Reuters Poll Trend is back in business, presumably resuming its old methods of providing a weighted aggregate of results from Newspoll, Morgan and ACNielsen. As such it tells us nothing we didn’t already know, but its trend line is a handy thing to have. The current finding combines three weeks of results and has Labor’s two-party lead at 56.6-43.4, down from 57.3-42.7 previously.
Couple of legal matters to attend to:
• A legal challenge is proceeding against Labor’s 74-vote win in the seat of Chatsworth at the March 21 Queensland election. The LNP cites incidents of double voting and a strong overall result for Labor on absent votes as evidence of fraud. I’ve got a hat waiting to be eaten if the challenge is upheld.
• Gary Clark, husband of the former Lindsay MP Jackie Kelly, has been given the maximum fine of $1100 and ordered to pay more than $2000 in costs for his role in the distribution of fake pamphlets purporting to be from the “Islamic Australia Federation” in the week before the federal election. The ABC reports Magistrate Geoff Bradd aptly observing it was “difficult to think of a worst case of breaching the electoral act”, for which the penalties would seem to need strengthening.
• Note posts below on the latest state Newspoll results for Western Australia and South Australia.
BH, I don’t pray. But I thought I’d try it for a joke. The try looked good to me so I was pretty surprised when it wasn’t given. If it worked for a naughty catholic, I suppose it could work for anybody.
BH – we’ll have to try Centre’s prayer.
But I’d be on my knees the whole game while watching the Bunnies 🙂
from Red Wombat’s post
[MALCOLM Turnbull might be a new style of Liberal leader, but he will take a trip back in time tonight as guest of honour at a $5500 per plate fundraiser at one of Melbourne’s exclusive men-only clubs.]
Another Big Swinging Dicks club I presume?
vera your bunnies don’t need a prayer, they need a full blown miracle 🙂
[Joe Hockey’s assumptions deconstructed:]
That’s very good, but not as good as last night’s episode of Catalyst, that featured Maryanne Demasi RUNNING!
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2577263.htm
[MALCOLM Turnbull might be a new style of Liberal leader, but he will take a trip back in time tonight as guest of honour at a $5500 per plate fundraiser at one of Melbourne’s exclusive men-only clubs.]
Wow, the Liberals are obviously extremely financially desperate. The Austrlaian article mentions this:
[Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls has hinted he may amend anti-discrimination laws to force private clubs to admit women as members.]
I hope they do enact such laws, and they should force religions organisations to end their discrimination against women.
Dear Pollbludgers,
I’d be interested in people’s thoughts on the question of why you don’t vote for the Greens – especially if you’re a swing voter, or not rusted on to major party.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/05/22/why-dont-you-vote-green/
It’s not meant to be an exercise in spleen venting, but an honest question looking for honest answers.
Lots of old fossils in Chesterfields using ear trumpets listening to their new Saviour Malcolm by the sound of that gathering.
While Malcolm’s trying to woo Melbourne poor old Petey is in Sydney trying to woo the Gordon Gheckos.
And Clarke & Dawe parody Joe perfectly.
Meanwhile the MSM is hung up on Kev not saying $300b every time he opens his mouth.
We live in interesting times.
Ohh! Centre, be nice! The Bunnies will flog the Eels tonight (she says with fingers crossed tightly behind her back 😉 )
On a different topic, it seems like the Govt will overhaul the NT Intervention soon.
[THE Northern Territory intervention into languishing Aboriginal communities will be dramatically altered, with the Government flagging moves to allow people to opt out of compulsory income management and the watering down of blanket alcohol and pornography rules.
The Rudd Government said yesterday it was motivated by a desire to reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act, which was controversially suspended to allow the intervention to occur and allow Aboriginal people to determine its future.]
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25520169-601,00.html
Changes to the NT intervention will never pass the Senate. Possible DD trigger there.
I see no-one has read that article I found so, at great expense to the management, I’ve slogged through it. I’ll stop if everyone is sick of it or it’s just too revolting (my stomach is a bit queasy reading it)
We have to get our definitions right first.
1. Paedophilia is “attracted to prepubescents (<13), and there are two types
(i) Non-exclusive (90%)-familial abuse, low numbers victims per offender
(ii) Exclusive (10%)- fixated on a type and age of child, large numbers of victims per offender
2. Ephebophilia is “attracted to post-pubertal, ie 14+”
The 5 studies on Catholic Clergy give the following rates
Pedophilia-2.7%, 0.3%, 2%, 0.3%, 1.2%
Ephebophilia- 8.4%, 6%, 4%, 3%, 1.5%
I cannot find, for the life of me, a single reference to the prevalence of paedophiles and ephebophiles in the general population. There are lots of estimates of the rate of victims (about 20% girls and 5% boys).
