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31 July, 2006

Restroom humour in Queensland beach resort incorrect



Toilet humour is alive and well in the Whitsundays but not everyone is laughing. A mural in the men's section of a new toilet block on the Airlie Beach foreshore has divided opinion in the tourist town. The mural depicts four young women above the urinal - an office type peering over her spectacles, a Jennifer Aniston lookalike stretching a tape measure, a blonde taking a photo with her mobile phone and another so bored she's blowing bubbles.

Some residents including the local newspaper editor are up in arms at the cheeky artwork. Airlie Beach local PR consultant, Tom Coull, who with newspaper editor Linda Brady has railed against the images, described them as "cheesy, tacky, not original and definitely sexist" and worried about explaining the images to his young son. Another resident. Lesley Campbell, reckons the murals are "disgusting, unnecessary and extremely suggestive" and gave a negative reflection of the town, even suggesting they encourage rape and sexual assault.

But most see the funny side and reckon it's a great idea. Fish D'Vine restaurant's Kevin Collins said many of his customers commented favourably. "They think it's cute, light-hearted. They haven't been offended at all," he said. "People have taken pictures with a mobile phone and they've been sent around the world in emails. "There can't be too many toilets that give this sort of publicity to a town," Mr Collins said....

Whitsunday Shire Council's corporate and community services executive manager Royden James said public feedback had been overwhelmingly positive, with only one negative response from the community. "If anything, most criticism has been that there is nothing similar in the women's toilets," he said in a statement.

The excerpt above is from an article that appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on July 30, 2006. There is an earlier report on the same subject here



Rescued terrier returns favour

A great doggie story



Just a few months after being rescued near death from an industrial bin, hero pooch Jerry has saved a life of his own. The tiny fox terrier cross recently stood between two-year-old Reuben Wright and a deadly brown snake in the garden of the family's property at Goondiwindi, 360km west of Brisbane. Mum Patricia Wright saw the stand-off when she raced outside after hearing her younger boy crying. "I came out and I saw Jerry standing between Reuben and an adult brown snake," she said. "We get a lot of them around here and I've been bitten by one myself. I don't know if a two-year-old would survive a bite but Jerry fought it off and it went off under the garage." She said the family was "pretty lucky" that Reuben was still alive.

Jerry is also lucky to be alive. He was found in an industrial bin in Kingston, in Brisbane's south, and rushed to the RSPCA. "He was close to death," RSPCA spokesman Michael Beatty said. "He had lacerations to his skin, he had demodectic mange and was severely undernourished. It was a classic case of abuse and neglect." After a few months getting his strength back, Jerry headed to his new home out west after the Wright family's tenterfield terrier was killed by a snake.

Jerry was a bit timid at first, but soon warmed to his new surroundings and has become a favourite playmate for Reuben and older brother Danny, 9. "He'd been through a lot and it took him a while to relax," Ms Wright said. "But the two boys love him and he really took to them as well."

Source. See here for another good doggie story from earlier this year



Lost Australian literary heritage

Excerpt from an article by Imre Salusinszky that appeared in "The Australian" on July 29, 2006



The recent experiment perpetrated by The Australian, in which a chapter of Patrick White's The Eye of the Storm was submitted to 10 publishers and agents and rejected by all of them, tells us little if anything about literary genius, or about some purported decline in modern civilisation that means genius is no longer recognised.

It tells us something that is both more mundane and more interesting, which is that young commissioning editors in Australian publishing houses - those who did not simply bin Eye of the Cyclone after a glance but offered Wraith Picket remedial writing advice - have not read Eye of the Storm or sufficient Patrick White to recognise his style.

Have a look at a range of school and university curriculums across Australia and it is easy to see why. In the Victorian Certificate of Education, for example, students of English are presented with a range of perfectly worthy contemporary Australian texts but study no classic Australian literature, apart from a few Henry Lawson stories.

Meanwhile, in universities you will find plenty more contemporary Australian texts, this time grouped. explicitly according to the organising categories of cultural studies: race, gender, sexuality and class. What you won't find are courses with boring titles such as "19th-century Australian fiction" in which the organising feature is canonical; that is, these are important writers with whom any Australian student of literature should be familiar.

In a sense, we have returned to the situation of 30 years ago. When I was stumbling around the corridors of the University of Melbourne stoned out of my gourd in the 1970s, Australian literature was considered a minor offshoot that could be studied only around the fringes of the core courses in English (British) literature. The situation was not quite as bad everywhere, but neither was it good. All this changed in the late '70s thanks to the activism of a group of energetic young academics who formed the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. For a while, Marcus Clarke, Henry Handel Richardson, Shaw Nielsen and, yes, Patrick White loomed large in the window of Australian undergraduates.

But who was to know what a narrow window it would turn out to be? The study of classic Australian literature in universities thrived only during a brief interval - say 1975-90 - sandwiched between cultural snobbery (no Australian belongs in the canon) on one side and cultural studies (there is no canon) on the other. Unless the readers of the publishing firms caught out by The Australian were educated in that interval, I can easily imagine they would not have read The Eye of the Storm or much White.

Responding to a complaint by John Howard that the teaching of history in our schools has degenerated into a "stew of fragmented themes and issues", federal Education Minister Julie Bishop has convened a history summit to meet in Canberra next month. I would suggest that the teaching of literature has degenerated into the same kind of stew, partly courtesy of cultural studies, and that a national strategy to address that situation (with a special emphasis on the teaching of Australian literature in schools and universities) is long overdue.

Cultural studies is a perfectly legitimate area of study but one that should come after, not before, an immersion in literary works studied for their own sakes as imaginative structures. Proceeding in that order, students can make their own educated investigations into the ways that literature, along with other forms of symbolic expression, reflects cultural values. Taken in the wrong order, however, categories such as gender and class themselves become canonical, and education narrows into indoctrination.

As former NSW premier Bob Carr has argued in connection with the study of history, the study of literature, too, is a vocational necessity in an information economy where the ability to organise arid express complicated ideas is at a premium.

While I am a non-believer at the church of "national identity" and the cultural protectionism based on it, I certainly believe there are such things as cultural traditions. Unlike an identity, which cannot lead to a liberal education, a tradition is inseparably a part of all that comes before it and exists alongside it.

Just as Howard and Bishop have asserted that the study of Australian history requires a sound understanding of European history at least as far back as the Enlightenment, so the proper study of Australian literature requires a grounding in European literature as far back as Shakespeare. Bring on the literature summit!



Killer doctor still practicing

Yet Another case of your regulators protecting you

A manslaughter charge has been recommended against a prominent Queensland surgeon who continues to operate out of a private hospital with full registration through the state's Medical Board.

Four years ago, Nardia Annette Cvitic checked into Brisbane's Mater Hospital for a hysterectomy to be performed by David Ward, who was then a respected professor of medicine at the University of Queensland. But the 31-year-old mother of two died after a drain inserted into her pelvic area during surgery reportedly punctured a major vein - an error that was allegedly compounded by Dr Ward prescribing her a bloodthinning agent.

An inquest into Cvitic's death, headed by Deputy State Coroner Christine Clements, has heard evidence that after the operation the operating theatre resembled the scene of the Granville train disaster in NSW in the 1970s. The Weekend Australian has obtained a draft submission from counsel assisting the inquest. Richard Perry informing Ms. Clements and other parties in the case: "There is sufficient admissable evidence upon which a properly instructed jury could conclude that Dr Ward is guilty of the offence of manslaughter."

He recommended that Dr Ward be committed for trial. "Further, it must be acknowledged, and done so openly and honestly, that a great tragedy occurred in this case." Mr Perry states in his draft submission. "Ms Cvitic's death is one which was, in some senses, entirely avoidable, not simply because of what may or may not have occurred during the operation ... but also because her condition, however it was caused, was one which ought not to have resulted in her death."

Dr Ward's barrister, David Tait, did not return calls yesterday and Dr Ward has previously declined to comment. Cvitic's family was unavailable. Michael Coglin, medical officer for Healthcope, which owns the Sunnybank Private Hospital in Brisbane, said yesterday Dr Ward "occasionally" operated at the hospital and there was no reason for him not to do so. "In view of some of these concerns, we've checked with the Medical Board of Queensland and we've been advised that Dr Ward is in good standing with the board, he's fully registered, and there's no reason he should not continue to practise in Queensland and our hospital," Dr Coglin said.

While the Mater had referred Dr Ward to the Medical Board, a spokeswoman has said "all appropriate action was taken" and no conditions had been attached to his registration. A District Court judge recently sanctioned an out-of-court settlement in which the Mater, the University of Queensland and the Queensland Government will put $115,000 in a trust fund for Cvitic's 10-year-old son and $60.000 in trust for her 16-year-old son.

The coroner has heard there had been complaints about Dr Ward's surgical techniques and management style before Cvitic's death, and two professors who audited some of his patient files in 2003 warned: "Something is radically wrong and it cannot continue." Russell Strong and Alex Crandon, commissioned by the Mater to conduct the audit, raised problems over Dr Ward's surgical techniques, communication skills, post-operative care and medical judgment. In only three of the 10 patient files examined did they find Dr Ward had no case to answer.

The Mater subsequently withdrew Dr Ward's surgical credentials, as did the Royal Women's Hospital, and he lost his role with the university the same year.

The above article appeared in "The Australian" newspaper on 29 July, 2006



30 July, 2006

Australia helped civilize the Iraq invasion



Australia intervened to stop key US military strikes against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, fearing they might constitute a war crime. Major General Maurie McNarn, then a brigadier and commander of Australian forces in Iraq, on several occasions played a "red card" against the American plans, which included hits on individuals. His objections drew anger from some senior US military figures. In one instance, Major General McNarn vetoed a US plan to drop a range of huge non-precision bombs on Baghdad, causing one angry US Air Force general to call the Australian a "pencil dick". However, US military command accepted Major General McNarn's objection and the US plans were scrapped.

The revelation of how Australia actively and successfully used its veto power in the 2003 invasion of Iraq is contained in a new book on the US-Australian alliance, The Partnership, by The Weekend Australian's foreign editor, Greg Sheridan. The book reveals that Australia, as a member of the so-called coalition of the willing in Iraq, was given a power known as a "red card" that allowed Major General McNarn to veto US military actions, including individual targets and the types of weapons used. Australia's proactive use of the veto power - on strategic, military and ethical grounds - helped the Americans produce a more effective and ethical targeting policy during the war.

The book reveals that Major General McNarn - now the head of the Defence Intelligence Organisation - delivered a "great shock" to the US when he first used the red card and then put his objections to the proposed US military strike in writing. "Shit," exclaimed one American when he saw the document. "What if this leaks?" Major General McNarn replied that if the US did not take the illegal action, it would not matter.

As coalition forces prepared plans to take Baghdad, Major General McNarn vetoed three of five proposed US Air Force weapon systems - mostly huge bombs - on the grounds that they were not accurate for a radius of less than 16m and, as a result, were unsuitable for use in a built-up area. One another occasion, Australia, along with fellow coalition partner Britain, successfully whittled down a list of proposed individuals the US considered legitimate targets.

