Bowen's grand plan to keep the refugees coming
The Left will destroy Australia any way they can
IMMIGRATION Minister Chris Bowen says Australia should increase its refugee intake by 50 per cent. Mr Bowen will propose at the Labor Party's national conference this weekend to increase Australia's resettlement of refugees from 13,750 to 20,000.
"I have had the view for some time that we could and should take more refugees," Mr Bowen told ABC Radio today. "It's an aspiration ... there's no timeline that I'm putting on it." "I just think it's very important that the Labor platform, which is after all a statement of broad objectives, has that objective in it for the first time."
Mr Bowen said Australia's refugees intake was the highest per person of any country in the world. "But that doesn't mean I don't think we can do more still," he said.
He said his proposal would make it clear that Labor's view was to take more refugees. "We want to give more people a life in Australia but we need to tackle the dangerous boats coming to Australia," Mr Bowen said. "Then we can have that conversation with the people of Australia to increase our refugee intake further."
Mr Bowen said the offshore processing of refugees had to be one of several measures to reduce the number of people jumping onto boats heading to Australia.
"Just increasing your refugee intake is not a deterrent to getting on a boat to come to Australia, but if it is part of a broader mix, which included offshore processing, that would be important," he said.
Labor abandoned a plan to put its bill to allow offshore processing of asylum seekers in Malaysia to a vote in October after it could not guarantee its passage through parliament.
The minister's proposal comes after Australian authorities intercepted a boat carrying more than 100 asylum seekers east of Christmas Island yesterday.
SOURCE
Queensland Parliament passes same-sex civil unions bill
I would have thought that sticking your dick up some other bloke's behind was an uncivil union
QUEENSLAND MPs have voted in favour of legalising same-sex civil unions during an historic night in Parliament. After almost four hours of debate Andrew Fraser's private member's bill was passed by a vote of 47 to 40
The bill, introduced by Deputy Premier Andrew Fraser, enables same-sex couples to register their union with the Queensland Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages.
The bill will grant same-sex couples the right to enter in to legally recognised civil unions. It prompted a strong reaction from gay rights, religious and family groups.
Labor MPs were allowed a conscience vote, but the Liberal National Party indicated it would vote en bloc against the bill.
Speaking in Parliament, Mr Fraser said it was 21 years to the day that Labor decriminalised homosexual activities in Queensland. And now he said, Labor could make history again to progress the rights of homosexuals.
"This bill merely but not meekly seeks to formally recognise relationships which have existed in Queensland for centuries," he told Parliament.
"It provides them with the opportunity to celebrate their commitment and their love for one another in a ceremony in front of friends and family, perhaps this is its most important feature."
Opposition legal affairs spokesman Jarrod Bleijie said Mr Fraser only introduced the bill to shore up the left vote and was rushing it through parliament before the election, due early next year.
He said the bill was only introduced on October 25 and there has not been enough time for community consultation.
"He (Mr Fraser) did it to stich up a Green preference deal," Mr Bleijie told Parliament. "This bill is nothing more than a stunt."
Mr Bleijie said more than 54 per cent of the final number of submissions to a legislative committee that examined the bill were received 17 days after the cut-off date. "That goes to the heart of the lack of consultation," he said. "We do not believe the people of Queensland have had the appropriate opportunities to raise their concerns."
He also said the bill was not a priority for Queenslanders, who are more concerned about cost of living pressures. "Civil partnerships is not on a priority list in the minds of Queenslanders," he said....
More here
ABC’s refugee, climate crutches getting wobbly
ON the two dominant political and cultural issues in this nation over the past decade, the ABC's extensive reporting has now been revealed as jaundiced and counter-productive.
Developments in the public debate have exposed the national broadcaster's misleading alarmism on global warming and handwringing over border protection. Its hyperbole on these issues has polarised public sentiment, made sensible political discussion more difficult, and created a backlash.
The very organisations it has relied upon for its ideological and factual ballast, the Labor Party on border protection; and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, have made dramatic corrections to adopt more rational, mainstream positions.
To search for climate change references in the ABC archives is to drown in a rising tide of fear and loathing. To say the public broadcaster has campaigned on climate is now uncontroversial; even its outgoing chairman Maurice Newman spoke about the extent of its "groupthink".
A careful study would keep a PhD candidate busy for a year or two but it is easy to sample some of the environment stories. You'll recognise the remorseless tone: "to avert a climate catastrophe, emissions must peak before 2020"; "the study blames climate change for the state of the reef"; "the planet has experienced the hottest start to a year on record"; "Australia's water-supply problems are only going to get worse"; "as temperatures rise, not only is the landscape copping the heat, but people are feeling the stress."
Thankfully, there is always some positive news: "Australia's top clothes designers have gone green, staging an environmentally friendly fashion show"; "farmers could be $3 billion richer if they tackle global warming"; "religious denominations joining hands, campaigning for action on climate change".
If it were just as easy to find rational debate and counter arguments on the ABC this would be fine. But in its coverage, to question extreme claims has been to be scoffed at, while an omnipresent Tim Flannery has been lauded as an honest broker.
When the ABC broadcast Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth there was plenty of attendant publicity, sympathetic coverage and acclaim. But when it broadcast another side of the debate, The Great Global Warming Swindle, the ABC issued a disclaimer and followed it with an interview and panel discussion, largely debunking the program.
Yet it was An Inconvenient Truth that was found by a British court to contain inconvenient errors, such as false claims about islands being evacuated and exaggerations about rising sea levels.
This year, there has been a reckoning of sorts for those who have been pushing the emotional and misleading lines.
With the IPCC exposed for failing to verify exaggerated claims such as the predictions of melting Himalayan glaciers, and Climategate email leaks revealing a culture of scientists cherry-picking and campaigning for their "cause" of global warming, what was once the orthodox view is now on the back foot.
This month's IPCC summary report on extreme weather events marks a dramatic recalibration of the way the science is presented. It highlights uncertainty in the modelling and predictions and cautions that decades of observations will be required to separate natural variability in weather and climate from that induced by our emissions.
The implications of this are quite simple for politicians and the media. It is time to drop the grandstanding.
As has always been clear, there is a variety of rational views on climate science and policy responses. We should expect a public broadcaster to foster an open-minded, informed and objective debate.
Given its silence on the latest Climategate leaks and its lack of curiosity about the environmental impact of Australia's carbon tax, this seems unlikely.
On border protection, the story is similar. The ABC has adopted a so-called compassionate position for more than a decade. Through emotional coverage on flagship current affairs programs like Lateline and The 7.30 Report, to its talk hosts on radio, and even its television drama and religious programming, its positioning has been clear.
It has strongly promoted those advocating an open-borders policy, opposing offshore processing and questioning mandatory detention. For much of the past decade the ABC has been able to portray this as a mainstream view because it has been supported, in the main, by the Labor Party.
The strong policies of the Howard government were denounced as hard-hearted and even racist, even though they stopped the flow of boats, emptied detention centres, and led to some centres being decommissioned.
When the Rudd government softened border protection laws and dismantled the Pacific Solution, there is now no argument that it triggered the re-emergence of the people-smuggling business. With upwards of 4000 people in detention, centres constructed in every state and more boats arriving, the government is switching to community detention because it can't cope with the flow.
Labor argued for two years that there was no connection between its actions and the new influx. It said asylum-seekers were thrust on Australia by global push factors, and that there was no such thing as a pull factor.
The ABC never seriously challenged this fallacious argument: "Prime minister Kevin Rudd says Australia is seeing the effects of a global spike in people smuggling"; "Government policy is the last thing on the minds of asylum-seekers when they are fleeing persecution."
But the Labor Party has abandoned this position. The horror of 50 people killed on the shores of Christmas Island forced the government to admit that the disincentive of offshore processing is necessary. Subsequent efforts to reinstate offshore processing through the East Timor and Malaysian solutions are a belated and welcome acceptance of error.
Now even senior members of the government privately express frustration at what they see as the relentless campaign by the ABC against their efforts.
Mugged by reality, the government is stuck combating the emotional media posturing it once fostered: "Human rights groups are calling on Prime Minister Julia Gillard to consider Australia's international obligations"; "Australia has appeared before a UN panel in Geneva accused of human rights violations"; "An independent UN expert says Australia's Christmas Island detention centre should be closed." Welcome to your ABC.
As with climate change, what has been needed over the past decade has been a reasoned debate, rather than special pleading, over asylum-seekers.
With annual public funding of more than a billion dollars, it is incumbent upon our ABC to tackle significant national policy debates with an appropriate sense of objectivity and detachment and to play its part in encouraging sober, evidence-based discussion and analysis.
SOURCE
Gillard Government rejects traffic light food labelling
HEALTH groups have reacted angrily after the Federal Government rejected traffic light food labelling.
The Gillard government reported back on 61 recommendations in an independent review of the nation's food labelling laws. Generic health warning labels on alcohol were also rejected, but it will be mandatory within two years to caution pregnant women against its dangers.
Fast food chains will have to declare kilojoule content on their menu boards, and the standard of health claims on foods will improve.
The Government said there wasn't enough evidence that traffic light labelling would be effective. The system uses traffic light colours - green, orange or red - to indicate whether the levels of fat, sugar and salt in a product are low, medium or high.
But Obesity Policy Coalition senior policy adviser Jane Martin accused the Government of bowing to food industry pressure and ignoring evidence that traffic light labelling helped people make healthy choices. "There is evidence it changes consumer behaviour in a real world situation," she said. "Traffic light labelling has been found to be the most effective scheme in helping people understand the nutritional content of food."
SOURCE
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Bowen's grand plan to keep the refugees coming
The Left will destroy Australia any way they can
IMMIGRATION Minister Chris Bowen says Australia should increase its refugee intake by 50 per cent. Mr Bowen will propose at the Labor Party's national conference this weekend to increase Australia's resettlement of refugees from 13,750 to 20,000.
"I have had the view for some time that we could and should take more refugees," Mr Bowen told ABC Radio today. "It's an aspiration ... there's no timeline that I'm putting on it." "I just think it's very important that the Labor platform, which is after all a statement of broad objectives, has that objective in it for the first time."
Mr Bowen said Australia's refugees intake was the highest per person of any country in the world. "But that doesn't mean I don't think we can do more still," he said.
He said his proposal would make it clear that Labor's view was to take more refugees. "We want to give more people a life in Australia but we need to tackle the dangerous boats coming to Australia," Mr Bowen said. "Then we can have that conversation with the people of Australia to increase our refugee intake further."
Mr Bowen said the offshore processing of refugees had to be one of several measures to reduce the number of people jumping onto boats heading to Australia.
"Just increasing your refugee intake is not a deterrent to getting on a boat to come to Australia, but if it is part of a broader mix, which included offshore processing, that would be important," he said.
Labor abandoned a plan to put its bill to allow offshore processing of asylum seekers in Malaysia to a vote in October after it could not guarantee its passage through parliament.
The minister's proposal comes after Australian authorities intercepted a boat carrying more than 100 asylum seekers east of Christmas Island yesterday.
SOURCE
Queensland Parliament passes same-sex civil unions bill
I would have thought that sticking your dick up some other bloke's behind was an uncivil union
QUEENSLAND MPs have voted in favour of legalising same-sex civil unions during an historic night in Parliament. After almost four hours of debate Andrew Fraser's private member's bill was passed by a vote of 47 to 40
The bill, introduced by Deputy Premier Andrew Fraser, enables same-sex couples to register their union with the Queensland Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages.
The bill will grant same-sex couples the right to enter in to legally recognised civil unions. It prompted a strong reaction from gay rights, religious and family groups.
Labor MPs were allowed a conscience vote, but the Liberal National Party indicated it would vote en bloc against the bill.
Speaking in Parliament, Mr Fraser said it was 21 years to the day that Labor decriminalised homosexual activities in Queensland. And now he said, Labor could make history again to progress the rights of homosexuals.
"This bill merely but not meekly seeks to formally recognise relationships which have existed in Queensland for centuries," he told Parliament.
"It provides them with the opportunity to celebrate their commitment and their love for one another in a ceremony in front of friends and family, perhaps this is its most important feature."
Opposition legal affairs spokesman Jarrod Bleijie said Mr Fraser only introduced the bill to shore up the left vote and was rushing it through parliament before the election, due early next year.
He said the bill was only introduced on October 25 and there has not been enough time for community consultation.
"He (Mr Fraser) did it to stich up a Green preference deal," Mr Bleijie told Parliament. "This bill is nothing more than a stunt."
Mr Bleijie said more than 54 per cent of the final number of submissions to a legislative committee that examined the bill were received 17 days after the cut-off date. "That goes to the heart of the lack of consultation," he said. "We do not believe the people of Queensland have had the appropriate opportunities to raise their concerns."
He also said the bill was not a priority for Queenslanders, who are more concerned about cost of living pressures. "Civil partnerships is not on a priority list in the minds of Queenslanders," he said....
More here
ABC’s refugee, climate crutches getting wobbly
ON the two dominant political and cultural issues in this nation over the past decade, the ABC's extensive reporting has now been revealed as jaundiced and counter-productive.
Developments in the public debate have exposed the national broadcaster's misleading alarmism on global warming and handwringing over border protection. Its hyperbole on these issues has polarised public sentiment, made sensible political discussion more difficult, and created a backlash.
The very organisations it has relied upon for its ideological and factual ballast, the Labor Party on border protection; and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, have made dramatic corrections to adopt more rational, mainstream positions.
To search for climate change references in the ABC archives is to drown in a rising tide of fear and loathing. To say the public broadcaster has campaigned on climate is now uncontroversial; even its outgoing chairman Maurice Newman spoke about the extent of its "groupthink".
A careful study would keep a PhD candidate busy for a year or two but it is easy to sample some of the environment stories. You'll recognise the remorseless tone: "to avert a climate catastrophe, emissions must peak before 2020"; "the study blames climate change for the state of the reef"; "the planet has experienced the hottest start to a year on record"; "Australia's water-supply problems are only going to get worse"; "as temperatures rise, not only is the landscape copping the heat, but people are feeling the stress."
Thankfully, there is always some positive news: "Australia's top clothes designers have gone green, staging an environmentally friendly fashion show"; "farmers could be $3 billion richer if they tackle global warming"; "religious denominations joining hands, campaigning for action on climate change".
If it were just as easy to find rational debate and counter arguments on the ABC this would be fine. But in its coverage, to question extreme claims has been to be scoffed at, while an omnipresent Tim Flannery has been lauded as an honest broker.
When the ABC broadcast Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth there was plenty of attendant publicity, sympathetic coverage and acclaim. But when it broadcast another side of the debate, The Great Global Warming Swindle, the ABC issued a disclaimer and followed it with an interview and panel discussion, largely debunking the program.
Yet it was An Inconvenient Truth that was found by a British court to contain inconvenient errors, such as false claims about islands being evacuated and exaggerations about rising sea levels.
This year, there has been a reckoning of sorts for those who have been pushing the emotional and misleading lines.
With the IPCC exposed for failing to verify exaggerated claims such as the predictions of melting Himalayan glaciers, and Climategate email leaks revealing a culture of scientists cherry-picking and campaigning for their "cause" of global warming, what was once the orthodox view is now on the back foot.
This month's IPCC summary report on extreme weather events marks a dramatic recalibration of the way the science is presented. It highlights uncertainty in the modelling and predictions and cautions that decades of observations will be required to separate natural variability in weather and climate from that induced by our emissions.
The implications of this are quite simple for politicians and the media. It is time to drop the grandstanding.
As has always been clear, there is a variety of rational views on climate science and policy responses. We should expect a public broadcaster to foster an open-minded, informed and objective debate.
Given its silence on the latest Climategate leaks and its lack of curiosity about the environmental impact of Australia's carbon tax, this seems unlikely.
