ANOTHER PLEDGE TO NOT TRUST



Geez, you really do want to believe her this time. I mean there is nothing healthy or good for our democracy to see such factional infighting in any Governing party.

Alas I naively believed her when she said that "there would be No Carbon Tax under a government I lead" because I just thought that once she said it and it was on the public record that she would not be so bold or stupid as to break that pledge.....

Well, as they say, the rest is history and so is she and her party come the next election because you just cannot believe that she will be able to command and control a caucus in which one in three members have lost faith in her leadership, plus the fact that she has lead such a disastrous government so far and that the people have not forgiven her for stabbing their PM in the back.

Rudd may not have been any better a choice to lead this country -- I still remember all of the mistakes that he made -- but one thing is for sure, he was the peoples choice and deserved the chance to fight it out with Abbott..... that is democracy!

Much More Work To Be Done‏



Now that the 40 year reign of terror has apparently ended with the death of the despotic Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, and the hope of the world is for a fair and democratically led free Libya for these long suffering people, one can only dream that such a fate is soon visited on another well known leader of death,..... Sir Robert Mugabe. That the long suffering people of Zimbabwe will soon be able to overthrow this megalomaniac and return their country to what was long considered the "breadbasket of Africa".

Hopefully the likes of the United Nations to the Royal Family of Great Britain and even our disgraced former Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, will think twice before ever endorsing such evil again and referring to these tyrants as statesmen?

Godspeed and let's all remember (in prayer if you like) the many thousands of freedom loving Libyans and Zimbabweans who have made and continue to make the ultimate sacrifice for freedom, democracy and justice in their lands and never take for granted what we have inherited here.

OFF WITH HIS DEMOCRATIC HEAD



The most ludicrous thing (apart from the attack on free speech) about this very wrong judgement against Andrew Bolt was that Bolt was never talking about racism nor was he promoting it in the first place. See here

The fact is that he was promoting the opposite of racism, "UNITY" and exposing what many Australians already are aware of and that is the fact that people who do not deserve to call themselves Aboriginal are doing so even though they are several generations removed from the Original Australian Aboriginal DNA line.

That is like me claiming Scottish or Irish or Welsh or German or French or English entitlement just because there is a mix of all these ethnic origins circulating in my bloodstream. I mean, I claim to be an Australian as this is where I was born and hold my loyalty too.

My mother cannot help but claim her English heritage as she was born there but she can also legally say that she is an Australian because she was naturalised after she choose to emigrate here ... but if my great grandmother had sexual relations with an Aboriginal Australian and a child came of that union and that child turned out to become my grandfather then Australian law says I can claim Aboriginality and all of the social welfare schemes attached to that claim as much as a true Aboriginal who was born here or parents were born here and the blood line of their family is purely Aboriginal ....WHAT THE?

What a deluded mess this has become and clearly many who do not deserve the tax payer funded breaks that they claim are simply ripping us ALL off. As Bolt said in front of the court after the verdict was announced "We should be focusing on the things that UNITE us and not those that divide".

Well Andrew, we need that message to go back in time to at least several decades of political stooges form both major parties who used this form of apartheid (separating the internal population based on racial difference) as nothing more than a vote generator.

See how they have created a nation within a nation, with it's own laws, racial based freedoms and benefits and even a flag. How is that promoting a united nation.... What does the song say? ..."WE ARE ONE BUT WE ARE MANY...." Sure we are many but thanks to the abuse of welfare and the creation of the "ABORIGINAL INDUSTRY" we are and will never be one. Mr Abbott TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!!!...... with apologies to the late Ronald Reagan.

Incidentally, my brother is married to an Aboriginal woman thus my niece's are both eligible to the claim..... they don't do it, they work hard and claim nothing. That is being Australian in my book.

The NON Family Courts



The toon above was first published to accompany an article in last weeks Spectator by John Hirst, The article is quite a timely and poignant piece considering current and recent events. Please remember to pick up your copy of The SPECTATOR Australia magazine, out every Friday.

The article concerns a quite disgraceful but little-heeded policy change so is reproduced below:

The Federal Labor government appears bent on making it easier for mothers in Family Court proceedings to make false accusations about fathers being violent and abusing their children.

