Australian public opinion was changing on the subject of US-Australia relations before this latest Trump Regime move against digital privacy - it began to shift after Donald Trump was elected US president......
Showing posts with label right wing politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label right wing politics. Show all posts
Sunday 8 April 2018
Is the U.S. becoming a country hostile to Australian tourists?
According to
the Australian Bureau of
Statistics there were 13.7 million internet subscribers in Australia at
the end of June 2017 and a 2016
Deloitte survey found that 84% of Australians had a smart phone.
An est. 20
million Australians use
a social media platform like Facebook,
Instragram or Twitter
via a desktop computer or mobile phone.
Because we
are one of the most digitally connected populations in the world the United
States is about to pose an additional risk to our personal Internet privacy and
safety if we seek any form of visa entry into that country.
ABC
News, 31
March 2018:
A US federal government
proposal to collect social media identities of nearly everyone who seeks entry
into the country has been described as a "chilling" encroachment on
freedom of speech and association.
The State Department
filed a proposal which would require most immigrant and non-immigrant visa
applicants to list all social media identities they have used in the past five
years, as well as previously used telephone numbers, email addresses and their
international travel history over the same period.
The information would be
used to vet and identify them, which would affect about 14.7 million people
annually.
The proposal goes
further than rules instituted last May. Those changes instructed consular
officials to collect social media identities only when they determined
"that such information is required to confirm identity or conduct more
rigorous national security vetting," a State Department official said at
the time.
The proposal requires
approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) but it supports
President Donald Trump's campaign promise to institute "extreme
vetting" of foreigners entering the US to prevent terrorism.
The American Civil
Liberties Union expressed concern, saying the move would have a
"chilling" effect on freedom of speech and association.
"People will now
have to wonder if what they say online will be misconstrued or misunderstood by
a government official," Hina Shamsi, director of ACLU's National Security
Project, said in a statement.
"We're also
concerned about how the Trump administration defines the vague and over-broad
term a 'terrorist activities' because it is inherently political and can be
used to discriminate against immigrants who have done nothing wrong.
Australian public opinion was changing on the subject of US-Australia relations before this latest Trump Regime move against digital privacy - it began to shift after Donald Trump was elected US president......
Australian public opinion was changing on the subject of US-Australia relations before this latest Trump Regime move against digital privacy - it began to shift after Donald Trump was elected US president......
ABC
News, January
2018:
Recent polling by the United States Studies Centre
(USSC) and YouGov — surveying both Australians and Americans — gives
mixed grades on American strength after the first year of Mr Trump's
presidency. Perceptions of American strength and international security are
closely linked for large portions of the publics in both countries — with some
interesting exceptions. Our data suggest that many see the world as more
dangerous precisely because the United States is perceived to be weaker under
Mr Trump.
Almost half of Australians report that the United
States has grown weaker over the past 12 months.
Only 19 per cent of
Australians think America has grown stronger over the first year of the Trump
presidency.
Americans are less dour
in their assessments, with 36 per cent saying that the United States has become
weaker over the last year. "Weaker" leads "stronger"
by 27 points in the Australian data, but this difference is just six points
among Americans….
Does a stronger (or
weaker) America under Mr Trump affect assessments of Australia's security? It's
complicated. In the aggregate, Australians associate a stronger America with a
safer world and a safer United States, but this does not extend to assessments of
Australian security.
More than half of
Coalition voters say Australia faces more danger than a few years ago,
irrespective of assessments of American power under Mr Trump. Labor voters and
minor party supporters do associate a weaker America with a less secure
Australia.
For Greens voters — at
best sceptical about the US-Australia relationship — a weaker America makes for
a safer Australia. Most Greens voters report that America is weaker under Mr
Trump and just 32 per cent of those see heightened dangers for Australia over the
last few years; among Greens seeing America as stronger under Mr Trump, half
report things becoming more dangerous for Australia, although the small number
of Greens in our data prevent firm conclusions.
