Peter Van Onselen, who works for News Corp, Channel 10 and has a history of stalking women online, is now facing the possibility of being charged with contempt of court in journalist Tegan George’s legal proceedings against Channel 10.
Category: Newscorp
Media Slow news day: the Herald Sun falls back in the pack A long-time kingpin in Melbourne print media, the Herald Sun has taken quite the tumble, falling to fourth place among News Corp’s Australian mastheads. Christopher Warren Aug 26, 2021 20 (Image: AAP/James Ross) There’s a changing of the guard in Australia’s media: long-time Melbourne circulation kingpin the Herald Sun has tumbled way down the rankings. Now, it looks like it’s not only runner-up to local competitor The Age, it’s fallen to fourth spot among News Corp’s remaining Australian mastheads. It’s the second blow to News Corp’s market supremacy, following the ABC’s leap to displace news.com.au at the top of the Nielsen Digital News Content rankings since the 2020 summer of bushfires. The Herald Sun — boasting an audited circulation over twice its competitor with 600,000 copies when it first merged back in 1990 — is down more than three-fourths, with 146,026 subscribers across its print and digital products, according to June 30 internal figures reported by the company to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Source: Slow news day: the Herald Sun falls back in the pack
The latest debate was provoked by Greg Sheridan, a senior editor with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, who has just published ‘Christians: The urgent case for Jesus in our world’.
The difficulty Sheridan’s public support for religious faith presents for some believers is that the organisation to which he has devoted much of his working life is actively hostile to the fundamental teachings of the Judeo-Christian faiths.
Deception is News Corp’s core business The evidence now seems overwhelming that News Corp is committed to the continual fabrication of falsehoods and the dissemination as widely as possible of lies concocted by others. In a recent U.S. court case, News Corp lawyers actually argued that Fox News reports were routinely falsified and that any “reasonable viewer” should know by now that their “news” was not truthful.
Source: Murdoch press’ lies and deceptions conflict with true Christian values
Let’s not forget the LNP government is Newscorp’s biggest advertiser and influencer its biggest source of revenue. Alan Jones is just another cog in the machinery.
Elements within News Corporation are now fighting among themselves over how its platforms should position themselves in response to the worsening COVID crisis in New South Wales. This has become clear with the decision by the editor of News Corp’s Daily Telegraph, Ben English, to ditch Alan Jones as a columnist. Over the past few weeks, as the coronavirus outbreak got inexorably worse, the Telegraph ran a series of characteristically shrill columns by Jones attacking mask-wearing, lockdowns and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian. Yet Jones also promotes these opinions on News Corp’s Sky News, where his Sky-at-Night slot is undisturbed. Indeed, Jones makes a virtue of this, telling The Sydney Morning Herald:
Telegraph editor Ben English told Jones he was dropping his column, which also appeared in the Courier-Mail and the Gold Coast Bulletin, because it didn’t “resonate” with readers.
Calling the shots
McKenna is group head of broadcasting at News Corp, but with the ear of Lachlan Murdoch she is widely considered the most powerful individual at the historic media company in Australia (Murdoch himself describes his lieutenant as an “effective executive who takes the hard decisions and sees them through”.)
via Siobhan McKenna: Meet the woman calling the shots at News Corp
Mic’s Elizabeth Plank fired back against Fox News’ absurd anti-feminist rhetoric on the May 19 edition of Flipping The Script. Plank highlighted the outrageous claims frequently perpetuated by conservative media figures in order to discourage men from being feminists. Pointing to Fox News host Doocy asking “when did it happen, where men and husbands became doormats” and a Fox guest who claimed that all “feminism has delivered is angry women and feminine men,” Plank tackled the absurdity of such claims during an interview with Orange is the New Black‘s Matt McGorry.
Conservative media have actively adopted a “blame feminism” approach to many of the world’s problems, including sexual assault and the lack of infrastructure funding. Fox News in particular has gone as far as to blame it for boys falling behind in school and men no longer wanting to marry.
The power elite are using well-worn, time honoured methods of silencing reputable sources of dissent to keep ordinary Australians in a docile, compliant state of perpetual fear, writes Kellie Tranter.
FROM THE review of the National School Curriculum to the relentless claims of bias by both our public broadcaster and in our academic institutions, there is a concerted campaign playing out in this country to implement a model of thinking that occupies the entire intellectual and cultural space.
Whether or not you call it social engineering, its purpose is to aggressively block unwanted progress, to maintain tribalism and to insulate the power elite. The mechanism is fear, and the main vehicles are media of all kinds and government policies.
No one can make progress or speak out until they master their fear; until they isolate which fears are worth listening to and how that fear is engendered in them; and until they understand how the political class and the power elite manipulate those fears in order to maintain discipline and control of the population.
Howard Zinn ‒ American historian, author, playwright and social activist ‒ suggested that collectivity reduces fear. Community reduces fear. Doing something with other people reduces fear, because being part of a movement you believe in and being associated with other people who believe in the same thing, helps to overcome fear.
Perhaps it is fear of a critically thinking population who have mastered their fears and who join together to challenge the existing political and economic system that scares the power elite the most. Particularly if, as some experts suggest, the goal of state terror is to isolate and separate social movements.
In Australia, we have witnessed the gradual introduction of a range of laws which affect non-violent resistance — including anti-protest laws, the expansion of National Security laws, Preventative Detention Orders, ASIO and AFP spying on environmentalists, proposed bills disallowing political activists from disrupting companies and the gagging and punishment of public servants and whistleblowers. Riot police are even called in to university campuses as a ‘precautionary’ measure.
The list is more extensive than most of us probably realise.
Of special relevance in understanding what’s happening today is a 1971 memorandum from Lewis F. Powell Jnr to the Chair of the Education Committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Titled ‘Attack On American Free Enterprise System’, the memo outlined ways in which business should defend and counter attack against a ‘broad attack’ from ‘disquieting voices’.
It seems that the ‘hostility of respectable liberals and social reformers’ is what the elite fear the most because, according to Powell:
Powell’s tactics to maintain the status quo and block change can be clearly seen throughout Australia today: concerted attempts to try and silence critical comments from ‘respectable elements of society’.
Conservative think tanks yield a constant stream of critics of progressive ideas, who are given disconcertingly regular and disproportionate airtime. The Australian newspaper regularly disparages intelligent critical commentators and their opinions.
But the attacks aren’t limited to publishing opposing views on television or in print.
A perfect illustration is social media sensation Father Rod Bower’s interview with Chris Kenny on Sky News in August this year during which he was accused of directing his church signage to the Green/Left end of the political spectrum, for not being able to separate religion from politics, for favouring the former government instead of the current government and for criticising the current policies of the government.
Kenny litters the interview with false premises and unjustified assumptions, as Father Bower attempts to point out.
Whether its trouncing the views of Cate Blanchett for participating in a climate change advertisement, litigation against Professor Jake Lynch for his refusal to sponsor an application for a fellowship in Australia by an Israeli academic because of Lynch’s support of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel, or continued complaints that conservatives are not employed in prominent positions, all are tactics raised in the Powell rule book.
When you understand the tactical rationale of this institutional criticism and its methods, it becomes an object of contempt, and something that can be dealt with rather than a source of fear. The same applies to publications online and in social media which always attract similar disparaging comments from pseudonymous trolls — and there’s an army of them out there.
Speaking out almost always attracts some sort of criticism, but different viewpoints and rational criticisms are a fair price to pay for being able to say what you need to say. Living your life without ever speaking out, suppressing your need to be heard in support of things you regard as socially good and your need to express your questioning of or opposition to things that are socially bad, is no way to live at all.
We all have an obligation, both to ourselves and to society, to speak out and to act when we see unfairness, injustice and the orchestrated manipulation of true discussion of issues that affect us all.
How can Barry Humphries support freedom of speech for Barry Spurr over his offensive emails when censorship is just fine for his Adelaide cabaret festival? That’s why I’ll be boycotting it
Dammit Barry! Both of you. If you’ve blocked #auspol on Twitter to save your sanity, you might have missed the uproar over Prof Barry Spurr’s heinously offensive email trails, and his subsequent suspension from Sydney university. Managing to offend Indigenous people, women, Asian Australians, African Americans, Muslims and anyone with a conscience is no mean feat, but Spurr sure gave it a go.
