Australian Politics

2009-07-16T17:33:00.000+11:30

QANTAS does it again

You get the impression that they just don't do inspections and maintenance any more. A crash can't be far away. Sad to see a once-exemplary airline (voted second best in the world at one stage) sink so low. The deterioration in maintenance standards seems to have started in the latter half of the reign (2000 to 2007) of Margaret Jackson as chairwoman -- with a decision made in 2005 to send most maintenance work overseas -- ending up in amazingly bad Malaysian operators being given the work, for instance. We now seem to be seeing the fruit of that. A few skipped inspections might not matter, but if you keep skipping them it does eventually matter. Is Ms Jackson another example of a disastrous affirmative action appointment? Sadly, the new chairman seems to be very part-time, with lots of other fish to fry -- so would seem to be little more than a figurehead -- leaving everything to the cipher that is the new CEO. No strong leadership anywhere in the company any more so it is just drifting towards a cliff

PASSENGERS on a Qantas flight received a nasty surprise when water stored for the toilets poured from around the overhead bins. Flight QF25 was travelling from Melbourne to Los Angeles via Auckland, the Aviation Herald reported. The plane was flying over the Pacific when the water pipe supplying the toilets began to leak, causing water to pour into the passenger cabin.

The Boeing 747-400 was diverted to Honolulu Airport where it was serviced while passengers waited for two hours. The flight resumed with the same equipment after the plane was given the all-clear. The flight was delayed by five hours in total.

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TODAY'S POLICE ROUNDUP

Two current articles below

OK for a senior cop to be offensive scum?

It seems to be in NSW -- thanks to some very lenient court decisions. It is quite clear that, far from exemplary behaviour being expected of NSW police, substandard behaviour is regarded as normal. That's NSW, I guess

A FEMALE parole officer whose breasts were commented upon by a senior policeman - after she allegedly exposed them in a bikie magazine - said she was upset that she would have to work with him again.

Although the police force tried to stand down Raymond Sewell, the NSW Court of Appeal yesterday upheld a decision that despite his sexual harassment of two women his dismissal was unjust.

Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione had taken the case to court in his campaign to purge NSW Police of dodgy officers and clean up its reputation for big drinking and sexism. The case was one of a string exposed last week by The Daily Telegraph of officers behaving badly after consuming alcohol. The Coonamble-based officer was sacked by then-commissioner Ken Moroney over a string of sexual incidents, many fuelled by alcohol. Sgt Sewell had harassed parole officer Isabel McDermott twice - at a pub and at her workplace - in late 2005 and early 2006.

In December 2005, at the Commercial Hotel, he grabbed her and pulled her to him and said words to the effect of, "Perfume smells better on breasts", according to the termination notice. In January he "made improper comments to her regarding her name badge, which was positioned on the right side of her chest . . . words similar to, 'If that one is named Isabel, what is the other?'."

Sgt Sewell said Ms McDermott had appeared in a magazine displaying her breasts with other women at a Rebels outlaw motorcycle group function. He said that since the incidents he had stopped drinking alcohol, had undertaken counselling and his medication had been adjusted.

In another three incidents, Sgt Sewell squeezed the bottom of his senior constable partner when she visited him and Senior Constable Matthew Dickson, at Coonamble Police Station in December 2005. At a New Year's Eve party at the Commercial Hotel he undid the strings of her top, causing her to become upset. And on a third occasion in February the next year, at a social gathering at the same pub, he grabbed her buttocks.

Despite these incidents, the Industrial Relations Commission found that Sgt Sewell had been unfairly dismissed. Mr Scipione appealed to the full bench of the IRC but the decision was upheld, prompting the unsuccessful Court of Appeal action.

"I'm not happy at all," Ms McDermott said. "I'm very uncomfortable having him back there, I can tell you that. "My colleagues are not happy either because we have to work with him."

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'No Tasers' for Victoria's corrupt and deadly police

Victoria Police has failed to tackle the shoot-to-kill culture that made it the nation's most deadly force, and its officers should not be trusted with Taser stun guns, the state's police watchdog has declared. A damning report from the Office of Police Integrity, due to be released this month, is believed to recommend sweeping changes across Victoria Police to safeguard the public from poorly trained officers unable to defuse life-threatening situations.

Victorian police have been notorious for their deadly use of force since the mid-1980s. The OPI says successive police commanders, including recently departed chief commissioner Christine Nixon, did not do enough to combat it. The fatal shooting of 15-year-old Tyler Cassidy by three officers last December sparked debate on whether the police should be armed with Tasers.

Chief Commissioner Simon Overland, who took over from Ms Nixon in March, has read the draft OPI report and has already taken steps to tackle the problem, announcing last month that police would be retrained in how to deal with critical incidents.

OPI director Michael Strong told The Australian: "We have significant concerns about the use of force in Victoria Police. Education and training is not focused properly, there is not sufficient emphasis on alternatives to use of force, there is insufficient monitoring of use of force and insufficient analysis. "Lessons that should have been learnt have not been learnt, and recommendations for improvement have not been acted upon." Mr Strong was "gravely concerned" previous reports on the problem, including a 2005 OPI report, had been all but ignored by the force. He said it was "disappointing" Ms Nixon had not given priority to the issue.

"Mr Overland has publicly expressed his determination to improve outcomes in areas of use of force, and I am confident he will make further statements following the release of our report," Mr Strong said.

Between 1990 and 2004, Victorian police shot dead 29 people, compared with police in NSW and Queensland killing 18 and 11 respectively. Tyler's death sparked calls for Tasers to be issued to police on the beat. At present only specialist squads in Victoria Police are issued with the stun guns. Mr Strong said it was appropriate for specialist police to have Tasers, but he was opposed to the weapons being issued to regular police in Victoria because of their inadequate training. Victoria Police "is not in a space where it would be prudent to issue Tasers", he said.

Queensland has halted the rollout of Tasers to general-duty police after the death of a man last month who had been stunned 28 times.

NSW will introduce Tasers to general-duty police this month, while Western Australia already issues them to general-duty police. Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and the ACT have restricted the weapons to specialist tactical response squads. Mr Strong rejected claims that the OPI's reputation had been damaged by the collapse of its legal case against former police union strongman Paul Mullett. Mr Mullett had faced criminal charges stemming from a 2007 OPI investigation into a series of high-level leaks alleged to have compromised a murder investigation. The charges were dropped last month, prompting Mr Mullett to demand a public apology.

Mr Strong said he did not regret the OPI's decision to pursue Mr Mullett. "I express no regret for OPI doing its job," he said of the investigation, which resulted in a guilty plea from former police media chief Steve Linnell and as a result of which former assistant commissioner Noel Ashby is awaiting trial on perjury charges. "An investigation that results in one person being dealt with, another being sent to trial, and charges against a third being dropped is not at all unusual. It would not be attracting the attention it has if not for Mr Mullett's colourful protests."

Mr Strong said he backed the OPI tactic of using public hearings to expose corrupt police, saying it was a powerful deterrent. "It sends out the message that if you act in that fashion we will expose your conduct and we will do it publicly." He said the OPI was increasingly involved in prevention and education strategies to reduce the probability of police officers flirting with the dark side.

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People smugglers luring passengers to Australia with cheap trips

PEOPLE smugglers are luring more passengers by offering cut-price deals because of the economic crisis, an academic says.
Dr Khalid Koser, from the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, has been looking at the financial crisis's impact on asylum seekers and migration, and says it has contributed to the recent spike in unauthorised boat arrivals to Australia.

Smugglers in countries such as Indonesia were offering "discounts and cut prices to move larger numbers of people and generate a profit", Dr Koser said. "They are reducing the prices of trips to generate more of a market and get money back because they, like everybody else, are feeling the squeeze of the financial crisis."

Rising unemployment in South-East Asia had increased the number of desperate people willing to risk fleeing to Australia. Authorities have intercepted 16 boats carrying asylum seekers in Australian waters this year, one of which exploded, killing five people.

The Opposition blames the Government's "soft" border protection policies. It says the Christmas Island detention centre is almost at capacity, with more than 1000 asylum seekers.

"Policies play a role but it's important to note that the spike in boat arrivals has coincided with the financial crisis," Dr Koser said. He also warned Australia risked stepping out of a "global market for skills" if it cut skilled migration levels. The Federal Government shed 25,000 places this year to help protect local jobs.

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Parents charged after kid skips school in Queensland

Most probably a black kid. I come from up that way and there were black kids in my school classes -- and they were often absent

POLICE have charged parents of a 15-year-old Queensland teenager who has skipped high school more than 300 times with failing to send their son to school.

The parents, who cannot legally be named, face a $450 fine in a landmark case under the state's new truancy laws. Police and Education Queensland allege the year 10 student has had more than 300 "unexplained absences" since starting at Tully High School two years ago.

Police yesterday described the charges as a "last resort" after the school allegedly made numerous attempts to reach out to the parents. "This is about putting the onus back on the parents and making them responsible for their kids attending school," Tully Detective-Sergeant Scott Moon said.

Yesterday the parents, aged 54 and 53, were issued with a notice to appear in Tully Magistrates Court on August 13. [Getting them to appear should be fun]

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America steps in over Chinese abuses

Several Western companies are now evacuating staff from China to prevent further arbitrary imprisonments by the Chinese

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said multinational companies in China "need to have assurances and confidence" that their workers will be treated fairly, and indicated he would raise the case of a detained Australian executive with Premier Wen Jiabao in a meeting Thursday. "We just need to continue to press" China for transparency, fair enforcement of laws and openness to foreign investment and cooperation, said Mr. Locke, in an interview in China with CNN on Wednesday.

The comments come in the wake of the detention since July 5 of the executive, Stern Hu, and three Chinese colleagues at Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto. The workers were accused of bribery to obtain state secrets relating to iron-ore price talks, though Australia has yet to be officially advised of the allegations. A Chinese steel executive has also been detained.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd also stepped up pressure on China Wednesday. In his strongest statements yet on the detention of Mr. Hu, Mr. Rudd told reporters in Sydney that China's foreign trading partners and businesses operating in China would be closely watching the outcome of the incident. "And they will draw their own conclusions as to how it is conducted," he said. Previously, Mr. Rudd, who speaks Chinese and served at the Australian Embassy in Beijing, had said quiet diplomacy regarding the case would elicit a better result than public grandstanding.

The detention of the Rio Tinto employees for alleged espionage over what appears to be a commercial matter could undermine China's assertions that its state enterprises are increasingly independent of government and adhere to commercial principles. China's foreign ministry has said the case doesn't indicate Beijing is restricting the activities of foreign companies.

The China Iron and Steel Association, the lead negotiator for the Chinese side in the annual iron-ore price negotiations, and leading mining companies said talks are continuing. The negotiators failed to strike a deal by the June 30 deadline. Steelmakers and ore suppliers have moved to reach interim deals until a final price is set. Some Chinese steel mills have agreed to provisional prices for iron ore, executives from three steel companies said Wednesday.

An official at Hebei Iron & Steel Group said his mill has reached a tentative price of a 33% discount from last year's benchmark rate with both Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, as well as a 28% discount with Vale SA. The Hebei official said his company is still waiting to hear from the China Iron and Steel Association and Baosteel Group Corp., the country's largest steelmaker, on the final price agreement. "And after that, we'll pay the price difference to ore miners," he said. Hunan Valin Iron & Steel Group Co.'s general manager, Cao Huiquan, said his company currently pays for iron ore shipments based on a 33% provisional discount. "This is not the final price," he said. "We will follow CISA's decision on a final price agreement."

All shipments contracted under long-term pricing arrangements in the new contract year from April 1 have been under provisional prices. The urgency to agree on provisional prices was caused, in part, by an increase in spot prices in recent months. Discounts have ranged between 20% and 40% from last year's prices. The provisional 33% discount reached by several key buyers suggests steel mills expect that to be the final price to emerge in talks.

China's steel association has insisted on a cut of at least 40% from last year's contract price. Major Japanese and South Korean steelmakers have reached supply contracts based on price cuts of 28% to 33%.

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2009-07-15T14:24:00.001+11:30

ANOTHER GREENIE ROUNDUP

Four current articles below

Predictions, Forecasts or Just Pure Guesses?

By veteran Queensland computer scientist Richard Kelly

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its Fourth Assessment Report, forecasts a "likely" increase in average global temperatures of between 1.5 and 4.5oC by the year 2100, with a "best estimate" of 3oC, and attributes this increase to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, most notably CO2.

Now, politicians of almost every persuasion, bureaucrats, economists and "global warming soothsayers (such as Al Gore)" tell us that there is now a "scientific consensus that global warming and climate change is a fact, not a theory" and that, unless we spend trillions of dollars to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next century, "the whole world will be devastated by catastrophic climatic events"!

Meanwhile, thousands of eminent scientists continue to demonstrate that the IPCC's statistics and computer models are fundamentally flawed (even fudged), yet their opinions are censored and suppressed by those on the populist bandwagon!

Interestingly, there appears to be no rigorous definition of what the term "average global temperature" means. Is it the average between daily maxima and minima; or between day and night temperatures; summer and winter; northern and southern hemispheres; the poles and the tropics; sea-level and mountain tops; or the oceans and the outback? Importantly, what does the term "average" mean across such diverse locations?

Unlike Melbourne (which often experiences "Four seasons in the one day"), Brisbane has one of the most stable and predictable climates in the world (as we like to claim: "Beautiful one day, perfect the next"). For this reason, one might expect that the Bureau of Meteorology, with all of its highly-skilled scientists, monitoring stations, weather balloons, radar stations, satellite observations, over 100 years of accurate historical data and state-of-the-art weather-modelling computers, to fairly accurately predict Brisbane's minimum and maximum temperatures for the following 24 hours!

Interestingly, despite this plethora of knowledge and technology, they rarely attempt to forecast temperatures more than 7 days ahead. With this in mind, I've been monitoring the Brisbane Bureau's 24-hour temperature forecasts and actual temperatures for a total of 2834 days (over 7-3/4 years). So how have they managed to perform?

In 2834 days, they've managed to predict both the minimum and maximum temperatures correctly on only 239 occasions - approximately one day in 12 (or 8.4% of the time). The average total error in their predictions was 2.4 degrees, whilst their maximum error was 9 degrees! If, on the other hand, one made the assumption that "Brisbane's weather is so predictable, that tomorrow's temperatures will be the same as today's", one would have been correct on 187 occasions - one day in 15 (or 6.7% of the time). More recently, I've been monitoring their 7-day forecasts as well, and have found that their forecast is correct only 4.1% of the time or once every 25 days, with an average error of 3.43 degrees.

According to the IPCC's "Guidance on Addressing Uncertainties", any prediction with less than 10% probability is "very unlikely" to be correct! So, where does this leave their own projection of a rise in Average Global Temperature of between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees over the next 100 years and with what accuracy?

Earlier this year, I happened to hear a Senior Meteorologist from the Melbourne Bureau interviewed on the ABC's 7.30 Report, who was asked: "How accurate are forecasters today?" Given the statistics I've quoted above, his response literally staggered me: "Well, on average, around about 85-90 per cent - that's the accuracy of the temperature forecast; that's looking at one day ahead. And that falls away to about 60 to 65 per cent out to 7 days." -

Ignorance? Wishful thinking? Or just plain hype? Actually, in quoting the above statistics, I am not attempting to denigrate the Bureau of Meteorology or its staff - merely to highlight the difficulty of reliably predicting temperature changes in the immediate, let alone the distant, future.

In summary, the global warming protagonists have failed to define what they mean by "average surface temperatures", have fewer than 30 years of accurate world-wide temperature measurements, upon which to base their projections, and completely ignore natural phenomena, which have produced global warming and cooling cycles over millions of years.

And what will be the outcome of government-imposed reductions in CO2 emissions, emissions trading schemes, renewable energy targets, etc? - Huge increases in energy bills and the price of food, the distortion of agricultural and farming practices, increased taxes and galloping inflation - not forgetting the adverse impacts on the poorer countries and their economies! These outcomes are already evident in countries such as the USA and the EU, which have mandated and subsidised the addition of ethanol to motor fuels, causing sky-rocketing prices for grains and meat and shortages of other commodities.

Call me a sceptic if you must, but I'm prepared to accept that "the Earth is flat" and that "the Sun revolves around the Earth", before I am willing to accept "the fact that global warming is solely due to human emissions of CO2 and that it will have catastrophic climate change consequences"!

Article received direct from the author

In Melbourne: Big Al, Small Protest

ANYONE who denies global warming is in the pay of big oil. Remember that is what the big man, Al Gore, said in his movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. But like so much that Mr Gore says, it just isn’t true.

Consider the 30-odd protesters who held placards outside the breakfast he spoke at this morning in Melbourne. The scruffy-lot, lead by a farmer Leon Ashby, were not there because someone paid them, but because they are outraged by Al Gore and what he has thrust on the world. In particular, his belief that we already have a climate crisis and that the only solution is carbon trading.

It might all sound well meaning. But it is going to be expensive. Indeed, quoting Ronald Bailey from Reason magazine, cap and trade in the US will be the largest corporate welfare program ever enacted in the history of the United States. And the corporations hope government is just as generous to them here in Australia.

Indeed if there were any in the pay of big oil at Dockland Peninsula this morning, they would have been inside applauding the big man. Has the big end of town ever taken to holding placards? I don’t think so.

A protest like the one in Melbourne this morning was about the seemingly disempowered and disenfranchised attempting to be heard. Of course history is replete with stories of such groups finding their voice and a crowd – eventually.

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Greenie goes yellow (as in yellowcake)

Economic realities defeat ideology -- jobs and revenue needed -- even from the evil uranium

PETER GARRETT, whose first tilt at politics was a run for the Senate with the Nuclear Disarmament Party, gave the go-ahead for a new uranium mine yesterday. The Environment Minister approved the Four Mile mine in far northern South Australia, the first fully fledged uranium project to be approved by the former Midnight Oil frontman and one-time anti-uranium campaigner. Last year Mr Garrett approved an expansion of the Beverley mine, about 600 kilometres north of Adelaide. The Four Mile mine is about 10 kilometres from the Beverley project.

As Mr Garrett's opponents rushed to ridicule yesterday, he said the decision was difficult and "came after a rigorous and comprehensive assessment". "I have not taken the decision lightly," he said in a statement. "As with all proposals examined under national environment law, this mine was subject to a comprehensive, scientifically robust and transparent assessment process."

The Opposition environment spokesman, Greg Hunt, accused Mr Garrett of hypocrisy by reminding him of his speech to the ALP national conference in 2007 in which he spoke against abolishing Labor's three-mine policy on uranium. "I have long been opposed to uranium mining and I remain opposed to it. I am unapologetic about this. In fact, I am proud of it," Mr Garrett said two years ago.

He said there was no absolute guarantee Australian uranium would not end up in nuclear weapons "but we can guarantee all Australian uranium will become nuclear waste". The conference voted to abolish the three-mines policy and this made possible the approval of the Four Mile project, which will become Australia's fourth operational uranium mine.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said the decision was consistent with party policy. Despite expanding the uranium industry, he remained opposed to nuclear energy in Australia, saying our low emissions energy future lay in "clean, green renewables".

The South Australian Liberal senator, Simon Birmingham, said the Government was sending mixed messages and should now ratify a deal to export uranium to Russia for peaceful purposes.

After entering politics in 2004, Mr Garrett accepted he was bound by party policy. "I'll be expected to accept the policies of the party. It doesn't mean that my strong views about different issues can't be expressed but they'll be expressed within the party," he said.

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State Premier goes in to bat for coal industry

THE Queensland government is demanding special treatment to shield its coalmines from the cost of Canberra's action on climate change. Jolted by a $15 billion crash in treasury revenue, Premier Anna Bligh has written to the federal government's junior climate change minister, Greg Combet, raising "a number of significant outstanding issues" with its greenhouse emission trading scheme, known officially as the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

"The CPRS will significantly reduce the competitiveness of coal production in Queensland," Ms Bligh wrote in a letter tabled during a state parliamentary estimates committee hearing in Brisbane yesterday. "Options to assist the coal industry ... need to be developed that go beyond that currently proposed."

Ms Bligh said modelling by the federal Treasury confirmed that Queensland faced the greatest impact from emissions pricing, with the biggest cut in economic growth of any state or territory by 2050. Her decision to go in to bat for the coal industry betrayed the Premier's fears of further job-shedding in the state's struggling mining sector. The state budget in June predicted the mining downturn would rob Treasury of $1.6bn in royalty revenues this financial year. It also forecast a $15bn cut to revenue through taxes, royalties and the GST over the next three years.

Forced to defend her economic management yesterday, Ms Bligh conceded that the 110,000 jobs she has promised to create through an $18bn infrastructure program over the next three years might merely replace jobs shed elsewhere in the private sector. She blamed wet weather on underspending by $900 million in last year's capital works program.

Ms Bligh also defended her decision to sacrifice the state's AAA credit rating by plunging Queensland deep into debt to pay for record infrastructure spending. "Every single project is absolutely necessary. It might be all very well for rating agencies to sit down and look at our set of numbers, but they don't live here."

In her letter to Mr Combet, Ms Bligh warned that hundreds of jobs could be lost when NSW abolished its Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme, to be replaced by the CPRS in 2011. The NSW scheme gave an incentive to generate electricity using waste gas from coalmines. "As a consequence (of the scheme's abolition) existing ... projects that are delivering lower emission electricity are at risk of closure with the potential for hundreds of jobs to be lost," she wrote. "Clearly this would be a most perverse outcome."

Ms Bligh called on the federal government to give "specialised assistance" to Queensland underground coalmines which she described as being "very gassy", with limited capacity to cut emissions. "Some coal companies have also advised that they cannot pass on carbon-related costs to their energy generator customers because of restrictive long-term contracts. Firms would need to absorb these costs, with a direct reduction in the profitablility of these investments," she said.

A spokesman for Mr Combet said yesterday the minister had not yet seen Ms Bligh's letter, written last Thursday.

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Should kids be criticized?

Children tend to be cosseted much more than they once were and that does extend to sport. So some old-fashioned sports motivation directed towards a team of young Australian footballers has been much criticized -- but it worked! The team are now top dogs in their division

A FOOTY team of nine-year-olds has been branded greedy and hopeless in a scathing match report by its club. The blast was posted on the club's website after the Preston Bullants under-10s lost by just two points. The report upset many parents, while footy greats including former AFL premiership coach Ron Barassi said the comments were shocking at junior level, the Herald Sun reports. "I've followed my own son and grandson in football at those levels and I've never seen or heard anything like that," Barassi said. "That's very, very wrong. I wouldn't be doing that to under-10s." The four-time AFL premiership coach said football coaches and managers at junior levels should encourage young players and use constructive criticism.

In the Bullants blast written by coach Tim Rentos and team manager Edward Hore, the boys were roasted for what is meant to be a fun game. "Our skill level was hopeless ... we were greedy in the forward line," parents and club members were told. Bullants president Dennis McNiece last night distanced the club from the comments, saying the report was "not what Preston Bullants Junior Football Club is about". But the tactics appear to have worked, with the team undefeated since the spray, which came after a round 6 loss to Doncaster.

In their report, Mr Rentos and Mr Hore wrote: "A day of unfortunate mishaps. It all began at 9am with miscommunication and disorganisation ... a coach that wasn't organised to win the game, a manager stressed to the eyeballs and a team that depends on a certain few players to win the game week in, week out. "Our skill level was hopeless. There wasn't any kicking or handballing going to our players, our tackling, bumping and shepherding wasn't in the game."

Former VFA coach Phil Cleary, who now coaches West Coburg under-16s, said the "carping" attack was "awful" and unnecessary. "It's too negative," he said. "At under-10 I can't understand why you would want to send out a carping, negative document. It doesn't blend criticism with praise."

Adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg said as long as individuals weren't singled out the tactic appeared warranted and would help the boys deal with the real world, something too many parents were not doing. "Basically it was tantamount to a psychological grenade and it lifted everybody," he said. "I do think we shelter our kids a lot. I think that this is a good, gentle introduction into the reality of this world."

Family psychologist Renee Mill said such methods were a great way for boys as young as four to bond and be motivated. She said too many parents were afraid to demand improvement from their children, and expected boys to suppress their urge "to be boys". "There needs to be a place where men can just be raw men," she said. "We have to step back as mothers and say fathers are actually the role models for our boys to be male."

Mr Hore admitted yesterday some parents were initially upset but the boys took it on the chin and lifted their game. Mr Hore, whose son Terance plays in the team, said no child was singled out and the players were deemed mature enough to take the criticism. Since the spray his team had knuckled right down. "They play as a team, they listen to each other, they pat each other on the back, they talk to each other," he said.

Mr McNiece said the report should not have been published and refused to allow about 12 boys to be photographed by the Herald Sun. "The person who wrote this was not the coach or team manager at the time," he said. "He has been sanctioned by the committee and will not be allowed to write any more articles on our newsletter."

The Bullants now top the Yarra Junior Football League under-10 blue division ladder with a percentage of 272.73.

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Sir Lunchalot -- from the party that claims to represent the little guy

THE NSW Minister for Primary Industries, Ian Macdonald, previously dubbed Sir Lunchalot by the Opposition, has spent nearly $150,000 on lunches, dinners and accommodation for a wine advisory group he created, and $15,000 on a charter flight. Documents obtained under freedom of information laws show Mr Macdonald spent $24,156.21 on a trip to Dareton in which he and a group from the NSW Wine Industry Research and Development Advisory Council lunched at Stefano's Restaurant at Mildura.

Last night the Opposition Leader, Barry O'Farrell, called for Mr Macdonald to be sacked over the revelations, saying they were "the worst display of arrogance from a Labor minister to date".

The costs of the trip follow a series of controversies the minister has been involved in, including revelations he used departmental funds to buy office furniture for his home and a television set and the fact he has spent more than $12,000 over two years on lunches for him and his office. He was also one of the highest spending ministers on overseas travel last year, spending $67,336 on visits to the US, China, Hong Kong, Japan and India.

The documents, obtained by Channel Seven, show that the group also dined at Catalina Restaurant at Rose Bay, at a cost of $7747 for 18 people. On another trip to Mudgee $9788.86 was spent, a trip to Wagga cost $10,887.13, and a journey to the Southern Highlands in February last year cost $7258.98. A trip to Tyrrell's Vineyards in the Hunter Valley cost $11,567.17.

"Mr Macdonald is a disgrace, and if Nathan Rees had any authority or standards he would sack him," Mr O'Farrell said.

Mr Macdonald denied last night that the Wine Industry Research and Development Advisory Council was a "luncheon club". "If you're going to consult with the regions of NSW you have to pay for people to do that consultation, to get out there and mix. We don't want people making decisions based on sitting around in …Parliament House," he told Channel Seven. "I've chosen none of the restaurants, nor do I determine the itinerary."

In a statement to the Herald, Mr Macdonald said the trip to Dareton - including a dinner for 25 costing $3390 - had been "a business meeting, where a range of important issues were discussed including development and export opportunities, research and water shortages because of the drought". "The council needs to meet with industry and regional communities in the heart of wine regions - it's pretty difficult to do this from the centre of Sydney."

The council had been going for six years, he said, and the "average expenditure is around $20,000, which is reasonable, given it conducts meetings in regional areas across the state".

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Weasel language from a government health bureaucracy

A missive from Queensland Health director-general Mick Reid reminding staff about how important it is to be honest with the public now that the Right to Information laws have begun:

Special Broadcast 1/07/2009 6:43 pm

All staff of Queensland Health need to be aware that the Right to Information Act 2009 and the Information Privacy Act 2009 commenced today.

Both of these Acts are key components of the Queensland Government’s Right to Information policy that is aimed at promoting a culture of openness, accountability and transparency, balanced with appropriate protections for certain information, including personal information. In practice, this means that information will be released unless, on balance, its release is contrary to the public interest.

All of the Queensland Public Service need to be aware that the objectives of the Right to Information reform process mean we operate on a presumption of disclosure of government information.

To this end could all staff please note the contents of the attached Statement of Right to Information Principles For the Queensland Public Service issued by the Premier of Queensland.

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I think comment would be superfluous

2009-07-14T15:46:00.000+11:30

Offensive food fanatic and the evils of cake

I have always had a fair deal of respect for nutritionist Rosemary Stanton but realised yesterday that this is only because I haven’t been paying attention.

The Irwin children above with their mother and the cake mix, Bindy on the right

Not sure if the rest of you caught it, but Mrs Stanton has launched a pretty out-there tirade against Bindy Irwin’s new commercial deal as the public face of a particularly sinister company. Not Union Carbide or Exxon or British Aerospace but the baking products conglomerate Greens General Foods, one of the shadiest players in the evil cake trade.

We’re not speaking here of the mythical drug also known as “cake”, made famous in the British news parody Brass Eye, but package cake mix, made from flour, sugar, baking powder, and flavourings such as cocoa, vanilla and orange. Greens has been peddling the stuff for years. Pushing it onto time-poor mums, getting kids hooked on it from an early age, using its addictive sweetness and energy-giving qualities to lure them into eating it by the slice after school - even hiding it in their lunch boxes so they can take it onto school grounds and get a fix at little lunch.

Well, Mrs Stanton has now blown the whistle on this practice - and taken aim at those irresponsible Irwins as part of the deal.

The first troubling thing about Mrs Stanton’s spray is the small matter of Steve Irwin’s death. That tragedy should make the Irwin family pretty much immune on the grounds of decency from any kind of frivolous sledging. It should also be factored into the thinking of any would-be critic as perhaps being the very reason why Terri Irwin needs to form a business partnership with a reputable family company such as Greens.

Mrs Stanton managed to negotiate her way past the taste question as she had a bigger target in mind. Cake. Mrs Stanton took issue with the images of Bindi and little Bob helping their Mum bake a cake in the kitchen, and even licking the spoon. “The message that comes across to kids is “it’s OK to eat cake because Bindi Irwin does” - I think it’s very sad,” Stanton said.

“Children are very trusting, so they actually think Bindi wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t right.” “I think it’s a bit of exploitation of her as well because she wouldn’t possibly be old enough to understand the impact that this could have.” “It’s wrong to target kids in trying to sell stuff to other kids. It makes it very difficult for parents to then resist the pleas of their children.”

It’s a good thing Mrs Stanton doesn’t know our address, or the addresses of our many mates with young kids, as we’ve all adopted a totally reckless attitude to child-rearing where we regard baking the odd cake with the kids as enjoyable family time, a great way to introduce them to cooking, especially with a good packet mix because they can do it all by themselves, with the added bonus that you can eat something tasty afterwards or take it down to the park for a picnic. We’re lucky DOCS [a famously bungling government child-welfasre agency] haven’t come around.

It’s cloud cuckoo land stuff which wouldn’t matter if not for the fact that Rosemary Stanton, author of 25 books on diet and nutrition, is on the Federal Government speed-dial for advice on health and wellbeing issues, one of those superficially innocuous right-thinking people who only has all our interests at heart.

(Googling her last night I found an interesting link to a lecture of hers on “Ethical Eating” on the ABC’s Fora website, where she suggested food prices could be artificially inflated so that our farmers no longer had to export produce, which would not only make food production more sustainable, but solve the “starving pensioner” problem once and for all.)

The other thing about the cake issue - Terri Irwin has only agreed to the deal because Greens has made a sizeable contribution to Steve’s ongoing wildlife and conservation protection programs, and are using their products to increase childrens’ awareness of endangered species through school bag tags. Which if you’re Rosemary Stanton probably just proves that, like any other pusher, cake dealers will do anything to get people hooked.

Anyway here’s a link to Greens Traditional Chocolate Cake. Buy some and feed it to your kids.

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NSW teachers dead-scared of their failings being exposed

Parents must not be told if their kid is going to a sink school or has dud teacher

TEACHERS in New South Wales have voted to support industrial action if school league tables are published using national assessment data. NSW Teachers Federation president Bob Lipscombe said he hoped that state ministers would scrap plans to publish league tables before teachers walked out. However, up to 70,000 federation members were prepared to strike next year if necessary.

Speaking in Sydney at the federation's annual conference, Mr Lipscombe launched a scathing attack on NSW Education Minister Verity Firth for her support of tables comparing schools' performances. He also criticised sections of the media, saying some newspapers stood to gain financially from their publication. "Verity Firth needs to have a bit of backbone. "The minister needs to stand up for the people of NSW. "She has been prepared to take a stand on other issues and she needs to take a stand on this. "Certain newspapers support league tables because they know parents will be curious about how schools are performing. "Politicians and some newspapers who stand to gain financially are the only ones who support this."

Federation executive member Michael de Wall added: "This is political karaoke - out of tune and disturbing for those of us who have to listen to it."

The conference passed a motion supporting "all appropriate measures, both political and industrial" if 2009 national assessment data was used to publish league tables. It heard from teachers from across NSW who said such tables would damage schools, children and communities and offer inaccurate assessments of educational performance.

Mr Lipscombe told reporters outside the conference he believed the NSW Government, which has not authorised school league tables for 12 years, was being "blackmailed" by the Federal Government over the issue. "The one thing that's changed is that the Federal Government is now saying that if the State Government withholds its data, it will withhold funding. It is essentially a type of blackmail." He said Premier Nathan Rees' support of league tables was "driven by money".

However, the conference voted against a motion calling for Ms Firth's resignation, after Mr Lipscombe said it would divert attention from the core issue.

NSW is pushing ahead with legislation to allow media outlets to publish comparisons of schools' performance, overturning last month's opposition amendment to the Education Act which prohibits their publication. The Education Act allows the State Government to provide detailed information about schools to the Federal Government, in return for increased federal funding.

Under the Opposition amendment, NSW media are not allowed to publish information comparing different schools.

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Leftist Federal government unconcerned about flood of illegals

As the latest boatload of unlawful entrants was being dealt with by authorities last night, it emerged the Government was warned as early as last October to prepare for a flood of boat people.

