IT’S A BATTLE BETWEEN TONY RABBIT AND THE RED LIZARD
by James Reed
I had bought David Marr’s Power Trip: The Political Journey of Kevin Rudd (Quarterly Essay, No.38, 2010) because here for the first time was an illuminating exposure of Rudd’s anger, something the media had kept relatively quiet about. Why, there were Rudd’s comments about the Chinese who refused to play ball on climate change doing strange things with rodents! But now I toss this book and my Rudd file into the trash can to joyfully increase my carbon emissions.
The lad next door hates rabbits and lizards. Tony Abbott, he calls “Tony Rabbit”, which falls into his intellectually challenged group of hate objects. But particularly nasty creatures are “lizards”. Julia Gillard, dyed-red-haired feminist socialist, he calls “the Red Lizard” or just “Julia Lizard”. “Mr Reed”, he said, “with that long neck, pointy nose and beady eyes and tilt of the head, she looks like one”. “And she is just like all those old female teachers at school”, he went on to say.
I agreed. Her assassination of Kevin Rudd was like a silent lizard devouring an unsuspecting insect, performed with true cold blood. And of course the lad is right about the teachers: all that our poor kids were told that day - all day - was what a historic moment this was etc., etc. What a victory it was for feminism etc., etc.
Gillard definitely involved in policy formation
Yet consider Julia Lizard’s academy award acceptance speech. She said that she was acting to end Rudd because the party had lost its way. Yet she as Deputy Prime Minister was involved in the formulation of policy with Rudd. As Deputy PM the Red Lizard ran the schools building program that was a disaster. She also approved the $2.24 billion insulation scheme with Rudd and despite her most recent holier than thou pronouncements on climate change, Rudd, with her agreement, dropped the emissions trading scheme.
If Rudd is 100% guilty, she is 99% guilty. She agreed with Rudd’s core philosophy and as a creature of the Left is in fact more radical than even Rudd. She said in previous weeks that she was loyal to Rudd and less likely to become PM than (1) going to Mars and (2) playing full forward for The Dogs. But she had to be testing the water all that time until the plot ‘politically stab Rudd in back’ was hatched because it defies belief to suppose that she was loyal up until Wednesday June 24, 2010.
The political assassination of Kevin Rudd is fitting for a man who was, to date, Australia’s worst Prime Minister. What however is disturbing about his demise is the sheer evil of the Labor Party turning on one of its own who was merely reflecting what they all represent. All that was done was to use Julia Lizard as a circuit breaker, to hope that the novelty of a female prime minister will dilute the anger of the great unwashed.
Write – ‘reduce immigration’ on ballot papers
In the election to come, let us do what we can to unseat her and as many big figures as possible. Don’t sit back on your hands doing nothing. Help independent candidates when you go for a walk, mail drop leaflets. Spread the idea of Denis McCormack’s by writing “reduce immigration” on all ballot papers. (I favour “stop immigration now!”)
If you don’t fight, then the elites will simply continue to swash you. Julia Lizard today, tomorrow will be our first Asian lesbian prime minister. Then will come the republic with a president specially created in some politically correct genetic deconstruction lab. Let’s get to work. |
WILL CABINET GOVERNMENT RETURN?
asks Professor David Flint -
An Opinion Column from the National Convenor ACM.
“Cabinet government was undermined in recent years, as the Prime Minister acknowledges. Although this is central to our constitutional system, the cabinet is not mentioned in the Constitution, only the Executive Council. Nor indeed is the office of prime minister. It was an indication of the desperation of the republican case in 1999 that these absences were used as a criticism of what was dismissed as a “horse and buggy” constitution.
As we have pointed out here, the Constitution was never intended to be a constitutional primer. It was a compact between the people of the States to form our indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown. The Constitution assumes the continuation of the Westminster system, which is underpinned by the requirements in the Constitution concerning proposed laws appropriating revenue or moneys, or imposing taxation.
Responsible government...
The cabinet, consisting of the senior ministers of the Crown, is collectively responsible for the conduct of the government. The constitutional principle is that if the government loses the confidence of the House of Representatives it must resign.
