Rudd Abbott Wars – Episode XVVVV – Religion And The Education System Strikes Out?

posted by Paul Roberton on Friday, January 1st 2010

I am a teacher and was a practicing Anglican for many years.

I have taught in some very different schools, where a range of religious teachings are followed.
In Victoria, Religious Education is taught sensibly and sensitively. In primary schools it’s usually optional and non denominational.
In secondary schools the two main religious subjects offered to VCE (Year 11 & 12) students are Religion & Society and Text & Traditions.
They lend themselves well to a personal reflection on religion, comparative theology and the impact of religion on society.

There is a wide expanse of territory for study. Within Text and Traditions there are four recommended texts: Ezekial, the Gospels of Luke and John, and the Qu’ran.

Students may choose to study one of the four texts in isolation before comparing with others.
It has never been an issue.

Let’s be clear though, what I’m referring to are electives for senior students. Students, one would hope, who have a grasp of their own beliefs and some functional critical thinking.

We know religious beliefs are  deeply held and highly personal. Most of us let it sit quietly; some choose to evangelize.
Some go to war in it’s name, but it still extends the promise of a healthier, more tolerant community.

I find it ironic Mr Rudd  and Mr Abbott, two Christian politicians, are prepared to dance around each other on an issue that could actually bring them – all of us – together.

They could agree that universal messages of tolerance, compassion and forgiveness in senior classrooms are a good thing, or they could agree to both stay out of the debate.

They could agree diversity of faith makes us stronger and philosophical debate makes us wiser.

Instead, they’re eyeing each other off like feather-weight boxers, twitching and flinching each time the other makes a move.

Prime Minister Rudd used a back bencher, Senator Landy to question the merit of the Bible in the new National Curriculum. Opposition Leader Abbott immediately weighed in.

This threatens to degenerate into a circus.

We must send a clear message: We resent the exploitation of religious belief for political gain. It cheapens politics and demeans our beliefs.

If religion is to become nothing but a lever for politicians to pull,  we may have to pretend we’re all Jedi so they leave the matter alone.

May the Force be with you.

Paul Roberton

Childhood Obesity Condemns Young Australians to a Short, Sick Life. Eat, Drink, Consume, for Soon You Die.

posted by Paul Roberton on Friday, November 6th 2009

22 million children world-wide are obese.

In the US 16% are overweight.  28% of Uk children are too. In Australia, 1 in four are obese.

Meanwhile, 230,000 students and 46% of NSW secondary schools have gone with a computer tutoring  package sponsored by McDonald’s, putting fast food advertising in front of students in their homes and classrooms.

This, while the  Australian Society for the Study of Obesity (ASSO) paints a miserable picture of the future for obese children: asthma, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and orthopaedic problems.

It only gets worse with age.  Obese adults can look forward to diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, gallbladder disease, ovarian, breast, prostate and renal cancers, not to mention the psychosocial disorders.

Analysis by Tim Gill from the NSW Centre for Public Health Nutrition at the University of Sydney show that in Australia, roughly half of 16- to 18-year-old boys consume nearly a litre of soft drink a day.

Not surprising, since the Australian Schools Canteen Association is contracted to the Coca Cola company- a company that has been known to spend up to $180m on its television advertising.

Compare that to the funding Nicola Roxon recently earmarked for the new National Preventative Health Strategy. The $17.6m funding allocated by the Federal Government is a drop in the ocean  compared to the advertising spend.

Yet we see no leadership from our government on the issue of childhood obesity. They should be responding to research like Gill’s and making companies accountable. They should be spreading information on what 1000mls of Coca Cola per day does to the a young person.

They should be investing more time, money and effort in combating an epidemic which will otherwise consign the next generation of Australians to lives of ill-health, sickness and disease.

They certainly should be curtailing the ability of companies like McDonalds to reach into the homes and bedrooms of school children.

Greens Surrender Freedom

posted by David Collyer on Monday, November 2nd 2009

David Collyer Australian Democrats Candiate For Higgins

Clive Hamilton, The Greens’ candidate in the Higgins by-election expects us to abandon a wide range of important freedoms by trumping them with the hideous spectre of child sexual abuse.  His position is morally bankrupt, say the Democrats.  It delegates to government a power they plan to misuse before it even exists.

“Hamilton affirmed his support for the Rudd Government’s Internet Filter scheme as recently as a week ago.  His position is breathtakingly naive and means all citizens can be denied access to any content deemed unacceptable by public servants for any reason,” the Democrats’ Higgins by-election candidate David Collyer said today.

“He and the government are taking a legitimate public concern – the need to protect children from inappropriate material – and are using it to push through a wasteful, secretive censorship program riddled with unintended consequences that cannot achieve its policy aims.

