Saturday, April 30, 2011

The Royal Wedding




It must have been a huge undertaking for those responsible for security at the royal wedding of Kate and Prince William yesterday - how to keep 50 British royals, 40 foreign royals and 60 Commonwealth dignitaries safe, but they managed to pull it off without a hitch.





And what a location - the magnificent Westminster Abbey - in all its glory. They said the British people didn't care about the wedding but they were wrong. The affection for the royal couple was clear as thousands turned out and surged towards the palace, waiting for the balcony kiss.






And Diana was there, Prince William didn't forget his mother. The opening Welsh anthem, Guide me, O thou Great Redeemer, was sung at Diana's 1997 funeral and the service ended with her favourite march, Crown Imperial, played at her wedding in 1981.

Kate, now renamed Catherine, is officially Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge, as well as a countess and a baroness, after the Queen awarded William the titles of Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Strathearn and Baron Carrickfergus. A duke is the highest rank in the British peerage. The Duchy of Cambridge has been vacant since 1904 and was set to go to Prince Edward when he married in 1999, but he preferred the title Earl of Wessex.






Unlike the wedding of Charles and Dianna, there were more friends of the bride and groom and a large number of sporting and other celebrities including Sir Elton John. Aussie swimmer Ian Thorpe sat three rows in front of David and Victoria Beckham.






James Middleton, Kate's brother, delivered a moving, faultless bible reading which included the verses "do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are". The Middletons and the Spencers, sat on one side of the aisle facing the Queen and her family.



The British Foreign Office announced that it had withdrawn the invitation of Syria's ambassador after 500 protesters were killed and the Crown Prince of Bahrain and the King of Swaziland chose to stay away. I think the biggest shock was the decision not to invite Tony Blair who was instrumental in helping the royal family handle the public hatred towards them when Diana died.


It's good to see an ordinary person join to the loyal line. The Queen Mum was also a commoner and much loved by the British people but she only became Queen after her husband's brother abdicated, so it wasn't planned. The last monarch to marry a commoner was Henry VIII, when he took Anne Boleyn as his bride.



Friday, April 29, 2011

Australian Defence Force Academy Arrests



Commodore Kafer


Police arrested two cadets from the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) this morning over secretly fiming a female cadet having sex without her knowledge and broadcasting it over the internet. Daniel McDonald 19 and Dylan De Blaquiere 18 were released on strict bail conditions. McDonald's lawyer applied for a suppression order of his client's name, citing national security, but it was refused.


The complainant, an 18 year old first year cadet said she was humiliated when a sexual encounter with another first year cadet was transmitted via Skype to six cadets in another room without her knowledge. Still photos were also taken and distributed around the Academy.


Defence Minister Stephen Smith was appalled by the incident and acted quickly to launch an inquiry. Since then, a string of other complaints have emerged about the abusive treatment of women in the military with allegations of bullying, bastardisation and sexual assault.

Minister Smith said he had no confidence in Commodore Bruce Kafer, who has taken leave over the handling of the affair and was told to stand down. Senior serving military officers have been implicated in crimes covered up by the Defence Force, including male rape and assault.




Gabe Watson to stand trial in Alabama





I wrote about Gabe Watson on 11th November 2010 when he was put on a plane back to the US to face murder charges. He has already served an 18 month jail sentence in Queensland for the manslaughter of his wife Tina while scuba diving near Townsville in 2003.


I remember the case well because of Tina's dad Tommy Thomas - a loving father who never gave up. He has no doubt that his son-in-law murdered his daughter. He couldn't figure out why the flowers he took to his daughter's grave kept disappearing so he set up a video camera and caught Gabe Watson on film taking them - why, no one knows. But thanks to his relentless campaign, Watson now faces two capital murder charges.


There was a lot of talk about the light sentence Watson received in Australia and about the sloppy handling of the case. He originally received a custodial sentence of 12 months, which was increased to 18 months on appeal from Queensland prosecutors.


The new charges against Watson allege the plan to murder his wife was pre-meditated and conceived in Alabama even before he left on his honeymoon. If found guilty, the death penalty applies in Alabama. This put the Australian government in a difficult position, they refused to allow his deportation back to the US unless Alabama's Attorney General gave his word that any future conviction would not involve the death penalty, but rather a maximum sentence of a life in prison. This was agreed and Watson was put on a plane back to the US.


Alabama Judge Nail has had a change of heart. Last December he granted Watson bail on the grounds that he was not a flight risk and thought the Prosecution's case was weak, but yesterday he accepted that a trial should proceed. Watson's lawyers put a motion that the prosecution case amounted to a violation of the double jeopardy principle but Judge Nail dismissed it and cited three precedents in which people convicted of murder outside the US had again faced prosecution over the same crime in the US later.


Tina Watson, so much in love with her husband, died in the first few minutes of the first full dive of their scuba trip to the Great Barrier Reef. And before they left home, Gabe Watson asked his wife to increase her work-related life insurance and made him the beneficiary.



Thursday, April 28, 2011

Donald Trump and President Obama's Birth Certificate



Despite the release of President Obama's birth certificate, the two Louisiana lawmakers behind legislation to make presidential candidates prove they were born in America intend to press on with the bill. It's hard to believe that with so many problems facing America today, this sort of nonsense is allowed to continue.





Donald Trump should be embarrassed but he isn't. “Today I’m very proud of myself because I’ve accomplished something that nobody else has been able to accomplish,” he said “I am really honoured, frankly, to have played such a big role in hopefully, hopefully, getting rid of this issue.” But he hasn't given up, he's now focusing his attention to the President's college transcripts.


Barack Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1991 but Trump said "I heard he was a terrible student, terrible - how does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?" and added "I'm certainly looking into it. Let him show his records."


Trump went on "I have friends who have smart sons with great marks, great boards, great everything and they can't get into Harvard," Trump said. "We don't know a thing about this guy. There are a lot of questions that are unanswered about our president."


Donald Trump is brilliant at self-promotion and says that Americans like what he's saying. He thought he was on a winner when he latched onto the Republican "birther" movement who were pushing the idea that Obama was born outside the United States and if proved, would make him ineligible for the Presidency.


When fellow Republican John McCain said that Trump's effort was a publicity stunt, the Donald said. "I would find it hard to believe he would say anything bad because I raised a fantastic amount of money for him."


Donald Trump's vanity is legend with his funny hair and famous pout, and if he does decide to run for President, I think it's essential that he comes clean and shows his bald head to the world, no more comb-overs, just an honest-to-goodness head of skin.



Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Julia Gillard Visits China




It must have been a difficult job for Julia Gillard to convince the Chinese that Australia and the US do not wish to contain the rising power of China. Blind Freddy knows how close our friendship is with America and China's rise in the region is an obvious concern for them. But more importantly I think, the revelation of a carbon tax next year must have gone down like a lead balloon.


I wonder if the Chinese are aware that many Australians hate the carbon tax and believe it will cause major unemployment and dramatically increase the cost of living. The CEOs of Australia's top mining companies were also having meetings in China yesterday, wanting to know what impact a carbon tax will have on resource prices and China is wondering the same thing. But the Prime Minister insisted that Australia could not afford to be "left behind" as the world moved to a clean energy future.


It leaves Australia between a rock and a hard place really, our economic prosperity relies heavily on China but our security alliance is with the US.


The Prime Minister paid tribute to China for lifting millions of people out of poverty but hoped they were not taking a "backward step" on human rights - a very touchy subject with the Chinese. But what about jailed Australian nationals Stern Hu and Matthew Ng? Although their names were brought up, no details of that discussion were released.


Tuesday, April 26, 2011

David Hicks Profile Released by WikiLeaks




When al-Qaeda's No 3 man Mohammed Atef met David Hicks, he spoke to him about becoming a martyr but Hicks was quick to point out that he was not prepared to die for the cause. So says WikiLeaks who released 800 secret US documents yesterday which included David Hicks' profile. They also said that Hicks was a combat hardened al-Qaeda fighter who showed great promise for leadership and if released from custody, would seek a career as a mercenary.


Three years after his capture his profile reads: "The detainee's truthfulness is low and he is likely to have information regarding terrorist operations and tactics," and "his involvement and training ... make him a highly skilled combatant, as well as a valuable asset and possible leader." The profile gave several reasons why Hicks should not be released, including his knowledge of entry and exit points in Afghanistan, his involvement with al-Qaeda leadership and the fact he actively sought out extremist organisations to serve with.


Even though the Americans wrote that David Hicks "poses a high risk significant threat to the US and allies" after negotiations between US and Australian governments, he was returned to Australia in 2007 and allowed to serve out the final nine months of a seven year sentence imposed by the US for providing material support for terrorism.


David Hicks has always denied involvement in terrorism but to secure his release, he pleaded guilty to "providing material support for terrorism".




Monday, April 25, 2011

Bess Price and Aboriginal Intervention



I like Bess Price and think she has something important to say and hope the whole country hears it. Never before have we had the opportunity to learn what really goes on in Alice Springs and now we have another point of view - not from an academic living in Sydney who looks white but claims to have Aboriginal blood, but from a real, true, traditional woman who lives there. This is her story.


My name is Bess Nyirringali Nungarrayi Price. My first language is Warlpiri, English is my second and there are five other languages that I understand. I was born under a tree at a place called Yuendumu, where the airstrip now is. My father was 10 years old when he first saw a white man. My mother was a little bit younger. They were both born in the desert out of contact with the rest of the world.


I came from a family of eleven. My Mum has now outlived 8 of her children. We have lost eight, but I had a happy up bringing. I spent my childhood living in yujuku my father built, what whitefellas call ‘humpies’. I was always warm, dry and comfortable. We ate both whitefella food and our own bushtucker. We camped on my Dad’s country every weekend, walking a round trip of around thirty kilometres from Yuendumu and back, but we always got to school. When I was too young to go my older sister and brother rode to school on a donkey all that way. My teachers were good, hard working people. I had plenty of white friends as well as the company of my own extended Warlpiri family. I learnt both ways before we had what we now call bilingual/bicultural education at our school. My teachers and my parents taught me well.


People think Aboriginal people all think the same. They are wrong. We have Aboriginal people who live in cities, towns and in the remote parts of Australia and we all have different issues. The issues and needs are totally different. The politics in the bush are so different from the way southern blackfellas think. They, the yapa, are gullible at times and they accept anything that’s put in front of them, without a question. They are easily lead whether it’s in good faith or not. Others blame colonization for the reason that our people are the most disadvantaged group of people. But nobody can explain why that is … I don’t see it that way. All I see is that they are hunters and gatherers and they were vulnerable then and they are vulnerable now. They know nothing about how everything else operates outside of their communities and how they need to change in order to keep up with the rest of the outside world. They need to be given the tools and the mechanism to move forward.


