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31 December, 2005

Race riots will not recur: Islamic leaders

Muslim leaders believe Sydney has experienced the last of the race riots that erupted almost three weeks ago in Cronulla. NSW Islamic Council spokesman Ali Roude told The Australian that consultation between community leaders, police and government meant there would not be a repeat of the ugly scenes at Cronulla beach on Sunday, December 11. "We have been successful, at least for the time being," he said. "We are confident we have been successful that the riot that occurred on that day was the first and the last. "We are comfortable that everyone is committed and we have proven to the international community in relation to the riots that we have been successful in repressing it, and repressing it for good."

While Muslim leaders have declared the violence over, the NSW Government is not as confident and considers New Year's Eve and Australia Day to be potential flashpoints. Police are still on alert for troublespots, with roving teams of riot police and highway patrol officers on duty.

Source



The Victorian Equal Opportunity Commission wimps out: They only persecute Christian Pastors

On 21 December I posted an email from Joe Cambria challenging the Equal Opportunity Commission of Victoria to take action about an anti-Muslim article that was in fact much more scathing than the Christian Pastors the EOCV has prosecuted. Below is the evasive reply (in rather poor English) received by Mr Cambria plus a rejoinder from Mr Cambria

"Thank you for your email of 20th December 2005 concerning issues in relation to the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 (Vic) ("the RRTA"), which also contained a recent article by Gerard Jackson from BrookesNews.com. Your email attributed the Equal Opportunity Commission with a particular role under the RRTA which is incorrect - I would like to address these inaccuracies.

In particular, apart from very limited circumstances, the Commission is not responsible for initiating and pursuing complaints under the RRTA. Complaints under the RRTA are lodged by individuals or representative bodies who firstly decide whether they wish to initiate a complaint, and then decide how far they wish to pursue the matter.

The vast majority of complaints are finalised in the course of the Commission's impartial investigation and conciliation processes, however, if complaints are not conciliated, the person or body who lodged the complaint can have the matter referred to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal ("VCAT").

Where a request is made to refer a complaint to VCAT the Commission has no discretion in the matter and must act on that request. The Commission is not a party to hearings at VCAT and plays no part in their determination. I noted above that there are very limited circumstances in which the Commission can initiate a complaint under the RRTA. Thus far the Commission has not used this power.

The other matter you raised concerned the actions of a former staff member of the Commission, in relation to the seminar that was the subject matter of the recent RRTA case involving the Catch the Fire Ministry. In the context of the Commission's role under the RRTA that I have described above, the Commission upholds the most stringent standards of confidentiality, impartiality and political independence in all its dealings. The Commission does not pre-empt or manufacture complaints - we provide a free, impartial and confidential complaint resolution service for people, and offer education and information about discrimination, sexual harassment and racial and religious vilification.

The Commission's education and complaint resolution functions are kept strictly separate and all complaints are subject to strict confidentiality standards. If a staff member, past or present has acted improperly they did so without the authority of the Commission, and all Commission staff are regularly reminded about the parameters of their role and the differences between outreach, education and advocacy.

With regard to the article your forwarded to me I do not intent to make any comment.

Dr Helen Szoke, Chief Conciliator/Chief Executive Officer, Equal Opportunity Commission Victoria, Level 3, 380 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, VIC 3000 Ph: (03) 9281 7170 Fax: (03) 9281 7159 web: www.eoc.vic.gov.au

Dear Ms. Szoke:

Thank you for taking time to reply. It's not obvious little can be done about Gerry Jackson's accusations regarding the Islamic Prophet. I spoke with Gerry about the issues you mentioned in your letter and he suggests you simply follow the same course of action your office did when it went after the two Christian Pastors. That is, request May Helou from your office to ask a couple of Islamic converts to read the contents of Gerry's article and file a complaint. It doesn't seem very hard does it, after all Ms. Helou seems to be accomplished in such tasks? As I see it, what's "good" for the Pastors is "good" for Gerry Jackson, don't you think?



Why most Australians use private dentists

Waiting times for Queensland's public dental services have been described as "atrocious", with some patients waiting up to five years for a basic check-up, according to the Australian Dental Association. And the continuing inability to attract staff will mean that significant funding increases by the state government would be unlikely to alleviate waiting times.

ADA Queensland immediate past president Dr Michael Foley, who works as a public sector dentist for Queensland Health, said the average length people were waiting for basic services was greater than three years. "At Logan it is five years. Where I used to work at Inala it is 4« years. South Brisbane, where I currently am, it is four years," Dr Foley said. "These are people we are getting off the waiting list to do check ups, fillings, basic cut and polishes. This is simply unacceptable - it is atrocious. We all know anything in public health there is going to involve waiting lists - our patients accept that. But to be waiting that long is an abrogation of responsibility by the State Government."

Figures provided by Queensland Health and Health Minister Stephen Robertson confirm Dr Foley's claim on the length of times people were waiting for public dental services. But Queensland Health claimed that the average wait decreased by 11 weeks between July 2004 and November 2005 and that patients requiring emergency care were generally seen within 24 hours. In response to a question on notice regarding the Gold Coast's Palm Beach Dental Clinic, Mr Robertson admitted the numbers of patients being seen had declined. "In 2003-04 there were 9901 occasions of service provided by the Palm Beach Oral Health Clinic. In 2004-05 there were 8773 occasions of service provided by the Palm Beach Oral Health Clinic," Mr Robertson said.

Dr Foley said many young dentists were going into private practice where they could get significantly better pay and conditions than working for Queensland Health. Dr Foley said young dentists working in the public sector were faced with doing very basic dental work, while their colleagues in private practice could perform a greater range of dental services to develop their skills. He said government funding increases would not offset the problem. "They can pour as much money in it as they want, but if we can't recruit the staff we won't be able to see the patients," Dr Foley said. "Dentistry has changed in last 20 to 30 years, but government dentistry hasn't and dentists are voting with their feet. They are fed up with angry patients who are fed up with having to wait for years."

Opposition Health spokesman Dr Bruce Flegg said public dental services in Queensland were "over-stretched and virtually inaccessible for the majority of Queenslanders". "They are another example of making unmet promises to people instead of telling them the true status of the services," he said.

Source



More bureaucracy gone mad

A Federal Government body charged with investigating gambling has agreed on a definition for problem gambling - five years after being established.

And the 28-word definition came at a cost to taxpayers of nearly $1 million. Social welfare experts say it is an example of bureaucratic madness, and that a conversation with any gambler in any pub in Australia could elicit a definition within a few minutes.

The research was commissioned by the Ministerial Council on Gambling, headed by federal Family and Community Services Minister Kay Patterson, with representatives from every state and territory government. The 200-page report states "problem gambling is characterised by difficulties in limiting money and/or time spent on gambling, which leads to adverse consequences for the gambler, others or for the community".

Source



30 December, 2005

Howard derangement syndrome

The American Left seem to be retreating ever farther from reality in what has been called "Bush derangement syndrome". The Australian Left has "Howard derangement syndrome" as its equivalent. There is an example of it excerpted below. It is however a bit misleading to regard it all as irrational. In one way it is perfectly rational. People who write the sort of tripe below are really saying: "Look at me. Look how wonderfully kind and tolerant and understanding I am." By denigrating their fellow-Australians, they hope to inflate their own reputation for wonderful goodness and insight. Just to take the first sentence below: If Australia is a racist backwater, how come we take in more refugess (per capita) than just about any other nation? And how come multiculturalism is unquestioned official dogma? Note also that one of the people the writer denigrates is Bob Carr, one of Australia's most popular politicians of the LEFT! So practically everybody in Australia is morally inferior to our brave writer! What a wanker! (jerk)

"Australia is a backwater, a racist and inward-looking country that turns its back on adventure and the opportunity to do better; a country that has rejected leaders who provide the chance for a multiracial, multicultural and independent nation to prosper in the region where it is, Asia-Pacific. It is a nation which periodically makes world headlines for its racist outbursts, whether it be the disgraceful campaign of the Howard Government in 2001 to demonise the wretched and the weak who sought sanctuary on our shores, or the media and political leaders who barracked for Pauline Hanson's inane and stupid rhetoric about Aboriginal Australians and Asians, or the racist thugs now taking it upon themselves to beat up anyone who looks as if they are from the Middle East.

Attacks that Prime Minister John Howard refuses to see as examples of Australia's racism, which is exactly what they are. Perhaps that's because he is partly to blame for last week's appalling events and for the persecution of Muslims and Arab Australians in the community.....

It's the conservatism that dismantles the policy of multiculturalism, a policy Malcolm Fraser championed and which refuses to allow Anglo-European traditions to suffocate other great cultures and value systems. It is also a conservatism that refuses to let Australia grow up, a conservatism that forelock tugs before an English Queen and a British monarchy that is rancid and corrupt. The racist thuggery of the past week is the inevitable consequence of the conservatism of people such as Howard and former New South Wales premier Bob Carr, a conservatism that never challenges and dismantles the antics of such media as The Daily Telegraph in Sydney and shock-jocks such as John Laws and Alan Jones, who perpetrate a myth about Arab Australians being different and somehow less Australian than the rest of us.

It's a media which shamefully subscribes to the view that the rape of European women in Sydney five years ago by a gang of young men, who happened to be Lebanese, was a battle between the values of Arab Australians and European Australians; a media which whips up fear and loathing by attacking the right of Muslim women to have their own time in a local swimming pool for religious and cultural reasons"

More here



Queensland beach concerns:

Muslims are a NSW problem



Shake it downwind, please! Sunburn is not the only festive season turn-off for beachgoers causing thoughts of relaxation to turn to sand-rage. When beach etiquette - the unwritten rules of the sand - is breached, holiday temperatures can soar. Shaking a sandy towel into the wind appears to be the ultimate sin. But there are other dilemmas to deal with. How close to park a towel? When does an admiring glance become an indecent perve? Is smoking allowed?

"Everybody does whatever they want and don't seem to care about anybody else," said Caroline Heisner, who escaped the haze of Brisbane for the waves of Surfers Paradise yesterday. "Some people don't seem to know how to behave."

Youths treating the sand like a football stadium also raised the ire of sunbakers. Steven Rice, 26, and Scott Hemmings, 20, pleaded guilty to committing beach sports crimes. "We throw the ball around, and occasionally hit people." "Sometimes they're nice and throw it back, but usually they tell us to get lost," Mr Hemmings said. "But it happens on the beach, you should be allowed to come down here to have fun." Mr Rice said children were the biggest nuisance on the sand. "They make excess noise, they flick water on you when they run past, they come in packs, and they're everywhere in the water," he said. He was also particularly annoyed by girls who screamed excessively when entering the water.

Jane Croser, 23, said the popularity of Gold Coast beaches made harmony impossible. "It's hard not to offend someone else when everyone crowds in to the small space near the flags," she said.

Females also reported being hassled by zealous would-be suitors who treated the beach like a nightclub. Gold Coast Chief Lifeguard Warren Young said it was a matter of respect. "People appreciate that we have visitors from overseas and other parts of the country that might not be used to the sand or the ocean," he said. "It's all just about respect. You wouldn't kick a soccer ball around a crowded beach. Nobody likes sand flicked around, especially when it's blowy."

Source



How to emigrate to Australia

A useful article here. Australia's ethnic problems are minor compared to Britain and the USA. Excerpt:

"Ever wondered how to go about emigrating to Australia and go about getting an Australian visa? Wondering what the various options were and how to go about the different schemes without too much red tape or expense? There are lots of ways to emigrate to Australia. This article spells it out in 9 easy stages.

