I DON'T get it.

Australia gets beaten with the last kick of its World Cup game against Italy – an outrageous penalty – and thousands of Australians roar with joy...

As many as 8000 people, many in Italy's blue shirts, screamed, clapped, sang, danced, lit flares, honked car horns and set off fireworks.

Fantastic! Australia, their home, was beaten! The country that had opened its arms to them and their parents was devastated! How sweet.

Yet even here, in Lygon St, hundreds of "Italian-Australians" celebrated Italy's win with cries of "Viva Italia". Police on horseback struggled to keep dozens of the more aggressive away from belligerent Socceroos fans chanting "Bulls---".

I repeat: I just don't get it.

I repeat: I just don't get it.

Here are men from families with roots in Croatia, Germany, England, Serbia, Italy, Samoa and who cares where else, united by something so grand that it makes such differences trivial. Whatever their backgrounds, they are united as Australians.

You may even be right to dismiss this barracking for Croatia and Italy as harmless. As just sport, stupid.

But is it also a warning? Consider: A month after the September 11 terror attacks, thousands of French Muslims booed their national anthem at a soccer match between France and Algeria. Last year thousands of the country's five million Muslims rioted for a week, burning thousands of cars.

Well, then. How should we deal with it? How do we better inspire a love for Australia and the gallant Socceroos who represent it so well?

IT'S not that "your" ABC is biased, you understand. It's just that conservatives can't be allowed near it.

The loudest squeals, not surprisingly, came from that expert in character assassination Professor Robert Manne, the "stolen generations" propagandist.

Writing in the equally horrified Age, he denounced Windschuttle as "extreme", "combative" and "dogmatic", with "temperamental incapacity for moderation", "comically flawed" reasoning and "moral coldness".

You'd think Windschuttle was a deranged serial killer, not merely the author of a book proving that fashionable historians told us untruths about an Aboriginal "genocide" in Tasmania.

Proof, n. Any argument in favour of what Andrew Bolt believes to be true.

Fashionable, adj. Perjorative adjective applied to progressive persons (or persons who ever accidentally agree with progressives) who are part of the vast anti-Bolt conspiracy. Such persons do not argue legitimate positions, but instead peddle propaganda that conveniently happens to inflame already-held prejudices of their audiences. NOTE: This is completely different from what Andrew Bolt does.

Yet the funniest protest -- and most revealing -- was that of Hilary McPhee, a Vice-Chancellor's Fellow at Melbourne University.

"This Government is shameless; their (sic) ideological bent is so palpable," she stormed.

How I laughed. You see, this same McPhee was the wife of Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating's speechwriter when Keating made her boss of the artist-feeding Australia Council. Talk of keeping it in the family.

The ABC in particular was overrun with the loudly-Left from top to bottom. It's chairman and managing director, David Hill, even ran for federal Parliament as a Labor man.

FORMER Liberal state director Michael Kroger found that out during his own penance on the board, when he asked 20 times in five years how the ABC was going in the hunt it promised for a "Right-wing Phillip Adams" -- a new on-air host as far to the Right as Adams is to the Left.

"Adams is a hate-peddler who tend (sic) to vilify rather than engage those whose politics aren't as radical as his own."

Second, Coonan should have challenged Colvin's claim that the ABC was "neutral" by asking why almost every prominent presenter with an "identifiable political leaning" seemed of the Left.

Think, for example, of Phillip Adams, Kerry O'Brien, Jon Faine, Tony Jones, Fran Kelly, Sandy McCutcheon, Lindy Burns, Monica Attard, Virginia Trioli, Liz Jackson and Maxine McKew, wife of a former Labor national secretary. Where on the ABC are presenters with an alternative view?

If only the ABC collective realised that what is being asked for is not an ABC that starts chirruping John Howard's propaganda.

IS there a model for this modern media? There is, and ABC TV last year ran a documentary trashing it. It's Fox News -- which came from nowhere to bury CNN and become the most popular cable TV network in the United States by a mile.

Fox News, owned by the company that owns this paper, has a tone too raucous for the ABC. But it has a format for debate the ABC should copy, not condemn.

