Australian Politics
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
Stage three tax cuts: This was to be a vital reform, it was never populism
The staged income tax cuts legislated by the Coalition government came in three parts. The first two stages were directed at low- and medium-income earners; it was only the third stage that provided any benefits to those earning well above average incomes.
It is a political fact of life that most people have now forgotten the first two stages.
The key to the third stage was meant to be that it represented an important reform to the income tax schedule by introducing a greater degree of simplicity.
A majority of taxpayers would not face any change to their marginal tax rate as they earned more, did overtime or achieved a promotion. Recall here that a key feature was that a 30 per cent tax rate would apply to taxable annual incomes between $45,001 and $200,000.
The stage three tax cuts were meant to be a structural reform. They should not have been considered a cyclical response or a cost-of-living measure per se.
For taxable incomes above $200,000, the top marginal tax rate was to remain at 45 per cent (plus 2 per cent Medicare levy).
This figure was only a slight adjustment from the current top income tax cut-off of $180,000. It’s been $180,000 since 2007, when Peter Costello was treasurer!
Had the top income tax cut-off point been indexed – which is the practice in about half of developed economies – the current figure would be above $250,000 a year.
The reality is that Australia has one of the most progressive income tax schedules in the world, meaning those on higher incomes pay proportionately more tax as their incomes rise.
In fact, we are on a par with the Scandinavian countries. Only in Denmark is income tax revenue higher as a proportion of total tax revenue.
It’s really worth looking at the figures here. According to the most recent ones released by the Australian Taxation Office (for 2020-21), just over 4 per cent of those with incomes in the top bracket paid 35.4 per cent of all income tax revenue.
By any standards, this is extraordinarily progressive.
And here’s a further fact to consider – the proportion of income tax revenue the top income earners have been contributing has been rising year on year.
In 2015-16, for example, just over 3 per cent of income tax earners were in the top tax bracket, contributing 30.3 per cent of total income tax revenue.
Of course, $180,000 a year looks like a very high annual income on the face of it.
Yet if we look at other countries, the incomes at which their top marginal tax rates kick in are proportionately much higher. Think here of the US, Canada, Germany, Britain and others.
When the government talks about the global war for talent, it should be borne in mind that our income tax rates represent a major disincentive for those considering moving here.
There are plenty of countries with much more attractive income tax arrangements.
At this stage, it’s not clear whether the Albanese government will seek to walk back from the final stage of the tax cuts by dumping the $200,000 cut-off and rather retain the $180,000 figure, or make other changes.
It would be a mistake to change the threshold, although there would be extra revenue of some $3bn a year were it to do so. But the notion that the tax cuts “cost” the government is a very strange way of thinking of the issue.
The reality is that real household disposable incomes are being hammered not just by inflation and higher mortgage payments but also the rising income tax take. The government might have higher revenue but it’s at the expense of ordinary taxpayers.
As for the idea of increasing the tax-free threshold (it is currently $18,200), this would have a very slight impact on the disposable incomes of those affected. Bear in mind that those on very low incomes are generally in receipt of welfare payments, which are regularly indexed. It would be a largely symbolic measure.
The fact is that low-income earners contribute very little to overall income tax revenue, with those earning between $18,200 and $45,000 making up nearly 30 per cent of all income tax earners but contributing only 3.2 per cent of total tax revenue. This underlines the progressive nature of our income tax schedule, something altered only slightly after stage three tax cuts come into effect.
Labor voted for the three stages of the tax cuts when in opposition and committed to the final stage during an election campaign. Were the Albanese government to walk back from the stage three cuts, it would be breaking a promise and forgoing structural reform.
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The road to reform in higher education is long and slow
Late next month Education Minister Jason Clare will at last unveil his long-term plan for higher education when he releases the final report of his Universities Accord.
It’s the culmination of something that started 15 months ago and has consumed a huge amount of effort from the Accord panel, education bureaucrats and those who made 800-odd submissions to the review.
The Accord review had broad terms of reference that would have allowed it to be another Bradley Review leading to major reforms. But as it progressed, the heady enthusiasm that marked its beginning gradually waned. It became clear the Universities Accord would be limited in its immediate impact.
It’s main idea for visionary change is to expand university access for students from disadvantaged backgrounds – something to which Clare has a deep personal commitment.
But other goals that are priorities of universities look like being pushed toward the horizon.
For example, as a legacy of the Morrison government, HECS fees are now four times higher for students doing humanities, law and business degrees compared to those doing teaching and nursing degrees. The goal of this Morrison policy, to persuade more students to become nurses and teachers, is not being achieved but we are left with this inequitable fee structure. Fee reform is essential but it does not look likely to happen quickly under the Universities Accord.
Similarly the urgent pleas of research-intensive universities for more research funding are unlikely to be fulfilled in the short term.
The Accord will almost certainly recommend the creation of a new Tertiary Education Commission to oversee universities, and it seems likely that many things universities want, such as fee restructuring and a research funding review, are likely to be shunted to the commission for consideration down the track.
But Clare must find money for any new initiatives – including extra funding for disadvantaged students – from within his portfolio, which is why a tax on international student revenue is expected to be recommended by the Accord review, to the chagrin of nearly all universities.
The upshot is a reform plan that will extend over several terms of government, and, as any observer of politics knows, such plans rarely retain the support they need for that lengthy period.
We all know government works under constraints but, at this stage, it looks like a lot of work has been done to create something that is weighted toward aspiration rather than action.
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Muslims lobby to axe ‘sinful’ university HECS-HELP debts
Islamic clerics are lobbying the federal government to axe the “sinful’’ indexation of university loans for Muslim students, forbidden under Sharia law.
The Australian National Imams Council has told the government’s Universities Accord review that HELP (Higher Education Loan Program) and HECS (Higher Education Contribution Scheme) debts are discouraging Muslims from studying at university.
The imams are pushing for a “culturally and religiously compatible” new funding model for Islamic students.
“The current HELP system, while designed to defer university fees through a loan arrangement, may conflict with the religious beliefs of Muslims,’’ the council told the Accord panel, whose final recommendations will be made public by the government in February.
“According to Islamic laws, the HELP loan is considered riba (usury) and is generally prohibited,” the council said.
“This leaves Muslim students with the difficult choice of either disregarding their religious principles or forgoing higher education.’’
The imams said the Koran and the prophetic traditions of hadiths “explicitly condemn and prohibit riba, stressing that it harms society and promises inequality’’.
Under Islamic law, “loans must be repaid in the exact same loan principal as acquired, even after many years and inflation’’.
“Riba is a major sin in Islam,’’ they told the panel.
Nearly three million Australian university graduates face a combined $4bn increase to their HECS and HELP debts on June 30 if inflation stays at 5 per cent over the next six months.
Under the HECS-HELP scheme, university students take out interest-free loans from the federal government to pay for their tuition fees.
The debt is paid back through the taxation system once graduates begin earning about $52,000 a year.
Graduates need to pay back $78.2bn in outstanding debt, which rises in line with inflation every year to maintain the real value of the loan.
If the annual inflation rate lands at 5 per cent in June, indexation would add roughly $1325 to the average $26,500 debt.
The Canberra Islamic Centre has also complained that the current structure of HECS-HELP loans “inadvertently creates a barrier for Muslim students who seek to abide by their religious convictions’’.
“The issue is not merely theoretical; it has practical implications that discourage, prevent and disadvantage Muslim students from going to university,’’ the Islamic Centre told the panel.
“They face the unfair choice of compromising religious beliefs or foregoing higher education opportunities.’’
The Islamic Centre wants the government to “explore alternative indexing methods’’ for student loans.
Islamic Co-operative Finance Australia – which offers “Sharia-compliant investments’’ – has told the panel that Islamic teachings forbid the charging of interest on loans.
It said the “ideal scenario’’ would be to waive indexation fees for Muslim students. “A no indexation and no interest on debt approach will clear any spiritual doubts amongst Muslim students that the HECS debt is not Sharia compliant,’’ it says.
“Under Islamic law, the imposition of an additional charge on a debt, commonly referred to as ‘riba’, is unequivocally deemed as usurious and unjust.
“Interest-bearing debts are prohibited, and no form of interest or financial gain can be charged on debt.
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Will the crash in critical minerals derail the clean energy transition?
Just as stock markets are surging to new records and property is shrugging aside the impact of more than a dozen rate hikes on the hop, those betting on a bold, new carbon free future are nursing huge losses.
Two years ago, the race began in earnest to nail down global supplies of critical minerals as the world embraced emissions reduction targets that eventually would see the phase out of fossil fuels and a shift towards the electrification of the global economy.
It was a race turbo-charged by an increasingly polarised geo-political environment that pitted America against China, the biggest producer and processor of critical minerals and a domination of battery production.
Lithium prices soared as the US embarked upon a hurried program to shore up supplies of the key battery production component in an effort to reduce reliance upon China. And it wasn't just lithium.
Rare earth prices also shot for the moon along with more traditional metals such as nickel, which also is crucial to manufacturing electric vehicle battery components.
Even rival technologies, particularly hydrogen, found themselves in hot demand as big investors threw billions of dollars into what they believed would be the dominant green energy technology by the next decade.
Can Australia straddle the East-West divide?
