Friday, May 03, 2013

Fri May 3rd Todays News

Happy birthday and many happy returns Angela Mandic. Born the same date as, in 1913, Raja Harishchandra, the first feature length Indian film was made. It didn't take off as the dancing wasn't enhanced with sound until later. Have you thought about movies?
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WRONG AND PROUD

Tim Blair – Friday, May 03, 2013 (11:21am)

Robert Elliott chats with the ABC’s Jonathan Green:

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LIVE WOLF

Tim Blair – Friday, May 03, 2013 (11:07am)

This should get everyone through the morning:


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THE CAUCASIAN OPTION

Tim Blair – Friday, May 03, 2013 (10:42am)

Simon Benson on Labor’s lame campaign: 
Many reading this may have received a government petition in the mail this week, asking you to sign a ridiculous pledge affirming a desire to have more money for your local school. Who wouldn’t …?
Interestingly, while the petition mentions Abbott by name in a negative tone there isn’t a mention of Julia Gillard.
Depending on where you live, or what colour your skin is, you also will have received one of either two image options from your local Labor MP.

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An email was sent to all caucus members on April 23 from the government’s central communications bureau, offering campaign material they could use to plug Gillard’s Gonski reforms.
Option A presented a “non-Caucasian” child to be used in their propaganda. The beaming little girl, of Asian ethnicity, replete with pink beanie and looking as though she was headed for a weekend in the ski fields, appears to be endorsing the phrase: “Say Yes to Better Schools.”
Option B offers a fair skinned, blonde headed boy – gelled of course – wearing a blue t-shirt and smiling obligingly at God knows what. It was labelled the “Caucasian” option. 
They’re a sophisticated bunch.

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CAN’T HELP BAD LUCK

Tim Blair – Friday, May 03, 2013 (9:46am)

Foxtel presents an atrocious ad in Sydney … and it ends up costing Fairfax money in Melbourne.

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The crusader against vested gets his manager to stand as candidate

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (4:09pm)

Clive Palmer hasn’t really got policies, and need his workers to stand as candidates:

CLIVE Palmer has today announced his party’s next candidate against a backdrop of Australian flags and the tunes of True Blue and Waltzing Matilda.
Bill Schoch, who manages billionaire Palmer’s Coolum Resort, will stand for the seat of Fisher, currently held by disgraced MP Peter Slipper and to be contested by the LNP’s Mal Brough.
This is the man campaigning against vested interests in politics. His own candidate has the biggest vested interest of all. 

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Very big boats

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (3:37pm)

A record 3316 boat people last month, and May won’t be far behind at this rate:
THE navy has intercepted a boat carrying 184 asylum seekers northwest of Christmas Island.
Even bigger than Wednesday’s boat:

HMAS Launceston, operating under the coordination of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s Rescue Coordination Centre, has rendered assistance to a suspected irregular entry vessel that sought assistance north-east of Christmas Island on Wednesday.
Indications suggest there were 153 passengers and two crew on board.
(Thanks to reader Jeff.) 

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On the Bolt Report on Sunday

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (12:33pm)

Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey, former Finance Minister Nick Minchin and former Labor campaign guru Bruce Hawker. Should be a cracker of a debate.
We’ve also asked on several Gillard Government Ministers. John McTernan will be thoughtfully considering our requests now, knowing it’s time for Labor to reach out more to conservatives rather than just preach to the rapidly shrinking base.
In more than two years, only one Labor Minister has ever agreed to come on the show. That’s how little confidence some have in their ability to put their case - or even to make me look silly before my own audience.
Tune in on Sunday on Network 10 at 10am, when I shall also illustrate how very balanced we are on this station - unlike a certain other station I this week nobly offered to help in the national interest.
And for once I remember to plug the twitter feed.

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Some of Labor’s best friends are Asians

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (12:28pm)

Labor tells its MPs to send pictures of an Asian girl to Asian voters. Caucasian ones get the white boy.
Labor’s sophisticated view of contemporary race relations in Australia. 

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ll we can do about China’s army is smile nicely

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (12:24pm)

The Australian’s precis of the Gillard Government’s new white paper on defence sums it up:

Overall thrust of the White paper:

...More conciliatory to China than the 2009 White Paper.
Welcomes China’s rise and the modernisation of its military as a legitimate outcome of its growth.
Unlike the 2009 White Paper, new document makes no commitment to a particular level of defence funding.
Or put it this way: be nice to China, because we’re now too broke to defend ourselves.
UPDATE
Julia Gillard today said she wanted to raise defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP when the “fiscal circumstances” allow.
Meanwhile she’d doing the very opposite:
Present spending is now 1.56 per cent of gross domestic product - the lowest since 1938 - and due to fall to 1.49 per cent of GDP next year…
Recent reductions are in stark contrast to the 2009 white paper during Kevin Rudd’s prime ministership, which predicted annual real growth in defence expenditure of 3 per cent to 2017-18 and 2.2 per cent thereafter to 2030.

