I struggle to find words to describe the Andrews Labor Government's decision to cancel the East-West road project.

Irresponsible doesn't cut it, nor does reckless - even Scott Morrison's label of "an obscenity" doesn't describe how I feel about the issue.   Andrews's cavalier approach to other people's money is so extreme that it triggers the same sorts of feelings in me as I'd feel reading about a large-scale fraud or some other grand theft by a public official.

The Australian had a go today at describing the state of Victoria's CFMEU/Labor government  - it's a very good on-the-record account of Victoria under Andrews et al:

Editorial: Victorian government is closed for business

The Victorian government struck a deal to pay the developers of the East West Link tunnel in Melbourne $339m for costs incurred plus $81m for financing fees for a loan. Not only is this a tragic waste of scarce dollars for Victoria, this utterly foolish move by Labor — cancelling a contract signed by the former Napthine government — puts a stop to any new major infrastructure project in the nation’s fastest growing city. It signals to foreign investors that the Andrews government — if not Australia — is a riskier proposition, vulnerable to political whim and partisan expediency.

To appeal to Greens-inclined inner-city voters, the Labor leader sounded a tough, if reckless, note before last November’s poll. Yet it did Labor no favours in those vulnerable seats. Mr Andrews is now a chastened figure. Reality bites, Mr Premier. You can’t declare you will tear up a contract and get off scot-free. Federal Social Services Minister Scott Morrison was on the mark in labelling this deal to not build a road — that would plainly ease congestion and support thousands of jobs — an “obscenity” at a time of fiscal constraint. An almost limitless list of worthy social projects would benefit from that money, including disability services and housing for the homeless. The waste goes even deeper if land acquisition, public service and other costs are added in. There are other consequences, too. Recently, both the French and Spanish governments made representations on behalf of companies involved in the $6.8 billion project. Why give potential foreign investors the needless whiff of scandal or sovereign risk? Through free trade agreements, the Abbott government has tried to sell the message that Australia is “open for business”. Mr Andrews has damaged such attempts to enhance our global reputation and the prospects of more growth and jobs.

There's more to the Editorial at The Australian.   Read it and weep.

UPDATE

The Australian's foreign editor Greg Sheridan is on the case too with this summary of the Andrews-government-debacle.

Sheridan explains why newspaper's foreign affairs editor has bought in to the Andrews story, it's:

.....because it (the East-West link decision - among others) is a crippling blow to Australia’s reputation as a place to do business.

It is a savage blow to Victoria but it also reinforces the growing international perception of Australia as an extremely high cost, uncompetitive, difficult place to do business, just as we used to be before the reforms of the 1980s and 90s. One of our great traditional strengths, political stability and legal and contractual reliability, is now under question.

The Andrews government has thus spent nearly half of the money it would have spent to get the road, in order to get nothing. Most of our state politicians are unsophisticated and little travelled, especially in Asia. Does Andrews have the faintest idea of how this madness looks to Asia?

And Greg is onto the CFMEU links deep into the Andrews administration:

This is a deep green/parlour pink anti-development government. Its worst decisions have been taken to appease the worst elements in the trade union movement, especially the CFMEU. The Andrews government abolished the construction code and the related compliance unit. It abolished compulsory drug and alcohol tests on building sites only to find that the union itself had changed its mind and decided these tests weren’t a bad thing after all.

Building costs in Victoria are higher than anywhere else in Australia and a crippling enemy to jobs. The criminal element in the building industry in Victoria ought to be the subject of inquiry by some speck of the ABC’s vast editorial budget.

In a nation reeling from uncompetitiveness, with the prices of our main exports in free fall, the Andrews government decided that we needed a new public holiday, on the Friday before AFL grand final day.

It's hard to believe we are talking about waste of money on so grand a scale - it's worthwhile to revisit the numbers as Greg does in his column:

Its decision to spend something between half a billion and a billion dollars in order not to build a road represents a kind of grandeur of folly unseen for decades in Australia.

There is a sheer, unrelenting stupidity to this decision, a kind of epic imbecility that combines Monty Python with Karl Marx in a distinctively Melbourne ­disharmony.

In repudiating contracts signed by the previous Victorian government, the Andrews government says it will spend $339 million in money the consortium that was going to build the East West Link has already spent. And none of this is compensation, so we are told. If we are to take this at face value, it suggests the project was a very long way under way already.

The Victorian opposition says it had already spent $400m of government money on the project. Federal Assistant Infrastructure Minister Jamie Briggs says there are at least another $200m in costs in getting out of all the financial arrangements.

