Mood:  not sure

Tyron Gibb.

SAM's editor then a legal adviser to environmental activists remembers his name and his face so well. His tears in the dock. His 30 days in Berrima Gaol bail refused, in 1998 as one of the 'peaceful anti Jabiluka uranium mine' protesters.

This story in the news today reminds me:

Alleged railway spitter walks free

about railway coppers gobbed on by 'a Redfern man' which may well be a euphemism for an Aboriginal bloke. Aboriginal Magistrate Pat O'Shane is again being criticised for letting him off.

Tyron was as Anglo as this writer, popular and good with a guitar. Ned Kelly style looks but actually a quiet personality. You can imagine him locked under a mining machine as feral activists will do, trespassing, or obstructing police, but spitting?

Must be a bad one surely. Not so. This is where context comes in. His friend Rusty was locked on under a bulldozer too next to Tyron. The police couldn't cut Rusty's device so they dislocated his shoulder ripping his arm free instead. This went on for minutes of shrill agonised screaming.

(Rusty later sued for criminal injury by the NT police via NT Legal Aid from memory, result unknown, compliant to Ombudsman etc.)

But Tyron was next after Rusty that hot sweaty dusty day in a claustrophic wedge on the ground. He writhed. He shouted. He spat at the police coming for all he knew to torture him next.

None of this came out at the bail hearing in fairly remote Jabiru Local Court as Magistrate Lowndes (if memory serves) saw a scruffy man break down in tears incapable of articulating let alone give me instructions. Poor bastard. I interjected angrily and the Magistrate cut me dead, one more word and I would be out the door or in the cell with him.

I also recall a quick whip around from that so called scruffy bunch producing a $1,000 cash for his bail in case that would please the court. But the cops had to win one out of 106. A million dollars wouldn't have been enough in that politically charged atmosphere.

He spent 30 days in Berrimah Gaol a model inmate until the NT Legal Aid lawyers got jack of this injustice applying to the court with the obvious point that he had served longer in jail without bail than his charges could reasonably deliver in prison sentence if found guilty.

Tyron was my only loss out of many contested bail hearings, out of 106 arrests in that chapter. Jabiluka uranium mine was eventually shut down not least by traditional Aboriginal owner Yvonne Margarula.

It was this same week at Jabiru for Tyron and others' bail applications, I received a precious gift - the fresh morning smile of a 40,000 year culture via traditional owner Yvonne Margarula as she strode proudly to court on her own 'trepass' charge alone to meet her lawyers: She appeared from nowhere, and at first I was flummoxed, even though I had met her once before in Sydney at the Friends of the Earth office with Jacqui Katona right at the start, when Gini Stein (ABC) did a one word interview with her (English being a 3rd language). God gave me some grace as I offered from deep somewhere "good luck Yvonne", just three words across a massive cultural divide, and her response was silent friendly radiance. You can have your Queen of England and your U2 rock idols, that was it for me. I swear it kicked me like a strong black coffee for the next 3 weeks of hard slog.

I understand it was partly my 12 or so page legal report to the Gundjemi Aboriginal Corporation amongst others of the state of play of 400 plus protest cases (several involving illegal police brutality, and one a sexual harrassment situation by an unknown policeman), that encourged the TO's and allied civil society stakeholders to wind down the protest camp and move to a new political phase of their ultimately winning campaign. I still have the huge red yellow and black flag there of one protester (Dave Kennedy, now deceased).

I learnt from that period you could spit on someone out of reasonable fear of torture in Mr Gibb's case, and still go to gaol for 30 days having been convicted of absolutely nothing. It all comes down to context.

I visited him once there in Berrimah Gaol in Darwin a long way from Jabiru about a week in.  After returning to Sydney and Waverley Council duties to a commendation from the Mayor Paul Pearce, I was greatly relieved to be told Legal Aid intervened to get him out. Yvonne Margarula is my hero there at Jabiluka, and so is activist Tyron Gibb. They have a common thread too - survival.

By Tom McLoughlin, solicitor in NSW, NT court approved legal adviser to some 106 Jabiluka protesters July 1998 at Jabiru local court. The holding cell at Jabiru was designed to hold a maximum of 16.

 Postscript #1

 Is Tim Dick a sloppy legal reporter?

