First the Dems, now the Greens

After last weeks revelation that the South Australian drug promoter Democrat supported ecstacy we find the Victorian Greens are advocating further use of herion; free for the addict, of course.
FACTORY-produced heroin will be imported into Australia and prescribed for long-term addicts under the Victorian Greens’ drugs policy.
Greens Victorian upper house candidate Colleen Hartland said the proposals would reduce harm and save lives. Not to mention it would also increase the crime rate, the prison population, the incidences of granny bashing to supplement a fix when the free stuff runs out and ruin the lives of those associated with the addicts. Good call Greens.
The Greens heroin trial proposal mirrors equivalent moves in Europe and Vancouver, Canada, where prescription heroin is given to addicts who have become resistant to methadone.
Oh well! If they are doing it in Europe and Canada then it must be OK…. I think not . I’m never impressed with the ‘they do it in Europe therefore we should‘ arguement. With few exceptions we need to lead, not follow. To me, supporting substance abuse is admitting defeat on the eve of the battle..I’m for always trying to help the adicts kick their particular habit . If some fall through the cracks then so be it but I can’t see punters being happy about giving addicts free fixes. I know I’m not. UPDATE: Naturaly enough the Australian agrees with me, albeit a day later. Scroll down to High times in Victoria; Another reason to keep the Greens in the wilderness

It’s all about communication

UNIVERSITY graduates from non-English speaking backgrounds who emigrate to Australia are far less likely to land jobs in their field of expertise than native English speakers. I wonder if Bob Birrell, the director of the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University received any money for this motherhood statement. The situation exists because we let them in without insisting on them being profficient in english. How can they communicate or even submit a resume if they can’t speak our language? All we are doing here is importing social security applicants. We’re not talking displaced refugees here who have a case to come into Australia without english, we’re talking professionals.
“Professional bodies should be setting higher standards based on actual evidence of what is required to operate as a professional in the Australian market. Some applicants are getting visas based on an assessment that they are capable of working in their profession when in fact some of them can’t even get jobs.”
Why do we let them in?

COAG Pragmatism

CUSTOMARY law will no longer be used as an excuse for sexual abuse and violence in indigenous communities under an agreement struck at yesterday’s talks. Now there’s a statement for the books but as expected the usual subjects show how out of touch they are with the country. Stanhope, the ACT leader waves the flag for all things left with this loopy statement;
“It is very important in the context of advancing reconciliation and issues in relation to indigenous disadvantage that we not seek to identify aspects of Aboriginal culture and customary law as incidences, or sources of some of the behaviours,” he said.
Culture and customary law has always had an impact on behaviour…black or white.
“It is important that we separate the causes of indigenous disadvantage from issues such as customary law, cultural background. The ACT has a particular position in relation to the role and place in sentencing courts to take account of issues such as cultural background.”
There are alot of causes for indigenous disadvantage, the main one being too many people have listened to this type of codswallop for too long. Others are most defenitely issues such as customary law and cultural background. You know, the type of customary law and cultural background that lead to the celebrated case in the Territory of a guy who raped a female on the basis that she had been promised to him and she was his to deal with as he pleased. The ‘Learned sentencing judge’ put him away for one month! There exists an overriding consideration in the trial of tribal law and customs that conflict with Australian and Territory law.
Upon the respondent’s pleas of guilty, the learned sentencing judge imposed a sentence of five months imprisonment on Count 1 and 19 months imprisonment on Count 2 to be served cumulatively upon the sentence of five months imposed on Count 1, making a total period to be served of 24 months, but ordered that those sentences be suspended after the respondent had served one month upon the respondent entering upon his own recognisance of $250 to be of good behaviour for a period of two years. It was a further condition of the suspension of the sentences, that for the period of two years, the respondent not communicate, directly or indirectly, with the child, SS.
On appeal this was increased to 18 months. The case is old hat now but still serves as a good reason to agree with the thrust of the COAG meeting. The ordinary punters in Australia take an extremely dim view of cases such as this one. Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR) recognize themselves that there is a problem
Tragically, some sympathetic magistrates who are generally aware that there are ‘too many Aboriginal men in jail’ are inclined to give light custodial sentences to Aboriginal perpetrators of violence and abuse. It takes great courage and determination on the part of an Aboriginal woman, family and community to pursue a case of this kind in the courts: inadequate sentences are a devastating outcome.
Simply put, there are too many Aboriginal men in jail because too many of them committ jailable offences. They do it for a number of reasons, few, if any, related to cultural or customary law issues. Excessive consumpion of grog is not an age old custom steeped in millenia of tribal tradition although general gender relationship may be. For too long we have listened to Stanhope and his fellow travellers. Nugget Coombes, Whitlam, Hawke and Keating set up the ‘Noble Savage’ outstations condemning them all to mark time in the 19th century while the rest of the population marched steadily ahead. The concept is ‘broke’…lets work towards fixing it

