Given today’s discussion of migration to Australia, this evening’s guest author is the illustrious Graham Freudenberg, no stranger to anyone who has an interest in the ‘left’ side of Australian politics. Mr Freudenberg’s article is published with the kind permission of John Menadue from his excellent forum, Pearls and Irritations.
Australia sometimes seems to suffer a mysterious case of multiple amnesia over immigration.
We are a nation built on migrants, but we have forgotten that almost every new wave of immigrants has been resented and resisted by those already here, especially those who were migrants themselves. It started around the 1820s when the convicts hated the first free settlers ‘taking our jobs’. We have forgotten that, without exception, each wave of immigrants has been successfully absorbed to national and individual benefit. We have forgotten that particular groups aroused special animosity, yet integrated so completely in one generation that it would scarcely occur to them to regard themselves as being of migrant origin. Such is Australia’s perhaps unique capacity to integrate and be enriched.
Take, for example, three of the groups among the 237 we comprise – the Irish, the Chinese and the Jews.
There is no expression of fear, bigotry, suspicion and hate now directed indiscriminately against Muslims that was not used passionately with malice aforethought and intent to harm and hurt against the Irish, the Chinese and the Jews.
With the Irish, the charges included actual terrorism, when the Fenian O’Farrell attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria’s son, the Duke of Edinburgh, at a picnic at Clontarf, Sydney, in 1868.
The persons who used these expressions and who used them as powerful political weapons were not clever ratbags on the make. They included Sir Henry Parkes, five times Premier of New South Wales, the ‘Father of Federation’, who regarded Irish migrants as part of the conspiracy of the Pope to take over the world. And Parkes put the world’s harshest anti-Chinese laws on the NSW statute books.
They included the Reverend John Dunmore Lang whose statue graces Wynyard Square, Sydney, and whose book, The Fatal Mistake, exposed the papal conspiracy in all its horror, dealing with the plot of his arch-enemy, Mrs Caroline Chisholm, to swamp Australia with hordes of unmarried Irish young women. For Lang, they had three irredeemable vices: they were Irish; they were Catholic; and they bred.
As late as 1937, the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Lord Craigavon, asked his Australian counterpart Joe Lyons: ‘Tell me, Lyons, have you many Catholics in Orstralia?’ ‘Oh,’ said Lyons, ‘about 25 per cent.’ Craigavon: ‘Good God! Watch ‘em, Lyons, watch ‘em. They breed like rabbits’. Lyons forbore to mention that he was a Catholic himself, and with (Dame) Enid, had thirteen children romping around the lodge in Canberra.
As for the Chinese, they brought every known vice with them, and being all male, the ‘crime not to be named among Christians’. They took our gold and brought their opium. True, we had forced China to buy Indian opium to finance the Empire in the Opium Wars of 1840-42, but that was in the sacred name of free trade. In any case, they were all barbarians, without any civilization worthy of the name.
As for the Jews, as late as 1939 the Australian representative, Sir Thomas White, at the Evian (Switzerland) Conference, called by President Roosevelt to discuss the question of German Jewish refugees, refused to increase the Australian quota, saying proudly: ’Australia has no racial problem and does not intend to import one’. Hitler loved it, and used it to great effect in a speech to the Reichstag three months before his invasion of Poland when the killing of the European Jews began in earnest.
In 1947, with shipping at a premium, the Australian Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell, made an arrangement with the Australian Jewish community that any ship specially chartered to bring Jewish refugees to Australia must carry at least 50 per cent non-Jews. ‘It would have been electoral suicide to do otherwise’, Calwell wrote frankly thirty years later, when his post-war immigration program had blossomed into the world’s most successful and creative – today’s multicultural Australia.
When I was at school in the 1940s, (Australian population: 7 million) we were taught that White Australia was not merely an important fact in our history, but one of its great positive achievements, along with the explorers, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Dame Nellie Melba and Don Bradman.
Every ethnic group except Northern Europeans was suspect. In his brilliant new biography of H.V. Evatt, Professor John Murphy quotes Evatt, then a rising star in Australian law and Labor, at an international conference on migration in London in 1926: ‘The Australian Labour movement was “bitterly opposed” to Southern European migration, especially Italian’ (p.82).