Notice the report in The Sydney Morning Herald above, doesn't refer to alleged racial taunts made at the arrested man by the transit police but they do mention this provocation in The Australian newspaper here:

Magistrate faces acquittal probe

"Ms O'Shane said they had racially abused Mr Rose."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21072026-2702,00.html

If true, the fact that Tim Dick at the Herald left out a critical aspect of the factual matrix of the case being racial discrimination which in fact is a cause of action with the Anti Discrimination Board here in Sydney, reported in the SMH recently for expensive damages orders as here:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/playground-taunts-land-primary-school-with-6000-compensation-bill/2006/12/27/1166895361368.html

is very bad reporting work.

But Tim Dick probably doesn't even read his own newspaper. It ran on page 3 28th December 2006.

Magistrate Oshane probably saved the NSW taxpayer a $10,000 cross action against the State Rail authorities.

Postscript #2

Now it comes out that Tim Dick admits he wasn't in the court at all despite the "legal affairs reporter" byline. I rang Tim Dick to enquire why is their no mention of racist provocation in the Herald story, but there is in The Austrlaian.

Apart from calling me an "idiot" and scorning my legal qualification, I quote Tim Dick in words to the effect of:

"the reason I didn't put in any element about provocation was because I wasn't in the court, the only reporter there was the Daily Telegraph and I'm not going to rely on them"

Fact is the Daily Telegraph doesn't seem to have anything about racist provocation either online in this story of January 16th:

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/opinion/story/0,22049,21062235-5001031,00.html

so no guidance there. Is Tim Dick throwing out a red herring? I will go back to the paper version at the local library for 16th January and see if the SDT refers to racial provocation like sister paper The Australian as a sound basis for the acquittal. It should have been mentioned in a balanced story.

If there was racial provocation that's a big problem for the State Rail Authority too, and contrary to tub thumping by ALP Police Minister Watkins the magistrate may well have saved the public revenue from an expensive legal cross claim. Or not now that he is pursuing her acquittal which may not be very smart.

Time will tell. But my view of Tim Dick as a so called "Legal Affairs Reporter" is reinforced: Not a very good one in my view.

Postscript #3 Seems the elusive "breaking news" original Daily Telegraph report of 16th of January (which I read and then lost on the screen said to be by the only journo in the court) which the above  SDT 16th Jan opinion piece is based on, and Herald too via Tim Dick, doesn't have anything about racial provocation one way or the other and is irrelevant to why Tim Dick left the element out of his report.

Looks like the Australian reporter Simon Hayes did some leg work to get a response from Magistrate O'Shane as is quite proper before publishing while Herald  and Telegraph were too slack. We await Hayes return call if any.

Postscript #4: A call to the Chief Magistrates Office of Graeme Henson, and a chat to Media Officer Angus Huntsdale, indicates their office will be looking at the transcript of the case to see if evidence of racial provocation was involved in the acquittal, and thus if effectively OShane has spared the public revenue the embarrassment of an expensive Anti Discrimination Board hearing and expensive payout.

Or maybe not now, as the Magistrate acquitting the defendant is in trouble and the defendant may want to get his pound of flesh on her behalf now too? Minister Watkins could well have this attack, as a non lawyer blow up in his face for exposing State Rail to a $10K racial abuse legal claim against their transit officers according to The Australian report referencing Magistrate OShane.

Posted by editor at 10:25 AM EADT

Updated: Saturday, 20 January 2007 7:45 AM EADT

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Mood:  sharp

The bizarre situation where NSW lawyer working for the Qld government Sir Laurence Street is talking to the media as if his visit to Palm Island yesterday is merely coincidental to this horrific death of a 'a critical witness' is great cause for concern. The lead story in the Brisbane Courier Mail today (a one newspaper town, owned by News Ltd) is deeply disturbing and worth publishing in full below.

If 24 year old Patrick Bramwell died by suicide it raises the whole question of Street strictly ruling out taking 'any new evidence', and 'rejecting an open ended inquiry'  as reported in general media and here at SAM dated 5th January plus postscript updates (found by clicking top right date card):

5th January 2007

Sir Laurence Street really the corruption reformer wanted by many in the Doomadgee wrongful death case, after AWB comments?

and whether Street's approach tipped a depressed young man over the edge, that no one would listen to his witness, not Street, not the broader institutions of society for the last 2 or 3 years. If there was foul play, that speaks for itself.