Historically, a robust,
bipartisan consensus has seen little partisanship in Australian public opinion
on the value of Australia's relationship with the United States. Our data
suggest that this equilibrium is under some stress. References to Mr Trump
activate partisan differences in Australian thinking about the United
States. While Australians (like Americans) associate increases in American
power with a safer world, a perceived link with enhanced Australian security is
weak at best (and probably inverted for Greens voters).
On the other hand,
despite large partisan divisions, Americans continue to associate American
strength with increased security for America's allies.
This proposition has
been the bedrock of Australian foreign policy and defence thinking for decades,
and remains so, Mr Trump notwithstanding. Accordingly, our data allows us to
restate the challenge for the current generation of Australian policy makers
and political leaders: articulating the value and relevance of the US
relationship to an Australian public at best unsure about the direction of the
United States under Mr Trump and the implications for Australia's security and
prosperity.
Thursday 5 April 2018
Liberals continue to behave badly in 2018 - Part Three
This time it was not Liberal politicians in federal government but Victorian Liberals on the state opposition benches who were behaving badly.......
The Age, 30 March 2018:
The Victorian opposition
has broken a promise and reneged on long-standing parliamentary custom by
breaking its ‘‘pairing’’ to vote down the Andrews government's controversial
fire service reorganisation bill.
Government and
crossbenchers in Parliament’s Upper House were in uproar after two Liberal
members who had told Labor they could not vote or be present because of their
religious beliefs suddenly arrived to vote on Good Friday morning.
‘This is ball tampering
of the highest order,’’ said crossbencher Fiona Patten from the Reason Party.
She said the Coalition’s
conduct would make it very difficult for her and others in minority parties to
have a working relationship with the Opposition.
The controversy erupted
after a marathon sitting over the government’s bid to restructure the fire
services.
This is the first time
the upper house has ever sat on Good Friday.
Around midnight, Ms
Patten said that Liberal MP Bernie Finn had told the house he could not work on
Good Friday. At the same time, Craig Ondarchie also indicated he was not going
to be in Parliament House for similar reasons. One Labor MP said Mr Ondarchie
had been acting like he was ‘‘holding a prayer vigil’’.
Mr Finn on Thursday
night had told Parliament, in a debate about Labor pressing on with its
legislation despite it being Easter: ‘‘I have long believed in: you do not work
on Good Friday — any other day of the year. That is the rule. Even when my
birthday falls on Good Friday, I do not celebrate it on Good Friday.’’
In a similar vein, and
at about the same time, Mr Ondarchie said: "Today is the day that Jesus
died. It is a very important day. Today I want to be with my church family. I
want to take up your offer, as do some of my colleagues, about accepting the
pair that you have offered."
A ‘‘pairing’’ is an
unofficial agreement from both sides of politics that, when an MP is unable to
attend a vote, allows an MP from the opposing side to also miss the vote, so
numbers remain matched.
The government granted
the pairs requested by the opposition and Labor ministers Philip Dalidakis and
Jaala Pulford, the deputy leader in the upper house, excused themselves from
the vote and went home.
Mr Dalidakis, assuming
he had a pair, travelled to Sydney on Friday morning.
But when the vote
occurred just after 11am, Mr Ondarchie and Mr Finn returned to the chamber.
After Mr Finn and Mr
Ondarchie’s return to Parliament, Labor’s bill was defeated 19-18.
Labor Upper House MP
Cesar Melham said the pair were dishonourable and ‘‘should hang their head in
shame’’.
Ms Patten said that when
the Mr Ondarchie and Mr Finn came back into the chamber they could not look
anyone in the eye.
Labor's upper house
leader, Gavin Jennings, said the government ‘‘had generously offered those
pairs because we had members praying in the parliament last night to be with
their families and be with their church communities on the most holy day on the
Christian calendar’’.