We have had so many self-appointed people, black and white, who have decided to be our spokespeople, who know nothing about us and our issues. They are the people who have been running the show all these years without ever asking us whether it’s okay for them to do so. They are the ones who want to keep our people in the dark as if we are some sort of stone age people. It had to take urgent measures by the government in order to help our people, for them to recognise what was happening to them, and to do something for themselves before it was too late.


I am one of those people who embraced the government’s move, what is now called the Intervention or the NTER, the Northern Territory Emergency Response. To me it meant at last somebody was acknowledging that there was a crisis and that it needed to be addressed. For a long time our peoples’ lives have been in a state of crisis, spiralling downwards, rapidly, uncontrollably.


Before the Intervention three of my brothers drank themselves to death on the Alice Springs town camps. Two nieces, one 21, one 26, did the same. My granddaughter was murdered on a town camp. She died because she was stabbed by her ex-husband, my cousin. The ambulance wouldn’t go in there without a police escort because the drunks attack them when they go there to save a life. So she died waiting for them. This is what the town camps have been for us, places of sickness and self-destruction. Yet there are those in Alice Springs who call it racism and an attack on human rights when the government tries to help us make the camps decent places to live and raise kids.


I could go on all day about the violence I have seen. It has happened to so many of my loved ones. My own body is decorated with scars. Yet the protestors, the whitefellas in Alice Springs and those who come from Down South, who think they are supporting my people, have treated me like an enemy. They have tried to tell the world through the internet that I am a drunk and that I only support the government because it pays me to do work for them. They aren’t interested in the truth. They aren’t willing to open their ears and listen.


They have never given me a chance to talk at their rallies. They bring white students and cranky kooris and murris up from Down South who know nothing about us and who hate whitefellas. They look for local people who think like they do and try to keep the rest quiet and away from the media. When the UN’s Special Rapporteur came to Alice my people were not told of the meetings. I was only invited the day before. The meetings were very carefully controlled and orchestrated. It was a joke. He didn’t hear from the people with the problems, the ones living with the violence and the misery. He heard from those with a vested interest in the present situation.


My people, the ones with the problems that the Intervention is designed to address, were deliberately excluded. They were lining up down at the pub and the bottle shops as they do everyday or sitting in filth in the camps worrying about their kids and waiting for the next round of grog fuelled violence. People are given a fairytale version of our culture by people who don’t live by our law. They want you to think that it is the government that causes all our problems. That is an outrageous lie. The government gets it wrong because it consults with the wrong people. It gets it wrong because it cannot help people who won’t, or don’t know how, to help themselves. We want to be able to help ourselves.


My people don’t use money the way white people do. They don’t save, they don’t budget, they can’t say ‘no’ to relatives even when they are drunks and addicted to gambling and drugs. They need help in spending their money wisely. We are very happy that the government has decided to extend income management to everybody. That is what we have always asked for. Don’t stop doing it for us, do it to everybody who needs it if you are worried about racism. Even Warren Snowdon, our ALP Federal member admits now that it is working. That is a big change for Warren.


We still have a lot of other problems. Education is one of the biggest. Education has not worked for our mob for the last thirty years. White people told us that they wanted to preserve our language so now my people can’t express themselves to the rest of the world and rely on white people and city blackfellas, who know nothing about us, or who want to keep us in ignorance to do it for them. I went to school before the bilingual program started yet I speak both Warlpiri and English better than our kids and our grand kids. Our young people now need their grandparents to speak for them to the outside world. The old ones speak better English. Most of our kids now can’t read and write English or their own language. They are not learning to speak their own languages properly. They are losing the best of our culture but not learning the best of the whitefella’s culture. They are learning the worst instead. They are losing on both sides. Bilingual education is a wonderful idea but it seems to me that it has never been done properly. We want our kids to keep speaking our languages but we also want them to be able to speak and read and write English. My people are linguistically talented. Many speak several Aboriginal languages. Our kids are intelligent and want to learn. Why can’t whitefellas teach them English? It should be easy.

Read the complete article here http://aliceonline.com.au/?p=83


Nancy Wake - Australian Wartime Hero



Nancy Wake was a highly decorated woman who worked with the French Resistance in WWII. The Gestapo called her the white mouse because every time they thought they had her cornered, she managed to escape. She tried twice to enter Australian politics but wasn't successful and she eventually returned to England forever.


Nancy was born in New Zealand and the family moved to Sydney in 1914 when she was two years old, the youngest of six children. Her father must have been a cruel man, he sold the family home and returned to New Zealand forever. This left his wife and six children with nowhere to live as they were evicted from their home after it was sold. All we know about her mother is that she was a strict, religious woman who was left to bring up six children on her own.


Nancy ran away from home when she was 16 and worked as a nurse and later as a journalist in London and ended up in Paris. When she saw the contempt and cruelty of the Germans towards Jews, gypsies and blacks on the streets of Paris, she decided to do something about it. "The stormtroopers had tied the Jewish people up to massive wheels. They were rolling the wheels along, and the storm troopers were whipping the Jews. I stood there and thought, 'I don't know what I'll do about it, but if I can do anything one day, I'll do it.' And I always had that picture in my mind, all through the war."


In 1939 when war broke out she was in England but returned to France where she met and fell passionately in love with rich successful French businessman Henri Fiocca. They were married and she joined the resistance movement and bought an ambulance to help transport refugees running from the German advance.



