OUR PM escapes the mob in Canberra today.
As for Tony Abbott, if you are not already aware that he is to blame for today's riot, you most certainly will be when the Phage, Silly and ABC have finished putting things in that "quality journalism" perspective.
What Abbott said: "Look, I can understand why the Tent Embassy was established all those years ago. I think a lot has changed for the better since then. We had the historic apology just a few years ago, one of the genuine achievements of Kevin Rudd as prime minister. We had the proposal which is currently for national consideration to recognise indigenous people in the constitution. I think the indigenous people of Australia can be very proud of the respect in which they are held by every Australian and yes, I think a lot has changed since then and I think it probably is time to move on from that.”
ReplyDeleteWhat protestor Michael Anderson said: "He said the Aboriginal embassy had to go, we heard it on a radio broadcast. We thought no way, so we circled around the building. You've got 1000 people here peacefully protesting and to make a statement about tearing down the embassy - it's just madness on the part of Tony Abbott. What he said amounts to inciting racial riots."
I'm embarrassed for Mr Anderson.
Tom,
DeleteThank you for that. Do you have a link to the transcript please?
News Limited seems to be laying the blame at Abbott's feet http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/gillard-and-abbott-run-protest-gauntlet/story-e6frea6u-1226254435221
ReplyDeleteFWIW I think the behaviour of the rioters was disgraceful.
The pictures of the fracas near the Parliament Buildings in Canberra reminded me of an old adage;-‘don’t send a woman to do a man’s job’. Julia looked terrified as well she should, being a) a woman and b) Welsh, a race which in common with the Italians is renowned for their fine voices ( Julia is an exception), and their lack of bravery under duress.
ReplyDeleteTony on the other hand looked as though he was relishing the imminent opportunity to snot some of his dusky antagonists.
The ABC’s little-lady-on-the-spot was asked by the studio anchor what caused the 1000 odd protesters that surrounded the restaurant, to turn violent. She, being a true acolyte of Auntie, launched into the usual “blame Abbott” mode, citing his earlier comments re today’s relevance of the Tent Embassy, and his mere presence at a Australia Day reward event. How dare he!
Wrong answer.
The answer to why violence erupted?
Aboriginals.
Some of those antagonists looked more dirty than dusky. They could be Litijus-Mordy tribespersons.
DeleteAccording to the ABC: "It appears the mob was incensed by remarks made by Mr Abbott earlier in the day in which he said he thought it was probably time to reconsider the relevance of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.abc.net.au/news/
The words, "thought" "probably" and "reconsider the relevance" of a 40 year-old blot on the landscape clearly indicate not only is Abbott a racist, he is most definitely to blame for the fiasco!
In my opinion, the fire hoses should have been rolled out years ago.
No wonder many of us have such disdain for the Aboriginal Industry.
JMH
Abbott's comment was racist and extremely disrespectfully. And toi make it on Invasion Day exacerbated the situation. The aboriginals were acting reasonably. The security people seriously overreacted.
ReplyDeleteIt might have been sensible to have read Tom's post at the top of the comments before putting your foot in your mouth.
DeleteAbbott responded reasonably to a question put in an interview.
It was totally misinterpreted by the leader of the rabble who then incited a riot.
I'm sure the overreaction was not among the security people.
I just watched on Ch 9 news. Credit where credit is due, Ms GIllard was terrific. Her police said it was time to go and she basically said, "well I reckon that you need to help out Abbott as well". The copper was like " Abbot?? Oh right".
ReplyDeleteSo, I thought Gillard did alright!! Mind you, I still loathe her, just less then before.
Was that a member of the Litijius-Mordy tribe who could be seen upfront and in the thick of it?
ReplyDeleteI think we should be told.
Every time I drive past this collection of junk and rubbish-littered ground, I note that we are actually afraid of a bunch of ragbags living on welfare - we have become so politically correct.
ReplyDeleteTalk about the Emperor's New Clothes.
I'm personally counting down the days until the Red Menace is given her marching orders by the electorate but I think what she had to endure today is completely and utterly unacceptable.
ReplyDeleteNote to Michael Anderson: Way to go genius...I'm sure that's guaranteed that anyone undecided on changing the Constitution will now vote Yes.
Fuck it, professor bunyip, we need to end this shit now. If the coppers won't do it, we must!
