Too Late Mate! or Who's trying to protect Abbott from himself?

  Mr Onthemoon ‏@firstdogonmoon

Interesting that someone went to Sydney Uni Library and cut everything Tony Abbott wrote from old copies of student newspaper honi soit 

15th October 2012

Too funny for words! The horse has long bolted when it comes to Tony Abbot's early forays into print.

Letters originally posted at The Sydney Institute

Christian Kerr thinks Twitter has girl germs and therefore tweeters' opinions don't count

 

 

http://video.theaustralian.com.au/2289902086/Gallery-1-Twitter-0

The Australian newspaper's Christian Kerr gives his opinion

Apparently the latest excuse for dismissing any support for the Australian Prime Minister's 9 October 2012 speech is the perceived failings of social media.

It would appear that Twitter doesn't count as a serious reflection of community attitudes because it is supposedly peopled by women with an average age of 28 years, who use an iPhone, have a propensity to like the colour purple and a small online following of about 280 other tweeters, according to male journalist Christian Kerr aka "Colonel Walter Kurtz" * * aka "Hillary Bray".

Kerr has obviously never read the Beevolve study of 36 million Twitter users he is quoting, because it was careful to point out that Only 0.45% of Twitter users disclose their age and those who do are predominately in the younger age groups - therefore the data here is skewed towards the younger demographic.

Further, the study was only able to determine gender for ~66% of the 36 million Twitter users because Gender information is not readily available on a Twitter user profile.

As 70% of twitter users also didn’t have their bio specified, to differentiate gender the survey guessed using account names, avatars and whatever else could be casually gleaned and, we all know that names and avatars are often used as a running gag and frequently don't reflect true gender.

When it comes to Kerr's fascination with colour, it should be pointed out that of those whose gender was either confirmed or guessed at,  22.1 per cent of female tweeters preferred the colour purple and 36.1 percent of males preferred a steel grey hue. However, calculations exclude the default twitter profile colors, so even these percentages are suspect.

Yes, world wide A twitter user on average has 208 followers, but as this survey apparently counts the 25% of Twitter users who have never tweeted all those zeros skew this average.

Additionally, as this was a commercial marketing potential survey, it did not create a category for tweets with political content, so Kerr can have no real idea of the average global profile of those tweeting about Gillard's speech.

So basically, Christian Kerr has decided on very little evidence that political tweets tend to be ferociously partisan (presumably excluding those from the many representatives of mainstream media found on this social platform) and are probably infected with girl germs. Which means that these can easily be dismissed if they don't agree with his assessment of any issue.

But what if Kerr was right to suggest that support for the Prime Minister was being driven by a Twitterverse dominated by women? Why does either the social platform or a tweeter's gender make this support any less legitimate? Ah, yes - it would be because the gender in question is female.

** You’re a little c***, but as someone who’s worked as either a pressie or political advisor for two federal cabinet ministers and a state premier, I’ve got to say that I firmly believe your site was crucial to Saturday’s outcome.
[Quote from a Hotmail allegedly sent by "Colonel Walter Kurtz"]

Cathy Stoner gets caught out and shut down

The Sunday Telegraph 14 October 2012

Unfortunately for Cathy Stoner, it is harder to eradicate tweets than she originally thought.

Here is an example of the last 401 still on record at http://topsy.com/twitter/cathystoner?nohidden=1&page=1 

and, at the time of writing her Twitter Pics were still online at http://www.twicsy.com/i/pzLCE. 

Although www.cathystoner.com/ is now hidden behind a blank pink screen.

cathystoner CathyStoner

@OakeyMP you have abused the trust of all who supported you +your constituents. You were put there for a reason. God will not be mocked.

4 days ago Reply Retweet Favorite 8

cathystoner CathyStoner

@elissa1987 isn't it disgraceful? They clearly think we are stupid.

4 days ago Reply Retweet Favorite

cathystoner CathyStoner

How does Michelle Obama, who is a member of Emily's list, say God Bless and mean it..

5 days ago Reply Retweet Favorite 2

Janelle Saffin MP urges late submissions to state inquiry into the adequacy of water storages in New South Wales

From A Clarence Valley Protest.

Letter to the Editor in The Daily Examiner 6 October 2012:

Not A Drop still holds water

I have noticed a growing number of correspondents expressing concern about the Clarence River, specifically about those who would dam it and divert our water inland or to Queensland.

I reiterate my rock solid commitment to 'Not A Drop', the slogan we all adopted from The Daily Examiner's highly successful 2007 campaign against such moves.

