurer-hits-back-at-bhp/news-story/aa16ac0498dccfb8d65b704469aeb2b8

******************************************************

Kiwi ditches New Zealand and moves to Australia as the cost of living soars under Jacinda Ardern’s government – and it’s saving him more than $2,000 a month

The heavily Leftist policies of the New Zealand government have taken their toll

The cost of living crisis under Jacinda Ardern's government in New Zealand has become so bad that Kiwis are moving to Australia to save money.

One New Zealand man, Dmitro Mikalshevskiy, swapped his homeland for Australia in November, 2021 and claims he and his partner are now $2,000 a month better off.

Mr Mikalshevskiy told Discovery NZ he decided to move to Melbourne when he was left struggling to afford beers with mates in Auckland without having to work additional hours.

'When we were living in Auckland we had everything we wanted, the house, the beautiful cars and the great friends but it got to a point where we were living right up to the edge of our means,' Mr Mikalshevskiy said. '[In Australia] it’s things like paying $1 less per litre for petrol.

'We can put away $2,000 a month in savings.' Mr Mikalshevskiy said there is no way he could have saved anywhere near that much living in Auckland and therefore decided to move to Melbourne with his partner.

He said he is so satisfied with the move to Australia he has put an offer on an apartment in Southbank.

Mr Mikalshevskiy said in Melbourne there is also more work, better pay and it is all-round cheaper than living in New Zealand.

In New Zealand inflation has skyrocketed to a record 7.3 per cent as the country experiences a cost of living crisis.

David Farrar, a leading political pollster who works as a consultant for New Zealand's National Party, told Daily Mail Australia he believes it's 'more likely than not' Ms Ardern will be voted out at the next federal election as a result of the spike in day-to-day living costs.

'The National Party has led most polls in the last few months. It's going to be very close, but I'd say it's more likely than unlikely there [will be] a change in government,' he said.

Mr Farrar said there were 'warning signs' Ms Ardern's government ignored, instead choosing to spend big and borrow from the reserve bank, which has crippled the country's economy. 'That's the biggest issue for Kiwis at the moment,' Mr Farrar said.

'Women voters gave Labor and her a massive lead in the polls, but the cost of living is a much bigger factor with female voters than males. 'Twice as many women as men say the cost of living is the biggest issue. That's where she's losing.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11121897/Dmitro-Mikalshevskiy-swaps-New-Zealand-Australia-cost-living-soars-Ardern-government.html

****************************************************

Red tape threat to miners, agriculture in draft environment law

Mines, gas projects, farms and other industries in Australia’s second-biggest resources market and third-biggest agriculture sector could be shut down by a bureaucrat’s decision, under secret legislation drafted by the Queensland Environment Department.

Industry stakeholders were forced to sign an unprecedented confidentiality deed by the department’s strategic policy team – led by former Wilderness Society campaign manager and anti-­mining activist Tim Seelig – gagging them before they were allowed to see proposed Environmental Protection and Other Legislation Act amendments.

Several high-level sources said the draft bill as circulated would give a bureaucrat, likely the Environment Department’s director-­general, the power to wind back retrospectively existing environmental approvals, licences, and permits to slash production ­capacity.

That means farms could be told they need to cut the number of livestock they can have, mines could be told to dig up less coal and gasfields could be instructed to extract less gas, in defiance of existing environmental authorities awarded by the department.

An industry source said: “It’s frankly outrageous. It would give power to a bureaucrat to unilaterally and retrospectively close businesses. It’s sovereign risk of the highest order.”

The legislation, if passed in the original form, could threaten Queensland’s $90bn resources and $14.5bn agriculture industries, as well as aquaculture and other sectors. There is concern it would also increase the amount of red tape involved in new environmental approvals, such as environmental impact statements.

After The Australian asked about the plan on Monday, a spokesman indicated the Environment Department had changed its mind about pursuing retrospective powers. “DES (the Department of ­Environment and Science) is not considering any amendments to legislation that would apply ­retro­spectively,” the spokesman said.

But fresh amendments to the EPOLA Act have not yet been drafted, and industry sources say they are still concerned about the department’s plans and unsure how its new promise to not introduce retrospective powers would apply to existing projects.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/red-tape-threat-to-miners-agriculture-in-draft-bill/news-story/a972302b5d5162df405d5d2f33812b83

************************************

Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

***************************************

Vaccine mandates no longer justified

For almost three years, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) stubbornly refused to admit that infection with Sars-CoV-2 provides robust immunity which is broader and more enduring than vaccine-acquired immunity, even though this had been demonstrated in numerous studies.

It meant that people who had infection-acquired immunity – often healthcare workers – were still forced to get vaccinated or lose their jobs. Sometimes the consequences were disastrous. Bobby Bolin who had recovered from Covid was on a list for a double-lung transplant but was forced to be double vaccinated, and developed a pulmonary embolism and atrial fibrillation after his second Moderna shot which killed him.

On 11 August, with no explanation or apology, the CDC quietly made the long-overdue reversal and also belatedly recognised that vaccines do not prevent infection or transmission, saying that in its recommendations, it would no longer distinguish between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. Combined these policy changes should spell the immediate end of vaccine mandates.