The Australian economy has never been stronger and the Australian government are particularly looking out for skilled people with a specialization in many business and trade areas. In order to emigrate you could go the route of an expensive lawyer, or you could get the advice of specialist Australian immigration consultants to see if you qualify for Australian immigration eligibility.

If you are wondering about work skills needed to emigrate to Australia or qualifications needed to emigrate to Australia then it's worth bearing in mind that there is a points system for applying for what is known as the Skilled Visa. You can fill in an online form to see if you satisfy the Australian immigration points system as set out by the Australian Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMIA)".



29 December, 2005

An excellent year for conservatives and the country

John Howard will be with us for a very long time. Even if the Prime Minister hands over the reins to Treasurer Peter Costello in 2006, the Howard imprint will remain for years to come. Looking back on 2005, Howard has put serious runs on the board. He will not be remembered as a do nothing, occupy the crease kind of PM. He's more Don Bradman than Trevor "Barnacle" Bailey, the English all-rounder who made the slowest half-century in first-class cricket.

It has been a momentous year for the conservative cause. Howard has become for Australia what Ronald Reagan was to the US and Margaret Thatcher to Britain. Plenty of politicians spend a lifetime gaining power and, when it comes, are so busy holding on to it that they shy away from controversial but much needed reform. Think of Malcolm Fraser. Known for little more than his efforts in Zimbabwe and introducing secondary boycott provisions in the Trade Practices Act, Fraser was out for a duck, if we're talking cricket. Howard, on the other hand, is changing Australia to reflect the way we work, the way we raise our children, the way we're educated, the sorts of things we expect governments to do and, more to the point, the things we want to do for ourselves.

Of course, Howard is far from the perfect conservative. He has thrown tax dollars at failed businesses (Ansett, United Medical Protection), set up slush funds to massage the passage of reforms (voluntary student unionism, Telstra), and continues to prop up and pander to powerful lobbies (pharmacists). Not to mention his obscene election spending sprees. But, then, reform comes at a price. And Howard is on the reform path.

Generations X and Y (and indeed earlier generations) are no more interested in collectivist labour structures than they are in allowing central planning of their sexual and social beliefs. So the Work Choices legislation puts individual choice above union power. Similarly, the VSU reforms are based on a simple idea that no one should be forced to join a union, be it on campus or in the workplace. So if students want to jump on a bus to Woomera to protest against mandatory detention, fine. But don't expect other students to pick up the bus fare by paying compulsory union fees.

Indigenous people are being encouraged to take responsibility for their lives, to work, to be able to buy their home, to send their children to school, because the past 30 years of top-down, bureaucrat-driven regulation has failed them.

Telstra is being sold because public ownership of assets in such a hi-tech, high risk, fast-moving industry is only slightly less Jurassic than Soviet-style collectives or the Great Leap Forward.

Critics go bonkers at the idea of Howard changing Australia. The level of vitriol aimed at the Prime Minister on each of these issues is testimony not only to the significance of these changes but also to the fact Howard is overturning long entrenched vested interests, be it in the workplace, on campus, in indigenous politics and so on. A few weeks ago, even University of Sydney vice-chancellor Gavin Brown was calling VSU supporters such as Howard "redneck philistines". Hardly an intellectual response from our lofty academics. But, then, no one relinquishes power or money quietly.

Then there are the genuine but misguided Fabian socialists who believe, to steal from Reagan, that a little band of intellectual elites in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. These people have lost their elevated status in Howard's Australia.

Other critics include one Greg Barns, once a Liberal, then a Democrat, now politically homeless, who last week wrote that Australia had become a pigsty under Howard, the conservative ideologue. The country, he argued, needed to be rescued by some latter-day Gough Whitlam or Paul Keating. Poor Greg sits waiting for Judgment Day, when a new philosopher king will lift whatever party he then belongs to into power while the Coalition will be cast into eternal damnation.

To criticise Howard as a conservative ideologue gravely underestimates him. Far from this being one man's ideological jaunt, Howard has caught the temper of his times. For Howard, conservatism is not an abstract ideology. It is diametrically opposed to abstractionism. It is rooted, instead, in human experience, in what works and what doesn't. To borrow again from Reagan, when "conservatives say that we know something about political affairs and that what we know can be stated in principles, we are saying that the principles we hold dear are those that have been found, through experience, to be ultimately beneficial for individuals, for families, for communities and for nations; found through the often bitter testing of pain or sacrifice and sorrow".

Howard's year of reform is driven by the idea that what works is letting individuals be free to make their own choices. Which raises a sweet irony in the progressives' opposition to Howard's reforms. The Left, after all, let the individualism cat out of the bag back in the 1960s when we were encouraged to "do our own thing" without any state interference. What people did in their personal lives was out of bounds. So why the vitriol when a similar notion is applied to people's lives once they step inside a workplace, a university or the family home? But such logic is wasted. Instead, pining after bygone days, critics such as Hugh Mackay suggest workplace relations may just be on the cusp of a new "communitarian era", communitarian being an updated and refurbished version of collectivism. As if somehow a new word will fool us into thinking the Left is pursuing something new.

And just to confirm that opposition aimed at Howard is too often unshackled by reason or evidence, the Howard haters have finished off the year with one of their old favourite taunts: Howard, the racist ringleader. When, after the Cronulla riots in Sydney, he refused to label Australians as inherently racist, it was just another example of "all sorts of dark shadows fall[ing] out of his mouth", according to Richard Ackland. Howard is holding the lead of that "rancid old race dog". Or, according to left-wing think tanker Clive Hamilton, Howard was whistling at us racist dogs. And let's not forget Barns's contribution: we are living in a pigsty with the PM winking and nodding to a racist populace.

Dark shadows? Leads and dogs? Pigs? Winks and nods? Howard's critics imagine he has some spooky Svengali-like influence over that dumb animal farm known as the Australian electorate. But, then, Howard haters are forced to talk down to voters rather than 'fess up to the fact the PM may be on to something with policies based on empowering individuals to make their own decisions, thus neutering a whole swag of elites who would prefer to call the shots. No wonder his critics are becoming more feral every day

(From Janet Albrechtsen)



Australia's multicultural Muslims

When a number of teenage Australian girls were subjected to hours of sexual degradation during a spate of gang rapes in Sydney that occurred between 1998 and 2002, the perpetrators of these assaults framed their rationale in ethnic terms. The young victims were informed that they were "sluts" and "Aussie pigs" while they were being hunted down and abused. In Australia's New South Wales Supreme Court in December 2005, a visiting Pakistani rapist testified that his victims had no right to say no, because they were not wearing a headscarf. And earlier this year Australians were outraged when Lebanese Sheik Faiz Mohammed gave a lecture in Sydney where he informed his audience that rape victims had no one to blame but themselves. Women, he said, who wore skimpy clothing, invited men to rape them....

This phenomenon of Islamic sexual violence against women should be treated as the urgent, violent, repressive epidemic it is. Instead, journalists, academics, and politicians ignore it, rationalize it, or ostracize those who dare discuss it. In Australia, when journalist Paul Sheehan reported honestly on the Sydney gang rapes, he was called a racist and accused of stirring up anti-Muslim hatred. And when he reported in his Sydney Morning Herald column that there was a high incidence of crime amongst Sydney's Lebanese community, fellow journalist, David Marr sent him an e-mail stating, "That is a disgraceful column that reflects poorly on us all at the Herald."

Keysar Trad, vice-president of the Australian Lebanese Muslim Association said the gang rapes were a "heinous" crime but complained it was "rather unfair" that the ethnicity of the rapists had been reported.

Journalist Miranda Devine reported during the same rape trials that all reference to ethnicity had been deleted from the victim impact statement because the prosecutors wanted to negotiate a plea bargain. So when Judge Megan Latham declared, "There is no evidence before me of any racial element in the commission of these offences," everyone believed her. And the court, the politicians and most of the press may as well have raped the girls again.

Retired Australian detective Tim Priest warned in 2004 that the Lebanese gangs, which emerged in Sydney in the 1990s -- when the police were asleep -- had morphed out of control. "The Lebanese groups," he said, " were ruthless, extremely violent, and they intimidated not only innocent witnesses, but even the police that attempted to arrest them." Priest describes how in 2001, in a Muslim dominated area of Sydney two policemen stopped a car containing three well-known Middle Eastern men to search for stolen property. As the police carried out their search they were physically threatened and the three men claimed they were going to track them down, kill them and then rape their girlfriends.

According to Priest, it didn't end there. As the Sydney police called for backup the three men used their mobile phones to call their associates, and within minutes, 20 Middle Eastern men arrived on the scene. They punched and pushed the police and damaged state vehicles. The police retreated and the gang followed them to the police station where they intimidated staff, damaged property and held the police station hostage. Eventually the gang left, the police licked their wounds, and not one of them took action against the Middle Eastern men. Priest claims, "In the minds of the local population, the police are cowards and the message was, 'Lebanese [Muslim gangs] rule the streets.'".....

In July 2005, Melbourne Sheik Mohammad Omran told Sixty Minutes that "...we believe we have more rights than you because we choose Australia to be our home and you didn't. " In the same interview visiting Sheik Khalid Yasin warned "There's no such thing as a Muslim having a non-Muslim friend, so a non-Muslim could be your associate but they can't be a friend. They're not your friend because they don't understand your religious principles and they cannot because they don't understand your faith."

Despite being told over and over by Islamic scholars, and witnessing massive influxes of Islamic crime, Western countries continue to believe in the reality of assimilation and moral relativism. In Australia, Lebanese Christians have assimilated and become a respected part of our community. The Premier of Victoria is a Lebanese Christian as is the Governor Of New South Wales. However, Lebanese Muslims have encountered serious problems because of their refusal to accept our right to live our way of life. Nothing so clearly demonstrates that it is not an issue of race -- but of culture.

Much more here



Kezza died with dignity

Aware that he was near the end of his life, Kerry Packer, the Australian media tycoon, told doctors not to intervene and asked to be left to "die with dignity", it emerged yesterday. Mr Packer refused treatment for his failing heart and kidneys, choosing to stay at home in his mansion in Sydney rather than be taken to hospital for further dialysis and medication. "I think his words were `This is my time'," said Alan Jones, a broadcaster and friend, after visiting his family. Mr Jones said that Mr Packer spoke to him before Christmas. "He said `Look. I can't eat what I want to eat. I can't do what I want to do and I can't go where I want to go. Son, what am I doing here?'," he recalled.

Ian Bailey, who has been Mr Packer's cardiologist for eight years, called him "the bravest patient I have ever known". "He knew his body better than the doctors did and made his own decisions about treatment," said Mr Bailey. "He was going into organ failure last week and suffering. He was ready to die. There were no more rabbits to pull out of the hat." Dr Bailey said that kidney failure - of a kidney that Mr Packer had received in a transplant in 2000 - was the immediate cause of his death at 68.

The kidney was donated by Nick Ross, his helicopter pilot, who described him as "a wonderful human being". "I have known Kerry for 25 years and we have shared some fantastic times together," he said. "I consider it a privilege to have given him my kidney when he so desperately needed it. A part of me died yesterday too."

Mr Packer died on Boxing Day with his wife, Ros, his daughter Gretel, 39, and his son, James, 37, at his bedside. He leaves behind an estimated fortune of 3 billion and a media empire that will be inherited by his son, who will become the fourth generation to run the family's business.