The Victorian government says there are $80m of financial arrangements costs but these can be used to finance future infrastructure projects, though no such projects currently exist.

This is appalling government and will cost Australia dear.

The Lowy Institute today releases this report

The report finds that there is a real danger to our society from foreign fighters returning to Australia - something I think we all know.

The numbers of Australians known to have gone overseas to fight aren't large:

But those few people have triggered huge spending on security - and on non-coercive programs that fall under the generic banner of "Countering Violent Terrorism".    

It's a shocking indictment on some sections of our community that we should have to provide government funding to "Counter Violent Terrorism".   It strikes me that this is another case of  bad guys who do bad things getting all the goodies and government spending.

I've reprinted a couple of the sections from the report below.

THE CURRENT FOREIGN FIGHTER THREAT TO AUSTRALIA

Australians have been involved in the Syrian conflict since at least 2012, and their activity has increasingly become a cause for serious concern. They first tended to join groups that loosely came under the Free Syrian Army rubric, then many joined al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, and in the past two years many have joined IS and have been fighting in both Syria and Iraq.[49] ASIO has estimated that, as of February 2015, around 90 Australians were fighting for jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq, that up to 30 have returned, and that over 20 have died.[50] Several have appeared in propaganda videos for Jabhat al-Nusra and IS, three are believed to have carried out suicide bombings, and some Australians are occupying leadership positions.[51] Some have also boasted of war crimes, and explicitly threatened Australia.[52]

However, judging from some of the factors discussed earlier, the returning foreign fighter threat to Australia may not turn out to be as great as feared. So far, neither Jabhat al-Nusra nor IS appear to have made attacks in the West as high a strategic priority as al-Qaeda’s senior leadership did, and they have a wide range of other uses for foreign recruits. This contrasts with the situation when Australians travelled to South Asia to train with al-Qaeda and LeT at the turn of the century. Al-Qaeda was prioritising attacks within the West, devoting substantial resources to this purpose, and LeT was actively assisting this effort.[53]

Past cases indicate that those foreign fighters who receive training but see little actual combat tend to be more likely to attempt attacks on return than jihadist combat veterans. Combat experience increases their likelihood of foreign fighters becoming disillusioned, killed, or coming to the awareness of Australian authorities. In that respect it would be more concerning for domestic security if Australians were quietly training in Syria and Iraq and returning home unnoticed, as happened with many who trained in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Moreover, a decade ago Australia’s security services were far less prepared for terror plots than they are today, having gained dramatically increased funding, powers, staff, and counter-terrorism experience.

Therefore, while the scale and seriousness of the Syria-Iraq mobilisation greatly exceeds any of Australia’s earlier jihadist mobilisations, suggesting a greatly increased threat, the actual threat may prove less than feared. Apart from any decisions by IS to use foreign fighters for terrorist attacks abroad, much will depend on how many return, what their intentions are, what activities they undertake on return, and what influence they have on like-minded individuals. Importantly, this can be influenced by how Australia responds.

AUSTRALIA’S RESPONSE TO THE FOREIGN FIGHTER THREAT 

The Australian Government has described the foreign fighter threat as its “number-one national security priority”[54] and raised the National Terrorism Public Alert from medium to high in September 2014.[55] The Government has provided $630 million in extra funding, over four years, to the Australian Federal Police (AFP), ASIO, and other agencies,[56] and introduced extensive new national security legislation. Authorities have cracked down on suspected recruitment networks and plots and have used controversial powers such as Preventative Detention Orders and Control Orders. One widely used measure has been passport confiscation, with ASIO cancelling 45 passports in the last financial year, compared with 18 in the previous year.[57]

While the response has been predominantly punitive, another element has been Countering Violent Extremism. CVE encompasses a range of non-coercive efforts to dissuade people from becoming involved in terrorist activity. It is of renewed importance as Australia needs a wide range of tools to tackle the foreign fighter threat, not least because imprisonment, while often necessary, is not a cure-all. An imprisoned jihadist can radicalise other prisoners, inspire supporters outside, and may emerge from prison no less extreme or dangerous.[58] This has already occurred. At least one terrorist imprisoned after the 2005 Operation Pendennis raids joined IS after his release; several friends and relatives of the Pendennis plotters have as well.[59] A blanket attempt to imprison foreign fighters (such as in France, which recently jailed two underage boys who had returned voluntarily after becoming disillusioned with IS)[60] could have a radicalising effect on the returnees' friends, families, and communities, reinforcing a perception of a wider war between the West and Islam. Just as the justice system allows flexibility in dealing with a range of non-terrorist criminals (such as diverting some offenders into drug treatment rather than jail), including a CVE element in Australia’s counter-terrorism approach can allow similar flexibility.

