Australian's have always known who pays these Grubs,we do,this latest example of the ABC's Treacherous Bastardry shows us who these Grubs believe they should be working FOR, and it ain't us.
ABC out of control: now showing where a Liberal-appointed crime-fighter lives
Andrew Bolt
December 6, 2013
The ABC is now lured by its partisan politics into sheer bastardry, showing on TV the home of the man picked by Queensland Premier Campbell Newman to fight criminal bikie gangs.
Here’s how the story unfolds.
Newman appoints a man he served under at Duntroon 31 years ago:
Brigadier Bill Mellor is a “highly decorated officer with an impeccable record” and the right person to lead the government’s war on criminal gangs, Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie said.
The retired Brigadier was transferred from his role as a flood recovery co-ordinator, to head up the government’s Strategic Monitoring Team…
Premier Campbell Newman served under the Brigadier during his time in the armed services, but Brigadier Mellor had distinguished himself post-military through roles such as heading up the southern Queensland flood recovery effort.
Clive Palmer disgraces himself - big surprise - with yet another lunatic conspiracy theory:
Federal MP for Fairfax Clive Palmer told ABC Radio that Brigadier Mellor’s appointment was ”tantamount to a Gestapo”.
“Changing legislation, employing ex-Army people to run judicial functions, I think it’s very bad to have military people in police positions in society,” Mr Palmer said.
Mellor has a distinguished record of service:
Brigadier Mellor commanded the Australian Force in Somalia and was a key player in the strategic planning for the Australian intervention in Timor.
Brigadier Mellor is the Deputy Chairman of the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Queensland and a trustee of the General Douglas Macarthur Museum in Queen Street in Brisbane.
But Labor and its allies - who thought nothing of having the husband of then Premier Anna Bligh head a government department - sniff a mate-ocracy:
The ABC, which had little problem with Bligh’s husband, runs with the pack:
The retired Army officer appointed by Queensland Premier Campbell Newman to oversee the state’s controversial crackdown on bikies will be paid more than $200,000 for his year-long appointment.
Further details emerged about Brigadier Bill Mellor’s role as the Opposition and the head of the Queensland Police Union separately expressed concerns about the appointment and its implications for law enforcement in the state.
“It is very concerning ... it should be the role of the Police Commissioner,” Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk told the ABC.
“[Brigadier Mellor] has been a senior military officer but law enforcement is a completely different ball game.
“We don’t need the military running this state, thank you very much.”..
Ms Palaszczuk said it was a further example of Mr Newman “appointing his mates” to senior positions.
Then on its main 7pm Queensland bulletin last night, the ABC named the suburb Mellor lives in and repeatedly showed the street view of his home. Remember, this is a man appointed to help fight criminal bikie gangs.
Premier Newman has rung the ABC boss, Mark Scott, to protest. A public apology has yet not been issued.
The ABC is out of control.
UPDATE
Absolutely astonishing, and worse than I thought. Reader Rolf:
And they actually showed the street number, a large brass number on a rendered brick post. I did not notice any pixellation in the shot of his house.
Why didn’t the ABC just paint a target on Mellor’s forehead?
UPDATE
Reader Michael has checked the tape:
Andrew, Can confirm that the original ABC news report showed 3 separate shots of Brig Bill Mellor’s house including a close up of the street number on the letter box. At the same time, a voiceover revealed the name of the suburb.
After complaint lodged, the ABC kept the story online but advised that they had pixelated the number on the letterbox and removed the reference to suburb. Now this is the residence of the key public servant tasked with coordinating the effort against criminal motorcycle gangs. The ABC must explain what benefit they hoped to derive from identifying Mr Mellor’s family home, and how they believed doing so would in any way serve the public interest.
An American, Australian ,Israeli, British "Judeo Christian Friendly " blog.
Anthropogenic Global Warming SCAM
Sunday, December 08, 2013
Labor Green Loon VOTE People : "I'm a tourist not a terrorist," Mr Biber, of Merrylands, in Sydney's west " aka Sydney's Occupied Territories
'I'm a tourist ... not a terrorist': Merrylands man posts happy snaps on Facebook after anti-terror raids
Yoni Bashan State Politrical Reporter
The Sunday Telegraph
December 7,2013
Mehmet Biber, 21, one of six men allegedly sent to fight in Syria with rebel forces, posted happy snaps and a message to friends after raids by anti-terror authorities in Sydney on Tuesday.
"I'm a tourist not a terrorist," Mr Biber, of Merrylands, in Sydney's west, wrote beside four photographs of various landmarks which indicate he is in Istanbul, Turkey.
The posting was prompted after his name emerged during a bail hearing for alleged ringleader Hamdi Alqudsi, 39, who was arrested in the raids.
Police allege Biber was one of several men sent by a network of individuals, lead by Alqudsi, to "engage in armed hostilities" in Syria.
Biber's earlier postings from late October indicate time spent in Syria. They include pictures of bombed out buildings, injured children and a dead aid worker. A video uploaded from a mobile phone shows rebel forces firing at a helicopter.
He has also previously quoted the deceased US-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who had been described by NSW counter terror chief Peter Dein as one of the most dangerous men in the world.
Biber's family claim he left Australia to go on holiday.
Police have also identified links between Biber and members of the street gang Brothers For Life. One of those gang members, Hicham Ismail, is on remand facing sentencing next year for a brutal assault.
That link is one of several that have emerged between Sydney's religious Islamic community and the BFL street gang.
Other links have also been brought to light through the work of a police taskforce known as Strike Force Maloney, which has been investigating an attempted murder outside a sex club at Rydalmere on May 1.
One man charged with the alleged shooting is Osama Sarwat Toffic, identified by police as an associate of the BFL gang.
Toffic was arrested as he tried to board a flight for Germany, en route to Turkey, on November 15.
Police will allege Wassim Fayad, 46, a figurehead during last year's Muslim riots, assisted Toffic to leave Australia.
Fayad has been charged with being an accessory to the attempted murder, along with two other men, including Wesam Hamze, 29, a first-cousin to BFL founder Bassam Hamzy.
Hamzy, a follower of radical Islam, is presently in Supermax jail.
Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad Commander Deb Wallace said a number of BFL members had an interest in Islam, however their motives for crime were not based on religion.
"Certainly some arrested recently have been more involved in Islam but it's not because of that they are involved in criminal activity," Det Supt Wallace said.
"There have been cases where they might say a particular crime is based on religious reasons, but that to me is an excuse."
While the BFL leadership were weakened a series of arrests last month, one issue remaining for police is the emergence of its Blacktown chapter, which is stacked with Afghans and Middle Eastern recruits.
It is lead by a man who cannot be named, due to a court order, but he is known locally as "The Afghan".
He has beaten three separate murder charges and was recruited directly by Hamzy while in jail.
His younger brother was recently charged over the alleged shooting of rival BFL gang members during a drug turf war in Bankstown.
Washed Karimi, 18, also born in another Afghanistan, was charged in relation to that shooting. His older brother Mohammed Karimi is serving a minimum 30-years jail over the unrelated 2010 murder of security guard Kesley Burgess.
A third man charged over the Chokolatta shooting is Iranian Mobin Merzaei, 22.
He is the younger brother of Mesbah Merzaei, 25, who was charged over the attempted extortion of a smash repairer in North Sydney.
Det Supt Wallace said the recruitment of siblings was not a new trend.
"The idea is hopefully these young ones grow up and grow out," he said.
THEIR ABC Won't tell full story on Labor Union Slush funds
ABC won't tell the full story of slush funds
Piers Akerman
The Sunday Telegraph
December 7,2013
EXPECT astonishment from the ABC's vast national audience when the federal government places trade-union slush funds front-and-centre of a major inquiry in the New Year.
The rusted-on viewers and listeners will be bewildered because the taxpayer-funded state-owned broadcaster has imposed a regimen of strict censorship on the key element in the inquiry - the misuse of money from the AWU association which was established with the assistance of legal advice from former Prime Minister Julia Gillard when she was a partner in the Victorian Labor law firm Slater & Gordon.
Those who don't take their news solely from the ABC would be well aware that the Victorian police are conducting a major inquiry into Ms Gillard's role in the establishment of the Australian Workers' Union Workplace Reform Association by her then boyfriend, Bruce Wilson and his AWU mate Ralph Blewitt in 1992.
Early last week, The Australian newspaper revealed that Fair Work Commissioner and former AWU boss Ian Cambridge has given sworn evidence of "gross irregularities" in the union slush fund that Ms Gillard advised on.
