A new low for Fielding First, Labor and Greens
Piers Akerman – Saturday, June 25, 11 (09:28 pm)
AUSTRALIANS of all persuasions are united in the view that, politically, things could not be worse—until they read the next set of headlines and find that things have indeed worsened.
Justice delayed is justice denied. It isn’t solely Fielding who is acting corruptly. All it required was one decent, honest, honourable member of the ALP to stand up. Just one.
Sat 25 Jun 11 (09:48pm)
Sun 26 Jun 11 (05:42am)
‘All it required was one decent, honest, honourable member of the ALP to stand up. Just one’.
That’s the problem DD Ball, there isn’t one. Not one. Currently Federal Labor stinks to high heaven. And Family First’s Steve Fielding is the biggest stinker of all. He’s certainly going to be remembered for going out with a bang. Or maybe it’s a bomb ..... a stink bomb!
Sun 26 Jun 11 (06:07am)
DD Ball,
Don’t hold your breath, there’s nobody in the Labor Party is with a grain of honesty and integrity, nobody, they are all corrupt to the bone, they were feeding their families with proceeds from very indecent means.
Sun 26 Jun 11 (07:37am)
To coin Sony and Cher “and the beat goes on. lardee dardee dar.” We got more of this nonsence coming up when the greens hold the country to ransome come the next sitting of parliment, the real onus was with the Labor party to show some guts and back an inquiry, it’ll come with a change of government we hope!
Sun 26 Jun 11 (07:47am)
The Labor party is the most dishonest and most corrupt organisation in Australia. They are guided by the corrupt and flawed Ideology of the Socialist/Marxist Progressives where everything becomes a lie. Political correctness means expediantly lying when telling the truth is not expediant although there was a rare moment of honesty when the incompetent fool Garrett said” Don’t worry about what we say we will change everything once elected. Thier policies are disastrous just like what like minded Progressive Governments have done to Europe and the US with massive debt and Nations about to collapse as well as initiating the GFC and the Global warming scam. Spain went down this so called Green energy path and now have an economy spiral out of control with 22 % unemployment. A decent, honest, honourable member of the Labor party no longer exist they are made up of S.C,U.M. (Socialist, Communist, Unionist and Marxist) and many of these Lunatics are now in bed with the lunatic Islamic extremist who have teamed up to fight thier enemies, Capitalism and Jews. They believe thier enemies enemy is thier friend. No honour, no decency, no honesty from these loony Left Labor party.
Sun 26 Jun 11 (08:26am)
DD Ball - in my post a few down, the case I have written about concerned a long time employee of Labor Members - not one of them spoke up with even a word of disquiet about what was obvious from the arrest of the MInister was a wrongful act, or indeed in support for a woman who had been a friend. Not a single union spokesperson spoke up about an employee losing her job as a result of reporting child sex crimes, including the one she paid dues to. Not a Labor figure who had used the union movement to seek power - like the former head of the ACTU - Federal Member in the next electorate, or indeed the former senior MUA leader who inherited the seat of Swansea.
This for many people goes to the heart of the lack of any kind of morality or ethics in the Labor party and their union associates. The employee concerned stood for election as an independent and garnered thousands of votes from good people seeking to punish Labor for their behaviour over this. She was undoubtedly responsible for Labor losing that seat. I too am inclined to say that there is not one single decent honest or honourable member of the ALP - not one for whom their own conscience is worth more than their political power anyway.
Sun 26 Jun 11 (08:57am)
That is a bit much to expect when this lot of ALP members ignore emails. None will stand up for the people of Australia.
Two more years and the Country will take decades to recover internationally, morally, ethically and financially.
I can see the workers queued up outside Centrelink Offices across the Nation as Gillard looks on while industry closes down.
The worst is yet to come when a young girl cannot get justice but it takes no time for illegal boat people to access our courts and successfully sue us for compensation for mistreatment.
Sun 26 Jun 11 (10:45am)
“Don’t Cry For Me Argentina!” Cry for victims of Labor criminality and cry for the passing of democracy in this country, and cry for Australia.
Evil people create evil government.
Sun 26 Jun 11 (01:06pm)
Quote : Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate............Will Rogers.
You just wonder why we have a government when we the people are treated so badly. We work; we pay our taxes; we vote for those that then lie to us; we entrust them with our money, but what do they do? We watch regimes around the world treat their people with much hate, inflicting dreadful crimes on their people, starvation, killing etc.
In power we have a PM that calls us “extemists” if we rally against something that will bring hardship right across Australia. We have this person on the gov payroll - Jill Singer - who proposes that ‘On second thoughts, maybe you should be tattooed first, then gassed. All we need now are the sceptic death camps and we’d have a fully fledged Final Solution on our hands.”. This what she thinks of “deniers”.
We have young families sleeping in cars - farmers that have suffered the worst drought in 100 years now face ruin because their gov. has deemed their livelihood “unquestionalble” but I bet most of them sit down to dinner at the best restaurants with a steak on their plates. I could go on and on.
In 3 shorts years we have sunk into such a sad state of affairs. We don’t feel secure in our own country. We are being denied the basic right to vote. Our club and hotel industries that employee 1000’s are threatened because we are sliding into a nanny state as people will not take responsible for their own actions so millions who enjoy being part of a club will suffer - not to mention the money that is funnelled into charities.
I wonder if there was a turning point in those regimes that treat their people so bad. I sadly think we are on the turning point of something bad if we don’t get rid of this corrupt selected government immediately. WE DEMAND A VOTE NOW!!!