On Saturday night Australia's Border Protection Command intercepted a boatload of 73 asylum seekers believed to be from Sri Lanka, many "family groups" including women and children. The boat arrived about 11am yesterday at Christmas Island where the group will undergo security, ID and health checks to establish their identity and reasons for travel.

At the same time it emerged Immigration Minister Chris Evans was briefed by his department on an expected "surge in unauthorised boat arrivals" on October 27. But it took seven months to fund new measures - and the boats still keep coming. The advice followed the Rudd Government's move to soften border protection policies. At that stage, Asian people smugglers had only just started to resume operations, sending two boats south with 31 passengers. Since then, another 23 vessels have been intercepted carrying more than 1000 asylum seekers.

Senator Evans continued to receive advice on the anticipated surge in subsequent briefings, The Daily Telegraph has learned through Freedom of Information laws. Yet Prime Minister Kevin Rudd scoffed at suggestions of a surge in unauthorised arrivals in an answer to Parliament in December. "In 2008 there have been four boats with 48 passengers. In 2007 there were five boats with 148 passengers. If this year we have had a surge, that was a deluge," he said.

The new $654 million plan includes more money for surveillance and engaging with our neighbours. [but no change in the laws that encourage them to come]

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GREENIE ROUNDUP

Four current articles below

Family First senator Steve Fielding queries Warmist science

FAMILY First senator Steve Fielding has urged senators to look closely at the science on climate change before committing the nation to an emissions trading scheme. In a letter to senators yesterday, Senator Fielding -- who has recently emerged as parliament's most vocal climate change sceptic -- said carbon emissions had "skyrocketed" over the past 15 years, but temperatures had remained steady.

Senator Fielding said Climate Change Minister Penny Wong and Australia's chief scientist had failed to explain why this was the case. He said it ran counter to assumptions underpinning the carbon pollution reduction scheme that carbon emissions were the leading cause of global warming. "Therefore, I ask you to think carefully before voting on the CPRS legislation, a multi-billion-dollar tax that could cripple our economy with little benefit to environment," he wrote.

The letter comes after Kevin Rudd was overhead voicing doubts to Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen about the ability of world leaders to reach an agreement at global climate change talks in Copenhagen at the end of the year.

Senator Fielding said he could not understand how any member of parliament could vote for the scheme, especially ahead of other countries. "Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong are hanging the Australian economy out to dry if the rest of the world doesn't follow suit," he said. "It's economically irresponsible for the parliament to pass the CPRS legislation before Copenhagen, when we'll have more of an idea what the US, China, India and Brazil are going to do on this front."

Senator Fielding has requested a meeting with climate campaigner Al Gore, who challenged the Rudd government at the weekend to show leadership by rolling out the CPRS before the Copenhagen summit. Senator Fielding wants to present a graph to Mr Gore, which was included in his letter to senators, which compares average temperatures over the past 15 years to carbon emissions.

A spokesman for Senator Fielding last night said he was still waiting to hear whether Mr Gore had agreed to the meeting.

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Long-range weather forecasts too unreliable to be of use to farmers

But forecasts for 40 years ahead are reliable???

FARMERS have lost faith in long-term weather forecasts because they're unreliable, the South Australian Farmers Federation said. "The lack of accuracy of the current modelling methods and long-term predictions makes them a less than useful tool in agricultural farming systems in South Australia,'' the federation said in a submission to a federal inquiry into long-term meteorological forecasting.

"Agriculture has long called for the accurate long-range climate forecasting to improve decision making and risk management on-farm, but now question if we are pursuing the 'holy grail'.

"The scale of current models make them unreliable measures.

The federation said farmers preferred to use their own historical data as well as predictive modelling to determine the future weather, as they did not rely fully on one method.

"This is primarily due to farmers losing faith in previous long-range forecasting, which is crucial in this current drought,'' it said.

The House of Representatives' Industry, Science and Innovation Committee today held a public hearing in Adelaide for its inquiry into long-term meteorological forecasting in Australia.

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Power cuts already looming because of proposed climate laws

ELECTRICITY generators are cutting back major maintenance work, raising the risk of California-style power brown-outs, because of uncertainty caused by the federal government's carbon pollution reduction scheme. Victorian generator Truenergy's managing director Richard McIndoe said yesterday that with $950 million of debt to be refinanced this year and banks wary of the impact of the CPRS on the industry, the company had decided it could not justify the cost of major maintenance.

Mr McIndoe said the company had cancelled work at its Yallourn coal-fired power station in Victoria's Latrobe Valley this year, saving $100m, and other generators were also cutting back. "We won't be doing any major overhaul this year," he told The Australian.

Truenergy supplies gas and electricity to 1.1million homes in Victoria, South Australia and NSW.

Mr McIndoe warned the cutting back of maintenance budgets meant there was an increased risk of under-investment in electricity generation, which led to the California power crisis of 2000-01. "You had unsound policy there that led to underinvestment. These are long lead-time events and the longer you continue in this situation, the higher the likelihood of serious supply interruption."

He said uncertainty over the final form of the CPRS -- the bill is delayed in the Senate and the start date has been postponed until 2011 -- was also increasing market volatility, which made it harder to sell long-term electricity supply contracts. One of the big four domestic banks was already refusing to lend to coal-fired generators, and international players looked on Australia as a sovereign risk.

Energy Supply Association of Australia chief executive Brad Page said there was always an increased risk of "less reliable supply" when generators cut back on routine maintenance. "It doesn't take a lot for one of these plants to have an unanticipated failure," he said. He added that because of the national electricity grid, supply interruptions in Victoria could cascade and cause outages in other states. He noted that a power failure at a NSW Hunter Valley substation last week cut power across five states.

The ESAA warns that the government is not giving the industry enough help to adapt to the CPRS and remain viable. It wants a similar deal to the 15 to 20-year commitment to support that electricity suppliers in the US and Europe have been given. The government had offered what amounted to $3.5 billion in support when the industry needed $20bn to survive the CPRS in its current form. "The whole thing is a recipe for financial stress in the coal-fired generation sector," Mr Page said. Victoria is most affected by the CPRS because 90 per cent of its supply is generated from highly polluting brown coal.

A spokesman for the Business Council of Australia said the treatment of the coal and electricity industries under the CPRS remained one of the areas where it had outstanding issues with the government. "Getting the detail right means ensuring the scheme doesn't reduce the competitiveness of Australian industry." The council wants the CPRS bills passed by the end of the year so businesses can begin planning for the scheme's introduction.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said yesterday the government should continue to move forward with action on reducing carbon emissions, despite Kevin Rudd's admission last Friday he held little hope that the UN's climate change conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to a global agreement on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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Wild camels overrun resources in Outback

It's being described as a plague. More than 1 million wild camels are wreaking havoc in huge parts of Australia, eating the vegetation, destroying property, fouling and consuming water sources, desecrating indigenous sites and causing road accidents.

About 170 years after being introduced to the continent as a pack animal to open its arid interior, Australia's feral camel population is the biggest in the world. The camels double their numbers every nine years and continually expand their domain. Their hearty population gives no joy to Australians, and some have been exported to Asia and the Middle East.

A report by the Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Center in Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory, estimates that feral camels roam an area of about 2 million square miles - more than a third of the continent. "We have to reduce numbers in a big way," said wildlife scientist Glenn Edwards, the report's chief author. "A lot of camels are in remote areas, and for those there is probably no option but to cull them."

The scope of the proposed cull is huge: 400,000 camels would be destroyed in the next two years and 700,000 in the next four years, offering the nightmarish vision of sharpshooters in helicopters targeting animals that have achieved almost iconic status in Australia's history.

Between 1840 and 1920, an estimated 20,000 camels were brought to Australia to explore and develop the inhospitable Outback. They transported goods and helped build the railroad and the telegraph. Along with them came thousands of drivers, many, but not all, from Afghanistan. The Ghan, Australia's legendary north-south transcontinental railroad, is named in honor of the cameleers.

With the advent of motorized vehicles and the railroad, the camel trains became less useful. Many of the cameleers did not want to destroy their animals, so they let them loose into the wild and expected them to die off.

More HERE

2009-07-13T14:37:00.000+11:30

Hu tests Rudd's China influence

Imprisoning people with whom they have dealings is a classic Chinese negotiating tactic -- particularly when they have no other cards to play. It is a s sign of weakness and an attempt to cover that up. That is what is happening in the case below and there is a fair chance that it will force some concessions from Rudd. Presumably Rudd knows all that, which is why he has so far turned a blind eye. If he had any balls he would tell the Chinese to ease up or all further negotiations with them will have to take place in Australia -- which is now likely to happen anyway. More details here and here

WHEN Kevin Rudd was told last week an Australian man was being held captive in a foreign country, you could picture him crossing his fingers and toes that country wasn't China. The Prime Minister prides himself on his diplomatic relations - especially with the burgeoning superpower. And yet as of last night Rio Tinto mining executive Stern Hu was still languishing in a Chinese prison, on suspicion of spying and stealing state secrets, with Australian officials warning the situation is not likely to resolve itself any time soon.

That's bad news for Rudd. Subtlety not his strong point, Rudd has for years given off the impression he's on top of China's party invite list. Australians were led to believe his speaking fluent Mandarin was not just a party trick, but a gateway to the upper echelons of the communist country's regime. That's probably what Hu was hoping too when he was arrested by Chinese secret police Sunday a week ago.

Because of his so-implied special relationship with China, Rudd has faced repeated calls to use his influence to help Hu. Yet it took five full days for Hu to receive Australian consular assistance. Rudd will be pleased that when the story broke he was on another overseas trip - building more diplomatic relations - providing him a welcome distraction. It has been left to Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith - who can't speak Mandarin - to handle the case.

And let's be frank - it's not like the Chinese are playing ball. At one point Smith was forced to rely on Chinese websites to learn more about the case against Hu. Yesterday Smith reported it would be another month before Australian officials will be allowed to visit Hu again. He said Hu was now subject to Chinese law and the Chinese legal and judicial process. "As a result . . . Australia has to conduct itself in that environment," he said.

Coalition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop repeated Opposition calls that Hu's case deserved a more serious response. "He's being taken by the Chinese secret police and there are accusations of espionage and state secrets," she said yesterday. "That elevates this matter to a Beijing-to-Canberra issue."

Today Smith said Australian officials in Canberra and Beijing seek more detailed information from Chinese authorities. Let's hope they're successful, for the sake of Hu's wife and two sons, who are largely being kept in the dark. Hu's wife Julie says she's OK - but she's being brave. Having a husband locked up by a totalitarian regime hell-bent on saving face after Chinalco failed in its bid for Rio has many wondering: how much will one man suffer to make a political point?

Rudd returns from his week-long trip to Malaysia, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, this morning. The Prime Minister is officially on leave this week, taking time to recuperate during the long parliamentary winter recess. While having some down time with his family in Kirribilli, perhaps he could pick up the phone to his good mates in China, and help out a fellow Aussie.

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Australia surviving the financial crisis better than most

Another week, another round of not-so-terrible indicators about the state of the economy. It's getting easier to believe and harder to doubt this recession will be a lot milder than we're used to. If the recession does prove to be less severe than advertised, both sides of politics will need to review their plans.

Last week brought the remarkable news that the Westpac-Melbourne Institute index of consumer sentiment rose by 23 per cent over the past two months to its highest level since December 2007, with optimists now well outnumbering pessimists. The number of new housing loans in May was at a 16-month high. And the labour force figures for June showed unemployment continuing to rise quite slowly.

Put that together with recent increases in retail sales, car sales and home prices and you've got a picture of an economy travelling quite a bit more strongly than envisaged as recently as the budget in May. The global recession is every bit as severe as we were led to expect, but it seems it hasn't dragged our economy down nearly as much we feared.

Whereas in early May the Reserve Bank was forecasting that real gross domestic product would contract by 1 per cent over calendar 2009, when we see its revised forecast next month it's likely to be for growth of about 0.5 per cent, maybe more.

If our prospects really are that much brighter, two main factors account for it. First, continued demand from China has limited the expected decline in our export income. The volume of exports actually rose over the six months to March and seems to have held up since then. Much rides on the success with which the Chinese authorities can switch from export-led to domestic-led growth, whether from consumption or infrastructure investment. The beauty from our perspective is that wherever they get their growth from, they'll need lots of steel and energy - the very commodities we supply.

The second factor is the continued strength of consumption spending, explained not just by the cash splash and the huge cut in mortgage interest rates, but by the way this has affected people's sentiment about the state of their own finances and the outlook for the economy.

It's always possible, of course, that all we're experiencing is an Indian summer. The global financial crisis may have more shocks to deliver, or it could be that consumer and business confidence will wilt under the inexorable rise in unemployment yet to come. But that fear is starting to wear thin. Whereas the budget forecast was for the unemployment rate to reach a peak of 8.5 per cent sometime in 2010-11, the new expectation is that it may not quite reach 7.5 per cent, and will reach its peak a fair bit earlier.

If that expectation comes to pass then, with the rate now at 5.8 per cent, we've already come a little more than half the distance from the trough of 3.9 per cent in February last year.

More HERE

The usual bureaucratic yawn from those entrusted with child protection

Laws and duties simply ignored -- with dire consequences

A toddler is on life support after being bashed, days after welfare officers were told of an earlier attack. A top-level inquiry has been ordered into what steps were taken to protect the child, who has been in a coma since last week. Concerns were raised about the two-year-old girl when she arrived at child care with what appeared to be black eyes. The Herald Sun believes childcare staff notified the Department of Human Services, but police were not called in at the time.

About a week later, last Tuesday, the girl suffered severe head injuries. She was taken by emergency air ambulance to the Royal Children's Hospital, where she remains in an induced coma.

The Kennett government introduced laws in 1993 making it mandatory to report child abuse after two-year-old Daniel Valerio was bashed to death. The latest tragic victim of child abuse was in such a grave condition in hospital the homicide squad was notified. The girl's 26-year-old father was arrested by detectives from Stawell at the Royal Children's on Friday. They charged him with intentionally causing serious injury and recklessly causing serious injury to his daughter. A police spokeswoman said the man was granted police bail and will appear in the Stawell Magistrates' Court tomorrow.

Detectives and forensic experts have visited the home where it is believed the girl was attacked. Community Services Minister Lisa Neville has been briefed on the case. "The minister has ordered a full review . . . to ensure that all appropriate steps were taken," Department of Human Services spokesman Paul Heinrichs said. "This is a very serious case and our thoughts are with the child who is in hospital." Mr Heinrichs said specific questions from the Herald Sun about the circumstances of the case could not be answered because of the police investigation.

Professor Chris Goddard, the director of child abuse prevention research at Monash University, said Victoria needed an independent review of all child assault deaths and serious injuries cases. "We need to review cases where children have been injured to see if we could have intervened earlier," he said.

The child protection system came in for a major shake-up after the tragic death of Daniel Valerio in September 1990. It was estimated that in the months before he died, 21 professional people had contact with the sad and broken little boy. Three years later his stepfather, Paul Aiton, then 32, was sentenced to a minimum 18 years' jail.

The judge said there had been a lamentable failure of people in the system to take action when they saw the injuries the boy had suffered in the lead-up to his death. "Daniel would be alive today if there had been mandatory reporting," his father said outside the court.

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A good looking woman with her feet on the ground

Top model Cassi Van Den Dungen turns down fashion career -- a career of artificiality and bitchiness

As two Australia's Next Top Model contestants strutted down the career runway yesterday, series runner-up Cassi Van Den Dungen walked away from a future in fashion. While Clare Venema and Adele Thiel attended a casting for Rosemount Sydney Fashion Festival, the feisty but photogenic "bogan" officially turned down prestigious contracts with not just local agent Priscilla Leighton-Clarke but cut-throat New York model management company Elite.

Van Den Dungen - whose looks have been compared to Kate Moss - plans to stay in Sunbury with her bricklaying boyfriend Brad Saul, 25.

Judge Charlotte Dawson, who supported the 17-year-old throughout the series, was not surprised when contacted by Confidential. "After seeing him (Saul) in the audience of the finale, I thought 'That guy is going to ruin her life'," she said. "We gave her so much love and support, maybe even more than the other girls, but at the back of my mind I knew she would do this and that's why I couldn't vote for her."

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Demonstration against big Al

THE massive challenges of climate change should be viewed as opportunities, US climate campaigner Al Gore says. The former US vice president and Nobel Prize and Oscar winner was in Melbourne launching non-government organisation Safe Climate Australia at a breakfast of 1000 Australian leaders.

Mr Gore said the world, while facing the dual challenges of environmental and economic crisis, should not be afraid of the difficulties ahead. "We should respond not only to the danger but also to the opportunity," he said. "Because we face this crisis at a moment when the world is in an economic crisis as well."

Outside the function, about 30 protesters from the Climate Sceptics Party staged a peaceful demonstration bearing placards, including one that read "Stop Junk Science". Several party members also wore T-shirts splashed with the slogan "Carbon Really Ain't Pollution - CRAP".

But Mr Gore warned the crisis was gaining momentum. "The planet now has a fever," he said. "We have to act."

On Sunday, Mr Gore said the Rudd Government's carbon emission targets were not what he would have devised but stressed he was "realistic about what can be accomplished within the political system as it is".

SOURCE

2009-07-12T12:31:00.001+11:30

Typical Leftist government: Cut frontline services but NEVER cut the ever-growing bureaucracy

WA Police stripped of mobile phones while on the beat. The government could have got equivalent savings by firing just TWO "administrators"

FRONT-LINE police have been stripped of their mobile phones because of State Government cost-cutting. In a move the force says will save a meagre $200,000, it has axed 115 mobile phones from operational officers - 113 in the city and two in regional districts. And The Sunday Times understands that it will cut more phones, which are shared between patrol teams, from regional police districts.

Some officers must now solely rely on the radio network, but country police have expressed concerns with the botched regional system, which has broken down an average of 100 times a year in the past few years. The WA Police Union yesterday slammed the move, describing it as ``outrageous'' and akin to sending officers on the beat with no firearms, handcuffs or Taser stun guns.

It comes despite Police Minister Rob Johnson repeatedly insisting that the Government's 3 per cent ``efficiency cuts'' would not affect front-line police services.

``This is an absolutely pathetic indictment on this Government with the 3 per cent cut, which is going to affect operational police officers throughout the state,'' WA Police Union president Russell Armstrong said. ``A 3 per cent cut for police or any other emergency service is absolutely disgraceful. ``It's absolutely outrageous that police officers haven't got the modern communications in their vehicles of a mobile phone. It's 2009, not 1979.'' Mr Armstrong said while metropolitan and some regional officers had the secure digital radio network, TADIS, they still needed access to mobile phones. And many country areas were still forced to rely on the unreliable and non-secure old analogue system. The digital system covers stations from Dunsborough to Lancelin, leaving key towns such as Geraldton, Albany and Broome out of the loop.

Officers use the phones to contact victims of crime, complainants and liaise with hospitals and other agencies while on the road. Mr Armstrong said he was aware of cases where officers had been forced to ask complainants to use their phones for police business. He demanded the State Government order the phones be reinstated as a matter of urgency.

Deputy Commissioner Chris Dawson said the decision was part of the State Government's budget cuts. ``A decision was made to reduce the WA Police mobile phone bill by 20 per cent as part of the 3 per cent efficiency dividend,'' Mr Dawson said. ``(WA Police's) mobile phone bill is about $1 million a year.'' Mr Dawson said he had no concerns about the safety of front-line police. ``We don't believe it will impact on officers' safety or efficiency,'' he said.

Mr Johnson said with the introduction of TADIS there was less need for police to have mobile phones.

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Barnaby takes Rudd down a peg or two over climate folly

KEVIN Rudd should take an ``ego pill'' when it comes to global climate change negotiations, Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce says. The major world powers do not care what Mr Rudd thinks about tackling climate change, he says. ``Mr Rudd has got to stop fooling himself that he is a mover and shaker on ... world environmental politics,'' Senator Joyce told Sky News today. ``He has got to support the main players, take an ego pill, and realise the main players are the United States and China and Europe and support their mechanisms for an outcome rather than believing he's actually going to be constructive. ``Away from the niceties, I don't think they really care what Mr Rudd says.''

Mr Rudd watched from the sidelines in L'Aquila, Italy, as the Group of Eight nations agreed on Wednesday that developed nations should cut emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. But a day later the 16-nation Major Economies Forum, made up of major and developing nations, failed to agree on an emissions target.

Mr Rudd was overheard telling his Danish counterpart Lars Lokke Rasmussen yesterday that world leaders would be unlikely to reach an agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions at UN climate change talks to be held at Copenhagen in December.

Senator Joyce said Mr Rudd's admission that Copenhagen was unlikely to produce results suggests the climate change forums in Italy were a flop.

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Sex furore best left at sea

WHERE was Benny Hill when you needed him during the week? News that several seamen from the HMAS Success were called home for conspiring to have sex with female colleagues at sea was almost too good to be true for those who love a bit of schoolboy humour. With headlines such as "Probe into navy sex bet scandal", it was all too funny, except not many seemed to see the humour.

Heaven forbid, but some 20-something male sailors had put together a list of women to whom they assigned a value if they were able to have a sexual relationship with them. As a result of thinking about having sex, these sailors have now been questioned by many as to their suitability of possibly shooting people in defence of our country.

Melinda Tankard Reist [who seems to have become Australia's official wowser], of Woman's Forum Australia said: "I don't think these men should have a role in the navy. These are not the kind of men we want defending us."

What? I think too many people have been watching An Officer and a Gentleman too many times. Hello! Richard Gere is a movie character. So now you are not allowed to think about stupid and inappropriate things?

In the meantime, almost every publication (men's and women's) lists the desirability of people on a daily basis. During the week, the Herald Sun had a story referring to Federal Sports Minister Kate Ellis as "our sexiest MP".

Maybe it's time to bring back the eunuch. They were trusted men of old who were gelded to keep their minds on the job without fear of getting the urge, so to speak. Not only that, but we could get a great navy choir out of all this.

Yes, the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have called for action - or rather, for no action - from our navy boys. The sailors have been sent home to face the possibility of the sack rather than ending up in one. I'll make a wild guess and say that in offices all over the world, members of both sexes and all sexual persuasions have sized up the sexual form guide of those around them.

Surely all that was required was for the Rear Admiral or someone of a suitable rank to take the boys aside and tell them to pull their heads in? Did we really need the PM and the Deputy PM commenting on such things? Should we really be worrying about sex drive and an inappropriate sense of humour when judging suitability to be a sailor? If the navy finds that the now famous ledger had serious undertones or proof of any form of physical or mental abuse , then sack them. Otherwise, can we just leave these things to the ship's officer?

Being stupid is not a hanging offence - acting on such stupidity is. Knuckleheads have to constantly be reminded where a joke starts and ends - particularly in the armed forces, as a history of bullying would attest.

SOURCE

Compulsion to compromise in divorce preceedings leads to injustice and failure

Mediation or negotiation in family disputes, while attractive in principle, can often be ineffectual, and at worst, counterproductive. In the 1989 film, The War of the Roses, Barbara and Oliver Rose were in such extreme conflict over their dream house, they eventually killed each other. Only judicial intervention could have stopped the carnage.

The importance of dealing with divorce in the best possible way when one-third of Australian marriages fail is clearly crucial to the well-being of the community. Over the past 25 years, family disputes in Australia have been increasingly resolved through mediation and negotiation, rather than litigation. Since the mid-1990s, "Alternative Dispute Resolution" (ADR) has become the most common way to resolve family feuds.

In July 2007, the Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Act, took that one step further, heralding a major change in the way family mediation operates in this country. Today, nearly all divorcing couples with children are not just encouraged - but required - to take part in at least one session with a family mediator before an application for a parenting order can proceed in court.

This transition to compulsory ADR has been very fast when compared to the gradual changes normally characterising common law. Certainly a major factor for its rapid introduction has been the huge increase in the breakdown of family relationships, resulting in excessive workloads for courts.

But the major focus on the perceived benefits of ADR - its lower cost, speedier decisions and added control it offers disputants over disagreements and solutions - has come at the expense of recognising its problems. The rationale that parties who are initially unwilling to mediate will eventually settle is not only unsound, but does not deal with other goals in the civil justice system, such as truth, correctness, openness, transparency and accountability. The benefits of ADR are only valid so long as the procedure is truly voluntary.

In reality, parents often feel coerced into accepting shared parenting plans out of need, fear, ignorance, guilt or low expectations. Compelling parties to mediate fundamentally undermines both the fairness and effectiveness of the process to the point where it can be no longer legitimate. A good faith requirement exists in the 2007 amendment which includes the need for participants to make a ‘genuine effort' at resolving the dispute. Unless disputants are certified as making this ‘genuine effort,' they cannot proceed to a judicial decision.

But how do we measure the notion of ‘good faith' and ‘genuine effort'? And who has the responsibility for making such judgements? This is the most contentious aspect of the changes to Australian divorce laws. Some couples make very little effort to reach agreement, but are still issued with a certificate that allows them to proceed to court. They still want their ‘day in court' and only pay lip service to the need for ‘good faith' negotiations.

Family dispute mediators, for their part, aim to resolve a dispute, rather than assign blame. Some do not have the rigorous training and experience formerly held by court mediators. If they are to become family dispute resolution practitioners, weighing evidence and assigning blame, then they run the risk of duplicating the court system. Paradoxically, this leads to not only increased costs, but also to anger and resentment from the disputants, who have everything at stake.

True, there is provision to exempt certain cases from the compulsory nature of ADR, such as when domestic violence is alleged. But an informal exemption is not always sufficient to ensure that this never happens, especially as family violence is often kept secret. A survey conducted last year by the Australian Family of Studies found that a year after the amendment was introduced, many women with apprehended violence orders were forced into mediation with their partners, where further threats of abuse occurred.

What's more, anecdotal and preliminary statistics with family mediators suggests that the introduction of mandatory family mediation in Australia is counteracting one of its main objectives because we now have lower settlement rates than previously occurred. Once couples were compelled, rather than given a choice to mediate, only about 50% to 60% of them reached full settlement. That compares to around 80% when mediation was voluntary.

Recognising that the use of compulsory ADR in family mediation may need further consideration, a National Alternative Dispute Resolution Advisory Council will present a report to Attorney General Robert McClelland in September 2009 about the barriers and incentives of compulsory ADR as an alternative to civil proceedings.

The Government needs to be careful. Compulsory mediation is a contradiction in terms. As was the case with the fictitious Rose couple of Hollywood, certain cases can only be adequately resolved by judicial decision-making.

SOURCE. Further commentary here.

2009-07-11T15:28:00.000+11:30

More Britons are emigrating to Australia

More Britons are emigrating, and they don't have to be young and carefree to join the exodus. Consider the choices of Britons joining the 2.26 million jobless queue, with rain outside and peeling paint within. If they are of a generation that enjoyed the sun-kissed, carefree bliss of the backpacker trail, this increasingly is the moment to swap recession-hit Britain for balmy and relatively buoyant Australia. British unemployment has reached 7.2 per cent, a 12-year high, and thousands of people are preparing to follow the masses of Australians going home to an economy which has largely avoided recession.

There is nothing new about British immigration, of course. Tens of thousands arrived under the postwar £10 Poms scheme, encouraged by a labour-hungry Australia willing to subsidise their passage and determined to preserve Australian whiteness. But money frequently is no longer the guiding principle for today's crop of often comfortable departees from the old dart. Quality of life is the new holy grail; many can fall back on sizeable cash reserves accumulated during boom times.

Not everyone is invited to the party though. In a world where sophisticated immigration policies have been tailored to the needs of individual labour markets, the door is open only to a "migrant elite" with specified skills. Unlike earlier generations, large numbers have no intention of returning to Britain.

Typical are members of the Mercer family from the Wirral, north-western England, who are set to move to Australia this year. "My expectation is that Australia is a land of opportunities where hard work will be recognised in a way that I think is taken for granted here," says Tony Mercer, 31, whose property business went bust in the economic storm last year.

An aircraft engineer by trade, his skills did not meet the qualifying criteria because he had not used them for years. Instead, the Mercers secured the points needed to move to Australia because his hairdresser wife Jane's skills are in demand. With Samuel, 7, and Jessica, 4, the Mercers have chosen Adelaide. Aside from air fares, a family of four is likely to pay about $10,000 in the visa application process, a system the Mercers describe as "a minefield".

Unsurprisingly, inquiries have shot up at the Emigration Group, a British company employing former Australian immigration staff who help with visa applications. "More people are having serious concerns about the future of this country," says an Emigration Group director, Paul Arthur. Increasingly his customers are young, middle-class professionals citing high taxes, poor weather and poor services as reasons for emigrating. The vast majority are homeowners, although the stagnant property market has meant some are biding their time before they raise the capital needed.

Another option for those wanting to emigrate is to study overseas. One British company, Study Options, has taken on extra staff to place Britons in Australian and New Zealand universities. Co-founder Stefan Watts reports a surge in business from professionals wanting to ride out the recession by taking time to study. Mr Watts sees more clients who are older, in their late 20s or 30s, and time poor. Many look forward to returning to a country they once backpacked around and are unfazed at getting little or no support to pay fees such as the typical $17,000 for undergraduate degree courses.

Will Morrin, a 38-year-old from Glasgow who was made redundant last year from his job as a broker, is about to embark on a three-year radiography degree at Newcastle in NSW, even though he was accepted for a similar degree in Britain with no fees to pay. "I have savings and had been doing a bit of thinking so I sold the car and the house. Weighing it up, what's important is the quality of life," he says. "Weather is the No.1 draw and getting away from the rat race. Things in the UK will only get worse once interest rates kick in." Once qualified in a sought-after profession, he may stay for four years to qualify for Australian citizenship or move to Canada, another economic lifeboat of choice for many...

Traditionally Britons emigrated in good years and stayed put in uncertain economic times. The sign from this recession, however, is a bucking of those traditions. Immigration peaked in 2007 and began to decline early last year, but picked up again in the second half of 2008, according to the Office for National Statistics. More than 165,000 British nationals had emigrated in the first seven months of last year.

This year's yet-to-be published Brits Abroad report by the Institute for Public Policy Research will show most British migrants are highly skilled, although the net loss of such workers seems to be decreasing. Work, lifestyle and adventure are listed as the three main reasons for leaving. The big surprise, however, is in the flexibility afforded by technologies that promote and facilitate remote working. More people are having their cake and eating it, emigrating while retaining jobs back in Britain.

SOURCE

Australian conservatives wavering on climate bill

MALCOLM Turnbull will come under renewed pressure to try to block the Rudd government's climate change legislation in the Senate after warnings from a key Liberal frontbencher. Coalition emissions trading spokesman Andrew Robb said yesterday he was "even more convinced" of the need to delay Labor's climate change plans after learning first-hand about US legislation that could disadvantage Australia.

Mr Robb said the Rudd government wanted to impose punitive laws on high-emissions industries such as power generation while legislation that had passed in the US congress made almost all the gains from industry offsets. "Our bill is largely all stick, the US bill is carrot," Mr Robb said. He said he had identified eight key differences between the Australian and US legislation that meant it was foolish to pass new laws in isolation.

Speaking to The Weekend Australian after meetings with US industry and congressional figures in Washington, Mr Robb said the US proposals allowed much longer periods for adjustment, more assistance for business and big offsets under carbon trading.

The senior Liberal's position is in stark contrast to the warm reception President Barack Obama gave Kevin Rudd at the climate change forum of major economies in L'Aquila, Italy, as a climate change hero for advocating innovative carbon capture techniques. The Prime Minister has already used the US congress vote on the proposed Climate Change and Clean Energy Act to press the Opposition Leader into backing Labor's version of an emissions trading scheme in the Australian Senate after it passed in the House of Representatives.

Mr Turnbull, who says he wants to support an amended ETS scheme, is having difficulty with sceptics in the Coalition partyroom and has been accused by Mr Rudd of being a "permanent block" on climate change. Mr Rudd has revised the government's proposed scheme by delaying it until 2011, making more generous compensation for the heaviest polluters and reducing energy bills by pricing carbon at $10 a tonne for the first year.

But Mr Robb is not satisfied after comparing Labor's bill with the mammoth 1300-page US legislation, which is expected to be amended further when it goes before the US Senate. Mr Robb said the Rudd government needed to wait until at least October or November, when the final form of the US legislation may be passed. He said he was most concerned about US offsets for agriculture, built-environment and other areas of the economy. "In the US bill, there is major provision for industry to create carbon offsets, and there is only minor provision for that in the Australian bill," Mr Robb said. "It's a major difference -- it's that carrot and stick issue. Our bill is largely all stick, the US bill is carrot, and mostly the targets are going to be provided by the carrots, the offsets."

Mr Robb's Washington study follows a similar visit by Family First senator Stephen Fielding, now a climate change sceptic, who could vote against Labor's bill. Mr Robb said the US treatment of power generators was fundamentally different from Australian proposals: "Eighteen years adjustment period in the US, five years here. Three times more assistance in the US than here. "With energy-intensive trade-exposed industries, there is 100per cent free allocation of permits until the rest of the world has its schemes in place."

Mr Robb said US electricity price increases would be lower than for Australia. In the US, only 15 per cent of all the permits would need to be bought over the next 10 years, while in Australia, from year one, 70 per cent would be bought. "That means our scheme is far more punitive and will put us at a disadvantage," he said.

SOURCE

Teacher unions hold future to ransom

Michael Costa

EDUCATION Minister Julia Gillard has within her portfolio responsibilities the challenge of managing arguably the most ideological and militant section of Australia's union movement, the teachers unions. The negative impact of these unions on the national economy and the financial and psychological wellbeing of Australian citizens far outweighs the damage caused by the periodic outbreaks of criminality witnessed in the building and construction sector.