Making such accusations are a routine part of custody battles. The Howard government made some effort to deter them; these sanctions are to be lifted in an amending Bill now before the parliament.

The declared aim of the amendments is to protect children better from abuse and violence. The Bill reaffirms that the best interests of the child must be the paramount consideration in the arrangements that follow separation of their parents. That always sounds reassuring. It is the mantra under which the Family Court operates. But when one principle, however worthy, is made pre-eminent, to be pursued whatever the consequences, terrible harm may be done.

Consider. A mother makes a false accusation of abuse against a father; she may believe it to be true or it may be concocted. Either way the father is immediately made into a pariah. After the case is examined, the Court may decide that the father cannot see his children, not because it has been proved beyond reasonable doubt that he has abused his children, not because on the balance of probabilities he has abused his children, but because in the mind of a judge he presents an unacceptable risk to his children. Well, you might think, with children you can’t be too careful. But consider what this carefulness is doing. Innocent fathers are branded as child abusers by an instrument of the state, a body going under the name of a court of law, which then rules that they are not to see their children again. Just how many fathers will you torture in this way to protect one child?

The Family Court was pushed into operating on ‘unacceptable risk’ by the High Court in the case M v M. The consequence is that the Court seeks absolute security for the children in its purview. Meanwhile in the administration of child welfare by the states great risks are run because the policy here is to keep children in the care of parents if at all possible. I think too many risks are run. Children are reported as being at risk, social workers examine the case, they give advice and warnings to the parents, and leave the children in their care. All too frequently the parents do not improve; they remain alcoholics or drug addicts and their children die from abuse or neglect. In New South Wales in the years 2008-2009, 57 children died from abuse or neglect. Of these 30 were known to be at risk by Community Services, which had left them with their parents.

Everyone wants the child welfare system to be better. But no-one says that no risks should be taken. If the Family Law practice were followed in child protection, on the first report of abuse, children would be removed from their parents. One reason why children are not more readily removed is that the cost of maintaining them then falls on the government through payments to foster parents or the support of institutions which care for them. These considerations do not operate in Family Law cases. If the Court rules that a father can no longer see his children, he is still required by the Child Support Agency to make payments to support them.

The Family Court should not deny a parent access to a child unless they can be shown to be a danger to the child. The ‘unacceptable risk’ policy should be over-ruled and so free the Court from perpetrating gross injustices. Fathers are citizens who should not be deprived of their children without a case being proved against them. But even on the test of the best interests of the child, consider what damage the Court is doing to the children of the innocent fathers: they are deprived of a father and later they will find out that this was because of the falsehood of their mother.

The amendments made to the Family Law Act by the Howard government did not go as far as I am proposing here. They aimed to reduce the evil by providing that a parent knowingly making false accusations would have to bear the costs of the other party and a parent who made false accusations could be declared to be an ‘unfriendly parent’ in the matter of determining custody, where the aim is to keep both parents in a relationship with their children. Both these provisions are now to be removed because it is claimed they inhibit women from revealing violence.

The government’s rationale for the change about costs reads:

‘Vulnerable parents may choose to not raise legitimate safety concerns for themselves and their children due to a fear they will be subject to a costs order if they cannot substantiate the claims.’

So in this court allegations without evidence are to be encouraged!

Under the proposed amendments, the Court is also to abandon proceeding by evidence in determining whether family violence has occurred between the mother and father. If one party declares that the behaviour of the other caused them to be fearful, then violence has occurred.

The government’s Bill has been examined by a committee of the Senate. Its Coalition members have recommended that the changes discussed here be not made. But the Greens are happy with them so unless the government has a change of heart, they will pass into law.

Whatever the intent of its promoters, one sure effect of the Bill is that more false allegations will be made and with greater chance of success. More children will be needlessly deprived of contact with their fathers.

Growing Old Disgracefully



If like me, you are a political tragic and are addicted to the weekly Monday night ABC Colosseum like show, Q and A, where Conservatives are thrown to the Leftist Lions in what is nothing more than a bloodsport, applauded by the majority left audience (do not believe the opening audience stats) AND If you are like me and you are of the more conservative mindset, then you probably felt like you had just walked into a sleazy bar and there you saw your favourite school teacher stripping to "You can leave your hat on"!!!

