Australia First Party ACT

‘Go Back Where You Came From’: SBS Propaganda: Is It Also A Hoax – And An Opportunity ? (Bill Rezac)

2011-06-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

SBS screens this week a three part series ‘Go Back Where You Came From’, a documentary which shows a group of Australians being confronted (sic) with the living conditions of so-called ‘refugees’ in the camps of Asia and Africa and with their difficult journeys (sic) to come to Australia.

The program is pure propaganda.

Originally, Australia First members Jim Saleam and Perry Jewell, were also approached to participate. As could reasonably be expected, the tentative invitations to these nationalists were not pursued. At all points, the true purpose of the producers was to choose persons who were likely to be ‘remoulded’ by a type of hands-on live-drama re-education.

So it was.

At no time does this program really explain that refugees (sic) are often people who have declined to take up arms against their alleged oppressors, that the conditions they may find themselves in are in one sense of their own making, what economic refugees may be as opposed to political dissenters, that many consider permanent flight of better value than a fighting return, that many have social practises repugnant to Australian society, that many of these people may also hate and be envious of those who possess wealth and territory – and that overpopulation and New World Order wars and other ethnic based strife are the chief underlying causes of many outpourings from the Third World.

We are witness then to an attempt to brainwash Australians to accept that they are guilty people if they lack compassion.

In fact, for most Australians other than the liberal minded, there is a feeling that this brainwash should be resisted but they don’t know how.

The Case Of Raye Colbey

The star of the show, Raye Colbey, is described as a lady from Inverbrackie in South Australia where a refugee detention centre has been founded. Mrs. Colbey goes on the SBS organized jaunt overseas and learns about her ‘hate’, learns of compassion and so forth.

Reports passed to Australia First in South Australia , suggest that Mrs. Colbey has family members involved in support campaigns for so-called refugees.

Mrs Colbey has been a victim, if she really is a victim, of psychological manipulation. We note how quickly the usual media suspects have been to publish a public recant from her of her ‘former’, t=racist (sic) views.

Schools Will Get The SBS Doco But ‘The Camp Of The Saints’ Will Be There In Reply

A report was given to Australia First in New South Wales that the program will be shown on DVD to high school students as part of a propaganda offensive to soften students’ attitudes to the refugee invasion. This offers an opportunity for the new Eureka Youth League and Australia First Party to fight back.

Both organisations will surely seek to make mass awareness of the antidote: The Camp Of The Saints, the 1972 novel which explained the psychosis the dominant groups of our Western societies faced with a refugee invasion of European lands – a work composed before there were any mass refugee outpourings from the Third World . This revolutionary novel posited that overpopulation and poverty, war and envy, would propel masses towards the vision of a better life. It then pilloried the false-moralities that would justify to certain Westerners the very destruction of their own societies.

For the curious:

http://www.archive.org/details/CampOfTheSaints

This book should be studied by all Australians who need a counter-morality to the SBS type propaganda about to invade our screens.

Intensify The Struggle: ‘Expel The Refugees’

Australians need to act against the army of churchmen, Greens, Trotskyites, lawyer-advocates and others who play morality games over the refugee invasion and who mobilize daily to beat down Australians.

The morality is on the side of the Australian people, who under the challenge of mass immigration and now refugee invasion, have opted to resist.

Our party will repudiate the United Nations Convention On Refugees (1951). Ultimately, we will expel the refugees! But we make this very, very, dark promise: the traitors who have decided to give away our birthright will pay for the assisted return, if necessary of hundreds of thousands of persons to countries of origin – by the public seizure of their assets.

It has come to this.

Warn your friends and children against the latest SBS propaganda.

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NSW power sale a 'charity giveaway'

2011-01-18T01:49:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, January 18, 2011 » 07:16pm

The NSW opposition has labelled the $5.3b power privatisation a charity fire sale, after costs are included.
The NSW opposition and crossbench MPs have labelled the $5.3 billion power privatisation a charity fire sale, after costs are included.
NSW Treasury Secretary Michael Schur fronted an upper house inquiry into the partial privatisation on Tuesday and described the deal as 'the next best option' to full privatisation or leasing out the power stations.
He also revealed that $1.2 billion would go to pay out the debts of generators Delta West and Eraring Energy, while $360 million had been written into the deal to cover the risk of unplanned power outages.
NSW has retained control of power stations managed by Eraring Energy and Delta West, but sold the generation rights under the complex Gentrader model.
It also offloaded retail assets Energy Australia, Integral Energy and Country Energy.
In a blow to the government, Mr Schur admitted the Gentrader model was not his preferred sale option, saying it had failed to completely 'de-risk' the state against the vagaries of power generation.
'There is only one way we could have got rid of this risk entirely ... the only way you can get rid of this unplanned outage risk is to enter into long-term leases of the assets or sell them,' he told the inquiry in Sydney.
However, Mr Schur denied the Gentrader structure was a 'second-rate option'.
'I have said on more than one occasion ... that the Gentrader option is the next best option available to the state.'
The inquiry is examining whether the multibillion-dollar sale represents good value for the taxpayers, and why eight Eraring and Delta directors resigned in protest at the deal hours before it was finalised last month.
However, the former board members have refused to appear at the inquiry, fearing that because parliament was prorogued just before Christmas they will not be protected by parliamentary privilege.
They have now been summonsed to appear at the inquiry next Monday.
Opposition treasury spokesman Mike Baird said the state would be left with nothing more than short change after the sale.
Mr Baird described the sale as a 'charity giveaway' with the inclusion of the $1.5 billion needed to develop the Cobbora Coal mine near Mudgee, to provide an estimated $1 billion in coal subsidies to the Gentraders.
'If you take away all the costs you see today, then effectively there is a few hundred million for all these assets,' he told AAP.
Chairman of the inquiry, Christian Democrat MP the Reverend Fred Nile, said the $5.3 billion figure for the sale was just a 'gross price'.
'It does appear to be, as we said earlier, a fire sale or a charity giveaway,' he told reporters after the hearing.
'When the top people in the treasury indicate they did not favour the process, it is obviously then being driven politically rather than economically.'
But Mr Schur said the cost of the Cobbora mine should not be included when tallying up the sale.
'The view on Cobbora is that it is a commercially viable, stand-alone entity that will recover its costs of funds,' he told the hearing.
Mr Nile said current board members of the state electricity companies would be invited to give evidence on Friday, after Ms Keneally criticised the inquiry for only seeking input from those directors who quit.
Opposition leader Barry O'Farrell and Mr Baird have also agreed to appear next Monday.
http://bigpondnews.com/articles/Finance/2011/01/18/NSW_power_sale_a_charity_giveaway_566025.html

The Chinese Superpower: A Historical Note For Nationalist Activists

2011-01-18T01:41:00.000-08:00

Dr. Jim Saleam
18 January 2011

Some of the material published on this blog site on the rise of the Chinese superpower (I particularly note: 'Chinese expansionism/military build up just exposed') excited commentary from various nationalists in Australia First and outside it. I was asked: was it true that Australian nationalists identified China as a 'superpower' as early as the 1970's? was it the case that Australian nationalism developed after that time with a keen awareness of our nation's
vulnerability to Chinese imperialism?

I am able to say 'yes' to both questions.

In 1977, a group of young nationalists in Sydney founded the 'Audacity' magazine, the same title now used for the Australia First journal. In response to public campaigns from the political Left (which identified global rivalry between the USA and the USSR, the big two, the so- called 'superpowers'), the Audacity group stated that the modernisation program in China which had started after Mao's death and after considering the sheer size of China and its armed forces, identified it already as a 'superpower', certainly a power more commanding than any others on earth short of the USA and the USSR. It was explained that China's industrial expansion, which would fuel a massive military build-up, meant (even if it was not technically the case in the 1970's) that China would become the Third Superpower, alongside the USA and the USSR in fair time. That prediction has essentially been realized.

The Australian nationalists from the 1970's onwards consistently developed a public 'propaganda' on the matter of China. There is no need to describe it here. It figured in many documents and campaigns and was regarded as a tenet of ideology. These pioneers of our patriotic world-view are to be commended for recognizing the nature of China.

I recall many on the Left refusing to recognize that China was a developing superpower and needless to say they were all accused of 'racism' for their presumption.

In recent times, it has been the Australia First Party that has upheld the correct view that Chinese imperialism threatens Australia and that China has achieved true superpower status. China has carved out huge mining leases, sent hordes of cheap contract labour to Australia, has established a fifth column of migrants (sic) on our soil, has bought politicians and purchased Australian land. It has no end of public stooges who sing its praises. Chinese imperialism runs counter to Australian
independence and it threatens weaker peoples too throughout the South Pacific. Notably, in the recent Wikileaks controversy, it has been shown that Australian defence analysts are aware of the nature and extend of the military build-up of the Chinese superpower.

I expect that Australian nationalists will be compelled to expand their public outreach campaign on the mortal danger that the Chinese superpower poses to the survival of our people and nation.

Kristina Keneally's power enquiry block goes to State Parliament's Jubilee Room

2011-01-15T23:17:00.000-08:00

Andrew Clennell, Gemma Jones and Kate Sikora January 14, 2011 12:00AM

THIS is where the power inquiry Kristina Keneally tried to block will be heard - State Parliament's Jubilee Room.
Yesterday the room was empty. When hearings start on Monday, it might as well be.
Legislative Council President Amanda Fazio is expected to block attempts to force the appearance of eight former directors of power companies who resigned in disgust at the Government's rushed sale, neutering the inquiry.
The inquiry begins with Premier Keneally and Treasurer Eric Roozendaal to answer MPs' questions on the $5.3 billion power sale Mr Roozendaal rushed through. On Monday morning, the committee will meet and National Party MP Trevor Khan, Liberal Greg Pearce and Greens MP John Kaye will move to summons the former directors.
It will then be up to committee chair Fred Nile's casting vote against Labor MPs to approve the summons.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/kristina-keneallys-power-enquiry-block-goes-to-state-parliaments-jubilee-room/comments-e6freuy9-1225987363077

China as Number One: US poll

2011-01-15T23:14:00.000-08:00

January 13, 2011 - 4:31PM

Americans say China, not the US, is the world's top economic power, reflecting a shift in attitudes after the global financial crisis, a poll found.
Some 47 per cent of Americans surveyed from Jan. 5-9 by the Washington-based Pew Research Center for the People and the Press said China is the leading economic power, while 31 per cent named the US. A February 2008 Pew poll, taken before the collapses of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, found 41 per cent of Americans considered the US the top economic power, with 30 per cent naming China.
The results highlight the rising influence of China, whose economy has expanded more than 90-fold in the last three decades and illustrate the importance of next week's summit in Washington between President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao.
The poll measures perception, not reality. US gross domestic product is still almost three times the size of China's and dwarfs the Asian nation in terms of per capita income. The US, with just over 300 million people, has an annual GDP of $US14.1 trillion compared with $US4.99 trillion for China's 1.3 billion people.
A Pew poll in January 1989 found that by a two-to-one margin, Americans considered Japan to be the world's preeminent economic power, a decade after the release of the controversial "Japan as Number One'' book by Harvard University Professor Ezra Vogel. The poll released yesterday found only 9 per cent of the 1,503 respondents hold that view.
Fewer than one-quarter of the respondents view China as an adversary, the poll found. Some 58 per cent of respondents said it is important to build stronger ties between the two countries. Most people polled said China was a greater economic than military threat, with 67 per cent saying that the US was the world's top military power, compared with 16 per cent who said China had the most potent military.
Almost half of Americans, 47 per cent, view China favorably, compared with 36 per cent who view China unfavorably, according to the poll, which had a margin of error of plus or minus three per centage points.
Most respondents, 53 per cent, said the US should get tougher with China on the trade and economic issues, with Republicans and Democrats expressing almost identical positions. The US posted a record $US28 billion trade deficit with China in August, according to US Census Bureau figures. The US says China's currency is undervalued, undercutting US exports and eliminating jobs.
Bloomberg News

http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/china-as-number-one-us-poll-20110113-19ph4.html

North Korea, Marrickville: Going rogue

2011-01-15T23:04:00.000-08:00

James Morrow The Daily Telegraph January 13, 2011 12:00AM

WHAT does the desert theocracy of Saudi Arabia have in common with Marrickville Council in Sydney's Inner West?
Ever since a Marrickville Council meeting late last year, both are sworn enemies of Israel. In a 10-2 vote, the council decided it would "boycott all goods made in Israel and any sporting, academic institutions, government or institutional cultural exchanges".
Trendy councils supporting trendy causes is nothing new. Greens-dominated Marrickville is a nuclear-free zone that abhors Australia's treatment of refugees while taking a "BANANA" approach to development: Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone.
But by boycotting Israel, Marrickville Council is taking its UN routine a step too far. The first problem is what the boycott would mean in practice.
Israel is one of the most innovative and entrepreneurial countries in the world. Its products and inventions find their way into computers, mobile phones, and medicines. A ban means a lot more than just making sure the hummus at council meetings is non-kosher. The second problem is that the move cuts against the proper business of a council and demonstrates that the supposed progressivism of the district only goes so far.
Keep in mind that this is a council that already enjoys a "sister city" relationship with Bethlehem, the West Bank town run by Fatah, successor to the PLO.
Fatah, and indeed most of that part of the world with the exception of Israel, is not exactly committed to those values Greens share with normal people, including the right of women to dress how they choose and of homosexuals not to be executed.
And, unlike Marrickville, which just wants to boycott Israel, Fatah is committed to its elimination.
This isn't the first time Marrickville has taken such a stance. Last year when a local shopkeeper painted an anti-burqa mural on his own wall, Marrickville Council finally found a piece of "street art" it didn't like.
Councillor Sam Iskandar, thought to be the driving force behind the Israel boycott, said the mural "goes against the values" of the Marrickville community and tried to get it removed.
Presumably those with strong opinions on any issue of the day are encouraged to cross Parramatta Rd to Leichhardt and hash it out in a cafe where they won't offend anyone.
Better yet, Marrickville councillors and frustrated local foreign ministers everywhere should realise what the values of serving in local government are all about. Improving amenities. Picking up the trash. Scrubbing graffiti.
And leaving the diplomacy to Canberra.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw-act/north-korea-marrickville-going-rogue/story-e6freuzi-1225986592031

Roozendaal's prints all over power farce

2011-01-15T22:59:00.001-08:00

January 9, 2011

"I RECKON they've finally imploded once and for all." That was the candid assessment of the Keneally government by an experienced parliamentarian I spoke to last week. It's hard to disagree.
The thorough mishandling of the electricity sale inquiry and the early lock-up of Parliament by the Premier have people on all sides of state politics – including Labor backbenchers – wondering what the hell is going on inside Governor Macquarie Tower.
More than a few commentators have compared NSW Labor to the last days of Rome.
It now looks more like the final scenes of The Perfect Storm – without the steering.
Half the crew has jumped overboard and those who remain aren't sure what to do before the tidal wave of voter anger hits in March. If Barry O'Farrell could have scripted his Christmas and new year he wouldn't have changed a thing, except for the cricket scores.
I wrote last week that unless Keneally caves in and allows the power inquiry to proceed, voters would go to the polls with O'Farrell's mantra ringing in their ears: "What has she got to hide?"
The Premier did cave in but because she only went halfway and won't reverse the proroguing of Parliament, the question is still being asked.
Who knows what the answer is? The way the government fought to head off an inquiry it can only be assumed it is one big fat dud deal. On a broader level, Keneally is hiding something else.
She is struggling to impose her leadership and is too easily influenced by the people around her. Particularly by those who helped in her rocket ride to the top job.
It might sound like a reworking of the infamous Nathan Rees "puppet" quote but recent events have proven it to be true.
The proroguing of Parliament has the fingerprints of Eric Roozendaal all over it.
Roozendaal's office has briefed some in the media that Keneally took the decision to prorogue Parliament. Others inside government say that isn't the case.
Who stands to lose if the detail of the power sell-off is exposed as second rate? The Treasurer.
The Premier did not work on the fine detail of the deal. It wasn't up to her to sell the merits of the privatisation to the directors of Delta Electricity and Eraring Energy. It wasn't her job to prevent them from quitting en masse.
Still, when it came to it Keneally took Roozendaal's advice to shut Parliament and hopefully prevent any scrutiny.
While Joe Tripodi and Eddie Obeid are usually bundled together as the "puppet masters" it should not be forgotten that Roozendaal, a former ALP general secretary, was instrumental in Keneally's rails run to preselection to the safe seat of Heffron before entering Parliament in 2003.
She has sought his counsel ever since.
It is the intricate web of personal relationships, favours, factionalism, square-ups – built up over 15 long years in power – that have led to the aforementioned "implosion" of the Labor government.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/roozendaals-prints-all-over-power-farce-20110108-19jbb.html

