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31 May, 2006

Australian welfare system bankrolls terrorist suspects

Post lifted from Libertarian.org

Thanks to Tim Blair, we learn the heart warming news that the benefits of multicultural diversity have not been lost on Centrelink case officers

AUSTRALIA'S 22 terror suspects and their families receive more than $1 million a year in taxpayer-funded welfare and legal aid.

And simply because the men were locked up, their families received a social security pay rise of as much as $1700 a year. One of the jailed Melbourne men, Abdul Nacer Benbrika -- leader of a radical group of Islamists -- has been in Australia for 10 years and has never had a job.

Mr Benbrika was among 13 Melbourne men charged with belonging to a terrorist organisation.
Of Algerian descent, he has a Lebanese-born wife and seven children.

This is a smashing victory for tolerance; my innards are positively glowing as we speak. Why should any sovereign country be allowed put its own interests before the well-being of unemployable jihadists who breed like vermin?

Under Centrelink rules, she is entitled to almost $50,000 a year in welfare while her husband is in prison, awaiting trial.

Ahmed Raad, another Melbourne suspect, has a child and his wife is entitled to about $21,500 a year, as are the wives of Ezzit Raad and Abdullah Merhi.

The wife of another suspect, Hany Taha, who has three children, is entitled to up to $30,000 a year.

The fact that worthless scum such as Benbrika and his confederates are allowed to receive so much as a dime from the taxpayer, let alone being considered even remotely applicable as candidates for residency, is a calculated insult to all productive citizens of this country.

Not only is our welfare system - estimated to cost a record $91 billion this year according to treasury documents - an utter joke, our immigration policies are nothing short of a train wreck. What this amounts to is a conscious policy of reverse eugenics. The stupider and less useful to society you are, the more the government pays you to breed. And the more talented and fruitful you are, the more cash you must fork out (which could be better spent passing on your genes to a worthy cause) to facilitate morons to rear an underclass of idiots.

In God's name, what self-respecting civilisation runs such insane, suicidal policies? You would think our government, hell-bent on punishing virtue and rewarding pathology, was controlled by a Chinese fifth column (speaking of the Chinese - you will freeze in hell before they ever copy our abominable social policies), so dedicated it is to ruining whatever future this country might otherwise have enjoyed as an independent, sovereign, entity.

And the connection between the immigration of unassimilable aliens and the welfare state has never been more plain. As long as Australia remains a country with virtually unlimited voting franchise, the awful truth is that importing people with sub-average talents will lead directly to bigger government - the foreign mendicants clearly have every incentive to vote en masse for whichever electoral coalition is most dedicated to mulcting the economically productive while continuing to import large numbers of ne'er-do-wells.



Australia to the rescue yet again



East Timor, The Solomons and now a second time in Indonesia. Strange that i can remember no offers of help from abroad for our own cyclone disaster in north Queensland. But our local North Queenslanders helped themselves pretty well anyway

The first of a team of Australian disaster and medical experts will arrive in Indonesia today to begin work in the earthquake-ravaged city of Yogyakarta. More than 5400 people were killed, many thousands more injured and as many as 200,000 left homeless when the 6.3 magnitude quake struck on Saturday. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who today described the situation as "incredibly severe", said the Government had committed a large contingent of experts to help. "What we are doing is we have sent a seven-person AusAID team that will be in place in Yogyakarta today to establish a support base for co-ordination, logistics and the medical support presence, and we are sending a health team in there of 27 medical and surgical personnel," he told ABC Radio. "There will be surgeons, anaesthetists, operating staff, disaster medicine specialists and so on."

Australia is one of many nations to dispatch aid for the tens of thousands of earthquake victims as the United Nations issued an urgent call for field hospitals, medical supplies and tents. UN emergency relief co-ordinator Jan Egeland, who helped oversee the tsunami relief in Indonesia's Aceh province, said yesterday the effort should be quicker in reaching quake victims and rebuilding on the country's main Java island. "This time I think it's going to be easier because Java is not as remote as Aceh," he said. "We are now able to help in a matter of hours after an earthquake strikes," Mr Egeland said. "We are better co-ordinated now than ever before."

But as survivors spent a third night in the open in pelting rain and the injured spilled out of overcrowded hospitals, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono called for better co-ordination. "We have to improve co-ordination, both between the government and the regions, from one region and another, and co-ordination with foreign parties and non-governmental organisations," he said yesterday in Yogyakarta, the main city in the disaster zone.

Up to 25,000 houses were reported damaged and 4000 of them were destroyed, the UN humanitarian co-ordination office (OCHA) said. The UN Children's Fund (Unicef) estimated 100,000 people may be homeless. Volunteers and foreign rescue teams yesterday started distributing emergency rations, clean drinking water, tents and hygiene kits and the UN set up a co-ordination centre at Yogyakarta airport to organise the flow of help. "Our priorities are very much in health, hygiene and water," Unicef spokesman John Budd said.

Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for OCHA, which co-ordinated the Geneva meeting, said the Red Cross was ready to deliver 10,000 tents, but that more would be needed. "The most urgent needs to be delivered within three days are three field hospitals, with a capacity of 100 beds each, medical supplies mostly for orthopaedic treatment, generators, tents and shelter items," she said.

International agencies have maintained a heavy presence in Indonesia since the December 2004 quake and tsunami left 168,000 dead in Aceh province. That relief effort was sharply criticised after inappropriate supplies were flown in and bottlenecks hampered delivery. Throughout yesterday desperate victims stood along the sides of roads, holding up pails and boxes to beg for money and waving signs asking for mercy. Many had written on their T-shirts: "Help Me." Some people expressed anger that relief was not coming more quickly. The Government declared a three-month state of emergency in the zone, where wooden beams from collapsed dwellings stuck up like toothpicks, and broken ceiling tiles and bricks littered the ground.

More here



The "race card" gets an airing in Australia

A motel manager rents out a room to two people -- one black and one white -- but backs off when four people turn up to occupy the room. That's racism?

A Sunshine Coast motel is at the centre of a race row after being accused of refusing to allow a black couple who had booked accommodation to stay the night. Beenleigh couple Trevor Johnson and Colleen Malone, both 28, have lodged a complaint with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission claiming the motel refused to honour their booking because of their race. The couple, who are of Aboriginal and Pacific Islander descent, claim the motel manager told them: "I don't have to put up with people like you."

Ms Malone said the experience had demoralised them and cost them their dignity in front of their friends, who they had been visiting. "I felt so small. I know it was because I was dark," Mr Johnson said. Ms Malone said she was with a white girlfriend when she went into the motel to book a room in Mr Johnson's name. The motel manager, who cannot be named, accepted a $110 deposit.

But when Ms Malone was joined by Mr Johnson and her friend's partner, the four were refused entry to the room. Mr Johnson claims the manager threatened to phone the police if they did not leave and refused to refund their deposit. "I said to her I was going to call the police, instead. They were dumbfounded when they arrived," he said. "The police advised us she wasn't going to give our money back. We advised her we were going to take her to court."

Ms Malone said they had since been offered $1000 by the manager to "go away" but they refused the money because what they really wanted was an apology. Mr Johnson said he had contacted a lawyer and intended to pursue the matter.

In a letter to the commission, the manager confirmed she had accepted a booking for the couple but claimed she had asked only "the extra people" to leave. "At no stage did I ask all to leave, and as the four chose to leave, that is the decision they made," she said.

"I did not see any reason to refund money as most nights of the year are busy with us, and particularly weekends." The manager said she and her husband had been in the industry as owners and managers for 16 years and could not have survived with "any discriminatory inclination". She said she was offended by the accusations.

The above article appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on May 28, 2006



IN BRIEF

Smart army man trumps scare-mongering media



An Australian military commander has tried to ensure truth does not become a casualty of conflict in East Timor, but embarrassed a TV network in the process. Australian commander in East Timor Brigadier Michael Slater appeared this morning in a live cross from Dili to the Nine Network's Today show, with helmeted and heavily armed Australian soldiers standing behind him. He was pressed by Today host Jessica Rowe about whether Dili really was as safe as the Australian military claimed, given the presence of armed soldiers at his shoulder. Pausing briefly, Brig Slater replied: "Jessica I feel quite safe, yes, but not because I've got these armed soldiers behind me that were put there by your stage manager here to make it look good. "I don't need these guys here. "It is not safe on the streets, as it is back home in Sydney or Brisbane - no it's not, if it was we wouldn't be here. But things are getting better every day."

Rowe apologised, saying she didn't realise the guards had been placed specifically for the interview. But Rowe ran into more trouble when she persisted with her line of questioning, and referred to footage of looting and violence. Brig Slater told her the pictures were a "couple of days old". TV rival the Seven Network gleefully circulated grabs of the interview this morning, enjoying an element of revenge after Nine's taunting over its exclusive interview with the Beaconsfield mine survivors.

Source



Corruption at Telstra

French technology giant Alcatel has admitted that it made a "strategic error" in keeping prices for its internet equipment high, costing Telstra hundred of millions of dollars. Less than a week after a leaked Telstra document claimed it had been overcharged, Alcatel's Australia/New Zealand chief Hilary Mine said the company failed to bring prices down, in line with the global market, for a 1999 contract. Under Telstra's Data Mode of Operation (DMO) project, Alcatel was handed the contract, worth as much as $1 billion, to supply DSL equipment, which turns Telstra copper wires into high-speed data connections. By 2003 Telstra, fed up with Alcatel's prices, named NEC as its new DSL provider, and last year, Ericsson was named as a third supplier....

Last week, an internal Telstra document outlining 15 years of problems with Alcatel was tabled at a Senate hearing. The document was prepared by senior Telstra executives concerned that Alcatel had been handed the whole of a $3.4 billion deal to build a residential fibre and DSL network. Industry sources said Alcatel's pricing was up to 40 per cent higher than its rivals. Telstra's chairman Donald McGauchie last week defended the shortened tender process introduced by chief executive Sol Trujillo, which some insiders have described as secretive and hasty....

Alcatel was recently handed a deal worth an undisclosed sum to provide computer-based "soft switches", despite Telstra's previous management deciding to give that work to rival Lucent Technologies after a long testing process. Telstra is in the process of choosing a new vendor for an upgrade to its long-distance optical networks, and has been discussing the project with Alcatel, according to insiders. Senior networks executive Bill Felix is believed to have raised concerns about Alcatel's capability in the area before he left abruptly last week. "With fixed-line projects, it doesn't matter what the question is - the answer is Alcatel," a source familiar with Telstra's network projects said yesterday....

More here



Nobel winner urges more tax cuts



When one of the world's most respected economists meets Federal Treasurer Peter Costello tomorrow he says he will advocate more income tax cuts for workers. US-based economist Professor Edward C. Prescott, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2004, said he would put the case for the cuts to Mr Costello. "The US has room for more tax cuts too," Professor Prescott said today, after delivering a speech at the University of New South Wales. "When you move to a savings rather than a tax and transfer system, a pay-as-you-go type system, you reduce government expenditure by those responsibilities," he said. "The gain from moving to that is it doesn't distort the ... time allocated between market and non-market activities and time is the most precious commodity."

Professor Prescott, who is the W.P. Carey Professor at Arizona State University and the senior monetary adviser for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said cutting tax increased productivity in the labour market by providing an incentive to work. "Europe, with its tax and transfer system to finance retirement and health, is throwing away 25 per cent of its output," he said. "The Europeans only work about 70 per cent of the Australians or the Chileans or the New Zealanders or the Japanese. Why? They have high tax rates."

More here



Unbelievable police bureaucracy

Tasmania Police is set to break the record for project delays, with a digital radio network first put to tender in 1995 unlikely to be delivered before 2008. Moves to replace the litigation-plagued Tasmanian Mobile Radio Network have been hit by delays, forcing police to continue using the old analogue network. Angry officers working on the analogue system say radio dropouts and outdated technology are putting public safety as risk.

The Police Association has warned that the quality on the analogue network is poor, but the service has admitted that a network to replace one dumped in 2004 after officers complained of poor coverage, will not go to tender until later this year, making it unlikely to be delivered next year as promised. "We've been told it will be February 2007, so we'd be pretty cranky if it was 2008," Police Association president Sergeant Randolph Wierenga said. Deputy Commissioner Jack Johnston, who said last year that he expected to go to tender in August 2005, now says specifications will be available some time this year.....

More here



Another ID card fizzler

The Medicare smartcard launched in Tasmania two years ago has been quietly scrapped, a Senate estimates hearing has been told. More than $4.5 million was spent on developing the card, which featured a microchip with far greater data capacity than the magnetic strips on current Medicare cards. Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott launched the smartcard in Launceston in 2004 as part of the now stalled HealthConnect electronic patient record program. It is understood only 1 per cent of eligible Tasmanians expressed interest in registering for the card.

Labor Party Queensland Senator Claire Moore said news that the program had ended was a surprise. "We were informed by Human Services officials that the Tasmanian trial had ended as of last Thursday, and that the lessons from it would flow into the wider access card project," Ms Moore said. "I'm wondering when they would have got around to telling us if we hadn't asked the question."

Since the smartcard was developed, Medicare Australia has become part of the Human Services mega-department, which is planning its own multiple-agency card. A spokeswoman for Human Services Minister Joe Hockey said no final decision had been made on the card, but the Tasmanian trial was being reassessed in light of Government approval for the access card. "We're trying to work out how to manage the transition," she said. "We don't want people to come in and register for the Medicare smartcard and then have to get a new one when the access card is up and running. "We may be in a position to announce what's happening later in the week."

More here



The East Timor Crisis explained

Mark Aarons explains. Mark is the son of Australia's long time Communist party boss Laurie Aarons. Mark took over the party when Laurie died but subsequently dissolved the party. He is in a rare position to know the inner workings of East Timor's Marxist politics. Disclosure: Mark and I once had girlfriends who were sisters



The crisis in East Timor is a dangerous watershed for the world's youngest nation. Although distressing in its violence and bloodshed, Timorese democracy can survive. But the country's leadership must take stock of the upheaval's causes and remove the stultifying control of political, civic and economic life by Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri's dominant faction within Fretilin, which won 57 per cent of the vote at the country's first election. The crisis also affects supporters of the Timor's independence struggle over the past three decades. Sections of the Australian Left, which was active (with other Australians) in promoting the cause of independence, need to do some serious stocktaking if they are to assist Timor in the long term.

There needs to be recognition that Alkatiri and some of his supporters have a poor record when it comes to democracy. Since its inception in 1974, Fretilin has been a broad front representing social democratic, Marxist and nationalist tendencies. Founding member and current Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta was a social democrat, while others adopted a fundamentalist Marxist platform.

Indonesia's brutal offensives of 1977-78 eliminated the internal leadership, leaving Marxist-inclined leaders such as Alkatiri competing for domination of the exile community with international spokesman Ramos-Horta. Inside the country, Fretilin reasserted its adherence to Marxism under its new leader and current Timorese President, Xanana Gusmao. But during the 1980s Gusmao distanced himself from Marxism and eventually left Fretilin to head a broad, nationalist front that linked his guerillas with the Catholic Church, student organisations and the civilian underground. Fundamentalists remained in Fretilin's leadership, notably among the exiles in the former Portuguese African colonies. Alkatiri's Mozambican cell was the most significant of these.

This history is important in understanding today's crisis. Few would dispute that three figures led Timor's independence struggle. First was Gusmao, leader of the guerillas, whose years inside an Indonesian jail gave him Mandela-like status as the embodiment of Timor's aspiration for nationhood. Then there was Ramos-Horta, whose indefatigable diplomacy over two decades kept Timor on the international community's agenda and won him the Nobel Peace Prize. Finally, there was the co-winner of that prize, Bishop Belo (and the Catholic Church generally), whose support for the struggle was crucial.

By contrast, Alkatiri's name was virtually unknown. Outside the international solidarity groups and diplomats who met him in Ramos-Horta's shadow at international forums, he was neither known nor, more crucially, understood. Alkatiri's main work in exile was to move among Timorese refugees, organising Fretilin cells and giving ideological direction in preparation for running the country. Alkatiri has held power for almost five years, during which time stories of nepotism, corruption and authoritarianism have been too persistent to be lightly dismissed. The struggling public service seems to have been stacked with Alkatiri loyalists. Merit and ability have not been the main criteria for job selection. This has undermined professionalism, politicised the civil service and sown the seeds of resentment, disaffection and now revolt.

Alkatiri's shortcomings do not end there. Authoritarianism, of an eerily Stalinist kind, has too often been the Government's response to dissent. The means used by Alkatiri to ensure his recent re-election as Fretilin leader illustrate the point. By replacing a secret ballot with a show of hands, he not only thwarted his challenger, but actually undermined democracy in order to proclaim his own "democratic" victory.

The malaise in governance and the endemic abuses of power are also personified by Interior Minister Rogerio Lobato, brother of resistance hero Nicolau Lobato who was killed by the Indonesians in 1978. I knew Rogerio in 1976 as a swaggering Fretilin commander. He helped me obtain tens of thousands of dollars in Mozambique to keep an illegal radio connection operating with East Timor, which I smuggled into Australia, risking a lengthy prison term.

A few years later, Rogerio was jailed in Angola for smuggling diamonds, not to assist his country's struggle but to enrich himself. Lobato's appointment to a sensitive post in Alkatiri's Government was an important warning sign. The recent allegation in UN cables that he spends much of his time managing his own business affairs is consistent with his criminal activities in Angola. Yet he was put in charge of the country's security apparatus. Little wonder that elements of the forces within Lobato's circle have been heavily involved in the violence.

Since independence, many Australians on the political Left have uncritically supported Alkatiri's Government. I have been dismayed by the fierce, and utterly misconceived, criticisms of Gusmao and Ramos-Horta and the blindness towards Alkatiri's manifest shortcomings. Some have simply denounced Gusmao and Ramos-Horta because they abandoned Fretilin, while others are resentful about Gusmao's challenges to Alkatiri's dominance of political and civic society.

Nor should we heed the voices of the political Right which is now smugly claiming that Fretilin is irredeemably corrupt and violent. We should not despair about Timor's prospects to become a viable, independent nation. Yes, Timor is dominated by Fretilin, which along with other political forces committed crimes in the Indonesian-instigated 1975 civil war. This has been honestly admitted by Fretilin, but some Fretilin leaders are certainly behind the mismanagement and violent criminal behaviour that have caused and been featured in the current crisis.

But these pale in comparison with the mass crimes of Indonesia's illegal occupation. East Timor overcame this and has the capacity to overcome the present troubles. There are many competent and democratically inclined Timorese (especially within Fretilin) who can lead the nation towards stability and democracy.

The country's future now depends on Gusmao and Ramos-Horta continuing in senior roles. East Timor's needs must come before Gusmao's desire to retire next year or Ramos-Horta's bid to shift to the UN. Without these two giants, Timor risks ongoing dependence on the international community. Gusmao has a particular responsibility. He is the one figure who can unite the warring factions from the western and eastern ends of his country.

The governing Timorese elite needs to do some hard thinking about its next steps. Above all, Alkatiri and his supporters should drop their conspiracy theories about Gusmao's "attempted coup d'etat" and admit their own mistakes and shortcomings. A failure to support a new direction by the dominant Fretilin faction would threaten the entire independence struggle and leave their country open to the possibility of effectively becoming an Australian client state.

Source



30 May, 2006

Queensland kids defy "junk food" ban

This is the junk food rush -- the early-morning and lunchtime fast food fix that makes a mockery of new healthy eating laws at school canteens. As these pictures show, students are lining up before class and during their lunch breaks to feast on fatty fast foods.

Parents say the queues are getting longer as students openly rebel against the healthy menus forced on school tuckshops. ``I saw these kids walking back with bottles of Coke and hot chips. Their parents have dropped them off, giving them lunch money for the tuckshop and now they probably don't have enough to buy it because they bought junk,'' a Gold Coast mother told The Sunday Mail.

Defiant students say the State Government's ban on the sale of junk food in tuckshops will not change their eating habits. ``The attitude is `Who cares?' A lot of people will still go down to Woolies and Maccas and get their stuff there,'' a student said.

Leading nutritionist Michael Georgalli predicted more students would rebel against the Healthy Choices program as it was rolled out across the state. He warned the ban on junk foods would ``fuel the obesity epidemic'' instead of helping students adopt healthier eating habits. ``The process of restriction has been shown to encourage the uptake of the very behaviours that one is attempting to avoid in children,'' he said. Research produced for the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found restricting children's access to certain foods may ``actually promote the very behaviour its use is intended to reduce''. Mr Georgalli said the banning of junk foods at tuckshops could also lead to serious safety concerns. ``These restrictions can lead to children leaving the school grounds and crossing dangerous roads,'' he said.

Confectionery manufacturers argue the ``prohibitionist stance'' on so-called treat foods will fail. They support children having access to all foods so they learn good nutrition from making responsible choices. ``From our point of view, we believe there should be the sale of good nutritious food in canteens and that confectionery is a treat food which shouldn't be seen as a form of meal replacement,'' Confectionary Manufacturers of Australasia chief executive officer David Greenwood said. He said the move to control what food was eaten by students might work at primary schools but not at high schools. ``While this may appear to be a good idea on the surface, it is unlikely to control the eating of older students,'' Mr Greenwood said. ``High school students often have access to their own funds and can purchase foods outside of school grounds. ``Some may even purchase treat foods and then sell them to other students, depriving the canteen and the school of funds.''

The changes to tuckshop menus have also sparked reports of canteen workers resigning in protest. Staff have also been upset by the more labour-intensive preparation of food and greater spoilage required to meet the new rules. Queensland Association of School Tuckshops project officer Chris Ogden confirmed that ``early on there were some complaints''. ``If some have left, to be honest, it's probably better that they did. You're a tuckshop convenor because you care about children's health,'' Ms Ogden said. ``If you're not prepared to make the changes then maybe you're better off looking for alternate employment.''

The above article appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on May 28, 2006



Teachers in line of fire over boycott of postmodern rubbish

The West Australian Government has threatened to empty entire high school departments of rebellious teachers who are refusing to implement its new-age gradeless curriculum. The State School Teachers Union yesterday made good its threat to boycott the 17 new subjects in a range of government high schools next year, issuing a directive to faculties to treat the new courses as voluntary. The union representing private school teachers pledged to do the same, creating a dilemma for the Carpenter Government as it attempts to roll out the controversial new courses in all high schools next year.

Acting Premier Eric Ripper yesterday warned teachers that he expected them to "do their job" and teach the new "outcomes-based education" courses as per government orders. If they did not, he said, they could be forced to teach lower years than Years 11 and 12 where the new courses are due to be introduced. Education Minister and former teacher Ljiljanna Ravlich has attempted to keep a low profile as the curriculum crisis engulfs the Government and was again unavailable for comment yesterday. But Mr Ripper, who is Ms Ravlich's long-time partner and also a former teacher, rose to her defence. "Outcomes-based education is the way of the future," he said. "The Government expects teachers to do their job." He then issued a threat to mutinous teachers, saying that if any were uncomfortable with the new courses for years 11 and 12, there would be "plenty of spots in years 8 and 9" for them to teach.

Opposition education spokesman Peter Collier, a former high school teacher, said Ms Ravlich was out of touch and the Premier should step in. "The only resolution is to delay the implementation of all 17 courses until the endemic problems are resolved and then you have full implementation by 2008," Mr Collier said.

Under the new curriculum, all subjects are equal, meaning a top performance in cooking and dance could help a student into a university law degree, ahead of those who studied physics and chemistry. Supporters say the courses are more inclusive and recognise a wider range of achievement. Critics such as the teacher lobby group People Lobbying Against Teaching Outcomes claim the courses lack substance and say that assessing students against eight new "levels" of achievement is subjective and not as accurate as giving them grades or percentages.

The State School Teachers Union's directive yesterday means high school departments that are not ready will continue teaching the present curriculum next year. Entire departments at private schools are also expected to boycott the new subjects, according to the Independent Education Union of Western Australia. Its state secretary Theresa Howe said there were "system-wide" concerns about the courses. The architect of the new courses, the state Curriculum Council, was last night reeling from the news that its planned rollout was in jeopardy. Acting chief executive David Axworthy said the council needed time to discuss the implications of the union's directive.

Source



Amazing: No crime for MPs to tell lies in Left-ruled Queensland

Politicians and bureaucrats in Queensland no longer face the prospect of criminal prosecution for lying to parliamentary committees after the Beattie Government yesterday afforded them immunity. Following the Gordon Nuttall case last year, in which the former health minister was investigated by police and the Crime and Misconduct Commission, Labor used its numbers in state parliament to amend the criminal code to ensure any similar cases were dealt with by politicians alone.

After a fiery debate in parliament, Coalition MPs voted against the move, which Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg said "legalises MPs lying". But Attorney-General Linda Lavarch said the amendments "brought Queensland parliamentary contempt laws into line with laws in the United Kingdom and other Australian parliaments". She said the amendments would protect the supremacy of the Queensland parliament, where members could speak without the risk of being sued or prosecuted.

Ms Lavarch accused the Opposition of conducting a disgraceful campaign "to mislead the public that somehow the change would allow MPs to mislead the community".

Last year, the CMC found Mr Nuttall had given a misleading answer to the budget estimates committee over his knowledge of problems with overseas-trained doctors. While he had already been dumped as health minister and eventually quit cabinet altogether, the CMC left parliament to decide whether he should be prosecuted by police or his peers. The Government and Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson rejected the call for a criminal prosecution and the amendments now remove that option, with the parliament left to impose any sanctions of MPs who mislead or deliberately tell lies.

Outside parliament, Mr Springborg said Labor wanted to give its ministers protection "so that they can lie to these committees with no criminal sanction if they do so". "It's all aimed at preventing the Opposition and the people of Queensland from getting the truth about what this Government is doing," he said. The changes to the criminal code, which had been in place since the 1890s, would end accountability in the Queensland parliament. Queensland did not have an upper house to review legislation and this made it different from parliaments in Britain and other Australian states.

Source



Dumb but Leftist: Your future doctor

Medical schools are giving students coveted university training places based on "personality assessments" that include asking for their views on the Iraq war and gay marriage. Less academically gifted students are leapfrogging those with better marks by signing up for coaching programs that school them in handling the interview questions - fuelling critics' claims that the personality tests are skewing the selection process for the nation's future doctors away from the best and brightest.

Some interviewees have been asked to debate the rights and wrongs of providing in-vitro fertilisation services to gay people. Other questions include what applicants' parents do for a living and whether they went to a private school.

Some senior doctors are now accusing universities of attempting to "socially engineer" medical school intakes by giving preference to candidates who reflect the interviewers' views, allegedly often left-wing. The interviews - usually conducted by a panel comprising members of the public as well as doctors - often ask applicants to talk about their earliest memories, or discuss their biggest disappointment in life and how they coped with it. The process is supposed to identify "well-rounded personalities" that some claim will make better doctors.

Greg Deacon, president of the Australian Society of Anesthetists, described the situation as "absolutely appalling" and said he had been "speaking to a number of people who have been upset" at the way the interview process at a number of universities - including the University of NSW and Newcastle University - has been conducted. "Questions that are being asked, and that should never be asked, are questions such as 'What does your father do?', 'What does your mother do?', 'Where do you live?' and 'What school did you go to?'," Dr Deacon said. "If you went to a private school, or your father is a doctor, you are simply not going to be selected. The justification is the personal biases of those doing the interviews - they are trying to engineer the selection of medical undergraduates to further their own desires." He said he knew of one student whose HSC results put her in the state's top 40. "She was asked these questions," he said. "Because her father was a specialist doctor and went to private school, she didn't get in. It's hard to comprehend."

Dr Deacon said students' views on Iraq or gay marriage had "nothing to do with ability to be a doctor", and the risk was that interviewers would frown on candidates whose views clashed with their own. But these latest claims are rejected by the heads of Australia's 17 medical schools, which are already under pressure over assertions that the teaching of sciences, including anatomy and pathology, has been cut back to dangerous levels. The medical schools say interviewers are trained to judge an applicant's ability to reason and argue intelligently, not the position they take. But at least one university is scrapping the interview process after finding no evidence that the students selected by panels performed any better during the course.

And experts who assess personalities have cast doubts on the validity of the interviews. A NSW forensic psychiatrist, Julian Parmegiani, does personality assessments in situations such as parole applications and court-ordered psychiatric evaluations. He writes in the latest issue of NSW Doctor, the magazine of the NSW Australian Medical Association, that the interviews "will not identify altruistic, kind and empathetic doctors" but merely the students best able to divine what interviewers wanted to hear. "Successful students might be just a tad more psychopathic, manipulative and intent on recouping their investments," Dr Parmegiani writes.

Source



NSW Premier opposes homosexual indoctrination

Daycare centres should not be used to teach children about gay and lesbian relationships, says Premier Morris Iemma. His comments come after a report claimed a Tempe childcare centre uses books that feature characters from same-sex parent families. The Learn to Include books include titles such as The Rainbow Cubby House, which is about a young girl and her two mothers who build a cubby house in their backyard with a little boy and his two fathers.

Federal MP for Sydney Tanya Plibersek is quoted on the Learn to Include website as saying: "I know that the kids who are reading these books might just start life with the wonderful gift of growing up without homophobic prejudice. That's great for those individual kids and it's wonderful for our whole community too."

But Mr Iemma said children as young as two-years-old are being inappropriately drawn into a gay rights debate. "Kids should be allowed to be kids and daycare centres should not be a battleground for gender politics. I do not personally believe it appropriate for two-year-olds to be dragged into the gay rights debate." Parents who want such issues taught to their children should do so at home, not at daycare centres, he said. "If parents feel particularly strongly about educating children on these issues there is plenty of scope for them to do so at home where they run no risk of offending other parents who may old opposing views and who may not be able to find childcare elsewhere."

Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby co-convenor, David Scamell, said the Learn to Include books simply teach children about acceptance and tolerance. "Children are not being taught about sex education, but rather that some kids had two mums, some have two dads, and that's OK." "It's unfortunate that the Daily Telegraph has wanted to jump on a bandwagon to beat up a story and it is unfortunate that it's been joined by the Premier's Department this morning," Mr Scamell said. "[They] need to actually have a look at the educational material being taught at [the daycare centre] to realise that this actually quite a basic lesson ... they're quite important concepts but then they are not ones that go beyond the level of a five- or six-year-old."

A number of parents had chosen to send their children to the childcare centre because of the types of lessons that are taught there, he said. "Given where the childcare centre is, it is highly likely that a number of children would come from same-sex families. If these lessons are not taught, then those children will continue to feel as though their family is not valued or accepted." He said the the front-page of the Daily Telegraph "is probably the best reason why we actually need to have these lessons in school."

Marrickville Mayor Sam Byrne said the Premier's comments were an example of the "hysteria'' that had erupted over the use of the Learn to Include books at the council's seven day care centres. "It's not a gay rights debate. It's not sex education. It's about inclusion and about having material that reflects the diversity of our community,'' Mr Byrne said. "If the Premier, or anybody else out there, thinks that there are not families out there with two mums or there are not families out there with disabilities [or] from different backgrounds, then they are mad. They are crazy. They need to get out and get amongst the people again.''

Source



29 May, 2006

Your regulators will protect you: Yet another botch from Queensland Health

A cosmetic surgeon who quit Victoria after botching seven operations has been disciplined in Queensland over another surgery bungle. Gold Coast-based Graydon Ronald Van Houten was found guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct over an operation to remove a cyst from the ear of Browns Plains retiree Bob Martin in August 2001. The wound failed to heal and specialists had to remove part of Mr Martin's ear after a routine check-up three months later showed the cyst was a carcinoma.

The incident has raised concerns about how Dr Van Houten was allowed to practise in Queensland despite the adverse findings against him in Victoria. Mr Martin, 64, reached an out-of-court settlement with Dr Van Houten which prevented him from naming the surgeon. But searches of public documents, which name Dr Van Houten, reveal The Medical Board of Queensland in January ruled the 60-year-old not be allowed to perform various skin procedures until he completed courses on skin cancer practice.

Mr Martin said the ordeal had devastated him. "When I walk into shopping centres now people point at me say, 'Look at that man, he has only half an ear.' People are always saying, 'What happened to you?' " Mr Martin said. He said the compensation amounted to "chicken feed" after his legal and hospital bills were paid.

In its findings, the panel noted the Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria in October 2002 had found Dr Van Houten had engaged in unprofessional conduct of a serious nature in the treatment of four patients and unprofessional conduct not of a serious nature in the treatment of three other patients. He escaped suspension because he had moved to Queensland and his Victorian registration had lapsed.

Mr Martin's lawyer Bruce Simmonds said the Queensland panel, despite being aware of the Victorian cases, had imposed little punishment on the doctor apart from requiring him to undergo some training. "I understand he is offering the same types of services here which led to the complaints in Victoria," Mr Simmonds said.

Marilyn Van Houten, a practice manager at her husband's surgery, defended him. "He has no problems that he isn't working through. He's addressed the issues at hand," she said. "Why aren't the newspapers supporting doctors . . . we're not talking about Dr Patel here." The Medical Board of Queensland said recent changes in legislation had led to improved checks on interstate doctors and a public register being established where patients could check doctors' records.

Source



Federal Health Minister Abbott blasts Queensland hospital ban on Bible

Queensland Health are much better at political correctness than they are at medical correctness

Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott has accused Queensland hospital bosses of "losing the plot" after they banned the Bible from bedsides. An outraged Mr Abbott launched his scathing attack, following a Sunday Mail report which revealed the religious books had been removed amid fears of offending non-Christians. Mr Abbott said the Federal Government was giving $9 billion to Queensland to run public hospitals efficiently - not to ban the Bible.

The Royal Brisbane and Princess Alexandra hospitals are among those in the firing line. Staff said the Bibles had been removed because they were no longer in keeping with the "multicultural approach to chaplaincy", while some claimed the books were a source of infection. Mr Abbott told Federal Parliament: "This is not an infection control measure, it is a thought control measure - it is political correctness gone crazy. "I say to public hospital administrators: Stop worrying about offending people and start running public hospitals properly, and give people Bibles at a time when they probably most want to see them."

Gideons International, which distributes the Bibles, has offered to supply hospitals with hardcover copies which could be wiped to reduce infection fears, but health bosses have rejected the offer. This week they denied that Bibles had been banned from bedsides. "Bibles are available in all hospitals, either at the bedside or on request," Queensland Health Director-General Uschi Schreiber said.

More here



Churches successfully defend religious education

She is the woman behind an emerging force in Queensland politics, with access to thousands of Christian followers throughout the state and a formidable record of bending government policy to her agenda. From an office in Springwood, Logan City, Carolyn Cormack led a campaign that in less than a month saw the State Government back down on proposed changes to religious education in schools. With access to more than 3000 churches, from mainstream to charismatic organisations, the Australian Christian Lobby's Queensland chief of staff encouraged parishioners to protest against the changes. In less than a week, more than 9000 signatures were recorded on a petition and dozens of letters were sent to local members throughout the state. Weeks later the proposals were shelved.

Mrs Cormack is loath to boast about the group's success, politely thanking Premier Peter Beattie for his "common sense". But she is determined the Christian voice will be heard at the next state election. Issues such as gay marriage and same-sex adoption would be fought vigorously by the group and they want to see Bibles near every hospital bed. For the first time, the ACL is planning to create a score card on the State Government's performance to hand out to Christian voters before the 2007 election.

Premier Peter Beattie was wise to heed the power of the religious lobby, Griffith University politics and public policy lecturer Paul Williams said. "They are not a flash-in-the-pan type force, and their impact will be more widespread than single-issue groups," Dr Williams said. He said the influence of the religious lobby could mean the difference in several seats, especially outside Brisbane.

In August, ACL will host its state conference to focus on how to make the most of the influence of the Christian vote at the next election. And when campaigning starts, the group will seek to organise forums for candidates to meet with Christians ahead of the poll. It is a move Dr Williams describes as a return to old-fashioned politics with candidates having to engage with lobby group members and explain where they stand on issues. Mrs Cormack said the group was open minded and would offer no special favours for Family First candidates.

Source



Sick priorities of a so-called justice system

A woman who escaped the clutches of a mentally ill killer was blocked from finding out if he had been set free. Natalie Schindler, 24, is living in fear that he will one day track her down and harm her. But health authorities told her they were more concerned about protecting their patient than passing on details of his whereabouts to her.

"I am disgusted ... they would not tell me anything ... they said they had to protect him," Ms Schindler said. "I got quite emotional. I told them I was sick of this system which protects killers."

The Queensland woman contacted the Mental Health Review Tribunal after reading an exclusive report in The Sunday Mail last week about a mentally ill killer given day release. The man was hospitalised after he was declared to be of unsound mind and never faced a criminal court for the horrific crime.

Ms Schindler, who got out of the man's car and discovered later that he had killed her teenage girlfriend, had concerns that it could be the same man now back in the community. She said she rang the tribunal immediately but, a senior official would not give her details of the offender's movements, even after confirming she had been closely connected to the case. "They said their first priority was to protect the patient., not his victims, she said.

Ms Schindler said that in 2002 she had made a submission to the tribunal about the on-going custody of the killer. She had not put her name on the register of interested parties because she did not want repeated reminders of that terrifying day. However, she believed that because of her close link to the case she should have been advised automatically by the tribunal if the killer was to be released. "People have a right to know ... is it really good enough that the tribunal is satisfied that he will not harm himself or others? "Is the tribunal going to watch over him every minute of every day ... and if he kills again. will they take responsibility?"

Details emerged this week that five Queensland killers sent to secure hospitals after being found meutally unfit to stand trial had been returned to the community. Mental Health Review Tribunal president Barry Thomas said the tribunal was "well aware of its responsibility to make sure there was not an unacceptable risk to community safety".

The above article appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on May 28, 2006



The price of politically correct silence about Australian blacks

As the national soul-searching about the plight of remote Aboriginal Australia mounts and the curtains of censorship are pushed back, shocked voices can be heard wondering how we reached this point and what the blueprint for a constructive future may be. But one looks in vain for a precise, coherent road map from the federal Government, which has abolished the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, only to find it has no one left to blame for the disaster unfolding in central and northern Australia. This deep policy uncertainty dawns even as the consequences of decades of underfunding become more evident and the demographic explosion in remote Australia places ever sharper pressures on strained social services.

The laws and measures enacted to change the landscape have fallen short. A generation's worth of land rights in the Northern Territory has failed to revolutionise the outlying indigenous communities: little has changed in the Aboriginal ghetto townships across the scrub or desert, which remain underdeveloped and largely excluded from the national economy. Native title has proved to be a glacial triumph of legal processes, while indigenous self-determination is a fantasy of desperate contradictions.

The bitter truth is lying in the street, for those with open eyes to see and with access to remote Australia's well-guarded shadow world: many of our indigenous fellow citizens are trapped in a cycle of violence, economic dependency, ill-health, and sexual and substance abuse. Bizarre pathologies proliferate, although unheard of until now outside dark science-fiction dystopias. Attempts at genuine reform, which might endanger the present system's beneficiaries, are quickly snuffed out.

The vital key to this system has long been a culture of secrecy about the real conditions, buttressed by silences and by double standards. It is a secrecy, a strategy of euphemism, that covers the private world, the economic and the social space. These secrets are kept, and the minimising lies and evasions peddled, by white and Aborigine, by politicians and bureaucrats, by administrators and their subjects. Thus a pervasive silence is maintained by public servants and community workers, who have long since abandoned their reformist dreams and know they will be sacked at once by their Aboriginal "employers" if they speak out about any of the linked syndromes of the bush: violence, drug and grog-running, sexual abuse and predation, the failure of educational institutions, the constant, corrupting effects of welfare and haphazard work-for-the-dole schemes.

Secrecy is at also at the Aboriginal heart of dysfunctional communities: battered women and abused children do not dare to speak out; senior indigenous leaders are obliged to shield and protect their relations; mothers persuade their daughters-in-law to keep a code of silence about the sufferings that husbands inflict.

Superimposed on top of this local discretion is the elegant muffling filter of the legal system: police cannot gather evidence from victims who fear to testify, while magistrates often pass light sentences in order to spare offenders the pain of incarceration far from their land.

These different forms of silence and half-truth, which all reinforce each other, have long combined to make an accurate description of the state of things in remote Aboriginal Australia almost impossible. Hence the vital importance of the past two weeks of candour and tight media focus. This climate of truth-telling, virtually forced on the Australian political and intellectual class by the revelations of the Alice Springs crown prosecutor about infant abuse, has led to an outpouring of dark testimony that only hints at the broad, continent-wide pattern.

But there is a need for the newly precise and merciless depiction of the world of remote Australia to go further. Three critical elements in the interlock of silence have not yet been given due public attention, and progress towards a sustainable life in the Aboriginal centre and north depends on frank acknowledgment of these shaping factors.

