Workplace Relations Reforms, The US in Syria? Iraq, Earth Day
Malcolm Turnbull has been prepared to risk forcing a double dissolution to obtain a vote by both houses sitting together on legislation to pass the Registered Organisations bill and to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission. That body was abolished under the Gillard government in May 2012 and replaced by Fair Work Building & Construction with much reduced regulatory powers. Turnbull also secured the winding up of the Roads Safety Remuneration Tribunal established under Gillard at the behest of the Transport Workers union and effectively designed to favour unions able to collude with transport companies.
Global Warming Presentation
Today I made a presentation on global warming to a lunch at the Australian Institute for International Affairs, Victorian Branch. A small audience attended and, although the presentation was quite widely advertised, believers in the dangerous warming thesis did not appear and nor did any media. However I think it is accurate to say that those who did attend were appreciative particularly of the facts which I presented both orally and graphically. The idea that temperatures may increase “naturally” seemed to catch on.
Climate Change. Some Facts
You want to know the facts about climate change?
You have a marvellous opportunity to do so next Thursday, 14 April
Expert economic and statistical analyst, Des Moore, assisted by well known prominent physicist Dr Tom Quirk, will bring you up to date.
New Assessments of Climate Outlook/Forecasts
Today’s Australian reports an article published in Nature which accepts the hiatus in warming since 2000 even though this has occurred while strong increase in emissions of greenhouse gases has continued. It is surprising that a “green” journal should accept such an article. But it is just one of a number of analyses which have appeared since the Paris climate agreement questioning the threat of dangerous warming unless governments take countervailing action.
Turnbull – What are His Policies?; Stone on Budget; Bob Carter
When an Australian PM makes an obviously pre-prepared address during a visit overseas his main object is not so much to inform his overseas audience as to let his supporters and opponents at home know his thinking about those government policies that are in dispute domestically. The address Turnbull made in Washington to the think-tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies was relevant particularly to his government’s policies on Islamic terrorism and our military involvement in Iraq/Syria –and to his own capacity to deliver them.
Various
It is sad to tell you that Professor Bob Carter has died after a heart attack. His CD in Wikepedia is provided here but it does not do justice to the contribution Bob made to the questioning of the thesis that human activity is causing dangerous global warming. One of his achievements was the leading role he played, amongst a group of distinguished scientists, in the production of the four volumes of a report by the Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change setting out the reasons why the human activity thesis does not stand up to close examination. That report was started in 2007 by the Science and Environmental Policy Project which is based in Virginia in the US. SEPP was founded in 1990 by atmospheric physicist Fred Singer and its former Chairman was Frederick Seitz, a former president of the US National Academy of Sciences, now deceased. So Bob was working with the tops in his profession.
Update on Islamism & Govt Responses
Since sending my Commentary last Tuesday, I have experienced a swelling in my left knee which put me out of action temporarily. The good news (sic) on Islamism and deterrent policies is that there has been no repetition of the Paris type attacks. However, Christmas has been officially banned in Burundi and effectively banned in many other areas with only limited defence emerging from religious and political leaders. There is much to be done to preserve western beliefs.
Where Does Australia Stand on Islamisation Threat(s)?
On page 3 of the Weekend Australian the political party of which I have become a member, Australian Liberty Alliance, ran an advertisement titled “We will stop Islamisation” (see ALA attached). I became a member some time ago because I regard the threat of Islamisation as the most seriousness danger facing Australia and the western world - and ALA as the only party prepared to publicly advocate its elimination as a serious priority. I am not referring here to those Muslims who seek and lead a peaceful life but to those who advocate violence and/or who are prepared to commit violent acts. The latter are jihadists who seek the destruction of both western and peaceful Muslim societies.
Increasing Concern over Dangers from Extremist Islam – Turnbull Way Behind Ball Game
Public dissatisfaction is continuing, indeed increasing, in many countries with the weak response by governments to the terrorist attacks by extremist Muslims in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. and by the responses to continued similar, less reported terrorist groups in other countries too. There is now quite widespread recognition that these attacks are “not just by a few extremists”...“who sully the reputation of an otherwise peace-loving and tolerant Muslim faith. In reality, the truth is far more troubling — that jihadists represent the natural and inevitable outgrowth of a faith that is given over to hate on a massive scale, with hundreds of millions of believers holding views that Americans would rightly find revolting”
End of the Honeymoon?
This morning’s Bolt Report started with a declaration that the Turnbull honeymoon is over. Not surprising. But what was a bit off key was that the ABC Insiders seemed to reach a similar conclusion, although without saying so specifically. Has Scott told the ABC’s Cassidy that Turnbull has ceased to be minister of communications and is now in danger of applying his fairness policy to the ABC as PM? We even experienced an interview with a Shorten who argued that Turnbull should bring down a budget in May.