Wilson, who was in a long-term relationship with Ms Gillard in the 1990s is the target of a police investigation and Victorian fraud squad detectives have already seized files from Slater & Gordon, files which Wilson claims should be subject to client-lawyer privilege.
The detectives are seeking to establish whether the documents were created in furtherance of a fraud, which would render void the privilege claim and make them available as evidence.
The court heard Mr Cambridge had provided "substantial evidence" in his affidavit about misappropriation of union funds by Ms Gillard.
Lawyer Ron Gipp, representing lead fraud squad detective Ross Mitchell, said Mr Cambridge's evidence "puts it beyond any doubt" that there were "gross irregularities" in the funding of the association, which Ms Gillard referred to as a "slush fund" in an exit interview before she left Slater & Gordon.
He said statements from Mr Blewitt - "essentially a full confession by a co-accused" - describe the slush fund as a "scam".
Ms Gillard has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and said she had no knowledge of the fund's operations other than it was a "slush fund" for the re-election of union officials.
Money from the fund was used to purchase the Fitzroy house in Mr Blewitt's name at a 1993 auction, which Ms Gillard attended with Mr Wilson, who subsequently lived in the property.
Slater & Gordon handled the conveyancing and helped provide finance.
That's the background for ABC fans who have been kept in the dark and goes someway to explaining why many other Australians not affected by the ABC's news blackout are watching every legal move in this case.
In her exit interview with Slater & Gordon on September 1, 1995, Ms Gillard said: "It's common practice, indeed every union has what it refers to as a re-election fund, slush fund".
Whether every union does indeed have a slush fund is something the federal government should be looking into, and probably will, informed as it is by the material being developed by the ongoing AWU investigation.
Even without an official inquiry, it has emerged that money was used from a union slush fund known as the McLean Forum to finance campaigns in internal elections in the TWU's Queensland branch and to bankroll candidates in the Flight Attendants Association of Australia and the Health Services Union's NSW Branch.
Sums of at least $500,000 were reportedly spent in the TWU's Queensland campaign.
It was reported in March that a fund known as Industry 2020 donated funds for HSU elections and a 2008 article in The Sydney Morning Herald noted that former Prime Minister Julia Gillard "was a guest speaker at the inaugural fundraising lunch for the Industry 2020 fund at Flemington racecourse, which generated about $250,000 with nearly half that profit".
In that article it was also suggested that "two other fundraisers have been held for Industry 2020, including a small event at Melbourne's Greek Museum in Melbourne last year attended by (current Opposition leader) Mr (Bill) Shorten".
The Age reported in May that ASIC records in May showed that Industry 2020 was a registered company under Mr Cesar Melhem's sole directorship. Mr Melhem was formerly the AWU Victorian Secretary but is now a Victorian Labor MP, a more recent search however indicated that two companies, Industry 2020 Pty Ltd and Industry 2020 Ltd are both under voluntary external administration.
Two weeks ago, The Age reported that the nation's largest construction union, the CFMEU, had used a drug and alcohol charity to raise up to $1 million for union activities.
It has also been revealed that the Queensland branch of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Union has for a decade had an undisclosed internal slush fund - wrongly promoted to contributors as being tax deductible - to support union boss, Mr Chris Ketter's, re-election as State Secretary of the union. Mr Ketter was the ALP's lead Senate candidate in Queensland at the 2013 election.
The ongoing court case against former Labor MP and former HSU boss Craig Thomson over his alleged misuse of trade union funds has given added impetus to the need for a wider investigation into trade unions and their handling of members' funds.
The establishment of slush funds, the practice Ms Gillard regards as "common place" and carried out by "every union" must be examined to ensure that such operations are held to the same exacting standards of governance as organisations which hold investors' money.
Trade union members deserve to know who is responsible for holding their compulsory contributions and how their cash is being spent.
For too long, the union bosses have insisted that the Labor Party turn a blind eye to union activities.
Next year, the ALP must be given the opportunity to demonstrate it truly has the workers' interests at heart.
It will send a disgraceful message if it doesn't champion the broadest inquiry into the operation of slush funds and the union movement's handling of members' money more generally.
Surely it has nothing to hide?
Piers Akerman
The Sunday Telegraph
December 7,2013
EXPECT astonishment from the ABC's vast national audience when the federal government places trade-union slush funds front-and-centre of a major inquiry in the New Year.
The rusted-on viewers and listeners will be bewildered because the taxpayer-funded state-owned broadcaster has imposed a regimen of strict censorship on the key element in the inquiry - the misuse of money from the AWU association which was established with the assistance of legal advice from former Prime Minister Julia Gillard when she was a partner in the Victorian Labor law firm Slater & Gordon.
Those who don't take their news solely from the ABC would be well aware that the Victorian police are conducting a major inquiry into Ms Gillard's role in the establishment of the Australian Workers' Union Workplace Reform Association by her then boyfriend, Bruce Wilson and his AWU mate Ralph Blewitt in 1992.
Early last week, The Australian newspaper revealed that Fair Work Commissioner and former AWU boss Ian Cambridge has given sworn evidence of "gross irregularities" in the union slush fund that Ms Gillard advised on.
Wilson, who was in a long-term relationship with Ms Gillard in the 1990s is the target of a police investigation and Victorian fraud squad detectives have already seized files from Slater & Gordon, files which Wilson claims should be subject to client-lawyer privilege.
The detectives are seeking to establish whether the documents were created in furtherance of a fraud, which would render void the privilege claim and make them available as evidence.
The court heard Mr Cambridge had provided "substantial evidence" in his affidavit about misappropriation of union funds by Ms Gillard.
Lawyer Ron Gipp, representing lead fraud squad detective Ross Mitchell, said Mr Cambridge's evidence "puts it beyond any doubt" that there were "gross irregularities" in the funding of the association, which Ms Gillard referred to as a "slush fund" in an exit interview before she left Slater & Gordon.
He said statements from Mr Blewitt - "essentially a full confession by a co-accused" - describe the slush fund as a "scam".
Ms Gillard has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and said she had no knowledge of the fund's operations other than it was a "slush fund" for the re-election of union officials.
Money from the fund was used to purchase the Fitzroy house in Mr Blewitt's name at a 1993 auction, which Ms Gillard attended with Mr Wilson, who subsequently lived in the property.
Slater & Gordon handled the conveyancing and helped provide finance.
That's the background for ABC fans who have been kept in the dark and goes someway to explaining why many other Australians not affected by the ABC's news blackout are watching every legal move in this case.
In her exit interview with Slater & Gordon on September 1, 1995, Ms Gillard said: "It's common practice, indeed every union has what it refers to as a re-election fund, slush fund".
Whether every union does indeed have a slush fund is something the federal government should be looking into, and probably will, informed as it is by the material being developed by the ongoing AWU investigation.
Even without an official inquiry, it has emerged that money was used from a union slush fund known as the McLean Forum to finance campaigns in internal elections in the TWU's Queensland branch and to bankroll candidates in the Flight Attendants Association of Australia and the Health Services Union's NSW Branch.
Sums of at least $500,000 were reportedly spent in the TWU's Queensland campaign.
It was reported in March that a fund known as Industry 2020 donated funds for HSU elections and a 2008 article in The Sydney Morning Herald noted that former Prime Minister Julia Gillard "was a guest speaker at the inaugural fundraising lunch for the Industry 2020 fund at Flemington racecourse, which generated about $250,000 with nearly half that profit".
In that article it was also suggested that "two other fundraisers have been held for Industry 2020, including a small event at Melbourne's Greek Museum in Melbourne last year attended by (current Opposition leader) Mr (Bill) Shorten".
The Age reported in May that ASIC records in May showed that Industry 2020 was a registered company under Mr Cesar Melhem's sole directorship. Mr Melhem was formerly the AWU Victorian Secretary but is now a Victorian Labor MP, a more recent search however indicated that two companies, Industry 2020 Pty Ltd and Industry 2020 Ltd are both under voluntary external administration.
Two weeks ago, The Age reported that the nation's largest construction union, the CFMEU, had used a drug and alcohol charity to raise up to $1 million for union activities.
It has also been revealed that the Queensland branch of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Union has for a decade had an undisclosed internal slush fund - wrongly promoted to contributors as being tax deductible - to support union boss, Mr Chris Ketter's, re-election as State Secretary of the union. Mr Ketter was the ALP's lead Senate candidate in Queensland at the 2013 election.
The ongoing court case against former Labor MP and former HSU boss Craig Thomson over his alleged misuse of trade union funds has given added impetus to the need for a wider investigation into trade unions and their handling of members' funds.
