Australia bans Manning but lets in Au pair for rich Liberal donors

45 comments on “Australia bans Manning but lets in Au pair for rich Liberal donors ”

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1. veutoviper 1

   30 August 2018 at 5:29 pm

   Mickysavage

   Despite the heading of a Herald article released in the last hour, I may be wrong but my understanding is that Manning has not yet been formally banned. Yesterday a Notice of Intention to refuse a visa was issued, but she is able to respond to this.

   i have googled Australian media sites but in my quick check could not find one that actually said that she had now been formally banned. If that is the case both the Herald article heading – and yours – to this post are misleading.
   • veutoviper 1.1

     30 August 2018 at 6:09 pm

     Here is the Google search I am watching; also have alerts activated.

     https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=chelsea+manning+australia+visa&rlz=1C1LDJZ_enNZ499&source=lnt&tbs=qdr:d&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjbhbm3jZTdAhWCF4gKHa9PBK8QpwUIIQ&biw=1024&bih=724
   • Exkiwiforces 1.2

     30 August 2018 at 7:30 pm

     Here is some articles from the ABC News website which might help. The knifes are out for old Buttons atm after last weeks shenanigans and as for young Chelsea I hope she gets her chance to speak in Oz or anywhere else in the world regardless of her past.

     http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-30/chelsea-manning-australia-is-right-to-question-her-visa/10182838

     http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-30/mclachlans-role-in-french-au-pair-case-is-a-bad-look/10182310

     http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-30/dutton-ignored-border-force-advice-to-grant-au-pairs-visa/10182374
     • veutoviper 1.2.1

       30 August 2018 at 7:38 pm

       Thanks, Exkiwiforces. As I said, I have a watch going but those are good links.

       And I totally agree re ‘old Buttons’ and ‘young Chelsea’ – you hit the nail right on the head (remember when Key couldn’t – LOL).
     • gsays 1.2.2

       30 August 2018 at 10:14 pm

       Hey Ex, that is heartening to hear you say that.

       I understand if you don’t answer this: are you in favour of a wider investigation into operation burnham and looking into circumstances around the actions leading to Willie Apiata’s V.C.?
       • Exkiwiforces 1.2.2.1

         30 August 2018 at 11:20 pm

         I’m not sure if you were following my comments when that shit fight first appear, as I’m of the opinion that something stinks about and if Mr Hagar is right about a numbers of operators from the chicken stragglers (SAS) have come forward to him voicing their concern about OP Burnham then something is not right.

         I have brought Nicky’s book a couple of mths ago, but I haven’t had the chance to read it yet ie getting medical discharge from ADF, getting married, the wife running over the dog along with her grandmother died in the same week, me fighting DVA and ComSuper over my entitlements and me trying to complete all dry seasons jobs done before the build up which has slowly started wee bit early this year.

         As for Willie’s VC and what happened, I haven’t seen or heard anything about? But in saying that I’ve met the guy a few times in between ops at our main base in MER or on local RR runs into town and he is hell of nice guy to chat too. So I’m hoping it’s not a stitch up or something worse which brings him and Helen Clarke into disrepute over the awarding of the VC for that mission.

         To me, everyone has or the opportunity in democracy to get on their soapbox and say their thing and only one needs to look at speakers corner in London at some of the eccentric people standing on their soapbox or the old days in Cathedral Square with the a wizard a few bible bashers and few political speakers of the left or right getting heckled from the peanut gallery.
         • gsays 1.2.2.1.1

           31 August 2018 at 9:06 am

           Cheers for your answer.
           Good luck in your struggle with the powers that be.

           I have no reason to doubt Nicky Hager.
           You may be right about mid slingers and going after Helen Clark.