What a pity that in the crucial post-war years, and the next 50 years, when our need for migrants forced us to look beyond Britain, even beyond dubious sources like Italy and Greece, and now under successive governments of both parties, that our poor little continent is swamped with 24 million people from God knows where, we didn’t have, until 1996, someone with the integrity and intellect of a Pauline Hanson, to expose Australian naïveté in thinking ‘She’ll be right, mate’. But if history, our genuine aspirations for our economy, our security, and our reputation, in a region comprising the largest Muslim nation in the world and our largest trading partner, it may well be that she’ll be wrong mate.
The only difference in the 20 years since she first appeared on the scene when John Howard failed to repudiate her (although the Liberal party itself had done so) is that, while the immigration program proceeds as successfully as ever, to our continuing benefit, it has been marred by a poisonous bigotry she helped unleash. The result is that it is now impossible to have a proper debate on the immigration levels Australia needs for the next 30 years.
With fitting symmetry, Ms Hanson first came to notoriety with her attacks on aboriginal ‘over-privilege’.
Perhaps the aborigines, from their vantage point of 50,000 years of prior possession, got it right at the start, when they shouted at the polyglot mob on the First Fleet anchored in Botany Bay in 1788:
Wirra Wirra
‘Go away, Go away’
As she has acknowledged, her warning may be too late. By about 228 years.
THE PUB 
Renewables And Various Other Conspiracies
http://theaimn.com/renewables-various-conspiracies/
You are verballing him.
I’m proud to say, for the umpteenth time, that I haven’t watched the ABC news or 7.30 for many years, and I intend to keep it that way.
Life is too short to waste precious time on crap.
My TV news coverage on TV?
Do the dishes at 1830 when SBS news is on, and 1900 on ABC when they do some local stuff.
Some 7.5 may “pique my interest”.
Renewable energy light fittings ?
?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Saw it.
It was a piss-take, a good one.
From the Weatherzone forum:
“Wow! Where is all that cloud down south heading east to west gonna end up?”
Lots of lightning in the Tasman Sea.
http://www.lightningmaps.org/#m=sat;r=0;t=3;s=0;o=0;b=;n=0;y=-34.919;x=146.8137;z=6;d=2;dl=2;dc=0;
It seems Boy Wonder Wyatt Roy’s post politics job is to visit Iraq, where apparently he was caught up in an operation there.
Nothing came of it of course for our intrepid right wing young hero, probably because the militants didn’t see any value in a ransom that could only be paid in strawberries, smug coalition talking points or assistance in the theft of Peter Slipper’s diaries so he wasn’t in any real danger.
The Murdoch Press is eagerly reporting on it for those that want the story.
The Shovel –
Renewable Energy, Muslims Most Likely Cause Of SA Power Outage, Hanson Says
http://www.theshovel.com.au/2016/09/29/renewable-energy-muslims-most-likely-cause-of-sa-power-outage-hanson-says/
Obviously she was advised by Malcolm Roberts!
According to J Bishop the Strongman from Longman is a Wrongman!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ctg4-oLUIAE8sAB?format=jpg&name=large
hi folks. nice and dry with electricity on.
Good!
Being dry is v important for dragons.
Good to hear you are safe
Another day, another stuff-up.
Fears that patients’ personal medical information has been leaked in Medicare data breach
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/privacy-watchdog-called-after-health-department-data-breach-20160929-grr2m1.html
I don’t have much time for Paul Murray, but this time he deserves applause. If only he had named the culprit.
http://www.mamamia.com.au/paul-murray-on-his-sons-death/
Of course we are assuming that he actually received such an email.. What with the tenuous connection between Rupert associated meeja and reality and all.
I believe him – it was a copy of the original email sent to him by Kristina Keneally, so that’s good enough for me.
I can’t see Murray lying about an issue that is one he really does care about.
About Pygmalion time:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/rights-of-children-must-trump-violent-parents-rosie-batty-20150928-gjwo1p.html
Heh, I love Penny Wong’s rebuke of Roy. Saying that Iraq should not be a place for people to play out their boyhood fantasies.
I bet he was doing it just to try and be brave and try and score brownie points for a future return to politics, but it’s just a stupid adventure for a stupid boy that should know better.
Can’t believe the Numpty on Lateline still persisting with the renewables crap. The fuckwittedness is strong with this one!
The full Penny Wong statement –
As a South Aussie sitting in an extreme weather event, Turnbull can go and get….
Of no particular interest to anyone, but I have found one drawback to not having facebook. I have been wondering how my mob of cousins that live in and around Adelaide have been faring during this renewable energy crisis that has caused the power to go out. I had to ring my sister to get her to look up her facebook and see how they are doing. Some were without power and using their b-b-q’s for cooking, others are all okay. That was last night, don’t know how things are today, haven’t heard the news yet. The abc seems to have lost all interest at the moment.
Facebook have an ‘are you safe’ message service. I received a request from a friend to respond to this and
i did then it posted on my timeline.
Good morning Dawn Patrollers – sorry about missing yesterday but circumstances did not allow.
Michelle Grattan warns Turnbull against falling into the Gillard trap. She doesn’t paint a pretty picture.
https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-turnbulls-challenge-is-to-avoid-the-gillard-trap-66277
Not MORE corruption in NSW! Kate McClymont is digging.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/public-servant-kylie-vernon-admits-to-kickbacks-for-multimilliondollar-government-contracts-20160929-grraal.html
Sean Nicholls wonders whether Mike Baird’s brand can be rehabilitated.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/can-mike-bairds-brand-be-rehabilitated-20160928-grqzsj.html
An inconveniently breaking story on Trump.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-election/donald-trump-broke-cuban-embargo-report-says-20160929-grrux7.html
Evidence and accusations of naughtiness in the RSL is spreading.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tens-of-thousand-of-dollars-no-receipts-douts-over-rsl-expenses-spread-to-queensland-20160929-grrsu1.html
Trump’s advisors tell him to go for Plan B for the next debate.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-election/trump-advisers-say-he-didnt-deliver-opt-for-new-debate-tactics-20160929-grro71.html
More desperate whining from Trump.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-election/donald-trump-says-is-google-suppresses-negative-returns-on-hillary-clinton-20160929-grrdlw.html
And down goes another rotten priest.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/former-catholic-priest-charged-over-child-sex-abuse-in-new-south-wales-20160929-grrubx.html
A big bureaucratic failure by Victorian police allows a wanted paedophile to go free in Ireland.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/australian-paedophile-free-in-ireland-after-police-bungle-20160929-grrhmd.html
Laura Tingle with some welcome perspective on the SA blackout. Google.
/opinion/a-perfect-storm-hits-south-australia-and-the-climate-change-debate-20160929-grrgkm
Section 2 . . .
The blackout explained (Hint: it wasn’t wind power).
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/29/south-australia-blackout-explained-renewables-not-to-blame
https://newmatilda.com/2016/09/29/power-games-the-real-reason-south-australia-lost-electricity-supply/
http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/sa/2016/09/29/sa-power-grid/
John Passant looks at the extraordinary efforts of the rabid right over the blackout.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/sa-blackout-australia-storms-right-into-the-dark-over-renewables,9535
Michelle Grattan pulls apart Turnbull’s reaction to the SA blackout.
https://theconversation.com/turnbull-turns-south-australia-crisis-into-row-over-renewables-66297
Stuart Robert’s bad week continues.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/stuart-robert-put-my-life-at-risk-marcus-lee-breaks-his-silence-over-mps-sunland-speech-20160929-grrgqb.html
This donation looks even worse. Google.
/national-affairs/sunland-lobbyist-who-owed-430000-gave-money-to-stuart-robert-fund/news-story/66b41d9082de881dd69427f2ad17c80c
Here’s a piece from Stephen Koukoulas on the recessionary horror of the WA economy.
http://thekouk.com/item/408-the-recessionary-horror-of-the-western-australian-economy.html
Rob Burgess on being two-faced about “wasting money” on welfare.
http://thenewdaily.com.au/money/work/2016/09/29/porter-welfare-reforms/
Disgraceful! This $800m NBN cock-up would pay for four plebiscites!