Sun 26 Jun 11 (02:06pm)
“The Australian Labor Party is a democratic
socialist party and has the objective of the
democratic socialisation of industry, production,
distribution and exchange”
(ALP CONSTITUTION)
Mon 27 Jun 11 (06:27am)
It is often quoted that; all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing! I have noticed there is no main stream media / very public pursuit of Kevin Rudd for answers to questions asked way back in the nineties during the development of what has become part of a shameful history of denial, cover up and the clear lack of political will well reported by News Limited at the time and covered here http://www.heineraffair.info/ on a very instructive site. When a person lacks the guts to do the right thing we call them coward. What do we call a collective of politicians with no real evidence of any back bone at all? Brave hearts Hetty Johnson and the Aboriginal woman are not all which has been betrayed, there are all the people who believed they could put their trust in the Westminster system of democratic government. Departing Senator Fielding should have his betrayal hung figuratively and permanently around his neck like the stinking albatross such a gross betrayal is.I would love to read the names of all those elected representatives who voted this long needed inquiry into the motives and conduct of the Queensland Goss government and all that which flowed down from the destruction of documents all the way to the payment by Queensland government of $120.000.00 in shut up money. Edward James
Mon 27 Jun 11 (09:00pm)
The ALP is rotten to the core!
Tue 28 Jun 11 (09:09am)
Sorry I forgot to mention Spain youth unemployment is around 45 % . Thanks Left wing lunatics you really do wonders for the world.
Many politicians feign an interest in child abuse, but only if that does not clash with their political interests. A few weeks ago the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of NSW was found liable in the case of the electorate officer who reported the child sex crimes of her government minister boss.
This has been an issue where it was blatantly obvious from the start that someone for some reason had done the wrong thing - but would anyone address this, even for the sake of rescuing the shattered credentials of a party which used to be concerned about the treatment of employees, except for their own we should presume?
For years instead there were only energetic efforts on the part of the previous NSW government to prevent this story from being told, which, if it were, would certainly raise questions as to who knew and for how long that there was an accused paedophile in government and why nothing was done about that. Whilst some alarming facts were tendered to the Supreme Court, the crux of this matter lies in what was not addressed.
The action of the Speaker and Clerk in locking out this employee from her workplace was judged to have contributed to her psychological damage, but where are the answers as to why that was done by those who had been clearly informed that there was an ongoing covert police operation into child sex crimes in which the employee had become a police witness against her own boss? Why has no-one been concerned to address numerous other matters including the fate of documents which were relevant to the case? Am I the only person in NSW who thinks that this is screaming out for some answers - or should it just be left hanging for years on end like the Heiner affair?
Our carpets in our democratic institutions are getting very lumpy with all that has been swept beneath them! How powerless we are to make those who supposedly represent us give us the answers we demand on issues such as these which go to the safety of children, which should be our first not last concern!
Sat 25 Jun 11 (10:30pm)
Sun 26 Jun 11 (02:05am)
Linda, I think you are referring to this woman:
http://www.theherald.com.au/news/local/news/general/former-orkopoulos-aide-in-the-dark/1452705.aspx
Sun 26 Jun 11 (06:11am)
I’ve been watching this case. It appalled me. Perhpas too many backs were being scratched?
Sun 26 Jun 11 (08:00pm)
I can understand any member hesitating. Most parties won’t accept being destroyed in a witch hunt. The others act in self preservation and isolate any member brave enough to be willing to discuss the issue. It isn’t good enough to merely lob the issue at the Libs and say “You deal with it, the ALP aren’t” when the ALP can launch an almighty scare campaign which will knock out all government for decades.
I am very careful not to scare those in the Libs who might be of help to me. I appreciate any who are willing to listen. At the end of the day, I have to accept that I don’t know everything and hope that a background process will allow something approximating justice.
Mon 27 Jun 11 (07:02am)
Well DD -think of the who was Police Minister at the time an inquiry was first refused! I am not suggesting any wrongdoing - merely a person who wouldn’t want too much snooping around his private life. Mutual secrets are powerful tools amongst the powerful, and that’s the whole point - remember Franca Arena’s prediction that none of these allegations at high levels of government would ever come to light. She was wrong over this case, but it was a hard won process, which needs to be examined - I would hope an inquiry could deal with the facts of the matter and not be a witch hunt, but there might well be others running scared..
27 June 2011
Mr. Bill Jordan, President
UAW Local 599
812 Leith St.
Flint, MI 48505
Dear Mr. Jordan:
The blog Carpe Diem today features a photo of a sign in the parking lot of (what I assume to be) your Michigan headquarters. That sign reads: “Only American-Union Made Automobiles, Trucks & Motorcycles Are Allowed In This Parking Lot. Violators Will Be Towed.”
You seek to punish those who, by purchasing substitutes for the vehicles that your members currently are employed to produce, reduce the demand for unionized autoworkers and, thereby, destroy some jobs in unionized U.S. auto plants.
Of course, you may exclude from your parking lot whomever you wish, for whatever reasons you wish. But I’m curious: do you also threaten to tow away old American-made automobiles? The person who drives, say, a 1991 Buick Regal – whether he bought it new 20 years ago or bought it used yesterday – opts, no less than does the person who drives a 2011 Toyota Camry, not to buy a newly made American automobile. Both persons spend their money now in ways that keep demand for new American-made automobiles lower than it would otherwise be. The spending choices of the owner of the 1991 Buick harm your members no less than – and for exactly the same reasons as – do the spending choices of the owner of the 2011 Toyota.
