R.G.Menzies above

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Two of my ancestors were convicts so my family has been in Australia for a long time. As well as that, all four of my grandparents were born in the State where I was born and still live: Queensland. And I am even a member of the world's second-most condemned minority: WASPs (the most condemned is of course the Jews -- which may be why I tend to like Jews). So I think I am as Australian as you can get. I certainly feel that way. I like all things that are iconically Australian: meat pies, Vegemite, Henry Lawson etc. I particularly pride myself on my familiarity with the great Australian slanguage. I draw the line at Iced Vo-Vos and betting on the neddies, however. So if I cannot comment insightfully on Australian affairs, who could?

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31 August, 2011

High Court rules Malaysian swap deal unlawful

THE Federal Government's Malaysian people swap deal has been ruled unlawful by the High Court. Chief Justice Robert French said the court ordered Immigration Minister Chris Bowen and his Department be restrained from sending asylum seekers to Malaysia. "The declaration made ... was made without power and is invalid," Justice French said.

The Government had wanted to send 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia in exchange for 4000 already processed refugees. The decision effectively stymies the Government's so-called Malaysia Solution.

A 5-2 majority of the Full Bench ruled Mr Bowen's declaration that Malaysia was an appropriate country to which to send asylum seekers was invalid. The court found that a country must be bound by international or domestic law to provide protection for asylum seekers to be an appropriate destination.

"The court also held that the Minister has no other power under the Migration Act to remove from Australia asylum seekers whose claims for protection have not been determined," a summary of the court's judgment read.

Australian National University international law expert Donald Rothwell said the fact that Malaysia was not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention was likely "a key factor" in the court's decision. Professor Rothwell said the decision could not be appealed but that the Government may seek other ways to revive the policy.

Refugee lawyers also argued that sending unaccompanied minors to Malaysia would breach the minister's duty of care as their legal guardian to act in their best interests.

But Commonwealth Solicitor-General Stephen Gageler had argued the Government could lawfully declare Malaysia a safe third country even though it had no domestic or international legal obligations to protect asylum seekers.

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Surge in visa success rates 'luring' boatpeople to Australia

SUCCESS rates for refugee claims have leapt from 30 to 70 per cent in just six months, sparking accusations the government is encouraging boatpeople by virtually guaranteeing them visas.

Senior Immigration Department officials conceded at a recent parliamentary committee hearing that the success rate for asylum claims now stood at 70 per cent, not far below its record high of more than 90 per cent.

With the High Court to hand down its ruling on the Malaysia Solution tomorrow, the figures prompted agencies to warn the Department of Immigration's high success rate was acting as an incentive to asylum-seekers to get on a boat.

Senior department official Garry Fleming told a parliamentary committee earlier this month the primary acceptance rate for asylum-seekers who arrive by boat stood at 70 per cent.

Mr Fleming said the speed at which refugee claims were being processed meant that "a good articulation" of people's refugee claims was not being heard at their initial assessment, resulting in a high rate of overturn at review. "That is now seeing primary recognition rates in the order of about 70 per cent," Mr Fleming told the committee.

The figure does not take into account unsuccessful asylum claims that are overturned on review, suggesting the final success rate could be considerably higher.

The rate at which refugee claims for boatpeople are upheld is seen as a key element in the factors driving refugee movements.

Early last year the Rudd government was warned its refugee success rate was "out of whack" with other countries and was acting as a "major pull factor". The warning was contained in confidential advice sent to government prior to the decision to freeze Afghan asylum claims for six months and Sri Lankan claims for three months. At the time the advice was sent the refugee success rate was more than 90 per cent.

According to department statistics the primary success rate was just 27 per cent for the first six months of 2010-11, meaning it has soared more than 40 per cent since the beginning of the year.

Refugee Council chief executive Paul Power said "clearly there have been issues in the quality of the decision-making". "That's the only conclusion one can reasonably draw," Mr Power said yesterday. "The fluctuations of people from the same countries and in similar circumstance being rejected is baffling to anyone outside the department."

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said he found the department's explanation for the wildly fluctuating success rate "unconvincing". "Clearly if your recognition rates are higher than the rest of the world (asylum-seekers) are more likely to say yes to a people-smuggler and get on a boat," Mr Morrison said. "With primary acceptance rates going from the high 90s to the 20s then back up to 70 per cent, it reveals a process that is all over the place."

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said refugee decisions were made on a "case-by-case" basis. "As we have said before, driving forces will vary from time to time and numbers will rise and fall in different parts of the world at different times," the spokesman said.

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Tony Abbott signals a return to individual work agreements under revamped IR policy

TONY Abbott has given his strongest signal yet that the Coalition is considering a form of individual bargaining under a reworked industrial relations policy.

The Opposition Leader today called for “more freedom” in Australian workplaces, and mounted a case for non-union agreement-making between workers and their employers.

“I think we ought to be able to trust businesses and the workers of Australia to come to arrangements that suit themselves,” he told 3AW's Neil Mitchell.

Mr Abbott, who declared Work Choices “dead and buried” at the last election, said greater workplace flexibility was required to address the productivity slump that was dragging the economy down.

His comments follow those of former prime minister John Howard, who last night lashed the Gillard government's tightening of workplace rules. “It's blindingly obvious that one of the worst mistakes Julia Gillard has made is to re-regulate the labour market,” Mr Howard told ABC TV. “It is affecting our productivity and it will therefore affect our competitiveness.”

Mr Abbott said Mr Howard was “essentially right”, but he baulked at pre-empting the Coalition's election policy, and said he wasn't signalling a return to Work Choices. “We've got a lot of problems and I want to be a pragmatic problem solver,” he said.

Statutory individual contracts, known as Australian Workplace Agreements, were the centrepiece of Work Choices, with Mr Howard previously admitting he went too far by axing the no-disadvantage test that ensured workers could not be left worse off under the agreements.

Labor's industrial relations regime only allows individual agreements, in the form of common law contracts, for workers on higher incomes.

Liberal frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull today said the Coalition should wait for the government's Fair Work laws to fail before unveiling its industrial relations policies. “There's some merit in holding fire for a little while longer,” Mr Turnbull said.

He said the opposition had argued from the outset that the Fair Work changes would make Australian industries less productive and increase costs for business. “I believe our warnings have been borne out by experience. Others may not be so convinced,” he said.

Mr Turnbull said the opposition would be in a much better position to frame arguments about the need to reintroduce a measure of flexibility to workplace laws closer to the election.

A review into Labor's Fair Work Act will begin early next year amid criticisms of the laws from Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens and the Productivity Commission.

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Fair Work clauses 'too risky' for small business

SMALL businesses are too afraid to take advantage of confusing "flexible" contracts, a peak body said.

The Individual Flexibility Arrangements were introduced as part of the Fair Work Act – which replaced the controversial WorkChoices legislation. They allow employees to negotiate changes in their base pay rate to alter work conditions.

Workplace Relations Minister Chris Evans said small businesses were not taking advantage of these clauses which encourage productivity. “I’d suggest we look at how we can take advantage of the provisions that are in the Fair Work act, many of which have not been used properly yet,” he told ABC Radio yesterday.

But Council of Small Business Australia workplace relations Grace Collier said there was a lack of information available to employers about flexibility clauses and award wage requirements. “It’s impossible to find out beyond any doubt what the rules are,” she said.

“A small business cannot ring up the Government and find out exactly what award they should be paying their staff on. The Government will give you an indication but it’s nothing more than an indication, it’s not legally binding.”

Ms Collier said it was “impossible” for an employer to check that they were meeting award wage requirements. “There’s no lodgement or checking service by the Government on these [Individual Flexibility Agreements],” she said. “It’s quite confusing and if you get it wrong not one checks it and tells you it’s fine. You might be prosecuted six years later because you ripped the employee off unknowingly.”

A spokesman for the Fair Work Ombudsman said that employers don’t need to be afraid to use flexible work arrangements. “If advice was provided by the Fair Work Infoline to an employer, and it acted in good faith on that advice and subsequently we found ourselves in the circumstance of auditing or investigating the workplace, then obviously we would take that into account,” he said. “If, however, we were to find that information supplied to us at the time was wrong, then clearly our obligation would be to point that out and expect the matter in question to be rectified.”

He also encouraged small business to speak to industry associations and employer organisations for specific advice.

There is no requirement for employers or employees to lodge IFAs with the Fair Work Ombudsman, but a Best Practice Guide on creating and using IFAs is available under the resources tab on the Fair Work Ombudsman’s website at www.fairwork.gov.au.

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New weapon in cane toad fight

SCIENTISTS may have uncovered the 'silver bullet' in the battle against WA's cane toad invasion.

Researchers from the University of Sydney have found that cane toads release a chemical which stunts the growth of competing tadpoles and reduces their chance of survival. Older tadpoles release their poison on new cane toad egg clutches to better their own chance of survival.

Cane toad expert Professor Richard Shine from the University of Sydney said the species ‘speak’ to each other using pheromones which don't appear to affect native animals and this newly discovered toxin could be exploited and used as the latest weapon in the fight to stop the invasion.

“If you wanted to control an invading species the ideal silver bullet might be some major chemical that affects that species but doesn’t have any affect on any others,” Prof Shine said. “It turns out cane toads have spent the last several million years designing such a chemical themselves because competition is such a big deal between cane toads.”

The invaders, which kill native species, are 30km west of Kununurra and moving south after leaving a trail of destruction across Queensland and the Top End.

Prof Shine made the discovery while studying waterborne chemical cues used by tadpoles from the Northern Territory. His team found that tadpoles exposed to the chemical for even a short period of time grew to only half the size of their unexposed counterparts.

"We don't know where they are producing the chemical from, they do have some specialised cells in their skin that produce chemicals... the chemical responsible may be one that we have already been looking at and identified from earlier work we have been doing," Prof Shine said.

Native to Central and South America, cane toads were introduced to Queensland in 1935 to control beetles. While the species was largely unsuccessful at reducing cane beetles, the animals thrived in Australia, evolving into bigger, stronger creatures and wiping out native species as they spread across the country.

Prof Shine said the next step is to work out how the toads make their poison and if it affects native species.

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30 August, 2011

Bob Carr calls for end to Victorian Charter of Human Rights

FORMER NSW Labor Premier Bob Carr has warned that retaining the Victorian Charter of Human Rights could liken the state to the UK, where public servants are too scared to enforce the law in fear of being taken to court.

Speaking at a meeting calling for the repeal of the charter yesterday, Mr Carr said British public servants were so afraid of breaching the European charter of human rights, they were scared into inaction.

"I'm very worried, as my friends at British Labour Party are, that the term human rights is becoming a bad term, because of the way the European charter is invoked. It's become a term of abuse," he said.

Mr Carr said older people in working class electorates in the UK feared criminal behaviour was not dealt with by police because the culprits would claim their human rights had been infringed.

"They say the police won't do anything about it because it'll be against their human rights," Mr Carr said.

"The cases they refer to are the gypsies, or the travellers as we should call them, who go on to private property and camp there and when the police are asked to remove them, threaten to take action in the courts under the human rights charter. "So the police do nothing."

Mr Carr said having a charter of human rights affected and shaped the behaviour of public servants.

"Public service employees will opt for the easiest course," he said. "They don't want to be smacked over the knuckles by an auditor general or an ombudsman or a parliamentary public accounts committee, but they certainly don't want to be dragged into court, even more they don't want to be dragged into court and embarrassed by action invoked under a rights charter."

Mr Carr said the resources put into enforcing Victoria's human rights charter could be better spent on child protection.

But President of the Law Institute of Victoria Caroline Counsel said Mr Carr's argument was "misinformed and illogical".

"The charter should be self perpetuating, if we all do the right thing by our citizens, lawyers won't need to be involved, courts won't need to be involved, it will just happen that we all act in accordance with what is appropriate in terms or implementation of human rights," she said. [Wow! Just who is it who is being "misinformed and illogical"?]

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Call for charter schools in Australia

A NSW Liberal MP has contradicted government policy by calling for the creation of fully publicly funded independent "charter" schools in NSW.

Matt Kean, the Member for Hornsby, said some "radical options" needed to be considered in the federal government's review of schools funding.

A Sydney businessman, David Gonski, who is heading the review, will release tomorrow the findings of four research studies his committee has commissioned.

Mr Kean said NSW should follow the lead of the new Coalition government in Western Australia which oversees more than 100 independent public schools.

He told NSW Parliament that as a Liberal, he did not believe "the radical reforms we need in our education system can come from a centralised system run out of Sydney or Canberra". "Personally, I would like to see a debate about charter schools occur in NSW," he said.

"Charter schools are state-funded community schools, accessible to all for no additional compulsory contribution and run by local boards, while meeting minimum standards set down by the state. In other words, while the state continues the funding, the governance and running of the school remains in community hands."

Mr Kean's proposal echoes that of the chief executive officer of Christian Schools Australia, Stephen O'Doherty, who has also called on the NSW government and the Gonski inquiry to consider adopting the charter school model. The Herald understands the model is being considered by the federal review.

Mr Kean said the school principal and not the Department of Education should choose new teachers to avoid "arbitrary quotas or requirements set by head office".

The Minister for Education, Adrian Piccoli, ruled out the proposal yesterday, saying the state government "is not going down the route of charter schools".

A newly released NSW Department of Education paper called "Raising achievement for all: complex challenges", refers to a Stanford University study of 2403 charter schools which found 37 per cent performed significantly worse than public schools in improving maths performance. It also found 46 per cent of charter schools performed no better or worse than public schools.

Christian Schools Australia and the Anglican School Corporation are lobbying for a fairer share of funding for their schools which receive relatively less funding than many similar Catholic schools.

Catholic schools have asked the Gonski inquiry to increase recurrent funding to help them close the gap between the average income level of Catholic schools and government schools "to ensure Catholic schools remain affordable and accessible to families in all regions and all socio-economic circumstances".

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Literary festivals and prizes champion politics over quality

Premiers come and premiers go. But premiers' literary prizes, like state government-funded writers' festivals, do not change much at all.

Last week it was announced that David Hicks's Guantanamo: My Journey (William Heinemann, 2010) has been shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards. The aim of these gongs is to "nurture Australia's greatest talent" and "support outstanding Australian writers". Hicks's book has been nominated in the non-fiction category, which carries a $15,000 prize.

Since his return from Guantanamo Bay, after pleading guilty to providing material support for terrorism, Hicks has become something of a hero for the left intelligentsia. He received an enthusiastic standing ovation when he addressed the Sydney Writers' Festival in May. John Howard also spoke at this year's festival, fulfilling the traditional role, at such occasions, of the token conservative. There was no standing ovation for Howard but two protesters were allowed to attend his session holding a large sign declaring him to be a war criminal.

It is reasonable to assume that those who supported the Howard government's policies on Iraq and Afghanistan, along with the national anti-terrorist security legislation, would be critical of Hicks's book. So let's look at the assessments of three commentators who were not obvious supporters of Howard and who have some expertise on the matters published in Guantanamo: My Journey. Namely, journalists Leigh Sales and Sally Neighbour along with academic Waleed Aly.

Sales, who wrote the well received book on the Hicks case titled Detainee 002, challenged many of the claims in Guantanamo: My Journey and said, "it is best read sceptically". Neighbour depicted the book as "a disappointing and deceptive version of the truth" and declared some of the author's claims "beyond belief". Aly wrote that Hicks's memoirs were "self-serving" and "weakest on the points of greatest political scrutiny".

During his time in Guantanamo, Hicks's family released many of his letters to the media. Some were quoted in the sympathetic documentary The President Versus David Hicks. In these letters, Hicks condemned "Western-Jewish domination", praised the Taliban, endorsed Islamist beheadings, boasted of his meeting with Osama bin Laden and related how he had fired live ammunition into the Indian side of the Kashmir Line of Control.

Yet, in his book, Hicks asserts that he "never hurt or injured anyone" and that "no one requires an apology" from him. He also claims never to have met Bin Laden and to only have "participated in the symbolic exchange of fire" when at the Kashmir Line of Control - whatever that might mean.

Neither Hicks nor his publisher has responded to any of the criticisms. Yet Hicks has been judged an outstanding talent and placed on the shortlist for the literary gongs, which will be announced at next week's Brisbane Writers Festival.

Former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser is another current favourite of the left intelligentsia - like Hicks, he is admired for his hostility to Howard. In Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs (The Miegunyah Press, 2010), which Fraser co-wrote with Margaret Simons, it is reported that he is "applauded" at literary festivals "by the same kinds of people who had once reviled him for his role in the dismissal" of the Whitlam Labor government.

Last May, Fraser and Simons won $50,000 in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards for their book. The judges specifically praised Fraser's "moral leadership" on several political causes favoured by the left intelligentsia.

Yet Fraser's repetitive memoirs are absolutely littered with factual errors, and numerous key moments in his political life are omitted or glossed over. For example, Fraser claims he has won four elections, retained Gough Whitlam's Medibank universal health insurance scheme and always supported immigration. All claims are inaccurate, perhaps due to Fraser's acknowledgement that he has a "notoriously fallible" memory.

I wrote up a list of the errors in the Fraser/Simons book for the July 2010 The Sydney Institute Quarterly. Neither the authors nor the publisher has challenged this critique. Reviewing Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs, Michael Sexton said, "there is too much rose-coloured light in this account". Yet the co-authors walked away with $50,000 of taxpayers' money, along with much praise from the left.

The Melbourne Writers Festival is now under way. There are many leftist and left-of-centre types on the program but barely a conservative writer or commentator. For example, the session on essay writing will hear the views of only Richard Flanagan, Marieke Hardy and Robert Manne.

In Victoria, the Coalition replaced Labor in office in November last year. However, the political complexion of taxpayer-funded literary festivals never seems to change.

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Nurses gagged, afraid of management

NURSES at Victorian hospitals are gagged from speaking out against violence perpetrated against them at work and fear management, an inquiry has heard.

Dandenong Hospital emergency department nurse Leslie Graham said she suffers either physical or verbal abuse at work about every second day.

Ms Graham told a parliamentary inquiry into security at the state's hospitals that, in addition to verbal aggression, she and her colleagues get bitten, punched and slapped and have objects thrown at them.

"We have people ... pull their IVs out and throw blood-stained cannulas, sharps, any kind of weapon they can get their hands on, chairs, at the nursing staff," she said yesterday.

"You just press your duress (alarm) and run away."

Ms Graham said despite frequently being subjected to violence she had never reported it to police because she thought it would cause issues with management.

"If I had a serious issue against myself I would report that to the police, but I know that a lot of people are afraid of the management of different hospitals," she said.

"(A nurse who) got strangled never reported it to the police, and we weren't allowed to make any of the public aware of the violence that we ... come up against because then we could end up in court."

Ms Graham said the design of the new $25 million emergency ward at the hospital, which is run by Southern Health, also contributed to violence against staff. There were instances where staff were backed into corners and unmonitored corridors, she said. "We have just had a brand-new emergency department that has been designed and built not by anyone who has ever worked in an emergency department," Ms Graham said.

The inquiry, held by state parliament's drugs and crime prevention committee, was ordered by Police Minister Peter Ryan after criticism of the coalition's pre-election promise to station armed guards at emergency wards.

Ms Graham said armed guards would not help the situation at her hospital and there needed to be more unarmed security staff instead of just one guard working between 6pm and 3am.

Royal Children's Hospital emergency department nurse Peter Sloman said although the hospital's new facility was more secure, there were still design problems.

The hospital's director of emergency services Simon Young said he did not support the introduction of armed guards.

Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) Victorian branch assistant secretary Paul Gilbert said the $21 million the government had pledged for 120 armed guards could fund an extra 235 full-time nurses in emergency departments.

ANF Victoria occupational health and safety coordinator Kathy Chrisfield said introducing armed guards into emergency departments would simply create another hazard.

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29 August, 2011

Liberals say labour laws are adding to the manufacturing sector's dollar woes

LIBERALS have laid the blame for recent manufacturing job losses on Labor and the unions, saying Julia Gillard's re-regulation of the labour market has left the economy unable to cope with emerging challenges.

As the Prime Minister meets with union leaders in Canberra today to discuss the future of manufacturing, Liberal backbenchers seized on calls by Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens for a renewed focus on productivity.

Queensland backbencher Steven Ciobo said Labor had choked labour market flexibility through its Fair Work Act. “The fact is, the proof is in the pudding,” he said. “The re-regulation of the workforce is costing Aussie jobs. As far as I am concerned the 1000 lost jobs at BlueScope last week lie right at the feet of Labor and the unions. “With the high Aussie dollar we need to be even more competitive than our trading partners.”

South Australian backbencher Jamie Briggs said the Australian economy was suffering under the “toxic combination” of a re-regulated labour market and a soaring dollar.

He said Mr Stevens' call for a review of industrial relations laws followed similar advice from the Productivity Commission, the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Industry Group.

“Every galah in the pet shop is now saying labour market re-regulation is causing damage to the economy,” he said. “Of course, it absolutely has to be. And it is.” “I think we are going to see, unfortunately, sadly, a lot of job losses between now a Christmas.”

The endorsement of Mr Stevens' position came as the nation's most senior unionist lashed the Reserve Bank governor as “misinformed and out of touch with working Australians and the real economy”.

ACTU president Ged Kearney has also attacked the composition of the RBA board, saying it was too narrowly focused on business and “captive to the top end of town”.

The manufacturing sector has been undergoing a painful period of restructuring as the soaring Australian dollar leaves many exporters struggling to compete with offshore rivals.

BlueScope Steel, which announced 1400 job losses in the past fortnight, blamed its plight squarely on the value of the dollar.

Ms Gillard last week said BlueScope was confronting a number of pressures, none of them related to the industrial relations environment. “The Australian steel industry is facing a unique set of challenges, including a high Australian dollar, continued weak domestic demand, higher raw material prices and excess supply in international steel markets,” Ms Gillard said.

But Mr Briggs said the rigid workplace relations environment made it harder for employers to put on staff at the same time as they were hammered by the effects of the two-speed economy.

“You've got this perverse situation where I've got small businesses in my electorate saying `how can you even be thinking about lifting interest rates?' “But the numbers (Glenn Stevens) is looking at are saying he has to start to think about it. And you've got an international environment that's all over the shop.

“The worst thing you could do in that situation is re-regulate the labour market. But of course that's what the Labor Party has done, and they won't listen to anyone.”

The opposition's industrial relations spokesman Eric Abetz recently called for a review of Labor's Fair Work Act to be fast-tracked, after the Productivity Commission urged fresh industrial relations reforms to aid the struggling retail sector.

But Opposition leader Tony Abbott is wary of pushing too hard on the issue, fearing a WorkChoices-style backlash by Labor and the union movement.

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Homosexual marriage bad for children

A BIGOT is someone who refuses to see the other point of view. Articles by Peter van Onselen and James Valentine in The Weekend Australian smeared opponents of gay marriage as bigots, yet both men refuse to see the other point of view -- and that means the point of view of the child.

Marriage is fundamentally about the needs of children, writes David Blankenhorn, a supporter of gay rights in the US who nevertheless draws the line at same-sex marriage. Redefining marriage to include gay and lesbian couples would eliminate entirely in law, and weaken still further in culture, the basic idea of a mother and a father for every child.

Here is the heart of opposition to same-sex marriage: that it means same-sex parenting, and same-sex parenting means that a child must miss out on either a mother or a father.

Marriage is a compound right under Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; it is not only the right to an exclusive relationship, but the right to form a family. Therefore gay marriage includes the right to form a family by artificial reproduction but any child created within that marriage would have no possibility of being raised by both mother and father.

Obviously there are tragic situations where a child cannot have both a mum and a dad, such as the death or desertion of a parent, but that is not a situation we would ever wish upon a child, and that is not a situation that any government should inflict upon a child.

Yet legalising same-sex marriage will inflict that deprivation on a child. That is why it is wrong, and that is why all laws are wrong that permit single people or same-sex couples to obtain a child by IVF, surrogacy, or adoption.

Take Penny Wong, for example, as van Onselen did. She is an effective politician, but she can never be a dad to a little boy. She and her partner tell us they have created a baby who will have no father, only a mother and another woman. Their assertion is that a dad does not matter to a child.

As ethicist Margaret Somerville wrote in these pages, such assertions force us to choose between giving priority to children's rights or to homosexual adults' claims. Yet trivial arguments frame the gay marriage debate solely in terms of the emotional needs of adults, ignoring the child's point of view.

Such adult-centred narcissism raises the wider question: if gender no longer matters in marriage, why should number? If marriage is all about adults who love each other, by what rational principle should three adults who love each other not be allowed to marry? Academic defenders of polyamory are asking that question, and no doubt van Onselen will soon be slurring opponents of polyamory as binary bigots.

While warm, fuzzy writers such as Valentine can imagine no possible harm to society from gay marriage, the serious minds behind the movement occasionally let us glimpse their wider purpose. US activist Michelangelo Signorile urges gays to fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely. He sees same-sex marriage as the final tool with which to get education about homosexuality and AIDS into public schools.

Sure enough, we now have empirical evidence that normalising gay marriage means normalising homosexual behaviour for public school children.

Following the November 2003 court decision in Massachusetts to legalise gay marriage, school libraries were required to stock same-sex literature; primary school children were given homosexual fairy stories such as King & King; some high school students were even given an explicit manual of homosexual advocacy entitled The Little Black Book: Queer in the 21st Century, which the Massachusetts Department of Health helped develop. Education had to comply with the new normal.

Beyond the confusion and corruption of schoolchildren, the cultural consequences of legalising same-sex marriage include the stifling of conscientious freedom. Again in Massachusetts, when adoption agency Catholic Charities was told it would have to place children equally with married homosexuals, it had to close. As Canadian QC and lesbian activist Barbara Findlay said, "The legal struggle for queer rights will one day be a showdown between freedom of religion versus sexual orientation". Blankenhorn warned, "Once this proposed reform became law, even to say the words out loud in public -- every child needs a father and a mother -- would probably be viewed as explicitly divisive and discriminatory, possibly even as hate speech."

Our parliament must say these words out loud, because they are bedrock sanity, and must accept that the deep things of human nature are beyond the authority of any political party to tamper with.

Marriage is not a fad to be cut to shape according to social whim. The father of modern anthropology, Claude Levi-Strauss, called marriage a social institution with a biological foundation. Marriage throughout history is society's effort to reinforce this biological reality: male, female, offspring. All our ceremonies and laws exist to buttress nature helping bind a man to his mate for the sake of the child they might create.

Not all marriages do create children but typically they do, and the institution exists for the typical case of marriage. Homosexual relations cannot create children or provide a child with natural role models; such relations are important to the individuals involved, and demand neighbourly civility, but they do not meet nature's job description for marriage.

As van Onselen notes, homosexual couples now enjoy equality with male-female couples in every way short of marriage. It must stop short of marriage, because the demands of adults must end where the birthright of a child begins. Marriage and family formation are about about something much deeper than civil equality; they are about a natural reality which society did not create and which only a decadent party such as the Greens, so out of touch with nature, would seek to destroy.

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Victorian Police have power to demand Muslim women remove face veils

VICTORIAN police have the power to demand that Muslim women remove face veils, the State Government has ruled. And anyone who refuses to show their face can be arrested, a review of the Crimes Act has found.

The Herald Sun revealed in July that the Baillieu Government was seeking legal advice following a move in NSW to introduce special laws which meant people refusing to remove a burqa at police request faced up to a year in jail.

Police Minister Peter Ryan sought advice on the state of the current law from the Victoria Police and Department of Justice - finding police are already empowered to issue the order.

The ruling means Victorian police may make the demand of motorists when checking licences, or of those suspected of crime. There are no exceptions in the law for niqabs or other religious garb, balaclavas or motorcycle helmets.

"The Victorian Government has decided that the current laws are adequate and there is no current need for proposed changes to legislation," spokeswoman Justine Sywak said yesterday. "The Victorian Government will monitor the NSW legislation once it comes into effect."

The review came after a Sydney judge quashed a six-month jail sentence given to a burqa-wearing Sydney mother of seven, Carnita Matthews, who falsely accused a policeman of forcibly trying to remove her headdress.

A summary of the Victorian Government's legal advice, seen by the Herald Sun, shows that the law requires the face to be seen to verify identity.

"Current broad Victorian legislative powers are sufficient to allow police to request a person remove headwear for identification purposes," it says.

Under the Crimes Act, if a person is suspected of committing a crime, police may ask for name and address details. In order to be able to identify the person at a subsequent court appearance, the police officer needs to see the person's face once.

"This would therefore require a person to remove their headwear," the summary says. "If a person refuses to reveal their face, the police currently arrest the person until they can prove their identity."

The same rule applies to motorists. "Police must establish that the person whose name and image appear on the licence is in fact the person holding the licence," the summary says.

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Leftist antisemites meet opposition

PEOPLE brave enough to venture out into the wet at Brisbane's South Bank yesterday found themselves caught in the crossfire of very abusive protesters.

What started out as a protest against chocolate store Max Brenner turned into a heated face-off with those who turned out to support the company.

Pitted against each other outside the chocolate shop, the two opposing groups screamed at each other for 45 minutes before police moved one of the groups on.

The aim of the protesters, made up of the Socialist Alternative and the Justice for Palestine groups, was to highlight the support of Max Brenner's parent company, the Strauss Group, for the Israeli military and its sale of provisions to it.

Chanting "Max Brenner, come off it; there's blood in your chocolate", the group held up placards accusing Max Brenner of supporting apartheid.

The counter-protesters, made up of students, Israeli community members and politicians, screamed at their opponents: "Go home, Nazis!"

Logan City councillor Hajnal Black was repeatedly restrained by police as she pushed through the barricade line yelling: "We don't want Nazis in this country!"

There was a big police presence at the protest yesterday after a demonstration outside a Max Brenner store in Melbourne last month led to 19 arrests and three police officers being injured.

A law student, Danielle Keys, organised the student contingent of counter-protesters on Facebook after seeing footage of the Melbourne protest.

"I don't have a particularly strong opinion either way on Israel or Palestine. What's more important is dealing with freedom of enterprise and freedom of association and freedom of religion in this country," Ms Keys said.

"This is really about the innate anti-Semitic attitudes of extremist groups like the Socialist Alternative. We're all turning up to say, 'No, in Australia we support tolerance.' "

The Queensland Liberal National Party senator, Ron Boswell, said Max Brenner was a popular and "legitimate business" that should not be targeted in this way. "I think it's absolutely outrageous," he said. "I don't mind if people don't want to buy Max Brenner chocolates, but there shouldn't be pickets and intimidation and rallies to stop people.

"I think people that are trying to hit it with a boycott and picketing it, particularly a Jewish business, reminds me of some of the things that happened in the early 1930s."

The Socialist Alternative website says protesters will target Max Brenner Chocolates because it is owned by the Israeli-based Strauss Group.

It says the corporate responsibility section of Strauss Group's website – since amended – pledged the company's support to the Israeli army, including providing soldiers with food for training and missions.

The Socialist Alternative says the company has supported a platoon "infamous for its involvement in the 2006 invasion of Lebanon and other atrocities".

Senator Boswell, who spoke about the boycotts issue in Federal Parliament last week, said the protest was driven by the "super-left".

He said anyone wishing to protest on the issue should do so outside the Israeli embassy. "But don't pick on someone that comes to a chocolate shop; seriously, that's petty," he said.

SOURCE



28 August, 2011

Federal politicians unlikely to support homosexual "marriage"

THE mounting evidence is that the Greens-led "bandwagon" strategy to introduce same-sex marriage backed by wide sections of the Labor Party has provoked strong resistance and is unlikely to prevail in the current parliament.

In a conspicuously under-reported event this week 30 MPs reported to parliament on the earlier motion moved by Greens MP Adam Bandt for community consultation, with 20 signalling their rejection of same-sex marriage and only seven MPs giving support to change the marriage law.

While it cannot offer a definitive guide, the omens are apparent. The same-sex marriage campaign is running into heavy weather guaranteed to get worse. Senior Labor ministers pledged to the same-sex marriage cause concede it is most unlikely to pass this term. This means further polarisation around the issue with Greens spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young telling The Weekend Australian she will proceed next year with her bill and aims to get a co-signatory from both Labor and Liberal.

The battlelines are now entrenched. The Greens will not cease their campaign from one parliament to the next and have made this cause pivotal to their identity. The Labor Party is dangerously divided, probably for the long run, over same-sex marriage, with a strong push at the coming ALP national conference to change policy to a conscience vote.

And Tony Abbott, in response to questions, said he viewed the issue as a policy matter. That means the Coalition will vote against same-sex marriage on policy grounds without a conscience vote (individuals have the right to cross the floor). Abbott's is the critical decision.

Frankly, it is hard to see parliament legislating same-sex marriage while Abbott is Liberal leader. Hanson-Young said she believed the new law "is achievable this term" but her proviso was a Coalition conscience vote.

Parliamentary sentiment at present would be opposed, with enough Labor MPs joining the overwhelming numbers on the Coalition side to vote against same-sex marriage. Despite the bandwagon effect driven by the gay lobby, the Greens, Get Up! and media organs led by the ABC and The Age arguing that religious prejudice is the main roadblock, a parliamentary majority may prove more difficult into the future than many assume.

There is, however, no doubt that opinion has moved and moved fast. This week's reports to parliament reveal strong backing for same-sex civil union recognition, notably from the Coalition side. This was simply not the case several years ago. The reality is that civil union recognition is there for the taking, but what was once seen as a significant advance for the same-sex cause is now largely dismissed as inadequate because the over-arching ideological goal has become same-sex marriage. Only time will tell whether this constitutes a serious tactical blunder.

Consider the position of former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull, one of the most socially progressive Liberals in the parliament. He is sympathetic to the same-sex cause, repeatedly urges his constituents to push for civil unions but stops short of advocating same-sex marriage.

The politics are long familiar but rarely learned: with the Labor primary vote less than 30 per cent this issue, like the republic or indigenous recognition, can be carried only by winning some conservative support. Yet the campaign from the Greens, Get Up! and much of the same-sex lobby only alienates conservatives. Anybody who doubts this should read this week's speeches from a range of Liberal, National and Labor MPs. These people, having voted in recent years to remove more than 80 items of discrimination against same-sex couples and being willing to back civil unions, are unimpressed at being branded as homophobic or religious nuts because they think marriage is a union between a man and a woman.

Within the Labor Party, the dawn of political realism is arriving. The past year has seen a succession of journalists and celebrities telling Labor as a "no-brainer" to back same-sex marriage. Indeed, a number of state ALP conferences have called for the ALP at the national level to change its policy. It is now obvious, however, that same-sex marriage is a flammable issue for a weakened Labor government. Julia Gillard has been aware of this from the start.

The first risk for Labor is that it will be seen, yet again, as following the Greens agenda, a perception now poison in the electorate. The second risk is that Labor would elevate an issue on which the party is irrevocably divided. How smart is that? If the ALP national conference backed same-sex marriage, as many want, the Labor Party would split because a significant number of MPs would not accept such direction on their vote. In addition, this policy switch would constitute such a repudiation of Gillard's declared personal opposition to same-sex marriage that it would shake her leadership. The idea is political madness. That it has been entertained for so long within so much of the Labor Party and its forums is a commentary on its present malaise.

The conscience vote alternative will anger both sides but its sponsors, such as senior minister Anthony Albanese, a backer of same-sex marriage, seek to defuse and manage Labor's divisions while striking a formula that can be presented as allowing the parliament to legislate same-sex marriage in future years. An interesting feature of the debate is that the Labor Left, like the Greens, has moved beyond civil union recognition and will accept only same-sex marriage as the goal.

This week Bandt said the "report back" debate was a "very important step along the road to full equality". He said the universal sentiment in feedback to him was: why shouldn't someone marry the person they love?

Yet sentiments reported by MPs varied widely according to the disposition of the local member and the electorate with huge differences, for example, between Melbourne and Bundaberg. Bandt said yesterday with only 30 MPs involved the numbers were "not necessarily an accurate poll" of parliament's stand.

More HERE




Queensland police will no longer investigate their own as more power handed to CMC

But why the 2 year delay?

CIVILIAN teams will be in charge of investigating rogue police under sweeping reforms that will stop Queensland police from eyeballing their own.

The biggest shake-up to the police disciplinary system in decades will give the crime watchdog more power, public complaints will be dealt with more quickly and the police executive will no longer be able to delay an officer's sacking.

Business cases will be developed for a surveillance unit to spy on police accused of serious crimes and alcohol and drug-testing for officers.

The Bligh Government's response to an independent report into the police disciplinary system, exclusively obtained by The Sunday Mail, has ordered the new policies be implemented by 2013.

Almost 3000 complaints were made against police in 2009-10.

Premier Anna Bligh said 56 of the independent panel's 57 recommendations would be supported or supported in principle. "Our response to the independent expert panel outlines a new regime that will make the police complaints system simpler, more effective, more transparent and stronger," she said.

Civilians, such as lawyers, will take the blowtorch to serious misconduct inquiries and, in some cases, police officers from interstate may be used. The reforms also include:

* Police will no longer be able to be cautioned or reprimanded and will either be punished or have to undergo further training.

* Local stations will no longer be able to investigate lower-level complaints and a new regional complaints team will be established.

* The CMC will be able to override decisions by assistant commissioners. [Not the Commissioner?]


SOURCE






Barnaby

No one within a 100-kilometre radius of Barnaby Joyce will ever die wondering what he thinks. The Queensland Nationals' senator is happy to give his opinion on everything and will answer whatever question he is asked. Loudly and expansively.

During dinner he holds forth on a range of topics, including men in Parliament (too politically correct); life on the road (lonely); government debt (too big); Coalition leaders, past and present (loquacious and kind, respectively); Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights (moving); gay marriage (strongly opposed) and the biological clock of his interviewer (ticking).

Some opinions were solicited, others weren't. All were given in a spirit of warmth and honesty.

Joyce wanted to have lunch in his home town of St George, Queensland, 500 kilometres inland from Brisbane, but the distance and scheduling proved too difficult.

Instead, we end up - during a parliamentary sitting week - at l'Unico in Kingston, south Canberra, a family-run Italian restaurant where Joyce comes to "chill out", often eating alone, when he's working in Canberra. He knows the proprietor by name and has a favourite table.

"I don't like it," he says of the amount of time he spends away from his wife and four daughters, aged between nine and 15.

"I worked out last year I spent 200 days on the road and in Parliament. I spent more days on the road than anyone else in the Coalition … it's not a natural life."

The reason, he says, is that he is so often asked to appear at rallies, fund-raisers and sundry political events.

People know he can pull a crowd. His peculiar mix of down-home country blokedom, combined with his lively intelligence and tub-thumping oratory, never fails to entertain, even if his logic can be difficult to follow at times.

Conversation with Joyce jumps from topic to topic. He speaks quickly and his mind moves fast. While trying to make a point he will pepper you with questions about your own opinions and he can be confrontational. But once his point is made, he moves on swiftly.

We order a calabrese pizza to start, and a bottle of cabernet sauvignon. For main course, we share another pizza, a capricciosa.

Joyce says he puts up with the difficulties of life on the road because he is driven by the kind of issues where he thinks people are "going to get ripped off", such as the rights of farmers versus coal seam gas miners; the proposed carbon tax; the duopoly of Coles and Woolworths, and foreign ownership of Australian companies.

Joyce always wanted to be a politician. At primary school he told classmates he wanted to be prime minister ("I've lowered my sights a bit since then") and at secondary school he recorded his aspiration to be a "grazier/politician".

He attributes this early interest in politics to his childhood in rural NSW. His parents were well-educated and opinionated, as were his four brothers and sister. "You weren't surrounded by fools, so your debate had to stand on legs or you would fail miserably," he says.

"I was growing up on the land and you're very affected by politics. How wool was classed, it's a government decision. Services that were provided to you, it's a government decision. If industrial relations' provisions meant people were on strike all day so you couldn't move your produce, it's all government policy.

"So the discussion around the dinner table is a charged political discussion. From a very young age you're inspired by it. If all the problems are political, than a good place to be would be in politics, so you can change it."

Joyce, a commerce graduate from the University of New England, was working for a bank in Charleville in south-west Queensland when he walked next door to join the National Party in 1994. He became active at branch level, eventually rising to acting treasurer of the Queensland Nationals, and had three cracks at a Senate seat before winning at the 2004 election - reclaiming the seat the Nationals lost to One Nation in 1998.

Once elected, Joyce was far from docile. He soon established a reputation for being independent or recalcitrant, depending on your point of view. He crossed the floor "about 28" times, by his own count, on issues as diverse as voluntary student unionism and trade practices' legislation. He fought with the former prime minister John Howard over the government's treatment of accused terrorist David Hicks.

His independence made him deeply unpopular with some in the Coalition. How did he cope? "Anger," he says, "and you try to just say, 'I don't give a shit'. You have dinner by yourself and lunch by yourself."

Many conservative politicians deride the independent rural MPs Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor for forming minority government with Labor, despite what they say are the wishes of their electorates.

How did Joyce justify crossing the floor so many times, given he was elected to represent the Nationals? "You've got two angels that sit on your shoulder," he says of his decision-making process. One says, 'It's not about you, you've got to play the team game'. The other angel says, 'You know what is right, you're being a coward. Stand up for yourself and say what you really think.' Twenty-eight times, that's the angel that won the argument."

He says he would cross the floor again, although he would resign his shadow portfolio if he did (he is spokesman for regional development, infrastructure and water, having lost the shadow finance portfolio in a reshuffle in 2010).

This is less likely under a Tony Abbott-led opposition. "Tony is a very decent human being," he says. "Sometimes I get annoyed that the general public don't actually see what I think are the qualities of the person. He is genuinely a kind person … he's a fighter, he's disciplined but he's not a nasty person."

Asked his opinion of the former Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull, Joyce becomes uncharacteristically careful. "I don't talk about people's bad sides. I talk about their good," he says. "Malcolm is loquacious, is charming, he's intelligent and he's strong."

Not kind? "No. It's not an attribute he has. There's no point endowing a person with an attribute they don't have, otherwise you make a mockery of all the attributes you just gave them."

Joyce's honesty extends to himself. He wants to lead the Nationals but says he would never challenge the incumbent, Warren Truss.

He plans to run for a lower house seat at the next election, either in his adopted home state of Queensland, or against Windsor in New England, where he grew up and attended university.

As a former accountant Joyce holds strong opinions on debt and gets very exercised when it is suggested Australia's deficit is (globally) a comparatively low percentage of its gross domestic product.

He pulls out his smartphone to access the Office of Financial Management's website and shows the "big black number" that represents federal government debt. He delivers a long speech about the sorts of people who used to come to his office when he was a humble rural accountant, who were about to lose their shirts because of onerous debts, side-tracking to talk about the sorts of people who think an Amway scheme is going to make them rich.

"People are suckers," he says emphatically when asked how this relates to Labor's deficit, "especially when you get people who listen to the spin and believe it. The only way you can see it is to rise above the issue and really think about it."

