To The Australian
Sev Ozdowski provides several good suggestions for reform of the Australian Human Rights Commission ('How to restore public confidence in the human rights commission', 20/1), but he fails to justify its existence. Simply asserting that 'Australians whose rights are being breached or who are unlawfully discriminated against deserve protection' is not an argument. Our traditional legal system can provide adequate protection and is less liable to manipulation by 'the political Left' and 'progressives championing political correctness and social justice'.

Brigitte Dwyer is thus right ('It may not be ideal, but we are saving lives at sea', 20/1) to warn against the dangers of 'the idealism embodied in the human rights movement'. We do not want to see in Australia Italy's problem of 'a facility built for15 people hosting up to 1500 immigrants' or the violence against women by migrants experienced in Germany. To defend our patch successfully, we are going to have to be very tough-minded indeed. It is about more than just diminishing deaths by drowning.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic

Writing in the Harvard Law Review (http://harvardlawreview.org/2017/01/the-presidents-role-in-advancing-criminal-justice-reform/), soon-to-be yesterday’s man, Hussein Obama said, among other things, that prayer is not enough, but that America needs even more gun control. All that from a man who has killed many innocent civilians (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/01/obama-drones-strikes-civilian-deaths-with-drone-attacks),  and who is always guarded by big guys with lots and lots of…guns. He should be the first to go unarmed to prove his sincerity.

On the bright side, the gun side, Occidental Observer, not known for being much of a survivalist warrior site, has published an extract from Stefan Vestappen’s new book, A Masters Guide to the Way of the Warrior (Woodbridge Press, 2016).  The section published gives a concise argument as to why every free citizen, mentally capable and law abiding, should own a gun and know how to use it: http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2017/01/why-every-warrior-should-own-a-firearm/.

To the Weekend Australian Magazine
Disparaging Australia Day (‘Our day of dilemma’, Jan 21-22), Nikki Gemmell wrongly states that ‘many of the people resolutely not joining in the rejoicing are the ones who were here first.’ Wrong! No living Australian was here in 1788. Equally wrong is her claim that indigenous culture is ‘front and centre of our national being.’ That honour goes to British culture. Yes, the world changed ‘most grievously’ for the Aboriginal peoples after 1788, but history cannot be undone; and many of their descendants benefit greatly from the culture and infrastructure of our modern nation.
NJ, Belgrave, Vic

We must always keep the fact firmly fixed in our minds, that genuine democracy is decentralised control of policy making. This is in harmony with the Christian philosophy that all power and authority should arise from within the Individual, who should have the greatest possible self-determination.

There are two basic philosophies in the world, each diametrically opposed to the other; obviously these two philosophies and the policies arising from them, result in two different types of organisation. All organisation has to do with the association of individuals.

Over the Christmas break period, I set about cleaning up my book shelf, getting ready for the grim reaper. Don’t leave it until it is too late I say. So I write this as I flip through some older books all on the theme of the intellectuals and the new class. The idea of the “treason of the intellectuals” is now pretty well out there so out go these books, committed to the flames to increase my carbon footprint and help prevent the next ice age, in a small way.

Paul Johnson, Intellectuals, (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1988); a big book with lots of dirt on so called great minds like Rousseau, Shelly, Marx, Ibsen, Hemingway, Bertrand Russell, Brecht, Sarte, Norman Mailer. There is something wrong with all of them personally, and they all hold to the idea that they are superior to us common folk and that society will be better if their ideas were adopted. In fact, as shown by Marx and others, their ideas are disasters, responsible for untold human misery.

I return to an issue that I briefly discussed last year: what if the first humans came from Australia, not Africa, contrary to the received “Out-Of-Africa” anthropological hypothesis? Here I will explore this interesting idea further, citing Internet sources.

One article “Out-of-Africa Yesterday, Australia Today and the Pleiades Tomorrow – Part 1,” at http://www.ancient-orgins.net/human-origins-science-opinion-guest-authors/out-africa-yesterday-australia-today-and-pleiades, says that the original molecular geneticists who first coined the “African Eve” name, had “conceded errors in their original research then dismissed Africa and repositioned Australia as the birthplace of Homo Sapiens sapiens.” The article quotes one as saying: “It seems too far out to admit, but while Homo erectus was muddling around the rest of the world, a few erectus had got to Australia and did something dramatically different – not even with stone tools – but it is here that Homo sapiens emerged and evolved.”

