My view and thoughts on everything!

There has been a lot of debate recently over the Australian Government’s decision to look at amending section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.   The amendments proposed include removing the provisions making it unlawful to “offend, insult or humiliate” based on a person’s race.   This would be replaced with a new clause that bans racial vilification.   In brief, a large number of Australian’s feel that the proposed changes will, in effect, allow people to be more racist to others. Since the debate about section 18C has started there has been a couple of incidents, most particularly in multi-cultural Ryde, where a poster was displayed with the words “No more Asians.   It’s not the face of Australia.   We speak English.   Save our Aussie culture”. Under the proposed amendments a number of migrant groups fear that they will incur more racist incidences like this one. Before I move on, I would point out that every country has elements of racism. ...

"The class, oops introduction night, started with….a prayer! I began to think, in my groggy food poisoning state, that maybe I had turned up to the wrong place!....Then the Principal asked if there were any more comments while fixing me with a steely glare. I looked away and pretended I hadn’t heard the question." A couple of weeks ago my wife and I attended an introduction night for a local Catholic school. The reason for this was because we are thinking on enrolling our eldest daughter into it when the new school term starts in late January 2008. This school would represent the first year of ‘big school’ for her. Since mentioning the words ‘big school’ our eldest has suddenly become ‘grown up’ and even started to boss around our youngest! It’s amazing how children change their habits so quickly (even quicker than what a Nun could do – very bad joke!) when they think they are growing up. Anyway, there were a few issues about attending this introduction night. Firstly, my wif...