Australian Labor flies in Doctors from England to staff their best free third world health system in the world aka Medicare

Doctor flying 19,000km to help with NSW doctor shortage

EXCLUSIVE by Kate Sikora
The Daily Telegraph
November 29, 2008 12:00am

AN obstetrician from London is regularly being flown 19,000km to rural NSW in a desperate bid to deal with the critical shortage of doctors.

In a sign of how desperate rural NSW has become for medical professionals, another obstetrician is working without full qualifications.

The latest example of the funding crisis in health comes as the state health ministers meet today to thrash out the details of a massive Federal Government package to rescue public hospitals.

Australian-trained Dr David Hodgson, who helped pioneer the three-minute hysterectomy, is based in London but for the past year has been flown out on almost a two-monthly basis to work at Wagga Wagga Hospital, in the hope he will stay permanently.

But the decision to spend an exorbitant amount on flights and accommodation has been criticised by maternity groups and rural doctors, who say the money could be better spent on enticing city-based doctors to the bush.

Only two months ago, the Greater Southern Area Health Service was struggling to pay its bills and owed more than $30,000.

What Women Want founder Justine Caines said a more viable option would be to invest in midwifery services.

"It just seems like such an expensive solution when a midwifery model of care could be developed," she said.

In Bega, Dr Thamir Karam is listed as the on-call obstetrician but due to lack of qualifications, he must also be supervised by a colleague.

The Iraqi-born doctor has been working in Australia for several years and while there is no concern about his ability, local doctors are worried his experience is not enough to manage complicated births.

The Daily Telegraph understands Dr Karam dropped out of the training program run by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

College president Dr Ted Weaver said the cases highlighted the desperate need to entice obstetricians to rural towns. "It is wrong to suggest a person without the diploma is the same as an Australian-trained obstetrician who has gone through the college's training," he said.

In a statement, the area health service said: "GSHAS has a short-term arrangement where the doctor rotates working in Wagga Wagga for a month before returning to the UK.

"The locum doctor providing services at Bega Hospital . . . is being supported by a specialist obstetrician and gynaecologist. Referee checks were completed."

Hey what are these smucks complaining about? Medi(dont )care is without doubt the best third world free health system on earth bar none, after all surely the Australian Labor Party knows whats best for your health than you and your Doctor, anyone complaining about the above story should be visited by a Union official and coumcelled on t heerrors of the thinking.

The joke is that just this very day i spoke to a woman working in the Australian health system who was a British immigrant who told me of her sisters plight in the UK who was given a 48 week wait to see a gynecologist for an urgent medical problem.
The Australian Labor Party based its FREE health care system on their Bruvvers in arms in the UK Labor Party's shambolic free National Health System, The Australian Labor Party was determined to destroy the BEST health care system in the world and replace it with the WORST, and Australians fell for it hook line and sinker because they were told it would not cost them any money when they visited the Doctor.

Under Socialism EVERYTHING is free until they no longer need YOU.

See Below Australian Labor Party's latest report card

Hospitals out of resources and Rees out of money

The Daily Telegraph
November 28, 2008 12:00am

THE NSW health system is on the brink of collapse, with a special commission of inquiry recommending emergency wards now treat only the most urgent cases - with all other patients forced to wait in line at general practice clinics.

In a scathing report, commissioner Peter Garling revealed NSW hospitals had effectively run out of resources to treat the number of patients now clogging the system.

Despite Mr Garling's calls for an urgent restructure of the health system, the State Government yesterday refused to act on the 139 recommendations found in the report until mid-next year. The report has recommended closure of outer Sydney hospital emergency

wards due to lack of resources. Describing state health as "on the brink", Mr Garling said the system placed patients' needs behind doctors' and management.

Read the full report and join Simon Benson's blog

The report comes as officials head to Canberra today to ask the Federal Government for $800 million to prop up the ailing health system.

The Daily Telegraph understands that Mr Garling's reforms will cost up to $400 million if fully implemented.

However, the Government failed to provide funds in its mini-Budget for to respond to the Garling report.

"I would describe our hospitals as good by world standards, but too often unable to deal with the sudden increase in patients, the rising cost of treatment and the pressures on a workforce spread too thinly and poorly supported in the administrative tasks which take them away from their patients," Mr Garling said.

The man who campaigned for radical reform in state hospitals after his daughter's death has described yesterday's report as a hollow victory.

Warren Anderson has been pushing for change after his daughter Vanessa, 16, died in Royal North Shore Hospital in 2005 after being prescribed wrong pain medication.

In January, a coroner described her death as a result of "systematic failures" and recommended the health system be overhauled.

The Government will not respond to the report until next March.

Premier Nathan Rees conceded it would be a challenge to overhaul the system and fund the reforms.

If Mr Anderson thinks that the Australian Labor Party gives a flying F**k about their health systems contribution to his dear daughter's death he is mistaken, as Bernard Shaw a champion and apologist of the Socialist cause said:

"Socialism means equality of income or nothing...........Under Socialism

you would not be allowed to be poor.

You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught and employed

whether you liked it or not.

If it were discovered that you had not character and industry enough to

be worth all his trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly

manner; but while you were permitted to live,

you would have to live well."

Bernard Shaw.

Laying in a Hospital bed with a brain injury or other such ailment comes under the following "If it were discovered that you had not character and industry enough to

be worth all his trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly

manner; "

If they don't need you they don't feed you.
Socialism IS survival of the fittest.

Baz Luhrmann's lie, aka "Australia", flounders

Australia flounders on tough weekend

News.com.au
November 28, 2008 09:52pm

THE much-hyped Baz Luhrmann movie Australia has flopped at the US box office on its opening day, according to reports.
Figures quoted from US entertainment newspaper Variety in the Herald Sun newspaper said the movie made a paltry $3.4 million on its Thursday opening in the key market.

That worked out at a per screen average of $1318, compared to the $35,055 per screen earned by teen movie and box office leader, Twilight.

Talkshow queen Oprah Winfrey has promoted the movie on her show.

Thanksgiving weekend is a traditionally tough weekend in the US, and Australia is also competing with the Reese Witherspoon comedy Four Christmases (renamed Four Holidays in Australia) and Transporter 3.

Australia is the most expensive movie ever made in this country, with a price tag of $197 million.

On its opening day in Australia on Wednesday, it made the respectable figure of $1.3 million.

The new James Bond flick, Quantum of Solace, made $2 million on its opening day the week before.

