Julie Bishop Abbott ASSASSIN spending Taxpayers money like a good Labor politician.

Julie Bishop took 70 foreign diplomats on a two-day tour of WA, costing taxpayers $150,000

EXCLUSIVE Simon Benson
National Political Editor
The Daily Telegraph
February 15 2016

TAXPAYERS were charged $2000 an hour for “Celebrity Minister” Julie Bishop to take 70 foreign diplomats on a two-day sightseeing tour of her home state of Western Australia.

Ms Bishop, who is also Foreign Minister, took an entourage of 12 staff with her on the 2014 trip, which cost taxpayers almost $150,000.

The opposition has labelled the trip an “appalling waste of money”, claiming it was an ­indulgence that included a $10,000 dinner, a tour of the Sandalford Estate winery in the Swan Valley and a breakfast by the beach for the Canberra diplomatic corps, which included representatives of some of the wealthiest countries in the world.

There was also a charter flight for almost 100 people to the Pilbara at a cost of $57,000. There they toured the iron ore operations of BHP and Rio Tinto — the two richest mining companies in the world.

The bill would have been significantly higher had the diplomats not paid for their own airfares to Perth and their accommodation while there.

Ms Bishop, who is becoming increasingly known for her red carpet appearances and glamorous lifestyle, compared the cost of the trip to one Kevin Rudd made in 2011 to Queensland.

“Diplomatic corps visits are a longstanding practice supported by both sides of government dating back to 2000,” Ms Bishop told a Senate estimates hearing last week.

“The total cost incurred by the Australian government for the diplomatic corps visit to Western Australia was $145,200, or $2016.67 including GST per head of mission.

“This is comparable to the 2011 diplomatic corps visit to Queensland hosted by former foreign minister Kevin Rudd which cost $1978.77 including GST per head of mission when adjusted for inflation.”

The opposition has described Ms Bishop’s response as offensive because Mr Rudd’s trip — on which he took 100 foreign ambassadors and high commissioners — was part of the crisis recovery expedition in the wake of Cyclone Yasi.

“It is incredibly offensive for Ms Bishop to compare her sightseeing tour of WA to Mr Rudd escorting diplomats to Queensland in 2011 to demonstrate the state’s recovery after Cyclone Yasi,” Labor’s Wastewatch committee spokesman Pat Conroy said.

“This is a pathetic attempt to excuse the waste and misuse of taxpayers’ money. Last year Julie Bishop spent $125,000 on a tour of South Australia, and on that occasion she took nine staff and a few state Liberal MPs along with her.


“We also caught her taking three staffers along to a $350-a-head dinner, clearly more than are necessary.

“When the taxpayer is footing the bill for these functions, you’ve got to consider whether every expense is necessary.”

Stop Turnbull : A timid Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull hits reset button

A timid Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull hits reset button

Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun
February 14, 2016 

IT’S been a terrible false start for Malcolm Turnbull, and an even worse one for the country.

Last September, the new Prime Minister offered us a fresh dawn when he picked his team of ministers.

“Today, I’m announcing a 21st century government and a ministry for the future,” he beamed. But it turns out his future didn’t last even five months.

On Saturday, Turnbull — oops — had to announce a very different ministry, now missing six of the people he’d boasted last year was his “ministry for the future”.

Gone were deputy prime minister Warren Truss and Trade Minister Andrew Robb, both retiring. Dumped were four other ministers — Mal Brough, Jamie Briggs and Stuart Robert, all torched by scandals, and Luke Hartsuyker, nobbled by his fellow Nationals.

Turnbull can’t be blamed for all these losses, although it was all his own dumb work to make Brough a minister in the first place as a reward for plotting against Tony Abbott.

What was he thinking? Brough was already up to his neck in the leaking of private information of former Speaker Peter Slipper, a matter now being investigated by police.

And did he really have to reward Robert, another plotter, with a ministry, too, and then hang on to him for too long?

Turnbull didn’t take long to realise he’d stuffed up with his picks. Good sources say that in December, he rang Bruce Billson and told him he’d made a mistake in dumping him as Small Business Minister, a portfolio Turnbull had given instead to yet another of his allies, Kelly O’Dwyer.

But Billson refused Turnbull’s request to come back. He’s been burned, and is quitting Parliament.

True, many of the people promoted in the second Turnbull ministry on Saturday are very good.