“Hamilton is in direct contradiction to The Greens’ position on the issue,” Collyer said. “Even if the issue of internet content and filtering means very little to you, it is important to understand that Clive Hamilton does not support core Greens policies.

“Everyone in public life wants a secure internet experience for children. However, the very structure of the Rudd Government’s Internet Filter means it cannot achieve this objective.

“The secret national blacklist of websites exposes us to government abuse in perpetuity: legitimate, legal businesses have already found themselves on it with no recourse or ability to challenge or appeal the decision. The blacklist works only on complaints made to the Government.  It is subjective, incomplete and draconian.

“If the Australian Government awards itself this capability, it exposes itself to irresistible political pressures.  For example, the Chinese Government could insist all Falun Gong sites be blocked to Australians. The Rudd Government would cooperate, and we would never know.

The Democrats position is reinforced by Civil Liberties Australia’s stinging denouncement in their most recent newsletter: “Dr Hamilton jumped on board the censorship bandwagon early and with a flourish. He endorsed a virtual “anything goes” approach to government censorship. It didn’t matter how slow the internet got, or how the government curtailed people’s freedoms to access information… all would be OK under the dictatorial approach of Dr Hamilton. ”

The Democrats believe it is possible to deliver a safer internet experience for children without compromising the social, economic and political freedoms of others through building on our censorship laws that already classify media – or denies classification – allied with existing and evolving net filtering software.

“The Government is elected to serve the people and secret Government censorship programs work against the people.  Electing a Democrat will send a message to the Government that this is not the path of progress,” Collyer concluded.

Media contact – David Collyer 0413 248 193

“David Collyer is currently contesting the Higgins by election for the Australian Democrats against Clive Hamilton for The Greens and Kelly O’Dwyer for the Liberal Party,”

References: www.cla.asn.au/clarion/0911CLArionNov.pdf

Granny-Gate – Sex For Cig’s – Brumby Government Goes From Bad to Bloody Unbelievable!

posted by Scott Kane on Friday, September 25th 2009

Is This What Victoria Has Reduced Elderly Women To?

Community Services minister Lisa Neville says:

“…the state government had begun the process of improving the care-home sector and that it was unacceptable if women were exchanging sexual favours for necessities.”

This only comes after the Victorian Public Advocate, Colleen Pearce, tells Victoria:

“It is not uncommon for us to hear about (elderly) women either trading cigarettes for sex or else being raped.”

Epic Fail, Minister!

When a Minister of the Crown who is ultimately responsible for the portfolio in which this is allegedly taking place only offers us spin about beginning “…the process of improving…” we are sorely in need of a ministerial resignation.

Minister We’re Talking About Crimes – Not “Favours”

Colleen Pearce is rightly and justifiably outraged.  But for the minister who holds ultimate responsibility of thousands of elderly woman and men to call it “…unacceptable…” is a sick, perverted joke at the expense of our loved ones.  A group who, by definition, cannot look after themselves and  are generally voiceless, apart from the work of Advocates like Colleen Pearce.

Not “…unacceptable…” Minister – the word to use is intolerable.

Across every area of responsibility,  Brumby government is always “gonna fix it” – yet they preside over a mess, one they’ve created through negligence and a complete lack of interest.

This has become the anthem of the Brumby Labor government.

“Gonna!”

Stated Plainly Cigarette Smoking Is An Addiction.

Using a powerful addiction to a substance such as nicotine found in cigarettes – an addiction experts state is harder than heroin to beat – as a tool to rape must not be minimised by calling it a “favour”.

It’s a crime.  A crime under state, federal and international law.

It’s disgusting.

What is it with the Brumby government?

• We’ve got the Bushfire Royal Commission tasked with finding no blame.
• The Brimbank Botch Up.

And now..

• Nursing Home Bordellos?

The community is sickened by reports of women being trafficked to work in the sex trade.

There is very little difference here.  These people are vunerable – in many cases as vulnerable as children.

This is the era – or should that be error? – of Labor party spin, big government advertising budgets to tell us of their glorious achievements.

Perhaps Labor will make a TV commercial now asking Victorians to:

• “Ration” their abuse of the elderly, in keeping with their water policy,
• Dob in a Granny Grabber

…or some other trendy, disconnected “shiny” campaign to demonstrate their total lack of real concern.

That the press haven’t called this “Granny-Gate” is in itself amazing.

Our Elderly Depend On Us As Much As Our Children For Protection

Elderly people constrained to nursing homes should be receiving care – not abuse – respect – not rape -  palliative care – not pain.

Resign Minister!