The epic romance Australia stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman and is set in the Northern Territory in the 1930s.

Baz Luhrmann: "Australia" the Movie and the leftist lies told by it's makers .

The Australian

Cut & Paste
27 11 08

In an unusual marketing move to promote his movie, Australia, Baz Luhrmann brands Barack Obama the rabbit-proof president:

THE president-elect of the United States is 47. If he (were) living in Australia, it is absolutely credible that the government, because he had one white parent and one black parent, could have taken him forcibly from his family. They would have put him in an institution, probably lied to him that his parents were dead, changed his name and reprogrammed him to be European, so he could have some sort of function doing something of service in white society. That would possibly have been Obama's journey.

Andrew Bolt on his Herald Sun blog asks Baz Luhrmann:
PLEASE name a single child stolen from a Kenyan immigrant and his white wife on the grounds that their son was Aboriginal.

Movie shock our Nicole, victim of stolen generations

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

It is obvious that Baz Luhrmann knows as much about President elect Barack Obama's past as he does about Australia's.

Based on my experience and frequent contact with Baz Luhrmann in his younger days I am not the least bit surprised at the leftist revisionist history "Sorry Industry" propegander that is threaded at every turn through the embarresing script and storyline that is this movie, allegedly, about Australia.
The movie is about authentic a portrayal of Australia, as are the Boab Trees that feature through out the movie,I hope Baz Luhrmann did not give them so much exposure because he was of the belief that they were Australian native trees.

I am sure it will do well in California and parts of Eurabia.

Its not all bad: Wait till it comes out on DVD (in a few weeks I am sure) and turn the sound down and watch some simply stunning scenery.
Oh by the way,it is true the Japanese did bomb Darwin during WW2.

Baz Luhrmann's Australia slammed by US critics

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

Be a Manne and name just 10

Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun
28jun06

HOW odd to read a letter from Professor Robert Manne in this paper on Monday claiming I was a "coward" and a "hypocrite" for refusing to debate him.

Surprised, because it was five years ago that I turned down his only known invitation to do just that.
He'd wanted me to help promote an essay of his, which attacked me at length -- but without me having the chance to read it first.

Since then, of course, I've debated him on the ABC and in print here, especially over his baseless claim that this country "stole" 25,000 Aboriginal children from their parents for purely racist reasons.

Yesterday, I got him on 3AW for another debate, which showed just why I don't fear debating him at all on this.

You see, there is one great, gaping absence in all the arguments he's produced in more than five years of digging. Let the transcript of yesterday's debate tell the tale.

Bolt: You are the nation's foremost scholar, allegedly, on the "stolen generations". You have said more than anyone else. In fact, you got a $50,000 grant from the taxpayers to write about the "stolen generations" . . .

After years and years of research and grants, of that 25,000 ("stolen" children), I won't ask you to name 25,000, I won't ask you to name 2000, I won't ask you to name 1000. I won't ask you to name 100 kids that were genuinely stolen for racist reasons or even 25. I'll just ask you, can you name just 10? Just 10?

Manne: I can send you material, I can send you material, Andrew, if you're interested.

Bolt: Name them. Just name them.

Manne: Just listen for a sec. You never listen. The policy started in the late 1890s, a man called Walter Roth in north Queensland. I have the names of, I would say, 200 children that he took . . .

Bolt: But can you name for me now 10 names.

Manne: I don't have the names in front of me because they're names -- usually they're names given by the colonial authorities . . .

Let me sum up. The leading propagandist of the "stolen generations" still cannot name even 10 of the 25,000 Aboriginal children who were allegedly stolen for racist reasons. The best he can do is promise to send me a list he's now found of children allegedly taken by one man more than a century ago.

Yes, he's named a few victims in the past -- such as Lorna Cubillo, whose claim to have been stolen was dismissed by the Federal Court when she was found to have actually been taken in by missionaries, aged eight, after being abandoned in the bush with no adult looking after her.

Manne also defended activist Lowitja O'Donoghue, only to then find her telling me she hadn't been stolen after all, but sent to a home by her father.

And he once said the Northern Territory was the place where "child removal (was) conducted more systematically, or tenaciously, than" anywhere else. But then the Federal Court ruled, in its "stolen generations" test case, that the "evidence does not support the finding that there was any policy of removal of part-Aboriginal children, such as that alleged by the plaintiffs".

Ask yourself: If the greatest expert in the "stolen generations" still cannot name even 10 truly stolen children after years of looking, what must we conclude about this myth? emphasis added by ANV

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

Maybe Baz could make a movie about what is happening today in Australia,as opposed to making movies pushing his and his fellow travelers leftist "sorry industry" lies, he could just use the FACTS below for the script or is his like all members of this leftist club first loyalty to the leftist agenda rather than the cause of those he and like minded parasites claim to know what is best for.
How about another musical called The Heiner affair, starring none other than Australia's # 1 sorry man himself, Australia's PM & Dear Leader Kevin 07 Rudd ?

Horror of sexual abuse among children

Caroline Overington
The Australian
November 27, 2008

THE rape of toddlers by other children is commonplace in Aboriginal communities and, in one case, a girl was attacked so violently she has to wear a colostomy bag.

One boy showed pornographic DVDs to other children so they could re-enact the scenes, and another, aged 11, gave a sexually transmitted disease to two preschool girls.

As well, packs of boys aged as young as 10 raped drunk Aboriginal women who had collapsed in the street.

The gruesome details, provided in an Australian Crime Commission report released yesterday, are matched by the insouciance of the mothers, with one saying that as she had to put up with abuse, why shouldn't her daughter. Another said she had been abused 37 years ago, when "Aboriginal law had started breaking down".

The author of the report, Wendy O'Brien, says there is virtually no academic material acknowledging the existence of children sexually abusing other children. Evidence is drawn from testimony to various inquiries into Aboriginal issues and from the courts, where children end up when caught and prosecuted.

Dr O'Brien's report is essentially a review of this material, plus newspaper reporting, with some academic input.

The report says there is an "urgent need for increased studies on young children engaging in problem sexual behaviour" to overcome "what amounts to silence around this issue".

Reports of sexual abuse by children are met with "shock and denial".

Research suggests that young perpetrators have often been abused themselves.

South Australian child welfare expert Freda Briggs is quoted as saying: "When a child abuses others, inquiries should be made as to how the abuser learned what to do. It is possible that the behaviour was learned from personal experience, or from pornography.