The best are supporters of Tony Abbott wrongly overlooked by Turnbull last September — Victorians Dan Tehan and Alan Tudge. Add also Angus Taylor, a former Rhodes scholar, said by some to be a prime minister of the future.

Better still, Barnaby Joyce is the new Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister, replacing Truss. Very few politicians have as much cut-through in the media, and few will have more power to drag Turnbull from his souring flirtation with the media Left.

So Turnbull can rightly argue his new ministry may have lost experience, but it hasn’t lost much talent. Yet one critical thing it has lost is time.

Turnbull must virtually start all over again, but not just with a new team.

Now, with just three months to go before his first Budget and only eight or so until the election, he must find a new economic plan.

Again, he’s had an awful false start. Five months ago, Turnbull announced not just his “ministry for the future” but his big promise.

Abbott, as prime minister, had “not been capable in providing the economic leadership our nation needs”, he thundered.

Turnbull would be different: “We need a style of leadership that explains those challenges ... and sets out the course of action we believe we should take and makes a case for it.

“We need advocacy, not slogans.”

But Turnbull has failed. He’s offered no “economic leadership”, no “course of action” and no “advocacy”.

What’s his “course of action” on tax cuts? On superannuation tax breaks? On a capital gains crackdown? On winding back negative gearing? On workplace reform? On spending cuts?

No one knows.

For months, Turnbull did toy with raising the GST to 15 per cent to raise money for big tax cuts, but didn’t offer a word of advocacy for this (pointless) switcheroo, meant to be the centrepiece of his economic strategy.

Once again, he seemed too scared of risking his popularity to fight for anything that mattered to him — or should. He, instead, pushed out Treasurer Scott Morrison to make the case to premiers and business leaders. But last week, Turnbull cut Morrison off at the knees.

He’d got too frightened by Labor’s scare campaign against a GST hike and had Industry Minister Chris Pyne casually let drop that it “is not going to be introduced”.

Ouch. Premiers who backed a GST rise are furious to have wasted their time and credibility. South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill whacked Turnbull: “It’s the opposite of taking responsibility and demonstrating the leadership that he promised.”

Nor will the ambitious Morrison like being made to look weak, and he’ll be even angrier now Turnbull has sacked Stuart Robert, a key Morrison ally.

Morrison had argued publicly that the accusations against Robert — of doing a business favour for a mate on a trip to China — were just a “shocking beat-up”.

He has now learned the hard way that it takes a strong, clear and loyal Prime Minister to make a minister look good.

Morrison became a star as immigration minister when Abbott told him plainly to stop the boats, and backed him completely when he did.

But he now looks a struggler because Turnbull told him vaguely to maybe raise the GST and then dropped him when he tried.

The big picture for voters is this: the Government has lost five months while Turnbull fossicks for the economic plan he promised last year.

Sure, our economy is still growing, but so is our debt.

Sure, unemployment is falling, but so are prices for our exports.

Every month lost in fixing the Budget is a month more of rising debt, and one month less to protect us from future shocks, such as China tanking.

But Turnbull has lost not only time. Critically, he has lost momentum.

It was always clear the Government shouldn’t raise taxes but should cut spending, and voters had to be coached to take the pain.

Even our greatest Labor treasurer, Paul Keating, this month said the world had slashed our export earnings, and Turnbull had to “trim our spending and not accommodate more of it by ever more taxation”.

Our greatest Liberal treasurer, Peter Costello, agreed. “Tax changes will not solve the Budget problem,” he warned, and spending must be cut.

Abbott, as prime minister, knew this.

You might hate him for breaking promises and mock him for his heavy-handed attempts to cut government programs, but credit him with having the guts to try to fix the spending binge that’s driving us broke.

But here is the problem: Turnbull’s supporters egged on Abbott’s media critics and undermined his message, crippling his efforts to persuade feral senators to pass his savings.

Now that he’s taken over as Prime Minister, Turnbull has all but dropped that grim talk of spending cuts and is hunting for easy tax hits instead — possibly on superannuation and negative gearing, which the Greens would help get passed.

Gone is Abbott’s depressing talk of “Budget emergencies”, as Turnbull has sold sunshine instead.

So how can Turnbull now switch back to Abbott’s argument of our cupboard being bare and our belts needing tightening?

He’ll look like he’s spent the last five months faffing around when there was hard work to be done.

And that, I’m afraid, is the truth.