You see, Noni Hazlehurst, Australian actor (I loved her in her role as Nancy Wake in the 1987 film, The White Mouse) and probably best remembered as the lovable, caring presenter of the long running children's TV show, Play School, from 1978 to 2001, was rightfully lauded and questioned for her role in a less than ethical book reading satirical piece called "Go the f@#K to sleep". If you don't know what I am talking about then just watch this.

To think that she unshamadly did this, the same woman that we entrusted to entertain, inform and let's face it, babysit our kids for many years, is in my opinion and slap in face and a betrayal of trust. When asked about her role in this controversial piece, she basically deferred the whole thing as harmless fun that actually helps adults deal with the drama of getting small children to sleep and then she defaulted to the fact that the real lowering of standards are all about us, on billboards and bus shelter everywhere. I agree that the way women in particular are betrayed in such advertising is sending the wrong messages but what kind of message does this attempt at humour send?

When my former wife and I had our first child, we sought ans received advice on the issue of getting the baby to sleep from family, friends, books on the subject and even the Tresillion Nurses Organisation BUT if someone had handed us this book, then I would have handed it back with the comment "How the hell does a book about swearing at and even threatening a child who won't go to sleep help us at this time of need?"

What is it with the left and their brand of humour? They get greatly offended when Alan Jones calls PM Julia Gillard, JULIAR and say that people on the right are disrespecting the office of the Prime Minister by referring to her as just Julia or Gillard and then go on to say that it's only because she is a woman that she is being disrespected and yet they hypocritically have no issue with referring to former PM, John Howard, as "Little Lying Johnny" or leftist cartoonists drawing the foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, in a pair of fish net stocking and comedians constantly ridiculing the current Federal opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, about the fact that he wears speedos because he just happens to want to swim or run on the beach in them. For heaven's sakes, they are politicians and are open to such lampooning but just don't critique our politicians, that right Noni!?!

Seems to me that the hypocrisy of the left has no bounds and there is no measure or line of decency when it does come to satire. This book and the reading of it by Noni Hazlehurst, actually did offend me and as a father and hopefully grandfather, I see this as nothing more than either a desperate act by a left over, left out lefty such as Hazlehurst (probably pissed off because they used Michael I'll sell my soul for money" Caton and Cate Blank-Cheque, instead of her to push the Carbon Tax scam) or just another wink and nod at the anti family movement that we know these Marxist loving "Useful Idiots" so openly mock at their Northern Beaches Cocktail parties!

Sorry Noni, but you are growing old disgracefully and I am sure Big Ted is not impressed either.... in my opinion

Stealing Our Super

Your superannuation might not be as safe as you think. Desperate governments could "raid" it.



Story here

Where's the outrage?



Where's the outrage? The left-wing critics who fretted and wailed over Howard's policies have lost their voice

TIM BLAIR:

It ought be nearly impossible to move through the streets of any Australian capital at the moment, what with them all jammed to the shopfronts by furious leftist protesters. Anyone in charge of a large-scale papier mache operation – no leftist protest is complete without a big giant puppet head – might expect to be running triple shifts.

After all, we’re presently overrun with the sort of issues that previously drove the left into a frenzy of indignant street chanting. The federal government has just signed a deal to send asylum seekers to Malaysia, a nation that is not a signatory to the United Nations’ refugee convention. The government’s planet-rescuing carbon tax excludes agriculture and petrol, which renders it a token measure capable only of damaging the local economy while doing nothing about alleged global warming. The government is cosying up to Big Coal, promising that this demonized industry has a viable future.

And, by the way, we still have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Labor Prime Minister is such a fan of the US that she almost cries just talking about it. Yet the protests that were so much a part of John Howard’s reign as Prime Minister are barely visible under the reign of Julia Gillard (who, despite being the second individual to sack a Labor Prime Minister since Sir John Kerr ousted Gough Whitlam in 1975, never suffered even a fraction of Kerr’s vilification).

