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Tony Abbott has a credibility issue
Laurie Oakes
From: Herald Sun
August 25, 2012 12:00AM
Tony Abbott portrays himself as the epitome of honesty. The Australian
LET's not beat about the bush. Tony Abbott tells lies.
So what? Is there anything surprising about that? After all, he's a politician.
But it needs to be pointed out because the central message from Abbott supporters is that the Prime Minister is the liar - Ju-liar, in fact, according to the likes of Alan Jones.
The Opposition Leader is portrayed - and portrays himself - as the epitome of honesty. A man whose word can always be trusted.
Abbott's lieutenants were even pleased when he was tossed out of Parliament on Monday because it got his offending comment - accusing Julia Gillard of lying - into the headlines.
Abbott's own truthfulness came under the microscope, however, after a blundering performance in an interview on ABC TV's 7.30 program on Wednesday evening.
Earlier that day he had claimed BHP's decision to put the Olympic Dam mining project in South Australia on hold was partly due to the Federal Government's carbon and mining taxes.
That was porkie number one. BHP CEO Marius Kloppers had blamed such factors as the eurozone financial crisis, the slowdown of growth in China and weakness in commodity markets.
He had not mentioned the mining tax or carbon price in his statement explaining the decision to the Stock Exchange.
In fact, Kloppers told journalists: "The tax environment for this particular project has not changed at all since we started working on it six or seven years ago."
The mining tax, he explained, covered only coal and iron ore - not copper, gold and uranium, which Olympic Dam would produce.
"(Abbott) has largely got away with being shamelessly loose with the
truth, if only because attention has been focused on his opponent"
When Abbott stuck to his claim despite what Kloppers had said, interviewer Leigh Sales asked: "Have you actually read BHP's statements?"
Abbott replied: "No." The next day he claimed he had read the BHP announcement after all - soon after it was made.
He attributed the damaging answer in the 7.30 interview to a misunderstanding of what Sales had asked him. But her meaning could hardly have been clearer.
Just in case there was any doubt, she had gone on to say in her next question: "You haven't read their statements today but you're commenting about what they've announced."
The conclusion is inescapable that, in trying to explain away a dreadful gaffe, Abbott resorted to another falsehood.
Gillard will never live down her broken "no carbon tax" promise, and nor should she. And there are plenty of other examples of her being economical with the truth.
Is Abbott, though, any better? He has made a string of false claims about the impact of the carbon tax, in particular - the bodgie Olympic Dam allegation being just the latest.
The Opposition Leader has largely got away with being shamelessly loose with the truth, if only because attention has been focused on his opponent.
Gillard had her problems this week, too - most notably in her handling of allegations about the circumstances surrounding her departure from the law firm Slater & Gordon 17 years ago, before she went into politics.
But in a marathon news conference on Thursday she answered every question on the matter that members of the parliamentary press gallery could throw at her.
It was a strong and competent performance, in stark contrast to Abbott's embarrassing television appearance the night before. A few more weeks like this would certainly worry the Coalition.
Abbott's most serious error came at an education forum, after he'd accused Gillard - despite her denials - of having a hit list of private schools that would lose funding under a proposed government blueprint.
He pointed out that more state and federal funding goes to public school pupils than to those in the private education sector, and said: "There is no question of injustice to public schools here. If anything, the injustice is the other way."
IN case anyone missed it, the Opposition Leader repeated the line about private schools possibly suffering an injustice. He had left himself wide open.
But he squealed with outrage when Gillard used the comment to accuse him of believing public schools got too much money and should have their funding trimmed.
Abbott's bad week continued with his response to the PM's press conference on the Slater & Gordon issue. .
Abbott had claimed for days that this was an important matter and Gillard had questions to answer. Then he had to admit yesterday morning he had not bothered to watch the news conference right through or even to read the transcript.
Being less than obsessive in his approach to the truth is not Abbott's only shortcoming.
His strength is the sweeping statement and going for the political jugular - not getting into the detail of issues and doing the hard yards.
Laurie Oakes is political editor for the Nine Network. His column appears every Saturday in the Herald Sun
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/tony-abbott-has-a-credibility-issue/story-e6frfhqf-1226457761745
The welfare experiment - an opinion piece from Mission Australia's CEO, Toby Hall
Monday, 01 December 2008
It seems the Northern Territory’s emergency intervention is coming to a state near you, and it’s arriving today.
Similar to trials currently underway in the NT and Cape York, the Federal and WA governments have announced that from today, parents in Cannington and the Kimberley community of Kununurra can have 70 per cent of their income support payments quarantined for the benefit of their children, if the parents are deemed to be using the money inappropriately.
more .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=35285459
Unfortunately in remote Australia there are still people living in poor 3rd world conditions ..
this was/is very interventionist, and of course much debate .. as per usual about most everything
..more aboriginal women were for, by memory .. some against .. white fellas? .. some for some against,
I haven't been keeping up with how it's all turned out .. oh .. this looks an update ..
======
Income management: an overview .. near the bottom ..
Is income management working?
http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/2011-2012/IncomeManagementOverview#_Toc328056526
http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/2011-2012/IncomeManagementOverview
There is much in there for anyone interested .. it's related to the first article in the one this is in reply to ..
======
The Sapphires
It's 1968, and four young, talented Australian Aboriginal girls learn about love, friendship
and war when their all girl group The Sapphires entertain the US troops in Vietnam.
http://www.movie2k.to/The-Sapphires-watch-movie-2246855.html
With Firefox downloads were needed with all options i tried ..
with updated Google Chrome easy .. just click and watch ..
An excellent little movie .. well paced and photographed, little normal
personal conflict .. warm, genuine, no bs .. funny, some suspense .. a taste
Army repels major insurgent attack in South; Marines credit villagers for help
Phuket Gazette - Wednesday, February 13, 2013 3:44:41 PM
Security personnel investigate around the bodies of insurgents at the site of the attack on an army
base in the troubled southern province of Narathiwat today. Photo: Reuters/Surapan Boonthanom
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH
– Thailand news selected by Gazette editors for Phuket's international community
Thai insurgents attack southern army base, 16 dead including Maloso
Jantarawadee, leader of the Runda Kumpalan Kecil insurgent group
Reuters / Phuket Gazette / The Nation
PHUKET: A pre-dawn raid on a Thai military base ended with 16 Muslim insurgents killed today in the deadliest violence in Thailand's south in nine years, marking a dangerous escalation in the conflict.
Acting on a tip-off, marines lit flares and opened fire as insurgents wearing military fatigues approached the base at about 1am in Narathiwat province on the Malaysian border, said Internal Security Operations Command spokesman Pramote Phromin.
The number of insurgents involved in the attack has been estimated between 60 to 100 combatants.
He revised down the death toll to 16 from an earlier reported 17. None of the Thai military defenders of the base were hurt, he said.
Violence is common in Thailand's south but the scale of the attack and targeting of a marine base illustrate the difficulty Buddhist-majority Thailand faces in preventing the low-intensity Muslim insurgency from turning into a more dangerous conflict.
Although there is no indication of the fighting spreading beyond the provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, it lies just a few hours' drive from some of Thailand's most popular tourist beaches.
"It was only going to be a matter of time before this type of incident happened," said Anthony Davis, a Thai-based analyst at security consulting firm IHS-Jane's.
"The insurgents have been moving towards larger attacks on military bases since 2011. At the same time, there has been more pro-active security intelligence work."
The violence comes as Southeast Asia seeks to present an image of stability to foreign investors who have poured into its financial markets. The Philippines government signed in October a pact with the country's largest Muslim rebel group. Long-running communal conflicts in Indonesia have mostly abated in recent years.
The 2011 election in Thailand ushered in a period of relative stability after more than five years of sometimes-deadly street protests. The economy is flourishing and the stock market was one of the world's best performers last year, rising 36 percent.
A political scientist with Deep South Watch, a think-tank that closely tracks the violence, said he feared the insurgents' failed attack would only spur them on. "If anything, it will make them more determined because of the high casualties incurred," said the analyst, Srisomphob Jitphiromsri.
He and other experts say the insurgency is becoming better organized. Today's death toll was the highest since security forces stormed a mosque, known as the Krue Se mosque, in 2004, killing 32 Muslims in a raid that intensified the insurgency. Since then, more than 5,300 people have been killed in the three provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat where insurgents are seeking greater autonomy.
About 94 percent of the region's 1.7 million people are Muslim, the main religion in neighboring Malaysia and in nearby Indonesia, and about 80 percent of them speak a Malay dialect as a first language, according to a 2010 survey by the Asia Foundation.
In recent weeks, attacks have appeared bolder. Five soldiers were killed by suspected insurgents on Sunday. That followed a spate of attacks on civilians, including one this month in which four fruit traders from outside the region were found shot dead with their hands and legs bound.
The government is considering imposing a curfew in parts of the south, where the military already has wide-ranging powers of search and arrest under an emergency decree.
A temporary, 24-hour curfew was imposed in four sub-districts of Narathiwat and two in Pattani from 6pm this evening while authorities scour the area, said Pramote.
The three provinces were once part of an independent Malay Muslim sultanate until annexed by Thailand in 1909. Muslims in the area largely oppose the presence of tens of thousands of soldiers and armed guards in the rubber-rich region.
The violence has ranged from drive-by shootings to bombings and beheadings. It is often aimed at Buddhists and Muslims associated with the Thai state such as police, soldiers, government officials and teachers.
Most believe the attacks are organized by the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) Coordinate, an offshoot of the Patani Malay National Revolutionary Front established in the 1960s to seek independence. Another group, the Patani United Liberation Front (PULO), publicly calls for a separate state.
Better understanding
Captain Somkiat Ponprayoon, marine commander of the Southern region praised the cooperation of villagers in repelling the attack by insurgents on their base in Narathiwat province this morning, saying it had been key to their success.
He said their cooperation was the result of better understanding about the work of the security authorities after being updated and following the news everyday.
Confiscated from the scene were 13 assault rifles and three pistols, a pickup and two motorcycles.
Among the dead was Maloso Jantarawadee, a leader of the Runda Kumpalan Kecil insurgent group blamed for much of the violence. Maloso had been wanted for the killing of a teacher earlier this month.
Authorities said they believed the attack was revenge for the recent death of a rebel leader.
– Phuket Gazette Editors
Phuket,Thailand
15:44 local time (GMT +7)\
http://www.phuketgazette.net/thailandnews/2013/Army-repels-major-insurgent-attack-in-South-Marines-credit-villagers-for-help-20224.html
Too Much of a Good Thing? Social Capital as Political Elixir
Author Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
In our last post [No more “wang wang” in the Philippines?] .. http://whynationsfail.com/blog/2013/1/22/no-more-wang-wang-in-the-philippines.html .. on the prospects for a transition away from clientelistic politics in the Philippines, we noted how important organization by civil society was in the successes of the cities of Cebu and Naga.
As we mentioned, one language for talking about such organization was popularized by Robert Putnam in his seminal book Making Democracy Work .. http://www.amazon.com/Making-Democracy-Work-Traditions-Modern/dp/0691037388/ref=la_B000AP9K88_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1358834459&sr=1-3 . Putnam argued that the key to explaining the variation in the way the government worked in Italy was variation in social capital (in particular, the way it worked in the north and the way it failed to work in the South).
Putnam defined social capital as:
features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit.
As we mentioned in our last post, Putnam used very original ways of measuring the behavior of government and social capital. In particular he associated social capital with the density of associational life measured by the extent to which people took part in different types of societies and organization. The idea was that such participation builds trust and cooperation. In practice when international institutions and social scientists have thought about building such social capital, they have thought about trying to encourage associational life, for example inducing people to go to meetings.
This was precisely the sort of thing that the World Bank thought would induce social capital in Sierra Leone, a process studied by Katherine Casey, Rachel Glennester and Ted Miguel as we reported before.
As their paper .. http://emlab.berkeley.edu/~emiguel/pdfs/miguel_gbf.pdf .. puts it:
The CDD approach attempts to bolster local coordination —for example, by setting up village development committees—and to enhance participation, by requiring women and ‘‘youths’’ (adults under age 35) to hold leadership positions, sign off on project finances, and attend meetings.
But is this really the right way to build social capital? More importantly, will the sort of social capital really solve the political problems of a society like Sierra Leone?
In recent work with Tristan Reed of Harvard, “Chiefs: Elite Control of Civil Society and Economic Development in Sierra Leone” .. http://www.nber.org/papers/w18691 , we question the logic of this connection in Sierra Leone.
In the paper we exploit the history of chieftaincy in Sierra Leone to study the impact of the power of chiefs on economic outcomes and social capital. We find that the more powerful is the chief the worse is economic development in terms of education, asset ownership and the diversification of the local economy.
But we also find that places which have more powerful chiefs tend to have more social capital, in particular as measured by the density of associational life. This is a result which cannot happen according to the standard view of social capital, and yet, if you look across the 149 Chieftaincies in Sierra Leone, there is, if anything, a negative correlation between social capital and development.
This finding is quite a shock for a literature firmly anchored in the Italian experience. This superficially puzzling result, we suggest, arises because more dominant chiefs have been better able to mold the “civil society” and the institutions of civic participation in their villages for their own benefit and continued dominance.
We argue that these correlations can be explained by the fact that the political economy of rural Africa deviates in important ways from that of developed countries. Political or social institutions which look like they would increase accountability in the principal agent literature, function differently in many weakly-institutionalized polities. Indeed, they do not function to control politicians but are structured by them to further their power and their own control over society. In this, chiefs are the local equivalent of the “personal rule” at the national level as described by Jackson and Rosberg’s seminal Personal Rule in Black Africa .. http://www.amazon.com/Personal-Rule-Black-Africa-Autocrat/dp/0520042093/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358932451&sr=1-1&keywords=personal+rule+in+black+africa , who define personal rule as (pp.17-19):
a system of relations linking rulers … with patrons, clients, supporters, and rivals, who constitute the ‘system’…. The system is ‘structured’’ … not by institutions, but by the politicians themselves.
Consistent with this pattern, paramount chiefs facing limited competition do indeed act despotically, but they are able to do so in part because they use non-governmental organizations as a way of building and mobilizing support. Put differently, relatively high measures of civic participation in villages with powerful chiefs is not a sign of a vibrant civil society disciplining politicians, but of a dysfunctional civil society captured by the paramount chiefs.
These findings suggest that social capital, like much else in politics, can be used for very different purposes. They also suggest that social capital is no panacea for deep political problems either. The nature of political constraints and conflicts in society shapes where social capital comes from and how it can be used. It seems then that we (and development practitioners the world over) should think hard before rushing into the field to promote social capital along the lines the World Bank tried to do in Sierra Leone.
We think this is just an illustration of a more general lesson: there is no substitute for first understanding how local politics works. Else, many interventions won’t do much (other than make donors feel good of course) or worse, in some cases they might end up simply reinforcing the hegemony of traditional political elites over the already downtrodden population.
Copyright © 2012 Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. All rights reserved.
Header photograph © Kirk Mastin/Getty images. Author photographs
© Peter Tenzer (Acemoglu) and María Angélica Bautista (Robinson).
http://whynationsfail.com/blog/2013/1/31/too-much-of-a-good-thing-social-capital-as-political-elixir.html
Guns and Viagra at the Wutung border
BY KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN - 20 May 2012
[ hidden: Sil Bolkin at the Indonesian border ]
THE PNG INDONESIA BORDER is a long stretch of land from the tip of Sandaun Province right down through Western Province and almost to Australia. Villages can be spotted in pockets along both sides of the border. The largest and most used entry point from either Papua New Guinea or Indonesia is the border at Wutung.
The PNG side of the border at Wutung is filthy with mountains of empty plastics, cans, and containers that are sprayed with betel nut stains. A lone colourless building houses the PNG customs office. Visitors to the Wutung border find shelters under trees or huts that fry bananas, lamb flaps and sausages. Visitors must answer the call of nature in the forests nearby.
A big tall monument which stands on the Indonesian side dwarfs a short and small one on the PNG side near Bougainville Bay. The Indonesian monument proudly flies the Indonesian flag above a mountain forest which seems to remind PNG not to muddle around with Indonesia.
As you look into PNG from the Indonesian side you see the fearfully scribbled inscription “Jesus Christ is Lord over this land”. The eagle in the Indonesian sculpture, looking like Uncle Sam, stares fiercely down on the inscription.
The Indonesian side of the no man’s land is called Batas and is well polished with pavement, four lanes for cars and properly fenced. All the different Indonesian government departments like Customs and Foreign affairs, Defence, Trade, etc. are housed within well designed Asian-style buildings.
Their soldiers are well polished with smart military attire and guns, unlike the mixture of pot- bellied and betel nut stained soldiers wondering around individually showing no signs of camaraderie and preparedness on the PNG side.
A kilometre into the Indonesian side is the famous Gordon Market-type stalls called Batas. Batas is a ghetto that gives the impression of a new refugee camp. In Batas they sell all sorts of Asian made goods, clothing, electronic equipment, Harley Davidson motorbikes and even sex appetisers like Viagra, Spanish fly, King Cobra, etc.
A digital camera sold in Papua New Guinea for K999 is only K300 in Batas. A Toshiba laptop is only K800 in Batas whilst in Port Moresby it is K4,000 plus.
The official days for Papua New Guineans to go shopping in Batas are Tuesdays and Thursdays but PNG and Indonesian authorities at the border both allow Papua New Guineans to shop at any time of the week as well. People rarely shop in Vanimo.
Most forest owners, some public servants and even visitors travel to Batas or Jayapura to do their shopping for goods as well as for sex. Therefore there much fewer super markets and stores in Vanimo town and these close at around 4 pm.
The PNG government loses millions on import duty and PNG entrepreneurs in Vanimo have lost business opportunities as well with the competition from Batas and Jayapura.
Vanimo market does not have the mountains of garden crops we see in Port Moresby, Goroka or the Mt Hagen markets. The timber royalty money it seems has made people lose their gardening skills.
We went shopping on Friday and Saturday last week. Yes, PNG kina is spent in Batas on the Indonesian side of the border and it is estimated that half a million untaxed kina is going to Indonesia via Batas per week.
We were told that Indonesian soldiers sell guns to Papua New Guineans for up-front cash payment. Asian and West Papuan sex workers prey on innocent PNG men who cross the border to Batas or Jayapura to shop. All the goods and fees for sex are very cheap.
The distance from Batas to Jayapura is just the same as from Batas to Vanimo so Papua New Guineans can travel with locals from the border area to Jayapura without any proper visas.
Caveat! The PNG government has to overhaul the facilities at Wutung and screen people moving in and out of Wutung smuggling and escaping import duties.
Otherwise, PNG will keep losing economically and will also be filled to the brim with imported social ills that include HIV as part of the package.
http://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2012/05/guns-and-viagra-at-the-wutung-border.html
.. one descriptive bit there was a bit jarring .. i don't know the author .. here is another by him ..
Women advocates confuse gender equality & feminism
KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN | Supported by the Phil Fitzpatrick Writing Fellowship
Sil BolkinWE ARE CONVINCED that the ‘pedestal’ women leaders in Papua New Guinea, who espouse demagogical rhetoric and make discriminatory speeches about the opposite sex at forums and courses for women from the highest echelons of society, are a wedge towards gender equality.
However most of them confuse gender equality with feminism. Their actions and speeches are usually and indelibly feminist and not about gender equality at all.
In any gender equality program men must be part and parcel of the program for some very obvious reasons.
Statistics tell us that men are the worst culprits when it comes to gender-based violence. Not only that, but men are currently in most positions of power at almost every level in PNG.
It seems that the United Nations Women and all the other UN entities use feminism in their approach rather than advocating gender equality.
For a start, if you visit any one of the UN offices in Port Moresby you will surely see more females employed than men. Any men there are usually only employed as drivers for the UN vehicles.
If you go to a workshop on HIV/AIDS in Thailand or Cambodia, for instance, almost all the program officers attending from across the Indian Ocean, Asia and the Pacific area are women.
This situation could lead one to believe that these programs and the gender advocates who go to them are half-baked.
Gender simply means the roles, responsibilities and relationships between men and women. Therefore gender also includes men who have sex with men, trans-genders and lesbians.
In contrast, feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic and social rights for women.
This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment. A feminist is ‘an advocate or supporter of the rights and equality of women only’.
It was obvious that the UN Women’s advocacy for the 22 nominated seats in the PNG parliament last year was part of a feminist movement.
Other useful programs, like primary education for all girls, personal female viability and life skills and men and boys training on the right way to treat women are much more vital programs for the betterment of women than the 22 nominated seats, which will only really serve a few lucky women.
Don’t tell me that it worked in Rwanda. Rwanda has just come out of a terrible genocide. Women were totally marginalised, raped and massacred during the genocide. Now there is currently a higher population of women than men. Their constitution allows for 24 reserved seats for women because of the ugly inhuman behaviour from their menfolk.
Malawi, Uganda, South Africa and Namibia all fund a plethora of large organisations that take the advocacy programs far and wide throughout the country, consistently changing people’s behaviour.
PNG women have never experienced such ugly inhuman behaviour from their menfolk on the mass scale that occurred in Rwanda.
Individuals are often subject to deplorable behaviour from their menfolk but never in a large, organised way.
According to a report on a blog at WordPress.com, women occupy only 89 out of 535 seats in the US Congress (16.6%). This is below the world average, below the average of North America (18.7%), and below the average for high-income OECD countries (23.4%).
Even countries in the west where many of these barriers have been alleviated, representation is still much lower. If that is the case how does UN Women and its proponents expect PNG to cope with such a concept overnight?
By the way, let’s address the false perception that women are better leaders than men. It is a populist fallacy. Not all women are good leaders, just like all men are not good leaders.
For instance, in Australia in 1996, Pauline Hanson cast aspersions on Aboriginal people, blaming them for higher-than-average crime levels, and suggesting that they had privileged access to entitlements.
She rejected outright the proposition that Aborigines were the most disadvantaged group in Australian society. Hanson delivered a broadside against special programs of all kinds for Indigenous Australians.
Her most incendiary allegation was, ‘I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians.’ She said that Asian migrants did not assimilate, formed their own ghettos and had their own religion and culture. Hanson also called for abolition of multiculturalism.
In the 2008 US presidential election, every time Hillary Clinton won primary or caucus votes Barack Obama got up there and congratulated her, but the opposite never happened. Clinton never congratulated Obama for winning the primaries or caucuses in any of the states.
Josephine Abaijah was the first woman to be elected to the PNG House of Assembly in 1972. She was re-elected in 1977 with Wariyato Clowes and Nahau Rooney and stood unsuccessfully for a third term in 1982.
Abaijah founded and led the Papua Besena Movement, which agitated unsuccessfully for Papua to become an independent country in its own right instead of being linked to New Guinea. If she had had her way Papua would have been an economic and social basket case in no time. She also absurdly expressed support for Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka’s military coup in Fiji in 1987.
Nahau Rooney was elected to Parliament in the post-independence general election of 1977. She was re-elected in 1982, becoming the only female Member of Parliament at that time, but was never subsequently returned to Parliament.
In 1977 Rooney served as Minister of Justice in Prime Minister Michael Somare’s cabinet. In 1979, during her term as minister, she wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Kevin Egan, “urging intervention” in the case of politician and businessman John Kaputin being charged with failing to file company returns.
As a result, Egan had her sentenced to a nine month jail term for contempt of court. She was immediately released on license by Somare. She later served as Civil Aviation Minister.
Loujaya Toni has just dethroned a veteran politician and, according to media reports, before the excitement had settled, her pious SDA husband had knelt before senior male politicians and begged for wine and grog when the bars were closed, starting from Milne Bay to Port Moresby and up north to the Melanesian Hotel in Wopa Country.
Toni refused to talk to the journalists when she was probed about her husband’s behaviour. Why didn’t she stand her ground and tell the journalists that her husband needed counselling instead of hiding behind silence?
From this analysis, it is evident that being a male or female doesn’t make you a better leader. Individuals like Nelson Mandela, Aung San Kyi, Queen Elizabeth II, Enny Moaitz and Barack Obama are great leaders because of the principles they stand for, the decisions that they make and the actions that they take and not because of their sex.
International donors and development partners should advocate for basic primary and secondary education for all females, and males too.
In PNG large NGOs do not want to go to the Southern Highlands, Hela, Simbu, Enga, Western, Gulf and Sandaun Provinces. They prefer to sit comfortably in Port Moresby, Madang, and Lae and, if they like extend their branches to Milne Bay and East New Britain.
These are the signs and symptoms of organisations that are only half-hearted about helping our mothers, sisters and even our men in PNG and therefore they should be penalised.
In the programs get the culprits (men) to realise the benefits of having women educated and placed in strategic management positions. Ease out the blind funding organizations that step on each other’s toes in Port Moresby, Lae and Madang.
If this is done all else will unfold and soon educated and affluent women will find themselves elected to the PNG parliament on merit in droves and supported by their men folk.
http://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2013/01/gender-equality-or-feminism-equality-advocates-are-ignorant.html?cid=6a00d83454f2ec69e2017d3fb4223a970c
====== .. on the site the two above are from ..
About PNG Attitude
Stuff you need to know about PNG Attitude
PURPOSE
PNG Attitude was established to address a major issue: the silence that, for too long after PNG Independence in 1975, existed between Papua New Guineans and Australians.
The politicians still talked, the business people still traded, the missionaries still preached, but ordinary people - people like us - mostly stopped communicating.
And this was after we’d spent 40 or 50 years thrown together by the winds of colonialism – a period in which many of us got to know each other very well indeed.
That post-Independence silence denied a great friendship and a close relationship.
The purpose of PNG Attitude is to play a small part in ensuring that the silence is replaced by a mutual conversation between the people of our two countries.
PHILOSOPHY
PNG Attitude is committed to strengthening the people-to-people relationship between Papua New Guineans and Australians.
more .. http://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/about-png-attitude.html
Pato still mum on border
Papua New Guinea’s Foreign Minister, Rimbink Pato is yet to be briefed on the border altercation between Wutung villagers and Indonesian soldiers one week ago before making a statement on the matter, acting Foreign Affairs secretary Lucy Bogari told the Post-Courier.
Fri, 18 Jan 2013
PORT MORESBY, PNG (Post Courier) ---- Papua New Guinea’s Foreign Minister, Rimbink Pato is yet to be briefed on the border altercation between Wutung villagers and Indonesian soldiers one week ago before making a statement on the matter, acting Foreign Affairs secretary Lucy Bogari told the Post-Courier.
But the villagers claim there are serious underlying issues which have triggered the recent incident, especially to do with their customary land on the Indonesian side of the border, and they are calling on PNG authorities to do something about it or the border problems will continue.
The first incident a week ago triggered a near-confrontation on the Papua New Guinea-Indonesia border between disgruntled Wutung and Sandaun (West Sepik) villagers and armed Indonesian soldiers.
Wutung rural local level government president Patrick Muliale told the Post-Courier an armed Indonesian soldier tried to prevent a Wutung youth from riding his motor cycle into Bartas on the Indonesian side of the border for reasons unknown and the soldier allegedly assaulted the youth.
Muliale said the soldier was then mobbed by angry Wutung youths and a stand-off ensued between armed Indonesian soldiers and the youths.
“The youths were not satisfied with the treatment and on Saturday, they pulled down the Indonesian flag and another altercation ensued, but officials from both PNG and Indonesia managed to cull the situation,” he said.
Muliale said the situation is tense on the ground and there are other border issues that may have triggered the incident.
“We want Waigani to be more effective and proactive in its approach to border issues,” he said.
http://www.islandsbusiness.com/news/index_dynamic/containerNameToReplace=MiddleMiddle/focusModuleID=130/focusContentID=30943/tableName=mediaRelease/overideSkinName=newsArticle-full.tpl
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Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (PNG; Tok Pisin: Papua Niugini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania that occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea (the western portion of the island is a part of the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua) and numerous offshore islands. It is located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, in a region described since the early 19th century as Melanesia. The capital is Port Moresby.
Papua New Guinea is one of the most culturally diverse countries on Earth. According to recent data, 841 different languages are listed for the country, although 11 of these have no known living speakers. There may be at least as many traditional societies, out of a population of about 6.2 million. It is also one of the most rural, as only 18 percent of its people live in urban centres. The country is one of the world's least explored, culturally and geographically, and many undiscovered species of plants and animals are thought to exist in the interior of Papua New Guinea.
Strong growth in Papua New Guinea's mining and resource sector has led to PNG becoming the sixth fastest-growing economy in the world as of 2011. Despite this, many people live in extreme poverty, with about one third of the population living on less than US$1.25 per day. The majority of the population still live in traditional societies and practice subsistence-based agriculture. These societies and clans have some explicit acknowledgement within the nation's constitutional framework. The PNG Constitution expresses the wish for "traditional villages and communities to remain as viable units of Papua New Guinean society", and for active steps to be taken in their preservation.
After being ruled by three external powers since 1884, Papua New Guinea gained its independence from Australia in 1975. It remains a Commonwealth realm of Her Majesty Elizabeth II, Queen of Papua New Guinea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_New_Guinea
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West Papua (region) .. bits ..
West Papua or Western New Guinea refers to the Indonesian western half of the island of New Guinea and smaller islands to its west. The region is administered as two provinces: Papua and West Papua. The eastern half of New Guinea is Papua New Guinea.
The King Bird-of-paradise is one of
over 300 bird species on the peninsula.
[ administrative picture ]
Map of the island of w:New Guinea
Green = western New Guinea, (Indonesia) divided into the two provinces of West Irian Jaya (light green) and Papua (dark green).
Beige = eastern New Guinea, the 'mainland' portion of the nation of Papua New Guinea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Papua_%28region%29
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Indonesia–Papua New Guinea relations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia%E2%80%93Papua_New_Guinea_relations
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Free Papua Movement
The Free Papua Movement (Indonesian: Organisasi Papua Merdeka, abbreviated OPM) is a militant organisation[citation needed] established in 1965 to encourage and effect the violent overthrow of the current governments in the Papua and West Papua provinces of Indonesia, formerly known as Irian Jaya to secede from Indonesia, and to reject economic development and modernity as well as to eliminate non-native populations in the island. It has received funding from Gaddafi's Libya and training from the Maoist Guerrilla group New People's army, a Foreign Terrorist Organization designated by the US Department of Homeland Security.
The movement is outlawed in Indonesia, and agitating for independence for the provinces has incurred charges of treason. Since its inception the OPM has attempted diplomatic dialogue, conducted Morning Star flag-raising ceremonies, and undertaken militant actions as part of the Papua conflict. Supporters routinely display the Morning Star flag and other symbols of Papuan unity, such as the national anthem "Hai Tanahku Papua" and a national coat of arms, which had been adopted in the period 1961 until Indonesian administration began in May 1963 under the New York Agreement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Papua_Movement
======
Pacific Islands Report
http://pidp.eastwestcenter.org/pireport/
Pacific Islands Development Program, East-West Center
With Support From Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai‘i
Authorities Mum Over PNG-Indonesia Border Incident
Local official claims PNG youth assaulted by Indonesian soldier
By Haiveta Kivia
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (PNG Post-Courier, Jan. 17, 2013) – Papua New Guinea Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato was still waiting yesterday to be briefed on the border altercation between Wutung villagers and Indonesian soldiers one week ago before making a statement on the matter, acting Foreign Affairs secretary Lucy Bogari told the Post-Courier. But the villagers claim there are serious underlying issues which have triggered the recent incident, especially to do with their customary land on the Indonesian side of the border, and they are calling on PNG authorities to do something about it or the border problems will continue.
The first incident one week ago today triggered a near-confrontation on the Papua New Guinea-Indonesia border between disgruntled Wutung and Sandaun (West Sepik) villagers and armed Indonesian soldiers.
Wutung rural local level government president Patrick Muliale told the Post-Courier that last Thursday, an armed Indonesian soldier tried to prevent a Wutung youth from riding his motorcycle into Bartas on the Indonesian side of the border for reasons unknown and the soldier allegedly assaulted the youth.
Mr. Muliale said the soldier was then mobbed by angry Wutung youths and a stand-off ensued between armed Indonesian soldiers and the youths.
"The youths were not satisfied with the treatment and on Saturday, they pulled down the Indonesian flag and another altercation ensued, but officials from both PNG and Indonesia managed to cull the situation," he said.
Mr. Muliale said yesterday that the situation is tense on the ground and there are other border issues that may have triggered the incident.
"We want Waigani to be more effective and proactive in its approach to border issues," he said.
Meanwhile, acting secretary for the department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, (DFAT) Ambassador Lucy Bogari says the government has its schedule, so the Post-Courier, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Rimbink Pato will be fully briefed before he makes an official statement on the incident.
When that statement will be made is not known and Ambassador Bogari said DFAT’s director general for political security and treaties will have a report ready for Minister Pato.
But Ms. Bagari’s response has not gone down well with Mr. Muliale, who asked the DFAT to be more proactive in its approach and to have more effective border administration office to deal issues as and when they arise.
Mr. Muliale said his people are continuously being harassed by Indonesian soldiers and authorities and the underlying issue is the international border.
"Our traditional land where we make gardens and where our hunting grounds are is on the Indonesian side of the border and we use traditional border passes, but when they (Indonesian authorities) refuse us entry and want passports, we are placed in a dilemma," he said.