In light of this reality, do you and your members want Uncle Sam to impose a special tax on Americans who buy used cars? How about a tax on each American who keeps the same automobile for, say, more than five years? After all, someone who keeps her car in good repair and, as a result, lets many years pass between the time she bought her last car and the time she buys another, contributes to the decline of the U.S. auto industry in precisely the same way as does the most fanatical buyer of shiny new Volkswagens or Hondas.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
Today’s dean of international-trade economists – Columbia University’s Jagdish Bhagwati – explains that the case for free trade is not merely a powerful materialistic one; it’s also a stupendously powerful moral one. (HT Bryan Riley). Here’s a key passage:
But then critics shift ground and argue that trade-driven growth benefits only the elites and not the poor; it is not “inclusive”. In India, however, the shift to accelerated growth after reforms that included trade liberalisation has pulled nearly 200 million people out of poverty. In China, which grew faster, it is estimated that more than 300 million people have moved above the poverty line since the start of reforms.
In fact, developed countries also benefit from trade’s effect on poverty reduction. Contrary to much popular opinion, trade with poor countries does not pauperise rich countries. The opposite is true. It is unskilled, labour-saving technical change that is putting pressure on the wages of workers, whereas imports of cheaper, labour-intensive goods from developing countries help the poor who consume them.
If freer trade reduces poverty, it is presumptuous for critics to claim greater virtue. In truth, the free traders control the moral high ground: with at least 1 billion people still living in poverty, what greater moral imperative do we have than to reduce that number? Talk about “social justice” is intoxicating, but actually doing something about it is difficult. Here the free traders have a distinct edge.
As the historian Frank Trentmann has demonstrated, the case for free trade was made in 19th-century Britain in moral terms: it was held to promote not just economic prosperity, but also peace.
PEACE HOFF
Tim Blair – Tuesday, June 28, 11 (06:41 am)
We’re officially invaders:
Sydney City Council last night declared the arrival of white settlers to be an “invasion” and wiped the words “European arrival” from official documents.
During a long debate, councillor Marcelle Hoff lodged a petition for councillors to use the term “invasion or illegal colonisation” in policy documents and statements.
Ms Hoff read out dictionary definitions of invasion as “to take possession, to penetrate, to intrude upon, to overrun”.
“They came in and they did not leave,” she said.
Neither has Ms Hoff, who has occupied Australia for more than a quarter of its post-invasion existence. Nothing stopping you from leaving, Marcelle. Door’s over there.
372 DAYS UNTIL LABOR’S SHRINKING JULIA TAX
Tim Blair – Tuesday, June 28, 11 (06:25 am)
The carbon tax won’t cost most of us a cent, according to Julia Gillard. But percentage-wise, it’s costing her bad:
For the first time in Newspoll, Julia Gillard has sunk below Tony Abbott as the preferred prime minister.
Ms Gillard is now he most unpopular modern leader since Paul Keating at his worst, according to the latest poll published in The Australian today …
According to Newspoll, conducted last weekend in a telephone poll of 1,158 people, satisfaction with Ms Gillard was down two percentage points to 28 per cent, her lowest since becoming leader and a fall of 22 percentage points since she announced the carbon tax.
This was a tax many expected Australians to embrace. Flashback to 2009:
Blair: [It’s] one of the great sweeping mysteries of our time. The biggest argument we’re having right now time is what the temperature will be 100 years from now. And one of the big flaws about the Liberal Party’s ETS is that it has an ETS. I know, privately, a lot of people in the Liberal Party are a lot more sceptical than Mr Hockey would let on.
Barrie Cassidy: But you haven’t actually seen a poll that convinced you that the Coalition can vote against this and benefit politically.
Blair: Well, they might actually get some traction out of it. They might actually be seen to take a stance. At the moment it’s arguments over tiny fractions. Anything with the word Copenhagen in it will turn the public off.
Fran Kelly: Yes, Tim, but as soon as you do that, then you’re arguing, well, what next for climate change? So you’re either arguing, we don’t have to do anything right now ...
Blair: Yeah, I’ll vote for that.
Kelly: Yeah, I know, but I don’t think a lot of the public would. I think the people are convinced that something is happening and something needs to be done.
George Megalogenis: Newspoll has tried to ask this question every which way, and the answer still comes out the same. Two thirds or more of the electorate want action.
Blair: But as soon as you put that in monetary terms, as soon as you say, “How much are you going to sacrifice” or anything, then the number drops off.
And it has.
DILUTED SOAP
Tim Blair – Tuesday, June 28, 11 (06:19 am)
David Penberthy examines Australia’s exclusionary elite:
Imagine if the construction workers union the CFMEU issued a statement calling for Maoris and islanders to be banned from working in the building industry.
Or if the white-collar Australian Services Union demanded an end to all those pesky Indians stealing our jobs in IT. They would be howled down as racist protectionists, accused of taking the nation back to the dark days of the White Australian Policy, offending the principles of inclusion and diversity by denying people from other countries a chance to settle and work here.
It might be 2011 but the actors and journalists union, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, has this week launched a campaign which is the artistic equivalent of legislating to keep the Kanaks off the canefields in the early 20th century.
Further from the Daily Telegraph:
A statement released by the group worries that giving acting roles to overseas stars will “dilute Australia’s unique cultural identity”.
If you say something like that on a Cronulla beach, you’re a bigot. Say it in a petition to a federal minister, and you’re a respectable artist who is concerned about our national wellbeing.
