Friday, June 05, 2015

Fri Jun 5th Todays News

Bolt report Instructions follow the publishing news. 
===
Alan Bond has died following complications from surgery. The former billionaire was a good person to talk to. He stole superannuation from pensioners and when in jail for his crime, convinced the authorities he should be released early, claiming his IQ was lowered. He was close to the ALP, and was connected with WA Inc which brought down the state. But, he paid lip service to being even handed. He had a sense of humour.

 State Funeral for Joan Kirner, former ALP Premier of Victoria. Kirner became Premier of Victoria following resignation of Cain, whom had been exposed as corrupt and inept. She had supported Cain in government and had not changed his policy after becoming Premier. She made poor decisions for ideological reasons, gutting the education system and leaving Victoria a basket case that only the heroic Jeff Kennett could save. Kirner was behind 'Emily's List' which promotes left wing women in politics. She had a sense of humour.

 A Chinese cruise ship has been struck by a tornado. There are 65 confirmed dead. 350 missing. The Eastern Star (MV Dong Fang Zhi Xing) was on the Yangtze in the Three Gorges Dam area. Three Gorges is an excellent project, but the environment has changed in the area and so it may take many years before the changes are understood.

 An early hominid, Australopithecus deyiremeda, has been located? They date from 3.3 to 3.5 million years ago. Some jaw bones and fragments. Maybe they are relatives of Lucy. They probably had a good sense of humour.

 There is a heat wave in India. More than 200 have died. It does not mean that more than 200 died from the heat wave. People die, but not as many as are born.
In 70, Titus and his Roman legions breached the middle wall of Jerusalem in the Siege of Jerusalem. 754, Boniface, an Anglo-Saxon missionary, was killed by a band of pagans at Dokkum in Frisia. 1257, Kraków, in Poland, received city rights. 1283, Battle of the Gulf of Naples: Roger of Lauria, admiral to King Peter III of Aragon, captured Charles of Salermo. 1625, the city of Breda surrendered to the Spanish tercios under general Ambrosio Spinola. 1798, The Battle of New Ross: The attempt to spread the United Irish Rebellion into Munster was defeated.

In 1817, the first Great Lakes steamer, the Frontenac, was launched. 1829, HMS Pickle captured the armed slave ship Voladora off the coast of Cuba. 1832, the June Rebellion broke out in Paris in an attempt to overthrow the monarchy of Louis Philippe. 1837, Houston was incorporated by the Republic of Texas. 1849, Denmark became a constitutional monarchy by the signing of a new constitution. 1851, Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery serial, Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, started a ten-month run in the National Era abolitionist newspaper. 1862, as the Treaty of Saigon was signed, ceding parts of southern Vietnam to France, the guerrilla leader Trương Định decided to defy Emperor Tự Đức of Vietnam and fight on against the Europeans. 1864, American Civil War: Battle of Piedmont: Union forces under General David Hunter defeated a Confederate army at Piedmont, Virginia, taking nearly 1,000 prisoners. 1883, the first regularly scheduled Orient Express departed Paris. 1888, the Rio de la Plata Earthquake took place.

In 1900, Second Boer War: British soldiers took Pretoria. 1915, Denmark amended its constitution to allow women's suffrage. 1916, Louis Brandeis was sworn in as a Justice of the United States Supreme Court; he was the first American Jew to hold such a position. 1917, World War I: Conscription began in the United States as "Army registration day". 1933, the U.S. Congress abrogated the United States' use of the gold standard by enacting a joint resolution (48 Stat. 112) nullifying the right of creditors to demand payment in gold.

In 1940, World War II: After a brief lull in the Battle of France, the Germans renewed the offensive against the remaining French divisions south of the River Somme in Operation Fall Rot ("Case Red"). 1941, World War II: Four thousand Chongqing residents were asphyxiated in a bomb shelter during the Bombing of Chongqing. 1942, World War II: The United States declared war on Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania. 1944, World War II: More than 1000 British bombers dropped 5,000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast in preparation for D-Day. 1945, the Allied Control Council, the military occupation governing body of Germany, formally took power. 1946, a fire in the La Salle Hotel in Chicago, Illinois, killed 61 people. 1947, Marshall Plan: In a speech at Harvard University, the United States Secretary of State George Marshall called for economic aid to war-torn Europe. 1949, Thailand elected Orapin Chaiyakan, the first female member of Thailand's Parliament.

In 1956, Elvis Presley introduced his new single, "Hound Dog", on The Milton Berle Show, scandalising the audience with his suggestive hip movements. 1959, the first government of the State of Singapore was sworn in. 1963, the British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, resigned in a sex scandal known as the "Profumo affair". Also 1963, Movement of 15 Khordad: Protests against the arrest of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini by the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In several cities, masses of angry demonstrators were confronted by tanks and paratroopers. 1964, DSV Alvin was commissioned. 1967, the Six-Day War began: Israel launched surprise strikes against Egyptian air-fields in response to the mobilisation of Egyptian forces on the Israeli border. 1968, Robert F. Kennedy, a U.S. presidential candidate, was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian. Kennedy died the next day. 1969, the International communist conference began in Moscow.

In 1975, the Suez Canal opened for the first time since the Six-Day War. Also 1975, the United Kingdom held its first country-wide referendum on remaining in the European Economic Community (EEC). 1976, the Teton Dam in Idaho, United States, collapsed. 1977, a coup took place in Seychelles. 1981, the "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report" of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that five people in Los Angeles, California, have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, in what turned out to be the first recognised cases of AIDS. 1984, the Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, ordered an attack on the Golden Temple, the holiest site of the Sikh religion. 1989, the Tank Man halted the progress of a column of advancing tanks for over half an hour after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

In 1993, portions of the Holbeck Hall Hotel in Scarborough, in North Yorkshire, England, fell into the sea following a landslide. 1995, the Bose–Einstein condensate was first created. 1998, a strike began at the General Motors parts factory in Flint, Michigan, that quickly spreads to five other assembly plants. The strike lasted seven weeks. 2000, the Six-Day War in Kisangani began in Kisangani, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, between Ugandan and Rwandan forces. A large part of the city was destroyed. 2001, Tropical Storm Allison made landfall on the upper-Texas coastline as a strong tropical storm and dumped large amounts of rain over Houston. The storm caused $5.5 billion in damages, making Allison the costliest tropical storm in U.S. history. 2003, a severe heat wave across Pakistan and India reached its peak, as temperatures exceeded 50°C (122°F) in the region. 2006, Serbia declared independence from the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. 2009, after 65 straight days of civil disobedience, at least 31 people were killed in clashes between security forces and indigenous people near Bagua, Peru.
2014
Joe Tripodi has been found to have acted corruptly and prosecutors are discussing what charges might be laid against him, if any. There is a process being followed. If the full spread of Tripodi's activity is not examined there will be procedural unfairness. I know Tripodi from the late '90s and Canley Vale HS where the Principal Garland, a strong ALP supporter allowed the former local mayor to make a speech to a graduating class. The speech was illogical and disjointed. Staff rumoured he had written it himself. In his early days as a local member, Tripodi told the parliament (circa '97) that he had spoken to the Principal about the local gang issue and hand guns. Garland asked the deputies if either of them had spoken to Tripodi because he hadn't and he thought it was bad form to lie to parliament over a non issue. On retirement, the Principal got a dream job as a development officer for the Wallabies. 

I was being harassed by ALP government and by anonymous education department officials so I approached my local member, Tripodi, and told him of the seriousness of my issue. This was before a child died. Tripodi's office sent me a form letter saying he didn't know why I was being treated as I was, but he would represent me to the parliament as part of his normal duty. I complained to the ICAC about my issue regarding pedophiles and the ALP government and they replied they would do nothing as they could not see how anything I had alleged would lead to a corruption prosecution. After the child died, I again referred the matter to the ICAC and they expressed the view I was inflating the issue opportunistically. But, if they had acted the child might be alive today. 

The ALP appear to have facilitated Tripodi's corruption. I have approached the ALP on a number of occasions suggesting they quietly help me settle my issues. All ALP members have denied they could work with me. I am a Liberal party supporter, but I demand competence from those who represent me. Will procedural unfairness deny me justice again?
Historical perspectives on this day
In 70, Titus and his Roman legions breached the middle wall of Jerusalem in the Siege of Jerusalem. 754, Boniface, an Anglo-Saxon missionary, was killed by a band of pagans at Dokkum in Frisia. 1257, Kraków, in Poland, received city rights. 1283, Battle of the Gulf of Naples: Roger of Lauria, admiral to King Peter III of Aragon, captured Charles of Salermo. 1625, the city of Breda surrendered to the Spanish tercios under general Ambrosio Spinola. 1798, The Battle of New Ross: The attempt to spread the United Irish Rebellion into Munster was defeated.

In 1817, the first Great Lakes steamer, the Frontenac, was launched. 1829, HMS Pickle captured the armed slave ship Voladora off the coast of Cuba. 1832, the June Rebellion broke out in Paris in an attempt to overthrow the monarchy of Louis Philippe. 1837, Houston was incorporated by the Republic of Texas. 1849, Denmark became a constitutional monarchy by the signing of a new constitution. 1851, Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery serial, Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, started a ten-month run in the National Era abolitionist newspaper. 1862, as the Treaty of Saigon was signed, ceding parts of southern Vietnam to France, the guerrilla leader Trương Định decided to defy Emperor Tự Đức of Vietnam and fight on against the Europeans. 1864, American Civil War: Battle of Piedmont: Union forces under General David Hunter defeated a Confederate army at Piedmont, Virginia, taking nearly 1,000 prisoners. 1883, the first regularly scheduled Orient Express departed Paris. 1888, the Rio de la Plata Earthquake took place.

In 1900, Second Boer War: British soldiers took Pretoria. 1915, Denmark amended its constitution to allow women's suffrage. 1916, Louis Brandeis was sworn in as a Justice of the United States Supreme Court; he was the first American Jew to hold such a position. 1917, World War I: Conscription began in the United States as "Army registration day". 1933, the U.S. Congress abrogated the United States' use of the gold standard by enacting a joint resolution (48 Stat. 112) nullifying the right of creditors to demand payment in gold.

In 1940, World War II: After a brief lull in the Battle of France, the Germans renewed the offensive against the remaining French divisions south of the River Somme in Operation Fall Rot ("Case Red"). 1941, World War II: Four thousand Chongqing residents were asphyxiated in a bomb shelter during the Bombing of Chongqing. 1942, World War II: The United States declared war on Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania. 1944, World War II: More than 1000 British bombers dropped 5,000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast in preparation for D-Day. 1945, the Allied Control Council, the military occupation governing body of Germany, formally took power. 1946, a fire in the La Salle Hotel in Chicago, Illinois, killed 61 people. 1947, Marshall Plan: In a speech at Harvard University, the United States Secretary of State George Marshall called for economic aid to war-torn Europe. 1949, Thailand elected Orapin Chaiyakan, the first female member of Thailand's Parliament.

In 1956, Elvis Presley introduced his new single, "Hound Dog", on The Milton Berle Show, scandalising the audience with his suggestive hip movements. 1959, the first government of the State of Singapore was sworn in. 1963, the British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, resigned in a sex scandal known as the "Profumo affair". Also 1963, Movement of 15 Khordad: Protests against the arrest of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini by the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In several cities, masses of angry demonstrators were confronted by tanks and paratroopers. 1964, DSV Alvin was commissioned. 1967, the Six-Day War began: Israel launched surprise strikes against Egyptian air-fields in response to the mobilisation of Egyptian forces on the Israeli border. 1968, Robert F. Kennedy, a U.S. presidential candidate, was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian. Kennedy died the next day. 1969, the International communist conference began in Moscow.

