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    Resisting centralist power – Part 2

    By
    Bob Day
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    0

    Following the Second World War, the most dramatic shift in the balance of tax power between the States and Commonwealth occurred.

    In 1942, under the leadership of John Curtin as Prime Minister and Ben Chifley as Federal Treasurer, all income taxing authority was handed over to the Commonwealth by the States for the duration of the war under the defence power of the Constitution. This was intended to be temporary and to last for a year after the end of the war. However, while the war ended in 1945, the role of the Commonwealth as the sole income taxing authority did not.

    For those concerned at the erosion of State rights through judicial activism, even worse was to come when, following the end of the Second World War, the High Court ruled that income tax collections could exist as an exclusive Commonwealth right under the normal powers of the Constitution.

    Australia has the highest level of vertical fiscal imbalance of any federation in the world.

    During the 1950s the State of Victoria mounted two legal challenges to the uniform tax legislation without success, and in 1959 at a Special Premiers’ Conference discussion of a return of income tax power to the States was on the agenda but could not be agreed. While there remains no legal barrier to the States exercising their right to levy income tax, there are practical (and political) reasons not to do so.

    In the post war era, the centralisation of power continued to be affirmed through decisions of the High Court including the Franklin Dam case in 1988, the Queensland Rainforest case in 1989, Mabo in 1992, and the Wik Peoples case in 1996.

    In speaking of the influence of the High Court and the threat to federalism arising from its decisions, Sir Harry Gibbs, former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia said:

    “It is a basic rule in the interpretation of any written document and indeed a matter of common sense that the whole document must be looked at in order to ascertain the meaning of any particular part. It might therefore have been supposed that in deciding on the meaning of the paragraphs of the Constitution which confer power on the Commonwealth Parliament, the Courts would have resolved any ambiguity by interpreting the provisions in a way that would maintain the federal distribution of power which the Constitution so obviously appears to guarantee ….. However, since 1920 the High Court has consistently rejected an approach of that kind.”

    The struggle for power continued in the High Court in 2006 with the States challenging the Commonwealth over the validity of the federal WorkChoices legislation, which was enacted under the Corporations power. The High Court overwhelmingly came down in favour of the Commonwealth. While workplace relations laws, prior to the WorkChoices legislation, were a relic of a bygone era and desperately in need of reform, the rights of States in the area of industrial relations were now all but gone. For example, the 1999 decision of the High Court to allow SA State government public servants to be covered by a Federal Award undermined that State’s competitiveness.

    The ability of a small, low cost-of-living State to use its industrial relations system to create a competitive edge over the larger States is important. South Australia, for example, under Premier Sir Thomas Playford, used this strategy (in conjunction with tariffs) to build a manufacturing base in Adelaide in the 1950s and 60s. Likewise Tasmania may wish to trade-off high salaries for quality of life and a green and clean environment.

    The most dramatic shift in the balance of tax power between the States and Commonwealth occurred.

    Undermining the rights of States is also evident in the actions of a burgeoning and, at times, arrogant Federal bureaucracy where the controlling hand of the Commonwealth is exercised through the terms and conditions embedded in funding arrangements with State government agencies.

    Since federation the tax revenue balance has moved dramatically from the States to the Commonwealth. The imbalance that now exists, known as Vertical Fiscal Imbalance, has put the Commonwealth in an all-powerful position, able to dictate to the States how and where funds are spent.

    Australia has the highest level of vertical fiscal imbalance of any federation in the world. The Federal government raises over 70% of all general government revenues, much more than is required to fund its own operations. The States raise just over half what they require to fund theirs. The balance of the States’ financial requirements is met through Commonwealth grants. This gives the Commonwealth enormous economic power and influence, and is inefficient and inequitable. It has the effect of keeping States like South Australia and Tasmania in a position of mendicancy.

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    Ideally, the States and the Commonwealth should only collect taxes for their own purposes with taxpayers and consumers fully informed as to what is a State tax and what is a Commonwealth tax. Those who spend the money should have the responsibility of raising it. It is about accountability, and governments of all persuasions should be specifically accountable for the money they raise and spend.

    The use of Section 96 of the Australian Constitution, which empowers the Commonwealth to make grants to any State “on such terms and conditions as the Parliament thinks fit”, has been used by Federal governments to wield power over the States.

    The Commonwealth’s control over State borrowings has further served to erode the power of States and their capacity to control their own destiny.

    Got something to say?

    Liberty Itch is Australia’s leading libertarian media outlet. Its stable of writers has promoted the cause of liberty and freedom across the economic and social spectrum through the publication of more than 300 quality articles.

    Do you have something you’d like to say? If so, please send your contribution to editor@libertyitch.com

    Resisting Centralist Power – Part 1

    By
    Bob Day
    -
    0

    In 1901, when six individual British colonies came together as a federation, it was in an environment of extensive and, at times, torrid debate. While there was widespread acceptance that the colonies could achieve together what they could not achieve alone, there was also apprehension about the extent to which the power to govern would become centralised.

    The enthusiasm and sense of expectation surrounding the birth of a nation was tempered by concerns about the future autonomy of individual colonies. The smaller colonies were also apprehensive about the power and influence the larger colonies might exercise.

    As a consequence, the process leading to the formation of the Australian Constitution was both painstaking and torturous.

    One can imagine how much this would have helped the fledgling Commonwealth-State relationship.

    During the first of the convention debates in 1891, Sir Samuel Griffith, who would later become the first Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, captured the essence of concerns saying:

    “We must not lose sight of the essential condition that this is to be a federation of states and not a single government of Australia. The separate states are to continue as autonomous bodies, surrendering only so much of their power as is necessary for the establishment of a general government to do for them collectively what they cannot do individually for themselves.”

    In uniting as a nation, each colony agreed to cede a portion of its powers so that the nation might become “one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown.” It is clear, both from the Constitution and from the record of the Convention debates, that the Federal government was to have significant but well-defined powers. All powers not defined in the Constitution, known as the residual powers, were to remain the province of the States. However, the ink was barely dry on the Constitution before a growing appetite for centralised power emerged.

    Foundations of Power

    The powers of the Commonwealth were set out in Section 51 of the Constitution, and their scope described in 39 subsections known as a head of power. While the States retained the right to legislate on these matters as well, the Constitution provided that where any inconsistency existed between Federal and State legislation, the Federal legislation prevailed.

    The powers ceded to the Federal government were very wide and included interstate trade and commerce, corporations, external affairs, taxation, defence, quarantine, currency, pensions, banking and many more.

    Centralisation of Power

    As one might expect, the first issue on which the boundaries of authority between the States and Commonwealth were tested related to tax, with the High Court becoming the arena for argument. The gloves came off, the lawyers were primed, and the fight over money began.

    The first tests came in 1904 in Peterwald v Bartley where the High Court examined whether the Constitution prohibited the States from imposing excise duty. This was followed the same year with D’Emden v Pedder, in which the power of the States to impose taxes on Commonwealth activities was rejected. 

    In 1908, in response to the Constitutional requirement that any surplus tax revenues in the first decade of Federation be returned to the States, the Commonwealth enacted legislation to pay these surpluses into a trust account thereby avoiding payment to the States. One can imagine how much this would have helped the fledgling Commonwealth-State relationship.

    In 1910, the Constitutional obligation that not less than 75 per cent of the Commonwealth’s customs and excise revenue be distributed to the States came to an end. While the arrangement was mandated for only the first decade of Federation, the Commonwealth terminated the arrangement as soon as it was legally able to do so, much to the ire of the States.

    In uniting as a nation, each colony agreed to cede a portion of its powers so that the nation might become “one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown.”

    Commonwealth government activity and bureaucracy then began to grow rapidly, fed by its growing tax harvest. The years leading up to World War 1 (1910-1914) saw increases in Commonwealth control of the economy and in social services. In 1915, following the entry of Australia into the war, the Commonwealth introduced income tax which co-existed with income tax applied by the States.

    Over the next few decades, both in the High Court and through legislation, the Commonwealth and States battled for territory in a number of areas including tax, defence and welfare services. So extreme was the discontent with the way the federation was heading that some States, most notably Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania, contemplated secession. In 1933 a referendum was held in Western Australia.

    At the time there was a Great Depression and every State was struggling. Some believed the problems were a result of Federal government policies and actions, particularly in respect of tariffs imposed to protect the manufacturing and sugar industries.

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    The result of the WA referendum sent shock waves through the rest of Australia with 68% of West Australians voting in favour of secession. This was about the same number who had voted to join the Federation only 33 years earlier. The desire of West Australians to separate from the Federation was not fulfilled as the British Imperial Parliament refused to act, claiming that such an action could only be taken with the consent of the Commonwealth Parliament of Australia.

    Got something to say?

    Liberty Itch is Australia’s leading libertarian media outlet. Its stable of writers has promoted the cause of liberty and freedom across the economic and social spectrum through the publication of more than 300 quality articles.

    Do you have something you’d like to say? If so, please send your contribution to editor@libertyitch.com

    More Political Competition

    By
    Dimitri Burshtein
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    0

    According to Treasurer Jim Chalmers, increasing competition among supermarket giants will help deliver lower grocery prices: “If it is more competitive, more transparent and people are getting a fair go, better outcomes will be seen at the supermarket checkout“.  

    The ACCC also notes that competition encourages innovation.  

    But where enhanced market competition can lead to improved consumer outcomes, enhanced political competition can lead to improved citizen outcomes: the former through lower prices and better quality, and the latter through lower taxes and better services.

    And just as those in the commercial sector prefer less competition, so too do the players in the political sector; the dominant political parties frequently colluding to modify electoral laws to defend their incumbency.  

    The Albanese government, while pursuing a business competition reform agenda, is also surreptitiously running an electoral reform agenda which will have the opposite effect, reducing political competition.

    Australian states and territories used to compete on policy and tax rates, acting as “laboratories of democracy”

    In his 1776 magnum opus The Wealth of Nations, the father of economics Adam Smith wrote, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”

    This quote is often used to describe the potential for anti-competitive behaviour within business.  However, with politics now more of a trade than a calling, Smith’s description equally applies to our elected class—a group that regularly meets, often for merriment, in a well-appointed building, to conspire against the Australian public.

    While Chalmers and Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh pursue new competition law amendments claimed to “make our economy more productive, more dynamic, and more competitive”, Special Minister of State Don Farrell is developing plans to make it more difficult for small parties and independent candidates to compete in the political marketplace.  Farrell even recently stated that “the Westminster system provides for a two-party operation.”  A duopoly that is.

    Recently also South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas proposed to ban electoral donations.  Were such a reform implemented, it would further privilege and embed the major parties by making it exceptionally difficult for new parties to emerge.  Raised barriers to entry lead to reduced competition.

    Political parties are exempted from many important laws including privacy and the proposed mis- and dis- information laws.  This makes their perpetual assault on political competition and concentration of political power even more nefarious.

    At a time of declining support for the major parties as measured by first preference voting and polling, the major parties continue to work together to maintain their political duopoly.

    Although the latest electoral proposals are being driven by a Labor Government, the Coalition also has dirty hands.  In 2021, the Coalition government passed laws, with Labor’s support, to shorten pre-polling periods and force the deregistration of some minor parties.  As part of this the major parties confiscated the words “liberal” and “labor” from the political lexicon, perpetually vesting these terms in themselves.