By 1942, she was causing thet Germans so much trouble, the Gestapo gave her the code name of 'the white mouse' and offered five millions francs for her capture. They arrested her husband and tortured him but he never did reveal her whereabouts and she was heartbroken when she heard that he had been executed. "He was a lovely bloke" she said "He was the love of my life."


She escaped to England and joined the French section of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) a unit of 470 men and women specially trained to work with resistance groups in German occupied territories. In 1944 she was put in charge of an army of 7,000 Maquis troops that engaged in guerrilla warfare to sabotage the Nazis.


Henri Tardivat, one of her comrades, later said that:"She is the most feminine woman I know, until the fighting starts, then she is like five men." One one occasion she threw a grenade into a dining room full of German soldiers. When the Germans broke the radio codes, she cycled 500 kms in 72 hours, crossing several German checkpoints to find an operator who would radio Britain for new codes.


After the war, Wake received numerous international honours, including the George Medal, the Croix de Guerre, the Medaille de la Resistance, the Chevalier de Legion d'Honneur and the US Medal of Freedom. But there was nothing from Australia, even though the RSL had recommended that her bravery should be recognised. She said "They can stick their award and be thankful it's not a pineapple".


In 1949 she came home to Australia and decided to stand as a Liberal Party candidate in the Sydney seat of Barton. But she didn't win and because she couldn't find any other suitable employment, she returned to England and became a WRAF officer in the British Air Ministry and remained in the job until 1958.


In 1960, she came home to Australian again and wrote her autobiography. In 1966, she tried for a second time to enter politics but failed to win her seat and in 2001 she returned to England, never to return. It is her wish that her ashes be scattered over France when she dies.


So how would she like to be remembered? She hopes to go down in history as the woman who turned down 7,000 sex-starved Frenchman and added "I got away with blue murder and loved every minute of it." She lives in London in The Star and Garter Home.


Saturday, April 23, 2011

Kiesha Abrahams Parents Arrested




Police allege that Kiesha Abrahams was killed by her mother and step-father in their Sydney unit between July 20 and 27 2010. They further allege that they kept her body in the unit for three days before taking it in a suitcase to an isolated spot in the bush and buried her there. In the middle of the night, carrying a bunch of flowers, Kristi Abrahams 28 and Robert Smith 31 walked into a police trap.

It was Kiesha's seventh birthday on Thursday and police got a tip that the couple would visit the child's burial site on that day and when they did, 30 police officers were waiting.




The couple told friends they had booked themselves into a motel in the city on Thursday night and Smith's mother dropped them off at Parramatta railway station. But they had no intentions of going to the city, instead, they got on a train headed in the opposite direction and got off at Mt Druitt station.

Police allege they bought a bunch of flowers at a local kiosk and took a taxi to nearby Shalvey, where they then set off on foot into the bush. The couple spent hours in the area of Kiesha's grave and around 1am when they were on their way back, police emerged from the bush and arrested them. Both will reappear at Penrith Local Court next Friday.



Friday, April 22, 2011

Bernard Finnigan Arrested





More grief for the Labor Party. Bernard Finnigan has been charged over allegations of child pornography. Finnigan, who is the most senior MP in the SA Upper House has resigned and will not be replaced. Premier Rann said he had accepted Finnigan's resignation from Cabinet and the Executive Council.


Born in Mt Gambier in 1972, Mr Finnigan grew up on the family dairy farm at Eight Mile Creek. Right faction leader Senator Don Farrell paid tribute to Mr Finnigan in his maiden speech in the Senate in 2008, describing him as being "a tower of strength in times of trouble".


In Finnigan's maiden speech in 2006, he paid tribute to his parents for his Catholic faith. "I would like to acknowledge that, despite my stumbles along the way and however imperfect my efforts, I am a servant of Christ and subject of His reign in history," he said.




Thursday, April 21, 2011

Villawood Detention Centre Destroyed





When nine asylum seekers on Christmas Island got a letter from the government, saying their application for asylum was rejected, they set fire to buildings, threw bombs at police and almost destroyed the facility. The trouble-makers were flown out and guess where they sent them? Yes, they sent them to the Villawood Detention Centre in Sydney. Last night they destroyed that facility too.

Firefighters were pelted with roof tiles and furniture and couldn't get inside the centre to fight the fire so the buildings burnt to the ground. They had to wait for the Police riot squad to arrive, but by that time, it was too late.


As one disaster follows another, the Labor Party's handling of this situation is out of control and Immigration Minister Chris Bowen doesn't seem to know what to do about it. The best he could come up with was "Australians have a right to be angry, I share their anger". Whooppee. If they have been rejected, why are they still here and how many appeals do they get? Nine buildings were destroyed, including a computer room, kitchen and a medical centre, imagine how much it's going to cost to replace them.

Enter the bleeding heart brigade. Human rights worker Marion Le says the night's violence shouldn't be blamed on the asylum seekers. Of course not, it's really our fault, but we knew that all along. Oh yes and what nationality were the thugs involved? Three Kurds, two Iranians and 8 Afghans - all members of the religion of peace.



Wednesday, April 20, 2011

British send Officers to Benghazi



A team of 10 British officers are being sent to Benghazi to provide logistics and intelligence training for the rebels fighting Gaddafi. British foreign secretary William Hague says they have acted in accordance with UN regulations which strictly forbids occupation. These officers will advise the rebels on how to distribute aid and deliver medical assistance, and will not be involved in any way with training or arming the rebels. The officers will not be in uniform.


It seems that Britain's first attempt to contact the Libyan rebels was laughable. A team of "special forces" officers entered the country illegally by helicopter in the dead of night, armed to the teeth and scared the daylights out of the rebels who quickly rounded them up. They were very concerned about their identities, worried they could be Israeli spies using British passports. We remember when the Israelis used British passports to kill that man in Dubai last year.


Let's hope their second attempt to help the rebels is better planned and more successful.



Dirty Work in Queensland



Dalby is 211 km north west of Brisbane and is the centre of rich coal and natural gas reserves. It's also a pleasant rural community of around 12,000 people and the rich soils of the Darling Downs produce cotton, sorghum, wheat, barley, sunflowers, chickpeas, mung beans, corn as well as lamb beef and pork.


Dalby Construction and Services company Ostwald Bros is prepared to pay a minimum of $100,000 a year for some of the 75 labouring jobs it needs to fill. They are also offering housing subsidies, fly-in fly-out options with two weeks on and one week off. Chief executive Brendan Ostwald said they were keen to attract the right people to the booming Surat Basin. Why are the wages so good? The more remote the worksite, the better the pay.


The company recently won a $60 million contract from coal seam gas company QCG, but Mr Ostwald said all the jobs for that contract were filled. Construction giant Bechtel is also recruiting for jobs in Gladstone export. So could you work two weeks straight in a God forsaken place away from your family and friends for a minimum of $100,000 a year? Well, get moving then.




Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Barnaby Joyce wants Tony Windsor's Seat




Tony Windsor was a farmer at Werris Creek before entering politics and considers himself a conservative. In May 1991 he was first elected to the NSW State parliament as the member for Tamworth. He was originally a National Party candidate but allegations regarding a drink-driving incident arose on the day of his pre-selection and the National Party endorsed another candidate so he ran as an Independent. And the voters didn't care, they voted for him anyway and he won and held the seat for ten years before resigning in September 2001 to contest the federal seat of New England.




There were some unhappy campers in the National Party when Windsor won the seat of New England - the Nationals and its predecessor, the Country Party had held it since 1922. The division between Windsor and the National only worsened when he said that they had offered him a bribe - a diplomatic post if he would retire from politics. In November 2004 under parliamentary privilege he said that National Party leader John Anderson and Senator Sandy Macdonald were behind the offer.


My guess would be that Barnaby is going to run because he's pretty sure he'll win. Why? Because the conservative voters of New England are furious with Windsor for siding with Labor and putting them into government. "That does not align with their views of the world - and they're also very upset that he is contemplating supporting a carbon tax," Joyce said.

Windsor has publicly called Joyce a "fool" with attention deficit problems who doesn't have the support of his colleagues. He's challenged him to give up his seat in the Senate if he's serious about taking him on for New England. "If he wants to leave the people of Queensland that he says have been so good to him, that's his business but he should resign his seat in the Senate". Windsor points out that if Barnaby wants to stand in another state, he will be abandoning the people who voted him in. "He'd want to put himself on the line and start campaigning as soon as possible," he said. "He's probably feeling a bit frustrated in Queensland because a number of the older National Party members quite deliberately won't get out of the way because they don't want him in the Lower House."


Joyce said "It's my intention to go to the Lower House, absolutely, and obviously the seat of New England is a logical fit" and went on "It's just across the border from where I live so it's not that far away. It's not as if I'm going to a seat in Western Australia."


After the election last year, Mr Windsor was asked if he could work with Barnaby Joyce in a hung parliament. "I don't deal with fools terribly lightly, and I think under any definition the man's a fool," he said.


If in the future Senator Joyce were to become leader of the National Party, he would then become Deputy Prime Minister in a Coalition government - now that's a scary thought. So what does fellow Queenslander Bob Katter have to say about Barnaby's latest plan? No answer was the stern reply, I can just see him in his big hat rolling his eyes.



Monday, April 18, 2011

Professor Larissa Behrendt

Professor Larissa Behrendt


Last Thursday, Professor Larissa Behrendt was given the job to head a review of Aboriginal higher education. It was the same day we learnt about the disgusting remark she made about Bess Price on Twitter, namely "I watched a show where a guy had sex with a horse and I'm sure it was less offensive than Bess Price".




Bess Price

Now three dedicated people with some influence have come out in support of Bess Price. Dr Sue Gordon, former NT intervention boss and magistrate was the first Aboriginal person to head a government department in Western Australia; Warren Mundine, former ALP president; and indigenous independent MP Alison Anderson. They all want Julia Gillard to think again.




Warren Mundine



But they refuse. A spokesman for Higher Education Minister Chris Evans said last night the government would not be removing Professor Behrendt because they had confidence in her abilities.



Alison Anderson


Dr Gordon pointed out there was a vast difference between the city-based lawyer and bush Aborigines who are the people in greatest need of education reform. " I was extremely shocked that she has been appointed, it is more than inappropriate, I think the government needs to reconsider this."



Dr Sue Gordon


Independent MP Allison Anderson said the review would be severely compromised if Professor Behrendt was allowed to head it as her reputation with indigenous people was in tatters. "I think it's inappropriate for the government to be giving her a position like this in light of the remarks she's made about Bess Price," she said.