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Combet’s foolish trust

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (11:57am)

Climate Change Minister Greg Combet is feeling the heat:
Mr Combet fronted the independent commission against corruption this morning to answer questions about his relationship with former CFMEU boss John Maitland.
Asked why as a federal member for parliament he wrote a glowing letter of support for Mr Maitland’s Doyles Creek “training mine” in September 2008 to the disgraced former NSW mining minister Ian Macdonald, Mr Combet replied: “I trusted him.”
ICAC is investigating the circumstances around the awarding of the Doyles Creek exploration licence as a closed tender to Mr Maitland and other businessmen for a “training mine” in December 2008 by former NSW Mining Minister Ian Macdonald, a long time union associate of Mr Maitland.
It has allegedly delivered Mr Maitland and other investors, such as Newcastle businessman Craig Ransley, made a $48 million profit when the licence was subsequently sold to NuCoal in 2010. No training mine was ever built.
It is alleged Mr Maitland personally turned a $165,000 investment into $14m.
A trusting soul is Combet, who failed to check some of his most basic assumptions in his eagerness to do a favour for a union mate:

Mr Combet said that he… was not aware the mine was to be a commercial venture.
That mate culture. It’s sure killing Labor now.
As for Combet, he is exposed as a very naive fellow, only too ready to trust what he should question.
But no surprise, I guess. After all, this is the same man who trusts global warming alarmists and carpetbaggers. 

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Sheikh is not the only one I worry about at the ANU

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (10:30am)

I really don’t think Simon Sheikh’s campaign is going well. First there was his strange memory lapse over just how long he’d been a member of the Labor Party.
Now this:

The wife of ACT Greens Senate candidate Simon Sheikh is the subject of a formal investigation by the Australian National University, after allegations the couple used campus lectures to promote his campaign.
The ANU student newspaper Woroni reported that the former GetUp! national director had promoted his candidacy and Greens membership during two political science lectures on Thursday, and that his wife Anna Rose had sought to recruit campaign volunteers.
Ms Rose is an ANU staff member and a co-convenor of a subject with Pro Vice-Chancellor Richard Baker.
Among many questions raised by this story is this: Anna Rose lectures at a top Australian university?

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What in her CV might have won her this job at just 30?

Anna is co-founder and Chair of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition ...  is a former Environment Minister’s joint Young Environmentalist of the Year ... passion for social and environmental justice ... worked with the National Union of Students ... trudging through snow for the Obama campaign ... former climate campaigner at GetUp ... researching innovative climate change policies ...organised a sustainable wedding ...
The Rose style does not strike me as likely to admit - or even absorb - dissenting views in what I’ve always assumed was the ideal academic style since Socrates:

Rose teaches how to tackle climate change with interpretive dance:


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Flannery sells us the Great Spin of China

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (10:17am)

Global warming - propaganda
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The South China Morning Post’s Tom Holland cannot believe the astonishing spin of our Chief Climate Commissioner, warmist Tim Flannery:
Did you know that China is the greenest country in the world?…
I am pretty sure it will come as news to the inhabitants of Beijing, where memories of January’s two-week toxic coal smog linger like a foul smell…
According to a paper co-authored by the environment movement aristocrat Tim Flannery and published this week by Australia’s Climate Commission, “China’s efforts demonstrate accelerating global leadership in tackling climate change"…
It says that China has increased its wind power capacity 50 times over since 2005, while solar generating capacity shot up 75 per cent last year alone…
As a result, the Australian Climate Commission proclaims that today “China is reducing its emissions growth”.
Right, time for a reality check…
China’s greenhouse gas emissions are still rising, just not quite as fast as before… In 2011, China’s carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and cement rose by 820 million tonnes.
To put that into perspective, the mainland’s increase was as much as Germany’s total greenhouse gas emissions for the year, with Romania’s total thrown in for good measure.
Mainland energy demand did grow at a slower rate last year. But that is explained by Beijing’s attempts to cool investment, which moderated demand growth for energy intensive materials like aluminium and steel…
As for all Beijing’s investment in installing wind and solar power capacity, ... as the second chart shows, over the first three months of this year, ... wind energy provided just 2 per cent of power output, while the contribution from solar power was negligible.
(Thanks to reader David.) 

