Will ACMA investigate carbon tax ads as well?

28 July, 2011 by

Targeted by GetUp!

The totalitarian instincts of the Left to shut down debate are on display for all to see – people of Australia, observe closely. GetUp! has filed a complaint with the Australian Communications and Media Authority about statements made by Alan Jones on 2GB about climate change, as the Sydney Morning Herald gleefully reports:

THE Australian Communications and Media Authority is investigating a complaint about alleged inaccuracies in statements on climate change by broadcaster Alan Jones.

GetUp! had made a complaint, which it believed was not being pursued by the broadcasting regulator, but Fairfax Media has learned ACMA is investigating the GetUp! complaint, and some others, concerning Mr Jones.

If the complaint is upheld, Mr Jones may be asked to acknowledge the statement was wrong and promise not to repeat it. (source)

So I assume the ACMA will also be investigating the outright lies and falsehoods in the carbon dioxide adverts? No, because political advertising is exempt from regulation and they can say what they like. Will they be investigating the ABC for not providing enough balance on the climate debate, and broadcasting Tim Flannery’s apocalyptic nonsense? Will Flannery be required to acknowledge his statements about Australia running out of water were wrong and promise not to repeat them? Where were GetUp! then, hmm?

Aren’t double standards wonderful?

 

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

GetUp! thugs threaten carbon tax "blackmail"

8 July, 2011 by

GetHisFaceOffMyMonitor!

Doing Labor’s dirty work for them yet again, GetUp! has threatened to boycott grocery companies if they oppose the carbon tax:

A POWERFUL consumer lobby group [leftwing political activist group – Ed] has threatened a mass boycott of major grocery companies if they oppose the carbon tax.

Activist group Get Up has been accused of blackmail after sending a warning letter to 150 companies including Coca-Cola, Heinz, Kraft, McDonald’s, Schweppes and Nestle.

Get Up says it will urge its 570,000 members to “boycott goods and services that are linked to the scare campaign”.

Get Up confirmed it was prepared to mount a national boycott of the products of any company that was “holding our climate to ransom” by supporting a multi-million-dollar anti-tax advertising campaign by business.

Australian Food and Grocery Council chief executive Kate Carnell described the letter as blackmail and bullying.

“There is no doubt this is blackmail,” she told the Herald Sun.

“I’m horrified that an entity like Get Up who supposedly encourage free speech, seems only to believe that’s OK when people agree with Get Up.

“Threatening a boycott is really bullying.”

Ms Carnell said some of her smaller members who received the letter were worried the boycott could cost jobs.

“They are saying to our members if you support the Australian Food and Grocery Council taking a position against the carbon tax then we will encourage our members to boycott your goods and services,” she said.

Other companies who received the letter include Arnott’s, Colgate-Palmolive, Foster’s, Johnson & Johnson, Mars, Sanitarium, Unilever, Patties Foods, Jalna and Eagle Boys Pizza.

Ms Carnell said her members were not climate change deniers but they did have concern about the carbon tax harming competitiveness and the 300,000 jobs in the food and grocery sector. (source)

You can read the letter here (PDF).

Under the New South Wales Crimes Act 1900, “blackmail” is defined as follows in section 249K:

(1) A person who makes any unwarranted demand with menaces:

(a) with the intention of obtaining a gain or of causing a loss, or

(b) with the intention of influencing the exercise of a public duty,

is guilty of an offence.

Section 249M what constitutes a “menace”, in particular towards a corporation:

(1) For the purposes of this Part, “menaces” includes:

(a) an express or implied threat of any action detrimental or unpleasant to another person, and

(b) a general threat of detrimental or unpleasant action that is implied because the person making the unwarranted demand holds a public office.

…

(3) A threat against a Government or body corporate does not constitute a menace unless:

(a) the threat would ordinarily cause an unwilling response, or

(b) the threat would cause an unwilling response because of a particular vulnerability of which the person making the threat is aware.

In this case there is a clear intent to cause a loss arising from the boycott, and there appears also to be an “unwarranted demand with menaces”, or threats that these actions will take place if the grocery companies oppose the carbon tax. Also, there is an awareness of the vulnerability of small grocers to such threats, and the possibility of them being put out of business. I’m not a criminal lawyer, but it’s arguable at least…

We can only hope that ordinary Australians see through these desperate, cheap scare tactics for what they are. GetUp! does not represent the majority of Australians, just a vocal and dangerous minority of extremists.

One word for Sheikh and his bullies: GetLost.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Green/Left can't handle balanced media

21 May, 2011 by

Brown and Sheikh

Apologies for the lack of posts – unexpectedly engaged in other things. But the two most ridiculous stories of the last day or so must be Bob Brown’s meltdown about the Murdoch “hate media“, and GetUp!’s protest about ABC’s “lurch to the right“.

This shows so many things it’s hard to know where to start. Firstly, of course, Bob Brown is so used to being treated with kid gloves that as soon as anyone asks anything like a curly question which he can’t answer, he flies off the handle and attacks his questioner, rather than actually addressing the issue. The Greens have for too long been regarded as above criticism, because their aims, supposedly “saving the planet”, are regarded as being on a higher moral plane than usual grubby politics. The reverse is actually true. The Greens are the grubby, people hating party, happy to sacrifice the well-being of the population on the altar of pointless environmentalism.

Brown has shown himself to be the shallow, inept politician we all knew he was. But now the Greens are in government and wielding power, they seem to expect the same easy ride. Well, sorry Bob, it doesn’t work like that. Your policies, ludicrous as they are, will be subjected to the same scrutiny as those of Labor and the Coalition. So my advice to you is: get the hell used to it. Because it will only get worse – far worse.

