Category Archives: in the news

Too many immigrants

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Does anyone else see a touch of irony in Pauline Hanson going to live in the UK then complaining about it being overrun by immigrants and refugees?

Earlier this year she decided to sell up her property in Australia and move to Britain, in part because she was disappointed at how Australia had changed (meaning, she yearns for the good old days of the White Australia policy).  Clearly she failed miserably at doing her homework about her future residence.

”I love England but so many people want to leave there because it’s overrun with immigrants and refugees,”

Well duh, Pauline, a bit of watching TV or reading just about anything would tell you that England is chockers with immigrants.

Then the rest of Europe didn’t escape her attention.

”France is becoming filled with Muslims and the French and English are losing their way of life because they’re controlled by foreigners in the European Union.”

So Australia is not so bad after all?

”Problems are worse over there than they are in Australia and Australia is still the best place in the world to live but the same sorts of awful things are happening here too. Residents of Commonwealth countries who want to live here are discriminated against in favour of others.”

But we are going down the drain, according to Pauline.

So, where might she find a new home that’s not overrun by those nasty immigrants:

  • Europe – nope, see above, she’s already looked there
  • America – nope. it’s full of them too

I can think of a few places that might have the racial purity she’s looking for, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, much of Africa – no-one really ever wants to migrate to these places.

Oh wait, just a small problem there, these places are full of dark skinned folks, and I’m guessing Pauline doesn’t want to hang out with them, even though they mostly are neither immigrants or refugees.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that by “immigrants and refugees”, Pauline and her supporters really mean Muslims and Africans, Indians and possibly Asians.

And it is to Australia’s shame that political leaders on both sides of politics here pander to these people and desperately seek to curry favour with them, so desperate are they for votes.

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Eighty Five Dollars

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This is apparently the amount that women believe is appropriate to be spent taking them on a first date.

This was the finding of a survey of 1015 people between the ages of 18 and 69 conducted by ING Direct earlier this month.

Men are clearly overestimating the object of their affection’s expectations – they thought about $108 was the right amount for a first date.  The women surveyed said they felt uncomfortable when men spent too much on a first date.

But be warned, don’t go cheap, as spending less than $27 was considered too little.

Following your dream

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I read the story of Dharam Veer today and felt it is one I should share.  It spells out to me how wonderful sport can be, and even more so, how wonderful India and its people can be.

Dharam is ballboy for the Indian cricket team.  He helps them at training, chasing balls around, and throwing them back “with one of the finest throwing arms to bless a man”.  He is friends with many of the team, and travels around with them when they are playing. 

About his job with the team, he says:

”This makes me very happy.

”I have this life now, and this is what I will do forever. I love cricket, I have always loved it, I want to play and practise all the time, help the team, I cannot do anything other than this. It is what I am supposed to do.”

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What is truly remarkable about Dharam is that he contracted polio at 18 months old, and the disease left him immobile from the waist down.  For the past 16 years he has used the hands and arms, that he uses to catch the balls and throw them, to walk on.  On concrete, mud, grass, buses, rickshaws, he places one hand over the other to make his way in the world, dragging behind him the deformed legs that refuse to walk.

At 19, Dharam is living a relative high life. As a bona fide member of the Indian side he travels and stays with them, is helped financially by the players, and has developed quite a following. He is also captain of India’s disabled cricket team.  Through sheer enthusiasm for cricket, he has managed to weave himself into one of the most tightly protected sports teams in the world. He is no longer an outsider, either, and the players treat him like family.  It could be so different for him, as India has numerous polio victims who struggle through life and are often wondering where their next meal is coming from.

Dharam has played cricket since he can remember, and can tell you the story of his highest score for India all day long. ”I made 175,” he says. He sat on a chair and dispatched bowling to all corners, much like his heroes Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag.

Such is his dedication, that he made a 36 hour-trip from his home town of Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh to Bangalore for the second Test, on buses and tuk-tuks. He says:

”I miss my family, but I always call my mother, father, sister, talk to them at night,”

”This makes me very happy.

I contrast his spirit and determination with some of the complaining that went on over the Commonwealth Games in Delhi recently – like the athletes’ village not being clean enough, toilets being blocked, the little organisational glitches that were happening.  At the time I was thinking “get over it precious, this is India”.  India is a wonderful, if chaotic, country, and there are countless examples of people like Dharam Veer who do carve out their own slice of the “good life” in the face of whatever adversity they run into on the way to it.

If there was a prize

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… for the dumbest teacher in the world, there is a prime candidate at Dover District High School in Tasmania.  This genius decided it was a good idea to do a science experiment to test the students’ blood, then proceeded to take samples from 18 year 9 and 10 students (so about 15-16 years old), using the same lancet to prick their fingers.

He/she did attempt to take some precautions by using methylated spirits to try to sterilise the lancet between tests.

The experiment happened last month but only came to the notice of Tasmanian health authorities last week.  When the school principal became aware of the experiment he advised the students’ parents to seek medical advice.  There is a risk viruses such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HIV may have been transmitted between the students – although in this age group that risk is considered low.