China's land disputes at crisis point as revolutionary turmoil beckons, says professor of disenfranchised

2011-01-15T22:42:00.000-08:00

John Garnaut March 1, 2010

The Australian ambassador could not have had any idea about the fuss he caused by simply asking through proper official channels to see a respected Chinese scholar.
But Yu Jianrong is not just any scholar. He may know more about China's street-side social and political realities than anyone on the planet.
It was March 2008, the month of the Tibet riots, and only weeks before the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, had delivered his famous human rights speech at Peking University.
Professor Yu's employer, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, sought advice from the Department of Propaganda, which called a crisis meeting.
"Our [Academy] got very nervous, because in normal circumstances an ambassador would not make a visit," said Professor Yu, telling part of the story in a December 26 speech to the Beijing Lawyers Association, the text of which has recently surfaced on Chinese language websites.
"So the work unit made a preplan, like you lawyers having meetings and organising people to guess possible questions and how I should answer," he said.
Professor Yu was gently poking fun at how China's bureaucracy orders its priorities. The bureaucratic straitjacket does not seem to suit him.
Not long before Geoff Raby's request, Professor Yu had dressed up as a downtrodden peasant and lived for weeks in Beijing's "petitioners village", to find out why these aggrieved citizens persisted in futile quests for justice.
He somehow manages to straddle the enormous distance between the disenfranchised bottom of Chinese society and the political elite. When not mixing with peasants and workers who are appealing for justice, he interviews officials, caucuses with ministers and travels with top leaders in their VIP jets on inspection tours.
Professor Yu's uniquely valuable research and analysis provides him with an unusual degree of political protection, although he sensibly declines to test it by talking with foreign journalists.
Another well-known Chinese scholar said Professor Yu had recently been given a very large research grant from the Propaganda Department to find out what was really going on with mass unrest around the country "because they actually needed to find a real scholar to find out these things".
Back in 2008, Dr Raby's question was sufficiently well-aimed to get through the defences of China's most influential think tank, the world's most formidable propaganda apparatus and even Professor Yu.
"Finally he came but didn't ask any questions we thought of," Professor Yu told the Beijing lawyers.
"He asked three questions, one of which was: 'In 2007 Chinese peasants in three regions made declarations of private land ownership. What happens if one day all Chinese peasants do?' I felt dizzy at that moment because that question wasn't on our preplan. I told him, according to our investigations, more than 90 per cent of Chinese farmers don't yet have such conceptions."
Dr Raby was asking about declarations of individual land ownership that had materialised in December 2007 in Heilongjiang, Shaanxi and Tianjin. I had visited one of those disputes, in Heilongjiang up near the Russian border, and it was about as serious as a land dispute can get before calling it a war.
That pre-Olympics revolutionary excitement has subsided but it has not gone away. Private land ownership in the countryside continues to be outlawed under the Chinese constitution - a kind of bottom line that allows the Communist Party to at least argue a commitment to socialism - but the subject is at the centre of raging political, economic and social policy debates.
Poor peasants do not have secure title to trade and mortgage their land efficiently. Land is often the only asset they have, and yet officials and their cronies are, in effect, stealing it and flipping it to developers at enormous mark-ups, while keeping the difference as government revenue or private "grey'' income.
Cheap, stolen land is fueling an ever-growing construction and industrial production boom. Last year local governments received 22 per cent of their total revenue from land sales, says a UBS economist, Wang Tao. Other economists are warning of local government and banking system ruin when the system goes belly up.
Nevertheless, despite the central government's strident warnings and feeble interventions, the problem of officials stealing peasant land is reaching ever-greater heights.
"Since June 2004, land disputes have become the critical problem of rural China," said Professor Yu, referring to the year when the central government abolished agricultural taxes and set local officials off in pursuit of a replacement revenue stream.
"For tax protests, farmers directed their accusations to the county and township governments. But for land disputes they accuse city, provincial or even central governments," he said. "Most importantly, the number of large scale mass riots is growing."
And gangsters are now shouldering the dirty work.
"Today, more than 90 per cent of land disputes have a black society background," Professor Yu said.
He believes the situation is reaching crisis point.
"When conflict deepens, social pressure builds and everybody feels there is no way out, all social forces start looking for a bottom line," Professor Yu said. "Otherwise, there will be greater social turmoil and it will destroy all social order.
"There are two basic choices. First, the fear of these disastrous consequences will lead the various interest groups towards rational compromise, a reasonable bottom line that is acceptable to all. Second, in the absence of such compromise, fundamental and revolutionary turmoil may take place."
What does the first, "rational compromise'', choice involve? It is also revolutionary: subordinate the Communist Party to the nation's laws.
"Let's forget all about ideology, don't look back at Mao's period, or talk about Deng's era, and just safeguard our constitution,'' Professor Yu said. ''There is nothing to safeguard now in Chinese society; again and again we retreat in defeat. Can we safeguard our final bottom line?"

http://www.smh.com.au/business/chinas-land-disputes-at-crisis-point-as-revolutionary-turmoil-beckons-says-professor-of-disenfranchised-20100228-pb4n.html

The intelligence and the luck that saves us from murderers

2011-01-15T22:38:00.000-08:00

Gerard Henderson January 4, 2011

The bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt, at the weekend, apparently by a radical Islamist, was widely reported as a suicide attack. This is a serious misnomer.
The intention of a person who commits suicide is to kill himself or herself. The aim of the perpetrator of the crime in Alexandria was to kill as many Christians as possible. This is murder. The act is perhaps best described as suicide/homicide.
Egypt's President, Hosni Mubarak, has said that the attack was the work of ''foreign hands''. He seems to believe that the suicide/homicide attack was organised by a person loyal to al-Qaeda who entered Egypt to commit crime - following threats by Osama bin Laden's followers directed at Egypt's Copts. This analysis is probably correct.
Recent evidence from Britain, Denmark, Sweden and the US indicates that attacks on Western targets have been thwarted by a combination of good intelligence and good luck. Danish and Swedish police say they prevented an attempt to massacre staff at the newspaper Jyllands-Posten in protest at its decision in 2005 to publish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.
In Britain, authorities say they stopped an attack on the US embassy in London and the London Stock Exchange. In Stockholm in mid-December the Swedish-born and British-educated Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly killed himself while attempting, unsuccessfully, to murder as many Christmas shoppers as possible. And then there was the attempted terrorist attack in Times Square, New York, last May.
What all these activities have in common is that they were apparently the work of a ''lone wolf'' or, rather, a number of lone wolves. The term has been used by Dr Sajjan Gohel, of the Asia-Pacific Foundation.
According to his research, the number of attacks that have been controlled by what he terms ''al-Qaeda central'' has diminished since 2006. He attributes this to several factors. First, the original al-Qaeda central organisation ''has been severely disrupted by allied operations in north and south Waziristan along the Afghan-Pakistan border region''. Second, al-Qaeda is finding it harder to raise and receive finance.
This leads Gohel to conclude that the growing concern in the West is to individuals who are not connected to any particular cell or network but who became ''radicalised as a result of jihadist literature online''.
Roshonara Choudhry is a case in point. A gifted student at King's College London who is fluent in four languages, she was influenced by the American-born and Yemen-based Islamist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Last May, inspired by al-Awlaki's teachings on the internet, she tried to stab to death a Labour MP, Stephen Timms. Choudhry was a lone-wolf attacker who decided to be a martyr. It is all but impossible for intelligence organisations to thwart such attacks.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is another case. The son of a successful and wealthy Nigerian family, he allegedly tried to bring down an aircraft bound for Detroit on Christmas Day 2009 by igniting chemicals strapped to his inner leg.
Many members of the civil liberties lobby in Australia opposed the Howard government's Anti-Terrorism Act in 2005, which was supported by the Labor opposition. However, a number of jury trials in Australia have supported the view that there are people in Australia who have planned terrorist attacks.
First, there were convictions in the Operation Pendennis trials - the first in Sydney, the second in Melbourne. Juries were convinced, after lengthy trials and long deliberations, that Abdul Nacer Benbrika and some Islamist associates had conspired to undertake terrorist attacks on targets in Australia. In both cases the defendants were provided with able defence teams, courtesy of the Australian taxpayer.
Second, last month, a jury in Melbourne convicted three Islamists for taking part in a conspiracy (termed by police Operation Neath) to wage an attack on Holsworthy army base in Sydney. Two of the accused were acquitted after another long trial and lengthy jury deliberation.
What was particularly disturbing about Operation Neath turned on the evident contempt of the Somalia-born Saney Aweys for his fellow Australians. Yet Aweys's intercepted phone conversations indicate that he was more than willing to accept welfare payments in support of his wife and children and saw no contradiction in residing in public housing while condemning what he termed the ''filthy people'' who make up contemporary Australia.
The convictions in the Operation Pendennis and Operation Neath cases support Gohel's thesis. There is no evidence that those convicted were operating in accordance with directives from al-Qaeda central - unlike those Islamists who took part in the attacks in the US in 2001 or the attacks in Britain in 2005. Rather, the current danger in Australia appears to turn on individuals who have been radicalised at home or after brief visits overseas.
It is difficult to obtain guilty verdicts in conspiracy cases where no physical attack has taken place.
The success of counter-terrorism operations in Australia so far suggests that police and intelligence services are doing well in a difficult environment.
As the mainstream British Muslim Mohammed Bashir said recently of Islamists groups in Luton: ''They enjoy living in this country and then spend all their time speaking out against it; they are fools but they are also very dangerous.''
The sad fact is that some of these dangerous fools commit, or conspire to commit, suicide/homicide.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/the-intelligence-and-the-luck-that-saves-us-from-murderers-20110103-19dsa.html

Chinese expansion fears revealed

2011-01-13T14:54:00.000-08:00

Philip Dorling January 7, 2011

AUSTRALIA'S intelligence agencies believe China is hiding the extent of a huge military build-up that goes beyond national defence and poses a serious threat to regional stability.
A strategic assessment by the agencies found China's military spending for 2006 was $90 billion - double the $45 billion announced publicly by Beijing.
Australia's peak intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments, as well as the Defence Intelligence Organisation and the Defence and Foreign Affairs departments concluded that China was building a military capability well beyond its priorities of self-defence and preventing Taiwan's independence.
''China's longer-term agenda is to develop 'comprehensive national power', including a strong military, that is in keeping with its view of itself as a great power,'' says a copy of the secret assessment provided by Foreign Affairs officials to the US embassy in Canberra.
''We agree that the trend of China's military modernisation is beyond the scope of what would be required for a conflict over Taiwan. Arguably China already poses a credible threat to modern militaries operating in the region and will present an even more formidable challenge as its modernisation continues.''
Details of the 2006 intelligence assessment are contained in a US embassy cable obtained by WikiLeaks and provided exclusively to the Herald.
The Australian document goes on to warn that the pace of China's military build-up and ''the opacity of Beijing's intentions and programs'' was ''already altering the balance of power in Asia and could be a destabilising influence''.
''There is the potential for possible misconceptions which could lead to a serious miscalculation or crisis,'' it says.
The Australian intelligence agencies suggest China could overestimate its own capabilities with a significant risk of strategic miscalculation and instability.
''The nature of the [People's Liberation Army] and the regime means that transparency will continue to be viewed as a potential vulnerability. This contributes to the likelihood of strategic misperceptions,'' the document says.
''The rapid improvements in PLA capabilities, coupled with a lack of operational experience and faith in asymmetric strategies, could lead to China overestimating its military capability. These factors, coupled with rising nationalism, heightened expectations of China's status, China's historical predilection for strategic deception, difficulties with Japan, and the Taiwan issue mean that miscalculations and minor events could quickly escalate.''
Although successive Australian governments have called on China to be more transparent about its military spending, ministers and diplomats have studiously avoided public reference to the scale of the discrepancy between Beijing's published figures and the likely reality behind the scenes.
The Australian estimate of a 2006 military budget of $US70 billion ($90 billion at the September 2006 exchange rate), has not been revealed previously - though it is consistent with academic and published US government estimates of China's growing military spending.
The secret Australian assessment is also much sharper than the language later employed in the Rudd government's 2009 Defence white paper, which said China was on the way to becoming Asia's strongest military power ''by a considerable margin'' and warned that the pace and scope of its growth could give its neighbours cause for concern if not properly explained.
The Rudd government publicly played down reports of a hostile Chinese reaction to the white paper when it was published, but secretly briefed the US that Beijing had threatened that Australia would ''suffer the consequences'' if references to China's growing military capabilities were not watered down.
The Defence Chief, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, and the then defence minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, insisted that China had no problem with the white paper. But other leaked US embassy cables report that the then deputy secretary for Defence, Mike Pezzullo, briefed US diplomats that he had been ''dressed down'' by Chinese officials who had a ''look of cold fury'' at the references to China in the white paper.
In the September 2006 briefing of the US embassy, Foreign Affairs officials advised that Australia hoped to use its defence relationship with China to promote increased transparency in that country's military development plans.
''We remain focused on deepening the Australia-China defence relationship in areas such as peacekeeping, counter-terrorism and junior leadership exchanges, while remaining cautious to avoid practical co-operation that might help the PLA to fill capability gaps,'' the Australian paper presented to the embassy concluded.
The Royal Australian Navy and the Chinese navy held their first joint exercise involving firing of live ammunition in September last year.
Last month the Defence Department secretary, Ian Watt, and Air Chief Marshal Houston attended the 13th annual Australia-China Defence Strategic Dialogue, which was hosted in China by General Chen Bingde, the chief of the PLA General Staff.
Dr Watt said that the dialogue was ''an integral component of Australia's defence engagement with China, and provided the opportunity to have frank and open conversations and to exchange views on areas of common interest''.
Dr Watt and Air Chief Marshal Houston also met the vice-president and deputy chairman of China's Central Military Commission, Xi Jinping.
Air Chief Marshal Houston said: ''We committed to continuing to develop our military relationship and practical cooperation together.''