ReplyDeleteI wonder how Ms Thatcher would have handled the situation. I doubt that she would have run away like a frightened schoolgirl. But you never know.
ReplyDeleteShe would have called for Dennis!
DeleteTwo points.
ReplyDeleteEvery media company was there yet none have any video, apparently.
Abbott had every right to express a very moderate and general opinion about the tents. So any criticism of him actually indicates those making the criticism have with democracy. It's his role to express an opinion.
You pander to spoilt kids and you get worse behavior.. what a surprise..
ReplyDeleteTell people they are oppressed for decades, and have one side of politics feed that sense of resentment, and wonder why they have a chip on their shoulder?
Ive seen Julia run once before when she was chased out of Port Hedland by a bunch of "refugees", kicked off a riot as well.
Similar thing. Tell people they are being hard done by, and then wonder why they go ape shit every now and then. Its not rocket science. Labour has legitimized grievance mongers for decades nice to see it bite Julias capacious ass.
Pat Eatock proudly brandishes the spoils of their melle,
ReplyDeletehttp://resources1.news.com.au/images/2012/01/26/1226254/488173-gillard-shoe-tent-embassy.jpg
(didn't lose one, she found one!)
No doubt the indignation shown by the press following the "ditch the witch" protests at the Parliament House lawn last year is sure to follow. After all, the shocking lack of respect for the PM is a mark of the lower standard of discourse caused by right wing retirees, shock jocks etc.
ReplyDeleteSo now there's an 'apology' from aboriginal organisers of this melee to Julia Gillard, regretting that she was 'caught in the crossfire' of an assault intended for Tony Abbott. It's OK then to send a mob to attack the Leader of the Opposition?
ReplyDeleteThis is not 'Invasion Day', it is 'Australia Day'. Aboriginal people have set back their cause at least ten years with the majority of the Australian population, and their representatives should immediately and unreservedly apologise, loud and clear, to Mr. Abbott. The police should prosecute heavily anyone identified as being involved in ANY level of intimidation and violence or incitement to such. The final outcome should be the removal of an illegal shanty on public land and for aboriginal people to recognise that this is for most Australians a representation that shames aboriginal people as mendicants, not one that ispires or moves anyone, whatever their background.
Aboriginal people would be better off without this level of 1970's-style or Occupy-style 'tolerance'. An incoming Coalition government should have removal of this eyesore high on the agenda.
According to the Herald Sun:
ReplyDeleteAboriginal activists are treating Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s lost shoe as a trophy and will try to sell it online to raise money for their Canberra tent embassy.
If Pat Eatock or anyone else keep the shoe, surely that would be theft by finding.
ACT Criminal Code 2002:
304
Appropriation of property for pt 3.2
1. Any assumption of the rights of an owner to ownership, possession or control of property, without the consent of a person to whom the property belongs, is an appropriation of the property.
2. If a person has come by property (innocently or not) without committing theft, subsection (1) applies to any later assumption of those rights without consent by keeping or dealing with it as owner.
Spot on Deadman, however I'm sure that the left would rather lose the shoe than confront the guilty.
Delete@Phil E SteynJan 25, 2012 10:35 PM
ReplyDelete"Welsh, a race which in common with the Italians is renowned for their fine voices ( Julia is an exception), and their lack of bravery under duress."
I am not Welsh, but I can assure you that the Welsh are some of the toughest mad bastards on this planet!
By the way, it's 'a race which in common with the Italians are renowned'.
@JB GoodeJan 26, 2012 05:38 AM
ReplyDeleteSorry, 'race' as the subject in this sentence is singular therefore it requires the singular verb 'is'.
A couple of judicious commas might have helped with clarity - '...a race, which in common with the Italians, is renowned...'
And I do have a smattering of Welsh DNA but I firmly believe that in the tough mad bastard stakes it is totally overwhelmed by the input of the Irish and Scottish.
Let's lay off the sons of Cymru. Henry VIII was the toughest of mad bastards and fundamentally the Tewdors were Welsh. Like some of the Welsh, the Irish of course are the original Atlantic Coast wild men and the Scots are merely evolved or devolved Irish (take your pick) leavened by some washed-in Northern Europeans beserkers.
ReplyDeleteGillard should be judged on her lunatic policies not some weird idea of her 'ethnicity' generating them or the manner in which she handles a crisis.