The establishment of slush funds, the practice Ms Gillard regards as "common place" and carried out by "every union" must be examined to ensure that such operations are held to the same exacting standards of governance as organisations which hold investors' money.
Trade union members deserve to know who is responsible for holding their compulsory contributions and how their cash is being spent.
For too long, the union bosses have insisted that the Labor Party turn a blind eye to union activities.
Next year, the ALP must be given the opportunity to demonstrate it truly has the workers' interests at heart.
It will send a disgraceful message if it doesn't champion the broadest inquiry into the operation of slush funds and the union movement's handling of members' money more generally.
Surely it has nothing to hide?
Misandrists Emilys List Sista, ACT Minister for Women and Minister for Education describes Federal Conservative Abbott Government Education Minister as a CUNT, and the silence is defeaning
Left takes joy in foul abuse, but hysterical overreaction if boot was on the other foot
Miranda Devine
The Daily Telegraph
December 7, 2013
SO Joy Burch, the Education minister of the ACT, publishes a tweet describing her federal counterpart Christopher Pyne as a c**t - and gets away with it.
Her excuse for retweeting the foul abuse is that she is inexperienced on Twitter, despite the fact she has been publishing her thoughts on the social media site for four years, during which time she has written 1161 tweets.
"I haven't finessed my social skills, my Twitter skills on this," she said, while considering an offer by the University of Canberra for remedial social media training.
In other words, Burch has published six tweets a week for the past four years and she still hasn't worked out how to use Twitter.
Slow learner, much?
Her boss, fellow feminist and Emily's Lister Katy Gallagher, the ACT Chief Minister, accepted Burch's explanation that the tweet - which she later deleted - was a mistake.
"I also believe that she has done the right thing and accepted responsibility for what happened ... and has offered an apology to Minister Pyne,'' she said.
We all make mistakes. But imagine if the roles were reversed. Imagine if Pyne had used what I view as the most obscene word in the English language, describing an intimate portion of the female anatomy, in reference to Burch. He would be crucified. Twitter would be ablaze! The destroy-the-jointers would be apoplectic. The entire Abbott government would be implicated.
"If I had done that, before my head hit the pillow [Thursday night] I would have resigned or been sacked," Pyne says.
"If it was me saying such a thing, the howls from the left would be cacophonous."
But there has been barely a peep against Burch, who also happens to be the ACT's Minister for Women. Moving right along. No double standards here.
That's the Left for you, hysterical overreaction when it suits them, benign tolerance when it doesn't. If you're on their side, anything goes. If you're a conservative, a minefield of 'isms lie in wait - sooner or later you will be accused of sexism, racism, elitism, homophobia and misogyny.
Of course, the upside is that conservatives become battle - hardened and vigilant while their establishment foes grow sloppy and complacent.
The truth is that Burch doesn't like Pyne because he is an ideological enemy and a fearsome warrior.
In fact there are few politicians as tough. Pyne relishes combat. As the much-loved youngest of five children growing up in Adelaide, he learned his skills at a family dining table where vigorous debate was nightly sport.
The photograph that had Burch and comrades so furious that they called him "c**t" last week shows Pyne smirking, or, as one tweeter put it, "smugly loitering", in the background of one of those ranting press conferences NSW education minister Adrian Piccoli held about Gonski funding.
This was supposed to be the moment when Pyne was on the ropes, chastised by the media for executing backflips, supposedly humiliated by Prime Ministerial intervention, and yet here he was looking exceedingly pleased with himself.
How infuriating for his enemies!
Having unwisely promised to match the extra billions pledged by Labor before the election under the so-called Gonski model of redistributing education funding, the Abbott government is stuck with it.
But don't expect Pyne to capitulate.
He knows giving extra billions to the very state education bureaucracies that have presided over a decline in standards over the past decade of record funding increases is no answer to our woes.
The latest OECD rankings show Australian students have fallen even further behind their peers in 65 industrialised nations, dropping out of the top ten for reading, maths and science for the first time.
The test results released last week show Australian 15-year-old students ranked 13th in reading last year, down from 9th in 2009; 19th in maths, down from 14th; and 17th in science, down from 10th. An earlier report showed the reading skills of our Year 4 students are the worst of every English-speaking country tested.
This sorry result is despite the fact Australia increased spending on schools by more than 40 per cent last decade.
More money does not automatically mean better education.
In fact it can make things worse, if you are just entrenching the progressive education ideology that has infected teacher training for decades, and which fails disadvantaged children the most.
Pyne understands completely.
"The failing in education is not money," he says. "[What's needed is] an acceptance that what we've been doing for decades doesn't work. Child-centred learning, whole language teaching of reading, acceptance of failure, is not going to get our students to the top of the tree around the world."
The federal government doesn't control what happens in schools. But what Pyne can control is teacher quality, the single biggest determinant of student success.
"We are going to intervene in the training of our teachers ... to ensure that [when they graduate]from university they are properly trained in how to teach students to read, and to do so from phonics, through orthodox teaching methods."
He has lots of other plans too, from expanding direct instruction to ensuring principal autonomy, all of which is anathema to the progressive education establishment.
He should wear their foul abuse as a badge of honour.
And what does this silly old Labor Green Loon Affirmative Action Emilys List Cunt do for a living?
Miranda Devine
The Daily Telegraph
December 7, 2013
SO Joy Burch, the Education minister of the ACT, publishes a tweet describing her federal counterpart Christopher Pyne as a c**t - and gets away with it.
Her excuse for retweeting the foul abuse is that she is inexperienced on Twitter, despite the fact she has been publishing her thoughts on the social media site for four years, during which time she has written 1161 tweets.
"I haven't finessed my social skills, my Twitter skills on this," she said, while considering an offer by the University of Canberra for remedial social media training.
In other words, Burch has published six tweets a week for the past four years and she still hasn't worked out how to use Twitter.
Slow learner, much?
Joy Burch, Labor's Silly Old Cunt "in residence" ? in the ACT Government
Her boss, fellow feminist and Emily's Lister Katy Gallagher, the ACT Chief Minister, accepted Burch's explanation that the tweet - which she later deleted - was a mistake.
"I also believe that she has done the right thing and accepted responsibility for what happened ... and has offered an apology to Minister Pyne,'' she said.
We all make mistakes. But imagine if the roles were reversed. Imagine if Pyne had used what I view as the most obscene word in the English language, describing an intimate portion of the female anatomy, in reference to Burch. He would be crucified. Twitter would be ablaze! The destroy-the-jointers would be apoplectic. The entire Abbott government would be implicated.
"If I had done that, before my head hit the pillow [Thursday night] I would have resigned or been sacked," Pyne says.
"If it was me saying such a thing, the howls from the left would be cacophonous."
But there has been barely a peep against Burch, who also happens to be the ACT's Minister for Women. Moving right along. No double standards here.
That's the Left for you, hysterical overreaction when it suits them, benign tolerance when it doesn't. If you're on their side, anything goes. If you're a conservative, a minefield of 'isms lie in wait - sooner or later you will be accused of sexism, racism, elitism, homophobia and misogyny.
Of course, the upside is that conservatives become battle - hardened and vigilant while their establishment foes grow sloppy and complacent.
The truth is that Burch doesn't like Pyne because he is an ideological enemy and a fearsome warrior.
In fact there are few politicians as tough. Pyne relishes combat. As the much-loved youngest of five children growing up in Adelaide, he learned his skills at a family dining table where vigorous debate was nightly sport.
The photograph that had Burch and comrades so furious that they called him "c**t" last week shows Pyne smirking, or, as one tweeter put it, "smugly loitering", in the background of one of those ranting press conferences NSW education minister Adrian Piccoli held about Gonski funding.
This was supposed to be the moment when Pyne was on the ropes, chastised by the media for executing backflips, supposedly humiliated by Prime Ministerial intervention, and yet here he was looking exceedingly pleased with himself.
How infuriating for his enemies!
Having unwisely promised to match the extra billions pledged by Labor before the election under the so-called Gonski model of redistributing education funding, the Abbott government is stuck with it.
But don't expect Pyne to capitulate.
He knows giving extra billions to the very state education bureaucracies that have presided over a decline in standards over the past decade of record funding increases is no answer to our woes.
The latest OECD rankings show Australian students have fallen even further behind their peers in 65 industrialised nations, dropping out of the top ten for reading, maths and science for the first time.
The test results released last week show Australian 15-year-old students ranked 13th in reading last year, down from 9th in 2009; 19th in maths, down from 14th; and 17th in science, down from 10th. An earlier report showed the reading skills of our Year 4 students are the worst of every English-speaking country tested.
