Auspol December - Yes! We! Can! - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Auspol December - Yes! We! Can!

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Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Banning controversial speaker Milo Yiannopoulos is only helping his cause

Joe Hildebrand

# ¿ Nov 30, 2017 23:40

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 02:13

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

I mean once you ban something, it’s sure to stop it from becoming famous right? Just ask Karl Marx, Adolf Hitler and Henry Miller.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2017 23:43

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Young Labor lost most of their youth left wing when they knifed Julia so everything since has just been watching the slow shambolic zombie walk of death

# ¿ Dec 1, 2017 02:28

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

thatbastardken posted:

Going to bring up the class issue in the state office election debrief, see what happens.

It's a rather big topic given the same sex plebiscite result. It's been put to me, and I don't really have a reply to it, that in Australia no longer do we have any party that appeals to the working class because to be accepting of just "the working class" means to accept not just their financial and social circumstance but also their financial and social views which are largely incompatible with those who seek to represent them. Their response has been to latch onto any outsider party, no matter how long show (Palmer) or even more racist (Hanson), because they take a look at Liberals, Labor and the Greens and they can see that none of them are them.

In one of Waleed Aly's better pieces he wrote about how the current political party system makes no sense in the modern world and if we were to make parties today from scratch politics would have three parties; a right of One Nation members, Australian Conservatives and the most wingnut of Liberal members; a "moderate" centrist party of the less right wing Liberal members, the right wing of the Labor party, Xenophon, independents; and a left of the leftist Labor and Greens. Even in that criteria it's based on political views, not political membership, and I'm not sure where the working class fits.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2017 03:26

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Kafka Syrup posted:

There's already a fuckton of salt. Labor hacks are pushing a line on social media that the result is illegitimate because most of the LNP voters would have preferenced Labor over Greens.

thats not how preferential voting works

# ¿ Dec 1, 2017 03:27

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

the 15th of March because it would be too on the nose and they lack subtlty

# ¿ Dec 1, 2017 10:10

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Zenithe posted:

"all these women look great and you can't say that to them"

-Rowan Dean, about how the women he works with look great, in national paper.

Ladies?

Lid fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Dec 4, 2017

# ¿ Dec 4, 2017 03:57

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

You Am I posted:

His portrait work is amazing and won awards.

His cartoon work was pretty awful.

You know whose art also won awards?

Its not Hitler.

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-28/donald-friend-our-favourite-paedophile/8053222

# ¿ Dec 4, 2017 04:25

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

JBP posted:

Real talk: do people in here try to reconcile their enjoyment of art with the artist being a fuckhead or what? I find it tough since I'm a big Spacey fan and I'd like to watch his films and appreciate the art of it, but I'm not sure that's possible.

I've reached a point of giving up once i started a film and saw The Weinstein Company and realised the tendrils are in too deep to throw everything out. I'm a hypocrite too as i've been doing this for years - i knew Roman Polanski and Woody Allen as everyone did before this all blew up but still will talk up how great Match Point is and that The Pianist is the greatest holocaust movie of all time. Its the probably artificial balance of saying the art is brilliant and disassociating it from the artist.

Pre film i did this with finding out that Salvador Dali was a literal fascist, literal sadist and a literal abuser. Despise the man but cant use it to disregard his works.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2017 04:43

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Zenithe posted:

My approach is feel free to enjoy whatever it is, but do not do anything that could support them. Like you can enjoy Wagner and Strauss (who were Nazis) because none of your money is going to support white supremacists and they're both dead, but not see say, movies with Johnny Depp in them, as your money and participation could be seen as a green light to continue employing a domestic abuser.

Goddamit. I'm starting to think that everyone I liked from history was awful. It's actually probably more like, everyone from history was awful though.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2009/jun/09/george-orwell-art-critic-salvador-dali

quote:

After his return to Catalonia post World War II, Dal� moved closer to the authoritarian regime of Francisco Franco. Some of Dal�'s statements were supportive, congratulating Franco for his actions aimed "at clearing Spain of destructive forces".[117] Dal�, having returned to the Catholic faith and becoming increasingly religious as time went on, may have been referring to the Republican atrocities during the Spanish Civil War.[118][119] Dal� sent telegrams to Franco, praising him for signing death warrants for prisoners.[117] He even met Franco personally,[120] and painted a portrait of Franco's granddaughter.[121]

http://www.orwell.ru/library/reviews/dali/english/e_dali

It's most apparent in George Orwell's writings. Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War, while Dali was best friends with Franco/.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2017 04:56

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Birdstrike posted:

One can enjoy CAD while understanding that Tim Buckley has flaws as an individual.

Frank Miller's Batman: Year One, The Dark Knight Returns and Daredevil runs

then ignoring literally everything after the 80s

# ¿ Dec 4, 2017 05:16

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

https://architectureau.com/articles/city-of-sydney-steps-in-to-save-brutalist-childrens-court-from-demolition/

No nono ono ono no

I dont care how much i want to stop development

I will NOT turn to start defending brutalism

# ¿ Dec 7, 2017 16:20

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

You Am I posted:

Agreed, gently caress the haters of Brutalism.

"No, let's have more flammable clad buildings" - loving morons

Yes i too like buildings that need constant repairs due to being water porous to prevent roofs collapsing that look like Mussolini's wet dream and a style that exists only for architects who were showing off "look how cool and precise my geometry is".

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

all you brutalism haters can gently caress off, you probably don't even like the UTS building. you are the Kevin Andrews of architecture.

... there are people who like the UTS building?

# ¿ Dec 8, 2017 03:10

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Birdstrike posted:

as if you would talk about UTS in the context of brutalist architecture and not Macquarie

rank amateurs

Because like everything Macquarie does its one fifth the size and no one has to suffer through it other than Macquarie students

Real talk about a decade ago they discovered tgese huge concrete slab squares on the outside of outside of the old library served no purpose and literally covered up windows hidden inside cause brutalism

# ¿ Dec 8, 2017 03:21

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

https://twitter.com/AusAmbFR/status/938808086466367488

Birdstrike posted:

it was supposed to survive usyd getting nuked

These days they could they'd build the swimming pool out of sandstone to show they're just like the cool kids

# ¿ Dec 8, 2017 03:29

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

freebooter posted:

On modern architecture, from the other week - https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/10/why-you-hate-contemporary-architecture

Religious architecture rules

Contrast classical with the Hillsong megachurches

# ¿ Dec 8, 2017 05:28

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

KennyTheFish posted:

The cathloics certainly new architecture. That or they did so many that even a few percent being amazing adds up.