It was clear in 2020 that Covid is primarily a serious disease for the sick and the elderly. Data from NSW Health which, between 28 May and 30 July, was the first jurisdiction in Australia to provide some deaths by age, vaccination, and health status showed that only three people out of the 1,108 who died (0.3 per cent) over the nine week period were aged under 65 and healthy, and only 11 people who died (1 per cent) were aged under 65 and unvaccinated (all almost certainly seriously ill).

Hardly the pandemic of the unvaccinated that Gladys Berejiklian conjured up to scare the impressionable into getting vaccinated. As for being a burden and overwhelming the health system, only 11 out of 6,481 people hospitalised (0.17 per cent) and only eight of 591 people in ICU (1.3 per cent) were unvaccinated.

With such a tiny fraction of healthy, unvaccinated people of working age dying of Covid in Australia’s most populous state, during the worst three months of the pandemic, how is it possible that vaccine mandates are still in force in so many workplaces? Former Australian deputy chief health officer Dr Nick Coatsworth wrote in mid-July that there is ‘no longer a public health rationale for businesses terminating employees for failing to be vaccinated’. Yet some of the nation’s biggest employers –Coles, Woolworths, Qantas, Virgin Australia, Telstra, the Commonwealth Bank and SPC – are still forcing workers to get vaccinated or boosted.

In Ceduna, up to fifteen teachers at the Crossways Lutheran school are prepared to strike rather than get a booster or wear a mask all day and be tested daily. They want to know why they are being pressured to be triple-vaccinated when protection from boosters lasts only 20 weeks, you can still catch and transmit Covid, and vaccine injuries can be permanent or fatal. Who will compensate them or their families if they are injured or die, they ask.

It’s a good question. In Hobart, a police officer who was incapacitated with myocarditis after his Pfizer booster in November is fighting for compensation because the Department of Police, Fire and Emergency Management claims it isn’t liable even though it told staff they should get vaccinated, claimed the vaccines were safe, and made vaccination mandatory a month after the officer was injured.

With the CDC no longer distinguishing between vaccinated and unvaccinated, why are service members still being kicked out for not taking an ‘ineffective and dangerous experimental jab,’ tweeted Lt. Col. Dr Theresa Long this week, one of the top flight surgeons in the US Armed Forces. Dr Long is one of three military doctors who testified under oath that there was a massive increase in vaccine injuries in the Defence Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) in 2021 showing, for example, a 269 per cent increase in myocardial infarction and a 467 per cent increase in pulmonary embolisms.

If Dr Long’s conclusions are correct, they would explain why excess mortality is so high in Australia and other highly vaccinated countries. In the first four months of 2022, there was an increase in excess mortality of between 6,800 deaths (13 per cent) according to the AI and 8,500 deaths (17 per cent) , according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Either way it’s alarming. Excess deaths for the whole of 2021 were 3,400, yet just for the first third of 2022 excess deaths have increased by up to 150 per cent .

It’s going to get worse. More people died of Covid in July than at any point in the pandemic yet Covid deaths represent only somewhere between 43 per cent and 53 per cent of excess deaths in the first four months of 2022. What is causing the other deaths? Here’s a clue. Deaths from heart disease are up 11 per cent (1,400) and have been above the predicted baseline almost every week since March 2021, a week after the vaccine rollout started on 22 February. Deaths from other unspecified diseases are up by 11 per cent (1,390), continuing a trend observed since April 2021, a month after the vaccine rollout. There was also an increase of 10 per cent in coroner-referred deaths (+680) as well as increases of between five and 11 per cent in diabetes, dementia, and cerebrovascular disease.

A disturbing rise in excess mortality is occurring in many heavily vaccinated countries such as Portugal, experiencing its highest excess mortality in 100 years, Chile, and the US. Up to now doctors in Australia could not criticise any aspect of government management of the pandemic without putting their careers on the line. But in mid-July the left-leaning Victorian Branch of the Australian Medical Association called for a Royal Commission into the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency and its muzzling of medical freedom of speech. This week the centre-right Australian Medical Professionals’ Society also called for medical free speech, consideration of scientific data in relation to vaccine mandates and legislative reform to protect the practitioner-patient relationship. With voices across the political spectrum calling for change perhaps an end to the tyranny of bureaucrats is at last in sight.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/08/tyranny-of-bureaucrats/ .

******************************************************

Year 1 colouring-in posters saying 'white Australia has a black history' are slammed as 'indoctrination' and 'propaganda' by Mark Latham

When lies about history pass as education

Mark Latham has slammed colouring-in posters done by Year 1 pupils accusing Australians of genocide, as 'indoctrination' and 'propaganda'.

The posters were part of the Indigenous culture NAIDOC Week at a primary school in central west New South Wales and displayed in the school hall.

They show raised fists and say: 'White Australia has a Blak History, No Pride in Genocide, Stop the Lies! Stop Stealing Our Kids, Blak Lives Matter!'

'I just think it's wrong to be teaching six-year-olds to hate Australia,' the One Nation MP in the NSW upper house told Daily Mail Australia.

The content of the posters led to a complaint by a concerned father. 'He's very upset that his six-year-old has been subjected to this, and I don't blame him,' said Mr Latham. 'I think any responsible parent would think this is way over the top.'

Though the issue has so far only been reported in one school, Mr Latham thinks it could be a widespread issue across the state.

'It's come to public light because the child took the colourings home, so these are parents that got to see the material,' he said.

