Mon 1st Oct Todays News

Jonathan Marshall

@jmarshalljourno

News Ltd National Investigations based in Sydney. +61 412 086 703

Sydney, Australia

News limited journalist records Alan Jones speech and accuses Jones of bad jokes. Jonathon was so shocked when Jones said Gillard's father had recently died of shame for her lies. Possibly because her father was shameless, or because no one is even surprised about her lies. Jonathon was so shocked that he was also shocked when the audience didn't suddenly turn on Jones .. as if he had stood on a dead whale. People are reminded by news services that Jones had once said Gillard was such a bad PM she should be rowed out to sea and thrown overboard in a weighted chaff bag.

If indeed such a bag could be sewn around her, it isn't likely Jones was volunteering to do it, probably just connecting the PM with similar appalling leaders in early Rome. Some say she has provided stability, like Tiberius. Others say she is a monster, like Caligula. In Gillard's defence those Romans killed people for personal reasons, or political ones, whereas Gillard had no reason to kill those poor defenceless, desperate people who probably would have voted for her had they lived.

Many people have been emailed a petition from an ALP front organisation known as "change.org." -- In the last 48 hours, more than 22,000 people have signed this petition on Change.org. We thought you might like to add your name too: 
Alan Jones said the PM's father "died of shame" -- Nic is asking advertisers to withdraw from his show on 2GB 
Sign Nic's Petition
2GB and Advertisers: Immediately cease association with Alan Jones over "died of shame" comment
Started by: Nic Lochner, Randwick, NSW
"The old man recently died a few weeks ago of shame.” -- Alan Jones " 

My advice is to block Change.org from you email. As for Jones' speech, it was thoughtful and funny. The only thing one shouldn't take seriously is anything the PM Gillard says. Jonathon Marshall is only searching for balance without putting any weight on the right.

Jones’ apology highlights Labor’s flaws

Piers Akerman – Monday, October 01, 2012 (4:45am)

Alan Jones’ remark about Julia Gillard’s late father was unacceptable. 
It was so for a number of reasons. 
Family should not be dragged into politics. 
A parent’s recent death should not be used in any political attack. 
It was totally out of order – and the broadcaster made an immediate apology. 
He acted poorly, he responded perfectly. 
Here is Jones’ press conference yesterday. 
It is worth watching. 
Labor’s attack dogs and many in the media were quick to condemn Jones unfairly with criticism that went well beyond his throwaway remark to a group of university students at their annual Young Liberal dinner in Sydney a week ago. 
Their haste reflected their envy, their hatred, for this successful polymath. 
In venting their spleen on Jones Labor and others exposed themselves to public scrutiny. 
Any radio listener would know that Jones is focussed on policy and is not given to personal attacks. 
Labor and many in the media spend their lives attacking individuals. 
Too often, they do so because they cannot mount credible attacks on the policy. 
Jones made a number of serious points at his press conference, points the media would do well to consider. 
Gillard’s policies have, undeniably, been disastrous. 
She, and Labor, have lied continually. 
Most of the media have ignored this. 
Gillard’s father should have been proud to see his daughter as Prime Minister, any father would have been. 
Opposition leader Tony Abbott said as much in the eulogy he offered in the federal parliament when, highly unusually, if not unprecedently, Gillard made remarks about her father’s death before Question Time when she returned to work. 
No-one mentioned this extraordinary intrusion in parliamentary practise, to do so would have been portrayed as an attack on a Prime Minister, an attack on a woman, an attack on a grieving person. 
Someone in the parliamentary press gallery should have informed the public that she had brought her private life to parliament. 
But they didn’t. 
Nor do they want to look at the slush fund she set up just 17 years ago for a union boss boyfriend – but they happily follow an unverified claim from a vexatious opponent to embarrass Abbott. 
The hypocrisy is staggering but not unexpected. 
Jones is being attacked, justifiably, for his thoughtless remark. 
He is to be commended for the manner in which he responded. 
He apologised, his Labor and media opponents strike without apology with no justification. 
He demonstrated Labor’s hollow character – the same hollowness that many Labor MPs and former Ministers have remarked on recently. 
Despite the furore, the attacks have demonstrated that Jones is the better person. 