This sorry result is despite the fact Australia increased spending on schools by more than 40 per cent last decade.
More money does not automatically mean better education.
In fact it can make things worse, if you are just entrenching the progressive education ideology that has infected teacher training for decades, and which fails disadvantaged children the most.
Pyne understands completely.
"The failing in education is not money," he says. "[What's needed is] an acceptance that what we've been doing for decades doesn't work. Child-centred learning, whole language teaching of reading, acceptance of failure, is not going to get our students to the top of the tree around the world."
The federal government doesn't control what happens in schools. But what Pyne can control is teacher quality, the single biggest determinant of student success.
"We are going to intervene in the training of our teachers ... to ensure that [when they graduate]from university they are properly trained in how to teach students to read, and to do so from phonics, through orthodox teaching methods."
He has lots of other plans too, from expanding direct instruction to ensuring principal autonomy, all of which is anathema to the progressive education establishment.
He should wear their foul abuse as a badge of honour.
And what does this silly old Labor Green Loon Affirmative Action Emilys List Cunt do for a living?
Australian Labor Party, Brindabella Electorate
ASSEMBLY SERVICE
Elected 29 October 2008
Re-elected 20 October 2012
COMMITTEE SERVICE
Standing
Administration and Procedure (December 2008 – November 2009)Education, Training and Youth Affairs (December 2008 – November 2009, Deputy Chair)Health, Community and Social Services (December 2008 – November 2009, Deputy Chair)Public Accounts (December 2008 – November 2009)
Select
Estimates 2009-2010 (April 2009 – June 2009)Campaign Advertising (April 2009 – August 2009 Chair)
PARLIAMENTARY POSITIONS
Assistant Speaker (November 2008 – November 2009)Government Whip (November 2008 – November 2009)ALP Caucus Secretary (October 2008 – November 2009)
MINISTERIAL APPOINTMENTS
Minister for Community Services (November 2009 – October 2012)Minister for Multicultural Affairs (November 2009 – present)Minister for Women (November 2009 – present)Minister for Arts (May 2011 – present)Minister for Gaming and Racing (May 2011 - present)Minister for Ageing (November 2009 – October 2012)Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Affairs (May 2011 – October 2012)Minister for Disability, Children and Young People (November 2012 – present)Minister for Education and Training (November 2012 – present)
QUALIFICATIONS AND OCCUPATIONS BEFORE ENTERING THE ACT LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY
Registered nurseBA Liberal StudiesPost grad: Health Administration, Information Systems Management
Past Membership Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD)Executive Director - Australian Rural Health Education NetworkExecutive Director - Northern Territory Remote Workforce AgencyCEO - rural health and community support servicesOwner and operator - Child Care Centre.
PERSONAL
Married with three sons, lives in Tuggeranong
INTERESTS
Family, community, swimming, gardening, walking, reading and music
Thursday, December 05, 2013
Melbourne's Occupied Territories : Man asks if if worshippers are" Yahudi" then runs a mock with Knife inside Melbourne Mosque KILLING one
One man is dead and two are hurt after a stabbing at a mosque in Dallas, Melbourne
Wayne Flower,Mark Butler
Herald Sun
December 5,2013
WORSHIPPERS ran for their lives during a stabbing attack during morning prayers that has left one man dead and two seriously hurt at a mosque in Melbourne's northern suburbs.
Horrified witnesses said the attacker went beserk in the Broadmeadows Mosque.
"It was crazy. A rampage," one man said. "Six people locked themselves in the billiard room when they saw the knife and the president was locked in his office."
Several men claimed the attacker was at the mosque with his sister when he went berserk.
"He was asking if people if they were Yahudi (Jewish)," a man said. "He then became agitated and not long after he pulled a knife."
Of the two victims who survived the attack, one remains critically injured, after violence broke out at the mosque in King St, Dallas, just before 11am.
Det Sen-Sgt Stuart Bailey said the shocking attack happened before about 40 members of the mosque.
"Many of those were female and elderly," he said.
It is alleged the 22-year old Broadmeadows man attempted to gain entry into the mosque but was refused because of his agitated state.
"Three people in that mosque tried to prevent his entry - they were all in their 70s - the male has produced a knife and has stabbed all three of those (people)," Sen-Sgt Bailey said.
A sergeant, who was first on the scene, attempted to apprehend the man but was also assaulted.
"Fortunately for police a Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT) were also nearby and attended," Sen-Sgt Bailey said.
"They deployed capsicum spray which didn't stop the offender. He's then ran out of the mosque car park into King St where he was tasered by the CRT members."
It took six CRT and two uniformed officers to arrest the alleged killer.
The arrested man remains at St Vincent's Hospital under police guard.
The critically injured victim was being treated at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, the other victim has been taken to the Northern Hospital and was in a stable condition.
Homicide squad detectives are at the scene, which was sealed off today.
Witnesses told the Herald Sun that a man turned up at the mosque asking for financial help.
The man, believed to be of Turkish descent and unknown to regulars, allegedly became violent when other worshippers refused to let him enter morning prayers.
A witness claims the man began making racist remarks before pulling out a knife and slashing people.
Police have called on witnesses to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000
Wayne Flower,Mark Butler
Herald Sun
December 5,2013
WORSHIPPERS ran for their lives during a stabbing attack during morning prayers that has left one man dead and two seriously hurt at a mosque in Melbourne's northern suburbs.
Horrified witnesses said the attacker went beserk in the Broadmeadows Mosque.
"It was crazy. A rampage," one man said. "Six people locked themselves in the billiard room when they saw the knife and the president was locked in his office."
Several men claimed the attacker was at the mosque with his sister when he went berserk.
"He was asking if people if they were Yahudi (Jewish)," a man said. "He then became agitated and not long after he pulled a knife."
Of the two victims who survived the attack, one remains critically injured, after violence broke out at the mosque in King St, Dallas, just before 11am.
Det Sen-Sgt Stuart Bailey said the shocking attack happened before about 40 members of the mosque.
"Many of those were female and elderly," he said.
It is alleged the 22-year old Broadmeadows man attempted to gain entry into the mosque but was refused because of his agitated state.
"Three people in that mosque tried to prevent his entry - they were all in their 70s - the male has produced a knife and has stabbed all three of those (people)," Sen-Sgt Bailey said.
A sergeant, who was first on the scene, attempted to apprehend the man but was also assaulted.
"Fortunately for police a Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT) were also nearby and attended," Sen-Sgt Bailey said.
"They deployed capsicum spray which didn't stop the offender. He's then ran out of the mosque car park into King St where he was tasered by the CRT members."
It took six CRT and two uniformed officers to arrest the alleged killer.
The arrested man remains at St Vincent's Hospital under police guard.
The critically injured victim was being treated at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, the other victim has been taken to the Northern Hospital and was in a stable condition.
Homicide squad detectives are at the scene, which was sealed off today.
Witnesses told the Herald Sun that a man turned up at the mosque asking for financial help.
The man, believed to be of Turkish descent and unknown to regulars, allegedly became violent when other worshippers refused to let him enter morning prayers.
A witness claims the man began making racist remarks before pulling out a knife and slashing people.
Police have called on witnesses to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000
Sydney's Occupied Territories: Lefty Loons Pap Piece on Lakemba,"Nothing to see here"
Lakemba "Nothing to see here"
Labor Green Loons VOTE People : Enriching Sydney's Occupied Territories
Ram-raid Muslim radicals - police fear crimes are funding Syrian war fighters
Yoni Bashan
The Daily Telegraph
December 5,2013
COUNTER-terrorism officers have charged a figurehead of last year's Muslim riots and infamous Sharia "whipping" case over an attempted ATM ram-raid in Sydney's north.
Wassim Fayad, 46, one of two head spokesmen during the riots, was arrested at 7.30am last Friday at Auburn and charged over the failed ram-raid involving at least two other men at North Ryde on May 15.
The investigation, kept under wraps until now, has been continuing for several months, running at the same time as another case with the Joint-Counter Terrorism Team examining a syndicate sending young Australian Muslims to fight in the Syrian civil war. Police also have been investigating Fayad's activities to see whether he has any connection with the Syrian syndicate.
While the ATM attack would normally be left with local authorities, counter terror police are understood to have led the investigation because of their interest in how the alleged assailants had planned to spend the proceeds of the crime.
SYDNEY MEN 'SENT AUSSIES TO FIGHT IN SYRIA'
In 2011, Fayad was one of two central leaders at the infamous riots in Sydney's CBD though he worked with police and made public statements to try to quell the angry crowd.
