31 August 2016



TAKING OFFENCE

It was Victor Hugo who wrote that ‘an invasion of armies can be resisted; an invasion of ideas cannot be resisted,’
It was Senator Dean Smith (Liberal, WA) that echoed the French poet and novelist’s words, 164 years later, at a book launch in Perth on August 10th.
The new book, No Offence Intended: Why 18c is Wrong, slams the pernicious curtailment of free speech under 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act (1975) and calls for action to be taken forthwith.
The three authors, Joshua Forrester, Lorraine Finlay and Professor Augusto Zimmermann say that 18c is wrong in law and wrong philosophically.
Further, the trio, all law lecturers, from Murdoch University (WA), argue, it is unconstitutional on two grounds: it is not supported under the external affairs power of the constitution and it impermissibly infringes freedom of communication.
The three legal authors make it clear that 18c does not require anyone to be actually offended, insulted or humiliated only that that an act be reasonably likely to offend, insult or humiliate. Truth is no defence in the new Orwellian society.
The times have certainly favoured their legal arguments with the ludicrous charging of three Queensland university students a prime case against this ‘star chamber justice. Their ‘crime’ was to legitimately complain, on Facebook, about being kicked out of a computer lab reserved for Aboriginal students….run that bit about discrimination past me again. We now have discrimination laws being used against students protesting against discrimination!
In addition, the case against Catholic Archbishop Porteous in Tasmania under Section 17 of that State’s Anti-Discrimination Act added to the poisonous witches brew against free speech.
Porteous faced a complaint against him for circulating a Don’t mess with Marriage booklet, arguing that marriage is a union between a man and a woman-the Adam and Eve argument rather than Adam and Steve!
Given that Australians are to have a plebiscite on this question-unless Malcolm Turnbull welches on the commitment by his predecessor, Tony Abbott- it created a risk that marriage traditionalists couldn’t express their views anywhere in Australia. Why? Because a statement could be made elsewhere in the nation and if re-broadcasted in Tasmania a complaint could be made there.
The odious federal law 18c acts in the same way where a complaint can be made by a third party in the ‘perpeptual offence industry’ to complain on behalf of someone else.
Indeed, we saw recently the Race Discrimination Commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane, positively encouraging people to lodge a complaint against cartoonist Bill Leak, for a cartoon he did on Aboriginals.
 This outrageous conduct, and ‘touting for business’ by a bureaucrat, earning over $300, 000 per annum, is simply an attack on ordinary Australians right to freedom of expression.   
 Of course the ‘twitterati’ leapt into action, in attacking the award winning Australian cartoonist, quite unlike the way they maintain a deafening silence on the human rights of white university students and the dhimmi approach to Islam when Muslim killers unleash on cartoonists and writers.
It is against this manic background that the authors state common law freedoms of speech and association are enough and that fighting racism does not need special state intervention. They argue for more ‘narrowly focused legislation’- the preference for the trout fisherman over net trawling!