CVE is also important because it will not be possible to prosecute all returning foreign fighters. Even when there is strong intelligence that a returning suspect has been involved with a terrorist group, gathering enough admissible evidence of their activities in Syria or Iraq to prove their guilt beyond reasonable doubt can be difficult. In addition, some of the people who could come to pose a threat may not have committed a crime yet, such as associates of foreign fighters, or people who have attempted to join the fight but had their passports confiscated. CVE measures, when successful, can reduce the number of people who have to be monitored, investigated, and prosecuted. The importance of CVE has been recognised in United Nations Security Council Resolution 2178.[61] The Abbott Government has stated that CVE measures will form part of its response to foreign fighters, building on its use in the past as an element of Australia’s counter-terrorism policies.

CONCLUSION

The Syria-Iraq mobilisation poses a serious national security threat to Australia. Historically, foreign fighter mobilisations have helped sustain jihadist movements and often resulted in violence outside of conflict zones for many years and even decades afterwards. Returned foreign fighters have been involved in many of the most serious jihadist plots in the West, including in Australia. Returnees from Syria have already engaged in terrorist plots in Europe, and the large number of Australians involved with groups such as IS and Jabhat al-Nusra raises well-founded fears of an increased threat at home.

However, the threat may turn out to be less than feared. A range of factors will determine the threat, including Australia’s response. While much of the responsibility will lie with the police and intelligence services, CVE measures need to be a core element of the response, as they have been in the past. Australia can learn valuable lessons from European countries, which are already using CVE measures to address the issue of foreign fighters, although any Australian approach must be carefully calibrated for the local context. But questions remain as to how any new CVE approach will be implemented by the Government.  And the Government’s troubled relations with Australia’s Muslim communities mean that its efforts to counter violent extremism are not off to the strongest of starts.

This report is written in the tone we've come to expect from governments and think tanks - it's taken as a given that it's us and our government who have bend and change our ways to accommodate the cultural differences between us Muslim sections of our community.   This report finishes with the line

And the Government’s troubled relations with Australia’s Muslim communities mean that its efforts to counter violent extremism are not off to the strongest of starts.

That line has been picked up in the media and it forms the basis for reports like this one from SBS

A report on the threat posed by Australian foreign fighters has cited the Abbott government's "troubled relations" with the Muslim community as undermining efforts at countering violent extremism.

and this:

A Lowy Institute report has cited the government's "troubled relations" with Australia's Muslim community as hampering efforts at countering extremism.

  It would be nice to hear someone say out loud that it's up to the Muslim community to win back our trust, not the other way around.

Chelsea Clinton graces the front cover of Elle magazine this month - thanks to reader HP for the tip.

In amongst the fashion shots and discussions about clothes and shoes Ms Clinton was interviewed by ELLE editor-at-large Rachael Combe - she delivered this zinger of a quote that speaks volumes about the Clinton campaign:

And so when you ask about the importance of having a woman president, absolutely it's important, for, yes, symbolic reasons—symbols are important; it is important who and what we choose to elevate, and to celebrate.

(Just in case you were wondering - Chelsea Clinton is wearing a Gucci dress, Mateo New York bracelet, Cartier bracelet, Garland Collection ring and a Halleh ring).

You can read the entire interview here.

I've reprinted section about the importance of having a woman president.   For symbolic reasons.   Style over substance.  At least she had the good grace to admit it!

On the importance of having a woman president…

ELLE: I was pregnant with my eldest daughter when your mother ran in 2008. I remember feeling that extra intensity you're talking about and being really frustrated when people said that it didn't matter if we had a female president, that it wouldn't make any real change, that it was just symbolic. What do you think?

CC: We've made real progress on legal protections for women, but in no way are women at parity to men in our country in the workplace. And if we look in the political sphere, it is challenging to me that women comprising 20 percent of Congress is treated as a real success. Since when did 20 percent become the definition of equality? And so when you ask about the importance of having a woman president, absolutely it's important, for, yes, symbolic reasons—symbols are important; it is important who and what we choose to elevate, and to celebrate. And one of our core values in this country is that we are the land of equal opportunity, but when equal hasn't yet included gender, there is a fundamental challenge there that, I believe, having our first woman president—whenever that is—will help resolve. And do I think it would make a substantive difference? Yes, we've seen again and again, when women have been in positions of leadership, they have had different degrees of success versus their male counterparts, historically being able to build more consensus so that decisions have longer-term effects, whether in economic investments or in building social capital. Who sits around the table matters. And who sits at the head of the table matters, too.

