the modern thinker

Again? Hang about

AN academic hired by the NRL to educate rugby league players about women has sin-binned the Liberal Party over comments by Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey.

Mr Hockey said yesterday that his Labor counterpart Julia Gillard was popular because she had a high-media profile - “I’m not as pretty as Julia Gillard, obviously,” Mr Hockey told reporters.

His comments came just weeks after Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan was forced to apologise to Ms Gillard for suggesting her childlessness made her less fit to lead the nation.

More moronic commentary from Joe Hockey. You’ve got to ask why he’s doing it…

Is it just me that sees a strange coincidence between this and Wilson Tuckey coming out and saying that it’s not too late to change leaders?

Watch this space for further developments.

SOURCE

Hockey: You’re a fucking ASS!

Young workers ruling unnecessary: Hockey

Federal Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey says today’s ruling on junior workers by the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission will confuse both business and workers.

The commission says it is apparent AWAs are designed to reduce wages and working conditions under WorkChoices to the detriment of children.

The commission has set out principles to protect New South Wales children on AWAs from losing their penalties and breaks without compensation.

But Mr Hockey says the Federal Government has included parental consent in the workplace laws to protect young workers.

“If you believe Mr Della Bosca and the Labor Party, it’s a free-for-all against children with AWAs,” he said.

“That’s completely false. That’s why we’ve been saying in our ads that you need the consent of parents or guardians if you are under 18 to sign an AWA.”

Mr Hockey says under the Howard Government, teenage employment and wages for young people have both increased.

“One of the reasons why young people’s wages have increased in real terms by three times the amount [they were] under Labor was because we have introduced a fairer and more flexible system,” he said.

How the fuck is parental consent supposed to do anything when it comes to adolescents getting screwed over by unfair, underpaid AWAs? Is Hockey implying that parents have some sort of control over employers that compels them to make the AWA a fair and properly paid contract? What fantasy land does he think we’re living in?

Parental consent does nothing to prevent employers exploiting junior workers. If they want to work, they have to convince their parents to consent, no matter what’s on offer. Short of that, is Joe Hockey suggesting that juniors not work if the AWAs on offer aren’t fair? Not really an option these days, when parts of the school curriculum involves things like working at MacDonalds for credit.

What Hockey completely ignores is the fact that the “fairness test” announced recently by John Howard does nothing to protect these junior workers as they enter the workforce. The test is designed to ensure that someone moving onto an AWA receives fair pay considerations for any penalty rates, holidays or any other working conditions lost by being moved to the AWA. But if someone is taking up new employment, there’s no measure of what those conditions were. Ergo, it’s a blank sheet on which any conditions the employer wants for whatever pay the employer wants can be writ.

Joe Hockey, stop trying to defend the indefensible. Your government has abused the power it won at the last general election and it’s time you all just fucked off and let someone else come in and clean up the mess you’ve made.

SOURCE

Bitter?… NAH

Nursing a grudge
THERE’S never any money for nurses, but there’s always extra money for teachers. Considering their performance in the classroom is appalling, why are they always in line for more money?

Teachers are entitled to four weeks’ annual leave, so why do they take another eight weeks’ annual leave, as well as curriculum days?

They should have all their student-free days on the holidays, as well as run catch-up classes for underachieving students, without being paid any extra money. I think taxpayers, parents and students are being ripped off.

For a change, wouldn’t it be nice if the hardworking nurses in this country were given some credit in the form of money, not the pat on the back that the Government believes will pay our bills. We, along with doctors, do many hours of unpaid overtime to prop up an ailing health system, yet our wages and working conditions have been going backwards for years.

Not one government has ever considered rewarding nurses, but they will bend over backwards for teachers.
Ann Lowe, Malvern East

Listen honey, going the biff on teachers isn’t going to redirect the money to you poor nurses. It might be a little hard to understand but that’s just not the way things work.

You can’t state as fact, “their performance in the classroom is appalling”. While some from the right do like to get out and go teacher bashing, the great majority of people know that this is simply hyperbole and lies.

If you weren’t aware, teachers and nurses are very much in the same basket when it comes to funding from governments. Teachers have been just as screwed over as you nurses in recent times. The unfortunate thing for nurses, as you’ve pointed out, is that you are basically emotionally blackmailed into working more for no money because the health system isn’t properly funded. If you really wanted to be heard and maybe effect some change, try a work to rule campaign or refusing overtime. If everyone does it, you’ll shortly have some attention.

Maybe you’re just a bit jealous that the federal government has been focusing on teachers, with Julie Bishop and John Howard talking about bonus pay for exceptional teachers so as to provide incentive for teachers to better themselves. This isn’t actually because they want to give more money to the better teachers. While they suggest they will give with one hand, what it actually does is take away more power for the federal government with the other hand, by attaching requirements such as what history curriculum is taught to high school students. (It’s actually just a big ploy to stop people thinking for themselves and learning about some of the disgraceful events in this nation’s history but Shhhh, don’t tell anyone.)

If your letter is really an indication of where you’re coming from, I’m surprised you got into nursing. You didn’t really do it for the money did you? Where did you get the impression you were going to be raking it in? I hope that’s not how the tertiary institutions are selling it. And I hope not too many other people are falling for it.

Tell you what, it’s not too late to salvage this. Just quickly find yourself a nice bloke - ooh, you could probably snare yourself a rich doctor! - put your legs up and start counting the bonus coming to you in 9 months time. That way you’ll be able to just stay at home living a life of leisure on handouts and not have to put up with any more of that crap from your patients.

When you’re done raping the earth…

Forest friendly
THE article by Tracee Hutchison “They don’t get it” (Opinion, 12/5) and subsequent letters by Don Stokes and Karina Kanepe (14/5) display a disturbing ignorance about forests, wood and climate change.

Deforestation in Indonesia is disastrous because it permanently removes forest cover. But this is vastly different from Australian (and Tasmanian) forestry practices under which harvested areas are regenerated with replacement trees. Where this is sustainable — the annually harvested wood volume equals the rate of growth over the whole forest — there should be no net loss of carbon.

Using wood is one of the most positive things we can do to combat climate change. It is natural and renewable whereas substitutes such as concrete involve large emissions of greenhouse gases in their manufacture.

Similarly, using firewood from a sustainable source is one of the most environmentally friendly forms of home heating if it reduces electricity use.
Mark Poynter, Victorian spokesman, the Institute of Foresters of Australia

If logging practices in Australia are so sustainable why is there a need to increase the area logged into water catchments where the amount of water in our reservoirs is greatly affected by logging?

I’m not sure how happy Tasmania will be to find that they’re not a part of Australia but maybe they’re used to it. As for Mark’s claim that ‘there should be no net loss of carbon’, does he realise that trees aren’t made of carbon? That the carbon is released when the wood is burned? Or maybe he’s talking about the amount of carbon dioxide in the environment process by the trees.

As for wood being ‘one of the most environmentally friendly forms of home heating’, is he insane? Slow combustion wood burners are incredibly polluting with the amount of smoke that is released. If all home heating was powered by wood burners, the skies would be permanently hazy and asthmatics and others with respiratory problems would be dropping all over the place.

This is a naive or deliberately deceptive missive from an industry that should face environmental realities and start to think about getting some new skills. And stop wasting everyone’s time by trying to convince us you’re all touchy-feelie warriors for the environment.

The further degradation of Our ABC

Taking the theatre out of ABC criticism
The ABC’s new policies will give audiences a full range of views, writes Mark Scott. The Age, 18/10/06

IN MY early weeks as managing director, I have called on some of the ABC’s harshest public critics. And almost to a man and woman, they have been at pains to point out how much they love the ABC.

Then comes the but - and as my father-in-law has often warned me, ignore everything before the but. There is a sense that the organisation has issues with balance and fairness, particularly through its news and current affairs content, although some critics would suggest across its entire content. We need to address the criticism carefully and comprehensively. To ignore it or reflexively dismiss it only serves to limit ourselves, and is at odds with the ethos of open debate and discourse that is central to our reason for being.

Instead of facing up to these criticisms, it is easy to take comfort in the market research that suggests the ABC is remarkably popular with its owners: the public. A recent Newspoll indicated 90 per cent of the public believed the ABC provided a valuable or very valuable service. And there is comfort in recent research by Young and Rubicam that said the only brand more popular in Australia than the ABC is Vegemite.