Now our Australian cabinets are different from the US Cabinet. Our cabinet effectively governs, while the United States cabinet is advisory. There the executive power is vested in one person, the President.
The President is responsible to no one, not even Congress...
No matter how poorly he performs, the President cannot be removed unless he is found guilty of a crime in a trial before the Senate on articles of impeachment approved by the House. The Australian system is more subtle. While the executive power of the Commonwealth is vested in the Queen and exercisable by the Governor-General, he or she is advised by the Federal Executive Council.
Important decisions are thus made in the cabinet, and given legal effect by the Governor-General acting on the advice of the Executive Council. (It would be a mistake to think the Governor-General is a rubber stamp – but that is another issue.)
Until the Rudd government, it was understood that cabinet submissions and related material generally had to go to the cabinet office in time for them to be circulated to everyone at least 10 days before the meeting.
“The advantages of such an arrangement are obvious,” declared Christopher Pearson in “Cabinet found governing a puzzle,” The Weekend Australian 3-4 July, 2010.
“There is far more effective scrutiny of contentious matters and plenty of time for ministers to confer with colleagues about anything problematical and to iron out problems before a measure is formally debated, or to ensure delay for further consideration. Everyone has a chance to reflect on the implications of submissions for their own department and for the government's overall priorities.”
Cabinet government under Kevin Rudd...
Christopher Pearson cites a “memorable” piece on the inner workings of the Rudd government. This was by Laura Tingle in The Australian Financial Review where she said:
"When ministers arrive for federal cabinet meetings, they find a folder waiting in their spots which they can look at but not take out of the room. Inside are decisions already taken by the cabinet's expenditure review committee and the ultimate power in the Rudd government, the Strategic Priorities and Budget Committee (SPBC)."
The SPBC was the “kitchen cabinet”, “camarilla”, “gang of four” or “politburo “ made up of Kevin Rudd, his deputy Julia Gillard, Treasurer Wayne Swan and Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner. The initial justification for this was the GFC, the Global Financial Crisis, and an alleged need for urgent action. But it became a habit.
Christopher Pearson says it extended to health and hospitals policy, changes to the home insulation program, the national schools curriculum, the Henry tax review, the emissions trading scheme negotiations with Malcolm Turnbull, the dumping of the ETS and, last but not least, the replaced resource super-profits tax on mining.
According to Laura Tingle, "Ministers are expected to endorse the decisions without discussion, and usually they do. Most are flat out trying to determine whether decisions have an impact on their own portfolio, while attending to what is being discussed in cabinet."
One minister told her: "I really prefer if I'm down the list [of business to be discussed]. It gives me time to have a look at the submission." She makes it clear the minister was talking about submissions that he'd been given, sight unseen, to present to cabinet.
Christopher Pearson says that issuing papers to be read at the last minute -- even as they're being considered -- and not allowing their removal from the room is a crude tactic to prevent leaks. Its one certain outcome, he says, is dumbing down debate… Plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose. That is, "The more things change, the more things stay the same."
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TOXIC DIVERSITY AND LAW
by Ian Wilson LL.B.
Against the Lawyers series: Dan Subotnik’s “Toxic Diversity: Race, Gender and Law Talk in America”, (New York University Press, New York and London 2005) is an excellent, much needed book. Subotnik argues that the race and gender industry – primarily a US creation - is quick to criticise everything that white males do and say “while refusing to subject women and minorities to similar scrutiny.” p.x) Chapter 1 of the book begins with a discussion of postmodern feminism and the law as represented by Mary Joe Frug (1941 – 1991). I became interested in this person so I decided to research her while reading Subotnik’s book. I digress to discuss this.
Mary Joe Frug was a feminist professor of law at New England School of Law from 1981 to 1991. She was murdered on April 4, 1991 on the streets of Cambridge Massachusetts not far from her home. The crime has apparently never been solved. Internet searches reveal that it was probably a random killing, perhaps, ironically enough, by a person of colour. Many feminists believe, with no evidential backing, that Frug was killed because of her radical feminism.