As much as he disbelieves Labor's promise to return the budget to surplus in 2013, and no matter how idiotic he considers many of their policies, not least the carbon tax, he still likes the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, as a person. "Oh yeah, I'd be only too happy to sit next to her on a plane and have a yarn," he says. "I find her warm and engaging. I've got her phone number [but] … I think she's struggling in finding her soul. Now she's isolated and under the pump.

"My job in the political arena - not in the personal arena, but in the political arena - is to bring her down. She knows that. "You play a hard game on the field; you're out to win. But you don't play football in the change rooms. As soon as you walk out the door you treat people civilly."

When not metaphorically tackling his political opponents, Joyce likes to bushwalk. He loves botany and becomes rapt and quasi-spiritual when talking about nature, or the way the English landscape artist John Constable painted clouds. He listens to the Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Buckley.

He loves to spend time with his family, and reading. He has just read Empire by the British historian Niall Ferguson; he loves T.E. Lawrence and poetry (he singles out Alfred Tennyson and Sylvia Plath).

He finds fiction "frustrating" but recently read Wuthering Heights. Did he like it? "I couldn't stop crying. I was hopeless," he says. It's impossible to know if he's joking or not.

SOURCE




'Second-chance crime wave' in Victoria as 884 offenders freed and then commit 4177 crimes

VICTORIA Police is concerned that suspected violent criminals are being freed by the courts - despite facing serious charges - and then allegedly committing murder, rape and armed robbery.

An investigation by the Sunday Herald Sun has revealed 6096 suspects were granted bail last year and then went into hiding, missing the date of their court hearing. And, before arrest warrants for failing to appear in court were executed, 884 of them went on to commit an alleged 4117 new offences.

But Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius said there were "clear expectations" on officers to remand anyone in custody who posed a risk to society or was a risk of absconding and he was "confident" this was done in all police cases. "Ultimately, it's the court's decision and sometimes the courts don't go our way," Mr Cornelius said.

"There are times when we are concerned because of the risk to the public. There are plenty of cases where it might be said they've (the courts) got it wrong."

But Chief Magistrate Ian Gray hit back, suggesting police may have let some of the bail-jumpers go. "Offending while on bail is a serious issue and the decision to grant bail is made carefully," Mr Gray said. "It's not clear from these figures how many of these are police bails or court bails - but where it's shown in court that an offender poses an unacceptable risk of reoffending bail will be denied.

"Courts are obliged to apply the law. There is a presumption in favour of granting bail unless an accused needs to show cause or show exceptional circumstances."

Mr Cornelius cited the release of captured drug kingpin Tony Mokbel, who subsequently fled to Greece while on bail and was on the run for more than a year before being rearrested and extradited back to Melbourne. "I hope that Mokbel would be one case that would provide a source of reflection for our judicial colleagues," he said.

The statistics were obtained under Freedom of Information requests over several months. Police would not reveal the identities of the alleged murderer and other criminals who reoffended while at large.

Mr Cornelius revealed a newly published six-month performance report flagged outstanding warrants as an issue and that police statewide would now be conducting regular operations. "If a suspect has made a decision to skip bail and not turn up to court it's likely they have also made arrangements to go to ground and not be found," Mr Cornelius said, explaining why suspects were not located straight away.

"The volume of warrants is going up because courts are dishing out more each day, while we are still trying to find the ones we already have. It's on our radar. Our focus is on outstanding warrants and we need to pay a great deal of attention to it."

All officers are notified of a warrant if they happen to stop a person for any reason and run a check on their name.

The police's job becomes harder if the suspect moves to another suburb, interstate or even overseas. "The impetus and motivation is very much there to catch everyone who is wanted on a warrant," Mr Cornelius said. "For every crime there is a victim and if we don't have the accused there is a victim out there not getting justice. "The 4117 figure is a number that serves a reminder to Victoria Police to pay attention to this matter."

The Justice Department refused to comment on the issue this week after being asked on Wednesday.

SOURCE



27 August, 2011

Leftist antisemites in Brisbane too



It may be a popular haven for chocolate lovers but the Max Brenner store at Brisbane’s South Bank will also attract anti-Israel protesters today.

A Queensland senator last night branded a planned rally outside the Israeli company-owned chocolate cafe as “absolutely ridiculous”.

The Socialist Alternative and the Justice for Palestine groups are among those urging protesters to march to the store at 1pm, highlighting the parent company’s support for the Israel military which campaigners accuse of human rights abuses.

The website of the Socialist Alternative promotes the Max Brenner protest with the title: “Boycott Apartheid Israel! Boycott Max Brenner!”

Queensland Liberal National Party Senator Ron Boswell said Max Brenner was a popular and “legitimate business” that should not be targeted in this way. “I think it’s absolutely outrageous,” he said. “I don’t mind if people don’t want to buy Max Brenner chocolates but there shouldn’t be pickets and intimidation and rallies to stop people [visiting freely]. “I think people that are trying to hit it with a boycott and picketing it, particularly a Jewish business, reminds me of some of the things that happened in the early 1930s.”

The Socialist Alternative could not be reached for comment yesterday. A phone number listed on the website was not working and an email to the Brisbane office went unanswered yesterday.

However, the Socialist Alternative website says protesters will target Max Brenner Chocolates because it is owned by the Israeli-based Strauss Group. It says the corporate responsibility section of Strauss Group’s website – since amended – pledged the company’s support to the Israeli army, including providing soldiers with food for training and missions.

Socialist Alternative says the company has supported a platoon “infamous for its involvement in the 2006 invasion of Lebanon and other atrocities”.

In a statement issued earlier this week, Justice for Palestine activist Kathy Newnam said the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement aimed to bring an end to occupation of Arab lands. “When people know the truth then they will support the BDS Movement, just as people in Australia supported the boycotts and sanctions against apartheid South Africa,” she said, backing the Max Brenner protest.

Senator Boswell, who spoke about the boycotts issue in Federal Parliament this week, said the protest was driven by the “super-left”. He said anyone wishing to protest on the issue should do so outside the Israeli embassy. “But don’t pick on someone that comes to a chocolate shop; seriously, that’s petty,” he said.

Max Brenner Australia’s media relations company was contacted for comment, but did not provide a response.

The Brisbane store opened late last year. It is understood a Brisbane conservative student leader is organising a counter-protest in support of Max Brenner today.

It is not the first time Max Brenner’s chocolate cafes have been targeted by protesters complaining about Israel’s human rights abuses. A protest outside a Max Brenner store in Melbourne last month reportedly led to up 19 arrests and three police officer injuries.

The Victorian Government asked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to examine whether the protest breached federal laws, causing “substantial loss or damage” to the Max Brenner business.

Proponents of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel say it is designed to make a legitimate political point about human rights.

But the issue has caused tensions within the Australian Greens. New NSW Senator Lee Rhiannon supports the campaign but Federal Greens leader Bob Brown says the federal party does not officially back it.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd last month sat down for a coffee at Max Brenner Melbourne to voice his opposition to the boycott. “As an individual citizen - that is me, K. Rudd - I am here because I object to the boycotting of Jewish businesses,” he said at the time.

SOURCE




Taxpayers fund $20 million court fees for asylum seekers

MORE than $20 million has been spent on legal fees for asylum seekers in the past year, with the cost expected to hit $26 million in 2012.

The taxpayer-funded service providing legal advice and help with visa applications spends about $175,000 on every boat that hits Australian waters.

But the border protection legal bills, released by the Department of Immigration, do not include money spent by the Government fighting court appeals by asylum seekers.

The department revealed $19.4 million was spent through the Immigration Advice and Application Assistance Scheme to provide 6523 illegal arrivals with free legal advice and help with visas in 2010-11.

The law firm run by David Manne, fighting the Government's Malaysia policy in the High Court, is also one of the Government's approved providers under the IAAAS - introduced by the Howard government in 1997.

The department expected the cost of legal advice to asylum seekers to be $26 million in 2012 because of "projected numbers of cases as a result of the High Court decision of November 11, 2010".

The High Court last year found two Sri-Lankan asylum seekers held on Christmas Island were denied procedural fairness.

The Government has been accused of running "air asylum" after spending $37.5 million on refugee transport in the past year while thousands throw away passports before boarding boats to Australia.

Figures show about 99 per cent of asylum seekers, who need passports to fly into Indonesia, arrive by boat without documents. In the past three years 4949 of 5003 who flew into Indonesia arrived in Australia without paperwork.

SOURCE





Review industrial relations laws to stop decline, says top official

RESERVE Bank governor Glenn Stevens has called for a review of Julia Gillard's industrial relations laws, warning that Australia's prosperity is making the country lazy about productivity reform.

Addressing the House of Representatives economics committee in Melbourne yesterday, Mr Stevens said he did not expect the world economy to enter a new downturn and added that the bank would hold interest rates steady until clear evidence emerged of the effect on consumer and business spending of recent turmoil on the markets.

However, he said persistent inflation at a time when much of the economy was slowing made the Reserve Bank's task more difficult. He laid the blame on rising business costs caused by weak productivity.

"We do tend when times are good not to press as hard on some of those reforms as we might," Mr Stevens said.

"I don't think there's any doubt that the period of maximum focus on productivity-enhancing reforms was in the period when the banana republic issues were debated," he added, referring to Paul Keating's years as treasurer in the 1980s.

"We felt we had to do it better and we did do it. It perhaps proves harder to do that when affluence has been better for a period of time."

Mr Stevens said the government had a ready source of advice on what to do from the Productivity Commission. Its agenda included the efficient pricing of utilities and infrastructure, improving competition, reducing inefficient regulation and reforming zoning and planning rules.

However, pressed by Coalition and government members on the committee, Mr Stevens said the business people he spoke to believed that the government's industrial relations reforms, imposed to replace the Howard government's Work Choices regime, had reduced the flexibility of the workforce.

"They might be wrong in their assessment of the system, but I think there are people who feel that," Mr Stevens said. "If they are wrong, then it would be good to get the heads together and show how the system is actually very flexible, because I think there are people whose instinct is that it has gone back the other way.

"While I do not have a silver-bullet policy to fix the problem, I can do no other than say as a public official that we should be giving careful consideration to these matters but, by all means, on as rigorous evidence as we can find."

The Prime Minister yesterday defended her record on productivity, including dumping Work Choices. She said that rather than compete with the world on low wages and conditions, "I put in place a plan to compete with the world on knowledge and skills . . . to unlock the real drivers of future productivity."

Delivering a speech in Canberra last night, Ms Gillard said Australia's economy was drawing strength from the rapid growth in Asia, while the turmoil in Europe and the US was making Australia a more attractive destination for foreign investment.

Although the resulting rise in the value of the Australian dollar was putting pressure on many export industries, she said, calls for protectionism must be resisted. "Our challenge, as exposure to the global market grows, is to build new capability which allows us to prosper."

She cited the National Broadband Network and national training programs as examples.

Mr Stevens said the best time to tackle productivity reform was a period such as now, when export prices were strong.

He said that, although the gap between the high- and low-performing parts of the economy was getting wider, the benefits of the resources boom were being spread broadly.

"I know that people say they do not feel the effects of the mining boom - not everybody feels it directly, that is quite clear - but these income flows do flow around the economy," he said. Reserve Bank estimates show that of every additional dollar of mining revenue, 10c goes on local wages, 25c is spent on buying domestic services, between 15c and 20c goes to the state and federal governments in royalties and company tax, and Australian shareholders get between 5c and 10c.

The Reserve Bank expected that China and the rest of Asia would continue to enjoy good growth, despite the economic problems in Europe and the US.

However, if Australia did encounter a new downturn the budget would automatically fall deeper into deficit and this would help to stabilise the economy. "Let us suppose you saw weaker than expected activity and the budget took longer to go to surplus, that would be the automatic stabilisers working," Mr Stevens said. "There is nothing particularly wrong with that, actually. "Most countries and most economists, I think, would accept that."

He rejected a suggestion from the Coalition's Steven Ciobo that this would lead to higher interest rates. "Are we going to go and jack up rates were that to occur? No, I do not think so," Mr Stevens said.

He said discretionary stimulus spending, such as that embarked on in 2008 and 2009, should only be used at times of extreme crisis.

He added it would be futile for the Reserve Bank to try to lower the value of the Australian dollar.

SOURCE




Labor Party sagging in Queensland too

CAMPBELL Newman is riding a growing wave of anger and discontent with the Bligh Government that threatens to wipe out Labor at the looming state election.

A new Galaxy Poll, conducted exclusively for The Courier-Mail, has revealed the Liberal National Party is cruising towards an election victory with Labor slipping back to the position it held before the summer's disasters.

Not even the Greens will be able to help Labor MPs over the line with the minor party's vote stagnant for the past 12 months.

The results will severely deflate Anna Bligh and her acolytes who have thrown everything at trying to damage Mr Newman and his unorthodox bid to become premier from outside of Parliament.

According to the poll of 800 Queenslanders this week, Labor's primary vote had slipped back to 28 per cent, a repeat of what it achieved in November which was a record low at the time.

The LNP remain on 52 per cent of the primary vote while the Greens hold 10 per cent.

Voters backing other parties and Independents rose to 10 per cent, an increase that could be linked to Bob Katter's new Australian Party.

On a two-party-preferred basis, the LNP holds the most dominant lead it has achieved all term against Ms Bligh's administration which has not recovered from the controversial asset sales.

The LNP's 63 per cent to 37 per cent lead would leave Labor with just 10 seats, less than what One Nation snared at the 1998 state election.

However, the poll shows neither side is considered appealing with more than half voting for a party because they dislike it least.

Sixty-four per cent of LNP voters favoured Mr Newman because they didn't like Labor, while 55 per cent of Ms Bligh's backers couldn't bring themselves to vote conservative.

The poll found Ms Bligh had suffered a rapid reversal of fortunes in the way voters had perceived her efforts since she was hailed as a hero for her handling of the summer's disasters. The number satisfied with her efforts had fallen to 40 per cent while the number dissatisfied rose to 56 per cent.

Mr Newman received an endorsement for his efforts from 55 per cent of voters while 28 per cent were unimpressed.

The former Brisbane lord mayor was also seen as a likely better premier with 55 per cent backing the LNP leader compared to Ms Bligh's 38 per cent.

SOURCE



26 August, 2011

Soft line spurred on people smugglers, says Kevin Rudd aide

A SENIOR Labor strategist admitted to US embassy officials as long ago as 2009 that Labor's decision to dismantle the Howard government's Pacific Solution was partly responsible for the resurgence of the people-smuggling trade.

A diplomatic cable sent from the US embassy in Canberra in the wake of a 2009 boat explosion off Ashmore Reef that killed five asylum-seekers, has provided a unique insight into Washington's take on the Australian asylum debate. The cable, released yesterday by WikiLeaks, said while the number of asylum-seekers venturing to Australia remained "relatively small", the numbers were rising steadily and that the asylum debate in Australia was "highly emotive".

"Border protection was widely credited as a major factor in the conservative Coalition's 2001 election victory," the cable states.

The cable quotes the views of a "leading ALP strategist" on what was causing the revival in boat arrivals, which dropped sharply after the Howard government introduced the "Pacific Solution" of offshore processing in Nauru and on Manus Island.

"A leading ALP strategist told Consulate Perth that he thought the increased incidence of asylum-seekers resulted from a combination of Australia's softer immigration policy and a global increase in refugee movements," the cable reports.

The views of the strategist, whose identity is not revealed, largely contradict the official government line at the time, which refused to acknowledge that the Rudd government's decision to dismantle the Pacific Solution and abolish temporary protection visas may have played some role in luring asylum-seekers.

Instead, then immigration minister Chris Evans attributed the revival of the smuggling trade to instability in source countries, such as Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

Citing briefings from Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, US embassy officials also describe the transformation of the people-smuggling scene, in particular the proliferation of smaller operators.

"Small, independent smugglers are replacing the larger operators in part because of Indonesia's success - bolstered by help and training from the Australian Federal Police and Australian Customs - in stopping the major people-smugglers, who exerted the most corrupting influence on the military, politicians and police," the cable says.

"Asylum-seekers have the money to pay/bribe the small providers, and the boats are leaving from many more coves and inlets than before, greatly complicating the coastguard's task."

The cable, dated April 17, 2009, was written a day after the explosion of an asylum-seeker boat near Ashmore Reef off the northwest coast of Australia. The blast occurred after asylum-seekers sabotaged the boat, pouring petrol into the bilges.

The cable paints a picture of the asylum debate as it stood in early 2009. It says the Coalition, at that point lagging "far behind" in the polls, was seeking to reignite the border security debate to emulate the success it had enjoyed in 2001.

But US officials played down the significance of the debate, which at that stage was just beginning to unfold. They said the economy, rather than border security, was "foremost in the minds of 'working families' " at the time.

"It is difficult to envisage Rudd significantly hardening immigration policy," the officials observe. "This would alienate the Left of his party, and possibly undermine Australia's bid for a UN Security Council seat."

The authors of the document even go so far as to say the issue could "backfire on the Coalition" by alienating Liberal moderates who were uncomfortable with the hardline stance of the Howard years.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said yesterday the WikiLeaks disclosures highlighted the government's culpability for the chaos their policy changes had wrought.

"For more than two years, the ALP has known that their soft policies were a pull factor drawing boats to Australia and doing nothing about it," Mr Morrison said.

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The gouge is on for NBN users

Henry Ergas

WHEN Ralph Willis announced his telecommunications reforms in 1989, he delivered immediate price reductions and a price cap under which prices would fall steadily in real terms. Willis's reforms ushered in a long period of productivity increases that allowed price declines up to the present day.

In contrast, it is now clear this government's national broadband network will involve a huge slug to consumers. Indeed, Australia will become the only advanced economy where telecommunications prices rise steadily over time.

That is, if NBN Co's proposed special access undertaking is accepted by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission.

Once approved, that SAU would determine the prices NBN Co could charge. And an NBN Co discussion paper shows those prices could be very steep indeed.

Inevitably, there is a sweetener. NBN Co proposes a five-year freeze on prices for basic services, followed by a further five years in which they would increase at half the consumer price index. But like many teaser rates, those promises hardly provide adequate protection.

To begin with, consumers will still face rising bills. This reflects an important difference between the NBN's proposed charges and current regulated prices. To rent Telstra's copper lines, competitors pay a flat fee, regardless of how much data their consumers transmit or receive.

But service providers will pay the NBN both a monthly fee and a volume-related charge, even though data volumes barely affect the NBN's line costs.

And according to NBN Co's corporate plan, average consumer usage grows 30 per cent a year. So even were the current price per bit kept constant, the average monthly usage payment to NBN Co per household would rise from $1 in 2013 to more than $100 in 2028.

Moreover, the truly high speed services, NBN's raison d'etre and the source of its touted social benefits, are excluded from the price freeze.

Charges for these and for business services would be allowed to rise by the inflation rate plus 5 per cent a year. This contrasts with Telstra's copper, whose price has fallen 7 per cent annually in real terms since 2000.

On top of that, NBN Co, whose early years will be a sea of red ink, proposes to roll forward losses; that is, accumulate them for later recovery. That is fine, but it wants to apply to that accumulating amount a cost of capital - effectively a compound interest rate - whose starting rate exceeds 20 per cent.

NBN Co would later be allowed to raise prices, including for basic service, to recover the total amount outstanding.

Another element then magnifies the scope this gives NBN Co to gouge future consumers. With Telstra, the ACCC defers depreciation costs to the network's later years and then effectively writes them off. But NBN Co's approach brings more of the depreciation charge up-front. That increases the early losses, tipping added dollars into the pool where they compound at those high interest rates.

To justify those high rates, NBN Co points to the returns an ordinary business would require. But ordinary businesses are not granted monopoly privileges, including exemptions from competition laws. Sure, NBN Co wants the high returns; but they reward risks the government has ensured NBN Co doesn't face.

Moreover, central to the government's case for the NBN was that it "would not need to make the rate of return that the telco sector is used to". "This project", Stephen Conroy promised, only requires "a modest return of 6 to 7 per cent". And no less an authority than Julia Gillard said a return a smidgen above the commonwealth bond rate would be "a viable rate of return" for the NBN, "recovering all its funding costs".

Yet NBN Co now wants to charge consumers on the basis of rates of return that start at seven times the bond rate, and that even when the network is fully mature, remain far above it.

Reconciling the government's repeated claims with NBN Co's ask must put the ACCC in a difficult position. And those difficulties are all the greater because the Garnaut report and now the NSW regulator argue that allowing government utilities returns well above the bond rate causes serious distortions, including over-investment. Tight controls, those reports say, are therefore needed to ensure those returns are only sought on investments that pass a strict cost-benefit test, so that consumers would freely choose to see them undertaken.

Nowhere is that need stronger than in the NBN, where politics dominates over economics. But NBN Co's approach specifically rules out such scrutiny of its spending. Rather, it proposes that the investments made to provide fibre access to 93 per cent of premises be "deemed efficient" and hence excluded from regulatory review.

It seems difficult to believe the ACCC could do anything but reject that exclusion outright. And if it then assessed how much of the investment would be justified in cost-benefit terms, 40 per cent or more of NBN Co's proposed spending could be written off. The government might proceed with those outlays; but it would have to finance them through on-budget subsidies to NBN Co, instead of by taxing captive consumers.

That, of course, won't happen. Rather, the government has demonstrated its willingness to sacrifice every principle of sound public policy to get its way. It can, and likely would, try to direct the ACCC to accept the most offensive aspects of NBN Co's SAU.

That exposes consumers to huge risks. Not according to NBN Co of course, which points to price declines promised in its corporate plan. But that plan can be changed at will, and consumers have no recourse if NBN Co's actions belie its promises. In contrast, the SAU is legally binding. And once it is in place, NBN Co can do whatever it permits.

So now is the time for the ACCC to stand up for consumers. No one else will. And that is why it exists as an independent statutory body. It has made its share of mistakes. Here's a chance for its new chairman to show it remains an institution well worth feeding.

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Federal government hasn't got a clue about Aborigines

The only thing that would help is to treat them exactly the same as everyone else

THE head of the Productivity Commission, Gary Banks, has backed a Finance Department finding that the $3.5 billion the Commonwealth spends on indigenous programs each year yields "dismally poor" returns.

The Finance Department strategic review, released this month under freedom-of-information laws, found strong commitments and large investments of government funds had "too often" produced results that were "disappointing at best and appalling at worst".

Launching a biennial report that says results have deteriorated in seven of 45 measures monitored by the commission, Mr Banks said "plenty" of policies were not working. "A recent finance department strategic review of indigenous expenditure has made that clear," he said. "I don't think we should be too critical - it is a very hard area to get right. But the key is to be open about failure and to learn from it."

The report found a widening of the gap in the rates of child abuse between indigenous and other Australians, and that the imprisonment rate for Aboriginal men soared 35 per cent over the decade; for women it rose 59 per cent.

The Productivity Commissioner, Robert Fitzgerald, said one of most important things the government could do would be to ease overcrowding in indigenous homes.

The proportion of indigenous houses with more than twice as many people as bedrooms has remained unchanged at 27 per cent for five years. In the Northern Territory the proportion exceeds 60 per cent.

"What is absolutely unquestionable is that easing overcrowding helps educational outcomes, health outcomes, the home environment and makes communities safe," Mr Fitzgerald said.

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Some things worked better in the past

Lawrie Kavanagh

I GET a big laugh when I hear or read of today's intellectuals and dumb lefties screaming blue murder when they hear oldies like me calling for much tougher court penalties for young criminals, and the reintroduction of corporal punishment in schools.

You see, I happened to grow up in those long-gone, terrific days when the punishment fitted the crime . . . well most of the time . . . with me at least, anyway.

I'll tell you about those early days in a moment, but let me first make a suggestion that could curb a lot of youth violence and serious crime in this great state of ours. It's called National Service - or as we knew it back in the 1950s, "Nasho".

National Service taught a lot of us young blokes right from wrong, particularly where it concerned respect for other people.

You see, most of the blokes I served with at Wacol in Brisbane's outer southwest in the first intake of 1954 were pretty apprehensive about becoming Nashos. They didn't know what to expect.

This was particularly so in my hut because, whereas I had arrived at Wacol with a bunch of Maryborough mates, including my older brother, Marty, I was separated from them because I was taller than my mates, and put into a hut with tall blokes, mostly from north Queensland.

I had no worries about going into national service, because I'd been in the cadets at my school, St Brendan's College, Yeppoon, and even had a couple of weeks of army training in Sellheim Army Camp, west of Townsville, with heaps of other young blokes from all over the state.

So I was pretty surprised to hear my new Nasho mates expressing a bit of trepidation about being forced into army service for three months first up, then two weeks each year for the next two years.

But all that changed after the first few weeks of army training under a lot of very tough, but very fair, professional soldiers.

Things weren't going so well in the hut next to us, in A Company, because in that hut there was a very big and very aggressive bully who simply took what he wanted from the other blokes in the hut. You might be sitting on a stool polishing your uniform brass work or cleaning your SMLE .303 rifle, maybe with some food or soft drink beside you, and this jerk would just pick up your biscuit or sandwich and eat it, then grab your bottle of soft drink and swill it down. If you objected he would give you a push and walk off.

That went on for the first few days of the camp before one of the blokes came up with a brilliant idea. He had one of his hut mates sitting down polishing his brass work, with a half-full soft-drink bottle beside him, when the big bully walked up, grabbed the bottle and swigged down a couple of mouthfuls before turning red and almost spewing the fluid out of his mouth and all over the hut.

Why, you ask? The bottle was half-full of urine, placed there to bring the bully into line.

And as for those blokes who expressed trepidation in the early days of the camp, most went home with many happy memories of being in Nasho.

As far as corporal punishment at home and at school is concerned, for God's sake, bring it back. I copped it in both places and deserved it most of the time. A couple of times I didn't, but that was mainly from a young Irish nun, who hated being in Yeppoon and took a lot of that hatred out on me because I couldn't spell and was a very poor reader. Still am.

She once hit me on the head and the knuckles with a blackboard pointer stick for bad spelling. I had a big lump on my head but it was nowhere near the size of the swelling on my knuckles.

She sent me outside crying and while I was sitting on the steps still crying, another nun, Sister Laurence, who saw what had happened, came out and sat beside me. She put her arm around me and started crying too. I was about seven or eight at the time.

I sometimes got the cuts from other nuns, once for swimming in the nuddie with a couple of mates in a creek behind some houses from which people saw us and complained. Why swim in the nude? Because Mum and Dad wouldn't let us go swimming unless we had an adult with us, so they would hide our togs.

One time I was playing with some mates, swinging on a crane in the Yeppoon railway yards when it gave way, flinging me on to the railway line.

The station master, who had been talking to the local cop on the platform, trotted over, picked me up and led me by the ear over to the cop. The cop gave me a swift kick on the bum then dragged me across the road to the Railway Hotel, where he knew my old man was the manager. He told Dad I had broken the crane. Dad took off his leather belt and gave me what for.

The Christian Brothers at St Brendan's were pretty good, but if you stepped out of line it would really hurt because, unlike the nuns who used canes, the Brothers used leather straps with about six leather strips stitched together and about 30cm long. You either got those cuts on the open hand or, even worse, across the bum.

How did school punishment change my life? Well, after 76 years I have never had any trouble with the police except for that time at Yeppoon railway station. I've never been in jail or court.

I truly believe today's crime rate would tumble if they brought back National Service and re-introduced corporal punisment at school and at home. But I sure ain't holding my breath.

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25 August, 2011

Abhorrent crimes cloaked in official euphemisms

By negligent bureaucrats

CHILD abuse creates the darkest of shadows. The shadows enveloping the brief life of Felicia (The Weekend Australian, August 20) are perhaps the blackest imaginable.

According to Michael McKenna and Rory Callinan's reports Felicia, aged just 15, had been repeatedly sexually assaulted but not protected. In an extraordinary, almost unbelievable sequence of events, she was briefly removed from home but then returned to be assaulted again. Even after being admitted to hospital with marks around her neck, she was not protected from the crimes.

It is reported that in desperation, as she was about to be assaulted again, she secretly used her mobile phone to record the crime. Imagine being so desperate to be believed that you record yourself being assaulted and are prepared to allow others to hear the resultant degradation.

Even then, after what must have been the most humiliating of experiences, she was not made safe. The shadows must have appeared even blacker. She hanged herself on the veranda a day after her 16th birthday and just weeks after her friend Zoe had killed herself. She left a long suicide letter.

There is a great deal we must learn from Felicia's tragedy, if we have the courage to peer into the darkness. Her brief tortured life reminds us that, for some, being forced to live with abuse is worse than death.

This reflects a large theme from our research with children and young people who had been abused. They spoke of their helplessness, their inability to escape. Some described becoming hostages to the perpetrator, controlled by a terrorist, of having to submit in order to survive.

In spite of what we know of adult survivors of Stockholm syndrome, for example, how difficult it is for them even when free to confront the perpetrators, we fail to acknowledge the pain child victims of abuse suffer. Felicia did what many adults cannot do. She reported the crimes repeatedly. Even then she was not heard.

Crimes against children derail development, black out all hope. Yet many of our responses serve to minimise the seriousness, disguise the offences, and thus undermine the victim. Offenders committing crimes in circumstances similar to Felicia's might be charged with "maintaining a sexual relationship with a child". Yet if the perpetrator repeatedly raped his wife, it would be called rape.

Language that rewrites the crime, hiding the horror, may be a major contributor to the short sentences serious sex offenders receive. Only last month, the Queensland Attorney-General expressed his concern about such minimalist sentencing to the Sentencing Advisory Council.

The law is but one of the serial offenders. Psychiatry and psychology are littered with archeological remains of Greek words. Someone who rapes children may be called a pedophile, originally meaning "a lover of children". Countless hours are wasted, millions of dollars distributed to expert witnesses, while courts debate whether the child rapist is, was, or may temporarily be a pedophile. This from a discipline that, until recently, accused children of lying, fantasising, even being seductive.

The latest word of Greek origin to dominate child protection and minimise the damage done, is trauma, as in "children traumatised by abuse". Trauma means wound, injury. Toddlers may suffer injury when they fall over. As Felicia's short life shows, in many cases child abuse destroys childhoods, blows worlds apart. Of course, the meanings of words change. Unfortunately for children all the changes are aimed at reducing the seriousness of the problem. There are words of Greek origin that more accurately describe the destruction caused by child abuse. Catastrophe is one.

Weasel words also overwhelm child protection, where parents' rights to another chance to be a parent repeatedly take precedence over a child's only chance of childhood. The talk is about vulnerable families not vulnerable children. Children are not assaulted but "at risk". Such words corrupt. Try to find the words assault, violence and crime in child protection documents. Perhaps this is why, in Victoria, it was reported by the Ombudsman that children were recorded as having been seen when workers had merely telephoned the parents and why, in the Northern Territory, the Ombudsman reported "dummy" assessments on children.

There is much more to learn from Felicia's terrible death. Her sad story should remind us that not all the child abuse fatalities involve brutal murders of babies and toddlers, as with Dean Shillingsworth in NSW, the recent case of Hayley in Victoria, or Baby Peter in Britain.

Many child abuse deaths occur later in life. Many young people and adults who commit suicide were the victims of abuse as children. These suicides are not limited to women. There are calls for an inquiry into the Catholic Church in Victoria after Robert Best was sentenced to 14 years and nine months' jail for the abuse of 11 boys. At least 25 victims in the Ballarat area are reported to have killed themselves.

Another poignant theme is apparent in the opening paragraph of Felicia's suicide letter: "Dear everyone, I'm sorry it had to be like this. If there is any chance I can be [forgiven] I will much appreciate it." As our research has shown, children take responsibility for everything that happens, blaming themselves for the rapes and violence, for the problems that result. Felicia actually apologised to everyone for the trouble she had caused.

We need to apologise to her. We failed to protect Felicia when she was alive. We must not fail to respect her in death. Felicia's letter shines some light into the appalling darkness. What she wrote, what she suffered, the mistakes that were made, should not be buried with her.

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150 jobs slashed, $80m saved in health restructure

I didn't think it would ever happen. But it's only a start

A SHAKE-UP of NSW Health will slash 150 management jobs and save $80 million, which will be transferred to frontline hospital services.

The new director general of health, Mary Foley, commissioned the overhaul, which will abolish a layer of middle management made up of 200 staff who oversee local health districts.

Another 100 positions will be shed from NSW Health's head office in North Sydney

The Health Minister, Jillian Skinner, said 150 positions would be made redundant. The remaining 150 would be transferred to other areas, including district services.

The restructure is part of the government's promised devolution of management from head office to local area health services.

"We are removing a middle layer of management which will allow resources to be deployed to support frontline health care," she said. "The new structure will provide greater transparency and accountability, duplication of tasks will be stopped and there will be greater clarity of roles and responsibilities."

The former Labor government introduced the middle-layer management positions last year, calling them clusters across three areas - northern, western, and southern.

The restructure would strengthen the government's so-called pillars: the Agency for Clinical Innovation, the Clinical Excellence Commission, the Health Education and Training Institute and the Bureau of Health Information. New eHealth, pathology and infrastructure services would be consolidated.

Mrs Skinner said the Department of Health would become the Ministry of Health and be reduced in size, with "a flatter structure" giving local health districts greater control.

The Public Service Association said the job cuts would jeopardise the development of health policy in NSW and undermine the quality of health service control.

A PSA industrial officer, Ayshe Lewis, said no voluntary redundancies would be offered. She said the announcement would cut the number of head office employees by a third. "While some of the positions are vacant, most of them are filled by temporary staff who are carrying out the work," she said.

"It's a furphy that cutting these positions will not impact on the delivery of frontline health services. The delivery of effective services is dependent on smart policy and program design. Health professionals on the front line can't do their jobs if they don't have expert guidance and support."

The opposition spokesman on health, Andrew McDonald, said the job cuts would have "a major impact on patient care".

"Job cuts to administration workers means other frontline staff will be left to fill the void," he said. "These job cuts are hitting the very workers responsible for driving change and innovation in health."

Greens NSW MP John Kaye said the minister had "deleted" jobs and destroyed 150 careers.

"She has also removed both the central and cluster support needed to make the public health system run effectively and efficiently," he said. "[Her] rhetoric about deploying resources to the front line is a thinly veiled excuse to slash the health budget."

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Aussie scientists defeat dengue fever danger by mosquito release

AUSSIE scientists have had a big victory in the global war on dengue fever, a mosquito-borne virus infecting up to 100 million people a year.

The mozzies, infected with the bacteria from fruit flies, were let loose at Gordonvale and Yorkeys Knob in Cairns in January, with scientists recording more than 90 per cent of the stinging creatures wiped out.

The trial of the $18 million program is aimed at wiping out as many of the disease-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquitoes as possible.

Dengue infects more than 50 million people a year who live in the tropics and is rated by the World Health Organisation as the world's most important mosquito-borne viral disease, with 2.5 billion people living in dengue transmission areas.

There is no effective treatment for the disease, which is painful, debilitating and sometimes fatal.

Led by Scott O'Neill from Monash University, Melbourne, Ary Hoffmann from the University of Melbourne and Scott Ritchie from James Cook University, Cairns, worked with international scientists in Vietnam, Thailand, the US and Brazil.

Professor O'Neill said using insecticide to stop the mosquito had been expensive and a failure. Instead, the team used wolbachia bacteria which was already present in up to 70 percent of all insect species, harmless to humans and known to reduce mosquito susceptibility to dengue and other viruses.

"Laboratory experiments had shown we could introduce wolbachia into the mosquito in the lab, where it then passed from one generation to the next in the mosquito egg," Professor O'Neill said.

Trials started after a CSIRO risk analysis and approval from the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority but struck a hitch in January when the category 5 Cyclone Yasi struck, blowing away part of the work. Nevertheless, within three months wolbachia had invaded local mosquito populations.

"Five weeks after the final release ... 100 per cent of the mosquitoes at Yorkeys Knob carried wolbachia and 90 per cent in Gordonvale. That was a great day," Professor O'Neill said.

Professor Hoffmann said reduced transmission of dengue was expected in the trial areas. Further tests will take place in Cairns this wet season while approval is sought for trials in Thailand, Vietnam, Brazil and Indonesia.

About 40,000 people die yearly from dengue and it is particularly crippling in poor countries where it can cost up to a third of a family's annual income to treat a person in hospital.

Dengue mainly strikes in Australia in the Cairns-Townsville region, where the particular species of mosquito lives happily in suburbia just like cockroaches, mice and rats.

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Crimes of a fool set to finish off Gillard

Crimes have been committed that can bring down the Gillard government, and they are dumb crimes. As a former NSW chief of detectives told me: "We are ultimately dealing with the crimes of a fool, whomever that fool may be, who has left a documented trail like a bleeding elephant in a snowfield."

This trail of evidence of fraud, lying and cover-up now roils around the federal Labor MP Craig Thomson. It has also engulfed the NSW Police Force, which implausibly refused to act until a victim had filed a complaint.

"Utter garbage," said the former detective. "Police do not need to have a complaint from a victim in order to investigate a crime."

Even more damning, the victim in this case, the Health Services Union, clearly had no interest in bringing a complaint because the moment this became a criminal matter it would become a time bomb ticking beneath the Gillard government.

It began to tick on Tuesday afternoon when police issued a statement saying that material submitted by the federal shadow attorney-general, Senator George Brandis, would be assessed to see whether a crime had been committed. If the police cannot find a crime here, then it is the police who will need to be assessed.

As for the reluctant Health Services Union, it would have had its own case to answer, had it not announced yesterday it would be co-operating with police. Section 316 (1) of the NSW Crimes Act makes it an offence to conceal knowledge of a serious indictable offence: "If a person has committed a serious indictable offence and another person who knows or believes that the offence has been committed … fails without reasonable excuse to bring that information to the [police] … that other person is liable to imprisonment for two years."

"It is difficult to understand why it took [the police] so long to act," said the former detective. "I believe a union member went into a central coast police station attempting to make a complaint but was turned away … We are not talking about a complicated case. Given resources, this brief would represent two to three weeks' work before somebody could be charged."

Tick, tick, tick.

What kept a lid on this for the past two years was a defamation claim Thomson lodged against this newspaper. When the time finally came to attend court, he withdrew the action. Labor then paid his unhealthy legal bill. It was all done privately, but the public time bomb is now ticking for multiple reasons.

In 2003, 2005 and 2006, Thomson's corporate credit card was used to pay escort services in Melbourne and Sydney while he was national secretary of the HSU. He says his signature on receipts to escort agencies were forged.

A handwriting expert, Paul Westwood, formerly of the Australian Federal Police, compared the signature on Thomson's driver's licence with the signature on a credit card voucher and concluded they were probably made by the same person.

Thomson tried to reverse three payments made to an escort agency on his corporate credit card by using his personal credit cards.

Mobile phone records show that Thomson's phone was used to call escort agencies.

In 2008, the national secretary of the HSU, Kathy Jackson, now the union's executive president, wrote to the law firm Slater & Gordon claiming Thomson's credit card had been used for a number of transactions that were for private use or for his election campaign. The amounts totalled more than $70,000.

In Parliament yesterday, Thomson was asked to account for $39,454 in electoral expenses, incurred via his corporate credit card, that had not been declared to the Australian Electoral Commission.

In an interview on 2UE, Thomson, reiterating that the signature on receipts to escort agencies were not his own, said: "The union reached a settlement with another gentleman who paid back $15,000 in relation to use of credit cards at an escort agency."

But it has emerged that the $15,000 payment he referred to had nothing to do with escort services.

Twice yesterday, the government was able to defeat opposition motions to compel Thomson to explain his conduct, then for the Prime Minister to explain her confidence in Thomson, with the automatic support of the Greens MP, Adam Bandt, plus the rural independents Tony Windsor and Robert Oakeshott, who, like Thomson, are accelerating the end of their parliamentary careers.

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24 August, 2011

Tony Abbott Accused Of "Climate Change Racism"

Today's unhinged climate alarmist moment comes courtesy of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Federal Climate Change Minister Greg Combet has accused Opposition Leader Tony Abbott of having a racist climate change policy.

Mr Abbott has warned that Australian businesses buying carbon permits under an emissions trading scheme could be conned by unscrupulous international traders.

Because there has been absolutely no fraud in the climate change hoax carbon schemes.

The Government plans to introduce its carbon tax legislation to Parliament by the end of September and hopes to have it passed by next year.

Mr Combet described Mr Abbott's position as "economic xenophobia" in an address to the National Press Club.

"It sends the signal that it's somehow dubious to trade with foreigners. It's typical dog-whistle politics, trashing the commitment that's existed for many years on both sides of politics to economic liberalisation and open trade," he said.

"It is in effect a white carbon policy designed to harvest more votes no matter what the cost."

So, even with the idiotic anthropogenic global warming issue, liberals go for their choice attack, raaaaacism. But, then, AGW turned from a scientific issue to a political one about 5 minutes after someone said "hey, I wonder if the output of greenhouse gases by Mankind is affecting the climate?"

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Yet another advance which will render Julia's fibre network obsolete before it is built

Light bulbs could be soon used to broadcast wireless Internet, a leading physicist has claimed. Harald Hass said he has developed a technology which can broadcast data through the same connection as a normal lamp. By simply turning on the light in the room you could also switch on your Internet connection, he said in a speech.

Other possibilities of the device - which he has dubbed ‘Li-fi’, or Light Fidelity - include sending wireless data from the ‘white space’ in your television spectrum or unused satellite signals.

Professor Hass, of the school of engineering at Edinburgh University in the UK, said that currently we use radio waves to transmit data which are inefficient. With mobile phones there are 1.4 million base stations boosting the signal but most of the energy is used to cool it, making it only five per cent efficient. By comparison there are 40 billion light bulbs in use across the world which are far more efficient.

By replacing old fashioned incandescent models with LED bulbs he claimed he could turn them all into Internet transmitters.

The invention, dubbed D-Light, can send data faster than 10 megabits per second, which is the speed of a typical broadband connection, by altering the frequency of the ambient light in the room.

It has new applications in hospitals, airplanes, military, and even underwater. Aeroplane passengers could in theory be able to surf the Internet from signals beamed out of the lights on board.
Named D-Light - it can send data faster than 10 megabits per second, the speed of a typical broadband connection, just by altering the frequency of the ambient light in a room

Named D-Light - it can send data faster than 10 megabits per second, the speed of a typical broadband connection, just by altering the frequency of the ambient light in a room

‘The way we transmit wireless data is inefficient electromagnetic waves, in particular radio waves which are limited, they are sparse, they are expensive and only have a certain range,’ Professor Hass said. ‘It is this limitation which does not cope with wireless data...and we are running out of efficiency. ‘Light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum...wouldn’t it be great to use it for wireless communications?’

He added that the visible light spectrum had 10,000 more times the space than radio waves, making it the ideal range to use.