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/a-lemon-nbn-backflips-abandons-plan-to-use-optus-cables-it-purchased-for-800-million-20160928-grquam.html
Section 3 . . .
Paul Sinclair comes out fighting over Barnaby Joyce linking SA’s blackout with renewable energy. Sinclair says it’s coal’s fault.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/renewable-energy-isnt-to-blame-for-south-australian-blackouts–our-government-is-20160929-grrf6i.html
Gina Rinehart teams up with the effete David Flint for a bizarre video.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/cbd/what-gina-rinehart-didnt-say-in-her-bizarre-youtube-clip-with-david-flint-20160929-grraqq.html
The courts deliver another blow to Clive Palmer. Google.
/news/investigations/clive-palmer/clive-palmer-loses-court-bid-to-snatch-queensland-nickel-millions/news-story/aeb4f3fd236c6b000e38029babca2f67
Irfan Yusuf writes that conservatives need to stand up to bigotry.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/conservative-mps-need-to-stand-up-to-bigotry-20160929-grrb6t.html
Warren Entsch hits back at conservative in his own party.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/29/warren-entsch-rejects-conservatives-call-for-right-to-refuse-gay-weddings
Poor little Wyatt Roy gets a lashing from Mesma.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/foreign-minister-julie-bishop-criticises-wyatt-roy-for-very-high-risk-iraq-trip-20160929-grrsul.html
Get ready for a petrol price game changer as OPEC plans to cut production for the first time since 2008.
http://thenewdaily.com.au/money/your-budget/2016/09/29/opec-deal-australian-petrol-prices/
Anastacia Palasczcuk tells us that Hanson could become our Donald Trump if we let her. Google.
/national-affairs/state-politics/palaszczuk-call-out-hanson-to-avoid-an-aussie-donald-trump/news-story/c57fb26b4766fcd5b5b0d05257d6aa93
Why a third of nurses and midwives want out.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/burntout-and-overworked-a-third-of-nurses-and-midwives-want-to-leave-the-profession-20160928-grqmr1.html
The SMH editorial wonders if Putin has no shame.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/does-vladimir-putin-have-no-shame-20160928-grqyxi.html
Section 4 . . . Cartoon Corner
Eerie work from David Rowe.
Broelman on what we are all thinking.
And more of the same from David Pope.
http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/act-news/david-pope-20120214-1t3j0
Ron Tandberg with a beauty on the currency of hypocrisy.
Alan Moir with the world sweating off on the US election result.
http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/federal-politics/cartoons/alan-moir-20150921-gjrcxr.html
I’m not sure where Mark Knight is coming from with this one.
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/2be5a5a5b431183cafa55822af05c0de?width=1024
Jon Kudleka has a theory on the cause of the SA blackout.
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/e5c3667fca1716786fff4c2b7e4fb6ec
BK
Was last night as bad as the night before. The msm were saying it was supposed to be worse, but the abc radio are missing in action on anything SA this morning.
I just saw a pager message that SA’s severe weather warning has been cancelled.
There are CFS strike teams still being mobilised for all the flooding that is continuing though.
This is the Kudleka cartoon…..it is brilliant.
Thanks BK. msm are absolute crap. We now have to rely on social media people to tell us what is happening after such a huge event.
Razz and I saw Clarke and Dawe via twitter last night. It i one of the better ones. Sorry I don’t have a link.
http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/clarke-and-dawe/NC1611V033S00
http://www.abc.net.au/news/programs/clarkeanddawe/
Alan Moir reckons it’s all over for Turnbull.
S.A. blackout may lead to more batteries, and micro-grids
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/s-a-blackout-may-lead-to-more-batteries-and-micro-grids-67618
Some people were too easily taken in.
Most people, including many who should have known better, were taken in.
The Pub is a rare island of excellent judgment and good sense. But hey, we won’t say “Nah nah nah, told youse so!”