    Even Gough Whitlam’s grand dream of fixed four-year electoral terms has received bipartisan support with both John Howard and Peter Dutton offering endorsement. Extended terms transfer power from the people to the elected with no recourse, such as binding citizen-initiated referenda (as occur in Switzerland) or recall elections (as occur in the US).

    It was not always thus.  Over recent years, our neo-professional political class has increasingly and incrementally colluded to raise the barriers to entry for alternative parties and candidates.  This has contributed to a homogenization of personnel and policy, making the differences between the average Labor and Coalition candidate barely discernible to the average voter.

    For all the talk of diversity, this homogenization has led to much reduced experiential, cognitive and policy differentiation among politicians.  Many members of our parliaments, irrespective of party, gender, race, sexual preference or religion, follow similar educational and pre-parliamentary career paths.  While elected governments may change, there is a consistent trajectory of permanent government expansion and price rises through ever higher taxes.

    Since the turn of the millennium, it has been bipartisan policy and practice to increase spending, taxes, and the volume of regulations to ever greater levels.  The assaults on civil liberties and the crowding out of civil society similarly continue unabated.

    But where enhanced market competition can lead to improved consumer outcomes, enhanced political competition can lead to improved citizen outcomes

    It is not just a reduction of competition at the political level.  There has been a long-term de-federalisation project to aggregate power in Canberra; a manifestation of the French “disease” described by Alexis de Tocqueville as the tendency to concentrate authority in central government; something Tocqueville believed to be detrimental to political and social health.

    Australian states and territories used to compete on policy and tax rates, acting as “laboratories of democracy”, a term coined by US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.  Death duties in Australia were abolished not through some fiat from Canberra but because of competition between the states and territories.

    However, today some 81 percent of total tax revenue is collected by the Commonwealth, leading to policy centralisation and standardisation.  Matters constitutionally the provenance of the states, such as health and education, are now increasingly directed out of Canberra; fidelity to the intent of the Australian constitution and of tax and policy competition be damned.  

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    Just recently, the United States celebrated 248 years of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Drafted by Thomas Jefferson, it included this famous sentence: “… Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”.

    Just as politics is downstream from culture, policy is downstream from politics.  It’s time to change the way politics is done in Australia.

    Carpet Call: The Imperfect Gift of Religious Freedom

    By
    Bob Day
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    0

    John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols) is a clever guy. 

    As Robert McCall (aka Denzel Washington) says in the movie Equalizer 2 to Miles, a troubled teenager: ‘It takes talent to make money, Miles, but it takes brains to keep it’. 

    Regardless of one’s taste in music, there’s no doubting John Lydon had talent – and brains.

    ‘Imperfection is at the heart of life’, Lydon once said. ‘Imperfection is the greatest gift of all.’

    ‘Arabic rug makers will make their work perfect except for one tiny stitch, because nothing is perfect in the eyes of God. Only God is perfect. I think that is magnificently intelligent’.

    Before the 2022 federal election, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised to overhaul religious protection laws in Australia. 

    Under existing law, when hiring teachers or workers, faith-based organisations are able to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity via an exemption from anti-discrimination laws.

    Forcing faith-based schools to become indistinguishable from secular schools with respect to staffing is irrational

    The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) now says that exemption should be scrapped. No legislation has yet been introduced.

    Not content to wait for the Federal Government to act, activists have shifted to the old ‘State by State’ stalking horse approach – find the most amenable State, introduce the law there and then get other States to adopt it one by one. Once a few States have adopted the new law, the Federal Government is then pressured into doing the same. It’s a tried-and-tested model of creeping change.

    Former SA Greens Senator and now Greens SA Upper House member Robert Simms is proposing to introduce legislation into the SA Parliament next month which would remove all exemptions from anti-discrimination laws.

    Robert Simms

    There are some things people will not be dictated to or lectured about. One of those is their faith or their morals – particularly what they teach their children. They will certainly not be brow-beaten or cowed into submission by being called bigots or homophobes.

    The Left talks about equality and tolerance but this religious freedom debate is not about either of those. It is about discrimination against religious people. The Left may call for tolerance but what they really want is for everyone to agree with and endorse – even celebrate – their view of the world. They are not interested in debate or argument; they simply want the legislative power of the state to force everyone to comply.

    If being free means anything, it means citizens having the right to ensure that the religious and moral education of their children conforms with their own convictions – as outlined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Australia is a signatory. 

    It means having freedom of conscience, and the freedom to believe and practice the core tenets and values of a person’s faith. It is the state’s role to protect those rights.

    There’s no doubt that the Left is out to undermine our freedoms. They’re coming for our churches, our schools, our faith-based organisations, our farms, our mines, our cars and, most of all, our children. They’re also coming for our old people with their euthanasia packs, for our about-to-be-born babies with their grotesque abortion laws, and they’re coming to indoctrinate our primary school children. They’re also coming for Christmas Day and Australia Day and Anzac Day and Remembrance Day. These people mean business.

    People and faith-based organisations – schools, hospitals, aged care providers and charities – should not have to rely on exemptions from anti-discrimination laws to function in accordance with their faith. 

    The Left talks about equality and tolerance but this religious freedom debate is not about either of those.

    They should, by right, have the freedom to select people as they see fit. 

    Political parties grant that right to themselves because they believe, quite rightly, that the political allegiance of a job applicant matters. 

    In environmental groups, views about climate change are relevant; in women’s shelters, gender is very important. 

    Saying you can only become a member of a chess club if you play chess is not discriminating against people who don’t play chess! 

    In ethnic clubs and institutions, ethnicity is sensible and practical. 

    We accept all these differences. 

    And in faith-based organisations, faith matters. 

    Forcing faith-based schools to become indistinguishable from secular schools with respect to staffing is irrational. After all, no-one is forced to work for a faith-based organisation or send their children to a faith-based school where all the staff follow that particular faith.

    Expressions of faith by a person or faith-based organisations must be declared lawful. Statutory exemptions are totally inadequate. Exemptions granted can just as easily be withdrawn – as is now being proposed.

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    The right to religious freedom must be treated as a pre-eminent right and be recognised and protected. Human Rights Commissions should have no role to play. 

    A Commonwealth law, by reference to its Objects clauses, must recognise religious freedom as pre-eminent and override all state and territory anti-discrimination laws.

    To paraphrase John Lydon, while such a law may be imperfect, it would be a magnificent gift.

    The Coming Populist Revolt

    By
    Gary Johns
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    Populism occurs when the masses revolt against the elites’ view of the world. Elite opinion does not often deal directly with popular opinion, that is, with the people who have to pay for elite opinion. When elites get it wrong, the masses revolt through the ballot; the Voice referendum being a good example. The question is, when is the next chance?

    Currently, the elite consensus on issues like net zero, immigration and identity politics is so far removed from the reality of the masses that it is no wonder they are pushing back. The populist revolt, should it occur, will play out at three levels – international, national and personal.

    International

    Net zero is a preposterous notion. The world population is eight billion people. By 2050, it could be 10 billion people, a 25 per cent increase. These people will need energy. World energy consumption is 600 BTUs. By 2050, it could be 900 BTUs, a 50 per cent increase: more people, higher living standards, more energy. Electricity generation will rise mainly in the Asia-Pacific among developing nations. Renewables do not generally feature in developing countries’ energy mixes anywhere near developed nations’ proportions.

    Women have gained formal and substantive equality in Australia.

    Of 144 nations tracked for net zero, only 26 have placed in law their commitment to net zero by 2050 (or sooner). For example, the Maldives has pledged net zero by 2030 but it has no plan or accountability mechanism; it is pure hot air. Even Goody Two-Shoes Finland leaves out aviation and shipping and has plans but no mechanism for carbon removal. The US (2050), Russia (2060), China (2060), India (2070) and Brazil (2050) have a ‘policy document’, but nothing in law.

    Australia has a plan written in law that is sure to kill the nation’s wealth. Industrial and economic mayhem, loss of reliable energy and higher energy prices will reduce living standards. Minister Bowen’s deployment targets are logistically impossible in the time frame.

    Kenneth Schultz estimates a total cost of $1.4 trillion for the Coalition’s renewables-nuclear option. He estimates the cost for Labor’s renewables-battery option at $4.4 trillion, nine times the federal government’s total annual revenue.

    National 

    Migration in Europe and Australia is dangerous at levels that challenge national unity. Numbers count. If one million Palestinians settled in Australia in a short period, for example, the result would undermine Australian society. Palestinians would settle in a few suburbs and recreate a Palestinian society, i.e. one that recreates the hatred extant in Gaza and the West Bank.

    Values also count. Australia would do well to distinguish migrants by the nature of their observance, which is apparent in the laws on marriage, succession, or rape in marriage among our key Islamic migrant source countries: Lebanon, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia. A striking feature of those laws is that they distinguish the application of the law by religion. Religion first; the rule of law second. The question is how to distinguish this at an individual level. Classing people by source country is too crude and unfair, but not to distinguish people would be foolhardy. Why should Australia invite those unlikely to integrate or, worse, become an enemy?

    Those who appreciate the benefits of the nation-state would support Prime Minister John Howard’s view that, ‘We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.’ Howard and the Australian electorate recognised that some people are not welcome as they are unlikely to fit in. In the long term, Australia will be much more Indian and Chinese. Of the three million permanent migrants who arrived in Australia since 2000, almost 450,000 were from India, and nearly 350,000 were from China. The assumption of integration must be reinforced.

    The easy assumptions of integration post-World War II no longer hold. Since 2022, the Netherlands has required a substantial investment from a person applying for permanent residence before that privilege is granted. The civic integration requirements are set out in the Civic Integration Act 2021. The point of the Netherlands law is that applicants must be sufficiently integrated before they become permanent.

    The populist revolt, should it occur, will play out at three levels – international, national and personal.

    Personal

    Women have gained formal and substantive equality in Australia. They are free to sing the praises of Palestine. Homosexuals are free to marry and raise children. But the trans lobby wants to abolish gender, which is dangerous to the mental health of trans people. Sex must be understood in evolutionary terms. There must be sperm and eggs for reproduction. Two women do not create a child, and two men do not create a child. They may care for them, and we wish them well. The proposition that sex is not binary, that it is socially determined, is dangerous, especially to those who find that they are not at ease with their sex and want to reassign their sex to suit their ‘gender’.

    Anyone should be free to express themselves as male or female. But when sex is detached from reproduction, there are consequences. As Zachary Elliott argues in Binary: Debunking the Sex Spectrum Myth, ‘If we abandon sex as an important category in our society, how can we conduct safe and effective medical research and treatment; fight sex-based injustices; record accurate crime statistics; maintain fair, safe, and competitive sports categories; and implement equal opportunities for both sexes?’

    There is a claim that almost two per cent of the population is intersex, neither male nor female. The numbers consist almost entirely of those who suffer developmental disorders, such as late-onset congenital adrenal hyperplasia. People with these conditions account for nearly all the males or females who do not appear to be one or the other. The disorders occur in nature and do not result in good health. They are not socially determined.

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    Populism in the service of correcting the madness of net zero, overplayed migration and undermined sexual identity are ground zero for the populist fightback. The masses await the right leader and the right policies. Populism? More please!

