Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Wed 19th Dec Todays News

Happy birthday and many happy returns Lam NguyenEris WittmannPeter AuTony PhamKevin Smith and EtaBeta Scs. Born on the same day, across the years. Remember, birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.

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John C. Calhoun

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Events

[edit]Births

[edit]Deaths

[edit]Holidays and observances


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Labor declares Australia a foreign nation!

Piers Akerman – Wednesday, December 19, 2012 (7:28am)

IN A move that only a slush fund operator could truly appreciate, the Gillard government has now made itself the THIRD largest recipient of its own foreign aid program.
This shabby minority Labor-Green-Independent government, well-used to redefining words, has now declared that foreign aid which was spent in foreign places can now be spent on foreigners in Australia.
This sleight of hand makes Australia the third largest recipient of its own foreign aid program after Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.
The rort is intended to camouflage Labor’s failed Budget and busted border protection policy.
As deputy Opposition leader Julie Bishop said yesterday: “This massive cut to foreign aid and overseas development assistance shows that the budget is in crisis. The Government’s border protection failures are now spreading throughout the Government and Bob Carr tried to sneak this news out just before Christmas and he’s been caught out.
“The people smugglers now have more control over Labor’s budget than the Gillard Government does. Bob Carr’s excuses and spin cannot disguise the fact that this funding is for overseas development. It is not being spent overseas and it is not being spent on development.

“Also, this sends a very bad message for the beginning of Australia’s two year stint on the United Nations Security Council. It was a key plank of the Government’s campaign to win a seat that they would be increasing the foreign aid budget to 0.5 per cent of GNI. In fact they have misled countries into voting for them with this deceitful attempt to redirect the foreign aid budget.
“The Australian people have learnt that they can’t trust Julia Gillard’s word, now people around the world cannot rely on her word.”

Bishop said the Coalition would examine the state of the books if it won office next year before deciding how to address the problem.
“We now know that the Government has made over 150 promises to restore the budget to surplus but this act of cutting the foreign aid budget is sheer desperation,” she said.
“So until we see the state of the accounts we won’t know the budget, but one thing we can be assured of and that is the Coalition will stop the boats. So we won’t need to be diverting foreign aid monies - that is meant to be for development of poor countries - we won’t need to divert that money to border protection failures because we will stop the boats.”

There can be no more excuses for Foreign Minister Bob Carr, she said. “His weasel words have caught up with him. This is a direct attempt to take money away from developing countries overseas to make up for their border protection failings. The budget for border protection has already blown out by over $6.5 billion and the Government is now in crisis, its budget figures are untrustworthy and until we see the final state of the accounts no-one in Australia will know how much money there really is to be spent on hospitals, schools and the like.”

Bishop said billions of dollars has already been wasted on their border protection failings. Billions more have been wasted on pink batts and overpriced school halls and cash giveaways.

She said that according to the OECD foreign aid funding is for economic development and the well being of poor countries.
The government’s fiddle sends a very bad message to the rest of the world just when Australia is about to commence a two year stint on the UN Security Council, based on promises that they would increase the aid budget. 
Charity World Vision claimed 200,000 people could die because of Labor’s decision to divert the money from the foreign aid budget, even as a member of the so-called expert Houston Panel forecast as many as 30,000 asylum seekers could be expected in 2013.
About 16,800 arrived in 2012 at a cost of more than $1.3 billion. The forecast numbers could cost in excess of $4.9 billion.
Keeping an illegal boat passenger on Nauru costs $328,500 a year.
The Gillard farce continues . . .

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AWU scandal - What Gillard did wrong

Andrew BoltDECEMBER192012(6:08pm)

Terry O’Connor QC is a former head of Western Australia’s Anti-Corruption Commission. Unlike the Julia Gillard clique in the ABC, he believes Gillard did something very wrong indeed in helping to register a slush fund for her boyfriend with a deceptive name and deceptive articles of association:
Gillard drafted the rules of the association. As drafted they set out a number of general objects for the association including things such as securing benefits for and, contributing to the safety and training of, workers. Significantly, as required by schedule 1 of the act paragraph 3(2) of the objects provides “no part of the property or income may be paid or otherwise distributed, directly or indirectly, to members"…