'I'm sure in other schools it's been distributed but didn't necessarily make it home. It's a worry that any of this stuff gets into our school system for children so young.'

Mr Latham strongly objects to the content of the exercise. 'There's no historical evidence that we had a policy of genocide ... in Australian colonial history,' he claimed.

'For six-year-olds, can we just give them a break from the political indoctrination.

The One Nation leader in NSW, who is a former leader of the Labor Party, said the posters are 'inappropriate' for children so young. 'Would a six-year-old understand what genocide is ... it's indoctrination and propaganda,' he said. 'These are adult concepts that you might consider in the senior years of high school, but for six-year-olds it's just appalling.'

Mr Latham said Australia has a lot to be proud of and there should be a balanced approach to 'promote achievements and build pride in our country'. 'Why would we want an education system that's got children being told to hate Australia. I just find it disgusting. 'I don't think that's the purpose of our education system, to run Australia down and tell lies about our history.'

NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said it is her 'expectation that all schools use age-appropriate resources when teaching'.

But Mr Latham dismissed this as meaningless. 'That's a motherhood statement, without any direct condemnation of what's happened, but I'll be raising it at the budget estimates hearings (in the NSW Parliament) next Tuesday,' he said.

'This material should never have been distributed, it should never have been used as a colouring-in project for six-year-olds and it should never happen again.'

A NSW Department of Education spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia that the school concerned received one parental complaint which was responded to on the same day.

'The NAIDOC poster in question ... is available for all schools to use as part of their NAIDOC Week celebrations,' they said. 'We provide Aboriginal cultural education for all staff, and education about Aboriginal Australia for all students.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11122821/Colouring-posters-Year-1-children-slammed-One-Nation-MP-Mark-Latham.html

************************************************

Uproar over festival's plan to hold a talk about 'ZOOSEXUALITY' by professor who calls sex with animals 'society's last taboo'

A Sydney festival has sparked uproar for describing sex with animals as one of society's 'last taboos' in an ad for a renowned professor's talk about the ethics of bestiality.

Historian and author Joanna Bourke plans to discuss the morals behind 'humans loving animals' and 'zoosexuality' at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas (FODI) next month.

The festival, to be held at Carriageworks in inner-city suburb Redfern next month, has been touted as Australia's original festival of provocateurs with speakers tasked with 'holding uncomfortable ideas up to the light'.

The description of Ms Bourke's controversial session states that while bestiality is 'generally' regarded as abhorrent, the subject is still depicted in a number of books, films, plays, paintings and photographs.

The historian plans to present a modern history of sex between humans and animals and will invite audience members to look at the 'changing meanings' of bestiality and zoophilia and the ethics of 'animal loving'.

'It is only in very recent years that some people have begun to undermine the absolute prohibition on zoosexuality,' the speaker is quoted on the website. 'Are their arguments dangerous, perverted or simply wrongheaded?'

Outraged Australians took to social media to lash festival organisers for allowing a presentation they argued was intellectualising animal abuse.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11122115/Festival-Dangerous-Ideas-Professor-describes-bestiality-one-societys-taboos.html

**************************************************

Google scores major win in High Court defamation battle

Google is not legally responsible for defamatory news stories and other material viewed when users click on its non-sponsored search results, the High Court has ruled, in a major victory for the US-based search engine.

On Wednesday the High Court overturned a Victorian Supreme Court decision ordering Google to pay $40,000 in damages to prominent Melbourne criminal lawyer George Defteros for linking to a 2004 article in The Age newspaper.

The Supreme Court, and later the Court of Appeal, had found Google was liable as a “publisher” of the full Age story when users searched for “George Defteros” and clicked on the link to the article.

The majority of the High Court disagreed with that finding and entered judgment in favour of Google. In a joint judgment, Chief Justice Susan Kiefel and Justice Jacqueline Gleeson said “it cannot be concluded” that Google published the article.

“The provision of the Search Result, including the hyperlink, has no connection to the creation of the ... article; its creation was in no way approved or encouraged by the appellant [Google]; and the appellant did not participate in it being placed on The Age’s website,” Kiefel and Gleeson said.

“Whilst it may be said that the use of a hyperlink may mean The Age gains a reader, that does not make the appellant something other than a reference provider.”

They noted it was possible that search results “may themselves contain matter which is defamatory” but this was “not this case”.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/google-scores-major-win-in-high-court-defamation-battle-20220816-p5ba6v.html

********************************************************

Split in rogue union

Fresh hostilities have erupted across the CFMEU after former national secretary Michael O’Connor attacked the union as a “horror story” and revealed its manufacturing division would apply in weeks to split from the “completely dysfunctional” union.

Dave Noonan, the head of the union’s construction division, hit back at Mr O’Connor, accusing him of sabotage and warning that legal action could be taken to retrieve more than $300,000 allegedly owed to the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union by the manufacturing division.

He questioned whether the manufacturing division was solvent and accused Mr O’Connor of engaging in hyperbole to damage the union name, saying it was “sour grapes” after he lost majority support as national secretary.

Mr O’Connor, who remains head of the manufacturing division, said he expected the division along with the Tony Maher-led mining and energy division to be gone from the union by next year after ballots of members were held. “I just want to make sure people understand that we are more determined than ever to get out,” he said.