    Gary Johns is Chairman of Close the Gap Research 

    This article was first published in The Spectator.

    Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em

    By
    James Hol
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    0

    For those of us who still occasionally like to check in on what the mainstream media is doing, there has been a topic that has got chins wagging and jowls flapping lately: “the tobacco wars”. 

    While the mainstream media, in typical fashion, has sensationalised the story, it is true that black and grey market tobacco is abundant in the community.

    BLACK, WHITE AND GREY

    As a (recently quit) smoker, I see it everywhere. My smoker friends brag about the newest place they discovered, with even cheaper prices, while they pull a cigarette out of their fully branded pack. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I saw a drab-brown (plain packaging) pack of cigarettes. And I wouldn’t be much of a libertarian if I didn’t confess that I haven’t bought a pack of cigarettes through a shop compelled to display a “retail tobacco merchant license” in well over a year.

    The obvious appeal of black and grey market tobacco is the near-two-thirds savings. I can buy a 20-pack of Marlboro Reds for under $20, while an authorised tobacco merchant is selling the same pack for over $50 (which I had to look up because it has been that long). And as more shopfronts pop up, the price is pushed down – a testament to the free market. 

    Anybody serious about removing the illicit tobacco market

    Even your poorest friends can afford to smoke chop-chop, illegally grown roll-your-own tobacco, at 50c per gram – a sixth of the price compared to roll-your-own tobacco in the authorised market.

    ALL IS FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR

    Despite the fact that, I would guess, most smokers are paying less for cigarettes than they have in over a decade, there are serious concerns that accompany a rising illicit market for an addictive product. Bikies and organised crime groups are starting to muscle in on the market, aggressively extorting tobacco merchants (as opposed to the more passive extortion of tobacco tax) and violently vandalising competitors.

    Stories of tobacco shops being vandalised and torched are becoming a near-weekly occurrence. And while I have little sympathy for organised criminals, it is not only criminals being affected: legitimate tobacco merchants are in their crosshairs and innocent victims are inevitably caught in the blaze. So week-in and week-out, the mainstream media trots out some new “expert” on the matter who declares another hair-brained measure will solve this problem once and for all.

    One of the more popular new measures being touted is to implement a licensing system to regulate tobacco merchants, similar to booze. The one problem with that is it already exists and has done precisely nothing to stem the flow of illicit tobacco. In South Australia, where I live, we have a had a tobacco merchant licensing system for as long as I have been a smoker (15 years) and illegal tobacco – and the organised crime that comes with it – is thriving.

    Even your poorest friends can afford to smoke chop-chop, illegally grown roll-your-own tobacco

    STATING THE OBVIOUS

    At the risk of sounding like another idiot who has the solution for this problem once and for all, there is actually an incredibly obvious solution to this problem: lower the price of cigarettes. There is only one way for those “evil”, “scary” big tobacco companies to sell their products at a loss and for merchants to make pennies on the dollar: abolish (or at least significantly reduce) tobacco tax. Well over half the price of the average pack of cigarettes or pouch of roll-your-own tobacco goes to the government in tobacco excise alone. Tobacco, like petrol, is also double-dipped on tax with an additional 10 per cent of GST.

    So while even someone with a cursory understanding of economics knows the only way to combat this problem is to compete on price – especially in a market where almost all forms of non-price competition have been outlawed – the obvious remains unspoken. To even suggest we use the only realistic solution to combat the illicit tobacco market, while also removing the most regressive tax in Australian history, is complete heresy.

    UP IN SMOKE

    Instead, we’ll pile on more regulations, evaporating the few legitimate tobacco merchants left, and “crackdown” on illicit tobacco, as governments continuously claim to do for no avail. We have known for a long time now that prohibition never works, and now we know that a surreptitious prohibition, via ever-increasing prices, achieves the same result.

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    Anybody serious about removing the illicit tobacco market, preventing organised crime from gaining a foothold in another industry and legitimately saving the lives of those caught in the collateral damage, knows the answer to this problem. Now it’s time to say it out loud.

    Does Australia Need a Bill of Rights?

    By
    Lushington D Brady
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    0

    Does Australia need a Bill of Rights? After all, Australia is, it surprises many to learn, the only Western democracy with neither a constitutional nor legislated Bill of Rights. Various attempts over the years to legislate one have failed.

    The closest Australia ever got to a Constitutional free speech right was in 1992, when the High Court ruled that the Constitution carried an implied right to free speech — in political matters only. As the Chief Justice observed:

    To sustain a representative democracy embodying the principles prescribed by the Constitution, freedom of public discussion of political and economic matters is essential:  it would be a parody of democracy to confer on the people a power to choose their Parliament but to deny the freedom of public discussion from which the people derive their political judgments.   

    If that sounds like a reach, later High Court rulings found that it was. When a public servant who had been sacked for criticising the government on Twitter appealed the sacking on the grounds of such an implied right to political speech, she lost. The court ruled that there is no personal right to free speech, but a restriction on legislative power, which “extends only so far as is necessary to preserve and protect the system of representative and responsible government mandated by the Constitution”.

    The Australian government is, very quietly, once again resurrecting the idea of a legislated “Human Rights Act”

    If anyone still doubted that Australians’ basic rights are not protected from government overreach, the last five years should have put a brutal end to such illusions.

    But Canada has a Bill of Rights, and so does New Zealand, and yet their governments were no less draconian in crushing basic rights, from informed consent, to free assembly, to free speech.

    So it looks like a Bill of Rights is worth precisely shit when the government boot comes down.

    Or is it?

    For all its faults, the United States’ Bill of Rights is holding up reasonably well against sustained assault by the state and its corporate attack dogs.

    The difference lies in how a Bill of Rights is framed: to whit, which view of freedom is at its heart.

    There are, in essence, two basic conceptual frameworks of freedom, with very different outcomes. These are positive liberty and negative liberty. At first blush, “positive liberty” may seem like the preferred option. It’s “positive”, after all!

    In fact, positive liberty is the stomping ground of collectivist ideologies which are almost invariably associated with the worst shackles placed on individual freedom. That’s because positive liberty is better understood as “freedom to”.

    That is, the freedom to act only within the constraints set down by law and society. Anti-discrimination laws are an example of positive freedom: citizens are free to act only within the bounds established by the laws enacted by the state. You are free to say only this and not that. You are only as free as the state decides to let you be. You can choose any colour, so long as it’s black.

    Negative liberty is very different. Negative liberty is the “freedom from”. Freedom from constraint. Negative liberty establishes what citizens can tell the state it is not allowed to do. It is the type of freedom associated with classical liberalism and libertarianism. The US First Amendment is a negative liberty: Congress shall make no law… The Second Amendment is in the same vein: the peoples’ right shall not be infringed.

    The other great difference between the USA’s, and NZ’s and Canada’s, Bills of Rights is that the United States’ is Constitutional; NZ’s and Canada’s are legislative.

    A Constitutional law is the absolute bedrock law of the land. No matter what the government of the day may legislate, it must conform to the Constitution.

    Legislation can be overturned by a simple vote in parliament. Or, like NZ’s, it can be restricted such that it cannot override any other legislation. Unlike the US Supreme Court, a NZ court cannot strike down or override any act of parliament with reference to the Bill of Rights. Which makes it a moot point as to why it exists at all.

    The only way to get a Constitutional Bill of Rights in Australia would be by referendum. Good luck with that. The Australian Constitution was framed such that amending it is extremely difficult: a proposed amendment must secure not only a national majority of voters, but a majority of voters in a majority of states as well. Australians have, by and large, chosen to validate that high hurdle: of 45 referendums since Federation, only eight have ever been passed.

    No referendum has ever passed without bipartisan support (and few indeed of those that had bipartisan support). Given that a legislated Bill of Rights has never made it past parliament, the chances of it passing referendum seem almost nil.

    A major reason that a Bill of Rights has never passed parliament, let alone been proposed at referendum, is the suspicion voiced by former prime minister John Howard that such a Bill would transfer power from elected representatives to unelected judges and bureaucrats. It’s not hard to see the wisdom of his observation: consider, after all, just how much power health bureaucrats seized during the pandemic.

    The closest Australia ever got to a Constitutional free speech right was in 1992

    Even the High Court’s “implied right to free speech” decision could be seen as just the sort of judicial overreach Howard warns against. As the US Supreme Court did in 1973 with Roe vs. Wade, the Australian High Court took it on itself to invent a potentially far-reaching decision out of Constitutional thin air. More recent High Court decisions, which affectively affirm the role of magic — a supposed Aboriginal “spiritual connection to the land” — in law show that such unelected judges are the last people to whom we should trust our rights.

    As it happens, the Australian government is, very quietly, once again resurrecting the idea of a legislated “Human Rights Act” — and it’s even worse than you might think. 

    As should surprise no-one, given its origin in a left-wing government, it’s mired, waist-deep, in a mindset of positive liberty. That is, it’s all about what the state will allow Australians to do — not what Australians can tell the state what it cannot do.

    For instance, freedom of religious belief is only allowed at the discretion of a judge. A judge can restrict religious freedom any time he or she considers it “reasonable” and “justified”. Religious freedom may be restricted in order to “protect public safety, order, health, morals or the rights of ­others”.

    Who wants to take bets on how politically-appointed judges will interpret that one?

    Freedom of speech gets even shorter shrift. Speech may be restricted — again, at a judge’s discretion — “in order to respect the rights and reputations of others or to protect national security, public order or public heath”. Ask Zoe Buhler, the Victorian mum arrested, pregnant, in her pyjamas, and crying, in front of her children, simply for posting the details of an anti-lockdown protest on Facebook, how that one’s likely to play out.

    Perhaps the most alarming aspects of the proposed Human Rights Act is that it would include a mechanism that would enable everyone to sue for monetary compensation whenever they decided that their rights had been breached. Again, we only need to look at how aggrieved activists, most notably the “rainbow” lobby, have weaponised the existing “human rights” infrastructure to threaten critics and impose a chilly pall of silence on matters of essential public debate.

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    While it may be bad enough that Australia lacks any formal Bill of Rights, the threat of an ill-intentioned, badly framed one is infinitely worse.

    It all comes down, in the end, to what Tony Abbott so famously asked during Australia’s last referendum campaign: do you really trust politicians?

    Anyone who still does, clearly spent the last five years either in a deep coma, or developing a slavish taste for boot leather.

    UAE Facilitating Australian Crime?

    By
    Damon Hayhow
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    0

    A recent article in the Age (https://www.theage.com.au/national/australian-drug-smuggling-suspects-right-at-home-as-dubai-makes-world-s-worst-welcome-20240514-p5jdg7.html) argues that authorities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are immoral for not preventing Australia’s most revered mega criminals from visiting and buying property there. According to the Age, we should all be outraged that the UAE is not doing the job Australian law enforcement is failing to do. 

    But apparently it is no failure of Australian law enforcement that they knew Australian gangsters were trafficking huge quantities of illegal narcotics into Australia (not from the UAE). The Australian authorities were able to quantify and track it all, but they did not care to stop it. 

    It is also no failure of Australian law enforcement that all those illicit drugs were trafficked throughout the country and distributed to, ultimately, tens of thousands of Australian customers in hundreds of thousands of illegal transactions, all of which were able to be quantified, but not stopped. Australian law enforcement apparently knew all about the millions of dollars collected inside Australia, who collected it and where it was kept, and were able to document it all in great detail and share it with journalists. 