Earlier that year he told The Sunday Telegraph after the death of Osama bin Laden that the 9/11 mastermind "died a martyr".
Fayad is presently on bail, a court heard last week, awaiting the outcome of an appeal against a two-year sentence he received for his role in whipping a Muslim convert who confessed to drinking alcohol and taking drugs in 2011.
The new charge, laid by the Counter Terrorism and Special Tactics Command, is over the aggravated break and enter on a shopping centre at Waterloo Rd, North Ryde.
The incident involved a four-wheel drive and a van driven into the shopping centre about 4am. Police will allege the four-wheel drive was used to ram two ATMs before Fayad and at least two others allegedly tried to access the cash inside. They left empty-handed.
Fayad was also charged last week by the Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad with being an accessory after the fact in an unrelated attempt to murder case - he appeared in court on both charges.
That accessory charge was laid following an investigation into the attempted murder of a man outside the Aarows sex club at Rydalmere, on May 1, two weeks before the alleged ATM attack.
Several other men have been charged over the shooting. This includes known-radical Milad Bin Ahmad-Shah al-Ahmadzai, 23, who was charged with numerous offences over the incident, the most serious being shoot with intent to murder.
Another man, Osama Sarwat Toffic, 23, also faces a series of charges including shoot with intent to murder.
Fayad's accessory charges allegedly stems from providing Toffic with assistance to leave Australia on November 16, police will allege.
Toffic was arrested at Sydney airport about to board a flight to Germany, en route to Istanbul, Turkey.
It was revealed yesterday the syndicate sending individuals to Syria were helping them enter the country via Turkey.
NSW Police confirmed officers with the Joint Counter-Terror team laid the charges in relation to the attempted robbery.
Police are continuing to probe links between the men and others who have been radicalised in the community.
An associate of al-Ahmadzai, Mirwaice Rahemi, 23, pleaded guilty this year to conspiracy to commit an armed robbery on a cash-in-transit van at Cecil Hills on September 28, 2011.
Rahemi was photographed outside the Downing Centre Local Court in June 2011 supporting Muslim woman Carnita Matthews, who in 2010 claimed police tried to rip off her burqa but was later found guilty of making a false statement. The charge was subsequently overturned on appeal.
Her husband, Hamdi Alqudsi, 39, was on Tuesday charged with being the principal of the syndicate sending Australians to Syria.
More than 150 Muslims turned out last night to a meeting to discuss the arrests of two men who are alleged to have been helping young men travel to Syria to fight alongside al-Qaeda.
Several speakers at the meeting - organised by Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia - condemned the arrests, saying they were unjustified and that authorities had been unable to stop the "tide" of people travelling to Syria to fight.
Group representative Uthman Bader said the Australian government was supporting the Assad regime in Syria and `"secula" elements of the opposition armed forces.
``We shouldn't be surprised. The Australian government has supported … despots and tyrants in the Muslim world," Mr Bader said.
He said it was hypocritical to allow Australian-Israeli citizens to fight overseas with the Israeli Defence Force, and for no action to be taken against Muslims who fought against the Russians in Afghanistan.
Speakers also advocated establishing a Muslimstate, or caliphate.
RADICAL WILL KEEP PENSION UNTIL HIS TERROR CASE IS FINISHED
Clementine Cuneo
AN investigation has been launched into a radical Australian Muslim receiving a disability pension while allegedly helping to finance young men to travel to Syria and fight alongside al-Qaeda.
The Daily Telegraph yesterday reported Hamdi Alqudsi, 39, was accused of being the mastermind behind a network which recruited young Australian men and sent them to Syria to fight with terrorists.
Human Services Minister Marise Payne yesterday said a "review" would be undertaken after it was revealed Alqudsi was receiving a pension at the same time he was alleged to have had access to funds to help finance several overseas trips.
"I have asked my department to review the information outlined in the media relating to this matter," Ms Payne said. But it is understood Alqudsi will continue to receive his pension, despite the charges, until there is an outcome in the court matter.
Alqudsi and a co-accused Amin Iman Mohammed, 23, were arrested on Tuesday by Joint Counter Terrorism detectives, and charged with offences relating to assisting someone to travel abroad, or travelling abroad, to engage in hostile activities. In applying for bail, Bankstown Local Court was told Alqudsi was a disabled pensioner with little more than $500 to post as bail. Late yesterday, Alqudsi was released from jail after raising $10,000 for bail.
His co-accused Mohammad remains in prison, unable to raise the bail money.
Yoni Bashan
The Daily Telegraph
December 5,2013
COUNTER-terrorism officers have charged a figurehead of last year's Muslim riots and infamous Sharia "whipping" case over an attempted ATM ram-raid in Sydney's north.
Wassim Fayad, 46, one of two head spokesmen during the riots, was arrested at 7.30am last Friday at Auburn and charged over the failed ram-raid involving at least two other men at North Ryde on May 15.
The investigation, kept under wraps until now, has been continuing for several months, running at the same time as another case with the Joint-Counter Terrorism Team examining a syndicate sending young Australian Muslims to fight in the Syrian civil war. Police also have been investigating Fayad's activities to see whether he has any connection with the Syrian syndicate.
While the ATM attack would normally be left with local authorities, counter terror police are understood to have led the investigation because of their interest in how the alleged assailants had planned to spend the proceeds of the crime.
SYDNEY MEN 'SENT AUSSIES TO FIGHT IN SYRIA'
In 2011, Fayad was one of two central leaders at the infamous riots in Sydney's CBD though he worked with police and made public statements to try to quell the angry crowd.
Earlier that year he told The Sunday Telegraph after the death of Osama bin Laden that the 9/11 mastermind "died a martyr".
Fayad is presently on bail, a court heard last week, awaiting the outcome of an appeal against a two-year sentence he received for his role in whipping a Muslim convert who confessed to drinking alcohol and taking drugs in 2011.
The new charge, laid by the Counter Terrorism and Special Tactics Command, is over the aggravated break and enter on a shopping centre at Waterloo Rd, North Ryde.
The incident involved a four-wheel drive and a van driven into the shopping centre about 4am. Police will allege the four-wheel drive was used to ram two ATMs before Fayad and at least two others allegedly tried to access the cash inside. They left empty-handed.
Fayad was also charged last week by the Middle Eastern Organised Crime Squad with being an accessory after the fact in an unrelated attempt to murder case - he appeared in court on both charges.
That accessory charge was laid following an investigation into the attempted murder of a man outside the Aarows sex club at Rydalmere, on May 1, two weeks before the alleged ATM attack.
Several other men have been charged over the shooting. This includes known-radical Milad Bin Ahmad-Shah al-Ahmadzai, 23, who was charged with numerous offences over the incident, the most serious being shoot with intent to murder.
Another man, Osama Sarwat Toffic, 23, also faces a series of charges including shoot with intent to murder.
Fayad's accessory charges allegedly stems from providing Toffic with assistance to leave Australia on November 16, police will allege.
Toffic was arrested at Sydney airport about to board a flight to Germany, en route to Istanbul, Turkey.
It was revealed yesterday the syndicate sending individuals to Syria were helping them enter the country via Turkey.
NSW Police confirmed officers with the Joint Counter-Terror team laid the charges in relation to the attempted robbery.
Police are continuing to probe links between the men and others who have been radicalised in the community.
An associate of al-Ahmadzai, Mirwaice Rahemi, 23, pleaded guilty this year to conspiracy to commit an armed robbery on a cash-in-transit van at Cecil Hills on September 28, 2011.
Rahemi was photographed outside the Downing Centre Local Court in June 2011 supporting Muslim woman Carnita Matthews, who in 2010 claimed police tried to rip off her burqa but was later found guilty of making a false statement. The charge was subsequently overturned on appeal.
Her husband, Hamdi Alqudsi, 39, was on Tuesday charged with being the principal of the syndicate sending Australians to Syria.
More than 150 Muslims turned out last night to a meeting to discuss the arrests of two men who are alleged to have been helping young men travel to Syria to fight alongside al-Qaeda.
Several speakers at the meeting - organised by Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia - condemned the arrests, saying they were unjustified and that authorities had been unable to stop the "tide" of people travelling to Syria to fight.
Group representative Uthman Bader said the Australian government was supporting the Assad regime in Syria and `"secula" elements of the opposition armed forces.
``We shouldn't be surprised. The Australian government has supported … despots and tyrants in the Muslim world," Mr Bader said.