The book also reveals that before the war, which started in March 2003, Australia made repeated efforts to get the US to focus on post-conflict planning in a more coherent way. The lack of early US planning for the post-war phase in Iraq is seen to have contributed substantially to the violent disorder now being experienced there.

Australia also argued for the US to try to involve the UN as much as possible after the war. However, in a frank conversation with Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on April 1, 2003, US President George W.Bush said the US would get the blame for destroying Iraq and he did not want others coming to rebuild it. "The UN can't manage a damn thing," Mr Bush told Mr Downer, recalling his visit to Kosovo, where the President found the UN personnel to be "a bunch of drunks". [He sure got that one right]

The book also reveals that immediately after the fall of Baghdad, Mr Downer told Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, that the coalition should leave as soon as it could, while Iraq was in a decent state. Since then, the Howard Government has argued it would be wrong to "cut and run" from Iraq and says Australian troops will remain there for as long as they are needed.

The book also reveals how close and frank the bilateral relationship became in the months leading up to and during the war in Iraq. It includes an account of a conversation between Mr Downer and Mr Bush in April 2003 in which the President likened North Korea's erratic leader, Kim Jong-il, to "a child who throws his food on the floor and expects all the adults to rush over and pick it up". At the same meeting, Mr Bush warned Mr Downer that Australia was likely to suffer casualties on the ground in Iraq, but he expressed unqualified admiration for the "brave, skilled fighters" of Australia's elite SAS

Source



Your regulators will protect you (again)

Employing a loony as a psychiatrist was a good one!

Vincent Berg, the Russian immigrant exposed as an allegedly bogus psychiatrist at Queensland's "Dr Death" medical inquiry, is undergoing treatment in a psychiatric ward at the Gold Coast Hospital. Mr Berg, 54, was scheduled to face a committal hearing in Southport Magistrates Court on the Gold Coast yesterday on a charge of indecently dealing with a boy under 16. But the hearing was adjourned to January 25 next year after Mr Berg's lawyer, David Gilmore, told the court his client had voluntarily admitted himself to the psychiatric ward.

Mr Berg, who was in court for the brief hearing, is accused of sexually molesting the teenage son of one of his patients when he was employed as a psychiatrist at Townsville Hospital in 2000. The allegation was revealed during the Queensland hospitals inquiry by commissioner Tony Morris. Magistrate Ron Kilner expressed frustration that committal proceedings had still not begun, despite Mr Berg's arrest in September last year. Mr Gilmore said the defence required a psychiatric assessment of Mr Berg before he could face a committal hearing.

But prosecutor Mark Whitbread said: "He has had an opportunity to see a large number of psychiatrists, and no one has been able to give him the report he desires." Outside court yesterday, Mr Gilmore said he expected Mr Berg to apply to have his case heard before the Mental Health Tribunal. Mr Berg could face further charges resulting from his 12-month tenure as a psychiatrist at Townsville Hospital, using allegedly bogus qualifications. Geoff Davies, who took over from Mr Morris as health inquiry commissioner, recommended in his final report that police should investigate whether Mr Berg should be charged with fraud, forgery and "attempts to procure unauthorised status".

Source



Leftist State governments weak on terrorism prevention

Manuals instructing fanatics on how to build suicide bombs would be allowed into the country, federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock claimed yesterday after failing to convince his state counterparts to accept new book classification laws. He accused the states of not having "the wit" to understand his proposals, during a break in the meeting of federal, state and territory attorneys-general in Melbourne. Mr Ruddock, who wants the power to ban books that advocate terrorism, said Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hull had a "blind spot" on the issue, believing human rights should be absolute.

But Mr Hull said Mr Ruddock had arrived at the meeting with a "fictitious" and "half-baked" proposal and needed to refine his stance. "We have said to Mr Ruddock. "Go away and do some work". He came in here wthe a half-baked proposal and couldn't tell us where the gaps in the law were. So he's decided to that, he said.

Mr Ruddock said the nation needed to he able to stop publications that advocated and instructed in terrorism but did not meet the current definition of inciting it. He provided as an example: "Somebody is told through a publication how to acquire material to produce a suicide iacket, but they are not in the publication told how to explode it, or when to explode it, or where to explode it -- but the material is clearly preparing people for a a suicide mission. "But you cannot, under the existing law, demonstrate that somebody is being encouraged or incited to carry out a terrorism act. If you can't do that, publication can't be refused. "If you put in a new factor for classification- -namely advocacy - that step would not be required.

The states have agreed to have their bureaucrats give the issue further consideration, but Mr Hulls has suggested that Ruddock deal with the issue by changing federal criminal law.

Mr Ruddock moved to create tighter controls on such publications last year after the Classification Review Board cleared eight books alleged to promote jihad and incite terrorism. On appeal from Mr Ruddock, the board eventually banned two of the books. Defence of the Muslim Lands and Join the Caravan, but cleared the other six. The books were allegedly being sold by a Sydney Islamic bookshop.

The above article appeared in "The Australian" newspaper on 29 July, 2006



Now in Australia, a "professional" woman aims to get rich by whining

Big law and accounting firms must be having lots of doubts about hiring women now that there have been so many cases of this kind in Britain and the USA

When Christina Rich confronted her PricewaterhouseCoopers boss Stuart Edwards about his alleged workplace sexism and discrimination, he offered this solution: "I just want to give you a big hug to make it better. We just need to go out for dinner with a bottle of wine to nut out the issues and a way forward."

The accounting multinational's defence of a $10 million sex discrimination case makes these admissions and also reveals Mr Edwards thought it was acceptable to adopt the habit of kissing the highest-paid female partner in the firm. Mr Edwards believed that since Ms Rich had shared with him matters of a personal nature, they had enjoyed a "friendly, open and good-humoured relationship". Therefore, greeting her with a kiss was not out of context, documents filed in the Federal Court this week show.

After Ms Rich objected to the kissing and was also allegedly subjected to sexism, harassment and discrimination from a number of senior partners at the firm, she requested a mediator to resolve the matters. Mr Edwards's solution to go out to dinner was his way of working through the issues in "an informal and non-confrontational manner", the response says.

In the nation's biggest workplace sexism claim, Ms Rich says she suffered discrimination, bullying and victimisation and her progress through the organisation was hampered. In its response, PwC confirms a substantial number of the incidents but does not accept that Ms Rich was adversely affected.

Melbourne-based Mr Edwards was the head of the transfer pricing division and Ms Rich, who worked from Sydney, was paid about $1 million a year for her advice in the area, saving clients of the calibre of American Express tens of millions of dollars by moving global profit from one tax jurisdiction to another.

The accounting giant denies that Mr Edwards told Ms Rich that she received a positive performance review because chief executive Tony Harrington "fancies her". It admits that partner and board member Tim Cox asked Ms Rich, when watching a corporate video showing a woman sunbaking topless: "Christina, is that you sunbathing on the beach?" PwC says that comment, too, was made in the context of a "friendly and good-humoured relationship".

In justifying Mr Edwards's comments to her that she was emotional, scatty and high-maintenance, the response says these were "matters of opinion which were reasonably held". The firm also claims Mr Edwards's comment to Ms Rich that the pregnancy of another employee was affecting her work did not cause offence to the other woman.

PwC says Ms Rich was unco-operative in mediation from March 2004 and - after making a complaint to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission - she was placed on restricted duties in August, her pay cut and her access to clients prevented. "The applicant expressed on a number of occasions her lack of faith and confidence in the firm or its ability to address her concerns," the response says. "She was operating under intense stress and required real relief from the pressures which she faced" and had "indicated that she was unwilling or unable to operate as a partner of the firm. "In those circumstances the imposition and confirmation of access restrictions in good faith by management and the board respectively was reasonable and in the best interests of the firm"

Senior partners and board members at all times "acted in good faith" and "took all reasonable steps" to reach agreement.

The above article appeared in "The Australian" newspaper on 29 July, 2006



29 July, 2006

Public broadcaster gets a slap on the wrist over Greenie bias

The media regulator has given the ABC's Four Corners program a slap on the wrist for using emotive language and providing inaccurate information during an "impartial" report on the forestry industry in Tasmania. The finding comes more than two years after the first complaint was made about the program, Lord of the Forests, which appeared on the ABC in February 2004 and included allegations by a close connection between the Tasmanian government and the forestry industry, in particular the timber company, Gunns Limited.

"The manner in which the report was presented would have given an ordinary reasonable viewer the impression the program favoured the anti-forestry, anti-logging perspective," the Australian Communications and Media Authority said in its 25-page report. "The many instances of subjective and emotive language over the course of the program are sufficient to find that the program was not impartial." The authority told the ABC to review its procedures for preparing television current affairs programs so "every reasonable effort is made to ensure the impartiality of those programs".

A spokeswoman for the ABC said the matter would be referred to its board. In an earlier response to the findings, the ABC defended reporter Ticky Fullerton's use of language. It said many of the phrases highlighted by the regulator - including "overwhelming devastation" and "voracious appetite for timber" - were taken out of context or were "reasonable journalistic descriptions".

The authority said yesterday the ABC was found to be in breach of its code seven times in the 12 months to June 30 last year. A spokesman conceded the investigation took a long time to complete. He said the authority's boss, Chris Chapman, wanted to improve investigation processes.

The ABC has often come under fire from the Government because of claims of impartial reporting. During a senate estimates hearing earlier this year the news director, John Cameron, was pummelled with questions from a Liberal senator, Michael Ronaldson, about a former ABC policy banning journalists from calling members of Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists. Three years ago, the then communications minister, Richard Alston, hit the ABC with 86 complaints about its Iraq coverage.

Source



Feds take away the "obesity" rattle of the State health ministers

John Howard has described efforts by the nation's health ministers to restrict junk-food advertising on TV as a waste of time, saying it is an issue for media authorities, not health departments. In a letter presented to a health ministers meeting in Brisbane, the Prime Minister wrote: "Given ... the fact that regulation of media advertising is an Australian government responsibility, I see little value in continued consideration of this issue in the Australian Health Ministers' Council forum."

The letter, delivered by federal Health Minister Tony Abbott, has infuriated his state counterparts, who have been campaigning for junk-food advertising restrictions for the past 12 months. "We are not going to back down to the Prime Minister's bullying," Queensland Health Minister Stephen Robertson said. "I do not believe it is open for John Howard to unilaterally dictate the ministerial health conference. "The fact that we now have a PM who is prepared to shut down debate on health is frankly unacceptable."

State and territory ministers agreed yesterday to establish a working party to review marketing and advertising practices with the industry, while looking at existing regulatory codes.

More here



Homosexual propaganda masquerading as news

Once upon a time, a person could buy a newspaper and be fairly confident that the news covered therein was more or less reliable, factual and impartially presented. That certainly is no longer the case, especially for certain newspapers. Consider the case of one Australian broadsheet, the Melbourne Age. This paper is right up there with a few other contenders for Australia's most left-wing, politically correct and biased paper in the country. There are many examples of this bias and agenda-pushing. Just one will suffice.

The Age is notoriously pro-homosexual, with almost daily pro-homosexual reporting and opinion. Of course, with many homosexual activists on staff, this is not surprising. Consider one example of this totally lopsided and prejudiced news coverage and reporting. The Australian Capital Territory decided on May 11 to legalise same-sex unions, which was tantamount to legalising same-sex marriage. This was in spite of the fact that the Federal Government had reaffirmed, through legislation passed by both houses of parliament in August 2004, that marriage in Australia can only be between a man and a woman.

This year, on June 6, the Howard Government signalled its intention to override the ACT legislation - and with good reason. The ACT law was just a sneaky attempt to bring in same-sex marriage, even though the Australian Parliament, and the overwhelming majority of Australians, stated that marriage is a heterosexual affair. (On June 15, the Howard Government motion was passed, and the ACT law was struck down).

Consider how the Age covered this story over the following two weeks. I have clipped every article, opinion piece and letter on the subject from June 7 to June 18. (It was a good thing I monitored only 12 days' worth - there was so much to clip, I was beginning to get sore hands!). Take, for example, the articles run on the story. Altogether, 16 different "news" articles were written on this topic during this 12-day period. That is well over one a day. Talk about a beat-up. Talk about going overboard on a story. One would have thought there were other news items of merit worth covering during this period.

But that is just the tip of the iceberg. In every one of the articles, there was such an obvious one-sided agenda being pushed that there was little or no difference between these supposed news item and the paper's editorials. I simply lost count of the number of homosexual and lesbian activists quoted in these pieces. And how many pro-family voices were heard? Not one. Is this news reporting or propaganda? There was one very short piece on how religious leaders felt about Howard's decision; so a few quick - and token - references were made to those from the other side of the debate, but that was it. Aside from that, these 16 articles were one mass promotion of the homosexual agenda. But it does not end there.

There were also three full opinion pieces on the subject. I guess, in an effort to pretend that there was some balance taking place, one of the three pieces did argue the "no-case" against same-sex marriage. But that is just 33 per cent. When weighed against all the articles, letters and other items in favour of same-sex marriage, it made up barely a fraction of the space devoted to the issue. In typical Age fashion, the very next day the letters' editor featured not one, but three letters attacking the no-case article, with not one letter supporting it.

Each of these opinion pieces, editorials and articles could in turn be analysed at length. They are great examples of sloppy thinking, poor reasoning, question-begging, special-pleading, red herrings and moral obfuscation. But those evaluations must await another article. But wait, there's still more. There were no fewer than four major human interest pieces as well (scattered among the 16 news items). These featured homosexual and lesbian couples given free rein to state their case at length.

Emotive

Of course, no heterosexual was allowed to feature as a personal story. And there were plenty of full-colour photos of happy, smiling, hugging homosexual and lesbian couples. Of course, putting an emotive human face on the story always beats having to deal with the facts and the real heart of the issue. Just paint an emotional story using people who represent your cause, and you do not have to deal with hard things like truth, logic, facts or evidence.

One lesbian couple got to tell their story not once, but twice (June 9, 14). Both times the couple's story was adorned with large colour photos. They got to speak at length of how terrible it was that their relationship could not be recognised as a marriage. It featured all the emotive rhetoric about their love being denied, and so on. After wading though article after article like this, I really began to believe that I was reading articles from the homosexual press. The Age pieces were absolutely identical to anything found there.

Moreover, a Saturday Age Insight section featured a front-page story (which spilled over onto page 2), with numerous photos and large splashes of colour, complete with a rainbow. Paragraph after paragraph of quotes from homosexuals were featured therein. Again, not one pro-family voice. Not one dissenting position, except for a few references to Prime Minister Howard or Attorney-General Ruddock.

Shedding tears

There was of course the mandatory large editorial, shedding tears over this being a "matter of human rights". In it, the editorial writers said, among other things, that the Howard Government had chosen to "politicise the issue". Sorry, but it was the homosexual lobby that long ago decided to make a political issue of this. The Howard Government has simply responded to this attempt at social engineering by stating what most Australians know to be true: marriage is not whatever you make it to be. It is something that for millennia has meant one thing, and we are not about to let a group of noisy activists redefine it out of existence.

Oh yes, one last thing. The Age also ran a cartoon on the subject, by Leunig. It was a masterful example of propaganda at its best. Using colour, photos and text, it effectively implied that heterosexuals were torturers, murderers and militants, and it is time we let peaceful homosexuals have rights to marriage and children.

Thus this was one giant tsunami of pro-gay propaganda. Like a tidal wave, every day the reader was inundated with one pro-homosexual assault after another. This simply was one of the most blatant and disgusting cases of media bias and agenda-pushing that I have encountered in the mainstream press. Somehow, however, I do not expect that ABC's Media Watch will cover the story.

More here



Lebanon: Australian-built Catamaran to the Rescue

Post lifted from Defensetech. The story seems to have been totally ignored in the Australian media

The U.S. Navy's evacuation of Lebanon is done. Now, the focus is on delivering humanitarian aid to the Lebanese. At the center of the effort: the Navy's giant, super-quick catamaran.



Until recently, the experimental, Australian-built HSV-2 Swift was working as a mine warfare command and control ship. But with "its enormous 28,000 square foot mission deck, the ability to traverse littoral waters, the capability of handling speeds in excess of 40 knots, and maneuverability that doesn't require tugboat assistance," as Navy Newsstand notes, the catamaran was a natural for the Lebanese operation. "The vessel has the cargo space of about 17 C-17 aircraft and the access of a Cyclone-class patrol boat," said Lt. Cmdr. Phillip Pournelle, executive officer of Swift's Gold Crew.

And it's not the 318-foot catamaran's first humanitarian mission. Back in January, 2005, the Swift sped to Southeast Asia, to deliver aid to tsunami victims. In September, it brought supplies to the Gulf Coast in the wake of hurricane Katrina. The Swift's predecessor helped sneak SEAL teams into southern Iraq during the 2003 invasion.

The "wave-piercing, aluminum-hulled catamaran," originally designed as a commercial vessel, now comes with military enhancements, "such as a helicopter flight deck, small boat and unmanned vehicle launch and recovery capability, and an enhanced communications suite," the Navy says.

But it's the catamaran's ability to quickly get to an from ports -- without help -- that Navy leaders seem to find most attractive.

[Just before the Lebanese mission] "on the afternoon of July 11, Swift left Bahrain's Mina Salman pier with a shipload of cargo destined for USNS Supply (T-AOE 6) moored at Jebel Ali, United Arab Emirates. Twelve hours later, the Navy-leased catamaran arrived alongside Supply, ready to off-load.

"The cargo was only touched twice," said Swift's Commanding Officer, Cmdr. Rob Morrison. "[Normally] we'd have to load a truck with the cargo, off-load it at the airport, load it back onto an aircraft, fly it to its destination, off-load it, and move it by truck to the ship, where it's delivered to the ship and finally loaded aboard..."

Upon arrival, Swift's crew had the cargo loaded onto the flight deck, thus allowing Supply's crane immediate access to the palleted goods. Within an hour, the transfer was complete.

UPDATE: HSV-maker Incat is also working on a funky heavyweight elevator for the catamaran. It's designed to take copters up to the flight deck, or lower amphibious vehicles straight in the water, between the ship's twin hulls. "Sounds like a perfect way to deploy a Marine platoon or company for quick-response missions like embassy evacuations and small raids," reader JG says.



28 July, 2006

Spelling: A shameful comparison

When kids whose native language is not English can spell English better than our kids can, what does that tell you?



The "wallpaper method" of teaching spelling by sticking words on the classroom wall for children to absorb is failing in Australia. Writing tests conducted by the University of NSW reveal that about nine times more students in Singapore - where about half of children speak English as a second language - can spell less-common English words or those with unusual spelling patterns. The stark difference is attributed to the more traditional drill approach adopted by Singapore schools to teach spelling, with the syllabus even listing words that students are expected to be able to spell.

About 9 per cent of Year 3 students in Singapore could spell words such as chaotic, dilemma, laborious, perceive and voyage, while only 1 per cent of Year 3 students in NSW reached an equivalent score. The improvement in students' spelling over two years was also markedly different, with 36.5 per cent of Year 5 students in Singapore able to spell at the same level, compared with 12 per cent of Year 5 students in NSW.

The tests, conducted by Educational Assessment Australia at UNSW and involving more than 110,000 Australians and more than 10,000 Singaporeans, required students to construct a news story based on an event. While the EAA students comprised a high proportion of private school students, the results are similar to those of the NSW Government's basic skills tests, which are sat by all Year 3 and 5 students in government and non-government schools. The 2003 results for the primary writing assessment of the NSW test show only 2 per cent of Year 3 students and 11 per of Year 5 students composing a factual piece of writing could spell words such as actions, appearance, camouflage, disappeared, frightening, muscular and predators.

EAA director Peter Knapp attributed the difference in spelling capabilities to the teaching methods used, with Australian schools adopting a more progressive strategy that encourages teachers to teach spelling in context. The fact that results for the different tests in Australia and Singapore, and populations of students, were so similar suggested the problem was the way in which spelling was taught. "I think it's definitely an issue of pedagogy and the absence of anything explicit in our syllabus documents," Professor Knapp said. "Spelling is not a high-order cognitive skill such as sentence construction, however, it requires practice and memory - two aspects of traditional pedagogy that have somehow fallen out of favour. "Teachers are encouraged to teach spelling in context, the wallpaper approach, that children absorb the spelling of words through reading them and saying them or looking at them on a classroom wall."

The chairman of the national inquiry into the teaching of literacy, Ken Rowe from the Australian Council for Educational Research, said the secret of Singapore's success was its direct and explicit instruction.

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Lawyers fight for injustice

Paul Sheehan's new book raises disturbing questions about an Australian legal system that has swung too far in favour of defendants and hurts traumatised victims of horrendous crimes, writes Janet Albrechtsen

"Shut up, you bitch, you slut. Girls like you, I know how to fix them up". - One of the K brothers before an assault on his sister, January 3, 2004, after she failed to make him dinner. So begins Paul Sheehan's new book, Girls Like You, to be released by Pan MacMillan today. That was the way one of the K brothers mistreated his sister. The way our legal system allowed another three Kbrothers to mistreat Tegan Wagner after they raped her at the age of 14 was immeasurably worse.

The trial of the three K brothers was delayed nine times. "Each delay was for a different reason," Sheehan writes, "too much publicity, or it was Ramadan, or the accused needed new legal counsel, or the accused needed a psychiatric evaluation, or the accused had just sacked counsel, and on and on. There were many arguments for delay but only one real reason: to wear down the victim."

Sheehan's book raises disturbing questions about a legal system that has swung too far in favour of defendants, one that encourages a war of attrition aimed at grinding down traumatised victims of horrendous crimes, allowing offenders to walk free. The three K brothers did not walk free. But that had more to do with the resilience of their young victim than a legal system charged with conducting a fair trial and jailing the guilty.

He documents a trinity of abusers. Defendants who use procedural stunts and complaints to delay being tried, lie unashamedly, threaten and abuse witnesses. Lawyers who regularly cross the line between legitimate testing of evidence and bullying vulnerable witnesses to trick them into error. The three senior barristers in this case hurled 1971 questions at a 17-year-old schoolgirl, hoping she would break. And a legal system that has converted a sensible, practical concern for the rights of accused people into an unreal, inflexible set of unchallengeable precepts that grow ever more arbitrary and increasingly subvert the interests of society.

