Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has a packed schedule today — he’ll attend the funeral of cardinal George Pell before dialling into a meeting with the architects of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
The Pell funeral will be held in Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral, where Dutton will be joined by ex-prime ministers Tony Abbott and John Howard, among others.
People who won’t show up to the funeral include Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Governor-General David Hurley, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and NSW Opposition Leader Chris Minns.
At the Canberra meeting with the Uluru Statement architects, a Voice to Parliament referendum working group will explain to Dutton why they support the proposal.
“This presentation will provide the leader of the opposition with a broader understanding of the grassroots genesis of the First Nations Voice, a greater insight into why people in First Nations communities are supportive of a Voice to Parliament, and why people in First Nations communities believe it will make a difference,” reporters were told ahead of the meeting.
The presentation will be conducted by professor Megan Davis, Pat Anderson and Noel Pearson.
Dutton will also be shown a four-minute video with testimony from First Nations people explaining why they believe in the Voice.
“A Voice in the constitution would mean an end to remote Aboriginal people being forgotten about because they would have representation,” Wardaman woman Dr Josie Douglas says in the video, which you can view here.
Dutton has not said definitively whether the Liberal Party will support the referendum but has repeatedly called for more “detail” on the proposal.
Any holder of high public office who attends the funeral of this odious scum should be utterly ashamed. An archbishop has the right to be firm in his religious views. He can be as conservative as he likes, but he is not entitled to assist criminals to avoid justice, to endanger the lives of those supposedly in his pastoral care by his (at best negligence) actions and inactions should have seen him utterly and eternally condemned. If he were a teacher like myself, a nurse, a doctor any kind of carer, his failure to act would be a crime and to me it should have been because he held the powers needed to act but shirked his duty. Of course he was another mealy mouthed “Don’t hold a hose” man in the proper tradition of the Liberals who take no responsibility for carrying out their responsibilities.
Funny how they hide behind Canon Law, yet decry Sharia Law, neither of which should hold any legal protections in a secular society. Hypocrites to the end.
Yes, but they are all forgiven, having confessed. Having confessed and been forgiven by God there is nothing to hold them responsible for as no sin remains, so a transfer is OK to a new congregation where they are less likely to be murdered. It’s for their own protection. That’s how priests think, presumably. For Pell to ‘act’ he would have had to close down the entire Catholic Church in Australia, riddled with corruption that it is. Denial is their only option.
The secrecy of the confessional is disastrous for everyone. If we had a practicing Catholic Judge or PM, for example, their darkest secrets would be known to the Church creating the perfect opportunity for blackmail. The Lord works in mysterious ways. So did Stalin, which explains why he got rid of the Church, or tried to. Stalin would have shot Pell; not for his sins, but for what he knew.
Dutton has so far demonstrated a deafness in his listening capability. Will he listen today and will he be prepared to listen to The Voice? Only if his strategists identify some positive political spin, the only Liberal motivation for doing anything, in doing do.
The only way for Labor to treat Dutton is to give him the Trump treatment…………….
………..any time the press ask a question about him, just ignore the question and say he is a sad little throwback to the last century whose only trick is to constantly find something to be angry about.
That is about the extent of his policy………………
…….oh! and sending in the army to make sure the nippers in kindy aren’t having any fun.
Its pretty obvious which way Dutton will run politically on this referendum question. Many good people will be providing him with more detail than his boney head could ever process (its available now), and yet, straight out of the John Howard Playbook, he will say “there is not enough detail to support the Voice”, and he will blame it on a lack of detail. Those on the side of the Yes case will have to find a way to counter this and counter it soon.
I saw the protestors today. Gee they are a weak lot. Have a look at rival Indian ethnic groups in Melbourne – separatist Sikhs and Nationalist Hindus – charging and attacking each other with sticks for what???!!! And here is a person whose entire reason for being is to protect the material interests of the Catholic Church and was directly involved in moving paedophile priests around from parish to parish so they can go unpunished and continue their abuse and what do we get instead? Noise.
It seems the only or rather the main group of people who support the Church today are thuggish, nasty horrible Christian Arabs. And places from more backward parts of Europe. You’d never get protests like France and America here. And it’s not as though there is a powerful Left of centre force in social or political life.
Where were the parents of children who had been abused? Why do Church advocates and attendees get to practice their faith and sleep peacefully at night?
https://www.theshovel.com.au/2023/02/01/peter-dutton-to-start-using-chatgpt-to-bring-more-human-touch-to-speeches/