First, there is a temptation to blame the indigenous perpetrators of violence in isolation from the enabling class of welfare and service delivery bureaucrats around them. The manifest incompetence of many of the administrators of remote Aboriginal Australia needs to be exposed and a form of proper accountability designed. Many of the more troubled communities can only attract poor-quality white staff, who could barely hold down a job in the cities.

The corrupt shopkeeper, the drug-running mechanic, the carpetbagging itinerant dress-seller: these are all stock figures in the Western Desert and the Kimberley. There is a storekeeper in the north well known for illegal kava supply in return for child sex, and there are tight family cabals of non-Aboriginal administrative staff in the centre who run communities as private empires. The case for a highly trained cadre of remote area civil servants and for volunteer specialist teams, organised on disaster relief lines, seems unassailable.

The systematic nature of the violence in many Aboriginal communities is still not grasped by outsiders, nor can the conspiracy of crushed silence and fear that accompanies it be well gauged. Shame and terror keep women, girl and boy victims from speaking out. Consider the views of one of the most respected council clerks in remote Australia, speaking this week of the tide of sex crimes in his community: "There's no control and no responsibility. It's a beautiful system designed by the Aboriginal men to protect the Aboriginal men. They've got the white people sorted out: if you even mention anything, you're fired instantly and will never get another job in the Aboriginal industry again. They will continue to get away with it until the courts get serious, and even then no one will step forward to testify; it's like a death sentence. There's no way in a million years anyone is going to go public on all this."

But one can guess at what's happening in the shadows all across the continent. In one community in the Tanami Desert, the women have now banned their sons from going out into the bush with senior men for protracted initiation camps; the reasons, dear reader, can be left to your imagination. And in a small north Kimberley community, there have been six child suicides in the past year. So grave has the problem of sexual violence become that young Kimberley women often measure the extent of their man's affection by the number of beatings they receive, and calibrate the love in their world by the bruises on their skin.

A glance around a remote community or town camp is enough to tell the tale: women sport a baffling array of bandages and splints, while the drone of the flying doctor plane, swooping in for another emergency evacuation, is a regular sound on balmy evenings in the far desert. Police detachments are the natural first counter to these concealed undercurrents of violence: but without realistic deterrence through heavy sentencing, even a police post in every community and outstation will not be enough to guarantee the safety of the remote population.

Most important, in this realm of secrets, free access is the key to truth. Many of the horrors now spread across remote Australia grew in the darkness of the permit system. There are vast swaths of Aboriginal land that go unvisited by the normal array of travelling callers, let alone by journalists; and there is a striking correlation between the levels of violence in a community and the tightness of its closure.

Without any doubt, the most bizarre and horrific corner of central Australia is the grandly named Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands, a scatter of outstations and run-down communities torn apart by petrol-sniffing and overseen by a purpose-built little white capital with nice, neat homes. The South Australian Opposition spokesman for Aboriginal affairs, Mitch Williams, this week called for the APY Lands to be thrown open to the public, and at once received a strict dressing-down from the local Land Council general manager, Ken Newman: "Basically, it's private property."

Permits for press visits to this bleak world are scarcely ever forthcoming, while white staff members are forbidden from speaking freely to the media. Who, then, can lay out the weird facts of life on the lands: the plague-like curse of petrol-sniffing, the drug dealing networks, the obesity and the malnutrition, the peculiar messianic cults that sweep through like storm-season cloud-fronts?

Permits have long since been the chosen instrument of power and self-aggrandisement for the white gatekeepers of the remote world, who relish the control the system gives them. The substantial desert settlement of Yuendumu is in the grip of Warlpiri Media, an organisation that will only admit journalists into its territory if they are safely guided and their stories are check-censored before publication or broadcast. No wonder, then, that a frank appraisal of Yuendumu's endless economic and social travails has yet to appear.

Access control limits knowledge, dovetails elegantly with the culture of secret-keeping, and allows for blatant manipulation of the media. But as with all empires of unreason, the permit system is falling apart under the weight of its own illogic. This week the community of Wadeye (Port Keats), anarchic home to 3000 Aboriginal people, refused The Australian a permit on the same day it hosted "safer" media visitors to inspect damaged housing. And suddenly the truth was out: the permit system is today being used not to protect sensitive cultural sites and practices, but to manage and control the news in a crude and blatant fashion.

There is a direct link between the gang warfare tearing apart Wadeye and the lack of in-depth media coverage: this Aboriginal township has been the showpiece of a vast, failed governmental social experiment over the past three years, and that systematic failure has largely gone unreported because it suits the local council staff and their federal and territory masters to keep it under wraps, and keep out unwelcome media eyes.

New federal Aboriginal Affairs Minister Mal Brough will hold a high-profile national summit on indigenous community violence next month. But it is the culture of secrecy that lies behind, and underpins, the violence. The summit will be much more than a meeting of concerned officials. It will be a test of Australia's moral temper and our willingness to stop the tide of illicit violence disfiguring the remote world. Sometimes the truth is painful; its denial is worse.

Source



28 May, 2006

IN BRIEF

Goldmine for lawyers ends in Victoria

Reforms outlawing many personal injury claims in Victoria have led to a huge drop in the number of court cases. Figures from the County Court show public liability lawsuits dropped from 1734 in the year before the reforms to 84 last year. The drop in all causes of action for personal injuries was from 5418 to 801.

Now the Law Institute of Victoria has called for the laws to be wound back because they had stopped injured Victorians from gaining proper compensation. LIV vice-president Geoff Provis said many injured people could not meet the State Government's test for compensation of 5 per cent physical impairment or 10 per cent psychiatric impairment. "Whether intended or unintended these reforms have simply gone too far and Victorians with genuine injuries are being denied access to fair compensation," Mr Provis said. He said the tort law reforms were introduced in 2003 in response to a perceived insurance crisis.

The Bracks Government rushed through changes to medical and public liability laws to curb the soaring cost of medical indemnity and public liability insurance.

Source



Illegal fishing fine too lenient: court



The Federal Government has welcomed a court ruling that substantial fines should be handed to foreigners found illegally fishing in Australian waters. The ruling by the South Australian Supreme Court sets a precedent for fines issued to future illegal fishers and comes after an Adelaide magistrate last month caused outrage by fining three Indonesian fishermen just $5 each. Fisheries Minister Eric Abetz said the ruling vindicated his decision to ask the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to appeal the $5 fines. "The $5 fine now sets no precedent," Senator Abetz said. "(Supreme Court) Chief Justice (John Doyle) has clearly indicated that this was wrong, and has indicated to magistrates in South Australia that the appropriate fine for offences of this kind was one of at least $4,000."

Adelaide Magistrate Andrew Cannon last month fined the captains of three Indonesian fishing boats $5 each, reasoning they deserved a more lenient penalty because their boats had either been seized or destroyed and they did not have the financial capacity to pay a large fine. The maximum fine for illegally fishing in Australian waters is $27,500.

Chief Justice Doyle said Dr Cannon should have imposed a more substantial fine, adding that almost 200 illegal fishers had appeared in court during the past year and a consistent approach to sentencing was needed. "The magistrate thought that a substantial fine was an exercise in tokenism, because it was unlikely that it would be paid," he said. "But to take that approach is to accept that capacity to pay is the decisive consideration, which in my opinion it cannot be. "I consider that a substantial fine was called for, even after making allowance for the loss of the vessel and the period of (time spent by the fishermen in immigration) detention. "I would have imposed a fine of not less than $4,000 on each count, amounting to a total of not less than $8,000 to be paid by each defendant."

Source



One of Australia's disgusting public broadcasters finally bends to reality

The B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC) welcomes the decision by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) to recognise Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah as terrorist organisations. The ADC's Executive Officer, Mr Manny Waks, says "While it is difficult to understand what has taken so long for the ABC to arrive at this obvious conclusion, we must nonetheless congratulate the ABC on this decision."

Four years ago the ABC's international chief, Mr John Tulloh, prohibited ABC journalists from referring to these groups as terrorist organisations.

The ADC acknowledged the work of Senator Santoro and more recently by Senators Ronaldson and Fierravanti-Wells in pursuing this matter. For three years the ABC executives have been intensely questioned by the Senators. "They have shown great persistence and determination," Mr Waks said. Mr Waks also said that "the ADC supports Senator Ronaldson's hope that SBS would come to similar conclusion to the ABC and concede that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah are indeed terrorist organisations."

Source



Sydney: 'Gay-friendly' child care slammed

Little kids being harassed over sexuality -- out of the public purse

A council-run childcare centre is teaching toddlers that gay, lesbian and "transgender" parents are normal in a bid to "challenge the perception" of young children about sexuality. The Tillman Park Children's Centre in Tempe - which receives council and government funding - has devised the gay-friendly curriculum for children aged six weeks to six years. Marrickville Mayor Sam Byrne said the centre had "successfully adopted several strategies to encompass lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and inter-sex issues". These included ensuring images were reflective of "diverse families" and "actively affirming the identity of lesbian and gay families". He said the centre challenged "children's perception of what is 'normal' gender and sexual identity".

The centre uses controversial Learn to Include books, which feature Jed and his Dads and The Rainbow Cubby House. Mr Byrne applauded staff and families at the centre for "broadening the minds of our future generation". "At Marrickville we believe in offering children and families an inclusive program based on social justice," he told The Saturday Daily Telegraph. "These are reflected through an open environment where alternative perspectives, values, beliefs, lifestyles and people's identities are respected and accepted."

The Daily Telegraph last year revealed the books - produced by a non-profit program run by the Gay and Lesbian Counselling Service of NSW - were funded by the Attorney-Generals Department, which provided $33,000 over two years. The Saturday Daily Telegraph can reveal the Learn to Include books are also being used in private childcare centres across the state. Child Care New South Wales president Lyn Connolly said there was no book list for centres to draw from, but in order for centres to meet "high quality" they relied on a variety of resources, including the Learn to Include books.

Marika Kontellis, whose three-year-old daughter Jasmin attends the centre, said although she was in a heterosexual relationship she had no issue with the material being taught. She said she could understand how some families might find the topics confronting or uncomfortable "but for us it is important to know that families come in different shapes and sizes and that's okay and that's good". "Every day the kids are being told that it is okay that you are black, it is okay that you are gay, it's okay that families don't all look the same," Ms Kontellis said. [I guess all families are the same then?]

National Party Leader Andrew Stoner - who last year forced former premier Bob Carr to investigate the use of the books in public schools - said yesterday he was opposed to children being "brainwashed by a political correct agenda". "It's just crazy. Children that young have no concept of these issues of sexuality," he said. "Whether it is heterosexual sex or homosexual sex, it is the choice for parents to talk about it with their children - not for an institution to start some political correct campaign."

Psychologist Lorraine Corne said yesterday it is essential the concept of gay and lesbians was introduced to young children in a proper way. "You would introduce the concept like you would introduce the concept of sex," she said. "It would be done at a level that they understand. It could be as simple as some people have a father and a mother and some people have two mothers and some have two fathers. "It would have to be put in a very simplistic way otherwise it is beyond their comprehension and it would go above their heads," Ms Corne said.

Source



Nowhere for her to give birth

What happens when you rely on the great god "Gubmint" and their wonderful "planning": An interstate trip to give birth!

A critical bed shortage has led to a pregnant mother expecting twins having to travel to Canberra Hospital yesterday because of a gridlock in infant intensive care wards. A rush of multiple births - including triplets at Nepean Hospital - put pressure on an over-burdened system. The woman was flown by air ambulance to Canberra early yesterday morning. High occupancy rates in maternity and neo-natal wards across Sydney caused a serious shortage across the state.

A spokesman for ACT Health confirmed they received a NSW patient early yesterday, and said interstate transfers were "routine". "A pregnant woman was transported to the Canberra Hospital from Sydney because there were no neo-natal beds available elsewhere in Sydney," he said.

A NSW Health spokeswoman said there was a shortage in both maternity and intensive care cots across the state. "From time to time we do need to transfer patients and their babies to specialist services outside of Sydney," she said. "When the patient and her children are stable, they will be offered transfer back to Sydney."

A lack of specialist nurses is aggravating the situation, prompting one Sydney hospital on Thursday night to call in off-duty nurses. "This is a recurrent problem, it happens all the time," one specialist told The Saturday Daily Telegraph. There are currently more than 140 positions vacant in NSW in this specialist nursing field, causing major problems in all hospitals with neonatal intensive care units. "This is a highly specialised area and these babies need one on one care 24-7," an expert said. "There is not enough nurses to match the beds."

The fact women are having children later in life means there are more premature babies than ever before and technology can keep a premature infant alive at 23 weeks. About 2 per cent of all babies born in NSW are treated in one of the state's nine specialist units. There are 125 intensive care cots across NSW and the ACT. Survival rates for babies admitted to neonatal intensive care units have risen from 87 per cent in 1997 to 92 per cent in 2005.

Opposition health spokeswoman Jillian Skinner said it was an outrage a woman was made to travel during a stressful and vulnerable time.

Source



Few of the English can now write good English

People who can string a sentence together grammatically could be forgiven for feeling like old fogeys, reports Kevin Donnelly



The British wartime prime minister Winston Churchill is considered one of the 20th century's greatest political orators. An important reason why Churchill was able to communicate so effectively was because, when at school, he was taught how to write. As observed in his autobiography: "I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence, which is a noble thing." Judging by a British report on undergraduate writing skills by the Royal Literary Fund, it would appear the ability to structure an essay and to master the basics of syntax and grammar are things of the past.

The report, Writing Matters, outlines the observations of about 130 professional writers who worked on a one-to-one basis with undergraduates in 71 universities. The writers conclude that considerable numbers of students, even at some of Britain's leading tertiary institutions, arrive at university without the skills necessary to make the most of their education. "In many cases, the problems occur at a basic level: poor vocabulary, inaccurate phrasing, bad syntax, incorrect punctuation [and] an inability to form well-structured sentences," the British report notes. The report also states that many students are incapable of sustaining a consistent and coherent argument in prose.

Falling standards and dumbed-down English are not restricted to Britain. Last year's report, Remedial or Rhetorical English?, in which academics at the Australian Defence Force Academy tested the writing skills of about 600 undergraduates, also discovered significant weaknesses. "Written work was characterised by common grammatical errors and knowledge gaps, an inability to select stylistic devices to express relationships between ideas and purpose, and difficulties in producing complex written texts while demonstrating control over generic structure," Fiona Mueller, one of the authors of the ADFA report, says.

Baden Eunson, from the English department at Monash University, also notes that many undergraduates have gone through six years of secondary school without learning the fundamentals of English: "I teach professional writing at Monash University and I have to spend far too much of my scarce curriculum time cramming the basics into my students."

Concerns about poor writing skills, especially basics such as spelling, punctuation and grammar, are not restricted to undergraduates. Beatrice Booth, the president of Commerce Queensland (the state chamber of commerce), has publicly criticised literacy standards and was recently quoted as saying, "We have a plethora of people who can't spell, comprehend what they are reading or write a proper sentence."

Notwithstanding the evidence, some argue that there is no crisis and that approaches to teaching English, especially literacy, are beyond reproach. The children's author Mem Fox, based on Australia's strong performance in the Program for International Student Assessment, a test of 15-year-old students in literacy, mathematics and science, argues: "We don't have a literacy problem. We have a very high literacy rate. We are absolutely sensational in this country. "So we always come either second after Finland, or third after Canada, or fourth after New Zealand. But we are always in the top four, always."

What Fox ignores is that the PISA test did not correct or penalise students for mistakes in spelling and grammar, and that if students had been corrected, many would have failed. "Errors in spelling and grammar were not penalised in PISA; if they had been, probably all countries' achievement levels would have gone down, but there is no doubt that Australia's would have," one Australian researcher says. "It was the exception rather than the rule in Australia to find a student response that was written in well-constructed sentences, with no spelling or grammatical error."

The Australian Association for the Teaching of English also argues that concerns about falling standards are a media beat-up and that present approaches to English teaching, such as whole language, critical literacy and postmodern theory, are not the reason many students leave school unable to write a grammatically correct, fluent and well-structured essay. The AATE is also wrong. Much of the focus on teaching literacy in schools is on so-called critical literacy, where students are taught to analyse texts in terms of power relationships from a range of theoretical perspectives, including Marxist, feminist, postcolonial, postmodern, class and race. As noted by Eunson, when comparing today's syllabuses and examination papers with those of the 1960s, the reality is that more traditional approaches, including precis, discussing definitions and word meanings, and analysing comprehension passages grammatically, have long since disappeared.

At the primary school level, judged by curriculum documents, the prevailing approach, with the exception of NSW, belittles the more structured phonics model of teaching reading in favour of whole language. Teacher training is also a concern, evidenced by a 2001-02 national survey of 680 beginning teachers that found only "half of the new graduates indicated that they felt prepared to teach spelling and phonics".

That teacher training has suffered is understandable. Those in charge of Australia's schools of education, the Australian Council of Deans of Education, in New Learning: A Charter for Australian Education, argue that the basics, represented by the three Rs, are obsolete, old fashioned and irrelevant. The deans argue in favour of the new basics: "Nor is literacy a matter of correct usage [the word and sentence-bound rules of spelling and grammar]. Rather, it is a way of communicating. "Indeed, the new communications environment is one in which the old rules of literacy need to be supplemented. Although spelling remains important, it is now something for spell-checking programs, and email messages do not have to be grammatical in a formal sense."

This ignores the ability to use language that does not happen intuitively or by accident and that spell-checking cannot differentiate between whether and weather or their and there. Not only do students have to be taught and regularly practise the rules of grammar and correct composition, they must be given the technical vocabulary that will free them to more consciously control what it is they wish to write.

Source



27 May, 2006

Great! "Ethnic" law to be scrapped

Sharia hopes zapped

The Howard Government has widened its plan to remove legal recognition of Aboriginal customary law in criminal sentencing to include the cultural beliefs of all ethnic minorities. The extension of the plan beyond Aboriginal tribal law is understood to have been triggered by concerns that a law directed only at indigenous offenders could be in breach of the Racial Discrimination Act. Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock last night said no one convicted of a crime in Australia should be able to plead their cultural practices and beliefs as mitigating factors in their sentencing. "We are not a nation of tribes," he said. "There should be one law for all Australians. Our expectation is that when people come and settle in Australia they are under an obligation to accept the law and the principles that go with it."

The Government's move came after Northern Territory Opposition Leader Jodeen Carney asked Mr Ruddock last week to check if planned restrictions on Aboriginal customary law being used as a mitigating factor when sentencing violent offenders would breach the Racial Discrimination Act. Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough this week said he would put a proposal to scrap consideration of cultural law in serious crimes to state and territory governments at a national summit. He said customary law had been "used as a curtain that people are hiding behind". The minister's remarks followed a national outcry after a 55-year-old Aboriginal elder was sentenced to a month's jail for having anal sex with a 14-year-old girl promised to him as a wife.

Territory Chief Justice Brian Martin, who sentenced the man, admitted this week he had made a mistake by placing too much emphasis on the man's belief that under tribal law he had the right to teach the girl to obey him. Ms Carney urged the Government to change the Racial Discrimination Act if it considered restrictions on customary law would amount to a breach. Mr Ruddock is understood to have sought legal advice on the possibility of changing the Racial Discrimination Act, but his preference is to extend the exclusion to all minority groups in the community.

The scheme drew qualified support yesterday from Islamic civil rights leader Waleed Kadous but was condemned as impractical by the legal profession. "I don't think any member of the community should expect any special privileges because of their cultural background," said Mr Kadous, co-convenor of the Australian Muslim Civil Rights Advisory Network. "Speaking for the Muslim community, we understand we are not entitled to any special privileges in the courts - nor should we be," he said. Judges should always have some discretion to consider a person's circumstances "but our cultural background should have no major impact on how we are sentenced", Mr Kadous said.

However, Law Council of Australia president John North said the Government's plan was "totally impractical". "An important part of the sentencing process, apart from retribution and revenge, is to look carefully at the subjective features of each individual before the court," Mr North said. "Those characteristics may involve cultural or what can be termed customary law matters, and this has long been held by the High Court to be a proper exercise in the use of sentencing discretion. "To try and legislate across the board to remove this discretion would, in our view, prove impossible."

Mr Ruddock said Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough would be urging the states to change their sentencing laws to fall into line with the Government's plan. While he believed the plan would not cause a breach of the Racial Discrimination Act, he indicated that the commonwealth would be prepared to change federal laws - including the Racial Discrimination Act - to achieve its goal.

Source



NUTS INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE QUEENSLAND PARLIAMENT

Two reports below about another crime-loving Leftist government. The inital report about this matter was carried on this blog on 24th.

Released 'insane killers' named in Qld parliament

The Queensland Opposition has continued its campaign of naming mentally ill killers who have been released into the community. After focussing on two cases this week, the Opposition named another two in Parliament this morning. Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg has asked the Health Minister to confirm that one killer has been released after less than five years in treatment. "Can you also confirm this insane killer actually rang the victim's mother while detained at The Park in 2002," he said. "And isn't it also true that the Mental Health Tribunal has now told the victim's mother that they have no further business with her or her family and refuse to provide any details as to where her son's killer is?" The Minister says he will look into it.

Meanwhile, the mother of a woman killed by a mentally ill man says she is baffled by Queensland's mental health and criminal justice system. Her daughter was sexually assaulted, strangled and dumped by the killer, who was on parole at the time. The woman, who cannot be named, says she was advised not to attend hearings at the Mental Health Tribunal and warned not to discuss the case or name the man. "It was a strange system that we didn't understand anything about," she said. "There is an Act that covers the killer from being named or talked about and could create a two year jail sentence for myself or my husband if we talk about it."

Source



Buck-passing over killer

State Government ministers are sticking by claims they had no knowledge of the release of a mentally ill killer into the community. Despite it being revealed yesterday that Attorney-General Linda Lavarch's officers attended a Mental Health Tribunal hearing on March 17, when the man was given limited day release, she and the Premier said they knew nothing until last week.

The Opposition this week used parliamentary privilege to name the man as Claude John Gabriel, who killed a teenager in 1998 and was the subject of a manhunt in 2001 when he absconded from authorities. Gabriel has been on day release 12 times since March but that has now been cancelled. Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg yesterday named another mentally ill killer in Parliament as he continued to attack the Government's failure to protect the community. Mr Springborg named Ross Farrah, who killed his girlfriend Christine Nash and has been accused of threatening another woman recently while on leave. "This Premier and this Government has absolutely no compassion. . . no understanding of the pain it is inflicting on these victims and their families," he said.

Health Minister Stephen Robertson told Parliament officers from the Attorney-General's department had opposed Gabriel's release. "It was the decision of the independent tribunal not to accept that submission," he said. However, Ms Lavarch said she was unaware of the case until last Friday, a day before the option to appeal the tribunal's decision expired. Premier Peter Beattie defended the Attorney-General, saying it would have been "grossly improper" for her to inform Cabinet of the release. "The Attorney-General makes a number of decisions where there is no consultation with Cabinet and no consultation with me," he said. Mr Beattie blamed Queensland Health experts, saying it was their responsibility to inform the Government. He said the secrecy under which the Mental Health Tribunal operated was being fairly questioned and the Government would consider "lifting the veil".

Source



Nuclear power 'viable, economical'

Nuclear power makes economic sense for Australia and is viable even without government support. Science Minister Julie Bishop said a report commissioned by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation showed that a nuclear power station would be competitive with a newly built coal-fired station. "It found there are significant health risks associated with coal energy production but minimal risks with nuclear power," Ms Bishop said. The report suggested two ways that construction of a nuclear power plant could be funded, which were similar to models in operation in the US. "Overall, the report is positive about the economic basis for establishing a nuclear power industry in Australia."

It is understood the report, due to be handed to the Government today, considers public and private funding models and finds that when environmental costs are taken into account, the economics of nuclear power make more sense. It has also emerged that had plans for a nuclear power station at Jervis Bay in NSW been acted on in the 1970s, it would today be producing the world's cheapest electricity.

"It's time we did get down to a really detailed examination of what are nuclear power's prospects in Australia," said Keith Alder, the last general manager of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission. Mr Alder said he hoped the renewed nuclear debate would focus on Australia developing a uranium enrichment industry. "Whether we want to remain a quarry for the rest of the world or whether we establish a full industry in Australia and (export) the processed product: enrichment should take priority at this stage over whether or not we now look into nuclear power," he said. It was "crazy" that Australia held 40 per cent of the world's uranium "but we don't have any industry that processes it". And with fast-growing nations such as China and India going for nuclear power, it was time for Australia to act. "In 50 years it's going to be a bigger industry than coal," Mr Alder said. "We should be thinking about our role."

Attempts to develop an enrichment industry had got as far as negotiating a deal with an international consortium but were killed by the election of the Hawke government in 1983. "I think it's one of the greatest tragedies in Australian industrial history," he said. "It could have been the start of an enormous enterprise, very profitable in jobs and money."

Source



HO HUM! MORE DEFENCE EQUIPMENT BUNGLES

Two articles below on a never-ending story

Our useless $1b arsenal

Is defence procurement ever anything but a disaster?

About $1 billion worth of Australian Defence Force bombs, missiles, mortars and bullets - almost half the entire stock - cannot be used and up to a third of stock is beyond repair and will never be fired, a report has found. Government auditors say a lot of military munitions lack the required technical data to allow for "adequate safety and suitability" assessments. If that is correct, then stocks of munitions could be stored in unsafe conditions and, in some cases, close to populated areas. The situation is critical in some areas, particularly the army which does not have enough of some vital munitions.

Defence reacted swiftly to the report, saying the correct figure for the "non-repairable" amount was only $200 million. Another $500 million worth was being repaired or held in reserve and $320 million worth was in the purchasing pipeline. "It is not impacting on training or operations overseas," a Defence spokesman said.

The latest defence report from the Australian National Audit Office paints a grim picture of defective ammunition. "The existence of explosive ordnance without a complete safety and suitability for service assessment increases the risk in handling inherently dangerous material," the report says. It also forecast budget blow-outs when it came to buying shells for the new Abrams main battle tank and missiles for the army's short-range air defence system. The auditors found the Defence Material Organisation was in such a rush to spend the money it did not bother with technical data before the contract was let. And they accused the DMO of paying out 100 per cent of a contract without any milestones being achieved.

The director-general of DMO's guided weapons and explosives ordnance branch, Commodore Peter Law, said all munitions were accounted for and safely stored. He slammed the auditors for being too negative and said many of the issues raised in the report were raised by DMO and were being fixed. Opposition defence industry spokesman Mark Bishop said the audit report shows that defence was unable to negotiate in the best interest of taxpayers.

Source (Report of May 17, 2006)



Defence directed by rank amateurs

A comment below by Terry Sweetman that appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on May 21, 2006. Terry canvasses the problem well but is a bit vague on solutions. Privatization of personal equipment procurement would be a start. Anything would be better than the pot-luck that quartermasters hand out



It's a shame that Chief of Defence Angus Houston has been embarrassed by the Kovco cockup. He deserves better, if for no other reason than his principled stand during the children overboard saga. It's tough that Defence Minister Brendan Nelson has been angered by the serial idiocy revealed, although his own muddled contribution disqualifies him from much sympathy.

However, they really don't matter a damn. What does matter is the continuing culture of institutionalised stupidity that governs the lives - and, possibly, the deaths - of thousandsofyoung servicemen and women and their families. The emergence of a popular hero such as Peter Cosgrove sometimes tends to obscure the fact that our armed forces are managerial disaster areas. Loyal, unquestioning servants of government, as brave as lions in the field, cold and deadly professionals in battle, our service people are administrative asses and gilded dopes.

Too many of those on whom we lavish first-class educations, generous salaries and conditions, respect, and unbounded trust are shown to be fools, dolts or knaves. The broadening of our officer catchment from boarding school prats and scions of the squattocracy to a more inclusive and representative recruitment strata doesn't seem to have achieved much except give us fewer hyphenated names. Higher education standards don't seem to have saved our soldiers, sailors and airpersons from the soul-destroying nitpickery of regulation regurgitators and quartermaster tyrants.

After the trimming and streamlining of the Defence public service, somebody seems to have thrown out the wrong trash can and kept the rubbish. Too harsh? Tell me of any other institution that with a record of mismanagement, waste, bullying and thuggery, moral cowardice, character misjudgment, and out-and-out stupidity could go so long without a political scandal and a royal commission. Cast your mind back over a litany of scandal and ineptitude right back to the Voyager sinking and subsequent shameful process of inquiry and coverup.

Any outraged Blimps reaching for their pens might pause and think about bastardisation that just about reaches back to federation, bullying that has led to ruination and suicide, sexual exploitation that has had the same result, homophobic thuggery, standover tactics, cowardly evasions of responsibility, anti-malarial potions that drive people wacky, and a wink-wink, nudge-nudge attitude to racism.

Those who would skulk behind a barricade of so-called professionalism, might like to mull over the record of hideous waste, project mismanagement, ambitious overreach, poor decision-making and general bad leadership. (How could $1 billion in munitions rust away while our forces are starved of live-firing exercises?)

Those who might parade the comradeship and mateship of the forces might put their ear to the ground occasionally and listen to the murmurs of discontent. Instead of listening to the top-level codswallop they are normally fed, politicians should talk to some of the rankers who have to put up with a hurry-up-and-wait culture that doesn't seem to have changed since officers danced away the eve of Waterloo.

They should ask Diggers [soldiers] about the hoops they have to jump through to get or replace boots and combat vests and all the other paraphernalia the forces generously hand out to visiting politicians. They should talk to servicemen who were sent off to Baghdad with armoured vests that were minus the vital Kevlar plates they should talk to soldiers who feed on stories about mates being charged for gear lost or damaged in battle, they should talk to wives who have discovered their loved ones "lost" on active service because of bureaucratic bungling.

And, I guess, they should listen to Shelley Kovco, who has lost a husband, had to share her private grief with all Australia, suffered the indignity of having his body misplaced, and the double indignity of the promised report being left in an airport like an umbrella on a bus.

If confidential reports are left in public computer terminals, are top secret plans discussed on public telephones? OK, accidents happen but not with the monotonous regularity of the calamities that shame our military. So what's the outcome of this week's idiocy? More inquiries, a managerial reviews and a lot of piety. We've heard it all before. It's about time a few heads started to roll.



26 May, 2006

Australians now objectively better off than ever before

Spending power may have increased by $9000 for every man, woman and child over the past decade, but the Government statistician has ducked the curly question of whether Australians are generally better off. A snapshot of the nation by the Bureau of Statistics found that Australia has become wealthier, healthier and more educated over the past 10 years, but the environment has suffered, crime rates are slightly higher and the indigenous population continues to seriously lag.

After examining economic, social and environmental indicators, the bureau's Measures of Australia's Progress report concluded that there was no single answer to the all-important question: "Has life in our country got better or worse?" "It does not always follow that improving, particularly, living conditions will make a person happier or more satisfied, as people place different importance on the different aspects of their lives," the bureau said.

In terms of money, at least, Australia is powering ahead. Over the past decade, real disposable income per capita has been growing steadily at an annual average rate of 3 per cent, reaching more than $35,000 per person last financial year, compared to about $26,000 in 1994-95. The spoils of economic growth over the past decade also appear to have been reasonably evenly shared. The bureau said the average weekly income of low-income earners leapt 22 per cent to $300 over the nine years to 2004, while weekly incomes for high earners increased 19.3 per cent to $1027.

Despite the huge wealth gains, most studies indicate that satisfaction levels have barely changed over the past 50 years. Bernard Salt, a commentator on consumer, cultural and demographic trends, said he believed economic prosperity had delivered increased feelings of satisfaction and well-being, despite the cliche that money does not buy happiness. "Economic prosperity really does account for - not all - but a substantial part of our happiness and wellbeing," Mr Salt said. "I think the Australian public is feeling rich, fat, happy and complacent and I think this is why the Coalition was voted in so confidently at the last election."

Australians are also living longer. Boys born in 2004 can expect to live three years longer than boys born in 1994, while girls can expect to live two years longer. Despite the rise in life expectancy, the proportion of people classified as overweight or obese has in the past decade leapt from 52 per cent to 62 per cent for men and from 37 per cent to 45 per cent for women. For indigenous Australians, however, the average life span is about 17 years lower.

The environment also appears to be suffering. Over the past 10 years, the number of bird and mammal species listed as extinct or endangered rose by 41 per cent to 169, with Australia's waterways deteriorating rapidly. Australia also has the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the world. Shadow treasurer Wayne Swan said that despite 15 years of growth, many families were still finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.

Source



EDUCATION DISASTER IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Nutty music-education honcho

A "postmodern" ignoramus is trying to destroy music education

A drama teacher who does not play a musical instrument and believes turntables and computers are musical instruments is the co-ordinator of Western Australia's new music course. State Curriculum Council arts framework officer Christine Adams said yesterday that music-producing machines such as turntables and computers were equal to the piano or violin. "Sales of turntables are way outstripping sales of guitars," Ms Adams said. "In this course, the status of all instruments is equal and the turntable is one of them."

But the course for Years 11 and 12 students, revealed in The Australian yesterday, was condemned by one of Australia's leading music educators and conductors, Richard Gill, who described it as "educational double-speak and claptrap". "It could just as easily be the curriculum for cooking as music," said Mr Gill, a former dean of the West Australian Conservatorium of Music. To describe turntables and computers as musical instruments was "totally meaningless", he said. "A computer is a computer and a turntable is a turntable. One of the points of education is to make the distinction."

Ms Adams, who learned the flute in high school in the 1970s, has spent the past three years working on the new music course and described it as more inclusive than the old course, which was "very Western-focused". "For example, if there is a student from India who wants to play the tabla, they can - and they couldn't do that in the old course," she said. Ms Adams said the new course placed an appropriate emphasis on theory. Students are required to write about politics, racism and other aspects of society that influence music in one of four subject areas called Music in Society, worth 25 per cent of the total mark. "It's really important to know the political and cultural background to music," she said. "It makes it a really, really rich experience."

But Mr Gill, who has received an OAM for his services to music and is recognised around the world for developing young musicians, said the course attempted to teach students how to respond to music, which was impossible. "Reaction to music is a personal and subjective thing - you can't teach it," he said. "The teaching of music should be about music itself. We learn to understand music by making music, by writing music, by performing music." Mr Gill said the first four sentences of the new music course, to be introduced next year, were rubbish. "By all means define music, but don't tell tell us the role it plays - that's up to us to determine. You can't teach the emotion of music. It's personal."

The course introduction starts: "Music plays an important part in the life of people the world over. It brings people together through a natural form of communication by providing a means of expressing ideas and emotions. "It combines words, sounds and movements which enhance the meaning of life in world cultures. Music has unique aspects which give expression to human experiences and understandings that cross cultural and societal boundaries."

Mr Gill challenged this. "Who says? Where's the evidence for that? How do you teach that? What are the ideas communicated in I Still Call Australia Home, which is in the course, or the ideas nominated in a Beethoven symphony?" Mr Gill said the course read like "a generic curriculum to which the word music is applied from time to time". The course also requires students to study ethical and health and safety issues of music, and asserts that "audiences construct meaning from music according to their own values, attitudes and ideological positions".

The course has been condemned by music teachers in Western Australia, who say students are no longer required to play an instrument and that the course downgrades the importance of reading music. State Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich said yesterday she was unaware students in the new course could pass without playing a musical instrument. "That's news to me," she said. But Ms Ravlich was not prepared to label this as unacceptable until she verified the position at a meeting with the Curriculum Council in the next day or two.

Source



Dum-dum-dum down: WA's new music curriculum hits all the wrong notes

An editorial from "the Australian" newspaper puts the music madness into perspective. It is education generally that is being destroyed in Western Australia

Music education is the latest casualty of Western Australia's misguided foray into the world of outcomes-based education. The state's new music curriculum will no longer require students to learn to play an instrument, and rap songs backed by downloaded music will be considered perfectly acceptable come exam time. Long-time music teachers are aghast at a plan that threatens to make Western Australia "a laughing stock". But as The Australian reports today, those involved with the new course admit that all instruments will be treated equally - even turntables and computers - and complain about the Western focus of the old curriculum. As with so much of outcomes-based education - which has become so controversial in Western Australia that the federal Government has threatened to withhold billions of dollars in funding if introduction of the new curriculum is not delayed - music lessons will now be more concerned with theory and sociology than actual skills.

Sadly for the state's students, music is not the only area to suffer under outcomes-based theory, which seeks to turn every subject into a subset of sociology. Under the proposed new curriculum, physics students will be asked to debate the ethics of airbags, while chemistry students will discuss the cosmetics industry. English students will not be required to read a book, spell, or demonstrate their ability to write continuous prose. Needless to say, failure is not an option under the new curriculum: in a system where everyone is allowed to achieve at their own pace, it is impossible not to pass. This will translate into terrible wake-up calls for many students whom outcomes-based education will allow to coast by, on the rationale that they are being prepared for the "real world". The fact is, the state's new curriculum does anything but. Musicians who can't play instruments, engineers who can't get complex maths problems right and just about anyone who can't string a sentence of correct, standard English together will find the job market a cruel place indeed. At the rate Western Australia is going, its music students will be lucky if they graduate knowing how to play anything more than an iPod.

Source



Awkward nuclear facts for the Left

They have probably never heard of pebble-bed technology before

New-generation nuclear reactors could be built safely anywhere in Australia because they did not pose a risk of meltdown and did not necessarily require water for cooling, according to Parliament's only doctor of physics, Dennis Jensen. The Opposition yesterday challenged the Government to rule out likely sites for reactors, but Dr Jensen, a West Australian Liberal, said later there were "all sorts of places", including in the desert. So-called generation IV reactors were gas-cooled and it was "physically impossible for them to melt down", said Dr Jensen, who is a former defence scientist and who has a doctorate in high-temperature ceramics.

As the new reactors did not require the large quantities of water for cooling needed by conventional reactors, they did not have to be on the coast, as speculated by critics this week. "The new technology allows you far more flexibility in location," Dr Jensen said. "Labor, by attempting to define potential sites for a nuclear reactor, are hoping to generate fear among people who live nearby." One version of the generation IV reactors was being developed in South Africa with support from China, he said, and the technology was attracting interest from Britain, the US and other countries. The reactors were cheaper to build than current versions and Dr Jensen said their generating costs were likely to be about the same as coal-fired stations.

In Parliament, the Treasurer and acting Prime Minister, Peter Costello, yesterday declined to answer an Opposition question about whether the Government would rule out possible sites, such as NSW's Northern Rivers region. The Opposition Leader, Kim Beazley, asked where the Government would find a place to dispose of high-level nuclear waste given it had not been able to find a place for low-level waste. National security was also a worry, he said. "Nations tend to regard those developing nuclear power for the purposes of power generation as retaining options for weaponising it, and that would be a very bad signal to send to this region," Mr Beazley said. [How dreadful!]

But the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, accused Mr Beazley of being a "charlatan", given the numerous Asian countries already with or planning to get nuclear power, including Japan, Vietnam and Thailand.

In Dublin, two days after accusing Mr Beazley of being unable to take a position on nuclear power, the Prime Minister, John Howard, accused him of hypocrisy for opposing it. Mr Howard said Mr Beazley's reaffirmation on Tuesday that Labor opposed nuclear power in Australia did not make sense. It was inconsistent to support uranium exports to other countries for nuclear power, but not be prepared to embrace it in Australia, Mr Howard said. "If nuclear power is unsafe, unacceptable . you shouldn't export any uranium to any other countries," he said. "I'm . in awe of [Mr Beazley's] hypocrisy on the issue."

Source



Australian straight talking does some good

Millionaire Liberal MP Malcolm Turnbull says childless, 58-year-old lesbian poets and science teachers are not exactly the Budget's target audience. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister made the remark in a searing email to librarian and part-time poet Pam Brown less than an hour after she emailed him at 7.45am (AEST) yesterday. Ms Brown, from the wealthy Sydney suburb of Rose Bay, was in a frosty mood herself, complaining in her missive that the AWB kickbacks affair had underlined "what kind of mendacious, arrogant smartarses are actually IN the current Government".

Mr Turnbull replied: "Gosh, Pam, you are in a bad mood this morning. Now, you are correct that the budget did not target childless, 58-year-old lesbian poets and science teachers; but you are better off nonetheless. "First, you will have benefited from the tax cuts: everybody did. Second, you will shortly benefit mightily from the changes to superannuation tax. "Third, there is $559 million in extra funding, mostly capital works, for universities, also a massive increase in spending on medical research, not to speak of a further expansion of the reading assistance voucher program (as an author and librarian I assume you are in favour of more people learning to read)."

The email that prompted Mr Turnbull to return fire had included Ms Brown's suggestion that the Liberal MP "rack off with your ridiculous gloating about water and pathetic acts of 'I'm catching the bus"'. "I am a 58-year-old lesbian with no children," she wrote. "There is NOTHING in the Liberal Government's budget for me and yet I pay taxes, catch public transport, save water, pick up rubbish from the upper-middle-class streets where I live. I only drive my tiny 12-year-old Daihatsu Charade when I need to pick up things I can't carry. "I am probably a kind of model citizen."