On border protection, the story is similar. The ABC has adopted a so-called compassionate position for more than a decade. Through emotional coverage on flagship current affairs programs like Lateline and The 7.30 Report, to its talk hosts on radio, and even its television drama and religious programming, its positioning has been clear.
It has strongly promoted those advocating an open-borders policy, opposing offshore processing and questioning mandatory detention. For much of the past decade the ABC has been able to portray this as a mainstream view because it has been supported, in the main, by the Labor Party.
The strong policies of the Howard government were denounced as hard-hearted and even racist, even though they stopped the flow of boats, emptied detention centres, and led to some centres being decommissioned.
When the Rudd government softened border protection laws and dismantled the Pacific Solution, there is now no argument that it triggered the re-emergence of the people-smuggling business. With upwards of 4000 people in detention, centres constructed in every state and more boats arriving, the government is switching to community detention because it can't cope with the flow.
Labor argued for two years that there was no connection between its actions and the new influx. It said asylum-seekers were thrust on Australia by global push factors, and that there was no such thing as a pull factor.
The ABC never seriously challenged this fallacious argument: "Prime minister Kevin Rudd says Australia is seeing the effects of a global spike in people smuggling"; "Government policy is the last thing on the minds of asylum-seekers when they are fleeing persecution."
But the Labor Party has abandoned this position. The horror of 50 people killed on the shores of Christmas Island forced the government to admit that the disincentive of offshore processing is necessary. Subsequent efforts to reinstate offshore processing through the East Timor and Malaysian solutions are a belated and welcome acceptance of error.
Now even senior members of the government privately express frustration at what they see as the relentless campaign by the ABC against their efforts.
Mugged by reality, the government is stuck combating the emotional media posturing it once fostered: "Human rights groups are calling on Prime Minister Julia Gillard to consider Australia's international obligations"; "Australia has appeared before a UN panel in Geneva accused of human rights violations"; "An independent UN expert says Australia's Christmas Island detention centre should be closed." Welcome to your ABC.
As with climate change, what has been needed over the past decade has been a reasoned debate, rather than special pleading, over asylum-seekers.
With annual public funding of more than a billion dollars, it is incumbent upon our ABC to tackle significant national policy debates with an appropriate sense of objectivity and detachment and to play its part in encouraging sober, evidence-based discussion and analysis.
SOURCE
Gillard Government rejects traffic light food labelling
HEALTH groups have reacted angrily after the Federal Government rejected traffic light food labelling.
The Gillard government reported back on 61 recommendations in an independent review of the nation's food labelling laws. Generic health warning labels on alcohol were also rejected, but it will be mandatory within two years to caution pregnant women against its dangers.
Fast food chains will have to declare kilojoule content on their menu boards, and the standard of health claims on foods will improve.
The Government said there wasn't enough evidence that traffic light labelling would be effective. The system uses traffic light colours - green, orange or red - to indicate whether the levels of fat, sugar and salt in a product are low, medium or high.
But Obesity Policy Coalition senior policy adviser Jane Martin accused the Government of bowing to food industry pressure and ignoring evidence that traffic light labelling helped people make healthy choices. "There is evidence it changes consumer behaviour in a real world situation," she said. "Traffic light labelling has been found to be the most effective scheme in helping people understand the nutritional content of food."
SOURCE
The Left will destroy Australia any way they can
IMMIGRATION Minister Chris Bowen says Australia should increase its refugee intake by 50 per cent. Mr Bowen will propose at the Labor Party's national conference this weekend to increase Australia's resettlement of refugees from 13,750 to 20,000.
"I have had the view for some time that we could and should take more refugees," Mr Bowen told ABC Radio today. "It's an aspiration ... there's no timeline that I'm putting on it." "I just think it's very important that the Labor platform, which is after all a statement of broad objectives, has that objective in it for the first time."
Mr Bowen said Australia's refugees intake was the highest per person of any country in the world. "But that doesn't mean I don't think we can do more still," he said.
He said his proposal would make it clear that Labor's view was to take more refugees. "We want to give more people a life in Australia but we need to tackle the dangerous boats coming to Australia," Mr Bowen said. "Then we can have that conversation with the people of Australia to increase our refugee intake further."
Mr Bowen said the offshore processing of refugees had to be one of several measures to reduce the number of people jumping onto boats heading to Australia.
"Just increasing your refugee intake is not a deterrent to getting on a boat to come to Australia, but if it is part of a broader mix, which included offshore processing, that would be important," he said.
Labor abandoned a plan to put its bill to allow offshore processing of asylum seekers in Malaysia to a vote in October after it could not guarantee its passage through parliament.
The minister's proposal comes after Australian authorities intercepted a boat carrying more than 100 asylum seekers east of Christmas Island yesterday.
SOURCE
Queensland Parliament passes same-sex civil unions bill
I would have thought that sticking your dick up some other bloke's behind was an uncivil union
QUEENSLAND MPs have voted in favour of legalising same-sex civil unions during an historic night in Parliament. After almost four hours of debate Andrew Fraser's private member's bill was passed by a vote of 47 to 40
The bill, introduced by Deputy Premier Andrew Fraser, enables same-sex couples to register their union with the Queensland Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages.
The bill will grant same-sex couples the right to enter in to legally recognised civil unions. It prompted a strong reaction from gay rights, religious and family groups.
Labor MPs were allowed a conscience vote, but the Liberal National Party indicated it would vote en bloc against the bill.
Speaking in Parliament, Mr Fraser said it was 21 years to the day that Labor decriminalised homosexual activities in Queensland. And now he said, Labor could make history again to progress the rights of homosexuals.
"This bill merely but not meekly seeks to formally recognise relationships which have existed in Queensland for centuries," he told Parliament.
"It provides them with the opportunity to celebrate their commitment and their love for one another in a ceremony in front of friends and family, perhaps this is its most important feature."
Opposition legal affairs spokesman Jarrod Bleijie said Mr Fraser only introduced the bill to shore up the left vote and was rushing it through parliament before the election, due early next year.
He said the bill was only introduced on October 25 and there has not been enough time for community consultation.
"He (Mr Fraser) did it to stich up a Green preference deal," Mr Bleijie told Parliament. "This bill is nothing more than a stunt."
Mr Bleijie said more than 54 per cent of the final number of submissions to a legislative committee that examined the bill were received 17 days after the cut-off date. "That goes to the heart of the lack of consultation," he said. "We do not believe the people of Queensland have had the appropriate opportunities to raise their concerns."
He also said the bill was not a priority for Queenslanders, who are more concerned about cost of living pressures. "Civil partnerships is not on a priority list in the minds of Queenslanders," he said....
More here
ABC’s refugee, climate crutches getting wobbly
ON the two dominant political and cultural issues in this nation over the past decade, the ABC's extensive reporting has now been revealed as jaundiced and counter-productive.
Developments in the public debate have exposed the national broadcaster's misleading alarmism on global warming and handwringing over border protection. Its hyperbole on these issues has polarised public sentiment, made sensible political discussion more difficult, and created a backlash.
The very organisations it has relied upon for its ideological and factual ballast, the Labor Party on border protection; and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, have made dramatic corrections to adopt more rational, mainstream positions.
To search for climate change references in the ABC archives is to drown in a rising tide of fear and loathing. To say the public broadcaster has campaigned on climate is now uncontroversial; even its outgoing chairman Maurice Newman spoke about the extent of its "groupthink".
A careful study would keep a PhD candidate busy for a year or two but it is easy to sample some of the environment stories. You'll recognise the remorseless tone: "to avert a climate catastrophe, emissions must peak before 2020"; "the study blames climate change for the state of the reef"; "the planet has experienced the hottest start to a year on record"; "Australia's water-supply problems are only going to get worse"; "as temperatures rise, not only is the landscape copping the heat, but people are feeling the stress."
Thankfully, there is always some positive news: "Australia's top clothes designers have gone green, staging an environmentally friendly fashion show"; "farmers could be $3 billion richer if they tackle global warming"; "religious denominations joining hands, campaigning for action on climate change".
If it were just as easy to find rational debate and counter arguments on the ABC this would be fine. But in its coverage, to question extreme claims has been to be scoffed at, while an omnipresent Tim Flannery has been lauded as an honest broker.
When the ABC broadcast Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth there was plenty of attendant publicity, sympathetic coverage and acclaim. But when it broadcast another side of the debate, The Great Global Warming Swindle, the ABC issued a disclaimer and followed it with an interview and panel discussion, largely debunking the program.
Yet it was An Inconvenient Truth that was found by a British court to contain inconvenient errors, such as false claims about islands being evacuated and exaggerations about rising sea levels.
This year, there has been a reckoning of sorts for those who have been pushing the emotional and misleading lines.
With the IPCC exposed for failing to verify exaggerated claims such as the predictions of melting Himalayan glaciers, and Climategate email leaks revealing a culture of scientists cherry-picking and campaigning for their "cause" of global warming, what was once the orthodox view is now on the back foot.
This month's IPCC summary report on extreme weather events marks a dramatic recalibration of the way the science is presented. It highlights uncertainty in the modelling and predictions and cautions that decades of observations will be required to separate natural variability in weather and climate from that induced by our emissions.
The implications of this are quite simple for politicians and the media. It is time to drop the grandstanding.
As has always been clear, there is a variety of rational views on climate science and policy responses. We should expect a public broadcaster to foster an open-minded, informed and objective debate.
Given its silence on the latest Climategate leaks and its lack of curiosity about the environmental impact of Australia's carbon tax, this seems unlikely.
On border protection, the story is similar. The ABC has adopted a so-called compassionate position for more than a decade. Through emotional coverage on flagship current affairs programs like Lateline and The 7.30 Report, to its talk hosts on radio, and even its television drama and religious programming, its positioning has been clear.
It has strongly promoted those advocating an open-borders policy, opposing offshore processing and questioning mandatory detention. For much of the past decade the ABC has been able to portray this as a mainstream view because it has been supported, in the main, by the Labor Party.
The strong policies of the Howard government were denounced as hard-hearted and even racist, even though they stopped the flow of boats, emptied detention centres, and led to some centres being decommissioned.
When the Rudd government softened border protection laws and dismantled the Pacific Solution, there is now no argument that it triggered the re-emergence of the people-smuggling business. With upwards of 4000 people in detention, centres constructed in every state and more boats arriving, the government is switching to community detention because it can't cope with the flow.
Labor argued for two years that there was no connection between its actions and the new influx. It said asylum-seekers were thrust on Australia by global push factors, and that there was no such thing as a pull factor.
The ABC never seriously challenged this fallacious argument: "Prime minister Kevin Rudd says Australia is seeing the effects of a global spike in people smuggling"; "Government policy is the last thing on the minds of asylum-seekers when they are fleeing persecution."
But the Labor Party has abandoned this position. The horror of 50 people killed on the shores of Christmas Island forced the government to admit that the disincentive of offshore processing is necessary. Subsequent efforts to reinstate offshore processing through the East Timor and Malaysian solutions are a belated and welcome acceptance of error.
Now even senior members of the government privately express frustration at what they see as the relentless campaign by the ABC against their efforts.
Mugged by reality, the government is stuck combating the emotional media posturing it once fostered: "Human rights groups are calling on Prime Minister Julia Gillard to consider Australia's international obligations"; "Australia has appeared before a UN panel in Geneva accused of human rights violations"; "An independent UN expert says Australia's Christmas Island detention centre should be closed." Welcome to your ABC.
As with climate change, what has been needed over the past decade has been a reasoned debate, rather than special pleading, over asylum-seekers.
With annual public funding of more than a billion dollars, it is incumbent upon our ABC to tackle significant national policy debates with an appropriate sense of objectivity and detachment and to play its part in encouraging sober, evidence-based discussion and analysis.
SOURCE
Gillard Government rejects traffic light food labelling
HEALTH groups have reacted angrily after the Federal Government rejected traffic light food labelling.
The Gillard government reported back on 61 recommendations in an independent review of the nation's food labelling laws. Generic health warning labels on alcohol were also rejected, but it will be mandatory within two years to caution pregnant women against its dangers.
Fast food chains will have to declare kilojoule content on their menu boards, and the standard of health claims on foods will improve.
The Government said there wasn't enough evidence that traffic light labelling would be effective. The system uses traffic light colours - green, orange or red - to indicate whether the levels of fat, sugar and salt in a product are low, medium or high.
But Obesity Policy Coalition senior policy adviser Jane Martin accused the Government of bowing to food industry pressure and ignoring evidence that traffic light labelling helped people make healthy choices. "There is evidence it changes consumer behaviour in a real world situation," she said. "Traffic light labelling has been found to be the most effective scheme in helping people understand the nutritional content of food."
SOURCE
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Australian Islamic College bans Afro hairstyle
For disciplinary reasons it has long been held that schools have the right to set standards of dress and presentation for their pupils so I fail to see anything that this school did wrongly. I think the school was rather tolerant in putting up with it as long as they did, in fact. If it is good enough for Obama to keep his hair short, it should be good enough for this kid. And why does Obama keep his hair short? Because an Afro is widely seen as unattractive
IT was the fro that had to go - but the fuzz about this teenager's hairstyle has gone all the way to the Supreme Court as his father claims he was cut off from friends at the Islamic school even after he trimmed his afro.
Mazen Zraika is taking the Australian Islamic College in Rooty Hill to court over the treatment of his son Billal, 13, who was ordered away from the school earlier this year until he changed his afro hairstyle, The Daily Telegraph reported.
After six months of asking him to cut his hair, the Year 8 student and his parents were sent a letter in April advising them that he would be suspended from school until he cut his hair into a style that wasn't in breach of its appearance code. Principal Yasmin Gamieldien told the family the hairstyle was deemed a "mop" and needed to be cut shorter.
But Mr Zraika says Billal - who is of Lebanese and Ethiopian descent - was simply being punished for his natural hairstyle. "His mum Mary is Ethiopian so it's not his fault he's got the fuzzy hair," Mr Zraika said following the school's order.
"They said it's a mop hair- style but that's something Zac Efron has. "He doesn't have to style it or anything. When he gets out of the pool and shakes his head a few times it automatically comes back into shape."
Billal returned to classes following the Easter holiday break, but the family claim they were then sent another letter by staff saying he would be expelled if it wasn't cut within a week, while Billal was left sitting in the front office in "isolation" from his friends.
The teenager had a crew-cut in order to avoid expulsion, but the family claim that he was still forced into "isolation" and kept away from classmates while being told to "catch up" on schoolwork he'd missed.
SOURCE
University of Queensland warned of loss of donors over enrolment scandal
THE University of Queensland risked losing major philanthropic donations as long as it failed to deal with favouritism allegations, a leading Queensland solicitor said yesterday.
David Muir, chairman of the estate of former Lord Mayor Clem Jones and a partner in HWL Ebsworth, said there was disquiet in the business world about allegations of nepotism involving a family member of UQ vice-chancellor Paul Greenfield.
He said: "Vice-chancellor Paul Greenfield ... should resign but has elected to stay on as CEO for a further six months, without giving any explanation about why he should stay on, or detail about what actually happened. "What is the example to the staff and other academics in taking this course?"
Longreach-born Muir, who set up Crime Stoppers and was a long-time state president of Amnesty International, is a director of the Foodbank charity.
He deplored the lack of transparency. "The university is a big business, dependent upon in excess of $700 million of Commonwealth funding each year, as well as significant funding by philanthropists," Mr Muir said.
"Disquiet is developing among those who provide funding, in particular those who are concerned about accountability and transparency. Accountability and transparency are essential ingredients.
"Philanthropists are generally focused on outcomes and want to be able to measure success. "After all, many philanthropists have earnt their wealth through this approach and may be as demanding of those who receive their funds as they are of themselves."
