Tag Archives: Kurds

The Week That Was – January 25 to January 31

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So, Tony Abbott made Prince Phillip a Knight of the Order of Australia. That announcement kind of took away from the fact that Angus Houston – the former Defence guy that was coordinating the search of MH370 and represented Australia for a bit after MH17 – also received a knighthood, and that anti-domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty was named Australian of the Year.

Other than the awkwardness of the Prince Phillip knighthood “captain’s pick” issue, Australia Day was relatively normal, other than the heavy rain in Sydney. People who did some great things were recognised, there was some interesting helicopter and boat choreography on Sydney Harbour and Prince Phillip received a knighthood (the whole knighthood thing took over for a bit). Indigenous people also reminded people that they still see this day in a more negative light, treating it as a “Day of Mourning” or a “Day of Survival”, since over 200 years ago, they were basically invaded and colonised by the British.

Tony Abbott has been having a tough time this week, especially after his captain’s pick for the knighthood, with ministers and backbenchers saying they had no idea that was the plan and saying that it isn’t really an appropriate knighthood to have given. Those who haven’t specifically said that the knighthood was the worst idea ever, have at least placed all the blame on Abbott who has ignored social media backlash over the whole thing, calling it “electronic graffiti”. However, there’s more to it, because now there are rumours of serious rumblings behind the scenes over Abbott’s leadership, while some of his closest supporters in the media, like Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones, are suggesting his leadership could be at an end.

Abbott has admitted he should have consulted more with his party and the public over the whole knighthood saga, but the rumours have continued with talk that Julie Bishop, Malcolm Turnbull and others, including Mal Brough (responsible for the whole Ashby-Slipper saga back in the Gillard days), are canvassing the party for numbers, or if not them, backbenchers who think that some of these Ministers could be PM and win them the next election.

The whole thing got a little bit more insane and ridiculous when Abbott said the reason ministers like Malcolm Turnbull, Julie Bishop and Scott Morrison are any good at their jobs was because he is a great leader.

Meanwhile, the Queensland LNP is fully ready to blame Abbott if they get a poor result in the Queensland State Election, held on Saturday, which now looks increasingly likely. The number of seats needed by a party to rule Queensland is 45, and at last count just before midnight on Saturday night, the LNP had 40 seats, Labor had 43 seats, with three seats in doubt, and three seats to other parties and independents. The prediction is that Labor will get 45 (the magic number) and win the election, most likely with support from the three other MPs – a result nobody expected.

Matthew Gardiner, the Labor Party President in the Northern Territory, has left Australia for the Middle East in order to help the Kurdish forces fight against Islamic State. It has shocked the country, with Bill Shorten telling people it’s a bad idea to go, and asking Gardiner to return to Australia. Furthermore, the government has pointed out that regardless of who you are fighting for, it’s still illegal to go fight overseas.

While the Manus Island Detention Centre protests are over, it appears that the allegations of violence on the part of the security forces and PNG Police may have had some truth to them, with images showing detainees with what appears to be evidence of being beaten. 40 of the Detention Centre’s detainees have also been arrested by the PNG government, however, once again, both the Australian and PNG governments aren’t saying much.

Finally this week, Whitlam and Hawke government minister, Tom Uren died this week; it’s looking more and more likely that the two Australians on death row in Indonesia for drug offences will be executed in the next few weeks; the Sydney Siege Inquiry has begun; the Royal Commission into Child Abuse has released its recommendations for compensation and reconciliation for victims; and Brazil is upset that a NSW court acquitted all but one of four cops charged with a Brazilian student’s death – and the one that was found guilty was charged with assault for using three cans of pepper spray on the student and didn’t even get a conviction recorded.

Tweet of the Week

So Triple J disqualified Taylor Swift from the Hottest 100, only to play another Top 40 song in spot #6

https://twitter.com/KKeneally/status/559657461620027392

Things I’ve been Looking at Online

Kristina Keneally is a Catholic and a Feminist – The Guardian

Things that would have been different if Harry Potter was set in Australia – Buzzfeed

Your Argument is Wrong: “Guns don’t kill people”

The Week that Was – October 12 to October 18

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It’s been announced that Russia will be sending a delegation to the G20 in Brisbane, including President Vladimir Putin during talks while Joe Hockey was chairing a G20 Finance Minister’s meeting in Washington D.C.. Tony Abbott said that we had to accept their arrival but not embrace the Russians when they arrived and has also promised to talk with Putin about MH17. This nice promise of a discussion went down the drain however, when Abbott said this:

The comment led to confusion among the general population, as people struggled to define the term “shirtfront”. From what I can gather, it’s a shoulder charge in AFL – no longer allowed as they try to make the game safer – and the clips I’ve seen aren’t pretty, and in ABC Political Reporter Mark Simkin’s words: “hardly diplomatic”. It’s lead to a bit of a back-and-forth with the Russians, both at the Embassy and in Moscow, with Russian Embassy staff saying the Australia hasn’t even booked in a meeting with the Russians, and that Abbott shouldn’t be making the meeting physical anyway. The Russian PM, Dmitri Medvedev, has told Tony Abbott to behave, as have Australian politicians – namely Sarah Hanson-Young and Jacqui Lambie. Relations are believed to be at their lowest at the moment, but things are looking up after Julie Bishop met with Putin on the sidelines of a summit in Milan, where she asked Putin to use Russian influence to get the rebels to allow investigators back to the MH17 crash site, and found out that Putin is still coming to the G20.

The Australian Defence Force has been in the news a bit this week. Firstly, a group of veterans who were involved in humanitarian efforts during “Iraq 1” (The Gulf War), are wanting to have their deployment recognised as active service. The non-combat mission involved humanitarian aid to help Kurdish refugees, and involved 75 personnel, mainly medical staff and engineers. Many suffer mental anguish and a few have ended their lives, yet because their mission was not deemed to be active service, they don’t get their pension, a service medal or recognition of their mission. Many have said they would prefer the recognition over the pension, as the recognition proves that they did something a served their country.

Also this week, the Department of Defence has been in negotiations over pay increases for the armed forces. The government has offered a 1.5% increase every year for three years, but lose a day’s leave at Christmas. The main criticism is that the increased aren’t in line with inflation, and that the politicians deciding on their pay recently got a massive pay rise, and the defence force isn’t getting as big a pay rise. Bill Shorten has come out in support, saying the defence force should be paid more, and there have been many saying that more pay would mean more productivity.

A 300-page review into the nation’s education system has been released this week, with recommendations that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island history and Australia’s place in the Asia-Pacific region should be taught as specific units and not just as a theme and a simplified curriculum – what that means is unclear, but it has something to do with the parents. Christopher Pyne has said that as far as he can tell, the review is not politically motivated. However, there has been controversy this week after the man in charge of the review into the English curriculum, Barry Spurr, has been stood down by the University of Sydney for sexist, racist and basically offensive emails. Spurr is well-known for focusing on Judeo-Christian literature, and essentially ignoring other authors in Australia. There are concerns that his views may have influenced the review and questions are being asked about who else in the review team who may have something to hide. Christopher Pyne has defended his role as Education Minister, saying that he didn’t pick Spurr and that he condemns offensive, racist and sexist comments like Spurr’s.

The Budget still isn’t through in its entirety, and this week concerns have been raised over the fuel excise and the way that the Greens reacted when they first heard about the plans. Originally, the Greens had believed that the government had seen the light when it was announced that the fuel excise would be raised, until they became aware that the money for the excise was going towards road building. There is disagreement over whether the government and the Greens had a chat, but regardless, the Greens had some turmoil within the party and the realisation that the government was going to build roads anyway. Mathias Cormann has also been criticised for calling Bill Shorten an “economic girlie man”, because he’s blocking Budget changes. Tanya Plibersek has said that that’s because the Labor Party sees the Budget as something pretty awful, and don’t want to pass it.

Australian states have bought isolation pods to transfer Ebola patients should any turn up in Australia, while Queensland Health has activated its Ebola medical teams. Each state has a specific hospital for treating Ebola, and they’re equipped pretty well, except for the isolation pods. There is still criticism of the government, who is refusing to send medical teams to Africa until they have a definitive evacuation plan, allowing for stops in countries along the route in order to refuel along the 30-hour flight. Oh, and the Defence Force doesn’t own a pod. Australia is also looking to the USA at the moment to see exactly what happened with the breakdown in protocol after two nurses who worked on the Liberian man who died in a Texas Hospital contracted the virus.

Finally this week, an Australian author who won a book prize is ashamed to be Australian because of the current government’s climate change policy, Australia has completed ‘successful’ airstrikes in Iraq, and a committee looking into the government’s terror legislation have said that the government can’t declare countries or regions no-go zones.

Tweets of the Week

The pro-democracy protests continue in Hong Kong

And the storm in Sydney at the start of this week led to entertaining news graphics

Things I’ve been Reading, Watching or Hearing

An ABC cameraman on his experience and how one can improve skills – ABC Backstory

A Blue Mountains school principal has received a Papal Medal for helping his students in last year’s bushfires – ABC News

University lecturers defend themselves against Sharri Markson’s article about their teaching – The Guardian