How puerile is Fairfax’s vilification of Jones?

Yes, what Alan Jones said was shameful. No excuse for it.

But if the topic is hate speech, can the Fairfax newspapers explain why they illustrate articles on Jones with these photographs?

Vilification by carefully selected photographs of the most unflattering kind seems kind of puerile.

UPDATE

Why do so many Fairfax and ABC journalists seem to love Alan Jones being so nasty? Because it lets them be every bit as vile and return - and still feel virtuous as well. Take this tweet by an ABC presenter, retweeted by an Age journalist: 

An occasional Fairfax columnist and frequent ABC guest can even appeal to the inner homophobe and feel she’s just doing the moral thing: 

(Thanks to readers Alan of Sydney and Marg,)

Will Carr apologise for the disgraceful comments his speechwriter made about Gillard’s late father?

Here is Foreign Minister Bob Carr on Tony Abbott’s duty to denounce Alan Jones for what he said about the death of Julia Gillard’s father:

Tony Abbott ought to do the decent thing and say today loud and clear that he apologises to Julia Gillard for unacceptable remarks, made at a Liberal party gathering attended by frontbench liberals.

Tony Abbott ought to send a message that the extremists at that gathering who cheered and applauded and laughed at that appalling utterance, Tony Abbott ought to make it clear that those people are denounced by him as well.

Here is Bob Ellis, Bob Carr’s friend and long-time speechwriter, writing on the death of Julia Gillard’s father:

She fled an important conference, and a meeting with Vladimir Putin, because her father had died at 83, and fled home weeping to Adelaide.

Leaving a battlefield because of a dear one’s death is not what she lets our soldiers do. They must stay, and fight on till battle’s end.

Yet she thinks she is different somehow. She is allowed her girly tears and her time off, playing hookey from her national obligations, her duty.

The latest conference had a day to run. The funeral wouldn’t occur for about five days. There was time to get home and comfort her mum before then. Her sister was on hand, doing so already. Many Australians overseas when a parent dies don’t get to the funeral. That is the way things go sometimes.

But not for Gillard. She is what Schwarzenegger might call a ‘girly man’. She goes AWOL.

Bob Carr ought to do the decent thing and say today loud and clear that he apologises to Julia Gillard for unacceptable remarks, made by a Labor speechwriter and friend of a Labor frontbencher.

Bob Carr ought to send a message to the extremists who cheered and applauded and laughed at that appalling blog post. Bob Carr ought to make it clear that those people are denounced by him as well - and that Bob Ellis will never again be employed to write speeches for Labor, and certainly not at the taxpayers’ expense.

Oh, and Bob Carr is an appalling hypocrite.

UPDATE

The whole debate in just two tweets: 

(Thanks to reader Peter F. and Waxing Gibberish.) 

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Tongue Tied on Terrorism—Again 

algemeiner.com - The controversy over how to define the attack on the American consulate in Libya is not the first time the U.S. government has raised eyebrows by refusing to use the word “terrorism.” 
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A new, 18-minute mini-documentary follows the journey of Irina, a 23-year-old liberal, Jewish New Yorker who voted for Obama in 2008. Yet as her connection to Israel has grown, and she has learned more about the President's policies across the Middle East and towards Israel in particular, Irina has come to realize that "when the chips are down," the President may not "have Israel's back" as he says.

The short film features:

Exclusive interviews with leading journalists and politicians in Israel 

(Bloomberg, London Times, Jerusalem Post, etc.)

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Former ABC show host Andy Muirhead jailed for 10 months over child porn

FORMER ABC presenter Andy Muirhead has been sentenced to a total of 10 months jail for child pornography offences.