Within the ABC, it is easy to say that people like us, the ratings are reasonable and the critics are the ones who really don’t get it. At times it does appear that criticism of the ABC takes the form of set-piece theatre: everyone knowing their lines and going through well-known rituals. But such an approach is unwise and misses the real point: is there substance in the criticism? Does the ABC have a problem with editorial values? It is an important question. It is very clear to me that this pattern of critique and reflexive defence needs to be challenged.

What I am outlining represents the ABC taking the lead to break this ritual. It is a challenge to both ourselves and our critics to learn some new steps and think afresh about how we deliver balance, diversity, impartiality. It is only reasonable, that as the public broadcaster using public money, the ABC set high standards for itself; higher standards than anyone else in the Australian media.

The public invests its trust in all ABC content, regardless of its source within the ABC. The new policies reflect this reality. The policies will ensure that ABC audiences can see and hear a broad range of viewpoints on matters of importance. The policies are contained in a document that runs to some 50 pages. It says upfront that as a creator, broadcaster and publisher of news and current affairs content, there is a requirement for impartiality. Each news and current affairs story and program must be impartial. For opinion programs or programs of topical and factual content, individual items of content can take a particular perspective, but the ABC must be able to demonstrate that it has provided audiences with a range of different perspectives on the subject under consideration on each platform, be it radio, television or online.

On contentious matters, we need to hear the full range of voices. We have taken another look at fairness and what it means to be impartial. Impartiality is a long-held expectation of our news coverage. Being a responsible public broadcaster is not synonymous with universal public popularity. The editorial policies now require the ABC to be impartial as a broadcaster and generator of content. As we assess the output of each of our platforms - ABC TV, Radio National, local stations such as 702 ABC Sydney - there is now the expectation that there is impartiality. That there is a demonstrated plurality of opinion and perspective.

The new category of opinion will be content presented from a partisan point of view about a matter of public contention. This content will be signposted as opinion and the impartiality test will be: has the ABC presented a plurality of views? And the ABC will expect staff to operate in a way that is reflecting key values of honesty, fairness, independence and respect.

We are looking to have three mechanisms for quality assurance around the implementation of our editorial policies. The first is regular program and performance review. Second, we have our established mechanism for dealing with public complaints.

A new mechanism is through the director of editorial policies, who will be able to commission research to provide better insight into whether we are meeting our own expectations. And when staff are dealing with a difficult decision in light of interpreting editorial policies, or I am concerned about a matter before broadcast or publication, the director of editorial policies will be able to provide independent advice.

Our journalists need to be able to undertake courageous journalism. Our radio broadcasters need to be lively and engaging and provocative at times to win and keep an audience. So, too, with television and online. Our policies promote the spirit of inquiry, not dampen it. As I have explained to our newsrooms, I want them to practise great journalism. To find the big stories and to hold those who seek to lead us to account for the promises they have made and the truths they espouse. But to achieve great journalism, you need to practise good journalism. Journalism that is fair, accurate, balanced and objective.

If there is a deference in these policies, it is to the primacy of ideas, to the intelligence of an audience, to the right of audience members to make up their own minds.

Mark Scott is managing director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. This is an edited version of his speech to the Sydney Institute last night.

The critics that Mark Scott speaks of are, invariably, right-wing, conservative supporters of the Howard government - people like Andrew Bolt, Gerard Henderson (who is the executive director of the Sydney Institute - who happened to host the speech) and Piers Ackerman - people who support Australia being part of the invading forces in Iraq, the locking up of asylum-seekers in detention centres, the denial of climate change and the refusal to sign the Kyoto agreement, the new “work choices” industrial relations legislation that reduces the pay and conditions of Australian workers and the reduction in public funding for the ABC.

And the reason why they are loud, bully-boy critics of the ABC is because the ABC hasn’t played the part of a cheer squad on each of these issues as they’ve arisen and they don’t like being challenged. Mark Scott’s new policy simply panders to these thugs and gives them more air time than they already have to spout their lies and to proselytise for their church of the far right… not to mention the more extreme groups of the right who will be compulsorily included so that we “hear the full range of voices” “on contentious matters”.

For example, this means that if there’s a program that deals in evolution - say Walking With Dinosaurs - which some claim is a contentious matter, the ABC would have to give air time to creationists to argue their case for creationism or, as they’ve repackaged it, Intelligent Design. A similar thing has happened in various states in the US in the schools’ curricula with ‘Intelligent Design’ being taught in SCIENCE classes, in order to refute Darwin’s theory of evolution and consolidate the belief that the Genesis book of the bible is a literal document of how God created all life.

Already, even without any new policy, 774 radio in Melbourne has filled their afternoon and drive programs with Richard Stubbs and Lindy Burns - two presenters that distinctly lack the intelligence of their predecessors who present programs that waste two and three hours every day covering crap like world massage day and whether footballers should be held up to greater accountability because they’re role models.

Already we’ve got Helen Razer cutting off guests because they say that newly appointed, conservative ABC board member, Keith Windshuttle’s denial of the Aboriginal stolen generation is akin to holocaust deniers - because she’ll lose her job.

The new ABC policy marks the beginning of the end of the ABC being anything but an excuse for dead air that acts merely as an exercise in covering its own ass, lest the vocal, far-right, conservatives be offended.

Now let’s take a look at who’s at the controls of the ABC: Mark Scott is the Managing Director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He was previously the senior political adviser to former NSW Liberal education minister, Terry Metherell.

According to a report by Crikey.com.au, while editor-in-chief of metropolitan newspapers at Fairfax, Scott overturned a decision by the editorial staff at The Age newspaper’s to call for a change of government at the 2004 federal election. Accoding to Crikey, “a decision was taken to call for a change of government. That decision was then overturned by Mark Scott, Fairfax’s head of metropolitan newspapers, who apparently made the rather extraordinary claim that backing [Opposition Leader Mark] Latham wasn’t in the commercial interests of the company.”

Uh… John…? Where are we heading?

After seeing a contemporary dance piece last week, based around the stories from people who lived through the war in Bosnia, I was part of a conversation with the director and someone who had come from the same area the story-tellers were from. One of the things that the piece was wanting to explore was asking how it had happened… how had normal human beings been drawn into such a mash of factions warring against each other - with different alliances between the factions depending on which villiage you were in.

There wasn’t a single definitive answer to the question but some of the factors that were brought up drew some parallels in Australian society with the conservative government. It’s something incremental that people don’t notice through any individual piece of change that happens but if you step back and look at the bigger picture, you can see the trend and add things together. Such as all this going on about Australian “Values” and the suggestion to require anyone who enters the country to undertake an oath to live by and defend these self same ‘values’.

Here’s a piece of commentary from a former County Court judge from last Saturday’s Age:

Nothing concrete in PM’s ‘values’
By Peter Gebhardt
September 23, 2006

Australian rules football has been an evolving game and sometimes the evolution offends those who look for certainty. The pursuit of certainty is an understandable, but hopeless, chase.

It is in the context of the pursuit of certainty that the current debate - or debacle - about Australian “values” has arisen. I had a good friend, a valued theologian, who used to shudder when people resorted to “values”. He would, were he alive today, be shuddering in a convulsive way. Of course, the current Prime Minister and, latterly, the Opposition Leader, have sought to capture the populist imagination, limited as it is, by trying to codify the values in a way that will satisfy the fears, prejudices and intolerances that the electorate has been fed unashamedly for the past decade. First, you create insecurities. Then you feed them to such a point that reason is displaced by unwarranted irrationality. And only this week Andrew Robb said that the Australian value-based regime is designed to give the community a sense of security. “In a sense we have become more tribal as we have become more global.”

Last week, I saw The Wind That Shakes the Barley, the film about the Irish civil war over which the English right-wing press was apoplectic and director Ken Loach was deemed unworthy to be a citizen of England. What the film does demonstrate is the need to keep alive the historical memory and imagination so we are not driven into a kind of present-centred amnesia where we have forgotten what our pasts were about and how, like Australian rules, there is a continuum of change.

Respect for dissent used to be appreciated, now it is usurped by sedition, mostly practised by “the chattering classes” and “the cultural elites”, whoever or whatever they may be.