The dust has barely settled after Australia and China reached an uneasy truce last month, but our abundance of critical minerals and China's stranglehold on them has us in the middle of a geopolitical tug of war, writes Ian Verrender.
It was a boom that promised fabulous riches for countries with large deposits of these raw materials. It just so happened that Australia found itself, once again, the lucky country with bountiful supplies.
But the recent boom looks to have been something of a bubble, yet another example where enthusiasm and expectations overrode reality. Suddenly, the prices for each of these materials has unravelled in spectacular style.
While the long-term future for some of these materials remains solid, there could well be some high profile casualties from the recent madness.
It's been a common story in resources for centuries. A sudden price hike based upon forecasts of huge demand feeds through to a massive lift in exploration and production until suddenly, everyone realises there's a glut.
It seemed like a sure bet at the time
The dire announcements have been coming thick and fast.
Nickel projects that only recently were given the green light have been put on hold while the value of existing mines are being written down.
Lithium miners, meanwhile, are in a world of pain with many explorers and junior operators facing the prospect either of collapse or the task of looking for something else.
Even established, large scale operators like Liontown and Azure — both of which now are within the orbit of Gina Rinehart — are feeling the heat. Both have been beaten up by investors who have been spooked by the sudden collapse in the price of the raw material as the chart below for lithium carbonate prices graphically illustrates.
Mrs Rinehart late last year built a 19.9 per cent stake in Liontown which she used to thwart a $6.6 billion takeover bid from American giant Albermarle.
While that left Liontown scrambling to raise cash to independently fund development of its massive Kathleen Valley lithium deposit, a banking syndicate including Australia's big four quickly rode to the rescue with a $760 million finance package.
On Monday, however, that financing was pulled, sending Liontown's share price tumbling 21 per cent. At just 94c, it is way below the $3 a share Mrs Rinehart paid last year for the stock, leaving the company's fate and its future in her hands.
Meanwhile, nickel prices this week hit their lowest levels in three years, having halved in the past 12 months, prompting a wave of shutdowns and curtailed expansion plans.
In response to the forecasts of higher demand, Indonesia – with the help of Chinese investment –dramatically increased production, sending prices crashing.
One of the most prominent victims is another iron ore magnate, Andrew Forrest. Just six months ago, his private company Wyloo splashed out $760 million for three mines near Kambalda in Western Australia. This week, he decided to shut them.
The nickel collapse has threatened the viability of BHP's Western Australian nickel operations and just a month ago another producer, Panoramic Resources, was put into the hands of administrators.
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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)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Tuesday, January 23, 2024
Amazing lost art of letter-writing
The article below mentions writing with steel pens. I wrote that way for most of my primary schooling. The trick was to use bought ink instead of school ink. School ink was a dull blue but "Quink" ink was a bright blue and flowed better. Rich kids had "Quink" ink. I never did
When relatives die, the possessions they leave behind are often a source of intrigue and mystery. So it proved for Michael Dorahy and his younger sister Colleen.
Buried among a collection of vintage schoolbooks, he recently discovered a neatly folded criss-crossed letter dated 1879.
A criss-crossed letter, also known as cross-hatching or cross-writing, contains two or more streams of writing, one written over the other at right angles.
"It was in Mum's stuff, some of which was sent to me by a sister and during COVID I finally had time to go through it all and research what criss-crossed letters were," Michael, who lives in Melbourne, said.
The manuscript is hard to read as lines of correspondence cross each other on the page.
He believes the manuscript predates fountain pens and a source from the National Library of Australia agrees, identifying features unique to the genre, including writing tools.
"Steel nib pens with handles" were advertised in Australia as early as 1831, the source said, so it is likely that in 1879 the author would be using a metal nib pen.
An example of this can be viewed at Museums Victoria, along with a history of the pens.
"According to a 2016 article from the Rosenbach Museum and Library, the reason for cross-writing was to save paper or postage, but it also may have become a habit, even when not strictly necessary," the NLA reported.
"It was a system used worldwide, and definitely used in Australia in 1839, see Criss-Cross History Hidden in a Letter, which notes that paper was scarce."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-22/criss-crossed-letter-mystery/103362666
***************************************************Forget the flags, it’s the cynicism we’re not buying
“Woolworths loves Australia, and love being Australian.” So say the websites of several Woolworths locations. And yet Woolworths, along with Big W, Kmart and Aldi, is refusing to stock Australia Day paraphernalia. Mixed messaging much?
One spokesman for Woolworths explained it was partly because “there’s been broader discussion about January 26 and what it means to different parts of the community”.
Sure, so why not just stock the merchandise and let the customer decide? Coles will stock Australiana merchandise, but it assured Australians it was not specifically for Australia Day. Phew!
Ironically, I can buy all my Australia Day gear at The Reject Shop.
Of course, it’s the right of any private business to stock whatever it likes, and Woolworths and other retailers are exercising this right. But this whole business is strange because the retailers are taking a moral stance on an issue that really has nothing to do with them, as though they are churches offering moral guidance.
It would seem many major corporations are increasingly (over)run by agonised souls who on the one hand are climbing the ladder of ruthless, lucrative careerism, while atoning for it by trying to turn profit-driven corporations into beacons of righteousness.
If there was one lesson from the voice referendum, it was that Australians don’t like major corporations preaching about national issues, and especially trying to use their bottomless pit of resources to try to influence the outcome of a national debate.
These retailers have the right to sell what they like, and Australians have the right to avoid them in favour of small businesses to buy everything they need for Australia Day, meat and all.
But the oikophobia – or fear of one’s own nation – on display every Australia Day is not trivial. We are raising a generation in a way that can only be detrimental to the nation in the long run. We are clearly not inculcating a sufficient gratitude for Australia or Western civilisation in our education system, certainly not a sufficient love for democracy over tyranny and terror.
The protests against Israel immediately after October 7 show the dire state of our education system. Amazingly, a “week of action” in schools in support of Palestine was endorsed by several regions of the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union. Many teachers planned to turn up to class wearing pro-Palestinian paraphernalia.
An open letter to the Victorian government signed by hundreds of Victorian teachers and school staff denouncing Israeli human rights abuses continues to gather signatures. Nowhere does the letter condemn the actions of Hamas or demand that Hamas return any Israeli hostages. Nowhere. It’s as though evil Israel just launched a campaign into Gaza for no reason whatsoever. School students began rallying in support of Palestine against Israel soon after the attacks. This is their right, but one must ask whether they are being told both sides of the story.
Israel is a multiracial, multiethnic democracy established as a safe haven for millions of Jews to flee genocide after World War II. It has an Arab minority of roughly 20 per cent that has the same legal rights as Jewish Israelis. It sits in the midst of a region where it is no exaggeration to say millions of its enemies would like to see it destroyed.
Indeed, it would seem many young Australians would like to see it destroyed as well, or at least unwittingly call for its destruction. “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is chanted at the protests. It literally calls for the erasure of the state of Israel. How could such a chant be fulfilled except through violence; that is, genocide?
In 2022 the Sydney University Students’ Representative Council passed a motion condemning Israel as an apartheid state. It was titled “From the River to the Sea”.
Many of those same chanters accuse Israel of genocide against the Gazans as Israel does nothing more than seek to remove those in Gaza who would seek a repeat of October 7.
Indeed, innocent people in Gaza are being killed, but perhaps Israel’s critics might consider the people to blame are those who deliberately use Gazans as human shields by launching attacks from built-up urban areas. For Israel to desist from retaliatory action that would take innocent lives would be to sit back and allow Hamas terrorists, and sympathisers, to launch attacks until, as the chant goes, Israel has been obliterated “from the river to the sea”.
If Gaza is to have any future then Hamas must be destroyed, and, atrociously, it fully intends to bring many innocent Gazans down with it. As the Hamas Covenant of 1988 had it, “death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its (the movement’s) wishes.”
How can so many Australians, particularly young Australians, be so blind as to see Israel as the oppressor here? Sadly, it’s pretty clear too many teachers, themselves products of a very one-sided university education, are reluctant to teach both sides of the story.
Many young Australians seem to feel the West and its satellite allies, such as Israel, are at best hopelessly flawed, and at worst positively wicked. This uninformed cynicism has the pernicious effect of muting our national solidarity with Israel, a democracy amid authoritarian regimes, and established in defiance of actual genocide.
The seriousness of a lack of enthusiasm for celebrating Australia Day is not really about flags and bucket hats, it is linked with the ever-growing cynicism towards Western civilisation in general.
We must do more than merely publicly disapprove of retailers who seem to have jumped on the cynical bandwagon. We must demand that some in our national legislature have the courage to stand up and fight for an education system premised on gratitude for Western civilisation and the historically unprecedented free and prosperous lives it has afforded all of us in this great land. Not to mention the promise it holds for millions of outsiders who aspire for something better. This is what we celebrate on January 26.
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‘Golden visas’ axed in crackdown on billion dollar passports-for-sale scheme
A business visa program which makes up a quarter of all the nation’s migration allocations has been quietly axed by Labor over claims it has had a profoundly negative impact on the economy, including a “golden visa” scheme allowing wealthy foreigners to live in Australia if they make investments of at least $5m.
The entire Business Innovation and Investment Program has been closed to new applications, with a shift to more skilled workers expected to boost Australia’s dividend from migrants by $3bn over the next decade.