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Scrap the refugee convention. Return all boats

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (9:56am)

We need to dump the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. I’ve suggested we declare that from now on no refugees will be accepted from any country we deem beforehand to have reasonable internal procedures for guaranteeing safety and human rights. Don’t even bother trying to come.
Adrienne Millbank, researcher at Monash University, proposes something different:
The problem with the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees is that it legitimises unregulated entry…
Australia may be approaching a tipping point in its always uneasy relationship with the refugee convention… Last year, more than 17,000 asylum-seekers arrived. More than 30,000 are projected for this year… At least 1000 people have drowned at sea…
A growing number of voters think the refugee convention is past its use-by date. Australians see how European countries struggle to integrate large, unplanned inflows of economic migrants and refugees. Familiar with managed humanitarian migration, they see how the refugee convention advantages people on the basis of their capacity to pay, and to play the system, over refugees in greater need.
Australian voters also see the commonwealth budget has blown out by billions of dollars, trying to keep boatpeople out, rescuing, detaining and processing those who manage to get in…
The opposition, however, offers only a return to measures that seem less likely to succeed the second time around and with larger numbers. It offers the depressing prospect of a lengthy, gruelling period of escalating toughness…
The legacy of the Rudd and Gillard policy failures could be that it is no longer possible to return to the halfway solutions that worked in the past. The costs of pretending to uphold obligations under the refugee convention, at least in the way they presently are interpreted, have become too high…
It is time to rethink dubious international obligations and to argue Australia’s case. Australia should require asylum-seekers wanting to settle in this country to apply for a refugee or humanitarian visa offshore, through our overseas posts or the UNHCR. 
(Thanks to reader Baden.) 

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Shorten’s contemptible low

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (9:25am)

In how many ways is Bill Shorten’s rant on the disability levy offensive, patronising, populist and gaggably sanctimonious?
Tony Abbott just simply will have to say today yeah, we’re going to vote for this because if he doesn’t he needs to look in the face, people whose lives are second class and say I regard me getting into power as more important than your life. No one could be that dumb, no one could be that dumb. I’m sure we’ll get bipartisanship because to do anything else will be a betrayal of Aussies.
Note Shorten characterising all disabled people as “people whose lives are second class”.
Note his rabble-rousing characterising of prudent financial concerns as no more than a politician regarding “me getting into power as more important than your life”.
Note his crass attempt to paint as heartless a politician who at that very moment was on a charity bike ride to raise money for Carers Australia. 
Note the use of the word “Aussies”, reducing a critical debate into some cheap flag-waving.
I’m often asked why I don’t promote Shorten as the next leader of Labor, instead of Chris Bowen, Tony Burke, Simon Crean or any one of half a dozen others.
The reason is simple: I don’t rate him. Inch deep. Yesterday he confirmed the rightness of my judgment.
(Thanks to reader Gab.) 

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Warmists’ evidence lost in the Bermuda Triangle

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (9:15am)

James Taylor on the latest excuse for the failure of the planet to warm as warming alarmists predicted:
“Where’s the heat? In the oceans!” USA Today claimed in a headline the same day.
The headlines reflect a prominent global warming activist claiming that he developed a computer model by which global warming can bypass the atmosphere, bypass the upper ocean, and be entirely hidden in the deep ocean; you know, that part of our planet where we really can’t measure or find anything. The missing global warming is apparently hanging out at the underwater space alien base in the heart of the Bermuda Triangle, along with the missing files proving the 9/11 Truthers are right that George W. Bush bombed the World Trade Center, along with the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy files proving that Bill Clinton really did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky, and along with the missing film footage proving the seven Apollo astronauts and two Johnson Space Center directors who claim global warming is not a crisis really did stage their moon landings on a vacant lot somewhere in the Arizona desert.
(Thanks to reader fulchrum.) 

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The disabled will be the first to suffer if we get this wrong

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (9:02am)

Reader Dr Stephen Kenny:

Dear Andrew,
As a medical practitioner, and father of a severely autistic 18yr old, I cannot express the depth of my resentment at the use of the proposed NDIS scheme as a political weapon to hamstring the budgets of future governments for political gain. This political gain, by ruining the fiscal integrity of the Australian economy, is being justified by using the plight of wheelchair bound and severely intellectually or physically disabled people like my son.
However, it is clear that this scheme will be broadly applied and therefore diluted in its putative effectiveness by including alcoholics, drug addicts, depressed, anxious, lumbar pain, housemaid’s knee or any other of a myriad of trivial disabilities which sufferers will consider equally disabling.
It is a given that there will be a massive redundant bureaucracy (is there any other kind?) needed to administer it, which will blow out its budget four or five fold no doubt. Then, one must consider the application and assessment of eligibility criteria, which will be the province of time poor GPs such as myself, who are increasingly unavailable for actual patient care for alleviation of illnesses, but rather as clerical assistants increasingly at the behest of bureaucracies interested only in burying us under a mountain of paper, just as they are with nurses and teachers.

While genuine assistance to the severely disabled is clearly welcome, surely targeted schemes for wheelchair subsidies for example are a more efficient means of distributing assistance funds to those most in need. The lack of detail offered before the well meaning but deluded general populace jump on the bandwagon is a disgrace, and instead I propose a mature discussion needs to be undertaken openly and transparently regarding how to assist the severely disabled in a targeted and an economically sustainable way.
As the Rudd government showed when first in office, attempting to restrict the carer benefit criteria, if the welfare system becomes unaffordable, the most disabled will be the first ones cut adrift.