"When a female child is involved in sexual behaviour with older boys, it is sometimes found that she imitates the sexual behaviour, having learned it from being abused herself."

Dr O'Brien's report cites a Northern Territory study that concluded that "everything we have learned convinces us that (this is a symptom of) the breakdown of Aboriginal culture and society".

Children are socialised in an environment that accepts sexual and physical violence.

"This acceptance has now been normalised and crossed generations," the review says.

Young girls see abuse as inevitable, and "they simply believe resistance is futile".

The report says animals are also among the victims.

"Each major jurisdictional taskforce or inquiry report into violence indicates some level of concern about this issue," it says.

The recent NSW Aboriginal child sexual assault taskforce reported that sibling sexual abuse was rife.

The NT board of inquiry report into Aboriginal communities identified "sex between children" and "children's exposure to sexual activity" as problems, and said "many sexual offenders were, in fact, children themselves, and some of these offenders were female children".

That inquiry heard of a 12-year-old boy interfering with a three-year-old, a 13-year-old boy interfering with a five-year-old and a 15-year-old interfering with a three-year-old.

In Brisbane, Dr O'Brien's review identified a four-year-old boy raped by two 10-year-old boys; and in central Queensland, a three-year-old was raped by two juvenile males and an adult.

She cites an 11-year-old-boy in Balgo, NSW, forcing two preschool girls into having sex with him, infecting both with disease.

Then there was the gang-rape of a 10-year-old girl at Aurukun, and repeated sexual assault on an 11-year-old boy by a gang of children who spent their days watching pornography and smoking marijuana.

The review quotes Griffith University associate professor Stephen Smallbone as saying this kind of behaviour is "not unexpected in communities where there is an absence of authority".

There are also reports of informal or formal prostitution -- exchanging sex for money or goods, including alcohol.

It quotes a remote-area nurse in the NT as saying children are "vulnerable and desperate and they crave things they do not get at home, such as love, attention and material goods".

Australia: One year on, Rudd blows the budget, spend spend spend

Government blows the budget on its anniversary Tony Abbott
News.com.au
Thursday, November 20, 2008
How quickly can Kevin Rudd blow Peter Costello’s economic legacy? This week’s headline-grabbing splurge was $300 million for local government.
Most councils should be able to find good uses for individual grants averaging just over $500,000. But this is the same Labor Party which attacked the Howard Government’s local grant scheme as “regional rorts” and declared during the election campaign that the irresponsible spending spree must stop.

In the past few weeks the Government has spent half the current year’s surplus in Christmas bonuses, committed an extra $3 billion to the car industry and promised an unlimited free guarantee for interbank loans and bank deposits. None of these measures were accompanied by rigorous costing or ongoing reform. Already this year’s surplus is down 75 per cent on the budget night figure to about $5 billion. As well, the Government is planning to commit $20 billion of Costello’s $70 billion in accumulated surpluses towards infrastructure projects that the states are too broke to pay for.

It took Premier Carr about a decade (helped by some creative accounting) finally to run NSW into deficit. Mr Rudd looks like managing this feat in his first year. Government spending makes sense if it helps Australia to avoid a recession but we could easily end up losing a decade’s accumulated reserves with very little to show for it.

Whilst I agree with the points made by Tony Abbott, It must be noted that Australians voted for a return to the days of high interest rates (high of 18% average 12.5% home loans 22.5% investment property loans) high unemployment 12%, Australian Council Of Trade Unions (ACTU) controlled work places, awards and conditions for those lucky enough to have a job, and to run the economy down back into a 96 billion dollar deficit as per the Hawke Keating lagacy of the last Labor federal government to run Australia.

Someone said "great civilisations are not destroyed they simply commit suicide", Australians have simply decided that life under Howard was simply too good and perhaps Kevin 07 could make it even "more gooder" still, or suicide.

According to the latest surveys by those who constantly told us how bad the Howard government was these last 12 years, Australians have never been worse off than they have been these last twelve months under Kevin 07 running his time for change agenda , unfortunately I believe that things will have to get a lot worse before those who voted for "time for change", Kevin 07 and the ACTU aka suicide will realise what they have brought upon themselves and their fellow Australians, we should all hope that when this time arrives that there is indeed a chance to reverse the damage inflicted by Kevin 07 and the "time for change" agents of the UN's cabal of International Socialists.

Dear Leader Kevin Rudd one year on.

Hello my loyal constituents,

Can I just say, thank you for celebrating with me the first anniversary of my Government.

And you know something? As I travel the world, I passionately believe you got it right when you voted for me, for an education revolution, for new directions, new leadership, fresh ideas, fresh thinking, and several of my other cliches.

What are some of my favourite achievements? The bottom line is this:

• Hosting the 2020 Summit, starring Cate and 999 other "average" Australians – I found it so rewarding that I took decisive action and announced at least 168 more reviews, committees and inquiries.
• On the question of taxpayer-funded travel, I'm lapping it up. In just 12 months I've spent the equivalent of almost two months overseas!
• Fresh ideas like our unlimited bank guarantee, and telling those who consequently can't access their non-bank savings to "go to Centrelink".

My challenge to you is this: visit my memorabilia website at www.RUDDSHOP.com (where the buck really does stop with me) and show your heart-felt appreciation for 12 long months of Labor.

Your Dear Leader,

Equality Loons: When they are done with business your bedroom will be next

The Coercion Of Tolerance At eHarmony

By MICHELLE MALKIN
Friday, November 21, 2008

Congratulations, tolerance mau-mauers: Your shakedown of a Christian-targeted dating Web site worked. Homosexuals will no longer be denied the inalienable "right" to hook up with same-sex partners on eHarmony. What a landmark triumph for social progress, eh?

New Jersey plaintiff Eric McKinley can now crown himself the new Rosa Parks — heroically breaking down inhumane barriers to Internet matchmaking by forcing a law-abiding private company to provide services it was never created to provide.

"Men seeking men" has now been enshrined with "I have a dream" as a civil-rights rallying cry of the 21st century. Bully for you, Mr. McKinley. You bully.

Neil Warren, eHarmony's founder, is a gentle, grandfatherly businessman who launched his popular dating site to support heterosexual marriage. A "Focus on the Family" author with a divinity degree, Warren encourages healthy, lasting unions between men and women of all faiths, mixed faiths or no faith at all.

Don't like what eHarmony sells? Go somewhere else. There are thousands upon thousands of dating sites on the Internet that cater to gays, lesbians, Jews, Muslims, Trekkies, runners, you name it.

