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Old June 7th, 2011 #1
Darius Appleby
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Arrow The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS Liberal Party NSW Australia: whip under fire for totalitarian planner Nazi slur on scientists

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/upper-hous...ml?from=smh_sb
The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS Liberal Party NSW Australia: whip under fire for totalitarian planner Nazi slur on scientists

Upper house whip under fire for Nazi slur on scientists

Alexandra Smith
June 2, 2011

"At the heart of many scientists - but not all scientists - lies the heart of a totalitarian planner" ... state government whip Peter Phelps in hot water over slur. Photo: Jon Reid

THE state government's whip in the upper house, Peter Phelps, has been accused of likening scientists to Nazis in a speech to Parliament.

In an address attacking global warming, Dr Phelps said it should not be forgotten that ''some of the strongest supporters of totalitarian regimes in the last century have been scientists''.

''We should not be so surprised that the contemporary science debate has become so debased,'' Dr Phelps, pictured, said. ''At the heart of many scientists - but not all scientists - lies the heart of a totalitarian planner.''

He once compared the former army officer and federal Labor MP Mike Kelly to the guards at a concentration camp. Dr Phelps was chief-of-staff to the then special minister of state Gary Nairn in 2007 when he accused Mr Kelly of using the Nuremberg defence, like the guards at the Belsen concentration camp.

Speaking in Parliament on Monday, Dr Phelps quoted an unidentified writer whom he described as ''speaking about the rise of Nazism'' and its similarity to ''scientists agitating for a scientific organisation of society''.

Dr Phelps then went on to say: ''One can see them now, beavering away, alone, unknown, in their laboratories.

''Now, through the great global warming swindle, they can influence policy, they can set agendas, they can reach into everyone's lives; they can, like Lenin, proclaim what must be done.''

The Greens MP John Kaye said Dr Phelps had created ''a massive political headache'' for Barry O'Farrell.

''The Premier can either dissociate himself from the remarks made by his whip in the upper house or forever be a party to the most virulent science-denying libel yet seen in the climate debate,'' Dr Kaye said.

''He has well and truly tied the Liberal and National parties to the extremist fringe by suggesting science has been corrupted by public funding and scientists and engineers have the 'heart of a totalitarian planner'.''

The Labor MP Luke Foley said Dr Phelps had not learnt from his earlier mistakes.

''In the 2007 federal election campaign, Peter Phelps became an infamous figure nationally when he compared Mike Kelly to a Nazi concentration camp guard,'' Mr Foley said.

''The then Howard government was forced to apologise for Dr Phelps's outrageous comments but he hasn't learnt his lesson and he's back, likening scientists who report the facts on global warming to Nazi propagandists.''

Dr Phelps last night denied he was likening scientists to Nazis.

''This is not an issue of Nazism or Communism but an unhealthy relationship between scientists and governments that can lead to totalitarianism,'' Dr Phelps said.

A spokesman for the Premier declined to comment.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/upper-hous...#ixzz1OZwGybW3



http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/pro.../LC20110530041
The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS

http://www.menzieshouse.com.au/peter-phelps/
Global Warming Totalitarians
A brilliant speech from The Hon. Dr. Peter Phelps MLC discussing the great global warming swindle:

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2742686.html
Ignoring the leper's bell on climate change
707 Comments
PETER PHELPS
From the adjournment debate, New South Wales Legislative Council 1 June 2011:

http://www.nsw.liberal.org.au/legisl...er-phelps.html
Peter Phelps Member of the Legislative Council since March 2011.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news...-1225780228868
Factions, firsts and foolishness in one
Peter van Onselen From: The Australian September 28, 2009 12:00AM
THE Liberal Party preselection showdown in Bradfield had a little bit of irony, history and stupidity all thrown into one.
Despite the shenanigans, on paper the best candidate won - former Optus executive Paul Fletcher.
The stupidity is brought to you by Peter Phelps, the former chief of staff to Howard government frontbencher Gary Nairn, who was forced to apologise in 2007 to now-Labor MP Mike Kelly. He accused him of using the Nazis' Nuremberg defence of just following orders because Kelly served in Iraq but disagreed with the decision to go to war.
On Saturday Phelps used the question-and-answer session with candidates to suggest one of them, Philip Senior, was arrogant for writing about the Liberal Party's future for the edited collection Liberals and Power: The Road Ahead, when he had not performed the mindless task of handing out flyers on election day over the past four elections.
Senior, a management consultant who is about to complete a PhD in political science and is also the author of a book on the 2007 election, dismissed the question as hollow and received rapturous applause in doing so.

