Rita Panahi: City’s disdain for ratepayers revealed in grants
Why has Melbourne ratepayers’ cash been handed over to far-Left hate mongers Clementine Ford and Catherine Deveny? The move, which comes as the city reinstates parking fees, shows nothing but disdain for property owners, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
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For reasons that defy logic the City of Melbourne has decided to hand over ratepayers’ money to a couple of far-Left hate mongers.
Fringe-dwelling feminists Clementine Ford and Catherine Deveny are among the recipients of the council’s $2 million COVID-19 arts scheme to assist “artists and creatives to invest in new works”. These two are so out-of-touch, even The Age could not stomach their endless bile, parting company with both columnists in controversial circumstances.
Ford’s tiresome misandry schtick is as intellectually and morally vacuous as her victim-playing.
She is always the first to identify as a sufferer of online hate despite peddling little else including calling female conservatives “c---s”, labelling Scott Morrison a “racist stain on humanity” and declaring any woman who voted for the Coalition should feel “ashamed”.
She has even resorted to racial abuse of myself and targeted 15-year-old boys who had the temerity to question her toxic brand of identity politics.
As for Deveny, she was given the flick by Fairfax in 2010 for her Logies commentary including an unfunny, callous joke at the expense of a cancer victim and for hoping Bindi Irwin “gets laid”. Bindi was 11 years old.
Since then she has regularly made headlines for attacks against Anzac Day and veterans. She posted in 2018 that “Anzac Day is f------ disgusting and should have gone in the bin decades ago” claiming it’s a “Trojan Horse for racism, sexism, toxic masculinity, violence, homophobia and discrimination”.
Deveny wrote that fallen World War II veterans had been fools who had enlisted for selfish reasons: “They were sucked in with the glamour of war and racism under the guise of patriotism. They were uneducated and ignorant.”
All of that hasn’t stopped Ford and Deveny from being invited to speak at schools, hold events at government-funded libraries and now receive grants from a woefully wasteful local council.
This week Deveny thanked the “generosity” of the City of Melbourne. Ford was “absolutely thrilled” to be receiving ratepayers’ money to help her write a book.
On the same day Mayor Sally Capp announced the reinstatement of parking fees, the City of Melbourne showed disdain for property owners by giving their money to a couple of purveyors of performative hate and hyperbole.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist