Tuesday 5th August 1997
Search entire news archive by day | Search entire news archive by text |
Definitive Lifestyle Guide to over 5000 Australian webs | Global Web Builders Gold |
The Kid's Locker Room | World Wide Websters |
It is no accident that 96% of Australia's heroin comes from Asia according to a National Crime Authority report.
The ABC programme Four Corners took us "Inside Australia's heroin capital to show us how police are losing the war".
Here are some snippets from the programme:
"The heroin capital of Australia - Cabramatta.
"It's not hard to buy heroin in Cabramatta. A few seconds after walking off the train a Vietnamese dealer will approach you.
"Cabramatta was once famed as Australia's multicultural triumph. A place of new hope for refugees from Indo-China. It is now just famous for two things the murder of News South Wales Member of Parliament John Newman and heroin.
"Police and the community are divided by a wall of silence and suspicion where the police face a culture they struggle to understand.
Heroin washes through Cabramatta to towns and cities around Australia."
But the politically correct and "social conscience" of Australia - the minorities that pull the government's strings want the status quo to remain or, in this case, to worsen. And if, as a white Aussie, you dare raise your voice in objection, you are branded a racist.... Where's the fair go?
The ABC also had a very interesting personal interview with a leading comedian, Andrew Denton, from the highly acclaimed Wednesday Night Live show. Of interest were his jaundiced comments about those who run the television empires in Australia.
Here is what he had to say on the subject:
"I came into this industry (television) with a very defensive attitude (because of his father's bad experiences). I expected to be screwed by the people who run it. It was an industry of schiesters and hucksters and people in this industry whose word was not their bond."
Well said Andrew - it still applies today.
Do you remember that report we ran on the drop of Asian students in Australia - not being the fault of Pauline Hanson's comments?
Well the News Limited Australian newspaper know better and today ran a front page report claiming that the drop off in Asian students was all Hanson's fault.
"Dramatic falls in Asian student enrolments in the past six months are the first conclusive evidence that the Pauline Hanson inspired race debate is hitting business to Australia from the region," is the lead paragraph in today's edition of The Australian.
It goes on to say that "visas from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore all dived into negative rates according to the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. Only the new markets of Indonesia and Vietnam showed increases of 8% and 48% respectively."
Then right down in the body of the article - near the very end in fact comes the following amazing statement, "Senior federal government education officials said the so-called Hanson impact could not be quantified and pointed to local conditions such as increased competition, weakening Asian economies and greater self-reliance in education as contributing to the downturn."
Celebrity agent Harry M Miller the man who represented the "iceman" James Scott will now represent the miraculous survivor of the Thredbo tragedy, Stuart Diver, in his contact with the media.
Following the news Miller's Sydney office was yesterday flooded with about 200 requests from media outlets including the American CBS, NBC and ABC television networks.
Diver is going to a large farm where he will be raised by people who love animals and somehow I don't think Harry M Miller will be interested in promoting this "Diver"!
We had our own miraculous rescue attempt on Sunday, we were able to save a young dingo puppy from certain death while canoeing in the Brisbane river on Sunday. On the right is a picture of young 8 week old "Diver", yes, named after the Thredbo man. The Dingo Diver was caught in soft mud in the land just opposite our home on the river. The rising tide had reached his neck when I was able to pull him from his fate. His mother had abandoned him for dead.
Making the news.
WASHINGTON, DC -- The Libertarian Party has launched a national campaign to abolish the government's system of racial classifications, and is urging Americans to refuse to disclose their race on census forms in the year 2000.
"For 20 long years, the U.S. government has demeaned every American by pigeonholing us according to the color of our skin," said the party's national chairman, Steve Dasbach. "In three years, when the census takers ask about our race, we hope Americans will stand up and say: No more. Tell these fill-in-the-blank bureaucrats that your race is none of the government's business."
The party launched the campaign this week when the federal government, after a three-year study, decided not to abolish its five official racial classifications. Instead, government bureaucrats said multiracial Americans should check several boxes, such as black and white, on the 2000 census form.
The goals of the Libertarian Party's "Say No to Racial Classifications" campaign are to build public awareness of how politicians exploit racial classifications to further divide the nation along racial grounds, and to eliminate them from all government forms, said Dasbach.
"We're telling Americans: Stop and think before you check that box," Dasbach said. "If millions of Americans withheld their racial data from the government, the politicians' framework for American Apartheid would crash to the ground."
To spread the word, the party is enlisting the support of a network of activists and registered voters across the country and is mounting a nationwide media blitz.
The government's current five "official" racial categories, created by the Office of Management and Budget in 1977, are white, black, American Indian/Eskimo, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Hispanic. Federal agencies use the classifications to bestow benefits such as jobs, low-interest loans, and college scholarships.
"Sadly, the government of a nation dedicated to liberty and equality under the law is using arbitrary racial characteristics as a wedge to pry Americans further apart," Dasbach said.
Even the courts are getting into the act, and have become America's latest racial battleground, Dasbach noted.
In March, for example, an Egyptian immigrant implored a federal court to change his government-mandated racial classification from white to black. The man, Mostafa Hefny of Detroit, insists that he is black because his ancestors come from the ancient black kingdom of Nubia, which is now part of Egypt and Sudan. But the government insists that he is white.
In an attempt to get himself reclassified as black, Hefny explained to the court that his skin is darker than General Colin Powell's, who is officially classified as black.
"Why is the government so obsessed with the color of Hefny's skin?" Dasbach asked. "Because politicians are desperately fighting to preserve racial categories so they can preserve their power to hand out favors."
Dasbach encouraged American politicians to learn from other nations with more progressive racial policies -- such as South Africa.
"A decade ago, the U.S. government imposed trade sanctions to pressure the South African government to repeal its system of racial classification called Apartheid," he said. "Wouldn't it be ironic if South Africa, which has since repudiated government-sponsored racial discrimination, now imposed sanctions against the United States for the same reason?"
Fortunately, if the Libertarian Party's campaign is successful, American politicians won't have to rely on a foreign government to teach them racial tolerance, Dasbach said.
"Every single American can strike a blow for a colorblind society by saying 'no' to the census takers and 'no' to racial classifications," Dasbach said. "We're all Americans -- what else does the government need to know?"
Another perfect day in paradise. The picture on the right is the view from the global office with the morning mist rising at about 7am.Have a great day!
Return to Australian National News of the Day