    Everybody knows what is going on, including Australian law enforcement. And that’s just fine.

    But apparently it is UAE law enforcement that failed to…?

    Apparently it is also no failure of Australian law enforcement that they knew the names and faces of these gangsters, knew the “outlaw bikie gangs” to which they belonged, knew where they were, knew what they did, and knew they were all engaged in “organised crime”. But apparently it is UAE law enforcement that needs to answer for not…?

    Apparently, the UAE is outrageously immoral because it welcomes valid Australian-passport-holders to meet and talk with one another. It is inferred that, without the UAE, these gangsters would have nowhere to plan their nefarious activities. The article does not explain exactly how members of Australian crime gangs can form gangs, or engage in organised crime, in Australia, without ever meeting inside Australia. Nor does it explain how or why Australian border force lets known drug-smuggling, outlaw bikie gang members jump on planes and leave Australia for the UAE, with an Australian-government issued passport? Presumably, that’s the fault of the UAE too?

    All of this does beg the question: if the UAE is full of despicable, violent, armed robbers from Australia, why is the UAE so safe? Why are there so few armed robberies in the UAE? Why are there so few outlaw bikie gangs in the UAE? Is it too hot to ride bikes or handle guns? Or is Australian law enforcement missing a step or two from the ‘Idiots Guide to Law Enforcement’ handbook?

    It also seems strange how, in Melbourne, for example, regular people often talk about a night club or restaurant as being owned by a particular well-known criminal in a similar manner to Californians discussing which movie star owns which Hollywood Hills mansion. Somehow, in Australia, it is not just acceptable to buy luxury property with the proceeds of crime, there is also a celebrity status attached. On the other hand, buying property in Dubai is crossing a line.

    The United Arab Emirates (UAE) are immoral for not preventing Australia’s most revered mega criminals from visiting and buying property there.

    Similarly, massive money laundering takes place in plain sight in Australia. Customers of beauty salons and fitness centres, for example, often know the criminal bikie gang that funded the multi-million dollar fit-out of their salon or gym. Everybody knows what is going on, including Australian law enforcement. And that’s just fine.

    Strangely, in Dubai you will never hear of a building or restaurant being owned by a drug dealing, outlaw bikie criminal. A Sheik perhaps, or a politician or oligarch. But even someone who made their fortune as a violent criminal in Australia is not referred to as the “criminal bikie who owns (X) Restaurant” in Dubai. That’s mostly because, if that armed-robbing, criminal bikie from Australia tried any of their violent thuggery in Dubai, they know it would not end as positively or comfortably as it seems to in Australia.

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    Which all begs the question: is it really fair for Australia to accuse the UAE of facilitating criminality, when all of that criminality is actually taking place in Australia, in full knowledge and view of Australian law enforcement, which does nothing to stop the criminals doing the crimes or leaving with all their proceeds of crime? 

    Should the UAE automatically treat all Australians like violent criminals, seeing as the UAE cannot trust the Australian authorities to do anything about criminality inside Australia? Or at some point is someone going to ask what the hell the Australian authorities are doing that they treat all of us like criminals, except the people who actually are?

    The Best Lack All Conviction

    By
    Lushington D Brady
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    0

    Anti-Semitism is on the march because no-one in authority will stand up to it.

    It’s common for historians to portray the Sturmabteilung, the SA or “Brownshirts” as they were known, as a motley crew of rowdy young thugs looking to brawl. The reality, as detailed in Daniel Siemens’ Stormtroopers: A New History of Hitler’s Brownshirts, was far more concerning. In fact, the paramilitaries who propelled the fledgling Nazi party to absolute power were a million-member organization whose ranks included a disproportionately large group of university students and middle-class professionals (doctors, for example, were grossly over-represented in the Nazi membership).

    In fact, the Nazis own propaganda lauded the “Workers of the Head and the Fist”. To that end, in 1926 the Nazis founded the National Socialist German Student League. The league was to foster ideological training at universities and to implement paramilitary training, and the ideal Nazi student was intended to be a man or woman of action, not an idle thinker.

    The passage of the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” on April 7, 1933, was the student Brownshirts’ license to put their training into action. Jews were quickly and violently driven from German universities, whether as students or academics. “Paramilitary student groups often interrupted lectures, provoked skirmishes, and physically intimidated Jewish students.” [W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”]

    Even the Nazis knew that economic collapse, Versailles, even anti-Communism, were their best-selling points rather than anti-Semitism.

    In 1934, the Nazi Student League took over the Student Union.

    Is all of this sounding grimly familiar yet?

    Highly organised, ideologically-motivated and, above all, viciously anti-Semitic student organisations are taking over university campuses once again. Jewish students and professors are verbally and physically assaulted. And campus authorities are either openly complicit, or spinelessly hopeless.

    The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

    If anyone is in doubt about the absolute moral swamp that Australia’s universities have become, as the vicious herd mentality of student activism reaches a dangerous pitch not seen in the West since the 1930s, consider what our million-dollar-a-year vice-chancellors are doing.

    Worse than nothing.

    Consider the “brave”, “forthright”, “line in the sand” statement by Western Sydney University chancellor Jennifer Westacott. In just 844 words, Westacott mentioned “anti-Semitism” five times and “Islamophobia/Islam” three times. The same double act runs through her anecdotes: 58 words, two sentences about visiting the Holocaust Museum; 67 words, three sentences dedicated to lauding Muslim “asylum seekers”.

    Remember, this was supposed to be a forthright condemnation of campus anti-Semitism.

    Instead, every time, it was “anti-Semitism and…” “Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or any form of abhorrent discrimination.” “Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, hate speech or intimidation.” “growing division and creeping anti-Semitism.” “hate speech and anti-Semitism.” “anti-Semitism and hate speech.”

    One is left with the overwhelming impression that the crisis on university isn’t about anti-Semitism at all.

    Why does an opinion piece posing as a beacon of moral clarity on campus anti-Semitism need to repeatedly add, “…and Islamophobia”? Is there an anti-Muslim camp on a single university in Australia, let alone the world? Are campuses hosting activists celebrating the murder of Muslims, and promising to visit future terror attacks on Muslims? Are Muslim students being attacked daily, physically and verbally?

    We know perfectly well that the answer to all of those is, “no”.

    So why the moral equivalence? 

    And this is the best statement that any chancellor or vice-chancellor has yet made.

    Everywhere we look to campus authorities for moral clarity, there is, at best, mealy-mouthed moral equivalence.

    Jane Hansen, the chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Australia’s highest-ranked university, refuses to even acknowledge an anti-Semitism crisis. Instead, it’s the same gutless waffle about “many different forms of racism”. Worse, Hansen claims that even questioning supine university leaders is merely “looking for division”.

    The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

    Ditto University of Sydney chancellor, Belinda Hutchinson.

    This isn’t a “line in the sand”, it’s dragging a rotting jellyfish along the low-tide line, hoping the sharks won’t bite too hard.

    I’ve often wondered what it must have been like for the average German, seeing your country slide, inch by inexorable inch, into anti-Semitic tyranny. I’m finding out in the worst possible way.

    After all, even at its peak (curiously, perhaps, in the last year of WWII), only 12% of Germans were Nazi Party members. In the crucial years of the early 1930s, only 1% of Germans were members. Even among card-carrying Nazis, anti-Semitism was of little to no concern.

    Academic Peter Merkl wrote an exhaustive study of the history of hundreds of foundational Nazis. He found that 33.3 per cent of them showed no interest in anti-Semitism, 14.3 per cent expressed “mild verbal clichés” regarding Jews, 19.1 per cent displayed “moderate” disdain for Jewish cultural influence in Germany, while only 12.9 per cent advocated “violent countermeasures” against Jews.

    Even the Nazis knew that economic collapse, Versailles, even anti-Communism, were their best-selling points rather than anti-Semitism. In the years leading up to the crucial elections that finally propelled the Nazis to the point where they could seize power (even in 1932, the Nazis never won a majority; Hitler was appointed Chancellor in 1933, not democratically elected), even Hitler toned down the anti-Semitic rhetoric. By 1930, he “seldom spoke explicitly of Jews,” says historian Ian Kershaw.

    The gambit, tragically, worked: of the thousands of Jews who fled Germany in 1933, 16,000 returned in 1934.

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    That’s how nations slide into murderous tyranny: one step at a time. Every outrage becomes anodyne, and the outrages escalate. One year, student activists are driving Jews from campus; four years later, Jewish businesses, synagogues and houses are trashed in an orgy of violence.

    And it’s far from over. We all know what happened over the next decade.

    Right now, we’re just at the “students trying to kick Jews off campus” stage. Where we go next depends in large part on the nation’s leadership.

    Which, from academia to the floors of parliaments, is almost completely missing in action — or worse.

    None So Intolerant as the Tolerant

    By
    Gary Johns
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    The Victorian Bar – you remember them – was a big advocate for the Yes side in the referendum. Fifty-seven per cent of the Victorian Bar considered the constitutional amendment ‘sound, appropriate, and compatible with Australia’s system of representative and responsible government’. Such ignorance could only come from a highly woke and politicised Bar. Fortunately, Victorians voted 54 per cent the other way.

    The Victorian Bar is also a big advocate of human rights, but not so much against the former premier Victorian Dan Andrew’s world-record lockdown sans medical advice. Then there is their championing of social justice, a term that should never pass the lips of any self-respecting lawyer. There is no law in social justice.

    The Victorian Bar is also big into diversity. Indeed, no less than the Equality and Diversity Committee of the Victorian Bar held a panel discussion on 30 May 2024 titled ‘Cultural Diversity in the Profession: Where to from Here?’

    The event was to ‘revolve around a panel discussion between Victorian barristers and judicial officers from diverse backgrounds, reflecting on the need for the legal profession to reflect the cultural diversity of the broader Victorian community, as well as celebrating the achievements of solicitors, barristers and judicial officers in Victoria’.

    Walking out on a person who holds a different view is not big or clever. It’s just highly intolerant and disrespectful behaviour.

    The fact that the Bar feels the need to reflect cultural diversity was their first mistake. The second, evidently, was to invite a Zionist. The Honourable Andrew Strum, of Egyptian and Belgian heritage, was born in Melbourne. Did I mention he is also a devout Jew? During the discussion, he said he was a privileged and proud Zionist. He was privileged to have parents who supported him and is proud to support Israel as the homeland of Jews.

    The remarks, may I remind the readers, were made during a discussion of cultural diversity but were too much for at least three attendees who walked out. More than that, one of the walkouts, ‘Melanie’, posted the following on LinkedIn: ‘I walked out of this event after panellist Justice Strum declared himself a proud and privileged Zionist and then unabashedly began vomiting the false narrative that Judaism and Zionism are inextricably linked.’

    Melanie declared that she was not alone in her walkout. ‘All I can say is, shame on the Victorian Bar for this disgraceful, underhanded attack on those of us in the profession who are on the right side of history.’ Mmmm, where have I heard the right-side-of-history argument before? I remember! The claptrap was fed to the electors at the Voice referendum by no less than the Prime Minister.