"Warren Mundine said "I don't think she's objective enough to do that job," and added "I have serious doubts that she will come up with a solution."


Barbara Shaw



Bess Price supports the intervention and said that because of it, the children were now being fed and young people now know how to manage their lives. But Barbara Shaw, spokeswoman for the Intervention Rollback Action Group and resident of Mount Nancy town camp near Alice Springs has attacked Ms Price. "It's outrageous that Bess Price can continue to go on national media and spread false information on the intervention while life in our town camps and communities gets harder and harder".


Ms Price's husband Dave, said the couple were fed up with attacks on her character. "She has been overwhelmed by the tsunami of support for her coming from all over Australia. Once again it confirms for us the knowledge that this country is full of decent people of all colours and ethnicities," he said.



Sunday, April 17, 2011

Kelly Lane Found Guilty

Senior Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi


On Friday, Keli Lane was sentenced to 18 years with a non-parole period is 13 years and five months for the murder of her baby daughter Tegan. She will be eligible for release on parole on May 12, 2023.

Keli Lane's situation reminds me a bit of the Lindy Chamberlain case - she too was charged with the murder of her baby Azaria even though her body was never found. I had a gut feeling about Lindy and have the same gut feeling about Keli Lane - without a body or any other evidence, there should be 'reasonable doubt'.



Keli Lane with her parents




In the space of a few hours on the afternoon of the 14th September 1996, 21 year old Keli parted company with her daughter Tegan. That's it, there is no other evidence - no sightings, no DNA, no fingerprints, no pieces of fabric, no body. Nothing.



Des Campbell


Senior Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi built his case around the lies that Lane had told, and there were many, and also the fact that the police search for the father proved unsuccessful. Justice Anthony Whealy warned the jury they must take into account that telling lots of lies does not make you a murderer.



Gordon Wood




Mark Tedeschi must be one of the most successful prosecutors in the country. He was responsible for the guilty verdict of Gordon Wood, the man who threw his girlfriend off the Gap and also Des Campbell, the man who took his wife camping and said she accidently fell off a cliff in the dark.



Caren Jenning


Prosecutor Tedeschi was also the prosecutor in the euthanasia case of Qantas pilot Graeme Wylie. Caren Jenning went to Mexico to get the deadly drug that was used in his death. Wylie said he wanted to die but Tedeschi wasn't having it, he was determined to have Graeme Wylie's wife and Caren Jenning both found guilty of manslaughter. Suffering from cancer, a month before she was due to face a sentencing hearing, Jenning took her own life. She left a suicide note and accused Tedeschi of harassment. "During the trial, I felt persecuted and harassed by Crown prosecutor Mark Tedeschi," she wrote. "He is a bully boy."

Keli Lane gave two babies up for adoption and has been a loving mother to the daughter she decided to keep and raise. These are not the actions of a murderer. And there is one thing that Mark Tedeschi could not prove - that Tegan is dead - and how the jury came to a unanimous decision of guilt leaves me baffled. Thank goodness we have an appeal system.



Saturday, April 16, 2011

Bill Ludwig - Kingmaker

The Imposing figure of Bill Ludwig with Paul Howes



Bill Ludwig, now 76, is a big wheel in the Labor Party who started his working life as a shearer in Queensland. He's also the National President and Queensland state secretary of the Australian Workers Union. His son Joe Ludwig is an ALP Queensland Senator and Minister for Human Services.




Joe Ludwig



If you think that the union movement in Australia isn't a force to be reckoned with, think again. Bill Ludwig is now questioning Kevin Rudd's loyalty and thinks he's a loose cannon - seeking media attention and talking freely about what went on in the party room while he was PM and he wants him to stop.



I think it's ironic that Mr Ludwig is speaking about loyalty when he was one of those who voted to sack Kevin Rudd and put Julia Gillard in his place. On that fateful night only 10 months ago, Mr Ludwig was there with Paul Howes and confirmed that he had lost the backing of their union so he was out.


Lugwig said it was "typical Kevin" when he said on Q and A that some people in the party wanted to shelve the ETS. He added "Geez, he's out there and everybody can see him. Kevin's Kevin. Kevin comes first, second, third and fourth."


Rudd called Ludwig and Howes "factional thugs" for declaring war on Rio Tinto and attacking Trade Minister Craig Emerson for suggesting they moderate their language. But that's the way real men talk, isn't it?


Ludwig said he lost confidence in Kevin Rudd after the Copenhagen Summit refused to act on climate change which meant the ETS had to be shelved. "The guy just had nowhere to go - he didn't try to defend his position, he just dropped it," Mr Ludwig and "His mistake was to place "too much political capital in Copenhagen".

"When it fell over he was stunned. He couldn't believe he couldn't persuade all of those 140 countries or whatever they were that he was right and they were wrong . . . he misjudged the whole process of Copenhagen."


So what will Bill Ludwig do if Kevin doesn't behave and stop talking to the media - does he have the power to put him on the back bench?



Paul Howes Wakes up to Reality


The government's carbon tax now looks like a dead duck. Union bosses were running around like headless chooks yesterday when they discovered something they hadn't taken into consideration - their members don't want a bar of it. They are saying what's the point of compensation if you lose your job.


One of the most powerful men in Australia, AWU boss Paul Howes had no alternative but to tell the Prime Minister that his union will withdraw its support for the carbon tax if just "one job" is lost as a result.