Originally published as A timid Turnbull hits reset button

Ideas? Innovation? We’re only getting inaction

Tim Blair
The Daily Telegraph
February 15 2016

LABOR leader Bill Shorten promised us a “year of ideas”. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull declared “the Australia of the future has to be a nation­ that is agile, that is innovative, that is creative. We cannot be defensive”.

Then nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.

Shorten delivered no ideas at all and Turnbull has been locked for five months in an agile, innovative and creative strategy of total defensiveness. Both men are paralysed with concern over the election, so are now engaged in a war of complete inertia.

It’s like a chess championship in a narcolepsy ward. Or, even worse, any soccer match played anywhere, between any teams, at any time. “What’s happened? What has he actually done?” Shorten asked last week about his motionless­ opponent­, who could well have asked the same about Shorten.

These two are demonstrating all the dynamism and energy of ABC staffers at 4.55pm on a long-weekend Friday.

Now, this is not entirely a bad thing. There are a lot of situations that could become a great deal more unpleasant through the involvement of either Shorten or Turnbull. For example, the Prime Minister could decide to waste more of our time and money on another doomed republican bender. And Shorten could try to drive somewhere.

It’s just that Australia has some serious problems — with increasing numbers of zeros — that can only be resolved through political action. Sooner or later, Shorten and Turnbull need to present their ideas for spending cuts.

Spending cuts! These words strike fear into the marrow of both the PM and his rival. It’s a measure of just how frightened they are even to mention spending cuts that Shorten and Turnbull would rather discuss potential tax increases, which in an election year would normally be suicidal. Yet they’ve obviously decided that spending cuts are even more dangerous, despite a significant and possibly election-turning public appetite for restraint.

Turnbull’s reluctance to publicly consider spending cuts is more pronounced, especially given his September vow to pursue agility and innovation. People who are paid to observe Turnbull and his kind are beginning to notice.

“The Turnbull government has to take a more — much as I hate to say it, given its previous overuse and misuse — methodical approach to the difficult tasks ahead, especially as it allowed a few months to slip by without properly making the case for tax reform,” former Peter Costello staffer Niki Savva wrote in The Australian last week. “There has to be a clearer articulation of objectives followed by a disciplined outlining of solutions.”

Yes. Solutions would be nice. “What’s going on?” asked Fairfax’s Mark Kenny.

“Order has given way to a faint air of chaos. Malcolm Turnbull’s administration looks slave to events rather than the other way around … The strong impression being created is that parts of the show are flying off — that either through incompetence, stupidity, or a failure of due diligence, Turnbull’s executive is disintegrating around him, suggesting he is less in control than he might pretend. And that’s before anything serious has even been tried in a policy sense.”

A safety-first approach isn’t always safe. It might be prudent to take a hands-off approach when you’re cruising at altitude but eventually you’ve got to grab the controls and actually land the thing.

The Saturday Telegraph’s Laurie Oakes reflected on Turnbull’s switch to somnambulism: “His stint as opposition leader ended in tears in 2009 because he alienated colleagues through an arrogant ‘I-know-best’ style. But in his new incarnation as Prime Minister, Turnbull seems to have gone to the other extreme. Consultation and process get such priority that he fails to convey strength or a sense of direction.”

Part of the problem is the people Turnbull consults. Like Shorten, he is surrounded by big-spending, big-government types whose answer to every electoral problem is more government programs.


This is what led us to our predicament in the first place. The Great Explainer, and his Labor counterpart, need to consult with the people paying the bills instead of the people spending our damn money.

Keep Australia's doors shut to jihadi kids in Syria.

Miranda Devine: Lock our door to keep the jihadi kids in Syria

MIRANDA DEVINE
The Sunday Telegraph
February 14 2016

THE latest plea for sympathy from the mother-in-law of the (maybe) dead Islamic State ­terrorist Khaled Sharrouf is too convenient for words.

Karen Nettleton and her lawyer Charlie Waterstreet are now claiming that Sharrouf’s wife, Tara, has died in the ISIS paradise of Raqqa, Syria, making orphans of their five children, aged between 14 and six.

Actually, make that six kids, since Sharrouf married off his 14-year-old eldest daughter, Zaynab, to his head-chopping rapist mate Mohamed Elomar. Their baby was born eight weeks ago, after he was reportedly killed in a drone strike.

Elomar’s death has at least been confirmed by Australian authorities, unlike Tara’s or her husband’s.

Supposedly she died in September from complications to do with appendicitis. Or perhaps it was kidney disease. ­Reports differ.

