Headlines Wednesday 8th October

Something creepy in this school art class
Piers Akerman
CAN you imagine the screams of outrage there would have been if McDonald’s, the Colonel or Pizza Hut was invited to scout for models by the principal of a primary school in a trendy inner urban suburb like Sydney’s Paddington or Melbourne’s St Kilda?

Furious parents shrieking denunciations of those in charge would have been demanding scalps, the judgment of the school’s head would have been decried.

But when celebrity photographer Bill Henson let Victorian primary school principal Sue Knight know that he was in the market for child models to photograph, she gave him a tour of her St Kilda schoolyard so he could eyeball the youngsters, looking for those whose sexual development was teetering on the brink of adulthood. And, until the incident was revealed by Sydney Morning Herald journalist David Marr in his book on the controversial snapper which was excerpted by the Fairfax press at the weekend, no-one - let alone Marr - was questioning her judgment.

Yet just six months ago, in May, NSW police swooped on the Roslyn Oxley Gallery in Paddington after they received complaints about the picture of a naked adolescent girl which appeared on invitations the gallery sent to an exhibition of Henson’s works.

After a lengthy investigation, it was decided by numerous bodies the works did not constitute pornography and that no further action should be taken.

Knight’s conduct in inviting Henson into the schoolyard is now the subject of a review by the Victorian Education Department and it would seem likely that though some of Henson’s more revealing works have been described as “absolutely disgusting” by no less a figure than Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the storm will blow over and Knight will escape with some minor admonition.

Henson’s work has long attracted attention because of the “edgy” material, particularly the pubescent girls and boys he features. The former Sydney Morning Herald columnist and arts presenter Leo Schofield described Henson’s pictures in an interview with the photographer on the Ovation channel as being of “high eroticism”. Henson did not demur.

Art critic Robert Nelson, a defender of Henson, wrote in The Age of the nude on the Oxley gallery invitation: “A naked lass with budding breasts looks down at the caps lock key on my computer. Her face seems a bit sweaty but the light is dim, as a beam transfixes her from behind and a soft glow fills out her middle with tender reflections and shadows. This tentative juvenile beauty - looking lost and vulnerable,” he continued, was advertising Henson’s Sydney exhibition.

“In the past, I’ve been critical of Henson’s work and have noted the parallel between his images and pornography,” Nelson wrote. “The sense of a powerful male presence of the photographer and a disempowered youngster as model has to be faced. I find the pictures a bit creepy.
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Palin helps keep McCain in the race
Andrew Bolt
Do not underestimate Sarah Palin. Check this elegant yet devastating silencing of a protester. - yet Obama is ahead at almost every turn. Every time he smears or lies his ratings improve. Every time The lies are pointed out, the press covers for him. - ed.
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Putin flexes muscles
Andrew Bolt
Vladimir Putin, fresh from shooting tigers and posing without a shirt, again reminds Russians he’s a he-man
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Activist General sells Rudd’s plan
Andrew Bolt
Governer General Activist General Quentin Bryce wastes no time in exploiting her appointment to play politics, just as if she were actually elected, not selected:

Asked whether she supported the Productivity Commission’s recommendation for 18 weeks’ paid maternity leave and another two weeks for fathers, Ms Bryce said Australia had been committed to paid maternity leave since it ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, more than two decades ago. - of course that is what the baby bonus is - ed
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Populism rules in a crisis
Andrew Bolt
Henry Ergas is scared by Kevin Rudd’s reaction to this crisis:

LIKE Baldrick in the television series Blackadder, Kevin Rudd has a plan, “as cunning as a fox who’s just been appointed professor of cunning at Oxford University”. It’s cunning because it’s so simple - throw billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money at infrastructure - yet so versatile: six months ago, it was the answer to an overheating economy; now it’s the miracle cure for one that faces a credit crunch. Trouble is, far from helping the Australian economy, it risks miring it in waste and inefficiency…
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Wrong time to open our doors
Andrew Bolt
EVEN on the day it was announced, the Rudd Government’s plan to import a million extra people in just three years seemed stupid.

Now, as stock markets melt and shares shrivel, it’s positively dangerous.

Question: Why is the Government running the biggest immigration program in our history just as the economy may be careening into a wall?

Why does it plan in its first term to import the equivalent of the population of Adelaide when even Prime Minister Kevin Rudd concedes unemployment is about to climb?

Oh, sorry - you didn’t know Rudd had so ramped up immigration?

Don’t blame yourself. He never mentioned in his campaign launch last year that he had any such intention.

Shhh. So it came almost out of the blue when - after the election - he quietly opened the gates.
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It’s Henson’s friends that scare me
Andrew Bolt
THE shock isn’t that a photographer roams around a primary school checking the playground for nude models.

There’s a few in every society, after all. No, it’s that artist Bill Henson could do just that at St Kilda Primary School with the support of the then principal, Sue Knight. And not just hers.

It was with Knight’s permission, Henson said, that “I went in there, had a look around at lunchtime and just wandered around while everyone was having their lunch”.

Went in there to see which children looked good enough to photograph. Perhaps photograph naked, if their parents allowed.

Nor, alas, was Knight alone in seeing nothing wrong with Henson’s playground trawl for talent (although we don’t yet know if she was aware Henson is most known for his pictures of children and teenagers nude).

Even the Australian Education Union, whose members have the care of so many children, refused to condemn. Said acting president Meredith Peace: “Scouting - or whatever word you want to use—of people in our schools occurs all the time . . . (O)ur politicians regularly use our schools to promote their own activities.”

You read right.
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UN brains trust strikes again
Andrew Bolt
The United Nations last year again demonstrated the acute judgement it’s brought to bear on every issue from human rights to global waming, this time giving its coveted elephant stamp to Iceland:

Iceland is the world’s best place to live according to an annual UN report published on Tuesday November 27, 2007. The index takes into consideration figures on life expectancy, education levels, and real per capita income to rank 175 nations of the world.

So, less than 12 months later, let’s drop in to see how the UN’s best place is faring:

Iceland is on the brink of collapse. Inflation and interest rates are raging upwards. The krona, Iceland’s currency, is in freefall and is rated just above those of Zimbabwe and Turkmenistan. One of the country’s three independent banks has been nationalised, another is asking customers for money, and the discredited government and officials from the central bank have been huddled behind closed doors for three days with still no sign of a plan.
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This is serious, folks
Andrew Bolt
Think we can take this as a hint to start worrying big time:

THE Reserve Bank cut interest rates by 100 basis points today, in a bid to shield the Australian economy from the global wreckage. The bigger-than-expected reduction in official rates to 6.00 per cent was the largest cut in rates by the Reserve Bank since May 1992.

Michael Stutchbury:

DON’T just stand there - panic! But it’s a controlled panic from the Reserve Bank, justified by the dramatically increased risk of a credit-crunch recession.

And as for Kevin Rudd’s endless yammering about needing to slay the inflation dragon (bad Liberals!) with high interest rates, forget it:

The Reserve Bank knows that inflation is still likely to rise to close to 5 per cent in figures for the second half of 2008.

In this climate, the Rudd Government’s planned emissions trading scheme will be the world’s longest suicide note.
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We should take to the streets over NSW health
The state of NSW health is so appalling angry citizens should be taking to the streets, according to Alan Jones.