In many ways the chief villains in all this are the lawyers. They have grown to believe they, not society, own the legal system. They know better how justice should be meted out, invoking jargon, mystique and experience to defend their proprietorship. The lawyers' conflict of interest is exposed by Sheehan's astute observations. They protect their ownership, their belief systems and their careers against society's legitimate demand that the law serve the interests of society, not a small cabal of lawyers. They have elevated protection of the interests of a minority - accused people - into a form of oppression of the majority: society at large.

Sheehan is right. The lawyer-led oppression must be rolled back. His is not a call for revolution, merely for reform. It is not a plea to ignore the rule of law, though any criticism of the status quo is invariably met with hysterical claims from the legal protectionists that critics have no understanding of the legal system, are trying to subvert the rule of law and are engaging in populist law-and-order auctions.

After two of the K brothers damned the legal system as anti-Muslim and decided to defend themselves, the NSW Government introduced legislation to prevent accused rapists from cross-examining their alleged victims. The NSW Attorney-General said: "Without these protections for witnesses, the court would be an instrument of injustice rather than an instrument of justice." Under the new laws, an intermediary would conduct the cross-examination. But as Sheehan points out, the legal high priests at the NSW Law Society opposed the bill as an infringement of the accused's right to confront accusers. The new laws went ahead anyway.

In Britain, a similarly repulsive case led Tony Blair to recently admit that the balance between defendants' rights and the rights of victims had gone awry. Craig Sweeney, who abducted and sexually abused a three-year-old girl, was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Thanks to the Blair Government's 2003 Criminal Justice Act, Sweeney's guilty plea meant the sentence was cut by one-third and he would be eligible for parole once he had served half that time. Last week, Home Secretary John Reid announced tougher sentencing guidelines. But, once again, the lawyers, claiming they know better, are arguing against the reforms.

Back in Australia, cracking down on criminals is met with disdain by those lawyers who support the status quo: a legal system that effectively treats defendants as victims. Burdened by middle-class guilt, they refuse to believe that crime is caused by criminals.

Earlier this month, NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery announced that reducing crime had nothing to do with increasing penalties, mandatory penalties, zero-tolerance policing or additional police. Reducing crime was best done by spending more money on education, housing and health, he said. Cowdery's call for crime prevention through social and educational programs was "root causes" theory writ large. And it was quickly denounced by criminologist Paul Wilson, who said: "There is no evidence from anywhere it makes any difference." Speaking at a teachers union conference, Cowdery's root-causes performance resembled a comic playing to his audience. This is the same bunch that believes teacher performance has nothing to do with student outcomes. Rejecting personal responsibility, it believes social factors dictate how a student performs at school. Cowdery's left-liberal exposition is the snob theory of crime. The downtrodden underclass can't be held responsible for their own actions. So it's up to the well-heeled overclass to provide the social elixir by throwing money at the root causes.

The priestly caste among lawyers - DPPs such as Cowdery, the law societies and the law councils - no doubt believes fervently its cause is just. And it is no doubt coincidental that its theories will keep it in work for generations. But debates about reducing crime come down to arguments over the nature of man. For the left-wing idealist, each person is perfectible, provided that enough money is thrown at them. That's the theory. In practice, those good intentions based on utopian policies have delivered nasty, unintended consequences.

Those less starry-eyed about human nature recognise the good and bad in each person. Experience shows people respond to incentives and penalties. If they can behave badly and get away with it, they will. Sheehan's book is a reminder that evil exists and that a legal system skewed towards defendants at the expense of victims only encourages more evil. Those such as NSW

MP Peter Breen, who said last week, "I don't believe the law-and-order issue is as important as some commentators think it is", are living on another planet. Whether you believe in small government or big government, one thing rational people agree on is that the central function of government is to keep us safe. When 5000 people turned out to protest on the streets of Cronulla in Sydney last December, the message was clear: it's time to recognise that pandering to criminals is a leading cause of crime.

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Political opportunism drives mania about incorrect food

Federal and state politicians debating a serious health concern this week could find themselves in decidedly unhealthy disagreement. Regrettably, obesity has become a political issue. The ever-present danger is that ends can be claimed to justify means, however unreasonable, unwarranted and undemocratic. Today, a group of state health ministers will seek restrictions on children's TV advertising of products judged overly high in fat, salt or sugar. The federal Health Minister, Tony Abbott, is expected to counter that it isn't a proper response to a problem of personal and parental responsibility.

Following Abbott's announcement last week of a ministerial taskforce on obesity, the health ministers' conference is attracting international attention, not so much in anticipation of a pointer to social policy as in assessing Australia's contribution to the politicisation of fat people.

Australian advertisers have lobbied against such an outcome since the earliest recognition of worrisome obesity trends. They have consistently - and persistently - sought to be part of a politically neutral response to something they see as not of their making, but as a whole-of-community problem requiring an all-of-community solution. Action to date, including new rules for advertising to children and a $10 million healthy lifestyle advertising campaign, will be extended this week with the tabling of a code of conduct for all food and beverages marketing communications. It's a big call but the advertising, marketing and media sectors want to be seen as the responsible contributors to the community they believe themselves to be.

But a minority of members of that community - within government bureaucracies as well as without - have persuaded some politicians that food and beverage manufacturers and marketers, together with their evil allies in the advertising and media sectors, are conspiring to kill off the very consumers who are their reasons for being. That the argument does not make a lot of sense has not dissuaded the deluded any more than their knowledge of Quebec, where a 25-year ban on advertising to children has resulted in no appreciable difference in obesity rates from other Canadian provinces. In fact, the children of Quebec have experienced a greater weight gain in the past decade than their provincial neighbours.

It's a fair comment that many claiming to be campaigning in the cause of childhood obesity have lost sight of the health objective, and have become focused on some sort of political victory over television commercials. In truth, there is as much research excusing advertising as a factor in obesity as there is accusing it. The response of one group of academic researchers linked to the anti-advertising lobby has been to simply assume a link, and build a case for advertising restrictions from there.

As complex as it is as a health problem, obesity may simply be an unforeseen consequence of the lifestyle change brought about by a world war that created a norm of two-income families, new drives for technological advancement and individual affluence, less need for physical activity and more demand for processed, packaged and convenience foods. But arguing whether Adolf Hitler is more or less to blame than John Logie Baird or Alexander Graham Bell will not do any more to reverse obesity trends over the next generation than considering it as a political rather than a health priority.

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Loony Green/Left Victorian government

In Victoria, rivers are no longer water SOURCES. They are now water USERS! Comment below by Andrew Bolt

John Thwaites says we use too much water and too many plastic bags. But our state Environment Minister uses too little of something far rarer than water and even better than bags. Try brains. Has any government put out anything more irrational and half-baked than did green-priest Thwaites last week with his "Sustainability Action Statement"?

Here is proof that the true battle isn't between those who want to save the environment or use it. It's between those who have given in to superstition and those who still defend reason. Last week's statement promised, without a blush of shame, to make your power bills rise, your water dry up and your shopping bills rise, yet -- incredibly -- the media clapped like mad.

Indeed, this was mad. Take Thwaites' promise to force retailers to charge you 10 cents for each of those wicked plastic bags you use to carry home the shopping. Says Thwaites's statement, 10 million of them each year become litter "that endanger the health of marine wildlife", clog drains or "detract from the beauty of our environment". So from 2012 the poor will be fined for using these bags of evil, forcing them to use something else -- a pram, perhaps? -- to get their tins and packages home. (The rich won't feel any hurt at a lousy 10 cents a bag, which is why the rich-pleasing media barely cares about all this.)

But does the 10 cents actually make sense? Not if you believe the Productivity Commission. A draft commission report in May found that plastic bags make up only 0.2 per cent of land fill, where they probably do some good, reducing toxic leakage and keeping the fill stable. And there was little proof the bags caused harm to wildlife, which tends not to shop with them anyway. They might make a mess here and there, but there were probably cheaper ways of dealing with that than a ban, said the commission's boss, Philip Weikhardt. Besides, they are just so useful, which is why we don't carry our groceries home in, say, an Esky or a suitcase. More than 60 per cent are reused lining bins or for other household jobs such as keeping food fresh. Heavens, that might save lives. In fact, as the Environment Protection and Heritage Council concluded: "Plastic bags are popular with consumers and retailers as they are a functional, lightweight, strong, cheap, and hygienic way to transport food and other products."

So what was the Government's excuse for slapping on the 10 cent fine when it makes so little sense? I think I've found the answer on page 47 of Thwaites' statement: "(P)lastic bags are a symbol of our inefficient use of resources . . ." Note that the bags themselves aren't inefficient. They are bad because they are symbols of other things that are. And so must go. Mad. Next!

Next is Thwaites' promise to force energy retailers to buy 10 per cent of their power from green-approved solar and wind generators. Which sounds so earth-cuddling. Except for this: these huge mills and reflectors of "green" power wreck our views more than plastic bags ever could. And they'll crank out power that costs us big without cutting global warming by any amount anyone can measure. Figure it out for yourself: Most climate modellers -- such as Tom Wigley, senior scientist at the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research -- say even if all the Kyoto-approved cuts to the world's greenhouse gases were put in place right now, they would delay the rise in temperature predicted for 2100 by a measly six years. The heat expected in 2100 will come anyway in 2106.

Now imagine what small contribution wind-power will make in producing that tiny effect. Break that down even more: what share of that contribution is Victoria's? See? These wind farms we're building will make all the difference of a bat-squeak in a grand-final roar. But measure the cost, and not just in ruined views. The Government says the extra green power will make your power bills go up by $1 a month. In fact, the Opposition is correct in warning the true cost is more likely to become more than five times that -- and we'll still need coal-fired plants as backup for the days the wind doesn't blow. Or blows too hard. Again, this is just an expensive symbolic gesture to please green gods. We must pay so Thwaites can pray.

Next! Yes, there is a next because the one thing we're not running out of under this Government is irrationality. Next is Thwaites's manic determination to stop any future government from building a dam for Melbourne on the river once set aside for that very purpose. Not content with already having turned the dam reservation at Gippsland's Mitchell River into a national park, Thwaites now says the Government will pass a law to declare the Mitchell a heritage river that can never be dammed. Don't think he doesn't know he's locking up good drinking water that one day we will badly need. His statement admits the "Mitchell River (is) the largest free-flowing river without a dam in southeastern Australia". So, you'll think there must be a good reason to deny us this water when our dams are already less than half full, with dry Melbourne expecting a million more thirsty residents within 25 years.

And I've found them. Well, not good reasons, but the only ones Thwaites's allies at Melbourne Water can dream up to justify their minister's dam ban. Says Melbourne Water: "New dams do not create any new water." How about that for a reason not to build one? Might as well not have built any of Melbourne's dams, then. None of them create water either, do they? On struggles Melbourne Water: "If a new dam were built for Melbourne, it would need to be filled with water that is currently used by rural and regional communities and the environment."