In 1975, the Suez Canal opened for the first time since the Six-Day War. Also 1975, the United Kingdom held its first country-wide referendum on remaining in the European Economic Community (EEC). 1976, the Teton Dam in Idaho, United States, collapsed. 1977, a coup took place in Seychelles. 1981, the "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report" of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that five people in Los Angeles, California, have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, in what turned out to be the first recognised cases of AIDS. 1984, the Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, ordered an attack on the Golden Temple, the holiest site of the Sikh religion. 1989, the Tank Man halted the progress of a column of advancing tanks for over half an hour after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

In 1993, portions of the Holbeck Hall Hotel in Scarborough, in North Yorkshire, England, fell into the sea following a landslide. 1995, the Bose–Einstein condensate was first created. 1998, a strike began at the General Motors parts factory in Flint, Michigan, that quickly spreads to five other assembly plants. The strike lasted seven weeks. 2000, the Six-Day War in Kisangani began in Kisangani, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, between Ugandan and Rwandan forces. A large part of the city was destroyed. 2001, Tropical Storm Allison made landfall on the upper-Texas coastline as a strong tropical storm and dumped large amounts of rain over Houston. The storm caused $5.5 billion in damages, making Allison the costliest tropical storm in U.S. history. 2003, a severe heat wave across Pakistan and India reached its peak, as temperatures exceeded 50°C (122°F) in the region. 2006, Serbia declared independence from the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. 2009, after 65 straight days of civil disobedience, at least 31 people were killed in clashes between security forces and indigenous people near Bagua, Peru.
=== Publishing News ===
This column welcomes feedback and criticism. The column is not made up but based on the days events and articles which are then placed in the feed. So they may not have an apparent cohesion they would have had were they made up.
===
Editorials will appear in the "History in a Year by the Conservative Voice" series, starting with August https://www.createspace.com/4124406, September https://www.createspace.com/5106914, October https://www.createspace.com/5106951, or at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/1482020262/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_dVHPub0MQKDZ4  The kindle version is cheaper, but the soft back version allows the purchase of a kindle version for just $3.99 more. 
===
For twenty two years I have been responsibly addressing an issue, and I cannot carry on. I am petitioning the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to remedy my distress. I leave it up to him if he chooses to address the issue. Regardless of your opinion of conservative government, the issue is pressing. Please sign my petition at https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/tony-abbott-remedy-the-persecution-of-dd-ball

Or the US President at
https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-change-this-injustice#
or
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/change-injustice-faced-david-daniel-ball-after-he-reported-bungled-pedophile-investigation-and/b8mxPWtJ or http://wh.gov/ilXYR
Douglas Sutherland-Bruce via David Daniel Ball
Mr Ball, I will not sign your petition as it will do no good, but I will share your message and ask as many of friends who read it, to share it also. Let us see if we cannot use the power of the internet to spread the word of these infamous killings. As a father and a former soldier, I cannot, could not, justify ignoring this appalling action by the perpetrators, whoever they may; I thank you Douglas. You are wrong about the petition. Signing it is as worthless and meaningless an act as voting. A stand up guy would know that. - ed

Lorraine Allen Hider I signed the petition ages ago David, with pleasure, nobody knows what it's like until they've been there. Keep heart David take care.

I have begun a bulletin board (http://theconservativevoice.freeforums.net) which will allow greater latitude for members to post and interact. It is not subject to FB policy and so greater range is allowed in posts. Also there are private members rooms in which nothing is censored, except abuse. All welcome, registration is free.
=== Bolt Report Items ===
On Bolt Report an ongoing policy is that any Islam post can only be on the pinned leader. Normal rules apply in that if it is merely foul and abusive it will be deleted. Otherwise comments are welcome.  
===
Dear Members (YOU MUST READ THIS THREAD)
As of today, the rules of this forum are going to be enforced more rigorously. This includes the instant removal of members who personally abuse other members of this forum.
Whilst the use of bad language is often invoked as colourful descriptors of politicians, we ask that people refrain from the C word as there are many people on this forum who do not want to see that as part of every day language here.
Blatant racism, homophobia and religious slurs will be removed from the forum, along with the person who posted them.
Crass, vile & vitriolic hate posts will also be removed along with the person who posts those comments or threads.
Generally we will give people a 24 hour time out to cool off after they have been removed and those people will be welcome back to the forum once they have applied via an admin..... we will however, permanently remove repeat offenders with a rule of "3 strikes and you're out".
We are trying to encourage legitimate debate, conversation and discussion on this forum where people are able to have free thought and their own opinions without "mob" rule attacking them for thinking differently, however, in saying this, members who are here to deliberately cause trouble or "troll" will be removed without warning.
The standard of this forum needs to be better and people are responsible for their own behaviour.... bullying of others or bullying of admins will also result in that person being removed.
Legitimate criticism is appreciated, along with logical and rational commentary.
Admins decisions are final.... so make of this forum what you want of it and do not complain if you are removed for behaviour that is contrary to the posting protocols.
If you feel intimated or threatened by another person, contact an admin immediately so the situation can be monitored and mediated.
Regards
Admins
===
Happy birthday and many happy returns Linda Huynh. You were born on that remarkable day, when in 663 the Daming Palace became the government seat and royal residence of the Tang empire during Emperor Gaozong's reign. Being mainly old people, I always think the government should have seats. Anything less is cruel. In 1862, as the Treaty of Saigon was signed, ceding parts of southern Vietnam to France, the guerrilla leader Truong Dinh decided to defy Emperor Tu Duc of Vietnam and fight on against the Europeans. Poor Vietnam deserves peace and prosperity .. and freedom. In 1947, At a speech at Harvard University, United States Secretary of State George Marshall called for economic aid to war-torn Europe, outlining a recovery program that became known as the Marshall Plan. And, Juicily, in 1963, the British Secretary of State for War John Profumo admitted he lied to the House of Commons during enquiries about his involvement in a sex scandal and resigned. It is your birthday, you choose your wish. But be it scandal, freedom, dignity or giving, own it, as you were born to it.
Deaths
The Orient Express, 1883
Avoid weather that is inclement. Break for Paris. Take the Orient Express. Profumo knows a girl. Tank Man made the sacrifice. Lets party. 
Matches
Hatches
Despatches
===
2015
===

Our $42m World Cup bid: Show me the money

Piers Akerman – Thursday, June 04, 2015 (6:52pm)

THE Abbott government could kick a quick goal if it speedily provided Australian taxpayers with a full ­accounting of the $42.25 million of taxpayers’ money that was gifted to Frank Lowy’s pet soccer project — the bid for the 2022 World Cup.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Our $42m World Cup bid: Show me the money'
===

WORSE THAN THE SOMME

Tim Blair – Friday, June 05, 2015 (1:59pm)

Not since several ABC staffers worked for ten hours has Australia witnessed such workplace horror. A three-decade public servant now reveals shocking Canberra cruelty: 
Due to a high workload, I have just worked for 13 days straight (no, the weekends were not full days). During a meeting yesterday, my SES band 1 told me that if we had time for lunch, we weren’t that busy.
I’m a grown man with a fairly thick skin but my reaction was to walk out of her office and into a toilet in tears. I ended up going home, visibly upset. I texted my boss at 5.30am today telling her I’m unable to come in. Her written response was to ask me where a report was located. I am genuinely unsure what to do. 
Step 1: Tell her where the report is.
Step 2: Go to work.
===

CLUB OF ONE

Tim Blair – Friday, June 05, 2015 (2:38am)

Here’s an astonishingly rare human being – an ABC-supporting lefty feminist who challenges Hizb ut-Tahrir’s Islamic sexism: 
Freelance journalist Alison Bevege is taking the hardline group to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal after she was asked to sit at the back of a hall with other women at a public meeting last October.
She claims that, despite her protestations, she was told she had to sit separately to the men in the hall ...
Ms Bevege compared her treatment to the racial divide in the US before the African-American Civil Rights movement, saying she felt like “Mississippi blacks” who were forced to sit at the back of a bus. 
Leftist reaction is predictable: 
Sociologist and feminist Eva Cox described the incident as “trivial” … 
Tell that to Rosa Parks, Eva. Further background here and here.
UPDATE. Sydney Morning Herald “investigations journalist” Tim Elliott attended the same Hizbie meeting last October – and apparently didn’t notice that all female attendees were at the back of the hall.
UPDATE II. Seven’s Bryan Seymour: 
In the last six months, 7News has attended several similar events in western Sydney. Each time, we observed attendees being told “brothers to the front, sisters to the back”. 
Could be worth a class action.
===

POWERFUL FORCE

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 04, 2015 (2:14pm)

A terrifying warning from Ben Eltham: 
The arts are a powerful latent force in Australia’s political landscape. From Courtney Barnett to Simon Stone, talented young Australians are increasingly making global names for themselves. Recent years have seen a flourishing of Australian culture that has become one of the most attractive aspects of our increasingly diverse and creative society.
George Brandis and his colleagues would be wise to reflect on this, and whether they can win a war of symbols against some of the most creative and energetic people in our society. 
Being so fantastically creative and energetic, these people should have no problem finding ways to raise money besides having it handed to them by the government.
UPDATE. Creative power unleashed!
===

THEY’RE ACTUALLY DANCING IN THE STREETS WITH MUSIC

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 04, 2015 (1:39pm)

An Islamic detective duo expose evil in Australia’s largest city: 
Two men, known as Brother Mohammed Nagi and Bassam, were filmed launching into a tirade outside the Knafeh Jerusalem Street Food Bakery at Greenacre in Sydney’s south west recently.
The pair were filmed telling Muslims they should be ashamed of themselves for dancing and singing at the bakery because they were ‘satanic’ acts. One branded it an ‘evil gathering’.
‘We have music, we have drums, we have dancing when we have fellow Muslim brothers and sisters around the world in agony and distress,’ Bassam told the camera. 
Maybe those distressed brothers and sisters should try dancing and singing. Seems to work here. 
In last week’s clip, the men stood on the street several metres from the store and branded those who took part in such acts as ‘Kuffar’ – an Arabic term for sinners.
The Knafeh Jerusalem Street Food Bakery, run by a Palestinian family, was using music and dance to promote ‘a vibrant Middle Eastern atmosphere’ in the Sydney suburb.
‘People are becoming proud and happy with their sin, they’re actually dancing in the streets with music, actually proud and bragging about their sins,’ Bassam said. 
The clip has since been removed, but is available at the above link. Our detective duo subsequently explained their motivation: 
We understand the youth of our community better than anyone, and so we feel that it is a duty upon us as we are from them, to advise them to adopt a respectful and decent manner in their daily lives. The reality is that most of these youth will not welcome the advice coming from the local Islamic Mosques and centers as they do not regularly attend them. 
Good. 
Youth gatherings in the street with loud music and no security or monitoring can lead to fights breaking out and people being seriously injured with no one being held accountable which was the main concern in this particular situation. 
Yeah. Right. Because the really big worry at the moment is all the violence caused by music.
===

AMERICA ADJUSTS

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 04, 2015 (1:23pm)

Via Mr Bingley:

image
===

Marr’s tantrum and Epstein’s cool

Andrew Bolt June 05 2015 (5:41pm)

Gerard Henderson is in superb form in today’s Media Watch Dog, and even hands a deserved prize to the ABC’s Rafael Epstein for challenging the anti-Pell witch-huntery of David Marr and Dee Madigan. Bravo. My own experience with Epstein has been rather disappointing, but this effort more than wipes the slate clean.
As for Marr, this kind of behaviour, as described by Henderson, betrays an adolescent wilfulness and rudeness not appropriate in a man in his 60s:
In the Insiders Green Room last Sunday, you literally exploded when I arrived at about 8.20 am. Perhaps you had been psyching yourself up from the time of your arrival almost an hour earlier. In any event, without even saying “Top of the morning Hendo”, you launched your attack the moment I rocked up.
You called me a “lying shit” and a “f-cking shit” and more besides. To make your point, on three occasions you were yelling at me while jumping up and down. A bit like a boy on a pogo-stick. Except that you did not have a pogo-stick – and you are not a boy. An extraordinary performance, to be sure. It’s a pity you did not repeat the act when Insiders went to air at 9 am. David Marr jumping up and down in anger on the Insiders studio floor would have been such a hit.
This is now the third occasion on which you have literally lost it and screamed with swear words aplenty before or during our occasional Insiders appearances.
I’m afraid Marr seems one of those people who gets so self-righteous and sees his adversaries in such pantomime hues that he feels licensed to commit evil against them. Hus prose tends to the huffery that this tantrum suggests.
UPDATE
Speaking of people going too far, I put my hand up. In discussing Waleed Aly on radio this week I was too hard on him. I let my temper get the better of me. I do think he means well, even if I disagree strong with many of his positions.
Note: no one has complained to me or asked me to say sorry. It’s my own guilty conscience speaking. 
===

Hanson-Young reaches new low with Peeping Tom smear

Andrew Bolt June 05 2015 (1:22pm)

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young is not just paranoid and attention seeking, but a disgrace for smearing the Prime Minister as a Peeping Tom:

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has changed her twitter name to “The Raven” following bizarre evidence the code name was given to her by security guards who spied on her in Nauru.

