Brave young Maree Jay takes on the ugly face of Australian journalism at The Daily Examiner

Hot on the heels of The Daily Examiner office at Yamba being broken into and what sounds like an amount of petty cash stolen, that newspaper attempted to run a crime wave scare concerning people of aboriginal appearance and allegedly low police numbers [The Daily Examiner, 11 June 2009].

Something that Grafton Police Chief Inspector Darren Spooner flatly denied as he happens to live in Yamba [The Daily Examiner, 13 June 2009,p5].

By 12 June 2009 this inchoate media beatup had quickly morphed into a generalised attack on the indigenous community of Yamba.

Now 22 year-old Maree Jay of Grafton has taken the newspaper's boastfully unrepentant editor to task for his judgmental, one-eyed, hearsay-ridden view of the Yaegl community.

Once again, Peter Chapman has added an editor's comment which reflects his inability to recognise his own journalistic shortcomings.

Ngaru Village

THIS is a formal complaint written to the people involved in the production and publishing of the story 'Yamba's Mission' (DEX, June 13).
This article is an example of social segregation and disinclusion. These are two words identified by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commissioner 2003 as contributors to a) the history of oppression of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait lslander people and b) the continuation of such abuse.
By publishing this story you are actively continuing that cycle. The 'Yamba community' is spoken to as if they are white, and the 'Aboriginal people'are not spoken to, they are spoken about.
It is 2009, I am 22 years old and the printing of this story made me feel sick in the bottom of my stomach.
I wonder how a story with the same stereotyping, ignorance, opportunism and the lack of factual research seen in stories published when my grandmother was 22 years old can be so destructively distributed throughout our community.
Did you ask anyone in the Aboriginal community anything about their life? No. You snuck in at 6.15 in the morning to rely on photos that give an out-of-context, sensationalised impression.
lf you were a Koori person, would you want to go into town with this story in the press?
Maree Jay,
GRAFTON.

EDITOR'S COMMENT; The response from Maree Jay reflects indignation that someone would dare criticise Yamba's Ngaru Village.
Like us, you know that our story is based on fact, not on rumours.
Key details of what is happening at the village have been known to this paper for many months.
Rather than attack us, the question I put back to you is: As a concerned 22-year-old what have you done in the past few years to assist Ngaru Village and to help improve the living standards of the children who call the village home?
It would have been easy for this paper to have ignored Ngaru Village. We knew we would generate howls of protests like yours.
I don't apologise for taking the stance we have, in fact l would have been embarrassed if we
hadn't.

As the editor has not yet made one constructive suggestion or concrete offer of help, it is the height of hypocrisy on his part to suggest that another should be doing so.

Peter Chapman may not be embarrassed, but I wouldn't mind betting that there are a few reputable journalists who would be embarrassed by his amateurish existence.

Pauline Hanson: I'm baaack!

Pauline Hansen has announced that she is standing for the Queensland Parliament in the 21st March 2009 election.

The flamboyant redhead has updated http://www.paulinehansen.com.au/ and is now seeking donations and selling t-shirts.
Her bio is a bit of a hoot because it currently stops before her last attempt at federal election in 2007.

Pauline is a bit peeved at all the publicity about her last failed bid:

"Once again the question of electoral funding has reared it ugly head, WHY? My running in this election has nothing to do with electoral funding as many would have you believe.I am fed up with the lies, innuendoes, misreporting and blatant attempts to discredit my name and reasons for standing in the election.Independent and political party candidates for the purpose of election funding is eligible to claim reimbursement of election campaign expenses for votes polled if the candidate reached the qualifying threshold (more than 4%) of formal first preference votes in the electorate contested.A Queensland electorate has approx 32,000 voters. Every formal first preference vote receives approx $1.50 per vote from the electoral commission if the candidate reaches over 4%.Any campaign expenses exceeding the electoral funding are not reimbursed. Receipts must be produced for funding reimbursement."

What is missing from her website is any updated policy or promises.

Did she ever really have any?

Beaudesert beware!

Pauline Hanson's TV meltdown video.

"It's been more than a decade since Ms Hanson last won an electoral contest.
That win, in 1996, made her the federal Member for Oxley and marked the start of her political rise that ultimately saw her One Nation Party hold 11 seats in Queensland parliament at its peak.
But since then she's only tasted defeat: in 1998 in the federal seat of Blair, in 2003 as she sought a NSW Upper House seat, and in 2001, 2004 and 2007 vying for a Queensland Senate seat."