Muirhead will be released in five months time after he was handed two separate sentences under State and Commonwealth laws.

He received three months for possession of child exploitation material but has already served two of those.

He received a seven month sentence for two offences of accessing child pornography under Commonwealth law to be served after the first sentence.

But Tasmanian Supreme Court Chief Justice Ewan Crawford said he would be released after four months of the Commonwealth sentence with a security deposit of $5000 and the requirement he be of good behaviour for three years.

The 36-year-old had pleaded guilty to the three charges of accessing and possessing child exploitation material, some of it described as ''sadistic" and featuring children as young as three.

The former host of the ABC television show Collectors and its Hobart breakfast radio program viewed thousand of images over 16 months, at times on a daily basis.

His psychologist Dr Janet Baines told the court last month he was not a peadophile and viewed the material as a result of work stress.

Chief Justice Ewan Crawford rejected Muirhead's claim he had no sexual interest in children.

Muirhead apologised for his offences in a letter read by his lawyer, Kim Baumeler, in July.

He was first charged in June 2010 after the Australian Federal Police received information from Interpol.

http://www.news.com.au/national/former-abc-show-host-andy-muirhead-jailed-for-10-months-over-child-porn/story-fndo4eg9-1226486055577

For crying out loud

Miranda Devine – Friday, September 07, 2012 (4:03pm)

THIS is an excuse for child pornography addiction we haven’t heard before: 

A psychologist treating former ABC presenter Andy Muirhead has told a court he viewed child pornography because of work stress and not for sexual gratification.
Dr Janet Haines has told the Tasmanian Supreme Court there were no indicators Muirhead could be considered a paedophile…
Dr Haines said Muirhead had developed a dissociation condition after working up to seven days a week in the two ABC jobs.
“He was exhausted, he didn’t have any balance in his life,” she told the court on Friday.
“That level of pressure increases people’s stress levels, it increases their arousal.
“That level of arousal starts to feel normal.”
She said the arousal was not sexual but involved the sympathetic nervous system causing symptoms such as increased adrenaline and heart rate.
A sense of detachment followed and heavy use of the internet for legitimate purposes then turned into browsing to find a “welcome diversion”.
Dr Haines said Muirhead had initially viewed adult pornography for sexual reasons but soon lost interest in it before “accidentally” coming across child-based material.
“You’re drawn to it because it is so alien to your value system,” she said.
She said the viewing of about 13,000 images over 16 months, at times on a daily basis, was irrelevant because Muirhead’s dissociative condition meant he lost track of those kinds of numbers. 

Right. Is this where we're at? Where any behaviour, no matter how wrong, can be explained away and excused?

And hey, psychologist Haines, child pornography is not a victimless crime.

Every person who looks at child porn is creating demand for the product, which means more videos and images must be made, more children kidnapped or sold, more little victims abused, their degradation and screams preserved forever on the internet. 

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Martika cancels Australian tour to Canberra, Adelaide and Perth

THE NINETIES revival in Australia has hit a stumbling block with the cancellation of Martika's tour.

Martika, whose hits include Love Thy Will Be Done, Toy Soldiers and I Feel the Earth Move, was due to start her first Australian tour this weekend in Canberra.

No reason was given for the abrupt cancellation, which is believed to be due to disappointing ticket sales.
Adelaide and Perth stops on the tour were previously axed.

"My feelings are hurt, I am so angry, I can't stop crying because I wanted to perform for my Australian and New Zealand fans and now this is cancelled," Martika wrote in an online message.

"My live show is ready and I AM READY, so those that were excited to see me perform in Australia will get to see this show, just at a later date."

Refunds, thy will be done, at place of purchase.

Promoters of a recent double header tour by one-hit-wonders Eiffel 65 and N-Trance downsized to smaller venues and struggled to sell tickets.