Importantly, nowhere in either the rules of the association or the application for incorporation is the real purpose of the association set out, namely to raise funds to pay for officials’ re-election campaign. Indeed as noted above paragraph 3(2) of the rules expressly prohibits that…
Section 170 of the Criminal Code WA provides that “any person who, being required under a written law to give information to another person, knowingly gives information to the other person, that is false in a material particular is guilty of a crime and is liable to imprisonment for three years”.
Section 43 of the Associations Incorporations Act also makes it an offence for a person to lodge a document with the commissioner which the person knows is false or misleading in any material respect.
In this case the rules lodged did not state the real object of the association. The application, which certified compliance with the act, falsely certified that the association was eligible for incorporation under subsection 4(1e) of the act as an association of more than five members formed for political purposes when in fact it had only two members - Blewitt and Wilson.
Under either of these provisions Blewitt, as the person who made the application for incorporation, in my view could have been charged with knowingly giving false information to the commissioner ...
Section 7(b) of the Criminal Code provides that where an offence has been committed, a person who does or omits to do any act for the purpose of enabling or aiding another person to commit an offence, is also guilty of the same offence and is liable to the same punishment as if he or she had committed the offence. A lawyer who advises a client to do something that would constitute an offence would be caught by this provision.
Gillard advised Blewitt on the incorporation of the association and prepared the rules of the association and, following a query from the commissioner, wrote arguing for the incorporation of the association…
However, without some explanation from her as to what occurred, there is, in my opinion, a prima facie case that she could have been charged along with Blewitt as she drafted the rules of the association for Blewitt knowing that the rules did not disclose the purpose for which the association was being incorporated.

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Summers should be ashamed of herself

Andrew BoltDECEMBER192012(5:31pm)

Tony Thomas on the abusive and not so very accurate Anne Summers, whose absurdly Manichean views so appeal to the ABC that it rattles the can for her.  Maybe some of the proceeds can go to the Medicare staff she falsely accused of vilifying Gillard.
Jonathan Holmes on the abusive and not very accurate Anne Summers, whose absurdly Manichean views - this time applied to the Media Watch host - so offend that he rattles her cage.
PS
Thomas discovers Summers has published a foul comment suggesting not only that I am a Nazi but that my father would die of shame. Not only are both insults grotesquely false and offensive to Dad and me, I find it monstrously hypocritical that Summers should publish them after the fuss she made over Alan Jones saying Julia Gillard’s father died of shame. Has Summers no shame herself?

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CLEAR THINKING

Tim Blair – Wednesday, December 19, 2012 (4:43pm)

Glenn Reynolds: “When people say things like ‘don’t let this moment pass without acting on gun control,’ what they’re really saying is our arguments are so unpersuasive that they can only succeed when people aren’t thinking clearly.” Quite so. Meanwhile, a potential mass killing is averted inTexas
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office says the off-duty sergeant, who was working security, heard the gunshots and came running. She saw the gunman coming out of the men’s restroom. The Sheriff’s Office says the gunman did not shoot at her, but his gun was drawn so she opened fire.
That off-duty sergeant, identified as Lisa Castellano, fired four times, wounding the gunman. 
And in Wyoming
A gunman retreated from a Casper nail salon last week after realizing one of its customers was packing heat. 
And Arizona
One of three men involved in stopping a bank robbery suspect on Friday said carrying a sidearm is the responsibility of able-bodied, law-abiding men. 
(Via several readers)

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INSURANCE UPGRADED

Tim Blair – Wednesday, December 19, 2012 (3:24pm)

An invitation arrives from Sydney Speedway
As part of our Get Back to Speedway promotion we are inviting media, sporting personalities and some drivers from other major categories to come and have a spin in a 900HP Sprintcar … 
I usually drive something with a power-to-weight ratio of one horsepower per 4.4 kilograms. This is considered a reasonably quick machine. Each unit of Sprintcar horsepower, however, shifts less than one kilogram. Put another way, these monsters weigh half as much as a rapid road car but have three times the power. Some instruction may be required. Last line from the invite: “If you have a race suit and helmet it would be great if you could bring it along with you.”
I’m taking Hildebrand with me. He needs to get out more often.

