Thursday 17 January 2013

End Quotas

With the rise of the "quota" groups have found acceptable ways to discriminate against groups and lobby for those who are successful amongst there "group" be seen as the "token" individual whether they have worked hard to achieve a strong position or not.

The danger with quotas is the applications of them. Firstly quotas are only designed to force women into male dominated industries. Quotas are not established to rebalance other industries or occupations. In fact, whilst it is acknowledged within Australia that there is a distinct lack of male teachers which is having a negative impact on male school students. We have not yet seen quotas established for teachers. Further we have not seen financial incentives developed for Men to get them into teaching; however, we repeatedly see industry packages designed to support women into position.

Since the release of the Broderick Review senior defence officials have stated that they will allow discrimination against males in an attempt to bolster women in the senior ranks. Whilst we do this we will only ever establish a culture of mediocrity. As an aside Broderick stated that there was a "warrior culture" at the Defence Force Academy (a military having a warrior culture - who would have think [sarcasm for those who didn't get it]) and this should be abolished.

The pay gap is another argument used by feminists to push quotas. See the Gender Pay Gap for comments on this topic.

Quotas also fail to acknowledge one fact - men, on average, work longer hours than women. In 2012, according to the ABS, men worked 63% more hours than women and men make up 65% of the full time work force. In a further break down of these statistics approx four times as many men work 60+ hours as women.

The use of quotas largely pushes under qualified women into positions that a more qualified, non-quota person, could fill. And do a better job. Business will continue to find the best people to employ and when "quota people" start to perform they will naturally feel these jobs.

Tuesday 15 January 2013

Time to Grill the Greens

The Greens have always been a fringe political party in Australia. As such they have typically received votes from the "hippy left". But last election saw a change - with the "latte left", particularly those from inner Melbourne, starting to shift preferences to the party.

At the most idealistic level the Greens seem to be a party who care for the environment; however, voters and the media need to look at them in detail.

Firstly we must look at their people - Andrew Wilkie (currently independent but ran as a Green previously)  is a disgraced ex-member of the Australian Army. An intelligence officer who, in moral protest to Australia's involvement in Iraq, deliberately leaked official secrets to the media(2004 Article here). A strong government and judiciary should have gone after Wilkie and charged him with offences under the secrets acts, much like Jean-Philippe Wispelaere . But now he is touted as Greens hero - more specifically another "Greens Criminal".

The Green support criminal action. Bob Brown, the longest serving, now retired, Greens senator published an opinion piece in both The Australian and The Age on 11 January, supporting illegal activities as an act of civil disobedience. The Whitehaven scandal, perpetrated by Jonathan Moylan, was regarded by Bob Brown and Senator Christine Milne, the current leader of the Greens, as an act of environmental activism. Both Brown and Milne fail to acknowledge the  $300m of share value lost from the company. The mum and dad investors who had their margins called and their retirement saving. But again - humans are the collateral damage acceptable to the Greens.

How much human cost must we accept for the Greens polices?

Secondly, and most importantly, most people voting for the Greens, fail to understand their policies. Only a small portion of the Greens policies are about the environment. The remainder of their policies are poorly thought out, borderline communist, policies that would have disastrous consequences on the Australian economy. They strive to destroy, or at least disrupt, the free market. Again leaving actual people - parents, children,  grandparents, teens, the unemployed - as acceptable collateral damage.

The media, as a whole, has been weak in chasing the Greens. They take their media bites, but fail to grill them on their answers, on their policies and on their people.

It is time to hold the Greens to account - like any other party that significant sway on the future of Australia and its people.

Monday 14 January 2013

The Weakness of the ADF Generals

Yesterday news.com published an articled titled Bashed Darwin soldier told 'to look for a job'. This was a story of a "victim" soldier who the Australian Army had kicked out and failed to provide medical support after he was horribly assaulted and nearly left for dead.

The Agenda has strong doubts on the veracity of Lachlan Nimmo's story. Whilst there is no doubt that he was horribly bashed the remainder of Army's action do not seem to be in line with she strong personnel management the Organisation appears to have.

The fact that Lachlan Nimmo is not receiving medical support after termination indicates that he was, what the American Military would call, "dishonourably discharged". This would further indicate that Lachlan Nimmo is not so innocent and therefore is less of a victim then he lets on.

But without the ADF providing a detailed and adequate response Lachlan Nimmo can continue to dishonour the Army by telling half truths. This is where the Generals must start to fight. The short term quietness to keep  stories out of the media cycle is gutless and continues to highlight the culture of weakness amongst the ADF hierarchy.

Strong valid responses against stories like this may well have a short term loss to the ADF but long term it will disperse the myth of cultures of violence, misogyny and a lack of care for the ADF junior soldiers, sailors and airmen.

If anyone has any information on Lachlan Nimmo, this incident, or any other weakness in the ADF hierarchy leave a response. It's time someone spoke up.

Wednesday 9 January 2013

The Gender Pay Gap

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency is an Australian Government statutory authority which aims to improve gender equality in Australian workplaces.
The Agency is responsible for administering the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012, which puts a focus on promoting and improving gender equality outcomes for women and men in Australian workplaces.

One of the large issues WGEA pursues is the gender pay gap issue. The latest report was released January 2013 and can be found here.

The report itself was published in several Australian papers; however, like most of the feminist gender issues, proper debate has not been opened on the issue.

Looking at the graphs published in the WGEA report it seems absolutely abhorrent that the average female university graduate earns $5000 a year less than the average male graduate. The report itself is poorly written and very basic.

The analysis is industry based and fails to differentiate between private and public sector jobs.

Why is this significant?

The first reason is that 57% of personnel employed by the Australian Public Service (APS) at the APS 1-4 levels are women. The State of the Australian Public Service Report

Secondly the average wage for the APS (below EL), as detailed in the 2011 Mercer report, was approx $8000 a year less than the average private sector wage. Therefore the APS unfair employment policies which employs more women than men (how is this not an equality issue?), has assisted female graduates in being underpaid compared to their male graduate cohort.

The APS underemployment of male graduates is responsible for a large portion of the pay disparity. Further the study has not found a single employer who has underpaid female employees compared to male employees.

If the rational person theory only applies to men - then we can truly say that women are irrational beasts. This of course is not true for a second. Therefore there is an underlying value that is not being accounted for in the WGEA study.

It's time to place value on freedom of choice and remove the ridiculous, poorly crafted, statistics based agenda feminists are trying to weaken their sex with.