Next Governor-General Peter Cosgrove will keep out of politics

Dear Government General Cosgrove, You are wise to keep out of politics which is the direst game to play but if use wisely, the most effective tool to make changes to society. Eddie Hwang President Unity Party WA info@unitywa.org http://unitywaorg.blogspot.com.au (Published) http://twitter.com/unitypartywa (Published) Ph/Fax: 61893681884 Protect environemt-save trees-use Email. UPWA is the only political party that calls a spade a spade. Next governor-general Peter Cosgrove will keep out of politics • BEN PACKHAM - THE AUSTRALIAN - JANUARY 28, 2014 2:41PM GOVERNOR-General designate Peter Cosgrove says he will stay out of political debate when he takes up the post in March, vowing to "shine a light but not to generate heat''. The former chief of defence was officially named in the post by Tony Abbott today, a month after the appointment was flagged by The Australian. "I can't think of a finer Australian or a more suitable one to serve as governor-general and, in this great office, make a contribution to the leadership of our country,'' the Prime Minister said. General Cosgrove, who received the Military Cross for bravery in Vietnam and led peacekeeping forces in East Timor, will commence his five-year term in March when Kevin Rudd-appointee Quentin Bryce stands down. Standing alongside his wife Lynne in Canberra, General Cosgrove, 66, said he was "truly humbled'' by the appointment. In contrast to Ms Bryce, who has spoken out in favour of gay marriage and an Australian republic, Mr Cosgrove said he would avoid entering the political debate. "You are no longer a private citizen in the office of governor-general,'' he said. "I think your responsibility is to shine light but not generate heat. "I think you've got to listen a lot, and take in everything you see. "But you're not a participant in the political process.'' Mr Cosgrove said he would base himself in Canberra, at the vice-regal residence Yarralumla, and the vast majority of his official travel would be within Australia. His term coincides with the centenary of World War I and the anniversary of the 1915 Gallipoli landing. General Cosgrove said the anniversary loomed large, and as a former military man, his appointment was a tribute to the nation's defence personnel. But he said he wanted to represent all Australians as he fulfilled his role. "I want to be very clear that I will do my very best to be a governor-general for every part of our Australian community, for all manner of community enterprises and ventures and events,'' he said. The Prime Minister said General Cosgrove was a "remarkable Australian'' who would discharge his duties as Australia's 26th governor-general ``with vigour and integrity''. "Throughout his life he has demonstrated a commitment to our country and a commitment to service,'' Mr Abbott said. Tony Abbott's announcement He said the task of governor-general was "to provide leadership beyond politics''. Acting Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek welcomed the appointment. "General Cosgrove reflects the best of Australia and its people,'' she said. "He has dedicated his entire adult life to serving his country, inspiring others with his determination, strength and leadership. "We wish General Cosgrove the very best as he undertakes this new role on behalf of the Australian people.'' Mr Abbott asked former prime minister Julia Gillard not to appoint a new governor-general before the September election. General Cosgrove had been high on the list of most likely candidates along with his successor as defence chief, Air Marshal Angus Houston, after the-then opposition leader said a former judge or military officer would be best in the office. General Cosgrove was Australian of the Year in 2001, and led the recovery effort in far north Queensland following Cyclone Larry. He has also served on the board of the Australian War Memorial and is a member of the NSW Anzac Centenary committee. Mr Abbott twice backed Ms Bryce after she was caught in a bind. The Prime Minister declined to accept her offer to resign over a conflict of interest after Bill Shorten, her son-in-law, was elected to the Labor leadership. He said that she was in an extended term not of her choosing and that she had helped during a period of political uncertainty. Mr Abbott also refused to criticise Ms Bryce when she courted controversy in the last of her four Boyer lectures on the ABC, straying from the long-held tradition that vice-regal representatives avoid political topics. Ms Bryce publicly embraced the vision of an Australian republic, saying she envisaged Australian children growing up to be the nation's first head of state and appeared to throw her support behind same-sex marriage - both positions opposed by Mr Abbott. Mr Abbott said she had performed her job with grace. ________________________________________ This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.