Then there is Sigrada Familia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary

# ¿ Dec 8, 2017 05:46

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Geoffrey Rush is suing the Daily Telegraph for defamation

# ¿ Dec 8, 2017 06:13

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

One of the state's biggest home builders is battling a cheese baron in the Supreme Court, over a prime slice of land on Melbourne's northern fringe earmarked for a $1 billion new suburb.

Dennis Family Homes has been negotiating with landowners in Donnybrook for almost a decade to secure hundreds of hectares of empty paddocks to convert to new estates.

But one of the vendors, cheese millionaire Tom Montalto, argues he didn't realise – despite multiple meetings, briefings and contracts he signed – he was selling all of the land he owns.

The Montalto family paid a touch over $1 million for hundreds of hectares of farmland in Donnybrook, near Whittlesea, in 1994. Back then, it was zoned green wedge, meaning multiple houses couldn't be built on it.

Today, with Melbourne expanding forever outwards, the land has been rezoned for housing. It's now worth $353 million. How do we know that precise figure?

Because that's what Dennis Family Homes agreed Mr Montalto would earn from selling the land. He signed contracts with the company in 2013, after seven years of negotiations.

The 71-year-old might have signed contracts to sell the land – but in an epic 10-day court fight, he told Justice Ross Robson he didn't read any of them.

He says he couldn't because despite the millions he has made running Floridia Cheese, a booming business with 60 staff, he has the reading abilities of a grade three student.

He can read documents but only ones that are "simple – if they are simple", he told Justice Robson. But not the sort of complicated contracts required by Dennis Family Homes.

Dennis Homes wants to call its new 5000-house estate Peppercorn Hill.

Mr Montalto isn't happy about that either. He thought it was going to be named Montalto Hill, and the subdivision's streets named after members of his family, which emigrated from Italy in the 1950s.

Dennis Family Homes argued that Mr Montalto could read quite well.

He was at school until year 10, could translate Italian into English, and understood precisely what was going on over years of negotiations for the land.

Mr Montalto drew his former law firm, Harwood Andrews, into the legal mess, saying they had failed to protect his interests properly.

Until the case is decided, Dennis Family Homes cannot develop the land.

Mr Montalto is happy to part with about three-quarters of his land, but wants to keep one corner for himself.

He doesn't need Dennis Family Homes to help him sell that corner, he told the court.

"Why do I need you to find me the buyer? I'll find my own buyer at auction," he said.

The case finished late last month, and is understood to have cost all involved upwards of $3 million in legal fees so far.

On Tuesday, lawyers for the four parties in the dispute were back in the Supreme Court, after Dennis Family Homes returned for specific permission from Justice Robson to enter the land, to start building a sales offices.

In the end, Mr Montalto granted Dennis Family Homes permission to access the land.

Justice Robson said Mr Montalto's refusal to part with the final parcel of land came despite "an agreement which would bring on them riches beyond everybody's wildest dream".

Once the paddocks are carved into residential lots the total value of land sales is expected to be $1.1 billion, the court heard.

When the Montalto family bought the paddocks, there was nothing but farming land as far as the eye could see save for the odd farmhouse.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2017 12:35

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Piers Akerman: Marriage vote was a victory for left’s hate

Just as the celebrity-studded audience in the packed public gallery, cheering and clapping, detracted from the event and reminded some of the countercultural leftists activists who had been instrumental in overturning the millennia-held view of traditional marriage as being between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others and the bedrock of stable family life.

The redefinition of words by political process is plainly Orwellian.

The battle for marriage has been lost and the politically left are now assailing gender. This is not fiction. We have already seen the example in Australia of activists trying to remove the word woman from midwifery texts on the grounds that to refer to a specific gender promotes inequality.

The vote was not a happy ending, it was merely another front crumbling in the left’s long, sour and hateful campaign against Western culture.

lol

# ¿ Dec 9, 2017 14:43

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

http://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend/the-booming-trade-in-fake-indigenous-art-20171122-gzqyam.html

quote:

Dead heart: the booming trade in fake Indigenous art

In tourist shops around the country, visitors are far more likely to buy a boomerang made in Bali than one made here by Indigenous Australians. What led to this booming trade in fake art – and can it be stopped?

Aboriginal artist Stephen Hogarth leads the way into yet another Surfers Paradise souvenir store – our fourth in two blocks – and pauses beside a display of brightly decorated didgeridoos. With a groan, he picks up one whose artwork includes an image of the same stylised kangaroo we've already seen bounding across at least a dozen other products supplied by competing wholesale souvenir companies.

A sales assistant materialises beside us. "If you know how to play, you can go for it!" she enthuses, but Hogarth isn't here to make music. He asks her about the artists who painted the instruments. "Arrr, sorry, I don't know much about it," the sales assistant admits. "But I know they're all painted by hands. By the artists' hands."

Hogarth smiles wearily. "Including this one?" He indicates the didgeridoo with the ubiquitous roo image, which is shorter, lighter and cheaper than the others. "Yeah, yeah!" says the saleswoman. "That one, too."

But Hogarth knows better. "More Indonesian crap," he tells me. "It isn't Australian wood, it's bamboo. And you can tell by the painting style, and the lacquering, that it came from one of the fake Indigenous art factories in Bali. There's nothing Aboriginal about it."

He moves on past arrays of decorative tea towels, oven mitts, back scratchers, drink coasters, wine coolers, clothes brushes and ashtrays – many of Indonesian origin, but confusingly marked as somehow involving "Australian artists", or "handmade with Australian traditional native art". The souvenirs are painted, or printed, in a baffling mix of geographically variant "Indigenous styles", yet even these mishmashes are themselves peculiarly similar, as though evolved from some parallel Aboriginal universe.