More here



Staff 'surplus to requirements' at corrupt Australian public university

I always thought that the people in charge were a pretty slimy lot when I taught at the University of NSW but I think they have got worse since. Note this previous case involving the same university

Further allegations are emerging ahead of a report due soon from the NSW Ombudsman's office into the handling of internal complaints by a top university. Senior management at the University of NSW hired a former doctor, who had been deregistered for having sex with his patient, for a sensitive and important education post, running the university's Educational Testing Centre, which contracts out services to schools, governments and business, according to complainants. The man, Alan Bowen-James, was previously found to have lied to the Medical Tribunal and the NSW Supreme Court.

But some university staff who questioned the wisdom of the appointment have run into trouble. The outspoken former ETC services manager, Peter Curtin, was found to be "surplus to requirements" after a review of the agency's structure and is now working in a country town. A staff representative on the governing university council, medical academic John Carmody, who also questioned Bowen-James's appointment, faced disciplinary charges for being disrespectful to another senior staff member over the affair. The internal charge was not proceeded with and Carmody has retired from UNSW.

The ETC, which runs the lucrative skills-based tests for primary schools throughout Australia and, increasingly, many international clients, has had a troubled recent history. After complaints from staff, in 2001 the NSW Audit Office found the ETC was poorly administered and was characterised by "cronyism and nepotism" under then director James Tognolini, who later left. The NSW Ombudsman's office found that about 25 per cent of the ITC staff were related to other staff. The woman who made these early allegations, under the Protected Disclosures Act, also lost her position, a trend that was soon to be established.

After this controversy the ETC, which was sliced from the mainstream university to a UNSW company called NewSouth Global (but whose officers were all appointed by the university), advertised for a new general manager and Bowen-James was appointed on a temporary basis. However, after he took over, some ETC staff who checked on him learned of his background. Bowen-James, a GP who was trained in psychotherapy by psychiatrist Wynne Childs (herself deregistered for having sex with her patients), was found guilty of sexual misconduct by the NSW Medical Tribunal in 1991. He admitted to the tribunal that many of the therapy sessions he had with a woman patient, identified under the pseudonym of M, were conducted at restaurants and coffee bars rather than in his waiting rooms.

Patient M said Bowen-James then invited her to his home (while his wife was overseas) and they had sex on a number of occasions. Bowen-James denied this, claiming M was suffering from borderline personality disorder and "was fantasising" about him. But in the majority decision, tribunal members believed M's version of events over Bowen-James's, after they determined that Bowen-James had made false statements in various job applications and to investigators during the Health Complaints Unit investigation. Bowen-James appealed the decision, which had been made on the tribunal chairman's deciding vote, to the NSW Supreme Court in July 1992. The Supreme Court upheld the tribunal's decision that he be deregistered and, in its judgment on reviewing the case, also found that Bowen-James had lied.

However, the decision did not stop Bowen-James from acting as a counsellor and he advised people such as Brendan Moran, the son of healthcare tycoon Doug Moran, who later committed suicide. After this background came out at UNSW, it was suggested to the then university vice-chancellor, Rory Hume, and his deputy John Ingleson by Curtin and Carmody that the university should not confirm Bowen-James's appointment. Curtin says: "I did not think it was appropriate that a deregistered doctor and someone who had perjured themselves should be appointed to such an important post at the university and I let my superiors know." A UNSW spokeswoman yesterday declined to comment.

Others at the ETC also questioned Bowen-James's curriculum vitae, which boasted 14 university degrees from a plethora of institutions, including degrees in law as well as medicine, business administration (masters), education, philosophy and information technology. But the university went ahead with Bowen-James's appointment anyway. However, Curtin says he soon had other reasons for concerns after some staff began complaining to him about alleged misconduct by Bowen-James.

Bowen-James, whose recent employment history had been in information technology, soon expanded the ETC's information technology section, hiring new staff, upgrading equipment and introducing new software systems, including one that was finally abandoned last year as a complete failure. It cost the university millions of dollars. In September 2003, Curtin wrote a letter "in confidence" to the NSG board and the university council expressing his disquiet. Eventually, after concerns were also raised at the council, especially by Carmody, the ETC let Bowen-James go. But after a review of the ETC in November 2003, Bowen-James's main accuser, Curtin, was made "surplus to requirements".

The Ombudsman's Office will also report on the treatment of complainants in the Bruce Hall case involving alleged research misconduct.

Source



28 December, 2005

Why attacks on Sydney lifesavers (volunteer lifeguards) triggered such a strong reaction

In Australian mythology there is an invisible line between bronzed Anzacs and bronzed lifesavers. So when a gang "of Middle Eastern descent" attacked two surf lifesavers at Cronulla beach in Sydney earlier this month, the reaction from across the nation was of instant outrage.

The enduring image of an Australian lifesaver is a young man or woman who is brave, bronzed, sun-bleached and muscular, standing silently on the shore, gazing out to sea, watching over the rest of us as we carelessly frolic in the ocean. They use their physical strength and hard-won expertise to protect us, often at personal cost and danger to themselves, and most do it for free.

Paul Scott, a lecturer in communications at the University of Newcastle and a student of surf culture, says the symbolic position occupied by surf lifesavers in Australian society is one reason there was such a strong reaction to the bashing of the lifesavers. "There's a bit of a feeling that if you attack them you attack us," he says. "There's a view that they are the bronzed sons of Anzacs. Australian beach culture is very 'white bread', and the key components are youth and localism.

"Even when people go to another beach they still respect the locals and the fact that the locals have an association with a place. Here, people saw that localism as being attacked by a group who wasn't local or at least didn't seem to be."

More here



Code to censor radical imams

It might work

Muslim clerics would be subject to a strict new code of behaviour under a plan being devised by Islamic leaders in Australia to rein in the inflammatory language of some extremist imams. The head of John Howard's Muslim Advisory Council, Ameer Ali, told The Australian yesterday that guidelines to control religious leaders would be thrashed out at a special meeting next month. "At the moment, we have no control over these imams, we don't know what the credentials of these imams are, what their qualifications are -- everybody gives sermons," said Dr Ali, president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils. "So we want to have some sort of order in this chaos."

Under the proposal, first discussed at a meeting of Muslim leaders in August, a new national board of imams would set guidelines for religious figures and monitor their sermons. Dr Ali said the board of imams would set "rules and regulations about sermons and who gives the sermons". The idea is believed to have the backing of many moderate Muslim leaders, but it has infuriated firebrand Melbourne cleric Sheik Mohammed Omran. "They don't have authority, they don't have the power, they don't have any licence to talk about that," he said last night.

Dr Ali's comments come a day after the defiant Sheik Omran told The Australian the Howard Government should be held partly responsible for demonising Muslims and promoting terrorism. Sheik Omran, who was not invited to the Prime Minister's summit of moderate Islamic leaders earlier this year, said he was no more radical than many other imams in Australia, but accused other clerics of being too afraid to speak their mind.

But Dr Ali, spokesman for the Muslim Reference Group set up by the Howard Government to act as a go-between for the community and Canberra, said some clerics, including Sheik Omran, required "re-education" about their religion and advice on how to deliver sermons without encouraging "violence" or inciting young Muslims to extremism. "These (clerics) need some re-education about their own religion," Dr Ali said. "Not only in their subject matter, but how to communicate with youngsters; the language they use. "In these sermons, these imams are not questioned. They have the monopoly, they say whatever they like and they get out of it."

More here



Sad to see a great Australian go

Kerry Packer



Commentary here



Your government will protect you

It is difficult to say which is more moronic -- U.S. or Australian "security" precautions

For four years Ashwin Sharma was an illegal resident, a fugitive. But that did not stop the 27-year-old Indian from making a mockery of Australia's frontline security at Sydney Airport. What is troubling is that it was not difficult, and if Sharma could do it so can a criminal, a narcotics trafficker, a thief. Or a terrorist.

All Sharma had to do was outlay $1200 to get a false NSW Security Industry licence. It was, Sharma boasted, too easy. In Sharma's case, a forged replica of his originally legally obtained security licence, with an added false expiry date, got him a job as a guard at Sydney Airport, where a recent Federal Government commission recommended an overhaul of protection arrangements. He was a guard at Patrick Corporation's international freight depot. The security contractor is FBIS International Protective Services.

This should be enough to give nightmares to those responsible for the nation's security. But what is even more alarming is that these security agencies were warned about Sharma but did nothing. The Australian Federal Police were told twice that Sharma was an illegal resident, that he had a forged security licence and that he worked at Patrick freight terminal. They were told where he lived. Nothing happened. The same information was given twice to the Immigration Department. It, too, failed to act. Finally it was given twice to the NSW Police. They ignored it.

This happened when Australia was involved in a heated debate about proposed security laws, which culminated in the dramatic arrests of 16 alleged terrorists in Sydney and Melbourne. While the back door was being slammed shut, the front door was wide open.

More here



27 December, 2005

Brief notes

Comment from a Sydney reader: Today's Sydney Morning Herald presents a "map" of "intolerance" in Sydney. Interestingly the areas charted as the "most tolerant" have been those most successful at making their suburbs inaccessible by anyone from the Western [poorer] suburbs . For example Bondi, rated as "very tolerant", has a strong local "green" campaign opposing the logical extension of the Eastern Suburbs railway the mere kilometre or so from Bondi Junction to Bondi Beach. Such a move would actually make Australia's most famous beach accessible to people from across Sydney without the need to park up to a kilometre away to get there. Access is something the tolerant locals apparently don't want. And the "tolerant" inner city suburbs of Newtown and Paddington have more devious strategies for keeping the "riff raff" out. They use extreme "traffic calming" measures, including road closures and "mini-parks" to turn local street layouts into a maze that medieval fortress towns would envy. The snobbery and sheer prejudice inherent in this map is breathtaking.



The Australian Left is different: "Tax cuts for high-income earners and families will form the bedrock of a federal Labor tax plan designed to make Australia more competitive in the global labour market. Labor Treasury spokesman Wayne Swan has called for urgent reform to create a "flatter" tax system by cutting the number of marginal tax rates from four to three. In his most comprehensive blueprint yet for a redesign of the tax system, Mr Swan has also proposed stripping high-income earners of the tax-free allowance in return for lower marginal rates. His plans would also have more low-income earners pay no tax. In an essay, The Cutting Edge of Competitiveness, Mr Swan said his proposals would simplify the system and make Australia more competitive internationally".



Tyrannical (and job destroying) NSW occupational health & safety act: "If you think the proposed [Australian] sedition laws are tough, spare a thought for a piece of legislation that makes them look almost benign. Under this law, there is a presumption of guilt, the trial occurs before a tribunal and there is no appeal to a real court, and 96 per cent of those accused are found guilty. Plus the party bringing the case gets to keep half the fine. It's a package Philip Ruddock can only dream of. The law is the NSW Occupational Health and Safety Act 2000, under which hundreds of managers and companies are prosecuted every year".



Debate over homosexual marriage

Recognizing gay civil unions would undermine marriage and should be resisted by John Howard, say conservative Liberal backbenchers. Coalition MP David Fawcett, who has called for financial support from the Government for a quit-smoking-style campaign to stop marriage breakdown, said yesterday that recognising gay unions would undermine the family. Mr Fawcett has hit back at fellow Liberal backbenchers pushing for Australia to follow the UK and recognise civil unions for gay men and lesbians. The move is in defiance of the Prime Minister, who has ruled out recognising gay marriages.

