Belle Gibson's 60 Minutes interview

Belle Gibson is a pathological liar and so good at it, last night on 60 Minutes, she had Tara Brown frustrated and tied up in knots. When confronted with all the evidence of her lies, she skillfully deflected them all, without flinching.

Belle, obviously very intelligent, was determined to make her mark in the world and saw the perfect way to do it.  It was relatively easy.  

She would be diagnosed with terminal brain cancer to get the required amount of sympathy and then have a miraculous recovery, explaining how she did it in her book, The Whole Pantry.

It worked well for a while and she developed a huge following but the wheels started to fall off when her ridiculous claims of being cured by eating healthy foods, reached the ears of people suffering from real cancers.  And they were furious.

She admitted 'she might have caused' people to stray from conventional medicine, but refused to apologise for it.

But she didn't just document her chemotherapy experience for a brain tumour, she also claimed to have three heart operations, two heart attacks, a stroke, and died on the operating table.

Belle is a very sick girl and I fear for the safety of her child.  She is a prime candidate for Munchausen by proxy - a rare mental illness people get who crave attention.  And this girl has the symptoms in spades.

Murderers, rapists and paedophiles deported

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has confirmed that 490 foreign nationals have been sent back to where they came from since Tony Abbott came to power.  Among them were 24 rapists, 28 paedophiles and 12 murderers.

"The numbers will continue to build as we work through those people who are in our country on visas who have committed criminal offences" Mr Dutton said. "They won't be staying in Australia."

The Immigration Department is working closely with the Australian Crime Commission, the AFP and state police forces to identify people "who seek to do harm to Australians."  Outlaw motor bike gang members have also been targeted and those who have committed serious crimes.

Those sent home were from the Asia Pacific region, Europe and the Middle East.

Malcolm Turnbull - darling of the ABC

When Malcolm Turnbull was asked if he supported Tony Abbott's claim that the ABC had "betrayed" Australia and "heads should roll" after Monday night's Q&A programme, he refused to agree with his comments.

As the Minister for Communications, he is the man who has the power to chastise the ABC for giving oxygen to a known jihadist who said the Liberal government was to blame for young people wanting to go to Syria to fight with IS.  Then in defiance, they deliberately reran the episode.

Malcolm Turnbull is known as 'the darling of the ABC' and has been a welcome guest on Q&A many times.  For some reason, they like him, he likes them, and it shows.

Oh, he's making the right noises, he's launched an enquiry and said the ABC made a grave error of judgement, but he thinks the PM's comments that "heads should roll" at the ABC is totally out of order, so we are left to draw our own conclusions.

You have to go back in time to understand Malcolm Turnbull.  He has an impeccable pedigree but not a lot of common sense. Rhodes Scholar, lawyer, merchant banker, writer, he is one of Australia's richest men.

But disaster struck in December 2009 when he was leader of the Liberal Party who were then in Opposition.   Tony Abbott beat him in a leadership spill by one vote and he never got over it.

He made a speech about how Tony Abbott's (ETS) Emissions Trading Scheme was a farce and the Rudd government's plan was just what the country needed.  The irony seemed to be lost on Malcolm as he stood up in Parliament, committing political suicide. 

The Coalition made sure the chamber was almost empty when he rose to his feet. His speech was covered by CCTV throughout the halls of Parliament House, but no one was watching.  And when he crossed the floor to vote with the Labor's ETS Bill, it was the last straw.

To show such disloyalty to his own Liberal Party was considered unforgivable and a man once respected by many was regarded with contempt.  

One year ago, Malcolm told ABC's 7.30 programme "I don't have any plans, any desires, any expectations to be the leader.....but having said that.......politics is an unpredictable business."

Time for ABC's Q&A to go

Tony Jones

I've stopped watching Q&A, the anti-government bias is just too much to bear, so I missed this week's episode and had to watch it on iview. 

I don't normally follow Andrew Bolt, he's a bit too conservative and one-eyed at times but I agree with him about the ABC's Q&A programme on Monday night - it was an utter disgrace. 

The ABC apologised and admitted they made an error of judgement but it's not enough.  It's time to say goodbye to the entire show, its producers, Tony Jones or better still, all three.

Andrew Bolt's blog yesterday.

Zaky Mallah

A FURIOUS Prime Minister Tony Abbott this week challenged the ABC: “Whose side are you on?”

And I challenge Abbott: We’ve known for years what side it’s on. Now, what will you do about it?