Which depends on keeping foreign types out of Packed to the Rafters.
DON’T TRUST THEM
Tim Blair – Monday, June 27, 11 (11:57 pm)
Further proof that cats are wrong:
373 DAYS UNTIL LABOR’S NON-IMPACTIVE PRICE IMPACTING TAX
Tim Blair – Monday, June 27, 11 (11:57 pm)
“We acknowledge that a carbon price will have price impacts,” said climate change minister Greg Combet, back in February. “But we are committed to helping people meet those cost impacts.” He also wanted people to help themselves to avoid the full force of the carbon tax by scurrying around like electricity-hoarding squirrels:
“The main way to do that is by saving energy, to turn things off at the wall,” he said.
“Maybe think about how often you use the airconditioner. Using a cheaper-to-run hot water system. Changing the light bulbs. Have you got insulation?”
No, but I hear the government runs a top-notch insulation delivery service. Sign me up! Or don’t, because now the carbon tax won’t hurt us at all
“The vast majority of Australian households won’t pay a cent as a result of the price on carbon,” Ms Gillard told ABC Radio this morning.
They’re changing their story about a tax they changed their story about.
NOW PLAYING AT THE CRONULLA OPERA HOUSE
Tim Blair – Monday, June 27, 11 (02:13 pm)
Australia’s Hansonite luvvies are whipping up a protectionist panic:
We, the undersigned, are shocked, angered and concerned …
As usual. Their key demand: “Australian performers have the right to be engaged in lead roles.” It’s something to do with preserving our unique cultural identity, apparently.
Rudd tweets from Ghana as Australian jobs burn
Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, June 28, 11 (07:48 am)
The Gillard Government’s latest foreign policy disaster will cost Australians their jobs:
AT least 1000 jobs could be lost as a result of the Gillard government’s live cattle export ban to Indonesia, with Western Australia alone predicting it would cost its economy $170 million.
So where’s the Foreign Minister?
KRuddMP Kevin Rudd
Met Oz youth ambassadors in Ghana http://t.co/piW5PsT Doing great work on hiv aids, sanitation, womens rights. We all should be proud. KRudd
16 hours ago
In fact, Rudd still hasn’t been to Indonesia to sort this out, and is being delayed by other bizarre priorities:
Australia’s Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd has announced he will visit Indonesia in two weeks to discuss Australia’s live cattle export ban as part of a series of diplomatic trips…
In a statement, Mr Rudd says he will also travel to Burma and Kazakhstan…
Mr Rudd flew out to Equatorial Guinea last night to meet other foreign ministers at the African Union Executive Council Meeting.
A statement from Pauline Fellini
Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, June 28, 11 (06:53 am)
The DailyTelegraph nails the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance:
A statement released by the group worries that giving acting roles to overseas stars will “dilute Australia’s unique cultural identity”.
If you say something like that on a Cronulla beach, you’re a bigot. Say it in a petition to a federal minister, and you’re a respectable artist who is concerned about our national wellbeing.
Here’s a clue
Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, June 28, 11 (06:50 am)
Why, Labor asks. Just why is the public not buying Julia Gillard’s carbon dioxide tax?:
” It’s the equivalent of saying ‘eat your vegetables’, I suppose,” she told Sydney radio
The fault may not be ours
Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, June 28, 11 (06:17 am)
Culture counts, but again and again we seem reluctant to confront it:
But the reality, confirmed by Department of Education figures, confirms few Arabic-language students are making their way into the high-performance selective high schools.
Dr Rosemary Suliman, a senior lecturer at the University of Western Sydney with more than 30 years’ experience in the field of education, concedes a significant problem of underachievement.
‘’It’s not a danger they might be left behind; they have been left behind for many years now,’’ she said. ‘’It is a reality.
‘’The reason for migration for Arabic people is totally different than the reason for Chinese people. These are people who left their countries totally unprepared for migration.’’ Data from the 2006 Census shows that 7 per cent of people born in Lebanon had a bachelor degree or higher. In contrast, 37.7 per cent of people born in Hong Kong held a bachelor degree or higher.
Dr Suliman argues perceptions count for much.
‘‘Arabic-speaking people do not enjoy a very high status in our society and that has a very negative effect on students. It makes them have a very strong ethnic identity, a refusal to be part of the whole and an opposition to other groups and that contributes to their lack of achievement.’’
The blame is implicitly cast not on Arabic culture but the Australian one, that great punching bag of the Leftist ideologue. We intolerant Australians do not give “a very high status” to Arabic-speaking people, so they retreat into a defensive then-against-us ethnic identity.
Yet isn’t the reverse more likely, that a them-against-us culture and “refusal to be part of the whole”, along with low achievement, is what shapes public perceptions? Isn’t that the more likely cause-and-effect, particularly when Chinese immigrants. every bit as “foreign” and likely to be denied “high status” in an allegedly xenophobic society, actually manage to achieve so very well?
I should acknowledge that Suliman at least accepts there is that them-against-us, rejectionist strand in the Muslim community. But her analysis pushes far too much blame on “Anglo” culture, as her 2009 paper demonstrates, :
These incidents and the negative stereotyping that followed has negatively affected the Arab community and to a larger extent, the pressure is even greater on young people. For these young people, the reality is that they are looked at with suspicion, they are treated as criminals because of their age, gender and ethnicity. The comments of leading public figures have contributed to the marginalisation and alienation of the Australian Arabic community, a community still recovering from the discrimination and vilification directed at them during the Gulf War. Particularly implicit in this process were the media.