He said it was hypocritical to allow Australian-Israeli citizens to fight overseas with the Israeli Defence Force, and for no action to be taken against Muslims who fought against the Russians in Afghanistan.
Speakers also advocated establishing a Muslimstate, or caliphate.
RADICAL WILL KEEP PENSION UNTIL HIS TERROR CASE IS FINISHED
Clementine Cuneo
AN investigation has been launched into a radical Australian Muslim receiving a disability pension while allegedly helping to finance young men to travel to Syria and fight alongside al-Qaeda.
The Daily Telegraph yesterday reported Hamdi Alqudsi, 39, was accused of being the mastermind behind a network which recruited young Australian men and sent them to Syria to fight with terrorists.
Human Services Minister Marise Payne yesterday said a "review" would be undertaken after it was revealed Alqudsi was receiving a pension at the same time he was alleged to have had access to funds to help finance several overseas trips.
"I have asked my department to review the information outlined in the media relating to this matter," Ms Payne said. But it is understood Alqudsi will continue to receive his pension, despite the charges, until there is an outcome in the court matter.
Alqudsi and a co-accused Amin Iman Mohammed, 23, were arrested on Tuesday by Joint Counter Terrorism detectives, and charged with offences relating to assisting someone to travel abroad, or travelling abroad, to engage in hostile activities. In applying for bail, Bankstown Local Court was told Alqudsi was a disabled pensioner with little more than $500 to post as bail. Late yesterday, Alqudsi was released from jail after raising $10,000 for bail.
His co-accused Mohammad remains in prison, unable to raise the bail money.
Wednesday, December 04, 2013
Sydney's Occupied Territories :Cultural Diversity and Harmony Day Ambassadors Gone Wild, and its all the fault of the NSW POLICE
Police had no tip-off on Sydney shooting
Lema Samandar
The Daily Telegraph
December 4,2013
A MAN living in a southwest Sydney house that has been shot at three times this year is well known to police and involved in gangs.
A man fired nine shots from a handgun into the Greenfield Park house on Tuesday night before fleeing, police say.
The house was also targeted by gunmen in June and July.
Deputy Commissioner Nick Kaldas said the three people living in the house were unharmed but were cooperating with police in a limited way.
"There was a number of family members inside the house, one of whom is a 24-year-old male, who is actually well known to us," Mr Kaldas told reporters in Sydney on Wednesday.
He said the man was linked to a number of criminal gangs but not the notorious Brothers 4 Life gang.
Mr Kaldas rubbished remarks by the family that police had prior warning about the shooting and had visited the home three times on Tuesday.
"They received one visit earlier in the day and it was from Operation Talon as part of their tasking they carry out on an ongoing basis," he said.
"We had no information they were at risk."
The 24-year-old man is before the courts and on bail, police confirmed.
Operation Talon, which is focused on tackling gun crime in Sydney, has resulted in more than 140 arrests and 135 charges in the past few months.
Officers have also had more than 5000 interactions with the people they have been tasked to check up on.
Opposition Leader John Robertson said the state government should use laws already at its disposal to outlaw the gangs shooting up western Sydney.
"(Premier) Barry O'Farrell has the power in his hands to outlaw these gangs and give the police the opportunity to shut these clubs down," he said.
Mr Robertson said there had been 302 shootings since Mr O'Farrell became premier and 119 so far this year.
However, Mr Kaldas said the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) would release figures on Thursday showing that the number of shootings had been halved.
"We feel that we have halved the number of incidents; we are not stopping them obviously."
Lema Samandar
The Daily Telegraph
December 4,2013
A MAN living in a southwest Sydney house that has been shot at three times this year is well known to police and involved in gangs.
A man fired nine shots from a handgun into the Greenfield Park house on Tuesday night before fleeing, police say.
The house was also targeted by gunmen in June and July.
Deputy Commissioner Nick Kaldas said the three people living in the house were unharmed but were cooperating with police in a limited way.
"There was a number of family members inside the house, one of whom is a 24-year-old male, who is actually well known to us," Mr Kaldas told reporters in Sydney on Wednesday.
He said the man was linked to a number of criminal gangs but not the notorious Brothers 4 Life gang.
Mr Kaldas rubbished remarks by the family that police had prior warning about the shooting and had visited the home three times on Tuesday.
"They received one visit earlier in the day and it was from Operation Talon as part of their tasking they carry out on an ongoing basis," he said.
"We had no information they were at risk."
The 24-year-old man is before the courts and on bail, police confirmed.
Operation Talon, which is focused on tackling gun crime in Sydney, has resulted in more than 140 arrests and 135 charges in the past few months.
Officers have also had more than 5000 interactions with the people they have been tasked to check up on.
Opposition Leader John Robertson said the state government should use laws already at its disposal to outlaw the gangs shooting up western Sydney.
"(Premier) Barry O'Farrell has the power in his hands to outlaw these gangs and give the police the opportunity to shut these clubs down," he said.
Mr Robertson said there had been 302 shootings since Mr O'Farrell became premier and 119 so far this year.
However, Mr Kaldas said the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) would release figures on Thursday showing that the number of shootings had been halved.
"We feel that we have halved the number of incidents; we are not stopping them obviously."
Labor Green Loons and THEIR ABC
Why the ABC distorts the news agenda
Piers Akerman –
Sunday Telegraph
December 01, 2013
IT came as no surprise to be quoted by the extravagantly paid Tony Jones, the host of the ABC’s Green-Left oriented Q & A program, last Monday as he sought to justify the taxpayer-funded media organisation’s attack on Australian-Indonesian relations.
Jones’ sniggering, simpering remarks are usually aimed at the luvvies and no doubt he hoped to embarrass me and all those in the media who believe that the national interest might just trump the public interest occasionally.
During a program which featured an extraordinary riff about a truly inexplicable conspiracy theory from the human rights lawyer Julian Burnside, Jones reverenced my view in response to a serious question from Roslyn Coutinho, who asked: “The Australian public trust and value the ABC as a source of truth, however, the Indonesian phone tapping story could potentially have negative consequences for innocent parties, such as Australian cattle farmers and asylum seekers in Indonesia. So my question is for the whole panel, including Tony, but this could be wishful thinking, was the choice to run this story a selfish decision by the ABC or should governments be more careful about the potential implications of their intelligence operations in general?
His reply, which must have been researched and prepared in advance, was: “I might answer your question by quoting News Limited columnist Piers Akerman who wrote last year, ‘I believe freedom is absolute. You either have a free press or you do not.’ The information came to the ABC, they published it. I wonder whether News Limited would have published it or held it? That’s a very interesting question we probably won’t know the answer to.”
The quote is accurate, although it came from a blog written on March 18 this year, not last.
But Jones was, as usual, a little too smart. He needs to be reminded of the context of the quote and it was this — and I shall now quote from blog which the ABC employee found irresistible.
“It would not be news to readers of this site that this dysfunctional government’s ham-fisted attempts to muzzle the media anger me.
“Unfortunately, I permitted that anger to show on the ABC’s Insiders program yesterday.
“Flanked by two people who laughed at the notion that press freedom was threatened, and mocked by the show’s host, I raised my voice.
“Perhaps I should not have.
“I was angered by their naiveties, by their apparent belief that freedom can be trifled with.
“I believe freedom is an absolute.
“You either have a free press or you do not.”
And I still believe that.
The point that needs making for people like Jones however, who are more than willing to play the idiot if they think it will portray conservatives in a poor light, is that even a free press must be responsible.
While the US Constitution goes further than any other to enshrine the notion of free speech, US law (and commonsense, a trait obviously absent from the halls of the ABC) make it a crime to recklessly falsely shout “fire” in a crowded venue.
Jones, of course, was only trying to justify the decision taken by the ABC to promote The Guardian’s publication of intelligence material stolen from the United States by the defector Edward Snowden, now living in Russia where he enjoys the hospitality of that nation’s security services.
No doubt the Russians will keep him a long way from their computers but whether Snowden, The Guardian and the ABC would ever dream of publishing documents that would damage the national interests of Russia, is as Jones’ might muse “a very interesting question we probably won’t know the answer to”.
I would hazard a guess though that The Guardian would not release such material because it is not interested in exposing Russian secrets, only those which would damage the web of Western nations which share democratic values.
As an Australian, I have no qualms considering the national interest.
The Guardian was always going to publish the material stolen by the defector, but I question the need for “our” ABC to assist that media group in promoting the damaging allegations in our region.