An unnamed whistleblower says Wilson Security had ordered the spying… Senator Hanson-Young visited the Nauru detention centre in December 2013 with a Senate inquiry being informed that security guards were briefed on where she was staying, her room number and vehicle registration…
Tony Abbott today rejected claims the Senator was being spied on, suggesting she was being “looked after” by security during her Nauru visit…
“I believe she was being, in fact, looked after while she was there."…
Senator Hanson-Young later told reporters that Mr Abbott did not understand that “women don’t like to be watched”.
“It is just creepy, frankly,” she said.
What a foul dig. It’s the kind of cheap stunt that trivialises genuine sexual harassment. And, of course, it is simply nasty. 
===

On The Bolt Report on Sunday, June 7

Andrew Bolt June 05 2015 (10:30am)

On Channel 10 on Sunday at 10am and 3pm.
My guest:  Immigration Minister Peter Dutton. Let’s talk treason.
Editorial: Crying wolf on the Great Barrier Reef. Holding the scaremongers to account.

The panel: Niki Savva of The Australian and former Labor campaign guru Bruce Hawker. Has the media been too hard on Abbott, and other leading questions.
NewsWatch: Sharri Markson, media editor of The Australian. On the media’s rules - and Gillard’s - for playing the gender card. And is the media reporting on same-sex marriage - or campaigning?
The videos of the shows appear here.
===

Got half a dozen people? Ring the ABC to demand equal time

Andrew Bolt June 05 2015 (9:23am)

The ABC’s campaign against the Catholic church is ridiculous.
This morning ABC 774 Melbourne gives a long platform to a spokesman for a protest against Cardinal George Pell.
Number of protesters? “About half a dozen.”
I have about half a dozen people in my family. May I be interviewed by the ABC about the church, too? Or is the ABC just interested in protests that align with its own politics? 
===

Say no to a new parliament for one “race”

Andrew Bolt June 05 2015 (9:09am)

Marcia Langton:
Indigenous people have petitioned and advocated for decades for national representation and a voice in the parliamentary process.
They have that voice. It’s called a vote. Like every Australian they can choose who represents them in Parliament - federal and state.
There are also Aboriginal politicians. In Federal Parliament there are Ken Wyatt and Nova Peris, with Joanna Lindgren about to join them.
In the Northern Territory, the Chief Minister himself has Aboriginal ancestry.
So Langton’s wishes have been granted, right?
Wrong. She wants more than this for people of just one “race”, however defined and however tenuous the link:
I support ... an indigenous body, constitutionally mandated, to advise and consult with parliament on matters relating to indigenous affairs…
Symbolic words are not what indigenous people have been asking for. We want practical reform and authority in our own affairs.
The indigenous body proposal is about practical recognition: real, indigenous human beings, having a constitutional platform on which to be heard in the laws and policies made about us.
It is not an indigenous parliament, as Greg Sheridan and Andrew Bolt are keen on suggesting. It would be a consultative and advisory body. It is justified because parliament has a specific power to pass laws about our people and our rights.
It’s not a Parliament, although actually people will stand for election to it.
It won’t have power, honest, but it will have “authority”.
No, but yes.
Say no this racial division of our country. Say yes to one people, under one law. 
===

Now Triggs blames the Government for the Chan and Sukumaran executions

Andrew Bolt June 05 2015 (8:52am)

Gillian Triggs’ bias was already so blatant that it destroyed the effectiveness of her Human Rights Commission, making it seem just one more far-Left lobby group.
Now Triggs just makes the damage worse by absurdly blaming the the Abbott Government for the executing of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran:
The head of Australia’s human rights watchdog has linked Indon­esia’s refusal to negotiate on the death penalty for executed Bali drug-smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran to the Abbott government’s policy of turning back the boats.
Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs said nobody could disagree with the need to stop refugees drowning at sea. “Boats have got to stop,” she said. “But have we thought about what the consequences are of pushing people back to our neighbour Indonesia? Is it any wonder that Indonesia will not engage with us on other issues that we care about, like the death penalty?”
Is Triggs also blaming Indonesia’s execution of two Brazilians, a Dutchman, a Nigerian and a Ghanaian on our boat policies?
(Thanks to many readers.) 
===

No Jewish state, says Greens leader

Andrew Bolt June 05 2015 (8:45am)

No to the Jewish state, says Greens leader Richard di Natale:
The [Australian Jewish News] asked him if Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas should recognise Israel’s existence as a Jewish State.
“Of course,” he replied. “How can you have a two-state solution when you refuse to acknowledge the right of one state to exist? It’s patently nonsense."…

The backlash [from supporters] prompted a clarification, in which his executive assistant stated that Di Natale was “concerned about the way in which his comments were reported” and that while he supports a two-state solution, “the establishment of a ‘Jewish state’ (as opposed to an ‘Israeli state’) is not conducive to that outcome"…
Di Natale this week reiterated his position in correspondence with the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ). “I have always supported a peaceful, two-state solution… I have never believed that the establishment of a ‘Jewish state’ (as opposed to an ‘Israeli state’) is conducive to this outcome and I absolutely do not support that goal.”
Stressing that Israel’s establishment “as ‘the Jewish State’ ... has been the reality since Israel’s proclamation of independence in 1948” and citing its recognition as such by the United Nations and in international law, ECAJ executive director Peter Wertheim wrote to Di Natale, “When you deny Israel’s character as the state of the Jewish people you not only place yourself against the entire current of history and international law, you also deny the right of national self-determination of the Jewish people...”
Mind you, when it comes to homelands for other minorities, the Greens are quite keen. There’s just something about this one.
(Thanks to reader JudoChop and others.) 
===

Abbott would never be forgiven for what Albo said

Andrew Bolt June 05 2015 (8:21am)

Anthony Albanese is preferred as Labor leader by 60 per cent of Labor members, so will be forgiven for urging “smash her!” when a fellow frontbencher gets up to grill Health Minister Sussan Ley.
But what would the media have said had Tony Abbott said the same in referring to, say, Tanya Plibersek?
Be alert to the Left’s double standards.
UPDATE
Mark Latham gives another example of these double standards:
[Julia] Gillard claims that, following a meeting of Labor’s tactics committee in opposition, [Kevin] Rudd bullied and intimidated her in a “menacing, angry performance”. Gillard gives a similar “red flag” account of Rudd’s “propensity for anger” on page six of her 2014 memoir My Story.
In a perverse way, this incident tells us more about Gillard than her rival.
After the “bullying encounter” Gillard campaigned vigorously for Rudd at the 2007 election, telling the Australian people he was fit to lead the country.  She said he was a good and capable man, the type of person who should replace John Howard as prime minister. 
Yet now, Gillard is highlighting a different truth. She wanted a known bully, a man who mistreated women in the workplace, to move into The Lodge…
Gillard has jettisoned her own carefully nurtured feminist credentials to admit that she shoehorned a woman-bullier into the prime ministership. How must that high-profile misogynist Tony Abbott feel about such a confession? And what of Anne Summers and the rest of Gillard’s feminist cheer squad?
Their champion was willing to abandon her principles and tolerate mistreatment by a man, as long as it elevated her on the greasy pole of parliamentary careerism. 
(Thanks to readers stu, Peter of Bellevue Hill and others.) 
===

One more sign the Senate may be kinder to the resurgent Abbott

Andrew Bolt June 05 2015 (8:04am)

I hope the Government realises what an opportunity this could be:
Clive Palmer is attempting to marshal a new voting bloc in the Senate in a bid to increase his faltering influence following the loss of two of his Palmer United Party senators.
The PUP leader has met Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm and Family First’s Bob Day in recent weeks to discuss how they can work with Mr Palmer’s remaining senator, Zhenya Wang, to increase their negotiating power.
Mr Palmer’s influence was reduced when senators Jacqui Lambie and Glenn Lazarus quit his party and an alliance with the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party’s senator Ricky Muir ended. A new voting bloc involving senators Wang, Leyonhjelm and Day could have ramifi­cations for the Coalition’s plans for Senate reform and the passage of budget savings.
When Labor and the Greens oppose government legislation, the Coalition needs the support of six of the remaining eight sen­ators. A bloc of three crossbenchers could decide the fate of bills.
Senator Leyonhjelm said Mr Palmer initiated the discussions out of concerns over the major parties’ proposal to abolish group voting tickets in Senate elections, which could wipe out the ­independents in the upper house.
If Wang is to join Day and Leyonhjelm in a bloc it will mean he has to vote more constructively than Palmer has allowed, and support more Government legislation (in return, of course, for noisy concessions).
The trio will also have to demonstrate to the Government that the Senate can indeed be made workable with their support, and there is no need to change the way we vote for Senators.
Of course, I wouldn’t trust Palmer as far as I could throw him, yet this development is worth exploring. Mind you, adding Wang to Day and Leyonhjelm still leaves the Government three votes short of a sympathetic bloc, although Ricky Muir could turn out all right, too, and Glenn Lazarus was making constructive noises a couple of weeks ago.  
===

The Australian is killing itself with this vendetta

Andrew Bolt June 05 2015 (7:42am)

The Australian’s obsession with me is becoming truly strange and Crikey-like. Something needs changing there.
James Jeffrey notes what’s happening and is typically honest enough to regret his own role in it.  I wonder how many other journalists at The Australian at wondering at this strategy. And I wonder whether going this feral at a conservative is leading as many people to cancel subscriptions as my own in-box suggests.
And again I repeat: this bullying will not work.   
===

Shorten must explain these dodgy deals

Andrew Bolt June 05 2015 (7:23am)

An ugly look for Bill Shorten:

Bill Shorten has been challenged to reveal any connection to allegations besetting his former union of fraudulent transactions and scams that boosted its political power by signing up phantom members.
The Opposition Leader came under pressure in parliament for the second day running to reveal any knowledge of claims before the trade union royal commission that the Australian Workers Union was involved in sweetheart deals, ghost memberships and fraudulent accounting. Mr Shorten has refused to comment on events before the commission, saying he will not “provide a running commentary’’.
Yesterday the commission heard fresh claims that Mr Shorten’s former union, led at the time by his political and industrial ally Cesar Melhem, doctored invoices to help conceal the fact that $225,000 was used to bolster memberships and the AWU’s influence on Labor’s conference…
The pressure comes amid evidence in the commission that Mr Shorten had a relationship with the boss of a builder, Winslow Constructions, that had a long-time practice of paying union dues to the AWU on its workers’ behalf…
Mr Shorten was a signatory to the 2004 enterprise bargaining agreement with Winslow Constructors…
Mr Shorten testified at the Cole royal commission into unions in 2002 that the AWU did not receive money from ­employers to be deployed on memberships…
The commission also heard the AWU had engaged in issuing more than $225,000 of sham invoices­ to Winslow, where Winslow was charged for “OH&S training” when in fact the charges had been membership fees for its employees… The commission heard evidence that Mr Melhem had direct­ly requested staff members to doctor invoices provided to Winslow. It heard that AWU financial controller Mei Lin received an email from AWU administration support officer Angela Leo requesting false entries be made to Winslow invoices.
“Can you please organise an invoice for Winslow as per Cesar’ (sic) request below,” an email tendered said. “The amount is to be for $45,396.00 being 12 months membership for 97 members. Invoices are to be made out for Training/Red Card/OHS etc not Membership.”
Melham is now a Victorian Labor MP. And this bit really stinks:

The Australian Worker’s Union agreed to trade away casual workers’ penalty rates in return for $75,000, in a deal that saved a subsidiary of the cleaning giant, Spotless Group, $2 million.
Counsel assisting the trade union royal commission Jeremy Stoljar, SC, said the AWU’s Victorian branch did a deal with Cleanevent in 2010, which meant the cleaner’s largely casual workforce missed out on a large increase in penalty rates.
“The short point is this: the benefit to Cleanevent from the [memorandum of understanding] is that it saved a great deal of money it would otherwise have paid its employees, especially by way of penalty rates,” Mr Stoljar told the inquiry on Thursday.
In return, the AWU received $25,000 a year, for three years under a memorandum of understanding that was “doubtful” legally, and Cleanevent supplied lists of names of cleaners, who unknown to them, were entered into the union’s membership roll.
The deal saved the company an estimated $2 million a year in penalty rates in return for giving the union names of causal employees, which would artifically inflate membership numbers.
Victorian MP Cesar Melhem was the then-AWU state secretary and was involved in the negotiations, in which Mr Stoljar alledges breached the Fair Work Act.
And how can Shorten explain this?
THE federal government wants Labor leader Bill Shorten to explain what he knew about his former trade union signing up netballers as members without their knowledge.
THE commission into trade union governance has been told members of the Australian Netball Players Association were secretly signed up to the Australian Workers Union…
As the AWU’s national secretary in 2005, the now opposition leader announced an alliance with the association that included signing up 120 players.
UPDATE
Grace Collier:
Christopher Pyne, by questioning Bill Shorten in parliament over the Cleanevent deal, may be on to a winner.
The royal commission into trade unions is examining the extension of an enterprise agreement between Cleanevent and the Australian Workers Union in 2010. The commission has heard money changed hands between the parties to secure the extension of the deal, and workers were ripped off to the tune of millions.
What is yet to be highlighted is that the agreement was originally made between the parties in 2004. The current Opposition Leader signed that document.
Clause 8.2 of the 2004 deal ­allows the employer to offer full-time cleaners low yearly salaries (starting at $33,854) that exclude payment for all shift, weekend and public holiday penalties and loading, include up to seven hours of unpaid overtime a week, and up to 12-hour shifts. I doubt this agreement would pass the “better-off overall’’ test if it was sent to the Fair Work Commission today…
In 2006, the AWU made another deal with Cleanevent, which eroded conditions for the workers further. It is not surprising the company was so desperate to keep the agreement — it was supposedly saving it $2 million in wages a year. Shorten did not sign the 2006 deal — assistant national secretary, Graham Roberts, did — but AWU rules specify agreements must be sealed and executed only at the highest levels…
It is reasonable and proper for the Education Minister to ask Shorten about the 2004 and 2006 agreements. The public deserves to know whether financial arrangements were made between employer and union at that time.... There may be an innocent explanation...
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Fantasy bidding - from the next Menzies sale

Andrew Bolt June 05 2015 (12:39am)

If money were no object at the Menzies sale on June 25::
image
===

Alexander makes even Constanza seem kind

Andrew Bolt June 05 2015 (12:00am)

I’ve always thought Jason Alexander was a small man overcompensating through arrogance. Turns out I was right. His meanness is astonishing. 
===

Another Queensland Labor MP stood down

Andrew Bolt June 04 2015 (3:46pm)

What the hell is going on with the Queensland Labor Government?
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has stood down Labor MP Rick Williams from parliament’s Legal Affairs committee, pending the outcome of a police investigation.
It comes as Queensland’s police minister has admitted to phoning a man who has made allegations against the rookie Labor MP.
Police Minister Jo-Ann Miller admits to calling Bruce McLean, who made some of the allegations against Mr Williams, because she was concerned for him as his local member.
“Sometimes my care for people is so strong and overwhelming that I act to offer my support to them instinctively,” Ms Miller told parliament… The minister said she only offered Mr McLean her support and vehemently denied trying to interfere with a potential police investigation into the member for Pumicestone…

The Courier-Mail this morning reported it had handed to police several statutory declarations from people making allegations against Mr Williams’ character and conduct.
Yesterday in Question Time, Ms Palaszczuk ... told parliament that since this had happened, she had stood down Mr Williams from the Legal Affairs committee of parliament, pending the outcome of the police investigation.... The premier stood the rookie MP aside from the parliamentary Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee, which oversees the police, on Thursday.
===

Judges should be much better than this

Andrew Bolt June 04 2015 (11:45am)

I can’t help but feel that Queensland Chief Justice Tim Carmody was bullied in a disgraceful way by his colleagues, but former director of public prosecutions Des Sturgess suggests his treatment was even more serious:

Now, well into his retirement, the one-time leading criminal ­defence lawyer controversially suggests some of these judges could have breached the Criminal Code in their conduct towards Chief Justice Tim Carmody.
Mr Sturgess said yesterday that, on his analysis, some of the judges could have committed a criminal conspiracy, covered by a little-known law forbidding ­people from colluding to harm someone at work.
Mr Sturgess pointed to Section 543 of the Criminal Code of Queensland, which deals with “other conspiracies” in relation to harm being caused to a person in a trade or profession, with a punishment of up to three years’ imprisonment. He hastened to add that “there is no chance whatsoever of anyone from the Supreme Court ending up in the dock of the court — but it is a part of our law and you do ­expect judges to be obedient to it”.
He cited as evidence the decision by ­Supreme Court judges to stay away from the Chief Justice’s swearing-in 10 months ago. The judges of the District Court ­attended the ceremony.
In a written opinion, Mr Sturgess stated: “All 25 of them elected to stay away. Why? Was it ­because each independently ­decided not to attend? Such an explanation, I think, lacks credibility. The more likely one is they put their heads together and agreed upon that course … ­because they didn’t welcome him and wanted to publicise their disapproval.
“The above conclusion seems to me to be supported by some ­unsavoury events that followed … unbelievably, they include a judge secretly tape-recording a conversation with Carmody, and the leaking of stories harmful to him in the media...”
The Chief Justice remains on leave after flagging his intention to resign from the court on “just terms”, following months of revelations of dysfunction in his ­relationships with other judges. 
===

Conference for the young and free

Andrew Bolt June 04 2015 (10:49am)

image
If you’re young, a libertarian and have $10 for the entry free, this conference could be for you. 
===

Reconciliation now means Aborigines attacking Aborigines

Andrew Bolt June 04 2015 (10:19am)

A very disturbing - but utterly predictable - development in the “reconciliation” movement, as socialists and Aboriginal radicals now attack Aboriginal women they accuse of being not radical enough:
Respected Aboriginal elder Lowitja O’Donoghue is “scared” a referendum to recognise indigenous Australians in the Constitution will fail because of disunity within Aboriginal ranks.
Dr O’Donoghue and Aborig­inal academic Marcia Langton were jostled by protesters in Adelaide on Tuesday night after an address by Professor Langton to the Don Dunstan Foundation, in which she argued there should be no publicly funded no case.
The protesters, who kicked and attempted to damage the women’s vehicles, are believed to be from the Warriors of the Aborig­inal Resistance, a group that reject­s the Recognise campaign and has described constitutional recognition as a dead end.
Despicable. Dangerous.
And O’Donoghue herself plays what seems to me the dirty Uncle Tom card:

While the Prime Minister wants a referendum in 2017 to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1967 vote, momentum towards a draft referendum was slow and the views of his Indigenous Advisory Council chairman Warren Mundine were unclear, she said.
“Tony Abbott is buggerising around. I don’t think the things he says links with the actions,” Dr O’Donoghue said. “But it looks good to have a black fellow on your shoulder. The other thing I question is … Mundine. I don’t know what his (real) position is.”
Feeling reconciled yet, or more deeply divided by the day?
The Left is playing with fire. 
===

Let the public vote on same-sex marriage

Andrew Bolt June 04 2015 (9:21am)

image
IF we’re going to have same-sex marriage, let’s do it properly. Let the people vote for it.
Make this a clear and clean vote of the people in a plebiscite, not some dodgy deal between politicians.
Let’s vote and not just because changing the nature of marriage is not the same as changing some tax; it is far bigger in consequence, and irreversible.
And, no, I am not just suggesting some sneaky way to stop a change that so many politicians — Labor, the Greens and Liberals — now say they want.
In fact, same-sex marriage supporters already claim they have overwhelming public support, so why would they be scared of a popular vote?
Rather, they have very much to gain.
They say they want public acceptance of same-sex relationships, so what better way to get it than by a loud “yes” by the people?
Think how decisive the Irish yes vote was — precisely because it was delivered by the people in a referendum.
How decisive such a win would be here, too. Supporters would have such a party and opponents would have such a defeat. 
(Read full article here.) 
===

But what if jihadists represent the true Islam?