However Australian tours by `90s acts Aqua, S Club, Hanson and Vengaboys were huge successes in Australia this year.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/music/martika-cancels-australian-tour-to-canberra-adelaide-and-perth/story-e6frfn09-1226486033946#ixzz282iTM5St
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Pregnant woman allegedly threatened to "drive a knife'' through her boyfriend once she finished cooking sausages

A HEAVILY pregnant woman allegedly threatened to "drive a knife'' through her boyfriend once she finished cooking sausages about an hour before he collapsed with a stab wound to his chest.

Kristy Cullen, 32, of East Gosford, faced a closed bail hearing this morning charged with the stabbing murder of her boyfriend of 10-month's Michael Gilham, 28, last night.

Police facts tendered to Gosford Local Court allege the pair started arguing in the kitchen of her York St unit after watching the NRL Grand Final with her two children from a previous relationship, her cousin, her sister, her sister's boyfriend and their children and another friend.

Witnesses told police he followed her into the kitchen when she went to prepare dinner and they heard her say: "I'll drive a knife through ya.''

He replied: "No you won't, you won't do it.''"The accused said; "you watch me, once I finish cooking these sausages','' the police facts read.

Police allege the argument settled down by about 8pm when the victim, who lived with his parents, left the unit with her sister's boyfriend and a number of the children to walk to a nearby bottle shop.

They returned about 9pm when police allege the argument resumed.

Witnesses said the victim was heard saying from the kitchen "go on hit me I don't care''.

Police facts allege he approached her and she pushed him away before she was seen grabbing an object from the kitchen bench.

"The accused raised her right arm and in a downwards punching motion struck the deceased to his chest,'' the police facts said.

She was then heard to say: "I got you didn't I?''.

"The deceased turned to walk from the kitchen where he collapsed striking his head on the wall near the kitchen bench,'' the facts said.

"The accused initially knelt down by the deceased and commenced to scream.''

Witnesses said they saw her walk out to the balcony and say: "What have I done?''.

Mr Gilham, who also had two children from a previous relationship, had a "small open wound to the chest'' and was later pronounced dead at Gosford Hospital.

Cullen allegedly told police "I did it, he came at me, it was self defence'' before telling them the black handled steak knife now covered in blood was "in the sink, I threw it there''.

Cullen, who the police facts indicated was four-and-a-half month's pregnant with the couple's child, was interviewed at Gosford police station and was later taken back to the unit where she participated in a recorded re-enactment.

She told police she turned around with the knife in her hand and tried to push him away.

But the police facts indicated she was significantly shorter than he was.

"So her assertion of stabbing him while turning around is in conflict with the evidence and witness' version,'' the facts said.

Cullen did not apply for bail and will appear again in court tomorrow.
http://www.news.com.au/national/pregnant-woman-allegedly-threatened-to-drive-a-knife-through-her-boyfriend-once-she-finished-cooking-sausages/story-fndo4bst-1226485945237
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Sydney NW rail link gets planning approval

WORK on Sydney's North West Rail Link is a step closer to starting, with the NSW government granting the project planning approval.

The rail line will connect Chatswood, on Sydney's north shore, with the Hills district in the city's northwest and will include eight new train stations.

It is expected to support more than 16,200 jobs during construction and inject about $25 billion into the state's economy.

Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian says approval has been given for work to start on two rail tunnels between Epping and Bella Vista, excavation work on railway stations, and a 4km viaduct between Bella Vista and Rouse Hill.

"The NSW government is committed to providing a public transport rail link for the people of Sydney's fastest-growing area," Ms Berejiklian said in a statement on Monday.

"This tick of approval means we can get on with the job of getting the tunnel boring machines in the ground in 2014."

The announcement comes after Ms Berejiklian was last month forced to defend the project against claims it won't improve road congestion.

Construction on the rail link is set to begin in 2014 and is expected to take five or six years to complete.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/sydney-nw-rail-link-gets-planning-approval/story-e6frfku9-1226486120981#ixzz282jHWHUX
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Ryan says Obama's foreign policy 'unraveling,' Romney's will be about US 'strength'

Republican vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan on Sunday criticized the Obama administration's response to the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya, saying it is just part of a larger “unraveling” of its foreign policy.

