The Media must have been having a very dull day. All who are responsible for creating trouble for others should be forced to pay for damages and be made to be responsible for cleaning up any mess that they have been responsible for making..
For the Media to make a hero out of a fool is not new, any stupidity will sell but a better lesson will be learned by the young and the old is that if they create a mess, they clean it up preferably in public.
And that goes for graffiti scrawlers too.

Actually quite a few schools sing our national anthem on special occasions such as during awards ceremonies. However, it is typically sung with hesitation, self consciousness and obvious signs of unease. I would estimate that about 80% know 80% of the words for the first verse.

On one hand society wants to legally allow a 16 years old to engage in consensual sex and then on the other hand wishes to deem a 16 year old intrinsically lacking in responsibility. Interesting logic. This irresponsibility is then to be used as a justification in arguing that the adolescent is not at fault when they make poor decisions.

My father in law joined the army at 16 and fought the Japanese in New Guinea when he was 17. I had a full drivers license at 15 -- able to drive V8s, passengers etc.

Just finished reading a novel which was set in Afghanistan a few decades ago. Where children were regarded as adults at age 8. In my opinion the view that a 16 year old is so irresponsible they can not be held accountable is socially destructive, just as is regarding an 8 year old as an adult.

Subsequent comments by Corey's parents demonstrate that they support the laissez faire child rearing philosophy. I can attest that it is a very popular method for Western Sydney Families and have seen hundreds of Coreys over the years. Corey clone's greatest ambition is to be a celebrity, often at a near subconscious level, while knowing at a conscious level, that it will never happen so they give up making an effort. Corey will be perceived as a success by a significant number of his peers, make no mistake.

While Corey and his parents have a democratically imposed time out (Corey goes to his room and the parents to theirs) their lives can self align with the earths magnetic flux lines and all will be well in our growing nanny state. God forbid he be grounded for six months and be made to perform a myriad of household duties while remaining Internet free.

Hopefully, society can take a moment to wonder how much longer we are prepared to elongate childhood. What will the age be when the modern Aussie can be held responsible -- will it be 18, 20, 22 hell just to be caring and sharing modern enlightened beings lets make it 30. Why don't we create a new category a Juniors Card. Which will entitle the bearer the financial equivalent of the pension + all the Foxtel, DVDs and Celebrity magazines one wishes until the age of 30. They will then be legally required to grow up and contribute to society on their 30th birthday.

But wait, what about those poor souls who have not been able to grow up due to their environment and in the rigid time frame imposed by an authoritarian white culture. Surely they will have to be catered for. Perhaps a publicly funded family meeting could be held with a community counselor -- oops the parents have now died of old age!

Am I totally alone in being bemused that this is event has somehow been tenuously linked to being a feminist issue?

It's the longest bow I've ever seen.

Talk about trying to turn ANYTHING into an anti-men campaign!

'men have a long history of avoiding responsibility for their actions'.

Surely both men and women have a long history of 'avoiding responsibility for their actions'?

I still cant believe this article. Surely the point of this whole episode is really about the cult of celebrity and tabloid sensationlist journalism?

Am I going mad? I just cant for the life of me understand how anyone, (without trying to manufacture it), can relate this to 'that old and still pervasive belief that men are never at fault'. Just where on earth does that come from anyway?

Or is HRS posting these articles under an alias to add credence to his theories on feminism?

I propose a new challenge to the author to create a link from the recent SCG cricket test saga to some kind of feminist doctrine. It would be no more ludicrous than this article.

Whitty - no of course you aren't alone, read my first post, the 5th one on this topic... it is rather a long bow isn't it?

Hi Mr Stickman.

There is no such thing as total freedom of expression. Libel, child pornography, “snuff” movies, instructions on how to commit criminal acts, the glorification of suicide, and racial vilification, are all banned from the airwaves by acts of Parliament. Even movie classifications, that give parents some degree of information on whether a particular movie is suitable for children, is a form of censorship. Since censorship already exists, then using “freedom of Expression (or speech) as an argument, is obviously invalid. It is simply a matter of at what point our censors should draw the line to protect our community.

For you to argue that the media has no impact on behaviour, would have advertising executives laughing their heads off. They make billions of dollars telling manufactures and salespeople the exact opposite.

Today’s media can no longer be considered as just a means of entertainment, or as just a medium for transmitting messages. It has become so powerful, that it is now displacing the traditional means of creating and disseminating cultural values to our young. Television was once hailed as “the greatest teaching tool ever invented”. It is, but we as a society had better be careful about what values it is teaching to our children.

If you were to come home from work, and found a man in your house with a stripper, who was teaching your children to be violent, to be irresponsible, and also the joys of illegal drug abuse, you would grab the SOB by the scruff of the neck and throw him and his stripper right out of your house. But TV, radio and movie studios can beam exactly the same material, right into your house, and there is nothing you can do about it. Well heeled artists, writers, promoters, pop stars, and marketing managers, are no longer pushing the boundaries of accepted taste, they are busily digging away at our family values, which is the foundation upon which our civilisation is built.