He said they are then unable to go to their gardens, which is rightfully on their very own land but in Indonesia.
"The Indonesian check point used to be at Tami River but when they built Bartas, they also moved it closer to the Papua New Guinea border," he said.
PNG Post-Courier: http://www.postcourier.com.pg/
Copyright © 2013 PNG Post-Courier. All Rights Reserved.
http://pidp.eastwestcenter.org/pireport/2013/January/01-18-05.htm
Aung San Suu Kyi - The Choice (2012)
Gillard and Abbott’s ‘race to the top’ to support private schools
.. the battle for public education and against the grading of schools goes on ..
[ can't copy the image here ]
The debate on schools funding has taken a strange turn with both sides
racing to increase funding to private schools. AAP Image/Alan Porritt
David Zyngier - Senior Lecturer Faculty of Education at Monash University -22 August 2012, 6.08am AEST
In a political echo of the unseemly bi-partisan “race to the bottom” over asylum seekers, we now have a “race to the top” with the prime minister and opposition leader vying to offer the most support to non-government schools.
Prime minister Julia Gillard earlier this week told a private school forum .. http://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/%E2%80%9Cwe-have-chance-do-more-address-independent-schools-national-forum .. that “every independent school in Australia will see their funding increase” under the government’s new funding plan. “This plan will lift school standards, not school fees,” she said.
Abbott on the other hand told the forum .. ttp://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/private-schools-hard-done-by-says-abbott-20120820-24ita.html .. that because 66% of Australian school students who attend public schools get 79% of government funding “there is no question of injustice to public schools here. If anything, the injustice is the other way.” Abbott reached this conclusion because the 34% of students who attend independent schools get 21% of government funding.
In a backdown away from Abbott’s comments the opposition’s education spokesperson, Christopher Pyne later said .. http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/coalition-backdown-on-school-funding-20120821-24kqy.html .. there was no injustice in regards to funding independent schools, saying the current level of funding for both independent and government schools is “appropriate.”
Pyne also stated publicly .. http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3547117.htm .. last month that there isn’t an equity issue in Australian schools and that the problem was with student outcomes. He has also declared that any government changes to the funding model of schools would be repealed under a coalition government.
Extending privileges for the privileged
This latest unedifying part of the debate comes after 10 years of public critique of the iniquitous funding formula. A system developed by the Howard government and continued under the Rudd and Gillard governments that is blind to the real needs of students, as well as schools and teachers and sees the most disadvantaged students in our community receiving the least amount of funding.
The results of this 12 year program have only extended the privileges of the already privileged.
The fact is that the fundamental pattern for the last 12 years of Australian Government funding for schools is that while most additional funding goes to non-government schools this has never prevented private schools raising their annual fees more than 10% per annum.
Those most concerned with public education today in Australia were, until now, quietly optimistic that the unfair education funding system would be changed.
A growing chorus .. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/garrett-raises-tempo-on-school-reform/story-fn59niix-1226447947844 .. of parents, teachers, principals as well as those within the business community and charity groups (including Business Council of Australia’s Jennifer Westacott, Westpac’s Gail Kelly, ACOSS' Cassandra Goldie and the Smith Family’s CEO Lisa Ryan) all called on Julia Gillard to implement the reforms recommended by David Gonski in his review of school funding .. http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/ReviewofFunding/Documents/Review-of-Funding-for-Schooling-Final-Report-Dec-2011.pdf .
Breaking new ground
The Gonski Review sought to change an unfair system into one that was more transparent, financially sustainable and effective in promoting excellent outcomes for all students.
Gonski looked forward .. http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/02/22/lesser-known-gonski-review-tackling-inequity-also-important-for-health/ .. to an education system premised on ensuring educational outcomes that were “not the result of differences in wealth, income, power or possessions”.
When the Gonski Review was released .. https://theconversation.edu.au/gonski-review-experts-respond-5452 .. earlier this year, it a was watershed moment in the debate on schools funding. It embraced the OECD definition of equity in education as its starting point; that every child should be able to achieve her potential regardless of social, cultural or economic background or their relationship to property, power or possession.
Gonski also gave overdue recognition to the fact that disadvantage has been “rusted on” to our education system. And he finally acknowledged our private schools whether independent or Catholic are not looking after our most vulnerable students.
Disadvantaging the disadvantaged
But there were weaknesses in the report. Gonski in fact understated the great weight of disadvantage shouldered by our public schools, the same who are least equipped and able to deal with this disadvantage: 85% of indigenous students, 78% of disabled students, 79% of low SES students attend our public schools.
While the rhetoric around social justice is espoused by both independent and especially
Catholic school sectors that they are looking after the poor, in reality they are not.
Research .. http://www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/cgi-bin/public/staff_profile.cgi?id=1872 .. by Professor Richard Teese demonstrates this issue clearly.
The Gonski Review does not have the depth of analysis about this disadvantage but politically it may have been impossible.
False premises … flawed data
The review’s resource based funding model starts with a false premise. Since the Karmel Report 40 years ago, we have witnessed a slow but ever-increasing movement of taxpayer’s dollars from public schools to the private sector, all apparently on the basis of Commonwealth provision for school education on the principle of “need”.
The Gonski Review has accepted as holy writ the “unique Australian tradition” that if parents decide not to send their child to the local public school, then the rest of the country is required to subsidise that choice. No other OECD country has such a tradition yet Gonski said these examples don’t count.
Statistics or lies
Abbott’s claims in this debate could be a case of lies, damn lies and statistics. Just because private schools gain 21% of the education budget and represent 34% of all school students is irrelevant.
What is relevant is the total funding per student including what parents voluntarily contribute to the private school. What has happened to the “user pays” theory of liberal philosophy?
Did it go out the door for the wealthy, and only apply to those who can least afford to pay in society?
What are the facts?
Recent pronouncements .. http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3547117.htm .. by opposition education spokesperson Christopher Pyne, are replete with false assumptions based on flawed data. The claim that Australian school education funding has increased by 44% since 2009 has been repeated so often that it is now accepted as truth.
The fact is that the fundamental pattern of Australian government funding for schools is that most additional funding goes to non-government schools. OECD figures tell another story.
In 2001 Australia’s education expenditure was 4.9% of GDP falling to 4.4% in 2008 before rising to 5.1% in 2009 as a result of the BER capital investment in all schools. Over the same period government education expenditure as a percentage of total government expenditure in Australia fell from 14.2% to 12.9%.
Annual government expenditure on Australian government schools was $US6980 per student, compared to the OECD average of $US7262. Australia ranked 15th of the 22 OECD countries. The difference in spending on secondary students is even lower.
Finland’s government expenditure on schools was $US7178 per student. In Finland government expenditure on education was 6.1% of GDP in 2001 rising to 6.8% in 2009.
Why $5 billion (or more) is needed …
The reason for the $5 billion price tag is because the Gillard government pledged that no school would be worse of as a result of any reform to funding schedules. But in actual fact even the $5 billion is less than one half of 1 % of GDP.
OECD research explains that any increase in student outcomes has a correlative increase in productivity – so in effect this extra funding will return as additional taxes and productivity for Australia.
But despite its weakness, the recommendations of the Gonski review remain a strong step in the right direction and should be implemented in full and as soon as possible.
Gillard and Abbott need to take the recommendations on balance, look at the facts and elevate the debate around this important policy issue.
Articles by This Author
12 September 2012 - Class warriors take on poor schools with education cuts
http://theconversation.edu.au/class-warriors-take-on-poor-schools-with-education-cuts-9512
3 September 2012 - Gillard’s ‘truths’ obscure the facts on schools funding
http://theconversation.edu.au/gillards-truths-obscure-the-facts-on-schools-funding-9226
17 August 2012 - The great curriculum debate: how should we teach civics?
http://theconversation.edu.au/the-great-curriculum-debate-how-should-we-teach-civics-7452
29 May 2012 - The great equity debate: a fair go for Australian schools
http://theconversation.edu.au/the-great-equity-debate-a-fair-go-for-australian-schools-5609
21 February 2012 Gonski review: another wasted opportunity
http://theconversation.edu.au/gonski-review-another-wasted-opportunity-5453
http://theconversation.edu.au/gillard-and-abbotts-race-to-the-top-to-support-private-schools-8942
======== .. education grading fiasco in England ..
GCSE fiasco 'leaves schools with 12 October 2012 Last updated at 02:58 GMT
By Hannah Richardson BBC News education reporter
Ofqual has said it will defend its decision
not to order regrading
Related Stories
Legal action nearer in GCSEs row - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19848628
Heads take GCSE battle to court - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19899309
Ofqual 'ordered late GCSE change' - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19544620
This summer's English GCSE grading fiasco will render this year's school league tables invalid, and leave many schools unjustly labelled "failing", head teachers' leaders say.
ASCL general secretary Brian Lightman said a quarter of schools saw dramatic falls in the headline GCSE scores used to measure success.
It comes after grade boundaries were changed part way through the year.
Exam regulator Ofqual has refused to order regrades.
In an open letter to the chairman of the Commons Education Committee Graham Stuart, Mr Lightman said a "gross injustice" had been done to many young people.
'Profound crisis'
He said his union, the Association of School and College Leaders, which is part of a group threatening a judicial review of the grading decisions, had amassed a vast amount of feedback from schools over the past few weeks.
He warned that the series of events had led to "a profound crisis of confidence amongst school and college leaders, teachers, parents and students in our current examinations system".
He said his union's own research suggested about a quarter of secondary schools nationally saw a drop of at least 10 percentage points in the number of pupils gaining five GCSEs A* to C including English and maths.
And a further fifth saw drops of 15 percentage points.
~~~~~~~~
GCSE GRADING ROW
* Issues with GCSE English grading emerged as results reached schools in August
* Heads suggested the exams had been marked over-harshly after Ofqual told exam boards to keep an eye on grade inflation
* Exam boards told reporters grade boundaries had changed significantly mid-way through the year
* Alterations were as much as 10 marks
* Heads complained pupils who sat GCSE English in the winter would have got a higher mark than if they had sat it in the summer
* Their unions called for an investigation and some mentioned legal action
* Ofqual held a brief inquiry, and stood by the June boundaries
* Heads, teachers and local authorities are threatening a judicial review
~~~~~~~~
He added: "The schools involved are a complete cross-section including academies, 'outstanding schools', rural, inner city etc.
"The key overt distinguishing factor" was the time pupils sat certain parts of the English exam.
He told the BBC the results were "causing havoc", adding: "It's completely skewing the results of many different schools."
He said: "It renders invalid this year's performance league tables and the data that's used for the basis of the whole accountability system because they are not results that reflect trends within schools.
"It has pushed lots of schools below the floor standards."
This means that they will effectively be classed as failing by official standards.
He said that an early survey of members suggested at least 160 extra schools would fall below the target of getting 40% of pupils getting five good GCSEs including English and maths.
The Department for Education would not comment on the claims, saying the issue was a matter for exams regulator Ofqual and the exam boards.
Ofqual has already said in an interim report on the issue that the January grading was too lenient, and is standing by the harsher June grades. It is due to report more fully on the issue shortly.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19911541
Source: NSWTF .. Australia .. http://www.nswtf.org.au/world/news/2012/10/16/gcse-fiasco-leaves-schools-failing-tag.html
Edit: Noel Pearson's hometown of Hopevale divided over grog bans
~~~~~~~~~~
Edit: Insert: Noel Pearson (Australian lawyer)
Noel Pearson in February 2010
Noel Pearson (born 25 June 1965) is an Aboriginal Australian lawyer, academic, land rights activist and founder of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, an organisation promoting the economic and social development of Cape York.
Pearson came to prominence as an advocate for Indigenous peoples' rights to land - a position he maintains.[1] Since the end of the 1990s his focus has encompassed a range of additional issues: he has strongly argued that Indigenous policy needs to change direction, notably in relation to welfare, substance abuse, child protection, and economic development. Pearson criticises approaches to these problems which, while claiming to be "progressive," in his opinion merely keep Indigenous people dependent on welfare and out of the "real economy." He outlined this position in 2000 in his speech, The light on the hill .. http://www.australianpolitics.com/news/2000/00-08-12a.shtml .
more links and more on a great Australian Aboriginal ..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noel_Pearson_%28Australian_lawyer%29
~~~~~~~~~~
by: Jamie Walker and Sarah Elks
From: The Australian
October 05, 2012 12:00AM
Hopevale mayor Greg McLean says the indigenous alcohol management plan had not solved
the grog abuse problem in his town. Picture: Brian Cassey Source: The Australian
NOEL Pearson's home town of Hopevale is set to split over statutory alcohol limits, as indigenous communities across Queensland get their say on the future of a program credited with curbing violence and putting more children into school.
Hopevale Mayor Greg McLean insists that a majority of the 850 residents favour easing the restrictions that allow drinkers a single carton of mid-strength beer or one 750ml bottle of table wine at a time, while banning spirits and fortified wine.
Elsewhere in Queensland, alcohol management plans ban alcohol outright in Aboriginal communities, backed by state law.
Mr McLean is on a collision course with Mr Pearson, the internationally recognised indigenous activist who was instrumental in setting up AMPs a decade ago. His spokesman confirmed yesterday that Mr Pearson would strongly oppose any move to pump more alcohol into the Cape York town.
Traditional elder Tim McGreen, a member of the Hopevale congress of clans, said he felt let down by the Queensland government's move to review the system when he had gone to the trouble to campaign for Premier Campbell Newman in the lead-up to the state election last March.
Today, he will attend the funeral of a young man, related to Mr McLean, who was struggling with an alcohol problem at the time he took his life. It was the second such tragedy in six months in Hopevale.
Disputing Mr McLean's claim of majority support for relaxing the community's AMP, Mr McGreen said: "It's only a handful who want it . . . the people who sit down and drink and smoke with him."
He hopes that Mr Newman can be persuaded to leave the AMPs as they stand in 19 largely remote indigenous settlements. "It's going to make it hard for me as a non-drinker, non-smoker if this goes ahead," said Mr McGreen, 49. "It won't make the community happier; it will make people sadder."
The mayors of two notionally dry peninsula communities, Pormpuraaw and Kowanyama, say they will apply to lift their zero alcohol limits.
Former ALP national president and GenerationOne social advocacy group boss Warren Mundine stepped up his criticism of the AMP review, announced on Wednesday, calling on Aboriginal leaders to speak with a "unified voice" against it.
But the architect of the Howard government's 2007 intervention in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities, Mal Brough, said blanket bans on grog were always going to be temporary.
Mr McLean said the "one carton" limit should stay in Hopevale, but people should be free to have full-strength beer or the equivalent in cans of pre-mixed spirit drinks. A car would not be allowed to carry more than two cartons of drink at a time, provided there were at least two adults in it.
"I don't think there's a person who will disagree with what we've put forward in Hopevale because it gives them back partly their human rights," Mr McLean said.
"And it gives dignity back to the individuals."
Pormpuraaw mayor Richard Tarpencha said AMPs constituted a form of racial discrimination and had caused marijuana abuse to spike on the peninsula.
He wants Pormpuraaw residents to be allowed to bring one carton of beer per car into the community.
"Non-indigenous Australians after work can get a carton and go back home and drink it, with their families, but the indigenous people can't do that," Mr Tarpencha complained.
Kowanyama mayor Rob Holness said AMPs had led to some positive changes. However, there should be a privately run, family-friendly licensed restaurant in the community.
"We're all Australians, we're all Queenslanders and we should be treated like everyone else," Mr Holness said.
"We don't want to go back to the old days when it's open slather, but we want to be able to make our own rules, have the AMP lifted and let each council run their community the way they want to."
Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Minister Glen Elmes has stressed indigenous community councils would need to demonstrate there would be no backsliding on violence or school attendance rates before alcohol restrictions were eased. He is in accord with federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin that the rules cannot be changed at the expense of protecting women, children and the elderly. Mr Elmes said he wanted to strengthen penalties for sly grog running as part of the review into the AMP system.
A bottle of rum that retailed for $50 in Cairns would fetch up to $250 when smuggled into Aurukun, the 1200-strong community near the tip of the cape that had indicated that it would retain the existing prohibition.
On Mornington Island, also notionally dry, a home brew based on Vegemite had a potentially lethal 11 per cent alcohol content. Mr Elmes said an unintended consequence of AMPs had been to "open up" communities to contraband and dangerous home-made grog.
Mr McLean said Hopevale's AMP was not worth persevering with in its current form.
"The AMP worked for statistics, it's worked for the bureaucrats, it's worked for those who wanted to get funding for the problem, but it has not worked as a solution," he said.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/indigenous/noel-pearsons-hometown-of-hopevale-divided-over-grog-bans/story-fn9hm1pm-1226488539971
========
7News : Palmer predicts Premier's demise
The 0.01 Per Cent: The Rising Influence of Vested Interests in Australia
Wayne Swan
The Monthly | The Monthly Essays | March 2012 |
Billionaire activists: Clive Palmer, Andrew Forrest and Gina Rinehart. © Philip
Norrish/Newspix; Greg Wood/AAP; Tony McDonough/AAP
The rising influence of vested interests is threatening Australia’s egalitarian social contract.
A decade ago, as I waited for my order outside a Maroochydore fish and chip shop, a tall, barefoot young man strolled past wearing a T-shirt that read: ‘Greed is good. Trample the weak. Hurdle the dead.’ Those brutal lines seemed to encapsulate what was then a growing sense of unease in Australia. The world of my Queensland childhood, governed by its implicit assumptions of equality and mutual care, was being driven from sight by a combination of ruthless individualism and unquestioning materialism. Looking out for number one was not only tolerated but encouraged by a government whose agenda, particularly in industrial relations, seemed very far from the social contract, based on a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work with a decent social safety net for the vulnerable, that had served our nation so well for so long.
Today, when a would-be US president, Mitt Romney, is wealthier than 99.9975% of his fellow Americans, and wealthier than the last eight presidents combined, there’s a global conversation raging about the rich, the poor, the gap between them, and the role of vested interests in the significant widening of that gap in advanced economies over the past three decades.
This is a debate Australia too must be part of. We’ve always prided ourselves on being a nation that’s more equal than most – a place where, if you work hard, you can create a better life for yourself and your family. Our egalitarian spirit is the product of our history and our national character, as well as the institutions and safeguards built up over more than a century. This spirit informed our stimulus response to the global financial crisis, and meant we avoided the kinds of immense social dislocation that occurred elsewhere in the developed world.
But Australia’s fair go is today under threat from a new source. To be blunt, the rising power of vested interests is undermining our equality and threatening our democracy. We see this most obviously in the ferocious and highly misleading campaigns waged in recent years against resource taxation reforms and the pricing of carbon pollution. The infamous billionaires’ protest against the mining tax would have been laughed out of town in the Australia I grew up in, and yet it received a wide and favourable reception two years ago. A handful of vested interests that have pocketed a disproportionate share of the nation’s economic success now feel they have a right to shape Australia’s future to satisfy their own self-interest.
So I write this essay to make a simple point: if we don’t
grow together economically, our community will grow apart.
Of course, rewards should be proportionate to effort, recognising the hard work and entrepreneurship that create wealth and employment. We should not seek pure equality, but we do need to combat the types of disparities in opportunity that damage our society. That’s why providing more people with a good education and a decent job with fair rights and conditions should be an economic as well as a moral goal.
President Obama described rising income inequality as the defining issue of our time. It has always been one of the defining issues of my political life. It was the theme of a book that I wrote back in 2005, Postcode, and like most Labor activists, tackling rising inequality was one of the tasks that called me into politics. It remains today the horizon towards which we always march.
It was also the abiding purpose of those big-hearted and articulate working people and assorted radicals who created Labor in the nineteenth century. Many of them brought with them to Australia a direct experience of the social tumult of the Industrial Revolution in Britain and Europe. One of our earliest leaders, Andrew Fisher, literally worked down the pit as a child. It was an era in which technological advances were increasing average wealth dramatically but giving the benefits overwhelmingly to a fortunate few. Instead of a mutual obligation between rich and poor, this era bred a winner-takes-all mentality that left many even worse off than they had been before industrialisation. To be working class at that time usually meant a life of grinding poverty, which often ended in an early death. There were few provisions for sickness or old age, leaving many with no option but to endure the harsh conditions.
Many of those who journeyed to Australia came here precisely to escape this sort of life.
Here they saw a chance to create a more equal society in which some of the wealth actually made it to the bottom. And they did it by vesting the role of ameliorating poverty not in an aristocracy but in a democratic state. This is the best way to understand the greatest Australian achievements of the last two centuries: a living wage, a welfare system, public health care, mass home ownership, and accessible technical and higher education.
*
With the American presidential election processes now underway we’re hearing one term a lot: ‘middle-class society’. Americans still aspire to it even as it slips further from their grasp. ‘Middle-class society’ is a better label for Australia than for the United States, where the middle class is shrinking and economic mobility is under threat.
While America’s rich have left so many of their fellow citizens light years behind them, rising incomes in Australia have been spread far more evenly across the community. Incomes for the poorest 10% in Australia have grown at more than double the average for developed economies in recent decades, while growth in the US and the UK has been substantially below average, according to the OECD.
As well as sharing the gains of economic growth, Australia has done better at preserving economic mobility – the idea that success can be determined by effort and enterprise and not simply where you were born or who your parents are. Across 17 OECD economies, Australians in the bottom 20% of income earners are the equal third most likely to lift themselves out of that situation within three years.
Australian lifestyles bear out what these statistics are saying. Though many still find it hard to make ends meet, working Australians are more likely to holiday overseas, drive a recent model car and live in a bigger home than their parents’ generation. This generalised affluence is now shaping our national culture. Today the tradie has more traction in our national psyche than the celebrity because he or she symbolises the idea of economic self-determination and affluence that half a century ago was obtainable only by a fortunate few. By world standards, and particularly by the standards of a generation ago, the Australian working class is now mostly middle class.
Having said that, we’re not an economically equal society by any means. There are sizeable pockets of considerable social disadvantage to be found in every state, especially among Indigenous communities and in older industrial and regional areas. There is a lot left to do to tackle poverty and disadvantage; we have not won a decisive victory.
To help maintain our egalitarianism, policies need to do some heavy lifting. We’ve seen a quiet revolution underway in recent years in our tax and transfer system to ensure the relief goes to those who need it most. Australia’s plans to means-test the private health insurance rebate and treble the tax-free threshold are just the latest examples of the sort of progressive reform that is now next to impossible in the US because of political gridlock. Australia’s egalitarian social contract is also underpinned by a fair and flexible industrial relations system. Over the past century, labour laws have developed which balance the interests of workers and employers, providing both incentives for hard work and protections against exploitation. It was the erosion of these laws, under the guise of WorkChoices, that the Australian people so thoroughly rejected at the 2007 election.
A look at the US shows how well our policies are doing by comparison. Shortly after World War II, Australia and the US were roughly equal in the percentage of total income going to the top 1%. Today the gap between the rich and the rest in the US is around twice the size of ours: in 2008, the top 1% in the US received around 17.7% of all income, while the figure is just 8.6% in Australia.
If President Obama is right about inequality being the defining issue of our time, then it follows that here in Australia we should be doing all we can to maintain our sense of egalitarian fairness. This is what one of the most eloquent defenders of social democracy, historian and philosopher Tony Judt, was getting at when he wrote just before his death in 2010, paralysed from the neck down by the degenerative Lou Gehrig’s disease, that the type of society of generalised middle-class affluence that social democracy had managed to create was worth fighting hard for to retain.
Today, surveying the wreckage of the worst global downturn since the Great Depression, many leading thinkers argue the ideal of the middle-class society is under mortal threat in the West, even as a growing middle class is lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty in the East. One of the most compelling contributions to the debate comes from Francis Fukuyama, who wrote in Foreign Affairs about the dangers of the erosion of the middle-class social base in the developed world. “From the days of Aristotle,” writes Fukuyama, “thinkers have believed that stable democracy rests on a broad middle class and that societies with extremes of wealth and poverty are susceptible either to oligarchic domination or populist revolution.” These are the extremes, but, as he goes on to argue, we are already witnessing “some very troubling economic and social trends … which threaten the stability of contemporary liberal democracies and dethrone democratic ideology as it is now understood.”
These trends are all too evident in a recently released and widely discussed report by the OECD, ‘Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising’. It found that starting in the 1970s and through the 1980s, coinciding with the Reagan–Thatcher revolutions, inequality in the West has widened considerably. Across the developed world, the top is accelerating away from the middle much faster than the middle is moving away from the bottom.
The catchcry of Wall Street’s Zuccotti Park and the Occupy movement, ‘We are the 99%’, has shone a spotlight on the top 1%. Between 1979 and 2007 in the US, the top 1% saw their after-tax incomes rise 275%, while the middle two thirds saw their after-tax incomes increase by less than 40%.
Investment income is a strong driver of this concentrated privilege, with Forbes finding the top 0.1% net over half of all capital gains in the US. Even as this group’s share of the pie has rapidly increased, their tax rates have been in decline for five decades. This sort of unfairness can’t go on. Statistics like these have fanned public condemnation of the far-right, ‘you’re-on-your-own’ school of economics responsible. Some have argued that it was the reincarnation of these policies in Britain that led to violent riots in London last year. The Archbishop of Canterbury observed many of those involved were people who felt they had nothing to lose in a society where, increasingly, the winners take all.
What makes the increasing inequality in countries like the US and UK so much worse is that basic pay levels have stagnated. Not surprisingly, the beneficiaries have set out to defend and hang on to their gains. In the US in particular this inequality has become self-reinforcing, as immense personal and corporate wealth has created seemingly unstoppable lobbying power which aims to head off any effort to impose reasonable levels of regulation and taxation.
This lobbying effort contributed directly to the worldwide financial collapse of four years ago, from which the world economy has not yet recovered. Some, it seems, never learn. For instance, all remaining Republican candidates have pledged if elected to repeal the Dodd–Frank Act which imposed more and better regulation on the financial sector in response to the 2008 Wall Street collapse. So let’s understand what’s at stake: allowing vested interests to distort the shape of economic growth for their own narrow advantage is not only bad for our democracy and our community, it is bad for our economy.
Thankfully, other voices are calling loudly for change. The chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, Alan Krueger, has warned that the US has “reached the point that inequality in incomes is causing an unhealthy division in opportunities, and is a threat to our economic growth”. Prior to its Davos meeting earlier this year, the World Economic Forum put severe income disparity at the top of its list of global risks over the next ten years. According to the WEF, risks posed by income inequalities or major systemic financial collapse have this year eclipsed climate change.
Similarly, a Pew Research Center survey found that friction between rich and poor in the US is now a greater source of social tension than the issues of race and immigration. Concern about conflict between rich and poor is now higher than it was in 2009, which tells a powerful story about how the financial disaster that began in 2008 continues to shape American life.
I was heartened that the champion of the free market, the Financial Times, recently took up the debate in its ‘Capitalism in Crisis’ series, editorialising that “public confidence in shareholder capitalism can only be restored if owners recognise this responsibility [to society]”. As part of this excellent series, John Plender warned that the excessive greed of those at the top of the economy, most notably those in the finance sector, is now causing a crisis of legitimacy that is eroding business’s social licence and undermining support for open trade. He cites a recent book by economist Stewart Lansley to show that, since 2007, while average households have experienced a “long and deep squeeze”, high finance has become “a cash-cow for a global super-rich elite”. John Maynard Keynes, Plender reminds us, pointed out that the legitimacy of capitalism rests on the existence of an implicit social contract between the rich and the rest. Rampant money-making of the sort witnessed today is dissolving that contract before our very eyes.
Elsewhere in the series, Philip Stephens has written that “in a time of austerity, the gulf between the 1% and the 99% puts a question mark over the legitimacy of the market system”. He quotes a recent poll that shows Americans’ support for free enterprise has fallen dramatically in just ten years, from 80% to 60%. This is worrying because, despite its faults, the market system is still the best mechanism for generating prosperity for more people. We can’t afford to let it be undermined by the excessive greed of a wildly irresponsible few.
As I have mentioned, the idea that the economy exists to serve society was for generations one of the foundational and legitimising pillars of capitalism. Central to this threat is the rising power of vested interests. As President Obama has pointed out, well-funded lobby groups give “an outsized voice to the few” by “selling out our democracy to the highest bidder”. They are not, however, limited to Washington. Australian vested interests too are gathering force.
In the last couple of years, Australia has seen the emergence of our own distributional coalitions willing to use their considerable wealth to oppose good public policy and economic reforms designed to benefit the majority. The combination of industry deep pockets, conservative political support, biased editorial policy and shock-jock ranting has been mobilised in an attempt to protect vested interest. It’s reflected in how the Coalition under Tony Abbott has recently radicalised itself into an Australian version of the Tea Party, more than willing to kneecap Australia’s three-decade reform project for cheap political points.
There are many Australians of great wealth who make important and considered contributions to the national debate. I always welcome that involvement in the discussion of public policy whether I agree with them or not. What characterises the vested interests that I’m concerned about is how they misrepresent their self-interest as the national interest. There has been a perceptible shift in this country in recent years, and it is sadly very much in the American direction of stronger and stronger influence being wielded by a smaller and smaller minority of vested interests. Crucially, much of our media seems more and more inclined to accept that growing influence.
I know that 99% of businesspeople want the best for Australia, and that most people want us to remain the nation of the fair go. I talk to business owners from coast to coast and am constantly impressed by their forward-looking and can-do natures. For every Andrew Forrest who wails about high company taxes and then admits to not paying any, there are a hundred Australian businesspeople who held on to their employees and worked with government to keep the doors of Australian business open during the GFC. Despite the howling of a small minority, the vast bulk of the resources industry is in the cart for more efficient profits-based resource taxation which serves to strengthen our entire economy. The vast majority of our miners accept that they have a social obligation to pay their fair share of tax on the resources Australians own.
But again, it’s that tiny 1%, or even 0.1%, who are trying to drown out the others, who are blind to the national interest, and who pour their considerable personal fortunes into advertising, armies of lobbyists, dodgy modelling and corporate and commercial manoeuvring designed to influence editorial decisions.
The latest example of this is the foray by Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, into Fairfax Media, reportedly in an attempt to wield greater influence on public opinion and further her commercial interests at a time when the overwhelming economic consensus is that it’s critical to use the economic weight of the resources boom to strengthen the entire economy. Without a blush, her friend and fellow media owner John Singleton let the cat out of the bag when he told the Sydney Morning Herald that he and Rinehart had been “able to overtly and covertly attack governments … because we have people employed by us like Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones and Ray Hadley who agree with [our] thinking”.
I fear Australia’s extraordinary success has never been in more jeopardy than right now because of the rising power of vested interests. This poison has infected our politics and is seeping into our economy. Though these vested interests have not yet prevailed, every day their demands get louder.
Politicians have a choice: between exploiting divisions by promoting fear and appealing to the sense of fairness and decency that is the foundation of our middle-class society; between standing up for workers and kneeling down at the feet of the Gina Rineharts and the Clive Palmers.
Australia’s future in the Asian Century will rely on retaining a strong, united, middle-class society. We will need a nation which calls on everyone’s skills; which is tolerant not resentful; which recognises the need for public investment in skills, infrastructure and education; and which continues to extend a social licence to the market so Australia’s flair for entrepreneurship, innovation and free trade can continue to create more wealth for all of us.
Instead of capitulating to the demands of the vested interests, and allowing the benefits to amass disproportionately to them, we have a chance to bend the extraordinary shift in the global economy from West to East to the advantage of all Australians. This is neither the fierce pro-market capitalism that got us into a global financial fix, nor is it anti-market socialist ideology. It’s simply the best way to keep growing Australia’s economic pie so ultimately we all end up better off. Ensuring the social contract does not erode is vital if we want to avoid a hollowed-out capitalism assured of its
own collapse.
*
To me, the most significant question in politics when I started out in the late ’70s, when I wrote Postcode, and when I go to work tomorrow, is what we use our prosperity for. It’s not just about putting dollars in people’s pockets, but about building a better society; a society that creates wealth and spreads opportunity, a society that lifts up the worst-off and gives everyone a decent shot at a decent life.
When we were confronted with the biggest economic downturn in 75 years, our egalitarian values underpinned our response. Our stimulus package was designed to protect jobs and business. Our unemployment rate is now around half that of Europe and our economy is 7% larger than it was before the GFC, while other developed economies have yet to make up the ground they lost.
We have some big challenges ahead of us, like lifting productivity and managing the effects of the mining boom, the impact of climate change and the stresses of an economy in transition. As part of addressing these economic challenges, we must fight a pitched battle against the influence of vested interests that seek to shape public policy to their own excessive benefit and at the expense of our middle-class society.
Our country cannot afford to let them win out over the broader community. There is simply too much at stake. Australia walks tall in the world for the strength of our economy and our egalitarianism. We can show the way in our politics as well, by ensuring that the voices of the majority are not drowned out by the interests of a well-funded, noisy handful. Success for us will require not the growth of inequality and a shrinking middle class, but shrinking inequality and a growing middle class. This is the heritage and the heartbeat of the Australian Labor Party. This is what I’ve spent my career striving to protect and promote. It is the only way forward if we are to ensure the great mass of good-hearted Australians are winners in the Asian Century, and not just a fortunate few.
The Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer thanks friends and colleagues for assistance with this piece.
http://www.themonthly.com.au/rising-influence-vested-interests-australia-001-cent-wayne-swan-4670
See also:
they told America openly, our only goal is to get Obama .. forget the
economy, forget social considerations as cohesion and women's rights
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79192368
If you cared for social cohesion at all in your country
you would support the gut message put out by the OWS.
FUCKING PERIOD .. lol, the blind shall inherit the earth, eh what?
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=69717877
~~~~~~~~~~
conix .. a higher minimum wage means more money in circulation so better for the economy, also
fewer poor .. that has been my sense since whenever .. don't know if it's 100% right, but have
never been told it's a nonsense concept .. yet, conservatives in Australia have attacked the
concept of and the increasing of consistently, and the review body that considers it each year ..
see Gina Rineheart posts this board to see how stupid some are.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79509893
Australia minimum non-award rate now looks $15.96 .. more ..
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79701421
~~~~~~~~~~
bottom line
IMF: Income inequality is bad for economic growth
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81108559
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81135782
why some are so stubborn when down deep ALL of us know a more equal society is a more
socially cohesive one, i'll never really understand .. a more equal society is better for ALL ..
Corruption USA/AUSTRALIA - Nixon USA then - Obeids NSW now .. no .. these
are not nearly of the same magnitude .. just a bit of then-and-now-here-and-there
Evidence against Obeid corruption arises
Updated: 05:37, Thursday November 15, 2012
There's been more evidence against the Obeid family at the corruption inquiry looking into the conduct of some members of the former NSW Labor government.
The ICAC hearing's been told that the Obeids used inside information that coal mining would start in the NSW Bylong Valley to snap up farms sitting on lucrative coal deposits.
It's investigating former Labor minister Ian Macdonald's decision in 2008 to open the Bylong Valley to coal mining and how it benefited Eddie Obeid, another ex-minister.
Confidential documents made by Anthony Rumore, a lawyer for the Obeid family, were shown to the inquiry yesterday, revealing a meeting between Mr Rumore and Eddie Obeid's sons Paul and Gerard to discuss the beginning of coal mining in the area.
The meeting took place on June 23, 2008, but the government expression of interest in coal mining in the area wasn't issued until September 9, 2008.
Mr Rumore said the Obeids stood to gain financially from the purchase of
the farms after the EOI was issued and mining leases were granted over the land.
http://www.skynews.com.au/local/article.aspx?id=816554
Yesiree .. every country has highly corrupt people; the only new is the
type of corruption, and whether the guilty are punished .. or not ..
ASIDE: the USA's darkest political moment?
Think President Nixon's Mafia connections and his political use of them ..
1960 - (Nixon as VP Nixon pressured Mafia/CIA to assassinate Castro) .. Nixon had been Eisenhower's "point man for Cuba and he used that role to pressure the CIA to work with the Mafia to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro before the election" ..
1972 - (facing close election, again plot to kill Castro, before the election) ..
Long-term Mafia connections .. huge bribes .. first to drop charges against Jimmy Hoffa .. then later to free him from jail.
Watergate: .. nope, not one 3rd rate attempted burglary at DNC headquarters, but .. 'dozens of illegal felonies illegal political espionage (wiretaps, surveillance, bugging, beatings) to massive corporate bribes and illegal slush funds .. early 70's only a few in Justice and Congress knew of Nixon's clear culpability'.
Those are notes from Lamar Waldron's ""WATERGATE: The Hidden History: Nixon, The Mafia, and the CIA."" ..
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/liz-smith/lamar-waldron-watergate_b_1607058.html
Note: the cover-up was NOT worse than the crime(s).
Anyway, i digress .. lol .. back to Australia ..
Coal corruption worst scam 'since Rum Corps'
Kate McClymont and Linton Besser- Date November 13, 2012
Eddie Obeid reaped millions. Photo: Jon Reid
THE family of New South Wales Labor power broker Eddie Obeid received $30 million and stood to make a further $70 million using inside information on coal exploration licences provided by disgraced former mining minister Ian Macdonald.
Not only is this ''the most important investigation ever undertaken'' by the Independent Commission Against Corruption but ''it is corruption on a scale probably unexceeded since the days of the Rum Corps,'' counsel assisting the inquiry, Geoffrey Watson, SC, said in his opening address on Monday.
Mr Obeid, the dominant factional player in the state ALP's branch, manipulated Mr Macdonald to do his bidding. This included rigging a public tender, demoting a senior official and even making changes to the state's formal coal licence maps to ensure the scam would ''confer massive cascading profits upon Mr Obeid and his family'', the inquiry heard. ''In all, decisions taken or influenced by Ian Macdonald may have enabled Eddie Obeid and his family to acquire profits in the order of $100 million,'' Mr Watson said. ''An important motive is money - a motive with a long pedigree.''
Forensic accountants have trawled through hundreds of accounts and traced thousands of payments through a complex web of trusts, shelf companies and nominee directors, which the Obeids used to disguise their activities.
Labor's Opposition Leader, John Robertson, last night suspended Mr Obeid from the party, describing allegations aired about him during the corruption hearing as ''shocking''.
''The gravity of the allegations that came out this morning at the ICAC in the opening statements are so shocking that I have moved to act immediately,'' Mr Robertson said. ''I, like most people, can't believe the magnitude and the seriousness of these allegations.''
Mr Macdonald's decisions deprived the taxpayers of NSW of tens of millions of dollars in revenue, the inquiry heard.
Instead, some of the nation's wealthiest individuals, as well as the Obeids and their associates, stood to benefit from inside information, including one deal that would have netted them $60 million each.
The inquiry heard that the Obeids had both ends of the coalmining deal sewn up. Using inside information, the family and its associates bought three adjoining properties over which Mr Macdonald would later grant an exploration licence. The profit for the Obeids and their associates from this deal alone was almost $26 million.
They also had highly confidential information about who would win the government tender. This allowed them to join forces with the successful bidder, Cascade Coal, and later extract $60 million from Cascade from an outlay of a mere $200,000, Mr Watson said.
Cascade Coal is a private company owned by Travers Duncan, John McGuigan, John Kinghorn, Brian Flannery, John Atkinson, Richard Poole, an investment banker, as well as Mr Macdonald's best friend, Greg Jones.
The inquiry heard that in October 2010 the Obeids received $30 million from Cascade and had been ''recently pressing to get the next $30 million''. Cascade tried to disguise the payment of the $30 million to the Obeids. The bank account of an eastern suburbs socialite, Amanda Poole, the wife of Richard Poole, one of the investors in Cascade, was used to transfer $7.5 million to the Obeids.
Crucially, five of the Cascade investors were directors of the much larger, publicly listed miner White Energy. Mr Duncan was the White Energy chairman and Mr Flannery was White's managing director.
The inquiry heard that each of the seven were to make $60 million when they sold Cascade to White Energy.
''For an outlay of about $1 million, Cascade Coal had acquired rights which they were reselling for $500 million,'' said Mr Watson.
This, he said, was in effect ''a kind of 'gift' of $500 million from us, the people of NSW, to the seven investors of Cascade Coal''. The beneficiaries of this ''gift'' were already ''very wealthy men'', Mr Watson said.
In the end, shareholder discontent meant the deal did not go ahead. Mr Macdonald was to have received ''a substantial payment'' when the Cascade and White Energy deal was completed. Cascade is seeking other buyers for its one asset, the Mount Penny tenement.
The inquiry heard that Alan Coutts, the deputy head of the Department of Primary Industries, was told to ''shut up'' by Mr Macdonald when he raised concerns about the licences. He was subsequently moved out of the department without warning.
with Sean Nicholls - http://www.smh.com.au/national/coal-corruption-worst-scam-since-rum-corps-20121112-298vv.html
.. sheesh .. is kinda hard to read a book when so much is happening, eh .. chuckle ..
USA taser death stats getting Australia air time today
Amnesty International: More than 270 TASER deaths in USA since 2001
Since June 2001, there have been more than 270 TASER-related deaths in the United States. AI
is concerned that TASERs are being used as tools of routine force, rather than as weapons of
last resort. Rigorous, independent, impartial study of their use and effects is urgently needed.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/Our_Issues/Domestic_Human_Rig...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2311091
WHY NOW? .. we have just had a TERRIBLE case of thuggish police taser behavior, leading to death.
Fresh taser debate sparked in Australia
14 Nov 2012, 6:14 pm - Source: Cecilia Lindgren, SBS
[ EMBEDDED VIDEO ]
Fresh debate has been sparked over the use of Tasers by police, after inquest findings over the death of two men in Australia were handed down today, Cecilia Lindgren reports.
RELATED
* Police pressured over taser use
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/video/2304458265/Police-pressured-over-taser-use
* Factbox: Taser-related deaths in Australia
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1636353/Factbox-Taser-related-deaths-in-Australia
* Coroner slams NSW cops over Taser death
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1711065/Coroner-slams-NSW-cops-over-Taser-death
* Police taser usage 'reckless' in Curti case: Corone
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1711089/Police-taser-usage-reckless-in-Curti-case-Coroner
Debate around the use of Tasers in Australia continues as findings from the inquests into the Taser-related deaths of a Queensland man and a Brazilian student were handed down today.
Taser supporters say they are a less than lethal and safer alternative to guns, however critics claim their use is abused by police.
Figures obtained by New South Wales Greens MP David Shoebridge indicate the introduction of Tasers has not reduced the use of firearms.
“So what we have seen is no displacement of guns, we're not seeing Tasers used instead if firearms, we've just seen a whole new class of corporal punishment, physical punishment, being delivered by police through the use of 50,000 volts at the end of a taser”, he said.
Professor of Criminology at Monash University, Jude McCullogh, argues police should improve their negotiation skills instead of resorting to Tasers.
“The problem with less than lethal weapons such as Tasers is that police come to rely on them as a technical quick-fix and move away from those negotiation skills that are often far more effective, particularly with people who are high on drugs or going through a psychotic episode relating to a mental illness.”
Despite the criticism of Taser use, Ian Leavers from the Queensland Police Union says they remain a vital weapon in subduing violent offenders.
“They do save lives, and they will continue to do so. It’s a positive thing, but to say that police don’t like to use any force at all, it is a last resort and it has to be a case by case scenario,”
Amnesty International claims at least 500 people have died in the US after being Tasered.
But Taser International - the multinational company behind the weapon - says it saves lives and has never been a direct cause of anyone's death.
“Nothing's one hundred per cent safe, but at this stage we don't know of anything that Tasers can actually [do to] harm a person, but physically if someone's tasered and they're on the edge of a building they can fall off.
"So you've got to say that Tasers isn't one hundred per cent safe but then it all comes back to training,” said George Hateley, Australian distributor of Taser stun guns.
There are currently no nationally consistent police guidelines on how to safely use Tasers, but all states and territories agree that Tasers should only be used to protect human life or prevent potential injury to police officers or members of the public.
[ two links inside inoperative for me ]
Your Comments .. [ 3 of the comments ]
Absolute Garbage
phil - from perth, 14 hours ago
This argument is complete garbage. Police should be given as much freedom as they see fit to use whatever method of defence they see as necessary for the circumstances, from drawing weapons and firing to tazering which there should be more of. Times are changing, the streets are crawling with violent people and the police need to defend themselves and the public.... talk to them nicely !!! put yourself in their position you idiot.....bring it on.
Indiscriminate power to kill with Tasers by Police
Kelly Buckman - from Brisbane, 16 hours ago
Our Justice system prosecutes criminals for manslaughter and murder, how is this any different.? Tasers are being used on people who are not endangering anyone, instead the two most recent taser deaths were due to alcohol and mental issues.. Because the Police are protected by the fact that they are Police, their indiscriminatory powers given to use these dangerous weapons, Tasers. Which Kill and have killed innocent people. Disciplinary Action is not sufficient.
be careful what you ask for
A Vet - from Artarmon, Sydney, 16 hours ago
I was a copper from 1987 to 2010 and spent all of that time on the street. I never used o/c spray or taser at all although I was trained and issued with them. I am 6ft 2" (187cm) and 120 kgs. Capsicum spray and tasers have been brought in because police forces have let physical entry standards slip, preferring "educated" new age police instead of big,old school, footy playing,dumb arsed, hard headed coppers. This is the price of progress. Be careful of what you ask for - you just got it.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1711261/Fresh-taser-debate-sparked-in-Australia
Gillard launches royal commission into child abuse
By Simon Cullen and staff - Updated 1 hour 43 minutes ago
Video: Church abuse victims share stories before Royal Commission (7.30)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-12/church-abuse-victims-share-stories-before-royal/4367882
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced the creation of a national royal
commission into institutional responses to instances of child sexual abuse.
The decision was taken at a meeting of federal cabinet this afternoon.
Ms Gillard had been under pressure to act following growing calls for a national inquiry into explosive allegations by a senior New South Wales police investigator that the Catholic Church covered up evidence involving paedophile priests.
A number of senior Labor MPs, as well as key independents, had already voiced their support for action on a national scale.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott also declared his support for a "wide-ranging" royal commission into child sex abuse but said it should not just focus on claims involving the Catholic Church.
Ms Gillard said the Government would take the coming weeks to consult stakeholders before announcing the terms of reference.
The Prime Minister said the commission would look at all religious organisations, state care providers, not-for-profit bodies as well as the responses of child service agencies and the police.
"The allegations that have come to light recently about child sexual abuse have been heartbreaking," Ms Gillard told reporters in Canberra.
"There have been too many revelations of adults
who have averted their eyes from this evil".
Prime Minister Julia Gillard
"These are insidious, evil acts to which no child should be subject.
"Australians know... that too many children have suffered child abuse, but have also seen other adults let them down - they've not only had their trust betrayed by the abuser but other adults who could have acted to assist them have failed to do so.
"There have been too many revelations of adults who have averted their eyes from this evil.
"I believe in these circumstances that it's appropriate for there to be a national response through a royal commission."
Ms Gillard said she would speak with relevant premiers and chief ministers in the coming days to discuss how the royal commission would relate to any similar inquiries proposed or underway.
"Discussions will also take place with victims' groups, religious leaders and community organisations," she said.
"Further announcements, including the proposed commissioner and detailed terms of reference, will be made in coming weeks.
"I commend the victims involved for having the courage to speak out.
"I believe we must do everything we can to make sure that what has happened in the past is never allowed to happen again."
Video: PM launches Royal Commission into sexual abuse (ABC News
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-12/gillard-launches-royal-commission-into/4367700
Pell welcomes inquiry
Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Cardinal George Pell has welcomed the announcement of a royal commission, saying the church will cooperate fully.
"Public opinion remains unconvinced that the Catholic Church has dealt adequately with sexual abuse," he said in a statement.
"Ongoing and at times one-sided media coverage has deepened this uncertainty.
"This is one of the reasons for my support for this royal commission.
"I welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement. I believe the air should be cleared and the truth uncovered."
The investigator whose allegations sparked calls for a national inquiry, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, has told the ABC's triple j that the royal commission was what he had been pushing for.
He said he was stunned it had happened so quickly.
"And delighted, absolutely delighted, for all those victims out there because this gives us so much of an opportunity to get things right, to look at recommendations for laws that should be changed to protect kids," he said.
The NSW Government has set up an inquiry in response to the claims raised by Detective Chief Inspector Fox. A separate parliamentary inquiry into church sex abuse is already underway in Victoria.
Chief Inspector Fox today said he was "saddened" by the narrowness of the inquiry set up by NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell in response to his concerns.
"I'm not politically aligned to anyone, and I haven't always been a big fan of Julia Gillard personally, but my God she's had some guts this afternoon, a lot more guts than Barry O'Farrell," Inspector Fox said.
"He was so disappointing and some, thank heavens, have stood up and done the right thing."
Video: Minister explains abuse royal commission decision (7.30)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-12/minister-explains-abuse-royal-commission-decision/4367888
'We need to do better'
Acting Minister for Families, Brendan O'Connor, told the ABC's 7.30 program the Government wants to ensure a broad range of institutions be examined.
"The child sex abuse offences, and indeed allegations of child sex abuse, are not confined to one church," he said.
"They're not confined to one religious organisation.
"Unfortunately, offences against children have occurred to children in state care and indeed, have occurred to children under the care in other religious organisations and of course also not-for-profit organisations.
"It would be very unfair and quite cruel to confine the examination - or the commission's examination to one body."
He added the royal commission decision was "a very significant one".
"This Government is responding I think to the need to ensure that voices are heard by the victims and their families, that claims are properly investigated," he said.
"This Government wants to provide this forum, this process, so that victims get an opportunity to tell their story, to have their story heard.
"Beyond that I think as a government we want to ensure through this vehicle, the royal commission, that institutions that are caring for children are responding properly and adequately to those allegations that have been made.
"Now what we know to date is that has not been the case. We need to do better."
Video: Whistleblower wants wider church abuse inquiry (ABC News)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-12/whistleblower-wants-wider-church-abuse-inquiry/4367092
Coalition support
Earlier this afternoon Mr Abbott pledged his support if the Government decided to establish a "wide-ranging" inquiry.
"Wherever abuse has occurred it must be tackled and it must be tackled vigorously, openly and transparently," Mr Abbott said in a statement.
"It's clear that for a long period there was insufficient awareness and insufficient vigilance when it came to predatory behaviour by people in positions of authority over children.
"Any investigation must be wide-ranging, must consider any evidence of the abuse of children in Australia, and should not be limited to the examination of any one institution.
"It must include all organisations, government and non-government, where there is evidence of sexual abuse."
Several Labor MPs had publicly declared their support for a nationally constituted royal commission, with some pushing for terms of reference that would allow it to look beyond the immediate allegations involving the Catholic Church.
Call for action
Fellow Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon, whose NSW electorate covers the Hunter Valley, earlier said it had become clear to him that a royal commission would be in the best interests of victims, their families and the church.
"The victims and their families need and deserve an assurance that no crimes or serious breaches of trust and responsibility have gone unpunished and that action has been taken to ensure that no such crimes or breaches can occur in the future," he said in a statement.
"It is clear that only the powers of a royal commission can adequately deliver those assurances.
"The Catholic Church will struggle to rebuild its reputation while
ever questions about institutional wrongs are not properly tested."
Joel Fitzgibbon
"Further, the Catholic Church will struggle to rebuild its reputation while ever questions about institutional wrongs are not properly tested.
"Worse, the church will remain subject to all kinds of allegations and innuendo unless a formal process is established, and all the church's ongoing good work will pass unnoticed and unappreciated until the allegations are properly dealt with."
Earlier today, independent MP Tony Windsor said he had written to the Prime Minister urging her to take action to deal with the issue on a national scale.
Fellow independent Rob Oakeshott also backed calls for a national royal commission, saying there needed to be an inquiry with coercive powers to get to the bottom of the problem.
"No-one or no entity should be able to hide from the police in the gathering of evidence, particularly in an area that involves sexual abuse and children," Mr Oakeshott told ABC News Online.
"If it's not a national royal commission with wide powers, it would certainly be something of an equivalent such as a special commission of inquiry."
The Greens and independent senator Nick Xenophon have also publicly backed calls for a national royal commission into sexual abuse claims.
Topics: child-abuse, federal-government, royal-commissions, catholic, abbott-tony, gillard-julia, states-and-territories, courts-and-trials, australia, nsw
First posted 7 hours 46 minutes ago
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-12/gillard-launches-royal-commission-into-child-abuse/4367364
See also:
Australia’s PM Julia Gillard Rips Misogynist a New One in Epic Speech
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=80369189
This post also here .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81380952
GOOD NEWS: PHILIPPINE PEACE TREATY October 2012
Philippines government, Muslim rebels reach peace deal
South Africa begins inquiry into mine deaths
"South African prosecutors have charged 270 mine workers with the murder of more than 30 of their colleagues who were killed by police two weeks ago. The decision has sparked outrage beyond South Africa. And long time of observers of South Africa's progress towards full democracy say the move is a dangerous sign that the bad old days of apartheid are not over."
Judicial commission given four months to probe the deaths of at least 34 miners who were killed by police in Marikana.
Last Modified: 01 Oct 2012 23:10
China's Looming Transition
The Weekly Focus examines China's upcoming leadership change.
According to the Chinese New Year cycle, the year 2013 will be the year of the dragon,
~~~~~~~~
Insert: slight oops .. According to the Chinese Zodiac, the Year of 2013 is the Year
of the Snake, which begins on February 10, 2013 and ends on January 30, 2014.
http://www.springsgreetingcards.com/catalogs/store.asp?pid=256628&catid=22647
Credit: the one comment gave me a lead .. see bottom .. :)
~~~~~~~~
which historically has been associated with major changes. This prediction seems particularly pertinent as China’s leadership will see a major leadership transition this year. Hu Jintao, the current president of China, came to power in 2002 and this year will be the last of his term. Hu will relinquish his posts as Communist Party Secretary in 2012 and the post of President of the People’s Republic of China in 2013. Our Weekly Focus will examine the machinations behind this process of transition, as well as the implications this leadership change will have for China and the rest of the world.
After the tumult that marked decades of one-man rule following the 1949 revolution, Chinese leaders are now restricted to two consecutive five year terms, reflecting the popular Chinese aphorism “tall trees attract wind.” Along with the presidency, 2012 will see replaced seven of the nine seats in the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s most powerful decision-making body. Furthermore, hundreds of more minor posts will be turned over with the transfer of power. The new leaders of the Politburo Standing Committee will be selected from the highest echelons of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with backroom deals and shifting alliances amongst party members to ultimately determine the candidates.
Xi Jinping, the country’s current vice president, is seen as the individual most likely to replace Hu. Jiang Zemin, who was president from 1992-2002, was hand selected by his predecessor Deng Xiaoping . Likewise, Hu was handpicked by Jiang to succeed him, and it is widely believed that this pattern will continue, with Hu selecting Xi. While the transition will be taking place this year and next, the Politburo Standing Committee and other top party officials have likely known who will succeed Hu for at least the past year as support for the successor is built up beforehand in order to have a smooth transition. The greater population of China is given no say in the matter, and for all practical purposes is completely absent from any involvement in the transition. This has not stopped the CPP from preemptively placing restrictions on prime time television programming and stepping up its already strict control of dissidents.
Besides the actual process of transition, the change in leadership brings with it the potential for changes in China that can only happen once every ten years. Xi Jinping’s developed a political reputation as party secretary of Shanghai, where he skillfully handled a difficult post. Shanghai has one of the most liberalized economies in all of China, and it grew rapidly under Xi’s leadership. This has led some analysts to suggest that economic reforms on a wide scale could very well be on the horizon for China if Xi does indeed become President.
Of more importance to the rest of the world is what effect the change in leadership will have on how China interacts with the international community. The past two years have seen China take a more aggressive stance on regional issues, such as territorial disputes with Japan in the East China Sea and with Vietnam and the Philippines over control of the Spratly Islands (and the large estimated oil reserves beneath them). China’s aggression will likely continue through the power transition, as the perception of China as an assertive regional power is important to many within the CCP. There is little to suggest that Xi Jinping would discontinue this policy in the years beyond the upcoming transition. China has the economic might to back up a more aggressive foreign policy. Furthermore, both members of the CCP and average Chinese citizens tend to be acutely aware of periods of Chinese history when China dominated the entire region, and thus many view recent Chinese posturing in the region as a return to the historical norm.
The past two leadership changes in China were remarkably smooth. However, in the back of the minds of older CCP members are the tumultuous leadership transitions of decades before; these were characterized by purges, violence, and betrayal on the national stage. As the most populous country in the world, China’s leadership change will have implications that will reach all corners of the globe. Whether in terms of foreign policy or economic liberalization, the year of the dragon will certainly be interesting.
Comment:
Dingxiaoningshopping
sigh...2012 is the year of dragon.... first sentence made
me no desire to read this article ..come on! - 4 months ago
http://politicsandpolicy.org/article/chinas-looming-transition
========
China’s “third strike” in 2013 is the one to watch
By Wei Gu - September 20, 2012
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.
China’s leadership change might be a big event, but it is another occasion that matters most for the Communist Party. A new set of leaders will be ushered in during the 18th Party Congress, expected to happen in October. To hear what they stand for, the world may have to wait until the “third plenary”, which brings together around 370 of the Party’s top figures, a year from now.
Chinese history shows the third meetings matter most. That figures: the first one is usually about selecting leaders, and the second about personnel changes in the government. By the time of the third plenary session, which has tended to happen a year after the first, the top politicians would have secured their power and formed a consensus on how to move forward.
The most significant was in 1978. At that year’s third plenary session, a second-generation of Chinese leaders, led by Deng Xiaoping, turned against the doctrine that that whatever Chairman Mao said must be obeyed. Deng instead pushed the idea of finding truth from experiments, and China’s focus shifted from internal debates and revolutions to development and opening up.
A third plenary in 1984 saw the concept of the planned economy abandoned. That year, China began to allow companies to issue stocks. Flash forward to 1993, and Deng put forward his views on the socialist market economy, prompted by a high-profile tour to Southern China, spanning adjustments to state-owned companies and rural reforms. It was at another third plenary in 2003 that Hu Jintao’s now famous concept of “scientific development” began to emerge. While official proclamations didn’t yet use that phrase, state media and other politicians soon started to.
China’s ten-year political cycles suggest that the next third plenary session will be another key event. Reform and development are always on the agenda, but income inequality and economic imbalances are creating new pressures on the incomers to come up with new ideas. While the “big reveal” is approaching fast, it’s that vital third pow-wow that could really set the tone.
http://blogs.reuters.com/breakingviews/2012/09/20/chinas-third-strike-in-2013-is-the-one-to-watch/
South African miners strike deal with Lonmin bosses .. [ embedded video and others ]
"Lonmin, the world's third-largest platinum producer, is able to give its chief executive an annual pay
package equivalent to what the average rock-drill operator would take home after 400 years on the job."
Striking platinum mine workers have reached a deal with Lonmin's management that includes a 22% pay rise and a single payment of $250 to cover wages lost during the strike, negotiators said Tuesday. The miners are set to return to work on Thursday.
South African media on Wednesday hailed the end to a wildcat strike at world number three platinum producer Lonmin which killed 45, but warned the 22-percent wage hike deal set a dangerous precedent in the sector.
"The end of the Lonmin strike is something we should all cheer, but how the dispute has been settled may provide a template for workers to use elsewhere. That's the contagion threat," a columnist for Business Day wrote, taking a bitter-sweet tone on the end of the five-week standoff.
Workers at London-listed Lonmin's Marikana mine on Tuesday agreed to return to work Thursday after the company upped their salaries by 22 percent, with a $245 one-off bonus.
Mediators claimed this was the highest raise ever negotiated in the country's labour history.
Illegal strikes spread to other platinum and gold mines in the country following the start of the industrial action at Lonmin on August 10, where police shot dead 34 people.
The business daily said other miners may not stand down until their wages are raised in a similar way.
This threatened to destabilise the entire mining industry, which accounts for a fifth of Africa's largest economy.
"What started as a wage dispute... has morphed into something much bigger, posing a number of questions about the future of the mining industry and SA as an investment case."
"Workers at other mines may be encouraged to adopt the same tactics as the Lonmin workers, especially as they managed to winkle out extra pay from a struggling company."
The Star newspaper reported "this could be bad news for the biggest miners' union in the country, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM)."
The paper speculated that members of the affiliate of the country's powerful union federation Cosatu -- which is in alliance with the ruling African National Congress -- would abandon NUM.
"There is a strong feeling that NUM members will decamp and move to join the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), the NUM's new rival," it reported.
AMCU has been accused of precipitating the wildcat strikes with unrealistic salary promises to prospective members.
Meanwhile online news site the Daily Maverick wondered over the backroom politics that brought about the deal.
"Even as workers prepare to return to work, questions are now being asked
about what exactly happened six weeks into the strike to facilitate the agreement."
http://www.france24.com/en/20120918-south-african-miners-reach-deal-lonmin-bosses-management-pay-rise-platinum
======== .. meanwhile ..
UPDATE 2-S.Africa mine bosses talk tough with strikers
Related News
Anglo American to face South Africa silicosis hearing - Mon, Oct 1 2012
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/01/us-safrica-silicosis-anglo-idUSBRE8900E620121001
UPDATE 2-Striking Amplats miners in S.Africa defiant - Fri, Sep 28 2012
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/28/safrica-mines-idUSL5E8KS0HZ20120928
UPDATE 2-S.Africa's Amplats takes action against strikers - Thu, Sep 27 2012
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/27/safrica-mines-idUSL5E8KR7MY20120927
Amplats moves against South Africa strikers - Thu, Sep 27 2012
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/27/us-safrica-mines-idUSBRE88Q0N420120927
UPDATE 3-Amplats talks tough, S.Africa illegal mine strikes spread - Wed, Sep 26 2012
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/26/safrica-mines-idUSL5E8KQ0DA20120926
By Ed Stoddard
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Top global platinum producer Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) said on Monday it would fire all strikers who did not attend disciplinary hearings the following day as an illegal strike continued at 4 of its South African mines.
With no end in sight to a spate of wildcat strikes in South Africa, AngloGold Ashanti warned that an illegal stoppage could lead to cuts in its operations there and said it might also have to fire workers.
Amid the tough talk from mining bosses, another illegal strike broke out on Monday at the Bokoni platinum mine run by Amplats and Canadian-based Atlatsa Resources.
The Bokoni strike is worrying because it is in the far eastern limb of the platinum belt, hundreds of kilometres from the wave of labour strife centred around the cities of Rustenburg and Marikana, where 46 people were killed in a bloody 6-week stoppage at Lonmin.
Police said on Monday another body had been found in the Rustenburg area near an Amplats property and they believed the death was related to the mine violence.
Amplats' four Rustenburg mines have been shut for over 2 weeks at a cost of over 20,000 ounces in lost output and the company will now sack employees who do not report to disciplinary hearings by Tuesday.
"The company will be left with no alternative but to dismiss, in their absence, all employees who do not present themselves," it said in a statement.
In total, there are around 75,000 miners on strike across South Africa's gold and platinum sectors, about 15 percent of the underground labour force. Virtually all of the strikes are illegal.
The chief executive of AngloGold, the world's third largest gold producer, issued a stern warning on Monday about the viability of its South African operations and said the illegal strike by 24,000 of its 35,000 workers could lead to dismissals.
"If the current unprotected strike continues, it compounds risks of a premature downsizing of AngloGold Ashanti's South African operations," Mark Cutifani told a briefing that was webcast to employees.
He added the company could take action, potentially including dismissals, against striking employees.
Cutifani also said there were no immediate plans to scale back on 4.5 billion rand ($540.91 million) in capital investment plans in South Africa this year but the country was becoming a tough sell to investors.
"If we don't resolve the issue then how do I justify to shareholders that we should continue to invest in South Africa," he said.
UNCLEAR DEMANDS
Cutifani also said the demands being made were unclear.
"It's mainly about money, but when you ask people what does that look like, they are unable to tell you," Cutifani told Reuters.
He said it could be 16,000 rand a month or 18,000 rand but the demands did not specify if this was across the board or a basic wage or included the whole package. "It's just a number. We don't even know what that means."
AngloGold's South African operations accounted for 32 percent of the group's production in the first half of 2012 and the company said it was losing around 32,000 ounces of production a week due to the strike.
Gold mining in South Africa is generally on the decline as resources mined for decades run out and shafts have to sink deeper to get to the ore, raising costs.
Labour violence first erupted on South Africa's platinum belt as a turf war between the militant Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) and the dominant National Union of Mineworkers.
Fueled by glaring income disparities, the strikes have hit also hit AngloGold's rival Gold Fields and smaller mining operations.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/01/safrica-mines-idUSL6E8L1GC220121001
Factbox: Carbon taxes around the world .. plus other goodies .. :)
.. about the only good news in the new Barrier Reef report is this bit ..
"“If anyone’s going to do it, it’s going to be the Australians, because they really care about the Great Barrier Reef,”
she said in an interview. She added that these measures will “buy you real time but not infinite time,” at which point
countries will have to cut the carbon emissions that are raising sea temperatures and making the ocean more acidic."
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=80103099
Australian awareness is also seen elsewhere .. lol ..
Aussi treasurer Wayne Swan claims "cranks & crazies" have taken over the Republican Party
Alan Jones apologises for comments about Julia Gillard's father as sponsors pull ads
Jonathan Marshall and Peter Bodkin
The Daily Telegraph
October 01, 2012 10:37AM
[ Embedded video ]
SPONSORS of the Sydney radio station part-owned by Alan Jones have been inundated with thousands
of complaints about the talkback king's comments on the death of Prime Minister Julia Gillard's father.
As politicians of all persuasions condemned the 2GB star yesterday, its backers were swamped with messages of hate towards Jones. One sponsor received 2000 emails demanding they cancel their advertising contract.
The emails were triggered after The Sunday Telegraph revealed Jones told Young Liberals at a dinner that Ms Gillard's 83-year-old father, John, had died of shame. Last night more than 8000 Australians had signed an online petition calling for advertisers and sponsors to terminate their arrangements with the 2GB morning show. The radio station removed the list of sponsors from its website, in a belated bid to protect it from the fallout. Some of the vitriol was nasty, with some even tweeting they hoped Jones would "get his cancer back".