http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/Pro...2578710004443B
The Hon. Dr Peter PHELPS, MLC
Member of the Legislative Council
Government Whip in the Legislative Council
Member of the Liberal Party
Term of service expires 56th Parliament (1 March 2019)

Contact Details
Address The Hon. Dr Peter Phelps, MLC
Parliament House
Macquarie Street
Sydney NSW 2000
Phone (02) 9230 3462
Fax (02) 9230 3568
Email [email protected]


Parliamentary Activity
Position Start Notes
Member of the NSW Legislative Council 26 Mar 2011
Government Whip in the Legislative Council 3 May 2011
Member, Procedure Committee 10 May 2011
Member, Standing Committee on State Development 17 May 2011
Member, General Purpose Standing Committee No. 5 17 May 2011
Parliamentary Record
Dr Phelps' speeches in Hansard

Dr Phelps' questions published in the Question & Answer Paper

Biography
Political Party Activity - State Executive, NSW Liberal Party 2003-2006 and 2008-2011. State Council, NSW Liberal Party 1996-1998 and 2003-2011. Various positions, NSW Liberal Party 1984-2011. Life member, Sydney University Liberal Club. Life member, NSW Young Liberals. Previous Parliamentary seats contested: 1999 Legislative Assembly seat of Drummoyne.

Community Activity - Member, Greenleigh C.F.U, 2009-2011. Member, Friends of the Australian War Memorial, 2005-2011. Member, Sporting Shooters Association, 2008-2011. Member, Sydney Jewish Museum 2006-2011. Executive, A.C.T Judo Inc., 2008-2011. Member, RSPCA, 2005-2011. Life member, Sydney University Union. Life member, Sydney University Sports. Life member, Fortians Union. Life member, St Paul's College Union. Member, ACT Baseball Umpires Association, 2007-2011.

Personal - Dr Phelps enjoys reading and writing about history. His sporting interests include to rugby union, judo, baseball and target rifle shooting. He has a private pilot's licence. Dr Phelps is a libertarian with social conservative tendencies, placing him within the 'fusionist' school of conservative political philosophy. His political hero is Ronald Reagan.

Publications - Americans are from Pluto, I.P.A Review, 2006; Of Bridges and Blue-eyed Babies, Quadrant, 2000; Anxious Nation - Review, International History Review, 2000; Amnesty Infomercial, I.P.A. Review, 1999; Keen as Mustard - Review, International History Review, 1999.

Qualifications, Occupations and Interests - Bachelor of Arts (Hons), Sydney University, 1990. Doctor of Philosophy, Sydney University, 1997.
Advisor, Hon. Bronwyn Bishop MP, October 2010-January 2011. Advisor, Sen. Michael Ronaldson, February 2009-October 2010. Chief of staff, Hon. Gary Nairn MP, January 2006-November 2007. Chief of staff, Sen. the Hon. Eric Abetz, January 2001-January 2006. Chief of staff, Sen. the Hon. Chris Ellison, May 2000-January 2001. Advisor, Sen. the Hon. Chris Ellison, August 1999-May 2000. Assistant Advisor, Hon. John Moore MP, October 1998-August 1999. Assistant Advisor, Hon. Ian McLachlan, February 1998-October 1998.

Inaugural speech, 4 May 2011:
Keywords: Government Whip in the Legislative Council
Last modified 07/06/2011 11:25:17 : Update this page
 
Old June 7th, 2011 #2
Darius Appleby
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Arrow Scientists have duty to tell it like it is

http://shaunc.posterous.com/peter-do...o-peter-phelps

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June 3, 2011 Peter Doherty responds to Peter Phelps

Australian scientist Peter Doherty has written a wonderful letter in today's SMH that takes apart the odious arguments of Peter Phelps, the NSW Liberal Upper House whip.

Scientists have duty to tell it like it is

The remarks attributed to the state government whip Peter Phelps suggest he has a very selective reading of history in his global attribution of totalitarian/nazi tendencies to scientists (''Upper house whip under fire for Nazi slur on scientists'', June 3).

He might acknowledge, for example, that the Nazis were a democratically-elected, extreme-right populist party who murdered, or forced into exile, large numbers of scientists. He might recall that Stalin's rejection of evidence-based genetics condemned legitimate scientists to the gulag and led to massive starvation in the Soviet Union. He might also reflect on the fact that a group of seismologists has recently been indicted in Italy for failing to give adequate warning about a major earthquake.

Publicly funded researchers, and that includes pretty much all climate scientists, have an absolute obligation to inform both the community and political leaders when they find evidence of changes that could potentially compromise human well-being and civil society.