The disproportionate and hysterical campaign being run by teachers unions against the federal government's modest attempts to reform Australian education shows how unreasonable and reactionary teachers unions have become.

In any discussion of education policy and teachers unions it is important to draw up-front distinction between the ideological fashions of educational policy professionals, the restrictive work practices imposed by teachers unions and the day-to-day work of teachers. Teaching and teachers have been undervalued for many decades; however, recent adjustments in teachers' salaries have led to a significant real increase in their value.

Teaching, practised well, is one of the noble professions that provides direct and unquantifiable intangible benefits to teacher and student. I have encouraged my own children to view teaching as a worthwhile and enriching career. It is important to acknowledge these in many ways self-evident issues up-front because one of the tactics used by teachers unions is the claim that criticism of educational practice is synonymous with criticism of the commitment and professionalism of individual teachers. This is, of course, nonsense.

Much of the difficulty in getting a sensible debate on education reform rests on the presumption of educationalists and teachers unions that only they understand what is in the best interest of students. Much of this is a smokescreen for protecting outmoded work practices, but it would be wrong to assume that it's all a smokescreen. Some of it represents genuinely held, albeit erroneous, beliefs by educationalists that they do indeed know better than the customers of the system - students, parents and employers - what is in their best interest. The skirmishes in education policy revolve around three key issues: the structure of the national curriculum, transparency and management accountability at school level.

The desirability of a consistent national curriculum that focuses on quality outcomes in basic literacy and numeracy should not be controversial. From the point of view of students and their parents the minimum outcome one would expect from a properly functioning education system should be a proficiency in these basic skills. Employers and the taxpayers who generously fund the education system expect students to be able to enter the labour market and participate in the general community with the basic skills required to make a meaningful contribution.

As uncontentious as this may seem, it still raises concerns and criticism from the education unions. The concerns expose the ideological conflict at the heart of this debate. The Australian Education Union submission to the National Curriculum Board on the shape of the national curriculum argues, in general, support for the concept of a national curriculum but wants the ability to influence, if not control, its composition. The AEU rejects the notion that the national curriculum is simply a program of teaching modules; rather, it claims that it is "one of the most powerful forces in democracy". The curriculum for the AEU ideologues "is a tool of social justice because it both describes and unlocks social and economic power".

The national curriculum document, according to the union, "should contain a statement or preamble recognising the vital role of education as a vehicle to social equity and fairness". Government should reject the so-called "back to basics" movement, which relies on "a distorted sense of educational crisis" based on false claims that "modern teaching methods have led to a decline in literacy and numeracy levels in schools".

This view is more an insight into the thinking of education unionists than a sensible critique of the challenge of a national curriculum. Clearly, by their own admission, education unionists regard the curriculum as a political document to enhance a particular group's views on what constitutes social justice. As Friedrich Hayek pointed out many years ago, social justice framed this way is largely meaningless, contradictory and ultimately in the eye of the beholder.

A national curriculum that focuses on basic literacy and numeracy can comfortably coexist with curriculum flexibility to allow students to concentrate on a range of other subjects as part of a broader education. Equipped with good basic skills, students are provided with the opportunity to achieve success (social justice) in the marketplace and community. The real injustice is that the system at present doesn't deliver this for all.

Equally, much union criticism of so-called league tables misses the central issue: parents and taxpayers have a right to know how their children and their schools are performing. The unions claim the league tables "are unfair and simplistic" and they could "stigmatise schools and lead to unfair comparisons". Any statistical data can be misused. That is not an argument against collection of the data or publication of the data.

The hypocrisy of the Greens and the NSW Liberals on this issue is breathtaking. They regularly distort information received under Freedom of Information requests for political advantage. It would be interesting to see their reaction to a proposal to fine them $55,000 for publishing distorted or misleading statistical information.

Transparency and accountability are critical to improving education outcomes. Transparency and accountability are required in a sector that draws nearly 6 per cent of national wealth. Labor, before the 2007 federal election, made clear its intentions in these areas and has a mandate toprovide this fundamental educational data.

Concerns about the usage of the data could easily be dealt with by including in the rankings a clear measure of school performance through time. Clearly a school that has been performing well will have less scope for improvement than one that has performed poorly in the past. It can be argued that this is more unfair to the school that is consistently performing well than the school that has dramatic positive changes off a lower base.

A national curriculum and quality data about students at school performance are essential preconditions to improving education outcomes. However, without a significant realignment of responsibilities and accountability at the school level, this effort could be wasted. The local administrators, particularly principals, have to be allowed to manage their schools without undue interference from central bureaucracies and union-sanctioned work practices that undermine quality innovation in schools.

Principals need to have flexibility in how they allocate their budgets and how they manage their staff. Principals should not have to put up with poor performing teachers and they should have the ability to directly hire teachers who they believe will benefit the school. Parents need genuine input in their children's educational outcomes. Whether school vouchers or some other mechanism can provide this needs to be tested.

Gillard's quest for transparency and accountability needs to be vigorously supported as a preliminary stage in a process of education revitalisation. The real test of the government's commitment will require more than this preliminary first step.

SOURCE

Australian antisemitic publications

At its core the internet is an ideal. I can arrange an online chat with a political scientist in South Korea, create an email focus group amongst my constituents, even discuss Islamic revolutionary theory with a student in Iran. But as with any movement or agent of change, an ideal can be undermined by the ideology of its users. For me, a clear example is the partisan coverage of the Israeli Palestinian conflict by some online magazines. This years output of two of these online publications, Crikey.com and New Matilda.com, is profoundly disturbing.

Both have pretensions to non-partisan coverage. Crikey is run by a staff who claim journalistic credentials in its mission statement to be fair and open. New Matilda similarly claims to provide non-partisan information and takes contributions, as it describes, from "journalists, current and former politicians, lawyers, critical and creative thinkers, bloggers, policy-wonks and satirists". Which is just about everyone in this room - and a good percentage of those outside of it.

Whatever their stated aims, a careful analysis of their output over the first three months of this year shows that when it comes to the coverage of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, Crikey and New Matilda are in fact manifestly partisan. Both consistently adopt the Palestinian narrative, characterise Israel as an oppressor, and ignore Israeli's legitimate security concerns. It is their right to criticize the only free society in the Middle East but it is nonsense to claim they are not strongly biased.

Following the last Israeli elections, Crikey contributor Jeff Sparrow stated as fact that Israeli society had moved sharply to the right, at the same time that that the centre-left Kadima party secured the largest block vote and Likud's Netanyahu sought to broaden his coalition into a ruling government whose final makeup included longtime advocates of peace with the Palestinians. In another article the same contributor looked at the decision of the Israel's Central Elections Committee to ban the participation of two nationalist Arab political parties in the elections, drawing odious parallels with South Africa's apartheid regime - whilst ignoring the democratic Israeli institutions, not found elsewhere in the Middle East, that a few days later saw the Supreme Court reverse that bureaucratic decision. Similarly, New Matilda correspondent Ben White accuses Israel of apartheid control over the Palestinians. He condemns outright the erection of a security fence without reference whatsoever to it or the fact that it has lead to a 95% drop in homicide attacks on civilians in Israel or the fact that it acts as a defensive measure against repeated terrorist attacks, or that the fence's route has always been subject to negotiation and moderation by the Israeli Supreme Court as part of the peace process.

Another Crikey contributor, Guy Rundle, downplays the genocidal policies of Iran's President Ahmedinajab to little more than populism, dismissing outright Israel's authentic fears of a nuclear-armed Iran, not to mention the apprehension of moderate Arab regimes at the prospect of an Iranian regional hegemony.

New Matilda is even more strident in its partisanship. Of the 18 articles run by newmatilda.com in the fist three months of this year concerning the Israeli Palestinian conflict, 17 presented a hardline Palestinian narrative.

Some themes emerge. Polemicist Antony Lowewentein is but one of the correspondents to claim as fact that Israel refuses to consider a two-State solution, despite the evidence of numerous peace overtures, the consistent views of mainstream Israelis in favour of a consensus solution, and the unprecedented territorial concessions offered by Israel at the 2000 Camp David Summit and later at Taba, and indeed reoffered by Netanyahu's predecessor Ehud Olmert. Unmentioned is Hamas's refusal to recognise Israeli existence, as is the barrier presented to any unified proposal by the ongoing blood feud between the Fatah rulers of the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza.

Time and again these articles refer to Jews, or the Jewish State, but rarely Israel as a sovereign entity . Paradoxically New Matilda contributor Michael Brull then complains that most Australian Jewish groups do not identify themselves as pro -Israel but as simply Jewish. Clearly he has not read the pro-Israel platforms of the Executive Council for Australian Jewry or the Australian Union of Jewish students, two of the organisations he mentions, he appears unfamiliar with the view of Australian Jewry, which is similarly pro-Israel.

In May this year in Crikey, Lowenestein attacked the Executive Council for Australian Jewry , this time because it fails to condemn other forms of racism as readily as antisemitism. But it is this gem that highlights the author's real intent: "Anti-Muslim sentiment has often been proudly displayed since September 11 by the Zionist establishment. In their world view, only what they find offensive should be censored". Here we have it, a shadowy unnamed Zionist elite that has the impudence to speak out against antisemitism, as though a Jewish group is not entitled to focus on racial attacks against its own ethnicity! This is a rigged rhetorical game. It doesn't matter whether Jews defend themselves or not, or whether the focus of critics is on Israel as a Jewish State or Jewish groups in Australia, the charge is relentlessly the same.

Journalism can be a democratic bulwark, but in doing so we assume certain principles of journalistic professionalism, including the training and commitment to place opinion in a factual context. Yet the rise of the bologosphere is often characterised by its proponents as a triumph against the elitism or corporatisation of the established media. It is all well and good to allege that the Australian newspaper's foreign affairs commentator Greg Sheridan is an Israeli propagandist, as one New Matilda correspondent suggests, but Sheridan has thirty years experience as a senior journalist and is the author of five widely-published books on foreign issues. The New Matilda correspondent may not like his views, but Sheridan works in an environment where facts are checked and factual errors are corrected. As former New York Times standards editor,Al Siegal has said, the most overt concern with accuracy at a newspaper can be seen in the volume of corrections. This hardly seems to concern the editors of Crikey and New Matilda in their coverage of Israel.

An exchange of letters between the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission Chair Tony Levy and New Matilda editor Marni Cordell highlights this problem. In April Levy sent to Cordell a sober, detailed and careful analysis of the magazine's content in the first three months of this year, explaining the ADC's concerns over partisan opinion and the broad slabs of hate-speak that appear regularly in the comments sections attached to each article. In her brief reply, Cordell failed to address the evidence of partisanship, instead championing her publication's contribution to ‘diversity of opinion' i.e Brull, Lowenstein et al all whom have broadly similar views. This thinking is explained by her charge that the one sided ‘diversity of opinion' is to balance what she asserts is a biased media environment - of course, without corroborating this charge. She does not address at all the allegation of antisemitic comment, nor does she respond to the ADC's concern that the magazine chooses not to censor these comments, even though it expressly reserves the right to do so if the commentary is abusive or promotes hate.

Nevertheless, is this antisemitism, or just sloppy journalism? Former Soviet dissident and human rights activist Natan Schrasansky distinguished the two by his "3D Principles" - he warns to look for demonisation, delegitimation, and double standards.

Looking at the coverage in Crikey and New Matilda, we see Israel as a manipulator of world events, an apartheid State engaged in ethnic cleansing, and an initiator of wars that have no strategic or defensive foundation. That is demonisation.

Israel as deserving of the rocket attacks on its citizens, or not entitled to defend its sovereignty? That is deligitimisation. Israelis portrayed as arch war criminals, while scant attention is given in the same publications to human rights abuses in Burma, or Darfur, or Zimbabwe, or Tibet, or North Korea, or Chechnya, or the Congo? That is a double standard. Cordell's pathetic excuse for the obsession with denigrating the Israeli's and ignoring other conflicts where far more people's lives are at stake is ‘As I'm sure I don't need to remind you, the Israel/Palestine question is not a conflict on the same level as other regional problems that you mentioned. Problems in the Middle East, within which Israel/Palestine is a major issue, are something that play out in innumerable ways across the globe'

More HERE

2009-07-10T16:46:00.001+11:30

QANTAS has really lost it

Two current reports below. First episode: Fed-up passengers revolt over 18 hour flight delay in Perth. What with incessant mechanical problems and contemptuous treatment of their passengers they have become Australia's Aeroflot (the old Soviet airline). They were a first class airline once but no more. I would fly Singapore airlines now. THEY understand courtesy and efficiency. Nobody seems to give a stuff at QANTAS any more. I think they need former boss Geoff Dixon back. Not all his decisions were good ones but at least he seemed to be in charge. Has anybody ever heard of Alan Joyce, the present boss? That he is a former planning executive at the failed Ansett airlines hardly recommends him. General Cosgrove is on the board. Maybe he should get more involved somehow. He definitely is the "take charge" type

POLICE have been called to Perth's domestic airport to calm outraged passengers stranded overnight after their Qantas flight failed to leave. One radio listener, John, told radio station 6PR the A330 that passengers were screaming and yelling and Qantas staff called police after ongoing delays.

He said the aircraft had been hit by lightning on its way to Perth from Sydney and had been grounded until engineering advice could be obtained from France. Qantas confirmed the aircraft had been subject to a lightning strike and was ruled unfit to fly.

Passengers claimed they were kept in the dark with no communication from Qantas, leading to frustration and anger. Channel 7 reporter John Taylor said all media had been cleared from the terminal by Australian Federal Police amid rowdy scenes. Just before 8am, after waiting all night, passengers were told the flight had been cancelled and advised to go home and book new flights after 10am.

"A mate of mine has been stuck overnight, being told every hour that it will be another hour until they leave,” one Perth Now reader said. "She has slept on the floor of the terminal, when she could have gone home and come back. 18 hour flight to Melbourne? No thanks.'' The passengers were angry that there was no provision for them to re-book their flights at the airport.

A Qantas aircraft has now been arranged to take the passengers to Melbourne via Sydney at 2.30pm, which will means the flight will have taken 18 hours. Qantas claims school holidays had meant there was a high demand on flights and it had been difficult to arrange alternatives.

SOURCE

Qantas Airbus A380 aborts landing at Heathrow Airport

A QANTAS Airbus A380 had to reportedly abort a landing at London's Heathrow Airport because of a problem with its front landing gear. According to The Aviation Herald website, Qantas flight QF-31 from Singapore aborted the approach last Saturday (July 4) due to a problem with the nose gear steering. A video posted on YouTube by a plane spotter appears to show the superjumbo performing a go-round at Heathrow before performing a safe landing on runway 27L.

But due to the jet’s to loss of steering, the A380 was unable to vacate the runway and had to be towed to Terminal 4, forcing airport operators to close the runway for about 30 minutes. The Aviation Herald said the A380 was repaired and headed back to Singapore after a delay of two hours.

The Airbus A380 is the largest passenger airliner in the world and made its maiden commercial flight from Singapore to Sydney on October 25 2007. The Airbus fleet has made headlines recently over a spate of incidents involving the Airbus A330 and A310 models...

Qantas said the incident was not linked to recent problems the Airbus fleet. [So was it a QANTAS maintenance problem?]

SOURCE

Consumer advocate goes all Bolshie

This smacks of Leftist hatred of success more than anything else. Coles and Woolworths are already cheaper than smaller stores and are popular because of that. If people want REALLY cheap goods (with reduced choice of brands) they can always go to Aldi. No surprise that this is the work of a former apparatchik for the British Labour Party. He will simply destroy his organization. People subscribe to their magazine because of the wide range of reviews that it has carried up until now. And sales of their magazine are a major source of their revenue

CONSUMER advocate Choice will take on the might of the big two supermarkets in a grassroots campaign aimed at bringing down Australia's grocery prices, which are among the highest in the developed world.

In an extraordinary move, the chief executive of Choice, Nick Stace, has ordered his policy and campaign teams to drop all other issues and shift their attention to the grocery sector, The Australian reports.

Mr Stace, a former spin doctor for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, said he hoped the new grassroots campaign would force Coles and Woolworths to lower prices. He has also called for Choice to be given "super-complainer powers", a device used in Britain to force the consumer watchdog to investigate certain issues.

The aggressive move comes after the Consumer Affairs Minister Craig Emerson made the shock decision to scrap the Grocery Choice website five days before its relaunch by Choice. The $13 million website was part of Kevin Rudd's election promise to ease cost-of-living pressures on working families and improve competition in the grocery sector.

More HERE

Tough school principal gets results in Queensland school

Where there's a will, there's a way, it seems. But good order in schools should not have to rely on one exceptional person

A QUEENSLAND high school principal says she makes "no apology" for handing out more than 600 suspensions in a zero tolerance approach to violent and unruly students. Leonie Kearney, of Tullawong State High School, said the tough stance had led to a dramatic improvement in student behaviour and safety since she started at the school in 2007, with suspensions acting as "a wake-up call".

"In 2007 behaviour management was one of the major stressors to our staff," Ms Kearney said. Students were swearing at teachers, bullying and assaulting others. So in 2008, 653 short-term suspensions were handed out, up from 78 in 2006. And seven of the 1321 students at the school were excluded.

Ms Kearney said behavioural expectations had been set high and students were now meeting them. "As a high school principal, I make no apology for taking strong disciplinary action for students who behave badly," she said. "Poor behaviour has no place in our school. "Our school is a place for learning. It is not a drop-in centre for those . . . hell-bent on the destruction of others. "We have the belief that every one of our students has the right to learn, our teachers the right to teach and all are able to participate in the teaching-learning process free from distraction and in safety."

Parents & Citizens Association president Andy Carl said behavioural problems had reversed, while respect had risen among students and their parents, who were now proud to be a part of the school. "I think you have just got to be tough with kids and I think a lot of schools aren't tough enough," Mr Carl said.

Queensland Association of State School Principals president Norm Hart said discipline crackdowns using suspensions and exclusions had been highly successful in improving student behaviour.

Ms Kearney said suspensions this year were down by a third. "I expect it to go down even more this semester," she said. The State Government is considering whether to grant school principals even stronger powers ito quell bad student behaviour.

SOURCE

Community anger over police station sell-off in NSW

It's hard enough as it is to get a police response to problems

THE New South Wales Government is offloading police stations in a fire sale of public land to fill dwindling coffers. Nine police stations and another 200 buildings and parcels of land, including the Sydney Fish Markets, are now under the control of the Government's real estate agent. Residents of Rockdale, Malabar, Mosman, Berowra and Brooklyn are angry they are being robbed of their police stations despite 20 murders in five years across those areas.

The Police Association said yesterday Earlwood, Canterbury, Mt Victoria and Blackheath were also in the sights of a Government desperate to sell $12 million worth of police stations.

Opposition finance spokesman Greg Pearce said it was the start of a massive $350 million sell-off of everything from schools and nursing homes to sports venues. "People are always concerned about police stations going," he said. "What they have here is cuts across the whole spectrum. When people realise what is being put on sale I think that will strike a chord as well."

He raised concerns over the State Property Authority - effectively the Government's real estate agent - acquiring 200 more properties from other departments, saying the move would make them easier to sell if the Government decides to do so.

Historic Strickland House, which has two beaches and overlooks the Harbour at Vaucluse, is one property with the authority. The body - which last year sold 63 government buildings, built three and returned a dividend to the Government of $32.5 million - last night denied the buildings and carparks would be sold. However there was no denying the sale of the police stations.

A group in Malabar called Save Our Station staged a rally on Sunday and collected 4400 signatures on a petition in a last-ditch bid to save their station. Domestic attacks are up 7.4 per cent in the area, there have been 10 murders in five years and ecstasy possession has soared from 14 offences five years ago to 83 last year. "We are currently dealing with vandalism, graffiti and anti-social behaviour. How can they sell this station?" group organiser Carlos Da Rocha said.

Paul Hannen, of the Police Association, said he expected the list of police stations being considered for sale to grow. He said officers at Brooklyn, where the station will be auctioned this month, and Berowra were as upset as the community. "The officers are not happy with the closure of Brooklyn," Mr Hannen said.

SOURCE

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG has some pointed comments about the sell-off of NSW police stations

2009-07-09T16:54:00.001+11:30

New Green/Left policy: Keep those ordinary scum Australians off Ayers rock

Andrew Bolt

Whose rock is it anyway? And is this really about religion ... or power?

The Northern Territory Labor government and the federal opposition are furious with a federal plan to close the climb to the top of Uluru, saying Peter Garrett is slamming the gate on a world famous tourism experience.

A 10-year draft management plan for Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, released yesterday, indicates the days of climbing the rock are coming to an end: “For visitor safety, cultural, and environmental reasons, the director and the board will work towards closure of the climb,” it says.

One reason to instinctively distrust this try-on is the claim that a ban is also for “visitor safety” and “environmental reasons”. Every visitor who climbs it knows full well from all the signs that it’s a challenge, and it’s clearly their own judgment that the climb is worth the risk, just as countless people judge that flying is worth the risk of deep vein thrombosis. By what right does Garrett insist it’s not? As for the “environmental reasons”, I rather suspect that a million more people may walk on this giant rock without grinding the thing into a pile of sand.

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Violence rife in Qld. government schools

And nobody knows what to do about it because any real discipline would be labelled as "child abuse"

SHOCKING levels of student suspensions from Queensland's state schools have been revealed, with the Government admitting not enough has been done to combat violent behaviour. The Opposition has labelled the escalating violence "another crisis" the Government had been ignoring.

Education Minister Geoff Wilson yesterday took the unprecedented step of releasing school-by-school discipline data, acknowledging more needs to be done to quell increasing behavioural problems. The Government is now considering longer suspensions and the ability for principals to exclude their own students without departmental input, while asking schools to revise their behavioural plans.

It follows revelations in The Courier-Mail earlier this year of a 20 per cent hike in suspensions from state schools between 2006 and 2008, with more than 55,000 handed out last year.

State government figures released yesterday show total disciplinary actions rose from 47,847 in 2006 to 58,167 in 2008 in Queensland state schools. Nearly one-third of all suspensions in 2008 were for "physical misconduct". Others were for verbal and property misconduct, disruptive behaviour, absences and substance abuse. Dozens of schools had more than one suspension handed out for every three students while one – Normanton State School – issued more suspensions than they had pupils. Meanwhile, 10 state high schools excluded or cancelled the enrolments of 20 or more of their students last year alone.

But Mr Wilson said higher disciplinary action numbers were just as likely to indicate a strict school acting for the benefit of all students. He described the rising levels of violence as "totally unacceptable" and said cyber bullying was the "new frontier of violent behaviour". Mr Wilson will now consult the Statewide Behaviour Committee to consider greater disciplinary powers for principals.

Queensland Association of State School Principals president Norm Hart said he would welcome stronger powers, especially the right to exclude students. Under the current system, principals can suspend students for up to five days, but the department must review any harsher penalties.

Opposition education spokesman Dr Bruce Flegg said the government response had came years too late and only after recent Opposition pressure. "It is emerging as another crisis for the Government that they have ignored over the years," he said.

Both Mr Wilson and Mr Hart urged the public to treat the suspension data cautiously, as one student could be suspended a number of times.

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Australian banking system as good as it gets

The reactionary Left talking about going back to failed ideas: Many government banks failed late last century and the one that did not (CBA) only surged ahead after it was privatized

THE notion of a "people's bank" that would be set up to rival Australia's big four banks has not been contemplated, the Federal Government says. Six influential economists have written to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan calling on them to set up an inquiry into the nation's financial system, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. In the open letter, the economists have suggested the Government set up a "basic bank'' - managed by the Future Fund - that would allow Australians to deposit money through Australia Post, the report says.

Since the start of the economic downturn, the big four banks have increased their share of the mortgage market from 80 to 92 per cent, and have taken over St George and Bankwest.

The letter, from economists who have advised both sides of politics, expresses concern about the way the banks are using their privileged access to Government guarantees. The banks are reportedly rushing offshore to expand, even though the public is told they are "lucky not to have had substantial overseas exposures,'' the report says.

"We believe the banks in our economy have worked very well,'' Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor told Sky News. "That's not something that's been contemplated by the Government,'' he said, referring to the "basic bank'' idea. Australia's big four banks were in the top eight banks in the world, which provided confidence in the nation's financial system and ability to recover from the global recession, Mr O'Connor said. "So I don't think there's any particular need to look at the systemic review of our financial system, it's very sound.''

Opposition finance spokeswoman Helen Coonan said it was an "interesting idea''. "I think innovative ways with how consumers can be assisted with how they choose their financial products and how they actually run their finances should not be dismissed out of hand,'' she told Sky News. Senator Coonan said she wasn't "bashing the banks'' but if consumers could be given a better deal, it should be considered.

Small Business Minister Craig Emerson said he believed there was a reason Australia now had no state-owned banks, after having 11 in 1990. "They all sound like a good idea at the time but they all ended up going either belly up or into severe financial situations,'' Mr Emerson said. "I can understand why people are feeling this way, it's a concentration I suppose, with the global recession, we do have four major banks in this country.''

Mutual banking institutions, such as credit unions and building societies, already fill economists' calls for a new "people's bank'', a credit union industry body says. "Credit unions and mutual building societies exist for their members: being mutual organisations, their members own them,'' CEO of Abacus, Louise Petschler, said. "Instead of maximising external shareholder returns, credit unions and mutual building societies put their profits back into better rates, fairer fees, responsible lending,'' she said.

Instead of arguing for a "people's bank'', the economists should recognise the strong competitive alternative to the banks - credit unions and building societies - she said.

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Libellous sensationalism costs TV station a bundle

One hopes that they might do some of that famous journalistic fact-checking in the future. They got the wrong person altogether. With legal costs, a few minutes of careless sensationalism will have cost them over a million

The Seven Network has been ordered to pay $240,000 in defamation damages to a mortgage broker falsely portrayed as having fleeced $1 million from a dementia patient. In awarding the damages to Peter Mahommed, Justice David Kirby said the elderly woman had not suffered from dementia and was a "practised fraudster".

Mr Mahommed, 53, sued Channel Seven in the NSW Supreme Court over a June 2004 Today Tonight program and two earlier promotional broadcasts screened throughout most of Australia. He had worked in the Newcastle area but since the show could not continue in the job. He moved house, grew a beard and wore a baseball cap so people would not recognise him. "In the five years that have elapsed since the program, Mr Mahommed has certainly aged and presented as a person much less confident than he appeared on the screen," the judge said.

In the first promotion, a voice-over said: "Stolen, stolen, stolen. The million dollar dementia patient rip-off. "She kept forgetting, so this mortgage broker took everything she had." Reporter David Richardson then asked: "Where's her money?"

The program featured Doreen Sylvia Smith, then 76, of Caves Beach south of Newcastle and her son Trevor Steele being interviewed by Mr Richardson.

In 2007, a jury found the material conveyed 12 defamatory meanings about Mr Mahommed including that he had ripped off $1 million from a dementia patient. At the second-stage hearing before Justice Kirby last month, Channel Seven did not put in a "truth" defence to 10 of the meanings - all of which the judge found were untrue and "devastating" to Mr Mahommed's previous excellent reputation.

The broadcaster argued two were true, that Mr Mahommed charged Ms Smith "outrageous fees" and that he was a dishonest financial adviser and mortgage broker. But Justice Kirby rejected those submissions. He noted that the Office of Fair Trading ultimately took no action on a 2004 complaint against Mr Mahommed made by Mr Steele in relation to the various loan dealings.

The judge said Ms Smith, who when married was known as Mrs Steele, had a "colourful past" and over the years had been convicted of dishonesty offences and had served time in jail. "I have the strong impression, at least during 2002, that Mr Mahommed was, to some extent, under the spell of Doreen Smith, a practised fraudster who, I infer, was very plausible," he said.

He said Mr Mahommed was "confronted by a powerful and successful woman" who had been bankrupt and yet survived with substantial assets. The judge noted that "well after these events", Ms Smith was charged with unrelated fraud offences. "In June 2008 she was given a six month suspended sentence after entering into a bond," he said. "She was ordered to pay compensation of $53,500."

He ordered Seven to pay Mr Mahommed's legal costs.

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2009-07-08T13:51:00.000+11:30

Urban planners are the biggest culprits in keeping grocery prices higher than they need to be

By Michael Costa

THE decision by Kevin Rudd and Consumer Affairs Minister Craig Emerson to scrap the federal government's ill-conceived Grocery Choice website has to be applauded. Grocery Choice was a political stunt that was inevitably bound to backfire on the government. The real problem with retail price increases is to be found in the archaic anti-market planning laws that deliver significant economic rents to those with the resources to establish monopolies over the limited key retail sites.

While it is appropriate to criticise the government for making its announcement on the day Michael Jackson died, so that it could minimise the political fallout from this significant political backflip, it should not be the main concern with the decision.

Emerson, having worked as an adviser to Bob Hawke, saw first-hand the importance of sensible market reform. Having inherited the portfolio from Chris Bowen, who with no doubt an eye to promotion, appears to have become enamoured with Rudd's anti-market rhetoric, Emerson would have realised the potential political disaster Grocery Choice was. The failure of Grocery Choice will, for political purposes, no doubt be blamed on the major supermarket chains. The reality is that with or without the co-operation of these supermarket chains, this was a ham-fisted way to address retail competition.

Despite the claims of Choice, the self-appointed friend of consumers, there was no chance of the website working properly or gaining broad community participation. The problem for consumers has never been information; it has been a real lack of competitive alternatives at the point of the actual retail spends. If Choice wants to bat on with Grocery Choice it should do it at its own expense, not with taxpayers' funds. A subscription-based service will prove whether there is a real public demand for this sort of information.

The July 2008 Australian Competition and Consumer Commission report into the competitiveness of retail prices for standard groceries concluded that while there was "little doubt that food prices have increased significantly in recent times in Australia", this was due to a number of domestic and international factors. Domestic factors such as the drought and international factors such as an increased global demand for food production resources have led to rising farm input costs such as fuel and fertiliser. On the basis of an examination of these factors and the gross margins of the major retail chains, the ACCC concluded that only "one-twentieth of the increase in food prices over the past five years could be directly attributable to the increase in gross margins" by the dominant duopoly.

This conclusion sits uncomfortably with other observations within the report that seemed to highlight the clear dominance of the majors in key retail sub-categories, such as dry groceries. The ACCC observed "that gross margins have experienced larger increases in categories where Coles and Woolworths have a relatively larger share of national sales". The report further observed that the more efficient of the two majors, Woolworths, has earning margins among the highest of all international grocery retailers. Whatever the degree of economic rent flowing to the majors because of the structure of the industry, it is clearly difficult to determine. Nevertheless there is a problem and a public perception that this is leading to higher grocery prices.

The real danger in the government's decision to walk away from its election commitment is not lack of consumer information but rather that the major underlying problem in retail competition, planning barriers to entry, will not be addressed effectively. Problems here are in jurisdictions normally outside the control of the federal government: state government planning departments and local councils. The ACCC correctly identified that state planning laws which contributed to a lack of suitable sites for new grocery retailers were a significant barrier to entry for competitors to the majors. Its recommendation that competition issues be taken into account when approvals are assessed for new supermarkets is laudatory but politically naive. State planning departments and local councils are structurally incapable of implementing this recommendation.

The issue is both ideological and political. Most state and local government planning agencies have been captured by planning zealots who are hostile to market-driven economic development. These planners believe the market is the fundamental problem in urban land use allocation. Rather than harnessing the power of the market to produce economically sensible land allocation outcomes they try to fit these decisions within the current cookie-cutter ideological fashion. The present fashion in urban planning focuses on what are called centres policies and urban villages. This fashion is dressed up in different language in different areas for local consumption but is essentially the same approach to urban planning and is not unique to Australia.

The policy results in the concentration of major retail activity in central locations and satellite local centres with much more limited retail opportunities. Urban planners don't seem to understand that by mandating that major retailers be concentrated in a limited urban footprint they are creating artificial scarcity, higher prices and monopoly opportunities. Retailers in the urban villages can't compete against the price advantages the large volume retailers have and they are limited in their consumer offerings. Eventually the areas become economically unviable and potentially urban crime zones.

This urban planning ideology creates an uncompetitive environment as new entrants cannot locate in the centres because these prime monopoly positions have already been secured by the major retail operators. The consequence of this type of planning approach as the ACCC noted is that it "significantly impedes the ability of competing supermarkets to access prime locations". This of course leads to higher retail prices for consumers.

There are many examples, as the ACCC acknowledges, where major retail operators, shopping centre providers and major supermarkets have used the planning laws to try to frustrate direct competition. In states such as NSW where local government areas haven't been properly reformed the problem is even greater for retail consumers, due to the greater influence of small community interest groups, who don't even support the restrictive centres policy and seek to eliminate all retail expansion, even within the designated centres.

Until there is a properly functioning competitive market for retail space it is impossible to gauge whether existing retail competition and retail margins are reflective of sound economic factors, or monopolistic rent seeking behaviour. The federal government needs to deal with urban planning and land use as part of its national competition reform agenda. The argument that this is a state and local government issue does not have credibility given the federal government intrusion through its environmental legislation into what were traditionally state and local government issues.

Surely the economy is still as important as the environment.

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The Liberal Party must defend the Howard economic legacy

WHEN a long-lasting government is cast into electoral darkness, it can sometimes spend years reshaping itself back to relevance.

Kim Beazley, Simon Crean and Mark Latham seemingly never recovered from defeat, never quite working out what to keep and what to jettison of the Keating legacy. Not until Kevin Rudd repositioned Labor as economic realists did the ALP regain power.

On the “what to keep, what to scrap” issue, John Howard is increasingly concerned that the Liberal Party is not sufficiently defending an economic legacy that is one of the party’s biggest political strengths.