           Like the cops, the military seems to be burning up goodwill with their attitudes to certain events. Goodwill from an account that is dangerously low.
           • Exkiwiforces 1.2.2.1.1.1

             31 August 2018 at 12:03 pm

             Cheers for the support, when I was NZ Army we always taught to have high ethical standards when dealing with civilians weather it’s in peacetime or on Ops as this goes back to our COIN doctrine from the 50’s and to the present with Peacekeeping.
             Note Peacekeeping is one step down from COIN Warfare/ Internal Security Ops or Low level intensity warfare that last part is a bit of an oxymoron to me.

             Anyway we were taught that utu is not a done thing regardless of one feelings or one’s POV as it could go horribly wrong and could undo all the hard work from pervious tours as the local population are your greatest resource IRT to intelligence gathering.

             That’s why I’m very concern at the way Op Burnham has unfolded before during and after the mission as the usual checks and balances that would happen appear to have kicked into touch. My horrible feeling is this smacks of a look at me me Op when or the checks and balances were thrown out the window or the NZSAS have been caught up in inter village disrupt which has blown up in their face in a hurry as some wanted utu and again the usual checks and balances weren’t done at a tactical or or strategic level.

             Given the way the last government and especially the it’s leader ran the country I’m not surprised at what has happened.
   • mickysavage 1.3

     30 August 2018 at 10:14 pm

     Yep I thought the heading was wrong and preferred RNZ’s take on it. Although having given the notice I think it very likely that Manning will be banned. Why I said “preparing to refuse”.
2. veutoviper 2

   30 August 2018 at 5:37 pm

   Here is the Herald article with the heading Australia bans Chelsea Manning but I cannot find where it says that it actually finally and formally has. You need to read past the first para … (Don’t mean you personally MS – mean people generally LOL)

   https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12116481

   Pleased you picked up the Dutton decision …
3. Chris T 3

   30 August 2018 at 6:04 pm

   Seems like the Herald jumped the gun and Radio live went with it.
4. Macro 4

   30 August 2018 at 6:13 pm

   It appears that in Australia Au Pairs of the rich and connected are welcomed and helped. Seriously ill refugees are ignored. And click bait racists are fine but peace activists are shown the door.

   This is very true for the Duttons of this world. Fortunately he is not representative of all Australians. The sooner he and his party are shown the door of the legislature the better.
5. Morrissey 5

   30 August 2018 at 7:28 pm

   They ban Manning and were too afraid to protect one of their own, Julian Assange. That’s why Australia is “The Lacky Country.”
   • Bill 5.1

     30 August 2018 at 10:06 pm

     Actually Morrissey, it would be kind of interesting to trawl through old posts on ‘The Standard’ that were about Assange, and see what overlaps exist between those who were happy to condemn Assange in comments, and those who wanted Southern and Molyneux silenced in comments.

     My guess (and it’ll remain as such for now, because I can’t be bothered doing the leg work) is that the overlap will be obvious enough, and I don’t think it unreasonable to suggest the overlap will have been generated because of a shared sense of “morality” that would have us simply condemn and stomp those judged as “bad”.

     If I did the legwork, I believe the point could be underscored by the lack of a similar crossover in comments under posts about Snowden (y’see, he was never successfully cast as “a bad man”)
     • McFlock 5.1.1

       30 August 2018 at 10:24 pm

       So your hypothesis is that some sort of sense of “morality” would lead to people opposing fascists and saying people accused of sexual assault should go to court, but being more equivocal about someone who simply exposes the workings of international surveillance apparatus?

       Seems to be a reasonable proposition.
       • Bill 5.1.1.1

         30 August 2018 at 10:34 pm

         No. That’s not my hypothesis at all.
         • McFlock 5.1.1.1.1

           30 August 2018 at 11:30 pm

           My mistake.

           Because I know I definitely argued that Assange should go to court to face the accusations against him.

           I’ve definitely argued that people whom I believe are part of the neofascist movement by providing comfort and encouragement should be barred from visiting the country, and people should not be forced to publish their work or give them a platform.

           And yet I believe the worst I’ve said against Snowden is that he did actually break US law for an ethical reason, but he did it smarter than Manning (although Manning is out of jail, and Snowden is stuck in Russia, so who knows – neither path is easy).