Either way, it is handy timing, considering earlier pleas for public sympathy fell on deaf ears, despite Waterstreet’s imaginative sob stories.

In any case, the Australian government is under no obligation to bring any Sharroufs home. The idea that we would risk special forces to enter Syria to assist the family of a convicted terrorist is laughable, even if it were possible.



And it’s a pity Karen Nettleton wasn’t as proactive about protecting her grandchildren before she helped her Muslim convert daughter fly them out of the country in 2014.

Karen travelled with Tara and the children to Malaysia, the first stage in a journey to Raqqa to join Sharrouf. She has said it was just a family holiday, that when she left her daughter and grandchildren in Malaysia, Tara only planned to go to Turkey to visit a friend, and must have been duped by her husband to go on to Syria.

The privations of the ­Islamic State made Tara regret her foolishness but, judging by photos on her Twitter feed last year, she enjoyed Raqqa at first, living in a nice house ­stolen from some poor Syrian family, travelling around in a luxury BMW.

“Chillin in the khilafah, lovin life,’’ she posted under a photo of herself and other black-cloaked IS wives toting machineguns.

She didn’t seem to mind that her husband had posted on Twitter a photo of their son holding a severed head, with the caption ‘That’s my boy’.

Nor did she seem to mind that Zaynab, who describes herself as a “soldier of Allah”, was pregnant at 14 to Elomar, almost 20 years her senior.

In any case, the Australian government is under no obligation to bring any Sharroufs home. The idea that we would risk special forces to enter Syria to assist the family of a convicted terrorist is laughable, even if it were possible.

Then there were the Yazidi sex slaves kept at the Sharrouf home. After escaping, they told the ABC how badly they were treated by the Sharrouf children, whose every whim they had to indulge.

“His children were treating us badly as well and they had knives and cellphones, saying that they will take videos while killing us because we follow a different religion,” one of the women said. “And said that they will make a video while cutting off our heads.”

You can’t blame the children for their family, but they have been brainwashed since birth by their father to hate non-Muslims, say police who listened to phone taps for months before Sharrouf was locked up for his part in the Operation ­Pendennis terror plot. He managed to convince a judge in 2005 to give him a soft sentence of less than four years, on the grounds of mental illness.

But when he got to Syria he declared he had made it all up: “I played the government there like ignorant children i was never mentally ill not then nor now.”

He played the Australian authorities for fools then and now his family think they can do it again.

Orphans or not, there is no guarantee that they won’t one day pose a terrorist risk to Australia if they return.

You would wish that they had never gone to Syria but it was a one-way ticket.

THE leaders of an Islamic sect that supported female genital mutilation have banned the practice in Australia after a ­Supreme Court trial ruled the custom illegal.

Islamic leaders ban genital mutilation after court ruling

YONI BASHAN BRENDEN HILLS
The Sunday Telegraph
February 14 2016

Multicultural Sydney: Auburn genital mutilation: Guilty women, sheik fail to show remorse or speak out says judge

THE leaders of an Islamic sect that supported female genital mutilation have banned the practice in Australia after a ­Supreme Court trial ruled the custom illegal.

Trustees of the Dawoodi Bohra Shia Muslim community issued an edict last week ­ordering its followers not to perform the ritual known as “khafd” or “khatna”, either in Australia or overseas.

The order follows the conviction of a mother, a retired nurse and a spiritual leader, who were prosecuted in ­Australia’s first female genital mutilation trial on two sisters last year.

In both cases, the girls’ ­clitorises were cut with a silver tool, but medical examinations were inconclusive about what types of injuries had been caused.

The trio were found guilty of mutilating the two sisters and are yet to be sentenced.

A meeting was held in ­Auburn on Monday about the practice and on Tuesday a ­letter signed by 12 trustees of the Dawoodi Bohra community, a small religious order, told followers to abide by the law of the land.

The letter cited the convictions handed down by the ­Supreme Court and said, consequently, the practice of “khafd” was illegal.

“All parents and guardians are hereby directed in the strictest terms not to carry out khafd under any circumstances,” the letter said.

It also directed people not to take any child or other ­person outside Australia for the same purpose.

Lawyer John Sutton, representing the Dawoodi Bohra sect, said the move to ban the cultural practice was an ­unequivocal signal that the community wanted to adhere to Australian laws.