Andrew Bolt June 04 2015 (9:20am)

Almost all the media and political debate about how to tackle radical Islam and terrorism is based on one critical assumption: that jihadists are unrepresentative and do not represent “true” Islam. That they therefore can be talked out of their dangerous attitudes. That they can be “deradicalised”. 
But what if that is simply not true?
Clive Kessler is emeritus professor of sociology and anthropology at the University of NSW. He has studied Islam and the sources of militant Islam for more than 50 years:

Among Muslims worldwide today, about 10 to 15 per cent, it may be suggested, are modernist, reform-minded and democratic; perhaps another 10 to 15 per cent are militant, radical, extreme and potentially active in violent forms.
Between these two clusters, the 70 per cent in the middle represent what may be called conventional or quasi-traditional Islam.
The question is: what is the relation of the views of the radical extreme to those of the centrist mainstream? Are they opposed, a deviationist breakaway, or are they basically identical, or at least complementary?
It would be reassuring if things were otherwise, but the basic facts are clear. Like the radical fringe or fundamentalist extreme, the Muslim mainstream adheres to, through explicit affirmation or by unreflecting habitual assent, the same underlying propositions that constitute the radical and militant world view. Like that of the militants, their Islam, or view of it, is basically supersessionist…

Many Muslims, not just the militants but those throughout the mainstream or centre ground of their faith community’s social spectrum, chafe against the ­humiliation the world of Islam has experienced in modern times at the hand of non-Muslims, believe this situation must and will be reversed, and that determined action on the part of the faithful is necessary to bring about that ­divinely ordained historical restoration of Islamic dignity, autonomy and even ascendancy.
The mainstream and the militants, including the violent implementers of militant ideas, share this outlook. The difference is simply, or largely, one of the means and measures and strategies…
Since the radicals and the mainstream share — if in different forms and style and emphasis — the same religiously grounded historical world view, the two orientations are basically complementary and congruent, not opposed. So there is no ground within the mainstream for calling back the deviant minority; no distinctive standpoint, authentic and authoritative, to which the radicals may be called to return by abandoning their own identifiable heresies. The moderates from the centrist mainstream stand bereft of the religiously based political and moral authority to make such calls persuasively, in ways that may prove enduringly convincing…
Increasingly, the militants and the mainstream share a common mindset and set of attitudes. The difference is that those in the mainstream tend to accept and go along with them habitually, while the radical Islamist ideologues take those framing ideas seriously and literally, and seek to affirm them actively…
If this is the case ... then community-based, community-supported and community-driven strategies of deradicalisation cannot work. They are doomed from the start.
Of course, if Kessler is right, the implications for our immigration policy are profound - yet still impossible for politicians to publicly discuss.
(Thanks to reader Gab.) 
===

No, most Irish did not say yes to same-sex marriage

Andrew Bolt June 04 2015 (8:32am)

Paul Sheehan says the reporting is false - most Irish voters did not say yes to same-sex marriage:

You probably thought, as I did, that last week’s same sex marriage referendum in Ireland was carried by an overwhelming 62 per cent vote majority in support of changing the constitution.
In fact, only 34 per cent of the adult population voted in support of the measure. There are 3.52 million Irish citizens of voting age, and 66 per cent of them did not vote “yes”. Two-thirds of the adult population either voted “no”, or did not vote, or did not register to vote.
I did not see that mentioned in any of the media’s coverage… While there was a clear majority in support for change among those who did bother to vote, the failure to even acknowledge that this was only a third of the adult population reflects what I think has become the media’s obsessive front-running, cheerleading and push-polling around this issue…
Almost 40 per cent of the electorate did not vote in the referendum, another 300,000 adults were unregistered, and voter participation last weekend was much lower than the average for general elections over the past 60 years.
Yet another reason to insist: this is a decision to be made by a vote of the people, not by a vote of politicians egged on by the media class.
(Thanks to reader Baden.) 
===

Abbott’s rise catches out his critics

Andrew Bolt June 04 2015 (7:18am)

TONY Abbott’s astonishing poll recovery is so unprecedented, it’s caught critics with their pants down.
What a laugh it’s been this week, when Newspoll showed the Prime Minister beating Labor leader Bill Shorten in popularity for the first time in a year.
Let’s count the people who never thought Abbott would come back from the dead after February, when a third of his party voted to spill the leadership positions. For a start, his recovery clearly caught out one of his two main rivals until recently, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull or Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop. Or both.
In Cabinet last week they attacked Abbott’s proposal to strip citizenship from Australians implicated in terrorism if they could apply for citizenship of a second country. Their resistance was leaked in huge detail — with lots of quotes — to an Abbott hater in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Both Turnbull and Bishop deny leaking the confidential discussion (maybe a pixie did it), but the leaker got caught badly if they reckoned on getting the backbench support the duo had when Abbott overreached on changes to the Racial Discrimination Act.
(Read full article here.) 
===

Yes but no: Katy Gallagher has three positions on a free vote, all in one press conference

Andrew Bolt June 04 2015 (7:10am)

Katy Gallagher is a Labor Senator and former Chief Minister of the ACT, and on Tuesday this experienced politician held a press conference to tell us just what she thought about same-sex marriage. Or not.
Gallagher insisted that all politicians be allowed a free vote:

GALLAGHER:  I think what we are seeing is the rise of the conservative elements of the Liberal Party trying to stop some of the momentum that is being waged to have a free vote across the Parliament. There is only one way that marriage equality, the issue of the Marriage Equality Bill will be resolved in this Parliament and that is if every Senator and every MP has a free vote… The disunity, the division will continue unless a free vote is granted to every Senator and every member of Parliament in the Australian Parliament…
JOURNALIST: Do you support a conscience vote in the Labor Party on this issue?
GALLAGHER: Well I do, I do support a conscience vote. I mean my own view is that it is not a matter of life or death but a conscience vote at least allows everyone to have a view. That is those who are opposed to it and those who support it ...  It is not difficult to offer a free vote to colleagues across your party room it will deal away with disunity and division because it allows every person to express their own personal views and there are mixed views on it.
Gallagher also insisted that maybe politicians should not have a free vote:

JOURNALIST: If a free vote is the right way to go about handling gay marriage on this issue then why did your colleague Tanya Plibersek ask for this to be a party vote instead of individuals?
GALLAGHER:… Myself - I do support a binding vote in the party but it is easy for me but I do accept that in a party there are mixed views and that this issue can be resolved with a free vote as well so I think what that does is it allows people with different opinions to actually voice their opinions but still allows progress to continue....
JOURNALIST: But if you support a binding vote aren’t you gagging those members of your own party who have a view against gay marriage?
GALLAGHER: Well no, there isn’t an issue of binding before us at the moment… and, you know, parties bind each other on different issues all the time.
Gallagher then insisted that all politicians should be both allowed a free vote and denied a free vote, if that free vote isn’t the one she wants:
JOURNALIST: Are you saying you support a binding vote or a conscience vote within the Labor Party?
GALLAGHER: Well I support both.
The modern Labor party, representing the no-but-yes intolerant tolerance movement.
UPDATE
Tanya Plibersek is another yes-but-no Labor politician who believes in free speech and a free vote as long as she approves of the result:

STEVE CANNANE: So do you believe Tony Abbott should grant a conscience vote on this issue?
TANYA PLIBERSEK: Yeah. I think it’s a very important step for the Liberal party room to allow people who are supporters of marriage equality to express that support publicly.
STEVE CANNANE: So why do you think they should have a conscience vote in their party room when you don’t want a conscience vote in your party room? You’re taking it to conference I think next month that you want a binding vote on this.
TANYA PLIBERSEK: Well, I’ll tell you, Steve, I have always said on this that it is an issue of legal equality, of being able to say that we will not discriminate against one group in our community.
===

Sheridan: say no to racially dividing us in our Constitution

Andrew Bolt June 04 2015 (6:37am)

Just when I thought The Australian had lost its collective head, here comes Greg Sheridan to insist on a critical liberal principle:
The Australian Constitution should be colour blind, race blind and heritage blind. Citizenship should be universal and all encompassing as the only basis on which full rights are conferred. These ideas are so obvious it’s surprising they need to be defended....
Recently a number of Western societies have been heading down a destructive and dangerous road, reinstituting identity politics at the heart of civic society.
These days this impetus is seldom linked directly to race but to some other term, functionally coterminous with race but providing some disguise, such as culture, ethnicity or heritage, or in some societies religion.
In Australia these dynamics play out as a push for constitutional recognition for Abor­igines and to create an Aboriginal consultative body within the Constitution. These are terrible ideas that strike against basic liberal principles…
I have always hated racism… But there is a severe danger that anyone defending liberal principles will be labelled a racist… There is an unhealthy and undemocratic attempt to preclude debate on these matters.
First, the language is so dishonest. Slogans around the Recognise campaign say it is an attempt to include Aborigines in the Constitution. Aborigines are already included in the Constitution. Every citizen is fully included in the Constitution… The moment we introduce classes of citizenship we are entering extraordinarily dangerous territory…
This referendum would not complete the Constitution but open the way to a world of division. Those activists who want to challenge undivided Australian sovereignty, and ultimately have a treaty between the Australian nation and the Aboriginal nation, a profoundly divisive and illiberal idea, are being sold this referendum on the basis that it is a way-station that brings divided sovereignty closer…
An elected body in the Constitution would mean some Australians vote for one parliament and some for two, based on their heritage. Is it really necessary to spell out why this is such a bad and dangerous road?
===

FIFA official: South Africa bribed me and others

Andrew Bolt June 04 2015 (5:00am)

image
A FIFA official admits to bribes:

Federal prosecutors last week announced the indictments of nine of the most powerful executives in world soccer, along with four sports marketing executives and an accused intermediary. At the time, they outlined an alleged two-decade conspiracy in which the sports marketing executives paid the FIFA executives more than $150 million in kickbacks and bribes in exchange for rights televise soccer tournaments.
One of those indicted was Chuck Blazer, an American who was head of the confederation of soccer-playing nations in North and Central America and the Caribbean — CONCACAF, which includes the U.S. — and a powerful member of FIFA’s ruling executive committee…
According to a transcript of the 2013 hearing at which Blazer pleaded guilty to 10 counts — including racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and income tax evasion — Blazer told the court that he personally accepted bribes for his support in the bidding to host the World Cups in 1998, which was won by France, and 2010, which went to South Africa.
Other members of the executive committee also accepted bribes in connection with those World Cups, Blazer told the court…
Blazer’s co-conspirator isn’t named, but ahead of the 2010 tournament, the South African Football Association sent a letter to FIFA headquarters asking it to withhold $10 million from the tournament’s budget to finance a “Diaspora Legacy Program” under the control of Jack Warner, then president of the U.S. region’s confederation, who was among those indicted last week.
At a news conference Wednesday in Johannesburg, South African Sport Minister Fikile Mbalula denied that the $10 million payment was intended as a bribe, instead calling it an “above-the-board” donation to build a soccer center for expatriate Africans living in the Caribbean.
But Mbalula acknowledged that the money went to Warner personally…
The revelations could tarnish the legacies of both World Cups, particular the 2010 tournament, which is fondly remembered for its images of Nobel Peace Prize winners Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu smiling and celebrating with the World Cup trophy.
Mandela and Tutu were widely credited with lending prestige that helped put South Africa’s bid over the top, but neither has been implicated in any wrongdoing.
On Blazer:
image
He was known as Mr Ten Percent - a reference to the financial cut he would take from money generated during his time at the top of American football.
It gives you a sense of how wily Chuck Blazer has been over recent years that he transformed himself from a soccer dad into a man so rich he was able to spend nearly £4,000 a month on renting an apartment in New York’s prestigious Trump Tower - solely for the use of his cats…
Over the years, while in the posts of Executive Vice President of the US Soccer Federation and General Secretary of CONCACAF, the governing body for football across North and Central America and the Caribbean, he travelled the world enjoying the company of beauty queens and royalty.
He posted pictures of his meetings with Prince William, Nelson Mandela and the Russian leader Vladimir Putin, with other snaps showing him enjoying trips to the Bahamas and Disney World.
===

===

===

===

===

===

===

===

===

=== Posts from last year ===

When push comes to shovel

Piers Akerman – Thursday, June 05, 2014 (6:32pm)

ANDREW Bolt is a champion of free and forthright speech. Communications minister Malcolm Turnbull is too, as am I.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'When push comes to shovel'
===

Taking the electorate for fools

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, June 04, 2014 (2:40pm)

Instead of doing the job he’s paid so handsomely to do by taxpayers, Clive Palmer has vacated Canberra in the middle of Parliament sitting week.
Hard to miss, he was spotted today chowing down in the Queensland Parliament’s Strangers’ Dining room at lunchtime. Even his private jet and 150 cars wouldn’t get him to Canberra on time.
Really, what’s the point of becoming an MP if you are either asleep in your seat or MIA on the paltry 60 days a year when Federal Parliament sits.
Why is Clive an MP? 
===

More proof of lefty hypocrisy

Miranda Devine – Wednesday, June 04, 2014 (1:59pm)

