The Spectator Australia

From our Editor-in-Chief, ROWAN DEAN The evidence is clear. Every time the Coalition attempts to attack One Nation, they lose as much, if not more, than they potentially gain. It’s a fool’s errand. An alternative strategy, and one this magazine has proposed for some time, is for the Coalition and One Nation to ride in each other’s slipstream as they take the fight exclusively to Labor, the Greens and the Teals. This is what the left are terrified of, for they know that combined the conservative forces are unbeatable – just look at the Voice referendum result. Every moment that Angus Taylor or Matt Canavan devotes to attacking or distancing themselves from One Nation is a moment they are not attacking or denigrating Labor and the Greens. And to be blunt, the Coalition cannot afford that luxury if the Albanese government is to be torn down. #Auspol #politics Article | https://lnkd.in/gh5-NRfh

Enter academia and their media handmaidens to save the day. Leading the charge is Professor Mat Santamouris from the University of New South Wales, who solemnly warns that while air conditioning saves lives, ‘We cannot air-condition our way out of climate change.’ He points to the looming spectre of grid collapse and the tragedy of people turning to mechanical cooling as their default response to being hot. Echoing this sentiment, Time magazine immediately declared that, ‘air conditioning is not the solution’, citing a study warning that if low-income regions achieve the same access to air conditioning as wealthy ones, the resulting emissions will cause a ‘feedback loop’ that puts global climate targets out of reach. In other words, the modern climate crusade is the ultimate luxury belief. Adopting a righteous stance costs a tenured academic absolutely nothing. But for the lumpen proletariat, it is a demand to voluntarily heat-stroke themselves for the greater good of Klaus Schwab. Call it ideological imperialism – the arrogance of our eco-overlords dictating energy policy from temperature-controlled boardrooms. The big-brained proposal coming out of UNSW’s heavily air-conditioned ivory towers? Something called ‘passive cooling’. Instead of affordable electricity and a remote control, the professor suggests the sweaty masses combat 40-degree summers with window shading, ‘smarter ventilation’, and painting our roofs white to reflect sunlight. Article | https://lnkd.in/grDWzcvR

Could there be a more vivid contrast between Australian's Western virtues and the brutal dictatorship imposed on China from 1949, with over 65 million Chinese dying before the communists accepted that communism never works? Forced to change to survive, the communists had on their doorstep a perfect blueprint for a successful change. This was Hong Kong – a thriving civilisation built upon the rule of law and individual freedom, even if the communists had always warned the British on pain of immediate invasion not to introduce self-government. Rejecting Hong Kong as a model and allied with corrupt big business, the communists introduced the market but simultaneously retained the horrors of their bloodthirsty dictatorship. Later, when the Chinese people rushed to embrace the gentle principles of the Falun Gong and its link with traditional China, the movement rapidly became far more popular than the Communist party itself. Threatened by a moral renaissance they feared above all, the communists targeted the Falun Gong with unprecedented, cruel, and extrajudicial persecution. The evidence is incontestable: the independent London Tribunal meticulously established that thousands are now being systematically murdered every single year to fuel a lucrative, state-shielded transplant market. Article | https://lnkd.in/gSGfFi2V

Industry super funds are particularly strategic. They influence the appointment of partisan company directors, the signing of union sweetheart deals and the adoption of woke workplace practices. Woe betide businesses in which they invest, who resist their agenda. No wonder union-negotiated collective agreements delivered average annual wage increases of 4.2 per cent, compared to 3.0 per cent under agreements where no unions were involved. With the industrial relations system purposely designed to favour so-called not-for-profit, superannuation funds, a handful of union funds, with little capital backing, have been able to grow to around 36 per cent of Australia’s more than four trillion dollars in retirement assets, yielding them an estimated $10 billion a year in fees. This scale has provided industry funds with some $30 million to spend on advertising and other inducements to attract new members; easily out-competing smaller, retail funds. Article | https://lnkd.in/gkAVG8hB

Nearly 200 economists including 15 Nobel laureates and tech leaders this month issued a statement that warned artificial intelligence poses ‘risks, including large-scale job displacement’ and suggested that policymakers need to better understand these threats to enjoy AI’s benefits. Within days, another 1,800 luminaries had signed the three-paragraph release titled ‘We must act now’ that described how AI ‘could drive an unprecedented transformation of our economy, larger than the Industrial Revolution’. The statement added credibility to the hype around AI’s abilities that includes claims the technology is conscious, can reason and will achieve superhuman intelligence. Detractors, however, say large language models are just sophisticated autotext; AI is just code that offers plausible responses based on probabilities gleaned from scanning plagiarised texts or data. Unlike computers and spreadsheets, AI’s output must be verified which constrains its productivity benefits. Such speculation surrounding what social and economic benefits and harms AI might bring in coming years often distracts from how AI poses an immediate danger to prosperity due to two connected threats. #tech #technology #AI #artificialintelligence Article | https://lnkd.in/gK2VubDS