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ABC INFLUENCED

Tim Blair – Wednesday, December 19, 2012 (2:12pm)

A delicate fisking of Anne Summers, our second-most influential female voice.
UPDATE. In other leftoid media news, Sharona Coutts is “partly sad, partly honoured” to join Jess Hill in being fired by the Global Mail. Tweets Coutts: 
I think there are some real moral questions, esp re Jess’s situation & the hiring of friends & family. 
Another Global MailerJoel Tozer, is believed to have walked out. The troubled collective is now said to be chatting with the Guardian over some kind of Australian merger: 
Guardian deputy editor Katharine Viner is heading the Australian expansion and is believed to have talked to local journalists including Annabel Crabb and David Marr. 
Can’t possibly fail.

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NO EASY ANSWERS

Tim Blair – Wednesday, December 19, 2012 (12:03pm)

Academic Kevin Yuill on last week’s Connecticut massacre: 
School shootings are incredibly rare and, statistically, children are safer at school than they are at home, and they are far more likely to be killed by their parents than by anyone else. According to Gary Kleck, a child is more likely to be struck by lightning at school than a bullet. To put it in perspective, the homicide rate at primary schools in the UK – that nation most favoured by gun-control activists – is slightly higher than that in the United States, lest anyone thinks that school violence is endemic to the US. The fact that we have all heard of school shootings does not mean that there is much danger at all of them occurring. 
Due to the sheer infrequency of such attacks, Yuill rejects the idea of armed guards at schools: 
Whereas most of the nonsensical suggestions come from those who want more gun controls, this one can be heard from those resisting such controls. What it fails to see is how rare school shootings are, instead playing on the same fears that fuel demands for controls. On the same logic, children should be made to wear lightning-proof helmets. 
Read on. (Via sdog)
UPDATE. Death threats to NRA members. Just as well they’re armed.

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OUR NAVY IS WAVING A WHITE FLAG TO WOODEN BOATS

Defence force chief, General David Hurley, said yesterday the Federal Opposition policy to turn back asylum seeker boats won't stop people smuggling. Mmmm, now it’s getting serious.

General Hurley also suggested the smugglers will outwit us, matching our Navy’s moves each time.

''This is a whole chain and just doing one bit does not stop the whole chain functioning. They will work around this,'' he said. ''Within two days they will come up with a counter measure.”

The smugglers are listening to Hurley with pride.

So our Navy is incapable of stopping hoards of illegal invaders in unarmed wooden boats, eh?

What a comforting thought that the World’s largest Islamic nation to our north can dictate our immigration policy. Has international political correctness reached a whole new level?

Is Maritime Law to be honoured in the face of an invasion by sea?

John Howard declared that we Australians will decide who comes to this country... and the smugglers believed him.

They will not believe the Gillard Government simply because they know it has Green influence, it’s a soft touch and lacks resolve.

The boats will not stop until we accept the fact that these people are illegal immigrants. They certainly are illegal immigrants, at least until they can be processed and proved otherwise.

No other country in the World would treat illegal aliens like this. No other country would send their Navy to escort them to a processing centre. No other Western nation would shower illegal Islamics with Centrelink benefits and a host of other benefits including housing. Oh, and legal aid, in case they wish to sue us if we don’t get the gifting thing quite right.

Forget the Left’s nonsense. These people are not refugees or asylum seekers.

Under UNHCR protocol, refugees and asylum seekers must settle at the first port of call, the first safe haven from persecution. In other words, Malaysia or Indonesia.

They fly into there from Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan. Therefore they were already “processed” by either the Malaysian or Indonesian Immigration authorities. They had air tickets, papers, passports and a fistful of US dollars. The smugglers got their cash and they arrive here with nothing. That’s the plan.

So, why do they ditch their papers? Because their passports would show they arrived at that embarkation point. In other words they would be proved to be country-shopping and therefore illegal immigrants, all are are allowed to stay anyway.

Detention camps don’t worry them because they can sew their lips together, start a riot, go on hunger strikes, burn the joint down and access our legal aid to prove WE are persecuting them.