           So I’m most likely in that overlap group you describe.

           And yes, I think I hold those positions because I believe that justice systems should investigate and prosecute cases of sexual assault, regardless of who the accused is. And yes, I think giving neofascists “free speech” is simply placing your own neck in the noose you gave them. But people who did a nonviolent crime for ethical reasons (or they believed to be ethical, rather than for self interest or fun), I really don’t have a huge problem with them.
       • adam 5.1.1.2

         30 August 2018 at 10:45 pm

         The strawman hero strikes again…
     • Morrissey 5.1.2

       31 August 2018 at 9:36 am

       I believe the point could be underscored by the lack of a similar crossover in comments under posts about Snowden (y’see, he was never successfully cast as “a bad man”)

       In fact, Bill, this forum was flooded by posts damning Snowden as a traitor, scorning him for “choosing Russia”, and expressing salacious mirth around the fact he had a “stripper girlfriend.”
       • Draco T Bastard 5.1.2.1

         31 August 2018 at 2:37 pm

         [citation needed]
6. Dennis Frank 6

   30 August 2018 at 8:17 pm

   “Ms Manning is not, and never has been, a whistleblower.” This is from an opinion on the ABC site, republished from the blog on this foreign policy institute site:
   https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/about-interpreter

   The author adds “if she thought she was a whistleblower she could have availed herself of the 1988 Military Whistleblowers Protection Act.” Presuming she had a competent lawyer, this logic seems unassailable.

   Call me old-fashioned, but having been adulted into a kiwi culture in which calling a spade a spade was a primary ethic, I can’t help but point out that stealing all them US secret military documents and sending them to Wikileaks so they got published is actually blowing the whistle. As Gordon Campbell has helpfully compiled, a bunch of morally-wrong activities were being covered up via the doctrine of military secrecy.

   So seems to me no amount of legalistic bullshit cited by any foreign policy analyst can disguise the fact that Chelsea Manning is a genuine whistle-blower! Yet we can expect the Oz govt will use this foreign policy advisor’s opinion, if it is confirmed by their top legal advisor, as a valid reason to deny the entry visa.
7. adam 7

   30 August 2018 at 9:01 pm

   Oh look the slippery slope in practice.

   All you turds who supported censorship and saying there is no free speech. Guess what there won’t be any free speech for the left if you keep supporting the crap you have been, and no fancy linguistic gymnastics is going to get you out of the hole you dug.
   • greywarshark 7.1

     30 August 2018 at 9:17 pm

     You should go and be a judge in USA adam. They all agree with each other over there. Now we have a variety of judgments some more equal than others.
     • adam 7.1.1

       30 August 2018 at 9:56 pm

       What a stupid narrow minded trying to pidgen me in a box comment greywarshark.

       But hey, I’ll protect your right to say stupid stuff any day of the week. So feel free to make many more stupid comments.
8. Bill 8

   30 August 2018 at 9:44 pm

   The rich and the connected can pull strings and body swerve laws that are really only meant to apply to the “great unwashed”. Really?! C’mon. It’s nothing new and we’ve always known it to be the case. Or is the suggestion being made that it’s something novel?

   The pertinent debate/discussion is Southern and Molyneux being banned or not banned, versus Manning being banned or not banned. The rest (the refugees and a rich family’s au pair) is noise from a persistent background that has been in evidence “since forever” that, for the most part, most people, if we’re being honest, don’t actually care about.

   How many here, I wonder, are actually supportive of the au pair getting into the country?

   That aside, unless the idea is merely to notch up vacuous political victories with no thought whatsoever for broader consequences, no attempts should have been made to silence either Molyneux, Southern or Manning.

   Throwing in all this other stuff as though it should be part of the same discussion is either a deliberately disingenuous attempt to muddy waters in order to maintain an untenable position, or a sign of quite honest stupidity.
   • marty mars 8.1

     31 August 2018 at 10:40 am

     You often write posts about cc telling us stuff we already know – i’ve assumed you were just adding fill to create a richer narrative – to get the story to stick – a lot of oral cultures do that.