But he isn’t the only Barry making headlines this week. Barry Humphries, veteran of Australian comedy, has now seen fit to wade into the fray with an ill-conceived letter to the Australian referring to Spurr as the “poor professor”. He goes on to accuse those of us who prefer our educational leaders not to make rape jokes of “cultural fascism,” adding that “the new puritanism is alive, well and powerful”.
Perhaps I would have passed by this letter, dismissing it as a ranting tirade from an out-of-touch old clown, had I not been in the middle of writing an application to the Adelaide cabaret festival, that same great Australian event that has appointed Humphries as artistic director.
Aussie comedians and cabaret artists were already rankled when Humphries made a hullabaloo about banning the “F Word” in his cabaret festival programming. “I’m banning the popular expletive,” he said. “They’ll have to manage without it.”
Leaving for a moment the patronising manner in which Humphries addressed his artists, how can he support freedom of speech for Spurr, when blatant censorship is just fine for his international arts festival?
I’ve been performing comedy cabaret with my troupe Lady Sings it Better for a few years now. I was drawn to the scene’s history of vibrant political dissent, a spirit of rebellion that rumbled through the bars of Berlin and now flourishes in a thrilling neo-cabaret scene across the globe. Cabaret is no place for censorship, but it’s also no place for racism, sexism and the other charming tidbits littering Spurr’s inbox.
To see a man appointed to what is arguably the most powerful position in the Australian cabaret scene defend hate speech should be of concern to all Australian artists and audiences. The liberals of the Weimar tradition must be rolling in their graves.
Good comedy makes fun of power; it punches up, not down. Good comedy has the power to shift perceptions, to offer release in times of trouble and to shed light on unexpected ideas or viewpoints. But good comedy should not be cruel. There is nothing clever, playful or hilarious about making fun of minority groups or of yearning for a time when Australia had “no Abos, Chinky-poos, Mussies, graffiti, piercings, jeans, tattoos. BCP in all Anglican churches; Latin Mass in all Roman ones. Not a woman to be seen in a sanctuary anywhere. And no obese fatsoes. All the kiddies slim and bright eyed. Now utterly gone with the wind.” I quote Spurr here.
Well, Barry Humphries, this diversity-loving, godless fatso won’t be applying to the Adelaide cabaret festival this year, nor any year when Humphries is at its creative helm.
This is no small decision; audiences for cabaret in Australia can be small and, despite Sydney’s growing (and thrilling) independent musical theatre and cabaret scene, the opportunity to tour to the southern hemisphere’s biggest cabaret event can be huge milestone in an artist’s career. But I just can’t bring myself to send in an application.
Instead, we’ll be performing in the open-access Adelaide fringe. Open-access festivals mean increased costs for independent, emerging artists, and fierce competition in a program with hundreds of other acts. But the fringe won’t censor our work, and our success won’t be at the whim of a man who thinks racial slurs are A-OK in modern Australia.
If the powers that be down in good old Radelaide don’t respect Australian audiences enough to rein in their own nutty professor, I don’t see how any cabaret artist, Australian or international, could choose to perform. Humphries closes out his letter by urging us to “restore our reputation as a funny country before it’s too late”. I’d say the first step would be to show him the door.
Old Dog Thought
I believe Barry H read The Age under the misbelief that he was reading the News. He had a knee jerk reaction to what seemed an injustice at first glance but what has since turned out to be a closet racist’s true nature revealed and News Corps confected outrage ho ho ho to ” hacking” .
News Corp calling it an invasion of privacy is the pot calling the kettle black. They wish they had broken the story first. They did the same when it was revealed that Bill Shorten was accused of rape. They just wished they’d got to it first. Andrew Bolt sanctimoniously talked about his ‘ethics’ and that he would never steep so low. Had it been a group of paedophile priests, terrorists etc one assumes the News Corp opinionators would be in full support of protecting their privacy as well..My comment on the matter
To the TROLLS at News Corp Bolt, McCrann, Sheridan who couldn’t have a moment of silence or bipartisan respect before dancing on his body ” virtually none of Gough’s reforms were repealed by the Fraser Government and most continue as part of our political identity to this day.” That is completely overlooked by you all in doing your masters work.
We want Gough
The list of reforms of the Whitlam government is quite unbelievable for such a short time in office.
Some of these reforms were small but significant in their symbolism — like selling the black Rolls Royce Commonwealth cars and replacing them with more modest white cars like those we see today. Some of the Whitlam reforms were momentous and truly shaped the future of the country, universal health care, land rights, free tertiary education and abolishing conscription being obvious examples.
It’s noteworthy that virtually none of Gough’s reforms were repealed by the Fraser Government and most continue as part of our political identity to this day.
After so many years in opposition, the Labor party were brimming with pent up plans for the country and were in a hurry to implement them — too much of a hurry perhaps. Whitlam polarised the nation as perhaps nobody since has done.
He also cast doubt upon our relationships with our grand old allies, the U.S. and UK.
He gave us a new national anthem to replace God Save the Queen. He abolished royal titles in Australia (that Abbott has now reinstated). He opened the question of whether or not Australia should host secret U.S. intelligence facilities, like Pine Gap. He ended conscription for the Vietnam War and ordered an end to Australian involvement in the U.S. orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected government of Chile.
Never before or since has Australia so substantially chartered its own course with respect to significant international events.
I recently wrote a series of articles at The Guardian on the sorry state of our democracies. Most of the points I discussed in those pieces didn’t relate to the Whitlam Government.
Love them or hate them, you have to admit that they didn’t sail close to the political wind and they weren’t afraid to lead. They stated their aims and they implemented reforms to achieve them. Gough Whitlam had a powerful vision for a different Australia and he tried to lead Australia towards that vision. Despite the high speed train wreck that ended the Whitlam Government, to a very large extent they succeeded in radically reshaping the country to more resemble their vision.
I, for one, think our country is immeasurably better off for having had that brief period of genuine political leadership. I may have lost my love of the Australian Labor Party but I never lost my love of Gough — warts and all.
Thank you Gough Whitlam, rest in peace.
Has anyone else noticed the ever increasing drift from reality those famous bed-partners – the Coalition and the Murdoch media – have settled comfortably into? They also have some absurd idea that this new, fabulous paradise is all that exists.
Joe Hockey for example. He repeatedly bellowed that the age of entitlement was over, and followed up with a budget that showed us that the age of entitlement is of course over, except for those who are entitled to it.
Miranda Devine lives there too. ‘The Left’s race to call us all bigots‘
No Bigots here
or
Islamophobia
Maybe Ms Devine hasn’t been reading the very paper she writes for,let’s take a random look at what her newspaper – and other media outlets – have been saying:
# Young filmmaker Kamal Saleh is optimistic for the future of Australia after his social experiment on Islamophobia but says discrimination remains an issue in the community.
# Five threatening letters delivered to Muslim businesses and groups in Lakemba are being investigated by police, with more incidents believed to be going unreported. Campsie crime manager detective Inspector Paul Albury said the material was offensive and would be to anybody in the community. “It’s degrading, disgusting and derogatory to people and their religion,” he said.
# Last week, after Bernardi’s comments, I was interviewed by the ABC for an explanatory article on the burqa, the niqab, and my choice of garment, the hijab, which covers only a woman’s hair, neck and shoulders. Bizarrely, when posted by the ABC on Facebook, the article received more comments than the ABC’s reports on the anti-terror raids themselves. The comments section is sobering reading for anyone with any doubts about the perniciousness of Islamophobia in Australia.
# Australia has emerged as a fertile environment for Islamophobia. Stereotypical representations of Muslims in the early years of the “War on Terror” – which linked terrorism, violence and Islam – gained wide currency by the mid-2000s. Sections of the news media, politicians and social media have re-activated these stereotypes. Muslim Australians are made to feel they are targets – for everything from the everyday racism encountered in schools and on the streets, to draconian counter-terrorism legislation that restricts civil liberties, to war and the preparations for war.
# In the contemporary socio-political context of Australia, Islamophobia continues to be haunted by the cycle of moral panics around the Muslim “Other.”
# Tony Abbott has been urged to speak out more strongly against Islamophobia in Australia following reports of mosques being defaced, women verbally abused on the street and death threats issued to Muslim figures. Community leaders have said they are deeply worried that Australia’s mission against Islamic State (Isis) and recent anti-terrorism raids are fuelling attacks against Muslims in Australia.