“says Brett Hogan of the Institute of Public Affairs”
😆
Coalition launches fierce attack against wind and solar after blackout
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/coalition-launches-fierce-attack-against-wind-and-solar-after-blackout-93841
Great work from USA Today here.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/09/29/dont-vote-for-donald-trump-editorial-board-editorials-debates/91295020/
From Malcolm Roberts’ press release – one of many ‘interesting’ points:
“Dr Jennifer Marohasy, a respected and renowned scientist, stated last night the winds that brought down South Australia’s singular powerline to Victoria were 87KM p.h. yet they extinguished power to the whole state while Queensland’s Cyclone Yasi’s winds were near 287KM p.h. and our state’s power grid remained online.”
I’m sure I’ve heard that name before. 🙂
Just in case …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Marohasy
Her qualifications are in plants and insects …
Barnaby and Turnbull?
I’ve heard that name before too. Exactly who you’d expect tin-foil hatter Roberts to quote.
And, of course, she’s wrong.
Power down for weeks after Yasi
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/power-down-for-weeks-after-yasi-20110202-1ae4p.html
Back then the LNP were blaming it all on Labor. Plus ça change …..
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/news/john-paul-langbroek-calls-for-underground-power-lines-in-wake-of-cyclone-yasi-outages/story-e6frg6oo-1226002072505
Good to have you back, BK. On behalf of the Renewables industry, apologies for the blackout yesterday.
Apology accepted!
Heard part of Daniel Andrews interview with Fran replayed on newsradio this morning – he totally skewered Turdball for his stupid comments on renewables, and he didn’t take any crap from Fran. Haven’t time to find audio link – have to do some work!
I find it endlessly amusing hearing from people who are dismayed at Turnbull’s behaviour. A lot of them still believe that every RW statement he makes is some kind of aberration or misjudgement, and that his views are really quite progressive. And as time goes by they hang on to that belief but are becoming more and more baffled.
I don’t know what it’s going to take to overcome their confirmation bias, but they need to do it soon, if only for their own mental health. Turnbull couldn’t be making it more obvious that he’s a political mercenary. He’s even dropped the fiction that he’s in any way progressive, and is just relying on people’s stubborn assumptions to do it for him.
Some of us always knew Fizza was an arsehole. We tried to tell them ………
He’s just agreeing to every nutter idea floated by his party now, desperate to hang on to being PM.
Yesterday there was this – he’s desperate to have Hanson on side as well. Not that there is any need to pander to her, she was always going to vote with the government on everything.
Pauline Hanson gets her wish: child support to be audited
http://www.afr.com/news/policy/education/paul-hanson-gets-her-wish-child-support-to-be-audited-20160920-grkvm9#ixzz4LhLdBa3f
Very good piece highlighting the contrast between the treatment of Julia Gillard and that of Malcolm Turnbull.
http://junkee.com/new-research-confirms-media-pretty-bloody-sexist-covering-julia-gillard/86170
It augurs some concern for Hillary Clinton. She is lucky that Trump is such a lying braggart. It ought to be enough to get her over the line but it may still be a bumpy ride.
“She is lucky that Trump is such a lying braggart.”
Not much worse than Abbott if at all. Somehow I think that Clinton has more friends than JG used to have. She has Obama and her hubby to begin with. Who did Julia have apart from some of her MPs?
Hillary also has Michelle Obama.
What gets over-looked is the importance of the African-American vote. They are strongly anti-Trump.
Michelle Obama lays it down on Trump, and it’s a camapign gamechanger.
http://secondnexus.com/politics-and-economics/michelle-obama-lays-it-down-on-trump/?utm_content=inf_33_1164_2&tse_id=INF_e83021c0864611e689578914ded99bd5
A very good point, Gigi. Even some of her staunchest friends said little publicly for her. I’m not sure I was ever seriously a Greens supporter but their treatment of her convinced me that they’d never be adequate.
You have to stand up for someone who puts the public good and good governance first.
Yes, there were some good MPs in her team but they practically had no voice. The media of course was a big problem but there was some general weakness in the Labor team. Sad, very sad. Naturally, you could never count on the Greens then either. What a useless bunch. Not even tree huggers anymore either. Perfectly useless.
