Cutting red tape; lengthwise.

Image: The Courier Mail.

At this time each year the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland releases its annual survey on government red tape. On the release of last year’s figures there was an outcry from business when it was revealed that the government had enacted 31 bills with over 5,000 pages of new or amended legislation, costing an additional $497 million to comply with it. This represented a 9.4% increase in regulation in that year.

As this brought the total pages of regulation to just under 80,000 it should have been reasonable to assume that the government would find its way clear to leave well enough alone for a while and possibly cut some of this red tape in order to streamline things.

Unfortunately the governments in this country only know one way to cut red tape, and that is lengthwise.

This years report is something we should be outraged about:

At this time each year the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland releases its annual survey on government red tape. On the release of last year’s figures there was an outcry from business when it was revealed that the government had enacted 31 bills with over 5,000 pages of new or amended legislation, costing an additional $497 million to comply with it. This represented a 9.4% increase in regulation in that year.

As this brought the total pages of regulation to just under 80,000 it should have been reasonable to assume that the government would find its way clear to leave well enough alone for a while and possibly cut some of this red tape in order to streamline things.

Unfortunately the governments in this country only know one way to cut red tape, and that is lengthwise.

This years report is something we should be outraged about:

Twelve months after the business community outcry over red tape in Queensland, Chamber of Commerce & Industry Queensland (CCIQ) has revealed that the Government has failed to reduce the burden and has added an additional 7,900 pages of new and amended legislation.

CCIQ's latest estimates show state-based red tape now costs the Queensland economy $6.5 billion per year. This is an increase of $780 million since last year.

Queensland has the highest level of regulation compared to any other state in Australia.

Chamber of Commerce & Industry Queensland President David Goodwin said the latest results show that the Queensland Government has no real commitment to reducing the cost and burden of doing business in Queensland.

"Every dollar spent on complying with regulation is a dollar not spent on growing Queensland businesses and employing more Queenslanders," Mr. Goodwin said.

This is only the state based cost, we have a federal government which adds another layer of costs on top of this and a host of local authorities all eager to put more rules in place that they can extract fees from. While Goodwin makes the point of dollars, “not spent on growing Queensland businesses and employing more Queenslanders,” there is another aspect to this.

Every dollar spent by business on compliance with the vast array of regulations is a dollar they have to increase their prices by in order to remain profitable. In fact it is more than just that dollar as it is reasonable to accept that as profit margins are based on the margin required to make a reasonable profit on the total costs of the enterprise, consumers are paying that as well subject to competitive pressures.

Bligh insisted that these regulations are very important in order to protect consumers. On these figures the government is probably doing more to harm them. Apart from the cost of massive regulation and compliance with it, millions more are diverted to pay for the extra public servants needed to inflict these regulations. This in turn diverts workers from the productive sector where they would be gainfully employed in the creation of products and services, into the fiscal black hole of the public sector.

The criminal code exists to deal with such matters as theft, fraud, misrepresentation, and so on. There is no need to make another set of rules just to bring business to heel.

Twelve months after the business community outcry over red tape in Queensland, Chamber of Commerce & Industry Queensland (CCIQ) has revealed that the Government has failed to reduce the burden and has added an additional 7,900 pages of new and amended legislation.
CCIQ's latest estimates show state-based red tape now costs the Queensland economy $6.5 billion per year. This is an increase of $780 million since last year.

Queensland has the highest level of regulation compared to any other state in Australia.
Chamber of Commerce & Industry Queensland President David Goodwin said the latest results show that the Queensland Government has no real commitment to reducing the cost and burden of doing business in Queensland.

"Every dollar spent on complying with regulation is a dollar not spent on growing Queensland businesses and employing more Queenslanders," Mr. Goodwin said.

This is only the state based cost, we have a federal government which adds another layer of costs on top of this and a host of local authorities all eager to put more rules in place that they can extract fees from. While Goodwin makes the point of dollars, “not spent on growing Queensland businesses and employing more Queenslanders,” there is another aspect to this.

Every dollar spent by business on compliance with the vast array of regulations is a dollar they have to increase their prices by in order to remain profitable. In fact it is more than just that dollar as it is reasonable to accept that as profit margins are based on the margin required to make a reasonable profit on the total costs of the enterprise, consumers are paying that as well subject to competitive pressures.