The Significant Investor visa strand of the program has always – and without subtlety – targeted Chinese citizens, who make up 90 per cent of successful applicants The visa subclass was given the number 888 – which signifies triple good luck in Chinese numerology.
The visa required a minimum investment in Australia of $5m and conferred an automatic right of permanent residence. Investors could gain citizenship even if they spent only 40 days a year in Australia and, unlike other visa holders, they were not required to learn or speak English. There was also no upper age limit.
The crackdown follows revelations by The Australian that foreign criminals and corrupt regime officials have used the red-carpet schemes to acquire Australian citizenship.
While more than 7000 Chinese citizens have been granted Significant Investor visas, not a single applicant in the past 10 years has been rejected under the character test designed to help exclude criminals or those with suspiciously obtained wealth.
The move to replace the Significant Investor and other BIIP visas with more skilled worker visas will boost Australia’s dividend from migrants by nearly $120bn over the next 30 years, according to the Grattan Institute, because business investment visa holders retire about 20 years earlier than the younger skilled workers who will replace them.
The development was welcomed by the institute’s economic policy program director, Brendan Coates, who described the BIIP as “the single worst part of Australia’s skilled migration program”.
“Unlike all the other parts of the program, it has tended to attract older, less-skilled migrants that end up costing Australian taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in the long run in pension and other health costs that far exceed any tax they pay over their lives in Australia,” Mr Coates told The Australian.
“So closing that down and reallocating those visa places to other parts of the Skilled Migration Program will pay an enormous fiscal and economic dividend to Australia.”
The Migration Review, spearheaded by public service chief Martin Parkinson, found that skilled migrants contribute $300,000 more in benefits over their lifetime than those who buy their way into the country.
More than 80 per cent of company directors within the Business Innovation and Stream were in retail or hospitality, which were “sectors not typically associated with major advancements in productivity and innovation”.
A much more tightly controlled Talent and Innovation Visa would create a single, streamlined pathway “to attract relatively small numbers of highly talented migrants to Australia, such as high-performing entrepreneurs, major investors and global researchers”, the federal government said, adding: “permanent residency is an important drawcard to attract these migrants as we compete with other nations in the global race for talent.”
Industry sources suggest an investment of at least $10m into more targeted venture capital projects will be required.
The abolition of the BIIP schemes will cause serious ructions in the multibillion-dollar business investment visa industry, where financial advisers, migration agents, banks and specialist investment firms have reaped huge rewards for more than a decade.
The scheme has brought nearly $12bn in investment to Australia over the past 10 years, but the Productivity Commission has long maintained that the benefits were small, uncertain and accrued mainly to fund managers.
The visas also could be a pathway for “dirty money” into Australia and were prone to fraud, the commission said.
Chinese billionaire Huang Xiangmo, who was granted permanent residency, was one of the few investors under the program whose visa was cancelled on character grounds.
Security agencies – but not immigration officials – had serious concerns about his links to the Chinese Communist Party, and the prolific political donor was later alleged to have personally delivered $100,000 cash in an Aldi plastic bag to Labor Party officials.
The Australian has also previously revealed concern that wealthy members of Cambodia’s Hun Sen regime have bought their way into Australia through the scheme, with at least 80 significant investor visas granted to Cambodian nationals in the past decade.
Many nations that offered golden visa schemes have shut them down to stop corrupt foreign officials parking their wealth in “safe” countries, leaving Australia as one of the last Western countries where it was possible to buy a right of residency and, ultimately, a passport.
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“No, you’re not going to school’: Why more Qld parents are keeping their kids at home
While once seen as alternative, homeschooling is becoming increasingly popular for families from all walks of life.
In Queensland, Education Department data shows 10,048 children were registered for homeschooling in 2023, a huge surge from the 1108 kids enrolled a decade ago. In South Australia, there are 2443 registered homeschoolers and 11,912 in Victoria. NSW has the highest number of registered homeschooled students in the country with almost 12,500.
The Low family in Bargo, NSW, is part of that group. Pediatric occupational therapist Jessica Low, 35, and her husband, researcher Dr Mitchell Low, 35, have five children and have never sent them to school.
“The biggest factor for me is child development,” Jessica Low says, drawing on her experience gained over the past nine years she has spent working as an OT. “Just physically they don’t even have the proper core strength to sit at desks for long periods in early childhood. “That’s why you see kids flopped over with their head in their hands.
“And they’re not even allowed to sensory regulate themselves because if they start wriggling and fidgeting, they’re told to stop.”
Low says her oldest children – Penelope, 9, Josie, 7 and John, 6 – are thriving at home, and so too is their family.
“If my kids were in school we would have such little connection,” Low says, noting that learning begins from the moment they wake up.
“A big part of our day is breakfast. They all have jobs, one clears the table, one does the dishwasher. It’s learning to work as a team, learning to communicate with one another.
“There are sibling fights which they may need guidance to resolve. These are important skills for them to learn.”
Home education looks different for every family, shaped by each state’s regulations.
Generally, children are expected to meet outcomes that are in line with their schooled peers. For example, the Low family follows the NSW syllabus and is checked by a moderator at least once a year.
But Low says she adapts everything so they are learning through play, adding: “Kids just need to spend time playing, running, jumping, climbing trees.”
Educator and parenting specialist Maggie Dent, 68, echoes this sentiment. She’s spent much of her life’s work advocating for kids to spend less time at desks and more time playing, particularly in the formative years.
“Our children aren’t moving enough. And the lack of movement impacts the way the brain is shaped,” Dent explains.
“Children as young as five are doing a lot more sitting on mats and at desks than they used to.”
Dent says Australia’s education results “have crashed” over the past 20 years when compared with other countries.
She cites Finland as a positive example of where children are assessed not just on a curriculum but with a focus on social and emotional intelligence.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development measures the education standards of 41 participating countries through its Program for International Student Assessment. Finland ranks fourth in the PISA, while Estonia is the highest performing OECD country. In those two countries children don’t start compulsory schooling until the age of seven.
Australian children are strapping on their backpacks and heading into compulsory schooling at age five, resulting in a rank of 17.
“There is no evidence that starting earlier gets better results. In actual fact we see just the opposite. Teachers are telling me all the time that the curriculum is so crowded, and they have to so do much more assessment that it’s taken the joy and fun out of teaching,” Dent says.
“So what happens is children start to hate learning, they start to lose their curiosity and they start really struggling in social environments because there aren’t enough play opportunities.”
Dispelling the myth of social isolation, homeschooling programs such as the We Are Nature Network in Perth, Western Australia, provide a nature-based classroom for children aged four to seven. It’s run by teachers who’ve left the education system.
On the day I visit, co-founder Emily Patterson starts the morning by reading The Troll, by Julia Donaldson, on a picnic rug under a tree. There are 10 pairs of eyes watching intently.
Some of the kids are sitting on their parents’ laps, others are eating from their lunch box. Nearby three little boys who are climbing a tree turn to look and listen every now and then.
Another boy hops up from the rug and picks up a stick he’s found lying nearby. He starts tapping the stick on the dirt. No one seems to notice, they’re all too engrossed in the story, including the little boy with the stick. He’s listening to every word Patterson reads.
At one point a golden retriever being walked off its leash comes past and story time quickly turns into a collective dog patting session.
“A huge value of mine is being outdoors and playing,” Patterson, 31, says.
The mother-of-three left her job as a primary school teacher when she had her first son, Taj, seven years ago, and hasn’t looked back.
“I thought, I’ll create something that feels right for my family, but also where other kids can come and feel good about learning.”
There is limited research on the academic outcomes of homeschooling because many parents choose for their children not to sit exams. A 2014 NSW government report found homeschooled children who participated in the NAPLAN tests scored “significantly above the overall NSW average”, but noted just 10 per cent of homeschooled children took the tests.
“There is such a focus on academics at school, but you can learn to read and write at 90. You can learn anything at any age. The first seven years of life are absolutely critical to social and emotional development. You can’t get that time back,” Patterson says.
For some families homeschooling is something they never thought they’d do, but made the decision based on issues like bullying, mental health and a lack of support for neurodivergent children.
“We don’t factor neurodivergent kids and their unique needs into teaching environments at all,” Dent says.
“Many parents are asking why would I put them into a system that is ‘one size fits all’, when I can keep them home and still be doing all the things that help them learn.”
Just like school, homeschooling isn’t for everyone. It does involve sacrifices with some families having to weigh up the financial burden of having one parent give up employment, typically the mother, to stay home.
And while all the mothers I interviewed have managed to continue working flexibly around their children’s education, they do all agree on one downside: the scarcity of personal time. Nevertheless, it’s a compromise willingly embraced.
“That’s probably the only thing because I’m with them all day,” Lycett reflects. “So at night time, I need a little bit of time to myself. But other than that, they are great kids, we love being with them.”
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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)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Monday, January 22, 2024
Bruce Lehrman was not guilty but the Federal government was?
The litigation stemming from the accusation of rape levelled at Bruce Lehrman by Brittany Higgins is still very much ongoing but I think a major anomaly in the matter needs to be highlighted
Allegations of rape do not normally go to trial unless the police foresee a substantial probability of a conviction resulting. The police did not see sufficient grounds to proceed in the case of the Higgins allegations. But as a result of political pressure, an attempt was made to prosecute Lehrman. So the evidence for the allegation was weak from the beginning. The prosecution failed without a verdict being rendered so Lehrman continued to benefit from an assumption of innocence.