The proximity of the police, already under a big shadow, the night before his death, the severe political exposure of the Qld ALP government to date, the on the record conservatism of Street the lawyer sent in to fix the controversy, suggests the administration of justice in Qld is well off the rails.

SAM's editor quite separately has heard direct witness there is quite a deal of entrenched corruption in the Qld police well after the famous 1987 Qld Fitzgerald Royal Commission into deep problems there.

This writer cannot get out of his mind the report that investigating police had dinner the night they arrived on Palm Island with the officer Chris Hurley who was being investigated. And the finding of the coroner strongly implicating the same Hurley yet no prosecution proceeding.

This Courier Mail story speaks volumes:

Cellmate found hanged

 By Peter Michael : THE review into the Palm Island death in custody will continue despite the death of another man who was lying beside Mulrunji when he died in a jail cell more than two years ago.

Mulrunji's silent witness

January 16, 2007 11:00pm

THE review into the Palm Island death in custody will continue despite the death of another man who was lying beside Mulrunji when he died in a jail cell more than two years ago.

Patrick Bramwell was found dead by his grandmother on Palm Island early yesterday, ending his life without the day in court he said he craved to tell his version of the tragic story.

His death came just hours before former NSW chief justice Sir Laurence Street visited the island as part of his review into the controversial decision not to recommend charges over Mulrunji's death.

Director of Public Prosecutions Leanne Clare said last month there was not enough evidence to prove that former Palm Island police officer Chris Hurley "was criminally responsible" for the death of Mulrunji. Senior Sergeant Hurley was accused of bashing Mulrunji.

An autopsy found the man suffered four broken ribs, a ruptured liver and a ruptured portal vein.

Sir Laurence said yesterday the death of the key witness was unlikely to affect his final report, which could be completed within a week.

"He was a witness, but he was not (in that sense) indispensable," Sir Laurence said.

"We have one witness less but his evidence was part of the overall material of which there is eight ring-lock binders of documents."

Bramwell, 24, was found hanging from a tree in his front yard by his heartbroken grandmother Muriel Bramwell about midnight on Monday.

His life ended where all the trouble began – the same spot where, two years ago, his friend Mulrunji walked past and abused community police liaison officer Lloyd Bengaroo as Bramwell was being arrested for drunkenness.

His death gave Sir Laurence an emotional encounter first-hand with the tragedy and despair of Palm Island.

Bramwell was arrested by police for swearing on November 19, 2004, just before Mulrunji was arrested for the same offence.

The two men, who knew each other, were taken to the watchhouse in the same paddy wagon and shared the same jail cell.

Mulrunji later died from injuries deputy state coroner Christine Clements found had been caused by Snr Sgt Hurley during a scuffle at the police watchhouse.

Dressed in a dapper grey suit, tie, white hat and carrying a leather-bound walking cane, Sir Laurence, a respected former chief justice of New South Wales, met with the grieving Bramwell family on the veranda of their humble three-bedroom home.

"It is a very sad day to be here," said Sir Laurence, flanked by a team of legal advisers.

"My visit has been made even more poignant to come here on a day like this because its very tragic."

"I wanted to pay our respects and express our regrets," Sir Laurence said.

Bramwell's father, Patrick Bramwell senior, yesterday said his son's death came after police had detained the youth during a late-night drunken argument with his sister and had driven him 10 minutes out of town "to cool down".

Muriel Bramwell, 68, said she looked out her window about midnight and saw the young man hanging in the almond tree in her front yard.

"There was no wind blowing, he was dead still," said the grieving aboriginal elder. "I called for help and they took him down, I wanted to blow air into him, but it was too late."

This death follows the death-in-custody of Mulrunji and the subsequent suicide of Mulrunji's 19-year-old son Eric.

Palm Island men's group spokesman Robert Blackley said:

"It is not just a personal loss but a massive blow in our case against Hurley."

Sir Laurence yesterday shook hands with schoolchildren and visited the site of Mulrunji's death and the local council during his hour-and-a-half visit to the island, 60km north-east of Townsville.

He said he expected to finish his report "within days if not the week".

.....................................

And refer this report by very experienced journalist Malcolm Brown on legal matters of Fairfax on location http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/palm-island-mourns-third-death/2007/01/16/1168709754663.html

.............................