Leadership

Stuart Hastings from Robina, Qld puts the leadership furore into perspective with his letter to the Australian
If Ian McLachlan can keep a scrap of paper, legible and uncreased in his wallet for 12 years, you would not want to be in his group when it was his turn to buy the next round of drinks.
I’m reasonably confident that in all my days I have never heard of such a weak trigger to a leadership debate. Costello’s PR agent, Glen Milne, has been nibbling away at the edge of the PM’s power for a long time now and must feel rather smug at the moment – he has ignited a maelstrom of debate based on comments made over a decade ago as if they were written in bloood. It’s as if time has stood still over all those years and nothing has changed. It is long past the time when Howard has had to have conciliatory conversations with the likes of Costello and Downer and it will be a while yet before he has to again. Nevertheless some are aghast at Howard, accusing him of being a liar. I guess it’s true to some extent but it is at the level of my promising to take the kids to Sizzler’s and then renegging. I heard some chap talking to John Laws who come across as a reasonable and experienced type but he was beside himself with grief at ‘all the lying” There is just too much and although he has voted Liberal in the past he can’t see himself doing it again. A bit precious really because if he applied that across the board he’d have to stay home on polling day. A wave of apprehension washes over me every time I think of Costello as leader. He has been a great Treasurer and I don’t mind his debating style but competancy and style are but two aspects of sucessful leadership and I have yet to see little evidence of other characteristics. His political judgement and loyalty to the party may well have been brought to question with his current campaign. I don’t feel, hear or read any call for a leadership change other than in the Howard hating forums and it is not as if the machine is broken and ‘I’m the man to fix it‘…the machine is humming along quiet nicely, thank you. Howard say he wont be stampeded into any premature decision and I’m with him there. The only lightning bolts around are those being thrown by the media and are striking too far away to cause any stampede. It’s when the voters start thowing the lightning bolts that it will be time to act and the skies look all azure blue to me at the moment.

Pearl Jam going green

Rock group Pearl Jam has promised to donate $US100,000 ($133,000) to several groups that focus on climate change, renewable energy and other environmental causes as part of an effort to offset carbon emissions the band churns out on tour.

“Our carbon portfolio strategy is the newest component of our ongoing efforts to advance clean renewable energy and carbon mitigation,” the Seattle-based band said in a statement posted on its website yesterday.

As the kids say; Yeah…whatever.

Australian Dictionary of Biography

I have discovered a new link via the Australian that has over 10,000 scholarly biographies of significant Australians who died before 1980. I have quickly read the Menzies biograqphy and discern no scholarly bias so it initially stands as a good reference site. I have included it on the LH sidebar and here for you to have a quick browse for linking for later reference