During a lecture professor Hass showed off a desk lamp which had been fitted with an LED light bulb which transmitted data to a receiver on the table below it. Whenever he put his hand in the beam of light the video, which was beamed onto a screen behind him, stopped playing as the signal was being blocked.

Professor Hass said the technology has not yet been integrated with smart phone but he hopes that soon it will be. ‘Everywhere that there is light, these are potential sources for data transmission,’ he said.

‘For me the applications of it are beyond imagination...all we need to do is to fit a small microchip to every potential illumination device and this would combine illumination and data transmission, and this could solve the problems facing us in wireless communication.’

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Mother explains why she made her son wear 'I'm a thief' sign

A MUM has ignited a national debate after making her 10-year-old son stand in a busy park wearing a sign saying, "Do not trust me. I will steal from you as I am a thief".

The mother, who confessed to having a criminal past when she was young, said it was to ensure he did not follow in her footsteps, the Herald Sun reported.

"I have lived a life that most people would not dream of and I am trying to stop my child from going down the same road as I did, because even though I have sorted myself out, it took me 10 years to do," said the single mother of three children.

The woman said she had tried everything to stop her son shoplifting and stealing - visits to courthouses, chats with police, visits to police cells and even a trip to a youth detention centre.

Finding a stash of chocolates in her son's drawer after a trip to the corner shop to buy milk last week was the last straw.

"I have put him into courses, I have had counselling done, I have done everything I can," she said. "I think he has learnt his lesson. I think that hour (in the park) is enough for him to go: 'I don't ever want to do this again'. "I did the same thing as my son, shoplifting as a teenager, and then it escalated because I didn't have a mum there to teach me right from wrong."

The woman said her son had been stealing since he was seven.

The mum's actions made headlines, becoming the No.1 story on websites and dominating talkback radio from Melbourne to Townsville, where the family live. Her parenting style simultaneously appalled and inspired parents around the nation.

A surprisingly large number of people praised her and called for the cane to be reintroduced. Many also sympathised with her.

But Queensland University parenting director Prof Matt Sanders said the "shame and humiliation" approach was unlikely to have the desired effect. "There's almost no evidence that I'm aware of that this kind of shame and humiliation approach to kids is effective, and it can very easily backfire," he said. "If it doesn't work, what's your back-up? You've already pulled out the big guns."

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Labor turns the boom into a crisis

THE crisis now engulfing Australian manufacturing has been long predicted and much foreseen yet the inescapable impression is that our decision-makers have been taken by surprise and are scrambling to do something.

There are two unpalatable questions for Gillard Labor. Did Labor expect such job losses from the biggest terms of trade boom for a century? Or has Labor misjudged the boom and made a serious policy blunder?

After his company's announcement, BlueScope Steel chairman Graeme Kraehe said: "All this structural change has been forecast for several years, it is not as though it has suddenly hit us. In my view it is an indictment on everybody concerned: business, industry associations, governments and unions."

It is, in truth, a collective failure but not the type of failure that many assume. The problem, in essence, has been the inability to promote productivity-enhancing policy when the terms of trade were high and national income was surging - a hard task. That would have seen Labor thinking outside and beyond the boom.

The real policy schism is represented in remarks by Australian Industry Group chief Heather Ridout on behalf of manufacturing and Treasury boss Martin Parkinson in last night's Shann Memorial Lecture, with his views guiding Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan.

Ridout said: "AI Group has been warning for some time that the resources boom has not been going to plan and despite the predictions of optimists is not delivering the promised growth and related opportunities." She said the high dollar meant "our competitiveness has just been literally bombed out of existence".

Ridout's point is that Gillard Labor, relying on the views of Treasury and the Reserve Bank, has been too passive in the teeth of the high dollar and too ready to let the market make the adjustment, meaning manufacturing must make room for mining. She argued manufacturing "as a whole" faced the same pressures as BlueScope: weak demand, high interest rates, rising labour costs, absence of productivity gains, rising electricity costs and the high dollar. The fear is that worse job losses lie ahead.

When deconstructed, some of Ridout's elements are beyond government control and some of them are the result of explicit policy.

What is beyond government control is the 140-year terms of trade peak and the extent of dollar appreciation. The float is the key to the present situation because it means the economy adjusts to the boom by a higher dollar rather than higher inflation - this is a plus because it extends the boom's longevity.

The core point, however, is that many of the present problems are tied to Labor policy, priorities and flawed decisions. In November last year, former Treasury boss Ken Henry said the rise in the terms of the trade could constitute "the biggest external shock to our economy in history". Treasury says this structural change based on China and India will endure for decades with long-run opportunities for Australia. Parkinson put the Treasury line last night: the priority must be "a flexible responsive economy" and it is pivotal to "facilitate structural adjustment, not oppose it". That means rejection of protectionist measures to prop up manufacturing. Gillard and Swan are holding to this framework, so far.

Given the century-defining nature of this challenge, it had to be the supreme policy task for Gillard Labor this term. That meant making the boom work in all its dimensions. Yet this was not Labor's top priority. Since the August 2010 election its priority in terms of energy and political capital has been pricing carbon, not managing the resource boom of the century - a strategic blunder.

If Labor had no political option but to proceed with carbon pricing it should have been framed differently as just one part of the epic resources boom challenge.

Australia's history proves resource booms are saviours and destroyers and often end in tears. Since this boom emerged in about 2004 it has helped to finish two prime ministers and weaken a third. John Howard misjudged the economy's strength and ran on Work Choices; Kevin Rudd would have survived if not for his poor management of the mining tax; Gillard believed the strong economy would underpin her carbon pricing scheme. Gillard and Swan would dispute such criticism. "This is something we've understood for a long period of time," the Prime Minister said. The Treasurer pointed to the $3 billion skills package in the last budget to meet the terms of trade phenomenon.

Yes, the government has been acting. The critique, however, is it has not acted enough. Its political mismanagement of the mining tax in early 2010 despite the convincing case for a new commonwealth-based resources tax was a major blunder. Its corporate tax relief is too modest given cost pressures. Its re-regulation of the labour market has reduced flexibility and diminished productivity. Its instinct for government initiative means excessive red tape and regulation on industry.

Labor, in short, has had a competitiveness strategy but it hasn't been pursued with enough conviction or whole-of-government rigour. Ross Garnaut kept saying the adjustment from the resources boom would far outweigh the adjustment from the carbon tax. The irony of this truism is Labor's priority has been the smaller, not the bigger, adjustment. Now Labor is caught out. The nightmare Labor faces in 2012 is rising unemployment when the carbon tax begins.

The speech given yesterday by Reserve Bank deputy governorRic Battellino shows the diabolical dilemma Labor faces - the mining boom proved to be stronger than expected; the economy overall proved to be weaker than expected with demand falling away; yet inflation is likely to be higher than envisaged. So in Australia's two-speed economy, the fast lane got faster and the slow lane got slower. The miners got fatter profits and the manufacturers had disappearing profits.

Gillard's reassuring words conceal a government trapped by forces that demanded an earlier and stronger policy response. Gillard said yesterday that manufacturing had a "bright future" but that Australia's economy was undergoing a "transition". Ridout jumped on her. "Transition to where?" she asked. Ridout wants a transition around a manufacturing strategy but Parkinson wants a market transition that accepts the Asia-driven structural changes in our economy. Gillard is stranded between them.

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23 August, 2011

Road to ruin for traditional Labor Party



Julia Gillard and her senior colleagues are confident that Labor's political fortunes will begin to improve when the carbon tax kicks in on July 1 next year. They believe much of the electorate will appreciate the compensation package, which accompanies the tax, and realise that opposition to Labor's climate change agenda has been nothing but a scare campaign.

Maybe the Prime Minister and her advisers are correct. However, there is another possible scenario. Namely, that the introduction of the carbon tax, leading to an emissions trading scheme, on July 1, 2012, takes place at a time of rising unemployment at 6 per cent or higher. This could cause serious problems for the Gillard government just more than a year before the scheduled election date in 2013.

At the weekend, the Australian Workers' Union national secretary Paul Howes warned of a "major crisis in Australian manufacturing" leading to significant job losses. Yesterday, BlueScope Steel announced significant redundancies at its plants in Port Kembla in NSW and Hastings in Victoria. There are likely to be more job losses in manufacturing due to many causes - including the high value of the Australian dollar.

They will come on top of redundancies already occurring in the retail, hospitality and financial services sectors. All four sectors are labour intensive. So it is not unreasonable to assume that unemployment will increase in the medium term. The situation would worsen if there is another significant economic downturn in the North Atlantic.

What was striking about the "Convoy of No Confidence" that rolled into Canberra yesterday was how many protesters looked like one-time traditional Labor voters. Not many employees or independent contractors can find the time or the money to travel to Canberra for a demonstration and the turnout was not large.

Nevertheless, the convoy symbolised how Labor - under pressure from its own left wing, the Greens and the independents - has alienated much of its traditional voting base.

On ABC radio yesterday, Deborah Cameron described the convoy as "anti-everything". This misses the point. Sure, elements of the convoy oppose the carbon tax and/or the ban on live cattle exports and/or the proposed restrictions on gambling in licensed clubs and/or same sex marriage. But what united the convoy is that - to a man and woman - all the protesters want an election. Now.

Some of the convoy leaders do not understand that the constitutional requirements of a double dissolution have not been met. Yet the conditions do exist whereby the Prime Minister could advise the Governor-General that a normal election should be held.

Judging by the comments from Labor ministers and the press gallery, Tony Abbott has set the political agenda like no Opposition Leader since Labor's Gough Whitlam in the early 1970s. However, Labor's essential problems stem from its own policies.

What makes a carbon tax so hard to sell are rising energy prices and the fear that they will increase further under a carbon tax. This is of special concern to individuals in insecure jobs and/or on low incomes. The proposed pokies tax - designed to appease independent Andrew Wilkie - is hitting at Labor's heartland in the outer suburbs and regional centres where clubs provide much-needed entertainment.

Inner-city types, including some conservatives, tend to favour same-sex marriage and quite a few commentators are quick to sneer at Christians who regard marriage as a union between a man and a woman. But talk to some Labor MPs in suburban seats and they will recount, in confidence, how many Muslims and Hindus are offended by the concept.

Last week there was some excitement when the AC Nielsen poll indicated a slight increase in Labor's support. But former Labor operative Graham Richardson put the matter in perspective when he commented: "I never thought I would live to see the day when Labor went up two points in the polls and still only got to a miserable 28 per cent."

Gillard's support collapsed when the carbon tax was announced in February. Labor may recover. But it is difficult to see how when it seems to be alienating traditional Labor supporters in suburban and regional Australia.

In Canberra and the US, trade union leaders are not advocating an emissions trading scheme. Yet in Australia, ACTU leaders Jeff Lawrence and Ged Kearney are calling for the introduction of a carbon tax at a time of growing unemployment.

Meanwhile the Labor government, by re-regulating the industrial relations system, is making it less attractive to hire workers.

The protesters in the Canberra convoy may not be sophisticated in many ways. But they do know that, in the present economic situation with the prospect of increasing unemployment, the introduction of a carbon tax doesn't make sense.

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Do-gooders attack a responsible parent



A MOTHER made her child sit in public with a sign pinned to his shirt that said: "Do not trust me. I will steal from you as I am a thief."

The boy, thought to be aged about 10, was also wearing Shrek ears and writing lines in what appeared to a form of public punishment, according to dozens of witnesses who contacted the Townsville Bulletin.

The boy spent almost an hour on Sunday near a popular waterpark in Townsville while his family ate lunch nearby, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Diane Mayers was so "horrified" when she saw the boy she contacted Child Safety Services to intervene.

Ms Mayers, who worked with the department in the past, said any long-term effects of public humiliation would have been much worse than physical abuse.

"The boy just kept his head down and was staring at the ground," she said. "The parents had gone to all the trouble of printing two copies of the sign - one for the back and one for the front - and laminating them. A lot of work had gone in to it.

"A lot of people walked past and were laughing at him, including boys who would have been his age.

"At one point the boy had taken off the Shrek ears. My daughter walked past and heard the mother say, 'Put them back on or I'll smack your head in'."

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Rogue union loses one

THE Federal Court has ordered militant unionist Joe McDonald and his Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union to pay oil and gas giant Woodside more than $1.5 million in compensation over strikes at the company's $12 billion Pluto project in the Pilbara.

In one of the biggest penalties handed out to a union, the court ordered the CFMEU and Mr McDonald, the union's West Australian assistant secretary, to never engage in illegal industrial action at Woodside's state sites.

At least 1200 construction workers employed by contractors on the Pluto LNG project did not show up for work on December 1 and 2, 2009, in protest at Woodside's introduction of "motelling", under which fly-in fly-out workers were forced to change their standard accommodation at the end of each four-week shift.

In a consent ruling, the CFMEU and Mr McDonald admitted they had engaged in and encouraged the unlawful strikes. CFMEU state secretary Kevin Reynolds said yesterday the union had made a pragmatic decision to avoid much larger costs and fines had they continued to contest the case.

But Mr Reynolds, who retires at the end of the year, was defiant. "There was no doubt the workers took action that was unprotected industrial action, but what are they supposed to do?" he said. "Are we supposed to lay down and cop it from these employers, whatever they want to do?"

The court "permanently restrained" the CFMEU and Mr McDonald from engaging in unprotected industrial action at the Pluto site, the North West Shelf project and the Browse Basin.

The CFMEU was ordered to pay $1.5m in compensation to Woodside and up to $500,000 of costs the company may incur as a result of claims by contractors over the strike.

The union was also fined $71,500 and Mr McDonald $14,000. Woodside said it welcomed the decision.

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No love for gay marriage among Queensland MPs

Queensland federal MPs have overwhelmingly voiced their opposition to same-sex marriage, buoying conservative Christian lobbyists ahead of tomorrow's discussion of the issue in the House of Representatives.

But marriage equality campaigners say they are undeterred because some major party MPs support change but are not yet ready to say so publicly.

On the eve of tomorrow’s parliamentary gay marriage discussion, brisbanetimes.com.au asked each of Queensland’s 30 federal members about their position.

Of the 17 MPs who replied, 10 stated their clear opposition to same-sex marriage, three did not outline their personal views and three refused to comment.

The remaining member, Labor’s Moreton MP Graham Perrett, who has two gay brothers and has previously voiced support for same-sex marriage, was far from emphatic in his comments.

“As I have stated publicly before, I believe the state should protect all committed, monogamous relationships,” he told brisbanetimes.com.au.

“Whether there is mood for change in the community is another matter as I suspect most people are more concerned with cost of living pressures, quality health care for their families and a strong national economy.”

The comments follow intense lobbying by both supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage, as momentum gathers within the Labor party for MPs to be allowed at least an open vote on the issue.

MPs from across the political spectrum will tomorrow be given time in the House of Representatives to report on the views of their electorates on gay marriage.

The discussion follows last year’s motion by Greens MP Adam Bandt urging colleagues to consult their communities on the issue, amid opinion polls showing majority public support for marriage equality.

The brisbanetimes.com.au survey revealed few Queensland MPs from either the Labor or Liberal National parties were prepared to buck their respective leader’s anti-gay-marriage stance.

Many of those who ignored the questions have previously put their opposition to gay marriage on the public record.

Community 'tired of the issue'

Australian Christian Lobby Queensland director Wendy Francis said she had been lobbying parliamentarians and believed they were generally opposed to changing marriage laws.

“Some of the polls would indicate that Australians are accepting of same-sex marriage but what MPs are finding is that people who are contacting them are saying marriage should remain between a man and a woman,” she said.

“I think the community is tired of the issue because I don’t think the community sees it as an important issue.”

But Brisbane-based marriage equality advocate Shelley Argent said the issue was important to the gay and lesbian community and would cost the government nothing to implement.

The Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays spokeswoman said the “silent majority” supported allowing same-sex couples to marry, as reflected in national Galaxy opinion polls.

Mrs Argent, who is in Canberra speaking to MPs this week, said some politicians were “frightened” to speak out in support of marriage equality because others in their parties opposed it.

“I think it’s mostly the ‘against’ ones that are answering these surveys; it’s not a representation of what MPs think,” she said.

Australian Marriage Equality campaign director Rodney Croome said some Labor MPs were staying quiet until the party’s national conference in December, given Prime Minister Julia Gillard had repeatedly stated her opposition.

“I do quite a bit of lobbying in Parliament House ... and the impression I get is that there’s much more diverse support than that would indicate amongst Labor and Coalition MPs,” Mr Croome said.

“Again, I can think of a few [Labor MPs] and some Liberals who privately support it but aren’t willing to say so.”

Politicians tight-lipped

Numerous MPs ignored brisbanetimes.com.au’s questions, sent last week, asking them about what they had done to consult their communities, what they had found, and what their personal view was.

Liberal National Party MP for Brisbane, Teresa Gambaro, did not respond, but has previously revealed that of 1120 people who answered her own survey, 73 per cent backed same-sex marriage.

Labor MP for Petrie Yvette D'Ath did not reveal her personal position but said she would represent her constituents and keep listening.

“I will continue to gain the views of my electorate in the lead up to the ALP national conference at the end of this year,” she said.

LNP MP Ken O’Dowd, whose central Queensland seat of Flynn includes Gladstone, said marriage should remain between a man and a woman, but he would support civil unions.

“Recent polling and people who have contacted our office indicates that the electorate of Flynn is about 90 per cent against same-sex marriages,” he said.

“Of course there have been many emails received at our offices from people who are not on the roll in Flynn but who are pretending that they are.”

However, in the adjoining electorate of Capricornia, Labor MP Kirsten Livermore appears to be more open to allowing same-sex marriage.

Ms Livermore did not respond to questions from brisbanetimes.com.au, but the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin last year reported she would back gay marriage if a conscience vote was allowed.

“I would vote yes, in favour of homosexual marriage,” the newspaper quoted her as saying.

Federal Labor Member for Blair Shayne Neumann said he supported his party’s position that the current definition of marriage should be retained, after hundreds of constituents had emailed, phoned, faxed, written letters and spoken to him about the issue.

“The numbers in Blair are running in excess of three to one in favour of the retention of the current law which states marriage is between a man and a woman,” he said.

Coalition frontbencher Peter Dutton’s spokesman said the MP would not answer the questions because “we don’t respond to surveys”, while Longman MP Wyatt Roy also declined to comment.

Outspoken Queensland cross-bench MP Bob Katter, who told an anti-gay-marriage rally in Canberra last week the idea should be ridiculed, went quiet following the event.

A spokeswoman said Mr Katter “would not be commenting further on this matter because he is devoting his time to matters of more serious significance”.

Growing momentum

Both major parties oppose same-sex marriage, but the Labor party is set to debate it at its national conference in December amid a growing push from within the party to support it.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh last year revealed to brisbanetimes.com.au she supported same-sex marriage and the state branch this year voted to give in-principle backing to the concept.

The LNP state conference voted against same-sex marriage last month, but state leader Campbell Newman has voiced his personal support.

Mrs Francis said the ideal environment was for a child to be raised by a married mother and father.

"One of the things for me is, where does it end? Why do we need to change marriage and then where do we draw the line [when talking about further changes to the Marriage Act]?" Mrs Francis said.

However, Mrs Argent said MPs had nothing to worry about from backing marriage equality, pointing to the short-term controversy over same-sex surrogacy laws in Queensland.

“In Queensland when we had the surrogacy legislation ... we had the right-wingers there up in arms big time ... but as soon as the legislation went through they all took their placards and went home. Children are fine. Nothing happened.

SOURCE



22 August, 2011

Plastic bag ban backfires

Bin liner sales in SA have doubled since free plastic shopping bags were banned more than two years ago. And most bin bags are made of thicker plastic than traditional bags, which means they take longer to break down in the environment.

Woolworths says SA sales of plastic kitchen-tidy bags of a similar size, capacity and shape to single-use plastic shopping bags, are now double the national average. At Coles, sales of kitchen tidy bags increased 40 per cent in the year following the ban in May 2009.

Bin bag manufacturer Glad reported a 52.5 per cent jump in kitchen-tidy bag sales in the first year of the ban, compared with a 5.5 per cent increase nationally.

In SA, 48 million Glad bin bags were bought in 2008, rising to more than 73 million in 2009 and 84 million last year.

The figures have raised concerns about whether the plastic bag ban has been effective in reducing waste sent to landfill. In 2009, South Australia led the nation with a ban on lightweight, checkout-style plastic bags.

The Northern Territory and ACT are now introducing their own bans.

Zero Waste SA chief executive Vaughan Levitzke claimed in January 2009 the ban would not lead to a significant rise in the number of bin bags bought. "Research shows purchase of bin liners will not increase significantly, compared with the reduction of plastic shopping bags," he said.

Yesterday, the government agency said it did not have any current information about sales of bin bags.

Opposition environment spokeswoman Michelle Lensink said the situation was "fairly predictable". "We said at the time that it was tokenistic, just about having a headline, being able to say we're the first to ban the bag in Australia," she told The Advertiser.

Supermarket chains now charge 15c at the checkout for thicker "reusable" bags that Ms Lensink suggests are going straight to landfill.

Samantha Lang, 20, from Craigmore, yesterday said the bag ban had not changed her behaviour. "We do buy bin bags because we need plastic bags to line bins," she said. "But we always forget our green bags so we're always stuck paying the plastic bag surcharge at the supermarket."

SOURCE





Racket: Australian Federation of Islamic Councils siphons off money meant for Islamic Schools

THE nation's peak Muslim body is extracting millions of dollars in rent and fees from a successful Islamic school in Sydney that draws most of its funding from taxpayers.

Documents reveal the Malek Fahd Islamic School paid the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils $5.2 million last year alone, an amount equal to one-third of the school's educational funding from the federal and state governments.

An investigation by The Australian has uncovered millions of dollars in funds charged to the school, including unexplained "management fees".

The school has also been charged $2.59m in back rent after AFIC retrospectively altered a lease agreement in 2009. Last year, it paid $3.15m in "management fees" to AFIC, which included $2.2m in "management fees back charge".

AFIC, also known as Muslims Australia, has not explained how the fees are being spent by the organisation, despite detailed questions from The Australian.

Malek Fahd, in Greenacre in Sydney's west, received $15.7m in educational funding from the commonwealth and NSW governments last year, accounting for 74 per cent of its overall income.

According to the school's financial statement, it received a total of $19.6m in government funding last year, with the figure boosted by cash from the federal government's Building the Education Revolution program.

The school of about 2000 students is widely considered a success story for Islamic education in Australia, rating 15th in NSW HSC system ratings last year and in the top 10 in 2007.

The school is listed as independent and is a separate legal entity from its landowner and founder AFIC. Government funds are given directly to the school, not to AFIC.

Both are not-for-profit organisations, with the school entitled to a range of tax concessions as a charitable institution.

In 2008, a lease was signed between the school and AFIC that set annual rent for the Greenacre property at $1.3m, but documents reveal that in 2009 the lease was changed to increase the rent to $1.5m a year. The agreement was backdated to January 2004, resulting in a one-off payment of $2.59m going to AFIC.

According to the school's last financial report, another deal saw the school hand over a lump sum of $2.2m in backdated management fees to AFIC, with another $959,800 handed over for management costs in that year.

Neither the school nor AFIC can explain what the management fees are charged for.

AFIC president Ikebal Patel, who has held the role since 2007, is also the chairman of directors of the school. He was briefly removed from the position of AFIC president by the AFIC congress in 2008, but was reinstated after a complex federal court challenge to the legitimacy of the vote.

When asked by The Australian how he explained the fees being charged to the school and where and how AFIC was spending the funds, Mr Patel said: "The financial statement is out there. If you want to discuss anything else I'm happy, but I'm not going to discuss any of this."

Mr Patel has not replied to questions in writing about how the large fees were justified or where the money was being spent.

Mr Patel would also not answer questions as to how much he or other members of the AFIC executive were personally drawing in income or any other payment from AFIC funds.

Intaj Ali, the school's principal, told The Australian that "all questions about the school's finances should be directed to the school's director, Ikebal Patel".

However, it is understood that Dr Ali - a respected educator who has been principal since the school's inception in 1990 - is privately furious over the manner in which AFIC has been using the school's funds.

Senior figures at the school and in the Islamic community are angry the school is being denied its funds to reinvest into the school, which has large classes and generally caters to students of non-English speaking backgrounds and of lower socioeconomic groups. The school receives proportionately larger government funding for this reason.

The Greenacre school site was purchased by AFIC in 1989 for about $2.2m with funds from the Saudi royal family. The school, which charges fees of about $1200 a year, has been responsible for funding the construction of its own buildings.

Along with Mr Patel as chairman of directors of the Malek Fahd, the school's board also has several other AFIC executives. These include AFIC vice-president Hafez Kassem, treasurer Mohamed Masood and assistant AFIC treasurer Ashraf Usman Ali.

Neither the commonwealth nor the NSW education department has provided comment on the matter, but The Australian understands the school's funding issue has been brought to the attention of NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell's office.

SOURCE





Nightmare as patient 'awake in surgery'

A WOMAN who was allegedly conscious during surgery - but could not tell anyone of the "incredible pain" she was feeling - is suing the anaesthetist involved in the operation.

Wendy Felgate, of Mission Beach, north Queensland, claims she was conscious but paralysed during laparoscopic surgery.

The Court of Appeal in Brisbane heard Ms Felgate, then 48, experienced a phenomenon known as "surgical awareness" during the 2008 surgery at Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital.

In her initial 2007 notice of a personal injury claim served on Dr Paul Tucker, Ms Felgate said: "I was not properly anaesthetised by Dr Tucker. I was only paralysed and was therefore conscious for the whole procedure."

She claimed she suffered acute pain and suffering, "torture", anxiety and later experienced flashbacks and nightmares.

Dr Michael Steyn, Director of Anaesthesia at RBWH, said in a court-filed report that an Australasian review of 8372 anaesthetic incidents found 81 cases of surgical awareness.

This month Ms Felgate unsuccessfully appealed against a judge's refusal to allow her access to a legally privileged statement about her anaesthesia, written by Dr Tucker to his lawyers.

In an August 12 judgment, Court of Appeal president Justice Margaret McMurdo said it was pertinent factual background that the day after the surgery Dr Tucker wrote in Ms Felgate's medical chart: "On two occasions the surgeon noted she coughed." Dr Tucker has denied liability in respect of the claim.

SOURCE




Intolerant women and male/female sex differences

Bettina Arndt is a good-humoured Australian lady who has been a sex columnist and counselor for many years -- both before and after her own happy marriage. Her husband died of a heart attack aged only 37 in 1981. She later remarried. She has elsewhere dealt with the problems of women whose husband has lost interest in sex but below she deals with the opposite problem: Men whose wives have lost interest in sex.

Faced with the misery of a lifetime spent dealing with the frustrations of monogamous sex-starved marriage, most men don't leave. On my website forum, there's a letter titled "Do I stay or do I go" from a 40-year-old married man who's gone for years without any sex in his marriage. The letter has attracted hundreds of responses, many from men urging him to go. He left, for a while, but then came back and is struggling on, trying to make his marriage work. Like most men who write to me, he loves his wife and children and feels he has too much to lose if he leaves.

We hear constantly about men in trouble over sex. Men in trouble for not keeping their trousers zipped, for groping and harassing women, men caught out looking at pornography, or gazing at women in the wrong way. But what we never hear about is men's restraint, the remarkable stoicism of current generations of heterosexual men who cop it sweet, despite their immense frustrations.

Last year The Sunday Age published a sweetly amusing story about men's sexual fantasies, written by a man who describes himself as a "respectable, married" man who has spent the last few years taming what he calls his "inner goat". There's no place for hidden sexual yearnings in his proudly reconstructed world - he boasts he keeps his goat firmly locked inside a concrete pen, tethered to a post. Yet he ruefully acknowledges that sometimes it manages to escape and he finds himself mentally undressing a woman as she walks past.

The online responses to his article were intriguing - the men who applauded his courage and the women who condemned him for expressing such thoughts. "Men, you could put your minds to much better use than fantasising about women you are never going to get … There's something you can do: you can respect women and learn to control your pathetic, primitive minds. Meditation helps," wrote one smug woman.

A male responder hit the nail on the head, summing up what's happened here: "While the feminists and soft men like to kid themselves that they are changing our nature, all they've really done is teach men to keep their mouths shut, while our minds still explore exactly the same topics they always have."

There's an interesting book - The Testosterone Files - written by a feminist writer who had a sex change and became a male. The author, Max Wolf Valerio, describes being blown away by the urgency of his newly acquired sexual urges, his constant sexual fantasies - sex is now food, he says. He cringes when he sees female audiences on talk shows pursing their lips, shaking their heads at sheepish male guests who are supposed "porn addicts" or "womanisers". He's shocked by women's ready assumption of moral superiority.

"How to explain this to women?" Valerio ponders. "There is this thing about men that they cannot completely know. Few people want to believe that there could be a real chasm, a chemically induced difference of sexual drive between the sexes. Few want to believe that there might be any difference at all that is not socially constructed.

"Now that I am Max, I see that this rift, this fundamental chasm between men and women's perceptions and experience of sexuality, is one that may never be bridged.

"There certainly can be no hope for understanding as long as society pretends that men and women are really the same, that the culture of male sexuality is simply a conflation of misogyny and dysfunction. That the male libido is shaped and driven primarily by socialisation, that can be legislated or 'psychobabbled' out of existence."

The strong male libido remains, even if the inner goat now must remain firmly tethered. Men live with up to 20 times the testosterone of women and that makes it very tough to cope with decades of monogamous marriage, particularly when sex is offered very reluctantly - "like meaty bites to a dog", as one man put it.

Yet most men are doing a remarkable job remaining true to their women. For all the talk about unfaithful men, most married men succeed at monogamy most of the time. Just look at the statistics. The Sex in Australia survey of almost 20,000 people found just 5 per cent of partnered men had strayed in the previous year. Now admittedly, these tiny numbers can add up over a long marriage or relationship, but while there are men who are compulsive philanderers, this wasn't the case for most of the men taking part in my research who admitted to having had an affair.

The overwhelming majority wanted to be faithful and were succeeding, even though there may have been a lapse along the way - a one-night stand at a conference, a few weeks of illicit pleasure, or even an affair lasting months or perhaps a year or two. But nothing compared with the many years of restraint.

In one of Dan Savage's amusing Q&A sessions with college students now available on YouTube, he argues men should get credit for this. "If you are with a guy for 40 years and he cheats on you three or four times, he is GOOD at monogamy! Not BAD at monogamy. We think of monogamy the way we think of virginity - it exists until you f--- someone and then it's gone forever. We need to think of monogamy the way we think of sobriety - you can fall the f--- off the wagon and still get back up."

All the evidence suggests the urge is hardwired - yet most men find ways of ignoring that itch, or diverting it into harmless pursuits like looking at pornography.

Harmless pursuits? That's not, of course, how porn is presented. We are subject to an endless stream of people, mainly women, warning of the dangers of porn. Witness the recent visit to Australia of British sociologist Gail Dines, who appeared on television panels and at writers' festivals describing in the most salacious terms the horrors of gonzo porn - gagging women, women whose anuses "literally drop off their bodies because of anal prolapses". She claimed mainstream porn was invariably vile, body-punishing, brutal, dehumanising and debasing.

Yet the truth is when men sit in the wee hours staring at their flickering computer screens, the big attraction is willing women, eager women, easy women - easy to bed and easy to please. "Images of women hungry for sex with us, possessed by desire for us. Receptive women who greet our sexual desire not with fear or loathing but with appreciation, even gratitude," wrote David Steinberg in an essay relating sexual scarcity to the male attraction for porn.

A research study looking at porn usage in Australia, published in The Porn Report, found most (98 per cent) of the best-selling porn videos are pretty white-bread and free of violence - in fact, the most popular mainstream internet sites are now the DIY amateur sites where thoroughly ordinary couples bonk for their webcams. My research suggests men turn to porn for good reasons: as a harmless outlet for their sexual curiosity; to control a sexual drive causing conflict in their relationships; to relieve sexual boredom; and as relief from the tensions of trying to please women in real-life sex.

I recently received an email from a 60-year-old woman talking about her "fabulous, amazing, caring, awesome, loving" husband who keeps harassing her to get involved in threesomes and group sex. She's an intelligent, thoughtful woman who is perplexed about how to negotiate this difference in their attitudes. "There is, I believe, a big difference between 'just saying yes' within the confines of a marriage, and agreeing to sexual arrangements that simply fly in the face of everything that you believe that sex is about."

Her husband grew up in a very liberal sexual environment and had previously enjoyed open relationships. He's convinced his desire for sexual experimentation is perfectly natural, but it holds no attraction for her. After much persuasion, she participated in a threesome with a male friend yet the pressure continues, with her husband seeking further get-togethers with other males and even sending a photo of her (clothed) to a potential partner. Naturally she was upset by this, but rather than rant about his behaviour, she wrote seeking simply to illustrate the difficulties of negotiating this divide between men and women.

I suggested she post the letter on my website forum, to generate discussion on this difficult issue. It attracted an immediate response from an angry woman: "NOBODY, and I mean NOBODY (not even hubby) has the right to pressure you into doing anything that makes you feel uncomfortable. A person who does this is not respecting OR loving his/her partner," she wrote, tearing strips off the man for his unseemly behaviour. "If that was my husband, and he continued to harass me over this, it would be grounds for separation and divorce. Red flags going off all over the place for me," she added emphatically.

Naturally that served to shut off any real discussion. Few men would dare venture an opinion after such a tirade. That's what happens all the time. Whenever anyone, man or woman, talks openly about how to accommodate male sexual desire, angry women close down the conversation. It strikes me as odd.

Of course women have a right to say no to such activities but shouldn't men have freedom to ask? Is it so very different from other areas where women feel perfectly free to try to persuade men into life-changing decisions - like buying a bigger house (involving him in an extra decade or two of mortgage payments) or persuading a new husband, a remarried father, to have more children?

A few months ago, ANU women's studies students held a demonstration protesting about a talk I was giving at their university. They objected to me even raising questions about sexual obligation in marriage, suggesting such talk is dangerous for young women.

What nonsense. Closing down the debate on the vexed business of accommodating male and female sexual needs doesn't solve anything. This is mighty tough stuff but it's a conversation we must continue.

More HERE



21 August, 2011

Racial abuse in football

It's common worldwide. Sport tends to wind people up and some act incautiously as a result. Should not be taken too seriously

A COUNTRY football umpire is the latest figure to be involved in a racial vilification case this year. He is alleged to have racially abused a player in a North Gippsland Football League match last weekend. The player was from Woodside Football Club, playing Cowwarr.

It is alleged the umpire racially taunted the indigenous player during the last quarter before the player retaliated by kicking a ball at the umpire's head.

North Gippsland league general manager Gordon Bailey said the issue was disappointing. "We got a complaint from Woodside about the alleged vilification of one of their players by an umpire," Bailey said. "The umpire and his association have agreed to attend a mediation session. Hopefully it will take place sooner rather than later."

Meanwhile, the case against a boy, 11, accused of calling a football opponent a "nigger" has been dropped, after an independent investigation found he had not been the perpetrator of a racial slur directed at Ronen Jafari, an under-12s Portarlington player, during a match against Drysdale on the Bellarine Peninsula last month. The league adopted the inquiry's three recommendations:

A RACISM seminar to be attended by players in the Drysdale under-12s team.

A LETTER of apology to Ronen, to be signed by all Drysdale players.

THE boy who was accused of making the slur had no case to answer.

Football Geelong chief executive Lee Hartman said the investigation had not determined exactly what words were used and by whom. But the boy originally accused had not uttered a racial slur.

SOURCE



Criminals cash up on $400,000 in compo

VICTORIAN prisoners have been paid more than $400,000 by the State Government in the past two years.

Taxpayers have unwittingly footed the bill for compensation claims of up to $135,000 to criminals including a paedophile, serial drink-drivers and a kidnapper for injuries and illnesses the lawbreakers claim to have suffered behind bars.

The Department of Justice has confirmed $422,000 in compensation payments have been paid to prisoners since June 2009, exclusive of costs. Several more claims are still pending.

The payments, made under the Prisoner Compensation Quarantine Fund, are held in accounts until the prisoners are released. They included:

A $135,000 payment to kidnapper Toni Vodopic because she slipped in a puddle as she mopped floors at Dame Phyllis Frost prison.

$65,000 plus costs paid to paedophile Anthony Douglas Walters to pay for plastic surgery and counselling after he was attacked in jail.

$120,000 paid to drink-driver Alan Philip Brown who claimed a garden roller door closed on him in Loddon Prison.

A $27,000 claim by prisoner Patrick Trainor in November 2009.

$75,000 plus costs paid to jailed drink-driver Andrew Steel who claimed he hurt his back driving a tractor at Dhurringle Prison.

Victims of the criminals' crimes are entitled to make a claim for some of the money they have been awarded under state legislation, and the State Government has encouraged them to do so.

But the Government has refused to say how much victims of the criminals' crimes have recouped, citing privacy legislation.

Corrections Victoria spokesman Sam Bishop said victims had a year to consider taking their own legal action upon learning the criminal had received a payout. "The Prisoner Compensation Quarantine Fund gives victims a chance to hold prisoners accountable for the pain and suffering they have caused," he said.

"The fund ensures any compensation payment over $10,000 is quarantined until legal proceedings have been completed. "This gives victims an opportunity to launch a civil claim."

SOURCE





Deals too good to be true, warns Choice

BARGAIN hunters have been warned to be wary of "coupon sites" such as Scoopon, Cudo, LivingSocial, Spreets and Groupon.

The boom in the Australian sites comes as the popularity of their US equivalents begins to wane because of growing shopper discontent.

Consumer group Choice has now warned online coupon shoppers to keep a keen eye on expiry dates, and deals that are too good to be true. The consumer group has also received complaints from coupon buyers claiming second-class service.

Choice member Jon Park was disappointed with discount go-kart vouchers he bought online. Mr Park said he was treated poorly and forced to wait behind full-paying customers. "This is very unfair and unjust," he said.

The new online players have also been criticised over inaccurate advertising, refusals of refunds and hidden terms and conditions.

Thousands of Australian consumers are flocking to the growing coupon sites. Deals range from $1 ten-pin bowling and $29 manicures to $49 banquet feasts for two.

Melbourne-based website Scoopon claims to be the most popular local online coupon mailer with more than a million subscribers. Scoopon general manager Jon Beros said the site had sold 1.3 million deals and 1 per cent of sales had attracted customer complaints.

Choice spokeswoman Ingrid Just said: "Certainly it is important to be aware of the expiry dates and to ask yourself if you are getting caught up in the excitement of the deal, rather than if you need the deal."

SOURCE





Victorian Grandmother waiting for public hospital knee surgery for three years

A ST ALBANS grandmother says she has abandoned all hope of undergoing a knee replacement in the public health system after having her operation cancelled eight times in the past three months.

The elective surgery saga comes as the State Government has appointed a panel to oversee Victoria's first publication of "hidden" wait times.

Doris Swansson, 62, has been waiting for surgery since injuring her knee three years ago. But after waiting 18 months for a referral to a Western Health surgeon - which unwittingly saw her waiting for an arthritis clinic appointment - it was another eight months before she had an arthroscopy.

She has since taken out private health insurance - eating up a quarter of her weekly pension - in what she sees as her only option to have surgery. "I'm feeling lucky that I took it out now, even though sometimes I'll only have $30 left a week for food and the rest after paying my bills," Ms Swansson said.

"I just limp around these days, it's the normal walking movement that causes all the problems and I'm always in pain. "You pay your taxes all your life, but when you need help you're left housebound."

Western Health divisional director of surgical services Claire Culley said the operations had been delayed three times to make room for emergency cases. Ms Culley said the operation was cancelled twice because Ms Swansson's request to have her own blood collected for transfusion during the surgery could not be met at short notice.

Meanwhile, the State Government has appointed a three-member panel to audit hospital elective surgery and outpatient waiting lists, helping establish a "treat in turn" system to ensure patients are treated anywhere across the system.

Eastern Health board director Stuart Alford, Australian Medical Association vice-president Dr Stephen Parnis and Latrobe Regional Hospital chief Peter Craighead will report to Health Minister David Davis within six months.

They will also improve the consistency of elective surgery categorisation across the health system, to help reduce inequity throughout the network by grouping patients with similar conditions in similar time frames.

SOURCE



20 August, 2011


Another job for the "Santiago" squad

In NSW they used to call it the Middle Eastern Crime squad but they too have probably now changed that name. For the unitiated it is about Lebanese Muslims. St. James must wonder how he got involved. Santiago is Spanish for St. James

Police in Melbourne believe a man who has turned up at hospital with a gunshot wound, could hold the key to a murder investigation.

A businessman and a convicted criminal, believed to have been related, were gunned down in a smash repair shop.

The homicide squad and Santiago taskforce, which investigates shootings predominantly involving Middle Eastern crime clans, were probing the deadly confrontation at CBD Smash Repairs in Florence St, Brunswick, about 2.30pm.

No weapons were found at the scene, a small semi-industrial side-street that runs next to a train line.

Police were last night unable to rule out whether they were hunting a gunman still on the loose.

One of the men died at the scene while another died on the way to the Royal Melbourne Hospital. The third man presented himself at Royal Melbourne's emergency ward with a bullet wound. He is considered a key to the investigation.

Last night he was under police guard and detectives will seek to question him about how the double shooting unfolded in a quiet Melbourne street.

The Herald Sun believes he has denied being part of the shooting despite his wound and arriving at the hospital shortly after shots rang out in the garage. It is not clear if he drove himself to the hospital or was driven.

Dozens of police surrounded the panel shop in the one-way backstreet, which is just around the corner from the Edinburgh Castle Hotel. Police will use ballistics analysis to discover the type of weapons used in the shooting.

Acting Supt Stephen Mutton said the shooting was a "serious concern to police". With investigations continuing, he could not say if anyone else had been involved beyond the two dead at the small panel shop.

SOURCE





Melbourne's multicultural experience again

Hospital Emergency department a gang battleground

GANGS carrying guns, samurai swords and knives are terrorising doctors and nurses at a suburban hospital. Conflicts between the heavily armed migrant gangs are spilling from the streets into the emergency ward at Sunshine Hospital. A whistleblower said staff feared for their lives and were demanding 24-hour security in the casualty ward.

Warring Asian, Sudanese, Somali and Pacific islander gangs had taken their battles into the emergency department.

The whistleblower said incidents included:

ASIAN gangs threatening to throw chairs at each other when two groups arrived at emergency seeking treatment for separate stab victims.

A GUNSHOT victim forcing the evacuation of the hospital's emergency department after a security guard took him inside, despite fears he had a gun.

POLICE being regularly called to disperse gangs who were milling out the front of the hospital waiting for one of their members to be treated.

AT least one gang member a month presenting at the hospital with stab wounds.