Even though medical ­examinations of the two ­victims in the court case were unable to prove conclusively what took place, he said the resolution was clear.

Multicultural Australia: ISLAMIC State fighter Khaled Sharrouf is still alive and making threatening calls to people in Sydney over ­attempts by the NSW Crime Commission to seize his house.

Australian jihadist thought to be dead alleged to have made threatening calls over property

Yoni Bashan
The Sunday Telegraph
February 14 2016

Tribute indicates IS thug Khaled Sharrouf is dead

How Elomar and Sharrouf met their fate

Muslim leader’s condolences to bereaved families


ISLAMIC State fighter Khaled Sharrouf is still alive and making threatening calls to people in Sydney over ­attempts by the NSW Crime Commission to seize his house.

Law enforcement officials have uncovered ­numerous contacts from the terrorist, who had ­reportedly been killed in Syria, including a death threat made last month by­­­ ­­­­­­a person claiming to be Sharrouf to a person in Sydney.

The threat related to ongoing legal proceedings led by the NSW Crime Commission, which is attempting to seize a house bought for Sharrouf before he left Australia.

Authorities believe the house in western Sydney was purchased by murdered standover man Joe ­Antoun and others linked to him.

While the house is not in Sharrouf’s name, the commission is suing its legal owner, a relative of Antoun’s, using Criminal Assets ­Recovery legislation. They want to seize the house because of its links to Sharrouf.
A law enforcement official said Sharrouf has no paper link to the house but remains attached to the property and doesn’t want to lose it.

“Sharrouf thinks it’s his,” the ­official said, adding there had been several suspected contacts from him suggesting he wasn’t dead. “He wants to foster an image he’s dead.”

A second law enforcement official said that since the initial reports of Sharrouf’s death last year there had been information coming through suggesting he was still alive, though without a public presence in Syria it was difficult for Australian authorities to verify the intelligence.

Antoun was gunned down on the doorstep of his Strathfield home in December 2013 over an unrelated matter.

The revelations come as questions continue to be posed over the fate of Sharrouf’s children, all of whom are Australian passport holders, and whether they can be brought back to Australia after ­reports emerged last week that Sharrouf’s wife Tara Nettleton, who took the children to Syria, died from complications with appendicitis.

She had been the main point of contact for negotiating the children’s return to Australia, a third law enforcement source said.

The official said federal authorities fell out of touch with Ms Nettleton around September last year and believe she may have died around that time.

Her mother Karen was last week photographed leaving her home with a tattoo on her arm suggesting the date of death was September 11.

Part of the reason Tara died, the official said, was because she wasn’t given priority treatment at a hospital over injured ISIS men.

Robert Van Aalst, a family friend and lawyer to the Nettleton family, declined to be interviewed but said the family was told in January that Sharrouf was dead.

He declined to say who provided the information.

Another lawyer acting for the Nettleton family, Charles Waterstreet, said he had been told the same but didn’t necessarily believe it.

“Khaled’s fate is unverifiable,” Mr Waterstreet said yesterday.

“The family were told he’s dead but knowing how unreliable everything is, whether he’s dead or not I wouldn’t know, but nothing would surprise me.”

Mr Waterstreet is assisting Karen Nettleton in appealing to ­foreign governments and non-government organisations to lead a mission to repatriate the Sharrouf children.

He said the children — Sharrouf has two sons and three daughters: Zaynab, 14, now a mother of a baby herself, Hoda, 13, Abdullah, 11, Zarqawi, 10, and Humzeh, 5 — were currently living alone in a house somewhere in the country and had no access to food or cash.

The girls were also unable to walk around and seek assistance without a male minder and about $2000 had been wired to them but hadn’t yet been claimed.

He said the children had held off telling Karen about Tara’s death because they didn’t want to upset her.

Despite the illegalities involved in wiring money — it is an offence to send money to terrorist organisations or their sympathisers — the authorities had been sympathetic to the family’s attempts, Mr Waterstreet said.

While there were no firm ­attempts afoot to bring the children home, he said efforts to locate and extract the children were ongoing.

In the past Sharrouf has boasted about his deceptive tactics on social media, including his ability to slip through customs and fly “first class” out of the country.

References have also been made to feigning mental illness during his court proceedings between 2007 and 2009 on charges of conspiring to commit an act of terrorism.

Two psychologists ruled he was unfit to stand trial and one claimed Sharrouf was “unlikely to become involved in a further ­offence”.

