There are competing understandings of “human rights”. Read on for cogent analysis of human rights issues today.
Covid19 is likely to continue as a major domestic and international disruptor in 2021. While covid19 vaccines give some hope, they may be no panacea. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been remarkably good at preventing serious illness.
Listen to the podcast: The Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Bill 2020 has been introduced into the Victorian Parliament. So, is it clear what is to be banned? Well, not really. There are a lot of questions. A change or suppression practice is defined as “a practice or conduct directed towards a person, whether…
The ACT and Queensland have just passed laws banning “conversion therapy”. Conversion therapy is defined as “a treatment or other practice … the purported purpose of which is [to suppress or] change a person’s sexuality or (sexual orientation) or gender identity”.
Following the adoption of a draconian security law originating in Beijing and adopted by the unelected Chief Executive of Hong Kong in June, the Hong Kong Government has proceeded with a multi-pronged attack on free speech, aimed at silencing criticism and stifling dissent.
by Peter Westmore Human rights organisations and politicians from the democracies have called for the 2022 Winter Olympics, due to be held in Beijing, to be moved to another venue in another country. The move follows international opposition to Beijing’s clampdown on human rights, including the persecution of minority Uyghurs, Falun Gong practitioners and Christians…
by Terri M. Kelleher Tasmanian Senator Claire Chandler is the latest public figure to fall foul of vilification provisions in anti-discrimination laws (that is vilification laws). She had a complaint laid against her to the Tasmanian Human Rights Commission for comments in an article she wrote about women’s sport being for biological women. The complaint…
by Terri M, Kelleher Amendments proposed to the Victorian Public Health and Wellbeing Act (PHWA) to further expand covid19 emergency powers have caused a public outcry. The Omnibus (Emergency Measures) and Other Acts Amendment Bill 2020 (the Bill) would amend the PHWA to allow the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)…
ENVIRONMENTALISTS STAND UP FOR NUCLEAR Environmentalists have long promoted renewable energy sources as better for nature. But a new study suggests that the expansion of mining for the materials to make solar panels and wind turbines may pose a greater threat than climate change to endangered species. “Most mining areas (82 per cent) target materials…
By Symeon J. Thompson There is a tendency to see totalitarian societies as the apex of efficiency and order – they are, after all, meant to be societies of total control. We see this repeatedly in fiction. George Orwell’s 1984, memorably filmed by Michael Radford with John Hurt as Winston Smith and Richard Burton as…
DANIEL RUDD: Calling a Church to Justice by Gary B. AgeeLiturgical Press, Collegeville, MinnesotaPaperback: 113 pagesPrice: AUD$32.95 Reviewed by Michael E. Daniel This short biography recounts the life and work of journalist and civil-rights advocate Daniel Rudd. It is published in the “People of God: Remarkable lives, heroes of faith” series produced by the Liturgical…
by Robin Speed Has the Victorian Charter of Human Rights been found wanting in the covid19 crisis? The Charter was claimed (rightfully) as a landmark in Australia’s constitutional and political history. And the Victorian Labor Party, which nurtured the Charter through Parliament, had every reason to be proud of it. Then Attorney General, Rob Hulls,…
by Peter Kelleher On Thursday August 27, 2020, the ACT became the second jurisdiction in Australia, after Queensland only two weeks earlier, to pass legislation banning “conversion therapy”. In an effort to persuade the Chief Minister of the ACT, Andrew Barr, to postpone the legislation until he and his colleagues and advisers were able to…
The Victorian Upper House voted in the early hours of September 2 to allow an extension of the period for which a state of emergency in Victoria can be declared, and emergency powers exercised. Despite the number of covid19 infections in Victoria declining, Premier Daniel Andrews sought to extend the period from six months maximum…
by Terri M. Kelleher Women and their allies around the world are joining together to oppose transgender, male-to-females, in women’s sport: that is biological males competing in women’s sporting competitions. Women’s sporting competitions were introduced in the first place to allow them to compete on a fair and equitable basis. Biological males have unfair advantages…
Terri M. Kelleher The Victorian Andrew’s Government has announced a “whole-of-government LGBTIQ strategy”. Minister for Equality Martin Foley issued a media release dated June 12 saying that Victorians will have the opportunity to shape the state’s equality agenda for years to come with the opening of “public consultation on the Victorian Government’s first ever whole-of-government…
by Terri M. Kelleher Bostock case in U.S. extended meaning of “sex” to sexual orientation and gender identity Catholic hospitals under pressure to provide transgender surgeries, which offend against Catholic teaching on the integrity of the body Exemptions for religious organisations from sex discrimination is under threat in Australia Cases of transgender activists suing Catholic…
The American animated sitcom South Park can be extremely crude and on the nose with its dark humour, but it is also incredibly prescient in its political and social commentary, highlighting absurdities in modern Western society. This week, in the episode “Strong Woman” (2 min video), South Park depicted the gross unfairness of allowing biological…
Our taxpayer-funded national broadcaster, the ABC, has recently launched another intriguing survey about Australians’ attitudes, concerns and beliefs. There are two questions that provide some insight into the topic of unjust discrimination against religious Australians. Similar in scope to “Vote Compass”, the survey, “Australia Talks”, has collected some statistics worthy of mention. It is unclear…