Howard chooses his words carefully, understanding that his era ended when the government lost office. Not for him the rambling, rumbling ruminations of a disgruntled former PM such as Paul Keating. Late last week, Howard told The Australian that “when I walk down the street now I am confronted by more spontaneous expressions of support from people for the economic record of the Howard government than I got six months ago”.

Howard’s point is that right now, in the midst of the global financial crisis, there is no more important time to defend the economic legacy of the Howard government. Not as some teary remembrance for lost times or things past. But as a straight directive to voters at the next election that the Liberal Party has a proud track record as economic managers.

Others said the same thing privately last week when opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey made an off-the-cuff remark that it was “reasonable criticism” to say that the Howard government spent too much on tax cuts and family benefits. As one senior Liberal MP said, in exasperation, to The Australian: “Which party is Hockey a member of?” To criticise the Howard government for cutting taxes too much is like the Greens now deciding it is bad policy to save too many trees.

The kindest, and perhaps likeliest, reading of Hockey’s comments about tax cuts is that it was a stuff-up. But it is the sort of lazy blunder that the Liberal Party can ill afford to make. On the contrary, it ought, as Howard is now suggesting, to be hammering the point that the Liberal Party has a proud record of paying off debt, building surpluses and growing the economy. If it fails to defend the legacy, the opposition plays into the hands of those who peddle the myth that Australia’s economic prosperity was due only to the mining boom.

The former foreign minister, Alexander Downer, also has plenty to say about the need to defend the legacy.

He told The Australian: “It’s not only intellectually important, it’s politically very important to defend the economic legacy of the Howard years because it demonstrates to Australians the virtues of voting for a Liberal government in terms of their living standards and the overall living standards of the country. If people start criticising the Howard government’s economic legacy that’s what Labor wants.”

Asked if he is comfortable that the opposition is sufficiently reminding people of the economic record of his government, he, too, is careful in his choice of words: “Look, they should never stop reminding people of the Howard government’s economic record. They have made very strong arguments about the size of the deficit and the growth of debt - and they have done that well - but they need to link that to saying: ‘Well, when we were in government we did all of those things (paying off debt, cutting taxes, etc).’ They should never criticise the legacy of the former government. The Labor Party never criticises its former governments. They don’t even criticise the Whitlam government, which was the worst government Australia has had since Federation, at least economically.”

More HERE

And this guy is an economist??

Population increase is going to lead to an increase in demand for housing -- and what does increased demand do in the face of a restricted amount of available housing land? It pushed UP the prices. Real estate values in desirable places ALWAYS increase over the long term. UWS should persuade him to shut up for the sake of their reputation

CONTROVERSIAL economist Steve Keen has refused to back down from his doomsday prediction that house prices in Australia will almost halve over a decade despite growing evidence to the contrary.

Nine months after his dire prediction that property prices will fall by 40 per cent over 10 years, fellow economists have pronounced Professor Keen - who was held up as one of the few commentators to see the global economic downturn coming - "spectacularly wrong" on his outlook for the housing market.

Professor Keen, an associate professor of economics and finance at the University of Western Sydney, was so convinced the bottom would fall out of the housing market that he sold his two-bedroom apartment in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Surry Hills in October last year to avoid financial pain from the predicted downturn.

But an analysis of price trends in Surry Hills suggests that had Professor Keen held on to the apartment, he would have realised a capital growth of about 7 per cent, The Australian reports. According to property data agency Residex, the apartment market in Surry Hills experienced an average capital growth rate of 7.08 per cent in the year to May.

But Professor Keen insisted yesterday that Australia was on the cusp of a prolonged depression "in which house prices will fall as collateral damage".

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GREENIE ROUNDUP

Three articles below:

Great Barrier Reef will be gone in 20 years, says prophet

This B.S. about disappearing coral has been going on for decades but the reef is still there. The galah below "forgets" that "coral reefs were exposed throughout their geological history to higher temperatures and CO2 levels than at present and yet have persisted". See here

The Great Barrier Reef will be so degraded by warming waters that it will be unrecognisable within 20 years, an eminent marine scientist has said. Charlie Veron, former chief scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, told The Times: “There is no way out, no loopholes. The Great Barrier Reef will be over within 20 years or so.”

Once carbon dioxide had hit the levels predicted for between 2030 and 2060, all coral reefs were doomed to extinction, he said. “They would be the world’s first global ecosystem to collapse. I have the backing of every coral reef scientist, every research organisation. I’ve spoken to them all. This is critical. This is reality.”

Dr Veron’s comments came as the Institute of Zoology, the Royal Society and the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) held a crucial meeting on the future of coral reefs in London yesterday. In a joint statement they warned that by mid-century extinctions of coral reefs around the world would be inevitable.

Warming water causes coral polyps to eject the symbiotic algae that provide them with nutrients. These “bleaching events” were widespread during the El Niño of 1997-98, and localised occurrences are becoming more frequent. (During an El Niño, much of the tropical Pacific becomes unusually warm.) Reefs take decades to recover but by 2030 to 2050, depending on emissions and feedback effects, bleaching will be occurring annually or biannually.

Although surface sea temperatures are rising fastest in tropical regions the other big threat to coral reefs comes from the higher latitudes. The cold water there absorbs atmospheric carbon dioxide more readily than warm water and acidifies more easily. When carbon dioxide concentrations reach between 480 and 500 parts per million warm water is no barrier to acidification, and the pH in equatorial regions will have dropped so far, meaning higher acidity, that coral reef growth becomes impossible anywhere in the ocean. [In fact, ocean acidification is a scientific impossibility. Henry's Law mandates that warming oceans will outgas CO2 to the atmosphere (as the UN's own documents predict it will), making the oceans less acid. Also, more CO2 would increase calcification rates]

“Coral reefs are the most sensitive of marine ecosystems,” said Alex Rogers, scientific director of IPSO. “Increased temperature and decreased pH will have a double-whammy effect. Reefs were safe at CO2 levels of 350 parts per million. We are at 387ppm today. Beyond 450 the fate of corals is sealed.”

In the five mass extinction events in geological history, key was the carbon cycle, in which carbon dioxide is the primary currency. Its concentration in the atmosphere is higher than it has been for 20 million years. In the Permian extinction, as in all the big extinctions, tropical marine life was the hardest hit. Reef-building corals took more than ten million years to return.

The Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest and most diverse marine ecosystem, is worth $4.5 billion (£2.8 billion) a year to Australia. Worldwide, reefs are worth $300 billion. “But that is trivial compared with the costs if coral reefs fail,” Dr Veron said. “Then it won’t be a matter of no income, it will be a matter of damage to livelihoods, economies and ecosystems.”

Yesterday’s meeting renewed calls for networks of marine conservation zones to boost the resilience of reefs.

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It's getting chilly but still not cool to be a sceptic

Andrew Bolt

NOW that it's so chilly, I can understand why Climate Change Minister Penny Wong wants us to stare at the sea, instead. Better that than have us stare at the latest satellite data showing the world has now cooled down to the average temperature of the past 30 years.

Last month Family First senator Steve Fielding asked Wong a question she could no longer ignore: what proof did she really have that man's gases were heating the world to hell? And what got her attention was Fielding's threat: if she didn't give a good answer, the Rudd Government would not get his crucial vote in the Senate for its plan to slash our emissions with huge new taxes.

Specifically, asked Fielding: "Is it the case that carbon dioxide increased by 5 per cent since 1998 while global temperature cooled over the same period? If so, why did the temperature not increase; and how can human emissions be to blame for dangerous levels of warming?" An excellent question, even if it's more accurate to say the world has cooled since 2001, despite a big increase in the gases we're told will make us fry.

So I thought the media might be interested in Wong's remarkable response a week later, given that she now said we'd all been wrong to fret about the air temperature. You see, "at time-scales of around a decade, natural variability can mask the atmospheric warming trend caused by the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases". Translated, that means, sure, it might be cooling now, which we still refuse to actually confirm, but one day it will warm again, just like we said. Just wait.

And then there was this appeal to start checking the seas instead: "(I)n terms of a single indicator of global warming, change in ocean heat content is most appropriate." So all that ominous talk about hotter temperatures at this city or that town? Just kidding. Meaningless.

Last weekend we could understand better why Wong is no longer keen on data on surface and atmospheric warming. NASA's Aqua satellite - one of the four main measurements of world temperature - found June had dropped back to just .001 degrees above the average for the past 30 years. That means we're back to "normal", even if "normal" now is slightly warmer than the average for last century, during which the planet came out of the Little Ice Age that ended 150 years ago.

Other land and satellite records agree the planet has cooled for most of the past decade, and while it's still too early to say global warming has stopped, rather than just paused, it's not too early to ask why there's less warming than most climate models predicted.

But what of Wong's claim that the true measure of global warming is the sea? Well, even Fielding's scientific advisers agree that's true, even if Wong never mentioned that before. But as world-ranked climate scientist Professor Roger Pielke Sr noted this week, three recent papers confirm that even the oceans seem to have stopped rising and warming since about 2004, or at least have slowed in doing so. "All of these analyses are consistent with no significant heating in the upper ocean and a flattening of sea level rise, and even more clearly, that these climate metrics are not 'progressing faster than was expected a few years ago'," he said.

I know the panic is on. I know almost no politician, other than Fielding, dares publicly confess that the science of global warming is not at all settled. But know this: the data shows less warming than the alarmists claimed, and no warming for several years. It may start warming again soon, but until then a sane person will keep his head -- and his doubts.

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Climate change laws to "de-energize" poor Australians

POLITICALLY correct zealots penning new national energy laws have pulled the plug on the word "disconnection". The word is being replaced with the bizarre term "de-energisation". Angry consumer groups have accused the boffins behind the draft of making it easier for power companies to hide harsh treatment of customers struggling to pay their bills.

Consumer Action Law Centre policy director Nicole Rich said the bureaucrats were out of touch and should go back to the drawing board. "This is more than political correctness gone mad," she said. "It's worse, because it could have the effect of keeping the community in the dark about hardship problems by lumping in records of these disconnections with power being cut for maintenance and safety reasons."

The warning comes as households and businesses brace for higher electricity bills because of policies to combat climate change.

A team of state and territory bureaucrats wrote the draft of the National Energy Customer Framework, which notes: "De-energisation of premises means the deactivating or closing of a connection in order to prevent the flow of energy from a distribution system at the supply point".

Ms Rich said there was a distinct difference between power shutdowns for maintenance, or when customers moved house, and supply cuts to those battling with bills. Critics fear the national laws will also strip Victorians of protections such as bans on late payment fees, security deposit restrictions and compensation of $250 a day for wrongful disconnections. But the Herald Sun believes Victoria will not sign the laws unless key consumer protections are retained.

Ms Rich said the number of Victorians disconnected for not paying had dropped to the nation's lowest rate, about 6500 a year, since a renewed focus on repayment plans and hardship policies from 2004. Federal Energy Minister Martin Ferguson's office said the document was an early draft, and more consultations would be held.

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2009-07-07T18:08:00.000+11:30

TODAY'S POLICE NEWS

Two more charming episodes reported below

Another rogue cop -- mentally still in the Middle Ages

A POLICEMAN has been stood down after being charged with trying to perform an exorcism on a teenager at a church youth camp in South Australia. Senior Constable Roger Sketchley, 28, has been charged with two other adults over an alleged incident at a camp run by the Lutheran Church in the Barossa Valley in April.

Sen-Const Sketchley and other adults allegedly restrained a boy, 15, after he complained of stomach pains in an incident that allegedly went for about 12 hours. Sen-Const Sketchley was charged with false imprisonment and aggravated assault.

An SA police spokesman yesterday confirmed Sen-Const Sketchley, who was off duty at the time, had been suspended pending the outcome of the charges. All three accused have been released on bail to appear in Adelaide Magistrates' Court on a date to be set.

The president of the Lutheran Church in SA and the Northern Territory, the Reverend Robert Voigt, yesterday distanced the church from such practices. "The Lutheran Church does not endorse or encourage any actions which are abusive or which results in the limitations or freedoms of any individual," he said.

Cases involving exorcism have rarely been brought before Australian courts, with one notable exception. In the early 1990s, three people were convicted of manslaughter in the Victorian Supreme Court for killing the wife of a pig farmer in a botched exorcism. Joan Vollmer, 49, died of a heart attack in January 1993 after her husband Ralph Vollmer and three other members of a breakaway Lutheran sect performed an exorcism at the couple's home at Antwerp, near Horsham.

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Qld. cops arrest and charge woman for being in her own car

They had the facility to go online and check that the car was in her name but they didn't bother. They were good at telling lies afterwards, though. If they had any scrap of decency, they would have acknowledged their mistake, apologized, and not taken the matter to court. She was doing no wrong so her angry response was justified, if not wise. Even the court thought the goons handled the matter badly and gave the woman no punishment

A Brisbane woman seriously assaulted a police officer after he tried to arrest her for breaking into her own car, a court has heard. Jennifer Elizabeth Somers, 30, pleaded guilty to one count of serious assault, two counts of obstructing police and one count of public nuisance in the Brisbane District Court yesterday.

The court heard that in the early hours of a Sunday morning in November 2007, a heavily intoxicated Ms Somers was looking through her unlocked car for cigarettes. The court heard two police constables, Peter Lashford and Wendy Poon, responded to a call that a woman had broken into a car in the area. After some initial uncooperative behaviour and swearing, the court heard, Ms Somers gave the officers her full name, claiming she was the owner of the car, but could not produce identification.

The court heard a verbal disagreement between Constable Poon and Ms Somers broke out, before Const Poon tried to arrest Ms Somers as she did not believe she was the car's owner. Ms Somers resisted arrest and when placed in a headlock by Constable Lashford, she bit him on the biceps, the court heard.

Defence lawyer Harry Fong said Const Lashford then shouted out "I've been bitten, the b---- has bitten me". Const Lashford wrote in his victim impact statement to the court that the bite had drawn blood, although a Mater Hospital medical report said the skin had not been broken.

Mr Fong said his client was a charity worker and a single mother of two children, one of which was in need of constant attention. In his sentencing, Judge Terry Martin said that while the police officers involved could have handled the situation better, they had a tough job and deserved the support of the courts. Judge Martin also highlighted Ms Somers' criminal history, which contained several police obstruction and assault offences in 2002 and 2004. He sentenced Ms Somers to four months' imprisonment, but released her on parole immediately.

SOURCE

Keep baby hope alive with IVF

As the father of an IVF son, I wholeheartedy endorse the views below. I took no notice of the money cost of my heroic wife going through 10 IVF treatment cycles in a private clinic and have no clue what that cost was, but not everyone can afford to take that attitude

WHY are we paying the $5000 baby bonus to anyone who can get themselves knocked up, but taking money away from those who really want a baby, but can't conceive naturally? That's right. The Federal Government is planning to restrict Medicare funding for IVF, which could put the fertility treatment out of the reach of ordinary Aussies.

Most IVF users are devoted couples who deserve what the rest of us take for granted - a baby. I have watched many of my friends struggle - sometimes for years - to become parents. I have shared with them the highs, the lows, the pain, and the joy of IVF and other fertility treatments. Most have got there eventually - sometimes naturally after years of invasive medical treatments.

Others have had cycle after cycle of IVF and conceived only when they were on the verge of giving up - a miracle of medicine that has turned a couple into a family, and made them feel whole. Just one kid is enough to allow them to enter the magical world of parenthood - the trips to the park, the school days, the Friday night family dinners, cheering at sports matches, the school soccials, the children and the grandchildren.

It's a reminder that although my kids get me down at times, I know I am very lucky to have them. With three kids in 5 1/2 years, our fertility is a family joke. But our kids are a blessing for which I am grateful every day, and I want others to have the same chance. Surely having a baby is a basic right worth fighting for?

Why, then, would we ever think of restricting access to IVF just to those who can afford it? I hope this message gets across loud and clear in this week's Senate hearings on the issue. Let's not forget what the Federal Government change is estimated to do - triple the price of IVF, and thus put it out of reach of most middle-income Aussies. According to IVF rights campaigner Sandra Dill, from Access Australia, out-of-pocket expenses per cycle could be $3000 - up from $1000 at the moment. When you consider most people need two or three cycles to become pregnant, it's just not affordable.

I don't think fertility treatment is something that should just be the preserve of the rich, and not the rest. We'd end up like the US where the rich pay hundreds of thousands to buy a baby, rent a womb or choose the sex of their offspring, and the rest can barely afford to see a GP, let alone a fertility expert.

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon - herself a mother - says the Government is trying to crack down on doctors overcharging patients. But why not focus on the doctors rather than penalise the patients? We mustn't forget that IVF isn't just another medical procedure curing ingrown toenails or broken arms. And so we must fight for the right of 11,000 babies to be born every year to parents who desperately want to have kids, but can't for medical reasons.

After all, IVF is now mainstream - 3 per cent of all births are by assisted reproduction these days. Forget the Wacko Jackos and rent-a-womb Hollywood superstars. The "right to IVF" debate should instead be about the couple next door, and their right to have the baby they've always wanted.

SOURCE

Employers face new industrial relations laws on workplace bias in a travesty of justice

Guilty until proven innocent! It's designed to eliminate non-union workplaces but much more could come of it

THE Fair Work Ombudsman will use new powers to investigate companies for discriminating against workers, prompting employers to claim they risk being treated as "guilty until proven innocent". Employers said the inclusion of anti-discrimination provisions in the Fair Work Act was the "great unknown" in the legislation. The new laws carry a reverse onus of proof so an employer must show the alleged discrimination did not occur.

In his first interview since being appointed Fair Work Ombudsman, Nicholas Wilson confirmed he would be able to investigate allegations of discrimination in the workplace, and initiate legal proceedings on behalf of an employee. "It is a new part of the legislation, it's an Australian first," Mr Wilson told The Australian yesterday. "We see it as something which is an area we need to be cautious about," he said. "It's an adjunct to powers we have at the moment, but we're obviously very much aware of the kind of sensitivities that might be around the provisions. "For that reason, we'll tread carefully, but I think the point that should be made is we'll tread nonetheless in accordance with the obligations in the act."

The trade unions, which can initiate prosecutions, have indicated they see the new provisions as an opportunity to recruit new members. The ACTU is conducting courses for union organisers that offer to show them how to use the provisions of the law and "act on matters that have not been included in industrial legislation before". "Learn how to use discrimination and harassment in the workplace as an organising opportunity," the ACTU website advertisement says.

Unions said employers faced greater risk of action if they did discriminate against workers because the compliance regime was quicker than under the states' anti-discrimination laws, the ombudsman or the unions could initiate actions, and breaches would expose the employer to fines as well as compensation claims.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the anti-discrimination provisions were "probably the great unknown in the legislation". The chamber's workplace policy director, David Gregory, said it was "the first time that we have seen these type of anti-discrimination provisions included within industrial relations legislation, it's generally been confined to equal opportunity legislation". Mr Gregory said the reverse onus of proof provisions meant "an employer is guilty until proven innocent". "No one has really got any idea about the extent to which it's going to be utilised by union and employees," he said. "It certainly is a significant new area and one that is creating a fair degree of uncertainty."

Mr Wilson said he had established a small taskforce which had trained 18 staff on the discrimination provisions. He said he could understand employers being concerned and investigators would be quite cautious about proceeding with any investigation. Over recent years, there had been cases where women returned from maternity leave to find their job eliminated, or reduced in size or responsibility. Workplace inspectors had only been able to recommend the employee take action in a state anti-discrimination tribunal, or pursue an unlawful termination claim.

"That doesn't mean though that we are going to be heavy handed or adventurous about the matter, but it does mean when the complaint is brought to us we will inquire into it as best we can and where we're satisfied a wrongdoing has been done, there will be consequences for the parties involved," Mr Wilson said.

The ACTU said the provisions reinforced existing obligations under state and federal equal opportunity laws prohibiting discrimination against employees and prospective employees.

SOURCE

Tropics are on the move (?)

Below is an article summarizing a non-peer-reviewed and unpublished paper which was primarily written by a woman employed by an Australian university Department devoted to climate change (full details of that below). Despite its undistinguished origins, however, it has made the news so I think a few comments are in order.

For a start, she could well be right that the tropical climate zone expanded in recent years. That it might shrink again is her unexamined assumption, however. There WAS global warming in the '80s and '90s and that has more or less plateaued since then, though in the last two years we have seen what seem to be the first signs of a corrective downswing in temperature.

That really is all one needs to say but a couple of minor points just for fun: She characterizes the sub-tropical zone as dry. I live in that zone in Australia, so I wonder if she would like to explain the rain falling outside my window at the moment in what is normally the driest time of the year here (winter)? She seems not to consider that global warming might increase precipitation in ALL areas of the globe -- as it should in theory do (more warmth means more evaporation off the sea and hence more rainfall).

She also concedes that a tropical climate is best for biodiversity -- but seems to imply that that is a bad thing -- an unusual stance for a Greenie!

She also says that disease patterns of the tropics will spead more widely -- completely ignoring that cold weather is a lot more fatal than warm weather and that an expansion of the warm zone should therefore SAVE lives.

She also says that warming will cause more extreme rainfall events in the tropics, with the implication that that is a bad thing. I have news for her. I was born and bred in the middle of an area that CONSTANTLY had extreme rainfall events (Tully to Babinda) and we did quite well there. With around 7 yards of rain a year the crops certainly grew like mad.

I could go on but what is the point in arguing with a religion?

A review of scientific literature released today by James Cook University shows that the Earth’s tropical zone is expanding and with it the subtropical dry zone is extending into what have been humid temperate climate zones. The authors of the review concluded that the effects of a poleward expansion of the tropical and subtropical zones were immense, resulting in a variety of social, political, economic and environmental implications.

Conducted by Dr Joanne Isaac, Post-Doctoral Fellow at JCU’s Centre for Tropical Biodiversity and Climate Change, with Professor Steve Turton, from JCU’s School of Earth and Environment Sciences, the review looked at scientific findings from long-term satellite measurements, weather balloon data, climate models and sea surface temperature studies.

Professor Turton said that the review - Expansion of the Tropics: Evidence and Implications - encompassed about 70 peer-reviewed scientific papers and reports from scientists and institutions right around the world. The review found that of particular concern were regions which border the subtropics and currently experience a temperate Mediterranean climate. “Such areas include heavily populated regions of southern Australia, southern Africa, the southern Europe-Mediterranean-Middle East region, the south-western United States, northern Mexico, and southern South America – all of which are predicted to experience severe drying.

“If the dry subtropics expand into these regions, the consequences could be devastating for water resources, natural ecosystems and agriculture, with potentially cascading environmental, social and health implications.”

The survey reveals that scientific data suggests while these areas could experience an increased frequency of droughts, the expansion of the tropical zone could result in extreme rainfall events and floods to regions which have not previously been exposed to such conditions, and a poleward shift in the paths of extra-tropical and possibly tropical cyclones in the next 100 years.

“A further implication of the expansion of the tropical zone is the possible expansion of tropical associated diseases and pests.” The review looked at scientific findings in relation to dengue among other tropical diseases and reports that some models predict the greatest increase in the annual epidemic potential of dengue will be into the subtropical regions, including the southern United States, China and northern Africa in the northern hemisphere, and south America, southern Africa, and most of Australia in the southern hemisphere.

The tropical zone is commonly defined geometrically as the portion of the Earth’s surface that lies between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn at 23.5 degrees latitude north and south respectively.

Evidence accumulating: “In general, atmospheric scientists estimate the climatic boundaries of the tropics extend further from the equator to around 30 degrees latitude north and south,” the review reports. “In recent years a variety of independent studies, employing different methodologies have found evidence for the widening of the topical region, as defined by climate scientists.

“However, while evidence is accumulating for the widening of the tropical belt and shifts in other climatic events, there is still much uncertainty regarding the degree of the expansion and the mechanisms which are driving it. “For example, across the studies reviewed the estimates of the increase in the tropics vary from 2.0 to more than 5 degrees of latitude approximately every 25 years. That makes the minimum agreed expansion of the Topics zone equivalent to around 300 kilometres. “This variation of estimates makes predicting future shifts difficult. Estimates for the expansion of the tropical zone in next 25 years (assuming the rate of movement is the same as the past 25 years) range from approximately 222 kilometres to more than 533 kilometres depending on which estimate is used.”

The tropics currently occupy approximately 40 per cent of the Earth’s land surface and are home to almost half of the world’s human population and account for more than 80 per cent of the Earth’s biodiversity. The majority of the world’s endemic animals and plants, which are found nowhere else on earth, are found in the tropics and are adapted to the specific climatic conditions found there.

“Thus, the implications of a poleward expansion of the tropical and subtropical zones are immense and the effects could result in a variety of social, political, economic and environmental implications,” the review said.

SOURCE

2009-07-06T16:20:00.001+11:30

TODAY'S POLICE NEWS

Three articles below. All deplorable in different ways, as usual

Alleged bashing victims to sue Queensland Police Service

The Queensland Police Service is facing a million-dollar civil lawsuit over alleged brutality in the bashing of three tourists by a former officer. Families of the alleged victims plan to file a joint civil damages claim against the Queensland Police Service alleging excessive force and a breach in duty of care. Former Senior-Constable Benjamin Price, 32, has pleaded not guilty to the alleged assaults at Airlie Beach and is backed by the Queensland Police Union, which is footing his legal bill.

Video footage of two of the alleged assaults was shown in court ahead of the former officer being ordered on Friday to stand trial on six counts of assault on three holidaymakers. Magistrate Athol Kennedy ordered Price to stand trial after a four-day committal hearing heard evidence from the victims, witnesses, fellow officers, and a whistleblower who filed a misconduct complaint against her former partner. Price quit the police service last year.

An internal affairs investigation obtained the dramatic CCTV footage from Airlie Beach police station. Graphic footage shows the uniformed officer allegedly punching, kicking and "nearly drowning" one of his victims, Timothy Steele, 24. Price is shown jamming a fire hose into the mouth of the handcuffed Steele as fellow police looked on.

In another incident, Sydney bartender Renee Toms, 22, was allegedly swung around by her hair by Price inside the police station. Ms Toms, who weighs 47kg, subsequently needed medical attention for a cut to the chin.

Sydney investment banker Nicholas Le Fevre, 32, alleged he was king-hit and beaten unconscious by Price and mocked by other police as he begged for help.

Four other officers have quit the QPS under the probe by internal affairs into alleged police brutality. Steele, 24, a plasterer from NSW, allegedly suffered a broken nose, black eyes, a head wound, hearing problems, and memory loss in his May 24 arrest last year.

Steele's parents have criticised the police union for their financial support of Price. "We are at a loss to understand why the Queensland Police Union is continuing to meet the considerable costs of Price's defence," they said.

Price allegedly handcuffed Steele after a scuffle outside a nightclub, before smashing his face into the side of the police car, knocking him out. He then allegedly dragged Steele from the car outside Airlie Beach watchhouse, repeatedly punched him and "kicked him with his boots" in the face, breaking his nose.

CCTV video footage from the police station shows a dazed, heavily bleeding Steele being dragged into an alley beside the watchhouse. It shows the handcuffed man being punched in the head before having a fire hose jammed into his mouth.

SOURCE

Tiny bureaucratic minds running the South Australian police

The offending blue cap can be seen above

A police officer, who rushed to the aid of colleagues during a violent rampage has been asked to explain why he wore a baseball-style cap instead of official uniform. And a senior officer, who sent an email to his superiors defending the officer involved, was counselled after his email was deemed "inappropriate". That email was forwarded to The Advertiser by a third party.

The junior officer was photographed by the newspaper after rushing to help colleagues in Snowtown, where a man allegedly went on a rampage, slashing the throat of an elderly woman, stabbing her daughter, running down one man and attempting to run down others.

But in the email to his superiors, the traffic policeman's senior officer said there was "no thanks, job well done ". "Can you imagine the disbelief when (the officer) is advised he has to submit a police report for why he was wearing the baseball cap. . .(the officer) is very upset and demotivated by this," he wrote. "And so he should be. (the officer) was dumbfounded and quite rightly so."

The Advertiser reports the junior officer was attached to the Northern Traffic Enforcement Section, predominantly motorcycle officers who are permitted to wear the baseball-style cap as part of their uniform. It understands his senior officer, who wrote the email and forwarded it to Assistant Commissioner Graeme Barton and the Northern Traffic Enforcement Section, was counselled after the action was deemed "inappropriate".

Other officers who contacted The Advertiser said bad management was adding to stress. "The road toll is through the roof and all management can do is have this officer type a report why he was wearing a baseball cap," one said.

SA Police spokeswoman Roberta Heather said: "As part of a review of that incident, where the officers were commended for their good work, an officer was reminded he was not authorised to wear a baseball cap."

SOURCE

Police wobble when asked to intervene against school bullies

The resultant police "action" was just talk: to "formally counsel them and issue cautions". No prosecution for assault despite undisputable evidence of it? It should surely have been up to a court to decide what punishment was appropriate

WA Police have for the first time taken action against a school student who encouraged bullying by recording it on a mobile phone. The Education Department has described the decision by police to refer the 14-year-old girl to the Juvenile Justice Team as a landmark development. Determined to get a grip on the troubling trend of students filming fights and bullying, education chiefs have backed principals who call in police.

In the past, the camera-wielding bullies -- who replay videos of their victims' torment to classmates or even upload them to the internet -- have been disciplined by schools. But calling in police means students face criminal charges.

Kiara police were called to investigate an assault on a schoolgirl at Lockridge Senior High School on June 25. The girl was assaulted by a 15-year-old classmate in the school toilets. A 14-year-old girl was a given a phone and took pictures of the incident. Police inquiries led to the two girls being referred to the Juvenile Justice Team, which formally counselled them and issued cautions. They escaped stronger action because of their age and clean records. One was referred for common assault, the other for inappropriate use of a mobile phone. They were also suspended from school.

Despite Government efforts to reduce school violence, latest figures obtained by The Sunday Times reveal that in the first semester of this school year there were 413 assaults in public schools _ little change from the previous semester. Of these, 132 were student-against-student assaults and 281 were student-against-staff assaults.

Education Minister Liz Constable said the case was a timely reminder to students and parents that police involvement was a possibility in bullying cases. "Kids have to understand that it is, in fact, a crime to assault someone,'' Dr Constable said. ``I don't think there is any one rule, but they do need to know that if they behave in this totally unacceptable, anti-social way, that one of the sanctions considered is police involvement.''

Education Department head Sharyn O'Neill also backed the police action against the LSHS student who held the mobile phone. ``I endorse the police taking action against both students, including the one who recorded the incident, as it sends a very strong message that this will not be tolerated both in and outside of school,'' she said. ``The fact that the police have taken action against the students shows just how serious the inappropriate use of mobile phones is and sends a very strong warning to anyone against being involved in this kind of behaviour.''

Ms O'Neill had written to every public school principal to ensure they had a mobile phone policy that was understood by staff, students and parents. This had to include a statement of the consequences students could expect for using mobiles inappropriately. ``Currently, every school must ban mobile phone use in the classroom, but some schools may take this further and ban their use anywhere on the school site if they feel this is necessary,'' Ms O'Neill said.

A Youth Poll survey released last year found that cyber bullying affected more than one in five young Australians. Latest Roy Morgan research shows 23 per cent of children aged six to 13 in Australia own a mobile phone. For 12 to 13 year olds, the figures are 55 per cent for boys and 65 per cent for girls. Text messaging is the most common form of cyber bullying and is used to deliver and spread death threats, insults and rumours.

SOURCE

Senator Barnaby Joyce dismisses climate nonsense

"The ETS is the Employment Termination Scheme"

Senator Barnaby Joyce has a good grasp of political issues and the ability to speak in a language the people understand. When Oppositions fail to do their job properly, an individual, a group or party faction inevitably steps forward to fill the power vacuum. In the case of the Rudd Government's proposed emissions trading scheme (ETS), Queensland Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce has moved to fill the space of a credible policy alternative by speaking out against a scheme which has the potential to devastate Australia's economy.

Rather than take a leadership stand on behalf of the Opposition, Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull has taken the soft option of calling for a delay in any government decision until after the United Nations climate talkfest in Copenhagen in December. Moreover, Mr Turnbull has also called for yet another inquiry - this time by the Productivity Commission. Presumably, Mr Turnbull is incapable of striking a balance between the Liberal Party's climate-change believers, such as Greg Hunt, and its sceptics, such as WA MP Dennis Jensen, and does not want to be "wedged" on the issue.

His position is one of agreement with the Rudd Government's steps to reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 to 20 per cent below 2000 levels. However, he wants to delay action for another few months. The Labor Party rightly criticises Mr Turnbull for continually moving the goalposts without offering a feasible alternative policy.

If Mr Turnbull's suggestion of a referral to the Productivity Commission is taken up, at least officials in that organisation will be familiar with the subject matter. The commission has already completed as many as a dozen separate reports on the economic effects of attempting to contain greenhouse gases, stretching back to 1991 before the issue was even fashionable. Most recently, the Productivity Commission produced yet another - a substantial 93-page submission to the Garnaut Climate Change Review, itself the landmark advice to the Rudd Government on moving the policy forward.

However, Senator Joyce is arguing that any Senate deferral of the ETS until after Copenhagen would be the equivalent to voting it down. "The ETS is the Employment Termination Scheme for working families in the coal-mining and farming belts of Australia," Senator Joyce wrote in a statement late in May. "It is undeniable that this scheme will put our major export at risk and also put us on the path to further exacerbate the loss of our food sovereignty. "You cannot take the major income-earner out of the house, then put more impediments on the food in the cupboard and expect the life in the house will go on as before. "The mining industry has clearly spelled out this will be a disaster. The farming sector has shown us that this could lead to a 20 per cent reduction in the economy of some regions. The ramifications will flow up every street, no matter where you live."