It's not the first time a member of the Howard Government has hit back at an angry constituent. Former health minister Michael Wooldridge dismissed a voter as a "nitwit loser" in 1999 and later branded the same man "a puffed-up little Pom with a permed hairdo". Paul Harley-Green, 71, had sent a fax advising Dr Wooldridge to "Keep away from my letterbox in future, fart-face."

Despite Ms Brown's sign-off - "I'm voting Green" - Mr Turnbull said yesterday that he hoped she might reconsider. "When people write me grumpy emails I make a point of replying with a great courtesy and a little humour. The next email comes back and says, 'You're not such a bad bloke'."

Indeed, a rapprochement appeared close. She may have described Mr Turnbull as "filthy rich" and constantly prancing around his electorate with his dogs, but Ms Brown said the MP was also "articulate and well-educated" and voters might warm to him as a future prime minister.

Source



25 May, 2006

Queensland: School holy war ends

Plans to widen religious education in state schools have been dumped after the Beattie Government bowed to pressure from conservative Christian groups. The backflip followed growing concerns among Labor backbenchers that the Government would face electoral opposition from some Christian churches and right-wing community groups if a wider range of beliefs were permitted to be taught in schools. But humanists and representatives of some minority religions said the current rules were discriminatory and vowed to continue their fight for equal access.

Premier Peter Beattie and Education Minister Rod Welford yesterday announced the Government had shelved the plan but did not rule out similar changes in the future. Mr Welford stood by his earlier claims that some groups had misunderstood the intention of the laws and said the Government would not have allowed cults or witchcraft to be taught. "It was never intended on our part that there would be any adverse effect on the availability of Christian religious instructions in schools," he said. "Clearly there was concerns about the potential access of other groups. "The appropriate course of action is not to proceed with the amendments at this time."

Under the current system, state school students attend religious classes unless their parents ask for them to be exempt. Those classes are taught by a range of Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist groups. The proposed changes would have allowed a wider range of beliefs to be taught in schools with the consent of parents and Education Queensland.

There were also concerns the changes would have required students to "opt-in" to study religion. Humanists had been celebrating the proposed reforms and planned to immediately apply for access to schools once they were passed. Humanist Society of Queensland president Zelda Bailey yesterday said she was "bitterly disappointed" over the decision but hopeful the Government would reconsider. "If we live in a democracy, non-religious people should have the same rights as religious people," she said. "It's discriminatory not to include non-religious people." ....

Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop said the backdown showed the Commonwealth would not tolerate the marginalisation of religious education in state schools. She had threatened to withdraw federal funding if the plan went ahead. "I am delighted to hear that commonsense has finally prevailed," she said. "This is responding to the concerns that I have raised, and concerns raised by parents and church groups." Ms Bishop said parents across Australia were asking for values to be taught in school. "(These) crazy notions were obviously dreamt up by some ideologue in an Education Department," she said.

More here



"Suspended sentences" to go in Victoria

Long overdue

Suspended sentences will be abolished for serious crimes in a major overhaul of Victoria's sentencing regime. Judges and magistrates will be ordered to cut the use of suspended sentences while sentencing changes are phased in over the next three years. Suspended sentences will be available only in exceptional circumstances for serious violent and sexual crimes during the transition period, and abolished altogether by 2009.

Attorney-General Rob Hulls is believed to be prepared to act immediately to introduce legislation abolishing the use of suspended sentences in serious cases. He previously opposed the abolition of suspended sentences. The Government is believed to have given support in principle to a Sentencing Advisory Council report Mr Hulls is due to release this morning. Council chairman Prof Arie Freiberg said last night the abolition of suspended sentences would create "real truth in sentencing", removing the fiction that people were being sentenced to jail when they were not. "It will mean more clarity, transparency and truthfulness," Prof Freiberg said.

New sentencing orders recommended by the council will involve the imposition of conditions, which the council believes will make them more credible and more effective than suspended sentences. Suspended sentences carry a conviction and a jail term that is fully or partly suspended for a period. But they involve no conditions of supervision, treatment or community work.

A public debate on suspended sentencing followed a Herald Sun report in April last year, which revealed almost a quarter of all those convicted of serious offences in Victoria were being freed on suspended sentences. In 2003-04, judges in the Supreme and County Courts fully suspended the sentences imposed on 531 offenders - 24 per cent of the total. The number of suspended sentences had risen 53 per cent in the previous two years. Offenders convicted of sexual assaults, robbery, extortion, drug trafficking and other serious assaults were among those who avoided jail. Another 4934 defendants in the state's magistrates' courts - six per cent of all guilty defendants - received a fully suspended term of imprisonment in 2003-04.

Prof Freiberg said there had been intense opposition to the proposed changes from the courts and the legal profession. "They were very much opposed to the direction we were going, but I think we've stuck to our guns," he said. "We know they won't be happy." The judiciary and criminal lawyers have insisted that suspended sentences were the second most severe penalty available because of the threat of jail hanging over an offender's head.

Victim advocacy groups and disgruntled victims have argued that suspended sentences were a cop-out and soft option because in most cases they involved no conditions and no jail time. The major criticism of suspended sentences has been that they involve no conditions or demands on an offender's time, movements, or willingness to rehabilitate.

Prof Freiberg said the council's strategy was to phase in the changes over three years to allow the orders to gradually win the confidence and acceptance of courts and lawyers. And correctional authorities would need a long period to gear up and acquire the extra resources needed to deal with the new orders. The council's final report recommends the removal of suspended sentences altogether by 2009, when the new sentencing options will be fully operational. Prof Freiberg said community consultation had shown serious concerns about the use of suspended sentences, which involve no jail time unless an offender is caught breaching them. "Few issues have created such strong divisions within the community as suspended sentences," he said.

Source



Politically correct judge admits he was wrong

But there's still a long way to go to see justice done



Northern Territory Chief Justice Brian Martin has admitted he made a mistake in sentencing an Aboriginal elder to just one month's jail for having anal sex with a 14-year-old girl and bashing her with a boomerang, because he placed too much emphasis on Aboriginal customary law. In a case that triggered a national outcry, the judge gave weight to the 55-year-old man's belief that he was within his rights to have sex with the girl because, at the age of four, she had been promised to him as a wife. "I was wrong. I got the sentence wrong. The Court of Criminal Appeal said I was wrong. I have no problem with that," Justice Martin told The Australian yesterday.

But while he accepts his error, the Chief Justice warned against the "simplistic" view that Aboriginal offenders are hiding behind traditional law. When courts considered an Aborigine's belief in customary law they were applying a principle that was used in courts across the nation, he said. "The principle is the same. It goes back to the offender's circumstances, their background, their culture - all of those things go to their make-up and reflect on their moral culpability," Justice Martin said.

Justice Martin's defence of customary law is at odds with the views of federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough, who wants to prevent it being used as a mitigating factor in sentencing indigenous offenders found guilty of violent crimes. Mr Brough said on Monday that customary law "has been used as a curtain that people are hiding behind" and it should be excluded as a factor when judges are determining sentences.

Justice Martin, a father of three daughters and a son who is on leave in South Australia, delivered his defence of customary law before he became aware of the moves to wind it back. After learning of Mr Brough's plan, Justice Martin said he had no intention of entering a political debate. Justice Martin handed down his original one-month sentence in August last year while sitting under a tree surrounded by residents of the remote community of Yarralin, 380km southwest of Katherine. The sentence for the crime of sexual intercourse with a child under 16 was increased on appeal in December to three years after the Northern Territory Court of Criminal Appeal ruled it was "manifestly inadequate".

Mr Brough said not only was Justice Martin's decision wrong, but that the appeal judges had also failed the victim by increasing the sentence to three years suspended after 18 months. "If you think giving a man an 18-month prison sentence - that's how long he was actually to be in jail for - for raping a girl for two days at 14 years of age, then I think our society has some very serious questions to answer," he told ABC Television.

Yesterday, Mr Brough told the Coalition partyroom many indigenous communities were run like "communist" states with individuals having no property rights. But Mr Brough has been accused of bigotry and a lack of understanding by West Australian Aboriginal Legal Service chief executive Dennis Eggington over his plan to scrap customary law. "Aboriginal people do not hide behind customary law," Mr Eggington said. "Whether he (Mr Brough) understands it or not, in Australia there are two sets of laws that will always apply to Aboriginal people who live according to their traditions and customs."

Justice Martin said it would be a mistake to view the Yarralin case as evidence that Aborigines were winning lighter sentences by hiding behind customary law. "What happened is that you get something like (the Yarralin case) and people start taking this very simplistic approach that they are hiding behind traditional law," he said. He said the appeal court had made it clear there were limits to the weight that could be given to customary law. "The system works. They increased the penalty and said there is a limit." He said his sentencing remarks in the Yarralin case had made it clear that when customary law was in conflict with the law of the Northern Territory "the Territory's law must prevail". "It is a balancing exercise. But if they commit a very serious crime then the weight that is given to the personal side of things decreases."

Source



Amazing idea! A navy that is allowed to fire its guns!



Shots could soon be fired at illegal fishing boats under new rules of engagement for the Royal Australian Navy. As part of the escalating battle against poachers, the navy may be given authority to fire shots into the bow or engine of illegal vessels. Strengthened rules are being considered amid growing concern for the safety of navy personnel trying to board fleeing boats.

Some illegal fishers plundering Australia's northern waters are attaching spears to the side or their boats and throwing rocks and other missiles at boarding crews. Australian fishermen also have reported poachers carrying machetes, knives and even being armed with guns.

Defence Minister Brendan Nelson yesterday said he had sought advice from Chief of the Navy on whether current rules of engagement, which restrict the navy to firing warning shots, needed to be bolstered. One option could involve the navy firing shots into the bow or engine of foreign fishing boats to disable the vessel.

Source



24 May, 2006

Banning plastic bags 'no real use'



It is believed to be one of the simplest ways people can help the environment, but scrapping the plastic shopping bag might not be worth the effort. The Federal Government's economic advisory body has recommended ditching plans to wipe out more than five billion plastic bags a year, saying the costs may outweigh the benefits.

The plan is supposed to save marine wildlife and reduce litter, but the Productivity Commission argues that not only is the plastic bag not a serious threat to wildlife, but governments have not taken into account the food-safety benefits of plastic bags or their typical re-use as liners for the garbage bin. Instead, the commission argues that tougher anti-litter laws or harsher fines might be a better way of addressing litter.

The plans to rid Australia of plastic bags within two years may already be in trouble. The supermarket chains Woolworths and Coles have failed to meet a 50 per cent reduction target by the end of last year. In the report on waste, due for release today, the commission will find there has been no cost-benefit analysis of a decision taken last July by state, territory and federal governments to phase out high-density polyethylene plastic bags by 2009. It finds the key expected benefits of getting rid of the plastic bag - the reduction in harm to marine wildlife through ingestion or entanglement in litter - is partially nonsense.

"Plastic bags are a highly visible and long-lasting form of litter because they can easily become airborne, are moisture resistant, and take many years to decompose," it says. But it says the extent of harm to Australia's marine wildlife is far from certain, saying the figure in use of 100,000 marine animals killed a year was based on a Canadian study done over four years in the early 1980s. It quotes Australian government research estimating that less than 1 per cent of plastic bags become litter, and that they account for only 2 per cent of litter by number.

Instead, the commission argues plastic bags may actually assist environmental impacts in landfill because of their "stabilising qualities, leachate minimisation and minimising (of) greenhouse gas emissions". As well, they provide "an important task in product and food safety, keeping uncooked meat or cleaning products separate from other foods".

The commission cites research showing that up to 75 per cent of householders re-use plastic bags as garbage bin liners or carry bags. It finds there has been no cost-benefit analysis of the impacts of banning the bags. "It is clear there would be costs that might well outweigh the claimed benefits associated with banning HDPE shopping bags, and such a ban would only address problems associated with the less than 1 per cent of plastic bags that become litter," it finds. The report recommends governments do not proceed with the plan unless they conduct a cost-benefit analysis.

Sydney beauty therapist Lesley Greenwell said she was concerned about the damage her plastic shopping bags might do to the environment, but said this did not stop her ploughing through about 10 a week. Since the 1990s, when plastic bags became an international environmental issue, Ms Greenwell said she had been trying to cut down on the number she threw away. "I do re-use bags, for rubbish or whatever I can around the home," the 27-year-old said. Ms Greenwell said she was relieved to hear about the Productivity Commission's report as it removed some of the guilt surrounding the use of plastic bags.

Planet Ark managing director Jon Dee said major supermarkets had failed to meet their goal of slashing 50 per cent of bags by the end of last year. They had only managed to reduce their use by 45 per cent, although he said the bigger problem was that non-supermarket retailers now give away 55 per cent of plastic bags.

Source



THE AUSTRALIAN NUCLEAR DEBATE

Three recent articles below

P.M. calls for debate on uranium



Australia and Canada will consider establishing a "uranium OPEC", using their domination of the global market to influence the spread of nuclear power. The uranium producers group would protect the interests of the two nations, which account for 52 per cent of ore production and 43 per cent of reserves.

Prime Minister John Howard also toughened his language on nuclear power in Australia. He indicated he believed nuclear-fuelled electricity stations were inevitable. "The scene on nuclear energy is going to change significantly in our country," he said. "The pressure for change is driven in part by environmental considerations, it's driven in part by the soaring price of fuel, it's driven in part by a realisation that confronting the problem of high energy pricing is one of the big economic challenges of nations such as Canada and Australia. "I want a full-blooded debate in Australia about this issue and I want all of the options on the table."

In Washington earlier this week, Mr Howard took a softer line, saying "I don't think there is a compelling economic case" for nuclear power in Australia.

Mr Howard ended a two-day visit to Ottawa, that included an address to Parliament and talks with Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The Prime Ministers agreed to direct officials to work out the structure of a uranium producers group. It would complement the US proposal for a Global Nuclear Energy Partnership of the big nuclear power users.

Mr Howard said the US proposal had implications for Australia and Canada, who must work to ensure it did not affect "our own interests or the legitimate exploitation of uranium reserves". Mr Harper said Australia and Canada would work "very closely together" to see their interests were protected. The Canadians supported Australia sending a 25-member reconstruction team to Afghanistan, where 2300 Canadian troops are operating. Mr Harper said it was not too early to make reconstruction committments, despite the increasing violence from Taliban attacks.

The above article appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on May, 21, 2006



Experts to put nuclear power in spotlight



The viability of a domestic nuclear power industry would be scrutinised by experts set up to advise the Federal Government, the Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop, said yesterday. But Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane tried to hose down hopes that nuclear power could be the answer to soaring fuel costs and climate change. He said its massive cost meant that it would not be a viable alternative to coal-fired power for at least 15 years.

Australian Workers Union national secretary Bill Shorten, tipped by some to become the next Labor Party leader, accused Prime Minister John Howard of pushing the issue simply to exploit divisions in the Labor Party. Labor was not interested in "running a debate" on nuclear power in Australia, he said. Mr Shorten told Channel Nine's Sunday program that Mr Howard would drop the nuclear power issue as soon as he realised the public was still not comfortable with the idea. But he appeared open to overturning Labor's "three mines policy", which opposes the opening of new uranium mines, describing the capping of mine numbers as akin to being "half-pregnant". He declared himself "very interested" in the views of Labor resources spokesman Martin Ferguson, who has called for the "three mines policy" to be scrapped.

The Northern Territory's Minister for Mines and Energy, Kon Vatskalis, slammed the proposal for a debate on nuclear power. According to ABC Online, he said Australia had nowhere near the infrastructure required to support uranium enrichment.

But Mr Macfarlane said the public's view had moved on significantly in recent years. He said he would have to rethink a proposal for a report into nuclear power which he and former education minister Brendan Nelson put to the Prime Minister more than a year ago, and which the Prime Minister is expected to approve. "What we're going to have to look at is how we get some national debate going on nuclear energy," Mr Macfarlane said. But even if the public backed nuclear energy, it would still be at least 2020 before it became a viable alternative because it could not compete with the price of coal, he said. "At the moment we generate from coal from around $30 a megawatt hour. Nuclear energy is probably $60 plus," he said. Finance Minister Nick Minchin and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer have also raised the high cost of nuclear energy as a potential obstacle.

A spokesman for Ms Bishop said she was optimistic about the potential for a nuclear power industry in Australia. The spokesman said she was working on setting up a panel of experts to put together the evidence for the feasibility of a nuclear power industry.

But Labor's spokesman on arts and reconciliation, Peter Garrett, accused Mr Howard of calling for a debate when he had already made up his mind in favour of a domestic nuclear industry. Mr Howard lacked the imagination or environmental knowledge to recognise there were better alternatives, he said. Mr Garrett said some countries were using nuclear power as "a short-term bridge" to alternative energy, but that was something Australia did not need.

Source



The Australian Left is being nuked

The report below is all the more amusing for being largely correct. The Left of the Labor party have horrors at anything nuclear while the more pragmatic majority are much less religious about it all. And by putting the matter up for serious debate, John Howard is putting the two factions at one another's throats. The report below of remarks by Peter Garrett is a cry of pain about that. It is also quite true that the Australian government is reducing its support for Greenie nuttiness -- which pains aging rock-star Garrett. The "fat boy" in the cartoon below is Kim Beazley, the overweight Federal Parliamentary leader of the Labor Party. The hairless one is Mr Garrett





Prime Minister John Howard is creating a false nuclear debate to deflect attention from a lack of action on climate change, Labor frontbencher Peter Garrett says. Mr Howard is flagging a full-scale nuclear debate when he returns from an overseas trip later this week, as momentum builds within his own party to develop nuclear power and uranium enrichment programs. Mr Garrett, a one-time Senate candidate for the Nuclear Disarmament Party, said the prime minister had left the United States a "born-again nuclear warrior".

The nuclear debate was a false one, he said. "The prime minister's creating one his great false debates, flying kites, making mischief, and covering up for the fact that he's done absolutely zip on climate change - nothing in the budget for it," Mr Garrett told ABC radio. "(He) abolishes the Australian Greenhouse Office. We've seen half a billion dollars worth of investment in wind farms and alternative technologies go overseas because of this government's lack of action. "The prime minister comes back from America as a nukes enthusiast, but he's just clouding the debate and covering his own deficiencies."

Mr Garrett said he was also concerned about senior government ministers, including Alexander Downer and Ian Macfarlane, flagging a uranium enrichment program for Australia. "I'm astonished that the government wants to push ahead with enrichment given the huge issues around safety, around proliferation, the sort of debates that we're seeing in the Middle East about rogue states. "But more importantly, why isn't this government investing in technologies that are good for the country?"

After 40 years with nuclear power, the US had not yet dealt with its own waste, Mr Garrett said. "They still haven't, after 40 years, got a successfully approved radioactive waste safe repository." The nuclear debate was a farce, he said. "It's more than hypocritical, it's a farce for the prime minister to come back from America and suddenly become born-again for nukes." Mr Garrett said his personal conviction that nuclear power was the wrong way to go was even greater now than when he was a member of the Nuclear Disarmament Party.

More here



THE ABORIGINAL UPHEAVAL

At last the damage wrought by political correctness is in full public view. Four current articles below:

Aboriginal self-management given up as hopeless

But not for want of trying it

Aboriginal community groups would be stripped of responsibility for housing and funding would be tied to the residents' behaviour under a Howard Government plan to improve conditions in indigenous settlements. The proposal follows a departmental review of Aboriginal public housing ordered by Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough, amid claims that overcrowding is contributing to violence in indigenous communities. Mr Brough wants to fund Aborginal housing through state and territory governments and encourage personal responsibility, in an attempt to end the common situation of 16 to 17 people living in three-bedroom houses, departmental sources have confirmed. In some cases, as many as 30 Aboriginal family and extended family members live in one house, causing social disharmony and poor hygiene and exacerbating violence.



Options understood to be under consideration include channelling funding through state governments rather than to Aboriginal community organisations, where staff may favour family and friends. Another option under consideration is to require indigenous housing organisations to undergo training on governance. And funding could be made conditional on fewer people living in the houses.

The government review comes as Northern Territory Chief Minister Clare Martin highlighted "overcrowded housing" as a key contributing factor to family violence, in a letter sent to John Howard at the weekend. Ms Martin asked the Prime Minister to consider putting underlying dysfunction and lack of opportunity in Aboriginal communities on the agenda of the next Council of Australian Governments meeting. Ms Martin is so far refusing to attend a summit of state and territory leaders in the next few weeks, called by Mr Brough to tackle indigenous violence, branding it a "talkfest". But she conceded last night to meeting the federal minister this week, saying it was time to move the media debate on violence and child abuse in Aboriginal communities to focus on practical solutions. "Improving the crowded living conditions of people in town camps would go some way in addressing the unacceptable conditions that exist in some of our indigenous communities," she said.

ALP president and prominent Aborigine Warren Mundine repeated yesterday his view that Ms Martin should attend Mr Brough's summit. Speaking out against Aboriginal violence, Mr Mundine rejected as "a total load of nonsense" a defence that the sexual abuse was "customary law" or "secret men's business". Speaking on the Ten Network's Meet the Press, Mr Mundine said: "What we've got to do is what Mal said. We've got to say, 'no more, no more in regard to customary law'. "When you're talking about sexual abuse of children, you're talking about sexual abuse of women, you're talking about domestic violence. These are criminal changes and they need to be treated with that full length of the law."

Mr Mundine also rated yesterday as "not a bad idea" suggestions that the army should become involved in building infrastructure in run-down communities. And he accepted that some communities might have to consider "moving out" if they were not economically viable, although he accepted that people had a right to live where they wanted. Economic unsustainability, Mr Mundine said, meant two things: "One is you live in poverty or you move - we've got to start facing those realities."

Mr Brough's office declined to comment last night on the departmental housing review, saying the minister did not want to distract attention from "law and order and the summit". "We have no comment in relation to housing," a spokesman said.

Health experts believe poor housing conditions dramatically increase the risk of preventable illnesses, as well as making it more difficult for indigenous children to excel at school. Overcrowding causes facilities such as toilets and showers to break down, while residents living in cramped, stressful environments blame the conditions for rising tensions, including violence, among families. Some community leaders claim overcrowded housing, which are all community-owned, must be fixed before any improvements will be seen in education, health and employment. Overcrowding in the Northern Territory is widespread, with the Government estimating that more than 3500 new houses are needed to meet demand in regional areas. At Wadeye an average of 16 to 17 people live in each three-bedroom house.

Mr Brough yesterday welcomed Mr Mundine's support for the planned summit and said that the NSW Labor Government had indicated it would attend.

Source



Strange new idea: One law for all

Aboriginal offenders would no longer be able to "hide behind" customary law to get reduced sentences for violent crimes under a proposal to crack down on rampant physical and sexual abuse in indigenous communities. Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough will put a plan to scrap consideration of cultural law as a mitigating factor in serious crimes to state and territory governments at a national summit. As it stands, when state or territory laws clash with Aboriginal law, the former always wins, but customary law can be used by defendants to moderate the severity of a sentence if the offender was genuinely acting in accordance with tribal traditions. Judges are obliged to consider the culpability of the offender in relation to the offence.

But Mr Brough wants to stamp out this practice. "As far as customary law is concerned, I don't believe it has any role ... It has been used as a curtain that people are hiding behind," he said yesterday. "There's no role to play in sentencing or diversionary type things when it comes to these serious crimes. This is regularly brought into mitigating circumstances and the courts take it into account. There's definitely too much opportunity and there are cases there to prove it and judges shouldn't have to weigh up those sort of things, it just should be excluded. "It means one group of Australians are treated unequally to everybody else."

Mr Brough's comments come after an Aboriginal elder in the Northern Territory, who claimed customary law gave him the right to bash and have anal intercourse with a 14-year-old schoolgirl promised to him as a wife, lost a High Court bid to overturn his three-year jail sentence on Friday. Mr Brough said it was an outrage that the 55-year-old man was originally sentenced to just one month's jail by Northern Territory Chief Justice Brian Martin last August, after the judge accepted that the defendant believed tribal law gave him the right to teach the girl to obey him. In December, the sentence for the crime of sexual intercourse with a child younger than 16 was increased to three years on appeal, following a public outcry. The offence carries a maximum penalty of 16 years' jail. The full bench of the High Court in Canberra refused to grant the man special leave to appeal against the three-year term imposed by the Northern Territory Court of Criminal Appeal, which had found the sentence of one month's jail was "manifestly inadequate".

In 2003, the Territory Government passed laws that removed promised marriage as a defence against having sex with under-age children. But customary law, including promised marriage, can still be used as a mitigating factor in sentencing. Also under current proposals, West Australian courts may be forced to take into account traditional punishment, including spearings and beatings, when sentencing Aboriginal offenders. The recommendation - among 93 proposals contained in a report into Aboriginal customary law by the state's Law Reform Commission - is under consideration for inclusion in the state's criminal justice code.

Northern Territory Bar Association president Jon Tippett said Mr Brough's proposal would be racist because customary law was not a defence and non-indigenous people were able to present cultural differences as mitigating factors in appropriate cases. "Customary law is part of Aboriginal communal life. Customary law has never been a defence, never been a defence to a crime in the Northern Territory," Mr Tippett said. "Customary law has never justified offences against children. Customary law does not justify pedophilia and never has. Aboriginal men have never been able to hide behind customary law. "Customary law can mitigate the severity of a penalty if it's shown that the offender was genuinely acting in accordance with his traditions in so far as those traditions may have come into conflict with the Territory's legal system. "It's no different to anyone else in the community, in any community. We have had many people who come here from other countries. There have been cases where people have acted in accordance with kinship systems or social systems resulting in that person breaking Australian law. "It's no offence for an Aboriginal person or any other person who breaks the law to say, 'I was acting in accordance with customary law'."

Mr Tippett said a court with sufficient evidence could mitigate a sentence because the offender was less morally culpable on a breach of the law if he or she was engaging in the customary pursuits that govern that person's life.

Source



Manhood whitewashed

Keith Windschuttle says that welfare has deprived indigenous men of their masculinity and the only solution is to close remote settlements with chronic unemployment and no economic prospects

Get to the root causes. That was the advice from any number of commentators after the latest revelations about Aboriginal communities. Very few, though, spelled out what they meant. When pressed, adherents of the root causes argument normally fling a familiar list of historical allegations at white Australia - invasion, dispossession, stolen children - but exonerate Aboriginal culture. Even some of the more courageous authors such as Boni Robertson, who first quantified the extent of domestic violence against Aboriginal women, played this historical card. But that interpretation clearly won't wash any more if we want to explain the recent disclosures of child sexual abuse in remote Aboriginal communities. The truth is that neither side is wholly innocent.

Traditional Aboriginal society was always harsh on women. From the First Fleet onwards, white settlers saw Aboriginal men routinely heaping blows on their women, while customary law permitted old men to marry girls at puberty. Nonetheless, there are no reports of traditional culture sanctioning the horrific behaviour described last week by Alice Springs Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers. Only recently has anyone heard of such deplorable sexual acts against little children. Their frequency today suggests something else has gone deeply awry.

The root cause is that white Australia has deprived Aboriginal men in remote communities of their manhood. The instrument we used was social welfare: giving handouts that did not require them to work. The social policy of the past 30 years is the principal culprit. The human male is a creature biologically programmed, communally socialised and psychologically motivated to be a provider for women and children. In outback Aboriginal communities, however, that role has been usurped by the state. The social consequences of this should have been entirely predictable. No matter what their race or where they live, men who do not work have no social status, no sense of self-worth and little meaning in their lives. Others think badly of them and they think badly of themselves.

Sociological studies have long shown that in all cultures many men respond to unemployment with alcoholism and domestic violence, one problem feeding the other. The loss of manhood has direct consequences for Aboriginal boys. They have no incentive to go to school. When they reach adolescence, their most attractive and adventurous options are the subcultures of crime and substance abuse. As Robertson showed, some consume vast quantities of pornography.

Few people today are aware of how recent a phenomenon the remote communities are. Most are products of the 1980s, when the Hawke government increased spending on fringe settlements and encouraged the out-station or homeland movement, in which many Aboriginal communities withdrew from larger population centres into isolated areas, ostensibly to revive Aboriginal culture and practise self-determination.

The brainchild of the policy was Labor's long-term adviser H.C. "Nugget" Coombs, whose manifesto was the book Aboriginal Autonomy. He wanted Aborigines to have a separate economy based not on capitalist notions of industry, agriculture and mineral development, which he regarded as exploitive and environmentally degrading, but on "sustainable development, stable populations, limited-growth economies and an emphasis on small scale and self-reliance". Today, his legacy is more than 1200 remote Aboriginal communities spread across northern Australia.

But without capitalist institutions such as consumer markets and private property, both of which the homeland movement actively discouraged, sustainable development was always a pipe dream. The result is that, although more than half the land in the Northern Territory belongs to Aboriginal communities, their economic participation is abysmal. Only 15 per cent of NT Aborigines of working age are employed in real jobs and many of these are in reserved public-sector positions. Another 16 per cent are engaged in the make-work welfare scheme Community Development Employment Projects. The other 69 per cent of working-age Aborigines are unemployed or not in the labour force. This is at a time of economic boom in the NT, when the non-indigenous work-force participation rate is more than 90 per cent.

The remote Aborigines are thus loaded with twin economic burdens: they inhabit regions that have no jobs or business opportunities and the state gives them an income with no effort on their part. The only solution is to stop funding and thus close down all those settlements where unemployment is chronic and where there are no economic prospects, which is most of them.

Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough does not need a talk-fest with state government leaders to tell him this. It is a decision he should take himself. He should set a timetable with enforceable deadlines. Obviously, such a choice is fraught with difficulty. No one in this country can be forcibly removed anywhere. The commonwealth has power over welfare payments but would need state and territory co-operation to provide housing and education services for a civilised relocation process. Brough could potentially entice key roles from those church and charitable bodies that recognise that a new start is necessary. Indeed, some of the latter have recently begun providing boarding school places for children from remote communities. Little would be gained by simply shifting the culture of violence from one location to another.

The Aboriginal ghettos of Redfern in Sydney and the Gordon Estate in Dubbo, NSW, are as dysfunctional as any in central Australia. Nonetheless, that Sydney and Brisbane house Aboriginal populations of 35,000 and 28,000 respectively, most of whom enjoy suburban lives indistinguishable from other Australians, shows none of this is insurmountable.

If he seriously threatens the present regime, Brough will generate resistance from those academics, Aboriginal activists and bureaucrats who created it. They will mount a propaganda campaign to argue they were right all along. Some will even revive the furphy that assimilation equals genocide. But there are enough Aborigines who have made the complete transition to modern, urban life while retaining a pride in their identity and ancestry to give the lie to that charge. Last week's revelations confirm a growing public awareness of the terrible truth among us. Most people will see the opponents of change as defending the indefensible.

Source



Not the Third World, just Australia's first war zone



Gang violence has turned the remote indigenous community of Wadeye into a war zone. Scores of Aborigines have fled their homes and are living in squalid refugee-like camps as two rival gangs, the Evil Warriors and the Judas Priests, fight for control of the Northern Territory's largest black town. Wadeye's chief executive, Terry Bullemor, said yesterday the local council was considering evacuating about 300 people to Darwin and elders called on politicians to send in the army to help the town's five full-time police officers keep the peace. However, the only road to the town remains blocked by floods.

Even the gang leaders have voiced concern. "Somebody's going to die," said Gregory Narndu, 32, a leader of the Evil Warriors. "What can we do? That other mob attacks us with rocks, boulders, spears and anything else they can get hold of." Wadeye, formerly the Catholic mission of Port Keats, has been plagued by warring gangs for years but three months ago the violence started to increase, reaching a crisis point last week. The rioters have caused more than $450,000 worth of damage to houses and other property.

"Our cry is for help," said town elder Theodora Narndu, Mr Narndu's mother. "Seeing what's happening, my tears are never dry. I hear the screams at night . terrified women and children . It has never been like this before. Our kids are not safe." She blamed the problem on the lack of police and a lack of resources. "When there's trouble around here and I call the police to come and protect my mob they never come," she said. "Where are the resources that the politicians kept promising us?"

Almost half of Wadeye's 2500 people are under 15 and cannot speak English. Life expectancy is 20 years less than that of non-indigenous Australians and an acute housing shortage - set to worsen over the next 20 years - means an average of 20 people to a house. The camps, created in response to the recent bouts of violence, lend an air of Third World poverty to the town.

Wadeye's only doctor, Patrick Rebgetz, said the violence had put the town's 1300 children at risk and accused the territory's Health Department of trying to gag him. "Australia should be ashamed at what's happening in remote indigenous com-munities," Dr Rebgetz said. "We as Australians need to stand up with these people to reclaim their town from the groups that are trying to destroy it." He said the Health Department had told him not to speak about a six year-old rape victim.

Source



The old "mentally ill" racket again

A notorious Queensland killer is free just a few years after committing a shocking murder. The man was hospitalised after he was declared to be of unsound mind and never faced a criminal court for the horrific crime. But he has been seen in public in recent weeks. Legal restrictions prevent The Sunday Mail from identifying the killer. The Mental Health Act prohibits publishing any details of the person or his crimes.

Law enforcement sources revealed they had seen him recently in the same area where he killed his female victim. Witnesses saw him in a busy street and cafe, with no sign of mental health officials nearby. "It was definitely him. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw him out and about by himself," one informant said.

The sources said officials at the mental health institution where the man had been locked up had confirmed he was on release. State Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg said it was unbelievable to have a notorious killer back in the community so soon. "There is no excuse for it and I urge the government to do something immediately", Mr Springborg said. "You have people convicted of murder in jail for 15 years at least. Here you have someone who has done the same thing, found to be unsound of mind, is suddenly cured and back in the community within a few years. My heart goes out to the family of the murder victim. They must be absolutely devastated. They have lost a loved one, they are the ones who have the recurring nightmares. Imagine how they would feel if they come across this person in the community again.

Shelley Fisher, executive officer of the Mental Health Review Tribunal, refused to discuss the case. She said patients on a forensic order came up for review on a six-monthly basis. Ms Fisher said victims or people with "sufficient personal interest" could register with the tribunal so they could make submissions at hearings and be notified of release details. She said there was no set time for patients' hospitalisation - as opposed to a jail sentence - and their release was determined by doctors. They could be released once it was determined they were no longer a risk to the community or themselves, Ms Fisher said.

The above article appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on May, 21, 2006



23 May, 2006

John Howard's Chicago speech last Friday

A very feisty, very pro-U.S. and rather under-reported speech



No global challenge could be secured without American power and purpose, Prime Howard John Howard has declared in a vigorous defence of the role played by the US since the September 11 terrorist attacks. "Without American leadership, the trials and tragedies of recent years could be but a prelude of darker days to come," Mr Howard said in an address yesterday to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. "With American leadership, we can build a better world - not just for us, but for all." Sharpening his call for the US to play a greater role in global affairs, Mr Howard told the council: "To the voices of anti-Americanism around the world, to those who shout 'Yankee go home', let me offer some quiet advice: be careful what you wish for."

Mr Howard said the imperative of American global leadership was one of three defining truths "in this age of global opportunity and uncertainty". The other truths were that, "we live as never before in a world of blurred boundaries" and that liberal democracies had to respond with "a synthesis of interests and values; a marriage of national strategy with national character". Addressing specific global challenges, Mr Howard:

* Reaffirmed the commitment to match the resolve of the US in Iraq. "Australia is with you. We will stay the course. We will finish the job," he said.
* Described Iran's refusal to back down on its pursuit of uranium enrichment as a challenge for the United Nations.
* Predicted that the emergence of a global middle class, particularly in China and India, would be one of the most momentous trends of the 21st century.
* Defined China's rise as the defining phenomenon of the age.
* Praised Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, saying he was tackling the enormous challenges facing Indonesia robustly and admirably.

Mr Howard also said none of the problems in the Asia-Pacific region - including in the Taiwan Strait and on the Korean Peninsula - could be resolved, or even managed, without US leadership and engagement. He said the key to relations with China was "building on shared interests and widening the circle of co-operation, while dealing openly and honestly on issues where we might disagree".

Acknowledging a greater wariness towards China's growth in the US, Mr Howard cautioned that not only China needed to adjust to changing realities. "The international community must also acknowledge that China is determined to succeed and to reclaim its place in the global order." Before the speech, Mr Howard played down the personal significance of the glowing reception and lavish praise he received in Washington from President George Bush and others. "I see everything that has happened over the past few days as a compliment to my country, not to me," he said. "This is a wonderful endorsement of the importance of Australia to the United States, of the respect America has for Australia no matter who the prime minister is."

Source



A notorious wrongful conviction becomes further unglued

A key prosecution witness in the Leanne Holland murder is set to turn the controversial case on its head. Legal experts say astonishing new information could free convicted killer Graham Stafford after almost 15 years behind bars. Forensic scientist Angela van Daal gave crucial evidence that helped convict Stafford of the horrific 1991 sex slaying of the Goodna schoolgirl at his trial the following year. But she now says blood identified as Leanne's - a central piece of the police case - could have come from another family member.

At the time, Leanne's brother Craig had slashed his hand in a pub fight and had bled freely in the family home. Ms van Daal's testimony related to bloodspots found on "removable" items in the boot of Stafford's car. The blood found on a blanket, bag and cloth connected Stafford to the murder of his then fiancee's younger sister.

Ms van Daal, now an associate professor at the Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine at the Gold Coast's Bond University, said key aspects were overlooked at the 1992 trial. "I did not receive any reference samples from any of Leanne Holland's relatives or from the defendant," she said. "It would seem that the blood ... could also be the result of blood from someone other than the deceased." Ms van Daal said it was "very significant" that although the frequency of the DNA type matching anyone in the general population was only about 1 per cent, it was as high as 25 per cent for relatives.

She was only asked to test if the blood was the same type as Leanne's. "But she had a father, sister and brother ... it could just as easily have been their blood," Ms van Daal said. It was a "glaring oversight" that she was not asked to check whether the blood found on items in the boot did not match Craig Holland's.

Sources said that police took blood samples from Leanne's dad Terry Holland, sister Melissa and Craig but they were not sent to Ms van Daal at the state forensic science lab in Adelaide where she then worked.

Ms van Daal said she was also never asked to comment on the amount of blood - just a few drops - that was found. She would have told the court it was not enough to support the police theory that Leanne had been bashed over the head at least 10 times with a hammer, stabbed numerous times, then stored in the boot for the next two days.

Former policeman Graeme Crowley, who has investigated the case and co-authored the book "Who Killed Leanne?", said it was time for an urgent, independent investigation into Stafford's conviction. "The human blood in the boot of Graham Stafford's car was the last unsolved mystery of this case," he said.

The above article appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on May, 21, 2006. Background here



The expensive legacy of Greenie correctness in Queensland

Greenies set up such a howl whenever a dam is proposed that few politicians have been game to risk it. Now vastly more costly private water storage is needed



Rainwater tanks would be mandatory in new Queensland homes and households would be offered cash rebates to be water wise, under a plan by the State Opposition. A coalition government would also fast-track $500 million in southeast Queensland water infrastructure, including dams, as part of a plan to tackle the state's growing water crisis. Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg today plans to detail his party's water policy, which will include a $100 million kitty to fund "green rebates" for Queenslanders who install tanks and other water-friendly devices in their homes.

A cornerstone of the policy is the requirement for rainwater tanks to be installed in all new homes built where there is a reticulated water supply. "It will take the pressure off the supplies and people will become a little more self-sufficient. It's a commonsense way of being able to get more water quickly," he said. "It will take years to build dams . . . but one of the ways you can actually start conserving water is to catch what's falling off people's roofs." Mr Springborg said the proposal could save billions of litres and would be rolled out first in southeast Queensland.

Rebates would also be offered to Queenslanders who purchased other water-saving devices such as AAA-rated showerheads, water-efficient washing machines, swimming pool covers, dual-flush toilets and water flow regulators. The Opposition estimates the installation of these devices as part of the rebate scheme could save more than 150,000 litres of water each year. Mr Springborg said it was essential to implement short-term water-saving policies while longer-term projects such as dams would take time being built. "We know that we need dams . . . but we're still looking at five years down the track and we've got a water crisis that's going to be hitting in a few months," he said.

Today's policy will be the first major infrastructure announcement by the Coalition and is expected to detail significant water projects. The $500 million in water infrastructure is likely to include dam sites other than those already flagged by the Beattie Labor Government on the Mary River at Traveston and near Rathdowney. The Opposition has already promised it will fast-track construction of the Wyaralong Dam, between Boonah and Jimboomba, southwest of Brisbane. It is expected to build on the $1 billion in dams planned by the previous Coalition Government eight years ago, but has confirmed it could not resurrect the Wolffdene dam.