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/chinese-expansion-fears-revealed-20110106-19hna.html

Food crisis fears as global prices hit record high

2011-01-13T14:52:00.000-08:00

Rudy Ruitenberg January 7, 2011

PARIS: Global food prices last month were the highest in records dating to 1990, exceeding 2008 levels that sparked deadly riots across the world.
An index of 55 food commodities tracked by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation rose for a sixth straight month to 214.7 points, above the previous high of 213.5 in June 2008, the agency said in a monthly report.
A senior economist at the FAO in Rome, Abdolreza Abbassian, told the Financial Times the increase was "alarming" but that the situation was not yet a crisis similar to 2007-08, when food riots affected more than 30 poor countries, including Haiti, Bangladesh and Egypt.
''The world faces a food price shock,'' he told the paper, adding that a prolonged spike could lead to a food crisis.
''Things could become explosive again … that's what people are concerned about,'' said Daniel Gustafson, the director of the FAO's Washington office.
Sugar climbed for a third year in a row and corn jumped the most in four years on the Chicago futures exchange. Food prices may rise more unless the world grain crop increased ''significantly'' this year, the FAO said in November.
At least 13 people died last year in Mozambique in protests over plans to raise bread prices.
Mr Abbassian said that ''there is still, unfortunately, the potential for grain prices to strengthen on the back of a lot of uncertainty''.
''If anything goes wrong with the South American crop, there is plenty of room for them to increase.''
In December, the cost of food was up 25 per cent from a year earlier, based on the FAO figures, after Chinese demand strengthened and Russia's worst drought in 50 years devastated grain crops.
Last month's year-on-year rise compares with the 43 per cent jump in food costs in June 2008. Record prices for fuel, weather-related crop problems, increasing the demand from the growing Indian and Chinese middle classes, and the push to grow corn for ethanol fuel all contributed to the crisis that year.
''In 2008 we had rapid increases in petroleum prices, fertiliser prices and other inputs,'' Mr Abbassian said. ''So far, those increases have been rather constrained. It doesn't really reduce the fear about what could be in store in the coming weeks or months.''
Global food production will have to rise 70 per cent by 2050 as the world population expands to 9.1 billion from about 6.8 billion last year, the FAO has said.
In response to the 2008 crisis, countries from India and Egypt to Vietnam and Indonesia banned exports of rice, a staple for half the world. Skyrocketing food prices sparked protests and riots in more than 30 poor nations including Haiti, Somalia, Burkina Faso and Cameroon.
In 2008 countries drew from global food reserves to replace the lost supply. Without that cushion, the overall market is more volatile.
Mr Gustafson cautioned against assuming high prices now would lead to unrest. The landscape had changed rapidly.
However, if a few big food exporters experienced extreme weather such as a drought, prices could rise, and that could bring unrest, he said.
Sugar and oilseeds had a disproportionate effect on the food index because it was based on trade values for commodities, Mr Abbassian said. The price of staples, including rice, was lower than in 2008, he said.
The surge in the index is mostly due to rising costs for corn, sugar and vegetable oil. These were less important than rice and wheat for food-insecure countries, the Financial Times reported. Bloomberg, Associated Press

http://www.smh.com.au/world/food-crisis-fears-as-global-prices-hit-record-high-20110106-19hni.html

Australian churches threatened

2011-01-13T14:50:00.000-08:00

Friday, January 07, 2011 » 04:58am

NSW Police are providing extra security for four Coptic Orthodox churches threatened with terror attacks.
Threats of terror attacks on at least four Australian churches prompted police to protect thousands of Coptic Christians during Christmas Eve services.
Police on Thursday surrounded the Coptic Orthodox churches in Sydney after a bomb blast killed 21 people during a New Year's Eve Coptic church service in Alexandria, Egypt.
Coptic Churches around the world are also on high alert as their Christmas Eve services are scheduled for Friday (Australian time).
On Thursday night in Sydney, bomb searches and police helicopters were part of the security measures that soured Christmas Eve celebrations.
Some church officials are worried that an attack may eventuate when least expected on any on of their churches, monasteries or schools in Australia.
A police detail searched St Antonious and St Paul parish in Guildford, in Sydney's west, on Thursday afternoon prior to its 7pm Christmas Eve services, a church official told AAP.
Up to 700 parishioners were estimated to be in attendance.
During the service, teams of officers surrounded the area while helicopters with spotlights searched the local suburb.
'There were threats to our church - three or four churches in the (Sydney) Coptic church,' said the man who asked not to be identified.
He said NSW Police contacted the church this week to say the Guildford site and three others in Sydney had been the target of a terrorist threat.
Archangel and St Bishoy at Mt Druitt, in Sydney's west, St Demiana and St Athanasius at Punchbowl, in Sydney's southwest and St Mary and St Merkorious, at Rhodes, were understood to be on the threat list.
A woman witnessed a police operation in her neighbourhood at Arncliffe, where St Mark Coptic Church is located in Sydney's south.
'The police helicopter is sweeping the suburb with this massive spotlight,' the woman told AAP.
All of the churches cancelled their traditional dinners that would normally happen after Christmas Eve services.
The spokesman said Thursday's threat, which resulted in no reported incidents, could have been a diversion.
'They want you to focus on the area that they're not going to be touching,' he said.
'And even though the threat was for Christmas Eve, they might do it on a normal Sunday. That's how they work.'
Police issued a statement to AAP following Thursday's operations.
'The NSW Police Force is closely monitoring international developments in the wake of the attack on the Coptic community in Egypt,' the statement read.
'Police have met with local Coptic leaders and are currently working with them to allay any fears within that community.'
Peter Mikhail attended the Guildford service and said the threats soured the service and have put fear into the congregation.
'It was not a nice way to be celebrating Christmas here in a country where you're supposed to be safe,' Mr Mikhail told AAP.
He said the traditionally long mass but had to be cut short at police request and people were dispersed immediately.
'We went to church today feeling quite apprehensive thinking oh my God' what if something does take place,' Mr Mikhail said.
'I'm worried about my wife, I'm worried about my kids.'

http://bigpondnews.com/articles/TopStories/2011/01/07/Australian_churches_threatened_561093.html

Keneally's power backflip

2011-01-05T12:05:00.000-08:00

Andrew Clennell State Political Editor January 06, 2011
SHE closed Parliament early in an attempt to disband it, but Premier Kristina Keneally will be a surprise guest at the power inquiry she has branded "unconstitutional".
In a bizarre announcement yesterday, Ms Keneally said both she and Treasurer Eric Roozendaal would appear before the inquiry.
It means the Government is giving legitimacy to a parliamentary inquiry it has previously said could endanger the $5.3 billion sale of the state's electricity assets.
But Ms Keneally yesterday continued to refuse to reverse her decision to prorogue Parliament, meaning the inquiry may not have the protection of parliamentary privilege.
She said in a statement that public servants - who may reveal damaging secrets about the sale - will not have to give evidence because they can rely on Crown Solicitor's advice that they might not be protected by privilege.
However, the Premier said she and Mr Roozendaal would "represent the government" at the inquiry. "I have taken this decision based on my commitment to transparency and openness," she said.
"While the Crown Solicitor's legal advice is abundantly clear that the committee is unconstitutional and is unable to compel witnesses, I have decided that the Treasurer and I will attend voluntarily, along with members of the electricity bid project team, to answer any questions."
Last night, a spokesman for the Premier claimed it was too difficult to reverse Ms Keneally's decision on December 22 to prorogue Parliament, which the Premier insists had nothing to do with trying to shut down the power inquiry.
"We cannot unprorogue Parliament. You can't," the spokesman said. "This is the best possible way of doing it. This is 100 per cent openness and transparency."
But Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell said yesterday's announcement was a "desperate act to get this issue off the front pages". "This is the ultimate act of hypocrisy," he said.
"Ms Keneally must immediately unprorogue Parliament to ensure witnesses have full protection."
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/keneally-power-backflip/story-e6freuy9-1225982691766

Time to develop our own talent to fill the key jobs

2011-01-04T14:06:00.000-08:00

SKILLS SHORTAGE: Sarah-Jane Tasker and Annabel Hepworth From: The Australian December 09, 2010 12:00AM
AUSTRALIAN companies concerned about skilled labour shortages should focus on training local staff.
They should not be campaigning for changes to migrant visas, which has been described as an "unsustainable" strategy.
The Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union has called on local companies to focus on training and upskilling the national talent pool to address the critical labour issue instead of finding overseas workers.
"Every time this issue comes up we have employers saying 'we have to loosen red tape and deregulate' to make sure all these major resource projects and nation building initiatives are able to supply labour," national secretary Peter Tighe said. "We understand skilled migration has to take place and it is a mechanism to address skills shortages, when there (are) cyclical trends, but our view is you should grow your own at home."
Australia's resources sector is riding the wave of China's increasing demand but the country's biggest companies are concerned that multi-billion-dollar projects will face major delays or cost blowouts if the skills shortage issue is not addressed urgently by the government.
Key industry figures, including Rio Tinto iron ore boss Sam Walsh and Leighton Holdings chief executive Wal King have called for the government to make the 457 visa -- the most commonly used program for bringing in overseas workers on a temporary basis -- to be expanded and made more flexible.
Mr Tighe said that despite industry concerns, the union had not seen evidence of employers "putting their shoulders to the wheel" in relation to taking on trainees. "Also, we have not seen them do anything else other than bleat about the problem and argue you should loosen the arrangements to bring in people from overseas," he said.
"We don't believe skilled migrants should be the source of Australian skilled labour."
Mr Tighe's comments came as a new high-level report warned that Australia's reliance on skilled migrants and international students was an "unsustainable" strategy.The report by the Australian National Engineering Taskforce found that about 60 per cent of newly qualified engineers were skilled migrants (compared with 40 per cent five years ago) with the number of engineers working in Australia on section 457 visas more than tripling since 2003-04. "Recruitment of international students and workers should not replace wholesale investment in local skills development and in the development of the profession in Australia," the report said.
The taskforce found a mismatch between the number of engineering graduates and industry needs, adding to pressures on businesses to recruit offshore. While there are about 6000 engineering graduates yearly, up to 4000 extra engineers will be needed in the roads sector alone in the next eight years. But engineers are in short supply globally.
One concern is that the resources sector is draining engineering skills, having a knock-on effect in other sectors such as roads and rail. The taskforce warned that skills shortages were adding to the problems of poor scoping on big projects.
The latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey, also released yesterday, also pointed to the hiring surge expected in the services and mining and construction sector next year.
Employers in the services sector are showing the highest employment optimism for the first quarter of next year, at a seasonally adjusted 28 per cent, up from 27 per cent in the same period last year. "We've heard a lot from mining and construction sector employers about skills shortages and these figures now serve to add more urgency to the need for a solution," said Lincoln Crawley, managing director of Manpower Australia & New Zealand. "Organisations need to prioritise attraction and retention strategies as the war for talent will heat up."
Schneider Electric, a global specialist in energy management, has been addressing the skills shortage issue with a graduate program, with the aim to have 100 graduates in the next five years.
Lyle van der Veer, national support and training manager at Schneider, said they had formed alliances with universities. "The idea is to get students job-ready during their degree process because a lot of the problem is when they come into our business, there is still a minimum of 12 to 18 months before they're useful onsite," he said.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/time-to-develop-our-own-talent-to-fill-the-key-jobs/story-e6frg8zx-1225967885831

Overseas labour 'key to projects'

2011-01-04T14:04:00.001-08:00

December 13, 2010 12:00AM
AUSTRALIA'S only hope of building infrastructure projects needed to lift national productivity is to turn to cheaper overseas workers.
Governments should consider putting public projects such as ports, interstate rail and big city transport construction out to international tender, allowing the winning bidder to bring their own workers in to do the job, Australia's leading demographer, Peter McDonald, said.
"It should only be for discrete major projects, the work quality would have to be vetted by Australian engineers and be subject to Australian occupational health and safety standards," said Professor McDonald, director of the Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute at the Australian National University. "But otherwise these projects will never happen because of the prohibitive cost of labour here.
Related Coverage
• Labor must join the dots The Australian, 13 Dec 2010
• Time to develop our own talent The Australian, 8 Dec 2010
• Skills crisis risks $150bn in projects The Australian, 7 Dec 2010
• Nation needs immigration debate The Daily Telegraph, 20 Jul 2010
• Migrants must fill labour gap in mining The Australian, 20 Jul 2010
"The winning tenderer would have its own workforce. They come in, they build the thing, then they leave. This is commonly done in other countries. Ports would be one example. Railways another. The Chinese, for instance, are building very fast train services between their cities all over China. We will just never build them on our own.
"Sydney and Melbourne have grown in size to be past the point where they should have good urban transit systems.
"But, of course, they don't, and they won't because it will be far too expensive unless they're built in the way I've described."
While accepting the idea would be strongly resisted by the unions, Professor McDonald said it was up to governments as to how much they valued higher productivity when economic growth per capita was restricted in coming years by an ageing population.
Governments are currently wrestling with how to balance a public backlash against "big Australia", with skills shortages driven by the mining boom complicated by the fact that the local labour supply is stagnating as hundreds of thousands of baby boomers move into retirement.
Construction workers are being lured away from housing and public works projects in the eastern states by bigger pay cheques in Western Australia and Queensland.
This propels wages growth, in turn increasing inflationary pressures across the economy.
Already mining and construction companies have called on the Gillard government to provide greater flexibility in issuing 457 temporary visas to skilled foreign workers or risk huge projects being deferred.
Professor McDonald said with domestic labour supply stagnating due to the ageing population, the only option to meet increasing labour demand and keep the economy ticking was migrants.
Yet net overseas migration fell 25 per cent to 241,400 in the year to March, albeit off record highs from 2008 and 2009, a decline attributed to a tightening of the rules surrounding overseas students taking up permanent residency, greater competition from the US and Britain for international students, and a change to the requirements for work visas under the general skilled migration program.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/industry-sectors/overseas-labour-key-to-projects/story-e6frg97o-1225969802314

Immigration Department's red book warns on student backlash after cuts to migration

2011-01-04T14:02:00.000-08:00

• Siobhain Ryan From: The Australian January 05, 2011
CANBERRA is preparing for a backlash from tens of thousands of overseas students caught out by its reforms to its migration programs.
The Department of Immigration's Red Book released yesterday warned its incoming minister, Chris Bowen, of a blowout in the overseas student queue for permanent visas and of the likely rejection of most applicants, despite grandfathering provisions aimed at helping them through the changes.
About 455,000 people held student visas when the government moved to review the points test, tighten the list of occupations in demand and reserve the right to cap visa places for some occupations.
About one-third of the 455,000 would have expected to attain permanent residence, but the reforms would now "render a majority of them ineligible".
"Even if their expectations of permanent residence have been unreasonably formed, this group is sizeable, many are aggrieved and they are beginning to mobilise," the Red Book said.
The problem is compounded by the fact there are 106,000 former students already on temporary or bridging visas awaiting a decision on their applications for permanent residency.
Many would be left in limbo indefinitely, the department acknowledged.
The department, which faces an Australian National Audit Office probe into its management of student visas this financial year, is so concerned about student discontent it is commissioning research to specifically monitor them, the Red Book reveals.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/warning-on-student-backlash/story-e6frg6nf-1225981972188