Hogarth, 37, says some of the designs were originally created by respected Aboriginal artists he knows, then reproduced ad infinitum by unscrupulous wholesalers. Other artists received paltry one-off payments by wholesalers who then exploited their artwork for years while depicting themselves as champions of Indigenous art.

In our fifth souvenir shop, Hogarth plucks a cheap wooden "Returning Boomerang" from a rack. It bears a sticker with an image of the Aboriginal flag, and claims to be "100 per cent handmade … 100 per cent painted in Aboriginal dot art". Hogarth pulls a face. "That's definitely misleading," he says. "This was made in Indonesia, and there's no way it will return. If you throw it, it will just keep going, which is probably a good thing."

Roughly 80 per cent of all so-called Aboriginal souvenirs we examine in six Surfers Paradise stores that day turns out to be of Indonesian or Chinese origin. Sampling in other parts of the country shows the pattern is nationwide, and that the trade in these cut-price counterfeits – pioneered by a few opportunistic white entrepreneurs in the 1990s – is now a multimillion-dollar industry involving about a dozen wholesalers and thousands of retail outlets across Australia.

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Dead heart: the booming trade in fake Indigenous art

In tourist shops around the country, visitors are far more likely to buy a boomerang made in Bali than one made here by Indigenous Australians. What led to this booming trade in fake art – and can it be stopped?

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Frank Robson

Dec 8, 2017

SHARESHARE ON FACEBOOKSHARE ON TWITTERLINKThe top pair of clapsticks is made in indonesia; the authentic bottom pair is from Maruku Arts, NT; maruku.com.au. Photo: Jennifer Soo

Aboriginal artist Stephen Hogarth leads the way into yet another Surfers Paradise souvenir store – our fourth in two blocks – and pauses beside a display of brightly decorated didgeridoos. With a groan, he picks up one whose artwork includes an image of the same stylised kangaroo we've already seen bounding across at least a dozen other products supplied by competing wholesale souvenir companies.

A sales assistant materialises beside us. "If you know how to play, you can go for it!" she enthuses, but Hogarth isn't here to make music. He asks her about the artists who painted the instruments. "Arrr, sorry, I don't know much about it," the sales assistant admits. "But I know they're all painted by hands. By the artists' hands."

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Hogarth smiles wearily. "Including this one?" He indicates the didgeridoo with the ubiquitous roo image, which is shorter, lighter and cheaper than the others. "Yeah, yeah!" says the saleswoman. "That one, too."

But Hogarth knows better. "More Indonesian crap," he tells me. "It isn't Australian wood, it's bamboo. And you can tell by the painting style, and the lacquering, that it came from one of the fake Indigenous art factories in Bali. There's nothing Aboriginal about it."

Stephen Hogarth sees plenty of fake Indigenous art for sale.Photo: Paul Harris

He moves on past arrays of decorative tea towels, oven mitts, back scratchers, drink coasters, wine coolers, clothes brushes and ashtrays – many of Indonesian origin, but confusingly marked as somehow involving "Australian artists", or "handmade with Australian traditional native art". The souvenirs are painted, or printed, in a baffling mix of geographically variant "Indigenous styles", yet even these mishmashes are themselves peculiarly similar, as though evolved from some parallel Aboriginal universe.

Hogarth, 37, says some of the designs were originally created by respected Aboriginal artists he knows, then reproduced ad infinitum by unscrupulous wholesalers. Other artists received paltry one-off payments by wholesalers who then exploited their artwork for years while depicting themselves as champions of Indigenous art.

In our fifth souvenir shop, Hogarth plucks a cheap wooden "Returning Boomerang" from a rack. It bears a sticker with an image of the Aboriginal flag, and claims to be "100 per cent handmade … 100 per cent painted in Aboriginal dot art". Hogarth pulls a face. "That's definitely misleading," he says. "This was made in Indonesia, and there's no way it will return. If you throw it, it will just keep going, which is probably a good thing."

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Roughly 80 per cent of all so-called Aboriginal souvenirs we examine in six Surfers Paradise stores that day turns out to be of Indonesian or Chinese origin. Sampling in other parts of the country shows the pattern is nationwide, and that the trade in these cut-price counterfeits – pioneered by a few opportunistic white entrepreneurs in the 1990s – is now a multimillion-dollar industry involving about a dozen wholesalers and thousands of retail outlets across Australia.

Unless the imported souvenirs are falsely claimed to be authentic at the point of sale, the fake art trade isn't illegal under Australian law. But it is increasingly seen as exploitative and immoral because it plagiarises, distorts and disrespects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, as well as robbing Indigenous artists of income and deceiving consumers, most of whom are overseas tourists.

Now, just four months out from the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, industry sources say there's so much fake stuff flooding Australia that genuine Indigenous products are being priced out of the market. Politicians have joined with exasperated Indigenous lobbyists to fight the problem: a federal government inquiry into the complexities of the trade concluded in November, with recommendations expected shortly, and federal independent MP Bob Katter has called for the sale of phoney Aboriginal products to be made illegal, however they're labelled.

"If there be one thing that First Australians [should] be allowed to keep and own, it is their own culture," Katter said while introducing a private members' bill on the theme this year, adding, "I'm sick of buying for my kids clapsticks that don't clap, bullroarers that don't roar, boomerangs that don't come back and woomeras that won't mount a spear."

Surprisingly, though – given pleas for only the best and most authentic Indigenous souvenirs to be showcased during the April Commonwealth Games – it turns out the wholesaler chosen as the Games' official "gift supplier", Jabiru Australia (also known as Jabiru Boomerangs), has no Indigenous ownership or full-time staff. The Gold Coast company is solely owned by white businessman John Palombo, who admits he has never paid royalties to the Aboriginal artists he engages on casual rates, and has no intellectual property agreement with them.

Since the federally funded Fake Art Harms Culture campaign began last year, relationships within the souvenir industry have come under intense pressure. In March, Aboriginal artist and craft retailer Michael Connolly mounted a bitter attack on the wholesaler he'd dealt with for two decades at Redcliffe on Brisbane's northern fringes. Connolly, proprietor of Dreamtime Kullilla-Art, used his company website to accuse Birubi Art Pty Ltd, and its managing director Ben Wooster, of importing Indonesian-made Aboriginal artifacts "by the container loads" and "steal[ing]" the "livelihood" of Indigenous artists.

