Open Thread – Weekend 13 Aug 2022
1,453 responses to “Open Thread – Weekend 13 Aug 2022”
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Ali Rachid Ammoun: Accused Canberra Airport shooter was on parole for trying to murder ex-wife
Shannon Hampton and Kimberley CainesThe West Australian
Mon, 15 August 2022 3:48PMA man accused of causing mayhem when he fired several shots at Canberra Airport was on parole at the time after walking free from a WA prison where he was serving a 16-year sentence for the horrific attempted murder of his ex-wife in Perth.
Ali Rachid Ammoun was jailed in WA’s Supreme Court in 2008 for stabbing his former wife at the time, Tayna Kepic, 27 times with a knife to the head and body and bashing her 61-year-old mother, Pamela Kepic, a year earlier.
Ammoun walked free from prison on parole in July last year after serving just over 14 years. He was given approval to have his parole order transferred to NSW a month earlier.
But just over a year later, he found himself back behind bars on Sunday after he was arrested in dramatic scenes at Canberra Airport after allegedly firing five bullets into the window panes.
The West Australian can reveal that in 2007, then aged in his late 40s, Ammoun broke into the Spearwood home of his ex mother-in-law Pamela Kepic, waiting for her to come home before attacking her. He tied up her arms and legs with ropes and put a hessian bag over her head.
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As bad as the federal and state responses to covid were, I’d beware of positing that granting more power to the federal government, the executive council or the office of the PM is the answer. Subsidiarity is generally to be preferred to centralisation of authority and power, even – or especially – in a democracy as small as ours.
I take your point Roger, but there has to be some point in being a Federation where Federal control is part of the social contract. Defense is an emergency power, and so is defense against what used to be call ed for a certain horseman ‘pestilence’. Covid was not that sort of pestilence, but it might have been so in those early stages of management.
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A statue of a bone-hunting former Tasmanian premier will be torn down in an “historic precedent” for removal of colonial monuments nationally.
In an at times fiery debate, Hobart City councillors agreed – by seven votes to four – to remove the statue of William Crowther, who in 1869 was accused of removing and stealing the skull of Aboriginal man William Lanne.
A pre-prepared release by the council said it had set a nation-leading precedent by becoming the first to “formally vote in favour for the removal of a colonial monument”.
“This is one small part of a discussion that is happening about truth telling,” said Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds. “Around the country … the community does want to take steps to have a much more honest and brave conversation about our colonial history.
“To make a decision to relocate this statue does not change history. We are making a new historic decision for our city … We’re saying we’re ready to have truth telling take prime position in our prime civic square.
“It’s a decision of leadership. It’s a decision of principle and it’s an important new chapter in our history.”
However, several historians had urged a delay on the vote, arguing further research was required before being able to conclude Crowther – who denied the claims against him – was guilty of the mutilation.
A motion to put the decision to an elector vote was defeated, while debate was inflamed by revelations a PR firm hired by the council prepared – and accidentally released – a press release announcing the decision before the meeting even began.
“Someone could see that and come to a conclusion that this was done deal,” Alderman Simon Behrakis told the meeting.
Mr Behrakis and other aldermen also expressed concern that the decision was being made at the last meeting before a council election.
He likened removal of the statue to “burning books”.
“We need to preserve our history warts and all,” he said. “Removing this statue does sanitise history,” he said.
Councillor Jax Fox said removal of the statue was “the right thing to do” and had strong community support.
Under the decision, $20,000 will be spent to remove the statue to the city’s valuables collection “until a permanent home is found”. A further $50,000 will be spent on “interpretative elements onsite”.
A policy will now be developed to guide the removal or addition of other monuments.
The move is strongly backed by several Aboriginal groups, members of which attending Monday’s meeting held up photographs of Lanne and a skull.
They argue there is little doubt Crowther was a “body-snatcher” and the statue is a symbol of racism and oppression.
However, one group, the Circular Head Aboriginal Corporation, on Monday said some of the accusations against Crowther were “fanciful” and accused the council of failing to act on historic facts.
HCC chief executive Kelly Grigsby said no media statement had been authorised for release before the meeting started.