# The waves of abuse on social media has also highlighted how open bigotry has become, as if the disgust around the Islamic State has given a free pass to intolerance.
# Many Muslim women, say Ms Kay and other community members, are fearful of going out and many won’t venture far beyond their homes. Ahmed Kilani, editor of website muslimvillage.com, says some are now questioning whether Australia is still a safe and tolerant society. “My own mother rang me yesterday,” Mr Kilani told SBS, “with concern about what’s going, she said, ‘I don’t feel safe and secure.’ She made the comment to me that despite living here for 40 years which is a lot longer than she lived in Egypt. She said perhaps I need to consider moving back there and questioned whether I should go and get myself a dual citizenship in case things get really bad.” Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane has called for calm, saying, “Muslim Australians are entitled to a fair go and to be treated with respect and there is simply no place for this kind of bigotry and this kind of criminal behaviour.”
The Daily Telegraph – the very paper Ms Devine works for – even published an article titled ‘Incidents of Islamophobia‘.
I’m baffled that Ms Devine finds it necessary not only to blame the Left for Islamophobia in this country – then announces that it doesn’t exist here anyway – yet works in an industry (and a newspaper) that keeps telling us how rampant it is.
If I may borrow an old adage: who makes this shit up?
The drift from reality is almost complete. She is quickly catching up to Joe Hockey
Thanks for nothing. To the wordsmiths that just take the money.
I remember when men and women around the world were touched by her passion in championing the rights of women.
I remember when our Treasurer was hailed as the best in the world for saving our country from the collapse felt around the globe.
I remember when the world was praising our leadership in action on climate change by introducing carbon pricing.
I remember when we reached agreement with the states to implement education funding reform.
I remember when we looked forward to every home being connected to world class NBN.
It wasn’t that long ago.
So how did we end up in our current position, represented by fools and vilified globally?
The people who are paid to inform us, whose job it is to hold politicians to account, failed us, that’s how.
On the eve of the election, every major newspaper in the country, with the exception of Melbourne’s Age, endorsed Tony Abbott to be Australia’s 28th prime minister.
Queensland’s Courier Mail ran a front page picture of a clown’s hat, emblazoned with the ALP logo, toppled in the centre of a circus ring under a headline ”The circus is over.”
”We believe Tony Abbott stands ready to seize the day,” read Melbourne’s Herald Sun editorial, beside a front page headline ”Tony’s Time”.
The Adelaide Advertiser told Australians that ”tomorrow [they] finally have an opportunity to set our nation on a new path”.
The Canberra Times also came out in favour of the Coalition telling us it was “Abbott’s time”.
On the first day of the election campaign the Daily Telegraph ran a front page photograph of a distressed-looking Kevin Rudd accompanied by the headline: ”Finally, you now have the chance to . . . Kick this mob out.”
And the Sunday Telegraph published a front page picture of a statesman-like Tony Abbott standing in front of a billowing national flag, with the headline: ”Australia needs Tony.”
The Sydney Morning Herald said ”Abbott does not so much deserve the chance to do what Labor could not do in the past six years. But the party he leads is untainted by scandal and infighting, and therefore has the best chance to unite a tired and despondent electorate.”
The AFR judged that ”Australia’s prosperity would be better served by a Coalition government”.
The Australian pushed for the Coalition to be given a majority government and for Mr Abbott to seek a ”mandate for reform”.
The newspaper praised the Opposition Leader, saying: ”Rarely in the modern era has there been a more grounded prime ministerial candidate than this volunteer firefighter, surf lifesaver, endurance athlete and charity cyclist.”
The Northern Territory News compared Labor’s reign to natural disasters afflicting the NT.
”Territorians cope with a lot compared to the rest of Australia. Searing heat, torrential downpours, cyclones and the tyranny of distance,” the NT News editorial read.
”One thing we cannot, and should not, have to cope with is when a government . . . goes troppo. The Labor Federal Government has gone troppo. And that’s being kind. It has lost the ability – and the right – to lead.”
But ”fortunately”, the newspaper concluded, “there is a candidate to bring the country to its senses”.
Melbourne’s Age was the only paper in the country to back Labor.
The Age judged that Labor’s policies – especially the national broadband network, better schools plan and commitment to a price of carbon – meant the government deserved to be returned, but they had already cruelled any chance of that when, in June their headline read “For the sake of the nation, Ms Gillard should stand aside.”
How can every single one of our journalists have got it so terribly wrong? These people are trained and paid to do a job. They have access to the inner workings of Parliament and they are fed briefs, press releases and leaks. Perhaps, rather than slavishly believing and printing what they are told, they would do better to stay in their jammies and do a little research for themselves.
We are owed an apology.
Painted protesters march against NT’s McArthur River zinc mine ‘pollution’
Protesters opposed to one of the world’s largest zinc mines have painted their faces white and called for an end to what they say is destruction of their local environment.
People from the Borroloola area in remote eastern Northern Territory marched this morning in protest against the nearby McArthur River zinc mine in the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Waste rock at the Swiss-owned mine had been smouldering for several months and people from the area said they were worried about potentially toxic smoke plumes in the air and acidic run off into the river.
Borroloola is about 70 kilometres from the mine and 970 kilometres south-east of Darwin.
Elders and people from the four clan groups of Borroloola met at the Markirra (White Ochre) Kangaroo Dreaming site, which they say is threatened by the mining operation.
Jack Green, a senior elder from the area, said his people wanted to sit down and talk with the mine’s operator, Xstrata, a subsidiary of Swiss-based Glencore.
“We’re really worried about it. It’s very important to Aboriginal people – not only Aboriginal people, important to pastoralist and tourists that come down here do their fishing and that. It’s sort of like a garden to all Australia,” he said.
It’s sort of like a garden to all Australia.
Jack Green, senior elder
“This land lies all our sacred sites, our dreaming lies all over this area. We want land to be looked after more better for our future kids. They want a land where they can go out and hunt and learn more about cultures.
“We’ll do a short one (protest) in town and then we’ll sit around and do a bit of dancing and things like that. Anyone wants to comes along and find out we welcome to sit down and talk to them.”
Mr Green said he was concerned about the impact mining had on the nearby waterways.
“We’re worried about the fish and the river, the water that runs down the McArthur.”
Gadrian Hoosan, a Karrwa custodian from the area, said the action was part of an “ancient fight to keep the land healthy for all of our children, black and white, in unity with the four clans”.
David Morris from the NT Environmental Defender’s Office called on McArthur River Mining to be “open and honest” about health impacts from water and air pollution around its Borroloola site.
The Environmental Protection Authority this week issued the mine a notice to carry out an environmental audit.
“We’re very concerned on behalf of our clients about issues of health and also issues of environmental health and damage to the surrounding environment. One of my clients described it as a man-made volcano and that’s certainly how it appeared when I was in Borroloola recently,” Mr Morris said.
Mr Green said he was worried for future generations.
“This land lies all our sacred sites, our dreaming lies all over this area. We want land to be looked after more better for our future kids. They want a land where they can go out and hunt and learn more about cultures.”
Xstrata admits long fight against combustion
In July the mine’s operator Xstrata said it was trying to extinguish the smoke plumes but admitted that could take two years to achieve.
It said the mine’s rock pile began combusting in December 2013 when pyrite iron sulphide was dumped on its top layers.
When the volatile mineral met oxygen while covered over by other rocks it started igniting in oven-like conditions and now constantly belched from the mine’s waste rock pile.
Xstrata had been trying to manage the problem by coating the rocks with lime and clay.
It said it had managed to stop combustion of new pyrite waste rock it is depositing into the waste rock site by layering it in much shallower tiers and immediately covering them with clay.
Xstrata said it discharges no water from its site into surrounding waterways “except under approved conditions” and all discharges meet Australian water quality standards.
It said monitoring showed fish from McArthur River and nearby Surprise Creek were safe to eat.
What sentient members of the Fourth Estate could ever set foot, for example, inside the offices of the Courier Mail? This is, let’s not forget, Brisbane’s only morning newspaper, a monopoly provider, and, by dint of journalistic volume, the most significant newsroom in Queensland.
This is the newspaper that in recent times advised its readers of an “AUSSIE FATWA” just days after it reported on the terror raids that swept through the suburbs of Sydney and Brisbane on September 18.