On sentencing, the judge took into account Sharrouf’s “drug-induced psychosis” and “chronic schizophrenia”. He was released a month after his sentence was handed down because of time already served.

Diversity Down Under: Cultural Enrichment Ambassadors and Gang Rapists return to Australia

Ashwin Kumar, Waleed Latif and Dylan Djohan are the names of scum which Australians must never forget.

Statement from DFAT:

"Until the recent finalisation of their case, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade provided consular assistance to three Australian men in Croatia, in line with the Consular Services Charter."

Multiculturalism Down Under : Migrant birthrates are changing Australia, Mark Steyn.

Migrant birthrates are changing Australia: Average birthrate below replacement level

Clarissa Bye
The Daily Telegraph
February 12, 2016 

INTERACTIVE: FERTILITY RATES IN THE SYDNEY REGION

IT’S the biggest story of our times, but political correctness has stifled debate so badly that politicians are too afraid to even talk about it.

According to visiting ­Canadian author and free-speech advocate Mark Steyn, low birth rates have put Western societies into a “demographic death spiral”.

And he warns it’s impossible to rely on immigration to fill the gap without completely changing our culture.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph before his Australian tour next week, Mr Steyn said politicians were underestimating how quickly societies can change.

“Normally for a population transformation you need a Black Death, the Plague or a world war,” he said. “But in this case we are having it without any of that. That’s why it’s the most fascinating question of our times.”

Australia’s average birthrate of 1.79 is below replacement level. And while Mr Steyn gives Malcolm Turnbull brownie points for understanding the implications of declining birthrates — they once shared a session passing notes back and forth about the issue — he is pessimistic about the PM’s will to reverse the trend. “We don’t have a language to talk about this without ­accusations of racism and sexism coming up,” he said.

“Western societies are basically importing a new population to be the children you couldn’t be bothered having yourselves.”

Mr Steyn said the cultural changes that come with Muslim migration should be acknowledged and discussed.

Women giving birth in Australia but born in ­Lebanon have an average of 4.03 children. For Syrian mums the figure is 3.38 and for Pakistani women it’s 3.02. For Australian-born women the figure is just 1.86.

Amal Chafic of Illawong is a modern Muslim mum with five children aged five to 12 and a large extended family as her two brothers each have four children. “I come from a big family of five and so does my husband Anas, who had six in his family,” she said.

In Oatley, mother-of-two Kylie McCathie, 39, said many of her peers were starting their families late after putting their careers first.

“When I lived in Surry Hills everyone in the mothers’ group was over 30 with their first child,” she said.

Mr Steyn’s visit coincides with Australia’s population hitting 24 million next week.

To mark the milestone, ­social research firm ­McCrindle has released a “fertility map” of Sydney’s birthrates by suburb showing the city’s Muslim population is leading the charge.

Many of the most fertile suburbs are in our migrant clusters, such as Lakemba, Auburn, Guildford, Punchbowl and Bankstown — popular with families of ­Middle Eastern background.

Multicultural Sydney: Auburn genital mutilation: Guilty women, sheik fail to show remorse or speak out says judge

Auburn genital mutilation: Guilty women, sheik fail to show remorse or speak out says judge

SARAH CRAWFORD
The Daily Telegraph
February 5 2016

"Justice Peter Johnson raised concerns that the three accused had not rejected the practise of female genital mutilation called “khatna,” which is traditionally performed on seven-year-old girls."

A SUPREME Court Justice has questioned the remorse of two women convicted of female genital mutilation, saying they have not said if they now reject the practice or will speak out against the procedure which is a tradition in their small Muslim sect.

A midwife, Kubra Magennis, 72, and a 39-year-old mother of four girls (known as A2 during the court proceedings) were convicted by a jury of mutilating the clitorises of the younger woman’s two eldest daughters in November last year, becoming the first people in Australia to be successfully prosecuted for female genital mutilation.

They face a maximum penalty of seven years jail.

At the sentencing hearing Justice Johnson criticised a psychological report tendered by A2 and Vaziri’s defence barrister Robert Sutherland SC saying it focused on the mother and not the impact of the crime she committed against her daughters.

“It is largely a report on what the impact on the family is if the mother goes to jail, no one has asked her (the eldest daughter) as a victim of crime what her attitude is towards the crime.”

Crown Prosecutor Nannette Williams asked that a suppression order on the name of the midwife, initially only known as KM, be lifted which was opposed by her defence barrister Stuart Bouveng on the ground the “frail” woman’s safety was at risk.

