Month: December 2015

neilfoster

2015 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog. Interesting to see how it has gone in the first year! Thanks to those who have been regular readers and referrers. I do plan to keep on posting in 2016.  All the best for the New Year!

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 24,000 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 9 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

neilfoster

Free speech and religious freedom even for ADF members

The Federal Court has recently handed down a very important decision on free speech, with connections to religious freedom, in Gaynor v Chief of the Defence Force (No 3) [2015] FCA 1370 (4 December 2015). It encouragingly reaffirms the right of Australians, including members of the Defence Force, to be able to speak their minds, even when their views are not popular.

The plaintiff, Major Bernard Gaynor, may be described as a “controversial” figure. He has a distinguished record of service in the Australian Regular Army (including time in Iraq and Afghanistan). In recent years he transferred to the Army Reserve and was promoted to Major in 2013. He has been a political candidate. He is also known for objecting to, among other things, support provided by the ADF to the Gay and Lesbian Mardis Gras, and for strong views on how Australia should deal with the threat of Islamic violent extremism.

Continue reading