For foreign readers, the Australian Parliament is undergoing the most extraordinary spectacle at the moment. Politicians have resigned after discovering that they were dual citizens of Australia and some other country — such as Britain, Canada, or New Zealand — which is a clear breach of the constitution. But this is going far beyond people who held two passports. The constitutional affliction is spreading, as more and more politicians get caught up in what will now become High Court cases. Some renounced citizenship in writing before the election but their unwanted sovereign-alternate nation didn’t necessarily acknowledge that for months (that was Malcolm Roberts case). Others never knew their mother applied for them to become a dual citizen. Some claim ignorance or inheritance may be no excuse.
Bizarrely, this could theoretically escalate to involve pretty much the entire parliamentary body.
The stakes are pretty high, given that our current government holds power by just one seat. Already the endangered list includes some ministers. People are resigning from the Senate and being replaced. In the House, no one has left yet but their continued stay will depend on the High Court. By-elections may have to be called, and government may change hands to the Labor Party.
Check out the wording of our constitution — spot the problem?
Section 44(i) of the nation’s founding document disqualifies someone from office if that person:
…is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power…
How to remove every politician in Australia
Last week, David Evans (my other half) pointed out a simple method for a foreign power to get rid of any Australian politician they didn’t like. What if Kim Jong Un, say, granted selected politicians citizenship, or voting rights, or “free health care,” or the rights to some benefits in North Korea? Non-rescindable. Nothing the Australian politicians can do about it. Wouldn’t this disqualify every politician to whom this was granted? The blackmail potential is excellent, obviously.
But it gets worse. Apparently New Zealand has already neutralized the Australian Parliament. Now the only people who can run for Parliament are Australian citizens who are not Australian citizens. Figure that…
NOBODY Is Eligible To Be Elected To Parliament
Robert Angyal SC is a Sydney barrister
Much closer to home, under recent and little-noticed changes to New Zealand law, Australian citizens now don’t need a visa to live, study or work in the Land of the Long White Cloud. That’s right: Any Australian citizen is entitled to live, study and work there.
That means we’re ALL entitled to the rights and privileges of a subject of New Zealand — not a citizen, with the attached rights and privileges such as voting — but to be a subject of that country, living there, subject to New Zealand law, working or studying. And there’s no doubt that New Zealand is a “foreign power” — you only have to watch the All Blacks do the haka to realise that.
What does this mean?
New Zealand law has made every Australian citizen incapable of being elected to, or serving in, the Australian Parliament. It’s not just Barnaby Joyce: It’s everyone!
UPDATE: Seems this is not likely at all. From Tim Andrews (Australian Taxpayers Alliance)
It appears to be a bit of a historical anomaly — one Queen, many countries, that sort of thing.
At the time the constitution was enacted, only Senator Canavan’s Italian citizenship would have triggered the disqualification in section 44(i). Being born in Britain, Canada or New Zealand would have simply made a person a subject of Queen Victoria and therefore not a citizen of a foreign power.
The High Court decided in 1999, however, that at least since 1986, Britain is a foreign power for the purposes of section 44. Canada and New Zealand fall into the same category.
This needs a resolution pronto!
The constitution can only be changed by a referendum, but a referendum can only be initiated by legislation passed by the Australian Parliament. If the New Zealand angle is correct, then all our current politicians are ineligible to be in Parliament and therefore cannot pass the legislation needed to initiate the referendum. No new politicians can be elected without a change to the constitution by a referendum. Checkmate, Australian Government.
Absolutely right , sack the lot of them , get judges to rewrite section 44 and let’s open up voting again .
Kiwis a foreign power ? I reckon tassie could take them easy .
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Tassie with WA’s GST share.
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Thanks to Wayne Swan, Labor Treasurer
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‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wish’d.
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As the High Court was set up after the formation of Federal Parliament, it could only be done by persons who were not eligible to be Federal MPs. The High Court is not legally appointed. Its legality can only be resolved by “a pattern of behavior” under Common Law as stated in the Magna Carta. This may also be a way of resolving our MPs’ issue of “legitimacy”.
Formation of the court
The first Chief Justice of Australia, Sir Samuel Griffith, is administered the judicial oath at the first sitting of the High Court, in the Banco Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria, 6 October 1903.
The Constitution was passed by the Imperial Parliament, and came into effect on 1 January 1901. However, the High Court was not established immediately; it was necessary for the new Parliament of Australia to make laws about the structure and procedure of the court. Some of the members of the First Parliament, including Sir John Quick, then one of the leading legal experts in Australia, opposed legislation to set up the court. Even H. B. Higgins, who was himself later appointed to the court, objected to setting it up, on the grounds that it would be impotent while Privy Council appeals remained, and that in any event there was not enough work for a federal court to make it viable.[11]
In 1902, the then Attorney-General Alfred Deakin introduced the Judiciary Bill 1902 in the House of Representatives. Although Deakin and Griffith had produced a draft bill as early as February 1901, it was continually delayed by opponents in the parliament, and the success of the bill is generally attributed to Deakin’s passion and effort in pushing the bill through the parliament despite this opposition.[38] Deakin had proposed that the court be composed of five judges, specially selected to the court; opponents instead proposed that the court should be made up of state Supreme Court justices, taking turns to sit on the High Court on a rotation basis, as had been mooted at the Constitutional Conventions a decade before.[40] Deakin eventually negotiated amendments with the opposition, reducing the number of judges from five to three, and eliminating financial benefits such as pensions.
At one point, Deakin even threatened to resign as Attorney-General due to the difficulties he faced.[38] In what is now a famous speech, Deakin gave a second readingto the House of Representatives, lasting three and a half hours, in which he declared:
“The federation is constituted by distribution of powers, and it is this court which decides the orbit and boundary of every power… It is properly termed the keystone of the federal arch… The statute stands and will stand on the statute-book just as in the hour in which it was assented to. But the nation lives, grows and expands. Its circumstances change, its needs alter, and its problems present themselves with new faces. [The High Court] enables the Constitution to grow and be adapted to the changeful necessities and circumstances of generation after generation that the High Court operates.”[41]
Deakin’s friend, painter Tom Roberts, who viewed the speech from the public gallery, declared it Deakin’s “magnum opus”.[38] The Judiciary Act 1903 was finally passed on 25 August 1903, and the first three justices, Chief Justice Sir Samuel Griffith and Justices Sir Edmund Barton and Richard O’Connor were appointed on 5 October of that year. On 6 October, the court held its first sitting in the Banco Court in the Supreme Court of Victoria.
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That was the earlier days but later the High Court of Australia became the highest court of appeal for Australians, and our previous right of appeal to the UK Privy Council was withdrawn.
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This is the key section of S.44:
There are 2 heads to the section. The first part requires an active role by the citizen; the citizen must do something positive to attain the status of citizenship.
This interpretation was looked at obiter dicta in Nile v Wood [1987] HCA 62; (1987) 76 ALR 91 at paragraph 19.
If the HC makes an interpretation of S.44(i) such that the disqualification requires an active assertion of citizenship rather than being made a dual citizen by the passive process of the second head of S.44(i)then all of the affected politicians may have a case for exemption.
If the passive head of S.44(i) is preferred I don’t see that any politician will be exempted even if they were unaware of their dual citizenship status. What would be required in the circumstances of the second head of S.44(i) would be an active role by the citizen in disavowing/renouncing the dual citizenship bestowed in a passive way by the other nation.
30
Everyone in Australia who is an Australian citizen owes allegiance to the Commonwealth of Nations. There is an Oath of Allegiance.
This means no-one who is an Australian citizen can sit as a senator or MP in the Federal Government.
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Which where?
The only oath of allegiance that I’ve ever taken was when I was engaged by ARes. And that has sort of “expired”.
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Relationship of the realms
The Commonwealth realms are, for purposes of international relations, sovereign states. They are united only in their voluntary connection with the institution of the monarchy,[6] the succession, and the Queen herself; the person of the sovereign and the Crown were said in 1936 to be “the most important and vital link” between the realms.[7] Political scientist Peter Boyce called this grouping of countries associated in this manner, “an achievement without parallel in the history of international relations or constitutional law.”[8] Terms such as personal union,[9][10][11][12][13][14] a form of personal union,[† 1][16] and shared monarchy,[17] among others,[† 2][20] have all been advanced as definitions since the beginning of the Commonwealth itself, though there has been no agreement on which term is most accurate,[19][20]or even whether personal union is applicable at all.[† 3][22]
Since the Balfour Declaration of 1926, the realms have been considered “equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs,
though united by a common allegiance to the Crown.”
[23][6][24][25][26][27] and the monarch is “equally, officially, and explicitly [monarch] of separate, autonomous realms.”[6][24][28][26] Andrew Michie wrote in 1952 “Elizabeth II embodies in her own person many monarchies: she is Queen of Great Britain, but she is equally Queen of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, and Ceylon… it is now possible for Elizabeth II to be, in practice as well as theory, equally Queen in all her realms.”[29] Still, Boyce holds the counter-opinion the crowns of all the non-British realms are “derivative, if not subordinate” to the crown of the United Kingdom.[30] The United Kingdom no longer possesses any legislative power over any country besides itself, although some countries continue to use, by their own volition, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as part of their own judiciary; usually as the highest court of appeal.
Since each realm has the same person as its monarch, the diplomatic practice of exchanging ambassadors with letters of credence and recall from one head of state to another is redundant. Diplomatic relations between the Commonwealth realms are thus at a cabinet level only and high commissioners are exchanged between realms (though all other countries in the Commonwealth of Nations also follow this same practice, but for traditional reasons). A high commissioner’s full title will thus be High Commissioner for Her Majesty’s Government in [Country]. For certain ceremonies, the order of precedence for the realms’ high commissioners or national flags is set according to the chronological order of, first, when the country became a Dominion and then the date on which the country gained independence.[31]
Conflicts of interest have arisen from this relationship amongst independent states, ranging from minor diplomatic matters—such as the monarch expressing on the advice of one of her cabinets views that counter those of another of her cabinets[† 4]—to more serious conflicts regarding matters of armed conflict, wherein the monarch, as head of state of two different realms, may be simultaneously at war and at peace with a third country, or even at war with herself as head of two hostile nations.[† 5] In such cases, viceroys have tended to avoid placing the sovereign directly in the centre of the conflict, meaning that a governor-general may have to take controversial actions entirely on his or her own initiative through the exercise of the reserve powers.[† 6]
In recent years, advocates have argued for free movement of citizens among a subset of the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, which they argue “share the same head of state, the same native language, [and] the same respect for the common law.”[34][35][36][37] Opinion on the prospect of the plan coming to fruition is mixed.[38] British Eurosceptics (who wish for the UK to leave the European Union) have expressed a preference for a relationship “similar in nature and goals to the EU” between the same four countries: the CANZUK Union.[39]—though this possibility has also been characterised as “difficult and in some ways far-fetched”.[39]
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Sorry Geoff but I see no mention/definition of this Oath of Allegiance in your response.
Nothing remote like allegiance to … HM Queen Elizabeth II; her heirs and successors …
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The British Commonwealth of Nations became the Commonwealth of Nations as member countries became independent, including of course Australia.
Republicans often fail to acknowledge that Australia is independent now.
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Not pushing a republic. However, there will be many “allegiances” we all owe to foreign sovereigns, set automatically by birth. “under any acknowledgment of allegiance”, anyone of these prevents us from being members of the Federal Parliament by Clause 44.
It could even be argued that if aboriginals manage to set up a separate sovereign entity under our constitution they could no longer be members of Federal Parliament. Be careful what you wish for.
In the end, legal double speak just makes more conflict.
The constitutional crisis will be used by politicians to crawl over others and continue to do nothing for the economy. We are now fully in the grips of socialism and deflation, leaderless and rudderless.
50
And Australians who claim to have Aboriginal (Australian) ancestors seem to ignore that Aborigines were recognised in the Constitution via a referendum in the late 1960s which was carried with a substantial yes vote result.
10
Nice bit of cut and paste there Geoff . . . none of which backs up your first statement. You’re very confused. No one in Australia owes any allegiance to “The Commonwealth of Nations” and as Bernd points out, there is no such oath of allegiance to it. The Commonwealth of Australia is an entirely different beast, as is the Crown.
The Balfour Declaration which you cite, is an irrelevance. Empty words. Australia and Britain were not equals. The Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942 is the important document, followed by the Australia Act 1986, when finally Australia gained relative legal independence from Britain. The High Court of Australia became the highest appellate court in the land. We still have governors appointed by the Crown.
My constitutional law is suffering from 40 years of rust and decay but there may be a couple of fairly simple remedies available for the New Zealand position of Barnaby at least.
The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900:
S.109 “When a law of a state is inconsistent with a law of the Commonwealth, the latter shall prevail, and the former shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be invalid.”
S.6 “. . . The states shall mean such of the colonies of New South Wales, NEW ZEALAND, Queensland . . .”
Whilst that doesn’t directly solve the problem of the interpretation of the offending clause in S.44, with some creative interpretation by the Justices of the High Court I’m sure they can hold that an Act of the New Zealand parliament cannot take precedence over an Australian law in Australia. That principle could be applied more widely so that hopefully a citizen of Oz could not forcibly be made a citizen of another country, with or without their knowledge.