Senator Joyce argues that ETS basically is tokenism, an ineffective gesture when put against the vast quantity of emissions from overseas. In a typical turn-of-phrase he describes it as a sop to Labor's constituency at "the Mystical Monkey Coffee Shop in inner suburban Nirvanaville".

From his arrival in Canberra from Queensland in 2005 as an unpredictable maverick who was prepared to defy his party and Liberal colleagues to repeatedly cross the Senate floor on key issues, Senator Joyce has slowly graduated into the mainstream of political debate. He has a good grasp of issues and - that rare commodity in politics - the ability to speak in a language that people understand. He also understands that riding shotgun alongside the Liberal Party but without a gun, is as good as useless. In other words, the party has to stand for something or die.

In September last year, Joyce was elected without fanfare as Nationals leader in the Senate, but, critically, he refused to take an Opposition portfolio responsibility. This meant that, even though he was in the Coalition leadership group, he was not locked into a Coalition policy straightjacket and had the ability to continue to speak his mind.

Reluctantly, Nationals MPs are coming around to realising that Senator Joyce's aggressive, independent strategy is more effective in raising the Nationals brand name - particularly while in Opposition. Some Nationals MPs resent the publicity that Senator Joyce manages to attract, and they consider him an unpredictable upstart. But older and wiser hands, such as long-time Queensland Senator Ron Boswell, whose loyalty to the Coalition was never given the recognition it deserved, realise that a separate identity for the party is vital. Events are moving in a way whereby Nationals will soon be asking: is Senator Joyce a leader in the making?

SOURCE

Young men more likely to stay living at home

A lot of my generation left home at age 16! -- JR

AUSTRALIA is breeding a generation of mummies' boys - and young men in Sydney are among the hardest in the country to get out of the family home. The latest snapshot of our nation shows 27 per cent of men 20 to 34 in Sydney are still enjoying home-cooked meals and having their washing and cleaning done for them, often long after their sisters have flown the coop.

Echoing TV series Packed To The Rafters, the Australian Bureau of Statistics report shows the proportion of young men living at home rose from 24 per cent two decades ago, The Daily Telegraph reports. While they still have a way to go before they catch up, the number of young women staying at home is also increasing rapidly - from 13 per cent to 18 per cent over the same period.

Even when KIPPERS (Kids In Parents' Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings) do move out, many come back - with the probability that someone would return home at least once before turning 35 being almost one in two.

KPMG demographer Bernard Salt, an adviser on the SBS series The Nest, said men formed relationships later, so stayed home longer. "We're breeding a generation of mummies' boys," he said. "I think that's one of the greatest complaints many young women have." However, Mr Salt said other parts of the world were experiencing the same trend, which is known as "Hotel Mamma" in Italy.

Sydney and Melbourne parents were the least likely to get their children to leave, with 27 per cent still at home compared with 20 per cent in Brisbane, Hobart and Canberra.

SOURCE

"Denialists hiding behind ideology" (?)

Green/Left "projection" at work again. The post below is from the Warmist in Chief of a major Australian newspaper. He accuses "denialists" of being governed by ideology but look at what he says. There is NOT ONE scientific fact mentioned in what he writes. It is ALL ideology!

In ExxonMobil’s 2008 corporate citizenship report, the fossil fuel giant said this: "In recent years, we have discontinued contributions to several public policy research groups whose position on climate change diverted attention from the important discussion on how the world will secure the energy required for economic growth in an environmentally responsible manner."

If only it were true. This from the Sydney Morning Herald, via The Guardian: "Company records show ExxonMobil gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to such lobby groups last year. These include the National Centre for Policy Analysis in Dallas, which received $75,000, and the Heritage Foundation in Washington, which received $50,000."

Heritage was one of the groups which helped to fund the conference - mutual denialist back-slapping - which Senator Steve Fielding attended a few weeks ago before returning to Australia having swallowed their nonsense. From it’s title, you might think the NCPA was a genuine centre of repute. Not so. This from their website: "NCPA scholars believe that while the causes and consequences of the earth’s current warming trend is still unknown.."

Wow. These guys are scholars. Aren’t they supposed to read stuff? At least have a stab at a theory. Back in May, Professor Geoffrey Heal, professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School, told an audience at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the following"

"It is mainly politicians on the right, who champion the efficiency of free markets, that have tended to dispute both the science and economics of climate change. They have a problem because they believe that governments should not intervene in markets. But environmental problems, such as climate change, cannot be tackled without governments acting. In addition, there are many on the right in the United States who are hostile to science because of their beliefs, whether it is evolution or climate change."

And who’d have thunk it? So it’s not down to science after all - just a bunch of free-market ideologists and Christians desperately trying to justify their beliefs.

SOURCE

He also greatly misrepresents both what Exxon Mobil did and what it reported. They did in fact cease funding some "denialist" organizations and their contributions to "denialist" groups in total came to only 4% of what they gave to groups interested in the environment. See my third post down here. Warmists just wallow in deception. It's all they've got

2009-07-05T16:21:00.000+11:30

Are Australian pensioners really impoverished?

By Jessica Brown

(For American readers: "Pensioners" are government-supported retired people)

The OECD this week released a report that claimed that one in four Australian pensioners live in poverty. According to the report, pensioners in Australia face the fourth highest rate of poverty in the developed world. According to the report’s author, Edward Whitehouse, ‘Public pension spending is only 3.5% of national income in Australia, compared with an average of over 7% of GDP in OECD countries.’

While these claims seem shocking, closer scrutiny shows them to be almost meaningless. The ‘poverty line’ used by the OECD is half of median income. What this tells us is that a large group of pensioners have incomes lower than the average. What it doesn’t tell us is how this actually affects their standard of living.

Another, more in-depth report called ‘Growing Unequal’ released by the OECD last year looked beyond relative income poverty. It also examined material deprivation: whether people had adequate access to necessities such as housing, food, health care, heating, etc.

It found that while the overlap between relative income poverty and material deprivation was ‘far from perfect’ for the population as a whole, this was especially so for elderly people.

Despite having relatively low incomes, many elderly people own their homes or other assets. In Australia, they have access to extensive free health care and subsidised private health insurance, transport, and utilities. The report therefore concluded that ‘income poor older people are not necessarily experiencing material hardship.’

Claims that Australia’s level of spending on pensioners is miserly also fail to stand up to scrutiny. Australia spends a relatively small amount on pensions compared to the OECD average, not because we are tight-fisted but because we have a targeted and means-tested system. In contrast, many European countries have social insurance systems that provide universal pensions often more generous to high-income earners. This means that it’s possible for a country to spend large amounts on pensions but also have a high level of material deprivation amongst pensioners.

Measuring government spending on pensions alone also doesn’t take into account the effects of private retirement savings such as superannuation.

Measuring the standard of living of elderly Australians is a worthwhile endeavour. However, meaningless statistics and invalid comparisons do little to achieve this.

Above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated July 3rd.

"Green" investment options a flop

Real Greenies probably have no money left to invest after they have spent all their money on solar panels, water tanks and "organic" food etc.

A decade ago, a fresh wave of interest in sustainable investing broke out in Australia — and elsewhere — but things have not turned out quite as the sector's advocates expected. Howard government changes to allow a choice of super funds would let people dictate how their money was invested. This democratisation would translate into greener, more human financial markets.

Mainstream institutions such as Westpac, AMP and Perpetual launched funds into a niche market — call it ethical, socially responsible or sustainable investing — that had been held by principled specialists such as Australian Ethical Investment and Hunter Hall, who did nothing else. Real money was expected to flow into this niche, then worth about $1.4 billion. Big companies such as BHP may not have cared what a few tiny green fund managers did with their money, but failure to pass a sniff test backed by powerful financial institutions with billions to invest posed a different reputational risk.

After the Dow Jones Sustainability Index was launched in 1999, for example, everybody wanted to make the cut. But the fund managers had a dilemma: how to offer investment-grade sustainable funds that conformed with industry rules about diversification? Get too green and you limit your investment options and your chance of beating the market. No trustee or their consultant would endorse a fund likely to underperform. Not green enough and you get shot down for hypocrisy and lose your marketing edge — the offer of a true alternative — as well as any upside from green investing that might exist.

A crop of funds were launched that balanced performance against integrity to varying degrees. Slowly money trickled in, except most super fund members almost never chose the sustainability option offered by their fund. Most mandates were wholesale. By the end of last year, according to Super Ratings managing director Jeff Bresnahan, take-up of the sustainable options offered by super funds was "pitiful".

A recent Super Ratings survey, answered by 76 funds with 15 million members and $370 billion in assets, found that for 90 per cent of respondents, sustainable investments — now offered by almost two-thirds of funds — represented well under 5 per cent of net assets.

For example Vision Super, a $4 billion fund, had just $8.5 million invested in its sustainable options. The $28 billion Australian Super had just $29 million invested in its comparable green plan — that's only 0.1 per cent. "People just aren't voting with their feet with (these) options," Bresnahan says. "A lot of funds have done the research among their members, and it comes back with a resounding 'yes', but there's very little take-up."

It's not the performance that's a turn off. In fact there's nothing in it — sometimes they're ahead, sometimes behind, depending on the time period, asset allocation, research used, and so on. Super Ratings found that sustainable super options underperformed by a measly 33-38 basis points a year over the five years to the end of May, with the median option delivering annual returns of 4.37 per cent (balanced) or 6.72 per cent (shares) after tax and fees.

Morningstar data for retail (non-super) funds shows a similar underperformance of 45 basis points a year over the five years to May. That's also after fees, which is part of the explanation — the added research required to analyse sustainable investments costs fund members 1.81 per cent, or an extra 21 basis points, a year more than mainstream funds.

More HERE

Rudd’s confusion re abuse of indigenous children

And now for some political incorrectness on a sensitive subject ...

In the wake of a damning report that Aboriginal children are 6 times more likely to suffer sexual abuse than other Australian children (the figure is likely to be much higher because many cases from remote communities are not reported), state and territory leaders of the Commonwealth (COAG) are meeting in Darwin today to discuss, in Kevin Rudd's terms, "how to overcome indigenous disadvantage". Rudd's "root cause" rolls off the tongue and is accepted as a given but it neither withstands closer scrutiny nor allows us to address this terrible problem in any meaningful way.

There are many disadvantaged groups in society who do not routinely sexually abuse their children. To give just one example close to home, a significant proportion of our own local Jewish community arrived on these shores after WWII having suffered unspeakable emotional, material and ideological loss. Yet their relative "disadvantage" did not lead to their abusing their children. This is because sexual abuse has more to do with a lack of values than it does with a lack of opportunity or advantage. Those Jewish migrants, disadvantaged as they were, nevertheless carried timeless values which enabled them to take their place in and contribute to our society.

This confusion, shared by our Supreme Leader, stems, I think, from the common misconception about what multiculturalism is supposed to be. A multicultural society is one where there is no single distinct ethnicity or religion to which everyone must adhere to and where social cohesion is promoted by permitting distinct ethnic or religious groups to celebrate and maintain their different cultural identities. It is a modern experiment which has been spectacularly successful in many liberal democracies including, for example, the USA and Australia. But it only works where all groups submit to similar values....in the USA and Australia, that means Judeo-Christian values (which are largely reflected in our statutory and conventional laws).

Unfortunately, many think that multiculturalism means that all cultures are morally equal and that none is superior to another. To think otherwise is to be labeled bigoted and chauvinistic. That is a tragedy because different cultures are not necessarily morally equal. For example, a culture which promotes female circumcision is not moral, it is primitive and barbaric. A culture which promotes sati (the age-old practice on the sub-continent of perfectly healthy widows self-immolating on their husbands’ funeral pyres) is barbaric. So too is a society which celebrates honour killings (justifying the murder of rape victims by their own fathers and brothers) and teaches children Jihad (the list of examples is endless). Because the sexual abuse of Aboriginal children is unarguably rife, our leaders should perhaps view this unhappy fact from a different perspective.

Political correctness in this context - which I would describe as the institutionalised failure to recognise that diverse cultures are not necessarily morally equal in every respect – misdirects all our attempts to cure the problem. It explains why governments wanting to do good will typically address material matters only, while ignoring the fact that the real remedy lies in teaching/educating that certain practices are simply wrong and will not be tolerated. The closest attempts we have seen were the Howard government’s belated initiative in policing remote communities and, of course, the well-intentioned efforts of missionaries in the mid 20th century (the children involved, many of whom benefited greatly, being now referred to as the stolen generations).

Unfortunately, as Rudd has set incorrect parameters for the talkfest, don’t expect any significant improvement in the plight of indigenous children.

SOURCE

Top doctor in Western Australia claims that colleagues operated 'without proper qualifications'

And another bullying Health Dept. that tries to get back at whistleblowers

A top surgeon at WA's biggest hospital claims two doctors were conducting critical surgery without proper qualifications, The Sunday Times has discovered. Cardiothoracic surgeon John Manuel Alvarez has lodged an internal complaint in which he claims last year he warned bosses at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital that he feared two of his peers were underqualified for the major surgery they were performing. The Sunday Times understands that some of the concerns related to whether or not the two doctors had passed specialist examinations. Both doctors are no longer at the hospital. One has left WA.

Dr Alvarez himself is being investigated by the Health Department over misconduct allegations. The Health Department started investigating him in July last year after he raised doubts about the ability of the two doctors. The Sunday Times understands that Dr Alvarez believes the inquiry is a witch hunt and was not properly conducted.

Dr Alvarez filed a writ last week seeking to restrain the Health Department from continuing with an investigation and publishing or acting on its findings of misconduct against him. He also wants to stop any future investigation of him by the department. Dr Alvarez named WA Health Minister Kim Hames as the first defendant and Kenneth John Trainer as the second defendant in the action which was filed last Friday. Mr Trainer was the independent investigator hired by the Health Department. Dr Alvarez wants damages for breach of contract with the writ alleging the investigation breached his employment contract dated July 28, 2005.

A SCGH spokeswoman confirmed that Dr Alvarez had made complaints about the quality of some of his peers who were conducting critical surgery last year. She said the hospital was unable to comment specifically on the investigation into Dr Alvarez as the matter was before the courts.

SOURCE

More "stimulus" waste

Having bureaucrats spend money is a disaster. They don't give a stuff

A school with just one pupil for 2010 has been given a $140,000 government grant to build a covered playground - even though it already has a new one. Another $110,000 grant from the Rudd Government's $14.7 billion education stimulus package will be used for classroom refurbishment at tiny The Lagoon Public School, 20km from Bathurst in New South Wales central west.

But even locals say it is a shocking waste of money. The tiny rural school has one teacher and five pupils, two of whom go to high school next year. The mother of two girls there said she was considering transferring them to a larger school. That would leave just one pupil - the teacher's daughter - as the beneficiary of the federal funds.

The school is one of 1500 to receive Primary Schools for the 21st Century program funds. Government documents show it has been given $140,000 for a covered open learning area (COLA) and $110,000 for "upgraded classrooms".

But a neighbour told The Sunday Telegraph that the school had a new shaded learning area built just two years ago. "This school has been granted $250,000 for a COLA and classroom refurbishment - it already has a COLA, which was built over summer approximately two years ago," he said.

Monica Betts, whose daughters attend the school, said the funds could have been spent attracting more pupils. "It is a lot of money," she said. "They could have spent $50,000 trying to get more people here."

NSW Opposition education spokesman Adrian Piccoli said the program had been flawed. "Small schools need to be maintained, just like larger schools do, but it's the height of incompetence to spend borrowed money on unnecessary projects," he said.

The Opposition cited five new schools that received funding under the 21st Century scheme. One was John Palmer Public School, which got $546,000, despite opening only last year.

Australian Council of State School Organisations president Steve Carter said he was extremely frustrated by the scheme's inequitable allocation. "We would very much prefer a tighter, better thought out, needs-based allocation of funding, managed properly to give local school communities the resources they need," he said.

Arthur Phillip High School, in Parramatta, had sought money to repair its walls, floors, roofs and sewerage, but was rejected. Keira High School missed out on funds from the Science and Language Centres program, despite labs, built in the late 1960s, being below safety standards. Rooty Hill High also missed out, despite mould in its labs and cupboards falling off the wall.

Federal Education Minister Julie Gillard blamed the NSW Government for the funding decision and sought an urgent review of the school's eligibility. "The NSW Department of Education and Training (DET) must have assessed that it was in need of new or refurbished facilities," a spokesman said. "The Deputy Prime Minister has requested her department to hold immediate discussions with the NSW DET to investigate claims that this school may be non-viable in 2010".

SOURCE

2009-07-04T15:21:00.000+11:30

GREENHOUSE GASES AND LIVESTOCK

An email from Dr. Albrecht Glatzle [glatzle@chaconet.com.py] of Filadelfia, Paraguay -- noting the myths about cow farts, sheep burps, etc. It was originally sent to TGS Newsletter editor, Ian Partridge, in Queensland

Yesterday I received the latest TGS Newsletter (Volume 25 No. 1 & 2). It was a pleasure to look at the beautiful photographs of various well known personalities from the Australian pasture science scene. But when I got to the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) chapters I was a bit embarrassed about how much you Australians seem to be concerned on the GHG emissions by ruminant livestock and their potential effects on climate change. I'd like to make some comments on this topic:

1) Except the fossil fuel borne CO2-emissions by the livestock industry (production, processing and commercialization of meat and milk) and except some unique biosphere borne CO2-emissions, associated with land use change (e.g. deforestation), domestic animal husbandry is totally "climate neutral" (using a controversial terminology, only justified under the assumption of any measurable effect of anthropogenic GHG-emissions on global temperature). Why? Because all the CO2 emitted by forage digestion and respiration had previously been captured from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Therefore, not a single CO2 molecule is added additionally to the atmosphere that had not been there before, recently.

2) This is also true for the methane produced by internal fermentation. Methane derives from organic substances originating from recent photosynthetic processes. And - as Richard Douthwaite from Ireland correctly points out in his letter (page 11) - methane molecules in the air are oxidized to CO2 and water at the end of their residence time in the atmosphere, closing the cycle. As a matter of fact the methane concentration has stabilized or even passed its peak just at the beginning of the new millennium. So obviously, just as much methane is oxidized in the atmosphere as is added to the air per unit of time. The resulting CO2 is available to be re-captured by photosynthesis. Therefore animal borne methane (how much its proportion ever may be among the total global methane emissions), just like CO2, forms part of a natural cycle, and not a single methane molecule is added additionally to the atmosphere by rumen fermentation that had not been there before, recently, unless livestock numbers increase.

3) The European satellite ENVISAT measured over a three years period the world wide close-to-the-surface-methane-concentrations. The average values are shown in figure 2 (source: University of Bremen here). Not even international organizations like the IPCC or FAO seem to have taken notice of the fact, that even the humid tropical forests do obviously emit far more methane than grazing cattle. How can the big grazing areas of the world (Australia, Southern Latin America, South and East Africa, and Western United States with hundreds of millions of cattle) and even India with the highest cattle density worldwide show such low methane concentrations? Something wrong with the theory?

4) While it is banally true that all improvements in the efficiency of livestock production reduce herbage intake and along with it GHG emission per unit of product (meat or milk), the often cited figure of 18% of anthropogenic GHG emissions originating from domestic animal husbandry, as claimed by the highly controversial FAO-Report "Livestock's Long Shadow" is clearly exaggerated. This document, that has done so much damage to the reputation of the livestock industry, was still proudly exposed at an international FAO symposium on the "Mitigation of GHG Emissions from Livestock", held last month in Asunción, Paraguay:

a) How can the FAO claim that 25% of the domestic-livestock-borne CO2-equivalents originate from internal fermentation (methane), considering what has been outlined in the paragraphs 2 and 3? Just like CO2-emissions from the biosphere, animal borne methane emissions are part of a natural steady state equilibrium. So the 25% should be corrected to 0% as long as livestock numbers are constant.

b) How can the FAO claim that one third of the domestic animal borne CO2-equivalents come from deforestation (land use change), considering FAO yearbook numbers telling us that net deforestation on a world wide scale is almost zero? Close to 30% of the terrestrial surface are covered by forests and woodlands with very little change over the past 6 decades. So, once again just one scale pan of the balance has been taken into account.

5) When looking a little bit beyond GHG emissions and balances, e.g. how good the alarming IPCC projections fit the empirically observed mean global temperatures, one starts to doubt whether the so called Green House Gases (particularly the very small proportion of total emissions originating from human activity) really do have any notable effect on the planet's climate. Since about the change of the millenniums global temperature (satellite measured lower troposphere mean temperature anomalies, University of Alabama, Huntsville) decreased, just inversely proportional to the smoothed atmospheric CO2 concentration. Not one single IPCC model projected this "inconvenient truth" (just for some). Surprise? No! Even the theory tells us that the infrared absorption is almost saturated at present CO2 levels. In order to reach such prominent temperature increases as projected by the IPCC, one has to make very risky assumptions of strongly reinforcing feedbacks of the very slight warming effect intrinsic to CO2, even when doubling or tripling its concentration in the air.

6) Recent studies discovered the stalagmites in this globe's caves as very reliable climate archives conserving a range of precious indicators of past climates and solar activity. Looking to what these archives reveal, we cannot find any unusual or scaring temperature development during the past decades. No need, whatsoever, for anthropogenic Greenhouse Gases to explain the slight temperature increase observed during the past century.

So definitely there is no need at all to be concerned about our livestock's emissions of so called Greenhouse Gases! We won't save the planet distorting ourselves in an effort to teach our cattle how to emit less methane. And we will not harm the planet when we go on with our cattle industry business as usual. Let's just rebut unqualified attacks (unfortunately also originating from such prominent organizations as the FAO) on our livelihood! The sound arguments are ours.

Australian police "fudge" crime statistics too

Catching up with Britain. Left-run Britain has the most unreliable official statistics since Stalin

SENIOR police say they are being forced to "fudge" reports, and test drivers for drink-driving at times and places they know few offenders will be caught, to manipulate crime statistics. Officers from at least three Local Service Areas have told AdelaideNow it is common for reports to be manipulated and for traffic blitzes to be held to improve statistics and meet specific targets. The officers, who do not wish to be named, say police often blitz areas for the drug and alcohol testing of drivers at times and in places where results are not expected to be significant, a practice commonly referred to as "dumb testing".

In a statement Assistant Commissioner Neil Smith, of the Performance Management and Reporting Service, said police complied with the National Crime Reporting Standard governing crime statistics. "SAPOL refutes any suggestion that our crime statistics misrepresent the incidence of crime," he said.

Crime statistics are analysed daily from police incident reports (PIRs) and one senior officer has described how reports are commonly manipulated to keep crime statistics lower and apprehension rates higher. "Say a car gets broken into and something gets stolen," the officer said. "Rather than two charges, illegal interference and theft, it just gets entered as a theft – one charge. "If we happen to stumble across someone who'd broken into a car, then they would get charged with both, so your statistics show your crime rate lower, but your apprehension rate being high." In offences with multiple victims, the victims are often grouped or become witnesses and the matter is entered as one incident report.

Assistant commissioner Smith said: "The rule is one victim per one PIR. "SAPOL has clear strategies to ensure data integrity and consistency across the state," he said.

One person told AdelaideNow one management directive was to redirect schoolyard assaults back to the school so they were not recorded as crimes. "That way the LSA can claim a downturn in assaults," the person wrote. Patrol police say traffic benchmarks are a "stats game", with directives from upper management to chase the numbers. "We get memos from the Assistant Commissioner asking why haven't you got your numbers . . . even traffic statistics are fudged to a degree," an officer said.

To collect numbers, police will "dumb test". "Once we get close to what we need for the month, then we'll do smart testing and specific targeting, where we know we will get results," the officer said.

SOURCE

Government passenger trains versus private airlines

Brisbane and Charleville are two locations within one Australian State

It is cheaper to fly Queensland's rail commuters to Paris than to cart them from Brisbane to Charleville on the state's Traveltrain network. The Courier-Mail can reveal that taxpayers are forking out $1135 to subsidise every passenger on the Traveltrain Westlander route, $250 more than the cost of a plane ticket to France. Currently, the State Government pays more than $2.5 million each week to subsidise the eight Traveltrain routes throughout Queensland, casting more doubt on their future.

The subsidy for each passenger on the 777km route has increased 18 per cent on the previous year, now double the cost of a flight to Los Angeles and the same price as a ticket to London. However, the most heavily subsidised Traveltrain service was the Inlander route, between Mount Isa and Townsville, where government assistance reached $1433 for each of the 7200 passengers last year.

The figures, released by Queensland Transport, show while the size of some subsidies, including the Sunlander and the Bundaberg Tilt Train, have fallen over the past two years thanks to increased patronage, both the Inlander and Westlander routes have blown out by another $150 a person. The skyrocketing subsidy comes two years after promises by the State Government to review the level of subsidy or scrap it altogether if patronage did not increase.

Transport Minister Rachel Nolan said that while the level of subsidy provided to Traveltrain was constantly being reviewed, the Government was committed to maintaining services. "In tough economic times of course the Government needs to closely examine these services including the amount of subsidy provided," she said. Ms Nolan acknowledged the "use it or lose it" ultimatum made by the Beattie government in 2006, but refused to comment on plans for the services. "The Government made it clear in the past that the community needs to come on board rail service in order for them to be financially sustainable," she said. "This is a matter that the Government has constantly had under review."

Overall, the State Government subsidy on the eight Traveltrain routes reached an estimated $132 million last financial year, up $7 million on the previous year despite 7000 additional passengers using the network.

Opposition spokeswoman Fiona Simpson said questions should be asked about the cost of train services across the state. "It is legitimate to ask questions about the cost inputs of Queensland Rail's services throughout the state and how to get better value," she said. "However, in assessing the value of community service obligations, which are a public subsidy, it must be remembered that all public transport is subsidised throughout Queensland."

Commuter advocacy group Rail Back on Track spokesman Robert Dow said that while the services were vital to rural communities, they needed to be more cost-effective. "The long distance rail network is an important communication link for rural communities," he said. "But in the case of the Westlander and the Inlander I think it is time to review whether to continue with the same type of services or whether it be more cost effective to put on other units, such as diesel-mechanical units [rail motors]." Mr Dow said diesel-mechanical units were a cheaper option to the current trains.

SOURCE

CROOKEDNESS IN AUSTRALIAN ACADEME

Two articles below

Academic fired after unethical manipulation of marks alleged at a major university

This is an old, old problem. Australian universities are merciless to honest academics who expose dumbed-down marking practices. It is designed to suppress whistleblowing by the many others who could do so. I must say I was often tempted to go public over marking practices in my time as an academic at Uni NSW but concluded that I had no hope of cleaning out the Augean stables

A University of Queensland history lecturer has been sacked after telling a class of honours students assessment of their work had been marred by "serious marking violations". Andrew Gentes, who has taught at UQ for the past five years, has also written to the Queensland Ombudsman alleging "unethical manipulation of students' marks" within UQ's School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics.

Dr Gentes told The Courier-Mail yesterday he had intended to finish up at UQ on August 31 but when news of his email to students broke on Wednesday, he was told to leave immediately.

He said the problem arose during the marking moderation process for one of the assignments in his Theory and Method subject. The dual marker, Associate Professor Marion Diamond, increased gradings on eight out of 14 essays Dr Gentes had marked by more than 8 per cent, triggering the need for a third assessment. Dr Gentes said school policy, which required the original and dual markers to confer when there were significant differences before the assignments were referred to a third party, had been ignored.

"The way it's worked out is if you originally got a mark of below 80 per cent by me and you ended up having your paper graded by a third marker, you had a 100 per cent chance of having your mark considerably increased," Dr Gentes said. One student originally given a 55 per cent mark had their grade increased to 67.5, while another was marked up from 71 per cent to 85.

Dr Gentes said in his view it was a "clear attempt to raise the marks of favoured students, at the expense of talented students" and a means of encouraging undeserving students to undertake post-graduate studies lucrative for the university.

Arts Faculty executive dean Richard Fotheringham confirmed Dr Gentes' dismissal. He also confirmed normal procedure was for the dual markers to meet to resolve big disparities and that if a third marker became involved the previous lowest mark was disregarded. "I understood there was an attempted moderation and Dr Gentes refused to meet with the other members of the school involved," Professor Fotheringham said. "We got in Bob Elson as the third marker, who's probably the most distinguished historian we've got . . . he marked all the essays independently, without knowing what the two marks were." [So someone who didn't teach the course knew better than the person who did teach the course what a reasonable mastery of the course material was??]

Dr Gentes said he had elected to "throw caution to the wind" and speak out as he was taking up a post at a university in Japan.

SOURCE

Dithering over research fraud

Universities hate to admit that wrongdoing has happened when one of their academics is accused of fraud or malpractice -- because it reflects on them. All such allegations should be investigated independently under the supervision of a judge

THE Rudd government is considering a specialist independent body to deal with the hardest cases of scientific fraud, according to Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Minister Kim Carr. "We are considering a research integrity advisory board," said Senator Carr, who said he hoped the details could be settled before the next academic year. "We need to establish the legal framework ... and the appropriate legal indemnity for the chair and panel members ... and the specific revisions to the (Australian Code forthe Responsible Conduct of Research) to take into account any new review mechanism. "This is a sensitive issue, but we've attracted broad support for the program. There is general agreement as to the need for further reform."

Although the code was revised as recently as 2007, Senator Carr argues the present ad-hoc system, whereby institutions handle their own complaints, has failed in a small number of intractable cases. David Vaux, a medical researcher who has lobbied Senator Carr and others for reform, said the code made it too easy for an institution to bury an inconvenient complaint. "There's no oversight to ensure theinvestigations are carried out properly," said Professor Vaux, a National Health and Medical Research Council Australia fellow at LaTrobe University. "Australia should catch up with the rest of the world. In most countries in Europe or the US there's an ombudsman who handles issues of research misconduct or there's an office of research integrity."

Glenn Withers, chief executive of Universities Australia, agreed there was a need to deal with "exceptions and anomalies" in complaint handling, and believed Senator Carr intended the new board to have a "very light touch". However, he said the new system could affect the research autonomy of universities. "This government says it is taking the foot of government off universities. To an extent, this is an exception to that principle," Dr Withers said. "We take our autonomy very seriously."

Talks involving UA, the academic union, the Australian Research Council and the NHMRC have backed reform. But it is not yet clear precisely what would trigger an intervention by the board. The ARC's chief executive Margaret Sheil said: "I think you have to let the institutional processes run their course unless there was a scenario where the institution just wasn't acting."

The term serious misconduct normally called to mind the serious outcome for a wrongdoer - dismissal - but it also could point to the serious consequences flowing from dishonest medical research, Professor Sheil said.

Susan Dodds, philosophy professor at the University of Tasmania and an authority on ethics, said there was a lot at stake. "The public credibility of our own work depends on the public believing that researchers do the right thing," she said. She said the twin benefits of a national board would be more consistency in complaint-handling and less risk of conflicts of interest.

Professor Vaux said the new system should extend beyond universities and projects funded by the ARC and the NHMRC to cover published research bankrolled by the private sector or charities. He said he believed Australia had a serious problem with research misconduct. "I've seen things in published journal articles (for example, suspect images of cell lines in life science reports) where I can conceive of no other explanation," he said. Professor Vaux said tasks for a new research integrity body could include data collection, thereby settling the dispute about the extent of research misconduct, as well as keeping internal complaint handling honest by taking appeals.

Robert Graham, president of the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes, said the proposed board seemed "a step in the right direction". The Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Sydney, which he directs, had just reviewed its own internal system. "We all worry about (research misconduct). A critical issue is when to refer (a case) outside. From my perspective as director, the sooner you get it outside the better." This was because an institution handling complaints against its own too readily appeared to be like "a fox in the chicken coop," Professor Graham said.

SOURCE

2009-07-03T20:21:00.000+11:30

BLACKS

Two reports below

Nothing works with blacks -- and now Rudd knows it

Australian government policies towards Aborigines have oscillated between extreme paternalism and extreme permissiveness but nothing brings black behaviour up to a standard that whites regard as acceptable. Policy is now reduced to "data collection"! Blacks were actually at their healthiest and least self-damaging when they were living on missions run by the churches but there is never any official admission of that, of course. Some of us are old enough to remember those times, however, so we know. More detail on the report below here

The Prime Minister has admitted Australia hasn't got a clue about what's happening in its indigenous communities. Following the release of the Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage report yesterday, Kevin Rudd says there's simply not enough statistical information to give governments a clear indication of what's happening.

More than two years since the Howard government announced its intervention into remote Northern Territory communities, the Productivity Commission report has found a worsening in child abuse among indigenous children. It's also found there's been no improvements in 80 per cent of the economic and social indicators, including literacy and numeracy.

So for the first time in Australian history, the states and territories have signed up to accountable targets.

The report was released at yesterday's COAG meeting in Darwin, during which Mr Rudd pledged more than $46 million over four years to improve data collection. The intervention in indigenous communities should be extended to Western Australia, the Opposition says. Closing the gap would take decades but extending the Northern Territory intervention - initiated by the previous Howard government - would help, said deputy Opposition leader Julie Bishop. "I would like to see the intervention moved into Western Australia," she told ABC Television. [If it hasn't worked in one place, why transfer it elsewhere???]

The Labor Government has continued the [paternalist] intervention, which includes grog and pornography bans, extra policing, health checks and quarantining welfare payments.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is in Kununurra in northern WA today, where he is expected to sign off on a $200 million local development package the Government says will help improve the lives of indigenous people.

SOURCE

Deaf black kids

The problems are normally treatable but the parents just don't take them to hospital -- so the hospital has to come to them

TEACHERS at a primary school a few hundred kilometres northwest of Brisbane wear microphones in the classroom because so many of the children have hearing problems. Up to 90 per cent of Cherbourg State School students have some form of treatable hearing loss because of chronic ear infections.

