Joe’s Views and Commentary

Chief Police Commissioner - would you dare to publish statistics?
Almost daily somebody is murdered on Melbourne streets. We can read the usual statements of how sorry we are and that such crime is absolutely unacceptable. The attackers are usually described as those of “Asian appearance” , “Middle Eastern appearance” , “Southern European appearance”, “Aboriginal appearance” and this is as far as we go.
I suggest that the Chief Police Commissioner should provide us with some down to earth statistics if he dares or is allowed to do. We want to know number of crimes committed by members of migrant communities and the percentage of such communities in total Australian population. And while we are at it, it would be helpful to state the percentage of each community on welfare benefits.
Don’t hold your breath. To disclose such information may offend tender feelings of often self-styled ethnic leaders. Why is should be so? After all if we say that according to police records X % of certain nationality have criminal records while they represent X % of Australian population? Such information would be a mere statement of fact. Are we so bamboozled by politically correct mob that we are scared to state facts?

If our immigration officers issuing visa to visitors and intending migrants were aware of such statistics, they may exercise extra caution when dealing with certain nationalities. What would be wrong with this? The population at large is entitled to know!

Subject: Uneven contest!

One parrot versus 1000 jobs = no contest! How on earth can we advance economically when some 1000 jobs are threatened because of a single parrot regardless how pretty he/she may be! The Federal Minister for Environment is considering if logging project could go ahead. If this was repeated 100 times around Australia a small army of 100000 workers would be denied employment. Wouldn’t it be easier to relocate such parrot into a zoo, where it would be protected against feral cats?

I have read excellent articles of Andrew Bolt relating to our water shortage. Thus I am puzzled by Tim Holding’s - Minister for Water argument ( Herald-Sun 28.4.09 ) that “we need water, not storage”. Perhaps the Minister could enlighten us where we would store the water we need it not in storages. Imagine what our position would be today if Thompson dam didn’t exist. It was constructed in spite of some misguided opposition at the time and is still the largest dam for our water supply. What would have happened to water if the dam wasn’t build? Disappeared without any benefit whatsoever. The Minister’s argument simply couldn’t hold the water! The almost regular flooding by Mitchell river could be utilized for the benefit of Melbourne.

Thus the Government spends more on desalination plant than it would cost to build the dam. Such plant will require the vast amount of electricity to keep it running. Where will it come from? From our overloaded  system generated by coal fired power stations? Not so long ago we were asked to limit the use of electricity because of heavy overload. Are we not going to duplicate our problem?  It may well be that in not too distant future we will find ourselves short of electricity and water at the same time. It is time for common sense to prevail and these non-sensical greenie philosophies that govern our government’s  actions are thrown out of the window!

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Following the disastrous fires engulfing large part of Victoria the Government came up with the usual spiel. Increase penalties for firebugs! What a nonsense! If it wants to do something it would be much smarter to reduce existing penalties by half but make these penalties mandatory. Every citizen is well aware that maximum penalties are never applied. As long as the Government keeps appointing magistrates and judges who are hell bent to pass ridiculously low sentences ignoring the maximum penalties, the current unsatisfactory state will continue. If you wish to see a proof just wait and see when the firebugs are apprehended and brought to court. The pain and fire victims, the losses and suffering and the effort of police will fade away. Instead there will be the usual defense lawyers picnic - on taxpayers expense - trying to argue that the “poor chap” only wanted to warm his hands on a chilly night when he lit the fire. The community demands that firebugs should be given the maximum sentences available. Meanwhile I join the law abiding community in expressing the deepest sorrow and sympathy to victims of this senseless and horrendous crime.

Let me state on the onset that I don’t belong to artist community. Thus it will be unlikely for me to be selected in performing on stage. One thing brings me to tears. The tendency of new singers to stuff up a perfectly nice tune and lyrics with their own interpretation that makes it almost impossible to distinquish what was the name of the song let alone the lyrics.
Am I being to harsh on performers? I don’t think so. To hear such wonderful tune as “Amazing Grace” being jazzed up beyond recognition calls to heaven.
This so called modern interpretation doesn’t stop there. Did you ever hear Australian national anthem to be screamed on the M.C.G. according to a whim of a performer?

There are certain songs that should be sung the way they were originally written. Can someone imagine Marseillaise the French national anthem, Deutschland Uber Alles or God Save the Queen being song according to fancy of a performer? It would be considered as national insult and rightly so. Why should we have less pride in our national anthem?

Once again we are confronted with floods causing large damage while escaping from Mitchell river into sea. It is ironical that at the same time Victorian Government is considering increased charges for water use by householders. Yet the answer to our water shortages is simple. Build a new dam!  Such project would eliminate the regular flooding and harness water now escaping to sea at no benefit to anyone. Why this has not been considered by our Government? Is it because the ideological nonsense our green religion prevents construction of new dams?  We can go ahead and built a desalination plant at an enormous cost to taxpayers, we can lay pipeline from one water starving part of the State to another, but at no account use the common sense word “dam”! This word seems to be a taboo. Why?

I have yet to hear any Minister giving  a logical explanation while such dam project could not be build. It appears the State Government is under pressure of a small minority living in high rise luxury units without any garden to look after. Thus water starved Melbourne citizens will continue to suffer while a common sense solution is ignored. For havens sake tell greenies where to go and govern in the interest of vast majority of Victorian citizens.

Subject: To pray or not to pray?