In Barnaby’s case, since NZ is named as an Australian state in the Constitution, an argument could be made that it is not even a “foreign power” within the meaning of the Act, and therefore Barnaby is exempt from the provision anyway. That doesn’t solve the problem for the British, Canadians, Italians, Cypriots and others.
In its historical context of British citizenship amongst the colonies of the Empire, the court could also limit the problematic provision as referring only to citizens from non-British countries at the time. I don’t know how Cyprus would fit into that in the case of Xenophon.
Whatever happens you can count on the good judges finding some obscure clause in the constitution which they will interpret in such a way that it establishes the inability of foreign governments to exercise legal supremacy over Australian laws in a modern context. As with much constitutional interpretation . . . “it’s the vibe, dude”. Constitutional words can be twisted into whatever interpretation is fashionable amongst a majority of the judges.
Why stop at citizenship? The Oz government could pass a law that says all Kiwis living in NZ must pay Australian income tax. I’m sure NZ would be as accommodating to the wishes of our parliament as we would be to theirs.
There must be limits set on the influence of foreign powers over Australian citizens who have not actively sought or maintained foreign citizenship or rights.
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It will come to this, an entitlement is not the same as accepting that entitlement. You are entitled to UK citizenship if you even have a grandparent who is or was a UK citizen but it takes you to accept that entitlement to become a subject. This entitlement is simply an offer for you to come to be entitled to the rights of citizenship. An offer must be accepted to become a contract. Anyone who has never accepted such an offer will not be subject to s44.
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Bobl
IIRC that isn’t quite right.
The grandparent clause was as you say. But somewhere back about the 1980’s you had to nominate that you were taking that up or it lapsed.
Our family was in that situation. Two of us nominated, two didn’t.
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Yes, I recall something like that.
I’m British by birth and back then, my wife contemplated that our kids might want the option of a British passport before the deadline ran out.
It would mean they could take up residency or work there etc.
I’m not even an Australian citizen (which I really should remedy), but am a permanent resident.
It’s amazing how over the years since, I, as 10 pound POM arrived, the restrictions and laws around citizenship have gradually tightened.
30
And New Zealand requires a person who by birthright is automatically deemed to be a citizen there to register, and once confirmed the person can then apply for a passport.
I understand that the sticking point is that NZ claims the children of NZ born citizens or former citizens born in NZ are automatically NZ citizens.
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Exactly. Being entitled to citizenship and posessing it are two different things. I am British by birth, Canadian by naturalisation, Irish by descent (my father was born in Ireland) and Australian in spirit (and by sheer number of family relations). In fact, as originally planned, I would have been born in Australia, but my parents changed their minds and moved to Canada six years after I was born instead (bugger!).
I only registered my Irish citizenship and acquired a passport last year, for mainly practical reasons. I have long held a British passport in addition to my Canadian one, mainly because I travelled frequently to the EU on business. When my British passport expired last year, I was shocked to find that a) I could no longer renew it through the High Commission here in Ottawa (in a Commonwealth country!), but had to do so through the British Embassy in Washington (screw that), and b) they had raised the cost to over $300. Asserting my right to Irish citizenship by descent, and obtaining an Irish passport could be done through the Irish Embassy in Ottawa, and the passport cost half that of a British one.
Twenty years ago I could have applied for yet another citizenship, after living in Sweden as a permanent resident for five years. However, Sweden did not allow dual citizenship at that time, and I did not want to renounce my Canadian citizenship.
Canada has no similar restrictions to Australia on dual citizenship for elected office holders, so long as you posess Canadian citizenship. “Mistakes” do not disqualify you either.. we have a Liberal cabinet minister who came to Canada with her family and were granted permission to settle as “refugees” from Afghanistan. Now that she is in office, It has been revealed that the family had been living in Iran before coming to Canada, and that she was actually born there. An honest mistake or citizenship under false pretenses, no matter.
30
That is exactly right. Even Australia is like that. If you are born to an Australian Parent then your Parents were entitled to register that birth in Australia for the child to become an Australian Citizen. This is nothing but that. Unless you register the birth (IE register) you are not a citizen.
20
One day, back in 1981, I walked through the front door of the High Commission in Ottawa at 09:00. By 17:00 I was back in Toronto with a shiny new British passport.
00
“in a constitutional monarchy, such as in the United Kingdom, Australia and other Commonwealth realms, oaths are sworn to the monarch.”:
Our Monarch is in charge of the Commonwealth. So by swearing allegiance to the Queen, which we all do, we agree to have allegiance to the Commonwealth. There will be thousands of examples. When I joined the cub scouts I swore allegiance to the Queen. When we had a flag day at primary school we all swore our allegiance to Queen and country.
21
“Elizabeth II embodies in her own person many monarchies: she is Queen of Great Britain, but she is equally Queen of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, and Ceylon… it is now possible for Elizabeth II to be, in practice as well as theory, equally Queen in all her realms.”
Looks like she manages to outdo God – He can only manage to be a Holy Trinity!
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Ah, but He’s God of everywhere and everywhen, like it or not.
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There seems to be a hidden oath of alliegance of politicians to the globalists/Gaia worshippers…..its the only thing that explains why the green agenda keeps moving forward with a religious zeal at the expense of the financial and spiritual health of this nation…..
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I wondered when the Globocult would come up. Contrary to Jo’s assertion…
… Australia has just been quietly engulfed by the UN Green Blob aided and abetted by the same national identity smashers that tried to get rid of the NewZealand flag.
New Zealand is a serious acolyte of the Globocult that worships at the altar of open borders (except it doesn’t really because it is geopolitically isolated). Surrounded as it is by thousands of kilometres of inhospitable open Sea and Ocean it is afforded all manner of extravagant opinions utterly unaffected by reality.
It stands today in such stark contrast to the position it once held just before World War II at the Imperial Conference in London in 1937.
Neville Chamberlain became the British Prime Minister, the doyen of appeasement … or in modern Leftist speak, ‘strategic patience’, which has the phoney ring of an oxymoron. Tactical patience may be one thing, but strategic patience, pure double speak.
As for the tongue in cheek pronouncement of Robert Angyal SC (Sydney barrister),
The Globocult enshrines division and no where is this more apparent than in New Zealand, a self-proclaimed bicultural country that in the same social gasp breathlessly and nonsensically proclaims multiculturalism, which of course it must because the Globocult says so. However, true to Globocult form, so called indigenous individuals have a tribal right to occupy positions of administrative power without accountability or election, and for tribally owned companies to exercise charitable status, absenting themselves from paying tax. Unadulterated pure Globocult
diversitydivision and identity politics. So, there can be no mistaking New Zealand is not a ‘foreign power’. Indeed, it is that very bellicose proto-Stoneage war dance that makes that so very clear.11
And New Zealand, originally part of the Colony of New South Wales, Australia, remains listed on the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution and when Constitutional Conventions are held here from time to time New Zealand sends delegates to attend.
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In one of those High Court judgements, it was acknowledged that some countries do not allow their citizens to renounce their citizenship, or have no mechanism for doing so. The High Court said that this did not disqualify that person from being elected to Parliament, so long as he or she could demonstrate that he or she had taken reasonable steps to try renounce that citizenship.
Which is why I don’t think Senator Malcolm Roberts has much of a problem, else we would be relying on the speed and efficiency of bureaucracy in another country to determine eligibility to sit in our Parliament.
Similarly, if a foreign power conferred citizenship on members of Parliament, those members would have to immediately renounce it, and show that they had done so. Their seats would be safe.
Regards.
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So anyone the Kiwis will let in is inelegible for the Ozzie parliament. And the Kiwis will let in any Ozzie citizen who isn’t convicted of a criminal offence? Yeh, as it should be, only Ozzie convicts can be in government! Way to go! Yes I know no real change but I am talking about CONVICTED crims …
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Around that area
IIRC NZ has objected to the return of some of theirs after less than distinguished careers in Oz.
So does that mean that they reckon that Barnaby is a worthy recruit?
40
I notice that Rereke Whakaaro hasn’t joined in. Is he at Auckland airport waiting for Banaby with a banner “Go Home, you Aussie”?
00
Already Barnaby has been stripped of his r.
00
What are the worst three years in the lifetime of a Kiwi?
Grade 4.
20
Yeah, but it does seem a little churlish.
I mean . . for a nation founded by convicts, I’d have thought being a criminal was a mandatory requirement for public service.
10
I recall from studying Constitutional Law all those years ago that the High Court has been set many a conundrum to solve over the years. The line of argument making a distinction between citizens of NZ and subjects of NZ will be but one part of the current conundrum to solve.
It is worth bearing in mind that the High Court has over the years effectively interpreted problematic sections of the constitution in a way which amounts to rewriting them.
My guess? The High Court will not adopt an interpretation which disqualifies all Australians from being elected for Parliament. There will not be a period where parliament is suspended pending a referendum.
What will they do with specific cases is anybody’s guess. Barnaby Joyce’s situation is possibly the most interesting. There was no such thing as NZ or Australian citizenship when his father came to Australia. Perhaps Joyce goes into the group who have had foreign privileges thrust upon him.
BTW Congratulations to Jo for this sensible, practical and non-partisan review. Far too many in the media have got themselves excited that their team may sneak its way onto the government benches.
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The Prime Minister has given his legal opinion as a lawyer that the High Court should decide that a person born and raised in Australia, even with the right to register for citizenship elsewhere, is an Australian citizen unless that person has applied for dual citizenship in that other country.
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The PM has given his opinion on a number of things. I treat them with all the respect that they deserve.
Just to muddy the waters, what happens if the Scots declare independence? Do we advise them on what their citizen laws should say?
10
I have long gloated that while the people can have multi-citizenships the pollies can’t and they can’t do anything about it without asking for permission from the people. How they must hate it!
But now I suspect our rulers will work out some way around the problem of democratic inertia. The possibility of sticking it to the people will bring out the inner weasel in all pollies.
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If the high court holds to the letter of the law, fresh elections by October.
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Only one by election so far. The senators can be replaced. Just possibly by themselves if they don’t waste time in getting rid of the unwanted citizenship.
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You’d have to think though . . if these politicians have dodgy citizenship or are obscuring their origins, are they not in fact illegal aliens?
Ship ’em all off to Manus Island, I say.
Maybe we can extend that deal with the US to take them off our hands.
That way we get to make a fresh start with all the old self serving troughers gone . .
10
Lets just prorogue parliament for a couple of years whilst the politicians get themselves sorted out.
I’m quite sure that nobody except the media swill in their deep swamp like political wallows would notice the difference and the lack of the usual political swamp creature shenanigans in Canberra.
After all Italy has been doing without an operating parliament off and on for decades past. Those absences of an operating parliament sometimes extends for months at a time as the usual Italian political chaos and arm waving and back stabbing [ whats new? ] continues to reign .
Despite the regular lack of an operating parliament, Italy is still rated at number eight position re its GDP on the international GDP list of global nations.
Although what the hell we would do with the 57,500 public servants that supposedly “work” [ ???? occasionally !! ] in Canberra when there isn’t a government to give them any credibility such as “I’m from the government. I’m here to help you!” I haven’t got a solution except to send two of them on a study tour to italy to find out what public servants do when there isn’t a government to “public servant”.
Or as the Montanan’s put it to my brother and myself some years ago when sitting on a lawn on one of those long warm pleasant late summer evenings in northern Montana with the magnificent near by Rocky Mountains as back drop.
The Montana Government constitution says that “the government has to meet for at least 14 days every two year”..
The consensus around us that evening was that the Montana constitution should be amended to require “The Government to meet for two days every fourteen years”.
We heartily concurred that would also be appropiate for our Australian governments as well.
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In Switzerland less is more.
The two chambers of Switzerland’s national parliament meet several times
annually to sessions during several weeks and between them to preparing
meetings in numerous commissions.
‘But being member of parliament is not a full time job in Switzerland, contrary
to most other countries today. This means that members of parliament have to
practise an ordinary profession to earn their living – thereby they are closer
to everyday life of their electorate.
The really remarkable thing about Switzerland’s political system is Direct
Democracy: the extraordinary amount of participation in the political process that
is granted to ordinary citizens. In other words: it is not the mere existence of
direct democratic instruments (federalism is widespread and referendums are not
completely unknown to other democratic systems) but rather the frequent use of
them, not only as encouraged by Switzerland’s Constitution, but as practised with
enthusiasm by the citizens. Frequent referendums do have a stabilizing influence
on parliament, government, economy and society.Referendums will increase the
willingness to compromise (otherwise a party defeated in parliament will call for
a referendum). As extreme laws will mercilessly be blocked by the electorate in
referendums, parties are less inclined to radical changes in laws and voters are
less inclined to call for fundamental changes in elections. There is no need to
dismiss the government after a lost referendum, because the referendum solves the
problem – preventing an extreme law – more efficiently and also more precisely.
On the very same day, three new laws may be accepted and two others rejected.’
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If we prorogue Parliament, will the politicians still be paid out of the public purse?
50
It’s no the salaries that cost us the most money; it’s the laws that the make and the expenditures that they approve.
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What is all this ‘prorogue’ felgercarb?? I’m definitely antirogue. I think Parliaments should be de-rogued, if anything. I agree with Russ Wood: there are far too many rogues there, both amateur and pro.
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The government would be in caretaker mode but still continue governing, but unable to legislate new laws and amendments during to prorogue period.