The Oxford English Dictionary organisation claimed that the word of the year for 2016 was “post-truth.” 
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-truth_politics. 
“Post-truth,” the OED says, is used as an adjective “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

The definition seems to imply that there can be “subjective facts,” which is more than a little odd, since “facts” have always been associated with objectivity. It also implies that there is such a thing as truth. That, of course, is not a problem for us, but for the postmodern Left it is, because, well, everything is a social construction, and that certainly includes truth. So the whole post-truth concept appears to be inconsistent with the rest of the absurd Leftoid ideology.
Be that as it may, post-truth has been used by the chattering class of the Left to explain everything they don’t like, such as Brexit and the triumph of Donald Trump. (The Australian, December 10-11, 2016, p. 20) The “deluded” masses, who haven’t yet fulfilled their revolutionary role, have been swayed by emotion and subjective factors.  This seems to be a return to classical Marxism, with its ideas of hegemony and false consciousness. It just goes to show that the Left have really no new ideas, but just turn over the compost in the garbage can of their decaying philosophies.

The  ATOs Corporate Tax Transparency List for 2014-2015, has revealed the ugly truth that dozens of foreign multinational companies that have made billions buying and selling Australian agricultural commodities have paid no tax: http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/news/national/foreign-agriculture-giants-avoid-australian-tax-bill/news-story/6f30e64fa8b270a13c6c3e2bd27c57b0. Apparently these multinationals all made losses, some for the second year in a row. The companies span the entire Australian agricultural sector of grain, wool, dairy, wine, pork and other commodities.
If such companies make losses then why are they still operating here? Clearly we Australians, due to our absurdly biased tax laws, written to benefit the multinationals over locals, are being taken once again down the river. Wake up Australia!

Australia since the end of the White Australia Policy has been moving pretty much to open borders immigration. This can’t be done overnight, just as the ethno-racial change of the Anglo-Saxon population – 97 percent at Federation – had to be done by the Fabian strategy of gradualism. Nevertheless, that is the direction.

At the turn of the new year, the Immigration Minister said that terrorists were exploiting flaws in the temporary visa system. (The Weekend Australian, December 31 2016-January 1, 2017, p. 1) Terrorists convicted and serving sentences in Australian gaols had used fake passports and spousal, tourist and humanitarian visas.
To counter this, the government intends to improve visa risk assessments and strengthen the citizenship character test.
All these measures are a joke which will do nothing. The problem is immigration itself and the profound ethno-cultural changes which it produces. With free immigration, terrorists and extremists will always enter the country.

Here is an important article which should not be allowed to disappear too quickly down the Orwellian memory hole: Rosemary Neill, “Nation Divided at School Gate as Progressives Lead White Flight,” The Weekend Australian, December 10-11, 2016, p. 1. And here is the opening paragraph: “Since 2002 the City of Yarra council has proclaimed Melbourne’s inner north “a Refugee Welcome Zone.” But in this ardently Greens-voting area – and in left-leaning suburbs in Sydney’s inner west – progressive, middle-class families have been accused of avoiding schools with high refugee, indigenous or non-English-speaking student populations.”

The white progressives are “fleeing” inner Melbourne schools that have large African-Australian populations. Indeed, one academic quoted observes that the white progressives’ acceptance of diversity does not apply to their own children. But it is not just whites that are engaging in ethnic segregation the article says, as “staggering” levels of separation are also found in “predominantly Asian selective government schools on Sydney’s north shore.”

Recently there have been a number of US academics who have said that because whites have “benefited from slavery and are complicit in it,” they should all commit “mass suicide.” This genocide should be made whether or not one’s ancestors were involved in slavery, which is a new, wide concept of racial guilt. No matter that the number of deaths would vastly outnumber the number of slaves who ever existed anywhere; whitey must die, die, die!