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I take your point Roger, but there has to be some point in being a Federation where Federal control is part of the social contract. Defense is an emergency power, and so is defense against what used to be call ed for a certain horseman ‘pestilence’.
But only in regard to control of federal borders.
Morrison otherwise only had powers of persuasion available to him – rhetorical and fiscal.
As it turned out, he was not up to using either.
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How profitable is NDIS?
The NDIS is a multi-billion dollar market that is tipped to expand significantly toward the $30B mark by 2025, making it one of the best business opportunities in Australia.Apart from Thai massage parlours, NDIS outlets seem to be the only other growth industry showing up on every street corner.
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The most worrying aspect of Morro’s userpation of Hunt’s Health Ministerium is that they recognised that the unfettered power granted to Hunt by s475 of the Biosecurity act makes Hunt a Dictator.
“A declaration under section 475 gave Hunt as health minister exclusive and extraordinary powers. He, and only he, could personally make directives that overrode any other law and were not disallowable by parliament. He had authority to direct any citizen in the country to do something, or not do something, to prevent spread of the disease.”
The justification for the plan, according to the prime minister, was that by asking the Governor-General to invoke section 475, he effectively would be handing Mr Hunt control of the country.
So instead of repealing s475 of the act and replacing it with something less dictatorial, Morro appointed himself joint Emperor alongside Hunt.
The Biosecurity Act s475 stands unchanged today, and only the GG stands between us and Mark Butler wielding absolute power in this country.
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The VicLibs are committing Seppuku!!!!
New VicLoserLibs ad. Lame, pathetic, poor… adjectives fail me.
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A policy will now be developed to guide the removal or addition of other monuments.
This is absolutely the right direction to move next, but it doesn’t go far enough. In recognition of the case that motivated this new policy, I strongly suggest this new policy be named The William Crowther Memorial Policy Against Memorialising Colonialists Like William Crowther.
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How does importing 200,000 workers assist the working class increase their bargaining power?
The working class is getting decent wage increases. Lowering supply chain pressure through immigration will help workers by dampening inflation so that their wages go further.
This is not a zero sum game. Real wage increases and immigration can happen at the same time. It has happened before and it will happen again.
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My 2c wotth on Victoria. Place abounds with Stockholm syndrome. Dan is going to romp it home in Nov.
Some opulence on display in Bendigo & shonky contracts too. A copper clad government building that would cost an absolute fortune. Another building nearby that has a government rent contract for it life, not just 20 years type life but the life of the building. They aren’t even masking corrupt dealings anymore.
Ah I’d also forgotten how cold this joint was. Deep cold that penetrates to the bones. Spring can’t come soon enough.
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Barrysays:
August 15, 2022 at 8:32 pm
The VicLibs are committing Seppuku!!!!New VicLoserLibs ad. Lame, pathetic, poor… adjectives fail me.
To be fair, what else are the PR firm involved supposed to do?
There’s 0.0000 [recurring to infinity] positive to say about the Victorian Libs, and their policy platform is 100% “we accept Labor/Greens’ arguments in full but we’ll be an insipid version of them”.
Something vacuous like that ad is a waste of money, but actually trying to say something specific about the goat rodeo would inevitably be a disaster. -
That fucking idiot littleproud rabbiting on about carbon/CO2 capture. Clean coal or CO2 capture is a failed idea. metallurgist John Harborne described why in a 2009 article at Online Opinion.
Basically the energy required to extract the CO2 from the coal is about the same as produced by the burning of the coal and the waste takes much more room to bury than was created by the coal which was mined.
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The working class is getting decent wage increases.
Outside of government and mining, where!?
Lowering supply chain pressure through immigration will help workers by dampening inflation so that their wages go further.
Labour supply isn’t causing inflation. Unless by the working class you mean skilled labour, which the government are gobbling up and have done so since 2018.
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It is industry specific Salvo which is why I pause in calling it inflationary. Shipping container scarcity matters more on a societal level than a specific labour intensive commodity like berries (they really have been struggling to get wukkas). If it applies to all pickers, then maybe so. I also refrain from declaring inflation when it can be a case of economic loss/low/negative growth. There’s more to a lost harvest than a very high price for retail customers.
