Australia's "Art's" Community stands rock solid (rock spider ?) with "role model" Dennis Nona following child Rape conviction.

Dennis Nona: Indigenous artist hailed as role model despite convictions for raping 12-year-old girl

Exclusive : Janet Fife-Yeomans
The Daily Telegraph
September 18, 2015 12:00am

THE arts community has rallied behind a world-renowned indigenous artist who is challenging convictions for repeatedly raping a 12-year-old girl, claiming he was never told sex with a child was wrong.

Dennis Nona has already won one retrial over legal points after claiming the girl had sex with him while he was on a three-day drunken binge — without him knowing it.

Hailed as a “role model” for other Torres Strait artists, 42-year-old Nona has also blamed his abuse of the girl and her sister, 14, on the traditional practice of polygamy he grew up with on Badu Island.

The girl subsequently fell pregnant to him.

“I’m very supportive of him,” art historian and valuer Frances Cummings, who provided written character references to the court for Nona, said yesterday.

“He is a genius of an artist and the things he committed were when he was a very young man.”

Nona’s former arts manager, Michael Kershaw, told the ACT Supreme Court when Nona was sentenced in April that he was a “role model”.

“My role model reference was in the context of his art practice. He has always been very generous in helping other Torres Strait artists,” Mr Kershaw, who runs Australian Art Network, said yesterday.

Nona’s artwork sells for as much as $200,000 and in 2008 he won the $40,000 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award.

He has been refused bail pending his appeal against convictions in the ACT Supreme Court for raping the 12-year-old girl in Canberra in 1996 and sexually assaulting her sister.

He is also appealing his total jail sentence of nine years with a minimum term of four years six months.

Nona was doing a two-year art degree in Canberra when he assaulted the girls. Jailing him in April, ACT Chief Justice Helen Murrell said the 12-year-old had a late termination after discovering at 20 weeks 

that she was pregnant. A DNA analysis revealed Nona was the father, although Nona has since challenged the DNA evidence.

He returned to the Torres Strait and a warrant was taken out for his arrest. He was charged in 2008.

He lost a fight to stop the case on grounds of excessive delay but won a retrial on a number of points including the Appeal Court ruled the trial judge had not properly instructed the jury about his claims the girl had sex with him when he was drunk, which she denied. Support from the arts community has continued, even as the National Gallery of Australia has removed his artworks.

“He invented the visual language of his people,” art gallery owner Andrew Baker said yesterday.

                                           ---------------------------------------------

Australia's "Arts Community" and "Beautiful People" has a proud record of standing by its members accused of Paedophilia /Child Pornography,this story below from 2008 is a good example of their solidarity with each when one of their number is exposed and dragged before the courts.


Cate Blanchett backs photographer Bill Henson

Michelle Cazzulino and Neil Keene
The Daily Telegraph
May 28,2008

OSCAR-winning actress Cate Blanchett yesterday mounted an impassioned defence of Bill Henson, urging Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and NSW Premier Morris Iemma to reconsider their comments on the controversial artist's work.

The mother-of-three was among more than 40 signatories, including writer Peter Goldsworthy and economist Saul Eslake, to an open letter by the Creative Australia 2020 Summit representatives.

The missive was released just hours after a third NSW gallery removed a number of Henson's works from display.                        
                                                                Mr Bill Henson below, I am unable to post the photographs that are the subject of the Cate Blanchett open letter of support for Bill Henson,due to child pornography / Paedophilia laws.

Why I photograph children: Henson on video  

Police last week raided the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Paddington, closing down an exhibition of the artist's works just before it was due to open.

In depth: The Arts

On Friday, officers seized 20 of Henson's images, some featuring a naked girl, said to be aged just 13.

The artworks were criticised by a number of politicians, with Mr Rudd describing them as "revolting".

But the letter signed by Blanchett said the Prime Minister, along with Mr Iemma, should "rethink their public comments".

It also warned that pursuing criminal charges against Henson could harm the children depicted in the seized images.

"The potential prosecution of one of our most respected artists . . . does untold damage to our culture reputation," the letter said.

"We suggest that the. . . criminalisation of laying charges against Mr Henson, his gallery and the parents of the young people depicted in his work would be far more traumatic for the young people concerned than anything Mr Henson has done."

A spokesman for Mr Rudd last night said the Prime Minister did not resile from his remarks. "He was asked to express a personal opinion and he did that," the spokesman said.

Mr Iemma was also unrepentant: "My opinion is clear - these photographs crossed the line and they were inappropriate. I'm all for free speech but never at the expense of a child's safety and innocence."

NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione yesterday told The Daily Telegraph the force's legal division was still considering whether criminal charges should be laid against Henson or the owners of the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.

He said he found the images objectionable.

"I've got my own personal view and it's one that's not inconsistent with those police who have been out and taken those pictures into their possession," he said.

" . . . I support the police in what they've done."