“We expect our application to be filed in the next few weeks.

“I think there is continual damage to the reputation of the union because of the behaviour of the construction division … if we’re going to continue to advocate for good public policy for the people we represent, any asso­ciation with the CFMEU is a ­hindrance.”

He said controversy surrounding the conduct of the construction division, including the operation of the union’s South Australian branch, was detrimental to the manufacturing division’s work to represent members. “We think it’s going to get worse, we think this horror story has got a long way to go,” he said.

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas has severed ties with the John Setka-led Victorian CFMEU, ordering Labor to repay a $125,000 donation from the union division.

Mr Setka was recently installed as SA state secretary

Mr O’Connor said an election was held for nat­ional senior vice-president in the union but no one nominated. “It’s another sign the union at a nat­ional level is completely dysfunctional,” he said.

Mr Noonan said Mr O’Connor deliberately decided not to nominate for senior vice-president in an attempt at “sabotage to prove dysfunction”.

He said the manufacturing division was in a “parlous financial state under Michael’s management”, owing more than $300,000 to the construction division and the union’s national office and legal action over the alleged debts “might happen”.

“The first thing Michael O’Connor ought to do is ensure his division is solvent,” he said.

“It’s very hard to see how that would be the case with the level of membership it’s got and low membership income. We reject his exaggerated alle­gations of dysfunction. From where we sit, most dysfunction sits in the manufacturing division.”

The mining and energy division recently lost an appeal against a Fair Work decision rejecting its bid to split. It sought to rely on laws allowing unions to break away if they had amalgamated between two and five years before a demerger application.

Under ­a Coalition change, the commission can accept appli­cations made over five years after a merger, but the mining and energy division or the manufacturing division would have to document the construction division’s record of not complying with workplace or safety laws.

Asked if manufacturing would be citing the law-breaking of the construction division, Mr O’Connor said “what we do … and how we are going to run our application we’ll reveal later on”.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/vow-to-split-from-cfmeu-horror-story/news-story/72e57eed33b4637cc8de7379f2226068

************************************

Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

***************************************

Anglican church splits: conservatives form Australian breakaway

Anglican conservatives have set up a breakaway church
The trigger was deep divisions over blessing same-sex marriage
The new church will lure people who are unhappy with their bishop’s position

It will be led by former Sydney archbishop Glenn Davies
Critics have described it as “fundamentalism writ large”
Australia’s Anglican church has split, and conservatives who oppose same-sex marriage have launched a breakaway movement led by former Sydney archbishop Glenn Davies aiming to lure Anglicans who are unhappy with progressive bishops.

The Diocese of the Southern Cross was formally launched in Canberra on Sunday. The first service was led by a rebel minister who resigned from the liberal Brisbane Archdiocese because he “cannot go along with same-sex blessings”.

Davies, who finished his term as Sydney archbishop last year, said many Anglicans felt the Australian church had strayed from the teachings of the Bible, particularly on same-sex marriage. At present, they must move to another diocese if they disagree with their bishop.

But they can join the new church from anywhere - it will cover the whole country - and Davies expected many will do so. He is already speaking to ministers and lay people who are preparing to defect, but will not name them.

“I think you’ll see the Diocese of the Southern Cross will have a significant impact,” he said. “It will send shivers down the spines of some bishops in the Anglican Church of Australia.”

There have been many small, localised breakaway churches since the Diocese of Australia was first established in the 1830s, but never anything of such scope or involving such senior, consecrated members of the established church.

Women: Conservative Anglicans believe the bible gives men the role of ‘elders’, so they are the only ones who can be ordained as a presbyter, or minister. Progressive dioceses allow women’s ordination as ministers.

Same-sex relationships: Some dioceses, such a Perth and Brisbane, are sympathetic to same-sex unions. Conservatives, such as Sydney, say the bible teaches that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.

Its social and theological conservatism - especially that marriage is only between a man and a woman - aligns with the views held by Sydney Anglicans, who are often described as the most theologically and socially conservative in the English-speaking world.

But other dioceses, such as Brisbane, Gippsland and Perth, hold different views. They ordain women and are open to blessing same-sex marriages. Most defections to the Diocese of the Southern Cross are likely to come from dioceses with progressive bishops.

The issue of same-sex marriage has led to similar splits in North America, Brazil and New Zealand.

‘Fundamentally awry’: bishops block move to reject same-sex marriage

The new church was registered with the charities commission in October. It will not be “in communion” with the archbishop of Canterbury, but will instead be aligned with the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), a group of conservative churches dominated by those from Africa.

Davies said the paperwork for the church was done ahead of the split, and the decision to proceed was made after a vote at the national Anglican synod (a church parliament) in May when a majority of bishops vetoed Sydney’s motion affirming that marriage was between a man and a woman.

The motion had had been supported by most of the lay and clergy representatives, and many argued the division showed that the bishops were out of touch with grassroots Anglicans.

“For those who cannot live under the liberal regime of a bishop, they can come and be thoroughly Anglican under a bishop,” said Davies, who will be commissioned as head of the breakaway church in Canberra on Thursday.

Matthew Anstey, a progressive Anglican theology academic from South Australia who argued in favour of blessing same-sex marriage at the synod, described the breakaway church as corrosive.

“They’re basically saying, ‘maybe your bishop is not a true Christian, you shouldn’t trust him or her, we’ve got the truth, we’re right’,” he said.