Dr John Whitehall, professor of pediatrics and child health at the University of Western Sydney, has been a lonely medical voice in the public square on the question of gender confusion in children. Professor Whitehall wrote to the federal Health Minister, Greg Hunt, in early September calling for a formal parliamentary inquiry into “the rapid…
I interviewed Jon K. Uhler recently on the We Are Change Melbourne YouTube Channel about his work at Pennsylvania State Corrections Department, where he worked for 11 years as prison counsellor to sex offenders, serial killers and pedophiles. Imagine being prevented from saving your child from an electric shock, and you will have an…
There was applause in the lower house of the NSW Parliament on Thursday, September 26, as the Abortion Law Reform Act 2019 passed its final hurdle after weeks of protests and more than 70 hours of debate in both houses. Premier Gladys Berejiklian was not present for the final vote. Introduced on August 1 by independent MP…
While the feminist revolution took decades to take hold and for society to adapt, the new transgender revolution is being imposed by stealth and subversion with such speed that the broader society has no real concept of what is being thrust upon it. And while feminism (broadly defined as equality of the sexes) had a…
I stare blankly at my screen; I stare into the sea of pastel pink that seems only to stare back at me. It is offensive to the eyes, like a battering ram of pale hues too similar to one another. My eyes seek refuge in the small white box on the left of the page.…
The Commonwealth Government is right to order an inquiry into the safety and ethics of transgenderism. Across Australia, the number of young people undergoing radical and often irreversible hormonal treatment and radical surgery is skyrocketing. Given the promotion of gender theory, illustrated by the Marxist-inspired Safe Schools program that’s been operating over the last five…
If Prime Minister Scott Morrison is “mystified” at Cricket Australia’s “heavy handed”, “sledgehammer” policies supporting men who identify as women playing in the women’s competition, he should turn his attention to the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and the federal Sex Discrimination Act that together are driving these policies. Cricket Australia policy follows the recent…
For three months, huge crowds of up to two million people have protested in Hong Kong against Communist Beijing’s efforts to impose sweeping curbs on freedom of speech in the territory. Hong Kong was a British territory that was handed back to China in 1997, but with promises from Communist Beijing to respect the long…
On Thursday August 1, in the NCC office in Perth, Professor of Constitutional Law Augusto Zimmermann addressed an audience of more than 60 NCC youth on the topics of freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Many of the young people were university students concerned about the erosion of the freedoms we enjoy in this…
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced the creation of a Commission on Unalienable Rights. Pompeo said it is to “generate a serious debate” about what human rights really are; “to provide fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights”.…
Four years ago, I wrote about my decision to live as a woman in The New York Times, writing that I had wanted to live “authentically as the woman that I have always been” and had “effectively traded my white male privilege to become one of America’s most hated minorities”. Three years ago, I decided…
Like many ethnic minorities in strategically important regions of China, China’s Uyghurs have been on the losing end of an ethnic power play. The Uyghurs (pronounced “we-gars”) are a Turkic people who constitute 45 per cent of the people of Xinjiang, which has a total estimated population of 24 million. A “re-education” camp for Uyghurs…
A WORLD MADE NEW: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by Mary Ann Glendon Random House, New York Paperback: 342 pages Price: AUD$36 Reviewed by Madeleine van der Linden The creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was a momentous achievement, as nations tried desperately to create peace and safety in…
Restricting single-sex sports to children of one sex under 12 years of age is illegal under federal law, while in rugby union, girls and women can be expelled from the game, like Israel Folau, for protesting on their social media against biological males who identify as female playing in their competition. The Israel Folau…
On June 10, 2019, the Vatican issued a new document to provide Catholic educators guidance on dealing with gender issues. The document is entitled, “Male and Female He Created Them: Towards a Path of Dialogue on the Question of Gender Theory in Education”. Despite its sometimes rather archaic, theological and philosophical language, which can make…
In the second part of this two-part series examining feminist claims for gender equality, Michael Ord considers family structural relations, including the special needs of women and the distinctions of men and women, and warns that feminist activism is taking society to a critical crossroad. Finally, he reflects on what feminism should be. Does society…
Feminists demand gender equality in public roles in society. In this two-part review, Michael Ord seeks to understand these demands. Are they genuine claims seeking the common good? Or are they an ideological caricature seeking personal interest and privilege for a select few? The Office for Women in the Department of the Prime Minister and…
Asia Bibi, the Pakistani woman sentenced to death for blasphemy in 2010, but freed after an appeal to Pakistan’s Supreme Court was upheld in 2018, has left Pakistan to live in Canada, after Islamist extremists threatened to murder her. Asia Bibi Apart from international pressure, Asia Bibi owes her freedom to her courageous lawyer, who…
Following widespread public concerns over threats to religious freedom during the federal election, the Morrison Government has promised a religious discrimination act by July. Human rights law is a tricky, problematic area of law. As militant secularists want to restrict religious freedoms by making religious freedom legislation as ineffective as possible, there are concerns that…