It doesn’t seem to strike Suliman with sufficient force that there is in fact some good reason for suspicion in the first place, particularly given incidents she herself lists:
This has since been followed by several local and global incidents which have added to the intensity of the situation, eg. September 11, the Invasion of Iraq, Gang rapes, shooting incidents, terrorist attacks and more terrorist attacks, Anti-terror laws, etc.
Isn’t it perfectly reasonable, given the terrorism, gang rapes, shootings and hate-preachings of far too many Muslim spokesman that non-Muslims would be worried? Would ask questions?
And aren’t those incidents expressive of a them-against-us culture that may be originin of the tension, not a consequence of it? Note, after all, that this is a problem in almost every society in which Muslims are the minority, from Nigeria to Holland, Stockholm to Sydney.
And, indeed, what is deplored as a stereotype is in fact acccepted as a sad truth by many Lebanese immigrants themselves:
Moreover, the Lebanese youth have negative images of themselves and perceive that they are troublemakers, stating that although about 45 percent are good, the rest are mainly on the dole (Noble, Poynting & Tabar, 1999).
Reith spits the dummy
Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, June 28, 11 (06:13 am)
A sore loser demonstrates why many Liberals didn’t trust him to be a team player as president:
PETER REITH has scolded Tony Abbott for being too timid to embrace industrial relations reforms, saying the Opposition Leader’s ambivalence was a source of growing concern in the business community.
Mr Reith indicated he would start publicly advocating policy change in defiance of Mr Abbott, who has been trying to squash internal debate to avoid giving Labor an excuse to reignite its anti-Work Choices campaign.
Mr Reith is seething after losing by one vote the battle for the Liberal Party’s federal presidency on Saturday.
Reith is also demonstrating why Abbott was right to fear that Reith as president would become the focus of the mother of all Labor scare campaigns on Work Choices.
Reith may be right on workplace reform, but he is also unwise. Nothing can be done on his issue from opposition.
UPDATE
Reith will regret writing this get-square against Abbott, who voted for Alan Stockdale - and showed him:
And Tony? He played “show and tell”. This is the opposite of a secret ballot and much favoured by Labor Party factional bosses who like to see the ballots to make sure that their lackeys vote as directed or as agreed. It was a pity that the Liberal federal director did not accept my suggestion that we needed polling booths because some delegates felt they were being pressured. Anyway, that was not a problem for Tony.
UPDATE
That said, what was Abbott thinking? To ask Reith to stand and then withdraw his support. To show his vote to Stockdale - and in public. Very poor skills. It would take a very strong man not to hit back.
Gillard’s own tax would be higher
Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, June 28, 11 (06:09 am)
So much for the claim that Australia is trailing the world:
PRICES in the European Union’s emissions trading scheme have plunged to two-year lows, intensifying pressure on the Gillard government to start with a low carbon tax and threatening to complicate negotiations with the Greens, who are pushing for a strong start to the Australian scheme.
Business groups yesterday seized on reports that the EU permit price fell 11 per cent on Friday—and 22 per cent in a week, testing a two-year low of $16.79 a tonne—saying it highlighted the dangers of a fixed-price scheme that could leave Australian businesses facing higher prices than international competitors…
European analysts said the reasons for the fall included the bleak economic outlook sparked by the Greek debt crisis, lack of confidence in the will of European governments to achieve their stated policy aims, and the fact energy-efficiency measures appeared to be replacing carbon pricing as the EU’s main climate change lever.
Still on a hiding
Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, June 28, 11 (06:06 am)
Essential Research detects no movement back to Labor, which is on 45 per cent to the Liberals’ 55.
UPDATE
Labor’s last hope was that at least Tony Abbott was less popular than Julia Gillard:
JULIA Gillard has sunk below Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister for the first time and is now the most unpopular modern prime minister since Paul Keating at his worst....
According to the latest Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Australian, satisfaction with the Prime Minister last weekend was down two percentage points to 28 per cent, her lowest since becoming leader a year ago and a fall of 22 percentage points since she announced the carbon tax.
Dissatisfaction with Ms Gillard has leapt to a high of 62 per cent, up seven points in the past two weeks.
On the question of who would make the better prime minister, she slipped below Mr Abbott for the first time, after falling two points to 39 per cent as Mr Abbott’s support rose two points to 41 per cent…
Based on second-preference flows at the last election, the Coalition has maintained its clear election-winning lead over Labor of 55 per cent to 45 per cent.
Caution: race baiters at work at Sydney City Council
Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, June 28, 11 (06:00 am)
How foolishly divisive it is to try so hard to delegitimise European settlement and stoke up racial resentments:
During a long debate, councillor Marcelle Hoff lodged a petition for councillors to use the term “invasion or illegal colonisation” in policy documents and statements.
Wiht the council likewise describe Aborigines as “invaders”?
Laws against offending are offensive
Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, June 28, 11 (05:44 am)
Ted Lapkin on the Geert Wilders acquittal - and attempts to limit free speech here:
The quashing of speech on the basis of its political content is fundamentally inimical to democracy. Every point at which freedom of expression is curtailed by government coercion means a point where parliamentary debate and the media dare not go.
Not only does this undermine our political liberties, but its social effect achieves the opposite of its declared intent. Rather than promoting peaceful coexistence, this regime of political censorship sets loose the spectre of official tolerance enforcers.