     I really struggle with putting the Canadians in the same sentence as Manning – they seem polar opposites to me in what the did/do and why they do it. That is why the free speech lines seem ridiculous to me – like seriously I can’t get how the argument can even stand up. And to me it doesn’t stand up, not even slightly.
     • Bill 8.1.1

       31 August 2018 at 11:20 am

       They’re in the same sentence because they are all people looking to broadcast their thoughts/opinions. Their positions may be polar opposite. I may be broadly or even greatly supportive of what Manning has to say and utterly condemn what Southern and Molyneux say.

       But you “take out” Southern and Molyneux, then who else do you “take out” (silence). And what does silencing them achieve? You missed the Streisand effect? Or the fact that some pretty unsavoury types have managed to lay some claim to the moral high ground – Robinson, Molyneux, Brash et al?

       And then you have to ask who it is that is actually exercising the power to silence them, what level of accountability applies to those people and then, what’s to prevent them (or their replacements) going rogue on it and silencing every Tom, Dick, Jo and Harry who “transgresses” what they consider to be appropriate or acceptable?

       Right now, running alongside this widespread failure to recognise and defend the principle that would allow people to think thoughts and say stuff, powerful and unaccountable individuals and organisations are censoring the crap out of the internet – Palestinian pages, pages critical of Israel or Saudi Arabia, pages supportive of countries (eg – Iran and Venezuela) or politics that elites are at odds with (left and progressive)- they are being taken down or choked by youtube, facebook and google at the behest of those people, orgs and think tanks that either are the very conservative and reactionary tendencies within government, or closely aligned to them.

       The fact that governments crap on refugees or that laws often don’t really apply to the rich – these things are odious or lamentable and whatever else in terms of abuse of power, but really, they are quite separate to free speech and/or censorship.
       • marty mars 8.1.1.1

         31 August 2018 at 11:38 am

         But they. are. not. silenced. In any way – as you say their message has been amplifyed – so there is no silencing. So the rest of your argument has no context imo.
         • Bill 8.1.1.1.1

           31 August 2018 at 1:08 pm

           People were successful in denying them the ability to hold a legitimate public meeting. As far as I can tell, the motivation was down to disagreeing with what they might have to say.

           That the pair got a huge boost to their profile off the back of that wasn’t, surely, a consequence that you and others who wanted them banned from speaking were working on, was it?

           To say something like “oh, but they have the internet where people can search them out, so we aren’t silencing them by denying the right to hold a public meeting” is a bit like saying that a given piece of information that should arguably have been covered by msm, wasn’t suppressed and is available because it’s been fly posted on a telegraph pole beneath a “missing cat” poster. It’s disingenuous.

           Neither you nor I have a right to determine what thoughts and opinions other people will have access to, or what thoughts and opinions others have a right to promulgate (with the usual legal caveats applied)
           • marty mars 8.1.1.1.1.1

             31 August 2018 at 1:20 pm

             No. You can listen to them right now. Your initial premise is faulty. And yes I personally think hate speech against the vulnerable and marginalised in our society should be banned. And fought when necessary. Fuck them they don’t have the right to put the boot into anyone. And they are LESS important than their intended targets. And the pretend ‘oh this is about free speech’ hypocrites are LESS important too – imo of course.
             • Bill …

               31 August 2018 at 1:42 pm

               Your initial premise is faulty.

               My initial premise being…? And faulty, how?

               Inciting violence or harm to be visited on specific people or identifiable groups of people isn’t lawful and is covered by the law. Or when you say “hate speech”, do you mean something else, and if so, what?