In Victoria, Adrian Maiolla, the acting president of the Life Models Society, said he, too, had found Henson's images distasteful. His organisation did not allow models aged under 18 to become members and would not supply them to artists, he added.

At the Newcastle Regional Art Gallery, staff yesterday removed a giant print by Henson, featuring a naked and seemingly unconscious female being carried by two other naked subjects. Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, from Newcastle police, said the images were regarded as suspicious.

 TUESDAY, MAY 27, 2008
Open Letter of Support for Bill Henson
http://billhensonletterofsupport.blogspot.com.au/
PRESS RELEASE: MAY 27, 2008

Open Letter in support of Bill Henson
From Creative Australia 2020 Summit representatives

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

As members of the Creative Stream of the Australia 2020 Summit, we wish to express our dismay at the police raid on Bill Henson’s recent Sydney exhibition, the allegations that he is a child pornographer, and the subsequent reports that he and others may be charged with obscenity.

The potential prosecution of one of our most respected artists is no way to build a Creative Australia, and does untold damage to our cultural reputation.

The public debate prompted by the Henson exhibition is welcome and important. We need to discuss the ethics of art and the issues that it raises. That is one of the things art is for: it is valuable because it gives rise to such debate and difference, because it raises difficult, sometimes unanswerable, questions about who we are, as individuals and as members of society. However, this on-going discussion, which is crucial to the healthy functioning of our democracy, cannot take place in a court of law.

We invite the Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, and the NSW Premier, Mr Iemma, to rethink their public comments about Mr Henson’s work. We understand that they were made in the context of deep community concern about the sexual exploitation of children. We understand and respect also that they have every right to their personal opinions. However, as political leaders they are influential in forming public opinion, and we believe their words should be well considered.

We also call on the Minister for Environment Heritage and the Arts, Mr Garrett, to stand up for artists against a trend of encroaching censorship which has recently resulted in the closure of this and other exhibitions.

We wish to make absolutely clear that none of us endorses, in any way, the abuse of children.

Mr Henson’s work has nothing to do with child pornography and, according to the judgment of some of the most respected curators and critics in the world, it is certainly art. We ask for the following points to be fairly considered:

1. Mr Henson is a highly distinguished artist. His work is held in all major Australian collections including the Art Gallery of NSW, Art Gallery of SA, Art Gallery of WA, National Gallery of Victoria and the National Gallery of Australia.

Among international collections, his work is held in the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Denver Art Museum; the Houston Museum of Fine Art; 21C Museum, Louisville; the Montreal Museum of Fine Art; Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris; the DG Bank Collection in Frankfurt and the Sammlung Volpinum and the Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna.

Major retrospectives of Mr Henson’s work at the Art Galleries of NSW and Victoria attracted more than 115,000 people, and produced not one complaint of obscenity. His work has also been studied widely in schools for many years.

2. Mr Henson has been photographing young models for more than 15 years. Until now, there has been no suggestion by any of his subjects or their families of any abusive practices. On the contrary, his models have strongly defended his practice and the feeling of safety generated in his process, and have expressed pride in his work.

We suggest that the media sensationalism and the criminalisation of laying charges against Mr Henson, his gallery and the parents of the young people depicted in his work, would be far more traumatic for the young people concerned than anything Mr Henson has done.

3. The work itself is not pornographic, even though it includes depictions of naked human beings. It is more justly seen in a tradition of the nude in art that stretches back to the ancient Greeks, and which includes painters such as Caravaggio and Michelangelo. Many of Henson’s controversial images are not in fact sexual at all. Others depict the sexuality of young people, but in ways that are fundamentally different from how naked bodies are depicted in pornography. The intention of the art is not to titillate or to gratify perverse sexual desires, but rather to make the viewer consider the fragility, beauty, mystery and inviolabilty of the human body.

In contrast, the defining essence of pornography is that it endorses, condones or encourages abusive sexual practice. We respectfully suggest that Henson’s work, even when it is disturbing, does nothing of the sort. I would personally argue that, in its respect for the autonomy of its subjects, the work is a counter-argument to the exploitation and commodification of young people in both commercial media and in pornographic images.

Many of us have children of our own. The sexual abuse and exploitation of children fills us all with abhorrence. But it is equally damaging to deny the obvious fact that adolescents are sexual beings. This very denial contributes to abusive behaviour, because it is part of the denial of the personhood of the young. In my opinion, Mr Henson’s work shows the delicacy of the transition from childhood to adulthood, its troubledness and its beauty, in ways which do not violate the essential innocence of his subjects. It can be confronting, but that does not mean that it is pornography.

Legal opinion is that if charges were laid against Mr Henson, he would be unlikely to be found guilty. The seizure of the photographs, and the possible prosecution of Mr Henson, the Rosyln Oxley9 Gallery or the parents of Henson’s subjects, takes up valuable police and court time that would be much better spent pursuing those who actually do abuse children.