‘‘And those people who
prayed in front of us and begged us to let them go, returned after we had given
them a pair – right at the death knell, was when they returned, to betray
parliamentary convention.’’……
The hypocritical antics of Messrs. Craig Philip Ondarchie and Bernard Thomas C. Finn as set out in the Parliament of Victoria Legislative Council Daily Hansard:
09:55am Thursday 29 April 2018
Mr ONDARCHIE (Northern
Metropolitan) (09:55) — As John 3:16 teaches us:
For
God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever
believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Today is Maundy
Thursday, tomorrow is Good Friday and it is the most solemn day of the
Christian year. It is the day our saviour died for us. It is the day we were
redeemed from our sins by the voluntary death of God himself at the hands of
man. On Good Friday, according to the gospels, Jesus was taken before Pilate in
the morning, sent to Herod, returned to Pilate, was mocked and beaten, saw
Barabbas released in his stead, was crowned with thorns, was condemned to
death, carried the crushing burden of the cross, told the weeping women what
would happen in his future, was crucified between two thieves and forgave those
who crucified him. As Luke 23:34 tells us, ‘Father, forgive them; for they know
not what they do’, and he cried out and died. It is the most solemn day of the
Christian calendar.
I close my contribution
in prayer:
Jesus,
Today we pause to remember your sacrificial love
That
shone light into the darkness
That
bore life from such emptiness
That
revealed hope out of devastation
That
spoke truth through incrimination
That
released freedom in spite of imprisonment
And
brought us forgiveness instead of punishment.
Thank
you that we can now walk in the light of your life, Hope, truth, freedom and
forgiveness, This day and everyday. Amen.
Approx.
23:12pm Thursday 29 April 2018
Mr ONDARCHIE — Members,
the blackness that hangs over my head tonight is associated with the passing of
my Lord and Saviour on this evening. At this very time on the first Good Friday
Jesus had been arrested and taken before the high priests Annas and Caiaphas
and it was during this time that Peter denied him. I think this place is not
about being tactical for me, Mr Jennings; it is about respect. It is about
respect for —
00:15am
Friday 30 March 2018
Mr ONDARCHIE — I move:
That the committee now report progress. In doing so I alert the house to the
fact that we are now officially in Good Friday. I have made my point very
clear. I do look to get some confirmation from the minister at the table,
Minister Jennings, and the other minister who made an offer to members of the
house that anybody who wants a pair can have a pair. This is a very religious
day for me. You heard me talk about that –
00:20am
Friday 30 March 2018
Mr FINN — I very
strongly support the motion moved by Mr Ondarchie, and I have to say to you I
have been sitting here since midnight and I feel quite ill, physically ill, to
be sitting here on Good Friday when I know that I should not work on Good
Friday, that this is a day of extreme solemnity; it is a very sacred day. I
know there are some members on the government side who do not understand those
of us of faith, but the fact of the matter is that it is beyond the realms of
decency to force people to work, to breach their religious rights, as we have
seen. I know there are members of the government who do not actually believe in
freedom of religion — and they are showing that just at the minute. I heard Mr
Jennings say that every one of us who asked for a pair would get one. Now, I
want a pair because merely being here, as I say, is making me feel ill when I
know I should be elsewhere. I want a pair; Mr Ondarchie has said he wants a
pair. I would be very, very keen for Mr Jennings to get to his feet and clarify
if the offer still stands for each and every member, as he said, who wants a
pair to be given a pair. That is something that I think he has got to do,
because he said it. I mean, we didn’t ask for it; he offered it, and it is only
reasonable that he now clarify the situation, given that there is some
significant confusion as to whether that offer was genuine. He is either fair
dinkum or he is not fair dinkum. If he is fair dinkum, then we can get on with
it. If he is not fair dinkum, we know that he can’t be trusted and we move on
from that in my members statement today. You heard me talk about it when we
broached this subject an hour or a bit more ago. This is the day that my Lord
was crucified. I do not want to be here. I want to be with my family and I want
to be with my church family. I find it highly disrespectful that on this very
important day in my faith’s calendar we are still here. I think it appropriate,
Minister, that with respect, selfishly, to me and to others who understand the
importance of this day today we stop this now. We can come back to this. It is
not time critical. I note that in your motion this morning on the rising of the
house that we are going to reconvene early in May. We can come back and do this
then. Today is the day that Jesus died. It is a very important day. Today I
want to be with my church family. I want to take up your offer, as do some of
my colleagues, about accepting the pair that you have offered. This is not acceptable.