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Scott can’t explain why the Left always hosts Media Watch

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (8:53am)

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In its 24 years, Media Watch has never had any host that wasn’t of the Left. The ABC’s eighth pick as host is again of the Left - Paul Barry.
Under gentle questioning yesterday from yet another ABC host of the Left, Howard-whacker Jonathan Green, ABC managing director Mark Scott failed to explain why no conservative had ever managed to land the Media Watch job in nearly a quarter of a century. [Listen here.]
There was plenty of dodging, weaving and misrepresentation of the arguments, but no real explanation for this astonishing coincidence - and breach of its charter. Scott doesn’t deny the ABC has eight times out of eight picked a Leftist for the job. He just denies it makes a difference, although how he’d know this without ever having tried the alternative is a mystery.
Scott actually goes further - claiming to detect no ideological bias in his hosts (what, even David Marr?). To admit to such a tin ear is disturbing for a broadcasting chief.
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To help jog his judgement, I ask Scott to review all the times Media Watch has attacked global warming sceptics and how rarely - was there just the once? - it has gone hard on the ludicrous fear mongering of the media’s many warming evangelists.
Let him explain the curious silence of Media Watch’s most recent episode - on the Boston bombers.
Or put it this way. If Scott is right about Media Watch hosts not letting their ideological leanings show, what would it hurt to give the job for once to a conservative or even Right-winger?  Is he really trying to claim that only the Left is neutral, or capable of being fair? In which case he really has gone native at the ABC, which today has every one of its main current affairs shows presented by people of the Left.
Perhaps it’s time for a new boss.
UPDATE
If the ABC refuses to reform, the only options left are to starve or sell it. Tom Switzer:
Let me stress from the outset that I think the ABC is a great and important Australian institution… I rather like Mark Scott, the managing director, who has expanded ABC services to vastly more people than at any time in the corporation’s eight decades…
But one can make these observations, and still believe the ABC should be privatised. Why? Well, because a soft-Left “group-think” clouds its editorial content, which alienates large segments of the Australian public. Group-think, taken together with expansion into the internet and digital broadcasting, makes the case for a taxpayer-funded broadcaster highly questionable.
(Thanks to reader Peter.)    

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Save the disabled, not the planet: cuts to pay for the NDIS

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (8:33am)

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Adam Creighton hasn’t even mentioned many of the astonishingly expensive and utterly futile global warming programs that could be scrapped to pay for the disability scheme instead:
The Australian has identified 14 measures that would together free up $13 billion in annual savings for the federal government, more than enough to pay for the national disability insurance scheme, now named DisabilityCare.
The torrent of money families with children enjoy, now in excess of $30bn a year, could easily be squeezed by scrapping the Schoolkids’ Bonus, an annual cash payment to families with school-age children, and the $5000 Baby Bonus for a saving of $2 billion a year…
Also, about 10,000 pensioners live in homes worth in excess of $1.2m. Tightening eligibility for the age pension could save another $300m.
The federal public service has swelled by 10,000 to about 260,000 since the Rudd government took office. Returning it to its former size, by unravelling overlapping state and federal regulations, for instance, would save about $1.1bn a year.
The federal government hands out more than $9bn a year in direct budget subsidies to industry. In his last speech, previous Productivity Commission chairman Gary Banks highlighted the $3bn in “subsidies to support innovation, including green technologies” and suggested they be scrapped…
The government spends about $600m a year on national preventative health measures, including programs to warn against smoking, taking drugs, drinking too much, or catching STDs. One campaign—“Swap It Don’t Stop It”—features “Eric, an animated blue balloon character, likeable but overweight” who encourages people to switch from unhealthy eating habits.

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Proper reaction: What have we done to provoke this understandable response?

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (8:09am)

Bad, racist police are damned on the taxpayer-funded Conversation:

Victoria Police recently announced an inquiry into their public relations and cultural awareness training, after a group of young African Australians claimed they had been victims of over-policing and racial profiling....
Like another group of visibly different migrants, Indian students, they have also become targets of discrimination at the hands of Victoria Police…
When Victorian Police Commissioner Ken Lay announced the public inquiry into police practices, he spoke of “these communities” as if somehow African Australians existed in isolation from the “rest of Australia”. His words, rather than his actions, indicate that until we open our eyes and accept the diversity within Australian society, real and meaningful social inclusion will never happen…
...racist attitudes in Australia remain pervasive. Without diminishing the injury felt by Australians of African backgrounds at the hands of police, outrage about racism and discrimination should be given a wide focus. Indeed laying bare the harm caused by systemic racism and discrimination should extend to other institutions and social spheres.
We should start by asking what we can do to support Australians of African backgrounds achieve the social inclusion they strive for. This includes celebrating achievement and acknowledging success.
I celebrate and acknowledge a successful mugging or two:

TWO men have been viciously beaten by a gang of thugs in a Melbourne park.
I deplore this racial profiling:
Police have released CCTV images of three men and a woman they believe can help with their inquiries. They are of African appearance and are described as tall and skinny.
Last month, more terrible racial profiling:

Community leaders have joined police on regular patrols in Dandenong as the force tries to improve ties with troubled ethnic youths.
The ethnically diverse city has crime rates almost 40 per cent higher than the state average, and Victoria Police is anxious to avoid the sort of problems it has recently had over racial profiling…
Pacific Islander and Sudanese community leaders were informed by Victoria Police last year that their populations were overrepresented in crime statistics. The figures were not released publicly.
Sergeant Herrech said that while the program was not directly linked with the cultural background of youths, that would be a focus in suburbs where certain ethnic groups had large populations.
Sudanese and Pacific Islander leaders have been involved in the first Pylet shifts.
More shocking racial profiling from those nasty Victoria Police:

The police statistics show the rate of offending among the Sudanese community is 7109.1 per 100,000, while for Somali people it is 6141.8 per 100,000. The figure for the wider community is 1301.0 per 100,000.
Ever nice, The Age suggests this figure might be exaggerated by fake Africans:
It is important to note ... that people arrested and charged may falsely identify themselves as being from those communities.
True. Irish backbackers are famous for declaring they’re Sudanese instead.  

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Rules are for little people, not Dreyfus

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (7:37am)

Rules are for little people, not the Attorney-General and Minister for Integrity:
THE country’s top lawmaker has been forced into an embarrassing apology after his refusal to abide by aviation rules and turn off his mobile phone during a flight resulted in police being called to meet him when the plane touched down.
Qantas staff felt obliged to contact Australian Federal Police after Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus - who was determined to check his emails - refused to turn off his smart phone during take-off on a Sydney to Brisbane flight last week. After he ignored pre-recorded warnings about turning off all electrical equipment, a fellow passenger complained to Mr Dreyfus. His failure to follow standard safety instructions angered the passenger and a Qantas crew member, who both told him to turn off his mobile phone immediately.
Moments later a flight attendant admonished the former barrister, later reporting the situation to the captain. The airline took the incident so seriously it alerted the AFP, with officers asked to meet the plane and the Attorney-General at its destination.
Pompous man. Lives in Malvern, represents Dandenong.

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O’Connor invents his 10,000 rorters

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (7:18am)

I would not trust a word this mendacious government says about anything, not least about the “rorting” of 457 foreign worker visas.
Two weeks ago Immigration Minister Brendon O’Connor offered an exact, precise figure:

I believe that the areas where there’s been an illegitimate use of 457s numbers in the thousands… I would say it would exceed over ten thousand.
Trouble is:
However, the report provided to the minister late last year found little evidence that employers discriminated in favour of overseas workers.
O’Connor was asked on the ABC’s AM this morning where he got his 10,000 rorters figure from, when his department’s report says such rorting is “rare”. He refused to answer:
I’m making a forecast… We don’t have an exact, precise figure.
He did but he doesn’t.
UPDATE
All spin, no substance, say even the Government’s advisers:

THE ... confidential Immigration Department advice ... came largely to inform the government’s February 23 overhaul of the 457 regime and was prepared after a meeting of the Ministerial Advisory Council on Skilled Migration on December 11 last year.
But yesterday advisory council chairman Michael Easson said there were no systemic problems with the program and hit out at Immigration Minister Brendan O’Connor’s recent claim that the regime had been plagued by more than 10,000 rorts.
”I do not believe that there is any credible evidence that the management of the 457 visa program is out of control or that 10 per cent of applicants are associated with rorts,” Mr Easson said.
Former Labor MP Maxine McKew

Perhaps most perverse of all, and quite contrary, it seems to me, to the whole spirit of the Asian Century paper, has been the Government’s unnecessary obsession with 457 visas for skilled workers in Australia… As I see, it’s been a return to the worst of Labor’s past, which a lot of us thought was well and truly buried. 

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Gillard misreads Abbott, but both leave us with the bill

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (7:07am)

Tin ear:
The sudden timetable changes forced on Gillard over DisabilityCare is a direct result of a shortage of time and political miscalculation. Apparently confident the Opposition Leader would oppose a levy, Gillard performed her own backflip and, conscious of trying to minimise parallels with the carbon tax, set the scene for the election campaign to be fought over a disability insurance scheme and education reforms, her chosen fields of combat.
Relying on media reports, Gillard said it was apparent Abbott would oppose the levy and made no move to introduce the levy legislation in the budget session of parliament, instead proposing to take it to the election.
Once again Gillard displayed an inability to anticipate what Abbott might do and what the public would think.
The idea of not implementing the levy legislation before the parliament rose made Labor look as if it were the one playing politics with the disabled and helping its budget bottom line.
Fascinating political battle.
But who ends up with the bill for these mega social welfare scheme?
Er, good question. The way this is being funded is exactly not what the Productivity Commission recommended - requiring a levy rather than spending cuts, and a buck-shoving alliance with state governments, rather than the Commonwealth alone:
The Gillard government plans to increase the Medicare levy to 2 per cent from July next year, raising $3.3bn in the first year, which is roughly between one-quarter and one-third of the ultimate annual cost of the scheme when fully operational in 2018.
“(Funding from consolidated revenue) leaves it open for government to fund the NDIS by cutting what it sees as wasteful expenditures, without any tax increase at all,” the commission said in its 2011 report.
“Given the size of Australian government expenditure (projected to increase to $415bn in 2014-15), there is merit in considering reprioritisation of existing spending in preference to higher taxes.
“If the Australian government does not adopt that option, it should legislate for a levy on personal income . . . hypothecated to the full revenue needs of the NDIS.”
While the government expects the cash-strapped state governments to chip in up to half the ultimate cost, the Productivity Commission wanted the federal government to be the only funder of DisabilityCare, in order not to blur responsibility among governments.