Mr Muir said: "Funders of the university are among the most significant of stakeholders.
"Risk managers of major corporations in Australia recognise that any diminution of brand reputation may impact seriously on financial performance of the business. "In the modern information age, brand reputation can be lost more readily than in previous times. Brand reputation is vital because it is the catalyst for why people want to work for the business and why people are attracted to and want to support the business. "The culture of any major business is set by the chief executive officer.
"Those who give away money are usually concerned to ensure that they maximise the impact of their giving. Accountability and transparency are critical elements in demonstrating that the giving is the most impactful. Can they be confident that these values are being upheld at the University of Queensland?
"Competition for funding among universities is highly competitive. Large sums of money are at stake, particularly in regard to the fields of medical research. "It is in the hands of the University of Queensland to ease the disquiet that may be growing among the ranks of those who fund it.
"It is the way in which the CEO of a business responds to an 'irregularity', just as much as the 'irregularity' itself that is important. Most people will forgive mistakes. What is not forgiven is a denial or cover-up of a mistake.
"The University of Queensland is in command of its own culture and of its own message. It is not in command of its stakeholders and they may vote with their feet."
SOURCE
Julia Gillard hits families, but won't stop Gold Pass travel scheme for retired politicians
MOTHERS who give birth before September 1 will beat a $437 cut to the baby bonus being imposed by the Government to help deliver its promised Budget surplus.
Treasurer Wayne Swan yesterday said the bonus for stay-at-home parents would be cut from $5437 to $5000 and then be frozen for three years to save the Budget $358 million. There is no change to the paid parental leave scheme for working parents, worth about $590 a week before tax for up to 18 weeks.
The surprise cut to the baby bonus came as Mr Swan also said foreigners would pay more for visas and $2.1 billion worth of promised tax breaks, including incentives for savings, would be delayed.
The Government will take a $1.5 billion axe to the public service, which Finance Minister Penny Wong said would mean slashing travel, consultants, hospitality and advertising, but unions said could mean 3000 job losses.
Mr Swan unveiled net cuts to spending of $6.8 billion as he revealed a $15 billion blow-out in the deficit for this financial year to $37 billion due to Europe's financial turmoil causing "storm clouds on the global horizon" and weaker economic growth.
Mr Swan insisted the cuts were "fair and equitable" as he revealed the $3.5 billion surplus he announced six months ago for 2012-13 would be now just a wafer-thin $1.5 billion. Economists warned it could easily be wiped out.
The Treasurer rejected suggestions he had inflicted pain and brought forward some spending and delayed other outlays just to meet a political promise to deliver a surplus. He said it was important to send a message to the world that Australia had a strong economy
But, despite the pressure on the Budget, the Government made no change to the Gold Pass free travel scheme for retired politicians, although Special Minister of State Gary Gray said he wanted to scrap it because it was"an unjustifiable perk".
The Budget update revealed economic growth is tipped to be 3.25 per cent, down from the 4 per cent expected six months ago. The jobless rate is tipped to rise from 5.2 to 5.5 per cent.
Mr Swan said while unemployment would "tick up a little", it was much lower than the 9-10 per cent jobless rates in the US and Europe, and in Spain, where 50 per cent of young people were out of work.
Mr Swan was buoyed by ratings agency Fitch upgrading Australia to AAA, the same level as Moodys and Standard & Poor's.
He defended cutting the baby bonus, saying it had risen from $3000 just a few years ago and it was time to "reset" it to make the payment sustainable over time.
He said the change would not happen until September "so people clearly know what it is going to be in nine months' time".
The Government defended its record for families saying this year it had introduced paid parental leave, increased family benefits for parents with kids aged 16-19 and delivered more childcare assistance.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott attacked the change to the baby bonus. "This is a rip-off of the forgotten families of Australia. Let's not forget that the baby bonus is there to help stay-at-home mums and I think this is a Government which has never had much respect for the stay-at-home mums," he said.
Opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb accused the Government of creating an "illusory surplus". But the Opposition refused to say if it would oppose any of the cuts or announce what savings it would make to deliver its promises.
SOURCE
South Australian private schools six times safer for kids
PUBLIC school students are six times more likely to be assaulted than private school students.
Figures released through Freedom Of Information show there have been 2049 assaults (1 for every 81 students) reported to police in state government schools since 2006, compared to 195 (1 per 472 students) in non-government schools.
Last year, 65 assaults in government schools involved weapons, compared to seven in non-government schools.
The figures follow the vicious bashing of Hamilton Secondary College schoolboy Callan Wade last week. The 14-year-old was so badly bashed that his spleen was ruptured and he was treated at the Women's and Children's hospital intensive care unit.
Opposition Education spokesman David Pisoni said school safety had deteriorated to unacceptable levels under the Labor government.
He said the disparity between the number of assaults in public and private school proved the best results come when communities are allowed back into schools and principals are given the autonomy to decide what works best.
"Under Labor there has been a significant drift in the number of South Australian students choosing to attend non-government schools over government-run schools," Mr Pisoni said.
"A Liberal Government would tackle school violence head on by ensuring principals and school communities are adequately resourced to deal with bullying and violence."
The number of students attending private schools has increased 10 per cent in the past decade while public school numbers have decreased about five per cent.
Education Minister Grace Portolesi said every student and teacher had the right to go to school or work in a safe environment and the government would not tolerate people who acted in a violent or disorderly way.
"The drift from public to the private sector had slowed in the past two years and figures show government school enrolments have increased consecutively each year since 2008," she said.
SOURCE
For disciplinary reasons it has long been held that schools have the right to set standards of dress and presentation for their pupils so I fail to see anything that this school did wrongly. I think the school was rather tolerant in putting up with it as long as they did, in fact. If it is good enough for Obama to keep his hair short, it should be good enough for this kid. And why does Obama keep his hair short? Because an Afro is widely seen as unattractive
IT was the fro that had to go - but the fuzz about this teenager's hairstyle has gone all the way to the Supreme Court as his father claims he was cut off from friends at the Islamic school even after he trimmed his afro.
Mazen Zraika is taking the Australian Islamic College in Rooty Hill to court over the treatment of his son Billal, 13, who was ordered away from the school earlier this year until he changed his afro hairstyle, The Daily Telegraph reported.
After six months of asking him to cut his hair, the Year 8 student and his parents were sent a letter in April advising them that he would be suspended from school until he cut his hair into a style that wasn't in breach of its appearance code. Principal Yasmin Gamieldien told the family the hairstyle was deemed a "mop" and needed to be cut shorter.
But Mr Zraika says Billal - who is of Lebanese and Ethiopian descent - was simply being punished for his natural hairstyle. "His mum Mary is Ethiopian so it's not his fault he's got the fuzzy hair," Mr Zraika said following the school's order.
"They said it's a mop hair- style but that's something Zac Efron has. "He doesn't have to style it or anything. When he gets out of the pool and shakes his head a few times it automatically comes back into shape."
Billal returned to classes following the Easter holiday break, but the family claim they were then sent another letter by staff saying he would be expelled if it wasn't cut within a week, while Billal was left sitting in the front office in "isolation" from his friends.
The teenager had a crew-cut in order to avoid expulsion, but the family claim that he was still forced into "isolation" and kept away from classmates while being told to "catch up" on schoolwork he'd missed.
SOURCE
University of Queensland warned of loss of donors over enrolment scandal
THE University of Queensland risked losing major philanthropic donations as long as it failed to deal with favouritism allegations, a leading Queensland solicitor said yesterday.
David Muir, chairman of the estate of former Lord Mayor Clem Jones and a partner in HWL Ebsworth, said there was disquiet in the business world about allegations of nepotism involving a family member of UQ vice-chancellor Paul Greenfield.
He said: "Vice-chancellor Paul Greenfield ... should resign but has elected to stay on as CEO for a further six months, without giving any explanation about why he should stay on, or detail about what actually happened. "What is the example to the staff and other academics in taking this course?"
Longreach-born Muir, who set up Crime Stoppers and was a long-time state president of Amnesty International, is a director of the Foodbank charity.
He deplored the lack of transparency. "The university is a big business, dependent upon in excess of $700 million of Commonwealth funding each year, as well as significant funding by philanthropists," Mr Muir said.
"Disquiet is developing among those who provide funding, in particular those who are concerned about accountability and transparency. Accountability and transparency are essential ingredients.
"Philanthropists are generally focused on outcomes and want to be able to measure success. "After all, many philanthropists have earnt their wealth through this approach and may be as demanding of those who receive their funds as they are of themselves."
Mr Muir said: "Funders of the university are among the most significant of stakeholders.
"Risk managers of major corporations in Australia recognise that any diminution of brand reputation may impact seriously on financial performance of the business. "In the modern information age, brand reputation can be lost more readily than in previous times. Brand reputation is vital because it is the catalyst for why people want to work for the business and why people are attracted to and want to support the business. "The culture of any major business is set by the chief executive officer.
"Those who give away money are usually concerned to ensure that they maximise the impact of their giving. Accountability and transparency are critical elements in demonstrating that the giving is the most impactful. Can they be confident that these values are being upheld at the University of Queensland?
"Competition for funding among universities is highly competitive. Large sums of money are at stake, particularly in regard to the fields of medical research. "It is in the hands of the University of Queensland to ease the disquiet that may be growing among the ranks of those who fund it.
"It is the way in which the CEO of a business responds to an 'irregularity', just as much as the 'irregularity' itself that is important. Most people will forgive mistakes. What is not forgiven is a denial or cover-up of a mistake.
"The University of Queensland is in command of its own culture and of its own message. It is not in command of its stakeholders and they may vote with their feet."
SOURCE
Julia Gillard hits families, but won't stop Gold Pass travel scheme for retired politicians
MOTHERS who give birth before September 1 will beat a $437 cut to the baby bonus being imposed by the Government to help deliver its promised Budget surplus.
Treasurer Wayne Swan yesterday said the bonus for stay-at-home parents would be cut from $5437 to $5000 and then be frozen for three years to save the Budget $358 million. There is no change to the paid parental leave scheme for working parents, worth about $590 a week before tax for up to 18 weeks.
The surprise cut to the baby bonus came as Mr Swan also said foreigners would pay more for visas and $2.1 billion worth of promised tax breaks, including incentives for savings, would be delayed.
The Government will take a $1.5 billion axe to the public service, which Finance Minister Penny Wong said would mean slashing travel, consultants, hospitality and advertising, but unions said could mean 3000 job losses.
Mr Swan unveiled net cuts to spending of $6.8 billion as he revealed a $15 billion blow-out in the deficit for this financial year to $37 billion due to Europe's financial turmoil causing "storm clouds on the global horizon" and weaker economic growth.
Mr Swan insisted the cuts were "fair and equitable" as he revealed the $3.5 billion surplus he announced six months ago for 2012-13 would be now just a wafer-thin $1.5 billion. Economists warned it could easily be wiped out.
The Treasurer rejected suggestions he had inflicted pain and brought forward some spending and delayed other outlays just to meet a political promise to deliver a surplus. He said it was important to send a message to the world that Australia had a strong economy
But, despite the pressure on the Budget, the Government made no change to the Gold Pass free travel scheme for retired politicians, although Special Minister of State Gary Gray said he wanted to scrap it because it was"an unjustifiable perk".
The Budget update revealed economic growth is tipped to be 3.25 per cent, down from the 4 per cent expected six months ago. The jobless rate is tipped to rise from 5.2 to 5.5 per cent.
Mr Swan said while unemployment would "tick up a little", it was much lower than the 9-10 per cent jobless rates in the US and Europe, and in Spain, where 50 per cent of young people were out of work.
Mr Swan was buoyed by ratings agency Fitch upgrading Australia to AAA, the same level as Moodys and Standard & Poor's.
He defended cutting the baby bonus, saying it had risen from $3000 just a few years ago and it was time to "reset" it to make the payment sustainable over time.
He said the change would not happen until September "so people clearly know what it is going to be in nine months' time".
The Government defended its record for families saying this year it had introduced paid parental leave, increased family benefits for parents with kids aged 16-19 and delivered more childcare assistance.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott attacked the change to the baby bonus. "This is a rip-off of the forgotten families of Australia. Let's not forget that the baby bonus is there to help stay-at-home mums and I think this is a Government which has never had much respect for the stay-at-home mums," he said.
Opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb accused the Government of creating an "illusory surplus". But the Opposition refused to say if it would oppose any of the cuts or announce what savings it would make to deliver its promises.
SOURCE
South Australian private schools six times safer for kids
PUBLIC school students are six times more likely to be assaulted than private school students.
Figures released through Freedom Of Information show there have been 2049 assaults (1 for every 81 students) reported to police in state government schools since 2006, compared to 195 (1 per 472 students) in non-government schools.
Last year, 65 assaults in government schools involved weapons, compared to seven in non-government schools.
The figures follow the vicious bashing of Hamilton Secondary College schoolboy Callan Wade last week. The 14-year-old was so badly bashed that his spleen was ruptured and he was treated at the Women's and Children's hospital intensive care unit.
Opposition Education spokesman David Pisoni said school safety had deteriorated to unacceptable levels under the Labor government.
He said the disparity between the number of assaults in public and private school proved the best results come when communities are allowed back into schools and principals are given the autonomy to decide what works best.
"Under Labor there has been a significant drift in the number of South Australian students choosing to attend non-government schools over government-run schools," Mr Pisoni said.
"A Liberal Government would tackle school violence head on by ensuring principals and school communities are adequately resourced to deal with bullying and violence."
The number of students attending private schools has increased 10 per cent in the past decade while public school numbers have decreased about five per cent.
Education Minister Grace Portolesi said every student and teacher had the right to go to school or work in a safe environment and the government would not tolerate people who acted in a violent or disorderly way.
"The drift from public to the private sector had slowed in the past two years and figures show government school enrolments have increased consecutively each year since 2008," she said.
SOURCE
Australian Islamic College bans Afro hairstyle
For disciplinary reasons it has long been held that schools have the right to set standards of dress and presentation for their pupils so I fail to see anything that this school did wrongly. I think the school was rather tolerant in putting up with it as long as they did, in fact. If it is good enough for Obama to keep his hair short, it should be good enough for this kid. And why does Obama keep his hair short? Because an Afro is widely seen as unattractive
IT was the fro that had to go - but the fuzz about this teenager's hairstyle has gone all the way to the Supreme Court as his father claims he was cut off from friends at the Islamic school even after he trimmed his afro.
Mazen Zraika is taking the Australian Islamic College in Rooty Hill to court over the treatment of his son Billal, 13, who was ordered away from the school earlier this year until he changed his afro hairstyle, The Daily Telegraph reported.
After six months of asking him to cut his hair, the Year 8 student and his parents were sent a letter in April advising them that he would be suspended from school until he cut his hair into a style that wasn't in breach of its appearance code. Principal Yasmin Gamieldien told the family the hairstyle was deemed a "mop" and needed to be cut shorter.
But Mr Zraika says Billal - who is of Lebanese and Ethiopian descent - was simply being punished for his natural hairstyle. "His mum Mary is Ethiopian so it's not his fault he's got the fuzzy hair," Mr Zraika said following the school's order.
"They said it's a mop hair- style but that's something Zac Efron has. "He doesn't have to style it or anything. When he gets out of the pool and shakes his head a few times it automatically comes back into shape."
Billal returned to classes following the Easter holiday break, but the family claim they were then sent another letter by staff saying he would be expelled if it wasn't cut within a week, while Billal was left sitting in the front office in "isolation" from his friends.
The teenager had a crew-cut in order to avoid expulsion, but the family claim that he was still forced into "isolation" and kept away from classmates while being told to "catch up" on schoolwork he'd missed.