Answers to questions asked in Western Australia’s Parliament have revealed that 59 adolescents received Stage 2 medical intervention for childhood gender dysphoria at Perth Children’s Hospital in 2018 – treatment that is at best experimental and at worst medically negligent. Those answers also revealed that the average cost of that treatment was $7,225. But it…
Bishop Peter J. Elliott delivered the following article as a speech at the National Civic Council’s Annual Conference in Melbourne last February. In it, he outlines a two-part strategy for families to adopt to ride out and thrive amid the tempest of the Sexual Revolution as that revolution gathers fury against Christianity and the family…
In 1965, legendary American conservative publisher, author and television personality William F. Buckley Jr surprised the world by running for the mayoralty of New York City. It was described as a “quixotic” campaign and drew forth a curious response from Buckley when he was asked: “What is the first thing you will do if you…
Labor and Greens promise end to exemptions from gender laws for religious schools Parental liberty to choose the religious and moral education of their children is trampled Duty of care for non-transgender children is fatally compromised It is a sad reality that in Australian law there is an absence of strong protections for freedom…
Liberal Speaker Sue Hickey helped Labor, Greens get laws through Parents can leave newborn’s sex blank on birth certificates Liberal Government has promised to repeal the laws 70 per cent of Tasmanians opposed the changes Under radical changes to Tasmanian laws, birth certificates will be able to recognise a person as non-binary (other than…
Disabled women, single mothers, survivors of the sex trade and domestic violence were among the party threatened by activists Trans activists and sex-trade lobby protesters seem to have no other purpose than to silence women who speak out Friday March 8 was the Melbourne International Women’s Day (IWD) March. A global protest was planned…
PIONEER PRIESTS AND MAKESHIFT ALTARS: A History of Catholicism in the Thirteen Colonies by Fr Charles P. Connor EWTN Publishing, Irondale, Alabama Paperback: 272 pages Price: AUD$39.95 Reviewed by Michael E. Daniel Central to the foundation story of the United States of America are the voyage of the Mayflower in 1620, and the subsequent establishment of…
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has released a media statement relating to so-called “gay conversion therapy”, promising to outlaw therapies offered to people with unwanted same-sex attraction. This sets off my antennae as I am a male who throughout his entire childhood and early adulthood believed himself to have been “born gay”. As a contented gay…
It is time we put the word “rights” to bed, at least in its present conceptualisation. It has ceased to have any serious moral, social or political meaning. As now used, it is merely to assert an individual’s or minority group’s demand to be privileged in some marginal proclivity above the rest of society. It…
chimera noun 1. (In Greek mythology) a fire-breathing female monster with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail. 2. A thing which is hoped for but is illusory or impossible to achieve. Synonyms: illusion, fantasy, delusion, dream, fancy, figment of the imagination, will-o’-the-wisp, phantom, mirage; ignis fatuus As a developed Western…
Australia faces a broad range of challenges in 2019 and beyond. The political challenges reflect deeper conflicts fracturing the nation’s cultural cohesion. The federal election will dominate politics in the first half of the year. After three years of divisions in the Liberals, the Labor Party is riding high in the polls. GetUp has announced…
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair;hover through the fog and filthy air.” Macbeth, Scene 1, Act 1 China has undergone wrenching changes since paramount leader Deng Xiaoping declared that “to get rich is glorious”. Deng, who succeeded Mao Zedong after the Chairman died in 1976, put China on the road to prosperity. Mao…
It is often said, quite correctly, that Taiwan is one of the most socially liberal societies in Asia, but this ignores the genuine alarm that the rapid advance of the homosexual agenda is causing in the country. For instance, the referendum on Saturday November 24 last confirmed the status quo that, under the Civil Code,…
Emile Ratelband is a 49-year-old Dutchman trapped in the body of a 69-year-old Dutchman (of the same name). Emil Ratelband: as honest as the day is long: 22 hours. At least, that is what he tells us, the all-believing public. Ratelband says that he feels 20 years younger than he is and that doctors have…
It used to be that a disruptive boy could face discipline or be expelled from school for repeatedly putting girls at risk by entering the girls change rooms or toilets. Now, if the Federal Government, Labor and the Greens remove exemptions for faith-based schools from the federal Sex Discrimination Act, principals and teachers may face…
On October 12, 2018, Patrick J. Byrne, national president of the National Civic Council, spoke at an NCC dinner in Sydney. In that speech, Patrick outlined a strategy by which to renew the energies and courage of supporters to oppose head on the ascendant ideologies that seem to be pushing our society towards…
Former national ALP leader and now political pundit Mark Latham addressed an NCC dinner in Sydney on October 12. Mark was fully aware of how unlikely it would have been even in recent times for a past leader of the ALP to address an NCC function. The text of his speech follows. …
Why? In the UK, since 2009, there has been an alarming increase in the number of children seeking gender transitioning treatment, indicating a 4000 per cent increase over that time. This has resulted in UK Conservative MP Penny Mordaunt calling for a parliamentary inquiry into the reasons why. Just as in the…
During the Wentworth by-election campaign, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced his intention to remove protections for the freedoms of faith-based schools to select students in relation to a student’s sexual orientation, that is, their heterosexual or gay or lesbian sexual orientation. Then, days before the ballot, the Greens with Labor’s support moved to…
Gender identity laws and court rulings are being used to separate children from parents More legislation is planned If you can change your sex, can you change your age or race? When Prime Minister Scott Morrison recently tweeted, “we don’t need ‘gender whisperers’ in schools”, he…
