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Monday 29th September 1997
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A small group of people numbering some 200 met over the weekend in Brisbane to denounce the anti-immigration policies of Pauline Hanson and to sign a declaration of support for multi-culturalism. The group, representing a number of ethnic groups had come to hear Federal Labor MP Arch Bevis, Liberal MP Gary Hardgrave and Democrat Senator John Woodley talk about the issues.
The group called Queensland's Anti-Discrimination Commission a toothless tiger after the trumped up claims against Pauline Hanson were rejected by the politician and after she refused to pay a Au$1,000 fine for refusing to front the debacle.
Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Karen Walters said that she felt that Queensland's legislation should encompass anti-vilification laws. She referred to the recent posting of a poster on walls in the Ipswich suburb of Goodna saying, "It's fairly narrow in that sense and won't necessarily eliminate racist propaganda unless it can be shown there is a breach of the Act.
"To have a breach of the current Act, you have got to be both advocating racial hatred and inciting a breach of the Act."
The Ethnic Communities Council chairman Nick Xynias said that the commission was nothing more than window-dressing, "If the government is going to have anti-discrimination laws, the commission should be independent and governments should have to abide the commission's decisions.
"To have an anti-discrimination act which doesn't suit the government, who then tries to appeal the decision - that is inappropriate."
State Opposition justice spokesman Matt Foley blamed the lack of co-operation between the states and Canberra for the weak stance of the commission saying, "The Federal and State Governments are retreating on the issue of human rights at the very time when the bigotry and the prejudice fanned by Pauline Hanson are at its worst."
(Of course the mainstream media don't correct the minister by mentioning that they are in fact the primary cause of the race debate becoming such an overblown issue in Australia).
Prince Charles has put his hand up saying that he is willing to intervene if he can to help the two British nurses found guilty of murdering an Australian nurse. A report in a paper over the weekend expressed the view that the Saudi leaders would be more willing to listen to a Prince than the senior bureaucrats.
It is believed that the Saudi royal family have joined the effort to stop the beheading of Deborah Parry and the flogging of Lucile McLauchlan.
Making the
news" -
Simon Crean was like the cat who stole the cream when he spoke to Laurie
Oates Channel 9's Sunday Program
yesterday.
In fact he was so comfortable in his dressing-down of the
travel rorts
by senior Coalition minister last week that he said just a tad too
much.
Crean let the cat out of the bag when he told Oates that an employee of the Department of Administrative Services had downloaded all files related to ministers travel allowances to the Labor Party offices through the Internet.
He also refused to reveal whether Labor Party Ministers were implicated saying that that was up to the leader Kim Beazley. His comments flew in the face of Beazley's comments not an hour earlier on another television program. Beazley saying that he had had no access to the travel allowance records.
Honesty in the Labor Party... you gotta be joking!
The underdogs in the Australian Rugby League final, Newcastle, beat Manly in the closing moments of the grand final taking out the game 22-16.
Scattered showers fell over night and again this morning... just enough to get you wet while doing nothing for the drought conditions we currently face in Queensland.
Beautiful day... yesterday we went for a canoe down to Kookaburra Park and back... being caught half way in one of the rain patches... good time to break out the champagne!
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