               Also curious about where you think I’ve exhibited hypocrisy when I’ve argued that the principle of free speech should be defended or upheld.
               • marty mars …

                 31 August 2018 at 1:51 pm

                 I’ve already gone through it all.
           • greywarshark 8.1.1.1.1.2

             31 August 2018 at 10:02 pm

             Your examples don’t stand up Bill. The internet is very open to people and if content there has not broken some standard of conduct, which is fairly permissive, then M & S will be more easily available than items on the msm, and no-one has to go out looking at lamposts or billboards to find out information about them and what they think.

             Our society and culture is under attack from individuals focussed on their own wants and desires who are willing to overturn long-fought-for
             policies. Apparently this two are mouthpieces for all the petty dictators who will step forward, given the chance, and disadvantage someone deliberately or injure them in some way, if not in physical violence.
             • Bill …

               31 August 2018 at 11:19 pm

               The internet is very open to people and if content there has not broken some standard of conduct, which is fairly permissive, then M & S will be more easily available than items on the msm,

               Really? So all that coverage they got from TVNZ, Radio NZ, TV3 , alongside whatever newspaper coverage, meant fcuk all? Okay. Good to know.

               no-one has to go out looking at lamposts or billboards to find out information about them and what they think

               That’s true. And I never suggested that was the case. Seems what you’re calling an example is in fact you making a dogs dinner of a comparison. Oh well.

               Our society and culture is under attack…

               You buying into the “culture wars” bullshit, are you? The working class has been under attack “since forever”, and that’s got nothing to do with individuals focussed on their own wants and desires who are willing to overturn long-fought-for policies but everything to do with the inherent and systemic nature of liberal capitalism that’s geared to exploit.

               Apparently this two are mouthpieces for all the petty dictators…

               “Apparently”, you say? What…, I mean, you’re just taking someones word for it?! Going along with the crowd? Haven’t you bothered your arse to discover what it is they would actually be saying, or to figure what they base their nonsense on, or to find out who or what is behind some of the stuff they say?

               That level of laziness and degree of thoughtless “buy in” is precisely how people wind up being dictated to you fool.
9. Stuart Munro 9

   30 August 2018 at 11:34 pm

   The real decision over whether Manning’s criminality ought to prevent her visit should be some kind of risk assessment. As a person not employed in any kind of sensitive position by NZ armed services the likelihood of repeat offending (releasing secret records of NZ military misdeeds) during her visit seems to be vanishingly slim.
   • veutoviper 9.1

     31 August 2018 at 11:56 am

     Exactly the reasons apparently expressed by Immigration NZ in granting a special exemption to allow Manning to now apply for a visa.
10. Andy 10

    31 August 2018 at 8:51 am

    “Click bait racists”

    The difference between Stefan Molyneux and you lot is that he makes a living out of his Youtube channel, unlike this no name leftist blog in some far flung South Pacific country that no one cares about
    • marty mars 10.1

      31 August 2018 at 10:31 am

      Except you sweatypie – thanks maaaaaate.
      • veutoviper 10.1.1

        31 August 2018 at 10:37 am

        Lol – OK it doesn’t meet the Veutoviper test. One too many and no doubles.
      • veutoviper 10.1.2

        31 August 2018 at 11:11 am

        PS – Have you seen that NZ has granted Manning a special direction to allow her to apply for a visa? Yay. See thread 12 on today’s Open Mike (esp 12.3.1 – broke my own rule but LOL).
        • marty mars 10.1.2.1

          31 August 2018 at 11:45 am

          Yes great news
          • veutoviper 10.1.2.1.1

            31 August 2018 at 11:53 am

            Did you open the link in 12.3.1 ? You will like…
            • marty mars 10.1.2.1.1.1

              31 August 2018 at 12:02 pm

              Nice one
      • greywarshark 10.1.3

        31 August 2018 at 9:52 pm

        Andy
        There is a great and rather sad song with your name. It is so much more thoughtful and poetic than your sneer above. It might do you good to listen to it Andy.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDBK86h6FDw
    • Draco T Bastard 10.2

      31 August 2018 at 2:40 pm

      Ah, the He’s successful and so everything he does is right pure argument of the RWNJ.

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