The authors devote 93 pages of the book showing how 18c is not supported by the external powers of the Constitution. It overreaches on what constitutes our obligation under the Convention on the Elimination on All forms of Racial Discrimination. There is too much of a Salem witch-hunter approach in searching for offence, insult and humiliation at the expense of freedom of expression and the right to be wrong without be reduced to penury. For any student to be facing penalties of $250,000, and even higher legal fees, is insanity writ large.
Freedom of expression to discuss political, social and government matters is a fundamental right of communication for individuals and media outlets and possible threats to that by 18c is at odds with responsible, representative government. 
Concurring with the authors, Senator Smith said attempting to dismiss concerns as an obsession of right wing zealots is not borne out by evidence.
He noted the Chief Justice of the High Court, Robert French, said in 2004 that words ‘offend’ and ‘insult’ were a long way removed from the ‘mischief’ that the Racial Discrimination act was intended to address; that activist lawyer Julian Burnside QC, hardly a conservative, had said that “the fact you insult or offend someone probably should not of itself, give rise to legal liability; and that the Australian Law Reform commission, “not generally renowned as a hotbed of right wing activism” had stated in its latest report that ‘18c is broader than is required under international law to prohibit the advocacy of racial hatred.The ALRC further said it was broader than in other jurisdictions and maybe susceptible to a constitutional challenge.’
The considered research of Messrs Forrester & Zimmermann and Ms Finlay is going to be hard to deny.
Tony Abbott already laments his failure to honour his promise on 18c, when PM, and now, as a modest member, admits he should have persisted  with a simpler amendment as proposed by Senator Bob Day ( Family First SA) and David Leyonhjelm ( Liberal Democrats,NSW) in 2014.
The ex-PM will get a second chance to speak on removing ‘offend, and ‘insult’ from 18c but remaining silent a second time will ensure his offence and insult will never be forgiven.
Certainly Liberal senators Dean Smith and Cory Bernardi, (the principled South Australian conservative), are not for turning, or being still, on an issue that will continue to gain momentum on the government and cross benches. By late last year nearly one fifth of the Senate was in favour of a change that still officially lacks the backing of either major party.
Unfortunately, the retirement of Senator Joe Bullock (Labor, WA) is a loss for the reformers and the ALP seems obdurately and ideologically opposed to reform.
As for the present prime ministerial incumbent, Turnbull is on record, in May 2015, when he was Communications Minister, as supporting change. When asked about what he thought about removing the offending words from 18c, he said, ‘I was very comfortable with that, I didn’t think that would have any negative impact.’
Thus, Turnbull will be a dead man walking if he refuses to back the change necessary to ensure democratic processes are safeguarded, particularly in the run-up to the plebiscite.
Silence, or opposition, from him will ensure his leadership, already on a thread, will never recover and he will go the way of his predecessor for reneging on his words.
Murdoch’s finest have have done the nation a favour in outlining the need for change and why ‘sitting on the fence’ will continue to give the greatest offence.