I simply will not allow it, and the Australian Government, as expressed many times through the Leader of the House Anthony Albanese in Federal Parliament, will not allow it.

I wanted to put this firm policy stance on the public record again, for the benefit of people among us who have moved to the Clarence Valley in recent times.

I am sure that these new residents will be surprised and shocked to hear that many vested interests have tried this on for years.

I have urged locals to make submissions to the NSW Legislative Council's Standing Committee on State Developments' current inquiry into the adequacy of water storages in New South Wales.

While the closing date for submissions was August 31, the inquiry is prepared to take late submissions for another six weeks. They can be emailed to statedevelopment@parliament.nsw.gov.au

The primary contact is Cathryn Cummins on 02 9230 3528. I understand the inquiry will hold further publics hearings in Wagga Wagga and Sydney in November and possibly more hearings early next year.

One thing I can be sure of is that there will be some of the regulars who want to raid our water supply - the mighty Clarence.

I call them the River Raiders; they seek every and all opportunity to lay claim to our river.

I thought it was a big worry when the NSW National Party's 2008 State Conference resolved to "support greater efforts to reduce the amount of eastern water lost to the ocean and campaign for more in-depth investigations into finding ways to turn this water inland." - Tweed Daily News, June 16, 2008.

I urge Clarence Valley residents to be watchful of anyone who would have designs on tampering with our most precious natural resource - water.

Janelle Saffin MP

Federal Member for Page

O'Farrell, Stoner, Cansdell, NSW DPP and Police set a dangerous precedent

The Daily Examiner 12 October 2012:

AN ASSOCIATE Professor of Law says the NSW Government's decision not to pursue charges against former Clarence MP Steve

Cansdell sets a dangerous precedent.

Associate Professor Sam Garkawe from the Southern Cross University School of Law said the outcome of the Cansdell case eroded the credibility of a statutory declaration as a legal document.

"I think it does set a very bad precedent and I would suspect the State and the Commonwealth will get their heads together to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again," he said.

"It seems as though he has got off on a technicality where he has wrongly signed a Commonwealth stat dec when he should have signed a NSW stat dec."

Assoc Prof Garkawe said without seeing all the evidence it was difficult to comment on specifics, but he believed Mr Cansdell had still committed an offence under Commonwealth law……

Sexism: a little context for the mainstream media **WARNING OFFENSIVE IMAGE**

Thousands of words have been generated since 9 October 2012 concerning the Australian Prime Minister's speech to the Leader of the Opposition's motion in the House of Representatives.

A surprising number of these involved the notion that the immediately positive reaction to this speech was because people had either seen it on the news or Youtube stripped of its context.

Some journalists have also openly sought to define this support as not representing the majority view of the general public or of women. Others have sought to denigrate social media platforms carrying expressions of support, on the grounds that women use them.

Leaving aside the fact that many people knew the immediate political context because they regularly tune into parliamentary television and radio broadcasts/podcasts, this assumption that the only legitimate context was the Opposition's move to dismiss The Speaker is a rather odd one.

Women in Australia have been living the present and historical context, that the publicly expressed attitudes and behaviour of the Leader of the Opposition and certain other parliamentarians represent, all their lives.

So for the benefit of the Canberra Press Gallery and assorted others........

Australian Bureau of Statistics:

Letters of Note blog:

Transcript (1963)

COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
MINUTE PAPER

THE DIRECTOR:

WOMEN TRADE COMMISSIONERS?

Even after some deliberation, it is difficult to find reasons to support the appointment of women Trade Commissioners.

In countries where publicity media is well developed, such as North America and England and where there are no other major drawbacks, such as the Islamic attitude towards women, a relatively young attractive woman could operate with some effectiveness, in a subordinate capacity. As she would probably be the only woman Assistant Trade Commissioner in the whole area, as other countries employ women in this capacity hardly at all, she could attract a measure of interest and publicity.

If we had an important trade in women’s clothing and accessories, a woman might promote this more effectively than a man.

Even conceding these points, such an appointee would not stay young and attractive for ever and later on could well become a problem.