The campaign is being led by Warren Entsch, who has the backing of Mal Washer, Judi Moylan and Petro Georgiou, among others. They argue that Australia is being "left behind" by refusing to legally recognise homosexual relationships.

But Mr Fawcett said the effective ban on gay marriage enacted before the federal election last year meant that any proposals for civil-style unions should be opposed. "We shouldn't be working in that direction. We need to value them as people, but I don't believe it's a necessity in terms of families in Australia to recognise them," he said. "I think we need to have some very clear incentives to support and encourage marriage and family - that is for the long-term benefit of Australia - and if we grant (gay people) status and privileges across the board, then there's no longer anything that's an incentive or an encouragement for people to work at a marriage," Mr Fawcett said. "That's why I think we should hold marriage and some of the benefits that go with it as a relationship form that we advocate."

While Labor also opposes gay marriage, key backbenchers and Labor frontbenchers including Tanya Plibersek and Lindsay Tanner have advocated a civil union-style scheme. Australian Coalition for Equality spokesman Rod Swift said same-sex couples in Australia had languished many years waiting for law reform. "We congratulate these Liberal backbenchers for supporting equal and just treatment for same-sex couples and their families," Mr Swift said.

Source



The cyclist menace

A comment from Sydney by Michael Duffy. Greenies love to criticise others for the indirect negative effects on the environment from car pollution etc., but don't bikes in high traffic areas also have an indirect effect in terms of congestion and indeed smog?

It's time to get bikes off our roads. As a mainstream form of transport, the bicycle has proved itself the equivalent of communism: a lovely idea that failed dismally in practice. Bikes are dangerous to ride and slow traffic, which creates more pollution. For the good of all of us, we need to ban the bike.

When Government started to encourage bike riding a few decades ago, it was like the balmy days after the Russian Revolution: the future looked golden. It was hoped that a significant proportion of all trips made in Sydney would soon be by bike. Where it all went wrong was that almost no one showed any enthusiasm to get on their bikes. Today, fewer than 1 per cent of all trips in Sydney are made by bike. The bike activists blame this on the paucity of bike lanes and tracks, but this is like Marxists excusing the failure of communism in the Soviet Union by blaming the nature of its regime. The sad truth is that in both cases a vanguard tried to impose a new form of behaviour on the populace and was rejected. The only difference is that the bike lobby hasn't accepted this.

Every week I travel 10 kilometres down a crowded, four-lane, inner-city road. Whenever it contains bikes, the traffic is frequently forced to slow to a crawl as drivers wait for a chance to pass them. This increases the pollution given off by the cars, as well as raising tempers all round. Many bike riders hog the centre of their lane, legally and perhaps wisely, but also slip between traffic when it stops. Where there are traffic lights, this means you can find yourself grinding along behind the same bike several times in the space of a journey. So thousands of cars are inconvenienced by two or three bikes, and the amount of greenhouse gas produced increases.

Bike riders tend to be unhappy and resentful people. They relish telling stories of narrow escapes from death at the hands of stupid car drivers. While glad the individuals involved survived, one has to wonder why they persist. We all know that significant proportions of the population are depressed, tense, on a vast range of attention-limiting prescription and non-prescription drugs, or like using their mobile phones while driving. For bike riders to launch into city traffic expecting everyone else to respond instantaneously to their unexpected appearance in the same lane, or when they flash through red lights at intersections, suggests a desire for self-harm. As does their preparedness to engage in sustained exercise where they breathe in large quantities of monoxide, with health consequences that can only be guessed at.

Possibly their thinking has been adversely affected by the smog. Consider some of the proposals the lobby group Bicycle NSW made at the last state election. These included "affirmative action" such as forcing people to stop driving by introducing parking restrictions and imposing a general urban speed limit of 50kmh for all of Sydney. Considering the tiny number of cyclists who would benefit from such a change, you wonder if the bike lobby is suffering from delusions of grandeur.

Given the threat bike riders pose to themselves and others, the big question is whether it is right to encourage them. Unfortunately, bike riding is one of those activities that has acquired an aura of virtue. Supporting it (with other people's money) is an easy way of demonstrating your moral stature. The new Westlink M7 has a 40-kilometre cycleway stretching from Prestons to Baulkham Hills. This was recommended in the tollway's environmental impact statement on the sole grounds (here quoting from the one-volume summary) that it "would improve cycling opportunities in the region". Now, almost no one rides bikes on roads in the western suburbs. According to a Westlink spokesman, there are not even any estimated usage figures for the new bike path. Very wise, that - but it makes you wonder just why building an unwanted 40-kilometre strip of concrete to be lit at night by coal-powered electricity should be considered environmentally beneficial. The Westlink spokesman refused to disclose how much the cycleway had added to the cost of the project - or to the toll that will be charged to road users.

Fortunately the State Government is less enthusiastic about spending its money on bike infrastructure and has recently halved such expenditure. But more needs to be done. A public campaign encouraging people not to ride bikes in traffic would be a responsible start.

More here



26 December, 2005

Christmas peace on Sydney beaches



Sydney's Bondi Beach was a sea of Santa hats and tinsel today as thousands of tourists and locals flocked to the beach for Christmas celebrations. People were met with beautiful clear skies and temperatures up to 28C [82 degrees F] at the city's most famous beach, which was strictly an alcohol-free zone. Even those forming part of the heavy police presence - there because of Sydney's recent racial unrest - seemed to get into the Christmas spirit, with one young constable agreeing to pull a Christmas cracker with a member of the public.

Christmas trees also dotted the world-famous icon, one accompanied by a large inflatable Santa. There appeared to be fewer people than previous years, perhaps due to the prohibition of alcohol. Some speculated it was the recent violence at North Cronulla beach in Sydney's south and Maroubra in the east that kept some people away. "Maybe people are scared to come after what happened," German tourist Andrea Jahnke said, adding that she wouldn't have missed seeing Bondi Beach on a Christmas Day for anything. "This is very different from what we would do at home and I have heard it was a lot of fun."

Up to 50,000 people were expected at Bondi Beach today with one lifeguard on duty for every 6000 swimmers.

More here



The expected bromides from an Anglican cleric

"His greatest desire was a boy in the choir....."

The head of the Australian Anglican Church used his Christmas message to condemn the recent racial violence in Sydney. National Anglican Primate Phillip Aspinall has called on "every Australian" to take responsibility [including Phil Aspinall?] for the violence displayed during the Cronulla Beach riots, which began on December 11.

Christmas 2005 was a challenge to the nation "to participate in a new beginning and a new kind of community", Dr Aspinall, the Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, said. His midnight service at St John's Cathedral in Brisbane last night challenged the "very way Australians define themselves" as he encouraged the community to get on with people "we don't know, love or like".

Being uncomfortable when faced with people, who are different seems natural "but becomes dangerous if these tensions are allowed to grow", Dr Aspinall told the packed congregation. "At the same time, no Australian must ever be expected to put up with criminal behaviour and must be given protection and relief by police and the courts," he said. ..... yada yada yada

More here

In case anybody is not familiar with the limerick I alluded to above (a limerick well known among the Anglican clergy, I believe), it goes as follows:

"There once was a vicar named Byngs

Who preached of love and such things

But his greatest desire

Was a boy in the choir

With a bum like jelly on springs"



Stupid school principal abuses himself out of a job

He is such a great brain that he is apparently unaware that only about 3% of Australians have convict ancestry. A lot more than that have Chinese ancestry in fact

The principal of a Melbourne private school has been forced to resign after he called Australia a "lovely little country full of convicts". Will Stanley handed in his resignation to the chief executive officer of the Meridian International School yesterday after his comments were reported in the Herald Sun. CEO Roo Oosthuizen said he accepted the resignation after Mr Stanley phoned him yesterday. "We don't condone what Will has said and because of what he said he resigned today," Mr Oosthuizen said. Mr Stanley's comments came as he defended his school's 2005 results - the worst in the state - and lamented the school's lack of government funding.

More here



25 December, 2005

I think this is a wonderful true story

The father of a jailed armed robber has spoken of his heartbreaking decision to dob in his son to Queensland police. Nerang building inspector Rob Hooper made the toughest decision of his life in June this year after reading of a string of armed hold-ups on the Gold Coast. Mr Hooper, 50, and his wife Cheryl suspected son, Greg, was responsible because he matched physical descriptions of the bandit. But it was the apologetic nature of the robber who repeatedly said: "I'm sorry" to the shopkeepers he was threatening with a kitchen knife that confirmed it. "That was his catchphrase," Mr Hooper told The Sunday Mail. "Whenever Greg did something wrong, it would be, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.' "It was bloody devastating for us. We rang the police station. It was certainly the toughest decision we've made so far in this life."

The 23-year-old turned to crime after losing his job through an injury, writing off his car and taking up gambling to pay debts. "We found out he was going to loan sharks. We sensed something was wrong but we couldn't get it out of him," Mr Hooper said. After reading reports of the so-called "hard times bandit", Mr Hooper said the clues added up and he knew he had to phone police. Greg was arrested on June 23, only hours after his father made the call.

Mr Hooper did not tell his son he had "ratted" when they met in a holding room at Burleigh Heads police station after his arrest. "That was shattering. We just broke down," Mr Hooper said. "Greg was very aggressive. He wanted to know who had dobbed to police. He wanted to find out, 'Who bloody did it?' " It took two weeks before Mr Hooper admitted the truth to his son during a visit at Brisbane's Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre. "I let it go before I told him, to see if he would settle down. I said, 'It was me who rang the police.' "We both broke down there in prison and I gave him a big hug."

Mr Hooper said he explained his actions to his son: "I did it because I love you. You could go into one of these shops and the owner blow off your head. It has to stop." Mr Hooper said Greg agreed. He also accepted his parents' decision not to support a bail application, opting for their son to stay in jail for five months until he pleaded guilty in court this month. Mr Hooper said he did not want his son "lazing around the pool at home" knowing he would go to jail.

"Greg was always a good kid but he was going through hard times," Mr Hooper said. "Deep down he was relieved to be caught. He knows right from wrong." Greg, who pleaded guilty to three counts of armed robbery and one of attempted armed robbery, was sentenced to three years' jail, suspended after six months. With time served, he is due for release on Friday - his family relieved to have him home for Christmas. They have paid his debts and Mr Hooper says their bond is as strong as ever. The pair plan a day's fishing with a few beers soon.

But Mr Hooper says: "If he does it again, it's a different ball game. I've told him that."

Source



Perils of multicultural education

If there is one positive thing to come out of the violence in Cronulla, it will be a long hard look at how schoolchildren are educated about Australian culture and what they are taught about their responsibilities as members of a civil society. Judged by the age of many of those involved in abusing women, the mob violence at Cronulla beach and the subsequent destruction of personal property, many would have been of school age during the 1980s and '90s. While Al Grassby and Gough Whitlam sowed the seeds, this was a time when governments under the leadership of Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating spent millions on the multicultural industry. With the support of left-liberal academics, teacher unions and curriculum writers, the prevailing orthodoxy uncritically promoted cultural diversity, denigrated or ignored Australia's mainstream Anglo-Celtic tradition and taught children that our society is riddled with racism, inequality and social injustice.