“Terror Australis: Cops foil horror attacks,” said the Courier Mail, blending the journalist’s fatal instinct for a pun with the paper’s absolute commitment to distortion, amplification and the propagation of fear to sell papers: for commercial gain.
It would only be days before a man was shot dead in Melbourne after the brutal, angry stabbing of two police officers. Did the Courier Mail report the simple and sufficiently horrifying facts? Well no, it reported the most sensational peak in the sea of supposition surrounding them: “Gunned down after PM terror threat: POLICE KILL ABBOTT JIHADI.”
There was of course no plot against the Prime Minister, unless what is described here by the Courier Mail constitutes an elaborate conspiracy:
Slain teenage extremist Numan Haider googled Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s movements in the days before being shot dead during a knife attack on counter terrorism agents.
The Courier Mail is of course just one among many. This is the house style of the major market tabloids that are the dominant organs of news in all our capital cities. They cry wolf, they cry terror, they fan the flames of disquiet and distrust.
Because fear sells.
Then there are the Fairfax papers, either so depleted or abjectly derelict they managed to splash the face of an utterly innocent man across the country after the Haider killing, with the indelible label “teenage terrorist”.
The Daily Telegraph sends a columnist to write a slovenly and misanthropic caricature of Lakemba, or as the Tele put it, “Sydney’s Muslim Land” as evidence of the threat that walks among us.
The Herald Sun publishes a full-page column headed “Islam’s violent tendencies”, illustrated with a half-page photo of a gesticulating Adolf Hitler.
And then we discover yesterday that the sword carried so ominously from the police raids of mid September, the one featured in page after page of reporting of raids that had apparently prevented “demonstration killings” and was thus by implication a weapon that might be used to sever innocent necks from heads, turns out to be a piece of plastic souvenir shop junk.
In this moment of high anxiety, the players in our commercial media have seen opportunity in a population made fearful and anxious for information.
Who threatens us? Where are they?
To which the answers seem universally to be “them” and “everywhere”.
Our politicians are not much different, but in the best of all possible worlds it would be our journalists who hold them to account.
And the consequence of this self-serving collusion in the fostering of paranoia?
This summary from the #WISH (Women In Solidarity with Hijabis) campaign is self-reported, and thus tricky to verify. But even if half right, it’s telling.
- A woman in a hijab is physically attacked and her car subsequently vandalised with profanities spray-painted across it (Western Sydney)
- A mother and her baby are verbally abused and spat on, and the pram is kicked (Sydney)
- A woman in hijab has a cup of coffee hurled through the window of her car (Brisbane)
- A mother and her baby are approached by three men, has her hijab ripped off, is spat on and pushed to the floor (Brisbane)
- A woman is approached by a man and told to take her hijab off so he can burn it (Brisbane)
- A woman in a hijab is approached by men in a shopping centre who try to rip her hijab from her head (Perth)
- A mother and her child are verbally abused and the woman is told to take her child away from the other children at a playground (Melbourne)
- A woman is verbally abused by three men who threaten to burn her hijab as she walks past a pub
- A woman is verbally abused by man who threatens to burn her house down (Queensland)
- A woman sitting on a bus with her son is filmed by a man who verbally abused her and said that he would use the video footage as means to identify her
- A heavily pregnant woman is verbally abused and intimated (Sydney)
- A mother and daughter are verbally assaulted and a passer-by who intervened is physically assaulted (Newcastle)
- A young woman takes off her hijab out of fear for her safety (Canberra)
There is an issue here in the treatment of a serious social issue and one highly sensitive to the sort of reckless, and inflammatory reporting that has become typical – almost universal – in the Australian media mainstream.
But beyond that point, there is a lack of restraint, a grasping of commercial opportunity at whatever the cost and a lack of regard even for the fundamental truth, that is even more worrying.
In these end times for corporate journalism, in these desperate days when any sale is worth the compromise of basic standards of integrity and social tact, we might we wonder whether we’d be better off without a media apparatus that can sink so low.
I hope Tony Abbott will forgive me if I’m a little sceptical of his “preachers of hate” red card system legislation he wants to push through the parliament.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m a bit cautious when the first time he really seeks to go into the plan is on the Alan Jones programme. Jones we may remember is the man who has repeatedly faced court over claims he incited the Cronulla race riots with his own on air hate speech and who had the class to use Julia Gillard’s recently deceased father to launch a vicious attack on her.
I’m also sceptical when the government pushing this “preachers of hate” legislation is the same government that only recently backed down on its election promise on changing the Racial Discrimination Act to allow people to preach hate based on race.
Amongst those preachers of hate Abbott sought to give a green light to rather than a red card were Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt. How handy then to be discussing preachers of hate on the Alan Jones programme, after all I guess he’s an expert.
In Australia the last time I remember there being this much fuss over “preachers of hate” speaking in Australia was when Geert Wilders came to our country despite calls to have his visa application denied. Wilders has many charismatic followers, amongst them are Anders Behring Breivik who massacred 77 people in Norway in 2011, Andrew Bolt, and of course Cory Bernardi.
When this particular “preacher of hate” came to Australia it was Tony Abbott’s former Parliamentary Secretary Cory Bernardi that gave him not the red card, but the red carpet treatment, acting as his guide.
Still, “preachers of hate” of hate is a pretty loose term, ones view of it would depend on your views on preachers and on hate.
In the US there is Federal legislation to protect its citizens from hate crime. A hate crime is deemed a crime against someone who is based in the victims race, religion. ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.
Tony Abbott seems to view hate a little differently, saying on radio;
“Under the law that we are bringing through the Parliament hopefully before the end of the year, it will be an offence to promote terrorism – not just to engage in terrorism – but to promote terrorism.”
Whilst I agree with this, I don’t think it goes anywhere close to far enough. In fact it would seem to the casual observer that Abbott believes a “preacher of hate” is someone who promotes terrorism, not someone who is on a soapbox making speeches designed to promote hatred, discrimination, and ignorance.
I would suggest that this is a very narrow view indeed.
Preacher of hate Alan Jones used the Abbott interview to preach some hatred about an Islamic organisation in Australia he would like to see banned.
The group is called Hizb ut-Tahrir and they are banned in some parts of the world. I don’t claim to know enough about this group to give my views on them being “preachers of hate” so I won’t, but banning them would seem futile to me.
Banning hasn’t exactly worked a treat for bikie gangs, why would this be any different? In fact it seems to only make them harder to monitor.
Banning an organisation won’t suddenly change its members beliefs, I’d argue that it may even antagonise the membership.
It is rather ironic that the same people who were arguing for greater freedom of speech when it came to changing the Racial Discrimination Act are the same people wanting less freedom of speech for those whose views they disagree with.
I am in 100% agreement however that freedom of speech should not be a get out of jail free card for those who incite violence, whether that be done directly or indirectly. However this needs to be a two-way street.
Those who claim to be Islamic while promoting violence against civilians and other terror related activities should be charged and jailed. By the same token those who promote views that lead to hatred and discrimination against Muslims and those of Middle Eastern background should also be charged and jailed.
If it was a criminal offence to preach hate in Australia maybe we would see less comments from those who seek to promote class warfare by branding people like the disabled, the pensioners, the single parents, and the unemployed as bludgers and claim they are draining our society while others do the heavy lifting.
Maybe also we would see less speeches made that brand homosexuals as perverts and people with no morals, by those who claim some sort of moral superiority such as we often see through church groups and Liberal Party Senators.
Maybe it would stop those who are trying to ensure that we view every woman wearing a head covering as some sort of threat with their incorrect and discriminatory calls to “ban the burqa”.
Maybe it would mean groups like the World Congress Of Families coming out here to spew forth their preaching that single mothers and homosexuals are damaging societies moral fabric would have to tone down their rhetoric or have their visa application denied. Given their Australian Ambassador is Kevin Andrews Minister for Social Services I’m sure the government wouldn’t agree on them being “preachers of hate”. Certainly not Kevin Andrews or Eric Abetz…
There is no doubt that hate speech is a current and relevant topic to be discussing and something needs to be legislated and made into law.
However I’m not sure that it’s a decision that should be made by this government alone and I’m also not sure that it should be discussed by the Prime Minister on the radio programme of someone who has already been found to have intentionally incited hatred.
This should be something that is overseen by a completely independent panel and has representatives from all cultures, religions and minority groups taking part.
This is far too important an issue to let it be overrun by right-wing agendas.