As for GetUp!, you really have to laugh, don’t you. This bunch of leftard lemmings is similarly so used to being pandered to by a lefty media, like ABC and Fairfax, that when Chris Uhlmann asks some difficult questions, it’s branded, Pavlov’s dog fashion, as a “lurch to the right”. Ding ding. No it isn’t Simon Sheikh, you halfwit. It’s a tiny, almost imperceptible step back towards something vaguely approaching the centre, which is exactly what is needed at the ABC.

Brown and Sheikh are like toddlers who have had their favourite toy (a compliant and biased media) cruelly taken away from them – and they just can’t cope.

Too funny for words.

Filed Under: ABC Bias, Climate Tagged With: , , ,

UPDATED: Grassroots versus AstroTurf

9 April, 2011 by

GetUp? Grassroots? Like hell…

On the one hand we have GetUp!, the union-bankrolled (to the tune of $1.2m from just one donation) Labor cheer-machine, a motley collection of Lefty lemmings who simply do as they’re told, and turn up whenever Simon Sheikh sends them an email or a text message instructing them to go and plug some Labor/Union/Green cause or another.

On the other we have the real grassroots, ordinary Australians, many of whom are protesting for the first time in their lives against the pointless but hugely damaging environmental posturing of the Gillard carbon tax.

First the lemmings, the ABC’s favourite climate warriors (note the uncritical tone of admiration from our national broadcaster):

Hundreds of people have rallied in Brisbane’s CBD to show their support for the Federal Government’s plan to price carbon.

Over 1,000 people packed Brisbane’s King George square to support the Federal Government’s proposed carbon tax.

Signs calling for cuts to pollution and more spending on clean energy were littered through the crowd. [because they’d all been downloaded from the GetUp! web site – Ed]

Some people rallying say the Government is not doing enough to sell its plan to tackle climate change while others say they are glad it is trying. (source)

And then there are the real Australians, who as expected, get the ABC smear treatment. Note how the ABC manages to skew the report to make them all sound like a bunch of extremists who need to be kept under tight control (smears marked “*” for reference):

The anti-carbon lobby is continuing its pressure on the Federal Government with over 1,000 people attending a protest at Blacktown in Sydney’s west.

It has been a smaller than expected* turn out for the rally opposing, where once again there was a strong focus on the Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Some controversial signs from recent rallies at Hyde Park and Federal Parliament House made an appearance*, but the rally’s co-ordinator Chris Johnson says the tone today was still angry, but much cleaner than at previous events.*

“Today we’ve asked a few people to leave* and we’ve had no trouble,” he said.

The rally at Blacktown Showgrounds is the third major protest against a price on carbon in as many weeks. (source)

Ah, gotta love the ABC, where pro-Labor bias is in its genes.

UPDATE: The Sydney Morning Herald has a fawning, sycophantic piece about the wonderful GetUp! demonstration, all uncritically reported as would be expected for the pro-Labor/Green/Union Fairfax:

Organised by activist group GetUp!, the rally featured face painting and music for children – a deliberate move to show the positive message behind climate change action, national director Simon Sheikh said. [More like indoctrination – Ed]

GetUp! did not want ”to have a louder, angrier rally but to show the difference in both our numbers and message, the difference between fear and hope“, he said.

“We can answer their angry slogans and misinformation with a positive, family friendly gathering to stand up for our vision for clean energy and preserving a safe climate for our kids.”

He cited a recent anti-climate action rally in Melbourne at which participants claimed that Australians did not want action against climate change and said that “real grassroots community action” could make a difference.

“Let history record that when they tried to engineer a dangerous and angry Tea Party-like movement in Australia, ordinary families neutralised it with a larger and peaceful positive movement.” (source)

Pass the sick bag.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

Idiotic Comment of the Day: GetUp's Simon Sheikh

2 April, 2011 by

Hubris personified

Gotta hand it to GetUp – they breed an altogether different class of moonbat. Speaking at the Let’s Have a Carbon Tax Which Will Do Nothing For The Climate But Will Flush Our Economy Down The Drain rally today, Sheikh proclaimed, without a hint of irony:

“We are the last line of defence for Mother Nature.”

Yep. Planet’s been here 4.5 billion years, but only we (i.e. GetUp) can possibly save it. Other idiotic placards at the rent-a-crowd demo included:

“Price on pollution [sic]. Our kids are worth it.”

Actually the kids 30 generations away are worth it, if you believe Tim Flannery.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

GetUp's gullible lemmings protest FOR a pointless tax

13 March, 2011 by

Saving the planet… yeah, right

The stupidity of the urban Green Left knows no bounds, as 8000 gullible fools protest in favour of an utterly pointless tax which will:

  1. Make no difference to the climate whether locally or globally; and
  2. Damage Australia’s economy and consequently everyone’s standard of living (including that of each and every protester at the demonstration).

But they don’t have the insight to understand these blindingly obvious statements, because they’re too busy saving the planet, right?

More than 8000 people showed their support for putting a price on carbon outside Treasury Place in Melbourne, but only about 400 demonstrators fronted at Julia Gillard’s electorate office in Werribee to protest against the carbon levy.

Paul Mackay of GetUp!, which helped organise the Treasury Place rally, said most people supported a cap on emissions. [delusional as well – Ed]

“This rally was more or less a response to planned protests against the carbon tax,” he said.

“It was a chance for people to come out and show that they still support action on climate change.

“We had families with children and a lot of older people too.

“I think a lot of people left buoyed that the issue is still on the radar.” (source)

Climate Madness. I sincerely hope that the rally in Canberra on 23 March puts this in the shade…

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,
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