Those with long memories will recall that Coalition MPs and senators have a history of attempting to distort parliamentary processes. The Night of the Long Prawns during a federal parliamentary sitting in 1974, the refusal of NSW Premier Tom Lewis in 1975 and Qld Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen also in 1975 to follow parliamentary convention and accept a nominee put forward by a political party to fill a casual vacancy in a seat which to that point in time had been held by that same party, are just three examples.
Thursday 29 March 2018
Mainstream media continues to amplify racist dog whistles in 2018
In September
2017 the Nursing and Midwifery Board of
Australia (NMBA) published the new Code of Conduct for Nurses and Code of
Conduct for Midwives. The codes took effect for all nurses and midwives in
Australia on 1 March 2018.
These codes
set out the
legal requirements, professional behaviour and conduct expectations for all
nurses and midwives in all practice settings.
The new codes
for nurses and midwives can be found here.
These codes
passed without much comment until far-right Senator Cory Bernardi began to bay about “political correctness” on
31 January 2018 and claim that Nurses must acknowledge
white privilege and voice this acknowledgment if asked.
According to
ABC Media Watch
he was followed by the Murdoch media running with this blatant dog whistle,
followed by Andrew Bolt, Peta Credlin and various radio shock
jocks.
Misleading
media coverage culminating in a truly appalling piece of journalism by Channel
7 which elicited this response…………..
Luke Pearson writing at @IndigenousX on 24 March
2018:
“BUT FIRST TONIGHT, THE
CONTENTIOUS NEW CODE TELLING NURSES TO SAY ‘SORRY FOR BEING WHITE’ WHEN
TREATING THEIR INDIGENOUS PATIENTS..
That’s how Today Tonight Adelaide
began last night.
Catch Up: Having to apologise for being white – the controversial new code for nurses treating Indigenous Australians. #TTAdelaide pic.twitter.com/yViiqkw67F— TodayTonightAdelaide (@TodayTonightSA) March 23, 2018
It continued:
“Now, it’s the latest in a string of
politically correct changes for the health industry, but this one has led to
calls for the Nursing Board boss to resign.”
It was followed by a five minute story
with the new code being condemned by someone you’ve probably never heard
of, Graeme Haycroft,
explaining that: “According to how the code is written, the white nurse would
come in and say, ‘before I deal with you, I have to acknowledge to you that I
have certain privileges that you don’t have” followed by Cory Bernardi calling
it divisive.
It goes on in this vein for a full
five minutes before it cuts back to the presenter, who finally says, “The
Nursing and Midwifery Board has told us that the code was drafted in
consultation with Aboriginal groups and has been taken out of context as it’s
not a requirement for health workers to declare or apologise for white
privilege”.
And just to reinforce that point, the
entire premise for the segment was false. There is no requirement for nurses to
apologise for being white, which would be very awkward for the more the more
than 1500 Indigenous nurses across Australia, and the countless others who also
aren’t white to begin with. But, even for the nurses who are – THERE IS NO
REQUIREMENT FOR THEM TO APOLOGISE FOR BEING WHITE.
So, why on Earth would Today Tonight
run such a story?
Why would they base a story off the
demonstrably false allegations of this Graeme Haycroft person?