If the ABC was truly interested in freedom of the press, I would never have had to challenge Insider host Barrie Cassidy last March, or later in the year when I asked why the ABC had so consistently failed to broadcast any news about the ongoing Victorian police investigation into former Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s involvement as a lawyer in helping to set up the AWU Workplace Reform Association (which she later described as a “slush fund") and providing legal advice to her former boyfriend Bruce Wilson and AWU member Ralph Blewitt. Ms Gillard has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
The case will be given yet another airing in the Victorian courts tomorrow, though whether the ABC breaks with its habit and reports this is “a very interesting question we probably won’t know the answer to”.
Meanwhile, the ABC continues its attempts to smear the Abbott government over the spying allegations.
On Wednesday, the AM program began its report of the Indonesian response to Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s letter to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono thus: “Mr Abbott’s initial refusal to explain documents showing Australia spied on the President, his wife, and senior ministers, angered Indonesia, causing the President to suspend cooperation.”
Get it? Most reasonable people would think the Indonesians were angered by the spying but the ABC wants its audience to see Abbott as the villain.
The ABC sucks more than $1 billion from the taxpayers.
What’s more, Labor rewarded it for its support with more money and was prepared to twice ignore a tender process and award it with the Australia Network to pursue “soft diplomacy” on Australia’s behalf in our region.
The ABC is a bloated failure in the hands of ideologues. It should be stripped back to its charter, at the very least, or broken up and sold, if possible to commercial interests.
In a world of expanding media, the notion of a taxpayer-funded national broadcaster is anachronistic.
Those who want to keep “our” ABC, should fund it. Those who don’t should not have to pay for it.
Biased ABC leads a howling media mob
Miranda Devine
The Daily Telegraph
December 4,2013
THE government has been in office 77 days but the Canberra press gallery has already written it off. Where fault can be found it will be furiously exaggerated. Where success occurs it will be ignored.
It began with the so-called expenses "scandal", when Tony Abbott's electioneering at sports events was recast as some sinister attempt to rort the public purse.
Then he was blamed for the Indonesia spying scandal which occurred under Rudd.
BLOG WITH MIRANDA DEVINE
On border protection, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has been hammered for not divulging operational detail about exactly how asylum boats are being stopped. He revealed this week that November had seen the lowest boat arrivals in five years, but all anyone wants to talk about is his "hostile" attitude to the media. Well, hello. He's only human.
Education Minister Christopher Pyne is the latest punching bag for refusing to implement the Gonski education funding model, as prescribed by Julia Gillard. Why was that a surprise to anyone, least of all Barry O'Farrell?
Treasurer Joe Hockey is being lambasted over the non-sale of GrainCorp, over which, hilariously, lefties are siding with the free market - anything to beat up on Abbott.
The contrast to the honeymoon period of the Rudd government is staggering. Kevin Rudd was feted as a messiah for more than a year.
At the end of his first three months, he was preferred prime minister over Brendan Nelson by 68 per cent to 10 per cent, according to ABC-TV's Insiders' "poll of polls", which relishes Abbott's less impressive lead of 44-29 over Bill Shorten.
Rudd's popularity soared to record highs thanks in large part to all the positive coverage lavished on him and his lame-brained ideas, like the 2020 summit, FuelWatch, GroceryWatch, an ETS, green loans, free pink batts, the end of homelessness, and dismantling border protection.
The media was dazzled, especially the ABC-Fairfax Media axis of love. But even conservatives gave Rudd the benefit of the doubt for too long.
To its eternal shame, The Australian newspaper even named him Australian of the year in 2010. Uh oh.
Rudd's media honeymoon was so prolonged that it seemed few people were more surprised when his party ditched him for non-performance later that same year than the press gallery.
More than any other news organisation, the ABC gave Labor a free pass over the past six years of calamitous government.
Remarkably, it has run dead on serious crime allegations against senior Labor figures which are currently being investigated by police, while
ferociously hunting down every verbal misstep or stumble by the new government.
Labor bodies are piling up and stinking behind the doors the ABC refuses to open.
Instead it fires all its barrels at the poor saps who barely have their feet under their desks.
So when Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi launched a scathing attack on the ABC in the Coalition party room yesterday, he was reflecting the opinion not only of his party's conservative base but of the bulk of his parliamentary colleagues.
The applause he received was a pointed rebuke to his old foe, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who continues to defend the national broadcaster.
"I'm concerned because it's not our ABC, it's not my ABC, it's 'their' ABC," Bernardi said.
"It's a taxpayer-funded behemoth that is cannibalising commercial media while spreading a message that ignores the majority views of Australians."
Bernardi told colleagues he does not advocate privatising the ABC since it has a role to play in regional communities.
But the national broadcaster "no longer complies with its charter of fairness and balance.
"It is politically biased, regularly unfair and has priorities completely at odds with its raison d'être,'' he said.
"Gone are the days when it simply operated TV and radio services. It has a massive online presence providing at taxpayers expense what commercial media operations need to charge for, four television channels and who knows how many radio licences.
"It is out of control and needs to be reined in. It needs to be broken up and returned to its primary purpose rather than the engorged propaganda unit it has become."
Bernardi is on the backbench because he was marginalised by many in his own party before the election for refusing to maintain a safe, politically correct line. Turnbull particularly targeted him because Bernardi led the revolt against the ETS which ended his leadership and launched Abbott.
Now Bernardi is leading the conservative revolt against the ABC, and again he is on the right side of history
The ABC's evil plan to get tentacles into kids
Miranda Devine
The Daily Telegraph
December 4,2013
http://www.abc.net.au/btn/
THE ABC is an enormous beast, with tentacles stretching across the internet and digital TV at a time when other media organisations are struggling to survive.
Its success at enforcing the narrow groupthink of the Left cannot be over-estimated, and not just on obvious flagship programs such as Q&A.
Take its controversial education show Behind The News, watched by more than one million unsuspecting children each week.
With a cheery youth-friendly style, it promotes the soft-left line on everything from asylum seekers to gender equality to big government spending.
Yesterday's episode of BTN began with a story about Education Minister Christopher Pyne's "broken promise" on Gonski funding.
Next was "Why sorry seems to be the hardest word over the Indonesian spy scandal", complete with footage of Kevin Rudd making his Stolen Generations apology. Praise for Rudd was cleverly delivered using Tony Abbott's words.
"So it seems Tony is a fan of people who say sorry too. Well, he was."
That is, until the Indonesia spying scandal erupted. No mention that the spying occurred during Rudd's sainted reign.
At the end of the package the young BTN host, sitting in a school he identifies as Norwood Primary, asks the children around him if they think "Tony" should have said sorry.
It's no surprise that the majority, about 30 children, put up their hands to say yes the Prime Minister should have apologised.
A scan of other BTN stories this year finds similar examples of loaded commentary: "The new PM Tony Abbott hasn't repaid some money that he claimed for going to a few running and cycling events. The fitness freak says they were genuine community events, so it's OK for the taxpayer to help foot the bill."
Subtle propaganda to children is all part of the ABC's long march.
Piers Akerman –
Sunday Telegraph
December 01, 2013
IT came as no surprise to be quoted by the extravagantly paid Tony Jones, the host of the ABC’s Green-Left oriented Q & A program, last Monday as he sought to justify the taxpayer-funded media organisation’s attack on Australian-Indonesian relations.
Jones’ sniggering, simpering remarks are usually aimed at the luvvies and no doubt he hoped to embarrass me and all those in the media who believe that the national interest might just trump the public interest occasionally.
During a program which featured an extraordinary riff about a truly inexplicable conspiracy theory from the human rights lawyer Julian Burnside, Jones reverenced my view in response to a serious question from Roslyn Coutinho, who asked: “The Australian public trust and value the ABC as a source of truth, however, the Indonesian phone tapping story could potentially have negative consequences for innocent parties, such as Australian cattle farmers and asylum seekers in Indonesia. So my question is for the whole panel, including Tony, but this could be wishful thinking, was the choice to run this story a selfish decision by the ABC or should governments be more careful about the potential implications of their intelligence operations in general?
His reply, which must have been researched and prepared in advance, was: “I might answer your question by quoting News Limited columnist Piers Akerman who wrote last year, ‘I believe freedom is absolute. You either have a free press or you do not.’ The information came to the ABC, they published it. I wonder whether News Limited would have published it or held it? That’s a very interesting question we probably won’t know the answer to.”
The quote is accurate, although it came from a blog written on March 18 this year, not last.
But Jones was, as usual, a little too smart. He needs to be reminded of the context of the quote and it was this — and I shall now quote from blog which the ABC employee found irresistible.
“It would not be news to readers of this site that this dysfunctional government’s ham-fisted attempts to muzzle the media anger me.