Ex-energy bosses ready to speak out

2011-01-04T14:01:00.000-08:00

Andrew Clennell and Gemma Jones: The Daily Telegraph January 05, 2011
TWO of the eight energy company directors who quit over the State Government's power sell-off are prepared to give evidence to the inquiry into the sale.
Their declarations came as Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell promised legislation or a referendum to prevent Parliament being shut early by a premier again.
The news came a day after Premier Kristina Keneally presented Crown Solicitor's advice that said the inquiry - set up by the Opposition and Fred Nile after she discontinued Parliament sessions early before Christmas - was "unconstitutional".
Two directors contacted by The Daily Telegraph said they would be prepared to appear.
Former Railcorp chairman Ross Bunyon and Michael Vertigan, who audited the state's finances for former premier Morris Iemma in 2005, both resigned as Eraring directors because they could not stomach Treasurer Eric Roozendaal's $5.3 billion sale.
They said they would be willing to explain why they quit but are concerned they might not be protected by parliamentary privilege.
"I'm inclined to appear but it would be dependent on legal advice," Mr Bunyon said. "I will take some legal advice to ensure that my own personal situation and interests are properly protected," Mr Vertigan said.
Ms Keneally presented the Crown Solicitor's advice that said parliamentary privilege was at "risk" and witnesses could not be compelled to appear. It had been expected that directors would elect not to appear.
The break in ranks from the directors will put more pressure on Ms Keneally to back the inquiry proceeding.
Mr O'Farrell yesterday promised that, if elected in March, he would change the rules around proroguing Parliament by legislation, or referendum in 2015, if necessary.
"After this rort, I am very keen to get clear rules in place for the prorogation of Parliament," he said.
Greens MP David Shoebridge, a member of the committee, said there was a precedent to Premier Keneally being able to reverse her controversial proroguing of Parliament, so the inquiry could proceed with certainty around privilege.
In 1982, former premier Neville Wran reversed a proroguing of Parliament so he could introduce a fuel tax. All that was required was a letter from Ms Keneally to NSW Governor Marie Bashir.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/ex-energy-bosses-ready-to-speak-out/story-e6freuy9-1225982012257

Migration logjam hits skilled workers

2011-01-04T13:58:00.000-08:00

• Sid Maher and Annabel Hepworth From: The Australian January 05, 2011 12:00AM

Source: The Australian
MORE than 140,000 skilled migrants are caught in an Immigration Department processing backlog of up to 28 months.
Business leaders are warning of a looming skills shortage and a wages breakout driven by a resurgent economy.
In a secret briefing to Immigration Minister Chris Bowen, the department warned of potential legal action by skilled migrants unable to get a decision on their applications. The department also said that, in order to offset the ageing of the workforce, migration would need to remain at levels that would lead to Australia having a population of 35.9 million by 2050 - the figure that sparked the "big Australia" debate and Julia Gillard's promise of a sustainable Australia.
Despite cuts to migration levels that would cause net overseas migration to plateau at about 190,000 a year by 2012, the Red Book briefing said net overseas migration would still be above the 180,000-a-year level used by Treasury in the 2010 Inter-Generational Report, when it calculated the figure of 35.9 million by 2050.
The release of the briefing came as Reserve Bank director Graham Kraehe called for an increase to skilled immigration to avoid a broader wages breakout.
"I think skills shortages are a major problem and if we don't increase the amount of skilled migration then we are going to have some real pressure on wages," said Mr Kraehe, who is also chairman of BlueScope Steel and Brambles.
The departmental brief, obtained under Freedom of Information laws and compiled in September, also predicted further riots from the detained Indonesian crews of asylum-seeker boats and warned that immigration detention facilities were stretched beyond capacity, with 2646 people held for more than 120 days.
The briefing painted a picture of a department under "stress" from an influx of "irregular maritime arrivals" and a migration program facing a situation where "there are far more people seeking to migrate to Australia than the country wishes to absorb".
The briefing said the influx of asylum-seekers had meant an extra 400 qualified staff would be required to handle the workload.
The department warned it urgently needed extra funding to house the asylum-seekers, after being overwhelmed by approximately 700 arrivals by boat a month last financial year, more than four times its budgeted estimate of 166 a month, and the average processing time from arrival to granting a visa stood at 147 days.
In a remark that places the government on a potential collision course with the Greens, the briefing foreshadowed the possible need for legislation to advance the East Timor processing centre, a measure flatly opposed by the minor party's leader, Bob Brown.
The Red Book also revealed that the government:
► Screened 369 citizenship and visa applicants suspected of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide during 2009-10.
► Developed a contingency plan for an emergency evacuation of Australians from New Delhi in the event of a major incident at the Commonwealth Games and contemplated also bringing out South Pacific Island VIPs and athletes.
► Is examining using "advanced analytic software", including data mining, pattern recognition and network analysis techniques to detect possible threats and fraud.
► Faces a backlash from tens of thousands of overseas students caught by the government's reforms to international education visa programs who were facing a blowout in the overseas student queue for permanent visas and likely rejection, despite grandfathering provisions aimed at smoothing the adjustment.
In addition to the processing backlog of 140,000 applications in the general skilled migration category, there were 29,000 people seeking processing for partner places under the family reunion program.
The department warned the backlogs could spark legal action from disaffected people awaiting processing as, under the Migration Act, a person who lodged a valid application was entitled to a decision.
"The use of priority processing directions in recent years, so as to selectively target applications for skilled migration, in combination with high applicant numbers, has meant that some people are persistently at the bottom of the queue with their application unprocessed," the brief said. "It is possible that legal action may be launched by disaffected people in this group."
In calling for an increase in skilled migration, Mr Kraehe said shortages were already emerging. "We are already seeing that up in the northwest and that will just get worse," Mr Kraehe told The Australian last night. "That will exacerbate the two-speed economy that we are facing and the issues related to it.
"Two things are critical: one is some measures to improve productivity, which has been very poor in the last three or four years and declining; and the second is to increase the skilled immigration quotas so we can address what is already a shortage and something that is putting pressure on project costs and more broadly will put pressure on wages costs in the community."
Wesfarmers chief executive Richard Goyder - who oversees one of the country's biggest employers spanning Coles supermarkets and Bunnings hardware stores - said he was keeping a "very close eye" on skills shortages.
"It's something we are very aware of, particularly in engineering, both skilled and semi-skilled areas. In the industrial businesses we've got particularly, it's something we are acutely aware of."
Australian Industry Group chief executive Heather Ridout said skills shortages would only grow in the months and years ahead and were contributing to wages inflation.
"We are at the early stage of a very, very big investment boom in Australia and that would suggest these are going to get worse," Ms Ridout said. "How these skilled migration systems and processes work is going to be really important over the next few years. They are certainly biting now."
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Peter Anderson demanded a more flexible skilled migration program. "If the government puts hard and fast rules in place that create gaps in our labour market then we will suffer productivity losses," Mr Anderson said.
"As a nation, we start this year with an already sluggish productivity rate and gaps in our labour market will exacerbate our productivity problems."
Business Council of Australia deputy chief executive Maria Tarrant said it was crucial that the government "streamline and deal with some of the causes of the backlog". "If you are thinking about how in the long term you deal with an ageing population, growing economy and skills gaps, skilled migration has to be part of the kit bag going forward."
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/migration-logjam-hits-skilled-workers/story-fn59niix-1225982007455

Premier faces 11th-hour inquiry

2011-01-03T12:52:00.000-08:00

Sean Nicholls and Brian Robins January 4, 2011

AN INQUIRY into the government's $5.3 billion power sale is to be held only weeks before the state election after its chairman, Fred Nile, said fresh legal advice did not affect its plans and the President of the Legislative Council, Amanda Fazio, revealed that her ''inclination'' was not to intervene.
The Premier, Kristina Keneally, yesterday released new legal advice from the Crown Solicitor, Ian Knight.
She had previously relied on advice he gave in 1994 to claim the inquiry would be illegal because it would be set up after she shut down Parliament on December 22.
In the new advice, Mr Knight said his view remained that the parliamentary committee that plans to run the inquiry on January 17 and 18 ''cannot function'' while Parliament is prorogued.
However, in contrast to Ms Keneally's statements that it could not afford witnesses the protection of parliamentary privilege, he advised that there was only a ''risk'' that that would be the case.
Ms Keneally said she would distribute the advice to Ms Fazio, Mr Nile and the clerk of the Parliament, Lynn Lovelock, ''to digest it and consider what the next steps are''.
But Ms Fazio, who as President could stymie the inquiry by withholding resources, told the Herald she was prepared to let it proceed, given the conflicting advice between Mr Knight and Ms Lovelock, who has advised Mr Nile that the inquiry can proceed. ''My inclination is not to withhold the resources of the Parliament from the committee,'' she said.
''Both sets of advice are saying there is no privilege. I'd be prepared to allow it to proceed as long as witnesses are appearing in a voluntary capacity, knowing they are without privilege.''
They are likely to include eight power company directors who resigned in protest on the night of the sale.
But Mr Nile said Mr Knight's advice about privilege was in line with a standard warning issued to witnesses before every inquiry.
Ms Fazio said Ms Lovelock was ''preparing more detailed advice''. She hoped to have her response by the time she returned to work next week.
The Opposition Leader, Barry O'Farrell, said the government should seek an order from the Supreme Court about the legitimacy of the inquiry but Ms Keneally's spokeswoman said Mr Knight's advice questioned whether the court would hear the application.
The Greens MP David Shoebridge said Mr O'Farrell was trying to ''pass the buck'' to the courts and argued that the inquiry should proceed.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/premier-faces-11thhour-inquiry-20110103-19dwh.html

The intelligence and the luck that saves us from murderers

2011-01-03T12:49:00.000-08:00

Gerard Henderson January 4, 2011

The bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt, at the weekend, apparently by a radical Islamist, was widely reported as a suicide attack. This is a serious misnomer.
The intention of a person who commits suicide is to kill himself or herself. The aim of the perpetrator of the crime in Alexandria was to kill as many Christians as possible. This is murder. The act is perhaps best described as suicide/homicide.
Egypt's President, Hosni Mubarak, has said that the attack was the work of ''foreign hands''. He seems to believe that the suicide/homicide attack was organised by a person loyal to al-Qaeda who entered Egypt to commit crime - following threats by Osama bin Laden's followers directed at Egypt's Copts. This analysis is probably correct.
Recent evidence from Britain, Denmark, Sweden and the US indicates that attacks on Western targets have been thwarted by a combination of good intelligence and good luck. Danish and Swedish police say they prevented an attempt to massacre staff at the newspaper Jyllands-Posten in protest at its decision in 2005 to publish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.
In Britain, authorities say they stopped an attack on the US embassy in London and the London Stock Exchange. In Stockholm in mid-December the Swedish-born and British-educated Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly killed himself while attempting, unsuccessfully, to murder as many Christmas shoppers as possible. And then there was the attempted terrorist attack in Times Square, New York, last May.
What all these activities have in common is that they were apparently the work of a ''lone wolf'' or, rather, a number of lone wolves. The term has been used by Dr Sajjan Gohel, of the Asia-Pacific Foundation.
According to his research, the number of attacks that have been controlled by what he terms ''al-Qaeda central'' has diminished since 2006. He attributes this to several factors. First, the original al-Qaeda central organisation ''has been severely disrupted by allied operations in north and south Waziristan along the Afghan-Pakistan border region''. Second, al-Qaeda is finding it harder to raise and receive finance.
This leads Gohel to conclude that the growing concern in the West is to individuals who are not connected to any particular cell or network but who became ''radicalised as a result of jihadist literature online''.
Roshonara Choudhry is a case in point. A gifted student at King's College London who is fluent in four languages, she was influenced by the American-born and Yemen-based Islamist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Last May, inspired by al-Awlaki's teachings on the internet, she tried to stab to death a Labour MP, Stephen Timms. Choudhry was a lone-wolf attacker who decided to be a martyr. It is all but impossible for intelligence organisations to thwart such attacks.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is another case. The son of a successful and wealthy Nigerian family, he allegedly tried to bring down an aircraft bound for Detroit on Christmas Day 2009 by igniting chemicals strapped to his inner leg.
Many members of the civil liberties lobby in Australia opposed the Howard government's Anti-Terrorism Act in 2005, which was supported by the Labor opposition. However, a number of jury trials in Australia have supported the view that there are people in Australia who have planned terrorist attacks.
First, there were convictions in the Operation Pendennis trials - the first in Sydney, the second in Melbourne. Juries were convinced, after lengthy trials and long deliberations, that Abdul Nacer Benbrika and some Islamist associates had conspired to undertake terrorist attacks on targets in Australia. In both cases the defendants were provided with able defence teams, courtesy of the Australian taxpayer.
Second, last month, a jury in Melbourne convicted three Islamists for taking part in a conspiracy (termed by police Operation Neath) to wage an attack on Holsworthy army base in Sydney. Two of the accused were acquitted after another long trial and lengthy jury deliberation.
What was particularly disturbing about Operation Neath turned on the evident contempt of the Somalia-born Saney Aweys for his fellow Australians. Yet Aweys's intercepted phone conversations indicate that he was more than willing to accept welfare payments in support of his wife and children and saw no contradiction in residing in public housing while condemning what he termed the ''filthy people'' who make up contemporary Australia.
The convictions in the Operation Pendennis and Operation Neath cases support Gohel's thesis. There is no evidence that those convicted were operating in accordance with directives from al-Qaeda central - unlike those Islamists who took part in the attacks in the US in 2001 or the attacks in Britain in 2005. Rather, the current danger in Australia appears to turn on individuals who have been radicalised at home or after brief visits overseas.
It is difficult to obtain guilty verdicts in conspiracy cases where no physical attack has taken place.
The success of counter-terrorism operations in Australia so far suggests that police and intelligence services are doing well in a difficult environment.
As the mainstream British Muslim Mohammed Bashir said recently of Islamists groups in Luton: ''They enjoy living in this country and then spend all their time speaking out against it; they are fools but they are also very dangerous.''
The sad fact is that some of these dangerous fools commit, or conspire to commit, suicide/homicide.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/the-intelligence-and-the-luck-that-saves-us-from-murderers-20110103-19dsa.html

City mansion stands waiting

2011-01-02T15:54:00.000-08:00

Marc Pallisco 3 January 2011

One of the few remaining historic mansions in Melbourne's grand St Kilda Road is for sale — but its fate — as a luxury home, or as an equally lavish office — now lies in the hands of whoever waves the biggest cheque.
The prominent Airlie mansion at 452 St Kilda Road, on the north-west corner of Arthur Street was once home to prime minister Stanley Bruce, whose National-Country coalition governed the country between 1923 and 1929.
Built in 1891, Airlie was eminent during when St Kilda Road was revered as the address of Melbourne's wealthiest aristocrats and where some of the city's most grandiose residential real estate was developed.
Most of those homes have been demolished in the past half century, making way for office buildings that are now among the cheapest in the city to buy or lease.
Increasingly they are being replaced with apartment towers.
Some historic mansions have remained around the precinct but, like Airlie, had their side and back yards sliced, diced, developed, subdivided and sold.
In June 2007, Queens Road developer Asian Pacific Building Corporation paid $12 million for the 452 St Kilda Road estate, which included a development permit for what was a car park, behind the mansion.
Airlie was previously the headquarters of the Royal District Nursing Service, and also the office of investor and developer Clement Lee, who owned the asset for a period.
On land behind Airlie, APBC has since developed the Blackman Hotel, an 18-level, 209-unit tower.
It also embarked on a lavish restoration of the mansion, and took the unusual step of marketing Airlie concurrently with commercial and residential agents targeting quite different types of buyers.
What are bedrooms to agency Kay & Burton, which is marketing the asset as a prestige home, are boardrooms to CB Richard Ellis, whose floor plan suggests a 700-square-metre luxury office that could attract corporate operators through to consulates.
The mansion is expected to fetch about $8 million for APBC, which is also selling retail investments at the ground floor of the Blackman Hotel (expected to fetch another $4 million) and the Kings Business Park in South Melbourne.
The business park has price expectations of about $110 million.
Around the corner, a consortium including Macquarie is planning to demolish the 107-year-old Avalon mansion at 70 Queens Road.
Avalon is one of the few surviving homes by prominent architect William Pitt, who also designed the Princes Theatre and Olderfleet buildings in town.
A 12-level, 91-unit apartment complex, Proximity, will be developed on that site.

http://smh.domain.com.au/real-estate-news/city-mansion-stands-waiting-20101026-17218.html

Advice backs State power inquiry

2011-01-02T15:48:00.000-08:00

Gemma Jones Political Reporter January 03, 2011 12:00AM

PREMIER Kristina Keneally could be in contempt of parliament over her attempts to stop the power sale inquiry, constitutional and legal experts said.
Barrister Arthur Moses SC and prominent constitutional lawyer Professor Patrick Keyzer have told the Opposition that the inquiry is legal and Ms Keneally may be in serious trouble.
She has already admitted her claim that the inquiry was illegal was based on Crown Solicitor's advice from 1994.
She is now considering calling the Crown Solicitor back from holidays for an update.
Mr Moses and Professor Keyzer said the Government needed to urgently seek a declaration from the Supreme Court.
After shutting parliament more than two months early in a bid to stop the inquiry into the government's botched power sell-off, Ms Keneally was rebuffed by the clerk of the Legislative Council who said that it could go ahead with full parliamentary privilege.
Ms Keneally responded by claiming there was "no legal standing" and witnesses would have no protection.
"The purpose of parliamentary committees, protected by parliamentary privilege, is to ensure freedom of speech and absolute candour in deliberations about matters in the public interest, including concerns about maladministration by a government," Mr Moses and Professor Keyzer said in their advice to the Opposition.
"The comments of the Premier in our view have the tendency to interfere with the purpose of the committee, and may constitute a contempt of the NSW Parliament.
"It is a matter for the NSW Parliament to determine whether the conduct of the Premier constitutes contempt of the NSW Parliament and if so, what sanctions, if any, it determines to impose upon the Premier."
Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell yesterday claimed that Ms Keneally's questioning of the inquiry was simply to prevent witnesses attending.
"Besides the obvious contempt of Parliament issues involved, there's an overriding public interest for Kristina Keneally to stop harassing this inquiry," he said.
"The community's right to know the facts of the power sell-off and whether it will see electricity bills rise even higher."
A spokesman for the Premier claimed the advice from Mr Moses and Professor Keyzer was "politically motivated".
"The Government will rely on the advice of the NSW Crown Solicitor - the authority on government legal matters," he said.
"And the Government will rely on the Auditor-General to conduct a thorough, independent evaluation of the electricity transaction." The Auditor-General will report after the March election.