In today’s world, it is nigh impossible to conduct one’s personal or professional life without resorting to electronic means. E-banking is seamlessly integrated into most businesses; phone-banking apps track exactly how you spend your money, categorising spending into “shopping”, “groceries”, “eating out”, “utilities” and so on, ostensibly to help you budget better. My fiancé found…
ON OPS: Lessons and Challenges for the Australian Army since East Timor by Tom Frame and Albert Palazzo (eds) NewSouth Publishing, Sydney Paperback: 344 pages Price: AUD$39.99 Reviewed by Jeffry Babb In the language of management-speak, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has created a new paradigm. In a situation where no obvious threat to…
Two hundred years after his birth, the legacy of Karl Marx is a brutal social experiment under communist rule in the East, and in the West a cultural revolution whose effects are still being worked through today. Si monumentum requiris, circumspice. (If you seek his monument, look around.) Karl Marx was born in Trier on…
As the Queensland Government moves to allow men to self-identify as women, 300 angry women have quit the British Labour Party over guaranteeing transgender male-to-females on the party’s All-Women Shortlist. UK Labour’s All-Women Shortlist is the equivalent of the Australian Labor Party’s affirmative action policy to having women preselected in 40 per cent of winnable…
“Sex” as a classificatory system for human beings (at least) as defined by the religious tradition from Sinai consists of male and female and a category traditionally known as the hermaphrodite and nowadays called “intersex”. What are ultimately determinative are the actual reproductive organs and genitalia. The “intersex” person is one with reproductive organs and…
People should have freedom of choice in the counselling or medical advice or treatment they seek. In relation to same-sex attraction or gender identity or gender transitioning, as with any other medical or health issues, all options should be open to them, including counselling out of same-sex attraction or gender transitioning if they so choose.…
Men/boys can self-identify as women/girls If you can change your sex, can you change your age, race? In the name of “diversity”, “uniformity” imposed on everyone More rights threatened than under same-sex marriage The Queensland Government of Annastacia Palaszczuk is proposing to change birth certificates to allow people to register as Male, Female, Indeterminate, Unspecified…
Men/boys can self-identify as women/girls If you can change your sex, can you change your age, race? In the name of “diversity”, “uniformity” imposed on everyone More rights threatened than under same-sex marriage The Queensland Government of Annastacia Palaszczuk is proposing to change birth certificates to allow people to register as Male, Female, Indeterminate, Unspecified…
Exceedingly rich white men (and women) who invest in biomedical companies are funding myriad transgender organisations whose agenda will make them gobs of money. Author Jennifer Bilek is an artist, environmental activist, writer, and an engaged citizen. As an environmental activist who was deplatformed from a speaking venue by transactivists, in 2013 I developed curiosity…
Gender dysphoria is a serious mental health issue. By contrast, transgenderism is a belief system that increasingly looks like a cultish religion – a modern-day Gnosticism that denies physical reality in favour of deceived perceptions – being forced on the public by the state. Gnostic adepts have seen through the surfaceof things to the true…
Liberal Member for Menzies the Hon Kevin Anrews delivered the following address to the National Civic Council’s Annual Conference on Saturday, February 3, 2018. Mr Andrews is chairman of the Human Rights Sub-committee of the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. In December 1948, the international community gathered at the…
If minors can decide to have hormone sex transitioning treatments without Family Court approval, are children also capable of making their own decision to become child brides or child soldiers? In a landmark decision on November 30, 2017, a Full Bench of the Family Court ruled that Court approval was no longer needed for young…
A Northern Territory discussion paper proposes redefining the human person by their fluid gender identity and sexual orientation, while removing the biological definitions of man and woman from the Territory Anti-Discrimination Act. Binary is out of fashion. The discussion paper for “Modernising the Anti-Discrimination Act” (ADA), issued by the Territory Attorney-General’s Department, says that the…
ABBOTT’S RIGHT: The Conservative Tradition from Menzies to Abbott by Damien Freeman Melbourne University Press, Carlton Paperback: 188 pages Price: AUD$27.99 Reviewed by Michael Quinlan Dr Damien Freeman is a visiting scholar at the PM Glynn Institute, Australian Catholic University. He studied classical Hebrew and Aramaic, philosophy, and law at the University of…
In 2013, the federal Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) was radically amended. The Sex Discrimination Amendment (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Intersex Status) Bill 2013 was to give effect to the then Labor government’s commitment to introduce new protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. It also introduced a separate ground…
The following is an extract from Patrick J. Byrne’s forthcoming book (Wilkinson Publishing) on transgenderism and the consequences normalising it and writing it into law will have on marriage, education and culture. It will be essential reading as we try to understand what is at stake if we redefine marriage as between “two persons”. At…
The Australian public is being endlessly warned about the danger of bullying, distortions and vilification that may attend the postal vote on redefining marriage. Yet, has it occurred to anyone else that most – if not all – of the bullying, distortions and vilification seem to be coming from the “Yes” campaign? The advertisement from…