Pardon me? How is water "used ... by the environment"? Who can tell if a river really is "using" water, or just wasting it? And if a river really is "using" water, who says I can't take it anyway? But isn't all river water "used by the environment"? Um, well, yes, actually. So this nonsense statement tells us we should empty every dam we've ever built and never drink another drop of water that could be "used" by the rivers instead.

Indeed, this Government is already pulling the plug on the reservoir at Lake Mokoan, and promising to send more water from our dams down half a dozen of our rivers to flow to waste in the sea. This, during our worst recorded drought. You'll find all this hard to believe, so go check the October issue of Melbourne Water's A Source magazine. There you'll find Thwaites's plan for the giant Thomson Dam, which holds 60 per cent of Melbourne's water but is less than 40 per cent full. Does Thwaites plan to plug any leaks? Cut back on releases into the river? Hell, no. His big idea is to empty the reservoir of an extra 8 billion litres of drinking water each year to baptise more fish and bless more plants. So, while sacred fish soak we mere humans must heed Preacher Thwaites' call last week to "save the planet" by taking "four-minute power showers instead of the average seven minutes".

I cannot be the only person to think all this is so irrational as to border on the mad. Less water, dearer power and higher grocery bills -- just to genuflect to the earth gods that seem to have moved into Spring St. One day, of course, the crunch will come. We'll have a real water crisis. We won't have enough power to drive export industries such as our aluminium smelters. We'll price ourselves out of competition with our neighbours. Pray then to the nature gods of John Thwaites, asking them to return our pious favours. Learn then how deaf they are. And how pitiless.



27 July, 2006

A view from close-up of a dysfunctional government health system

For many years I have been working as an emergency nurse at a busy Brisbane hospital. My first few years in emergency nursing were so rewarding. Every day I felt like the team I worked with was not only saving lives but also changing lives for the better. But soon the excitement wore off and the reality hit me of what was happening to the Queensland Health system. For years I have watched staff struggle to even keep their practice safe due to the conditions that we are enduring day in and day out. I have seen first-hand what it's like in the public health system. Let me tell you it's not pretty.

It is a harsh truth that there is a growing demand on the system and the money injected into it is not sufficient. Those who pay the price are not the politicians who decide how much money to allocate to health, but rather the likes of your loved ones and friends. There is increasing pressure on emergency departments due to many reasons:

* People are presenting with ailments that GPs could fix, but there are not enough bulk-billing services or after-hours clinics.

* Increasing lack of skilled staff in areas such as emergency due to high numbers of trained staff who are leaving the field.

* An increasing population, therefore an increasing number of people presenting to emergency departments, which means an increase in the patient-to-staff ratio.

* Not enough operational hospital beds. Hospitals throughout Brisbane have wards that are fully stocked but are empty of patients because there is no funding for staff.

Patients are waiting in emergency departments for up to 24 hours to get a hospital bed. Do you understand the implications of this? I am often forced to choose which patient should come off a trolley so that a more critically ill patient can have a bed. Sometimes I cannot take anyone off a trolley. Sick patients are put in chairs because there are simply not enough resources. I have watched patients have cardiac arrests on ambulance trolleys in the corridor while waiting for a bed in the emergency department. Ambulance officers can wait more than two hours to offload a patient at times.

I have seen nurses conduct cardiac tests on patients lying on the floor because there was absolutely no place to put this patient having a heart attack. Every day, patients wait far beyond their allocated triage time to receive medical treatment. As a triage nurse, it is terrifying to see someone with a potentially life-threatening condition wait up to three hours when they should be seen within 30 minutes.

The patients and their families become really angry about this and I don't blame them. Daily now I am verbally abused and so are my colleagues. It has become a frequent occurrence for an angry patient to threaten my life. I have seen the stress of working in this environment take its toll on many doctors and nurses, including me. Lots of excellent staff have left or are in the process of leaving because it seems the situation is only going to get worse.

Once we just had to deal and cope with the reality of what our jobs involved. Now we are not only trying to save lives, but also trying to do this within a system that is potentially killing our patients. I suggest to the state and federal governments that they send a representative to work a full 10 days straight with an emergency nurse - not just walk through an emergency department when you are campaigning. What true reality will that give you? It is obvious that you are not aware of the extremely dangerous conditions patients are being put in or I simply would not be writing this.

To the public I say, next time you feel like threatening a health professional, maybe instead you should consider voicing your anger in a letter to The Sunday Mail. It is time for you to speak up for your rights before someone you love is hurt by the public health system this State Government has created. I write this anonymously because I am bound to a contract with Queensland Health. A condition of my employment is that I don't disclose any information to the media or public regarding what happens within the hospital I work. So the sad truth is the public really have no idea what is happening behind closed doors - until it's happening to them.

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Australian Labor Party self-detonates over nukes

A deep split has opened in the Federal Opposition concerning the proposed scrapping of the party's no new uranium mines policy. A day after Labor leader Kim Beazley declared the long-standing policy should be dropped, two Labor premiers and a member of his own Cabinet openly attacked the backflip. Opposition Environment Minister Anthony Albanese said the move was bad policy and bad politics. "I oppose any watering-down of Labor's anti-uranium policy," he said. Mr Albanese said his position was strongly supported by party affiliates such as the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the Miscellaneous Workers Union. "Our existing policy serves us well," he said.

Mr Beazley told the Sydney Institute on Monday night he remained opposed to nuclear energy and uranium enrichment, but the no new mines policy was outdated, especially given Australia was already the third biggest uranium exporter in the world. Yesterday, he said the "vigorous debate" was to be expected.

A planned vote on the policy shift at Labor's national conference in April is looming as a defining moment in Mr Beazley's leadership. A defeat on the conference floor a few months out from the next election, scheduled for the second half of next year, would be a devastating blow for Mr Beazley's electoral prospects.

Western Australian Premier Alan Carpenter refused to back the change of direction, fearing it would lead to his state becoming a nuclear waste dump. "The majority of Western Australians support this position," he said. Former WA premier Carmen Lawrence also attacked Mr Beazley's position, although the Opposition Leader received welcome support from the Northern Territory's Chief Minister Clare Martin, Labor's resources spokesman Martin Ferguson and up-and-coming union leader Bill Shorten.

Prime Minister John Howard said Mr Beazley's policy backflip was a "no brainer". "There's never been any justification for discriminating between mines that were already in operation and those that weren't," Mr Howard said. "It was just a political compromise to settle a dispute within the Labor Party about 25 years ago. It made no policy sense and it's got no public rationale."

Greens leader Bob Brown said Australia was at greater risk of becoming a nuclear waste dump.

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Senator Santoro on public broadcaster bias

Excerpts from a recent talk

Recent weeks have seen terrorists yet again unleash their work of destruction. In Mumbai, as in London a year ago, indiscriminate slaughter has proven the terrorists' weapon of choice. And in the Middle East, Hezbollah and Hamas - evil twins born of, and sustained by, the same evil parents - have provoked violence, knowing full well the cost their naked aggression would impose not only on innocent Israelis but also on many tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians and Lebanese alike.

Faced with these outrages, it is not enough for us to shake our heads and hope that the world will set itself right. Rather, we must protect and assert the values that underpin our Australian society: values in which there can be no place for terrorism's supporters and fellow-travellers. To that end, we must affirm our commitment to those throughout the world who are on the front line of the fight against terrorism - a commitment which is not merely intellectual and emotional, but also practical: that is, we must contribute as fully as we can, to ensure that terrorism, and the vile threat it poses, is defeated and ultimately destroyed. The Howard Government's commitment to fighting terrorism has been and remains steadfast. Absolutely steadfast....

In an open, democratic society such as Australia's, the media plays a central role in shaping our understanding of the world. It is mainly through the media that we are informed; and it is from the media that we get many of the images and analyses that help determine the way we see the world. It is because the media is so important that we provide large-scale financial support to the ABC and SBS - so that the community will have access to the impartial information it needs and deserves. It is a clear indication of the on-going government support for the ABC that public broadcasting received a substantial funding increase in this year's triennial budget allocation.

I want to state clearly here tonight my belief that both the ABC and SBS in so many ways provide a valuable service to Australian public life. Australia would be a poorer place without so many aspects of the services provided by the ABC and SBS. However, the public broadcasters lets themselves down regularly by failing to apply the same rigour to the task of self-critique that they would claim to apply to the task of representing the truth to their audience. The ABC, for example, has a charter requirement to cater to all Australians. But if it was truly capable of honest self-assessment, the ABC would be more willing to recognise, acknowledge and correct the deep-seated and institutionalised bias that is manifested in its recent reportage of both domestic and international affairs. Some very recent examples I can quote here tonight are staggering.

Merely a week ago, Fran Kelly, the presenter of ABC Radio National's Breakfast program, chose to interview Robert Fisk on the events in the Middle East. Mr Fisk, she said, is a much praised and award winning journalist. And indeed he is - for he has received praise from no less a judge of character than Osama bin Laden himself, who, in a videotaped message on the eve of the 2004 presidential election in the U.S., commended Fisk by name for his incisive and "neutral" reporting. Did Ms Kelly disclose any of this? Obviously not.

As an aside at this point, I would like to quote the same Mr Fisk from an opinion column in The Canberra Times last week. In it, he quotes - without challenge or question - terrorist leader Sayed Hassan Nasrallah claiming that in its rocket attacks on Israel "Hezbollah originally wished to confine all casualties to the military". Fisk then goes on to criticise the - quote - "cruelty of Israel's response" - unquote - to those unprovoked and deadly attacks. It's no wonder that he attracts rave reviews from Osama bin Laden!

To take another example, let's consider for a minute SBS's coverage of the conflict in the Middle East on its flagship 6-30 PM news for Sunday July 16th. Israel's military actions in Lebanon were described as variously "murderous", "illegal" and "contrary to the laws of war". As for what Hezbollah had done, and its disastrous consequences for the people of Lebanon, the report SBS chose to air - and I emphasize the word chose - cutely said this: that Hezbollah "had some little explaining to do".

The Prime Minister John Howard decisively attempted to stop the rot on the AM program on July 14th when he was asked, and I quote: "Has Israel gone too far?" Mr Howard asked the reporter why the question must always be couched in terms of what Israel has done wrong and whether it should be condemned. He was, of course, appalled by the loss of life on both sides of the conflict. But - and to quote again - the Prime Minister said "the assumption that it was started by Israel in this particular instance is wrong".

That the Prime Minister should feel the need to highlight to a reporter the skewed nature of the question he was being asked is indicative of a deeply-ingrained culture - a reflex anti-Semitism - in parts of the media. Such questions betray a belief that Israel is always at fault and has no right to defend itself in any way against attacks from terrorists such as Hezbollah. To say that this is outrageous, and a disgrace, is an understatement.

What makes bias so dangerous, and also so difficult to control, is that it is not only what is said, but rather what is not said, that can be profoundly misleading. Take the reporting - again on the ABC's AM program - of the statement by Mr Chirac that Israel's response to the invasion of its territory and the kidnapping of its soldiers was "disproportionate". Now, how often did you hear Tony Eastely note that this was the same Mr Chirac who merely a few months earlier, had said that were France subjected to a terrorist attack, he would not rule out retaliating through a nuclear attack? The simple answer: not once.