The national Studies of Society and Environment curriculum developed during the Keating years argued that children must be taught "an awareness of and pride in Australia's multicultural society" and "develop an understanding of Australia's cultural and linguistic diversity". The 1993 Australian Education Union's curriculum policy argued that children must be taught that they "are living in a multicultural and class-based society that is diverse and characterised by inequality and social conflict". Not only was the then academically based school curriculum, especially in subjects such as history and literature, condemned as Eurocentric, patriarchal and socially unjust, but examinations were seen as favouring rich, white kids and culturally biased against recent migrants.

Fast forward to more recent years and little has changed. The 1999 Australian Education Union policy on combating racism argues that government polices "are founded upon a legal system which is inherently racist in so much as its prime purpose is to serve the needs of the dominant Anglo-Australian culture". The AEU also states that racism in Australia is both overt and covert and that "both forms of racism are still widely practised in Australian society", especially as a result of the school curriculum supposedly being based on "the knowledge and values of the Anglo-Australian culture".

On reading curriculum documents developed during the '90s, once again, it becomes obvious that all adopt a politically correct approach to issues such as multiculturalism and how we define ourselves as a nation. Cultural diversity is uncritically celebrated and students are taught, in the words of the Queensland curriculum, to "deconstruct dominant views of society" on the basis that the Australian community is riven with "privilege and marginalisation".

In Western Australia, as evidenced by the Curriculum Framework document, students are told they must value "the perspective of different cultures" and "recognise the cultural mores that underpin groups and appreciate why these are valued and important".

The curriculum policy of the South Australian branch of the AEU is underpinned by "five core values". One of the underlying values is that there should be respect for diversity and "no discrimination on any grounds".

The contradictions and weaknesses evident in the way multiculturalism has been taught in schools are manifold. Tolerance, the rule of law and a commitment to the common good are the very values needed if people are to live peacefully together. Cultural relativism and an uncritical acceptance of diversity denies such values and leads to what Robert Hughes terms, in his book The Culture of Complaint, the balkanisation of society.

It's also the case that Australia's legal and political system, while imperfect, best safeguards such values. Instead of denigrating Australian society, students should be taught the benefits of our Anglo-Celtic culture: a culture strongly influenced by the Judeo-Christian tradition and from which our laws and morality have grown.

Much of the way history and politics is now taught also centres on the rights of the individual. Instead of emphasising responsibilities and giving allegiance to what we hold in common, individuals are free to define themselves how they will and to act as they wish. By defining Australian society as socially unjust and divisive there is also the danger of promoting a victim mentality. Whereas past generations felt part of a wider community and believed that hard work would be rewarded, recent generations see only inequality and their right to be supported.

Nobody should condone the violence in Cronulla perpetrated by those wearing the Australian flag or the actions of young Lebanese Muslims abusing women, destroying property and burning churches. But we also need to recognise that the PC approach to teaching multiculturalism in schools in part underpins the recent violence. As the American liberal historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr has argued: "The militants of ethnicity now contend that the main objective of public education should be the protection, strengthening, celebration and perpetuation of ethnic origins and identities. Separatism, however, nourishes prejudice, magnifies differences and stirs antagonisms."

Source



Australia - The Right to Leave

The following adaptation of a popular American post has been circulating by email in Australia recently. I reproduce it here as a point of view that is almost completely suppressed by the media. See also Prof. Andrew Fraser for a viewpoint on the Sydney Lebanese disturbances that you never hear in the media.

This is OUR Country - YOU Have the right - the right to leave! After Sydney not wanting to offend other cultures by putting up Xmas lights. After hearing that the State of South Australia changed its opinion and let a Muslim woman have her picture on her driver's license with her face covered. This prompted this editorial written by an Australian citizen, published in an Australian newspaper.

Quote:

IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take It Or Leave It !

I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians.

However, the dust from the attacks had barely settled when the "politically correct" crowd began complaining about the possibility that our patriotism was offending others. I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a better life by coming to Australia.

However, there are a few things that those who have recently come to our country, and apparently some born here, need to understand.

This idea of Australia being a multicultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity. As Australians, we have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle.

This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom.

We speak ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, Learn the language!

If the Southern Cross or the Union Jack offends you, or you don't like " A Fair Go", then you should seriously consider a move to another part of this planet.

We are happy with our culture and have no desire to change, And we really don't care how you did things where you came from. This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this.

But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom,

"THE RIGHT TO LEAVE"

If you aren't happy here then leave. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted. Pretty easy really, when you think about it.



24 December, 2005

Was I right or was I right?

I said yesterday that the unidentified flag burners would not have been Anglo-Australians:

A man who is accused of trying to "get revenge" for the Cronulla riots by burning the Australian flag was refused bail yesterday, as more men fronted Sydney courts over the December 11 violence. Hadi Khawaja, 24, is charged over an incident in Bay St, Brighton-le-Sands in Sydney, in which he and a youth allegedly burned two flags, one belonging to the Brighton RSL. Police told the court Khawaja "to some degree has incited" the youth, 17, to take part in the act. Khawaja was charged with entering a building with intent to commit an indictable offence and destroying property by fire.

Sutherland Local Court heard Khawaja and his co-accused joined a group of about 150 men of Middle Eastern descent on Bay St on December 11. After attempting to burn a small plastic flag, the pair allegedly discussed burning a larger one atop the RSL club. Khawaja is alleged to have said: "Look, there's a bigger flag. How about burning it?" He later told police the youth "climbs like a monkey [and] we just thought it would be good to burn it. The crowd was right up".

More here



Aint it great to be black? Just 18 months jail for the anal rape of a child

Pity if you're the child concerned though. Political correctness is very strange indeed in deciding to whom it extends its special favours

An Aborigine's jail term has been lifted on appeal to 18 months for having sex with his 14-year-old promised wife. The case has flamed debate about the role of customary Aboriginal law in the wider Australian legal system, as the traditional Aboriginal man believed his actions were allowed under tribal law. The man - who speaks English as his fourth language and lives in the remote NT outback - also did not know his actions were illegal under NT laws. The Northern Territory Court of Appeal today found the 55-year-old's earlier sentence was "manifestly inadequate".

The court had heard the girl was promised to the man - who cannot be named for legal reasons - when she was just four. He became angry after she struck up a friendship with a young man in June last year, during her school holidays. Believing the girl had a sexual relationship with the boy, the man beat her with a boomerang at the outback Aboriginal community, south-west of Katherine. He later took her to his remote outstation - where he lived with his wife and young children - threatened her with a boomerang and had anal sex with her. The child later told police: "I told that old man I'm too young for sex, but he didn't listen".

The man believed that intercourse with the girl was acceptable because she had been promised to him and had turned 14, the court heard. In August, the man pleaded guilty to a charge of aggravated assault and a charge of carnal knowledge. At the time Chief Justice Brian Martin imposed a total two-year sentence, but suspended it after one month.

The Director of Public Prosecutions appealed the leniency of the sentence, and the Court of Appeal today imposed a total sentence of three years and 11 months, suspended after 18 months. In handing down the court's ruling, Justice Dean Mildren issued a stern warning that violence would not be tolerated by the courts. "The courts view very seriously and will not tolerate violence by Aboriginal men upon Aboriginal women or children, whether that violence is tolerated by Aboriginal law or not," Justice Mildren said. He said it was important Aboriginal people know sexual intercourse with a child under 16 was a serious offence. "The fact that the child has been promised in marriage according to Aboriginal customary law does not excuse such offending," he said. However, he said it was important to remember the man was not charged with rape.

Justice Mildren said the law had stopped short of making promised marriages illegal. "(But) such marriages cannot be consummated until the promised wife has turned 16," he said. "Plainly the purpose of (the law)... is to give Aboriginal girls some freedom of choice as to whether or not they want to enter into such a marriage, and to thereby empower them to pursue ... employment opportunities or further education rather than be pushed into pregnancy or traditional domesticity prematurely."

Source



Wow! An informative description of wanted criminals! What next?

It can't last

Two workers have been robbed at knifepoint in a restaurant hold-up in Sydney's southwest. About 10pm (AEDT) yesterday two men placed a food order before jumping the counter at a restaurant on the Hume Highway, Fairfield, police said. One man grabbed a 24-year-old employee and held a knife to his throat, demanding money, while the second grabbed another employee, 19. They made off through a window with a sum of cash from the register and were last seen travelling west on the Hume Highway. No one was injured.

The pair are described as being of Middle Eastern appearance, about 20 years of age, of medium build. One was wearing black tracksuit pants, a red jacket and was carrying a kitchen knife, while the second was wearing a white jacket. Anyone with information is urged to contact Bankstown police.

Source



Sunday silliness

I have lifted this post from Evil Pundit of last weekend

The much-heralded "Unite Against Racism" rally was held today in Sydney, and as predicted, it turned out to be the usual far-left crowd protesting against the usual scapegoats. According to AAP it was attended by 1,000 people, although a more optimistic ABC report claims there were 2,000 protesters -- either way, it was a small turnout compared to the 5,000 who rallied on Cronulla beach one week earlier.

Perhaps the general public was deterred from attending by the extremely partisan and hate-filled atmosphere of the left-wing rally. It's easy to see why some Anglo-Australians might hesitate to endorse a movement that scapegoats them alone, while excusing the Lebanese-Australian gangsters who were responsible for most of the last week's violence.

Some early photos of the rally were posted on the FightDemBack site, as well as on the ABC. I've put together a few highlights.

"Don't call us un-Australian."



In addition to The Greens, other political no-hopers showed up for the occasion.



Factions included the soon-to-be-ex-National Union of Students, socialist youth group Resistance, the Australian Democrats, and, in a surprise return from the dead, the Communist Party of Australia. One of the banners read "Howard is the Enemy Within" ... which pretty much sums up the purpose of the whole futile exercise, a feelgood parade for those left behind by history.



Students attack university journalism course

Scores of dissatisfied and angry students in the University of Queensland's journalism course have attacked the quality and standards of their program, according to a report in The Australian newspaper. The complaints are from both local and international students. UQ once laid claim to having the best journalism school in Australia, but standards appear to have plummeted since the former Department of Journalism was forced into a bitterly-opposed amalgamation with communication studies and public relations. It resulted in the departure of most senior journalism staff including the head of department and foundation professor, as well as revised courses and fewer practical assignments. The students have expressed their views on a dedicated blogspot site.

Meanwhile, the former Head of the UQ journalism school has struck out on his own and founded a private and now fully accredited Jschool of his own which is having great success at turning out students who are recognized for their skills. See here. Private enterprise beats insane bureaucracy again. Why the UQ powers that be decided they wanted to merge different departments into one super-Department remains something of a mystery. Some old-fashioned "big is better" thinking, apparently. The "small is beautiful" idea has been around for a long time now but has apparently not as yet reached the bureaucratized dinosaurs running UQ. If "big is better", how come General Motors is now on the verge of bankruptcy?



Outrageous Greenie hit on the taxpayers' pockets

Badly needed new road obstructed all the way

Queensland taxpayers will be forced to pay an extra $150 million for the Gold Coast Tugun bypass to protect endangered plants and animals, including a rare frog. Tough new conditions imposed by the NSW Government led to the huge extra cost. The 50 conditions and rising construction prices mean the cost of the bypass will rise from $360 million to as much as $510 million.

But the NSW Government has flatly refused to help fund the increased cost, despite Queensland Premier Peter Beattie blaming it for part of the cost blowout. But Mr Beattie vowed to push ahead with the road and said extra money would be borrowed if necessary to ensure work started in March. He joined NSW Premier Morris Iemma at Tweed Heads yesterday to announce NSW Government planning approval for the long-awaited road, which should halt the area's infamous gridlock.