One key 2GB sponsor, Freedom Furniture, has already confirmed via Twitter that it's withdrawing its advertising from the program.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/alan-jones-apologises-as-sponsors-pull-ads/story-e6frfmq9-1226484904553#ixzz280So1VKB
Love it!
Alan Jones, Australia's Limbaugh/Beck has "47%" Romney moment
"Cultivating Identity - Thomas Keneally"
Alan Jones apologises for speech that claimed PM's father 'died of shame'
[ "Alan Jones, (fyi Australia's sorta equivalent to Limbaugh/Beck) in Australia"
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=80062303 ]
JONATHAN MARSHALL The Sunday Telegraph September 30, 2012 11:30AM 8 comments
Watch Alan Jones claims PM's dad 'died of shame'
Sudan and South Sudan .. May 2012 Monthly Forecast
Expected Council Action
In May, the Council will likely renew the mandate of the UN Interim Security Force in Abyei (UNISFA), which expires on 27 May.
Additional Council meetings on Sudan-South Sudan issues may occur, given the sharp deterioration of relations between the two countries in April. At press time, it appeared that the Council might begin negotiating a resolution on this matter.
Key Recent Developments
After skirmishes along the Sudan-South Sudan border in late March, Sudan cancelled a summit meeting between President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan and President Salva Kiir of South Sudan that had been scheduled for 3 April in Juba. In the ensuing days and weeks, the violence in the border regions escalated significantly, although neither side made a formal declaration of war.
On 10 April, South Sudan seized the disputed border area of Heglig, which is approximately 100 kilometres east of the disputed Abyei region. It said it had done so while repulsing attacks by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Sudan labelled the seizure of Heglig an act of aggression and vowed to retake the area. Rebels from the Justice and Equality Movement, the Darfur-based rebel group, were reported to be fighting alongside the South Sudan forces occupying Heglig. In a letter to the Council on 14 April, South Sudan indicated that it would leave Heglig if an international monitoring mechanism were put in place, urging the Council to consider deploying a “neutral” force there until its final status can be settled. (While disputed, Heglig has been administered by Sudan since South Sudan achieved independence in July 2011. The area accounts for roughly half of Sudan’s oil production of 115,000 barrels per day.)
On 11 April, Edmond Mulet, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, briefed Council members in consultations on the most recent report of the Secretary-General on Abyei and the tensions between Sudan and South Sudan (S/2012/175). During the consultations, it was noted that the situation in Abyei had reached a stalemate. As indicated in the Secretary-General’s recent report, security forces from both sides remain in the region, the parties have not agreed on the Abyei Area Administration and the final status of Abyei has not been determined. (The goal of the Abyei Area Administration would be to provide basic services to the population, propose development projects, and promote security and stability in the region.) It appears that the discussion also focused on the fighting that had occurred along the Sudan-South Sudan border in the prior days, especially regarding the seizure of Heglig.
On 12 April, Sudan dropped six bombs near Bentiu, the capital of South Sudan’s Unity state, claiming the life of a South Sudanese soldier. Five bombs were also dropped on the town of Mayom, also in Unity, on April 16, killing eight civilians and hitting a logistics base belonging to the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).
There were also reports of ground combat between the SAF and South Sudanese forces on 18-19 April in areas other than Heglig. The Sudanese Media Centre, a pro-Khartoum news agency, reported that the SAF drove South Sudanese forces across the border after fighting in Al-Meram, South Kordofan. A South Sudan government spokesperson also said that other skirmishes occurred in Northern el-Ghazal and in Western Bahr el-Ghazal, states located in the western part of South Sudan.
On 12 April, the Council adopted a presidential statement (S/PRST/2012/12 .. http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/Sudan%20SPRST%202012%2012.pdf .. ) in which it, inter alia:
* expressed deep and growing alarm at the escalation of the conflict between Sudan and South Sudan;
* demanded “a complete, immediate, and unconditional” end to all fighting, including a withdrawal of South Sudan from Heglig and an end to aerial bombings by the SAF, cross-border violence by both countries and support by each side to proxy forces on the other side of the border;
* urged both sides to establish a safe demilitarised border zone; and
* reiterated its demand for both sides to withdraw their security forces from Abyei.
The Council was one of several institutional voices expressing deep concern at the actions of Sudan and South Sudan. On 11 April, the EU issued a press statement calling both the occupation of Heglig by South Sudan and the bombings of South Sudanese territory by Sudan “completely unacceptable”. Likewise, in a press statement issued on 12 April, the AU Peace and Security Council “strongly condemned” the conduct of Sudan and South Sudan, demanding the withdrawal of South Sudan from Heglig and an end to Sudan’s aerial bombardments of South Sudan. Key UN officials, including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, also voiced alarm at the escalation of violence between the two countries and its impact on civilians.
On 12 April, Kiir addressed South Sudan’s National Legislature on the state of relations between the two countries. He said that, in response to a request from Ban to withdraw from Heglig during a phone call the day before, he told the Secretary-General, “I am not under your command.” While indicating that South Sudan was committed to peace, Kiir said that it would defend itself.
On 17 April, Council members held an “informal interactive dialogue” focusing on the latest developments along the Sudan-South Sudan border. Thabo Mbeki, chair of the AU High-Level Implementation Panel on Sudan and South Sudan, and Haile Menkerios, the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General on Sudan and South Sudan, addressed Council members during the meeting. Mbeki and Menkerios alerted Council members that hardliners had the upper hand in both Juba and Khartoum and that both parties were “locked in a logic of war.” Council members also discussed potential strategies to exert leverage on the parties to induce their cooperation, including the threat of sanctions.
On 20 April, Kiir’s office issued a press release announcing that South Sudan had begun to withdraw from Heglig, in accordance with the Security Council’s presidential statement of 12 April and “in response to appeals by world leaders and to create an environment for the resumption of dialogue with Sudan.” South Sudan further said that it expected the status of Heglig and other areas along the border to be referred to international arbitration. On the same day, Sudan declared that it had retaken Heglig.
Fighting continued in the next days. On 22 April, media reports indicated that Sudan had engaged South Sudan across the border in Unity State. On 23 April, Sudan dropped two bombs in Bentiu, reportedly killing three people.
Actions and statements of officials on both sides during the month reflected the heightened tensions between the countries. On 16 April, members of the Sudanese parliament voted unanimously to treat the government of South Sudan as an “enemy”. On 18 April, Bashir referred to the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement, the ruling party in Juba, as “insects” and said that the people of South Sudan needed to be freed from them. While visiting Heglig on 23 April, Bashir said that the time for talking had ended and that South Sudan understood only “the language of guns and ammunition.” On 24 April, while on a state visit to China, Kiir said that Sudan had “declared war on the Republic of South Sudan”.
On 24 April, Hervé Ladsous, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Hilde Johnson, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of UNMISS, and Menkerios, briefed Council members during consultations. Council members were informed that, since the departure of South Sudan from Heglig, Sudan had carried out ground incursions into South Sudan and conducted aerial bombardments there that claimed the lives of 16 civilians and wounded 34 others.
Also on 24 April, the AU Peace and Security Council issued a comprehensive communiqué that included a “roadmap” which, inter-alia, called for:
* an end to hostilities, including aerial bombardments, within 48 hours;
* a cessation by both countries of support for rebel groups fighting against the other country;
* an end to “hostile propaganda and inflammatory statements in the media;”
* establishment within one week of the Joint Border Verification and Monitoring Mission and the Secure Demilitarised Border Zone along the border separating the two countries; and
* redeployment of security forces of both parties from Abyei.
The communiqué further urged Sudan and South Sudan to resume negotiations on oil revenue, citizenship issues, border demarcation, and the status of Abyei, within two weeks. If the parties fail to reach agreement on “any or all” of these issues within three months of resuming negotiations, the communiqué requested that the AU High-Level Implementation Panel submit a report on the status of negotiations, “including detailed proposals on all outstanding issues, to be endorsed as final and binding solutions to the post-secession relations.” It added that the AU was seeking the “endorsement of, and support by” the UN Security Council of this decision.
Key Issues
A key issue is whether and how the Council can exert sufficient leverage on the parties to deter them from expanding their conflict, induce them to cease fighting, and convince them to return in good faith to the negotiating table. Since February, the Council has produced two press statements and two presidential statements regarding the situation in Sudan and South Sudan with what appears to be minimal impact on the calculations of the parties.
Key issues related to the renewal of the mandate of UNISFA, that will likely be on Council members’ minds, include:
* the presence of security forces from both sides in Abyei in violation of prior agreements;
* the impact that the presence of Sudanese troops in Abyei has in deterring displaced persons from returning to the region;
* the lack of progress by the parties in establishing the Abyei Area Administration; and
* the lack of progress by the parties in establishing the Joint Border Verification and Monitoring Mechanism along their mutual border.
Another important issue is the ongoing humanitarian crisis unfolding in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states in Sudan. (Sudan has yet to respond to the AU, UN, and Arab League tripartite proposal of 9 February, which presented a plan to provide humanitarian aid to civilians in both government and rebel controlled territories of both states.)
Options
With respect to Abyei, the most likely option is for the Council to adopt a resolution renewing the mandate of UNISFA. The Council may request to be briefed by Tadesse Werede Tesfay, the force commander and head of mission, on recent developments in Abyei and activities of the mission. In adopting the resolution, the Council could reiterate key messages to the parties, including:
* emphasising the need for the security forces of Sudan and South Sudan to leave Abyei;
* urging the parties to establish the Abyei Area Administration by making the necessary compromises on appointments to the body; and
* urging the parties to expedite the establishment of the Joint Border Verification and Monitoring Mechanism.
On the relationship between Sudan and South Sudan more broadly, the Council may also consider coercive measures to induce the parties to cease their fighting, including:
* the threat of sanctions on the parties;
* the imposition of a buffer zone along the border; and
* the imposition of a no-fly zone along the border.
The Council may also consider using elements of the 24 April AU Peace and Security Council communiqué as a basis for a resolution addressing the situation in Sudan and South Sudan.
The ad-hoc Working Group on Conflict Prevention and Resolution in Africa might also be a forum in which the Council could strive to develop strategies to forestall the escalation of conflict between Sudan and South Sudan.
Council Dynamics
Some elected members believe that key permanent members have demonstrated a greater willingness to compromise in recent months than had been the case in the past on issues related to Sudan and South Sudan. The output of the Council since mid-February on Sudan and South Sudan—including two press statements and two presidential statements—appears to demonstrate progress in terms of the ability of members to be flexible and pragmatic in negotiations. This progress seems to be a departure from the sense of stalemate in the Council that some members perceived throughout much of 2011.
While differences remain on some issues, Council members are unified in their concern about the deteriorating state of relations between Sudan and South Sudan. Among other things, most members are particularly critical of the ongoing bombardment of South Sudan by Sudan, the seizure by South Sudan of Heglig, and the fighting along the Sudan-South Sudan border more generally. At present, it also seems that the Council—as well as the AU, individual member states, and key UN officials—is working hard to consider strategies that will have maximum leverage on the parties, as relations between Sudan and South Sudan have deteriorated over the past month in spite of the Council’s significant engagement.
It seems that many Council members welcome the 24 April communiqué of the AU Peace and Security Council, and continue to support the strong role of the AU in mediating between Sudan and South Sudan. Some members likewise believe that the communiqué might serve as a useful springboard for negotiations on a resolution addressing the tensions between the two countries.
The US is the lead country on UNISFA and Sudan-South Sudan issues.
UN Documents .. http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article43984
========
African Union calls for "comprehensive" deal between Sudan and S. Sudan
Sunday 23 September 2012 Comments (16)
September 23, 2012 (JUBA) - The African Union Commission and the United Nations on Saturday said both Sudan and South Sudan needed to reach a comprehensive deal, as their leaders meet on Sunday, to resolve all outstanding post-session issues between the two.
South Sudan President, Salva Kiir and his Sudanese counterpart, Omar al Bashir are due to meet on Sunday in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa at a summit that seeks to wrap up talks on a series of outstanding matters.
Jean Ping, the AU Commission chairperson, in a statement, encouraged both presidents to take advantage of this unique opportunity to reach agreement on their shared border, disputed areas, oil transportation costs, citizenship and other issues pertaining to South Sudan’s independence last year.
The UN Security Council gave 22 September as the final deadline for the two sides to reach a comprehensive agreement and under resolution 2046 could impose sanctions on both sides should today’s meeting fail to deliver a significant outcome.
In October 2009, the African Union’s Peace and Security Council (PSC) established the AU High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP), chaired by former South African President Thabo Mbeki and including former Presidents Abdulsalami Abubakar of Nigeria and Pierre Buyoya of Burundi to mediate between Juba and Khartoum.
“This has represented an unprecedented degree of African engagement and assistance at the highest level,” Ping notes in the statement.
The AU, he said, has always recognized that the crisis affecting Sudan and South Sudan is an “African crisis”, and the continent has an obligation to assist the two states achieve a lasting solution.
Ping, however, noted that throughout its engagement, the AU, notably through the AUHIP, has maintained the view that solutions to the challenges at hand lie with the Sudanese people themselves.
The AU, in the aftermath of intense border fighting between the two countries, issued a strong communiqué and roadmap in April, in a attempt to encotage enabled the two parties to return to the negotiating table and overcome the challenges facing their relationship.
“As the deadline specified by the PSC Roadmap and endorsed by United Nations Security Council resolution 2046 (2012) approaches, the AU is fully aware that difficult decisions must be made by both sides to finalise negotiations on their post secession relations,” Ping’s statement reads in part.
The AU, its commission chairperson added, calls for a strong sense of national leadership, saying decisions made on issues of profound significance to citizens and governments are undoubtedly difficult and can involve “painful” choices.
He however said the AU, recognizing the value of long?term imperative of building two viable states and maintaining the close relationships between the peoples of Sudan and South Sudan, remains confident that the leaders will “rise to the occasion and leave a legacy of peace for generations to come.”
Meanwhile, Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary-General said he was encouraged by the significant narrowing of differences between the Governments of Sudan and South Sudan on a range of outstanding issues and strongly urges them to conclude a comprehensive deal during the Presidential summit in Addis Ababa on 23 September.
Ki-Moon, in a statement issued on the eve of today’s summit, also congratulated the negotiating teams of the two parties for what they have achieved so far, but urged presidents of the two countries to take responsibility for the resolution of their remaining differences, so that their summit concludes with a success.
The commitment, he said, will “mark an end to the era of conflict and ushers in a new era of peace, cooperation and mutual development for the two countries and their people.”
The UN Secretary General also the AUHIP for its continued able leadership in facilitating and mediating the talks between the two parties, and thanked the special envoy for his support to that effort.
(ST) .. http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article43984
========
Sudan turns down mediation’s proposal to settle Abyei issue
Comments (61)
September 25, 2012 (ADDIS ABABA) - Sudan rejected a proposal submitted by the African Union mediation aiming at breaking the deadlock over Abyei referendum saying it ignored that the eligibility of Misseriya was the main cause of discord.
woman displaced by fighting in Abyei in southern Sudan waits
for assistance in the village of Agok May 21, 2008 (Reuters)
Khartoum was reacting to the proposal on the final status of Abyei by the African Union High Implementation Panel (AUHIP) during a summit bringing together Sudanese president Omer Al-Bashir and his South Sudanese counterpart, Salva Kiir in Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.
The African mediation, on 21 September before the meeting proposed to the two parties to hold a referendum on Abyei where the Ngok Dinka and the Misseriya settled in the region can vote to determine the future of the area.
The two countries failed to hold a referendum on whether Abyei can remain in the north or join South Sudan because they disagree on the eligibility of the Misseriya nomads who spend several months in Abyei every year for grazing.
Khartoum started its letter by blaming the mediation for taking the side of South Sudanese government and ignoring its position on the eligibility of Misseriya. It further stressed that the panel had to focus on resolving the "only pending issue" of who can participate in the vote.
"The government of Sudan, whose position on this matter is ignored altogether, has no alternative but to categorically reject the proposal in its entirety," Khartoum said in a letter handed to the mediation seen by Sudan Tribune.
"The proposal contradicts the Abyei protocol which does not provide for permanent abode or residence as a condition for voting in the referendum. It also contradicts Abyei protocol by not observing the parity between the Misseriya nomads and Dinka Ngok in power and resource sharing," the letter reads in part accusing the mediation of "stripping" the Misseriya rights.
Juba accepted the proposal which calls to give South Kordofan 20% of Abyei oil revenue during a period of 5 years for development projects.
In its rejection letter, Khartoum says that the proposal should abide by the 2005 peace deal which provided specific protocol on the future of Abyei and the 2010 Abyei Referendum Act.
The letter also mentioned that Sudan’s accepted proposal made by US Special Envoy, Scott Gration together with the African Union panel which recommends either division of the area by presidential decree or to allow the participation of Miseriya who have resided in the area for a minimum of 185 days.
Juba after two months talks (October –November 2010) brokered by the US special envoy, rejected Gration’s plan saying it breaches the rule of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) which gave South Sudan most of the land including Abyei town and huge areas of fertile land.
Sudan, in its letter to the mediation, also warned against conducting a referendum which excludes one of the two rival communities, recommending that the AU panel uses the previous proposal of 27 November 2010 which recommends the division of the area by the presidential decree.
Khartoum says the partition of the region – northern part goes to the Sudanese government and southern part transferred to the South – accommodate the interests of both sides.
"It is futile to think of any referendum on Abyei that excludes one of the two communities. Far from advancing a win-win formula, such exclusion, if agreed, is a likely recipe for instability and strife in the Abyei Area," the letter further warns in part.
The Sudanese government also demands the formation of a joint Abyei administration and recognition of the Misseriya as residents of the area and for them to participate in the referendum vote, without limiting their rights to access to water and pastures.
Khartoum and Juba governments are under huge pressure from the two communities of Ngok Dinka and Misseriya which were involved in the North –South war before the independence of South Sudan.
Abyei’s referendum was initially agreed to be simultaneously held with the vote on the independence of South Sudan. The establishment of a new state in the South after six year interim period marred by mistrust and difficulties complicates the ongoing efforts to settle Abyei issue.
South Sudan rejected Khartoum’s demands to include the Misseriya nomads in the vote and its proposal seeking division of the area as well as allocation of equal share of resources generated from the region, describing Sudan’s demands as irrational.
Juac Agok, deputy chairperson of South Sudan’s governing SPLM in Abyei accused Khartoum government of always seeking to grab the land of Ngok Dinka.
"There is no way Missiriya can be allowed to vote because the area of Abyei has been clearly defined by the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The referendum in Abyei will therefore be conducted in the area defined by the court," Juac said on Tuesday.
He called on the Government of South Sudan to make its position on the issue clear, explaining the issue was no longer between the two communities. He also called on members of the Dinka Ngok to "defend" the area.
"What do you do when someone wants to take your house, your land by force?" asked Agok. "If you are overpowered you go and prepare and come back when you have gained momentum. The issue of land everywhere is never easy," he said.
South Sudan’s information minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin said that the presidential summit had resumed on Tuesday and was still "progressing well" in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
He went further to say that the two presidents are determined to a reach peaceful settlement on all outstanding issues.
In Addis Ababa the mediation announced that the talks are extended to Friday to allow the two presidents to strike a comprehensive deal on the outstanding issues.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article44014
Aussi treasurer Wayne Swan claims "cranks & crazies" have taken over the Republican Party
NSW: O'Farrell vandals trash TAFE
Friday, September 14, 2012
"This comes as Families Minister Jenny Macklin called on state governments to protect carbon tax compensation to pensioners. .. Earlier this month, the NSW government announced that public housing rents would increase. .. Today, Ms Macklin said she was extremely concerned about the O'Farrell government's decision, arguing it was taking money from pensioners who live in public housing. .. ''We want this money to go to pensioners, we don't want it gobbled up by state governments,'' she told reporters in Canberra."
On Tuesday, 10 September, Barry O'Farrell deleted Fine Arts from TAFE NSW.
Since the 1850's directors of technical education in NSW took the view that education should not only strengthen job prospects – it should enrich society.
On Tuesday, Pam Christie Deputy Director-General, TAFE and Community Education notified all TAFE staff that from "From January 2013 student fees for government supported places (in TAFE) will increase and Fine Arts courses including sculpture, visual arts and ceramics will no longer be subsidised by the Government."
This will mean the end of Fine arts in TAFE NSW (particularly in regional areas) & the added value of creativity to all peoples lives & enrichment to the community & Australia.
Shame! O'Farrell Shame!
Please add your name & email to this important petition. Every name that is added builds momentum around the campaign and makes it more likely for us to get the change/decision reversal that we want to see. Will you join me by taking action on this campaign?
Please lick on this link & sign. http://www.communityrun.org/petitions/fund-art-education-in-nsw-tafe
[ .. the petition is only for NSW citizens, if interested you are most welcome to read it though .. grin .. ]
http://bmuc.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/nsw-ofarrell-vandals-trash-tafe.html
O'Farrell Liberal = old GOP conservative in USA, don't forget .. i say "old" as
am not sure how he would fit in the destructive today 'new GOP' .. on the
face of the above seems he has a somewhat narrow view of education ..
Stanley Bruce .. 1920s .. White Australia Policy .. attacks on workers rights .. strikes ..
"Cultivating Identity - Thomas Keneally"
Stanley Melbourne Bruce, 1st Viscount Bruce of Melbourne, CH, MC, FRS, PC (15 April 1883 – 25 August 1967), was an Australian politician and diplomat, and the eighth Prime Minister of Australia. He was the second Australian granted an hereditary peerage of the United Kingdom, but the first whose peerage was formally created. He was the first incumbent Prime Minister to lose his seat at an election; the only other being John Howard in 2007.
The Right Honourable
The Viscount Bruce of Melbourne
CH, MC, FRS, PC
8th Prime Minister of Australia
Elections: 1925, 1928, 1929
Bruce in the 1910s
Early life
Stanley Bruce was born on Grey Street, St Kilda, a Melbourne suburb, in 1883; however, his family moved shortly after to "Wombalano" on Kooyong Road, Toorak (now owned by the Murdoch family). The boy's father, of Scottish descent, was a prominent businessman.
Bruce was educated at Glamorgan (now part of Geelong Grammar School), Melbourne Grammar School, and then at Cambridge University. After graduation he studied law in London and was called to the bar in 1907. He practised law in London, and also managed the London office of his father's importing business. When World War I broke out he joined the British Army, and was commissioned to the Worcestershire Regiment, seconded to the Royal Fusiliers. In 1917 he was severely wounded in France, winning the Military Cross and the Croix de guerre[disambiguation needed].
Bruce was invalided home to Melbourne, and soon became involved in recruiting campaigns for the Army. His public speaking attracted the attention of the Nationalist Party .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalist_Party_of_Australia, and in 1918 he was elected to the House of Representatives as MP for Flinders, near Melbourne. His background in business led to his being appointed Treasurer (finance minister) in 1921.
The Nationalist Party lost its majority at the 1922 election .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_federal_election,_1922, and could only stay in office with the support of the Country Party .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Party_of_Australia. However, the Country Party let it be known it would not serve under incumbent Prime Minister Billy Hughes .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Hughes. This gave the more conservative members of the Nationalist Party an excuse to force Hughes to resign; the conservatives had only tolerated Hughes in order to keep the Australian Labor Party .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Labor_Party .. out of power. Bruce was chosen as Hughes's successor.
Bruce then entered negotiations with the Country Party leader, Earle Page, for a
coalition government. On 9 February 1923 he became prime minister at the age of only 39,
[...]
In general Bruce formed an effective partnership with Page, and exploited public fears of Communism and militant trade unions to dominate Australian politics through the 1920s. Despite predictions that Australians would not accept such an aloof leader as Bruce, he won a smashing victory over a demoralised ALP, led by Matthew Charlton, at the 1925 election. Throughout his term of office, he pursued a policy of support for the British Empire, the League of Nations, and the White Australia Policy:
Bruce in the 1920s
"We intend to keep this country white and not allow its peoples to be faced with the problems that at present are practically insoluble in many parts of the world."
In his policy launch speech made at the Shire Hall in Dandenong, south-eastern Melbourne, on 25 October 1925, Bruce reiterated his government's commitment to the White Australia Policy .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Australia_Policy:
"It is necessary that we should determine what are the ideals towards which every Australian would desire to strive. I think those ideals might well be stated as being to secure our national safety, and to ensure the maintenance of our White Australia Policy to continue as an integral portion of the British Empire."
On 8 July 1928 he was appointed a Companion of Honour.[7] His government was reelected, though with a significantly reduced majority, in 1928.
Maritime Industries crisis
Prime Minister Bruce holding a meeting
with Prime Minister-elect Scullin a
day before Scullin's swearing in.
Bruce (Back row centre) at the 1926 Imperial Conference.
Strikes of sugar mill workers in 1927, waterside workers in 1928, then of transport workers, timber industry workers and coal miners erupted in riots and lockouts in New South Wales in 1929. Bruce responded with a Maritime Industries Bill that was designed to do away with the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Court_of_Conciliation_and_Arbitration .. and return arbitration powers to the States.
On 10 September 1929, Hughes and five other Nationalist members joined Labor in voting against the Bill. The Bill was lost by 34 votes to 35 when Littleton Groom, the Speaker, abstained, bringing down the Bruce–Page government and forcing the 1929 election .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_federal_election,_1929.
Labor, now led by James Scullin .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Scullin .. (Charlton had resigned from the party's leadership in 1928), won a landslide victory, scoring an 18-seat swing—at the time, the second-worst defeat of a sitting government in Australian history. Bruce was defeated by Labor's candidate Jack Holloway .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Holloway .. in his electorate of Flinders. Bruce had gone into the election holding Flinders with what appeared to be a fairly safe 10.7 percent two-party majority. However, on the second count an independent Liberal candidate's preferences flowed mostly to Holloway, thus making Bruce the first sitting prime minister to lose his seat. The only other sitting Australian prime minister to be defeated in his own electorate is John Howard .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Howard, at the 2007 election .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_federal_election,_2007.
Later life, and all links .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Melbourne_Bruce
See also:
Australia urged to tackle 'pockets of racism'
ABC News Breakfast's Amy Bainbridge
"Julian Burnside: Gillard shredding child refugee protections"
Updated January 26, 2010 11:10:00
External Link: Five charged over attack on Indian students
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/26/2801170.htm "
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=67589290
.. in reply to that one ..
* Duped by Katter, a ‘civil libertarian’ as long as you’re not gay
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=68015952
* Drivers with Aussie flags on their cars 'more racist' research shows
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=71224421
* Writing About the Extreme Right in Australia - Andrew Moore
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=74405800
one more
Muslims condemn violent Sydney protest
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79602799
Soooo there ya go .. cultivating Australian identity goes on .. ratbags? .. of course .. on-balance mostly good .. :)
Muslims condemn violent Sydney protest
08:00 AEST Sun Sep 16 2012
.. embedded video ..
Emily O'Keefe, ninemsn
Australian Islamic leaders have condemned yesterday's violent protest in Sydney which left six police officers injured.
Six people have been charged and eight men were arrested during the demonstration involving at least 200 people who were protesting against an anti-Islamic film that that ridicules Prophet Mohammed.
Glass bottles were thrown at police who were forced to use capsicum spray, tear gas and the dog squad to keep the crowd at bay.
Islamic Friendship Association of Australia founder Keysar Trad condemned the Sydney violence, describing the marchers as a noisy minority, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
Muslim community member and volunteer Tony Vlahos described the protests as an embarrassment.
"Ultimately, just because something's vile, it doesn't give people the right to protest violently against it and call for people to be beheaded," he said.
"I would love to see a counter protest at Melbourne's US consulate condemning the violent rioting in Sydney as against the principles of Islam and contrary to the example of the prophet Muhammad."
The protest began when an "an unannounced and unapproved" group of about 100 people gathered at Town Hall in Sydney's CBD at lunchtime yesterday, before walking along George Street towards Martin Place.
Conflict between police and the group then broke out, as they attempted to enter the US consulate within the MLC Centre.
A growing group of protesters then moved to Hyde Park where around 300 people gathered, waving banners that had slogans such as "Behead all those who insult the Prophet" and "Our dead are in paradise, your dead are in hell".
Nine News helicopter footage captured a handful of people in a crowd of hundreds throwing objects at riot police.
Some demonstrators were seen standing between the police and more agitated protesters in an effort to calm the crowd.
Speakers at the demonstration also appealed for calm, asking protesters to pray.
The protest came to an end at around 5pm (AEST) after demonstrators stormed out of Hyde Park and dispersed onto William Street.
Extra police have been put on duty in the CBD today in case of further protests, Nine News reports.
Sources: Nine News, The Sydney Morning Herald
Author: Emily O'Keefe
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8533533/muslims-condemn-violent-sydney-protest
See also: Romney’s haunting smirk
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=79593248
[ Australia ] Guns seized in terror raids
Date September 13, 2012 - 11:58AM
Jane Lee, Nino Bucci, Dan Oakes and Farah Farouque
The al Furqan centre and book shop in Springvale.
Police terror raids have entered their second day, with authorities searching a house in the eastern suburb of Ormond this morning.
Police arrived at the house — the 12th property raided over the past two days — as
The Age was interviewing the occupant, who said she had just returned from overseas.
* What is the Al-Furqan centre?
http://www.theage.com.au/national/what-is-the-al-furqan-centre-20120912-25sj3.html?rand=1347455953552
* Terror and the power of persuasion
http://www.theage.com.au/national/terror-and-the-power-of-persuasion-20120912-25sxq.html?rand=1347455958376
* View the search warrant for the premises
http://images.theage.com.au/file/2012/09/12/3630306/WARRANT.pdf?rand=1347458083082
The raid occurred as the only man arrested so far was taken to hospital suffering from abdominal pains. Although police said last night that the 23-year-old from Officer was expected to be charged with terror offences, he had not been at the time he was hospitalised.
An Officer home where a man has been arrested
over alleged terror links. Photo: Penny Stephens
Last night’s arrest was made at a neat, double-storey Officer home, which has a ‘‘for sale’’ sign at the front. People inside the property this morning refused to speak to Fairfax Media.
Neighbours in the modern housing development said yesterday’s raid came as a shock.
One neighbour said he heard police knocking at the arrested man’s front door at 6am and saw about five police cars.
He said he believed the man shared the home with his brother and their wives and worked in insulation.
He said he did not know the arrested man but the brother was friendly.
Another neighbour, Trish Bourke, said she was taken aback by the news.
‘‘I’m a bit concerned that I’m living two doors up from a possible terrorist. I’d rather they were caught than not, but I was still a bit surprised,’’ she said.
She believed the brothers had lived at the property for about 18 months.
This morning, AFP officers continued to search a house in Hallam.
Officers at the scene would not comment on the raid, other than to say they had not made arrests or finished searching the property.
At another property in Hallam, which was raided yesterday morning, a woman said her son was innocent and she had no idea why the house had been targeted.
A computer and CD were seized from the house.
"I don’t know why the police were here,’’ the woman said.
"My son does nothing wrong.’’
Police also remain at two houses in Narre Warren South.
Officers at the scene would not comment.
Police told two men at one of the Narre Warren South houses they would be finished their search as soon as possible.
Police are also searching the garages of the properties.
There were at least five AFP officers at both houses.
The operation, revealed exclusively last night by theage.com.au, was targeted at individuals connected with the Al-Furqan centre in Springvale.
The group soon posted in Bosnian on its Facebook page. ’’The raid took everyone by surprise, someone calling himself Sehzad Goran wrote. ’’I can confirm that local and federal police raided [name withheld] house and prayer place. Currently ASIO (aka, Gestapo) are still going through the house. Agents include women agents also.’’
The centre, which also hosts a bookshop, while not a mosque is associated with fringe Muslim preacher Sheikh Harun, also known as Harun Mehicevic, who is believed to be overseas.
The imam of the nearby Bosnian mosque in Noble Park, Ibrahim Omerdic, said Sheikh Harun had led a group of ’’radical followers’’ away from the Noble Park mosque about 10 years ago.
Mr Omerdic described Sheikh Harun as a very patriotic Bosnian, but said he had left with a small group of followers and went on to form the Al-Furqan Islamic Centre after doctrinal disagreements.
’’They radicalised matters regarding women and men. He said Muslims were not allowed to vote,’’ he said.
Another community source said last night that Sheikh Harun’s ’’following is not large but his teachings are very fiery. He’s a pretty marginalised figure in the Muslim community.’’
The source said the people targeted for the operation were not believed to have been involved in a fully realised terror plot, but were involved in ’’contemplating and getting information’’ about terrorist activities.
A search warrant for the Al-Furqan centre says police were looking for material relating to 11 people between the ages of 22 and 40, and information connected to 12 addresses. They were in Narre Warren, Springvale South, Narre Warren South, Officer, Craigieburn, Hallam, Ormond, Endeavour Hills and Noble Park. Most of the properties were raided in the operation, which began early yesterday.
The warrant also says police are looking for copies of the infamous al-Qaeda-produced magazine Inspire, which reportedly nominated Sydney as a potential terror target earlier this year. The warrant says the material police are searching for is either connected with terrorist acts or the collecting and making of documents that are ’’likely to facilitate terrorist acts’’.