The Racial Hatred Act empowers the paranoid and petulant. And by rewarding those with the biggest chips on their shoulders,
it exacerbates the ugly victim group sweepstakes that has come to dominate ethnic politics in Australia…
But even if my friend Andrew Bolt ultimately wins, he also loses. Think of the thousands of dollars incurred in legal fees. Think of the public humiliation of having to rebut those absurd “when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife” allegations of racism.
The dampening effect on free expression from the Bolt case is undeniable. And, regardless of the outcome, that makes us all losers.
Sponsoring the decline of the individual mind
Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, June 28, 11 (12:05 am)
The heart just sinks at not only the wasted money, but wasted brains. Here’s some the latest projects on which Kate Ellis, Minister for the Status of Women, is blowing your cash, at $50,000 a pop:
- Impacts and opportunities of new media technologies for feminism - EqualityRights Alliance (ERA). ERA will assess the impact of new technologies and communication on young women and develop a new website as an online place for young women to share views, connect with the women’s movement and gain access to mentoring…
- Gender appropriate economic responses to natural disasters - Economic Security for Women (eS4W). eS4W will turn a gender lens on disaster affected areas in Queensland and Victoria, and identify a range of gendered approaches addressing the economic empowerment needs of women affected by natural disasters…
- Developing disaster resilient rural communities - National Rural Women’s Coalition and Network (NRWCN). NRWCN will develop a toolkit and manual supporting women in rural, regional and remote communities to undertake leadership roles in disaster preparation.
Do you expect any practical good from any of this? I suspect, rather, a greater drift to irrationality and the identity politics that strips us of individuality.
(Thanks to reader Phil.)
Another Gore scare blown out
Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, June 28, 11 (12:04 am)
Six years ago, Al Gore warned that global warning would give us stronger hurricanes and cyclones - and had already given us more of them:
Here’s what I think we here understand about Hurricane Katrina and global warming. Yes, it is true that no single hurricane can be blamed on global warming. Hurricanes have come for a long time, and will continue to come in the future. Yes, it is true that the science does not definitively tell us that global warming increases the frequency of hurricanes - because yes, it is true there is a multi-decadal cycle, twenty to forty years that profoundly affects the number of hurricanes that come in any single hurricane season. But it is also true that the science is extremely clear now, that warmer oceans make the average hurricane stronger, not only makes the winds stronger, but dramatically increases the moisture from the oceans evaporating into the storm - thus magnifying its destructive power - makes the duration, as well as the intensity of the hurricane, stronger.
Last year we had a lot of hurricanes. Last year, Japan set an all-time record for typhoons: ten, the previous record was seven. Last year the science textbooks had to be re-written. They said, “It’s impossible to have a hurricane in the south Atlantic.” We had the first one last year, in Brazil. We had an all-time record last year for tornadoes in the United States, 1,717 - largely because hurricanes spawned tornadoes.
But we’ve seen the opposite:
During the past 6-years since Hurricane Katrina, global tropical cyclone frequency and energy have decreased dramatically, and are currently at near-historical record lows. According to a new peer-reviewed research paper accepted to be published, only 69 tropical storms were observed globally during 2010, the fewest in almost 40-years of reliable records.
Furthermore, when each storm’s intensity and duration were taken into account, the total global tropical cyclone accumulated energy (ACE) was found to have fallen by half to the lowest level since 1977.
The unlitateral economic disarmament: We’ll pay, China will play
Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, June 28, 11 (12:03 am)
Here another example of how our global warming politicians are unilaterally disarming our economy against far more aggressive competitors.
When Europe threatens to whack a carboin dioxide tax on our airlines, under its new green protectionism, the Gillard Government just asks for more punishment:
QANTAS will be forced to lift international airfares to Europe from next January after being slapped with a penalty by the European Union because Australia does not have a price on greenhouse gas emissions.
The national carrier told business leaders at a meeting in Canberra this week that under changes to the EU’s emissions trading scheme, Qantas would be forced to pay a tax on 15 per cent of its carbon emissions from its nearest port of call…
The government will seize on the fact that Qantas will face the impost to back its argument that, if the nation doesn’t move, Australian businesses could eventually be penalised by carbon border adjustments and airline passengers will be first to suffer…
Mr Combet warned business leaders they may eventually face border adjustments - where a tariff is slapped on products from countries without carbon prices - if Australia failed to introduce a carbon price.
When Europe tries the same trick on China, it gets threatened with punishment:
China may block the purchase of 10 Airbus SAS superjumbo planes in protest against the European Union to make international airlines pay for an emissions trading system, the Financial Times newspaper said.
Hong Kong Airlines had been expected to announce orders worth as much as $3.8 billion for 10 Airbus planes at the Paris Air Show this week, the report said, citing unidentified executives.
Airbus, the planemaking unit of European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co., heard last weekend that the agreement was delayed because of China’s opposition to the emissions rules, according to the newspaper. Airbus and EADS declined to comment, the FT said.
And Labor tries to pretend China is just as keen as we are to cut emissions.
Frauds. We’re surendering our growth and our future.
(Thanks to readers Michael and Lee.)
“Greedy” Gina digs her critics another mine of handouts
Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, June 28, 11 (12:02 am)
A couple of weeks ago, I read this:
EIGHT months after launching a trial coalmine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin, Gina Rinehart plans to export next week the first coal from the region. Mrs Rinehart’s Hancock Coal, which is in talks to sell majority stakes in both its Alpha and Kevin’s Corner coalmines, said the first thermal coal exports from the region would be shipped on June 26.
Up to eight giant mines are planned in the region.
The trial shipments will go to a South Korean power station, with later exports headed to Japan.