He said Wooster used Indonesians to copy images created by local artist Trisha Mason, who is paid royalties by Birubi for allowing this to occur. Connolly claimed Wooster told him and his wife, Jo, that Indonesians are "better artists of Aboriginal art than Aboriginal artists themselves … and very cheap", and that was why Birubi used them.

Connolly's attack on Wooster's company highlights how tangled and divisive the issue has become. He no longer buys stock from Birubi Art, yet at the time of writing was still leasing retail premises owned by Wooster at Clontarf, south-west of Redcliffe and just a few kilometres from Birubi's headquarters and warehouse at Kippa Ring.

Compact and fiery, Connolly is an acclaimed didgeridoo maker and player who has performed for VIPs here and overseas. Although proud of his Indigenous background, he was aware from the time he and Jo began dealing with Birubi – then run by Wooster's father, Gary – that it dealt in so-called fake art.

"When we started our business 21 years ago," explains Jo in a room behind their store, "Gary Wooster showed us his company catalogue and said, 'This is the genuine stuff done by an Aboriginal artist, and this is our non-genuine.' We asked what he meant because we were pretty naïve then, and he said the non-genuine stuff was done by backpackers in Aboriginal style. Michael said, 'What! You can't do that!' and Gary Wooster said, 'It's all about supply and demand … you guys [Aborigines] can't supply it, so we have to get it done somewhere.' "

But Connolly insists local supply has never been a problem. "The problem is they won't pay Aboriginal artists their due fees. The problem is their greed …that's why they go overseas." For him, the "last straw" with Birubi came early this year when Ben Wooster admitted he was selling Indonesian-made didgeridoos throughout Australia.

Connolly: "So I said, 'You're a f…ing wanker!' and we had a big blue." He says Wooster retaliated by cancelling an order that Connolly had placed for Aboriginal-flag products: a range of badges, stickers, caps and the like bearing images of the officially gazetted and copyrighted Aboriginal flag, which is the intellectual property of its designer, the award-winning Northern Territory artist Harold Thomas.

Birubi is one of only two companies licensed by Thomas to sell Aboriginal flag products. "And for every item sold, Harold Thomas gets 10 per cent of the wholesale price," explains Connolly. "For the last 10 years, we've spent about $60,000 a year buying Harold's products … so you can imagine what it amounts to nationwide."

That most of the Aboriginal flag products are manufactured and printed in China doesn't trouble Connolly. "Australia doesn't have the industry to do that stuff," he reasons. "And because an Aboriginal artist was getting royalties, we thought that was fair."

But his opinion of the flag designer – whom he "thought was a brother" – changed when Thomas declined to do anything about Ben Wooster refusing him any more flag products: "Harold said Wooster had told him I was a whinger, and that he didn't want to speak to me again. And I said, 'Well, in your f…ing arse!' " On his website, Connolly accused Thomas of "not going to bite the hand that feeds him", and said he didn't want to put another royalty cent in Thomas' pocket, or Birubi Art, ever again.

He ended the open letter with a vow to stop Birubi "and any others who are exploiting my culture… I am like a dog with a bone – I won't go away." Since then, he has used Facebook to name six other companies he believes are dealing in fake Indigenous products.

Wooster doesn't deny Connolly's assertions about his use of Indonesian artists, but argues he's "compelled" to do so because "a lot of the local [Indigenous] artwork just wasn't acceptable; it wasn't commercially saleable". Conversely, Wooster tells me, souvenir items painted by popular Birubi artist Trisha Mason were so much in demand by retailers she couldn't keep up with orders.

"So over the last 10 or 15 years we've trained a partner group of Indonesian artists to mimic Trisha's style. She gets a percentage … and now she's doing very well out of it, and she continues to paint for us, doing canvases mostly."

Wooster heatedly denies telling the Connollys that Indonesians are better artists than Aborigines – "That's categorically untrue!" – and claims he can no longer buy what he calls "the good stuff" (meaning handmade artefacts by recognised Aboriginal artists).

Why not? Wooster: "Because no one's got the drive [to make it]."

Isn't it because Aborigines can't compete in a market flooded with cheap Indonesian copies? Wooster: "That's codswash! Not true! Totally untrue!"

Later, in a prepared statement, Wooster says it's insulting for anyone to suggest Birubi Art exploits Indigenous artists, or deprives them of employment, "when in fact the opposite is true, with more than 10 local Indigenous artists currently engaged in lucrative licensing or royalty type agreements with our company".

Contacted at his home in Darwin, Harold Thomas dismisses Connolly as "a nitwit idiot and a no-good person". Told that Wooster has admitted using Indonesian artists for at least a decade, Thomas says, "He hasn't told me that. I don't know anything about it … well, that's their business, isn't it?"

He doesn't see it as taking work away from his own people?

"No … if an artist, black or white, creates something, and is [subsequently] provided with a means by which he can make more money … by having someone else reproduce it, and it comes back [to Australia], and I get a return, then that's what it is."

Thomas calls Wooster "a fine young man" and accuses me of "pursuing a line from a few grumbling people". Suddenly furious, he demands to know why I don't write about white people "plagiarising" the Aboriginal flag. "But no, you haven't got the guts to! You want to pick a little story and twist it around for your benefit!"

Me: "Harold, that's bullshit."

Thomas: "You can get lost!" He hangs up.

In a conference room at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney's Pyrmont, Gabrielle Sullivan, chief executive of Indigenous Art Code, reminds her audience how the code came to be drawn up in 2009. Two years earlier, a Senate inquiry had heard horrifying details of elderly artists being coaxed from their desert communities to Alice Springs, then locked in sweltering sheds and forced to paint dot canvases, which exploitative art dealers promptly sold for thousands of dollars more than the artists were paid.