No matter. In the name of tolerance, McKinley refused to tolerate eHarmony's right to operate a lawful business that didn't give him what he wanted. He filed a discrimination complaint against eHarmony with the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights in 2005.

To be clear: eHarmony never, ever refused to do business with anyone. The company broke no laws. Their great "sin" was not providing a politically correct service that a publicity-seeking gay plaintiff demanded they provide.

For three years, the company battled McKinley's legal shakedown artists — and staved off other opportunists as well. The dating site had been previously sued by a lesbian looking to force the company to match her up with another woman, and by a married man who ridiculously sought to force the company to find him prospects for an adulterous relationship.

This case is akin to a meat-eater suing a vegetarian restaurant for not offering him a rib-eye, or a female patient suing a vasectomy doctor for not providing her hysterectomy services. But rather than defend the persecuted business, the New Jersey attorney general intervened on behalf of the gay plaintiff and wrangled an agreement out of eHarmony to change its entire business model.

The company agreed to offer not only same-sex dating services on a new site, but also six-month subscriptions for free to 10,000 gay users, pay McKinley $5,000 and fork over $50,000 to New Jersey's Civil Rights division "to cover investigation-related administrative costs." Additional terms of the settlement require eHarmony to:

• Post photos of same-sex couples in the "Diversity" section of its Web site as successful relationships are created using the company's same-sex matching service.

• Include photos of same-sex couples, as well as individual same-sex users, in advertising materials used to promote its same-sex matching services.

• Revise anti-discrimination statements placed on company Web sites, in company handbooks and other company publications to make plain that it does not discriminate on the basis of "sexual orientation."

• Commit to advertising, public relations and marketing dedicated to its same-sex matching service.

• Retain a media consultant experienced in promoting the "fair, accurate and inclusive" representation of gay and lesbian people in the media to determine the most effective way of reaching the gay and lesbian communities.

I have enormous sympathy for eHarmony, whose attorney explained that they gave in to the unfair settlement because "litigation outcomes can be unpredictable." The recent mob response to the passage of Proposition 8, the traditional marriage measure in California, must have also weighed on eHarmony management's minds.

But capitulation will only yield a worse, entirely predictable outcome: more shakedowns of private businesses that hold views deemed unacceptable by the Equality-at-All-Costs Brigade.

Perhaps heterosexual men and women should start filing lawsuits against gay dating Web sites and undermine their businesses. Coerced tolerance and diversity-by-fiat cut both ways.

Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate, Inc

Update on Rudd's internet censorship laws

Latest news regarding Rudd's internet censorship laws.

Somebody Think Of The Children - Latest Censorship News

NSW Parliamentary E-Brief on mandatory filtering

Posted: 21 Nov 2008 06:56 AM CST

The NSW Parliamentary Library Research Service has put together a briefing on the government’s filtering proposal which is available to download as a PDF here. It reads:

At this stage, the Rudd Government proposal would restrict blanket mandatory ISP filtering to the illegal RC content, based on the ACMA’s ‘black list’ of prohibited websites. The details are unclear, but it seems adults would be able to ‘opt out’ of the filtering of other levels of ‘prohibited content’, containing material that is either offensive or unsuitable for children.

It also examines the state of filtering in other countries often used as examples by Senator Conroy.

With the limited exceptions of Germany and Italy, mandatory ISP level filtering is not a feature of any of the countries reviewed. In place, rather, are voluntary ISP filtering schemes designed to prevent accidental access to a defined list of illegal sites containing child pornography. However, in the UK the position seems to be that the internet industry is encouraged to participate in this scheme, under threat of regulatory intervention should it fail to do so. The line between mandatory and voluntary participation is not clear-cut.

The Internet Industry Association clarifies that statement at ZDNet:

…While the authors said that Italy had imposed mandatory filtering, it was “in fact subordinate legislation — not law per se. It gives effect to an agreement that was previously reached by ISPs and the relevant regulator. To that extent, Italy has not enacted mandatory ISP filtering, either.”

The IIA added that Germany’s regulation of search engines was implemented by agreement.

So when you voted for Rudd and his fellow socialist Nazi's, you thought they were just going to screw the people who don't believe in Socialism ?

When you trade your freedom for social welfare there is a price to pay, freedom FROM information is just one of the freedoms you have to surrender, just wait till they start on the newspapers,CD's magazines,movies and television programs Rudd and his fellow Nazi Socialists find unacceptable.

Socialism IS what Socialism DOES

Americans BEWARE Australian internet to be CENSORED by Australian Labor Party

Rudd's Internet censorship, and now Rudd's Body Image "Code" to be introduced.

Rudd's Internet censorship, and now Rudd's Body Image "Code" to be introduced.

New body image code for media outlets

By Malcolm Farr
The Daily Telegraph
November 20, 2008 12:00am

A NATIONAL "body image" code will require media outlets to portray women of all shapes and sizes.

And magazines would have to tell readers if photos of women have been digitally altered to make them fit a particular physical type.

Glamorising extremely underweight models and celebrities would also be opposed under the Federal Government code.

Yesterday Youth Minister Kate Ellis announced the conduct protocols to help fight what she called "the devastating effects of eating disorders and body image issues".

The code would also put a 16-year age limit on models used in adult fashion shows, magazine shoots and TV programs.

It would be voluntary, but most media groups were expected to sign on after deliberations of a national advisory group of industry representatives and health advisers finished next year.

"The advisory group will consider matters such as the disclosure of altered and enhanced images, the representation of a diversity of body shapes, fair placement or diet, exercise and cosmetic surgery advertising," Ms Ellis said.

It would also be aimed at "avoiding the glamorisation of severely underweight models or celebrities".

Ms Ellis criticised her older male parliamentary colleagues for not giving Australia's body image issue the attention it deserved.

"As a rule, Parliaments reflect the upbringing and world outlook of its members," she said. "With the make-up of our Parliaments, should we then be surprised that issues important to youth have been under-represented?"

Ms Ellis said issues such as equal pay, childcare and work-and-family balance once were considered extreme issues but are now mainstream.

She said that in the same way body image problems had been a "silent epidemic" which had to be acknowledged. Young women lost self-esteem and confidence, felt ashamed of their bodies and some descended into dangerous eating disorders.

"The consequences of poor body image affect real people in powerful ways, leaving families, mates, schools and our community to feel the pain and pick up the pieces," Ms Ellis said.