It is the absence of conversation that is most destructive of the present. The philosopher Michael Oakeshott (and he’s no soft leftie) in a marvellous essay, The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind, says: “As civilised human beings, we are the inheritors, neither of an inquiry about ourselves and the world, nor of an accumulating body of information, but of a conversation, begun in the primeval forests and extended and made more articulate in the course of centuries. It is a conversation which goes on both in public and within each of ourselves.”

What he says is that there is a multiplicity of voices and they all need to be heard, to be a part of the public discourse.

“Multiculturalism” was an unfortunate linguistic appellation to use to reflect what was a growing concept to demonstrate that, after the end of the White Australia policy and the demise of the language test, we were able to accommodate a stream of migrants to help us build our society and to enrich the diversity of it. Consider eating.

I live in an area where many Greeks came. Many of them still do not speak English, but who would ever begrudge their contribution to the expanding nature of our society? Do we forget our name-calling of and our attitudes to wogs? Reliance upon “mateship” and “a fair go” is a brutal contradiction of the spiritual and democratic underpinning of those now beleaguered and battered war cries, mantras.

Respect for the law, respect for diversity and variety, respect for divergent views, respect for the environment and the future we bequeath, and respect for the rights and responsibilities citizen-to-citizen - the mutuality of relationships: none of these is the breeding ground of dull conformity as now would be imposed upon us in a none-too-subtle form of slavery.

If governments pre-eminently espouse policies and practices that appeal to the baser motives - greed, fear and prejudice - then there can be no doubt that the engendered outcomes will lead to civil disengagement and the growth of self-centred and aggressive individualism which cuts neighbour off from neighbour. Trust is usurped by distrust, love by hate.

I can understand that individuals may have moral or immoral dispositions, they may hold to certain beliefs. How a “country” can have “values” is beyond my comprehension and I suspect it is a jingoistic and/or xenophobic nonsense. We are told about “the American way of life” but, having lived there for three years of my adult life, neither I nor any American I met understood anything of the abstraction.

In an address to the National Press Club in January this year, the Prime Minister talked of social cohesion, which in my view cannot exist if there is no reciprocity. He also said: “A sense of shared values is our social cement.” Pretty fluid sort of cement, where lying is now part of its make-up and, worse, that it is lying that doesn’t worry anyone. So much for witnesses of truth!

Peter Gebhardt is a writer and former County Court judge.

I get the feeling that our politicians see a certain political expediency, at this moment, in being just a little racist to pick up what I guess is a big enough slab of the electorate to make a difference. The sad thing is they may be right and the sadder thing is what that says about our society.

Are you listening to any of this John?

Here’s another thing from The Age. Some of these things are important and it’s a pity that the searchable archive on the paper’s site only runs to 8 days.

Learning the difficult lessons of global warming

By Tracee Hutchison
September 23, 2006

The inconvenient truth just isn’t cricket . . .

Hello, class. Today we have a special guest coming to show us a very important film. But before we meet him, let’s go over last night’s homework. Howard! Macfarlane! Put down your Biggles books, and eyes to the front. Johnny, can you come up to the blackboard and spell carbon-neutral please?

Sorry, Miss, I had cricket practice. I can’t spell it.

Seems like an early start to the season. Do you have a note from your parents?

Well, they said they’d never heard of carbo-nuisance. And they think what you teach isn’t factual, and I’ve got a better future as a spinner, anyway.

That’s disappointing, Johnny. There was a whole section about the school’s carbon-neutral ambitions in last month’s parent-teacher newsletter, after we all got inspired by the Melbourne City Council’s new ecologically sustainable green building. Carbon-neutral is the new black. Everyone’s talking about it. That’s why we’re having the tree-planting day. Aren’t they coming?

I’m not sure, Miss. I think Mum has carbo-ambitions, but I thought it was about Tim Tams. But she likes black. She says it makes her look thinner.

That’s a different concept, Johnny. What about you, Ian? Can you spell carbon-neutral?

No, Miss. I was at cricket too.

What about geothermal?

Is that like geo-sequestration? I think our dog had that when he was a puppy.

No, Ian, that’s a different concept again. How about global warming? Will either of you tackle that?

I’ll have a go at the first part, Miss. G.L.O.W.B.A.L.L

No, Ian, that’s actually a concept related to the factual question.

I don’t understand, Miss.

Well, it’s about the shape of the Earth, Ian, and it’s round, just like a cricket ball. And the early start to the hot weather might be great for a snarling pitch at the Boxing Day Test, but the groundsmen will be watering with recycled sewage because it doesn’t rain enough anymore.

What! You’re lying to us again, Miss! No one in their right mind would think of putting recycled wee and poo on the ‘G. It’s sacrilege. I’m going home to tell Mum on you.

Johnny, please, sit down. Our guest will be here soon. This is what we call a big-picture discussion. It’s very exciting and it’s all about your future. Its about changing the way we think about power and energy sources and water, and taking control of how much we use and when. And it’s a scary thought because some governments like to keep all the power themselves, but this is about everyone being responsible for our future by starting with the little things, even if they seem inconvenient.

My Dad says we don’t do things by halves in our family.

Well, little things make a difference over time, John. Little things, such as changing the flow-control on our taps and choosing renewable energy sources from the electricity company. It’s about having rainwater tanks on all our buildings and grey-water reticulation and solar panels like the ones the school is saving for from our annual snowball drive.

I hate snowballs.

Ian, please, snowballs are important! And many of them are disappearing faster than we can make them. And if the ones at the bottom and the top of the world keep disappearing at the current rate, then the famous pitch in Galle will be completely underwater before Murali’s kids are old enough to play.

That could be good for the game, Miss.

That’s not very sporting, Johnny. Of course it’s not good for the game. The pitch at Galle is part of cricket heritage and it’s only just recovering from the tsunami. But let’s talk more about it after we’ve watched the movie.

Class, can you bring your permission slips to see the film up the front? Ian? Johnny? Do you have your permission slips?

No, Miss. Our parents don’t want us to see that film. They said it’s just misleading entertainment and it says bad things about our Uncle George in America.

But really important Americans like the Murdochs, and even the Terminator, are on board with carbon-neutral. Have your parents seen the film?

No, Miss. They said that the guy who made it is a loser. And that he is just inventing stuff to make us scared.

What kind of stuff?

That one day the world will get so hot it will turn into an ice block and there wont be any central heating. Besides, Mum says people who talk about the weather are boring.

Well, it might be boring now, John, but wait until it’s too hot for cricket and the players want to call off the Ashes.

No! Stop! Youre lying again! I’m really telling on you now. Nothing will stop the cricket on Boxing Day. Nothing! N !

Tracee Hutchison is a Melbourne writer and broadcaster.

In the words of another thinker

I’ve shown my respect for Richard Neville previously in another post.

Here’s something from today’s Age. If you’re in Melbourne and you read the Herald-Sun, you really should give it a try.

Poor, poor pitiful Oz

By Richard Neville
September 23, 2006

When the Prime Minister of Hungary, Ferenc Gyurcsany, was caught telling the truth to his party about the lies he had told the electorate, and how he had “screwed up”, citizens with flowers and the odd Molotov cocktail rushed to Parliament and state TV. When John Howard was caught lying about refugees who “threw their children overboard”, he was voted back into office.

Gyurcsany admitted that “f—ing Hungary” had only managed to keep its economy afloat thanks to good luck, an “abundance of cash in the economy and hundreds of tricks”, which pretty much coincides with what the former governor of the Reserve Bank stated about our Government’s fiscal management. But the Prime Minister is still top of the pops.

It is said that a leader who thinks of the next election is a politician, but a leader who thinks of the next generation is a statesman. By that criterion, it is no mystery where history will place John Howard. The key threats facing Australia today, including environmental degradation, the rise of militarism and the decline of free speech, are rooted in a decade of toxic federal governance. Instead of storming TV, the views of voters are shaped by it and the shock-jocks.

Once we were larrikins with a taste of defiance; now we are lapdogs with a thirst for conformity. On the matter of values, John Howard and Kim Beazley are joined at the hip. In Oz 2006, to be a “civil libertarian” is to invite abuse, while to dismiss human rights as “no longer sacrosanct”, or to deny inconvenient facts about global warming or indigenous history, is to attract government patronage. Once we had bush poets, mocking the pompous; now we have scribblers, licking the hands of their feeders.