SOURCE
University of Queensland warned of loss of donors over enrolment scandal
THE University of Queensland risked losing major philanthropic donations as long as it failed to deal with favouritism allegations, a leading Queensland solicitor said yesterday.
David Muir, chairman of the estate of former Lord Mayor Clem Jones and a partner in HWL Ebsworth, said there was disquiet in the business world about allegations of nepotism involving a family member of UQ vice-chancellor Paul Greenfield.
He said: "Vice-chancellor Paul Greenfield ... should resign but has elected to stay on as CEO for a further six months, without giving any explanation about why he should stay on, or detail about what actually happened. "What is the example to the staff and other academics in taking this course?"
Longreach-born Muir, who set up Crime Stoppers and was a long-time state president of Amnesty International, is a director of the Foodbank charity.
He deplored the lack of transparency. "The university is a big business, dependent upon in excess of $700 million of Commonwealth funding each year, as well as significant funding by philanthropists," Mr Muir said.
"Disquiet is developing among those who provide funding, in particular those who are concerned about accountability and transparency. Accountability and transparency are essential ingredients.
"Philanthropists are generally focused on outcomes and want to be able to measure success. "After all, many philanthropists have earnt their wealth through this approach and may be as demanding of those who receive their funds as they are of themselves."
Mr Muir said: "Funders of the university are among the most significant of stakeholders.
"Risk managers of major corporations in Australia recognise that any diminution of brand reputation may impact seriously on financial performance of the business. "In the modern information age, brand reputation can be lost more readily than in previous times. Brand reputation is vital because it is the catalyst for why people want to work for the business and why people are attracted to and want to support the business. "The culture of any major business is set by the chief executive officer.
"Those who give away money are usually concerned to ensure that they maximise the impact of their giving. Accountability and transparency are critical elements in demonstrating that the giving is the most impactful. Can they be confident that these values are being upheld at the University of Queensland?
"Competition for funding among universities is highly competitive. Large sums of money are at stake, particularly in regard to the fields of medical research. "It is in the hands of the University of Queensland to ease the disquiet that may be growing among the ranks of those who fund it.
"It is the way in which the CEO of a business responds to an 'irregularity', just as much as the 'irregularity' itself that is important. Most people will forgive mistakes. What is not forgiven is a denial or cover-up of a mistake.
"The University of Queensland is in command of its own culture and of its own message. It is not in command of its stakeholders and they may vote with their feet."
SOURCE
Julia Gillard hits families, but won't stop Gold Pass travel scheme for retired politicians
MOTHERS who give birth before September 1 will beat a $437 cut to the baby bonus being imposed by the Government to help deliver its promised Budget surplus.
Treasurer Wayne Swan yesterday said the bonus for stay-at-home parents would be cut from $5437 to $5000 and then be frozen for three years to save the Budget $358 million. There is no change to the paid parental leave scheme for working parents, worth about $590 a week before tax for up to 18 weeks.
The surprise cut to the baby bonus came as Mr Swan also said foreigners would pay more for visas and $2.1 billion worth of promised tax breaks, including incentives for savings, would be delayed.
The Government will take a $1.5 billion axe to the public service, which Finance Minister Penny Wong said would mean slashing travel, consultants, hospitality and advertising, but unions said could mean 3000 job losses.
Mr Swan unveiled net cuts to spending of $6.8 billion as he revealed a $15 billion blow-out in the deficit for this financial year to $37 billion due to Europe's financial turmoil causing "storm clouds on the global horizon" and weaker economic growth.
Mr Swan insisted the cuts were "fair and equitable" as he revealed the $3.5 billion surplus he announced six months ago for 2012-13 would be now just a wafer-thin $1.5 billion. Economists warned it could easily be wiped out.
The Treasurer rejected suggestions he had inflicted pain and brought forward some spending and delayed other outlays just to meet a political promise to deliver a surplus. He said it was important to send a message to the world that Australia had a strong economy
But, despite the pressure on the Budget, the Government made no change to the Gold Pass free travel scheme for retired politicians, although Special Minister of State Gary Gray said he wanted to scrap it because it was"an unjustifiable perk".
The Budget update revealed economic growth is tipped to be 3.25 per cent, down from the 4 per cent expected six months ago. The jobless rate is tipped to rise from 5.2 to 5.5 per cent.
Mr Swan said while unemployment would "tick up a little", it was much lower than the 9-10 per cent jobless rates in the US and Europe, and in Spain, where 50 per cent of young people were out of work.
Mr Swan was buoyed by ratings agency Fitch upgrading Australia to AAA, the same level as Moodys and Standard & Poor's.
He defended cutting the baby bonus, saying it had risen from $3000 just a few years ago and it was time to "reset" it to make the payment sustainable over time.
He said the change would not happen until September "so people clearly know what it is going to be in nine months' time".
The Government defended its record for families saying this year it had introduced paid parental leave, increased family benefits for parents with kids aged 16-19 and delivered more childcare assistance.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott attacked the change to the baby bonus. "This is a rip-off of the forgotten families of Australia. Let's not forget that the baby bonus is there to help stay-at-home mums and I think this is a Government which has never had much respect for the stay-at-home mums," he said.
Opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb accused the Government of creating an "illusory surplus". But the Opposition refused to say if it would oppose any of the cuts or announce what savings it would make to deliver its promises.
SOURCE
South Australian private schools six times safer for kids
PUBLIC school students are six times more likely to be assaulted than private school students.
Figures released through Freedom Of Information show there have been 2049 assaults (1 for every 81 students) reported to police in state government schools since 2006, compared to 195 (1 per 472 students) in non-government schools.
Last year, 65 assaults in government schools involved weapons, compared to seven in non-government schools.
The figures follow the vicious bashing of Hamilton Secondary College schoolboy Callan Wade last week. The 14-year-old was so badly bashed that his spleen was ruptured and he was treated at the Women's and Children's hospital intensive care unit.
Opposition Education spokesman David Pisoni said school safety had deteriorated to unacceptable levels under the Labor government.
He said the disparity between the number of assaults in public and private school proved the best results come when communities are allowed back into schools and principals are given the autonomy to decide what works best.
"Under Labor there has been a significant drift in the number of South Australian students choosing to attend non-government schools over government-run schools," Mr Pisoni said.
"A Liberal Government would tackle school violence head on by ensuring principals and school communities are adequately resourced to deal with bullying and violence."
The number of students attending private schools has increased 10 per cent in the past decade while public school numbers have decreased about five per cent.
Education Minister Grace Portolesi said every student and teacher had the right to go to school or work in a safe environment and the government would not tolerate people who acted in a violent or disorderly way.
"The drift from public to the private sector had slowed in the past two years and figures show government school enrolments have increased consecutively each year since 2008," she said.
SOURCE
For disciplinary reasons it has long been held that schools have the right to set standards of dress and presentation for their pupils so I fail to see anything that this school did wrongly. I think the school was rather tolerant in putting up with it as long as they did, in fact. If it is good enough for Obama to keep his hair short, it should be good enough for this kid. And why does Obama keep his hair short? Because an Afro is widely seen as unattractive
IT was the fro that had to go - but the fuzz about this teenager's hairstyle has gone all the way to the Supreme Court as his father claims he was cut off from friends at the Islamic school even after he trimmed his afro.
Mazen Zraika is taking the Australian Islamic College in Rooty Hill to court over the treatment of his son Billal, 13, who was ordered away from the school earlier this year until he changed his afro hairstyle, The Daily Telegraph reported.
After six months of asking him to cut his hair, the Year 8 student and his parents were sent a letter in April advising them that he would be suspended from school until he cut his hair into a style that wasn't in breach of its appearance code. Principal Yasmin Gamieldien told the family the hairstyle was deemed a "mop" and needed to be cut shorter.
But Mr Zraika says Billal - who is of Lebanese and Ethiopian descent - was simply being punished for his natural hairstyle. "His mum Mary is Ethiopian so it's not his fault he's got the fuzzy hair," Mr Zraika said following the school's order.
"They said it's a mop hair- style but that's something Zac Efron has. "He doesn't have to style it or anything. When he gets out of the pool and shakes his head a few times it automatically comes back into shape."
Billal returned to classes following the Easter holiday break, but the family claim they were then sent another letter by staff saying he would be expelled if it wasn't cut within a week, while Billal was left sitting in the front office in "isolation" from his friends.
The teenager had a crew-cut in order to avoid expulsion, but the family claim that he was still forced into "isolation" and kept away from classmates while being told to "catch up" on schoolwork he'd missed.
SOURCE
University of Queensland warned of loss of donors over enrolment scandal
THE University of Queensland risked losing major philanthropic donations as long as it failed to deal with favouritism allegations, a leading Queensland solicitor said yesterday.
David Muir, chairman of the estate of former Lord Mayor Clem Jones and a partner in HWL Ebsworth, said there was disquiet in the business world about allegations of nepotism involving a family member of UQ vice-chancellor Paul Greenfield.
He said: "Vice-chancellor Paul Greenfield ... should resign but has elected to stay on as CEO for a further six months, without giving any explanation about why he should stay on, or detail about what actually happened. "What is the example to the staff and other academics in taking this course?"
Longreach-born Muir, who set up Crime Stoppers and was a long-time state president of Amnesty International, is a director of the Foodbank charity.
He deplored the lack of transparency. "The university is a big business, dependent upon in excess of $700 million of Commonwealth funding each year, as well as significant funding by philanthropists," Mr Muir said.
"Disquiet is developing among those who provide funding, in particular those who are concerned about accountability and transparency. Accountability and transparency are essential ingredients.
"Philanthropists are generally focused on outcomes and want to be able to measure success. "After all, many philanthropists have earnt their wealth through this approach and may be as demanding of those who receive their funds as they are of themselves."
Mr Muir said: "Funders of the university are among the most significant of stakeholders.
"Risk managers of major corporations in Australia recognise that any diminution of brand reputation may impact seriously on financial performance of the business. "In the modern information age, brand reputation can be lost more readily than in previous times. Brand reputation is vital because it is the catalyst for why people want to work for the business and why people are attracted to and want to support the business. "The culture of any major business is set by the chief executive officer.
"Those who give away money are usually concerned to ensure that they maximise the impact of their giving. Accountability and transparency are critical elements in demonstrating that the giving is the most impactful. Can they be confident that these values are being upheld at the University of Queensland?
"Competition for funding among universities is highly competitive. Large sums of money are at stake, particularly in regard to the fields of medical research. "It is in the hands of the University of Queensland to ease the disquiet that may be growing among the ranks of those who fund it.
"It is the way in which the CEO of a business responds to an 'irregularity', just as much as the 'irregularity' itself that is important. Most people will forgive mistakes. What is not forgiven is a denial or cover-up of a mistake.
"The University of Queensland is in command of its own culture and of its own message. It is not in command of its stakeholders and they may vote with their feet."
SOURCE
Julia Gillard hits families, but won't stop Gold Pass travel scheme for retired politicians
MOTHERS who give birth before September 1 will beat a $437 cut to the baby bonus being imposed by the Government to help deliver its promised Budget surplus.
Treasurer Wayne Swan yesterday said the bonus for stay-at-home parents would be cut from $5437 to $5000 and then be frozen for three years to save the Budget $358 million. There is no change to the paid parental leave scheme for working parents, worth about $590 a week before tax for up to 18 weeks.
The surprise cut to the baby bonus came as Mr Swan also said foreigners would pay more for visas and $2.1 billion worth of promised tax breaks, including incentives for savings, would be delayed.
The Government will take a $1.5 billion axe to the public service, which Finance Minister Penny Wong said would mean slashing travel, consultants, hospitality and advertising, but unions said could mean 3000 job losses.
Mr Swan unveiled net cuts to spending of $6.8 billion as he revealed a $15 billion blow-out in the deficit for this financial year to $37 billion due to Europe's financial turmoil causing "storm clouds on the global horizon" and weaker economic growth.
Mr Swan insisted the cuts were "fair and equitable" as he revealed the $3.5 billion surplus he announced six months ago for 2012-13 would be now just a wafer-thin $1.5 billion. Economists warned it could easily be wiped out.
The Treasurer rejected suggestions he had inflicted pain and brought forward some spending and delayed other outlays just to meet a political promise to deliver a surplus. He said it was important to send a message to the world that Australia had a strong economy
But, despite the pressure on the Budget, the Government made no change to the Gold Pass free travel scheme for retired politicians, although Special Minister of State Gary Gray said he wanted to scrap it because it was"an unjustifiable perk".
The Budget update revealed economic growth is tipped to be 3.25 per cent, down from the 4 per cent expected six months ago. The jobless rate is tipped to rise from 5.2 to 5.5 per cent.
Mr Swan said while unemployment would "tick up a little", it was much lower than the 9-10 per cent jobless rates in the US and Europe, and in Spain, where 50 per cent of young people were out of work.
Mr Swan was buoyed by ratings agency Fitch upgrading Australia to AAA, the same level as Moodys and Standard & Poor's.
He defended cutting the baby bonus, saying it had risen from $3000 just a few years ago and it was time to "reset" it to make the payment sustainable over time.
He said the change would not happen until September "so people clearly know what it is going to be in nine months' time".
The Government defended its record for families saying this year it had introduced paid parental leave, increased family benefits for parents with kids aged 16-19 and delivered more childcare assistance.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott attacked the change to the baby bonus. "This is a rip-off of the forgotten families of Australia. Let's not forget that the baby bonus is there to help stay-at-home mums and I think this is a Government which has never had much respect for the stay-at-home mums," he said.
Opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb accused the Government of creating an "illusory surplus". But the Opposition refused to say if it would oppose any of the cuts or announce what savings it would make to deliver its promises.
SOURCE
South Australian private schools six times safer for kids
PUBLIC school students are six times more likely to be assaulted than private school students.
Figures released through Freedom Of Information show there have been 2049 assaults (1 for every 81 students) reported to police in state government schools since 2006, compared to 195 (1 per 472 students) in non-government schools.
Last year, 65 assaults in government schools involved weapons, compared to seven in non-government schools.
The figures follow the vicious bashing of Hamilton Secondary College schoolboy Callan Wade last week. The 14-year-old was so badly bashed that his spleen was ruptured and he was treated at the Women's and Children's hospital intensive care unit.
Opposition Education spokesman David Pisoni said school safety had deteriorated to unacceptable levels under the Labor government.
He said the disparity between the number of assaults in public and private school proved the best results come when communities are allowed back into schools and principals are given the autonomy to decide what works best.
"Under Labor there has been a significant drift in the number of South Australian students choosing to attend non-government schools over government-run schools," Mr Pisoni said.
"A Liberal Government would tackle school violence head on by ensuring principals and school communities are adequately resourced to deal with bullying and violence."
The number of students attending private schools has increased 10 per cent in the past decade while public school numbers have decreased about five per cent.
Education Minister Grace Portolesi said every student and teacher had the right to go to school or work in a safe environment and the government would not tolerate people who acted in a violent or disorderly way.
"The drift from public to the private sector had slowed in the past two years and figures show government school enrolments have increased consecutively each year since 2008," she said.
SOURCE
Monday, November 28, 2011
Another discussion of JANT
I just discovered another discussion of JANT, by Walter Russell Mead - Faith Matters Sunday: The Jewish Discovery of Jesus. He doesn't, however, review it, because he hasn't gotten it yet from Amazon. I'll be curious to hear what he thinks of it once he has a chance to read the commentaries and essays.
And here's some more:
From the JPS Blog - Rachel Broder discusses the book.
Joe Winkler on Jewcy again mentions the book, but hasn't read it yet.
A discussion on Project Quinn by Jessica Youseffi.
A very nice review of the book at Ancient Hebrew Poetry (John Hobbins).
And here's some more:
From the JPS Blog - Rachel Broder discusses the book.
