Showing posts with label Vic Alhadeff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vic Alhadeff. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Notes: Wednesday, December 4-Tuesday, December 31, 2013 (part 3 of 3)

15. New South Wales (N.S.W.) Premier "Mr O’Farrell said Mr Vic Alhadeff had been appointed the new Community Relations Commission’s Chair, and Mr Hakan Harman as its CEO."

The quotation in that headline comes from the media release "NEW CHAIR TO LEAD COMMUNITY RELATIONS COMMISSION", no author credited, dated Friday, December 17, 2013 (sic—presumably the author meant Tuesday, December 17, 2013, given that those appointments came to my attention via the Wednesday, December 18, 2013 issue of the Sydney Daily Telegraph), downloaded from the N.S.W. Premier's website:

http://www.premier.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/NEW%20CHAIR%20TO%20LEAD%20COMMUNITY%20RELATIONS%20COMMISSION.pdf

and also available at the Community Relations Commission's (C.R.C.'s) and Office of Communities' respective websites:

http://www.crc.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/22453/131219_New_Chair_to_Lead_Community_Relations_Commission.pdf

http://www.communities.nsw.gov.au/assets/pubs/media/citizenship_communities/131217_new_chair_to_lead_Community_Relations_Commission.pdf

For reaction to Mr. Alhadeff's appointment, see the article "George Brandis reveals new direction for human rights commission", by Deborah Snow, dated December 21, 2013, in which Ms Snow observes that
Ironically, as the Abbott government prepares to soften laws against racially offensive speech, the O'Farrell government in New South Wales seems headed down a different path. This week it appointed the chief of the Jewish Board of Deputies, Vic Alhadeff, as chairman of the state community relations commission. Alhadeff, a former South African newsman, was a fierce opponent of apartheid who lost grandparents in the Holocaust. As a consequence, he is a staunch defender of anti-discrimination laws, particularly those aimed at racism.
[downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/george-brandis-reveals-new-direction-for-human-rights-commission-20131220-2zqpk.html?skin=text-only
and brought to my attention by the version printed under the headline "Inside job draws fire", by the same author, pp. 6-7 in the "News Review" supplement of The Sydney Morning Herald, Weekend Edition, December 21-22, 2013, no issue number stated (but presumably No. 54976—the issue number for December 28-29, 2013, minus five (not seven, since The Sun-Herald doesn't count, and not six, since there was no Herald on Christmas Day)), ISSN 0312-6315]
and see also the Middle East Reality Check blog posts "The New Face of Multiculturalism in NSW" and "'A Fierce Opponent of Apartheid'", both by MERC, dated respectively Thursday, December 19, 2013 and Sunday, December 22, 2013:

http://middleeastrealitycheck.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/the-new-face-of-multiculturalism-in-nsw.html

http://middleeastrealitycheck.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/a-fierce-opponent-of-apartheid.html

Labels: N.S.W. Jewish Board of Deputies, Vic Alhadeff

16. "The Fraser government set up the AHRC as an almost quasi-judicial body that would have the power to enforce rulings on issues within its ambit. But a 1995 High Court judgment stripped the commission of the power to make and enforce decisions, turning it into a toothless tiger. Hence the AHRC no longer conducts hearings."

The quotation in that headline comes from the opinion piece "Brandis and Dreyfus take hypocrisy to a new level", by Prof. Peter van Onselen, dated December 21, 2013, downloaded from (behind the paywall at) The Australian's website:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/brandis-and-dreyfus-take-hypocrisy-to-a-new-level/story-fn53lw5p-1226787694605

(That opinion piece came to my attention via the version printed under the same headline (but with all the letters capitals), with the same author, on p. 18 in the "COMMENTARY" pages of the "INQUIRER" section of The Weekend Australian, December 21-22, 2013, First Edition, No. 15298, ISSN 1038-8761, published by Nationwide News Pty. Limited.)

Labels: A.H.R.C.

17. "A British Medical Journal study on euthanasia in Flanders, Belgium, found that 47 per cent of deaths were not reported. Last year The Lancet published a meta-analysis which found that 23 per cent of euthanasia deaths went unreported by doctors. In both studies, unreported euthanasia was associated with questionable and sometimes illegal practice."

The quotation in that headline comes from the article "Euthanasia advocates' overkill stymies the right-to-die debate", by Dr. Jennifer Oriel, dated December 28, 2013, downloaded from The Australian's website:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/euthanasia-advocates-overkill-stymies-the-righttodie-debate/story-e6frg6zo-1226790758222

(That article came to my attention via the version printed under the same headline, with the same author, on p. 14 in the "INQUIRER" section of The Weekend Australian, December 28-29, 2013, First Edition, No. 15303, ISSN 1038-8761, published by Nationwide News Pty. Limited.)

Labels: euthanasia

18. Prof. Anderson et al. apply against life sentences an argument which is often used against the death penalty

See the opinion piece "NSW sentencing laws are out of step with its human rights obligations", by Associate Professor John Anderson, Mrs. Felicity Wardhaugh, and Mr. Daniel Matas, dated December 28, 2013, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/nsw-sentencing-laws-are-out-of-step-with-its-human-rights-obligations-20131227-2zz0p.html?skin=text-only

(That opinion piece came to my attention via the version printed under the headline "Parole … eventually" (ellipsis symbol in the original), with the same authors, on p. 11 of the "News Review" supplement of The Sydney Morning Herald, Weekend Edition, December 28-29, 2013, No. 54981, ISSN 0312-6315.)