Bligh insisted that these regulations are very important in order to protect consumers. On these figures the government is probably doing more to harm them. Apart from the cost of massive regulation and compliance with it, millions more are diverted to pay for the extra public servants needed to inflict these regulations. This in turn diverts workers from the productive sector where they would be gainfully employed in the creation of products and services, into the fiscal black hole of the public sector.

The criminal code exists to deal with such matters as theft, fraud, misrepresentation, and so on. There is no need to make another set of rules just to bring business to heel.

Newcastle Coal Port shutdown by ecofascist protest; barely reported.

Image: Aljazeera.

Yesterday I received an email with the following alert:

Rising tide is a radical group of greenies who are up to anything controversial in order to stop 'carbon producing' power stations and anything to do with climate change.

Today they have stopped work on the transport of coal at the Newcastle facilities. Strangely, the web based news at this time, 10.30am, have not reported on it. What I have found is from Rising Tides website.

On following the link provided I discovered that the action had started at 05:30 AM and indeed there was little on the news items on the web. The only references at that stage were the local edition (Newcastle) of the ABC and Reuters Africa, with a Sydney Morning Herald item coming up later. The Web editions of the Australian, and the Courier Mail had nothing. The main ABC news bulletin at 7:00 PM had nothing, but curiously they put it up on the web at that time well after it was all over.

At the current time there has been little addition to this with most coverage being overseas or ethnic, - The Hindu, Aljazeera, etc.

This event if reported widely, would have been highly embarrassing for the Gillard ‘government’ which is pretty much controlled by the parent body of these protestors, the Greens. Perhaps this is the first visual sign of what Gillard calls her “new paradigm.”

Fortunately, it has received the coverage it deserved in “The Daily Grind”:

Around 40 anti-coal activists from the group Rising Tide brought Newcastle’s coal terminals to a standstill for five hours today.

The group is thought to include all three Hunter residents opposed to the coal industry.

The Rising Tide banners were highly visible because they were perched high atop an enormous pile of coal. This makes the advertising perhaps the most carbon-intensive in human history.

The activists demanded the state set a carbon price, which it did at $550 each.
Police removed the protesters from the coal facility and issued 32 of them with fines. How different it would have been 200 years ago, when they would have been arrested and sent to coal facilities in Newcastle.

Rising Tide hopes to end Newcastle’s dependence on coal and promotes a future in which the city’s main export activity is watching the Hunter River flow into the sea. ….

BHP and the carbon tax.

Cartoon: by Nicholson.

One of the curiosities of Australian politics is the self-fulfilling rumour. When there is an intention of calling an early election, increasing a tax, carrying out a leadership spill, or introducing new legislation a creative leak is made. As the press follows this up all parties involved assiduously deny it.

After a decent interval, and when everyone is talking about it the government or party then announces that despite its assurances that it would not do it, the degree of speculation is becoming destabilising and therefore it is necessary to do it anyway. This should not be confused with ‘flag waving’, which is the technique of starting a rumour in order to gauge the electorate’s reaction to proposed actions.

It’s all about establishing certainty. Or at least that is what we are supposed to accept.

Marius Kloppers, the head of BHP Billiton obviously knows how the game is played and has now called for a carbon tax in order to “create certainty” for business. It would be interesting to hear his explanation as to why not having a carbon tax would create uncertainty, and why the certainty of paying much higher energy bills is better than not having to do so.

In calling for the tax he is claiming that some form of consensus could come about under which an international price for carbon could be reached. This seems a rather loopy proposition given the results of Copenhagen. There was obviously no intention among the major energy users to cripple their economies with these measures. Without their active cooperation the whole idea is a waste of time.

BHP has prior form in getting the governments agenda through. Prior to the last election the government was on the ropes and appeared likely to lose in a landslide over Rudd’s proposal for a 40% mining tax. All miners stood together against it and launched an advertising blitz. Three companies, the majors, BHP, Xstrata, and CRA, at that point broke with the rest and negotiated a sweetheart deal with Gillard for a much lower rate for themselves.

It is worth noting that, 70% of U.S. voters believe that big business and big government generally work together against the interests of investors and consumers, according to Rasmussen Reports surveying. Just 14% disagree with the assessment, and 17% are not sure. Lobbying is much more blatant over there but there is little reason to believe it is less prevalent here.

