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Human Rights Commission to get teeth

From The Age:

Law to take on internet racism
JOSH GORDON
February 21, 2010

LAWS to tackle racism on the internet are set to be beefed up.

Authorities warn they are often powerless to act against online content, which is responsible for almost one in five racial vilification complaints.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland has ordered the Australian Human Rights Commission to conduct a sweeping review of ”arrangements for dealing with racist material on the internet”.

”While freedom of expression is one of the most fundamental rights, this is not at the expense of the rights of people, while using the internet, to be treated with equality, dignity and respect,” Mr McClelland told The Sunday Age.

Mr McClelland said the government was exploring what action it could take on internet material that breaches the Federal Racial Discrimination Act.

Options include providing the commission with sharper teeth to order internet service providers to remove racist content, and changing the Racial Discrimination Act so it is easier to apply criminal sanctions.

News brief · 21 February 2010

Nile Party fires campaign manager for doing his job

We at FDB more than amused that the bigots at the CDP have sacked their campaign manager for doing precisely what Fred Nile himself has done for years- vilifying Muslims.

This is not to say that the anti-Muslim ‘survey’ was the smartest political stunt to pull- you’d have thought that Nile & CDP would have caught a clue that this wasn’t a vote-getter after the vitriolic public response to the fake Muslim leaflet affair run on behalf of Liberal candidate Karen Chijoff in 2007. But noooooo…

From the SMH:

Nile scapegoat calls in lawyers
SEAN NICHOLLS AND LEESHA MCKENNY
February 17, 2010

The Bradfield byelection in December did not go well for the Christian Democratic Party, thanks largely to criticism of its anti-Muslim “survey” and its tactic of running nine candidates for the seat. The man the party blamed for its bad press was its then campaign manager, Michael Darby, who it claimed issued the survey without the party authorisation and who has since lost his job. Now, following a meeting on Saturday, the president, Fred Nile, says the party has learned from the experience. Yesterday his office issued a press release declaring that the meeting ”rejected any future attempt to have multiple CDP candidates in the one electorate, or any further ‘push poll surveys”’.

News brief · 19 February 2010

Racist BNP’s Nick Griffin: Welcome Pauline!

If Pauline Hanson really is looking for a quieter lifestyle, this is the sort of welcoming party she could do without.

From the SMH:

British far-right leader welcomes Hanson
PAOLA TOTARO HERALD CORRESPONDENT
February 17, 2010

THE leader of the British National Party has declared that Pauline Hanson would not be regarded as an ”immigrant sponger” if she moved to Britain, and if she wished to play a political role she would be ”very welcome”.

But the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, warned that Ms Hanson should choose carefully where she makes her home, as Britain has become one of the ”most overcrowded” nations in the world, thanks to the Labour Party’s decision to admit ”3 million spongers”. He told the Herald that more than 100,000 ”indigenous” Londoners had fled the British capital every year over the past two decades, driven out by immigration.

”It has been a relentless flow because they can’t stand living there and feeling like foreigners in their own city. I’d recommend she stay away from inner London and go off and find somewhere that is recognisably still British. Any of the smaller towns or the country, places you know you are in Britain and are not the Third World yet,” he said.

”I feel very sorry for her … that she has been forced out of her country by this politically correct intimidation and bullying … she would not be a sponger. We would regard her as a good addition.”

News brief · 17 February 2010

Sayonara, Pauline-san

Things have been fairly quiet on the racism front in Australia since ethnoreligious discrimination ceased to be an overt political policy, as was promulgated by Hanson and later co-opted by Howard.

It’s about to get even quieter.

From the SMH:

I won’t call Australia home: Hanson to emigrate
SEAN NICHOLLS
February 15, 2010

The woman who launched a political career on an anti-immigration platform is set to become an immigrant herself. Only days after declaring she was finished with politics, the former One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has revealed plans to sell her Queensland property and resettle in Britain, potentially for good.

”I’m going to be away indefinitely. It’s pretty much goodbye forever,” she told Woman’s Day magazine in an interview, published today.

”I’ve really had enough. I want peace in my life. I want contentment, and that’s what I’m aiming for.”

News brief · 15 February 2010

Student bashings coverage in Indian press

From The Age:

Indian journal focuses on ‘hate’
MATT WADE, NEW DELHI
February 1, 2010


The cover of India’s Outlook magazine.

IT’S A magazine cover that will make the hearts of Australian university bosses and diplomats sink.

“Why the Aussies hate us” screams the front cover of this week’s influential Indian news magazine, Outlook.

The 10 pages of coverage inside has stories of young Indian victims of violence and racial abuse and describes how Indian students in Melbourne feel afraid on the streets.

Kevin Rudd’s nephew and anti-racism activist, Van Thanh Rudd, told Outlook the “dominant culture in Australia is a racist culture” and that he had no doubt the attacks had been racially motivated.

The magazine claims to have found “evidence that ‘curry-bashing’ is becoming a fun game for white Australians”.

Outlook, a centre-left news weekly published in Delhi, is one of India’s top selling English language magazines, with a circulation of about 1.5 million and a large online audience.

News brief · 1 February 2010