The approval ends 18 months of interstate wrangling over the bypass, first proposed eight years ago. Only about 2km of the 7km bypass route is in NSW but the Iemma Government will own the road and Queensland taxpayers will have to foot the maintenance bill for the first 10 years.

Two years ago, the NSW Government blocked the so-called C4 bypass route because of fears for orchids, potoroos and the endangered wallum sedge frog.

Mr Iemma said yesterday his Government had given the bypass planning approval but with 50 "stringent environmental controls". They include building tunnels for endangered mammals and frogs, the preservation of an 80ha site to conserve threatened species including the common planigale native mouse and a cultural heritage management plan to protect ancient Aboriginal sites. There will also be a network of drains to allow unhindered groundwater movement. Mr Iemma defended the conditions as necessary to protect the area's "ecological and cultural heritage".

More here



23 December, 2005

Two charged over riot flag burning

The suburbs mentioned are not noted for their Lebanese presence but if these had been Anglo-Australians, it would have been mentioned in some way.

Arrests continue to mount in the wake of the December 11 race riot in Cronulla and ensuing violence, including the charging of two males with burning an Australian flag taken from an RSL club. A 17-year-old male, from Hurstville, allegedly climbed a telegraph pole and stole a flag from the Brighton-le-Sands RSL club about 8.30pm (AEDT) on Sunday, December 11. Police say the flag was then sprayed with accelerant and set alight. A 24-year-old man from Penshurst was also charged over the incident.

The two were charged with one count each of entering a building with the intent of committing an indictable offence and malicious damage by fire. The 17-year-old is due to appear today at Bidura Children's Court and the 24-year-old is set to appear at Sutherland Local Court. Another 17-year-old is also due in Bidura Children's Court today charged over a violent attack aboard a train on December 11.

More here



Public kissing still allowed in Queensland

Queensland's corruption watchdog has thrown out a sexual harassment complaint made against the state's top cop over a kiss on the cheek. The Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) today confirmed it was no longer investigating the complaint, which was made by the wife of a police inspector disciplined for sexual misconduct. The woman alleged Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson sexually harassed her when he greeted her with a kiss on the cheek at a Police Youth Club function last month. A CMC spokeswoman said the body had assessed the complaint, which was received on November 7. But she said it was not intending to take the matter further. "It doesn't raise a suspicion of official misconduct and police misconduct," she said.

Premier Peter Beattie today defended his police commissioner as a decent man and described the complaint as "silly". "I think it's just a nonsense," he said. "A peck on the cheek for many people is not an unreasonable thing." Mr Beattie said he was regularly kissed on the cheek - and kissed others on the cheek in his role as a public figure - and did not regard it as sexual harassment. "I went to a function last night at one of our major corporate bodies and I must have kissed or been kissed by 10 or 15 .... women at the function," he said. And he urged Queenslanders not to be overly sensitive about such affectionate greetings.

"I have a lot of faith in Bob Atkinson and I think he's a very decent man, and I think we have to be a bit careful about not being too politically correct and too sensitive about these things," he said. "If that's the case, quite a lot of people could be charged with sexual harassment."

Source



Arrogant bastards interfering in a personal decision finally defeated

A 36-year-old woman has won a seven-year legal battle to use her dead husband's sperm to get pregnant. The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal today gave the woman permission to use the sperm as part of IVF treatment in NSW.

The woman, referred to as YZ, was living with her husband in the ACT when he died in a car accident in Victoria in July 1998. She successfully won a court order to extract and freeze a sperm sample from her husband the day after the fatal accident. The woman then fought to use the sperm to get pregnant using IVF treatment, but lost a Supreme Court battle earlier this year after Attorney-General Rob Hulls opposed the request. Justice Kim Hargrave ruled that YZ's request was prohibited by the state's IVF laws.

A subsequent bid to have the procedure done in the ACT failed when the territory's IVF authority rejected her request. But after discovering the procedure was allowed in NSW, YZ went to VCAT seeking permission to take the frozen sperm sample interstate. Following a hearing last month, Justice Stuart Morris today granted permission for the sperm to be transported to Sydney to allow the woman to begin IVF treatment. In his ruling, Justice Morris said the matter did "not involve questions about the legality of proposed conduct, but about the scope, nature and exercise of a discretion to permit the sperm to be taken to another state of Australia to enable its use".

The tribunal was told that YZ wanted to have children, but did not want to begin another relationship, and preferred not to use an anonymous sperm donation. "She wishes to have a child, or children, using her late husband's sperm as she regards him as her life partner and wants him to be the genetic father of her children," Justice Morris said. "I do not find this to be a case where the applicant is motivated by grief. Although the decision she has made will not be the decision of most widows, many widows would choose to move on and find a new partner I accept that her decision is rational and genuine." Justice Morris said it was important that the family of the dead man referred to as XZ support YZ's bid to have his children. He said it did not matter that any child born using the treatment would not have a living father. "It is trite to observe that many children born naturally do not have a father or a loving father, yet still live long and happy lives." "In my opinion, the fact that any child born as a result of the export of the sperm the subject to this proceeding will not have a father or will be conceived from the sperm of a man who is dead is not of major consequence."

The woman will now be able to begin IVF treatment in NSW, but must inform Victoria's Infertility Treatment Authority should she give birth.

Source



Boys' education funds unveiled

Feminize education and then throw money at the problems that creates: Brilliant!

More than 800 schools across Australia will receive Federal Government funding to target the education of boys in an effort to bridge the gap with girls. Education Minister Brendan Nelson said 801 schools would receive grants in round one of the Government's $19.4 million Success for Boys program. Dr Nelson said the first round of funding would result in 235 individual schools and 113 school clusters receiving grants of between $10,000 and $80,000 to help them improve the way they work with boys.

The program aimed to support boys at risk of disengaging from school, and improve their learning outcomes and engagement in school, he said. Three key intervention areas of benefit to boys will be addressed by schools - giving boys opportunities to benefit from positive male role models and mentors, improving literacy teaching and assessment and using information and communication technology to engage boys in learning. "It is imperative that nothing is done which undermines the important and necessary progress made in the last 20 years in the education of girls," Dr Nelson said. "However, the evidence is overwhelming that boys are falling behind in our education system. Many boys enjoy school and are successful in their studies. However, it is of concern that many others are under-performing in a range of key educational areas and broader social indicators. We know that boys are underperforming in literacy, are less engaged with school, and overwhelmingly outnumber girls in disciplinary issues."

Since 2003, the Federal Government has committed more than $27 million to improve boys' educational and social outcomes, he said.

Source



22 December, 2005

Cronulla is quiet again. Those intent on exploiting it are not

Below is today's (Thursday) editorial in "The Australian" newspaper, a Murdoch-owned broadsheet with a nationwide circulation. The heading to the editorial is "The racism furphy". "Furphy" is Australian for a tall tale or an invention of the imagination

Obsessive Howard-haters and publicity-hungry expats have been keen to exploit the Cronulla unrest for their own ends. The lawbreaking in Sydney's south, they have informed us and the world, is a manifestation of the deeply embedded racism in the Australian psyche. This racism, historically enshrined in the White Australia policy, has been reinvigorated by John Howard as part of his campaign to conscript blue-collar voters to the Liberal cause. As a result, racism is on the upswing, while support for multicultural tolerance is waning. In the aftermath of Hansonism and now Cronulla, this has sullied our image in the region and the world. We will pay a heavy price for giving the racist hordes the "dog whistle", and only a hefty increase in spending on multicultural affairs can drag us back from the brink. There has even been a partial echo of this view from the anti-multicultural Right, with some using the riot to claim vindication for their longstanding argument that the tolerance of Australians for a multi-ethnic, multiracial society is stretched beyond breaking point.

The only problem with this dire picture is that it is supported neither by the facts nor by the polling on which it relies. A poll in The Sydney Morning Herald was headlined "Voters disagree with PM on racism" and showed three in four respondents parting ways with Mr Howard's view that there is little "underlying racism" in Australia. But as our Newspoll this morning shows, when people are asked a more pointed question - "Do you agree that Australians are racist?" - the proportion plummets to well under half. True, today's Newspoll does indicate an increase in those opposed to multiculturalism, from nearly one in six in 1997 to nearly one in four today. But in the first place, there was bound to be some slippage in support, following events such as the racially motivated Sydney pack rapes in 2000, Labor's perpetual ethnic branch-stacking scandal and - above all - 9/11. Moreover, asking people what they think about multiculturalism is a bit like asking them what they think about public-private partnerships in infrastructure: most don't think about it at all. If ordinary people are unhappy about anything, it is the nation-of-tribes vision propounded by the ethnic essentialists in the multiculturalism industry. A vision of different groups rubbing along happily together in a tolerant, "melting pot" society, which is what multiculturalism should mean, would draw very wide public support.

How do we know? Partly because the big story about race, immigration and the Howard Government is not the story told by the Left, which is dominated by big chapters on Hansonism and the Tampa, with appendices on Vivian Alvarez and Cornelia Rau. The real story is of a massive immigration program, now approaching 140,000 newcomers annually, plus another 14,000 under the humanitarian and refugee rubric. And this acceleration has occurred without any visible sign of public disquiet or backlash, apart from the rumble on the sands at Cronulla, which had much more to do with a clash of ill-bred and lawless young males.

Moreover, confounding Germaine Greer's prediction of "a bloody summer in Australia", Sydney's southern beaches have calmed down nicely. Blanket policing has been a success, and on Tuesday NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney urged Sydneysiders to go back to the beach. Perhaps the real sociological point in all this is that, for many baby-boomers finding themselves in a post-theological world, anti-racism has become the new religion. In fact, there is a degree of racism in every society, and in every human being: to make one's mission the eradication of this ingrained element is an exercise in fanaticism. But the great corrective to the "deep underlying racism" view is a postwar record in immigration that remains the defining achievement of Australia in our time. Even now, a quarter of Australians were born overseas. Far from having anything of which to be ashamed in our treatment of immigrants, we have every reason to be proud.



A Galah

It is a matter of some sadness to me that I cannot use my native Australian slang on this blog. The Australian working-class speech I grew up with is very vivid and I use Australian expressions a lot among friends and family but it just would not be understood internationally. One word that I often regret being unable to use is "galah". Lots of Leftists are just galahs. So to help educate the rest of the world, I have put up below a story that gives you an example of what a galah is. A galah is actually an Australian parrot that often does foolish things but there are many human galahs in Australia too. The man described below is definitely a galah.





The Australian Left try to boost themselves by denigrating Australia

They just hate ordinary happy-go-lucky Australians

To say that the Australian Left has a conflicted relationship with Australia is like saying that a heartburn sufferer has a conflicted relationship with spicy Thai curry: they may claim to love it, but put the two together and all you'll get is a lot of whingeing and hot air.

This tense relationship -- which is akin to teenagers who enjoy all the comforts of living at home while complaining that mum and dad are so tragically unhip -- is always simmering in the background of Australia's cultural life. But it boiled over in the wake of the Cronulla beach riot.

Because just as sullen teenagers try to prove how sophisticated they are by vilifying their parents at every turn, the Australian Left is doing its best to maintain its own social standing by rubbishing the country in that international high school known as "the court of world opinion" -- where the arbiters of cool are a handful of elite editorialists and academics and others who accumulate frequent flier points with taxpayer money.