The code, which stemmed from that inquiry, is aimed at promoting ethical trading in Indigenous art. But because it was denied regulatory teeth, the abuses predictably continued. In the little examined area of crafts and souvenirs, things became steadily worse, and artists and community members began asking Sullivan what could be done about "all this fake crap" on the market. "I'm sorry if I swear sometimes," Sullivan tells her audience from the Museum Shops Association of Australia and New Zealand, "but it's hard not to when you're talking about this stuff."

She gestures at a table behind her, laden with samples of the garish imported souvenirs she's picked up at stores around Australia. Part of the Fake Art Harms Culture campaign devised by the code and two other Indigenous bodies (The Arts Law Centre and Copyright Agency-Viscopy), Sullivan's bad-taste shopping spree left her stunned by the extent of the problem.

She found that most shops, deliberately or otherwise, seemed to stock a bewildering mix of fake and genuine souvenirs. "It's as though they set out to sanitise the fake stuff with authentic products… even with my background in art [as arts and business manager with Martumili Artists in Western Australia] I was confused about what was real and what wasn't."

Predictably enough, cheaper items, often decorated by deliberately distorted and much-copied images for which the original artists were never paid, tend to outsell genuine products, especially in tourist zones like the Gold Coast and Cairns. Retailers can be seen to be doing the right thing by paying $150 to join the code, but only if they agree to stop selling fake products.

"Some of them actually ask if they can start up separate businesses with different ABNs to sell the fake stuff," Sullivan reveals. "That gives you some sort of insight into the mentality involved … it's all about [making money] … and profit margins are so much higher with the fake stuff because no money goes back to the artists."

Also addressing the crowd is Girramay descendant Abe Muriata, a master craftsman from the Cardwell area in far north Queensland, and one of only 10 artists who can still make jawun, or bicornual baskets, in the intricate, labour-intensive style of his ancestors. The British Museum recently commissioned Muriata to craft a jawun for its Enduring Civilisation exhibition, then flew him to London where he found himself exchanging "budgie-smuggler jokes" with museum patron Prince Charles.

Softly spoken and direct, Muriata seems about as far as it's possible to be from the machinations of the fake art world. Before the conference, he listens to Sullivan and me talking about Aboriginal artists being paid piecemeal rates to daub animals on Indonesian-made souvenirs. "Up where I come from," he offers, "most artists put their culture first and wouldn't get involved in any of this … but some people, especially city-bred people, have lost a lot of that culture. So they have to borrow it from maybe a book. Then they say, 'This is a story about the wallaby I've painted in this dot painting.' Whereas with us the spirituality is still there, and gives the story great significance, part of the landscape from where we come."

Muriata is troubled that the flag designer Harold Thomas derives income through a company that uses Indonesians to decorate its wares. "That flag has become a spiritual thing to Aboriginal people, it's how they identify themselves. So much so that they cry for it!"

The use of Aboriginal art and crafts by souvenir wholesalers didn't catch on until the mid-'90s. A spin-off from the worldwide fascination with so-called dot paintings, it was introduced to the keepsake industry by a handful of sales reps who'd previously criss-crossed the nation peddling lines like Chinese-made stuffed koalas and miniature swagmen to stores serving mostly domestic tourists.

In the process, they grew to know the craftspeople in remote Aboriginal communities who would later be used to produce items like boomerangs and didgeridoos for the wholesalers. One of those pioneering salesmen was Michael Micallef, who would become both a wholesaler and retailer of art and souvenirs. Now working from his Gold Coast home as a picture framer, Micallef, 51, says the use of Indonesian artists to copy Aboriginal designs – for a fraction of the already modest cost – has ruined the market for genuine Indigenous crafts.

"They're going to have to either tax the Indonesian imports to get pricing parity, or ban them completely," he ventures. "Because now almost everyone is buying non-authentic stuff, and it's wiping out [employment] for many young Indigenous people."

Micallef entered the industry as a salesman for the now defunct Southern Cross Souvenirs, then owned by Gary Wooster – the father of Birubi Art's Ben Wooster – whom he describes as "a good businessman, but a bit ruthless". (As Michael Connolly tells it, Gary Wooster was himself a sales rep when he met and befriended the flag designer Harold Thomas in the Northern Territory decades ago.)

In the mid-'90s, Micallef started his own company, wholesaling boomerangs and didgeridoos made and painted by Aborigines. Micallef admits he didn't pay royalties to his artists, and that some of the names on "artist ID" labels on his products were false "because the artists also painted [on canvases] and didn't want their names on the mass-produced stuff in case it reduced the price of their paintings".

In the late-'90s, a company called Australian Icon Products (AIP) took over Southern Cross from Gary Wooster, who then joined AIP, apparently as a salesman. Micallef says it was around this time that AIP became one of the first companies to use Indonesian artists to decorate Aboriginal souvenirs.

During this period, AIP, then Australia's biggest souvenir wholesaler, started to "change the way Aborigines painted" to conform with its idea of what tourists liked. "They wanted a uniform look to everything," says Micallef. "They had like a special class they taught the artists, so that everything would look the same." (Aboriginal artist Michael McGuane tells me Gary Wooster wanted the same thing when he made dot paintings for Birubi Art about 10 years ago. "Every canvas would have a piece of paper attached, saying what background you should have, what animal, and that sort of stuff. After a while, I couldn't do it.")

Micallef believes it was this outrageous "uniforming" that led to various painted animals looking almost the same in the work of various artists: "That, and the use of so many Indonesian artists, and everything being copied and copied, led to a style that has no real connection to Aboriginal art."

In 2003, when according to Micallef both Gary and Ben Wooster were working for AIP, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission brought an action against the company for misleading and deceptive conduct.

It involved claims that AIP souvenirs were decorated with "authentic" and "certified" Aboriginal art, when in fact they were painted by a mixed pool of Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists, and no certification process existed. The then director of AIP was Henry de Jonge; its manager was Bruce Reed.

By May 2004, when the Federal Court gave default judgement against AIP, the company was in liquidation. According to the ACCC, when AIP entered liquidation its assets were allegedly transferred to another company called Australian Aboriginal Art (AAA), of which de Jonge and Reed were directors. The ACCC alleged AAA had also engaged in deceptive and misleading conduct involving claims about its souvenirs, but the matter didn't go to trial.