In the absence of a guilty verdict in the matter, one would have thought that all possibilty of a damages claim would be lost. There is nothing that you could sue Bruce Lehrman for. So how could Higgins get a payout for her allegations? How could she get a payout for something that did not happen?
She did get a payout and she did so by suing the government. Apparently, the government could be guilty even if the respondent in the rape claim was not.
That is a very strange set of circumstances. How could the government be guilty when the alleged rape at the centre of the matter had not been proven to take place?
But the government was simply a much softer touch. They did not ask for evidence of anything. An accusation alone was enough for them to throw taxpayer money at Ms Higgins without further enquiry.
And note that the payout was broken down so that only a small amount was for legal expenses. Most of the payment was for losses and damages alleged suffered by Higgins, something for which we have her word only.
So the payout was clearly an abuse of justice. If a mere accusation is enough to inspire a government payout, why do we have courts at all?
The Albanese government paid Brittany Higgins more than $2.4m compensation in a settlement that relied entirely upon the former Liberal staffer’s version of events, despite contrary versions from key witnesses who were excluded from a single-day mediation of her claim.
Lawyers described both the amount and the speed of the settlement – finalised just days after Bruce Lehrmann’s rape trial was abandoned in the ACT Supreme Court – as “extraordinary” and “unprecedented”.
The deed of settlement between Ms Higgins and the commonwealth was released on Thursday in the defamation trial brought by Bruce Lehrmann against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson over Ms Higgins’ allegation on The Project that she was raped by him in Parliament House in 2019, after her lawyers successfully asked that personal medical information be excluded.
Justice Michael Lee, presiding over the trial, had earlier stated there was “a disparity between the evidence (Ms Higgins) gave in these proceedings and the truth of the matter”, which made the settlement deed “substantially relevant”.
The document shows that the commonwealth did not admit it had breached its duty of care to Ms Higgins when it paid her the multimillion-dollar settlement, contrary to claims she made to the court earlier this week.
The document reveals that the federal government ensured it was released from any future claims by Ms Higgins but left former Liberal ministers Linda Reynolds and Michaelia Cash open to further legal action by the former staffer, a carve-out clause that was not fully communicated to either of the two senators.
Ms Higgins testified on Tuesday that “the commonwealth admitted that they breached their duty of care and that they didn’t go through proper processes, so that’s actually why they settled with me”.
However, the deed of settlement – dated December 13, 2022 – expressly states that the parties have agreed to resolve all claims between them “without any admissions of liability”.
The one-day mediation took place 10 days after ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold announced he would not be proceeding with a retrial of rape charges against Mr Lehrmann due to Ms Higgins’ fragile mental health.
The deed shows that the total amount paid to Ms Higgins was $2.445m, not $2.3m as the former staffer stated in the Federal Court on Tuesday.
Ms Higgins received $1.48m for loss of earning capacity for 40 years; $400,000 for hurt, distress and humiliation; $220,000 for medical expenses; $100,000 for “past and future domestic assistance”; and $245,000 for legal costs.
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Our lost leaders
Albo thought he could lead but is now crippled -- both politically and psychologically -- by his huge blunder with the "Voice"
We are living through an age of extreme populism, meaning the mainstream political class rarely has the courage of its convictions. If indeed there still are convictions among modern leaders. The recipe for political success these days is dictated by winning, little more.
When politics shifted from a calling to a vocation, it professionalised, so that entering parliament became little different to entering the workforce.
That’s the benign loss of conviction we see domestically.
Overseas the rise and rise of populism is manifesting in far more scary ways. Perhaps we should be grateful.
Finding ways to secure three more years in office rather than putting policy passion first is now the key performance indicator Australian mainstream politicians judge themselves by. Which is why I’m not entirely critical of Anthony Albanese’s decision to seek a voice to parliament via constitutional reform.
Sure, the campaign was poorly crafted and badly argued, and the need to enshrine such change was questionable in the first place. But at least he was prepared to have a crack, in a policy area he believes in, in a political climate in which change is becoming harder to achieve.
Unfortunately, the lesson learnt in failure is that political reward for effort is questionable, meaning further passion in policy is unlikely. Subsequently, pursuing constitutional reform to become a republic has been ruled out, even though becoming a republic is part of Labor’s policy platform. Even though the Prime Minister appointed an Assistant Minister for the Republic.
What republic? What advocacy for a republic? What agenda or timeline to one day become a republic? As embarrassing as this executive position now is, it will be even more embarrassing if it’s not junked at the next reshuffle.
When populism always trumps ideological or policy convictions the mantra from political leaders becomes “I am your leader, let me follow you”, rather than displays of leadership enacting unpopular but necessary reforms. Political scientists have studied representation and leadership theory for decades. The form of leadership we increasingly are seeing today fits within the delegate model: elected politicians simply reflecting the will of their community rather than seeking to shape it.
Which to a certain extent is fine for local MPs championing their constituencies; parish-pump politicians looking to secure local funding for roads and community halls or outcomes for individual voters who seek their assistance.
But much more is needed when it comes to executive government. The trustee model of representation essentially calls on political leaders to do what they believe is in the best interests of voters, even if it’s not always the popular course of action.
Eighteenth century conservative philosopher Edmund Burke championed such leadership. It resulted in a very short political career when he announced such intentions shortly after election to the British House of Commons. He was voted out at the next election.
While there is rarely virtue in putting principles ahead of pragmatism all the time, it’s important for politicians to retain some policy integrity along the way.
Political leaders, having been briefed by their bureaucracy on the various needs of the nation, should determine that major reforms are necessary and worth the political risk, even if voters aren’t necessarily equipped to automatically agree. Especially if the recommendations from the bureaucracy fit within their party’s ideological platform and their own values.
It is the job of politicians to win the argument championing necessary reforms. That skill is waning. To be sure, ideological reforms have long been championed in this way, such as when British prime minister Margaret Thatcher pushed her economic agenda in the 1980s, proclaiming: “Yes, the medicine is harsh, but the patient requires it in order to live.” Her concern was Britain’s declining economy and international standing. Thatcher’s turn of phrase was reserved for her cabinet because in politics such frank proclamations rarely are well received.
Modern politicking and “gotcha” journalism work against the ability for politicians to make unpopular decisions. The contest of ideas that ideological differences generate naturally adds to the difficulty of enacting policies. But it has become worse than that. Pragmatism now dictates how oppositions calibrate what they choose to support and oppose more so than ideological differences do.
You can’t blame politicians for opposing what their convictions disagree with, but what about when opposition is dictated by nothing more than political advantage?
Plenty within the commentariat are quick to level this accusation at Peter Dutton, for example, because of his opposition to the voice. I’m not sure that’s a fair assessment; his convictions led him to that position when opposing the voice was decidedly unpopular, as those same commentators were quick to report. But there are other examples where the Coalition is led by populism in opposition rather than ideology. This transformation has become so entrenched that convictions seem to entail little more than kowtowing to the mob. They have become intertwined with populism.
The catch-22 for anyone who supports heady reforms (economic or social) as we count down to the next election in the coming 12 months is that the government doesn’t have policy courage, burnt by the voice campaign.
Meanwhile, the opposition is unlikely to support necessary but unpopular reforms because it sees political advantage in wedging Labor, even if the government finds a policy backbone.
Gone are the days of Paul Keating and Bob Hawke doing what’s right but unpopular. Also gone are the days when the Coalition in opposition puts the national interest above political advantage, as John Howard did in the 1980s, backing many of Keating’s micro-economic ideas against the urgings of Liberal Party strategists.
Thirty years on, everyone knows the Australian federation is broken structurally and in need of reform, but no one in a position of political power is prepared to risk doing something about it. This isn’t an ideological debate, yet it still isn’t on the political agenda.
The same goes for the need to institute wholesale tax reforms. Instead, what we get are piecemeal changes at best, such as the stages one, two and three income tax cuts, unconnected from adjustments to wealth, consumption and rent tax reforms.
Who in mainstream politics will risk their career by bucking the trend – to lead, rather than follow?
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Back to School Warning on Forced Marriage of Students
Our charming Muslim population I guess
Australian school communities are being urged to watch out for signs of forced marriage and raise the alarm if they suspect a student is in danger.
Teachers and classmates are often best placed to spot human trafficking, according to Australian Federal Police.
A family history of leaving education early, being uneasy about an upcoming family holiday, concerns about marrying at a young age and being worried about physical or psychological violence are common signs to look out for, the force said.
Red flags also include control outside the home, such as surveillance, having limited control over finances or life decisions and restricted communications.
Commander Helen Schneider said most reported victims are young women and girls but it can also affect men and boys.
“Forced marriage is not limited to any cultural group, religion or ethnicity,” Commander Schneider said.
“Anyone can be a victim of forced marriage, regardless of their age, gender or sexual orientation.”
Police define the crime as person entering marriage due to coercion, threats, deception or without fully consenting due to factors like mental capacity or age.
It’s been a crime in Australia since 2013 and applies to legal, cultural or religious ceremonies here and overseas.
Federal police received 340 reports of human trafficking, including forced marriage and sexual servitude, in 2022/23.