Pretty much the same story at rival The Australian here: Mulrunji's cell mate found dead. One thing rings true from Street in the story here - a determination to press on given 'tragedy all around'. But that's a double edged sword including consideration of all relevant evidence (which is a very sound principle of administrative law actually), not some inflexible refusal to ignore new evidence because it's ostensibly beyond a politician's 'terms of reference' of an inquiry with all the vested interest that might involve. In short Street is wrong in the SAM editor's view to parade such a  minimalist approach to his task at Palm Island, re Cole on AWB or Fitzgerald Royal Commission back in 1987. Especially when society and politics look to lawyers for leadership when the chips are really down. Not minimalism as a so called budgeting virtue. In short f*ck the budget. Get the truth.

Postscript #1

Crikey.com.au ezine January 18th O7 writes

8. The sorry state of indigenous affairs in Qld just got sorrier

Graham Ring from the National Indigenous Times writes:

Queensland’s Beattie Government has thus far seemed guilty only of staggering ineptitude in its administration of Indigenous affairs. However a report from Tony Koch in today’s Australian raises the stakes beyond mere incompetence, suggesting that the Government has deliberately suppressed a report which details the extent of Indigenous disadvantage in Queensland.

The report, prepared last year at the behest of former minister John Mickel, warned of the “urgent need to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples standard of living” and recommended “immediate and sustained action to reduce the disparity in all life stages”.

However, this damning document never saw the light of day. After racking up another crushing election victory in September of last year, Beattie moved quickly to abolish the Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy, merging its functions into the Department of Communities.

However, any post-election attempt by the government to downplay issues of Indigenous justice was foiled by saturation media coverage of the Coroner’s inquiry into the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee in police custody on Palm Island in November 2004.

Only weeks after the election, Queensland’s acting state coroner Christine Clements handed down her findings into the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee. which had occurred almost two years earlier. The Coroner concluded that the actions of Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley caused the fatal injuries. Yet, Queensland’s Director of Public Prosecutions Leanne Clare found that Hurley had no charge to answer, describing the death as a "terrible accident".

The public outrage that followed saw the Beattie Government in damage control, citing the independence of the DPP and attempting to tough things out. With the government bleeding badly, Attorney General Kerry Shine eventually wrote to the DPP advising her that a review of the decision would be "strongly supported" by Premier Beattie. Clare was unmoved, issuing a statement saying that if the case had gone to trial "no law abiding citizen…would have found this man guilty."

The following day, Shine released an extraordinary statement, saying that Clare had made an "unexpected offer" to provide him with the file on the Palm Island death. Retired Queensland District Court judge, Pat Shanahan, was commissioned to conduct the review. However Shanahan stood down just days later when it became public knowledge that he had been part of the panel that appointed Clare as DPP in 2000.

In an effort to rescue the situation, the Beattie Government went beyond Queensland’s borders and appointed distinguished NSW jurist Sir Laurence Street to review the matter.

Street’s report is expected to be completed within weeks.

Then came the news yesterday that 24-year-old Mr Bramwell - who had shared Mulrunji’s cell on the night he died - hanged himself on Palm Island last Monday, amidst allegations that he had been subject to police pressure not to talk about events surrounding Mulrunji’s death. This further tragedy underscores the sorry tale of the Queensland Government’s mishandling of events.

With the ham-fisted bungling of the Shanahan appointment, and the tragic suicide of Bramwell, things have gone pear-shaped for the Beattie Government. The suppressed report obtained by The Oz suggests that the fruit is rotten to the core.

With the Government now haemorrhaging, and Indigenous leaders like Noel Pearson and Warren Mundine continuing to apply the blow-torch, perhaps only a Royal Commission will see public confidence fully restored.

Posted by editor at 8:38 AM EADT

Updated: Thursday, 18 January 2007 2:38 PM EADT

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Mood:  blue

We reported on these freaky images of inches thick translucent ice on poles and grass here (just click date top right of the screen):

Now read more of the lethality of these "ice storms" which I for one have never heard of here in Australia, in a breaking story on the local News Ltd website, and quoted fully for the drama effect with 400,000 people affected by power outages, and an estimated US$500 million in ruined citrus crops: 

Up to 39 dead in US storms

A HUGE winter storm moved across the central US today, killing at least 25 people and prompting President George W. Bush to declare an emergency in the state of Oklahoma.