4. Perhaps the most distressing aspect of the trial-by-media to which Mr Henson and his work has been subject over the past few days, is how his art has been diminished and corrupted. The allegations that he is making child pornography have done more to promote his work to possible paedophiles than any art gallery, where the work is seen in its proper, contemplative context. It is notable that the attacks on Mr Henson’s work have, almost without exception, come from those who are unfamiliar with the photographs, or who have seen them in mutilated or reduced images on the internet.

If an example is made of Bill Henson, one of Australia’s most prominent artists, it is hard to believe that those who have sought to bring these charges will stop with him. Rather, this action will encourage a repressive climate of hysterical condemnation, backed by the threat of prosecution.

We are already seeing troubling signs in the pre-emptive self-censorship of some galleries. This is not the hallmark of an open democracy nor of a decent and civilised society. We should remember that an important index of social freedom, in earlier times or in repressive regimes elsewhere in the world, is how artists and art are treated by the state.

We urge our political leaders to follow the example of Neville Wran, when in 1982 a similar outcry greeted paintings by Juan Davila. At that time, Mr Wran said: “I do not believe that art has anything to do with the vice squad”. With Mr Wran, we believe the proper place for debate is outside the courts of law.

Alison Croggon
Writer


Signatories:

Louise Adler, CEO & Publisher-in-Chief, Melbourne University Publishing
Geoffery Atherden, Writer
Neil Armfield, Artistic director, Belvoir St Theatre
Stephen Armstrong, Executive Producer, Malthouse Theatre
James Baker, Tax advisor and accountant
Geraldine Barlow, Curator
Larissa Behrendt, Professor of Law, University of Technology Sydney
Cate Blanchett, Actor
Daryl Buckley, Musician
Leticia Cacares, Theatre Director
Karen Casey, Visual Artist
Kate Champion, Choreographer, Artistic Director Force Majeure
Rachel Dixon, New media developer
Phoebe Dunn, Chief Executive Officer, Australian Commercial Galleries Association
Jo Dyer, Executive Producer, Sydney Theatre Company
Kristy Edmunds, Artistic Director, Melbourne International Festival of the Arts
Saul Eslake, Economist
Richard Gill, Artistic Director, Victorian Opera
Peter Goldsworthy, Writer
Marieke Hardy, Writer and broadcaster
Sam Haren, Artistic Director, The Border Project
Frank Howarth
Cathy Hunt, Creative consultant
Nicholas Jose, Writer
Andrew Kay, Producer
Ana Kokkinos, Film maker
Sandra Levy
Matthew Lutton, Theatre director
Nick Marchand, Artistic Director, Griffin Theatre
Sue Maslin, Producer, Film Art Doco Pty Ltd
Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, Director, Museum of Contemporary Art
Callum Morton, Visual Artist
Rosemary Myers, Artistic Director, Windmill Performing Arts
Rachel Healy, Director Performing Arts, Sydney Opera House
Liza Lim, Composer
Jan Minchin, Director, Tolarno Galleries
Helen O’Neil, Executive producer
Charles Parkinson, Artistic Director, Tasmanian Theatre Company
David Pledger, Theatre director
Marion Potts, Theatre Director
Katrina Sedgwick, Festival Director, Adelaide Film Festival
David Throsby, Academic
Mary Vallentine, Arts manager

Additional signatories:

The following support the appeal contained in this letter without necessarily endorsing the detailed argument:

John Coetzee, Novelist
Anna Haebich, Writer
Ramona Koval, Writer and broadcaster
Julianne Schultz, Writer
Marcus Westbury, writer and broadcaster

Monday June 2: Those who would also like to sign this letter are invited to do so below. Please put your name, and location (but NOT your full private address) and position, if applicable. All comments on this page are moderated.

Turnbull and Co might just pay for their disgraceful lack of character

Why Tony Abbott was dumped.Lord Monckton and The Great American Bubble Machine

Malcolm Turnbull will fail if he can’t heal the Liberal Party

Andrew Bolt 
The Daily Telegraph
September 17, 2015 

PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s biggest problem isn’t Bill Shorten. No, knocking off that soiled Labor leader should be a cinch. Far more dangerous to Turnbull are the Liberals disgusted by the treachery and deceit that went into assassinating former leader Tony Abbott.

There is almost a revulsion among influential MPs, not just with Turnbull but his deputy, Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop. There is even anger with Scott Morrison, until now a hero of conservatives and about to become Turnbull’s treasurer.

For some this is now a moral question. They know they should be loyal to their party. They know Turnbull can beat Shorten. And they know their duty is to help Turnbull do that, given how unfit Shorten is to lead this country.

Yet Turnbull’s plotters make their skin crawl. I’ve talked to MPs, even moderates, who are sickened. Some wonder why they got into politics or even whether they should join a new party. That just adds venom to the anger that many conservative Liberals already feel for Turnbull — for a man of the Left they think has hijacked their party.

Let me give three examples of the scheming that makes it hard for Turnbull to expect much loyalty in return.