Labor Senator Sue Lines “miaowed” at Liberal Senator Marise Payne in an estimates hearing this morning.
The former unionist from the Left faction made an audible catcall when Payne began to speak, and became belligerent when chastised for the “sexism”.
You mightn’t think it’s too big a deal, but just remember how they all squealed when a Liberal senator, David Bushby, made similar cat noises at Finance Minister Penny Wong in Parliament.
Twitter went wild, and Treasurer Wayne Swan condemned the Coalition as “feral’’ and sexist “goons’’.
Oh how selective is their outrage. All noted, thank you.
UPDATE:
After an apparent intervention by Wong to pull the junior Senator into line, so to speak, Lines has apologised unreservedly for the cat call and Payne has accepted. 
===

Feminists let Clive strip them of their integrity

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, June 03, 2014 (7:58pm)

CLIVE Palmer has ­finally unmasked himself as a vile piece of work, after his pointedly cruel attack on the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Peta Credlin. Under parliamentary privilege, Palmer claimed Tony Abbott’s paid parental leave policy was ­designed “so [his] chief of staff can receive a massive benefit when she gets pregnant”.
Credlin is 43. As is well-known in Canberra, she and her husband have been trying unsuccessfully for years to have children. She has spoken openly about her ongoing IVF treatment. Her revelation that she kept her fertility drugs in Abbott’s ­office fridge was front page news around the country.
What a pig to target a woman’s most private vulnerability just to niggle her boss.
Malcolm Turnbull’s new best friend is nothing but a wrecker and a bully.
But where’s the handbag hit squad now, as the women around the Prime Minister are picked off one by one? His wife, his daughters and now his female chief of staff.
So ready to savage Tony Abbott for a stray wink, they are silent when Palmer targets a woman whose fertility struggles should be no part of any political contest.
Greens leader Christine Milne was the rare feminist with the integrity to condemn Palmer’s remarks.
The independent member dug himself in even deeper, refusing to apologise and then calling Credlin a “top dog”.
“No, of course I won’t,” he said when reporters asked him if he would say sorry, ­before claiming Credlin has “undue influence” over the government. “She’s a top dog, I should say. Oh, I shouldn’t say that! She’s the boss …”
His sly insinuations grew worse. “If you go back and look at history in Australia, in precedent, you can go back to Ainsley Gotto, who had similar position under John Gorton, she had particular policy positions she supported and they were subject to public debate.”
Unbelievable. John Gorton was the Liberal prime minister in 1968. Ainsley Gotto was the pretty 22-year-old he appointed as his principal private secretary. The only “public debate” was the unsubstantiated gossip that she was his mistress.
Having started in the ­gutter, Palmer ended in the sewer.
He did try to backtrack later, claiming not to have known about Credlin’s struggles with IVF, and tweeting “I’ve not intended to personally attack Peta Credlin”.
Palmer claimed he only targeted Credlin on the PPL “because she’s propagating it and she gave Tony Abbott his ideas. He can’t think of anything himself.”
Mr Nasty can’t even get his facts right. For one thing, even if Credlin were pregnant, she wouldn’t get any “benefit” from the government’s PPL because she is a public servant, eligible for a generous taxpayer-funded maternity leave scheme, of the type which Abbott, ironically, was trying to extend to private industry.
What’s more, Abbott came up with the idea of maternity leave as a workplace entitlement all by himself, back in 2009, when he first proposed it in his political biography Battlelines. At the time Credlin worked for the man who was then Liberal Party leader … the incorrigibly ambitious Malcolm Turnbull.
It’s no secret there’s no love lost between Credlin and Turnbull, and that she is fiercely loyal to Abbott.
And it soon became clear whose cause Palmer really was pushing in his attacks on the woman who has the most influence on Abbott.
None other than his Wild Duck dinner companion of last week, Turnbull.
In an interview with press gallery doyenne Michelle Grattan on The Conversation website, Palmer gave a gushing endorsement of Turnbull’s leadership qualities.
He was quoted as saying a Coalition government led by Malcolm Turnbull would have different policies and be “more approachable”.
“Tony Abbott’s policies seem to create great division in society … Malcolm Turnbull was a great leader of the Liberal Party. He’s a very popular person.”
Palmer’s hostility to the PM has ratcheted up since he ate an “enormous” banana split with the Communications Minister at the Wild Duck last week. At the time he was supposed to be at a dinner at which Abbott was speaking, but bolted early after receiving a text invitation from Turnbull.
His disrespect bodes ill for a government which will likely need the support of his Palmer United Party in the Senate come July 1.
Turnbull’s motives for palling up with Palmer are opaque, but his extreme reaction to my colleague Andrew Bolt’s mild questioning of his loyalty shows a nerve was hit.
Why so angry if he’s not playing a Machiavellian game?
Usually, he is a charming man whose buttering up of independent politicians reaps rich rewards, for him, if not for his party. He did the same with turncoat independent Rob Oakeshott, whose autobiography abounds with starry-eyed descriptions of Turnbull: “Strong admirer”, “valiant stand” and so on.
Turnbull can’t help it if lesser men fall at his feet and want to go into battle on his behalf.
But it’s brought him undone in the past. Hapless Treasury official Godwin Grech tried so hard to please that he forged the email at the centre of the 2009 Utegate affair that wrecked Turnbull’s leadership.
Embarrassingly, last night Turnbull had to pull out of a “charity fundraiser reunion” dinner with Palmer, in protest at his Credlin comments.
With friends like Palmer you have to wonder at his judgement. 
===

Sex abuse inquiry offers an insight into evil

Miranda Devine – Tuesday, June 03, 2014 (7:55pm)

PETER Fox, the wannabe whistleblower cop who claimed a “Catholic police mafia” in the Hunter Valley was protecting paedophiles, was revealed last week as a self-aggrandising zealot unfairly smearing his colleagues.

Icon Arrow Continue reading 'Sex abuse inquiry offers an insight into evil'
I see a reflection in history here, suggesting the gains have been limited and the opportunity in danger of being squandered. No one disputes the evil of pedophilia .. even pedophiles are aware that the public detest it. When D Grusovin got the ball rolling in the ‘90s there was the public pronouncement that there was a lot that would be released.

Some alleged abusers have since died. But the allegations were not tested in court, and so they remain as smears in which, bizarrely, the courts must prevent the claims from being represented maliciously by strangers.

It is an echo of drugs in sports which many claim must be pervasive but which an inquiry has found no evidence for.

This means that legitimate lines of inquiry are sidelined. And that would be what pedophiles want.

Yes, historical lines of inquiry are vindicated, but it becomes an issue which can be compared and contrasted with the Saville inquiry in UK which branched to include Rolf Harris. Saville should never have prospered, but been jailed. Harris should be ashamed of himself, but it appears, for the moment, there is an over reach and it threatens to derail further inquiry. Unless the UK can find someone sent Harris a bottle of wine .. ed===

Haunting legacy of a night of terror

Miranda Devine – Sunday, June 01, 2014 (9:42am)

image
TO this day, when Mick Drury hears a baby cry, he has a private meltdown. While maintaining his outward composure, he can’t relax until he finds the baby and can see it’s safe.
That’s just one of the legacies of that terrible night 30 years ago, when the decorated drug squad officer was gunned down in the kitchen of his Chatswood home, right next to his 18-month old daughter.
The man who tried to kill him was the late hitman Christopher Dale Flannery, aka Mr Rentokill.
And the man who the court was later told helped organize the hit, and provided Flannery with Drury’s home address, was his fellow detective Roger Rogerson. The notorious corrupt cop is back in the headlines this week facing charges that he and another ex-detective, Glenn McNamara, murdered 20-year-old UTS student Jamie Gao.
Those allegations are still to be tested in court.
For former Detective Inspector Drury, the latest dramatic chapter of the Rogerson files has hit hard.
“It brings back sad memories of what happened 30 years ago,” he said last week over coffees and chain-smoked cigarillos. “These things live with you your entire life.”
Drury was targeted for assassination because he was honest. He had refused the $30,000 bribe he claimed Rogerson allegedly offered him to change his evidence at the heroin trafficking trial of Melbourne drug dealer Alan Williams, from the notorious Painters and Dockers Union.
The union was eventually deregistered after the Costigan Royal Commission found it was importing narcotics and firearms through the Port of Melbourne. 
In the meantime, it was cleanskin Drury who was sent to Victoria undercover to investigate the union, at great risk to his life.
This Friday is the 30th anniversary of his attempted murder. It was a Wednesday, 6.10pm, pitch dark, on June 6, 1984.
Drury, then 31, was a tall, athletic undercover drugs squad officer. He’d just fed his little girl dinner and she was still sitting in her high chair. His wife was breastfeeding their nine-month-old baby girl in the lounge room. He went to the kitchen sink and was drinking a bowl of chicken noodle soup when two shots smashed through the window.
One hit him square in the abdomen. The other tore through his chest, spinning him around and throwing him against a wall. He remembers his blood pumping out and spraying the room.
For his wife, “it was very soul-destroying to see something like that.”
She ran for a doctor next door, and Drury is still haunted by the cries of his babies as he lay on the kitchen floor unable to comfort them while the life drained out of him.
He lost 20 litres of blood in the first 48 hours. But as he lay unconscious for 12 days in casualty, members of the public lined up outside Royal North Shore Hospital to donate blood to match his rare blood type.
He still chokes up at the community concern. “It just blew me away.”
The Hunter Valley son of a bus driver and a homemaker joined the police force to help the community and he will never forget that, in his hour of need, the community helped him.
That wasn’t the case, however, for many police officers, to their eternal shame. The drug squad was split between Rogerson and Drury supporters, and the attempted murder inquiry was compromised.
During Drury’s 78 days in hospital, Flannery tried to kill him again, but was deterred by an enormous police presence protecting, not just Drury, but Justice Ray Watson, injured in one of the unrelated Family Court bombings that had killed his wife, Pearl, at their Greenwich home.
Drury was so ill the coroner was dispatched to take a “dying deposition” from him in which he alleged Rogerson had offered him a bribe.
The painter and docker Williams pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court to conspiring with Flannery and Rogerson to murder Drury.
Rogerson eventually was acquitted of bribery and conspiracy to murder, but spent two stints in jail in the 1990s for unrelated convictions.
Until last week, he had become a sought-after celebrity, travelling around the country doing stage shows riffing on his past.
Drury recovered from his injuries, stayed in the police force until 2000, then worked as an ethics advisor. He is a private person but suffice to say the attempted murder took its toll on his family.
Five years ago, at the age of 56, he remarried. “I’m a very lucky boy,” he says. “Life is wonderful”.
Despite the suffering, if he had his time over again he wouldn’t change a thing.
“I couldn’t have lived with myself otherwise.”
It’s a twisted world in which a man like Rogerson is celebrated.
In the end, character is destiny and Mick Drury is a well-loved man at peace with himself. 
===

CAPITALISM DID IT

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 05, 2014 (1:54pm)

The ABC offers a unique view on the cause of 1989’s Tiananmen Square massacre: 
China’s shift towards capitalism creates inequality and anger. 
(Via JH)
===

DAILY MAYHEM

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 05, 2014 (1:18pm)

A siege in Adelaide – at an adult services agency, of course – and a manhunt in Moncton, Canada, where a maniac has killed three police officers.
===

YOUR MONEY, THEIR FUN

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 05, 2014 (5:45am)