To answer that, it might useful to cut
back to a 2005
Sydney Morning Herald story about Mr Haycroft:
“A member of the National Party and
the H.R. Nicholls Society, he (Mr Haycroft) boasts that, because of a tussle he
had with the Australian Workers Union 15 years ago, the union does not have a
single member shearing sheep in south-western Queensland today.
Now he runs a labour hire firm with a
thriving sideline in moving small-business employees off awards and collective
agreements and onto the Federal Government’s preferred individual contracts,
Australian Workplace Agreements.
…Mr Haycroft’s business stands out
because he is targeting lower-skilled, lower-paid workers, often with poor
English – the people unions say have much to fear from individual contracts.”
Cut back to 2018, and Graeme Haycroft
now runs the Nurses Professional Association of Queensland, which promotes
itself as an alternative to the Qld Nurses Union.
So, a man with a long history of
fighting Unions, who ‘saved’ the mushroom farming business by showing
businesses how to move “small-business employees off awards and collective
agreements and onto the Federal Government’s preferred individual contracts,
Australian Workplace Agreements.”
According to the 2005 article, “Mr
Haycroft said workers had been more than happy to sign on, most with their
penalty rates, holiday pay and other conditions being rolled into a flat rate.”
“However, [there is always a
‘however’], Mr Haycroft was stripped of his preferred provider status with the
Office of the Employment Advocate on Thursday, after a Sydney picker, Carmen
Walacz Vel Walewska, said she was sacked after she contacted the Australian
Workers Union for advice on AWAs.”
With that track record, it’s hard to
imagine why nurses would want to leave their current union in favour of his
‘professional association’.
It seems as though, once again,
Indigenous people have become a political football and a convenient scapegoat
for issues that have nothing to do with us.
Queensland has a long history of
political success found through anti-Aboriginal sentiment, so what better way
to undermine a Union and recruit new members to a professional association than
to accuse the Union of ‘racism against white people’ and ‘political correctness
gone made’ by spreading the blatantly false and misleading accusation that
white nurses now have to apologise to Aboriginal people for being white?
And just like Dick Smith’s
anti-immigration campaign, Blair Cottrell’s anti-African ‘community safety
group’, and Prue McSween’s call for a new Stolen Generation, it seems Channel 7
is always more than happy to ignore the facts and sensationalise issues about race
and racism.
There is always one more
thing.
We, and others, will soon publish
articles explaining what the Code of Conduct actually calls for, and explain
why cultural competence and cultural safety are important (editor’s note: we
did, here’s
one of them), but I can’t help but be reminded of this quote from Toni
Morrison:
“The function, the very serious
function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps
you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you
have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says
your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that
it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you
have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will
always be one more thing.”
So, instead of working on the very
real business of ensuring best practice within the nursing industry, our
Indigenous experts in this area will have to take a few days away from this
important work to explain that no one is asking for white nurses to apologise
for being white.
Just like we have to explain that not
all Aboriginal parents abuse their children, or that we don’t want to steal
white people’s backyards, or that we had (and have) science, or that Australia
wasn’t Terra Nullius, or, as Malcolm Turnbull suggested last year, that
acknowledging Indigenous history and addressing the issue of colonial statues
and place names across Australia is not a “Stalinist exercise of trying to wipe
out or obliterate or blank out parts of our history”.
So long as Australian media and
politics finds value, profit and opportunity in promoting racism, there will
always be one more thing.
So, I might as well clear up a few
others while I’m here, and empty a few more buckets out of the endless ocean of
racist misinformation.
Child abuse isn’t a ‘cultural’ thing.
Police are not scared to arrest
Aboriginal people out of fear of being called racist.
We don’t get free houses.
Aboriginal people using white ochre on
their faces in dance and ceremony is not the same thing as white people
dressing up in blackface.
We don’t get free university.
The Voice to Parliament is not a third
chamber of parliament.
We are not the problem.
Anything else?
We aren’t vampires?
We don’t shoot laser beams out of our
eyes?
We aren’t secretly developing a
perpetual motion machine that runs on white tears?
I’m sure I, and countless others, will
undoubtedly need to keep adding to this list because, as Toni Morrison tells
us, there will always be one more thing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Do
nurses under the new code have to announce their ‘white privilege’ before
treating indigenous patients?
It is not a requirement of the codes of conduct for nurses and midwives
to announce or apologise for white privilege. Any claim that nurses and
midwives need to announce or apologise for white privilege is completely
untrue. The recent criticisms from Mr Haycroft are based on completely untrue
statements. The requirements for nurses when working with Aboriginal and/or
Torres Strait Islander Peoples are clearly outlined in section 3.1 of the code.
Are nurses encouraged to
announce their ‘white privilege’ before treating indigenous patients?
No.
Is there any requirement
to acknowledge or announce ‘white privilege’ before treating a patient?
No.
Can a nurse be sacked
for NOT declaring or addressing their ‘white privilege’ to a patient?
No.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUSTRALIAN NURSING AND MIDWIFERY
FEDERATION, AUSTRALIAN COLLEGE OF NURSING, AUSTRALIAN COLLEGE OF MIDWIVES AND
CONGRESS OF ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER NURSES AND MIDWIVES
JOINT
STATEMENT, 23 March
2018:
In response to Graeme Haycroft’s recent
comments, we welcome the opportunity to provide further information on how
important cultural safety is for improving health outcomes and experiences for
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
It is clear from the 2018 Closing the Gap
Report tabled by Prime Minister Turnbull in February 2018 that Aboriginal
and/or Torres Strait Islander Peoples still experience poorer health outcomes
than non-Indigenous Australians. It is well understood these inequities are a
result of the colonisation process and the many discriminatory policies to
which Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Australians were subjected to,
and the ongoing experience of discrimination today.
All healthcare leaders and health
professionals have a role to play in closing the gap.
The approach the NMBA has taken for
nurses and midwives (the largest workforce in the healthcare system) by setting
expectations around culturally safe practice, reflects the current expectations
of governments to provide a culturally safe health system. (For more
information please see the COAG Health Council 4 August 2017 Communiqué).
Culturally safe and respectful
practice is not a new concept. Nurses and midwives are expected to engage with
all people as individuals in a culturally safe and respectful way, foster open,
honest and compassionate professional relationships, and adhere to their
obligations about privacy and confidentiality.
Many health services already provide
cultural safety training for their staff. Cultural safety is about the person
who is providing care reflecting on their own assumptions and culture in order
to work in a genuine partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Peoples.
Nurses and midwives have always had a
responsibility to provide care that contributes to the best possible outcome
for the person/woman they are caring for. They need to work in partnership with
that person/woman to do so. The principle of cultural safety in the new Code of
conduct for nurses and Code of conduct for midwives (the codes) provides
simple, common sense guidance on how to work in a partnership with Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. The codes do not require nurses or midwives
to declare or apologise for white privilege.
The guidance around cultural safety in
the codes sets out clearly the behaviours that are expected of nurses and
midwives, and the standard of conduct that patients and their families can
expect. It is vital guidance for improving health outcomes and experiences for
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
The codes were developed through an
evidence-based and extensive consultation process conducted over a two-year
period. Their development included literature reviews to ensure they were based
on the best available international and Australian evidence, as well as an analysis
of complaints about the conduct of nurses and midwives to ensure they were
meeting the public’s needs.
The consultation and input from the
public and professions included working groups, focus groups and preliminary
and public consultation. The public consultation phase included a campaign to
encourage nurses and midwives to provide feedback.
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery
Federation, the Australian College of Nursing, the Australian College of
Midwives and the Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nurses and
Midwives all participated in each stage of the development and consultation of
the new codes. The organisations strongly support the guidance around cultural
safety in the codes for nurses and midwives.