Australia Day,not Racist Day

SAY NO TO RACISM Dear Prime Minister Abbott, We consider Australia Day is not a day where people should trumpet racism by wearing an Australian flag as a cape. Australia Day is a day which needs to be reclaimed for the majority of Australians who are not racist bogans and for the Indigenous people who were living peacefully in Australia well before 26 January, 1788. We want an Australia Day for all Australians. Your comments are most welcome. Happy Australia Day! Yours respectfully, Eddie Hwang President Unity Party WA info@unitywa.org http://australiadaynotracistday.wordpress.com Follow “Australia Day, not Racist Day!” Get every new post delivered to your Inbox. Powered by WordPress.com

Solder's family torn apart by White Australia Policy

Dear Prime Minister Abbott, Can we do better to Don Carter’s family in the 21st century? Looking forward to hearing from you soon. Yours respectfully, Eddie Hwang President Unity Party WA info@unitywa.org www.unitywa.org http://unitywaorg.blogspot.com.au (Published) http://twitter.com/unitypartywa (Published) Phone/Fax: 61893681884 Environmental friendly - save the trees - use email. UPWA is the only political party that calls a spade a spade. SAY NO TO RACISM Soldier's family torn apart by White Australia policy Date - December 22, 2013 Don Carter grew up in a family divided by World War II and the colour of his parents' skin. His Aboriginal mother and African American father, an allied serviceman stationed in Townsville, were married, then separated after neither could migrate to their partner's country after the war, due to racist migration policies. Carter, who was born in 1943, grew up in Innisfail far from his mother, who worked 90 kilometres away in Cairns. As a single mother, she worked in a ply mill and later an abattoir, travelling back every weekend to visit her only child. ''I had cousins who I grew up with but I never had anyone I could call dad,'' Carter says. Carter's father was posted out a year after he married in 1941. They never met again but did exchange a series of intimate letters and photographs. Now, a new project directed by Dr Victoria Grieves, indigenous research fellow at Sydney University, will chronicle the untold stories of children fathered by allied troops in Australia during World War II. Grieves will begin the project with Carter's story. She worked with him 20 years ago and first heard his story over a lunch break. ''These two people loved each other, and they loved their little boy, and neither country could provide the circumstance for that family to raise their son,'' Grieves says. The previously documented stories of ''war brides'' - when Australian women married to allied troops during war time migrated to the US after the war - are an overwhelmingly ''white story'', she says. The project, starting next year, will collect the stories of children who grew up in families like Don's, divided by the White Australia Policy. The immigration policy barred African American troops returning to Australia even if they had married Australian women. Grieves says a similar segregation policy in the US, referred to as the ''Jim Crow laws'', prevented married Aboriginal women migrating to the US because of their colour. ''This period between 1941 to 1944 is an opportunity to look at the way these two segregation regimes came together on the Australian mainland,'' Grieves says. ''The project is designed to help them [children of allied soldiers] understand their origin and identity and to help solve some of the mystery.'' Grieves says potentially thousands of children grew up in separated families or were institutionalised because of the racist policies. With about 800,000 American troops passing through Australia, there were 12,000 white war brides but it is unknown how many mixed-race marriages there were. Grieves found one example of the stories she aims to uncover when researching the family of prominent Aboriginal activist Bobbi Sykes. ''I found letters from her mother in the archive, writing to two prime ministers to ask if the White Australia Policy could be suspended to allow the father of her two small girls to come back and live and the answer on both occasions is 'no','' Grieves says. ''In the same records, you can find that the government is actually paying the passage of white American and white Australian couples when they want to come back to Australia to live.'' Carter had been searching for his father for decades when his daughter, Georgia Gleeson, found his relatives in the US via Ancestry.com and arranged a family reunion in June. ''I was ecstatic and, of course, at that stage I didn't know that dad had passed away so I thought I'd get to meet my dad,'' Carter says. Having missed the June reunion, Gleeson, a mother of four and part of the Robert de Castella indigenous marathon team, met her newly found family at the finish line of the New York Marathon last month. ''I felt happiness … but also a bit of sadness for my dad who has been looking, he's in his 70s now and it's taken so long,'' Gleeson says. ''Now I have my own children, you realise the importance of where you come from … now they know their ancestry.'' Grieves says she is aiming to achieve dual American citizenship for the descendants. Carter says American citizenship ''will give me something I can hold onto [and] say, 'Well, I am the child of an American father and my family is in America and I'm part of that family now.''' Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/soldiers-family-torn-apart-by-white-australia-policy-20131221-2zrxt.html#ixzz2o9xDY3QN

Attorney-General meets community leaders on Racial Discrimination Act revision

December 10, 2013 by J-Wire Staff

Read on for article

Attorney-General Senator George Brandis has held two meetings with representatives from various ethnic communities regarding the reviews of Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Together with his Chief of Staff James Lambie, and his Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Faulks, Senator Brandis hosted at Parliament House in Canberra:

• Mr George Vellis, Co-ordinator, Australian Hellenic Council
• Mr Peter Wertheim, Executive Director, Executive Council of Australian Jewry
• Mr George Vardas, Secretary & Legal Counsel, Australian Hellenic Council
• Ms Randa Kattan, CEO, Arab Council Australia
• Mr Tony Pang, Secretary, Chinese Australian Services Society
• Mr Patrick Voon, President, Chinese Australian Forum
• Ms Kirstie Parker, Co-chair, National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples
• Mr Les Malezer, Co-chair, National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples

These community representatives issued the following comments:
 “The Government appears to be approaching the review of Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act with caution, and that is something we welcome.
 “A simplistic, absolutist view of freedom of expression will not solve the problem. The law needs to provide also for countervailing freedoms, including freedom from racial vilification.
 “Balancing these competing freedoms is not straight forward. The balance struck by the existing law in Sections 18C and 18D of the Act was carefully reached after years of national inquiries and debates in Parliament and the general community.
 “Any attempt to restrike that balance is not to be undertaken lightly.
 “We encourage the Government to continue its consultations with us and the wider community.”
 The delegation also met with other senior Coalition figures.

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Dear Prime Minister Abbott,

Why you want to water down racial discrimination laws?

Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Eddie Hwang

President

Unity Party WA

info@unitywa.org

www.unitywa.org

http://unitywaorg.blogspot.com.au (Published)

http://twitter.com/unitypartywa      (Published)

Phone/Fax: 61893681884

Environmental friendly - save the trees - use email.

UPWA is the only political party that calls a spade a spade.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

                                                                     SAY NO TO RACISM

http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/prime-minister-tony-abbott-abandon-your-plans-to-repeal-section-18c-of-the-racial-discrimination-act-do-not-water-down-racial-discrimination-laws

.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 SAY NO TO RACISM

Mr. Ben Wickham,

Senior Executive Deputy Registrar

High Court of Australia

Dear Mr. Wickham

The decision by the High Court is to be congratulated for quashing Major Ting Li’s previous conviction by the Military. It is regrettable that both the Defence Force Discipline Appeal Tribunal and the Federal Court failed to act in the correct way.

Yours sincerely,

President

Unity Party WA

info@unitywa.org

www.unitywa.org

http://unitywaorg.blogspot.com.au (Published)

http://twitter.com/unitypartywa      (Published)

Phone/Fax: 61893681884

Environmental friendly - save the trees - use email.

UPWA is the only political party that calls a spade a spade.

Dear Attorney General Brandis,

We fully condemn your plan as it only encourages racists to spread their wings further.

Yours respectfully,

President

Unity Party WA

info@unitywa.org

www.unitywa.org

http://unitywaorg.blogspot.com.au

http://twitter.com/unitypartywa

Phone/Fax: 61893681884

Environmental friendly - save the trees - use email.

UPWA is the only political party that calls a spade a spade.

Bolt's law: Jewish leaders condemn plans by Attorney-General George Brandis to change race hate laws following Andrew Bolt case

Date - November 15, 2013 - Jonathan Swan

Jewish leaders are preparing to fight the government's plans to weaken race hate laws, saying they could encourage persecution and racially-motivated violence.

The head of the Jewish national peak body, Peter Wertheim, is concerned that Attorney-General George Brandis wants to amend sections of the law that protect Jews and other minority groups against hate speech.

''We don't really know what's intended,'' said Mr Wertheim, the executive director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

''Obviously we're concerned about the tenor of the announcements and we do wish to consult with the Attorney-General.''

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Senator Brandis has signalled that, as his first legislative act, he wants to amend sections of the Racial Discrimination Act that make it unlawful to offend another person on grounds of race or ethnicity.

The Attorney-General has declared himself a champion of ''freedom'' and disparaged the laws used against Andrew Bolt over an article he wrote in which he accused ''white'' Australians of identifying as Aborigines to advance their careers.

Asked about the Jewish community's concerns, Senator Brandis promised he would consult with ''stakeholders and interested parties, including leaders of the Jewish community such as Mr Wertheim, before introducing the legislation to Parliament.''

Mr Wertheim has warned that the ''wholesale repeal'' of sections of the act would not only prevent vilified groups from defending their reputations legally, but would also encourage more sinister forms of hate speech. ''It would … open the door to the importation into Australia of the hatreds and violence of overseas conflicts,'' Mr Wertheim said.

Former attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said he had condemned Senator Brandis' plans ''from the moment he first opened his mouth''.

The laws were aimed at stopping ''extreme cases of hate speech,'' said Mr Dreyfus, whose great-grandparents died in the Holocaust and whose father and grandparents fled Nazi Germany for Australia.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bolts-law-jewish-leaders-condemn-plans-by-attorneygeneral-george-brandis-to-change-race-hate-laws-following-andrew-bolt-case-20131114-2xjpn.html#ixzz2kfdLome2