PAPER GENDERS: Pulling the mask off the Transgender Phenomenon Make Waves Publishing, Carlsbad, California Paperback: 130 pages Price: AUD $29.95 GENDER, LIES AND SUICIDE: A Whistleblower Speaks Out Make Waves Publishing, Carlsbad, California Paperback: 152 pages Price: AUD $29.95 by Walt Heyer Reviewed by Peter Kelleher Availability Walt Heyer’s books are only available…
An Australian mother’s video clip exposing what the “Safe Schools” program is teaching her children has gone viral, while in Britain, schools are being threatened with closure if they don’t teach about gender reassignment. A Melbourne mother’s video has been viewed over 3.5 million times on Facebook and shared over 54,000 times, revealing what her…
Recently, Edmund Rice Education Australia (EREA) issued three scoping documents that form a proposal to develop a whole of school approach to “transgender” sex education for its schools. EREA governs 52 Catholic schools and has 34 associate schools across Australia. EREA has released three documents, Live Life to the Full: Resources for Principals, School Leaders…
Childhood gender dysphoria is reaching epidemic proportions as hundreds of children present every year to special clinics in our children’s hospitals. But is the “disease” real, and is medical intervention helpful? Proponents attest that 1 per cent of children suffer from contradiction between their physical and imagined sex. The so-called Safe Schools program even claims…
For the second year running, before the meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW 61. See the report in News Weekly, May 6, 2017), a Youth Forum was held. This year about 750 young people (mostly young women) gathered on March 11–12 at the United Nations in New York to produce the…
Is the above headline really appropriate, or does it suggest a darker background to the light and airy stories that the media feeds to us on this issue. The darker background, which should be the foreground, is the subject of Walt Heyer’s activity as a former transsexual male-to-female who has de-transitioned back to being male.…
The pursuit of rainbow politics is proving to be a thorn in the side for Target stores in America. Since April 19, 2016, when the chain announced it would allow transgender customers and employees to use change rooms and bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity rather than to their biological sex,[1] its share price has…
Once the overt sectarian conflicts between Catholics and Protestants largely petered out in Australia in the 1970s, we looked to be headed towards an Australia that was a model of religious tolerance. But in recent times the social stability engendered by religious tolerance is again imperilled as the law increasingly conflicts with religion and conscience…
On Easter Sunday ABC News reported that the NSW Coalition Government was replacing the controversial Safe Schools program (SSP) with a new broader anti-bullying strategy when federal funding runs out in June. Education Minister Rob Stokes made clear that NSW public schools would continue to provide support for LGBT students: schools will be a safe…
THE DEMON IN DEMOCRACY: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies by Ryszard Legutko Encounter Books, NY Hardcover: 200 pages Price: AUD $34.99 Reviewed by Brian Coman In 1989, Francis Fukuyama published his famous essay entitled The End of History. Here he argued that, with the break-up of the Soviet Empire (then just beginning), the political…
Malcolm Turnbull’s bold decision to reform the Racial Discrimination Act to make it less subjective and more robust and effective has been labeled as another burden he will have to take to the next election that will deny him votes. Bill Shorten’s Labor thinks it is on a winner on section 18C of the act,…
Late last year the West Australian Parliament passed laws regarding domestic violence which pose an insidious threat to fundamental rights of citizens in that state. Previous laws ensured that if a person alleged that violence had occurred she would usually be issued with a restraining order without any evidence to support that claim. The new…
After a year-long rainbow alliance campaign for a parliamentary vote on same-sex marriage, the Federal Government’s policy is still for a plebiscite, while Labor has shifted onto other issues. Despite the Senate blocking a people’s vote on the issue late last year, Malcolm Turnbull has confirmed that a plebiscite remains his Government’s policy. Mr Turnbull…
The number of autistic kids is skyrocketing. The number of transgender kids is skyrocketing. Is there a link? Yes, said a controversial Canadian expert on transgender issues on a BBC documentary in January. Kenneth Zucker is a distinguished figure in the field of the psychology of sexual behaviour. He is the editor of the Archives…
As part of its response to the recommendations of Betrayal of Trust, the report of the Parliamentary Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and other Non-Government Organisations, the Victorian Government has introduced mandatory Child Safe Standards for all institutions, organisations, groups, and clubs that provide services for children. Schools obviously have to…
The Victorian Liberal State Council has unanimously voted to axe the extreme Safe Schools program if they win the next state election in 2018. At a packed State Council in Ballarat, on Saturday November 19, Opposition Leader Matthew Guy announced that the Liberals would get rid of the Safe Schools program in Victorian schools if…
Many years ago, British neurologist Oliver Sacks, a man with a flair for subtle observations and the clear prose to describe them, wrote a book about strange cases of mental confusion he had encountered. Its title seizes your attention instantly: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. The title was no joke, nor…
In the first week of Federal Parliament, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten introduced his own bill for a federal parliamentary vote on same-sex marriage, to defeat the Government’s promised plebiscite, which would engage the entire adult population. The Shorten bill, if adopted by Parliament, would amend the Marriage Act, “to allow couples to marry, and to…
THE GLOBAL SEXUAL REVOLUTION by Gabriele Kuby Life Site, Kettering, Ohio Paperback: 283 pages Price: AUD$51.75 Reviewed by John Young A new dictatorship is rapidly spreading, particularly in the Western world. If successful, it will destroy not only Christian civilisation but all civilisation. This book examines that threat. It is essentially a…