Source



Australian Holy war

Feds heavy a Leftist State government over the teaching of religion in schools



Queensland could lose millions of dollars in federal funding to schools if it changes a century-old law governing religious education. Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop will threaten the state with funding cuts at an education ministers conference scheduled for Brisbane in July if the law is tampered with. "We provide billions of dollars of funding each year," she said. "It is fair enough that we have our say on the issue." Ms Bishop fears witchcraft and other fringe religions could enter the classroom if the Bill is not stopped. And she has accused the Queensland Government of hastening a tide of students moving away from the public system to the private. "Political correctness has gone too far when religious education at school now permits almost any belief system to be taught, including witchcraft and paganism," she said.

But the State Government already appears to be watering down the controversial legislation, which also came under attack from the State Opposition last week. "She's boxing at shadows," Education Minister Rod Welford said yesterday. "We are not planning any substantial changes."

Ms Bishop said the Bill before the Queensland Parliament was a blatant attack on religious education and moral values in schools. She said proposed changes to the state's Education Act got rid of the "opt out" on religious education system where student's parents could inform the school they did not want religious education for their children. The proposed "opt in" system forced parents to provide a school principal with a written notice if they wanted their child to receive religious education.

"The proposed changes also widen the definition of what can be taught to religious or other belief," Ms Bishop said. "This would now allow cults and fringe groups to register and begin teaching their beliefs to Queensland schoolchildren." Ms Bishop said Queensland schoolchildren should not be taught in a moral vacuum "imposed by political correctness gone mad". "The Beattie Government's proposed change to Queensland's Education Act will do two things," she said. "First they will place hurdles in front of parents who want to ensure that their children get some religious instruction at school, and secondly they will open the door to cultish groups to start preaching unacceptable views in schools."

Mr Welford said he would be happy to meet Ms Bishop and listen to what she had to say in July.

Source



Politically incorrect whistleblower

Must not defame "noble savages" as they rape their way through life



A former flying doctor [a Christian] who has treated Aboriginal victims of sex abuse as young as five says officials have been cowed into silence, fearing accusations of racism. Lara Wieland, who worked in far north Queensland for three years, said public servants who reported abuse were themselves abused and threatened by men in positions of power. "Some of these [black] men were considered by many in the community to be perpetrators of child abuse themselves," Dr Wieland told The Weekend Australian. "Yet time and again we saw them wield the power and control in the communities and saw government departments and officials cower in fear, turning a blind eye rather than (be) accused of being a racist by these men, which was their common ploy."

Dr Wieland said she found it incongruous that those accused of sexual abuse received state-funded legal representation and were the first to be informed of the charges being dropped, before the victim and police. "I saw many dedicated police officers who wanted to fight this scourge but were frustrated at every turn (by) refusals from magistrates for DNA testing, prosecutors dropping charges with no explanation (and) cases being dropped because child witnesses wouldn't testify in court after the perpetrators threatened their families," she said. "In one child-rape case it didn't even get to court, even though I had physical evidence and the girl's words had been recorded, as had her statement to police. "The frightened little girl was unwilling to repeat it all in court after being threatened."

Dr Wieland met Prime Minister John Howard in Weipa on western Cape York in August 2003 and handed him a 10-page letter detailing cases of violence against women and children on Cape communities. "Police brought children as young as five to me for rape examination," she said. "Little happened. I felt helpless to do anything in a system that did not respond and in fact seemed to enforce a culture of secrecy. "Speaking out when I did came at a personal cost. My career options and opportunities have been curtailed. I was harassed and blacklisted by some. I lost the job I loved. "I am filled with admiration for Aboriginal women who find the courage to speak out ... (It) means risking being cut off from their families and friends, being denied opportunities within the community, risking physical retribution and death threats and, in many cases, risking their lives."

Dr Wieland, who works for indigenous health services on the Atherton Tableland in north Queensland, said alcohol was at the root of most physical and sexual abuse in the communities. She encouraged people to stop being afraid of talking about the violence "for fear it will offend someone". "Nothing is more offensive than a raped or abused child," she said.

Source



22 May, 2006

Political correctness about Australian blacks slowly being defeated by reality

This week Alice Springs Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers went public about the incidence of bashing, rape, child abuse and various other horrors in remote Aboriginal communities. Many people expressed surprise and even shock. But why? Well, there has been a growing awareness of these problems since the late 1990s, when the academic Boni Robertson and others documented a similar situation in Queensland. But for 20 years before that, it was not politically correct to speak of such things.

This was not always the case. In the later '70s, some frank articles appeared in the press that suggested a descent into horror for many Aboriginal people. But then something happened. Consider these extracts from 1977.

From January 5, an article in the Herald on Bowraville by James Cunningham: "The black men live by doing hardly anything. Their idleness, supported by social welfare, is soul-destroying and almost total."

From February 4, a report from Papunya by Jack Waterford in The Canberra Times: "There is absolutely nothing to do. Employment is a rarity. An average of about 25 children attend the primary school, perhaps 10 per cent of the school-age population."

From June 6 in The National Times, an article by Michael Davenport (the pen name of Graham Gifford, see below) from Maningrida in Arnhem Land, where he lived with his wife: "A [nine-year-old] girl had been, according to strict tribal custom, promised in marriage to a man much older than herself. One day, the husband called at her parents' home to claim his bride. With the help of his three grown-up sons, [he] grabbed the girl and made off into the bush with her. He raped her almost continuously for four days." After giving another example of the brutal treatment of a woman, Davenport commented: "The life of the tribal Aborigine is not that of a noble savage. It contains the absolute denial of all human rights. The latest scheme is to get them all back to the bush, and to tempt them there is a $10,000 grant to set up a home -- plus a lot of other gifts of one sort and another. I suppose, once they are there, nobody can see them and, regardless of what sort of life they are leading, the problem may be claimed to be solved."

From November 2, a Herald article on a House of Representatives committee's criticism that the Department of Aboriginal Affairs was covering up the extent of drunkenness: "Mr Ruddock said his committee had found that alcohol was having a 'devastating' effect on Aborigines not only in the Northern Territory but also in some states . in some communities more than half the total expenditure by the community is on alcohol."

From November 14 in The National Times, Graham Gifford again from Maningrida, a settlement of 400 people: "The Australian Aborigine is being completely demoralised and converted into an idling sponger by the almost limitless handouts from the white Australians. There is little one can say about the disastrous effect of alcohol on Aborigines that is not already known, except that it is getting rapidly worse. We would have, in Maningrida, about 30 confirmed [petrol-sniffing] addicts between the ages of four and 18. Any girl sniffer will sell herself to you for this much petrol."

There was a storm of protest about Gifford's articles. Marcia Langton, now Professor of Australian Indigenous Studies at the University of Melbourne, but then general-secretary of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, complained to the Press Council that Gifford's description of Aboriginal people as demoralised spongers was "the opinion of a one-eyed racist, akin to the statements from the mouths of the brutal station owners who have treated their black employees like animals".

On January 13, 1978, the Press Council wrote to Langton announcing it had been "given to understand that no publication of John Fairfax and Sons Ltd. [of which The National Times is one] in future will accept material from Mr Gifford".

For the next two decades there was little in the media about the problems of welfare dependency or violence against children and women in Aboriginal communities. Which is why white folk can be so surprised about these things today, as if they were fresh and new. Gifford, a brave, thoughtful and independent man who had fought as a tail gunner in the Battle of Britain, was forced to leave the territory and has since died.

Following Nanette Rogers's "revelations" this week, hands are being wrung, as is normal these days, and there is the usual talk of improving reporting and introducing new government programs. But maybe the time has come to acknowledge this is no longer enough. What we ought to do now, instead of the normal piece of moral theatre that will change nothing and leave everyone's jobs intact, is accept the need for solutions of a magnitude that matches the size of the problem.

The ill effects of welfare have become grudgingly accepted even by romantics since Noel Pearson gave his famous "welfare poison" speech some years ago. But few people have faced up to the implication of this insight, which is that if you take away the welfare, most of the communities have no future, and therefore should be shut down. Aboriginal people should be paid to move to the cities and assimilate. There is no other solution.

Source



A triumph over politically correct nonsense for NSW police

Safer for police to smile now

The NSW government and state police chief do not believe tough new police reforms will open the door to corruption or pose a risk to civil liberties. Premier Morris Iemma at today's Police Association of NSW biennial conference on the central coast announced a raft of changes to the Crimes Act and police procedures.

The Crimes Act will be amended to allow assault charges to be laid against anyone who throws an object at police, even if they do not hit their target. Police will be permitted to reach into a suspect's clothing to remove a weapon instead of asking them to produce it themselves. Procedures also will be relaxed requiring police to provide evidence of their name, place of duty and reasons for acting, as well as informing offenders that failure to comply with them may be an offence. In group situations, only one officer will now have to give such information, and they will not be required at all in "unruly and unsafe" situations where it is impractical and unsafe to do so. The government also will consider easing complaints procedures so they can be addressed at local station level.

Mr Iemma said the changes would put more police on the beat through slashing red tape and ensure greater community safety. He denied it would decrease police accountability. "What we are having under examination is a system that will streamline the complaints system," Mr Iemma told reporters. "What we want is certainly accountability and transparency but we don't want to have police tied up in minor customer service type complaints in which there are exhaustive bureaucratic committees and examinations. "It's not dragging back scrutiny."

Police Minister Carl Scully cited the example of lengthy investigation into a complaint about the conduct of a police officer, who had smiled and firmly shut an infringement book when handing down a fine. "That is a complete waste of the public's time and police officers' time," Mr Scully said. "The public want to ensure that police are unshackled as possible, provided the checks and balances remain."

Police Commissioner Ken Moroney echoed Mr Iemma's insurances that the reforms would not result in a less accountable police force. "There will be no diminution on the issue of professional standards, conduct or behaviour by any member of the NSW police," Mr Moroney said. "What we are saying is that we need to free up our officers."

Source



Attack on religious education resisted in Queensland

Education Minister Rod Welford has written to all Government MPs in a bid to quell concerns about proposed changes to the teaching of religious education in Queensland state schools. Nervous backbenchers are worried they face a backlash from some Christian churches amid claims the laws could allow humanists and extreme religious groups access to school students.

Mr Welford will also address the issue at a caucus meeting on Monday in an effort to ease concerns. But he has dismissed speculation that some Government MPs are willing to cross the floor to vote against the Bill. He rejected suggestions that cults and witchcraft would be allowed to be taught in schools once the Bill had passed. And he said parents and schools would have to approve the teaching of less popular belief systems. "Nobody has indicated to me that they would cross the floor or are even contemplating it, and in this situation it would be foolish because there will be no material change to the current arrangements in schools," Mr Welford said. "I'm aware there is still some nervousness . . . but the concerns undoubtedly stem from a misunderstanding of the legislation. "As I said in my letter, students will continue to have access to religious education, and no other programs will be allowed to be taught unless they are approved by the director-general and supported by the school community."

But Liberal leader Bob Quinn said the current system was working and should not be changed. "This Bill overturns 90 years of religious education in state schools," Mr Quinn said. "The churches and other community groups are rightly concerned about how the Government is changing this and I'm not surprised that ALP backbenchers are voicing their concerns."

Some Labor MPs, who did not want to be named, said they had been contacted by right-wing groups worried that the teaching of Christianity could be eroded in state schools. Under the current system, state school students attend religious education classes unless their parents ask the school to exempt them. This will continue under the new laws and parents will be able to nominate their actual religion. Various religious groups will be able to apply for permission to teach in schools and if their syllabus is approved by Education Queensland and requested at a school, they could hold classes provided the teachers have blue cards.

Groups such as the Hare Krishnas, Scientologists and Humanists have already expressed interest in teaching their beliefs in state schools. Capalaba MP Michael Choi said he was concerned that the criteria for approval were too flexible and could allow extremists, including cults, to gain access to schools. But he said he would express his views in the party room and not by crossing the floor of Parliament. "I am happy with 99 per cent of the Bill," Mr Choi said. "I am still thinking through a few possible solutions and the discussions are on-going. "If I am not satisfied with the final solution to a level that warrants my endorsement, I may not support it in the caucus."

Source



More New Zealanders for Australia

The Kiwi exodus to Australia will accelerate because the New Zealand Government's Budget failed yesterday to match Australian Treasurer Peter Costello's tax cuts, the NZ National Party opposition has said. Opposition Leader Don Brash claimed Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark and Finance Minister Michael Cullen had brought down a "Bondi Budget". "Helen Clark and Michael Cullen believe there is a place for tax cuts - it's called Australia," Mr Brash said.

Mr Brash said Australia's $39 billion worth of tax cuts announced last week was a raid on New Zealand's best and brightest. "This is the brain drain Budget, the Bondi Budget," he said. "Tragically, we are now set to lose even more skilled people across the Tasman. "Helen Clark and Michael Cullen want your grandchildren to be cheering for the Wallabies."

Mr Cullen yesterday unveiled a Budget surplus of $NZ8.5 billion ($7 billion) that he insisted would address other reasons for trans-Tasman migration. "There's no point having a tax cut if the result is a reduced quality of roads, a poorer health system, a poorer education system," Mr Cullen said. "Australia has quite good roading and quite good health and quite good education . . . also things that attract people to Australia." To that end, Mr Cullen announced $NZ1.3 billion in new transport spending, most of it going to new roads.

Ms Clark argued there was higher unemployment across the Tasman, typified yesterday by Qantas making 1000 employees redundant. Mr Cullen said economic enhancements should not come at the expense of NZ's "unique way of life". "There's no point in destroying New Zealand in order to try and make it like Australia," he said.

Source



21 May, 2006

Howard in Canada



John Howard entered an emotionally divided Canadian Parliament and sided with his second-best North American friend, new Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Mr Howard addressed a joint sitting of the Parliament in Ottawa during which he supported Canada's troops in Afghanistan, opposed the Kyoto agreement on pollutants and praised the US and by that President George W. Bush. His remarks were completely in line with policy of the Conservative minority government led by Mr Harper, and clashed with policies of opposition MPs, some of whom staged a quiet but noticeable boycott of the Australian Prime Minister, leaving vacant seats in the chamber.

Mr Howard also was a target of about 150 demonstrators outside Parliament protesting against Australia's new industrial relations laws. "We don't want those kind of laws brought into our country," said Barbara Byers, executive vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress, who accused Mr Howard of being a mentor with a mean streak to Mr Harper.

But inside Parliament, Mr Harper followed the lead of US President Bush in praising Mr Howard for his "wise counsel" and demonstration of strength. The previous night Mr Harper had narrowly won a parliamentary vote to extend the deployment of 2300 troops in Afghanistan until next February.

Mr Howard is said to be close to the 47-year-old Mr Harper, who was elected in February after a campaign assisted by Brian Loughnane, federal director of the Australian Liberal Party, an unofficial adviser to the Conservatives. Canadian sources yesterday said in some aspects he was closer to Mr Harper's political position than to that of Mr Bush, because of the similar issues they have had to deal with, and because both operate in a Westminster system democracy. Today Mr Howard will hold talks with Mr Harper before flying to Ireland.

Source



Male rape rife among Australian blacks

Politically correct refusal to police Aboriginal communities effectively bears fruit



Aboriginal boys are 10 times more likely to be raped than other Australian males, in a generational cycle of sexual violence that continues under a shroud of secrecy. A groundbreaking study of indigenous men's health, completed last week, has unearthed a culture of abuse against males that comes on top of the widely acknowledged crisis facing Aboriginal girls and women. The Weekend Australian can reveal the disturbing findings amid the renewed debate over the level of sexual abuse and domestic violence in Aboriginal communities.

Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough this week called a summit of state, territory and community leaders after Northern Territory prosecutor Nanette Rogers detailed the horrific treatment of women and children in central Australia.

The debate has sparked a political bunfight, with Mr Brough's criticism of policing in communities prompting a threat from Northern Territory Chief Minister Clare Martin to boycott the summit. Mr Brough now wants the states and Northern Territory to radically upgrade indigenous housing as a measure to tackle the spiralling violence.

Aboriginal men are largely blamed for the violence, but the new study shows many are also victims. The survey, of 301 indigenous men in Queensland and the Northern Territory, was conducted by way of one-on-one interviews over the past 18 months. It found 10 per cent had been raped before the age of 16 - 10 times the rate in the rest of Australia.

Aboriginal researchers, from the Queensland University of Technology, said the abuse had largely continued in secrecy, with victims saying they were too ashamed or fearful of reprisals to go to authorities. About 80 per cent of the victims told researchers they had never spoken about their suffering. The rate was even higher in the more remote communities. The survey, the first analysis of sex abuse among indigenous males in Australia, will be presented as part of a report to the International Congress on Child Abuse and Neglect in Britain later this year. Interviews were conducted in communities on Cape York, near Darwin, on the Tiwi Islands and in southeast Queensland.

QUT associate professor Michael Dunne said the survey revealed that Australia's indigenous communities were defying a trend of falling abuse of boys within Western countries. "Over the past 40 years, the risk of sexual abuse of boys has been falling very substantially," he said. "This has been observed in a number of countries including Australia, Canada and the US. But our study, in which we have compared men over 40 years of age with those under 40, there is no difference in the level of abuse."

According to the survey, 33per cent of the men - aged between 18 and 74 - said they had been touched or fondled against their will, compared with the national average of 12per cent. A further 15 per cent of the indigenous men interviewed said they were victims of attempted anal sex, and 10 per cent of forced anal sex, compared with a rate of 3per cent and 1per cent, respectively, for the rest of Australia's male population. While some of the older victims claimed to have been abused by outsiders, including missionaries, most perpetrators came from within their communities.

Head researcher of the project, Mick Adams, a former chief executive of Queensland's Aboriginal and Islander Health Council, said secrecy contributed to the cycle of abuse. "It becomes a mirrored thing: if you abuse people and get away it, then you continue with it and then others learn from you," he said. "We are appalled by the abuse against women and girls but there is also men and boys being raped and sexually abused. It needs to be looked at."

Source



Another attempted coverup in Queensland that is not going to work

It will all come out in court

A former whistleblower who was suspended after complaining about the treatment of people with disabilities at Brisbane's Basil Stafford Centre has been sacked. In February, The Courier-Mail reported that Kerry Crossingham, a residential care officer who worked with residents at the notorious facility, had been suspended on full pay since last July after alleging people with intellectual disabilities were being isolated and locked up for long periods. The treatment contravenes Disability Services Queensland's statutory requirements and policies.

Yesterday Mr Crossingham said he had received a letter of dismissal, the grounds for which included him harassing DSQ executive director Evan Klatt by sending emails relating to his complaints to Mr Klatt's home computer, and failing to follow a direction to supply his current home address to the department.

Mr Crossingham, who was nominated for an award for his work in 2004, said the Basil Stafford resident about whose treatment he had complained was still being "detained illegally". "They have no legal authorisation to lock him up and he is one of a number of intellectually disabled people whose liberty is currently being deprived illegally by DSQ," he said. "There is no statutory authority stating that residential care officers are authorised to lock these people up virtually, in some cases, in solitary confinement."

Mr Crossingham said he would take his case to the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission.

Source. More on the Basil Stafford Centre for the intellectually disabled here



Why don't they just lock these b******s up?

Queensland taxpayers are footing a $1 million-a-year bill to provide round-the-clock care for one delinquent teenager. And that care comes with no guarantee the child will not reoffend. The explosive revelations by Child Safety Minister Mike Reynolds come a day after it was revealed that a 16-year-old youth supposedly under 24-hour supervision allegedly sexually assaulted a girl, 11, at the Toowoomba Show.

Mr Reynolds said there were hundreds of Queensland teenagers who were too dangerous for foster care and required constant supervision. "We have one child who is costing the Government, costing my department, Child Safety, up to $1 million a year," Mr Reynolds said. "It can take hundreds of thousands of dollars per child. The difficulty and complexity of these cases demand quality staff, a number of staff in a group home, and they cost a great deal of money."

He would not comment about the specific case, except to say premium care came at a premium price and not many people were willing to do it. "The very, very demanding cases where you need 24-hour care can cost up to a $1 million, and we justify the figure," Mr Reynolds said. "That is the market cost of delivering services to ensure that we are doing our best to keep that child safe and other children safe."

The Child Safety Department recently committed $33 million towards placing 366 troublesome youths in high-supervision care. There are already 318 youths in alternative care because they cannot be placed in family foster homes. They are looked after by carers from non-government organisations, of whom there are about 70. The non-government agencies bid for tenders to care for each child.

Mr Reynolds said two carers were usually put in charge of looking after four children, depending on the level of care and supervision needed. "The thing we must remember is that many of these children have experienced or witnessed extreme violence in their lives and their behaviours are usually a result of horrific abuse," he said. "The reason we have taken them away is because the parents are not willing or able to look after those children."

Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg said the revelation highlighted the systemic failures within the Child Safety Department. "You could hire the entire presidential security contingent to look after a kid for that," Mr Springborg said. He recommended setting up a detention centre for delinquent children. "You've got to look at a way to put these kids in a supervised facility, that's the simple reality," Mr Springborg said. "The veil of secrecy and anonymity surrounding the Child Safety Department has become a smokescreen, a shield to cover incompetence."

Source



20 May, 2006

Australia's Prime Minister says nuke power inevitable

Soaring oil prices would push Australia more quickly towards the "inevitable" use of nuclear power, Prime Minister John Howard said today. Mr Howard has also indicated the Government might have to overhaul its 18-month-old energy policy which has a heavy focus on the continuing use of fossil fuels for power generation. The Prime Minister made the comments ahead of talks with the Government of Canada - a country which with Australia holds some of the world's biggest uranium deposits.

Mr Howard said the broad use of nuclear power in Australia was inevitable and the push for its uptake was gathering momentum. "It could be closer than some people would have thought a short while ago," he told Southern Cross Broadcasting from the Canadian capital Ottawa. "I hope that we have an intense debate on the subject over the months ahead. "And the whole atmosphere in Washington, the atmosphere everywhere I go created by the high level of oil prices is transforming the debate on energy and alternative energy sources."

Mr Howard signalled changes to the government energy white paper, released in 2004. "Only 18 months ago we put out an energy white paper," he said. "Now, that white paper was a very comprehensive statement about policy but it was based on certain assumptions regarding the price of oil and those assumptions are certainly very different now. "And you have to ask the question ... as to whether if the assumptions about the price of oil are different, should the assumptions on which the policy is based be changed?"

Asked if the issue could be addressed within a few years, Mr Howard said many countries would increasingly resort to nuclear power. "And obviously as a major holding of uranium reserves that has potential benefits for Australia, not only here but also through our export sales," he said. The timing of Australia's uptake of nuclear would be governed by economic considerations, Mr Howard said. "Clearly the environmental advantages of nuclear power are there for all to see - it's cleaner and greener and therefore some of the people in the past who've opposed it should support it," he said.

Mr Howard held talks with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper about uranium mining and nuclear energy in Ottawa today.

Source



Victoria: Sick suffer while wait grows and grows

An average of 83 seriously ill or injured people each day are stranded on emergency department trolleys for more than 12 hours. Secret figures obtained by the Sunday Herald Sun show 30,332 Victorians in 2005 waited on trolleys for more than 12 hours before being admitted to wards. That is nearly three times the 1999 total of 12,603. The damning statistics were obtained through a Freedom of Information request. The State Government ditched trolley figures from its public statement on hospitals' performance in 2004.

Health experts say the system is at breaking point, with hospitals running at 96-99 per cent occupancy, when they should be at 85 per cent. Opposition health spokeswoman Helen Shardey said emergency departments were in meltdown because of Labor Government neglect. "The Government spends millions of dollars on health advertising and goes to extraordinary lengths to hide the truth about what's happening in our hospitals. It it time they were held to account," she said.

The Sunday Herald Sun found:

* AN 82-year-old woman with a broken arm waited six hours without painkillers before medics even bandaged her in one emergency department.

* SEVERAL patients walked out of an emergency waiting room after an elderly woman was left lying in faeces on a trolley for more than an hour.

* AN AVERAGE of nine people a day were last year stranded on trolleys for more than 12 hours at Northern Hospital, which produced the state's worst figures.

Source



Conservative kids: The days of revolutionary youth are gone for quite a while

Adolescent angst is not what it used to be. A survey from the Australian Institute of Family Studies presents the current crop of teenagers as sane and sensible, with an utter absence of the angry self-indulgence the boomer generation made the measure of youth. Instead of denouncing capitalism, the survey found young people today are very keen to acquire capital - and lots of it. Instead of wanting to turn on, tune in and drop out, they are keen on sport and hobbies. Rather than getting wasted, they want to work. And most amazing for anybody whose idea of adolescence is still shaped by The Who's Pete Townshend's banging on about his generation (the one people tried to put down), young people today do not mind their parents. Except when they like them a lot. According to the institute, about 70 per cent of boys and 62 per cent of girls are "very satisfied" with their relationship with their mums and dads.

Inevitably not all is Brady Bunch perfection in Australian homes. Less than half the boys and less than a quarter of the girls surveyed were highly satisfied with their relationship with step-parents. But, overall, today's teens seem quite content, and clear-eyed about what the world has to offer and how they will meet their goals. For eternally alienated baby-boomers who have spent their lives complaining about society, the calm common sense of the coming generation can only be a great disappointment. What is wrong with young people that leads them to like their parents?

And the survey is especially bad news for politicians whose stock in trade is contempt for traditional family values. Because the coming generation of voters is just not buying ancient, eccentric arguments that claim family life is for failures and making money is inherently evil. Certainly, this survey offers no evidence on the future political allegiances of today's teens. But it does suggest an eroding audience for people who bang on about abstract rights while ignoring the economic interests and social aspirations of young couples and their kids. It seems the baby-boomers who were on the barricades in 1968 will finally see a revolution, thanks to the new generation. It just isn't the one they expected.

Source



Wind power "conspiracy"

An example of the usual Leftist "ad hominem" attack below: If you cannot attack the argument, attack the arguer. The author is Wendy Frew, a frequent "Environment Reporter" for Australia's "Sydney Morning Herald". If I were to argue as Wendy does, I might say that she is obviously a mere journalist who is practiced in how to smear but is lost when it comes to technical knowledge and understanding

Tactics used by anti-wind farm activists in Victoria - including making misleading statements about wind energy - are being copied by some groups in NSW. Research by the Herald has found that a loose association of anti-wind farm groups in Victoria that goes by the name of Landscape Guardians, or Coastal Guardians, relies heavily for its information and tactics on the British anti-wind farm pressure group Country Guardians. That group was set up by Sir Bernard Ingham, press secretary to Margaret Thatcher when she was prime minister. Sir Bernard is now a director of Supporters of Nuclear Energy, and a former consultant to British Nuclear Fuels.

Coastal Guardians Victoria has also worked closely with the now-discredited British botanist David Bellamy {I wonder who it was who "discredited" him? Last I heard he wasn't feeling discredited!], who believes climate change is a myth. He visited Victoria's South Gippsland in 2004 to campaign against wind farms.

The spokesman for Coastal Guardians of Victoria, Tim Le Roy, said he was not worried people would get the wrong idea about his group's connection with Mr Bellamy and Country Guardians and their links to the nuclear industry. "I think the wind industry and its proponents have done the nuclear industry the greatest favour they could have asked for," he said. He believed wind energy would not help cut greenhouse gas emissions generated by energy generation.

Mr Le Roy said he had "a fairly open mind about climate change" and added people in Victoria were right to be angry about wind power because the Bracks Government had caved in to developers and ignored community concerns. "If these windmills were doing any good it would mitigate the concerns."

Mr Le Roy said wind power would not work because it needed back-up power (the national electricity grid is, in fact, already served by back-up power); green groups were split over wind power (all of Australia's major environment groups support wind power); and that wind turbines did not work because they could not store electricity. However, there is no effective way to store large amounts of electricity, regardless of whether it comes from coal or wind, energy experts say.

In NSW, one of the groups using the Landscape Guardians moniker is based in the village of Taralga. Its members are challenging a local wind farm project in the Land and Environment Court. Their president, Paul Miskelly, worked for the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation for 32 years and has given talks on nuclear power.

Source



Nothing can dent the love of the Left for Communist Cuba

The following is a program promo for SBS -- one of Australia's public broadcasters. No bias there at all of course. It appears that viewers will hear of Cuba's system for earning dollars by selling cheap medical services to foreigners but no mention of the medical care that Cubans get seems to be in the offing. Straight cold-war propaganda lives on -- courtesy of the taxpayer

"For almost half a century Cuba has endured crippling sanctions imposed by its near neighbour the United States. But this tiny Caribbean nation has not only survived but achieved the unthinkable. It has had made major medical breakthroughs and now has a medical report card that is the envy of its most of its neighbours. Last year, Cuba's infant mortality rate declined even further. It now equals many developed nations but has surpassed that of the United States.

America, the largest medical market in the world, has responded, by accusing Cuba of trying to make money out of medicine. Health and medicine are indeed big business in Cuba. This year, monies raised from health tourism and from its biotechnology breakthroughs look set to surpass Cuba's traditional economic mainstay which has been tourism.

But Cuba's medical miracles are not confined to homeshores. A legion of medical missionaries have been sent to work overseas and the United States is concerned what impact that is having on the region".



19 May, 2006

I will act on trade, Bush tells Howard

Very important for Australias's trade

George W. Bush is to embark on an 11th-hour rescue mission to save the global free trade talks, which he and John Howard agreed yesterday were on the brink of collapse. The US President, stung by criticism that he has lost enthusiasm for the trade round, told the Prime Minister he would take up the issue with his British counterpart, Tony Blair, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as other world leaders.

Mr Bush and Mr Howard share the view that much of the blame for stalling the World Trade Organisation negotiations - which started in Doha in 2001 - falls to the Europeans because they failed to respond to the US offer last year of a 60 per cent cut in most farm subsidies over the next five years. "We agreed the Doha round is a mess," said one source at yesterday's White House meetings, which included senior members of the Bush cabinet. The source said the US and Australia were "renewing our efforts" to get the trade talks back on track. Australia has agreed to work as a "conduit", trying to get agreement on which agricultural subsidies will be subject to negotiation.

On April 30, negotiators from the 149 countries involved in the negotiations missed their target for a deal on cutting customs duties and other trade barriers, such as subsidies. Negotiators are warning that if a deal is not reached by the end of next month, the round is likely to collapse completely. Mr Howard is understood to have expressed concern yesterday about the vocal backing for protectionist measures in Congress, where talk of extending the US's subsidy-laden Farm Bill, due to expire in June next year, is gaining support.

More here



Howard's new best friend

Canada's PM Stephen Harper uses his Australian counterpart as a role model, writes David Nason



John Howard will take great comfort knowing that when he arrives in Canada today for an official state visit, he'll be meeting a like-minded Prime Minister who has already demonstrated his new friendship. Despite damning evidence of AWB's illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein under the UN's former oil-for-food program in Iraq, Stephen Harper's new Government hasn't uttered a word of criticism. This despite Canada being the first to sound a warning about the situation and missing out on valuable wheat contracts because it wouldn't pay the same bribes as Australia.

Howard has been to Canada only once in his 10 years as PM but will be the first foreign leader to visit Ottawa since Harper's Conservative Party won office in January. Notably, the visit comes in the same week Harper's Government, the first Tory administration in Canada for 13 years, passes 100 days in office. Given that political lessons learned from Howard's four election victories in Australia played a big part in Harper's defeat of former Liberal Party prime minister Paul Martin, a love-in of rare ideological passion is expected when the new kid on the Tory block meets the old hand from down under.

At 46, Harper is 20 years younger than Howard, but it's about all that sets them apart. Both men entered parliament aged 34 and both are socially conservative free marketers who believe in family, individual enterprise and the US alliance. A strong Christian ethic underscores their beliefs. An economics graduate, Harper has the same understated Howard confidence in his intellectual ability and shares the Australian's passion for sports and belief in the playing field (an ice-hockey rink for Harper as opposed to Howard's cricket field) as society's great leveller. Harper even has Howard's small-c charisma, the boring kind that comes not from any natural flair but from having been around for a long time.

Relations between Australia and Canada are likely to become much closer as a result of Howard's visit, given they are two highly urbanised but sparsely populated democracies that have been strangely distant despite being multicultural societies with a shared historical, cultural and legal heritage; both are also resource-rich commodity exporters and in the strong orbit of the US. "Average Canadians might not know a lot about Australian politics but John Howard is very well known in Canada's conservative political community," says Gerry Nicholls from the National Citizens Coalition, the right-wing advocacy group Harper ran for five years before going into politics. "Howard has been held up as a model for what a Conservative Party leader here should be like, with tough, principled stands on issues, particularly in foreign affairs. He'll be very welcome here."

More here



A culture of black violence that must change

How political correctness is hurting black Australian children

Cases of violence and child sexual abuse revealed to ABC's Lateline this week by the Alice Springs Crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers reveal conditions in some remote Central Australian Aboriginal communities so depraved and dysfunctional as to defy belief. Rogers described how a seven-month-old baby was taken out of her home and raped. Blood in her nappy finally alerted somebody that she was injured. She needed surgery under general anaesthetic.

A two-year-old girl left unattended while her mother was away drinking was whisked away by a man and sexually assaulted. She also required surgery. A six-year-old girl and her friends were followed to a waterhole by an 18-year-old petrol sniffer. "While she was playing in the water, he pulled her under and anally penetrated her and drowned her, probably simultaneously," Rogers said. Rogers also detailed cases in which girls of 10 and 12 were handed over as "promised wives" to old men who took them away, with the permission of their family, and sexually assaulted them.

These horrendous crimes were catalogued in a dossier Rogers produced for police. Its revelation in gory detail on Lateline has caused ripples of outrage across the country. But it is not the first time such atrocities have been revealed, tut-tutted over and then forgotten. In 1999 Queensland's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women's Task Force on Violence published a survey of 25 Aboriginal communities. The Aboriginal academic Boni Robertson presented graphic accounts of alcohol-induced domestic violence and child sexual abuse, including the pack rape of a three-year-old girl. "I can't remember when I didn't feel scared," one woman told the task force.

Nothing much seems to have changed since. White Australia has attempted to assuage its guilt about the awful state of many Aboriginal communities with inquiries such as the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and Sir Ronald Wilson's 1997 "stolen children" report. The resultant ostentatious hand-wringing has arguably made life worse for the most vulnerable, voiceless members of already disadvantaged communities, where the word "disadvantaged" doesn't even begin to convey the truth.

The outcry about "stolen children" led to indigenous children being more likely to be left in abusive, dysfunctional families than non-indigenous children because welfare authorities are terrified of being paternalistic and creating another "stolen generation".

The Community Services Commission described a few years ago "the current culture of 'hands off' when it comes to Aboriginal children". In 2000, the NSW Child Death Review Team noted the reluctance of authorities to intervene in Aboriginal cases of neglect or abuse: "A history of inappropriate intervention with the Aboriginal families should not lead now to an equally inappropriate lack of intervention for Aboriginal children at serious risk."

Outcry over the deaths in custody report led to more lenient sentencing and a reluctance by the "white legal system" to be seen as further victimising Aboriginal men. Nice in theory, but what about the victims? An Aboriginal elder, Margaret Kemarre, told Lateline this week that what was needed to protect children and women was less alcohol and tougher sentencing. "It is all right for the judges . sitting up there, and putting things, but they don't know how our feeling of the parents and the whole extended families have . the grief."

Nanette Rogers began working in the Northern Territory as a defence barrister but became "sick of acting for violent Aboriginal men and putting up the same old excuses when I was appearing for them", she told Lateline. She switched to prosecutions after realising "how much emphasis was placed on Aboriginal customary law in terms of placing the offender in the best light, and it really closed off the voices of Aboriginal women, their viewpoints about how customary law impacted on the offence or the offender".

Joan Kimm, a Monash University academic and author of A Fatal Conjunction: Two Laws, Two Cultures, said yesterday she agreed with Rogers "in every point which she makes about indigenous male cultural attitudes to violence towards women". In her book, Kimm analysed criminal cases dating from the 1950s and described how "indigenous men have relied on the cultural 'defence', that is, elements of traditional law and lore, to exonerate themselves and for mitigation of sentencing when charged with violent assaults on Aboriginal women". She points out the "paradox" of a justice system which "might put the rights of traditional Aboriginal culture, with its inherent violence towards Aboriginal women, above the universal human right of those very women to live free from violence".

Although "traditional society was very violent to women, it was not like the rampant violence which now occurs because that violence was once confined within a strict legalistic society. The structure of that law and that society has been devastated. Yet that customary law has been successfully pleaded as a cultural defence." Kimm says she hopes Rogers "does not receive the odium (from some non-Aborigines and some Aborigines) which I have incurred for raising this issue".

The odium has begun. Yesterday's edition of the Crikey email newsletter contained criticism of Rogers for "blaming the victim". And on the Herald's letters page yesterday, Dr David Rose from Gladesville blasted the Lateline story as sinking to "new depths of shock-jock journalism" and lambasted Rogers for having a "poor understanding of the social and historical background that produced [the crimes]." Rose objected to Lateline broadcasting "obscene, graphic details of child sexual abuse". Perhaps he would prefer that the crimes go unpunished and the victims' advocates be silenced just so his sensibilities aren't offended. Full marks to Lateline for pursuing the story so vigorously.

But why did Tony Jones feel the need to ask Rogers: "Are you worried that the information itself may be abused by tabloids and racists even, shock jocks - the sort of people who will take information like this and exploit it?" Are there really people so morally confused that they see opposition to the rape of babies as a "shock jock" phenomenon?

Source



Nordic reserve melts in Brisbane



Brisbane showed just how multicultural it is yesterday when it closed city streets for partying Norwegians. The city was one of only two centres outside Norway to do this for the annual Constitution Day parade. More than 1500 Norwegian students live in southeast Queensland, 500 in Brisbane. The Norwegian Government finances a large portion of their tuition fees and travel costs.

QUT student Monica Meling said the Norwegians largely socialised with one another. "I live in Spring Hill with five Norwegian girls and we just party and study," she said. She said about 80 per cent of Norwegian students would return home after graduation.

Bjarne Florvaag is one student who will be staying in Australia. He has just graduated with a Bachelor of Civil Engineering and already has a job lined up. "I've been here for four years and am excited about working here," Mr Florvaag said. On campus, the Norwegian students have their own student social club, NorSK, which organises parties and trips away. NorSK committee member Kjetil Joa said they organised a wide range of social activities, such as welcome parties for new Norwegian students, dinners and activities.

Mr Joa said Australian universities accepted so many Norwegian students because of the money. "We pay $8000 or $9000 a semester, compared to the average $1500 paid by Australian students," Mr Joa said. He said most Norwegian students did their whole degree in Australia and lived together in shared city accommodation. "Australia is exotic for us from the far north - it's like a classy, warm England," Mr Joa said. "We love it here."

Source



18 May, 2006

Bush on Howard

No doubt GWB knew of Howard's famed good humour. Sadly, it is homely humour like this that makes the "intellectuals" hate GWB



If politics is showbiz for ugly people, John Howard has just won an Oscar. In front of a packed press conference in the White House, US President George W Bush outlined the reasons for his close friendship with the Australian prime minister - and it sure isn't his looks. In the space of one answer, Bush described the man standing by his side as bald and no oil painting - but a terrific leader.

And Bush put paid to any thought that Howard might be retiring at the end of this year, saying he did not expect to have to develop a similar relationship with another Australian prime minister. "I suspect he's going to outlast me, so that is a moot point," Bush told reporters.

"Somebody said, 'gosh, you and John Howard appear to be so close, don't you have any differences?', and I said, yeah, he doesn't have any hair." Howard - and the room, including Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - burst into laughter.

But it got worse for the prime minister as Bush warmed to his description. Howard's word was his bond, Bush said. "In order to work together to make difficult decisions, decisions of war and peace, decisions of security, decisions of trade, you've got to have ... somebody you're talking to who tells you straight up what's on their mind," the president said. "Politics sometimes produces people that'll tell you one thing and don't mean it. "It's really hard to be making rational decisions if somebody you're talking to just doesn't level with you.

"And that's what I like about John Howard. "He may not be the prettiest person on the block, but when he tells you something you can take it to the bank. He is a reliable partner."

Bush said he did not agree with Howard on everything, but he trusted him. He was also capable of standing by his decisions, Bush said. "Your campaign was right before my campaign and John Howard stood strong. I remember something when the polls didn't look real good and I remember saying, 'this man is going to be rewarded at the ballot box because the people of Australia want somebody who's consistently strong, not somebody who's going to walk around trying to figure out where to end up for political expediency," he said. "You may not agree with his position on every issue but you must agree with the fact that he's a man of conviction, and that's the essence of leadership - courage and conviction."

Source



Howard flags N-power

Now that Australia's Leftist opposition is divided over nukes, Howard is upping the ante

Australia may consider building nuclear power plants as an alternative source of clean energy and to combat the spiralling price of oil. Signalling a new phase in the uranium debate, John Howard has suggested the Government could issue a white paper outlining the nuclear options for Australia. But the Prime Minister cautioned that the economic case for large-scale nuclear power plants had to be made. "It may be desirable that Australia in the future builds nuclear power plants," Mr Howard told reporters in Washington, after meetings with US Energy Secretary Sam Bodman and the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke.