BHP, while being a huge mining company extracting millions of tons of coal and iron ore here does the vast majority of this for export to countries such as China and India which are not subject, nor will they be subject to an energy tax.

Probably one of the most disingenuous aspects of Klopper’s call was the fact that one of the best methods of reducing carbon emissions would be to move towards nuclear power, something that is sadly lacking in the Australian energy industry despite the fact that we have some of the largest reserves of Uranium in the world. This indicates that his main interest is not the replacement of ‘dirty’ energy with ‘clean’ alternatives. If he had any concern about carbon emissions rather than playing the political game of the Labor/Greens luddites, he would surely have raised this issue.

So, is this guy a zealot or just an idiot?

Mainstream Climate Science” is a stagnant swamp beside the real river of science.

Cartoon: By Foden.

By Viv Forbes
, Chairman,

The Carbon Sense Coalition.

Mr Kloppers of BHP says that “the mainstream science is correct, and we need to stabilise (and eventually reduce) the carbon concentration in the atmosphere”.

This is an amazingly sloppy comment from the head of a company whose shareholders would expect it to rely on good science and accurate language to run its businesses.

Firstly, no power station these days puts “carbon” into the atmosphere. Carbon is a black sooty substance produced as a result of incomplete combustion of coal in open fires and dirty old fashioned boilers. In modern boilers, all carbon is completely burnt to produce invisible, non-polluting, life supporting carbon dioxide.

Secondly, to describe the shallow agenda-driven model manipulation and data-fitting from the IPCC that supports the case for de-carbonising Australia as “mainstream science” means his minders have not kept up with the science nor the debate.

Real science on the causes of climate change has gone far past the fairy story that carbon dioxide controls climate by causing global warming. Even a high school science student could tell him that carbon dioxide has “ZERO HEATING ABILITY”. It will not burn, nor is it radioactive. The very best it could ever do is cause a slight reduction in the day-time heating and night-time cooling of the earth’s surface - nothing that could be measured on a normal thermometer. A kindergarten student, however, could observe that the sun has tremendous heating ability, causing global warming of twenty degrees or more in a single day. Fluctuations in that fiery furnace, and in the clouds and ocean currents generated by solar heating, are far more significant in causing short term and long term variations in surface temperature.

Those in the exciting forefront of climate science are doing real experiments in cloud chambers and studying cosmic rays, solar cycles, ocean currents, and the enormous heat released from the “Rings of Fire” under the oceans during volcanic episodes. BHP’s own stratigraphers could give Mr Kloppers more real data about past climate change than will ever be learned at an Al Gore science fiction movie. What he believes is the “mainstream” of climate science is driven by political agendas, government money and private vested interests – it is a stagnant swamp beside the real river of science. All over the world, common sense physics, correlation studies and now the unfolding science relating to solar and ocean cycles, cosmic rays, clouds and volcanoes have gone well past the scare stories of Al Gore’s “settled science”.

At least some coal companies have not lost their wits or their courage. See the following submissions to the US EPA by Peabody Energy, the biggest coal company in the world.

A Carbon Tax for Everyone Else?

The Carbon Sense Coalition today accused BHP of poor science and poor fiscal policy in advocating a carbon tax for everyone else.

The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that a carbon tax would have no beneficial effect on the climate but very negative effects on every Australian except the Big Australian.

Forbes explained:

“Is it sad to see the Big Australian joining Big Government, Big Unions and Big Business in supporting a Big New Carbon Tax.

“The whole purpose of a carbon tax is to force us to use less of every product or activity that produces that harmless gas-of-life, carbon dioxide. The big producers are electricity, steel and other metals, petrol, diesel, cement, timber, beef, lamb, dairy, wool, travel and tourism.

“A carbon tax is thus a tax on the cycle of life and the essentials of life. It aims to force cost increases effectively creating an artificial scarcity and economic decline.

“Which products does Mr Kloppers plan to do without?

“He says we can make this tax “revenue neutral”. The Soviets ran a revenue neutral fiscal policy for decades – “they take 100% of your income and spend it all”. If it were truly revenue neutral it should go back, exactly, to those who bear the cost, with no bureaucratic handling charges and no diversions to your favourite green charity. This would be a zero sum game (and impossible) so why talk about fiscal myths?

“Of course BHP’s massive Australian mining exports will be exempt, and its big operations in Africa and South America will never face a carbon tax. And nuclear power will get a gigantic boost from a heavy handicap on coal power. Guess who owns the biggest uranium mine in the world?