That’s a 15.6 percent increase on the previous 12 months, with Commander Schneider describing the rise as encouraging considering it’s thought to be under reported.
“Disrupting human trafficking represents an excellent outcome, unlike other crime types where we focus on prosecution,” she explained.
“Instead of prosecuting a forced marriage, if we can prevent it from occurring in the first place, then it’s a positive outcome for would-be victims and investigators.”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/back-to-school-warning-on-forced-marriage-of-students-5570258
*************************************************More anti-car policies from Greens
Brisbane could be harder for drivers but easier for cyclists and pedestrians under a sweeping proposal by the Greens to "de-prioritise" cars in favour of people.
The Streets for People Plan includes 100 "traffic-calming projects" designed to slow or reduce the number of cars in Brisbane's neighbourhoods.
As part of the plan, the party has vowed to spend $500 million over the next four years on 200 pedestrian crossings, 35 kilometres of bike lanes and 200km of footpaths.
Brisbane LNP deputy mayor Krista Adams said Brisbane drivers should be "very concerned" about the possibility of the Greens getting into power.
She said the party's "radical agenda" would mean higher taxes and less funding for road infrastructure.
"This latest attack on motorists by the Greens' self-declared anarchist candidate is further proof that anyone who owns a car in Brisbane should be terrified about a Green/Labor coalition of chaos running City Hall," Cr Adams said.
"This reckless and costly plan will cause widespread traffic chaos and force Brisbane households to pay higher rates and rents."
Plan to end 'car-centrism'
Greens mayoral candidate Jonathan Sriranganathan said his party's plan would put pedestrians first and free families from car dependency.
Mr Sriranganathan, a longstanding critic of "car-centrism", said the major parties had prioritised wider roads and more cars at the expense of everybody else.
He said Brisbane's walking and cycling network was full of gaps, which meant pedestrians had to "live in fear" because of the car-centric city planning.
"If you wouldn't feel safe letting your child walk or ride to school, that shows our active transport infrastructure isn't up to scratch," Mr Sriranganathan said.
"Wherever you go in the world, the most popular and pleasant neighbourhoods are the ones where cars are de-prioritised … we want Brisbane streets to serve as vibrant public spaces where active transport comes first."
Close calls
Greens Paddington candidate Seal Chong Wah said her ward was neither safe nor convenient for pedestrians.
Ms Wah said she'd been told by Paddington locals about close calls with traffic, particularly those with limited mobility.
The Brisbane mum said she witnessed the issue firsthand, when two students narrowly avoided being hit by a large four-wheeled drive at Rosalie Village.
"One of the very first acts of the new LNP councillor was to cancel a vital pedestrian crossing project at Rosalie Village," Ms Wah said.
"Rosalie Village is a beautiful community hub packed with local businesses, cafes and restaurants, but everyone knows it's not safe for pedestrians."
The plan also includes protected bike lanes on 15 high-priority corridors and lower speed limits on certain residential streets.
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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)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Sunday, January 21, 2024
The collapse of conservatism
James Allan below writes well but takes insufficient notice of the fact that conservative policies have always undergone a lot of change. Consistency in answer to the question "What is a conservative?" will always be hard to find over the long run. That is because ALL politicians have to react to changes in the world about them and changes in reality will often require changing policies.
That is not to say that there is abolutely no consistency in what makes a conservative. Consistecy CAN be found but it is at the pychological, not the policy level. In a nutshell, the essence of conservatism is caution and the essence of Leftism is anger. Whatever they do, conservatives will be cautious, as they see that, at the time
In the developed Anglosphere countries over the past couple of centuries, there has been a general understanding of what it means to be a conservative voter. In rough and ready terms, with plenty of arguments and differences at the periphery, conservatives wanted to keep in place the main tenets of the core institutions, practices, conventions, and principles that had worked up till then. They were for conserving. Not everything, always and forever. Not in aspic jelly with no changes or innovations ever allowed but rather with a prima facie weighting towards the status quo and with the burden on those proposing change and restructuring to make a clear case why the novel was preferable to what was already in place. Gradual reform over idealistic revolutionary aspirationalism. Clearly, as I said, there was plenty of room for intra-conservative fights and disagreements. But the general proclivity for the established and ‘what already was in place and seemed to work moderately well’ was plain.
Spelled out in those terms it is pretty obvious that the desire to conserve what happens to exist is contingent. It depends on where you happen to be and when. No sane person would want to be described as a ‘conservative’ in today’s North Korea, and only religious zealots in today’s Iran. Put bluntly, there is an element of luck as to whether it makes sense to be a Tory or conservative. It is time and place contingent, along with depending on the sort of instincts, preferences, and political taste buds the individual brings to the table.
I am a big fan of the Scottish sceptical philosopher David Hume, one of the all-time greats. In fact, I did my philosophy doctorate on his moral and legal thinking. But Samuel Johnson, London high Tory, wit, and author of the first real English dictionary, was rather scornful of Hume. His renowned biographer James Boswell reported Johnson as saying of Hume ‘that he’s just a Tory by chance; if anything he’s a Hobbesian’. I’ve always thought that Johnsonian description of Hume rather excellent. It’s just that Johnson meant it as a stinging criticism whereas I think it shows the genius of Hume.
In a way, it is just chance whether it is sensible for anyone to be a Tory or favour conservative political positions. And that brings us to the present day in countries such as the US, Canada, Britain, and Australia. Because what should those described as ‘conservatives’ want to conserve right now? You might think ‘the presumption of innocence’ would be a no-brainer. But vote for the Libs in 2019 and you got a prime minister, Scott Morrison, who wouldn’t grasp or adhere to this principle if it walked up and hit him in the head. Just ask Bruce Lehrmann. Or Christine Holgate. Or a fair few of his own cabinet ministers. And let’s be clear that today’s Australian legal fraternity hardly makes one confident it cares much, if at all, about this formerly core precept in the criminal justice system.
Or take the notions of free speech and an impartial and questioning media. No one with a functioning brain could have come through the pandemic years with any confidence our present institutions and establishment class uphold either of these. The same goes for upholding our core civil liberties. I don’t mean rushing off to bring picayune standards against the government when those seeking to come to this country illegally are involved. Our judges can be counted on to do that. I mean that over the two and half years of the pandemic, we saw the ‘greatest inroads on our civil liberties in two hundred years’ (the words of former UK Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption, and they’re correct), and yet not a single country in the Anglosphere saw judges do anything. And I mean countries with potent bills of rights included. The judges pushed back against government Covid brutality not one whit. The legal establishment was all in on the fear-mongering and enforcement of what a moment’s thought would have told you were nonsensical rules dreamt up by puffed-up bureaucrats. (Did you see Mr Fauci in the US last week concede that the six-foot separation rule was just made up out of thin air and had no scientific basis?) Put it this way, those of us known as ‘conservatives’ have very little reason to want to conserve the ABC, do we? And given its profligacy, making up out of thin air the ‘National Cabinet’, and willingness to facilitate state premiers’ thuggery, tell me what there is to want to conserve about today’s Liberal party? (I avoided mentioning the state Liberal iteration in Victoria because, well, it is so pathetic it doesn’t really feel fair picking on people who take sides against those who simply believe that those with XX chromosomes will always be different than those with XY chromosomes, and that public policies will sometimes have to reflect that core fact about the external, causal world however much it might hurt some people’s feelings.)
I could keep going for some time. Treasury and the RBA seem to be completely in thrall to Keynesianism. They just whitter on about GDP and never mention Australia’s pretty ordinary to awful recent record as regards GDP per person. A side effect is that our political class is addicted to big immigration to keep GDP looking okay even as it makes individuals poorer, traffic far worse, and house prices more astronomical. (And yes we should all feel sorry for today’s younger generation because it is way, way harder to buy a house today than when we were all younger – look at average wage to average house price – and no amount of shunning a daily flat white will fix that.) Put bluntly again, I don’t see much reason to conserve the economic thinking that prevails at present. Heck, the entire political caste, with only a few exceptions here and there, seem to be out of sync with the average voter. The Voice referendum sure showed that while exposing the faultlines in the Liberal party. Then there’s the universities, (not what they were I can assure you all), the corporate boardrooms, the list goes on.
So what do we voters formerly known as ‘conservatives’ do when much of what was worth conserving has been jettisoned? Tough question. But I think I’ve gone a long way in explaining the appeal of Mr Trump, the so-called populist parties in Europe, and the current Tory leader in Canada, Mr. Poilievre, who is up 10-15 points in the polls. He’s promised all sorts of ‘radical’ policies such as halving the CBC’s budget. And we ‘conservatives’ love it.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/01/taking-conserve-out-of-conservative/
******************************************************Crooked Greenie scientist
The University of Western Australia scientist found by the Federal Court to have “lied” when preparing a report that helped block Santos’s $5bn Barossa gas project had earlier been compelled to make multiple corrections to another disputed piece of work.
But oil and gas giant Woodside Energy says it will not be carrying out any review of the work done by Mick O’Leary that found the undersea pipeline at Woodside’s contentious $US12bn Scarborough LNG project would have little to no impact on archaeological heritage values in the rock art-rich Burrup region.