“Their response was slow. It was confused, it was inconsistent,” Ryan said on “Fox News Sunday.” “It’s part of a bigger picture of the fact that the Obama foreign policy is unraveling literally before our eyes on our TV screens.”

Ryan made his remarks just days before Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is expected to give a major foreign policy speech.

“What Mitt Romney's going to do is lay out a very different vision for foreign policy -- one that is a policy of American strength versus what I would articulate or claim the president's policy is one of weakness,” Ryan said.

The Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. The White House initially said the attack was a “spontaneous” response to a anti-Islamic video trailer but has since acknowledged it was a planned terror attack.

The Wisconsin congressman on Sunday also called the recent violence in the Middle East “the ugly fruits of the Obama foreign policy,” arguing that 20,000 people have been killed, Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon and Russia is “thwarting us at every stage.”

Ryan called Iran “the biggest threat we have today” and said the big issue is Obama’s credibility.

“The Ayatollahs in Iran, they have to make a decision to stop pursuing a nuclear weapon and pursue a peaceful resolution,” he said. “I would argue that they're not doing that because the president doesn't have credibility."

Ryan also said he and Romney have repeatedly said the U.S. has to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons capability and that a Romney-Ryan administration would not put “daylight between our allies, especially Israel.”

He also said the president has “moved his rhetoric a bit to look more like ours, and that's good, but the problem is it's built upon a mountain of non-credible actions.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/30/ryan-says-obama-foreign-policy-unraveling-romney-will-be-about-us-trength/#ixzz282kA8ZsG
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D.C. sniper: I felt like 'worst piece of scum'

Convicted D.C. sniper Lee Boyd Malvo said in a newspaper interview published Sunday that the devastated reaction of a victim's husband made him feel like "the worst piece of scum."

Malvo expresses remorse in the interview with The Washington Post and urged the families of victims to try and forget about him and his partner John Allen Muhammad so they can move on. Tuesday marks the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the deadly spree in the Washington area carried out by Malvo and John Allen Muhammad. The pair has been linked to 27 shootings across the country, including 10 fatal attacks in the Washington area.

Malvo, 27, told the Post in a rare interview that the look on the face of victim Linda Franklin's husband right after she was shot stands out in his memory of the rampage. Franklin, a 47-year-old FBI analyst, was killed as she and her husband loaded supplies outside a Home Depot in Falls Church, Va.

"They are penetrating," Malvo said of Ted Franklin's eyes. "It is the worst sort of pain I have ever seen in my life. His eyes ... Words do not possess the depth in which to fully convey that emotion and what I felt when I saw it. ... You feel like the worst piece of scum on the planet."

Malvo is serving a life sentence with no parole at a prison in southwest Virginia for killing Franklin. Muhammad was executed in Virginia in 2009.

The sniper-style attacks all but paralyzed the nation's capital, as people were shot at random while going about their everyday life -- pumping gas, buying groceries, and for one young boy, as he went to school. The shooters used a high-powered rifle, firing from the trunk of a modified Chevy Caprice until they were tracked down at a Maryland rest stop.

Malvo also repeated previous assertions that he was manipulated by the older Muhammad during the string of attacks that took place when Malvo was 17. But he acknowledges: "I was a monster."

Malvo has declined to respond to many media requests, including letters from The Associated Press. He was interviewed in 2010 for a cable TV special.

When asked by the Post what he would say to victims' families, the remorseful Malvo said there's no way to properly convey an apology.

"We can never change what happened," Malvo said. "There's nothing that I can say except don't allow me and my actions to continue to victimize you for the rest of your life."

He added: "Don't allow myself or Muhammad to continue to make you a victim for the rest of your life. It isn't worth it."