    Ah, the certainty of youth (judging from her photo on LinkedIn). Indeed, ‘Kali’, similarly youthful, posted, ‘I couldn’t agree more. It was shocking to have a proud racist [at] such an event’ and young ‘Asif’ chipped in, ‘Well done… very disappointing and ironic considering the nature of the “intended” topics of discussion.’

    What irony, Melanie, Kali and Asif, do you understand what Zionism is? It’s not the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the invention of the Russian Tsar’s secret police; all-powerful Jewish tentacles do not entangle the world. A Jewish homeland has a proud history; perhaps Palestinians one day may be able to achieve the same.

    Fifty-seven per cent of the Victorian Bar considered the constitutional amendment ‘sound, appropriate, and compatible with Australia’s system of representative and responsible government’.

    More mature voices also posted. Daniel Myers wrote, ‘I recommend that you learn some more history about this complex topic. If (as is your right) you continue to disagree or hold strong views, at least have the courtesy and understanding to accept that your perspective is not the only such perspective. Many, many people hold opposite beliefs just as sincerely as you. Walking out on a person who holds a different view is not big or clever. It’s just highly intolerant and disrespectful behaviour.’

    This reminds me of an excellent recent explanation of Zionism by the young actor Noah Tishby. Her book, Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth, is so well written and accessible that our young intolerants may be able to cope. Tishby was born in Israel, and her grandmother was a Russian Jew who escaped the Bolsheviks, landing in Jaffa in 1925. Her grandmother was an avid Zionist. From her grandmother, she gleaned this understanding: ‘Zionism is a merging of liberal values and cultural Jewishness; in simple words, it is a national liberation movement. Zionism was never about having an exclusively Jewish state.’

    She writes, ‘I thought Zionism was pretty self-evident, and I had no idea that anti-Zionism had become a thing. I didn’t even realise that antisemitism was still a thing!’ Indeed it is, Noah, right there in the heart of the Victorian Bar, or, at least, some of its attendees.

    Tishby recalls a time in her youth, not so long ago, when she was holidaying in Greece and met a young German. All went well until she remarked that she was Israeli. She described a ‘cold, indecipherable look appeared on his face’. Assuming he was uncomfortable with their nation’s and people’s history, she indicated, as the young do, that it all happened long ago.

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    ‘The young German said, “Well, we actually don’t know if it really happened. There are a lot of books that say that it didn’t.” To be clear, the “it” he was talking about was the Holocaust. But that wasn’t all! As my jaw dropped open, he continued, “and even if it did happen, your country took all the money we gave you and used it for your wars”.’

    I am not suggesting that our young attendees at the Victorian Bar event are so ignorant, and bravo to the Bar for inviting Strum, but that such hatred and ignorance, nay intolerance, exists among the profession is a reminder that the fight for tolerance is never over.

    This article was first published in The Spectator.

    Reassessing Australian Judges’ Role in Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal (Part 2)

    By
    Ted Hui
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    Introduction
    In the previous part, I discussed the historical background and recent political developments in Hong Kong that have raised concerns about the role of Australian judges in Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal. This part will examine specific cases involving Australian judges to assess their contributions and the extent to which they have challenged the infringement of human rights in their judgments.

    Judgments by Australian Justices
    In the case of HKSAR v. Chow Hang Tung [2024] HKCFA 2, the appellant, Chow Hang Tung, a human rights lawyer, was convicted for inciting others to participate in an unauthorised assembly. This charge stemmed from her attempt to challenge the legality of a police prohibition on a public assembly intended to commemorate the anniversary of the June 4th massacre. 

    Despite her efforts to appeal the prohibition, her conviction represents a significant setback for freedom of assembly in Hong Kong. Justice Gleeson’s role in this case was minimal yet consequential. He concurred with the judgment that upheld Chow’s conviction, rejecting Chow’s point of view, and agreeing with the majority’s decision that found Chow’s collateral and constitutional challenges to be without merit. Notably, Justice Gleeson did not offer any commentary, not even as obiter dictum, in support of Hong Kong’s freedom of assembly. This contributed to the affirmation of her conviction, highlighting the challenges faced by individuals seeking to exercise their right to assembly in Hong Kong’s increasingly constrained legal landscape.

    The continued service of Australian judges in a Hong Kong court system increasingly manipulated to repress dissent under authoritarian rules

    In the case of HKSAR v. Choy Yuk Ling [2023] HKCFA 12, the appellant, Choy Yuk Ling, a journalist, sought to uncover collusion between the Hong Kong police and criminal mobs in suppressing the civil rights of Hong Kongers through her investigative journalism. Despite the noble intentions behind her news report, she was punished with a minor offence by the police for allegedly making false statements in her application for vehicle registration details, leading to a costly 30-month legal battle that escalated from the lowest courts to the Court of Final Appeal. Ultimately, Choy achieved a rare victory in court, with her convictions being quashed. However, Justice Gummow’s contribution to the judgment was minimal, merely uttering seven words, “I agree with the judgment of J. Fok.” His lack of criticism, among other judges, towards the prosecution’s approach or the retaliatory actions of the Hong Kong Police is notable, as it suggests a silent endorsement of the status quo, leaving the broader implications of Choy’s case and the state of press freedom in Hong Kong unaddressed.

    In the case of HKSAR v. Mak Wing Wa [2023] HKCFA 19, Mak Wing Wa was convicted of taking part in an unlawful assembly during a massive protest by Hong Kongers for freedom in 2019. The incident involved a large crowd gathering at Wong Tai Sin Square, with some individuals, including Mak, shining torches and laser pointers at police officers. The Court of Final Appeal held that Mak had participated in the unlawful assembly with intent, as he was aware of the prohibited conduct of others and joined in by using a torch against the police. 

    The conviction and sentence were restored by the Court of Final Appeal. In this case, Justice Keane’s contribution to the judgment was minimal, as he simply concurred with the judgment of Mr. Justice Lam PJ. Furthermore, he chose to endorse the conviction without addressing the broader context of the peaceful protests or offering any sympathy towards the powerless protesters, who wielded nothing more than torches and laser pens against a violent crackdown by the police.

    A journalist, sought to uncover collusion between the Hong Kong police and criminal mobs in suppressing the civil rights of Hong Kongers

    In the case HKSAR v. Chan Chun Kit [2022] HKCFA 15, also known as the Zip Ties case, the appellant, Chan Chun Kit, was initially convicted for possessing 48 pieces of 6-inch plastic cable ties, deemed to be an instrument fit for unlawful purposes under section 17 of the Summary Offences Ordinance. This case is emblematic of the police crackdown on the 2019 mass protests for freedom in Hong Kong, where many young protesters commonly carried plastic cable ties to construct barricades as a defence against police tear gas and rubber bullets. 

    Unexpectedly, The Court of Final Appeal overturned the conviction, ruling that the plastic cable ties did not fall within the scope of section 17. In this case, Justice Gleeson’s contribution to the judgment was minimal, as he merely concurred with other judges who focused on the technicalities of the law, without addressing the broader issue of the police’s abuse of power and arbitrary arrests of peaceful protesters. Furthermore, he did not challenge the prosecution’s reasoning, failing to question why plastic cable ties could be considered unlawful in the first place.

    Conclusion
    The approach of the three Australian judges in the above cases has been minimalist, focusing primarily on technicalities without addressing the broader context of the law being used as a tool for political repression. There has been no demonstration that their presence has helped maintain the independence of Hong Kong’s courts from political interference by the regime. Consequently, their involvement has failed to show any meaningful infusion of Western liberal or democratic values into the increasingly authoritarian environment in Hong Kong. It is important to note that these cases represent only minor political offences; more serious charges under the NSL, such as conspiracy to subvert state power and collusion with foreign elements, are entirely beyond the purview of Australian judges.

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    The continued service of Australian judges in a Hong Kong court system increasingly manipulated to repress dissent under authoritarian rules not only threatens the integrity of the Australian legal profession but also risks diminishing Australia’s standing within the international common law community. The departure of British judges from the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, due to their stance against endorsing an administration that strays from core values of political freedom and freedom of expression, underscores the growing international unease with the judicial environment in the region. 

    This stark contrast between the British judges’ principled exit and the ongoing presence of Australian judges in the same system could significantly erode trust in the Australian judiciary, potentially transforming these distinguished legal figures into a source of national embarrassment. Given these circumstances, it is crucial for the Australian legal community to critically reassess its involvement

    Reassessing Australian Judges’ Role in Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal (Part 1)

    By
    Ted Hui
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    Historical Background
    As an Australian legal practitioner with Hong Kong roots, I am compelled to address a critical issue: the participation of retired Australian judges in Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal. 

    Historically, overseas judges were included in Hong Kong’s judiciary to uphold judicial independence under the “One Country, Two Systems” principle established during the 1997 handover of Hong Kong from British to Chinese sovereignty. This allowed non-permanent judges from common law jurisdictions, including Australia, to serve on Hong Kong’s highest judicial body.

    While some argue that the presence of overseas judges in Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal could help curb the erosion of civil liberties

    Currently, four Australian judges serve in Hong Kong: The Honourable Justices Patrick Keane, Robert French, William Gummow, and James Allsop. They are invited to participate in hearings as needed, and their compensation is calculated on a pro-rata basis based on the monthly salary of a permanent judge of the Court of Final Appeal, currently approximately AUD $68,473. In recent years, two Australian judges have left: The Honourable Justice Murray Gleeson retired citing age in 2024, and Justice James Spigelman resigned following the enactment of the controversial National Security Law in Hong Kong 2020.

    Recent developments in Hong Kong’s political landscape raise concerns about the continued viability and appropriateness of this arrangement. In this article, I argue that Australian judges should withdraw from serving in Hong Kong’s top court to preserve the integrity of the Australian legal profession and to avoid legitimising a system increasingly in direct conflict with judicial independence and human rights principles.

    The Authoritarian Rules
    The Hong Kong National Security Law (NSL) 2020 and the recently passed Article 23 legislation on national security (Art. 23) have significantly altered the landscape of human rights and the common law tradition in Hong Kong. The NSL empowers the Chief Executive of Hong Kong to handpick judges for political cases, undermining judicial independence, a cornerstone of the common law system. 

    Australian judges should withdraw from serving in Hong Kong’s top court to preserve the integrity of the Australian legal profession

    Additionally, the NSL reverses the presumption of innocence in political cases, requiring the accused to prove they will not endanger national security to obtain bail. This has led to years of prolonged pre-trial detention for many high-profile Hong Kong dissidents. The NSL also permits the prosecution to request, and the court to allow, the elimination of juries in political cases, even those with potential life sentences, deviating from another fundamental common law tradition.

    The draconian Art. 23 further erodes legal protections, allowing for detention of up to 16 days without access to a lawyer. It also grants the police authority to deny the use of specific lawyers or law firms for the accused. These developments represent a significant departure from established common law principles and raise serious concerns about the future of human rights and judicial independence in Hong Kong.

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    While some argue that the presence of overseas judges in Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal could help curb the erosion of civil liberties, their role is quite inadequate, or even irrelevant. The main reason for concern is that the Chief Executive has the power to exclude overseas judges from hearing political cases in the first place. In non-NSL cases involving civil and political rights presided over by Australian judges, their role has not significantly challenged the status quo or made substantial contributions to upholding human rights.