First, there was Julie Bishop’s disloyal silence. As deputy Liberal leader, Bishop had a duty to warn Abbott of threats to his leadership.

Yet on Channel 10’s The Project this week, she admitted she had heard of the planned challenge to Abbott — announced on Monday — “in the days beforehand”, although she later claimed “I had no idea of the timing until the day before”.

But Bishop did not warn Abbott of Turnbull’s plot until Monday. She’d been waiting to have the reports “confirmed by others”, she said.

Oh, really?

To add to the suspicion, when Abbott rang Bishop’s mobile last Saturday to discuss rumours of this challenge, Bishop did not answer and took a full day to ring back. No wonder, perhaps. Bishop had spent that Saturday at a Sydney charity event where she’d met Turnbull.

That’s been too much for Liberal Premier Colin Barnett, of Bishop’s home state of Western Australia. He accused her of “duplicity”, adding: “And there’s probably been some disloyalty.”

Second, there was Scott Morrison’s refusal to help Abbott defeat Turnbull. Morrison, the Liberal who stopped the boats, was emerging as Abbott’s natural successor and the star of the Liberals’ conservative wing. On Monday morning, just hours before Turnbull sprang his trap, Morrison insisted on 2GB he had “no idea” of any possible challenge. He said he was an Abbott supporter, so “if they were (plotting) they would not be talking to me”.

Interesting to hear Morrison talking to Hadley the morning of the coup he maintains total ignorance of. Tomorrow he will again appear on the Hadley show It will be an interesting show to say the least.

Yet later that day Morrison refused Abbott’s offer to be deputy Liberal leader on a joint ticket with Abbott against Turnbull and Bishop.

He was also effectively refusing to be Abbott’s new treasurer, since the deputy has their pick of portfolios.

True, Abbott was even then still foolishly reluctant to sack his existing Treasurer, the embattled Joe Hockey.

His offer really meant it was up to Morrison to sack Hockey and run against Bishop. But had Morrison said yes to Abbott’s offer, he and his five supporters would have helped to defeat Turnbull and would have encouraged other Liberal waverers to join them. A yes would also have meant that Morrison, a Pentecostal Christian conservative opposed to gay marriage, would have saved a fellow conservative from a Leftist and gay-marriage crusader

Yet Morrison chose not to fight for Abbott or for his beliefs. While privately telling Liberals and some journalists he remained an Abbott supporter, he gave no press conference to defend him and his coterie of MPs voted for Turnbull.

True, Morrison figured Abbott had poor judgment and was not a long-term bet. He also didn’t want to be in a contest with Bishop or in Abbott’s fight with Turnbull and will still get his reward — Hockey’s job as Treasurer. But where was the fighting for principle?

And then there was the sabotage.

Abbott, at his farewell press conference, denounced the “white-anting” by Liberal MPs, the “self-serving claims” peddled to journalists by his anonymous critics to do the work of “the assassin’s knife”.

It is too easily forgotten that Abbott by May had largely recovered in the polls, even drawing level with Labor in one. Journalists had started to question Shorten’s leadership instead. But Abbott’s recovery was then blown up. He was rocked by another burst of leaks, destabilisation and distractions by his own side that continued right up until Monday.

For instance, friendly journalists were told Bishop had warned Abbott to sack Hockey and that she’d told colleagues that Labor seemed to be running dead in next Saturday’s Canning by-election (allegedly to ensure the unpopular Abbott stayed prime minister until next year’s election). Abbott’s poll figures collapsed. They’d got him.

But, sure, no change of leaders is painless. And Turnbull’s plotters are right: they have given the Liberals a leader more popular than the man he replaced. By making the Liberals more electable, they may have done the party a big favour. And isn’t their higher loyalty to the party, not to Abbott, whose mistakes caused more damage than anything done by the plotters?

Yet many Liberal voters seem red-hot with anger. On Monday, more than 1000 sent me angry emails and messages, almost all abusing Turnbull and most saying they could never vote for the Liberals again if he led them. Callers to conservative talk shows are also spitting chips.

Conservatives were always going to be furious about having their party stolen by the Left. But many are now appalled by the treachery as well.

Alternative Conservative Party for disaffected Liberal Voters with the final say going to Stephanie Legendary Conservative 2GB caller

So this is now Turnbull’s great challenge. It will take all his charm and persuasiveness to heal a division that could wreck his campaign and even split his party.

He has already had one expensive reminder that many government MPs simply do not trust his word or his instincts. Take the Nationals, whose 15 House of Representatives MPs are needed by the Liberals to form government.

The Nationals on Tuesday arced up at Turnbull’s election as Liberal leader. They refused to back any government led by him until he’d signed a deal with them.

They know Turnbull is a warming alarmist and a bit carried away by his own brilliance. So they made Turnbull not only promise to spend $2 billion more on the Nationals’ pet schemes, but to guarantee he would not change Abbott’s policies on gay marriage and global warming.