The scientists I know value living in a pluralist democracy and just want to get on with running their research operations, not the country.

But, so long as they have major concerns, they have to speak up and, as best they can, put the evidence in front of political leaders and the broader Australian community.

Peter Doherty Nobel laureate 1996, University of Melbourne



http://anonymouslefty.wordpress.com/...h-snap-dragon/

Ooh, snap. (Dragon?)

Posted on 3 June, 2011 by Jeremy| 11 Comments

Far right Menzies House darling Peter Phelps isn’t exactly the cluey-est MP in the NSW Parliament:

The session had its bizarre moments. At one point just before midnight Mr Shoebridge described the legislation as “draconian”.

It prompted the Liberal MLC Peter Phelps to leap to his feet with a point of order, telling the house that Mr Shoebridge was mistaken because “there are no dragons in NSW”.

Truly one of the brightest minds of his generation.

This entry was posted in Politics. Bookmark the permalink.
 
Old June 7th, 2011 #3
Darius Appleby
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Arrow Peter Phelps

http://www.climatespectator.com.au/c...rmal-hot-again

Dragon the chain

Conservative politicians in Australia continue to embarrass themselves over climate change, with Dr Peter Phelps, the government whip in the newly elected coalition government in NSW declaring that dragons have the same relevance to climate change science as carbon dioxide. "I foresee a future where dragons are made responsible for global warming," he apparently told the state parliament. "Perhaps dragons should be investigated even more deeply into their role in climate change… because it has the same sort of scientific relevance as carbon dioxide has." Phelps’ biography on the parliament website describes him as a “libertarian with social conservative tendencies, placing him within the 'fusionist' school of conservative political philosophy. His political hero is Ronald Reagan.”

Tags:Australia, Green Deals, Green Business, International (outside Australia)
 
Old June 7th, 2011 #4
Darius Appleby
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Arrow ALP candidate and Iraq veteran being compared to the Nazis

ALP candidate and Iraq veteran being compared to the Nazis

 
Old June 7th, 2011 #5
Darius Appleby
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Arrow Holocaust misused - Peter Phelps

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/a...caust_misused/

Holocaust misused


144 Comments | Permalink Andrew Bolt Blog

Andrew Bolt
Thursday, September 20, 2007 at 10:53am

Labor uses the Holocaust to smear Liberal staffer, Peter Phelps, chief of staff to Special Minister of State Gary Nairn.

In fact, it even got the only federal Jewish MP, Michael Danby, to mount the attack:

Dr Phelps has attempted to equate an Australian who served in Iraq with someone who was a Nazi concentration camp guard at Belsen.

This is deeply offensive not just to the Australian Jewish community but to all of our World War II diggers and airman who fought to defeat Nazism.

Naturally, the media has largely swallowed the Danby line.

But reality check: Phelps is guilty of using crude, unfair and very offensive language, but the point he was trying to make so incompetently was exactly the opposite of the one Danby claims.

Check for yourself:

In last week’s exchange during a public forum in the electorate, Dr Phelps was taking Col (Michael) Kelly (Labor’s candidate in Nairn’s seat) to task over his service in Iraq, suggesting it was incompatible with Labor’s policy to withdraw troops from the war zone.

“You took part in it willingly, because you weren’t sent over there. You volunteered, didn’t you?” Dr Phelps asked during the forum.

Col Kelly responded that he was a soldier and had done what he was ordered to do.

“Oh, like the guards at Belsen perhaps? Are you using the Nuremberg Defence?” Dr Phelps said.

Note.

Phelps actually supports our role in Iraq, and what our soldiers do there.

He’s in fact picking up on what he takes to be Kelly’s refusal to do the same by using the infamous “I was only following orders” defence.

Phelps backs our mission there; Kelly does not. It is a perversion of Phelps’ meaning to suggest that he’s actually likening Australian soldiers in Iraq to Belsen guards. If anything, he’s suggesting (wrongly) that Kelly is doing that by invoking the Nuremberg defence.

I’m just very sorry that Danby, a friend of mine, has been party to this offence to Phelps, who indeed deserves criticism on several grounds, but not this one.
 
Old June 7th, 2011 #6
Darius Appleby
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Arrow Who does Dr Phelps really represent?

http://www.crikey.com.au/2007/09/20/...lly-represent/

Thursday, 20 September 2007

Who does Dr Phelps really represent?

Norman Abjorensen writes:

The right-wing extremists are not just in the NSW Liberal Party, they have made it to the centre.