This is a kind of collective racial guilt, now a growing part of Leftism, and a new level in insane political correctness: http://itself.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/should-white-america-commit-mass-suicide-if-not-why-not/; http://www.dailywire.com/news/4180/debater-harvard-says-white-people-should-kill-chase-stephens; http://www.truthandaction.org/mass-college-professor-white-males-are-a-cancer-and-must-die-urges-students-to-kill-themselves.

“Fake news” and the alleged hacking of the Democrats by the Russians during the US elections, were the buzz international stories over the Christmas break. “Fake news” arose as an establishment response to news it did not like, especially items critical of the elites and migrants. Thus, the German government wanted new laws to prosecute social media outlets such as Facebook for publishing so-called “fake news” and “hate messages’ – defined as criticism of the said groups: http://www.breitbart.com/news/german-legislators-want-to-fine-facebook-for-fake-news.

In responding to this, Facebook will now label “fake news,” using liberal “fact checkers” such as Snopes, Factcheck.org and PolitiFact. But these “fact checkers,” according to Breitbart.com, “have records of left-wing partisanship,” as revealed in the 2016 US presidential election. Thus, it was claimed by PolitiFact that it was “mostly false” (whatever that means), when Donald Trump claimed in a presidential debate that Hillary Clinton wanted “open borders.” This was said even though Hillary Clinton was on record as saying at a speech to bankers: “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders.”

by mountain cattleman and poet S.J. (Jack) Treasure, Dargo, Victorian High Country

Another year has moved around to join the passing scene

To fill the page of history's book, the time span in between.

To fade into a memory of patterns now long gone.

From childhood to the present day, the endless chain moves on.

And so, in circles come the days, in circles pass the years.

While circles of the universe extend in cosmic tiers.

But I, upon celestial earth, like others of my kind

Heed only small rotations: the years I leave behind.

Or do we climb a ladder high, the first rung to the last?

Grasping feeble at the start, then higher up the mast,

Until we view the setting sun, of life's eternal chain,

And pass beyond the evening star, ne'er to return again.

Or, are there circles like the wind, or waters in the streams,

That turn again in time's rebound, to haunt us in our dreams.

And form a cycle of repeat, though blent in mystic veil,

That we cannot piece together, dividing waters as we sail?

Professor John Christy, Alabama state climatologist speaks on science, politics and morality as they relate to climate change "action".
Recorded December, 2015.

from a NZ reader.
The NZ experience of a Treaty, with respect to the “original” people, would hold up as a working wonder of what should be done everywhere . It is constantly presented as having been a huge success. But the reality is that billions of dollars have gone to “settlements” which are endless and the vast majority of maori never have and never will see a cent of any of it.
Besides this, there are unelected maori advisers on the larger city councils and the costs of such are never revealed.

In several areas of Auckland (and perhaps elsewhere) property developers and home owners need a consent from the “local iwi” to make certain alterations to the property or dwelling. Usually this means a cash payment of several hundred dollars to the tribal “representative”. And who knows how much later on. Waterways and harbours are also in the pipe line for maori “representatives” to decide what does or doesn’t happen here.

Napoleon’s Grand Army was defeated in the Battle of the Nations in 1813. The Emperor abdicated and was banished to Elba. But his army was not disarmed and destroyed by the victors. Just 2 years later, Napoleon escaped and quickly re-mobilised his army. Only Wellington blocked his path to Brussels, at Waterloo. After a fierce day of battle, a weary line of redcoats still held the ridge at Waterloo. But Napoleon’s Old Guard had been held in reserve for this decisive moment. Advancing like a spear, three columns wide, “The Invincibles” aimed to pierce the middle of the thin red line.
 
But a miracle occurred. Withering fire on both sides of the spear from the thin red line sapped their strength - Napoleon’s Old Guard broke and ran. This was the critical point of that battle (and for the Climate War now). It is at the moment of defeat, with the enemy disorganised and demoralised, that the greatest gains can be made. Too often, however, the weary victors waste this opportunity to pursue and destroy the enemy.