Revisiting Federal disability discrimination and human rights legislation

Thanks to Dave Bath of Balneus for alerting North Coast Voices to the following Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee inquiry:

On 4 December 2008 the Senate referred the provisions of the Disability Discrimination and Other Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 to the Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs for inquiry and report.

This bill amends the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (the Act) to implement recommendations made by the Productivity Commission in its 2004 review of the Act. The bill also implements the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs' recommendation to remove the 'dominant purpose' test from the Age Discrimination Act 2004 (Older People and the Law, 2007), and makes various other amendments to the human rights legislation going to the general operation of human rights law in Australia.

Key amendments to the Act include those that seek to:

• make explicit that refusal to make reasonable adjustments for people with disability may also amount to discrimination;
• make the defence of unjustifiable hardship available in relation to all unlawful discrimination on the ground of disability, except harassment and victimization;
• clarify matters to be considered when determining unjustifiable hardship;
• clarify that the onus of proving unjustifiable hardship falls on the person claiming it;
• make clear that the definition of disability includes genetic predisposition to a disability and behaviour that is a symptom or manifestation of a disability;
• replace the 'proportionality test' in the definition of indirect discrimination with the requirement to prove that the condition or requirement imposed has the effect of disadvantaging people with the disability of the aggrieved person;
• shift the onus of proving the reasonableness of a requirement or condition in the context of indirect discrimination from the person with disability to the respondent, and
• extend the power to make standards under the Act.

The bill also seeks to assist people with assistance animals and service providers by recognising animals accredited either under a State and Territory law or by a relevant organisation, and by clarifying each party's obligations. The bill also consolidates the provisions in the Act relating to carers, assistants and aids, and addresses the issues raised by the Full Federal Court in Forest [2008] by clarifying that discrimination on the basis that a person possesses or is accompanied by a carer, assistant or aid, is discrimination on the basis of disability.

The bill also includes proposed amendments to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986. This implements the Government's decision to change the name of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission to the Australian Human Rights Commission. Other key amendments to that Act include the extension of the period within which a person can take a terminated complaint to the Federal or Federal Magistrates Court from 28 days to 60 days, and a number of amendments to improve the efficiency of the complaints handling process, such as allowing the President of the Commission to finalise a complaint where the complainant expresses no intention to pursue the matter.

The reporting date for the inquiry is 24 February 2009.

The Committee invites written submissions by Monday, 12 January 2009. Submissions should be sent to:

Committee Secretary
Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs
Department of the Senate
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Australia

Amendments to the Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws - General Law Reform) Bill 2008

On 15 December 2008 the Australian Attorney-General circulated amendments to the Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws - General Law Reform) Bill 2008.

Amendments cover many aspects of legal discrimination against same-sex couples and addresses some rights and obligations, including those of children of the relationship.

Explanatory Statement at ComLaw here.

Some of the saddest words uttered this year

Yesterday, Harry Nelson, former Yuendumu Council President, presented Minister for Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin with a statement signed by 236 residents in a meeting of the community before the Minister opened the new Yuendumu pool, funding of which predates the intervention.

The statement read:

We, the residents of Yuendumu, want you to listen to the following statement and take our message back to the Federal and NT Governments:

When John Howard and Mal Brough lost their seats, we were happy. But now you are doing the same thing to us, piggybacking Howard and Brough's policies, and we feel upset, betrayed and disappointed.

We don't want this intervention!

We talked to the Review board, and now the Government is not even listening to the report, and is keeping this intervention going almost unchanged. It is an insult to us.

This is our land. We want the Government to give it back to us. We want the Government to stop blackmailing us. We want houses, but we will not sign any leases over our land, because we want to keep control of our country, our houses, and our property.

We say NO to income management. We can look after our own money.

We want the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 reinstated now, not in 12 months.

The Government Business Manager is useless, expensive, and we don't need them. We want our community councils back instead. We want community control, not Shires. We don't want more police, we don't want more contractors, we don't want more government people.

Everything is coming from the outside, from the top down. The government is abusing us with this intervention. We want to be re-empowered to make our own decisions and control our own affairs. We want self-determination. We want support, funding and resources for things coming from our community, from the inside.

Yuendumu has a lot of things to be proud of. Our community programs, like the Mt Theo program, the bilingual education program, Warlpiri media, the Old People's program, Warlukurlunga arts centre, childcare, the youth program, should be supported, celebrated, and used as a model for other communities.

We want to keep our bilingual education program and use our own language to teach English, maths, and other things in schools.

We want you to give us respect and dignity, and stop telling lies about our people.