“This is just a destructive proposal by the Big Australian to levy a Big Tax on all other Australians.”

Disclosure: Viv Forbes, a geologist, was once employed by Utah Development Company in the team which proved and developed the coking coal deposits at Goonyella/Peak Downs in Australia’s Bowen Basin and which was later taken over by BHP. However, in those days CEO’s were better informed on the science of carbon. They would never have swallowed the urban myth that we could alter the climate by taxing the gas of life, carbon dioxide.

The brighter side of NZ earthquakes.

An article in the ABCs, The Drum today seems to indicate that those bloody kiwis have all the luck. You see, while we Aussies struggle with the effects of the economic downturn and European meltdown, New Zealand, lucky bastards have had a massive earthquake which has devastated Christchurch and set the stage for a beautiful economic revival.

Reading through it gives the impression that its almost too good to be true, I mean, why cant we have one too. It might mitigate the effects of the Gillard government. Among the goodies on offer are; it will be a giant stimulus package to New Zealand's struggling construction industry, positive for growth next year, has come at the right time for the construction industry, and so on. It'll create tens of thousands of jobs, most of which will have to be sourced from outside of Christchurch. There will be a flood of immigration into the city.

Of course the city's retailers should enjoy a boom from residents replacing damaged electronics, furniture, crockery, and all the other items destroyed in the quake. It will cause a big lift to household spending, and should have some knock-on effects throughout the economy an economist says.

The author is careful to blame the evils of capitalism for this:

You see, in capitalism, someone's misfortune often registers as someone else's gain. A company's surging profit is usually reported as a positive, although it often comes at the expense of redundant employees, cut wages, or customer price gouging.

Likewise, traffic accidents in some ways add to national income - without them, there would be no panel beating industry for starters - yet they cause immense human heartache.

Perhaps the greatest historical example of tragic economic stimulus is the Second World War, which many economic historians credit far more than Roosevelt's New Deal for lifting the US out of the Great Depression.

Most rational economists are of the opinion that the New Deal in fact prolonged the Great Depression.

The reason that the left seems to constantly argue this case is that they simply have no idea what a free enterprise economy consists of. Most are under the rather quaint delusion that what we have now is capitalism.

This is not the case. Practically every aspect of industry and the economy is under some sort of regulation and is not free. There are few if any areas where our acts of trading are not subject to regulations by those in power, or remaining from their predecessors.

In a free economy there is no way an earthquake causing two billion in damage could ever be described as anything other than a disaster. The resources needed to repair and rebuild would seriously impact on other areas, from which those resources would have to be diverted. This is also the case in the current economy, but tends to be disguised. The reason for this is that while all that activity is going on it is obvious to the viewer.

What is not seen is all of the activity that is not happening elsewhere because of the diversion of those resources into rectifying the damage. The left is constantly blindsided by their belief in the command economy, which has not the vibrancy of freedom but plods along at the pace set by bureaucracy and central planning. Grand schemes of government are their stock in trade for the simple reason that it can be seen and pointed out, while what is not happening as result is invisible.

This is why the left loves a good disaster.

The LDP into the future.

Cartoon: by Zeg.

That future is us. We just have to take it.

If one thing can be deduced from the election it is that while the voters were in a mood for change, they were not in any way satisfied with the options that were there to change to. The enlarged vote for the Greens should not be interpreted as a general desire within the population for a move to the hard left, which the Greens represent, but disillusionment with both major parties. The Greens were the only party other than the big two who gained any publicity, so that in the eyes of the voters they were the only known quantity that was not Labor or Liberal.

We had mixed results, from a top of 5.5% in Gippsland where our candidate Ben Buckley was a well-known and popular local councilor, to lower ones in some of the more hotly contested seats. The important thing is that each and every one of them stepped forward and gave it his or her best. Sure there is disappointment, there is more down the track.

The Senate was good for us in the Eastern States; especially in NSW where Glen Druery appears to have made it to the last two left standing for the sixth seat, and Queensland. SA and WA didn’t do too badly for states where we have yet to establish much of a presence. We improved in every contest where we have been before.