Oh, and he had to give Nationals deputy leader Barnaby Joyce control over water policy.

That’s why Abbott took so long on Tuesday to formally resign. He had to wait for Turnbull to sign the Nationals’ deal. Until then, Turnbull couldn’t guarantee he had support in Parliament to form government.

That is just one sign of the tensions that threatens Turnbull most. So forget Shorten. He won’t much bother Turnbull.

No, Turnbull’s first big campaign must be not to destroy Labor but to heal the Liberals he now leads.

Muslim "refugees" insurgents calling for ban on Oktoberfest Beer Festival because it is iffensive to Muslims.

Via BareNakedIslam

Dear City council of Munich,
I am writing this letter to bring to your attention something that I and many Muslims believe is unfair and requires attention. I would like to inform you that the Oktoberfest is an Intolerant and Anti-Islamic event. We tried to ignore the event, but there too many Un-Islamic acts done at the Oktoberfest. Such as alcohol consumption, public nudity etc.

We understand that the Oktoberfest is a yearly German tradition, but we, Muslims, can not tolerate this Un-Islamic event, because it offends us and all Muslims on the earth. We are requesting the immediate cancellation of the upcoming Oktoberfest event.

We also believe that the Oktoberfest might also offend all the Muslim refugees coming from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan. The cancellation of the Oktoberfest event will help refugees not to forget their Islamic history. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,
Morad Almuradi

https://www.change.org/p/city-of-munich-ban-the-intolerant-and-anti-islamic-event-of-oktoberfest

Malcolm Turnbull donates $25,000 to the Australian Labor Party.

Turnbull donated $25,000 to Labor

EXCLUSIVE Taylor Auerbach
The Daily Telegraph
September 17, 2015

AUSTRALIA’S newest Liberal Prime Minister was ­responsible for a series of hefty donations to the ALP totalling at least $25,000 about 15 years ago.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal Malcolm Turnbull, who was sworn in to the prime ministership on Tuesday ploughed the cash into ALP coffers through his company Wilcrow Pty Ltd.

Australian Electoral Commission records show that in the financial year 1998-99, Wilcrow gave $15,000 to the ALP and a further $10,000 in the year 1999-00.

The latter donation went to the Victorian branch of the federal Labor Party, the faction from which Turnbull’s current political adversary Bill Shorten hailed.

At the time of the donation, Shorten was the Australian Workers’ Union Victorian state secretary.

Mr Turnbull and his wife Lucy have been directors of Wilcrow since 1989. Records show they were sole directors at the time of the donations.

During the late 1990s Turnbull campaigned for Australia to become a republic.

“The donations were made during Mr Turnbull’s time as chairman of the ARM and ­director of Goldman Sachs Australia,” a spokesman for the Prime Minister said.

Turnbull's Muslim Cheer squad seeks dialogue with their man in Canberra.

Newly Elected Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's Muslim Cheer Squad seeking "dialogue" 

"Mr Trad told AAP on Tuesday that he had been contacted by many Muslims "expressing a sense of relief" that Mr Abbott's departure means Australia has a chance of "moving forward and moving away from the politics of blame".

"....... that while the ICV welcomed Mr Turnbull's elevation to the prime-ministership as a "fresh beginning", the litmus test for the new Liberal leader would be how he responds to racism and Islamophobia in Australia."

How long before these ISIS Friendly insurgents are once again back in business with their illegal immigration VOTE People business ?

Muslim leaders seek dialogue with Turnbull

9news.com.au
September 16, 2015



Muslim leaders will seek a dialogue with Malcolm Turnbull that promotes social inclusion and counters what they say has been a rise in Islamophobia under Tony Abbott's leadership.

The Islamic Council of Victoria says Australia's Muslim community experienced an "unprecedented" amount of undue attention during the two years of the Abbott government, and had been the target of racially motivated demonstrations resulting in a backlash against everyday Australian Muslims.

"We hope to have a genuine and sincere dialogue with Mr Turnbull, a dialogue that will promote social inclusion," ICV spokesman Kuranda Seyit said on Wednesday.

He said that while the ICV welcomed Mr Turnbull's elevation to the prime-ministership as a "fresh beginning", the litmus test for the new Liberal leader would be how he responds to racism and Islamophobia in Australia.

"We anticipate that he will strongly condemn the racist activities and send a message to Australia that bigotry has no place in our society," Mr Seyit said.

Keysar Trad, spokesman for the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, will write to Mr Turnbull to congratulate him, but to also seek a dialogue.

Mr Trad told AAP that Muslim Australians have felt under attack, and that emerging divisions in Australian society had seemingly been nurtured in the last few months of the Abbott government.

Islam's Man of a Million Comments 

Mr Abbott had often been criticised by Muslim leaders over comments directed at Islam.

In his landmark national security address in February, Mr Abbott suggested the Muslim community wasn't doing enough to combat the spread of Islamic extremism.