Mr Howard's enthusiasm for a possible nuclear future came after he told Mr Bodman that Australia wanted to be fully consulted over plans for the big six nuclear-power countries - the US, France, China, Britain, Russia and Japan - to forge a new informal trading bloc. But Mr Howard poured cold water on suggestions Australia could become a waste dump for nuclear material from other countries, arguing that this was never contemplated. "What I indicated to (Mr Bodman) is that we would want to be kept fully informed of how this proposal developed. At this stage, Australia is a willing seller of uranium subject to the provisions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and our own separate safeguards," he said. "We would continue to want to be in that position, but we would want to be kept informed of any progress towards formation of what could be regarded as a fuel reprocessing group."

US President George W. Bush wants a global nuclear energy partnership as part of his push to generate a viable nuclear industry, to reduce Washington's reliance on Middle East oil, and coal.

Part of the GNEP plan is for nuclear leasing, under which nuclear countries would provide enriched uranium to other countries for energy purposes, then take back the nuclear waste. With nearly 40 per cent of the world's uranium reserves, Australia will be a key player in the world nuclear talks, along with Canada, the No2 global supplier of yellowcake.

Mr Howard is clearly seeking a public debate on the future of nuclear energy in Australia, arguing that even "radical greenies" had changed their attitude on the use of enriched uranium as an energy source. "I'm attracted to Australia selling uranium to people who want to buy it, not lease it, buy it, in other parts of the world, subject to our obligations under the (nuclear non-proliferation) treaty and subject to our own safeguard arrangements - I'm in favour of that," Mr Howard said. "And I'm in favour at all times of examining whether it is in our national interest to progress the use of nuclear power in Australia. "Now obviously that would include a consideration of whether we should process the uranium here." Whether Australia goes down the nuclear road will depend on whether the process is economically viable.

China and India - and more recently Indonesia - want nuclear energy, and Mr Howard does not want Australia to fall behind in the race to satisfy the increasing demand for uranium. But it will be hard for the Government to win public support for nuclear energy, although sections of the Labor Party also back a more open debate. The Democrats said yesterday the Northern Territory could end up with "radioactive waste the rest of the world does not want". Mr Howard refused to rule out the release of a white paper on the nuclear leasing issue, with people increasingly worried about greenhouse gases.

Source



Microsoft adopts dinki-di 'Strine'



Computer software could soon start recognising words like bogan, sheila, bonza and sickie under new moves to make the products more user-friendly for Australians. Microsoft today announced its Australian subsidiary was putting forward a list of quintessential Aussie words, including rough and tumble slang, for inclusion in its next version of productivity software products known as the 2007 Microsoft Office System.

"While Office features an already comprehensive Australian spelling option, based on the Macquarie Dictionary, we felt that many commonly used Aussie words were being left out," he said. "We approached the Office 2007 development team and they agreed to include a selection of new Aussie words. "So we called together a panel of leading experts on Australian language to help us start to make our selection."

The panel includes David Blair, founding member of the editorial committee of the Macquarie Dictionary and Adam Spencer, comedian, mathematician and breakfast show radio host. Mr Blair said while English was a worldwide language, it was not "uniform". "Many varieties can be heard in Australia, in films and television programs, as well as from the school playground, immigrants and tourists, and it is a great initiative from Microsoft to recognise Australian culture in its new version of its Office product," he said.

Other words listed for possible inclusion include ridgy-didge, dob, galah, cockie, onya, motza and trackies. People can vote on the popularity of the words at www.microsoft.com.au. The words which make the final cut are expected to be announced in June.

Source



Blimp on the radar



An Australian consortium wants the Federal Government to use modern low-cost airships to protect the nation's northern borders. Tethered airships are used extensively along the US-Mexico border to provide a 24-hour-a-day lookout for illegal immigrants and for other law-enforcement operations. The aircraft can operate at altitudes up to 5000m and offer a search radius of 200km. Untethered airships, which are undergoing final testing in the US this year, can float up to 31,000m and cover a massive 500km.

The Australian proposal involves locating a 71m tethered ship, known as an Aerostat, and a ground station on an isolated island in the Torres Strait. The latest group of 42 illegal immigrants to reach Australia's shores travelled through the Strait from West Papua. The Government responded with a massive and expensive military patrol involving warships and aircraft. The airship would cost about $9 million to install and $6 million a year to run for around-the-clock coverage. It would carry hi-tech radars to detect small wooden boats, and infra-red technology. It could even provide broadband internet for small island and isolated communities. The platform would offer around-the-clock surveillance and search-and-rescue capabilities, as well as crime detection and weather-reporting facilities.

It could also be used for military purposes as part of the so-called network-centric warfare model where all military platforms communicate and act as one. When bad weather hits, the airship would be wound down to a ground support station.

Airships have had a poor reputation since the German zeppelin Hindenburg crashed and burned in the US in 1937. Melbourne's Docklands Science Park spokesman John Martin said airship technology was much cheaper than either manned surveillance aircraft or unmanned powered aerial vehicles. "This is a cheap platform to get the latest technology into the air," Mr Martin said. "It would be a very strong deterrent and would free up navy patrol boats and military and civilian aircraft."

A partner in the consortium Mark Xavier from Brisbane based V-Tol Aerospace said the airships would provide a "persistent footprint" that was not possible with other surveillance assets. It would also provide a more accurate picture compared with ground based radars which are limited by the curvature of the earth. "It is good for plugging gaps and the return from looking down radars is much more accurate," Mr Xavier said. "Airships just sit up there not burning fossil fuel and they respond only when required which means no expensive grid searching with aircraft." He said airships would not be used for high-level threats such as an invasion. "If our airships get taken out we know something is afoot."

Source



17 May, 2006

Good: Muslim thugs kill one-another

A man shot dead in a Sydney park was a suspect on the run over the fatal stabbing of Robin Nassour and the wounding of his brother, Fat Pizza actor George Nassour. Police have used fingerprints to identify Faouxi Abou-Jibal after his body was found with a gunshot wound to the back in a Lakemba park early yesterday. A warrant was issued late last month for Abou-Jibal's arrest over the attack on the Nassour brothers, stabbed in a Chiswick garage in January.

Abou-Jibal's murder is believed to have occurred between midnight on Sunday and 2am yesterday, when passers-by noticed his tracksuit-clad body lying under a tree in a small park off Macdonald St. "There were some fireworks heard that could have had some other bearing, they could have been shots or fireworks around midnight and that's the only other thing that was heard," Chief Inspector Geoffrey Allen said. Police scoured the area but the murder weapon was not found.

Local resident Arif Ahmed said he and his wife heard two loud bangs around midnight. Another resident, Golam Noman, said he heard a single noise, like a tyre bursting, around 12.30am.

Abou-Jibal, who was of Lebanese descent, had been using the name Carlos Roberto. He was the only suspect still evading police investigating the Nassour attack. Three other men have been arrested and charged over the attack.

Source



Australian Navy said woman officer was mad

The Navy is necessarily very tough on anybody who is seen as not fitting in -- anything else would be a danger to shipboard life -- so there are endless troubles with the female recruits that are forced on it by politically correct laws



The Federal Opposition has called for a full judicial inquiry after yet more claims of bullying within the Defence Force. One of the Navy's most senior female officers last night told the 7.30 Report she had endured years of mistreatment and verbal abuse. Lieutenant Commander Robyn Fahy was the second-in-command at HMAS Stirling in Perth, Australia's largest operational navy base. But six years ago she was stood down after a Navy-appointed doctor wrongly diagnosed her as having a serious mental illness.

Although she has just been offered another position, Lieutenant Commander Fahy says she could never go back to a military workplace after what she has been through. The picture Lieutenant Commander Fahy paints of her last six years in the military is not a happy one. "At one time they threatened to crucify me and I couldn't, I suppose, conceptualise an organisation that talked about loyalty and integrity and then matched that up with the manner with which they were behaving - not just towards myself but towards my family," she said.

She told the 7.30 Report about her long battle for justice after being stood down from the military in 2000. Back then, she was wrongly diagnosed by a naval base doctor of having a serious mental illness. "And I found this to be the most frightening, I suppose, concept to deal with and it's taken me quite a lot of time to actually get over that," she said.

After five and a half years of fighting with the military, Lieutenant Commander Fahy has now been declared fully fit and has been offered a new position by the Navy. But she says she would find it impossible to go back into a military workplace after everything she has been through.

The Opposition's spokesman for Defence personnel, Senator Mark Bishop, says he does not blame her. "She was on a rapid career path to [the] top, or near top in her career in the Navy," he said. "She alleged a whole range of harassment, bullying, the most offensive behaviour - she's been set up and been through numerous court inquiries. "All of which, all of which have fully vindicated everything she said. "She would be patently foolish to go back into that environment and expect anything but the same treatment she now complains of."

Defence does not accept many of Lieutenant Commander Fahy's claims, but it says it has offered her a position suitable for someone of her rank. Defence's spokesman Colonel Andrew Nikolic said: "Defence has been working very hard to resolve what is a medical termination issue. "Late last year, following receipt of specialist reports which supported the upgrade of a medical status, Lieutenant Commander Fahy became fully employable and Navy has attempted to generate with her a mutually agreed posting plan." ....

Tom Fahy says the Navy has now offered to appoint an independent mediator to resolve the situation. "I sincerely hope that this time the chief of Navy is sincere in that offer because there have been so many opportunities for him and for even chiefs of Navy before him and other people to settle this matter," he said. "Particularly following the findings of the medical board and for some reason they just don't seem to be able to bring themselves to do it."

Source



A very welcome visitor



She is obviously, opulently female, but there are blokey bits that Welsh opera singer Katherine Jenkins is happy to flaunt. There's her repertoire, for a start. She's taken Pavarotti's party piece O Sole Mio, the Phantom of the Opera's Music of the Night, even Gerry and the Pacemakers' You'll Never Walk Alone, and made them soprano hits. For the Pacemakers' hit, the Welsh rugby team has made her its mascot. "I think it's a bit unfair that men get all the best tunes in opera and classical music," Jenkins says staunchly. Well known in Britain -- where her latest album Living A Dream made its debut at No. 4 in the pop charts -- the 25-year-old is hoping to find a following here. She is on a promotional tour of Australia this week with a view to concerts this year.

Source



Genocide statement is 'free speech'

The "hate speech" laws installed in Victoria by Premier Bracks make him no friend of free speech. His talk about free speech below is clearly an attempt to disguise that. He is conflating the principle of free speech with the British tradition of "parliamentary privilege" -- a tradition that applies in all Australian parliaments. "Parliamentary privilege" is the doctrine that statements made in parliament are not prosecutable or otherwise sanctionable under libel or any other law -- though they can of course be sanctioned (rarely) by the parliament itself. The speech below was clearly privileged and hence unaffected either by free speech provisions or the lack of them

A Victorian MP's parliamentary speech accusing Turkish people of ignoring acts of genocide more than 80 years ago was a sign of free speech at work, Victorian Premier Steve Bracks said today. Jenny Mikakos, the parliamentary secretary for justice, whose ethnic background is Greek, has accused Turkey of ignoring the killing of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Greeks between 1916 and 1923.



In a short speech to the Victorian upper house during the last session of Parliament, Ms Mikakos reportedly said: "On May 19, the Pontian community in Victoria and around the world will commemorate the 87th anniversary of the Pontian genocide that occurred in present-day Turkey. "Between 1916 and 1923, over 353,000 Pontic Greeks living in Asia Minor and in Pontus, which is near the Black Sea, died as a result of the 20th Century's first but less-known genocide," Fairfax reported her as saying. "Over a million Pontic Greeks were forced into exile. In the preceding years, 1.5 million Armenians and 750,000 Assyrians in various parts of Turkey also perished."

Two Labor MPs of Turkish descent, Adem Somyurek and John Eren, interjected but Ms Mikakos continued speaking. "The Turkish government must begin the reconciliation process by acknowledging these crimes against humanity. The suffering of the victims of the Pontian genocide cannot and will not be forgotten," she said.

The comments, made under a system of 90-second free statements for MPs established by the Bracks Government, have outraged Turkish and Jewish groups. But Mr Bracks today said Ms Mikakos, one of two members for the safe Jika Jika province in Melbourne's north, was free to make the speech. "Free speech is something that we uphold, and I understand that, and the freedom to criticise someone who makes a statement is also appropriate as well," he told Southern Cross Broadcasting. "As to the interpretation of those events, that is a matter which, really, other people can judge, but this is something she obviously felt passionate about. "It's up to her. She is a member of parliament who can submit those things to the Parliament. "But equally, people have the right to vigorously disagree with her point of view."

Source

Mr Lefty has more on the rumbles sparked by the above speech.



16 May, 2006

Bush, Howard plant tree



US President George W Bush has thanked Prime Minister John Howard for his strong support in the war against terrorism as the two leaders planted a tree in the grounds of the Australian ambassador's residence in Washington. Calling Mr Howard his dear friend, Mr Bush said the tree - an American elm grown from a direct cutting from an elm planted at the White House in 1826 by President John Quincy Adams - was a symbol of the enduring friendship between the two countries.

Struggling in the polls, with his personal popularity languishing at 29 per cent as concern about the war in Iraq grows, Mr Bush seemed genuinely pleased to see Mr Howard and his wife Janette as he stepped out of his armour-plated limousine with his own wife Laura. Grasping a specially made silver shovel, Mr Bush clowned for the cameras before throwing an energetic spadeful of soil around the roots of the young tree, which was planted about two weeks ago....

The same lawn was where Mr Howard committed Australia to stand side by side with the United States in the war on terror on September 12, 2001 - the day after the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. "That resolve is as strong now as it was on the 12th of September 2001," Mr Howard said. "These trees are a wonderful symbol of that friendship."

More here



Another abuse from the nasty Queensland government health system

David Gray's experience would be many people's worst nightmare. He went to a hospital for help with depression - and was locked up in a mental health ward without explanation under an Involuntary Treatment Order. During his 11 days in the ward, neither he nor his wife, Yvonne, was given any reason for his detention - or for the ITO. Under Queensland's mental health laws, Mr Gray could have been detained for two months until an independent Mental Health Review Tribunal was required to review the ITO. However, more than 80 per cent of ITOs are revoked before a patient is put before the tribunal, preventing many ITOs from being independently reviewed.

Until he went to Brisbane's Princess Alexandra Hospital three weeks ago, Mr Gray said he had no history of mental health, no history of violence, and no history of trying to harm himself. The 50-year-old builder admits he has been suffering from depression and has been on a variety of medication over the past five years to try to control it. Recently he said he was tired of the side-effects of the medication and wanted to see if counselling could help him to manage his illness without medication. He and his wife agreed he should go to the Community Mental Health service at Annerley to discuss what was available.

"My depression hit me after I stopped taking medication. I knew I was going to go down with my depression. I had been off them (depression medication) just over two weeks. It started to level off and I was coming out of my depression two days before my interview at Annerley," Mr Gray said. "I went to the interview in excellent spirits as I was looking forward to being able to speak to a psychiatrist to help me." Mr Gray said he talked to a nurse, who recommended that he go to PA Hospital where he could voluntarily admit himself into its mental health unit if he felt he needed to.

Soon after arriving at PA Hospital, Mr Gray found himself being escorted to its mental health unit by an orderly and two security guards. "I was starting to smell a rat. I thought: 'I am still in a hospital - they have professional staff here that will take care of me.' "At that stage I did not know they had made an assessment and put an ITO (Involuntary Treatment Order) on me." "It was not until the next day I knew this was not a hospital, it was a prison. And these are not nurses, these are jailers." After 11 days of incarceration, Mr Gray managed to escape from the mental health unit.

He says the entire saga has done more to damage his health than the original depression he wanted treated. A Queensland Health spokeswoman said the Health Services Act 1991 provided for the protection of patient confidentiality, and the department could not comment on individual patient matters. "A patient can be admitted voluntarily but changed to involuntary if they are assessed by the treating doctors as meeting the criteria for involuntary treatment under the Mental Health Act 2000," the spokeswoman said.

Source



Destructive and unjust "anti-discrimination" agencies: White males are presumed guilty

In practice, complaints made to them become the start of an official extortion racket

Perth college manager Peter O'Brien's life was almost destroyed when a female staff member wrongly accused him of sexually harassing her with lewd behaviour in the office at Christmas parties. He lost his job, his wife attempted suicide and the cost of defending the charge was nearly $40,000.

The case highlights a boom area for lawyers as employees turn to discrimination laws for protection and retribution. Mr O'Brien was vindicated just over four years after 25-year-old Joanne Robinson first made the accusations. The Western Australian Equal Opportunity Tribunal found Ms Robirson was an unconvincing witness with a tendency to exaggerate. ..In contrast. O'Brien was by , and large a reliable witness," the tribunal ruled.

This is at odds with the approach of the state's Equal Opportunity Commission. It had accepted Ms Robinson's complaint, tried to broker a $40,000 settlement on her behalf and provided the solicitors that ran her losing case in the tribunal.

Mr O'Brien's case is one of the 5 per cent of cases that proceed to a tribunal. Employment lawyers say the vast bulk are settled at the conciliation stage and usually involve a payment to the employee to make the matter disappear, regardless of the strength or otherwise of the case.

Mr O'Brien agrees there is a pro-plaintiff bias in the state's anti-discrimination laws. Mr O'Brien revealed that the state's Equal Opportunity Commission told him that if he paid Ms Robinson $40,000 she would drop her complaint. "We have a letter from them saying that if you pay her this amount the case will stop," he said. "The whole process seemed designed around deciding how much I was going to pay her. "It was an intimidation process. It was so bad that during the process my wife attempted suicide. "I came home one night and found her unconscious on my living room floor. "The commission does not investigate. It simply accepts a claim and then you have to disprove it," Mr O'Brien said.

West Australian Equal Opportunity Commissioner Yvonne Henderson said she was prevented by confidentiality provisions from discussing Mr O'Brien's accusations. But she said the commission investigated every complaint and had even been criticised for "over-investigating".

Last year, Mr O'Brien provided the state Government with a list of possible reforms that would ensure other managers were not subjected to the same experience. State Attorney-General Jim McGinty has defended the current arrangements, telling Mr O'Brien the Equal Opportunity Commission is required by law to help those who lodge complaints. He said many of those who complained of discrimination did not have the means to pursue their claims. "Many of the respondents to complaints of discrimination received by the commissioner are employers, large corporations and government agencies," Mr McGinty said. If the Government changed the law and required costs to be awarded against unsuccessful parties in discrimination cases, this would "significantly decrease the incentive to lodge complaints with the commissioner, particularly amongst those members of the community who are most vulnerable to acts of discrimination".

Mr O'Brien said he believed one of the factors that affected his case was that the complaint had been lodged by a single mother with a child of Aboriginal descent.

Employer groups fear that unless state governments intervene with the anti-discrimination commissions, more managers may soon be subjected to the same complaint-handling process. Some of those state anti-discrimination commissions are trying to expand their role in workplace disputes by encouraging employees to take harassment and discrimination proceedings against their employers as an alternative to unfair dismissal action.

The above article appeared in "The Australian" newspaper on 13 May, 2006



Hooray! Losses lead to Greenpeace job cuts

That a largely nuisance organization survives at all is the pity -- when there are so many real conservation problems (like soil erosion and salinity) that need every attention

Conservation giant Greenpeace Australia Pacific has posted its third operating loss in as many years and culled staff numbers. Greenpeace chief executive Steve Shallhorn admitted yesterday the organisation had been forced to make 12 full-time staff members out of 80 redundant this year in a belt-tightening exercise aimed at balancing the budget. The organisation's financial report for 2005 shows it raised more than $17 million last year from supporters, almost $4million more than in 2004, but recorded a net loss of $907,000. In 2004, Greenpeace Australia was $1.2 million in the red.

According to the audited financial statement, the losses were a result of "additional investment in fundraising", an investment which Greenpeace believes has stemmed the decline in new supporter numbers over recent years. Mr Shallhorn defended the losses, saying they were planned as the organisation drew down and spent cash reserves of almost $4million. "Over three years we had the ability to spend more money on campaigns than we earned because we were drawing down reserves," he said. "This year we're moving to a balanced budget."

He admitted that Greenpeace had also wound down some campaigns and shifted others overseas under a new agreement with Greenpeace International that would see 25per cent of all the Australia Pacific arm's fundraising go offshore. Greenpeace Australia already contributes 18 per cent of its revenues to Greenpeace International each year. From next year, that contribution will rise by an additional 7 per cent in order to fund new Greenpeace offices in countries such as China, India, Thailand, Indonesia and China. "Greenpeace offices have agreed to a phenomenon known as the Global Resource Allocation where the larger offices set aside a proportion of their fundraising to be spent on campaigns in the developing world," Mr Shallhorn said. As a result, more money would be diverted to campaigning against the rapid deforestation of Melanesia, Papua New Guinea and The Amazon as well as unsustainable fishing practices in the Pacific. He said no further redundancies would be required to fund those projects.

"The last year or so has been very good for Greenpeace and we have grown the number of supporters and as 2005 financial statements show, we're raising more money each year," Mr Shallhorn said. "If anything we're finding the current climate relatively easy to get Australians to support our work and attracted an additional 1500 supporters in the last six months." Around one million Euros were spent on Greenpeace's anti-whaling campaign in January this year that saw numerous high-seas confrontations with Japanese whaling boats, but that money came from the Greenpeace International budget, a Greenpeace Australia Pacific spokeswoman said last night.

Source



15 May, 2006

Bible banned in Australian hospitals

The local Muslims disagree with the ban and how a Bible in a drawer can offend someone is difficult to see. Is Christian culture the only culture to be left out of "multiculturalism?



Bibles have been banned from hospital bedsides in Queensland because health bosses fear they will offend non-Christians. The controversial move has outraged religious leaders, who have branded the decision "multiculturalism gone mad".

The Royal Brisbane and Women's and Princess Alexandra hospitals in Brisbane are among the first to stop the Gideons testaments being left in patients' bedside tables. Staff said the Bibles were no longer in keeping with the "multicultural approach to chaplaincy", while some claimed the Bibles were removed because they were a source of infection.

Gideons International, which supplies Bibles for hospitals and hotels across the world, revealed many other hospitals in Australia had banned Bibles or were planning to do so. "They tell me they don't want to offend non-Christians," Gideons' Australian executive director Trevor Monson said. "It is a terrible shame because we get lots of letters from people who say having a Bible by their hospital bed has been a great source of comfort to them during their darkest days."

Queensland Multi Faith Health Care Council deputy chairman John Chalmers, who is also in charge of hospital chaplaincies for the Catholic Church in Brisbane, said he was saddened by the ban. "This is still a predominantly Christian country but unfortunately some people think the multifaith dialogue means that we don't mention Jesus," he said. "Putting a Bible in a drawer is not a matter of imposing it on other faiths. The patient doesn't have to take it out if they don't want to. "I think it is more offensive to present a bland environment with no Bibles."

Islamic Council of Queensland president Abdul Jalal said the ban was unnecessary. "It is ridiculous to think that we might be offended by seeing a Bible in a drawer - it is an example of multiculturalism gone mad," he said. "Part of being a Muslim is that you have to be accepting of all religious texts."

Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane Phillip Aspinall said: "Bibles in hospital bedsides are not forced on anyone and the many people who refer to them find comfort in doing so in times when they and their families are under great stress."

Prince Charles Hospital's Anglican chaplain John Swift said banning Bibles was "over the top" and his hospital had no plans to do so. "The practice of placing Bibles at hospital bedsides has been with us for many years and I don't think that should change now, especially when other faiths don't have a problem with it," he said. Cheryl Burns, executive director of nursing services, added: "Bibles by the beds are part of our caring and sharing philosophy and we want to look out for the patient by leaving one nearby so they can reach for it at any time of day or night."

But the Royal Brisbane and Princess Alexandra hospitals confirmed Bibles had been removed from bedsides. Royal Brisbane chaplain John Pryce-Davies said: "We used to keep Bibles in patient's lockers but multiculturalism kicked in and we had to remove them. "Now we only provide Bibles when they are requested by people and Gideons no longer have permission to deliver their Bibles. "Our policy is that when a patient leaves hospital they return the Bible to us or take it home with them - we don't want them left in the lockers. "That way, other faiths don't have to worry about finding a Bible there."

Hospital spokeswoman Tanya Lobegeier said: "If someone has a cold or anything and uses the Bible their germs could be passed on to the next person who reads it. "No one wants to go in the drawer to clean a Bible after every single person leaves." Princess Alexandra spokeswoman Kay Toshach said Bibles were available only on request. "We don't have Bibles by the bedside because of the issue of cleaning, and possibly that they may not be in keeping with the multicultural society we are in now," she said.

Source



Another Leftist distortion of Australian history

Some official nonsense about the white settlement of Australia. I guess the "Mayflower" invaded America too



A State Government website which describes the arrival of the First Fleet in January 1788 as the day "Australia was invaded" should be removed and rewritten, Opposition Leader Peter Debnam said yesterday. Under the heading "Invasion, exploration and convicts", the National Parks website states that "the invasion would continue for many decades". "Countless thousands of Aboriginal people would die from violence, disease and poor living conditions. "Many others would lose their freedom, being forced into mission settlements and reserves."

Mr Debnam described the historical summary on the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service website as "political correctness gone mad". "It is so in-your-face it is provocative," he said. "It is so emphatic and holier-than-thou and it is saying to people: 'How dare anybody debate this.' "It is almost like social engineering because it is trying to force a point of view onto the community." Mr Debnam said the taxpayer-funded website was "offensive" and should be taken down. "The section on invasion is at variance with most people's view," Mr Debnam said. "It's the sort of thing that would enrage a lot of people and it is a demonstration of the arrogance of the Government's political operatives. "The Government shouldn't be ramming political correctness down everybody's throat. "I believe the site should be taken down and re-written and re-edited. It should be re-done in consultation with the community. It should be informative and not provocative," he said.

Under the "invasion" sub-heading, the site says: "Australia wasn't just 'settled' - it was invaded. The invasion lasted for a long time, and took many forms." Referring to "exploration", the website reads: "European explorers didn't 'discover' new areas for settlement by themselves. They had a lot of help from Aboriginal people."

Mr Debnam described the historical notes as "one-sided" and said that they should be rewritten to encompass other perspectives of the nation's 218-year European history.

Source



More on Queensland's crooked health bureaucrats

But the government is still lying

The State Government has released the names of three senior bureaucrats suspended in the wake of the latest Queensland Health bungle. The three are being investigated by the Crime and Misconduct Commission for their role in the appointment of a nurse with false qualifications and subsequent disciplining of a doctor who complained. The three were identified as Prince Charles Hospital acting district manager Michael Cleary, Statewide Health Services executive director Linda Dawson and Gloria Wallace, general manager of Central Health Area Services.

A spokesman for Health Minister Stephen Robertson said Ms Wallace was flying back from a private trip to Britain. The Government strenuously denied she was part of the British recruitment team headed by Premier Peter Beattie. But sources told The Sunday Mail Ms Wallace had been in Britain in an official capacity.

It has been revealed Health officials were warned more than a year ago about the threat of a Jayant Patel-like situation after the nurse's appointment. A confidential email that expressed concern about the risk to patient safety was ignored.

The State Government this week was forced to apologise to Dr Chris Davis, head of rehabilitation and aged care at Brisbane's Prince Charles Hospital, after he was ignored, then disciplined, for raising concerns about the nurse. Dr Davis sent an email to two senior health officials in April last year dealing with the performance of new nursing manager Virginia Hancl. He had spoken to Ms Hancl's former manager, who was surprised she had been appointed without any reference checks. Queensland Health had only called her boyfriend, listed as a referee. Dr Davis warned that trying to manage someone who should not have been appointed was like "trying to improve the performance of Dr Patel".

Opposition health spokesman Bruce Flegg slammed Queensland Health for the cover-up. "These revelations make a mockery of the Government's claims things are getting better," he said.

Source



Obesity shock tactics backfire -- sometimes tragically

The usual unintended consequences of government meddling -- so medical advice is now in conflict with government advice. That Leftist governments should treat children as individuals rather than treat "children" as a lump is of course too much to ask

Shock tactics used in the war against obesity may have backfired, with reports children are being hospitalised because they are too scared to eat. A leading nutritionist has warned government scaremongering may be feeding another crisis with hundreds of children being treated for eating disorders.

Staff at the Royal Children's Hospital in Brisbane say they have been inundated with dozens of calls each week from worried parents of children who are refusing to eat or wrongly believe they are obese. "We have made it scary for everyone," RCH dietetics and nutrition director Judy Wilcox told The Sunday Mail. "I am worried it might be too big of an issue and people are getting a little bit too fearful. "The pleasure and joy dimension of eating is missing and kids are developing an attitude that eating is dangerous. "I have mothers ringing me up in a panic because they think their child is going to die because they won't eat vegetables. "People are bringing their children to see me because they think their child is obese and they are not. "Children are becoming too aware and becoming very, very fearful of obesity and a lot of parents are becoming fearful."

In an alarming new trend, young boys are dieting because they believe "slim is ideal". "In the past month, I have had four to five cases," she said. "We are seeing cases of osteoporosis in children as young as 12 who have dieted."

The hospital has sent letters to childcare centres warning them against confiscating food and giving only fruit and water for snacks. Schools and sporting clubs were also advised against weighing children in front of their classmates because of the potential for psychological harm. But the State Government announced at its Obesity Summit last week that it would start weighing students in schools.

The Wynnum-Manly Junior Rugby League side is already weighing players for an under 35kg representative side. Reluctant parents agreed to let their children diet to make the side for the June's city-versuscountry carnival in Charleville. The youngsters have been swapping ice cream for carrots and dumped P1ayStation sessions for 10-minute treadmill workouts.

Ms Wilcox warned the weighins were dangerous to children's mental outlook. "Everyone is well-meaning but they don't realise there are a lot of physical and psychological consequences to intervention," she said.

The State Government has announced it would send every Queensland household a selfhelp fat-fighting pack as part of a $21 million obesity plan. The Obesity Summit in Brisbane was told that 4 percent of children were severely obese and some kids aged between seven and eight weighed more than 100kg. Premier Peter Beattie said the amount of junk-food advertisements during children's television time was too high and called on the Federal Government to set limits.

The above article appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on May 14, 2006



14 May, 2006

Black tie welcome for PM

US President George W. Bush will fete visiting Australian Prime Minster John Howard with an official black-tie dinner when the two leaders meet in Washington next week, the White House said overnight. Mr Bush and Mr Howard are to meet Tuesday for talks on international security, the war on terror and other matters, after which they will attend a glittering soiree attended by prominent figures from the world of business and politics. The US president and other senior government officials are expected to discuss security in Iraq and Afghanistan, where both countries have troops, Iran's disputed nuclear program, China's growing influence and trade matters.

The US government also plans a ceremonial gesture of presenting a White House tree Sunday to the Australian Ambassador's residence. In another symbolic act, Pennsylvania Avenue, where the White House is located, already is bedecked with Australian and US flags to herald the visit.

Earlier this week, the White House praised Australia as "one of America's closest allies and partners," adding that Washington and Canberra are united in "the common goals of promoting peace, freedom and prosperity through fighting terrorism, stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and promoting an open international economic order."

Source



THE MEDICAL MELTDOWN CONTINUES

Three more reports below:

Universities producing doctors trained as social workers

University medical schools have filled their curriculums with "soft" subjects to such an extent they are now busy turning out a generation of "medical social workers and medical psychologists" instead of doctors. One of the country's top neurosurgeons warned that the decline of anatomy teaching was "a growing cause of concern, to the point of panic" among many surgeons, who felt powerless to stop the universities cutting traditional science subjects.

Leigh Atkinson, associate professor of neurosurgery at the University of Queensland, said the downgrading of science in favour of soft topics such as communication skills meant young doctors "haven't got the basics they have to build their medical thinking on". Professor Atkinson said junior doctors' understanding of anatomy was "very poor". "I think the people running the medical schools have to justify to the profession why they are changing direction, and what are the benefits of changing direction," he said. "It would seem they are trying to turn our medical students into glorified social workers... we are going to be producing medical social workers and medical psychologists."

Professor Atkinson said senior doctors "do not feel the universities are listening to the clinical colleges" about what skills medical students needed. "There's this big rush to see how much money they can get ... I think they are forgetting the basic principles."

The Weekend Australian on Saturday revealed widespread alarm among senior doctors over the decline in anatomy training to make way for "touchy-feely" subjects such as "cultural sensitivity". One group, the Australian Doctors' Fund, sent a dossier to the federal Government last week detailing its concerns.

Final-year Monash University medical student Michael Gardner said up to 25 per cent of his course was now focused on cultural sensitivity and other subjects such as ethics, law and "personal development". Sensitivity training taught students that some ethnic groups had "different expectations" of doctors, and that they should "be aware that things you say may be viewed in a different way than how you intend". A smaller module on personal development focused on "relaxation techniques" and "how to manage stress".

Education Minister Julie Bishop said she was "concerned by the issues raised" in the ADF submission, which will be considered in a current review of medical education.

Source



Medical schools in new alert on anatomy teaching

Three more doctors' colleges have raised concerns about the standard of teaching in medical schools, with one warning that doctors' skills risk being taken "back to the Middle Ages" by cutbacks to the basic sciences. Amid a continuing row over the downgrading of anatomy teaching, the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia has opened a new front, warning that the problem extends to other basic sciences such as pharmacology and pathology, the study of the disease process. Anaesthetists, obstetricians and gynaecologists have added their voices to the concerns, saying the gaps now evident in junior doctors' knowledge raise questions over the extent to which they could practise safely if they did not do further training after university.

RCPA president Stewart Bryant said universities had slashed pathology tuition so much that many newly graduated doctors were "often quite unsure" what pathology tests they should order to confirm or exclude a diagnosis. "That's another fallout of this - it's something we are observing routinely," Dr Bryant said. "If you go back to the origins of the names of diseases, malaria means 'bad air'. Do we want to go back to believing malaria is caused by bad air, when modern medicine shows us it's caused by a parasite in the blood? "Pathology started 250 years ago and has taught us this basic information about the disease process - and we risk losing that, we risk going back to the Middle Ages."

The Weekend Australian last week revealed a coalition of senior doctors and academics had called on the federal Government to step in to sort out the "appalling" state of medical education. But the deans of the nation's 17 medical schools have strenuously denied their courses are failing to equip medical students with essential knowledge, and have accused critics of resisting necessary change. The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons is in talks to arrange remedial training courses in anatomy for junior doctors entering its own specialist training program, saying their anatomical knowledge was "unacceptably low".

The president of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists, Michael Cousins, said the teaching of communication skills was important, but that graduates "need to have a fundamental knowledge of the major structures in the human body". "We are finding we have to do more work with students, especially those coming out of four-year programs, in bringing them up to speed," Professor Cousins said. "It raises some concern, I suppose, with us that the people who aren't coming to us for further education, but go out practising as doctors or GPs, may not necessarily have as much knowledge as they should have."

John Svigos, chairman of the training and accreditation committee of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said almost all the colleges shared the concerns and would discuss them when college presidents meet later this month. John Carmody, who taught physiology and pharmacology at the University of NSW for more than 40 years, said many medical courses had now changed the sequence of education in a way that made it harder for students to apply the knowledge.

Source



Health bureaucrats at last get some blame

The Queensland Government has suspended three senior health bureaucrats, pending the outcome of an investigation by the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC). The Director-General of Queensland Health Uschi Schreiber referred the matters to the CMC last week after receiving new information from a doctor that raised concerns about possible misconduct. The Queensland Government was forced yesterday to apologise to Dr Chris Davis after he was disciplined for raising concerns about a nurse hired on fake qualifications and recommendations of her boyfriend. Health Minister Stephen Robertson said he had personally apologised to Dr Davis, who heads the rehabilitation and geriatric unit at Brisbane's Prince Charles Hospital. Mr Robertson said based on new information, Dr Davis had been given whistleblower status and his disciplinary record cleared.

A decision today by a delegate of the Public Service Commissioner found that Queensland Health had denied natural justice to the senior doctor as he was not given an opportunity to respond to a charge against him. Dr Davis was disciplined last September after raising concerns about the abilities of a nurse employed in a senior role in his unit. The nurse's competence also was questioned in a written document by 18 other staff members in the unit. The Opposition revealed yesterday the nurse had been hired despite presenting fake qualifications of a masters degree from a university in Tasmania where she had nursed in an old age home. It also said Queensland Health had failed to question the nurse's previous employer, interviewing only one referee who turned out to be her boyfriend.

Opposition health spokesman Dr Bruce Flegg said Dr Davis was "very distressed". "All his hard work to build the rehabilitation unit has been blown out of the water," Dr Flegg said. "Three-quarters of the staff has left and the unit is in disarray." The future of the nurse in question, who has been on leave without pay since last August, will be determined following the CMC report.

The case raises fresh concerns of bullying in Queensland Health, following the case of Bundaberg nurse Toni Hoffman whose complaints about rogue surgeon Jayant Patel were initially ignored....

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Bureaucratic attack on church music in NSW

The good Lord likes to challenge the faith of his flock from time to time. So when the Reverend Warwick Cadenhead, the minister at Paddington Uniting Church, tallied the costs of hosting live music at the 130-year-old sandstone pile he knew it must be a test. "My God," he said, "There has to be a better system." There is not. For the price of a temporary council-issued place of public entertainment authority - required for any performance on church grounds, even the singing of hymns - there was not much change from $30,000. "We had to pay Sydney Council for the development application, and for acoustic and traffic engineers to conduct reports - it's taken four months," Mr Cadenhead said.

Under the Local Government Act, every NSW church is required to have an authority for live music, which includes singing by congregations and choirs. But councils apply the law inconsistently, and in most cases they require churches to comply only when noise complainants make a fuss. In Balmain the Campbell Street Presbyterian Church, founded in the 1840s, has cancelled a Mother's Day concert planned for tomorrow because a one-off authority from Leichhardt Council could cost more than $5000. The church's minister, the Reverend Ivan Ransom, said the complaints started about a month ago when a new resident moved into the neighbourhood. "There are lots of churches around here that are considering defying the council," he said.

When applying for the last 12-month permit from the City of Sydney, Mr Cadenhead had to lay out more than $200,000 to soundproof Paddington Uniting Church. "I'm not suggesting that churches should get special treatment, but surely this is extreme."

However, in pubs and clubs the State Government exempted big screen TVs, jukeboxes and poker machines from needing the authority. A spokeswoman for the Minister for Planning, Frank Sartor, said the Government was looking at ways to make the public-entertainment approvals process more efficient. This included looking at how to transfer the approval mechanism for the licences from the Local Government Act 1993 to the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979

Source



13 May, 2006

IN BRIEF



Elle at 43: "Elle Macpherson has declared on US TV she is single and a believer in "joyous and spontaneous" sex. The Australian supermodel has excited gossip columns and tabloids around the world in recent weeks after being spotted with two eligible bachelors. Last month she was linked to Sydney restaurateur David Evans during her April Down Under holiday, but days after she left Australia for Britain Macpherson was spied on "two dates" with London millionaire property developer John Hitchcox. A surprisingly frank Macpherson made it clear today on popular American TV talkshow The View she was a single woman enjoying her independence. The View's host, veteran journalist Barbara Walters, had obviously followed the recent gossip reports about Macpherson. "Don't you have a new boyfriend? Somebody in your life?" Walters asked. A giggling Elle replied: "I have lots of people in my life."



Australia highly competitive: "Australia has moved back up a scoreboard of international competitiveness, even while held back by a poor trade performance. Swiss-based international business school IMD ranked Australia as the sixth most competitive nation in the world, up from ninth last year. Only the United States, Hong Kong, Singapore, Iceland and Denmark were above Australia on the scorecard that measures the competitiveness of 61 countries. To be released today by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, the ranking would have been higher if not for Australia's poor trade performance.



Resigning surgeons 'had no choice': "One of four urological surgeons, who have resigned from Sir Charles Gardiner Hospital, says they had no choice but to quit in protest over delays in treating patients and ever-increasing waiting lists. Robert Davies and three other specialists will leave the hospital within six weeks. He says surgeons, nurses and other medical workers at the coal face feel disenfranchised with the health system. "We don't feel as though we have control or any real input into the way the system is organised and run," Dr Davies said. "What we see at the end of the line is a diminishing resources in the face of increased demands."