Forget that weird idea. In terms of DNA we are all a dog's breakfast of mixed-up genes, and that obviously includes all 'cultural' aborigines too.
Well put, Lizzie. Robert Graves certainly had no complaints about the fighting spirit of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers he led and later wrote about in Goodbye To All That. The Welsh were prominent amongst the defenders of Rorke's Drift, especially amongst the VC recipients honoured for that action. And if J.B. Goode thinks cowards could come up with a song as stirring as Men Of Harlech (which, contrary to Hollywood, was not sung at Rorke's Drift), he is delusional.
ReplyDeleteAnd Goode also is out of line about the Italians. Would he have fought for the Western Desert campaign's German generals, who preferred to sacrifice Italians rather than their own Africa Korps? In any case, Italians do nothing well when gathered in large groups, organisational skills not being their forte.
But individually and in small groups many were paragons of bravery. The Italian frogmen, the Air Force -- they fought with a courage that verged on recklessness.
And actually, if he wants to go back to the Great War, he will be able to make no criticism of the Italians' conduct in that long, bloody and horrific Alpine campaign.
If nothing else, I urge him to read Halperin's novel "A Soldier Of The Great War".
But then it was Garibaldi who was too cheap to buy proper clothes for his rag-tag troops, and thus left us with "Socialism Red" as a reminder.
DeleteCheers
The zulu war "welsh" regiment was welsh in name not ethnicity. Google it.
Delete@Bunyip
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't me Sir,it was Phil E Steyn.
@ MeganJan 26, 2012 06:32 AM
ReplyDeleteMegan,can you explain to me why in Australia people say 'Essendon is playing Carlton' and in Britain it is 'Everton are playing Liverpool'?
Great question...it's a contextual anomaly between American and British English but why we do it, I have no idea.
DeleteBritish:
(A group of players from)Everton are playing Liverpool.
Plural noun 'players' agrees with plural verb 'are'
American: (The team from) Essendon are playing Carlton.
Singular noun 'team' agrees with singular verb 'is'
BUT, if we use Essendon's team name we revert to British English.
The Bombers are playing the Blues.
English and her grammar rules are fabulous but here endeth the lesson!
Sorry, can only claim I was distracted by the tennis:
DeleteEssendon IS playing Carlton.
Lizzie,
ReplyDeleteIt is quite possible that Henry VIII had more in common with the beserkers than the Cymru. Henry VII claimed descent from that famous bear-man (Art-gur, Arthur), who may have been a Norseman. The Norse controlled Anglesey for some years, together with Dublin, Isle of Man and the Hebrides, and the Tewders came from Anglesey.
I should say Ynys Mon instead of Anglesey, the latter being a corruption of Ongulsey, a Norse name. To read of the possible Norse connection to Arthur (whoever he was - I suspect Beowulf, another bear-man), see http://miriamellis.com/geneaology1.shtml
Megan
ReplyDeleteThanks for the answer but I can't see the differance in between the Welsh race and the Everton team.No doubt English is full of anomalys but I prefer the version spoken by the people who invented it, as opposed to American English,Pidgin English or even Kevin Rudd English.If we are not careful we could end up something like he following scenario-
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.
The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou"
and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.
You really should give accreditation to your source otherwise some unimaginative people may call it plagiarism.
Deletehttp://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j31/satires.php
Sorry,it was my mate,Dave.
DeleteIf a group of whatevers is doing whatever, the subject is group, and treated as singular,as it is ONE GROUP,so the verb should be singular.
ReplyDelete(So it isn't a group of whatevers ARE doing whatever, in grammatical terms)
Same for Bunch or lot or team etc.
That's the grammar I was taught 60 yeara ago and that I taught for 12 years later myself.
Understood Jazza,and congratulations on reaching 60,but my point is that you never hear the grammatically correct term used in Britain.
DeleteHere are a couple of lines from a UK sports page last week
Man City have told Milan they can have Carlos.
(Are you saying it should read 'Man City has told Milan it can have Carlos)?
So keen are Man City to emulate their neighbours.
(Should this be 'So keen is Man City to emulate it's neighbours)?
In the end it was City who were joyous.
Should this be ('In the end it was City who was joyous)?
Not when Liverpool were this poor
(Not when Liverpool was this poor)?
The fact United remain in the title race.
(The fact United remains in the title race)?