There should be no surprise that the ABC gave a national platform to Muslim extremist Zaky Mallah, once jailed for threatening to kill ASIO officers.

BLOG WITH ANDREW BOLT

The ABC has been at this kind of thing for years, thanks to bias in our biggest media organisation that is systemic, unlawful and dangerous.

Monday should be the final straw.

Consider: Q&A chose Mallah from the audience to challenge parliamentary secretary Steve Ciobo over the Government’s plan to strip Australian citizenship from dual nationals engaged in terrorism.

It already knew Mallah had been jailed for threatening to kidnap and kill ASIO officers, although acquitted of planning a suicide attack on a Commonwealth building.

ABC PAID FOR ZAKY’S Q&A TRIP

It should also have known Mallah had been arrested in 2003 after getting a rifle and writing a will entitled, “How can I prepare myself for Jihad”.

Had the producers checked, they’d have also found Mallah believed in imposing a caliphate on Australia, had travelled to Syria and dreamt of martyrdom for the Free Syrian Army, and had tweeted that two prominent female conservative writers “need to be gangbanged on the Sunrise desk”.

The Q&A team should have realised this man should not be rewarded with prime-time exposure, going mano e mano with an unsuspecting minister. It should have realised the danger of showing other Islamist misfits the fast way to getting their own thick heads on TV.

It should have heeded this warning from the judge who jailed Mallah: “Placing a person such as the prisoner into the public spotlight is ... likely to encourage him to embark on even more outrageous and extravagant behaviour ...”

Too true. Mallah on Q&A told Ciobo: “The Liberals have just justified to many Australian Muslims in the community tonight to leave and go to Syria and join IS (Islamic State) because of ministers like him.”

That was too much even for the show’s Left-wing host, Tony Jones, who ruled it “totally out of order”.

But wait. What Mallah said was little different to what Jones has allowed to be said many times already.

Blaming the Government and the West generally for creating jihadists is standard fare in the Left, particularly on the ABC, where every main current affairs program is — surprise! — hosted by Leftists.

Ever since the September 11 attacks those presenters have given too much oxygen to similar diatribes, ever since ABC host Virginia Trioli announced “it’s quite a possibility” the World Trade Centre was actually brought down by the FBI.

Even more toxic conspiracies and anti-Australian hatreds were regularly aired on Q&A, feeding the paranoid fantasy of Islamists that they are victims of an “Islamophobia” whipped up by evil politicians.

In April, one Muslim panellist chosen by Q&A claimed “most Western countries have disgraceful records” and “always sold us out”, and another agreed that “Australia is taking a lot of very horrific positions”, which a third said “sound toxic to outsiders”.

In September three panellists — three! — agreed the “uncanny” timing of anti-terrorism raids was suspiciously convenient for the Government.

“I’m very cynical about the Government’s use of these raids to politicise the Muslim problem of terrorism,” said one, and “there are some people who are going to take these legitimate concerns and go down a radical path”.

That’s the Mallah argument.

Another panellist agreed: “IS is barbaric and I think that a large part of it is the Western intervention.”

More of the same in November, when Q&A stacked an audience with Muslim hotheads to badger Attorney-General George Brandis, with one warning that the “gung-ho” anti-terrorism raids would just “drive (extremists) in a particular direction”.

Even last Monday, two other members of Q&A’s typically Left-stacked panel preached the inflammatory message that the Government spread fear of Muslims for political advantage — “seeking to make political capital out of these events” because “fear works particularly well if you are the incumbent Government “.

No wonder that Abbott on Tuesday told his MPs: “We all know that Q&A is a Leftie lynch mob and we will be looking at this.”

But where’s the action?

Will the Government sack the board for the ABC’s failure to observe what it admits is its “statutory duty to ensure that the gathering and presentation of news and information is impartial”?

And will it cut the vast ABC, with its five radio stations and four television stations, to a size less dangerous to democracy?

Karen Nettleton wants grandkids to come home

Karen Nettleton

Karen Nettleton had a knock on the door this week. 

"The messenger told me that the man my 13 year old granddaughter was forced to marry, Mohamed Elomar, was dead."

And so was the man her Australian daughter Tara fell madly in love with and converted to Islam for - Khaled Sharrouf - the father who posted a picture of his young son holding the severed head of a Syrian fighter.

Karen Nettleton, the woman who helped her daughter and four grandchildren sneak out of the country to join her husband in Syria, is now pleading with the Prime Minister to let them come home. Last year Nettleton flew with them as far as Malaysia to avoid suspicion, then returned home while they went on to Syria.