Puffed-up politicians on both sides of the House seek from new arrivals a pledge of citizenship that endorses “Australian values” at a time when our values are tangled in a global tumble-dryer. That a government should demand such endorsement is itself a violation of a core Australian value - the freedom to think what we please. To think, for example, that numerous values exemplified by our Prime Minister are crap. Like truth avoidance, flag fetishism, excessive secrecy, anti-intellectualism, witch-hunting the whistleblowers, appeasement of George Bush, boasting about this country’s generosity, whitewashing black history, bribing Saddam Hussein to buy our wheat then bombing his people, toleration of US torture and its treatment of David Hicks, to name a few.

The stature of Australia has not only been diminished in the eyes of the world, but this country now faces a future laced with nasty shocks. By branding the intelligentsia as a loudmouth latte-slurping “elite”, and turning a deaf ear to the findings of scientists, Howard finds himself surprised by the arrival of climate change. Despite over a decade of warnings, this country is woefully unprepared. Leaders of developing nations are becoming enraged by our indifference to the impact of emissions on their citizens. A statesman would recognise that the fate of the earth is a shared responsibility, but we have turned our backs on potential climate refugees from waterlogged Tuvalu. Isn’t it about time John Howard was asked to sign a pledge of global citizenship?

Callous obstinacy was also on display in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion, where propaganda was put above truth. The jolly hordes of peaceful protesters in Sydney and Melbourne were branded a “mob”, and those who tried to alert the nation to the manipulations of intelligence and the subsequent outbreaks of torture were gagged or slandered. The result is continuing carnage, with the fingerprints of our leaders on the corpses. In the “war on terror”, Australia’s fair-go reputation was traded for “future security” and a White House banquet.

Unaccompanied child refugees from war zones are denied basic rights by the Department of Immigration, itself a hotbed of black values, including the silencing of the right to be heard. The horrors are documented in the study Seeking Asylum Alone, by Mary Crock, who has concluded that in comparison with other advanced nations, Australia’s capacity to mistreat children stands out “like a sore thumb”. Seven escapees from the Burmese dictatorship have been dumped on the isle of Nauru. Is cruelty an Australian value?

Freedom of information has been re-constituted into a new value, the freedom from information. Any document with the potential of “embarrassing” the Government is quarantined from public scrutiny. Academic Johan Lidberg compared the effectiveness of our Freedom of Information Act with the ones operating in Sweden, America, South Africa and Thailand, and found that ours was the worst, having “deteriorated into dysfunctionality”. When Flinders University sociologist Riaz Hassan was awarded a grant to study the incubation of suicide bombers, he planned to enrich his research by interviewing leaders of terror groups. Hassan dropped the idea when Attorney-General Philip Ruddock threatened legal consequences. Not content with extinguishing habeas corpus and shrinking civil liberties, Ruddock plans to curb the excesses of Big Brother; that is, the TV show, not the excesses of his own office.

There was a time when Aussies scorned officialdom. The boys from the farms and the factories who swarmed to the front line in the First World War, including those who landed at Gallipoli, were renowned for their disregard of red tape and for pricking the pomp of superiors. Rebellion was in their genes. In the camps on the outskirts of Australian cities, and during their journey to the other side of the world, the diggers were irreverent as well as brave.

The huge anti-war moratoriums of the Vietnam era also displayed a sharp defiance for delusions of big-wigs, the like of which has failed to be re-ignited, despite the provocations of today’s smug autocrats. Perhaps the penny will eventually drop. Sport and shopping cannot keep this country under sedation forever.

The first cause of today’s global terror mess is a matter of opinion. Some are using the “Muslim riots” to ramp up support for yet another war against what George Bush this week told the UN are “the enemies of humanity”. (The war against germs?)

It is true that Muslims have carried out numerous acts of terror in Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan and, most prominently, the United States. It is also true that Christian states have bombed untold thousands of Muslim civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan (even some in Pakistan), as well as condoning the ravaging of Lebanon and supplying Israel with illegal weapons.

How would you feel if “over a million cluster bombs” had been fired into your city? Since the end of June, more than 37 children in Gaza have been killed in operations mounted by Israel. In short, the wild reaction to the Pope’s theological musings was not just about the Pope.

Meanwhile, the neo-cons backtrack though history to prove that “Islamic terror” long pre-dated September 11, 2001, so you’re not allowed to blame the pre-emptive strike on Iraq for destabilising the world. Muslim mayhem actually “began in Iran 1979 with the revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini”, according to an editorial in The Australian, slyly stoking the fire for a future invasion, and implying that the populist cleric had leapt out of Aladdin’s lamp.

In fact, the “revolution” was pre-ordained in 1953, after the CIA ousted the elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, for his un-American aspiration to nationalise oil. Washington installed a puppet dictator, the Shah of Iran, who founded the feared secret police, SAVAK, while his wife hosted lavish international film festivals, flying in Hollywood celebrities to speak well of tyranny. By imposing the shah on the Persians for all those years, the West must surely accept some responsibility for the rebirth of radical Islam and all that’s followed.

“Both the right and the left cultivate a politics of fear,” writes, Kevin Clements, a Brisbane-based professor of peace and conflict studies, “where citizens are infantilised and we have become both politically and socially paralysed.”

Today’s TV politics is unable to provide perspective, history, meaning or foresight. For that, you need a statesman.

The world is heating up, both climactically and militarily, and yet those leaders who are most responsible for underplaying global warming and overplaying the response to 9/11 are the least likely to look in the mirror and tell the truth - either to the voters or themselves.

While some pro-war enthusiasts have admitted their blunder, those politicians who led the charge seem incapable of facing the truth. To do so, would be to accept that their actions have multiplied the instances of worldwide terror and so contributed to many thousands of civilian deaths and maimings.

Perhaps this country’s mad, authoritarian lurch to the right is an unconscious attempt by those at the top to suppress their inner shame. To distract themselves with propaganda, brass bands, tall stories of war-zone reconstruction, terror laws, show trials, fear-mongering and boasting. Having lit the match, they are surrounded by fire, and are desperately seeking scapegoats. Is it beyond their capacity to accept that they might be the arsonists?

Richard Neville is a social commentator and futurist.

Respect.

If we can’t live on the planet, the economy don’t mean shit, FUCKWIT!

“The fact is, if we signed the Kyoto Protocol, we would destroy a lot of Australian industry and we would send Australian jobs to countries like China, Indonesia and India,” John Howard said.

What a fucking cunt.

The only thing Howard’s got going for him is the strong economy that he’s found himself left with from the previous government. Take that away and you open the eyes of the electorate to how repugnant this government actually is and they’re swinging in the breeze at the next election.

While John Howard legislates to bring down wages of regular workers and gives outrageous powers to employers, he closes his eyes and pretends that there’s nothing happening with climate change. Why? Because he’s a spiteful, self-interested and selfish little fuck.

If nothing is done to stem the damage being done to the environment on this planet then the economy isn’t going to mean shit in a few years’ time. But by then Howard’s not going to be around to have to deal with it - he’ll be safe in his delusion, rotting away in his retirement, believing he left some sort of grand legacy from his time as PM. He should hope that he’ll have shuffled off by the time history truly judges him because it ain’t gonna be pretty.

You disgust me, John Howard.

—————————————–
Global warming poses major threat to Aust: Gore

Who does the most harm?

But that doesn’t really get me anywhere, and besides, there’s other things going on. Like apparently, the Brits caught some douchebags who were going to blow up some planes.

Now, the way I see it, you can’t have terrorism without terror. The strategy of terrorism is to use isolated acts of violence to instill fear and confusion into the population at large. A small number of people can incapacitate a society by leveraging our inability to understand risk.

Airline industry stocks plummetted today, while the industry braced for a rash of cancellations. This, despite the fact that even with the risk of airplane bombings it’s still more dangerous to drive your car. Or smoke cigarettes.

As long as a small group of people can inflict mass panic across a large population, the tactic itself will remain viable. One way to deal a blow to the effectiveness of terrorism is to deal with the terror itself.

London’s police deputy commissioner Paul Stevenson said that the plot was “intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale.” No, it is imaginable: between three and ten flights out of thousands would have resulted in the terrible loss of human life.