Fiona Katauskas –
Cont off topic – Crikey came good today even the4 comments opened up without signing in, all back to some sort of normalacy they must be monitoring the Pub. be alert we need more lerts
Here’s the Daniel Andrews/Fran Kelly interview.
[audio src="http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2016/09/bst_20160930_0737.mp3" /]
Hmmmm – try this, just download.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/victoria-'innovative-and-nimble'-on-renewables-andrews/7891952
Thanks Leone, will listen while I lunch!
Ouch, low blow – Andrews suggesting not even Abbott would have used a natural disaster to peddle “ignorant rubbish” !!
chuckles!
Thanks Leone
Fran is such a bitch!
pointedly calling him Dan at the end of the interview
and such a government King Coal shill
The Libs don’t have to replace their Spineless Wonder: he’ll continue to do as he is told.
Maybe come the next election or when his poll popularity sinks to whatever they think is unacceptable.
CSG is on the nose
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/30/commonwealth-bank-coal-seam-gas-makes-property-unacceptable-as-loan-security
Andrew Street on the “Wyatt Colonial Roy”
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/view-from-the-street/the-reckless-ballad-of-the-wyatt-colonial-roy-20160930-grrzq2.html
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/30/please-prime-minister-burst-the-bubbles-of-self-serving-rhetoric-for-our-sake
Katherine Murphy again begging the real Malcolm to stand up – don’t bother with the article, go straight to the comments where various “fact checkers” are tearing her apart, with several pointing out she made similar excuses for Abbott…
I just read the Murphy article – you were right, it’s not worth it. In fact, it’s deeply, committedly stupid. ‘Bubble Politics’ is not a thing, and putting it up as an idea just clouds the issue. If she’s saying politicians have a script they stick to, to the exclusion of other ideas or the facts, well duh. That’s not a ‘bubble’, that’s an abrogation of their duties. Murphy just wants to be sad because the man she put her faith in turned out to be a weasel, and she’s hoping against hope that he’ll magically restore her faith. We don’t need to see that in print, we really don’t. She can keep those thoughts to herself, and try to approach her occupation with more of a level head.
There’s absolutely no point and no sense in lamenting Turnbull’s move away from ‘progressiveness’ to meek capitulation to the RW faction of his party. You just have to look at it for what it is, a betrayal of the ideals he sold himself on, and thus the negation of any claims he has to the support of this nation’s citizens. That’s it, that’s all there is to it. The Turnbull we have now is not the one we were sold, and we have no duty to be loyal to it. We should just vote it out. It’s a dud.
The sooner people realise that no matter what figurehead they paste onto it, it’s always going to be the same Liberal Party scum, the better.
Ben Eltham has lodged a formal complaint to the ABC over Uhlmann’s performance yesterday.
Inaccurate? Try “full of lies.”
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/09/crisis-15-million-expected-flee-mosul-160928191736825.html
Those poor people!
Some stuff about Boy Wyatt’s Adventures in a War Zone.
First – a reply to a post by Madwixxy on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/Wixxyleaks/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED&fref=nf
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/09/29/wyatt-roy-caught-deadly-firefight-between-peshmerga-and-iraq
The only issue with that is we don’t know if Roy went anywhere near Mosul. If he did then he has committed an offence by visiting a declared zone.
https://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/WhatAustraliaisdoing/Pages/DeclaredAreaOffence.aspx#MouslDistrict
Simon Coates has been promoting this article by Roy on Twitter.
Wyatt Roy reveals brush with Islamic State during Iraq visit
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/wyatt-roy-reveals-brush-with-islamic-state-during-iraq-visit/news-story/09dd273e7649b1ef2cebb5b9097362d7
Roy admits he was not on an official visit, just there “to see a mate, get a feel for the environment, and talk to policymakers and industry leaders about their experience>
If he did enter the declared zone around Mosul, or if he just picked up a rifle when he was with the Peshmerga, regardless of where he was then he is in a whole heap of trouble. And who was this ‘mate’ he wanted to visit?
Fizza ‘has not ruled out an investigation’.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-30/turnbull-labels-wyatt-roy-'stupid'-over-warzone-visit/7891816
i’m not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen. Fizza will be hoping the whole thing blows over soon. A weekend of grand finals should help.
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