Legal issues are no big deal when you’re playing with taxpayers’ money: 
Hours before the ABC broadcast an on-air apology last night to Kenny, the Chaser presenter named in the defamation suit, Andrew Hansen, appeared to defy the terms of the settlement in a tweet: “ABC’s apologising to Chris Kenny, again. The Chaser isn’t, again. But we’ve agreed not to make more pictures of ABC execs shagging hamsters.”
The Chaser’s Chris Taylor posted on Facebook: “Just to be clear. The Chaser team is not apologising,and will never apologise to Chris Kenny. Tonight’s on-air apology is from the ABC, not us.”
Both statements appeared to breach the terms of the ABC’s settlement with Kenny that specified members of the Chaser team would not make public statements that “detract” from the apology. 
They’re such a classy bunch. And the ABC’s apology wasn’t much better: 
What an apology of an apology ABC – sue them again Chris Kenny! 
They’ve sure got the cash: 
The ABC is massively over-funded. Consider this: if the ABC received similar per capita funding in the US as it does in Australia, its budget would be somewhere in the vicinity of $16.6 billion.
That’s pretty much equal to the entire annual budget of NASA, yet the only person the ABC has ever put on the moon is Mr Squiggle. 
Squiggle should swap roles with Mark Scott. Win/win.
===

BURNED AND DROWNED

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 05, 2014 (4:41am)

Fairfax columnist Sam de Brito:

image

What do you say? Try this: “Let’s turn up the heater a couple of degrees and find out! Still breathing, kid?” And here’s another Fairfax warmo doomist:

image

Don’t get your hopes up, Clementine. Both of them have built kilometer-high watertight fortresses from Mike Carlton’srejected invoices. They’re safe for centuries.
===

THEATRE WORLD MOURNS

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 05, 2014 (4:22am)

Following budget cuts, the mayor of Parkes will miss the involvement of state-funded scientists in his town’s activities: 
“Our local music and drama society has probably got some of the best sound and lighting set ups of any in Australia because we have had those technicians to be able to put it all together,” he said. 
It’s back to just one of these, luvvies. 
===

MURPHY’S LAW

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 05, 2014 (3:38am)

Florida judge John Murphy deals with attorney Andrew Weinstock: 
As part of a procedural issue he and attorney Weinstock have an exchange of words.
It quickly escalated.
“If I had a rock I would throw it at you right now. Stop pissing me off, just sit down.”
The judge orders the attorney to leave the dock. The attorney refuses — defending his right to represent his client.
The judge’s challenge rings out: “If you want to fight let’s go out back and I’ll just beat your ass.”
The attorney immediately accepts the challenge — and exits stage right.
The judge follows, amid nervous laughter from the court.
Off camera, loud banging and cursing can be heard coming from the adjacent passageway.
The panting judge returns to the courtroom. To applause.
The attorney does not. 
Click for video.
===

CHECK OUT THAT WALL

Tim Blair – Thursday, June 05, 2014 (3:35am)

Every single page from every edition since 1924 – the complete MotorSport archives. It’s all great, but some of the cover shots were a little dicey:

image
===

KNOW YOUR THUNDER LIZARDS

Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 04, 2014 (2:43pm)

Meet the Palmersaurus:

image
===

FAULT LINES

Tim Blair – Wednesday, June 04, 2014 (1:03pm)

The scientists are unsettled: 
Australia’s peak body of earth scientists has declared itself unable to publish a position statement on climate change due to the deep divisions within its membership on the issue.
After more than five years of debate and two false starts, Geological Society of Australia president Laurie Hutton said a statement on climate change was too difficult to achieve.
Mr Hutton said the issue “had the potential to be too divisive and would not serve the best interests of the society as a whole.” 
So much for the consensus.
===

Yet another Turnbull interview to kick along the leadership talk

Andrew Bolt June 05 2014 (10:34am)

What could possibly be the strategy behind Malcolm Turnbull’s string of media attacks on conservatives and shouted protestations of loyalty? If he’d shut up there would have been no story, but on he goes, with an interview on 7.30 to follow:
Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt are ”bomb throwers” doing the work of the Labor Party to undermine the Abbott government, says Malcolm Turnbull… 
In a showdown with Mr Jones on Thursday morning, Mr Turnbull accused the commentator of creating trouble where there was none after the 2GB announcer said Mr Turnbull was “happy to chuck a few bombs around that might blow up Abbott a bit”.
‘’Well, that’s what you’re saying, that’s what Andrew Bolt is saying and it is doing the Labor Party’s work,’’ Mr Turnbull responded. 
It is curious that Turnbull thinks my role is to fight Labor for the Liberals. But it all makes sense if you see this through Turnbull’s eyes: that he trying to marginalise commentators he perceives as supporters of Tony Abbott, to the delight of his own media constituency, the ABC and Fairfax.
But how any of this helps the Liberals is beyond me. But at least Jones got Turnbull to say just a bit in defence of the Budget he should have spent this past week and more selling.
Listen to Turnbull on Jones here.
UPDATE
Turnbull’s contribution to the debate on the Budget, as registered today by Fairfax:
image
UPDATE
What on earth is his game?
Guess who’s on 7.30 tonight? 
The man of a million interviews, Malcolm Turnbull.
But it was not always thus.
As political correspondent James Massola writes, the Communications Minister has pulled out of four appearances on ABC programs in the month since the budget.
Has Turnbull been prevented from going on these shows from above? “Completely false” says a spokeswoman for Tony Abbott.
===

Turnbull should back off crazy Clive

Andrew Bolt June 05 2014 (9:08am)

image
MALCOLM Turnbull should remember his fatal embrace of Godwin Grech, the lying Treasury official he thought could help him become prime minister.
Because here we go again, with the Communications Minister now cosying up to Clive Palmer, another fantasist.
Turnbull should run a mile from Palmer, the most dangerous politician in Parliament — an erratic populist preaching voodoo economics, blackmailing the Government, vilifying a Liberal staffer and using his status as one of Australia’s richest people to influence others.
Instead, Turnbull risks courting the same disaster all over again, even if he’s doing it from a heartfelt desire to help the Abbott Government negotiate with its enemies.
(Read full article here.)
UPDATE
Apologies. I had the wrong link. Fixed now. 
===

Advice for Palmer

Andrew Bolt June 05 2014 (8:53am)

Excellent advice from Niki Savva:
Speaking of trash, Clive Palmer should look beyond his favourite foods of revenge on a plate and freebie banana splits. He has been given a rare and valuable gift by the Australian people — power. 
He can use it to do some good and contribute constructively to policy and political life or abuse it by feeding his ego daily with cruel gibes and populist stunts — a sure-fire way to ending up as a national joke, and a nasty one at that. 
A good question to Palmer from the ABC’s Sarah Ferguson, although she gives him far too much credit in suggesting this rank populist has a “serious political message”:
SARAH FERGUSON: it is part of a pattern with you that these extravagant, at the very least, sometimes offensive, but certainly silly statements can obscure what must be for you a serious political message. The question is: are you in politics just to be a bomb thrower or are you there for serious reasons?
UPDATE
Campbell Newman attacks:
QUEENSLAND Premier Campbell Newman yesterday struck back at Clive Palmer by filing a document in the state’s Supreme Court in which the tycoon is squarely accused of trying to use his political donations to get ­favourable treatment for his coal interests in Queensland.

Mr Newman, the defendant in a defamation action lodged by Mr Palmer in Brisbane last month, also asserts in court documents filed late yesterday that the Palmer United Party leader had ­showered gifts on two politicians before and after they defected to PUP. 
The Premier’s “notice of intention to defend” states that Carl Judge, a Liberal National Party parliamentarian until he joined PUP, has “received substantial gifts from Mr Palmer and or companies controlled by or associated with Mr Palmer from the period leading up to or around the time that Mr Judge joined the (PUP)"…
Mr Judge, who yesterday asked a question in state parliament directly relevant to Mr Palmer’s coal interests, formally joined the PUP on June 6, 2013.
Mr Newman claimed another ­defector from the LNP, Alex Douglas, also “received substantial gifts” from Mr Palmer including sponsored travel, accommodation, legal fees and paid advertising.
Mr Newman disclosed details of an April 13, 2012, meeting at which Mr Palmer “sought to have all of the staff” of Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney leave before the two men could discuss Mr Palmer’s coal interests in the Galilee Basin.
Mr Newman’s Supreme Court document states that Mr Palmer claimed in the meeting that he had prepared his own draft legislation for development of the Galilee Basin and he wanted Mr Seeney to ensure it was adopted, rather than relying on the normal machinery of government. The document says Mr Palmer “explained to Mr Seeney that the proposed legislation would give him exclusive rights to develop ‘Port Palmer’ at Abbot Point and a railway in an exclusive rail corridor between the port and the Galilee Basin”. Mr Newman’s document further states that when Mr Seeney told the tycoon there were processes to follow, Mr Palmer replied that “he had paid substantial sums to the Liberal National Party to have the LNP elected and that he had a lot more money to support the LNP in the future”. 
Palmer has refused to comment.
UPDATE
Mark Latham describes Palmer well, and there’s advice between the lines for Tony Abbott:
Within the major parties, most of the authentic parliamentary characters have disappeared, replaced by heavily scripted machine apparatchiks… 
Accordingly, a niche market has opened up for crossbench infotainment politicians – independent MPs who attract publicity by offering the media colour and movement… A large part of Palmer’s electoral appeal comes from the novelty of his media appearances. As public disillusionment with the major parties has grown, a certain kind of voter has emerged ... committed to anyone who appears to be “shaking up the system”.
Even though he comes from a Liberal/National Party and big business background, Palmer is seen as an anti-establishment figure.... He speaks his mind and uses language most people can understand.
In many ways, he is reminiscent of the Pauline Hanson phenomenon in the late 1990s – a political leader who, despite obvious shortcomings, has the virtue of authenticity…
Today, the nation’s right-wing establishment is pushing back against Palmer in a more conventional way, using the resources of The Australian newspaper to dig into his business affairs and expose inconsistencies in his public statements.
So far, none of this has harmed the Elephant Man. He brushes aside any inconsistencies as yesterday’s news and, as the 24-hour cycle rolls forward, it’s an effective strategy.
Like Hanson, the biggest threat to the Palmer party will come from within. It’s hard to see his Senate team holding together. The problem with right-wing mavericks is that they don’t like people telling them what to do – a natural aversion to party discipline. Eventually, this will be the greatest freak show of all: watching the Palmer people turn on each other.
===

Anne Summers does not fight for a feminist principle but for a side

Andrew Bolt June 05 2014 (8:47am)

Hypocrites:
Bettina Arndt in The Australian, yesterday: 

WHERE’S Anne Summers? … How strange that the ABC has been running the news of Clive Palmer’s attack on Peta Credlin without any feminist commentary bemoaning this latest example of our nation’s misogyny.
Guess who pops up to take a swipe at Peta and Tony? Anne Summers, ABC online’s The Drum (edited by Mr Anne Summers), yesterday: 
WHATEVER you thought about Peta Credlin’s intervention on behalf of her boss Tony Abbott at the weekend, and I thought it was pretty knuckleheaded, there was no excuse for the sexist, misogynist and in some cases downright cruel responses it elicited …. That said … for the staffer to bring her personal story ... into the equation verged on the tacky … More than that, it has got the political class trawling through Abbott’s record once again and reminded us of the things he has said about abortion, IVF and RU486. Had Credlin not reintroduced IVF, abortion and contraception into the political debate, we would not be checking to see what Abbott said … Now that we are, and the yield is astonishingly rich, Abbott will be forced back on to the defensive. He will have to explain, recant, reassure. And hope to be believed.
(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill.) 
===

Economy strengthens, government heartens

Andrew Bolt June 05 2014 (7:48am)

Very good news for us - and for the Abbott Government:
JOE Hockey is “cautiously optimistic” unemployment will not reach the bleak forecasts in the budget after the release of the best economic growth figures in two years, with the Treasurer expecting a recovery in con­fidence and investment outside the resources sector. 
As Treasury yesterday dismissed fears the budget had damaged consumer confidence, Mr Hockey said he expected economic growth to slow from the rapid 3.5 per cent achieved in the 12 months to March but strong foundations had been laid.
“We inherited unemployment going up to 6.25 per cent; I am cautiously optimistic we won’t get there but we’ve got much work to do, and our budget is part of that,” he said…
The latest national accounts showed Australia’s gross domestic product grew 1.1 per cent in the first three months of the year on the back of soaring coal, iron ore and gas exports… Despite projections from the government and Reserve Bank that the unemployment rate would broach 6 per cent before July, its rise stalled at 5.8 per cent where it has remained for almost three months.
One warning:
While exports rose 4.8 per cent during the three months to March, household consumption, the biggest component of economic activity, grew 0.5 per cent, even before the slowdown in retail spending and reported slump in consumer confidence… A slowdown in retail sales and building approvals since March and cancellation or delay of major resource projects have also raised questions about whether growth would remain strong.
And let’s not relax:
Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson strongly backed the need for the budget spending cuts, saying he, Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens and Parliamentary Budget Officer Phil Bowen had all declared that the budget position was not sustainable. “If the two most senior economic bureau­crats are saying, ‘People we have a challenge’, it is about time we have a serious community discussion,” he said.
===

So what will Scott do next?