But Opposition Climate Change spokesman Greg Hunt said that Julia Gillard can't possibly guarantee it. "Today, the Prime Minister must make the guarantee that Paul Howes demanded, that not one job will be lost because of the carbon tax, to India, to China or to Indonesia," he said. "But she can't make that guarantee because that's the reality."


After a crisis meeting the AWU decided it wants the steel industry and some others to be excluded from the tax. Understandably, Bob Brown isn't happy, he's described Mr Howes as "silly and economically illiterate" and says he should realise there will be a big impact on jobs if no action is taken on climate change. But Paul Howes said "Come to Newcastle and see former members of ours who lost their jobs when the steelworks shut who are yet to receive a single day of employment since." Yes Mr Howes, we remember it well. Tony Abbott said “I can give them a guarantee that a carbon tax won’t cost a single job because under the Coalition, there won’t be a carbon tax.”
So it looks like the carbon tax is dying a slow agonizing death. How could the Labor Party be so short-sighted as to suddenly declare a carbon tax without first finding out what we thought about it, and equally as important, what union members thought about it. It would have saved a lot of embarrassment all round.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Andrew Wilkie - Duntroon Bully


Just before Australia became involved in the Iraq war, Andrew Wilkie resigned from the intelligence agency he was working for because he said the excuse to invade Iraq was a sham. And as we now know, he was right. He was an unsuccessful Greens candidate in the 2004 Federal Election and for the Senate in Tasmania in the 2007 Federal Election. In 2010 he ran as an Independent for the Tasmanian seat of Denison and won.


Today the man who is one of the men who holds the balance of power, MP Andrew Wilkie has admitted that as a senior cadet at Duntroon Military College in 1983, he was involved in "bastardisation" and set "some sort of record" for incurring punishments and giving junior cadets a hard time.


Brendan Etches, a man who was 17 at the time, left Duntroon after several weeks of torture that had long-term effects for some of the cadets. He also makes the bizarre claim that Wilkie allegedly ordered junior cadets to stand to attention and salute the anniversary of Hitler becoming German Chancellor on January 30, 1933. When one cadet refused to stand, Wilkie allowed senior cadets to punish him. "He was drilling us before breakfast. I have a memory of him in a dressing gown, watching as the other senior guys were running around giving us a hard time," Mr Etches said.

Mr Wilkie has refused to meet with Mr Etches and says he "could not recollect" the alleged Hitler salute incident.


Mr Etches was successful in bringing about the resignation of senior officers and expulsion and disciplining of several cadets responsible for the college's "sick secret culture" of sadistic punishment for trifling or imagined offences. Wilkie was one of the cadets who were disciplined but he went on to become a career officer.


Mr Etches said he wanted to give Mr Wilkie a chance to tell his side of the story and admit that what happened was wrong and he was sorry for it. "Given his position in Australian politics, I thought he would want the Defence Force to be completely above board," he said. A Defence Department spokesperson said last night the department could not comment on specific details "for privacy reasons".


So Mr Wilkie, you want us to believe that you are a crusader on the side of what's right and you've gone to bat for the minority of problem gamblers in the country. You don't care that because of your pious rant, you have threatened the closure of hundreds of clubs in Australia, unable to survive without poker machine revenue. Some may say this is a good thing - I do not - if people want to spend their money on poker machines, that's their business and clubs are too important to our way of life to threaten their closure with your interference.


Andrew Wilkie has admitted he's a bully and he's now trying to bully the Prime Minister. He's the biggest threat to the minority Gillard government and says he'll withdraw his support for Labor if it fails to muster the numbers needed to pass legislation to limited punter spending on poker machines. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.




Thursday, April 14, 2011

Bess Price




After watching Q and A on Monday night, Indigenous lawyer Professor Larissa Behdrendt said watching bestiality on television was "less offensive than Bess Price". She is angry that an Aboriginal woman could possibly be in favour of radical Northern Territory intervention and considers her a traitor. She said "I watched a show where a guy had sex with a horse and I'm sure it was less offensive than Bess Price."


What a charmer you are Ms Behdrendt. "I'm going to seek legal advice," Bess said. "This is worse than what she is accusing Andrew Bolt of." Bolt has spent the past fortnight in court fighting accusations that he vilified a group of nine Aborigines, including Professor Behrendt, on the basis of their race.



Professor Behdrendt.



Bess Price said the comment showed how out of touch the indigenous academic was with central Australian Aborigines."I want what she has for my children," she said. "The white blackfellas should be happy about the lifestyle they have. They should help us rather than trying to put a barrier between us and what we should be saying. Who does she think she is? I'm very angry about that. How dare she have a go about me without talking to me or confronting me face to face if she has a problem with me. They think that they can control us, that I shouldn't be commenting or having an opinion on indigenous issues" and then "And the likes of her and others don't know anything about our people in the bush. Who are they to stand up and talk on behalf of our people. My background is totally different to hers, we are culturally different."


I could hardly believe my ears when Bess said on Q and A that the intervention was necessary and that the children were now being fed. She also said that the most important thing they needed right now was to get young teachers out of Uni into NT to educate their kids. We've heard so often about how the Aboriginal language must be preserved at all costs and in some cases, because of this philosophy, many desert Aboriginals can't even speak English.


Ms Price's husband Dave Price wrote in an email. "It's people like her who control the message, going to organisations like the UN and Amnesty International. Can the Race Discrimination Act protect people like Bess from this sort of obscene vilification or does she get away with it because she identifies?" She went on "Larissa Behrendt has made money out of being a blackfella and she isn't even in dire straits like other blackfellas who need funding."


