Shorten joins PM in lashing prosecutors’ bail call
Rhiannon Down
Government Services Minister Bill Shorten has slammed commonwealth prosecutors for not opposing the release of a freed detainee on bail before he allegedly bashed a Perth grandmother, admitting the decision to remove the Kuwaiti-born man’s ankle bracelet was a “mistake”.
Mr Shorten questioned “why on earth” prosecutors decided not to argue against Majid Jamshidi Doukoshkan’s release when he fronted court on charges of breaching his visa conditions on February 20.
The prosecutor warned a Perth court that Doukoshkan was a risk of reoffending again but did not oppose bail, a transcript of the hearing reveals.
“I honestly don’t know why the federal prosecutor – who admittedly is independent, so I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this – but why on earth didn’t the federal prosecutor oppose bail?,” he told Channel 9’s Today.
Mr Shorten sought to lay the blame for the dShorten joins PM in lashing prosecutors’ bail cal&r=g
Rhiannon Down
Government Services Minister Bill Shorten has slammed commonwealth prosecutors for not opposing the release of a freed detainee on bail before he allegedly bashed a Perth grandmother, admitting the decision to remove the Kuwaiti-born man’s ankle bracelet was a “mistake”.
Mr Shorten questioned “why on earth” prosecutors decided not to argue against Majid Jamshidi Doukoshkan’s release when he fronted court on charges of breaching his visa conditions on February 20.
The prosecutor warned a Perth court that Doukoshkan was a risk of reoffending again but did not oppose bail, a transcript of the hearing reveals.
“I honestly don’t know why the federal prosecutor – who admittedly is independent, so I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this – but why on earth didn’t the federal prosecutor oppose bail?,” he told Channel 9’s Today.
Mr Shorten sought to lay the blame for the decision to remove Doukoshkan’s ankle monitor months before the assault, but conceded it had been a “mistake” made by the Community Protection Board.
“So, we set up a community protection board,” he said.
“They made a decision to not put an ankle bracelet on this fellow, because previously he hadn’t shown any crimes of violence.
“But again, I agree with probably what most viewers would think, that that is a mistake.”ecision to remove Doukoshkan’s ankle monitor months before the assault, but conceded it had been a “mistake” made by the Community Protection Board.
“So, we set up a community protection board,” he said.
“They made a decision to not put an ankle bracelet on this fellow, because previously he hadn’t shown any crimes of violence.
“But again, I agree with probably what most viewers would think, that that is a mistake.”

A salient reminder to us all that our modern day electronic society can turn to custard without any warning. 

We are one Carrington Event away from the early 19th Century.

The beginning of the end of corporate woke?

Google has sacked 28 employees who occupied offices at their HQ and demanded the company divest from any business with Israel.

A further 22 employees were sacked for other acts of political activism carried out on their employer’s time and dime.

stephen rice Why Brittany Higgins and Bruce Lehrmann should both accept the Michael Lee’s verdict