Compare: The ABC has Lateline, with issues and guests all picked by Leftist host Tony Jones. It hectors.

Its equivalent on Fox News is Hannity and Colmes, co-hosted by Sean Hannity of the Right and Alan Colmes of the Left, with guests matched just as evenly. It debates.

The show is also well-known for its conservative-themed campaigns, which have included ongoing specials concerning illegal immigration, Terri Schiavo's final weeks, left-wing professors in academia, and abuses in eminent domain. The show's latest campaign has been to track the possible presidential run of Republican Newt Gingrich, giving him exclusive interview time to develop his platform.

No, this wouldn't mean the ABC would be sweeter to the Howard Government. In fact, it might then finally hit Howard where it hurts.

It might at last ask why this Government hypes global warming when the science is unsure; why it accepts the "stolen generations" myth that has made us now leave black children in mortal danger; why it has let our arts rot by subsidising artists rather than audiences; and why it won't replace multiculturalism with assimilation.

The debates we could have! But to have them, the ABC must learn to let a conservative not only into the boardroom, to twiddle his thumbs, but into a studio to twiddle the knobs.

Why should the Left fear more argument? After all, my dear Phillip, aren't we conservatives too dumb to make you look too stupid?

KIM Beazley is the gambler who risked it all on red. But the ball has landed on black, and he's out of chips.

The Opposition Leader's nightmare started a few weeks ago when he surprised (or dismayed) close colleagues by unilaterally declaring he'd scrap all Australian Workplace Agreements.

No more Mr Indecisive. It was hello to Mr Union Man and goodbye to the risk of being knifed by union leaders ticked off with his hedging.

So scrap the AWA completely and be damned.

And damned he's been.

It's bad enough that the top business groups now write him off as unserious.

But two reputable polls this week -- AC Nielsen and The Australian's Newspoll -- show not only that his stunt failed to wow voters, but probably even turned many off.

Both had Labor drop at least three points, losing the big lead it had on the Government only last month. For Beazley it's not wow, but ow.

This wasn't the plan. When you ditch policy for populism, you're at least meant to get popular. Now, neither popular nor principled, Beazley is out of tricks.

How did it happen?

It's true many voters seem uneasy with the Howard Government's decision to let bosses offer new workers contracts that traded away all but five core conditions -- like annual leave -- and not necessarily for more cash at all.

But even the blind see the more we've freed bosses to offer jobs with conditions they can best afford, the more they've been able to hire people who'd once have been jobless. Our unemployment rate now -- just 4.9 per cent -- is as low as it's been in 30 years. And in a market like this, wages actually go up.

Even so, I doubt crowds would chant praises for Howard's newest reforms, including extra freedom to sack. But what's hurt Beazley has been the shoddiness of the unions' examples of bastard bosses.

A company, which used the reforms to sack a smirking worker, was forced by union hype to rehire him and his uppity mates and has now gone broke.

Unionists who complained they'd been fined for collecting for a dead mate were found to have orchestrated events to force the company's hand.

A Spotlight worker said to be on a new contract that cost her $90 was found to have lost half that, and only because she wanted new arrangements with unpaid leave.

THERE we were on the set of ABC's Insiders on Sunday, cameras zooming in and the rest of the panel staring at me as if I'd gone crazy.

But, the woman from The Age protested with a pitying smile, "it's farcical to suggest that this is going to lead to all sorts of other things".

Oh, I said. Then I repeat: Tell me why, if we say yes to gay marriages, we can still say no to polygamous ones.

Just tell me.

But back to the Age journalist on Insiders, Misha Schubert. How did she try to answer my question: If we agree to gay marriages, how can we say no to polygamy?

Answer one: "We don't support polygamy in Australia." But, Misha, most Australians don't support gay marriages, either.

Answer two: "It's not on the agenda." Not yours, perhaps, Misha. Or not yet. But do you speak for, say, some of our Muslim citizens? Or Africans? And what's your answer to them?

Just tell me.

I've never said that people in polygamous relationships are evil or corrupt. Is there some reason you felt the need to exaggerate my argument?