The judge later lifted the suppression order, allowing the midwife’s name to be publicised.

Magennis and her husband tendered affidavits that they had been harassed and received threatening phone calls over the past three years.

The religious leader of their Shia Muslim sect, Dawoodi Bohra, Sheik Shabbir Mohammedbhai Vaziri, was found guilty of being an accessory after the fact to the procedure.

At a sentencing hearing today, Justice Peter Johnson raised concerns that the three accused had not rejected the practise of female genital mutilation called “khatna,” which is traditionally performed on seven-year-old girls.

“I am not sure that I have seen any of these accused saying they reject all practises of that sort … and they do take action in the Dawoodi Bohra community to speak out against that,” Justice Johnson said

During the eight-and-a-half week trial the jury heard A2 had arranged for Magennis to perform the procedure called “khatna” on her daughters on two different occasions in Wollongong and Baulkham Hills in Sydney’s north west between October 2009 and August 2012.

The injuries consisted of a nick or cut to the girls’ clitorises.

When police began investigating the practice Vaziri told community members to tell detectives that they did not practise female genital mutilation.

The tiny Auburn-based sect came to police attention in 2012 after they received a tip-off from a reformist Dawoodi Bohra member that the orthodox followers practised female genital mutilation.

The hearing continues.

A RETIRED lieutenant-colonel and Iraq veteran and his wife bashed by Muslim Gang at Cosy Corner beach at Torquay.“The important thing is my wife, my daughters and myself walked away,” he wrote.

"......he heard his wife’s screams and, seeing a man attacking her, ran to her aid. After he got the man into a headlock, he said up to eight other men ran in."

"......... urged people to protect “our women ... our country is being overrun by Muslim scum”.

“This guy was calling Liana a white s--- and a white whore and telling her: ‘Your husband needs to teach you a lesson’.” 

Police investigate Iraq veteran Kyle Tyrrell over melee with Torquay fisherman

Anthony Dowsley and Rebekah Cavanagh
Herald Sun
January 27 2016

A RETIRED lieutenant-colonel and Iraq veteran is being investigated after a melee with fishermen on the Surf Coast.

Kyle Tyrrell, 47, suffered minor injuries and says his wife, Liana, was punched in the face in Sunday’s conflict at the Cosy Corner beach at Torquay.

At least one of the fishermen was taken to hospital.

On social media, Mr Tyrrell wrote of what happened and urged people to protect “our women ... our country is being overrun by Muslim scum”.



“It was an added bonus to witness a few of our attackers be brought to hospital by ambulance after we arrived, sucking on the pain whistles.”

Speaking to the Herald Sun , he was confident he would not be charged: “I was just protecting my wife and daughter, like any man.”

Mrs Tyrrell, 30, said on seeing one of the men put a crab pot in the water, she told him the area was a marine sanctuary and fishing was banned.

Mr Tyrell believes his attack was racially motivated.
“Liana said nicely to him that if you put that in there, you may get in trouble, as you are

not meant to have it. That was it, and he turned on her,” Mr Tyrrell said.

He said he heard his wife’s screams and, seeing a man attacking her, ran to her aid. After he got the man into a headlock, he said up to eight other men ran in.

The war veteran, a qualified instructor in the martial art of Krav Maga, said he ended up on the ground and was kicked in the head. The couple believe the attack was racially and culturally motivated.

“I’m a war veteran and I fought in the Middle East. The main attacker was Muslim and my take is he probably didn’t like being told what to do from a woman,” Mr Tyrrell said.

“This guy was calling Liana a white s--- and a white whore and telling her: ‘Your husband needs to teach you a lesson’.”

A shaken Mrs Tyrrell wants the man she says attacked her charged.

Mr Tyrrell, who suffers post-traumatic stress disorder, has been trying to adapt to civilian life since retiring in 2011.

He has received Divisional Commanders and Land Commanders commendations for exemplary service, the Commandants Prize, and a Commendation for Distinguished Service in the 2007 Queen’s Birthday Honours for leadership and courage in action.

No charges have been laid and police inquiries continue.

Anyone witnesses should call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000

anthony.dowsley@news.com.au

Australia's Shameful Mangina of the Year

"But instead of the leadership that ​soldiers at the frontline may have ​craved, they got flowery speeches decrying masculinity and patriarchy to mark International Women’s Day at the United Nations."