The findings delivered this week by Federal Court Justice Natalie Charlesworth savaged Dr O’Leary’s research into the potential impact of Santos’s Barossa pipeline on underwater cultural heritage sites and sacred dreaming places of Tiwi Islanders.
In handing down her decision dismissing the Tiwi Islanders’ legal challenge to Barossa, Justice Charlesworth was scathing of Dr O’Leary’s conduct while carrying out cultural mapping.
“Dr O’Leary’s admission was freely volunteered, such that he did not lie to the court. But he did lie to the Tiwi Islanders, and I find that he did so because he wanted his ‘cultural mapping’ exercise to be used in a way that would stop the pipeline,” she said.
“It is conduct far flung from proper scientific method and falls short of an expert’s obligation to this court.”
The court’s findings cast new light on the stoush that has played out inside UWA in recent years, with Dr O’Leary’s colleagues having previously raised issues with some of his methods.
UWA researchers led by geoarchaeologist Ingrid Ward and her husband Piers Larcombe in 2022 wrote a paper that was highly critical of the findings made by Dr O’Leary and others in their research into Indigenous artefacts on Western Australia’s Burrup Peninsula.
Dr O’Leary and his colleagues fired back with a retort describing the critique as a “wet straw man”. The response dismissed “armchair critics ignorant of recent developments in the field” and said “their critique is detrimental to the development of this entire field of archaeology, as well as damaging to the rights and interests of coastal Indigenous communities throughout Australia”.
But Dr O’Leary also went on to publish in June 2023 a correction to his original report, making multiple revisions to his original text. Those corrections included addressing errors in three statistical analyses and “additional discussion of interpretations”.
That original report was prepared by a group called Deep History of Sea Country, a collection of academics from various Australian universities and which has won more than $2m in funding from the Australian Research Council since 2017.
The group’s project with the biggest ARC grant – worth just over $1.1m – began on July 1 last year, just a fortnight before the corrections to the original report were formally published.
Despite Dr O’Leary’s corrections, in December Dr Ward and Dr Larcombe’s paper was retracted. The journal Geoarchaelogy said the retraction was the result of “evidence confirming that the required university approvals were not sought prior to the research being conducted”.
Dr Larcombe, who had earlier questioned whether Dr O’Leary should maintain his position at UWA in the wake of the Federal Court’s findings, said he still stood by the scientific content of the criticism. The retraction, he said, was “not about the quality of the science” and that the process that led to retraction was still under review.
Woodside, meanwhile, confirmed that it would not be re-examining the work Dr O’Leary did for the company when it was assessing the cultural impact of its proposed Scarborough pipeline.
Dr O’Leary in 2021 helped design a research project to assess areas of archaeological prospectivity along the pipeline route within the proposed development area. Sea level changes since the last ice age mean some artefact-rich and heritage-rich areas of the Burrup Peninsula are now underwater, and Dr O’Leary’s research helped establish that the Scarborough pipeline plans would not damage potentially undiscovered rock art examples. The Scarborough project has attracted opposition from some Indigenous groups, with one of those – Save Our Songlines – last year securing a court injunction against Scarborough’s seismic testing program.
“Woodside does not intend to reassess an earlier scope of work undertaken by Dr O’Leary between 2020 – 2021, which was also subject to independent expert review. Dr O’Leary was one of several contributors to a suite of work relating to the identification of submerged cultural heritage, which also included close consultation with Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation,” a spokesman for the company said.
“Woodside considers Dr O’Leary’s contribution was within his area of expertise and exceeded baseline industry standards.”
The Federal Court’s findings have also sparked scrutiny of the potential conflicts that can arise when academics are commissioned to consult on projects.
Professor Peter Ridd, a physicist who was sacked from his role at James Cook University after he flagged concerns over some of the university’s climate change research, told The Weekend Australian that Santos should consider taking legal action against UWA in the wake of the court’s findings.
He said it would take such a legal challenge for universities to increase the intellectual rigour and scrutiny applied to consultancy work. “If Santos actually takes UWA to court, it will start to concentrate the minds of universities to actually do the job they’re supposed to do,” he said, adding: “UWA should carry a significant fraction of the responsibility for what happened.”
Santos declined to comment on whether it was considering any further legal options.
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Consent laws ‘criminalise spontaneous marital sex’, says Queensland Law Society
New sexual consent laws in Queensland could criminalise married couples having spontaneous sex and be misused in messy divorce cases, the state’s peak legal body warns.
The Queensland Law Society has told state MPs their attempts to replicate consent laws in other jurisdictions – which demand a person get “affirmative” consent before sex – could lead to miscarriages of justice.
But the parliamentary committee reviewing the consent bill has ignored the Law Society’s warnings and recommended the bill go to a vote.
The Queensland Law Society, in a submission to the committee, said the state’s proposed bill could criminalise spontaneous sex between long-term partners because they would be required to explicitly communicate consent.
“A long-term married couple may have spontaneous sexual intercourse without any prior explicit communication because their history enables them to understand each other’s non-verbal behaviours,” the submission reads. “(The bill) is an inappropriate extension of the criminal law.”
NSW, the ACT, Tasmania and Victoria have reformed consent laws in recent years to adopt an affirmative model, in the wake of the MeToo movement after many alleged victims came forward to reveal their experiences with sexual assault and the justice system.
Queensland’s recommended reforms come as the federal government on Saturday releases a national framework guiding consent messaging for young people, which champions consent as “affirmative” and “communicated”.
The QLS said it did not support a provision in the bill that "a person who does not offer physical or verbal resistance to an act is not, by reason only of that fact, to be taken to consent to the act”.
“It should not be passed because it artificially limits the circumstances in which consent is, in fact, given and is not good law,” the submission reads.
“Queensland law already recognises that silence or lack of resistance does not equal consent in R v Shaw (1996) when the Court of Appeal stated that ‘a complainant who at or before the time of sexual penetration fails by word or action to manifest her dissent is not in law thereby taken to have consented to it’.”
The QLS said the proposed laws could be weaponised by parties undergoing disharmonious divorce proceedings, which could result in a “miscarriage of justice”.
“Take a long-term married couple (as an) example again. Suppose that five years later they are divorced. Person A subsequently alleges that the ‘spontaneous sexual intercourse’ was rape. Why should Person B be prevented from saying that s/he believed there was consent arising from the context of their previous long-term loving relationship where sex was often initiated on the basis of non-verbal cues and without physical resistance,” the submission reads.
The Queensland Council for Civil Liberties agreed with the QLS submission, adding that there is not enough clarity around what the consent laws would look like for those in long-term relationships.
“For example, a couple in a long-term relationship have sex every Friday night after dinner, they need something more than the relationship and its understandings to establish consent,” the QCCL submission reads.
“However, the proposed statute does not make it clear what that is.”
But on Friday afternoon, the report from the state parliament’s Legal Affairs and Safety Committee recommended the government adopt the controversial bill, saying “many stakeholders supported the implementation of an affirmative consent model”.
“This bill implements a host of recommendations from multiple inquiries, including the Hear her Voice reports from the Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce, the Commission of Inquiry into the Queensland Police Service, and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse,” the report forward, written by Labor MP Peter Russo, says.
“Years of investigations, reviews, hearings and submissions at both levels of government across Queensland have shown one thing – the need for change.
“This bill is about change. Changing how we think about and treat consent. Changing how the criminal justice system responds to coercive or controlling behaviour. Changing how juries are to be directed, how first-time domestic violence offenders can be channelled towards rehabilitation, and what considerations exist when deciding bail and sentencing.”
Queensland Liberal MPs said the inquiry into the bill did not go far enough to address the concerns of the QLS and the QCCL, and “significant concerns” remain about its present form.
“It cannot be enough to only discuss some of the more minor concerns raised by learned and serious stakeholders,” an addendum to the report, written by Laura Gerber and Jon Krause, reads.
“This report should have reflected the significant issues raised by submitters, and it is the opposition’s opinion that at present this is seriously deficient. These serious issues have largely been ignored.”
The government has three months to respond to the committee’s report.
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Australia day is worth celebrating
Senator Jacinta Price astounded the nation during the recent referendum campaign when, courageously, she dared tell a journalist there were no ongoing negative impacts of colonisation.
The only continuing impacts, she said, were positive.
Pointing out that Aborigines have the same opportunities as other Australians, she said that constantly telling them they were victims was ‘the worst possible thing’ that can be done to any human being, creating the impression that ‘someone else’ was responsible for their lives.
She said that those in remote communities who experience the ‘highest rates of violence in the country’ do not do so because of colonisation.
It was because ‘young girls are married off to older husbands in arranged marriages’.
These were certainly not the answers expected by the many Australians indoctrinated by our seriously failing education system as well as those in the mainstream media who would push a victimhood agenda.
Chairing the function, the Sydney Morning Herald’s David Crowe challenged her unorthodox denials about colonialism.
‘Would you accept that there have been generations of trauma as a result of that (colonial) history?’ he asked.
Referring to her mixed-race background, Senator Price said this would mean that those whose ancestors were brought to Australia in chains as convicts were also suffering from intergenerational trauma.
‘So, I should be doubly suffering from intergenerational trauma,’ she declared.
This brought the house down and Mr Crowe moved immediately to the next question.
In one fell swoop, Senator Price exposed what Keith Windschuttle long ago named the fabrication of Aboriginal history.