Since Friday, weather-related accidents have killed 11 people in Oklahoma and eight in Missouri, according to local officials. The Kansas City Star newspaper reported that six people had died in Kansas.

Mr Bush declared an emergency in Oklahoma, where an ice storm has left more than 100,000 people without power yesterday.

Activated by Mr Bush's emergency declaration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was distributing generators and bottled water to communities impacted by the ice storm, said the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management.

In Missouri, seven people were killed in traffic accidents caused by slick conditions while one died from carbon monoxide poisoning, a common cause of death when those without power use fuel-burning stoves to heat their homes.

More than 300,000 people lost power in Missouri due to downed power lines.

In Kansas, five people were reported killed in weather-related traffic accidents and one person was poisoned by carbon monoxide exposure, said state officials quoted by the Kansas City Star.

In Texas to the south, the governor called out the National Guard after heavy rain caused flash flooding and dramatic high-water rescues.

The storm forced the cancellation of dozens of flights out of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, according to the airport's website, temperatures reported near freezing.

Flooding was also reported in the states of Arkansas and Louisiana, CNN television said.

Record-breaking cold weather even hit the Pacific Coast state of California, where mild temperatures usually prevail all year.

In central Los Angeles, the thermometer dropped to 2C this morning, a temperature not felt in the city for 75 years.

Farmers in the Central Valley and the southern part of the state worried about freezing temperatures ruining the lucrative citrus crop, the Los Angeles Times and other media reported.

Photographs showed icicles hanging off of tangerine trees in a Central Valley orchard near Fresno, a rare sight in the state.

California oranges, lemons and other produce worth as much as half a billion dollars were probably ruined, the Los Angeles Times said.

The storm in central states was moving eastward, and had already caused ice storms in western parts of New York state, forecasters said.

"Things are improving but it's cold,'' National Weather Service meteorologist Bruce Sullivan said.

Postscript #1 - Very big evangelical church organisations are combining forces with scientific organisations in the USA to demand action on global warming as here:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/01/14/evangelicals_scientists_join_forces_to_combat_global_warming/

"Evangelicals, scientists join forces to combat global warming By Rodrique Ngowi, Associated Press Writer  January 14, 2007"

Postscript #2 - it seems even conservative Republicans are getting worried about Alaska melting

 http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2007/01/12/unexpected/index.html?source=daily

which is a disaster for alot of infrastructure suggested on an earlier post here at SAM about our teacher friend on a stint in remote Canada: Seems normally frozen 'winter roads' over swamp lakes and bog are only viable for a month mid January to mid February and this puts remote areas at risk of depopulation for inadequate time to truck in supplies.

Posted by editor at 11:49 AM EADT

Updated: Tuesday, 16 January 2007 2:18 PM EADT

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Mood:  down

Gerard Henderson, the same fellow sacked from The Age sister newspaper for being so boorish and unpopular, has this today in the Sydney Morning Herald:

Moderates say enough's enough

GERARD HENDERSON | The public statements of Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly have focused attention on young Muslims who do not share his extreme positions.

Trouble is Henderson is not "a moderate" himself who is regularly associated with the extremist free market HR Nicholls Society:

http://www.hrnicholls.com.au/

Given the Euro white dominated big corporate boards in Australia (and western society generally), that objective observers (ie those not financially dependent) see as puppeteers of governments - not even bothering to sit in Parliaments that they fund with big money politics - it is hardly surprising that Henderson attacks coffee coloured Hilali for defying that allegedly axiomatic culture.

Henderson appears as extreme and hysterical as he accuses Hilali of being with this:

"Granting permanent residence to Hilaly was one of the worst public policy decisions in the history of the Commonwealth of Australia. "

One of the "worst", of course Gerard, up there with

- the Vietnam War,

-  the Iraq War now,

- the White Australia policy,

- woodchipping of old growth forest canopy for decades which are naturally humid and wildfire resistant,

- export of iron to Japan rained back on us as bombs in WW2,

- land clearing, uranium mining/export, and rebuff of Kyoto global warming treaty

- failure to capitalise on our solar energy advantage with industry,

- cotton farms that stuff the Murray Darling river system, 

- stolen wages of slave Black labour, the undeclared warfare against same up to the 1930s by some accounts

- perhaps Hilali is worse than introduction of the cane toad, or pre 1900 the rabbit, the fox, prickly pear, camel and water buffalo?