Earlier this month, America marked the 250th birthday of its Declaration of Independence. This anniversary should also matter to Australians. The story that began in Philadelphia in 1776 runs, by a longer and quieter road, directly to this country. It is a story worth telling around the dinner table, because it is increasingly clear that Australian schools will not tell it. The most recent National Assessment Program results for civics and citizenship found that only 43 per cent of Year 6 students and a dismal 28 per cent of Year 10 students met the proficient standard, the worst results since testing began in 2004. Earlier NAP testing found that nearly a quarter of Year 10 students believed governments determine the outcome of referendums. In the most successful referendum democracy on earth, Australian teenagers do not know that the people decide. What little civics children do receive too often arrives marinated in the fashionable conviction that Australia is a nation conceived in sin, and its history is chiefly a ledger of shame. The failings of the past are real and should be taught honestly, but a curriculum that teaches only failings produces citizens who can recite grievances but cannot explain why their country works. So here, offered as a family supplement to the syllabus, are the civics lessons worth passing on. Article | https://lnkd.in/gJsAun4h

What does One Nation’s constitution look like? It has been widely reported that, in addition to being the parliamentary leader of One Nation, Pauline Hanson is also its president and administrator, exercising extraordinary authority over the organisation itself. I wanted to know whether that is what the party’s constitution actually says. It does. The One Nation constitution, available on the Asic website, establishes a highly centralised structure, with extensive authority vested in a minimum three-member executive. Branches, candidates and administration are all subject to central control. In essence, all organisational power lies with Pauline Hanson, who is personally named in the constitution as president and alone has the power to appoint her successor. It is a remarkable constitutional design for a party that aspires to government. It is a hugely different model from the Westminster tradition, where authority within political parties is generally dispersed through state organisations, elected executives and separate parliamentary processes. Whether the major parties’ expressed diffusion of power is perfect or fit for purpose is another question. But for both, their constitutions at least reflect a conservative instinct that power should rarely reside in one place or with one person. Article | https://lnkd.in/gTuyF7JQ

James Allan has a question for conservatives: Who are you gonna trust, baby? And it is that issue that is making life for both Angus Taylor and Kemi Badenoch so diabolically difficult. They can repeatedly announce good or even world’s best policies till they’re blue in the face. They first have to overcome the threshold issue of whether their core voters – or rather the voters who used to be their base and core supporters, but have now moved off to One Nation and to Reform – trust them to do what they now say they will do. And for many, many of these formerly loyal voters the brutal answer is, ‘No, whatever you now promise I’ve wised up after what you did to us for so many years.’ Article | https://lnkd.in/gbXqM2v3

We had the plumber in the other day, and were grateful that he even turned up. Although he charged us nearly $800 to replace a tap in the kitchen and fix a leaking tap in the bathroom. Evidently, washers are so yesterday, and a $50 cartridge was required to fix the drip in our modern looking tap. He was a cheerful, chatty type. He even offered to show me how the new tap works, but I declined. I thought about asking him his views on the Plumbing Industry Climate Action Centre, but I was pretty sure I would have drawn a blank. He was more interested in making money and getting to the next job. Now, I’m not sure what the link between plumbing and climate action is, but the PICAC, which is controlled by the Plumbers’ Union, has received $60 million in grants from the Commonwealth, Victorian and New South Wales governments. Under the terms of registered enterprise agreements covering plumbers, employers are required to pay a weekly levy to this centre, thereby guaranteeing its cash flow. What does the PICAC do? It’s a good question... Article | https://lnkd.in/gDZeY3MD

MAGISTRATE SAYS, ALTHOUGH EVIDENCE AGAINST RETURNING ISIS BRIDE IS STRONG - SHE WOULD BE GRANTED BAIL. El Houli travelled from suburban Melbourne to Syria in 2014 with her jihadi husband and is charged with entering or remaining in a declared conflict zone and becoming a member of the terrorist organisation Islamic State. Watching Isis videos with her children was, according to the Crown prosecutor, part of a deliberate process of indoctrination; terror training rather than toilet training. The maternal moments, captured in videos over a two-year period, showed her homeschooling her children in a house filled with weapons. They slept in a bed with an AK-47 propped up against the wall. The videos were not screened in court because her lawyer claimed it would have distressed Ms El Houli. Even so, she teared up as the tender transcripts were read out. Chief prosecutor Andrew Sprague said there was no evidence El Houli had renounced her beliefs. After the deaths of two of her three jihadist husbands, she remarried. On returning to Australia, she declined to participate in a Countering Violent Extremism program and only renounced violent jihad when she faced the prospect of being refused bail. Article | https://lnkd.in/grYfU4u3