Occasional snapshots from the news and current affairs … it helps if you keep up with the news
At her National Press Club debut appearance today, Pauline Hanson promised female reporter Sarah Martin from Guardian Australia to ban her from One Nation press conferences in the future to lessen the reporter’s opportunity to write further heavily biased articles against her and her party. There was applause for Hanson.
In her speech, she also promised to make the ABC a mostly subscription service except for its regional services, close down SBS as no longer required along with several expensive government departments, starting with all the climate change bureaucracies and Aboriginal spendathons. Quoting damning statistics, Hanson delivered a picture of a rich country spending wastefully but failing many sections of society, including young people who are now virtually shut out of the housing market.
She was outraged by stats from the Salvation Army’s latest Red Shield Report released in May, which included some confronting results:
“Of the 4,400 people surveyed:
- 19 per cent said they’d eaten food from rubbish bins in the past 12 months;
- 60 per cent said they’d eaten expired or spoiled food;
- 91 per cent said they had skipped meals and 32 per cent said they do so on a daily basis;
- 35 per cent said they survived on only one meal a day;
- 67 per cent said they watered down food and drinks to make them last longer;
- 35 per cent of parents said their children had gone to school hungry;
- 59 per cent said their children had missed school because they couldn’t afford the transport costs;
- 84 per cent said they went to bed early to keep warm;
- 63 per cent said they used candles and torches for lighting their homes;
- 49 per cent said they go to public places like shopping centres to keep warm or cool;
- 51 per cent can’t afford a doctor, dentist or optometrist; and
- 46 per cent can’t afford prescription medicine. This is unacceptable to me and my Party.”
Her robust attack on Anthony Albanese and his Labor government was supported by the stats like the ones above, but she also touched on cultural issues. Indeed, she started by saying she would not be making an acknowledgement of country while acknowledging the many Australians and migrants who helped make Australia great.
But her fiercest attack was aimed at radical Muslims, who will not be tolerated under any One Nation party she leads. It was the spearhead to her broader critique of immigration policies, followed by her damning deconstruction of energy policy based on climate change ideology.
It was a strong performance, closing with punchy answers to a variety of questions from the press – whom she collectively scolded for their persistent bias against her.
“I am aware that I am at the National Press Club, but I am delighted that I can speak to the people of Australia and they are the people to whom I am accountable,” she began.
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Judges cancelling a fellow judge … rule of (out)law.
The other day we reported: “The egregious delays by some judges in delivering reserved judgments [that] represent a real and growing threat to the rule of law in Australia,” as Federal Court judge Ian Jackman (Hugh’s brother) said on Thursday night to the Rule of Law Institute in a speech that explores what the rule of law means…. Justice Jackman’s colleagues, apparently, are not open to discussion. On Friday his speech was taken down from the court’s website with no explanation given.”
Columnist and lawyer Janet Albrechtson had a few words to say on this: “When we asked the Chief Justice of the Federal Court, Debra Mortimer, for her response to the speech and why it was removed from the court’s website, all she would say, through a spokesperson, was that she had “communicated with all Federal Court judges, registrars and staff today, including about the removal”. I wouldn’t call that an answer; it’s more like a shrug. (It could be counterproductive, with more people curious to read this evidently subversive oration …)
Jackman caused a stir last week when he named six Federal Court judges who had taken around 2½ years to deliver judgments.
Janet A makes a good point: “The Sex Discrimination Act is crying out for elucidation from the High Court because the rule of law has plenty to say about laws that are impossible to follow or absurd. Should the justices want a refresher course on that, they might wish to read Jackman’s oration. Though the Federal Court has expunged it, it is available on the Rule of Law Institute website.”
Judge Watch: While Chief Justice of the Federal Court, Debra Mortimer is cancelling speech, local court Judge Susan Horan is cancelling permission … for Ben Roberts-Smith to attend a graduation parade and party for Henry Diddams, the son of an SAS sergeant killed fighting the Taliban in 2012, Blaine Diddams. But at least the Federal Court’s Ian Jackman is beyond reproach.
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Antisemitism royal commissioner Virginia Bell has overruled an application by the government to hide from her inquiry evidence by spymaster Mike Burgess on federal counter-terrorism funding – her third decision against Labor and its claims for cabinet confidence.
Documents quietly released by the Antisemitism and Social Cohesion Royal Commission show the former High Court justice last week granted herself access to hidden evidence by Mr Burgess, the ASIO director-general, ruling “the public interest in that limited scope of disclosure” overruled cabinet confidence.
Ahead of his cross-examination at the commission last month, Mr Burgess advised the government planned to block part of his evidence from being considered.
It “intends to assert public interest immunity in relation to whether cabinet or the National Security Committee of cabinet made a decision or issued a direction” on funding allocations by security and intelligence services, he said.
The federal government previously tried and failed to suppress cabinet documents that show what it knew and when about the sinking proportion of security and intelligence funding allocated to counter-terrorism from 2020 to 2025.