• 11:01AM May 3, 2024

Two weeks ago — the day before Justice Michael Lee brought down his judgment in the Lehrmann defamation case — I made an optimistic plea in these pages that, no matter what the decision, we all accept his call.
It shouldn’t be too hard.
Having meticulously worked his way through the facts, Lee came to two key conclusions: 1. Brittany Higgins had been raped by Bruce Lehrmann. 2. There had been no attempt by anyone to cover it up.
Who could argue with that?
Well, the two principal characters, for a start.
Bruce Lehrmann is now talking about an appeal. Or to use Lee’s parlance, going back — yet again — for his hat. He should leave the loathsome thing where he left it, in the lion’s den. Even before Lee’s verdict it was sullied beyond redemption by his woeful performance in the witness box and extra-curricular activities out of it.
Whether the Seven Network knew he was spending its handouts on hookers and drugs — unlikely — is now irrelevant, except to the Seven journalists consumed by the Lehrmann bonfire.
Lee made a sound case that Lehrmann was “hell-bent” on having sex with Higgins and didn’t care one way or the other whether, in her drunk state, she understood or agreed.
Lehrmann’s chances of a successful appeal are minimal – even if he can find someone wealthy and careless enough to fund it.
And then there’s Higgins, vindicated by Lee’s finding that, on the balance of probabilities, she was raped, yet still unwilling to acknowledge his finding that her accusations of a cover-up by Linda Reynolds and her then chief of staff Fiona Brown were utterly false.
Having rightly been given the benefit of the doubt over the rape, Higgins now refuses to accept that the claims she and fiance David Sharaz made that destroyed the careers and reputation of Reynolds and Brown were dead wrong.
Both are haunted by Higgins’s false claim that they walked past another woman’s rape.
Neither is remotely helped by her Clayton’s apology last week that “my perceptions and feelings about what happened in the days and weeks after my rape are different from theirs.”
Higgins’ regret that “we have not yet found common ground” just rubs salt in the wounds.
What common ground? She made false accusations that devastated the lives of two older women who had only ever tried to help her.
As Higgins said, she was only 24 when she was raped. She is entitled to be given, as Lee did, significant latitude for someone who suffered trauma after a terrible crime.
Is it too much to ask then, that as a now mature and more reflective adult, she cannot offer a genuine and unconditional apology to the two women she wronged?
There is, of course, one large stumbling block for Higgins in apologising to Reynolds in the defamation case the Senator has vowed to keep pursuing.
If Higgins admits she made false claims about her treatment by Reynolds and Brown that contributed to her $2.4m settlement from the Commonwealth, she might be open to a move by the Commonwealth to challenge the payout.
Higgins is in a bind.
She stands to lose a great deal of money from the defamation claim if Reynolds wins, both in costs and damages – but potentially even more if she apologises and admits her claims about her former boss in the Commonwealth settlement were untrue.
She should opt for the apology.
The reality is, the Commonwealth is unlikely to demand its money back.

Incontinence Joe gives Tojo a whack:-

Joe Biden has labelled Quad allies Japan and India as ‘xenophobic’

…

Speaking at a campaign event in Washington on Wednesday night (Thursday AEST), the US President said one of the reasons the US economy was growing in contrast to other large economies was because of rapid immigration, prompting a pushback from Japanese politicians and diplomats.

“Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants,”

Three reasons Japan is becoming increasingly popular as a tourist destination for Westerners are:-
1. You are not accosted by shifty sub-Saharan blow-ins on the streets as you might be in Milan, Rome or Paris;
2. It is evident that there is some local homelessness, but they do not threaten or pan-handle tourists;
3. Police take reports of law-breaking seriously and respond.
Once Japan breaks the 1980’s myth that it is an expensive holiday destination (it isn’t) and people realise that the language barrier doesn’t exist anymore because of mobile phone translation tech, it will become the premier tourist destination for Westerners.
Seriously, I would take it over Europe all day long because it has tight immigration policies.

Diogenes at 12:59

Got seen by haematologist 5 minutes late, but then sent for blood test, then had to wait for the nurse to organise a marrow biopsy, then they decided to take 500ml and replace with IV. So instead of the “allow 2 hours” I have been here for 4.5 with at least another 30 minutes to go.

Bwah ha ha ha.
My limited hospital experience tells me that, if you need to get three things done before discharge, you are not getting out that day, no matter how mundane or routine those tasks might be.
Last year I had to have a scan which involved infusion of a particular radioactive tracer. After driving four-and-a-half hours to Melbourne I am up on the hoist at 11:30 a.m. waiting for the infusion when the doctor comes in and says, “Err, they sent the tracer to Sydney”.
“Oh?” I say. “So what now? Do I come back tomorrow?”.
“Well, no. The tracer has a use-by of 7:00 pm tonight, and it comes from the US, so we will have to order another one”.
So I hang around at the hospital for six hours until it arrives and gets pumped in with 45 minutes to spare.
…
PS. 500ml of bone marrow seems like a LOT.

The reality is, the Commonwealth is unlikely to demand its money back.

Owe the Commonwealth $3 000?

You’ve got a problem.

Owe the Commonwealth $3 000 000?

The Commonwealth has a problem.

This weeks Media Watchdog continues the very ALPBC problem – what do you do with an old lesbian? A: Sideline an old possibly non-lesbian. The staff co-op as the Hotel California.