“They’re strongly implying that a lot of the rest of us aren’t even Christians. That’s what we find offensive.

“This is fundamentalism writ large. This is a split. How big it becomes, what shape it takes, how many join, we don’t know.”

In America, the division led to years of legal fights over church assets, which include schools and historic churches. The new church has no claim to existing assets as they are legally owned by individual dioceses within Anglican Church of Australia.

However, there may be tensions over property if there is a push from entire parishes to join the new church. Anstey believes both sides will try to avoid protracted legal battles. “This action may well be a catalyst for these kinds of conversations,” he said.

The new church is backed by Sydney Archdiocese and the Bishop of Tasmania, Richard Condie.

“We are at an important moment in the history of the Anglican Church in Australia,” Condie said at the launch on Sunday. “You know as well as I do that there is an emergency.”

https://www.smh.com.au/national/anglican-church-splits-conservatives-form-australian-breakaway-20220816-p5bact.html

************************************************

Progressive Anglicans ‘devastated’ by schism over same-sex marriage

They are talking rubbish. The schism is about much more than sexual deviance. It is about loyalty to the basic first century revelation about Christ and his teachings as recorded in the Bible. You either believe in the Resurrection as recorded in the Bible or you do not. If you reject the Bible teachings on abhorrent sexuality, how can you be sure of the Resurrection?

The Bible is the source of information about the Resurrection. To question its teachings makes you a non-Christian. Sadly, the Anglican church has for long harboured snakes in its bosom -- pretend-Christians who claim to accept Christian revelation but who are in reality skeptical about them.

The Bible as the foundation of the Christian message is the issue behind the schism, not something as incidental as the sex-life of the clergy.

Progressive Anglicans say they are “devastated” by a historic split in their church triggered by intractable divisions over same-sex marriage, and question whether a breakaway group can still consider itself Anglican.

Peter Stuart, the Bishop of Newcastle, apologised to the LGBTQI community. “I am sorry for the pain that you endure too often when Anglicans speak,” he said. North Queensland Bishop Keith Joseph described the split as an “error”.

Clarence Bester, the Bishop of Wangaratta, said it was “a sadness that we discriminate against people and we use scripture as justification”.

The Reverend Elizabeth Smith, a priest in Kalgoorlie, said she was “devastated by the launching of a breakaway new church that calls itself Anglican but is a world away from most Australian Anglicans”, and backed her female bishop, Kay Goldsworthy, who attracted criticism for ordaining a male deacon living in a same-sex marriage.

The Herald and The Age revealed on Wednesday that Anglican conservatives, led by former Sydney archbishop Glenn Davies, had launched a new church, which they described as a “lifeboat” for religiously orthodox people who disagreed with their more liberal bishops.

Conservatives have declared the issue of same-sex marriage a “line in the sand” and are concerned that progressives within the church have put modern social justice considerations above the Bible’s “unchanging truth” that marriage is between a man and a woman.

The issue has torn apart churches around the world. It made headlines in Australia in 2019 when the Victorian diocese of Wangaratta voted to bless same-sex civil unions, beginning with that of retired Wangaratta vicar-general John Davis and his partner of more than 20 years, Rob Whalley, also a former priest.

But the ceremony was delayed when conservatives - especially those in Sydney - vocally objected. The issue went to a church court, which endorsed the original decision. The couple’s ceremony went ahead in November 2020.

“The roof hasn’t fallen in,” Davis told the Herald and The Age. “I think [same-sex love] is a second-order issue that is being made a first-order issue and I think that’s deeply unnecessary. This isn’t really about principles, it’s about power.”

Dorothy Lee, an Anglican theologian and priest, described it as a sad day for the church. “I think [the decision to launch a breakaway movement] is aggressive, and arrogant and absolutist,” she said.

“I think it’s tragic when churches split, and fail to hold together in unity despite the many things they have in common.”

Some also questioned whether the new church, the Diocese of the Southern Cross - which describes itself as a “separate and parallel” Anglican diocese - could legitimately call itself Anglican.

John Davis also wrote a doctoral thesis on the Anglican Church of Australia’s constitution and said every bishop or priest of the Anglican Church of Australia had to swear an oath to comply with the constitution.

“You can’t straddle two different opposing institutions and get away with it,” he said. “You can’t do that and do what this [new church] is doing” In an opinion piece for this masthead, Anglican scholar Matthew Anstey said, “I suspect lawyers will be called upon for advice.”

Joseph said there was no trademark on the word Anglican, but the new group, and its global affiliate GAFCON, went “beyond classical Anglicanism”.

However, Tasmanian Bishop Richard Condie - who supports the new church - said it was simply providing a way for Anglicans whose views contrasted with those of their bishop to find like-minded spiritual leadership.

Similar breakaway movements had happened in North America and New Zealand. “That doesn’t mean that everybody who remains is not a Bible person,” he said. “Even in the most revisionist of diocese in Australia, they love the Bible and they want to live by it.

“But for some, receiving the ministry of [their] bishop is difficult,” Condie said.

“There’s no sense of triumph. There’s a sombre air of sadness about what’s happened.”

Condie said the new church was Anglican because it believed Anglican doctrine. “I don’t think there’s any issue of legality to be considered,” he said. “I think it is more confessional, it’s more about what we believe.”

