Worshipping Trump has a scary parallel

United States of America, May 2018

@POTUS is honest and old school, and that's why my family and I love him! He's the BEST AND WISEST AND MOST LOVING AND PATRIOTIC POTUS EVER!! Thank God 🙏🇺🇸🚂

— Mama Da Bear (@MamaDaBear) May 29, 2018

Deutsches Reich, also known as the Third Reich, circa 1933-1945

'Dedicated:  in unutterable thanks to the blessed parents the mother who gave birth to "Our Furhrer"' - Text of a handmade Mother's Day card sent to Adolf Hitler [Daily Beast, 12 April 2015]

The Australian Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs put a dog whistle to his lips and blew hard last week

This is Australian Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, Liberal MP for Aston and child of British migrant parents, Alan Edward Tudge, quoted by ABC News on 14 June 2018:

The Federal Government is considering new English language requirements for anyone seeking permanent residency, with figures showing close to 1 million people in Australia cannot speak basic English.

Australia accepts up to 190,000 permanent migrants each year and while they need to prove they can understand English, their spouses, children and extended family accompanying them do not.

Multicultural Affairs Minister Alan Tudge argued this had created the "concerning situation" where "close to a million" Australians now do not speak the national language.

"That's not in the interests of those migrants but nor is it in the interests of social cohesion, because if we can't communicate with one another, it's very difficult to integrate," he said.

So there are “close to a million” Australians who don’t speak English, are there?

Although the article mention the 2016 Census it is unclear if Alan Tudge has actually read the English proficiency data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

As is usual for a Coalition minister, he is applying a dog whistle to his lips and blowing hard.

This is what that census actually revealed:

*In the Australia in 2016 there were 2,071,384 females and 1,997,244 males who spoke another language at home who reported they spoke English well or very well;

*Another 460,039 females and 359,882 males who spoke another language at home reported a degree of difficulty in speaking English;

*That’s a total of 819,922 people stating a degree of difficulty or 3.5% of a population of 23,401,907 persons counted at the 2016 Census; and

*Of the number who had difficulty in speaking English only 193,036 (aged 0 to 85 years and over) spoke no English at all - that’s 0.82% of the entire Australian population.

So what any reasonable person can say with regard to English proficiency is that a total of 193,036 people from a non-English speaking background, ranging from newborns up to the very old do, not speak any English.

That number is 806,964 short of being one million - it's not even "close to a million".

As a ploy for presenting yet another bill to parliament which allows denial of permanent residency or denial of citizenship to migrants from non-English speaking countries, Alan Tudge’s argument is full of holes.

NSW Berejiklian Government still playing hide and seek with independent review of the out-of-home care system

In November 2015 the NSW Government gave retired senior public servant David Tune the task of conducting an independent review of the out-of-home care system in the state.

In August 2016 the then Baird Government Cabinet considered his report.

However, it took until 2018, on the heel of threats from the NSW Upper House, before this report was released by the Berejiklian Government.

Although details of this report have become available to mainstream media, as yet there is no complete copy on the NSW Government's Family & Community Services or "Their Futures Matter" websites.

So it was not surprising to see the responsible minister duck for cover.

The Guardian, 13 June 2018:

NSW minister for family services Pru Goward blamed the premier’s department for the decision to withhold a damning report into NSW’s out-of-home care system.

Goward appeared on ABC Canberra radio on Wednesday morning and when the questioning turned from local issues to the Tune report she appeared to end the interview abruptly with: “I have to go.”

Political bully boy exposed

The Guardian, 15 June 2018:

An advertising executive and commentator is refusing to delete a social media post mocking the Queensland opposition frontbencher Jarrod Bleijie, despite being referred to the powerful ethics committee.

Dee Madigan last month posted a gif of Bleijie ripping up a piece of paper in state parliament with the comment “Your taxes at work. A toddler tantrum for @JarrodBleijieMP”.

Bleijie had at the time been arguing against a motion to speed up debate on the Labor government’s vegetation management laws so parliament could adjourn at its new “family friendly” time and avoid sitting into the night.

After seeing the tweet, Bleijie complained to the speaker, Curtis Pitt, who referred Madigan to the ethics committee, because under parliamentary rules vision from the floor of the house can’t be used for “satire or ridicule”.

Pitt said his office also attempted to have the Twitter post removed.

Madigan previously refused to remove the tweet when contacted by the clerk of parliament, and on Friday again tweeted she would be leaving the post up.

“If this is upheld it means no one on [social media] can retweet or share with a comment any parli footage, even if it has been on the news or streamed live or shared by pollies,” Madigan wrote. “The precedent on free speech is extraordinary. It is bullshit.”