Andrew Bolt June 05 2014 (7:39am)

The ABC under Mark Scott is out of control:
THE Chaser team has defied the ABC managing director Mark Scott by declaring it will never apologise to The Australian columnist Chris Kenny for its offensive skit, thus flouting the terms of a defamation settlement. 
Nine months after the skit depict­ing Kenny as a “dog f. ker’’ first aired on the election-night edition of The Hamster Decides, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the ABC had mishandled the affair and former ABC chairman Maurice Newman said the Chaser team was defying management.
Hours before the ABC broadcast an on-air apology last night to Kenny, the Chaser presenter named in the defamation suit, ­Andrew Hansen, appeared to defy the terms of the settlement in a tweet: “ABC’s apologising to Chris Kenny, again. The Chaser isn’t, again. But we’ve agreed not to make more pictures of ABC execs shagging hamsters.”
The Chaser’s Chris Taylor posted on Facebook: “Just to be clear. The Chaser team is not apologising, and will never apologise to Chris Kenny. Tonight’s on-air apology is from the ABC, not us.”
Both statements appeared to breach the terms of the ABC’s settlement with Kenny that specified members of the Chaser team would not make public statements that “detract” from the apology. This clause in the settlement, which also included the ABC paying Kenny’s legal fees and some damages, was intended to prevent a repeat of the way The Chaser’s Julian Morrow undermined Mr Scott’s personal apology to Kenny in April. Mr Scott refused to respond to questions yesterday about whether statements made by the Chaser presenters breached the terms of the settlement. A source close to the ABC said, “If management is not able to insist that its instructions be followed then what you have is anarchy.”
===

Fairfax frames Howard

Andrew Bolt June 05 2014 (7:33am)

The Fairfax headline:
John Howard rebukes Tony Abbott over fairness
Now check the quotes underneath that headline:

Former prime minister John Howard has delivered a guarded rebuke to Tony Abbott, saying today’s politicians rely too heavily on slogans and declaring Australians will support change and reform so long as they are satisfied it is ‘’fundamentally fair’’.
Describing politics today as less ideological than in his time, the country’s second longest-serving prime minister has observed: ‘’We sometimes lose the capacity to argue the case - we think that it sufficient that we utter slogans.’’… Although Mr Howard, 74, avoided any reference to Mr Abbott or the federal budget, his remarks were seized upon by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.
===

Obama offers Taliban five terrorists for one deserter

Andrew Bolt June 04 2014 (10:07pm)

PRESIDENT Barack Obama demonstrated last weekend how weak the US has become by releasing five top Taliban leaders to free one American deserter.
That’s five unrepentant enemies of the US in exchange for a US soldier who wouldn’t defend it.
In 2009 Bowe Bergdahl, then a private serving in Afghanistan, emailed his Baptist parents that “the horror is that America is disgusting”. Bergdahl raged: “These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing ...
“The US Army is the biggest joke the world has to laugh at. It is the army of liars, backstabbers, fools and bullies.”

Then, having sent his books back home, he walked off the base.
(Read full column here.) 
===

 ===


===


===

 ===


===

 ===


===


===


===


===

 ===
Phillip Jensen - Father and Son

Sailing was their hobby. They joined a club and sailed together most weekends. They were part of that great armada of small sailing boats that ply their way around Sydney Harbour. Theirs was the joy of a father and son working together as they raced against others.
But as a father and son crew they were slightly unusual. The young boy was the skipper and the dad was the crewmember. It was a risk. The boy had to take great responsibility. More responsibility than most fathers would give to their sons. But the father had confidence in his boy's ability. He was sure that his son was up to the challenge. So, rather than teach his son how to sail by being the skipper he became the crew and let his son skipper. Other fathers were rather astonished. Many commented on what seemed a strange way to operate.
Some fathers questioned who was really in charge. To them it looked as if the boy was playing at being skipper. They wrongly assumed that the father was really making the decisions and giving the orders from his position as the crew. But in fact the boy was fully in charge of the boat and his father was his crewmember. The father genuinely handed over all authority to his son.
Others questioned how this affected their relationship as father and son. Did this kind of “role reversal” continue in life? But the father was very clear. On the boat the son was in charge as the skipper. He submitted himself to his son. He took orders from his son and did what he was told. But once ashore he was the father who ruled his household, and his son returned to being in submission to him. Neither the father nor the son had any difficulty in distinguishing between being on board or on shore. There was never any doubt who was in charge in any situation.
This sailing duo illustrates many aspects of the Bible's teaching on submission.
We submit ourselves to a person in authority. Authority is not derived from power or ability but from God's appointment (Romans 13:1). Of course people can abuse authority. They can become tyrants using their authority in ways that are unjust and even inhumane. But one person's sinfulness does not alter the reality that all authority comes from God, and that we should submit ourselves to those whom God appoints.
This father and son illustrate what the Bible means by submitting ourselves to one another. In this case both father and son submitted themselves to the other in the appropriate circumstances. They were not really sailing as father and son but as skipper and crew. There cannot be two captains on a boat. The skipper must be able to call the shots knowing the crew will follow his orders. On board, the father became the crew and so submitted himself to his son. Once off the boat they reverted to the normal honour and obedience that a son should have towards his father. Even the Lord Jesus submitted himself to his earthly parents (Luke 2:52).
But even more interesting, they stimulate thought about the relationship between God the Father and God the Son. Jesus knew that his Father was “Lord of heaven and earth” (Matthew 11:25). Yet in his death and resurrection he could rightly say to his disciples “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.” (Matthew 28:18), for God had made him “both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36) and gave him the name above every name (Phil 2:9-10). While Christ now reigns over this world he does not reign over his Father. The Father is subjecting everything under his Son—but when all is under Christ's authority then the Son will hand his kingdom over to his Father. He too will be subject to his Father, for God will “be all in all”. (1 Corinthians 15:23-28).
The boy who skippered his father is now a man. He told me his story for he is so proud to honour his father.

I value these posts. In my walk with God, I read the bible three years ago. And then read it aloud and posted it on youtube the next year. I now need to re read it again, but this time differently to study aspects. I haven't yet got to where I can reach out at will to different parts and draw them together .. I'm not a bible scholar. So I value these posts. But .. subject matter! I have spent most of my life in Western Sydney and the yuppy values of boating, while beautiful and with roots in the bible, leaves me wanting things closer to home. I was reading Delderfield's Swann saga the other day .. and this brings home beautifully what I enjoyed in the second book "Give us this day." Family illustrates authority - ed
===
The Orient Express, 1883
===
“Yours, LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.”1 Chronicles 29:11 NIV
===
Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

"The kindness and love of God our Saviour."
Titus 3:4
How sweet it is to behold the Saviour communing with his own beloved people! There can be nothing more delightful than, by the Divine Spirit, to be led into this fertile field of delight. Let the mind for an instant consider the history of the Redeemer's love, and a thousand enchanting acts of affection will suggest themselves, all of which have had for their design the weaving of the heart into Christ, and the intertwisting of the thoughts and emotions of the renewed soul with the mind of Jesus. When we meditate upon this amazing love, and behold the all-glorious Kinsman of the Church endowing her with all his ancient wealth, our souls may well faint for joy. Who is he that can endure such a weight of love? That partial sense of it which the Holy Spirit is sometimes pleased to afford, is more than the soul can contain; how transporting must be a complete view of it! When the soul shall have understanding to discern all the Saviour's gifts, wisdom wherewith to estimate them, and time in which to meditate upon them, such as the world to come will afford us, we shall then commune with Jesus in a nearer manner than at present. But who can imagine the sweetness of such fellowship? It must be one of the things which have not entered into the heart of man, but which God hath prepared for them that love him. Oh, to burst open the door of our Joseph's granaries, and see the plenty which he hath stored up for us! This will overwhelm us with love. By faith we see, as in a glass darkly, the reflected image of his unbounded treasures, but when we shall actually see the heavenly things themselves, with our own eyes, how deep will be the stream of fellowship in which our soul shall bathe itself! Till then our loudest sonnets shall be reserved for our loving benefactor, Jesus Christ our Lord, whose love to us is wonderful, passing the love of women.

Evening

"Received up into glory."
1 Timothy 3:16
We have seen our well-beloved Lord in the days of his flesh, humiliated and sore vexed; for he was "despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." He whose brightness is as the morning, wore the sackcloth of sorrow as his daily dress: shame was his mantle, and reproach was his vesture. Yet now, inasmuch as he has triumphed over all the powers of darkness upon the bloody tree, our faith beholds our King returning with dyed garments from Edom, robed in the splendour of victory. How glorious must he have been in the eyes of seraphs, when a cloud received him out of mortal sight, and he ascended up to heaven! Now he wears the glory which he had with God or ever the earth was, and yet another glory above all--that which he has well earned in the fight against sin, death, and hell. As victor he wears the illustrious crown. Hark how the song swells high! It is a new and sweeter song: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, for he hath redeemed us unto God by his blood!" He wears the glory of an Intercessor who can never fail, of a Prince who can never be defeated, of a Conqueror who has vanquished every foe, of a Lord who has the heart's allegiance of every subject. Jesus wears all the glory which the pomp of heaven can bestow upon him, which ten thousand times ten thousand angels can minister to him. You cannot with your utmost stretch of imagination conceive his exceeding greatness; yet there will be a further revelation of it when he shall descend from heaven in great power, with all the holy angels--"Then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory." Oh, the splendour of that glory! It will ravish his people's hearts. Nor is this the close, for eternity shall sound his praise, "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever!" Reader, if you would joy in Christ's glory hereafter, he must be glorious in your sight now. Is he so?
===

Today's reading: 2 Chronicles 21-22, John 14 (NIV)

View today's reading on Bible Gateway

Today's Old Testament reading: 2 Chronicles 21-22

1 Then Jehoshaphat rested with his ancestors and was buried with them in the City of David. And Jehoram his son succeeded him as king. 2Jehoram's brothers, the sons of Jehoshaphat, were Azariah, Jehiel, Zechariah, Azariahu, Michael and Shephatiah. All these were sons of Jehoshaphat king of Israel.3 Their father had given them many gifts of silver and gold and articles of value, as well as fortified cities in Judah, but he had given the kingdom to Jehoram because he was his firstborn son....

Today's New Testament reading: John 14

Jesus Comforts His Disciples
1 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father's house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going...."


Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)