Sorry David, but it’s the wrong fight

Miranda Devine
The Daily Telegraph
January 27 2016

THE Australian of the Year award has ­officially become a politically correct joke with the selection of former chief of Army David Morrison, the diminutive gender ­equity maven who believes military force achieves nothing.

The award, which ought to ­reflect and unite this great ­nation, has evolved into a mere plaything of social engineers and reflects all of the unhealthy preoccupations of the Left.

The lucky recipients announced on Australia Day then spend a year lecturing the rest of us about how backward and awful we all are compared to their enlightened selves.

From Adam Goodes to Rosie Batty and now Morrison, you would think we are an irredeemably racist, sexist nation in which every man is an incipient wife basher. (Search engine leviathan Google yesterday confirmed that black-armband view by transforming its homepage into a ­lament about stolen generations in a special “up yours” message to its Antipodean customers on Australia Day.)

But Morrison’s selection is the final nail in the coffin of irrelevance for the Australian of the Year award.

It is a travesty that he has been rewarded for exposing our military to the warped ideology of Anne Summers, Elizabeth Broderick, 

Jane Caro (the “eminent Australian” as he described her yesterday) and the rest of Australia’s left-feminist clique.

This is a man who, after having been chief of Army for four years, told Leigh Sales on the ABC’s 730 program last year: “I don’t think that there’s a military solution to anything.”

This is a man who has derided the Anzac legend as being too male and “Anglo-Saxon”. You’d be hard pressed finding a Digger with much good to say about him, judging by my straw poll of friends and acquaintances.

While Australian soldiers were dying in Afghanistan, Morrison was talking about social ­engineering concerns such as gender equity. 

Fourteen soldiers died between July 2011 and July 2014 in that dangerous and confusing war, when Morrison was chief of Army.

But instead of the leadership that ​soldiers at the frontline may have ​craved, they got flowery speeches decrying masculinity and patriarchy to mark International Women’s Day at the United Nations.

Then, of course, there was his celebrated 2013 video lambasting as sexists the male soldiers who were risking their lives in service of our country. The video catapulted him into the pantheon of politically correct saints.

“The standard you walk past, is the standard you accept,” he thundered in an address that went viral, mainly because it was written so expertly by his then-speechwriter, transgender Group Captain Cate McGregor.

Winning wars has nothing to do with gender equity, but sadly our society now rewards this kind of sanctimonious posturing.

Morrison has also declared that he will use his new position this year to champion another divisive pet issue of the progressive elites, the republic debate.

“It is time, I think, to at least revisit the question so that we can stand both free and fully ­independent among the community of nations,” he said in his acceptance speech on Monday.

This prompted a delighted Australian Republican Movement chairman Peter FitzSimons to propose Morrison as President of an Australian republic, a sure-fire kiss of death to the cause if ever there was one.

The bottom line is that a former chief of army honoured with the title of Australian of the Year in 2016 should be advocating for wounded returned soldiers and those suffering post-traumatic stress rather than treading the overtilled ground of gender complaint and a republic.

God knows our Diggers could do with a high-profile champion.

BAFFLING BUSINESS: PICKING OUR TOP AUSSIE

SELECTION of Australian of the Year is an opaque, arbitrary and unrepresentative process too easily hijacked by social engineers.

From gender equity warrior David Morrison to domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty to indigenous activist Adam Goodes, the role ends up channelling the preoccupations of the progressive elites and thus divides the nation.

At first glance this seems unlikely, as the Board of the National Australia Day Council is chaired by Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith and comprises upstanding community members.

But they can only choose from the eight candidates presented to them by state selection panels. And here is where the process becomes opaque and inconsistent.

In NSW a panel of 13 chaired by Sky News CEO Angelos Frangopoulos chose former Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick.

Victoria by contrast has a committee of three, chaired by Stefan Romaniw from Multicultural Arts Victoria. It chose human rights barrister Julian McMahon.

In the NT the selection is made by a board of 10 chaired by a former Country Liberal politician. It chose youth worker Will MacGregor. 

In SA a selection panel of 14 chaired by a suburban councillor chose surgeon John Greenwood. WA has a panel of 10, including, industry 

representatives and a former state governor. They chose ebola nurse Anne Carey.

In the ACT (Morrison), Tasmania (conservationist Jane Hutchinson) and Queensland (transgender campaigner Cate McGregor), selection 

is run by arms of the state government.