40
Aboriginal Australians get their land back?
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There’d be a lot of Aboriginal’s with a foreign born parent as well 🙂
10
The Mabo law gives them that right already, that is title to land based on continuous occupation of that land.
I wonder however what entitlement a claimed to be indigenous Australian with ancestors from two or more different ethnic groups could possibly have. Senator Dodson, for example, who has an Irish born father and mother of Malaysian and Australian Aborigine ancestry.
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Does anyone know if an Irish born father entitles Dodson to the rights and privileges of Irish citizenship?
40
As far as I know it does. Apparently I could claim Irish citizenship but have not taken it up. It wouldn’t seem right as I’ve never been there.
50
The Republic of Ireland makes it possible for the child OR grandchild of an Irish citizen to apply for citizenship.
I looked into this carefully ten years ago.
In order to complete the application form, ( I was advised by the Irish consulate in Perth) I had to provide documentation linking me to my grandfather.
I was in Ireland in 2007 and visited the very house in which he was born, the church the family attended and paid a considerable sum to the County folks that maintain birth records and obtained the documentation that I required.
I never carried through with the application, but I am very certain that it does NOT make me a citizen of the Republic of Ireland. It simply means that if I applied for it, along with the paper trail that links me to a person born in County Caven, that I would have a chance.
50
here you go gnome…….
Wikipedia [yes I know but…]
By descent
A person is an Irish citizen by descent if, at the time of his or her birth, at least one of his or her parents was an Irish citizen. Place of birth is not a deciding factor.[13] In cases where at least one parent was an Irish citizen born in the island of Ireland[13] or an Irish citizen resident abroad in the public service,[14] citizenship is automatic and dates from birth.
Then there is this from /www.dfa.ie/passports-citizenship/citizenship/born-abroad/born-abroad-citizenship-by-descent-faqs/
Was your parent born in Ireland?
If you were born outside the island of Ireland and if either of your parents was an Irish citizen born on the island of Ireland, then you are an Irish citizen and entitled to apply for an Irish Passport under Irish law, irrespective of where you reside. You do not need to apply for entry on to the Foreign Births Register in this case.
So in answer to your question, if Pat Dodsons father was born in Ireland then Pat Dodson is Automatically an Irish citizen !!!!!!
60
Yes, that refreshes my memory. I needed a whole hockey sock full of documents if I were to a apply to be entered on the Foreign Births Register.
Once on that register, I could then apply for citizenship.
40
Aboriginal Australians get their land back?, Like when the first fleet landed and the indigenous government of the time gave the new arrivals the terms outlined in their constitution written on paper in their language in their capital city that they built by unifying a nation and using technology……….oh wait.
31
That would probably be rejected by the High Court as artificial and entrapment. However what possesses people who are aware of their entitlements, even their second passport to sign a document which demands under section 44 of the constitution that they are not entitled to the rights of a citizen elsewhere? If politicians cannot read a plain English legal document and understand its contents, what are they doing in the job?
In the “Candidates’ Handbook”
Who can nominate as a candidate?
You cannot nominate for the House of
Representatives or Senate if you:
■ are disqualified by section 44 of the
Constitution.
44. Any person who –
i. is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power,
or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power;
Now how hard is that? You have to sign. Some of these people have signed three times, knowing full well that they were disqualified. It has happened before, most recently in 1999 with a British Citizen. This is not new.
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The condition is not silly. The new nation of Australia did not want to be run by Englishmen or Frenchmen or Americans or dual citizens. This is not crazy obsolete stuff, as the politicians would have you believe.
Consider the nomination form
Candidate statement and declaration
Please read the candidate statement and declaration carefully before signing the nomination form.
Your attention is drawn in particular to section 44 of the Constitution
of the Commonwealth of Australia:
Any person who:
(i) is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or
entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power
and what about the little bit at the end
“Giving false or misleading information is a serious offence.”
Our politicians. No respect for the laws of our country.
130
Also in Federating, the States retained health, police, education and much more. Given to the Federal parliament were excise, defence, immigration. There was no Federal police force, until Billy Hughes was threatened and even then they deal with Federal matters.
So the politicians in Canberra are supposed to be across immigration. Most of them are lawyers. Why then have they never heard of Citizenship rights by Descent? Why are they signing documents they know are wrong?
Why are they interfering in everything else? Especially Electricity, which used to be a State matter. Coal, Gas, oil are all State matters and can only be taxed by states. Gillard tried with her mining tax, but could not as there was not such right, so it was a double taxation on profits. The Carbon tax too. Now we are punished by Federal law for burning our own coal?
What is really terrible is the RET which is not even a tax, just a huge impost for foreigners to supply windmills and solar panels and take all the cash and profits overseas. This is not a right of any government.
Our politicians are out of control. Not only because they are above the laws of our country and openly flout the constitution, but because they are crippling us for the benefit of people overseas. We only have 2% of the worlds CO2, so 98% of our CO2 comes from overseas. Why are we paying $6Billion a year, $3Billion a year overseas for the right to burn our own coal?
Our government was supposed to protect us. They are now our greatest oppressors.
230
Or the people for that matter.
10
Henry VI, Part2, Act IV, Scene 2
JACK CADE. Valiant I am.
SMITH [aside]. A must needs; for beggary is valiant.
JACK CADE. I am able to endure much.
DICK [aside]. No question of that; for I have seen him whipp’d three market-days together.
JACK CADE. I fear neither sword nor fire.
…..
DICK. The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.
Sorry Jack, Dick is right. There is nut one thing we must truly fear.
41
In this marvellous enlightened age, I think Bill Shakespeare has bitten the dust – like General Grant.
These poor old timers just have to go, even people like Bert Einstein. They couldn’t even read thermometers!!!
We need martyrs like James Hansen, Al Gore, Craig Thomas and Peabrain Mann to read thermometers.
11
In this marvellous enlightened age, I think Bill Shakespeare has bitten the dust – like General Grant.
These poor old timers just have to go, even people like Bert Einstein. They couldn’t even read thermometers!!!
We need martyrs like James Hansen, Al Gore, Craig Thomas and Peabrain Mann to read thermometers.
10
In this marvellous enlightened age, I think Bill Shakespeare has bitten the dust – like General Grant.
These poor old timers just have to go, even people like Bert Einstein. They couldn’t even read thermometers!!!
We need martyrs like James Hansen, Al Gore, Craig Thomas and Peabrain Mann to read thermometers.
10
I think my mouse need more cheese!!!!
21
Seems to me that you are in an enviable position. The thing that I have seen most fought over in these articles has been government interference in everything, causing more problem than good. Why look this gift horse in the mouth as it would suggest any laws passed by these “illegitimate politicians” are, in effect, null and void. You can dump the renewable mandate and all the other problems they have created in the past 20 or so years, and hold a new Constitutional convention where you can better protect the power of the people from the power of the government. Why is it the lucky ones never realize it until they lose their chances by doing nothing but let “the politicians and lawyers” decide for them?
70
Without looking it up, I’m unsure about the ACTUAL meaning of the term ‘prorogue’. However, seeing as it’s politicians we’re talking about, I would think that the ‘rogue’ part is entirely appropriate!
70
As a foreign born Australian citizen, my country of birth keeps changing the laws as regards to the benefits to which I’m entitled by virtue of my place of birth (and my parents’). I can, for example, live in the country and work there and; over the past 39 years; apply, not apply, apply not apply and apply for citizenship based on my place of birth and my lawful conduct in Australia; esp. in its defence. They changed their laws a number of times.
It should be sufficient at the outset for potential candidates to relinquish in writing any claim to entitlements which they might have retained or which they could gain in future by virtue of their heritage. They should publish this and forward a copy to the foreign office of the country (or countries, as applicable) concerned.
110
waiting in the wings – a reminder our politics could get worse!
saw this on a RedditTheDonald thread posted an hour ago:
I went to an Anti-Trump Socialist Conference today in Australia. I captured a tonne of footage of their speakers and HOLY S**T was it insane. I will be uploading footage later but you have to hear this shit. I also need a hug…
from comments: Why the hell are people in Australia having an anti-Trump socialist conference? I find that so odd. He’s not your President, he’s ours. Why would anyone there be invested in Trump hate?…
then found this nice, respectful piece:
18 Aug: news.com.au: Haley Pessin: America’s racism problem never went away
by Martin Newman, The Daily Telegraph
SHE might look like she’s time-travelled from a Black Panthers rally in 1960s America, but Haley Pessin is very much born of the modern protest movement currently sweeping America…
Galvanised over police shootings in places such as Ferguson and Minneapolis, race clashes in Charlottesville and the protests over Donald Trump’s policies, they have achieved a unity through social media platforms…
In Sydney to talk at the Socialism Conference at Sydney University this weekend the 26-year-old says BLAH BLAH
http://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/haley-pessin-americas-racism-problem-never-went-away/news-story/383ad8f68a32b2721d177bb70a32efa5
Facebook: Socialist Alternative, Sydney University
4hrs ago: LIVESTREAM: Socialism 2017 Opening Night with #BlackLivesMatter activist and U.S. socialist Haley Pessin.
14hrs ago: POSTER: Socialism begins tonight: Racism and Resistance in the Trump Era: Haley Pessin
IT’S FINALLY HERE!
Socialism 2017 – Radical ideas for the Trump era kicks off a weekend of discussion and debate TONIGHT with #BlackLivesMatter activist Haley Pessin speaking on “Racism and resistance in the Trump Era”
https://www.facebook.com/SocialistAltUSyd/
seems Haley was here in April:
13 Apr: Red Flag: Marxism 2017 conference off to a flying start
The 2017 Marxism conference got off to a flying start in Melbourne tonight. Four hundred people packed into a big theatre at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) in South Melbourne to hear a panel of speakers talk about “Crisis, global resistance and the fight against the right”.
First up was Haley Pessin, an African American activist from upstate New York, who reported on the boost that the election of Donald Trump has given to racists in her country, but also the impetus it has given to popular resistance to the president’s right-wing agenda…
Haley’s description in April from the Conference website:
Marxism 2017 Conference Melbourne, April 2017
Haley Pessin (USA)
Haley Pessin is a member of the International Socialist Organization in New Paltz, NY, and organizes with Rockland Coalition to End the New Jim Crow (RCENJC).
40
comment in moderation beginning “waiting in the wings – a reminder our politics could get worse!”
30
definitely not eligible!
Wikipedia: James Murdoch is a British-born Australian-American businessman…
17 Aug: The Hill: Fox CEO rips Trump, donates $1M to Anti-Defamation League
By Brooke Seipel
The Hollywood Reporter reported (LINK) Thursday that it had obtained the email memo Murdoch sent to friends. In the email, Murdoch says he was concerned with Trump’s comments on the violence that broke out after a white supremacist rally last Saturday.
“What we watched this last week in Charlottesville and the reaction to it by the President of the United States concern all of us as Americans and free people,” Murdoch wrote in the email.
“These events remind us all why vigilance against hate and bigotry is an eternal obligation — a necessary discipline for the preservation of our way of life and our ideals. The presence of hate in our society was appallingly laid bare as we watched swastikas brandished on the streets of Charlottesville and acts of brutal terrorism and violence perpetrated by a racist mob,” the email continued.
“I can’t even believe I have to write this: standing up to Nazis is essential; there are no good Nazis. Or Klansmen, or terrorists. Democrats, Republicans, and others must all agree on this, and it compromises nothing for them to do so.”…
In a wild impromptu press conference Tuesday, Trump doubled down on his claims that “both sides” deserved blame for violence by white nationalists in Charlottesville.
The comment has resulted in backlash from politicians and political observers from both political parties.
http://thehill.com/media/347052-fox-ceo-rips-trump-donates-1m-to-anti-defamation-league
HOW COULD THE HILL WRITE THE ABOVE AND NOT MENTION THE FOLLOWING?
16 Aug: The Hill: The media couldn’t be more blatant in distorting Trump’s words on Charlottesville
By John Lott, Jr
Has the media ever so deliberately and consistently misinterpreted what a president said?…
Does anyone even listen to comments anymore before commenting on them?
When it comes to the president, do politicians just take reporters at their word?
But Trump never said that the white supremacists and neo-Nazis were “very fine people.” He said that there two different types of people protesting the taking down of the Robert E. Lee statue – the racists (“some very bad people in that group”), and people who thought that for the sake of history it was important not to take down the statue.
Here is Trump’s own explanation from his press conference.
Trump: “And you had people, and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists.
“OK? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.”
Reporter: “You were saying the press has treated white nationalists unfairly? (inaudible) understand what you’re saying.”
Trump: “No, no. There were people in that rally, and I looked the night before. If you look, they were people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. I’m sure in that group there were some bad ones. The following day, it looked like they had some rough, bad people – neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call them.
“But you had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest and very legally protest, because you know – I don’t know if you know, they had a permit. The other group didn’t have a permit.”
President Trump made it very clear that his comment did not pertain to “neo-Nazis and the white nationalists.” When a reporter misinterpreted his very clear statement, Trump again made it clear that the bad people were the “neo-Nazis, white nationalists.”
How much clearer could the president be?
The press continually misreports Trump’s statements. Take the recent smearing of Trump over the claim that he ignored the outstretched hand of a disabled, young boy. In fact, the video was selectively edited. Trump had actually had just spent time talking with the boy.