Of course, I have said that permitting gay marriages would make it hard to resist arguments for polygamous marriages, too, or any other form of marriage involving consenting adults - and I've briefly explained why I think the social impact of this will not be useful in my two columns on this subject. Have you read them fully?

But there's no point in me arguing this point much further with you until we at least agree on the argument I've tried to make today, which is the first step in this debate. Do you then concede that if we allow gay marriages, then we can't oppose, say, polygamous ones as well?

If we say yes to gays, how can we say no to someone who wants to marry, say, two women, or their half-sister, or a few people they met in some commune?

Don't polygamists and the incestuous also deserve their happiness, our respect and a marriage licence?

Listen, for instance, to Andrew Sullivan, the much-admired gay author, Catholic and former editor of the American magazine The New Republic.

In his influential book Virtually Normal, Sullivan argues passionately for gay marriages, saying they would allow gays to "join in" with the rest of us.

...And in Virtually Normal Sullivan explains how gay marriage might change the meaning of marriage -- for everybody.

"There is more likely to be greater understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman; and again, the lack of children gives gay couples greater freedom," he argues.

Indeed, "the openness of the contract makes it more likely to survive than many heterosexual bonds."

Mitchel Raphael, editor of the Canadian homosexual magazine Fab, says: "Ambiguity is a good word for the feeling among gays about marriage. I'd be for marriage if I thought gay people would challenge and change the institution and not buy into the traditional meaning of 'till death do us part' and monogamy forever. We should be Oscar Wildes and not like everyone else watching the play." (quoted in "Now Free To Marry, Canada's Gays Say, 'Do I?'" by Clifford Krauss, The New York Times, August 31, 2003)

MARVELLOUS. As if we haven't already allowed the marriage ideal to crumble so badly that nearly a million children now live without mum or dad at home.

And now we should make marriage seem even less profound or permanent?

Marriage for gays will mean very different rules -- and different laws to suit.

THINK not? Then consider the ACT's new law.

Although it says civil unions are to be "treated . . . in the same way as a marriage", gays could get a divorce just by sending the Registrar-General a note. A month later, and free!

But to state the obvious: a man makes a different kind of wife than does a woman. Or put it this way: a marriage of two men tends to lack the settle-down influence many women bring to their own.

I plead with our gay activists: You know how wayward straight men can be. Don't help to weaken the chains that keep them tied to their homes and their children, who so need them.

You can see how this destroys the tradition of thought that is the only thing that helps make the institution of marriage strong -- and civilising.

Gone will be the old idea, already so shaky, that marriage is a permanent and exclusive bond of love that unites a man and woman, and giving their children their best chance of growing up happy and useful to the rest of us.

Replacing it will be the made-up-as-we-go-along notion that marriage is just an expression of sexual identity, or a sign of acceptance, or an exercise in human rights, or some arrangement of mutual convenience. Or something equally ramshackle and unsafe to entrust with the socialising of children.

Adams is a hate-peddler who tend (sic) to vilify rather than engage those whose politics aren't as radical as his own.

1. Homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control are not natural.
   
2. Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Infertile couples and old people cannot get legally married because the world needs more children.
   
3. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children because straight parents only raise straight children.
   
4. Straight marriage will be less meaningful, since Britney Spears's 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful.
   
5. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and it hasn't changed at all: women are property, Blacks can't marry Whites in the US, and divorce is illegal.
   
6. Gay marriage should be decided by the people, not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of minorities.
   
7. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are always imposed on the entire country. That's why we only have one religion in Australia.
   
8. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people makes you tall.
   
9. Legalising gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can consent in a marriage ceremony.
   
10. Children can never succeed without both male and female role models at home. That's why single parents are forbidden to raise children.
    
11. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven't adapted to cars or longer lifespans.
    
12. Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because a "separate but equal" institution is always constitutional. Separate schools for African-Americans worked just as well as separate marriages will for gays & lesbians.