The issue is a challenge in indigenous communities across the country where overcrowded living conditions can foster the spread of disease, a situation Brisbane surgeon Chris Perry says is a "national disgrace". "It's a shame on the country that this is allowed to continue," he said. "If people don't hear, then they don't get an education. They leave school at 14 with the reading age of somebody in grade one or grade two and they're unemployable."

As The Courier-Mail reported on Monday, a surgical team visited Cherbourg last week, setting up a makeshift theatre to deal with some of the ear complaints.

Cherbourg State School's head of special needs, Vanessa Boal, said ear disease was a factor in truancy rates and misbehaviour. "Kids with significant hearing problems experience fatigue a lot quicker than other kids, struggling to get through the day, struggling to understand, struggling to communicate," she said. "Kids who aren't caught early enough in the long term have language developmental delays. If they don't succeed in the early years at school, we can't bring bring them back from the brink. "There's just not enough magic wands in the world to fix kids if we lose them at that early stage."

Queensland Health's Deadly Ears Program aims to cut the rate of ear disease among indigenous children, taking treatment normally performed in Brisbane or provincial centres to rural and remote communities. It was under this program that Dr Perry and his team went to Cherbourg. Nurse unit manager Anette Smith doubled as truck driver, transporting 340kg of surgical equipment from Brisbane to Cherbourg. She said the program relied on indigenous health workers screening local children for hearing problems and on parents taking responsibility for their children's health.

Although the program is still in its infancy, Ms Boal said the early signs were positive. "The fact that we now can do the minor surgeries here is just phenomenal," she said. "We've got better attendances from kids that we know have had ear issues. "Previously we would have lost those kids."

Ms Boel said tests on more than 100 children at Cherbourg had found 89 per cent had hearing issues.

Without the Deadly Ears Program, Dr Perry said many indigenous children would miss out on surgery, with the trip to Brisbane too onerous and expensive for carers. He wants the Federal Government to expand the program nationally. "Queensland Health deserves a pat on the back for this" he said. "They're doing something groundbreaking. But we need more money."

SOURCE

GREENIES

Three posts below

Greenie people-hate on display again

MILLIONS of dollars worth of luxury waterfront homes at Byron Bay will be demolished in the name of climate change following a council decision to enshrine "planned retreat" in law. The radical step to block homeowners protecting their property from rising sea levels was contained in a coastal planning policy released by the Greens-run Byron Bay Council yesterday. It would be the first time in NSW that the idea of planned retreat - where nature is allowed to take its course - will be imposed on existing dwellings under state law. And it means that, once gazetted by the State Government, any house under threat of erosion can be legally demolished.

NSW Environment Minister Carmel Tebbutt, under threat in her own seat of Marrickville from the NSW Greens, has refused to intervene. She said it was up to residents to lobby the council.

Some of the country's rich and famous face losing their homes to rising sea levels, including former actor, now recluse, John Cornell. The council has prevented them building rock walls to help protect their beachfront homes from storm surges. They will now proceed with legal action against the council, claiming they have been denied the basic right of being able to protect their homes. The local business chamber has written to Premier Nathan Rees calling for State Government intervention to stop what they described as "lunacy".

Local business group Byron United president Ed Ahern said the actions of the local council were "alarming". "The State Government needs to intervene in these matters and take over responsibility," he said. "We urgently request that the Government intervenes in this important matter." He said landowners had been prevented from protecting their properties and the issue was now the subject of a formal complaint to the NSW Ombudsman.

Byron Bay Mayor Jan Barham, of the Greens, has defended the move, previously claiming planned retreat had been a policy in Byron Bay since the 1980s. Ms Barham, who is reported to be considering a move to the NSW Upper House, did not return a request to be interviewed. However, she has said that wealthy residents who built their homes along the beach were always aware of the erosion issue.

Ms Tebbutt said the NSW Government would continue to encourage Byron Shire Council to take a practical and reasonable approach when dealing with the affected landowners. "Our draft policy allows landowners affected by coastal hazards, including sea level rise, to seek approval from their local council to protect their property," she said. [In other words: "Get lost"]

SOURCE

Greenie delusions

A solar power station that will generate power 24 hours a day? Really?? I must be missing something. The moon must be VERY bright in South Australia

WHYALLA's 301 days of annual sunshine will be driving the world's first solar power station, producing electricity 24 hours a day by this time next year.

The $15 million plant will again put South Australia's regional areas at the forefront of sustainable and emission-free energy production. It will also address the problem of finding an emission-free electricity source capable of providing a base-load, or 24-hour, power supply, which is a necessity for the world to combat climate change.

Construction of the solar-thermal power plant, Whyalla Solar Oasis, began last week. It will initially comprise four "Big Dishes" while the technology is demonstrated, generating power for up to 1000 homes. The long-term plan is for 600 dishes to be built, each 500sq m in area, in a 2km by 1km area at the city's northern entrance. The expanded plant is expected to generate about 130 gigawatts of power a year, enough for 19,000 average homes and preventing 129,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions being produced – equal to that generated by 36,000 cars each year.

Whyalla Council deputy mayor Eddie Hughes said it was "incredibly exciting" for work to start after 12 years of planning and 30 years of research by the Australian National University.

SOURCE

Business baulks at extra green tape

A PUSH to force state governments and local councils to refer development proposals with a large carbon footprint to the federal government for approval has alarmed business groups, who claim it could stall economic recovery. The proposal is contained in the interim report of a review of the federal Environment Protection Act, released this week. Green groups have proposed adding greenhouse gas emissions to the seven triggers that require any proposed development to be referred to the federal environment minister.

The panel reviewing the act, chaired by former ANU chancellor Alan Hawke, rejects the idea of a permanent trigger, but says such a mechanism could be introduced as an interim measure until the onset of a national emissions trading scheme, now not anticipated until 2011 at the earliest. "If there is to be a delay in effective establishment of the carbon pollution reduction scheme, then there is a much stronger case for introduction of a greenhouse gas trigger to drive down emissions in the interim period," the report says.

The potential for significant projects to be tied up in an extra layer of bureaucracy would appear to flow counter to yesterday's push at the Council of Australian Governments to develop national performance measures on development approvals designed to speed economic recovery.

Infrastructure Partnerships Australia's Brendan Lyon said the interim report was a cause for concern on several fronts because it could risk further unnecessary delay to critical infrastructure projects. "Climate change is an important consideration and infrastructure will play a major role in equipping Australia to cut reductions, while sustaining living standards and economic productivity," Mr Lyon said. "But the mechanism for carbon abatement should be through an emissions trading scheme backed by a price on carbon. "Australia's economy will adapt best through the phasing in of a robust price for greenhouse gas emissions, rather than through adding an additional layer of complexity and potential delays in approval processes."

The present seven triggers in the act, covering actions by government or private enterprise with "a significant impact on a matter of national environmental significance", have not significantly affected major developments. But the trigger for endangered species caused a stoush recently between the NSW and federal governments after federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett temporarily halted logging in a NSW state forest out of concern for declining numbers of superb parrots.

John Sheahan from the Australian Property Institute said the key point about a greenhouse trigger would be its design, given such a move would represent "the most significant intrusion ever" by the commonwealth into land use. "Some projects might end up spending many months in that office in Canberra waiting to be assessed," he said. Mr Sheahan said the innate conservatism of local councils would mean Mr Garrett's office could be flooded with referred applications it did not have the resources to deal with.

Aaron Gadiel from developers' lobby Urban Taskforce said an extension of the Environment Protection Act was "the last thing the Australian economy needs right now".

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New Vegemite put to the taste test

Now THIS is important news. Like most Australians, I am never without Vegemite in the house. I had to laugh at the comment in red, though. That is a LOT of Vegemite to eat

For more than 85 years Australia has been a nation of happy little Vegemites but now there's a new version of the iconic breakfast spread. Mixing the salty taste of traditional Vegemite with milk, butter and cream cheese, it is being marketed as a snacking spread or dip.

Great grandson of the inventor of Vegemite Cyril P Callister, Jamie Callister said during today's sample release at Toowong the new Vegemite should be judged on its merits and not compared to the breakfast table favourite. "I think with this one it's probably going to have a wider appeal - it's not as sharp a taste and it might appeal to more people," Mr Callister said. "Traditionally with Vegemite you either love it or you hate it... I think this might cover a bit more of the in-between ground."

Most shoppers who tried the new spread said they were keen on the new taste but there weren't many who said they would consider switching from the original. "I do like it, it's got a slight after taste but it is smoother and creamier than the original," Sandy Mckevitt from Springwood said. "I'm a Vegemite freak so I don't think I would (switch)."

Fellow shopper Gary Rendshaw said: "It's quite nice, it's like old Vegemite but with a quieter taste." "I think I'll switch to the new one but I'll still keep the old one... I buy the two kilogram buckets of it and they last me about two months."

But outside the centre Lisa Cunningham and her daughter Lilly from Bardon were thoroughly unimpressed with the new product, saying it would not feature in their household. "It's terrible. It is too sweet and I like the saltiness of the original Vegemite. It tastes like they've put some sort of sweetness in it to lessen the taste of the original Vegemite taste," Mrs Cunningham said. Lilly said she would not be recommending the new spread to her friends at school. "Normally I like my Vegemite not too thick on toast... I don't really like the new stuff," she said.

Kraft Foods Australia/New Zealand has said in a statement there are no plans to remove traditional Vegemite from the stands and it will continue to be manufactured in Australia. The new flavour of Vegemite will be available in supermarkets across Australia from July 6.

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OK. I've got no taste and know nothing about fashion but this is just a busy mess

It grieves me to see Australia so absurdly represented. I would have hoped for something a lot simpler. How about a flowing silk or satin gown in sky blue to reflect the wonderful blue skies we usually have?

PERTH fashion designer-to-the-stars Ruth Tarvydas has unveiled the dress that Australia's Miss Universe Rachael Finch will wear at the contest. There wasn't a corkscrew hat in sight as Rachael Finch unveiled the national costume she will wear when she takes on beauties from around the world at the international pageant in the Bahamas next month.

Instead there was glamour, sequins and the pre-requisite knicker-flashing that seems to come with wearing an evening gown by top WA designer Ruth Tarvydas, the woman behind Rebecca Twigley's headline-grabbing red carpet moment at the Brownlows in 2004, and Jessica Bratich's spotlight stealing arrival at the Allan Border Medal Count in February.

But the dress has attracted criticism, with average Aussies are worried it looks more like something from Las Vegas. The outfit, to be seen by a global TV audience of two billion, was derided in online forums for looking like it came from the Priscilla: Queen of the Desert musical, some calling it "hideous" and "tacky" and saying she looks like "a walking icy pole"....

Top Perth model Nicole McKendry provided window dressing, spending the night posing beautifully in the window in a peacock-blue Tarvydas gown. More glamour came in the form of the seven Miss Universe Australia WA finalists who put on a catwalk show of Tarvydas' new summer collection.

The range contained the designer's trademark sexy dresses, long and short, in colours from purple to black, cream and red. The show was slinky dresses, sequins, feathers and frizzy hair.

Finch, the star of the night, arrived in a luxury red sports car and handled the red carpet and press like a pro.

The unveiling of the national costume in Perth was probably the worst-kept secret in the city yesterday. It was also a change on previous plans, which had the dress being unveiled in Melbourne next month.

More HERE

Pommy twit

Why did they give the job to a Pom? I can't imagine that any Australian would have been unaware that it was Hayman Island. It is a very well-known resort in Australia -- long popular as a honeymoon destination

BARRIER Reef caretaker Ben Southall was made to look a right twit on Twitter after he misspelt the island he is promoting. On his second day at work on Hayman Island Englishman Ben Southall renamed the tropical island 'Hayward' in his Twitter post, reports the Courier Mail. In his Twitter message he referred to "leaving the chefs table and chocolate room on Hayward Island after a stunning gastronomic presentation".

The mistake was later corrected but not before being picked up by a few keen-eyed Twitter followers. Anthony Dever, on social networking site twocents, posted: "Looks like it was a wayward first day at the office for Best Job in the World winner Ben Southall. "Luckily for Ben and Tourism Queensland, an hour and a half later Hayman Island staff or maybe the advertising agency involved with the 'Best Job' campaign alerted him to his mistake and the original Hayward Island reference was replaced with Hayman Island…

"After an exhaustive search that involved 36,648 applicants wanting to report their adventures on the Great Barrier Reef to a global audience, you'd hope the key selection criteria included knowing the names of where he is enjoying our state's hospitality.

Mr Southall, 34, an events organiser from Hampshire, in southern England, took over a luxury Hamilton Island villa on July 1 for a six-month $150,000 job that will see him roam the Great Barrier Reef as an in-house online ambassador for Tourism.

SOURCE

2009-07-02T12:11:00.000+11:30

What is characteristic of Australians?

When you have visited a variety of countries other than your own, you will always note differences in characteristic customs and attitudes from your own country. So there is no doubt that there are modal differences in attitudes between countries. Australians are great travellers and also have people from many ethnic groups in their own country so an awareness of Australians as different is widespread. The article below is one attempt at defining the traits that are most characteristic of Australians and I personally think that they have got it pretty right. I have made a rubric of something that I think is particularly spot-on -- JR

THE question was asked and Australia has answered. What makes Australia great? What are the things that separate us from other nations? Allofaus.com.au, a social networking site has this month searched for the opinions of ordinary Australians and those visiting our shores. In the past few weeks themes of freedom, community and teamwork have emerged.

This week the final pieces of the puzzle have fallen into place on the site created by Qantas and supported by News Limited, publishers of The Courier-Mail. Social researcher Mark McRindle, who has been monitoring the site, said pride and fun completed the Australian character.

"Australians have a deep pride in our country and culture which is more often felt than spoken," Mr McRindle said. "Our understated Aussie spirit stands in contrast to the overt nationalism of other countries."

Contributors agreed. "Forrest" from Sydney said: "We don't seem inhibited by the fact we're at the end of the world. "In the hearts of most Australians the love of this land, her people and achievements just is."

Susan from Clifton Beach, NSW writes of our eternal optimism and she'll-be-right attitude in a world of negativity.

On fun, Mr McRindle said the typical Australian had a joke at heart. "From our colourful language to our unique humour, the Aussie spirit is one of fun," he said. "Only in Australia is a redhead called Bluey and a stranger called mate."

Phil from Glebe summed this up, saying "this is what I like about Australia. We can laugh at ourselves in the face of adversity.

Perhaps in a reaction to British formality or born of survival in this harsh land, Australians developed a no-worries attitude and a strong sense of fun.

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Our man in the USA: A fair dinkum sort of bloke

You might think a top Washington diplomat only picks the swankiest of destinations and transportation when on holiday. Not so with Dennis Richardson, Australia's ambassador to the United States for the past four years, and his wife, Betty. In fact, their favorite destinations include U.S. national parks and small-town diners, and when the couple travel, they do so by car and stay at hotels for as little as $37 per night (the Red Rock Motel, Mile City, Mont.). "We've been to all 50 states and have driven through 48 of them," Mr. Richardson says over the phone at the end of June, just two days before he and his wife are planning to add a 49th state to their traveled-by-car list: Alaska.

The car? A Chevy Impala rental, which will take them about 8,000 miles from Anchorage to the District via El Paso, Texas, he says and chuckles.

What's the primary appeal of Alaska and Texas? Natural beauty, Mr. Richardson says. "If you did nothing but spend time in the national parks, you'd do great," he says. "I think the National Park Service deserves a gold medal," he says, adding that one of his favorites is Yellowstone National Park.

In Alaska, he plans to go fishing, and in Texas he and his wife plan to visit Big Bend, the 800,000-acre national park in western Texas that borders Mexico and is one of the least visited national parks in the country.

Will the hot and dry Big Bend remind the emissary of the Australian "desert that touches the horizon" (as tourism site www.australia. com refers to it)? Yes, perhaps a bit, but Mr. Richardson's preference for the road trip over the plane trip has more to do with his wish to get an up-close and personal look and feel for the flora, fauna and people of the United States than any love of the big sky or other reminders of his homeland.

Furthermore, how would you possibly run across hole-in-the-wall, one-of-a-kind diners if all you do is fly to a resort destination and never have a look around?

More HERE

Australian politicians becoming more religious?

AUSTRALIAN politicians, unlike their US counterparts, have traditionally been reluctant to bring God into politics. But a new study shows federal MPs are invoking Christian beliefs with increasing frequency to justify their policies and articulate their personal values and visions for the nation.

The research shows that the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has been the politician most likely to cite his Christianity in public speeches, followed by the former treasurer Peter Costello and the current Treasurer, Wayne Swan.

A Melbourne University politics researcher, Anna Crabb, analysed a sample of 2422 speeches by 60 prominent federal politicians - the leaders and senior frontbenchers of the three main parties - between 2000 and 2006 and found the use of religious language had increased over the period. In 2000, 9 per cent of the speeches used religious terms. The proportion increased in each of the following years, reaching 24 per cent in 2005, before easing to 22 per cent in 2006.

Ms Crabb's "quantitative semantic" analysis, published in the latest edition of the Australian Journal Of Political Science, also found that politicians have used Christian references when discussing an increasingly diverse range of issues. Liberal and National MPs were initially more likely to use religious language than their Labor counterparts. From 2004, however, ALP politicians referred to Christianity almost as frequently as Coalition MPs.

Party leaders were more likely to highlight Christian ideas than other frontbenchers.

Ms Crabb said the findings demonstrated a break with the past in Australia where politicians had rarely put their faith on display and had been careful to maintain a separation between affairs of church and state. She said there were several reasons for the breakdown of this traditional separation. They include the demise of sectarianism, especially inside the ALP [i.e. the Labor party is no longer as Roman Catholic as it once was], which had contributed to a greater willingness to use Christian ideas in political debate. Conscience votes on stem cell research and abortion legislation had also prompted more MPs to discuss their attitudes towards Christian moral teachings.

But Ms Crabb sees the main explanation as lying with the September 11 terrorist attacks. The attacks had not only led to significantly more references to Christianity in speeches on foreign relations but had also prompted a wider erosion of the traditional view that political decision-making should be based on rational arguments rather than on religious faith or doctrine.

SOURCE

Homosexuals want it both ways

IF IT'S OK for a couple of hundred men to prance along Oxford St with feather dusters strapped to their backsides during the Mardi Gras, who could be offended by comic Sacha Baron Cohen dressing up like a homosexual fashion designer and camping it up?

Sydney's self-anointed guardians of the homosexual flame, that's who. Who are they? Hairdresser Troy Thompson (no jokes about stereotypical gay occupations, please) and homosexual activist and hospitality worker Gary Burns, that's who. What is their complaint? They claim that the Bruno character in Cohen's latest movie will reinforce the straight community's stereotypical view of homosexuals as a group of mincing, lisping, limp-wristed queers and increase prejudice which could cause sniggering and ridicule.

Hold on, doesn't the annual Mardi Gras do more than enough to reinforce that view already? Most Australians would know some homosexuals - male or female - who don't fit the stereotype perpetuated by the Mardi Gras and the more extreme members of the homosexual community generally. There are lesbians who don't have basin hair cuts, who don't roll their own cigarettes and who don't wear workman's overalls.

And there are homosexual men who don't work in hair salons, wave their hands about as they speak or dance to Kylie Minogue's music, but the homosexual organisations don't seem to see them.

The Mardi Gras crowd likes to attract attention. For years, Mardi Gras organisers have claimed that their parade draws such a huge audience that, realistically, if everyone they boasted shows up actually did show up they could not fit on Oxford St even if they were jammed cheek-to-cheek, as it were. The organisers like to proclaim they are proudly out there, sometimes they are offensively out there. There is no other display of high-camp behaviour in the homosexual world that matches the Mardi Gras, even if it is getting a little tedious with its tired old attacks on Christianity (but not Islam) and its stereotypical marching boys and dancing queens.

The Mardi Gras mob get grants from the NSW Government and the Sydney City Council to fund this display of stereotypes. Shouldn't Thompson and Burns be objecting to the expenditure of public money on an event that only reinforces the high-camp image of the gay community?

Burns is a serial litigant. He sued John Laws for using the expression "pillow-biter" during a program and The Footy Show for lampooning Elton John. The origin of the term "pillow-biter" is interesting. It came to public notoriety when British MP Jeremy Thorpe, a former leader of the UK Liberal Party (not to be in any way confused with the Australian Liberals) was accused of having a homosexual affair with a model, Norman Scott. During an extraordinary trial, Scott claimed that Thorpe had subjected him to various sex acts during which he had no recourse but to "bite a pillow". Thorpe was acquitted but the English language embraced a new expression.

I don't know whether or not Baron Cohen's new film Bruno promotes a stereotypical view of homosexuals. I haven't seen it. But I do know that it would have to work hard to beat the Mardi Gras' record for promoting the stereotypical perspective.

What Thompson and Burns are trying to do is reshape the homosexual stereotype to fit their ideal. This is a big task that they are clearly unsuited for. "We have people coming over to our country stereotyping us in this imagery," Burns said of Bruno. "The majority of gay men are not like him. People will continue to hold prejudice against gay men as that's the stereotype imagery that causes ridicule and sniggering."

Homosexuals come in most shapes and sizes. They are not universally limp-wristed, nor do they all lisp, but nor are they uniformly creative or musical or good dancers. They are just people. Some of them, clearly, like to prance up Oxford St. Many of them don't.

If Thompson and Burns don't like the idea of Bruno, they should be even angrier about the Mardi Gras but I can't find any evidence that either of them have ever complained about the Mardi Gras' depiction of their friends.

Baron Cohen has done it again. He has outraged a minority, has exposed a deep vein of hypocrisy and probably attracted more viewers than he thought would ever pay to see Bruno.

SOURCE

2009-07-01T15:58:00.003+11:30

"League tables" and NSW school-reporting policy

Below is an article from Jennifer Buckingham of the Centre for Independent Studies. Her line is very much that of the teachers' unions. She supports the covering up of some kinds of information about schools: Very disappointing from a free-market think-tank. At the foot of the article I reproduce a letter from a teacher who is also surprised by her views

The Federal Government confirmed last year that it would be making good on its election promise to introduce transparency measures for all schools, including publicly reporting school-level performance in national tests, year 12 results, and a range of other information.

The main concern the critics of this policy have is the potential for media outlets to mine this information to create and publish "league tables" - lists of schools ranked from "best" to "worst" by a single performance indicator. This has been the experience in other countries, and fears that it may happen here were realised when a Tasmanian newspaper recently published school rankings of the newspaper's own creation.

It is important to make one thing clear: school-performance reporting and league tables are not the same thing. School-performance reporting, done properly, is a way to empower parents and make them informed participants in their child's education.

Under the new federal reporting protocols, people will be able to look up any school and see how it has performed in national tests and get information about teacher and student characteristics, among other things. They can see how that school's performance compares with the state average and "like schools". By looking up several schools they will be able to compare the schools in their area, but this comparison will not be provided to them as a list or ranking. It is up to people to compare individual schools and draw their own conclusions.

League tables, on the other hand, are lists or rankings of schools based on a single indicator, without reference to context or location. They are a potential by-product of providing parents and the public with information. They are often misleading, are not useful and can be harmful to the schools at the bottom of the rankings. Some schools may deserve to be there, but others will not.

Opponents of school-performance reporting have used the spectre of league tables to argue against it, but this did not stop the state and territory education ministers agreeing on the policy. To comply with this federal agreement, NSW had to amend legislation put in place in 1997 that prohibited the publication of information that allowed schools to be compared on academic performance. Last week a bill was passed in the NSW parliament to do just that. The amendment will allow a new national federal agency, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, to publish the academic outcomes of individual schools.

The Greens argued fervently against the amendment, but obviously had already seen the writing on the wall. Knowing that the amendment would pass, the Greens introduced a clause to the amendment in the last half hour of the debate, which they had previously drafted with the help of the Coalition. The clause attempts to prevent the publication of league tables in "a newspaper or other document that is publicly available in this state". The clause also prohibits the identification of schools "in a percentile of less than 90 per cent in relation to school results, except with the permission of the principal of the school".

The Labor MP Penny Sharpe put up little defence, saying the clause was "well-intentioned but utterly futile". Sharpe argued that it was questionable whether print media would comply, and there was no jurisdiction over the internet. She also raised the possibility that it might also have negative consequences for school systems and associations publishing their own comparisons or school profiles.

There was little debate about the clause and it passed with a majority of five votes. This anti-league table clause seems, on the surface, to have discarded the bath water while retaining the baby. It would be nice to think legislation could solve misuse of information, but it is doubtful. In this case the compromise position may be unacceptable. If the clause is ineffective, school league tables will be published anyway.

This will mean a missed opportunity to draft legislation that might have been more effective in protecting schools from spurious claims about their performance by over-zealous media outlets.

Alternatively, the clause may be too effective, preventing any comparative information being produced even for a small audience, undermining the positive effect of the school-reporting policy. If misleading league tables can be avoided they should be, but not at the expense of parents' right to know. Time will tell if, in its haste to pass the amendment, the NSW parliament has betrayed this principle.

SOURCE

A polite letter to Ms Buckingham from a reader

I read your article in the SMH Online website and I had to look twice to be sure it said you were from the CIS that I subscribe to.

Your point appears to be that while you don't oppose the release of information for parents, you do object to it's publication in newspapers on the basis the information might be presented in a simplistic way. Indeed you quote an example from Tasmania. In my experience of league tables - i.e. Times Education Supplement - such league tables attempt to apply all factors in a weighted manner. I haven't seen an example of a one factor league table although I don't deny that it can happen.

You appeared to be arguing for laws which attempt to legislate against the misuse of information. That would appear to be dangerous ground for a fellow at the CIS whose philosophy I would have thought was that freedom of information is more important than protecting the public from its misuse. Where information is misused it is easily refuted and the source so discredited, I might have thought.

When it comes to education, in my limited experience, parents often do not make rational decisions anyway, but the provision of information on the multilevel performance of schools I would have thought to be a useful anitdote the present atmosphere of enforced egalitarianism that forced me, in 1959, to attend a run-down, indequately set-up junior technical high school with its cadre of motivated and unmotived, professional and incompentant, but generally poorer teachers than the intermediate technical school or even higher level high school that my efforts might have deserved before before Harold Wyndham had his way.

Fortunately, many of my classmates, who will be marking the 50th anniversary of our entrance to Jannali Boys' High School this year, went on to make a mark on our society, despite the handicap.

Encouraging schools to lift their game by publishing outcomes, I believe, can only serve to ensure that there should be no gap between state and private schools, and that they, and their teachers thus deserve the increased funding coming their way in Rudd's Education Revolution. As a profession I believe teachers, of whom I am now one, should have an obligation to use one month of their generous annual leave for upgrading their professional skills in the same way other professional are. But that's another story!

Again thank you for your thoughts on this matter. But I do hope they don't represent the position of the CIS!

Destructive union boneheads are back in force

Australian cartoonist ZEG has an apt comment on this too

AUSTRALIANS may have voted out John Howard because they feared for their jobs under Work Choices, but they didn’t vote for Kevin Rudd out of a hankering for old-fashioned trade union wage campaigns.

Could there be anything more bone-headed than the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union vowing to set the pace for a national wage round of more than 4 per cent just as business is trying to avoid a wave of job layoffs that would push the unemployment rate above 8 per cent? Yes, this is the same metal workers union that destroyed hundreds of thousands of jobs in the early 1980s, the last recession that followed a mining boom.

And 25 years of neoliberal reform has exposed the Australian economy, including the unions, to much more competitive discipline since then. But the Fair Work regime championed by the Minister for Workplace Relations, Julia Gillard, returns the old industrial relations institutions - unions, industrial tribunals and the award system - to centre stage.

They won’t be able to cause as much havoc as they did decades ago, but they will still cause damage because that’s what they know. The question you should be reading about now should not be how the metal workers union can make wage beachheads in its strongest shops, then call in the soon-to-be-established Fair Work Australia tribunal and a “modernised” award system to help spread this to the rest of the workforce.

The question should be how business and its workforces can find the best ways to share out their smaller order books to avoid retrenchments while searching for productivity gains that could help find new markets.

Remember that Gillard has claimed, heroically, that her reregulation of the job market will boost productivity through increased collective bargaining. More likely it will cost jobs by letting Australia’s industrial relations club back on the streets.

Malcolm Turnbull and business need to harp on this contradiction in Labor’s new Fair Work regime, and insist that it be pro-jobs and pro-productivity in practice.

SOURCE

More on boy's peanut death

It seems that the army has unfairly taken the rap for this. It was entirely a school responsibility. Apparently the boy's parents did the right thing but the school failed to pass on the info to the relevant staff. I would still call it "death by misadventure", though, and it may still motivate the army and others to ban peanut products across the board. South-East Asian cuisine (Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian) could be badly hit as they use peanuts in almost everything

The role of an elite private school in the death of a 13-year-old student on an army cadet camp should be examined by an inquest, a Federal Court judge has recommended.

Nathan Francis, a student at Melbourne's Scotch College, died on March 30, 2007, after suffering a severe allergic reaction to peanut butter, which was in a beef satay army meal supplied on the Australian Defence Force camp. The camp, in the Wombat State Forest in central Victoria, was run by staff and teachers at the school.

The school had told parents not to provide food as they were using ADF meals, but asked to be alerted to any food allergies. Nathan's mother, Jessica Francis, wrote that her son had a severe allergy, stating: "PEANUTS -- but all nuts must be avoided."

However, a list of students with food allergies did not reach the staff member who issued the meals and Nathan was given beef satay. After a mouthful, the boy was helped by a fellow student to the camp's headquarters and he died on the way to hospital.

"There has so far been no opportunity for the role of Scotch College in the death of Nathan to be examined in public," judge Tony North said. "The circumstances presented to this court raise a question whether Scotch College, through its teachers and staff, bear some responsibility."

His recommendation came as he passed judgment on civil action against the ADF and the chief of the army over the boy's death. Comcare, on behalf of Nathan, who was considered an employee of the ADF, had sued the commonwealth for breaching its duty of care. The commonwealth admitted liability and the ADF was fined $210,000.

SOURCE

Two Tamil Tigers caught in Sydney

Police have charged a 25-year-old man with attempted murder in relation to a violent attack on two Sri Lankan students in which they were splashed with acid and stabbed. A group of men allegedly forced their way into the students' Westmead home around midnight on May 17. Jayasri Watawala, 22, was seriously burned after the men allegedly threw acid at him. Chathurika Weerasinghe, 27, who was also burned with acid, was also stabbed in the stomach and broke his ankle. Two men were arrested after the attack.

The 25-year-old accused of attempted murder, from Girraween, was also charged with failure as an owner to disclose the identity of the driver or passenger of a vehicle. A Hebersham man, 26, was charged with concealing a serious offence.

Today's charge came after the 25-year-old presented himself to Merrylands police station - at the request of police - this morning. He was also charged with break and enter with intent to commit murder and maliciously casting or throwing corrosive fluid with intent to maim. Police will allege the man charged today is "one of the principal offenders'' in the home invasion, Detective Inspector Albert Joseph, from Strike Force Dorward, said. "There are a number of other offenders we are still looking for,'' he said.

He would not speculate on the alleged motive for the attack but said clashes between groups of Tamils and Singhalese in the lead up to the home invasion were looked at by investigators. "We are investigating a riot and affray that occurred some time before [the home invasion] and certainly there was some reporting at that particular time of [attacks] being racially motivated,'' he said.

Police have told both the victims of the home invasion about today's attempted murder charge, he said. "The rehab has been a slow and lengthy process for them ... it has been difficult but their health is improving,'' he said. A relative of Weerasinghe welcomed the news and said both students were still recovering.

The man left Merrylands police station about 12.30pm in an unmarked police car with his face covered by a white jacket. Detective Inspector Joseph said tensions in the community had subsided and he did not expect any further incidents.

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Kevin Rudd doesn't understand Bastiat's "broken windows" fallacy

Not all work is equally worthwhile and bureaucratically-run work is routinely wasteful

It turns out that Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is going around town breaking windows by, well, demanding they be built. There are over 35,000 construction and maintenance projects planned across Australia over the next 12 months. This includes AU$49 (US$39.4) billion dedicated to "nation building infrastructure," or crudely AU$2,200 in taxes for every man, woman, and child residing in Australia.

Are such decisions financially wise during economic recessions? Let's put Keynesianism aside and instead rely on common sense. While on an individual level you might think saving would be a good idea, apparently governments just want to build stuff. "We can always figure out later what to do with it or even just employ people to knock it down and build it again" is the unspoken idea. When "full employment" is the goal almost any type of labor will do. PM Rudd's Labor party is thus aptly named; as they state, "jobs are in our DNA."

Bastiat's timeless lesson of the fallacy of the broken window, later popularized and widely applied by Henry Hazlitt, is a perfect analogy of economic ignorance and the power of the seen vis-à-vis the unseen. And PM Rudd is illustrating this analogy, going to great strides to point out the "seen" — pictures of hard hats and fluorescent yellow vests have abounded in parliamentary proceedings. Labor Minister for Employment Participation Mark Arbib also confirms that construction projects are visible: "People are going to see the construction sites all over the countryside. They are going to know people who are working on stimulus projects or who are supplying the projects."

How can the broken-window fallacy be so widespread? Henry Hazlitt explained: "[T]he broken-window fallacy, under a hundred disguises, is the most persistent in the history of economics. It is more rampant now than at any time in the past. It is solemnly reaffirmed every day by great captains of industry, by chambers of commerce, by labor union leaders, by editorial writers and newspaper columnists and radio commentators, by learned statisticians using the most refined techniques, by professors of economics in our best universities." (Economics in One Lesson, p. 13)

Hazlitt points out many fallacies in the belief that government-mandated construction projects can create jobs. One problem is the confusion between need and demand. Because a politician may deem a project necessary for whatever reason, this in no way, despite political rhetoric, creates demand ex nihilo — government fiat rarely works. In fact, if a project is truly necessary, there will be an opportunity for entrepreneurs to meet that demand. Many entrepreneurial opportunities are thus demolished by government rewarding some industries — in this case construction — at the expense of others.