Scott Kane

Socialism or Economic Engineering? Australian Banking Needs a Fifth Pillar.

posted by David Collyer on Friday, September 4th 2009

Australia doesn’t have enough banks.  The big four banks hold 92 per cent of the market and have grown lazy, fat and flabby – charging high fees and taking wide margins (the difference between loan interest rates and deposit rates).

They do this because they can; they can because customers have nowhere else to go.

With only four players, all can compete by advertising and not on price.  In economic language, they are oligarchs operating a cartel.  There is no collusion – they don’t need to – they simply signal to each other with market announcements.

What are our sisters doing?

Across the Tasman Sea, New Zealand has created a government owned bank called Kiwibank.  It is tearing market share off the majors, all subsidiaries of the same four Aussie banks, by offering good deposit interest rates and cheap mortgages.

In Canada, the government has long refused mergers between its five major banks on competition grounds.  This makes them work for their money and provides Canadian citizens genuine alternatives.

It would be easy to create a bank on the distribution capacity of Australia Post, perhaps merged with a regional bank to kick-start the process.  It could begin with a simple set of deposit and loan products.   And where it did compete on price, exactly how fond we are of our oligarch banks would be quickly revealed.

If that sounds rather too Socialist, the government could undertake to float the new bank on the Australian Stock Exchange once it is established and stable, while announcing a new ‘five pillar’ no-merger policy.

Look upon it as economic engineering, an opportunity to re-introduce a genuinely competitive financial market in Australia.

A fifth major Australian bank.  I’d like to see that!

The author holds ANZ shares.

The Great Green Grab – The Housing Bubble Bust – Gobbling Small Business Resources.

posted by Scott Kane on Monday, August 10th 2009

Victoria – Australia – has some pressing issues to attend to.  There’s a property bubble threatening to burst.  It’s not a sure thing, but it is likely.

While the Australian Greens continue to irrelevantly spout the dogma that we are all responsible for the sad plight of the environment,  the truth is we can’t continue ignoring the fact that the current system of property tax is broken and needs urgent, stimulating repair.

While we watch State and Federal Labor fiddle  around the margins of this system,  their party founders would dry retch if they only knew.

While the  Liberal Party flounder with nothing new, nothing original and nothing of  value to address it.  For Victoria’s Liberal Party the most pressing issue seems to be whether or not a National Party member will lead them at the next election.

Are we to look forward to Joe Bjelke Peterson-style quotes from Spring St in the future?  Telling us the “Writing is on the blackboard in big black letters” or “I didn’t know what was in the paper bag until I took it to the bank?”

Strike a light!!!

We have some serious issues to deal with.  We need a new approach.  Housing is useless to us if:

1. You can’t afford to live in it due to it being sold at more than it’s real world value + interest.
2. You get stuck with mortgage payments on property whose price is in free-fall.

Today the IMF announced for Australia’s general edification:

“Property bubble fears grow as IMF says houses overvalued

Australian house prices are overvalued by around 20 percent and the size of the average mortgage has reached an all time high, fuelling fears of a property bubble.

The problem is being exacerbated by a growing gap between household incomes and house prices, the IMF said.

The Reserve Bank of Australia recently flagged its concerns that a combination of easy credit, low interest rates and lack of supply could create a property bubble which could burst in the longer term, causing a collapse in house prices.

A collapse in house prices would be a disaster for most Victorians, nay, all Australians.  Our prosperity is pinned to the housing sector.  In the near term the consequences are far worse than climate change or drought simply because the effect is immediate and will impact all levels of society.  Arguably the price of property is out of step with the real value of housing and land, arguably we need a “correction”.  But the correction will be painful for all.

For small business and their employees – the backbone of this nation – it could easily be an economic disaster.

We have a system that rewards people for sitting on great globs of land and doing nothing with it.  We have a system that makes pensioners asset rich and cash poor.  Where is the value in holding land worth a million or more if you must dine on baked beans or dog food and just can’t afford to sell?

We are collectively running around hitting our own heads with a Green hammer.  The Rudd government has a climate bill up for the Senate.  If the Greens block it – and all indications are they will – we face a double dissolution.  While the country faces a housing sector economic tsunami the Australian Greens are going to hold the country hostage out of muddle headed bloody mindedness!

The legislation wont go far enough.  So they will block it.

Just how far is far enough?  Why, just one step more than you dare take. No!  One step more than that.

Oh – to hell with impact on Australia!!  We’re the Australian Greens!  We run with careless abandon through the flowery forest  of Reckless Abandon.  Ask not what you can do for your country, but what you can do for the gnomes and elves that live under the ecologically unique fungus!”

As Australians we need a better system for managing housing, land tax and housing equity.  Our “Lucky Country” is rapidly becoming “Blue Print USA”.

Scott Kane