We have a lot of scope in Queensland, given the report in the Courier that Labor has lost around 13% since the last state election but the LNP has only managed to pick up a bit over 2% of it. I tend to watch the LNP with a sense of disappointed bemusement in that they seem to have no idea of the way forward, they don't look like a party ready to govern even in comparison with Labor, which is governing very badly. Their only chance of winning is for Labor to stay really bad, and even then I doubt they can have much confidence of getting across the line and if they do, they will be another one term government.

The same applies federally; as with the absolute shambles that Labor is and was, the Liberals were not really able to capitalize on it to the point of winning. They had every chance but failed to really define themselves as a real alternative to what was there already. When Abbott blocked the ETS he made the Liberals look credible, they were a real alternative. Since that time they have lost the plot and ended up going to the election as Labor lite, or not Labor.

We are rapidly moving toward the situation where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission. The Liberals do not offer an alternative to this because they are no longer a liberal party, but a conservative one and now represent just another face of big government and the nanny state.

We have a population looking for an alternative, and we are the only one. We in the LDP are the only party that intends to halt this decline into authoritarianism and reverse it. We are the only party that understands that the real solution is to reduce the size, scope and cost of government before we reach the situation where every dollar in the country finds its way into the hands of the state to be redistributed at great cost through a massive bureaucracy back to us in the manner that the current social engineers deem to be appropriate.

Let it not be:

“[Tonight]. We are a nation becalmed. We have lost the brisk pace of diversity and the genius of individual creativity. We are plodding along at a pace set by centralized planning, red tape, rules without responsibility, and regimentation without recourse.” – Barry Goldwater. 1964

Well its Labor.

Yesterday I made the prediction, a fairly easy one actually, that Gillard would get across the line with the aid of the independents. Today it has come to pass despite some doubts earlier. I had the feeling that Bob Katter was a 50/50 bet, and he gave his support to the Liberals earlier than his two colleges, which clearly indicated there was a split and the other two would go to Labor.

As result we have a government clinging to power by effectively one seat, and a bought and paid for one at that. The Australian taxpayer will be forking out ten billion dollars in special deals for Julia’s pyrrhic victory, and a cabinet role for Oakeshott, which he seemed to be keeping to himself until a reporter asked the question. This was followed by a rather embarrassed admission.

I am not sure what it is about Oakeshott, but I am of the considered opinion that there is something not quite right about him. Katter and Windsor seemed to react in a manner that was consistent with the gravity of the situation, and the awareness of the consequences of the decision they were being called on to make. Oakeshott in contrast seemed to be rather enjoying the situation as if there was no responsibility involved.

Then there was the rather bizarre 15 – 20 minute speech to announce his decision to go with Labor. He acted as if he were the compare on Australian Idol trying to draw out the suspense on who goes out this week. I am not a shrink, but there is something really weird about this guy. It could just be a craving for attention but it’s a worry.

Now it’s a matter of seeing how this one plays out. We have a faction ridden Labor Party with 72 seats, governing with the help of a Green, an independent green, and two faux conservatives. This will give them a theoretical 76 seats, against Abbotts 73 seats plus Bob Katter. One death, disgrace or resignation can change the government, while in the Senate the Greens can hold the whole lot to ransom after next July.

One of the persistent themes of the last week or so has been the recurring theme of the ‘will of the people, or what the people want. Windsor in his statement made the point that he the reason he was supporting Labor was that if the Liberals were to be in government, they would call an early election, as they would win it and he wanted a three year term. Go figure.

Tomorrow we may have an election result.

Cartoon: by Zeg.

After a long wait it now seems likely that the independents will commit themselves to one party or another, or maybe both tomorrow. They are not as united as was originally assumed. My guess is that at this stage two will go with Labor, while Katter is even money both ways.

There is a considerable degree of confusion regarding a couple of polls that have come out in the last week which seem to indicate that the majority of Australians would prefer them to back Labor despite the Liberals being the leaders in the two party preferred vote. There is also speculation on what this all means:

According to the Newspoll in The Weekend Australian (4-5/9), 39% of voters want the independents to support the Coalition, and 47% Labor. 14% are uncommitted, 6% being Coalition supporters and 5% Labor. The poll also says both Coalition and Labor supporters are almost unanimous in believing the independents should support their parties. ….

According to the TWS poll in the Sydney Morning Herald 31% of voters want the independents to support the Coalition and 37% Labor. 26% want a new election. But if there were another election the Coalition would lead on the two party preferred vote, 50.4% to 49.6%.