Joe Winkler on Jewcy again mentions the book, but hasn't read it yet.
A discussion on Project Quinn by Jessica Youseffi.
A very nice review of the book at Ancient Hebrew Poetry (John Hobbins).
Push to recognise 'pathological internet misuse' as a mental health disorder
This problem seems to be most pronounced in China, where there are "boot camps" to which children are sent to cure their "addiction". But because of the one-child policy, Chinese children are greatly indulged. So what we are seeing is no deficit in the child but a deficit in childrearing. Children who are not given limits from the beginning will tend to behave in self-indulgent ways
DISTRESSED families are flooding psychiatrists with pleas for help for children hooked on the internet. The condition known as "pathological internet misuse" is growing so rapidly among adolescents and young adults that it could soon be formally recognised as a mental health disorder.
International mental health experts are considering including "video game addiction and internet addiction" in the next edition of globally recognised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders "to encourage further study".
One Sydney mother said her 13-year-old son was so addicted to computer games he had attended school only intermittently over the past two years and violently resisted attempts to remove him from the screen. "He starts punching holes through the walls, throwing things around and threatening you ... all this has to do with the most addictive game, World of Warcraft," she said. [And the fact that he has been atrociously brought up -- "spoilt", to use a common term]
Parents have told of children as young as 10 being found asleep at their home computer when they are due to leave for school because they have been up much of the night playing video games such as Minecraft.
Australian mental health specialists believe formal recognition of internet addiction will put pressure on governments to make more treatment options available.
Sydney psychiatrist Philip Tam believes internet addiction should be classified as a disorder. Dr Tam, a leader in the field, said a website would be launched this week to help carers, families and counsellors "address the growing and complex problem of internet addiction".
The Network for Internet Investigation and Research in Australia will be run by specialists with a "common passion in assessing, treating, researching and educating the public and professionals" about internet addictions. " ... such conditions are complex in nature and often overlap with common mental health disorders," he said.
Jocelyn Brewer, a member of Philip Tam's expert group, said girls also could "become obsessed with Facebook". "There's a massive divide (between teachers and parents) in expertise about kids' use of technology," she said.
SOURCE
The University of Sydney Ranks 18th in the World for Arts and Humanities
As a graduate of the USyd Arts faculty I am rather pleased by this. There are a lot of universities in the world (7,000 in the USA alone by some estimates -- depending on what you call a university)
I thought it was pretty impressive in my day in the late 60s too. The philosophy school was particularly distinguished and I did study philosophy there. John Maze influenced me quite a lot -- as this paper shows
The University of Sydney is ranked 18th in the world in the field of arts and humanities, according to the most recent figures from Times Higher Education.
Three Australian institutions have made the top 20, led by Australian National University in Canberra. Ranked second in Australia is The University of Sydney, which has this year beaten out University of Melbourne, which came in at spot number 19.
The Times Education ranking system claims that their highest consideration factors when comparing universities are the learning environment, research and research influence (citations), innovation and international outlook.
Professor Duncan Ivison, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences says of the achievement "The Times Higher ranking for Arts and Humanities places our Faculty in the top 20 faculties of its kind in the world, which is a remarkable tribute to our staff and the extraordinary work they do as teachers and researchers."
"Although ranking exercises such as this must always be treated with care, over the past five years our Faculty has been consistently ranked in the top 25 faculties across a range of different measures, and that suggests we are clearly on the right track. There is still even more we want to achieve, but I am delighted the University of Sydney is now unquestionably seen to be one of the best places in the world for the humanities."
The University of Sydney overall was placed at number 58, therefore to be ranked 18th in the arts and humanities shows that this area is performing particularly strongly at Sydney.
SOURCE
European culture of entitlement is mercifully absent Down Under
Gerard Henderson
I am currently in Jerusalem, wondering whether I will be able to make it to London later this week. There is a public-sector strike scheduled for Britain tomorrow, which is expected to close schools and hospitals and there is talk of up to 12-hour delays in getting through immigration at Heathrow.
Britain certainly does not have the worst-performing economy in Europe. However, it is likely that there will be another recession in Britain next year - due primarily to the failure of the nations of continental Europe to resolve the problems caused by the euro zone crisis. Right now, Margaret Thatcher's decision not to take Britain into the European single currency in the 1980s looks better by the day.
At a time of economic downturn and rising unemployment, the public-sector unions have taken a decision to strike for better retirement benefits for their members, who already enjoy relatively secure employment.
Many private-sector workers, whose taxes finance public-sector employees, can only dream of the pension entitlements about which the public-sector unions are demonstrating. The culture of entitlement, which has had a devastating effect on the economies of many European nations, remains a fact in Britain.
Writing earlier this month in the London Telegraph about the crisis in Europe, Kevin Rudd asked: "How did Europe get into such a difficult situation?" The Foreign Minister's answer was direct and accurate. Namely "for years now, some European governments have been spending more than they earned and running up unsustainable levels of debt". He argued that "this has been manageable in the past because banks were willing to lend to governments and economic growth had been strong enough to keep the interest bill paid". However, the global financial crisis changed all that.
The concept of governments spending more than they obtain in revenue is common to social democratic and conservative administrations. Yet it is more a phenomenon of social democracy. For example, in Britain today the leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, and the shadow chancellor of the exchequer, Ed Balls, advocate greater spending and borrowing as the way of resolving current economic difficulties. The Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron, with the support of coalition partners the Liberal Democrats, advocates long-running cuts to government spending and a clampdown on schemes and benefits as an entry to lifelong welfare.
It seems that Rudd's position on economics has changed dramatically in recent times. When prime minister in February 2009, he wrote a widely quoted article in The Monthly titled "The Global Financial Crisis". Here Rudd maintained that the economic crisis "is the culmination of a 30-year domination of economic policy by a free-market ideology that has been variously called neo-liberalism, economic liberalism, economic fundamentalism, Thatcherism or the Washington Consensus".
Rudd went on to proclaim "the great neo-liberal experiment of the past 30 years has failed" and to advocate for social democracy. He wrote that "Labor, in the international tradition of social democracy, consistently argues for a central role for government in the regulation of markets and the provision of public goods".
Well, you can't have it both ways. In early 2009, Rudd argued the essential cause of the economic crisis was neo-liberalism, which is sometimes referred to as economic rationalism and is associated with expenditure restraint and debt reduction. In late 2011, Rudd argues that the essential cause of the economic crisis is deficit spending, funded by debt.
Australian politicians and senior bureaucrats cop a lot of criticism. Yet, a brief time in western Europe or the US serves as a reminder of how well Australia has been governed over the past three decades.
In the final years of Malcolm Fraser's government, John Howard commenced the first tentative step towards financial deregulation. The cause of economic reform was embraced by the Hawke and Keating governments between 1983 and 1996 and followed by Howard and Costello until 2007. When the global financial crisis arrived in 2008, the Australian economy was in good shape and Australia was not afflicted by overspending, funded by debt.
During his years as prime minister between December 1949 and January 1966, Robert Menzies was no economic reformer. But in the early 1950s, Menzies and his Coalition colleagues made a conscious decision not to take Australia down the road of from-cradle-to-grave social welfare.
Consequently, Australia never adopted the ethos of entitlement which still affects western Europe and parts of North America. It is this concept which has bankrupted so many governments and which explains the public-sector strikes scheduled for this week in Britain.
SOURCE
Growling grass frog cost $2.6 billion
A SMALL green frog could stop up to 66,000 houses being built and prevent $2.6 billion in development. A draft report on saving the growling grass frog has recommended the State Government declare 4400ha of the city's growth corridor off limits for developers.
Landowners say properties have been made worthless and question whether the frog is endangered.
The draft report calls for 200m no-go zones beside waterways in Melbourne's growth zones where the frogs are found.
Planning Minister Matthew Guy said he sympathised with developers, blaming an environmental agreement between the previous government and Canberra, which was adding thousands of dollars to the price of housing blocks.
"I don't know if it is endangered," he said. "All I know is it is a frog that is worth a lot of money in terms of land lots and is holding up a huge amount in our growth corridors and I question the arbitrary nature of some of the distances imposed by the Federal Government."
Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke said arrangements with the Victorian Government meant developments on Melbourne's fringe no longer needed individual assessments. "If the Victorian Government wishes to throw out the strategic assessment then we can go back to individual project assessments," he said. "This will increase the time it takes for approvals which will drive up the cost of housing."
Urban Development Institute of Australia chief executive Tony De Domenico said the frogs would drive the price of house blocks up by $5000 in some areas.
"We've been frustrated by growling grass frogs, bandicoots, legless lizards, mouthless moths, and the golden sun moth in particular," he said. "Some of these so-called endangered species are so endemic they are found everywhere."
SOURCE
This problem seems to be most pronounced in China, where there are "boot camps" to which children are sent to cure their "addiction". But because of the one-child policy, Chinese children are greatly indulged. So what we are seeing is no deficit in the child but a deficit in childrearing. Children who are not given limits from the beginning will tend to behave in self-indulgent ways
DISTRESSED families are flooding psychiatrists with pleas for help for children hooked on the internet. The condition known as "pathological internet misuse" is growing so rapidly among adolescents and young adults that it could soon be formally recognised as a mental health disorder.
International mental health experts are considering including "video game addiction and internet addiction" in the next edition of globally recognised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders "to encourage further study".
One Sydney mother said her 13-year-old son was so addicted to computer games he had attended school only intermittently over the past two years and violently resisted attempts to remove him from the screen. "He starts punching holes through the walls, throwing things around and threatening you ... all this has to do with the most addictive game, World of Warcraft," she said. [And the fact that he has been atrociously brought up -- "spoilt", to use a common term]
Parents have told of children as young as 10 being found asleep at their home computer when they are due to leave for school because they have been up much of the night playing video games such as Minecraft.
Australian mental health specialists believe formal recognition of internet addiction will put pressure on governments to make more treatment options available.
Sydney psychiatrist Philip Tam believes internet addiction should be classified as a disorder. Dr Tam, a leader in the field, said a website would be launched this week to help carers, families and counsellors "address the growing and complex problem of internet addiction".
The Network for Internet Investigation and Research in Australia will be run by specialists with a "common passion in assessing, treating, researching and educating the public and professionals" about internet addictions. " ... such conditions are complex in nature and often overlap with common mental health disorders," he said.
Jocelyn Brewer, a member of Philip Tam's expert group, said girls also could "become obsessed with Facebook". "There's a massive divide (between teachers and parents) in expertise about kids' use of technology," she said.
SOURCE
The University of Sydney Ranks 18th in the World for Arts and Humanities
As a graduate of the USyd Arts faculty I am rather pleased by this. There are a lot of universities in the world (7,000 in the USA alone by some estimates -- depending on what you call a university)
I thought it was pretty impressive in my day in the late 60s too. The philosophy school was particularly distinguished and I did study philosophy there. John Maze influenced me quite a lot -- as this paper shows
The University of Sydney is ranked 18th in the world in the field of arts and humanities, according to the most recent figures from Times Higher Education.
Three Australian institutions have made the top 20, led by Australian National University in Canberra. Ranked second in Australia is The University of Sydney, which has this year beaten out University of Melbourne, which came in at spot number 19.
The Times Education ranking system claims that their highest consideration factors when comparing universities are the learning environment, research and research influence (citations), innovation and international outlook.
Professor Duncan Ivison, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences says of the achievement "The Times Higher ranking for Arts and Humanities places our Faculty in the top 20 faculties of its kind in the world, which is a remarkable tribute to our staff and the extraordinary work they do as teachers and researchers."
"Although ranking exercises such as this must always be treated with care, over the past five years our Faculty has been consistently ranked in the top 25 faculties across a range of different measures, and that suggests we are clearly on the right track. There is still even more we want to achieve, but I am delighted the University of Sydney is now unquestionably seen to be one of the best places in the world for the humanities."
The University of Sydney overall was placed at number 58, therefore to be ranked 18th in the arts and humanities shows that this area is performing particularly strongly at Sydney.
SOURCE
European culture of entitlement is mercifully absent Down Under
Gerard Henderson
I am currently in Jerusalem, wondering whether I will be able to make it to London later this week. There is a public-sector strike scheduled for Britain tomorrow, which is expected to close schools and hospitals and there is talk of up to 12-hour delays in getting through immigration at Heathrow.
Britain certainly does not have the worst-performing economy in Europe. However, it is likely that there will be another recession in Britain next year - due primarily to the failure of the nations of continental Europe to resolve the problems caused by the euro zone crisis. Right now, Margaret Thatcher's decision not to take Britain into the European single currency in the 1980s looks better by the day.
At a time of economic downturn and rising unemployment, the public-sector unions have taken a decision to strike for better retirement benefits for their members, who already enjoy relatively secure employment.
Many private-sector workers, whose taxes finance public-sector employees, can only dream of the pension entitlements about which the public-sector unions are demonstrating. The culture of entitlement, which has had a devastating effect on the economies of many European nations, remains a fact in Britain.
Writing earlier this month in the London Telegraph about the crisis in Europe, Kevin Rudd asked: "How did Europe get into such a difficult situation?" The Foreign Minister's answer was direct and accurate. Namely "for years now, some European governments have been spending more than they earned and running up unsustainable levels of debt". He argued that "this has been manageable in the past because banks were willing to lend to governments and economic growth had been strong enough to keep the interest bill paid". However, the global financial crisis changed all that.
The concept of governments spending more than they obtain in revenue is common to social democratic and conservative administrations. Yet it is more a phenomenon of social democracy. For example, in Britain today the leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, and the shadow chancellor of the exchequer, Ed Balls, advocate greater spending and borrowing as the way of resolving current economic difficulties. The Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron, with the support of coalition partners the Liberal Democrats, advocates long-running cuts to government spending and a clampdown on schemes and benefits as an entry to lifelong welfare.
It seems that Rudd's position on economics has changed dramatically in recent times. When prime minister in February 2009, he wrote a widely quoted article in The Monthly titled "The Global Financial Crisis". Here Rudd maintained that the economic crisis "is the culmination of a 30-year domination of economic policy by a free-market ideology that has been variously called neo-liberalism, economic liberalism, economic fundamentalism, Thatcherism or the Washington Consensus".
Rudd went on to proclaim "the great neo-liberal experiment of the past 30 years has failed" and to advocate for social democracy. He wrote that "Labor, in the international tradition of social democracy, consistently argues for a central role for government in the regulation of markets and the provision of public goods".
Well, you can't have it both ways. In early 2009, Rudd argued the essential cause of the economic crisis was neo-liberalism, which is sometimes referred to as economic rationalism and is associated with expenditure restraint and debt reduction. In late 2011, Rudd argues that the essential cause of the economic crisis is deficit spending, funded by debt.
Australian politicians and senior bureaucrats cop a lot of criticism. Yet, a brief time in western Europe or the US serves as a reminder of how well Australia has been governed over the past three decades.
In the final years of Malcolm Fraser's government, John Howard commenced the first tentative step towards financial deregulation. The cause of economic reform was embraced by the Hawke and Keating governments between 1983 and 1996 and followed by Howard and Costello until 2007. When the global financial crisis arrived in 2008, the Australian economy was in good shape and Australia was not afflicted by overspending, funded by debt.
During his years as prime minister between December 1949 and January 1966, Robert Menzies was no economic reformer. But in the early 1950s, Menzies and his Coalition colleagues made a conscious decision not to take Australia down the road of from-cradle-to-grave social welfare.
Consequently, Australia never adopted the ethos of entitlement which still affects western Europe and parts of North America. It is this concept which has bankrupted so many governments and which explains the public-sector strikes scheduled for this week in Britain.