We want the Government to listen to us, talk with us, consult with us, and do things proper way.

[Crikey.com.au,28 October 2008]

*

Saffin receives a short and sweet note from the Clarence Valley

Here is a copy of an e-mail sent the day after the Rudd Government announced that Disability Support Pensioners were included in a Federal Government lump-sum payment to pensioners for the first time.

From: [edited]

To: Janelle.Saffin.MP@aph.gov.au

Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2008 1:38 PM
Subject: Please pass on our congratulations.....

JANELLE :

Please pass on our congratulations to all in Canberra who finally discovered Disabled Pensioners.

Thank You and Best Wishes :

John X. Berlin

[address edited for privacy reasons]

Update:

Janelle replies.

From: Saffin, Janelle (MP) [mailto:Janelle.Saffin.MP@aph.gov.au]

Sent: Thursday, 16 October 2008 6:56 AM

To: [edited]

Subject: RE: Please pass on our congratulations to all in Canberra who discovered Disabled Pensioners.

John,

Thanks for the message.

We knew they were around, the Opposition had 12 years and did not find them and are still looking.

Warm regards
Janelle

* GuestSpeak is a feature of North Coast Voices allowing Northern Rivers residents to make satirical or serious comment on issues that concern them. Posts of 250-300 words or less can be submitted to ncvguestspeak@live.com.au for consideration.

At last - a more balanced look at effects of the Howard-Rudd NT Intervention

Finally the long-awaited Northern Territory Emergency Response Review Report has been released.

It tells us what most sensible people predicted when John Howard announced he implementing a fascist and racist approach to indigenous communities in the Top End.

The Executive Summary to the report states:

In many communities there is a deep belief that the measures introduced by the Australian Government under the NTER were a collective imposition based on race.

There is a strong sense of injustice that Aboriginal people and their culture have been seen as exclusively responsible for problems within their communities that have arisen from decades of cumulative neglect by governments in failing to provide the most basic standards of health, housing, education and ancillary services enjoyed by the wider Australian community.

Support for the positive potential of NTER measures has been dampened and delayed by the manner in which they were imposed.

The Intervention diminished its own effectiveness through its failure to engage constructively with the Aboriginal people it was intended to help.......

The benefits of income management are being increasingly experienced. Its compulsory, blanket imposition continues to be resisted, but the measure is capable of being reformed and improved......

If the various NTER measures are to operate as a genuine suite of measures there needs to be adjustments in the machinery of government enabling better coordination of services, greater responsiveness to the unique characteristics of each community and higher levels of community participation in the design and delivery of services.

People who do not wish to participate should be free to leave the scheme. It should be available on a voluntary basis and imposed only as a precise part of child protection measures or where specified by statute, subject to independent review. In both cases it should be supported by services to improve financial literacy.

Income management is in many respects representative of other NTER measures. If it is modified and improved, then the resistance to its original imposition might be negated.

When specifically addressing the selective quashing of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, the report itself stated:

Not surprisingly, there was a convergence among
official commentaries and submissions to the Board
around the fundamental principle of international
human rights law that different classes of rights
cannot be traded off against each other. This
principle is captured in article 5 of the Vienna
Declaration on Human Rights (1993).

It is important to note that criticisms over the
exclusion of the RDA do not simply reflect an
‘academic’ debate. Throughout the Board’s
community visits and consultations with various
organisations and representatives, it was made
abundantly clear that people in Aboriginal
communities felt humiliated and shamed by the
imposition of measures that marked them out as
less worthy of the legislative protections afforded
other Australians.

These concerns were most palpable in the context
of comments and submissions relating to the
compulsory acquisition of land41 and the exclusion
of external merits review in the income management
scheme applied in the Northern Territory.42.....

In the Board’s view, there are no convincing
arguments for excluding human rights principles
and the RDA. Consistent with a key theme of the
review the Board believes the re-engagement
process has to be underpinned by acknowledgment
of the informed consent principle and human
rights provisions.

Predictably Howard's leftovers still on the Opposition front bench oppose any change to the Intervention.

One suspects their objections are based on a fear that human rights may be restored to indigenous communities covered by the Intervention.

If the Prime Minister and Cabinet have any moral courage whatsoever, they will scrap Howard's legislation completely and start again.

Full report can be found here.
The Canberra Times on the subject here.

Google Inc. gets hot under the collar over California's Proposition 8

It's Goggle Inc's 10th birthday and, apart from explaining the birthday logo and a brief post on the presidential debate, the only Press Center release on its blog site last Friday is about California's Proposition 8 (Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry Act) on the ballot for the November general election which seeks to remove the right to same-sex marriage in that state.