We need only look at the budget to see what a disaster that turns out being.
Laura Ingraham To Be Placed In Quarantine
Radio talk show host and Fox News pundit Laura Ingraham has been detained and will be placed in quarantine facilities in Atlanta, according to Dave Daigle, a spokesman for the CDC. The action comes only two days after Ingraham blamed President Obama for the current cases of Ebola that have cropped up in the United States.
On Wednesday’s edition of “The Laura Ingraham Show,” the child-hating anti-immigrant pundit made some despicably naive and misleading comments about President Barack Obama’s handling of the Ebola crisis, using faulty logic: even though President George W. Bush did more for Africa, Obama’s “familial connection with Africa” and compulsion to aid the impoverished region is much more dangerous.
Ingraham wants her listeners to believe that like every other problem in the known universe, the Ebola crisis is Obama’s fault.
At a press conference on the steps of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Daigle told reporters that Ingraham had exhibited symptoms of “pretzel logic, bigotry, and an inability to make any sense whatsoever” while on a national broadcast. “We just could not take the chance that Ingraham would spread the infection to her listeners,” said Daigle. “We already have enough conspiracy theory wing nuts running around the country as it is. God help us if she spreads the malady to even more dim witted Americans.”
Daigle stressed that the quarantine was “only a precaution,” and Ingraham would be placed on the same ward with Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, who were already under observation.
“We just want to make damn sure that this special form of idiocy doesn’t spread, and we intend to ere on the side of caution, after all, a disease that threatens our ability to reason is just as deadly as Ebola or Dengue Fever to our national well being.”
As she was being transported into the facility in a straight-jacket Ingraham screamed at reporters that she was not insane. “I always make perfect sense! I’m not crazy! This is what you get when you let illegal immigrants into the country! All those kids should be shot!”
Ingraham’s audience of over 1200 listeners are expected to take the quarantine in stride and tune into Glenn Beck instead until she is released.
Nauru child sex abuse allegations to be examined in new inquiry…..Andrew Bolt
Because Morrison wants to stop the “chatter” Not mentioned in Andrew Bolt’s Blog.
This is the source and the bullshit attributed to the lies Bolt gets paid to distribute and why his lawyers are paid hefty amounts to protect Newscorp from conviction.
- theguardian.com, Friday 3 October 2014 10.13 AEST
Scott Morrison says reports charity workers helped children protest against offshore detention policy will also be investigated
The federal government has announced a further inquiry into children in detention on Nauru,
The immigration minister, Scott Morrison, confirmed 10 employees of Save the Children, a non-government organisation contracted to provide welfare, education and protection for children on Nauru, had been told to leave the island.
Morrison has appointed former integrity commissioner and acting department head Philip Moss to head the wide-ranging inquiry investigating “all of these matters”.
The 10 staff members told to leave Nauru are not alleged to have engaged in misconduct against children, but are accused of encouraging protests, complaints of abuse and even of coaching self-harm.
The chief executive of Save The Children, Paul Ronalds, rejected the minister’s allegations and said the governmement had not provided his organisation with any evidence of staff wrongdoing before the claim was leaked to the media, or since.
Nor had it received the report cited by Morrison.
Five Save The Children staff were suspended in August over allegations they had supported a detainee protest by giving a “thumbs up” sign to demonstrators.
“In that case, all of the allegations against Save the Children staff were found to be unsubstantiated, and all of the staff returned to full duties,” Ronalds said.
Save the Children said in an earlier statement instances of child self-harm were “a reality that has been well-documented”.
“The evidence is very clear to us: the long-term and prolonged detention of children has a devastating impact on the mental and physical well-being of children. This can no longer be denied.”
Morrison said he would be appalled if accusations of sexual abuse proved true, but that the fabrication of allegations to further a political agenda was also serious.
Guardian Australia has published extensive evidence of child abuse and instances of self-harm on Nauru, including:
- pictures and video of children with their lips sewn shut in protest
- internal reports from centre managers Transfield detailing allegations of sexual misconduct by staff against children
- detailed descriptions from staff about violence against child detainees by guards employed by Wilson Security.
Australian federal police confirmed to Guardian Australia it had received a referral from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. It had not started an investigation.
Unfortunately, jihadists make headlines while those who wage the anti-jihad rarely do. After all, everyone has heard of Osama bin Laden, but few know of those standing up to would-be bin Ladens across the globe.
In the 1990s, the women’s group known as the Algerian Rally of Democratic Women or RAFD (Refuse) dared to do just that during a “dark decade” of jihadist atrocities committed by the Armed Islamic Group battling the Algerian state. That violence claimed as many as 200,000 lives.
Through acts like these, activists helped galvanize and display the population’s burgeoning rejection of an Islamic State project in Algeria. Nevertheless, RAFD’s work received little attention internationally.
When the West frames the conflict in this way, it can come across as a “clash of civilizations.” But this is not the case. There is a clash of ideologies—not civilizations—and it is taking place within each and every country affected by extremism.
The public relations battle of the ‘anti-jihadists’ is a critical part of the struggle against groups like ISIS—just as important as the military campaign. That is why the international community must do a better job to support those who are today’s version of RAFD, and to recognize that they represent a legitimate voice from within their societies.
Inside the danger zone, the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) publicly denounces ISIS for its genocidal campaign against minorities, for raping women, imposing strict female dress codes and operating a “concubine market” that reportedly sells women and girls into sexual slavery. OWFI runs emergency phone lines and even a safe house for women fleeing ISIS persecution.
The Iraqi architect Yanar Mohammed, an opponent of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, founded the group in 2003 after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Her goal was to promote women’s rights by advocating a secular, non-sectarian Iraq. Like the women of RAFD before them, OWFI faced threats– in this case from both Sunni and Shiite extremists. The founder once received an email with the subject heading, “Killing Yanar.”
Despite her bravery, Yanar once told me that she had limited access to Western media. This echoes what RAFD spokeswoman Zazi Sadou recently told me about the international response to their efforts: “No one wanted to hear us.” Even today, the West is still not listening to the voices of Iraqis who are standing up to the extremists. This must change.
If the international community wants more individuals to fight back, it must offer them support. While Qatari coffers have nourished jihadists across the region, secular groups who fight Islamists scrounge for funds.
If all this is not addressed then there is a real risk that Muslim fundamentalists–armed with money, weapons, foreign fighters and emotive religious rhetoric– will win both propaganda and military battles
Fanatics, not Muslims, are our enemy
Amanda Vanstone reminds us how in history we stood shoulder to shoulder with Muslims during various wars. That’s well and good and she reminds us that non-Muslim Australians would do well to ensure that any criticism is focused not on Muslims generally but on fanatical Muslims. Equally, Muslim Australians need to be loud, strong and clear in their condemnation of the fanatics.
This is a time to show disdain for the shock-jocks and jingo-junkies who whip up rednecks with their rubbish. In doing so, we will remind ourselves of the best of Australia.
The problem is that the fanatic shock-jocks at home the real dividers of this country are right in front of us and Vanstone fails to name and them. Which makes her gutless and she should be ashamed as she has the platform and the voice but fails to use it. “Shame” was an Ingmar Bergman film done in 1968 during the Vietnam war. It is about a couple who try to isolate themselves from a civil war that is going on around them by moving away as far as possible but get caught up in it nevertheless. It was about guilt the Vietnam war and not doing anything. Not doing anything is supporting the worst and we all stand accused.
“Men, women and children — familiar like mine — are being burnt and blasted to death in Vietnam and I have absolutely no idea what may be happening to me and the few people I love ten years, five years, two months from now. SHAME is central to the experience we are living now”
Vanstone’s article ends where it should have begun naming and shaming those agents of hate Newscorp 2GB those that are glorifying this war that is so complex that it defies any of our political class to explain it other than the futile slogan of annhilating ISIL.
Bolt, Devine,Henderson,Rule Jones are cloned Fox News media puppets that give rise to the shadows that our security forces find so hard to realize. They more than anybody amplify the darkness the doom and gloom portrayed by our current government for the past 20 years. The LNP has grabbed hold of a chicken little approach to politics and these fear mongers do their bidding in amplifying it. Vanstone fails to name them which is as good as letting them be.