Since then, Romike Industries, a manufacturing company with a factory at Marrickville in Sydney, has taken over as the nation's largest (and cheapest) souvenir wholesaler. Like most other wholesalers, Romike imports stock from Indonesia – but on a scale Micallef says allows it to undersell everyone else.

He says his friend John Palombo (owner of the official Commonwealth Games gift supplier, Jabiru Australia) told him Jabiru paid $2.50 a time for small, boxed boomerangs from Bali, but that Romike was wholesaling the same item to retailers for $2 – suggesting it was buying them in Bali for around 50 cents. "John also brings in the bamboo didgeridoos from Bali," adds Micallef. "But not painted. He gets them painted here."

Connections pop up often between owners and staff of souvenir wholesalers which have closed down over the years, only to reopen with slightly different company names. An example, involving one of the few wholesalers to set up intellectual property rights and pay royalties to its Indigenous artists, is WW Souvenirs, Gifts and Homewares, at Banyo in suburban Brisbane.

Originally called WW Trading Company, it was established by Don Whittington, the now retired father of the current owner, Richard Whittington. For years, Don's partner in the business was Gary Wooster, who later joined the controversial AIP. "My father had nothing at all to do with Australian Icon!" Richard Whittington all but yells when I first make contact.

A number of Indigenous sources contacted for this story questioned the choice of Jabiru Australia as the souvenir provider for the Commonwealth Games. According to Janelle McQueen, an Aboriginal artist who worked for years on casual rates at Jabiru's Gold Coast factory, the company fails to meet the "ethical principles" mentioned by Commonwealth Games Organising Corporation (GOLDOC) chairman Peter Beattie when announcing Jabiru as a sub-licensee in 2016.

"The rules are that Jabiru should have 51 per cent Indigenous ownership, and/or 75 per cent Indigenous staff," she says. "But John Palombo doesn't have either of these because he's the sole owner and his artists aren't paid full-time wages, just per-item rates for what amounts to mass production."

McQueen was herself involved in applying for Jabiru's sub-licence, and had plans to buy the company from Palombo until a row between them in 2016 ended the deal and their relationship. "My plan was to change the name to Jabiru Aboriginal, source more Indigenous products and bring in more Indigenous artists," she explains. "Unlike John, we wanted to use only artists who were able to confirm their Aboriginality."

Palombo readily admits he's never paid royalties to artists. "How it works," the Scottish-born businessman tells me, "is that I give you 100 boomerangs, then you take them away and paint them and bring them back. Then I give you $100, get a copy of your receipt, and away you go."

He insists, though, that Jabiru has 75 per cent Indigenous staff, despite none of them being employed by his company. "How come? Because the boomerangs are made by an Aborigine, and all the artwork we use is Aboriginal … the one thing we did learn from Janelle [McQueen] was to check everybody and make them prove they're Aboriginal." (GOLDOC says Jabiru isn't defined as an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander business.)

John Palombo maintains that he has never imported stock from Indonesia – "Jabiru does not sell anything like that" – which contradicts what I've been told by Michael Micallef, Janelle McQueen and others.

How was Jabiru selected as a sub-licensee? Peter Beattie tells Good Weekend that Jabiru's sub-licence had been issued by GOLDOC's master licensee, Matevents, after Jabiru provided a statutory declaration stating that "all designs, creations, artwork, painting of Indigenous elements submitted as [Games products] are done by our [four nominated] Aboriginal artists".

GOLDOC's Indigenous advisory group was satisfied that Jabiru "met its obligations by providing meaningful employment opportunities to local First Nations people". Beattie adds that the Yugambeh elders' advisory group was "also satisfied with the process that ensures the authenticity of Aboriginal art and products that will be sold through Matevents and sub licensees, including Jabiru". (The Gold Coast is part of the land of the Yugambeh people).

During her travels in aid of the cause, Indigenous Art Code's Gabrielle Sullivan began noticing that tourists seem to prefer keepsakes decorated in the gaudy pastiche evolved by the fake-art merchants to authentic items. "The fake stuff is [so prevalent] now that tourists have come to think it's the real thing," she says in her Sydney office. "For me, the triumph of that lie is one of the most disappointing things about this whole process."

At Katherine in the Northern Territory, Sullivan showed an Indonesian-made bullroarer to a group of senior tribal men sitting around a campfire. (The flat wooden instruments, spun at the end of a cord to create a pulsating sound, still have "secret-sacred" status in remote communities.) "One of the old men, who knew nothing about fake art, said, 'Where did you get that?' And I told him, 'From a local tourist shop here. But it came from Bali.'

"He looked at me absolutely baffled and said, 'But how did it get to Bali?' She laughs forlornly. "The old man said, 'Get rid of it! You shouldn't even be looking at that, or touching it.' So I had to burn my fake bullroarers on the fire that night."

Sullivan stares at the collection of mutant icons that has now taken over a room within her offices and continues to grow, like something with a life of its own. "The worst thing," she says, "is that this stuff is just so bloody insulting to the people it's supposed to represent … If I could, I'd like to burn every last piece of it."

# ¿ Dec 10, 2017 03:00

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

asio posted:

There's an uncomfortable reality to how the gold coast Yugambeh operate

Could you go more into it?

# ¿ Dec 10, 2017 07:51

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Retail Food Group, the franchisor of iconic brands including Brumby's, Donut King and Gloria Jean's, has issued a warning to store owners not to air their complaints in public or risk breaching their franchise agreement.

The memo was sent to store owners across the country on Saturday in response to a Fairfax Media investigation that revealed hundreds of stores were going to the wall as a result of a brutal business model.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2017 14:28

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Embattled Labor senator Sam Dastyari attempted to pressure Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek to abandon a meeting with a pro-democracy activist opposed to Beijing's interference in Hong Kong, according to multiple sources who say the 2015 intervention surprised Ms Plibersek.

The incident has prompted concerns about the motive behind Senator Dastyari's decision to approach Ms Plibersek's office, Fairfax Media has been told by three sources familiar with the matter, following other revelations concerning his links to Chinese Communist Party-aligned interests in Australia.

