Menzies House

Offending someone’s political beliefs will soon be an offence

 Andy Semple on how the Gillard Government's proposed changes to anti-discrimination law will make offending someone's political belief and offence:

Your freedom “friendly” Labor government has put forward draft legislation that expands the grounds on which people can claim that they have been discriminated against.

The daft draft legislation is 179 pages long and our Attorney-General, comrade Nicola Roxon, also wants to reverse the onus of proof meaning anyone who is accused of “discrimination” will have to prove they’re not guilty. The rights of defendants have been flushed down the toilet. The onus of proof should always be on the person making the accusation not the defendant.

Here's the page that inserts political opinion as a new ground of discrimination. And here is the page that says anything that offends, insults or intimidates someone is now discrimination and therefore must be censored.

Be under no illusion - the Gillard government wants to censor you from talking about politics. They also want to decide what should and shouldn’t appear in the media.

This is a massive attack on your freedom of speech and it’s absolutely vital we fight this.

The IPA has taken the lead on this and I urge you to read their media releases here andhere. If you can support the IPA with a donation, as I do, then please do so as it’s the donated money that allows the IPA’s researchers to uncover sinister laws such as this.

“If you want to know who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” - Voltaire

 

Originally published at Andy's Rant, and reproduced with permission. You can follow Andy on twitter at @BULMKT

Treacherous Turnbull Strikes Again

The bane of Tony Abbott’s life, former opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull, shall use any occasion to remind everyone else he’s still (unfortunately) around. During a Deakin lecture given at the University of Melbourne last night, Turnbull basically agreed with the aims of the anti-Alan Jones and anti-conservative “Destroy the Joint” Facebook site.

That leads me to Alan Jones. Just when you thought he had exhausted the reservoir of abuse he reserves for Julia Gillard, he outdid himself, and we learned of it because of another smartphone.

More important, perhaps, the avalanche of condemnation that followed was delivered by thousands of Australians expressing their views online, especially via Twitter and Facebook, making it very difficult for Jones's friends and supporters in the media and politics to brush off that outburst as just another example of "Alan being Alan".

Alan Jones, Liars and Audio Tape

Andy Semple discusses Alan Jones' recent comments:

Alan Jones monumentally screwed up. He thought he was on safe allied ground, speaking at the annual Sydney University Liberal Club President’s dinner.

He said stuff about Gillard’s late father that didn’t need to be said, and it’s only news because some "journalist" illegally recorded his speech. In the court of public opinion, Jones is guilty as sin for his remarks but in a court of law, the recording itself would be inadmissible.

The lesson here for everyone, is this. Just because you think you are among “friends” don’t think for a moment that someone won’t stab you in the back.

Had the News Limited journalist made him or herself known to Alan Jones prior to him speaking I seriously doubt he would have said what he said about Gillard’s late father. After all, as Alan Jones said himself, the comments were off the cuff during a 58-minute talk at a "rambunctious, rollicking" function.

Everything else Alan Jones said about Julia Gillard is on the money. She has repeated lied to the Australian public on major policy issues. Her polices have done great damage to our country and the progressives love nothing more than when a high profile conservative like Alan Jones screws up so they can hammer the bejesus out of him.

Alan Jones made one unfortunate remark and yet the Labor Party and many in the media have gone ballistic. Forget Defcon 5, they all went straight to Defcon 1, calling for him to either be sacked from 2GB (which he won’t) and for advertisers to pull out from his showor 2GB altogether (sadly, some like Mercedes Benz Australia Pacific have got no back bone and have withdrawn).

If I was advertising with News Limited, I’d pull my account with them for allowing a sneaky journalist to record someone’s speech without their permission.

As for the progressives trying to associate Tony Abbott to Alan Jones’ comments is just farcical. Alan Jones is the one who said the remarks and he has now apologised for those remarks. If certain people won’t accept his apology then that’s their choice but I bet these same people are also the same people who think the thousands upon thousands of illegal immigrants who flood unchallenged into our country should be given the benefit of the doubt and forgiven for their trespass.  

I’m tipping Alan Jones will still be doing his 2GB morning radio show long after Julia Gillard has been voted out of the office of Prime Minister.