    I will provide examples of these in the second part of this article.

    Why You Should Oppose the Government’s Attempt to Censor the Sydney Church Stabbing Video

    By
    Jess Colby
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    If you have been following the issue of freedom of expression in Australia, you will be aware of the efforts of the government to censor the Sydney church stabbing video on X (but not mainstream media websites) via a court order. The court order has since been overturned although what will happen next is still uncertain.

    It is not unusual for governments around the world to ask social media platforms to remove certain content from within the confines of their own borders.  X is currently willing to comply with that, but the Australian government also wants to restrict what the whole world can see. 

    Below I will offer some reasons why you should oppose the censorship efforts of the Australian government, including both within Australia and globally. 

    Ironically, the attempt by the government to censor the video has triggered the Streisand Effect

    One reason given by the Australian government for its current censorship efforts is that the video in question is considered to be indecent, confronting and violent. The problem with censoring videos on this basis is that it sets a dangerous precedent that would enable the government to censor a wide range of media; it is a slippery slope. Whether a video is considered indecent, confronting or violent is subjective and a matter of individual interpretation.

    Regardless, even if a video is ‘indecent’, ‘confronting’ or ‘violent’, that is not sufficient reason to tell someone they cannot watch it. That decision should be up to the individual, not the government. 

    In any case, contrary to what may be portrayed by the mainstream media and government, government censorship is not about protecting the public but instead gives the government cover to selectively censor things it finds embarrassing or doesn’t want the public to know about or talk about.

    Many confronting and violent videos are in fact matters of public interest; a prominent example being the Afghan Files, which were a collection of videos that depict war crimes committed by the Australian Army in Afghanistan. When these videos were publicly reported, the Australian government attempted to censor them and even raided Australian media organisations. The only difference was that they used the ‘justification’ of national security rather than public decency.

    When considering any sort of law or government policy, it is always important to consider how such a law or policy might be misused by a stupid person or weaponised by an evil person. From my perspective, I consider the government to be a rather stupid and evil organisation.

    It is not unusual for governments around the world to ask social media platforms to remove certain content from within the confines of their own borders.

    An issue of major concern which is often subject to censorship is footage of police shootings. These videos often depict police brutality and misconduct and are an important matter of public interest. If the Australian government can establish that it is acceptable to censor videos on the basis of being confronting and depicting violence, footage of police shootings will be at high risk of government censorship.

    ‘Confronting’ and ‘violent’ videos can be a primary source of information. They allow people to know exactly what happened, as cameras don’t lie. Censoring such videos forces people to rely on secondary sources of information such as the mainstream media and government, both of which are often biased and leave out critical details without allowing the public to verify their information.

    Preventing the spread of extremism is also used to justify the censorship of the Sydney church stabbing. However, censoring the video does not address the root causes of Islamic extremism within segments of Muslim community, or prevent people from knowing about the incident. 

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    Ironically, the attempt by the government to censor the video has triggered the Streisand Effect and brought more attention than if it had just been allowed to fade into obscurity.

    As for wider implications, if the Australian government has the power to censor the internet globally, other governments around the world will inevitably seek to do the same. This includes repressive nations that already have a strong desire to censor the World Wide Web such as China, Russia and many more.

    Opposing the recent censorship efforts of the Australian government isn’t just important for protecting freedom of expression and information in Australia, but it is also important for the entire world.

    The Case for Wisdom, Temperance, and Common Sense.

    By
    Gerardine Hoogland
    -
    2

    With all the chaos occurring within western democracies right now, I thought it timely to focus on solutions rather than the troubles we face. 

    In the primer to this publication, it states that Liberty Itch will present ideas that will champion your rights as an individual, challenge concepts that threaten those freedoms, and warn you of impending coercion. 

    My contribution, as a historian of ancient history, is to sound the warning signals, of which there are many. In doing so, I stress the importance of visiting foundational values which paved the way for the freedoms and liberties we have today. 

    For example, why is it controversial to promote the idea of temperance within our families, communities, towns, and cities?

    Why can we not remain living free and still be virtuous people?

    Why is it that we cannot discuss ideas that make others feel uncomfortable because it challenges their own personal views yet does them no harm?

    I ask these questions because this is the premise upon which the Spartan ruler, Lycurgus, implemented an ingenious political system; one that the Romans subsequently adopted, and of which we moderns inherited the blueprint.

    The political structure must comprise three levels of government – monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. 

    No doubt many will wonder how Sparta could possibly contribute to the advancement of liberty, given her reputation for minimalism in all things creative, and strict discipline in the ways of living. But stay with me. 

    This Spartan ruler is fascinating!

    Lycurgus is credited with the founding of Classical Sparta’s eunomia, meaning “good order.” He was a fifth century lawmaker and sage who took the time to ponder and implement what he considered to be the best solution for governance of his country. He travelled to Crete, Asia, and Egypt to examine the various ways of government. He returned to Sparta inspired and resolved to “change the whole face of the commonwealth.” He saw his duty like this:

    “He must act as wise physicians do, in the case of one who labours under a complication of diseases, by force of medicines reduce and exhaust him, change his whole temperament, and then set him upon a totally new regime of diet.”

    In other words, he wanted his country healthy in mind, body, and spirit. 

    He planned meticulously; no reactionary policy-on-the-run for this wise and disciplined man. 

    But the change of most importance was the establishment of the senate. He was in search of a ballast, a central weight that would prevent the state from leaning too much toward absolute monarchy on one hand, and pure democracy on the other. 

    He appointed people on merit – what an extraordinary idea!

    “The vacancies he ordered to be supplied out of the best and most deserving men past sixty years old…for what more glorious competition amongst men than one in which it was not contested who was swiftest among the swift or strongest of the strong, but who of many wise and good was wisest and best.”

    One can only imagine the heights of greatness a nation could aspire to if the people who governed were of sound mind and soul. For us in 2024, it appears merely as a dream. 

    And what of external conflicts? Well, Lycurgus had no desire to govern other nations; his interest lay toward his own. And that interest was grounded in virtue, and to keep the concord of his own people. His aim was this:

    No doubt many will wonder how Sparta could possibly contribute to the advancement of liberty

    “…to make and keep them free-minded, self-dependent, and temperate.”

    What better state of being could a leader possibly want for his people, and what could the people possibly want more than this? 

    Lycurgus is celebrated as the “wise lawgiver” who gave Spartans a government of “happy balance and temper.”

    My trusty Roget’s Thesaurus defines the word Spartan as:

    Stoic – patient – strict – inornate – concise – abstinent – meagre. 

    Tough words with even tougher consequences, and particularly offensive to our modern weakmindedness. Imagine imposing, let alone suggesting, the concept of “discipline.”

    But with so much chaos occurring by way of disrespect, blame-shifting, and outright inconsideration for our constitution and laws, why would we not seek to shift the pendulum back to the middle?

    The ancients learned through experience that for societies to operate within some sort of order, the political structure must comprise three levels of government – monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. 

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    The idea was that one arm would not devolve into its simplest form and thereby become perverted. 

    1. Monarchy into one-man autocratic rule. 

    2. Aristocracy into oligarchy. 

    3. Democracy into chaotic mob rule. 

    These three elements can work together to provide a stable form of government, only IF it is by choice that they work with or against one another.

    I wrote last month of broken systems and the responsibility of the people to bear some of the brunt of that brokenness, rather than merely throwing stones at those we send to represent us. Politician bashing (metaphorically) may make for good armchair sport, but it does nothing to advance the cause to restore a semblance of decency into our societies.

    To read about Lycurgus is to wonder if he is a utopian idealist, a benevolent dictatorial figure, or one who harbours an interest in libertarianism.
    My view is he comprises the essence of all three elements. It is something that we should all yearn for in our own polity.

    Mind Your Language

    By
    Bob Day
    -
    1

    Everyone knows a suit is comprised of a jacket and a pair of pants. Two jackets are not a suit. Neither can two pairs of pants be called a suit. 

    This was an argument I often made during the marriage debate. Marriage, I argued, was the joining of a man and woman in a special relationship.  

    If two men or two women wished to be joined together then they can call it something else, but not marriage; not a suit.

    This idea of insisting that words reflect their true meaning and that things be called what they are, is not a new idea.

    As long ago as 500BC, Chinese philosopher Confucius said, “If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.”

    Modern day politics has become largely about controlling the language. 

    As US preacher Chuck Swindoll says, ‘they adopt our vocabulary but not our dictionary.’

    A person on 50 per cent of the median wage is officially on the ‘poverty line’.

    Farmers used to drain water-logged swamp areas of their land, and no-one batted an eye. 

    Then swamps were renamed ‘wetlands’, and now can’t be touched. 

    We’ve re-named euthanasia ‘dying with dignity’; abortion is now referred to as ‘reproductive health’ or ‘planned parenthood’ or simply ‘pro-choice’. 

    Free speech is branded hate speech, local aboriginal tribes have become ‘First Nations’, power cuts are now called ‘load shedding’, tax increases are re-badged as ‘budget savings’ and denying one’s gender has become gender affirming.

    A person on 50 per cent of the median wage is officially on the ‘poverty line’.

    ‘Safe schools’ and ‘respectful relationships’ are anything but – as evidenced by lessons in bestiality presented to 14-year-old schoolgirls in South Australia.

    The Good Book says, ‘Woe to those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.’ – Isaiah 5:20.

    Then there are the perpetual ‘straw man’ arguments – misrepresenting an opponent’s position in order to quickly and easily destroy their argument.

    ‘Trickle-down economics’ is a straw man argument. There is no such theory in economics. But opponents of free-market economics invented the term ‘trickle-down’ to suggest free-markets are all about favouring the rich and hoping some of their wealth will ‘trickle down’ to those lower on the socio-economic ladder.

    Modern day politics has become largely about controlling the language. 

    Then there’s the ubiquitous use of the term ‘flat earthers’ when no-one, anywhere throughout history thought the world was flat. Not the Egyptians, not the Phoenicians, not the ancient Greeks; no-one thought the earth was flat. They weren’t silly. By standing on high ground and watching their tall ships sail over the horizon, they knew the earth was round, they just didn’t know how big it was. Christopher Columbus left Spain and headed west for India, not to prove the world was round, but to determine its size.

    Or the phrase Terra Nullius, a term used to manipulate debate on indigenous matters. 

    ‘Australia was founded on the basis of Terra Nullius,’ is one of those myths that survives by repetition, not historical fact.

    Terra Nullius is a Latin term meaning ‘land belonging to no one’. 

    Yet no-one ever said Australia was not occupied.

    The term ‘terra nullius’ was not mentioned anywhere in Australia until 1977!

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    Regarding exploration and occupation, the book 18th Century Principles of International Law stated that, “All territory not in the possession of states who are members of the family of nations and subjects of International Law must be considered as technically res nullius and therefore open to occupation”. ‘Res nullius’ – land not owned by a recognised nation, is not the same as ‘terra nullius’ – land not occupied by anyone e.g. Antarctica.

    And on a similar vein, that Aborigines didn’t get the vote, or were treated as ‘flora and fauna,’ until 1967. 

    All false. All examples of the mutilation of language to influence political debate. US author Michael Malice writes, ‘they’re not using language to communicate, they’re using it to manipulate.’