In January 2015, Ms Plibersek, who was Labor's foreign affairs spokeswoman at the time, went to Hong Kong for a visit that included a meeting with Joseph Cheng Yu-shek, a prominent academic with Australian citizenship who has drawn the ire of Beijing-aligned forces.

Senator Dastyari was on a China trip at the same time paid for by an organisation controlled by Communist Party-aligned Labor and Coalition political donor and businessman Huang Xiangmo.

A spokesman for Senator Dastyari rejected the claims as "complete rubbish".

"It simply did not occur," the spokesman said.

However, multiple sources say Senator Dastyari repeatedly attempted to warn Ms Plibersek that her meetings in Hong Kong would upset figures in the Chinese community in Australia. They say he left messages on her phone and contacted her office multiple times.

Senator Dastyari was unable to reach her directly as she had left her mobile phone at home, a security precaution parliamentarians have been advised to take when travelling to Chinese territory. It is understood his messages were passed on to her.

Fairfax Media understands that Senator Dastyari's calls to Ms Plibersek and her office followed a separate representation from then Chinese ambassador to Australia, Ma Zhaoxu.

Sources said the Chinese ambassador issued a separate warning to Ms Plibersek about her plans to meet activists in the semi-autonomous city.

There is no suggestion Senator Dastyari's approach to Ms Plibersek was connected to the approach by the Chinese ambassador.

I'm not saying it but i'm not not saying it

# ¿ Dec 10, 2017 14:31

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Jacques Pepin no!

# ¿ Dec 11, 2017 06:02

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Lid posted:

Jacques Pepin no!

https://twitter.com/Bourdain/status/940049540534616064

oh it might be Jacques... that or Eric Ripert or Jose Andreas maybe David Chang

Edit: nevermind its about Josh Homme

# ¿ Dec 11, 2017 06:04

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

JBP posted:

I don't normally walk along a stage jacked up on adrenaline in front of a packed auditorium performing rock and roll songs.

Also his foot goes across the camera, clipping it.

He also cut his head open and demanded everyone take off their pants while insulting the other bands on the show.

Dude he was hopped up on drugs and kicked her camera so hard into her face she was in the emergency room stop trying to outright deny video. You can forgive him later but forgiving means admitting he hosed up.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2017 06:59

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Synthbuttrange posted:

frenzal rhomb still exist?!

The Doctor was the worst Triple J talent in the history of the word "talent".

# ¿ Dec 11, 2017 12:30

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

The sexual assault chef was Mario Batali

# ¿ Dec 12, 2017 11:37

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Walt Disney Co on Thursday agreed to buy film, television and international businesses from Rupert Murdoch's Twenty-First Century Fox Inc for $US52.4 billion in stock.

Fox assets that will be sold to Disney, include the Twentieth Century Fox movie and cable networks.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2017 13:29

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Beijing's strong reaction to Australia's foreign political interference debate reflects the fact it is being increasingly called out on its activity, both here and around the world, and is hating the attention.

The Chinese can hardly complain about the interference laws themselves, much less at Sam Dastyari's forced resignation, which should have happened a year ago.

Rather, the summoning of Australian ambassador Jan Adams shows Beijing is angry at being singled out (though not red-hot furious given it did not contact Foreign Minister Julie Bishop directly as it has on other issues).

Normally, governments refuse stubbornly to name any particular country on issues like this.

But this time it has been too hard for the Australian government to avoid – or, arguably, to resist. It coincides with the Dastyari matter coming to a head, which highlighted the China angle. But the Coalition wanted to stretch the political mileage out of Dastyari, so it hasn't tried terribly hard to play down the China connection to foreign interference either.

Amplifying things has been the Bennelong byelection, on which Malcolm Turnbull's political future rests.

Consequently, Turnbull's tone has sometimes been triumphalist. Peter Dutton's repeated description of Dastyari as a "double agent" was both excessive and plain incorrect. (If Dastyari was a double agent he'd be pretending to spy for China while actually spying on them for Australia.)

So Labor turned it into a story about Sinophobia – or "China-phobia". Bennelong has the highest proportion of ethnically Chinese voters of any federal seat in the country. Kristina Keneally has made some absurdly inflated claims that Turnbull is chanelling Pauline Hanson and that Bennelong voters are "getting tired by [his] assertion that Asian Australians are not fully fledged members of team Australia".

"You only need to read ... the Chinese media here in Australia to see that this alarm is real," she said, without mentioning that some local Chinese media is actually controlled by Beijing.

We need to find a better way to talk about the fact that this really is about China. It won't get any easier – Beijing is getting increasingly sensitive as its activities draw attention also in the United States, Germany, New Zealand, Canada.

The collision of the foreign interference laws, Dastyari and Bennelong means the traditional bipartisanship on national security has not been on fine display the past week. As Rory Medcalf of the Australian National University pointed out, this must change. We can only hope that with Bennelong out of the way, it will.

While it is not certain a Mandarin-language letter circulated on social media trashing the Liberals and urging voters to back Labor was the work of the Chinese government, it's a taste of what we might see if these issues become hyper-politicised.

Imagine if, as with Russia's support of Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, China were to start regarding one side of Australian politics as much more favourable to its interests than the other. Then we'd really see some interference.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2017 13:43

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

A network of influential community leaders targeting the Turnbull government ahead of the Bennelong byelection are linked to a Chinese Communist Party strategy to "destroy enemies".

Members of the Australian Council for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification of China, a group believed to have ties to the Chinese agency tasked with political influence – the United Front Work Department – have stepped up their attacks on the government during the final week of the crucial poll, accusing the Liberal Party of being anti-Chinese.

The reunification council was until recently headed by controversial political donor Huang Xiangmo, whose connections to the Chinese Communist Party have reportedly attracted the attention of Australia's spy agency ASIO.

Fairfax Media can now reveal the reunification council recently brought dozens of small Chinese community associations into its fold. A report on the group's November annual general meeting confirms this, listing a total of 81 subordinate groups across Australia.

Associate Professor Feng Chongyi, a leading China expert at the University of Technology Sydney, believes the Chinese government is using these groups to influence the crucial Bennelong byelection. The Chinese community makes up about 20 per cent of the Sydney electorate and is viewed as key to winning the poll.