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This scheme could disable our ability to pay

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (6:30am)

They are very right to worry:

TONY Abbott is set to pass Julia Gillard’s $3.3 billion increase in the Medicare levy to partially fund the national disability insurance scheme, despite deep misgivings within the Coalition about the potential for its cost to explode in the next decade.
Coalition sources fear that expectations about the scheme, now named DisabilityCare, will be raised to the extent that “no one will go without”, creating a big political problem for a new government forced to tell people they are not covered.
“Where did they get the 0.5 per cent from?” a source said. “There is no science to any of this.”
Some in the Coalition fear the annual cost for the scheme could be many times greater than the $10.5bn estimated by the government actuary...
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is not just right to ask the question. He’s also describing exactly where countless future arguments will rage - and where future governments will increasingly cave in:

Are people with autism in or out? Is vision impairment in or out and to what extent is it in or out? Is hearing impairment in or out? Mobility assistance, to what extent is that covered? These are all very important questions.
To show how vague the guidelines are - and how much money will be spent on medical professionals simply to judge eligibility - here is just one extract from the NDIS draft guidelines, with some of the faultlines indicated in bold:
When does a person meet the disability requirements?
Division 1 Introduction
5.1 The Act sets out when a person meets the disability requirements. The requirements are met if:
(a) the person has a disability that is attributable to one or more intellectual, cognitive, neurological, sensory or physical impairments, or to one or more impairments attributable to a psychiatric condition; and
(b) the person’s impairment or impairments are, or are likely to be, permanent; and
(c) the impairment or impairments result in substantially reduced functional capacity to undertake, or psycho social functioning in undertaking, one or more of the following activities: communication, social interaction, learning, mobility, self-care, self-management; and
(d) the impairment or impairments affect the person’s capacity for social and economic participation; and
(e) the person’s support needs in relation to his or her impairment or impairments are likely to continue for the person’s lifetime.
5.2 In relation to the above, an impairment that varies in intensity (for example because the impairment is of a chronic episodic nature) may be permanent, and the person’s support needs in relation to the impairment may be likely to continue for the person’s lifetime, despite the variation.
The draft itself gives examples of how quickly this scheme could divert a fortune into bureaucracy, in the face of demands to show more compassion:

6.3 The criteria to be applied in assessing whether the provision of early intervention supports for a person is likely to reduce the person’s future needs for supports in relation to disability, and is likely to have an effect mentioned in paragraph 6.1(c)(i) or (ii) above, are: 
(a) that the person has a recognised impairment for which there is contemporary credible and relevant evidence, or credible emerging evidence, which supports the proposition, which may include:

.... evidence that a specific intervention (for example a specific therapy, piece of equipment, or support or training including working with a person’s family) will benefit a person by improving their functioning and reducing future support needs…
6.4 For the purpose of paragraph 6.3 above, where the CEO does not already hold evidence to support the proposition, the CEO can consider evidence from a range of sources, including information provided by the person with disability or a person acting on their behalf, and may seek expert opinion in order to make a decision.
6.5 The CEO may consider advice from a suitably qualified panel of experts on the available evidence for the purposes of making a determination...
Committees forming to discuss whether someone indeed has a disability which qualifies, and whether some machine might help. In circumstances where refusal could offend the media.
Adopted in fervor, regretted for years.
UPDATE
Graham Richardson:
Apparently the levy will pass the parliament because Tony Abbott, much to the chagrin of Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb, has declared his support. We are still yet to see whether the states will sign on beyond the trial periods. The states are so chronically short of funds, every extra impost from Canberra presents them with huge difficulties....
There may well be a couple of million Australians deeply concerned with the issue, but the rest of the nation has not got a clue about the NDIS. Apart from knowing that it is a scheme designed to help disabled people and their carers, I haven’t met anyone that knows how the scheme will work. Who will be eligible for assistance? What are the conditions attached to that assistance?
UPDATE
Adam Creighton:

IN recent weeks Julia Gillard has delivered a masterclass in reckless democratic socialism, which will ultimately sap prosperity. The formula is tried and proven, here and overseas.
First, build support for an appealing social spending scheme.
Second, play down its cost and fan falsehoods about the level of existing government support.
Third, propose a small tax increase that gives voters the impression the scheme is affordable.
Fourth, refuse to consider more politically painful offsetting savings, however reasonable.
Finally, use emotional blackmail against voters and political opponents to ensure success.
Just one more area of potential blowouts:
Also, as the age of eligibility for the age pension (which will double as the cut-off for DisabilityCare) increases, so will the cost. About 600,000 Australians aged over 65 are classified as having a severe or profound disability.