Should Kristina Keneally step down over trying to block the power inquiry?
• Yes 93.99% (2924 votes)
• No 6.01% (187 votes)
Total votes: 3111

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/advice-backs-state-power-inquiry/story-e6freuy9-1225980587511

Cast adrift from reality, the slick spruikers of 'our' shame

2011-01-02T15:37:00.000-08:00

Paul Sheehan January 3, 2011
The water in Sydney Harbour over the New Year weekend was clear, the sky was bright blue and endless, and the new fashion on the beach was bikini-clad women wearing pork-pie hats. A great look. There can be no city in the world where so many people, millions, have easy access to so much natural beauty and a comfortable life. Nowhere else on this scale.
Millions of people would want to come here if they could. I don't blame them. There are roughly 60 million refugees or displaced people in the world, and we would like to scoop them all up and save them. But in the real world it can take a powerful amount of work to even save one's own children from harm. If Australia decided, by an act of democratic will, to become the most generous nation in history, and open its borders to all who sought a better life here, in time this would have dire consequences for the society that has evolved here, and the environment we have already degraded so much.
In this context, I would like to hand out medals for the most dubious contributions to Australian public life in 2010. I don't question the sincerity or good intentions of those I am about to disabuse, I question their grasp on reality.
The gold medal goes to Graeme Innes, the Human Right Commission's disability discrimination commissioner and race discrimination commissioner, who has spent his entire 33-year career as a human rights lawyer. In August, Innes flew to Geneva, at taxpayers' expense, to address the committee of the United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
Innes managed to cram his speech with six major points that I regard as self-serving or untrue or both: (1) He said there was ''a strong need for a domestic implementation mechanism for CERD in Australia''. (2) He claimed, ''We have a clear sense of what the Australian community wanted … an enshrined bill of rights …''. (3) He called for changes to the Australian constitution to give greater effect to anti-racism laws. (4) He wants ''a national multicultural policy''. (5) He complained that there was ''no national data on the prevalence of migrants as victims of crime''. (6) He called for a ''federal law to criminalise race hate''.
This is a proscriptive paradise for human rights lawyers, as if Australia were not already excessively regulated and litigious and footing the bill for a human rights industry scrambling for clients and relevance.
The silver medal goes to another lawyer, a District Court judge, Stephen Norrish, who believes Aboriginal criminals should have prison terms of less than 12 months automatically suspended or converted to community service. He wants culture and disadvantage to be considered in mitigation during sentencing. He wants special ''Koori courts''. ''Unless acts of affirmative action are formally recognised,'' he said, ''not only will the disproportionate number of Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system continue, but it will increase, to this nation's greater shame.''
What about some collective remorse and self-criticism from the Aboriginal community? What about the gangs of young Aboriginal men who roam the streets of Sydney and country towns stealing and belting white kids, a problem my extended family has experienced first-hand multiple times? What about an apology from the Aboriginal people (a concept which itself is a white fiction) for the endemic child abuse inside Aboriginal families and communities?
I don't believe most Australians feel ''shame'' that Aborigines are 15-times over-represented in the criminal justice system. I believe they feel anger, as the victims of crime. Australians are sick of the chasm between rhetoric and reality, and the idea that the only acceptable public narratives for Aboriginal people are that of victim or artist or noble custodian. The percentage of incarcerated Aboriginals would be even higher if so many were not given a free pass by the justice system, which in turn has led to a self-perpetuating culture of violence.
The human rights industry, and lawyers from the High Court down, have created a system of moral and legal apartheid in this country in which Aboriginal communities are guaranteed to fail. And they want more of the same failed policies.
Judge Norrish does not treat Aborigines as human beings. Instead they are to be treated as something outside Australian law and culture, as victims, mendicants, piccaninnies, avatars of white guilt, incapable of knowing right from wrong. His comments are profoundly insulting to the majority of Aboriginal and part-Aboriginal people who function well within the norms of society.
At least he does not extend his ''shame'', like Commissioner Innes, who returned to Australia and complained about the ''race to the bottom'' by the major political parties in their policies for the handling of illegal boat arrivals. This is a deeply contemptuous phrase. It strips all principle from the debate for those who support strong border protection. It supports the false premise that the relatively small number of people who arrive by illegal boats makes this a minor matter than can be dealt with by compassion, not hysteria, exaggeration or xenophobia.
But this argument is about principle. Not numbers. The principle applies whether there are two boats or two hundred. The heart of the current debacle is a failure of law, an absence of legal certainty. If an election were to be fought today over whether those who arrive by illegal means, or without proper papers, should be guaranteed of failure, Julia Gillard and her government would be gone.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/cast-adrift-from-reality-the-slick-spruikers-of-our-shame-20110102-19cz9.html

The mineral scramble that led to some rare alliances

2010-12-31T17:20:00.000-08:00

Ian MacKinnon December 30, 2010

SOUTH KOREA has struck a deal with Burma to develop its natural resources in the latest bid by industrialised nations to secure new sources of rare earth metals to beat China's near-monopoly.
The minerals are vital for numerous high-tech products, including smartphones, hybrid car batteries, computer discs and guided missiles.
Most countries have had supplies squeezed as China, the producer of 97 per cent of the world's rare earth elements, restricted exports this year.
China said this week it would cut exports by a further 11 per cent in the first few months of next year.
That South Korea should be doing business with a pariah state such as Burma is a measure of the panic export restrictions have created among big producers of electronic goods. In September Beijing halted supplies to Japan, which takes 60 per cent of its rare earth exports, after a diplomatic spat over the arrest of a fishing boat captain in disputed Japanese waters.
Concern that stockpiles of rare earth minerals could run out by March prompted Tokyo to explore a deal with Vietnam to mine the metals. Beijing denied any official ban on exports to Japan, but figures show it cut export quotas by 72 per cent in the second half of the year. Prices increased sharply.
This spurred the US to reopen rare earth mines. A Californian mine, closed in 2002 due to environmental concerns and low prices, has recently reopened but will take two years to reach full production.
Chen Jiazuo, a metals research analyst at Beijing Antaike Information Development Company, said the export cuts were ''in line with government officials' comments that we need to protect the environment and resources. Controlling domestic production capacity, output and exports will continue to be the theme.''
Curbing exports may further exacerbate tensions with the US, which last week said it may file a complaint at the World Trade Organisation over restraints on supplies of the minerals.
Rare earth minerals are 17 chemically similar elements, including neodymium, cerium and lanthanum. Neodymium oxide, used in BlackBerrys, costs $US88.50 a kilogram - more than four times its price in 2009. Telegraph, London

http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-mineral-scramble-that-led-to-some-rare-alliances-20101229-19a8k.html

Fury in China over online death photo

2010-12-31T15:20:00.000-08:00

Xiyun Yang and Edward Wong December 30, 2010
BEIJING: The photograph is so graphic that it appears cartoonish at first glance. A man lies on a road with his eyes closed, blood streaming from his half-open mouth, his torso completely crushed under the large tyre of a red truck. One arm reaches out from beneath the tyre. His shoulder is a bloody pile of flesh. His head is no longer attached to the flattened spinal cord.
The man in the photograph, Qian Yunhui, 53, has become the latest internet sensation in China, as thousands of people viewing the image online since the weekend have accused government officials of killing Mr Qian to silence his six-year campaign to protect fellow villagers in a land dispute. Illegal land seizures by officials are common in China, but the horrific photographs of Mr Qian's death on Saturday ignited widespread fury.
It is the latest in a string of cases in which anger against the government has been fanned by the lightning-fast spread of information online. Officials in the city of Yueqing, which supervises Mr Qian's home village, insist that the photographs show an unfortunate traffic accident. Mr Qian's family, some Chinese reporters and residents of Zhaiqiao Village cite the photographs as proof of foul play and a sloppy cover-up.
It is unclear who took the photographs, but they first appeared on Sunday afternoon on Tianya, a popular online forum.
Chinese internet users were drawn to the fact that the land dispute involving Mr Qian is a common narrative in China.
In 2004 the city government approved the construction of a power plant in Zhaiqiao Village. The company building the plant got virtually all the arable land in the village, and the villagers received no compensation, according to a blog post that was written four months ago under Mr Qian's name.
Mr Qian travelled to Beijing to file a petition with the central authorities. City officials said Mr Qian had been arrested, found guilty of criminal conduct and imprisoned at least twice. Mr Qian continued his crusade after being released from prison. The New York Times

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/fury-in-china-over-online-death-photo-20101229-19a95.html

More on NSW Energy

2010-12-31T15:14:00.000-08:00

Keneally retreats on power inquiry

Sean Nicholls STATE POLITICAL EDITOR January 1, 2011

KRISTINA KENEALLY has bowed to criticism of her repeated claim that an inquiry into the controversial $5.3 billion power sale is illegal and will try to expedite the legal advice her department is seeking from the Crown Solicitor.
Two days after declaring she ''cannot direct the Crown Solicitor [Ian Knight] as to when he will be providing the advice,'' the Premier suddenly reversed her position.
''I understand the Crown Solicitor is on leave until the 10th of January. However, we're seeking to see if we can get his advice any earlier than that,'' she told a news conference.
Ms Keneally had previously insisted she would have to wait for Mr Knight to return from leave, meaning his advice would be delivered within a week of the inquiry's starting date of January 17.
Since she prorogued, or shut, Parliament on December 22, the Premier has relied on advice that Mr Knight provided in 1994 to claim the inquiry was illegal because it was set up after the closure.
But the Herald revealed yesterday that on the day Ms Keneally first called the inquiry illegal, December 23, her department was so unsure of the claim that it wrote to Mr Knight seeking ''urgent advice''. Despite not having received that advice, Ms Keneally has continued to claim the inquiry is illegal.
She has said it cannot call witnesses and that they would not be covered by parliamentary privilege, potentially exposing them to legal action if they were to disclose information that is commercial-in-confidence.
But these are the matters about which the Department of Premier and Cabinet is seeking Mr Knight's advice.
The Premier's claim has prompted the Opposition Leader, Barry O'Farrell, to accuse her of trying to intimidate witnesses, who would include the eight directors of state-owned power companies who resigned in protest on the night of the sale. At the news conference yesterday, Ms Keneally said the department had asked for the updated advice on December 23 ''because journalists had further questions'' about her claim.
The parliamentary inquiry is set down for January 17 and 18 and to report by January 31, less than two months before the election on March 26.
Ms Keneally is under growing pressure, including from within her party, over the government's handling of the power sale, which the Treasurer, Eric Roozendaal, rushed through just before midnight on December 14.
At the last minute Mr Roozendaal was forced to appoint members of his own sales team to the boards of the state-owned power companies involved in the sale, Delta Electricity and Eraring Energy, after the directors resigned.
Ms Keneally is accused of proroguing Parliament two months early to try to dodge the inquiry, an accusation she strongly denies.
Mr O'Farrell said yesterday that Ms Keneally was ''running out of excuses'' for blocking the inquiry.
''Ms Keneally has an opportunity to stop trying to hide the truth, and she should finally admit today that the only alternative she now has is to allow the parliamentary power inquiry to do its job,'' he said.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/keneally-retreats-on-power-inquiry-20101231-19bzp.html

Public kept in dark as banker joins power board at last minute

2010-12-29T15:56:00.000-08:00

Public kept in dark as banker joins power board at last minute
Sean Nicholls December 30, 2010
THE Treasurer, Eric Roozendaal, quietly appointed a former senior executive at Macquarie Bank, Michael Lilley, to the board of the state-owned power company Delta Electricity within hours of the infamous ''midnight sale'' of NSW power assets.
But Mr Roozendaal has made no mention of appointing Mr Lilley, despite announcing the names of two other directors he was forced to hurriedly appoint late at night to the Delta board after four directors quit in protest at the sale.
Mr Lilley, whose expertise is in public private partnerships, worked for Macquarie as its head of government business. This involved persuading governments to include Macquarie in deals such as the privatisation of public assets. It is understood he left about six months ago.
A spokesman for Mr Roozendaal confirmed that Mr Lilley was appointed on the afternoon of December 15, the day after the $5.3 billion sale was forced through just before midnight. But it was not mentioned, the spokesman said, because ''the appointment process was not complete'' by the time the Treasurer held his 9.30am press conference at which he announced the new directors.
He said Mr Lilley had no role in the sale and the appointment was ''part of the normal process of filling board vacancies''. However, two board vacancies on the other state-owned power company involved in the sale, Eraring Energy, remain unfilled after the resignation of four of its directors on the same evening the Delta directors did so.
The Opposition Leader, Barry O'Farrell, said Mr Lilley's ''sec- ret appointment'' illustrated the need for greater scrutiny of the power sale. ''The fact [the Premier] Kristina Keneally and Eric Roozendaal have kept this secret appointment from the public for nearly a fortnight only adds to the public's concerns that this sell-off is bad for NSW,'' he said.
''The failure of the Keneally Labor government to declare this appointment only increases the need for the parliamentary power inquiry to proceed and report back to the people of NSW before the election.'' Ms Keneally argued that advice from the Crown Solicitor from 1994 showed an inquiry into the power sale, planned for January 17 and 18, would be illegal because it was established after she prorogued Parliament last week.
Following criticism by the Greens MP David Shoebridge that the advice was outdated, Ms Keneally yesterday revealed her department has written to the Crown Solicitor, Ian Knight, seeking confirmation that it remained his view.
Mr Knight is on leave until January 10, but the Department of Premier and Cabinet had requested he report ''as soon as practically possible'', she said. She could not say if that would be before the inquiry began. The Premier also revealed that the NSW Auditor-General, Peter Achterstraat, had begun ''inquiries to Treasury'' into the power sale. But she could not say if the inquiries were for a special report on the sale.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/public-kept-in-dark-as-banker-joins-power-board-at-last-minute-20101229-19a9n.html

2010-10-04T19:51:00.000-07:00

The ‘Anti-Fascists’ Of ‘Antifa Australia’ Fail To Stop The Sydney Forum:
It Is A Serious Political Defeat For Those Who Deny Free Speech

The ‘Antifa Australia’ group has failed to stop the Ninth Sydney Forum held on September 18-19. After threatening to demonstrate against the Forum’s Sunday session and to generally expose and oppose ‘fascism’ (sic) – they simply failed to show.