"I've often heard Western leaders describe Islam as a religion of peace," Mr Abbott said at the time.

"I wish more Muslim leaders would say that more often and mean it."
Mr Trad told AAP on Tuesday that he had been contacted by many Muslims "expressing a sense of relief" that Mr Abbott's departure means Australia has a chance of "moving forward and moving away from the politics of blame".


Mr Trads Daughter Hala might have Mr Turnbull's ear.

There are times you need to fight

The Daily Telegraph
January 18,2014
Pg.38

Hala Trad is a 23-year-old philosophy student from Yagoona. She was born in Australia to

Lebanese parents. Her father Keysar fled his homeland in 1976 as a refugee and her mother arrived here in 1986. Here she tells TAYLOR AUERBACH why she sympathises with Australian Muslims who feel compelled to join the war in Syria.

IS Islam against fighting? I don’t know how to answer that question.
It’s not completely against war because war happens. Suicide is completely Haram (against Islam) but war isn’t.
Sometimes you’re in a position where you need to fight. I definitely sympathise with the frustrations of Muslims in Australia who feel like they have to go over to Syria.
I know some people who I believe went over there to fight. People say things. By the way they talk, it seems like they went over for the cause.
The situation in Syria is very hard to hear about, especially from Australia where we can’t do anything. I get goose bumps just thinking about it. So many people are being oppressed by this regime and being displaced.
I’m not qualified to go over, I don’t have the resources. But I can understand how people would do anything to help the people the government regime is oppressing.

It’s hard to tell people not to go over and fight because Islamic people get very heated up by the situation. They feel helpless. It’s not close geographically, but it’s so close to home. One thing that Islam teaches is that we have to help our Muslim brothers and sisters.
This tyrannical regime is oppressing their brothers and sisters and it’s incredibly frustrating.
They feel helpless from here. Could they die as martyrs? It really depends on their motivations for going over there and the situation they were in when they got harmed.


Personally, I’m a philosopher. I think there are other ways to help. Any sort of humanitarian aid that I can do, I do.”

Young girl told to imagine she was a princess during ‘genital mutilation’

Female genital mutilation: Young girl told to imagine she was a princess during ‘genital mutilation’

Sarah Crawford
The Daily Telegraph
September 16, 2015 

A GIRL who was allegedly the victim of female genital mutilation told authorities she was told to close her eyes and imagine she was a princess in a garden when she was allegedly cut.

“She told me to think of that so I didn’t feel as much but I did feel it a little bit ... it hurt,” the girl, aged 8, said in a recorded interview with a police officer and a social worker at her primary school.

The interview, recorded on August 29, 2012, was played to a jury today at the first trial for female genital mutilation in NSW.

On trial are the girls’ mother, 38, along with a retired midwife, 71, and a high-ranking Sheik from the Shia Islamic sect Dawoodi Bohra.

The mother and the midwife, known only as A2 and KM to protect the identities of the girls, have pleaded not guilty to two counts of female genital mutilation which carries a maximum penalty of 21 years.

The religious leader, Sheik Shabbir Mohammedbhai Vaziri, 59, has pleaded not guilty to being an accessory after the fact to female genital mutilation.

In the interview, the social worker asked the girl, known as C1, if she knew about the Dawoodi Bohra procedure of khatna where a girls private parts are cut.

“Yes,” she said. “It is because it has happened to me.”

C1 went on to describe how khatna was performed on her when she was seven by an unknown woman in a Wollongong house while her mother, grandmother and her great aunt stood by.

She told the social worker and a police officer that in her culture, “it has to happen to every girl, it has to be at seven, I think it has to be.”

C1 said she next met the woman when the same procedure was carried out on her six-year-old sister at their family home in Sydney during the school holidays in 2012.

The Crown alleges the mother arranged for the midwife to carry out the procedures on her daughters which is believed to have taken place in October 2009 and July 2012.

In his opening to the jury, barrister for KM Stuart Bouveng told the jury that she only touched the girls with forceps for a few seconds during the procedure.

He said a medical examination of the girls at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead showed there was “no evidence of scarring,” and the genital tissue looked “normal.”

The Crown alleged that when police began investigating the practice of female genital mutilation among the Dawoodi Bohra Sheik Vaziri told people to tell say they do not believe in the practice.

The Dawoodi Bohra are a Shia Islamic sect with about a million followers worldwide who mostly live in western India and Pakistan.

C1 and her sister C2, now aged 11 and nine, will give evidence on Wednesday.

New PM Malcolm Turnbull is the ultimate insiders’ politician, A coup for the chattering classes.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

A coup for the chattering classes

Miranda Devine 
The Daily Telegraph
September 16 2015

New PM Malcolm Turnbull is the ultimate insiders’ politician, a man with an ego so health

The insiders have installed one of their own in Malcolm Turnbull. They never accepted Tony Abbott, with his religious faith, his monarchist beliefs, his humility, his kindness, his old-fashioned notions of duty, honour and loyalty.