The Gillard Government has so far paid out in excess of $7 million in legal aid to Labor law firms to act for illegal immigrants. They secretly settle each case prior to any judicial ruling to avoid a disastrous legal precedent.

All boat people are well off. Only they can afford to pay the smugglers’ exorbitant fees. Genuine refugees, the ones we should be helping, remain queued in squalid conditions.

Gillard and the Greens’ solution of increasing the legitimate intake from 13,000 to 20,000 is more woolly thinking. That “solution” will make not one iota of difference to those determined to come here by boat.

Indonesia plays Bowen, Gillard and Carr off a break. Indonesia wants the boats to continue coming here. That’s why they won’t cooperate with us in turning boats back. Why can't this government see this?

The Indonesian Army is heavily involved with the smugglers. Personnel who were recently charged are back on the job, and no doubt funds find willing pockets high in the corrupt Indonesian government.

Everything Gillard touches becomes a disaster and we accept that. But we can’t accept our Navy’s inability or reticence to stop an illegal invasion which is now having serious economic effects on Australia’s citizens.

Placating Indonesia with billions in “gifts” is to them a sign of weakness. Until we take a firm stand, boats will continue to arrive and unknown thousands will drown. Don’t expect the Indonesian smugglers to advertise that their boats regularly sink with all aboard. They will deny it. It hurts business.

We are part of Asia but know nothing of the Asian psyche. We are to them the land of limitless milk and honey and they have an Allah-given entitlement to access it.

Gillard can enjoy her Xmas dinner while thousands of children now starve because Swan diverted our aid budget to assist the invasion from the north. WTF is going on? Isn’t our Navy supposed to be defending us from all this?

We may have to wait for Abbott to instruct the Navy to act like part of our defence force and stem this invasion instead of assisting it.

Gillard certainly won’t.
Photo: OUR NAVY IS WAVING A WHITE FLAG TO WOODEN BOATS 

Defence force chief, General David Hurley, said yesterday the Federal Opposition policy to turn back asylum seeker boats won't stop people smuggling. Mmmm, now it’s getting serious. 

General Hurley also suggested the smugglers will outwit us, matching our Navy’s moves each time. 

''This is a whole chain and just doing one bit does not stop the whole chain functioning. They will work around this,'' he said. ''Within two days they will come up with a counter measure.” 

The smugglers are listening to Hurley with pride.

So our Navy is incapable of stopping hoards of illegal invaders in unarmed wooden boats, eh?

What a comforting thought that the World’s largest Islamic nation to our north can dictate our immigration policy. Has international political correctness reached a whole new level?

Is Maritime Law to be honoured in the face of an invasion by sea?

John Howard declared that we Australians will decide who comes to this country... and the smugglers believed him. 

They will not believe the Gillard Government simply because they know it has Green influence, it’s a soft touch and lacks resolve.

The boats will not stop until we accept the fact that these people are illegal immigrants. They certainly are illegal immigrants, at least until they can be processed and proved otherwise. 

No other country in the World would treat illegal aliens like this. No other country would send their Navy to escort them to a processing centre. No other Western nation would shower illegal Islamics with Centrelink benefits and a host of other benefits including housing. Oh, and legal aid, in case they wish to sue us if we don’t get the gifting thing quite right.  

Forget the Left’s nonsense. These people are not refugees or asylum seekers. 

Under UNHCR protocol, refugees and asylum seekers must settle at the first port of call, the first safe haven from persecution. In other words, Malaysia or Indonesia. 

They fly into there from Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan. Therefore they were already “processed” by either the Malaysian or Indonesian Immigration authorities. They had air tickets, papers, passports and a fistful of US dollars. The smugglers got their cash and they arrive here with nothing. That’s the plan.

So, why do they ditch their papers? Because their passports would show they arrived at that embarkation point. In other words they would be proved to be country-shopping and therefore illegal immigrants, all are are allowed to stay anyway. 

Detention camps don’t worry them because they can sew their lips together, start a riot, go on hunger strikes, burn the joint down and access our legal aid to prove WE are persecuting them. 

The Gillard Government has so far paid out in excess of $7 million in legal aid to Labor law firms to act for illegal immigrants. They secretly settle each case prior to any judicial ruling to avoid a disastrous legal precedent.