Sources said the men targeted were Australian residents of mixed cultural backgrounds. One man whose house was raided condemned the police and intelligence services in a Facebook posting. ’’And look at the tactics. They come early in the morning [6am] and break the door of the markaz and about 20-30 come to the door of my neighbour as well. He [the neighbour] is overseas and has no control over what’s happening over here,’’ he wrote.
It is believed authorities relied in part on information provided by people from Melbourne’s Islamic community. Police briefed the Islamic Council of Victoria during the raids. ’’I want to commend police for consulting with community figures,’’ said president Ramzi Elsayed. ’’We support the police in their community safety endeavours and that [the operation was] conducted with cultural and religious sensitivity.’’
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/guns-seized-in-terror-raids-20120912-25ser.html
Chinese officials investigate suicide bombing
.. a sad story in the embedded video ..
4 September 2012 Last updated at 18:32 ET
Authorities in China are investigating a suicide bombing after a man blew himself up in a government office.
After being paralysed in an accident at work, he claimed he'd been denied proper compensation.
The case highlights growing tensions in Chinese society ahead of a major handover of power.
At least six government officials were injured in the blast in Shandong province.
The BBC's correspondent, Martin Patience, has visited the man's village.
Read More
Dalai Lama accused over suicides .. article below ..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15372731
China editor's suicide sparks web debate
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-19365161
China suicide bomber kills three
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-18018827
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19481926
========
China accuses Dalai Lama of encouraging suicide by fire
19 October 2011 Last updated at 10:29 ET
China brands Dalai Lama's prayers as encouragement to terrorism
China has again accused the Dalai Lama of encouraging people in ethnically Tibetan parts of China to commit suicide.
It comes after the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader offered prayers for eight monks and a nun who have set themselves on fire.
It is not clear how many of them have died in what is said to have been protests against Chinese rule.
China said the self-immolations were "terrorism in disguise".
China's foreign ministry said the "Dalai group" - a reference to the Tibetan spiritual leader and his followers - had "played up" the protests in south-west China, which have escalated dramatically in recent weeks.
"In the wake of the incidents, overseas Tibet independent forces and the Dalai group did not criticise the cases," foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told journalists at a regular briefing.
"On the contrary, they beautified, played up such issues to incite more people to follow suit. As we know, such splittist activities at the cost of human lives is violence and terrorism in disguise," Ms Jiang said.
She repeated Beijing's assertion that Tibetans in China are free to practise their religious beliefs.
The Kirti monastery has been the scene
of repeated protests in recent months
Photographs smuggled out of China several months ago appear to show Kirti Monastery monks holding anti-Chinese demonstrations and being confronted by the security forces.
The Dalai Lama fasted and held prayers in their honour, at his temple in the town of Dharamsala, in the Indian Himalayas, surrounded by hundreds of his followers.
Lobsang Sangay, the prime minister of Tibet's government-in-exile, blamed China's "hard-line position" in Tibet over decades of Communist Chinese rule for pushing Tibetans into a "desperate situation".
"Through its propaganda, Beijing shows a different image, but in reality China practises colonialism and systematic destruction of the unique Tibetan culture, religion, language and environment because of which Tibetans have peacefully demonstrated time and again," he said.
Protests 'escalating'
The latest to set herself on fire was a Tibetan nun, Tenzin Wangmo, 20, who died in Aba county on Monday.
Aba county is home to the Kirti monastery, the scene of repeated protests against Beijing's rule. It is located within the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, where more than half the population are ethnic Tibetans.
...............................
The Tibet Divide
* China says Tibet was always part of its territory
* Tibet had long periods of autonomy before 20th Century
* 1950: China launches military assault
* 1959: Uprising against Chinese rule defeated; Dalai Lama flees to India
* Dalai Lama now advocates a "middle way" with Beijing, seeking autonomy but not independence
Q&A: China and the Tibetans .. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14533879
Self-immolation 'trend' at Tibetan monastery .. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15169007
...............................
Seven monks from the monastery have set themselves on fire in recent months. An eighth monk set himself on fire in another part of Sichuan province.
Tibetan Buddhist monks in China say a wave of self-immolations is linked to Beijing's refusal to engage with the Dalai Lama.
China has since jailed three monks accused of assisting in one self-immolation and maintains a heavy security presence in Aba town.
In a statement, Free Tibet director Stephanie Brigden said that unrest in Tibet was "escalating and widening".
"The acts of self-immolation are not taking place in isolation, protests have been reported in the surrounding region and calls for wider protests are growing," she said.
This report cannot be confirmed. Foreign media cannot gain access to restive ethnic Tibetan areas and Chinese state media often do not report these incidents.
Separately, Chinese media say 17 people have been arrested for smuggling guns into Tibetan areas of China from Burma. Correspondents point out that regional unrest in recent years has almost never involved Tibetans with guns.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15372731
South African miners charged with murder: throwback to apartheid [.. this is VERY sad ..]
Updated 3 hours 22 minutes ago
South African prosecutors have charged 270 mine workers with the murder of more than 30 of their colleagues who were killed by police two weeks ago. The decision has sparked outrage beyond South Africa. And long time of observers of South Africa's progress towards full democracy say the move is a dangerous sign that the bad old days of apartheid are not over.
Emily Bourke
Source: The World Today | Duration: 4min 21sec
Topics: activism-and-lobbying, south-africa
Transcript .. automatic audio in the link below ..
ASHLEY HALL: It's been labelled grotesque, Kafkaesque, and a throwback to apartheid.
Prosecutors in South African have charged 270 mine workers with the murder of more than 30 of their colleagues who were killed by police two weeks ago.
The clash at the Marikana Mine was the worst day of police violence in South Africa since the end of apartheid, but long time of observers of South Africa's progress towards full democracy say the move to charge the mine workers and not the police, is a dangerous sign that the bad old days are not over.
Emily Bourke reports.
EMILYBOURKE: Two weeks after South African police opened fire on striking workers at the Marikana Mine, the arm of the law has now set its sights on the workers who survived the incident.
Around 270 detained mine workers are set to face trial for the murder of their colleagues.
Relatives of the accused are furious.
MINER'S SISTER (translation): All we ask for is for their release, so that we can be able to see them. Why are they being arrested? There's nothing that they have been arrested for.
EMILYBOURKE: Julius Malema is the former president of the African National Congress' Youth League.
JULIUS MALEMA: Police actually killed those people. Not even a single policeman is arrested. Those people are not killed by those police, they are killed by those comrades, their fellow colleagues, ahich is a madness.
ANDREA DURBACH: This is demonstrating just how quickly the old remnants of apartheid can rear their head.
EMILYBOURKE: Andrea Durbach is from the Australian Human Rights Centre at University of New South Wales.
ANDREA DURBACH: I think it potentially is politically motivated. I think, unfortunately, it's a combination of fear on the part of the authorities to be seen to be acting. I would imagine Lonmin mines are very concerned about their reputation and economic profile, and they might have hence put some pressure on the government to act decisively, but in this case erroneously.
Plus to my mind a very ill equipped and poorly trained police force that acted under enormous pressure of course. They've all combined I think now to give rise to a rather ghastly and very unsettling way of dealing with this issue.
EMILYBOURKE: She says authorities have turned to an archaic law known as the Common Purpose Doctrine.
ANDREA DURBACH: It's an old English doctrine that has found its way into apartheid South Africa, in an attempt to criminalise political, legitimate political activity. So it's an attempt to really throw the cloak of criminal liability over the accomplices or the associates of this unlawful purpose.
In this instance there doesn't seem to have been a kind of coming together at all of these people to plan to kill. Certainly to plan to strike for higher wages was one purpose, which as far as I know under South African law is no longer unlawful. But then to extend the doctrine to say that these people came together in order to provoke potentially the police, so that the police might shoot their colleagues and then be held liable for their colleagues' murder just seems Kafkaesque.
EMILYBOURKE: In the late 1980s Andrea Durbach represented 25 black South Africans convicted of the murder of a black policeman who was killed during a riot.
Many were convicted and sentenced to death under the Common Purpose Doctrine. On appeal the sentences were commuted.
She says relying on the Common Purpose Doctrine in this case is a dangerous blow to South African democracy.
ANDREA DURBACH: My concern, and I think that's what's so distressing for so many South Africans, is that the kind of violence that met violence that was so endemic to apartheid, usually at the hands of the police, seems now to have emerged in a new, hopefully democratic South Africa.
And I guess it just shows that that sort of legacy is going to take an enormously long time before the police and the other agents of the state actually understand that to invoke that conduct, which I said is so endemic to apartheid, is so inappropriate and terribly, terribly damaging to a fledgling democracy
ASHLEY HALL: Andrea Durbach is from the Australian Human Rights Centre at UNSW. Emily Bourke had that report.
Audio: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-31/nsw-police-call-community-to-end-wall-of-silence/4236236
very sad that old habits die so hard .. "terribly terribly damaging to a fledgling democracy"
Doorstop on Grocon Dispute and Newstart
Tuesday 28 August 2012 Transcript
The Hon Bill Shorten MP
Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Financial Services and Superannuation
BILL SHORTEN: Grocon is taking its legal rights to court, that is absolutely their call. Yesterday, I facilitated private talks between the union and the company. That didn’t make a great deal of progress yesterday. I’ve spoken to all the protagonists today. I’ve made it very clear that the Government is willing to help conciliate this argument. Something has seriously gone wrong in the relationship between the union and the company. Both sides feel very strongly.
My position though is completely clear: unlawful action cannot be tolerated from whatever
quarter it comes from. Violence is completely unacceptable in a modern day and age.
JOURNALIST: Do you say the action today is unlawful - the action by the Civil union?
BILL SHORTEN: That’ll be for the court to decide. I’m not going to pre-empt the court, but I’m very clear that unlawful action will be met by a strong response from the Government.
JOURNALIST: Daniel Grollo said this morning that the union hadn’t made their decision clear. You have been in talks with both Grocon and the union. What’s your understanding of the crux of the dispute?
BILL SHORTEN: I guess I’ve got three understandings. One is, whatever they’re arguing about, barristers at ten paces, confrontation, blockades, there’s a better way to fix it than what’s currently underway. The actual substance of the issues I understand - and I don’t pass judgment on the issues, I just believe there’s a better way to fix it than I’m currently seeing transpire - is the right of delegates to be elected on worksites, the use of stickers on badges and flags. Right of entry, what is the industry standard? What’s appropriate?
What I know is that these - this matter is - should be resolved elsewhere than in the way it is being resolved. There are strong and deeply held views from both sides, but I’ve got no time for any violence and the sort of disturbance we’re seeing is not appropriate.
JOURNALIST: Grocon argues this has ramifications for the building industry, do you think it does have ramifications for the rest of the industry?
BILL SHORTEN: Listen, I don’t want to inflame the dispute. Clearly though, this is a sufficiently unusual dispute that something has fundamentally gone wrong in the relationship here and it needs cool and calm heads to resolve. The company’s well within its legal rights to take the steps it’s doing, but I also know that something’s gone wrong here, this is not the usual fare. And certainly I know, I and other industry observers don’t necessarily think this applies everywhere, what we’re seeing here, but there’s something gone quite wrong in the relationship between the union and the company.
JOURNALIST: The fact that things got so out of hand, does that indicate that perhaps our laws are out-dated?
BILL SHORTEN: No, I think what it indicates is that things have got out of hand in this one dispute. The system that - of where the company’s alleging tort action of interference from people going to work. The laws are the same as they’ve been for many years. So, what I would submit this is - a very bad but very unusual dispute and I think the best thing that people like myself can do is absolutely give no time or cover or condoning any violence, any agro. By the same token, in my experience it takes two to have an argument and so the Government, along with making sure that our regulator is investigating the matter.
Along with whatever the State Government and the state police do, the other thing which I will do is continue to endeavour to get to the bottom of the argument and to fix the argument which is triggering all this most inappropriate and unseemly conduct.
JOURNALIST: Grocon said that the union’s behaving as though it’s above the law, would you - could you agree with that?
BILL SHORTEN: No one is above the law.
JOURNALIST: The opposition says this wouldn’t have happened if the ABCC hadn’t had its powers reduced, what do you say to that?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Insert: ABCC? .. a CFMEU view on what no longer exists in the
same form .. see article below for a bit more background on that ..
The ABCC
What about our civil rights?
We fought for 'your rights at work', in Rudd's new Australia that means no civil rights for Construction workers...
Construction workers and their families fought hard to remove the Howard Government and its extreme
laws. However more needs to be done for a fair workplace relations system for our own industry.
Right across Australia construction workers are under attack from the legacy of Howard's IR laws, as the
Australian Building and Construction Commissioner (ABCC) continues to use its draconian powers.
How the Gillard Government is wasting your tax dollars on the ABCC...
http://www.cfmeuwa.com/go/campaigns/the-abcc
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BILL SHORTEN: The opposition couldn’t find its ways from the kitchen to the fridge. What idea do they have on industrial relations? We saw John Howard come out on 16 August and says remember back in the good old days my laws were best. You saw Tony Abbott hop on his policy bicycle and pedal away as far as he could. Listen this is a very - in my opinion, a very unseemly, inappropriate dispute, but I don’t think that from this you can therefore conclude anything other than this is a very ugly dispute which needs to be fixed as soon as possible.
JOURNALIST: But can you understand why there would be concerns in the building industry that this has happened after the abolition of that commission?
BILL SHORTEN: I think here we stand at the MCG, there are ugly arguments about the putting up of the light towers here, which were very famous and went on a lot longer than this did. That happened before the ABCC. Periodically, there are disputes. I think what is important is not the political grandstanding. What’s important is getting to the bottom of it, making sure that the law is obeyed. Making sure that the dispute gets fixed.
JOURNALIST: Would you call on the union to end this blockade?
BILL SHORTEN: I would call upon all parties to obey the law, all parties to sort out their differences in a different way. There’s no doubt in my mind that this dispute has gone further in a direction which it just simply shouldn’t be.
JOURNALIST: The union wants the rights to choose health and safety officers, what do you say to that? Should it be the company’s discretion or…
BILL SHORTEN: I actually say it should be the workers’ discretion about who their representatives are. But beyond that, there’s clearly deeply held arguments, I am not going to resolve it at a press conference here. What we need is for Grocon and the union - whilst taking whatever legal rights they think they have in other forums - they do need to sit down and talk to each other.
JOURNALIST: Do you think both sides are spoiling for a fight?
BILL SHORTEN: I think this dispute’s flared up. It’s a most unusual dispute. I’m not sure that we’ve got to the bottom of what’s fuelling everyone in it. What I do know is that this is not a standard fare of workplace relations in Australia and what I also know is that it will get fixed. What I also know is that unlawful conduct has no place in modern workplace relations, full stop.
JOURNALIST: How much involvement have you had in trying to get things fixed?
BILL SHORTEN: I became aware in the course of the last few days that there seemed to be this growing argument which is going to flare up. (1) Unlawful action cannot be condoned (2) violence has no place in any worksite and (3) this is an argument which to me seems capable of resolution and it's not going to be resolved by the tactics which we're seeing employed currently.
JOURNALIST: Minister, are you really finding it hard to live $330,000 a year?
BILL SHORTEN: Oh, let's put that in context. The question in the debate is about Newstart and I've been very clear that I think that the Newstart allowance is very low and it would be very difficult for anyone to make ends meet.
JOURNALIST: But when you make those comments, do you think you'll get a lot of sympathy considering you're on four times the average wage?
BILL SHORTEN: Again, referring you back to the answer I just gave you twenty seconds ago, it's not about individuals such as myself. The point I'm making and the point I was making yesterday and the point I'll continue to make is that Newstart and the supporting Government safety net is low. It is hard to make ends meet. It doesn't matter what walk of life you're in, that's hard. The best solution to help people who are doing it hard with unemployment is to help them find a job.
That's why this Government in its five years - it's nearly five years it's been in office has seen 800,000-plus new jobs created. We have forecast and we're on track to create another 830,000 new jobs. The best way that you can get along is to be supported into getting work, and that's where this Government's efforts are focused utterly.
JOURNALIST: But your comments about your wage, though, were they - was that a, I mean…
BILL SHORTEN: I can't be any clearer but I'm happy to say again, this government believes that the best way to cope with poverty is to be able to find a job and to have the skills. This Government is spending the money which will see 375,000 people over the next…
JOURNALIST: [Interrupts] You…
BILL SHORTEN: Sorry, I - you can ask your question but I think I'm entitled to answer it. 375,000 people over the next four years will be receiving greater support and skills and training.
Unemployment is a curse. It is very hard to make ends meet and I absolutely see that helping people out of poverty is the number one job of a Labor Government. Helping people get a job is the best way to break the cycle on poverty, and I appreciate you for giving me the opportunity to clarify my remarks. Thank you very much. Thank you.
http://ministers.deewr.gov.au/shorten/doorstop-grocon-dispute-and-newstart
======== .. while totally understanding the Minister's focus on the rule of law and violence must just note that the actions of union demonstrators in pushing .. yup, firmly yet gently just pushing .. police horses back from their advance on union members, in the current peaceful demonstration in Melbourne, has been described in the Murdoch press as 'unionists attacking police horses' .. lol you can read Murdoch like a comic book, but it ain't funny at all ..
The piece below contains a show of industry solidarity from a Murdoch publication, also a bit more on the ex ABCC ..
Grocon fracas 'not tied to ABCC abolition'
By Andrea Hayward - AAP - August 28, 2012 5:04PM
THE federal government has rejected coalition claims its decision to abolish a
Howard-era construction industry watchdog led to ugly scenes at a Melbourne building site.
Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) members clashed with mounted police in Melbourne on Tuesday after blockading a Grocon construction site, despite a Supreme Court injunction ordering them not to.
Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten said the clash was ugly, but deflected suggestions it was linked to Labor's move to dismantle the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) and water down its successor's powers.
"I don't think from this you can ... conclude anything other than this is a very ugly dispute which needs to be fixed as soon as possible," Mr Shorten told reporters in Melbourne.
He failed in attempts to help the union and company resolve their difference early on Monday, but said he was determined to get to the bottom of the issue.
"Something's seriously gone wrong between the union and the company," he said.
"Both sides feel very strongly."
Labor scrapped the Howard-era ABCC earlier this year, replacing
it with an industry inspectorate within Fair Work Australia.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said the rule of law was not operating as it should after the ABCC was scrapped.
"It is critical that we re-establish the rule of law in a tough industry," Mr Abbott told reporters in Queensland.
Federal opposition workplace relations spokesman Eric Abetz said people had a right to go to work without being intimidated by "lawless union thugs".
"The CFMEU bosses are back to their old tricks," he said.
"This is just one of the dire consequences of Labor taking the tough cop off the beat."
Mr Shorten said there were periodic disputes and Tuesday's situation should not be used for political grandstanding.
"What is important is getting to the bottom of it, making sure the law is obeyed, making sure the dispute gets fixed," he said.
Industry groups have weighed into the debate, urging the government to consider bolstering the powers of the new regulator - Fair Work Building and Construction - or reinstate the ABCC.
Master Builders Australia chief executive Wilhelm Harnisch said the Grocon dispute was clear evidence industrial relations laws were failing and needed change.
"The bullying tactics displayed by the CFMEU vindicates the building industry's call for the return of the ABCC and dedicated industry-specific laws which target unlawful and intimidatory conduct," he said in a statement.
"Currently, the Fair Work Building and Construction agency has not been able to intervene because it possesses severely weakened powers."
Australian Mines and Metals Association (AMMA) executive director Minna Knight warned multi-national companies could be deterred from investing in Australia if scenes like those in Melbourne were repeated.
It could put at risk $260 billion worth of approved resources projects, many of which would enter the construction phase in the next few years, she said.
"Without the ABCC and the ability to often prosecute militant individuals behind such illegal action, the 90,000 new construction jobs forecast on these resource projects remain under threat," Ms Knight said.
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/shorten-condemns-violence-at-grocon-site/story-e6frfku9-1226459663409
.. misrepresentation .. loathing .. fear-mongering .. standard fare of right-wing industry, political and media messaging ..
Corporate attack on union rights in Australia
Grocon workers 'enter Emporium site' as CFMEU dispute continues
Chris Gillett, Aleks Devic - Herald Sun - August 31, 2012 7:07AM
Police in riot gear assemble at the Emporium site as the industrial dispute enters its 10th day. Source: Herald Sun
UPDATE: SOME Grocon employees have been safely escorted into the $250 million
Emporium site in the CBD after hundreds of police secured the area this morning.
Grocon chief executive Daniel Grollo told 3AW that some employees had returned to the site this morning, but didn't say when or how many were there.
Victoria Police said workers were able to enter the site at about 7am.
Police said they would continue to have a presence at the site "to ensure the safety of all parties involved".
Hundreds of police blocked off Lonsdale St and secured the Grocon building site shortly after 3am, surrounding the inner-city block and redirecting traffic as about 1500 unionists gathered as the bitter industrial dispute enters its 10th day.
Unionists
Unionists chant during a speech outside the Emporium site.
The police airwing joined the mounted police, who were at the ready to try and break the picket line, which is in breach of a Supreme Court order.
At one point, workers walked into the middle of the road, blocking cars and public transport on Swanston St.
Unionists clashed with police when they tried to help Grocon workers enter the site on Tuesday.
Police on horseback stand defiant in the rain on day 10 of the picket line. Picture: Trevor Pinder
CFMEU state president Ralph Edwards told workers to stay strong after crisis talks between the union and Grocon failed last night.
"Don't be afraid to get on your phones and invite your friends," he said this morning.
"We are here to stay. We have laid seeds for this job. We are here to stay. We are not here to have a brawl.
Police in riot gear assemble at the Emporium site as the industrial dispute enters its 10th day.
"The folks (police) on the other side of the temporary fence are not here to stay.
"We have rights. We are going to defend our rights. We will have a point, I don't know when, where busses will be brought in.
"What we are going to do is continue to lay siege. We ain't going away, this is going to be a long fight."
"Say what you like to them but we are not going to have a brawl."
Workers protest again ahead of meeting [ embedded video: http://video.heraldsun.com.au/?2274175807 ]
"We are here to show we have strength."
Despite encouraging unionists to spread the word of the protests, Mr Edwards gagged the unionists from talking to the media.
He told the crowd that the media had misrepresented the union's cause and said nobody was doing themselves any favours by talking to journalists.
Earlier, Mr Edwards said that unionists were "not here to have a war" with officers.
CBD protesters doused with capsicum spray [ embedded video http://video.heraldsun.com.au/?2273246051 ]
"We are here because of Daniel Grollo. We are not dealing with a public listed company we are dealing with Daniel Grollo," he said.
"We are not here to have a blue with the police.
Vic police clash with building workers [ embedded video: http://video.heraldsun.com.au/?2273224954 ]
"We are not going to have a bloodbath.
"If you have come here to settle some argument with the police, I'll tell you now 'piss off'.
"We are here because the union has a job to do."
Drivers have been advised to look out for diversions along Lonsdale St, Swanston St and Little Bourke St.
Mr Grollo and CFMEU heavyweights Bill Oliver and John Setka were locked in talks at Fair Work Australia yesterday.
Mr Grollo said he could not abide by FWA president Iain Ross's recommendation of a two-week "cooling-off period", which would have seen the CFMEU suspend its industrial action while further talks continued.
"The proposal put to us today ... is totally unacceptable," Mr Grollo said.
"The concept that the illegal blockade and intimidation is only to be temporarily lifted is unacceptable."
Mr Oliver, CFMEU Victorian secretary, said he didn't understand why Mr Grollo had rejected the FWA's proposal, which also would have seen Grocon suspend its legal action against the union.
"Obviously there'll be people down there," Mr Oliver said yesterday.
"We were quite happy to go there tomorrow morning to tell those people ... go back to work and then see where we go for the next two weeks.
"(It's) disappointing from the union's point of view."
Mr Grollo said he had told the tribunal the company's position had not changed and that the company could only negotiate with the union if it lifted the blockade for good.
"I appeal to the CFMEU leadership to obey the law, remove the blockade and allow Grocon's workers to safely return to their jobs," Mr Grollo said.
The union blockade of Grocon's $250 million Emporium site is entering its tenth day, and workers are expected to return in their hundreds this morning.
Mr Grollo made a brief statement before entering the talks.
"The illegal blockades at Grocon's sites must be lifted," he said.
Mr Oliver said he was willing to negotiate, but wanted unionists to retain their right to elect shop stewards and to fly union colours on Grocon sites.
"We hope that Daniel has turned up here this evening to negotiate, and not just because he was invited to by minister Bill Shorten," Mr Oliver said.
The Workplace Relations Minister said he wanted a negotiated outcome, but called on the CFMEU to obey court rulings.
"I have also condemned violence, thuggery and intimidation at work, whatever the industry," Mr Shorten said.
"People who break the law during a dispute will be brought to justice through the police and the courts."
CFMEU members ended a two-day blockade of a Grocon site in Sydney after a Supreme Court order banning it was served.
The Emporium dispute, which began last week, has cost Grocon $370,000 a day in lost construction.
Police closed Lonsdale St yesterday morning, and a small number of officers monitored the protest.
A union official urged about 1000 members to stand "shoulder to shoulder for 40 days or 400 days, for as long as it takes".
"The message to (Premier Ted) Baillieu in Spring St is, if he wants to bring in the coppers with their batons and their horses, then bring it on. Because there are 11,000 police and there are 30,000 members of the CFMEU and ... we're ready to rumble," he said.
"We're going to send a message - fly that flag, our colours, our patch - and send a message that in the end, we will not lose."
Brian Boyd, chairman of an alliance of building unions, said a statewide strike was possible if police tried to break the blockade.
Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said yesterday: "What we are seeing in the streets of Melbourne is a sign of this Government's failure to ensure the rule of law applies on building sites."
- with Annika Smethurst, Stephen Drill and Michelle Ainsworth
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/grocon-workers-enter-emporium-site-as-cfmeu-dispute-continues/story-e6frf7kx-1226462011998
More: links .. please note also the article must have been being updated
while posting, it became impossible to continue adjusting it here.
========
Media coverage and comments i've seen have been overwhelmingly anti-union right wing noise .. this one for some balance ..
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Daniel Grollo's calling in mounted police with truncheons a return to Thatcherism
What have Australian workplaces become when an employer can ignore workplace bargaining and have power to set mounted police with truncheons and capsicum spray against peacefully protesting workers?
Baillieu sends in mounted police against picketing
construction workers yesterday
Who does third generation Daniel Grollo think he is? The Mafiosi Godfather? Who does Ted Baillieu think he is setting mounted police with truncheons against picketing workers?
National television footage from Melbourne yesterday showed Victoria's mounted police attacking construction workers at a Colonial First State's Myer Emporium high rise site in central Lonsdale Street. The protest was peaceful and was led by the relevant union, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU).
Grollo loves money and hates unions, calling them ''scabs'' and ''grubs''. Grollo wants all his workers to be non-unionised. He won't let CFMEU shop stewards on any Grocon project. His hate is such that he won't even let workers put CFMEU stickers on their hard hats or lunch boxes.
Grollo has a history of trying to undermine construction workers' rights to enter into Enterprise Bargaining Agreements (EBA's). He wants to scrap EBA's and install Howard's workchoice individual agreements, where Grollo has all say and the worker none. Grollo has barred unions from his construction sites. This is illegal. It is unAustralian. Grollo needs to realise he is not in Putin's Russia or Lukashenko's Belarus or in Thatcher's Britain.
And the LibLab Victorian Government is on the side of big multinationals like Grocon because all they see is the economic dollar. The LibLab Premier Ted Baillieu has done a little Johnny Howard Work Choice, recently passing anti-union legislation.
Setting mounted police against peacefully protecting workers is industrial thuggery. It is undemocratic and has no place in Australia. It is reminiscent of 1980's vicious Thatcherism. When then British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, decided to replace half the mining workforce with more efficient machines in coal mines across Northern England and Wales, the miners protested and picketed, supported by the National Union of Mineworkers.
Thatcher sent in the mounted police with truncheons against the miners. The miners had nowhere to go. It was their livelihood.
Thatcher sends in mounted police againts picketing miners in 1984
Australia has it's own union origins. The 1891 Shearers' Strike in Barcaldine was not fought in vain. If Daniel Grollo thinks he is another Charles Fairbain wanting to destroy unions, he has a problem.
The Australia First Party supports the rights of workers and their unions to demand fair enterprise agreements and recognises anyone's democractic right to protest peacefully.
Australian unionism is integral to Australia's identity and workplace freedoms. Australian workers must stand up against global multinationals like Grocon and safeguard the hard-fought workplace rights and conditions by our forebears. Unity in action is the first stage in winning political and organisational unity.
"We become slaves the moment we hand the keys to the definition of reality entirely over to someone else..."
- B.W. Powe, Towards A Canada Of Light.
http://afbluemountains.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/daniel-grollos-calling-in-mounted.html
Marikana is the latest chapter in a long saga
24 Aug 2012 07:50 - Micah Reddy
Statistically speaking, a Marikana massacre occurs many times
every year beneath the surface of South Africa's mining badlands.
Special Focus
Lonmin: Platinum mines in chaos .. [ Insert video from link, quote, and comment .. WARNING bloodshed ..
Dozens killed in South Africa mine shooting
Authoritarian Russia .. Anti-Putin Stunt Earns Punk Band Two Years in Jail
Maxim Shipenkov/European Pressphoto Agency
Band members in their Moscow courtroom enclosure, nicknamed the “aquarium,” after the verdict was delivered on Friday. More Photos »
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: August 17, 2012 894 Comments
MOSCOW — Three young women who staged an anti-Putin stunt .. http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/russian-riot-grrrls-jailed-for-punk-prayer/ .. in Moscow’s main Orthodox cathedral, and whose jailing became a cause célèbre championed by artists around the world, were convicted of hooliganism on Friday and sentenced to two years in a penal colony.
Multimedia
Slide Show .. Russian Punk Band’s Trial Spurs Protests
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/08/17/world/20120817-RIOT.html?ref=europe
Video Pussy Riot’s Performance at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour .. [insert video from link]
Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Dies at 57
~~~~~~~~
Insert interview and notes
Meles Zenawi, PM of Ethiopia, 2011 TV interview, Insight -with Vickram Bahl
Chinese politician's wife convicted of murder
Gu Kailai, wife of prominent politician Bo Xilai, given suspended death sentence for murder of British businessman.
Last Modified: 20 Aug 2012 02:35
He Zhengsheng, the lawyer of the victim's family, announced the verdict to reporters outside the court [AP]
Gu Kailai, the wife of a Chinese politician, has been given a suspended death sentence over the murder of a British businessman, a lawyer for the victim's family told reporters.
"We respect today's decision," said He Zhengsheng, representing the family of Neil Heywood, who was killed last November.
Monday's sentence means Gu is likely to face life in prison, provided she does not commit offences in the next two years.
Gu admitted in court earlier this month to poisoning Heywood after a business dispute that she said had led him to threaten her son.
The scandal ended the career of Gu's husband, Bo Xilai, who was once seen as a contender for a place in China's next Communist Party leadership, which will be announced later this year.
In March Bo was removed as party secretary of the city of Chongqing, with the party citing unspecified violations as the reason.
Zhang Xiaojun, a Bo family aide who admitted to helping Gu with the murder, received a 9-year jail sentence, lawyer He said. Non-official media were not allowed in the courtroom.
Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride in Hong Kong described this case as one of the “biggest scandals to hit the Communist Party of China in the past two decades.”
“Lots of questions are still left unanswered about Bo Xilai’s involvement in all of this,” McBride said. “He hasn’t been seen in public since March and there is lots of speculation about his involvement in the murder of Heywood and whether he was involved or not in any cover up.”
McBride said that with the today’s verdict, China's leadership will hope to see an end to the whole scandal months before it will hand over power to younger leaders.
Gu's arrest and the ousting of her husband sparked the biggest political turbulence in China since the bloody crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in 1989.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2012/08/201282011725257481.html
Repairing the road to Oz
.. yup, we do share in the ugly specter of racism ..
Jen Rosenberg, Matt Wade - Date July 30, 2012
After violent attacks on Indian students, the damage to Australia's reputation is improving, albeit slowly.
Safe and sound … 26-year-old Indian student Radhika Ghumare says that as a student at
UTS, she was satisfied with the security provided at her accommodation. Photo: Kate Geraghty
Street crime once had little to do with Australia's international reputation, or its export performance. But the globalisation of education has changed that.
Australia learnt this the hard way in 2009 and 2010 when a series of attacks
on Indian students received blanket media coverage on the subcontinent.
"The crisis has cost Australia billions of dollars and
thousands of jobs. Beyond the Lost Decade report"
The crisis damaged Australia's standing in India, strained relations between Delhi and Canberra, and plunged Australia's education system into turmoil.
A major restructuring of the international education program followed. But the lingering sensitivity was underscored when two Chinese students were bashed on a Sydney train in April, sparking fears of another ''Indian situation''. Officials went into damage control when Chinese media started reporting the incident.
One-fifth of all international students are from China and with a large resident community in Australia, the potential for disaster was huge. If the negative messages spiraled out of control, it could have dwarfed the diplomatic, cultural and economic rift between Australia and India.
Most Australians don't comprehend how much the attacks on students dominated public discussion in India from mid-2009 to early 2010.
''You had to live in India to see what a big deal it was,'' says John McCarthy, who was Australia's high commissioner in New Delhi when the crisis flared.