Detainee’s multiple breaches of curfews before attack laid bare
By paul garvey

• Senior Reporter

and rhiannon down

• Reporter
• 3:42PM May 3, 2024

A convicted drug trafficker and former immigration detainee charged over the brutal bashing and burglary of an elderly Perth couple breached his curfew conditions just one minute after they were placed on them, and went on to break his curfew a further five times.
Kuwait-born Majid Jamshidi Doukoshkan first breached his curfew conditions on 9 February and ignored multiple federal police and Home Affairs warnings, setting a pattern of behaviour that prompted commonwealth prosecutors to flag their concerns about the likelihood that he could reoffend.
Just weeks later, however, the Community Protection Board – the body set up by the Albanese government to monitor Doukoshkan and the 151 convicted criminals released from immigration detention following last year’s High Court decision – opted against requiring him to keep wearing the device.
Doukoshkan then went on to commit at least two more offences before he was then allegedly involved in the attack on Ninette and Philip Simons. He and his accomplices are alleged to have used a stolen police badge to talk their way into the couple’s Girrawheen home.
The extent of Doukoshkan’s curfew breaches were laid out in transcripts released by the Western Australian Magistrates Court, amid intense scrutiny into the Commonwealth’s handling of the released detainees.

This swine should be on the next aircraft out of the country..

The leftie Law Society Journal reports on the slap and tickle case:

Tickle v Giggle: What is the difference between gender and gender identity? – Law Society Journal (lsj.com.au)

To what extent does the Sex Discrimination Act protect a person from discrimination on the basis of their gender identity? The Federal Court has the difficult task of interpreting the law and ruling on the question of what is a “woman”?

To what extent does the Sex Discrimination Act (Act) protect a person from discrimination on the basis of their gender identity? It is a question that has taken centre stage in the Federal Court recently. In the matter of Tickle v Giggle for Girls Pty Ltd, a transgender woman commenced proceedings launched court action against a women’s only platform and its CEO, for allegedly being blocked from the app due to her gender identity.

Roxanne Tickle claims that she downloaded the app and passed the “selfie” stage, which meant that she could use it. The “selfie” is assessed by third-party artificial intelligence (AI) software that ascertains whether the pending user is a man or a woman. If the AI determines that the “selfie” is of a woman, the user is granted access to the app.

The case is significant because it is the first time since the Act was amended in 2013 that the changes are being tested in court.
Section 22 of the Act states that it is unlawful for a person to discriminate against another person on the ground of the other person’s “sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status …”. Gender identity is also referenced in Section 5B of the Act.

Despite the seemingly wide ambit, “sex” is not defined in the legislation.
According to Katie Green, the Managing Principal Solicitor at the Inner City Legal Centre, at the moment, there is a lack of legal protections for trans people in New South Wales and Western Australia in particular. In terms of the types of legal issues that trans people face, “We [saw] such an enormous rise in discrimination, vilification, family law issues, medical law issues, legal issues at work inherently unique to trans people, their identities, their bodies and their documents,” she says.

What is notable in this case is that following her transition from male to female, Tickle updated her birth certificate. The Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Queensland issued a new certificate, designating her as female.

“The New South Wales Act kind of imposes two tiers of transgender people,” says Green. “There are transgender people, and then there are recognised transgender people.”

According to Green, most states have progressively updated their laws to recognise the identity of trans people. “They can change their name, but if they want to change their gender marker in New South Wales, you only have the option of being a male or a female, you don’t have the option of being non-binary or other,” she says. Green explains that for a person to change their gender after surgery, they have to be examined by two doctors who need to sign a statutory declaration, before it will be recognised by the state’s Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. “This connects back to discrimination because trans people are not able to obtain basic legal documentation that confirms who they are,” she says.

“[Tickle] does appear to have been discriminated against on the basis of sex and gender identity pursuant to the Sex Discrimination Act because she has undertaken many legal and medical procedures to affirm her gender as female. … She has affirmed her gender on her identity documents, which identify her as being a woman,” says Green.

“[I]n the Federal jurisdiction, the case of Norrie (NSW Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages v Norrie [2014] HCA 11) found in 2014 that people actually have a right to not specify as male or female. But in the New South Wales jurisdiction, we still require that specification.”

The respondents, Giggle for Girls, claim that the app constitutes a “special measure” designed to achieve substantive equality between men and women and the app’s exclusion of males is reasonable in the circumstances. That is, the exclusion of males from the app fell within the exceptions under sections 7N, 7D and 32 of the Act.

Given what is at stake, there is a lot of public interest in the outcome of the case. The Federal Court has the difficult task of interpreting the law and ruling on the question of what is a “woman”?

https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2024/05/albanese-hides-in-a-photo-op-with-jews-who-he-deep-down-dislikes.html

Chris Kenny has a 2 year review of the Albo government up at Teh Paywallian (presumably this weekend’s column). It’s a bad as you would imagine.