I mean how flaky can a commentator get?

Who is Henderson fooling besides himself with this covert white supremacism? The future is in fact coffee coloured and, you know, it's OK. It's a little confronting for us Anglos sure but it is actually quite okay, not least the melanoma rates. Half the luck of the coffee coloured amongst us including Hilali himself.

Here is one simple reason straight from biology - hybrid vigour: The product of mixing is stronger than the ingredients. Australia will be greater and better for the mixing based on sound genetics. 

Henderson should be bracketed with the Paul Sheehans of this world for their Old Australia stereotypes and convenient airbrushing of the Iraq War disaster with outrage over Hilali a mere device and scapegoat for federal government incompetence writ large. A face saving parody of Australia's shameful White Australia past. Witness the farmer on 7.30 Report last night, a councillor at Tamworth no less, railing against "a multicultural future for our children".

Talk about backward.

One has to ask is Henderson just another white supremacist old fogey whose analysis has to be read down accordingly?

Note: This post builds on an earlier coverage of this issue, with postscript media monitoring at the end, just click the date top right for:

Posted by editor at 9:34 AM EADT

Updated: Tuesday, 16 January 2007 1:27 PM EADT

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Mood:  d'oh

 Responding to this report in the Big Media today:

Trucking boom to strangle city roads

AT OR NEAR choke point already, Sydney's roads will be jammed by a trucking boom tipped to outstrip growth in private car use, a federal government study warns.

The word "strangle" in the headline reminds SAM of these images of June 2005 with the city shrouded in Smog (which is the moniker I use for Sydney to country people) taken about 15 km out from the GPO at Arncliffe:

It also remind me of yellow campaign T-shirts by the Botany Bay & Catchment Association, covering south/western half of Sydney, umbrella to 33 community groups opposing Port Botany expansion and if I can get a picture of one I will add it in due course.

The Greens, appropriate to this NSW election season have responded quite realistically here:

MEDIA RELEASE
16 January 2007

No more motorways, freight on rail solution to Sydney’s congestion crisis

Greens MP and transport spokesperson Lee Rhiannon said today that Sydney can only be saved from growing traffic congestion if plans for major motorway projects are abandoned and replaced with ramped up funding for public transport and moving more freight on rail.  

”The congested future predicted for Sydney in a report by the federal Department of Transport and Regional Services can only be avoided by fast tracking more freight on rail options and stopping motorway construction," Ms Rhiannon said

Posted by editor at 9:18 AM EADT

Updated: Tuesday, 16 January 2007 1:18 PM EADT

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Mood:  a-ok

“Something big is happening next week at the Epoch Times” bugled this weekly freebie thin newspaper about a month ago.

Sure enough it went from Sydney City Hub, or more well known, Daily Telegraph tabloid size to broadsheet Sydney Morning Herald size.

The SMH is going through its own changes too, from CBD location to fringe CBD at Pyrmont in 2007 sometime. One feels a certain corporate security rationale in this age of rocket launcher home grown errorism for the decision to side step the allure of the CBD though to be fair their main competition News Ltd has been on the fringe for decades at Holt St, Surry Hills.

SAM’s editor is paid to deliver the Hub for Alternative Media Group, and noticed the internationally diverse Epoch Times of strong Asian, and anti ‘Communist’ Party of China flavour, at least a year ago. It was difficult to find them via google last time I tried but its all laid out here now:

http://en.epochtimes.com/aboutus.asp

About a year ago ET was in many of the same 600 odd inner city outlets I visited each month. I have seen it well beyond the inner city now too.

I got worried. With all that blue colour format I wondered is it a Liberal Party front, and said so at one outlet, Balmain public library. But it became clear it was Taiwanese based from the content, anti China government essays, prominent human rights and Falung Gong stories, and indeed some quite good original reporting with solid editorial values over actual news. I get the impression it is challenging the Murdoch in bed with China business relationship, and the spin up to the Bejing Olympics in 2008.

I could deliver a paper like this I thought.