''I don't think it's ever quite sunk in for people back here in Australia how much this issue caught the public imagination.''
Young Indians - a crucial market for Australia's international education sector - have voted with their feet.
The number of Indians seeking an Australian education plummeted from a peak of 120,000 in 2009 to 37,000 in the first quarter of this year.
A report by the Australia India Institute, Beyond the Lost Decade,
~~~~~~~~~~ .. insert .. in case any are interested ..
University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor highlights Beyond The Lost Decade
31 July 2012
University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor Glyn Davis has highlighted the Australia India Institute's (AII) Taskforce Report Beyond the Lost Decade .. http://www.aii.unimelb.edu.au/sites/default/files/Beyond%20the%20Lost%20Decade%28with%20cover%29_1.pdf .. in his monthly staff epistle: http://www.aii.unimelb.edu.au/news/university-melbourne-vice-chancellor-highlights-beyond-lost-decade
~~~~~~~~~~
says the root cause of the problem was a shift towards seeing international education ''as a cash cow for universities, colleges and government'', rather than an important dimension of Australia's engagement with Asia that brought secondary financial benefits.
''The crisis has cost Australia billions of dollars and thousands of jobs in associated industries,'' the report says.
Australia's reputation in India is improving. Polling for the Beyond the Lost Decade report found Indians now rank Australia eighth among 38 countries in terms of overall favourability, which is up from 35th in 2010.
A former Indian high commissioner to Australia and co-author of the report, Gopalaswami Parthasarathy, says relations between Australia and India might benefit from the student crisis because ''we understand each other better now''.
But the report warns swift action is needed to protect and build on the gains, including a rating system to improve delivery of international education services by the states and changes to immigration rules for foreign students.
Radhika Ghumare, a 26-year-old from Nagpur, hasn't been scared off by the bad publicity and has taken advantage of the security services offered in the hostel accommodation where she lives as a student at the University of Technology, Sydney. She arrived from India in 2006 to do a double degree at Macquarie University and has just received her results for her master of professional accounting from UTS.
''There are many precautions one has to take working in the city,'' she says. ''For example, it's always busy and crowded, and [there are] drunken people around usually at the weekend.
''But as a student I don't see much of a security concern. If a student is staying in a hostel, they would be well protected because the university will make sure that there is security guards in the hostel at all times.''
Like many institutions, UTS beefed up security for students to move safely between campus and residences. But for those who are not in campus accommodation, getting home to far-flung suburbs after studying, working or socialising late can be a dangerous affair, and the NSW and Victorian governments have been pushed to extend travel concessions for domestic students to their international peers. The student crisis was not just about safety but also discontent with the poor standards of some institutions offering vocational training and teaching English.
The Gillard government has taken steps to crack down on dubious education businesses trying to cash in on the lucrative market in the vocational training sector. The new president of the Council of International Students Australia, Aleem Nizari, says reforms were needed but they have created uncertainty.
''Students feel less secure about choosing Australia as a destination because [of] the frequent changes,'' he says.
The head of international engagement and business development at TAFE Directors Australia, Peter Holden, says a broader approach to education for TAFE has included providing offshore sites - he says three times as many people studied at Australian campuses overseas than here - developing leadership programs and fostering better ties with businesses, particularly from India, Indonesia and China.
''We're developing a much more mature attitude in relation to other countries in the region,'' Holden says. ''For too long the focus has been on international students to the exclusion of things like student and teacher exchanges and joint research and initiatives around capacity building.
''Those countries recognise that Australia has a very well-developed vocational education system and are very keen to learn from our experiences.''
Many students come to Australia hoping to stay and one of the institute report authors, Christopher Kremmer, says residency shouldn't be off the table.
''Immigration outcomes are a part of student choices and those choices all have their role,'' he says. ''It's nothing unusual. It's one of the factors that they consider when they choose where they're going to go, along with the strength of the dollar, along with the quality of education.''
Residency is certainly an aim for Ghumare, who is looking for work after learning on Thursday her temporary residency had been approved.
''My parents and [I], we've invested a lot in an education here and we definitely need to reap the benefits before I leave the country,'' she says.
This was the sticking point that led to some of her friends returning home, rather than safety fears.
Despite the recent turmoil, Indian demand for Australia's education services is likely to grow.
''Higher education offers a huge opportunity given India's growth,'' says the director of the Australia India Institute, Professor Amitabh Mattoo.
''You need at least 500 to 1000 new universities in the next 10 years.
''That cannot happen easily. The plan's to have 100 more universities but the options of quality students from India coming to places like Australia are great.''
http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/repairing-the-road-to-oz-20120729-2365d.html
UK threatened to arrest Assange inside embassy, says Ecuadorean minister
Ricardo Patino says the UK has threatened to enter
its embassy in London and arrest the WikiLeaks founder
Damien Pearse
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 August 2012 23.19 BST
Britain has threatened to enter the Ecuadorean embassy and arrest Julian Assange,
says Ecuador’s minister for foreign affairs. Photograph: Sang Tan/AP
Britain has told the Ecuadorean authorities it believes officials can enter its embassy in London and arrest Julian Assange .. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/julian-assange .., the founder of WikiLeaks, according to Ecuador .. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/ecuador ..'s minister for foreign affairs, Ricardo Patino.
The development came two months after Assange walked into the embassy in a bid to avoid being extradited to Sweden where he faces allegations of sexual assault.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Patino said Ecuador would announce its decision regarding Assange's asylum request at 7am (noon GMT) on Thursday.
Patino also released details of a letter he said was delivered through a British embassy official in Quito, the capital of Ecuador.
The letter said: "You need to be aware that there is a legal base in the UK, the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987, that would allow us to take actions in order to arrest Mr Assange in the current premises of the Embassy."
The letter added: "We need to reiterate that we consider the continued use of the diplomatic premises in this way incompatible with the Vienna Convention and unsustainable and we have made clear the serious implications that this has for our diplomatic relations."
An Ecuadorean government spokesman said: "We are deeply shocked by the British government's threats against the sovereignty of the Ecuadorean embassy and their suggestion that they may forcibly enter the embassy.
"This a clear breach of international law and the protocols set out in the Vienna Convention.
"Throughout out the last 56 days Mr Julian Assange has been in the Embassy, the Ecuadorean government has acted honourably in all our attempts to seek a resolution to the situation.
"This stands in stark contrast to the escalation of the British government today with their threats to break down the door of the Ecuadorean embassy.
"Instead of threatening violence against the Ecuadorean embassy, the British government should use its energy to find a peaceful resolution to this situation which we are aiming to achieve."
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "We have consistently made our position clear in our discussions with the government of Ecuador.
"The UK has a legal obligation to extradite Mr Assange to Sweden to face questioning over allegations of sexual offences and we remain determined to fulfil this obligation.
"We have an obligation to extradite Mr Assange and it is only right that we give Ecuador the full picture.
"Throughout this process we have drawn the Ecuadoreans' attention to relevant provisions of our law, whether, for example, the extensive human rights safeguards in our extradition .. http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/extradition .. procedures, or the legal status of diplomatic premises in the UK.
"We are still committed to reaching a mutually acceptable solution."
Assange denies the allegations against him, but fears he will be sent to the United States if he goes to Sweden.
An offer to the Swedish authorities by Ecuador for investigators to interview Assange inside the London embassy was rejected.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/aug/15/uk-arrest-julian-assange-wikileaks-ecuador
Now he's gotta find a way to the airport or harbour~
Julian Assange will be granted asylum, says official
Ecuador's president Rafael Correa has agreed to give the WikiLeaks founder asylum, according to an official in Quito
Irene Caselli in Quito - The Guardian, Wednesday 15 August 2012 - Jump to comments(…)
"The other big moment will be a meeting with Mr Obama, where the exit strategy
for the Afghan war and the global economic recovery will be likely topics.
But Ms Gillard has already indicated she will steer clear of difficult
territory, including Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange."
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange (left) will be granted asylum by
Ecuador's president Rafael Correa (right), according to sources.
Photograph: Martin Alipaz/EPA
Ecuador's .. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/ecuador .. president, Rafael Correa, has agreed to grant Julian Assange .. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/julian-assange .. asylum, officials within Ecuador's government have said. The WikiLeaks .. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/wikileaks .. founder has been holed up at Ecuador's London embassy since 19 June, when he officially requested political asylum. .. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/19/julian-assange-wikileaks-asylum-ecuador
"Ecuador will grant asylum to Julian Assange," said an official in the Ecuadorean capital, Quito, who is familiar with the government discussions.
On Monday, Correa told state-run ECTV that he would decide this week whether to grant asylum to Assange. Correa said a large amount of material about international law had to be examined to make a responsible, informed decision.
Ecuador's foreign minister, Ricardo Patiño, indicated that the president would reveal his answer once the Olympic Games were over. But it remains unclear if Assange will be allowed to leave Britain and fly to Ecuador, or amounts to little more than a symbolic gesture.
At the moment he faces arrest as soon as he leaves the embassy for breaching his bail conditions.
"For Mr Assange to leave England, he should have a safe pass from the British [government]. Will that be possible? That's an issue we have to take into account," Patiño told Reuters on Tuesday.
Government sources in Quito confirmed that despite the outstanding legal issues, Correa would grant Assange asylum – a move that would annoy Britain, the US and Sweden .. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/sweden .. They added that the offer was made to Assange several months ago, well before he sought refuge in the embassy, and following confidential negotiations with senior London embassy staff.
An official with knowledge of the discussions said the embassy had discussed Assange's request. The British government, however, "discouraged the idea", the official said. He described the Swedish government as "not very collaborative".
The official added: "We see Assange's request as a humanitarian issue. The contact between the Ecuadorean government and WikiLeaks goes back to May 2011, when we became the first country to see the leaked US embassy cables completely declassified ... It is clear that when Julian entered the embassy there was already some sort of deal. We see in his work a parallel with our struggle for national sovereignty and the democratisation of international relations."
However, on Tuesday night after the Guardian broke the story Correa wrote on Twitter: "Rumour of asylum for Assange is false. There is still no decision on the subject. I await report from [Ecuadorian] foreign office." Assange retweeted the message.
Assange took refuge in the embassy to avoid extradition .. http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/extradition .. to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations of sexual misconduct. He is said to be living in one room of the diplomatic building, where he has an internet connection.
Ecuadorian diplomats believe Assange is at risk of being extradited from Sweden to the US, where he could face the death penalty. Assange's supporters claim the US has already secretly indicted him following WikiLeaks' release in 2010 of US diplomatic cables, as well as classified Afghan and Iraq war logs.
Correa and Patiño have both said that Ecuador will take a sovereign decision regarding Assange. They say they are seeking to protect Assange's right to life and freedom. On Monday the state-run newspaper El Telégrafo confirmed that a decision had been made .. http://www.eltelegrafo.com.ec/index.php?option=com_zoo&task=item&item_id=49722&Itemid=2 .., although it did not specify what that decision was. It said senior officials had been meeting to iron out the last legal details.
Two weeks ago Assange's mother, Christine, paid Ecuador an official visit, following an invitation from the foreign affairs ministry. She met with Correa and Patiño, as well as with other top politicians, including Fernando Cordero, head of Ecuador's legislature. Both Patiño and Ms Assange appeared visibly touched during a press conference, which had to be briefly suspended when Ms Assange started crying.
Ms Assange held several public meetings in government buildings, and in one instance she was accompanied by the head of her son's defence team, Baltasar Garzón, the former Spanish judge who ordered the London arrest of Chile's General Pinochet.
Other top political figures in Ecuador have been vocal about the government's support of Assange's bid. "Our comrade the president, who leads our international policy, will grant Julian Assange asylum," said María Augusta Calle, a congresswoman of the president's party, and former head of the Sovereignty, Foreign Affairs and Latin American Integration Commission during the 2008 Constitutional Assembly, during a meeting with Ms Assange.
Over the past year and a half, Assange has remained in touch with Ecuador's embassy in London. In April, he interviewed President Correa for his TV show on Russia Today, the English-language channel funded by the Russian government. The interview, which lasted 75 minutes, included a pally exchange in which Assange and Correa bonded over freedom of speech and the negative role of the US in Latin America. At one point Correa joked: "Are you having a lot of fun with the interview, Julian?" Assange replied: "I'm enjoying your jokes a great deal, yes."
Correa has made international headlines this year for what critics have called a government crackdown on private media. Analysts say that granting the WikiLeaks founder asylum could be a way for him to depict himself as a champion of freedom of speech ahead of the February 2013 presidential elections, in which he is expected to run again.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/14/julian-assange-asylum-ecuador-wikileaks
[Australian] Government wins on tobacco packaging
Jessica Marszalek - From: News Limited Network - August 15, 2012 12:00PM - 16 comments
From December, all cigarette and tobacco products will be sold in
drab olive packs dominated by graphic health warnings. Supplied
FOUR multinational tobacco companies have lost their quest
to stub out the Gillard Government's plain packaging laws.
[ Videos ]
* Tobacco fight - http://video.heraldsun.com.au/2267632127/Tobacco-fight
* Big tobacco says plain packs are bad - http://video.heraldsun.com.au/2267503301
British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International, Philip Morris and Imperial Tobacco took their fight against the drab green boxes - designed to deter smokers - to the full bench of the High Court in April.
But in a win for the Federal Government, a majority ruling by the High Court today dismissed their case.
The court also ruled the tobacco companies pay the Government's costs.
Overseas countries back plain-packing for tobacco
Responding to the judgment, British American Tobacco Australia (BATA) said tobacco plain packaging would lead to a spike in illegal cigarette sales.
BATA spokesman Scott McIntyre said the company still believed the Government had no right to remove their intellectual property and was extremely disappointed by the court's ruling.
The case will be of enormous interest around the world as other jurisdictions such as the UK and New Zealand contemplate plain packaging laws.
The Australian Council on Smoking and Health said there would be global ramifications.
President Mike Daube, who chaired the Government's expert committee that recommended plain packaging, said global tobacco companies opposed plain packaging ferociously because they knew other countries would follow Australia's lead.
"We know from the companies' own internal documents that packaging is a crucial part of their marketing,'' Professor Daube said.
"They have now lost their last means of promoting smoking to adults and children.
"This truly is a life-saving victory for public health.''
Cancer Council's Kylie Lindorff said the packets had been the last bastion for tobacco company advertising.
"The industry have put all their resources into the packets,'' she said.
"They know this has an impact so this is a great outcome for public health.''
A joint release by Attorney General Nicola Roxon and Health Minister Tanya Plibersek called the win a "victory for all those families who have lost someone'' to cigarettes.
"No longer when a smoker pulls out a packet of cigarettes will that packet be a mobile billboard,'' they said.
"This decision is a relief for every parent who worries about their child picking up this deadly and addictive habit.''
The pair also acknowledged a "watershed moment for tobacco control around the world''.
"Australia's actions are being closely watched by governments around the world, including
by Norway, Uruguay, UK, EU, NZ, France, South Africa and China,'' their statement said.
"The message to the rest of the world is big tobacco can be taken on and beaten.
"Without brave governments willing to take the fight up to big tobacco,
they'd still have us believing that tobacco is neither harmful nor addictive."
British American Tobacco Australia said it respected the seven judges but said the decision would have "serious unintended consequences''.
"We've always said the Government had forced us down the legal path as we really didn't want to take action,'' BATA spokesman Scott McIntyre said.
"The Government couldn't see the serious consequences plain packaging would bring and now the problems will begin.
"The illegal cigarette black market will grow further when all packs look the same and are easier to copy."
He said the black market trade on smuggled cigarettes tripled last year and plain packaging would put pressure on the industry to reduce legal tobacco prices.
"Crime groups are pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars while avoiding tobacco excise to the tune of $1 billon,'' he said.
"At the end of the day the Government loses, taxpayers lose; the industry loses while crime bosses bank big profits.''
He said BATA would fully comply with plain packaging laws
Under laws passed last year, all cigarette and tobacco products will be sold in drab olive packs dominated by large graphic health warnings from December.
Brand names will be written in small, generic font.
Quit Victoria policy manager Kylie Lindorff said the judgment removed the tobacco industry's last remaining advertising stronghold.
"Big tobacco knows this crucial public health reform will work, which is why they've thrown a lot of money and resources into fighting it,'' Ms Lindorff said in a statement.
"This world-first reform means the next generation of Australians will never be exposed to or deceived by tobacco advertising.''
Cancer Council Victoria CEO Todd Harper said the landmark ruling would give confidence to other governments considering plain packaging, including the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
Under the section of the constitution made famous when it allowed Darryl Kerrigan to keep his family home in the Australian film The Castle, the cigarette companies had argued the Government was effectively taking their property without compensation by stopping them from using their trademarks.
But the majority of the justices disagreed.
The tobacco companies had also argued that the Government was taking their property for anti-smoking "advertising'' and should pay for the privilege.
Commonwealth Solicitor-General Stephen Gageler had argued the Government was merely regulating, as it had done in relation to tobacco companies since the 1970s.
It was wrong to suggest health warnings were a "little billboard for Government advertising'' and should be paid for, he said at the time.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/government-wins-on-plain-packaging/story-e6frf7jo-1226450715860
Julia Gillard government wins gold! .. lol .. my blue up there ..
Australia’s refugee intake – Budget 2012
by Team Oyeniyi - May 8, 2012
Budget Media Release
I’ll admit tonight I am VERY confused. I happened to notice the budget statement
in relation to our humanitarian visa program for the 2012 -2013 year.
“‘Australia resettles the third largest number of refugees of any
country, and we resettle more refugees, per capita, than any other nation”
http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/media/cb/2012/cb186539.htm
Now this seemed, to me, to contradict a lot of the media releases from refugee advocacy
groups about how many refugees we take. I decided to do a little research of my own.
According to the UNHCR 2011 statistics, Australia took 0.98 refugees per 1,000 population,
or 21, 805. That does not look like the “third largest number of refugees of any country”.
I looked at some other rather well-known countries (other countries take more, these are a selection only):
Sweden: 82,629 - 8.81 per 1,000 population
Switzerland: 48,813 - 6.37 per 1,000 population
Germany: 594,269 - 7.22 per 1,000 population
France: 200,687 - 3.20 per 1,000 population
Canada: 165,549 - 4.87 per 1,000 population
United Kingdom: 238,150 - 3.84 per 1,000 population
United States: 264,574 - 0.85 per 1,000 population
Thailand: 96,675 - 1.40 per 1,000 population
[ from the UHHCR link below Australia: 0.98 per 1,000 population ]
That’s enough transcribing for me. All the statistics can be found on the UNHCR site. ..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jun/20/refugee-statistics-unhcr-data ..
By the look of it, Australia is well down the list, which is
consistent with what I read from refugee advocacy groups.
Australia is designating 13,750 places under the humanitarian program in
2012–13. Am I the only one who finds the media release rather confusing?
The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) seems to confirm my thoughts:
Australia’s world ranking 2010:
• By total no. refugees: 46th
• By pop. size (per capita): 69th
• Wealth (GDP) per capita: 79th
http://www.asrc.org.au/resources/statistics/
Who on earth wrote the budget media release? What sources did that writer use to substantiate
the glowing assertions about Australia’s contribution to the global humanitarian crisis?
Is this a pretty good example of “spin”?
What is your opinion? Please share, because I’d love to know how we can reconcile the facts with the media release!
Related articles
Canada to accept more refugees
http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/rssReference.php?headline=Canada+to+accept+more+refugees&NewsID=330630
Asylum seekers to experience homestay
http://rowenadelarosayoon.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/asylum-seekers-to-experience-homestay/
Asylum Seekers in Australia: more of the same
http://teamoyeniyi.com/2012/02/07/asylum-seekers-in-australia-more-of-the-same/
Unbalanced article fuels moral panic
http://teamoyeniyi.com/2012/05/06/unbalanced-article-fuels-moral-panic/
http://teamoyeniyi.com/2012/05/08/australias-refugee-intake-budget-2012/
Cultivating Identity
Thomas Keneally
"The growing population of immigrants in Greece — about 800,000 are registered, and an estimated 350,000 or more are in the country illegally — adds to the anxieties of many Greeks, who are seeing the government’s once-generous social spending evaporate. They complain that the foreign residents are depriving them of jobs and threatening the national identity."
Thomas Keneally considers the capaciousness
of the garden of our national identity
It is a truism that the people most certain about national identity are often the ones who draw its boundaries most narrowly, and who are moved to deplore whatever they see as lying outside those boundaries. But we must talk primarily about what we believe as a community, and not what we think we should believe. To try seriously to define identity is not primarily an exercise in morality or social improvement.
Former immigration minister Kevin Andrews
~~~~~~~~~~
Insert: Haneef to Stay in Custody in Australia Mon.July
16, 2007 2:39:17 AM, BRISBANE, Australia(AP)
[...]
"I reasonably suspect that he has, or has had, an association with persons engaged in criminal activity, namely terrorism, in the U.K.," Andrews told reporters in Canberra, the national capital. "That's the basis on which I have made this decision."
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=21257174 .. and reply .. Haneef case descends into farce .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/replies.aspx?msg=21257174 .. Andrews, a conservative troglodyte had nothing against Dr. Haneef, except his own prejudices and his perceived political needs.
~~~~~~~~~~
was certain about national identity in 2007, when he criticised the Sudanese community. I am attracted to the Andrews statement because I have travelled in the Sudan during the years of oppression and chaotic civil war, which have not ended despite the Peace Agreement of 2005.
Speaking of Sudanese immigrants, Andrews said, ‘Some groups don’t seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian way of life as quickly as we would hope.’ It is a cry that has been heard throughout Australian history, and no more so than in the past two decades. He accused the refugees of refusing to embrace the Australian way because of their ‘race-based gangs, altercations between various groups from Africa … Tension within families.’ It is true, however, that he was unable to back his claims with any figures. Nor did he mention any important aspects of advances in adaptation to Australia that Sudanese immigrants might have made that lay outside his certainties of identity.
And in part, too, he was hiding his department’s light under a bushel to the extent that Australia had shown compassion in taking its share of Sudanese refugees and thus rescuing them from camps like Kakuma in Kenya,
~~~~~~~~~~
Insert: KENYA: Sudanese influx strains Kakuma refugee camp
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95242/KENYA-Sudanese-influx-strains-Kakuma-refugee-camp
also, Syrians Hold On to Optimism at a Tent City in Turkey
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=77756536&txt2find=tents
~~~~~~~~~~
of which his own department’s Sudanese Community Profile of 2007 reported, ‘There is frequent violence in the camp. Regular clashes occur among residents, many of them armed … Sexual assault is common. Children may have been born in the camps and are unfamiliar with any other lifestyle.’ Nor did he mention that given this unspeakable background, the Sudanese Association of Australia and similar bodies do what they can to bridge the gulf of experience between, on one hand, civil war and what can rightly be called ethnic cleansing by the Sudanese government and, on the other, a settled Australian life. The association’s aims include ‘to do all lawful things, in the best interests of the community’. In 2007 it signed a memorandum of agreement with Victoria Police, with the obvious aim of guiding Sudanese youth through the criminal justice system, but also of helping with law and order issues. It is not as if, as a community, they aren’t trying.
There has been no lack of commentators who have in the past two decades uttered very nearly the same sentences as Kevin Andrews about other Australian immigrant groups, particularly groups from countries such as Vietnam and Lebanon. These are nations where law and order has, as in the Sudan, broken down for long and savage periods.
It is true that the phases of adjustment of new arrivals to Australia have never been without some bemusement from established Australians and the arrivals both. These adjustments often take place far from the fashionable suburbs and undeniably put as much pressure on the long-settled locals as on the newcomers. They impose a temporary cultural bewilderment on those who consider themselves the true Australians, and call forth from them what has been till now a blessedly temporary hostility. But the locals also frequently offer, individually and through organisations, fraternal support as well. And the people who draw identity narrowly often depict the immigrant group as making no attempt to find their place in society. All is decency and Australianness on this side of the narrowly drawn fence, and ill-will on the other. I argue though that this mutual coming-to-terms is not a departure from the Australian way of life. It is and has been the Australian way of life for most of my existence. If one lives long enough, one sees that what at first we deplore, we end by celebrating, and what we don’t want a bar of becomes that of which we boast.
I clearly remember immigrants I encountered as a child, an era in which Greeks and Italians were often referred to charmingly as ‘the Abos of southern Europe’. A family from the particular region of southern Europe, a region hard-soiled and harrowed with poverty, moved in next door to us in Homebush, New South Wales. We were somewhat astonished to discover that, as they reasonably enough had done on the hard earth they came from, they used their night soil as fertiliser for their garden. Being generous, they offered my mother some of the crop of their tomatoes, which were rich and plump. How’s that for cultural bewilderment? My mother was a progressive woman and accepted the gift with thanks. I cannot remember if we ate them or not. I know as well that both the daughters of that family went to university. Indeed, cultural accommodation on both sides has been vastly helped in my lifetime by equality of opportunity, another plank of Australian identity. We still believe that that equality exists. Many assert it does, and one hopes it does, though the figures themselves are not necessarily hopeful. And as we all know, equality of opportunity has been a hard struggle for the Aboriginal community and, is still being painfully worked out, with the balance of pain very unequal indeed.
But I argue that it is part of Australian identity to adjust to and come to treasure the stranger,
~~~~~~~~~~
Insert:
White supremacists can't handle the changing demographics in the U.S. - much like teabaggers.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78281504
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whereas many commentators consider distrust a valid statement of the same identity. While politicians and civic leaders, after all, often congratulate us on tolerance, at the same time there is that in us that likes to see Australia as a hermetically sealed entity, which even a few hundred hapless creatures on a leaky boat can puncture and violate. Another childhood story arises, as it always does when you’re my age. From the unforgettable first six months of 1942, I have never forgotten two particular Norman Lindsay covers for the Bulletin. One was of a rock- jawed digger with rifle ready to parry the advance of Japanese militarism down the archipelagos of South-East Asia, and quite up to the job. The other was of Australia as a threatened maiden (very well endowed, according to the Lindsay tradition) facing a leering Japanese soldier. I believe that it is contradictorily part of Australian identity to show a robust face to the world when it accords with our perception of events and to be the threatened maiden when it does not. I believe we became very much the threatened maiden during the Tampa incident on 2001,
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Insert: In August 2001, the Howard Government of Australia refused permission for the Norwegian freighter MV Tampa, carrying 438 rescued Afghans from a distressed fishing vessel in international waters, to enter Australian waters. This triggered an Australian political controversy in the lead up to a federal election, and a diplomatic dispute between Australia and Norway. .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampa_affair
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when our imaginations were routed by the idea that we might be invaded by 438 powerless and disoriented Afghans whose un-Australian behaviour was emphasised for our benefit by the then prime minister, John Howard, and whose invasion might therefore be followed by hordes more.
So we are viscerally attracted to what we see as our stable identity, our enclosed garden of values. Indeed, we were promised an Australian garden at the time of Federation. It was to be a Caucasian garden, partially based on misreadings of Darwinism, on the science of phrenology, on the superiority of the Bible-based Christianity to other creeds, and a conscientiously held belief that intermarriage between Europeans and Asians was miscegenation, and so destructive of culture. It was also based on the shared value of keeping ‘coolie labour’ out of Australia. ‘The unity of Australia is nothing,’ said the remarkable Alfred Deakin, ‘if that does not imply a united race. A united race means not only that its members can intermix, intermarry and associate without degradation on either side, but implies one inspired by the same ideas, and an aspiration towards the same ideals … a people qualified to live under the constitution.’ Deakin, first federal attorney-general, the first speaker in the Immigration Restriction Bill debate in 1901, declared that the Commonwealth did not want to offend foreigners, and did not himself argue racial superiority. It was purely a matter of protecting the equity of white Australians in their country. He confessed an intellectual interest in Buddhism and Hinduism, but he wanted to avoid for Australians the poverty he had seen in India.
Whiteness was an essential part of the Australian utopia, and in its name, Philippinos, Chinese and Japanese and the Pacific Islanders generally called Kanakas were about to be expelled from Australia by the proposed Act, or else their lives made so restrictive as to drive them out.
Deakin’s ideal Australia was Protectionist too, not globalised. His Australia would be one in which Protection created adequate wealth to justify fair wages. The harbingers of the utopia were tariffs, the ‘frugal comfort’ of the basic wage arising from the Harvester case of 1907, the pension, the franchise for women and other progressive reforms.
In our federal garden, the flora and fauna are familiar, the pathways are orderly, we have certainty as to where they will lead. People queue, according to enlightened traditions inherited from northern Europe, for water and for food, and they vacate seats on the benches in an orderly manner when their turn is up. But clamorous at the gate are people who, we believe, understand none of that, who not know the rules of the park and, we fear, harbour an active contempt for them. The fact that in the past many of those admitted from the great mass outside have not shown this contempt does not count in our fear of the people outside the gate at this very moment.
In my lifetime I have seen identity, the value of the enclosed garden, called up to resist the entry of Italians and Greeks because of their un-Australian manners; eastern Europeans because of their inscrutable languages and their hunger for success; Chinese because they broke the ethnic tapestry of Australia; Serbs and Croats because they hated each other; Vietnamese because they made gangs; Muslims because they are not only members of gangs but jihadists and, besides, wear the hijab. And so on. At every turn the garden has proven to be more capacious and adaptable than we thought it could be. The walls that seemed so solid and immutable actually shift. It is as if they were built of paper, not of stone. But, also at every turn, from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first, the rhetoric of exclusion has been persistent. It has always been interchangeable in the sense that if a particular statement of concern about perceived ethnic threat were deprived of its dateline, we would have a hard time saying in what era it was uttered.
We are familiar with Pauline Hanson’s condemnation of Asians: ‘they have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate’.
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'nudder insert:
Writing About the Extreme Right in Australia
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=74405800
F6, Sarah, and her video, bring memories of, Pauline Hanson ..
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=48448508
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But in her maiden speech she also quoted a famous Australian as saying, ‘Do we want or need any of these people here? I am one red-blooded Australian who says no and who speaks for 90 per cent of Australians.’ That was Arthur Calwell, [ see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Calwell ] Labor Party leader, some forty-five to fifty years before Hanson. And who is being talked about in the following case? ‘The —— settlers of North Queensland are generally of an undesirable type and do not make good settlers … consideration should be given immediately to the racial stock of the immigrant.’ The missing word is ‘Greek’, and the statement is that of Thomas Ferry, commissioner of the 1925 Queensland Royal Commission on Numbers of Aliens in North Queensland. Endless instances of such repetitive rhetoric could be given.
There is no doubt that even now, in this century, in our struggles with the rawness and newness of events, we often cling to the Federation garden as if it did contain all our identity, hermetically sealed. But if one looks at the general results of immigration, and the sometimes total, the sometimes only partial triumph of necessity and goodwill over fear, an aphorism of art critic Robert Hughes comes to mind. Hughes wrote, ‘A culture raised on immigration cannot escape feelings of alien-ness and must transcend them in two possible ways: by concentration on “identity”, origins and the past, or by faith in newness as a value in itself.’ In the latter spirit, such programs as the Good Neighbour schemes of the 1940s and the contemporary Rural Australians for Refugees show a faith in newness as a value. And to underscore the point, they show that faith in the new is part of Australian identity too.
No-one is saying that Australian acceptance is a perfect virtue, but as a social force it has had notable successes. Contrary to the idea of total triumph, of course, one has to mention the Cronulla riots, the recorded cries of ‘Go home, Lebs!’, the replies of ‘These skippy Aussies want war’, and the associated violence. The tabloids seemed to salivate at the possibility of days of mayhem, anticipating perhaps the months that the very differently based French race riots had run in 2005–06. After Cronulla, there were days of unrest and mutual insults and even a display of firearms, fortunately not fired, outside the Lakemba Mosque where the Imam called for peace. The odious thunderbolts of shock jocks lit the sky. Apart from the police lockdown of the beach community, leaders from both sides, including such core Australian bodies as Lifesaving Australia, worked to settle the matter peaceably.
Australian tolerance on the Snowy River Scheme in the 1950s was described in the following terms by the journalist and novelist-to-be George Johnson: ‘The average man … is willing to accept the migrant if he brings with him no threat to the standard of living and a readiness to become a “fair dinkum Aussie”.’ Admittedly, the term ‘fair dinkum Aussie’ begs the question. As one commentator said, the demand that newcomers become fair dinkum tout de suite ‘dehumanised migrants … Its fundamental implication was that migrants were at best inferior and undesirable, and at worst, positively dangerous and threatening.’ Well, there is some truth to that, but Johnson does seem to have summed up a proposition that has operated in the relationships between established Australians and newcomers throughout the major shocks of immigration to Australia since the Second World War.
Many migrants claim that under that kind of rough contract, and under broader gestures of welcome as well, they soon enough felt acceptance more than condescension. I would say that a ‘functional tolerance’, a pragmatic, sometimes rough-handed, sometimes grudging tolerance, has produced in Australia—and in world terms—fairly speedy acceptance of new groups. To deny that is to deny the assertion of many a happily settled immigrant. It is to deny the goodwill, for example, of Dr Stepan Kerkyasharian, speaking in Yass last Australia Day: ‘As a migrant of Armenian heritage, I feel great pride to have been accepted into this nation. And I am not alone.’ Functional tolerance means that though there may be for a generation a notable concentration of an immigrant group in certain suburbs, classic ghettos of the kind found in France or Germany do not exist. And there exists in Australia a remarkably easy progress to citizenship once residence is achieved— always admitting that achieving residence is the hard task.