Nor did Mr Eastely make the same point when Mr Putin criticised Israel's response to the kidnapping of its soldiers as "disproportionate" and called on Israel to negotiate with terrorists. Surely, one might have expected our national broadcaster to ask how consistent this was with Russia's own behaviour in Chechnya - but no, yet again, the ABC chose the convenient course of silence.

Equally, how often have you heard the terms "indiscriminate", "illegal", "contrary to international law" and "disproportionate" applied by the ABC and SBS not to Israel, but to Hezbollah's and Hamas' practice of shelling civilian towns in Israel? The answer: not once!

And when the ABC and SBS interviewed Lebanese Government Ministers, who merely washed their hands of Hezbollah's actions, did you hear the interviewer ask how Hezbollah has been allowed to build up its arsenal in Southern Lebanon? No, of course you didn't - because they wouldn't even have thought to put the question, much less to fearlessly pursue the point. Similarly, how balanced is it for the SBS to selectively run commentary from the BBC - commentary which is systematically and aggressively hostile to Israel - rather than say, also running the stories aired on US channels?

Another form of bias is sympathetic language. To give just one example, the ABC refers to Kassam Rockets fired at Israel by Palestinian terrorists as "home made rockets." This has the effect of makings the Palestinians seem like the underdogs, battling away against the might of the Israeli military with home made weapons. In truth - as you all know - Israel is a small country with a small population, virtually surrounded by hostile and in some cases increasingly fanatical countries. The terrorists it faces are well-organised, aggressive and persistently violent. They are financed and armed by Syria and Iran, which are countries far larger than Israel. They cynically exploit the Western media's desire to convey graphic images of casualties by locating themselves in civilian areas, ensuring that women and children will be among the worst victims of the conflicts they ignite and promote. They are hardly the home-made Dad's Army the media language would suggest and would want us all here in Australia to believe.

The decisions to portray events in this way smack of deliberate, thought through, deception. They are what biased journalists do when they want to hide from claims of bias, while still slanting the way the news is presented. A few token interviews, ritualistically presented, with Israeli spokesmen or commentators, or others more sympathetic to Israel's predicament, only make this deceitful purpose all the clearer.

Blatant bias about Israel is nothing new. But the scope of the problems is far broader. When terrorists targeted the London underground, time and again our public broadcasters' reports linked the terrorists' murderous actions to the Britain's participation in the Iraq war - suggesting, if not stating, that the ultimate fault lay not with the murderers but with the Blair government. The further, important, inference was that - just as Blair had brought the wrath of the terrorists onto London - so the Howard Government was exposing Australians to unacceptable risks: risks that, according to many ABC commentators, had already eventuated in the Bali bombings.

Given that, one might have expected the ABC and SBS to at least comment on the fact that India could hardly be claimed to have any role in Iraq - a war it had actively opposed. Rather, here was further proof, if more proof was needed, of terrorism's indiscriminate character. But far from it: no such thought was expressed....

I believe a media which fails to distinguish between good and evil, and which equates `balance' with studied relativism, fails its constituency: if we are not willing to call terrorism evil, then we have lost any sense of truth.

If some journalists on the ABC and SBS are frankly sympathetic to Hamas and Hezbollah, or even on balance believe they have the stronger case, why don't they have the courage to say so, rather than hiding behind a pretence of moral relativism? The cause of truth is not well served when those who have so much power to shape perceptions refuse to disclose, and be held accountable for, the perspective they take.



Pro-natal policy working in Australia

Australia has recently started paying mothers thousands for every baby born. "Having one for Mr Howard" is now sometimes mentioned (with a bit of irony) as a justification for having a baby in Australia's poorer suburbs



Treasurer Peter Costello has made a new plea to women to start procreating, saying Australia's economy and defence system depend upon it. Launching the Australian Bureau of Statistics census today, Mr Costello said boosting the nation's natural fertility rate was vital to Australia's long term health. He also urged fathers to take a bigger role in looking after their children, saying they had a vital part in helping their female partners return to work after giving birth.

The natural fertility rate - or effectively the number of children a woman has during their lifetime - has increased in the past year to 1.8 after falling from 3.55 to 1.73 since the 1960s. Australia was one of the few developed countries in the world to actually record an increase in the fertility rate. Other nations, particularly Japan and Russia, are facing huge falls in natural population in coming decades.

Mr Costello said there was both a social and economic imperative for Australia to build its natural population. He said depending on immigration to boost Australia's population threatened the composition of the population. And without a surge in the number of people in the country, the nation's economy and its infrastructure were at risk. "It is expensive to maintain a highly equipped high tech defence force on a small population base. Larger states find it easier," he said. "It is hard to maintain living standards in a country where population is declining. "It is hard to maintain an older population in a country where there is a shrinking base of people of working age."

Borrowing from former Labor immigration Arthur Calwell's call to populate or perish, Mr Costello said it was time to adopt a new call to population arms. "Perhaps our future attitude should be procreate and cherish," he said. Mr Costello said although the drop in the fertility rate had stopped, for now, getting it back to replacement level - 2.1 - was a very tall order. "Let's just see if we can stabilise the decline and turn it back up. It would be a great thing for our country," he said.

Mr Costello said flexibility in the workforce, especially enabling people to work from home, was one way of encouraging women to have more children. But another key issue was the role of fathers. He said even though more fathers were taking a greater role in child-rearing, there was still scope for improvement. "I think fathers are probably doing better, but I think the mothers of Australia will tell you there's room for improvement," he said. "Dads can take more responsibility in relation to children and minding them. And I do speak from personal experience."

Source



26 July, 2006

Australian Left slowly going nuclear



Kim Beazley has withdrawn his support for Labor's long-standing ban on new uranium mines in Australia, staking his leadership on a policy of more mining and exports. As part of his efforts to appear decisive, the Labor leader has set out an alternative to John Howard's plans for Australia to become "an energy superpower". The Opposition Leader said last night his change of position was aimed at lifting prosperity but he remained totally opposed to nuclear power in Australia because it was "not in our national interest". In the Sydney Institute speech, Mr Beazley also said he did not believe uranium enrichment would happen in Australia for years -- and not if he became prime minister.

His declaration brings forward the debate on one of Labor's most divisive issues, which threatens to split the ALP conference in April next year, only months before an election. "I believe the real issue is what we do with the uranium we mine -- not how many places we mine it," Mr Beazley said. "I will seek a change to my party's platform to replace the 'no new mines' policy with a new approach based on the strongest safeguards in the world. "Banning new uranium mines would not limit the export of Australian uranium to the world -- it would simply favour incumbent producers."

Mr Beazley's public position was immediately opposed by his frontbench environment spokesman and left-wing factional leader, Anthony Albanese. "I will be opposing this all the way to the national conference next year for all the reasons I have opposed it all along," Mr Albanese told The Australian last night. "I was consulted on this decision, I counselled against it and said I thought it was wrong."

Mr Beazley said Labor's new policy should focus on export controls rather than the mines themselves, because Australia was already the world's second biggest supplier of mined uranium and the expansion of South Australia's Olympic Dam mine would make us the biggest. He is proposing three tests for countries wanting to buy Australian uranium: accept the nuclear non-proliferation treaty; accept the world's strictest safeguards on the peaceful use of uranium; and join Australia's new diplomatic initiative against nuclear proliferation.

Environment Minister Ian Campbell said Mr Beazley had taken 20 years to do a backflip on uranium mining and it highlighted Labor confusion over a comprehensive energy and environment plan. Industry and Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane said Mr Beazley could not wait months before setting out the policy, but had to do it now. "If this is Mr Beazley's position, then we need to see the policy now and the West Australian and Queensland Labor Governments can act on it," Mr Macfarlane said.

But Labor's resources spokesman, Martin Ferguson, another left-winger, supports the Beazley decision. Australian Workers Union leader and Labor candidate Bill Shorten said yesterday Mr Beazley's change of position showed that the party was serious about winning the next election. Mr Shorten said Mr Beazley's intervention was significant and the policy would be changed at the ALP conference next year. "The policy of no new mines was a 'half-pregnant' policy and people got around it in South Australia by linking any number of mines with a road and calling it one mine," Mr Shorten said. "Kim's calling a spade a spade. The no new mines policy was an economic ball and chain around Labor's leg and doing away with it makes economic sense." Acting South Australian Premier Kevin Foley said the decision was sensible and "will give great confidence to the mining industry in South Australia". Mr Foley said: "We're on the verge of a mining boom, this is a great leadership decision by Kim Beazley supporting that shown by Mike Rann."

More here



Yet another stupid photo ban

Prime Minister John Howard has described a move to ban cameras from a popular Melbourne tourist precinct amid terrorism fears as "over the top". Southgate management has erected "no camera" signs around the Yarra River retail and dining centre after security guards tried to force tourists to delete photos taken of "obscure" parts of buildings. The police were called when they refused.

Mr Howard said he did not think the terrorist threat in Australia warranted such a move. "I think that is over the top," Mr Howard told ABC Radio. "Everybody's got a camera now. Does that mean a mobile phone camera? "I don't think the terrorist threat in this country warrants that. I really don't. "I don't know who did this and I don't wish to offend them, and I'm sure they mean well, but I do think that is going too far."

Southgate property manager Kathy Barrance said there had been a couple of incidents of tourists taking photos of obscure things. "It was just the facades of buildings, things that would be of no interest to put in a photo album," Ms Barrance said. The new signs banning cameras state that "Southgate thanks you for not taking photos within the complex unless approved by management". Ms Barrance said anyone found taking unauthorised photographs would be told to stop by roaming security guards. "It's policy around Southgate for security to ask people not to photograph," she said. Exceptions will be made for photos of such things as the Ophelia sculpture at the main entrance. "On the (Yarra) promenade, it's fine, or if it's of Ophelia," Ms Barrance said.

Asked if the restrictions were designed to deter terrorists from conducting reconnaissance, Ms Barrance said, "Yes, that type of thing." Victoria Police told the Herald Sun it was unlikely any police officers would order the removal of images from a camera under such circumstances. "I've checked with our privacy people and they said there's no law against taking photos," a spokeswoman said.

Southgate workers were stunned at the restrictions. "I think it's stupid," Oras Charcoal Souvlaki Bar employee John Tsarpalas said. "There's got to be better ways than that." One shop owner who did not wish to be named, questioned whether there were any vital targets in the complex. ''It's a bit much. I know they are trying to protect us, but it's just a food court," she said.

Source



Politicians forced to over-rule irresponsible medical regulators

Doctors love their own. This is an update of a report posted previously on July 7, 2006

Premier Peter Beattie will consider changing the law to stop some convicted criminals from practising medicine in Queensland after the Medical Board this week re-registered a convicted rapist and known drug addict. Despite pleading guilty in 2002 to rape, attempted rape, deprivation of liberty and assault, James Samuel Manwaring is considered fit to practise medicine in Queensland. Manwaring is now listed as a registered doctor on the Medical Board's public access website.