Lynette Cusack Chair
Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia
Ann Kinnear CEO
Australian College of Midwives (ACM)
Kylie Ward CEO
Australian College of Nursing (ACN)
Janine Mohamed CEO
Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nurses and Midwives
Annie Butler A/Federal
Secretary Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation
Labels:
health,
media,
racism,
right wing politics
Tuesday 13 March 2018
FAIR GO 101: It's Time To Change The Rules
Big business groups are already out attacking out our #ChangeTheRules campaign.— Australian Unions (@unionsaustralia) March 11, 2018
RT if you think workers need more secure jobs and a wage rise. #auspol pic.twitter.com/NPNIwAku86
Sunday 4 March 2018
Was the Australian Minister for Screech bullied in Senate Estimates? You be the judge
This is a fairly typical mainstream media snap of Liberal Senator for Western Australia & Minister for Jobs and Innovation Michaelia Clare Cash.
On 1 March 2018 Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull rose to his feet in the House of Representatives to claim that Cash had been bullied during a Senate Estimates hearing on 28 February 2018.
"Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Prime Minister) (14:01): All of us should show respect to the staff in this building, and indeed we should show respect to each other—although, obviously, as we will see no doubt in the next 70 minutes, that principle can sometimes be challenged in practice. The honourable member refers to some remarks made by Senator Cash during a very heated exchange in Senate estimates, where she was being bullied and provoked by Senator Cameron......But Senator Cash was being bullied and provoked by Senator Cameron, who was making insinuations about staff." [Hansard, 1 March 2018]
This is the incident to which he is referring.
After the hearing suspension at 10:20am Minister Cash went on to repeat her threat to name individual parliamentary staff.There you go, watch again, who was trying to bully whom@TurnbullMalcolm @SenatorCash pic.twitter.com/RV3EbvOoIH— Finnigans 天有道地有道人无道 (@Thefinnigans) March 1, 2018
The full transcript of the Cash-Cameron exchange during the Senate Estimates Education and Employment Legislation Committee hearing on 28 February can be found here.
Readers may judge for themselves whether Minister Cash was bullied and insinuations made about her staff.
From where I am sitting it appears as though the only insinuations were made by the Minister herself as were the verbal threats.
Thursday 1 March 2018
No need to worry about the possibility that a Liberal-Nationals Federal Government will impose censorship on the free press in Australia
The
time to fret over the possibility of government censorship of the media is over
because in February 2018 it ceased being a distant possibility and became fact.
This
is what the Australian Press Council stated about the News Corp online article….
Australian Press Council (APC):
The
Press Council has considered whether its Standards of Practice were breached by
an article published in news.com.au on 31 May 2017, headed “Islamic State [IS]
terror guide encourages luring victims via Gumtree, eBay”.
The opening paragraph read: “ISLAMIC State has released a step-by-step guide on how to murder nonbelievers, which includes how to lure targets via fake ads on Gumtree and eBay”. The article proceeded to relay in detail how an article in “[t]he latest edition of the terror group’s English-language propaganda magazine … encourages would-be terrorists to advertise products on second-hand selling sites … to lure victims and assassinate them”. The article mostly comprised extracts from the source material describing the steps necessary to perform such acts.
The Council considered that the article did publish much of the source material from IS verbatim, with limited accompanying analysis or context, such as comments from experts and websites such as Gumtree. The Council accepted there was no intention to encourage or support terrorism, but considered that republishing content from terrorist entities in this manner can perpetuate the purpose of such propaganda and give publicity to its ideas and practices.
However, the Council accepted the public interest in alerting readers to potential risks to their safety. It considered that on balance, the public interest in alerting readers to the dangerous content of the terrorist propaganda and its instructional detail was greater than the risk to their safety posed by the effective republication of terrorist propaganda content. Given this, the Council concluded that the public interest justified publication of the article. Accordingly, the publication did not breach General Principle 6.
The Council noted that great care needs to be exercised by publications when reporting on terrorist propaganda to ensure that public safety is not compromised. In particular, effectively republishing source material comprising instructional detail in how to carry out particular terrorist acts could pose a risk to public safety, and reasonable steps should be taken to prevent such an outcome.