It has been known for some time that the group aligned with shady Opus Dei-connected NSW Upper House power-broker, David Clarke, has infiltrated the federal ranks, and the revelations yesterday of Federal minister Gary Nairn’s chief of staff, Peter Phelps, heckling a Labor candidate at a public meeting, brought it out further into the open.

Dr Phelps, as was revealed in question time yesterday, compared Colonel Mike Kelly, a former Australian soldier, with the guards at the Nazi Belsen death camp, over his service in Iraq. Colonel Kelly just happens to be standing against Mr Nairn in Eden-Monaro.

Dr Phelps has a long association with the far right, and the Clarke acolyte, Senator Fierravanti-Wells, paid him tribute in her first speech after being elected in 2005. He has also worked for the chilling Senator Eric Abetz, whom no one would ever call a moderate.

He was instrumental in the undermining of the talented Liberal MLC, John Ryan, leading not only to Ryan’s defeat, but his subsequent suspension from the Liberal Party for daring to go public. Ryan is just the sort of people the Liberals need, and especially so in NSW.

Ryan’s political assassination is an unpublicised case study of all that is wrong with the NSW Liberal Party and why its current extremist domination will drive it into well-deserved oblivion.

One of the very few NSW Liberals to emerge from the western suburbs of Sydney, Ryan, a former high school teacher, took a great interest in social justice issues and was highly regarded for his advocacy on behalf of people with disability, child protection and for reforms to the regulation of boarding houses. As a backbencher he also conducted a long running campaign to enhance protection for consumers in the resident home building industry against unscrupulous builders.

Although a committed evangelical Christian towards the end of his career he was frequently at odds with representatives of the so called “religious right” for supporting socially progressive initiatives such as a bill to codify how parents might smack children, a bill to trial medically supervised injecting rooms for heroin addicts and a Bill to lower the age the age of consent for homosexual sex.

It was this latter issue, apparently, that drew the ire of Clarke, and especially Phelps. In 2003, I attended a Liberal Party gathering to talk about Bob Menzies on the 25th anniversary of his death, but Dr Phelps was not interested. His main concern was getting through a motion condemning attempts in NSW to lower the age of homosexual consent.

On 18 November 2006, despite strong endorsement from the then NSW Liberal Leader Peter Debnam, John Ryan was defeated in a preselection ballot for the Liberal Party Legislative Council ticket by a “right wing” candidate Marie Ficarra – backed and supported by Dr Phelps.

Is this the sort of support Gary Nairn is courting in his bid to hold one of the most marginal government seats?

The far right which now controls the NSW Liberals is akin to the left which ran the Victorian ALP after the 1955 split: forget electoral success; fight for purity.

One must ask whether Dr Phelps is any sort of asset at all, and just who it is he really represents.

Dr Norman Abjorensen’s book, Leadership and the Liberal Revival: Bolte, Askin and the Post-war Ascendancy, will be published in October by Australian Scholarly Publishing.


Irfan Yusuf also has memories of Dr Phelps:

I’ve known Peter Phelps since 1995. He was a member of the Left who then defected to the Right. He is a very smart chap with a PhD in history from Sydney Uni.

Phelps first burst onto the conservative scene as editor of a Right Wing Young Liberal newsletter called “The Atlas” which lasted some 5 or 6 editions.

In 1996, Phelps went to work for Federal Member for Lowe Paul Zammitt. At first Zammitt stopped Phelps from doing factional work, hoping that behaving in a factionally neutral manner would gain Zammitt a ministry.

Zammitt forced Phelps to stop producing his “The Atlas” newsletter after Phelps ran a front page editorial calling for Medicare to be abolished.

Zammitt’s factional neutrality didn’t gain him a ministry. Phelps suggested to Zammitt that he become an internal Right Wing warrior of Sydney’s inner-west. Zammitt took on this advice but his paranoia led him to upset more conservatives than lefties.

Zammitt eventually saw the writing on the wall and decided to ditch the Liberal Party altogether and become an independent. Poor Phelps was left high and dry. However, he was looked after and has now risen up the ranks to become chief of staff to two Special Ministers of State.

The Coalition has little reason to complain about Phelps, who has always been known to speak his mind, even if potentially embarrassing his politician bosses. Phelps’ latest foray against Mike Kelly is quite characteristic of his brash style, something he has maintained since his Young Liberal days.

Phelps is merely behaving consistently with the culture of the NSW Liberal Party. Here, politics is treated like a game of cricket, and Phelps is someone who prefers to bowl bouncers. Sadly, on this occasion, all he has achieved is adding runs to his opponent’s run tally.
 
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liberal, nazi, nsw, peter phelps, scientist

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