The bishop of the new church, Glenn Davies, said the Diocese of the Southern Cross had not received, “nor are we likely to receive”, any inquires from Melbourne for affiliation.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/progressive-anglicans-devastated-by-conservative-schism-over-same-sex-marriage-20220817-p5balx.html

****************************************************

The flag as a rejection of social divisiveness

Self-loathing Greens should learn from India’s Muslims

Greens leader Adam Bandt disrespects the Australian flag as a hurtful symbol of racism. Black Power-saluting Greens Senator ‘I sovereign’ Lidia Thorpe disrespects the ‘colonising’ Queen as a coloniser. She betrayed the depth of her incoherence and ignorance. Queen Elizabeth II has probably presided over the decolonisation of more countries from her empire than any other monarch in history and then welcomed them all into the Commonwealth as sovereign states. The perpetually outraged Bandt and Thorpe – frequently wrong yet seldom troubled by self-doubt amid adolescent antics – should put plaques on their desks engraved with the homily: Better to remain silent and risk being thought a fool, than talk and remove all doubt.

Flags are the most prominent symbols of nations. Soldiers in particular take special pride in them and are literally prepared to die for everything they symbolise. Just think of Joe Rosenthal’s iconic second world war photo ‘Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima’. In 1982, the French contingent of the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon told the invading Israeli forces it would fight to hold its lines. The Israeli commander refused to believe the French colonel, as the latter had neither the men, arms nor mandate to fight the fully mobilised Israeli force. To prove his intent, the Frenchman ordered his men to lay down the French tricolour across the road. The Israelis paid him the courtesy of driving around the flag rather than over it.

The Bandt-Thorpe theatre of gestures demonstrates contempt for ‘Australia’s foremost national symbol’ that ‘has become an expression of Australian identity and pride’ (PM&C). Channelling Trump’s advice to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, Westerners forever trashing their country should live for a spell in a desperately poor country where life is Hobbesian – nasty, brutish and short – before returning with a better appreciation of the goodness of their home country.

India is the world’s biggest democracy. Just the number of India’s Muslim voters exceeds the total number of voters in all Western countries bar the US. Since becoming PM in 2014 and especially after re-election with increased majority in 2019, Narendra Modi has overseen the rise of Hindu fundamentalist activism and the accompanying relegation of 200 million Muslims to de facto second-class citizens through legal manoeuvres, administrative actions and street thugs. The response of Muslims to this attempted marginalisation and silencing of their community has been most revelatory. I was last in India in February–March 2020 before world borders closed in the great lockdown. From mid-December 2019 to near the end of March 2020, Delhi was gripped by the Shaheen Bagh protest, named after the suburb that was its site, led mainly but not exclusively by Muslim women.

In common with nationalists everywhere, Modi’s BJP projects itself as the party of muscular nationalism and ostentatiously adopts the outward symbols of national pride. It came as a rude shock therefore when students, women and other protestors across India, particularly Muslims, followed the lead from Shaheen Bagh to appropriate the main nationalist symbols with spontaneity and gaiety to celebrate their core Indianness. The national tricolour was adopted as the symbol of the protest, the national anthem became its song, and the preamble to the constitution the vocabulary. On Republic Day – 26 January, another echo of Australia! – which marks the formal adoption of the constitution in 1950, students from Jamia Millia, a prominent Islamic university in Delhi, read the preamble to the constitution aloud in public spaces before raising the tricolour and singing the national anthem. The preamble proclaims liberty, equality, justice and fraternity for all Indians and respect for all faiths in Hindi, English and Urdu (the language of India’s Muslims).

In the process the women and youth of India articulated a counter-narrative of patriotism and reset the terms of engagement between citizens, the government and the constitution. This is all the more striking for diverging from the trend to identitarian politics in contemporary Western democratic societies. The BJP’s slogan of ‘Akhand Bharat’ (indivisible India) has an external reference point: India’s territorial integrity is sacrosanct and no foreign power will be allowed to break it apart. The protestors ‘domesticated’ the slogan: India’s ruling party will be prevented from threatening national integration by labelling and compartmentalising Indians into identity groups divided by religion and caste.

The country’s unity thus becomes a sacred obligation entrusted by the constitution to every citizen. The hijab-clad and tricolour-draped young Muslim women challenged Modi’s Hindu supremacist narrative directly by instrumentalising the constitution for framing their engagement with democratic politics. Furthermore, and just as important, they articulated their demands and asserted their rights as Indians, without sacrificing their Muslim identity. By directing their demands at the elected government, they expanded the conception of liberal democracy, rescuing it from the majoritarian trap in which the Modi government had imprisoned it.

In other words, democracy, citizenship, constitutional governance and minority rights were forged into one powerful national identity. They emphatically and visually rejected BJP efforts to downsize their destiny as India’s Muslims, instead reimagining the idea of a liberal, pluralistic, tolerant, inclusive India embodied in the constitution.