SOURCE
Growling grass frog cost $2.6 billion
A SMALL green frog could stop up to 66,000 houses being built and prevent $2.6 billion in development. A draft report on saving the growling grass frog has recommended the State Government declare 4400ha of the city's growth corridor off limits for developers.
Landowners say properties have been made worthless and question whether the frog is endangered.
The draft report calls for 200m no-go zones beside waterways in Melbourne's growth zones where the frogs are found.
Planning Minister Matthew Guy said he sympathised with developers, blaming an environmental agreement between the previous government and Canberra, which was adding thousands of dollars to the price of housing blocks.
"I don't know if it is endangered," he said. "All I know is it is a frog that is worth a lot of money in terms of land lots and is holding up a huge amount in our growth corridors and I question the arbitrary nature of some of the distances imposed by the Federal Government."
Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke said arrangements with the Victorian Government meant developments on Melbourne's fringe no longer needed individual assessments. "If the Victorian Government wishes to throw out the strategic assessment then we can go back to individual project assessments," he said. "This will increase the time it takes for approvals which will drive up the cost of housing."
Urban Development Institute of Australia chief executive Tony De Domenico said the frogs would drive the price of house blocks up by $5000 in some areas.
"We've been frustrated by growling grass frogs, bandicoots, legless lizards, mouthless moths, and the golden sun moth in particular," he said. "Some of these so-called endangered species are so endemic they are found everywhere."
SOURCE
Push to recognise 'pathological internet misuse' as a mental health disorder
This problem seems to be most pronounced in China, where there are "boot camps" to which children are sent to cure their "addiction". But because of the one-child policy, Chinese children are greatly indulged. So what we are seeing is no deficit in the child but a deficit in childrearing. Children who are not given limits from the beginning will tend to behave in self-indulgent ways
DISTRESSED families are flooding psychiatrists with pleas for help for children hooked on the internet. The condition known as "pathological internet misuse" is growing so rapidly among adolescents and young adults that it could soon be formally recognised as a mental health disorder.
International mental health experts are considering including "video game addiction and internet addiction" in the next edition of globally recognised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders "to encourage further study".
One Sydney mother said her 13-year-old son was so addicted to computer games he had attended school only intermittently over the past two years and violently resisted attempts to remove him from the screen. "He starts punching holes through the walls, throwing things around and threatening you ... all this has to do with the most addictive game, World of Warcraft," she said. [And the fact that he has been atrociously brought up -- "spoilt", to use a common term]
Parents have told of children as young as 10 being found asleep at their home computer when they are due to leave for school because they have been up much of the night playing video games such as Minecraft.
Australian mental health specialists believe formal recognition of internet addiction will put pressure on governments to make more treatment options available.
Sydney psychiatrist Philip Tam believes internet addiction should be classified as a disorder. Dr Tam, a leader in the field, said a website would be launched this week to help carers, families and counsellors "address the growing and complex problem of internet addiction".
The Network for Internet Investigation and Research in Australia will be run by specialists with a "common passion in assessing, treating, researching and educating the public and professionals" about internet addictions. " ... such conditions are complex in nature and often overlap with common mental health disorders," he said.
Jocelyn Brewer, a member of Philip Tam's expert group, said girls also could "become obsessed with Facebook". "There's a massive divide (between teachers and parents) in expertise about kids' use of technology," she said.
SOURCE
The University of Sydney Ranks 18th in the World for Arts and Humanities
As a graduate of the USyd Arts faculty I am rather pleased by this. There are a lot of universities in the world (7,000 in the USA alone by some estimates -- depending on what you call a university)
I thought it was pretty impressive in my day in the late 60s too. The philosophy school was particularly distinguished and I did study philosophy there. John Maze influenced me quite a lot -- as this paper shows
The University of Sydney is ranked 18th in the world in the field of arts and humanities, according to the most recent figures from Times Higher Education.
Three Australian institutions have made the top 20, led by Australian National University in Canberra. Ranked second in Australia is The University of Sydney, which has this year beaten out University of Melbourne, which came in at spot number 19.
The Times Education ranking system claims that their highest consideration factors when comparing universities are the learning environment, research and research influence (citations), innovation and international outlook.
Professor Duncan Ivison, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences says of the achievement "The Times Higher ranking for Arts and Humanities places our Faculty in the top 20 faculties of its kind in the world, which is a remarkable tribute to our staff and the extraordinary work they do as teachers and researchers."
"Although ranking exercises such as this must always be treated with care, over the past five years our Faculty has been consistently ranked in the top 25 faculties across a range of different measures, and that suggests we are clearly on the right track. There is still even more we want to achieve, but I am delighted the University of Sydney is now unquestionably seen to be one of the best places in the world for the humanities."
The University of Sydney overall was placed at number 58, therefore to be ranked 18th in the arts and humanities shows that this area is performing particularly strongly at Sydney.
SOURCE
European culture of entitlement is mercifully absent Down Under
Gerard Henderson
I am currently in Jerusalem, wondering whether I will be able to make it to London later this week. There is a public-sector strike scheduled for Britain tomorrow, which is expected to close schools and hospitals and there is talk of up to 12-hour delays in getting through immigration at Heathrow.
Britain certainly does not have the worst-performing economy in Europe. However, it is likely that there will be another recession in Britain next year - due primarily to the failure of the nations of continental Europe to resolve the problems caused by the euro zone crisis. Right now, Margaret Thatcher's decision not to take Britain into the European single currency in the 1980s looks better by the day.
At a time of economic downturn and rising unemployment, the public-sector unions have taken a decision to strike for better retirement benefits for their members, who already enjoy relatively secure employment.
Many private-sector workers, whose taxes finance public-sector employees, can only dream of the pension entitlements about which the public-sector unions are demonstrating. The culture of entitlement, which has had a devastating effect on the economies of many European nations, remains a fact in Britain.
Writing earlier this month in the London Telegraph about the crisis in Europe, Kevin Rudd asked: "How did Europe get into such a difficult situation?" The Foreign Minister's answer was direct and accurate. Namely "for years now, some European governments have been spending more than they earned and running up unsustainable levels of debt". He argued that "this has been manageable in the past because banks were willing to lend to governments and economic growth had been strong enough to keep the interest bill paid". However, the global financial crisis changed all that.
The concept of governments spending more than they obtain in revenue is common to social democratic and conservative administrations. Yet it is more a phenomenon of social democracy. For example, in Britain today the leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, and the shadow chancellor of the exchequer, Ed Balls, advocate greater spending and borrowing as the way of resolving current economic difficulties. The Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron, with the support of coalition partners the Liberal Democrats, advocates long-running cuts to government spending and a clampdown on schemes and benefits as an entry to lifelong welfare.
It seems that Rudd's position on economics has changed dramatically in recent times. When prime minister in February 2009, he wrote a widely quoted article in The Monthly titled "The Global Financial Crisis". Here Rudd maintained that the economic crisis "is the culmination of a 30-year domination of economic policy by a free-market ideology that has been variously called neo-liberalism, economic liberalism, economic fundamentalism, Thatcherism or the Washington Consensus".
Rudd went on to proclaim "the great neo-liberal experiment of the past 30 years has failed" and to advocate for social democracy. He wrote that "Labor, in the international tradition of social democracy, consistently argues for a central role for government in the regulation of markets and the provision of public goods".
Well, you can't have it both ways. In early 2009, Rudd argued the essential cause of the economic crisis was neo-liberalism, which is sometimes referred to as economic rationalism and is associated with expenditure restraint and debt reduction. In late 2011, Rudd argues that the essential cause of the economic crisis is deficit spending, funded by debt.
Australian politicians and senior bureaucrats cop a lot of criticism. Yet, a brief time in western Europe or the US serves as a reminder of how well Australia has been governed over the past three decades.
In the final years of Malcolm Fraser's government, John Howard commenced the first tentative step towards financial deregulation. The cause of economic reform was embraced by the Hawke and Keating governments between 1983 and 1996 and followed by Howard and Costello until 2007. When the global financial crisis arrived in 2008, the Australian economy was in good shape and Australia was not afflicted by overspending, funded by debt.
During his years as prime minister between December 1949 and January 1966, Robert Menzies was no economic reformer. But in the early 1950s, Menzies and his Coalition colleagues made a conscious decision not to take Australia down the road of from-cradle-to-grave social welfare.
Consequently, Australia never adopted the ethos of entitlement which still affects western Europe and parts of North America. It is this concept which has bankrupted so many governments and which explains the public-sector strikes scheduled for this week in Britain.
SOURCE
Growling grass frog cost $2.6 billion
A SMALL green frog could stop up to 66,000 houses being built and prevent $2.6 billion in development. A draft report on saving the growling grass frog has recommended the State Government declare 4400ha of the city's growth corridor off limits for developers.
Landowners say properties have been made worthless and question whether the frog is endangered.
The draft report calls for 200m no-go zones beside waterways in Melbourne's growth zones where the frogs are found.
Planning Minister Matthew Guy said he sympathised with developers, blaming an environmental agreement between the previous government and Canberra, which was adding thousands of dollars to the price of housing blocks.
"I don't know if it is endangered," he said. "All I know is it is a frog that is worth a lot of money in terms of land lots and is holding up a huge amount in our growth corridors and I question the arbitrary nature of some of the distances imposed by the Federal Government."
Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke said arrangements with the Victorian Government meant developments on Melbourne's fringe no longer needed individual assessments. "If the Victorian Government wishes to throw out the strategic assessment then we can go back to individual project assessments," he said. "This will increase the time it takes for approvals which will drive up the cost of housing."
Urban Development Institute of Australia chief executive Tony De Domenico said the frogs would drive the price of house blocks up by $5000 in some areas.
"We've been frustrated by growling grass frogs, bandicoots, legless lizards, mouthless moths, and the golden sun moth in particular," he said. "Some of these so-called endangered species are so endemic they are found everywhere."
SOURCE
This problem seems to be most pronounced in China, where there are "boot camps" to which children are sent to cure their "addiction". But because of the one-child policy, Chinese children are greatly indulged. So what we are seeing is no deficit in the child but a deficit in childrearing. Children who are not given limits from the beginning will tend to behave in self-indulgent ways
DISTRESSED families are flooding psychiatrists with pleas for help for children hooked on the internet. The condition known as "pathological internet misuse" is growing so rapidly among adolescents and young adults that it could soon be formally recognised as a mental health disorder.
International mental health experts are considering including "video game addiction and internet addiction" in the next edition of globally recognised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders "to encourage further study".
One Sydney mother said her 13-year-old son was so addicted to computer games he had attended school only intermittently over the past two years and violently resisted attempts to remove him from the screen. "He starts punching holes through the walls, throwing things around and threatening you ... all this has to do with the most addictive game, World of Warcraft," she said. [And the fact that he has been atrociously brought up -- "spoilt", to use a common term]
Parents have told of children as young as 10 being found asleep at their home computer when they are due to leave for school because they have been up much of the night playing video games such as Minecraft.
Australian mental health specialists believe formal recognition of internet addiction will put pressure on governments to make more treatment options available.
Sydney psychiatrist Philip Tam believes internet addiction should be classified as a disorder. Dr Tam, a leader in the field, said a website would be launched this week to help carers, families and counsellors "address the growing and complex problem of internet addiction".
The Network for Internet Investigation and Research in Australia will be run by specialists with a "common passion in assessing, treating, researching and educating the public and professionals" about internet addictions. " ... such conditions are complex in nature and often overlap with common mental health disorders," he said.
Jocelyn Brewer, a member of Philip Tam's expert group, said girls also could "become obsessed with Facebook". "There's a massive divide (between teachers and parents) in expertise about kids' use of technology," she said.
SOURCE
The University of Sydney Ranks 18th in the World for Arts and Humanities
As a graduate of the USyd Arts faculty I am rather pleased by this. There are a lot of universities in the world (7,000 in the USA alone by some estimates -- depending on what you call a university)
I thought it was pretty impressive in my day in the late 60s too. The philosophy school was particularly distinguished and I did study philosophy there. John Maze influenced me quite a lot -- as this paper shows
The University of Sydney is ranked 18th in the world in the field of arts and humanities, according to the most recent figures from Times Higher Education.
Three Australian institutions have made the top 20, led by Australian National University in Canberra. Ranked second in Australia is The University of Sydney, which has this year beaten out University of Melbourne, which came in at spot number 19.
The Times Education ranking system claims that their highest consideration factors when comparing universities are the learning environment, research and research influence (citations), innovation and international outlook.
Professor Duncan Ivison, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences says of the achievement "The Times Higher ranking for Arts and Humanities places our Faculty in the top 20 faculties of its kind in the world, which is a remarkable tribute to our staff and the extraordinary work they do as teachers and researchers."
"Although ranking exercises such as this must always be treated with care, over the past five years our Faculty has been consistently ranked in the top 25 faculties across a range of different measures, and that suggests we are clearly on the right track. There is still even more we want to achieve, but I am delighted the University of Sydney is now unquestionably seen to be one of the best places in the world for the humanities."
The University of Sydney overall was placed at number 58, therefore to be ranked 18th in the arts and humanities shows that this area is performing particularly strongly at Sydney.
SOURCE
European culture of entitlement is mercifully absent Down Under
Gerard Henderson
I am currently in Jerusalem, wondering whether I will be able to make it to London later this week. There is a public-sector strike scheduled for Britain tomorrow, which is expected to close schools and hospitals and there is talk of up to 12-hour delays in getting through immigration at Heathrow.
Britain certainly does not have the worst-performing economy in Europe. However, it is likely that there will be another recession in Britain next year - due primarily to the failure of the nations of continental Europe to resolve the problems caused by the euro zone crisis. Right now, Margaret Thatcher's decision not to take Britain into the European single currency in the 1980s looks better by the day.
At a time of economic downturn and rising unemployment, the public-sector unions have taken a decision to strike for better retirement benefits for their members, who already enjoy relatively secure employment.
Many private-sector workers, whose taxes finance public-sector employees, can only dream of the pension entitlements about which the public-sector unions are demonstrating. The culture of entitlement, which has had a devastating effect on the economies of many European nations, remains a fact in Britain.
Writing earlier this month in the London Telegraph about the crisis in Europe, Kevin Rudd asked: "How did Europe get into such a difficult situation?" The Foreign Minister's answer was direct and accurate. Namely "for years now, some European governments have been spending more than they earned and running up unsustainable levels of debt". He argued that "this has been manageable in the past because banks were willing to lend to governments and economic growth had been strong enough to keep the interest bill paid". However, the global financial crisis changed all that.
The concept of governments spending more than they obtain in revenue is common to social democratic and conservative administrations. Yet it is more a phenomenon of social democracy. For example, in Britain today the leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, and the shadow chancellor of the exchequer, Ed Balls, advocate greater spending and borrowing as the way of resolving current economic difficulties. The Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron, with the support of coalition partners the Liberal Democrats, advocates long-running cuts to government spending and a clampdown on schemes and benefits as an entry to lifelong welfare.
It seems that Rudd's position on economics has changed dramatically in recent times. When prime minister in February 2009, he wrote a widely quoted article in The Monthly titled "The Global Financial Crisis". Here Rudd maintained that the economic crisis "is the culmination of a 30-year domination of economic policy by a free-market ideology that has been variously called neo-liberalism, economic liberalism, economic fundamentalism, Thatcherism or the Washington Consensus".
Rudd went on to proclaim "the great neo-liberal experiment of the past 30 years has failed" and to advocate for social democracy. He wrote that "Labor, in the international tradition of social democracy, consistently argues for a central role for government in the regulation of markets and the provision of public goods".
Well, you can't have it both ways. In early 2009, Rudd argued the essential cause of the economic crisis was neo-liberalism, which is sometimes referred to as economic rationalism and is associated with expenditure restraint and debt reduction. In late 2011, Rudd argues that the essential cause of the economic crisis is deficit spending, funded by debt.