Bush today said this country is safer today than it was prior to 9/11. Personally, I don’t think he knows. Whether we like it or not, terrorist attacks on Americans are now part of the global reality. They will continue to happen. Many places around the globe have had to deal with a similar reality for years. India, Ireland, England, Spain, Russia, to name a few. In many cases, these societies have pulled together and not allowed isolated acts of violence to tear at their fiber. Like disease and the forces of nature, it’s a risk that we have to rationally come to terms with. The government’s responsibility is to make sure that fear and terror are not disproportionate to the reality of the situation.

Today the President said, “This nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom to hurt our nation.” Generalized statements like this which instill nebulous fear without specific information are exactly in line with the goals of terrorism.

Ze Frank
The Show
10/8/06

In Australia, it’s convenient, for the government, to have the populace fearing ‘terror’. It keeps them quiet and makes them easier to control.

If you live in Australia, think about what the real risk is and then think about what the government has done to this country in the name of that risk.

Little Johnny

A young man named Johnny bought a donkey from a farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.

When the farmer drove up the next day, he said, “Sorry son, I have some bad news. The donkey is on my truck, but I’m afraid he’s dead.”

Johnny replied, “Well then, just give me my money back.”

The farmer said, “I can’t do that. I went and spent it already.”

Johnny said, “Just unload the donkey anyway.”

The farmer asked, “What are you going to do with him?”

Johnny said, “I’m going to raffle him off.”

The farmer exclaimed, “You can’t raffle off a dead donkey!”

But Johnny, with a big smile on his face, said “O yes I can. Watch me. I just won’t tell anybody that he’s dead.”

A month later the farmer met up with Johnny and asked, “What happened with that dead donkey?”

Johnny said, “I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece and made a profit of $798.00.”

Totally amazed, the farmer asked, “Didn’t anyone complain that you had stolen their money because you lied about the donkey being dead?”

Johnny replied, “The only guy who found out about the donkey being dead was the raffle winner, when he came to claim his prize. So I gave him his $2 back plus $200 extra, which is double the going value of a donkey, so he thought I was a really great guy.”

Johnny grew up and eventually became the Prime Minister of Australia, and no matter how many times he lied or how much money he stole from Aussie voters, as long as he gave them back some of the stolen money, most of them thought he was a great guy.

Here’s an idea…

How about Hezbollah just gives back the Israeli soldiers they’re holding hostage? Do you think that might be a simple first step to getting Israel to lay off? Perhaps, once that’s done, there can be an armistice where the Israelis will stop blowing up bridges and airports and the Hezbollah will stop firing their missiles. At least then we can maybe get things back to the uneasy peace that existed a month ago and we can get beck to addressing the issue of the Arab world preaching the obliteration of Israel.

While nations push for the total destruction of Israel, I find it hard to have much sympathy for them when they get bitten back. As Ron points out below, Israel have made concessions to work towards peace and all they get in return is attacks and threats.

I don’t want to get into a point-by-point dissection of anyone’s letter but do want to point out that Lebanese TV is obviously not going to give a balanced account of what’s going on; that the Muslim world doesn’t actually believe that an Arab life is equal to an Israeli or Caucasian life but, in fact, preaches that Israelis and westerners are infidels and worth much less; and, if Lebanon has no means or permission to defend herself then where did the rocket that killed or maimed 38 people in an Israeli railway repair shed come from?

What I think is really going on is that the Arab world is spoiling for a war and has carefully coordinated these kidnappings of Israeli soldiers, calculated to provoke Israel to attack so they can send footage to the rest of the world of all the casualties and make a case for how monstrous Israel is and gain some sort of justification to go to war. The dead Lebanese and Palestinians are simply unwitting martyrs for the cause of the destruction of Israel and acceptable casualties to the religious leaders of the Arab world. But I don’t expect I’ll be reading any letters from Alissar Helena El-murr denouncing the war waged on Israel when that happens.

A Lebanese Aussie writes from the front
I AM writing this as an outraged Australian Lebanese, having spent equal parts of my life in Adelaide and Beirut, currently living in Melbourne as a community development student. Due to health complications, I returned to Beirut three weeks ago to undergo medical treatment with my UN-worker parents, sisters and friends around me.

During this past week I have, obviously, been under siege in my family home watching my fellow Lebanese die and be terrorised by Israeli aggression. I have also been unfortunate enough to watch the UN Council meet and decide that no action would be taken to end such aggression.

Over these past few days I have been watching the charred bodies of men, women and children being pulled from the rubble on uncensored Lebanese TV, with the echoes of CNN reports of the Israeli aggression and US President George Bush in my head. These echoes are a chilling reminder of the current global mentality, and I would like to address this sentiment with three vital points, from the perspective of an Arab-Australian humanist:

■Point 1: An Arab life is equal to an Israeli or Caucasian life. The deaths of innocent civilians are not, nor have they ever been, justifiable as collateral damage or a worthwhile sacrifice in the war on terror.

■Point 2: Terrorists are desperate people using desperate means in desperate situations. They are born of hate, oppression and violence, growing up with violence all around them. There is no excuse for war. There is no knowable sense in the rationale that Israel and the world’s superpowers must fight terror with terror. Violence begets violence as hate begets hate. History, if nothing else, has taught this and been ignored.

■Point 3: Lebanon has no means or permission to defend herself. The bombing of sea ports, southern villages, bridges, communication satellites, airports, drinking water utility stations and power plants while trying to break Hezbollah is unjustifiable. These actions are knowingly and directly aimed at civilians and an act of terror — as many tourists stranded in Beirut while listening to bomb after bomb and witnessing death after death will attest. The feeble response of the Lebanese army to defend Lebanon is frowned upon as the victimisation of Israel — which has the world’s 4th largest army and nuclear weapon capabilities — and supporting Hezbollah.

As a humanist I find the acts of Hezbollah inexcusable and the reaction of Israel inhuman. I find the response of the international community disgusting. I hold that Israel is directly responsible for the death of Lebanese children. I hold that Israel is a cowardly nation fighting for its acceptance in an Arab world that it, in turn, hates.

Unable to attend the first few weeks of my university semester in Melbourne, with no means to remove myself from war, my prayers are with the families of dead loved ones from Israel, Palestine and Lebanon, who have had to perish so tragically and painfully.
Alissar Helena El-murr, Mat’n, Lebanon

It’s more than a game …
THE explosion of violence now shaking the Middle East may soon die down, but there will be no true peace until the fear, antagonism, resentment and misery are recognised and action taken to cope with their root causes. This will not happen as long as we — people of the rest of the world — take sides like barracking football fans.

The fear of the people of Israel, feeling that they are surrounded by hostility, is understandable, especially with their historical background of repression and atrocity at the hands of non-Jews, mostly Christians. Likewise, thousands of Palestinians have suffered for half a century after the forced establishment of Israel by Western powers with little regard for the people who had lived there for scores of generations. The US, Britain and others must accept substantial responsibility.

A lasting, wholesome peace will never be reached by military action or intimidation. However difficult it may be — and current events are making it more so— we must all aim at fairness to all those involved and seek compromise and agreement between the currently opposed peoples. They are all human beings who would prefer a calm and assured life for their families.
Robert Corcoran, Edithvale

The missing Mandela
NEARLY everybody in the world reveres Nelson Mandela for the way he brought peace to South Africa. He did this through suffering, forbearance and forgiveness. George Bush, Ariel Sharon, Yasser Arafat, and their successors, have brought suffering to the Middle East through their anger, arrogance and hubris.

If only these men would learn a lesson from Nelson Mandela, how much better the world would be. And so would their reputations.
Chris Burgess, St Kilda

Time to get tough
It is time to call a spade a spade, and haul Israel into the UN Security Council and make it accountable for this outrage in Lebanon.

No one begrudges Israel the right to pursue legitimate terrorist targets when provoked, but bombing a country’s international airport and infrastructure, based on a tenuous view at best, that it supports terrorism, threatens to undermine the fragile democracy in Lebanon. This only encourages extremism and makes Lebanon vulnerable to political implosion that would catapult it back into the dark days of civil war.