Or rather, three ‘spies’ did. One was arrested by some police for an offence (weapon? drugs?). Another slunk away with a few snapshots of a small group of police detailed to ‘watch’ the event and the last one took a few photos at a safe distance from the Forum across the busy Princes Highway at Tempe. What startling intelligence did he get? Simply a few pikkies of the Australia First building where the Sunday session was held!

For Antifa, it was a bad knock, a serious miscalculation, a political defeat. Not to make good on their promise to demonstrate even when sympathetic journalists at the ABC or SBS could have given them a camera opportunity, has shown even a lack of enterprise.

On Sunday, when they should have been demonstrating against the Forum to prove whatever anti free speech credentials they have, Antifa opted to hold a ‘rally’ at the Hub Theatre in Newtown, with some forty or fifty persons in attendance. They later tried to occupy Newtown Square with banners and bongos and they threw a few insults at duty police.

There was still the opportunity to march from Newtown to Tempe, but there was no attempt to encourage others to join them, nothing at all. After adjourning from their rally, the Antifa wandered off to a few hotels and others perhaps - to some private homes to enjoy their recreational drugs.

Acting as the ‘fascists’ they would proclaim the Forum to be, they still failed to stifle freedom of speech.

In recent months, Australia First has noted increasingly strident rhetoric from Antifa to deny freedom of speech and assembly to those who they deem to be ‘fascists’. In the past they have damaged property and tried to assault people. They did not confront the Forum. Why?

Last year Antifa demonstrated (with property damage) in inner city Chippendale, protesting against a group they called ‘extreme right’ or ‘fascist’. In July, they joined with others to protest a small group of persons in Newtown who objected to Islamic migration. However, Australia First and Sydney Forum have been reserved for special abuse and occasional violent rhetoric.

Antifa is a group fuelled by anarchists and inner city ‘lifestyle’ dregs (same sex marriage couples, perverts of various sorts, drug abusers, refugee ‘advocates’ and what not). They do not represent the Australian people although they might be considered ‘chic’ in parts of inner-suburbs Sydney. They proclaim themselves arbiters of freedom. Yet, this group does not see (if it cares at all) that its slogans (No borders! ; No nations! Refugee rights!) are the very slogans of the corrupt, globalist, Australian political establishment. Australia First has often decried the ‘rabble above and the rabble below’, that funny working coalition of the rich in expensive suits and the greenhairs in dirty drag, who together share a common globalist perspective - and via the media can mobilise against patriotic Australians. At best, this curious Antifa street gang serves in practise those very elites they criticise elsewhere as the uncaring rich. The irony is absolute and the deception complete. Ultimately, it may be that the Antifa have simply recognized the fact that we cannot be deterred and that it is easier to abuse the long suffering average cop.

The Sydney Forum was a success and reports that have reached us say that the 2011 Forum will be the largest. Next year marks the tenth anniversary of the Forum’s foundation and in fact – its tenth presentation. Freedom of speech and genuine democracy is not dead in Australia. Australia First Party will continue to proudly support the Sydney Forum and we look forward to reading its full report for 2010.

The Gillard Palace Coup: What It Tells Us About The (Concealed) Nature Of Australian Politics.

2010-07-06T21:02:00.000-07:00

The appointment of Julia Gillard as Prime Minister has nothing to do with a government losing its way or bad opinion polls. It was not a cosmetic exercise, but one born in the belly of the system.

Basically, the putting aside of KRudd by the Labor Party shows anyone with an inquiring mind how politics works in Australia. It is about the exercise of power and it shows that power does not reside in parliaments but with the wealthy elite and the foreign states with ‘shares’ in the safe and efficient running of Australia Inc.

The Mining Tax

The multinationals which operate in Australia pay no company tax. Fact. Via the 50 year old dual tax agreement, they pay no direct taxes. Many mining companies here are branches of the multinationals. However, KRudd set out to tax ‘Australian’ mining giants. Call it a blunder or simply a desire to balance his budget, but like the whitless Gough Whitlam who wanted to know what went on inside the American base at Pine Gap, there are some things that Australian prime ministers cannot do and are not permitted to think about.

One section of Australian capital considered that it was being asked to shoulder too much of the burden of upholding their own appointees in government . They rebelled. The billionaire mining oligarchs refused the supertax levy.

So, a government changes and Gillard ‘backs down’ to the oligarchy.

It was almost automatic.

Chinese Imperialism Had A Hand In Government Change?

It is well known that KRudd was - and is - an enthusiast for all things Chinese. The Chinese Vice President was in Canberra just at the time of the palace coup. His concern? Mining contracts. Anything that delays or frustrates the supply of cheap Australian minerals to the Chinese moloch is a threat to the increasing power of China in Australia. Chinese imperialism demands security for its investments as all imperialisms have done in history.

Australia is a resources pawn in a globalised market. Australia is competed over as foreigners stake out their claims and draw out the national wealth. The mining oligarchs, particularly the repulsive Clive Palmer, all kowtow to China which purchases ‘their’ minerals, to their profit. They targeted KRudd. Gillard now looks forward to the continuance of the boom and welcomes the increasing interest of China in Australia

It was almost automatic.

Then, It’s Israel Again

It is publicly known that Julia Gillard’s live in lover Tim Mathieson works in property development and that he is employed by the Ubertas Group. This company is the creature of Albert Dadon, founder of the Australia Israel Forum. It was this Forum that sponsored Gillard to Israel last year where she sang the Zionist line on Middle Eastern politics.

As for KRudd, he had recently committed another ‘mistake’. He had criticized Israel (an entity he really loves as the false ‘Christian’ Zionist he is) over the Gaza blockade and the Israeli state murder of Turkish civilians on vessels serving in a Gaza relief mission. Again, too much public criticism of Israel cannot be tolerated – even from a fair weather toady.

Mr Dadon is close to prominent pro-Israel Labor MP Michael Danby, who was influential in the palace coup that installed Julia Gillard as Prime Minister. The Zionist fraction of Australian Jewry looked to Danby to ensure the Australian state lines up with Israel in its terror against the Palestinians and for its position on Iran. How the Zionist worm turns in Australian politics!

The Gillard government will stay the killing course in Afghanistan. It will support Israel. It will not seek the nuclear disarmament of Israel, but it will threaten war with Iran over a peaceful nuclear energy program.

It was almost automatic.

The Population Issue Explodes

Then KRudd became a little too open in his scheme for a “big Australia” – 36 millions, 50 millions, millions. It was bad to be too free with the truth when the voters get nervous.

So, crash, bang, out goes KRudd and in comes concerned Julia who even appoints a “Sustainable Population” minister to handle immigration.

A neat package. The public is to go back to sleep.

It was almost automatic.

When We Sum It All Up….

When we put it all together Australia has no real independence and Australian politicians are creatures of whomsoever – pays! It is a rich man’s government that bens over to the foreign interest.

That there was a palace coup suggests that Australian politics will become increasingly unstable and dictatorial. We learn where power truly lies.

The Australian people’s movement for national independence must address these issues. Not just the oligarchs of the mining industry, but all the czars of money must be put aside that democracy can grow in Australia!

2010-07-06T20:54:00.000-07:00

Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott ‘Tough’ On Immigration / Refugees?

Bullshit Me Once Shame On You ; Bullshit Me Twice, Shame On Me!

A game is being played. It has been on foot since the emergence of Tony Abbott as ‘Opposition Leader’. The Liberal Party has pretended to be a critic of the “border security” policies of the Labor government and has further argued for a “sustainable immigration program”. Yeah. Yeah. At no point have the Liberals demanded an end with immigration, nor have they said a firm ‘No’ to refugee intakes. And we would have expected nothing less from them. Under John Howard, the Liberals boomed immigration to dizzying numbers. The Liberals know that the ‘end’ of the policy – is to affect a change in Australia’s demographics. The question for the Liberals has been to stymie community fears over such a monstrous thing dispossessing the Australian People in their own country. Will we Australians become a minority in our own country within 50 years? Is the attack upon our national identity (in education, media, politics, cultural institutions) part of this change in our status? When do we become “part of Asia”?

The significant new development is that Labor has joined the Liberals in this game! In words at least, Labor has expressed concerns (sic) at the direction of the immigration program at its size, at the effects on urban infrastructure and so forth.

The Gillard Putsch Signals Fear Of The People.

The new Julia Gillard government has responded to mass voters’ worries stated during a recent State by-election in New South Wales. Liberal and Labor activists reported the mood of the community on immigration and population policy, on border security and refugees - was poisonous to the LABER-AL machine. It could produce maverick behaviour at the polls (not just in outer suburban Sydney either) and in the community – precisely the intention of the Australian people’s party – Australia First!

The Labor government now seeks a “sustainable” population level for Australia and is not necessarily in favour of the “big Australia” that KRudd talked about. Yeah. Yeah.

So now, both sets of liars are immigration critics!

The Sydney Morning Herald editorialised on June 30:

“Julia Gillard’s foray into population policy has a touch of John Howard about it. The former Prime Minister was adept at subtly using the public’s fears of uncontrolled immigration – talking and acting tough about a small number of boat people while simultaneously arranging a large immigration intake. It was an effective tactic to sidestep the xenophobia among sections of his supporters, although many will demur at its cynicism. Gillard, by implying criticism of the Rudd governments supposedly arbitrary population targets of up to 40 million people, and adding the word ‘sustainable’ to the title of Tony Burke’s population portfolio, is playing a similar game? Let us hope a game is all it amounts to.”

Was this a case of honest journalism from an Establishment paper?

We say that it is a ruthless and cynical game. But can LABER-AL pull this off? Gillard gives her new line and Abbott says it’s not hard enough and is just dreamed up policy spin. Why believe Julia? Then vote for Tony – he said it all first. Yeah. Yeah. A double game!

The Sydney Morning Herald does tell us a couple of things. People are worried. People may react. The game is being played. The paper is worried the game might get out of hand. And it can! All the lies in the world do not necessarily mean that the voters, the people, can be absolutely fooled this time. Have people realised: bullshit me once, shame on me; bullshit me twice, shame on me?? It’s a bit late for a John Howard ‘children overboard’ Tampa crisis. So it’s cooked up in a new way, with sober pollies reacting to what voters say about the population crisis.

However, population is only part of the story. It’s not just about people – but what people. Both faces of the LABER-AL machine are dedicated to the Asian Destiny for Australia, the ultimate breaking open of borders for labour and capital to move freely. We are warned. We are in peril. That the liars in Canberra would go down their new population-sceptical road suggests they are concerned the people may not be fooled.

Let’s prove that to them! Build Australia First Party, electorally and in the community as the party of the Australian People! No more bullshit!

2010-05-30T23:35:00.000-07:00

Liberal Party Seeks Out Its ‘Patriotic’ Three Stooges

Dr. Jim Saleam

The Liberal Party is up to its old tricks again. With public concern heightened by the refugee invasion and with immigration soaring to unheard of levels, the Liberal Party is floating out its rhetoric of “concern”.
The spin doctors have TV ads that feature maps of refugee boat streams heading towards Australia. Abbott talks of “sustainability” being out of whack in KRudd’s immigration plans. Shadow Immigration Minister Morrison has talked tough about “asylum seekers” being “illegal” and that it’s time to be “tough”.
It is all meant to deceive. It is schemed to win the public to believe that the Liberal Party will do something about it all. It won’t and as before (like with the Tampa ‘children overboard’ affair in 2001), the public will be lulled into colluding with one of the parties of the establishment, while it gets on with the job of dispossessing the Australian people in their own land through the continuation of immigration (and economic globalisation).
But the worst aspect of the deception is not that the public is the victim of a con, it is rather that people who should know better - line up to suckle the Liberal pig.

The Delusion
John Pasquarelli has written an important article. We remember him as an advisor to Pauline Hanson in 1997 and – more recently – as an official of the short-lived Pauline’s United Australia Party. His piece appeared on the website ‘The Australian Conservative’, a Liberal-Party-connected forum and news site.
In this piece, Pasquarelli advised all patriotic people not to found other parties that compete with the Liberals – but to rally together with the Libs, even as a faction of opinion within the party such that they may have a “say” in a mainstream party. In particular, he admonished two micro (Federally unregistered) ‘parties’ – the Protectionists and the Conservative United Party – to get with the program. The alternative was the hard yards of amassing funds and resources which he put in the ‘too hard basket’.

Pasquarelli, for all his intelligence, may have missed the point. In fact, the Liberals don’t mind these outside micro groups at all. If he had looked closer, he would have seen a strong current of common opinion (as we shall describe shortly) and most importantly, a fervent desire on their part to enter the mainstream through the Liberal prism, but in posturing competition against Liberal ‘softness’. The Libs hold out the illusion that they are agreeable in fact and that their voting herds and financiers might see the light in the future and come to these new ‘hard’ conservative parties. They hold out that they are soft because they are compelled to be and that the hard men can bring them back to true Liberal principles if they work hard enough. So, the micro parties work hard at a project (mainstreaming via the scheme to recruit the Liberal herds) that will never eventuate. Pasquarelli should have noted that all this chatter was actually taking place on a Liberal forum! And the Libs are happy about that.
Significantly, he did not mention Australia First in all this and for that we are truly grateful; after all, we are not in the program.

Weird Facts
Consider what’s happening. It looks weird at first glance.
Recently, Pauline Hanson, of all people, appeared on national television to tell us that Abbott would make a better PM than KRudd. What? This was the very same Tony Abbott whose ‘Australians For Honest Politics’ put her in gaol! Now she wants Abbott? But, remember what David Oldfield, her adviser, said years ago: “the aim of the One Nation was to make the Liberal Party more right wing.”
Was Pauline just returning to daddy? In other words, was the original One Nation just a reflection of stress in the Liberal Party heartland which was allowed to fester into a group that fundamentally – the Liberals still had a hook into? When the beat had run its course, it could be safely reintegrated back into the fold?
Now Hanson wants the conservatives not to rebel (that is too dangerous now; like the original One Nation did briefly, it could get out of control). Rather, she recommends they line up pure and simple behind the Liberal Party. What happened to her rhetoric about “Australia is being swamped by Asians?” All gone. Now she is more concerned that her house is not sold to a “Moslem”. Peddling a little ‘anti-Islam’ is not really a challenge to the Asianizing establishment.
And Alan Jones. The man who defended Hanson whilst she was a prisoner may now front for the John Howard Institute, a policy making think tank – for guess who? The nominal president of this group has been touted as one fellow who is big in the David Clarke faction of the New South Wales Liberals. This conservative, David Clarke, had his faction resuscitated by Abbott in 1996 as a barrier to too many Liberals sliding over to Hanson and as a fish-hook to reel them all back in when the time was ripe.

With Hanson as the big endorsement to the Liberals overall and Jones in the wings, Abbott has solid foundations to ensure that there is never a real radicalisation of the conservatives. Getting to this point isn’t weird: it’s diabolically clever.