1966: The Year the Decade Exploded by Jon Savage Faber & Faber, London Hardcover: 620 pagesPrice: AUD$49.99 Reviewed by Jeffry Babb Exactly 50 years on, what can we say about 1966? The so-called “Swinging Sixties” were a time of almost unimaginable prosperity, spread uniformly across the Western world. Economists would argue that…
There is barely any example of gender-identity politics starker, or more reckless, than Rodney Croome’s use of LGBTI youth in his campaign to redefine marriage. An article published by the veteran gay-rights campaigner in The Age on Tuesday (August 23), argued that the marriage plebiscite should be cancelled because apparently it would inevitably lead to…
The announcement that the Olympics will accept transgender athletes is set to raise a host of issues, particularly in contact sports, including the Australian Football League (AFL). But first the Olympics. Since 2004 male-to-female transgender athletes have been allowed in the Olympics after surgery and two years of hormone therapy. But they will…
The British Conservative Government under mock-Tory David Cameron is either actively promoting or supinely condoning transsexualism in schools and prisons, with concepts of clear differentiation between the sexes being labeled as bigotry. Prisons and schools get the same treatment. The mind boggles at what would happen under a Labour Government – but perhaps some of…
Before the year 2000, no U.S. state recognised same-sex marriage. By 2015, it was legal throughout the U.S. and most of Western Europe. Before 2015 most Americans knew nothing about transgender issues. Within a year these issues were on the front pages of newspapers every day. The pace of change in the sexual revolution is not…
We have seen enough of the results of the 50-year assault on marriage to be sure that certain behavioural patterns, though “expressed in custom and reinforced by ritual”, are hard-wired and are for our good: that is, marriage works, especially for children. Lucy Sullivan writes. Part Two of two parts Marriage, family, generations are social patterns analogous …
The decision of the Australia Council – the Australian Government’s autonomous arts funding body – to refuse funding for the literary pages (poetry, short stories, essays and book reviews) of liberal-conservative magazine Quadrant is probably the most disgraceful and indefensible in the history of Australian arts administration. Who’ll bid five bob for this extremely rare,…
Part One in this series of articles examined how queer theory is predicated on the notion of the child as agent, capable of making its own decisions. Part Two of these articles examines other controversial aspects of the theory. Patrick J. Byrne writes. Another controversial aspect of queer theory is transgendering – not just…
Further to what we saw in the last edition (News Weekly, May 7, 2016), research is also uncovering fascinating information that is counterintuitive to the 21st-century mind. Science shows the differences start at the top and go all the way down. Given that cultures are different and that male and female differences are demonstrated to…
Queer gender theory is at the core of the Safe Schools Coalition Australia program, says Monash University feminist writer Laura McNally. Many genders: but only one reality. McNally says that if this term is unfamiliar, there is a good reason: “Queer theory is a highly contested and relatively recent development in the sociology academy. “Queer…
I am Cathy Ruse, with the Family Research Council. I’m a Catholic Christian, and that means it’s impossible for me to believe that marriage is anything other than the union of a man and a woman. No law and no judge will ever make me change that belief. Cathy Ruse I’m a mother, and as…
There is no stopping the cultural left’s political correctness (PC) movement. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination wants to ban one of the Netherland’s long-cherished children’s characters, Black Pete. Tintin: imperialist. Black Pete, a figure with a black face and a gold earing, accompanies St Nicholas at Christmas time handing out…
Justice Anthony Kennedy’s decision in Obergefell v Hodges is anchored in the liberty to “define and express” one’s identity. But this view of man is not as exalted as it seems. According to Kennedy, self-defined man, if he’s unmarried, remains tragically lonely and, without state recognition, might even doubt his own dignity. Conjured as it…
Forty years ago, the Australian Parliament carried by the narrowest margin a law which fundamentally changed the nature of marriage in Australia. The Family Law Act was deeply divisive at the time because it fundamentally changed the nature of marriage from one which was intended to last for life, to one which could be terminated…
Parents have the natural right to be with their own children, unless they are guilty of some egregious act…. Stealing children from their own parents has historically been considered one of the most inhuman acts of tyrannical dictators…. Slave owners sold the children of their own slaves to other men. Today we are appalled by…
American family activist and history professor, Dr Allan Carlson, delivered the following paper at the Moscow Demographic Summit: Family and the Future of Humankind, held during June 29-30, 2011, at the Russian State Social University. It was originally published in the American online journal www.FrontPorchRepublic.com. Dr Allan Carlson One of the lives claimed in the…
INVENTING THE INDIVIDUAL: The Origins of Western Liberalism by Larry Siedentop (UK: Allen Lane / Penguin) Hardcover: 448 pages ISBN: 9780713996449 Price: AUD$39.95 Reviewed by Bill James There are some allegedly self-evident things which modern Westerners take for granted themselves, and assume have always been taken for granted by everyone else. These…
There is at least a prima facie case that the ALP, as a political collective, is mad. Despite the left-wing mainstream media’s more manic utterances, the controversial WA Labor Senator-elect Joe Bullock is neither an arch conservative nor a dinosaur. He is a traditionalist with mainstream views and a lifetime of service to Australia’s largest…