Originally published at Andy's Rant, and reproduced with permission. You can follow Andy on twitter

 

Return of the missing post

I was more than surprised at the deletion of Andy’s post. It was the result of resizing type, large fingers on a small keyboard and an operator on training wheels. While I can restore the article, I can’t retrieve the comment, which are now at rest, somewhere in cyberspace.

I know your time and thoughts put into comments are substantial and without your participation it would be a boring website. I hope you can remember the nature of those comments and repost. Mea Culpa! GC.

If they call you an Islamophobe, don’t worry. You’re in good company

I’m not anti-Islam, I’m anti-Islamist and there’s a huge distinction. I don’t care whether my neighbour claimed there were thirty gods or no God, as long as the neighbour neither picked my pocket nor broke my arm.

Radical Islam, though, picks pockets and breaks arms and that’s why we must find a way to stop it.

The underlying problem with radical Islam is that it is both political and religious. It teaches that the two cannot be separated. The Islamists believe that man-made laws are inferior and must be replaced with “God-given” Islamic or sharia law and that all governments worldwide should be Islamic.

ACT Labor’s plan to commit economic suicide

Andy Semple says Labor has made a big mistake concerning renewable energy. 'This just proves some Labor people are as “dumb as posts.”'

'ACT Labor has unveiled an ambitious plan to source 90 per cent of the Territory's power from renewable sources by 2020.

…The strategy includes a mix of large scale wind and solar projects, a greater reliance on public transport and boosting energy efficiency in houses and buildings.'

ACT rate payers should be worried. The facts are Wind Energy is terribly expensive and inefficient and the German experience with Solar suggests it’s an incredible waste of money – a staggering $300 billion euros or $377 billion AUD.

Naturally ACT Environment Minister Simon Corbell thinks ACT consumers will be winners. Pity the only winners are the rent seeking wind and solar manufacturers.

I concluded that the Greens 100 per cent renewable energy push would cost a staggering $2.3 Trillion by the turn of the century so how on earth does Corbell thing ACT consumers will be better off?

The hard reality is that both Wind and Solar don’t reduce carbon dioxide emissions and worse, the energy they do produce costs significantly more than traditional fossil fuel sources. A fact the Australian Government’s own Productivity Commission confirmed:

It’s time we had a discussion about Islam

Writing before yesterday's riots in Sydney, Andy Semple says we need to have a serious conversation about Islam:

It seems radical Islamists are just like our unionists – they’ll use any minor grievance to immediately escalate a situation into violence.

Muslim protesters angered by, in my humble opinion, a real lame-ass film consider it blasphemous to Islam have killed US diplomat Christopher Stevens and three security personnel in Benghazi while today more protesters stormed the U.S. Embassy compound in Yemen's capital, Sanaa.

When it comes to religious tolerance, Muslims it seems aren’t that tolerant and the West has made the fatal mistake time and time again of cowering to the complaints of offended Muslims.

Radical jihadist elements are still at war with the West. The fight may not be of our choosing, but unless we in the West bare our teeth and defend our principles, these most recent killings could be the first of many to come in the weeks ahead. The West must respond forcefully, and that requires identifying the underlying nature of this extremist enemy.

These radical Islamic extremists prey upon weakness, and appeasement only encourages further aggression. Before the riot began at its gates, the US Embassy in Cairo showed a remarkable lack of guts as it apologised for a pathetically lame anti-Islamic YouTube movie.

The U.S. embassy in Cairo put out the following statement early Tuesday:

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.

Even President Obama’s White House has since disavowed the Cairo apology. But hours after the apology was released, Muslim rioters stormed the US embassy in Cairo and Islamist murderers in Benghazi ambushed and murdered the four US diplomatic personnel.

Now unlike the lame-ass YouTube movie, renowned British historian Tom Holland, has also experienced first-hand the threat of violence via twitter. UK broadcaster channel 4, who after screening the documentary in August - Islam: The Untold Story, cancelled a repeat screening due to complaints and threats.

Islam: The Untold Story investigated the origins of the religion, claiming there was little written evidence about the Prophet Mohammed and questioning the authenticity of many of the stories in the Koran.