The US and Britain also need to forgo, for once, their thinly disguised bias towards Israel and show some robust diplomatic backbone and use their clout to bring Israel to account. This they would do without hesitation with other nations such as Iran or Syria if they committed such a disproportionate military act.
Tim Hamilton, Coburg

Overkill
IF POLICE officers responded to a dangerous criminal gang holed up in a house by blowing up the entire street block, including numerous civilians who lived in the area, the police would, quite rightly, end up on homicide charges. When the Israeli Government reacts in a comparable way to attacks by some members of Hamas and Hezbollah, there should be no doubt about how wrong its conduct is.
Brent Howard, Rydalmere, NSW

The price of weakness
ISRAEL is unfortunately now paying the price for its past displays of weakness. It retreated from Lebanon six years ago and from Gaza last year. Rather than using these opportunities to build self sustaining societies, Israel’s neighbours view these concessions as displays of weakness. They have therefore used the land handed back to them as bases to continue fighting.

As Amin Saikal rightly points out (Opinion, 14/7), Israel’s neighbours view themselves as the victims. Even when land is conceded to them, they still view themselves as the victim.

I despair for Israel. How is it supposed to deal with a neighbour that does not understand compromise and prefers victimhood and hence retaliation to building constructive societies?
Ron Holzer, East St Kilda

Can we all be heroes?

Letters - Opinion - theage.com.au

Stop upsetting a hero’s wife and kids

IN RESPONSE to comments made by Karla McKinlay (Letters, 3/5) about Private Jacob Kovco, I would like to say: Back off and wait for the outcome of the investigation into his death. People like you are distressing his widow Shelly and the two kids. Jake is a hero: he died doing a job for his country. Also, he is a hero because Tyrie, his son, said so. I say so and so do all his mates in 3 RAR. If anyone wishes to dispute it, I’m sure his mates would discuss it with them. So would I.

When this is over, I hope that all the knockers will apologise. If you really want to do something, help the kids by making a donation and lobbying the politicians so this does not happen again and our soldiers are treated with dignity when they die. Why do I care? Well, I am Shelly’s father, and am proud of her and Jake — because he is a hero.
David Small, Sale

Y’know, the federal government just keeps making this case worse. If they hadn’t lied in the first instance about what had happened and then if they hadn’t fucked up the transport of the body back to Australia, this would all be fading quickly in the memory of Australians. But because they did both those things, answers are now sought and the minister for defence states that the official enquiry will take six months to complete. That’s six months for speculation and theories of what actually happened to fester. Surely, the minister hopes that everyone will have forgotten by that time and they’ll be able to dump the findings on a busy Friday coming up to the AFL grand final or something.

What has been ascertained is that there are strict procedures for the removal of ordinance from weapons before military personnel enter barracks that would prevent a loaded weapon casually laying around, waiting to be knocked and go off. Something else of note is that if a member of the military commits suicide, the  widow is not eligible for payment of a pension.

So if the case is that Jake Kovco committed suicide, this is bad press for the govt, given that it’s an indication that our military personnel are in such a bad state that they are driven to suicide by Howard’s decision to lead this country into a spurious war. And, if the widow and young child are left without any financial support from the govt because of standing  regulations, Howard is seen as heartless in the face of a tragic situation. Maybe that’s what they figure is going to be the result of the enquiry and so they’re trying to pre-empt the discontent about the situation later by giving the full military funeral this week.

But back to David Small’s letter:
Sure, Jake Kovco is a hero because, these days, the word really doesn’t have any value. Howard tells us that Don Bradman was a hero - no he wasn’t. He had a particular talent for aiming a bit of wood at a bit of cork wrapped in leather and running quickly in 22 yard bursts. He calls the casualties of the Bali bombing heroes. No they weren’t, they were victims. Possibly victims who wouldn’t have been attacked if this country hadn’t been led into an illegal military action by John Howard. I could go on but I shan’t.

Jake Kovco wasn’t a hero. Even if he didn’t die at his own hand. He chose to play the percentages on joining the army - he may have seen it as a good chance that he wouldn’t be sent to Iraq. He may have expected there was a good chance he wouldn’t see any real action. He may have expected there was a good chance he wouldn’t be injured or killed - and, unfortunately for him, landed on the wrong side of the percentages. But that’s the gamble you take when you sign up. For years, the Australian army wasn’t involved in any serious conflicts and being a career soldier was a pretty good wicket.

Sure, David is going to be emotional at this point. He’s been closely involved with the man they just buried. He can say anything he wants about Jake to try to quell the pain. But I’m not sure that it’s constructive for anyone to be making veiled threats. “If
anyone wishes to dispute it, I’m sure his mates would discuss it
with them. So would I.”, seems to have the same tone to it as, “I’ll see you behind the shelter shed after school with my burly gang of mates… You’re SO dead.”

Hey Kim! Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

Go on Kim, you know you want to.

You’ve been doing it for years so what’s the holdup this time?

It’s so much easier seeing what the Liberals do and then saying exactly the same thing - I understand that.

I’m sure you could give him a call - see how he build up his nerve.

Goddammitt Kim! Robert Doyle’s been gone for more that 12 hours now - when are you going to follow?

Do yourself and the party a favour.

I wait with baited breath…

Note to ALP: Why are you fucking this up?

If the ALP had any spine at all, they would have put Julia Gillard in the leadership position back at the beginning of last year.

Beazley’s nothing but a huge waste of space in the position - doing nothing but damage to the party as he ‘Me Too’s his way through issues as they come up. Howard’s a fucking disgrace and the electorate is beginning to wake up to that fact but when they look at the alternative what else can they see but a desperate imitator on the same issues.

Now we hear that Beazley can’t remember the name of a single one of the five SA senators. He’s a retard - either literally with the brain disorder or figuratively because of his incompetence. This is no better than Howard or Downer or Vaile on AWB.

If the ALP hadn’t made the gutless move of putting Beazley back in 16 months ago, the momentum to rid this country of the filth that is our government would be massive - an irresistable force! As it is, if an election was called for a month from now, there’d be nothing to stop them romping back in.

That’s just fucking irresponsible, ALP. You’re the opposition - do your job properley or go the fuck home and let someone in who wants to help.

Police States: Not just for Islands

Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: Media finally starting to report the President’s systematic lawbreaking

As fucked as Australia is under the current government - with its LIES - at least the leader’s not secretly writing notes on new laws saying that they don’t apply to him. Still… I’m not sure the Australian electorate would bother to do anything about it if they found out he was.

How to stop those pesky refugees?

Illegal immigration happens because life is percieved to be better in Australia. One long term solution is to lower the living standards here until no one wants to come. This could be achieved by weakening health care and education, raising the deficit and taking away basic civil liberties… WAIT A SECOND!

Selling off of Medibank Private.
Creation of $100,000 degres.
More tax cuts for the rich.
It’s not an ID card - it’s a photo-ID smartcard. It’s not compulsory, you’ll just need it if you ever want to claim a doctor’s visit on Medicare or access any other government service.

Thanks ZeFrank

The mysterious case of the disappearance of www.johnhowardpm.org

After only 36 hours online, and 10,500 hits, the satirical web site, johnhowardpm.org mysteriously disappeared. Richard Neville - columnist, author and futurist - set up the site as a platform for his culture-jamming satirical John Howard speech.

The site was hosted at Yahoo and the domain had been registered with Melbourne IT. Neither organisation could explain what had happened with the web site for three days - it was just gone and they couldn’t do anything about it. In the interim, the speech had been mirrored in text and PDF formats on various sites so that people could see the content that had been disappeared. You may be able to find it through any of these links - though there’s nothing to guarantee that the same fate won’t befall any of these mirrors: OpEdNews - Richard Neville’s PDF version - Tim Longhurst’s site with the text and some commentary.

Today, it emerges that Melbourne IT perhaps could have explained what had happened to the site because they were the ones responsible for it vanishing. They put the domain name on hold, which means it cannot be accessed and it cannot be transferred to any other internet name registrar. Basically, they’ve sent the site to a black hole for at least two months.