I think this woman Bess Price has something important to say and hope that those who matter are ready to listen. She has the potential to make real difference for her people so "white black fellas" like the Professor Behdrendt need to STFU.



Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Angus Houston Needs to Go





The Chief of Defence, Angus Houston, needs to go, says Dr Julian Fidge, a GP at Wangaratta and a Captain in the Army Reserve. He says the destructive military culture will never change with him in charge and has called for his resignation.


"The Minister needs to ask the Chief of Defence to resign. He's been there for the last several inquiries and hasn't been able to achieve any change," he said. "He no longer enjoys the support of the Australian public. As a serving officer he doesn't have my support, or the support of many officers. He added "I think the officers who do support him are the ones who cause the problems at the root of this culture."

Defence Minister Stephen Smith has been overwhelmed with complaints about sexual assault since the Skype sex scandal but to his credit, he has not backed away from the issue.


Dr Fidge thinks the issue of women being allowed to take up any role in the military is just a furphy, a side issue to take the presssure off the destructive brutality meted out by certain officers over years. He said that women are set up for failure under the current culture because of discrimination, harassment, bullying, abuse of power and misuse of the military justice system.


Dr Fidge has gone public about issues within the ADF before, last September he was court martialled for trying to raise concerns with the hierarchy. "They assembled a full court martial last year ... and they had eight counts of insubordination to try and get rid of me, but my defence barrister convinced them this was inappropriate. "I've written personally to the Chief of Defence about this toxic culture because it affects medical and nursing officers.


Dr Fidge believes senior officers have each other's backs no matter what. Over the past four years, he has documents detailing shocking episodes that need investigating, but every time, they shut him down. When asked if he feared for his safety, Dr Fidge said he is not concerned about speaking out. "I'm past caring what the ADF thinks of me trying to improve the culture," he said. "This is a widespread issue and persecuting me will not fix it."


What a shame Defence Minister Smith missed the perfect opportunity to finally get rid of Houston when he threatened to resign if the Minister removed the head of the ADFA over the Skype incident - he could have killed two birds with one stone.




Tuesday, April 12, 2011

The Australian Defence Forces Academy



If you have a daughter planning on a career in the Australian Defence Forces, you may want to think again. They don't have much respect for women as was clearly shown recently by a male cadet who thought it would be a huge entertainment if he could record himself having sex with a fellow female cadet while his mates looked on in another room.




When she found out about this hilarously funny joke that she wasn't a part of, she went to complain. Instead of sympathy, she was reprimanded by her superiors and put on charges but the man and his mates who were involved were completely exhonorated. Enter Defence Minister Stephen Smith who is now on a crusade on behalf of this young woman and he's determined to get to the bottom of this shocking state of affairs.






This young woman's experience of sexual abuse has opened a can of worms and today we discover that four military officers who allegedly raped and bashed fellow students at the Australian Defence Force Academy are now in crucial top jobs. At least four of the men are named in a sworn statement dated November 13, 2008, that was distributed to a number of senior defence leaders. The statement detailed a series of violent attacks and was written by a former army officer who now works in counter-intelligence and is based overseas in a terrorist hot-spot.




"I have felt bad about what happened to XXXX for the last 18 years, I realise I should have done something to stop it, but was too afraid of being subjected to the same treatment. This has borne heavily on my conscience ever since," the statement says.

The document names a number of senior Defence officers as perpetrators of a brutal sexual assault against a fellow male cadet, now a prominent lawyer, who raised concerns about bastardisation at the academy. The Daily Telegraph now knows the names of these officers - two from the army, one from the Air Force and one from the Navy.


The victim of the assault was falsely accused of pointing a weapon at a superior officer and other lies were used against him to blacken his reputation and block his applicationt to join the Army Reserve. When he complained about the brutality, he was bashed and raped by a group of cadets who shoved a broom handle into his anus. There was also another incident of a female cadet who was raped and after the assault, was scrubbed clean to destroy any forensic evidence. The cadets said that she deserved it for "letting herself get drunk".


These revelations are so disgusting, I'm lost for words. Lest we forget.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Hamas ask Israel to end violence





Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad appealed to the Israeli people on radio last night to stop its attacks on the Gaza Strip. Speaking in Hewbrew, he said that Hamas would then stop its rocket fire into Israel.

Hamas has fired 120 rockets and shells into Israel from Gaza in the most violent exchange in two years but it's not clear what Israel's reaction to the appeal will be. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "If the attacks on Israeli citizens and soldiers continue, the response will be far harsher than it had been", he told his cabinet.


Israel was outraged when an anti-tank missile fired from Gaza demolished an Israeli school bus, wounding one student critically. Hamas said it was an accident, they didn't know the bus carried school children but it's painted bright yellow and is clearly visible from Gaza as it makes its daily school rounds.


Israel's newly developed anti-rocket system, Iron Dome, was reported to have downed eight of the Katyusha rockets fired at the cities of Ashkelon and Beersheba - a success that surprised even military officials - but it's still in the testing stage. Terrified residents have called for another ground attack on Gaza but if the Iron Dome system works properly, a ground operation might not be necessary.


Israeli intelligence reports that there is a conflict inside Hamas - Damascus wants to stop the violence but the military wing in Gaza does not.