I will include an article I saw from the Catholic Church which addressed a lot of the points raised so far. I am IN NO WAY endorsing their position. I’m just linking it for your edification.
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/facts/fm0011.html
Centaur009 has been banned due to accumulated acts of stupidity.
I realise that this isn’t the topic, but did everyone else know that Andrew Wilkie is running as an independent for state Denison. Not sure how I missed that one for two months.
That’s entirely on topic, Phil. I didn’t know that either, and I’m glad I do now.
[We have to get our definitions right first.
1. Paedophilia is “attracted to prepubescents (<13), and there are two types
(i) Non-exclusive (90%)-familial abuse, low numbers victims per offender
(ii) Exclusive (10%)- fixated on a type and age of child, large numbers of victims per offender
2. Ephebophilia is “attracted to post-pubertal, ie 14+”]
Diog, I do WORRY about you.
“Centaur009 has been banned due to accumulated acts of stupidity.”
Naughty boy.
Dio – I worked in a law firm handling a lot of child sexual abuse, etc. It is extremely disturbing and caused many sleepless nights.
It’s a tragedy for all involved and altho I had no time for the perpetrators we found that most of them had been abused as children so it helped to understand them a little.
It was the people in positions of trust who upset me more – the teachers, clergymen (yep, not only Catholics) and the so-called upright citizens who were protected. The latter were often allowed entry to the Courtroom via the back door and I wanted to shout about it in the streets. I still find it difficult to look at them whenever I’m at the same function.
It’s a difficult area to work in and I have enormous admiration for those who cope with it all daily.
It’s great that it is all out in the open now and perhaps the authorities will no longer allow it to be swept under the carpet.
Hopefully you can wade through the rest of the article and let us know – I wouldn’t be able to read it myself.
Vera – leave my Eels alone please. They are having a bad enough time without the bunnies getting their teeth stuck into them.
Are we still on anughty priests are we? That’s where I left you all at about 7 last night.
The Catholic Church is not full of paedophiles. What it’s full of is unhappy celibates. Life-long celibacy is an unnatural condition for human males, and leads to all kinds of psychological disorders. Sexuality is the most powerful human drive and if repressed will always find an outlet somewhere. It can express itself as fanatical dogmatism, hysterical Mariolatry, sadism (see any Christian Brothers school), paedophilia, ephebophilia and mental illness. After Vatican 2 there was a huge exodus of younger, relatively sexually healthy priests, most of whom who left to get married. What’s left is a residuum of elderly, unhappy, frustrated, repressed men, a high proportion of whom are either practising or non-practising homosexuals, filled with self-loathing and undirected anger. The Catholic Church is a deeply sick organisation and why anyone entrusts the education of their children to it is beyond me.
Exactly, Adam. But how much longer before they make some changes – perhaps they need a younger Head of the Church.
Sorry – Psephos.
Psephos,
Hospitals, Aged Care Facilities, St Vinnies, Schools and Universities and other welfare services?
The Catholic Church is not perfect and many here and elsewhere seem to rejoice of its failings, but it is not “a deeply sick organisation”.
[Exactly, Adam. But how much longer before they make some changes – perhaps they need a younger Head of the Church.]
We can’t wait for them to make changes, the Australian government should pass a law that makes it an offence for any organisation to discriminate against a person based on their marital status.
The catholic church’s insistences that priests can’t marry should be considered a breach of Australian law, and basic human rights. Consenting adults should be allowed to marry whoever they want whenever they want. Priests shouldn’t be forced to give up that human right just because they want to be a member of a private organisation. That’s a form of discrimination, that causes people great sickness and hardship, and arguably puts at risk the well-being of others.
[The Catholic Church is not perfect and many here and elsewhere seem to rejoice of its failings, but it is not “a deeply sick organisation”.]
It’s like any cult, some people are in it because they truly believe in its goodness, while others are in it because they like exploiting and controlling the goodwill of others for their own gratification.
Most forms of group think can be broken down into those two motivating factors.
[Hospitals, Aged Care Facilities, St Vinnies, Schools and Universities and other welfare services?]
There is no positive moral action that can be made for religions reasons that couldn’t also be made for non-religious reasons. Religion doesn’t have a mortgage on human compassion.
Most hospitals, age care facilities, charities, schools and universities are NOT religious organisations. Nor should they be, because the ways some of those organisations should be run completely contradicts central aspects of religious teaching.
ShowsOn,
You have a very narrow understanding of peoples’ motivations and it shows.
[We can’t wait for them to make changes, the Australian government should pass a law that makes it an offence for any organisation to discriminate against a person based on their marital status.]
There is also a conflicting right to religious expression. And when you become a Catholic priest, you are fully aware that they don’t let you get married.
I can’t believe I’m here batting for the Catholics side. 👿
ShowsOn,
Social Welfare in Australia would collapse without the volunteerism and passion of the Churches and their various Misnistries.
