Free speech nobbled

Below is letter published in The West Australian Newspaper:

Shame on Western Australia

Shame on WA, when a visiting politician, who has spoken in the US Senate, the British House of Lords and other European parliaments, is not allowed to speak to people in Perth.

WA residents have been denied the opportunity to listen to visiting Dutch politician Geert Wilders. Why? Because he is opposed to Islam – so what.

The Federal and WA governments refused to even speak to him, let alone provide a venue. Commercial speaking venues have broken contracts for unspecified reasons. Are they all scared of protesters and social activists? So scared that they have stifled free speech and diversity of opinion in WA.

End

In late January I blogged that I was concerned about free speech and freedom of association. Well, in Western Australia Geert Wilders was not allowed to speak in public. The Federal Government would not provide a venue, and Colin Barnett (the State premier) refused any assistance, and said Geert Wilders was not welcome here. Mr Barnett does not speak for all Wesernt Australians.
Commercial venues were also frightened off. Several accepted the booking and then cancelled, the last one which was fully paid for in Perth, Western Australia, cancelled at 9.20 pm on the Friday night before the talk on Wednesday. Due to security concerns, no venue could be found at such short notice. And so, we who had booked tickets were deprived our right to listen to Mr Wilders.
Similar antics occured in Melbourne and Sydney, the Melbourne talk finally took place at a slightly out of town venue, and 500 people paid, attended and braved the agressive protesters, who screamed, shouted and tried to stop people attending. The police had to move in to stop their nonsense. The protesters were unclear if they were protesting about the 'underclass', the Palestinians or Pauline Hanson. I have read Geert Wilders' speech and it is not about class, race, Palestine or Pauline Hanson.
Geert is a proponent of free speech, and as a result of criticising Islam, he has lost his freedom. He has to go everywhere with several full time security people, he cannot walk down the street without security and disguise. He and his wife live in a secret house, and his wife also has no freedom.
Surely governments and social acitivists should be protesting about the Muslims who want to kill him, for merely speaking freely.

But No 

The Government of this country (Australia) will allow people such asTaji Mustafa – the British leader of Muslim extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir; and Sheik Al-Sudais – who says Christians have a poisonous culture and Jews are the rats of the world – into this country to talk. Universities are happy to provide venues, and local councils offer facilities. So if you criticize Christian values, that is all OK; but if you criticise Islamic values, it is an absolute no no, and you will be risking your life.
 It is reported that Julia Gillard has agreed to attend the "Islamic Peace Conference" (a real oxymoron) – to be held in March in Melbourne, which includes many of the extreme Muslim speakers. Will she wear a hijab, out of deference to their cultural values?
It appears that only the politically correct brigade and left-wing progressives have the right in Australia to free speech. But why, when a democratically elected leader of a major party in a western democracy has been invited by Australians to talk, he is not allowed. He is branded by those, who have never really listened to him speak, as 'extreme', and full of 'hate speak'. That is a lie, and those who wish to shut him up because his views are different from theirs, are extreme and full of hate speak.

Shame on us

Our politicians and all Australians should be standing up for free speech, not trying to close it down.

 

The stupid media

I am anything but a fan of Julia Gillard, or her partner (whatever he is), Tim Mathieson. However the beat up made by the media on what was a harmless joke/comment when talking to principally a male audience , was ridiculous.
He was talking about prostate cancer, a subject of interest to him and to most males. He suggested that the PSA test was far from perfect, and the best test was the rectal digital test. An unpleasant experience so best to choose an asian with a small finger. In the context a fun remark, and for gods sake if we cannot make jokes like this where has our Australian sense of humour gone.
Various people got on the band wagon that it was inappropriate, racist etc. etc. even Tony Abbott did not laugh it off. So Mathieson had to appologise and Julia said he could have chosen his words better.
This is political correctness gone mad, and if Nichola Roxons anti discrimination bill is ever passed there will be no room for jokes which have any sort of innuendo.

Halal baby shampoo

Whatever next. Johnson and Johnsons baby shampoo is now Halal certified. There must be a reason that a large company pays a fee to have its Baby shampoo certified halal, but the reason is not obvious to me.

The halal certification business is huge, world wide billions probably trillions of dollars. Usually it refers to food products, but as the baby shampoo indicates certification is not limited to food.
There may be a need for some products sold to the Middle East or Islamic countries to have Halal certification. However from my own observations in these countries, their stores have lots of products that give no indication they are Halal, and I have never noticed Muslims shopping in our stores in Australia reading the labels to check if the product is halal.
In Australia most products that are certified halal do not have a symbol advertising he fact, so how does one know that the food is halal.

• Does certification improve the quality or nutritional value of the food- NO
• Does certification ensure good quality control over the production-NO- we have ample laws covering health and safety.
• Does certification lower the standard of our food-NOT USUALLY
• Does certification increase the price of the product-YES- a fee has to be paid to an Islamic body for the certification each year.
• Does certification increase the cost of production-SOMETIMES- Halal slaughtermen are sometimes paid more that non muslim slaughtermen.

The reasons many many companies small and large pay money to Islamic certifying bodies, is unclear however that is not the big question, the big question is:

What happens to the money paid for certification

Where does the billions of dollars raised certifying products go? The income is above the cost of certifying, so does the surplus go into building Mosques in the resident country, does it go to helping poor communities, is it just used corruptly to make some people rich. A video on air  showed the head of the Halal certifying bodies, stating that halal certification had made him personally, very very rich. 

 

Or does some of it get sent overseas to help terrorist organisations? Overseas money paid for halal certification has been traced to terrorist organisations.. To my knowledge no one in Australia knows, and the certifying bodies are not saying. The NSW police are still I believe  investigation the Australian Federation Of Islamic Councils -AFIC- over the disappearance of millions of dollars of money given to Islamic schools by the NSW and Australian Government. The NSW government has asked for the return of over $9.0 million. I wonder where it is?

 

This talk below could be extremely interesting and a real eye opener for any with some doubts about Islam