Insiders estimated that about 70 "code grey" security alerts, where staff and patient safety is put at risk, occurred at the hospital each week.

The whistleblower, who is related to a hospital worker, said more needed to be done to protect staff. He feared that sooner or later, a staff member would be seriously injured or even killed at work.

"People come into the emergency department with samurai swords, gangs turn up with bullet wounds, and nurses and doctors go to work and put up with those things because they are dedicated," the whistleblower said. "You would think the hospital would be prepared to provide a security guard to give them some sense of safety."

A Western Health spokeswoman said the security of staff in the emergency department was taken "extremely seriously". "From time to time, there are incidents that can be very frightening for staff," she said. "But this is a constant challenge for emergency departments across Australia and the world. "We are examining security and working with staff on additional safety measures."

SOURCE





Another computer folly

Queensland's OneSchool computer system causing similar problems to Qld Health payroll

It COULD be the next health payroll debacle - but this time it involves Queensland state schools. Problems with the OneSchool computer system have left hundreds of schools complaining of mix-ups with contractors' pay and other bills, leaving their budgets in disarray and "dangerous workloads".

One school was threatened with having its electricity disconnected after a bill was wrongly recorded as paid. Some schools have not paid contractors in time.

Staff have been working weekends to fix the problems, with some allegedly on the verge of nervous breakdowns.

Alex Scott, secretary of Together (formerly known as the Queensland Public Sector Union), said the problems mirrored the health payroll disaster because the department appeared to be in denial about how bad the problems were. "The department must delay the expansion of the rollout of the system until they get it right," he said. "Queensland schools can't afford a health payroll-style disaster."

But late yesterday Education Queensland director-general Julie Grantham said they had decided to delay the final rollout to all state schools, to allow time to fix glitches and support administrators. It followed an order from Education Minister Cameron Dick for more staff training and support.

The OneSchool system is used universally by state schools to produce academic reports, create curriculum and record student details. But it has been the third phase - the rollout of a financial module which was implemented in 635 schools during the last school holidays - which has sparked the most concern.

Queensland Association of State School Principals president Hilary Backus said their biggest concern had been the delays in getting help for problems, which included bills and accounts payable, invoices and bank reconciliations.

But she said QASSP was satisfied the department was doing everything it could to deal with the problems and the system would be better in the long run, once these were sorted out.

Mr Scott said the union had received "hundreds of reports of excessive and dangerous workloads being created by this system". "We've had reports of electricity and maintenance bills not being paid by schools, despite the system showing otherwise," Mr Scott said. "Schools staff are being pushed to the limit to make sure schools can do business."

Problems identified by The Courier-Mail include:

* Supplier details either uploaded incorrectly or not at all, resulting in wrong suppliers being sent invoices. Suppliers that should have been paid within certain time frames were not.

* One school was sent an electricity disconnection notice despite their system telling them the bill had been paid.

* Daily problems with the way bank information was uploaded.

* A budget tool not working, leaving principals with no idea whether they were on, ahead or behind on their budget.

* Staff losing almost-completed work data because OneSchool was timing out with no visible warning.

* Departmental IT support staff taking longer than a week to get back to schools on OneSchool problems.

Ms Grantham said the problems had been a mixture of glitches - which they were fixing as they came up - and human error, which was natural as staff got used to the system. She said schools which took on the system in the June/July holidays had all applied to do so, and said they were ready.

While the State Opposition has compared OneSchool problems to the payroll disaster, Ms Grantham has vehemently denied it. She said OneSchool had nothing to do with the staff payroll. "The system itself as a whole is a very good system, but yes, there have been some processing functions that haven't gone as smoothly as they could."

Mr Dick said OneSchool was a good program that was well supported. "School staff want more support and training and that is what I have directed the director-general to do to."

SOURCE





Julia between a rock and a hard place

When almost every NSW Labor backbencher crowded into a Canberra committee room on Wednesday, their message to Julia Gillard's chief of staff and a senior minister was blunt. There is an issue out there hurting them even more than the carbon tax.

When almost every Queensland MP filed in to the next meeting, the message was exactly the same.

During the winter break Clubs NSW held scores of "Save our Clubs" rallies as part of a campaign targeting the electorates of 25 Labor MPs, 15 of them in NSW.
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Long-term local members found themselves being booed and jeered by hundreds of club patrons who believe the government's plan to stop problem gambling by introducing mandatory pre-commitment for bets of more than $1 a time on poker machines will destroy the clubs where they go for a cheap meal and a flutter.

The crowds, sometimes numbering in the thousands, were egged on by a video message from the broadcaster Alan Jones, in which he says their message to Julia Gillard should be "go away, get out of our lives, we've heard you, we don't like you".

At least two of the MPs - backbencher Craig Thomson, who is under pressure over allegations of using a union credit card to pay for prostitutes, and Daryl Melham, who is president of the Revesby Workers Club - were so flustered by the angry attacks they responded in kind and were later forced to apologise.

The mood among backbenchers at Wednesday's meeting - attended by the Families Minister, Jenny Macklin, who is responsible for implementing the deal, and Gillard's chief of staff, Ben Hubbard - was "truly desperate", said one MP. "This is toxic. It is hurting us more than the carbon tax and the asylum issue," he said.

The NSW right led the attack, but the concerns are just as deep in the left. The NSW marginal seats which the clubs are targeting most intensively are the western Sydney seats of Lindsay and Greenway, the Central Coast seats of Dobell and Roberston and the regional seats of Eden Monaro and Page.

Several MPs told the Herald that while they might eventually be able to "sell" the carbon tax, they were never going to be able to sell this one.

The only catch is that "this one" - passing legislation by May next year to combat problem gambling by forcing gamblers to pre-commit how much they want to wager before they begin betting - was a written promise made to the Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie in the deal in which he agreed to back Labor to form government.

And he says if it is not legislated by the time of next May's budget - even if it fails because the government is not able to persuade enough of his fellow cross benchers to support it - he will walk out of the chamber, get that deal and tear it up.

The logic of what would happen then is a little elusive - Wilkie has said he might support a Coalition government led by Malcolm Turnbull although it is unclear whether sufficient Liberals would. He also says that although Liberals are firmly against mandatory pre-commitment, discussion of the issue is "not closed" at his meetings with the Coalition leader, Tony Abbott, each sitting week.

Wilkie says the logic is that Labor "only became the government because they agreed to do this" and they will be held to such a difficult promise only "if their very existence depends on it". And if that means he ends up with a Coalition government that is even more hostile to his gambling reforms? "So be it," he says. He really seems to mean it.

Tony Windsor told the Herald it was "highly unlikely" he would vote for the reform. Other independents have not declared a final position, but Wilkie says he is sure he has enough votes among the cross benches to pass the law if Labor holds firm. Both government and coalition sources insist he has not.

Jenny Macklin says the deal will be done.

The desperate backbenchers are hoping that, once the carbon tax and the mining tax are passed with Wilkie's support, and a draft bill on mandatory pre-commitment is prepared, Wilkie may be persuaded to engage in a negotiation to soften his demands.

Meanwhile, the assistant Treasurer, Bill Shorten, has been meeting club managers, listening to their concerns and what reforms they would be prepared to accept.

And in their electorates some backbenchers are quietly trying to distance themselves from the changes or suggest they may not, in the end, be implemented in full.

Janelle Saffin, who represents the northern NSW seat of Page, has told her local radio she prefers voluntary, rather than mandatory pre-commitment for betters, a scheme that would be supported by the clubs industry. She reportedly told an 800-strong rally in her electorate that time was on their side, because the proposal was not yet legislation.

The parliamentary secretary Mike Kelly, who holds the southern NSW seat of Eden Monaro, and who has raised the issue many times in the Labor caucus, also favours voluntary pre-commitment. He says he would be "open to persuasion" that mandatory pre-commitment should be implemented if there had been a trial of different schemes to see what works and what impact they had on the revenue of clubs.

Others, including the Environment Minister, Tony Burke, and the parliamentary secretary David Bradbury, have also supported calls for a trial of the idea.

But Wilkie has said he would only countenance the technology to implement mandatory pre-commitment, not a trial that could lead to any variation in the policy itself, nor in the start date of 2014 promised by the Prime Minister.

Some backbenchers are sure Wilkie is bluffing. "He's got to be playing hard ball. What sense would it make to bring down a government and lose his own seat and not achieve any of the reform he is seeking?" one said.

But those in Labor who have spent the most time talking with the Tasmanian independent fear he is deadly serious.

For a bloke staking his parliamentary career, and the existence of a government, on anti-gambling reforms, Wilkie is playing a mean game of poker.

SOURCE



19 August, 2011

Burqa law to be extended to jails and courts in New South Wales

NEW laws giving police the power to insist Muslim women remove their burqas so they can be identified will be extended to prisons and courts in legislation New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell will take to parliament next week.

Under the laws, police will not be able to forcibly remove a face-covering if the wearer refuses to do so. However, those who do refuse the request will be charged and face $220 fines. For motorists, the penalties will be even greater, with fines of up to $5500 or a year in jail. Refusing to remove a headcovering in a courtroom will carry a $550 fine.

The laws will also apply to helmets as well as to niqabs, masks and burqas according to The Daily Telegraph.

If the subject of a police roadside stop pleads cultural sensitivity as a reason for refusing to remove a head covering, they can ask to go to a police station to remove it.

The Ombudsman will review the laws in 12 months.

Mr O'Farrell will announce the changes to the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act today. Mr O'Farrell said that under the current laws, police could ask someone to provide identification but had virtually no powers to require someone to remove a face covering.

"Under the changes, police will be able to demand the removal of any face covering including a helmet, burqa, niqab, mask or any item of clothing when requiring people to prove their identification," he said.

"There will be strong safeguards to ensure that the new powers are used sensibly. "People will only be required to remove a face covering for as long as it takes to identify them.

"In other words, we want to ensure that identification occurs as quickly as possible and with privacy if the person requests it. At the same time, we are going to give police the powers ... to make a clear identification of those suspected of committing offences."

SOURCE






Can we have some diversity of opinion at their ABC

LAST week's coverage of the London riots by our national broadcaster provides yet more evidence of the deep and damaging divide between mainstream Australians and the so-called intellectual class. The term "so-called intellectual class" is deliberate. Many of its apparently well-educated members are more ideologically blinded than they are intellectually curious.

Take PM, the ABC radio's premier political program. The program was abuzz with talk about the causes of the criminal mayhem, except the causes that fall outside the bounds of respectable Left-liberal orthodoxy.

We are used to being intellectually underwhelmed in Sydney by ABC local radio's Deborah Cameron. Her constant lightweight crusades are just that: they represent the unthinking Left.

Even former ABC chairman Donald McDonald has pointed to Cameron's morning stream of consciousness and asked why can't the ABC do better? Good question. A better question is this: aren't we entitled to expect more from PM, which describes itself as "one of the grand institutions of Australian public broadcasting"?

Sadly, the highbrow program let us down. Early in the week, PM's host Mark Colvin and London-based reporter Rachael Brown kept making comparisons with the race riots in the 1980s.

When it became clear that the riots were not political protests, but instead rampant, opportunistic crime, the program then canvassed every Left-liberal excuse for the shocking violence.

We heard about the hot weather, high unemployment, bad police communications, unfairness, inequality, austerity cuts, culminating in PM interviewing author Will Hutton, who blamed the crime wave on capitalism.

By Friday, not even the ABC could ignore another possible explanation: the poisonous cocktail of welfare dependency, broken schools, the absence of family authority and a vacuum of values that bind communities. Yet, even then, PM's interview with Theodore Dalrymple, a critic of the welfare system, looked like a token effort to placate a broadcasting charter that requires the ABC to present different perspectives. After all, why didn't the ABC's premier political program evince earlier and more genuine curiosity about the riots? Plenty of people have asked questions about the damaging role of welfare.

The journalists at PM could have spoken with Frank Furedi or Brendan O'Neill, to name just a few who have provided thoughtful analysis that challenges leftist sacred cows. If PM didn't want to take its cue from this newspaper, which featured both men, the program could have interviewed many others who reject the so-called progressive orthodoxy of welfare.

The term "so-called progressive" is also deliberate: the London riots have shown that decades of progressive welfare policies have not provided a path to progress for the people who need it most.

Colvin's evening political coverage could have included Katharine Birbalsingh, for example. The former state school teacher made headlines last October after her passionate speech about education to the Conservative Party conference attacking the deep "culture of excuses, of low standards and expecting the very least from our poorest and least disadvantaged".

Colvin's PM program could have explored what turned Birbalsingh from a self-described serious lefty who read Marxism at university and flirted with the Socialist Workers Party into a well-placed critic of a leftist ideology that has long since stopped helping children.

The 37-year-old teacher told the conference that when she tells a child who has caused trouble to repeat "I am responsible for myself, Miss", she is "fighting a generation of thinking that has left our education system in pieces".

From front-line experience, Birbalsingh blames the "well-meaning liberal" for the dumbing down of schools 'that even the children themselves know it", where the children are crying out for structure and discipline (one child pleaded with her: "Miss, I want to be in your class because I hear you're really mean").

In schools and in society, "we need high expectations; we need to instil competition among our kids and help build their motivation". A few days after saying these things, Birbalsingh was asked by her employers to work from home and she has since parted ways with the British state school system.

Perhaps PM will interview Birbalsingh when she comes to Sydney to speak at a Sydney Institute function next month. That they failed to cast Aunty's net of analysis wider during the London riots tells us much about the state of debate on important issues in this country.

This is a debate that requires some genuine curiosity and courage from the broader political class if we are to learn anything from the riots across London.

And there is plenty to learn. Lessons such as what happens when we fail to attribute responsibility to individuals for their actions, when we fail to lay down boundaries for behaviour, when there are too few expectations on people, when generations grow dependent on the state, when they have only a sense of entitlement to handouts rather than a sense of contribution to the community in which they live.

After all, people don't jump up and start demolishing their own community because benefits are cut back.

If the austerity cuts are to blame for the violence, then handing benefits back won't restore the moral values that were absent on the streets of England last week. The mentality that led to the riots was quietly brewing while public expenditure in Britain has skyrocketed for the past few decades.

Instead of using the riots to attack capitalism, we could relearn some basic economic lessons too. As Irving Kristol once said, it's true that a market economy creates inequalities of income and wealth but "there is simply no alternative to 'trickle-down economics' which is just another name for growth economics".

As Kristol said: "The world has yet to see a successful version of 'trickle-up economics', an egalitarian society in which the state ensures the fruits of economic growth are universally and equally shared" because this socialist ideal has never produced the fruits in the first place.

When the state grows bigger and more intrusive, assuming greater control over individuals, the other side of the equation necessarily gets squeezed. Individual freedom, accountability and responsibility for our actions as free agents diminish in equal measure.

Jed Bartlet, the fictional Democrat president on The West Wing, best described the consequences of not taking responsibility when he said: "We come to occupy a moral safe house where everyone's to blame so no one's guilty". In response to his wrongdoing, Bartlet said: "I'm to blame. I was wrong."

When governments and the broader political class, when schools and bureaucracies, and when parents raising children relearn the importance of individual responsibility, then we will see real progress for those who most need it.

SOURCE




GREENIE ROUNDUP

Three articles below

Powerful states say all options considered in battling Gillard government tax

THE nation's most powerful states will confront Julia Gillard with a demand to tear down the carbon tax or face a revolt over multi-billion-dollar asset writedowns and sweeping job cuts.

NSW and Victoria yesterday foreshadowed a bitter scrap with the Gillard government at Friday's Council of Australian Governments meeting amid growing calls to scrap the tax.

The NSW government has dramatically widened its line of attack on the tax fallout by revealing that federal Labor's renewable energy scheme had slashed the profitability of its state-owned electricity generators.

NSW Treasury has warned that if the Gillard government fails to phase out the scheme when the carbon price starts, it will consider seeking compensation, with NSW Treasurer Mike Baird revealing that all options -- including suing -- were on the table.

Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu led a chorus of cabinet criticism, with his government warning that alone, the closure of the Hazelwood power station in the brown coal-dependent Latrobe Valley would cost up to 5000 jobs.

Unemployment under a carbon tax could soar to 16.5 per cent in the valley, in the state's east, and Victoria has demanded that the tax be dumped. "Now is not the time to add another cost," Mr Baillieu warned.

NSW and Victoria are likely to be joined by Western Australia in opposing the tax, pointing to a serious test of the Prime Minister's diplomatic skills and willpower.

Although fighting on different battlegrounds, the powerful union of conservative states has the potential to further undermine Ms Gillard's hard-sell of the tax.

Victoria has threatened to scuttle the proposed national maritime safety regulator and WA has raised concerns about the transport package, especially relating to the heavy vehicle component.

The NSW government has previously focused its criticism on the prospect that the carbon tax would force multi-billion-dollar write-downs to the state-owned power stations, but NSW Treasury has now warned: "In view of its adverse impact on generator profitability, in the event the commonwealth does not phase out the Renewable Energy Target with the introduction of a carbon price, the NSW government could consider seeking commonwealth compensation for the adverse impacts of the RET on generator profitability."

The warning is contained in a submission to a Senate select committee inquiry into the carbon tax, which also suggests the NSW Treasury is trying to put a figure on the size of the losses triggered by the RET.

Yesterday, when asked whether the NSW government would consider legal action for compensation, Mr Baird said: "We are looking at all options."

The state-owned power stations, which include the nation's largest portfolio of power stations run by government-owned Macquarie Generation, are all coal-fired.

NSW argues the RET is a "very inefficient" way of achieving carbon abatement as it costs about $90 a tonne -- almost four times the $23-a-tonne carbon tax.

The state argues that many of the commonwealth's green policies are not complementary to the carbon tax and should be phased out. "To be complementary, they would most obviously need to relate to sectors not covered by the tax, like agriculture, or demonstrate their capacity to be self-funding, as might be the case with some energy efficiency measures," the submission states.

"Of particular concern to NSW is that the RET has created significant losses of value for NSW government-owned generators and is expected to lead to even more losses in the future."

NSW also warns it will receive $45 million less in payments from its generators this year, rising yearly to $290m less in 2014-15.

On top of this, NSW could come under pressure to compensate participants in the state-based Greenhouse Gas Reduction Scheme and the Energy Savings Scheme, as these are expected to be unwound as a result of the carbon tax.

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State premiers turn up heat on Greens over their reservations about coal seam gas

QUEENSLAND Premier Anna Bligh has lashed the Greens over their attacks on the coal seam gas industry, warning the party can't cherry pick science to suit its ideology.

As state premiers converged on Canberra today for the Council of Australian Governments, Ms Bligh threw her support behind coal seam gas as an environmentally-friendly transitional fuel.

“There is absolutely no doubt that if Australia wants a clean energy future, gas has to be part of that and it has to be part of our transition,” Ms Bligh said.

Greens leader Bob Brown has questioned whether coal seam gas is a more greenhouse-friendly fuel than coal, due to the release of methane gas during its extraction.

Ms Bligh said she was disappointed in Senator Brown's comments, saying the science on gas was clear. “Frankly you can't pick and choose your science to suit your ideology,” she said. “You either believe the science on climate change, believe the science on gas emissions, or you don't. “You can't pick and choose to suit an ideological point and that's what I've seen from the Greens.”

NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell also weighed in, accusing the Greens of being “all over the place” on the issue. He said gas had a role to play in the energy mix. “Gas is clearly important, but it can't be gas, coal or some other mineral at the expense of the rest of the economy and at the expense of agricultural land,” Mr O'Farrell said.

West Australian Premier Colin Barnett said there were environmental issues with coal seam gas that needed to be managed, but the fuel had “great potential” to clean up power generation on the nation's east coast. “The emissions from gas are about a half to a third of what they are from a coal plant,” he said.

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Conservative NSW government gives Greenie pests the boot

THE Barry O'Farrell government has embarked on its first round of public-service job cuts, announcing it will slash the number of positions at a research facility within the Department of Primary Industries by more than a third.

Staff at the Forest Science Centre, which is associated with Forests NSW, were told yesterday that 11 of their 31 positions would be abolished.

A number of senior scientists were told they could reapply for a reduced number of positions within the unit. Others were told they had two weeks to apply for voluntary redundancy. Alternatively, they could seek redeployment within three months after which they would be forced to take redundancy.

"We were really stunned that they targeted the science unit," a source told the Herald. "It's national science week this week."

The centre is the only unit undertaking research into the ecological sustainability of forests and agriculture. It also employs biodiversity researchers who look at species threatened by logging. "This will decimate the state's capacity for research in these areas," the source said.

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18 August, 2011

Green tax convoy a revolt of working people

Gary Johns

THE "convoy of no-confidence" in the federal Labor government, a convoy of trucks, trailers and campervans sponsored by the National Road Freighters Association started out from all over Australia yesterday and will be converging on Canberra on Monday.

The convoy will be carrying a petition calling for a federal election. Thousands will be streaming in from regional Australia in no fewer than 11 different convoys.

They are coming from Bendigo and Mildura, Warragul and Colac, Norseman and Wyong, Rocklea and Rockhampton, Atherton and Charters Towers, Port Hedland and Halls Creek.

The petitioners assert that "the 43rd executive government of Australia has been compromised into wilfully and intentionally misleading the Australian people [by] introducing a carbon tax without the consent of the Australian people and that would be normally decided by a free and unencumbered ballot".

Of course, governments are entitled to govern as they see fit. Nevertheless, a carbon tax was not only directly ruled out by the Prime Minister shortly before the last election, the evidence supporting the impact of the tax has been so opaque and deceptive that it amounts to lying.

Perhaps the petitioners don't count; after all they probably represent rural electorates already held by the Coalition.

Labor can rest easy. Then again, this convoy is not the protest of the Britons that the world witnessed last week, aptly dubbed "the first bludger uprising".

Australia's uprising is from workers. Workers, who every day drive trucks and travel in aeroplanes all over Australia to work in mines and on cattle stations and in hundreds of industries that service them.

They may be a little unkempt; they could afford to stand a little closer to a razor blade and a little further away from a tattoo gun, but what they lack in inner-city elegance, they more than make up for in a sense of proportion and reality. They do not like being treated as fools.

The federal Labor government has indeed treated them and millions of others as fools.

Simon Crean may have visited Latrobe Valley, Geelong, Wagga Wagga, Shellharbour, Port Kembla, Gladstone, Mackay, Rockhampton and Newcastle, Whyalla and Mount Gambier, but he's dreaming if he thinks anyone is buying his "clean energy future" sell-job.

Crean says that "pricing carbon is another fundamental but necessary economic reform from a Labor government" in the mould of Bob Hawke's floating of the dollar in 1983. Bollocks.

What Crean, Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan will not tell the electors is that the cost of the carbon tax in cold, hard dollars is the equivalent of an entire year's gross domestic product.

Just let that soak in for one moment. Across the scope of this scheme, 2012 until 2050, Australians will lose the equivalent of an entire year's income.

The cost of failing to abate carbon dioxide sufficient to change the temperature one iota, is one entire year's income.

In its report, Strong Growth, Low Pollution Modelling a Carbon Price, Treasury modelling has deliberately hidden the real cost of the carbon tax.

The modelling has not added together each of the GDP losses as a result of the tax in each year. On Treasury's best case, the number representing the costs to the Australian economy of the carbon tax for the period 2012-2050 is $1.35 trillion, a year's worth of GDP. Treasury presents these figures only as a percentage loss from a base case of an economy with no carbon tax.

Even using the "Labor economists" Garnaut-Stern-Quiggin discount rate, the figure Treasury believe Australians would be prepared to pay to forgo present income to "solve the problem", is $873 billion across the period. But the most realistic discount rate that common-sense Australians would actually be prepared to pay, one closer to zero, delivers the figure $1.35 trillion.

Added to this failure to reveal the true cost of a carbon tax is the other big lie, pointed out by my colleague Henry Ergas (among numerous other failings in the scheme), that the carbon tax "job growth" does not exist.

The jobs growth as such is not a result of the Treasury model; it is an assumption of the model. It relies on lower real wages to make good the assumption of full unemployment.

All other things considered, the real outcome of the carbon tax will in fact be both job losses and real wage decline. Treasury knows this and the Treasurer knows this, or at least he should.

The petitioners are angry because they have been told that the carbon tax will save the world from climate change, and that the carbon tax will not cost more than they can be compensated for.

According to Newspoll, only 30 per cent of Australians support the government's "plan to put a price on carbon".

I am certain that if they were aware of the true cost of the carbon tax, that number would fall even further.

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Warning: Those Facebook rants can get you fired

Fair Work Australia has upheld the right of an employer to sack a worker over an expletive-filled Facebook rant against a manager that was posted out of hours on his home computer.

In a case that highlights the hazy line between work and private lives, computer technician Damian O'Keefe was dismissed after posting on Facebook last year that he "wonders how the f *** work can be so f***ing useless and mess up my pay again. C***s are going down tomorrow."

Mr O'Keefe's employer, a Townsville franchise of the retail electrical goods business, The Good Guys, believed the post constituted a threat to Kelly Taylor, an operations manager responsible for processing the pay of employees. Mr O'Keefe admitted the target of his comments was Ms Taylor.

The day after the comments were posted, employer Troy Williams told Mr O'Keefe that "I am taking it you resigned. You can't work here - you made threats against us."

Upon Mr O'Keefe requesting a termination certificate, Mr Williams said: "I can't keep you employed. What do I do if there are females who want to sue for harassment? It's best for you to just go."

The employers argued there was an intimate link between Mr O'Keefe's Facebook post and his work. What was published "was about a co-worker and was published so that some of his co-workers could see what he had written".

Mr O'Keefe said he had been angry at not being paid commissions owed to him and his comments were not intended to be seen by Ms Taylor. He said his Facebook privacy settings meant only his select group of 70 friends could see his comments, but admitted 11 were co-workers.

The tribunal's deputy president, Deidre Swan, said "common sense would dictate" that a worker could not publish insulting and threatening comments about another employee. "The fact that the comments were made on the applicant's home computer, out of work hours, does not make any difference," she said.

She found Mr O'Keefe had engaged in serious misconduct and dismissed his unfair dismissal application.

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Pay teachers on merit, OECD tells Julia Gillard

TEACHERS' skills should be linked to career structure and pay, so that advancement is based on competency rather than years spent in the job.

An international report on Australia's school system, to be released today, endorses the direction of the Labor Government's education revolution, including national tests, reporting of school performance on the My School website, national curriculum and "commitment to transparency".

The OECD report also praises the introduction of national teaching standards, performance goals and the system's strong focus on students' results.

But it urges the Government to go further and identifies "a number of missing links", including that career structures for teachers are not tied to teaching standards.

"This translates into a detrimental separation between the definition of skills and competencies at different stages of the career, as reflected in teaching standards, and the roles and responsibilities of teachers in schools, as reflected in career structures," it says.

The report highlights the need to broaden the use of student assessment, including the National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy, and warns against using the results to identify problems in individual students.

It says government has focused on using assessments to hold schools accountable but is yet to look at how the data can be used to make improvements in the classroom.

"The national education agenda has placed considerable investment in establishing national standards, national testing and reporting requirements, while it provides considerably less direction and strategy on how to achieve the improvement function of evaluation and assessment," it says.

The report recommends the performance of non-government schools be scrutinised more closely, saying the reporting of outcomes in private schools is "still limited to a simple set of compliance statements and does not focus on performance".

It also calls for independent reports evaluating schools to be published on My School to provide more comprehensive information about the quality of teaching and warns teachers against using the national literacy and numeracy tests to identify problems in individual students.

The report into student assessment in Australia is part of a broader review by the OECD of the different systems around the world for assessing and evaluating students and schools, and the way they can improve outcomes.

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Dissent makes a smarter society

BY most measures over the past 35 years Australia has been an amazingly successful country. We've increased national wealth, become cosmopolitan, remained egalitarian, fight above our weight diplomatically and win more Olympic gold per capita than anyone else. But that success is under threat.

Openness has been the key. While openness in internal and external commercial markets has driven a big increase in wealth, the ability to capitalise on it has been driven by an open society that allowed new ideas, new structures and new entrepreneurs to bubble up to meet the challenges.

Now it seems that reform has reached its limit and the forces of reaction are trying to close up society and the economy, and while their goal may be partly to limit division in the community they are actually increasing it.

We've seen various legislative curbs on free speech, such as religious or racial vilification laws. These depart from traditional and legitimate curbs such as defamation in that they invent novel group rights and punish thought rather than action, often making the offence a subjective rather than objective one.

These are increasingly allied to overt attempts to enforce conformity of thought by a variety of state and non-state organisations and individuals, frequently amplified by the new media.

I'm not talking about legitimate rhetorical techniques used to convince people and change their minds, but coercive techniques to intimidate, silence and suppress.

Calls by political parties to investigate alleged media bias are the most recent front in this war....

Take the global warming debate. On one side we have the government, government-funded organisations such as the CSIRO, government appointees such as the chief scientist and various activists, non-governmental organisations and academics asserting that the science is settled and debate is over.

This reaches beyond the uncontested claim that CO2 is a greenhouse gas to demanding acceptance of any number of conflicting and widely varying modelled predictions and policies designed to mitigate their effects.

They've even invented a new type of science called "sustainability science" where if you can think of a threat large enough you are justified in dealing with it as a fact before you have experimental evidence to prove it.

Opponents are tagged as "deniers" or "denialists" in a clear attempt to demean scepticism as immoral and irrational, equivalent to holocaust denial, and the Prime Minister berates sceptical journalists telling them not to "write crap".

We even have high-profile academics such as ethics professor Clive Hamilton and federation scholar John Quiggin claiming that to even publish sceptical stories is evidence of bias.

On this basis Hamilton urged a boycott of my journal On Line Opinion, while Quiggin spends some of his time altering the Wikipedia entries of opponents to imply they are tobacco lobbyists.

If the government had been more open to entertaining contrary advice, and there are some from within its own ranks who could give it, it might not be facing a carbon tax rout that has some of the hallmarks of its very own Bay of Pigs.

And our collective problems do not stop there because dissent that is denied a legitimate place in debate can become explosively destructive.

An earlier outbreak of political correctness under Paul Keating led to the creation of Pauline Hanson. The most common reason I ever heard for people supporting Hanson was "I don't agree with everything she says, but I agree with her right to say it."

And that was before the internet. Now the new media make it easier for both the in and the out crowds to talk to themselves in an echo chamber amplifying their own group thinks.

While theoretically the internet brings all the online "thoughts" of the world within one click of each of us, it simultaneously breaks down the institutions that brought us face to face with challenging facts.

Now we can all get the "Daily Me" via Facebook, Twitter, email lists and favourite chat rooms, which reaffirms our world view.

More, the new media allow the potential for explosion to be organised via brown-shirt activism using flash mobs and new institutions like GetUp to target not politicians but innocent bystanders (as they did in the case of Harvey Norman), who may profit from a particular lawful pursuit that they disapprove of.

In this atmosphere a good government, rather than trying to delegitimise dissent, would be reaching out to institutionalise it, recognising that what's crap to one, may be fertiliser to another, and that institutions that foster dissent thrive.

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17 August, 2011

Homosexuals a privileged class again -- legally free to discriminate against normal people

We can't discriminate against them but they can discriminate against us! And it's taxpayers' money they are using to do it

A CO-OPERATIVE of gay men has won the right to continue leasing their properties exclusively to homosexual tenants. The District Court's Equal Opportunity Tribunal yesterday granted House-One Co-operative Inc an exemption from the state's Equal Rights Act.

The exemption allows the group to provide secure, long-term, affordable accommodation to gay men who have experienced difficulty finding private rental properties.

Outside court, House-One chairman Darren Webb said it was a "positive move" for the group. "We're a community, we can talk to each other, help each other and support each other," he said. "Most people think gay men are rich ... that's not the case."

In court yesterday, Mr Webb said many gay men had negative experiences in the private rental market and most felt their sexuality was a factor.

House-One treasurer Bill Dell told the court he had once been evicted by a private landlord because a distant relative was returning to Adelaide who required the accommodation. Later checks by Mr Dell revealed that was not the case and that new tenants - a young, straight couple - had moved in after him.

The co-operative said gay men seeking accommodation with their partner found it especially tough. Some were encouraged to pretend to have a girlfriend or wife when applying for a lease.

House-One manages 16 Housing Trust SA homes, predominantly in the CBD. Under yesterday's ruling, the co-operative is now exempt from accepting any non-gay applicants via the register for their properties. Men who rent the properties can do so for renewable periods of six months, provided they become a member of the co-operative.

Judge Jack Costello said the wider public interest had prompted the tribunal to grant the exemption.

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Qld. Police to be banned from investigating misconduct in their own ranks

QUEENSLAND police will be banned from investigating serious misconduct in their own ranks with private investigators or interstate officers to be used instead, under new State Government policy.

It is one of 57 recommendations from a three-person independent panel into the police complaints, discipline and misconduct system and was adopted by State Cabinet this week.

But Premier Anna Bligh has been accused of being "secretive" by sitting on the decision and not telling police or the public immediately.

The Queensland Police Union also said it was "payback" for last week's wage win in the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission, which will cost the Government an extra $87 million. "For the State Cabinet to secretly endorse changes to the Queensland Police Service and not tell anyone about it smacks of underhandedness of the highest order," QPU president Ian Leavers said.

"The Queensland Government should have had the honesty and the integrity to inform police of all the changes they had made when they actually made them."

Currently, the Crime and Misconduct Commission seconds QPS officers to investigate serious complaints.

The other recommendations, which are also expected to be implemented, include:

* Additional power for the CMC to change disciplinary decisions by the QPS if they deem them too lenient.

* New timeframes for reporting.

* Limited tenure for police and CMC officers in the Ethical Standards Command.

* Creating a joint CMC and QPS "ethical health scorecard" .

* Development of a business case for targeted drug and alcohol testing for police.

A spokeswoman for Ms Bligh denied there was anything secret about the initiatives, which were part of the Simple Effective Transparent Strong report, tabled in Parliament in May.

However, she would not say why an announcement on their adoption had not been forthcoming and did not deny a decision had been made.

The Premier said last night, in a statement, the Government was committed to releasing its response by the end of August. "There are 57 recommendations and we are giving our consideration to all of them," she said. "What's more I have asked for more work to be done around a number of them, and the Government is on track to release its full response as promised by the end of August."

Mr Leavers said the new system would "add significant costs and expenditure to the Queensland Budget at a time when we need to be spending every government dollar on frontline services not more pointless bureaucracy".

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Girl, 13, gives birth on tarmac amid maternity ward crisis

NSW can afford an army of bureaucrats but forget about real services to people who need it

A 13-year-old girl was forced to give birth on the tarmac at a cold and windy rural airport in an appalling indictment of the state of NSW's maternity services.

The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, went into labour as she boarded a Royal Flying Doctor Service plane at desolate Bourke Airport last month.

A paramedic and RFDS doctor assisted in the baby's delivery before transporting the terrified teenager to Dubbo Hospital.

"I am appalled that someone in my community, a young girl, had to go through such a horrible birth," said Elizabeth Lawrence, who spent two weeks living in a caravan in Dubbo before the birth of her daughter on Tuesday. "Does someone need to die before they make a change?"

Local vet Mary-Jane Stutsel, 39, was travelling from Bourke to Broken Hill last month when she went in to labour.

With no mobile phone reception on the drive she decided to pull in to Cobar Hospital, where nurses ordered a plane to transport her to Dubbo.

But before the plane arrived Ms Stutsel gave birth to Toby without any proper examinations or family support.

"We travelled by plane to Dubbo, but it was too foggy to land and I had to go to Sydney. It was a circus, my poor husband, daughters and mother-in-law were waiting for me at Dubbo Hospital in the car."

It was 17 hours before she was reunited with her family, who were then able to meet Toby. "It makes me shudder when I think about all the resources I wasted on a healthy baby."

Karlie Cole, 21, said every town should have a birthing unit. "Pregnancy is a natural event and it is pathetic that my community doesn't have a maternity ward," she said.

Korina Ivatt, head of the Bourke Birthing Action Group, said many women in Bourke can't afford the trip to Dubbo. "Financially and emotionally it's a nightmare," she said.

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Too much TV has same health effects as smoking and lack of exercise, Australian research finds

This sounds absurd: "every hour of watching shortened the viewer's life expectancy by about 22 minutes". This is "campaigning" research, I think.

WATCHING TV for six hours a day could shave five years off your life. New Australian-based research has found growing roots on the couch could do as much damage as smoking and lack of exercise.

Experts have previously linked sedentary behaviour with a higher risk of death from heart attack or stroke.

The latest research published by the British Journal of Sports Medicine is the first, however, to study the impact of watching too much TV on life expectancy.

Experts used previously published data on the link between TV viewing time and death from analysis of the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study. This was combined with Australian national population and mortality figures for 2008, to construct a "lifetime risk framework".

Three years ago, Australians aged over 25 watched an estimated 9.8 billion hours of TV. Researchers calculated every hour of watching shortened the viewer's life expectancy by about 22 minutes.

Based on these figures and expected deaths from all causes, the authors calculated an individual who watched an average six hours of TV a day over the course of their life, could expect to die five years earlier than someone who watched no TV.

Separate research has shown lifelong smoking can shorten life expectancy by four years for those aged over 50. Using the same risk framework designed to monitor the impact of too much TV, the study calculated just one cigarette could cut 11 minutes from smokers lives - equal to watching 30 minutes of TV.

"These findings suggest that substantial loss of life may be associated with prolonged TV viewing time among Australian adults," the reports authors found. "Because TV viewing is a ubiquitous behaviour that occupies significant portions of adults leisure time, it's effects are significant for overall population health."

VicHealth acting executive manager Irene Venins said the latest research came as no surprise. She said the negative impacts of prolonged periods sitting at a desk at work were well documented and the would be no different at home.

"The proliferation of computers around the office have contributed to prolonged sitting , which in turn is a key contributor to chronic heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and osteoporosis."

Ms Venins said Australians should engage in a minimum of 30 minutes of physical activity a day, or face the consequences down the track. "It's time to stand up for our health," she said.

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16 August, 2011

Biker who hit truck wins $700k when appeal reverses fault

This may seem a bit crazy at first but read what the truckie did and you might agree with the judgment. I got caught in exactly the same way myself once but I was in a car so came to no harm. The car was significantly damaged, however. Moving first left and then making a right turn is needed to get a long vehicle around a corner but the left turn can mislead other road users into thinking the way ahead is clear. Truckies should stop and look a bit before swinging back right

A MOTORCYCLIST severely injured in a collision with a semi-trailer has been awarded more than $700,000 in damages after a successful appeal. John Shaw sued David Andrew Menzies and Suncorp Metway Insurance after a collision at the intersection of Balham and Granard Roads at Rocklea, in Brisbane's south, on May 12, 2006.

Mr Shaw was taken to hospital where he was treated for a burst fracture at C5 on his spine, a fractured right leg, lacerations and abrasions.

After a trial in the Supreme Court in Brisbane a judge found Mr Shaw was 70 percent liable for the accident and Menzies 30 percent. However, Mr Shaw appealed both the findings on liability and quantum of his damages award.

In a written judgment released Tuesday, the Court of Appeal, made up of Justice Margaret White, Justice Margaret Wilson and Justice Peter Lyons, allowed the appeal. They found Mr Shaw should have been held only 25 percent liable for the accident, reduced from 70 percent.

"It is clear the defendant carried out a manoeuvre which involved first moving to his left and then back to his right before the turn. It is likely that manoeuvre to the right would be misleading to a person in Mr Shaw's position, as to the defendant's intention," the Court wrote.

The Court of Appeal found total damages at $944,557 but reduced it by 25 percent to reflect contributory negligence. The Court ordered Suncorp Metway pay Mr Shaw a total of $708,418.

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Canberra braces for season of protests over Julia Gillard's carbon tax

THOUSANDS of demonstrators will gather in front of Parliament House tomorrow and next week scores of trucks will blockade the building as the Government faces a season of protests over its carbon pricing scheme.

Tomorrow's Election Now No Carbon Tax Rally is expected to be bigger than the March protest which Opposition Leader Tony Abbott addressed in front of signs attacking "Bob Brown's Bitch", Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Organisers want to command a fleet of buses carrying protesters from 13 Sydney suburbs, the New South Wales central coast, the Southern Highlands and Melbourne.

It will be followed next Monday by the arrival of convoys of trucks which could shut down roads leading to Parliament House. It will be the first big-wheel protest since January, 1995, when logger fighting a forest agreement used 350 trucks to circle the Parliament and Prime Minister Paul Keating.

Plans are for 11 convoys setting off from as far away as Port Hedland in WA's Pilbara region, Cairns in Far North Queensland and Bendigo in central Victoria. They will gather at overnight holding areas around Canberra and set off at dawn for Parliament House.

Mr Abbott said today the week marked an "infamous" political anniversary. "This is the week in which we will mark the first anniversary of the Prime Minister's infamous promise to the Australian people before the last election: 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead'," he told reporters. "This is a promise that will haunt the Prime Minister and the Government every day until their ultimate political death.

"This Government fundamentally lacks legitimacy and not because it lacks a majority but because it lacks integrity and nothing more highlights the Government's lack of integrity than this monumental broken promise."

Prime Minister Julia Gillard told a cabinet meeting today the Government would stress Australia's economic stability as it fought in Parliament to get two critical pieces of legislation through.

She said there was "big legislation" to be passed this session of Parliament, including the carbon pricing legislation and the mining profits tax.

"There's no better place in the world to be than Australia as we deal with this global instability," Ms Gillard told ministers.

"Our economy is strong, we came out of the global financial crisis strong as a result of the work we as a Government did with the Australian community, including employers and unions to keep people in work. "So, I think the whole nation can be proud of this economy we've built together and it's a very resilient economy."

Tomorrow's rally is expected to be better organised and less inflammatory than the March protest, where the viciousness of the placards detracted from the protest message to the Government.

Sydney radio station 2GB was to have broadcast all day from Federation Square in front of Parliament House but pulled out a few weeks ago. However, other supporters have been found.

In one example, Menzies House, an influential conservative blog site named after the founder of the Liberal Party Robert Menzies has been promoting the rally and the convoy. "This is a great opportunity, and we hope you will be able to take part in any way you can," wrote the managing editor of Menzies House, Tim Andrews.

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A billion dollars down the drain

These huge computer projects rarely work. The only certainty is that the costs will at least double. The Brits spent over 12 billion pounds on a similar system and then gave up on it

AN Accenture-led consortium has won the pivotal contract to deliver a national IT infrastructure for the Gillard government's $500 million personally controlled e-health records system.

The team includes Oracle and Orion Health, in a reprisal of the Accenture-led consortium that last year won a $146m contract to deliver Singapore's e-health records program.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon has promised that by July 1 next year, every Australian who wants one will have access to a personal e-health record, leaving a very tight timeframe to complete the project build.