This kind of acceptance of the recently arrived—pragmatic, sometimes patronising—is often less hypocritical than the oratorical but underachieving tolerance of other societies. The late Edek Korn of Sydney, a Schindler survivor, is simply one of the immigrants I have known to whom tolerance was one of the most important aspects of Australian identity. But it was sometimes of a backhanded nature. Something of a sage, Korn told me, ‘Australians are funny people. When they don’t know you and don’t like you, they call you a wog bastard. But when they get to know and like you they call you a wog bastard.’ He told me too that his wife came home in a state of amazement from her first Australian job in a factory. ‘They hate the Polish Catholics as much as they hate Polish Jews.’ To Leosia Korn it was equality at last.
Again, this is not to deny that many, and perhaps most, newcomers have had wounding and savage words flung at them on their way into the Australian garden, within which the level of urbanity fluctuates somewhat. An Australian-born woman of Malaysian Chinese background once told me that while shopping in the Hanson days of the later 1990s, she was shouted at and advised to go home. It is a safe bet that a woman in the hijab has been abused somewhere today while taking her children to or from school.
Not unrelated to our other beliefs in identity, it was always assumed by Australians that anti-authoritarianism was a potent part of our character, an index of our egalitarian tradition. But that has now been de-emphasised in historiography. Russel Ward, the author of The Australian Legend, has been attacked almost as much as, for varying reasons, Geoffrey Blainey and Manning Clark, for such arguments as that the Australian ‘believes that Jack is not only as good as his master, but is probably a good deal better, and so he is a knocker of eminent people … He is fiercely an independent person who hates officiousness and authority.’ Despite all, there is some truth there, for other visitors from Anthony Trollope to James Michener mentioned Australian manners of egalitarianism and mockery of authority.
Mockery of the pompous is often seen as an inheritance of bushrangers and the world wars. An Australian stretcher bearer whose journal I was reading recently wrote, ‘Sensation in Cairo yesterday. An Australian saluted an officer.’ The historian C.E.W. Bean said that officers quickly discovered that to set certain places out of bounds for the recruits of 1914–15 simply provoked the recruits to enter those areas. I was raised on my father’s Second World War stories of how he and his friends would borrow officers’ uniforms so that they could go to the officers-only bar of Shepheard’s Hotel. If there happened to be officers from the best British regiments drinking there, then the chance to outrage them was considered a bargain. We’d like to think that in this century we retain some of that larrikinism and capacity for mockery in our identity portfolio. Reasonably we are not so keen on anti-authoritarianism when it involves the invasion of suburban parties and attacks on police vehicles sent to impose authority. We ought to remember that when the word ‘larrikin’ was first applied to the Australian urban working-class, it was meant to be an unflattering word.
We are in fact more susceptible to authority than the stories I just told would indicate. Even a child must be detained in an immigration centre if his parents or he seek asylum. It is true that Prime Minister Gillard’s policy is not to put children behind heavy-security razor-wire for years, as happened in previous regimes. But even in February 2010 there were more than a thousand children under eighteen years detained in various immigration detention centres, of whom nearly 400 were unaccompanied children. And the Prime Minister had not, at the time of writing this, ruled out the possibility that children and pregnant women will be sent to Malaysia under her new scheme. This should be authoritarian enough for everyone. Jump the queue at the ice-cream stand and you’ll get what’s coming to you, even if you’re a kid. The instances of authoritarianism towards Aboriginals, from sequestering of wages and child kidnapping, are numberless.
And now authoritarianism is set to have a good century. Already, with opposition stated only by a few brave commentators, substantial intrusions into our rights of free expression, habeas corpus and legal representation have been passed by the federal houses in the name of anti-terror. This was accomplished with barely a bleat from the federal opposition of the day. Those who did try to say something were attacked as abettors of Osama bin Laden. The auguries for more authoritarian legislation in this century are splendid, and our gestures of anti-authoritarianism may be ignored and may prove to have dimmed.
The aspect of identity that fascinates, teases and comforts me above all is the enduring utopian view of Australia that rose in the late nineteenth century. There are a number of Utopian writers of the period who still resonate and whose vision of Australia is not unlike ours. ‘Australia’, Bernard O’Dowd’s famous poem first published in the Bulletin and beloved by progressive politicians, famously raised the issue of whether Australia would be ‘a drift Sargasso, where the West / In halcyon calm rebuilds her fatal nest?’ (that is, a repeat of all the Old World injustices). Or would it be the ‘Delos of a coming Sun-God’s race?’ The culture of the surf, which took over Australia almost immediately after Federation, reinforced O’Dowd’s sentiments about the Sun-God’s race. John Farrell, another Bulletin poet, wrote of Australia:
*He [God] wrought her perfect, in a happy clime And held her worthiest, and bade
her wait Serene on her lone couch inviolate The heightened manhood of a later time. *
That ‘heightened manhood’ was to be the Australian, unique among humankind, the Sun-God’s child. ‘The pioneers’, said Farrell, ‘reared a sunnier England, where the pain / Of bitter yesterdays might not arise …’
In the mid 1890s, before she went to Paraguay and the New Australia that William Lane tried to build in the jungle, the young schoolteacher Mary Cameron, the future Dame Mary Gilmore, was escorted by Henry Lawson to see the misery of Sydney slums. ‘He used to take me out to see the wrong things, the things repressive of the rights of Australia; the things like a blot upon her and which prevented her being herself. The low-wage workers … underground cellars lit only by a grating in the street, the huddled houses … the pale seamstresses … the neglected children of the Quay and elsewhere.’ It is significant that young Mary saw Australia’s destiny as a blessed place, and that it was only ‘the things repressive of the rights of Australia’ and ‘the things which prevented her being herself’ that stood in the way.
To some, Federation represented the culmination and basis for Utopian Australia. A clergyman at All Souls Anglican church in Leichhardt in 1898 foresaw federated Australia as ‘a great and magnificent country … a kind of Paradise for the world, the envy of the nations’. It was Sir Henry Parkes of the 1891 convention, at which a provisional constitution was hammered out, who proposed the utopian name ‘Commonwealth’ for the ultimate proposed federation. The word, say Quick and Garran, ‘did more to arrest the public attention and kindle the public imagination than any other word in the English language could have done … It stands today for the type and the ideal of Australian nationhood.’ Though in the minds of many of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, Commonwealth had more to do with the equitable sharing out of the federal customs revenue, it also resonated in the minds of radicals such as Kingston from South Australia and of visionaries such as Deakin as a dream of just terms in a society.
In the 1890s depression, as in the depression of the 1930s, the working man’s paradise, the Commonwealth proposed by Parkes and the ‘sunnier England’ invoked by Farrell, came under acute pressure. Yet the idea that most sufferings and indignities were somehow un-Australian but were ‘things that prevented Australia from being her true self’ remained very strong. I know this from the atmosphere in which I grew up in a bush infancy and a suburban boyhood.
If one goes forward some decades from Federation to a summer Saturday afternoon, well described in David Day’s biography John Curtin, when Japanese landing craft lay off Malaya and the Japanese fleet was fuelling its aircraft for a historic attack on Hawaii, we find an atheist and socialist prime minister named John Curtin attending the rededication of the Presbyterian church near Canberra by his clerical friend the Reverend Harrison. On that afternoon Curtin saw the faces of Presbyterians who had settled the plains of Canberra in the nineteenth century, and he felt stirring in him the concept that this was a race too precious to be obliterated by the tide of Asian militarism.
This powerful assumption that Australia was precious because it was a unique social experiment, a social experiment that could easily be borne away by internal malice or external threat, was a concept in which I and others of my generation were raised by parents who did not, at first sight, have a vast stake in Australian privilege. My actions have been influenced, when they rise at least for a few moments above my natural apathy, by the old proposition that special concepts of fairness operated here. My parents were not fools. They were aware of profiteering when they saw it, and the fact that the basic wage was very basic indeed unless margins for skill and competence were added. But like Mary Gilmore they looked upon the wrongs as un-Australian and the rights as Australian. The belief was as powerful in them as it had been in Gilmore when she saw in slums and workshops ‘the things repressive of the rights of Australia; the things like a blot upon her and which prevented her being herself’.
These days two major Federationist boasts, Protection and White Australia, are far gone. And yet the utopian impulse remains. The present prime minister believes as strongly in the specialness of Australia as nineteenth-century utopians did, and so believes too in the special nature of Australians themselves. To celebrate Australia Day, Julia Gillard concentrated on the natural catastrophes of last year. ‘Some people said it is incredible, the generosity of strangers. But they weren’t strangers really. They were Australians.’ She quoted the historian Gavan Dawes, who wrote of Japanese prisoner of war camps that even while starving, the national groups of prisoners ‘remained inextinguishably American, Australian, British. The Americans were the great individualists of the camps. The British clung onto their class structure like bulldogs. And the Australians kept trying to construct little male-bonded welfare states.’ Julia Gillard says that now we have moved beyond ‘simply male bonding’ and ‘welfare states’, but the special ethos of solidarity among Australians remains. It was there in the 1940s, and is here in the twenty-first century in events such as the floods. Indeed the floods provided all of us with examples of Australian fraternity. The question of whether this was peculiarly an Australian brand of goodwill or a goodwill innate in Homo sapiens sapiens seems merely a quibble in the face of what people did voluntarily in Queensland.
In this century, though, is the invocation of utopian brotherhood a delusion to be pitied? Is it mere mythology (if mythology can be mere), is it mythology in the modern and regrettable misusage by which the word is a synonym for a lie? I believe that the utopian myths can be a positive force in Australia, especially now, to help guarantee some minimum standards of dignity. They can also be a cover for a cynical claim that our society is fairer and more equitable than it is. But as frequently as that expectation of the fair go might have been thwarted in this century, do we want it to vanish?
At the end of the recent Queensland floods, a householder who had believed himself covered for the ruin of his house by floodwater found that his insurance policy failed, through a technicality, to protect him. He told an ABC interviewer, ‘I mean, this is Australia, isn’t it?’ He, like the rest of us, assumes that special arrangements of fairness, and treatment along sensible, practical, fraternal lines, are part of the Australian fabric and inheritance. He is no doubt cruelly cured of that illusion now. Yet our continuing and incurable belief in millennial Eden, in Commonwealth and uncommon institutions, remains. When we reach for the fair go, however, are we reaching for a chimera. Professor Belinda Probert writes, ‘Looking back from 2001, it is hard to know which is more remarkable: the stability of the class compromise achieved at Federation or the speed with which it has unravelled over the past twenty years.’
The OECD defines poverty as 40 per cent of the median household income. On this level the compact lingers on with Australian families on welfare being paid nearly 50 per cent of that amount, in part through Bob Hawke’s much mocked but socially effective No Australian Child Shall Live in Poverty program. This compares to 20 per cent of median household income in the United States. It is in neither case an arrangement I would want to live under, but at least the fair go proposition is arguably not quite dead in this case. On a closer look though, the figures are skewed by other factors. The Brotherhood of St Laurence released an oft-quoted and frightening report on Australian equality in 2005–06. Based on the figures of the Bureau of Statistics, it found that the wealthiest 20 per cent of families owned 61 per cent of household wealth,
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'nother: so in 2005-06 in Australia the bottom 80% owned 39%, in comparison to ..
Table 1: Distribution of net worth and financial wealth in the United States, 1983-2007
Total Net Worth
2007 .. Top 1% .. 34.6% .. Next 19% .. 50.5% .. Bottom 80% .. 15.0%
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
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and the poorest 20 per cent held 1 per cent. Four and a half million people lived in households whose gross income was less than $400 a week. Now, as in Lawson’s day, we can assert that: ‘They lie, the men who tell us for reasons of their own / That want is here a stranger, and that misery’s unknown.’
It is true that all of the social democracies are suffering from the pressures which some blame on the economic fundamentalism that produced the GFC, some on globalisation, others both. But in the face of the economic orthodoxy that did bring us the GFC, which still, unrepentant and unrenounced, commands economic decision-making on this planet, and under the similarly unapologetic authority of ratings agencies before which governments quake, can the dream of social uniqueness remain a core belief of the majority of Australians? And can it be invoked by the Australia Day speakers as confidently and validly as it has been in the past?
There are other fascinating aspects of our identity I could look at—the impact of Australia’s un-European milieu on us or the impact of dryness that is so brilliantly recounted in Michael Cathcart’s history of Australia, The Water Dreamers. Even in that regard there has been a shift in my lifetime from the Dead Heart, Lake Eyre, a sump at Australia’s centre where rivers go to die to wonderful Uluru, an upside- down lake, bounty, altar where the despair of nineteenth-century explorers has now been replaced by a sense of wonder. And still it seems that part of our character is to dream of the tropical north blooming. There is similarly the question of what impact our sharing of English, the new global lingua franca, has on our culture and whether such a thing as the Australian voice can survive.
Meanwhile, one of the best remaining chances for Australian equity is the very expectation we all have as citizens of decent minimum levels of public health, public education and public communications. These issues represent a divide in American politics, but here in Australia they represent a consensus. Both Bob Katter
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Robert Carl Katter (born 22 May 1945) is an Australian federal politician, a member of the Australian House of
Representatives since March 1993 for the Division of Kennedy, and the leader of Katter's Australian Party.
Bob Katter at the tallyroom for the
2012 Queensland state election
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Katter
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and the Labor Left opposed the Telstra sell-off for fear communications would suffer. Detail is a matter of political argument, but the basic propositions about state responsibility are not. Abstracting for the moment from the debate on a Bill of Rights, it is also along the same lines that free speech exists. Notable and heinous restrictions were imposed upon it under post-9/11 legislation, and generally reasonable ones under anti-vilification laws. Free speech is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, though in 1994 the High Court detected an implied freedom there. But it is, above all, because people believe free speech is unarguably guaranteed that it exists to the extent it does.
And so perhaps might Utopianism in Australia defy world forces in this century, at least for a time. The fear that it will be squeezed from our marrow by the force of new realities is one we are uneasy to face, for without it we will definitively become, in spirit and in culture, someone’s merely unequal and dreary province. Our glittering array of resources gives us a chance for equity and also a chance to deal people out of the equation. Thank God a resources tax is at least canvassed. Otherwise we could be headed in the direction of Brazil, with only Deakin’s fig leaf to protect us from the blaze of a brutal world.
This essay is based on a keynote lecture Thomas Keneally gave at the University of
Melbourne’s Festival of Ideas in June on Australian Identity in the twenty-first century.
Copyright Thomas Keneally 2011
http://meanjin.com.au/articles/post/cultivating-identity/
Related:
All Aussies will benefit from mining tax: Gillard
Rains ease after flooding kills 11 in Philippines
By JIM GOMEZ Associated Press
Posted: 08/07/2012 01:05:51 AM MDT
Updated: 08/07/2012 09:05:51 PM MDT
Residents are evacuated by rescuers in Marikina,
east of Manila,... ((AP Photo/John Javellana))
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Insert from links in original
Filipino volunteers dig for survivors where four
homes collapsed in a... ((AP Photo/John Javellana))
A resident wearing a shirt with a picture of US
President Barack Obama... ((AP Photo/Aaron Favila))
Filipinos wade along a flooded area in Quezon
City, north of Manila,... ((AP Photo/Aaron Favila))
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MANILA, Philippines—Widespread flooding that killed at least 11 people, battered a million others and paralyzed the Philippine capital began to ease Wednesday as cleanup and rescue efforts focused on a large number of distressed residents, some still marooned on their roofs.
Government forecasters said the monsoon rains that overflowed major dams and rivers in Manila and surrounding provinces would gradually abate and lead to sunny weather on Thursday after 12 days of relentless downpours.
The deluge was the worst since 2009, when hundreds died in rampaging flash floods.
"We're still on a rescue mode," said Benito Ramos, who heads the government's main disaster-response agency. "Floods are receding in many areas
Residents stay on their roof as floods rise in suburban Quezon city, north of Manila, Philippines, Tuesday Aug. 7, 2012. Relentless rains submerged half of the sprawling Philippine capital, triggered a landslide that killed eight people and sent emergency crews scrambling Tuesday to rescue and evacuate tens of thousands of residents. ((AP Photo/Mike Alquinto))
but people are still trapped on their roofs."
Ramos said the massive flooding turned half of Manila into "a water world" on Monday evening and into Tuesday. Eleven died, including nine in a landslide in Quezon City, a Manila suburb, while 1.2 million people were affected. They included 783,000 who fled from their inundated homes in two days of intense rains and flooding that started late Sunday.
Rescue efforts shifted into high gear Wednesday, with more than 130 emergency crews from two provinces reaching the capital city of 12 million people to help their overwhelmed teams, including police and army troops.
Manila was drenched with more than half of a month's worth of rain in just 24 hours. A storm off eastern China that intensified the southwest monsoon moved away and the weather started improving Wednesday, according to government forecaster Glaiza Escullar.
"We may see the sun tomorrow," Escullar said.
TV footage showed rescuers dangling on ropes to bring children and other residents to safety from flooded houses across the city. Many residents trapped in their homes called radio and TV stations desperately asking for help.
"We need to be rescued," Josephine Cruz told DZMM radio as
An evacuee takes his dinner under candelight as electricity was cut due to flooding at a church that is converted into a temporary evacuation center in Quezon City, north of Manila, Philippines, on Tuesday Aug. 7, 2012. Relentless rains submerged half of the sprawling Philippine capital, triggered a landslide that killed several people and sent emergency crews scrambling Tuesday to rescue tens of thousands of residents who called media outlets pleading for help. ((AP Photo/Aaron Favila))
water rose around her house in Quezon City, saying she was trapped in her two-story house with 11 other people, including her 83-year-old mother. "We can't get out because the floodwaters are now higher than people."
ABC-CBN TV network reported receiving frantic calls from people whose relatives were trapped in the deluge, many without food since Tuesday morning. They included a pregnant woman with a baby who wanted to be rescued from a roof and about 55 people who scrambled to the third floor of a Quezon City house as water rose below them.
Vehicles and even heavy trucks struggled to navigate water-clogged roads, where hundreds of thousands of commuters were stranded. Many cars were stuck in the muddy waters.
The government suspended work and classes Tuesday but offices opened Wednesday. Traffic was still light as workers began cleaning roads from debris, heaps and trash and fallen trees.
In 2009, massive flooding spawned by a typhoon devastated Manila and surrounding areas, killing hundreds. The state weather bureau said that the current flooding was not as severe.
———
Associated Press writers Hrvoje Hranjski, Teresa Cerojano and Oliver Teves contributed to this report.
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_21252952/heavy-rains-paralyze-philippine-capital-kill-8?source=rss
oops, the link .. http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1673306/Rights-watchdog-slams-govt-on-smugglers .. to the previous ..
.. this one adds a bit of background, about 3 months earlier ..
Convictions to be reviewed for some people smugglers
Daniel Flitton - May 3, 2012
Concerned ... Nicola Roxon.
Photo: Graham Tidy
THE convictions of 24 Indonesian people smugglers - some jailed as adults after controversial wrist X-rays - will be reviewed following pressure from human rights groups and the government in Jakarta.
The Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, announced the review yesterday after Australia's Human Rights Commissioner, Catherine Branson, warned children may have been prosecuted as adults.
Ms Branson wrote to the government in March raising concern over 22 cases after evidence emerged during an inquiry into the treatment of people smugglers in custody, warning ''many of these individuals have already spent long periods of time held in adult correctional facilities''.
The other two cases were identified by the Indonesian government during months of complaints to Australia over the treatment of juveniles.
Ms Branson told the Herald that while she welcomed the review, she would have been happier had it happened sooner. Concerns over the practice of federal police to rely on the discredited method of using wrist X-rays to determine a person's age were first raised in the Herald in June last year.
Federal prosecutors dropped a case in December against an Indonesian teenager on people-smuggling charges - which carry a five-year jail term - after the X-ray technology was rejected.
But Ms Roxon announced yesterday the review was not to pardon the 24 individuals but to determine their age. ''Ultimately, it is the courts which determine the age of people smugglers - but, age determination is not an exact science, which is why I've asked for this review,'' she said in a statement.
"If this review identifies new information casting doubt on the age of offenders, I will carefully consider the options available, which could include release from prison and return to their country of origin.''
Ms Branson said there was a likelihood some of the convictions would be overturned and that it was ''entirely possible'' the individuals did not know their precise age as they came from poor regions in Indonesia.
Dozens of Indonesian teenagers have previously claimed to have been tricked into acting as cooks and crew on asylum-seeker boats. But human rights activists contend they were never the main organisers in people-smuggling rackets.
Ms Roxon said under government policy minors should only be prosecuted with people-smuggling offences in exceptional circumstances.
She told Ten Network last night the review of some of the cases could be resolved in weeks.
Since last year, the Australian Federal Police have expanded their methods of determining age, including voluntary dental X-rays and interviews.
In a separate case, federal prosecutors in a Victorian court dropped smuggling charges against three Indonesian men who were crew on an asylum seeker boat because they were unable to prove they knew their destination was Australia.
Rachel Ball of Melbourne's Human Rights Law Centre said the present laws were flawed and mandatory sentences for people smuggling offences should be removed.
''These men and boys should not be in prison - their prosecution and detention violates international human rights law, is extremely expensive and doesn't have any impact whatsoever on people smuggling.''
with Nicky Phillips
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/convictions-to-be-reviewed-for-some-people-smugglers-20120503-1xzru.html
Rights watchdog slams [Australian] govt on smugglers
27 Jul 2012, 5:15 pm - Source: AAP
The human rights watchdog has launched a blistering attack on Australia's treatment of underage Indonesian people smugglers.
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The federal government has repeatedly breached international law in its treatment of underage Indonesian people smugglers, the human rights watchdog says.
The Australian Human Rights Commission says the Labor government and its agencies stubbornly continued relying on wrist x-rays to determine the age of asylum seeker boat crew members long after evidence showed the method was unreliable.
Federal police and commonwealth prosecutors failed to question properly the use of wrist x-rays, relying on the advice of one radiologist despite an overwhelming medical consensus they were untrustworthy.
The Attorney-General's Department also failed to respond properly to concerns about the x-rays and failed to provide informed and frank policy advice to the minister.
"We know now that many young Indonesians assessed to be adults on the basis of wrist x-ray analysis were in fact children at the time of their apprehension, or are very likely to have been children at that time," the report released on Friday says.
The report - which examines the period from late 2008 to late 2011 - suggests intense political pressure to be tough on people smugglers may have "unconsciously" warped the judgment of authorities tasked with determining ages.
It also blames the failures on heavy workloads, investigatory difficulties and limited resources.
Dozens of Indonesians under the age of 18 were held in prolonged detention - often in adult jails for as long as two years.
Many were poor, uneducated children recruited from remote fishing communities on the Indonesian coast, with no idea that what they were doing was illegal.
The controversy has been a running sore in Australia's relations with Indonesia.
The report concludes that the government had failed to respect the rights of children, resulting in numerous breaches of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The government last month released 15 Indonesian boys from prison after reviewing the cases of 28 who claimed to be aged under 18. Around 50 others have had charges against them dropped.
Attorney-General Nicola Roxon said the government had already made significant changes to its age-determination policy, with far less reliance on wrist x-rays.
"Age determination is not an exact science but this government has demonstrated a clear commitment to improve processes in this area," Ms Roxon said.
Ms Branson said the changes came too late for the children whose rights had been trampled. She urged the government to issue and apology.
The report makes 17 recommendations, including one for the law be amended so that wrist x-rays can no longer be used as evidence that a person is over 18.
Cherán residents battle Mexico's logging mafia
"'The Americans seem to be happy with their drug consumption. That's fine, but why should Mexico fight their drug war
for them? Drugs only affect a small number of Mexicans The government should be concentrating on things which
affect the Mexican people, like assaults, kidnapping...... . The Americans are not fighting a drug war, that's smart,
i don't think they should. But, if they do want to let them fight it. Why should Mexico fight their drug war for them?'"
Armed with simple weapons and a lot of courage, the residents of a small mountain town in Mexico are
engaged in an ongoing battle against illegal loggers and corrupt police who threaten their livelihood
By Hans Maximo Musielik, The Cover Story - Published: 00:00 February 1, 2012
Image Credit: Hans Maximo Musielik/The Cover Story
A makeshift barricade erected by the Cherán residents to deter illegal loggers. [5 other small images inside]
Since last April, the residents of Cherán, a small mountain town in the Mexican state of Michoacán, have been fighting an uphill battle against illegal loggers backed by heavily armed members of the local crime cartel, a corrupt police force and inefficient local politicians.
Sixteen thousand men, women and children of this indigenous community face increasing violence, which has been spreading throughout the country since Mexico's President Felipe Calderón launched an anti-drug war in 2006 - a war that has left at least 37,000 people dead.
The residents of Cherán, however, after years of sustained abuse and an ecocide of more than 40,000 acres of forest, have decided to take justice and their future into their own hands. Armed mainly with stones, sticks and an extraordinary amount of courage and resilience, they have decided to fight back against organised crime, setting a nationwide example.
With its mountainous landscape full of different tree species, the state of Michoacán has always been an important supplier of timber. Legally, about one million cubic metres are extracted every year. Although it's illegal, the state technically has enough forest to extract thirteen million cubic metres of timber a year. The state has approximately 3,000 illegal sawmills and 2,500 are located in the state's Purépechan heartland. Cherán's indigenous Purépecha community survives mainly on the collection of resin and by logging.
The presence of illegal loggers is not new to the Cherán community. Most of the residents are aware that the loggers come from neighbouring towns. But two years ago, this was a clandestine activity. Loggers would drive their trucks up the mountain to cut trees and drive to the illegal sawmill after paying law enforcement a previously agreed bribe for allowing their activity.
When the farmers and resin collectors of Cherán, which lies 400km west of the country's capital, Mexico City, eventually confronted the loggers, they were not treated kindly.
About two years ago, the local organised crime cartel offered the illegal loggers protection. After paying a fee, they were free to do as they pleased while the cartel would take care of police and members of the Purépecha community who complained. People who went looking for illegal loggers after hearing the sound of their chainsaws were warned and scared off with gun shots from automatic rifles. Later, nine community members were found dead and several others kidnapped for ransom. Four of those kidnapped are still missing.
Emboldened by their new protection, the illegal loggers began driving dozens of trucks along the town's main road in plain sight of residents. The community could only watch helplessly.
On April 15, 2011 the Purépecha community decided they had been humiliated and taken advantage of for long enough and took action. A mob of about 200 people armed themselves with bats and stones and ambushed several loaded trucks. They set the trucks on fire once they had pulled the loggers out. One trucker, armed with a gun, shot a protesting resident in the eye. The injured man remains in a coma at a nearby hospital. The captured truck drivers and illegal loggers were not treated with lenience but a week later, after being interrogated, the people of the town handed them over to the federal police.
If the Purépechans thought this was the end of the matter, they were mistaken. On April 27, 2011, in what was undoubtedly an act of revenge, illegal loggers shot and killed two Cherán residents who were patrolling the town's perimeter.
Following the incident, the community evicted the town's mayor and corrupt police force and began building over 200 barricades throughout the town, preventing vehicle access to most roads.
More than ten burnt-out trucks were towed and placed along the main streets as a reminder of the cause and to warn illegal loggers and members of organised crime groups. No one was allowed to leave or enter Cherán without identifying themselves at the main barricade. Law enforcement officials and politicians were not welcome. Only supply trucks, non-government organisations and national and international media were allowed in.
Children, together with their mothers, now occupy the barricades during the day. At night — the most dangerous shift — the men sit alert through the cold and rain. Like a well-greased machine, 16,000 residents have organised themselves into groups that control one of the four barrios or sectors that make up the town.
Tired of political inefficiency and corruption, the residents of Cherán have also formed their own government loosely based on tradition and custom.
With the help of a lawyer, they are negotiating more security from the state and federal government. They hope this will include the continuous patrol of the town's perimeter by the Mexican army, the only forces they trust. The federal police is stationed less than 2km away from town but local residents remain suspicious of them.
Several NGOs like Amnesty International have visited the town and issued recommendations to the Mexican government. But the authorities have so far shown little interest in resolving the situation.
Meanwhile, the people live off food donations from all over Mexico that are delivered to Cherán's main church and distributed. The 20 schools in town are empty. Children run through the streets helping their parents and holding banners and protest signs.
A town like Cherán wanting to develop its own security measures and to implement their own, more accountable government is nothing new to the Mexican government that had to deal with the rebellion of the Zapatistas. The result of that rebellion was the signing of the San Andres Accords on February 16, 1996, where autonomy and rights were granted to the indigenous populations of Mexico.
But former President Ernesto Zedillo ignored the agreements and further militarised the conflict area in the state of Chiapas.
As a member of the ILO (International Labour Organisation), Mexico is required to respect the C169 Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention of 1989 where further rights and autonomy are granted to the country's indigenous communities.
Even though these conventions and accords are in harmony with the Mexican Constitution, the federal government is slow in implementing and enforcing them. Instead the government prefers that each state internally deal with problems that may arise.
While the brave but beleaguered residents of Cherán have set an example of courage, community spirit and bravery to Mexico's most marginalised people, their fight goes on.
http://gulfnews.com/life-style/environment/cheran-residents-battle-mexico-s-logging-mafia-1.970543
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The Rebellion in Cherán, Mexico
By Laura Woldenberg and Juan José Estrada Serafín
View full slideshow >>
Cherán, Mexico is a town of 16,000 indigenous Purepechan Mexicans set up in the western state of Michoacán about 200 miles from Mexico City. For years, illegal loggers, protected by drug cartel gunmen, have ravaged the area's communal forests and murdered a number of townspeople. When the residents of Cherán asked their municipal, state and federal authorities for help, they did nothing, so the community took justice into their own hands. About a year ago, the residents of Cherán rose up in an armed rebellion and kicked out the loggers, cartels, and the corrupt local government. Since then, they’ve implemented self-governance based on traditional customs. They defend the borders of the town with community patrols. In Cherán today, there are no political campaigns, no ballots, no political parties, no elections, and no alcohol.
Isolated in the middle of rainy, cold Michoacán forests, Cherán warms up at night around the barricades. The burning fires are gathering points for the citizens to organize and govern themselves.
During VICE Mexico’s recent trip to the community en rebelde, they spoke to Serafin,
a young Purepechan photographer who has spent the last several years covering the conflict:
VICE: Where are you from?
Juan Jose: My name is Juan Jose Estrada Serafin. I’m from the Turicuaro community and am a correspondent for a newspaper called El Cambio de Michoacán [The Michoacán Change]. I cover three local municipalities: Paracho, Cherán, and Nahuatzen.
What’s your experience of the uprising been?
Other communities like Sevina and Turicuaro have defended their forests like Cherán has, but the conflict in Cherán has been different because of the presence of organized crime. It’s similar to the case of Comachuen and Sevina. Sevina accused Comachuen of illegally logging their forest. The truth is that people were actually logging their neighbors' forests because they didn’t have any resources.
How did you approach photographing Cherán?
I’ve always had a thing for these kind of conflicts, so of course Cherán drew my attention. But at first it was very hard to gain access to the community. On the third day of the conflict I managed to sneak inside the community. Everything was done really fast and it was very tense. I sent some pictures back to the paper I was working for but they told me they were too shocking and couldn’t be published. They complained that the images were too graphic, guys with machetes pulling over trucks, but that was what just what my camera was capturing.
After that I got a contact who helped me get acquainted with the people involved in the movement so that I could take some more pictures. I met some old people there and they started asking me questions in Purepechan dialect. When I answered, they said, “Yeah, he can talk Purepechan and has a good accent.” So after that, I ended up going up into the forest to see what was going on. The forest was devastated. I went up with a brigade of about 70 armed people. With my images, they had some material to tell authorities about what was going on in their town.
I told the locals they needed to have some sort of media of their own because after seeing what the other newspapers were writing I realized how misinformed everyone was about the situation. Through help from a friend here, a webpage went up called micheran.com that was eventually shut down due to lack of funding.
You say there was misinformation by part of the mainstream media. What were they writing?
The whole thing was being covered as if it was some internal problem and some government officials started talking about the issue as if it wasn’t a logging issue. As time went by, they started realizing that there was a huge problem involving the cartels and deforestation. The damage that was being done became evident. You could go down the road from Cherán to Carapan and see illegal loggers cutting down trees in broad daylight.
So afterwards you became part of the movement that you were documenting?
I was definitely involved. In a certain way I helped people by giving them ideas and advice on what could be done. I’m now studying Intercultural Communications and we’re seeing this case from an academic point of view. I’m Purepechan and I know that by not having a space to express ourselves, our message will never be considered relevant. For me, it’s important for us to have our own media so we can have our own voice. In this country there are many communication channels but, who has the voice? Politicians are the ones paying for it. We, as natives, should have our own media so we can inform everyone, from the inside, about what’s going on, what we’re doing.
Is the autonomous form of government in Cherán working?