On 8 April 2015 Doubtful John wrote to the NSW upper house MP David Shoebridge about PTSD.   Here is some of his note, published on our website one week ago.

Today John received this note from David Shoebridge MP:

John,

Thank you for your email and contacting our office about this important issue.

I am so sorry to hear of your experience and it is unfortunately too often the case that police officers who suffer from psychological injuries are ignored and are not given the proper support that they deserve. 

Our office has actually today released  comprehensive roadmap for reform on police psychological injuries which was developed in consultation with injured police and their families as well as legal and medical professionals.

 I’ve attached a copy of the recommendations which are intended to cover key reforms in legal, medical, internal policing and insurance arrangements.

We have also recommended a full parliamentary inquiry and will be seeking consultation with the NSW Police Minister, Police Force and Police Association as a constructive next step in implementing these much-needed changes.

 Kind regards,

 

 

Hilary Clinton was knocked out by Obama 8 years ago.   Now she's giving it another run, this time with Julia Gillard's endorsement delivered on - what else - Twitter.

Congratulations & my very best wishes to @HillaryClinton as she gets started on her historic presidential campaign JG pic.twitter.com/uBGOwchlZs

— Julia Gillard (@JuliaGillard) April 14, 2015

United Firefighters Union secretary Peter Marshall has sensationally declared war on the Government, sending Labor MPs a 17-page dossier of internal meetings and explosive material regarding the case.

Four months after the UFU campaigned for the election of a Labor government, Mr Marshall alleges senior Andrews Government staff sought to intrude on an internal fire brigade disciplinary hearing.

The claims relate to pornography and racist material allegedly found on the Commander’s work email and computer.

FIREFIGHTERS UNION: YOU BETRAYED US

Mr Marshall alleges Chris Reilly, one of Premier Daniel Andrews’ right-hand men, arranged for Industrial Relations Minister Natalie Hutchins’s chief of staff Simone Stevenson — who left the job last week — to deal with the UFU.

The union was seeking to have the Commander’s case heard under rules more favourable to employees, based on an EBA rather than MFB law.

Today’s explosive revelations will place the Government’s formerly close relationship with the UFU front and centre of a political storm over whether the Government was willing to try and cut a deal as part of payback to the UFU for its election support.

The union has alleged the charges arose because the Commander was being persecuted for an email he sent criticising MFB management during last year’s bitter industrial fight with the former Napthine government.

Mr Marshall’s dossier of allegations outlines a litany of backroom dealings with Ms Stevenson, Mr Reilly, and Emergency Services Minister Jane Garrett.

More at the HeraldSun

Here's the Sydney Morning Herald today with its report on the Woolworths debacle.

Woolworths Anzac campaign hijacked by internet memes

Woolworths' tribute to the Anzac tradition backfired spectacularly on Tuesday night with its "fresh in our memories" social media campaign launching a barrage of memes. 

In anticipation of the centenary of the WWI Gallipoli campaign this April, the supermarket giant asked Australians to share a memory of someone affected by war by changing their social media profile pictures to an image of that person using its profile picture generator website, which has now been taken down from the internet.

The generator branded the uploaded images with the Woolworths logo and the text "Lest We Forget Anzac 1915-2015. Fresh in our memories".

But the attempt to tie the Anzac story and loss in war to the "fresh food people" brand was swiftly met with derision and laughter. 

It quickly became embarrassingly clear how easily the campaign could be hijacked.

#freshinourmemories #brandzacday pic.twitter.com/HpLICzxDMh

— Casssssssssssss (@thiscassgirl) April 14, 2015

#freshinourmemories pic.twitter.com/HBOGM7jvTg

— AyChaySea (@8one3) April 14, 2015

#brandzacday #freshinourmemories pic.twitter.com/k2w5LLvSVk

— fluoride addict #h20 (@wellbased) April 14, 2015

Thanks to Jason Morrison for alerting me to this chicanery from messenger girls for grocers' clerks.

Woolworths should stick to being the "fresh food" people.

Everything about Woolworths is fresh, which is nice when you want to buy fruit, vegetables and meat.

But "fresh" has its limits.     I have family, long dead, in war graves on the Western Front.   I don't think they're fresh.   They're not "fresh" in my memory.  And they certainly aren't in those graves to promote the "fresh" food people.

ACTIVATION

But that hasn't stopped Woolworths and its brand new "brand experiential agency" Carrspace from trying to tie the memories of our glorious war dead with Woolworth's "fresh" brand promise in the agency's first 'ACTIVATION".

Here's the industry magazine BandT announcing the Woolworths campaign.

Woolworths has announced the appointment of brand experiential Agency Carrspace to its experiential agency panel.

This three-year appointment – which came about after a full and competitive pitch process – has been kicked off immediately with Carrspace’s first project for the iconic Australian supermarket brand.

The first activation is Woolworth’s ANZAC Centenary activation at Camp Gallipoli (campgallipoli.com.au) which is taking place on 24th April in six locations around Australia. The centenary of ANZAC is expected to become an important milestone in Australian history and an emotional, once in a lifetime event for many Australians.

Carrspace director and executive producer, Madeleine Preece, said “We are thrilled to be working with the Woolworths team on an activation that has such merit and community connection for Australians. Woolworths is such an iconic brand and we have a lot of respect for how they handle their experiential campaigns. We’re looking forward to some amazing projects over the coming years.”

Preece added, “Woolworths is famous for its hands-on and integrated experiential approach, and the strongest brand experiences come from brands, like Woolworths, that are both creative and active above-the-line, and participate fully in their community. We look forward to the next chapter with Woolworths and the next three years and beyond.”

Call me old-fashioned, but I just look forward to Anzac Day without eleven year olds and their activations that have such merit and community connection.

Leave Anzac Day alone please Woolworths.

Here is some of the crass "fresh"-ness Woolworths has "activated" with both "creative and active above the line" in ideas that have "merit and community connection".

Here is my grandfather, Percy Leo Smith (on the left) and his brothers my grand-uncles Gerald Patrick and Leslie John Smith.   Leslie John was shot and killed in the Michael campaign at Morlancourt/Dernancourt, France in March 1918.   He's not fresh in anyone's memory.   My grandfather watched his brother become decidedly "unfresh" during the week or so his body was left in no-man's-land.

Woolworths's efforts to associate its "fresh" brand attribute with our war dead is crass.   Donate the money, support the RSL, but leave your cheap, "fresh" brand out of it. 

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning.   We will remember them.   Lest we forget.

Jennifer Oriel is a political scientist and commentator - on the strength of this article published in The Australian today, she's well worth listening to.

Political correctness shackles the war on terror

The Boston bombings constituted a horrific slaughter of innocents and a radical failure of the state to fulfil its primary duty of care to citizens. Counter-terrorism should have stopped the Tsarnaev family at the border, rejecting their plea for political asylum on the advice of Russian authorities. Counter-radicalisation should have stopped the brothers at their mosque, part of a government-funded outreach program. Intelligence agencies should have caught the thugs online after they posted viciously anti-Western tracts.

Instead, the Tsarnaev family, with two terrorist brothers and a sister now on trial for bomb threats, enjoyed the full favour of the welfare state. They lived off the earnings of US citizens taking free housing and food only to repay them with hatred and mass murder.

Ninety-six per cent of Australians who enlisted in Islamic State also lived on public welfare. Counter-terrorism expert Patrick Poole contends the culture of the political Left has enabled terrorism. He attributes the Tsarnaev’s success in terrorising the West in part to: “A full scale campaign of political correctness … under the Obama administration against any attempt to link jihadi terrorism with anything remotely connected to Islam of any variety (the most radical versions included).” Australia’s Coalition government has bucked the trend of political correctness with its counter-terrorism package, spearheading national security legislation since copied by legislators around the globe. But it is yet to prosecute the culture that enables Islamism to thrive on home soil.

The British Tory government has committed to reviewing citizenship tests and public funding to ensure the protection of British values if it is returned to power.

The cultural dimension of Islamist terrorism has been largely ignored by the billion dollar de-radicalisation industry. The result is an extraordinary degree of doublespeak, exemplified by French minister and socialist Thierry Mandon who recommended building more mosques would counter radicalisation. It takes only rudimentary logic to deduce that if mosques stopped terrorism, Islamic State wouldn’t exist.

The unpalatable truth is that like so many solutions imposed on Western states by leftist governments, mosques often undermine the values of the free world. In a study of 100 mosques across the US, researchers Mordechai Kedar and David Yerushalmi found 81 per cent contained materials advocating Islamist violence. The more Sharia-fundamentalist the imam, the more likely he would recommend Islamist texts to worshippers.

There's lots more to her article at The Australian.