Superbug link to 103 deaths in Victoria's public hospitals: "A deadly superbug has been linked to 103 Victorian deaths in public hospitals. The MRSA superbug, a multi-antibiotic-resistant golden staph, has infected 1447 Victorians who were admitted to Melbourne hospitals last year. Department of Human Services figures show Bayside Health, which oversees the Alfred hospital, had the highest number of MRSA cases of all Melbourne health networks. More than 530 patients admitted to Bayside hospitals had MRSA -- 29 of them died. At Southern Health, which includes the Monash Medical Centre and Casey and Dandenong hospitals, 17 patients with MRSA died. And 11 patients died at Northern Health, which runs the Northern Hospital in Epping. MRSA, or methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, is spread by doctors and nurses who have not washed their hands properly, and by dirty hospital equipment. The bug can be found in harmless levels on the skin, but once it enters the bloodstream it can become lethal... Department of Human Services acting director of quality and safety Alison McMillan said 75 per cent of Victoria's MRSA cases caught the superbug in hospitals. Ms McMillan said MRSA rates had improved since the introduction of a hand hygiene program in all Victorian hospitals last year, but there was still a lot of work to be done. "It's not an easy area to tackle, it's an enormous challenge," she said. "We've got this rolling program of educating hospitals, setting up systems to encourage people to use the hand gel, but that's going to take some time because there are a lot of hospitals in Victoria."



Carpenter shores up the ports

West Australian Premier Alan Carpenter will today spend nearly $90 million on improving the state's ports, which are struggling to cope with the huge demand for iron ore from China. The Australian has learned Mr Carpenter's first budget will deliver record spending on upgrading the state's transport links including roads, rail and other capital works.

Western Australia is currently the economic powerhouse of the nation. But Mr Carpenter says that without more federal spending to match the state's efforts, Australia will not reap the full potential of the resources boom. "We are providing the wealth that allows Peter Costello to provide more tax cuts," he said.

While there will be substantial capital works spending in health, education and other service-related areas and some additional benefits for the welfare sector, the windfall will not be primarily directed at tax cuts. Sources told The Australian there will also be a major boost in funding for science and innovation aimed at further diversifying the state's economy. Treasurer Eric Ripper is expected to announce a surplus for the current financial year of about $2 billion, primarily driven by royalties from the red-hot mining sector.

A good portion of the budget will be devoted to providing that sector with the continuing means to deliver that wealth. It is understood that the almost $90 million in 2006-07 for port upgrades will include about $24.5million to complete the modification of Berth 5 at Geraldton Port on the mid-west coast into a specific iron ore berth. Berth 5 will increase iron ore throughput capacity to approximately 10 million tonnes a year - up from a 2 million tonne capacity in 2004.

Sources also told The Australian that the Fremantle Port Authority will receive almost $37 million for projects such as strengthening the inner harbour berths to accommodate larger ships. The $90 million builds on more than $600 million the Government has invested in port infrastructure since 2000-01. Despite the massive investment in recent years, the state's ports are straining to deal with the boom. "Every Western Australian port is under pressure," Mr Carpenter said yesterday.

Mr Carpenter is crafting an argument that he is forced to spend money on infrastructure rather than big tax cuts because the federal Government has not provided adequate funds for that purpose. He said while the additional federal spending on roads announced in Tuesday's budget was useful, it did not go far enough. "We are some billions of dollars short in money for infrastructure," he said. "Western Australia is the nation's great exporter."

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Queensland Health: Nurse-hiring as incompetent as its doctor-hiring

Queensland Health appointed a senior nurse with false qualifications and called her boyfriend as her principal referee, State Parliament was told yesterday. The three-year-old blunder is now under investigation by the Crime and Misconduct Commission after it was revealed that a senior doctor who raised concerns about the appointment was disciplined and ignored by the department.

The Opposition yesterday issued a list of allegations against Prince Charles Hospital nursing manager Virginia Hancl, suggesting she was removed from clinical duties in her previous job because of concerns about her nursing skills. It was also alleged she falsified her master's degree in public administration from the University of Tasmania and the doctor discovered her past employer had not been contacted about a reference. The Opposition said the fiasco bore striking similarities to the Jayant Patel scandal, where nurse Toni Hoffman was ignored after complaining about the surgeon's ability, and accused the Government of attempting to cover up the matter.

After uncovering the concerns last year, doctor Chris Davis sought a review of Ms Hancl's appointment and applied for whistleblower protection, but instead was disciplined for breaching her privacy. Yesterday, Health Minister Stephen Robertson admitted the reference check had not been thorough and involved someone close to the nurse. "In terms of the referee that was contacted, that referee did not disclose the personal relationship he had with Hancl at that point in time," he said.

Defending yet another Queensland Health bungle, Premier Peter Beattie said the matter was a product of "the old" Queensland Health. "What you've got . . . is the legacy of the bad old days of Health - the new days are on the way," he said. Mr Beattie said any staff found to have erred would have "the book thrown at them". The department where the woman worked at Prince Charles will be reviewed to decide whether her appointment and the ensuing staff concerns resulted in reduced services.

The admissions are in stark contrast to comments last November when Mr Robertson said two internal reviews had found no problem with her appointment, her reference checks were "appropriate" and she was fully qualified. Yesterday, Mr Robertson said he had acted "decisively and transparently" when the real facts of the matter came to light in May, when the department prepared documents before an industrial relations hearing into Dr Davis's appeal for whistleblower protection. Since then, Mr Robertson has apologised to the doctor, offered to pay his legal fees, strike the disciplinary action from his record and give him whistleblower protection.

Ms Hancl is still employed by Queensland Health but has been on unpaid leave for several months. Mr Robertson said there was no evidence that any patients had experienced adverse outcomes as a result of her appointment.

Source



Cement firm uses waste in image clean-up

Sounds expensive

Thousands of tonnes of hazardous waste is being harnessed to manufacture Australian cement in an initiative to clean up the image of one of the world's biggest polluting industries. Flammable industrial waste, including oils, pesticides and chemical by-products, are replacing fossil fuels in powering high-intensity kilns at one of the nation's biggest cement manufacturers. The process reduces greenhouse gas emissions by reclaiming waste that would otherwise go to landfill. It is one of dozens of green initiatives up for discussion at the three-day Enviro 06 Conference and Exhibition, which started in Melbourne on Tuesday.

Geocycle, a subsidiary of Cement Australia, reclaims about 12,000 tonnes of industrial waste each year and is the only Australian company to reuse hazardous materials. The waste is transported to a processing plant in Dandenong, in Melbourne's south-east, where it is analysed and blended to produce an optimum burn potential. The waste is then loaded into 20,000 litre tanks and transported to Cement Australia's manufacturing kilns in Gladstone, Queensland, where it is burned at 1,200 degrees.

Geocycle operations manager John Hewitson said substituting waste for fossil fuels did not reduce greenhouse gases generated in the kiln but resulted in an overall reduction in emissions from landfill. "There are quite drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions overall and it's certainly, from an Australian point of view, one of the ways that Australia can remain competitive in the manufacturing of cement," Mr Hewitson said. "The cement industry is the largest generator of CO2 (carbon dioxide) of all the industries in the world. "Four or five per cent of total greenhouse gases generated is from the cement industry. "Any reduction in that is a very significant environmental improvement."

Currently six per cent of fuels burned at Cement Australia is reclaimed waste - the rest comprises fossil fuels, including coal - but the company aims to increase that to 20 per cent within 10 years. In the Netherlands the substitution rate is 83 per cent. When operating at its full potential, the process can provide a free form of energy - a scenario overseas cement manufacturers are striving to achieve, Mr Hewitson said. In Australia, greater government subsidies for purchasing reclaimed oil - used to blend waste - would boost turnover, he said. Educating industry to separate their waste was also important for improving the quality and quantity of the yield. Geocycle charges up to $600 a tonne for disposing of industrial waste. With the cost of landfill for hazardous waste set to increase to up to $1,000 a tonne in future, Mr Hewitson said there was a financial incentive for industry to find greener alternatives.

Source



12 May, 2006

Islanders' great escape





While Australia has been focused on the extraordinary story of the rescue of the Beaconsfield miners this week, at the other end of Australia another tale of endurance and survival has been unfolding. This one involves three men adrift in a tiny boat off Queensland's far north coast for more than three weeks.

John Tabo and his son and nephew set off from Murray Island in their 5-metre dinghy on April 17. They were bound for Yorke Island, about 70 kilometres away, but cyclone Monica whipped up the waters and they were pushed off course. Inspector Russell Rhodes says the search was suspended after a week. "It's just ironic they made their way back into Torres Strait waters, and it was a mobile phone they were carrying that the battery had been preserved that led to their rescue," he said.

"Within the Torres Strait islands here you get reception within a certain distance of the islands so as soon as you move out of reception everyone turns them off to preserve their batteries and they've done this," he said. "We believe they initially, on the 17th, became disorientated, they've headed down towards the south, which is a vast expanse of water, and because this is on the eastern seaboard of the Torres Strait there's no islands in that easterly direction once you've left Murray, even to the south. "So they've made makeshift paddles out of the empty plastic fuel containers, and the makeshift paddles have allowed them to get within telephone reception, which was 17 nautical miles south-west of Murray.

He says they sent seven messages. "They said 'need help, fuel, food' so they indicated to their relations on Murray Island that they were on this Dwyer Reef area and so that's where we focused an immediate search with a helicopter, and as I say they were spotted and winched into the chopper at 4:10 yesterday afternoon after 22 days at sea."

Jo McLean from the Royal Flying Doctors was the first to treat them. "They were strong enough to stagger but they couldn't hold themselves up for very long," she said. They had been able to collect a bit of rain water but they had little food, eating a raw squid and some shellfish. Their weight dropped by up to 20 kilos. "I think eyes were bigger than stomachs at that stage, and they wanted a big steak but they weren't in any condition to tolerate that and they've had some fluids and light food," she said.....

"It just seemed to be a fortunate day for Australia, 9th of May, that two men at one end of the continent are saved from entombed mine and at the other end three men saved after 22 days at sea," said Inspector Rhodes.

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Public medicine demands coverups

There is so much failure to conceal

Specialist doctors say governments are gagging them from speaking out about serious flaws in the public hospital system that are costing lives and harming their patients. Members of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) have complained they are being forced to sign public hospital contracts preventing them from telling the public about major problems affecting health care Australia-wide.

They said a 30 per cent drop in the number of hospital paediatric wards since 1992 had resulted in children being placed alongside adults who were sometimes psychiatrically disturbed or dying. "I know of children having adult emergency patients in the adjacent bed," Melbourne-based physician Peter Lazzari said in Cairns, where he was attending the RACP's annual scientific conference. "That adult emergency may be a death or a cardiac arrest or a massive haemorrhage, and you can imagine the trauma to the child as a result of that deliberate exposure by the government of children to adult illness," Dr Lazzari said.

Rural Victoria-based paediatrician Peter Goss said he risked the sack for speaking out, but could no longer continue to remain silent when children's welfare was at stake. "It's the first time in a year that I've said anything because speaking out in public prior to that caused me such significant emotional stress from the harassment," Dr Goss said. "These sorts of scandals would not be propagated if the medical staff were allowed to openly ... tell the general population what's going on. "Children will get better more quickly in an environment which is child-friendly and will be cared for more safely if we retain nurses with paediatric experience. "Over the last three years across Victoria, there are multiple examples of hospitals who have downsized children's wards and co-located adults in those wards. "An entire children's ward in Ballarat was closed last year."

Dr Lazzari said governments, both state and federal, had forced medical practitioners to become unwilling jailers and executioners, having to tell patients they might have to wait years in pain for necessary surgery and might even die waiting. "Instead of a diagnosis and an operation, we're actually ... giving those patients who can't get through the waiting list system a sentence," he said. "We say 'yes, you need that hip operated on otherwise your health is going to continue to deteriorate. "'You're going to have continuing pain, continuing suffering, your weight's going to become more of a problem, your exercise program is going to become more of a problem, and you may well die because it's going to be five or six years before you get your operation. "'We're giving you a term of imprisonment with your illness and ultimately you may well die'. "It's a disgrace," he said.

Dr Lazzari said he had decided to speak out because he believed doctors had a major democratic responsibility to raise issues of concern with public health. "We need to be able to speak up freely, but accurately and fairly," he said.

Source



One coverup comes unglued

Queensland Health has been forced into another embarrassing backdown after admitting it wrongly disciplined a whistleblower doctor. The doctor had exposed serious concerns about a senior manager at the Prince Charles Hospital. The man was disciplined last year after checking into the background of a woman appointed to a senior nursing position at the hospital when he had concerns about her ability and referees.

However, the department has now been forced into an about-face, admitting it was wrong, and the matter has been referred to the Crime and Misconduct Commission for investigation. Health Minister Stephen Robertson yesterday told State Parliament that at a May 5 meeting, he personally apologised to the doctor and offered to pay his legal fees and strike the disciplinary action from his record. "We also accorded the doctor with whistleblower status, and the director-general of Queensland Health has taken steps to ensure that he will not be disadvantaged because of the disclosures he has made," Mr Robertson told Parliament.

The doctor first raised concerns about the woman's ability to manage her position and the process of her appointment with hospital management in April last year. He asked for a review of the appointment process, saying her former supervisor had not been contacted as a referee by the hospital before the woman was hired in 2003. Despite the doctor seeking whistleblower protection in May last year, Queensland Health took disciplinary action against the doctor in September for breaching the woman's privacy. He appealed against the action.

Mr Robertson said the incident demonstrated the importance of the soon-to-be-established independent Health Quality and Complaints Commission, which would ensure the concerns of staff and the public were properly managed. The issue was first raised in State Parliament last November by Liberal Party health spokesman Bruce Flegg, who accused the department of ignoring complaints from 18 staff about the woman's appointment and shredding documents relating to the issue.

At the time, the hospital said the appointment had been endorsed by two external reviews. Yesterday, Dr Flegg said the incident had all the hallmarks of poor Queensland Health management including staff bullying and decisions by bureaucrats not clinicians. "This was an appalling episode in the management of a critically important clinical unit," he said.

Source



IN BRIEF

Sexy tax deductions: "Prostitutes, strippers and lap dancers can claim tax deductions for adult toys and lingerie, officials said Friday, as the Australian Taxation Office issued a list of deductible items for the sex industry. Condoms, lubricants, gels and oils are among a myriad of other items that these workers can claim against tax, according to a fact sheet issued on the office's Web site. While they cannot claim deductions for fitness classes that keep them in shape, the tax office ruled they can claim the cost of dance lessons. "You can claim the cost of replacing or repairing things like equipment, adult novelties and other apparatus used in your work," the office advises, under a section titled "tools of trade." "This is just another one of our occupational lists that we put together to help people," a taxation office spokeswoman said on customary condition of anonymity."





Arty farties snob the people's painter A petition calling for Pro Hart's works to be hung in the Art Gallery of New South Wales will be tabled in State Parliament today. The petition was circulated by western NSW MP Peter Black after it was revealed the nation's galleries either did not have any Pro Hart works or were not displaying what they had. More than 600 people signed the petition and Mr Black says he was surprised by the response. "The pages are something in the order of half an inch think and I thank everybody that is supporting this particular project because at the end of the day it will benefit Broken Hill," he said. "Pro Hart put it on the art map and many people come to Broken Hill for various reasons, including going around the art galleries." Mr Black is highly critical of the gallery director Edmund Capon's attitude to Pro Hart's works. "I am looking across the Domain as we speak and looking at the art gallery ... I am well reminded of the outrageous statements about the quality of Pro Hart's work and, of course, I don't know how he can live with those statements given the auctions that we have had in recent times and the record prices that Pro Hart paintings are getting."



Huge leaping croc shocks scientists: "An airborne four-metre crocodile has made scientists' hearts skip a beat during research on the Ord River in the far north of Western Australia. Scientists had been using an electrical current to temporarily stun fish, so as to study them. But they accidentally sent a shock wave through a nearby crocodile. Scott Goodson from the Department of Environment says the jumping croc gave everyone a start. "He breached the water, he got a metre out of the water, that's a big croc!" he said. "He got a fairly good tickle up, I would have thought!" Mr Goodson says the reptile is probably just a bit stunned after the accidental shock treatment. "He's probably taken off and just kicking back behind another rock, I don't think he will come too close to that boat again," he said. "There was a lot of people stepping back, that's for sure!"



11 May, 2006

Australia don't owe nobody nothing

Excerpt from the 2006 budget speech just given by the Federal treasurer:



Australia has weathered some economic storms over the last decade - storms every bit as deadly as the cyclones that lashed the north of our continent in the early part of this year. We have weathered the Asian financial crisis, a global downturn, a one-in-a-hundred-year drought. We have had threats to our international tourism from new diseases such as SARS. We have had terrorist attacks and the security response has brought huge additional costs and challenges. Our military forces are in theatres of war.

With disciplined and prudent management our economy has come through these storms intact - in fact growing, in fact growing in the longest continuous stretch our nation has ever experienced. There were moments where we were vulnerable. But, through these storms, we never lost sight of our goals - to get Australians jobs, to keep inflation low, to keep home loan interest rates affordable, to balance our Budget, and to repay Labor's debt. We have now eliminated the $96 billion of net debt that Labor left the Australian Government when it left office.

Our Budget is in surplus for the 9th time in 10 years: in 2006-07 a forecast surplus of $10.8 billion. We have established a Future Fund which has begun to save for the future. With these savings the next generation will be able to meet the challenges of their time. Now the Australian Government is debt-free in net terms. We do not have to collect taxes to pay the Government's interest bill. We are saving over $8 billion per annum in interest payments.

Since 2000 we have reduced the marginal tax rates at the lower end of the income scale. Tonight I announce that from 1 July 2006 we will reduce the marginal tax rates at the upper end of the income scale. We will reduce the 47 and 42 cent rates to 45 and 40 cents. This will give Australia four marginal tax rates of 15, 30, 40 and 45 cents. In addition, we will increase the thresholds so that the 15 cent rate will apply up to $25,000, the 30 cent rate up to $75,000, the 40 cent rate up to $150,000 and the 45 cent rate will apply to income above that. Across the forward estimates, more than 80 per cent of taxpayers will have a top marginal tax rate of 30 cents. Only 2 per cent of taxpayers will be affected by the top marginal tax rate on 1 July.

Helping families is one of the highest priorities of this Government. Since 1996 we have doubled assistance to families through the Family Tax Benefit system. The maximum payment per child under Part A has increased from around $2400 to $4200 a year. Tonight I am announcing further enhancements to Family Tax Benefit Part A. Currently, families can receive the maximum amount if they earn less than $33,361. Last year I announced that we would increase this to $37,500 from July 1, 2006. Instead, we will now increase it to $40,000. This will provide additional assistance to almost half a million Australian families.... And, from July 1, parents will be eligible to receive the new Childcare Rebate. This will rebate 30 per cent of out of pocket childcare expenses up to $4000 per child per annum.

Source



Australian Growth Set to Accelerate Amid Export Rise

Australia's economy is forecast to swell beyond A$1 trillion, or roughly US$770 billion, for the first time in 2006-07 amid surging business investment and a global commodity-price boom. Delivering his 11th budget yesterday, Treasurer Peter Costello said economic growth would rise to 3.25% in 2006-07, a pickup from 2.5% in 2005-06 as bottlenecks ease and exports increase sharply. The outlook forecasts an extension in the decade and a half of uninterrupted growth in Australia. There are risks with fuel costs rising and the commodity-price cycle close to a peak. Even then, inflation is forecast to remain contained, while unemployment will hover above its current 30-year lows of 5%, Mr. Costello said.

The centerpiece of the budget is a A$36.7 billion round of personal tax cuts during the next four years that still leave the government with an underlying fiscal surplus of A$10.8 billion for the financial year ending in June 2007. The fiscal surplus is forecast to hold at A$10.6 billion in the following financial year despite the government's planned tax cuts and the additional spending on health, child care, defense, and roads and railways.

With A$6.4 billion of those personal income-tax cuts to be paid into salaries in 2006-07, Mr. Costello risks the financial markets raising the prospect of further interest-rate increases. Economists have warned that more money in the pockets of consumers puts renewed pressure on the Reserve Bank of Australia to tighten monetary policy.

Source



$4bn tax write-off cheered by business

Companies have won sweeping, instant tax breaks worth more than $4 billion over the next four years under changes designed to encourage investment in new plant and equipment and sustain the company profits boom. The measures, unveiled in last night's federal budget and set to apply from today, extend tax breaks available for computers, manufacturing and other equipment which have depreciated in value.

The changes to depreciation were a response to a damning verdict in a federal government-commissioned report on Australia's international tax competitiveness earlier this year and would keep Australia "ultra-competitive", Treasurer Peter Costello said last night. They allow business to more rapidly write off the cost of new plant and equipment for tax purposes. One of the authors of the tax competitiveness report, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Peter Hendy, last night welcomed the depreciation changes. "It's very encouraging and a good start but there are other issues on corporate taxation that the Government could explore," he said. Australian Industry Group boss Heather Ridout said the accelerated depreciation reforms were important for AIG's members in the manufacturing industry. Many members, she said, had been looking at capital investment programs to lift their competitiveness. "It's also more consistent with the real prices of assets, which are losing their value more quickly," Ms Ridout said. Under the changes, companies can, for example, claim half the cost of a $4000 computer in the first year - instead of just over a third under the previous regime.

Mr Costello earmarked a further $435 million for small business, including changes to capital gains tax rules and an extension of the small business "simplified tax system". The simplified tax system, introduced in 1999, has so far been adopted by less than 30 per cent of eligible business. However, changes to the threshold for eligible businesses from $2 to $1 million a year annual turnover - costing $435 million to revenue - would make the scheme more attractive, Mr Costello said. Further changes to capital gains tax - a response to the recommendations of a Board of Taxation review - would relax the rules for small business to claim the CGT concession.

But the Government chose not to adopt the review's other key recommendations for a capital gains tax cut on shares held longer than two years. And a suggestion tax breaks be given for "intangible assets" like goodwill and intellectual property was also not addressed in the federal budget context. The Government also opted not to cut the headline corporate tax rate of 30 per cent despite a projected $10.8 billion surplus largely based on company tax profits. "We recently received a report on the International Comparison of Australia's taxes. It showed that our company tax rate - which this Government cut to 30 per cent - is internationally competitive but that Australia had the equal lowest value of depreciation allowances in comparator countries," Mr Costello said.

The former depreciable allowances regime was abolished in return for a raft of tax cuts by the Howard Government in 2001. However, the Government last night insisted the measures in this year's budget did not reinstate the old scheme. Changes to the fringe benefits tax reporting threshold - a boon for the office Christmas party - from $500 to $1000 a week and a cut in the incorporation fee from $800 to $400 also follow the Prime Minister's regulation task force recommendations. The changes would also benefit business, Mr Costello said.

Source



Funds to boost illegal fishing arrests



Federal Justice and Customs Minister Chris Ellison says a $1.5 billion Budget initiative for border protection measures will double the number of illegal fishing vessels captured in Australian waters. The $389 million package will be used to bolster surveillance across northern waters, to train Indigenous coastal rangers to act as spotters and to build new facilities to burn captured illegal boats.

But fishermen in north Queensland and the Northern Territory say the measures will not deter foreign poachers. Senator Ellison says that is not the case. He also says the Government's initiatives in no way mirror Labor's earlier proposal to establish a coastguard operation. "What Labor's proposing is to fragment our approach," he said. "You'd still have Customs, coastguard and Navy. Now that is a fragmented approach to border control. "We are bringing together, under one line of command, all our assets which we have available. "That is a much more streamlined, effective way to protect Australia's borders."

Senator Ellison says talks with Indonesia about working together to prevent illegal fishing in Australian waters are going well. The Government is hopeful Indonesia will participate in joint naval patrols to find illegal fishing vessels, and work with agencies to identify syndicates and other operations working unlawfully in Australian waters. Senator Ellison says tensions over Australia's decision to grant temporary protection visas to a number of Papuans seeking asylum are not having an impact on the discussions. "We have the ministerial forum coming up in June with Indonesia. Certainly illegal fishing will be high on the agenda in those talks," he said. "But as far as cooperation goes with the AFP [Australian Federal Police] and other law enforcement agencies, all the reports I have is that it's business as usual with the Indonesians."

Source



10 May, 2006

Good sense from the High Court

The High Court today ruled against two severely disabled people who claimed they should not have been born. In what's been termed a case of "wrongful life," the judges foundthe pair did not have a right to mount a case for negligence against their mothers' doctors. The case was launched by two disabled people, Sydney woman Alexia Harriton, 25, and Keeden Waller, five. Ms Harriton was born deaf, blind, physically and mentally disabled and was not expected to live more than six months. She needs 24-hour care. She claimed Dr Paul Stephens negligently failed to diagnose the disease rubella early in her mother Olga's pregnancy and did not advise there was a very high risk of having a child with congenital abnormalities. Olga Harriton said that she would have terminated the pregnancy had she received proper advice.

Keeden, an IVF baby, through his parents also claimed wrongful life after inheriting the clotting disorder AT3 from his father. He was born with brain damage, suffers from cerebral palsy, has uncontrolled seizures and requires constant care. Had the Wallers known of this risk, they said they would have deferred IVF until such time that safe methods were available or terminated the pregnancy.

In the NSW Supreme Court, Justice Timothy Studdert dismissed both damages claims, holding they had no cause of action. The Court of Appeal, by majority, also dismissed each appeal. The action on behalf of Alexia and Keeden then turned to the High Court. By a six to one majority, the High Court judges today dismissed each appeal, ruling that a cause of action in negligence required each to show damage had been suffered and the doctors had a duty of care to avoid that damage. They found no legally recognisable damage - loss, deprivation or detriment caused by an alleged breach of duty - could be shown.

The judges held that comparing a life with non-existence for the purposes of proving actual damage was impossible as it could not be determined that the children's lives represented a loss, deprivation or detriment, compared with non-existence. In the lead judgment, Justice Susan Crennan said physical damage such as a broken leg was within the common experience of judges who had no difficulty assessing the claimed loss. But it was altogether more difficult when the assessment had to be made between present disability and non-existence. "There is no present field of human learning or discourse, including philosophy and theology, which would allow a person experiential access to non-existence, whether it is called pre-existence or afterlife," she said. ``There is no practical possibility of a court (or jury) ever apprehending or evaluating, or receiving proof of, the actual loss or damage as claimed by the appellant. It cannot be determined in what sense Alexia Harriton's life with disabilities represents a loss, deprivation or detriment compared with non-existence."

Justice Michael Kirby, the sole dissenting voice, said denying the existence of wrongful life actions erected an immunity around health care providers whose negligence resulted in a child, who would not otherwise have existed, being born into a life of suffering. "The law should not approve a course which would afford such an immunity and which would offer no legal deterrent to professional carelessness or even professional irresponsibility," he said.

Source



Rare sense from a bleeding-heart judge

A desperate bid by Labor states to stop John Howard seizing control of their workplace laws smacked of an old "class" division between capital and labour, High Court judge Michael Kirby said yesterday. Justice Kirby said times had changed because workers could now be seen as part of the corporation that employed them. The comments of Justice Kirby, the most liberal judge on the High Court, appear to put him in rare unity with the Prime Minister.

Justice Kirby said an argument advanced by the Queensland Government ignored that employees had been integrated. "I find it hard to escape that employees are a vital part of the corporation," he said. The judge's comments came as Labor states and unions challenged a hostile takeover of their industrial relations regimes by the Howard Government to create a single national system. Queensland Solicitor-General Walter Sofronoff said the Howard Government had used the corporations power of the Constitution as the basis of its workplace laws, but these provisions were linked to trading businesses and not the employment relationship.

Casting doubt on the states' claim, Justice Kirby asked why employees were not associated with their corporation. "They do the work, they make the profits, they are closely associated day by day," he said.

The judge has supported the old conciliation and arbitration system of industrial relations in the past, but generally favours the commonwealth's legal supremacy in constitutional matters. Last year, Mr Howard identified "enterprise workers" as people aligned with the business that employed them.

Justice Kirby said the argument by Mr Sofronoff "smacks of a class view of capital and labour" and ignored integration in the 20th century. "It could be said that employees are now seen as part and parcel of the corporation," he said. Justice Kirby said corporations and employment were linked because workers affected whether their employer succeeded or failed. Linking wages and hours worked to a company's fate, he said: "We're talking about the cost structure of the corporation." But Justice Kirby also raised the prospect that if the court ruled in the Government's favour, it could have significant effects for extending Canberra's power, and he questioned whether some "checks" might be needed.

On the third day of the states' challenge, a contrast emerged on the seven-member court between Justice Kirby and Ian Callinan, a Howard government appointee from Queensland who generally favours states' rights. Justice Callinan said he was puzzled as to why the Howard Government's Work Choices laws referred to the corporations powers of the constitution when every provision related to industrial relations. He said the Government had claimed its workplace laws were about corporations, when its objects did not even mention them. Chief Justice Murray Gleeson asked why the federal Government could not pass laws to set employment conditions such as three weeks' annual leave if it could regulate corporations. Justice Kenneth Hayne said a division between a corporation and its employees was artificial. "Essentially the law giveth, the law taketh away," he said.

South Australia split yesterday with other Labor states when its solicitor-general, Chris Kourakis, put an alternative view close to the Howard Government's position. Mr Kourakis said that on one reading of the constitution, the Howard Government had the power to legislate for all employees, except those such as council workers and university researchers not involved in trading. Justice Kirby said: "South Australia is the fly in the states' ointment."

Source



Poker machine government



Australia contains one-third of 1 per cent of the world's population. But it contains something like 20 per cent of the world's poker machines. In pubs and clubs across the country, people sit on stools for hours on end feeding the pokies in the hope that they will end up taking more money out than they put in. Most of the time they lose. Few of them take any interest in politics. The debates about tax reform will almost certainly have passed them by. They're not interested in policy ideas or political principles and the Government knows they're not.

The Prime Minister knows what makes them tick. He has what Rudyard Kipling called "the common touch". Last month he said "the average Australian" was not interested in "some long academic speech" about tax reform. He knows their concerns are limited to how much money the Government is planning on giving them. These voters regard government finance in much the same way as a poker machine. All they really want to know come budget night is what the payout is likely to be. This Government has proved adept at giving these people what they want. That's why welfare spending has continued to escalate even at a time of low unemployment. John Howard has made a Faustian pact with his battlers: you keep voting for me and I'll keep giving you more money.

This deal requires a high level of tax-welfare churning; to hand the cash out to people as benefits, the Government first has to take it away from them in taxes. The Government thus operates on much the same principle as the pokies: punters keep putting in their money and now and again they get some back. In an election year they may even hit the jackpot. The Government has no interest in weaning people away from the giant Canberra poker machine. Politically, there is little to be gained by allowing people to keep more of their own money rather than relying on the Government to support them. Voters who keep money for themselves have no reason to feel grateful to politicians. Gratitude comes from voters who receive handouts, even if it is their own money being churned back to them. This explains why the Government has no interest in rationalising our absurdly complex tax system, which drives three-quarters of Australians to employ accountants to prepare their annual tax return.

In countries that have scrapped petty deductions and reduced marginal rates, basic rate pay-as-you-go taxpayers never have to fill in a tax form, let alone employ an accountant. But our Government isn't interested in reform such as this. Ask ministers why we can't simplify our system and you'll be told that ordinary Australians are wedded to their end-of-year tax rebates. But all they get back at the end of the tax year is cash that should never have been taken from them in the first place.

We see the same thinking in Howard's fierce defence of the family support payments system. Nearly nine out of 10 families receive government payments, but in most cases they are financing these themselves. They pay tax every fortnight to the Australian Taxation Office and get a great chunk of it back every fortnight from Centrelink. It's the same story again with the financing of childcare services. Working parents pay tax on every dollar they earn over $500 per month, but if they put their children in child care they can claw some of their tax back by asking the Government for a childcare benefit (which reduces the charges they have to pay) and for a childcare rebate (to recoup some of the remaining balance).

Today's budget promises more of the same. There will be no tax reform, but look for plenty of handouts and lots of churning. Why do we put up with this? The Government expects us to be grateful when it puts its hand deeper and deeper into one of our pockets to transfer our cash (less overhead costs) into the other. It believes we will continue to reward it with our votes. The really depressing thing is that we probably will. Just ask the punters sitting on their stools shovelling coins into the pokies if they feel happy when the machine pays out. Of course they do. Trouble is, they forget how much of their money they put in to get it.

Source



Literacy shortfall spelt out

Business groups have welcomed the Beattie Government's moves to rid the state's English curriculum of post-modern "mumbo jumbo", saying too many school-leavers were effectively illiterate. Commerce Queensland president Beatrice Booth said yesterday employers constantly complained that it was a constant complaint among employers that employees under 30 years of age had serious communication problems, especially with spelling. "There are no remedial programs for people that age, yet we have a plethora of people who can't spell, comprehend what they're reading or write a proper sentence," Ms Booth said. She said employers had "no interest whatsoever" in whether or not staff could deconstruct films, magazines or analyse the "discourse of gender" or comment on the "invited reading, foregrounding or gaps and silences" of particular texts. Nor did they need staff to be able to make film and video presentations. "We hire experts for that," she said.

She said the only thing wrong with Education Minister Rod Welford's plain-English push was that he did not plan to act until 2008 to rid Queensland's controversial English curriculum of post-modern "mumbo jumbo". "That will be another two years lost," Mrs Booth said. She said Commerce Queensland, which represented 40,000 employers, wanted immediate changes to make reading and writing, including grammar and spelling, the main English focus of Years 1 to 4, with a love of reading fostered by suitable books. "As far as prospective employers are concerned, the lack of basic primary school reading and writing skills among Year 12 school leavers and university graduates is the main concern employers have about education," she said. "This is a frequent complaint among small business owners from the local story to surveyors and doctors." "After Year 4, the program could be expanded to take in wider skills like writing a letter."

Mrs Booth also believed critical literacy had contributed to a "labelling" mentality among young people which planted hostility towards business and business owners. "We should be out there encouraging them to become business entrepreneurs, not suggesting that business is a bad word," she said.

Professor Erica McWilliam, Assistant Dean of Research at QUT's Faculty of Education, agreed with Mr Welford that clear communication was important, but said today's students needed "a range of literacies including sound, images and text" to cope with the demands of the modern world. "English is certainly about communication but we have to be careful that as we reassert the importance of clarity that we have to be careful not to collapse into the notion of simplicity," Professor McWilliam said. As a former teacher of poetry she admitted to "a little frisson of despair" at the thought of poems like Fern Hill (Dylan Thomas) being "deconstructed" rather than simply appreciated for their beauty. She said school programs should allow students the time to appreciate and enjoy fine writing rather than constantly expecting them to "perform" by analysing, deconstructing and criticising literary works

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9 May, 2006

Migrants will have to speak English

Foreigners applying to come to Australia as skilled migrants are to face tougher English tests. The overhaul of the skilled migration program follows a recent call by a prominent government MP for aspiring citizens to sit an English test. Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone announced the changes to the program yesterday after a report found problems with the system. "The key aim of our skilled program is to select migrants who will find skilled jobs quickly," she said. "The evaluation has confirmed categorically that good English and relevant work experience are essential to achieving this result."

The review was conducted by leading migration experts Dr Bob Birrell of Monash University, Associate Professor Lesley-anne Hawthorne, of Melbourne University, and Prof Sue Richardson, from South Australia's Flinders University. Their report found that the skilled program was generally working well; but many migrants were struggling to find jobs because a poor knowledge of English and a lack of relevant work experience.

Under the changes, foreign students who apply for permanent residency will need skilled work experience before they can be accepted. New temporary visas will allow them to get this experience. The move will not be popular with universities that earn huge incomes from overseas students, many of whom use courses to immigrate.

Dr Birrell said he was pleased the Government had accepted his team's recommendations, and backed Cabinet's recent decision not to increase the skilled migrant intake in 2006-07. "It would have been most unwise to have done so, given they are about to reform the skilled system," he said.

Last month, federal parliamentary secretary for immigration Andrew Robb called for migrants to sit English tests before they could acquire citizenship.

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Push for plain English in Queensland schools

Post-modernist "mumbo jumbo" is on the way out of Queensland's controversial English syllabus. Education Minister Rod Welford said students as young as Year 8 were being presented with "incomprehensible gobbledegook" that was not being explained to them in plain English. Mr Welford said he wanted to see improvements by the time the new junior and senior syllabuses were fully implemented in 2008. "We want plain English guidelines going to teachers so they can get on with teaching and ensuring students have the knowledge and skills they need," Mr Welford said. "What's wrong with teaching kids to communicate clearly in plain English?"

The Queensland Studies Authority last year appointed independent Sunshine Coast-based educational consultant Ray Land, 53, a former English-social science teacher and education official, to review the preschool to Year 10 syllabus. Mr Land, who found curriculum jargon more of an issue in the primary syllabus than in the secondary syllabus, has completed three out of four stages of his year-long review and his final report is due next month. While unable to pre-empt his report or recommendations, Mr Land has found major variations between schools, English programs and student proficiency levels. While some schools were doing four novels a year, others were doing one and more plays, films, poetry or study of media texts. Some schools, including Thursday Island High School, studied Shakespeare up to Year 10 while others did not.

Mr Land said some measure of critical analysis would remain part of English. It always had been since the earliest days of literary criticism, he said. "But I think deconstruction itself and the jargon is on the way out," he said.

Mr Land found that between a third and a quarter of secondary students up to Year 10 were studying English, not as a traditional subject called English but as part of wider integrated studies courses, where it was linked to a subject such as study of society and the environment. "There a range of reasons for this, including staff shortages in growth areas like Hervey Bay," Mr Land said. "Most English teachers are also qualified to teach in the social sciences. A third issue is the continuity. Students are familiar with an integrated approach at primary school." He said the quality of such integrated studies programs varied and depended on how they were put together and taught, as did all English courses.

Mr Land has found that teachers and school administrators get "a bit chary" at any suggestion that lists of set or suggested novels, plays and poetry be included in the English curriculum. Mr Land is unsure, at this stage, whether he will recommend that a list of suggested reading be included in the English curriculum. He said many schools covered a wide range of works and studied good books in depth. "But about this, it is fair to say that some don't get it right," he said. Mr Land said different schools should have the freedom to select material that best suited their particular students, and the problem with every pupil studying a couple of set books was that it was impossible to suit all tastes and often too difficult to obtain sufficient numbers of the books.

Asked whether it was appropriate for lower secondary students to spend most of a term studying magazines like Dolly or Girlfriend, he said too much deconstruction of such material "becomes tedious and boring". "At the same time, banning them or asking students not to read them just privileges them with the kids," he said. "Balance is what is important."

Source



Junior doctors to catch up on anatomy

Remedial courses in anatomy are being considered for junior doctors following complaints their anatomical knowledge upon graduation from medical school is "unacceptably low". Amid a push by senior doctors to increase the amount of anatomical teaching in universities, the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons says it is negotiating directly with university anatomy departments to provide extra tuition to get junior doctors up to speed before they enter surgical training.

Julian Smith, a member of the anatomy committee of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, said the "basic anatomical knowledge amongst graduating medical students at many universities is unacceptably low". Professor Smith -- a heart surgeon and professor of surgery at Monash University -- said he had some final-year medical students in his operating theatre to watch a live cardiac operation. "The heart was exposed and I pointed to a part of the heart and asked them to name it. They said 'the liver'. That was in my own university. "There are some fairly ugly anecdotes. I don't think too many of them are as bad as that, but it's a big worry."

RACS executive director for surgical affairs John Quinn said the college was "concerned about the level of anatomical knowledge of those wanting to enter the (RACS) training program". "That knowledge is much less than it used to be," he said. The college had already tried persuading medical schools to increase the anatomy training they provided, but the "community is demanding more from their doctor". "As many (medical school) courses have moved from being six years to four years postgraduate, the time is less and the demands are more and something has to give," Dr Quinn said. "The rationale (for cutting anatomy teaching) is that the only doctors who need to know anatomy are surgeons. That's rubbish, but it's the justification."

The Weekend Australian reported a coalition of concerned doctors had sent a 70-page submission to the federal Department of Education, Science and Training, calling for benchmarks on medical training and mandatory minimum standards for science teaching.

Professor Smith said when students encountered patients "their anatomical knowledge is often very weak and makes it difficult for them to appreciate many of the clinical conditions they might encounter". "If they don't know the normal, how can they understand the abnormal?" he said.

The Australian Medical Council accredits Australia's 17 medical schools and approves their curricula. Chief executive officer Ian Frank said the AMC set "general requirements" about the knowledge, skills and attributes that graduating doctors were expected to have after their education. "We have stopped short of saying that means you have to have done X-hundred hours of such-and-such, because there really isn't any evidence ... that says that 500 hours (of anatomy teaching) is better than 300 hours, or 100 hours," he said. "The studies that have been done here and elsewhere show the guys coming out (of Australian medical schools) are at least the equal of those from more traditional courses, and superior in some areas, such as interpersonal skills and capacity to work in collaboration."

Source



Right to flash?

Police will attempt to prosecute a 75-year-old Sunshine Coast man today for the fifth time for sun baking nude on a secluded Coolum beach nearly a year ago. Retiree Ken Wenzel is determined to beat the wilful exposure charge and has an army of supporters behind him. The Queensland Council for Civil Liberties has described the charge as an abuse of police powers and have called on authorities to drop the case. "Haven't they got anything else to do than chase a harmless man in his 70s for bathing in the nude?" QCCL president Michael Cope said.