It had to happen. The Speaker Harry Jennings called for debate of whether daily Lord’s Prayer read on opening of federal parliament should be replaced. Replaced by what? Reading selected passages from the Muslim Koran, the Jewish Torah or any group of our multicultural society? If it’s good for one religion, what not for another? Mr. Jenkins suggested that the prayer could be replaced by an acknowledgment of the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land. I suspect that Mr. Jenkin’s call for public debate will open a pandoras box. What form will this “traditional ownership acknowledgment” take place? Read in English some form of yet another apology for being where we are? Or perhaps having a ceremonial fire and dance on the floor of Parliament House?

I would have thought that the apology to Aboriginal people made by the Prime Minister and seconded by the Leader of the Opposition on opening of new Parliament would have been enough to close this part of our history once and for all. Unfortunately they are some people with a mistaken belief that the more we wallow in dirt the more we will be admired by our indigenous fellow Australians. History should have taught us the contrary is the truth. Instead of highlighting the Aborigines as an equal part of our Australian community we seem to stress the differences for no purpose. I hope that Speaker Jenkins will seriously reconsider his suggestion. Some proposals are easy to put into operation but to change these would take generations. I trust that there will be strong opposition to above proposal.

I was absolutely amazed by an article in Herald-Sun 23.8.08 by Susie O.Brien. This should be made a compulsory reading for any prospective employer and “bosses”.  It lists changes to Equal Opportunity Act coming to force on 1st. September. The article describes a new utopia for workers. It appears the originators have made a list of all the nice things employee may like and then promised them a lot!  All this will be enforceable by law by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission.

What this article contains? “The right to flexible working hours, shift work or part-time work, working from home or job sharing, starting or finishing earlier, break times, rostering of meetings, the allocation of travel work, travel trips and the use of extended unpaid leave.”

If not complied with the Commission has the power to direct an employer to apologise, change their work practices and even pay compensation. If anybody could find an employer mad enough to comply with these conditions and stay in business, please let him contact me!

It is an irony that on the same day a number of companies announced retrenchment of hundreds of workers from the businesses that are no longer economically viable, even now before the new conditions come to force. What effect it would have on future employment?  Does anybody really think that enforcing such wish list will help to pay mortgages by retrenched workers?

It seems that the whole nation is in a grip of carbon emission scheme. On one hand some scientists threaten us with dire consequence if we don’t jump immediately on the bandwagon of this new religion, on the other hand we can find other equally  eminent scientists disputing these claims as nonsense. Where is the truth? Let us not fall victims to this new voodoo economics bordering to hysteria. We are told that unless we accept the CES Australia will become a ruin. Not tomorrow, but in 100 years or so. Unfortunately I won’t be around to witness this, nor will be any of the advocates of this gloom. Thus I will not be able to tell the proponents of this new philosophy ” what you preached 100 years ago is a sheer nonsense.” Neither will they be around to say “sorry - but we thought..” 

Our government wants to be a leader in climate change field. We even have a Federal Climate Change Minister Penny Wong to guide us. It is perfectly obvious that unless the biggest air polluters such as China, India and the USA join the bandwagon, Australia’s maverick action would have only a marginal effect on our global climate. However by adopting it, we will cause great damage to our industries and to our living standard. We are told that families will be put at disadvantage by increased costs in fuels. transport and consumer goods but at the same time that families will be compensated in some way. One may ask  why cause the price increases in the first place, if we are going to compensate these families later? Why not leave it as is?

Our water resources are not enough to cope with increased population. Yet in donkey like fashion we bring tens of thousands of new migrants into this country every year regardless. The only sensible solution would be to build new dams. Thus in time of rains bigger volume of water could be stored, instead of water flooding parts of country and escaping to ocean. However part of the voodoo religion is that no new dams will be build. Thus we will be exposed to more and more water restrictions just trying to cope. Just keep bringing more and more migrants in to share our limited water resources but do not build any extra water storages. Where is the common sense? Green religion will take care of that we are told.

Nobody disputes the need for clean air. Our power generators emit a great deal of carbon monoxide. The modern society needs electric power to exist. How to generate it? One of the ironies is that while we have vast uranium deposits and supply  many countries to feed their power stations, we refuse to use this clean, safe and cheap resource for ourselves. According to International Atomic Energy Agency there are some 433  nuclear reactors in 32 countries with another 34 reactors under construction. Some countries, notably France are depended on nuclear generated electricity. But us? We are willing to export the stuff but heavens forbid, not to use it ourselves.

Gone are the days when misguided individuals accepted communist propaganda that there are two types of nuclear power. One is a good nuclear one as used by the then USSR, called “clean nuclear” the other is the harmful  ”capitalist nuclear power” that should be universally condemned. Some dupes and fellow travelers accepted this communist dogma as a gospel and even now after 18 years of discredited philosophy still cling to their mistaken beliefs. Old habits die hard.
If our government wants cheap and clean electricity it should act now and reverse its policy against nuclear power generation and building new dams. Would my suggestion be too simple to contemplate?

Melbourne - our “most livable city” was hit by severe storm. There is little we can do to prevent storms but we should be able to minimize the damage caused mainly by uprooted gum trees. I would like to hear from our councils reason for planting gum trees that can reach up to 30 meters in height on nature strips that are some 2.5 meter wide. The roots that are up to 2.5 meter in length cause cracking of concrete footpath, damage to fences, require plenty of scares water, falling leaves create nuisance all year round, are major breeding grounds for termites, are extremely brittle and in strong wind get uprooted, causing substantial damage to property, cars, power supplies and sometime lead to loss of lives.

Surely we have plenty of native flowering shrubs that could be planted on our nature strips. I have nothing against gum trees in the bush or open paddocks . This is where they belong but to plant them in the suburbia seems crazy.