Bolt’s article in the Herald Sun today is written as if he was forewarned of Vanstone’s commentary in The Age. It’s a joke the man who has accused Islam outright for every evil that currently exists. That Islam is a stain on the way we live today turns around and merely says it’s only a fringe element we need to be careful of. Vanstone and Bolt today are like two tag team wrestlers. Bolt has even used Vanstone’s words to name his favorite punching bag the ABC for disseminating hatred. If Vanstone didn’t tell him what her Age article was going to be then Bolt must feel smug that somebody at SMH is his mole. Bolt’s attempt today wear the halo is about as effective as putting on make up, lipstick and a dress and telling us he’s had a gender change. Either way he is an extremely ugly human being. He tagged Vanstone and tried a hypocritical, tongue in cheek body slam.
“We cannot afford any more these shock jocks of the ABC, these inciters of hate”
Wholesale bombing, the pretense that the bombs only harm ISIS a media made enemy is a total denial of what those bombs actually do. The damage done is as much as was done in the missiling of Gaza or the bombing and napalming of commies in North Vietnam. To go in on the ground and fight the mythical ISIS is just as futile ISIS will dissolve to rise again somewhere else. You can’t fight an enemy you can’t identify but an enemy that can clearly identify us. All you do is commit wholesale indiscriminant slaughter. That will only grow sympathy for a political ideology that gave birth to ISIS. The history of stupidity has shown us this.
We need to shut down the warmongers those that give life to this myth. We need to win the hearts and minds of those on the ground who wish to fight it and can see who the enemy is. ASIO finds sweet FA it’s Islamic Australia that’s our best line of defense now that we have decided to poke the hornet’s nest. The Arab nation states our allies are more aware of this than anyone. Do you think for one second anyone of them would syndicate Bolt’s news commentary. History will shame and blame Bolt that is inevitable Vanstone won’t.
Anthony Byrne
“The Islamic Council of Victoria’s reaction yesterday is a disgrace and only too typical of the Muslim leadership that has so betrayed Australia.”……Andrew Bolt
Column – Blame Islam before you blame Australia
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2014/s4094160.htm#
Anthony Byrne
“we’ve had communications with Islamic community leaders in my electorate. They are doing everything they can to help. They’ve met with AFP officers. There’s a meeting at the Hallam North mosque tonight. I’ll be meeting with them on Friday. They are doing everything they can to get to the bottom of this as well.
Ask Bolt what he knows about Endevour Hills
I know lot about Endeavour Hills and its people. They’re a great people. They’re a people that are filled with resolve and purpose and they’re people that come from all walks of life, all races, colours and creeds and they live together in harmony.
I could tell you about, in my experience, Leigh, of a young Afghan man of that age was a young man that lived next door to where I used to live in Endeavour Hills, and when I used to fly to Canberra, one of the things that I was very heartened about was the fact that that family, including that young man, would be keeping an eye on my family.
But I do think that what shouldn’t happen is that those wonderful people that I know, whose mosques that I walk into, that lived next door to me, shouldn’t be demonised, they shouldn’t be – and they shouldn’t be – you know, your story had a comment made by a senator, who I didn’t know was an expert on security, talking about burqas. Ill-informed comments don’t add to either the investigations that are taking place at this point in time or the very community harmony that we need in my area at this point in time.
I think if there’s one thing that I would say, Leigh, is that we’ve got to do – rather than pull ourselves apart, which is what ISIS wants us to do, we’ve got to come together, and if there are any further programs that we can develop to encourage and include people, regardless of what faith they might be, that is going to significantly reduce the chance of radicalisation.
You never listen to these people do you Andrew Bolt? No time for being inclusive.
The fight against Islamic State is a battle for young minds
Governments around the world are trying to come to terms with the fact that their nationals – and young people in particular – are leaving to join extremist groups such as Islamic State.
The battleground against radicalisation is waged in the mind. It is here that persuasive arguments and passionate discussion appeal to the hero inside us to rise up and do something, be someone or make history.Foreign policy often provides a fertile bed of manure in which the seeds of radicalisation can grow.
What is the Australia’s foreign policy on Iraq? Those seeking to radicalise others will be able to summarise it in a single sentence. The more negative the policy is perceived to be, the less human the government or even the Australian people are perceived to be. Abbot is insisting it’s humanitarian. 6 Hornet fighters are hardly gonig to drop aid. 600 SAS troops ,our top killers, to load these fighter planes and train locals hardly seems believeable.
Radicalisation involves getting us to focus on the negative experiences we have had and the negative experiences of those we love or feel we should love.These things happen to us because some enemy wants them to, chooses them to and allows them to.It focuses on the difference between us and them and emphasises the wrongs that they do. Australia is going to help kill Sunnis no matter who they are. They don’t care, want to distinguish or want to understand anything about the history of what’s occurred on the ground. Yesterdays raids reinforced that perception. What’s more with lazy media frenzy . Was there anyone report from the families of the raided?
Isis recruiters lay the blame for each of the killings squarely with British and American foreign policy. The more human we can make the enemy, the less we will feel separated from them to us IS is the ‘devil cult’. Only when we stop seeing the opposition as completely different to us, can we start to be reconciled with them.The British government, on behalf of the taxpayer, donated £11.4bn in aid with £600m set aside for the Syrian crisis alone. These kinds of figures provide useful ammunition in the battle of the mind. The apparent enemy becomes less hostile and more human. What has Australia done other than offer war cries and identify our selves as the enemies. Does Abbott understand over 100,000 Sunnis were killed since Bush ousted Saddam. Mothers , fathers children families he created a bitter sectarian power vacuum and gave birth to ISIS. It can’t be stopped with bombs.
Some young people see no opportunity to get involved and make a difference other than by joining the jihad. It’s positive that young people are passionate about inequality, just not that they see violence as the only way to address it. We need ways ways to counteract the messages being sent to young people by those who wish to indoctrinate them.
“If, in order to defeat the beast, we become the beast; then the beast has won”.
It’s not easy to rid people of firmly held prejudices but a consistent and reasonable argument is a better way to start than threats about removing passports or prison sentences. Todays effort just pushes young people away. 800 to lay alleged charges on one 22 year old is farcical. Why with all the media didn’t we hear the other side of the story? The families side how lazy and complicit was the media.
The ABC and staff are so above Newscorp and Andrew Bolt
“If you think arguments on global warming are best settled by credentials, then don’t read another word. I’m an idiot.”
Even Andrew Bolt get’s it right sometimes. He certainly didn’t finish his Arts Degree he barely started it and merely deprived someone else of the opportunity. It’s the idiot aspect that reveals itself and the lack of either rationality or balance.
“Viewers would have concluded no scientists question that the world is heating dangerously and man is to blame. The sceptical scientists I know personally must just be hoaxers.”
He sounds like a child ready to throw a tantrum not an adult open to a discussion. On this topic it is precisely what he is a moron.
Bolt doesn’t prove or disprove anything he merely states the obvious that there is a minority of scientists that don’t necessarily agree with all the results put forward by the majority for a case of Global Warming. But that’s the nature of science disagreement. You could argue because all the scientific errors made throughout history is the reason science and the world progressed. Bolt offers no alternative to progress and investigation. The majority of climate scientists seem to believe there is a necessary reason to move foward.
Bolt the self-confessed idiot only believes in incontrovertible laws of which there are very few. Not Newton, Not Einstein, Not Quantum Physics so the idiot is simply asking for the impossible. If one believes money and power influence science then the skeptics certainly exemplify the conservatives, much the same as flat earthers did in their day. The majority of scientists are progressives as their results demand a necessary change foward which however sits against the financial interests of Capital. Why would the most rational thinkers of the world ask the most wealthiest to change? After all isn’t that where their finance ultimately comes from?
Bolt doesn’t broach the question he merely uses it as a vehicle to have ago at the ABC as a leftist organization with some bias against his fatuous conservative position. The man failed his Arts degree he didn’t just finish it.
His side of the capitalist ledger always turns to the maintenance of profit to justify reasons not to change. The ABC in 1984 had a budget of approx $900 mill today it’s $800 mill and has 84% support of the Australian population. More importantly 80% believe in its integrity. That alone places it so far in front of Newscorp and Bolt it’s lickspittle
Live blog: Hundreds of police mount anti-terrorism raids in Sydney and Brisbane
Updated
Police have raided dozens of homes in Sydney and Brisbane as part of the largest counter-terrorism operation in Australian history.
The joint operation between local police, the Australian Federal Police and ASIO involves hundreds of officers and at least a dozen people have been arrested in Sydney.