No Fibs, 15 June 2018:

Not long after, the Clerk of the Queensland Parliament, Neil Laurie, contacted Ms Madigan asking her to delete her comment after a complaint had been received. He labeled her, “a contracted campaigner of the Labor Party, Queensland Division”. Mr Laurie went on to cite, in its entirety, section 50 of the Parliament of Queensland Act 2001 including that footage of proceedings in the Queensland parliament should not be subject to such things as ridicule, satire or political advertising. In his view, the Tweet breached, “the terms and conditions and is a prima facie contempt”….

Ms Madigan pointed out that she was not contracted to the Labor Party in either Queensland or elsewhere, that she was a private citizen, entitled to retweet people and would not be removing the Tweet. She also pointed out that multiple members of the LNP had used parliamentary footage over time to express political opinions and to ridicule.

Thirty-six year old former lawyer and former Attorney-General Jarrod Pieter Bleijie has been a sitting Liberal National Party member in the Queensland Parliament since 21 March 2009.

However nine years in politics has not given him any claim to wisdom.

Why he saw fit to take his objection to this tweet as far as he has is not known¹.

What was predictable is that now he has, this tweet below will likely live on as a footnote in Queensland political history and, he will be forever remembered as a pompous and thin skinned individual.

Your taxes at work. A toddler tantrum for @JarrodBleijieMP https://t.co/bSjhGRCyIz

— Dee Madigan (@deemadigan) May 10, 2018

Footnote

1. PARLIAMENT OF QUEENSLAND ACT 2001

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF QUEENSLAND CODE OF ETHICAL STANDARDS

THE ETHICS COMMITTEE

The Ethics Committee of the 56th Parliament was established on 15 February 2018.

The committee’s areas of responsibility as set out in section 104B of the Parliament of Queensland Act 2001 are as follows:

* dealing with complaints about the ethical conduct of particular members

* dealing with alleged breaches of parliamentary privilege by members of the Assembly and other persons.

Further to this, section 104C of the Parliament of Queensland Act 2001 provides:
The committee’s area of responsibility about dealing with complaints about the ethical conduct of particular members is to—

* consider complaints referred to the committee about particular members failing to register particular interests; and

* consider complaints against particular members for failing to comply with the code of ethical conduct for members, report on complaints to the Assembly and recommend action by the Assembly.

* A complaint about a member not complying with the code of ethical conduct for members may be considered only by the Assembly or the committee.

* Subsection (2) has effect despite any other law, but the subsection does not apply to a court, tribunal or other entity if the entity may, under a law, consider an issue and the issue that is considered involves the commission, or claimed or suspected commission, of a criminal offence.

* Subsection (3) does not limit or otherwise affect the powers, rights and immunities of the Assembly and its committees and members.

Filing this one under Things I Never Expected To See In My Lifetime

Australian troops on active service in Afghanistan flying a Nazi flag circa August 2007....

The American Resistance has many faces and this is just one of them .......(22)

This is a political cartoon by Rob Rodgers, who until 15 June 2018 was employed by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - ciruculation 317,439 - a subsidiary of Block Communication Inc.

On that day he was apparently sacked for being critical of US President Donald J. Trump.

What I learnt about NBN Co this week

It is easy to lose track of what federal government-owned NBN Co is up to these days, so I did a quick search of mainstream media reports and the company website. This is what I found.

In the nine months up to 31 March 2018 NBN Co listed $1,413 million in revenue, up from $665 million for the same period last year. Nevertheless it appears the company is operating at a loss.

NBN Co’s CEO earns est. $3.62 million per annum — approximately six times more than Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Million-dollar salary packages are paid to another four top executives.

More than 480 of NBN Co’s staff are on $200,000-plus salaries and 120 earn more than $300,000.

NBN Co paid $66 million in bonuses to its staff last financial year.

In February and March 2018 the company’s  three top executives spent almost $40,000 on business-class flights and accommodation during a trip to Spain to attend a conference.

Although NBN plans are advertised with speeds such as 25Mbps or 50Mbps, performance on fixed wireless drops in the evening and the CEO has stated that "We don't have the money to invest in this to take it above 6Mbps” – which means that many customers cannot get a decent image when streaming videos or live entertainment.

NBN Co has fobbed off customers 80,000 times since July last year – nine per cent of all scheduled appointments.

There were at least 42,510 formal complaints made about NBN services from January to December 2017.

More than one third of NBN users wish it had never happened, according to new research by finder.com.au released on 8 June 2018. Only 43 per cent of respondents still on an ADSL or cable Internet connection said they were looking forward to switching to NBN.

The basic NBN service is being redefined and entry-level retail prices for NBN broadband are set to rise.