24 August 2016



                                                  
 BARKING MAD 

The NSW Premier, Michael Baird, seems to be emulating characters from American history in his divisive banning of greyhound racing in NSW, effective as from July 1 next year.
On the eve of his departure from office, after being defeated at the polls, John Adams, the nation’s second president, signed a number of judicial commissions most of which favoured his fellow Federalists.
Baird’s arrogant ‘midnight legislation,’ pushed through the upper house at that unholy hour, should ensure his defeat at the next election.
While no one condones animal cruelty the vile antics of a few does not an industry cover. Baird had many more options open to him rather than the wrecking ball approach but the drama of being a latter day Lionel Murphy, apparently, was irresistible.
Not only did Baird fail to consult with the industry but the McHugh report was described by a former federal opposition leader Mark Latham as the worst one of the many thousands he had read.
Baird has acted on the knee jerk reactions of the Twitterati and Facebookers. After the Four Corners expose, 18 months ago, that attitude was summed up by one over heated respondent, on Facebook, who wrote that as greyhounds led “a life of slavery and servitude the whole industry should be shut down.”
That is the manic and maniacal policy of Baird. It is simply the prelude by left wing and animal rights activists to go after all three of the racing codes….you know the sports that employs a quarter of a million people, Australia’s third largest industry.
Ray Hadley’s warning about this, on Sky TV (while deputising for Alan Jones), is in fact a couple of years too late.
After the 2014 Melbourne Cup, in which Admiral Rakti died of a heart attack, Senator Scott Ludlum (Greens WA) tweeted, ‘we raced another horse to death. Hope there’s plenty of champagne.’ Even by Ludlum’s submerged standards that plumbed a new low, enough for him to be called ‘a right tweet,’ by  the Executive officer of the WA Racehorse Owners Association, Darren McAullay, also the State’s premier race caller over the past 16 years.
Writing in Winners Circle (Summer 2014) McAullay asked whether Ludlum was serious in making such a remark. Unfortunately the extremist senator was, not that he should be treated seriously. He is a modern day Luddite who, like the original model, is a wrecker. However, the Luddites of old fought to maintain their jobs whereas this activist, now supported by the NSW Government, fights to smash employment.
Ludlum’s tripe is the sort that goes on every time an animal dies in racing from those who have never thrown a leg over a horse or trained a canine.
There would be no such sports, including show jumping, eventing and dressage if the crazies have their way.
Further, media blowhards like Derryn Hinch and Patrick Smith were also involved in the campaign against jumps racing when that sport came under pressure.
Smith demanded that jumps racing be banned immediately because ‘the community has stopped jumping for joy.’ This was the forerunner of the broadbrush stroke used by McHugh, in his report, and Baird later, about what is the appropriate ‘social licence.’ Of course, no evidence is given as to why the community atttitude has shifted to claim how animal welfare completely trumps jobs, taxes and enjoyment.
If this nonsense is taken to its illogical conclusion then why not ban Christmas festivities too, a la Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans of the 1650s. That way we could save thousands of chooks, ducks, turkeys and pigs by destroying the jobs of those engaged in such industries.
Smith, instead of being the spokesman for the valley of the loons, may do well to reflect on the words of the great American racing writer, Joe H. Palmer who once wrote a horse cannot pile up boxes on a platform to get a banana on a ceiling. Why? Because he has no hands with which to pick up the box and he doesn’t like bananas anyway.
Instead what horses (and dogs) like to do is run, jump and swim, as anyone who has ever had anything to do with animal activities can testify. They cannot be forced, or trained, to do things that are not natural.
As for Hinch, his hysterical claims were that jumps racing was on a par with blood ‘sports,’ such as bull and cock fighting, thus equating equestrian activities with those where the death of animals are constantly assured.  In reference to slower or older racehorses sometimes moving successfully to a jumps racing career, Hinch chirped sarcastically, “think how many old roosters are being put down because they can’t get a second career in the cock fighting ring.”
Some of them, however, end up in the Senate where only Hansard reporters are compelled to listen to their crowing!
Fortunately, for Victoria, in that period (2010-14), Denis Napthine was Minister for Racing, then Premier as well, and was able to resist the latter day Goths with reforms, not destruction, to jumps racing.
The NSW greyhound ban is an admission of failure on the part of the Baird Government that it cannot get its ‘kennels in order,’ over matters such as live baiting.
In WA, Carlos Martins the Chief Greyhound Steward is the longest serving ‘chief stipe’ in the nation. Early in his career the ex-Zimbabwean acted promptly to close down the sort of activity, now bedevilling the sport in NSW.
In 1990, Martins carried out surveillance on the Bushmead training track and acting in concert with WA Police, he got the same sort of result that the Four Corners team achieved with their television expose in February last year.
Some thought at the time he was too hard and that he should have warned off the offenders by informing them they were being watched. That was as mad a suggestion as saying police should tip off drug dealers before a raid.
Martins tough approach has paid off in WA and it is time that NSW followed suit, restructuring with appropriate integrity and policing policies, coupled with strong legal penalties. Running up a white flag is cowardice, not a solution.
The only aggressive action Baird took was to give the NSW upper house 10 minutes to read the bill, instead of the normal five days notice, and to destroy the livelihood of an overwhelming number of law abiding citizens, many of them in regional areas.
Thus 15,000 jobs, including 2700 full time positions, will be shed, based on ‘rubbery’ figures and the demands of barking mad activists.
In pandering to militant activists and political extremists Baird should realise such people will never be satisfied in claiming just the Sudetenland! 

An edited version of this story appeared in The Spectator (23/8/16).