Similar raids took place in Brisbane but police said it was too early to say if anyone had been arrested.
Keep up to date with the latest developments on our live blog.
ASIO and hundreds of police raid Sydney and Brisbane homes in biggest counter-terrorism raid in Australia’s history
ASIO and hundreds of police raid Sydney and Brisbane homes in biggest counter-terrorism raid in Australia’s history
- The Daily Telegraph
- September 18, 2014
ASIO and police swoop in terrorism raid
ASIO and counter terrorism police have swooped on homes across Brisbane’s south and in Sydney this morning in what is believed to be the largest anti-terrorism bust in the nation’s history.
Several arrests have been made in the secret pre-dawn raids in Sydney but the Courier Mail understands there have been no arrests in Brisbane thus far.
Hundreds of police executed search warrants in Logan, Underwood and Mt Gravatt East along with the Sydney suburbs of Beecroft, Bellavista, Guildford, Merrylands, Northmead, Wentworthville, Marsfield, Westmead, Castle Hill, Revesby, Bass Hill and Regents Park.
Police arrest a man in Guilford this morning.
The raid is believed to have been mounted following months of surveillance of people linked to the terrorist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
The Courier Mail has learned that an estimated 600 officers from the Australian Federal Police, state counter terrorism units and ASIO launched the pre-emptive strike in the early hours of this morning.
The raids and arrests are believed to have been based on the execution of multiple ASIO and AFP warrants.
It is believed that dozens of suspects have been netted, with links to a Brisbane man who was recently arrested on suspected terrorism related charges.
It is believed that a terrorist network had been planning to carry out a series of attacks in Australia.
Another man is arrested in Guilford.
Last week, Brisbane man Omar Succarieh, 31, was arrested and charged with terrorism-related offences following a series of raids.
He’s accused of fundraising for Syria-based extremist group Jabhat al-Nusra and helping another man, Agim Kruezi, obtain funds to fight for a terror organisation overseas.
OMAR SUCCARIEH: Bail application to be heard today
TERROR RAID: Accused ‘misses his kids’
Succarieh, who is due to apply for bail in court on Thursday, is believed to be the brother of Ahmed Succarieh, who reportedly became Australia’s first suicide bomber in Syria last year.
Logan man Kruezi, 22, has alleged links to the Islamic State group.
The raid follows the lifting of the national security alert level from medium to high last Friday by the outgoing director general of ASIO David Irvine.
One of the detained men in the pre-dawn raids in Sydney.
It is believed the size of the raid eclipsed that of Operation Pendennis in 2005 when several hundred ASIO, AFP and NSW police arrested 13 men across Melbourne and the Sydney suburb of Bankstown, who had been planning bomb attacks in both capitals.
In Brisbane, a double story house on Creek Road, Mount Gravatt East, was among the properties raided.
One neighbour said he had lived near the family, who he described as “Middle Eastern” for more than 20 years but had rarely communicated with them.
The man said he had only heard dogs barking during the morning raid.
A number of Australian Federal Police officers remain at the address.
It has not yet been confirmed whether any arrests have been made.
An AFP spokesperson said further updates would be provided later on Thursday.
Senior government ministers were unable to shed more light on the raids, but praised the work of authorities.
“I note the security agencies, the Police, ASIO are working hard to ensure that we are safe,” Coalition frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull told ABC radio this morning.
“Our security is the consequence of continued vigilance and hard work on the part of the security agencies.
Police at the scene of a raid at Mt Gravatt East.
“There is no cause for being complacent about security.
“There are people, regrettably some of them in our midst, that don’t have the nation’s best interest at heart.”
Speaking ahead of this weekend’s G20 Finance Minister’s meeting in Cairns, Joe Hockey said he had confidence in the security measures in place.
“Everyone needs to make sure that with an increased threat level associated with potential terrorist attacks in Australia we have all the necessary precautions taken for both the G20 here in Cairns and also in Brisbane,” the Treasurer told Sunrise.
“But, I am very confident that all bases are covered.
“We have put a lot of effort into this for a long period of time.”
There are about 60 Australians believed to be fighting in Iraq and Syria with groups such as Islamic State, while another 100 are suspected of providing support from Australia.
Originally published as Hundreds of police in terror raids
Multiculturalism is alive and well in the UK
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/10/multiculturalism-uk-research
Shepparton, City of Harmony
BENDIGO Festival of Cultures
http://www.bendigofestivalofcultures.org.au/
HUMANITY DENIER ANDREW BOLT
Capitalism is an idealised concept that attempts to describe the way we behave economically and structure our lives. Some individuals break the rules commit crimes, sometimes in association with like-minded others. CBA financial planners, Wall st, etc. Mainstream media doesn’t cry “We were raped by Capitalism”. No we call them rogues, crooks, gangs & misfits.
Crime occurs in all communities of various description Communist,Democratic,Assimilated and Multicultural. Each has different approaches to policing and dealing with crime but crime occurs. Andrew Bolt is specifically opposed to multi-racial communities as they promote diversity as opposed to homogeneity and according to him encourage deviant behaviour. He believes in Assimilation. Rotherham this morning’s blog had a headline ‘Raped by Multiculturalism’ What went on was in Rotherham for Bolt is a direct consequence of Multiculturalism and the weakness of the Left, He has cherry picked to prove his retarded point.
Bolt doesn’t raise the issues of sexploitation of women on a large-scale such as by the Russian & Italian Mafia by white christian ‘civilized’ Europeans. He doesn’t examine sexploitation in Britain as a whole the scandals at the highest levels of Tory politics. That’s of no use to him. But a badly run orphanage in Rotherham suits him down to the ground. It’s not about lack of funds under staffing or just poor welfare support it’s a direct result of Multiculturalism.
Bolt shows us a bylaw indicating the word ‘Asian’ not to be used as an identifying term when talking about suspects of anything in Rotherham. However strikes me that bylaw supports everything Bolt claims to be an anti-racist, that colour and ethnicity are irrelevant when it comes to law and that’s why he proudly says ” I am not a racist.” He is however a hypocrite and totally two-faced. Bolt infers the leftist council in Rotherham were ‘sacrificing the young girls on the altar of ‘political correctness’ for not allowing suspects to be called ‘Asian’ or ‘Muslim’. Bolt the non racist agrees with the bylaw. Australia should not be differentiated by colour either. Colour does not exist.
There was an orphanage in Brighton some 50 + years ago a very conservative WASP suburb like Malvern where Bolt lives. It wasn’t a secret that young testosterone & alcohol fueled young men would come from all directions to scale the fence at night like tom cats to dally with those state wards in their dorms. Multiculturalism wasn’t an aspect of that suburb Mr Bolt. Lack of supervision and underfunding certainly was. The Brighton police were aware of it nobody was charged and it wasn’t just an urban myth. Multiculturalism wasn’t a driving force back then Mr Bolt. Doesn’t suit your argument does it Bolt.
Importing a cherry picked example is Bolt’s way of disproving any Multicultural Policy. One could argue that Rotherham is the exception that proves the rule and exceptions do exist. It’s far more persuasive than saying multicultural societies have a tendency to drive young men into illegal gang activity and in Bolt’s case Muslims.
One has to doubt somebody who denies any history prior to his birth in 1959 to try to win a point.On the Bolt Report the man said indigenous Australians today were not the first arrivals in this country therefore have no right to be mentioned in our constitution. He agrees with Tony Abbott that the defining moment in the history of this country was white settlement not invasion. The other 60,000 years is irrelevant. Therefore no mention of persons prior to settlement need be mentioned ‘Terra Nullis is ok. It seems to me that’s what the Rotherham bylaw is trying to achieve. There are no ‘Asians’ in Rotherham. But here Bolt want’s them named and shamed Pakis are Pakis , Muslims to boot and should be identified not protected by ‘political correctness’?He is a RACIST
Trying to understand Bolt’s ideas is like herding cats. He’s a one-eyed extreme conservative with a collection of arguments selectively picked to support a moral framework which he treats as some universal given . He is an elitist of the worst kind. The only reason Rotherham is of any use to him at the moment is to indulge in his favourite pastime of Muslim bashing.
