andrewmcintyre.org

Playing on pure emotion saves thinking about real solutions

As soon as the promos started on SBS for its new programme Go Back to where you Came from, it was clear that here we had yet another emotionally manipulating and facile explanation of the “truth” about our refugees. It was quite obvious what it wanted to prove and what it wanted the hapless participants to think.

One of the most passionate and enduring debates in this country has been built on a falsity, a false choice that is being carefully recrafted, repackaged and re-presented on SBS this week, at taxpayer expense.

It is stacked with commentary, from the narration, to the structure, to the guide, Dr David Corlett, who is immersed in the refugee industry, is highly political, and in 2003 wrote a Quarterly Essay, ”Sending Them Home”, with Robert Manne. This is the producers’ idea of dispassionate objectivity.

Another shameless programme of lecturing, hectoring ideology.

Not a happy birthday

The truth is apparently sinking in.

A valued and celebrated contributor for free speech

In a very moving gesture of solidarity with Andrew Bolt over his recent trial under the Racial Vilification Act, well over 500 people turned out last night to listen to several speakers arguing the importance of free speech in Australia.

Organised by the IPA, the speakers included Paul Howes, Dr David Kemp, Michael Kroger, Professor Jim Allan, and a highly amusing video message from Mark Steyn.

Jim Allan explained, in the light of the specific legislation, why freedom of speech necessarily involved offending some people:

This is politically correct, pandering, group rights-inspired legislation.

The only sort of free speech that matters is the sort that offends some people somewhere. In a situation where all is agreement and harmony and people sitting in circles, holding hands, and singing Kumbaya, the concept of liberty and free speech does nothing. You will never have to fight for it meaning a freedom only to act or speak within the bounds of agreed opinion, good taste and proper decorum just isn’t valuable. It doesn’t carry with it any obvious good consequences.

The threat to our freedom of speech in the West today does not come from some Soviet-style secret police. No, it comes from turf-protecting bureaucrats who find themselves all of a sudden in the human rights game; it comes from people who want to create a right not to be offended.

David Kemp gave a brilliant analysis of  why Michael Lavarch, former Labor attorney General, was directly responsible for drafting what is effectively an anti-democratic, stifling and dangerous piece of legislation, that should urgently be abolished.

All the speeches, all remarkably incisive and passionate defences of freedom of speech, including Mark Stein’s very very amusing but powerful message, should be up on the IPA website soon.  is now available.

In the meantime, with two standing ovations, the atmosphere was charged with overwhelming good will, support and dare I say, pride and gratitude towards Andrew Bolt for his strong stands on so many issues. Bolt, unsurprisingly, was slightly overwhelmed and moved to speechlessness by this groundswell of support for him.

He is, after all, slightly shy and very modest. Way back in 2004 I interviewed and wrote a profile on him, Bolt on Bolt, in the IPA Review. I observed then:

WHEN one meets Andrew Bolt, one is struck by extreme courtesy, warmth, directness and lack of pretension. This would be a surprise if one took seriously the remarks of those who criticize him: Attila the Hun, inflammatory right-winger, a tick-a-box, hey-look-at-me commentator, insane, Islam Basher, racist [obligatory], a petty, embittered little man, a sociopath … it goes on, and on.

So who exactly is this mild-mannered, polite commentator now gaining national recognition?

Well, that was seven years ago. The answer to that is now clear. Last night was a strong message to Bolt that he is valued, that he has become even more important as the present, increasingly toxic atmosphere has rendered public debate in Australia more intolerant. As he put it then:

How does one resist this success of the Left and the media in pushing the idea that if a shoe isn’t on the left foot, there’s only one other foot that it could be on?

The support for him, not only last night, but with his blog and the ratings for his new Bolt Report can only suggest that people listen and do understand.

Julia’s carbon dioxide tax gets worse

The Gillard government’s reasoning for a carbon dioxide tax has been set out using arguments from Ross Garnaut, the Chief scientist Will Steffen, and the Productivity Commission as justification.

