Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce rejects the policies of senator-elect Pauline Hanson, as a Coalition backbencher suggests banning Muslim immigration from areas considered hotspots of violent extremism.
Category: Australia
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis (continued) 14 (Fraudulent elections) Strictly speaking, and barring some rare, isolated cases, there is no electoral fraud in Australia if by that one means ‘illegal interference with an election process’. None of the defining instances of ‘electoral fraud’ is present in Australia – not intimidation, vote buying, misinformation,…
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis . . . Rampant cronyism and corruption (continued) The Iraqi wheat-for-weapons scandal was set to reignite headlines again in 2016 with former Australian Wheat Board – A.W.B. chair Trevor Flugge due to face court in a lengthy civil trial examining his central involvement in the bribes controversy. A.W.B.’s…
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott (46)
Source: The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott Government experiment (Part 47) – »
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis . . . Rampant cronyism and corruption (continued) The late Chalmers Johnson, reviewing a book by the already mentioned Emeritus Professor Sheldon S. Wolin, who for well over two generations taught the history of political philosophy from Plato to the present to Berkeley and Princeton graduate students, made…
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis (continued) 13 (Rampant cronyism and corruption) Cronyism and corruption have lived so long amongst humans that it is fair to say they preceded The Bible, where many precedents are recorded. This is not to say that in Australia cronyism and corruption are all around. Transparency International provides every…
Activist Mariam Veiszadeh criticises Q&A for giving Pauline Hanson a platform to advocate for her hateful views.
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis . . . Obsession with crime and punishment (continued) Preventive detention and ‘control orders’ are the tools of fear-inducing State power. One such ‘control order’ was imposed for the first time in 2006 on an unfortunate Melbournian. A recent convert to Islam, he was on a visit to…
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott (43)
Tuesday 12 July 2012 I really couldn’t let this pass. You know when you are watching someone make a fool of themselves and you find yourself cringing. Such a time was while in bed on Monday night Q&A. My wife was so affronted I had to quieten her down because our dog started going off…
Saturday 16 July 2016 1 I was walking through our local newsagency this week when I happened to notice a book titled “Worth Fighting For”. The author’s name was Andrew Bolt. Not knowing that it was a new title I thought it must have been the original book he had written. Anyway I picked it…
Source: Day to Day: Politics: The book that never Bolted. – » The Australian Independent Media Network
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis . . . Obsession with crime and punishment (continued) There are, it seems, no active union organisers – only “union thugs”. In 1998, during a protracted waterfront dispute, the Australian stevedoring workers were accused of costing the economy billions of dollars a year and to be denying others…
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott ..(40)
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott .(41)
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott Government experiment (Part 42) –
The right-wing politician and her One Nation Party have been voted into Australia’s senate.
Source: Australia’s Pauline Hanson wins on anti-Islam ticket – News from Al Jazeera
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis . . . Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts (continued) In 1987 Sir Johannes Bjelke-Petersen, the Country Party (Agrarian Socialists) longest-serving Premier of Queensland, delivered himself as follows: “The greatest thing that could happen to the state and the nation is when we can get rid of…
Hanson’s resurgence combined with a Coalition Government and a renewed racialised right in the Reclaim Australia movement, signal dangerous times for Australian politics, writes John Passant.
Source: The Coalition, Hanson’s resurrection and the rise of racism
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis (continued) 11 (Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts) As Bernard Smith, well known academic and art critic, wrote just after the second world war, “support of rich industrialists, post-war chaos, world depression, rising resentment and radicalism, capitalist crisis were present in Australia as in other countries…
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis (continued) 10 (Power of labour suppressed or eliminated) During most of the twentieth century unions were the dominant force of Australian industrial life. For most of that time they were the point of convergence of many employees. Between 1914 and 1990 at least two in five workers were…
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott … – (30)
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott … – (31)
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott … – (32)
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott … – (33)
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott … – (34)
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott … – (35)
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott … – (36)
Wednesday 6 2016 1 As the following days bleed one into another what sort of government we will have for the next three years will slowly be revealed to us. We may even go back to the polls. What has come into question following this election is the inappropriateness of our traditional two-party system in…
Source: Day to Day Politics: Our politics is badly flawed. – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The politics of Hansonism haven’t changed during the past two decades. By contrast, Australian society has moved on.
Source: Pauline Hanson might be back, but Australia has moved on
A furious Peta Credlin had launched an excoriating attack on the “hapless set of bedwetters” she says plotted to oust her former boss Tony Abbott as prime minister, squander the “wonderful victory of 2013” by giving Malcolm Turnbull poor advice.
Source: ‘They ain’t seen anything yet’: Credlin unleashes on Turnbull’s ‘hapless set of bedwetters’
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis . . . A controlled mass media (continued) Most of the other newspapers are controlled by Fairfax Media Limited, which is one of the largest media companies in Australia and New Zealand, with investment in newspaper, magazines, radio and internet. There is a sizeable foreign participation. Fairfax has…
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott part 29
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis . . . Rampant sexism (continued) Of all Australian women aged 18 to 24, 23,584 reported they had experienced sexual assault in the 12 months prior to the survey. Twice as many women in this 18 to 24 age bracket experienced sexual assault, compared to all women. (‘Violence…
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott .Part 26
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott Part 27
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis . . . Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause (continued) In a Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, prepared by Juan E. Méndez, formerly Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Civil and Human Rights…
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott ..Part 23
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis . . . Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause (continued) Signs were all contradictory. Someone wrote: “Leave now before we behead your mother and bury you all with pigs.” “Your [sic] next whore” posted another, with an image of a decapitated pig attached. These were two of…
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott … (Part 21)
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott …(Part 20)
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis . . . Disdain for the importance of human rights (continued) The Report provided unprecedented direct evidence of the negative effect of immigration detention on children. Prolonged detention was clearly and unequivocally shown to have serious negative effects on the mental and emotional health, as well as the…
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott (Part 17)
By Dr George Venturini* Testing the thesis (continued) 2 (Disdain for the importance of human rights) Demonisation and marginalisation of those who are ‘different’ – ‘difference’ being an important concept which has a particular meaning in everyday’s language as spoken in Australia – may lead to the acceptance in war and even in peace that…
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott (Part 15)
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott .( Part 14)
Pezullo denies it but Australia’s xenophobia and extravagant security spending have succeeded in the militarisation of our border, writes Kellie Tranter.
Source: Dutton, Payne and Pezullo: The truth about Australia’s militarised border
Australia has a disproportionate share of the world’s billionaires.
By Dr George Venturini* Grande finale A person who goes under the nom de blog of ‘Winifredjay’, and probably lives in Tasmania, collected sixteen memorable quotations from Tony Abbott. S/he thought that they would have been useful to remember “why he shouldn’t be Prime Minister” – the date: 9 October 2012. Well, yes, but many…
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott Part 12
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott Part 11
In 2013, the Climate Change Performance Index rated Australia at 40 out of 61 countries and improving. By the time we went to Paris late last year, we ranked third last among major emitters ahead of only oil-rich Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia. “Experts criticise that Australia’s attitude appeared to be to try to avoid making…
Source: A snapshot of a country going backwards – » The Australian Independent Media Network
By Dr George Venturini* Searching for Tony Abbott Abbott was born in London, United Kingdom, on 4 November 1957, to an English father, Richard Henry ‘Dick’ Abbott and an Australian mother, who was born in Sydney. Abbott’s father arrived in Australia in 1940 and after the war returned to England, married Fay Peters, and fathered…
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott (Part 7)
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott ..( Part 8)
The facets of Australian fascism: the Abbott (Part 9)
By Dr George Venturini* Should one call it pathocracy? The record of the devious, nay false, statements which preceded a turbulent period of tenure and of the two years of the Abbott Government – 18 September 2013 to 14 September 2015 is too well-know and too recent to be resumed here – although certain aspects…
They cost us a lot but have received little attention this election campaign.
His visit was barely documented or recorded but for those who met the boxer during his trip to Fitzroy the memories endure
Source: ‘He came to see blackfellas!’ When Muhammad Ali visited Fitzroy | Sport | The Guardian
We shouldn’t imply an acceptance of this behaviour in the example we set for our children with our own.
Source: Wondering why your kids drink and use drugs? Look at your own behaviour
VANGUARD – For an independent Australia and Socialism
Source: International contradictions and our fight for proletarian power
While Duncan Storrar was being dragged through the mud for asking a hard question, students from an exclusive college were being protected from investigation and Malcolm Turnbull was dining in a private club
Bad things happens when good people stay silent. Dr David Berger is speaking out. Above is a photo of my grandmother, Margot von Bentheim, taken with my mother in the Spring of 1925. She would have been 60 when I was born, but she died at the age of 35. A Jewish refugee from the Nazis,More
Source: It’s Okay To Compare Australia In 2016 With Nazi Germany, And Here’s Why – New Matilda
New Yorkers Are We Famous Yet made waves last month with a video in which they got two people to dress in traditional Jewish and Muslim clothing and walk down the street together.
Source: Australia is the second most talented country in Europe, apparently
Last night Waleed Aly dedicated his Gold Logie to those of us with unpronounceable names. We are the people who sat in cla with bated breath at the start of each school year as teacher
A massive wildfire in the western Canadian city of Fort McMurray destroys about 1,600 structures, Alberta province Premier Rachel Notley says.
Are you as well off as you think you are, or are you just average? Compare yourself to the rest of Australia with our income calculator.
Rich and large, rude and loud. If there were a Pacific neighbourhood watch group, Australia would be the neighbour the group had to watch.
Source: Australia is a bad neighbour and we should be better than this
At least 800 Australians have been linked with the Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca, and there could be many more. And this firm is just one of a multitude of similar firms operating similar tax secrecy networks in similar jurisdictions to Panama.
Source: Are The Panama Papers Just The Tip Of Australia’s Tax Avoidance Iceberg? | Andrew Leigh
With other western democracies starting the challenge the dominating and devastating ideology, it’s time for the same to happen in Australia. The good news? There’s already a road map, writes, Liam McLoughlin. Neoliberalism has been named and shamed. A recent piece in the Guardian by George Monbiot, called Neoliberalism – the ideology at the rootMore
Source: The Canadian Plan That Could Help Australia Beat Neoliberalism – New Matilda
With little in the way of strategic justification, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the $50 billion submarines project is actually about bailing out South Australia as a tight election nears.
A man in Australia’s care is dead, and the public servants who made it so need to be held to account.
Source: The govt must be held accountable for Hamid Kehazaei’s death
It is fair to say that the revenant candidate for the seat of Indi, Sophie Mirabella, would never win a nation-wide popularity contest. At the end of the 2013, the normally placid independent Tony Windsor bade her farewell from parliament with the salutation: “She is the nastiest – I reckon if you put it to a vote to all politicians, she’d come up number one.”
Source: Knees and elbows | The Monthly
Barnaby Joyce is always saying something remarkable for its inanity, and the last couple of days he’s done nothing to cause me to reassess my low opinion of his tortuous thought processes. I watched him on ABC News 24 as he descended into red-faced blather on the subject, yet again, of Johnny Depp’s damn dogs,…
Source: Not the full quid – » The Australian Independent Media Network
While progress has been made internationally, Australia seen as laggers not leaders due to a domestic climate effort mired in ignorance and suspicion, says Peter Boyer.
Source: Australia’s climate effort falling behind in ‘critical decade’
Wednesday 13 April. 1 Labor proposes a Royal Commission into the financial sector. Particularly the banks. The establishment and those of a conservative ilk cry foul. ASIC, a major regulatory body say they continuously investigate crime and have adequate powers. Repeat, powers. In fact our financial institutions are overseen by four regulatory bodies. The harshest…
I had a call from Rosalie Kunoth-Monks the other day. Rosalie is an elder of the Arrernte-Alyawarra people, who live in Utopia, a vast and remote region in the “red heart” of Australia.
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