Yesterday a parliamentary committee considered another aspect of care for young Australian bodies - advertising of junk food.

At issue is a bid by the Greens to legislate to limit advertising for fast foods on TV, while the industry wants self-regulation.

The Australian Beverages Council told the committee in Canberra "there is no proof there is a cause and effect" between ads and obesity in the young.

The food industry wants to introduce a voluntary code banning commercials for unhealthy snacks which are directed at children aged under 12 during children's programs.

However, the Australian Psychological Society said children under eight couldn't distinguish between advertisements and programs.

Dr Kate Russell (featured in video above)
Faculty of Education & Social Work

Dr Kate Russell is a recent appointment in the Human Movement and Health Education program and researches in the area of gender identity and body satisfaction as a consequence of sport and physical activity participation. Her research highlights the impact the school context can have on perceptions of femininity and masculinity and body image concerns of young people. Her publications include three articles and a book on a research project completed for the Football Association in the UK, in the area of evaluating child protection strategies in a sporting context.

Kate has a background as a Chartered Sport and Exercise Psychologist and an interest in the socio cultural aspects of physicality. She was awarded the NZ-UK Link Foundation in association with the Academy of Learned Societies for Social Sciences travel award in 2003 to spend six weeks in New Zealand researching female rugby player's body satisfaction.

The Rudd government is to introduce a "Body image code" Australians are to be protected from incorrect body images and when this is not possible we will be made aware the image we are viewing is indeed deemed to be incorrect?

So what do we do when God / Dear Leader forbid, we have viewed an incorrect body image? will we be required to call an emergency hot line to report the offending body image ? will it be an offence to be in possession of such images ? will it be an offence to have an incorrect BODY or to know or to associate with someone who is deemed to have an incorrect body ?

This is yet another imposition upon Australians by the dead hand of the Rudd socialist, Union financed, Labor government.

(Madame) Kate Ellis,Minister for "Youth" has been hyped up by the main stream media as Australia's "most glamorous politician", closely followed by deputy Labor leader (Madame)Julia Gillard,I believe no further evidence is needed to substantiate the claim that Australia is fast becoming the land of the lowest common denominator

Madame Ellis and Madame Gillard, perfect examples of the new Australian "Womin" clearly not exhibiting any traits of "incorrect body image" Australia's pure,just and correct Mothers, please write to these Dear Ministers to seek guidance on how your daughters can best emulate the preferred and correct body image as shown by these two Dear Ministers, Madame Ellis and Madame Gillard, lest you and your daughters are to be accused of exhibiting incorrect body image to the Australian people and as such invoke unfavourable reaction from, correct thinking Australians, that would cause such discomfort that would make for unhappy times and discourse amongst the Australian community.

If this was to happen Dear Leader Lu Kewan (Kevin 07) and Dear family,would have an unhappy heart and would cry many nights resulting in un neccessarilly diverting Dear Leader and Dear Family away from their efforts of ensuring all of mankind was full of happy and just life.

Pamela Anderson's letter to Barack Obama

Pamela Anderson writes on marijuana, vegetarianism to Obama

The Daily Telegraph
November 20, 2008 09:30am

PAMELA Anderson has penned a clumsily written letter to President-elect Barack Obama on topics like Guantanamo Bay, marijuana legalisation, and vegetarianism. Anderson's letter to the President-elect is frank and straightforward, with spelling mistakes, clumsy phrasing poor punctuation.

Dear Mr. Obama:

My thoughts/hopeful ideas-:

-Free Leonard Peltier- This injustice is just breeding Hate and discrimination.

It would be very meaning ful to the Native American people and all of us ho have watched and been saddened by a broken system (There are too many people in jail that dont need to be there-it IS a broken system- that enrages more people than it helps) - not saying that there aren't people who need to be jailed while determining their fate- but Jail should be a holding cell for justice and not a lifelong waste of taxpayers money to run a spa for criminals-how does this improve society?

Especially when there are real threats to our most precious citizens -our children- in most cases child molesters are walking free.

Government must Castrate every molester-or potential molester- error on the safe side- if any child pornography is found in anyones possession-or anyone creating such atrocities-or if any child Is brave enough to come forward (at any young age to bring attention to a potential molester- listen) they need to be taken very seriously and see that justice is served-The abuse is way worse than any trial could be- our children need more protection and justice seen.

It needs to be PREVENTED not just punished.

I think we should Legalize Marijuana, tax and monitor -farm Hemp etc-this would make our borders less corrupt and then I think eventually this will be more secure option and save children in the long run we should be able to farm Hemp in America- its just silly it would create jobs- and be good for environment.

Bring our Troops home safely- Stop the killing and work with Veterans to secure a peaceful way world wide-using their 1st hand wisdom lovingly across all borders together.

It is not a war Economy anymore- obviously-

Stop all these garbage, wasteful and ineffective ,ancient animal tests (from 80 years ago?)- create a REAL working dedicated and active group of people assigned to this issue- science is suppose to be progressive?

We need to get with it- update like Europe has its an embarrassment and nobody wishes this senseless cruelty to go on.

Please get rid of this private insurance and private health care system- its corrupt and doesnt work-

Government should take over both those areas- supplying secure government jobs where people are dedicated to their job and it is a proven system- Canada etc- supplying proper insurance to everyoneIt's much easier and government should supply these services for the taxes we pay- we would all be protected- pharmaceuticals would be affordable- to those that need it/especially our elderly- see that everyone has car insurance (there should not be an uninsured driver on the road) and health insurance- the same for everyone- isnt this what we pay taxes for?

Promote vegetarianism-which would help end world hunger- crack down on factory farming that is killing the environment and slaughtering so many animals- wastefully and carelessly and its unhealthy/and its just impractical- to think this is monitored/regulated effectively..

Please Shut down Guantanamo Bay-figure it out- make amends/stop torture- its time for peaceful solutions- and cooperation world wide sharing resources and protecting each other- education, missionary work- bring the world together help each other- with resources now- its considered a very small place- We are each others keeper no matter what side of the border we were born-nobody is less than.

And if people are hard working why can't they work and pay taxes in America- if they have no criminal record- why do we have illegal immigration it should be made easier for people to work here- all they want to do is work- some Americans sure have a sense of entitlement thats unhealthy, unwise and selfish at times

Thank God its a new day!

Anderson also recommended reading to the President Elect, which included:

*The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

*Crimes Against Nature by Robert Kennedy

I for one cannot see what all the indecision is about regarding appointing Hillary Clinton to the position of Secretary of State, I think that Pamela Anderson would more adequately represent all that President Elect Barack Obama and his legions of followers stand for than Hillary Clinton could ever hope to do.

Al-Qaida leader calls Obama a "house negro"

Qaeda leader calls Obama a 'House Negro'

Keith Boykin
The Daily Voice
Posted November 19, 2008 9:00 AM

The No. 2 man in Al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahri, launched into an attack on newly elected U.S. President Barack Obama today, calling him a "house negro."

The audio message was reportedly posted on "militant Web sites" on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press. In the message, al-Zawahri describes Obama as "the direct opposite of honorable black Americans" like Malcolm X.

The audio reportedly plays over still pictures of al-Zawahri, Malcolm X praying, and Obama with Jewish leaders, according to AP, which calls it the first public al-Qaida comment about Obama's electoral victory.

alzawahiri.jpgThe Al-Qaida leader specifically criticized Obama's plan to shift troops to Afghanistan, which he said would fail because of Afghan resistance.

Asked for a comment about the remarks, U.S. Senator Russ Feingold told CNN this morning that Al-Qaida is "frustrated and worried" because they don't know how to handle the positive international reaction to Obama's election.

"I think they're pretty nervous in Al-Qaida because we have a whole new approach here in the United States," said Feingold. "We have a new unity behind our president-elect. He sends a message to the world that represents us the way we really are -- a country that is diverse and that wants to reach out to the rest of the world in a positive way." Feingold said the new U.S. approach "goes completely against" Al-Qaida efforts to recruit people with their "hateful message."

Feingold, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the U.S. would be able to put "far more pressure" on the terrorist group by focusing its efforts on Afghanistan instead of Iraq.

The term "house negro" is a derogatory term used to describe a black person who represents the interests of the white man. Malcolm X proudly called himself a "field negro" and challenged the "house negro" mentality in his speeches and writings.

"Back during slavery, when black people like me talked to the slaves they didn't kill em; they sent some old house negro along behind him to undo what he said," Malcolm X said in a speech shown below.

"There were two kinds of negroes," he said. "There was that old house negro and the field negro and the house negro always looked out for his master. When the field negroes got too much out of line, he held them back in check. He put them back on the plantation. The house negro could afford to do that because he lived better than the field negro. He ate better, he dressed better and he lived in a better house. He lived right up next to his master in the attic, or the basement. He ate the same food as master ate and wore his same clothes. And he could talk just like his master, good diction."

The difference, of course, is that President-elect Obama would not be a mere house servant in the White House. Instead, he would be the head of the household.

The Obama campaign declined to comment.

Australia's Socialised Medicine aka Medi DONT care, Rudd & Co. seek to remove Doctors from treating patients.

Pain, no gain in Roxon’s secret plan

Piers Akerman
News.com.au
Wednesday, November 19, 2008

THE plan to nationalise Australia’s medical health continues apace despite efforts by Health Minister Nicola Roxon to keep her sinister scheme under the radar.

The Australian Self-Medication Industry yesterday released a survey which found as many as one in seven visits to the doctor were at least partially taken up by discussion of minor ailments, coughs and aches that might not require medical attention.

The finding has been used to claim millions are being wasted by unnecessary consultations with doctors and to support Roxon’s ideologically-based drive to give nurses and other health workers more work.

What the survey does not illustrate is the reality that the majority of people who make time to see their GP do so because they are very concerned about some aspect of their health.

While it may be that 70 per cent of the conditions which they take to their doctor are not serious, it is a safe bet 100 per cent of the patients are anxious about them and want them resolved.

Under the Roxon plan, patients would see doctors as a last resort, after they had passed through the hands of nurses or other health workers. As far as Labor’s ideological warriors go, doctors are fair game and need to be brought to heel, made to answer to the big bureaucracies.

The problem with this neanderthal thinking is that the model hasn’t worked wherever it has been tried. Just ask those who have suffered under the British national health system which the Rudd Government is trying to cut-and-paste into Australian law.

While doctors may be concerned about loss of independence, their immediate worry is for their patients and the possibility patients will be at a far greater risk of misdiagnosis when they are being assessed by the barefoot medicos Labor wants to empower.

If, for instance, you have a freckle that is causing some anxiety with all the warnings about melanoma, do you want to be assessed by a doctor or a nurse?

It may well be that the freckle causing stress is not life-threatening, and you can walk out reassured, but most would agree that reassurance from a doctor is more like to relieve the stress than that offered by a person with less training.

The Government is planning to bring about its changes through the states and commonwealth COAG process. The compliant Queensland university system is already offering some of the alternate courses designed to strip the medical profession of its autonomy.

In August Professor Richard Murray, the Dean of Medicine at James Cook University, offered the following definition of one of the new breed of barefoot doctors his faculty will graduate: “It is about preparing people from a variety of backgrounds to be able to assume a flexible sort of medical extension role, working with the doctor and with evolving skills on the basis of a sort of general qualification.”

As Mark McCardle, deputy Leader of the Queensland Opposition and shadow health minister told Parliament when Queensland’s Labor Government pushed through the first of the Bills facilitating Roxon’s attack, Australians will be subject to an unaccountable political institution that will control not only what health practitioners are taught but also how they treat and help sick people, while following orders from politicians and bureaucrats.

“The experience of this Government’s creation and management of the state’s worsening public hospital crisis clearly demonstrates the future health care of my fellow Queenslanders is best left to real doctors and nurses - not political spin doctors and ministerial nursemaids,” he said.

“The future health quality standards of health practitioners should not be gambled on legislative good faith in an unaccountable political/bureaucratic institution. The Bill before this House is a sugar-coated toxic blend of important reform for a national health practitioner registration scheme with an accreditation and training proposal that threatens Australia’s position as having one of the best and most comprehensive professional standards training and practice for our medical practitioners.”

Writing in Australian Doctor, Dr Annette Katelaris pointed out the obvious - to remain at the centre of of a patient’s primary care, a doctor needs to know their patient.

“If we only see a patient when they’re acutely unwell, we have little chance to build a relationship or fully understand their medical history,” she said.

“All jobs have their menial tasks but they remain as part of the job description because they are necessary in order to perform the more difficult tasks. It has been during routine consultations that I have had women disclose the sexual abuse they endured as children.

“This coloured all further care and counsel I offered, yet it was only during this so-called menial task they felt able to talk about what happened to them.”