Australian politicians and senior bureaucrats cop a lot of criticism. Yet, a brief time in western Europe or the US serves as a reminder of how well Australia has been governed over the past three decades.
In the final years of Malcolm Fraser's government, John Howard commenced the first tentative step towards financial deregulation. The cause of economic reform was embraced by the Hawke and Keating governments between 1983 and 1996 and followed by Howard and Costello until 2007. When the global financial crisis arrived in 2008, the Australian economy was in good shape and Australia was not afflicted by overspending, funded by debt.
During his years as prime minister between December 1949 and January 1966, Robert Menzies was no economic reformer. But in the early 1950s, Menzies and his Coalition colleagues made a conscious decision not to take Australia down the road of from-cradle-to-grave social welfare.
Consequently, Australia never adopted the ethos of entitlement which still affects western Europe and parts of North America. It is this concept which has bankrupted so many governments and which explains the public-sector strikes scheduled for this week in Britain.
SOURCE
Growling grass frog cost $2.6 billion
A SMALL green frog could stop up to 66,000 houses being built and prevent $2.6 billion in development. A draft report on saving the growling grass frog has recommended the State Government declare 4400ha of the city's growth corridor off limits for developers.
Landowners say properties have been made worthless and question whether the frog is endangered.
The draft report calls for 200m no-go zones beside waterways in Melbourne's growth zones where the frogs are found.
Planning Minister Matthew Guy said he sympathised with developers, blaming an environmental agreement between the previous government and Canberra, which was adding thousands of dollars to the price of housing blocks.
"I don't know if it is endangered," he said. "All I know is it is a frog that is worth a lot of money in terms of land lots and is holding up a huge amount in our growth corridors and I question the arbitrary nature of some of the distances imposed by the Federal Government."
Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke said arrangements with the Victorian Government meant developments on Melbourne's fringe no longer needed individual assessments. "If the Victorian Government wishes to throw out the strategic assessment then we can go back to individual project assessments," he said. "This will increase the time it takes for approvals which will drive up the cost of housing."
Urban Development Institute of Australia chief executive Tony De Domenico said the frogs would drive the price of house blocks up by $5000 in some areas.
"We've been frustrated by growling grass frogs, bandicoots, legless lizards, mouthless moths, and the golden sun moth in particular," he said. "Some of these so-called endangered species are so endemic they are found everywhere."
SOURCE
Sunday, November 27, 2011
DNA proves man is not child's father, mother must pay back nearly $13k
A WOMAN has been ordered to pay her former husband almost $13,000 in child support after DNA tests confirmed he was not the father of her 14-year-old son.
The man - who once caught his wife in a compromising position with a neighbour - secretly took the boy for a DNA test after his own mother raised doubts about the boy's parentage from the time he was four. "(X) is looking less and less like you. There is nothing similar, not even his ears or toes or fingers," the man's mother said.
The couple began living together in their late 20s and married in 1984. The boy was born in 1995 and still believes the man is his father. "For him, this has been an unfortunate situation not of his own making," Federal Magistrate Stephen Scarlett said in his ruling.
"In January 2009, the parties separated and the person whom the child thought was his father moved out of the matrimonial home. Less than a year and a half later, the child's father figure no longer has anything to do with him. "Effectively, he is now without a father, through no fault of his own. From the child's point of view, his father (as he thought) has rejected him, for no apparent reason.
"The applicant's desire to find out the truth about the child's paternity will result in a financial benefit to him, at the expense of collateral damage to the child."
The couple divorced in 2010, but the father continued paying for the boy's overseas holidays, school fees and $700 a month in child support. Now the court has ordered the women to pay the man $12,969.
The man has had no contact with the boy he believed was his son since the DNA tests confirmed he was not the father. The woman must repay the child support as well as $4038 in court costs within 12 months.
SOURCE
Federal Government to hand out $550 million to keep Queensland children at school
Poor families get a chance at bigger handouts
ALMOST $550 million will be set aside by the Federal Government to lure Queensland parents into keeping their children in school until Year 12.
New figures reveal that parents of more than 137,700 Queensland teenagers will qualify for a $4000 average payment to stop their kids dropping out of school.
The cash carrot is aimed at arresting the alarming rate of dropouts nationally, with 630,000 teens eligible across the country.
Premier Anna Bligh said last month Queensland's retention rate was higher than the national average of 78.5 per cent.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard today will urge parents to take up the offer when it kicks in on January 1, in the interests of their children's education and future employment prospects.
"There's only one place for kids to be and that's in school," she said. "My message is clear. Stay in school. When you leave school for the summer break, don't say long goodbyes. Come back next year and finish your education. It will open doors and give you a big leg-up in life."
The payments, a key election promise of Ms Gillard, will be offered to parents of 16 to 19-year-old teenagers across the state, in the form of an income tested boost to existing Family Tax Benefit A. The students would have to stay in full-time secondary school study or a vocational equivalent such as a TAFE course.
New research suggests the cost of keeping older teenagers in school is 30-40 per cent higher than younger students, yet the current family tax payments wind down by more than 70 per cent after children turn 16.
Currently, the maximum FTB A payments drop by almost 70 per cent when students turn 16, with the highest bracket dropping from up to $6300 to about $2000.
The Prime Minister said the extra money would help struggling families keep their children in school which, in turn, would help them get better jobs and higher incomes. "This will be a big help to those families under financial pressure, who are finding it hard to support older teenagers to stay at school or in training," Ms Gillard said. "It's not right that at the moment, families get less money when their kids turn 16. We're turning that around."
The $4000 boost would help families cope with the extra costs of keeping their older teenagers in school.
The maximum rate of FTB A for 16-17 year-olds in secondary school would be increased by $4208 and for 18-19 year-olds in school, by $3741 a year.
SOURCE
Plan for world's biggest marine park in Coral Sea will prove costly
PLANS to protect the Coral Sea as the world's biggest marine park will cost taxpayers a billion-dollar buyout, deep-sea fishing industry figures warn.
Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke yesterday unveiled draft plans for the Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve covering nearly 1 million square kilometres of ocean, nearly half the size of Queensland.
Great Barrier Reef Tuna owner Bob Lamason, who has four of 15 long-line tuna boats operating in the Coral Sea, said the proposal spelled the end of his multimillion-dollar family business. "We'll be left with nothing," said the veteran skipper, who sends 700 tonnes of fish to market every year. "They'll have to pay us all out - a complete buyout of licences, boats and business - or we face death by a thousand cuts."
Mr Burke said the Coral Sea had a diverse array of coral reefs, sandy cays, deep sea plains and canyons with more than 20 outstanding examples of isolated tropical reefs.
Some fish species found in the Coral Sea - from the Torres Strait to Bundaberg and between 60km and 1100km offshore - were under pressure from over-fishing and habitat degradation.
Greens environment spokeswoman Larissa Waters said the draft plan did not go far enough. "Of the handful of commercial fishers operating in the Coral Sea, most are willing to be bought out," she said. "And the Greens will push in our Budget negotiations with Government for appropriate compensation to end commercial fishing and create one large, protected area."
Senator Waters said the Greens welcomed the proposed ban on oil and gas mining, sea bed trawling and gillnet fishing.
Australian Marine Conservation Society spokesman Darren Kindleysides said only the eastern half of the Reef had been set aside while the western half contained most of the species-rich coral reefs and critical spawning sites for black marlin and threatened tuna.
Cairns and Far North Environment Centre spokesman Steve Ryan said many Coral Sea jewels were unprotected.
Queensland Seafood Industry Association president Geoff Tilton said the fishing ban would hurt fishermen and consumers.
SOURCE
NSW government caves in to featherbedded unionists
It’s business as usual at Sydney Ferries. Unions have managed to secure a cosy little deal with the government. Along with 3.25% annual wage increases for the next two years, workers will receive a once-off bonus payment of 30 weeks pay simply for taking a job with the soon-to-be private ferry operator. All financed of course by the NSW taxpayer.
A month ago I released a paper arguing that the franchise reform planned for Sydney Ferries will not create any meaningful change for Sydney’s taxpayers. I argued that whilst there may be a lot of talk about improvement and value for taxpayers, there will be no competition, no reduction in subsidies, and no incentive to increase productivity. The controls, the restrictions and the wasted tax dollars will all continue, only under the guise of reform and privatisation.
At the time I wrote the paper, all the hallmarks of union abuse were there – inflexible work practices, low productivity, generous pay and benefits, and abuse of sick leave and other penalties. I was hopeful that even if new management could not solve the structural problems of monopoly and subsidy, perhaps they could solve these cultural problems and increase productivity.
If these recent events are anything to go by, it looks like the unions are set to transfer their old obstructive, rent-seeking behaviours to the new operator and the government have acquiesced to it.
So what was happening in the private market while the workers were off the job securing their juicy accord? The two private fast-ferry companies that operate alongside Sydney Ferries on the Manly leg took full advantage of Sydney Ferries’ absence by adding extra services and slashing prices.
The words of Manly Fast Ferry’s Richard Ford sum it up quite nicely: ‘The market is always a better place if there’s competition.’
SOURCE
A WOMAN has been ordered to pay her former husband almost $13,000 in child support after DNA tests confirmed he was not the father of her 14-year-old son.
The man - who once caught his wife in a compromising position with a neighbour - secretly took the boy for a DNA test after his own mother raised doubts about the boy's parentage from the time he was four. "(X) is looking less and less like you. There is nothing similar, not even his ears or toes or fingers," the man's mother said.
The couple began living together in their late 20s and married in 1984. The boy was born in 1995 and still believes the man is his father. "For him, this has been an unfortunate situation not of his own making," Federal Magistrate Stephen Scarlett said in his ruling.
"In January 2009, the parties separated and the person whom the child thought was his father moved out of the matrimonial home. Less than a year and a half later, the child's father figure no longer has anything to do with him. "Effectively, he is now without a father, through no fault of his own. From the child's point of view, his father (as he thought) has rejected him, for no apparent reason.
"The applicant's desire to find out the truth about the child's paternity will result in a financial benefit to him, at the expense of collateral damage to the child."
The couple divorced in 2010, but the father continued paying for the boy's overseas holidays, school fees and $700 a month in child support. Now the court has ordered the women to pay the man $12,969.
The man has had no contact with the boy he believed was his son since the DNA tests confirmed he was not the father. The woman must repay the child support as well as $4038 in court costs within 12 months.
SOURCE
Federal Government to hand out $550 million to keep Queensland children at school
Poor families get a chance at bigger handouts
ALMOST $550 million will be set aside by the Federal Government to lure Queensland parents into keeping their children in school until Year 12.
New figures reveal that parents of more than 137,700 Queensland teenagers will qualify for a $4000 average payment to stop their kids dropping out of school.
The cash carrot is aimed at arresting the alarming rate of dropouts nationally, with 630,000 teens eligible across the country.
Premier Anna Bligh said last month Queensland's retention rate was higher than the national average of 78.5 per cent.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard today will urge parents to take up the offer when it kicks in on January 1, in the interests of their children's education and future employment prospects.
"There's only one place for kids to be and that's in school," she said. "My message is clear. Stay in school. When you leave school for the summer break, don't say long goodbyes. Come back next year and finish your education. It will open doors and give you a big leg-up in life."
The payments, a key election promise of Ms Gillard, will be offered to parents of 16 to 19-year-old teenagers across the state, in the form of an income tested boost to existing Family Tax Benefit A. The students would have to stay in full-time secondary school study or a vocational equivalent such as a TAFE course.
New research suggests the cost of keeping older teenagers in school is 30-40 per cent higher than younger students, yet the current family tax payments wind down by more than 70 per cent after children turn 16.
Currently, the maximum FTB A payments drop by almost 70 per cent when students turn 16, with the highest bracket dropping from up to $6300 to about $2000.
The Prime Minister said the extra money would help struggling families keep their children in school which, in turn, would help them get better jobs and higher incomes. "This will be a big help to those families under financial pressure, who are finding it hard to support older teenagers to stay at school or in training," Ms Gillard said. "It's not right that at the moment, families get less money when their kids turn 16. We're turning that around."
The $4000 boost would help families cope with the extra costs of keeping their older teenagers in school.
The maximum rate of FTB A for 16-17 year-olds in secondary school would be increased by $4208 and for 18-19 year-olds in school, by $3741 a year.
SOURCE
Plan for world's biggest marine park in Coral Sea will prove costly
PLANS to protect the Coral Sea as the world's biggest marine park will cost taxpayers a billion-dollar buyout, deep-sea fishing industry figures warn.
Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke yesterday unveiled draft plans for the Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve covering nearly 1 million square kilometres of ocean, nearly half the size of Queensland.
Great Barrier Reef Tuna owner Bob Lamason, who has four of 15 long-line tuna boats operating in the Coral Sea, said the proposal spelled the end of his multimillion-dollar family business. "We'll be left with nothing," said the veteran skipper, who sends 700 tonnes of fish to market every year. "They'll have to pay us all out - a complete buyout of licences, boats and business - or we face death by a thousand cuts."
Mr Burke said the Coral Sea had a diverse array of coral reefs, sandy cays, deep sea plains and canyons with more than 20 outstanding examples of isolated tropical reefs.
Some fish species found in the Coral Sea - from the Torres Strait to Bundaberg and between 60km and 1100km offshore - were under pressure from over-fishing and habitat degradation.
Greens environment spokeswoman Larissa Waters said the draft plan did not go far enough. "Of the handful of commercial fishers operating in the Coral Sea, most are willing to be bought out," she said. "And the Greens will push in our Budget negotiations with Government for appropriate compensation to end commercial fishing and create one large, protected area."
Senator Waters said the Greens welcomed the proposed ban on oil and gas mining, sea bed trawling and gillnet fishing.
Australian Marine Conservation Society spokesman Darren Kindleysides said only the eastern half of the Reef had been set aside while the western half contained most of the species-rich coral reefs and critical spawning sites for black marlin and threatened tuna.
Cairns and Far North Environment Centre spokesman Steve Ryan said many Coral Sea jewels were unprotected.
Queensland Seafood Industry Association president Geoff Tilton said the fishing ban would hurt fishermen and consumers.
SOURCE
NSW government caves in to featherbedded unionists
It’s business as usual at Sydney Ferries. Unions have managed to secure a cosy little deal with the government. Along with 3.25% annual wage increases for the next two years, workers will receive a once-off bonus payment of 30 weeks pay simply for taking a job with the soon-to-be private ferry operator. All financed of course by the NSW taxpayer.
A month ago I released a paper arguing that the franchise reform planned for Sydney Ferries will not create any meaningful change for Sydney’s taxpayers. I argued that whilst there may be a lot of talk about improvement and value for taxpayers, there will be no competition, no reduction in subsidies, and no incentive to increase productivity. The controls, the restrictions and the wasted tax dollars will all continue, only under the guise of reform and privatisation.
At the time I wrote the paper, all the hallmarks of union abuse were there – inflexible work practices, low productivity, generous pay and benefits, and abuse of sick leave and other penalties. I was hopeful that even if new management could not solve the structural problems of monopoly and subsidy, perhaps they could solve these cultural problems and increase productivity.
If these recent events are anything to go by, it looks like the unions are set to transfer their old obstructive, rent-seeking behaviours to the new operator and the government have acquiesced to it.
So what was happening in the private market while the workers were off the job securing their juicy accord? The two private fast-ferry companies that operate alongside Sydney Ferries on the Manly leg took full advantage of Sydney Ferries’ absence by adding extra services and slashing prices.
The words of Manly Fast Ferry’s Richard Ford sum it up quite nicely: ‘The market is always a better place if there’s competition.’