“But Melbourne IT is a respected, responsible internet name registrar”, I hear you cry, “They wouldn’t pull the plug on someone’s web site without following the due process! At the very least, they’d get in touch with the person who registered the domain.” You’d think so, wouldn’t you. Apparently not. I guess that’s why you pay the annual 368% premium for registering a domain with them. (Seriously folks - Melbourne IT: $140/2yrs - Domain Central: $38/2yrs)

After being contacted by Greg Williams of the People, Resources & Communications Division at the Department of the Prime Minister & Cabinet - along with three Federal Police - Melbourne IT unilaterally killed off the domain with not even a phone call or email to the registrant, let alone any sort of right of reply. It makes one wonder about both sides of that little communique: how willing are Melbourne IT to do anything that screws its customers in order to score some brownie points with the government; and what sort of threats or cajolements were offered by Greg Williams to have the matter attend so promptly and brutally?

Come to think of it, once the anti-terrorism bill becomes law Greg won’t need to trouble himself with a call to Melbourne IT - with all the attendant explaination of why they need to shut down a site - he’ll simply be able to send in some members of his friendly neighbourhood security service to pick up Richard, lock him up for a couple of weeks for interrogation, get him to take down the site and be done with it. Then we’ll be just left to wonder what happened, without any sort of resolution, safe in the knowledge that Richard would never, ever be allowed to speak about what had happened and we’d never, ever know.

If this is the length to which the government will go to over a simple parody, imagine what’s going to happen with serious critics once the sedition laws come in.

Update:
For a full chronology of the story, there’s a new post at Tim Longhurst’s site

It’s official

Evidence belies Govt’s kickbacks claims

Reporter: Nick Grimm

KERRY O’BRIEN, 7.30 REPORT PRESENTER: Once an obscure Jordanian-based transport company, Alia is now notorious as the conduit for kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s regime during the oil-for-food scandal. The Australian Government has maintained the first it heard of Alia was when the United Nations carried out its own inquiry into kickback allegations, which began in 2004. But according to evidence placed before the Cole inquiry, Australian intelligence was aware of kickback allegations surrounding Alia back in 1998.

Where does this leave the Government’s version of events? Former intelligence insiders have told the 7.30 Report it would have been ‘astonishing’ for that sort of intelligence to have been simply ignored. And tonight we can also report new claims about links between Australian intelligence and the monopoly wheat exporter.

KEVIN RUDD, OPPOSITION FOREIGN AFFAIRS SPOKESPERSON: Mr Howard is a liar, and these documents demonstrate that, pure and simple. Of course, lying doesn’t stop with the Prime Minister. We have the same now with the Foreign Minister. The Foreign Minister stated last month that no-one in the Government, no minister in the Government, no official in the Government had ever heard of Alia. That was a 100 per cent lie.

The problem has always been that there has never been enough evidence… until now. Elsewhere, Howard has claimed that the “government has been utterly transparent. We established the commission and I think that was the right thing to do and I continue to think that and I think everybody should hold their breath and wait until the commission has brought down its findings.” Being caught out by a commission doesn’t mean you’re being transparent - it just means you mis-judged its diligence and didn’t expect that the evidence would be found.

Employers - listen up: Even if you want to be fair to your employees, the government is going to make it illegal for you to spell it out in the contract

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT
LOCATION: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2006/s1596564.htm
Broadcast: 20/03/2006

IR laws ‘Communist-like controls’

Reporter: Dana Robertson

TONY JONES: The battle lines are again being drawn between the Government and the union movement over changes to industrial relations laws. Over the weekend, the Government released the regulations which detail how its new workplace relations system will operate when it comes into effect in a week’s time. Under the new rules, the industrial relations commission will have to supply the Government with weekly reports on industrial disputes, and the Minister will be able to intervene if he believes strikes are threatening the economy. It’s a move the unions have compared to communist-style control.

Oh my, what a surprise! A long standing body of review - the Industrial Relations Commission - has had its sovereignty usurped by a Howard government minister through new legislation. Even if an industrial action is considered legal - after going through a barrage of obligatory government requirements, designed to be as obstructive as possible - the minister will be able to force the workers back to work.

Dana Robertson reports from Canberra.

DANA ROBERTSON: The ACTU says it’s 400 pages of detail even it didn’t expect.

GREG COMBET, ACTU SECRETARY: The extent of the regulation of some of these prohibited matters has surprised us.

DANA ROBERTSON: The regulations outline exactly how the new workplace relations system will work. From next Monday, it’ll be illegal for employment agreements to contain a range of outcomes, even if they’re negotiated between employers and their staff. The so-called “prohibited content” includes: Payroll deductions of union fees. The right of entry for union officials to work sites. Leave to attend union run training. Protections against unfair dismissal.

STEPHEN SMITH, OPPOSITION INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS SPOKESMAN: The Minister determines that no unfair dismissal rights will apply even is an employer and employee agree as part of their employment arrangements.

KEVIN ANDREWS, WORKPLACE RELATIONS MINISTER: The Government’s view is that the employment arrangement should relate to employment conditions and terms and conditions of employment itself - not to a whole range of extraneous matters.

DANA ROBERTSON: Union officials who defy the new laws face fines of up $33,000. Greg Combet says he won’t pay.

GREG COMBET: I will ask for people to be treated fairly and I’m not going to pay a fine for doing it.

Right… extraneous matters. The worker has gone, cap in hand, into negotiations for their job. They happen to be blessed with an employer with a social conscience who allows them to be a member of a union and is willing to facilitate that. Nevertheless, the minister dictates that this is illegal.

DANA ROBERTSON: The regulations also reveal that the Workplace Relations Minister, Kevin Andrews, will receive a weekly report on industrial disputes around the country. The union movement says it smacks of Communist-style control.

BILL SHORTEN, AUSTRALIAN WORKERS’ UNION: We’ve got the Minister who’s going to become the new commissar, or secret policeman, of workplace relations. I mean, I’d have thought he’d have more important things to do.

KEVIN ANDREWS: What the Minister can do under these provisions is end the bargaining period and get the parties off to the IRC so the matter can be resolved - that’s eminently sensible.

DANA ROBERTSON: Kim Beazley’s labelled the regulations “400 pages of infamy”.

KIM BEAZLEY, OPPOSITION LEADER: It’s hitting the most vulnerable workers and making it harder for them.

DANA ROBERTSON: With the new laws set to come into force in a week’s time, the Government’s been accused of not giving enough notice of the start date. The unions and the opposition say it kept the regulations secret until the middle of the Commonwealth Games and after the South Australia Tasmanian elections.

John Howard’s flatly rejected any suggestion the Government’s deliberately stalled.

Liar!

JOHN HOWARD, PRIME MINISTER: If we hadn’t released it we’d have been attacked, but it’s not the detail, it’s the regulations. The detail was contained in legislation that passed the Parliament at the end of last year.

DANA ROBERTSON: Business can’t wait for the new laws to take effect.

PETER HENDY, CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY: There’ll be more control in the work place where employees and employers together can make their own decisions rather government heavy-handed … the heavy-handed government telling businesses and employees what to do.

DANA ROBERTSON: But unions are vowing that the fight against the changes has only just begun.

GREG COMBET: This will be, if we’re successful in our campaign, a defining point in Australian political history.

DANA ROBERTSON: Kevin Andrews maintains unions will still have a whole range of rights.

Oh… I forgot to mention… when I was talking about the understanding employer with the social conscience… that word picture was from fantasy land where they hang out at the chocolate fountain with Santa and the Easter Bunny. Back here on planet Earth, business can’t wait for the new laws to take effect.

A Pandora’s box of possible abuses

We sponsor terror: ex-judge

By Fergus Shiel
March 21, 2006

Australia was among the Western powers to have financially backed terrorist regimes, and its tough new sedition laws leant towards autocracy, former Federal Court judge Marcus Einfeld said last night.

In an address on the war on terror and civil liberties at the University of Western Sydney, Mr Einfeld said there was plenty of evidence that sponsors of state terrorism, such as Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Peru and Guatemala had been backed and financed by Western powers, including Australia.

Mr Einfeld said: “What very few people know or understand, even though the evidence is plain and plentiful, is that many of these countries have been backed and financed by the US and other Western powers, including Australia, whose own very personal contribution to terrorist regimes via the Australian Wheat Board is now believed by every taxi driver in the country to have been known to and at least facility-approved by our Government.

“Apparently political transparency is a democratic ideal to which we only pay lip service these days.

“What makes this brazen corruption all the worse is the incapacity of these powers to apologise . . . Instead we, the Australian public, are treated to wanton attacks on the cultural framework of our fellow citizens - both Muslim and Christian.”