A less hypocritical Bandt would uproot himself from Australia and return to the country of his ancestors. A less hypocritical Thorpe would not have sought election to parliament and would resign to take up the politics of street protest. I’m not holding my breath. Instead, perhaps Bandt could lead a Greens delegation to India to learn from its Muslims the dangers of identitarian politics and divisive rhetoric and the value of inclusive citizenship. It might also help them to register the reality that a sizable chunk of immigrants are excluded from their imagination and agenda that conceptualises Australia in binary ethnic categories of Europeans and Aborigines. India will also surely help them to appreciate why energy policy requires hard trade-offs, not soft slogans.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/08/embracing-the-flag/

*********************************************

Australia is ruled by a political consensus

An obvious example is the way all parties accept the climate scare. The parties differ only in how big the precautions against it should be

Australia is being run by a political quad who, despite appearances of difference, believe the same things.

From New South Wales Liberal Deputy Leader Matt Kean all the way through the political swamp to Greens Leader Adam Bandt, only minor differences separate their ideology.

Whether it is Teal Zali Steggall or Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, they are on a group-hugging, Kumbaya-singing unity ticket.

Don’t believe the faux stoushes over staffing levels in Parliamentary offices – that is simply squabbling between siblings over who does the dishes.

This Red/Teal/Blue/Green colour-wheel-quad wants to shut down coal mines, but not fringe ideological movements inside our schools.

It doesn’t matter that the Great Barrier Reef is fine and that our kids are not.

It doesn’t matter that in Europe, where reality is biting, coal mines are opening and there is a push-back against activism in education.

Processing evidence is not their thing.

For our quad, climate activism and Critical Race Theory matter, not critical thinking.

Their policies are simultaneously cruelling the economy and cruel to children.

This is a political class that needs media advisers to ensure the mainstream media can be spoon-fed like a publicity arm for quad ideas.

It’s a media arm led by the ABC, cashed up with $1.3 billion a year from taxpayers.

Free speech is out.

Ideas are enforced through Cancel Culture.

Anti-discrimination laws are weaponised to protect the hurt feelings of the regime.

Don’t expect the quad to move on 18C [in the racial discrimination act of 1975] any time soon.

Willingly or reluctantly, members of the public are swallowing the propaganda relentlessly beamed into their homes and smartphones.

This is particularly the case in our rich inner-city suburbs where affluence has dulled senses and insulated hip pockets from reality.

Battlers in the burbs rarely hear alternative views unless they are watching Senators Matt Canavan, Claire Chandler, Alex Antic, or conservative minor party players howling at the moon on Sky After Dark.

In the western suburbs, the public are more likely to have a Kayo subscription than Sky News Australia.

If only everyone watched Sky from 5pm to 10pm weeknights or from 9am to 11am Sundays. The nation’s problems would be solved.

But, let’s face it, Sky doesn’t move the dial at election times and the quad knows it.

Despite the valiant efforts of the truth tellers on Sky, at The Spectator Australia, Advance, the ACL, the IPA, and CIS – the message is not yet cutting through.

Instead of tacking away from its leftward list under Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison, the federal Liberals are continuing to be blown along by the wind of Woke.

So successful has the Left been, traditional Liberal constituencies in the big end of town and the leafy inner suburbs are on board.

Somewhere along the way, these former blue-ribbon electorates merged with the ideology of universities and the education system, both of which have been busy brainwashing a generation.

It appears that new Liberal Leader Peter Dutton, despite his sometimes conservative instincts, is spooked by this institutional realignment.

Early signs are not good. The courageous and transformational leadership our nation needs is not going to come from the Coalition any time soon.

Who wants to risk being labelled a denier, bigot, or transphobe by standing up to the media, the academy, or big tech?

Adam Bandt is the moral force behind the quad and is leading our nation on the road to ruin.

Sadly, it is hard to see a way out of quad groupthink apart from a catastrophe causing us to come to our senses.

Rampant inflation, an unstable electricity grid, and gender-confused kids point to a looming economic and social crisis.

US statecraft doyen Henry Kissinger, despite being in his late 90s, has just penned a book on political leaders of the second half of the 20th century.

Common to most of the six he profiles is leadership in the aftermath of catastrophe.

In the case of post-war German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, it was leading a battered people out of their self-inflicted catastrophe.

An extreme example for sure, but Australia’s problems are not mild, and they are all politician-induced.

Even the Chinese Communist Party menace was made worse by our acceptance of Confucius Institutes on campuses and complacency and mismanagement of defence.

Quoting historian Andrew Roberts, Kissinger reminds us that leadership is ‘as capable of leading mankind to the abyss as to the sunlit uplands. It is a protean force of terrifying power’.

We should be very afraid of the quad.

Australian politics gives the appearance of choice. But rather than being spoiled for it, we are offered a fake and dangerous choice.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/08/the-political-quad-that-rules-australia/

*************************************************

Worrisome legal move to erase identity of "women" in favour of "gender"

The Herald Sun is reporting that the women in the Dame Phyllis Frost Correctional Centre in Victoria are objecting to what they call an inmate with a ‘working’ penis and a history of violent sexual assault against a woman and a girl.

The phrasing they are not allowed to use here is ‘man’, ‘rapist’, and ‘paedophile’.

I am feeling this particularly as the Queensland government are, as we speak, pushing legislation that will erase female as a sex classification, most likely leading to violence against women and the silencing of the most marginal of female voices.

The proposed change to the Births Deaths and Marriage Registration Act 2003 will bring Queensland in line with Victoria in allowing people to change their legal sex for all purposes with a simple declaration. This, a common move from left-wing governments, is referred to colloquially as ‘self ID’.