Most attention on the make-up of the first Abbott ministry dwelt on the “surprise” lack of women in the Cabinet, suggesting that the new government’s honeymoon period will be both extremely short-lived and that it will not be getting any breaks from the media during its first term. Anything that does not sit well with…
The cult of the colossal means kowtowing before the merely “big” — which is thus adequately legitimised as the better and more valuable. It means contempt for what is outwardly small but inwardly great; it is the cult of power and unity, the predilection for the superlative in all spheres of cultural life, yes, even…
THE CONSERVATIVE FOUNDATIONS OF THE LIBERAL ORDER: Defending Democracy against Its Modern Enemies and Immoderate Friends by Daniel J. Mahoney (Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books) Hardcover: 240 pages ISBN: 9781935191001 RRP: AUD$53.90 Reviewed by Trevor Shelley In The Spirit of Liberalism (1978), Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr, professor of government at Harvard University, distinguished between…
At the time of writing, the 94-year-old former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, lay critically ill in hospital, forcing South Africans to contemplate life without the man who changed their country forever. Born in 1918 to the family of minor African royalty in a village in Cape Province, Mandela was a beneficiary of efforts…
Marilyn Lake’s positions and awards Tasmanian-born Professor Marilyn Lake holds a personal chair in the school of history at Melbourne’s La Trobe University, where she was appointed founding director of women’s studies in 1988. She has also held a number of visiting professorial fellowships, including at Stockholm University, the University of Sydney, the University of…
Western Australian law academic Augusto Zimmermann assesses the destructive impact of radical feminism on Western society, in the following edited extract from a chapter of his widely acclaimed new book, Western Legal Theory: Theory, Concepts and Perspectives (Sydney: LexisNexis Butterworths, 2013). Although the term “feminism” was not coined until the late 19th century, the belief…
Victorian DLP Senator John Madigan is trying to ensure the issue of abortion is not overlooked by political parties ahead of this year’s federal election. He is introducing a bill to ban Medicare funding for abortions used for sex selection. He explained to The Australian newspaper: “The bill aims to stop Medicare funding for abortions…
An American computer security company, Mandiant, which was targeted by Chinese cyber-spies, turned the tables on the hackers, infiltrating their systems and documenting the massive degree of computer espionage undertaken by the Chinese regime, through the government’s military force, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Mandiant has been tracking Chinese computer espionage since 2004, on behalf…
Julia Gillard lit a match to ignite a “gender war” against the leader of the Opposition during a fiery speech in parliament that is now being celebrated in feminist circles as a seminal moment in the advancement of women. For feminist commentators, particularly those geographically a very long way from the reality of Australian politics,…
Beware the purifiers, those fanatics who are committed absolutely to the purification of the world, at whatever human cost. Such is the urgent message of scholars and commentators who have been watching carefully the resurgence of a massively destructive but very seductive extremist ideology — revolutionary millennarianism. It is a quasi-religious creed that seeks an…
GREEN PHILOSOPHY: How to Think Seriously About the Planet by Roger Scruton (London: Atlantic Books) Hardcover: 464 pages ISBN: 9781848870765 RRP: AUD$65.95 Reviewed by Brian J. Coman These days, it is usual for us to associate the term “green philosophy” with “green” politics. Furthermore, we are accustomed to those strict demarcations whereby conservative…
A major battle for freedom of speech has broken out at the University of Sydney. In the past few months, a group of students have worked to found LifeChoice Sydney, a non-partisan and non-sectarian pro-life club. The aims of the club are: 1) to promote the dignity of human life from conception to natural death;…
The Crusades are “topical and highly sensitive, given the recent tensions in the Middle East — and the world at large (e.g., the terrorist threat posed by some fundamentalist religious and political factions)”.[1] This is a warning issued to Year 8 Humanities/ Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE) teachers by John Wiley & Sons Australia…
FROM NEW LEFT TO FACTIONAL LEFT: Fifty Years of Student Activism at Sydney University by Alan Barcan (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing) Paperback: 250 pages ISBN: 9781921509889 RRP: $44.00 Reviewed by Mervyn F. Bendle In the mid-1970s the New Left in Australia began its “long march through the institutions” to seize power in the…
By winning the balance of power in the Senate at the August 2010 federal election, the Australian Greens have thereby moved from a position close to the margins of Australian politics to its centre. If they were to successfully implement their agenda, they would undermine the economic and social progress of our nation. The narrowly…
There is never a shortage of examples of how Islam is slowly but surely creeping into Western democracies, with sharia law and other less than democratic features being promoted and eventually accepted. Democracy, of course, can be its own worst enemy as it seeks to accommodate itself to anyone and everyone, even those forces which…
In a victory for freedom of speech, association and religion, the new Liberal-National Party government in Victoria has moved to repeal the previous Brumby Labor Government’s changes to the state’s Equal Opportunity Act, which greatly restricted freedom of religion. Last year, the state Labor Government’s attorney-general Rob Hulls initiated a new Equal Opportunity Act, which…
My late husband, Charles Francis, AM, QC, during the course of his legal career acted for defendants in 48 murder trials. He would often be asked by naïve acquaintances: “How can you defend a man you know is guilty?” Charles would reply good-humouredly “Well, I don’t know that he is guilty unless he confesses and…