Or the claim in such news outlets as Politico that, “The president signs [a kid’s hat] and then tosses the hat into the crowd.” The statement was simply false. From another angle it was clear that the president was tossing the hat back to the boy, and some in the media ran corrections. But the problem is that the media was so readily willing to believe the worst about the president…
Many apparently still believe that Trump made fun of a disabled NY Times reporter during last year’s campaign when in fact, Trump only used a type of gesture that he often used to make fun of people flaying away when faced with tough questioning. Trump used the gesture to make fun of himself as well as others, including Sen. Ted Cruz…
Does the press just think that no one will look at what Trump actually said? For those who do look at the original interview and Trump’s multiple, clear statements on the matter, the media risks losing what little credibility it still has.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/media/346878-the-media-couldnt-be-more-blatant-in-distorting-trumps-words-on
THEN THERE WAS THIS:
15 Aug: Breitbart: Charlie Spiering: Fake News Transcript of Donald Trump Prompts Mistaken Outrage
A faulty transcript of Donald Trump’s press conference published by Politico prompted outrage from several prominent journalists, artists, and authors on Twitter before they realized it was incorrect.
After Trump’s combative press conference on Tuesday, Politico quickly released the transcript of it, but one wrong word sent many into a frenzy…
TWEETS
Trump actually said, “What about the alt-left that came charging at them,” made clear by video evidence.
But that didn’t stop several influential users on Twitter from expressing their outrage without checking the quote…
TWEETS WaPo, CNBC, Fox, NBC, New Yorker
Some reporters checked the video of Trump’s remarks, immediately pointing out that the Politico transcript was wrong.
That prompted some people to delete their initial tweet and apologize for the mistake…
TWEET: Brandon Wall: Politico just changed their transcript to say “charging at ‘em” not “charging at us…
But by Tuesday night, several tweets about the faulty transcript remained live on Twitter…
TWEETS … READ ALL
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/08/15/fake-news-transcript-of-donald-trump-prompts-mistaken-outrage/
90
Jo, an error, in Malcolm Roberts case the UK government sent him a letter 5 months after his election that he was “not a citizen” that he couldn’t remove his citizenship because he isn’t a citizen in the first place. IE. he was never a citizen of the UK.
The argument in his case is that he was elected at a time he could not prove himself not a dual citizen. Proof is not the test though, whether you were a citizen of a foreign power is the test and he at the time was not.
192
Thanks Bobl, do you know of a link to that? A ref? I have not heard that finer point of the UK reply. My understanding is that as a baby he did travel on a UK passport.
81
A baby can (or at least could) travel on a UK passport without being a UK citizen. E.g. My parents emigrated from India to the UK when I was a baby, and I travelled on my mother’s UK passport despite being an Indian citizen. I am only a British citizen as a result of having applied for citizenship.
30
Yes, jo senator Roberts posted the interview with sky news on his facebook page. It’s in there.
10
Oh and Mal did say that he travelled on his Mothers Australian Passport and his birth was registered in Australia. He is Australian. He may have an entitlement to register his birth in the UK but that entitlement has not been exercised.
10
If this is the case bobl, the watermelons will have heads exploding , either way I believe his case and others will / should survive the high court .
41
Malcolm Roberts has possibly the biggest target on him since he became a senator simply because he openly voices disagreement with the idea of CAGW, real fascism will never tolerate any alternative views to exist hence the Greens, Globalists and the MSM.
83
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/08/08/new-documents-reportedly-show-senator-roberts-was-british-citizen
Roberts is toast over this. 🙂
He actually seems to have one of the weakest cases in terms of has he taken “reasonable” steps. Seems he didn’t even try to go through the proper procedure for renunciation before he was standing for election.
Nash probably gone as well. But, who cares about senators? Only gets interesting if the recount (dont think these will be casual vacancies) gives the seat to another party which seems unlikely, and no-one will miss Nash or Roberts.
But Barnyard?? 🙂 There lies the popcorn trail. If there are others from the HoR then the Libs are in serious manure.
Interestingly, the ALP seem to have good enough procedures in place that even IF someone has slipped through, they are well preped to meet the reasonable steps criteria. So you can argue that S44 does NOT need to be changed. Its being shown by the ALP that it CAN be complied with.
35
Dastyari is probable victim as is Senator wong, the ALP just have the lack of integrity to not own up. There are a lot of ALP candidates that will tumble. Just a matter of time
43
Lol! you wish, as do a lot of other delusional conservatives. Dastyari is probably the least likely to get hit with the dual citizenship thing.
Look Bobl, my understanding is that years ago the aLP lost a couple after the Sykes and Cleary stuff. So, they now have paranoid procedures and requirements in place for vetting candidates having learned from the experience. The Libs and minor parties never learned that lesson and dont.
On the ground reality here is that this “problem” is one that is affecting the minor, less resourced and professional, left wing parties and the right wing mainstream AND fringe of Australian politics.
30
POOR PHLOP IS HARD OF READING
” in Malcolm Roberts case the UK government sent him a letter 5 months after his election that he was “not a citizen” that he couldn’t remove his citizenship because he isn’t a citizen in the first place. IE. he was never a citizen of the UK.”
23
Ahh, the irrelevant angry one.
Suspect thats a furphy. There IS actual documentation around that he was a UK citizen at the times relevant to his nomination…whats relevant to S44. Got any links to something more credible than an assertion by Roberts??
30
Actually, in the words of the Senator for empirical evidence:
30
finally, where are we heading politically?
11 Jun: ABC: China’s Communist Party seeks news influence through Australian media deals
By China correspondent Bill Birtles
The ABC and Sky News are among the Australian media that collaborate with Chinese partners, in deals spanning everything from entertainment to news programming…
Next month ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie will travel to Beijing to meet Chinese partners, including CCTV representatives…
Officials in Beijing have stressed that joint cooperation on news and current affairs is the next goal, in a bid to rectify what China’s Government has long believed is a skewed narrative in the Western media…
“One thing we’ve seen under Chinese President Xi Jinping in the last couple of years is renewed training in what’s known as the Marxist view of journalism,” said David Bandurski, the editor of the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong.
“One of the tenets of this view is a repudiation of Western press values.”
Despite these differences, the China Daily was able to pay to insert a series of monthly news lift outs in major Fairfax newspapers last year…
‘Win-win cooperation’
Another tactic to push China’s view is through increasingly regular exchanges with Australian journalists.
In May, six senior Australian journalists met Chinese counterparts at a series of events organised by the Australia China Relations Centre at UTS and the Communist Party’s All China Journalists Association.
ACRI has organised similar events before, while China’s State Council has since 2006 convened four separate Australia-China Media Forums that have brought Australian reporters to China…
Such exchanges are seen as an opportunity by the Chinese side to present Government talking points, according to an Australian diplomat previously involved in organising them…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-11/china-communist-party-seeks-news-influence-australia-deals/8607754
May 2016: ChinaDaily: China Daily signs deal with Fairfax Media, enters Australian market
By Wang Hui in Sydney
Multiple media cooperation agreements and memorandums of understanding were signed between Chinese and Australian media outlets on May 27 in Sydney.
Liu Qibao, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and head of the CPC Central Committee’s Publicity Department, and Gary Quinlan, acting secretary in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, attended the signing ceremony…
The agreements, six in total, signed on Friday involve Xinhua News Agency, China Daily, China Radio International, People’s Daily Website, and Qingdao Publishing Group on the Chinese side, and University of Technology Sydney, Fairfax Media, Sky News Australia, Global CAMG, and Weldon International on the Australian side…
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2016liuvisitkza/2016-05/27/content_25499648.htm
70
Beijing has already bought up all the Chinese newspapers in Australia and they would dearly like to get their hands on Fairfax, particularly its rural newspapers.
Its ‘soft power’ and their ultimate aim is to give Australia the cheapest electricity prices in the world.
20
Most of the media seems to have communist sympathies anyway….I wonder if we’d notice much of a change?
20
Probably not.
The other tenderers for Fairfax want the real estate section (Domain) and aren’t all that interested in the mastheads, and certainly not the rural press.
If a consortium out of Singapore put in a bid for the whole box and dice, at a price too good to resist, the shareholders would cheer but FIRB might step in and stop it.
10
Sorry to be off topic but this is too rich to pass up.
Here’s one of the world’s leading accomplishers of absolutely nothing but trouble seeing himself qualified to advise a man whose record of accomplishment would bury this nitwit under a landslide. The destroyer vs. the builder… Al has advice for the president.
I keep remembering that George Washington lost battle after battle, so many that his advisors were telling him to pack it up and go home. But General Washington saw a chance to capture the garrison at Trenton, took the gamble and won. That winter at Valley Forge was brutal too but he stuck it out and won the war.
You’re winning in everything but the press. My advice if it matters… stay the course Mr. President, steady as you go.
170
Roy,the alternative would be unthinkable.From what I have seen of late from some of the blogs is,if they do impeach President Trump,there WILL be civil war and the”DemocRATS”may no longer exist.I do believe that these MORONS haven’t thought about that.300 million guns in the USA and almost all of them are in the”Republican”hands.It WILL be a blood bath.
00
I don’t know what would happen but after all the violence in Charlottesville it looks like anything might happen. On the other hand, I don’t see most gun owning Republicans going out for a free for all. Those protesters on the left were provably brought in and were simple paid mercenary provocateurs. And since there were injuries they committed a crime in doing that and so did the supremacists and if Sessions does as he should he’ll soon enough track down the leaders and the rest of the guilty and take them off the streets of America the legal way,
Now suddenly there’s been desecration of the Lincoln Memorial in DC and a demand to take down the sculptures on Mount Rushmore, particularly Washington and Jefferson because they owned slaves. These people either don’t know the importance of those men in the creation of the very country that allows them to make such demands without consequences, at least no consequences from the government or they don’t care. It’s now just anything they can find to work against a president who, not as they say, they don’t like, but against a president they fear.
We shall see. But it is civil war already and has been for some time, a war of ideas fought with words, not guns and America doesn’t seem to understand what’s happening.
It’s all very bizarre but I think they see their chance to destroy Donald Trump and are going full steam ahead while they can. If he keeps on working on what he said he would do he can come out on top eventually. But in the meantime, as you point out, it looks like perilous times ahead.
00
The United States once took the position that dual citizenship wasn’t possible. You were either a citizen of some other country or a citizen of the United States. And to get that U.S. citizenship a foreign national had to renounce allegiance to all other nations. You were part of them or part of us but never could be part of both.
I don’t think it’s seen that way today here and quite obviously not in New Zealand.
It was always possible to drive or walk from the U.S. into Canada without needing a visa or even a passport and even after 9/11 it probably still is. But you got no right to stay in Canada or receive benefits. I suppose it’s changed a bit now after 9/11. But you give away the rights of citizens to non citizens and you give away your country, just what the left wants.
Why, New Zealand? Why?
60
33 years ago Australia and New Zealand created the “Closer Economic Relations” treaty.
While it may seem strange to you, Roy, Australia and New Zealand have been very closely aligned since the early nineteenth century.
This relationship has been cemented many times in history, through co-operation during wartime in the ANZAC (‘Australian New Zealand Army Corps)
So far as I am aware, ever since the CER came into existence Australians have been free to live and work in New Zealand, and enjoy all of the benefits of citizenship apart from voting. Reciprocally, New Zealanders are afforded the same rights in Australia.
Travellers from one country to the other do not require travel insurance to receive medical care in the other country’s public health system.
While the CER is essentially a trade agreement, over the years there have been manifold memorandums of understanding that extend the agreement beyond trade.
81
Rod, that’s not so. Not any more. Check it out.
New Zealanders have to apply for a visa to enter Australia, but not the other way around, NZers may work in Oz, for which they pay the same taxes as Australian citizens but cannot receive any welfare benefits if bad luck or misfortune strikes. New Zealand children wanting to attend Australian Universities are full-fee paying students now. There are other disincentives for Kiwis to live in Oz now, but I can’t remember them.
10
How is this different than what I said?
“What rights do I have as a Special Category visa holder?
The SCV allows you to remain indefinitely in Australia as long as you continue to be a New Zealand citizen. While in Australia you can work and study without restriction. However, the SCV is a temporary visa and ceases once you leave Australia. It does not provide a direct pathway to a permanent visa or citizenship.
New Zealand citizens who enter Australia on an SCV might be entitled to certain Australian Government services and benefits, for example:
• access to Medicare
• some social security benefits.
Additional social security benefits are available to “protected Special Category visa holders”. The term “protected Special Category Visa holder” is defined within the Social Security Act 1991.”
However, thanks for pointing this out:
“On 19 February 2016, to acknowledge the special bilateral relationship between Australia and New Zealand, the Australian Government announced an additional pathway to Australian permanent residence, for many New Zealand citizens who have been living in Australia for at least five years and shown a commitment and continuous contribution to Australia.
“On 1 July 2017, this additional pathway became a new stream within the Skilled Independent (subclass 189) visa. The pathway is for New Zealand Special Category (subclass 444) visa (SCV) holders who were usually resident in Australia on or before 19 February 2016 and who, at the time of lodging an application, have resided in Australia for at least five years. These new arrangements will give many New Zealand citizens permanent residence status, if they meet certain criteria, including:
contributing to Australia, demonstrated through income tax returns which show taxable income at least equivalent to the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold (TSMIT) for the qualifying period; and
meeting mandatory health, character and security checks.