Thus when tensions in Sutherland Shire exploded a week ago, producing images of Anglo-Australian locals battering hapless dark-skinned beachgoers, it was an ideal opportunity for left-wing media and academic elites to jump up and down and scream, "Hey! Look how awful we are!" to the rest of the world, while simultaneously and quite publicly fretting about how poor our overseas reputation was becoming as a result.

Never mind the pesky matter of the ongoing days of revenge attacks, which saw everything from cars to carols services attacked by gingerly referenced "young men of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean appearance": the Australian Left wanted the rest of the world to know that there was only one predictably pale culprit. "Australian racism derives from the same bottomless source as British racism -- from universal ignorance and working-class frustration, reinforced by an unshakeable conviction of British superiority over all other nations on earth, especially the swarthy ones.

"If Australia had been colonised by any other nation but the British, it would be less racist," chided Germaine Greer -- that perpetual teenager (and honorary Aborigine, as she never tires of repeating) who moved out of the house long ago but still comes back every now and then to get her laundry done -- in the pages of The Guardian in Britain last week.

Meanwhile, another Australian expat, Philip Knightley, sang a similar tune in Britain's The Independent: "The riots on Sydney's beaches -- Anglo-Australians ('Aussies') v Lebanese ('Lebs') -- have repercussions far beyond a drink-fuelled punch-up on a sweltering summer weekend. They have revealed that the 'lucky country's' historic racism lingers on, like a sun cancer, just below the skin."

This cycle of self-loathing was perpetuated on the front pages of The Age in Melbourne and The Sydney Morning Herald, which approvingly quoted everyone from Kevin Rudd ("Blind Freddy can tell you this is having an impact on Australia's international standing") to Queensland Premier Peter Beattie ("I think most Australians will be embarrassed by what's happened. It really is a blight on our international reputation"). The Age even went so far in an editorial as to put Cronulla at the end of a long string of supposedly reputation-damaging Australian events that included everything from Pauline Hanson's rise to the Ivan Milat serial killings. To hear The Age tell it, foreigners look at these various news items and cancel their once-in-a-lifetime holidays or rewrite their business's global expansion plans, rather than shrugging them off, saying, "oh, they've got serial killers and crazy politicians in Australia, too".

But sadly for Australian progressives who were hoping that Cronulla would give them their big moment at centre stage, the rest of the world didn't really pick up on the story. As of this writing, there were only five editorial or opinion page articles in major foreign newspapers about Sydney's violent culture clash, and three of them were written by disgruntled Australians! To put it another way, whenever bushfires break out anywhere in Australia, I receive concerned emails from friends and relatives in the US worried that my inner-suburban semi might be under threat. Yet not one of them has asked me about the riots. It just isn't on their radar.

One of the more ludicrous attempts to push the "racist Australia" angle turned up on the opinion page of Saturday's The New York Times, the holy-of-holies of enlightened thinking for the bien pensant class. There Eva Sallis, an Adelaide-based writer and professional activist, portrayed Australia as more backwards than 1955 Mississippi while steadfastly ignoring any possibility of Lebanese Muslim dysfunction that wasn't caused by white people. Fortunately, with its declining circulation and routine newsroom scandals, no one takes the The New York Times all that seriously any more; that they published Sallis's piece at all is proof that judgment is sound.

Make no mistake: what happened on Cronulla a week ago was a disgrace. But the fantasy that Australia is anywhere close to becoming an international pariah as a result is just that, the product of fevered imaginations. This year's Anhold-GMI Nation Brands Index found that Australia was the world's most highly regarded country on a host of scores, even with our Milats and our Hansons (to say nothing of our Greers and Knightleys). Despite the best efforts of the sullen teens of the Left who live in our political landscape, the rest of the world will go on thinking Australians are fine people, thank you very much.

Source



Melbourne City Council shenanigans

Municipal crookedness and corruption is an old tradition in Australia but one Australian council does seem to have an active watchdog in the form of a blogger. See the blog Melbourne City Council if you have an interest in Melbourne. I like Melbourne -- great restaurants -- but it needs to be transported a couple of thousand miles North climate-wise. And you aint seen nothing until you have seen the Melbourne ladies in their hats. Sydney people however claim (pace Samuel Johnson) that there are only two good things about Melbourne -- the beer and the road to Sydney. They also gleefully quote something the founder of Melbourne said: "a good place for a village".



University admission standards low

Students are gaining entry to university despite failing Year 12, prompting a warning from Federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson that academic standards are "unacceptably low". A new Department of Education website shows for the first time the minimum academic scores for every undergraduate course in the country. The site, www.goingtouni.gov.au shows that students secured places at the Royal Melbourne Institute's Bachelor of Applied Science course this year with a minimum entry score of 48 if they were prepared to pay $15,600 a year for a full-fee degree course.

Dr Nelson yesterday urged vice-chancellors to review their entry standards after warning that some students "shouldn't be at university". Describing the university entrance score as a "black science", he said some students with entrance scores in the low 50s had told him privately their raw score for Year 12 results was in the mid-30s. Their results were "scaled up" as part of the process to arrive at a Tertiary Entrance Rank or Universities Admission Index.

University chiefs confirmed that some students had gained entry on even lower scores, through special entry schemes which take into account disadvantage and illness. Dozens of university courses have a cut-off score of below 55, including Central Queensland University's Bachelor of Arts at Bundaberg, the Bachelor of Business at Gladstone and the University of Adelaide's Diploma in Wine Marketing. Nursing degrees had a minimum entry score of just 53.5 at the University of Ballarat, and 55 at James Cook University. While students require 99 or above to secure a place in law at the University of Sydney, the cut-off score at Charles Darwin University in the Northern Territory is just 60.

The figures reveal students can cut 10 points or more from the score they require to gain entry to their preferred course if they are prepared to pay up to $200,000 for a degree.

Dr Nelson forced universities to publish the information as a requirement of the 2003 changes allowing universities to increase HECS charges and lift the price cap on full-fee degrees. "It is obvious we will still see in 2006 a significant number of people going into university who should not be," Dr Nelson told The Australian. "I think universities accepting students with tertiary entry scores in the mid-50s or less need to seriously think about standards," he said. "The black science which is the ultimate enter score ... is such that those students who are getting UAIs of 55 actually have raw scores in the 30s."

Dr Nelson signalled that he was prepared to consider an overhaul of university funding to allow greater flexibility. Currently, a "use it or lose it" rule applies to university student places, forcing vice-chancellors to lower the entry standards for courses or hand the places back to the commonwealth. "We're basically rewarding universities for filling every place irrespective of the standard of the applicant, and we effectively penalise those that hand places back," Dr Nelson said. "It goes without saying that the lower the tertiary entrance result the less likely it is that the student is going to be academically equipped for the academic program."

At Deakin University, students could secure entry to a Bachelor of Arts course with an entry score of 51. The University of NSW required a score of 99 or above for HECS students wishing to study law, but only 94 for students prepared to pay for a full-fee degree costing $19,000 a year or $100,000 for a degree. The gap between the cost of a taxpayer-supported HECS degree and a full-fee degree for students who miss out on marks is shrinking. For example, at the University of Tasmania students can study law at a cost of $6000 a year for a HECS degree, which can be paid back after graduation.

Melbourne University deputy vice-chancellor Peter McPhee said the critical issue when setting entry scores was the demand for places. High-demand courses such as law and medicine attracted a higher score simply there were so many applicants. "The cut-off score is really about who gets an offer of a HECS place," he said. However, he stressed that students who failed to secure 50per cent or more in Year 12 were not told they had failed. "They're not told they failed Year 12, they just get a score," Dr McPhee said. "That's not the language they use. They say the person has completed Year 12."

Source



21 December, 2005

Some sign of spine in Sydney today



A man arrested during a police crackdown on race-related violence has had his bail revoked by a Sydney court. Parham Esmailpour, 19, of Carlingford in Sydney's north-west, faced Waverley Local Court today charged with affray and possessing an offensive weapon with intent to commit an offence. Mr Esmailpour and his co-accused, 18-year-old Melbourne resident Amir Ali Osmanagic, were allegedly carrying two bottles of petrol when police arrested them on a bus bound for Bondi on Sunday. After the December 11 race-fuelled riot in Cronulla and retaliatory violence in other Sydney suburbs, police had locked down the Bondi area as part of their plan to deal with further unrest.

Magistrate Lee Gilmour granted Mr Esmailpour bail when he first appeared at Waverley court on Monday but it was today revoked by Deputy Chief Magistrate Helen Syme. Prosecutors had sought a review of his bail following legislative amendments rushed through State Parliament last week. The new laws remove the presumption in favour of bail for the crimes of riot and affray. In revoking Mr Esmailpour's bail, Ms Syme noted that he had been caught by the new laws. She said public safety was paramount and that Mr Esmailpour's explanation to police that he intended to sniff the petrol on the beach seemed "far fetched". "In light of the lockdown ... requisite regard must be given to due public safety," Ms Syme said.

Source



Bondi beach (Sydney) in happier times



Sinterklaas, the Dutch Santa Claus, makes an appearance at Bondi Beach. A tradition celebrated on December 5 each year, Sinterklaas is accompanied by his helper Zwarte Piet who puts naughty children in his large bag to teach them a lesson.



Australia's Muslim problem comes mainly from lower-class Lebanese

(An article below by Dr Tanveer Ahmed, a medical doctor and journalist and also a comedian! He appears to be of Bangladeshi Muslim origins. In what he says below, Dr Ahmed is correct in that Lebanese Christians have for over a century integrated exceptionally well into Australian society and in that many Muslim groups have given no particular problems. He omits to mention however that there have been big problems with Pakistani gang rapists who target and despise Anglo-Australian women)



"As the wave of violence spreads from the Cronulla chaos, we must resist efforts from our leaders, the Prime Minister included, to downplay the social significance of the events. It is impossible to deny the significance of race this time, as the Left did after the gang rapes in 2002 or when the Lakemba police station was attacked in 1999. For once people were able to say the word Lebs in polite, bourgeois circles. The word now rings loudly in mainstream Australia. It can take its place in the global vernacular of racial marginalisation, along with Paki in the United Kingdom and nigger in the United States.

While the immediate cause of the riots may have been heat, alcohol and a territorial stoush between two groups of hyper-masculine but socially powerless youth, it was still the outward eruption of a simmering problem. The behaviour of some of the drunken louts was a national disgrace. There is no argument there. But, there is a Lebanese problem. It is not an Arab problem, nor is it really a Muslim one.

The Lebanese community come from many shades and migrated from all social classes. There are more than a few outstanding citizens like the NSW Governor Marie Bashir or the Victorian Premier Steve Bracks, Their contribution to Australian life has been great. In fact, it is a fairly specific segment of the Lebanese community and a result of the particular migration of poorer farmers and lower class Lebanese Muslims after the civil war in 1975. Their numbers and concentration are greatest in south-western Sydney. There is a rampant anti-social character to some of the youth from this segment which stems from unsuccessful child rearing.

They quickly had large families. The fathers were often absent while they worked multiple, unskilled jobs trying to provide. The mothers lacked the extended family support they may have had at home. Parenting was often focused on the daughters, for in the world the mothers knew women needed more discipline and attention if opportunity and marriage was to beckon. The men were often placed upon a pedestal and few behavioural limits were set. A relatively absent father in many families compounded the problems. There are bad kids from all walks of life, but this group is producing a disproportionately higher number.