Fairfax Media has uncovered a number of examples of community leaders who appear to have ties to the Chinese government and toe the party line, a phenomenon also observed by Professor Feng.

Australia's first Chinese parliamentarian, Helen Sham-Ho, was once a member of the Liberal Party but has served as an advisor to the reunification council since its founding in 2000 and just last month was pictured in multiple meetings with United Front Work Department officials, according to Chinese media reports.

Ms Sham-Ho this week accused the Liberal Party of using Sam Dastyari's donations scandal as an excuse to label Chinese-Australians as spies and damage China's image, in an interview with the newspaper Sing Tao Daily. Ms Sham-Ho made similar comments in interviews with SBS Mandarin and ABC's Radio National, in which she described former president of the reunification council Huang Xiangmo as a "nice friend".

Mr Huang was in 2012 a standing committee member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Jieyang, a Chinese government advisory body whose website openly states its involvement in United Front work.

Mr Huang has denied that the reunification council is an affiliate of the Chinese Communist Party. However, Professor Feng said that it "absolutely" is subordinate to the United Front Work Department, with its parent organisation in China run by senior officials from the department.

Mr Huang's successor as president of the Australian reunification council , Shao Qun, also sits on the Guizhou Reunification Council, which states on its website that it was established by the United Front Work Department and seeks to "expand Guizhou's overseas united front work platform and space".

Ryde councillor Simon Zhou, an independent who has been a vice-president of the Australian reunification council and ALP Senate candidate, on Thursday told the New Express Dailythat Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been making "extreme and irrational comments" on China to stay in power.

Yan Zehua, another reunification council vice-president, recently shareda mysterious letter urging Chinese-Australians in Bennelong to "take down" the Liberal Party and vote for Labor candidate Kristina Keneally.

Comments by Mr Yan, who allegedly met with the CCP's United Front Work Department on multiple occasions, have since been widely reported on in local Chinese media without mention of his apparent links to the Chinese government.

"You can see now that the Chinese embassy, Chinese consulate and Chinese media back in China ... they spin the new laws as racial discrimination against Chinese," Professor Feng said.

"[Chinese authorities] deliberately obscure the distinction between the Chinese authorities and the Chinese people, especially migrants here in Australia."

However, concerns have been raised by many Chinese-Australians over the damage a few CCP-linked individuals have done to the reputation of the Chinese community.

The Australian Values Alliance, a Chinese community group opposed to the CCP's influence in Australia, on Friday slammed the Chinese government for attempting to divide the community by "accusing Australia's efforts to protect its way of life as 'harmful to Chinese people' ".

Rory Medcalf, director of the National Security College at ANU, warned that both sides of politics should be worried about foreign influence.

"All parts of the Australian community must feel free to organise and express views on political issues – that's a cherished democratic right. The concern here is if there are traces of a concerted and covert effort to influence an election outcome on a national security matter in a way that suits a foreign power," he said.

"If there turns out to have been foreign interference, it will be troubling for Labor as well as the Liberals. Foreign influence that is mobilised against one Australian political party could just as easily be turned against the other next time."

The CCP's strategy of political influence is described by Professor Feng as having a two-pronged approach: "One is to identify and recruit friends to support the cause of the Chinese Community Party, and the other is to identify and destroy enemies," he said.

The Australian reunification council also has ties to local Chinese media, which recently shifted its tone in clear opposition to Liberal candidate John Alexander.

Online Chinese media outlet Sydney Today described Mr Turnbull as "standing at the front-line of anti-Chinese sentiment" on Monday, hours after major state-run newspaper thePeople's Daily published an opinion piece calling the government biased and prejudiced.

Sydney Today takes a broadly pro-Communist Party line and once asked that prospective employees be loyal to the party. The outlet also publishes a column by Mr Huang.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2017 07:56

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Bill Shorten getting raked for his democracy sausage attempt.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2017 06:36

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Ed Milliband comes to mind

# ¿ Dec 16, 2017 06:37

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Apologies didnt see it last year and NewsCorp brought it back up for Bennelong. I hosed up not checking the when.

# ¿ Dec 16, 2017 06:49

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Still

# ¿ Dec 16, 2017 06:58

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Section 44'd

# ¿ Dec 16, 2017 08:24

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

Eddie Obeid

NSW Remembers

# ¿ Dec 16, 2017 15:57

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKTG5BuNZpQ

# ¿ Dec 16, 2017 18:20

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 02:13

Lid: Feb 18, 2005; And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

NTRabbit posted:

The Australian federal police have arrested a man in Sydney over allegedly acting as an economic agent for North Korea, attempting to sell missile components and coal on the international black market.

Choi Han Chan, a 59-year-old man from Sydney�s Eastwood, allegedly breached United Nations sanctions and Australian federal law, and has been charged with brokering sales and discussing the supply of weapons of mass destruction.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/dec/17/australian-police-charge-man-with-acting-as-economic-agent-for-north-korea

Even the Feds think coal is bad

This is kind of huge news

Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Gaughan said the man had been acting "to serve some higher patriotic purpose" to raise funds for the North Korean regime and, if his attempted transactions had been successful, could have raised tens of millions of dollars.

"This case is like nothing we have ever seen on Australian soil," AFP Assistant Commissioner Neil Gaughan said.

The attempted transactions related to sale of missile guidance systems and other missile componentry, and to the sale of coal, to third parties in Indonesia and Vietnam.

He said it was believed the man had been in contact with high-ranking North Korean officials but gave no other details of how or when the man was recruited as a North Korean economic agent.

"I know these charges sound alarming. Let me be clear we are not suggesting there are any weapons or missile componentry that ever came to Australian soil, nor that we believed that we identified any immediate threat to the Australian community."

The allegation in relation to the missile componentry is that the man participated in discussions about the provision of the componentry, which assists in the guidance of ballistic missiles, from North Korea to other entities.

"This man was acting as a loyal agent for North Korea.

"The evidence suggests there had been contact with high-ranking officials in North Korea," he said.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2017 04:47

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Auspol December - Yes! We! Can!

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