New Zealand citizens who are granted this visa will be eligible to apply for Australian citizenship after a period of 12 months (in addition to the five years as an eligible New Zealand SCV holder).”
Up until six weeks ago, a New Zealander arriving in Australia after 26 Feb 2001 had no hope of Australian citizenship. This makes it possible.
00
An Australian firm can purchase or establish a business in New Zealand, and bring as many Australians as they see fit to work at that firm, and they do.
A New Zealand firm can purchase or establish a business in Australia, and bring as many New Zealanders as they see fit to work at that firm, and they do.
This has been the case since 1973.
What is one-sided about that?
00
The SCV might be confusing Sophocles.
A New Zealander arrives at an Australian port of entry.
He is asked whether he intends to live and work in Australia.
If the answer is yes, an SCV is electronically linked to his New Zealand passport.
Not even a stamp unless it is requested.
No application necessary. It is the same the other way round.
00
Rod,
That doesn’t seem strange at all. What seems completely out of Alice in Wonderland is that the relationship is a one way street. Unless I missed something it’s not a reciprocal agreement. Those usually turn out to be a bad deal for someone.
00
It’s not the CER but the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement. “The 1973 Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement has allowed Australian and New Zealand citizens to enter each other’s country to visit, live and work, without the need to apply for authority to enter the other country before travelling.”
Note the changes 26 February 2001. This came about because an Australian election in 2000 made a lot of noise about Kiwis immigrating to Australia to enjoy the “benefits” (the dole). John Howard campaigned that he would change this. The Special Category Visa was the mechanism. In order to get the benefit, a person must be employed. If, on arrival at an Australian port a Kiwi can demonstrate that he has a job offer, a Medicare card and all the other benefits are issued immediately. Otherwise, it is necessary to wait a year.
The other bitch that Aussies had was immigrants “entering through the back door”. I.e. New Zealand immigration requirements were somewhat less that Australias, so the public perceived that people were being granted New Zealand citizenship and then hopping across the Tasman. Howard solved that issue with the SGV as well. Any person with an SGV cannot attain a residence visa in Australia. Without having held a residence visa for two years, one can never apply for Australia citizenship. (Since 26 Feb. 2001). Therefore New Zealanders living in Australia who arrived after 26 Feb 2001 can never become a citizen of Australia. This only affects voting privileges and eligibility for some Federal civil serpent jobs.
10
It seems that Australian rules for holding federal office are a lot like AGW “believers” rules of thermodynamics–both are a mess and use nebulous/confusing wording from which you can conclude anything your heart desires.
102
I love it – a real world catch-22. 🙂
00
Yes, damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
Been there once and it was no fun.
00
Now let’s throw a spanner in the works for those snowflakes who claim to be citizens of the world!!
This is normally claimed by snowflakes of the leftie persuasion. Hopefully we can get rid of the Gangreens inside of ten minutes as they have probably claimed ” World Citizenship” in the recent past.
81
Unfortunately those”snow flakes” are morphing into an Orwellian type “1984” anti-human, Cambodian Khmer Rouge “Year Zero ” like cult with its open hate for anybody and everybody who dares to question its aims and motives and its destruction of historical reminders of our democracy’s origins.
That same grouping of hard left, green “snow flakes” so far have been allowed to get away with death threats and violence and demands for assassinations of prominent figures who oppose their ideology along with any who also dare to oppose their cult like ideology which is now trending towards an utterly intolerant ISIS like quasi religious grouping that will not stop at any level of deadly depravity to gain ultimate power and control over society.
70
Here’s another spanner.Tucker Carlson brings up something which these”gender Benders”haven’t thought about.If you can say what SEX you are,then you can also say YOU are a person of COLOUR.That will throw the cat among the pigeons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7gFeF_AQow
31
Actually, we are all ‘people of colour’. It’s just that our colours are variable!
10
A white skin is an adaption to the lower UV and the consequent lack of vitamin D that is a direct consequence of the northern latitudes lack of intense sunlight .
Melanin gives the skin its dark colour as well as protecting ahgainst the solar UV and infrared.
Vitamin D is essential to fixing calcium in the bone structure .
A lack of vitamin D can lead to skeletal problems such as ricketts and etc.
Dark skinned individuals often suffer Vitamin D deficiencies when resident in the higher latitudes away from the more intense sunlight of the equatorial regions where a black / dark skin and with its high melanin content is a protectant against solar UV and Infrared exposure.
Mankind was black skinned when he came out of Africa, a well established theory which is now being challenged as there is now recent evidence of a quite advanced Homo species in North west Africa as well as down in South Africa where the possible evidence for the world’s earliest known cooking fires some one million years ago, have been found in the Wonderwerk Cave.
It is now beginning to be believed that the Homo species left Africa maybe at least twice and possibly three times before becoming firmly established around the Black Sea region.
This was a time before the first rapid spurt of a sea level rise of some 10-15 metres in 500 years some 19,000 years ago flooded across the Gibraltar rock sill and flooded the Mediterranean basin and then rose enough to flow over another rock sill in the Straits of the Bosphorous that connects the Med to the Black Sea filling the Black Sea .
There is a theory that those early human settlers of the Black Sea region were the first farmers and developed a basic farming technology of planting and harvesting grain whilst still being mostly hunters and gatherers.
They began farming in the extraordinarily rich soils of the deltas of the Dnieper and Dniester and Danube rivers in the bottom of the Black Sea which was at that time nothing more than a series of Lakes fed by those mighty European rivers.
The Black Sea was dry like the Mediterranean Sea with only a series of lakes at the bottom of its basin due to the low sea levels of 25 or more meters lower than today, below the level of the then rock sill across the Straits of Gibraltar, as so much water was locked up by the great ice caps and glaciers during them last great Ice Age.
When the sea levels rose and the ocean began to flow over the rock sill of the Straits of the Bosphorous it must have been a truly spectacular event with what could have been a immense waterfall that fell and flowed for years along with rainbows and etc and which some connect with the biblical story of “Noah and his Ark and the Flood”.
The story of “Noah and the Flood” has a parallel in the Sumerian legend “The Epic of Gilmesh”.
The flooding of the Black Sea pushed the Black Sea peoples with their knowledge of primitive farming out into western and northern Europe where they established some of the first known farming practices.
Even the “Out of Africa” theory of mankind’s origins is now coming into doubt as the Causcus regions around the Caspian and Black Sea regions plus some evidence of a Homo species from DNA sampling has shown that a race that may predate or be contemporaneous with the Neanderthals of Europe, the Denisovans can be found right across central Asia and in the Caucus regions , the DNA remnants of which is being found right through the DNA of the PNG peoples as well as in the Australian Aboriginal DNA.
No physical evidence or remains other than a tooth have yet been found of the Denisovans but their DNA is prevalent in all of the central Asian and eastern Asian groups including as above the Australasian indigenous peoples.
21
There is an interesting aspect to Robert Angyal’s analysis: not all Australians can go live in NZ, there are character requirements. If correct, Angyals’ analysis means that only people who can be elected to federal parliament are convicted criminals.
60
2dogs
Would that include Catholic criminals? “is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power,” https://www.flaginstitute.org/wp/2015/03/flag-of-the-vatican-city/
40
It’s a self-draining swamp.
50
My other half was born in Australia with a New Zealand father, and in the current debate is a New Zealand citizen. However the NZ authorities have no knowledge of her existence and surely the only way they could get documentary evidence would be if she provided them with her birth certificate. Does the NZ government have such documentary evidence for Barnabas Joyce?
10
Viewed with considerable amusement in NZ.
Especially Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s ‘declaration of war’ on the NZ Labour party (who might just win the upcoming NZ election..
10
I wonder if this situation will be solved by the UN taking over sovereignty of Australia, making us the first UN vassal state?
40
Macron reckons Britain is becoming a vassal state, so maybe we could join them and rebuild the empire.
30
I understand that at least one of over one thousand treaties signed between the UN and member nation Australia would facilitate that option, as long as the government of the day permits enforcement.
Around the time that the UN was established after WW2 Australian Attorney General Evatt, ALP, advised his UN comrades that treaties could be used to get around the laws of independent nations such as Australia, members of the UN.
I remember when Prime Minister John Howard was asked by a journalist if “international law” was enforceable here and Howard replied that it was but only if the government of the day agreed to it.
As I understand it, theoretically the federal government could hold a referendum to, say, join Australia with the EU. And if we voted no the government could proceed regardless.
I realise mine is a simplistic understanding.
30
I am confused by Angyal SC’s opinion. As a regular traveller back and forth from Australia to New Zealand, and for twenty five years with my last place of employment, I have never needed a visa to enter New Zealand.
50
If I ever had to choose friends for Australia from amongst all the nations of Earth, the Kiwis would be my first choice by a very long way indeed.
Maybe the New Zealanders don’t see it this way but I think for most Aussies, particularly the older generations, New Zealanders are Family.
121
As my Grandfather and great uncles would attest to after standing with them through the worst situations possible.
110
My great great grandfather was the first missionary to New Zealand when it was part of the Colony of New South Wales. He was sent from Great Britain at the request of Rev.Samuel Marsden. Bishop Henry Williams who participated in the creation and signing of the Treaty of Waitangi with the Maori people, he translated and negotiated for them and his image is one of the signing ceremony participants painting.
00
It’s a bit messy to say the least!
However, people should not be held accountable for actions of their parents.
It should be, if you or someone you instruct have since the age of majority applied for a non Australian passport.
If you have not filled in the application form since the age of 18 then you remain solely Australian.
Just because you may have the ability to get a foreign passport (or it could be awarded unilaterally like NZ) does not mean you are/have/will have a foreign passport.
Our very own (UK) Boris Johnson has just relinquished his american passport (allegedly due to the poor american double taxation rules, but probably due to trying to become PM).
50
I hear Bernie Gaynor has had his appeal to the High Court dismissed – regarding HIS dismissal from ADF on comments he made on [snip – off topic] and the views within that organisation. Freedom of speech has become more of a problem when your employer owns your opinions and can sack you for holding contrary views.
00
Nobody has mentioned S42 of the constitution “Every senator and every member of the House of Representatives shall before taking his seat make and subscribe before the Governor-General, or some person authorised by him, an oath or affirmation of allegiance in the form set forth in the schedule to this Constitution”.
Yet the oath or affirmation of allegiance is to the either the King or Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and not to the King or Queen of Australia.
Could the Queen have her armed forces run Australia?
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2017/08/15/draining-the-canberra-swamp/
20
The more people probe this issue the murkier it gets , if politicians swear allegiance to king or Queen of England they are in breach of sec 44 .
Is it possible our constitution is that messed up , and why hasn’t this come to light before ?
30
So,who was the Politician who swore allegiance on the Koran?
30
Ed Husic.
10
just a reminder of how the FakeNewsMSM is monolithic when it comes to CAGW (and much else).
if anyone wants to find the links to the reviews, they will be easy to find:
from CarbonBrief: An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power — a gift for making statistics enthral
“An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power”, Al Gore’s follow-up documentary 11 years after “An Inconvenient Truth”, goes on general release across the UK today, and so several papers have reviewed the new film.
“An Inconvenient Sequel is as much education tract as movie,” writes Nigel Andrews in his three-star review for the Financial Times: “Gore has a gift, here as in Inconvenient 1, for making statistics enthral.
Screens behind him explode with graphics as he strides the lecture stages.”
The Telegraph‘s film critic, Robbie Collin, also gives the film three-stars, noting that “its various argumentative manoeuvres are pulled off with the grace of a reversing bin lorry.” “But,” he adds, “it still politely seizes you by the lapels, makes its case with range and precision, and sends you home with a carbon-neutral fire in your chest.”
The film gets four stars in both the Times and the Guardian. Gore “emerges as a cannier performer and a more compelling subject than he was in 2006,” writes Mike McCahill in the Guardian.
And his “passion for the cause is palpable as he compares the environmental movement with other great progressive battles,” says
Ed Potton in the Times: “With the rise of renewable energy, it’s a battle that you can actually see Gore’s side winning. If they do, films like this one will have played their part.”
20
Pat
A just now example of the lame stream media in action
The Oz “Daily Murdoch”
“DUMPED Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon has declared the president’s days are over as he retakes control of the alt-right news blog Brietbart.”
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/donald-trump-letting-steve-bannon-go-new-york-times-says/news-story/4d166e572b35c121d6e2882ca24b8340
Not the “Daily Murdoch”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/08/18/well-well-well-president-trump-flips-bannon-the-zippo/
”
“If there’s any confusion out there, let me clear it up: I’m leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents — on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in corporate America.” ~ Stephen K Bannon
“
40
Another Ian –
***Sharyl Attkisson, former investigative correspondent, CBS News Washington Bureau, who resigned from CBS in 2014:
18 Aug: The Hill: OPINION | Americans don’t trust the media, and for good reason
By ***Sharyl Attkisson
(Sharyl Attkisson is an Emmy-award winning investigative journalist, author of the New York Times bestsellers “The Smear” and “Stonewalled,” and host of Sinclair’s Sunday TV program “Full Measure.”)
Trust in the mass media is at an all-time low. Two-thirds of Americans believe the mainstream press publishes fake news.