It examined claims that rather than Islam's doctrine emerging fully-formed in a single text, the religion instead developed gradually over many years with the expansion of Arabic empires.

I have posted the video below and if you actually watch the documentary, you’ll see that there’s very little to complain about, unless of cause you’re an easily offended Muslim.

The World-Wide Renewable Energy Scam

Andy Semple blows the whistle on the renewable energy debacle. The Greens led hysteria is turning to dust as the truth about costs is being exposed. A newly formed Australian "Citizens' Jury' has recommended that 'nuclear power stations in NSW is an issue that ''should not be dismissed''.'

Andy says, "no, we’re not making this up [the graph]. Read here and here for the facts.

If anyone besides the Government was involved in such a scam, it would be called organised crime."

Graphic by Steve Hunter, a freelance cartoonist and illustrator living in Buderim Queensland.

See "Andy's Rant" in the Blogroll.

If these matters do not call into question Gillard's integrity, what will?

Andy Semple questions Prime Minister Gillard's integrity, and her attacks on critics as sexist:

Our PM admitted, while a salaried partner at Slater & Gordon, that she failed to open a file for the work she did in setting up the AWU Workplace Reform Association for her then boyfriend Bruce Wilson and his associate Ralph Blewitt.

Julia Gillard also admitted that the AWU Workplace Reform Association would be used as a union slush fund despite its stated articles of association to the contrary.

There are three consequences for failing to open a file.

1)      By not opening a file on behalf of the AWU meant that the union would not have been invoiced for the work and hence would not have become aware that the work had been done, nor would it have become aware of the nature of the work.

2)      By not opening a file meant that her partners at Slater & Gordon would not have been aware of this work and its nature.

3)       Wilson and Blewitt, it would appear, benefitted at no cost to them.

If these matters do not call into question Gillard's integrity, what will?

Now some people are claiming Gillard’s press conference performance yesterday as brilliant, strong and that the “scandal” surrounding her is now finished. It isn’t finished for the reasons I have mentioned above. In fact, the Australian’s Hedley Thomas makes the point I’ve raised.

The "slush fund" that Gillard had created three years earlier was a legal entity, an incorporated body, for the purpose of raising and holding funds for the re-election of union officials. It was designed to assist the personal advancement in the union of Gillard's then boyfriend, Bruce Wilson, who was then the leader of the West Australian branch of the Australian Workers Union. Wilson needed "slush", or money, to fund a forthcoming election that he expected to contest.

Gillard's boyfriend, and his friend, union sidekick and bagman Ralph Blewitt, needed a name for this legal entity. They could have called it the AWU re-election fund. Or the AWU vote-for-a-new-leader fund.

Instead, it was called the AWU Workplace Reform Association, a title completely at odds with its actual purpose. The written objects, or rules, for the association do not disclose the true purpose is to fund elections for union officials.

On the contrary, the rules stress purposes including the promotion of safer workplaces and skills training. In the formal application for the association, Gillard advised that it was formed for the purpose of "development of changes to work to achieve safe workplaces".

In this way, its purported purpose had nothing to do with its actual purpose - as a "slush fund" for the re-election of Gillard's then boyfriend. This is Gillard's Achilles heel.

Yesterday, Gillard said she had not signed the document to set up the association and had only provided legal advice. Further, she said if the fund supported "trade union officials who would stand on a platform about reform and improvements in workplaces", then it had fulfilled its stated role. But this later explanation, at her hour-long media conference, remains difficult to reconcile with the facts.

But in true slippery Gillard fashion, she played the sexism, misogyny, nut-job blogger (me and plenty of others), American Tea Party politics and Murdoch hate media cards. More bullshit than a cow paddock.

And why does Gillard use her gender as an issue? You never hear a male politician claiming his gender is an issue. So much for equality.

I can recall former UK PM Margaret Thatcher being called every sick name you can think of and never did she or her supporters ever suggest it was because she was a woman.

Only a piss weak leader relies on such excuses.

Originally published at Andy's Rant, and reproduced with permission. You can follow Andy on twitter