Look. There is a “jobs boom”. It’s the government on borrowed money into low productivity jobs that pay better than a lot of private sector jobs with equivalent credentials and experience.
There’s your problem, for the most part.
We have a lot of debt and we have chosen inflation as a one way to pay for it. A lot of government debt has been paid off by pushing people up tax brackets over time (“fiscal drag”). Then there is plain old crowding out of the price of loanable funds and cash.
Robert Rubin was a actually a very good macroeconomist despite being Clinton aligned. He believed the price level was correlated to the level of government spending. I think he was right, look at Australian housing since Whitlam.
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Labour supply isn’t causing inflation.
Dunno about that but I was at Coles this morning and both they and the Subway sandwich shop had A4s posted on the door saying ‘now hiring’. Those were the ones I noticed, I suspect there were others on the bakery etc.
I was bemused that they can’t seem to get basic staff at all. Why? Is it because masking, or vaccinations, or just an economy-wide plague of we can’t be bothered. I don’t know. But there are walk-in jobs aplenty from the look of it.
I was wondering if it was due to a subsection of the population too scared to emerge into public. That would reduce the supply of labour and increase the need for it: all those trolley kids in the supermarkets these days filling on line shopping orders. Is it because of terror?
It’s obviously not immigration related since you never see immigrants working as checkout chicks. At least not here in Ncl.
I have no idea what’s behind this weird phenomenon, I’m just reporting what I’m seeing.
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Look. There is a “jobs boom”. It’s the government on borrowed money into low productivity jobs that pay better than a lot of private sector jobs with equivalent credentials and experience.
The government is out competing and crowding out the private sector in the jobs market.
TaliDan has a 36 billion recurrent wages bill for his constituency scheme. They are actually employing people first and engineering the job second. -
Dunno about that but I was at Coles this morning
all those trolley kids in the supermarkets these days filling on line shopping order
Depending on the amount of notice you give them and the delivery window you choose, you can get your shopping delivered by Coles for as little as $2.
Hardly worth starting the car to go and do your own shopping.
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The Vic news is full of the excitement of a RNA research facility to be set up at Monash Uni.
The ghouls gathered at the prospect of a home grown vaccine industry.
Victoria is naturally the pick of sites as investors can be assured that the population won’t be given a choice as to whether they use the vaccines or not.
The Premier psychopath was all ears, mask and shit eating grin at the big announcement. -
The working class is getting decent wage increases. Lowering supply chain pressure through immigration will help workers by dampening inflation so that their wages go further.
So what happened to the reign of terror the libs were inflicting on the wukkas you whacker?
Are you saying there is no link to supply of labour and wage pressures?
If 50 fantasy football visa holders come in and compete offering a similar product to you of similar quality will it affect the price you can demand?Its all to prime the population ponzi, screw anyone already in the country
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A statue of a bone-hunting former Tasmanian premier will be torn down in an “historic precedent” for removal of colonial monuments nationally.
One of the Councillors trotting out all the rubbish about “Sovereignty was never ceded”, “Always was, always will be Aboriginal Land..”
How can a wandering tribe of Stone Age hunter gatherers, with out even a written language have “sovereignty?”
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it seems to me not unrealistic for him to consider assignment of major authority to himself rather than ‘experts’ or Ministers lower down the food chain should the situation become drastic.
The problems are larger than assign authority to himself.
With two Ministers, who has the final authority and responsibility? That was never explored, explained, nor brought to the attention of Parliament let alone the Australian public who were affected by these machinations.
The biggest issue was that ScoMo did all this in secret. Keeping the populace in the dark, keeping most of cabinet in ignorance, forcing the GG to keep his lips sealed, and making vital decisions about infrastructure development unfettered by the spotlight of media scruitiny and legitimate questions from the voting public.Now he refuses to talk about it. Scumbag.
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https://twitter.com/SBakerMD/status/1559024608207982592/photo/1
Bug Puffs, anyone?
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