It’s almost as though those street-stomping activists of the Howard era were more motivated by a loathing of the former Liberal PM than they were over any matters of principle. Consider, for only a second, how the bearded-and-shouty wing of Australia’s left would have responded if it had been former Liberal immigration minister Philip Ruddock instead of Labor’s Chris Bowen announcing a human being swap with Malaysia.

Just a guess, but it might have seen a larger number than the 200 or so holdouts who staged a mini-protest in Sydney last weekend. “We're here to say no to the Malaysia solution," longtime refugee
advocate Ian Rintoul said to basically nobody. He was slightly more aggressive during the Howard years. In 2004, Rintoul – preparing for a Kirribilli House vigil – made this vow: “We plan to lock up Howard this Easter unless he frees the innocent asylum seekers that languish in his political prisons."

There are more “innocent asylum seekers” than ever presently languishing in Gillard’s “political prisons”, but to this point the current Prime Minister remains at liberty. Don’t let down your guard, Ms Gillard. Rintoul’s Easter bunny justice brigade is merely biding its time, presumably waiting for the right moment to pounce.

To its shame, the previous Liberal-led government made all the correct soothing noises about addressing climate change, particularly as it became electorally vulnerable. None on the left were buying it, however, and probably for good reason. They might have assumed that a conservative carbon pricing policy would cynically let major carbon emitters off the hook.

Which is almost precisely what Julia Gillard’s carbon tax will do, seeing agriculture and petrol aren’t included. The former gets a free pass because the government claims it simply can’t work out a way to accurately gauge agricultural carbon dioxide emissions. (Puzzlingly, the same government is endlessly trusting of emissions figures supplied by the dodgy likes of China. Perhaps Labor should invite Beijing’s best bovine carbon calculators out to Australia for a conclusive cow count.)

Petrol is cut from carbon tax considerations because the government prefers to keep its approval ratings above single figures. There’s no other possible explanation. Besides being a Mr Big of carbon output, petrol consumption is accurately measured every day by millions of individuals at petrol pumps. The whole deal is primed, as it were, for a carbon tax.

Again, ponder the likely response of local sandal-and-Crikey enthusiasts if the previous Coalition government had proposed such a scheme. The oil company conspiracy theories would be screaming across the internet like so many YouTube cat videos, and workers at Shell and BP headquarters would have to gain access to their blockaded offices via teleporting.

But thus far the only significant protests – at least numerically – from the left regarding the carbon tax are in favour of it, petrol exclusion and all. These smotheringly pious gatherings are led by GetUp!, an unexpectedly elderly activist group whose members, according to GetUp! leader Simon Sheikh, have an average age of 55. When the more senior members GetUp, it’s usually with the electronic assistance of a Smokey Dawson chair.

So they’ll protest for a carbon tax – when you think about it, it’s more an affirmation than a protest – but GetUp! bravely decided to StandDown! over the Malaysian solution. Sheikh’s explanation for this in June was interesting. Essentially, he didn’t want GetUp! to inadvertently promote the Malaysian plan by looking like a bunch of idiots who opposed it. “The government would love to see groups like us marching against this plan because that's their strategy,” he told The Australian. “They would think it would shore them up as the conservative force they would hope to be on this issue.”

Like most other Howard-era agitators, then, GetUp! is now an inactivist movement. Staying at home and doing nothing is an official tactic, which doesn’t exactly bode well for the financial future of these groups; why pay for membership (if, indeed, membership requires payment) when the big protest march of the day is from your front door to the letterbox to see if the latest issue of Caravan & Motorhome has arrived?

Still, leftist rage must always find a target. If it isn’t the treatment of claimed refugees or a carbon tax that absolves Big Oil, it’ll be something more convenient and less likely to offend the untouchable Gillard government. A few weeks ago, 18 demonstrators were arrested in Melbourne following a protest against the Max Brenner store chain. The previous month, two demonstrators were charged after a raucous protest outside a Max Brenner shop in Sydney.

The Brenner chain sells chocolate. It happens to be owned by an Israeli company, hence the outrage. That’s where the heat is protest-wise in 2011. The left is angry about Jewish sweets.