So: the Three Stooges Get A Role
Of course, the conservatives in the Liberal Party, like the unionists in the ALP and certain farmers in the Nats, are all people who can, under particular circumstances, move away from their traditional alignments. Under temporary stress, some slid over to the former One Nation. They could do something similar again. But if the crisis of globalism becomes deeper (there are signs in the European debt crisis), or if domestic pressures against free trade and mass immigration become stronger, some may opt out of establishment politics altogether.

Enter Australia First.
For the Liberals, that must never happen. So they have their three stooges waiting. They have groups on hand that may even in themselves be genuine structures, but which can be conned into singing the Abbott chorus.
I refer unashamedly to the Australian Conservative United Party, to the Australian Protectionist Party and to One Nation (or at least a faction of it seemingly dominant in New South Wales and strong elsewhere).

What’s the con?
Well, there’s always the anti-Islam routine. The establishment doesn’t mind that – at least to a certain extent. As nationalists have said: this blows off steam while the state builds support for the faked up wars on terror (sic). They let people direct their rage at multiculturalism at the Moslems in Australia, careful always that it not spill over into a generalized critique of immigration generally. But these groups can go that extra mile. They can talk up the need to follow the ‘war on terror’, to support Israeli foreign policy, to bloc with the Zionists within the Australian Jewish community against any deals with the Palestinians and for the coming war with Iran – and so on. They can do the Liberal Party’s foreign policy propaganda work for them. When one goes down the militant anti Islam road, it means building alliances with other pro Liberal groups like Australian Christian Nation and the Christian Democratic Party. This is supposedly the mainstream option. It is – on our assessment – the road to nowhere.

The anti Islam routine usually leads to blocs being made with people who have no commitment to any real idea that the Australian People are a nationality. Rather these ‘allies’ bleat that the Moslems should be turned into Australians by Christian conversion and civic training. Their logic as applied to Moslems is held with the same vehemence towards anyone else. As allies for supposed nationalists, they are worse than useless. In this regard, I note that the United Conservatives declaim against any European ethnic basis of Australian nationality in any case; the Protectionists are still coy, if only because they had partial origins inside the womb of nationalist politics, but as time goes on, they will turn to the easy path. One Nation is divided on the matter. But the con stands – that these allies will bring masses and people may kid themselves that they are part of a real mass movement. The civic patriot danger exists for One Nation absolutely and not just for a chunk of it.

It follows too, that by taking this civic patriot road of praising flags and constitutions alone rather than our European blood, one gets close to the conservative faction of the Liberal Party. We note that the Liberals’ conservatism does not extend to defence of Australian Nationality – only to its civic forms.
The old One Nation in some States, but particularly in New South Wales, may find itself enmeshed in the Liberal Right. Some of its factional leaders have built close links with the Christian Nation group and the Christian Democrats, conduits for the Liberal Party. They are continuing to develop these links.

Three Stooges?
Dearly would the liberal Party like to possess these named groups as a three-stooges-act. There are dangers that they may be successful in the plan.
By ensuring groups fly false signals, the Liberal game-players understand that they also demobilise the developing nationalist people’s movement.
They have not reckoned on the resolve of Australia First to do what must be done.
Nationalists will maintain their independence and their initiative at all times. We refuse to be co-opted into the Liberals’ game and we will always be at liberty to act in the interest of all Australians. Against the Liberal ethos of high immigration, globalist economics, free market labour rules, war for the New World Order and so forth, we offer the vision of an Australian Australia, Australian identity, independence and freedom.

The reactionary minded can follow Abbott if they wish, under any self-deception that moves them, but Australia First will reject the Liberal Party’s game today, tomorrow, always.

2010-04-05T14:16:00.001-07:00

PUT AUSTRALIA AND AUSTRALIANS FIRST!

2010-02-22T18:57:00.000-08:00

We Pledge To Implement These Policies.

This is draft election policy for Australia First party in the 2010 Federal poll and for subsequent polls. The final version is yet to be approved. Our general programme is set out in the “Eight Core Policies” of the party; these policies are in accordance with these statements of position. What appears below is an electoral and community programme for action. It may be used as local circumstances permit in tandem with any purely local issue of community significance. Such policies may be added to if they are in accordance with the Eight Core Policies that guarantee the unity of the party around the idea of ‘Australia First’.

Eleven Points For Action

Australia First Party stands in this election with a programme for action and change for our country. Any Australia First representative elected is pledged to advocate these policies. The party is pledged to motivate the community generally to support these key demands to secure Australia’s identity, independence and freedom..

1. We demand that YOU the people should be represented in the parliaments and not be the victims of cynical, corrupt, and foreign-loyal party machines.

2. We demand the Implementation of Citizens’ Initiated Referendum and Voters’ Recall of parliamentarians, so that you the people can propose the laws and get rid of unresponsive parliamentarians.

3. We demand accountability for all politicians: for all those who have failed and corrupted Australia, sold the country to foreign states and agencies, or devoted themselves to globalisation; we pledge to nationalize their personal property and deny them parliamentary pensions and benefits.

4. We demand the promotion and rebuilding of Australian manufacturing and other enterprise and thence guarantee - Australian jobs for Australian workers.

5. We demand the re-instatement of the Commonwealth Bank as originally intended to limit interest rates to a minimum charge and to eliminate the private control of the nation’s credit.

6. We demand the control of currency exchange rates to end speculation in the national currency and resources.

7. We demand the reform of taxation, its simplification to end the exemptions for the speculators, the multinationals and the super-rich.

8. We demand an end to foreign ownership and control of Australian real estate and Australian resources.

9. We demand: the end of all immigration for a long period on environmental, cultural, ethnic and security grounds ; the repudiation of all treaties on refugees ; the end of contract labour ; the end of residency for foreign students; the end of multiculturalism.

10. We demand that the Australian transport industry be freed of bureaucratic control with the end of world-parity-pricing for fuel, the creation of an Australian fuel industry with a domestic fuel price and with public ownership of all roads and abolition of tolls.

11. We demand protection for Australian farmers by the provision of a guaranteed national market and pricing system, such that all food necessary to sustain the Australian People may be grown in Australia and regional Australia and its lifestyle be maintained.

Contract Labour Is Cheap Labour And It Can Now ‘Legally’ Flood Australia!

2010-02-14T12:13:00.000-08:00

Australian Workers: It Is Time To Fight!

It is now official. Contract labour can be employed ahead of Australian labour, at a cheaper price and there is nothing the Federal government will do about it. No only that, the Federal government says that allowing this to happen is part of the free trade deals that Australia has signed.

Contract labour enters Australia as temporary visa holders. Some acquire that right as part of the overseas student rort; others are part of a mobile pool of labour hired by foreign body-hire companies for employment in Australia. Strong evidence exists that many of these companies are fraught with criminal overtones. Others (like the Chinese or Vietnamese ones) are state agencies.

Australian workers cannot look, either to Tony Abbott’s Liberal Party (which started the whole Section 456 and 457 Visa scam), or to the Greens (who favour the ‘rights’ of these parasites) - for any sympathy. They must now look to themselves for strength and to a new party like Australia First for political action.

The contract labourers who now number over 70,000 persons are joined by up to 60,000 illegal workers. Numbers have been rising steadily.

The Truth Revealed.
The truth has been revealed by a report issued by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) and to be launched within days.

The report, which analyses recent government statements on the visa scheme, finds that Australia is not requiring employers to prefer Australian over foreign workers in hiring - or in retention in case of redundancies. Nor can Australia freely change the list of occupations for which the visas can be granted, nor cap the numbers of visa holders in a particular year. The number on the scheme is now set to explode.

The CFMEU has approached the Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, in letters and in meetings.

Union leader John Sutton said:

''What they are saying is that their hands are tied by international obligations under the World Trade Organisation and the Doha round of trade talks. This report has found that that is not the case. We are not bound, but the Rudd government is totally mesmerised by being seen to support a free-trade agenda internationally.''
Indeed, all Australian governments are hitched to the globalisers’ dream of a borderless world – borderless for goods, capital and workers.

Senator Evans has replied to the CFMEU: ''We cannot create legal obstacles for overseas workers or introduce preferential treatment for Australian workers without compromising our international trading position and legal obligations.”

Essentially, the globalist dream comes first.

The minimum salary or wage for a visa worker is sometimes 60% of that of an Australian worker. If employers are no longer even compelled to demonstrate the ‘need’ conclusively, they could sack current workforces on certain pretexts – and rehire aliens. It is strongly rumoured this may occur at the Burrangong Meat Works in Young.

Cheap Labour Scourge Built The Old Labour Movement

Obviously, unions like the CFMEU may be compelled to fight the government. But contract labour involves many unions and occupational representative groups. Mr. ‘Bunny’ Brown of the Australian Long Distance Owners And Drivers Association said today:

“Contract labour, hired by the big transport companies, has become common. It denies many ordinary Australian drivers a job and it increases the profitability of the large companies against owner drivers. We have noticed large numbers of contract drivers from Sudan and South East Asia. Some come on trainee schemes and we have been told the government subsidises the scheme. These drivers are not as hounded by the authorities to comply with regulations as are we”.

Originally, cheap labour, drawn from the South Pacific and from China, was a factor in fuelling the original Australian trade union movement over 100 years ago. It was a cardinal rule of policy that cheap labour would be refused access to Australia.

All this changed with the globalising ‘vision’ which grew to dominance by 1990. The availability of foreign contract labour – and now even domestic contract labour which enters under the guise of ‘refugee’ and overseas student programs – is too much of a temptation to the dominant class.

Similar problems build similar movements. It is obvious enough that the Labor Party and its unions are no longer any sort of representative of the working population. However, for Australia First, it is the original model of a united people’s movement, which the former Labour Party grew out of – to which we must turn.

People’s Action
The threat of cheap labour may drive tens of thousands of Australian workers into unemployment and continue to deny employment to those who lost jobs in the current economic downturn.

The cheap labour curse is a recipe for unlawful conduct. Australia First could not legally condone those who might break the law in wildcat strikes or actions against such unconscionable scabs, but we could understand the frustration and the anger denied a job to support their families.

Whatever occurs, it is time for Australian workers to fight back howsoever they can – through any union or association which is prepared to go the distance industrially and through Australia First, the only political party prepared to say what needs to be said on the political front.

In unity, we will have the Australian people’s movement that can ensure that Australian Jobs Are For Australian Workers!

The Peter Spencer Rally In Canberra: Warning To Farmers: Beware Of Lib/Nats Bearing Gifts!

2010-02-11T16:43:00.000-08:00

(We publish an edited version of an article by an activist who attended the Feb. 2 rally outside the National Parliament. We have added material from a farmer activist who has dealt with the Liberal-National parties.)

The "Tower of Hope" Property Rally took place last week. To give a very quick brief to the background of the rally:

Our Prime Minister is more concerned about galavanting about on the international stage then worrying about his citizens at home. Mr Rudd has taken the moral high ground because Australia, under his "esteemed leadership", met its entire “Kyoto commitment to reduce carbon emissions”.

However Mr Rudd has been less than forthcoming on the international stage as to how he actually achieved this feat. Did he target the coal/mining industry or electricity power stations? Um No. Has there been any reduction in fuel consumption, smaller cars, less whitegoods? Um No. Did the average person in Australia have to make a sacrifice and purchase a smaller size plasma TV. Um No. The Australian Government met its Kyoto commitment by removing the land rights of Australian farmers in a very underhanded way.

By putting through the "Native Vegetation Act" the government in New South Wales (and with similar State laws) has stopped farmers from being able to clear/use vast tracts of their land. They also did this in a sneaky way to deny the farmers any compensation for their loss. Had the Federal Government done this directly, they would have by law, had to pay the farmers fair compensation. So to avoid this, the Federal Government pushed and financially sponsored the State Governments to enact the laws on their behalf. The way the law currently stands, if a State Government does it - they do not have to pay the farmers any compensation. Everyone is passing the buck. The Courts say they cannot act - it is a political matter. The Federal Government claims it has nothing to do with them - it's a State matter. And meanwhile it's the Farmers who suffer. After spending years fighting the government, one Farmer (Peter Spencer) in sheer desperation, staged a 52 day hunger strike to draw attention to this matter. It culminated with this rally.

Everyone met at Magna Carta Place, near old Parliament House in Canberra. There were some speakers, poetry readers and musicians entertaining the crowds while they waited. We also had a couple of bagpipe players, and a couple of stock horses. A sausage sizzle had been put on, and some apple farmers had brought free apples for the participants to snack on.

A number of women had travelled in one of the many buses that brought people from around rural NSW. These had been sponsored by the NSW Farmers Association. There were also people there from Queensland and Victoria. I would put crowd size at approximately 4,000 people. The crowd was 99.9% white Australians - all good hardworking and decent country folk, who put way more into this country than they get back from it. Despite the financial hardships they have endured over the last few years they still made the effort to come to Canberra.

The crowd formed a marching line and we walked up to the front of New Parliament House, where we listened to a variety of speakers. I didn't take a notepad with me (lesson learned for next time) so I'm sorry, I don't know the names of all of the speakers and I won't try to describe them all, just some of the key ones I noted.

Some guy from channel 9 started the proceedings. He apparently had been one of the few in the media to give Peter Spencer’s plight any media attention.

A few other speakers from various Farmers groups followed him, as well as an aboriginal lady who seemed a bit confused.

The Truth Explained.

Then Alan Jones the radio presenter (who was the MC for the proceedings) arrived by private helicopter. His speech was outstanding and really hit the mark. His father had been a farmer, so it appeared that he genuinely sympathised with the farmers’ plight. His speech was really well researched, and listed many of the laws that had been passed which farmers have had to deal with - and which have slowly but surely eroded away their rights to their own lands. It was quite a list. The entire speech is going to be put up on the NSW Farmers Association web site, it's worth reading. http://www.nswfarmers.org.au/

Alan was followed by Peter Spencer. He was practically in tears; he was so emotional about Alan’s speech, and the support he had received from people. He was also a very good speaker - you could really hear how he was talking straight from the heart. Unfortunately Peter's plight does not have a happy ending - he told the crowd that he had now received official notice that his property was going to be seized by the bank on the 10th (I think) of this month. This man has lost everything thanks to his own government, and the plight of the other farmers would not be getting any media attention if it wasn't for his hunger strike. This brave man was certainly a role model to unite everyone who was there.

Enter The Lib/Nats

Senator Barnaby Joyce from the Nationals also spoke. He said he had been behind the farmers’ plight all the way, but he said he was not able to influence the government a lot; he said he was strongly pushing for an inquiry as to how the government had taken away the farmers land use rights so underhandedly and without compensation. Of course, Joyce’s party is paid for by a billionaire, Clive palmer, who thinks that Australian land should be handed over to the Chinese imperialists.

The next (surprise) speaker was Tony Abbot (Federal Opposition Leader). The Farmers’ groups had previously been lobbying for him to speak, but without much success. Nearly all of the rest of the parliament on all sides has been ducking the issue completely and had been to cowardly to deal with it. Abbott gave the weasely politicians’ speech that some expected of him. It all sounded like lip service which committed to nothing. Many politicians had used the excuse to not talk to Peter Spencer – that they wouldn't support "self harm" (conveniently ignoring the fact that this was a final act of desperation on his part, brought about by years of him trying unsuccessfully to get help and attention to his plight from these same politicians).

Mr Abbot started his speech by saying that he couldn't support "self harm" (therefore covering himself). He also went on to say that he agreed with many of the farmers’ points, but not all, but didn't say which. He also kept saying that he would always support and fight when injustice had been done... but we noticed that he conveniently didn't say that he agreed it had been done in this specific case.