Yes, there’s still much good journalism to be found, if you know where to look. Yet, ask reporters who’ve been around a while, and many will tell you that a lot of good journalism is being left unpublished. Good journalists hate what’s happening to the news.
We have only ourselves to blame…READ ON
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/media/347091-americans-dont-trust-the-media-and-for-good-reason
20
Another Ian – another example:
FOUR WRITERS TO MAKE THIS APPEAR TO BE A BIG STORY (A NYT/WaPo TRICK AS WELL)! PROPERTY DEVELOPER/NYC/NJ MAFIA – WHO WOULD IMAGINE THERE COULD BE A CONNECTION? LET’S NOT EVEN MENTION THE UNIONS!
16 Aug: Australian: ‘Mob links’ killed Trump’s casino bid
by Tessa Akerman, Michael McKenna & Troy Bramston; Additional reporting: Emily Ritchie
While the police were against the Trump bid, the regulator of the proposed casino — the Casino Control Division of the NSW Treasury — gave the US-Australia consortium the green light. “It is certified that the Trump organisation in the Kern/Trump consortium is acceptable as an operator and has the capacity to operate a casino in accordance with the law of NSW and the requirements of the Casino Control Division of the Treasury,’’ it said in its report…
In June 1986, the Wran government approved a casino to be built and operated at Darling Harbour by the Hooker-Harrah consortium, but a Police Board report uncovered “undesirable dealings” by some executives, and it was scuttled by the Unsworth government…
Former premier Barrie Unsworth, who led the NSW government in 1986-88, said the government approached the granting of a new casino licence after the Hooker-Harrah decision with caution. “We had difficulty with the decision made by the Wran government to approve a casino license in the first instance, and then the cabinet of my government had to reverse that decision,’’ he said…
FROM COMMENTS:
Bruce: The story here really is why Barrie Unsworth had to reverse the decision to grant a Casino license by the Wran Government. Why dont these three jouranlists tell us what that is all about. Nifty Neville Wran had a way of doing things in NSW and it was not often the correct way when Big Bucks were involved…
Ken: Story should have been Neville Wran and his dodgy Labor mates awarding casino to favoured mates.
David: My goodness, what a laugh I got out of this. And guess who wrote the thirty-year old hit job on Trump – ‘Towering Ego’? None other than the principal Trump-hater at Sky News, Janine Perrett.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/investigations/trumps-bid-for-sydney-casino-killed-off-by-mob-connections/news-story/65a0e5289cc924722f988bdca4b01e9b
of course, the above got picked up by all sorts of FakeNewsMSM, so The Australian came up with a sequel:
18 Aug: Australian: Cameron Stewart: Australia ‘went where US wouldn’t’ on Trump mafia links
David Cay Johnston said reports in The Australian that NSW police rejected Mr Trump’s casino bid in 1987 because of his mafia connections shows that Australia was more rigorous in investigating Mr Trump than were many US authorities.
“The Australian police should be quite proud of themselves that they saw through Donald Trump’s nonsense and went right to the issue,” said Johnston, whose 1992 book Temples of Chance: How America Inc Bought Out Murder Inc to Win Control of the Casino Business examined Trump’s mafia links…
“Atlantic City would be a dubious model for Sydney and in our judgment, the Trump mafia connections should exclude the Kern/Trump consortium,” the board concluded in NSW government cabinet minutes from 1987…
Johnston said authorities in New Jersey had given Mr Trump a casino licence despite clear evidence in both New York and Atlantic City that he had close connections with the mafia, who in those days exerted a powerful influence over the construction industry…
TWO YEARS AGO, WITH JUST ONE WRITER, AFR FOUND A ***DIFFERENT PARTY WITH THE MAFIA LINKS!
Aug 2015: AFR: Donald Trump’s Australian casino play a matter of timing
by Matthew Cranston
Mr Trump and Kern lodged an impressive offer and were shortlisted with four other consortiums including Australian Federal Hotels and Sabemo; Malaysia’s Genting Berhad with Civil and Civic; Harrah with Leighton and Pennant; and the Hong Kong Macau Sydney consortium then led by the Chinese gambling magnate Stanley Ho.
But within a year the whole government-run bidding process collapsed after legal action surrounding information that the FBI and New Jersey division of Gaming Enforcement was investigating one of the bidders – ***HARRAH – over claims of involvement with organised crime…
Kern and Mr Trump were said to have topped the bidding with an offer and a financial package that would have guaranteed payment to the government.
Corrs Chamber Westgarth lawyer Andrew Lumsden, who was a director on the Kern-Trump joint venture company, remembers the bid was strong…
The big money and flash design were not enough to win the big race as Mr Trump may find out in the United States presidential campaign…
http://www.afr.com/real-estate/donald-trumps-australian-casino-play-a-matter-of-timing-20150820-gj40yx
10
***how nice of him:
17 Aug: AP: Gore to give keynote at US clean energy summit in Las Vegas
Former Vice President Al Gore ***has agreed to be the keynote speaker at a national clean energy summit in Las Vegas this fall.
Former Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid and Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval are co-hosting the Oct. 13 event.
Reid launched the first summit 10 years ago, and Gore – who won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize – was the keynote speaker in 2009.
Reid said that Gore is the “most prominent environmental activist in the world today.”…
Sandoval says Gore has played a key role in stressing the need for state and local governments to help create clean energy solutions through infrastructure and local economies.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/APFN_US_CLEAN_ENERGY_SUMMIT_GORE_NVOL-?SITE=SCAND&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
20
Section 44 is much more extensive and when you sort out the insolvent , those who have monetary dealings with government through say residual interests interests in law firms that do government and legal aid work or rent a house to defence force homes etc there will be very few left.
40
Afternoon all,
These two letters are from today’s (Saturday, August 19) Sydney Morning Herald. The first gives the backwards reference, which I’ve not checked, and the second gives the ruling which sounds significant to me.
20
So it looks like none of the ALP members are caught up in this debarkle…so far.
Is this because no foreign country wants them as their citizen.
20
So it looks like none of the ALP members are caught up in this debarkle…so far.
Is this because no foreign country wants them as their citizen.
10
Albanese is trying to claim he is not an Italian citizen because his father doesnt have his name on the birth certificate.
40
Wonder if any of you have been to have a look at this . . . . .
What The FUQ? – Frequently Unanswered Questions of the “Australian Government”.
http://truth-now.net/
20
Just got this one not sure of validity and slightly OT , not sure if photo copy’s ok but says that her maiden speech to parliament was defending ISIS .
Received this today and after reading it I just couldn’t keep it to myself. Whether truth or fiction it is good reading because we all know how rules are bent in parliament, and no one knows how to do that better than ‘watermelon head’ and his crew.
Regardless of what may come from this it will make no difference to Tanya and Hubby who will happily go swanning along – and banking the cash.
Her speech regarding the ISIS is right up there for stupidity with anything from Sarah Two Names.
Our Tanya:
cid:43781CE5EC9446B9BB9187131478ED29@IHJRossPC
The ALP’s Tanya Plibersek is blessed with a look of honesty and ability and a presence which has propelled her to the position of Deputy Leader of the ALP so I expect to be sending this out as a reminder that she is no angel in
just the same way her leader is no saint.
How many of us know THE TRUTH?
Labor’s Tanya Plibersek, is married to a convicted heroin drug trafficker, Michael Coutts-Trotter.
Plibersek has come out recently stating: “‘In 1988, my husband left prison after being charged and convicted of a similar crime to these young men.
Imagine what would have happened if he had been caught in Thailand instead of in Australia where that crime was committed, when he was coming back to Australia.”
Tanya Plibersek is from an immigrant family, is currently the Labor Party’s Federal member for Sydney, Deputy Leader of the Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Labor) and in her speech to Australia’s national Parliament yesterday reminded all Australians that convicted heroin drug
traffickers are pardonable because she married one.
Michael Coutts-Trotter……. In 1986, he was caught drug dealing by Australian Federal Police surveillance.
Tanya Plibersek’s husband, Michael Coutts-Trotter, was sentenced in Australia to 9 years prison for heroin drug trafficking. Somehow he only served just 2 years and nine months jail. Why? Labor Party connections, of course.
Then why did Michael Coutts-Trotter after gaol, with no qualifications in education, get the job of Director-General NSW Education, by then Labor
Party’s NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca?
This caused some minor stirring from NSW Teachers Federation with their then President, Maree O’Halloran saying a teacher with this background wouldn’t be allowed to teach.
They were told to shut up!
But then in the Labor Party it’s not what you know, or how competent you are, that gets you the plum public-funded jobs with outrageous salaries.
How did he manage to get that plum job of Director-General of the Department of Finance and Services in 2011? Labor Party connections, of course.
How did he manage to get another plum job of Chief of Staff to the NSW Treasurer (Michael Egan) for seven years with no formal selection process?
Ditto!
This is the legacy of a corrupt Labor party owned and operated by the Unions – only in Australia! The strong Unions are bent on the destruction of our society.
You won’t hear or see any of this in the Fairfax Press, or on Q&A, or the 7.30 Report or Four Corners.
Now why is that??? The answer is obvious of course.
However, you will see and hear Ms Plibersek stating that Julie Bishop is notfit for the job she currently holds.
Yes, Tanya Plibersek sure is a piece of work.
Let’s hope people remember this at the Ballot Box, as he could end up as the Prime Minister’s Husband. (Remember the last one? What a bloody idiot!)
Wouldn’t that be good for our World image!!
cid:6B58DB8E7AF644C2B57D05F34470E301@IHJRossPC
Director General of NSW Department of Education!
Michael Coutts-Trotter
Best Regards
Bill TAYLOR
Image removed by sender.
41
The more this piece of excrement is called out, the better.
These animals kill young kids and turn many into vegetables.
20
Robert, he was the only head of an education department ever that couldn’t get a working with children permit.
40
Interesting to hear that , her maiden speech contained no mention of Isis but a quick search on Google leaves no doubt about her views on Israel .
31
I’ve been in moderation for three hours.
Is that the norm? Maybe on a Saturday.
20
FYI: Latest news on
Xenophon.
“South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon has been told he is a UK citizen and is to refer himself to the High Court.
Senator Xenophon confirmed today that the British Home Office notified him overnight he was a “British Overseas Citizen,” due to his father’s birth in the then British territory of Cyprus.
Senator Xenophon, whose father came to Australia in 1951 had been awaiting confirmation from as to whether he was a citizen by descent.
“The circumstances of this are bizarre and rare,” he said.
He said he had never contemplated that he could be a British colonial citizen and it was ironic that his father had moved from Cyprus to escape British colonial rule.
Senator Xenophon said he would continue to use his vote. He said he had been advised that it was appropriate for him to stay until the issue is sorted out.
He said the situation over politicians’ dual citizenship was “getting ridiculous.”
“Politicians are trying to score points instead of getting on with the job,” he said.
Senator Xenophon, who leads a crucial bloc of three upper house MPs, earlier said his father, Cypriot-born Theo Xenophou, would be “absolutely horrified” at the prospect of him being British and blamed Labor for raising doubt. A Labor source told The Weekend Australian the claim was “horseshit”.
Senator Xenophon was born in Adelaide in 1959 to a Greek mother and Mr Xenophou, who migrated to Australia in 1951.
Cyprus was a British crown colony between 1925 and 1960 and records show a “Theodoros Xenophou” travelled from Cyprus to Melbourne in 1951 on a British passport.
More to follow”
10
Constitutions can be weakened by loopholes, vagueness of wording, or loss/change of historical reference. Times move away from constitutions, which tend not to move and are not supposed to move much.
Since constitutions are hard to change, our polity depends on what one was once allowed to call “gentlemen’s agreements”. Though I always try to be the most conservative guy in the room, I fell foul of many conservative friends because I felt that blocking of Whitlam’s supply was not “wrong” but a breaking of a critical gentlemen’s agreement. (And God knew how to punish us with Malcolm The First.)
It would have been clear from very early on that certain phrases in our constitution would have made the business of politics unnecessarily hard for too many people. For example, I am entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of North Korea, Mexico and Slovakia: that is to say, it is possible for me to go to those countries and enjoy certain rights and privileges of North Koreans, Mexicans and Slovakians. In some cases, I can enjoy most of their rights, regardless of the value or upholding of such rights. I just can’t enjoy all rights such as voting in Slovakia or…whatever they do in North Korea. (Before the EU, Schengen and the extension of welfare, I could work, stay and move where I liked in much of Europe and the only downside was not voting and not doing military service.)
Also, what’s a “foreign power”? Are you a Knight of Malta? The quasi-national Knights are an elected monarchy and have observer status at the UN. They issue passports, coins and stamps. So how many Labor and DLP tykes would that have disqualified over the last century?
Nope. You need constitutions, but you also need tradition and gentlemen’s agreements. (I love saying that last bit.)
One day, when globalism has gone the way of other collectivist -isms after the usual collapses and wars, we’ll find a clever judiciary to declare the UN or Vatican or Google or Coca Cola a foreign power. Not now, of course. We have clever judiciaries who think borders are just too arbitrary and 19th century for words…except for billing purposes. Now even those silly old borders between “genders” are looking shaky.
Okay, so having two passports is a bit rich for a representative of the people. Check in that second passport right now or check out of parliament right now. (Bad luck about my failed bid for Irish citizenship so I could muck about in Europe like I used to, but I’m not running for parliament.)