Little wonder that the big talking point across Australia after this was that hers were the words of a future prime minister.
That struck terror into the heart of the ruling elite wondering what on Earth they had unleashed.
The establishment does not of course accept the landslide defeat of the Voice referendum, just as they do not accept any refusal to agree with every new dogma imported into Australia and designed to undermine Western civilisation, however ridiculous.
The Voice referendum has taught Australians two things.
First, rank-and-file Australians are far more capable of taking common-sense decisions for the benefit of the country than their elite rulers.
Second, a small but determined far-left minority plans to take over and seriously damage the country. They will never stop raising new ways to undermine Australia.
Australians are realising the danger of compromising on fundamental matters.
Among these is Australia Day.
It represents exactly what Jacinta Price was arguing. What 1788 unleashed was of course not perfect, but its consequences have been of great benefit to all Australians.
Although they deny it, the Albanese government’s policy is to undermine Australia Day. Why else did it remove the requirement that naturalisation ceremonies take place on Australia Day?
Now, over 80 local councils have joined the Albanese campaign to change Australia Day.
Yet councils are famously only about the three ‘Rs’– roads, rubbish, and rates. Foreign policy, global warming catastrophism, or undermining Australia Day are not within their purview, nor do they need useless overseas trips and vast expense accounts.
Let them have a sword of Damocles over their heads ─ recall elections, either for a specific alderman or a whole council.
This could be triggered by a petition of no confidence signed by, say, five to ten per cent of voters.
Australia Day, it must be emphasised, commemorates a settlement, not an invasion.
It was inconceivable this continent would not have been settled or otherwise acquired, although most European or Asian powers had shown little interest.
Only the British and French did, and only the British had both the will and the capacity to settle the country. They were by far the best colonisers and the ones most inclined to treat the Aborigines fairly with Governor Phillip instructed in detail to ‘conciliate’ the ‘affections of the Aboriginal people’, and to live in ‘amity and kindness, with them’, and moreover, ‘to do them no wrong’.
As to the Aboriginal people, rather than life being utopian, it epitomised Hobbes’s description of primitive life as ‘nasty, brutish and short’.
Their reaction to British settlement has been misrepresented as involving frontier wars. That there was nothing that could be referred to as a frontier war has been painstakingly demonstrated by Keith Windschuttle in his book The Break-Up of Australia, published by Quadrant Books in 2016 and discussed at length in ADH TV interviews.
Rather than resistance in any significant way, what occurred was a mutual accommodation of the indigenous people into the settlement. As Windschuttle observes, by 1805, barely ten years after the establishment of the Hawkesbury settlement, and after only ‘a handful of interracial incidents’, Governor King found the ‘most effective punishment’ he could impose on Aborigines was to ‘deprive them of the company of British settlers’.
The best reward he could offer was to ‘allow them to come back into colonial society again’.
The important point to remember is that the British did not come alone with their extraordinary, unprecedented First Fleet.
They brought with them what are still the pillars of the nation, the rule of law, the English language, our Judeo-Christian values, and access to a sophisticated form of government, probably the most sophisticated in the world at the time.
As to the rule of law, those who would liken the penal colony to a gulag should be reminded that the very first case brought in the colony was by a convict, reported as Cable v. Sinclair [1788] NSWKR 11.
Brought by Henry Cable against the captain of a ship in the First Fleet concerning the theft of goods, the court found for Cable, who later became a successful businessman.
Can those who say NSW, as a penal colony, was a gulag, point to a similar case where a Soviet court made a similar award? This case illustrates how the settlement was already the basis of the development of an extraordinary country, one which is gradually being devastated by the delinquency of its ruling class.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/01/keeping-australia-day
************************************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)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Thursday, January 18, 2024
Muslim hate speech is ok
Under NSW hate speech law, Andrew Bolt was successfuly prosescuted for criticizing the claims of some people with white skin to be Aborigines. That was construed as "hate".
The speech below is virulent hate, not the simple comment that Bolt made. Yet it skates. How come? There appears to be special liberties for Muslims
NSW Police have dropped inquiries into a cleric who prayed to Allah to “kill them one by one” in reference to “Zionist Jews”, saying the comments did not breach state hate-speech protections.
On Tuesday, The Australian revealed that Sydney sheik Kamal Abu Mariam – who has ties with former All Black Sonny Bill Williams and former league star Anthony Mundine – gave a sermon at Roselands Mosque last year, in which he made the call during an Islamic prayer.
The Australian can also reveal, in that same sermon, the sheik described the virtues Allah would bestow on martyrs, and how those unable to fight in the Middle East could still “receive rewards”.
“Oh Allah … beat the (usurping) Zionist Jews,” the sheik said in Arabic, translated to English by The Australian.
“Oh Allah, we hope you count them and kill them one by one, and don’t keep any (one) of them … shake the ground under their feet … make an example of them.”
The sheik’s comments appeared to be referring to “Zionist Jews” in Israel, as opposed to those in Australia – although a well-placed legal source said that distinction “should be irrelevant”.
On Wednesday, a NSW Police spokeswoman said the force could not pursue the matter further. “As a part of the investigation, the content of the (sermon) video was reviewed and it was ascertained that it did not meet the threshold of any criminal offence,” she said.
Section 93Z of the NSW criminal code, which outlaws incitements of violence on the basis of race or religion, was recently strengthened by the government, which removed the requirement for police to seek approval before laying charges.
Williams and Mundine have said they helped donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to help fund a new mosque “spearheaded” by the sheik and, in 2018, the former All Black called the religious leader his “spiritual guider” in a post to Twitter, now called X.
During the sermon, in English, Sheik Abu Mariam also cited the Hadith and referenced what Allah bestowed upon martyrs.
“He (a martyr) will be forgiven with the first drop of blood that comes (from) him,” he said. “He will see his place in paradise … given a crown upon his head.”
The sheik warned the audience there were “consequences for those who laze around”. “He who does not fight for the cause of Allah, nor speaks within himself about fighting the cause … he dies on a branch of hypocrisy,” he said, acknowledging that those he was preaching to would struggle to fight to become a martyr.
“We might not be able to do the first (fight for Allah), due to the circumstances and where we live,” he said.
The sheik said Muslims who boycotted Israeli-linked products would still receive “rewards”.
Federal opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said if the state government failed to act “it was time the federal government did”.
“There are anti-incitement provisions in the Commonwealth Criminal Code for this purpose,” the senator said, citing section 80.2A, which outlaws urging violence against a group on the basis of religion or race.
“If they are not used now it makes a mockery of the law and will only lead to more hateful conduct with devastating consequences.”
Visiting Australian National University constitutional law professor Matt Qvortrup, when provided with Sheik Abu Mariam’s comments, said that the rhetoric would be prosecuted in the UK. “I don’t see how it wouldn’t (breach British legislation),” he said. “Naming a group and (saying Allah) should kill them – that would have fallen foul of UK laws.”
Premier Chris Minns said he would change existing laws if they proved inoperable.
“We are not averse to changing the laws around hate speech if we don’t believe that they are capturing the kind of inflammatory and racist rhetoric that’s designed to pull people apart,” he said.
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Google Strikes Solar Farm Deal to Accelerate Net Zero Transition in Australia
Internet giant Google has stepped up its net zero transition in Australia by investing in a new solar farm in New South Wales (NSW).
On Dec. 19, data centre firm AirTrunk, Swedish energy company OX2, and Google announced a partnership on renewable energy.
The three companies have agreed to enter into a long-term Power Purchase Agreement and will develop a 25-megawatt solar farm in Riverina, NSW.
OX2 will be responsible for constructing the solar farm, while AirTrunk will buy the renewable energy generated by the farm and associated energy attribute certificates with time-matching to Google’s consumption.
The move is Google’s latest effort to achieve the goal of operating its offices and data centres on 24/7 “carbon-free” energy in Australia by 2030.
“Industry collaboration and innovation are crucial to achieving our ambitious sustainability objectives, including our efforts to drive a substantial increase in carbon-free energy capacity across the Asia Pacific region,” said Mel Silva, the managing director at Google Australia.
“As part of our broader Digital Future Initiative, this project will see us support local infrastructure to tackle big challenges like climate change while also further solidifying the foundations of a growth-centric yet sustainable digital economy.”
AirTrunk chief customer and innovation officer Damien Spillane believed the partnership would play an important role in helping Australia achieve net zero emissions.
“Our collaboration with Google and OX2 will deliver new renewable energy capacity into the grid on the east coast of Australia,” he said in a statement.
“Developments like this are critical to accelerating progress towards a carbon-free future in Australia.”
The three companies expected the solar farm to commence operation in 2025.
However, they did not disclose the amount of investment needed to build the project.
Google is not the only tech company that is aggressively pursuing net zero emissions.
Other global tech giants such as Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple also have ambitious net zero goals.
In 2021, Facebook declared that it had achieved net zero after cutting 94 percent of emissions in three years, while Apple announced that it aimed to become carbon neutral with its entire supply chain by 2030.
Google Executive Admits Significant Mining Is Needed for Net Zero
Amid the race to net zero, Google is aware that the company needs a significant amount of key mineral resources from mining to secure a carbon-free future.
During a June conference in Seattle, Mike Werner, the head of circular economy at Google, outlined the need for new mining activities to keep up with product demand and the net zero transition.