How much authority does Opus Dei have on the church in Australia. It’s a shame that if all the good works can be undone in the eyes of some by the bad.
The priest in Brissie proved that its people will enjoy their religion when changes are made. Why do some think that religion has to wallow in dark ages rituals – it can only be a reluctance to give up power.
We all have a right to our own belief, Dio – Catholic, or not, so I join you in sticking up for them.
The Catholics do not keep their followers from the rest of the Community as in Exclusive Brethren.
Psephos is right tho – there are many, many unhappy blokes within the Church. They need to cater for that if the priesthood is to survive.
[You have a very narrow understanding of peoples’ motivations and it shows.]
Explain to me other motivations?
I guess I did miss one out. There are some people who THINK they are helping people, but they are actually harming them.
[There is also a conflicting right to religious expression. ]
Religious expression isn’t an excuse for infringing other rights. The right to freely associate in a religion is important, but it isn’t a veto card that over-rides other obligations.
If a person argued in court “I murdered that person because my religion’s rules told me I had to”, that wouldn’t be considered a very persuasive argument.
I am proposing that modern liberal democratic states should intervene more in private organisations when those organisations breech fundamental principles that underpin liberty and democracy, discriminating based on marital status, or on gender is not something we accept in the work place, it shouldn’t be tolerated in private organisations either.
[Social Welfare in Australia would collapse without the volunteerism and passion of the Churches and their various Misnistries.]
Volunteerism and compassion aren’t religious values, they are HUMAN values that all people are capable of expressing irrespective of their religious affiliation. Being able to empathise and sympathise are traits humans acquired via evolutionary pressures that help us survive, they are not caused or created by religious affiliation or belief.
[The priest in Brissie proved that its people will enjoy their religion when changes are made. Why do some think that religion has to wallow in dark ages rituals – it can only be a reluctance to give up power.]
Of course, a small group of people having power over a larger group of people seems to be one of the motivating factors of religious organisations.
The church that was shut down in Brisbane is a perfect example of how intolerant the Catholic Church is. They shut that guy’s church down, yet pay the rent for convicted paedophiles. They have no perspective on how the real world actually works.
[We all have a right to our own belief, Dio – Catholic, or not, so I join you in sticking up for them.]
Sure we all have a right to believe whatever we want, but we don’t necessarily have a right to act on those beliefs.
For example, there are probably some extremist Islamic scholars in Australia who ideally think everyone in Australia should be converted to Islam. Does that mean the government should allow the church to forcibly convert everyone to Islam?
The freedom of a person to adhere to a religion isn’t an absolute right, they also have other obligations to the state that when push comes to shove, over-ride their religious affiliation. They have to abide by Australian laws, that may contradict their religious teaching, but ultimately, those laws are the law of the land, not their religious beliefs.
I am proposing that liberal democratic countries should move a bit further into enforcing certain laws on religious organisations that are accepted outside of those organisations. Stopping religious organisations from discriminating based on gender, sexuality, and marital status would be a good place to start.
Showson,
You really are in rant mode today. You seem especially enamoured with legislating moral behaviour and lecturing others about their alleged shortcomings. No doubt you would have done very well if born to the Taliban regime.
The Catholic Church is a private organisation and it can’t be told by the state how to run its internal affairs. If the Church (or any other private organisation) wants to exclude homosexuals, women, etc, that is their right – but they shouldn’t get any state funding. My personal view is that the Catholic Church ought not to be allowed to run anything that gives it custody of minors, not just because of the risk of sexual abuse but because its whole internal culture is deeply unhealthy and not conducive to the development of children or adolescents. If a secular welfare agency had the kind of record of abuse that the Catholic Church has, it wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near children. Of course that’s not going to happen, so the best we can do is insist that state funding carries with it very close state scrutiny.
[perhaps they need a younger Head of the Church.]
Many a young but poor Indian men are joining the Catholic Priesthood at the moment. They join not because of the Catholic and its teaching.
They join because the priesthood gives them a good and secure job, “respected” and certain authority over the villagers. Apparently, they dont pay very much attention to the vow of celibacy. Rather sad, but it’s true.
Psephos, as far as I’m aware many private organisations are subject to equal opportunity employment provisions in legislation.
psephos,
I think you may have “jumped the shark”.
Been out to any Catholic Schools lately. Most of them have desks, computers, books and children. Many of the children have been able to escape this terrible institutionalisation to become notable citizens in life.
Many of them remain Catholics as the circle of life turns again.
[You really are in rant mode today. You seem especially enamoured with legislating moral behaviour and lecturing others about their alleged shortcomings. No doubt you would have done very well if born to the Taliban regime.]
WOW! Reductio ad Talibanerum! I guess you had to work out a way to avoid that reductio ad Hitlerum.
I note you were unable to respond to my actual argument.