However this kerfuffle is not about strengthening essential barriers and boundaries. This started with the Greens, for God’s sake. The constitution and all its flaws have been in plain sight for ages. Greens surrendering their plush senate jobs on cue? Gimme a break. These people were born for Upper Houses.
(Now is when you get to call me a conspiracy theorist/anti-globalist paranoid and I practice hearing myself called those things.)
This is about breaking gentlemen’s agreements so that the constitution will require either ignoring or reworking.
And if the Australian constitution comes up for a re-jig, can you guess what that might involve? Can you guess who will be involved? The best will lack all conviction, while the worst…
70
After all they do to the public that serves them, it is good to see politicians squirm a little.
80
Yeah, but guess who will end up paying for the legal solution to this mess!
40
South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon has been told he is a UK citizen and is to refer himself to the High Court.
60
“He said it was ironic that his father had moved from Cyprus to escape British colonial rule”
So why did his father come to another very British colony in 1951? Did his father then become an Australian citizen?
What any of these denials lack is any idea that politicians including professional lawyer Xenophon, people with foreign born parents, had a clue they might have inherited rights and even obligations in another country. If his father was not a British citizen, he would have been a Greek or Turkish citizen and the story would be the same. Also as his 86 year old father was 20 years old at the time, it might have been more about military service.
30
The rules have a serious point about allegiance and being Australian. In the US constitution, the President must be US born, so very popular former Californian US Governor Schwarznegger could not ever be President. The founding fathers had a reason for their rules.
40
19 Aug: BrisbaneTimes: Tony Moore: Australia’s biggest wind farm to be built near Bunya Mountains
Australia’s largest wind farm will be built to the north of the Bunya Mountains, about 250 kilometres north-west of Brisbane, after final details were confirmed last week.
The Queensland Government approved the project in March 2017, but it has been enlarged to boost the number of turbines from 115 to 123 huge turbines.
Each wind turbine has a diameter as wide as two Boeing 777 jets.
The 123 turbines generate enough energy (453 megawatts) to power 260,000 homes and reduce the equivalent carbon footprint to power those homes from conventional power by 1,80,000 tonnes each year.
The AGL wind farm is set to be built on land made up of 10 properties near Cooranga North, between Dalby and Kingaroy, which are now used for cattle and other farming.
When construction is finished in 2019, the wind farm, known as the Coopers Creek Wind Farm, will be the largest in Australia…
Last week AGL announced it had finalised an agreement with General Electric to use GE wind turbine technology in the wind farm…
GE’s Peter McCabe: “Australia is a great market for wind,” he said.
” After the US, it is GE’s second largest region globally for renewable energy.”…
The project is expected to produce 200 jobs during construction and 20 ongoing jobs to keep the wind generation system operating…
A summary of environmental measures raised by the wind farm plant can be read here (NO LINK PROVIDED)…
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/australias-biggest-wind-farm-to-be-built-near-bunya-mountains-20170819-gxzv66.html
30
Surely they are windmills.
10
To all Australians, let it be known that henceforth and under the cause of
of the Australian constitution.
I as a non-Australian and thus as foreign power, hereby grant all Australians, including politicians, the right and privilege to receive direct payment from me in the form of one 1/2 pint of warm British beer, in acknowledgement of all favors performed for me, whether known or unknown, now, in the past, and in the future.
Thank-you and by this action and decree I shall expect my influence over you to prevail for evermore.
Your most favored,
TM.
🙂
30
15 Aug: Scoop NZ: NZ Super Fund shifts passive equities to low-carbon
Press Release: NZ Superannuation Fund
The NZ$35 billion NZ Super Fund’s NZ$14 billion global passive equity portfolio, 40% of the overall Fund, is now low-carbon, the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation announced today.
The move means the Fund is more resilient to climate change investment risks such as stranded assets…
As at 30 June 2017, the total Fund’s carbon emissions intensity is 19.6% lower, and its exposure to carbon reserves is 21.5% lower, than if the changes hadn’t been made.
The transition involved reallocating NZ$950 million away from companies with high exposure to carbon emissions and reserves into lower-risk companies…
“There is a global consensus that climate change presents material risks for long term investors,” (Chief Executive Adrian) Orr said. “Leading investors around the world are adjusting their portfolios to address climate change risk and capture opportunities stemming from the transition to a low-carbon economy.” …
Chief Investment Officer Matt Whineray said financial markets were under-pricing climate change risk over the Fund’s long investment timeframe. “The global energy system is transitioning away from fossil fuels. For investors with very long horizons, such as the Fund, reducing exposure to carbon emissions and reserves is a low-cost insurance policy.”…
The low-carbon portfolio is based on a bespoke carbon measurement methodology for listed equities developed by the Guardians in concert with MSCI ESG Research. MSCI ESG Research also provided independent carbon data and company ratings…
The Fund will continue to hold some companies in its passive portfolio with high exposure to carbon emissions and reserves, where MSCI ESG Research rates these companies well relative to their peers and there is evidence of strong management engagement with the challenge of climate change…
“Our initial focus has been on the passive portfolio, as the largest part of the Fund and one in which reducing carbon exposure is relatively straightforward. Our next priority is to reduce carbon exposure in our active investment strategies,” said Mr Whineray. “As a first step the carbon methodology has already been applied to our active New Zealand equity portfolio.”…
Move supported by industry experts
Simon O’Connor, Chief Executive Officer of the Responsible Investment Association of Australasia: “Leading global investors have accepted the realities of a changing climate and are shifting capital in a way that better positions them for the transition underway towards a low carbon global economy. It’s pleasing to see NZ Super Fund’s prudent and proactive approach as part of the ongoing implementation of their climate change strategy.”…
Emma Herd, Chief Executive Officer of the Investor Group on Climate Change: “IGCC welcomes the progress made by NZ Super on implementing their climate change strategy. Investors have such a critical role to play in tackling climate change. Embedding management of carbon into mainstream investing practice is at the core of achieving real, sustained change across the economy.”…
Keith Ambachtsheer, Director Emeritus, International Centre for Pension Management, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto: “The NZ Super Fund has followed a deliberate ‘best practices’ investing path since its inception in 2003.”…
The NZ Super Fund is a founding signatory of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment, and a member of the Carbon Disclosure Project, Investor Group on Climate Change, and Responsible Investment Association of Australasia…
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1708/S00490/nz-super-fund-shifts-passive-equities-to-low-carbon.htm
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8 Aug: SanFranciscoChronicle: SF pension board must divest from fossil fuel investments
***by TOM STEYER
San Francisco can claim the mantle of leadership and set an example for the world by divesting its pension funds from fossil fuels.
Wednesday, the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System’s pension board will decide the issue. As someone who spent 30 years in the investment world, I believe the choice is clear: Divestment is the right thing to do, and it’s financially smart. I speak from experience as someone who decided to divest almost five years ago. It feels right and it pays well.
Divestment is primarily a moral obligation. Burning fossil fuels causes global warming, which threatens the health, safety and prosperity of every American. With global temperatures rising dangerously toward a point of no return, the urgency of moral action is clear. This is poignant in San Francisco, where the sea level is expected to rise several feet by 2100, swamping entire sections of the city. No amount of financial gain from a stock could ever justify such destruction…
Fortunately, we have the technology we need to address climate change: clean energy. Clean energy sources such as wind and solar reduce harmful emissions that cause global warming. These clean energy sources boost the economy and create millions of good-paying jobs. When used to power electric vehicles, they also eliminate soot and smog-forming pollution from cars, buses and trucks.
The greatest challenge of our lifetimes — global warming — is also one of our greatest economic opportunities…
A 2015 study by the financial firm MSCI found that investors who dumped dirty fuel stocks “earned an average return of 1.2 percent more” (LINK) over a five-year period than investors who kept them. That’s why institutional investors like universities, churches and government entities are divesting from dirty fuels and investing in clean energy.
Let’s hope the San Francisco pension board has the wisdom and the courage to make the right call. A vote for divestment is a vote for a better, brighter future.
http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/SF-pension-board-must-divest-from-fossil-fuel-11743298.php
16 Aug: SF Examiner: With lives, livelihoods on the line, SF clings to coal, oil investments
by Robin Purchia
The San Francisco Employee Retirement System has kept its holdings in coal and oil companies — including $39 million in Chevron — despite hopes it would divest this summer. The City’s pension’s managers don’t want investment restrictions, and Retirement Board staff seem to be catering to their demands. Last week, a staff report recommended against divestment…
18 Aug: Heartland Institute: Fossil-Fuel Divestment Could Cost Public Pensions Big Bucks, Study Finds
By H. Sterling Burnett
FOR FULL STUDY CLICK HERE (LINK)
A new study shows fossil fuel divestment is costly to investors. According to the report, university endowments and public employee pension funds that bow to environmentalists’ demands they divest their holdings from companies involved with the fossil-fuel industry could suffer significant losses, or at a minimum, have their endowments, portfolios, and retirement funds grow by substantially less than they otherwise would…
The Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago would have suffered more than $34 million in lost income, and the ***San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System would have lost nearly $202 million dollars had it divested from fossil fuels…
Symbolism vs. Substance…READ ALL
https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/fossil-fuel-divestment-could-cost-public-pensions-big-bucks-study-finds
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btw, the SF Examiner piece is full-on CAGW propaganda, including the headline. I just played with it by omitting the rest of the last sentence I excerpted.
no-one else even reported the fact they didn’t divest. that’s not a good look for the CAGW-infested MSM. they only like articles demanding divestment or reporting some company or other has divested, tho they will report if it’s some wicked oil company or similar that refuses to divest.
back to the last sentence I excerpted…in full this time:
Last week, a staff report recommended against divestment ***without fully disclosing the risks fossil fuels pose to the portfolio…
Staff glossed over these realities in their report and focused on painting divestment as a misguided response to climate change. They misled commissioners and city employees into thinking the purpose of cutting ties with fossil fuel companies is to lower carbon emissions. Unfortunately, some city employees fell into their trap.
“Divesting fossil fuels is purely a political position here in San Francisco,” San Francisco Police Officers Association President Martin Halloran wrote in a letter to the Retirement Board. “There is no room for politics when it comes to investing the pension dollars of hard working City employees, who depend on that monthly check in retirement.”…READ ALL TO COMPARE WITH THE HEARTLAND STUDY
http://www.sfexaminer.com/lives-livelihoods-line-s-f-clings-coal-oil-investments/
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note re SF Examiner writer: Robyn Purchia is an environmental attorney, environmental blogger and environmental activist who hikes, gardens and tree hugs in her spare time.
17 Aug: Reuters: Stine Jacobsen: Turbine maker Vestas shares drop as price pressures increase
Governments from Europe to Latin America are replacing guaranteed set payments from green power sources, known as feed-in tariffs, with competitive tenders, putting downward pressure on prices throughout the supply chain.
“We definitely see a very competitive market … driven by the fact that the market is transforming to market-based auctions and competitive tendering,” Vestas Chief Executive Anders Runevad told Reuters.
“What’s different now is that we see it in all markets … The change is that it’s starting to be the new normal and that is putting additional competitive pressure into the market,” Runevad added.
Vestas’s revenue and profit both fell more than forecast despite higher-than-expected orders…
The shares were down 7.2 percent at 578 Danish crowns by 0856 GMT, after falling as low as 574.5 crowns, their lowest in nearly two months…
“Prices seems to be lower and that is the big fear in the market, that the lower prices we see announced by the developers in the auctions (to set up wind farms) would flow to the manufacturers,” said Michael Friis Jorgensen, analyst at Denmark’s Alm. Brand Markets.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vestas-wind-results-idUSKCN1AX117
18 Aug: KSN TV: Siemens laying off 140 employees in Hutchinson, (Kansas)
Siemens announced that they are laying off 140 employees in Hutchinson. The company assembles wind turbine components at its 300,000 square foot facility.
The company said business volume through the 2018 fiscal year does not support the existing workforce level…
18 Aug: WindPowerMonthly: Siemens Gamesa cuts 600 further jobs at Aalborg
DENMARK: Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) has announced a further round of job cuts at its Aalborg blade plant. affecting 730 employees.
According to local reports, 600 jobs at the site will be lost, with a further 130 roles being redistributed.
The move comes just eight months after an initial 150 jobs were cut at the site in February – prior to Siemens’ merger with Gamesa.
“We are taking these steps as a measured and responsible response to changing conditions in some of our principal markets.”…
The announcement follows the closure of SGRE’s Engesvang blade factory in Denmark in February, affecting 430 jobs, and its blade site in Ontario, Canada, in July, cutting 340 jobs in the process.
The latest round of lay-offs means SGRE has cut over 1,500 jobs from its blade plants in 2017 alone.
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To say Australia is a joke is an understatement of the century. The leftist cancer in both major parties is rotting them to the core, and in due course the nation too. If this keeps up I can see in a few short years a socialist state even Stalin would envy. The reason is during his time the people didn’t really like his approach but they had no choice given his draconian measures. Today the left are in control of so many things, including some businesses as well as most of the media that an extreme socialist government of the future would have no trouble taking over as government. It will be a cake walk. Too bad most people don’t see it coming. By the time they do it will be too late.
70
Laugh, I could have cried.
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OT but abc are at it again with this alarmists story .