Another fallacy comes from seeing government statistics. It is easy to see the "hard data" — that there are 35,000 construction projects, X number of workers, etc., and much more difficult to understand that those resources — land, labor, and capital — are being artificially shifted from more productive uses to more destructive ones. The capital being spent on government projects is taken from individual taxpayers; jobs are at best diverted, at worst taken from others.

Regarding such projects, we may ask the fundamentally important question, "Cui bono?"

In this case we find, not surprisingly, that it's the construction industry that benefits, and in numerous ways. For example, the Australian government introduced an AU$2 billion "First Home Owners Boost" that was, in PM Rudd's own words, "to support the housing and construction industry." In addition, there are over 20,000 new "social and defense homes," and installing ceiling insulation is "free" for around 2.9 million homes. Finally, construction companies are also building at every school in the country, the "largest school modernization in Australia's history." Libraries, school halls, classrooms, community centers, parks, etc. will be involved in one way or another with construction. Unfortunately, just as in Bastiat's analogy, everyone else loses; government devises at best a zero-sum game.

Government decisions, which perhaps seem to make sense on a macro level, are disastrous on a micro level, due to the nature of knowledge. Hayek explained this knowledge problem best: "The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess. The economic problem of society is thus … a problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society, for ends whose relative importance only these individuals know. Or, to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality."

Hayek narrowed this down to one fundamental question: not if there will be planning but of who will do the planning — the central planner or the individual.

An excellent illustration of the inevitable unintended consequences that come from central government meddling is a local primary school in the area. In a recent "news bulletin" to parents they write the following: "We have now been advised that the Australian Government will be funding a new building for our school…. The old [building] … will be demolished as part of this project…. Because this is part of the government's Stimulus Package, construction must be completed by October 2010."

This is roughly the equivalent of digging holes and filling them. In fact, digging holes may be better since, in that case, only labor is wasted, for the most part, and not other natural resources. (Where are the environmentalist outcries over this destruction of resources in make-work construction projects?) Regardless, this is merely the broken-window fallacy in new clothes. The real gem, however, comes from later in the bulletin: "Council committees have met this week to consider a wide range of matters about our school. Major matters for discussion included possible uses of our new building."

In other words, the school will have a building demolished, a new one constructed, and still has little idea as to what the new building will be used for. Contrast this situation with that of the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur takes calculated risks, and typically "builds" using the carpenter's rule: measure twice, cut once. If it does not make financial sense to build, the entrepreneur will not do so. In addition, the entrepreneur would later know — through the profit-and-loss mechanism — whether such a decision was prudent or foolish.

PM Kevin Rudd and Minister Arbib believe government's construction efforts are working because they are seen. He has likened the government's massive spending program to "a war effort involving all levels of government." I think he about sums it up with that statement. War breaks windows, and sometimes, as Bastiat and Hazlitt taught, so does building them.

SOURCE

2009-06-30T14:36:00.000+11:30

Army fined for cadet's peanut allergy death

This is pretty ridiculous. Its undoubted outcome will be to remove peanuts from all military rations and all foods sold to children. But peanuts and peanut butter are favourite foods for kids. Why should one kid with a problem be allowed to deprive all kids of something? I would have called the death a "death by misadventure". The kid surely knew he had an allergy and should have been more careful. And the parents should have made enquiries about what rations he would be served

THE Australian Defence Force has been fined more than $210,000 over the death of a teenage cadet who had an allergic reaction to peanuts in a ration pack meal. Scotch College student Nathan Francis, 13, died after suffering a severe allergic reaction to peanuts in his meal on March 30, 2007. The Melbourne boy was taking part in a Scotch College army cadet unit exercise in the Wombat State Forest in western Victoria.

Comcare, the Commonwealth occupational health and safety authority, took action in the Federal Court against the Australian Defence Force, lodging a writ last June. Justice Tony North said the case was "every parent's worst nightmare".

SOURCE

Muslim values at work -- in Australia

A man used a butcher's knife to stab his stepdaughter up to 20 times because he believed she was a "slut" who was interfering in his marriage, a court has heard. Khaled Ibrahim Mohamed Ellaimouny, 38, was today jailed for 12 years for the attempted murder of his stepdaughter Amanda Lee Smith, who was 24 when her stepfather stabbed her in the chest, arms, legs and face as she sat on the lounge of the family's Shailer Park home in January 2007.

In the Supreme Court in Brisbane, Crown prosecutor Philip McCarthy said Ellaimouny, an Egyptian national who married Ms Smith's mother after meeting her online, moved in to the Smith family home in January 2006. Mr McCarthy said Ellaimouny, who worked as a chef at a restaurant in the Logan area, got along well with his stepdaughter until late 2006 when he discovered semi-nude photos of her and her boyfriend on a family computer and began referring to her during arguments with Ms Smith's mother as "the slut daughter."

Following marital troubles in late 2006, Ellaimouny moved out of the home. He met with his wife at a local tavern on January 14 and told her to choose between him and her daughter, whom he claimed was interfering in their marriage. He later turned up at the family home where during an argument he spat in Ms Smith's face and slapped her before she and her mother locked him out of the house. However Ellaimouny got in through a side door, grabbed a butcher's knife with a 21cm-long blade from the kitchen and screamed "Now I'm going to kill the bitch" before stabbing and slashing Ms Smith's chest and arms, Mr McCarthy said. "You've ruined my f---ing life; I want you to die," Ellaimouny reportedly said.

Friends of Ms Smith arrived at the house as Ellaimouny was leaving, covered in a blood and carrying the bloodied knife. He allegedly told them: "I stabbed the slut. I wanted to kill her, but unfortunately she's still breathing."

Ms Smith was taken to hospital where she was treated for 20 wounds, including a severed radial artery of her right arm, severed nerves and a 4cm gash into her lung cavity.

Mr McCarthy said Ellaimouny told his wife after the incident: "I stabbed her because she's a f---ing slut, she deserved that. All I wanted to do ... just get rid of her." On the first day of his trial today, Ellaimouny pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted murder and a charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice, which related to him sending a letter from jail encouraging his wife to convince Ms Smith not to proceed with charges against him.

Justice John Byrne said the attack upon Ms Smith was "frenzied and sustained" and would have been "a terrifying experience for her." "She is fortunate to have survived," he said. He sentenced Ellaimouny to 12 years behind bars and declared him a serious violent offender, which means he must serve 80 per cent of his sentence before he is eligible for parole. He will be deported to Egypt upon his release.

SOURCE

Up to 10,000 Asian refugees expected to head to Australia

"Asia" apparently includes the Middle East these days. More of those lovely Muslims to hate us while sponging off us

A MASSIVE influx of up to 10,000 asylum seekers is expected to head to Australia, Indonesian authorities have warned.

About 1500 asylum seekers have already arrived in Indonesia from Malaysia by boat this year and registered for refugee status, while the same number again are believed to have arrived and not registered, Fairfax newspapers report.

Malaysia is used as a staging point to obtain tourist visas before refugees seek passage to Australia via Indonesia. The refugees are believed to include people from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Burma and Iraq.

An Australian immigration enforcement official says the high volumes of people present a similar situation to the thousands who began arriving in the late 1990s.

With Australian financial and technical support, the Indonesian government will announce on Wednesday a strike team of 12 dedicated police to combat human trafficking. But the sheer number of asylum seekers from Malaysia will put pressure on the new security measures.

Coordinator of the Malaysian immigration support group Tenaganita, Aegile Fernandez agreed that up to 10,000 asylum seekers in Malaysia were planning to come to Australia. "I would put the blame on these agencies that have been promising Australia as the destination,'' she said.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees has 49,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers in its records in Malaysia and estimates there are 45,000 unregistered illegal immigrants.

SOURCE

Queensland teachers can fail literacy, numeracy test

Talk about the blind leading the blind! It's bad enough that some kids go right through primary school without learning to read and write but having teachers that bad is really the end of the road. It shows how desperate the government is to find people willing to stand up in front of an undisciplined mob day after day

Graduate teachers will be allowed to repeatedly fail a new test of their literacy and numeracy skills and still be let loose in Queensland classrooms. The State Government will not cap the number of times the test can be taken and will register graduates as teachers as long as they eventually pass. The landmark new test, recommended by education expert Geoff Masters, is being introduced to improve the low standards of Queensland students.

Premier Anna Bligh said it was fair to allow graduates to sit the test repeatedly because they may be sick [Sheet! No matter how sick I am I can still spell!] or have other excuses for their poor showing. "I don't anticipate there would be any limit on the number of times someone can sit, as long as they can ultimately meet the standard," Ms Bligh said. "I think we understand that there are sometimes reasons why people don't do well in tests. They might know the information but might not be well that day. "You would still want to give them the opportunity to demonstrate that, but it wouldn't be the same test."

The Government is yet to figure out what would constitute a pass mark for the tests [It will undoubtedly be low], which will judge proficiency in literacy, numeracy and science. However, a trial will be conducted next year before the official introduction of testing for primary school teaching graduates at the end of 2011 at the earliest. Tests for high-school teaching graduates will be introduced at a later date.

Current teachers will avoid the tests but those transferring from interstate will have to sit the exam before they can practise in Queensland. The Queensland College of Teachers will be responsible for developing and administering the tests.

In his report, Professor Masters found there had been an "absolute decline" in literacy and numeracy between 2004 and 2007. Meanwhile, teachers are ramping up their campaign for higher pay, with a vote today likely to call for further industrial action. The Government has offered teachers a 12.5 per cent pay increase over three years. However, the union has insisted the amount was unacceptable. [The government should fire the lot of them and bring in local retired people to teach. They would know a lot more than the current crop of teachers]

SOURCE

2009-06-30T00:06:00.000+11:30

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG is unimpressed by the Bruno/Rudd appearances on the Rove TV show. He thinks Rudd is not "fair dinkum"

2009-06-29T15:56:00.001+11:30

Qld scientists claim swine flu vaccine breakthrough

Scientists at the University of Queensland have developed a vaccine for swine flu. The breakthrough against the influenza A(H1N1) virus will be announced at the university's Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology tomorrow.

Five Australians with swine flu have died while more than 3000 have been diagnosed. "It's one of the first swine flu vaccines made but, unfortunately, it can't be used in Australia yet," a university spokesman said. "It's not registered for use in Australia yet."

Meanwhile, scientists from CSL say its Melbourne laboratory has created an effective sample of a vaccine against the influenza, but human trials are needed to determine the right dosage and may not be available until next winter. Fairfax Media says the federal government has ruled out releasing the vaccine early to vulnerable groups such as the elderly or those with chronic illnesses.

Rachel David from CSL said results of the trial - involving 240 healthy adults from South Australia - would determine when the 10 million doses ordered by the government would be distributed. Dr David said the earliest the vaccine would be ready for use is mid- to late-August, but if the virus continued to produce mild symptoms the government might delay distribution until next year. The Therapeutic Goods Administration, the government and public health experts, not CSL, would control when the vaccine is available.

All five people who have died in Australia with swine flu - two Western Australians and three Victorians - had underlying health conditions.

SOURCE

Oh dear! Such a funny man. Wise of Rudd to be apprehensive

KEVIN Rudd may have been spared from sharing the Rove Live spotlight with Austrian fashionista Bruno last night, but he nonetheless claimed to be nervous just knowing the flamboyant icon was in the building. "Basically, I'm in a state of induced panic," the Prime Minister told Rove McManus during his appearance on the comedian's show last night, The Australian reports. Pointing to the audience, he added: "Each one of you would be, too."

Asked what had happened to the political adviser who booked him on the Ten Network prime-time show on the same night as Bruno, the alter-ego of British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, Mr Rudd was candid. "Well, they're in therapy," the Prime Minister joked.

Mr Rudd said he had only found out who else would be on the show after he had already agreed to appear. "I said, 'Are we on together? Like, you know, in the studio at the same time?"' he said.

Mr Rudd, who first appeared on the Ten talk show in the lead-up to the 2007 election, certainly had reason to be concerned - Bruno was not only a hard act to follow, but had also expressed a personal interest in meeting the Prime Minister. "That guy - I saw him backstage - so hot," Bruno told McManus. "You guys have got the hottest Prime Minister."

Bruno then proceeded to fantasise - aloud - about "Ruddy". "It's our 15th anniversary together," he wondered aloud. "Me and Ruddy have adopted two children together. He's massaging my feet in the bath. It could never happen. Could it?"

While waiting in the green room, Mr Rudd would have learnt much about the style thoughts of Bruno, whose eponymous film opens in Australia on July 9. Hitler's personal style, for example, was well-dressed, but "apparently, behind closed doors, he was like a real tyrant - worse than Elton".

He then went into great depths discussing McManus's nether regions. "I haven't seen that much hair since the 80s," Bruno said.

SOURCE. More antics here.

No jail time for killing a woman??

This is preposterous. It is plea-bargaining gone mad. But even after the plea bargain, a jail term could have been imposed

A SECOND man charged over the cruise ship death of Dianne Brimble has pleaded guilty in a Sydney court to involvement in the incident. Letterio "Leo" Silvestri, from South Australia, pleaded guilty in the Downing Centre District Court today to concealing a serious indictable offence.

Ms Brimble, a 42-year-old Brisbane mother of three, died 100 nautical miles out to sea on board the P&O liner Pacific Sky in September 2002. She had ingested a toxic mix of alcohol and the date-rape drug known as fantasy. Her body was found in a cabin belonging to Silvestri, Ryan Kuchel and one other man, who were also charged after a 16-month inquest into Ms Brimble's death.

Last week, Kuchel also pleaded guilty to hindering a police investigation. Kuchel was sentenced to an 18-month good behaviour bond. Kuchel and Silvestri had both been due to face trial in the NSW District Court today charged with perverting the course of justice. Lawyers for Silvestri said the trial could have lasted up to four weeks.

Judge Greg Hoskins has adjourned the matter until 2pm (AEST) while he sees if a pre-sentence report investigating sentencing options can be obtained for Silvestri.

SOURCE

Food fanatic father

I suppose this is one endpoint of the "obesity" war. He sounds like a bit of a nut but you can't entirely blame him for believing all the tripe about "obesity" that is constantly poured out in the media these days

A COURT has banned a Victorian father from weighing his son. The Family Court orders also prevent the dad discussing the nine-year-old's weight with, or within earshot of, the boy, the Herald Sun reports. The man could face sanctions including fines or jail if he breaches the order and a series of others set by the judge.

Justice Nahum Mushin imposed the restrictions at the end of a bitter 16-day custody hearing where the child's health was a major flashpoint. The court heard the dad is fixated on the fact his disabled son's weight exceeds 40kg, and he blames his ex-wife for the blowout. The father - who can't be identified for legal reasons - accused the mother of allowing the boy to watch too much television, eat fatty foods and exercise little.

He was concerned the child's weight was having an impact on the effectiveness of various medications. The boy suffers from a range of medical problems. The mother accused the man of denigrating the boy about his weight, and of using his size as a reason to criticise her.

Doctors and teachers trying to care for the boy were alienated by the man's aggressive behaviour, the court heard. The man's conduct to the child's main doctor was "harassing, aggressive and confrontational", the court found in a judgment published last month. The dad - who wanted his son to change schools - also wrote "derogatory, dictatorial and sarcastic notes" in a diary to a teacher, the court heard.

The judge ruled the children should live with the mother and granted her sole responsibility for decisions about the boy's health and education.

Justice Mushin described the case as "extremely protracted and bitter". "There is enormous antipathy between the parties. Throughout this trial I searched for, and could not find, any point of convergence between them with regard to their parenting," he ruled.

SOURCE

2009-06-28T15:16:00.001+11:30

Indian community outraged over lenient jail terms for thugs

The thugs should have been convicted of attempted murder and spent years in jail for it. Sadly the token sentences they actually received are all too typical. No wonder violent crime continues to flourish. This will be a big blow to Australia's standing in India and may just about kill off our overseas student industry. Indian students coming to Australia to complete their education has so far been a considerable source of revenue for Australia

Notice that, contrary to usual practice, no names of the offenders are given. I can't imagine why. I'm guessing that there was at least one "Mohammed" among them and the the surnames would have been mainly Sudanese

The Indian community has reacted with outrage after a magistrate ruled that the young thugs who beat an Indian man almost to death will walk free after serving only six months. On Wednesday, Magistrate Kay Macpherson said five teenagers acted "like a pack of animals" when they bashed Indian student Sukhraj Singh in December and left him in a coma for three weeks. But she sentenced four of them to only 12 months' youth detention - meaning they will be eligible for parole within weeks after serving more than six months on remand. Another youth involved in the attack escaped custody, instead being sentenced to a 12-month youth attendance.

One of the youths - who at 14 already had an earlier conviction for armed robbery - had been involved in 12 violent incidents since he had been on remand, Ms Macpherson noted in sentencing him.

Mr Singh was initially speechless when told of the sentences. "I don't understand this at all," he said.

But a source revealed that all four of the youths had been involved in violence while on remand at the Melbourne Youth Justice Centre. The source said the youths had been kept apart at the centre. "We would have had no hope of controlling them if they had been together," he said.

Mr Singh was bashed by the gang in December in a grocery store in Sunshine. The five youths, then aged between 14 and 17, were originally charged with attempted murder over the attack, which fractured Mr Singh's skull on three sides. But the attempted murder charges were dropped when the five agreed to plead guilty to the lesser charge of intentionally causing serious injury. The five also pleaded guilty to armed robbery over the attack. Another man and a youth have pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and will be tried later.

Indian community leaders reacted with outrage to the leniency shown by the court. "What sort of a sentence is this?" said Vasan Srinivasan, president of the Federation of Indian Associations, Victoria.

SOURCE

Amazing: Government of Victoria imports the trash of the world's social workers

There is a unending stream of stories coming out of Britain detailing the sheer evil of British social workers -- and we want that garbage in Australia? Their attitudes stem from the Marxist hate they learn in their social work schools: The middle classes are the enemy and the "worker" can do no wrong. Too bad if the occasional child get brutalized and killed. Victoria shouldn't be touching such animals with a bargepole. I regularly post horror stories about British social workers on POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH. Thank goodness the recruitment drive was largely unsuccessful

THE Brumby Government has spent more than $500,000 of taxpayer money in five months to recruit health workers from the United Kingdom and Ireland and fly them to Victoria. The Department of Human Services alone spent $457,051 to lure 50 child protection workers from England, Ireland and Scotland in a recruitment campaign launched last October. But by last March only 19 European child protection staff had started work in Victoria, with a recruitment cost of more than $24,000 per person on top of an average annual salary of $49,800. And at least three have since returned home, citing "personal" or "medical" reasons.

The DHS spent $224,000 on advertising, $134,000 to relocate workers to Australia and more than $1300 on a welcome party, documents obtained by the Sunday Herald Sun through Freedom of Information reveal. Community Services Minister Lisa Neville flew business class to the UK for a "welcome event" celebrating the success of the scheme - racking up a $52,000 bill in the process. Ms Neville defended the spending, saying the Government had taken action to recruit desperately needed staff and expand services. "We make no excuses for trying to find the best people to help stand up for vulnerable Victorians," she said.

Opposition community services spokeswoman Mary Wooldridge said the move was a "stop-gap solution" to a major problem. "Here we are at a time when the Government is trying to promote our workforce and they're bringing in these workers from overseas," she said. "They're spending all this money to bring in offshore workers when they have known about the problems for years and failed to act."

A Government spokeswoman, Peta James, said that as of last week there were 31 child protection workers recruited from overseas in Victoria - seven in regional areas and 24 in Melbourne. She said four more were likely to arrive by the end of July. The workers, recruited from London, Dublin, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester and Belfast, have been offered two-year contracts in the hope they will stay in Victoria and then train Australian graduates.

The Government paid their immigration and citizenship fees, airfares and short-term accommodation costs to convince them to move to Victoria. Information and interview sessions held in the UK to recruit them cost $91,189. Two DHS staff sent to oversee the process lodged expense claims for almost $15,000.

SOURCE

Rudd reform 'won't reduce child abuse'

VULNERABLE children in the care of dysfunctional or abusive families will be no better off under the Rudd government's revamped child protection program because the reforms make it harder to remove minors from their parents. The planned expansion of child abuse prevention programs could inadvertently lead to more children dying while in the custody of unfit family carers, according to a report by Centre for Independent Studies research fellow Jeremy Sammut.

"Fatally Flawed: the Child Protection Crisis in Australia", argues that seven-year-old Ebony, who was starved to death in 2007 by her parents, could have been saved if not for the failed child protection ideologies that kept her with her dysfunctional parents. "They (the government's proposed reforms) are actually a plan to leave more children with dysfunctional parents for longer, at great risk of long-term harm, on the highly questionable basis that family support services will keep them safe," [What a laugh!] Dr Sammut writes.

Under the umbrella of the recently released National Child Protection Framework the Rudd government has endorsed a multi-million-dollar expansion of programs to help struggling families. But Dr Sammut says there is no evidence this approach works. "A radical family preservation-focused approach to child protection has become orthodox practice inside child protection agencies," he writes. "According to this approach, the best way to protect vulnerable children is to defend parental rights, keep families intact, and try to prevent abuse and neglect by providing support services which attempt to address the parents' complex problems. [What if the problem is simply that a particular parent is a nasty bastard? But Leftists seem to think that all criminals are simply "misunderstood". Too bad about the people they hurt] "This has led child protection agencies, which in most states are sub-departments of much larger departments of community services, to become increasingly confused about their core responsibility to intervene in the best interests of children."

Dr Sammut said child protection academics routinely argue that mandatory reporting, introduced in the 1990s and making it compulsory for professionals and the public to report any suspicions of child abuse, has been responsible for overwhelming agencies and should be wound back. In NSW, only 13 per cent of complaints are followed up with a home visit. But far from being a failure, Dr Sammut argues it has been a spectacular success.

"Mandatory reporting has mass-screened disadvantaged families, capturing an increased level of dysfunction in Australia's expanding underclass of welfare-dependent families which have serious problems including domestic violence, parental drug abuse and mental illness," he says. "The most at-risk children have been identified and re-identified, mostly by mandatory reporters."

In NSW, a quarter of all the hundreds of thousands of child abuse reports are triggered by only 2100 families. Half of the reports are accounted for by only 7500 families. "A relatively small hard core of dysfunctional parents retain custody of their children, and are re-reported 10 and 20 times, because child protection agencies fail to take the appropriate statutory action in thousands of high-risk and potentially catastrophic cases. This was the case for Ebony," Dr Sammut says.

Despite a widespread belief that a lack of funding is crippling agencies such as DOCS, Dr Sammut says money "is not the problem". According to his report, government spending on child welfare is at record levels, having quadrupled in a decade. At the same time, child abuse continues to soar, with substantiations of abuse having doubled since 2000.

Dr Sammut argues the only way forward is for state governments to establish child protection agencies separate from departments of community services. "To do this job properly you need a whole range of skills, good assessment abilities, deep knowledge of child development, as well as the skills of a policeman. Instead, we unleash first-year graduates on the community."

SOURCE

Later retirement age in Australia creates anger

FORCING older workers to wait until they are 67 to qualify for the age pension has little public support, a new poll has revealed. Under the plan announced by Treasurer Wayne Swan in last month's Federal Budget, the pension qualifying age will be gradually stepped up from 65 in 2017, to reach 67 by 2023. The move, which has the political backing of the Opposition, follows concern about Australia's capacity to pay age pensions into the future, given its ageing population.

But a Galaxy poll, conducted exclusively for The Courier-Mail, has found less than a third of Queensland voters – only 28 per cent – agree with the decision. Of the 800 voters surveyed, 69 per cent opposed the increased pension age, while 3 per cent were uncommitted.

Seizing on the poll result, the Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association yesterday demanded the Government abandon the move. Policy co-ordinator Charmaine Crowe said it would force more elderly Australians into poverty. "It's going to disproportionately disadvantage those on low incomes," she said. "Cleaners, people in the hospitality industry, construction workers, landscapers, truck drivers . . . These people may not have the physical capacity to continue working full time."

Ms Crowe said unless they qualified for a disability pension, those older Australians would be forced to rely on the "grossly inadequate" Newstart allowance - a maximum of just $226.30 for a single person. She said those who lost a job or couldn't find an employer willing to take on a 65 or 66-year-old would also be forced on to Newstart.

Echoing that concern, 61-year-old Brisbane factory hand Alphonsa James said the politicians who decided to lift the pension age were pen-pushers, who did not understand the toll it would take on ageing workers in physically demanding jobs. "I don't think I would be able to make it until 67," he said. "It's putting more strain on your body and you're going to kick the bucket very, very quick." Mr James, whose parents both died in their 60s, said he was hoping to reach his retirement age in reasonable health so he would have a few years to enjoy his grandchildren.

But defending the higher pension age, Mr Swan has highlighted the longer life expectancy of today's retirees – with an average Australian man likely to live for more than 19 years after retirement by 2017, up from 11 years of retirement a century ago.

An Australian Bureau of Statistics report last year also found older workers were slightly healthier compared with their non-working counterparts. The report found mature age workers – aged 45 to 74 – had lower rates of heart disease, diabetes, obesity and arthritis.

The Committee for Economic Development of Australia is also supporting the move, predicting a saving of about $800 million a year in pension payments alone. CEDA chief executive David Byers said two more years in the workforce could deliver a huge boost to retirees' personal retirement savings, increasing their quality of life in the later years.

SOURCE

2009-06-27T13:53:00.001+11:30

Most "asylum seekers" since Tampa heading towards Australia

Wishy-washy Rudd has revived the flow that Howard stopped

THE biggest boatload of asylum seekers since the Tampa crisis is heading towards Australia. The vessel, believed to be carrying up to 190 people, is being tracked by border protection authorities. It recently passed between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra and is believed to be southeast of Bali. Authorities are waiting to see if it heads east towards Darwin or southwest towards Ashmore Reef.

The boat is one of several being monitored by Border Protection Command, which tracks suspect vessels as soon as they leave port. If the numbers aboard are as high as authorities believe, the vessel could mark a turning point in the tactics of people smugglers.

Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor's office declined to comment, saying it did not discuss operational matters. Most boats in recent times have carried about 20 unauthorised arrivals. But there are bigger profits to be made by smugglers who are willing to load more people aboard old fishing boats and ferries.

The Norwegian freighter MV Tampa rescued 433 asylum seekers from a leaky boat in 2001, prompting the Howard government's so-called "Pacific Solution". The policy was dismantled by the Rudd Government, which axed mandatory detention and closed processing centres on Nauru and Manus Island. It has also stopped billing immigration detainees for the cost of their stay.

The number of unauthorised boats heading to Australia has been steadily climbing, with 15 arriving already this year. The latest came this week, carrying 49 asylum seekers and four crew. The asylum seeker surge will test refugee processing facilities on Christmas Island, which are reportedly close to capacity.

Opposition immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone said the Government was failing to deter boat arrivals. "It's on for young and old again," she said. "The people smugglers clearly have a well established pipeline to Australia and they are using the Rudd Government's soft policies to recruit more clients."

SOURCE

Unions getting aggressive again

They know that Rudd hasn't got the ticker to really take them on

UNIONS have flagged plans to beat Julia Gillard's ban on pattern bargaining by lodging multi-employer pay claims and taking co-ordinated industrial action after the new workplace regime starts operating next week.

Employers warned the union strategy was de facto pattern bargaining, increasing their "trepidation" about the new laws, which they said represented "big increases in union power".

At the recent ACTU Congress, union leaders were briefed by a senior official about how they could get around the ban on pattern bargaining.

ACTU senior industrial officer Cath Bowtell said unions were "disappointed we were unable to see the pattern bargaining provisions in the act, (but) we shouldn't overstate what they do".

"There is nothing that prevents unions lodging common claims and even taking co-ordinated industrial action, provided you are genuinely bargaining with each employer," she said.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry said employers should be concerned by Ms Bowtell's comments. "That sounds a bit like pattern bargaining by another name," the chamber's workplace policy director, David Gregory, said.

Business expected unions to start pushing for single agreements to cover a range of different employers, he said.

"There is this ability for a single agreement covering a whole range of employers to be established. You would have to think that probably some unions are looking strategically at those sorts of outcomes in terms of the way they co-ordinate claims."

The recent union criticism of the Fair Work Act was a "smokescreen" to camouflage gains by unions, he said.

"These are, by any measure, significant changes in terms of what they introduce, right through from no more statutory individual agreements to all of the things around bargaining and agreement making.

"With the right of entry provisions, unions now won't necessarily need to be bound by an award or an agreement at a workplace to seek to exercise those rights."

Australian Industry Group chief executive Heather Ridout said some employers were better prepared than others for the new laws, but "there is a general sense of trepidation about what the changes will mean in practice".

"While some of the hard-won amendments wound back some of the sharper ends of it, there is no doubt employers are going to face a very different industrial landscape with big increases in union power," she said.

The legislation had been "a massive drafting exercise and the law has not yet been tested and settled", Ms Ridout said.

"As problems arise, AI Group will be raising them with the government and seeking amendments to the legislation and regulations where necessary. Parliament needs to remain open to necessary changes."

ACTU secretary Jeff Lawrence said he could not judge how fundamental the new laws would be in swinging the pendulum back to unions. "This is a restoring of the balance, and Labor industrial relations legislation has always been about regulating the conduct of employers and setting out certain rights that workers have," he said.

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COULD AUSTRALIA BLOW APART THE GREAT GLOBAL WARMING SCARE?

As in America, the Senate is the crucial battleground

As the US Congress considers the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, the Australian Senate is on the verge of rejecting its own version of cap-and-trade. The story of this legislation's collapse offers advance notice for what might happen to similar legislation in the US-and to the whole global warming hysteria.

Since the Australian government first introduced its Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) legislation-the Australian version of cap-and-trade energy rationing-there has been a sharp shift in public opinion and political momentum against the global warming crusade. This is a story that offers hope to defenders of industrial civilization - and a warning to American environmentalists that the climate change they should be afraid of just might be a shift in the intellectual climate.

An April 29 article in The Australian described the general trend-and its leading cause.

There is rising recognition that introduction of a carbon tax under the guise of "cap and trade" will be personally costly, economically disruptive to society and tend to shift classes of jobs offshore. Moreover, despite rising carbon dioxide concentrations, global warming seems to have taken a holiday....

With public perceptions changing so dramatically and quickly it is little wonder Ian Plimer's latest book, Heaven and Earth, Global Warming: The Missing Science, has been received with such enthusiasm and is into its third print run in as many weeks. [It's now up to the fifth printing.]

The public is receptive to an exposé of the many mythologies and false claims associated with anthropogenic global warming and are welcoming an authoritative description of planet Earth and its ever-changing climate in readable language.

One of the most remarkable changes occurred on April 13, when leading global warming hysteric Paul Sheehan - who writes for the main Sydney newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, which has done as much to hype the threat of global warming as any Australian newspaper - reviewed Plimer's book and admitted he was taken aback. He describes Plimer, correctly, as "one of Australia's foremost Earth scientists," and praised the book as "brilliantly argued" and "the product of 40 years' research and breadth of scholarship."

What does Plimer's book say? Here is Sheehan's summary:

Much of what we have read about climate change, [Plimer] argues, is rubbish, especially the computer modeling on which much current scientific opinion is based, which he describes as "primitive."...

The Earth's climate is driven by the receipt and redistribution of solar energy. Despite this crucial relationship, the sun tends to be brushed aside as the most important driver of climate. Calculations on supercomputers are primitive compared with the complex dynamism of the Earth's climate and ignore the crucial relationship between climate and solar energy.

To reduce modern climate change to one variable, CO2, or a small proportion of one variable-human-induced CO2-is not science. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly.

In response, this is Sheehan's conclusion: "Heaven and Earth is an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence." This cannot be interpreted as anything but a capitulation. It cedes to the global warming rejectionists the high ground of being "evidence-based," and it accepts the characterization of the global warming promoters as dogmatic conformists.

The political impact has been manifested in a series of climb-downs as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's government has been forced to delay its plans for cap-and-trade controls. On May 4, the government announced it would postpone the onset of the scheme until mid-2011, a year later than originally planned.

On June 4, this delayed emission trading scheme passed the House of Representatives despite a vote against it by the opposition. But it now faces almost certain defeat in the Australian Senate. Whereas the Labor government controls 32 votes in the Senate, the opposition Liberal-National coalition controls 37 and is committed to vote against it if the Rudd government will not grant more time to consider the outcome of the Copenhagen climate conference in December and US Senate deliberations. This itself is a compromise position, because many of the coalition parliamentarians now want to vote unconditionally against an ETS in any form.

There are 7 other votes in the Senate: five Greens who say the scheme doesn't go far enough but who could be induced to go along; one independent, Nick Xenophon, who has pledged to vote against the bill unless the government waits till after Copenhagen; and one other, Senator Steve Fielding of the Family First Party, who has decided to investigate the whole thing first hand. Fielding could turn out to be the single deciding vote.

His story is particularly interesting. Andrew Bolt, who has been leading the charge against the global warming hysteria for years, notes that Fielding's investigation "could blow apart the great global warming scare."

Fielding went to the US to assess the American evidence for global warming at close quarters. As Melbourne's Age reported on June 4:

Senator Fielding said he was impressed by some of the data presented at the [US Heartland Institute's] climate change skeptics' conference: namely that, although carbon emissions had increased in the last 10 years, global temperature had not.