Linda Franklin's father, Charles Moore, was incredulous about the idea that victims' relatives would be able to forget about what Malvo and Muhammad did.

"There's no way. I can't believe that. No one can go through something like that," Moore said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

Moore said he believes his daughter's slaying contributed to his wife's death several years later.

"What he did just destroyed my family. I'll never be able to put it aside. Never," he said.

"There are things that stand out in your life that you think about. I'm 83 years old and I'll carry it to my grave."

- Jesus forgave him. - ed.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/09/30/dc-sniper-felt-like-worst-piece-scum/#ixzz282kvTp1p
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Not the man to lead the Jill Meagher march, in my opinion

Yes, a lovely gesture: 

Tens of thousands of people have rallied in inner Melbourne to mourn Jill Meagher, grieving her horrific death, and urging harmony and an end to violence in the community…

Local resident Philip Werner, who organised the march, led the procession with a banner that read “Choosing peace, hope, non-violence and solidarity with all women”.

But that’s Philip Werner, as in the professional photographer of whose bondage pictures, several graphic, I dare show only the most “demure”:

The model in one picture even looks like a bound woman dug out from the earth, perhaps a grave. And the sentiments expressed are a bit ... off:

I don’t think Werner was an appropriate person to lead this march. Not for those of us who worry about the role pornography and the aggressive objectification of women play in sexual assaults.

(Thanks to reader R.)

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Abbott’s foes make the most of Jones’ shame

I’VE long respected broadcaster Alan Jones for his courage. Jones is also a colleague of mine on 2GB.

But telling the Sydney University Liberal Club President’s dinner the Prime Minister’s father had “died a few weeks ago of shame” for his daughter was cruel and shameful.

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Paying benefits with borrowed money is the road to Greece

ENOUGH. No more asking politicians what they’ll spend. Ask instead what they’ll cut.

Can’t we see last week’s riots in Spain and Greece as governments finally run out of money even for public service wages?

The Gillard Government keeps scoffing that “we’re not Greece” and such talk is alarmist.

(Subscription required for full article.)

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Book launch

Book while there are still spots:

Free Event - RSVP essential

Date: October 4, 2012

Oaks on Collins, 480 Collins Street, Melbourne

Morning tea from 10.30am for a 11.00am start and concluding by 12.00pm

Launch of Maybe “I do” - Modern marriage and the pursuit of happiness by Kevin Andrews with Andrew Bolt

Hear Andrew Bolt launch a new book from federal Liberal frontbencher Kevin Andrews on the importance of marriage, published by Connor Court. You can read more about the book and purchase it here.

Click here to book

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Another day of Muslims being picked on

The Drudge Report sums up another day of Buddhists, Christians and even Muslims picking on poor Muslims who have no option but to blow their oppressors to kingdom come:

And, yes, that attack near an Islamic school in Nigeria is probably the work of Islamists, too.

UPDATE

Prime Censor Julia Gillard:

Denigration of religious beliefs is never acceptable.

So Billy Connolly is never acceptable:

(Thanks to reader Jeff of FNQ and others.)

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Perhaps Queenslanders know the cash is gone

The latest Newspoll suggests that maybe, just maybe, the message is getting through that the money really has gone and Campbell Newman had no option: 

THE vocal backlash against Campbell Newman’s cost-cutting drive - and federal Labor’s attempts to demonise the Queensland leader as part of its campaign against Tony Abbott - have failed to dent the popularity of the Premier and his Liberal National Party…

When preferences are factored in, the LNP is 20 points clear of state Labor, 60-40 per cent, two-party-preferred. This is broadly in line with the election result that delivered 78 of the 89 state seats in Queensland to the LNP on a two-party-preferred vote of 62.8 per cent, against Labor’s 37.2 per cent.

But Judith Sloan also notes Newman’s “savage” layoffs of public servants are no more than a correction of Labor’s astonishing blowout in their number:

A few weeks ago, I was tuned in to the evening news to be told that the LNP government was planning to cut 1500 jobs in health.