He had a history of drug addiction while practising in Australia, the US and UK. After pleading guilty in 2002 to a vicious attack against his then wife, he was told by District Court judge Brian Hoath that nothing could 'excuse your involvement in these offences'. However, the Health Practitioner's Tribunal last July allowed him to immediately apply for re-registration after he had met a stipulation to submit hair for drug testing. The tribunal further imposed 24 conditions on his registration which would be strictly monitored. The conditions are listed on the board's public access inter-net register.

The Premier called for a report into the board's decision after revelations earlier this month that Manwaring was eligible for re-registration. He demanded that the board explain its position saying he was 'buggered if he knew' how Manwaring could qualify to practise again. Mr Beattie last night said he had received advice that legislation could be passed to 'prevent candidates from being registered or re-registered if they have been in-volved in specific criminal or other activities which affect their fitness to practice'. "I will now seek advice from the Health Practitioners Registration Board on the possible effects of such legislation," he said.

Manwaring's registration was listed on the board's website at the weekend, to the horror of his victim, Pat Gillespie. Ms Gillespie, a former journalist and public servant, has voluntarily identified herself as his victim. She said she was stunned to hear of the board's decision to re-gister Manwaring, given his his-tory of drug abuse and violent criminal convictions. She called on Mr Beattie to ensure Manwaring would never practise in Queensland again. "Someone has to warn the public what Manwaring is like," she said. "The medical board will not tell the public that he is a convicted drug addict, rapist and wife-basher."

The Medical Board yesterday defended Dr Manwaring's registration, saying it was forced to implement the tribunal's decision if he met eligibility criteria. [A lie. They have a power of discretion]

The above article appeared in the Queensland "Gold Coast Bulletin" (p. 9) on 19 July, 2006



Government bleeds home-buyers

Brisbane home buyers pay almost $100,000 in taxes when buying a typical new home. The value of charges involved in building a home has skyrocketed over the past five years and, according to the results of a development industry inquiry to be released today, the situation is likely to get much worse. The taxes, combined with dramatic rises in the cost of land over the past five years, mean home ownership is slipping away from Queenslanders. According to the Urban Development Institute of Australia, the cost of vacant land has increased an average of 85 per cent over the past five years, adding an extra $100,000 to the cost of Brisbane blocks. If the trend continues unchecked, it could see the demise of the Australian dream of home ownership, according to UDIA Queensland chief executive Brian Stewart.

In Brisbane, the average new house and land package price of $432,375 includes State Government charges of $18,200, local government fees of $26,494 and Federal Government charges of $48,379. On the Gold Coast, $89,959 of the cost of a $432,375 house and land package is in taxes. It includes about $50,215 in Federal Government charges, $17,674 in State Government land tax and transfer duties and local government charges of $22,070. Statewide, the average new home cost of $383,990 includes about $86,313 in government charges.

Mr Stewart said single-income families and those earning less than the average household income of $62,000 appear to have been left behind. "They have the right to ask why a country such as Australia has one of the smallest urban footprints and yet some of the most expensive residential land in the world," Mr Stewart said in the report. He said previous generations of Australians had been taxed for infrastructure throughout their lives but now new home purchasers were being taxed at entry.

In the past five years, as average household incomes have increased at about four per cent a year, house prices in Redlands have increased about 19 per cent a year, Brisbane by 17 per cent a year, the Gold Coast by 13 per cent and the Sunshine Coast by 14 per cent a year. Across Queensland prices have increased an average 15 per cent a year seeing the average new house and land package cost $378,250, compared with $190,500, five years ago.

According to the UDIA report, one way of easing the affordability would be by reducing the value of raw land suitable for future development. If supply issues are not solved, land costs could nearly double over the next five years to an average of $389,000, claims researcher Urbis JHD, which says underestimating the level of supply by 10 per cent could drive prices higher than they are now. Property analyst Michael Matusik said research by his company has found much of the land that has been counted in the SEQ Regional Plan audit is not developable. "We need a proper independent count to find out what can really be developed," Mr Matusik said.

Source



25 July, 2006

Tales from "Australians" fleeing Lebanon

Most are in fact Lebanese who live in Lebanon but who have acquired Australian papers at some stage



A few presses on her mobile phone keypad to look at the photos stored inside quash any doubts Jouliana Yazbeck has about fleeing Beirut. Captured on the screen is the exact moment that convinced the Sydney student, 21, and her cousins Laila and Alex Ajaka to abandon their Lebanon holiday. Snapped from the balcony of their uncle's house, the alarming image shows a bomb blast which killed two people just streets away. Within an hour of taking the picture at about 7am Lebanon time on July 18, the trio decided to leave the emerging war-zone as fast as they could....

They made their way to Ajaltoun, and then to a port where they were able to board an Australian-chartered ferry to Turkey. They remained in the Turkish port of Mersin yesterday, trying to work out the best way to get home. They were considering an Australian Government offer of a flight from Ankara to Frankfurt with a three-day wait before hitting Australian soil, but were also investigating other options.....

Also trying to work out how to get home yesterday was the Bazzi family, of Sydney. Mother-of-four Ahlam Bazzi was one of 20 members of her family to spend seven nights and eight days in a basement room of a friend's house to avoid bomb attacks.

More here



Another killer doctor in a Queensland public hospital

Officials at one of Queensland's top hospitals approached the family of a dead patient to offer an out-of-court settlement after discovering that her surgeon -- a respected professor of medicine -- had a questionable safety record. Nardia Annette Cvitic, a 31-year-old mother of two, died from massive blood loss and organ failure after a hysterectomy performed by Bruce Ward at the Mater Hospital in 2002. A coronial inquest has heard that the operating theatre after Cvitic's operation resembled the scene of the Granville train disaster in NSW in the 1970s. A drain inserted into her pelvic area apparently punctured a major vein, a mistake compounded by Dr Ward wrongly prescribing a blood-thinning agent.

Documents obtained by The Australian show that guardians for Cvitic's two sons were approached by Mater officials in early 2003 and encouraged to make a medical negligence claim for "loss of dependency". The Mater had earlier commissioned a surgical audit from two professors who examined Dr Ward's treatment of 10 patients, including Cvitic, and warned "something is radically wrong and it cannot continue". Russell Strong and Alex Crandon identified problems with Dr Ward's surgical techniques, communication skills, post-operative care and judgment.

After being urged to pursue a claim, lawyers for Cvitic's family entered negotiations with Dr Ward's three employers -- the Mater, the Queensland Government and the University of Queensland -- and sought medical and psychiatric opinions on the impact Cvitic's death had on her two young sons. But it was not until Deputy State Coroner Christine Clements began public hearings in March this year that the claim was accelerated, with a mediation hearing in April setting out the proposed settlement amounts.

District Court judge Helen O'Sullivan approved the settlement last week, a legal requirement given the age of the beneficiaries. Cvitic's youngest son, a 10-year-old diagnosed after his mother's death with Asperger's syndrome, will have $115,000 held in trust, while her eldest son, 16, will have $60,000 held in trust. Dr Ward's employers will pay legal and administration costs, but the figures represent only what Cvitic would have provided for her children had she not died, and do not cover damages or compensation, even though dependency claims are usually an acknowledgement of negligence.

Ms Clements -- who will decide whether Dr Ward should face manslaughter or criminal negligence charges over Cvitic's death -- has yet to set a date for the resumption of public hearings in the inquest. Dr Ward's lawyers could not be contacted last night, nor could members of Cvitic's family. Dr Ward was a professor at the University of Queensland for 10 years but left in 2003. While the Medical Board of Queensland has maintained his registration, he has lost the right to operate at the Mater and other public hospitals, but is understood to still work at Brisbane's Sunnybank Private Hospital.

Australian Lawyers Alliance state president-elect Ian Brown said dependency claims were capped by the state Government. "Dependency claims, just like all others, are governed by the unfair restrictions of the liability reforms," Mr Brown said.

Source



Billionaire still likes certain assets

Most of Australia has seen pictures of the assets concerned. The lady was formerly a "swimsuit model"



The Packer circle is abuzz with speculation that James Packer and ex-wife Jodhi Meares are working towards a romantic reconciliation. Sources close to the couple say the pair recently planned to rendezvous abroad, possibly in Britain where Packer has been enjoying the best of England's polo season.

Back home, Packer's recent ex-girlfriend Erica Baxter has confided to friends that she was unhappy when her former flame told her to "get used to the idea" of him spending time with Meares in Britain.

Baxter was recently presented with a stunning kiss-off from Packer - a $4.5 million Vaucluse house - but sources say she is still hoping to recapture the heart of Australia's $7 billion man and has been earnestly keeping up her studies with the Church of Scientology.

Source



Low-income Australian families turn to private schools

It tells you a lot about the standards prevailing in most government schools

One in six children at independent schools is from a low-income family, a report on social trends has found. Data collected for 2003-04 and published in the Australian Bureau of Statistics report Australian Social Trends 2006 shows 16 per cent of students at independent secondary schools and 17 per cent of Catholic school students were from low-income families. More than one-quarter of students in government schools were from low-income households and 8 per cent were from high-income-earning families. The proportion of students from high-income households at independent schools was 26 per cent, compared with 16 per cent at Catholic schools.

The head of Christian Schools Australia, Stephen O'Doherty, said 80 per cent of students in schools belonging to the organisation were from families in the bottom half of income groups. "It is not the high-income families that have driven enrolments at all. The growth of enrolments in Christian schools are people in low income groups," he said. "It tells us that low-income families will spend money on education rather than other things. People will work two jobs and the perception is that they get quality education from non-government schools, values and discipline." Mr O'Doherty said even non-church goers were seeking "biblically-grounded values".

The Federal Government is reviewing its formula for funding private schools. Mr O'Doherty said the low-fee schools could become unaffordable for low-income families unless the Government addressed the way its formula was being applied. Brian Croke, who heads the Catholic Education Commission NSW, said the proportion of families who could afford to send their children to Catholic and independent schools was declining. Both were looking at expanding their scholarship programs to ensure low-income families were not shut out.

The report also shows that parents spent an average of $8690 on independent secondary school fees. Government secondary school fees were about $390. Fees at Catholic secondary schools averaged $3600. The Government was contributing an average of $10,000 for each student in public schools, almost double the $5600 it spent on students in private schools. Parents contributed more than $400 million in school fees and donations to government schools. Independent schools received more than half, and Catholic schools 22 per cent of their funding from fees and charges.

The data confirms the drift from public to private schools: 67.1 per cent of students were in government schools last year, against 71 per cent in 1995. The proportion of students in non-government schools has grown from 29 per cent in 1995 to 32.9 per cent last year. In NSW, government school enrolments fell from 749,880 in 2003 to 740,439 in 2005. Numbers in non-government schools grew from 357,456 to 367,247. Between 1995 and 2005 the total number of schools nationally fell by 25 as a result of amalgamations and closures. The number of independent schools increased by almost 20 per cent in that time.

Source



24 July, 2006

Leftists reject the law of supply and demand

Labor has dismissed as nonsense suggestions a lower minimum wage would have made room for an extra half a million Australian jobs over the past decade.