At the local pool recently it was the only reading material to hand (January 3-9, 2007) and I was impressed with the probity of their stories: “Tourists ignore Thai bombings” a view I had heard from various young travellers and friends direct this summer Sydney. Then this ‘amusing’ story about the inscrutable “Chinese espionage difficult to contain” quoting one Mr Appel who “worked as an FBI special agent for 20 years” and how trips to the Wall and duchessing with cakes and food generally is a tactic for cooption of westerners. Also defector Chen Yonglin in the story. That’s of interest.

( I had to laugh at a parallel quote coincidentally read at the pool next day in the Latham Diaries Friday 28^th February 2003 on a delegation to China “My 42^nd birthday …Zhou Enlai had been good enough to organise a cake”!)

ET ran a solid ‘anti capital punishment for Saddam’ story quoting Kevin Rudd not seen in other press, but echoing mainstream cartoonists savaging the censorship of witness to USA dealings in the 1980s.

Another good tip straight off the AAP about ‘Warren Mundine’s NSW Native Title Services’ with Warren involved in a big Githabul land use agreement in NSW, but also  till recently the tragic Palm Island death in custody case. Could be related as I wondered if Mundine had been mollified over the latter by the former. And so it goes on with serious news mostly unlike so much in News Ltd or even Fairfax. A bit of local Asian business advertising but not much. A bit stern and light on infotainment to really expand circulation but one day maybe.

A story about an incredible “50,000 environmental protests” in China last year in ‘International firms blamed for China’s pollution increase’ expediently labelled “environmental colonialism” by the dictatorship there, while airbrushing the role of numerous major local companies pumping up the industrialisation. This story was echoed on ABC Radio National this morning (13 days later, January 16^th) with the solid journo Paul Barry.

Yes, Epoch Times is an impressive small newspaper and should be added to the independent media diversity bracket challenging the monolithic News Ltd and Fairfax here.

Posted by editor at 7:25 AM EADT

Updated: Tuesday, 16 January 2007 7:35 AM EADT

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Mood:  quizzical

 By Tom McLoughlin, solicitor in NSW

When I studied the subject of Jurisprudence in 1989 at Australian National University which I greatly enjoyed, we were taught there is an institutional conspiracy in the administration of justice around the choice of judges.

That is the judges are chosen from a fairly limited group of society, who had a certain socio economic childhood, education, religious training, ethnicity, career as a lawyer and then choice as a judge.

This is the realist theory of the law, as a social contract we all sign up to to live here, where morality is not nearly as significant as maintaining order, because disorder creates confusion and that leads to conflict and social breakdown. So the law is more about keeping the peace than actually doing justice.

[Notice too the legalistic objective of keeping the peace is only one social good. If law is too strict it stifles creativity, freedom of expression, and innovation. Too much 'legalistic order' can be not only boring, it can be unhealthy to civil liberty and so fascist. As always it's a balancing act for society as a whole.]

Similarly there is a jurisprudential academic view this background influence reflects the approach of judges to court decisions on any particular matter.

In a way this is common sense, and blatantly obvious. A judge is affected by their own background personal experience. But this has to be applied professionally according to the evidence in a case and the actual law. So much for the human condition.

One presumes Judge Michael Finane is such an orthodox judicial officer.

Indeed this writer has met him socially on one occassion at his home long before these controversial cases and some of his family around the topic of permaculture gardening. This puts this writer in a delicate position. One is able properly to comment on legal decisions but not hold judges in contempt by suggesting they take note of anything in their decisions other than the evidence before them. For instance their family background should not be a factor beyond what is known as "judicial facts", that is commonly known things that everyone accepts without evidence - say the sun comes up and sets, the harbour bridge is big etc. They have to be common blatant things beyond controversy. Perhaps. Does it includes a father's concern for the well being of his own?

So from a legal theory point of view I wish to comment on the fairly widespread view amongst some critics of the 55 year very long sentence of Skaf by Finane that discrimination might be involved. No. Simply I don't believe it and here is why:

There is one thing in common between Finane and critic Mufti Hilali - they are both fathers of adult children. My intuitive belief is that subliminally or subconsciously Finane must have been influenced by this reality of his own family. Similarly if any of Hilali's daughters had been violently abused he would probably be quoting the Koran or Old Testament dictum of capital punishment, rather than 55 years.

There might be quite a few women's groups with sympathy for that too, as victims of violent sexual abuse, though the law is properly not in the business of revenge. 