“Unfortunately, I permitted that anger to show on the ABC’s Insiders program yesterday.
“Flanked by two people who laughed at the notion that press freedom was threatened, and mocked by the show’s host, I raised my voice.
“Perhaps I should not have.
“I was angered by their naiveties, by their apparent belief that freedom can be trifled with.
“I believe freedom is an absolute.
“You either have a free press or you do not.”
And I still believe that.
The point that needs making for people like Jones however, who are more than willing to play the idiot if they think it will portray conservatives in a poor light, is that even a free press must be responsible.
While the US Constitution goes further than any other to enshrine the notion of free speech, US law (and commonsense, a trait obviously absent from the halls of the ABC) make it a crime to recklessly falsely shout “fire” in a crowded venue.
Jones, of course, was only trying to justify the decision taken by the ABC to promote The Guardian’s publication of intelligence material stolen from the United States by the defector Edward Snowden, now living in Russia where he enjoys the hospitality of that nation’s security services.
No doubt the Russians will keep him a long way from their computers but whether Snowden, The Guardian and the ABC would ever dream of publishing documents that would damage the national interests of Russia, is as Jones’ might muse “a very interesting question we probably won’t know the answer to”.
I would hazard a guess though that The Guardian would not release such material because it is not interested in exposing Russian secrets, only those which would damage the web of Western nations which share democratic values.
As an Australian, I have no qualms considering the national interest.
The Guardian was always going to publish the material stolen by the defector, but I question the need for “our” ABC to assist that media group in promoting the damaging allegations in our region.
If the ABC was truly interested in freedom of the press, I would never have had to challenge Insider host Barrie Cassidy last March, or later in the year when I asked why the ABC had so consistently failed to broadcast any news about the ongoing Victorian police investigation into former Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s involvement as a lawyer in helping to set up the AWU Workplace Reform Association (which she later described as a “slush fund") and providing legal advice to her former boyfriend Bruce Wilson and AWU member Ralph Blewitt. Ms Gillard has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
The case will be given yet another airing in the Victorian courts tomorrow, though whether the ABC breaks with its habit and reports this is “a very interesting question we probably won’t know the answer to”.
Meanwhile, the ABC continues its attempts to smear the Abbott government over the spying allegations.
On Wednesday, the AM program began its report of the Indonesian response to Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s letter to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono thus: “Mr Abbott’s initial refusal to explain documents showing Australia spied on the President, his wife, and senior ministers, angered Indonesia, causing the President to suspend cooperation.”
Get it? Most reasonable people would think the Indonesians were angered by the spying but the ABC wants its audience to see Abbott as the villain.
The ABC sucks more than $1 billion from the taxpayers.
What’s more, Labor rewarded it for its support with more money and was prepared to twice ignore a tender process and award it with the Australia Network to pursue “soft diplomacy” on Australia’s behalf in our region.
The ABC is a bloated failure in the hands of ideologues. It should be stripped back to its charter, at the very least, or broken up and sold, if possible to commercial interests.
In a world of expanding media, the notion of a taxpayer-funded national broadcaster is anachronistic.
Those who want to keep “our” ABC, should fund it. Those who don’t should not have to pay for it.
Biased ABC leads a howling media mob
Miranda Devine
The Daily Telegraph
December 4,2013
THE government has been in office 77 days but the Canberra press gallery has already written it off. Where fault can be found it will be furiously exaggerated. Where success occurs it will be ignored.
It began with the so-called expenses "scandal", when Tony Abbott's electioneering at sports events was recast as some sinister attempt to rort the public purse.
Then he was blamed for the Indonesia spying scandal which occurred under Rudd.
BLOG WITH MIRANDA DEVINE
On border protection, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has been hammered for not divulging operational detail about exactly how asylum boats are being stopped. He revealed this week that November had seen the lowest boat arrivals in five years, but all anyone wants to talk about is his "hostile" attitude to the media. Well, hello. He's only human.
Education Minister Christopher Pyne is the latest punching bag for refusing to implement the Gonski education funding model, as prescribed by Julia Gillard. Why was that a surprise to anyone, least of all Barry O'Farrell?
Treasurer Joe Hockey is being lambasted over the non-sale of GrainCorp, over which, hilariously, lefties are siding with the free market - anything to beat up on Abbott.
The contrast to the honeymoon period of the Rudd government is staggering. Kevin Rudd was feted as a messiah for more than a year.
At the end of his first three months, he was preferred prime minister over Brendan Nelson by 68 per cent to 10 per cent, according to ABC-TV's Insiders' "poll of polls", which relishes Abbott's less impressive lead of 44-29 over Bill Shorten.
Rudd's popularity soared to record highs thanks in large part to all the positive coverage lavished on him and his lame-brained ideas, like the 2020 summit, FuelWatch, GroceryWatch, an ETS, green loans, free pink batts, the end of homelessness, and dismantling border protection.
The media was dazzled, especially the ABC-Fairfax Media axis of love. But even conservatives gave Rudd the benefit of the doubt for too long.
To its eternal shame, The Australian newspaper even named him Australian of the year in 2010. Uh oh.
Rudd's media honeymoon was so prolonged that it seemed few people were more surprised when his party ditched him for non-performance later that same year than the press gallery.
More than any other news organisation, the ABC gave Labor a free pass over the past six years of calamitous government.
Remarkably, it has run dead on serious crime allegations against senior Labor figures which are currently being investigated by police, while
ferociously hunting down every verbal misstep or stumble by the new government.
Labor bodies are piling up and stinking behind the doors the ABC refuses to open.
Instead it fires all its barrels at the poor saps who barely have their feet under their desks.
So when Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi launched a scathing attack on the ABC in the Coalition party room yesterday, he was reflecting the opinion not only of his party's conservative base but of the bulk of his parliamentary colleagues.
The applause he received was a pointed rebuke to his old foe, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who continues to defend the national broadcaster.
"I'm concerned because it's not our ABC, it's not my ABC, it's 'their' ABC," Bernardi said.
"It's a taxpayer-funded behemoth that is cannibalising commercial media while spreading a message that ignores the majority views of Australians."
Bernardi told colleagues he does not advocate privatising the ABC since it has a role to play in regional communities.
But the national broadcaster "no longer complies with its charter of fairness and balance.
"It is politically biased, regularly unfair and has priorities completely at odds with its raison d'être,'' he said.
"Gone are the days when it simply operated TV and radio services. It has a massive online presence providing at taxpayers expense what commercial media operations need to charge for, four television channels and who knows how many radio licences.
"It is out of control and needs to be reined in. It needs to be broken up and returned to its primary purpose rather than the engorged propaganda unit it has become."
Bernardi is on the backbench because he was marginalised by many in his own party before the election for refusing to maintain a safe, politically correct line. Turnbull particularly targeted him because Bernardi led the revolt against the ETS which ended his leadership and launched Abbott.
Now Bernardi is leading the conservative revolt against the ABC, and again he is on the right side of history
The ABC's evil plan to get tentacles into kids
Miranda Devine
The Daily Telegraph
December 4,2013
http://www.abc.net.au/btn/
THE ABC is an enormous beast, with tentacles stretching across the internet and digital TV at a time when other media organisations are struggling to survive.
Its success at enforcing the narrow groupthink of the Left cannot be over-estimated, and not just on obvious flagship programs such as Q&A.
Take its controversial education show Behind The News, watched by more than one million unsuspecting children each week.
With a cheery youth-friendly style, it promotes the soft-left line on everything from asylum seekers to gender equality to big government spending.
Yesterday's episode of BTN began with a story about Education Minister Christopher Pyne's "broken promise" on Gonski funding.
Next was "Why sorry seems to be the hardest word over the Indonesian spy scandal", complete with footage of Kevin Rudd making his Stolen Generations apology. Praise for Rudd was cleverly delivered using Tony Abbott's words.
"So it seems Tony is a fan of people who say sorry too. Well, he was."
That is, until the Indonesia spying scandal erupted. No mention that the spying occurred during Rudd's sainted reign.
At the end of the package the young BTN host, sitting in a school he identifies as Norwood Primary, asks the children around him if they think "Tony" should have said sorry.
It's no surprise that the majority, about 30 children, put up their hands to say yes the Prime Minister should have apologised.
A scan of other BTN stories this year finds similar examples of loaded commentary: "The new PM Tony Abbott hasn't repaid some money that he claimed for going to a few running and cycling events. The fitness freak says they were genuine community events, so it's OK for the taxpayer to help foot the bill."
Subtle propaganda to children is all part of the ABC's long march.
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