It is obvious to anyone who has worked in public education, the health sector or the police in south-western Sydney. I have seen it working in hospitals where children as young as five regularly abuse and swear at staff with minimal retribution from parents. In mental health, young Lebanese boys make up a disproportionate number of those who present in a drug induced or chaotic, violent state. Once the possibility of a psychiatric disorder is ruled out, the patients are inevitably referred to the police. An experienced detective like Tim Priest has said as much for a number of years.

Janet Albrechtsen's column in The Australian (December 14, 2005) quoted a young professional woman who has seen the anti-social behaviour for a long time in her area. Anyone who socialises in nocturnal Sydney has seen as much. The problem has to do with religion in that the lower classes in Lebanon were more likely to have been Muslim.

The more worrying link with religion is the attitude towards Western women. A decent Muslim would undoubtedly be taught to respect women in all their varieties. But all families teach a brand of womanhood, and it's imparted primarily from mothers and enforced by fathers. If a person is taught that a good woman acts and dresses modestly, it is plausible for them to deduce that a bad woman may dress in a revealing manner. This is particularly true if the young adults are already on an anti-social trajectory. The repeated insults during revenge attacks on innocent women along the lines of "Aussie slut" are particularly worrying and strike a chord with the gang rapes in 2002.

Muslim youth do have unique difficulties in coming to terms with their identity, especially when they have conflicting value systems at home compared with school or work. This can produce greater deviance or psychiatric disorder, a point better measured in Britain where South Asian youth [of Muslim origin] have a three times higher rate of mental illness. But there are other Muslim youth from many different countries living in Sydney. Other Arab Australians from Egypt, Jordan, Iran or Syria do not have the same problem. If you meet them, they will be quick to point that their community's migration was from a more skilled base. They had smaller families, focused on their children's education and integrated more easily.

It is difficult to place blame on communities that wanted nothing but the best for their children. They are certainly not evil. But it is time to acknowledge that there has been a real failure in specific sections the Sydney Lebanese population. Only then will we have a better chance at helping them. Otherwise the word Leb will leave an even greater linguistic stain in the future".



A challenge to Victoria's "anti-vilification" laws

The email below was sent by Joe Cambria to the Chief Executive Officer of the Equal Opportunity Commission of Victoria

Dear Ms. Szoke:

I have just read a piece in Brookesnews.com referring to the racial vilification laws as the Bracks blasphemy laws. The writer, Mr. Gerry Jackson, makes reference to the case your office brought against the two Christian ministers and the "aggressive" way in which your office persecuted these two men. The pastors were, as we are told, simply quoting passages from the Koran and then asking the congregation to "pray and love all Muslims".

This has a certain smell about it, Ms Szoke, reminding many of us of what used happen in Star Chamber proceedings in earlier times in England when people were prosecuted in secret trials for speaking up against the Crown.

I believe Mr. Jackson has thrown down the gauntlet with this piece. He describes himself as an active liberal party member daring your office to prosecute him. Mr. Jackson is portraying the Islamic Prophet as a vile person. I don't believe your office can avoid prosecuting Mr. Jackson judging from what he wrote in this article, which has been posted on the web.

Ms. Szoke, if I can please make an observation? If you fail to go after Mr. Jackson, the legal attack against the two pastors becomes obviously selective and capricious, smacking of opportunism. If you move to prosecute Mr. Jackson, the political position you place the State Government in could have adverse political consequences. After all, going after a Liberal Party member who writes a piece and then publishing it on the web that directly flies in the face of the blasphemy laws will simply look like a Stalinist prosecution.

I am sure that, as a matter of courtesy, Mr. Jackson will be notifying the pastors' legal representatives about his article written in Melbourne and therefore violating the Bracks Blasphemy laws. He will, I'm sure also notify these representatives of your failure to act if you fail to bring action.

As you can see, prosecuting a Liberal Party member will smack of Stalinism. However failing to act will immediately jeopardize the current ongoing case.

I am also copying this email to several people including the leader of the opposition, the Prime Minister and several journalists to ensure this correspondence receives the proper attention. See here for the article in question.



Multicultural Christmas waning in Australia?

Sydney Mayor Clover Moore learned her lesson. Last year, Ms Moore decided to put a limit on Christmas decorations around the city, allegedly out of sensitivity to multiculturalism. She was on the receiving end of a highly non-festive barrage of criticism, including from John Howard, who branded her decision "political correctness from central casting". This year, you can hardly move in Sydney for trees, fairy-lights and Santas. But Ms Moore is not the only pollie who finds it convenient to cosy up to the fat guy in the red suit. Victorian Premier Steve Bracks has called for the Christian symbolism to be put back into Christmas, including in schools, and Mr Howard was back on his favourite silly-season turf yesterday, calling for department stores to bring back nativity scenes.

It's all fairly shameless posturing, but it has a point: Christmas is Christmas, which is not quite the same thing as the "holiday season". And what Christmas means to Christians -- who still number over half the Australian population -- is the celebration of the birth of their Saviour. The real point about the effort to drain Christmas of religious content, supposedly in the name of multiculturalism, is that it does not originate from any religious or ethnic minority. Like "critical literacy", the sanitised Christmas seems largely the creation of social engineers and education bureaucrats. When this same debate surfaced last year, Waleed Aly from the Islamic Council of Victoria said it all in The Australian: banishing the Christianity in Christmas, he wrote, is not multiculturalism at all -- "it is anti-culturalism". All faiths are welcome here, but the Christian story, and the values it reflects, have a special and immutable place in our tradition.

Source



20 December, 2005

At last we get a look at the "men" carrying bomb-materials on buses

Below is the picture of Mr Esmailpour that appeared in the "dead-tree" version of "The Australian" newspaper. The story about Mr Iemma's "tough" new laws that accompanied the picture is also reproduced below:



NSW Premier Morris Iemma has flagged a further tightening of the state's bail laws as people charged over the Cronulla riots and the ensuing wave of retaliatory violence continue to be released back into the community. Magistrate Lee Gilmour granted bail yesterday to two men allegedly engaged in acts of race-related violence at Sydney's Cronulla and Bondi beaches. Parham Esmailpour, 19, of Carlingford, in Sydney's north, was granted bail after he and another man, Amir Ali Osmanagic, 18, were charged with carrying a potential petrol bomb on a bus to Bondi.

And Harry Scott, a 21-year-old Aboriginal man from Sydney's south, was granted bail on charges of riot and affray after he was allegedly involved in two attacks on people of Middle Eastern appearance at the Cronulla beach riots last Sunday week.

Mr Iemma removed the presumption in favour of bail for the crimes of riot and affray in a special sitting of parliament last week. Yesterday, he said he would not rule out recalling parliament a second time to pass new laws, which might completely rule out bail on charges of riot and affray. "I am disappointed that that has occurred, given the changes to the bail laws that have happened," he said. "I have in mind further changes if they are needed."

Mr Esmailpour and Mr Osmanagic, who also used the surname Osman, were arrested by plainclothes police on Sunday after the bus driver smelled petrol. The court heard the men were both carrying political flyers which said "Howard's Riots: how racist policies breed racist violence". Mr Esmailpour, who the court heard was Iranian, allegedly bought $2 worth of petrol near Epping station and took it by train to Central station in a five-litre can, where he and Mr Osmanagic poured it into drink bottles.

More here



Tuesday morning comment: How lucky we are! We are now allowed back on Sydney beaches



Sydney residents are being urged to go back to the beach by New South Wales Police Commissioner Ken Moroney - subject to a twice-daily assessment on the danger of race riots. Mr Moroney and Premier Morris Iemma made the call after a hailing the weekend lockdown of many of the state's major beaches as a success because it averted "riots, affray and assaults on other citizens". "That level of violence escalates and begets other violence," Mr Moroney said. "It's about time for Santa and Christmas to do a U-turn and come back." He called on people to get "normality back in their lives" and return to beaches along a 200km stretch of coast from Newcastle to Wollongong.

Mr Moroney said police would not be closing down the Christmas Day celebrations at Bondi Beach "at this time". "Last weekend was like no other weekend in policing in this state's history," he said. Mr Moroney said two daily bulletins would keep NSW residents up to date about the possibility of beach lockdowns. "I indicated I wanted to take the community into my trust. The alternative was to tell them nothing and keep them in the dark," he said. He added that he would only lock down beaches "if intelligence indicates it is appropriate".

Mr Moroney said the weekend lockdowns had identified some problems, including women leaving their cars and walking home after being trapped in traffic jams caused by roadblocks. "It may not be the best decision, particularly if women are walking the streets on their own," Mr Moroney said.

Mr Iemma said police had charged 163 people with 283 offences since Operation Seta began on December 12 in response to the violence at Cronulla and other beachside suburbs.

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Police flag summer of beach lockdowns in NSW

Going after the Lebanese Muslim gangs who originated the trouble is not mentioned of course

Sydney's beaches will be patrolled by an 800-strong police squad for the balance of the summer holidays, with more officers to be assigned if race riots again threaten to boil over. Deputy Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said beachgoers should get used to having a strong police presence at their favourite beaches through to the end of January, with more intensive patrols in the Christmas-New Year period. "They will be working 24 hours a day, seven days a week right through Christmas and New Year," Mr Scipione said.

The beefed-up police presence this weekend, and the order by the NSW police to stay away from a number of beaches after "credible evidence" of a second weekend of rioting, led to sparse crowds on Sydney's beaches over the weekend. But Premier Morris Iemma said that while the violent gangs might have "caused inconvenience", they had failed in their attempt to ruin the lives of Sydneysiders. "They have caused inconvenience. They have tried to tear at the fabric of society and we need to meet that force with force," Mr Iemma said. An extra 2000 police were on the beat yesterday, many setting up roadblocks to stop troublemakers descending on beaches in Sydney, Newcastle, the central coast and Wollongong. Police Commissioner Ken Moroney foreshadowed further lockdowns this summer. Mr Moroney said he would urge ordinary citizens to stay away from designated beaches until "I am satisfied we have a level of restraint and order".

About 60 people were arrested over the weekend, with police confiscating dozens of mobile phones, 11 cars and a raft of dangerous weapons. The weapons ranged from nail-laden homemade clubs, knives, ornate swords, knuckle dusters, golf clubs and replica firearms....

While the police action across Sydney's beaches might have been seen as a success by the politicians and police chiefs, others remain concerned about the level of racism on the streets....

Federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley warned Australia should avoid segregation in the wake of the race riots. Mr Beazley said it was "a very sad thing" that a week before Christmas police warned people to stay away from many beaches. "We must never, ever in this country go down the path of segregation. We do not want a segregated society," he said. He supported the NSW Government's response to the violence -- giving police more power to close beaches. "I support absolutely what Morris Iemma's Government is doing. The only people who should be in a position of showing force in this community are the authorities, in this case the police."

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No ham for Christmas: Muslim menu for West Australia hospital

No tolerance shown for Australian majority customs -- like ham at Christmas dinner

A WA hospital has scrubbed baked ham from its Christmas menu, fearing Muslim patients could be offended. It has also overhauled its entire menu so that all meals are now halal - containing only meat and other food prepared according to Muslim customs.

But Port Hedland Regional Hospital staff and many non-Muslim patients are outraged, saying it is a case of political correctness gone mad. Kitchen staff are so angry that they have organised a petition demanding ham