The Independent Australian

The use of the race card is right through the Western world. Thus the parents of Michael Jackson, the entertainer accused of sex crimes, called the trial racially motivated. Obviously they hope to emulate the hoopla around the O. J. Simpson case, where the race card helped him escape criminal (but not civil) conviction for murder.
In Australia the card is often played by Aborigines on trial for various misdemeanours. One gets tired of hearing it trotted out. Every effort to enforce financial responsibility is greeted the same way
It is also played when measures are introduced to control children through curfew laws because the children are mainly Aborigine. The Bull Ants don’t care who they are, they are at risk, and curfew laws are sensible. The race card used to be played when there were attempts to curb access to alcohol, but eventually even the politically correct have abandoned that in the face of devastation in Aborigine communities.
But the Aborigines aren’t alone in playing the get-out-of jail-card when it comes to court cases. It is played with monotonous regularity by Mid Eastern and Asian accused who allege being provoked by racial taunts, especially when pleading for a lighter sentence, 

In the article ‘Clown Hall’ (p 4), the election of Lord Mayor John So was helped by his opponent inadvertently turning up the race card. Cr So merely took advantage of the situation, but subsequent to that he played it as a get-out-of-jail-free card.
The Age (23 & 24/12/04) ran an exclusive on a political furore. Cr So appeared in (community) Channel 31 advertisements for Milano Apartments welcoming viewers to the ‘most liveable city in the world - Melbourne’ as a prelude to the spruiking of the apartments.

The background facts are:
• Milano Apartments are being developed by Mr Guilano’s PDG Corporation
• Mr Guilano and Cr So do not have business ties
• Mr Guilano is a supporter of Cr So and the main sponsor of the Chinese Community New Year Festival
• Channel 31, which took the blame by saying that the advertisement was run without Cr So’s consent, is a tenant of PDG Corporation.
After an outcry Cr So had the advertisement withdrawn, but he was happy to allow the developer to use footage of him in display suites in Melbourne and Singapore.
Cr So then claimed that he only taken part in promotions to show that Melburnians were not racists and Melbourne was a welcoming multicultural capital.
Trumped! On disclosure of such noble motives, what more can one say?

The logical extension of the state endorsed religion of Multiculturalism is to become multinational. One manifestation of this is the growing tendency of  Australians, by citizenship rights, but not by whole-hearted allegiance, to interfere in the politics of other countries.
It is not solely their own business, their interference can  create hostility to Australians in general. The prevailing attitude of political correctness means that never a word of condemnation is raised in the media.
In the article ‘The Battle For Melbourne Ports’ the actions of Joe Gutnick in interfering in the Israeli elections is mentioned.
 He is not the only offender in recent years.
Demetri Dollis was at one time left wing ALP Member for Richmond in the Victorian Parliament. He became the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, but he spent so much time in Greece that even multicultural Steve Bracks was moved to deny him his safe seat. He  immediately took up a position with Mr Papandreou, leader of PASOK, the socialist party, organizing the overseas Greek voters. That showed where his heart was all the time.
Then there is The Hon Eddie Obeid, ALP right wing power broker, Legislative Council member in the NSW Parliament, heavily involved in NSW ethnic affairs.
Lebanon is a tinder box, where relationships between the Maronite Christians and Muslims are delicately balanced. There is no case for inflammatory intervention by outsiders like Obeid, whose intervention into the mayoral elections in his birth town of Metrit had ugly scenes erupting, needing the army to be called in. Obeid came with family and supporters who were on the electoral roll.
That sort of interference is bad enough, but Ian Siagian is the worst case; an Australian resident actually standing for election in another country.
According to an article in The Australian Siagian had lived in Australia for over twenty years, but he had remained a member of the PDI-P (Megawati Sukarnoputri) party. He had been active in rallying PDI-P support among Indonesian community in Sydney and decided that he would stand as a candidate in the Indonesian election just decided.
We don’t know what happened; even though he was on the losing side he may have been elected. If he was, he was going to stay in Indonesia. We hope he was elected, because we don’t want people like him in Australia.

Issue No 3 - Winter 2004
Sex scandals involving players from different football codes have been big news in Australia recently. Some players have been participating in group sex or, more accurately, gang bangs. A number of women have complained that they have been sexually assaulted by players engaged in this activity.
What did the National Rugby League do in response? They hired Catharine Lumby, a radical feminist, for expert advice!   At first sight the NRL were bending over backwards to be politically correct, or they simply didn’t know what they were doing. But those in charge are no boofheads, despite the popular image of the players. Remember, it was Catharine Lumby who defended Catherine Millet from attacks on her for engaging in group sex. (The French writer Catherine Millet has written a book cataloguing her very promiscuous sex life, including group sex with men and women.) Ms Lumby believes that Millet’s promiscuity requires ‘a sense of self which is quite independent of social norms’ which forced Ms Millet to ‘rethink the ethics of self and sex from the ground up.’ What this means is that Ms Lumby does not admire a person for following a moral good, but for being ‘emancipated’ from social norms and from pre-existing concepts of morality.
In other words, the NRL hired an intellectual gun to tell us gang bangs are OK. Just make certain you have consent, more or less. That avoids nasty legal problems and satisfies the left-liberals. And by the way, treat her with ‘respect’, the new mantra in the left-liberal lexicon.
The credo of ‘respect’ seems to have already gained ground within sporting clubs. It certainly has at the AFL Hawthorn Football Club, whose team captain, Shane Crawford, said of the sexual assault scandal that,
‘We just hope that our players are very respectful of everyone and we’re pretty confident that’s the way it is.’
‘You just hope in general everyone’s respectful of people. I think that’s all you hope for.’
It may well be that in academia gang banged women are treated with respect. To anybody who has played football in any code, knowing the fired up, alcohol fuelled, group attitudes and conversations after a match or training, this talk of respect in a gang bang is ludicrous. There would be no deep philosophical debate accompanying the gang bang, sadly we suggest that it would be limited to ‘she’s a slag’, certainly if voluntary and regrettably even if not.
(Go to www.ozconservative.com for scholarly discussion at length,

Tolerant, or just suckers
In March a group of students rioted twice at Monash University, causing considerable damage and injuries to police and invading a house, in an attempt to frighten the Council into not increasing HECS fees. Leaving aside the merits of the merits of HECS increases or of rioting, the action of overseas students in taking part should stir all bull ants. To quote The Age (26 Mar 04):
‘Second year student Denise Lee, of Singapore, was in the house on her first protest, “In my country we don’t do this...I saw it on Monday and thought it would be good to take part. I am already paying quite a bit and I don’t want to pay any more.” ‘
Australians are proud of being tolerant, but some people will take tolerance as weakness and take advantage of it. We are being played as suckers, allowing overseas students to riot against their fees. It is time to adopt Singapore style treatment, where an overseas student behaving in this manner would be lucky to escape being beaten up along with the locals and again, if lucky, merely put on the first plane home.
The student visa of Lee should be revoked and she should be sent home. We have gone from being tolerant to weak kneed and gutless - time to stop.

Equal Opportunity Commission farce
A supervisor at the Perth Mint was trying to settle bickering among three women. The  supervisor had directed the two Thais to speak English in the workplace because the Australian felt she was being ostracised and may have been the subject of discussion. The Thais complained to the Equal Opportunity Commission.
The Tribunal deputy president judgement was in favour of  the employer. As he pointed out, all three spoke English, the reason for the direction was not race, it was to resolve a workplace dispute.
The complainants have been fortunate to be allowed to come to Australia ahead of hundreds of thousands of other applicants. As a matter of common courtesy they should not have spoken their language in front of the Australian.
The Commissioner usually assesses the complaint and rejects it if it is frivolous. And  this complaint should have been thrown out or at least referred to an industrial tribunal. The next step is conciliation, which must have failed, because the action was heard by the independent Tribunal. The complainants have a win-no-lose position since they can receive benefits, including financial compensation, but the respondent has no claim against the complainant, even if the complaint has no substance. There is no provision for recovery of costs in the Commission processes, and only in exceptional circumstances in the Tribunal.
The Perth Mint was represented by a lawyer from Freehills (they don’t come cheap). Add in the management time and you have a nice little  slug out of the taxpayer purse, as the Perth Mint is owned by the WA Government. There are EEO costs as well, but they have nothing better to do.
Once again, due process was used to punish anybody thought to be close to politically incorrect. The Mint was dragged through an unnecessary farce.