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-19/researchers-shocked-by-coral-bleaching-in-pacific/8822126
Doing a quick google check I can find reports from last year saying all ok reefs recovering around Samoa , reefs were badly affected by storms and a tsunami , crown of thorn star fish , and over fishing a just a few factors that affect the reef .
If Samoa’s reef was in that much trouble within so short a time span we would have heard something before .
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Well Jo, you’ve been lobbying for smaller government… looks like you’ve got it. Champagne all round!
50
Up to 10 politicians who signed forms with penalties, possibly more to come.
When are the prosecutions? Or is it not a crime if you are a politician? Many of these people signed the forms dishonestly more than once. Is ignorance really an excuse, even for a professional lawyer?
“Giving false or misleading information is a serious offence.” under section 137.1 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code is on the form.
Penalty: Imprisonment for 12 months.
Everyone else has to obey the law of the country.
So when’s the election?
40
On the same form, ” has been convicted ..for any offence punishable
under the law of the Commonwealth or of a State by imprisonment for one year or longer”
So even a suspended sentence under admission of guilt would make these politicians ineligible for reelection. Ever.
Again, that is our law.
40
Remember Pauline Hanson went to jail for a signature on a technicality. How will she feel if all these people walk free?
50
Animal Farm was written as a critique of Stalin’s brutal dictatorship. Ironically it has more relevance today with our style of government. Funny that. That’s why they will not suffer the same way that Hanson suffered who did nothing really wrong, and if she did it was minor compared to the things our so called great leaders can get away with. Not to worry, one day they will get their just deserts.
40
https://www.govt.nz/browse/nz-passports-and-citizenship/getting-nz-citizenship/check-if-you-are-a-citizen/
Barnaby forked. 🙂 Just too easy to work out if you are an Kiwi or not.
43
Couldn’t be simpler.
20
that was not in place when h first joined parliament
00
check out the first photo, allegedly from Australia.
there’s another further down – the obligatory emissions spewing from coal-fired power plant.
Cook and Schmidt help out with suggestions. plenty of sceptics in the comments:
18 Aug: LA Times: Mira Abed: What should you say to a climate change skeptic?
PHOTO CAPTION: Greenhouse gases are released from a factory in Australia
Recognize this is a political debate, not a scientific one
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-climate-change-arguments-20170818-htmlstory.html
LA Times has no disclosure statement re the writer, Mira Abed:
LinkedIn: Mira Abed
Graduate Student, North Carolina State University
Work on perovskite solar cells and dye-sensitized solar cells
2017 AAAS Mass Media Fellow
American Association for the Advancement of Science
June 2017 – Present
Placement at the Los Angeles Times
***Sponsored by the Heising-Simons Foundation
***Inside Philanthropy: Heising-Simons Foundation
With annual giving nearly doubling to $43 million since taking shape in 2013, Heising-Simons is an emerging force in education, science, and climate…
In 2015, about half of its grantmaking went to education, a quarter to science, 12 percent to climate and clean energy, and the rest to trustee or other emerging interests…
(Liz Simons) brother Nathaniel Simons has carved out his own role with a large-but-stealthy climate funder the Sea Change Foundation…
Another interesting and relatively new science niche is in paleoclimatology, a field that looks back millions of years to build better models of how increased warming and levels of CO2 affect the planet.
Both of these subjects are examples of how the foundation finds important, but relatively small ponds of work and cannonballs into them, providing research grants that can top $1 million and last up to five years, to shake something loose.
Keep it Clean
When it comes to climate, Heising-Simons places a familiar premium on research, mainly funding work related to advancement of clean energy.
“The aim is to take information as best as we know it at this time, and we invest in research and analysis to share that knowledge … with the hope that that transforms the power sector,” Gomby says.
The foundation’s climate and clean energy program works closely with Energy Innovation, a San Francisco-based firm run by Hal Harvey, founder of both ClimateWorks and the Energy Foundation. With the group’s advising, the foundation is currently backing a few key strategies, including energy policy analysis, work with public utilities commissions, increasing energy efficiency standards, and communications. Last year, the family partnered with Bloomberg Philanthropies in a big $48 million give to help states implement new EPA rules to reduce carbon pollution from the power sector.
The focus on strategic communications is funding Climate Central to build climate change education into weather forecasts.
https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2016/6/2/inside-the-heising-simons-foundation-a-brainy-startup-finds.html
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Section 44(i) of the nation’s founding document disqualifies someone from office
if that person:
…is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a
foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or
privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power…
—- —- —– —-
Consider the phrase- “the rights or privileges ”
It is not- “rights or privileges ”
nor is it- “all the rights or privileges ”
The third option using the word ‘all’ was not chosen.
Perhaps the word’ the’ in the first option means ‘all’. Well I am not sure what
that word ‘the’ means compared with not having it but I still reckon it does not
mean ‘all’ as it is taken that those writing the constitution would have used the
word ‘all’ if that is what they meant.
So, David Evans is right, yes some foreign power could make a limited grant of
some right available to a citizen of that foreign power to a senator and
invalidate that senator’s standing in Australia.
The nominated senator would have to argue that ‘the’ meant many or substantial
rather than just one right or privilege, but how many is many?
30
This is nothing like what happened in any of these cases. All the people were entitled to the privileges of citizens when they signed a declaration stating they were not. If at some later stage such an unusual circumstance arose, you could apply for clearance by the High Court of what is a form of entrapment.
All of the people in question were born to at least one person who was not Australian. Consider the contrast with Tony Abbott who was born in England to Australian parents. These issues are very important to cover before you present yourself as a politician and sign the special form declaring you have no other allegiance and entitled to stand for parliament.
This was not entrapment. Professional lawyers like Xenophon can read a document before they sign it. After all, they advise others on the laws of this country. The idea that they were trapped unwittingly is ridiculous.
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the absolute corruption of the media. with links. btw ***Charli is a woman, not a “he”:
18 Aug: Inverse: Sarah Sloat: Al Gore Is Chill With ‘Game of Thrones’ Climate Change Theory
On Friday, MTV International interviewed Gore about his newest documentary An Inconvenient Sequel and managed to squeeze in a few questions related to the climate-change Game of Thrones fan theory that’s been passed around since 2012. While Gore demurred when asked whether he was Snow in this metaphor (“I don’t want to cast myself in the Game of Thrones. It looks too perilous to me.”), he did say he had heard of the theory and appeared to approve…
The theory that Game of Thrones is a metaphor for climate change entered the mainstream in a 2012 article by political scientist ***Charli Carpenter. He wrote in Foreign Affairs that: …ETC ETC
In 2015, Reuters pointed out, that, even if the show didn’t deliberately make this comparison, the science community has been more than happy to claim it as canon.
Earlier this year, they gladly helped Vanity Fair fan-cast climate change activists as Game of Thrones characters, saying that the studious and determined Samwell Tarly represented scientists, while “party-boy womanizer who also has a moral center,” Tyrion Lannister, was a good stand-in for Hollywood’s climate-change poster-boy, Leonardo DiCaprio.
Luckily for us who don’t want to live on a doomed planet, some scientists are hopeful that Game of Thrones can be a positive influence on climate change perspectives. Michael Mann, an atmospheric scientist, told Vanity Fair that he was glad the metaphor was clicking with audiences: “Scientists and science communicators need to take advantage of cultural references that allow people to understand the nature of the challenge.”
According to NASA, 97 percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are due to human activity…
In an ironic twist, climate change is affecting even the filming of Game of Thrones. When Time interviewed Jon Snow himself, Kit Harrington, earlier this year, he said they had to go to Iceland to film so that they could ensure they’d have enough snow. He also noted that the glacier he had seen there four years prior had shrunk, which gave him a “terrifying” first-hand look at “climate change and global warming.”
“We got there and we were lucky to get the snow we did,” said Harrington, “because in our world, winter is definitely not here.”
https://www.inverse.com/article/35675-game-of-thrones-climate-change-theory-al-gore
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more John Cook…this time on the Red Team/Blue Team & celebrity-worship!
18 Aug: Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: JOHN COOK: EPA chief Pruitt borrows from an old but effective denialist playbook
As many scientists have pointed out, there is much wrong with this plan. For one thing, science already has a time-tested means of getting ever-closer to the truth, specifically, the process of peer review and replication, to which climate science has been thoroughly subjected…
Comedian John Oliver entertainingly adopted both approaches in a 2014 television segment. He exposed the fallacy of false-balance media coverage by bringing 97 scientists on stage to debate three climate-change deniers, and pointing out that “you don’t need people’s opinion on a fact.” (Social scientists have even tested the effect of Oliver’s video on audiences, finding it was effective in increasing acceptance of climate science.)…
http://thebulletin.org/epa-chief-pruitt-borrows-old-effective-denialist-playbook11033
10
If you go back far enough there is probably a law that says if you have more than 2 pigs and 1 cow you have to say 3 Hail Marys to enter parliament.
00
Every country’s founding fathers were complete imbeciles with no concept of planning for the future. The American Founding Fathers has no concept of long distance communications or that technology changes a lot even though they had long distance communication already and had massive technological changes.
00
I suspect that is in the OP as a joke. Really, its too silly for words in any other context.
Remember, its all about citizenship status at a particular time and how that relates to being ABLE to stand for election.
🙂
Fun will be then whatever dates the HC says they will deliver rulings by. 🙂 With Plebyshite and Dual Nationals in play, remember to update you portfolios for popcorn shares!!
00
So what possible objection do the defenders of daS Groupgropenenthunk have to post 65 that its in moderation??
00
Hello philthegeek
Your comment #65 may have applied to me so I make a response.
You are not all wrong- the situation is a joke.
If my reading is correct, the constitution makes exclusions:
‘ . . is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power’.
So, to say ‘it is about citizenship status at a particular time’ is not a full description of exclusions.
Now there are many who say that whatever the law says, not what someone thinks was meant, sensible or not,
fair or not, constructive or destructive, must apply.
But what happens when the wording is imprecise, or contradictory?
What about this-
A Labor government of NZ grants to Julie Bishop the current foreign minister of
Australia a right to enter NZ and a NZ pension equal to that of a NZ citizen.
Julie Bishop must then be thrown out of Australia’s parliament as she has two rights of a NZ citizen.
Tragedy or farce?
00
From 1992
MEDIA RELEASE AND ACTION UPDATE FROM CONCERNED CITIZENS OF INVERELL, N.S.W.
The recent High Court ruling upholds barrister George Turner’s long stated assertions that a large number of politicians are sitting in Parliament illegally. The fact that he brought this matter to the attention of the Governor General and the Federal Police some years ago and their refusal to act has ramifications that can only be guessed.
“The decision by the High Court is binding, not subject to appeal, and the Federal politicians must abide by it. “Broadly speaking, most of the laws passed through the Parliament in the last few years could be found to be null and void. “Covenants entered into with the United Nations that have brought in World Heritage nonsense, as well as a mess of other obnoxious laws, could be thrown out. “This matter is the greatest opportunity the Freedom Movement has ever had to get sanity back into Australia. “Contact your local Federal M.P., or Senator, and ask for the ‘1975 Common Informers Parliamentary Disqualification Act’.
“This Act was rushed through during the Senator Webster affair. “If they stonewall you, and they will, be specific and quote the ‘House of Representatives Hansard, 16th April 1975, pages 1661-1662’. “On page 10 of Weekend Australian 28th-29th November, 1992, Professor Blackshield says the public could use the 1975 law that allows them to sue people who sit in Parliament under false pretenses. “Concerned Australians have been eating crow from their politicians for a long time. “Point out these facts to your local Member, and demand to know what they personally are going to do about it – NOW.
“Time is very short. Hit them hard before they crawl away. “A detailed legal assessment will follow as soon as it can be prepared. “Spread this message far and wide. We can win this one.”
Issued by Concerned Citizens of Inverell, N.S.W. Further information from George Turner, (067) 25 6486
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Points taken, but i dont take the idea of another country making mischief that way very seriously .
The HC of Australia rules. And most likely in such a way that the law of Australia takes precedence, in Australia, over the laws of another country.
Easy. She takes “reasonable steps” both in process and timing to renounce such. Australian sovereignty, in Australia, is maintained. Its not like a treaty which is an agreement between countries.
This situation at the moment is actually one where yup, there are matters historical that need to be cleaned up. Some people are getting caught up in stuff that HAS happened and needs to be dealt with. For some of those people its quite reasonable i think that they NOT be turfed, for some, they should get booted unceremoniously. HC will look at matters on a case by case basis. People and parties need to take whatever lumps they have coming and LEARN from it.
Changing S44 is something that is and should be considered, but i am not convinced it NEEDS doing given its a full on referendum process to do so. Maybe if we had a few issues to go to referendum at the same time?? Or they could do a postal survey?? 🙂
00
How is Julie Bishop supposed “takes “reasonable steps” both in process and timing to renounce such”. Its a legal right in another country, unless their legislation explicitly says that you can tell them that you don’t want the right and never want it then there is nothing she can do.
00
There is a very simple way to fix all of these issues. Simply put that if there citizens of Australia qualifying as citizens of another country by descent or third party nomination the offending company must assume the liability for all social service benefits over and above those of Australia. That form of double dipping would soon sort out the population grabbers.
On another aspect I was absolutely fascinated by many of the remarks which were diverse,logical and well argued. Given that level of reply God have mercy on the High Court Bench to adjudicate this one.
00