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Barbarians of the media

Andrew Bolt May 03 2013 (4:21pm)

How many people had so little taste and sense that they (almost) let this through?
AN advert for a subscription television arts channel has led to the pulping of thousands of copies of a Fairfax Media newspaper supplement.
Fairfax has confirmed that copies of The Age’s Saturday Life & Style section were pulped at the request of the Foxtel Studio channel at significant cost to the advertiser.
An advert for the Studio channel’s ‘Festival of WTF!’ campaign, which depicted a suited man engaged in a sex act with a pig, was pulled down from a billboard in Sydney’s Kings Cross last Wednesday following condemnation from local Christian groups.
The ad that caused the pulping was for the same campaign, however Foxtel and Fairfax declined today to disclose its contents.
And note: everyone involved in this brainless barbarity were in the media business. And it took a Christian group to wake them to their responsibilities. 

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Photo: Follow us on: https://www.facebook.com/Share.Yellow.Flowers
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Indoor acrobatics / gymnastics session with some of the class, learning variations of rolls, handstands and somersaults. Shoutout to our brothers from @invincibleworldwide for sharing their mats with us and of course huge thanks to @powerhouseyouththeatre for supporting our classes every single week for the past 6 years! ♥❤ #team9lives #9livesparkour #parkour #freerunning #movement #training #fairfield #powerhouseyouththeatre
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They asked to be tested, they wanted to become great, so we gave them a challenge to let them put their words into actions. 20 x burpees then sprint, 50 x crunches then crawl, 50 squats then sprint. And we were only getting started. ✊
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This Sunday from 2pm! The Carillonists (Quad clocktower bells) are playing Game of Thrones,Harry Potter, Final Fantasy X, Queen, John Lennonand more!
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At Fairfield Hospital with Minister for Health Jillian Skinner to announce that the NSW Government will be providing $550,000 for a new XRay machine and will be replacing all 150 mechanical beds with automated computerised beds. — inFairfield.
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Wondering what the WW1 Red Cross files are?

These files consist of approximately 32,000 individual case files of Australian personnel reported as wounded or missing during the First World War.

The files were created by the Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau of the Australian Red Cross, which was a branch of the British Red Cross. The Bureau, which commenced operation in October 1915, sought to identify, investigate and respond to enquiries made regarding the fate of Australian personnel. It investigated the majority of personnel posted as wounded and missing on official Army lists, as well as written enquiries from concerned relatives and friends. In 2002, the files were digitised to preserve the fragile original documents and to provide greater public access to this valuable and unique information.
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Julia Gillard has a habit of underestimating the Opposition - and the Australian electorate. It stems from an inbuilt arrogance that she knows best. 

In her latest cynical tactic she thought she had Abbott in a corner, believing a fiscally responsible coalition would oppose a massive spend on an NDIS. She punted such an emotional issue would wedge Abbott. She called his bluff. 

What she hasn't observed is his growing maturity as a politician.

Abbott didn't oppose her. He opted for bipartisanship.

Abbott has Gillard's measure, and upped the ante. He threw down the gauntlet to the PM to take the NDIS out of the election campaign and to get it established now.

He even agreed to (temporary) support of her medicare levy, with the promise to voters the NDIS levy will be dropped as soon as the coalition gets the budget back to surplus - something Labor is incapable of doing.

Slam dunk!

Who wedged who?

Realising she'd been outmaneuvered, Gillard announced to the media she will introduce the NDIS legislation into the parliament as soon as possible, but repeatedly stated it was Tony Abbott's 'change of mind' that got the NDIS up. She rammed home three times Abbott had 'changed his mind' in an attempt to mock him.

She didn't mention that she'd changed her mind on a medicare levy increase, having promised as recently as two weeks ago, "There will be no medicare levy for the NDIS under a government I lead".

Still, it was nice in her pique of indignation to give all credit to Abbott for the NDIS.

How the heck does she manage to keep doing this to herself?
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God does not use your past to Judge your future, Moses was a murderer, but God still used him to deliver the people of Israel, you might come from a poor family background, but God does not determine your future by your present, he's after what he can use you to achieve. He sees what others don't see, others might see you as nobody today, but God sees you as somebody tomorrow, if you believe in God He will change your life and even use you to change the history of your family in Jesus' name. Holly
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Semper Fi
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A special internal panel that probed the Benghazi terror attack for the State Department is being investigated to determine whether it failed to interview key witnesses. Read more: http://tinyurl.com/cxbybm6
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The Coalition has supported the establishment of the National Disability Insurance Scheme every step of the way. We want to ensure that the NDIS is a reality as soon as possible. Read my full statement here: http://lbr.al/ndis
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Do you know what JOHN WAYNE’s dream is? John Wayne’s dream is to cure all cancers. John Wayne beat lung cancer for 15 years and passed away from stomach cancer. The John Wayne Cancer Foundation was created in honor of John Wayne after his family promised to use his name to continue his fight against cancer. Support the Foundation this Sunday, at the OC Marathon and Half Marathon! Run/walk the event + Make a donation: http://bit.ly/OCMarathon
Volunteer: http://bit.ly/ocmarathonvolunteers

Below is just one inspiring story of the many runners that have raised more than $40,000 for the Foundation.