Mr Einfeld said the Cronulla riots were the result of a veil of misinformation and apathy, wrought by the cultural polarisation that had infected the world since September 11.

He said terrorism was an age-old phenomenon that was to be condemned in all its guises, and that too often went unpunished.

At the same time, he said, we have to ask how far we can allow ourselves to be led away from fundamental liberal and democratic tenets in the name of the fight against terrorism.

The anti-terrorism bill - in particular its anti-sedition laws - was, “a Pandora’s box of possible abuses if used incorrectly”.

He added: “This is the hallmark of a society leaning towards an autocratic framework, one in which nationalism, homogeneity and a warped and misinformed concept of ‘the other’ are thrown together into a heady and volatile cocktail.”

I remember a time when the Australian federal government was representative of the Australian electorate and worked for us. How has it become a body that attacks its people and passes legislation that opens up avenues of massive abuse of its citizens?

Of course the legislation that was rammed through parliament late last year is full of horrifying potential powers. The Attorney-General acknowledged that at the time. But did they take a moment to allow parliament to properly examine the bill and recommend amendments? No. In fact, they did everything they could to minimise the opportunity for MPs to peruse the proposed ligislation, so as to prevent it from any scrutiny before it was passed on party lines.

The lunacy of the A-G’s suggestion that the details be examined and adjusted after the bill was passed was let to stand by members of the government. Since the vote, there hasn’t been another peep from the government looking to review it before it becomes law later this year. I wonder how many Queen’s Counsels and Senior Counsels and other upstanding members of the community will need to follow the lead of Justice Marcus Einfeld before this severe impingement of human rights is amended. I wonder if it will be enough to stop this insult to human decency in a free society to come into law. Probably not, if I’m any judge of the actions of the Howard government.

Please make the pain stop!

Today’s the day! The day that thousands of non-thinkers get together along the Yarra and at the G and wail their little hearts out about nothing of any consequence.

Waking up in Richmond this morning, I thought for a moment I was in some sort of war zone with at least three different types of helicopters buzzing around the place. Once I regained full control of my senses, the image of a massive counter came to mind - like an odometer - counting up the dollars thrown away on this fools’ pursuit. Do you know how much it costs each minute to keep a helicopter in the air? How about those fighter jets that were buzzing around on Monday? You might be surprised how costly it is.

I still hear them now. Chicker-chicker-chicker-chicker-chicker-chicker… I’m not sure if that’s the sound of the rotors or the wasted-money-meter.

Sheer Hypocrisy

PM - Aussie vernacular makes tourism campaign a success
PAULA KRUGER: The Prime Minister has seen the ads, featuring iconic Australian images from the outback to the beaches, and says he has no problem with the language.

JOHN HOWARD: It’s a colloquialism, it’s not a word that is seen quite in the same category as other words that nobody ought to use in public or on the media or in advertisement. I think the style of the ad is anything but offensive. It is in fact in context and I think it’s a very effective ad.

PM to public: improve your manners
Prime Minister John Howard has backed calls by NSW Chief Justice James Spigelman for Australians to improve their manners.

Mr Howard said he agreed with the chief justice and believed Australians were not polite enough to each other.

He said television networks and parents had a responsibility to help people mind their manners.

“I think we have seen a marked deterioration in good manners,” Mr Howard told reporters.

“I think it’s time that the television networks put a curb on the increasing use of vulgarism on television.”

How does he figure that a $180,000,000 advertising campaign which uses a vulgarism as its central theme is anything except what he was complaining about back in January?

I don’t agree with John Howard on his views on vulgarities on TV causing society to have bad manners - that’s fine, I’m used to seething over what he has done to this country. But I’m offended - much more than by any dirty words that I’ve ever heard - by his expectation that no one is going to pull him up on being such a fricken hypocrite. How stupid does he think the Australian electorate is?

The whole AWB controversy has moved to the courtroom and is fed on the almost daily revelations. It seems everyone’s forgotten about the legislation that this government made law last year, making it illegal for any funding of terrorists. Shouldn’t the AWB all be locked up at this point because they’ve done exactly that?

The legislation introduced last year was a case of knee-jerk overkill which suits the government just fine for reasons well away from terrorism and is a product of over four years of fear-mongering but, now that they’ve done the damage, surely there’s no reason for them to not pursue the matter. Except we’re talking about a bunch of wealthy whiteys, aren’t we. We’re talking about Howard’s people - not some dusky skinned muslim who we’re told are the root of all terror evil.

Hypocrites!

If the minister doesn’t deny the use of RU486, we’re all gonna be muslims, people!

MP raises Islamisation fear in RU486 debate

Federal Liberal MP Danna Vale says she is supporting a Coalition-backed amendment to a bill on the abortion drug RU486 because she is concerned Australia will become dominated by Muslims.

The amendment proposed by five female Coalition backbenchers would still see the Health Minister decide on applications for RU486, after the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) had first ruled on its safety.

Parliament would have the final say.

“I’ve actually read in the Daily Telegraph where a certain imam from the Lakemba mosque actually said that Australia is going to be a Muslim nation in 50 years’ time,” she said.

“I didn’t believe him at the time but when you actually look at the birthrates and you look at the fact that we are aborting ourselves almost out of existence.”

Mrs Vale says apart from the morals of the issue, she is concerned about what she says are the implications for Australia’s future.

“The ramifications it actually has for the community and the nation we’ll become in the future is not for the decision of the TGA,” she said.

Mrs Vale’s concerns are not shared by the other sponsors of the amendment, including Jackie Kelly.

“I think Danna’s on her own on that one,” she said.

The bill will be debated in the House of Representatives this week.

You must be fucking kidding!

Translation: “It seems that our scaremongering about the explosion in abortions that will ensue as soon as these irresponsible godless bitches can get their greedy little hands on the magic pill. Holy FUCK! Maybe they’ll believe that we’re going to have a nation of terrorists if we pass the bill. Yeah! That’ll work. We’ll just leave it to the racist redneck fucks to get public opinion back on our side and we’ll be able to beat that evil bill.”

Actually!

MP raises Islamisation fear in RU486 debate

Technorati Tags: Islamisation, RU486, Danna Vale, abortion , drug , Therapeutic Goods Administration, imam , Lakemba , Muslim ,

RU486?

RU486: good news for women’s health

The Senate voting to overturn the restrictive legislation banning RU486 is good news for democracy and good news for women’s health. This reflects the broad community attitudes that politicians are not medical experts and these complex medical decisions must be referred to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, as it is for all other drugs. Now it depends on the House of Representatives to get it right this week and transfer the responsibility for importing this drug into Australia.

Incidentally, I wonder how many people are aware that RU486 does not cause the abortion of pregnancies; it simply reduces the natural progesterone and makes the uterus respond to the second medication, prostaglandin (which is an approved drug!). All this hysteria about RU486 is not relevant. But why let that get in the way of a good media story!
Dr Pieter Mourik (obstetrician and gynaecologist), Wodonga

Abortion, anyone?

In the RU486 Senate debate, those describing themselves as pro-choice repeatedly said the debate was not about abortion, only the process for the approval of RU486. However, all who described themselves as pro-choice voted to give responsibility for RU486 to the Therapeutics Goods Administration. On the other hand, all senators who declared themselves pro-life or anti-abortion voted to keep the control of RU486 with the Minister for Health. The Senate simply voted along lines for or against abortion.

Please, pro-choicers, be honest! Admit the RU486 debate is about abortion. Then please finish your sentences. Please tell us you are for the choice of a woman to end her baby’s life.
Reverend Eugene H. Ahern, Saint Francis Xavier parish, Frankston

So let’s debate it

There is no doubt in my mind that the only reason that the pro-choice people want the responsibility for RU486 taken away from the Health Minister is to make its introduction easier. Any talk about administrative rights is just noise to hide the true purpose of the debate, which is really about abortion itself.

Australians have never had a proper debate to consider the question of abortion, nor do I expect there to be one in the near future. Instead, the laws on abortion followed the extreme examples of life-threatening illness or mental illness to justify what as claimed to be only a few cases per year. No one could ever imagine that this would lead to 90,000 per year.

Flicking responsibility of this 90,000 to the states raises the question of why federal funding is used for the procedures. Approval of money cannot be separated from how it is to be used. Appr