“We’ve done some modelling, and it’s pretty clear that we are not going to reach net zero without significant mining,” he said, according to GreenBiz.
“I don’t know that the broad sustainability community has really understood that.”
While Google had tried to extract minerals from old appliances, it was not enough to meet the company’s consumption.
Mr. Werner also predicted that countries around the world would need to remove “trillions and trillions of tons” of soil to get the minerals required to build the technologies and infrastructures for net zero.
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Aborigines can make threats of violence with no consequences
The Aborigine concerned
When an Indigenous adviser to Transport for NSW threatened to kill senior executive Rochelle Hicks last year, government officials tried to have Ms Hicks removed from her high-level job instead of sacking the man who made the threat.
Internal department documents reveal that just days after a terrified Ms Hicks demanded that action be taken against cultural heritage manager Ian Brown, her boss sought to remove her from the Coffs Harbour Bypass project because the incident was placing the $2.2bn project “at significant risk”.
Last year, The Australian revealed Mr Brown was allowed to stay in his contracted role “because he is Aboriginal and a cultural knowledge holder”, with Transport for NSW officials fearing the massive project might be shut down if he was sacked.
Ms Hicks, the deputy project director for the Coffs Harbour Bypass, said she had been “used as a sacrificial lamb” by executives who baulked at taking action against an Aboriginal man over conduct that would never be accepted from a white man.
Mr Brown – who was the subject of apprehended violence orders in 2020 – made the death threat against Ms Hicks during a meeting at the Coffs Harbour Local Aboriginal Land Council on 26 June, stating: “If I see Rochelle I will kill her.”
When another participant told Mr Brown he couldn’t make such threats, he responded: “It’s not a threat, it’s a fact.”
Ms Hicks was not present at the meeting but was left shaken when informed of the threat three weeks later – and was distraught when her bosses refused to immediately remove Mr Brown from the project. She says her boss, project director Greg Nash, told her that removing Mr Brown “wouldn’t be an option as it may go political, which would cause project issues”.
When she asked Mr Nash’s superior, Peter McNally, if they accepted Mr Brown’s violent behaviour because he was Aboriginal, Mr McNally allegedly replied: “Absolutely we do. They are treated differently and absolutely we put up with the behaviour because he’s Aboriginal.”
Newly released documents following a call for papers by Nationals MP Sam Farraway substantiate Ms Hicks’ account of the incident and its aftermath and also reveal the plan to remove her from her job after she complained.
On Friday July 21, Ms Hicks sent an email to Mr Nash, copied to Mr McNally, complaining about their inadequate response.
“Do you and Peter McNally accept this language towards women outside of Transport? I am distraught at your lack of support as a leader, and I’m even further upset by the phone conversation I had with Peter McNally … indicating I have to find a solution because Ian Brown is Aboriginal (and) I must accept these behaviours.”
The following day Mr McNally sought support to have Ms Hicks removed from the project.
In an email to TfNSW officials Martin Donaldson and Andrea Rooke, Mr McNally wrote: “We’ve been aware of challenges with Rochelle’s behaviour … of greatest concern has been her open criticism of the project director Greg Nash … which has had a divisive effect on the team.
“It’s critical that we maintain a focused and stable team on the project and retaining Rochelle on site at this point will only further undermine this and place further stress on her.
“As such I need your support to remove her from the project on Monday so that we can address what is a developing rift in our own team placing the project, as well as Greg and Rochelle personally, at significant risk.”
Ms Hicks has stated she was unaware of any issues with her behaviour at any point in the project. These issues appear to have only surfaced following the complaint being lodged.
On Monday July 24, another official advised: “I suggest we may need to seek approval under the EIR delegations 3.21 suspension of employee with or without pay.”
Mr Farraway, a former transport and roads minister who worked with Ms Hicks on the Coffs Harbour Bypass project, says she was “nothing short of professional” and was “a fantastic part of the team”, adding: “They tried to performance review her out of the job and it took months and months before they really started to deal with the issue of the Ian Brown incident. You can see from the documents that no one wants to deal with it.”
Many of the documents released under Mr Farraway’s call for papers have been marked confidential and heavily redacted. Others have not been not released on the grounds that they contain personal information or are subject to legal professional privilege.
In handwritten notes released, Mr Nash defends his “measured” response, claiming Ms Hicks is “acting unreasonably” and “punishing LALC” (the Local Aboriginal Land Council, for whom Mr Brown was working).
He says Ms Hicks is “unable to fully understand the gravity of a knee-jerk reaction” and is using the incident “as a vehicle to inflict damage on myself by taking a moral high ground”.
“Reckless behaviour from RH (Rochelle Hicks)”, he concludes.
Despite subsequent claims by the minister and department that Mr Brown was immediately removed from the project, the documents show this was not the case.
When a decision was finally made to ban Mr Brown from the site, emails reveal something close to panic engulfing the TfNSW team as they prevaricate on informing Coffs Local Aboriginal Land Council chief executive Chris Spencer of the decision.
Mr Spencer had “committed to disciplinary action” against Mr Brown but “he would not expand what this would include”, one official reported.
By late September – more than two months after Ms Hicks sought action over the death threat Mr Brown had made against her – the TfNSW team were still trying to draft a contractual letter to Mr Spencer confirming that Mr Brown was to be excluded from project sites.
A Transport for NSW spokesperson said any complaints made concerning alleged unacceptable workplace behaviour were examined by Transport for NSW and a decision made as to whether appropriate action is to be taken.
“In this case, the Head of Regional Project Delivery, who is responsible for the project and the team delivering the Coffs Harbour Bypass and the relevant decision maker for Transport for NSW, reviewed the complaint and decided no further action be taken against the employee. There was no suspension of the employee.”
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TV trigger warnings are out of control
The warnings on what we now call ‘content’ (i.e. what we used to know as films and TV shows) are getting ever more ludicrous. Almost everything made before 2000 now carries a cigarette packet-style exhortation or exculpation about race, sex and offensive attitudes.
But it’s getting even crazier. A friend of mine was channel hopping over the festive period and caught a stern banner, on nostalgia channel That’s TV, reading, all in capitals:
CONTAINS ADULT HUMOUR AND REFLECTS THE STANDARDS, LANGUAGE AND ATTITUDES OF ITS TIME. SOME VIEWERS MAY FIND THIS CONTENT OFFENSIVE.
What was this antediluvian horror? Birth of a Nation? Song of the South? No, it was an episode of Birds of a Feather – from 2015. Cast your mind back, if you can, to the standards, language and attitudes of the unfathomably distant 2015. Politicians such as David Cameron and Nigel Farage were making headlines. Pop stars Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith were all the rage. And Prince Andrew was in hot water after he was named in documents concerning disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein. So much has changed!
These warnings seem to exist merely to stave off idiots on social media complaining to Ofcom
These warnings are definitionally stupid. They take their viewing audience for fools and treat adults like children. They seem to exist merely to stave off idiots on social media complaining to Ofcom – and often only a solitary idiot, like the one person who lodged an objection to the blacking up in the forgotten children’s sitcom Rogue’s Rock, broadcast on Talking Pictures TV in 2020. The idea that a channel is endorsing what happens in a work of fiction is bizarre – it’s like accusing Penguin Books of endorsing murder because it publishes Crime and Punishment.
Then we have the utter vapidity of stating ‘this programme reflects the attitudes of its time’. How could it not? Is there anybody out there who tunes in to On the Buses from 1971 and is surprised that it reflects the attitudes of Britain in 1971? What attitudes were they expecting it to reflect – those of the Thermidorian Reaction in France in 1794? The attitudes of the Khanate of the Golden Horde circa 1320?
There is also the arrogance of it – the confident pronouncement from a high plane of moral and political certainty. There are, of course, never any warnings for idiotic or hotly contested ‘progressive’ attitudes on screen today.
This silliness set me thinking. In future will there be content warnings on the TV and films made nowadays? If sanity prevails (and that’s a big if), what might such warnings look like? Perhaps something like this:
The ethnic origin of some historical figures may be incorrectly portrayed for DEI purposes, as was commonly done at the time this programme was made. This patronising practice was wrong then and it is wrong now.
This film was made at a time when characters were assigned virtue or villainy on the basis of their race or other identity characteristics. This is obviously deeply offensive and discriminatory and we do not support it.
This TV show contains heavy-handed ‘messaging’ that was intended to close down debate and normalise the crank belief that there are somehow more than two sexes, and that human beings can change sex. These outdated attitudes belong to the past.
This content is from a time when writers were constantly policed by social media and by other writers using the now-discredited theories of ‘lived experience’ and ‘positive representation’. Content creators were not allowed, or were afraid, to use their imagination and instincts to write characters and situations. Some viewers may find this offensive.
This content was made in the 2020s, when it was thought that good writing is showing that the Right People are Good, and the Wrong People are Bad. It also contains puerile attempts to shock and disorient the viewer. Viewer discretion is advised.
This content contains a warning about its content. It was made at a time when idiots presumed the morality of every piece of fictional behaviour depicted was endorsed by the channel that funded it and screened it.
And of course:
This film was made in the 2020s – and therefore it does not accurately reflect those times, or indeed any time in history.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/01/tv-trigger-warnings-are-out-of-control/
************************************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)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
***************************************
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
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