Bully for her, I thought. And, of course, good luck for us that yet another coal deposit is being exploited to the benefit of Australians generally, too.
But Rinehart, who I read is the woman who bought my opinions for Channel 10, actually earned my particular applause for this up-yours at the ceremony on Sunday to mark the first export of coal from the Galilee Basin, taxes from which will finance handouts and government services to Rinehart’s detractors:
Now left wing media doesn’t like me directing attention to the MRRT and Carbon Tax and why they’re bad for Australia’s future, and argues I’ve already got enough money and why should I dare to “greedily” advocate no MRRT and no Carbon Tax for my “own self benefit”?
I have worked very hard and I have looked after my children and indeed my grandchildren too, I should just stop working and investing in Australia and stop being concerned about the MRRT and the Carbon Tax and what is happening in our competitive world. I have received not 1 cent for employing people over years to enable our company to explore, study and put in the building blocks for this Queensland project to enable it to progress towards development. As Tad mentioned, for the cost of building this trial mine alone which you see today, I could have bought myself a beautiful new private jet. But you’ve seen these trucks and shovels out there, who would be paying the wages of these contractors if I had spent that on a luxurious private jet and 2 pilots instead? Indeed for the further costs of paying my terrific staff working hard on these projects and the consultants studies for the pre feasibility study and the bankable feasibility study and now value engineering, together employing hundreds of people, I could have gotten for myself 1 or 2 beautiful yachts like many of my friends have, and employed 6 or more yacht crew and taken off.
But I’m pleased with my choices to invest instead in Australia, as I know I’ve done something important for Australia’s future, with the projects we have built to date.
UPDATE
Reader Travis:
“Who will help me dig this coal?
“Not I”, said the pigs.
Aww, you know the rest.......
Did those who damn Monckton also attack Keating and Fraser?
Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, June 28, 11 (12:02 am)
Want further proof that Labor’s fury over Lord Monckton’s “fascist” gibe at climate guru Ross Garnaut (for which he’s apologised) is hypocritical and deely cynical? Want further proof that the media is likewise selective in its indignation?
Then ask where Labor and the press pack were when even worse was said by Leftist heroes about John Howard.
Example one:
Example two:FORMER prime minister Paul Keating has accused John Howard of being unpatriotic and anti-Muslim and compared his ideology to Adolf Hitler’s.
In a scathing address to the Sydney film school festival last night, Mr Keating described Mr Howard as “a nationalist and not a patriot”. He then attributed the same description to Adolf Hitler.“A patriot will not exclude a person from another race from the community where they have lived side by side and whom he has known for many years but a nationalist will always remain suspicious of someone who does not seem to belong to his kind of people or more likely his kind of thinking,” Mr Keating said.
“Shades there of John Howard’s discomfort with Australia’s multicultural community and a disgust of the Islamic community.”
Mr Keating said when the prime minister disparaged elites, he was disparaging cosmopolitan attitudes which proved his nationalism.
“In Hitler’s day the term ‘elite’ had not yet arrived. If it had, the nationalist in him would have compelled him to use it, for it’s easy shorthand if nothing else.”
FORMER Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser has suggested parts of the Howard Government’s anti-terror package resemble measures taken by Adolf Hitler and says Kim Beazley’s handling of opposition to the package should determine his leadership.
Mr Fraser said he hoped a High Court challenge would be mounted to the terror deal, if and when it was enacted, and said both the presumption of innocence and the right to silence were being challenged by what his former treasurer John Howard was proposing.
“Some of this legislation is truly terrible,” he said. “Some of the analogies ... one of the first pieces of legislation Hitler’s government put into place was something for ‘the good order and safety’ of the citizens of Germany: preventive detention ...
Monckton is being made an example of to demonise and delegitimise scepticsm about the Government’s global warming agenda. It is despicable and anti-intellectual.
(Thanks to reader Alan RM Jones.)
Another boat, another air fare
Andrew Bolt – Tuesday, June 28, 11 (12:01 am)
Does that include the carbon offsets?
Imagine what that cash could do for the poor in their own countries.
(Thanks to reader Grand Wizard.)
These electric blankets tell me Gillard isn’t serious
Andrew Bolt – Monday, June 27, 11 (03:31 pm)
Pardon? Compensation to help people use more of the coal-fired power we’re supposed to be cutting?
JULIA Gillard has revealed more than three million low-income households will receive 100 per cent compensation for the proposed carbon tax - plus an extra 20 per cent buffer.
We’ve gone mad, you know.
UPDATE
Gillard’s agony is strung out for a few weeks more, as she flunks another benchmark:
THE details of a carbon tax will be released within weeks, Julia Gillard said today… The Prime Minister, who has previously committed to a mid-year deadline for her price on carbon, said today the multi-party climate change committee was “working hard” to finalise all the details of a carbon tax.
“I would adopt the language of weeks,” she told the Seven Network, when asked about a likely timeframe.
Holland kills the multiculturalism that is killing it
Andrew Bolt – Monday, June 27, 11 (01:58 pm)
The Netherlands, where six per cent of the population is now Muslim, is scrapping multiculturalism:
The Dutch government says it will abandon the long-standing model of multiculturalism that has encouraged Muslim immigrants to create a parallel society within the Netherlands.
A new integration bill (covering letter and 15-page action plan), which Dutch Interior Minister Piet Hein Donner presented to parliament on June 16, reads: “The government shares the social dissatisfaction over the multicultural society model and plans to shift priority to the values of the Dutch people. In the new integration system, the values of the Dutch society play a central role. With this change, the government steps away from the model of a multicultural society.”