School, Parents and Friends Association senior vice president Jenny Eddington says she is "absolutely stunned".  She said:

"We have put so much effort into education of things to do with needle pricks, with sharing of bodily fluids in all sorts of ways,"

and in the understatement of the year:

"It certainly wasn’t a very thought-through process,"

The teacher and other staff at the school will be given training regarding blood-borne viruses, but the state Education minister will not speculate if anyone should lose their job.

If these people need training to understand these risks, I have to ask where the hell have they been for the last 20 odd years.  You know, all the stuff about HIV/AIDS and that … must have missed Tasmania?

End of anarchy

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Well, Australia now has a government after today’s announcement by 2 independent members of parliament that they will support a minority government led by prime minister Julia Gillard, 17 days after the federal election.  The decision by Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott gives Labor 76 seats to the opposition’s 74 in the House of Representatives.

Interesting times ahead.  I wonder how long it will all last, and how long until we have a new election.  Not the full 3 year term, I expect.

It will get very interesting indeed if a government MP resigns, or is forced to resign.  I’m sure that the Liberals will not take long to get into a bit of dirt digging to try to bring a Labor MP undone, or find some sort of scandal or government incompetence that will cause the independents to reassess their support for the government.

Guns don’t kill people?

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The often cited mantra of the pro-gun lobby.  Maybe guns don’t kill people in themselves, but they do make it a damn sight easier.

An Australian study reviewing 10 years of suicide data following the former Howard government’s gun buyback has found the rate of firearms suicides has fallen by 74 percent.  Mr Howard’s agreement with the states to ban and buy back more than 600,000 weapons after the massacre at Port Arthur in April 1996 cut the country’s stock of firearms by 20 per cent and roughly halved the number of households with access to guns.

A former Australian Treasury economist, Christine Neill said she found the research result so surprising she tried to redo her calculations on the off chance the total could have been smaller.  Dr Neill says that while it seems surprising that a 20 per cent cut in the number of firearms would have cut the number of suicides from firearms by 74 per cent, none of her academic colleagues have found fault with her finding.

The study also found no evidence of substitution of other methods of suicide.  That is, people weren’t going out in large numbers and hanging, overdosing etc themselves when they couldn’t get hold of a gun to do the job.

Another conclusion Dr Neill drew from the research:

“Before the buyback, Australia used to have a multiple shooting every year or two.

In the 13 years since, there have been none. I have calculated the probability of that happening by chance. It’s extraordinarily low.”

Explain that away, gun nuts.

Off in their own parallel universe …

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… there are a number of ALP functionaries claiming that Saturday’s election result was something other than a damning rejection of them.

NSW premier Kristina Keneally is one of them.  She blames the former prime minister, Kevin Rudd, for the federal ALP’s poor vote in her state – in particular its failure to invest in infrastructure in Sydney:

”One of the issues that would have been in the minds of voters as they went to the polls yesterday is that they had gone for three years without seeing the Rudd government invest in infrastructure in Sydney.”

Interesting perspective that.  For one thing, I’d have thought it is her own state government’s job to provide infrastructure rather than the federal government’s.  Secondly, she has her own election coming up early next year – I’ll guarantee that she’ll be singing the praises of the state government’s massive investments in such infrastructure then.  I would say that if people in Sydney were beating Labor up federally over infrastructure, it is going to be very ugly for Ms Keneally and her government come their election time – quite a bloodbath I foresee there actually.

As well as the premier, a number of party strategists were also looking to deflect blame for a state swing of almost 7 per cent against Labor.   The leaks about prime minister Julia Gillard’s role in Cabinet discussions about policy that she started running away from after removing Kevin Rudd from the job are getting a good run – Keneally backs ALP national secretary Karl Bitar in claiming they were a major factor damaging Labor’s campaign:

‘It really did make it difficult for Julia Gillard to speak about her positive plans, her vision, her message and her commitments,”

Well, maybe it would have – except that I wasn’t aware that she actually had any sort of vision or plans.  For that matter, neither did Opposition leader Tony Abbott.

Federal Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten, one of the architects of the coup against Mr Rudd, blamed it on the poorly performing ALP state governments in NSW and Queensland.  I think there is quite a bit of truth in that, but it certainly does not help the federal ALP distance itself from that when its own behaviour pretty much mirrors the despicable behaviour of the ALP backroom boys in Sydney.  It’s hardly surprising when voters then think Julia Gillard and co are more of the same.

NSW officials tried to put a positive spin on the NSW campaign by saying the target-seats strategy had been a success.  So, it could have been much worse – 7% swing against is a win compared to what it might have been.  Wait till the state election, then I think they’ll see the voters take out their baseball bats and really give it to NSW Labor. I tend to agree with the ABC’s election analyst Antony Green here, when he says:

”State Labor was not on the ballot at this election. The Keneally government should not be thinking about 7 per cent but about the 25 swing against it at the recent Penrith byelection.”