Mr Wenzel was caught bathing at Third Bay Beach at Coolum, south of Noosa, which has been a well-known nudist beach for more than 30 years. Of the 100 nudists Sunshine Coast police nabbed during the mid-winter raid last July, Mr Wenzel was the only person to fight the charge. Mr Cope said: "If necessary, the State Government or relevant councils should take steps to designate nude beaches and to mark and publicise them."

Source



8 May, 2006

Muslim gang linked to club terror in Western Australia

The nightclub shooting that has captivated Perth court rooms has heard allegations a violent campaign by a Middle Eastern gang to terrorise the well-heeled nightclub district played a major role in the affair. Troy Desmond Mercanti is on trial for unlawfully wounding Nahil Dabag by shooting him four times in the thigh in a fight at a nightclub in inner-city Northbridge in January last year.

In the tenth day of the trial, the jury heard that a friend of Mr Mercanti's tried to wipe his hands clean of any gunshot residue in a bid to cover up the shooting. Paul Kenneth Martino and Mr Mercanti have been also charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice for using alcohol wipes to clean Mr Mercanti's hands.

The defence claims Mr Mercanti armed himself with a gun because of trouble caused by the Scorpion Boys gang, which has links to the Iraqi community, and that the shooting was an act of self defence. Robert Richter QC, for Mr Mercanti, said the Scorpion Boys gang, of which Nabil Dabag was a member, had a reputation of terrorising the entertainment suburb of Northbridge with knives. He suggested Mr Dabag was very high up in the Scorpion Boy rankings and the gang was given the name because "they were pretty good at wielding knives". Giving evidence, Acting Detective Sergeant Rex Tunks said he linked the Metro City incident to a stabbing by the Scorpion Boys at a nearby nightclub two months earlier. He said police intelligence indicated the gang had forced their way into nightclubs they had previously been barred from, ignoring security staff.

The court was also told Mr Mercanti and Mr Dabag were treated on adjacent hospital beds, just minutes after the shooting and stabbing, with only an X-ray screen separating them. Nurse Erica Endersby, Mr Mercanti's principal carer at Royal Perth Hospital, said she asked her patient if he knew Mr Dabag because she saw them looking at each other. "Troy looked over to the first patient and he gave him a very determined, slow, concentrated stare," Ms Endersby said. "After he'd been staring for a brief moment in time I asked him if he recognised the patient because it was quite a purposeful stare. He said no."

Ms Endersby told the court Mr Mercanti was allowed a visitor, Mr Martino, while he was in the emergency department. "Within a short period of time of the visitor coming to visit Troy, he asked if we could wash Troy's hands," she said. "I told him we wouldn't be washing his hands at the moment, that that would happen later." Seconds later, after she left Mr Mercanti's bedside, she turned around and saw Mr Martino wiping Mr Mercanti's hands with alcohol wipes, used to clean hospital equipment. She went out and spoke to police before returning and telling the pair to stop what they were doing. "I (then) attempted to remove the wipes from the hands," she said.

Gunshot residue was later found by police on one of the wipes. Mr Mercanti and Mr Martino are on trial with John Kizon, Adam Wayne Lloyd and David Morris, who are alleged to have covered up and removed evidence of the nightclub shooting.

Source



A rare increase in liberties

Victorian homeowners will be able to build pergolas, decks, sheds, cubby houses and swimming pools unfettered by red tape. The State Government is sweeping away the need for council approval on a raft of non-structural home improvement projects. Until now, frustrated property owners have been forced to wait up to five months to get approval for minor work. The backlog of paperwork for small jobs is also clogging the planning system, slowing the go-ahead of larger projects.

Planning Minister Rob Hulls described the changes as a series of "quick fixes" available from next month. "This announcement is expected to reduce the number of planning applications by up to 10 per cent in some councils," he said. An estimated 4000 applications would be scrapped by the changes, allowing councils to put more resources into reducing the bottleneck for bigger projects, Mr Hulls said.

Homes in heritage zones would also face easier rules when adding satellite dishes, water tanks and solar heating. A final report with further changes aimed at reducing paperwork would be released in June, as the "quick fix" rules were introduced, he said. Whitehorse mayor Sharon Ellis said it had been lobbying for a year, alongside nine other eastern municipalities, for planning changes and described it as a "step in the right direction". Her chief executive Noelene Duff said local governments had "high expectations" of further planning reforms including improvements to the difficult VCAT system. "This is just really the beginning," she said.

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Gradeless courses under fire

One of Western Australia's chief examiners, who has vowed to quit over the state's controversial "gradeless" curriculum being rolled out into Years 11 and 12 classrooms, claims the system is too subjective and will backfire. Jan Bishop said the new system was filled with "gobbledegook" and would cause inequities in how students were graded. Her claims were backed yesterday by former chief examiner Bill Leadbetter, who described the new courses as "content free".

Mrs Bishop helped write the new history course but stepped aside from that role last year over what she described as the Curriculum Council's insistence on writing the course using meaningless language. Mrs Bishop has signalled she will resign next year, 12 months before her contract as chief history examiner ends. She said the marking process, in which teachers decide at which of eight levels a student has performed, was complicated and subjective. "There are major problems with this system and teachers are having difficulties properly assessing students' work because they don't understand," she told The Weekend Australian.

The Carpenter Government has faced increasing pressure to delay the rollout of 17 outcomes-based subjects. Under the new system, all subjects are equal and students achieve at their own level. Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop has raised concerns over Western Australia's outcomes-based education system, claiming it is "inevitable" that standards will fall.

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New Zealand needs the Australian dollar

Galling though that will be to Kiwis

The Kiwi dollar is as endangered as its flightless namesake. By 2020, there's a better than even chance it will be gone; by 2050, financial markets will be listing the Kiwi as extinct. The reason? International trends show a move towards consolidating currencies into blocs - a euro bloc, a greenback bloc - raising the prospect of a common Australasian currency, the Anzac.

"That trend is likely to become more accelerated over the next couple of decades," says David Skilling, the director of the New Zealand Institute, an independent economic think-tank. "New Zealand is one of the smallest countries in the world to still have an independent currency. All the small European countries have now joined the euro. In 50 years, will we still have an independent currency? I think that's pretty unlikely. By 2020, there's a good chance that we will have joined some currency bloc - it's more than 50/50, simply because that is the way the rest of the world is going."

And there are many business people who wish we could get there a little quicker. The dollar's volatility is a prime reason. You've heard the complaints: the dollar was too high, so it was killing our export sector; now it is too low and it's hurting consumers and fuelling inflation. As Steel & Tube chief executive Nick Calavrias says, business can plan and cope with a dollar at a reasonably high or low level, but it struggles with New Zealand's yo-yo currency. Of course, the Australian dollar also moves up and down in relation to other currencies, just not as markedly as the Kiwi.

Roger Bowden, professor in finance and economics at Victoria University, says that one benefit of a common transtasman currency would be to remove much of that Kiwi volatility. Skilling and ASB chief economist Anthony Byett agree. "That volatility," Byett says, "creates uncertainty, and the more uncertainty there is the less likely people are to invest in business."

A more pressing reason to adopt the Anzac, says Skilling, is that it would stimulate trade between the two countries, increase financial flows and reduce the cost of capital, ie, the cost of borrowing. New Zealand's 90-day interest rates are among the highest in the world, a good percentage point above Australia and two to three points higher than the US. This is because we are a small country with - you guessed it - a volatile dollar. Effectively, foreign investors demand compensation for the risks involved, thus increasing the cost of capital.

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7 May, 2006

Disastrous politicization of medical education



Teaching of basic anatomy in Australia's medical schools is so inadequate that students are increasingly unable to locate important body parts - and in some cases even confuse one vital organ with another. Senior doctors claim teaching hours for anatomy have been slashed by 80 per cent in some medical schools to make way for "touchy-feely" subjects such as "cultural sensitivity", communication and ethics. The time devoted to other basic sciences - including biochemistry, physiology and pathology - has also been reduced.

Several senior consultants have told The Weekend Australian they have been "horrified" to encounter final-year medical students who do not know where the prostate gland is, or what a healthy liver feels like. When asked by a cardiac surgeon during a live operation to identify a part of the heart that he was pointing to, one group of final-year students thought it was the patient's liver.

A coalition of senior doctors appealed this week to the federal Government to step in, claiming public safety was at stake and that national benchmarks for teaching the basic medical sciences were urgently needed. The Australian Doctors Fund lodged a 70-page submission with the federal Department of Education, Science and Training this week, listing arguments from more than two dozen professors, consultants and medical academics for a rethink on medical education. The document warned of a "rising chorus of concern across the medical profession" that students were not getting "exposure to the necessary amount of training in anatomy" and other key sciences.

The heads of Australia's medical schools fiercely contest the criticisms, saying there has been an "explosion" of medical knowledge that doctors need to know, in fields such as genetics and new drugs, and that other areas have to be cut to accommodate the newer topics. They also strenuously deny that they are turning out inadequately trained doctors. But many students are also unhappy about core science training. One group of students wrote anonymously to two noted academics last year, saying they were "sick of being asked, 'Didn't you study anatomy?"' by consultants amazed by the gaps in their knowledge. "How can we learn if we are not taught the basics?" they wrote.

One of the two recipients of the letter, Barry Oakes, a former anatomy teacher at Monash University, said part of the problem was the "fads and trends" now current in medical education, and that students were "not taught where the body parts are - they are not even taught the organisation of the nervous system". "We will be turning out Dr Deaths out of our own medical schools," he said. "They (doctors) won't be competent to manage patients ... it's just appalling. "It's part of the new educational dictums - 'don't put any stress on them (students) ... it doesn't matter if they don't know anything'." Associate Professor Oakes plans to provide voluntary anatomy lessons for Monash students.

Michael Gardner, 22, a fifth-year medical student at Monash, said that when he posted this fact on a student discussion board last year, 60 out of the 200 students in the year expressed interest in attending. "I think probably the old curriculum had too much emphasis on anatomy, but the new course has probably swung a little bit too far in the other direction," he said. "If you are assessing (a patient) who has had a stroke, if you do not have a good knowledge of the different parts of the brain, it can be difficult to assess which parts have been compromised and what treatment is warranted."

The criticisms of teaching methods are fiercely contested by the heads of Australia's 17 medical schools. Lindon Wing, chairman of the Committee of Deans of Australian Medical Schools, dismissed the examples of student ignorance as anecdotal and said the attacks stemmed from a "clash of cultures" within the profession. "It's the difference between people who have been brought up (through medical school) in a certain way, and want it to stay that way, and the people who are leading a revolution," Professor Wing said. "I have never seen any evidence ... in any of our disciplines that would show we are deficient." Ed Byrne, dean of medical, nursing and health sciences at Monash University, said his university's teaching was "superb" and said a redesigned medical course would graduate its first doctors this year. Although the amount of anatomy teaching had been cut from "several hundred" hours a few years ago to about 100 hours now, this had been matched by many new and better methods for teaching the subject. "We now teach anatomy in a more sophisticated way, using electronic models, images such as X-rays and MRIs (magnetic resonance imaging)," Professor Byrne said. "The fact that we have to reduce some of the things we taught in the past to make way for new areas of knowledge is a worldwide tendency."

Nick Lee, 22, is a fourth-year medical student at the University of NSW, and was part of the university's last intake before the course was remodelled. "I prefer the old method because that prepares us before we enter the hospitals," he said.

Source



Australian expats everywhere in Britain

Jo Fox was the first person in her Parramatta family to finish high school. She then studied science, worked in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory as a media adviser to federal Labor politicians Carmen Lawrence and Bob McMullan. But when Labor was slaughtered in the 2004 election, Fox, then 29, was despondent. She needed a sea change, so she set out for London.....

Fox is part of a big change to Britain's Australian population of more than 250,000, about half of them in London. Forget backpacker and bar staff stereotypes: more than half of Australians living long-term in Britain are professionals or managers, two-thirds are under 30 and 56 per cent are women, research by an Adelaide University geographer, Graeme Hugo, shows.

In a sense it is an old story: young Australians in Britain for a one- or two-year rite of passage. But they are also the children of globalisation, which is transforming the historic relationship. Britain is no longer the mother country, at the forefront of the Australian mind. Yet in terms of the traffic of ideas, policies and people, Australia and Britain may be closer than ever. Don't mention Germaine, Rolf, Clive or Kylie. Lesser-known Australians are also changing Britain. The Blair Government's Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, is Australian (as well as British). Three Australians sit in the House of Lords, Robert Thomson edits The Times, Rod Eddington ran British Airways until last year.

There are three Australian vice-chancellors of British universities and eight managers of arts bodies, a concentration that has raised eyebrows in the English press. And a Sydney engineer, David Higgins, may have the toughest job in the country. As the head of the Olympic Delivery Authority, he has six years to turn a degraded valley in East London into the site of the 2012 Games.

Although fewer British high-flyers move to Australia, people movement is a two-way street. In the five years to the end of 2004, 252,000 people left Britain to live long-term (a year or more) in Australia, a British Government survey shows. At the same time, more than 200,000 left Australia to live in Britain. No other country exchanges people with Britain on anything like the scale Australia does.

The figures also show that of those leaving Britain for Australia, two-thirds are British migrants and a third are Australians going home. Similarly, of those moving to or back to Britain, about two-thirds are Australian, a third British. In other words, the historical migration pattern dominated by Britons moving to Australia for good is finished. In its place is what Hugo calls a "circularity of flows", involving people moving back and forth, often for relatively short periods. What's more, 700,000 British tourists visited Australia last year, nearly twice as many as 10 years earlier and more than from any other country except New Zealand. To David Watt, counsellor (immigration) at the Australian High Commission in London, it adds up to a very "strong and open relationship".

At the same time, while Asian countries remain Australia's key trading partners and provide many migrants, the Hawke and Keating governments' grand project to redefine the nation by building bridges to Asia is dead, or at least dormant. Fewer young Australians are travelling in Asia than in the 1990s, says Hugo. A cultural shift seems to have occurred.

Why has Australia gone "home" to Britain? "The tyranny of distance has pretty well collapsed," says Paul Wellings, a dual citizen and the vice-chancellor of Lancaster University. His institution now hires regularly from Australia. "As the internet has kicked in it is possible to be sitting in Toowoomba thinking, 'there's a nice job for me in Lancaster'," he says. Cheap air fares have helped. When Wellings, 51, left Britain for a CSIRO job in 1980, he thought he would be gone forever (he was headhunted home in 2002). Contrast that to the dash of Michael Zorbas, press secretary to the Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, who recently flew home to Australia for three days in order to MC a friend's wedding. "I still have to get the carbon offsets, they're worth five trees," he says of the journey.

Above all, times are good and jobs plentiful in both countries. London, a centre of the global economy, lures financial, IT and media talent from around the world. Similarly, Australia's skilled migration program explains why the number of British migrants has doubled, to nearly 20,000 a year, since 2000-01. But that doesn't tell the whole story. Canada also has a thriving economy and a larger skilled migration program than Australia's. It also wants skilled British migrants but to its chagrin can't attract them the way Australia can. Britons say Australia's weather and relaxed lifestyle draw them but perhaps they also feel culturally more at home.

An ethnic breakdown of these migrants doesn't exist, but it is a fair bet they don't reflect Britain's cultural mix. Similarly, observers of the Australian expatriate population in Britain note that it is largely Anglo-Celtic. "It is hard to be sure, but it does tend to be people who have more direct [family] connection with the UK," Hugo says. "You don't get Australia's full multicultural range." Are Australians from non-Anglo backgrounds not as drawn to Britain? Or do their smaller numbers reflect inequalities in the Australian labour market - that not enough of them have reached the professional levels that would enable them to leap to London?

And what about the role of John Howard, who took power promising to reinvigorate the traditional relationships with Britain and the US? "I think John Howard has a lot to do with it," says Lord Astor of Hever. "He's a very good friend of this country." He supported the Iraq war and "he was wonderfully diplomatic through the Test match time when we won the Ashes. He's a good egg." Astor, 59, a hereditary peer and the Conservatives' shadow defence minister, is sitting in the House of Lords tearoom discussing his affection for Australia. As with many Britons, there is a personal tie: his daughter, Violet, 25, lives and works in Sydney. Beyond that, "in many ways you are closer to us than any other country".

Astor stresses "our close military ties", yet they have always been close. And while the two countries swap many policy ideas, the previous Australian Labor government had much more influence on Tony Blair, especially while he was in Opposition, says David O'Reilly, an expatriate Australian journalist who is writing a book on policy exchange between the countries. Hugo says he can't think of a specific Howard policy that has contributed significantly to the flow of Australians to Britain or vice-versa. More important is the behaviour of "a new generation of young people who see the labour market they are competing in as global".

Ryan Heath is one of them. Frustrated at what he saw as a lack of opportunity in Australia, he left for London and landed a job as the chief speech writer for the head of the civil service, Sir Gus O'Donnell. He went to London to work, yet, "this sounds tragic, but as soon as I got here I felt at home". [Many Australians do] In his 2006 book, Please just f* off, it's our turn now, an unrestrained polemic against baby boomer dominance of society, Heath quotes 25 young Australians in London who felt they had reached their professional limits in Australia - what he calls the "southern hemisphere ceiling". In the same vein, a survey by Hugo of 660 graduates in London showed "they felt increasingly that none of the really challenging work for global companies happens in Australia". Not just for companies, either.

In 2001, Victoria Wheeler, a researcher on aid policy who had worked for the Federal Government, enrolled in a master's degree in International Peace and Security at a London university. With exquisite timing, she landed on September 11. They were frightening but heady days and Wheeler remembers them vividly. The financial district was evacuated, no planes flew over the city. In her course, seminars were turned over to discussing terrorism. She felt as if she was at the centre of world events. She still does. Now 30, she works at the Overseas Development Institute, an influential British Government-funded think tank. Of the nine researchers in her humanitarian policy group, four are Australian. After the Pakistani earthquake last year, she studied the role of non-government organisations in responding to natural disasters. It is an opportunity she would not get at home. Perhaps it is the legacy of having been a colonial power, but in Britain "there is a very deep and real appreciation of what social justice means," she says. ". In Australia we just assume everyone gets a fair go, without having done anything about it."

Wheeler's story probably shows why the debate about Australia's 1 million expatriates is a dead one. In a global economy, "there is no way in the world you can stop them going," says Hugo. As Wheeler puts it, she is learning too much to go home just yet. But she plans to eventually, as do 80 per cent of expatriates surveyed by Hugo. When they do, they will bring their experience with them. They will create a much more outward-looking country. Jo Fox will almost certainly be among them. Why? "Hmmm. . the flat whites - the coffee here is generally appalling," she says with a grin. One change would make her return to Australia tomorrow. "Since I was 14 I've wanted to work for a Labor government. I'm here in purgatory, waiting."

Source



Typical Muslim corruption invades NSW politics

The City of Sydney can be justly proud of its flagpoles. The sleek multifunctional aluminium poles which carry colourful banners, lighting and even closed circuit television cameras are being sold around the world. But the Smartpole has had troubled history, which now could cost the City of Sydney millions.

Despite coming last in a tender assessment by council officers in 1999, a company controlled by the sons of MP Eddie Obeid, Streetscape Projects, was awarded a contract to supply Smartpoles to the City of Sydney. Goldspar, the company which claims to have designed the poles and which held the contract before being replaced by Streetscape, this week won a landmark court case against the council, exposing the city to potentially huge damages.

In his judgement, the Federal Court judge Roger Gyles was scathing about the council's behaviour, saying there was "powerful evidence of subjective bad faith on the part of the relevant council officers" in rescinding Goldspar's contract. Justice Gyles also drew attention to evidence, which while he noted was hearsay, showed "collusion between Mr Obeid (by then a minister in the NSW Government) and the City of Sydney to the disadvantage of Goldspar." Allegations were made during the case that the Obeid sons had sought in 1999 to take over Goldspar's contract with the council in exchange for Goldspar getting the contract to put poles at the Olympic site at Homebush. The court also heard that Mr Obeid's newspaper El Telegraph ran a story in which Mr Obeid was reported saying that the council wanted to get rid of Goldspar.

The council did get rid of Goldspar. It re-tendered the contract in 1999 and it was the Obeid sons' company, Streetscape, that won, despite having come last in the tender process. Documents obtained by the Herald show that a company, La Mer, scored best in the tender followed by Goldspar. The financial assessment of Streetscape by Bill Carter, the council's planning and projects accountant, concluded: "In Streetscape's case the company has only recently been formed and they are still in the establishment phase." Several tenderers were found wanting when it came to the time they took to pay creditors but he said Streetscape "appear to take an enormous time to both pay and collect financially".

More here



IN BRIEF

Wine exports to China surge: "China has emerged as an important market for Australian wine. The Wine and Brandy Corporation says the volume of wine shipped to China grew by almost 350 per cent in the past year, elevating it to 10th largest export market. Australia's top three customers are the UK, the US and Canada. While the rate of exports is slowing, corporation chief executive Sam Tolley says Australia is still performing relatively well in a tougher climate. "We're not the only country with an oversupply so we're facing a more intense competition in the marketplace," he said. "Whilst some other countries are actually going backwards in sales, we are fortunate to be continuing to grow." The corporation said yesterday Australia's wine exports were continuing to grow, despite a drop in the average price of wine being sent overseas. It said Australia exported 714 million litres of wine over the last 12 months. While that was 8 per cent more than the previous year, the rate of growth has slowed.



Freer trade with China coming: "Federal Trade Minister Mark Vaile says wheat and beef must be included in any free trade agreement (FTA) with China. Chinese officials reportedly will not commit to a request by the Australian Government to make the agreement more comprehensive. Mr Vaile says the Government will stand by its call for all sectors and products to be included. "You don't start a negotiation by excluding anything and so we've got to see what's on offer," he said. "We've got to see improvements in market access and this is the case both ways, the Chinese will seek improvements in market access into our markets for some products and we'll be doing it into theirs." The head of the National Farmers Federation (NFF), Peter Corish, agrees, saying it would be unacceptable if beef and wheat were excluded from a FTA. "Excluding particular sectors this early in the negotiation, or in fact at any stage in the negotiation, is not what we believe is appropriate," he said. Mr Corish says Australian beef and wheat exports would not swamp China's domestic market. "The basis for excluding beef and wheat is that Australia's productive capacity could swamp the Chinese market for these products," he said. "That's not correct, we do have other lucrative markets both for beef and wheat."



Union thuggery in Canberra: The owner of a bar picketed by unions for allegedly underpaying a former worker says it is being unfairly targeted. The ACTU has led a protest outside Kingston nightspot The Holy Grail, accusing it of owing $10,000 to an employee who came to Canberra from the Philippines under the Federal Government's guest worker program. The owner of The Holy Grail, Ian Meldrum, says he has attempted to resolve the matter with the Department of Workplace Relations but it is yet to deliver a determination. Mr Meldrum says the unions have refused his offers to discuss the matter. "I believe it's a political agenda, they're push their agenda in response to the new IR legislation," he said. "I think it has very little to do with my ex-employee or myself, they're just targeting The Holy Grail because a lot of politicians come here and wine and dine when Parliament sits."



6 May, 2006

Continuing Muslim Mayhem

An area of Sydney all too familiar with gun crime has experienced another shooting overnight. A volley of bullets struck two units in a Punchbowl apartment complex in Sydney's southwest in what appears to be have been a drive-by shooting, police say. Terrified residents from the complex on Punchbowl Road rang police around 10pm after unknown shooters peppered the two units, and a garage, with shots. Witnesses to the late night shooting also said they heard the sound of a car leaving after the shooting. No-one was injured in the incident.

Police have confirmed that officers from the Middle-Eastern gang squad, Taskforce Gain, will join local detectives on the investigation later today. And this is not the first time the area has witnessed such shootings, with two men shot dead in separate incidents - both only blocks from the most recent shooting - and a further four incidents involving death and injury in the area since late 2003.

Ali Abdulrazak was gunned down in his car in front of hundreds of horrified onlookers as he left the Lakemba mosque on August 29, 2003. The killing occurred on Koala Street, Punchbowl, less than a kilometre away from last night's shooting. The death of Ahmad Fahda months later also occurred few blocks from last night's shooting. Mr Fahda, 25, was hit by about 20 bullets at the AP Service Station on the corner of Dudley Street and Punchbowl Road on October 30, 2003. Three men have since been charged with his murder. There have been 23 drive-by attacks in Sydney this year alone.

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Leftist leader calls for tax breaks for private school parents

(More support for the view that Australia is the world's most conservative country)

Parents who sacrifice their lifestyles to send their children to private schools should be thanked and supported with tax incentives and childcare support, says Labor Party national president Warren Mundine. Just a day after Labor leader Kim Beazley discarded his predecessor Mark Latham's class-war policy of cutting public funding to the nation's wealthy private schools, Mr Mundine said his party should consider offering tax breaks on school fees and direct subsidies for parents using the private school system, similar to the childcare rebate.

Mr Mundine called for an end to the ideologically driven debate that has dominated the ALP's education policy for the past two or three decades and for debate instead on the best ways to support families in their choice of education. "I think they're great parents, I take my hat off to them," Mr Mundine said of people who sent their children to private schools. "These families are contributing on top of their taxes. They're paying for education twice. "They're paying $4 billion (in private school fees) on top of their taxes to provide the best education for their kids. Not all are wealthy people, they're just ordinary, average Australians trying to do the best for their kids."

Mr Mundine, a father of seven, said his own children attended both public and private schools. His two children still at school include his daughter, Garra, 14, who attends St Scholastica's at Glebe, in Sydney's inner west, and son Yawun, 17, who attends St Joseph's College in the northern suburb of Hunters Hill.

Despite confirmation yesterday that wealthy private schools may not secure real funding increases under Labor's plan, Mr Beazley's pledge that no private school would be worse off won support from elite school principals unhappy with the current funding system. Melbourne Grammar principal Paul Sheahan said the Howard Government's funding system for private schools was unfair and said it had entered into too many special deals with different schools.

The federal Government's funding model - known as the socio-economic status (SES) model - does not take private school fees and income into account when determining funding. Instead, it links enrolment details of where students live with census data on average income and education levels.

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An end to class envy: Labor Party leader Beazley must demonstrate more of the right stuff

Below is an editorial from "The Australian" newspaper

Labor's prospects of retaking the middle ground of Australian voters improved markedly on Wednesday when Kim Beazley finally dumped the politics of envy. In a pre-budget address to the National Press Club the Opposition Leader confirmed he had jettisoned the two defining policies of Mark Latham's disastrous tilt at the prime ministership in 2004 - the rich schools hit list and Medicare Gold. And he laid out a new strategy for election: redefining Labor's target voters as Australian families earning up to $100,000 a year. Interviewed on the ABC's Lateline, Mr Beazley went further, declaring that families earning $100,000 a year are not rich.

His step back towards the centre comes just days after a Newspoll found 60 per cent of Australians polled would prefer prominent frontbenchers Julia Gillard or Kevin Rudd to head the ALP. The policy switch will not ensure Mr Beazley retains his hold on the leadership. For one thing, he has yet to demonstrate more of the right stuff in his budget reply next week. And there are many policy challenges ahead. At minimum, the move represents acknowledgment that social democratic movements around the world aim to enhance the opportunities of the less well off. And no matter who leads Labor to the next election, there can be no winding back the clock to Lathamesque class war. ALP president Warren Mundine reinforces this message in The Australian today when he backs parental choice in schooling.

Mr Latham was a paradox as Labor leader. He advocated a ladder of opportunity for aspirational Australians - arguing this would win back Howard's battlers - but conspired against them with policies including his war on private school funding. The same muddled mindset was clear in comments by a NSW Teachers Federation official aired on ABC radio yesterday. Criticising Mr Beazley, Maree O'Halloran implied governments had a responsibility only for public schools. The logical extension of this is that the 30 per cent of students in the private system do not deserve a share of the taxes their parents contribute. It's this kind of attitude that is convincing families to desert state schools in droves.



Another prominent Australian Greenie learns to love nukes

Apparently anything is better than burning coal!

Prominent scientist Tim Flannery has called for an end to the uranium debate, saying all alternative energy sources to fossil fuels must be considered in the fight against climate change. The author of The Weather Makers and director of the South Australian Museum said yesterday he had softened his view on nuclear power.

Dr Flannery said the nation could not afford to get "bogged down in a debate about the three mines policy" or nuclear power and instead should develop a cohesive response to global warming. "People say we can't have uranium mining because there's a danger of proliferation and that's true," Dr Flannery said. "But we have to weigh all of this stuff and deal with this in the context of threat to climate change and that's why people are getting away with rubbish about wind and uranium. "Having travelled around the world looking at energy options, I am more favourably disposed towards nuclear power than I was previously, particularly when you look at the scale of the problem in China and the use of coal."

Dr Flannery's comments come a day after the chief executive of the nation's second-largest environment group, WWF Australia, accepted the Government's planned expansion of uranium mining and exports to China. WWF chief executive Greg Bourne told The Australian the nation was "destined" to mine and export uranium and said the key was to ensure it was used only for peaceful purposes and the waste was stored safely.

His comments provoked a furious response from green groups yesterday and a prediction from both sides of the debate that WWF's position could influence Labor Party policy. Opposition environment spokesman Anthony Albanese denied the claims, but federal Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane welcomed Mr Bourne's comments as the third "notable backflip on the expansion of uranium mining in recent weeks - Kim Beazley, Peter Beattie and now the WWF".

Source



5 May, 2006

Green group accepts uranium mines

Even some Greenpeace people are supportive!



One of the nation's largest environment groups, WWF Australia, has accepted the federal Government's push to expand uranium mining and exports. WWF chief executive Greg Bourne, former boss of BP Australasia, told The Australian yesterday the nation was "destined under all governments to be mining uranium and exporting it to a growing world market". "We have been mining uranium and exporting it for many years and we're doing more because demand is going up, whether people like it or not," he said. "The key issues are if we're going to be a nation exporting uranium, we have to know absolutely it's only being used for peaceful purposes and waste products are being stored safely."

The move is likely to drive a wedge through the environment movement, which is fighting to make the Government's planned uranium exports to China - and the nuclear power debate - a federal election issue next year. Former Greenpeace International executive director Paul Gilding, who is now an environmental consultant, yesterday defended WWF's uranium position. "I think it's rational to say: we oppose nuclear power, but given there is nuclear power let's make sure we make it as safe as possible," he said. "The risk to anybody in this area is it's such a highly ideological, almost religious, debate." Mr Gilding said WWF, formerly the World Wildlife Fund, had "always been the one closest to the corporate conservative side, and good luck to them. Someone needs to be."

Mr Bourne's comments come just weeks after John Howard signed a uranium export deal with China under which billions of dollars of Australian uranium could be shipped to the Asian powerhouse to fuel as many as 40 new nuclear power plants. As a condition of the deal, China has agreed not to use Australian uranium in nuclear weapons. Environment groups argue there are insufficient monitoring and safety procedures in place to prevent that occurring.

Labor is reconsidering its long-held opposition to expanding uranium mining. While resources spokesman Martin Ferguson has called for Labor to ditch the policy, environment spokesman Anthony Albanese, from the Left, is fiercely opposed to change.

More here



Is Bazza losing it?



"If anyone's looking for me, tell them I'm having sparring lessons with Anthony Mundine." That's what actor Barry Humphries told his publicist to say after he punched a freelance photographer in Sydney. The 72-year-old, who has achieved worldwide fame as alter ego Dame Edna Everage, struck celebrity snapper Malcolm Ladd who took photos of him having lunch at Double Bay with musical director Andrew Ross. Publicist Suzie Howie said Humphries took exception when the photographer tried to follow him from Dee Bee's Cafe to a Sydney beach...

NSW Police had not received a complaint in relation to the incident, a police spokeswoman said on Wednesday night. One of Mr Ladd's photographs of Humphries at lunch has appeared in Wednesday's News Ltd newspapers. Mr Ladd offered "no comment" when contacted by AAP on Wednesday night. But he told News Ltd the incident happened when he tried to take a "tight shot" of Humphries outside the cafe. "He just punched me in the face," he was quoted as saying. "It knocked my glasses off. It was a good punch - it still hurts."...

Mr Humphries was upset earlier this week by a bronze statue of Dame Edna Everage meant for a Hollywood-style walk of fame in Melbourne. Accomplished sculptor Peter Corlett was dismayed by Mr Humphries' move to block the statue's unveiling, saying it needed to be changed.

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Happy anniversary to CIS and "Quadrant"

The article below by Peter Coleman tells "How two leading intellectual institutions - the Centre for Independent Studies and Quadrant magazine - are turning the tide of opinion in Australia's culture wars". Seeing I get a mention in the article, I thought I might add a relevant link. I was indeed one of the very first contributors to the CIS

It should be a swell party! Tonight, at the splendid Four Seasons in Sydney, 600 captains of commerce, cabinet ministers, professors, pundits and policy wonks will assemble - in the distinguished presence of the NSW Governor, the Chief Justice, the governor of the Reserve Bank and the Prime Minister - to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Centre for Independent Studies, the most illustrious of Australia's think tanks and the champion of free markets and free enterprise.

There will be messages of congratulation from across the world, toasts, speeches and salutes to the CIS founder and director, Greg Lindsay, the true believer who had a dream in his backyard shed and made it all come true. (There may even be a touch of fundraising.) In October, Quadrant, allegedly one of John Howard's favourite magazines, will also celebrate an anniversary: its 50 years of defending the free market in ideas. Between them, these allied partisans in the culture wars have played leading roles in the transformation of Australian intellectual life.

Start with the CIS. Lindsay launched the think tank in 1976, in that period of public relief at the defeat of the Whitlam government but confusion at the unwillingness of the Fraser government to dismantle the Whitlam legacy of regulation and control. All he had was a letterhead, a post office box and $400. He was 25 and unmarried. He hung on to his day job as schoolteacher (mathematics). He started off with the occasional lecture by Lauchlan Chipman or John Ray (charge: $2.50). Then there were weekend conferences on Murray Rothbard's Man, Economy and State ($15 including meals) or on What Price Intervention? Government and the Economy with Ross Parish, Warren Hogan and Michael Porter.

In 1977, the CIS was incorporated. It began to catch attention of people ranging from Maurice Newman, Neville Kennard and John Stone to Heinz Arndt and Wolfgang Kasper. A turning point came in 1979 when Hugh Morgan, of Western Mining, invited Lindsay to Melbourne for talks. Together they worked the phones. Morgan persuaded nine companies to chip in $5000 a year for five years. It was enough to give Lindsay a salary and set him up in an office. He took leave without pay from the department of education. In 1980 he married Jenny Buswell, a key figure in the CIS story.

Since then the CIS has expanded its range from economic policy and social policy (family, crime, education, indigenous affairs) to foreign policy and religion. It has published 250 books and monographs, and the quarterly magazine Policy (edited by Andrew Norton), and has hosted innumerable seminars. It has sponsored lecture tours by leading European and American thinkers, from Shirley Robin Letwin, Peter Bauer and Thomas Sowell to Francis Fukuyama, Mario Vargas Llosa and Vaclav Klaus. (Mark Steyn is next.) Its Australian lecturers have ranged from George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, to Fair Pay Commission chairman Ian Harper.

It has a staff of 24, almost no bureaucracy and an annual budget of $3million (still pitiful compared with the $60 million or so of some US think tanks). It is tied to no political party. While close to the top end of town (some say too close), it knows the Hawke Labor government did more to free up some markets than the Fraser Liberals. It welcomes Labor leaders to its seminars (and, as with Quadrant, gave Mark Latham a platform until he turned flaky.)

There are gaps. It is patchy on media criticism ("We love the press!" Lindsay says), health policy ("Still looking for the right economist), the Middle East and the baleful influence of Marxism and capitalism on universities. But its achievements are many and great. Try discussing family policy without Barry Maley, taxation without Peter Saunders, the Solomons without Helen Hughes, education without Jennifer Buckingham, foreign policy without Owen Harries or Sue Windybank. You can do it, but it's hard. CIS opposition to identity cards and scepticism about guest workers also have been influential. CIS is one of the great success stories of Australian public life. It has succeeded without a cent of government subsidy or sucking up to the prime minister. "I have never been to the Lodge or Kirribilli House," Lindsay boasts.

Then there is Quadrant magazine. Its story begins in 1956 at the height of the Cold War. Its first issue went on sale as Soviet tanks were crushing the historic uprising in Budapest. Its founder Richard Krygier was, like Lindsay, a driven man. Working with him was an education, a stimulus and a delight. He was almost entirely without ego. But there was a permanent excitement that reflected his warm and irrepressible temperament. His first editor, Jim McAuley, did not want Quadrant to kick an anti-communist can. His Quadrant was more literary than political. (The poems were metrical and rhymed.) But it also carried a libertarian anti-communist message that infuriated the Left.

One critic declared there was no place in Australia for a literary magazine that wanted poetry to be comprehensible and was anti-communist. Another said McAuley's elegant editorials exhibited the thuggishness of an ideological bodgie. Yet another predicted its early death. (Some welcomed it: John Wain in London told his readers to look up Douglas Stewart's The Silkworms, then go out and brain any oaf who said poetry was dead.)

But no one could ignore Quadrant. Through the often sensational years it endured boycotts, libels, parliamentary denunciations, furiously cancelled subscriptions and the headline-grabbing scandal of having received a small subsidy from a US think tank that turned out to be a front for the CIA. It thrived on this bad publicity. It monitored the Cold War up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. It sponsored seminars, pamphlets and books, and arranged public lectures by Isaiah Berlin, Leszek Kolakowski, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Roger Scruton. Much of its history may be tracked from the controversies provoked by its writers, from David Stove on the corruption of university arts faculties to Robert Manne on leftist bias in the ABC and the Fairfax press and Keith Windschuttle on shonky historians.

Simon Leys, Patrick Morgan, Peter Ryan, Claudio Veliz, Owen Harries, Hal Colebatch, Geoffrey Partington, Ron Brunton, Barry Humphries and many other contributors to its pages have braved the fury of Australian orthodoxy. As American scholar-poet Robert Conquest summed up: "Quadrant has flourished in a jungle full of pygmies with poisoned arrows." Australia, he added, was lucky to have it and "so are we in the world at large".

The CIS and Quadrant have always been fraternal. But their styles are different. Quadrant loves a fight, and is more bohemian and irreverent. (Paddy McGuinness is the editor.) It is a leading publisher of poetry. (Les Murray is poetry editor.) It has always lived on a financial precipice. (I once had to flog the office Brett Whiteley around Sydney to pay the bills.) It remained unincorporated for years. There were no stuffy board meetings.

Lindsay's CIS is more formal, scholarly and conciliatory. ("I don't make enemies.") Its board members are grave men of business and the academy. Some of its most important discussions are private. Its annual consilium - at which about 100 important people spend a weekend discussing the great issues of the day - is an invitation-only affair. Quadrant is always open to all comers.

The CIS and Quadrant are still optimists. "Every sinner can be saved," Lindsay says. The Left still controls the commanding heights of Australian culture - from the arts and universities to the public broadcaster and the Fairfax press - but its command is crumbling. Thank Quadrant and the CIS for turning the tide.

Peter Coleman, a former federal and state Liberal MP, was editor of Quadrant magazine for 20 years

Source



4 May, 2006

Waiting times for public hospital treatment increase

One has to laugh. As in Britain, the more money the Queensland government throws at its hospitals, the worse the service gets. But reality never bothers Leftists. Their simplistic theories are all they are mentally capable of handling

Almost 30 per cent of patients still wait too long for elective surgery despite millions of dollars being spent on state health reforms. Figures released yesterday showed 9600 Queenslanders endured long waits for elective surgery between January and March - 2300 more than at the same time last year. The number waiting more than 30 days for urgent category one operations increased by 400 per cent compared with last year.

But Health Minister Stephen Robertson said category one figures showed a slight improvement in more recent months. Only 13.7 per cent faced long waits in April compared with 18 per cent in December. He blamed increasing demand for emergency operations and the increasing population for the waiting lists and hoped the trend would turn by July. "We've made some gains and I would hope in three months time we will be able to demonstrate more gains, but this is tough," Mr Robertson said. The figures show an increase in numbers on the "secret" lists of those waiting to see a specialist. At March 1, more than 122,000 people were waiting for a specialist appointment, up 12 per cent from July 2004. Of these, 82,900 were waiting for a consultation which could lead to surgery and another wait.

AMA state president Steve Hambleton said the figures were not encouraging. Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg said the figures were a "disgrace" and showed the Beattie Government's maladministration of the state health system was continuing.