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22 August 2016




TIME FOR BARNETT TO STOP BEING A PRAT

The  WA Premier, Colin Barnett, needs to smarten himself up.
He has every right to remind PM Malcolm Turnbull that a plebiscite should not be mixed up with a WA state election campaign, in March 2017. Indeed, Gough Whitlam should have remembered that when he removed the superphosphate bounty for farmers shortly before the 1974 State Election. It cost Labor Premier John Tonkin his job.
However, Barnett has no right to say we do not need a plebiscite.
Conscription was divisive in 1916-17 but PM Billy Hughes still held two referendums and lost both of them because the people decided, in their wisdom, it was not required.
Barnett aligns himself with left wingers like Labor senator Louise Pratt who considers it a ‘dumb idea….for people to be forced to the polls’. Oh, really, then why don’t we just ignore having elections completely?
Then we could run on the fuhrerprinzip (leadership principle) and like the Third Reich just be governed at the leader’s whim.
Plebicites and referendums are part of democracy and there is an argument that we should have more rather than less, particularly citizens initiated referenda.
The question to be put on redefining marriage is basic: do you approve of a law to permit people of the same sex to marry? This is simple and fair (Yes/No). Typically, we now have the radicals saying such a question does not cater for the transgender set! Perhaps we should cater for  asexual amoebas in the question, as well?
Barnett was also out of order, in April, in rebuking Southern River MLA, Peter Abetz, for his legitimate comments on gay marriage at a joint sitting of WA Parliament that endorsed Pat Dodson for a casual Senate vacancy.
Barnett, Brendon Grylls (who walked out) and ALP critics should check their facts.
Far from being a ‘ceremony,’ as alleged by some (including The West Australian), that occasion was a debatable motion and Abetz was justified in his courteous and disciplined speech in supporting the new senator's elevation while reminding Dodson of the importance of marriage.
 However, the attack on Ross Lightfoot MLC, in 1997, was anything but restrained, when he was being endorsed for a casual Senate vacancy.
On that occasion the Labor leader, and his deputy, (Geoff Gallop and Eric Ripper) mounted a vitriolic attack on Lightfoot’s elevation to the Senate.
It’s time for the current Liberal Premier to stop being a prat, the people are going to vote on marriage. Turnbull would destroy himself and the Federal Government if he was to even muse aloud about welching on the commitment to let the people vote on the attempts to redefine marriage. 