A key adviser to the new Fair Pay Commission, which now has responsibility for setting the wages of the nation's lowest paid workers, has released his own modelling of the impact of minimum wage rises. Phil Lewis, an economist at the University of Canberra, said that if the minimum wage had been frozen at the 1996 rate, there would be 650,000 more jobs now. If it had merely kept pace with inflation, there would be 290,000 more jobs, he told The Australian newspaper. In 1997, the minimum wage was $359.40 per week. Professor Lewis said any rise above the current minimum wage of $484.40 a week would hurt the job prospects of low skilled workers.

But Labor says there is no magic connection between increases in the minimum wage and overall employment. "There is no link between increasing employment and increasing the minimum wage," Labor's industrial relations spokesman Stephen Smith said in Perth. "This is an economic and a social nonsense. It belies the Australian experience, it belies the experience in the United Kingdom and the United States, and it is also counter to the OECD employment outlook report of 2006 of a month or so ago," he said.

Unions warned hundreds of thousands of poor, working Australians would be struggling if Prof Lewis had his way. "That's less than $400 a week to pay the rent or mortgage, meet utility bills, and cover food, clothing and transport when they're working a 38-hour week," ACTU president Sharan Burrow said. "I don't think any Australian would think that would be fair or possible." Ms Burrow said the former Industrial Relations Commission's (IRC) final minimum wage decision last year found adjusting the rate would do little or nothing to diminish job opportunities.

The IRC's minimum wage setting role was thrown out by the federal government's controversial new industrial relations regime. The Fair Pay Commission was expected to hand down its first decision on the minimum wage - affecting 2.5 million Australians - before the end of November.

Today, it sought to distance itself from its own adviser's views. "(Chairman Ian) Harper stressed that the views expressed in The Australian today are Professor Lewis' own opinions and should not be seen as reflecting the views of the Australian Fair Pay Commission," the body said. The commission was still seeking submissions on the minimum wage up until July 28 and was yet to make a decision, it said. But it also acknowledged it had commissioned Prof Lewis' research and said it would be considered.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister John Howard used a speech to the New South Wales Liberal Party state conference to reiterate a commitment to his industrial relations changes and rail against Labor's "fear" campaign. The scrapping of unfair dismissal protection for employees would create "thousands of new jobs", he told the conference in Sydney. Mr Howard said Labor's promise to abandon individual contracts, or Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs), would be folly, particularly for the mining industry. Opposition Leader Kim Beazley's industrial relations policy was "even more pro-union" than former prime minister Paul Keating's, he said.

Source



Another botched government computer project

The Federal government finally abandoned the computer system that was supposed to run our new submarines. When will the Queensland State government wise up?

A State Government management project that was supposed to save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars will instead be almost $100 million in the red by 2008. An army of 500 consultants and public servants is being paid up to $1 million a day to deliver the Shared Service Initiative, which is already overdue and will not be completed for years. The project, expected to save the Government $100 million a year, will have cost Queensland taxpayers $219 million by December 2008, with a return of just $120 million in operational savings.

The much-vaunted project, introduced by then-treasurer Terry Mackenroth in 2003, involves an overhaul of information and communication technology systems across all government departments. But a source told The Sunday Mail the project was "fast becoming a sink-hole for government funds without delivering on time, on budget or delivering the benefits promised". The insider revealed Corp Tech, a unit within Queensland Treasury, had about 500 people working on developing new finance, human resources and IT management systems. "A massive percentage of these are contractors receiving from $1500 to over $2500 per day," the source said. About 1250 public service positions would be controversially axed as part of the project but predicted yearly savings of $100 million have failed to materialise.

Deputy Premier and Treasurer Anna Bligh yesterday told The Sunday Mail total savings from the project to date were $43 million. During estimates committee hearings this month, Ms Bligh said the project had saved just $26.4 million in the past financial year. She predicted further savings of $18.8 million in 2006-07 and up to $58.9 million in 2007-08. "Those savings reflect the cost of delivering services through this structure as opposed to the cost under the old structure," she said.

It is believed delays in implementing new IT systems have led to cost blow-outs. Documents leaked to The Sunday Mail reveal the finance solutions phase of the project was supposed to be up and running by December last year, but was delayed until July 1 this year. The human resources system was also set for release in December, but sources said a scaled-back version would not happen until at least February next year, with December 2008 nominated as more realistic. "While this mismanagement is occurring, the Corp Tech executive director and program director have travelled to Europe and Canada at taxpayer expense," the insider said.

In a four-page response to questions by The Sunday Mail, Ms Bligh said the project was not running late. However, she acknowledged that last year the "initial time frame was revised when the complexity of the project was clearer".

Coalition treasury spokesman Bob Quinn slammed the project as a failure. "If Anna Bligh can't deliver projects in her own department on time and under budget, then she has Buckley's chance of managing the finances of this state," he said. "This project was supposed to save Queenslanders money but, like most of the Beattie Government's schemes, it has ended up robbing us of preciously needed resources."

Ms Bligh said the project would be investigated by the Government's new public sector razor gang, headed by Service Delivery and Performance Commission chief Leo Keliher. She said a completion date of December next year had been set for all departments, except health, which had been added to the project and would be finished by December 2008. "It ranks as one of the largest ICT (information and communication technology) programs currently under way in Australia," she said. [Lucky old Queensland] Ms Bligh said the project had an operating budget of $94 million and capital investment of $125 million. She said the project was expected to achieve its savings target of $100 million a year from 2010-11.

Source



'Third World' health care in Queensland government hospitals

Hospital patients are waiting on trolleys, in chairs and even on the floor for up to 24 hours before a bed is available at a Brisbane emergency department. Staff at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital are struggling with 30 per cent more patients to treat than they have beds for. They have told the Australian Medical Association that all 950 beds are full and capacity is overflowing. AMA president Dr Zelle Hodge said hospitals needed to operate at no more than 85 per cent capacity in order to be safe and to cope. "By operating at 130 per cent capacity, the Royal Brisbane Hospital is making conditions unsafe for patients and pushing staff beyond their limits," she said. "This is distressing for patients and their families, and is not the treatment they should be subjected to. "There are a lot of better ways the Government could spend taxpayers' money rather than advertising."

A nurse at one Brisbane hospital, who did not want to be named for fear of losing her job, said emergency patients were being put in extreme danger. "I have watched patients have cardiac arrests on ambulance trolleys in the corridor while waiting for a bed in the emergency department," she said. "Everyday patients wait far beyond their allocated time to receive treatment."

Government targets say treatment should be given within 30 minutes but a Federal Government annual report published this month shows that in 2004-05, Queensland emergency departments treated just 58 per cent of emergency patients within the recommended time. This month the Beattie Government boasted of more hospital beds and shorter waiting times in a glossy brochure "Keeping Our Promise" mailed at a cost of more than $300,000. Between December 2005 and May this year, the Government spent almost $2 million of taxpayers' money to reassure people about the health system is meeting their needs.

In contrast, Queensland Health reports released in April show patients are also waiting longer than the clinically desirable time for scheduled operations. Many who require urgent surgery are waiting up to a year, despite guidelines saying the operation should be carried out in 30 days.

Opposition health spokesman Dr Bruce Flegg said the Government must stop wasting money on publicity. "Clearly the situation with emergency departments has not improved, and no amount of spin and glossy brochures is going to make any difference," he said. Health Minister Stephen Robertson denied the occupancy rate at the Royal Brisbane had ever reached 130 per cent. He said the Government was investing $280.3 million into emergency departments over five years, and would increase the number of beds across the state by 860 over three years.

Source



Breastbeating about naughty music videos

Women in dog collars, make-believe pimps and prostitutes . . . welcome to children's breakfast television in Australia. Despite being shown in the supposedly stringent G-classified timeslot of 6am-10am Saturday and Sunday, Australian music video programs are feeding their young viewers a barrage of offensive material. A loophole in the classification system means degrading and sexist music video clips are approved as suitable viewing for children without adult supervision. While the Commercial Television Code of Practice restricts violence, nudity, sexual acts and swearing, there is no regulation of sexist or demeaning depictions of men or women. Parents, community groups, the Federal Opposition, psychologists and even music video producers say the self-regulated system has failed.



Offensive clips include Christina Aguilera (pictured) simulating masturbation and fighting other girls, and the Pussycat Dolls stripping and asking Snoop Dogg to "loosen their buttons". [LOL] The music director for PG-rated pay TV music station Channel V, Drew Michel, said the station regularly showed a video for the song Pimp by 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg, that included women in dog collars.

But community organisation Young Media Australia wants clips like this banned from children's television. "Having women led around in dog collars is degrading, sexist material," YMA president Jane Roberts said. "There is a whole generation of young Australians who think this is normal behaviour." Family Council of Queensland president Alan Baker said parents should be "up in arms". "We are calling on the Federal Government to tighten laws regarding what can be shown during children's timeslots so that sexist or degrading images and lyrics cannot be shown." Queensland University of Technology children and media commentator Susan Hetherington agreed that the clips were inappropriate.

Source



23 July, 2006

Nationwide demonstrations today to protest years of terrorist attacks on Israel

Whoops! Got it wrong. Killing Jews is fine. Muslims can do anything they like and no-one is allowed even to criticise them for it

Tens of thousands of people are expected to march through the Sydney CBD today calling for an end to Israel's attacks on Lebanon and Palestine. The protest is expected to start at Town Hall at midday and move along George Street to King Street and into Martin Place. Keysar Trad, from the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, said despite a last-minute change of venue and expected bad weather, up to 20,000 people would turn out for the protest. "We think there will be anywhere between 10,000 and 20,000 people," Mr Trad said. "There could be a lot more - if we didn't have these dramas, I would expect maybe 100,000."

Mr Trad said he expected to see many mothers and children taking part in the march after seeing images of the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon. "One thing that has really been heartbreaking is the number of mothers who have called us to join the rally after seeing the images of all those children dying," he said. Mr Trad said the message of the protest would be one of peace. "We just want to give a message that peace is the only solution for the world community," he said. "It's just a terrible, terrible human catastrophe that's taken place as a result of the bombing. We just have to do what we can to put an end to it."

Mr Trad promised the rally would be a peaceful one. "We will not tolerate any violence, we will not tolerate any racism, we will not tolerate anything that does not serve the cause of peace." [But no problem to tolerate missiles raining down on Israel, of course]

Source



Now it's Australia getting called a pawn of Israel

Delays in repatriating Lebanese-Australians from Lebanon showed Canberra was not only pandering to Israel but exhibiting racism towards people of Arabic decent, a prominent Australian Muslim said yesterday. Keyser Trad, founder of the Islamic Friendship Association, said the government of Prime Minister John Howard would have responded more swiftly if the crisis had been elsewhere. "I'm sure they would have acted a lot quicker if it wasn't Lebanon and people of Lebanese background," Trad said. "You just have to look at the way they reacted to other crises - Bali and East Timor - they used all their resources to get people out quickly." There are believed to be 25,000 Australian citizens in Lebanon, almost all of Lebanese descent and many with dual nationality.

But while the US and European countries have managed to repatriate thousands of their citizens, Australia has so far brought home fewer than 200 of its nationals. "This government is initiating racism here," Trad told Australia's AAP news agency. "There are signs of the federal government breeding racism." Trad said Austr