Bolt doesn’t raise the issues of sexploitation of women on a larger and more brutal scale than Rotherham all by white christian Europeans. He never really says anything about the Italian & Russian Mafia or sexploitation in Britain in general. He doesn’t raise the scandals at the highest levels of Tory politicians, paedophilia ,rent boys & prostitution in Westminster these are of no use to him. But a badly run underfunded orphanage in Rotherham suits him down to the ground it’s in his cross hairs and suits his Labour vs Conservative debate in Britain. Bolts just copied and pasted it because he’s a lazy mother.
Tony Abbott’s preacher in the tent of Murdoch
Bolt’s recent article about Abbott being some super hero standing tall with his budgie smugglers on the outside of his tights was a text book case of hyperbole written by his favoured sycophant, toady, creep, crawler, fawner, flatterer, flunkey, truckler, groveller, doormat, lickspittle, kowtower, obsequious person, minion, hanger-on, leech, puppet, spaniel, Uriah Heep; bootlicker, yes-man; arse-licker, arse-kisser, brown-nose;suckhole .
Abbott was doing little more than the job he was paid to do as the only delegate on the Security Council with citizens on board MH17. The Dutch have taken over the ‘small army’ that our Tony cobbled together. Andrew was he demoted?
“Abbott, as a Catholic and student of past battles with totalitarianism, understands evil.” Bolt must have been out of his mind come close to wetting himself in constructing that sentence. Straight from the tent preacher’s bible.
It was I guess because Abbott was forced to back down from his original rush of blood blaming Putin personally for what had happened. However Andrew knows better “It’s true Abbott has stopped talking” he says,then talks for him “The problem is that Obama is weak and Europe even weaker, dependent on Russia for a third of its oil and gas as well as billions in contracts, like ones France signed to supply amphibious assault ships. The world has no moral clarity.” It’s Why plain speaking Tony Abbott is “electric” and will come back after we have brought our people home. Is this why he is staying there waiting for another window of opportunity? If Russia retaliates to sanctions by cutting oil and gas to the EU. Tony could send coal.
Come home Abbott and stop milking this tragedy. The work has been delegated the Dutch are leading the EU team.
As for Andrew Bolt Mike Carlton couldn’t have said it better ” Bolt is a fart in a crowded train carriage – unpleasant, but of no consequence” This masterpiece article shows him to be the arse- licker that he is.
Abbott was doing little more than the job he was paid to do as the only delegate on the Security Council with citizens on board MH17. The Dutch have taken over the ‘small army’ that our Tony cobbled together. Andrew was he demoted?
“Abbott, as a Catholic and student of past battles with totalitarianism, understands evil.” Bolt must have been out of his mind come close to wetting himself in constructing that sentence. Straight from the tent preacher’s bible.
It was I guess because Abbott was forced to back down from his original rush of blood blaming Putin personally for what had happened. However Andrew knows better “It’s true Abbott has stopped talking” he says,then talks for him “The problem is that Obama is weak and Europe even weaker, dependent on Russia for a third of its oil and gas as well as billions in contracts, like ones France signed to supply amphibious assault ships. The world has no moral clarity.” It’s Why plain speaking Tony Abbott is “electric” and will come back after we have brought our people home. Is this why he is staying there waiting for another window of opportunity? If Russia retaliates to sanctions by cutting oil and gas to the EU. Tony could send coal.
Come home Abbott and stop milking this tragedy. The work has been delegated the Dutch are leading the EU team.
As for Andrew Bolt Mike Carlton couldn’t have said it better ” Bolt is a fart in a crowded train carriage – unpleasant, but of no consequence” This masterpiece article shows him to be the arse- licker that he is.
Andrew Bolt one eyed preacher in the church of Newscorp blogged:
One of our largest humanitarian intakes has been from Afghanistan. How compatible exactly is that culture?:
It was bad enough that the alleged rape took place in the sanctity of a mosque [in Afghanistan] and that the accused man was a mullah who invoked the familiar defense that it had been consensual sex.
But the victim was only 10 years old. And there was more: The authorities said her family members openly planned to carry out an honor killing in the case – against the young girl. The mullah offered to marry his victim instead.
This past week, the awful matter became even worse. On Tuesday, local policemen removed the girl from the shelter that had given her refuge and returned her to her family, despite complaints from women’s activists that she was likely to be killed.
How real is this man Andrew Bolt? He looks for extreme events then tars everybody with the same brush to make his point that being: I hate Muslims keep them out of this country. There was a huge number of local Afghans who risked their lives daily in support of the ADF interpreters,intelligence gatherers etc. These men and women’s lives are now at risk should the Taliban regain power. But that’s not compatible enough for you is it Andrew Bolt. You seem to believe the above anecdote is sufficient reason for us to abandon these people in Afghanistan and tar those already here. You are a f***ing bigot, vilifier and a reflection of coalition thought.
Some Catholic priests tried and had extreme experiences in any place they could and they did as a cultural obligation.They like Clinton didn’t have sex with women & remained celibate. There’s no hue & cry to dismantle the institution of the church. Priests of all nationalities with only two things in common Catholicism and carnal lust. The whole institution unlike all of Islam blamed the victim for the crime and treated those victims with physical and psychological violence. Some cases of Islam are extreme all cases of Catholic paedophilia by priests were hidden.
The village of Aalsmere and it’s elected council was the capital of Nazi sympathy in Holland during WW2. It’s were your family came from and voted Andrew Bolt. Holland wasn’t tarred with one brush and it’s why you are a bigot.
Mosques are not churches Bolt they are community centers where people come to pray amongst other things yes, but their significance is not one of ‘sanctity’. They are more like a synagogues where all manner of things are discussed. Sunni Mullahs like Rabbis are respected for their Koranic knowledge but aren’t the community or tribal leaders or even heads of any monolithic institutional structure like the Catholic church. Mullahs are as different as as the 5 fingers on your hand they have differing interpretations of the Koran and are invited to and gain respect & support of their varying communities. The communities appoint Rabbi’s and Mullah’s who make their living from their followers’ benefaction.
Andrew Bolt, Bishop’s appoint priests not the community much the same as Murdoch and Newscorp have appointed you. You are part of a far less democratic institution. When an organisation like yours has 65% ownership of our press and other media we need section 18c. You Bolt are far more dangerous preacher than any Mullah. Your audience isn’t provided with information but only your repetitive commentary. Your blog is so moderated it disallows any alternative to your message other than a chorus of alleluias to support your right wing chant .
all preach and no action who is more dangerous?
An Islamic hate-preacher, now arrested in the Philippines, has paid tribute to Victoria’s education system:
Mr Cerantonio, who attended a small Catholic primary school in Footscray before enrolling in the former Footscray Technical College, described his high school as “a very liberal school”, influenced by the politics of socialism.“We didn’t have uniforms, we wouldn’t call our teachers by their [surnames] – they wanted to instil in us a sense of freedom, and [to follow] politics”.
In what Mr Cerantonio described as a “socialist and atheist” atmosphere, the teenager soon began seeking solace in religion.
What a Blockhead Andrew Bolt is alluding to the failure of the poorly run state education system .
Duntroon produced countless sex offenders over the years in and out of uniform.
Julian Knight Victoria’s biggest mass murderer went to Melbourne High
Scotch and Melbourne Grammar had their notorious drug wars a few years back.
Scotch just recently had an ex teacher arrested in the Philipines for being part of a paedophile ring
Trinity was a noted hedge burning school.
The biggest white collar criminals this state has ever known. Criminals that have damaged the lives of more people in this country causing some of their victims to commit suicide just with the stroke of a pen went to private schools. Remember Pyramid…Geelong grammar boys.
This air head tosser from Malvern Andrew Bolt hates his own audience. He has never been to Footscray probably never stopped in a working class suburb since his 30’s yet he was brought up in working class bush towns. He is a right wing snob an elitist.
Unless he is a totally different person at home to his public persona he will have a very difficult future with his kids as they grow mature and become educated. If he’s not genuine he will anyway.
I’m not defending Cerantonio he obviously has his own very real problems which sent him off to the fringe as well. His hypocrisy may have been revealed but there will always be somebody to follow him. I don’t know if he had a violent past, but the present finds a just a cheerleader much like Bolt. Murdoch gave Bolt his platform the Internet Cerantonio’s. They are different but the same and both need to be brought to the attention of section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act. Bolt of course wants it scrapped as it restricts him. There are all sorts of preachers in this country not everyone has Bolt’s platform. It makes him far more dangerous than Cerantonio.
olddogthoughts 