[The Catholic Church is a private organisation and it can’t be told by the state how to run its internal affairs.]
Why not? I am not being facetious. What is the grounds that SOME aspects of religious organisations can’t be modified or regulated?
It seems to me it is based on a belief that “religious belief” is a complete veto against any interference by the state. But to me this is absurd, if an anti-abortion campaigner kills an abortionist, and says “well it is my religious belief that motivated me to kill him”, a court won’t say “well that’s fine then! Why didn’t you say so earlier!”
Remember, the Victorian Attorney General is considering amending Victorian laws to force private clubs to accept women:
[Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls has hinted he may amend anti-discrimination laws to force private clubs to admit women as members. ]
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/houserules/index.php/theaustralian/comments/turnbull_in_men_only_club_fundraiser/
If those private clubs can have their actions / beliefs / rules / doctrines regulated, why not religions?
I am NOT saying there should be an act of parliament calling Catholic or Islamic doctrine WRONG. Rather, like so many other things governments do, they should regulate SOME of the ways the organisations operate, specifically those aspects that contradict our discrimination laws.
[They join because the priesthood gives them a good and secure job, “respected” and certain authority over the villagers. Apparently, they dont pay very much attention to the vow of celibacy. Rather sad, but it’s true.]
Can someone educate me on the purpose of the being celibate? And not in the Hitchensesque patronising ‘aren’t i smarter than anyone that believes in god’ way.
[Psephos, as far as I’m aware many private organisations are subject to equal opportunity employment provisions in legislation.]
The priesthood is not a form of employment, it’s a religious vocation. To require a religious organisation to violate its beliefs in the performance of its purely religious functions, to conform with the secular state’s beliefs, is not acceptable in a democracy, and I say that as a fairly militant atheist. (I’m not talking about Catholic schools or hospitals here, only the Church’s sacerdotal functions.)
GG, spare me the sarcasm, you know what I’m talking about.
Diog,
You’ll be pleased to know that Penny Wong is now being lauded as the Minister of Cool. Special feature in the Oz. Must be on the rise! Australia can only benefit, don’t you agree?
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25521615-5012694,00.html
[To require a religious organisation to violate its beliefs in the performance of its purely religious functions, to conform with the secular state’s beliefs, is not acceptable in a democracy]
Well I agree with this at least. In any event I can’t imagine any Government would seriously consider attempting to intervene in religious organisations too much. And certainly not ‘mainstream’ religions.
[Been out to any Catholic Schools lately. Most of them have desks, computers, books and children. ]
His point was that there should be no arbitrary division of having “catholic children” (of course that term is oxymoronic, no child is born believing religion) separated from Islamic, Atheist, Protestant, Flatearthers.
Australia is a liberal democratic secular society, people are more tolerant and accepting when they grow up around people from all sorts of races, religions, cultural and socio economic backgrounds. Interacting with people differing from oneself inherently creates tolerance and understanding that division can’t achieve.
If you want proof, have a look at Ireland that took years to develop peaceful coexistence, which could’ve been achieved much faster if it promoted INTEGRATION, instead of arbitrary labelling.
Psephos,
Your rhetoric is overblown cant because it does not tally with the reality of what is actually happening.
Who do you want me to believe? You, or my own eyes?
GG, as i alluded previously, She’s a Hakka Chinese woman. they are the toughest and smile a lot.
ShowsOn, that’s all perfectly true, but no democracy is going to prevent parents educating their children in conformity with their own beliefs. Your argument if followed through would lead to a ban on all private education, and that is not going to happen.
Finns,
Does that make her an honorary or full blown hack?
Is that anything like a Hakka burning love?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZpl9kRBzKQ
[She’s a Hakka Chinese woman. they are the toughest and smile a lot.]
She’s lived in Australia since she was eight. This sort of commentary is both racist and patronising.
[The priesthood is not a form of employment, it’s a religious vocation. ]
Well we can revoke that technicality with a piece of legislation. 😀
[To require a religious organisation to violate its beliefs in the performance of its purely religious functions, to conform with the secular state’s beliefs, is not acceptable in a democracy,]
But we do it every day! If some wacko Islamic ‘scholar’ stands up and says Australians should be converted to Islam, we consider this unacceptable. If some Muslims in Melbourne devise a plan to bomb the MCG to punish Australian ‘kafirs’, we arrest them and charge them for being suspected terrorists. If parents in a religious organisation stop their child from receiving medical treatment, and the child dies, the parents can be charged with ill-treatment of that child.
Religious laws and secular laws often come in conflict, and the secular laws always trump the secular laws.
Why should laws concerning discrimination based on gender, age, sexuality, or martial status be any different?
Why wait for children to die, or terrorist planes to be hatched BEFORE the state intervenes to place certain limited standards on the way religions run?
Herr Doktor, you aint got a clue. Go back to your hole in Canberra.