    AI Dystopia

    By
    Damon Hayhow
    -
    0

    Many voices are warning about the impending dangers of artificial intelligence (AI). They fear everything from mass unemployment to societal collapse, the destruction of humanity by ‘the singularity’, the malicious, sentient AI boogieman (boogie-robot?) from so many science fiction novels and films. 

    It only takes a brief play with publicly available AI tools, such as Chat GPT, to understand the fear and excitement. It is shockingly impressive. In many ways interacting with LLM (Large Language Model) based AI feels like interacting with a person; an impressively articulate person with astonishing knowledge. It truly can seem sentient.

    But this AI is actually far more artificial than intelligent. In many ways, the LLM based AI’s seem to have been designed specifically to pass the Turing Test: to fool users into believing they are interacting with a real person.

    What little liberty we have left in western so-called ‘democracies’ is being taken from us by corrupt, incompetent and seemingly deranged bureaucracies.

    The LLM-based AI tools can be likened to a person with a photographic memory reading an entire library of books in a language that they cannot speak. When presented with a question, they can write a seemingly intelligent reply, despite having no comprehension of either the question or answer. Their answer is constructed by recognising the patterns of letters and words in the question and matching them to related patterns that they recall from the books. The reply is not reasoned or abstracted; it is not even understood. It is simply plagiarised from the combined mass of documents available. 

    Because of the way this AI works, replies tend to reflect the most commonly repeated consensus viewpoint, not necessarily the cogent or correct viewpoint. Also, as people use AI to generate more and more content, that content becomes the learning data that AI uses to generate future content, in a perpetually self-reinforcing loop. Isn’t there a saying about telling a lie often enough? 

    Obviously, not all AI solutions are LLM based. But the foundations of current AI technologies are broadly related. The most important point is that the technologies that we are currently calling AI are not progressing toward a sentient consciousness. What is being called ‘AI’ is still an application of mathematical algorithms to data. The AI ‘revolution’ has more to do with the ever increasing pool of data available, and the speed at which it can be processed, than a fundamental change to the process of computing. 

    Understanding conceptually how AI does its thing is vital to understanding the real threat of AI. An omniscient computer is not going to consciously decide to destroy all of us. We can all rest easy knowing that any decision to drop nuclear bombs, poison the water, cut off the food supply, switch off the power grid, or engage in any other method of genocide will continue to be the conscious decision of humans in governments.

    Many voices are warning about the impending dangers of artificial intelligence (AI).

    Nonetheless, there is evidence that we are headed toward an AI-driven dystopia that could be every bit as miserable and tyrannical as science fiction.

    WEF founder, Klaus Schwab, describes a future of “fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds”. He is so fanatically obsessed with AI technology that he genuinely believes he will live forever in a robot body after digitising his consciousness (ie downloading his brain). Meanwhile, his lead advisor, Yuval Harari, is on record lamenting what ‘they’ will do with all the “useless people” that AI renders “worthless”?

    Listening to Schwab and Harari is disturbing. But world leaders and CEOs of the world’s largest corporations seem to take them seriously. DEI, ESG, CBDCs, carbon taxes, online censorship laws, hate-speech laws, forced vaccinations, WHO treaty, etc all either came from the WEF or are being promoted by it. And, the WEF is the official strategic partner of the UN to assist with the implementation of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for “Sustainable Development”. The WEF has clout.

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    Western Governments, including Australia’s, are onboard with all of the WEF’s tyrannical plans. They have passed (or are passing) laws to censor our speech, detain us without charge, block or steal our bank accounts, revoke our professional licenses, “reeducate” us, prevent us travelling, lock us in our homes and force-medicate us. They are increasingly spying on us, 24/7, to police our every action and thought. And they are currently building and applying AI tools to analyse all of that collected data to automatically find anything that could be considered “dangerous” behaviour or thought to apply those laws.

    What little liberty we have left in western so-called ‘democracies’ is being taken from us by corrupt, incompetent and seemingly deranged bureaucracies and ostensibly put in the virtual hands of a technology that is, in fact, unintelligent, inherently prone to error, and easily manipulated. A sentient computer might have been better. At least Skynet would realise the politicians are the problem.

    Raw Deal

    By
    Max Payne
    -
    2

    A local rag (The Geelong Advertiser) reported* last month that some sort of strange secretive trade was taking place in the quiet backstreets of affluent Highton. The article heavily implied that this was an illegal distribution of ‘raw’ (unpasteurized) milk – a product that is banned for human consumption in Australia and banned entirely for sale in Victoria.

    I found two things rather confronting about this story. 

    First, it seemed the main concern of the other residents of this quiet cul-de-sac was that once a fortnight their street attracted some extra traffic. “It was really invasive”, claimed a local resident. 

    The article explained that ‘customers’ were turning up to this particular house brandishing empty white buckets, then returning to their cars with a full one. 

    Australian State and Federal health departments are becoming a laughing stock.

    Second, this saga represents yet another example of Australians loving a rule and hating a rule breaker – a sad inversion of how we are traditionally portrayed. We saw the same attitude during Covid when people dobbed in neighbours who held gatherings at their houses during lockdowns. 

    It exposes a distinctly ugly side to the modern suburban Australian – spying on their neighbours and obsessed with everyone’s business but their own. It was apparently too much to ask of a suburban neighbourhood to ignore a few extra cars on their street every second Tuesday evening. 

    I don’t believe it has anything to do with health and safety. It’s a twisted manifestation of tall poppy syndrome where Australians seem to believe we should all suffer together under the tyranny of useless laws and regulations. 

    The basis for why raw milk is banned in Victoria (until 2015 it could be sold as ‘bath milk’) is a tall tale, based largely on hearsay and a coroner’s report drawing a (weak) link between a child’s death and possible raw milk consumption. Put it this way: the same health department that shut down the Dandenong I Cook Foods business made the decision.    

    Illegal distribution of ‘raw’ (unpasteurized) milk – a product that is banned for human consumption in Australia and banned entirely for sale in Victoria

    Australian State and Federal health departments are becoming a laughing stock. Our stance on vape products is infamous internationally for how not to regulate them, alternative treatments for Covid 19 were needlessly banned in favour of novel vaccines (such as the recently discontinued AstraZeneca vaccine). Worse, the relentless pursuit by APHRA of renegade doctors who break rank and provide medical advice to the contrary of the national standard drives their valuable advice and expertise underground.  

    And so it is with raw milk, where in New Zealand, England, and across much of the USA and Europe, consumers can access it under the protections of a strong regulatory environment. In Australia, consumers discreetly drive to suburban distribution points at night and try not to disturb the nosy neighbours while lugging buckets back to their cars.   

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    “In general, safety takes priority over freedom of choice” was the catch cry of a Dairy Food safety regulator in response to the Geelong incident, summing up everything wrong with the attitude of the public health system. 

    Australians love rules, and health departments love making them. Thus, those wishing to exercise their freedom to choose end up needlessly on the wrong side of both the law and public opinion. At least everyone else can sleep easy at night, lest they be disturbed by some extra cars on their street!
    *https://www.melissa-payne.ca/trending/8ad51675cd36/

    Vic’s Very Naughty Boys in Blue

    By
    Lushington D Brady
    -
    1

    Reproduced with permission from The BFD

    https://thebfd.co.nz/2024/05/02/vics-very-naughty-boys-in-blue

    Why would anyone trust police in Victoria any more? Politicised, corrupt and hypocritical, VicPol’s reputation has been battered on all fronts over the past few years.

    It wasn’t just the naked brutality of the Covid era, when Victoria Police rolled out assault vehicles and locked down the skies, smashed old ladies into the roads, and opened up with teargas and rubber bullets on the sacred grounds of the Shrine of Remembrance. It wasn’t just the deep-rooted corruption revealed by the Lawyer X and Red Shirts.

    When the High Court ruled that the George Pell trial was perhaps the most egregious miscarriage of justice since the Chamberlain saga, VicPol were in the thick of it. Police pursued an obvious vendetta against the Cardinal, setting up a “Get Pell” squad to troll for dirt, before even a single criminal complaint had been made.

    And, yes, no doubt the vast majority of VicPol employees are law-abiding — but the same could be said of priests.

    As it turns out, VicPol might have been better removing the beam in their own eyes, first.

    Some 78 Victoria Police officers and Protective Service Officers are facing criminal charges and traffic offences, with a disturbing number relating to serious sex offences including rape, sexual assault and indecent acts against children including possessing and producing child pornography.

    Three charges of rape and five sexual assault charges against police are among 19 sex charges before the courts, in addition to a range of sex offences allegedly committed against children aged under 16.

    One police officer faces a charge of incest relating to a ­sibling.

    Casting the first stone, indeed.

    Like the Church they pursued so doggedly, it seems the rozzers have more than a few skeletons they’ve been trying their darnedest to keep in their closets.

    The police crime data – released by Victoria Police after a request from The Australian – cover offences allegedly committed by 68 officers on and off duty.

    And, yes, the criminality goes all the way to the top.

    Police pursued an obvious vendetta against the Cardinal, setting up a “Get Pell” squad to troll for dirt, before even a single criminal complaint had been made.

    The 73 police officers facing charges and traffic offences include seven first constables, 20 senior constables, 26 leading senior constables, 14 sergeants, five senior sergeants and one ranked inspector or above and they face a total of about 130 charges […]

    Five PSOs are facing criminal charges, with two relating to an indecent act against a child aged under 16 and one of alleged sexual penetration of a child aged under 16. Of the PSOs charged, two were general PSOs and three senior PSOs […]

    Victoria Police said it was releasing the data as part of a commitment to transparency and stressed the vast majority of the force’s almost 18,000 police officers and PSOs were law-abiding, noting the data showed just 0.435 per cent of the force was facing criminal charges.

    The Australian

    Except, if the data has to be sought out by journalists instead of being made proactively available to the public, one might be justifiably sceptical about that “commitment to transparency”.

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    And, yes, no doubt the vast majority of VicPol employees are law-abiding — but the same could be said of priests. Yet, the presence of a small, but egregiously criminal, minority was sufficient to blacken the Church’s name. Not to mention attract the zealous attack dogs of Victoria Police.

    When institutions show that they cannot be trusted, social harmony takes a battering. Few institutions are as critical as law enforcement — and, in Victoria at least, they’re giving citizens increasingly less reason to trust them.

    A Digital Dark Age (part 3)

    By
    Bob Day
    -
    0

    ‘We will continue to be your single source of truth.

    Unless you hear it from us, it is not the truth’.

    So said former New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. 

    Covid

    When Covid hit in 2020, people had no reason to doubt what they were being told by their political leaders. 

    However, the pandemic very quickly exposed the incompetence of many in the medical and scientific establishment, with politicians and public sector bureaucrats making up rules as they went along, and ramping up censorship.

    Suggestions that the virus might have come from a lab leak, or anything negative about masks or vaccines, soon became misinformation or disinformation and was immediately censored.

    Politicians, public sector bureaucrats, pharmaceutical company executives, all in cahoots with one another, blatantly lied to us. The early bootleggers were amateurs compared with these people.

    They were wrong on lockdowns. They were wrong on border closures. They were wrong on school closures. They were wrong on masking. They were wrong about vaccines. 

    Poor people were hurt the most. 