Before he left Australia, Khaled Sharrouf, who was a bodyguard for notorious businessman George Alex, introduced Nettleton to Alex and he hired her as his bookkeeper.

But when she appeared before the Royal Commission into Union corruption last year, she didn't know anything.  "An interview was arranged for me by my daughter's husband" she told the commission but she had no information to give them about the weekly $2500 cash payments that were made out to officials of the CFMEU.  She just did what she was told.

Asked outside the inquiry if she had heard from her grandchildren in Syria, she said "I have no comment."

Fast forward to 24 June 2015.  "My daughter made the mistake of a lifetime.  Today she is a parent alone in a foreign and vicious land looking after a widowed 14-year-old and four other young children."

Tell someone who cares.

Drug addicted babies

At long last, someone in authority has recognized the tragic situation of more and more babies being born to mothers hooked on drugs or alcohol.  If the new legislation gets through, the expectant mother will have to sign a Parental Responsibility Contract, forcing them to undergo treatment for the health of their baby.

If they refuse, the state will take the baby the moment it is born.  The new law will also extend to pregnant women who are being bashed by their partner.  They will have two choices - either leave the abuser or attend domestic violence counselling.

Even though this law has been in place for several years, it only applies to a mother after the child is born rather than while it is still in the womb which enabled the mother to keep using drugs up until the birth.  

The new laws are awaiting final approval from Cabinet before they are submitted to Parliament.

A one year old drug-dependent baby called Holley who was removed from her mother is still suffering life-threatening complications and required 24 hour supervision.  She is now recovering in the care of a foster family.  In August, a court ordered that she be placed into long-term adoption though she will continue to have contact with her siblings, who are also in care.

Foster mother Jodie

Bernardos foster mother Jodie 46, has cared for 27 drug addicted babies.  "It's a different cry, it's a heartbreaking cry, you can't describe it but when you hear it, it's not a normal baby cry."

"Their little knees are brought up into their stomach and they are screaming, you can walk the floor for six or seven hours with the baby crying continuously - they are in pain.

When she first started fostering newborns 12 years ago, babies with an addiction were almost non-existent but her last seven babies were all withdrawing from drugs.  She picks them up from hospital, takes them home and begins doses of morphine every four hours. That can continue for up to four months.

"I've had cases where they have infections in their toes and under their armpits from the withdrawals" she said.  "Once they are off the addiction, they become like a normal child, it's very rewarding to see them at the end of it."

Drugs are killing our country.  There is no longer a work ethic in our young and even if there were, the jobs aren't there anymore for unskilled workers, young or old.  So if you are poor and uneducated, there's no point in hoping for a bright future because they isn't going to be one.

The police have admitted they can't stop the ice epidemic, it's now firmly entrenched into our culture, along with alcohol abuse.  And ice is so cheap and addictive, it's frightening.


Ice epidemic could bring nation to its knees
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ice-epidemic-could-bring-nation-to-its-knees-warns-nsw-police-commissioner-andrew-scipione/story-e6freuy9-1227285222295

Hobart's Winter Festival Dark Mofo 2015

It's a pagan-style winter festival called Dark Mofo, a ten day event celebrating darkness and the longest night of the year and starts this weekend.  It was created by the Museum of Old and New Art and accentuates the obscure and the weird.  

At the heart of this year's event is the Fire Organ.  Commissioned especially for Dark Mofo, the monstrous, flame-throwing pyrotechnic sound machine breathes fire and pumps out ear-shattering sounds you can feel in the pit of your stomach.  It takes pride of place in Dark Park, otherwise known as the Macquarie Point precinct.

Dark Mofo executive producer Kate Gould explained how the "auditory experience" worked.  "Gas is pumped through the pipes and they're lit, so you see fire jets coming out the top and then this mad Dutchman actually plays them like an organ - he manipulates the volume of gas through the pipes."

There is also The Winter Feast, probably the most popular event which features the best of Tasmanian food.  Last year 45,000 people took a pew at the communal tables and this year's 65 stall holders are expecting to feed around 20,000 people per night.

Winter Feast

As Dark Mofo principal sponsor, the Tasmanian state government has injected $1 million per year towards the staging of the first 
three festivals.

Swimmers arrive for the nude swim in 2014

There is a nude swim scheduled to mark the year's longest night, but jumping into the freezing Derwent River in the middle of winter will probably prove just too weird for many.

Well done Hobart.