You could see it every week on the ABC’s Q&A, the smug TV program that best captures their privileged leftist views. And on Monday night, when news of Abbott’s decapitation was announced, the audience erupted with rapturous applause.

The inner city elites, increasingly preoccupied with symbolic issues, and out of touch with the unfashionable suburbs, never felt Abbott legitimately was Prime Minister. He embarrassed them. He didn’t play their game.

On the totemic issues that bookmarked his leadership of the Liberal Party — on climate change and same sex marriage — he was starkly at odds with them. They saw him as representing an Australia they revile, full of unsophisticated, parochial, materialistic, misogynistic redneck bigots.


His mistake was generously trying to appease the chattering classes with symbolic gesture and big-hearted compromise. But they just reviled his efforts as a sign of weakness, and were emboldened for the eventual kill.

For the leftists who dominate the media, academia, legal circles, who inhabit the Canberra bubble, and the stylish inner circle of Wentworth, Turnbull was more to their taste. He subscribes to all the symbolic “progressive” causes dear to their hearts: climate alarmism, “marriage equality”, a republic.

They don’t wince when he opens his mouth. They can imagine themselves being invited to dinner parties at his Point Piper mansion overlooking the glittering harbour. They anticipate with pride his bustling self assurance on the global stage, whether in New York addressing a UN conference or swanning around a climate change conference in Paris, talking up technocratic solutions to theoretical problems.

Maybe he’s right, and his optimism and self belief are what’s needed to boost economic confidence. Having a competent cut-through Treasurer in Scott Morrison will be his best asset, and one which Abbott denied himself.

But whether Turnbull’s commitment to what he and John Howard both yesterday repeatedly described as “the broad church” of the Liberal Party, encompassing its conservative and “small L liberal” traditions, stretches to subsuming his ego for the good of internal harmony, will determine his success.

Morrison, the future Treasurer, will be crucial to keeping Turnbull’s instincts in check, keeping the conservatives in the party room onside and the Coalition electorally viable.

But nothing will stop the high hopes of the new Greens Leader Richard Di Natale, who sees in Turnbull a fellow traveller on climate and progressive social issues.

Milling around on the lawn in front of Parliament House where the TV networks had set up shop yesterday, Di Natale, in Tommy Hilfiger spectacles, declared himself ready and eager to do business with Turnbull.

Parliament’s youngest MP, Wyatt Roy, who gave up on Abbott in February, at the time of the spill that wasn’t, was equally enthusiastic, declaring Turnbull to be a post-partisan leader in the mode of John Key, David Cameron and Mike Baird.

Turnbull promises so much to idealists, not least the mirage of politics without partisanship, of a frictionless integration of the “broad church”, a bloodless union of left and right. He is the ultimate insiders’ politician, a man with an ego so healthy that in his victory speech he had to say twice how “humbled” he was.

By contrast, Tony Abbott was self effacing to the end. Watching his final speech as Prime Minister yesterday afternoon in the blustery courtyard outside his office, admirers could only lament what might have been.

“There will be no wrecking, no undermining, and no sniping. I’ve never leaked or backgrounded against anyone,” he said, before grimly itemising the mostly unheralded achievements of his abbreviated reign.

“300,000 more people are in jobs. Labor’s bad taxes are gone. We’ve signed Free Trade Agreements with our largest trading partners … The biggest infrastructure program in our country’s history … A spotlight is being shone into the dark and corrupt corners of the union movement … We’ve responded to the threats of terror … The boats have stopped and … we’ve been better able to display our compassion to refugees. And … we’ve made $50 billion of repairs to the Budget.”

He admitted his was not a perfect government.

“We have been a government of men and women, not a government of Gods walking upon the earth. Few of us, after all, entirely measure up to expectations.

“The nature of politics has changed in the past decade. We have more polls and more commentary than ever before. Mostly sour, bitter, character assassination.

“Poll driven panic has produced a revolving door Prime Ministership which can’t be good for our country. And a febrile media culture has developed that rewards treachery.”

It was a searing speech, but ultimately gracious. For those listening in the courtyard, however, it was almost impossible to hear, thanks to a media helicopter hovering noisily overhead. It was a fitting metaphor for a Prime Minister whose fine words and worthy achievements were so often ignored and derided by the chatterati. History will be kinder.

Former Australian PM Tony Abbott final statement to media as Australian PM.

Abbott's achievements are the reasons he was removed from office by the LEFT of his own party.
His replacement and his co conspirators are low life disgrace.

Why Tony Abbott was dumped.

Un electable Malcolm Turnbull steals Prime Ministership from elected PM Tony Abbott

Malcolm Turnbull stole the prime ministership he could not have won


Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun
September 15, 2015.

MALCOLM Turnbull has replaced Tony Abbott as Prime Minister because the Liberals let his bull weaken their nerve and bury their judgment.

Here’s Turnbull’s challenge in a nutshell: he stole the prime ministership he could not have won in an election.