    Anyone, including qualified medical professionals, who said Covid vaccines were causing serious side-effects and possibly a significant number of deaths, were silenced and threatened.

    The Australian Law Reform Commission has already recommended the removal of the right for Christian schools to hire staff who share their values.

    Academics who had been studying lockdowns were also blacklisted. Dr Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at the US’s Stanford University, was one of them. ‘Censorship of scientific discussion led to policies like school closures,’ he said. ‘A generation of children were hurt.’ 

    At the behest of governments, social media platforms removed any and all content which questioned the safety or efficacy of the vaccines.

    In April 2021, the Coalition government had Instagram remove a post which claimed that ‘Covid-19 vaccine does not prevent Covid-19 infection or Covid-19 transmission’, a statement that clearly was accurate.

    Ivermectin was prohibited from being prescribed in Australia from January 2021, by which time the vaccination rate had reached 98%. Prohibition of Ivermectin was enforced right until the very end of the vaccine roll-out.

    We now know the Covid-19 vaccines were neither safe nor effective. They did not prevent infection or transmission and have been linked to blood clots, heart conditions and other ‘died suddenly’ events. 

    A peer-reviewed study published in January 2024, found that more deaths were caused by the mRNA vaccines than were saved by it. Other studies suggest the widespread use of ivermectin could have saved many lives. 

    As Thomas Sowell once said, “It is difficult to imagine a more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions into the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

    Climate Change and Renewable Energy

    Probably no other area of public debate has been more manipulated than climate change.

    What started as ‘the greenhouse effect’, soon became ‘global warming’ which morphed into the now all-encompassing ‘climate change’. 

    To up the ante even more, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stated recently, ‘The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived”. 

    Global boiling obviously hasn’t yet reached the poles, as Arctic ice is currently at its greatest extent in more than 20 years.

    Renowned quantum physics scholar Dr John Clauser, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics has stated, ‘I do not believe there is a climate crisis’.  

    More bootleggers, in the form of renewable energy merchants, have leapt on to the climate change bandwagon with unbridled zeal and are raking in billions of dollars gaming the system, raising energy prices, impoverishing consumers, destroying jobs, and fleecing taxpayers.

    Indigenous matters

    Toddlers and pre-schoolers in childcare centres across Australia are being taught that Australia was stolen from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

    Qualified medical professionals, who said Covid vaccines were causing serious side-effects and possibly a significant number of deaths, were silenced and threatened.

    More than 7,000 schools and daycare centres now have formal ‘acknowledgements of country’ in place, which includes children singing or reciting that the land on which they sit belongs to Indigenous people.

    At SDN (formerly Sydney Day Nursery) Children’s Services in the ACT, kindy kids are taught about ‘stolen land’ as they recite an acknowledgement of country each morning.

    ‘The foundation for this learning begins when the children enter the centre as infants’, the organisation says on its website.

    ‘Now older preschoolers participate in the daily ritual of acknowledging country to build on the explicit teaching about stolen land.’

    As NSW Libertarian Party MP John Ruddick said, ‘children were being indoctrinated to feel ashamed of their country’.

    The Religious Freedom Bill

    There is no doubt that any ‘religious exemptions’ in the Bill will not make life less hazardous for faith-based organisations.

    While certain religious groups which might comprise Labor’s voting base will be protected, other religious groups most likely will not. 

    As we have seen recently, clear examples of the crime of incitement to violence – perpetrated seemingly with impunity – will, undoubtedly, be given more latitude.

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    Christians, however, will not enjoy similar leniency.

    The Australian Law Reform Commission has already recommended the removal of the right for Christian schools to hire staff who share their values.

    And Christians will most certainly not be able to criticize the trans movement or ‘gender affirming’ practices.

    The world now says truth is subjective – ‘my truth, your truth, their truth …’

    However, the Good Book says, ‘You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.’

    A Digital Dark Age

    By
    Bob Day
    -
    0

    Step into my parlour, said the spider to the fly,
    ‘Tis the prettiest little parlour, that ever you did spy,
    Oh no, no! then said the fly, to ask me is in vain,
    For who goes up to your winding stair, 

    Can ne’er come down again.

    Mary Howitt’s old poem could well be describing another web, the one that ensnares us all – the world-wide-web.

    Every aspect of our lives is connected to this web – most notably our source of nearly all the information on which we base life’s decisions. It is because of this web, that we are now in this predicament. 

    We have all been caught, and to quote Mary Howitt, we’re ‘ne’er coming down again’.

    In January 2023, the Minister for Communications, Michelle Rowland, announced that the Albanese Government would introduce new laws to provide the media regulator – the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) – with ‘new powers to combat online misinformation and disinformation’.

    The proposed new bill, the Communication Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill, would:

    The government, of course, will not be subject to any of these new laws. It has exempted itself.

    – Enable ACMA to gather information from global tech companies and require them to keep certain records about matters regarding misinformation and disinformation and provide those records to ACMA.

    – Enable ACMA to request industry to develop, vary and/or register a code of practice covering measures to combat misinformation and disinformation on digital platforms, which ACMA could then register and enforce.

    – Allow ACMA to create and enforce an industry standard, should a code of practice be deemed ineffective in combatting misinformation and disinformation on digital platforms

    – Empower ACMA to regulate electoral and referendum content, but NOT the power to regulate political parties with regard to misleading and/or deceptive conduct.

    – Empower the Minister to direct ACMA to conduct investigations into any matter regarding misinformation or disinformation and empower the Minister to set the terms of reference for any such investigation.

    The Bill also provides for significant penalties for digital platforms or individuals that do not comply with the Bill and/or the new codes and standards the Bill creates. Penalties include:

    – Imprisonment of up to 12 months for providing false or misleading information to ACMA.

    – Non-attendance at an ACMA investigation hearing of up to 33 penalty units ($9,000) for each day of non-attendance.

    – Non-compliance with a registered code of up to 10,000 penalty units ($2.75 mill) or 2% of global turnover (whatever is greater).

    – Non-compliance with an industry standard of up to 25,000 penalty units ($6.88 mill) or 5% of global turnover (whatever is greater).

    Other penalties may also apply. 

    The government, of course, will not be subject to any of these new laws. It has exempted itself.

    Every aspect of our lives is connected to this web – most notably our source of nearly all the information on which we base life’s decisions.

    Ms Rowland said the government was committed to introducing legislation that would fine social media companies for allowing misinformation or disinformation to be broadcast on their platforms. 

    Misinformation is defined as ‘false information that is spread due to ignorance, or by error or mistake, without the intent to deceive’. 

    Disinformation is defined as ‘false information designed to deliberately mislead and influence public opinion or obscure the truth for malicious or deceptive purposes.’

    “In the face of seriously harmful content that sows division, undermines support for pillars of our democracy, or disrupts public health responses, doing nothing is not an option.

    “The proposal would empower the regulator to examine the systems and processes these tech giants already have in place, and develop standards should industry self-regulation measures prove insufficient in addressing the threat posed by misinformation and disinformation”.

    Harsh words indeed.

    In its submission to the draft bill, the Law Council of Australia warned that the proposal could have a ‘chilling effect on freedom of expression’ by allowing social media giants and the communications watchdog (ACMA) to decide what constitutes information, opinion and claims online.

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    And in case anyone is thinking this is solely a Labor Party contrivance, before the 2022 election the Morrison government pledged to, ‘… introduce stronger laws to combat harmful disinformation and misinformation online by giving the media regulator stronger information-gathering and enforcement powers’.

    To cap it all off, waiting in the wings is ‘mal-information’, defined as ‘truth which is used to inflict harm on a person, organisation or country’ and ‘information that stems from the truth, but is often portrayed in a way that misleads and/or causes potential harm.’

    To invoke Climate Czar and former US Presidential candidate Al Gore, malinformation might be otherwise described as ‘an inconvenient truth’.

    Tomorrow: part 2.

    Another Round of the Circus

    By
    Lushington D Brady
    -
    0

    Reproduced with permission from The BFD https://thebfd.co.nz/2024/04/16/another-round-of-the-circus/

    Another day, another court case, and the scandal that just keeps on giving… keeps on giving.

    Justice Michael Lee has handed down his verdict in Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation suit against Channel Ten and Lisa Wilkinson — and what a curious judgement it is. On the one hand, Lee states what has been obvious from the beginning, that both Brittany Higgins and Bruce Lehrmann are “unreliable historians”. Both, as he notes, have told a great many lies.

    He also hints that the case would likely not have passed the bar of a criminal trial.

    Yet, for all that, he feels justified in “I just reckon”ing what happened in a senator’s office that night.

    ‘I’m convinced … that sexual intercourse did take place, and that took place with Mr Lehrmann on top of Ms Higgins on the couch in the minister’s office’

    Yet, the only evidence for this is the assertion of a woman whom he also says “was not fully aware of her surroundings”.

    The only thing that’s certain about this whole sordid affair is that the media-political class will continue to exploit it for all they can milk. 

    Justice Lee states that, as video and witness evidence shows, both Lehrmann and Higgins were drinking and “passionately kissing and posing for selfies taken by Ms Higgins”. Higgins also willingly accompanied Lehrmann on the fateful Uber ride, when everyone else elected to go home. He further just reckons that:

    He has found it’s unlikely Brittany Higgins said “no”, and more likely she was passive during the incident.

    Those of us unburdened by a prestigious legal career might be given to wonder how the learned judge feels justified in making such a crucial statement, given that he is, as he says, relying on two most unreliable people.

    Still, he’s the learned judge, and I’m just a tosser with a keyboard. I guess we’ll just have to defer to his learned wisdom.

    Bruce Lehrmann “told deliberate lies” when giving evidence, but is not a compulsive liar, Justice Michael Lee says.

    As such, he will not accept any evidence from Mr Lehrmann unless it is corroborated by a reliable witness or a document, or amounts to an admission.

    Yet he accepts Higgins’ uncorroborated evidence, despite also finding that she also lied about a great many key matters, and,

    “selectively curated material” on her phone before handing it over to the AFP and “told untruths when it suited her”.

    The scandal that just keeps on giving… keeps on giving

    At least one of Justice Lee’s findings is indisputable:

    Justice Michael Lee says the Bruce Lehrmann defamation matter has become “a proxy for broader cultural and political conflicts.”

    He said responses to the judgment would vary, due to a variety of responses and attitudes to sexual assault.

    “Some jump to predetermined conclusions because they are disposed to be sceptical about complaints of sexual assault, and hold stereotype beliefs about the expected behaviour of rape victims described by social scientists as rape myths,” he said.

    “Others say they believe all women, surrendering their critical faculties by embracing and acting upon a slogan arising out of the #MeToo movement.

    “Some have predetermined views as to the existence or otherwise of a conspiracy to suppress a rape for political purposes.”

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    The claims of a political conspiracy are blown out of the water.

    Justice Michael Lee says any allegation of a political cover-up of the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins is “objectively short on facts”. (The Australian)

    Which, if nothing else, casts a grave shadow on the Albanese government’s weaponisation of the case.

    The only thing that’s certain about this whole sordid affair is that the media-political class will continue to exploit it for all they can milk. And that a woman who “told untruths when it suited her” is now at least $2.5m richer, courtesy of the same politicians who falsely peddled a “a conspiracy to suppress a rape”, for their own obvious political gain.

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