This
is what the Turnbull Government did…….
News.com.au, 28 February 2018:
…the
article titled “Islamic State terror guide encourages luring victims via
Gumtree, eBay” no longer exists.
A
week after it was published on May 31, 2017, the Attorney-General’s office
contacted news.com.au to demand it be taken down, saying the Classification
Board had ruled it should be refused classification as it “directly or
indirectly” advocated terrorist acts.
It
appears to be the first time section 9A of the Classification (Publications,
Films and Computer Games) Act 1995 has been used to censor a news report, since
it was first added in 2007.
The
action has alarmed the publisher of news.com.au as Australian media in general
were not informed the Classification Board had the power to ban news stories or
that the eSafety Commissioner had the power to instigate investigations into
news articles.
“The
first news.com.au knew of this matter was when contacted by the
Attorney-General’s Department and advised of the Classification Board
decision,” news.com.au argued as part of a separate Press Council investigation
into the article.
“The
department, board and the eSafety Commissioner did not contact news.com.au
beforehand to advise of the investigation. Consequently, news.com.au was not
given the right to make submissions or a defence in regard to the article.”
News.com.au
removed the article as it was facing legal penalties from the Australian
Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) if it refused, including fines or
even civil or criminal legal action.
In
justifying its decision, the Classification Board noted the article contained
“detailed references and lengthy quotations from Rumiyah (Islamic
State’s propaganda magazine)” with limited author text to provide context.
News.com.au
asked the board why there was no opportunity for news organisations to defend
the article based on public interest grounds but a response provided by a
spokesman for the eSafety Commissioner did not directly address this.
The
spokesman said the board did consider whether the material could “reasonably be
considered to be done merely as part of public discussion or debate, or as
entertainment or satire” before making its decision.
He
also acknowledged this may have been the first time a news article had been
censored using this section.
However, as a government which to a man fails to grasp how the Internet works their well-laid plans seldom go off without a hitch and, the article that Turnbull & Co wish to erase from memory remains on national and international news sites as I write.
Wednesday 28 February 2018
The face of betrayal
Nationals New England MP Barnaby Joyce has been returned to the backbench and the Turnbull Government coverup has begun at the expense of an accountable parliamentary democracy......
Hansard, 26 February 2018
Shorter Michael McCormack Nationals MP for Riverina: turns up for work, never rebels
So who is the 53 year-old Nationals MP for Riverina Michael Francis McCormack, the new Leader of the National Party in federal parliament and Deputy Prime Minister of Australia?
Like Barnaby Joyce before him he was raised Catholic in a country New South Wales town.
Also like Joyce his professional career before entering politics was not associated with the land or farming.
After leaving school McCormack became a journalist at The Daily Advertiser in Wagga Wagga, went on to become a run of th mill editor before starting a small publishing firm, MSS Media Pty Ltd which appears to have produced very forgetable books.
Like many federal politicians he's a homeowner with an investment property, a working wife and children who are now adults.
Again, like many Liberal-Nationals politicians before him he failed to properly declare income derivied from this investment property - until it became certain that he would be putting his name forward for the deputy prime minister ballot.
Also like many other federal ministers he regularly attends major sporting events as the guest of big business.
According to They Vote For You McCormack, first as an ordinary backbencher and later as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister, Assistant Minister for Defence, Minister for Small Business, Minister for Defence Personnel, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC and Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, has never voted against the Coalition Government party line since he entered the House of Representatives in 2010.
He voted very
strongly for:
In other words the new Deputy Prime Minister is a typical National Party member.
In favour of: selling off government assets, raising the cost of health care, lowering the take-home pay of ordinary workers, making the lives of welfare recipients miserable; breaking international law in relation to the treatment of asylum seekers; upending state CSG mining moratoriums and hounding the unions.
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