Self ID does not allow an alignment of gender identity with documents as it is being reported, it allows any man, for any reason, to change his legal sex to female and vice versa. It is the legal redefinition of sex in law.

Under a regime with both self ID and gender identity protections, ‘woman’ is a category containing two classes of females distinguished by the type of declaration that was made to create her. If a doctor made the female declaration over a person at birth, that female can access female spaces in the normal way. Gender activists call this type of woman AFAB (Assigned Female at Birth).

If a female declaration is made by a male person over themselves, that person will get access to female spaces and words with the additional protections in ‘gender identity’, this male ‘woman’ is referred to as AMAB (Assigned Male at Birth).

Women are being gaslit about their rights here. We are being told that ‘rights are not a pie’; meaning that giving rights ‘women’ who were AMAB will not take away from women. The language that is being presented to women is that of ‘inclusion’. The better analogy for rights between ‘sex’ and ‘gender identity’ is a poker game where ‘gender identity’ is a wild card in a stacked deck with no aces.

Even if sex is a protected characteristic in law, males can now access the sex of female, while women can never access the protected ‘gender identity’ while accepting their sex as female. Only males can have this additional legal protection in the realm of women’s rights, making them the more protected and powerful ‘woman’, a first class of women, if you will.

Women may hold a ‘four of a kind’, a very respectable hand, but it is only ever males who can hold a ‘royal flush’ in the women’s rights game of spaces, protections, and words.

In a situation of conflict, almost always involving the most vulnerable of women, the wild card always falls in favour of self-declared first class AMAB ‘women’. Second class women who were arbitrarily declared female at birth are being told they must make accommodations for males in their spaces or not use them at all.

In Washington State last week, an 80-year-old woman challenged a man in a swimming pool change room because she was in a state of undress and little girls were going to the toilet in open stalls. The 80-year-old swimmer was not only asked to leave, but she was also permanently banned from the YMCA facility because of the presentation of the man’s wild card of gender identity. The staff at the YMCA even told the woman that they had called the police, so she had no other option than to retreat to where women are traditionally told to retreat, her home.

The hierarchy of rights that emerges from the wild card of gender identity in combination with the legal fiction of the ‘f’ marker for men, means that women lose sovereignty over both their spaces and words.

The second class AFAB females have now no right to the words ‘woman’, ‘female’, and ‘girl’ anymore, if the words are not able to centre the first class of AMAB ‘females’. Words are being removed in many places where ‘woman’, ‘female’, and ‘girl’ have a distinct attachment to female bodies and gender meanings centring the powerful female role in reproduction.

The work women have put into moulding societal gender meanings around their bodies – including removing their bodies, life-cycle, and sexuality from shame – is being wholesale appropriated by a movement that is designed to compel populations to recognise men who perform feminine gender stereotypes as women. The harm this may cause to women and girls is never even considered.

The stereotypes being presented to second class of women by the first class of ‘women’, are often domesticated, heavily made up, sexually submissive, or ‘slutty’. Stereotypes that are offered to girls by gender identity ‘educators’ are almost always pink, sparkly, and passive. The gender of women is now legally owned and protected only in men and manufactured by government and capital funded organisations.

It is interesting that medical professionals can still legally recognise sex on the sight of genitalia in babies and in utero, as this is philosophically inconsistent with gender identity ideology. This is the next tower to be attacked by the gender authoritarians. The removal of sex altogether would annihilate the ability of women to organise as a sex class or exclude themselves from a male on the basis of sex. That is not even considering the impact on science and medicine.

We are already seeing women organise in secret for political or single-sex dating purposes, as recognising sex is unlawful in some contexts in places like Victoria and Tasmania. In California, little girls are actively being encouraged to look the other way if they are frighted at the sight of male genitalia in a space where women and girls are undressing.

Self ID effectively decriminalises what used to be called flashing and criminalises what used to be called safeguarding. This is not a political statement; this is the logical extension of the state ideology that produces this harmful suite of legislation. Ideology that is actively and enthusiastically funded by conservative and left-wing governments alike.

We are seeing, women play and lose the rights card game everywhere, and come up against the violence of the state that is ultimately on the side of first class of ‘women’. This week on Twitter I watched a feminist complain about the Self ID laws in Victoria, and a trans activist produced their licence, on Twitter, to show they had an ‘f’ marker. The activist then openly threatened the feminist with legal action and the police, if she continued to fail to submit to the will of the first class of ‘women’.

Queensland legislators are telling us to look at other states as they push through unpopular redefinition of human sex. As we look to Victoria, we see the same thing we have seen overseas, men in women’s prison, women objecting, women getting called bigoted, women getting raped, women getting arrested, and women who speak out getting reported to her employer or the police.

Self ID is the most successful strategy to silence women with violence, fear, and impoverishment that I have seen in my lifetime. Gender identity ideology has been grown exclusively in academic books, universities, and government departments and has been proliferated by committed activists almost exclusively funded by government and capital interests.

Gender identity in social justice protections, combined with the ability of any man to change his sex to female, is the complete annihilation of women’s rights. Governments are wholly relived of protecting vulnerabilities they refuse to see. The price we pay for this government victory is the laying bare of the most vulnerable of women and girls to the will of the worst of men.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/08/self-id-wild-card/ ?

************************************

Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

***************************************