Labels: crime, death penalty, justice

19. Cardinal Scola on, among other things, religious liberty and what His Eminence regards as "the proper and necessary non-confessionality of the state"

See the article "THE EDICT OF MILAN: INITIUM LIBERTATIS", by His Eminence The Most Rev. The Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, on pp. 10-19 of the Humanitas review, No. 5 (Second Semester 2013), Biannual English Digital Edition, available for download from here:

http://review.humanitas.cl/

or go straight hither:

http://issuu.com/humanitas60/docs/h5_ingl__s_baja?e=2218461/6092099

Labels: religious liberty, Confessional State

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Tuesday in the Octave of Christmas, and the feast of St. Sylvester I., Pope, Confessor, A.D. 2013
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Wednesday, January 9, 2013

"the Holocaust [will] now be included in the mandatory world history overview for years 9 and 10 in the new national [Australian ]curriculum"

See
  • "Study of Holocaust mandated for schools", by Anna Patty, dated December 8, 2012, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:
    http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/study-of-holocaust-mandated-for-schools-20121207-2b10k.html?skin=text-only
    That article came to my attention via the version published under the same headline and with the same byline on p. 7 of the main "NEWS" section of the Weekend Edition of The Sydney Morning Herald, December 8-9, 2012, No. 54656, ISSN 0312-6315. Note that the first paragraph of the print version differs from that of the current online version. This is my transcription of the first paragraph of the print version:
    THE study of the Holocaust will become compulsory for all NSW school students in years 9 and 10 after a lobbying campaign by the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies prompted the state government to include it in the syllabus.
    Google searching indicates that the websites of some of Fairfax's regional mastheads still carry the original version, but, oddly, when I went to the web-pages for the first three of those newspapers to come up in the results, the first paragraph was the new one.
    I'm not sure why Fairfax made that 'clarification'. Perhaps the Jewish Board of Deputies did not alone prompt the curriculum change, but surely it was indeed a factor (and perhaps the decisive one) in the prompting of that change? Maybe the Herald made the 'clarification' because the Australian Curriculum, Assessment, and Reporting Authority (A.C.A.R.A.) is a Federal rather than a State organ, and the Jewish Board of Deputies' lobbying was of the New South Wales (State) organs, the Board of Studies and (State, not Federal, judging by the context) Department of Education. But that would just mean that the influence of the Jewish Board of Deputies over the Federally-set curriculum was indirect—passing by way of the aforementioned State organs—rather than direct; but then, the 'clarified' first paragraph still says that "the Jewish Board of Deputies lobbied the state government for the curriculum change" (my emphasis), and it's the Federal organ, the A.C.A.R.A., which sets the curriculum, which (curriculum) New South Wales, and presumably the other States and Territories, implements through new syllabuses.
Mr. Benson was one of the participants in "the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies’ annual Journalists Mission to Israel" last November. Another participant in that "study tour" was the editor of the Herald for the day on which Ms Patty's article was published, namely, Judith Whelan. (The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council was also involved with that tour, though it was the N.S.W. Jewish Board of Deputies, not the A.I.J.A.C., which sponsored Ms Whelan and Mr. Benson. (The A.I.J.A.C. sponsored other journalists on the same tour.)) As for Mr. Govorcin, the only person named as a source in his article, namely, Anthony Cleary, was a couple of years ago a recipient of "a scholarship from the Gandel Foundation and Yad Vashem" for attending an international programme in Jerusalem in order "to develop a greater understanding of the Holocaust which he can then share with teachers and students in Australia".

Here is how I would summarise the information in the three articles:
  • From 2014, it will be mandatory for all Australian Year 9 and 10 History pupils to study "the Holocaust … as a major world event along with World War II in the 20th-century world history curriculum."
  • That comes after private lobbying of a very favourably-disposed New South Wales Board of Studies and Department of Education by the N.S.W. Jewish Board of Deputies for at least about three years, concluding in November 2012, though the Board of Deputies made no public submission to the Board of Studies during the consultation phase for the drafting of the new New South Wales syllabus (by which New South Wales, and presumably the other States and Territories, mutatis mutandis, implements the new national curriculum).
  • The mandatory inclusion means that Australian classes "will mirror compulsory Holocaust classes in most US states, the UK and many European countries".
  • The N.S.W. Jewish Board of Deputies "is now calling on the Gillard government to join about 28 other Western nations and sign up to the Task Force for International Co-operation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research."
  • As for nominally Catholic schools, the mandatory inclusion "has the capacity to try to advance genuine inter-faith dialogue and relations, says Anthony Cleary, director of religious education and evangelisation for the Catholic Education Office Sydney."
  • Mr. Cleary also says that “The Catholic Education Office has a wonderful working relationship with the NSW Board of Jewish Deputies and we consider that this would be another project that we could work in partnership on.”
Finally, here are a few links to related material which I found through Google, together with their respective excerpts of interest in the present context:
  • http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/schools-failing-to-teach-on-holocaust/story-e6frg6nf-1111116872017
    The only mention of the Holocaust in the NSW syllabus for Years 7-10 is in the beginning, with the rationale for the course starting with a quotation from a Holocaust survivor about the importance of learning history.[ … ]The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies said yesterday it had been concerned for some time about the omission of the Holocaust from school history, and was working with the education department and the board of studies on the issue.
Reginaldvs Cantvar
9.I.2013
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