Gosh, I thought, 1500 jobs sounds quite a lot. So I decided to find out how many people are employed in Queensland Health. The answer is more than 80,000. Annual natural attrition would account for more than double the proposed job cuts of 1500, which represent a mere 1.9 per cent of total employment.

But here’s the rub. A decade ago, employment in Queensland Health stood at 49,000....

But here’s a further rub. Whereas the number of nurses in effective full-time terms increased by 65 per cent over the decade, the number of managerial and clerical staff rose by 103 per cent during the same period.

So what to make of federal Labor screaming against such jobs cuts and vowing not to implement any such thing themselves? Well, not much:

...  this year’s budget explicitly plans for a cut of 3073 in the average staffing level of agencies in the Australian government general government sector - a cut of 1.3 per cent (not much lower than the planned cut to Queensland Health).

And with the super-efficiency dividend of 4 per cent being imposed on government agencies… it is entirely plausible the number could be double the planned reduction of 3000. So, yes, the federal Labor government also slashes jobs…

Having been told by Kevin Rudd that the “reckless spending” must stop and that a “meat axe” would be taken to the “bloated” public service, in government, Labor went weak at the knees. The Australian public service has grown by an average of just under 1 per cent a year since the Labor government has been in office.

Evidently, the meat axe was very blunt. It is only now that job cuts are being made.

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For every one to Nauru, seven have arrived

People smugglers and boat people have bet on the Gillard Government being all bluster and no performance - and they were right:

THE Gillard government’s offshore processing regime is running behind schedule with just 150 asylum-seekers sent to Nauru, despite expectations 500 boatpeople would be housed on the island by the end of September.

The threat of being sent to Nauru does not appear to be working as a deterrent, as 1107 people are thought to have arrived in Australian waters on 17 boats since the first planeload of transfers touched down on the tiny Pacific island on September 14…

Record numbers continue to reach Australian waters with September now the biggest month for asylum boats. A total of 35 vessels were intercepted last month carrying 2319 asylum-seekers and 41 crew.

For every one boat person sent to Nauru, seven have arrived 

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Jihadists may come to Australia, but not their brave opponents

This is utterly, utterly disgraceful - and the cowards don’t even have the courage to confess to what they do. Paul Sheehan:

Six weeks ago, the leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV), which until recently held the balance of power in the Dutch parliament, applied for a visa to visit Australia. His name is Geert Wilders.

Members of his staff and security detail were granted visas after three days. Wilders received nothing. He is still waiting…

After six weeks of silence, the federal government hasn’t had the courage to deny Wilders a visa. It prefers the back door…

Wilders is an elected member of parliament, has never been convicted of a crime and is an outspoken defender of pluralism, democracy, feminism and freedom of speech. He believes these bedrock liberal values are being eroded by a steady, incremental challenge from Muslims in Holland. He now lives under constant police protection. Four prominent critics of Islam in Holland have been assassinated or threatened with death in recent years.

Wilders argues that the root cause of growing ill-liberalism in Holland, and also in Belgium and France, is driven by strict adherents of Islam. He ... sees the stresses between Muslims and non-Muslims in Holland as rooted in a general insularity among Muslims because Islam is not only a religion but a social, legal and political system that gives Islam primacy over the state.

Wilders was to have given speeches in Sydney and Melbourne in two weeks…

The Gillard government appears intent on stopping this visit, even though it recently granted a visa to an Islamic fundamentalist, Taji Mustafa, a spokesman for Hizb ut-Tahrir, the group implicated in the violent demonstration by several hundred Muslims in Sydney two weeks ago, while Mustafa was visiting the country. The Arabic script on headbands and T-shirts worn by many demonstrators were variations of the theme of jihad, such as ‘’We are your soldiers, Muhammad’’.

An apologist for jihad was allowed into the country to speak while a member of the Dutch parliament has been stopped.