All boat people are well off. Only they can afford to pay the smugglers’ exorbitant fees. Genuine refugees, the ones we should be helping, remain queued in squalid conditions. 

Gillard and the Greens’ solution of increasing the legitimate intake from 13,000 to 20,000 is more woolly thinking. That “solution” will make not one iota of difference to those determined to come here by boat. 

Indonesia plays Bowen, Gillard and Carr off a break. Indonesia wants the boats to continue coming here. That’s why they won’t cooperate with us in turning boats back. Why can't this government see this?

The Indonesian Army is heavily involved with the smugglers. Personnel who were recently charged are back on the job, and no doubt funds find willing pockets high in the corrupt Indonesian government.

Everything Gillard touches becomes a disaster and we accept that. But we can’t accept our Navy’s inability or reticence to stop an illegal invasion which is now having serious economic effects on Australia’s citizens. 

Placating Indonesia with billions in “gifts” is to them a sign of weakness. Until we take a firm stand, boats will continue to arrive and unknown thousands will drown. Don’t expect the Indonesian smugglers to advertise that their boats regularly sink with all aboard. They will deny it. It hurts business.

We are part of Asia but know nothing of the Asian psyche. We are to them the land of limitless milk and honey and they have an Allah-given entitlement to access it. 

Gillard can enjoy her Xmas dinner while thousands of children now starve because Swan diverted our aid budget to assist the invasion from the north. WTF is going on? Isn’t our Navy supposed to be defending us from all this?

We may have to wait for Abbott to instruct the Navy to act like part of our defence force and stem this invasion instead of assisting it. 

Gillard certainly won’t.
  • David Daniel Ball I don't agree with Pickering's take. I get it he is an ALP voter outraged at Julia Gillard's mismanagement. However, the people coming by boat are people. It isn't good for them to come to Australia because the journey is deadly and involves paying large amounts of money to pirates. Meanwhile, refugees miss out .. The Pacific Solution had been the fairest way of dealing with the situation. Also the situation is currently a security risk.

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Teachers, next time you read a story about heartless vandals, ask yourself "What would kind vandals have done?"
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SWOOPING EAGLE LIFTS UP BABY INTO THE AIR

A man has filmed the terrifying moment a golden eagle swooped on a baby in a park and lifted the child into the air.

Watch the amazing video: http://bit.ly/ZMwjDU
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How much longer will the Labor Party foul its reputation by endorsing Ms Gillard's behaviour by Michael Smith

It's tragic.   The Labor Party's whole essence is being infected and turned gangrenous by its institutional support for Julia Gillard.   It stinks.
Imagine a group of weaklings so fearful of Miss Gillard that they do her bidding, hide her past and attack anyone who tries to get answers about what she and her lover did.   She is where she is because people like you, ALP caucus, do nothing.   You tacitly endorse the sackings, the character assassinations, the smear tactics deployed against good-hearted people who just want the truth.
And all because you are scared of her and what she might do to you.  Well look at what her continuing cover-up is doing to the country.    Just look at it clearly, her lover was socking away hundreds of thousands over 4 years, using a corporate structure she set up.   And that structure was illegally established.  
Why do you put her interests and her defence of her indefensible conduct before the interests of the Labor Party and all those millions of workers who affiliate with it?   What have you become?
There are things in the character of the nation that are more important than a few more weeks with the white limo, the travel and the office.   You won't be remembered for those extra weeks in power, but by God you'd be remembered  for taking a stand against Gillard's behaviour.

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THERE has been considerable recent media discussion about the 1992 incorporation of the Australian Workers Union Workplace Reform Association Inc and the involvement of Julia Gillard in its incorporation.
In particular there has been conjecture as to whether or not Gillard has committed any offence in her role in the incorporation of the association.

Before discussing that question, it is necessary to establish the facts. While some of the facts surrounding the incorporation are uncertain, there is sufficient on the public record to reach a view on what might be the legal position of those involved.

In 1992 Gillard, then a salaried partner in the law firm Slater & Gordon, advised her partner, one Bruce Wilson, then an AWU official, and another official, Ralph Blewitt, on the incorporation of an association under the Associations Incorporations Act WA.