My read is there is probably a large group of Liberals who realize that Katter and Co have no real alignment with liberalism and would in fact be a disaster waiting to happen. While I think that Abbott could accommodate them and would if he got the chance, the wish list these people have presented is more consistent with Labor.

Windsor and Oakeshott favor a mining resource rent tax, and Emissions trading scheme, or carbon tax. While Katter opposes these, he would have to rely on Labor to get his ideas of restricted market share for our major supermarket chains, Coles and Woolworths, mandated 22% ethanol content in all fuel, centralized marketing boards, and devaluing the Dollar.

Katter has a serious problem grasping the concept of free markets and disagrees with them. He favors Labors white elephant National Broadband Network, and rails against telecommunications being in the private sector. He completely fails to grasp that the dominance of the two supermarkets is caused by their policy of providing better service at competitive prices to customers.

Other than by providing a service that is superior to that of any competitors, the only way a monopoly can form is to be favored by way of regulations. If there is anything unfair about the dominance of these two, he should seek out any regulation, which gives them an unfair advantage, and abolish it.

He has some policies that seem reasonably sane, such as return of recreational freedoms to traditional pursuits like fishing, camping and outdoor sports and activities, abolish the Wild Rivers legislation, which disadvantages the Aboriginal people in the north, and secure property rights, etc.

I am inclined to think Windsor and Oakeshott are probably at home with Labor, Katter should probably stay on the cross benches. The Liberal Party would have to be pretty desperate to govern to accept these idiots into their team, and some Liberals understand this. This is the reason for the difference between the electoral result and the preference as to where people would prefer the independents to go.

The best result would be for Labor to form a government with the aid of these three, enact some of its draconian policies, after which they and the independents would be voted out forever. I seriously doubt that we will ever see an end to the left without the population being subjected to the full bastardry that Labor and the Greens intend to inflict on us.

The Rev. Fred Nile and what the meaning of is, is.

The big news of the day was that NSW Ports and waterways minister Paul McLeay has resigned after admitting to using his parliamentary computer to visit gambling and adult websites. He says although the websites were not illegal, it was a mistake to visit them and he accepts he acted inappropriately.

Actually it’s not all that big, NSW Labor politicians seem to be resigning in disgrace so regularly they are starting to resemble lemmings charging toward the abyss. There are indications that other MPs are likely to be called to account on this one.

Here’s where it gets interesting though. New South Wales Christian Democrat MP, the Rev. Fred Nile has made a statement that neither, he or his staff have been "perving" at internet pornography videos on their work computers, but they have been researching the issue. This sounds like those Japanese whalers down in the Southern Ocean researching whale populations.

There are reports the audit also found Fred Nile's computer had been used to access internet porn.

Mr Nile says, for research purposes, a senior researcher viewed the websites of organisations like the Australian Sex Party and the Eros Foundation, and then followed links from the sites.

The Sex Party have made a press release, making their position clear:

The Rev Fred Nile should not feel guilty about accessing pornography per se but should resign over his appalling response to the current situation, according to the Australian Sex Party. His excuse was to blame and defame the Australian Sex Party and suggest that he was looking for ‘criminal links’ off the Sex Party website.

Sex Party President, Fiona Patten, said that Rev Nile should get over his guilt and shame and explain to the public exactly what sort of ‘porn’ sites he and/or his staff were surfing. “Most adult sites that originate in the US or Europe contain large amounts of Refused Classification (RC) material because they do not meet the tight criteria of Australian X rated guidelines”, she said. “Those conducting the audit should not be using the word ‘porn’ to refer to any of the 200,000 sites that the Rev Nile’s office is reported to have accessed. They should be telling us if they were R rated, X rated or RC. This gives us a truer picture of type of material that he was looking at.”

Ms Patten said that Rev Nile had a right to look at R and X rated porn in his office if he wanted to and that his constituents would be the final arbiters of his actions. “However if he was looking at ‘religious BDSM*’ for example, which is a new genre involving flagellation and sexual bondage scenes, most of which would fall into the RC classification, then that would be a bridge too far”, she said.

She called on Rev Nile to make public all the links to crime and the Sex Party that he found in his ‘research’. “The NSW tax payer has funded this research so let’s all have a look at it”, she said. “I’d like to publicly debate him about the links between religious organizations and child sex abuse vs. the links to sex shops illegally selling classified X rated films in NSW”.