"My name is Chen. I am a 56 year old Architect from Durban, South Africa. I came to California in January with my son on a healing / thanksgiving tour to my visit bother, a few friends, Doctors, Pastors, and a variety of people involved in treating, encouraging, and also being radically touched by my beautiful wife Marilyn. Marilyn was diagnosed with Oesteo Sarcoma in her left lung on the 11th of December 2010. She was given maximum 6 months to live.

5 months into her treatment the Cardio Thoracic surgeon operated and removed all 5 tumors as the chemo was not working. Inexplicably and miraculously every tumor tested by 5 different Path Labs tested no sign of any cancer . She was healed.

Months later it returned to both lungs and she was not healed again but she prayed for a number of patients whist on treatment and they were healed.

She went home to Heaven where she always said she dreamed about on the 11th October 2012.

On my visit I met an an amazing friend who changed my life. One month ago I contacted my dear friend and decided visit again to celebrate my birthday and to run the OC Marathon in honor of Marilyn, Laura Luna, John Wayne, and the John Wayne Cancer Foundation as they cheer us home. Debra and Jodie were responsible for encouraging me to get up and run the race of life.

HERE. I. AM.

Excited, humbled and priveledged to honor those who have gone home, those who are fighting cancer and The John Wayne Cancer Foundation for their ongoing support to CRUSH CANCER."

With your true grit, please help us in the fight against cancer: www.johnwayne.org
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You might be experiencing a dark chapter right now, but it's not your whole book! Hold on to the next chapter it will get brighter.. Even if it get more darker as Jesus did say that in this world we will have many troubles, but take heart "I have overcome the world!!" Holly
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Please sign up to the newsletter to receive 10% off your next coaching session or personal program! 

http://www.positivemindflow.com/
Like and Share this page to receive a FREE Positive Mind Flow Life Coaching Kick Start Package! The winner will be chosen on my birthday! June 12! Get liking and sharing!

www.positivemindflow.com
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Meanwhile in Torchwood
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Beloved, look to Jesus your good shepherd today. When you feed on His love for you and on His living words, you will find rest for your soul, victory over the most trying circumstances and an abundance of every good thing!

Click below to watch a short clip of this uplifting message. Be sure to click 'Like' and share this with your friends! Amen!
http://bit.ly/1049u9S
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Though God governs the planets and galaxies, not one sparrow falls to the ground without His knowledge (Matt 10:29). Beloved, God loves you and is watching over you constantly.
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It is not what you do that makes you righteous. You have been made forever righteous because of what Jesus has done for you at the cross! http://josephprince.com/
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Hi everyone! Here's the MichelleMalkin.com newsletter for May 2nd. Enjoy!

From the Blog

Meet Obama’s Chicago fat cat Commerce nominee

Watch your wallets...

In wake of Boston bombing, disgusting left-wing anarchists attack police…and whine about “pigs” [video, photo links]

Teach — and immunize — your children well...

Poll: 4 out of 10 Americans living in state of blissful ignorance about Obamacare law

I’ll go out on a limb and guess that a majority of these 40-plus percent voted for Obama (if they voted at all)...

More From the Right Side of the Web

Featured Video

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The last place left-wing terrorists should be is anywhere near our children. So why are colleges giving them the chance to mold young minds?

Michelle's Top Tweets

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A Special Message from Michelle About Common Core

As you may know, I've helped lead the conservative media charge against the federalized academic "standards" scheme known as Common Core since the beginning of the year. Many stalwart parents, educators, analysts, local and state legislators, Tea Party & 9/12 activists have been in the trenches on the Fed Ed agenda -- and their whistle-blowing work is paying off. Tonight, Parent Led Reform and Truth in American Education will host another Stop Common Core Twitter rally at 9pm Eastern to spread the word. Hope you will join us tonight. Every voice counts. Here are a few story links, via the Pioneer Institute, to show what a difference you are making in this battle:
Have a great day, everyone!

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May 3: Good Friday (Eastern Christianity, 2013); World Press Freedom Day;Constitution Day in Poland (1791) and Japan (1947)
Raja Harishchandra screenshot

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Events

The Third of May 1808 by Francisco de Goya, depicting the execution of Madrid citizens on that date by French forces during the Peninsular War

[edit]Births

[edit]Deaths

[edit]Holidays and observances




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