13 August 2016



Zwingli’s Heirs Face New Tyranny

Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) the great Protestant reformer of the sixteenth century would have been impressed with the determination shown by his countryman this year.
Controversy arose with the refusal of two male students to shake hands with their female teachers, a Swiss custom.
When school authorities initially allowed two Syrian brothers to refuse to shake hands it sparked off a national uproar and an educational department ruling that they had to comply with Swiss custom or face fines of 5000 francs.
Further an application by that family to become Swiss nationals was put on hold.
It was a salutary lesson to the country’s 350,000 Muslims (in a population of eight million) that the Swiss were not there to fit in with them but they had an obligation to observe Swiss traditions and rules.
The Swiss instinctively realised this was more than a squabble over a cultural custom and tradition of politeness. At stake was whether the Swiss would be masters in their own house or whether alien traditions of Islam would prevail.
The Swiss argument stated that the public interest of Switzerland was in equality between the sexes and the maintenance of a courteous tradition between teacher and students.
Islamic organisations rarely accept with grace rulings that go against them and the ruling was described by them as ‘totalitarian’ in forbidding their commitments to Allah.
Given the deplorable and murderous treatment of religious minorities in Islamic Middle Eastern hell-holes the accusations of totalitarianism impresses very few westerners.
Indeed, the Swiss followed up the handshake ruling by refusing to grant citizenship rights to two Muslim girls, (12 and 14), who refused to comply with the school curriculum to swim with the boys.
“Whoever does not fulfil these conditions violates the law and therefore cannot be naturalised,” Stefan Wehrle, the president of the naturalisation committee said, in late June.
Meanwhile, in another case, a Muslim father of two girls was fined 4000 francs for the same reason.
Thus, the Swiss attitude is that failure to interact within the community is reason enough to deny Swiss citizenship. So just as Zwingli possessed a profound patriotic sentiment, that once cause him to inveigh heavily against the hiring out of soldiers to fight as mercenaries, the Swiss today, are determined not to have foreign ‘mercenaries’ fighting from within against them.
They are unconcerned about being called ‘xenophobes,’ or any other tripe words used by Islamophiles and leftist dogmatists, because Switzerland consistently applies the integration rules to everyone. Candidates for citizenship must prove they have assimilated into their local communities and respect local customs and traditions.
Initial decisions on such applications come from local towns, or villages, and if deemed suitable flow on to canton (state) and federal authorities for processing.
In 2014, an American, Irving Dunn, who had lived in Switzerland for almost 40 years, was rejected for citizenship because he could not name any Swiss friends or neighbouring villages.
Dunn did not deny the charge he was mainly after personal advantages that the Swiss citizenship offered him.
In contrast, Muslims regard it as their personal right to create, rather than integrate, new laws and conditions that do not fit in with their interpretation of the laws of the Koran and Hadith.
There is no rendering to Caesar whatsoever. Islam has consistently shown a propensity to initially insist on the creation of parallel laws, in any state where Muslims emigrate until they become numerically superior, then comes total domination.
The attempt, in 2011, by an immigrant Muslim group to have the white cross removed from the Swiss flag, representing the country’s Christian roots, was a particularly arrogant example, and one resisted by Switzerland.
The Swiss know just how influential the Reformation was in their own country and further abroad.
The Reformation profoundly affected politics, law, science and education. It democratised the Christian faith and allowed for individual conscience and our liberties today are a direct influence of the work and battles of the great reformers, like Zwingli. Reformation is conspicuously absent from Islam, an apostasy still rooted in the medieval past.
In November 2009 the Swiss held a referendum-and their influence on Section 128 of the Australian Constitution should be acknowledged here - in which citizens approved a ban on construction of minarets, a feature of Islamic architecture where the call to pray goes out.
This was not an attack on religion, as alleged by overheated Western dhimmis who ironically oppose school chaplains, prayer and indeed all things Christian, but rather an attempt to maintain national cohesiveness.
The initiative sponsored by the conservative Swiss People’s Party (SVP) said the minaret symbolised the growing self confidence and intolerance of the Muslim community.
The SVP described the minaret as an example of a ‘religious-political claim to dominance’ and one that threatened ‘the constitutional rights of others.’
A European Court twice concurred by dismissing Muslim protests against the ban.
It is hard to object to that when the increasingly fascist leader of Turkey, Erdogan, has bragged, “the mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful are our soldiers.” He didn’t stop there either, telling Muslim immigrants that “assimilation is a crime against humanity.”
Erdogan’s comments should not be an amber light to the West but rather a red one and should be heeded well by policy makers.
Erdogan remains the antithesis of everything the great Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938) once stood for and the phony coup of recent times simply demonstrates the connivance and plotting of the current, despicable Turkish incumbent.
 Elsewhere Western voters are calling out for leadership and for the entry only of immigrants prepared to integrate fully.
Malcolm Turnbull’s response was to invite a hate preacher to visit Kirribilli House, for a post-Ramadan dinner, just before the 2016 election. This ‘first’ by an Australian PM was one of the reasons for the dramatic reduction of his numbers to the barest one seat majority at the ensuing poll.
In pandering to the most aggressive religion on the planet, and one of the smallest in Australia, Turnbull was simply seen as the new Neville Chamberlain.
When the Islamic apostle of hate was exposed by the media, Australia’s most politically correct chameleon then said it was “totally unacceptable” and blamed his office for not vetting the guest list!
Clearly Turnbull is no adherent to the Harry Truman School of where the buck stops and, unlike Zwingli, the Australian PM will never fall, defending the faith, customs and tradition of this nation.