In 1995 Gillard was interviewed by Slater & Gordon's then senior partner Peter Gordon. It is implicit in what she said in that interview that Wilson and Blewitt, who were senior officers in the AWU, came to her seeking advice on how to deal with funds to be raised by them to pay the cost of their campaign for re-election to their branch executive.

...It would appear that her advice was to incorporate the association, which would open a bank account to hold the funds. In the interview with Gordon, she said that, "thinking behind the forming of the association (was that) it was better to have an incorporated association that was the holder of the account" to avoid disputes between officials as to who was entitled to the funds. Gillard prepared the necessary documents for the incorporation of the association.

Section 4 of the act sets out the limited objects for which an association can be incorporated. If the purpose of the association does not meet the requirements of section 4, incorporation will be refused.

The Corporate Affairs commissioner has a discretion to refuse incorporation in certain other circumstances. For these reasons it is important he is not misled as to the objects of any proposed association.

Section 5 of the act requires that application for incorporation be made on the prescribed form, accompanied by the rules of the association and a certificate verifying that certain requirements of the act have been met.

Gillard drafted the rules of the association. As drafted they set out a number of general objects for the association including things such as securing benefits for and, contributing to the safety and training of, workers. Significantly, as required by schedule 1 of the act paragraph 3(2) of the objects provides "no part of the property or income may be paid or otherwise distributed, directly or indirectly, to members".

In the formal application for incorporation, which was in the name of Blewitt, the main purpose of the association was described as being "development of changes to work to achieve a safe workplace". The application also certified that the association was not formed for the purpose of providing a pecuniary benefit to members.

Importantly, nowhere in either the rules of the association or the application for incorporation is the real purpose of the association set out, namely to raise funds to pay for officials' re-election campaign. Indeed as noted above paragraph 3(2) of the rules expressly prohibits that.

There has been no explanation from those involved as to why the real object or purpose of the association was not set out in the documents. In the absence of such explanation it appears that the proponents may have believed that, if the real object was disclosed the association would not have been incorporated because of subsection 4(2) of the act which prevents the incorporation of an association where the members receive a pecuniary benefit from the activities of the association. Whatever the reason for the failure to disclose the real object, the fact remains it was not disclosed, as required by the act.

The association was duly incorporated.

Section 170 of the Criminal Code WA provides that "any person who, being required under a written law to give information to another person, knowingly gives information to the other person, that is false in a material particular is guilty of a crime and is liable to imprisonment for three years".

Section 43 of the Associations Incorporations Act also makes it an offence for a person to lodge a document with the commissioner which the person knows is false or misleading in any material respect.

In this case the rules lodged did not state the real object of the association. The application, which certified compliance with the act, falsely certified that the association was eligible for incorporation under subsection 4(1e) of the act as an association of more than five members formed for political purposes when in fact it had only two members - Blewitt and Wilson.

Under either of these provisions Blewitt, as the person who made the application for incorporation, in my view could have been charged with knowingly giving false information to the commissioner as he was aware that the objects set out in the rules were not the real objects of the association and that the certification in the formal application was false.

Section 7(b) of the Criminal Code provides that where an offence has been committed, a person who does or omits to do any act for the purpose of enabling or aiding another person to commit an offence, is also guilty of the same offence and is liable to the same punishment as if he or she had committed the offence. A lawyer who advises a client to do something that would constitute an offence would be caught by this provision.

Gillard advised Blewitt on the incorporation of the association and prepared the rules of the association and, following a query from the commissioner, wrote arguing for the incorporation of the association.

The letter has not been disclosed so it is impossible to draw any conclusions about it. Gillard has maintained that she did nothing wrong but has not explained why she says that.

However, without some explanation from her as to what occurred, there is, in my opinion, a prima facie case that she could have been charged along with Blewitt as she drafted the rules of the association for Blewitt knowing that the rules did not disclose the purpose for which the association was being incorporated.

Terry O'Connor QC is a former head of Western Australia's Anti-Corruption Commission. >

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/prima-facie-case-to-answer-on-awu/story-e6frgd0x-1226539989208

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