The letter continues: “A more obligatory integration is justified because the government also demands that from its own citizens. It is necessary because otherwise the society gradually grows apart and eventually no one feels at home anymore in the Netherlands...”
The new integration policy will place more demands on immigrants. For example, immigrants will be required to learn the Dutch language, and the government will take a tougher approach to immigrants to ignore Dutch values or disobey Dutch law.
The government will also stop offering special subsidies for Muslim immigrants because, according to Donner, “it is not the government’s job to integrate immigrants.” The government will introduce new legislation that outlaws forced marriages and will also impose tougher measures against Muslim immigrants who lower their chances of employment by the way they dress. More specifically, the government will impose a ban on face-covering Islamic burqas as of January 1, 2013.
Holland has done that whole liberal thing, and realised - maybe too late - that creating a nation of tribes will kill the nation itself. Australia’s future may well be read here.
(Thanks to many readers.)
The Age admits there’s a debate, after all
Andrew Bolt – Monday, June 27, 11 (01:58 pm)
The world has shifted on its axis. The veil of the temple of green thought has been rent. The Age has published an oped by a sceptic - Professor Bob Carter (albeit after describing him as a “denialist”, above):
Fact 1. A mild warming of about 0.5 degrees Celsius (well within previous natural temperature variations) occurred between 1979 and 1998, and has been followed by slight global cooling over the past 10 years. Ergo, dangerous global warming is not occurring.
Fact 2. Between 2001 and 2010 global average temperature decreased by 0.05 degrees, over the same time that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels increased by 5 per cent. Ergo, carbon dioxide emissions are not driving dangerous warming.
Fact 3. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is beneficial. In increasing quantity it causes mild though diminishing warming (useful at a time of a quiet sun and likely near-future planetary cooling) and acts as a valuable plant fertiliser. Extra carbon dioxide helps to shrink the Sahara Desert, green the planet and feed the world. Ergo, carbon dioxide is neither a pollutant nor dangerous, but an environmental benefit.
Fact 4. Closing down the whole Australian industrial economy might result in the prevention of about 0.02 degrees of warming. Reducing emissions by 5 per cent by 2020 (the government’s target) will avert an even smaller warming of about 0.002 degrees. Ergo, cutting Australian emissions will make no measurable difference to global climate.
Fact 5. For an assumed tax rate of $25 a tonne of carbon dioxide, the costs passed down to an average family of four will exceed $2000 a year.
UPDATE
The debate isn’t just with sceptics - but with the climate itself, which just isn’t behaving as the warmists said it must:
Ole Humlum, Professor of Physical Geography at Oslo University, shows the temperatures isn’t rising as you’d expect if our rising emissions truly caused dangerous global warming. In fact, there’s been nearly a decade of negative correlation since the post-1975 warming:
Global surface air temperatures May 2011 in general were somewhat below the 1998-2006 global average… Australia had below average temperatures…
All five global temperature estimates presently show stagnation, at least since 2002. There has been no increase in global air temperature since 1998, which however was affected by the oceanographic El Niño event. This does not exclude the possibility that global temperatures will begin to increase again later. On the other hand, it also remain a possibility that Earth just now is passing a temperature peak, and that global temperatures will begin to decrease within the coming years. Time will show which of these two possibilities is correct…
After about 10 years of global temperature increase following global cooling 1940-1978, IPCC was established in 1988. Presumably, several scientists interested in climate then felt intuitively that their empirical and theoretical understanding of climate dynamics was sufficient to conclude about the high importance of CO2 for global temperature. However, for obtaining public and political support for the CO2-hyphotesis the 10 year warming period leading up to 1988 in all likelihood was important.
So, a blip or a trend....?:
(Thanks to readers Steve and Morry.)
Boy is a gender, not a stereotype
Andrew Bolt – Monday, June 27, 11 (12:59 pm)
What nature has devised, nurturing tries to neuter:
From the colour and placement of toys to the choice of books, every detail has been carefully planned to make sure the children don’t fall into gender stereotypes.
“Society expects girls to be girlie, nice and pretty and boys to be manly, rough and outgoing,” says Jenny Johnsson, a 31-year-old teacher.
“Egalia gives them a fantastic opportunity to be whoever they want to be.”
What if they want to be boys and girls? Why impose on them an ungendered stereotype?
In truth, this is every bit an imposition of socially determined identities as what it attempts to “rectify”. The difference is that it is less connected to biological reality.
(Thanks to reader Bernie Slattery.)
Is a private meeting with Forrest that private, after all?
Andrew Bolt – Monday, June 27, 11 (12:26 pm)
If it’s a private meeting, then Forrest should not be blabbing about what was allegedly told to him - in private:
Billionaire iron ore magnate Andrew Forrest claims Treasurer Wayne Swan told him WA should secede if it did not like the Federal Government’s planned mining tax.
The Fortescue Metals Group boss said yesterday that Mr Swan raised secession during a private meeting in Canberra last week in which the Federal Treasurer was pressed for information about how big and small mining companies would be affected by the profits-based tax.
Creating the new welfare state
Andrew Bolt – Monday, June 27, 11 (12:21 pm)
Assume the compensation will keep rising to match the increasing tax. Assume, falsely, that the compensation is in full.
Now consider - this is an incredible number of people who will be dependent on government handouts:
Yesterday Prime Minister Julia Gillard said nine out of 10 households would be compensated for price increases under the planned carbon tax.
(Thanks to reader Alan RM Jones.)
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