It is much easier to find difficulties, some of which spring to mind are:-

(i) Women are not employed, except to an extremely minor degree, as career Trade Commissioners in any known service;

(ii) It is difficult to visualise them as Trade Commissioners, firstly because they could not mix nearly as freely with businessmen as men do. Most mens clubs, for instance, do not allow women members;

(iii) Relationships with businessmen would tend to be somewhat formal and guarded on both sides. This would make it more difficult for a woman to obtain information;

(iv) It is extremely doubtful if a woman could, year after year, under a variety of conditions, stand the fairly severe strains and stresses, mentally and physically, which are part of the life of a Trade Commissioner;

(v) A man normally has his household run efficiently by his wife, who also looks after much of the entertaining. A woman Trade Commissioner would have all this on top of her normal work;

(vi) If we engaged single graduates as trainees, most of them would probably marry within five years;

(vii) If we recruited from the business world, we would have a much smaller field from which to recruit, as the number of women executives in business is quite small;

(viii) A spinster lady can, and very often does, turn into something of a battleaxe with the passing years. A man usually mellows;

(ix) A woman would take the place of a man and preclude us from giving practical experience to one male officer. She could marry at any time and be lost to us. she could not be regarded as a long term investment in the same sense as we regard a man.

CONCLUSION

It would seem that the noes have it.

(Signed)

(A. R. Taysom)

13th March, 1963.

P.S. I have since ascertained the following, which, it would seem, only serves to support the foregoing views -

Mr. H. W. Woodruff, U.K. Trade Commissioner:

They have a few women Trade Commissioners but only in capital city posts, for they have found that women cannot operate where contact with businessmen is necessary.

The women are fairly senior people from the U.K. Departments and presumably handle trade policy work only.

Mr. N. Parkinson, External Affairs:

Since their recruitments of trainees are made under the Public Service Act, there is no way of precluding women from applying and in fact, many more applications are received from women than from men. Some are chosen and all appointments are made on the basis of the quality of their educational achievements. About one woman is appointed to every twelve men. This year one out of sixteen, last year one out of twelve and the previous year, none.

They have to be trained for 18 months before going to their first post. The average marries within five years.

It is a very expensive process, but External Affairs lack courage to slam the door because of parliamentary opinion, pressure groups and so on.

(Signed)

(A. R. Taysom)

Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, The Right Reverend Dr. Peter Hollingworth AC OBE (2002):

Describing the prolonged sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl by the Anglican priest in charge of her boarding hostel in the 1950s: "There is no suggestion of rape or anything like that, quite the contrary. My information is rather that it is the other way around."

ABS National Personal Safety Survey (2005):

17% (1,293,100) of women experienced sexual assault compared to 4.8% (362,400) of men

4.6% (353,700) of women experienced sexual threat compared to 0.9% (69,500) of men

Cardinal George Pell (2005):

But female priests? Out of the question. "As Christians, we follow what Christ did, and he didn't appoint any women as apostles, or what we now call priests. So that's the way it is."

Sheik Hilali (2006):

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside ... without cover, and the cats come to eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat's? The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab [the headdress worn by some Muslim women], no problem would have occurred."

 http://youtu.be/oHeDD9tnFw4 (2011)

News Ltd Cartoonist Larry Pickering's depiction of the Australian Prime Minister
found at Google Images (2012)

 Australian Government Equal Opportunity For Women In the Workplace Agency (2012):

The average 25 year old male will earn approximately $2.4 million over the next 40 years compared to $1.5 million for the average female. (AMP NATSEM 2009)
The gender pay gap is currently 17.5%.3 Despite small fluctuations over time, this figure remains virtually unchanged in almost 20 years; in fact, in 1994 the gap was smaller at 15.9%......
A study by NATSEM estimates ‘that 60% of the wage gap is due to either direct discrimination or other factors to do with being a woman.’ Another study that examined the gender pay gap among full-time managers in Australia found that between 70-90% of the gap could not be explained by personal and workforce factors such as employment experience, industry worked in and family situation. Rather, it suggests that as much as 70% of the gap is "simply due to … being female".

October 2012 lines from Twitter discussions on lived experience in Australia:

"You don't need an education but your brother does. All you're going to do is marry and have children."

Yeah, my uncle said this to me when I said I was going to go to uni...

& to my sister in the 80's.. A Respected Private Girls' School! She's a Judge in t UK Now

 yes this was said to lots of us girls of the sixties.

"You might notice that you'll be paid less than X for doing same job. He's a married man w children & you're single"

 I was told in the 80s by prospective employer I wouldn't want ft job as I had children.

Speaking of his son becoming a father: "I was so worried his first child would not be a boy."

And the friend who had 2 sons & said "At least I know I'm not firing blanks."

and the farms were left to the sons and never the daughters

When women on social media sent Julia Gillard's speech around the world, it was not because they didn't understand the political and societal context - it was that they understood it only too well.