However, just as she is sinking in the polls over a range of bad policy decisions, more people are noticing the missing element in her carbon dioxide story.

The truth is that the planned and anticipated global carbon dioxide trading market, according to the World Bank, has stalled. There would thus appear to be no danger of Australia slipping behind because, from this report, it just isn’t going to happen.

The second-round Kyoto agreement is kaput. Canada, Russian and Japan are pulling out.

In America, there is no congressional support for any cap and trade scheme or clean energy standards and there is soon to be a two-year suspension of the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Korea has postponed action until 2015, and India, China, Brazil and South Africa have no binding targets.

The World Bank report is emphatic.

Nicholas Linacre, an Australian academic and carbon specialist who worked as lead author on the World Bank report on the state of the carbon trading market last year, says no other country has proposed the level of action or coverage that Australia has.

Our Julia is really going out on a limb. As they say, it is lonely at the top …  especially when you are out of step not just with your electorate, but with the rest of the world.

An ill thought out disaster all around

Just when we were all wondering if Gillard could suggest even more destructive measures to bugger up the economy or make more half baked policy decisions on the run, we now have the live cattle export trade suspension. Like all other things Green, it is meant well, but will have the opposite effect, as well as damaging both our economy and Indonesia’s economy.

Greg Sheridan says it all:

THE total suspension of live cattle exports to Indonesia is a bad mistake.

It is a typical over-reaction in which winning the short-term media cycle has once more trumped sensible policy.

It is bad animal welfare policy, shocking foreign policy, disastrous for the cattle industry in northern Australia, cruel to poor Indonesians and bad for the Australian economy.

It has been notable in this decision that no one of consequence has given the slightest regard to the implications for the critically important relationship with Indonesia.

Of course, the obvious hypocrisy is staggering also. Gillard moves at lightening speed when around 60 percent of Australians object the vile way cattle are slaughtered in Indonesia.

What about the 60 percent of Australians who object to the destructive and useless carbon dioxide tax?

It is craven to bow to the EU and UN

Gary Johns spits the dummy on the stupidity and dishonesty surrounding the carbon dioxide tax. Would that the Gillard government had more self-respect and attempt to devise intelligent and effective policies rather than those that they propose.

Australians are great joiners but they do not regard themselves as being at the arse-end of the world and therefore desperate to please important forums.

Many Australians have not been impressed by Europe’s heroic climate change response of far-fetched targets for the reduction of greenhouse gases. Australians know the only way Europe meets its target is through the displacement of manufactures to Asia.

Indeed, it was reported in The Economist last year that emissions made on their citizens’ behalf elsewhere in the world add a third or more to most European countries’ emissions.

It is clear that the Gillard government has little respect for Australia’s national sovereignty, and like may socialist left governments, favours kowtowing to international organisations like the undemocratic European Union and United Nations, as an excuse to introduce policies rejected by the majority of the Australian people.

“The road to Hell is paved …..”

I am very pleased to announce a new book from Connorcourt Publishing that I have had the privilege to edit, and that should appear in mid July just after the new green Senate is installed in Canberra.

The idea for this book came from an awareness of the alarming void in media analysis of the Greens’ policies at a time when they have been gaining in political strength.

This book brings together leading Australian experts who look at a wide range of their policies in detail – from Agriculture to Zoophytes – to reveal the practical consequences of these policies. The book suggests that the Greens have an uncontrollable urge to spend our money, a mania for legislative and regulatory control – of both institutions and individuals – a disturbing and unwarranted confidence in central planning and a belief that government knows best. Underlying this is a thoroughly naïve understanding of how the real world works.

The irony is that the Greens’ policies would not only destroy our economy but actually make the environment worse.

For further details of the twenty one contributors and the scope of the Green policies analysed in the book, please go to the Connorcourt website.