After her death in 1992 the Harvard Law Review (said to be one of the world’s leading law journals, published her piece “A Postmodern Feminist Legal Manifesto (An Unfinished Draft)” (Harvard Law Review, vol. 105, 1991 – 1992, pp.1045 – 1075), with a series of commentary articles – Barbara Johnson, “The Postmodern in feminism,” Harvard Law Review, vol. 105, 1991 – 1992, pp. 1076 – 1083; Ruth Colker,” The example of Lesbians: A Posthumous Reply to Professor Mary Joe Frug,” Harvard Law Review, vol. 105, 1991 – 1992, pp.1084 – 1095; Martha Minow, “Incomplete Correspondence: An Unsent Letter to Mary Joe Frug”, Harvard Law Review, vol. 105, 1991 – 1992, pp.1096 – 1105.
These details are mentioned to show the space taken up in an allegedly world leading law journal by this matter. And what was said?
The Frug article has personal phrases like “I don’t want to get carried away” (p.1046) she stops and muses about “female troubles”, “premenstrual and postmenopausal blues.” (p.1046) Getting down to business, she says that feminism has been about seeing so-called “natural” differences between the sexes as “socially constructed”. But these “differences” have proved to be “quite deeply embedded within the sexes – so much so, in fact, that the social construction thesis is undermined”. (p.1048)
So, is feminism false? No, there is no need to return to the “natural” point of view because then one’s “expectations for law reform projects are reduced”. (p.1049) Indeed, it seems, law is still oppressing women. In fact legal rules “permit and sometimes mandate the terrorization of the female body”. (p.1049) This is a “body that has learned to scurry, to cringe, and to submit.” (pp.1049–1050)
Used to describe ‘rich and assertive’ young women
That apparently is supposed to describe the rich, assertive young women who are now in the majority in our law schools. It is sheer nonsense. Worse, she then goes on to say that legal rules mandate, or at lease permit the sexualisation of the female body, through rape laws that dare to allow cross-examination regarding sexual promiscuity. That of course is ancient history in most jurisdictions and was on the way out when Frug’s essay was published.
Frug illustrates her thesis by taking the example of prostitution. She has an initial problem to deal with because even in 1992, most anti-prostitution laws were gender-neutral. But there is still a “gendered lopsidedness” because most sex workers are women. Thus women dressing “sexy” or having random “unromantic” sex may make women feel like a “whore” – but not men – and yes, that is in fact, a “terrorisation” of the female body. So there is thus a “shaky line” between whores and women, she says.
Feminism has an obsession with the body and bodily functions
Frug’s commentators debate the meaning of “postmodern” in “postmodern feminism” – in my opinion clearly Frug’s analysis is as conventional as Germain Greer’s and just as illogical.
Feminism has an obsession with the body and bodily functions, and Frug’s brand of feminism is no different. Every assertion in the article is up for challenge, and none is rigorously justified. For example, it is said that women, heterosexual women, are socially conditioned to make themselves attractive to men. This seems truistic until one thinks about it in greater depth. Women like to be attractive and on display to also impress other women. Women in the fashion industry usually define “attractive” looks, not men.
So what we have with feminism is basically a crude anti-male conspiracy theory – only one cannot criticise it in academic papers because of the power of the feminist lobby. Thus when a satire of Frug’s paper was published in the Revue (Harvard University), all hell broke loose.
Professor Laurence Tribe compared the law review editors to Holocaust deniers for their view “that the hatred of women is a hoax perpetuated by paranoid feminists”. (Disarming and Dangerous,” Legal Affairs, September/October 2005).
In an infamous law article, Arthur Austin,” The Top Ten Politically Correct Law Review Articles,” Florida State University Law Review, vol 27, 1999, pp. 233 – 279), put the Frug piece as number one, being “the most controversial law review article ever published”. If that was true in 1999, it is no longer true as a reading of Subotnik’s “Toxic Diversity” will reveal. Certainly the Frug piece was one of the first articles to use four letter words (f- and c-) in a distinguished law review, but it will not be the last.