The contract -- originally due to commence last month -- involves the detailed design and construction of the whole system, integration with existing health IT infrastructure across the nation, and testing.

Accenture began hiring for the project last week, seeking staff with experience in Oracle’s service bus integration engine, identity management architecture, business intelligence enterprise suite and Siebel OnDemand customer relationship management.

Orion Health will supply its Concerto medical applications portal, which sits on top of existing information systems and gives doctors a single point of access for patient records, lab results, digital images and service orders.

Accenture has been boosting its health IT credentials for some time, with a particular focus on the public sector.

It is understood there were four serious bidders for the national infrastructure project, with CSC, IBM and Fujitsu unsuccessful.

The Accenture contract is the largest of four tenders called for private-sector partners to work with the National E-Health Transition Authority on delivery of the $500m PCEHR program.

NEHTA has a managing agent role.

Last month, Ms Roxon awarded a $30m contract to a McKinsey and Co-led consortium for the national change and adoption program, while Ernst & Young received $1m to provide independent oversight of the whole project and advise on progress.

And a PricewaterhouseCoopers-led consortium has been allocated $5.8m to act as the benefits and evaluation partner.

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Agricultural land use rules put mining projects worth $100bn in doubt

THE shifting ground rules over miners' use of agricultural land will affect developers of mining projects worth $100 billion in Queensland and NSW.

The ABARES database on major mining projects shows that coal and coal-seam gas dominate the resource industries in both states, with 21 projects that have received a firm go-ahead and another 75 projects that are at an advanced stage of planning but are yet to receive the final green light.

The three giant coal-seam gas projects in Queensland, worth a total of $52bn, top the list. Their developers have already signed 2600 contracts with farmers for the extraction of coal-seam gas from their properties

However, the coal projects also promise a massive increase in export revenue. The 19 coal projects with firm commitments will increase export tonnage by 20 per cent, which would be worth about $12bn a year at current prices.

Associated infrastructure works add another $8bn to the total value of the coal industry projects under construction, or with firm approvals.

If all the coal projects were to go ahead it would more than double coal output. ABARES expects $60bn would be earned this year from the export of 320 million tonnes of coal, making it the most important commodity.

The Queensland and NSW coal and coal-seam gas industries present the greatest conflict with agricultural land use.

Western Australia's iron ore industry is located in remote areas with little agricultural impact, but both bauxite and gold miners in the state would have to negotiate with landholders.

The ABARES database shows 94 firm projects nationwide worth $173.5bn.

The NSW government last month imposed new restrictions on the issue of mining leases, requiring companies to issue "agricultural impact statements" and foreshadowing the identification of "strategic agricultural land" on which resource development would be limited.

Queensland is reviewing "strategic cropping land" on which resource development would be limited. The Queensland Resources Council has questioned the scientific basis of claims that mining permanently alienates agricultural land.

Malcolm Brennan, a partner with law firm Mallesons, yesterday said mining had a long-established priority over other land uses. "When you acquire land, it is subject to rights reserved to the crown and that includes mineral rights," he said.

"If you find some gold in the backyard it's not yours unless you get a mining licence."

SOURCE




Bowen Orchid Society told it needs bouncers on door of annual conference



In a case of bureaucracy gone mad, the genteel and ageing members of a flower club were told they needed bouncers on the door for their annual conference. The Bowen Orchid Society had more than 200 people from across the country show up for the event in June. Most of the attendees were of an age where pushing up the daisies was more likely to occur than an assault with a deadly petal.

Bowen Orchid Society member and former president Vince Smith said the group was shocked when they were told liquor licensing laws required them to hire some muscle. "Most of them were like me, old and crippled," Mr Smith said.

Club treasurer Pat Tracey said she spoke with the local police and then contacted liquor licensing. "We had to pick three people from our group to be designated security for the night. We were hardly hellraisers," she said.

The orchid conference organisers were also told they could only sell spirits and beer in cans, no glasses - a condition typical of a major race meet.

Queensland Hotels Association membership consultant Steve Aylward said the Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation had adopted "a one-glove-fits-all approach". "(OLGR) doesn't seem to recognise the difference between a Hells Angels' reunion and an orchid show," he said.

OLGR said each application was risk-assessed and considered on a case-by-case basis. Applicants were encouraged to contact the office if they believed further consideration was needed.

SOURCE



15 August, 2011

Household power switched off by remote

Anything is better than building new power stations. Building a new power station was once seen as a great advance and a public service. Now it is seen as something to avoid by any means possible. In an age of unprecedented abundance we are told we must cut back on everything.

At least this is proposed as a voluntary scheme. In California they want to do it compulsorily. But I can't see it having much take-up. Who is it going to appeal to if your power gets cut off when you most need it? Insane

TVs, airconditioners and fridges could be switched off remotely by power companies during peak times under plans to rein in households' demand for electricity.

The option is among measures being considered as part of a national review of the management of domestic power use.

The Ministerial Council on Energy has initiated the Australian Energy Market Commission review in response to the nation's increasing demand for power.

The council is seeking ways to ease the demand for electricity during extremely cold nights and exceptionally hot days, to avoid the need for energy companies to build more power stations.

AEMC chairman John Pierce said the investment in infrastructure to guarantee electricity supply during peak periods was contributing to rising power bills.

He said the review was looking at options whereby power companies would remotely turn off appliances for a set period, in return for a lower bill.

Those signing on to such a scheme could see their airconditioner or fridge turned off for 30 minutes during a peak period every five hours.

When the airconditioner or fridge came back on, a neighbour's airconditioner or fridge would be turned off, resulting in an easing of electricity demand during a peak, Mr Pierce said.

He said homes would be required to be fitted with smart meters to allow energy companies and households to communicate electronically.

He said alternative options to manage power were necessary if families were to avoid further price rises.

"The plasma TVs and airconditioners are the obvious things, but a lot more people also now have pool pumps and larger refrigeration systems, all of which are increasing demand for power," Mr Pierce said.

"This option is one way to help electricity suppliers manage peak demand, while also offering a cheaper price for customers."

AEMC is seeking comment on its proposals until the end of the month. A public forum will be held in December. A final report will be sent to the Federal Government in September next year.

SOURCE




Boy's public hospital death avoidable, says NSW Coroner

Negligent emergency room doctor who was sure she knew better than some mere GP

THE death of a seriously ill eight-year-old boy in hospital after a series of failures by doctors was a tragedy that could have been avoided, a coroner says.

NSW Deputy State Coroner Scott Mitchell today concluded Jacob Belim died of septic shock after a ruptured appendix which led to peritonitis at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children at Westmead, on March 28, 2009.

Handing down his findings at Glebe Coroner's Court, the coroner said Jacob's GP had correctly diagnosed him after complaints of stomach pain, and - knowing he needed urgent surgery - phoned an ambulance to take him to hospital.

The coroner criticised Dr Claire Ferreira, the emergency department registrar at Liverpool Hospital, saying that her failure during her examination to adequately consult the notes and read the GP's letter of referral, and her failure to arrange an ultrasound, led to a misdiagnosis.

This contributed to a degree of uncertainty, confusion and delay in Jacob's treatment, he said.

Another doctor directed he be transferred to the Children's Hospital at Westmead, where Dr Ferreira spoke to a doctor, probably Bhaveshkumar Patel, who recalled he had been informed the boy had a possible bowel obstruction.

The coroner said Dr Ferreira hadn't ensured prompt antibiotic therapy and adequate hydration, which placed Jacob in danger and may have led to significant delay once he arrived at Westmead.

Dr Patel said that contrary to the view of Liverpool doctors, he thought it was most likely appendicitis or a burst appendix and the appropriate course was surgery. But he maintained an ultrasound was needed first. "Both of these matters could and should have been properly dealt with at Liverpool," the coroner said.

Jacob died about 2.30am during emergency surgery.

The coroner said a fundamental reason why the surgery was not performed at 7.15pm was because the surgical team "still hankered after a diagnosis of bowel obstruction and still had doubts about a burst appendix". "It was tragic what happened and could have been avoided," the coroner said.

Jacob's parents, who told the inquest their son was a "gentle, kind, honest and funny" boy, said they plan to launch civil proceedings.

SOURCE





Another Labor party thug

Not unexpected from a party that not long ago elected a foul-mouthed bully -- Mark Latham -- to be their leader

UNDER-FIRE Labor MP Craig Thomson - already battling claims he authorised union funds to pay for prostitutes - reduced a charity worker to tears in a spittle-laden tirade that has increased pressure on him to resign.

Mr Thomson gave a Salvation Army worker a verbal "bollocking" after a fiery poker machine rally in the NSW Central Coast and allegedly threatened to name and shame her in parliament, reported The Daily Telegraph.

It is claimed that he called her a "disgrace" and threatened to "finish your career". Mr Thomson vehemently denies this but does not deny that there was a dispute.

The incident, which shocked onlookers on Saturday night, is the latest chapter of controversy in the career of Mr Thomson - now dubbed the man most likely to bring down the Gillard government, which is tenuously holding on to a one-seat majority rule.

At the end of the two-hour rally, where he was heckled by angry club members over recent scandals, Mr Thomson charged towards rally moderator Louise Duff. Ms Duff was seated as the Dobell MP, flanked by fellow Labor MP Jill Hall, stood over her and allegedly threatened that he would "publicly name" her in parliament.

Clubs NSW spokesman Jeremy Bath said he witnessed the verbal spray, but Mr Thomson has strenuously denied that he made the threats.

A senior Liberal Party source last night described the incident as "Iguanas all over again" while Labor sources have described the incident as a Liberal Party conspiracy.

The Daily Telegraph spoke with many witnesses at the club, who corroborated the account. Mr Thomson has denied most of the claims, including that Ms Duff had to wipe spittle from her face because he was speaking so close to her.

The 47-year-old said he was angry that he had not been given a "fair go" at the meeting, attended by 1200 club members. He confirmed that he had words with Ms Duff following the rally and later called her to apologise. "You've got a meeting that was stacked. And the claims about what happened afterwards are complete rubbish," Mr Thomson said.

"Jill Hall and I approached Louise at the end of the meeting because she allowed (Senator Concettta) Fierravanti-Wells an open question which was just a spray and we had no right of reply. It wasn't fair. "As I understand now it wasn't Louise's call to make. I apologised for raising that issue with her."

Ms Duff politely declined to discuss the matter yesterday. "I accepted an apology . . . and I wish to move on," she said.

SOURCE




Media a force for democracy

Jessica Brown

Only a few weeks ago, a motley crew of jumpy Ministers and gloating Greens demanded a media inquiry. Now it seems the media – with the help of Freedom of Information (FOI) laws – are doing a better job of upholding democracy than the politicians.

This week, news emerged of a scathing 470-page report into federal Indigenous policies. The Finance Department recommended scrapping 25 separate programs.

A separate government review of the Disability Support Pension showed that many people use the program for early retirement, with as many as two in five 63- and 64-year-old men claiming the benefit.

In the Emerald City, consultancy firm Booz & Co. warned that bus commuters in the Sydney CBD can expect worsening congestion in already overcrowded bus lanes.

South of the border, Victoria Police warned of a cost blow-out and serious problems with recruitment.

These four reports, undertaken or commissioned by government, were all withheld from the public. Presumably, this was because of their embarrassing content.

The reports were only released after Channel 7, The Australian, and The Age made FOI requests.

The Finance Department’s report has highlighted the government’s response to Indigenous disadvantage as weak. It has spent $3.5 billion, and has little to show for it. The report has again kick-started the debate.If it weren’t for Channel 7, this would not have occurred.

Reports of this type should be published as a matter of course. Taxpayers foot the bill; they deserve to know the results.

Before worrying about media accountability, perhaps the governments of Australia – federal and state – should be worrying about their own.

The above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated 12 August. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590.



14 August, 2011

Queensland hospitals to limit outpatient visits to two per person to cut waiting lists, costs

What an outrageous policy! What if I get a serious health problem and I have already been to hospital twice for other things? This will be a huge hit on people in poor health

CANCER patients and road-crash victims will be among thousands of Queenslanders restricted to two hospital outpatient visits under a secret plan by health bureaucrats to slash official waiting lists and costs. The Sunday Mail can reveal that doctors and surgeons have been directed by Queensland Health to refer outpatients back to GPs after two visits.

The two-visit limit has outraged doctors who say it will severely impact patients requiring long-term care, particularly road trauma victims, cancer patients, those with spinal injuries and broken bones, as well as chronic care patients such as diabetics and epileptics. More than 200 doctors and surgeons were given the edict at a special meeting at the Princess Alexandra Hospital earlier this month.

Doctors believe the PA Hospital is the first of many around the state to introduce the policy.

The Australian Medical Association yesterday claimed the move was a breach of the National Healthcare Agreement, which states that no one should be denied treatment in the public system.

Senior surgeons at the PA Hospital accused Queensland Health of using a "big stick" approach to shift patients from hospital outpatient clinics to GPs.

Latest figures show that about 218,000 Queenslanders are on specialist outpatient waiting lists in the public system.

"They want us to treat new cases and not old ones," said one surgeon, who asked not to be named. "They want us to reduce the number of times we follow-up patients because they think this will solve the Queensland Health crisis. "We are now having this limit imposed on us and it is not based on any data, it is simply a bureaucrat plucking a number out of the air."

The surgeon said some Queensland hospitals were being sued for failures in follow-up care.

Queensland Health director-general Dr Tony O'Connell said moving patients from the hospital to other health experts would mean shorter waiting lists. "Trials have demonstrated large groups of patients can, in fact, be seen by a primary healthcare specialist, such as a GP or a physiotherapist, which frees up more specialist appointment time," he said.

Another surgeon said referring patients to GPs was a delaying tactic because it could "often take 12 months to get back into the public hospital from a GP referral".

Opposition regional health spokesman Andrew Laming - a registered eye surgeon and former public hospital outpatient specialist - said he had received several complaints from doctors. "Capping outpatient clinics could have disastrous consequences for patients," Dr Laming said.

Doctors said the move was being driven by new complex funding arrangements that were to be implemented under national health reforms from July 1 next year. The reforms will include a set number of procedures funded, after which no extra Federal Government funding will be forthcoming.

SOURCE





Federal "Green" attack on big houses

This will have no effect, contrary to the hot air below. People who can afford a big house will not balk at a couple of hundred dollars for another useless bit of paper and nor will they be much motivated to save on energy costs. If they were real Greenies they would be buying a small house, to reduce their "footprint".

And calling big houses "McMansions" is just empty-headed abuse. "McMansions" originally referred to houses that all looked much alike but the bigger a house is, the more likely an architect will have been involved in its design. The term also reflects a contempt for popular design features, which is just snobbery

A NEW green scheme threatens to wipe tens of thousands of dollars from the market price of so-called "McMansions".

The Federal Government aims to introduce, by as soon as next year, mandatory energy star ratings for homes being sold or rented out. Under the favoured system, vendors and landlords would have to pay about $200 to have their property assessed, with a total cost to homeowners and property investors of $1.1 billion over the next 10 years.

Housing experts said most McMansions would score very poorly on the ratings system, which would be similar to the methodology used to identify the energy efficiency of whitegoods.

Mick Fabar, director of private energy-ratings firm Green Homes Australia, said: "Through our experience with our rating tool, those two-storey McMansions would not get over zero."

There are significant financial implications for owners of these homes - and most older dwellings which are also likely to rate lowly. Owners would need to either spend up on going green or face the prospect of a lower sale price.

A Federal Government study into a similar ACT scheme operating since 1999, which rates properties out of 10 stars, found that a 1-star difference affected selling prices by 3 per cent.

Asked whether the scheme would have a negative effect on the sale price of some homes, a spokeswoman for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency Minister Greg Combet said: "It will allow buyers and renters to better compare different properties, making it easier to identify a property which uses less energy or water and thereby save money."

But the Federal Opposition's spokesman for climate action, environment and heritage, Greg Hunt, said such a scheme would create "enormous uncertainty".

"It could push up the cost of rent for people just when they are feeling cost-of-living pressures," Mr Hunt said. "It's another cost imposed on people from the Government."

The new federal system is expected to replace the Bligh Government's so-called Sustainability Declaration which was introduced in 2009. Under the scheme, sellers were meant to sign a form detailing their home's energy-efficient features. But the property industry complained the forms were too complex and buyers were not interested in the information.

SOURCE






More authoritarian government: People to be denied pain and anxiety medications!

There is no role for government in this. It is solely a matter for the doctor and patient

PATIENTS could be refused pain and anxiety medication, and others face being weaned off the drugs under a Federal Government crackdown.

Australia has become a nation of pill poppers, with the appetite for narcotic and anxiety drugs draining the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme of almost $800 million in three years. And patients who are prescribed the drugs now face being tracked by a new database for the first time in a bid to control the legal and illegal sale of pharmaceuticals.

The Government will release a National Pharmaceutical Drug Misuse Strategy within months as fears grow about more dementia and chronic pain cases as the population ages.

The Sunday Mail can reveal Queenslanders received almost 8.7 million prescriptions for narcotics (pain relief) and benzodiazepines (anxiety and insomnia), since 2008, costing the PBS more than $167 million.

The number of Queenslanders who have checked into an opioid dependence program has skyrocketed by 400 per cent, from more than 200 registered admissions in 2001 to more than 1000 last year.

The National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction, which is developing the government's national strategy, said many people may have developed "unrealistic expectations" about how drugs can treat their pain or anxiety. It raised concerns about patients becoming addicted to some pharmaceutical drugs and patients selling their drugs on the black market.

The centre signalled that if it was clinically appropriate some patients should not be issued drugs, especially for long-term use. Instead patients should be directed to therapy.

"A key issue is whether the improved drug affordability associated with the PBS leads to the preferential use of medications by prescribers rather than non-medical alternatives, regardless of their respective efficacy," a centre discussion paper said.

There were also concerns about whether the long-term use of certain drugs for those suffering from chronic non-malignant pain was even beneficial or clinically sound, it added.

SOURCE





Must not tell the truth about Mohammed????

THE radio presenter Michael Smith is being investigated by the media watchdog over his assertion that the prophet Muhammad "married a nine-year-old and consummated it when she was 11".

The Australian Communications and Media Authority confirmed in a letter dated July 21 that it was investigating the remarks by the 2UE afternoon host.

Adem Cetinay, a Muslim from Bossley Park, complained that Mr Smith was inciting hatred against Muslims through his July 5 broadcast. "By making this remark he is asserting that God's messenger is a paedophile. This is racist, it's stupid and it is not needed on air," he wrote to the station's program director, Peter Brennan.

Mr Brennan replied that Mr Smith had made the "throwaway line". "However, at no time did he refer to any Prophet's name, nor did he use the word 'Prophet'. He did not refer to anybody whatsoever in the broadcast," he wrote.

Mr Cetinay took his complaint to ACMA. In a letter, the authority's Eileen Haley said it would embark on an investigation that could take "several months".

Meanwhile, Mr Cetinay is awaiting a response over a separate complaint about remarks Mr Smith made over the controversial "Jesus: a prophet of Islam" billboard.

"What if someone whacked up a billboard and said well, I think it's a fact that because Muhammad was married to a 11 … you know consummating a marriage with an 11-year-old, by these standards he's a paedophile". His guest, Diaa Mohammed, the founder of MyPeace, which erected the sign, agreed that Muhammad had consummated his marriage with an 11-year-old.

SOURCE



13 August, 2011

Qld. Police suppress 'appalling' video of misbehaviour by one of their own

I normally put up accounts of police misbehaviour on my "Police News" blog only but I am putting this account up more widely because it has become a censorship issue as well

A video showing an anti-terrorism squad officer stripped to his underpants and gyrating his groin in the face of a drunk Aboriginal colleague has been suppressed at the request of Queensland Police.

The suppression order comes ahead of the release of a major review of police disciplinary procedures, raising further questions about the culture within Queensland’s police force and why the officer was not sacked.

The security camera footage, taken at the McDonald’s restaurant in the south-east Queensland town of Kingaroy on March 23 last year, shows Constable Daniel Kennedy straddling the Aboriginal officer while nine other non-indigenous officers watched on.

Constable Kennedy’s actions came to light when police reviewed the footage during an investigation into the Aboriginal officer’s arrest at the restaurant late on the first night of the state’s annual police rugby league carnival.

A Queensland Police report into the incident described Constable Kennedy actions thus: "You approached …removed your shorts, lifted your left leg and gyrated your groin in front of his face."

'APPALLING' ACTIONS

The Special Emergency Response Team officer’s actions were described as “appalling” by Deputy Commissioner Ian Stewart, who presided over an internal police disciplinary action last November.

"I have seen the footage and I am appalled by your behaviour … I am sure that had members of the public witnessed your behaviour, they would have been affronted by it … In your case, not only did you commit an act resulting in your conviction for a public nuisance offence but, if observed by a member of the public, it had the potential not only to be seen as offensive but also taunting the dignity of [the other officer], together with racial overtones."

Deputy Commissioner Stewart delivered his findings in the presence of Constable Kennedy, who denied it was a racist act.

However, Deputy Commissioner Stewart found Constable Kennedy’s conduct had “tarnished the good image of the majority of members of this organisation, which we strive to maintain …”

“Additionally your conduct had the potential to result in significant publicity and embarrassment to the Service and its members,” he said.

Deputy Commissioner Stewart's report said that Constable Kennedy had kept his underpants on, but an investigation had revealed the incident with the intoxicated and sleeping Aboriginal officer was not consensual.

“I note the argument submitted that your actions were done in jest and not intended to offend your friend,” Deputy Commissioner Stewart said. “I acknowledge there is no evidence you exposed yourself or that there was any contact, deliberate or accidental, between your genital area and [the other officer]. Further [he] has regarded this as a joke.”

FOOTAGE SUPPRESSED

Queensland's administrative appeals tribunal, QCAT, has ordered the CCTV footage never be shown.

An application by SBS for its release was denied, in spite of assurances to conceal the Aboriginal officer's identity.

Tribunal member Susan Booth ruled the footage is "capable of offending public decency" and could still cause the officer public ridicule and humiliation.

Former Queensland police inspector Col Dillion, once the highest ranking Aboriginal officer in Australia, retired a decade ago warning of the police culture towards indigenous officers.

“I think it is absolutely reprehensible, the actions of the police … given for starters, the police officer, any police officers for that matter should be setting the highest possible standards of behaviour for society,” he said.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service's Greg Shadbolt said Constable Kennedy’s actions had besmirched the reputations of his colleagues.

“The Queensland police service has the largest vested interest in cleaning up this area because there are many many officers who work long and hard in very trying circumstances, and do a tremendous job, as a general rule, and for them to have their reputation besmirched by conduct of this nature is really beyond the pale,” he said.

“One must feel really sorry for the other officers and wonder what they must think of all this.”

The Aboriginal officer did not lodge a complaint about the incident. He declined to be interviewed by SBS.

$250 FINE

The police disciplinary report states Constable Kennedy “did not believe his actions were inappropriate when he considers the circumstances of the incident. He stated this type of behaviour had occurred at other police football carnivals".

He was immediately stood down from anti-terrorism duties and later pleaded guilty to public nuisance, for which he was fined $250 with no conviction recorded in Kingaroy magistrates court.

Despite suppressing video of the incident, QCAT rejected a police application to suppress an audio recording of the deputy commissioner Ian Steward's disciplinary hearing, citing public interest.

It reveals that Constable Kennedy’s pay was frozen for a year, but this did not prevent his reinstatement to the elite Special Emergency Response Team.

ATSILS’ Greg Shadbolt said the outcome seemed “woefully inadequate”. “As I say, it really does demonstrate yet again the fact that police investigating police in terms of outcomes, simply doesn't work,” he said.

Mr Dillion, now the acting director of the University of Queensland's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit, said if a similar incident took place in that institution, the offender would be sacked.

“I'd certainly expect the person would be dealt with in the harshest possible terms,” he said.

In a brief statement to SBS, Queensland's police minister (mr) Neil Roberts said the issue is an internal police matter

A review of police disciplinary procedures ordered by Queensland premier Anna Bligh is due for release by September. It comes after the lack of disciplinary action against police investigators in the Palm Island death-in-custody case of Cameron Doomadgee. The issue of police investigating police is a major concern of the review.

Mr Shadbolt said the facts of the Kingaroy incident were not in question, placing the focus on Constable Kennedy’s punishment. “Anyone else, working for any other organisation would have been dismissed and the question I think the public is asking is should the police have lower standards than the rest of society,” he said.

Queensland Police told SBS the matter had been investigated by its Ethical Standards Command, and that “disciplinary charges were laid against this officer in accordance with the findings of that investigation”.

SOURCE




NSW hospitals can't cope with cold weather

HOSPITAL emergency departments are being stretched to breaking point by a massive influx of patients, forcing ambulance crews off the road for unprecedented periods.

July figures obtained by the Herald show the average number of emergency ambulance patients each day increased by 8.4 per cent over the same month last year, triggering a sharp fall in the proportion of people transferred to the care of a hospital within the benchmark 30 minutes.

Sixty-three per cent of ambulance patients were handed over to hospital staff within 30 minutes in July 2010, but the proportion had fallen to 56 per cent in the last week of July this year.
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The Health Department's target is 90 per cent.

At 15 hospitals, fewer than half of ambulance patients were handed over to emergency staff within half an hour of arriving.

Some of Sydney's largest hospitals fared worst, with St George and Prince of Wales taking over the care of only slightly more than one-third of patients within the half-hour benchmark.

At Wollongong Hospital, vehicle crews were obliged to wait for 72 minutes on average before offloading each patient, while other regional hospitals including Gosford, Wyong and Orange also saw ambulances tied up for extended periods.

The president of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, Sally McCarthy, said the slow off-stretcher times reflected the conditions at overcrowded hospitals, which could not find suitable inpatient beds for people who then had to remain in emergency.

It was also related to the size of the emergency department and its staffing levels, Dr McCarthy, an emergency specialist at Prince of Wales Hospital, said.

"We know we've been having an increased emergency presentation rate year by year and the admission rate hasn't changed," she said.

In those circumstances it was inevitable the pressure would be forced back on ambulance crews, Dr McCarthy said.

A new approach was needed to bed management in acute care hospitals, she said, which went beyond simple bed numbers to address how and when patients were moved around the hospital system.

Last week's agreement between the states and Commonwealth to set a target of four hours for people to be either admitted or discharged from emergency would focus hospital authorities on the issue, Dr McCarthy said.

Hospitals paid 114 days of overtime to off-duty paramedics during the last week of July, a spokeswoman for the Ambulance Service of NSW said. This was required to allow them to work in so-called ambulance release times, based at hospitals, to relieve vehicle crews and let them get back on the road.

Paramedics usually work a roster of four days on followed by five days off, the spokeswoman said, and it was not uncommon for them to take on three days of hospital-based shifts during their unrostered days. "It's rare that we don't have a paramedic seeking overtime," she said.

A spokeswoman for the NSW Minister for Health, Jillian Skinner, said an unusually cold period had caused more hospital presentations and admissions.

"Regardless of the season, the minister is highly concerned that paramedics stand around in hospital corridors waiting to offload patients," the spokeswoman said.

She said Ms Skinner was "committing to opening more beds, employing more nurses, improving efficiencies through new models of care such as fast track zones and medical assessment units [and] identifying patients who may not require transport".

SOURCE






Fourth "asylum" boat hits Australian waters since Malaysia deal signed

THE Federal Government's immigration woes have deepened with a fourth boat of asylum seekers hitting Australian waters since its Malaysian deal was signed.

The arrival comes as new figures reveal there are already about 65 child asylum seekers in detention pending deportation to Malaysia. It is expected nearly all minors in detention would be expelled under the Government's swap deal if the High Court allows it. The Government has said it would not give a "blanket exemption" to minors, saying there would be case-by-case decisions made.

But the UNHCR says it would not support a deal where young people were not given adequate care.

There are now 266 asylum seekers in limbo on Christmas Island, more than a quarter of the 800 the Government hopes to deport in a four-year deal.

Human rights lawyers have launched a High Court challenge, to be heard from August 22, to try to force the Government to assess their claims in Australia.

A source said there were 31 unaccompanied children on Thursday's boat who now face expulsion to Malaysia. They bring the total tally of unaccompanied minors up to almost 50. Another four families with three young children were among 102 asylum seekers on Thursday's boat.

As part of its asylum seeker plan, the Government will send a delegation to PNG to organise a processing centre on Manus Island.

But the PNG Government is facing a Supreme Court challenge over its legitimacy, and new Prime Minister Peter O'Neill has been warned by opponents against making big decisions before the matter is heard.

The challenge says parliament had no grounds to declare Sir Michael Somare's prime ministership vacant on August 2. Port Moresby Governor Powes Parkop claims the Manus Island deal is unconstitutional and threatens to take it to court. "It's not right that Australia keeps on passing this problem to its neighbouring country, in PNG, and Nauru and now Malaysia," he said.

Australian Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said a PNG deal would not work without a Malaysian one. "If you have only offshore processing as part of your regime then that's not a deterrent, because the majority of people who are found to be refugees who are processed on Nauru, for example, ended up in Australia," he told the ABC.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said: "The Government should get over their stubborn pride and pick up the phone to Nauru."

SOURCE




Parents deserting chaotic and run-down Victorian State schools

And abusing the parents is the answer, apparently

Parent snobbery is being blamed for an exodus from Victorian state primary schools. While class sizes hit record lows, increasing numbers of parents are opting for private schools. Since 2003, the number of primary school-aged children sent to state schools has dipped by almost 3000, equal to 170 classes.

Over the same period, the Catholic and independent systems have been bolstered by more than 13,000 pupils - filling more than 600 extra classrooms.

Parents Victoria executive officer Gail McHardy believes snobbery is partly to blame for the shift. "Often people firmly believe that something that looks better, costs more, will get a better outcome. And that's not necessarily true," Ms McHardy said.

"When you've got a bit more disposable income, rather than making a conscious choice of which system and which ethos suits your child, sometimes that decision is more easily influenced if there are more bells and whistles."

Figures from the Education Department's February schools census show the average number of students is 22 - down from 25 a decade ago. However, comparisons with data over the past eight years show the decline in public school confidence.

Melbourne University education expert Prof Richard Teese said preferences for private education had traditionally been stronger at secondary level, but had also crept down to primary level.He said parents were driven by their wish for a "competitive advantage".

Australian Education Union state secretary Mary Bluett warned the physical appearance of some public schools had proved a turn-off, and said more State Government funding for capital works was crucial.

SOURCE



12 August, 2011

We'll survive the sea of debt

Jeff Kennett

THE world financial markets are in roller-coaster mode. But as a nation we are well placed to ride out the crisis - if we adhere to the basics.

What an extraordinary start to August. The upheaval in the world financial markets registered a 5 on the Richter scale, but the rioting in the UK registered a 6.

Yet we Australians are relatively unaffected. Yes, our buying patterns are changing. Yes, many employees are facing the loss of jobs. Yes, super funds have had their wealth reduced.

Yes, those senior citizens whose only means of support - the pensions they have generated through years of hard work - are now seeing their comfort and dignity for later years put at risk.

But we are still here. No one has died, there are no riots, no loss of property and no wars.

That Australia performed so well through the global financial crisis and its aftermath can be attributed to one factor only - that as a country we went into the GFC with no national debt. None at all.

John Howard and Peter Costello took over an economy that Labor had left on the ropes and 11 years later we had a Budget surplus of $22 billion before the change of federal government that ushered in Kevin Rudd.

That absence of debt allowed the Rudd government to borrow money to provide financial incentives to individuals and families, as well as some of the documented quick spends such as the pink batts programs and the Building the Education Revolution schools program.

Sadly a lot of that money went directly overseas, and much was wasted through terrible administration.

However, the collective spend, combined with the emerging expansion in the mining sector, helped Australia emerge from the GFC in a remarkably strong position.

Today Australia's debt stands at $150 billion and growing quickly. Theoretically, using the Howard-Costello performance as a yardstick, and assuming our debt does not increase above $150 billion, it could take roughly 22 years to emerge debt-free.

Some argue our debt, as a percentage of GDP, is low compared with other countries, and it is. At approximately 12 per cent it is one of the lowest debts in the world. But it still has to be repaid by us through taxes and charges levied by the Government.

We must bear in mind that even if the debt were to stay static at $150 billion it would grow each year by the interest we pay on that borrowed money - or by $7.5 billion a year even if we paid 5 per cent (double the current rate of around 2.5 per cent) on our money borrowed.

We are entering a second phase of re-adjustment, and some things will never be as they were before the GFC.

Our desire to spend is being tempered by our growing concern about increases in utility charges, education, health and aged care. We have to think seriously about debt and expenditure.

All of us have to live within our means. Our governments must do so too. We must not as citizens make irresponsible demands on governments. Already Australians have started down this path. We have reduced our expenditure. The retailers do not like this and that is understandable.

Governments like Greece, Ireland and even the United States are in trouble for one simple reason. They have been living beyond their means, spending more than they raise in revenue from individuals and businesses.

Until the change of federal government from Howard to Rudd, Australia was living well within its means. Now we are starting to live beyond our means, although we are still light years away from the situation that confronts Greece, Ireland and America.

So as individuals and families we should try and reduce our debt levels wherever possible. Start with reducing your credit card debts. Commit yourself to not spending more than you earn, and if you need to borrow, do so only for an asset that will appreciate, like a home.

As a community we are in for a period of uncertainty for some time, maybe years. How we come out of this period will depend as much on how we conduct our lives, as it will on what we demand of governments and councils.

Australia right now is better placed than the majority of other countries in the Western world, but we must not become complacent. We must now get our own expenditure and debts under control, as must the governments we elect to lead us.

SOURCE





Surgery patients on hold as NSW hospitals close waiting lists

PATIENTS are being turned away from public hospital surgery clinics which claim to meet politically sensitive waiting list targets.

Sydney hospitals, which according to published waiting lists have no elective surgery patients who have been waiting more than 12 months, have been telling patients waiting lists are closed and to go somewhere else.

One patient was told by two different hospitals she could not access waiting lists for sinus surgery - a practice believed to be widespread.

The Australian Medical Association NSW believes the government needs to document the size of the problem by recording "surgical access time", which would measure the time from a patient's GP referral to their surgery.

"We don't want to see people being restricted from waiting lists so the figures look better," said an AMA councillor, Brian Owler.

At the last Council of Australian Governments meeting the expert panel on review of elective surgery, of which Associate Professor Owler is a member, recommended surgical access time be adopted, and the Standing Council on Health agreed to consider it.

He said inconsistencies had previously been found in published waiting times. In March, the Herald revealed half of all patients at some Sydney hospitals were recorded as having their elective surgery on the day they joined the list - dramatically reducing average waiting times.

But Associate Professor Owler said doctors should not add patients to waiting lists if they would be there for longer than 12 months, as it would be unfair and could cause problems if their condition changed.

CJ Donovan, 50, was told by two major Sydney hospitals that their waiting lists for ear, nose and throat clinics were closed.

"I think we have in Australia an expectation that we are getting First World medical services, and it felt like something that I imagine happens in [another] country," she said. "I'm reasonably articulate and able to assert myself … If I can't get on a list what happens to people who are young, unassertive, not confident with English?"

She said her sinuses felt blocked most of the time, and her snoring disrupted her sleep.

After a referral to Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick, she said she was told the hospital could not accommodate her. A referral to Royal North Shore Hospital produced the same result.

A spokeswoman for Prince of Wales said although Ms Donovan had a reference number after visiting the hospital, it had no record of her referral to the clinic. She said the hospital's ear, nose and throat clinic did not close its waiting lists.

Royal North Shore hospital confirmed its appointment book was closed to non-urgent cases.

The Minister for Health, Jillian Skinner, said she had ordered an audit into surgery waiting lists, which would give the first accurate picture in 16 years.

SOURCE





More cash splurged on Gillard Government's asylum seeker bailout

A NEW deal with PNG to take asylum seekers could take several weeks to start as 102 more boat people landed.

The development today comes as the third asylum seeker boat to arrive since the "Malaysian solution" was signed plunged the Government into troubled waters.

It will be several weeks before an immigration detention centre on Manus Island is ready to take asylum seekers arriving in Australian waters.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen today admitted that Manus Island would not be an "answer in itself'' to the people-smuggling issue, and revealed it would take several weeks for the island's detention centre to come up to appropriate standards.

"There is upgrading work to do and measures to take,'' Mr Bowen said. But he denied the arrival of three boats showed the Malaysia deal was not deterring people smugglers. "People smugglers will try it on ... using all sorts of lies about the current situation with the Malaysia court case.''

"You may be sent to Malaysia or Papua New Guinea, but you're not going to be processed in Australia,'' he told ABC Radio on Friday.

His comments came as another 102 asylum seekers landed at Christmas Island last night, including more children. This takes the number of people facing deportation to 207, more than a quarter of the 800 Malaysia will take.

The arrivals coincided with the confirmation of the fresh immigration deal - with Papua New Guinea - at further cost to taxpayers.

The boat surge increases pressure on the Government, which is facing a High Court challenge to its people swap deal that will be heard on August 22.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the Government was very confident it could send asylum seekers to other countries.

Mr Bowen earlier warned that delays would provide people smugglers an angle to "spin" to desperate people willing to get on boats.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said about 770 asylum seekers had braved seas to reach Australia since the Government announced its new policy in May.

He said the deal's "use-by date" was fast approaching, regardless of the High Court challenge. "It's a one-off deal with one country with a clear use-by date and a huge cost of almost $300 million, which simply hasn't been thought through," he said.

With the deal hanging in the balance, another option for processing asylum seekers has emerged, with the Papua New Guinean Government agreeing to re-open the Manus Island detention centre.

Ms Gillard confirmed the agreement in a statement. "Arrangements are being made for a high-level delegation of Australian officials to travel to Papua New Guinea in the very near future to finalise a memorandum of understanding regarding the centre," Ms Gillard said.

"We are committed to working in partnership with PNG to examine how such a centre might operate, including how it might best complement broader regional activities."

PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill said Australia would meet the running costs of the centre, although details were yet to be confirmed. If the centre were renovated and run by Australian staff, it would cost millions.

As the Malaysian deal legal battle looms, the Government continues to say asylum seekers arriving at Christmas Island will be sent to Malaysia.

Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor said people on the latest boat "will be taken to Christmas Island for pre-transfer assessments, pending removal to Malaysia".

As the asylum seekers entered legal limbo, Burmese refugees from Malaysia have arrived in Melbourne to start a new life.

The first eight to be re-settled in Melbourne are not part of the 4000 refugees Australia has agreed to take under the Malaysian deal.

SOURCE




Warming uncertain says CSIRO scientist

The CSIRO is a major scientific research organization funded by the Australian government

Researchers from the CSIRO and the University of Melbourne analysed the predictions of 23 currently available global climate models using data from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, a project that gathers data from around the world to make predictions on changes in world climate.

A statistical tool called a 'probability distribution model' was applied to the projected changes predicted by the models to find what changes would occur at certain levels. These probability distribution functions were scaled to match scenarios of global warming for 2030 and 2070.

Climate predictions then and now

Previous projections by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology in 2007 predicted a temperature increase of at least 1 degree Celsius by 2030. “If emissions are low, we anticipate warming of between 1.5 degree and 2.5 degrees by 2070, with a best estimate of 1.8 degrees,” Whetton said in 2007. “Under a high emission scenario, the best estimate is 3.4 degrees Celsius with a range between 2.2 to 5.0.”

The 2007 report also predicted the effect of increasing levels of greenhouse gases on rainfall, showing decreases in overall and seasonal rainfall across Australia in the decades to come.

The new study gives a more solid prediction to the effects of a global climatic shift. If global temperatures increased by 4 degrees Celsius or more, it would result in temperature increases of between 3 degrees and 5 degrees for coastal areas and 4 degrees to 6 degrees for inland Australia, the report shows.

In addition, global climate shifts would affect precipitation patterns, with snow cover falling to zero in most regions across the Australian Alps. More notably, the annual rainfall over southern Australia, particularly in winter and spring, would decrease by up to 50%.

"Unlike anything experienced before"

The combined decrease in rainfall with rising evaporation levels of between 5% and 20%, would lead to droughts occurring up five times more often in the southern regions of Australia, the study said.

"Rapid global warming of 4 degrees Celsius would be unlike anything experienced before by modern human societies - presenting us with huge challenges in our ability to adapt," Whetton said.

Steven Sherwood, an atmospheric physicist and co-director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said that while the report, "follows a fairly standard methodology" in summarising the predictions of climate models, the estimates "must be taken with a grain of salt" because of the variability between the 23 models. "They don't all predict the same outcome, so a large range can sometimes appear - but this probably represents the best we can do at the moment," he said.

Sherwood continued, "Of course there is no guarantee that the actual outcome will even be within this range, all the models could be off. But if the models are wrong, it is just as likely to be in the direction of underestimating change rather than overestimating it. "Either way, it's better to be safe than sorry and we need to reduce greenhouse emissions now while we still can before it's too late."

SOURCE



11 August, 2011

Some discrimination is OK, apparently

Gay and lesbian retirement village goes ahead at Ballan in Victoria

AUSTRALIA'S first gay and lesbian retirement village is being built on Geelong's doorstep at Ballan in Victoria.

The 120-unit complex for over 55s is being built on the Ballan-Geelong Rd, and it will include an indoor heated spa, bar and croquet lawn.

Work is expected to start on the complex early next year, and interested people will be able to buy units off the plan in two months time, the Geelong Advertiser said.

Developer Peter Dickson has billed the $30 million Linton Estate retirement village as a haven for the gay, lesbian and bisexual community.

Mr Dickson said he had expressions of interest from 226 people from across the world including Turkey, England and the United States as well as from Victoria and interstate.

He also said there had been some interest from people in Daylesford, 20 minutes up the road, which has a sizeable gay and lesbian population.

The retirement village, at the junction of Old Melbourne and Ballan-Geelong roads, will be built in five stages.

Ballan newsagent Ian Ireland said the retirement village would be a welcome addition to the town, which was experiencing rapid growth.

Mr Ireland said the area in question along the Ballan-Geelong Rd was formerly farmland which had been subdivided into large allotments of about 12 hectares. "They are just semi-rural properties," he said. "It should be good, it will mean having more people around it's growing anyway so this is no different. "It's virtually a retirement-style village development and there's nothing wrong with that."

The State Government recently confirmed it would be funding an upgrade of the Ballan Hospital to the tune of $2 million.

Moorabool Shire Council granted a planning permit for Linton Estate retirement village in 2008, but a project redesign has delayed construction.

Mr Dickson said they had hired an engineer and were now meeting with potential builders.

A spokesman for Moorabool Shire Council said the project was first mooted some years ago and he could not recall there being any objections.

SOURCE





Emergency staff in government hospitals don't listen properly

HOSPITAL emergency departments function almost entirely on undocumented conversations that are frequently misunderstood, which puts patients at risk of wrong diagnosis or treatment, the first big study into the question has found.