Roxon has acknowledged that doctors are weighed down by unnecessary administration, and doctors have urged her to lighten their administrative load, not their clinical duties. The prescription is simple. The health system need less bureaucracy, not more, if it is to deliver the service Australians deserve.

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"Socialism means equality of income or nothing...........Under Socialism

you would not be allowed to be poor.

You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught and employed

whether you liked it or not.

If it were discovered that you had not character and industry enough to

be worth all his trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly

manner; but while you were permitted to live,

you would have to live well."

Bernard Shaw.

The architects of the finest third world health system on earth, Medicare (don't care much) the Australian Labor party are rarely found using the health system they created in the Whitlam governments infamous attack on Australian society and values during their short term of office 1972 -1975 they unleashed the socialist beast called Medibank, now known as Medicare.
It was was designed to eliminate private health treatment and private health insurance.
Thankfully Whitlam and his gang were thrown out of office on November 11 1975 by the Governor General, Australians endorsed this action by electing by the biggest margin in Australian electoral history the conservative Fraser government and did so again for another two terms.

Whitlam has not enjoyed good health these past twenty years and most recently has been treated in Sydney's St Vincents Private Hospital, a Catholic Private Hospital, a center of medical excellence, he is certainly not the only member of the Australian (Socialist)Labor Party to reject the health system they created and insist is all the Australian people need and he wont be the last.

I believe that Whitlam is over ninety, I am surprised he and his fellow comrades are able to justify using all those medical resources on someone his age when ordinary Australians or "working families" in similar situations with elderly family members are lectured on the virtues of euthanasia and pulling the pin on people with similar ailments as Whitlam suffers from, like the Islamic sociopaths who preach the virtues of suicide bombing isn't it time these know all millionaire Champagne Socialist Nazis lead by example and start walking the walk of their ideology of the equal distribution of misery, hate and social division for all but themselves ?

Sudanese Gang hacks and stabs boy to Death in Adelaide CBD.

Charges soon over murder of Sudanese schoolboy Daniel Awak

DOUG ROBERTSON, MICHAEL McGUIRE, KEN McGREGOR
Adelaidenow
November 14, 2008 12:30pm

POLICE expect to lay charges within days over the stabbing death of Sudanese schoolboy Daniel Awak, says Commissioner Mal Hyde.
Daniel, 14, was stabbed to death and another teenager was admitted to hospital in a critical condition with knife wounds after a fight among a group of 12 Sudanese Australians.

Mr Hyde said today in such investigations it always took time to sort through reports and other material.

"But the advice I have received this morning is that in the next couple of days there may well be charges laid," he said.

Police said they had not yet identified a clear motive for the attack, but understood there were a number of altercations which led to the incident.

A 16-year-old boy was arrested at the scene and charged with aggravated assault on police and resisting arrest, but the allegations against him are not related to the initial brawl.

Mr Hyde said while relations between police and the Sudanese community were good, police were concerned about the possibility of retaliation.

Measures had been introduced to prevent further attacks, including extra patrols in key areas of the city where Sudanese youths were known to gather, he said.

Meanwhile, it has emerged the knife believed to have been used to stab Daniel was bought from a city store just minutes before the Sudanese schoolboy was killed.

A teenager of African appearance bought a 15cm knife from a store at 3.33pm on Wednesday, a shop owner told The Advertiser yesterday.

Moments earlier, the teenager had put a pack of smaller-bladed knives back on the shop's shelves.

The teenager had taken these knives to the counter, but turned back before paying the shop attendant and picked up a longer-bladed knife.

It is understood police have interviewed the shop owner, indicating it was the weapon used to stab the Sudanese teenager. Police last night would neither confirm nor deny this.

Daniel died from a stab wound to the heart on the footpath outside Fleet Steet Newsagency, near Grenfell St, about 3.50pm – about 17 minutes after the knife was bought.

Police said about 15 Sudanese youths started fighting in City Cross Arcade at 3.40pm. The fight continued on Grenfell St and then across the road and into the newsagency, about 30m from the road.

'The stabbing brought a tragic end to a promising life that had been spent trying to avoid violence. Australia was the fourth country Daniel had lived in since his birth in war-ravaged Sudan in 1993.

Friends and family were devastated yesterday at the sudden death of a boy they described as "loving and sensitive".

Schoolmate Tom Cooper left his own tribute on AdelaideNow yesterday, calling Daniel "a good friend of mine".

"He is one of the nicest people I know and one of the people you would least suspect this would happen to," he said in his message.

Daniel was described as a good student but one who loved sport.

"He was good at anything he tried – basketball, cricket, but soccer was what he was passionate about," said one friend.

One of Daniel's soccer coaches, Monica Dimasi, also left a heartfelt message on AdelaideNow. "He was the sweetest and coolest kid I've met," she said. "Daniel had a great personality and would have been an excellent cop, which he was thinking about becoming one day."

Born in Southern Sudan, Daniel moved as a child between his mother's village of Yirol and the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya.

Like millions of others, Daniel and his family fled horrific violence that overtook his country in the Sudanese civil war.

Up to two million civilians died and another four million were forced to flee their homes.

Daniel was a member of the Dinka tribe, a mainly cattle-farming people in the south of Sudan who were heavily involved in the Sudanese Liberation Army, which fought the war with the Khartoum-based government.

But his family tried to keep Daniel away from the worst of the violence. From 1999, he lived with his mother in the Kakuma refugee camp in northern Kenya, an enormous compound that was home to 70,000 refugees from Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia.

In 2001 he was separated from his mother and sent to live in Uganda where he stayed with an aunt until 2004, when he moved to Australia at age 10.

His mother moved to Australia in 2006 to join him, along with his three brothers and three sisters.

Family and friends said that when his mother, Nyadit, arrived in Australia, Daniel became a much happier boy. They said he had missed her terribly and struggled to come to terms with why he had been sent away from Africa.

But with his mother's arrival he settled down and was seen as a happy child, although not immune from the pressures he faced from within his own peer group. His father is believed to be a geologist who lives in Nairobi, Kenya.

Daniel's death has also raised the issue of how Australia copes with an influx of people from a background that is as soaked in violence as Sudan's.

Around 1500 Sudanese people have arrived in South Australia in the past decade, fleeing the violence in their homeland.

Police have arrested a Park Holme boy, 16, and charged him with aggravated assault and resisting arrest. A second youth who was stabbed in the leg during the fight remains in a serious but stable condition in Royal Adelaide Hospital.

A murder charge has not yet been laid but police said yesterday they had identified all the key figures in the incident.

Deputy Police Commissioner Gary Burns yesterday said police were concerned by rising levels of violence in the Sudanese community. In the past 16 months, Sudanese people had been involved in 450 offences, resulting in 258 arrests. "This is double the level of offending for the population of the state," he said.

"They come from a culture which has had serious warfare, some have been child soldiers, and they don't have the conflict-resolution skills that others who have grown up in Australia have, and as a result we have seen an increase in crime."

Meanwhile, police yesterday charged a woman with aggravated assault after another stabbing incident. Three people, including the accused woman, were treated in hospital for injuries after an alleged fight in the centre of Marion Rd, Richmond, at 2.15pm.

A man was in a serious but stable condition in Royal Adelaide Hospital last night with a stab wound to his right shoulder. A second man was being questioned by police.

Video and comments by Alan Jones of Sydney's 2gb

The excuse makers and apologists for the lefts rotting dead corpse of Multiculturalism, will no doubt place the blame for the horrific events depicted above, at the feet of white Anglo Saxon Christian Australia.
I cant wait to hear their latest attempts to spin their Frankenstein's latest atrocity.

Race to lower crimes stats

Andrew Bolt
Friday, November 14, 2008 at 07:04am

I AM sorry. I may have misled you about the Sudanese gangs I defended last year.

Back then, I denounced the hate-merchants demonising Sudanese here as misfits, too prone to violence.

True, one gang of boys had just bashed a policeman, but I gave you police statistics showing the crime rate among Sudanese immigrants was no higher than for the rowdy rest of us.

But days later, gangs of African youths fought each other in the Highpoint shopping centre. And Indian taxi drivers kept getting robbed by African men.

Just this week, Sudanese gangs in Adelaide attacked each other in a clash so deadly that one youth was killed and another near death.

But those police statistics tell us there’s no problem among the Sudanese. Which makes an article like this unfair and unhelpful.

Yet, I started to sniff something when Police Commissioner Christine Nixon banned police from using the word “gangs” to describe, well, gangs.

I worried more when an African community leader, Berhan Ahmed, asked Nixon to stop police checking Africans in Flemington quite so often.

And now charges have been dropped over a riot in Racecourse Rd last December in which some 100 Africans surrounded 21 police trying to arrest a rock-thrower, and sent one to hospital with suspected cracked ribs.

At the time, the force defended its officers. Region 3 boss Insp Nigel Howard denied they were racist or too heavy-handed: “Enough is enough.”

It’s a different story today, and Sen-Sgt Mario Benedetti, in charge of Moonee Ponds police station, says he suspects charges against the rioters were dropped because of their race.

The explanation that Supt Jack Blayney gave our reporter, Mark Buttler, didn’t seem to deny it: “The withdrawal of these charges followed consultation with the members and youths concerned and was deemed to be the best outcome for both parties.”

Pardon? Is this a peace negotiation between two warring gangs, then, one of them the police? And is there not actually a law to uphold, regardless of race, and a force to defend?

But no charges means no offence recorded. And the police can keep telling us: the Sudanese crime rate is no higher than everyone else’s.

President Barack Obama's Bedouin Uncle comes forward

Barack Obama’s Bedouin roots.

Galilee’s Abdul Rahman Sheikh Abdullah has thoroughly studied the Obamas’ genealogy and claims to be the next U.S. President’s uncle. Obama’s African relatives are preparing to meet with the President-elect.

Bill Ayers slams media

How Obama Got Elected

HowObamaGotElected.com

Kath and Kim

The original Kath & Kim.

Australia votes against Israel at United Nations

Australia switches position to vote AGAINST Israel at the UN

UN vote: Rudd breaks with Howard on Israel
By Phillip Hudson
Sydney Morning Herald
November 10, 2008

AUSTRALIA has switched its position to vote against Israel on two resolutions at the United Nations, ending the Howard government's unswerving alignment with the United States and raising concern from the Jewish community. The move also signals to the incoming Obama administration that the Rudd Government plans to take a different approach to the Howard government on the international stage. In the weekend vote in New York, Australia supported a resolution calling on Israel to stop establishing settlements in the Palestinian territories and a resolution calling for the Geneva Conventions to apply in the Palestinian territories.
Kevin Rudd addressing Labor National Conference
April 27 2007

The resolutions on the Middle East peace process are held annually and the Howard government had backed both from 1996 to 2002 but in 2003 began to vote against or abstain. It was a move that aligned Australia with only the US, Israel, the US Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau and Micronesia and put the country at odds with Britain, Canada, New Zealand and France.

Australian officials told the UN the Government had changed its position because it supported a two-state resolution of the conflict to deliver a secure Israel living beside a viable Palestinian state and that Australia believed both sides should abide by their obligations under the Road Map for Peace. Australia said it was concerned activity in the disputed settlements undermined confidence in the negotiations.

It was among 161 countries that supported both resolutions, with two abstaining and six against. The president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Robert Goot, last night was concerned over the Government's switch. "We are concerned that the vote has changed, we do not understand the basis for the change," he said.

The Foreign Affairs Minister, Stephen Smith, last night said there had been no change to Australia's policy on the Middle East. He said he had met the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, and the Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, in Jerusalem two weeks ago and told them Australia was a strong supporter of Israel and the Middle East peace process. "Australia's friendship with Israel is longstanding and enduring and we understand completely Israel's legitimate security concerns," he said. "As a staunch and longstanding friend of Israel, we want its people to be able to enjoy the fruits of a normal, peaceful existence, within a Middle East that recognizes Israel's right to live within secure and internationally recognized boundaries.
That is an approach that has strong bipartisan support in Australia and it's an approach that will continue."

The Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman, Helen Coonan, called on Mr Smith to explain why Australia changed its vote. "The change in emphasis is concerning unless it can be better explained as giving effect to a bipartisan and balanced approach," she said. Australia maintained its vote on seven other UN resolutions relating to Israel, in particular opposing a resolution criticizing Israel on Palestinian human rights.

Australia said it believed the resolution was too one-sided against Israel and failed to take account of Israel's legitimate security concerns or reflect the responsibility of Palestinians to end attacks against Israel. Australia was one of eight countries, including Canada, to vote against this resolution that was supported by 87 countries with 70 abstaining.

Last month Australia announced new sanctions on Israel's rival Iran but backed down on a pledge to force the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, before an international court on charges of inciting genocide.