Can’t wait, and I’m not even a NSW voter, just an interested observer in seeing the truly shithouse NSW government get what it has deserved for a number of years.

Balls!

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I bet you didn’t know there was such a thing as a world testicle cooking championship.  It takes place in Ozrem, Serbia each year.  I bet that’s a damn exciting place – if that is the highlight of the year.

While it is open to cooks from all over the world, organisers admit that it so far hasn’t attracted many chefs from overseas.  That could just be because normal people in most countries don’t view animal balls as eating material.

Dishes, said to have aphrodisiac qualities, are made from the testicles of animals including bull, wild boar, horse, shark, ostrich, kangaroo, donkey, turkey, goat, reindeer and elk.

Serbian tourist officials are hoping that the competition will boost the tourism potential of the area.  Led by the balls. Festival organiser Ivo Mokovich said:

"The importance of a recognisable brand to sell a region cannot be underestimated,”

"Look at how many people go to Scotland because of the whisky or how many people know Switzerland because of their cheese and chocolate.”

"We are now hoping that the many famous and varied dishes that we have created in the region will become world-famous.”

Sure, I’ll go to Serbia to chow down on sheep’s balls as opposed to going to Scotland to sample scotch or Switzerland to eat cheese and chocolate.  Yummy!

Hey presto, rabbit out of a hat

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I must admit to being very cynical about the Government’s announcement today that the National Broadband Network (NBN) will deliver speeds much higher than the originally promised 100 mbps.  Talk about pulling rabbits out of hats.  How convenient, a week and a bit before the election when the government is desperately trying to differentiate itself from the much less ambitious and cheaper network the opposition proposes.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy revealed today that he’d only been made aware of the new turbo-charged capacity by NBN co-chief executive Mike Quigley yesterday.  Yeah, sure, I believe him.  The timing enabled the government to further mock the opposition’s $6 billion broadband plan which will deliver speeds of 12 megabits per second using a patchwork of technologies.

I find myself having a lot of sympathy for Tony Abbott’s view on this announcement:

“This idea that ‘hey presto’ we are suddenly going to get 10 times the speed from something that isn’t even built yet I find utterly implausible.”

Wonder when they’ve suddenly discovered the higher speeds?  Done a test from one side of a lab to the other?  Maybe over-designed the network all along and saved this news up for a rainy day when the government needed it?  The whole thing has the smell of vapourware about it – lets promise the world now and figure out how to deliver it when we have to.

Was she worth it? part 2

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Not only did former David Jones CEO Mark McInnes behaviour cost him millions in forgone income, it now seems likely to cost him and David Jones much more in a lawsuit lodged today by the woman he allegedly sexually harassed.

Kristy Fraser-Kirk, 25, a junior publicist who is suing McInnes and the company for about $37 million, said the alleged harassment had been devastating.  In her own words:

"I’m a young woman standing here today simply because I said it wasn’t OK, because I said that this should never happen to me or to anyone,"

"I just wanted to be treated with respect."

In a landmark claim lodged today in the Federal Court, Ms Fraser-Kirk is seeking 5 per cent of the profits made by David Jones and 5 per cent of Mr McInnes’s salary while he worked for the company. If successful she will donate the money to a charity that helps victims of sexual harassment and bullying.

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Ms Fraser-Kirk alleges she informed David Jones management about Mr McInnes’s unwelcome advances on several occasions, and on one occasion was told: "Next time that happens, you just need to be very clear and say ‘no Mark’ and he’ll back off."  She alleges that he made unwelcome comments of a sexual nature and unwelcome sexual advances towards her at a lunch function on May 23, including:

  • "McInnes urges Fraser-Kirk to try a dessert by saying the dessert was like a f— in the mouth,"
  • allegedly placed his hand under her clothes, touching her bra strap
  • repeatedly asked her to accompany him to his Bondi home "where the clear implication [was] that such as visit would be for the purpose of sexual intercourse"

She claims she made it clear his conduct was unwelcome and had attempted to use distracting banter to deflect the sexually suggestive conversation.

She claims that his behaviour happened in front of other David Jones employees, including senior managers.  He allegedly sent her several texts the next day repeating his request for her to accompany him home. 

On June 7, they attended another function at which Ms Fraser-Kirk alleges Mr McInnes repeated his desire for her to go home with him before trying to kiss her on the mouth while putting his arm around her. 

She claims she suffered offence, humiliation, distress and anxiety and damage to her personal and professional reputation.  Her statement of claim is very interesting, covering grounds such as false and misleading conduct by David Jones under the Trade Practices Act and Fair Trading Act, breach of her contract of employment, as well as under the sex discrimination, human rights and fair work legislation.  What seems to have pissed her off more than anything is the company’s attempts to downplay McInness’ behaviour, suggesting it was a one off, of a minor nature, that Fraser-Kirk had misread his signals, and that she was frivolously pursuing her claims to try to get some money out of it.  To counter these, her statement describes a series of instances involving McInness which she claims describe a pattern of misconduct which the company and its board would have been well aware of.

Good on her I say!