Feminist claims about white men
Where feminist legal writings accuse all white men of being rapists, writing on race and ethnicity push the “racism” line and play the race card. This is the domain of “Critical Race Theory”, discussed by Subotnik in chapter 3 of his book. The argument by now should be familiar: racism is endemic to western society (usually only the US is discussed). Whatever Whites do has a racist motivation. Science, law and culture – all social constructions - have a “racist” basis. Subotnik deals primarily with Black writers, but more recently Hispanic writers have stepped up to the plate and advanced Latina critical legal theory, which puts all of this whingeing from a Hispanic/migrant perspective. Americans took our land and we are going to get it back. There are also Middle Eastern versions of the legal social construction movement and Asian takes as well. Here a common theme is refugee protection and open borders.
Subotnik’s book does not discuss these developments but it covers enough “shock-horror” stories to make one wonder about the future health of law.
The concern is that this cultural relativism and anti-whiteism will not remain locked into law schools. Students will be sent forth – like Obama - to sow the seeds of destruction of our legal system, culture and civilisation. At the moment, unfortunately, all we can do is write about this and expose the threat, but that is a start.
I was thus pleased to see in “Toxic Diversity” some words of common sense wisdom in its closing pages: “Members of groups are often most comfortable living with substantial members of their own… if we are to live in harmony with one another, we may have to allow each other some moral room to live apart”. (p.261) That will have to apply to whites as well. |
FRANK SALTER, SOCIOBIOLOGY AND “BIG AUSTRALIA”
by Brian Simpson
If only there were more mainstream publications carrying articles like this one – Dr Frank Salter, “The Misguided Advocates of Open Borders,” Quadrant, June 2010. Salter is critical, like us at this publication, of the idea of open borders immigration. He begins his argument by criticising a law professor who had published an open borders style argument in The Sydney Morning Herald (7 April 2010, p.5). The good professor wanted to eliminate world poverty by having unrestricted immigration of the poorest people to the West. Before demolishing this “good hearted” but illogical proposal, Salter notes that the law professor accepts, surprisingly, two racial realist propositions: (1) “Most still prefer people of their own type and find different cultures jarring” and (2) “It is in the human DNA”, that is, is not socially constructed. From this it is not too difficult to predict the consequences of open border immigration: the “rich” society soon becomes a poor society and we have egalitarianism alright – where we are all equal on the bottom.
Salter says: “Rising diversity within human societies tends to drive people apart, causing them to take sanctuary in individual pursuits and ethnic communities. The practical consequences are reduced public altruism or social capital, evident in falling volunteerism, government welfare for the aged and sick, public health care and a general loss of trust. Ethnic diversity is second only to lack of democracy in predicting civil war”.
What is very interesting about Salter’s paper is his concluding remarks when he laments about the lack of critical discussion/critique of the open borders ideology by Australian academics:
“How have so many scholars come to ignore accessible knowledge about human nature and interests? Australia’s 39 universities employ thousands of lecturers and professors in relevant disciplines. Any of them should be able to expose elements of the case for open borders.”
Real reason lies in power politics
That, of course, is true. But as he says “The problem lies with an influential tradition well established within the universities and intellectual class as a whole.”
Salter points to the gulf that exists between the social sciences/humanities and biology/ecology, a historical divide. I agree in part. The real reason surely lies in power politics – that the ideology of open borders and multiculturalism serves corporate capitalist interests, allowing employers to drive down wages and to make people compete like animals for diminishing housing. Intellectuals, liking money/grants, go with the ruling ideology.
Nevertheless Salter’s concluding remarks are well-taken
“…the rapid transformation of Australia by Third World immigration has been a top-down revolution in which exclusivist politicised circles within academia have been complicit by commission and omission. Political leaders and citizens alike look to intellectuals for the facts and analysis needed to make wise policy. In technical matters we have been well served, but not with regard to issues of population and diversity.
The policy failure is not limited to the present Federal government. It goes back decades, as does the failure of the nation’s brains trust. Correction will necessitate tackling the intellectual and ideological corruption of the humanities and social sciences by reintroducing some intellectual diversity and free speech, the only way to re-establish open-minded scholarship and teaching.”
A noble sentiment, but our universities are so intellectually rotten and ideologically corrupt that a snowball has a better chance in hell than them allowing dissenting opinion on race, immigration and multiculturalism. The universities are part of the problem, not the solution and need, I believe, to be eliminated and dissolved, much as their intellectuals want to dissolve the Anglo-nation.
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