Wellington’s exhausted army was incapable of pursuit, but a miracle occurred – General Blucher arrived at sundown with fresh Prussian troops. The avenging German lancers pursued, captured, disarmed and slaughtered the fleeing French all the way back to Paris. Never again did the Grand Army threaten Europe. In the global Climate Wars, Trump and Brexit have given us a victory of Waterloo dimensions. But this will be only a temporary setback for the Green Globalists unless they are now ruthlessly disarmed and de-funded. If we rest and relax, we will soon be ground under their green sandals again.

Posted on December 27, 2016 by Baxter Dmitry in News, World

Vladimir Putin has used his annual Christmas press conference to accuse Western liberal elites of abandoning the traditional values that made their countries great. Instead of building a future based on solid Christian values, Western elites have created a culture of “excessive, exaggerated political correctness” that is so destructive it will lead to the downfall of Western civilization if it is not arrested.

I know that there are many among us who are concerned about the rise of One Nation and the possible fracturing of the Liberal/National Coalition with a new conservative party. They see such developments as merely leading to the Labor Party getting office.
The Liberal/National Parties, however, differs little from Labor in basic ideology. Turnbull has once again breathed life into the Republic push, and he is firmly committed to Australia becoming a republic.
He will not budge on section 18C of the “There is No Freedom of Speech Act” because, he believes in it.

The breakaway of Katter and Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi to form new conservative groups is thus only natural. The Liberal/National Coalition are both rotten to the core. Better to destroy them both, endure Labor as a minority government, and rebuild. A new conservative party and other independents, sympathetic to traditional Australia, is needed to drain the Canberra swamp.

Don’t dare speak about “husbands” and “wives”- if you are in Victoria. (The Australian, December 16, 2016, p.3) The Inclusive Language Guide, to be used in the public sector, bans using “heteronormative” terms such as “husband” and “wives” and requires the use of gender-neutral pronouns such as “zie” and “hir.”
The guide, according to the Victorian Equality Minister, aims to keep the LGBTI community safe by “eradicating homophobia, biphobia and transphobia.”
Now, I would not want anyone to be unsafe but to my old mind though this seems to be little more than a politically correct attack on heterosexuality. If one is heterosexual and has a husband or wife, why shouldn’t one be able to refer to that Fact? That’s discrimination!
Then we will find out if it really is the case that gender is a social construct!

Immediately prior to the Christmas break, the SA parliament passed a heap of LGBTQI (have I missed any letters?) legislation. South Australia has now formally recognised same-sex marriage. The unpopular premier Jay Weatherill also issued a formal apology to the LGBTQIers. Not only is there state wide recognition of same sex marriages, as well as those outside of Australia, but next-of-kin adoption rights.  If the highly unlikely Federal referendum on the same sex marriage proposal delivers a “NO!” result, it may be possible to constitutionally challenge the state legislation as being inconsistent with the Commonwealth Marriage Act 1961. But, like anything taken to court today, I would not bet on it.
The Gender Amendment Act makes it easy to change one’s gender on one’s birth certificate. I bet Uncle Len, over there in Adelaide, is wishing now that he did not work so hard to oppose the radioactive waste dump in SA! He may even change his gender, race and species!

Perhaps you think that you are “progressive” and “tolerant” and not suffering from the malady of “homophobia” – but you may be wrong. (The Australian, December 2, 2016, p. 1) At least according to the GALE Association, where “modern homophobia” is different from the open hostility of “traditional homophobia.”
So what is “modern homophobia”? Well, “modern homophobics state that they are not homophobic but they prefer their child not to be LGBTI and they prefer not to associate with LGBTI, especially when they do not conform to heteronormative standards.”
What follows from this is essentially a denial of the right to raise children to be heterosexual. This is just one tiny step from making the choice to raise children to be heterosexual a hate crime.

It is a fundamental quality of liberty that one should be able to freely associate with who one likes. If one prefers not to associate with LGBTI, then, so what! It seems that the new class are pushing a bit too hard on this one and there may well be a backlash.
The edition in The Australian (December 2, 2016, p. 15) describes this as “attempted mind control – a product of fanatical, totalitarian thinking that should have no place in Australian education.”  Yet, while Australian students fall far behind their international peers in science and mathematics, there is no shortage of such “mind control” delivered by the “thought police on the march.” If they continue to win, this alone will crush Australia into Third World Status, or worse.