Month: October 2011

NOW would be a good time to put an end to two things inherited from the Howard Government: the likely-to-be ruled-unconstitutional school-chaplains scheme and the human-rights-infringing anti-terrorism laws. Last week the Government announced the next round of funding applications for the school-chaplains program – a bit cheeky seeing that the High Court has reserved judgment in a case challenging its the constitutional validity. Continue reading “No faith in “anti-terrorism” laws”

DON’T you hate it when your computer suddenly changes its behaviour without asking? Something that has worked for months or even years suddenly stops behaving that way.
In an office you can usually rely on the resident nerd to come and fix it. In a home office it is a different story. Continue reading “Internet excelling in publicness”

HOW nice to see Prime Minister Julia Gillard so concerned with child welfare that she put a telephone call in to the teenager jailed in Indonesia for allegedly breaking that country’s drug laws. And in the same week that her government put before Parliament legislation that would have enabled the Minister for Immigration to bundle refugee children to a foreign country and wash his hands of them. Continue reading “Regugee move right deed for wrong reason”

THEY have lined up in an utterly predictable way in the week since the Federal Court brought down its judgment that Andrew Bolt breached the Racial Discrimination Act. The Murdoch punditocracy and the Federal Opposition to a man and a woman declared it to be an outrageous infringement of freedom of speech. The left, including Fairfax’s usually sound and always funny Mike Carlton, declared it a victory against racism and bigoted journalism. Continue reading “Race bar too low for free speech”

THE former Prime Minister Paul Keating once said you should always back self-interest because at least you know the jockey is trying. Continue reading “Selfish clubs and spineless MPs”