The rest of the speakers were from a variety of groups. There was a very passionate young lady who represented a small landholdings group - people who generally had about 5 acres. This legislation also affected them, and I think she said there were about 20,000 people represented by her group. And, another poor farmer told how the government had removed 90% of his water use rights, but only provided compensation for 10%

Another issue raised was the bullying and intimidation tactics used by agencies against the farmers. One farmers group had got together to successfully fight these agencies. There were horror stories of government officials lying under oath, and magistrate corruption. One poor farmer was hounded and paid $500,000 in legal fees, to see the case thrown out completely and the judge state that the matter should never have been pursued by the agency in question

We should 100% support our Australian farmers. They are the foundation of our nation, and without them we do not have food, and are therefore completely dependent on foreign countries to stay alive. This is where the farmers think Rudd is heading - he doesn't care about them, he thinks the nation can survive on frozen vegetables from China!

Having heard Joyce and Abbott, we must be wary in election year that the farmers are going to be sold out if they rally to the ‘conservative face’ of our globalist regime.

If the Spencer Affair proves anything, we must make sure the farmers’ movement is independent at all costs!

Homelessness In The ACT: Unfashionable Facts

2010-02-08T15:15:00.000-08:00

Homelessness in the ACT is an issue that is not fashionable with the major parties. It will be acampaign issue for the Australia First Party as we develop our presence.

Many social workers say homelessness in Canberra is rising as the global financial crisis cutsdeeper into household budgets. Local relief centres are noticing an increased demand for foodand financial help. The global downturn means some Canberra families are now struggling to keep a roof over their heads.

Between 2001 and 2006, there was actually an 11 per cent increase in the number of homeless people in the ACT and that was before the global financial crisis developed after October 2008. There has been a 40 per cent demand increase for emergency relief and service support across the sector."

St John's Care at the Anglican Church in Reid has confirmed demand at their centre has increaseddramatically in recent months.

Homelessness is starting to affect a broader range of people in the community.
"We're seeing a lot more new people coming to us, people who would never have had to
approach a welfare agency before," she said. A new report has found 20 per cent of homeless people in the ACT are under the age of 12, nearly twice the national average.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report, Counting The Homeless, comparedhomelessness figures collected across the country on census night in 2006.
More than 1,360 people in the ACT were found to be living in temporary accommodation or on thestreet.

Report co-author and RMIT University Associate Professor Chris Chamberlain says three-quarterswere aged under 35. "The homeless population in the ACT was younger than in any other state and territory," he said."Basically we aren't sure why but we are certain that the population is younger and it's really quite striking."

Associate Professor Chamberlain says many of the homeless children were staying in emergency accommodation with one parent. "In those cases it's a family household that's homeless," he said.

"Quite a lot of them it appears in the ACT were single parent families and a fair number of them were actually in emergency accommodation".

Australia First notes that he ACT Greens say the 2009report on homelessness showed how important it was to continue building public housing. The Greens – of course – with their so-called Human Rights agenda and support for refugee intakes, can be counted on to betray the interests of the homeless for the benefit of utter aliens.

One Nation Leader Signals Sell-Out To The Liberals On Immigration, Population And National Identity?

2010-01-31T13:30:00.000-08:00

A prominent executive member of the One Nation party, Mr. Bob Vinnicombe, has signalled in recent public material, that he would sell-out to the Liberal Party.

If Mr. Vinnicombe is accepting as “spot on” Tony Abbott’s recent deceptive mouthings on Australia’s immigration and population requirements and our national identity, then he is encouraging a blurring of the One Nation’s policy integrity with a pure propaganda line from an establishment party.

What do we mean?

In an Australia Day speech, Tony Abbott said a lot about the failure of infrastructure to accommodate immigration, about the need for a population debate, about community concerns with bad immigrants who criticise our ways - and so on. But he also said that he was in favour of a larger population, high immigration and refugee intakes.

His quibbles seem to be precise numbers overall. Big bloody deal! Where’s the real difference with KRudd?

However, we see from the One Nation representative, an attempt to separate the Abbott commentary into little pieces and ‘unite’ with him on some of it. Once any ‘unity’ is arrived at with an establishment party, the sucker party is turned into a satellite.

Mr. Vinnicombe has said on One Nation’s behalf:

“When he said, ‘the inescapable minimum that we insist upon is obedience to the law’ and ‘It would help to bolster public support for immigration and acceptance of social diversity if more minority leaders were as ready to show to mainstream Australian values the respect they demand for their own’ most Australians, and the party that represents them, One Nation, will say ‘spot on’.“

Really? All this means that we continue to accept those who should not be allowed admission into Australia on the ultimate survivalist ground (they differ from Australia’s European population by ethnic and cultural factors!) and on the other grounds that immigration has had its day on an ecological basis, that “diversity” is something to choke on to the point of cultural and social confusion – but we are supposed to insist the new colonisers “respect” our values? What foolishness is this?

Mr. Vinnicombe has said on One Nation’s behalf:

“When he said ‘existing and planned infrastructure can hardly cope with the present population let alone the additional 14 million (almost entirely due to immigration) that the Prime Minister expects by 2050’ and ‘the rise of ethnic gangs and perceptions of ethnic street crime threaten the community understanding that migration should be overwhelmingly a net benefit’, they'll say ‘spot on’ again.”

But Abbott’s Liberals intend to keep high immigration and refugee intakes. They did not say, they never will say, that they will opt for anything else. They simply want to plan it better and select immigrants more carefully to avoid taking in the gangster elements. Big bloody deal! Abbott is addressing how to hoodwink the community with ‘better’ immigrants. He is not addressing whether the entire psychotic desire to boost Australia ’s population – should be abandoned. Why should anyone support him?

Mr. Vinnicombe has said on One Nation’s behalf:

“If this signals a possible about turn on policy by the Liberal Party, following their about turn on the ETS, One Nation welcomes it and hopes it is followed by an about turn on other policies like free trade on which the Liberals are at present equally misguided.”

No, there is no “about turn on policy” by the Liberal Party on anything. There never will be.

The Liberal Party is just one face of a two-party-faced regime. The Liberal Party functions to deceive that it is an “opposition” to the “other” party. But both parties agree on all that matters, because they are created and sustained by the same economic-political class. Yet, both play to their electoral and activist clients to convince them they matter and that they listen. It is part of a game which we call mistake as - democracy. For anyone in One Nation not to know this, would mean that he has abandoned reason.

From his press release published on the One Nation website through to a letter in the Griffith Area News (Griffith: where Australia First has recently been in the news over the contract labour scandal now engulfing that city), Mr. Vinnicombe is clearly trying to impose a ‘me too’ style on One Nation, which would make it a cheerleader to Abbott’s deceitful policy (it is a policy that tells the people what they might like to hear in loud tones, while it pushes the establishment agenda). Playing ‘me too’ or ‘we said it first’, seldom gets anyone anywhere. It is desperate politics which leads to being used by someone else.

One Nation exists as a federally registered party, but is it now divided internally, between those who wish to follow in the Liberals’ wake and those who would pursue an independent policy?

It is a cold fact that a faction directed by Mr. Vinnicombe has operated for a long time with very particular politics on things Islamic (ie. to the point of a very narrow focus). It has overstated the Islamic problem in Australia as the main immigration problem . This has led to building alliances with Fred Nile’s Christian Democratic Party, the Australian Christian Nation Association and the actual ‘conservative wing’ of the Liberal Party itself in New South Wales . The focus on Islam by these groups hides their passion for increasing ‘Christian’ immigration from anywhere (particularly Middle Eastern countries). Indeed, Fred Nile supports high immigration drawn from everywhere. These straight-jacket alliances centre on criticising Islam generally, whilst being truly ‘colour-blind’ on immigration overall. They also involve themselves in a lot of false religion about Israel being an ally in a world struggle against Islam ( Israel is as much a problem as it seems to incite Moslem discord), which supposedly obligates Christians to support it, even saying that is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy.

It is easy to go down that road. Meetings. Friends. Good press. Talk to others about a great future. This is fantasy politics.

Many people in One Nation reject this. A larger amorphous group inside the party has struggled towards nationalist politics. Many One Nation members have pondered all this Islam / Israel stuff and observe that it’s hatched by people who tie back to the Liberal Party.

So, are the latest comments on Abbott part of a process by which a faction ties One Nation to the Liberal Party?

What is the future? It is not for Australia First Party to lecture One Nation. But we ask: what if Abbott continues with his rhetoric? Just as Howard did at the time of the ‘Tampa Affair’ in 2001 – and even much earlier in 1988 when he invented the ‘One Australia’ idea to run counter to multiculturalism? Remember: Howard flew in the Tampa ‘refugees’ after the tough talk of the 2001 election and his criticism of multiculturalism never, ever, involved a critique of developing Australia as a multi-ethnic society. Will there be those who urge an alliance with the Liberal Party, an entirely delusional thing in fact, but who merge together with the Liberal Party on the ground?

Australia First Party says openly that if these alien elements seize control of One Nation, or acquire a debilitating influence, the nationalist minded within its ranks are always welcome to join us. Our party rejects compromise. The Australia First Party will fight unreservedly for the Australian people in the struggle for possession of its own state!

Australia First Intends To Be Active In the Capital Territory

2010-01-28T13:26:00.000-08:00

The decision has been taken to develop an Australia First branch in the Australian Capital Territory.

Australia First activists noted that some efforts of Australian nationalism and patriotism from the past - were not successful here. Groups from the 1990’s, up to and including One Nation, failed to make a dent in Canberra’s liberal façade. We are going to be different.

Australia’s Prime Minister has recast our national government to present an image of craven subservience to whichever imperialism is cracking the whip. If the USA demands troops for losing Middle Eastern wars, he bends. If China demands greater access to Australian resources, he kowtows. This neo-colonial cringe is reflected in Canberra’s atmosphere. Foreigners strut, Australians bow.

It was said to us that the decidedly cosmopolitan nature of the nation’s capital would not be helpful to the development of nationalist politics. It was said that the ‘wealthy’ nature of Canberra offered little by way of a base for nationalism.

Australia First disputes all that. Canberra is still the home to a considerable Australianist history. It was the capital of John Curtin who fought Australia’s Great Patriotic War and the home of countless Australian iconographic representations of our culture and national achievement. It is a city that also has its working people and its underprivileged who are not represented in the Territory parliament and are certainly not represented by the major parties.

Australia First will organize as it can to develop a new clientele in the Capital Territory and to make itself, over time, an effective cultural and political voice.

It is also our policy to work with other genuine cultural, social and economic groups and political associations to construct more unity of opposition to the liberal globalist politics that dominate our Territory.

We call upon our supporters to become active in the cause of Australian Identity, Independence and Freedom.

Peter Spencer Will Speak: Parliament House Canberra, Feb. 2 : Australia First Urges Support

2010-01-28T13:20:00.000-08:00

Peter Spencer electrified Australia with his solitary pole protest in December and January. Heendured a fifty two day hunger strike in defence of his private property against a State grabdisguised as a law to protect native vegetation.

Peter Spencer is now recovering with family. His doctor and medical team are continuing tomonitor his recovery.

As he builds-up strength, he remains resolute in his determination to pursue the issues of farmersand all Australian’s loss of property rights. Peter and his many supporters will continue to raiseawareness and pressure all levels of Government, starting with a series of rallies and publicmeetings throughout the whole of Australia. Spencer’s first objective remains – the FederalGovernment must:

Establish a Royal Commission to inquire into how the 3 tiers of Government, Local, State and Federal removed the land rights of Australian farming families so as to enable the Australian Government to meet the entire ‘Kyoto Commitment’ on greenhouse gasses and by so doing breached the Constitution, and pay those effected farmers on just terms for the “TAKINGS”.

In an Australia Day address to supporters, Spencer said “democracy is not set in concrete, and evolutionary change does not guarantee that our freedoms come up with the sun”; also quoting Thomas Jefferson “our liberties are only guaranteed by our own eternal vigilance”.

Preparations are being made for the PETER SPENCER TOWER OF HOPE RALLY FOR PROPERTY
RIGHTS IN CANBERRA on 3 February. Peter Spencer is monitoring preparations for the rally and is grateful for the support provided by the NSW Farmers’ Association who have undertaken a supporting publicity campaign and are providing free bus transport from around NSW to Canberra.

That is excellent. But beware of National Party goons bearing gifts.

Other speakers to the rally will include Barnaby Joyce, Shadow Finance Minister, Kevin Humphries, State Nationals Member for Barwon, Shadow Minister for Healthy Lifestyles, Shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Shadow Minister for Western NSW, Peter Dimbrowsky, Mayor of the Hills Shire, Peter King, Charles Armstrong, President NSW Farmers’ Association.

Australia First Party has absolutely zero confidence that any of the National Party
parliamentarians or supporters who may attend or even speak, have real support for Peter Spencer’s cause at all. After all, wimpering remarks aside that are meant to lull farmers back to sleep, the National Party has presided over every aspect of the rural side of the globalisation program. The aim of these National Party toads is to get up and mouth off about farmers’concerns, get their votes and their donations and derail anything worthwhile.

The National Party betrayals of our farmers are legendary. But still idiots line up to get fleeced.
So, be on guard!

Details of the PETER SPENCER TOWER OF HOPE PROPERTY RIGHTS RALLY are:

WHEN: - - Tuesday, 2nd February, 2010

TIME: - - From 10.00am

WHERE: - - Meeting point will be Magna Carta Place, Queen Victoria Terrace, Canberra.

Peter Spencer’s 52 day long hunger strike has brought unprecedented attention to the demise of the Australian people’s secure property rights. However the fight has only just begun – your attendance and participation in this historical rally on this day will help send a clear message to every Australian politician – this is an issue which will not go away – you need to act.

17 December 2009 - Government Approves Site for Islamic School of Canberra

2010-01-27T00:55:00.000-08:00

Australia First has edited this report from the daily press. The report should disturb all in the Australian Capital Territory as yet further evidence of the culture-busting of our Australian community as is being enforced from the top. Canberra, the national capital and showpiece of the nation, has pandered to a minority to serve failed multiculti visions:

The President of Muslims Australia (AFIC) and the chairman of the Islamic School of Canberra Board, Mr Ikebal Adam Patel, welcomed the decision of the ACT Government to allocate the former CIT School of Horticulture site in Weston as the permanent premises for the Islamic School of Canberra.

Mr Patel expressed gratitude to the Canberra "community" and the ACT government, and in particular to the ACT Chief Minister, Mr Jon Stanhope, for his "inclusive vision" and recognition of "diverse community needs".

Mr Stanhope stated: “The Islamic School of Canberra has made a positive contribution to the diversity and quality of education in the ACT.” Mr Patel asserted, that the new school premises and the facilities developed over time, will make the school conducive to more and better cultural exchanges with the greater community and other schools in Canberra.

Mr Patel reiterated the importance of education in Islam and the duty and responsibility of community leaders, teachers and parents to work in collaboration with the State and Territory as well as the Federal governments to ensure all reasonable steps are taken in providing adequate facilities to ensure future Australian Muslim citizens get the same opportunities and facilities as any other student.

Mr Patel added: “ If our Muslim children are provided facilities for a balanced education with the religious content provided by teachers who are well qualified, within a curriculum vetted by the authorities, we certainly will see valued Australian citizens contributing positively and putting back into this beautiful land an enduring legacy”.

For further information, please contact:

MR. IKEBAL PATEL - AFIC PRESIDENT - 0419 418 237.
CHAIRMAN – ISLAMIC SCHOOL OF CANBERRA BOARD