And the situation is worsening as hospitals are overwhelmed with a growing number of emergency visits, including from an increasing proportion of elderly people with complex conditions and people whose language or cultural background poses extra communication challenges.

The research by the University of Technology, Sydney - based on more than 1000 hours of direct observation in NSW and ACT hospitals - identified the failure of doctors and nurses to listen properly to patients' descriptions of their illness as particularly problematic.

Clinicians were often too focused on formal diagnostic protocols to pick up on crucial information people volunteered about their symptoms, and failed to empathise with distress or pain, said the study leader, Diana Slade, professor of applied linguistics, who conducted the study with colleagues from the nursing and sociology departments.

Professor Slade, whose team was given unprecedented access to watch and record the work of the emergency departments at the Prince of Wales, Hornsby, Gosford, St George and Canberra hospitals, said she had witnessed an incident in which clinicians treating an elderly woman for dizziness failed to elicit the vital information that her son was in the same hospital after a suicide attempt. The eventual diagnosis of depression was delayed, Professor Slade said.

"Doctors and nurses say, 'we're too busy, we're too stressed'," to explore matters patients raised, said Professor Slade, whose report was published yesterday. "We're saying, unless you attend to their issues, to their interpersonal needs, you won't make your diagnosis as quickly as you might otherwise."

Clinicians wanted to treat people sympathetically and were mortified when they read the transcripts, Professor Slade said. "What people think they are saying is very different from what they actually say," she said. "I'm not being critical at all of the doctors and nurses. It's a system issue."

The president of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, Sally McCarthy, said Professor Slade's work would help clinicians balance clinical problem-solving with more personal support to patients.

But junior doctors - who provided much of the state's emergency care - were legitimately concerned not to miss physical symptoms, Dr McCarthy said.

"There's not enough doctors to see the volume of patients coming through," she said. "They're quite worried about getting things right in terms of patients' medical care.'

SOURCE




Coalition on attack over carbon tax modelling

THE Coalition is questioning the integrity of global carbon markets, the credibility of Treasury modelling and the introduction of a new tax in times of global economic uncertainty as the anti-carbon tax campaign ramps up ahead of the parliamentary debate in September.

As Labor, the Greens and the cross-bench independents prepare to pass the unpopular tax, the Coalition and business groups are intensifying a campaign to discredit modelling that estimates its impact on household prices to be modest and the international carbon markets with which the Australian scheme would link.

The Liberal Senator Mathias Cormann used the inquiry to accuse the Treasury of "cherry-picking" evidence from a critical World Bank report in order to turn a "bleak" picture of "collapsing" global carbon markets into a rosy one.

A Treasury official, Meghan Quinn, defended the use of the World Bank report in the modelling document, saying there had been "no cherry picking or lack of acknowledgement of the difficulties around the international regime" and that an increase of $11 billion between 2005 and 2009, to $144 billion, followed by a reduction to $142 billion in 2010 "cannot be characterised as total collapse".

The Treasury modelling found that buying pollution permits on international markets reduced the cost of Australia reaching its domestic greenhouse reduction target.

But the Coalition has highlighted examples of past fraud and the opposition finance spokesman, Andrew Robb, this week agreed with a radio announcer who said that international permits were "issued by some bloody witchdoctor in the highlands of Borneo or something who says, well, I've got a million teak trees".

The Nationals Senator Ron Boswell questioned the fact that five super-critical, coal-fired power plants in developing countries have been credited to earn carbon permits that can be sold through the United Nations "clean development mechanism" - a decision that has also been criticised by environmental groups.

And Nationals Senator John Williams asked who would police the international markets and whether permits would be "coming out of Nigeria" like tax scams.

The Department of Climate Change secretary, Blair Comley, whose department the Coalition has said it will probably abolish, said the government policy listed the types of international permits considered eligible.

Senator Cormann also asked Treasury if the department had been asked to provide advice on whether the start date for the carbon tax should be reconsidered "given current global and financial circumstances".

The executive director of Treasury's macroeconomic group, Dr David Gruen, said "no", adding that there was "no basis" on which to speculate the carbon pricing regime would be delayed.

The new Democratic Labor Party Senator, John Madigan, railed against the Treasury officials, saying "people out there are terrified" and were the ones who "suffer when Treasury assumptions turn out to be wrong" and demanding to know whether the modelling was based on "fact or assumption".

A Treasury official, Robert Heferen, said that because "no one knows the future" Treasury "marshalls information as best we can."

SOURCE




Combet and Gillard, not for turning?

"Why do you all hate Thatcher so much?" I asked a visiting British academic the other night. He looked at me in disbelief, as if the answer were self-evident.

"Look what she did to the coal miners," he retorted. "She deliberately put thousands of them out of work, threw them onto the scrap-heap. Fathers driven to suicide, families plunged into poverty. Twenty thousand working families sacrificed for pure ideology, nothing more."

If this sounds uncomfortably familiar, that's because it is. According to NSW Treasury figures, 20,000 is almost the exact number of coal mining jobs that will be lost – and not replaced – in the Hunter Valley by the carbon tax. Like Thatcher before them, Julia Gillard and Greg Combet are prepared to sacrifice these jobs and livelihoods for the sake of the "greater good". For ideology.

The OED definition of ideology is "a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy". All political parties require an ideological framework on which to base their decisions. The point at which a set of beliefs moves from ideology to a legitimate political agenda is, of course, at the ballot box.

Thatcher never specifically asked the electorate if they wanted her to crush Arthur Scargill and his National Union of Mineworkers. But she never pretended the real battle was over anything other than ideological beliefs. "Economics are the method;" she said, "the object is to change the heart and soul".

Gillard is equally clear about the ideology of her carbon tax. "I believe climate change is real," is justification enough. Like Thatcher, she is using an economic tool so we "all change our behaviour".

For Combet: "this is a difficult political environment at the moment but this is a critical reform for the future of the country and future generations". In other words; 'even though we don't have a mandate, we have our ideological beliefs'.

Although Combet disputes the figures, the NSW Treasury modelling is unambiguous. The carbon tax will hit NSW harder than any other state and cost at least 31,000 jobs, particularly in regional areas. The analysis shows $3.7 billion will disappear from the annual output of the NSW economy by 2020, rising to $9.1 billion by 2030.

It predicts the loss of 1,850 jobs in the Hunter region alone and 7,000 fewer jobs in the Illawarra, a thousand less in the central west. "The reduction in jobs in the Hunter is absolute, not a mere reduction in growth prospects," it concludes.

NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell says the Treasury predictions are "disastrous" for the Hunter Valley. NSW Minerals Council CEO Dr Nikki Williams concurs: "The Federal Government said we were scaremongering when we flagged our concern for the 3,000 NSW coal mining jobs that are at risk, but the NSW Treasury modelling now shows that loss could be replicated tenfold across the state's economy," she said. "It is becoming increasingly clear that the carbon tax will cripple economic growth and put thousands of jobs at risk, especially in regional NSW."

Aha, you say, but we are sacrificing the coal miners and their livelihoods to save the planet. So our grandchildren will inherit a cleaner world. Those mining jobs would have gone anyway, your argument runs, when coal becomes obsolete, which it must eventually do. Besides which, there will be an equal number if not more new jobs created in the renewables industry.

This "greater good" argument, worthy as it may appear at first blush, is uncannily similar to that put forward by supporters of the Thatcher government to justify the closure of 20 mining pits across Britain's north in 1984. The greater good, in that instance, was the British economy. The mines were closed so that today's Britons could inherit a more prosperous world. A plethora of jobs were created in London's freewheeling financial services industry as the British economy took off on the back of the defeat of the left-wing unions. London quickly became one of the economic powerhouses of the world. All well and good.

Except it wasn't. Many of the Yorkshire miners never found work again. For decades, poverty, depression and suicide blighted their lives as the booming economy that their defeat ushered into the south-east failed to have any positive impact on the mining ghost towns of the north. Strange as it may seem, you can't just put down your hard hat and shovel, pick up a calculator, and become a hedge-fund manager overnight.

Equally, just because you were good at digging up coal doesn't mean you'll be any good at putting up windmills.

Combet claims that sufficient money is being set aside to compensate for job losses. Maybe. But these are working Australian families, not just a set of numbers. When do they sell up and move? Now? Should they quit work and start looking for new skills? New schools? Leave behind their homes, history and communities? What about Mum? Do they move her too? Combet maintains the Hunter will be one of the areas to benefit from a growth in renewable energy sector jobs. Let's hope so. Thatcher made similar commitments about a revitalised north which sadly never came to pass.

Ironically, Greg Combet rose to prominence in the Australian equivalent of the mining strike; fighting on behalf of the wharfies' unions in the 1998 waterfront dispute, where he famously maintained that "the laws were made against workers, and bad laws have to be broken". It will be interesting to see if he gives the same advice to the coal workers of NSW.

Combet and Gillard have made clear that the carbon tax will go ahead, regardless of adverse public opinion polls, the concerns of those with jobs to lose, and without being mandated at the ballot box. It's a question, purely and simply, of ideological belief.

"The government is going to stick to its guns," Combet says. Sounds awfully like Margaret Thatcher's "the lady's not for turning".

SOURCE



10 August, 2011

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG condemns some vicious Leftist "humour" he saw on the ABC




Wong is wrong

I couldn't resist that headline -- in the tradition of one Arthur Augustus Calwell

NEW South Wales conservative Christian MP Fred Nile says federal Finance Minister Penny Wong is setting a bad example by having a baby with her female partner.

Senator Wong today announced her partner, Sophie Allouache, is due to give birth in December after falling pregnant through IVF.

NSW Christian Democrats leader Mr Nile is opposed to same-sex relationships and children being raised by gay couples.

"I'm totally against a baby being brought up by two mothers - the baby has human rights," the upper house MP said. "It's a very poor example for the rest of the Australian population.

"She needn't have made it public - it just promotes their lesbian lifestyle and trying to make it natural where it's unnatural. "The only reason she's made it public is to make a statement to the Australian people."

Mr Nile, who has led prayers vigils during Sydney's annual gay Mardi Gras parade, called on Prime Minister Julia Gillard to have a "talk" with her cabinet colleague about her decision to publicise the impending birth. "She should have a serious talk with her," he said.

But he also had words for the prime minister's unmarried status. "Because of her own life, that puts her in a weaker position than if she was traditionally married herself," he said.

Mr Nile said he was surprised Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop had congratulated Senator Wong. "I'm surprised she's done that. She's treated this as if Penny Wong is in a traditional relationship," he said.

The NSW parliament last year passed legislation giving same-sex couples the right to adopt children.

SOURCE




No national curriculum for NSW students

Much of its content was designed by a former Communist

NSW students will not study the new national curriculum in 2013 after the state government yesterday delayed its implementation.

Cracks are appearing in the federal government's curriculum reform, with NSW the first state to pull out over concerns about its content.

Education Minister Adrian Piccoli said he was still committed to a national curriculum but was delaying its introduction into NSW schools until at least 2014. He would not rule out further delays if the commonwealth failed to address concerns.

NSW schools were due to teach the national curriculum in English, maths, science and history for kindergarten to Year 10 from 2013.

The Board of Studies raised concerns over the content and advised the government not to proceed.

Mr Piccoli said teachers needed training before teaching the new syllabus, which will cost $80 million over four years, and needed to be funded by the federal government.

Federal Education Minister Peter Garrett said there was no reason for the backdown by NSW, which was jeopardising students' education.

SOURCE






Inexperienced public hospital doctor kills man

A MAN who had all his teeth removed in preparation for heart surgery died from a seizure and an abnormal heartbeat caused by an overdose of a local anaesthetic, an inquest has heard.

George Godden, 74, was allegedly prescribed an "inappropriate and highly dangerous" dose of co-phenylcaine by an on-call junior doctor at the Prince of Wales Hospital on February 22, 2007.

Yesterday, the Glebe Coroner's Court was told a piece of gauze was found in Mr Godden's throat and the cause of death had originally been put down to respiratory obstruction.

However, a blood analysis conducted in May, more than four years after Mr Godden's death, revealed a toxic level of lignocaine, one of the two active ingredients in co-phenylcaine.

Counsel Assisting the Coroner, Kristina Stern, said Tani Brown, a resident medical officer, was asked to review Mr Godden's bleeding gums.

Mr Godden, who weighed about 41 kilograms, had all 19 teeth removed in preparation for heart valve replacement surgery. Dr Brown allegedly told nursing staff to soak a piece of gauze in co-phenylcaine and ask Mr Godden to bite down on it.

About 10 minutes later, Mr Godden was found on the floor having a seizure. He was unable to be revived. Dr Brown had no experience treating post-operative dental patients and had not previously prescribed co-phenylcaine, Ms Stern said.

The topical spray is used in the emergency department to treat acute nose bleeds and to numb the inside of the nose before surgery. However, it is not indicated for bleeding gums.

The registered nurse, Jason Shores, said he used about 30 squirts of the drug until the gauze was dripping wet. He said he did not read the box, patient information leaflet or prescribing guide, which set the maximum dose at five squirts per nostril and cautioned against using the drug for patients with cardiovascular disease.

SOURCE





Call to keep jails single-sex

PRISON stakeholders are calling for single-sex jails, saying the number of guards caught having affairs with prisoners is just the tip of the iceberg.

The Courier-Mail revealed yesterday there had been five substantiated cases of Corrective Service Officers investigated for having sexual relationships with prisoners across Queensland in the past two-and-a-half years, and three more were currently being investigated.

Queensland Corrective Services documents obtained by The Courier-Mail under Right to Information found they also exchanged gifts and money.

Sisters Inside, which supports women in the criminal justice system, said the issues extended beyond intimate relationships.

"It's a power imbalance and inappropriate behaviour, but it is the tip of the iceberg in regards to what's happening to the women inside the system," director Debbie Kilroy said. "Even though they have an exemption from the anti-discrimination commission about hiring more women than men in the women's prisons, over the years, you hear the women talk about male officers bringing in contraband for sexual favours."

A former CSO, who didn't want to be named, said there would be at least half-a-dozen relationships between prisoners and prison staff every year. "It's such a regular occurrence but not just female CSOs - it's also prevalent with the counsellors as well as the psychs," he said. "The real danger is if it goes too long, eventually staff start buying up drugs."

He said the overwhelming majority of illicit relationships within custodial centres involved women guards.

Police and Corrective Services Minister Neil Roberts ruled out single-sex prisons saying "employment should be based on skills and experience, not a person's gender".

Queensland Corrective Services Commissioner Kelvin Anderson said since January 1, 2009, there had been 26 investigations into allegations of inappropriate relationships involving staff members and prisoners. He said there were 2000 custodial staff so those found guilty of "inappropriate dealings with prisoners" only accounted for 0.25 per cent.

However, the department was unable to say whether there were any links to the unorthodox pairings and the smuggling of drugs into prisons.

SOURCE



9 August, 2011

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG says that your superannuation may not be safe from the grasping hands of government.





Fibre network obsolete before it is built!

THE federal government has dismissed suggestions wireless technology is a threat to the national broadband network as Telstra plans to boost mobile internet speeds.

The telco giant aims to have the new 4G technology ready in capital cities and some regional areas by the end of the year.

Telstra chief executive David Thodey says demand for mobile data is doubling each year as more Australian opt for smartphones, mobile modems and tablets.

Fourth generation wireless can deliver speeds comparable with the NBN in areas where there is good mobile reception. The potential could threaten the viability of the government's $36 billion NBN.

Telstra's vow to improve its mobile technology also comes only a day after a report commissioned by the Gillard government said wireless technology was a key risk to the NBN business case.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has downplayed this suggestion, and welcomed Telstra's announcement. "Far from being a threat to the national broadband network, wireless is an important complementary technology to fibre," Senator Conroy said in a statement today.

Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull said wireless would become a competitive force and undermine the case for installing optical fibres to Australian homes. "The government shouldn't be putting all of its billions of dollars of subsidy into one technological basket," he told Fairfax Radio.

The Australian Greens defended the government against criticism that it backed the wrong technology. "If you wanted to have all-wireless strategy, you'd have one of those mobile phone towers on every street corner and you only get top speed if you're standing right next to the tower and no one else is using it," communications spokesman Scott Ludlam told Sky News.

Telecommunications consultant Paul Budde said the NBN would still be viable even with strong growth in wireless services. Sectors such as health, education, media and energy, will favour the NBN's fibre-optic technologies. "Yes, there will be an overlap ... but there are applications that are impossible to run over a wireless network," Mr Budde told ABC radio.

The heat on the NBN began on Monday, when a government-commissioned report identified wireless technology as a key risk to the project. Corporate advisory firm Greenhill Caliburn said the competition from mobile-centric broadband would challenge take-up forecasts of the NBN.

The government aims to connect 93 per cent of Australian households with high-speed optical fibres by 2020.

NBN Co, the company building the network, has ambitions to deliver broadband speeds of 100 megabits a second, which would rise to 1000 megabits in the longer term. As this happens, Telstra will decommission its copper network.

But far from being a collaborator, the corporate behemoth is emerging as a key NBN competitor. Announcing Telstra's plans at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Mr Thodey said his company wanted to remain Australia's technology leader, a title the commonwealth is also vying for.

SOURCE





Malaysian asylum plan sinks as High Court hands down injunction

THE Federal Government will make a desperate bid to fast track a High Court challenge to its botched asylum seeker swap deal as the Malaysian solution languishes in legal limbo.

The Gillard Government was last night scrambling to defend its immigration policy after the High Court threatened to shred its legal credibility.

A two-week injunction imposed yesterday will prevent the deportation of the first wave of asylum seekers to Kuala Lumpur until the High Court can consider the policy's legality.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen last night said he was confident of the Government's legal footing despite judge Kenneth Hayne earlier ruling the policy posed a "sufficiently serious question" warranting the scrutiny of the full bench on August 22.

The legal questions surround the human rights and lack of legal protection for the Malaysian-bound asylum seekers and the deportation of unaccompanied minors.

The Government was last night battling to contain the political fallout as up to 100 asylum seekers remain in legal limbo on Christmas Island.

Adding to the embarrassment, Justice Hayne complained about the Solicitor-General's tardiness in presenting legal documents, describing the Crown's response as "half-baked".

Mr Bowen said the Government was on "very strong legal grounds".

"I'm confident that when the full bench considers the case the injunction will be lifted, the transfer will occur and the arrangement will be implemented," he said. He admitted the uncertainty created by the High Court injunction had "the danger of playing into people smugglers' hands". "I think it would be better that the case was heard as soon as possible," he said.

Meanwhile, an ambulance was called yesterday to treat three Malaysian-bound asylum seekers on a hunger strike on Christmas Island.

Lawyers for the 41 Afghani and Pakistani asylum seekers behind the current legal challenge say their clients are "petrified" about being sent to Malaysia.

David Manne argues their claims for protection should be continued in Australia and disputed the Government's claim Malaysia had sufficient human rights and protections for refugees.

"We'll be challenging that because the consequences here, of course, are very grave," he told the ABC. "The minister could declare any country to have adequate human rights standards or protections without a review by the court."

Despite the uncertainty with the people-swap policy, Mr Bowen said Australia would accept the first of the 4000 refugees from Malaysia as part of the deal. "I'm not going to put these people's lives on hold."

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said the High Court injunction showed the Government could not get its immigration policies right.

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Progressive and conservative lifestyles in Australia

Not necessarily reflected in voting

AGE and income don't necessarily determine whether Australians are progressive or conservative. Rather, personal decisions such as having children, adopting technology, or connecting with friends are having a far more powerful influence on people's state of mind, behaviour and happiness.

A lifestyle trends survey commissioned by KPMG found rapid social, behavioural and technological shifts are creating classes of progressives and conservatives.

The first group were people with many friends, the latest technology, several credit cards and a propensity to take regular holidays.

At the opposite end of the spectrum were conservatives who did not have the latest gadgets, were not connecting online, and did not eat out or take holidays.

Demographer Bernard Salt said there were now two Australias: "the edgy, the connected and the modern lifestyle-inclined - and then there are the conservatives."

Survey findings include:

THE richest households usually have KIPPERS (Kids in Parents' Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings).

THE poorest dwellings are typically made up of 18- to 24-year-olds, who are most likely to be students, or pensioners aged over 65.

PARENTS often could not afford to eat out.

GEN Y and baby boomers are frequently on holiday, but baby boomers are the heavier credit card users.

The survey revealed why many Gen Ys are so keen to stay in the family home. "When they move out they transition from the richest households in Australia to the poorest," Mr Salt said.

He said the secret to happiness came down to having the self-discipline to manage modern life's excesses. "The things that make Australians happy are not being in debt, not being overweight, having an exercise regimen, and having friends," he said.

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Mining boss slams 'soft' Australians

A workforce dominated by soft, satisfied idealists is "pissing away" Australia's position of economic strength and taking the nation backwards, according to the head of a Chinese-controlled mining company with multiple projects in Australia.

Andrew Michelmore, the head of MMG, which has headquarters in Melbourne but is dominated by China, said Australia was suffering from "rich country's disease" and would devolve into a welfare state unless workers rediscovered a hunger for excellence.

Addressing the Australian-British Chamber of Commerce, Mr Michelmore, the former head of Western Mining Corporation, lamented the immobility of the Australian workforce and the resulting skills shortage in remote areas like Western Australia's Pilbara region.

"People can't be bothered moving 25 kilometres to get a job because they will live off social welfare instead, and it's a real worry for me watching Australia have a luxurious time at the benefit of our relationship with China," he said.

More older people and women should be returned to a workforce which was dominated by people with "airy fairy", "idealistic" and "altruistic" attitudes.

"We need to get the grey hairs back into industry and working, we need to get more women involved in work," he said. "We need to get some hunger and drive back into this country, we are becoming soft."

A lack of workers has long frustrated the resources sector as it tries to develop billions of dollars worth of projects over the next decade.

MMG has its headquarters and three mines in Australia, one each in Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania.

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union's national president, Tony Maher, rejected Mr Michelmore's comments. He said they were "a trojan horse for a Chinese labour debate".

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8 August, 2011

Billions spent but Aborigines little better off, says report

Just about everything has been tried with no results. The one remaining thing that would greatly improve the wellbeing of Aborigines on settlements is better policing of those settlements

THE circumstances of most indigenous Australians are hardly any better today than they were 40 years ago, despite governments having spent tens of billions of dollars, a scathing internal report to federal cabinet says.

The Strategic Review of Indigenous Expenditure, prepared by the federal Department of Finance, finds that despite efforts by successive Commonwealth, state and territory governments, progress against Aboriginal disadvantage has been "mixed at best". Outcomes have varied between "disappointing" and "appalling".

The federal government spends $3.5 billion a year on indigenous programs but the report finds this "major investment, maintained over many years, has yielded dismally poor returns". The report was submitted in February 2010 when Kevin Rudd was prime minister.

Its contents were publicised last night by Channel Seven after the network fought a long freedom-of-information battle.

The document offers no joy for either main party and contains criticism of the Northern Territory intervention, started by the Howard government, and the Closing the Gap strategy of Labor.

"The history of Commonwealth policy for indigenous Australians over the past 40 years is largely a story of good intentions, flawed policies, unrealistic assumptions, poor implementation, unintended consequences and dashed hopes," it says.

"Strong policy commitments and large investments of government funding have too often produced outcomes which have been disappointing at best and appalling at worst. Individual success stories notwithstanding, the circumstances and prospects on many indigenous Australians are little better in 2010, relative to other Australians, than those which faced their counterparts in 1970."

It says co-ordination between levels of government and agencies is poor, money is still being wasted and greater rigour is needed when assessing programs, especially the intervention, which Labor has continued.

The Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, said the review was commissioned because the government wanted to improve the lives of indigenous Australians. "Before the significant reform and investment agenda put in place by the government, services and infrastructure for indigenous Australians had faced decades of under-investment and neglect."

The shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, said governments of both persuasions had not applied the same rigour to indigenous programs as other areas but said it was worse under the current one.

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Church says spanking is OK, opposes push to ban corporal punishment

MUMS and dads could face court for smacking their children, a major church has warned as it resists the push to ban corporal punishment in the home.

The 600,000-strong Presbyterian Church fears that parents could be stopped from using corporal punishment as yet another state moves to ban smacking.

Under a controversial human rights charter, Victoria will join NSW in outlawing the use of corporal punishment. Under Queensland law, parents are allowed to use "reasonable force" when disciplining their children.

In a submission to a Victorian parliamentary inquiry, the church said that the charter could be used to dump the common law right to smack children provided force wasn't unreasonable or excessive. "Many Australian families use reasonable physical discipline from time to time," the church said. "There is a significant body of research confirming its utility in raising children well."

But Australian Childhood Foundation chief executive Dr Joe Tucci yesterday said it was never right to hit children and NSW's lead should be followed. "If parents are really angry or frustrated at the time that they're doing it they could inadvertently hurt kids and that's our concern about it," he said. "More and more parents are moving away from physical punishment because it's not effective."

However, adolescent psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg said it was ridiculous to legislate against smacking. "I don't think we should be criminalising people who, when their children run across the road, they give them a tap on the bum," he said.

Dr Carr-Gregg said he didn't believe smacking was the solution to bad behaviour, but attempts to ban it had not worked.

A recent [bogus] study said that parents who smacked their children could be depriving them of the skills they needed to cope with school and even with adulthood.

The Presbyterian church submission said Australia was being pressured to ban corporal punishment by a United Nations committee overseeing implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

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Online health records face uphill battle

A NEW online medical records system is doomed to failure because not enough people will sign up for it, the Australian Medical Association has warned.

From July 1 next year, patients will have to volunteer to "opt in" to the system, which stores all their health details, including test results and prescriptions, in a national database. It's the first time patients will be able to access their medical information.

The AMA believes inclusion in the federal government's Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record system should be automatic unless patients choose to "opt out". Otherwise, many patients in nursing homes, the elderly or others who are not "technically savvy" will miss out, the group's national president, Steve Hambleton, said.

Mr Hambleton said the medical profession supported the concept of having a one-stop source of medical information "but people should be asked if they want to leave the scheme, not if they want to join".

"When they did this in Auckland, where they had a million people, only 91 people opted out," he said.

John Bennett, chair of the e-health national standing committee at the Royal Australian College of General Practice, said the opt-in issue would be challenging.

"Unless you get enough people taking part in the system, that's healthcare providers and the community, it's hard to have enough information available to make it useful," he said.

As well as information uploaded from a patient's doctor or specialists, patients will be able to add details about their medical history including information about allergies and medications. They can also choose who can read the information, which, in theory, could prevent a medical practitioner from accessing the record.

The federal Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon, said the system would stop the fragmentation of medical records so that paper and computer records were not spread across a patient's GP, specialist and hospital emergency rooms.

"Patients will no longer have to remember every immunisation, every medical test and every prescription as they move from doctor to doctor," she said.

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Aged care controversy

Should some people get for free what others have worked and saved for?

WHEN it releases a major report on aged care tomorrow, the government will unleash a debate that, if not handled carefully, could turn into a fresh nightmare for Julia Gillard.

The PM wants to make dealing with the practicalities of an ageing population another front for "decision and delivery". But seniors' policy, broadly defined, is fraught.

Bob Hawke had a dreadful time over putting an assets test on pensions - it dominated the 1984 election. Early in his government, John Howard was embroiled in a damaging row over aged-care accommodation bonds. Both these governments were in strong shape when these controversies arose. The Gillard government is in anything but.

While we are yet to see the full detail of tomorrow's Productivity Commission (PC) report, Caring for Older Australians, if it follows the January draft version it will contain some strong meat. The draft proposed greater competition in the system and a more user-pays approach for those who can afford it. The recommendations were complicated but the message was spelt out at the time by the PC deputy chairman, Mike Woods. Under its proposals, Woods said, people on low income and with few assets would certainly be protected while "those who have high wealth or high incomes" would be expected to pay more for their care.

The argument for this may be logical and fair but the political difficulties are another matter. The PC operates in a framework of economic rationality. The community argument over aged care is usually conducted in an atmosphere of emotional heat; obviously, this is a highly sensitive matter for individuals and families. This issue is also tailor-made for Tony Abbott to exploit, as then opposition leader Andrew Peacock did in 1984.

Gillard has said the government won't announce decisions immediately. But how long can it safely let the debate, and surrounding uncertainty, run? Should it rule out some extreme measures quickly? If anyone is looking for a test of political management, this is a doozy.

If the politics suggests a rerun of earlier controversies, the changing nature of the ageing issue is a challenge not just for government but for the community generally and for employers in particular.

Gillard last week highlighted a couple of interesting points. We have two generations of seniors - the baby boomers coming into or towards retirement and their parents - the 65-year-old and his 90-year-old mum. And the "me" generation baby boomers will be highly demanding "me" retirees, wanting choice as well as the more traditional wish for security.

Many of the baby boomers, however, will be working longer, full time or part time. The government has already committed to phasing in a later pension age. Even by necessity, the "young aged" will have to soldier on. That will require changes in the attitude of some employers who, while accepting in theory the desirability of older employees, are not so welcoming in practice.

As the debate on ageing again comes centre stage, former Hawke government minister Susan Ryan has just become the inaugural Age Discrimination Commissioner. Ryan says her priorities are keeping older people who want to work in employment and keeping the frailer aged in their homes when possible. In her new job, Ryan finds herself in a growth industry.
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7 August, 2011

Census Apartheid for blacks

Sara Hudson questions official racism

Next Thursday, 9th August, is Census night. Across the country Australians will be filling in the official Census Household Form. The Census is an important source of statistics for government and is used to determine government policy and funding levels. But a small group of Aboriginal Australians, living in discrete communities, are given a separate form – the Interviewer Household Form. Next Thursday, 9 August, is Census night. Across the country Australians will be filling in the official Census Household Form. The Census is an important source of statistics for government and is used to determine government policy and funding levels. But a small group of Aboriginal Australians, living in discrete communities, are given a separate form – the Interviewer Household Form.

The rationale for the separate form is that Indigenous Australians living in discrete communities do not have the English literacy and numeracy skills to fill in the standard Census form. However, an illiterate Somali who has just arrived as a refugee in Australia does not get a separate form but gets assistance from interpreters.

Now if the only difference between the two forms was their names, then there wouldn’t be much to complain about. But unfortunately the distinction is much more pervasive than that.

• Different questions are asked

• Questions have different response options

• Different examples of responses for a question

• Questions are worded differently

• Question response boxes are in a different order

• The sequence of questions is different

These differences mean that data are not directly comparable between Indigenous Australians surveyed by the Interviewer Household Form and other Australians, including Indigenous Australians who receive the mainstream Household Form.

The Household Form explicitly states on the front that any person in the household concerned about privacy can ask the Collector for a Personal Form and a Privacy Envelope. The Interviewer Household Form has no such statements, effectively signalling that Indigenous Australians have lesser rights to privacy.

The inclusion of participation in CDEP (an Aboriginal work-for-the-dole type program) as a separate question, and its classification as employment in the Census, has enabled government to hide the high levels of unemployment in discrete communities. If CDEP was treated like other work-for-the- dole programs and classified as unemployment, then the official Indigenous unemployment rate (from the 2006 Census) would be nearly 50%.

The misguided attempt of the Australian Bureau of Statistics to be ‘culturally appropriate’ is state-sanctioned apartheid. Not only is it deeply patronising to assume that Aboriginal people living in discrete communities are unable to fill out the official Household Form (Alison Anderson, an MLA for the Northern Territory, was given the Interview Household Form), the different questions used mar the validity of the statistics.

If enough pressure is applied on the ABS, this may be the last Census that such a racially discriminatory and statistically invalid practice is carried out.

The above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated 5 August. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590.




No more handouts for Aboriginals, says ex-Australian of the Year Galarrwuy Yunipingu

FORMER Australian of the Year and Aboriginal leader Galarrwuy Yunipingu has called on his people to stop accepting welfare handouts, saying it is killing them.

Mr Yunipingu was speaking at this year's Garma Festival, held on a remote region of Yolngu land on the edge of the Gulf of Carpentaria in the Northern Territory.

"Stop relying on welfare handouts," he told an audience, which included executives from Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals chairman Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest. "Please no more, please no more welfare handouts. "It's a killer to the Yolngu Society."

Instead, Mr Yunipingu said his people deserved appropriate education. "Not just any Mickey Mouse teaching, not just any education for blackfellas, please give us a real teaching give us a real education."

The Garma Festival is a celebration of the Yolngu cultural inheritance and will run until Sunday.

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Spending control for ferals coming

WELFARE recipients could be segregated into different queues at shops under an "apartheid system" that will force them to spend at least half of their money on essential items at government-approved retailers.

Business groups have condemned a federal government plan to control the spending of up to 20,000 people across the country by effectively making them shop at a handful of the biggest retail chains. And the Law Council of Australia has warned that the change could be discriminatory.

In a five-year trial to start next July, the government will quarantine between 50 and 70 per cent of welfare payments made to those deemed "financially vulnerable" or who have been referred by child protection authorities in five local government areas across Australia, including Bankstown in Sydney.

The quarantined money will be contained on an eftpos-style "BasicsCard" that can be used only at certain retailers to buy food, clothes, medicine, bus and train tickets and other "priority items". Banned products will include alcohol, cigarettes, pornography and gambling products.

In the Northern Territory, where income management was introduced by the Howard government in 2007 and mainly affected Aboriginal communities, many shops have forced cardholders to use separate queues as they slow down other shoppers, according to Paddy Gibson, a researcher from the University of Technology, Sydney. A coalition of 40 community and business groups, including the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia and the Combined Pensioners and Superannuants of NSW, says the effort and paperwork needed to join the list of designated retailers would make it impossible for all but the most powerful chains, such as Coles and Woolworths, to take part.

"This will drive business from the small operators to the big conglomerates," said Violet Roumeliotis, executive director of the Metro Migrant Resource Centre. "It will isolate and stigmatise people who have to use the card. It's a kind of apartheid system, really. It won't stop people with drug and alcohol problems from getting access to those things."

At Bankstown grocery store Eastern Delights, which imports most of its products from the Middle East, staff are worried about the potential impact on revenue. "Many people won't be able to spend money on traditional foods and ingredients here - they'll have to go to Woolworths," said the owner, Chadi.

Long-time welfare recipient Janet Short, 60, is a recovering alcoholic on about $600 a fortnight in disability support. "I haven't had a drink for more than a year, and I've shown that I can manage money perfectly well without being told how I should spend it - what a ridiculous idea," said Ms Short, who lived in Bankstown for 25 years, but recently moved to Waterloo. "Why should the majority have their choices taken away because of a few idiots who blow their money on drinking and gambling?"

The government had planned to wait for an evaluation of the Northern Territory program but has pushed ahead early, expanding it to Bankstown, as well as Logan and Rockhampton in Queensland, Playford in South Australia, and Greater Shepparton in Victoria, before a countrywide roll-out.

A spokeswoman for Jenny Macklin, the Federal Minister for Community Services, said the government chose the regions because they have high unemployment and skills gaps, and many of their residents rely on welfare payments as their main source of income.

She said the spending controls would be imposed on people deemed by Centrelink staff to be "financially vulnerable" or parents referred by child protection agencies. Welfare recipients also have the option of joining voluntarily.

"Income management is part of the Australian government's commitment to reforming the welfare system so that income support payments are spent in the best interests of child ren and families," she said.

Placing controls on where and how people spend "ensures that money is available for life essentials like food, clothing and housing, and provides a tool to stabilise people's lives and ease immediate financial stress".

The manager of Bankstown's Women's Health Centre, Sue McClelland, said rates of sexual abuse and domestic violence in the region were "worryingly high", and many women would welcome the intervention.

However, the Law Council of Australia has warned that compulsory application of income management on the basis of location or race is discriminatory - a position supported by the National Welfare Rights Network. The network's president, Maree O'Halloran, said that controlling the way people spend welfare payments was also "damaging and counter-productive because it reduces the capacity of people to learn the financial management skills necessary for achieving independence and self-reliance".

Mr Gibson, who is a senior researcher at the University of Technology's Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, spent 18 months in the Northern Territory to observe the effect of income management. He said the judgments made by Centrelink staff were "heavily influenced by prejudice. In the context of a suburb like Bankstown, it will overwhelmingly be migrant communities, along with indigenous and other marginalised groups who will be targeted."

SOURCE





Coal seam gas industry under the microscope in NSW

THE environmental, social and economic impacts of coal seam gas mining and exploration in NSW will be examined by a wide-ranging parliamentary inquiry.

The inquiry, by the upper house committee responsible for resources and energy, is expected to hold public hearings in October and November to examine the environmental impacts of coal seam gas mining, including the use of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking ".

It will examine the legal rights of property owners and the impact of coal seam gas mining on property values, food security and farming. The economics of coal seam gas, including royalties paid to NSW and the extent of the role of coal seam gas in meeting the state's future energy needs will be considered.

The inquiry, to be chaired by the Shooters and Fishers Party MP Robert Brown, was established following a proposal by the Greens MP and mining spokesman, Jeremy Buckingham, who is the committee's deputy chairman.

He said it would be "the most comprehensive inquiry to be conducted into all issues relating to the coal seam gas industry ".

"This inquiry will provide a forum for the hundreds of community groups and experts concerned about the coal seam gas industry to put these concerns to parliamentarians, " Mr Buckingham said. "This comes at a vital time with massive plans for expansion of the gas industry on the planning books and community concern building to a crescendo. "

The Minister for Resources and Energy, Chris Hartcher, announced new environmental and community consultation rules for the coal and coal seam gas industry last month. They include changes to the way mining companies can use water in their operations.

Mr Hartcher has imposed a moratorium on fracking, which he said is not used in NSW, until December 31.

The inquiry will consider holding public hearings in areas where coal seam gas activity has caused community concern, including Casino and the northern rivers, Gunnedah, Narrabri, Moree, the Hunter Valley, Sydney and the Illawarra.

Submissions to the inquiry will be called for next week with hearings proposed for October and November.

The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association's chief operating officer for eastern Australia, Rick Wilkinson, said it "welcomes and strongly supports the inquiry ".

"The coal seam gas industry is confident that a comprehensive examination of the industry will clearly demonstrate the value of the industry to the people of NSW, including its capacity for delivery substantial economic benefit, jobs and a much needed source of cleaner energy, " he said.

The president of the NSW Farmers' Association, Fiona Simson, said the association was "thrilled " about the inquiry. She called on Mr Hartcher to delay the renewal of exploration licences.
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6 August, 2011

Single male "asylum seekers" told - you will not be allowed to stay in Australia

Most of the stuff below is sheer nonsense. The so-called "asylum seekers" are Shia Muslims. If they really needed asylum, there is a whole country run by Shiites -- Iran. And under Muslim rules of hospitality Iran would be obliged to accept them. And Iran is a heck of a lot closer to where they come from

IMMIGRATION officials have told single men from the first asylum boat subject to the Gillard government's Malaysia Solution that they will be removed to Kuala Lumpur on Monday.

The men from a boat carrying 55 asylum seekers were moved yesterday morning to the notorious White 1 compound inside the island's main detention centre. The compound was previously reserved for detainees accused of rape, rioting and stirring unrest.

Australian Federal Police plan to deport the men in groups of 15 on an Australian Antarctic Division airbus currently leased by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

The potential removal to Malaysia of a small boy, families and unaccompanied minors from the recently arrived asylum boat is contentious.

The United Nations Children's Fund yesterday said it had "grave reservations" about the deportation of unaccompanied children to Malaysia, calling the plan "inhumane". UNICEF Australia chief Dr Norman Gillespie said the 18 minors who are destined for Malaysia, unless the government grants an exemption, should be allowed to stay in Australia. "To deport these children, who have already been traumatised, to subject them to further trauma, we think is a very extreme action," he said.

Families and children are being held in the Christmas Island centre built by the Howard government after the Tampa crisis in 2001. The Immigration Department does not call it a detention centre any more and it is therefore deemed suitable for children.

Yesterday the department confirmed there were 18 minors on the asylum-seeker boat that arrived on Thursday - not 19 as previously reported. An Immigration Department spokeswoman said one of the asylum seekers who had claimed to be a minor had later told officials he was over 18.

Federal Immigration Minister Chris Bowen reiterated yesterday that there would be no blanket exemptions for children. "I will not have the situation where we provide a reward for people who put their children on a boat, and undertake that dangerous journey," he said.

Acting Opposition Leader Julie Bishop said the government was caught in a trap. "It either allows unaccompanied children to be taken to Malaysia to an uncertain fate where the Australian government has no control over what happens to them or the government caves in to the people smugglers," she said.

The age of asylum seekers claiming to be unaccompanied minors has been contentious since the surge in boats that began in late 2008. Unaccompanied minors have a high success rate in obtaining a visa - not one has been forcibly removed since the surge in arrivals that began in 2008.

The Immigration Department did not intend to carry out thorough age checks because the entire group of people claiming to be unaccompanied minors was going to be deported anyway, a department spokeswoman told The Daily Telegraph.

Refugee advocates were also concerned yesterday that the group could suffer religious persecution in Malaysia. Most of those in the group, comprising Afghans and Pakistanis, were Shia Muslims and could experience discrimination.

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Queensland has fruit bats by the millions but Greenie laws prevent people from chasing them away

RESIDENTS in strife for using air horns to scare off fruit bats have been told by the State Government the animals are not a health risk unless they are handled.

This is despite the spread of Hendra virus, which has claimed the lives of at least four people and, in the latest outbreak, resulted in the deaths of 15 horses and a pet dog.

A brochure downplaying the health risks of flying foxes was handed to Gold Coast couple Robyn and Robert Burgess after their home was raided by Department of Environment and Resource Management officials on Thursday.

An air horn the couple had used trying to scare off a colony of flying foxes was confiscated and they were threatened with jail and a $100,000 fine if they persisted, The Courier-Mail revealed yesterday.

Officials gave the couple a brochure entitled "Living With Flying Foxes" which warns of the risks of lyssavirus - a rabies virus contracted from bat saliva - but says Hendra virus does not spread to humans direct from flying foxes.

This is despite uncertainty over how Hendra is spread and the unprecedented infection of pet dog Dusty, put down last week by order of authorities.

The flyer admits bats smell and are noisy "but are really not so bad when you get to know them". "Flying foxes are not a health risk to you unless you are bitten or scratched, so please don't handle them," it says.

Lawyer Bill Potts, who Mr and Mrs Burgess called in after the DERM raid, said the advice was "most concerning" amid the Hendra virus outbreak.

He said the risks of Hendra should not be downplayed until more was known about it, especially now that domestic pets could be infected. "The Burgesses have three cats and they have come inside with bat droppings. The uncertainty about how humans contract Hendra virus gives rise to considerable anxiety," he said.