So I don't buy the theory about Finane prejudice against Islam in his harsh punishment. No, I think it's an explanation around evidence and law, training and yes his own family, far closer to Hilali's own life journey perhaps than the Mufti actually realises. Not the evil of discrimination but the positive motive of a family man.

It is regretable to mention a judge's family in analysing his decision but there wouldn't be a good defence lawyer in the whole country who didn't make similar calculations of the presiding judicial officer in a case. What's he like? How many sugars in his coffee and every other personal detail. So it is with Finane and that's the burden too of a judge's family.

I write this in what I believe to be the public interest, and a small risk to my own practising certificate, as there is a gathering momentum behind the 'discrimination against Islam' theory of Skaf's sentence which calls up the need for credible alternative versions of reality of which a father's natural concerns for their own surely plays a part while properly exercising a public duty.

Posted by editor at 8:44 AM EADT

Updated: Tuesday, 16 January 2007 10:33 PM EADT

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Mood:  sharp

Jarrah Keenan doing a stint in South Korea as an English teacher forwards this amusing, disturbing satire of George W Bush  (who I must say closely resembles a 'defeated' presidential candidate Ritchie character in the West Wing tv series (4th Season, #6  "Game On" broadcast October 30 2002).

Hard to make funny of such a terrible situation, but then humour sometimes can be so profound as to the truth of the world. Over to Mr Average American here:

Dear Mr. President: Send Even MORE Troops (and you go, too!) ...from Michael
Moore

1/10/07

Dear Mr. President,

Thanks for your address to the nation. It's good to know you still want to
talk to us after how we behaved in November.

Listen, can I be frank? Sending in 20,000 more troops just ain't gonna do
the job. That will only bring the troop level back up to what it was last
year. And we were losing the war last year! We've already had over a million
troops serve some time in Iraq since 2003. Another few thousand is simply
not enough to find those weapons of mass destruction! Er, I mean... bringing
those responsible for 9/11 to justice! Um, scratch that. Try this -- BRING
DEMOCRACY TO THE MIDDLE EAST! YES!!!

You've got to show some courage, dude! You've got to win this one! C'mon,
you got Saddam! You hung 'im high! I loved watching the video of that --
just like the old wild west! The bad guy wore black! The hangmen were as
crazy as the hangee! Lynch mobs rule!!!

Look, I have to admit I feel very sorry for the predicament you're in. As
Ricky Bobby said, "If you're not first, you're last." And you being
humiliated in front of the whole world does NONE of us Americans any good.

Sir, listen to me. You have to send in MILLIONS of troops to Iraq, not
thousands! The only way to lick this thing now is to flood Iraq with
millions of us! I know that you're out of combat-ready soldiers -- so you
have to look elsewhere! The only way you are going to beat a nation of 27
million -- Iraq -- is to send in at least 28 million! Here's how it would
work:

The first 27 million Americans go in and kill one Iraqi each. That will
quickly take care of any insurgency. The other one million of us will stay
and rebuild the country. Simple.

Now, I know you're saying, where will I find 28 million Americans to go to
Iraq? Here are some suggestions:

1. More than 62,000,000 Americans voted for you in the last election (the
one that took place a year and half into a war we already knew we were
losing). I am confident that at least a third of them would want to put
their body where there vote was and sign up to volunteer. I know many of
these people and, while we may disagree politically, I know that they don't
believe someone else should have to go and fight their fight for them --
while they hide here in America.

2. Start a "Kill an Iraqi" Meet-Up group in cities across the country. I
know this idea is so early-21st century, but I once went to a Lou Dobbs
Meet-Up and, I swear, some of the best ideas happen after the third mojito.
I'm sure you'll get another five million or so enlistees from this effort.

3. Send over all members of the mainstream media. After all, they were your
collaborators in bringing us this war -- and many of them are already
trained from having been "embedded!" If that doesn't bring the total to 28
million, then draft all viewers of the FOX News channel.

Mr. Bush, do not give up! Now is not the time to pull your punch! Don't be a
weenie by sending in a few over-tired troops. Get your people behind you and
YOU lead them in like a true commander in chief! Leave no conservative
behind! Full speed ahead!

We promise to write. Go get 'em W!

Yours,

Michael Moore
http://www.michaelmoore.com/

Posted by editor at 9:05 AM EADT

Updated: Sunday, 14 January 2007 9:17 AM EADT

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