During the third week in September, heads of state and leaders of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other entities, some of them larger and more powerful than many sovereign states, gathered at a United Nations summit in New York to discuss the implementation and interpretation of the so-called Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).…
In the old days the enemies of the free and democratic West could resort to violent revolution to overthrow capitalism, democracy and other objects deemed to be deserving of destruction. Social change by the barrel of the gun was a preferred way of radical social upheaval and revolution. Judge Vaughn R. Walker But Marxists and…
Similar to Labor luminaries Julia Gillard and John Sutton, I also had a working-class upbringing and our family home was dominated by left-wing values. We lived on a housing commission estate in the northern Melbourne suburb of Broadmeadows, Dad was a member of the Australian Communist Party and I was enrolled in the Eureka Youth…
Accompanied by leaders of the Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian and Pentecostal churches, and with the strong support of the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal Dr George Pell, went to Canberra on October 23 to inform both Government and Opposition of widespread church concern about and opposition to the proposed…
This is the address given by former Canadian Government Minister, the Hon. David Kilgour, at the Forum on Human Rights in China, held in the Parliament Buildings, Ottawa, Canada on May 27, 2009. As we approach the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre and 10 full years since the merciless persecution of Falun Gong began,…
Prime targets of pro-abortion ideologues are sidewalk counsellors outside abortion clinics who seek to dissuade women from going ahead with an abortion. David Perrin reports. Killing of the unborn has recently been decriminalised in Victoria, following the example of the Australian Capital Territory and Western Australia. It is expected that in the future other states…
So euphoric are Western businessmen and political leaders at the prospects of conducting lucrative trade with China that they downplay or ignore Beijing’s repressive police-state apparatus and corrupt business practices. Joseph Poprzeczny reports. Westerners are in danger of ignoring what is really happening in China because of endless media reports and political commentary that focus…
Traditionalists denounced as “literacy warriors” THE LITERACY WARS:Why teaching children to read and write is a battleground in Australiaby Ilana Snyder(Sydney: Allan & Unwin)Paperback: 256 pagesRec. price: $32.95 Anyone who presumes to write a book on literacy is tempting fate, because everything they say will be scrutinised with the eye of pedantry. Ilana Snyder, an…
Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympics Games by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 2001, on the condition that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would improve its appalling human rights record. Human rights in China, however, have sharply deteriorated in the run-up to the Games, as Peter Westmore recently reported in a speech before an…
Man’s inhumanity to man GENOCIDE: A Historyby William D. Rubinstein(London: Pearson Longman)Hardcover: 336 pagesRec. price: AUD$59.95 The now familiar word, “genocide”, was coined during World War II by Polish-Jewish legal expert, Raphael Lemkin (1900-59), who had earlier investigated barbarities inflicted upon two Middle Eastern Christian minorities: the Turkish massacre of the Armenians during World War…
A new conservative women’s activist group has arisen on U.S. college campuses, the Network of Enlightened Women (NeW). It is a very different breed to feminist groups marching for “Choice” (abortion rights) or “Diversity” (lesbian rights). NeW activists bake chocolate-chip cookies and protest against campus productions of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues – a sexually-explicit…
A Victorian Government human rights committee has misleadingly claimed that an overwhelming majority of Victorians are demanding a charter of rights, says Bill Muehlenberg. The Victorian Human Rights Consultation Committee has recently released its report, Rights, Responsibilities and Respect. This is the outcome of a recent public inquiry into the supposed need for a bill…
Diagnosing the Bridget Jones syndrome THE MISEDUCATION OF WOMENby James TooleyChicago: Ivan R. Dee. Paperback RRP: A$39.95 This is a book that will no doubt cause many feminists to have angina and fits of apoplexy – especially as it’s written by a man. Many others who read it will find a refreshing counterpoint to feminist…
Dear Mr Latham, You are blamed for the ALP defeat on October 9, but my view is you were seduced by the Greens, gays and gender-feminists, who took advantage of your inexperience. The gays, for instance: did you really believe the Kinsey nonsense that they are 10 per cent of the population, when surveys have…
Clyde Cameron, one of the most prominent leaders of the labour movement in Australia for many decades, and a former Minister for Labor in the Whitlam Government, recently gave the response to an address by Peter Westmore to a National Civic Council function in South Australia. Tonight we are in the presence of Peter Westmore,…
In Melbourne’s Herald Sun (October 7, 2002) word wizard Andrew Bolt struck with a bolt of lightning at the ALP’s affirmative action policies (a 40 per cent female preselection quota for women in winnable seats) by somewhat facetiously suggesting that the higher percentage of women who are susceptible to the blandishments of witchcraft meant that…
Federal Labor’s progress in moving on after its third successive defeat is increasingly a case of a platoon marching one step forward and two steps back. While only the most optimistic Labor stalwarts were expecting a significant “bounce” from trading in Kim Beazley for Simon Crean, the Opposition has simply been drifting and clearly would…
Sir, I applaud the decision to publish a Special Edition of News Weekly (January 13, 2001) against the economic rationalists who favour the globalisation of corporate capitalism, thus enabling foreign multinational corporations to shift Australian industries to the cheap labour costs of Asia. Not only has this resulted in mass unemployment, but globalisation is allowing…