Our position on California's No on 8 campaign

9/26/2008 03:23:00 PM

As an Internet company, Google is an active participant in policy debates surrounding information access, technology and energy. Because our company has a great diversity of people and opinions -- Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, all religions and no religion, straight and gay -- we do not generally take a position on issues outside of our field, especially not social issues. So when Proposition 8 appeared on the California ballot, it was an unlikely question for Google to take an official company position on.

However, while there are many objections to this proposition -- further government encroachment on personal lives, ambiguously written text -- it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8. While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 -- we should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love.

Posted by Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President, Technology

As there does not appear to be majority support for this proposition among Californian voters, one wonders exactly how this issue might affect Obama and McCain.

It appears that Obama has publicly opposed Proposition 8. However, this runs contrary to attitudes to gay marriage among demographic groups which are his strong supporters.

McCain flatly rejects gay marriage.

Another curly one for candidates in the run up to November 2008, which makes for an interesting national poll.

Lord luv a duck! Coon cheese is under attack, again

I have to declare an interest here - I grew up eating Coon cheese and never once made any connection with a racist slur of any sort.

But apparently once Stephen Hagan grew up he objected to this brand name for a cheddar cheese.

The Australian informs us that:

"Mr Hagan said today he would now focus on fighting Dairy Farmers' Coon cheese.

"Initially, Dairy Farmers said it was named after Edward Coon, who revolutionised the speeding process of making cheese," he said.

"But I've questioned the authenticity of that story."

Mr Hagan, said the cheese, formerly manufactured by Kraft, used to have a black wraparound and was named Coon as a joke.

"I want Dairy Farmers to show me the evidence of Edward Coon being honoured an honorary doctorate and what year he received that honorary doctorate," he said.

"If they can prove to me that Edward Coon was a famous cheesemaker, I will drop my campaign.
"If they can't do it, I'm going to fight them all the way...."

Unfortunately for Mr. Hagan, he opened his mouth without even the most preliminary investigation.

It took me 10 minutes to find Free Patents Online and this historical patent; United States Patent US1579196, application filed 27 February 1926, serial number 91,262. PDF image of 2-page original published document.

This patent was taken out by Edward William Coon, a citizen of the United States, of 29 South Water Street, Philadelphia in the County of Philadelphia and State of Pennsylvania, who states he has invented certain new and useful improvements in the process of ripening cheese.

Fulton History displays an image of a newspaper page in August 1923 which has an article reporting that E.W. Coon, maker and shipper of cheese of Philadelphia, had sold five of his numerous milk plants to the Dairymen's League Co-operative Association Inc.

In 1920 Coon was reported as advising other cheese makers to export their mature cheese product as there was high overseas demand.

Steve, mate - it's a case of Occam's pure and simple.

Update:

From Taylor Book:
"DAIRY STATE COLD STORAGE CO." Page 75

"The picture of the plant at the top of the page is of the cheese storage and curing plant. The buildings were originally built by the Reiland Packing Co. It operated successfully for several years under that title. The primary mover in the packing company was Nicholas Reiland, who has been a well known butcher and operated a meat market here. In 1924 the Reiland plant was taken over by E. Coon Company, and after a change in name and owners, became the Dairy State Cold Storage Co. with R. T. Gillespie as manager. The plant is located 2221 Gaynor Avenue."

The above is a factory site possibly belonging to Edward Coon.

In 1918:
Watertown.
The Times says: The Watertown
cheese market was firm on Saturday
when sales of 7,419 boxes were made
at 22% cents and better. As usual
better than the bulk of the cheese sold,
while the "Coon specials" sold for a
cent better th,an all others. The Coon
specials are made-by E. W. Coon,, of
Philadelphia, they are a firmer cheese
with more stock than the general run
of cheese. The price paid was the same
as a week ago, but the offerings were
somewhat smaller as the week (before
the sales aggregated 10,297 boxes.

In 1928:
Official announcement is made of"
the acquisition by the Kraft-Phenix
Cheese Company of several of. the^
larger chese companies of Lewis';
county and northern New York. • \i
These include purchase of the Interests
of R. M. Mills, of Watertown,
the St. Lawrence Milk Company of;
Massena, the Potsdam Creamery Company
of Potsdam, the E. W. Coon
Company of Philadelphia, Pa., and
Cape Vincent. » •.-;;
Sale of most of the companies was.
announced before, but It just became,
known that the Mills interests are included