Well yeah, it’s working. Everyone in the community participates instead of just having a few people making all the calls. From the campfire and street corners, entire families contribute their feelings on how things should be done. Those ideas reach the communal assemblies where general agreements are made. Each commission makes decisions to see what will be done in their own areas, but the overall general decisions are made in the communal assemblies. The communal assembly is the highest authority.
What will you do your photographs?
It’s very difficult to find a place to exhibit the pictures because most people say things like, “Sure, I’ll invite you, but you take care of exhibiting them and you pay the prints.” So far I’ve taken my material to Chiapas, three times to Morelia, Mexico City, and Puebla for a meeting of indigenous communicators. I think I shouldn't be taking the exhibition to faraway places, considering the trouble is located right here. The thing is taking it to the communities themselves, so it can resonate locally. Leave it there for two or three days and then take it to a different community. It’s tough due to the economic situation. I have this project but resources are needed to move around and nobody is really willing to contribute with that.
By Laura Woldenberg and Juan José Estrada Serafín 3 days ago
http://www.vice.com/read/el-fotgrafo-de-chern .. 7 comments now ..
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Google takes aim at Mexico's drug cartels
By MARTHA MENDOZA
AP National Writer / July 19, 2012
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. (AP) — Google, so far, has won the search engine wars. Now it wants to target international crime, including Mexico’s powerful drug cartels.
Eric Schmidt, Google Inc.’s executive chairman, has taken a keen interest in Mexico, where more than 47,500 people have been killed in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against the cartels in 2006. Schmidt recently visited most of Mexico’s most violent cities, Ciudad Juarez, where civic leaders asked if he could help.
‘‘Defeated, helpless, these people have been so hardened in their experience with cartels that they have lost battles and they have lost hope,’’ Schmidt told a conference on international crime this week. ‘‘They were looking for a universal hammer to protect them. For me the answer was obvious. It was technology.’’
Experts told the conference that Mexico’s cartels often use more sophisticated technology than law enforcement. Cartel assets include mapping software that tracks the location of police from high-tech control rooms; remote control submarines; and military grade rocket launchers.
Drug-dealing organizations can intercept satellite feeds, including images broadcast by intelligence agency drones. They run money laundering networks that handle an estimated $25 billion a year in drug profits.
‘‘It’s a technological arms race, and at this moment they’re winning,’’ said Marc Goodman, founder of Future Crimes, who studies the nexus of technology and transnational crime. ‘‘But there’s never been an operating system that hasn’t been hacked.’’
Google’s immense intelligence assets can be brought to bear on the cartels, Schmidt suggested.
Google’s ideas include creating a network so citizens can safely report cartel activity without fear of retribution. It wants to make sharing real-time intelligence easier among police in different regions. It can identify how individuals are connected to each other, to bank accounts and even to corrupt government officials. It can create community Web platforms for citizens to share information and name and shame criminals.
Talk also addressed human and arms trafficking, exploitation of child soldiers, and airport and seaport security.
Just 20 percent of crimes in Mexico are reported because victims fear retaliation and don’t trust the authorities, said Mexico’s interior minister, Alejandro Poire. He challenged technology experts in the crowd to develop an application that would allow Mexican citizens, 80 percent of whom have cellphones, to report crimes anonymously to a call center that would direct officers to respond. Ideally, the system would allow watchdog groups to monitor police responses, he said.
Mexico’s undersecretary of information technology, Francisco Niembro, said the government has been developing a Web platform where law enforcement can get a national look at crimes and investigations. Today, he said, 8,500 of Mexico’s 36,000 federal police are dedicated to gathering intelligence — but analyzing that intelligence takes sophisticated staffing.
Nancy Roberts, a defense analysis professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterrey, Calif., noted that in Mexico, police officials can tap phones, use tracking devices and tap into computer networks. But that does little unless someone can sort through the evidence.
‘‘Our jobs are making sense of all the data so law enforcement knows how, when and where to strike,’’ she said.
Eduardo Guerrero, a Mexico City-based security consultant, wasn’t optimistic that technology alone can disrupt narcotraffickers.
‘‘You should never underestimate the power of these guys,’’ Guerrero said. ‘‘They’re probably even aware of what’s going on here, and will figure out a way to use it to their advantage.’’
Even Google’s Schmidt conceded that better use of information isn’t enough.
‘‘I think at the end of the day, there really are bad people, and you have to go in and arrest them and kill them,’’ he said.
The conference in Westlake Village, Calif., was organized by Google’s think tank, Google Ideas, and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Participants included Ian Biddle, an arms broker; former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff; Ron Noble, secretary general of Interpol, the international police agency; Anthoney DeChellis, CEO of Credit Suisse private banking; and Juan Pablo Escobar, son of the slain Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. Juan Pablo Escobar talked about the challenges of quitting a drug cartel.end of story marker
© Copyright 2012 Globe Newspaper Company.
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/2012/07/18/google-takes-aim-mexico-drug-cartels/fH9L8lnIfDcoqmhGcIjBiM/story.html
See also:
How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico's murderous drug gangs
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=61662138
Egypt, Islamist state
The election of Mohamed Mursi as the country's new president and the recent scenes in
Tahrir Square show that Egypt is heading for an Islamist model, writes Galal Nassar
During the opening days of the Egyptian revolution, I managed to keep a good part of my attention focussed on the international reaction to the events in Egypt and the rest of the Arab region. I was particularly interested in Western reactions and those of the US in particular, in view of the tremors that the Islamic Revolution in 1979 in Iran had sent through Western political and security establishments. The irony is that as the events of the Egyptian revolution unfolded, signals from the White House confirmed that the US administration, as well as its predecessors and various governmental and independent think tanks and research centres in the US, had long since determined that the alternative to the dictatorships in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and the other countries of the Arab Spring would be Islamist to the core.
If the Arab dictatorships succeeded in anything it was in suppressing and eliminating all other possible secular alternatives, whether from the political right or the left, leaving the field open to the Islamist movements. Over recent decades, these movements have continued to work assiduously both below and above ground in mosques and on university campuses, steadily increasing their influence until they had built up a "society within a society" and readying themselves for the outbreak of revolution against regimes under which they were officially banned and for the opportunity to rise to power.
Various US agencies had apparently reached the conclusion that the only way that the Islamists could reach power would be through revolution against the existing regimes, these being determined never to allow political Islam a margin for open and legitimate manoeuvre. Therefore, the contest between the regimes and the Islamists was one that would have to end with a debilitating blow, and the likelihood was that the regimes would be on the receiving end because the rampant poverty, unemployment and corruption in place in the Arab countries strengthened the hand of the Islamist forces, which built their power on mounting popular wrath and the growing numbers of disaffected young people and other discontented segments of society.
Washington and other Western capitals had also realised that the Islamists were the only available alternative to assume power in the Arab countries following the fall of the regimes. None of the other political parties or forces had a grassroots base extensive enough to compete and leverage them into power through free-and-fair elections. Moreover, the same Western analysts also believed that the cycle of history had determined that Islamist rule was likely to continue for many years before the political balance of power shifted and the people succeeded in producing a political option that was strong enough to compel the Islamists to share power with them, or that would become a viable alternative in the event that the Islamists lost cohesion.
The course that the Egyptian revolution has taken over the past year and a half offers clear proof that events are developing in accordance with the American prognosis for the region. The scenes in Tahrir Square over the past few weeks offer sufficient indication that Egypt is on its way to an Islamist government. The culmination occurred on Friday, the "Friday of the Handover of Power" as that day's "million-man" demonstration was dubbed, when all the non-Islamist political forces withdrew from the square, giving the president-elect the opportunity to address a crowd packed almost exclusively with Muslim Brotherhood supporters and Salafis.
It was a crowning moment for the Islamists, and this was driven home by the president-elect's determination to reconstruct the history of the Egyptian people's struggle for independence and freedom in such a way as to intrinsically link it with the history of the Muslim Brotherhood. The 1920s thus became the "period of the establishment of the Muslim Brotherhood" and the 1960s was the "period of the Brotherhood's struggle with the government of president Abdel-Nasser," Mursi said by way of demarcating his chronology. He then took pains to ensure that the majority of the audience in Cairo University's main hall the following day was made up of representatives of the Islamist movement and of prominent families of Muslim Brotherhood background.
One would have to be divorced from reality to contend that Egypt is not now on the threshold of a period of Islamist rule, regardless of the assurances of Islamist spokesmen and parliamentary representatives to the effect that they will not seek to alter the identity of the Egyptian state. Moreover, excluding extraordinary events, such as a military coup, an insurrectionist movement or a civil war, the country is heading towards some sort of Islamist government now that Mohamed Mursi has been declared the victor over his competitor Ahmed Shafik, the last prime minister from the Mubarak era.
Regardless of which model is now in store, it is obvious that the over 80-year-old Muslim Brotherhood, banned since 1952, felt that its time had come with the 25 January Revolution. Here was an opportunity that the group was determined to seize with all its might and not let go. It was encouraged by the fact that the Islamist tide had also virtually overwhelmed the entire Arab region and beyond, from Pakistan and Afghanistan, through Iran, Turkey and Iran, and into Africa from Sudan to Libya, Tunisia and Morocco. Egypt is at the hub of all this, and the Islamists here would have some strong potential allies in Lebanon in Hizbullah and Palestine in Hamas.
Yet, what Islamist model will Egypt opt for, and what model will be suited to Egypt? Will it be a model inspired by the Pakistani one, or by the Turkish or Iranian ones? Will it look westward to the Tunisian or Moroccan models, or to the Levant and the Palestinian or Lebanese versions? Or will it develop a model of its own?
Under former president Hosni Mubarak, virtually all the intellectual, political and cultural activities and influences of the liberal, Nasserist or socialist left were systematically eliminated, while any semblance of public life was crushed through repression, corruption and co-optation. That is a legacy that could not be overcome in the mere 16 months since the revolution, despite the remarkable rise in the level of freedom, notably in the freedoms of opinion and expression and the right to form political parties, civil society associations and syndicates. There has also been a revival in the Egyptian spirit, which for decades had been tamed into submission or had been diverted by secondary issues in order to distract the people from the struggle for rights and freedoms.
During this period, the Muslim Brotherhood may also have been marginalised, but it also had the advantage of holding the religious card, which it capitalised on at every turn. In addition to its well-known internal discipline, this helps to explain why it suddenly emerged as the strongest and most cohesive popular force after the revolution. From the moment that it seemed that the regime would finally topple, the Brotherhood leadership was able fully to appreciate the role of the army, and it was quick to court the generals making up the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) who had persuaded Mubarak to step down.
For its part, the SCAF also soon began to realise that it might be possible to work out a power-sharing accommodation with the Muslim Brotherhood. Whether made public or concluded secretly, the purpose of this would be to keep the situation from sliding further in the direction of the revolutionary forces for change. The Brothers would keep the streets calm if they could be given the opportunity to create an Islamist government in which they would have a large share of control while the army would be able to retain the reins of power.
As was suggested in this newspaper in May 2011 in an article entitled "Who's at the chessboard?" [ Insert: same author http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2011/1048/eg5.htm ]the army had in mind the so-called "Turkish model", albeit the Turkish model as it stood before the Justice and Development Party took power in Turkey just over a decade ago.
In this model, the army would have the final say on crucial issues, especially those related to military affairs and foreign policy, while the Muslim Brothers, together with their Salafi allies, would have a comfortable majority in parliament. The Brothers would have nothing to lose from this arrangement. Even as a junior partner to the army, they would acquire considerable privileges and be able to expand their influence. The Brothers would also have believed that they would be able to use their political, organisational and proselytising capacities to gradually Islamise the army, or, at least, to Islamise a sufficiently influential portion of it. Perhaps the same idea occurred to some members of the army leadership, especially the more conservative or traditional elements, who may have gone so far as to entertain the possibility of militarising the Brotherhood, which would have made the partnership more balanced.
At all events, from March through to the autumn of 2011 there were definite indications of an explicit or tacit agreement between the army and the Muslim Brotherhood. However, once the Muslim Brothers had won a parliamentary majority in that autumn's elections their hunger for power grew. They no longer wanted a share of the pie, or even a large chunk of it. They wanted the whole thing, and they began to flex their demagogic muscles, which began to be increasingly apparent as the presidential elections drew near. However, by this point many Egyptians had begun to fear that the principles of the revolution were at risk and that their aspirations for democracy were about to be sacrificed. This gave rise to a new burst of energy among the pro-democratic civil forces that was strong enough to compel the Muslim Brothers to rethink their strategy.
The results of the first round of the presidential elections, in which the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) candidate did not do nearly as well as it had anticipated and in which the non-Islamist candidates combined fared better than the Islamist candidates combined, delivered a powerful message. With Mursi and Shafik heading to the run-off, the Brotherhood realised that there was another constituency that it had to appeal to, and it now began to reformulate part of its project. At this point, the Brothers made some astute moves. They signalled their willingness to work consensually with the other political forces as part of a presidential council, announced plans to "depersonalise" the presidency by transforming it into an institution, and even declared that they would be ready to appoint a Coptic vice-president. In short, they were moving towards the second Turkish model, in other words the Justice and Development Party model of the past decade.
Meanwhile, the army had begun to sense the threat that the Muslim Brothers posed. More precisely, it had begun to realise that it had made a grave mistake last year. With the Muslim Brothers poised to take control of the executive as well as the parliament, the SCAF feared that the country was staring the spectre of the Iranian model that had followed the Iranian Revolution of 1979 in the face. In the Iranian case, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards managed to sideline the other political forces that had launched and participated in the revolution, asserting their exclusive control and consolidating the situation by imposing a Shia theocracy on the country.
It is important to bear in mind that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a national movement. It is a transnational movement, par excellence. It has branches throughout the Islamic world, and it operates with a mentality not dissimilar to Leninism. Therefore, the Brotherhood's control over Egypt, when combined with the prospect of their solidarity with their "brethren" elsewhere, could have enormous repercussions for the region and the world.
Until now, the SCAF has been more or less feeling its way forward, advancing a step here and backing off a step there as it tries to check the Brotherhood's advances.
However, we still cannot rule out the emergence of an "Algerian model" under which the army steps in to settle the question of power after an Islamist win in the polls. Regardless of the legitimacy or illegitimacy of such a course of action, it would not be one that lacked some supporters in Egypt, the region or abroad. Indeed, the dissolution of the Islamist-dominated parliament and the addendum to the Constitutional Declaration that the SCAF issued in June were steps in this direction. One is reminded of the Pakistani model, in which the army retains the upper hand over the affairs of that country. Washington expressed its concern at these measures in Egypt, and the Muslim Brotherhood and other forces have been vehement in their criticisms of them. However, they still remain in effect.
All this does not mean that the Muslim Brothers have acquiesced to the current situation. They are not about to let the seats of power, handed to them on a silver platter, so to speak, slip out of their hands. Should their tactics drive society to a clash between the Brotherhood and the army, the movement for democratic change and all the participants who have remained committed to its principles would be the first to suffer. After all, while these forces may have spearheaded the revolution and defined the spirit of Tahrir Square, they have not been the ones to reap its rewards.
The ballot box can sometimes be a tricky and unpredictable creature. So many factors have come into play: ignorance and illiteracy; the long paucity of civil liberties; the long-entrenched tradition of despotism; the dominance of conservative forces; the heavy sway of money in the political sphere; the weakness and fragility of the centrist, liberal and leftwing forces and their inability or unwillingness to engage in battles of this magnitude; and the opportunities the SCAF helped open to the Muslim Brotherhood and the possibility that portions of the military are at least sympathetic to the Muslim Brothers.
Whether Egypt is now looking at a Turkish model, whether pre- or post- the Justice and Development Party, or at the Iranian, Moroccan, Pakistani or even Algerian models, a bumpy period undoubtedly lies ahead. If a new round of instability looms, this may induce many forces at home and abroad to take a negative attitude towards the movement for change. Yet, the setback may be only temporary. History does not march backwards. The past remains in the past, and the future can only be brighter than that past, regardless of the challenges and obstacles that need to be overcome.
Perhaps it boils down to the process of evolution and the gradual accumulation of change and development. Things may progress more slowly than some might wish. They may even flounder or take cruel and dangerous detours. But ultimately history will forge its way ahead in its own way, whether via some Islamist model or via another course.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
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Al-Ahram
Al-Ahram (Arabic:[...]; The Pyramids), founded in 1875, is the most widely circulating Egyptian daily newspaper, and the second oldest after al-Waqa'i`al-Masriya (The Egyptian Events, founded 1828). It is majority owned by the Egyptian government.
Given the large dialectical variety of the Arabic language, Al-Ahram is widely considered an influential source of writing style in Arabic. In 1950, the Middle East Institute described Al-Ahram as being to the Arabic-reading public within its area of distribution, "What The Times is to Englishmen and the New York Times to Americans", however it has often been accused of heavy influence and censorship by the Egyptian government.
more .. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2012/1105/fo7.htm
Islam and democracy not at odds in Tunisia
By Dr. Radwan Masmoudi
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
saw with my own eyes masses of people crying from joy and pride as they cast their votes in the decision on who would represent them in the National Constituent Assembly (NCA), feeling the dignity of participating in an election for the first time in their lives as truly free citizens. A free nation was being born anew.
Today, Tunisians are working on negotiating a relationship between religion and politics, an issue which has only become more pressing as extremists on both sides, secularists and Islamists, have been using their new-found democratic freedoms to push for more radical views. However, compromise and prioritizing the nation's interests are essential ingredients for a successful transition to democracy, and must take precedent over partisan bickering. Not surprisingly, Ennahda, an Islamic party with a focus on democracy and human rights, won a plurality with 41 percent of the vote and 89 seats in the NCA. Four secular parties, that do not advocate a role for religion in government, fared well: The Congress for the Republic, Al-Aridha As-Shaabiya, Attakatol and the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP). Three other secular parties, the Modernist Democratic Pole (PDM), Afek-Tounes and the Communist Workers Party (POCT), fared poorly, mainly because they appeared anti-Islamic and anti-religious. These parties and their leaders appeared out of step with the religious sentiments of the majority of Tunisians. Even the PDP saw its popularity drop from around 20 percent in February to barely six percent in October.
Ennahda, in the end, emerged as the main political party in Tunisia. After 30 years of being systematically put down, it was finally recognized as a political party in February 2011. More importantly, it succeeded in portraying itself as rooted in Islamic values, but simultaneously and deeply attached to democracy, human rights and dignity for all.
Tunisians do not see a contradiction between Islam and democracy, or Islam and modernity, and do not want to choose between them. They want to be both Muslim and modern, and Ennahda provided them with a ticket promising just that. In an interview with Reuters, published on Nov. 4 2011, Rached Ghannouchi, president and co-founder of Ennahda, said: "We are against trying to impose a particular way of life. (...)All the parties have agreed to keep the first article of the current constitution which says Tunisia's language is Arabic and its religion is Islam. This is just a description of reality; it doesn't have any legal implications. There will be no other references to religion in the constitution. We want to provide freedom for the whole country."
This is exactly what the majority of Tunisians wanted to hear. Tunisians did not overthrow a secular dictatorship to replace it with a religious or theocratic dictatorship. They do not want the state to interfere with or enforce religious practices. Religion should be a personal matter and choice, and the state should respect and protect the individual freedoms and liberties of all citizens. So can Ennahda succeed in leading Tunisia to real, genuine and lasting democracy? If the party can emulate the Turkish model in Tunisia, as it has promised to do, I believe that they will be successful and their popularity will increase. Although the new constitution will not stipulate that Tunisia is a secular state, as the topic of secularity is deeply divisive in Tunisia and across the Arab world, it is equally clear that Tunisians want a civil and democratic state.
The question of the relationship between religion and politics will continue to be debated for many years, and perhaps centuries. It is still debated today even in Europe and the United States. But the main challenge for all Tunisians today is to remain focused on what unites them rather than what divides them. What the new constitution of Tunisia should do is enshrine the principles of human rights and religious freedom, justice and equality before the law, as well as women's and minorities' rights. Just like Turkey has been able to merge Islamic and democratic values and build a successful modern state in the Muslim world, so too can Tunisia lead the Arab world toward reconciling Islamic values and principles with modernity, freedom and democracy.
(Radwan A. Masmoudi is president of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service and appeared in Arab News on Dec 13, 2011.)
http://english.alarabiya.net/views/2011/12/13/182300.html
========
Al Arabiya .. one bit ..
Track record and controversies
Al Arabiya was started in response to Qatar's pan-Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera, but has languished behind in audience popularity surveys, according to reports by University of Maryland professor Shibley Telhami. Al Arabiya has been criticized for being an arm of Saudi foreign policy, or what the United States would term public diplomacy, as it is seen as being part of "a concerted Saudi attempt to dominate the world of cable and satellite television media in the Arab world and steal the thunder of Egypt." Over the past couple of years several journalists and editors have been dismissed because of their coverage; In 2011 Al Arabiya fired Hafez El-Mirazi for criticizing the channel’s coverage of the Egyptian uprising while in 2009 Courtney C. Radsch lost her job the day after publishing an article about safety problems on the national Emirates airline.
Al Arabiya had been banned from reporting from Iraq by the country's interim government in November 2004 after it broadcast an audio tape on November 16 purportedly made by the deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi government had also banned the channel on September 7, 2006 for one month for what it called "imprecise coverage".
On February 14, 2005, Al Arabiya was the first news satellite channel to air news
of the assassination of Rafik Hariri,[17] who was one of its early investors.
On October 9, 2008, the Al Arabiya website (www.alarabiya.net) was hacked.
On September 2, 2008, Iran expelled Al Arabiya's Tehran bureau chief Hassan Fahs. He was the third Al Arabiya correspondent expelled from Iran since the network opened an office there.[19] On June 14, 2009 the Iranian government ordered the Al Arabiya office in Tehran to be closed for a week for "unfair reporting" of the Iranian presidential election. Seven days later, amid the 2009 Iranian election protests, the network's office was "closed indefinitely" by the government.
Al Arabiya is reported to be referred to as "Al Abraiya" (proper transliteration:
al-?ibriyah) by Saudi religious conservatives, which means "the Hebrew [one]" in Arabic.
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Arabiya
Time is right for Australian carbon tax, says Gillard
Updated June 30, 2012 19:31:26
A carbon tax seeks to limit the burning of polluting fossil fuels by putting a
higher price on their use. (JodieV, file photo: User submitted via ABC Contribute)
Map: Australia .. https://maps.google.com/?q=-25.720735,134.736328%28Australia+%29&z=5
On the eve of Australia's introduction of a carbon tax to control greenhouse emissions, Prime Minister Julia Gillard says the impost is an important reform at the right time.
Australia will join a number of other countries with taxes aimed at putting a price on the carbon contained in hydrocarbon fuels such as coal, petroleum and natural gas.
The tax will be charged at $A23 a tonne of emissions on 294 organisations that emit 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide or the equivalent in greenhouse gases.
More than seven million Australians will receive a tax cut as compensation for any cost of living increases.
Ms Gillard said she is confident many households will be better off after the July 1 introduction of the carbon tax.
Meeting voters in Melbourne at the weekend, she said: "They will be in a position from tomorrow to judge for themselves the claims that have been made to see what carbon pricing really does mean."
Video: Carbon tax and what it means ..
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-30/an-gillard-carbon-sell/4102472 .. and other related stories ..
Dodgy Australian opposition anti-carbon tax campaign designed
to blame ALL future electricity cost increase on the carbon tax.
Day one of the carbon tax [July 1, TODAY IS DAY 1 (auctd1)]
Greg Hunt ABC Environment 29 Jun 2012
Before you even make it to the shower, you'll be paying
the carbon tax. Credit: Sam Davis (ABC)
ON SUNDAY 1 JULY, the carbon tax starts. In case you are wondering, it is an electricity tax, a gas tax and a food tax. It isn't however an environmental tax because our emissions go up, not down.
So, instead of waking up in a utopian green world where all that has been wrong with the world has been corrected, you'll simply wake up in a world where your power bill goes up. The Prime Minister may pretend that your power bill won't go up and your job remains secure. Or that her broken promise from the last election will have been forgotten. It's a world viewed through rose coloured glasses and not connected to the reality that families and businesses will be facing as they start paying for the world's biggest carbon tax.
You may sleep through the midnight change over to a carbon tax world, but that won't stop the new costs starting to gradually mount up and by the time you've had breakfast, you will have been slugged by the carbon tax a dozen times.
This is how it will work.
From midnight when you're in bed, your heating system is slugging you with a carbon tax.
When you get out of bed and turn on the light, you will be slugged the carbon tax.
When you shuffle into the shower, your gas hot water will be slugged by the carbon tax.
When you get out of the shower and dry your hair with the hair dryer, you will be slugged with the carbon tax.
When you turn on the kettle for a cup of coffee, you will be hit by the carbon tax.
If you like a sugar with your coffee, that's bad luck, Mackay Sugar is a big polluter.
If you have milk with your coffee, bad luck again, dairy companies are listed as big polluters.
And when you take the milk out of the refrigerator - you pay twice, for the electricity and the refrigerant.
If you enjoy a bit of Vegemite on your toast, that's bad luck again, Kraft is a big polluter.
When you cook the toast in the toaster, you pay the carbon tax on the electricity.
If you decide instead to have cereal, remember you are paying carbon tax on the milk and the electricity to heat up the milk in the microwave.
So when you've finished breakfast what's next? If you are planning to spend Sunday cleaning up the backyard and taking a load of rubbish to the tip, then once more you will be digging into your pocket to pay increased dump fees due to the carbon tax.
A trip to a shopping centre will also cost you. The major retailers have included a carbon tax clause into their leasing contracts so the cost is passed through. The shoe store, the hairdresser or the cafe will be paying more and so will you. The alternative is that they will have to cut costs elsewhere and that will mean staff.
Fed up by all of this and want to escape on a holiday? Well you will also pay on your airline ticket with Qantas estimating the cost of the carbon tax will be over $100 million. And forget taking to the water rather than the sky, the Spirit of Tasmania has also added a carbon tax levy to its tickets.
In the same way the Prime Minister said "there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead", she has also claimed it is just the big polluters who will pay. The first statement we now know was dishonest, and the second has repeated that behaviour. Every Australian will pay the carbon tax every day. And that is why the bill adds up to $36 billion over four years.
Greg Hunt is the Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage.
http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2012/06/29/3534827.htm
Note, nothing in Greg Hunt's dealt with other contributors to the future rise of the cost
of electricity .. this one does .. and suggests the Gillard carbon tax will contribute 5%,
Australia needs the carbon tax
June 30, 2012
Opinion
'AFTER all,'' Scarlett O'Hara assures herself in the concluding scene of Gone with the Wind, ''tomorrow is another day''. It is advice Australians should take to heart, having been long assailed with dire forecasts that tomorrow, July 1, will not in fact be just another day. Instead, some would have us believe that it will be the beginning of our impoverishment and the end of civilisation as we know it, all because of the arrival of a Great Big New Tax. These claims are nonsense, uttered by people who think that if they repeat them often enough and without evidence, their fellow citizens will believe them to be true.
For the record, here are the relevant facts about the carbon tax, which begins tomorrow. Yes, it is a pricing scheme aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by shifting from coal-fired to cleaner forms of power generation. And yes, that will involve an increase in electricity prices. But the rise due to the tax will be only a small part of the total rise in household power prices, which is chiefly due to the cost of upgrading an ageing network - i.e. replacing poles and wires. In Victoria, for example, the average electricity bill has increased by 28 per cent over the past three years, and the Australian Energy Market Commission expects it to rise by another third over the next three. But the carbon price will be only a tiny portion of this: in two years prices will only be 5 per cent higher under the carbon tax than they would be without it.
That is the big picture. There are local variations, but they still don't make a blame-it-all-on-the-tax stance credible. Network upgrades are the main reason for power costs increasing across Australia, but the market commission says that in Victoria an even bigger cause is the charges imposed by electricity retailers, which have risen by 68 per cent since 2008. And, as The Age reported yesterday, a further complication is that energy consumption is now expected to fall in Australia even without the introduction of the carbon tax. The decline of manufacturing, consumer responses to rising power prices, including the take-up of rooftop solar panels, and a decrease in use of airconditioning systems because of recent mild summers have all changed energy use, and the Australian Energy Market Operator expects consumption to fall this year. That may make it easier for Australia to reach its greenhouse-gas emission target, but it could also slow necessary investment in new transmission networks and gas powerplants.
Does this mean the carbon tax isn't needed after all? That isn't true, either. The introduction of this tax resumes Australia's public policy response to what former prime minister Kevin Rudd referred to as the greatest moral challenge of our time. When Mr Rudd uttered that judgment, the Labor government was able to rely on broad popular support for an emissions trading system, something that the Howard government, too, had intended to introduce if it retained office in the 2007 election. That support has now dissipated, in large part because of the timid handling of the issue by Mr Rudd and his successor, Julia Gillard. Mr Rudd shelved the emissions-trading legislation, and Ms Gillard notoriously promised during the 2010 election campaign that there would be no carbon tax, only to abandon this promise in negotiating Greens support for her minority government. That has returned action to reduce carbon emissions to the centre of public policy, as it should be; the government's credibility, however, has taken a battering in the process.
Because of that battering, the government has become ever more defensive, and resisting the campaign of disinformation about the tax has become all the harder. But that is hardly reason to abandon the fight. On the contrary, the government must reinvigorate its defence of the tax, tomorrow and every other day.
AFL's [ link added for 'unusual?' sports fans .. http://www.afl.com.au/ .. lol ] larrikins live on
IT'S an image long cherished in the stories we tell about ourselves - the typical Aussie as a bit of a larrikin, rebellious but having a sense of fun, outspoken and direct, yet rarely mean or nasty. C.J. Dennis and Banjo Paterson celebrated his (and yes, it is a male image) laconic humour and took pleasure in the shock that accompanied his embrace of the limelight. Just when we thought our globalised culture had consigned larrikins to history along came David Danger, a passionate member of the Melbourne Football Club who, in the best tradition of larrikinism, made public his views on Tom Scully's defection to Greater Western Sydney.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .. my insert ..
Scully money protest just fun
CAROLINE WILSON June 27, 2012
WHEN David Danger went to the MCG on Sunday he was armed with his usual passion for the Melbourne Football Club and a stash of fake cash aimed at lampooning Tom Scully, the young player who had deserted his Demons.
He could not have predicted that waving a paper bag full of home-made notes - that he also had pinned to his jacket - almost had him evicted from the stadium and at the centre of a security and civil liberties storm.
The MCC and AFL yesterday claimed that MCG officials had tried to remove the Victoria Police employee from the ground after he had used obscene language, but yesterday Danger - seeing himself on television and being widely accused of having a foul mouth - moved to set the record straight.
''At no point did I use an obscenity,'' said the 16-year Melbourne member, who works in the Victoria Police infrastructure and IT department. ''I am not happy with the way I have been portrayed by the AFL spokesman Patrick Keane as well as the MCG spokesman Shane Brown.
''The whole idea that I was swearing seems to be a ruse or cover-up for the fact that I was waving Scully money and wearing a jacket covered in notes, and they actually wanted to quash that.
More .. http://m.smh.com.au/afl/afl-news/scully-money-protest-just-fun-20120626-210lb.html ..
chuckle, first i've heard of it, too.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was all a bit of fun - a chance to express disgust at the role money plays in the game, making loyalty increasingly a concept of relevance only to supporters. The appropriately named Mr Danger took on the establishment and broke the stuffiness associated with the members enclosure by wearing a jacket adorned with home-made notes sporting images of Greater Western Sydney coach Kevin Sheedy, AFL chief Andrew Demetriou and Tom Scully himself, and waving a bag of the ''money''. In a staggering development - some might even call it ''un-Australian'' - this almost had him evicted from the stadium.
The overreaction by security officers and some football officials was astounding. C.J. Dennis [see reply] would have had great fun with this comment from a players' agent: ''To some this was comical, witty at best, but for the future of our game it was alarming. These actions highlight the detachment the average fan has with the direction our game is headed.'' The language is 21st century business-speak but the sentiment echoed the reaction to C.J. Dennis's Larrikin Luke, who knew all about ''winning from all respectable folk a very respectable frown''
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/editorial/australia-needs-the-carbon-tax-20120629-21867.html
========
Carbon Tax begins, war of words escalates
http://media.smh.com.au/news/national-news/rinehart-delivers-ultimatum-to-fairfax-3416029.html
..and other tidbits of 'now' Australian politics .. note: at this time i don't know if the video will change ..
For those interested it is my hope to kinda keep in touch with some of the political, economic
and social repercussions in Australia of the Julia Gillard carbon tax introduced i Australia July 1 2012 .
Oh .. it just occurred to me that it's fair to say the carbon tax legislation is a result
of compromise, with unhappy people and fierce critics on both sides. Kinda like President
Obama's Affordable Care Act he, with some immediate effect, signed into being, March 23, 2010.
What’s Changing and When .. http://www.healthcare.gov/law/timeline/
.. about everything is changing, all the time .. the Gillard Carbon Tax and the Obama ACA are compromise ..
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FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE
Thank you to, Amaunet, who gave birth to this board and was
the guts and spirit of it. It must have been sad to leave; may you
be well and happy. It is my privilege to carry on and hope I
may do you some justice. (note: Am .. au .. that's nice and brings
a smile in this dastardly, only one, world of ours .. thank you, Amaunet .. :))
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