SAN FRANCISCO—Spokespersons for the National Gay & Lesbian Recruitment Task Force announced Monday that more than 288,000 straights have been converted to homosexuality since Jan. 1, 1998, putting the group well on pace to reach its goal of 350,000 conversions by the end of the year.

...In addition to school programs that target youths, the NGLRTF launched a $630 million advertising campaign this year in an effort to convert adults to homosexuality. The campaign, which features TV and radio spots, as well as print advertising in major national magazines, has helped convince thousands of people to leave their spouses and families for a life of self-gratification and irresponsibility.

"The gay lifestyle is for me," said James Miller, an Oklahoma City father of four who recently moved to Provincetown, MA, to pursue a career in bath-house management. "When I was a family man, I constantly had to worry about things like taking the kids to Little League practice, paying for their braces, and remembering my wife's birthday. But now that I'm gay, I'm finally free to focus all my energy on having non-stop, mind-blowing anal sex."

Though Emmonds said gays have been tremendously successful in tearing at the fabric of society and subverting basic decency, she stressed that their work is far from over.

THE Howard Government might turn out to be as stupid as its critics, after calling its inquiry into a possible nuclear industry here.

True, its critics exhibit a special kind of ignorance by pretending nuclear power stations are ticking timebombs, radiating danger.

Sure, we recognise nuclear power plants are nasty when they go boom boom, but plants built in the last 20-30 years have been pretty safe, especially when not staffed by morons. Newer generations are producing lesser quantities of waste to deal with to boot.

Just as bizarre are the green groups and ABC hosts who complain that this inquiry is headed by Ziggy Switkowski, the former Telstra boss and -- gasp -- a nuclear physicist.

Yet the Government could match this stupidity because it actually makes no commercial sense, with our coal still cheap, to have nuclear power stations.

I suspect Prime Minister John Howard just mentions them as an ambit claim, so he can settle for what indeed adds up: a nuclear enrichment industry.

But his mistake is to sell the idea of nuclear power by saying he's driven by "concerns about climate change and greenhouse gas emissions" -- as if the hype about it all is all true.

JUSTICE Michael Kirby's speech at the funeral of John Marsden should have ended with his resignation.

Should a man who lets bright symbols blind him to ugly reality be on the High Court?

Kirby gave a eulogy for Marsden at a celebrity mass in Sydney last Saturday that drew 500 mourners, two brass bands and nine priests.

Yes, on the one hand, Marsden was once president of the NSW Law Society and Council for Civil Liberties.

Yet Kirby passionately praised this man as a "change agent" who had convinced him to come out as gay, adding: "Only by truth and rationality will the absurd misconceptions about homosexuals ultimately be laid at rest and the bullies defeated."

But he was also a drug user who gave police a false name when arrested for an indecent act at a public toilet in 1967.

During his defamation case against Channel 7, he admitted using rent boys for sex and making a friend of Les Murphy, one of the animals who raped Anita Cobby and cut her throat.

The judge in that trial even found "on the balance of probabilities" that Marsden got Murphy to threaten a witness. And a District Court judge found it more likely than not that Marsden sexually abused an eight-year-old boy when he was a sports coach.

The reason is simple. Big business -- especially American business -- is not going to stump up cash to pay yet more lecturers to say how gruesome is American society, business, politics, race relations or imperialism.

Think of its fierce commitment to democracy. Think of its freedoms, wealth, inventions, innovations, writers and great presidents. Think how it has defied tyrannies, exported democracy, embraced so many immigrants and learned how to correct its sometimes terrible mistakes. Don't these qualities also demand study?

So how will the AAA ensure its centre studies both the bad and good of the US, and does indeed deepen our "appreciation and understanding" and "strengthen our relationship"?

Here's how. It will refuse to hand over all its money at once and will watch carefully how what it gives is spent. It threatens to switch the funding to some other university if the first one lets it down.

The universities, of course, will demand they get this money with no strings attached. Academic freedom and all that. And what right do businessmen have to decide which university gets government money?

BUT Baume says the AAA is determined. It does not want a cheer-America propaganda outfit that bans criticism, but it does want to put its money into a centre that teaches students to understand the US, not just hate it.