Cathleen Cantwell, 69, of Kirra on the Gold Coast, is one of thousands waiting for surgery in a Queensland hospital. She suffers from spinal canal stenosis, a condition that could leave her unable to walk. She has been booked in for surgery to correct the problem since December 2004, but is yet to see the inside of an operating theatre. And her problem is getting worse the longer she has to wait. "I can't walk very far at all especially on cement or bitumen . . . I'm in such pain when I walk," she said. She was hoping to have the operation before September so she could celebrate her 70th birthday and 50th wedding anniversary and "enjoy myself".

Source



The Australian Left has a history of blind pacifism

Bob Wurth's new book, Saving Australia: Curtin's Secret Peace with Japan, confirms what some of us have argued for some time: that until he became prime minister in 1941, John Curtin was not prepared to confront tyrannical regimes. This has been the pattern of Labor leaders since World War I.

Wurth reveals previously unpublished documents from Japan that show Curtin negotiated a secret peace deal with the Japanese in April 1941, just before the outbreak of war in the Pacific. Under the deal, Australia would give Japan access to iron ore mines in exchange for a guarantee that Japan would not attack us. At the time of the deal, Curtin was Opposition leader but was only months from becoming prime minister. The war in Europe was already advanced, with Australia a full participant.

The deal was an act of weakness and isolationism, and its effects, had it been implemented, would have been catastrophic. It would have provided an important boost to Japan's subsequent ability to wage war by supplying key raw material for the manufacture of weapons and armaments. Moreover, any such deal would have only emboldened Japan in its intentions against the US, Britain and their allies.

The uncovering of this secret deal is an astounding revelation but it is not a surprise: Curtin had form. He had consistently been a pacifist, wanting to appease tyrannical regimes, and called for Australia to remain firmly isolated from the world's great struggles. In response to the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, for example, Curtin opposed sanctions and stated that "the control of Abyssinia by any country is not worth the loss of a single Australian life".

Later he said that "to be drawn into war in spite of everything would be bad enough, but deliberately to indicate our willingness to be a participant for or against certain European groups would be a piece of national madness". Even Hitler's escalating demands for Czechoslovak territory did not "justify resort to force in Europe" according to Curtin.

Most telling are his comments in parliament in response to Germany's invasion of Russia in June 1941. While Robert Menzies quoted Winston Churchill's stirring words resolving "to destroy Hitler and every vestige of the Nazi regime", Curtin condemned the invasion but went on to say "the Labor Party has no objection whatever to the Germans practising Nazism in Germany".

Curtin's view was that Australian soldiers should never be engaged in Europe under any circumstances. It was a view based on a blind commitment to pacifism and underpinned by the notion that Australia was "but a minor power, a small nation remote from the great centres" and incapable of playing any substantial role in the international fights against tyranny.

The Labor Party has continued the Curtin policy of pacifism and isolationism to this day. When it comes to great international challenges, be it Nazism or global terror, the Labor Party has adopted the position that Australia is a tiny, isolated backwater that has no responsibility to do any of the heavy lifting. Labor has lacked the courage to combat evil. It clings to the vain hope that by shrinking and hiding Australia may avoid the firing line of tyrannical regimes and terrorists.

For example, Labor's weakness reached farcical levels in 1954 when, as Opposition leader, H.V. Evatt wrote to Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov asking whether the Soviets were spying on Australia. Unsurprisingly, the answer was no. Evatt shared that response to howls of disbelieving laughter in parliament.

In the early 1970s when the Soviet Union annexed the captive nations, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, then prime minister Gough Whitlam ensured that Australia was among the first nations to recognise the legitimacy of the Soviet Union's actions. No ifs, no buts. No concern for the oppressed and helpless people of the annexed lands. Of course, let's not forget that Labor's great split in the 1950s and '60s occurred because anti-communist elements believed Labor was not strong enough in combating totalitarian communism. They were right.

Kim Beazley sits squarely in this Labor tradition of weakness. Whereas Curtin said that it didn't matter if Germany was run by Nazis, Beazley thought that we should have left Saddam Hussein in power; we were wrong to help our allies get rid of him. "We are a small country in a world of giants," Beazley says. Can you hear Curtin's echo?

Beazley and his predecessors happily take the protection offered by others (particularly the US) in dealing with the tough issues and guaranteeing our freedom. But they feel no compulsion for Australia to do its part. They even try to convince the Australian public that they are in favour of the US alliance. Yet, at the same time, they snipe at the US at every opportunity and they fail to acknowledge that allies stick by one another.

The past 100 years has seen immense global threats where the freedoms we take for granted have been at stake. The threat posed by global terrorism and its totalitarian ideology is the latest such challenge. It is a battle being waged in Afghanistan and Iraq, through counter-terrorism operations in Southeast Asia and national security measures here. Australia needs leaders who have the moral clarity to see right from wrong. We need to stand up for what we believe and live up to our responsibilities, as a significant country, to contribute to the global struggle. It is our duty and it is most definitely in our best interests.

Curtin did fulfil his responsibilities (and partly redeemed his reputation) once he became prime minister in October 1941. After two years of atrocities in Europe and the outbreak of global warfare, he accepted the role that history had delivered to him. He steeled his resolve and abandoned his pacifism to provide the nation with solid wartime leadership. The Labor tradition and philosophy, however, remains firmly built on the pacifism, isolationism and weakness that characterised most of Curtin's political life.

Source



High fuel prices a good thing?

This Australian economist thinks so. Excerpt:

One good thing about next week's federal budget is that even though Peter Costello is flush with cash and likely to offer tax relief to families, he's unlikely to make any cut in the tax on petrol. That's a good thing because we must learn to live with high petrol prices, not find ways to duck them. With prices nudging $1.40 a litre in some cities and Costello warning that worries about the Iranian nuclear stand-off could push them up to $1.60, the motoring lobbies are looking for ways to ease the pain. The Royal Automobile Club of Victoria, for instance, wants Costello to remove the GST on fuel excise, saving about 3.4 cents a litre.

But, whichever way you look at it, cutting the tax on petrol would be the wrong way to go. For a start, there's the conventional economists' argument that the best response to higher prices is higher prices. Huh? When you think about it, it's not as meaningless as it sounds. Prices rise when the demand for something is growing faster than its supply. Although part of the rise in oil prices is based on speculation about disruption in the Middle East, and so may not last long, the underlying increase in demand is coming from the rapid growth in the economies of China, India and other developing countries. This is likely to keep upward pressure on oil prices for many years.

But in a market system, a rise in the price of such a commodity prompts a change in behaviour. It increases supply by encouraging exploration for new sources, makes formerly uneconomic oilfields profitable and encourages the development of substitute fuels. At the same time, it reduces demand by encouraging consumers to use petrol more economically and search for cheaper substitutes. Put this reduction in demand together with the increase in supply and you see that a rise in prices should lead to a fall in prices. So allowing retail petrol prices to move in response to market forces is the best way to minimise the long-term rise in prices likely to come from the developing world's increasing demand for oil.



IN BRIEF



Best beaches: :A quiet beach strip in Victoria where winter maximum temperatures are often single-digit figures has beaten Surfers Paradise to win Australia's Cleanest Beach Award. But three Queensland beaches were awarded gongs in the annual Clean Beach Challenge, which attracted 317 entries this year from across Australia. Airlie Beach's man-made lagoon proved nature doesn't always do it best, taking out the Friendliest Beach Award. The Beach Spirit Award was won by Rainbow Beach and the Young Legends Award by Queens Beach at Redcliffe. The top award, however, went to Balnarring Beach on the western coast of Western Port Bay southeast of Melbourne, which is popular for training racehorses. It was rewarded primarily for effort locals put in cleaning up the foreshore and environmental work being done there".





The usual military equipment bungling: "New army helicopters cannot fire their weapons, meet load or crash resistance requirements, fly over water or hit engine reliability targets. A $1.9 billion contract to provide 22 Aussie Tiger armed reconnaissance helicopters is in disarray. The supplier, Australian Aerospace Limited (a subsidiary of Eurocopter), has asked for an extra $625 million to fix the problems. This was rejected as "unjustified" and the supplier told to come up with a new proposal. The Tiger was supposed to be an "off-the-shelf" solution, but has developed into what auditors describe as a "developmental program" with huge increases in schedule, cost and capability risk. The original contract signed in 2001 was valued $1.5 billion. A year after the first two choppers were delivered in December 2004 the army still could not use them. The latest military contracting debacle means the army will have to wait months or even years for the helicopters to meet operational requirements.



Another knowall doctor: "A Toowoomba paediatrician says he has noticed an unusually high number of genital defects in baby boys on the Darling Downs, west of Brisbane, and is linking it to water supplies. Doctor John Cox says the problem is being caused by phthalates, which are found in polystyrene plastics, insecticides and cosmetics and are released into water supplies during the break down process. Dr Cox has been involved in research work in the UK that is looking at the chemical and its links with hyposapdius, which is a deformity of the penis. Dr Cox says there is too much phthalate in water supplies and that must be changed. "The water supply level here is accepting too high a level," he said. "I mean they keep saying our water supply fits the Australian Standards, but the Australian level of hyposapdius is three times what it was when I came to Toowoomba. "So obviously the level has been set too high for what we accept. "It's got to be brought down to a lower level." See here for what our medical guru overlooks



3 May, 2006

Muslim leader backs 'Aussie' test

A Muslim leader has welcomed a Federal Government proposal to introduce compulsory citizenship tests for Australian migrants. Under the proposal by immigration parliamentary secretary Andrew Robb, prospective immigrants would have to take a test to demonstrate their English language skills and knowledge of Australia's values, customs, laws and history.

Muslim leader Mustapha Kara-Ali, a member of the Prime Minister's hand-picked Muslim community reference group, said a basic level of language skills and understanding of Australian culture could be a useful tool for new citizens. "A basic understanding of Australian culture and a practical knowledge of the English language will go a long way in laying the foundation for a new mindset in the Muslim community," Mr Kara-Ali said. "It's stifled minds that are opposing outright this draft blueprint by Mr Robb - it's in the Muslim community's best interest to set such citizenship requirements."

Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, a former immigration minister, said it was important new citizens understood their obligations to Australia. "The process that Andrew is foreshadowing may require some additional commitment of funds, of resources and they're matters that the Government will look at," Mr Ruddock said.....

Labor has backed the Government's proposal, subject to a discussion of what constitutes Australian values. "We would need to look at who is going to decide what would be in the test, what consultation there would be and how the test would be assessed," Labor immigration spokeswoman Annette Hurley said....

More here



Thou shalt not question

Yet another defence coverup, by any chance?

The Defence Force has sacked a nursing manager who questioned a delay in the arrival of an ambulance called to a suspected cardiac arrest. Anne Woodward was removed from her job as a senior civilian nurse at the Defence Force's Kapooka health centre near Wagga Wagga in NSW after querying a delay in treating an army recruit who had collapsed. Ms Woodward asked her boss why an ambulance called to transfer the man urgently to Wagga Wagga Base Hospital was forced to sign in at the front gates and was then escorted at slow speeds.

After six years as nurse manager at Kapooka, she was removed from her position on March 29 following an order from the centre's commanding officer. Ms Woodward was given no explanation at the time. She says she was given an hour to clean out her desk and was told military police would be called if she did not leave by that time. Kapooka commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Paul Langworthy declined to comment yesterday and referred The Weekend Australian to the Defence media unit, which did not reply to a series of questions.

NSW Nurses Association acting secretary Judith Kiedja said Ms Woodward had worked at Kapooka since 2000 without incident before her sacking and had the strong backing of staff. Nurses at Kapooka are so irate they have signed a statement condemning army management and voicing "angst and disillusion". "We categorically state that Anne Woodward is the most proficient and respected leader that we have had the pleasure to work with," they said.

But Ms Kiedja said Defence Force management had refused to listen, relying on a technicality that Ms Woodward could be removed at any time because she was employed by a nursing agency, RED Alliance.

Source



AUSTRALIA'S PROPOSED ID CARD

A mess from the start

The federal health and welfare smartcard project may be heading for big problems, according to experts concerned by a lack of detailed planning and apparent Government willingness to work outside the business case.....

Regardless of its public or political implications, Cabinet's approval of the smartcard has signed the Government up for the mother of all IT projects. It is the biggest IT project - and certainly the biggest IT story - ever to come out of Canberra. Gartner Asia-Pacific research vice-president Richard Harris said poor definition of project details by the Government was a serious concern after a comprehensive business case had been developed by independent consultants. Cost blow-outs and deadline problems were a fact of life for even the best-planned IT projects, and the industry was worried the Government has made the job more difficult by adding last-minute features relating to national security.

"Trying to consolidate 17 ID cards into one system is a big, big job," Mr Harris said. "The history generally with large projects like this is that they don't finish on budget and they don't finish on time," he said. "For the billion-dollar ball-park cost that has been announced, it's difficult to know what is included in that figure."

S2 Intelligence research principal Bruce McCabe said government risked disaster if it is contemplating function creep at this early stage. "This is going to be an extremely complex project anyway, because of the amount of integration work it requires," Mr McCabe said. "What are the chances of it finishing on time and on budget? Virtually nil, if you look at the experience of other large projects."

The stream of IT vendors beating a path to Human Services Minister Joe Hockey's door, as the minister driving the project, is about to turn into a torrent. After waiting a year for the decision, the announcement was everything the vendors could have wished for - it is big, and it is budgeted.

The announcement was delivered with curious lack of detail for such a big-ticket item. That's all the more surprising because of the enormous and well-known risks that large and complex IT projects carry. With a billion dollars on offer, the industry does not know where the money will be spent, or the specific projects involved. Cabinet approval means a Human Services team is working around the clock preparing forward costing for a four-year project in time for the federal Budget. More details will be known when Treasurer Peter Costello delivers his Budget next Tuesday. The Prime Minister said the card would cost about $1 billion and would save $3 billion over 10 years, but it is hard to understand where the saving will be made because so little is known. Mr Hockey has committed to releasing the business case prepared by KPMG following complaints from industry groups.

It remains to be seen how much help this will be. Commercially sensitive information, mainly on costs, would be stripped from the KPMG document for fear that it would adversely affect the tender process, Mr Hockey said. It is apparent that the smartcard plan Mr Hockey took to Cabinet is not the one that was announced, nor is it the one for which KPMG wrote a business case. When the Prime Minister announced the project at Parliament House, Mr Hockey and Attorney-General Philip Ruddock were present. Mr Ruddock had been pushing a national ID card proposal. The ID card plan was axed at the same Cabinet meeting that approved the Hockey smartcard. Mr Howard said the Hockey smartcard had been given enhanced identity security features, but the Government would not say what those add-on features were, or what impact they would have on cost. Mr Hockey had previously said his card would not contain biometric details.

There is a suggestion the high-definition biometric photograph of millions of cardholders to be stored on a central database, called the Central Common Registration System, may have been added by the Attorney-General's Department. This is not a small change, and it has enlivened suspicion from civil libertarians about whether the Government will use the initial access smartcard project as a platform to revisit the national ID card proposal later. The Prime Minister denies this, saying the access card is not "a Trojan Horse for an ID card", but won't rule out adding more functions to the smartcard later.

The prospect has alarmed the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which has run a campaign opposing a national ID card as too expensive, too complex, and adding an extra layer of red tape for business to deal with. Chamber chief executive Peter Hendy remains deeply suspicious about plans to change Mr Hockey's smartcard into a fully blown ID card. "There's concern across industry that if the original and more narrow identification purpose is expanded, this may result in a compliance burden for business," Mr Hendy said. The chamber's concerns are based on "the need to create a national identity register to cross-check with bearers of the card and the prospect that once introduced an identity card would be used for far more extensive purposes than originally intended." ......

There is another potential parallel to corporate experience with single-view customer relationship management systems: their complexity and propensity to cost far more than planned. "If you look at the Commonwealth Bank and its CommSee project, you can see that it was difficult and (is believed to have) cost several hundred million dollars," Mr McCabe said. "The bank had budgeted for about $100 million, and it is just one organisation. "What the Government is doing runs across many departments and a lot of different systems that need to be integrated......

More here



For comparison:

The cost of Western Australia's vehicle licensing and registration system is expected to blow out to at least $82 million, $57 million more than anticipated. A report from the West Australian auditor-general on the management of the Transport Executive and Licensing System (Trelis) finds an "inadequate" level of project management. The auditor-general could not find an approved business case for the project but did find various unsigned documents from 1999 that anticipated costs for the system at just $24.5 million. The report also says business continuity procedures were still to be tested and several security weaknesses were being dealt with by the Planning and Infrastructure Department.

The Trelis system was plagued by problems when it was launched, a full two years late, in July 2004. The system contains personal information on the state's 1.3 million licensed drivers and 1.9 registered vehicles. The project was initiated in 1999 by the former Transport Department. The original intention was to replace the existing licensing system operated on the West Australia Police computer with a system that would meet the requirements of the National Exchange of Vehicle and Driver Information Systems. Trelis, which is one of the largest Java development projects in the world, was supplied by Australian Defence Industries. Releases 1.0 and 2.0 of the system were delivered on time and budget but it was discovered later that the 2.1 update was incompatible with Release 3.0. After several reviews and postponements, the system was introduced in July 2004.

From July to December that year a combination of user, data validation and system processing errors occurred, resulting in about 22,000 transactions being manually processed. As a result of technical constraints, only six million data records out of 20 million were cleansed at the time of launch and the unclean data contributed to the problem. A project is under way to clean the remaining 14 million records. "Trelis experienced some teething problems, but let's remember we went from an antiquated system that couldn't cope to one that can grow," department director-general Greg Martin said in response to the audit. The report says tests indicate the system is now reliable.

It needs to handle more than 6.5 million transactions a year, yet since the system was introduced millions of dollars have been spent fixing software problems. In the year after it went live, about $2.8 million was spent. Further funding has been approved, and by June 2009 total costs are expected to come in at $82.2 million. According to the department, this figure will represent about 1.25 per cent of the revenue Trelis collects during the same period.....

More Here



IN BRIEF

Vanstone caps refugee numbers: "Australia will freeze the number of refugees it accepts in the next financial year at 13,000. Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone says 6,000 of the 13,000 places will be allocated to refugees referred by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), while the remainder will be allocated through the Government's special humanitarian program. Senator Vanstone says the Government is able to accept the refugees due to the tightening of policies on asylum seekers arriving by boat. Yesterday, Senator Vanstone announced the intake of skilled migrants will remain at just over 97,000 for the next financial year. The ACT Chamber of Commerce has criticised the decision. The chamber's chief executive Chris Peters says he wanted another 20,000 skilled migrants next financial year to help address the ACT's skill shortage. He says the decision is politically motivated, to avoid the perception that cheap overseas labor is coming into Australia. "Anyone who's ever been involved in bringing someone from overseas knows that that's a nonsense," he said. "It costs considerably more to recruit from overseas, to relocate here and once they're here, if the business is not paying competitive salaries, they'll very quickly lose them to a competitor.""





Boob jobs are 'in': "Teenage girls are using credit to pay for costly breast implants and other cosmetic surgery. For as little as $55 a week over five years, the teenagers - most fresh out of high school with full-time jobs - are paying for breast implants costing between $8000 and $10,000. Nose jobs are also popular, costing between $4000 and $7000. The "makeover mortgages" have made cosmetic surgery more accessible to young clients. Over the past three years the number of women aged under 20 undergoing cosmetic surgery has increased by 30 per cent, says the Gold Coast's self-styled queen of cosmetic surgery Pamela Noon. "The accessibility to finance has increased the younger market," Noon says. "You're talking thousands of dollars for these procedures and previously younger girls couldn't afford it." Teenager Niki Johnson says she was happy to take out a loan to get bigger breasts. "I've gone from a small B to a large C cup and I couldn't be happier. I feel a lot more confident," says the 19-year-old from East Brisbane. She was 18 when she had the procedure in June last year - only a month after having cosmetic surgery to remove a "hump" on her nose."



Gas field promises big benefits: "Exxon Mobil is preparing to accept a new gas production licence for the Kipper gas field in Bass Strait, off the Gippsland coast of south-east Victoria. State Energy Minister Theo Theophanous says the Kipper gas field will ensure Victorians continue to have one of the lowest priced gas supplies in the world. Rob Young from Exxon Mobil says his company will work with BHP and Santos Woodside to take up the production licence. He says the companies will form a joint venture to meet the Government's deadline of June 6. "We're a separate joint venture between ourselves, BHP Santos and Woodside ... looking to develop that part of the field and it has enough gas there to power a city of a million people for about 15 years, so it is significant in terms of its size and we think it can bring a lot of benefits to the people of Victoria," he said."



About time: "Australia's aviation sector will be forced to randomly test pilots and other safety-sensitive personnel for drug and alcohol use, the federal government says. Transport Minister Warren Truss today said the measure was prompted by findings the pilot of an aircraft which crashed on Queensland's Hamilton Island, killing all six people aboard in 2002, had used drugs and alcohol before the tragedy. Five per cent of workers in the industry would be tested annually, he said. Mr Truss said pilots, flight crew, cabin crew, ground refuellers, baggage handlers, security screeners, air traffic controllers and other personnel with airside access at airports would be subject to the mandatory testing. He acknowledged fears the testing was an invasion of privacy, but said it was crucial following worldwide research that drugs and alcohol were "not uncommon" within the aviation sector. "We expect drivers to be free of alcohol and drugs when they are on the road - surely it's reasonable to expect something similar of pilots," Mr Truss told reporters in Brisbane.



Crackdown on rogue judges in NSW: "Judges will soon be forced to undergo health checks to avoid any repeat of scandals that forced the retirement of the sleeping Ian Dodd or the drink-driving Jeff Shaw. New laws for handling complaints against judicial officers will also make it clear that the days of dealing with misbehaving judges "in house" are over. Heads of courts will be able to order health checks if they fear a judge or magistrate suffers from "incapacity" rather than having to wait for a complaint from the public. The body which handles complaints, the NSW Judicial Commission, will also be given the power to order medical or pyschological examinations. If the judicial officer refuses, the matter can treated as a complaint - and trigger a full investigation of their "fitness for office". The "cone of silence" that exists over the commission's activities will be lifted and complainants will be given updates on the progress of their gripes for the first time. The amendments to the Judicial Officers Act will also abolish the categorisation of complaints as minor or serious because it was insulting to people who had serious grievances. A draft bill is being prepared after cabinet recently approved recommendations which flowed from a review established by the Government last year.



Skin cancer cure?: "Early clinical trials of a new gel to treat skin cancer have returned promising results. The gel, developed by Brisbane-based company Peplin, can be rubbed on to the skin to treat certain types of skin cancer. Initial trials show just two applications of the PEP005 Topical gel on two consecutive days cleared up 71 per cent of basal cell carcinomas, or BCCs, the most common type of skin cancer. The trials on 60 people throughout Australia built on an early study by Peplin in 2002 using the common garden weed, petty spurge. "That was a very different study and that was just using the raw sap of petty spurge," said Michael Aldridge, Peplin's managing director and chief executive. "This is the same company and we have now identified the molecule responsible for that activity and we have put that into a formal development program, formulated a gel and developed a manufacturing technology. "We ran a phase one study in the US, two phase-two studies looking at sunspots, and this is our third phase-two study looking at basal cell carcinomas." Mr Aldridge said it was the first time the molecule from petty spurge had been used to treat BCCs, which are usually surgically removed. "We've seen some very, very impressive results," he said."



2 May, 2006

Third-world justice in Australia

Too bad if you are innocent

Delays in preparing cases for Victorian courts have meant some prisoners have spent up to three-and-a-half years on remand before facing a judge. The backlog is related to staffing issues at the state's Forensic Science Centre, where evidence is tested, a Melbourne newspaper reports. The spokeswoman for Attorney-General Rob Hulls, Liz Armitage, told the newspaper four people sentenced last year spent more than 1,000 days on remand. All four were remanded for murder and received sentences of more than 15 years, Ms Armitage said. "The four were involved in a long and complex investigation and trial involving multiple defendants with complications, including the need for interpreters."

A Victorian Department of Justice document said, on average, remandees who were sentenced last year spent 114 days on remand. This ranged from one day to 1,250 days. Ms Armitage said time spent on remand was taken into account when judges decided jail terms. The Department of Justice spokeswoman said figures were not kept on the time those who were later acquitted spent on remand. Liberty Victoria's Brian Walters SC said three years on remand was "a radical problem in the criminal justice system".

Source



Public hospital antibiotic ignorance in Victoria



Patients are being placed at greater risk of acquiring harmful infections because doctors are giving them the wrong antibiotic before surgery, according to infectious disease experts. An analysis of almost 18,000 surgical procedures in 27 Victorian hospitals, by the body that collects information for the State Government about hospital infections, shows the proportion in which the choice of antibiotic is described as "inadequate" ranges from 2.3 per cent for cardiac surgery to 56.7 per cent for hysterectomies. The timing of antibiotic administration is also crucial. A patient should be given a shot of antibiotics ideally in the hour before the surgeon makes the first incision, and no more than two hours before. But too much antibiotic use can build resistance.

The data was collected by VICNISS for surgery between 2002 and 2005. It shows the proportion of operations where a patient was given antibiotics at the wrong time was as high as 42.5 per cent for gall bladder removals. VICNISS director Mike Richards said using antibiotics as a prophylaxis - as a means of preventing infections - was one of the most effective strategies, but not all surgery required antibiotics. He said it was not known how many patients who were inappropriately given antibiotics developed an infection. And patients given the right antibiotics might still develop an infection because of other factors.

Dr Richards said the choice of antibiotic was crucial, because surgery on different parts of the body left patients exposed to different types of bugs. "The rate of infection should be lower if people are given optimum prophylaxis," he said. "What's being observed overseas is if you get all the processes right at times you get very dramatic reductions in infection rates."

Associate Professor Paul Johnson, deputy director of the Austin Health infectious diseases department, said that whether or not antibiotics were used most patients would not get an infection after surgery. Not all doctors knew they were supposed to use prophylaxis before some operations, he said. "So one problem would be failure to be aware of the current guidelines. The second would be being aware of the guidelines, but there's a system failure," he said.

Executive member of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Roy Watson, said the higher rate of inadequate prophylaxis in hysterectomies could be because of a perception that infection in such cases was less serious. "In gynaecological surgery if you get a wound infection, yes it's bad, but it's relatively easily dealt with, whereas clearly with cardiac surgery or orthopedic surgery the consequences are much more dire."

Source



8-year legal quagmire for landowners continuing



Tim Moore will have to tread carefully when he sets foot in Cudgen Paddock at Kings Forest on the North Coast today - the tinkling froglet can be hard to see but all too easy to find. The froglets' friends say its "tching tching" call sounds like a tinkling bell. Tweed Heads property developers must sometimes think they can hear a taunting, broken till. Mr Moore, a one-time Liberal state environment minister, will take the Land and Environment Court to Cudgen Paddock to find out how wallum froglets would fare against four dozen head of cattle. The future of a billion-dollar housing project - and of Tweed Shire Council - may turn on the commissioner's assessment of what he finds.

Tweed Shire Council was sacked one year ago amid allegations it was too pro-development. The former lord mayor of Sydney Lucy Turnbull, the former Tweed mayor Max Boyd and the Department of Local Government director-general, Garry Payne, were appointed administrators. Now the Planning Minister, Frank Sartor, is threatening to "call in" the biggest development proposal on the Tweed coast by declaring the site "state signicant" and seizing planning control.

Leda Holdings wants to build 4500 to 5000 homes at Kings Forest but has been trapped in the Local Environment Plan amendment process for the past eight years. Until recently, Leda's chairman, Bob Ell, could not even get approval to run 45 head of cattle on 80 hectares of the 1064-hectare site - grazed for the past century. Last month the council approved grazing, but due to six objectors the council's solicitors would not issue consent orders or withdraw from defending an appeal Mr Ell had begun in the Land and Environment Court.

Mr Moore will hear objections from the Caldera Environment Centre and Valerie Thompson, the president of the Tugun Cobaki Alliance, who objects to the grazing on Cudgen Paddock and the nearby $543 million Tugun bypass project. She fears for the wallum froglet, common planigale and long-nosed potoroo.

Source



Police to get smartcard data

Intelligence agencies and police will be given access to a vast database of "biometric" photographs of Australians to be created for the new health and welfare smart card to fight terrorism and more general crime. ASIO and the Federal Police will be allowed routine access to the smart card database on national security issues, while state police will have restricted access for general crime investigations.

The Prime Minister said this week government would proceed with a $1 billion plan to issue Australians with a health and welfare smart card, but ruled out developing a compulsory national ID scheme. The card would have a highly accurate photograph, with the detailed information about the person's face recorded on the computer chip embedded in the card. The photo and the chip would be checked against a central government database

ASIO Director-General Paul O'Sullivan said that while a national ID would have been useful to the agency, it was not essential to its domestic security operations. But Mr O'Sullivan said the planned health and welfare smart card, which aims to limit welfare fraud, might also help identify potential terrorists. "I could easily accept the proposition that a system which helps prevent fraud could tangential beneficial effect from an ASIO perspective," he said.

The identity database attached to the smart card plan will include sophisticated face-recognition software that will let law enforcement agencies quickly identify from photographs or closed circuit television pictures the name and address of suspects. Called the Secure Common Registration System, the identity will also be used by other departments - like Immigration - to avoid mistaken identity problems highlighted by the Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez cases.

Human Services Minister Joe Hockey defended giving intelligence agencies and police access to system. "The government will do whatever it takes in terms of protecting the national interest and protecting individual interests from terrorism."

Privacy advocates, civil libertarians and business groups have been alarmed by the lack of detail about the smart card, and say it is a national ID card by stealth. "It's all very well saying it is not legally compulsory, but if no-one can access health services or PBS medicines without it, this is really a compulsory card by stealth," Australian Privacy Foundation deputy chairman David Vaile said. Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Peter Hendy said the smart card would be costly and generate more red tape for business. ACCI was also concerned that the health and welfare card might be used as a platform to later introduce a compulsory national ID scheme, which the business group opposes. The Privacy Foundation's Mr Vaile said the design of the smart card system created a single point of failure for privacy protection, and would act as a "tempting honeypot for hackers, crooks and data thieves."

Source



1 May, 2006

Feds to tackle welfare abuse

When the government is paying, it would seem to have a right -- if not a duty -- to say how the money is used

Parents who blow welfare cash on drugs and gambling could see their money spent on bills via a compulsory direct debit scheme under a government crackdown. Families Minister Mal Brough today foreshadowed the extension of an existing scheme that would limit the capacity of recipients to spend benefit money on alcohol and drugs. He cited a case of one household containing nine children and 14 adults in a three bedroom Queensland housing commission home. He said he calculated that household was receiving $180,000 a year in benefits. "That's money that is supposed to be helping those children have a future," Mr Brough said on Channel 9. "The fact is that the power had been turned off. The rent hadn't been paid. Children weren't attending school on a regular basis." Mr Brough said this reinforced his view that money directed to those sort of families was ultimately paying for alcohol, drugs and gambling. "In most suburbs, in most cities, people would be able to point to such examples."

Another case related to a husband and wife with six children, five removed by state child welfare authorities because alcohol abuse was out of control and one parent was smoking $50 worth of marijuana a day. Mr Brough said their problem was overcome through voluntarily direct debiting of Centrelink payments to power and rent.

He said most Australian families used Commonwealth benefits wisely to the benefit of their children in seeking to ensure they had the best start in life. "But we shouldn't run away from the fact that there is throughout the Australian community small numbers of people who often drug dependent, gambling far too much, way beyond their means, whose children don't go to school, who don't use this money for the appropriate purposes," he said. "It is more pronounced in some remote indigenous communities but it is right throughout Australia and it knows no racial barriers, no geographical barriers."

Mr Brough said what needed to be done in the minority of cases was to ensure the money provided by the taxpayer was used to benefit children. He suggested an extension of a voluntary program used by indigenous communities on Cape York where money was directed-debited directly to pay for housing, to school tuckshops to pay for meals or to pay for electricity so children could have hot water. Mr Brough said this would ensure children's needs were met while limiting the ability of parents to pay for alcohol and drugs. "It would have to be compulsory," he said. "We have to face the reality that the people that we need to help the most are more than likely not going to work on this on a voluntary basis. It needs to be done on a case by case basis."

Source



Australian Do-gooders not happy with teenagers' freedom to order what food they want



McDonald's is supersizing burgers on demand, but is refusing to advertise these high-fat options. While the fast-food giant strongly advertises its "healthy" alternatives, it is feeding customers burgers that are double, triple and even quadruple their displayed menu size. At a Melbourne store this week, a Sunday Herald Sun reporter ordered a Quarter Pounder, but with four beef patties and four slices of cheese. The McDonald's staffer simply punched the Quarter Pounder ($3.25, with 28.5g of fat) request into the counter computer, added three extra patties and cheese slices and, presto, a "Full Pounder" ($8.35, with 55.5g fat) was born. Teenagers have given new names to the supersized versions of the well-known burgers. Also, there are the "Mega Mac" and the "Quadruple Cheeseburger".

The trend to fatten up the takeaway meal, not advertised or included on menus, is "the rage" with teens. They say they are getting better value for their money. Recommended daily fat dose for an adult is 60g. A spokesman for McDonald's, which has promised to change its menu to help combat Australia's obesity crisis, said stores did not offer upsizing, but allowed customers to make "grill orders" and "variations". Deakin University nutritionist Prof Tim Crowe said: "We love to get value for money, but this is just over consumption."

Source



South Australian public hospitals hit by 'thousands' of mishaps

And health officials are spinning like a top

The number of adverse events being reported in South Australian public hospitals has soared as officials move to make the system safer. A concerted effort to make the system more open, including a 24-hour "dob-in" line for health workers to report incidents or near-misses, saw reported incidents jump from about 8000 two years ago to more than 22,000 last financial year. An "adverse event" in the health system is any incident that accidentally causes harm or has the potential to cause harm to patients or to staff, and may range from minor events, such as slippery surfaces, to major surgical errors.

The rise in reports is expected to continue, with more than 16,000 reported in the financial year to March. However, officials say the high number is due to staff being encouraged to report all incidents rather than reflecting a rise in problems. They say patient safety is being improved as a result. Incidents being reported - and investigated for future prevention - range from minor problems to major medical disasters. A 2003/04 report, the latest published in-depth data, showed these included 66 incidents causing serious harm to patients, and five "sentinel", or most serious, events. They were:

TWO suicides in hospitals.

ONE intravascular gas embolism.

ONE reaction from a transfusion of incompatible blood.

ONE maternal death or serious morbidity associated with childbirth.

Officials estimate more than 10 per cent of the 360,000 people admitted to SA public hospitals will suffer an adverse event.

To reduce this, the Health Department three years ago introduced a new approach aimed at making the health care system safer. A key point was encouraging staff to report events including near-misses so they could be investigated to ensure such events did not occur again anywhere in the public health system. A 24-hour, seven-day hotline was established where incidents could be reported, then followed up with an investigation rather than simply being recorded.

From a slow start, health workers have embraced the idea and last month reported 1200 incidents on the hotline. SA Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Baggoley said this week the rise in reports was due to the new culture of openness rather than a rise in problems. "This is about getting people to call in to prevent problems," he said. "Fully three-quarters of the total reports relate to what we call close calls, and that is something to encourage. "No one came to harm, but could have unless someone was on the ball. "Even though people are alert and preventing problems, people still get on the phone and report it, which is really good; it is a culture coming in. "There have been significant improvements in safety in a variety of areas but there are still improvements to be made."

As part of the major overhaul of the public system, a new SA Hospitals Safety and Quality Council will be launched on July 1. Prof Baggoley said private hospitals, GPs and community health services would be invited to join as part of the concerted effort to improve patient safety across the state. The move to upgrade safety has seen the Health Department launch initiatives, including a 10 Tips for Safer Health Care brochure urging hospital patients to take a more active role in their health care. Another is a new protocol upgrading checks to ensure the correct person receives the correct operation or medication. A BloodSafe Nurses program has reduced blood transfusions given outside national guidelines from 18 per cent to less than 2 per cent. More than 1000 senior staff have been trained in root cause analysis methods to find why problems occurred and correct the system rather than simply finding someone to blame.

By June 30, all metropolitan hospitals will have a uniform medication chart which will be extended statewide by June 30 next year to cut the chance of mistakes as staff move between hospitals. "We want patients to be partners in this because they can reduce their own risk," Prof Baggoley said. "In the past, there was a tendency to say once in hospital, 'I'm in you're care' but we want people to ask questions, to help make sure they are getting the right medication and so on."

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Public broadcasters out of touch

Much will be made, rightly, of the sometimes maddening bureaucracy of the Defence department and its inability at times to do the simplest things right even as it overperforms in its core war-fighting task. But the incident provokes another set of reflections as well, and that is the absolute centrality to Australian culture of the Digger, the veteran and the war widow. That Australians feel this way is one of the great strengths of our national culture. It was on display in the magnificent celebrations of Anzac Day this week, and it is paralleled only in the US.

This is not a suggestion of a militaristic culture, but rather an appreciation of heroism and sacrifice and a yearning for the quality, exemplified in soldiers, that can place something above even your own life, that can find a larger spiritual dimension. This is even more so given that the rest of our culture has become so resolutely secular.

Of course, not everyone sees it that way. A couple of months ago David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz reviewed the film Jarhead on the ABC's At the Movies. Jarhead is an American anti-soldier film that purports to show how military training deforms soldiers. In the course of his review, Stratton comments: "The incredibly ugly and demeaning training sequences ... raise all kinds of questions about the morality of the way soldiers are trained these days - no wonder atrocities come to be committed. So this is a film ... about the way men are dehumanised to be turned into today's soldiers." Later, Stratton comments that the men have "been turned into monsters".

Australian military training is just as rigorous as US training. Yet beyond the left-wing arts luvvies who dominate the ABC and parts of the Fairfax press, does anyone really believe our soldiers have been dehumanised and turned into monsters? Is retired general Peter Cosgrove, now helping flood victims in north Queensland, a dehumanised monster? Were the young men and women who gave their lives on the Indonesian island of Nias in the course of delivering aid to the tsunami victims dehumanised monsters? Were the professional Australian soldiers who put an end to the murder and pillage in East Timor, and then carried out their peacekeeping mission with extraordinary sensitivity and competence, dehumanised monsters? Or, to talk about Americans, how did former secretary of state Colin Powell avoid becoming a dehumanised monster? Or Rich Armitage? Or John McCain? Or any veteran you've ever met?

Pomeranz endorsed Stratton's views. They are the more telling in part because Stratton and Pomeranz are not overtly political, they just express perfectly the world view of the ABC. Indeed, among all the egregious, ideological agit-prop that dominates ABC talk shows, At the Movies is light years from the worst. It is a warm and cuddly show. Pomeranz has the air of a daring nun who has just discovered milkshakes, while Stratton speaks in the avuncular tones of a kindly Uniting Church minister dispensing the day's liberal pieties. But nothing better demonstrates the utter gulf between the ABC and ordinary Australians, who love and cherish their servicemen, than this attitude.

ABC commentators traditionally have great trouble with Anzac Day because the Gallipoli story just cannot be spun into a left-wing narrative. Thus during the week Tony Jones on Lateline was nearly beside himself with pleasure because he thought he had found a way to use Anzac Day against conservatives. A young academic, Steve Barton, had written a piece in The Australian saying that while he honoured and cherished the courage of the Australians on the Kokoda Track, it was not a battle that uniquely saved Australia. Perhaps Barton could have expressed himself a little better but he was making the broader point that the Australian Left has always been profoundly uncomfortable with the idea that our military contributions far from our shore have been not only honourable, but served our security interests. Thus the Australian heroes of Kokoda fought and died to save Australia, but so too did the heroes at Tobruk, at Villers-Bretonneux, and indeed at Gallipoli. In all cases Australians were fighting a just war and fighting to preserve Australian security.

Jones had Barton on for a debate with Paul Ham, author of a book on Kokoda. It was typical ABC two-on-one television, as Jones monstered Barton, misrepresenting his position and talking over him, and oozed agreement with Ham. This is a characteristic Jones pose. On those occasions when the ABC does allow a debate, Jones will often signal to the audience who is the designated good guy with a kind of oleaginous sycophancy while spitting venom and contempt at the bad guy.

There is talk of the ABC getting increased funding in the federal budget. The Howard Government would be derelict to do this while the ABC continues so manifestly to fail in its obligation to be balanced and unbiased. The wonderful thing is that the Australian people take what they like from the ABC and appear to be completely uninfluenced by its anachronistic and narrow ideology.

The US Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Jim Nicholson, was a visitor for Anzac Day and was profoundly moved by the dawn stand-tos and the gatherings of old Diggers wearing their medals, or their children or grandchildren wearing their medals for them. There are 25 million US veterans and Nicholson's department has a budget of $US80billion ($106 billion), yet he plans to partly remodel Veterans Day on Anzac Day.

Abraham Lincoln, in his second inauguration address, towards the end of the Civil War, declared: "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in theright, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in: to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan..." On this, as on so much, Lincoln was right. Our debt to our soldiers is eternal. And the ABC is wrong.

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