SOURCE
DNA proves man is not child's father, mother must pay back nearly $13k
A WOMAN has been ordered to pay her former husband almost $13,000 in child support after DNA tests confirmed he was not the father of her 14-year-old son.
The man - who once caught his wife in a compromising position with a neighbour - secretly took the boy for a DNA test after his own mother raised doubts about the boy's parentage from the time he was four. "(X) is looking less and less like you. There is nothing similar, not even his ears or toes or fingers," the man's mother said.
The couple began living together in their late 20s and married in 1984. The boy was born in 1995 and still believes the man is his father. "For him, this has been an unfortunate situation not of his own making," Federal Magistrate Stephen Scarlett said in his ruling.
"In January 2009, the parties separated and the person whom the child thought was his father moved out of the matrimonial home. Less than a year and a half later, the child's father figure no longer has anything to do with him. "Effectively, he is now without a father, through no fault of his own. From the child's point of view, his father (as he thought) has rejected him, for no apparent reason.
"The applicant's desire to find out the truth about the child's paternity will result in a financial benefit to him, at the expense of collateral damage to the child."
The couple divorced in 2010, but the father continued paying for the boy's overseas holidays, school fees and $700 a month in child support. Now the court has ordered the women to pay the man $12,969.
The man has had no contact with the boy he believed was his son since the DNA tests confirmed he was not the father. The woman must repay the child support as well as $4038 in court costs within 12 months.
SOURCE
Federal Government to hand out $550 million to keep Queensland children at school
Poor families get a chance at bigger handouts
ALMOST $550 million will be set aside by the Federal Government to lure Queensland parents into keeping their children in school until Year 12.
New figures reveal that parents of more than 137,700 Queensland teenagers will qualify for a $4000 average payment to stop their kids dropping out of school.
The cash carrot is aimed at arresting the alarming rate of dropouts nationally, with 630,000 teens eligible across the country.
Premier Anna Bligh said last month Queensland's retention rate was higher than the national average of 78.5 per cent.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard today will urge parents to take up the offer when it kicks in on January 1, in the interests of their children's education and future employment prospects.
"There's only one place for kids to be and that's in school," she said. "My message is clear. Stay in school. When you leave school for the summer break, don't say long goodbyes. Come back next year and finish your education. It will open doors and give you a big leg-up in life."
The payments, a key election promise of Ms Gillard, will be offered to parents of 16 to 19-year-old teenagers across the state, in the form of an income tested boost to existing Family Tax Benefit A. The students would have to stay in full-time secondary school study or a vocational equivalent such as a TAFE course.
New research suggests the cost of keeping older teenagers in school is 30-40 per cent higher than younger students, yet the current family tax payments wind down by more than 70 per cent after children turn 16.
Currently, the maximum FTB A payments drop by almost 70 per cent when students turn 16, with the highest bracket dropping from up to $6300 to about $2000.
The Prime Minister said the extra money would help struggling families keep their children in school which, in turn, would help them get better jobs and higher incomes. "This will be a big help to those families under financial pressure, who are finding it hard to support older teenagers to stay at school or in training," Ms Gillard said. "It's not right that at the moment, families get less money when their kids turn 16. We're turning that around."
The $4000 boost would help families cope with the extra costs of keeping their older teenagers in school.
The maximum rate of FTB A for 16-17 year-olds in secondary school would be increased by $4208 and for 18-19 year-olds in school, by $3741 a year.
SOURCE
Plan for world's biggest marine park in Coral Sea will prove costly
PLANS to protect the Coral Sea as the world's biggest marine park will cost taxpayers a billion-dollar buyout, deep-sea fishing industry figures warn.
Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke yesterday unveiled draft plans for the Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve covering nearly 1 million square kilometres of ocean, nearly half the size of Queensland.
Great Barrier Reef Tuna owner Bob Lamason, who has four of 15 long-line tuna boats operating in the Coral Sea, said the proposal spelled the end of his multimillion-dollar family business. "We'll be left with nothing," said the veteran skipper, who sends 700 tonnes of fish to market every year. "They'll have to pay us all out - a complete buyout of licences, boats and business - or we face death by a thousand cuts."
Mr Burke said the Coral Sea had a diverse array of coral reefs, sandy cays, deep sea plains and canyons with more than 20 outstanding examples of isolated tropical reefs.
Some fish species found in the Coral Sea - from the Torres Strait to Bundaberg and between 60km and 1100km offshore - were under pressure from over-fishing and habitat degradation.
Greens environment spokeswoman Larissa Waters said the draft plan did not go far enough. "Of the handful of commercial fishers operating in the Coral Sea, most are willing to be bought out," she said. "And the Greens will push in our Budget negotiations with Government for appropriate compensation to end commercial fishing and create one large, protected area."
Senator Waters said the Greens welcomed the proposed ban on oil and gas mining, sea bed trawling and gillnet fishing.
Australian Marine Conservation Society spokesman Darren Kindleysides said only the eastern half of the Reef had been set aside while the western half contained most of the species-rich coral reefs and critical spawning sites for black marlin and threatened tuna.
Cairns and Far North Environment Centre spokesman Steve Ryan said many Coral Sea jewels were unprotected.
Queensland Seafood Industry Association president Geoff Tilton said the fishing ban would hurt fishermen and consumers.
SOURCE
NSW government caves in to featherbedded unionists
It’s business as usual at Sydney Ferries. Unions have managed to secure a cosy little deal with the government. Along with 3.25% annual wage increases for the next two years, workers will receive a once-off bonus payment of 30 weeks pay simply for taking a job with the soon-to-be private ferry operator. All financed of course by the NSW taxpayer.
A month ago I released a paper arguing that the franchise reform planned for Sydney Ferries will not create any meaningful change for Sydney’s taxpayers. I argued that whilst there may be a lot of talk about improvement and value for taxpayers, there will be no competition, no reduction in subsidies, and no incentive to increase productivity. The controls, the restrictions and the wasted tax dollars will all continue, only under the guise of reform and privatisation.
At the time I wrote the paper, all the hallmarks of union abuse were there – inflexible work practices, low productivity, generous pay and benefits, and abuse of sick leave and other penalties. I was hopeful that even if new management could not solve the structural problems of monopoly and subsidy, perhaps they could solve these cultural problems and increase productivity.
If these recent events are anything to go by, it looks like the unions are set to transfer their old obstructive, rent-seeking behaviours to the new operator and the government have acquiesced to it.
So what was happening in the private market while the workers were off the job securing their juicy accord? The two private fast-ferry companies that operate alongside Sydney Ferries on the Manly leg took full advantage of Sydney Ferries’ absence by adding extra services and slashing prices.
The words of Manly Fast Ferry’s Richard Ford sum it up quite nicely: ‘The market is always a better place if there’s competition.’
SOURCE
A WOMAN has been ordered to pay her former husband almost $13,000 in child support after DNA tests confirmed he was not the father of her 14-year-old son.
The man - who once caught his wife in a compromising position with a neighbour - secretly took the boy for a DNA test after his own mother raised doubts about the boy's parentage from the time he was four. "(X) is looking less and less like you. There is nothing similar, not even his ears or toes or fingers," the man's mother said.
The couple began living together in their late 20s and married in 1984. The boy was born in 1995 and still believes the man is his father. "For him, this has been an unfortunate situation not of his own making," Federal Magistrate Stephen Scarlett said in his ruling.
"In January 2009, the parties separated and the person whom the child thought was his father moved out of the matrimonial home. Less than a year and a half later, the child's father figure no longer has anything to do with him. "Effectively, he is now without a father, through no fault of his own. From the child's point of view, his father (as he thought) has rejected him, for no apparent reason.
"The applicant's desire to find out the truth about the child's paternity will result in a financial benefit to him, at the expense of collateral damage to the child."
The couple divorced in 2010, but the father continued paying for the boy's overseas holidays, school fees and $700 a month in child support. Now the court has ordered the women to pay the man $12,969.
The man has had no contact with the boy he believed was his son since the DNA tests confirmed he was not the father. The woman must repay the child support as well as $4038 in court costs within 12 months.
SOURCE
Federal Government to hand out $550 million to keep Queensland children at school
Poor families get a chance at bigger handouts
ALMOST $550 million will be set aside by the Federal Government to lure Queensland parents into keeping their children in school until Year 12.
New figures reveal that parents of more than 137,700 Queensland teenagers will qualify for a $4000 average payment to stop their kids dropping out of school.
The cash carrot is aimed at arresting the alarming rate of dropouts nationally, with 630,000 teens eligible across the country.
Premier Anna Bligh said last month Queensland's retention rate was higher than the national average of 78.5 per cent.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard today will urge parents to take up the offer when it kicks in on January 1, in the interests of their children's education and future employment prospects.
"There's only one place for kids to be and that's in school," she said. "My message is clear. Stay in school. When you leave school for the summer break, don't say long goodbyes. Come back next year and finish your education. It will open doors and give you a big leg-up in life."
The payments, a key election promise of Ms Gillard, will be offered to parents of 16 to 19-year-old teenagers across the state, in the form of an income tested boost to existing Family Tax Benefit A. The students would have to stay in full-time secondary school study or a vocational equivalent such as a TAFE course.
New research suggests the cost of keeping older teenagers in school is 30-40 per cent higher than younger students, yet the current family tax payments wind down by more than 70 per cent after children turn 16.
Currently, the maximum FTB A payments drop by almost 70 per cent when students turn 16, with the highest bracket dropping from up to $6300 to about $2000.
The Prime Minister said the extra money would help struggling families keep their children in school which, in turn, would help them get better jobs and higher incomes. "This will be a big help to those families under financial pressure, who are finding it hard to support older teenagers to stay at school or in training," Ms Gillard said. "It's not right that at the moment, families get less money when their kids turn 16. We're turning that around."
The $4000 boost would help families cope with the extra costs of keeping their older teenagers in school.
The maximum rate of FTB A for 16-17 year-olds in secondary school would be increased by $4208 and for 18-19 year-olds in school, by $3741 a year.
SOURCE
Plan for world's biggest marine park in Coral Sea will prove costly
PLANS to protect the Coral Sea as the world's biggest marine park will cost taxpayers a billion-dollar buyout, deep-sea fishing industry figures warn.
Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke yesterday unveiled draft plans for the Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve covering nearly 1 million square kilometres of ocean, nearly half the size of Queensland.
Great Barrier Reef Tuna owner Bob Lamason, who has four of 15 long-line tuna boats operating in the Coral Sea, said the proposal spelled the end of his multimillion-dollar family business. "We'll be left with nothing," said the veteran skipper, who sends 700 tonnes of fish to market every year. "They'll have to pay us all out - a complete buyout of licences, boats and business - or we face death by a thousand cuts."
Mr Burke said the Coral Sea had a diverse array of coral reefs, sandy cays, deep sea plains and canyons with more than 20 outstanding examples of isolated tropical reefs.
Some fish species found in the Coral Sea - from the Torres Strait to Bundaberg and between 60km and 1100km offshore - were under pressure from over-fishing and habitat degradation.
Greens environment spokeswoman Larissa Waters said the draft plan did not go far enough. "Of the handful of commercial fishers operating in the Coral Sea, most are willing to be bought out," she said. "And the Greens will push in our Budget negotiations with Government for appropriate compensation to end commercial fishing and create one large, protected area."
Senator Waters said the Greens welcomed the proposed ban on oil and gas mining, sea bed trawling and gillnet fishing.
Australian Marine Conservation Society spokesman Darren Kindleysides said only the eastern half of the Reef had been set aside while the western half contained most of the species-rich coral reefs and critical spawning sites for black marlin and threatened tuna.
Cairns and Far North Environment Centre spokesman Steve Ryan said many Coral Sea jewels were unprotected.
Queensland Seafood Industry Association president Geoff Tilton said the fishing ban would hurt fishermen and consumers.
SOURCE
NSW government caves in to featherbedded unionists
It’s business as usual at Sydney Ferries. Unions have managed to secure a cosy little deal with the government. Along with 3.25% annual wage increases for the next two years, workers will receive a once-off bonus payment of 30 weeks pay simply for taking a job with the soon-to-be private ferry operator. All financed of course by the NSW taxpayer.
A month ago I released a paper arguing that the franchise reform planned for Sydney Ferries will not create any meaningful change for Sydney’s taxpayers. I argued that whilst there may be a lot of talk about improvement and value for taxpayers, there will be no competition, no reduction in subsidies, and no incentive to increase productivity. The controls, the restrictions and the wasted tax dollars will all continue, only under the guise of reform and privatisation.
At the time I wrote the paper, all the hallmarks of union abuse were there – inflexible work practices, low productivity, generous pay and benefits, and abuse of sick leave and other penalties. I was hopeful that even if new management could not solve the structural problems of monopoly and subsidy, perhaps they could solve these cultural problems and increase productivity.
If these recent events are anything to go by, it looks like the unions are set to transfer their old obstructive, rent-seeking behaviours to the new operator and the government have acquiesced to it.
So what was happening in the private market while the workers were off the job securing their juicy accord? The two private fast-ferry companies that operate alongside Sydney Ferries on the Manly leg took full advantage of Sydney Ferries’ absence by adding extra services and slashing prices.
The words of Manly Fast Ferry’s Richard Ford sum it up quite nicely: ‘The market is always a better place if there’s competition.’
SOURCE
Saturday, November 26, 2011
More reviews of JANT
Messianic Jewish Musings has just published a review of JANT - Jewish Annotated New Testament.
An anti-semitic review of the book at Maurice Pinay Blog: Anti-Christ "New Testament" published. His perspective seems to be extreme traditionalist Catholicism (which rejects the Second Vatican Council); he also advertises books by Michael Hoffman, a notorious Holocaust denier.
Discussion forum at the Center for Inquiry presents a range of interesting perspectives - Here comes the Jewish Jesus.
Jim West of Zwinglius Redivivus mentions the book favorably, but doesn't have a full review.
An anti-semitic review of the book at Maurice Pinay Blog: Anti-Christ "New Testament" published. His perspective seems to be extreme traditionalist Catholicism (which rejects the Second Vatican Council); he also advertises books by Michael Hoffman, a notorious Holocaust denier.
Discussion forum at the Center for Inquiry presents a range of interesting perspectives - Here comes the Jewish Jesus.
Jim West of Zwinglius Redivivus mentions the book favorably, but doesn't have a full review.
New York Times article on the Jewish Annotated New Testament
Good New York Times article on A Jewish Edition of the New Testament.
Some highlights:
Some highlights:
The book she [A.J. Levine] has just edited with a Brandeis University professor, Marc Zvi Brettler, “The Jewish Annotated New Testament” (Oxford University Press), is an unusual scholarly experiment: an edition of the Christian holy book edited entirely by Jews. The volume includes notes and explanatory essays by 50 leading Jewish scholars, including Susannah Heschel, a historian and the daughter of the theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel; the Talmudist Daniel Boyarin; and Shaye J. D. Cohen, who teaches ancient Judaism at Harvard....And yours truly, who wrote the article on Divine Beings.
So what does this New Testament include that a Christian volume might not? Consider Matthew 2, when the wise men, or magi, herald Jesus’s birth. In this edition, Aaron M. Gale, who has edited the Book of Matthew, writes in a footnote that “early Jewish readers may have regarded these Persian astrologers not as wise but as foolish or evil.” He is relying on the first-century Jewish philosopher Philo, who at one point calls Balaam, who in the Book of Numbers talks with a donkey, a “magos.”
Because the rationalist Philo uses the Greek word “magos” derisively — less a wise man than a donkey-whisperer — we might infer that at least some educated Jewish readers, like Philo, took a dim view of magi. This context helps explain some Jewish skepticism toward the Gospel of Matthew, but it could also attest to how charismatic Jesus must have been, to overcome such skepticism.
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