Mr Potts said the Burgesses and their Southport neighbours would apply for a government permit to "move on" the bats. "Damage mitigation permits" can be issued by DERM to ward off bats using devices including flares fired from shotguns, spotlights, smoke machines, "surround sound deterrent systems" and air horns. But a spokesman for Environment Minister Vicky Darling said permits were usually only issued to local councils.

Southport MP Peter Lawlor urged the Gold Coast City Council to "pick up the phone and get this process moving". He said the council had been given a permit to move a flying fox colony away from the Gold Coast Turf Club.

Southport councillor Dawn Crichlow said she had been trying to get action on the bat problem for 18 months. "The heavy-handed actions of DERM against the residents is an absolute disgrace," she said.

The colourful councillor, who staged a successful campaign to reduce an ibis plague on the Gold Coast - and once proposed to drug the birds and truck them out west - vowed to go into bat for long-suffering constituents living amid the Southport bat colony. "I've been on to DERM and given them a good mouthful," she said.

Gold Coast-based federal Liberal MP Steve Ciobo said home raids by government officials armed with search warrants was "outrageous, Big Brother, jackboot stuff".

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Fred stands up for morality in NSW

THE Christian Democratic Party MP Fred Nile has used a parliamentary debate on his bill to remove ethics classes from schools to claim they teach the philosophy behind Nazism and communism.

The O'Farrell government used its numbers in the upper house to give Mr Nile's bill priority yesterday morning, allowing it to be introduced ahead of all other legislation.

It followed a meeting between the Premier, Barry O'Farrell, and Mr Nile 10 days ago where it was agreed that the government would allow the bill to proceed after Mr Nile threatened to use his party's votes to "torpedo " the government's wages policy.

Introducing the bill, Mr Nile said he did not believe children were being taught the difference between right and wrong in the ethics classes, which are being taught as an alternative to special religious education lessons.

"It's relative ethics, which is the basis of secular humanism, " Mr Nile told parliament. "I believe this is the philosophy that we saw during World War II with the Nazis and with the Communists. " The comments were branded "outrageous " and "an act of extreme cowardice " by opposition and Greens MPs.

The move to allow debate on the bill sparked renewed accusations that Mr O'Farrell had done a "deal " with Mr Nile in return for his support for the wages policy.

The Opposition Leader, John Robertson, said the arrangement was "the first down payment " and was "clear evidence that a deal has been done ". The Greens MP, John Kaye, said the government was "clearly delivering for [Mr Nile] on this. How far does this deal go? ".

The government supported a move by Mr Nile's colleague, Paul Green, to adjourn debate on the ethics bill until September 16. Mr Nile said the adjournment was "so that the Coalition can give further consideration to it".

Despite saying he would take Mr Nile's bill to cabinet and the party room for consideration, Mr O'Farrell insists the government will not support removing the classes from schools. Such action had been an election promise.

Mr O'Farrell has defended the decision to allow the debate by arguing that every MP has the right to have every bill they present debated in parliament.

Yesterday Mr Nile gave notice of a new bill that would close the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre in Kings Cross, which was made permanent by the Labor government last year.

Asked during question time if he would support closure of the centre, Mr O'Farrell said the government "has no plans to close the MSIC" but that if it comes into the parliament Coalition MPs would be granted a conscience vote. He said Mr Nile had not raised the issue with him.

Earlier, the government combined with crossbench MPs in the upper house to block an attempt by the Greens to force it to table any documents relating to Mr Nile's meeting with Mr O'Farrell.

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Abbott moving in on Labor party territory

Malcolm Turnbull correctly says that elections are won at the centre. He also says that if he is nominated as the preferred leader by Labor voters then that's a good thing, because he'll win the Coalition new votes. In Wentworth. Of course.

Except that Tony Abbott isn't after the Labor voters who would turn for Malcolm Turnbull. Take a quick perusal of his itinerary - not this last, eerily quiet, slogan-free week when he has been in Switzerland, but in the months before. It shows him scampering through Capricornia, Dawson, Herbert, Braddon, Gippsland, McMillan, Hunter, Dobell… manufacturing, mining and tourism seats, many of them marginals (although with the polls the way they are, "marginal " is becoming a bit difficult to define).

They are all seats where Labor's working-class base is a whole lot more receptive to Abbott's "stop the taxes, stop the boats, stop the whole dastardly minority government " kind of message.

Manufacturing and tourism seats are particularly fertile ground, because for some time workers in those industries have been acutely aware that their world is changing.

Since May 2008, 102,000 jobs have been lost in the manufacturing sector. That's really, truly, lost jobs. Not hypothetical future "lost " jobs, which actually turn out to be the slightly reduced number of new jobs compared with those that might have been created at some time in the future, largely due to the assumptions made by whomever commissioned the research to prove their point about a current policy. But I digress.

Modelling for the government's carbon pricing scheme about future jobs is blunt. Before you factor in any carbon price, Australia is facing a relative decline in manufacturing.

"Manufacturing is one sector from which resources are drawn towards the higher rates of return in the mining sector. The high real exchange rate and competition from relatively inexpensive Asian manufactures put more pressure on manufacturing. " It says growth in manufacturing will slow, and some parts of the sector will shrink.

When a carbon tax is factored in the picture is no bleaker, although the composition of manufacturing employment changes. The impact of another global economic downturn was not mentioned, but it obviously cannot be good as job losses spread from manufacturing and retail into other sectors such as housing and tourism.

Abbott's message as he tours these regional seats has effectively been that he can stop the change and stop the job losses by stopping the carbon tax. Echoing the former prime minister Kevin Rudd he insists we have to be a country that "makes things " and claims it's the carbon price that is threatening that aim. So far the message has been lethally effective. The increasing economic uncertainty can only strengthen it.

As the markets tumbled yesterday, the opposition's climate spokesman, Greg Hunt, rushed out a statement saying that "given the global economic uncertainty, the Australian dollar and the slump in retail trade, this is the worst time possible for a new tax to be imposed on Australian families and businesses. We should be doing all we can to ensure the financial security of Australians is being protected. "

Coalition strategists concede that despite the campaign's effectiveness, the general point needs a little fleshing out - which is why manufacturing policy is likely to be one of the first policies addressed when Abbott returns from Europe and begins work on explaining his positive agenda.

(One issue he has to grapple with is the Coalition's hasty decision in January to promise to cut $500 million from the automotive transformation scheme, which some sources say could be quietly shelved. The industry insists the cuts would lead directly to the closure of some car-making plants.)

Labor's counter-message, meanwhile, is one of managing change, which is a whole lot harder to sell, even if you were halfway good at getting across a message, which it hasn't been.

Looking back, and clearing aside all the flip-flops and delays, much of what Labor has tried to do has had exactly this aim.

The original mining tax was designed to take some of the profits of the boom and use them to help the parts of the economy suffering in its shadow. It has been downsized and its policy message muddied in an almost textbook example of hamfisted implementation, but it does still pay for a cut to the company tax rate, with small business going first, and the new $5000 asset write-off.

The budget was supposed to be all about more money for training to help workers re-skill and rejoin the workforce, and dampen the skills shortages in the mining areas that could drive up wages and inflation.

And the carbon pricing plan redirected $1.2 billion to subsidise investments by manufacturers in anything that might reduce their emissions. It promised another $10 billion to help set up new renewable energy generation, a lot of it very likely to be in the same electorates and regions that are losing manufacturing jobs.

The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, suggested last week that the two-day October tax summit might also start a "conversation " with business about what the government now calls a "patchwork " economy, as if the gaping discrepancies between different sectors and regions are just bits of bad needlework on our lovely national quilt.

It is not at all clear what the "conversation " during those two days might say, since it can't include the mining tax, or the carbon tax, both of which seem relevant.

And given the rapidly unfolding economic events surely a conversation can't wait until then - although senior sources point out there are serious limits to what the government can do, given there is no money left if the budget is to return to surplus on time.

In any event, it's the worried workers in the manufacturing and tourism seats, the ones who aren't sure if they will keep their jobs, who the government should be talking to.

Even before the global markets started to fall like stones, selling a reassuring message - that change is coming but can be managed - required convincing policy, extremely effective communication and an underlying trust by voters in the integrity and competence of the government doing the management. Oh dear.

Maybe we're getting close to why some of Labor's blue-collar base is attracted to Abbott's message that saying no to the carbon tax can avoid painful changes altogether.

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5 August, 2011

Carbon scheme is doomed to fail

Gary Johns

POLITICIANS never admit they do not have a solution to a problem. Call it "yes we can!" syndrome. As a consequence, some have vowed to decarbonise their economies to save the environment from climate change.

The Czech Republic president Vaclav Klaus reminded the audience at a luncheon this week of the boast of former communist rulers of Czechoslovakia, "we control the wind and the rain!" Such hubris is alive and well.

Those nations headed down the carbon abatement path have asked economists to seek the most cost-effective means of doing so. The predictable answer was to price emissions. The trouble is it cannot succeed. A paper by David Campbell and others, After Copenhagen: The Impossibility of Carbon Trading, tells why.

The Kyoto Protocol carbon trading scheme has failed because while there may be a loose cap on emissions for developed countries, without a cap on all other countries the trade between the two is uncapped, so there is no overall emissions reduction. To illustrate, at the end of the Kyoto's first commitment period 2012, the increase in China's emissions will be in the order of 1000 per cent of the total reductions the developed countries were to make under Kyoto.

Further, the promises made after Copenhagen have no legal basis and refer to reductions in carbon intensity, which almost certainly will mean growth in absolute emissions. Any promises made are less credible than Kyoto itself, which was not credible. Pray tell us then, Prime Minister, what is the point of your carbon tax?

Forget about whether Australia is at the head of the pack on carbon pricing, it is, in fact, at the back end of a failed abatement experiment. And neither Australia's physical contribution to carbon abatement nor its "moral leadership" can help. China, India, Brazil and myriad others need to raise the standard of living of their people or risk political instability. (War and insurrection can damage the environment too.) So these countries will never agree to carbon reductions sufficient to allow the world to stay within the 2C limit we are told is essential. They have each given economic development explicit priority over reduction of emissions.

Speculation the Chinese will pursue a 40 per cent reduction by 2020 and commence an emissions trading scheme is about as credible, and indeed would be as destructive, as any of Chairman Mao's five-year plans. Consider these numbers. In 2006, China had 350 gigawatts of coal-fired power generation capacity. It plans to install an additional 600 gigawatts (plus transmission and distribution systems) by 2030. To put this into context, in 2008, the entire coal-fired power generation capacity of the US was 313 gigawatts (31 per cent of total US power generation capacity). By 2030 China plans to install additional coal-fired power generation capacity equal to almost 200 per cent of existing US capacity.

China is responsible for more than half of the growth in global emissions. And since 500 million Chinese live on less than $2 a day, it is pretty clear what China will be doing for the next 50 years. China has signed multiple 25-year contracts to purchase LNG from Australia and elsewhere. It is building more coal-fired power stations than the world has ever seen and, despite the fact that it is one of the world's biggest producers, it is importing coal, such is the appetite for energy. These power stations will operate for decades, well past Australia's romantic target of reducing emissions 80 per cent by 2050.

Last week former British prime minister Tony Blair said: "It is absolutely clear the world will move away from carbon dependence." Not quite.

As the Campbell paper says, Britain's policy under the Climate Change Act 2008 requires rates of "decarbonisation" of the national economy that "are impossibly costly to achieve. Nevertheless, that what is being pursued is impossible does not mean that immense costs may not be run up in the course of the doomed effort."

If politicians swallow their pride and ask a different question of the economists, they get a very different answer. Bjorn Lomborg did so some years ago. "If the global community wants to spend up to $250 billion per year over the next 10 years to diminish the adverse effects of climate changes, and to do the most good for the world, which solutions would yield the greatest net benefits?"

Numerous Nobel Prize-winning economists agreed on a priority list showing the most and least effective ways of reining in temperature increases. They concluded the most effective use of resources would be to invest in:

* Researching solar radiation management technology

* Technology-led policy response to global warming designed to develop green technology faster

* Researching carbon storage technology

Cutting emissions now is too expensive and politically infeasible. Cutting in the future when the technology is available is cheaper and feasible. As for abatement, as Campbell says, "action in pursuit of the impossible is irrational".

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A bloated city hall

FOUR years since Melbourne City Council axed 143 staff after a scathing report warned the council was "top-heavy" and going broke, the council has more highly paid senior officers and more staff than it did before the purge.

It employs more highly paid staff than any of the state's largest bureaucracies - including the Education, Health and Human Services departments, the police and VicRoads.

"Melbourne City Council is overstaffed, over budget, in debt and nothing is being done," Ratepayers Victoria president Jack Davis said. "It is a gravy train and those at the top are reaping the benefits of ratepayers' generosity."

Mr Davis said Lord Mayor Robert Doyle and chief executive Kathy Alexander owed an explanation of why they had not heeded advice to downsize - advice the council paid $300,000 for just four years ago.

The 2007 Ernst & Young report found council had too many highly paid executives, sparking mass sackings, including many managers, to save money.

The number of staff paid more than $120,000 fell from 63 in 2006-07 to 50 in 2008-09 but had since jumped to 68. Overall staff numbers have swollen from 1129 in 2006-07 to 1253.

The council has also suffered a $200 million budget turnaround, plunging more than $26 million into the red last year.

Dr Alexander said the increase was consistent with demand driven by population growth and the inclusion of Docklands and Kensington to the city.

She also defended the city's finances, saying last year's deficit resulted from a one-off asset transfer - the handing of the $74 million Yarra Park to the Melbourne Cricket Ground Trust - and that the underlying result was a surplus of $15 million.

She said council was set to record a further "underlying" surplus of $19 million for 2010-11 and was the only council in Australia to hold the highest possible AAA/A-1+ credit rating.

Dr Alexander is one of the state's highest-paid bureaucrats. She earns about $425,000 - more than Prime Minister Julia Gillard ($351,000) or Premier Ted Baillieu ($349,000).

Municipal Association president Bill McArthur said all councils needed a workforce that could deliver diverse services.

"There's a great level of resources and expertise at the City of Melbourne that many other councils can only dream of and we'd welcome them back to the MAV to share," he said.

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The absurdities of consensus

By Professor Judith Sloan (an economist)

I belong to one of those professions for which there is supposedly a 'consensus' - on using a carbon dioxide tax or an emissions trading scheme as the most efficient means of reducing the growth of emissions.

To suggest that more information is required, because the proposition may be more a half-truth than a truth, is not allowed. It is a case of being in or out, being with it or not with it.

When filling out the survey conducted by the Economic Society of Australia dealing with this topic and other economic statements, I found myself circling the 'do not know/no opinion' option in most cases. Without additional facts, it was simply not possible to reach a definitive conclusion, let alone agree or disagree strongly.

Notwithstanding this significant qualification to the methodology, much has been made of the so-called 'consensus' among Australian economists on the carbon tax. Indeed, this idea of 'consensus' is being used as a political weapon to disparage anyone in the profession who dares to express an alternative point-of-view.

The clear message is that if you are not part of the 'consensus', you are an idiot and no-one should listen to anything you say. Well, count me out of the 'consensus', because bald statements about complicated policy issues should never generate only binary possibilities - agree or disagree.

The then secretary of the Treasury, Ken Henry, last year tried to corral Australian economists into some sort of phoney 'consensus' about the proposed mining tax, the Resources Super Profits Tax (RSPT). While enjoying the contest of ideas within the economics profession, he declared that, "I think there are occasions on which economists might, at least for a period, put down their weapons and join a consensus."

But why, Ken? It was a complete dud, both in theory and particularly in terms of implementation. Not only were the assumptions on which the proposed RSPT - a Brown tax - completely unrealistic, its application to existing projects meant that there was no way that the impost would only be taxing resource rents. (To be slightly technical, quasi-rents would almost certainly have been taxed as well.)

The bit I really liked about the proposed tax - note my ironic tone - was that the Government would not actually be ponying up its 40 per cent share of expenditures of mining projects - after all, the fiscal position was getting pretty tight - but rather would provide companies with an IOU that would be inflated annually by the risk-free long-term bond rate.

The companies could then use these IOUs, so the argument went, to secure project finance at this rate and without any transaction costs. So even though the Government didn't feel as though it was in position to hand over the cash to the companies at the time, financial institutions could be 100 per cent confident that the Australian Government would pay its full obligations in the future. Go figure.

And when a senior economics journalist asked Ken Henry to explain how the imposition of this tax would not affect the incentives for mining companies to invest, he was handed two pages of algebra. Some consensus, Ken.

A necessary accessory of 'consensus' in the professions has, for some time, been the multi-signed letter, printed in the quality mainstream media. An early high-water mark for the global economics profession was the 364 economists in the UK who signed a letter in 1981, stating that there was "no basis in economic theory or supporting evidence" for the budgetary policy of the Thatcher government. Indeed, the letter contained a warning of a potential threat to "social and political stability".

As events panned out, these eminent economists - one is the current governor of the Bank of England - turned out to be wrong - dead wrong, in fact. Inflation was controlled, interest rates fell, the exchange rate adjusted, the budget was brought back into balance and, after a lag, the rate of unemployment fell. Investors began to believe that the UK government would stick to its guns (and resist the idiotic advice of the economists) and the British economy experienced a period of remarkably strong growth.

One of those economists who signed the letter, Professor Steve Nickell, now says that he did not agree with all the content of the letter but signed because it was "the only game in town". I guess that's what happens if you want to be on the 'right' side of the 'consensus' divide.

Like-minded Australian economists have also developed an affection for the multi-signed letter. There was one assembled to support the RSPT, one endorsing the Labor Government's stimulus spending and one to support the carbon tax. Not surprisingly, there is a fair overlap in the names on these letters.

Presumably, the principal purpose of these letters is to support the Labor Government in its bold, daring but correct policy initiatives, by lending the authority of a group of wise economists of renown to the cause. Indeed, the letter supporting the stimulus spending (which bravely mentioned the spending on roof insulation and the BER) ended with this little homily: "We hope that the economic achievements of the Australian Labor Government will be recognised by the population."

Of course, the more the merrier when it comes to these letters. The 50 who signed the stimulus letter was perhaps a bit disappointing and the numbers for the other two letters was lower again. Even so, it is important to create the illusion of 'consensus' within the profession because then those who have not got with the program can easily be labelled as imbecilic and out-of-date.

Perhaps the most extreme example of a fracturing of a consensus within the economics profession is occurring now in the United States, even though the possibility of a federal government default has been averted for the time being.

In the one corner are the Keynesians, typified by Paul Krugman, who regard any cuts to government spending as a guaranteed route to higher unemployment, double-dip recession and possibly depression. In the other corner are the economists who argue that the stimulus spending has failed, that there is no alternative to reducing the deficit and paying off the debt. Only in this way can there be a crowding in of private sector spending which will ultimately provide the basis for a sustainable economic recovery.

The surprising thing about this whole consensus thing is that anyone should ever have thought it could apply to economists. By reputation, they are one of the most divided professions and jokes abound on this very point. But the real issue is this: most public policy issues are complicated and nuanced. It is not possible to reach definitive and simple conclusions - it all depends - and we should not kid ourselves otherwise.

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An economist who is good in theory but on the lunar Left in practice

THE prolific John Quiggin was honoured as a distinguished fellow of the Economic Society of Australia last month, ranking him among great economists such as Colin Clark, Trevor Swan and Leslie Melville. This recognises the 55-year-old University of Queensland professor's internationally published academic work, beginning with A Theory of Anticipated Utility in the Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organisation in 1982.

Mainstream economics assumes that individuals are by and large self-interested and respond rationally to incentives. But a newer stream has diverted around the observation that they're also only human, can be swept up with the crowd and are not always strictly logical. People buy lottery tickets even though on average they would get higher returns investing their money elsewhere.

A mathematics whiz, Quiggin formalised how people can attach a greater weight to unlikely but life-changing possibilities, from winning the lottery to catastrophic climate change. His theory was recognised by the Nobel committee that awarded its 2002 economics prize to Israeli-American psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Another Nobel laureate, Paul Krugman, last year used his New York Times column to plug Quiggin's book Zombie Economics, an assault on the policies blamed for the global financial crisis.

And yours truly commissioned Quiggin (along with The Weekend Australian's Christopher Pearson) to write a column in The Australian Financial Review in the mid-1990s. That's still going, along with the personal blog he started in 2002. And this is where the considered economic theoretician tips over into Green Left Weekly polemics.

Amid musings on what Karl Marx did and did not get right, Barack Obama is clearly far too centrist. Julia Gillard has sold out Labor values by promoting equality of opportunity rather than equal outcomes. Queensland Premier Anna Bligh and Treasurer Andrew Fraser should be sacked for privatising government businesses. Union boss Paul Howes is promoting tired and failed ideas. John Howard forced workers to trade away their human rights to get a job.

It steps up a notch with Rupert Murdoch and, to use Bob Brown's description, the hate media of The Australian. Jumping on the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, Quiggin claimed in the AFR last month that "the power of News Corporation and the shamelessness with which that power is used to promote the political and commercial interests of the Murdoch empire is even greater here than in the UK".

Even wilder, the unedited blogger refers to Murdoch's "corruption" of Australia's political process. The newspaper you're now reading is "filled with lies" aimed at furthering Murdoch's political and commercial interests.

The Australian is a "worthless gutter press rag". It is a "sad joke", even if the "downward spiral" of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald means there isn't much competition. It is "part of a political machine, using its power and wealth to crush its opponents and critics by whatever means it finds most convenient".

Murdoch's readers "have demonstrated, over and over, that they prefer comfortable lies to inconvenient truths". That's because "everyone is increasingly aware that truth and falsehood are no longer meaningful terms for those on the Right".

Yet it's hard to see how The Australian furthers Murdoch's commercial interests apart from selling newspapers. If it aims to buy or bludgeon commercial favour, it hasn't worked. News Limited has made little headway in its corporate push to ease the sport programming restrictions for its pay-TV interests.

Late last week, I pressed Quiggin for some examples to support his commercial agenda charge. He pretty quickly started talking about Kerry Packer. Like Stephen Conroy, Quiggin also doesn't seem to grasp the nature of journalism and newspapers, such as with his claim that News Limited has run "blatantly fact-free political campaigns" on climate change and Labor's fiscal stimulus.

The budget stimulus contained some of the worst government spending programs in the nation's history. Along with talkback radio, The Australian led the media in exposing this. The paper's Anthony Klan was shortlisted for the Graham Perkin Journalist of the Year award for his series of reports on Gillard's $16 billion Building the Education Revolution.

On climate change, Murdoch has backed giving the planet the benefit of the doubt. The Australian supports putting a price on carbon over Tony Abbott's direct action. But the journalistic default should include some scepticism over whether scientists can accurately predict the climate decades ahead. And the Productivity Commission, the institution most responsible for the reform agenda behind Australia's modern prosperity, clearly has issues with the Labor-Greens carbon package.

Quiggin's real complaint is that The Australian remains an agenda-setting newspaper that is closer to the nation's centre of political gravity than he is. The newspaper wasn't so dishonest and partisan when it campaigned for a "yes" vote in the 1999 republic referendum, punctured Howard's boat children overboard claim, led the media pursuit of the AWB scandal and supported a vote for Kevin Rudd in 2007.

Quiggin no doubt deserves his distinguished fellowship for his theoretical work. But some may puzzle that, just as the warnings mount over the stalling of the 1980s and 90s economic reform agenda, the Economic Society honours someone who fought against the agenda in the first place. Zombie Economics argues it should be junked because "ideological" policies such as privatisation and central bank independence will cause another global financial crisis.

Fortunately, few took notice of the Whitlamesque claim in Quiggin's co-authored 1994 book, Work for All, that "severe restrictions" on government spending were partly to blame for the growth of unemployment since the 1970s.

Quiggin's coffee-sharpened mind can readily poke holes in the theoretical foundations of modern economics. But now he writes that Labor is no longer obliged to treat The Australian and other Murdoch newspapers as publications that seek to more or less report the truth of what they cover. So, as a first step, their corporate owner must be cut down to "a more manageable level".

As the PM ought to say to Quiggin and others calling for government to intimidate the press, don't write crap.

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4 August, 2011

Strong Australian dollar offers education bargains overseas

The $A used to buy around two thirds of a greenback. It now buys around $US1.07, roughly a 50% increase in buying power. It's been similar with the pound sterling. It's more realistic to look at it the other way around however. The Greenback and to some extent the pound have drastically lost value while the better managed "colonies" (Australia and Canada) have remained stable. So an $A now buys a lot more in the USA and the UK. And that makes private school fees look cheap overseas. Australians are big users of private schools. About a third of Australian students are educated privately and for High School the percentage is even higher

Japanese yen buy a lot of Greenbacks at the moment too. Even though the Japanese economy is in a bit of a pickle these days, Japanese politicians are nowhere near as destructive as Mr Obama

FORGET Sydney's breeding grounds for the rich and privileged - if you want to give your child a shot at being a prince, prime minister or poet it's now cheaper to send them to Eton.

Thanks to a robust Aussie dollar, parents can now bypass Sydney schools like Knox Grammar and The King's School and send their young blue bloods into the land of future lords and ladies at top British schools.

The tuition and boarding fees of elite private schools such as Cranbrook, Newington, The King's School and The Scots College are now more expensive than their once more posh English counterparts - yet lacking the illustrious alumni.

Cranbrook can boast gambling magnate James Packer as an old boy, but Eton has the pride of the parade in princes William and Harry.

However, what local schools lack in old boy status, they make up for with value for money, according to executive director of the Association of Independent Schools, Geoff Newcombe. "The quality of boarding here is very different from what it was a few years ago," Dr Newcombe said. "Many kids have to board because they live in distant places.

"There has been an incredible effort to make their accommodation more like home. It's on a very different level from the English schools. Eton is pretty basic.

Annual fees for board and tuition at Cranbrook for a Year 12 student top $51,621, while Eton charges $46,137.

At The Scots College, board and tuition is more than $49,000 for access to its honour board, which features Hollywood film director Peter Weir and artist Brett Whitely.

But Winchester, the most expensive boarding school in England, costs just $46,686 and boasts cricketer anti-hero Douglas Jardine and Buffy The Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon among its famous alumni.

At Trinity Grammar the annual fees are $48,650 for an association with rock singer Richard Clapton, at Newington (nursery of chef Neil Perry and Wallaby captains Nick Farr-Jones and Phil Kearns) they are $45,432 and at The King's School (which produced Hollywood film director Bruce Beresford and former deputy prime minister John Anderson) they are $44,082.

Those fees rival the costs of top boarding schools in the US.

St Paul's in New Hampshire, which boasts among its old boys media baron William Randolph Hearst and US presidential contender Senator John Kerry, charges $45,000. Groton School in Massachusetts asks $44,266 and prides itself for the fact that most of the Roosevelts went there.

And Middlesex School in Massachusetts charges $43,809 and can gush about actors Steve Carell and William Hurt hurtling through its hallowed halls.

One of the cheapest of the best in the US is Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. For just $38,558, students can walk in the famous footsteps of author Gore Vidal, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown.

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Carbon tax campaign spinning its wheels

SUPPORT for federal Labor has collapsed in metropolitan Sydney and is so low in Queensland that former prime minister Kevin Rudd would be the only government MP to hold his seat in the state if elections had been held last weekend.

Polling commissioned by the Australian Coal Association also shows the government has achieved only marginal gains in support for the carbon tax since the package was released early last month and that a clear majority of voters remain opposed.

It found opposition to the carbon tax was highest in Queensland electorates (62 per cent) and key Sydney metropolitan electorates (61 per cent) and that 67 per cent of voters believed the Prime Minister should wait to introduce the tax until after an election.

The Galaxy poll shows the majority of people believe they will be left worse off by the tax despite the government's bid to sell its compensation package.

Galaxy said while more voters were claiming they better understood the tax and options were becoming more deeply entrenched "this is not translating into increased support".

A clear majority believe it is bad for the economy, nearly three quarters of voters (74 per cent) believe the coal industry should receive the same levels of support as other key export industries and 65 per cent believe the government should offer financial support for carbon capture and storage.

The poll of 2000 voters from across Australia was taken between last Wednesday and Monday and shows Labor's primary vote is 31 per cent compared with the Coalition's 48 per cent. The Greens' vote was 13 per cent. The result gave the Coalition a 56 per cent to 44 per cent two-party preferred lead.

Labor's primary vote has collapsed to just 29 per cent in the Sydney metropolitan area compared with 54 per cent for the Coalition and 9 per cent for the Greens. This gave Tony Abbott's Coalition a commanding 60-40 per cent two party preferred lead in the nation's biggest city and put it on track to pick up a swing of 13 per cent.

In Queensland Labor's primary vote was 32 per cent compared with 54 per cent for the Coalition and 8 per cent for the Greens. This gave the Opposition a 41 per cent to 59 per cent lead over the government on a two-party preferred basis and put it on track for a 6 per cent swing.

The national results are broadly similar to the latest Newspoll taken on July 22-24 that put Labor's primary vote at 29 per cent, the Coalition at 47 per cent and the Greens at 13 per cent. And where as the July 22-24 Newspoll had support for the carbon tax at 36 per cent, the Galaxy poll put support for the tax at 37 per cent.

The poll found that while Julia Gillard's bid to sell the tax had resulted in slight gains -- 39 per cent of people now said they understood the tax compared with 38 per cent in April and those supporting it rose to 37 per cent from 35 per cent in April -- an unchanged 55 per cent of voters opposed the tax.

And while the number of people who thought they would be worse off had fallen, the figure still remained at 69 per cent from 77 per cent in April. The number of people who thought they would be better off rose to 9 per cent from 6 per cent in April.

The number of people who thought the carbon tax would be good for the economy remained steady at 27 per cent and the number who thought it would be worse for the economy rose to 57 per cent from 55 per cent.

While Galaxy said the impact of higher power prices was having less impact in swaying voters now compared with when they were last polled on the issue in April, lower income earners held the greatest concerns about the tax, suggesting they were either not aware of the government's compensation package or did not believe it would offset expected price rises.

A majority of voters, 52 per cent, believed Mr Abbott should scrap the tax if he won the next election and 55 per cent of voters believed the Greens had too much input into the policy.

While the number of people who thought man's emissions were to blame for global warming stayed the same between the April poll and the latest survey at 36 per cent, the number of people who thought global warming was part of the natural cycle of nature rose in the latest survey to 32 per cent from 26 per cent.

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No job is lonelier than defending freedom of speech on Australian government TV

Brendan O'Neill

ABE Fortas, the US Supreme Court judge, once said that judging was the loneliest job in the world, "in which a man is, as near as may be, an island entire". I can think of a lonelier job: defending freedom of speech on ABC1's Q&A.

It used to be uncontroversial, even popular, to argue journalists should be free to write what they believe to be true, and newspapers should be free to propel it into the public arena.

Not any more. As I discovered on Q&A on Monday, these days defending the ideal of a free press will win you bemused looks from chin-scratching audience members, narrow-eyed stares from liberty-allergic politicians and a tsunami of tweets asking if you have gone completely mental.

Two freedom-of-the-press issues came up on Q&A: whether right-wing commentators bore responsibility for the actions of the Norway nutter Anders Behring Breivik; and the question of whether, post-phone hacking, it was time to tame and possibly break up the "Murdoch empire".

My answer to both was no.

No, you cannot blame the grotesque murder of 77 Norwegians on the fact Mark Steyn or Keith Windschuttle once wrote a column bemoaning the decline of Western culture. And no, we should not invite the state to dismantle Rupert's regime.

Instead, if you really don't like what his papers have to say, you should set up your own post-Murdochian, pot-stirring paper. That's one of the great things about press freedom: anyone with the nous and the know-how and a fundraising sidekick can press their own ideas and offer them up for public consumption.

I may as well have been calling for Stephen Fry or some other modern-day national treasure to be put in the stocks and pelted with rotten oranges, such were the looks of horror shot my way by my co-panellists. Especially by Labor Minister for Human Services Tanya Plibersek who, according to one blog report, spent the whole show with "narrowed eyes, casting daggers at her tormentor" (that's me). In the discussion on the Norwegian killer, Plibersek seemed outraged when I suggested right-wing writers, however much we might disagree with some of them, were not "the cause of all violence and horror in the world".

Indeed, my suggestion made Plibersek sick to her stomach, she said. "I cannot understand that you think that it is fine for people to go out and say we should kill all Muslims . . . and that that has no real effect in the world," she said.

Even after I pointed out that the right-wing columnists being fingered as intellectual accessories to the worst crime in peacetime Europe did not call for all Muslims to be killed but simply expressed disagreements with the ideology of multiculturalism, still Plibersek seemed convinced that their words were wicked, the moral equivalent of weapons.

"What you're saying is that there is no responsibility if you preach hate for what happens when you preach hate," she said, once again mixing up "making legitimate criticisms of multiculturalism" with "preaching hate". She said public debate should be "more courteous", which really means more boring.

It is, of course, unsurprising to hear a politician who gets her fair share of flak from shock jocks and uncouth columnists express an inner desire to defang tabloid-style commentary, even if she has to rather shamelessly hijack the Norway massacre to do it. It is more surprising to hear it from journalistic entrepreneur Stephen Mayne, another Q&A panellist.

Firmly elbowing aside the modern, enlightened belief that writers should not be held responsible for how others chose to act on their words, Mayne also bought the idea that words caused violence.

He cited Alan Jones, Sydney's rowdiest radio presenter, and the fact Jones once said, in Mayne's words, "that Julia Gillard should be put in a bag and thrown out to sea". Surely that kind of commentary should be restricted, right? When I said no -- first on the basis that I trusted Jones's listeners knew he was making a joke and not issuing an instruction, and second because if any of those listeners did put Gillard in a bag and chucked her in the ocean then they were responsible for their actions, not Jones -- the audience guffawed. I mean, really, how can we expect the brain-dead bogans who suck in Jones's over-the-top orations as they drive their utes to work to know the difference between a jokey comment and an instruction to assassinate the Prime Minister of Australia?

That is the implication of Plibersek and Mayne's discomfort with provocative discourse: that the little people's minds are so putty-like that one shrill comment from an un-PC loudmouth might be enough to push them over the edge towards murder.

Q&A confirmed that, post-Norway, we're witnessing the rehabilitation of "media effects" theory, the stubbornly unproven idea that words directly cause carnage.

In the old days, that theory was promoted by the stuffy, conservative, purple-rinse lobby, who wanted to ban video nasties and saucy movies on the basis that they might turn men into psycho-killers or rapists. Now it is the so-called "progressive" sections of society who cling most tightly to "media effects" theory, believing that newspaper articles can make men into mass murderers.

The censorious implications of the idea that heated or experimental words and ideas provoke murderous behaviour are profound. Maybe we should ban J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye? After all, John Lennon's killer cited it as his inspiration. "Media effects" theory lets killers off the hook. It forgets about a little thing called free will, the existence of which should mean that no writer is held accountable for what another free agent does after reading his words.

The second press-related discussion on Q&A confirmed that anti-Murdoch schadenfreude has reached such dizzy heights that people such as Plibersek and Mayne are incapable of recognising its likely impact on press freedom. So when I suggested Britain's post-News of the World inquiry into the ethics and morality of the press was not a good thing, representing the first time in nearly 400 years that the British state had barged back into the world of journalism, my co-panellists looked at me as if I had lost the plot.

They seemed to forget that, throughout modern history, democrats and progressives fought tooth-and-catapult to eject the authorities from the sphere of the press. As 17th-century English poet John Milton put it in his impassioned plea for the freedom to print: "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties."

Surely even my scrappers on Q&A can agree that abandoning that liberty today is too high a price to pay for the fleeting joy of seeing Murdoch squirm?

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Hospital reform looks sickly but the blame game is fit as a fiddle

Jeremy Sammut

WHEN Kevin Rudd promised to "end the blame game" over public hospitals before the 2007 federal election, political considerations were driving his health reform agenda. The strategy was to satisfy growing community concerns about the quality and quantity of public hospital services by offering voters a can-do alternative to the tiring Howard government.

With the finalisation of the new federal health agreement, the Gillard government has delivered something less than the "bold" set of reforms Rudd promised.

Rudd's original reform plan in April last year was billed as "the most significant reforms to our health and hospitals system since the introduction of Medicare". The centrepiece was the promise of a new national funding system that would have seen the federal government become the majority funder and ultimately assume responsibility for paying for 60 per cent of the cost of each in-patient public hospital service.

While critics claimed the approach was too hospital-centric, the primary focus on the financing of public hospital care was warranted. State governments have perennially blamed long waits for elective and emergency treatment in public hospitals on underfunding by the commonwealth.

The theory behind the Rudd plan was that once the commonwealth footed 60 per cent of the efficient price of hospital care, the states would no longer be able to blame problems on Canberra's parsimony. Instead, they would have to address waste in their highly bureaucratic public hospital systems. However, the plan broke down because the states refused to give up one-third of their GST revenue.

The result is the watered-down Gillard deal that will see the commonwealth ultimately provide 50 per cent of all new funding for public hospitals. In 2008-09, the commonwealth's share of public hospital funding was 39.6 per cent, compared with the state's 51.2 per cent. By 2020, it looks as if the commonwealth will instead be paying for about 44 per cent of the efficient cost of each in-patient hospital service as determined by the Independent National Hospital Pricing Authority.

The new pricing arrangements are a step towards a more transparent and accountable health system as the government has claimed. Yet the underwhelming impression one is left with is that the reforms are primarily an exercise in money shifting between state and federal budgets.

This impression is reinforced by another dud aspect of the deal. This is the promise of greater local control of hospitals and the replacement of the centralised command-and-control management model employed by state health departments.

The promise made to public hospital staff across the country was that hospital management would be devolved by requiring the states to set up local hospital networks. Yet the intention always was that state health departments, which are stacked with public sector union members, would remain the system managers in charge.

This is crucial to whether the deal will do much to improve waiting times. Not only will the states continue to provide most of the funding. State health bureaucracies will continue to determine budgets and set service limits based on whatever money the state governments are willing to pour into public hospitals.

At best, the introduction of an efficient national hospital price will drive improvements in public hospital performance if state governments can cut out the bureaucratic fat and redirect more resources to the front lines. But this is a huge reform task and there are serious question marks over whether state politicians have the will and ability to accomplish it. The likeliest outcome is the local hospital networks will become just another layer of bureaucracy. If so, then the same centralised bureaucracies that have mismanaged public hospitals will continue to determine how many public hospital services the community ends up receiving. And the commonwealth, as the minor funding partner in the system, will continue to be open to charges by the states of underfunding .

I therefore suspect that hardy perennial of Australian politics, the blame game over health and hospitals, is far from dead.

SOURCE






Mad march of political correctness

Janet Albrechtsen

MARK Twain knew a thing or two about political correctness when he said: "Sometimes I wonder whether the world is run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."

It's tempting to think of the PC crowd as just a bunch of busybodies who are having us on. Early episodes of Sesame Street carry adults-only warnings. Enid Blyton has been cleared of all golliwogs. And last year a Seattle school renamed Easter eggs "spring spheres" so as not to offend children by alluding to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Political correctness seems to march to an imbecilic beat.

But of course, we know the PC crowd is not having us on. These are smart people who really mean it. Smart because the PC virus has infected so much of what we do, what we read, how we live and how we think. It's the thinking part that should trouble us the most. By telling us what to think, political correctness is a heresy if we are truly committed to liberalism. And it seeps into so many parts of society, so often without us even paying attention to the aim.

Over the past few weeks, some on the Left have claimed that those of us who have raised questions about multiculturalism, immigration and the relationship between Islam and modernity have blood on our hands for the mass murder in Oslo. Here, murder is used as a muzzle to close down free speech. And this is just the latest addition to a growing list of tactics to curb free speech, and even worse, to stifle genuine inquiry.

Consider the other tricks in recent years. To close down discussion about, say, immigration or border control, you call your opponents racists and point to xenophobia in the community. Opponents are not just wrong, they're evil. Their views should not be aired in a civilised society.

But remember this: the stifling political correctness that rejected an open debate about immigration in the early 1990s helped fuel the emergence and popularity of Pauline Hanson.

Another ruse is the victim game. We now live in an age when "feelings" are treated as a measurement of moral values. We live in what author Monica Ali calls "the marketplace of outrage" where groups vie for victimhood status, each claiming their feelings have been hurt more than others.

We have witnessed a familiar opera of Muslim oppression used to shut down debate. It starts with a book called Satanic Verses. Or a silly Danish cartoon. Or a film called Submission. Or a cheeky episode of South Park sending up the fact that Mohammed is the only guy free from ridicule. Then we hear that great aria of all accusations: Islamophobia.

The final act sees the West capitulate, muttering about hurt feelings and preferring the path of least resistance to launching a staunch defence of freedom of expression. And we are left with a new norm of anticipatory surrender and self-censorship.

The victim game works so well because it is augmented by the apparatus of the state. Legal prosecutions are mounting: politician Geert Wilders in Holland, writers Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant in Canada. And in Australia, Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt is defending a claim by a group of Aborigines that he "offended, insulted and humiliated" them in breach of the Racial Discrimination Act.

The PC crowd is clever. They know there are no useful legal tests about hurt feelings and inciting hate. They enact nice-sounding laws, build bureaucracies and wait for them to blossom and bludgeon free speech. They have effectively co-opted Islamic-style oppression to prohibit debate; be it about Islam or anything else they wish to fence off from free speech.

The other trick is to quietly exclude certain people from the national discourse. It is best summed up by a German word: totschweigtaktik. To be totsched is to be subjected to death by silence: books, ideas, people that challenge the status quo are simply ignored.

In Quadrant last year, Shelley Gare wrote that those who are totsched find "their efforts left to expire soundlessly like a butterfly in a jar". When Orwell wrote his 1938 classic Homage to Catalonia, which addressed Stalinist Russia's involvement in the Spanish Civil War, the left-wing literati simply ignored it. By the time Orwell died in 1950, barely 1500 copies had been sold. As Gare traces, the same death by silence was used to ignore Australian writers such as Chris Kenny, who challenged the secret women's business behind the Hindmarsh Island affair. It was used when author Kate Jennings aimed her fire at the sisterhood, postmodernism and women's studies.

It's used by those who tell us that climate change will destroy us all if we do not act immediately. The sceptics are being totsched. Opposing views? What opposing views? Governments have their own tactics. Those with poor ideas and even worse policies resort to something best described as the bipartisanship racket. Former prime minister Kevin Rudd called for bipartisanship on indigenous policies. In fact, Rudd sought supine obedience to the rollback of the NT intervention. If you disagreed, you were charged with politicising an issue. Just imagine if similar calls from those defending the status quo had managed to shut out the ideas from people such as Noel Pearson. The very last thing we want is bipartisanship when it is used so blatantly to stifle dissent and vest moral authority in one voice.

A similar trick, the consensus con, emerged from Canberra last year. Treasury boss Ken Henry, touting the emissions trading system and the ill-fated super profits tax on mining companies, said he supported the "contest of ideas" but then said there were "occasions on which economists might, at least for a period, put down their weapons and join a consensus".