Unions may be brought to heel

THE decision by Perth rail workers to strike illegally earlier this year could cost them and their militant union $11.4 million in fines, not including court costs. Good! In April this year I drove past the Perth Mandurah rail link project with interest. The people of WA, particularly those who live south and commute (my sister and BIL included) are looking forward to this communication link upgrade. It will impact heavily on the metropolis of Greater Perth and will bring additional commerce and dormitory suburbs with all it’s associated infrastructure to the southern extremities of the city. All is good except the militant Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) sees the project as more of a milking cow rather than one of great benefit to the state. The project is reportedly five months behind schedule and $200m above budget. The wildcat strike has been costed at $14m and it’s the ratepayers who are already paying for the miltant unions excesses yet the CFMEU WA secretary, Dave Robinson, said yesterday that churches would be invited to contribute to a “community and union defence fund”. Up yours, Dave. You and your members incurred the likely costs, not the community and certainly not the poor WA taxpayers. The West Australian has more; The legal action stems from the workers’ 12-day strike, which contractor Leighton Kumagai said cost it $200,000 a day.
The Mandurah railway has at times been paralysed by industrial action, which is partly to blame for the project now running five months behind schedule and forms part of the $200 million in cost overrun claims from Leighton Kumagai against the State Government. Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union secretary Kevin Reynolds warned in June last year that the project would be targeted by unions because some contracts had been awarded to a non-unionised firm. The project has also been hit by “blue-flu?, the name given to periods when workers take mass sickies.
It’s this type of union militancy that gets punters offside and Kim Beasley will get few points by siding with the CFMEU hardliners on this one.

Girl’s death spurs crocodile dispute

THE death of a girl from a crocodile attack has inflamed debate over managing the predator in the Northern Territory, with experts claiming their warnings about rising crocodile numbers were ignored. Crocodile expert Grahame Webb said locals wanted to manage the estimated 70,000 crocodiles in the Territory.
“They have just lost a child and the crocodiles in that area generate nothing for the local people, so they get no tradeoff at all,” Mr Webb said. “People in Maningrida are saying to me they’re fed up to the teeth with people making decisions about the crocodiles that they have to live with.
Good point. I’m with the locals on that issue. I can promise you if I had crocodiles in my back yard there would be no live ones. Last year we nearly got a management/culling plan together but it was stymied at the last moment by Steve Irwin. The thought of Steve having any say in anything we do in Australia left me a little flat. TV docs of Steve leaping into the water and capturing crocs contrasts vividly with the experiences of us lesser mortals. The food chain heirachal system dictates that we need to take control over their locations and numbers. Locals being eaten is good for tourism but iffy for local morale.

The Bali Project

Planning a trip to Bali? Read this first. A 34-page document, titled “The Bali Project,” was found on the computer of Azhari Husin, a Malaysian-born engineer educated in Australia and Britain who became a master bomb maker. He was one of the most dangerous terrorists in Southeast Asia until he was killed in a shootout with the police last November. The New York Times carries the article but linking requires registration so I have provided a summary. It is a good insight into the enemies operational procedures and could save lives under the principle of …“know your enemy.” It details plans for a suicide bombing, including even a minute-by-minute choreography of the bombers’ final hours. It was the plan for the attack last Octiber which killed 20 people when three men walked into separate restaurants and blew themselves up. Four of the twenty were Australians. Recon, Target Selection and Logistics. Continue reading »

Democrats support sexual assault

REALITY TV show Big Brother should be left alone by meddling politicians, Australian Democrats senator Andrew Bartlett said today.

“It is politicians trying to be Big Brother that we really need to be concerned about,” Senator Bartlett said.

No, I disagree Senator. It’s Senators standing up for trash TV and possible sexual assault that we need to be concerned about.

The program has been heavily criticised by politicians and family groups after two contestants were removed from the program after allegedly sexually assaulting a female contestant.

PM Howard says axe the programme.

“The business community is always saying to me ‘let us self-regulate’.

“Well here’s a great opportunity for Channel 10 to do a bit of self-regulation and get this stupid program off the air.”

Channel Ten, of course, will base all decisions re Big Brother on their accountants advise…..it’s a winner…people like trash TV and “this alleged sexual assault should be seen as nothing more than free advertising”.

Self regulation…won’t happen but I’m with the PM on this.

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