He said scientists at the conference had advanced other explanations, such as the relationship between solar activity and solar energy hitting the Earth to explain climate change.

Fielding has issued a challenge to the Obama White House to rebut the data. It will be a novel experience for them, as Fielding is an engineer and has an Australian's disregard for self-important government officials. Here is how The Age described his challenge:

Senator Fielding emailed graphs that claim the globe had not warmed for a decade to Joseph Aldy, US President Barack Obama's special assistant on energy and the environment, after a meeting on Thursday…. Senator Fielding said he found that Dr. Aldy and other Obama administration officials were not interested in discussing the legitimacy of climate science.

Telling an Australian you're not interested in the legitimacy of your position is a red rag to a bull. So here is what Fielding concluded:

Until recently I, like most Australians, simply accepted without question the notion that global warming was a result of increased carbon emissions. However, after speaking to a cross-section of noted scientists, including Ian Plimer, a professor at the University of Adelaide and author of Heaven and Earth, I quickly began to understand that the science on this issue was by no means conclusive….

As a federal senator, I would be derelict in my duty to the Australian people if I did not even consider whether or not the scientific assumptions underpinning this debate were in fact correct.

What Fielding's questioning represents is just the tip of the kangaroo's tail. He speaks for a growing number of Australians who will no longer take green propaganda on trust.

And that's what makes Plimer so influential—not just his credibility as a scientist, but the righteous certainty with which he dismisses man-made global warming as an unscientific dogma. He writes: "The Emissions Trading Scheme legislation poises Australia to make the biggest economic decision in its history"—Australia generates 80% of its electricity from coal, which would essentially be outlawed—"yet there has been no scientific due diligence. There has never been a climate change debate in Australia. Only dogma."

Plimer is not a "skeptic," a term which would imply that he merely has a few doubts about the global warming claims. Instead, he rejects the whole myth outright, and this seems to have emboldened and liberated a great many Australians who were already chafing under global warming conformity. As Plimer puts it:

[T]here are a large number of punters [Australian for "customers" or "gamblers"—in this case, skeptical customers who may or may not buy what the government's selling] who object to being treated dismissively as stupid, who do not like being told what to think, who value independence, who resile from personal attacks and have life experiences very different from the urban environmental atheists attempting to impose a new fundamentalist religion. Green politics have taken the place of failed socialism and Western Christianity and impose fear, guilt, penance, and indulgences onto a society with little scientific literacy.

Australia is not that different from America. If a shift in public opinion against the global warming dogma can happen on one side of the earth, it can happen on the other—especially when the US edition of Plimer's book, scheduled for July 1, hits the stands.

His role, Plimer says, is to show "that the emperor has no clothes." After three decades of relentless global warming propaganda, it's about time.

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Using taxpayers' money to save obese people from themselves is futile nanny statism

By Dr Jeremy Sammut

The Rudd government’s National Preventive Health Taskforce will next week call for obese people to be given tax breaks or cash subsidies to offset the cost of gym memberships and fitness equipment.

Public health lobbyists have hailed this step as a new dawn in the fight against obesity. But really, it highlights the mixed success of the last 40 years of public health promotion campaigns – on which Australian governments currently spend about $2 billion per year.

Despite what the misleading Body Mass Index statistics allegedly tell us about the nation’s expanding waistline, the healthy lifestyle message has seeped into the culture. First it was jogging and cutting red meat and dairy out your diet. Now it’s cutting out sugars altogether and going to the gym three times a week.

Many Australians order salad instead of chips. Snack on low-fat yoghurt instead of ice-creams. And pass when the cheese platter comes around. They even pay for gym memberships out of their own pockets so they can work out before or after work or during their lunch hours.

And for their trouble, the government is about to force them to subsidise the unhealthier habits of people who haven’t the will and self-discipline to follow their good example. And to pay for what? Ab-crunchers that will sit dusty and dormant in the garages of the slothful and indolent?

The high priests of the nanny state are at it again. As usual, bad behaviour is being rewarded and good behaviour is punished. And the importance of individual responsibility is being ignored entirely.

The above is a recent press release from the Centre for Independent Studies

2009-06-26T19:05:00.001+11:30

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG comments on Kevin Rudd's grief about Jacko dying

2009-06-26T16:43:00.002+11:30

Economic forecasts show Australia leads the world

Thanks to the strong economy bequeathed by John Howard. There was never any problem with the banks in Australia. They have returned good profits every year without interruption. Rudd's "rescue" of them was just a stunt

AUSTRALIA'S economy is a tower of strength after two respected international reports confirmed it continued to lead the developed world. As national politics was again dominated by the Utegate saga, the International Monetary Fund added its weight to mounting evidence that Australia was powering ahead of its rivals during the worst downturn since the Great Depression. It yesterday upgraded its outlook for our economy, tipping it to retreat by only 0.5 per cent this year before growing by 1.5 per cent next year. It earlier forecast a contraction of 1.4 per cent.

"We currently, among the major advanced economies, have the fastest growth. We have also the second-lowest unemployment," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told Parliament. "We have the lowest debt. We also have the lowest deficit."

Mr Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan welcomed the signs of a recovery despite again having to fend off Opposition attacks over allegations Mr Rudd's office asked a senior Treasury official to help John Grant, a mate of Mr Rudd's, gain access to car industry finance. The ploy backfired on the Coalition when the email at the centre of the scandal was found to be a fake. But Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull is continuing to pursue Mr Swan over claims he gave special treatment to Mr Grant, a car dealer and neighbour of Mr Rudd who loaned the Prime Minister a $5000 Mazda Bravo ute. Mr Swan denies the allegations.

Parliament now goes into a six-week winter break and most MPs are today in their electorates to be greeted with concerns on the economy.

Yesterday's positive IMF forecast followed an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report that commended the Government's stimulus measures. "In particular the IMF has strongly commended the Government's three-stage stimulus strategy, starting with direct payments, moving to shovel-ready infrastructure, followed by major nation-building projects to support jobs and strengthen the economy for the future," Mr Swan said.

The OECD also gave a tick of approval to the Australian economy and the Rudd Government's measures to stimulate activity, including its infrastructure packages. It forecasts the domestic economy will contract by 0.4 per cent this year, the mildest contraction of any of the 30 OECD countries, before growing by 1.2 per cent next year.

Importantly, the OECD believes unemployment will be not be as severe as the forecast in the Budget. Treasury has predicted unemployment will peak at 8.5 per cent mid-2010, but the OECD believes the highwater mark will be 7.9 per cent. Treasury Secretary Ken Henry was not ready yesterday to concede economic forecasts in last month's federal Budget had been too pessimistic. "Of course, the March quarter was stronger than we had expected," Dr Henry said. "It means we are now thinking that gross domestic product growth in the present year, 2008-09, will be somewhat stronger, but it will still be weak relative to trend. It may be that there is some upside to our forecasts, but really it is too early to tell."

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Labor governments claim to be the battler's friend. So how come they are giving millions to car dealers, of all people?

OzCar passed by Parliament. The whole think definitely smells. Would you buy a used car from this government?

THE Federal Government's controversial OzCar scheme has been passed by Parliament. Labor will now be able to set up the $850m taxpayer-funded finance scheme, designed to assist Australian car dealers struggling in the wake of the global financial crisis.

OzCar has been in the spotlight since it was revealed the public servant responsible for it, Godwin Grech, may have given false evidence at a Senate inquiry last week.

Following Mr Grech's testimony, the Australian Federal Police uncovered a fake email at his home which purported to show Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's office seeking OzCar support for a Queensland car dealer who had supplied Mr Rudd with a ute.

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Shame of violent schools revealed

Report from South Australia (Population 1,600,000)

An average of 22 violent attacks, sexual incidents or drug abuse cases are reported each week in our schools, the Education Department has revealed. For the first time, it has released complete details of "critical incidents" serious enough to be reported in writing by schools to head office, ranging from knife attacks to sexual assaults.

In response to a Freedom of Information probe by Family First MLC Robert Brokenshire, the department released details of all incidents in the 2008 school year and 2009 so far, including 406 violent attacks, 97 sexual incidents, 180 threats, 20 abductions or stalking, 35 drug possessions and 24 cases of self-harm. Among the more serious cases at the state's primary and secondary schools were:

CHILD pornography spread on students' mobile phones.

A STUDENT shot in the eye, requiring surgery.

A RECEPTION student stabbing another student with a pencil.

THREE adults found having sex and using drugs in school toilets.

A GIRL held against her will, blindfolded and photographed.

THE stabbing of a student, which was filmed.

A STUDENT breaking into a teacher's house and sexually assaulting her.

A GIRL'S hair being set alight.

A TEACHER at school under the influence of drugs.

Australian Education Union state president Correna Haythorpe said teachers and students were increasingly being put in dangerous situations. "There is absolutely no doubt that these incidents are on the increase," she said. "What we need is a systematic approach which includes more student counsellors and more resources for our schools. "Otherwise it places teachers, staff and students at risk."

SA Secondary Principals Association president Jim Davies said the real concern was "strangers" coming into school grounds. "Those sorts of incidents certainly cause a lot of concern because whilst there will inevitably always be situations where students have a go at another group of students in your school, you have more control," he said. "When there is a third party involved that is not part of your school community, it is very difficult to have those proactive influences over those people coming in."

Child protection expert Freda Briggs said while the statistics were shocking, they were only the tip of the iceberg. "We know that not everyone reports this kind of behaviour, so we won't really know the true extent of what is happening," she said. "The real problem is much deeper. "The dangerous thing is that if this is continually happening in schools and if victims are fearful, they can't relax at school, so you will get reluctance to attend and learn." Including less-dangerous events which posed a threat to student safety but no injury, there were 1271 "critical incidents" reported to the department over the 15-month period, or around four every school day.

Students were by far the worst offenders, with 641 incidents blamed on their behaviour, 215 blamed on parents, 52 on other adults, 25 on former students and 20 on staff members. Knives were the weapon of choice in most armed assaults (38), followed by scissors (8), sticks (5), pens and pencils (6), rocks (5), desks and chairs (2), and garden spades (2). Many of the weapons were improvised from common school items such as a ruler, shot-put, fire extinguisher and wheelie bin.

Mr Brokenshire said it was disturbing that many of the crimes were filmed and the images distributed for pleasure. "This data shows why we need a police-in-schools program to build rapport with students and encourage law-abiding behaviour," he said. Mr Brokenshire said authorities should study school districts which had restricted the incidence of violence and implement these strategies in other areas.

Education Department chief executive Chris Robinson said the reporting of critical incidents was an effective way to ensure that schools got the support they needed. "While many of these reported incidents can be quite minor, we strongly encourage schools to report all incidents so they receive adequate support," he said. "Incident reports filled out by schools stem from reasons such as abusive parents, schoolyard incidents, accidents, after-hours break-ins and intruders. "Many of our schools have close working relationships with their local police and don't hesitate to call when help is required."

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Self-serving know-alls fuelled fatal Victorian bushfires

The bureaucratic ineptitude being revealed at the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission is at once extraordinary and infuriating. The lessons have implications for every aspect of government in Australia and demand a radical rethink about the dominance of politicised bureaucracies within our lives. The emerging picture eerily imitates Franz Kafka's The Trial.

Government fire services furtively developed their doctrinaire rules, then enforced them with mindless zeal. Fire and emergency supremos were provided with limitless authority to bend citizens and communities to their rigid controls without effective scrutiny or supervision. What emerges is a layer of self-styled bureaucratic intelligentsia devising policies that became sacrosanct in themselves regardless of their original purpose. Ideological processes left no room for common sense, pragmatism or compassion, and opportunities to help vulnerable people were wasted. Policies bore testimony to the assumption that the population was so imbecilic as to need greater protection from itself than from raging wildfire.

Sound familiar? This mindset is magnified by its ubiquity in modern Australian government and alarm bells should be ringing. Failures equally significant but less conspicuous are probably simmering away beneath the whole gamut of populist government decision-making. The danger is fanned by the speed and dimension of decisions that are made under of a veil of urgency associated with recession, security and other confected emergencies.

Day after day, emergency service tsars present themselves to the royal commission as though they are the stars atop the tree of knowledge. The Country Fire Authority seems genuinely bamboozled that a handful of head office executives did not prove to be wiser than its thousands of volunteers who have intimate knowledge of local roads, properties and personalities. Directions, strategies and resources were issued and controlled by executives far removed from the horrific reality that their edicts and regulations created. Volunteers and citizens were left to fend for themselves after bureaucratic strategies descended into chaos.

Rigid and enforced controls were relaxed only when they were mocked into submission by a recalcitrant inferno. The winding trail of blunders growing from stubbornly centralised remote control defies the imagination. Emergency call centres were overwhelmed while extensive volunteer networks lay idle. NSW firefighters were called up with media fanfare and weren't provided with so much as a map. One homeowner was relieved to see a NSW bushfire tanker arrive at his front gate, only to learn it was lost.

ABC radio had been anointed the official emergency broadcaster with little regard for the millions who listen to commercial radio. Descriptions of the official information feed provided to the broadcaster conjure visions of a garbage chute funnelling ad hoc faxes, phone calls, emails and web bulletins. Producers and announcers consumed valuable time piecing together the scraps of intelligence.

To his credit the CFA chief officer continues to roll up to the royal commission to take his medicine. It will be interesting to see if his past and present ministers will also be required to testify and give an account of their stewardship. Neither justice nor recovery will be served if the bureaucrats are hung out to dry by themselves.

The vast body of evidence suggests a great deal of loss and destruction could have been avoided if local knowledge, experience and commitment had been respected and used. Instead, the politicians and their bureaucrats shared a motivation to exert close and uncompromised control. An aggressive resistance to contestable advice allowed policy-makers to deny the existence of culpable knowledge. The mandarins eventually succumbed to their own intoxicating publicity and stared down the risk of their knowledge deficit. Dysfunctionality bred like a virus in a hotbed of intellectual conceit.

The implications are sobering for every aspect of government policy. School principals especially must be crying tears of blood as they witness the obscene waste of money occurring under the ridiculously rigid policies of the so-called Building the Education Revolution.

Of course the critical role of bureaucracy must be respected and communities are happy to oblige. However, such respect does not establish government entities as the sole repository of wisdom. People don't expect governments to be omniscient but they are entitled to hold them to a lie as much as a truth. Including communities in practical policy formulation must go far deeper than the cosmetic consultation most Australian governments practise.

It must also go deeper than community cabinet meetings and a prime ministerial revival of an imagined Australian lexicon. It also goes beyond the federal government's notion of "umpire politics" where decisions are designed to mute the lobbyists rather than genuinely serve the nation.

Real change requires courage and creativity that is shared and accepted with a parity of worth. The view that these qualities are vested exclusively in parliamentary and bureaucratic empires is a dangerous and culpable vanity that Australia simply cannot afford.

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2009-06-25T13:46:00.000+11:30

One in four prisoners is black

It's the alcohol that does it. They generally can't handle alcohol -- often getting violent under its influence

ONE in four prisoners in Australia is indigenous and their over-representation in the jail system is only getting worse, a new report states. Aborigines are 13 times more likely to be locked up than other Australians, while the proportion of indigenous women being incarcerated has tripled in the past 20-odd years. Half of the 10- to 17-year-olds in corrective institutions are indigenous.

"The fact is, every year it gets worse,'' Australian National Council on Drugs (ANCD) executive director Gino Vumbaca said. "The investment in prison cells is clearly flawed. It's not working. "If you build more prison cells, invariably you'll fill them with more indigenous people.''

In the decade to 2007, the number of indigenous Australians in prison rose by 6.7 per cent a year, on average. Aboriginal people went from comprising 18 per cent of the prison population to 24 per cent. The situation is worst in the Northern Territory, where 83 per cent of the prison population is indigenous. In Western Australia, it's 41 per cent. Victoria has the lowest proportion of Aboriginal prisoners - 6 per cent of that state's inmates are black.

The statistics are collated in the ANCD's National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Committee (NIDAC) report Bridges and Barriers - Addressing Indigenous Incarceration and Health. Mr Vumbaca says the report proves tinkering around the edges of the problem hasn't worked and it makes economic sense to invest more in rehabilitation. "What we need is greater investment in things like residential treatment services so judges, magistrates and the police have options other than incarceration.''

The report estimates it costs governments $269 per day to lock up a prisoner. That's compared to just $98 per day for someone in residential rehabilitation.

NIDAC chair Ted Wilkes says treatment provides people with a chance of recovery - which leads to less re-offending. "Indigenous Australians increasingly fill our country's prisons and juvenile detention centres at alarmingly disproportionate rates,'' he said. "Treatment is simply far more effective in terms of outcomes and costs than imprisoning people.''

The report recommends making diversion programs more accessible for indigenous Australians, while simultaneously establishing a network of indigenous-only residential rehabilitation centres as alternatives to jail. It also suggests every young Aboriginal person be given an individual education fund "to assist and promote their participation and retention within the education system''.

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Breastfeeding tyranny comes to Australia

The informal oppression of women unable or unwilling to breastfeed is in high gear in NYC and it seems that it has now come to Australia

A Queensland Health campaign hoping to convince new mothers to breastfeed is under fire for using "guilt-inducing" language. The $100,000-a-year campaign is called "12+months on the breast: Normal, natural, healthy".

Women's Forum Australia spokeswoman Katrina George said any campaign to support breastfeeding as a choice was a good move, but she questioned the use of the term "normal". "The use of the word 'normal' in the campaign slogan is ill-considered, as it may imply women who do not breastfeed for 12 months or more may have failed – failed their babies and failed as a mother," Ms George said. "That is an unfortunate message to send to women."

Beyond Blue deputy chief executive Nicole Highet said that, as an advertising campaign, the slogan could risk a negative impact on some people. "This advertisement is great for women who are breastfeeding as it will make them feel better about doing it," Ms Highet said. "But for those who can't breastfeed or are struggling, it can be yet another disappointment and point of view that could make them feel guilty and make them feel like they have failed. "I don't think they have looked at the target audiences who will read this. As a result I don't think they have considered the potential risk this campaign might lead to for those women."

Population Health Queensland acting executive director Sophie Dwyer said the booklet, written by Queensland Health and the Australian Breastfeeding Association, would be given to every mother attending publicly funded antenatal services across the state, backed up by posters and a website. "The content . . . (was) market-tested with Queensland mothers (including pregnant women, breastfeeding and non-breastfeeding mothers)," Ms Dwyer said.

The booklet describes how breast milk boosts the health of infants, promotes mother-child bonding and is cheaper than formula feeding, and tells how common problems can be overcome.

Bub Hub co-founder Brad Lauder, whose website has more than 400,000 visitors every month, said the site's feeding forum was one of the most emotive discussion boards. "People feel so strongly about it one way or the other," Mr Lauder said.

Bottle formula was fine for happy baby Nataley. YERONGA mum Ewa Bramwell had trouble breastfeeding soon after the induced birth of her daughter Nataley, now 20 months. Bramwell and her husband Brett decided she would express breastmilk via a pump and bottle feed their baby. They moved on to formula four months later.

"I was taught about breastfeeding in antenatal classes and I was all for it. And then when I tried to breastfeed, it didn't work," she said. "Nataley was really hungry and nothing was working, so my mother-in-law suggested I try to express. I did that, and in between we tried a little bit of formula, because she just needed to eat. "It was stressful to us as parents because that's the way it is supposed to be – a mother to breastfeed a child. It's supposed to be perfect. "Luckily, my milk kicked in after expressing, and Nataley was bottle fed straight away, but only as a delivery method."

Ewa expressed for a few months, but her supply waned and the length of time it took to pump enough breastmilk became cumbersome. "I had to have a life, I couldn't spend all day on a pump. So I stopped and took up formula. She's fine and perfectly happy. "I believe I will breastfeed my next baby. But if I can't I will give it formula. I think that's perfectly fine. I don't think when kids grow up you can say 'That person was breastfed and that person was on formula'."

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GLOBAL WARMING ROUNDUP

Four articles below

Global warming isn't real, says Senator Fielding

Family First senator Steve Fielding has made up his mind on climate change - the world is not warming now, and humans aren't changing the climate. The government and the country's top scientists have tried to convince Senator Fielding, who holds a crucial vote in the upper house, that global warming is real. But he's released a document setting out his position.

"Global temperature isn't rising," it says. On emissions trading, Senator Fielding said he wouldn't risk job losses on "unconvincing green science". The document says it is a "fact" that the evidence does not support the notion that greenhouse gas emissions are causing dangerous global warming.

Senator Fielding later sought to clarify his position, saying he believed in global warming, but he did not think the world was warming now and did not think humans were causing global warming. "Over the last 15 years, global temperatures haven't been going up and, therefore, there hasn't been in the last 15 years a period of global warming," Senator Fielding told AAP. "I think that global warming is real, and climate change is real, but on average global temperatures have stayed steady while carbon emissions have increased over the last 15 years. "Man-made carbon emissions don't appear to be causing it."

Because of the numbers in the upper house, Senator Fielding's verdict means the government will have to rely on the opposition to get its emissions trading scheme (ETS) legislation passed. The Senate was initially supposed to vote on the ETS this week, but that now appears unlikely as the legislation has been shunted towards the bottom of the agenda....

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Senate conservatives delay vote on Warmist laws

KEVIN Rudd attacked the Coalition yesterday for deferring a vote on the emissions trading scheme until August, saying it was more evidence of Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull's "lack of leadership". "They have such strength of leadership that they have now resolved to vote not to vote ... They cannot unite themselves even to bring on a vote for the simple reason that they fear that they will split right down the middle," the Prime Minister said during question time.

The Coalition wants to delay a final vote on the laws until after the UN climate meeting in Copenhagen in December, but Mr Turnbull told the Business Council of Australia last week he wanted to avoid a double-dissolution election on the issue.

Yesterday's delay was achieved through a deal between the Coalition and Independent senator Nick Xenophon, in which the Coalition promised to bring the laws to a vote for the first time when the Senate resumes after the winter break in August. That commitment means the government could bring them on for a second vote in November, just before the Copenhagen conference, with the necessary three-month interregnum for that vote to be the one that decides whether they become a possible trigger for a double-dissolution election.

Business lobbyists welcomed the delay because it gives them time to finalise negotiations with the government over crucial regulations and proposed compensation. But the Climate Institute think tank said the delay "further hinders low carbon investments and hurts Australia's global credibility".

"Stretching out the squabbles in the Senate on clean energy and low carbon industrial legislation like the renewable energy target and now the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme helps nobody," Climate Institute chief executive John Connor said. The delay came as the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry released a study into the effects of the scheme on small and medium businesses including food processing, plastics and chemicals, and machinery and equipment manufacturing.

The study found the scheme would generate extra costs that would reduce the firms' profitability by between 4 and 7 per cent. A large part of that impact came from the expected inclusion of transport fuels in the scheme from 2014.

Mr Turnbull and his climate change spokesman Greg Hunt have indicated the opposition is "predisposed" to support the government's proposed 20 per cent renewable energy target after it has been considered by a Senate committee, but several Coalition MPs at yesterday's party meeting said they were not inclined to support the laws.

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Major changes in views on the environment

We live in a world in which we are constantly bombarded with the results of surveys about attitudes to political, social and economic issues of the day. Even the Australian Statistician undertakes surveys that produce subjective data that has potential implications for government policies.

The state of the environment is a prime survey target as it is now of considerable interest to a high proportion of the community. It is not surprising, then, that last week the Statistician undertook a survey covering environmental views and behaviour. This is the Bureau's first such survey and I examined it with considerable interest.

That led me to write to the Statistician querying the approach adopted and pointing out the importance of taking the utmost care in surveying present attitudes on the environment. What I had particularly in mind was not only the legislation on an emissions trading scheme (ETS) to be debated in the Senate but also the international meeting (in December) in Copenhagen on the mooted global scheme to reduce CO2 emissions.

The attitudes (supposedly) adopted by the Australian public on such issues could have a significant influence on relevant policies adopted by our government and opposition parties. A survey of such attitudes by the normally respected Statistician would assume even greater significance than one by firms involved in the survey business.

The basis of my querying the Statistician is that, while the questions seem largely to fall into the category of having obvious answers, they could be quoted as providing general support for government policies to reduce emissions. The basic survey question was "Are you concerned or not concerned about climate change, water shortage and accumulation of waste". It was the only question asked relevant to those issues.

Faced with such a question, it would be difficult to imagine a majority "Not concerned" answer. That in fact was the case, with "concern" being expressed by nine out of ten about water shortages, around three-quarters about climate change and nearly seventy per cent about the accumulation of waste.

My letter to the Statistician suggested it would have been more meaningful to adopt the approach of some surveys overseas and attempt to identify a wider range of aspects on which people assess environmental issues For example, in surveying views on global warming, the Gallup poll in the US asks "thinking about what is said in the news, in your view is the seriousness of global warming - [generally exaggerated, generally correct or is it under-estimated]?" Note also that the Gallup survey is about global warming not the meaningless concept of "climate change" used by the Statistician.

The US Gallup poll is of particular interest given the reported "passionate" belief of President Obama that the world faces a serious threat of dangerously high temperatures from increasing emissions and the current consideration by Congress of ETS legislation also. Importantly, the Gallup poll for March recorded a big jump in Americans judging the seriousness of global warming to be exaggerated, up to 41 per cent from 31 in 2005 and 35 last year. Evidently the President's passion has had little effect so far.

This Gallup polling also produces a rating of seriousness of various environmental issues and, of eight environmental issues (including water supply and water and air pollution), global warming not only ranked last but had fallen by 6 percentage points in extent of concern since last year. Although a general diminution of concern about environmental issues was to be expected given the economic downturn, the continued relatively low ranking for global warming led Gallup to suggest "something unique may be happening with the issue".

Also of considerable interest is the latest survey by the Pew Research Center. This shows that "Protecting the environment" has dropped from tenth to sixteenth on the priority issues for American voters and global warming was last on the top twenty priority list.

These surveys have obvious implications in terms of the all-important US policy position on global warming- and should also do so for the policy positions of Australia's political parties too. Unfortunately, our major political parties seem way behind the ball game in gauging both community attitudes and the fundamental flaws in the science used in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

SOURCE

GREENWASH: Shopping centre reserves parking for hybrid vehicles

Shopping mall operator Westfield has installed hybrid-only car-parking spaces at some of their shopping centres.

Here’s a pic I took this morning of the spaces at Westfield Hornsby in Sydney. They are sited directly opposite the main entry. They are empty. They usually are.

What I find fascinating about this is that Hornsby is a battlers’ area so there are very few Toyota Prius cars or other hybrids. Some have noted that the hybrid Lexus RX400h SUV produces 192g/km of CO2 but the non-hybrid Volkswagen Golf 118TSI produces 144g/km of CO2, suggesting that the hybrid designation is arbitrary and does little to assist the environment.

Basically all Westfield have done is removed two of the best parking spaces in the complex and allocated them to those wealthy but environmentally conscious souls who had the money to buy one of these expensive motor vehicles. [VEXNEWS: We are reminded of the former Soviet Union with its special express lanes on highways for ministerial vehicles in the form of Zim limousines. All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.]

This does not benefit their customers, the only benefit is to Westfield. This pointless action gives them a warm, fuzzy inner-glow and something to boast about in corporate communications and with pesky left-wing environment reporters keen to denigrate Westfield’s big shrines to retail as concrete eyesores.

SOURCE (See the original for pix)

2009-06-24T16:34:00.001+11:30

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG is trying to figure out the "utegate" affair

The "Blitz"

Pictured above are a couple of "Blitz" trucks in mint condition. There were a number of variations of them. You see above, for instance, that they came in both 6-wheel and 4-wheel versions. They were made in Canada by both Ford and Chevrolet during WWII as part of the huge Canadian contribution to the war effort. Male Canadians and Britons in those days were men, not the whining mice that most seem to have become under Leftist influence in the postwar era.

My interest in the "Blitz" stems from the fact that my father used to use one in his work as a timber feller ("lumberjack" in North American parlance). Once you have felled a huge forest tree, you have got to get it out of the bush somehow -- either to a rail siding or a road where you can load it onto a truck.

Unlike his father, my father did not use a bullock-team to "snig" (drag) the log along a bush track to its destination. He used a Blitz. A Blitz was originally designed to negotiate the often difficult terrain leading up to battlefields and it therefore had both 4WD and a double-reduction gearbox. It was slow but tough and versatile and could go almost anywhere -- which made it ideal for forest work after the war. And it was immensely popular after the war. They were all over the place in country areas. They were often used as tow-trucks. The picture below is an indication of how many there were before they all eventually wore out.

What I would like to know is how they originated. They were apparently designed in Britain but look like no other British vehicle. My suspicion is that the design was a copy of an Opel Blitz of the period. Opel is/was the German tentacle of GM. So I suspect that the British just copied a successful German design. I have however not been able to find a picture of the Opel Blitz of that period.

The name "Blitz" certainly suggests a German origin. "Blitz" is the German word for lightning. On the other hand, maybe the name is simply ironical: Whatever else the Blitz was, it was certainly not fast.

There must be a million collectors of military vehicles worldwide and a Blitz in good condition would certainly be most prized in such circles so I hope at least one collector reads this and is able to give me the history behind the "Blitz".

Australia to cut skilled immigration, but let in lots of unskilled immigrants

This is typical Leftist destructiveness. Decoding note: The "Pacific guest worker program" mentioned below consists of bringing in totally unskilled Polynesians, a group known for a high crime-rate, obesity and not much else. "Shutting down the Pacific solution" means giving residence permits to illegal immigrants, mostly Middle Eastern Muslims with all their horrible attitudes. Leftist speech is routinely designed to cover up folly so needs a lot of decoding

Skilled immigration will fall due to the global economic crisis, the Federal Government says. ''I expect the numbers of our program to drop next year ... as a reaction to the economic circumstances,'' Immigration Minister Chris Evans told reporters. Senator Evans said the size of the cut would be a matter for cabinet.

The government was very aware that labour demand would differ across regions and economic sectors. ''It's not a one size fits all.''

In Britain the government is hardening immigration laws as unemployment rises amid the financial meltdown. Non-European Union workers migrating to Britain will, from April, have to hold a masters degree and will have to show they earned a salary of at least $44,000 before moving to the UK.

Despite the pressures on immigration, Senator Evans said the Pacific guest worker program would not be reviewed ''at this stage''. However, he did say the government was reconsidering what occupations should be listed on the commonwealth's critical skills list.

The Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union has already called for construction jobs to be cut from the list. ''The critical skills list is under review and that's one of the things we will look at as the circumstances change,'' Senator Evans said. ''We will probably have a formal look at that in the next couple of weeks.''

South Australia's Master Builders Association has warned against such a cut, saying the soon to come infrastructure spending by government meant plenty of workers would be needed in the sector.

Senator Evans' comments came after meeting with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres. The meeting culminated in the government offering an extra $4.4 million in funding to the body. Mr Guterres admitted the snowballing economic crisis would not help refugees but praised Australia for taking a bigger role in the issue since Labor's election win, especially for shutting down the Pacific solution. ''We believe things are moving in the right direction,'' Mr Guterres said.

SOURCE

Australian Army red tape too much even for Germans

Pretty bad when a suppier would rather lose a sale than cope with all the self-important bureaucratic nonsense

THE army's $450 million plan to acquire new 155mm self-propelled guns faces a one-year delay because of the complexity of the Defence Materiel Organisation's tender process. The revelation comes as one of the two contenders to supply the artillery declined to participate in the final tender negotiation with the DMO.

German firm Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, whose PzH 2000 gun was favoured to win the contest to supply up to 18 guns to the army, has declined to participate in the offer definition and refinement process with the organisation. KMW is competing against Raytheon Australia, which is teamed with Korean manufacturer Samsung Techwin, which is offering the AS-9 gun.

Senior government sources told The Australian yesterday that neither tender had fully met the DMO's tough contractual requirements. Only the Raytheon consortium has chosen to continue negotiations with the DMO. According to informed sources KMW has cited problems with intellectual property as well as a requirement for more equitable risk-sharing with the commonwealth in its decision not to participate in the offer definition and refinement process.

Raytheon is now pushing hard for an early decision but the KMW tender offer will remain on the table and valid until next April.

Last month DMO chief Stephen Gumley told a Senate estimates committee there were a number of "technical issues" that had to be resolved before a decision could be made on a preferred tenderer. The German firm, which is partnered with BAE Systems Australia, has offered brand new surplus Dutch army guns as part of its tender in the Land 17 project.

The PzH 2000 gun is in service with the Dutch military in Oruzgan province in Afghanistan and has impressed the Australian army with its all-round capability.

SOURCE

Yummy donkeys

No doubt the animal-lovers will freak out over this but they wont be able to throw about their favourite word --"endangered" -- this time

WHAT a hide - donkey steaks, processed in Queensland, will soon be sold in China and the skins will be used to boost Chinese womens' libido. The emerging export industry will process meat from feral donkeys sourced from the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia. Already there are talks with a Charleville abattoir, one of several Queensland operators set up for kangaroos but capable of processing donkeys.

This was confirmed yesterday by Primary Industries Minister Tim Mulherin, who said China had signed a trade protocol that accepted donkey steaks and skins. "This is a great diversification opportunity for the macropod industry," Mr Mulherin said. "This emerging donkey trade could mean dozens of new jobs for harvesters and processors and more than $20 million into our economy. "All going well, donkey meat will soon be hitting the woks in Beijing and the skins will be used in traditional Chinese medicine in a product designed to increase the female libido."

Donkey meat is considered a delicacy in parts of China where taste buds cover a wide range - anything from slivers of camel hump to pigeon tongues are served up. China has its own supply of donkeys but cannot meet all the demand, with importers regularly advertising overseas for the animal. And Australia has an estimated population of more than five million wild donkeys which would be killed and then transported to Queensland for processing.

More HERE