He stole it by boasting of superior communication skills he does not have.

He will now campaign on successes by Abbott he could not have achieved himself.

And he will now be the leader of a party he cannot unite.

What have the Liberals done? Many of their members will be distraught and disgusted.

Whether Turnbull wins the next election or loses, conservative Liberals will feel they have lost already, now that a man of such “progressive” views has snatched the leadership of their party.

Eleven things you should know about Malcolm Turnbull

They may as well vote Labor next time, because only if Labor wins could they again have a party for conservatives.

Sure, Turnbull has one big advantage over Abbott.

The media and the Twittersphere have been absolutely feral in savaging Abbott, a man awkward in his own defence, but have been kind to Turnbull.

But the media always favours Labor in any contest, and what the media gives Turnbull today it could withdraw tomorrow.

True, Turnbull also has a gravitas that Abbott does not, and is undeniably clever.

Yet everything about his challenge rang false, including the timing — just four days before a by-election in the Perth seat of Canning.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MALCOLM TURNBULL

And that timing says it all about Turnbull. He put his own interests above his party’s, sabotaging not just the Government with his leaks and digs, but now also sabotaging a by-election campaign by a great Liberal candidate, former SAS captain Andrew Hastie.

The latest two polls show Canning would have been won comfortably by the Liberals, despite weeks of destabilising leaks by supporters of Turnbull and his partner in assassination, Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop.

I suspect that is why Turnbull called the challenge, in case the Canning result was good and his case for immediate change wrecked.

So let’s analyse Turnbull’s laughable claims on Monday to be the man to take over the Government.

At his press conference, he claimed Abbott had “not been successful in providing the economic leadership our nation needs”.

Really? Under Abbott there was no mad Labor-style Budget blowout or pink batts disaster. His failings have not been in administering but in selling; not in doing, but in seeming.

True, the Senate, thanks to Labor and the Greens, has blocked the deeper Budget cuts we need, but would Turnbull have any more success in cutting handouts?

No, Abbott’s economic record is as good as could be hoped, given the Senate and a media determined to see every cut as cruel.

The truth is that Turnbull singled out only one Abbott economic measure: Abbott’s free trade deal with China — but not to condemn it.

It was the opposite: Turnbull signalled it would be his main weapon against Labor, just as Abbott himself had intended.

Turnbull claimed that if Abbott had stayed, Bill Shorten would have won the next election, and he was “utterly unfit to be prime minister” because of his “catastrophically reckless” opposition to Abbott’s China deal.

Pardon? That was Abbott’s deal and Abbott’s plan of attack, yet Turnbull now announces it’s his big weapon for showing the economic leadership Abbott never did?

Give me a break.

No, Turnbull’s pitch lay in one thing only — his claim to be a better communicator than Abbott.

Turnbull repeated all the Labor lines against Abbott.

“We need a different style of leadership,” he said, one which “explains those (economic) changes ... and the course of action we should take” and “respects the people’s intelligence”.

In short, “we need advocacy, not slogans”.

And Turnbull, we’re invited to believe, is just the man to give us an impressive lecture about the economy, not a slogan.

But wait. Wasn’t this exactly what crippled Turnbull when he was Opposition Leader? Remember him then, wanting to explain in 15 minutes what the TV news needed condensed into 15 seconds?

So where is the evidence that Turnbull really is a better communicator? That wasn’t his record as Opposition Leader and it hasn’t been his record as Communications Minister.

What has he said that makes you understand what he’s doing with the National Broadband Network? What glove has he landed on anyone, other than Abbott?

But if Turnbull is no great communicator, is he a cannier political strategist? The answer again is no.

Check his record. Turnbull as Opposition Leader backed Labor’s emissions trading scheme, the issue that split his party and cost him his job.

Abbott took over and turned Labor’s carbon tax into a deadly political weapon, first against Kevin Rudd and then Julia Gillard..

Labor is still promising a form of carbon tax — the one Turnbull once supported in principle and has never disavowed.

For Abbott this would have been a great weapon again in the next election. Under Turnbull it will become an embarrassment at best and potentially another party-splitter.

Abbott had also neatly defused the same-sex marriage debate that could also have split his party, letting the people decide the issue in a vote after the election — a compromise backed by the public but which Turnbull, a gay marriage crusader, again opposed.

And would Turnbull, a darling of the Left, ever have the uncompromising determination that saw Abbott deliver on his “stop the boats” slogan — another election winner? Would he have given lectures instead?

So count them. Turnbull called it wrong on global warming. He called it wrong on a public vote on same-sex marriage. He lacks the clarity of Abbott’s “stop the boats” message.

So what else has he got? Oh, yes, he promised he would be more consultative than Abbott, but that, too, was not his record as leader, and it is still curiously difficult to tell him a fact that does not fit his theories.

That leaves Turnbull boasting of just one thing: his smooth tongue, and (unsaid) a friendlier media.

He’d better start talking fast.