It sends shudders up your spine. But Henry lost that debate. And that's the point of free debate. It is the single most effective mechanism for disposing bad ideas. Ideas are not finessed through consensus or bipartisanship. If we are serious about defending free speech, vigilance demands that we look out for the tricks and that we test the trickery against first principles. The alternative means more moral disorientation and a weird Western death wish.

The principles are clear enough: free speech is not a Left-Right thing as Mark Steyn said. It's a free-unfree thing. You don't get to cry in favour of free speech just to defend those with whom you agree. And free speech must include the right to offend. If we prosecute offensive opinions, we just encourage ever more ridiculous claims to protection. We fuel that marketplace of outrage. And we end up shutting down the true genius of modern Western civilisation: the contest of ideas.

SOURCE



3 August, 2011

Free speech fight at Melbourne university: Fired lecturer beats the bureaucracy

The champagne was flowing freely in local art circles this morning after sacked RMIT lecturer Steve Cox -- feted internationally for his searing portraits of murderous social decline — chalked up a free speech triumph against his former employer in the Magistrates’ Court.

Cox’s tussles with School of Art head Elizabeth Grierson began when he posted images and comments critical of Grierson and the administration on the popular “Save Art from RMIT” Facebook page, which urges members to “vent your thoughts and frustrations”.

The page says the fine art course is “under threat” and that “teaching hours, teachers, facilities & courses are being cut”, leading to its global blackballing.

In early February, following his sacking for disciplinary reasons, Cox posted a photo-shopped image of Grierson with the title “Her Legacy Shall Be Ashes” and another caricature called “Grierson Out”.

The rancour increased after Cox took the fight to his personal Facebook page, which unlike most profiles is set to public and viewable by anyone. Last month, University lawyers issued an interim intervention order preventing him from posting any references to Grierson anywhere on Facebook and from physically approaching the RMIT building in Melbourne’s CBD.

But in yesterday’s out-of-court settlement, highlighting the vexed issues of modern day cyberstalking, the university was forced into an humiliating backdown, agreeing not to visit Cox’s personal Facebook page for the next 20 years. For his part, Cox will remove three Facebook entries and agree not to post anything “with malice” in the future. The clear legal implication is that if someone doesn’t want to be offended online they should avert their gaze.

Cox: “I’m now free to say anything about RMIT that I want. She’s not allowed to go to my Facebook page for 20 years which is great.”

Cox was well prepared for yesterday’s hearing, tapping crack silk Tim North and calling on former Queensland Art Gallery director and current Australian Commissioner for the Venice Biennale Doug Hall for expert testimony. When the university got wind of the dual offensive, they quickly backed down.

More HERE





Julia's fibre network is already a white elephant

Remember those rabid Beta-tape aficionados of the late 70s and early 80s? You know, the ones who swore they had found the one true technology and held firm to their allegiance as the video library shelves became chock-a-block full of VHS tapes and the beta tapes were relegated to a dark, dingy corner out the back before disappearing altogether.

“Beta’s better!” they would cry in frustration. And technically, it could be argued they were right. Problem was, consumers voted VHS with their wallets. And Beta, despite its small band of loyalists, died as a mainstream technology.

Just 30 years later even VHS has gone the way of the dodo and its successor, DVDs, are rapidly on the way to obsolescence, with hard drive and flash disk technology offering the compact convenience consumers want.

This Government kind of reminds me of the Beta ideologues.

Their commitment to spending $36 billion of your money over the next decade to roll out fibre-to-the-premises technology with the National Broadband Network flies in the face of logic.

Labor’s claim that the NBN will “future proof” Australia seems naïve in the extreme. Does Senator Conroy really believe that this cumbersome cabling to homes will be the technology that consumers want in 20, 30 or 50 years? It’s unlikely to be what consumers want in a couple of years – much less the 10 it is expected to take to roll it out.

It doesn’t even seem to be what consumers want now. The two NBN test sites in Australia have been connected to some 6,000 premises, but currently the NBN has only 41 active customers. Seriously. A 0.68 per cent take-up rate - hardly a case-study in consumer demand.

But, just like those Beta ideologues, Labor is sticking to its guns. But, honestly, what good is a product – whatever its merits – if no-one is buying?

With perhaps this in mind, Labor is paying Telstra an extra $12 billion or so to rip up all their copper network so folks will have no alternative but the NBN. Even the Beta extremists didn’t advocate the destruction of the all Super 8 films!

Like Labor’s other big policy dud – the carbon tax – it all seems a little pointless. And expensive. And with negligible benefits.

I don’t claim to be an expert. But American Steve Perlman is. He developed Apple’s Quick-time media player software (something those original Beta-heads would have been impressed by) and he’s now announced a new wireless technology – DIDO – that has the potential for internet download speeds to be 1,000 times what they are currently while not suffering the current performance degradation caused by the number of wireless users.

Importantly, it’s wireless technology – the sort that allows people to access the internet through their smartphones or laptops wherever they are. The sort consumers want.

True, DIDO is not available right now. But neither is the NBN – except to those test areas where people just aren’t joining up.

Does anyone really believe, given the massive leaps in internet technology we’ve seen in recent years, that this new improved wireless will not eventuate? In fact, it will probably be sooner rather than later.

Question is, how many billions of dollars of taxpayers money will be wasted digging up streets and laying new cables before this Government realises that the NBN is an expensive waste and consumers are voting with their wallets for more convenient, appropriate and affordable technology?

SOURCE






Treasury's carbon tax modelling based on improbable assumptions

TREASURY'S modelling of the carbon tax-emission trading scheme proposed by the government is based on the assumption that the world is taking collective action sufficient to stabilise greenhouse gas concentration levels at about either 550 parts per million or 450ppm by about 2100 in order to meet the Copenhagen objective of limiting global warming to below 2C above preindustrial levels.

This assumption is based on the fact that, since last year's UN climate conference in Cancun, 89 countries have pledged action, covering 80 per cent of global emissions and more than 90 per cent of the global economy. But what do these pledges actually promise in terms of limiting global warming? Are they enough? How much more will be required?

Treasury does not reveal the answer in its report, but an answer can be found in the work of the American public interest charity, Climate Interactive (www.climateinteractive.org).

It runs simulations (like Treasury's simulations) of the likely impact on greenhouse gas concentrations (and global temperatures) in 2100 if all the global pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions were put into effect. Confirmed proposals up to the present (excepting the new Australian proposal to move our 2050 target to an 80 per cent cut in emissions) produce an atmospheric concentration measured in CO2 equivalents (CO2e) of 1105ppm and a resulting increase in temperature above pre-industrial levels of 4.1C. Even when potential proposals are included, CO2e in 2100 reaches 670ppm and an increase in temperature of 2.7C.

Potential proposals include legislation currently under consideration, campaign promises of newly elected governments, conditional proposals, and statements from think tanks with close ties to governments.

As things stand, the world is not going to meet the targets set by Treasury in its modelling, even if all known and potential proposals to cut greenhouse gas emissions were carried out. So Treasury is factoring into its expectations for global emissions reductions actions that are not even potentially likely at the present time.

But let us suppose Treasury's allocation of emissions reductions among countries were to be put in place. Permits to emit tonnes of CO2e would be issued to countries (by some authority or other) on the basis of their projected baseline emissions less their assigned emission reductions targets. In Treasury's model (but not necessarily the eventual, globally agreed, model), the volume of permits issued is a uniform percentage of each country's baseline emissions. These permits can be traded, including internationally. Countries that can reduce emissions by more than their assigned target will sell the excess to countries that cannot meet their targets from their assigned volume of permits.

Australia is assumed by Treasury to be a net buyer of permits. Far from meeting our emission reduction targets (5 per cent less than 2000 in 2020 and 80 per cent less than 2000 in 2050) off our own bat, Australia meets its targets mainly by buying reductions in emissions from other countries. In Treasury's core policy scenario, our emissions rise from 556 tonnes of CO2e in 2000 to 621 tonnes in 2020 and fall to only 545 tonnes in 2050. Hence, our 80 per cent cut in emissions in 2050 is met by a 2 per cent cut in our own emissions together with a 78 per cent cut bought from the rest of the world (meaning that other countries must be able to cut their emissions by more than their target reductions). But how are other countries able to do this if Australia cannot? And what happens to Australia's GDP if Australia can only buy permits internationally at a high price?

Treasury estimates the international price of a permit to emit a tonne of CO2e in 2050 will be $131. This seems to be a remarkably low price, resting on a faith that technological changes and replacement of capital stock can occur cheaply and at high speed across the planet. If this is not so, the carbon price could reach very high levels and the growth rate of the world's (and Australia's) GDP would fall significantly. So how confident can we be that Treasury has got the 2050 carbon price even approximately right? Not very.

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Rational argument is the only response to Norway

An editorial in "The Australian"

THERE is a diabolical symmetry between the slaughter of 76 people in Norway last week and the terrorism of Islamist extremists.

Anders Behring Breivik and terrorists such as 9/11 bomber Mohamed Atta choose violence to express their rage against globalisation and employ a messianic justification for their actions. Their atrocities serve no rational political purpose and it would be useless, not to say unconscionable, for civilised people to offer appeasement.

While it is reasonable to draw a moral equivalence between the acts committed, it is entirely unreasonable to presume a moral equivalence in our response to the murderous rampage in Oslo and Utoya Island and 9/11. The organised nature of Islamist terrorism, the scale of the atrocities, the preparedness of rogue nation-states to bankroll their operations and their ability to exploit the anti-modern fears of hundreds of millions of people puts the Islamists in an entirely different league from the lone operator in Norway.

Yet the horror of the killings last week has been employed by some commentators to slander their cultural and political opponents and delegitimise views that do not conform to their own narrow code. They suggest that because Breivik was troubled by modernity, everyone who expresses concerns about radical change in Western society in recent decades is implicated in his crimes. They seek to appropriate the event to further unrelated, progressive political causes here. Some have used the attack to smear anyone on the Right of politics and call for opponents of the government and the Greens to back off.

It is not the first time. Earlier this year, there was a similar effort to blur and slur when a madman shot a US Democrat congresswoman and killed six people in Arizona. Commentators blamed the attack on strident right-wing political rhetoric but were silenced when it was revealed the gunman's politics, such as they were, came from the Left, and that his grievances were beyond reason. In Breivik, these political opportunists have found their right-wing perpetrator.

The instinct to close down debate by conflating evil with a desire to question is a worrying phenomenon, and not restricted to devastating events such as this one. We have seen in this country in recent months the development of a febrile atmosphere in which people at extremes of the ideological spectrum feel empowered to attack their opponents or even their questioners, with scant regard for civility or rational argument. It is difficult to pursue genuine public debate about important social, political and cultural issues without being accused of running an agenda. Yet rational debate has never been more necessary at a time where virtually everyone has access to free, unfiltered publication of their views.

Each day brings new cases of illiberalism. On Monday, the Greens deputy leader, Christine Milne, was applauded on national television for citing The Australian's opinion pages as reason to exercise parliamentary oversight on media bias. On Thursday, former Labor leader Mark Latham went into print to urge the government to "strike hard" against "the evils of Murdoch journalism" while the activist organisation GetUp! announced it would try to force the hand of the broadcasting regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, to censure a prominent radio host for stating his view on climate science. For the record, we believe the radio host in question, Alan Jones, was wrong on this occasion and his rhetoric sometimes crosses the boundary between strident and offensive. But we respect his right to say what he thinks and note that he gives voice to many Australians excluded from the debate by many other media outlets.

The disintegration of our national conversation into a blogging, tweeting, cacophony is an unfortunate development in a civil democracy. Yet it is pouring fuel upon the fire to respond to the illiberalism of one's cultural opponents with equal intolerance. An ad-hominem tweet, or inflammatory invective on talkback radio, will never win the argument, but that is not what their authors intend. It takes effort to assemble a rational, logically sound argument; it is easier to intimidate and shame your opponent into silence and thereby, in the manner of Steven Bradbury, triumph by being the last man standing.

Many fair-minded Australians hold legitimate concerns about the effects of globalisation and are troubled that the nation and the patriotic values they hold dear are threatened by an influx of people from different cultures. They are concerned, as we are, that government policy that celebrates difference and ignores the values that bind us together is bad for the nation. They are concerned that we are surrendering the values implicit in our succinct but effective de facto bill of rights: the fair go. To hold these opinions may be unfashionable in some circles, but they are not a crime, and the correct response is to reason, not to censor.

This newspaper has always supported Australia's open-migration policies. We believe the mix of people from different ethnic backgrounds is a national strength but that does not blind us to the complexities of change and the need for a common set of public behaviours and values. We believe, too, that most Australians are not racist, regardless of their views on immigration or asylum-seekers. It is wrong to assume that those who object to boatpeople are doing so on grounds of race. Their argument is with asylum-seekers jumping the queue and with people-smugglers. Maintaining the order of the system underpins community support for immigration.

In the shock of Islamist-inspired terrorist acts, the faith of Islam has been served a grievous injustice. Terrorists who claimed to act in the name of Allah have damaged the reputation of a noble religion. But that does not justify a similar denigration of Christianity in this case. News reports, including in this newspaper, have claimed Breivik is a fundamentalist Christian. Whatever his churchgoing habits, it is wrong to smear Christians generally with this appalling crime. It is people, not religion, who are to blame for evil acts.

If any encouragement can be drawn from this tragic, dispiriting week, it is in the work of people such as former British prime minister Tony Blair who are prepared to stand against the tide of rampant secularism to declare that interfaith dialogue may indeed be the answer to fractured globalisation.

SOURCE



2 August, 2011

Brilliant new hospital reform: Add an extra layer of bureaucracy

That seems to be all that's left of Gillard's proposed new Federal/State arrangements. The Feds will also provide more funding but it's the same pool of taxpayer's money, however you divide it up

LABOR has caved in to premiers on national health reforms, junking a plan to guarantee public hospital elective surgery patients private hospital treatment if they are forced to wait beyond recommended periods.

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon has also watered down the previous blanket guarantee of a maximum wait of four hours for treatment in hospital emergency departments, agreeing that the target will now be rolled out on a hospital-by-hospital basis and will apply to only 90 per cent of patients.

Ms Roxon announced the backdowns yesterday just hours after Julia Gillard postponed a Council of Australian Governments meeting that had been scheduled for next week to thrash out the disputes with the states over the health reform package.

The reason given - that most of the disputes had been ironed out in informal talks - came into clearer focus with Ms Roxon's announcements, which the opposition then attacked as clear backdowns on election promises.

But as the opposition described Ms Roxon as a failure, the minister said the elective surgery changes would let more patients be treated within clinically recommended times because 100 per cent of patients would have to be treated on time by 2015, up from 95 per cent under the previous health reform deal.

And each year 10 per cent of the patients who had waited the longest beyond the clinically recommended time for their surgery must have their procedure done.

Labor was elected in 2007 with then leader Kevin Rudd promising to "end the blame game" between the commonwealth and the states.

Mr Rudd failed in a bid to take over majority control of funding of hospitals but promised a range of reforms, including minimum hospital emergency room waiting periods and greater use of private hospitals for elective surgery.

After Ms Gillard ousted Mr Rudd, she agreed to a deal with the states to boost commonwealth funding by $16 billion in exchange for greater transparency of hospital performance through the creation of a new hospital performance authority.

In subsequent negotiations, the states won concessions on the operation of the authority, including requirements that it must consult with the states before making conclusions about poor performances by particular hospitals.

Ms Roxon said the latest concessions were made on the recommendation of an expert panel of clinicians set up after February's COAG meeting. "I think it's a change, I am not pretending to anyone that this is not a change," she said. "If this is properly implemented more patients will be seen in the appropriate times and more of the backlog will be cleared than would have been achieved, particularly when we had advice from clinical experts that the previous structure would not have worked."

However, the changes strip away a key selling point of the health reform program initiated by Mr Rudd - a guarantee that patients not treated on time in a public hospital could get their surgery in another public hospital or in a private hospital within a specified period.

"The government considers that Australia's private hospitals will have an important role to play in the delivery of this guarantee," Mr Rudd pledged in his April 2010 health reform blueprint.

Yesterday Ms Roxon said this private hospital guarantee had been removed. "The major change is that instead of just saying as soon as you tip over the timeframe . . . you aren't meeting your target and there was a guarantee about purchasing that service from a private hospital," she said. "Instead they've built in a target to clear people on the waiting lists."

The reason for this change is understood to be the reluctance of private hospitals to take public patients on an ad hoc basis, because they preferred longer-term contracts.

The federal government was still encouraging states to use private hospitals, Ms Roxon's spokesman said.

Australian Private Hospitals Association chief Michael Roff said this meant there was now not much chance of people in a public hospital being seen in the recommended time. "The only way that was ever going to be achieved was through some innovative arrangements with the private sector adding capacity to the system," he said,

Catholic Health Australia chief Martin Laverty said the private sector wanted to help, "and more importantly the Productivity Commission has found that private hospitals on national averages are able to deliver a service cheaper than in a government-run public hospital".

Opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton said the four-hour target and the use of private hospitals to relieve public hospitals had been held out by Labor as answers to problems within the health system.

SOURCE




The Australian Leftist government's latest bright idea has not stopped the illegals from coming

PEOPLE-SMUGGLERS in Indonesia are understood to be preparing at least two more asylum boats as Immigration Minister Chris Bowen conceded some of the 800 boatpeople transferred to Malaysia may end up back in Australia.

As authorities on Christmas Island readied themselves for the arrival of 54 asylum-seekers whose boat was intercepted yesterday, and who will be among the first transferred as part of the government's Malaysia Solution, Tony Abbott predicted the new arrangements would fail.

"The ink is scarcely dry on that deal, yet another boat arrives," the Opposition Leader said yesterday. "I'm very doubtful this is really going to stop the boats."

Mr Bowen told the Sky News Australian Agenda program the 54 would be sent to Malaysia within "weeks" once they had been identified and screened.

Vulnerable asylum-seekers, such as unaccompanied minors, will almost certainly avoid transfer to Malaysia, although Mr Bowen was careful to insist there would be no blanket exemptions for fear smugglers would exploit loopholes in the regime.

"We've got appropriate staff now on Christmas Island," Mr Bowen said of the arrangements being made to effect the first transfer. We've got counsellors, we've got assessment staff, and we also have a Federal Police and security presence to make sure that all the appropriate arrangements are in place, and that's what will apply."

The minister's tough line followed the interception on Sunday morning of the latest asylum boat, which had among its personnel several Afghans and two crew, northwest of Scott Reef off the West Australian coast. It was the first boat to arrive since the Gillard government's Malaysia pact came into effect.

Under the arrangement, which was signed in Kuala Lumpur last Monday, Australia will transfer up to 800 boatpeople, taking in return 4000 declared refugees from Malaysia over four years.

A source close to the South Asian syndicates operating from Jakarta told The Australian yesterday the vessel was organised by a group headed by the jailed Pakistani Haji Sakhi, alias Zamin Ali, one of three people-smugglers being sought for extradition by Australia.

Two more boats are being organised by the Jakarta syndicates, one by an Afghan operator formerly part of the Sajjad group and the other by an Iraqi group.

News coverage of protests against the Malaysian deal in Australia and Kuala Lumpur has raised awareness of the risks among potential passengers and, according to sources in Jakarta, that threatens a slowdown in the traffic in the months ahead

But as the AFP prepared to force asylum-seekers on to planes, the shadow of legal action fell over the government's plan and threatened to delay, or prevent, any pending transfers.

Prominent refugee lawyer David Manne, whose advocacy on behalf of Sri Lankan asylum-seekers is credited by some for effectively ending the system of offshore refugee processing, hinted that he might oppose any attempt to deport the 54 asylum-seekers. "Wherever you have a situation of life or death, matters involving such significant rights and interests, and the government shirking its basic obligations in terms of protect obligations, then you certainly couldn't rule out a challenge," Mr Manne said.

Mr Bowen moved to manage public expectations about the implementation of the plan, saying the initial transfer would not occur within the 72-hour timeframe stated in the agreement. Instead, there would be a "ramp-up" period of a few weeks.

Mr Bowen's office confirmed none of the transit facilities that would hold the asylum-seekers was ready, nor had the government signed leases for any of the buildings, which were likely to be old hotels.

He said that while none of the 800 sent to Malaysia would be included in the quota of 4000 refugees coming back, some could find their way to Australia via normal resettlement channels.

"If the UNHCR makes the decision that somebody in Malaysia who has been transferred by us is a compelling case and it's appropriate to be resettled, then we would consider that in the normal course of events," Mr Bowen said. "But there would be no special treatment for those people."

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison leapt on the admission, saying it was further evidence of the government's lack of resolve. "They've exposed too many chinks in this thing, in terms of how they've announced it," he said. "I think the deals dying the death of a thousand cuts."

The Greens also condemned the deal, with their immigration spokeswoman, Sarah Hanson-Young, calling on the government to process the 54 asylum-seekers in Australia. "These people are being sent to an unknown fate because despite claims from (Ms) Gillard, there is no guarantee their human rights will be protected because there have been no changes in Malaysian domestic law," she said.

Mr Bowen insisted the transfer sent a "very clear message" to anyone considering the boat journey to Australia. "We're going to take you back to where you started that boat journey," he told Sky News. "You have nothing to gain out of that boat journey."

SOURCE




The "hate speech" emanating from Australian conservatives

Last week, the New York Times ran a headline depicting Breivik as a "Christian extremist" while other media outlets have labelled him a "white extremist". Breivik is certainly white - so much so that he is said to have undergone plastic surgery to look like an Aryan Nazi. But he does not belong to any Christian church and he has condemned both the Catholic and Protestant faiths.

In Australia, some left-wing commentators have focused on the fact that Breivik cited some well-known Australians in his manifesto - Peter Costello, John Howard, Cardinal George Pell, former Liberal MP Ross Cameron and historian Keith Windschuttle. It is easy to score ideological points against political opponents who have been cited with approval by a mass murderer. However, a reading of Breivik's manifesto reveals that the Australians named have nothing to be defensive about.

Costello is quoted as declaring that Australian Muslim leaders should denounce terrorism and Howard is referred to as stating that Islamist migrants to Australia should adapt to Australian ways. Cardinal Pell is cited as expressing concern about invocations to violence in the Koran and about the deeply anti-Christian views held by some secularists. Cameron's citation turns on his view that young men should commit to women and agree to have children. And Windschuttle is mentioned as someone who is disturbed about an anti-Western culture in many of our universities. That is all.

All of these comments are considered. None has provoked acts of violence in Australia.

One problem with the reaction by sections of the left to the Norway murders is that it is intolerant in itself. If the likes of Costello, Howard, Pell, Cameron and Windschuttle cannot say what they said, there would be no free debate at all.

SOURCE





Damages claims to flow from Wivenhoe dam mismanagement

THE Bligh government faces potentially huge damages claims from flooded residents and businesses after a finding by the Queensland floods inquiry that the operator of Wivenhoe Dam "breached" the official manual over the releases of water into the river system.

Premier Anna Bligh, who received the royal commission-style inquiry's interim report yesterday, acknowledged the breach by the flood engineers who were managing the dam's water releases "may well be ultimately tested in the courts".

The inquiry also pinpointed a lack of flood preparedness by the Queensland government, systemic dysfunction and confusion across bureaucracies involved in water management, a failure of the Water Minister, Stephen Robertson, to ensure timely risk-management before the flood, and other problems.

It has recommended a "precautionary approach is best" and a reduction in the Wivenhoe Dam to 75 per cent of its supply level for drinking water if future weather forecasts are as serious as the forecasts that were made late last year.

The inquiry's finding that the manual was breached strips the owner and operator of the dam, the Queensland government and SEQWater, of legal indemnification and paves the way for claims for compensation.

More than 17,000 homes and businesses were partially inundated at an estimated cost of $5 billion in the January floods. Many people are yet to return to their homes.

The inquiry qualified its finding that "there was a failure to comply with the Wivenhoe manual" by observing that the flood engineers "were acting in the honest belief that the Wivenhoe manual did not" compel them to adopt a strategy based on forecast rainfall.

A successful legal action would need to prove that the breach had a direct and adverse impact on the levels of inundation and damage, senior lawyers told The Australian yesterday.

The breach occurred because the flood engineers did not rely on "forecast rainfall" when they were determining the timing and volume of dam releases at critical stages of the flood event.

During periods of very heavy rain and with more forecast by the Bureau of Meteorology, the engineers made relatively low releases based on a "no further rainfall" model instead of the manual's requirement to be using "the best forecast rainfall".

A spokesman for SEQWater said yesterday the agency was continuing to review the interim report. The limited releases of water early in the flood event meant the dam was holding on to water unnecessarily and would more rapidly run out of capacity as its inflow increased.

As the dam's lake rose to worrying levels, the operators dramatically increased the releases to a peak flow of 7500 cubic metres a second - twice the volume known to cause damage to low-lying properties - and this started what hydrologists described as a "flood wave".

The inquiry's expert witness, hydrologist Mark Babister, has separately found that while the dam's releases comprised more than half of the total flood in the Brisbane River, the flood engineers achieved as good a result as could be expected. Ms Bligh vowed to implement all the recommendations of what she described as "a blueprint for us to manage future disasters better".

"We owe it to those people who suffered in this disaster to learn the lessons and act on them," she said.

After 31 days of public hearings that traversed central and southern Queensland, Justice Holmes released 175 detailed recommendations ranging from an overhaul of the dam's manual to standardised training for police officers in call centres, a single point of tasking for emergency rescue helicopters "as a priority", better liaison with the army and Red Cross and mandatory disaster plans for councils.

The interim report strongly criticised the actions of Toowoomba senior constable Jason Wheeler, who "wasted time" admonishing a woman trapped in rapidly rising flash flooding at a busy CBD intersection in the hilltop city. The woman, Donna Rice, 43, and her 13-year-old son Jordan later died after being swept away from their car.

The interim report said although Constable Wheeler assumed the caller was not in danger, he had "failed to ask obvious and relevant questions" to determine the potential danger.

The inquiry heard the number of trained swift-water rescue technicians across Queensland was "manifestly inadequate", leading to rescues being delayed or carried out by the public because there was not enough staff. "The fire service did not have enough firefighters trained as swift-water rescue technicians (Level 2) to meet the demands of the 2010-11 floods," the report said.

It called for the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service to consider providing basic swift-water rescue training to all auxiliary firefighters in flood-prone areas.

The interim report also urged a statewide campaign about the dangers of driving through flooded roads, highlighting nine deaths in such circumstances during the summer. It called for practical training for council-based local disaster management groups before the next wet season and better use of SMS alerts for extreme weather and floods.

The report said that if a task was considered too big for one council area, personnel from other local governments should be deployed.

The Local Government Association of Queensland president Paul Bell said councils were working to increase engagement with local communities.

SOURCE



1 August, 2011

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG mocks the insincerity of Leftist "protesters"

For overseas readers, the mask in the toon is a caricature of John Howard, Australia's most recent conservative Prime Minister





Everybody forced to pay for flood insurance even though most are not in flood affected areas?

Insurance is already a major cost item for many -- and people living in flood affected areas get their houses very cheaply so surely they could afford to pay for their own flood insurance

EVERY Queensland household could be forced to pay higher premiums or taxes to subsidise insurance cover for people in flood-prone areas.

A federal insurance review panel - established in the wake of Queensland's summer of disasters - is set to recommend policyholders, taxpayers or ratepayers fork out more money to help make insurance more affordable for "high-risk" households.

The proposed hike comes as Premier Anna Bligh prepares to hand down the Holmes Flood Commission of Inquiry's draft report into the floods and Cyclone Yasi tomorrow. The twin disasters left Queensland with a $6.8 billion damage bill.

The head of the Federal Government's independent Natural Disaster Review Panel, John Trowbridge, admitted the proposal was unlikely to be popular.

"If it came all from insurance policyholders then basically you might have to pay $20 to $30 on top of your premiums to cover the risk for the high-flood ones," he said. "If it were ratepayers, then your council rates may be $20 or $30-a-year higher."

Asked how a proposal would be sold to the public, Mr Trowbridge said, "that's an interesting question. In a sense, that's a dilemma".

The review, to be handed to Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten by the end of September, was sparked after concerns about the availability and affordability of insurance following Queensland's twin flood and cyclone disasters.

"There needs to be a way of dealing with the high-risk properties and that's probably going to involve some form of discount to people with a higher-risk property, or at least some of the people," Mr Trowbridge told The Sunday Mail.

Households with flood-prone properties would still pay more for insurance than those in low-risk areas, but they would receive a discount to help make their premiums more affordable.

It could encourage households not to opt out of insurance and would leave taxpayers with a smaller damage bill after the next natural disaster.

"One of the challenges ... is to figure out when we say it's (insurance) affordable and where we put them (high-risk property owners) into the scheme," he said.

SOURCE





Church school bans lesbian partners

STUDENTS at a leading Perth girls school have launched a campaign for the right to bring same-sex partners to their school formal.

A group of more than 40 past and present St Mary's Anglican Girls School students have confronted school authorities and started a Facebook campaign to argue for better gay rights. But they say school bosses are refusing to back down and have told them that bringing a same-sex partner to the school ball is "inappropriate".

WA Equal Opportunity Commissioner Yvonne Henderson said the school could be breaching the Equal Opportunities Act by discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.

Kia Groom, 24, who graduated from St Mary's in 2003 is leading the campaign. She said she formed the online group St Mary's Anglican Girls School Diversity this month. She said "there are students at the school who don't feel comfortable" and the school policy was "damaging".

Other former students claimed the school chaplain, who is a member of the Facebook group and supported acceptance of gay students, was fired for being "too different" and "open-minded".

St Mary's declined to answer questions when contacted several times this week.

Ms Groom said gay rights had been raised many times at the school and each year students had elected representatives to approach the principal about bringing same-sex partners to the formal. And each year they were denied. Students were now determined to change the policy ahead of the next formal early next year. "To me that is just unacceptable and it just shocked me ... there was no further explanation as to why," Ms Groom said.

"As a result, my school ball experience was fairly sub-par because I didn't get to spend the night with who I wanted to ... the whole thing was tarnished."

Ms Groom, who is bisexual, said coming to terms with her sexuality was made more difficult by the school. She said it tried to "nip lesbian behaviour in the bud".

Association of Independent Schools of WA executive director Valerie Gould said schools could make their own policies.

The Education Department said it supported healthy growth and development of students and ensured people were treated fairly in public schools.

But Ms Yvonne Henderson said though there were some exceptions for religious schools, anyone had the right to lodge a complaint if they felt they had been treated "less favourably". "Our stance is the Act and the Act makes it quite clear that it is unlawful," she said.

Gay and Lesbian Equality WA co-convenor Kitty Hawkins said other public and private schools had similar policies. Some public school students were required to meet school heads to "prove they were gay" or in a same-sex relationship before being allowed to bring a same-sex partner.

"I understand that many single-sex schools wish to foster environments where they are able to mix with other genders, but this is still an inadequate reason (to exclude same-sex couples)," she said. "Same-sex attraction and trans-genderism are not contagious and allowing one or two same-sex couples to attend a dance together will not insinuate that the entire year will then follow suit."

Ms Hawkins said same-sex couples and trans-gendered students were bullied and teased, which often led to mental illness, self-harm, substance abuse and even suicide. "Schools public or private have an obligation towards their students to ensure that they are able to learn within an environment that is safe, respectful and accepting," she said. "To bar same-sex couples from a dance sends a strong message. For a young person in such an environment, this can be devastating."

SOURCE




Grazing and farming land taken over to offset carbon

FARMERS fear a new rush of environmental plantings for biodiversity and carbon offsets will accelerate the loss of land for food production.

In an emerging trend, carbon traders are starting to buy farms to generate carbon credits for sale under voluntary schemes or - assuming legislation clears the Senate - the federal government's Carbon Farming Initiative.

Storing carbon dioxide through reforestation and other techniques such as soil carbon opens up a potentially vast new market opportunity for rural Australia. The president of the NSW Farmers Federation, Fiona Simson, said while farmers supported the CFI, "carbon farming with a focus on forestry plantations is just another land-use conflict that's going to take land away from food production".

The first acquisition linked to the CFI occurred last week. The federal government and R.M. Williams Agricultural Holdings combined to pay $13 million for Henbury Station in the Northern Territory outback, to be transformed into the world's largest carbon farm.

In NSW the value of land bought by carbon traders for carbon offsets in 2010-11 was tiny: the Herald has confirmed one sale last year, of a 1700-hectare sheep and grain farm, Lorraine at Tullamore, in the state's far west, to the stock exchange-listed CO2 Group and utility ACTEW Corporation.

The chief executive of CO2 Group, Andrew Grant, said the property was marginal farming land and had been planted with blue leaf mallee eucalypt, a species endemic to the region. Reforestation was a priority for combating dry land salinity and restoring catchment health.

Mr Grant said his company, which managed 16,000 hectares across three states - almost half the 40,000 hectares under carbon forestry nationally - did not set out to own land and only bought when it had offset contracts to honour. "We don't prospect, we don't land bank," he said.

Robert Gill, who sold Lorraine, said he was nearing retirement age and his son was entrenched in another career. He had his merino sheep and cereal farming operation on the market for a few years before getting an offer near market price from CO2 Group. "There were not too many buyers about. I felt if I let these people go I might not find another buyer for a while."

However, Mr Gill said the farm was still productive and he was sad to see it go under trees after spending his "whole lifetime cleaning it up". "I'm very sceptical about the whole thing, to be honest," he said.

Where mining projects threaten endangered species, governments can require mining companies to buy land with biodiversity value to offset any impact. These acquisitions, worth almost $33 million, were a significant portion of the Herald's review of land sales in 2010-11.

In February, the Rio Tinto subsidiary Coal & Allied paid $23.4 million for a 9956-hectare stretch of land between Merriwa and Cassilis in the Upper Hunter, including the St Antoine grazing property owned by the cattleman Tony Maurici's Castlebar Holdings. Coal & Allied has confirmed these acquisitions would not be mined but were bought as biodiversity offsets as a condition for expanding mining in the Hunter.

In a presentation to investors last week the company said it had spent $40 million this year on offset acquisitions linked to its proposed Mount Pleasant coalmine near Muswellbrook. The Swiss miner Xstrata has also joined in, paying more than $8.4 million through the property agent Brunskill Pty Ltd for a series of farms in the Muswellbrook area, totalling 4419 hectares.

This payment was omitted from the Herald's Saturday story which reviewed mining purchases across the state; its inclusion pushes mining purchases above $120 million.

SOURCE





Values in dispute: secularism and tolerance in Australian education

By theologian Joel Hodge

Religious education in schools remains a vexed question for our society that no longer knows what to believe - or perhaps knows too well what it believes (or at least, certain sections of the population do), particularly as some turn towards more activist forms of agnosticism and atheism. For example, in Victoria, certain groups, including The Age, continue to protest against religious education in its present form (e.g., The God Complexity, The Age, 24/7).

These "secular" or atheist groups are arrayed against religious education for various reasons. Some of these reasons coalesce around certain arguments, particularly to do with tolerance and secularism. Since these groups and The Age rarely define tolerance and secularism in any depth, it might be worth reflecting on the use of these terms for the current debate. I will give a succinct rendition of these arguments, and analyse the problems with these arguments.

Firstly, tolerance: it is argued that Australia is a multi-religious, multicultural society that should not impose certain religious beliefs on people, but should be tolerant of different beliefs, with the implication that different religions should be studied alongside each other. The first point that one should note about this argument is that it is a belief: tolerance is a belief and value that structures how we see and behave toward each other. No-one can scientifically prove tolerance to be a valid or fool-proof way of running a society. Certain facts can be argued in its favour, but in the end, it can only be believed as a good and fruitful way of relating and acting (as it is in the West, though not necessarily in other places). I personally believe that tolerance can be a positive force in some circumstances, though it is not enough to have a successful society. Tolerance often sounds more like forbearance to me, rather than real acceptance of and engagement with the other.

The second point that one can notice about modern tolerance is that it is a belief that subjects other beliefs to it. In other words, it equalises different beliefs or social forces by subjecting them to its form of belief. In the case of "religion", it subjects the more prevalent forms (such as Christianity) to itself in order to control them, and then, equalise them with smaller forms. It may just to give smaller belief systems a chance to profess what they believe. This is not what modern tolerance is only about, however. It involves a power-play by the dominant elite to subject those social movements and beliefs to itself.

This second point, then, leads to my third point: tolerance is usually not real tolerance in our society, and because of this, we apply tolerance selectively for particular gain. For example, in the realm of sport, we allow many different sporting expressions in Australian society, however we do not reduce the more dominant forms, such as AFL, to the level of the less popular forms, such as bowling or synchronised swimming, by giving them the same media exposure or forcing children to learn and play them, out of tolerance. If we did, we would probably have widespread civil unrest. Real tolerance is not subjecting everything to the same playing field, but allowing different religious and cultural forms to exist in their own way. Do we really do this in Australian society? Do we really allow different religio-cultural forms, such as New Zealanders, or Hinduis, or Arabic cultures, to exist in their own form? No, because there's an existing culture, language, belief system, and way of life in Australia to which other cultural forms adapt themselves.

Therefore, for the religious education debate, the argument about tolerance can be seen as a ruse to subject a certain dominant belief system (Christianity) to another, atheist secularism. Modern secularism has no great respect for different religious forms, but wishes to equalise and subject all of them to its agenda. This does not mean that "religion" can't be studied in some form in schools. I think it should, but we should be clear what religion is: it is not just Christianity or Islam, but involves studying all belief systems that structure how we think about ourselves and how we act toward each other, which could include forms of modern secularism, nationalism and sport.

Now to the second term that is used widely in the "religious education" debate: secularism. We are repeatedly told that we live in a secular society and that our education system is secular. Yet, the term "secular" is rarely defined. Often it is used to mean "anti-religion" (which really means certain forms of religion such as Christian) or "anti-sectarianism". Professor Peter Sherlock has given a short and insightful history of the debate over Christian education and secularism in Victoria schools (on the ABC religion & ethics page) that might help some to have a better appreciation of the complex history of this debate.

The way that secular is used in modern Australia usually means the exclusion of religion, specifically Christianity. Yet, the problem with this argument is that there is no way to properly define religion to the exclusion of other belief systems, such as nationalism, capitalism or sport. Furthermore, secular has not always meant "anti-religion". In some sense, it has meant the carving out of a space in which politics and religion are separate. However, we should note that in modern times the state took on particular powers in doing this, and over time, this has meant other incipient belief systems have taken over education and culture, such as forms of nationalism.

The final point to make in regards to this "secular" push is that it sees itself as defending a certain secular legacy against religious aggressiveness, which should not be allowed in the public realm. For example, the Christian educators in schools are made out by certain media agencies to be radical proselytisers imposing their beliefs on children. While this can happen, this kind of argument is unjust to the ordinary people trying to positively contribute to Australian society by affirming that children are loved, not just by imperfect humans but by their maker, God. Furthermore, it is a straw argument constructed to make out religious people as aggressors and secular people as righteous defenders. This kind of conflictual dualism is unhelpful to the debate and should be abandoned.

The defensiveness of certain groups in the religious education debate seems ultimately to do with the beliefs and values underlying Australian society. Each side to this debate has beliefs and values they wish to put forward, and we should be honest about this. Though this is not always the case, one of the problems with the state education system, as John Howard intimated, can be the lack of coherent and consistent beliefs and values that provide a foundation for children and society. This problem is an element in this debate that people often ignore (and contributes to the defensiveness of some). Christian churches (and others) have defined values that they offer, to which many parents are increasingly attracted as is shown by the growth in Christian schools and support for religious education (which, by the way, makes The Age's argument about moderate Christians turning against religious education dubious).

Nevertheless, some of the fear of Christian beliefs should also be better dispelled by Christians because, while Christianity does provide an over-arching framework for understanding our lives, it is not (and should not be) a closed system. God is often taken as the final answer, but God is just the beginning of a journey into the mystery of existence; one that Christians profess has to do with an open and affirming love which can orient us, but not control or overwhelm our freedom.

Therefore, we need to examine our beliefs in this debate much more deeply and not use smokescreens to cover our real intentions and agendas. In this way, we might be able to find common ground.

SOURCE






Note: I have two other blogs covering Australian news. They are more specialized so are not updated daily but there are updates on both most weeks. See QANTAS/Jetstar for news on Qantas failings and Australian police news for news on police misbehaviour






Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.


Most academics are lockstep Leftists so readers do sometimes doubt that I have the qualifications mentioned above. Photocopies of my academic and military certificates are however all viewable here


For overseas readers: The "ALP" is the Australian Labor Party -- Australia's major Leftist party. The "Liberal" party is Australia's major conservative political party.


Again for overseas readers: Like the USA, Germany and India, Australia has State governments as well as the Federal government. So it may be useful to know the usual abbreviations for the Australian States: QLD (Queensland), NSW (New South Wales), WA (Western Australia), VIC (Victoria), TAS (Tasmania), SA (South Australia).


For American readers: A "pensioner" is a retired person living on Social Security


Two of my ancestors were convicts so my family has been in Australia for a long time. As well as that, all four of my grandparents were born in the State where I was born and still live: Queensland. And I am even a member of the world's second-most condemned minority: WASPs (the most condemned is of course the Jews -- which may be why I tend to like Jews). So I think I am as Australian as you can get. I certainly feel that way. I like all things that are iconically Australian: meat pies, Vegemite, Henry Lawson etc. I particularly pride myself on my familiarity with the great Australian slanguage. I draw the line at Iced Vo-Vos and betting on the neddies, however. So if I cannot comment insightfully on Australian affairs, who could?


On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.


I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!


I am an army man. Although my service in the Australian army was chiefly noted for its un-notability, I DID join voluntarily in the Vietnam era, I DID reach the rank of Sergeant, and I DID volunteer for a posting in Vietnam. So I think I may be forgiven for saying something that most army men think but which most don't say because they think it is too obvious: The profession of arms is the noblest profession of all because it is the only profession where you offer to lay down your life in performing your duties. Our men fought so that people could say and think what they like but I myself always treat military men with great respect -- respect which in my view is simply their due.


The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody. And I have NO investments in oil companies, mining companies or "Big Pharma"


UPDATE: Despite my (statistical) aversion to mining stocks, I have recently bought a few shares in BHP -- the world's biggest miner, I gather. I run the grave risk of becoming a speaker of famous last words for saying this but I suspect that BHP is now so big as to be largely immune from the risks that plague most mining companies. I also know of no issue affecting BHP where my writings would have any relevance. The Left seem to have a visceral hatred of miners. I have never quite figured out why.


Although I have been an atheist for all my adult life, I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament. And my Scripture blog will show that I know whereof I speak.


A delightful story about a great Australian conservative