R.G.Menzies above

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

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30 June, 2010

Australia's new Leftist Prime Minister does not support legalising homosexual marriage

Most Australian conservative commentators are thoroughly freaked by Ms Gillard's far-Left background. But there is little of that to see in her deeds or policy positions whilst in government. Both Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan started out on the Left and a Rightward drift is in fact normal as people get older and wiser. I suspect that we are seeing quite a lot of that in Julia. It may also be worth noting that she owes her ascent to PM not to her party's Left but to its Right.

Such a drift has certainly happened before in the Australian Labor Party. Former Queensland Premier Ned Hanlon is a good example of that. Starting out as a Leftist firebrand he ended up so far Right he was almost out of sight. He even used police to crush a strike. I can't remember even Joh Bjelke Petersen doing that. The Labor party is tribal, however, so Laborites still honour him, rather incredibly. A major new hospital building in Brisbane was named after him not long ago by the State Labor government.

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard says she does not support legalising gay marriage in Australia. Labor policy on gay marriage will remain the same under her prime ministership, Ms Gillard told Austereo show this morning. "We believe the Marriage Act is appropriate in its current form, that is recognising that marriage is between a man and a woman, but we have as a government taken steps to equalise treatment for gay couples," Ms Gillard said.

Asked if that was also her personal view, Ms Gillard said it was.

The new Prime Minister was left waiting on air while Kyle and Jackie played a song - Gettin' Over you by David Guetta featuring Fergie. "I can listen to a song," Ms Gillard said, when Kyle expressed concern it might be inappropriate to leave her waiting. The choice of song wasn't quite to her taste, however. "I'm a really kind of an eighties dag," she said.

Ms Gillard said she would do her best to be frank with the Australian public in her new role. "I think when you're doing something as complicated as being Prime Minister, there are days when people are going to look at what you're doing and go, 'That's fantastic,' and there are going to be other days when they look at what you're doing and say, 'Why on earth did she do that?'," Ms Gillard said.

"So I'm not going to try and promise people everything's going to be smooth sailing and they're going to be applauding at the end of each day because the job's too tough for that, but I'll be trying my best to be as frank as I can with the Australian people about the challenges we face."

Asked if she would be outlawing redheaded jokes now that she was Prime Minister, Ms Gillard laughed and said she would still allow them. "But expect to get a response when you do," she said.

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An openly atheist Prime Minister!

This will go down a lot better in Australia than in the USA. Australians are an irreligious lot and even the small minority of churchgoers often have very vague religious beliefs. She is however not one of the hate-filled atheists like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens. See the rubric below

NEW Prime Minister Julia Gillard has declared she does not believe in God, Christian or otherwise. The bold assertion risks alienating some Christians and other spiritualists, but is likely to please many others for its simple honesty.

In a morning radio blitz designed to introduce her new Prime Ministership to as many voters as possible before an election, possibly is called within weeks, she was asked if she believed in God. "No I don't. I'm not a religious person," she said bluntly to ABC Melbourne. "I was brought up in the Baptist Church. I grew up going to Baptist youth group and all the rest, but during my adult life I've found a different path.

"I'm, of course, a great respecter of religious beliefs but they're not my beliefs."

She said she would allow people to judge her as they saw fit, but maintained she would not "pretend a faith" she did not feel. "For people of faith, I think the greatest compliment I could pay to them is to respect their genuinely held beliefs and not to engage in some pretence about mine," she said.

"What I can say to Australians, broadly of course, is I believe you can be a person of strong principle and values from a variety of perspectives."

The sheer straight-forwardness of her comments is likely to win her plaudits for not being seen to walk both sides of the street on a question which most people regard as an essentially personal matter.

Nonetheless, her frank position is in stark contrast to most political leaders, who have often paraded religious faith as the moral underpinnings of their policies. Kevin Rudd, for example, was often criticised for his invocation of faith and his habit of holding weekly Sunday morning doorstop interviews in front of a Canberra church. Just days ago, both Mr Rudd and Liberal leader Tony Abbott, a Catholic, conspicuously courted the Christian vote at the politically conservative Australian Christian Lobby.

Ms Gillard did not take the Bible in her hand when sworn into Parliament in 1998.

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The downside of Julia's living arrangements

Living as a de facto with her partner may suit Julia Gillard, but does that make her a good role model for others?



By Bettina Arndt

Julia Gillard doesn't want to move into the Lodge until she gets a democratic tick of approval. Or so she says. Maybe the real reason she is stalling is to test the waters about public reaction to moving her first bloke in there with her.

Most media commentators are relaxed about a de facto first couple. Why not, they say, everyone's doing it. What's the big deal about living together?

They are right about the fact cohabitation - what some call "marriage lite" - is changing the social map. Census figures show the proportion of adults in de facto relationships more than doubled between 1986 and 2006. With other countries showing similar shifts, many social scientists studying this trend conclude marriage lite is not a change for the better.

It's fine for Gillard - a 48-year-old woman - to live with her bloke. Yet as a popular role model for women, her lifestyle choice may influence other women into making big mistakes about their lives.

Cohabitation produces two groups of losers among women and children. Most women want to have children - Gillard is an exception - and some miss out after wasting their primary reproductive years in a succession of live-in relationships that look hopeful but go nowhere, leaving them childless and partnerless as they hit 40.

People often drift into living together - someone's lease runs out or they get sick of running home for fresh shirts and underwear. They slide rather than decide, and frequently fail to discuss their mutual expectations for the relationship.

It's the women who end up stranded when they spend years in a succession of de facto relationships waiting for Mr Not Ready or Mr Maybe to make up his mind. Women's tiny reproductive window means they pay a high price for wasting precious breeding time in such uncertain relationships.

While the de facto lifestyle leads some women to miss out on having children, others are taking the risk of becoming parents despite these unstable relationships. A growing proportion of children is now born to de facto couples - up from less than 3 per cent in 1975 to 12 per cent in 2000, according to data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics Survey.

It is often assumed these children will provide the glue to keep de facto relationships together, but sadly this is not so. David de Vaus, a sociology professor from La Trobe University, found cohabiting couples who have children are more like to break up than married parents, increasing their risk of the negative impacts of family breakdown.

If Gillard chooses to play house with Tim Mathieson in the Lodge, this choice sends a strong message to the huge numbers of women who rightly admire her and seek to follow her example. A lifestyle suited to her particular needs may be riskier for many women and their children.

As a Labor politician, Gillard is hardly likely to spell this out. Her brand of politician is too nervous of offending natural constituents to express concern about lifestyle choices. But it wasn't always like that.

In 1972, an intriguing discussion between Germaine Greer and Margaret Whitlam was published in The National Times. Whitlam, whose husband had just become prime minister, was outspoken in her criticism of ex-nuptial births, declaring it was irresponsible to produce children outside wedlock. When Greer confessed she was considering having a child on her own, Whitlam was forthright: "Well, I think that's just a selfish thought."

Later in the interview, she relented a little. "It may be all right for people who are well known and who have position and who can organise themselves . . . but it's not OK for everybody," she said, questioning the impact of Greer's decision on her many fans.

At the heart of this conversation was role models. People in the public eye, our influential leaders, need to think through whether others who don't share their circumstances will follow their example and get into trouble.

Every day we see well-known Australians making dubious lifestyle decisions being lauded in the media - celebrities choosing to become single mothers, unwed fathers, parents dragging children through a succession of chaotic "blended" families.

Pat Rafter was made Australian of the Year just as he was about to become an unmarried father. What did that say to his many male fans about the importance of committed fathering?

Politicians today rarely question social trends, even when all the evidence is they are having negative social consequences. John Howard was the rare exception, when he went into bat for a child's rights to a father in the debate over single mothers and IVF. But the actions of our role models speak louder than any words. The well-heeled tennis hero cheerfully embracing unmarried paternity, the feminist toying with sole parenthood, the prime minister living with her boyfriend - why wouldn't their many fans not seek to walk in their shoes?

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Australia most Leftist major newspaper sinks to new low in an antisemitic attack on a Jewish businessman

The Melbourne Age newspaper has stunned and appalled the Jewish community today by confecting a scandal about the fact that the Prime Minister’s partner works for a Jewish businessman Albert Dadon.

It inaccurately describes Albert as an “Israel lobbyist” which suggests he is paid to promote Israel. That’s simply not correct and conveys a false impression. Dadon is an investor, in property and many other things and was the Chair of Melbourne’s international Jazz Festival and created the Australia Israel Leadership Forum, which we assume he modelled on the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue formed by Phil Scanlon.

We have never read Scanlon described as a “pro-American lobbyist.”

(The Age) suggests that because Julia Gillard’s partner works for a Jewish businessman that she is therefore incapable of making up her own mind about foreign policy matters relating to Israel. This is about as low and disturbing as it gets.

Indeed, we understand that the editor of the Age, Paul Ramadge, has previously put much effort into duchessing Mr Dadon in an attempt to rescue that newspaper’s reputation in Melbourne’s Jewish community which increasingly regards it as an apologist for misogynist and racist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah that are sworn to Israel’s destruction.

Sources tell VEXNEWS that Dadon went to some effort to encourage The Age to open its eyes to both sides of the story in the Middle East and that a member of The Age’s staff was invited to attend Australia Israel Leadership Forum events, including one in Israel.

Ramadge endorsed this and went to some trouble to undo the damage done by his predecessor Andrew Jaspan whose attacks on Israel seemed to know no decent bounds. That reputation will be confirmed by today’s breathtakingly anti-semitic attack that deems all Jews to be “pro-Israel lobbyists”.

The story was based around a letter from a retired and grouchy Arabist crank, Ross Burns which prompted a page seven story in the Sydney Morning Herald. Naturally the Age put it on the front-page and beat it up within an inch of its life.

We have previously written of the fact that Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has a real problem with anti-Israel bias. Ross Burns, a career diplomat who was given many sweet plum Ambassador appointments, is a perfect embodiment of this.

Burns has now retired into the comfort of superannuation and is completing a PhD at Macquarie University on archaeology in Syria. He very frequently visits Syria. He has a keen interest in its antiquities and ancient ruins.

He has a long history of blowing anti-semitic dog-whistles against Israel, with a steady stream of cranky letters to the editor, speeches, appearances on an appreciative ABC and so on.

His latest suggests that because Julia Gillard’s partner works for a Jewish businessman that she is therefore incapable of making up her own mind about foreign policy matters relating to Israel.

This is about as low as it gets. Where will this obscenity end? Will The Age’s Jewish employees soon be subjected to tests to ensure they are not “pro-Israel lobbyists.”

As for Burns, he is an old crank, who is just running out his private hatreds of Israel in public view, for his private benefit. No doubt he’s prominent on the wily Syrian Ambassador’s invitation list to sip on Johnny Blue in the wee hours. He’s an angry old man who is entitled to peddle his nasty views. But The Age has a greater responsibility than that.

And when journalists wonder why we will celebrate the imminent demise of this newspaper, this is why. Many journalists worry about what most regard as the Age’s inevitable end.

Two newspapers in a city are better than one, as a general proposition. Certainly better for journalists at both publications. Competition is a force for good, for consumers too. But The Age’s sickening effort today reveals it not to be a force for good in any respect.

The newspaper’s revenues are in freefall, its employees facing further redundancies, its circulation numbers rigged, the shares of parent company the most shorted in the entire stock market. Its end is nigh. And we’ll be dancing in the streets when that day finally comes.

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Global cooling hits Sydney too

And it was !@#$%^& cold in Brisbane this morning too

Sydney's week of cold weather continues, with the city recording its coldest June morning since 1949 when temperatures dived to 4.3 degrees. The city recorded its minimum just before 6am, with the mercury sitting on 6.2 degrees at 9am. Sydney Airport dropped to 3.2 degrees just before 5am, its coldest June morning recording since 1985.

Richmond again got below freezing point, recording -4.8 degrees, its coldest morning since 1992. Other western Sydney suburbs dropped below zero, including Penrith which rose to just 0.1 degrees at 8am.

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29 June, 2010

Accountability!

Who'd a thunk it? Bureaucrats actually fired for bungling! A rare event indeed. But the matter has been a huge embarrassment for the government so maybe that is what it takes

TWO of Queensland Health's most senior bureaucrats are believed to have been sacked over the payroll crisis, as the embattled department braces for the release of a top-level report into the multimillion-dollar bungle.

The Courier-Mail understands deputy director-general Michael Kalimnios and corporate services executive director Adrian Shea were tonight served notices of contract termination over the ongoing debacle, ahead of the latest pay run results this week.

The move by Queensland Health director-general Mick Reid late last night also comes ahead of a major report into the payroll crisis being tabled in State Parliament tomorrow by Auditor-General Glenn Poole.

Mr Kalimnios has been heavily involved in the roll-out of the $44 million payroll system, which has left nurses and doctors unpaid or wrongly paid for months.

A spokeswoman for Health Minister Paul Lucas declined to comment, but senior department sources said the termination notices had given the pair 30 days until their contract ended.

Meanwhile, workers' entitlements may be scrutinised under plans to fix the fiasco.

The Auditor-General's report is expected to recommend discussions between Queensland Health and unions about simplifying awards. But unions are likely to oppose any proposal to change conditions for which they have fought, particularly given that the payroll troubles have been of Queensland Health's own making.

Australian Services Union branch secretary Julie Bignell said that if such a recommendation was implemented, it would create more work for the department's already over-stretched payroll staff. She said its current staff of 800 would need to be doubled to roll out the changes.

The eighth fortnightly pay under the new system is due on Wednesday.

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Rudd the rotten and Queensland government corruption

By Piers Akerman

In an extraordinary coincidence, as Kevin Rudd was being tipped out of the Prime Minister’s office, an Aboriginal woman denied justice by Queensland’s Goss Labor Government - which Mr Rudd once was said to have run - had more than $120,000 in extraordinary damages tipped into her bank account.

Such sweet synchronism.

That step provided concrete vindication for those who have pressed the case of the Heiner Affair, the massive abuse of power blocking the carriage of justice against ex-members of Wayne Goss’s Cabinet and senior public servants who helped to illegally destroy documents, known to be wanted as evidence of unlawful treatment of state wards there.

The documents were assembled by ex-magistrate Noel Heiner in an inquiry into the operation of John Oxley juvenile detention centre and included reports of sexual attacks, among them the pack rape for which the Queensland Government has just awarded compensation.

The link between the Goss Cabinet’s wilful destruction of documents relating to the rape and Mr Rudd is simple. He was the Premier’s chief of staff when the Goss Cabinet ordered the documents shredded in 1990 and has since given contradictory statements about the matter.

In 2007, a bench of retired senior judges all wrote to then Queensland Premier Peter Beattie seeking appointment of an independent special prosecutor into the affair; and were rebuffed.

Last week, a second notice of concern was sent to Premier Anna Bligh by some of these ex-judges and a raft of senior law lecturers over the manner in which Queensland’s Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee acted in refusing to refer the claims for independent review.

Mr Rudd’s failure to provide an unambiguous statement on his knowledge of the documents’ destruction gave many observers one of the first clues to his personal character flaws.

That he could obfuscate, sideline inquiries and claim independent examinations that never existed revealed much about a man who drove himself to be PM.

Yet, as we have seen with the recent inquiry into the 2004 death of Mulrunji (Doomadgee) in police custody on Palm Island, it took nine investigations before evidence of a cover-up was finally revealed and police officers ordered to be disciplined.

An exhaustive audit by Sydney QC David Rofe shows that the Heiner Affair has never been properly investigated and its findings suggest that criminal offences may have have occurred covering a wider range of officials.

But Mr Rudd and others linked to the Goss Cabinet have avoided any independent investigation, such is Queensland’s lack of regard for natural justice.

In The Sunday Telegraph on October 14, 2007, I wrote: “My initial admiration for Rudd, the man, has diminished over the past nine months until I have the gravest concerns about his fitness to head a political party, let alone run this nation”.

Forgive me if this sounds like “I-told-you-so”, but I wrote that my concerns about his character related to “what I perceive to be an unalloyed ruthlessness, a lack of loyalty to anything but his short-term political ambitions and his projection of a carefully constructed image that has little or nothing to do with Rudd the man”.

“Everything he does, every word he utters, comes from a person who is totally absorbed in his mission to get ahead, no matter what the cost and no matter who has to be jettisoned in the process,” I wrote.

“Despite his claim to be a conservative Christian, the reality is that everything with Rudd is about power and when he is before an audience not enamoured of religion, he is happy to tailor his persona and step back a few paces from his ready avowals of faith....

“The list of excuses he has made for various blunders, from the phony Anzac Dawn Service he was to take part in with Channel 7’s Sunrise crew - an essential medium for the delivery of the hand-wrought Rudd image into Australian households - to his night on the tiles with New York Post editor-in-chief Col Allan, runs on and on.”

But it was his “consistent refusal to address grave concerns about the Heiner Affair, which bring so many question marks about his character together ... “.

I mentioned an ex gratia payment by Queensland’s government, in return for someone’s silence about activities around John Oxley juvenile detention centre, and said the “people should have sufficient knowledge to know he (Mr Rudd) is not fit to run the nation”.

Between a Queensland Labor Government anxious not to let light shine on Labor’s dark history and a media which actively promoted Mr Rudd’s candidacy for prime minister, the Australian people were denied, and are still being denied, the truth about the man who was their last leader.

Almost three years on, a majority of his ALP colleagues and the party’s power brokers have decided that the Australian people will no longer support Mr Rudd.

In that time, we have had more illegal boats arrive, we have had lethal pink batts placed in our roofs and we have seen billions of dollars squandered on a useless school building program.

What a lot of time that the nation has spent on this one flawed character.

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South Australian hospitals "broke" too

Doctors, hospitals have no money for medical supplies. A similar story to NSW

DOCTORS cannot get basic medical supplies replaced because hospital budgets are running out, they say. The Australian Medical Association says this year is particularly bad, with spending restrictions affecting doctors' ability to do their jobs.

While the State Government insists equipment is provided as soon as possible, doctors say administrators are under pressure to save money - so they delay purchases. AMA state president Andrew Lavender said the situation created inefficiencies and adverse patient outcomes.

"It's always based on assumptions that are never practical," he said. "In most circumstances there isn't a specific budget allocated for equipment ... so we end up with a situation where because of the lack of a scope, for example, we're unable to deal with the number of patients that we were in the past."

Dr Lavender said it took a "huge amount of time" to organise repairs, because doctors had to ask bureaucrats to process the claims. He highlighted one example where Royal Adelaide Hospital doctors needed a flexible cystoscope (to investigate cysts), but the $10,000 price tag meant the request had to go to the regional chief executive.

University of Adelaide professor of surgery Guy Maddern said it could take up to 12 months for crucial equipment such as imaging equipment to be replaced. "We have really important pieces of equipment that have become broken or obsolete," he said. "We desperately need them and at the moment we're being told there's no replacement budget for the foreseeable future. "Every time a piece of equipment breaks we begin a six to 12-month process and even then we don't have a guarantee we'll get it."

SA Health chief executive Tony Sherbon said there was an $18 million budget for replacing and upgrading hospital equipment this financial year. "Out of this, over $2.2 million has been allocated at the RAH, including $70,000 for endoscopic equipment," Dr Sherbon said. "If there is an urgent need ... then it will always be provided as soon as possible."

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Global cooling hits Sydney

There is such a lot of unusually cold weather worldwide that it is reasonable to call it global cooling

Sydneysiders have shivered through the city's coldest June morning since 1983 after the temperature dropped to 4.7 degrees just before 7.00am this morning.

Weatherzone meteorologist Martin Palmer said several Sydney suburbs had some of their coldest morning's in years, with the temperature dropping to -4 degrees in Richmond, their coolest June morning since records began back in 1995. The temperature dropped to -1.8 degrees in Campbelltown.

Mr Palmer said the cold morning's would continue to at least Thursday.

"Basically there is a big high pressure above us which for the next few days will keep things calm and still but it means very cold nights," he said.

"That will continue for the next few days, we will expect the coldest nights to be over by Thursday and we will have more clouds on the weekend which will keep temperatures up at night."

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Learn how not to reason at the University of Western Australia

By Jo Nova

Tomorrow night the University of Western Australia (UWA) is hosting “Climate change scepticism under the spotlight”, where people who ought to know better are reverting to stone age reasoning. “Hail the Gods of Science!” The shame, the shame, it’s my old university.

Australian Professorial Fellow Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, from UWA’s School of Psychology, will discuss the perils of ignoring consensus in science…

The UWA School of Science ought to be grovelling embarrassed. Any scientific professorial fellow ought to warn about the dangers of ignoring the empirical evidence, or the perils of missing the whistleblowers who point out logical flaws.

Can we add that up?

Let’s follow the reasoning on consensus science. How do you weight the scoring system? Is one post-doc worth 3 honors students, or 5? Do we dilute citation-value according to the number of authors on each paper? Does a Nobel peace prize winner trump a class of undergraduates? Quick, we need a committee to figure it out. I can feel the need for a emergency formation of the Scientific-Authority-Demarkation-Institute. UN based of course.

I have written many times about how Lewandowsky uses Argument from Authority ad nauseum along with ad hominems, and lightly seasoned with Argument from Ignorance. (Picasso Brain Syndrome is probably my choice pick.)

I saw him speak at a similar venture in December, and he spent several minutes on a long rambling ad hom about John McLean. It’s worse than just being unbecoming. We should not tolerate this poor standard of reasoning in an undergraduate of science, let alone a teaching staff member.

The Witchdoctors have moved into the Faculty of Science (which is now BTW awkwardly known as Life and Physical Sciences).

Scientists one and all, it’s time we talk about the dangers of consensus. The Truth, whatever it is, does not lie with qualifications, committees, or unmeasurable “esteem”.

The big problem for us is, how do we reclaim the universities? Can we shame them into picking up their standards?

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28 June, 2010

Good news about Julia for friends of Israel

The ousting of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd by his deputy Julia Gillard was a dramatic event. A year ago Rudd was still highly popular but his abrupt policy reversal on global climate and the environment began a decline, which climaxed when he stunned the business world by abruptly imposing a tax on mining companies engaged in mineral and energy sales to China and India. The Australian Labor Party, which holds the reins of government, was undoubtedly strongly motivated by Rudd's plummeting standing in the polls which if sustained would probably result in a resounding defeat at the elections scheduled for next year.

The 120,000-strong Jewish community, which other than Israel has the highest proportion of Shoa survivors in the world, is recognized as one of the most Zionist communities in the Diaspora.

Jewish leaders have established a long tradition of strong public advocacy on behalf of Israel, and they can take much of the credit for the fact that successive governments have maintained a strong bi partisan support for Israel, with only one exception.

Rudd's predecessor, John Howard, who was Prime Minister for over 10 years, was regarded as one of Israel's greatest friends on the global scene and highly appreciated by the Jewish community.

The Rudd government initially maintained its support for Israel, but over recent months there were growing concerns that it was tilting the scales against Israel. The votes at the UN tended to increasingly identify with the Europeans, prompting the former Foreign Minister Downer to suggest that Rudd was distancing Australia from Israel in order to solicit Arab votes at the UN to support Australia's candidacy for the Security Council.

More recently, the expulsion of an Israeli diplomat in the wake of the passport imbroglio, distressed the Jewish community. On the other hand, if Israel was involved in this issue, many found it difficult to comprehend why they used Australian passports and ignored understandings previously made, thus embarrassing one of their best friends.

Only a few weeks ago Rudd met with the Australian Jewish leadership, who left reasonably satisfied that the relationship seemed to be back on track.

The Jewish community will certainly welcome the fact that that Julia Gillard will now be leading the country.

She is a long standing proven friend of Israel, having visited the country in 2005 and again last year in May. She headed a high level, 40 strong delegation of Australians who participated in an Australia-Israel Cultural Exchange mission, which took place at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.

During the Gaza war in January 2009, when she was Acting Prime Minister, she strongly supported Israel's position, frequently making reference to Sderot which she had visited and stressed Israel's right to defend its civilian population from missile attacks.

The Jewish community will certainly welcome the fact that that she will now be leading the country, and will also be reassured that the long standing bi-partisan policy to Israel will be maintained.

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False claim of Port Melbourne rape

Such a thing never happens, according to feminists. It Britain it seems to happen every other week

A WOMAN is facing charges of making a false complaint to police after claiming she was raped in Port Melbourne last month. The 22-year-old's story prompted a man-hunt for the alleged offender and a significant police investigation, costing thousands of dollars in time and resources.

On May 28, Victoria Police contacted the Sunday Herald Sun with the story in a bid to alert the public and appeal for help to find the alleged offender. When contacted on Friday by the Sunday Herald Sun, the woman, who is receiving counselling, said she was sorry for lying. "I haven't meant to upset anyone," she said.

The woman claimed she was still the victim of a sexual assault, which occurred "somewhere else".

Police from the Moorabbin sexual offences unit said the woman had made "full admissions" on Thursday night that she had lied to police. Detective Sgt Paul Toogood said a brief of evidence was being compiled to determine whether the woman would be charged with making a false report.

Sgt Toogood said the Port Melbourne community needed to be informed the rapist did not exist. "The offence reported on that date did not occur. There is no reason for the people of Port Melbourne to be apprehensive going about their business," he said.

The woman claimed she had been grabbed by the throat from behind and dragged into an alcove on the St Joseph's Church grounds on Rouse St, where she was raped between 8pm and 8.30pm on May 25.

Police said they hoped the false report would not discourage victims from coming forward for help. Detective Sen-Constable Mark Feehan said: "Victoria Police encourages all victims of sexual assault to come forward so police can provide support, investigate and prosecute offenders."

Centre Against Sexual Assault spokeswoman Carolyn Worth said false reports, while rare, were a "tricky issue". "It makes everybody slightly wary when there is a similar allegation, which we cannot afford," she said. "We've spent a long time trying to get people to take sexual assault seriously."

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Another victim of ambulance delay in Victoria

A VICTORIAN family who had to switch off a mother and wife's life support says it has lost faith in the ambulance service and blames the Brumby Government for her death.

Beechworth grandmother Margaret Edwards suffered a stroke and died after ambulance service bungles, including delays getting her to hospital and going to the wrong home. Her family said long delays in treating her included a one hour and 17 minute wait for MICA services.

Mrs Edwards' husband, Eric, son Paul and daughter Meg have lodged a complaint with Ambulance Victoria, citing no confidence in the service.

Almost two months after the Sunday Herald Sun launched a campaign for action on severe delays, understaffing and a lack of MICA units, the Government has still to announce any improvements. But it's believed a major funding boost is being planned, particularly for rural emergency services.

Mr Edwards said his family's faith in the state's ambulance service had been shattered by the tragedy. "Every time I hear sirens and see ambulances I think to myself, 'Poor buggers, what's going to happen to them?'," he said. "We always thought that if anything happened we're provided for, but obviously we're not."

Mr Edwards called 000 when his wife collapsed on their bathroom floor at 6.21am in late January. Ambulance Victoria said a crew was treating her by 6.38am, left the house at 7.18am and met a MICA unit en route to the hospital at 7.38am.

But the family swore an ambulance did not arrive before 7am after it had placed another call for help and flagged down the crew after it went to the wrong house in the street.

Mr Edwards said paramedics then failed to ask for his wife's name or date of birth and left without the ambulance lights and sirens going. Five minutes later, paramedics returned after realising they had forgotten a medication list given to them by the family and their clip board containing details of the job.

Ms Edwards, who held her mother as they waited for the ambulance, described the ordeal as "a complete cock-up". "They were completely useless," Ms Edwards said. "They arrived with no lights and sirens and they left with no lights and sirens, like they were out on a Sunday drive."

Mrs Edwards' son pleaded with Premier John Brumby to act urgently on ambulance problems. "He needs to spend some more money on Ambulance Victoria and get more staff. It's just not good enough," he said. "If I had it over again I would have got her up into the car and taken her to the hospital myself."

In a letter to the Sunday Herald Sun, the family wrote: "As a family we believe the way our mother was treated was nothing short of appalling. Following this experience we no longer have confidence in the Victorian ambulance service. We hope nobody else has to go through the trauma we have just endured."

Ambulance Victoria spokesman James Howe said the first available crew was sent to Mrs Edwards' aid. "We understand the stress the family will be going through; we're happy to meet with them and explain the situation," he said. "But we stand by the figures. The response time was within our guidelines, the paramedics' response was prompt and they did everything they possibly could to assist this woman."

Mrs Edwards' death is the latest in a string of recent controversies to grip the ambulance service. This month, a 70-year-old woman died in Avoca after an ambulance - sent 55km from Ararat - took 34 minutes to arrive. A source said the Maryborough ambulance station, about 25km away, had two crews on duty at the time, but they were not dispatched.

In mid-April, a Bacchus Marsh woman, 37, suffered a severe asthma attack and died at home before paramedics arrived. A MICA crew took almost 45 minutes to attend, even though an intensive care officer is believed to have been available at Gisborne, 18 minutes away. The Melbourne communications team made no call to check.

State Government spokesman Michael Sinclair said Ambulance Victoria would contact the Edwards family. "Ambulance Victoria logs indicate paramedics were on scene quickly and did everything possible to care for the patient," he said.

SOURCE





Half of doctors banned or disciplined are foreign

What earthly reason is there why Australia cannot train its own doctors? Why do we have to import poorly-trained doctors from India and the Middle East? Why not fire a few of the army of health "administrators" and spend the money on more places in medical schools instead? Administrators never cured anyone of anything

HALF the doctors disciplined or banned for negligence in WA are trained overseas. But more foreign doctors will have to be recruited as the state's GP shortage nears crisis point.

Latest figures, compiled by the Primary Health Care Research and Information Service, show that in some parts of WA doctors are forced to care for more than 2000 patients each. Even in Perth the ratio of patients to doctors is well over the recommended benchmark of 1100 a GP.

More foreign doctors are needed, but an investigation by The Sunday Times has revealed 12 of the 25 doctors disciplined by the WA Medical Board since January 2009 obtained their primary medical degree overseas. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners said 50 per cent of rural GPs were not locally trained - a figure that would only rise with the increasing doctor shortage. "At the moment, we would be beyond crisis if it wasn't for all the overseas-trained doctors working in rural areas," state chairman Peter Maguire said.

Australian Medical Association GP spokesman Steve Wilson said WA had been relying on overseas doctors for too long. He said approvals allowing them to work in WA had to become more robust.

"If overseas-trained doctors are over-represented in those people who end up before disciplinary hearings then we clearly need to sharpen things up," Dr Wilson said. "It's incumbent upon every medical practitioner to conduct themselves clinically, professionally and behaviourally in the highest manner."

Dr Maguire said the GP shortage was critical in rural WA. "There are a number of towns in the Wheatbelt that don't have a single doctor," he said. "People are expected to travel hundreds of kilometres to see a GP."

The WA Medical Board would not comment on its approval processes for overseas trained doctors.

SOURCE



27 June, 2010

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG is unimpressed by the manner in which Australia acquired a new Prime Minister.





Julia won't act on climate without consensus

Which she knows she won't get. Clever: Makes her sound good to the ratbags but costs nothing

Labor failed to convince the public a carbon tax was necessary, Prime Minister Julia Gillard says. Ms Gillard said she was concerned about the government's proposed emissions trading scheme because community consensus had not been achieved.

Asked if she was behind the delay of the ETS because it was hurting Labor, Ms Gillard said she had concerns. "I was concerned that if you were going to do something as big to your economy as put a price on carbon, with the economic transfer that implies... you need a lasting and deep community consensus to do it," Ms Gillard told the Nine Network. "I don't believe we had that last and deep community consensus."

The prime minister said she believed Australia should have a price on carbon. "I will be prepared to argue for a price on carbon... so that we get that lasting and deep community consensus," she said. "But we are not there yet."

Ms Gillard said the government could take practical measures. "I believe in climate change. I believe it's caused by human activity and I believe we have an obligation to act," she said. "And I will be making some statements about some further things we can do to address the challenge of climate change as we work to that lasting and deep community consensus."

SOURCE





Send Pithouse to the shithouse

Corrupt Victoria again: A justice system that is unaccountable -- no matter how unsatisfactory its employees' behaviour may be



A Victorian magistrate refused a police application to protect the wife of a violent prisoner who was later stalked and attacked by the man. Richard Pithouse's conduct sparked two formal complaints to the state's Chief Magistrate, Ian Gray, in November, but it seems no action was taken.

According to the complaints, the magistrate refused to hear evidence including threats to bash and kill written by the jailbird.

Last week the Sunday Herald Sun revealed that Mr Pithouse refused to hear a sex assault victim's impact statement because he was late.

Mr Gray said he believed it was important victims had a voice in the justice system. "I am meeting with Mr Pithouse shortly and will counsel him accordingly," he said.

In October, Ballarat police applied for an intervention order against a man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, on behalf of his wife as his prison release date drew near. But Mr Pithouse refused the application without hearing any evidence, the complaint said.

A Ballarat welfare organisation later complained to Mr Gray after Mr Pithouse refused to hear evidence of the man's threatening letters. The complaint said the magistrate had bizarrely accused police of conducting a vendetta against the prisoner. Another formal complaint over the episode was made by detective Sgt Craig Dooley.

Prison letters sent by the man, but ignored by the court, included the threat "I'll kill her literally if she introduces guys to my wife". He also wrote "The ---ts have to be dealt with before I go out with a bang" and "I'm going to bash you with a cricket bat 100 per cent".

On release the man phoned his wife daily and threatened to burn down her grandmother's house. The harassment reached its peak on December 30 when he threatened her with a kitchen knife, a court later heard. A violent scuffle ensued in which the woman stabbed her attacker with the knife he was wielding - an offence for which she has been charged.

The woman had in the interim successfully obtained an intervention order against her husband by appearing before a different magistrate.

The man is on remand for breaching an intervention order and threatening a police officer with a razor blade.

Justice advocate Steve Medcraft slammed the Chief Magistrate's failure to act. "It seems it's an exclusive boy's club for magistrates," he said. The Justice Department would not say how many complaints had been made about Mr Pithouse.

SOURCE




Julia puts brakes on 'big Australia'

It might give ordinary Australians a break while governments catch up with all the roadbuilding and housing construction that is needed to cope with the big influx of migrants that we have already had in recent times.

Traffic congestion in all Australian big cities has got a lot worse in recent years because there are a lot more cars on the road now. We need a break while roadworks (more tunnels, bridges, freeways etc.) catch up -- which won't happen overnight

Prime Minister Julia Gillard is breaking free from one of her predecessor's main policy stances by announcing she is not interested in a "big Australia".

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd was in favour of population growth, with his government predicting it to hit around 36 million by 2050, largely through immigration. But Ms Gillard has indicated she will be putting the brakes on immigration in order to develop a more sustainable nation.

"Australia should not hurtle down the track towards a big population," she told Fairfax. "I don't support the idea of a big Australia with arbitrary targets of, say, a 40 million-strong Australia or a 36 million-strong Australia. We need to stop, take a breath and develop policies for a sustainable Australia. "I support a population that our environment, our water, our soil, our roads and freeways, our busses, our trains and our services can sustain."

But Ms Gillard says that does not mean putting a stop to immigration all together. "I don't want business to be held back because they couldn't find the right workers," she said. "That's why skilled migration is so important. But also I don't want areas of Australia with 25 per cent youth unemployment because there are no jobs," she said.

Mr Rudd installed Tony Burke as the Minister for Population, but in one of her first moves as Prime Minister, Ms Gillard has changed his job description to Minister for Sustainable Population. Mr Burke will continue to develop a national population strategy which is due to be released next year. Ms Gillard says the change sends a clear message about the new direction the Government is taking.

But an urban planning group is trying to convince Ms Gillard of the benefits of a big population. Urban Taskforce Australia chief executive Aaron Gadiel says a large population increases the tax base to fund improvements to infrastructure and welfare services. "We shouldn't be trying to fight it, what we should be trying to do is ensuring that we've got the investment and infrastructure that makes that process easier to manage," he said. "I think people should be focussing on how much state, federal and local governments have been investing in urban infrastructure to help absorb population growth."

A survey earlier in the year by the Lowy Institute found that almost three-quarters of Australians want to see the country's population grow, but not by too much. The Lowy Institute surveyed more than 1,000 people and found that while there was support for increased immigration, Australians were not quite prepared to embrace the Government's predicted 36 million. The poll showed 72 per cent of people supported a rise in Australia's population, but 69 per cent wanted it to remain below 30 million people.

SOURCE




Another political redhead is doing well

Pauline, Julia and now Marise



She's a 45-year-old Senator dating the youngest member of Parliament - but don't call her a cougar. Liberal senator Marise Payne says she is proud of her partner, Stuart Ayres, 29, for winning the state seat of Penrith with a record 25.5 per cent swing away from Labor. "It's just us. It's not an issue, it's who we are," Ms Payne said rolling her eyes, when asked about the cougar tag.

"I have worked in politics for a long time, I am used to the joys and the lesser moments," she said.

The couple, who have been dating for three years, worked together on his campaign to secure a Liberal stronghold in Western Sydney. The Penrith by-election was forced by the resignation of disgraced Labor MP Karyn Paluzzano, who admitted lying to ICAC over misusing staff entitlements.

"One of the first things I learned about Marise is she is a hard worker," Mr Ayres said. "I actually had no idea how old she was, it's never been an issue for me. "I saw her at a politics function and wanted to talk to her. I muscled up the courage, wandered across the room and that's how it started out."

And although there is no talk of marriage the couple live together at Leonay and are building a property in Mulgoa. "We are really looking forward to building our property but when the by-election came up we had to hit the pause button. Now we are very excited, I can't wait to get into taps and tiles and floors," Ms Payne said.

It took an accident in her early 20s to change Ms Payne's priorities and spark her interest in politics. "When you break your neck and recover you realise life is too short. I pursued my passion - politics," Ms Payne said.

Ms Payne trained as a lawyer at the University of NSW before going on to serve as a political adviser to the Liberal Party and has served in the Senate since 1997.

SOURCE





Court punishes the victim while the aggressor waltzes away

A grandmother taken to hospital after being assaulted by her son-in-law has been banned from seeing her grandchildren because a family court thinks she needs counselling. The woman, who cannot be named, has been limited to sporadic, 20-minute visits with the young boy and girl for the past 18 months despite reports showing how much the children adore her.

"The girl spent every opportunity possible hugging her grandmother," a social worker's report said. "There is little doubt the children were overjoyed to see her." The young boy and girl lived with their grandmother for years until an altercation where the grandmother was injured after being rammed by a truck driven by the children's father. He pleaded to assault charges and paid a fine.

The grandmother wasn't arrested, but said she felt she was held responsible because she was labelled as the instigator. The woman has a chance to see her grandchildren again, but only if she gets counselling. The son-in-law continues to have custody of the children, who have attended seven schools while in his care.

Documents show the children were performing better at school when they were living with their grandmother. A woman who has known the grandmother for 30 years said she was "a very caring person who has been badly done by".

The social worker's report showed the granddaughter was forced to control her weeping because her grandmother was under scrutiny during visits. "She told her grandmother she loved her and the grandmother reciprocated, and repeated the same words of affection," the report said.

The grandmother plans to attend the counselling to regain access to the children. "They lived with me day in and day out for years," she said. "There is nothing wrong with me. What's happened to me is what's wrong."

SOURCE



26 June, 2010

Labor Party to show new flexibility on mining tax

JULIA GILLARD says dealing with the controversial mining tax will be her first concern as Prime Minister, and is leaving open the chance her government will back down over the proposed 40 per cent rate.

Ms Gillard used her first full day in the top job yesterday to introduce herself to world leaders, including the US President, Barack Obama, work on a strategy for talks with mining companies, and meet with her cabinet.

"My priority obviously is to ensure that we deal with the question of the mining tax," Ms Gillard said. "It has caused uncertainty, I think that uncertainty has caused anxiety for Australians."

Treasury officials had been inching towards an accommodation with the resources industry about parts of the tax. But negotiations will now be conducted on a more open footing after Ms Gillard and the Deputy Prime Minister, Wayne Swan, said all elements of the tax were on the table.

The government had previously insisted the 40 per cent tax level was not negotiable. However Mr Swan, who met with Ms Gillard and the Resources Minister, Martin Ferguson, early yesterday, indicated the government had limited the range of its demands. "I'm not going to speculate publicly about the scope of those negotiations except to say that we are committed to a profits-based tax and to getting a fairer share of the value of our mineral resources," the Treasurer said.

Before her first cabinet meeting as Prime Minister, Ms Gillard insisted she was not beholden to the union and factional support that helped elevate her to the prime ministership. The demise of Kevin Rudd also did not mean that hard, unpopular reforms were no longer possible. "It is completely absurd for anybody to look at my track record in this place and to conclude anything other than that I have made my own decisions. I am a person of strong mind and I made my own decisions," she said. "It would be completely absurd to conclude that I am not prepared to stump up to hard reform."

As well as Mr Obama - to whom Ms Gillard apologised for not being able to attend the Group of 20 conference in Chicago - she also spoke to the leaders of Indonesia, Malaysia, Britain and Canada.

Ms Gillard will be based in Canberra in the coming days, rather than tour the country to strengthen her profile. "We need to get the government back on track. To do that we need to step-by-step take a series of decisions, and that is best done while I am here in Canberra," she said.

The former Labor leader Mark Latham warned that Ms Gillard could find herself victim to the same forces that helped install her as Prime Minister. "The modern Labor Party is so focused on polling, so focused on marketing … it has given up on getting these reforms through," Mr Latham said.

SOURCE






Miners resume hostilities over super tax

MINING critics of the super-profits tax have wasted little time in resuming their attack on it, which suggests the truce with Julia Gillard could be short-lived.

But as miners keep the pressure on the government, industry leaders also say they want to compromise with Ms Gillard. Two companies tipped to be among the big losers under the scheme - Rio Tinto and Macarthur Coal - took yet more shots at the tax yesterday while saying they were also hopeful about reaching a deal.

Macarthur's chairman, Keith De Lacy, dismissed consultation so far as "meaningless" and called on the government to remove revenue from the tax from its forward estimates. "It is not possible to negotiate in good faith with a big hairy monster like that looking over your shoulder," Mr De Lacy, a former Queensland treasurer, said. "Forward estimates should be the outcome of successful negotiations, not the starting point."

The Treasury has forecast that the tax would raise $12 billion in its first two years. Mr De Lacy said this assumption undermined the negotiations. If the government changed its estimates, he said the mining industry would be "fair dinkum" [genuine] in negotiating a policy that provided a "fair return" for Australians from natural resources.

The head of Rio Tinto's iron ore operations, Sam Walsh, said he hoped the stoush [fight] would be resolved before the election. "I'm very hopeful that with the recent changes in the structure of the government we can actually get in and engage and negotiate an arrangement," he said in Perth. But Mr Walsh also proclaimed the initial proposal "dead," and said he was "very frustrated" with the government's approach until now.

Owen Hegarty, the former managing director of Oxiana who is now vice chairman of the Chinese group CST, said Ms Gillard's actions had been "swift and positive" so far. "The simple fact that the 'negotiation' olive branch was offered in the earliest of paragraphs of the new leader's speech gives a clue, not only to the RSPT's deadly political potence, but to her determination to resolve it," Mr Hegarty said.

But market analysts doubt that the government and the miners will reach an agreement on the tax before the election. The head of resources at Fat Prophets, Nick Raffan, said the government appeared to be relying on the tax to bring the budget into surplus early, and they would be reluctant to make changes demanded by miners.

He said the most likely source of compromise would be a rise in the rate at which the super profit tax kicks in - 6 per cent under the current proposal. "The best outcome is probably a change in the threshold," Mr Raffan said. "I would think something north of 11 per 12 per cent would be more in the ball park."

A resource analyst at MineLife, Gavin Wendt, said he believed the government's pledge to negotiate with the mining industry was "electioneering," a view shared by many investors. "I am yet to be convinced that we are going to see any softening in the government's stance."

SOURCE






Turn off cash tap from the wasteful "Building the Education Revolution" program, say senators

THE future release of billions of dollars from the Building the Education Revolution program should be suspended until a taskforce investigation presents its findings, an interim Senate report recommends.

The Liberal-majority committee called for the suspension of payments until the taskforce's chairman, Brad Orgill, releases his initial findings on 100 schools in August.

The government had planned to sign off in July on the remaining 40 per cent of primary school building spending - about $5.5 billion. The government is already holding back $75 million in payments to seven master contractors while claims of waste in NSW school projects are being investigated.

The committee also believes Mr Orgill needs to be given greater powers to access all costings and relevant contracts to identify waste in the $16.2 billion program.

The Prime Minister and Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, was unavailable for comment.

Evidence given to the hearing from NSW presented contradictory views on the stimulus program.

The NSW Teachers Federation gave evidence to the committee that there would be less than $10 billion in actual value from the $16 billion allocated under the scheme.

A teachers federation research officer, Dr Mary Fogarty, said there was evidence of management fees of up to 30 per cent. In most projects cited, management fees were upwards of 13 to 15 per cent.

SOURCE






Global cooling hits Australia again

Warmists always say that hot weather proves global warming so ....

PERTH shivered through the coldest June night for four years and one of the coldest nights on record, with the temperature plunging to 0.1C. The city was at its coldest at 7.07am, when most people were climbing out of warm beds to head to work, with the temperature hitting a near-freezing 0.1C. It was equal fourth coldest night for Perth since records began at the Mt Lawley Bureau site.

Jandakot Airport recorded the coldest metropolitan area temperature, reaching -2C at 7.44am, but that was well short of the -3.4 on in June 2006. Perth Airport recorded 0.3C and Pearce RAAF base reached a minimum of -0.4C at 6.09am. Dwellingup, 97km south of Perth, also recorded -2C.

This morning was the coldest for June in Perth since 0.9 °C was recorded on June 18, 2006. Perth Metro's coldest night ever was -0.7 C on June 17, 2006. And it won't feel much warmer tonight, with a minimum of 2C forecast for Saturday morning.

The coldest ever night in June in Western Australia was -6C at Collie on June 17, 2006.

Light winds and clear skies plunged temperatures over much of the state, with Norseman in the Goldfields recording the state's lowest - a finger-numbing -4.7C.

SOURCE



25 June, 2010

A saner PM, it seems

Some cautious applause for the new policies of the new PM (see below) -- but you can't win 'em all and the pledge to revive Warmist laws is dumb. As a minister she was good on rebuffing thug unions and held the line on education reform but she was also in charge of the distrous "BER" school spending

She has never married and has no children, though she does have a male hairdresser as a partner (!). The rough makeup below does not reflect very feminine priorites, it seems to me. I cannot help comparing her life with the close family life of Margaret Thatcher



Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott's days of friendly sparring on morning television are over as the Opposition gears up to attack her central role in the failed government programs that led to the demise of Kevin Rudd's leadership.

Australia's first female prime minister yesterday made immediate pledges to wind back the mining super-profits tax, review asylum seeker laws and continue campaigning on climate change.

She "absolutely" ruled out hanging on for the full term before going to the people, and said an election would definitely be held this year.

Her decision to halt the Government's $38 million advertising campaign promoting the mining tax has delivered a partial truce with the mining industry, which has also stopped its ads.

Ms Gillard declared she was "full of understanding" for voters who wanted tougher border protection to keep out asylum seekers, and said she would renew the pursuit of the Emissions Trading Scheme after the federal election.

However, the Opposition greeted the new Prime Minster with derision. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said: "It's clear that if you want to change the policies you're going to have to change the Government. They've changed the salesman but they haven't changed the product."

With an election just months away - and hoping to blunt any political honeymoon for the new Prime Minister - Mr Abbott is hoping to target Ms Gillard's central role in the Building the Education Revolution scheme. He accused her of being principal author, along with Mr Rudd, of the "school hall rip-offs".

Senior Opposition figures said Ms Gillard would be attacked for her central role in government programs, including the insulation debacle and the flood of boat people during the past 12 months.

Yesterday, Ms Gillard admitted she was as much responsible for mistakes made by the Government as the man she toppled. "I take my fair share of responsibility for the Rudd Government's record, for our important achievements and for errors made," she said. "I know the Rudd Government did not do all it said it would do. And at times it went off track."

The new PM is expected to gain an immediate bounce in the poll as she was popular with voters even before ousting Mr Rudd from the top job.

Australia's new prime minister is also certain to boost the ALP vote with women...

Ms Gillard and Mr Abbott appeared in a segment on Channel 9's Today and were joked about as a Punch and Judy show.

With plenty of smiles, jokes and even a bit of flirting, the pair entertained morning television viewers in much the same way Mr Rudd and Joe Hockey did on Sunrise in the lead-up to the 2007 federal election.

SOURCE





The big ego that was Kevin Rudd

A classic Leftist. Comments below excerpted from Andrew Bolt



Blame the early loss of his father, or just his wiring, but Rudd has had a manic need to assert himself, as if to make up for a deep insecurity. He'd do whatever was needed to win authority over others, or just praise. He'd be whatever you wanted him to be.

And so he'd tell me one pleasing thing in private, but another populist thing in public. He'd hold press conferences outside his church to impress conservatives, but visit a strip club to impress an editor. He'd talk primly to voters, but abuse a stewardess.

To win the election, he promised to be a Howard-lite, crying: "This sort of reckless spending must stop." To win applause, he embarked on the greatest spending spree we've seen.

And he had to be The Man. As chief of staff to the Queensland premier, or as prime minister visiting an office, he'd show his place in the pecking order by putting his boots on the desk or table.

None of this need matter. But Rudd gave in to the same deep insecurities in trying to run a team of ministers. He had to decide everything, so delays were endless. Most ministers other than Treasurer Wayne Swan, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner and Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard were cut out of the loop.

Rudd chose as his most intimate advisers, mostly people barely 30, eminently bully-able, and he ordered his MPs to visit homeless shelters and report back, as if they were children doing homework.

But when he tried his hectoring on the premiers over his health "reforms", he bought a brawl. And when he repeated the dose on our biggest mining chiefs, he bought a war he could not win.

Those insecurities killed him in the end. His fatal confrontation with Gillard was prompted in part by his refusal to believe she was as loyal as she professed. To check she was not plotting, he sent a 31-year-old aide to ring his MPs, and this last insult fuelled a bushfire.

Yet Rudd could have been saved, if voters had now not seen through him. For almost three years he has had stratospheric approval ratings. He was rated highly for trustworthiness and vision, and seemed to have a plan, and to be meticulous in implementing it.

His fall started when his grandiose schemes started to fail - and none more badly that his "free insulation" disaster.

How could this man who seemed so diligent bungle one thing after another? But the public smelled fraud only when Rudd was this year forced to drop one more overblown, oversold plan - the emissions trading scheme that he'd promised to tackle, "the great moral challenge of our time". Now it seemed to many that Rudd had tricked them. He was a fake.

Even yesterday, in his moving farewell speech, Rudd showed how much of his achievements were just cardboard scenery. He listed the targets he'd set for tackling homelessness and Aboriginal poverty - targets he wasn't actually meeting. He cited his apology to the "Stolen Generations" - people no one can find. He praised his signing of the Kyoto Accord - which led to what? He mentioned his health reform - which hasn't even been settled.

But in standing there crying, Rudd showed at last the wounded man he was. He was as humble as it would have suited him to have been from the start.

SOURCE





Julia Gillard 'miles ahead' of Kevin Rudd in polls

This was written just before the spill and helps explain it

LABOR party polling shows Julia Gillard is "miles ahead'' of Kevin Rudd as preferred leader. Senior ALP figures said Mr Rudd's rating amongst voters has plummeted as his deputy's standing continues to soar.

The internal polling has been done across the key marginal seats that Labor will need to hold in the next federal election. Sources within the party said things are looking "catastrophic'' for the Prime Minister.

"Julia's numbers continue to be miles ahead of Kevin's,'' a Labor source said. "Voters are turning off Kevin in a very personal way, not just on the issues.''

Mr Rudd is said to have fallen dramatically in the net approval ratings, something which caused an outbreak of concern within his party.

A Galaxy Poll published last month showed that Ms Gillard was rapidly closing the gap between herself and Mr Rudd as preferred Labor leader. The research showed that dissatisfaction with the Prime Minister had reached a new high of 51 per cent, while just five percentage points separated him from Ms Gillard as preferred leader of the party (45-40).

"Julia's (internal) figures are stratospheric,'' the source said. "Kevin has been continually going down but for Julia it has been the complete opposite.''

SOURCE







More Victoria police corruption

Coverup of police lies by the very body that is supposed to enforce integrity

A REGIONAL policeman has battled for more than two years to bring a complaint against the Office of Police Integrity. The policeman has been given no proper explanation as to why his allegations against the police watchdog will not be investigated further.

Despite the Victorian Ombudsman describing as "inadequate" the OPI's recording of interviews, the police union says three oversight agencies have failed to resolve the complaint. In its submission to the Proust review, which this month recommended an overhaul of the state's anti-corruption regime, the police association used the case to illustrate the procedural failings and lack of oversight of the OPI.

Sergeant Carl Bolton of Colac was the subject of an OPI investigation in 2006, after allegedly assaulting a man he arrested for public drunkenness. He was acquitted of assault by Melbourne magistrate Maurice Gurvich in 2008, and the Director of Police Integrity was ordered to pay costs.

Sergeant Bolton, who remains a Colac police officer, has subsequently fought to have the conduct of the OPI officers who investigated him scrutinised. He has alleged, in documents seen by The Australian, that OPI investigators acted inappropriately and potentially criminally by failing to disclose important evidence to his defence team.

A spokesman for the OPI yesterday said Sergeant Bolton's allegations, as detailed in his letter to the Victorian Ombudsman, "have no substance whatsoever".

On September 20, 2006, four OPI officers arrived in Colac, setting up a base in the local CFA fire house, to interview witnesses. They were responding to a complaint by a Colac local, who when arrested by Sergeant Bolton and his partner earlier that year, had given his name as Humphrey Bear and his address as Mars.

When the matter went to court in 2008, the OPI senior investigator in the case, Holly Buckle, gave sworn evidence the witness interviews were not tape recorded. After hearing three witnesses give evidence under oath that they believed their interviews were taped, Ms Buckle took to the witness box two days later and said: "There's a very strong possibility our interview was recorded." Under cross-examination Ms Buckle denied she gave evidence she knew was a "blatant untruth" and told the court she believed no recording was made.

After his acquittal, Sergeant Bolton wrote to the Special Investigations Monitor, the body charged with oversight of the OPI whose effectiveness was recently questioned by senior bureaucrat Elizabeth Proust in her review.

In the letter, dated June 20, 2008, Sergeant Bolton accused the OPI officers of "conspir(ing) with one another to destroy critical evidence". He requested the SIM investigate whether OPI officers had committed perjury, misconduct or had attempted to pervert the course of justice. The then SIM head, David Jones, responded to Sergeant Bolton saying his office did not have the authority to investigate the complaint and it would be passed to the Ombudsman.

In November 2008, Deputy Ombudsman John Taylor wrote to Sergeant Bolton informing him his office had discovered four digital recordings of witness interviews, including two interviews with the complainant -- the material Sergeant Bolton's defence counsel sought under subpoena. Mr Taylor said: "While I consider the OPI's processes at the time were inadequate, I am also of the view that OPI officers acted responsibly and did nothing contrary to the policies in place at the time." But the Deputy Ombudsman said his office could not provide legal advice or conduct criminal proceedings.

A spokesman for the OPI said the digital recordings were filed in a directory that was archived after another OPI employee moved to another department. Ms Buckle is believed not to have been present at the interviews that were later found to have been recorded.

It is understood that Sergeant Bolton, who has not spoken to The Australian, was not satisfied with this explanation and wrote to then chief commissioner Christine Nixon to request an investigation into his allegations that the OPI officers had acted criminally.

A spokesperson for Victoria Police yesterday confirmed that independent legal advice was sought about the matter. "The return advice indicated there is no basis for concluding that the OPI investigators have committed any criminal offences. Accordingly, there is no proposal to have the matter investigated by the Ethical Standards Department, they said.

Police association secretary Greg Davies, whose union funded Sergeant Bolton's defence, said the case highlighted the lack of oversight of the police watchdog. "Sergeant Bolton's concerns should have had a mechanism to be dealt with fairly and taken to their logical conclusion, rather than him receiving a short letter that had a 'Just go away boy' tone to it," Mr Davies said. "The Ombudsman's office is an entirely inappropriate body to deal with complaints about the OPI, and the SIM is basically a toothless tiger."

SOURCE



24 June, 2010

How the mighty are fallen: Less than 3 years from rooster to feather duster

After the report below was filed, it emerged that Kevvy had stepped aside and the redhead is now PM. This was a pretty desperate throw as the Federal Labor party has to be badly damaged by it. Few people in the party liked Kevvy. It was only his ability to con the electorate that put him in the job and kept him there. Gillard has turned out much better from a conservative viewpoint than anyone expected so her challenge could return the Labor party to the sort of pragmatism we saw in the Hawke era. I am a bit biased in favour of redheads so I wish her well! Background on the precipitous fall of Rudd here



KEVIN Rudd this morning looks certain to lose his prime ministership in a caucus ballot after he and Julia Gillard last night spent a desperate 2.5 hours in failed talks.

Sky News reports Deputy Prime Minister Ms Gillard was tipped to take up to 70 of the 112 Caucus votes, and that Treasurer Wayne Swan has reportedly backed her for today's leadership ballot (9am AEST). Sky News believes Ms Gillard should win the vote on the reported numbers. Mr Swan is likely to become Deputy Prime Minister.

Key Labor powerbrokers yesterday moved on Mr Rudd, telling Ms Gillard she had the numbers to win. But Mr Rudd made it clear he would not step aside and that his enemies would have to force him out.

The final straw for Ms Gillard came early yesterday. Angered by a morning newspaper report leaked from the Prime Minister's office, questioning her loyalty to Mr Rudd, she called senior powerbroker and fellow Victorian MP Bill Shorten. She wanted to know what to do.

"It p***ed everyone in the caucus off," a New South Wales senior factional leader said. "And it p***ed her off, too. She has been nothing but loyal. And to have that happen was not only stupid but unwarranted."

By late afternoon, Mr Shorten, fellow Victorian Senator David Feeney, NSW MP Tony Burke and South Australian right wing factional leader Don Farrell went to see Ms Gillard in her office. They had been conspiring for the past week and they wanted her to challenge. "I'll consider it," she said. The dice was rolled.

A grim-faced Ms Gillard later confirmed she would stand in the leadership contest as she left Parliament House after telling the Prime Minister she had the numbers to oust him. "I will be a candidate in tomorrow's ballot," Ms Gillard told reporters. If she loses today she would be expected to quit as a minister and go to the backbench.

After the meeting with Ms Gillard, Mr Rudd called a press conference in which he slammed faction leaders, saying voters and not factions had made him Prime Minister, and vowed to fight for his job.

More HERE






Political correctness kept a disastrous incompetent in her crucial job

Victoria police descended into new lows of incompetence and corruption during her non-leadeship of it

KEY members of the Victorian government were deeply unhappy with the performance of then police chief Christine Nixon in 2007. This led to speculation on her possible early departure from the job.

Secretly taped telephone intercepts by the Office of Police Integrity contradict the Brumby government's public claims that Ms Nixon always had its full backing during the turbulent period when links were being uncovered between corrupt police and the gangland wars.

This week in parliament, Premier John Brumby was forced to reiterate his support for Ms Nixon during her time as chief commissioner. He also denied his government had received Operation Briars phone-tap material during wage negotiations with the police union. Operation Briars was investigating possible police involvement in a murder.

The OPI's own summaries of telephone intercepts from numerous calls made by former assistant commissioner Noel Ashby between June and October 2007 - which have never been publicly disclosed - reveal Tim Pallas, the Roads and Ports Minister and a former senior adviser to former premier Steve Bracks, was unhappy with Ms Nixon's performance.

They also show that the office of Police Minister Bob Cameron was dismayed by Ms Nixon's handling of enterprise bargaining negotiations with the union.

The OPI summary of a call between Mr Ashby and Mr Pallas on July 31, 2007, only days after Mr Bracks resigned as premier, states that the two men: "Discuss implications of Bracks' resignation and portfolio change. "NA (Ashby) enquires as to if Bob Cameron will be moving. NA states that CCP (chief commissioner of police Nixon) will have to step up to the plate. "Pallas states that he will believe it when he sees (it)."

In another call, on June 29, former police media director Steve Linnell and Mr Ashby discuss Mr Pallas's view on Ms Nixon. "NA informs Linnell on his most recent conversation with Tim Pallas," the OPI states.

"The following developments were repeated to Linnell - the CCP (Nixon) is likely going in the next 12 months. "NA says things are not good between government and VicPol because of the CCP. "Linnell says there will be industrial issues because of the CCP. "NA says he has inferred that and Bracks is aware of that.

"Pallas has said to NA that there are risks, she will not be there at the next election but they cannot shorten her contract. She'll go next year if she goes out on a high and if (police union chief Paul) Mullett lays off."

That same day, Mr Ashby tells then assistant commissioner Leigh Gassner Mr Pallas had told him - in the words of the OPI summary - "the government won't run with CCP much longer".

These private opinions were at odds with the government's public support for Ms Nixon, with Mr Brumby declaring on April 9, 2008: "In terms of the chief commissioner, I've said it before and I'll say it again, she enjoys the full confidence of me and the government."

SOURCE




A badly troubled public hospital system in S. Aust.

REPORTS of violence, infections, falls, and medication mistakes affecting public hospital patients increased last year.

Health Minister John Hill tabled the SA Patient Safety Report 2008-09 in Parliament yesterday, which shows the number of reported incidents rose from 22,522 in 2006-07, to 26,094 in 2007-08, and 29,056 last year.

It shows the "sentinel" or most serious events included:

SIX hospital inpatient suicides.

SEVEN instruments left in patients after surgery.

TWO maternal deaths.

More than 7000 patients fell over; nine of them died after falling and 23 of them suffered serious injuries.

About 5900 medication mistakes included 660 overdoses, and about 1750 medication omissions. The number of healthcare-associated infection incidents more than doubled to 167.

The report's introduction says errors are a "normal human condition", that most "did not cause significant harm", and highlights that the increase is in reported numbers, which shows the robustness of the department's safety culture.

Mr Hill said reporting such incidents was important because staff can learn from mistakes and refine procedures. SA Health chief public health officer Dr Stephen Christley said the department had an "excellent safety culture".

"Extensive work has been, and continues to be, conducted across SA Health to address the state and national patient safety priorities," he said.

"This includes improving patient identification procedures, programs to improve team work and new initiatives to help prevent healthcare associated infections."

Opposition health spokesman Duncan McFetridge said a "ballooning layer of bureaucrats" and "years of under-resourcing" of the system had led to a "skyrocketing number of patient safety incidents".

"Minister John Hill has overseen the SA public health system as it crumbles while the Rann Government pours funds into the ballooning budget for the railyards hospital - patients' health and safety is compromised while in SA public hospitals," he said.

SOURCE






Incurable NSW public hospital system

HOSPITALS in NSW have performed 2304 fewer elective operations than last year despite an injection of $122 million over four years in federal funds to cut waiting lists, a leaked report shows.

The monthly Surgical Services Taskforce report also reveals that more than 2000 patients have waited longer for operations than the recommended time set by their doctors.

The proportion of elective procedures cancelled on the day of surgery has risen to 4.3 per cent, more than double NSW Health's benchmark of 2 per cent.

In May the Sydney West Area Health Service, which includes Westmead and Nepean hospitals, cancelled 5.1 per cent of planned procedures. Between July last year and March, it performed 2304 fewer surgeries - the same figure as the total for all NSW hospitals.

Figures for the remaining seven area health services and the Children's Hospital at Westmead cancel one another: Sydney South West and Eastern Sydney/Illawarra have each performed about 500 more surgeries than last year.

The Health Minister, Carmel Tebbutt, said Sydney West had been given $6.5 million more to increase operations and reduce surgery waiting times.

She acknowledged the frustration of patients who have often rearranged their lives, been "prepped" for theatre and then been told their surgery was not going ahead.

"That is unfortunate and we would always prefer not to have to do that, but it is, from time to time, an essential fact when we are running a very busy health system and we have to respond to the most urgent cases first."

On-the-day cancellations are usually due to a lack of theatre time or post-operative beds, a change in the patient's condition or the patient pulling out.

The opposition health spokeswoman, Jillian Skinner, said she had been told of four patients who had been cancelled 14 times, including a 63-year-old man who is still waiting for a heart valve replacement after five bookings.

A record 67,478 patients were awaiting non-urgent surgery at the end of March, a 7 per cent increase on the same time last year and almost 15 per cent more than in March 2008.

Ms Tebbutt said 2874 more operations were completed in the first three months of this year than in the same quarter last year. She pointed to Commonwealth data this week that showed NSW patients received elective surgery within clinically recommended time frames more than in any other state.

"There is no doubt that planned surgery poses huge challenges for our health system but we are responding to that with increased investment, a focus on patients waiting longer times and our predictable surgery program."

SOURCE



23 June, 2010

That good ol' socialist "planning" again

No books, no staff in Kevin Rudd's new libraries

SCHOOL libraries built under Kevin Rudd's controversial stimulus program have no new books on their shelves and no staff to run them.

Librarians have panned the Rudd Government for spending billions on new library buildings but not a cent on resources or staff training. Queensland teacher-librarians have warned Education Minister Julia Gillard that better buildings won't equal improved learning without resources and staff.

The Rudd Government has spent more than $3.9 billion on 3400 library projects under its Building the Education Revolution program, including $1 billion on 1200 Queensland libraries. The cash was only for construction or fit-out, not "non-portable" items like books.

Submissions to a federal inquiry into school libraries and teacher-librarians reveal frustration over chronically underfunded libraries and a lack of consultation on building projects.

The School Library Association of Queensland welcomed the cash injection but said "many facilities do not meet student or school needs" because schools weren't given a say in their design.

Gold Coast librarians said follow-up funding for librarians and resources was crucial. "Members of the Gold Coast branch of School Libraries Association of Queensland have visited new libraries funded by the BER, with state-of-the-art technology and inviting learning spaces, but they have minimum books on the shelves," its submission said.

The Sunshine Coast Teacher-Librarians Network was disappointed there was no cash for resources leaving "ageing collections that are no longer functional for students in the information age".

A spokesman for Ms Gillard said State Governments were responsible for funding library staff and books. "While the Government provides funding for schools, the day-to-day management of schools and allocation of staff, including teacher-librarians, is the responsibility of the government and non-government education authorities in each state and territory," he said.

In its submission, the Queensland Catholic Education Commission warned "improved buildings will not translate into improvements in library services and learning outcomes" without adequate resourcing.

A survey by the Children's Book Council of Australia found the average school library budget was just $25 per student. Many school library budgets fell below 1975 funding levels, the survey found.

SOURCE





Mother of slain Melbourne teenager slams police agency

Victoria's OPI seems to be a twin of the old Queensland Police Complaints Tribunal, commonly known as The Police Whitewash Tribunal. Queensland improved on that decades ago. Not so Victoria

THE independence of the Office of Police Integrity has been challenged by the mother of a teenager shot dead by police 18 months ago.

Shani Cassidy, mother of Tyler Cassidy, who was shot dead by police in December 2008 in circumstances his family believes were preventable, told the OPI and state government that an independent body needed to be established to investigate police shootings.

"An independent body needs to be set up to independently investigate police deaths in custody and see whether the police action was justified," she said in a submission to an OPI inquiry into deaths associated with police contact.

"The police have been able to control Tyler's investigation by choosing whom to get statements from and hone their questioning to suit their stance. We demand change because the system does not work at the moment."

Ms Cassidy told The Australian yesterday the OPI had instructed the family that it did not have the resources to probe the shooting, in which police fired 10 bullets, six of which hit the 15-year-old.

Police said that they opened fire on the teenager, who was armed with two knives. Ms Cassidy, who said her son was "in crisis", contacted police 30 minutes before the fatal shooting to say Tyler had left the house in a distressed state.

"The OPI has just stood back and let the police run the investigation," she said. "From the minute that Tyler was killed, everything was cordoned and contained by the same people that killed Tyler." Ms Cassidy and her partner, Greg Taylor, said a 1700-page police brief to the coroner, which has still not been completed, was "biased and amateurish" and "just tells their side of the story".

They said 700 pages of the brief concerned Tyler's school and medical records for the five years leading up to his killing.

The police probe into the shooting, including an inability to locate all the bullets fired on the night, was grossly inadequate, potentially crucial evidence had not been handed to their lawyers, and they feared the inquest would be handicapped by the police "buddy syndrome".

"I just want a fair go for Tyler," Ms Cassidy said. "He was a 15-year-old boy. They should have stood back. They didn't have to put six bullets into him."

Ms Cassidy's submission to the OPI inquiry has been made through the Flemington & Kensington Community Legal Centre, which says the failures of police investigating their own is a "consistent . . . theme".

Tamar Hopkins, principal solicitor at the centre, told The Australian the state government's proposed Victorian Integrity and Anti-Corruption Commission would leave a failed system intact, with the OPI left untouched.

"This was a generational opportunity squandered, leaving the police as unaccountable as they ever were," she said.

A spokesman for the OPI, Paul Conroy, confirmed last night that the OPI had been in contact with Tyler Cassidy's family and advised them "that it is not feasible to conduct a parallel investigation duplicating the homicide squad's preparation of a brief for the coroner unless there is some demonstrated need".

SOURCE






Confirmation that top Victoria police refused to prosecute a prominent footballer despite a strong brief

And Victoria's Office of Police Whitewashing has finally decided to look into it. It took exposure of the matter on a TV program to get even that semblance of action, however

RAPE charges against Saints star Stephen Milne were dropped partly because they would cost too much if the case failed, a former detective has claimed. Mike Smith backed allegations made by his co-investigator, Scott Gladman, that other police had tried to derail their investigation.

No charges were laid against Milne or teammate Leigh Montagna over a woman's claims that she was raped at Montagna's home. Both men deny any wrongdoing.

The Office of Police Integrity yesterday announced an inquiry into Mr Gladman's claims.

Last night, Mr Smith told Nine News that money was one of the reasons they were given for the decision not to go ahead with the case. He said it was suggested that because Milne and teammate Montagna could afford top lawyers, "it would cost the department a lot of money" if the prosecution were unsuccessful. "We thought we'd done a great job," he said of the investigation. "We couldn't do a better brief of evidence if we tried."

He said the news that his superior officer and the Director of Public Prosecutions had decided not to prosecute was a turning point in his career. "That one investigation shattered it for me," he said.

The mother of the alleged victim said the family was bitterly disappointed with the decision six years ago, but had finally managed to get their lives back together. "Detective Gladman's bravery and honesty may bring about an end to it once and for all. He's always shown integrity over the matter," she said.

Mr Smith said he had urged the family to make a formal complaint after constant leaks of information, including media being alerted within 15 minutes of the alleged victim going to police.

SOURCE




Revolt against Rudd will be ugly

The image of Australia as a nice place for relaxed politicians is going to be on hold for a while. PM Rudd is in big trouble, and the sound of knives is being heard throughout the land. A leadership revolt is in the air, and whatever happens, it’s not going to be pretty.

Elected in 2007 with a huge win, Rudd is nobody’s idea of a fool. He survived the murderous Labor competition to become leader, too, which is about as much fun as swimming the Pacific inside a shark. With great energy, he swung into major reforms, and got a reputation for being a hard boss. So far, so good.

Then, this year, the wheels fell off, all of them. In the greatest reversal of political profile and positions since Ben Chifley sent in troops against the miner’s strike, everything collapsed.

1. The Emissions Trading Scheme, a pillar of election promises, and no small amount of grandstanding about environmental credentials, went up in smoke.

2. The Home Insulation Scheme, another environmental initiative, was bungled, resulting in several deaths, and a major investigation into widespread fraud.

3. The 40% super tax on mining produced a ferocious response from the mining industry, which even left the Liberal Opposition in their wake in terms of attacking the government.

The result of all these merry misadventures is that Labor now has a primary vote of 35%, the lowest in decades. Labor's credibility has been maimed, severely. Rudd’s own popularity is now historic, in that many people now want him to be history. These setbacks have appalled the Labor Party, so much so that the convention of saying nothing negative about policy has vanished.

For those who don’t know, the Labor Party in crisis is about as squeamish as a chainsaw mass murderer trying for a personal best score. It has a left and right wing, both of which not very cordially loathe each other on occasion. Power brokers in the Labor Party aren’t known for their collection of Nobel Peace Prizes, either.

The choices of alternative leader are easy enough: Deputy PM Julia Gillard, or Deputy PM Julia Gillard, or perhaps even Deputy PM Julia Gillard. There isn’t anyone else, and everybody else is very strongly on the nose with the public at the moment. Treasurer Wayne Swann, heavily identified with the mining tax, will have to fall on his sword, or someone will help him fall on it.

That’s not all bad news for Labor. Gillard has done the almost impossible already, getting genuine respect as a hard case in Canberra. Her political technique is excellent, and not much gets past her in media presentations. If Gillard becomes the next PM, Labor can at least be sure it’s not getting a dud.

The real bad news for Labor is an unwholesome déjà vu. This is the second time in so many years that an Australian political leader has been hanged by a high profile issue, and left swinging in the breeze by his party. The other was former Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull, also hung out to dry in an absurd, indefensible position.

Coincidence, or have Australia’s political scientists been doing more than watching reruns of Lost?

What’s a surprise in this case is that Rudd, who’s an ex-diplomat, and knows the game, has been left holding so many babies. Politicians don’t need to go looking for problems, and he would know that. Politicians, in fact, are often donated problems by their friends and advisors.

As a load of unsaleable garbage, the mining tax would take the cake as a prime example. Australians don’t lie awake at night hoping for a new tax. Particularly not at 40%. None of the usual precautions against a suicidal policy seem to have been taken in this case. There was no sounding out, no obvious sign of policy evaluation. That’s extremely suspicious. It's like a doctor not doing a diagnosis before an operation. It's not supposed to happen.

For the Labor Party to be genuinely that careless is a real concern. It’s not really too probable, because this is only a first term, and first termers tend to be more cautious. For it to provide a short pier for someone to take a long walk is much more likely. Like Turnbull, Rudd has found himself without support, and in mid air with an impossible issue.

Wile E Coyote had much the same problem, but he was syndicated. The question is, has Australian politics entered a new, virile, even more mediocre stage? Can we now elect people who can be removed at will by any tedious little maggot in a position to make policy? Or is this Canberra at its unhygienic best, a septic little country town full of no-hoper political time servers with nothing better to do than make Australia look like an idiot factory?

I ask because one thing is becoming obvious. Rudd and Turnbull both have one thing in common. They put in a lot of work. These nutcase slapdash policy approaches were obviously created by people who do very little work of any kind. Responsibility for errors of judgment or political naiveté is personal, but policy responsibilities are everyone’s business in politics.

SOURCE



22 June, 2010

We must do better on housing supply, says Federal Treasurer

Good to see a Leftist acknowledging the impoverishing burden of regulation

AUSTRALIA must do better in the supply of housing - a supply gap that could grow to 600,000 by 2028/29, Treasurer Wayne Swan has warned. Mr Swan told a Property Council conference in Canberra that the National Housing Supply Council estimates the country's housing stock is currently short of 178,400 dwellings. "It seems that the supply of housing in Australia is not as responsive as it could be, and this has been the case for some time now," Mr Swan said in a prepared speech on Monday.

He said reasons for this supply shortage were impediments created by various regulations, slow planning and zoning processes, and complex, uncertain and time-consuming systems for charging developers for infrastructure.

"In the worst-case scenario, it can take as long as 15 years to proceed from the identification of suitable land to a completed house," Mr Swan said. "We can do better than this."

He said commonwealth and state treasuries and premiers' departments were now fully engaged in the process of designing reforms to improve the operation of the housing market. "I'm determined to see the Australian government play a role in reforming the housing market for the long term, embedding better practices in planning and zoning and developer charging," he said.

Mr Swan reeled off a number of initiatives undertaken by the federal government in its efforts to improve the functioning of the housing market.

These included a $6.2 billion national affordable housing agreement with the states, $5.2 million of stimulus money to build more than 19,300 in public housing stock, and a $512 million housing affordability fund.

This is on top of a national rental affordability scheme that encourages institutional investors to deliver low-cost rental housing, the first-home saver account and a more generous first-home owners grant during the global financial crisis.

The government is also committed to $27.7 billion in urban and regional road infrastructure that will help support housing. "These are all important steps and they will all contribute to improving the functioning of the Australian housing market and, in particular, the supply of low-cost housing," he said.

SOURCE





More Victoria police corruption

A RAPE charge against Saints star Stephen Milne collapsed amid a campaign of threats and intimidation from inside Victoria Police and by powerful club backers, a former detective claims.

The explosive claims have been made by the detective who led the 2004 investigation into the alleged rape of a woman by Milne at the home of teammate Leigh Montagna. Former Brighton Sen-Det Scott Gladman told Nine News tapes of interviews with the two Saints were stolen from his desk and the alleged victim's statement was leaked to the club during the six-week investigation.

He also alleges St Kilda had the woman, who was 19 at the time, followed by a private investigator for years after the incident, costing $95 an hour. "We were told that if things went well, consider yourself a Saints person for life," he said.

The detective does not allege that the club directly pressured him, but that influential people with "a vested interest in the possible outcome for the club" contacted police during the investigation.

He said two witnesses heard the alleged victim refuse sex with Milne in the incident. But higher-ranked officers and the then director of public prosecutions, Paul Coghlan, QC, declined to prosecute Milne, saying there was no chance of a conviction.

Sen-Det Gladman told Nine News he was under pressure from the start, with a stream of calls from other officers telling him he would be "looked after" if the case went away. "She's just one of these footy sluts that runs around looking for footballers to f---," one officer allegedly told him. "You better do the right thing. You better make sure that this is done properly."

He said he could not leave the brief of evidence in his desk at night because he couldn't be sure it was safe. "I couldn't understand how something like that could become so big, and allowed to become so out of control," he said. He found part of the transcripts of the players' police interviews on his office photocopier, he said. Recordings of their interviews had also vanished from his desk for up to seven hours.

The former officer said he learned that someone had shown people at St Kilda the woman's statement, revealing her identity.

The detective says he felt there was a case to answer, based on the evidence he gathered, and it should have been for a jury to decide. "There is a prima facie case still sitting there in that box at that office that should be answered by a jury," he said. "Stephen Milne is an innocent person until he's proven guilty in a court of law. However, we never got that far, because the carriage of justice, or the natural flow of justice, was interrupted."

Telling the woman the case was "dead" was one of the worst experiences of the 17-year veteran's career. "Nothing was harder than going to tell her that the brief had been put to bed, (and) that was it," he said.

The policeman has now left the force, and says he regrets not doing something about the interference in his investigation at the time. "At the time I just thought I could just get on with the job and just do it," he told Nine News. "What should have happened is it should have been reported, and it should have been investigated, and those people should have been held accountable," he said.

Police last night declined to comment. "Victoria Police, after receiving advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions, and after a thorough investigation, concluded there was insufficient evidence to prosecute the two AFL footballers," the force said in a statement.

Milne's manager, Tom Petroro of Stride Management, said the St Kilda star had no comment to make. Montagna's manager, Dan Richardson, also declined to comment.

A source close to Montagna said the claims would be "news" to him. "It was sorted out and all in the past and a long time ago. I don't know why it is being brought up again," he said.

The victim's lawyer could not be contacted.

St Kilda CEO Michael Nettlefold said the club did not intend to comment on "internal police matters". "What I can say is at the time of the police investigation six years ago both the club and the players fully co-operated with the investigation," Mr Nettlefold said.

SOURCE






Teenager faces life in a wheelchair after bullying sparked suicide bid

And what's the response of the hateful NSW bureaucrats in charge of school safety? A new email address! No word that anything has happened to the bullies

EXTREME bullying has left a teenage boy in a wheelchair unable to speak or walk and taking food and liquids through a tube to his stomach. Dakoda-Lee Stainer, 14, suffered brain damage when deprived of oxygen for more than 20 minutes after attempting to take his own life.

The teen, now under around-the-clock care in priority disability housing, endured months of relentless attacks by bullies before reaching the point of despair. Friends said Dakoda had rocks thrown at him and was admitted to hospital for a head injury as the cruel bullying turned physical.

On the day he tried to end it all he had been accosted by the same gang of youths on the school bus. The teen, who attended Melville High School at Kempsey, on the North Coast, was found in a bedroom at home on September 4 last year - about 13 months after another 14-year-old, Alex Wildman, killed himself at Lismore because of violent run-ins with schoolmates.

Dakoda's family and friends agreed to speak about his plight in a bid to get authorities to take bullying more seriously and prevent further tragedies.

In the wake of the Wildman case, the Department of Education and Training said it would review the way in which counsellors were allocated to schools and trial a new email address in selected schools inviting people to report bullying.

Dakoda's mum Theresa said yesterday: "I can't imagine what those kids (bullies) would have put him through to get him to that state. "I don't know how these mongrels ate away at my boy's strength ... "

Theresa, now living on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, said her son was making progress, communicating with his eyes and by shaking. He was attempting to move his arms and legs. "He lost oxygen to the brain for at least 22 or 23 minutes," she said. "When we got to hospital it took them 12 minutes to restart his heart."

SOURCE





200 Tamil Tigers 'sailing to asylum' in Australia

The Tigers are brutal Marxist terrorists -- the last group Australia needs

SRI Lankan officials have warned that a vessel carrying up to 200 asylum-seekers could be headed for Australia.

As Kevin Rudd faces rising internal concern that the issue is hurting Labor, the Prime Minister will today hold a meeting of the full ministry to mark what could be the last parliamentary sitting week before the election, amid rising leadership speculation. Labor backbenchers said yesterday they had "sent a message" to Mr Rudd's office on asylum-seekers in the past fortnight, and several frontbenchers confirmed it was a live issue in the electorate.

As the Rudd government faces a looming deadline on whether to lift a three-month suspension of Sri Lankan asylum claims, the country's high commissioner to Australia, Senaka Walgampaya, has urged the Prime Minister to extend the freeze.

Australia has previously sought assistance from Indonesia to turn back a boatload of 260 illegal migrants heading for Australia, and successfully repelled the largest boatload attempting to enter Australian waters since the election of the Rudd government in 2007.

The high commissioner said yesterday he had credible information that a boat, believed to be connected to remnants of the Tamil Tigers, had upwards of 200 people on it. "My information is that there is such a boat," Mr Walgampaya said yesterday. "Earlier on, the boat was going to Canada; now it is confirmed that they are trying to come to Australia."

Mr Walgampaya also called on the government to extend the freeze on Sri Lankan asylum claims, saying there was evidence it had been effective. "I would certainly like to continue as it is," he said. "I think boat arrivals have reduced as a result. If they continued it, that would be good."

On June 10, The Australian reported that the Philippines Coast Guard had in May issued an alert for the MV Sun Sea, formerly known as the Harin Panich 19.

Mr Walgampaya said the venture was being organised by remnants of the Liberation of Tamil Tiger Eelam (Tamil Tigers). "We are told that the boat itself does not belong to the LTTE but they are people who have links to the LTTE," Mr Walgampaya said.

Ahead of today's ministry meeting in Canberra, three Labor frontbenchers conceded asylum-seekers were an issue in the electorate, and one pointed to the Prime Minister himself telling the ALP caucus the government needed to sell its message better. "There's a a strongly entrenched debate around asylum-seekers," one frontbencher said. "People are asking: what is Labor going to do about boatpeople," another Labor MP told The Australian. "Efforts are being made to get that through to the Prime Minister's office."

Another Labor frontbencher said: "We've all recognised that it's certainly an issue and we certainly need to communicate what we are doing. "At the moment, there's a misunderstanding that's being whipped up by talkback radio. "The Prime Minister said that we need to better communicate what we're doing in this area."

The remarks came as outspoken Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry told a World Refugee Day rally in Melbourne that there had been a "failure of leadership" on the issue of asylum-seekers. "If you ask the right questions, you'll get the right answers from the Australian public and I think they've been led down the wrong track by a failure of leadership," Professor McGorry said.

SOURCE



21 June, 2010

Labor party defeat in NSW State by-election sends PM Rudd a message on asylum-seekers

Every federal Liberal who went to Penrith to campaign reported that voters raised two issues; Rudd and boatpeople. Joe Hockey and Marise Payne both informed the Liberal caucus last week in Canberra about these concerns. "The boatpeople issue out there was white hot," said one Liberal yesterday.

Hockey and Payne did not raise anything publicly about what they discovered because they were afraid it might stir Rudd into action.

Scott Morrison, the Liberals' increasingly effective immigration spokesman, has managed to bushwhack Rudd both from the Right and the Left on boatpeople. On the one hand he says people-smugglers must be stopped because they are putting desperate and innocent lives at risk. On the other hand he advocates a much tougher treatment of asylum-seekers if they do make it here.

As he put it, Rudd's problem is that he has nowhere to go. If he does change course, either way he must embrace at least one aspect of Coalition policy. Hockey and Payne's fears were never going to be realised, however. There is a view at the highest levels of Rudd's ministry that he just does not understand the voters' visceral reaction to the collapse of border protection on his watch.

Part of the reason I'm writing this column is that there are senior Labor figures who are so frustrated at Rudd's blind spot on asylum-seekers they see no other way to get the message to him than through the media: "We are bleeding to death on this," says one prominent backbencher loyal to Rudd. "Everywhere you went in Penrith they were talking about boatpeople. "And people (read Rudd) don't seem to understand that over in Western Australia they may hate the mining tax. But they hate the boat arrivals even more."

Two weeks ago David Bradbury, the federal member for Lindsay, which takes in Penrith, stood in the partyroom. Bradbury, the chairman of the caucus economics committee, is a widely respected figure in the caucus, regarded as intelligent, hard-working and above all well plugged-in to his local community. Bradbury warned Rudd just how damaging the asylum-seeker debacle had become for Labor in his electorate. He was followed by the equally respected South Australian member for Wakefield, Nick Champion. The message was the same. And critically the demographics of Champion's seat are the same. In other words the boatpeople problem for Labor is national in scope.

Most commentators attribute Rudd's speed-of-light decline in the polls to his backflip on the emissions trading scheme. But if you look at Newspoll closely you can date the beginning of Rudd's decline from his mishandling of the Oceanic Viking affair. It was that episode that stripped him bare as a prime minister unable or unwilling to take tough decisions in the national interest. The ETS retreat simply reinforced that suspicion among more voters. The wheels of the government had been wobbling for some time over asylum-seekers. The ETS was just the pothole where they finally fell off. No one in the early stages really noticed except colleague Dennis Shanahan who attributed the downward movement to boatpeople earlier than most.

Liberal scrutineers on Saturday reported two recurring themes; voters bagging Rudd in highly personal terms and anger over the federal government's loss of control over our borders.

It was too much for Labor how-to-vote volunteers at three of the biggest booths in the electorate. Halfway through the afternoon they ditched their ALP T-shirts for orange "Your Rights At Work" tops. In those three booths the swing against Labor was 30 per cent - 5 per cent more than the average across Penrith. Which must mean Rudd's attempts to pin a return to WorkChoices on Tony Abbott is going along just swimmingly, thanks very much.

With all due respect to Swan's limp attempts at humour on Sunday morning television, the message federally for Rudd from Penrith, and therefore from every equivalent outer suburban seat in the nation, is that the Prime Minister must change tack on asylum-seekers. Right on cue, the beleaguered Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor whose melancholy duty is to inform the nation at a constantly accelerating rate of the arrival of yet another boat, announced yesterday the beginning of the procurement of eight new coastal patrol boats in 2013. Two elections away. And when they are commissioned they will only "gradually"replace the serving vessels.

Rudd simply does not have that much time. "When an entire party's brand is damaged you're in very dangerous territory," one senior Liberal machine man said.

If that's true what does it mean for federal election timing? Many commentators were saying yesterday that the Penrith result meant Rudd would have to go early to put as much distance as possible between his poll and NSW Labor's state fixed term which is due to expire in March next year.

But here's an alternative theory. Why go first in the key battleground state of NSW and cop a hiding because voters have been waiting patiently to take the head off the first person who puts theirs above the parapet under the ALP banner?

Constitutionally Rudd can wait until April. In fact he mused about it on Friday before his office was forced to re-commit to a poll this year. One Liberal strategist who has run a few campaigns in his time put it more directly: "If your arse is on fire, you wait." That might explain all that smoke haze out in Penrith on Saturday.

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State Labor on the nose in Queensland too

I am a bit surprised at this. Bligh is charisma-free but she hasn't done much to attract odium. She hasn't done much at all in fact, which is rather a good thing where a Labor government is concerned. The public hospitals are a disaster but what else is new? The big issue seems to be her moves to sell off government assets to balance her budget. Conservatives like that but the unions hate it and have big billboards up condemning it. So it sounds that it is her own Labor voters she is losing

LABOR's incoming national president, Anna Bligh, is an electoral turn-off in Queensland where her name is mud with voters in Kevin Rudd's must-win home state.

Internal Liberal polling, seen by The Courier-Mail, reveals the ALP brand is in trouble in the Prime Minister's own backyard which was pivotal to catapulting him to power in 2007. Voters are turned off when federal Labor and Mr Rudd are mentioned but their unfavourable feelings intensify when the Premier's name is raised.

Coalition strategists want to capitalise on Ms Bligh's unpopularity and will attempt to drag state issues into the federal campaign in Queensland.

On the weekend, NSW Labor lost the Penrith by-election with a record 26 per cent swing against Kristina Keneally's Government.

Mr Rudd is fighting to get on the front foot to shore up his leadership, which is being rattled by disgruntled MPs, plummeting opinion poll results and a deadlock on the mining tax talks.

The internal Coalition research was conducted by pollsters Crosby/Textor in two marginal Labor seats in Queensland – Longman and Forde – and the new federal seat of Wright. In Wright – where the Liberal National Party was forced to disendorse its candidate Hajnal Ban and order a new preselection – the party's brand still scored positively with voters, recording a plus-25 favourability rating.

In contrast, Mr Rudd's name scores minus-24 and the federal ALP has a minus-31 rating. But Ms Bligh comes in at toxic levels, posting a minus-51 per cent rating in the seat. In Forde and Longman she is in the high negative-30s. The net rating subtracts the percentage of voters who rank a name as favourable from the percentage who find the name unfavourable.

The Premier takes over the figurehead position of ALP national president on July 1 but her unpopularity could limit the role she plays in the federal campaign in Queensland.

Asked about the Penrith by-election results yesterday, Ms Bligh said "lessons would be learned". She wouldn't speculate about whether Mr Rudd would experience a swing in Queensland but she conceded there would be serious discussions between Federal and State Labor following the Penrith fallout. "Every time you go through an election, you sit down and work through what it is the people are telling you," she said.

When asked if the Labor brand had been tarnished, Ms Bligh said "these are tough times".

She said Australians were smart voters and differentiated between state and federal issues.

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Rudd's big talk on health coming back to bite him

Hot air got Rudd into power just as it got Obama into power but when reality hits, the backlash is all the stronger

THE Rudd government is facing revolt over a key omission from its health reform plans. Labor stands accused of having no intention of finding extra funds for mental health, despite claims to the contrary.

The government was last night battling a credibility crisis, following the resignation of its top mental health adviser who accused it of having "no vision or commitment" for the troubled sector.

In a blistering resignation letter to Health Minister Nicola Roxon, National Advisory Council on Mental Health chairman John Mendoza said it was "clear . . . you have lost confidence in the council" appointed only two years ago.

Professor Mendoza declined to elaborate on his decision yesterday, but the walkout is a sign that simmering dissatisfaction among mental health experts with the government's performance has reached boiling point.

On Thursday, 60 mental health organisations and experts will travel to Parliament House to present Kevin Rudd with a letter protesting at the lack of action in mental health policy, although it is understood no senior government figure has yet agreed to receive it.

The turmoil seems likely to widen to other health sectors, amid claims that the trigger for Professor Mendoza's departure was a report through a Labor source within the past week that Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner had revealed privately that there was "no money" left for further spending on mental, dental or aged-care services.

A spokeswoman for Mr Tanner last night said the minister "absolutely denies saying any such thing", but other mental health experts agreed the source was highly credible - and the comment, if true, shredded the credibility of the Prime Minister's claims that mental health was on his agenda. Just on Friday, Mr Rudd appeared on Seven's Sunrise to declare that mental health and aged care were "the two big areas still to be done, and we're determined to get on with it".

Dental and aged-care experts last night said they were also "disappointed" and "frustrated" by the reported comments. One senior mental health expert last night told The Australian it was believed the government had between $6 billion and $10bn to spend in the run-up to the next election, and even since the May budget the sector had hoped to benefit. "I certainly was of the view that with the right proposals put in front of them, we would see a sensible move," the expert said.

"Other people in that circle of government had given some inkling that our turn was next. But he has formed the view there are no votes in mental health and he's not going to fund it." The expert said Mr Tanner's reputed comment showed the government's line that it planned further spending on mental health was "a straight-out lie" and the advisory committee was "a charade".

A spokesman for Ms Roxon last night rejected the criticisms, saying the government "has been absolutely frank with the Australian people that when it comes to mental health, more will need to be done in the second term of a Rudd government". "This is exactly what the Prime Minister said on Friday and what minister Roxon has been saying for some time," he said.

"The government's COAG investments are important in laying the foundations for our health system and setting the system up for further investments in mental health into the future."

Other mental health experts, including Australian of the Year Patrick McGorry, have backed Professor Mendoza's stand.

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Green/Left War on Land Owners, Home Owners and Shareholders

The Carbon Sense Coalition today claimed that the war on carbon was just another battle in the long war on property rights by populists in Parliament.

Speaking yesterday at the well attended annual meeting of Property Rights Australia in Emerald, the Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that Mark Twain was right – “No man’s life liberty or property is safe while parliament is sitting”.

He added: “The war on property rights is always carried out under the spurious slogan of “the public interest”. “It is always secretly serving a private interest. “Mainly it is being used by politicians to buy votes from swinging voters or to attract green preferences.

“Currently ‘global warming’ and ‘carbon pollution’ are their preferred vote winners. As these scams are exposed as grubby schemes to serve private interests in the carbon trading and alternate energy industries, new slogans will be found. “But always it will be an attack on the right of property owners to use and enjoy the security of their own property.

“Farmers have been robbed of their rights by bans on controlling woody weeds and regrowth on their properties. Seaside property values are being damaged by sudden changes in zoning laws and development plans using the excuse of possible sea level changes. Shareholders in mining companies have seen the value of their retirement funds slump under the threat of super taxes needed by the federal government to balance the books after the extravagant stimulus packages and roof insulation disasters. Real job opportunities for aboriginal people are destroyed by ‘Wild Rivers’ legislation. Fishermen are being deprived of the right to fish, and foresters are locked out of the forests.

“And at this moment many property rights are being trampled to force feed the unnatural growth of the wind, solar and natural gas industries, using various spurious climate excuses. Those whose assets are suffering include landowners, miners, tax payers, shareholders and electricity consumers.

Mr Forbes advised members of Property Rights Australia to focus on the real problem, which is in parliament. “It is not other property owners such as miners, gas producers and native title claimants who are your main enemy – they too have bits of paper signed by politicians giving them rights which are often vague and, too often, overlap and degrade your property rights. These overlapping property rights are at the root of all discord between various classes of property owners.

“My advice to all land owners is “Know your rights, get good legal advice, negotiate hard with other conflicting property owners, but keep out of court battles with them – the only winners in that battle are the lawyers. “Focus your legal weapons and court actions on government property invaders, and make sure your politicians feel the heat.

“And as the global warming scam is exposed, watch for their next excuse for grabbing control of your lives and property. “There will be one – bio-diversity, sustainability, soil conservation, ocean acidity, saving something cuddly, energy conservation, or, most likely, all of the above.”

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Another bloodsucking Leftist outfit

Most of its donations go on "administration" -- i.e. cushy jobs for its bosses, one imagines. Reminds me of America's notorious SPLC

Monday’s list of political donations revealed more than just Labor’s burgeoning links to Chinese property developers the figures show left-leaning lobbyists GetUp spent a massive $1.2 million on political activity with the voluntary cash sourced from a who’s who of armchair activists and white collar unions affiliated directly with the ALP.

GetUp is helmed by 22-year-old wunderkind Simon Sheikh and runs a popular line in issues-based advocacy. Its professional social movement model has achieved a number of successes, most notably a turn-around in public opinion over David Hicks. Apparently, it has also captured the wallets of thousands of donors, who according to separate ASIC filings stumped up more than $3.4 million in 2007/08.

But there is mounting evidence that GetUp’s 300,000-strong army is starting to demand more transparency from the organisation. With the mass democratic ethos of the labour movement almost entirely absent, GetUp has resorted to polling its members every few months, giving the perverse impression that funds are being squandered in the interests of navel gazing.

The AEC list shows Lonely Planet founders Tony and Maureen Wheeler gave $50,000 to GetUp, while rich-list patriarch Boris Liberman parted with the same amount. But by far the most surprising individual donation was the $30,000 received from the Community and Public Sector Union, currently involved in an internal battle with its members to affiliate with Labor across the country. In 2007, the union also gave $75,180 to the ALP’s NSW branch.

GetUp has previously copped criticism for being too close to Labor current Labor MPs Bill Shorten and Victorian ministerial quitter Evan Thornley both served on the board before their ascension to Parliament. The sole ex-Liberal former opposition leader John Hewson quit within weeks of its 2005 launch. GetUp’s conservative cred was further eroded when Australian Institute of Company Directors CEO Don Mercer departed in March last year, a fact only revealed in the firewalled ASIC statements.

The CPSU donation would appear to cast serious doubt on GetUp’s claims to “political independence” which it has been at pains to defend this week. In a possible attempt to defuse the looming controversy, Sheikh penned a nonsensical column for the Canberra Times last week claiming he was now backing Malcolm Turnbull’s piecemeal policy on climate change, a long bow if there ever was one. He also heaped praise on Thornley’s new employer, car battery swapping outfit Better Place, claiming Thornley could single-handedly reduce Australia’s emissions by 30%, a ridiculous assertion in light of this damning CarPoint article that debunks the Better Place business model.

Thornley of course, retains strong links with GetUp, donating $14,165 of his own money in 2006 and serving on the interview panel that appointed Sheikh, as recently revealed by Crikey.

Annoyingly, GetUp’s annual reports for both the 06/07 and 07/08 financial years are both absent from its website, which also claims replacements for Thornley and Shorten are “imminent”, more than two years on.

But the core problem with GetUp is not its coziness with either the ALP or self-styled social entrepreneurs. It’s the aloof detachment from the grass roots networks that have always impelled real social change.

Along these lines, GetUp have been criticised for spending excessive amounts on wages and administration. The ASIC filings reveal a massive $1 million wages bill, an issue former Executive Director Brett Solomon was grilled on in 2007. The $2.2 million gap between total donations ($3.4 million) and political expenditure ($1.2 million) would indicate a significant proportion of total revenue is spent on day-to-day running costs.

Yes, all organisations need to pay staff and stock the photocopier. But the democratic deficit at GetUp’s core means howls of “taxation without representation” are all but inevitable. With over half of GetUp’s donations linked to a specific campaign, it would be interesting to see whether its members are truly getting enough bang for their buck. Opaque accounts and expensive surveys aren’t going to help.

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My Queensland Cops blog has had quite a few posts recently.





20 June, 2010

Thug NSW cops caught on Video

AN INVESTIGATION should be launched into the state's police riot squad after a violent arrest was filmed on a Sydney street, according to the top lawyer representing two brothers charged over the incident.

David and Peter Bunker were making their way home after a night out when they happened upon a crime scene in Oxford Street. Within seconds, they were part of their own alleged crime scene.

CCTV footage from a nearby nightclub appears to show one of the brothers being repeatedly kicked and kneed by members of the Operational Support Group while a group of other officers pin him to the concrete.

"When you look at this footage, it is deeply concerning that it could be suggested that grave issues of law and order have been abused," said barrister Winston Terracini, SC, having been instructed by solicitor Nick Boyden. "We will raise these issues in any tribunal if the police conduct is to be denied."

Police tape had been strung across Oxford Street and the footpath after a uniformed officer was run over. Constable Sarah Maxwell, 27, suffered serious head injuries when hit by a vehicle during a routine licensing operation on Monday, October 5. She had run across the road to break up a fight about 2.40am.

But it was another melee about 20 minutes later - involving David Bunker and about six police - that is the subject of a court case that will thrust the actions of the black-clad officers from the Operational Support Group into the limelight.

Police statements tendered in court allege David Bunker assaulted a policewoman after crossing beneath the blue-and-white crime-scene tape that she was guarding.

Both brothers have been charged with assault and resisting arrest. Contesting the charges, they and their legal representatives claim police were not only brutal but wrong to take them into custody.

The brothers claim they were trying to get back to their apartment in nearby Brisbane Street.

What the police involved did not realise was that the whole sequence of events was caught on film.

Stills from that CCTV footage - shot by a camera outside a licensed premises - are displayed above (with the whole sequence of events able to be watched on smh.com.au).

The case is due to be heard in the Downing Centre next month.

Mr Boyden, a solicitor from the Australian Criminal Law Specialists, said the footage would prove embarrassing to the force: "At least 10 officers were involved in the arrest of my clients. Police are supposed to protect the community … the behaviour of some of these officers needs to be explained. Police have alleged in statements that my client disobeyed a direction to move on and that he lifted up the tape and stepped through striking a policewoman but we claim the video images show it was the other way around."

The alleged assault occurred in the same street police twice fired a Taser at a 28-year-old man in March 2009. The man involved in the Taser incident - also caught on CCTV - is being represented in civil action against the police by the same law firm.

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Ambulance officers monitor hospital crisis as study shows ramping wait

This is an Australia-wide problem

FRONTLINE senior ambulance officers are being placed inside Queensland's busiest public hospitals to monitor the ramping crisis outside accident and emergency departments.

Apart from attempting to prevent blockages in the system when ambulances arrive at congested ramps, the officers try to ensure paramedics get food and toilet breaks as they can be kept waiting for more than four hours during peak periods.

The negative impact of ramping on patients has also been documented for the first time with Griffith University research finding a trip by ambulance to hospital is not always the quickest way to get treatment. Patients arriving at hospital in an ambulance not only wait longer to be triaged, they are at risk of possible misdiagnosis and tend to stay longer recovering in the emergency department than people sitting in waiting rooms.

A report in The Sunday Mail last week outlined how nurses at the Gold Coast and Logan hospitals were being assigned to ramp duty and admitting patients to accident and emergency departments due to "bed blockage". Hospital insiders have since revealed the new role for Queensland Ambulance Service employees, estimating at least eight QAS officers in the state were rostered inside Queensland Health facilities to "monitor" ramping.

Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union ambulance organiser Nigel Stamp, an experienced paramedic, confirmed the QAS had appointed hospital liaison officers in the past six to 12 months. He said the officers monitor the arrival of ambulances and negotiate with nurses in accident and emergency departments. "They're frontline officers. What they do is they time and record when the ambulances get there and go. They also look after the ambos if they haven't had a break," Mr Stamp said. "That's the problem. We can't get people off to get a meal break. If a patient is pretty crook one ambulance officer will be doing the paperwork and the other looking after the patient."

LHMU ambulances services organiser John Webb maintained the appointment of hospital liaison officers was a positive step, but it illustrated the crisis in resourcing at public hospitals.

The research shows ramped patients can wait twice as long to be triaged as those at the accident and emergency department at the Gold Coast Hospital and are more likely to be "access blocked".

Assessment of a patient on an ambulance stretcher could increase the risk of adverse incidents or missed diagnoses, the report by Griffith University's Research Centre for Clinical and Community Practice Innovation said.

Griffith's School of Nursing's Dr Brigid Gillespie said the research, found ramped patients were likely to spend more than eight hours in accident and emergency compared with other patients.

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Rudd, the isolated man

THE most potent clue to Kevin Rudd's future came from the most peculiar place last week. Not from former Labor ministers, former state treasurers, old Labor friends or unnamed Labor sources all critical of how quickly the Prime Minister has tarnished the Labor brand, not to mention the Australian economy.

In a strange intervention, Annie O'Rourke, the Prime Minister's former adviser, wrote a mea culpa explaining she was to blame for the PM's failure to attend the Melbourne funeral of Labor luminary John Button in 2008.

Anyone who understands the Australian Labor Party, its history, its culture, its rhythms, will understand that this is the most telling sign that the ALP is fed up with Rudd.

The slumbering Labor bear has woken and it's rumbling with wintry discontent.

What started as disdain for the way Rudd snubbed Button's memory has become deep-seated animosity. That's why O'Rourke entered the fray with lame explanations that the PM's meetings prevented him from flying to Melbourne for Button's funeral. The PM was also feeling flat, she said, and she thought a hospital visit to new mother Cate Blanchett was what he needed.

"The PM would get a boost from seeing a newborn baby. He adores them."

O'Rourke's excuse, which reads like a mother's note for a sooky child, will only pour salt on wounds. Other Labor ministers, backbenchers, former prime ministers and premiers cancelled meetings to attend the funeral. No one waits on a sofa for news to arrive that a funeral is on.

Choosing a movie star over a Labor star was classic Rudd. Blind to Labor traditions, Rudd signalled his contempt for the party's culture of revering its icons, for its long history of mateship born out of the 1890 strikes, for its tribal core of true believers where long service, loyalty, earn your stripes and take your turn count for much.

Rudd's cold shoulder to Button's memory disrupted the natural order of things in the ALP.

But, then, Rudd was never part of Labor's natural order. There is no history of Labor in his blood. No steaming Labor passions. He told David Marr that when he heard of Gough Whitlam's dismissal on November 11, 1975, he leaned briefly on his mop, then returned to cleaning the floor of Canterbury hospital.

As Marr writes in the latest Quarterly Essay under the heading "Power Trip: The Political Journey of Kevin Rudd", as a university student "Rudd did not lift a finger for Labor in the high political excitement of Malcolm Fraser's early years". No protest marches against John Kerr. No manning the booths in '77 or '80. Rudd entered federal parliament as a Labor blow-in. Sure, he worked in Queensland for premier Wayne Goss, but it was just a job, like mopping the hospital floors.

The ALP is a tribal beast. The cleanskin routine worked for Rudd in 2007. Now Rudd is discovering the cost of not being part of the tribe.

Queue jumpers are not welcome. Unknowns are for Australian Idol, not the ALP. Labor friendships - and hatreds - are decades old.

The party will eulogise men such as train driver Ben Chifley, men such as John Curtin and Paul Keating who left school at 14 and 15, feisty union leaders such as Bob Hawke, even flawed visionaries such as Whitlam. And Button. All men with Labor pulsing through their veins.

That's the thing about Labor. Everyone fits in somewhere. Old Labor or New Labor. The Left or the Right. Labor seeds, grows and backs its own. Especially when they are in a corner. Rudd is in a corner now. He is running up against Labor history, discovering that, as one pundit observed, he sits atop a pillar, not the Giza-sized pyramid that supported John Howard or Keating when they were in political dire straits. Rudd's leaning Tower of Pisa totters in the poll winds. He has no credits he can call on for favours done or loyalty given.

Power, not Labor, courses through Rudd's veins. He wrenched control from the caucus when he became Prime Minister and, while a grateful ALP acceded, Rudd's power trip did not end there.

Rudd's "community cabinet" meetings must surely grate with the Canberra cabinet. Maxine McKew politely described them as the Prime Minister's pursuit of direct democracy. Pull the other one, Maxine. Rudd doesn't even consult his real cabinet let alone community shindigs conceived for Rudd worship.

What on earth must Greg Combet, Bill Shorten and Stephen Smith make of Rudd's trashing of Labor's culture and brand in so short a time? Is Rudd the sort of leader you go down with on a sinking ship? Here's a clue. They may have privately jumped ship along with former Hawke ministers Peter Walsh, Graham Richardson and former Queensland treasurer Keith De Lacy. Not to mention Labor mates such as Rod Eddington, John Singleton and Lindsay Fox.

Many more are also asking how it is that Australia, with its reputation for sensible economic reform, now has sovereign risk attached to its name? Why isn't it being fixed quickly? "The obstacle is Rudd," said Walsh. When Simon Crean dumped on Rudd a few days later, it became clear that traditional Labor is flexing its muscle, trying to restore the natural order of things and regain the soul of the party from a drop-in leader who hasn't risen to the occasion.

When he was a new MP in Canberra, Rudd's colleagues wondered where did he fit? The answer is he doesn't. He's not old working-class Labor. He's not new Labor class. He's not really Labor at all.

Rudd is a bureaucrat who could just as easily prosecute any side of an argument using overblown rhetoric to hide his cold detachment.

How precarious is Rudd's position? So precarious that he now needs a public explanation of his failure to attend a funeral more than two years ago. That single intervention suggests that internal Labor conversations about Rudd go something like this. They might mention the PM's pushy nature, his imperious manner, his snubbing of cabinet, his phony colloquialisms, his bureaucratic logorrhoea, his backdowns, botched policies and broken promises.

And then it ends: "And the bastard didn't even attend Button's funeral." Naturally, replace "bastard" with any four-letter Labor expletive of choice.

Real political passions burn long and hard. Losses leave scars. Hayden, Hawke, Keating, Howard, Costello. In their own way, all will have felt profoundly injured when they left politics. Rudd? Whether he loses at the coming election or is evicted from the Lodge by Labor before or afterwards, you get the sense that the lonely Labor locum will just move on to the next gig. It's just a job after all. Like mopping the floors at Canterbury hospital.

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Private school fees soaring in Australia too

As discipline in government schools continues to deteriorate, the demand for private schools rises

CASH-strapped parents are paying $7 billion more for school fees and education costs than five years ago, putting unprecedented pressure on the household budget.

Figures obtained by The Daily Telegraph yesterday showed parents paid a staggering $22 billion in education expenses in the past 12 months as private school fees surged to unseen levels due to increased demand for schooling.

That total spend is almost a 50 per cent increase on what parents were paying in school fees in 2005, while inflation over the same period has only risen by a moderate 9 per cent.

The biggest increase was in higher education, where fees and costs surged from $1.9 billion to $2.8 billion, mostly in the last 12 months.

Commsec economist Savanth Sebastian said the massive hikes were a direct result of rising populations in a nation that is simply not building enough schools.

Where healthcare services and childcare providers - sectors also feeling the strain of population growth - maintained only minimal growth in fees and costs, schools have been found guilty of blatantly gouging parents.

Given the growing importance parents are placing on education, according to Mr Sebastian, elite private schools and universities know their classrooms will be full whatever price they demand.

"The fact population is growing at the fastest rate in 40 years is adding to the strain on the education system, which warrants the increase in fees because it is a supply and demand issue," he said.

"We have had rising wealth over the past five years, given the commodity boom and improvement in sharemarkets that may have propelled more parents into private eduction.

"But the growth in education fees seems excessive."

Despite a backlash from parents and a Federal Government which was injecting $28 billion into education, elite schools pushed ahead with a 6 per cent increase in fees at the start of the 2010 school year.

The largest fee hike this year was posted by Brisbane Girls' Grammar and East Brisbane's Anglican Church Grammar School which locked in rises of more than 8 per cent.

Australia's most expensive school, Geelong Grammar, lifted its fees 5.5 per cent to $27,700 per student, a step ahead of Sydney's Kings School which increased fees by the same amount to $24,730.

SOURCE



19 June, 2010

Migration lessons from the soccer pitch

By Dr Oliver Marc Hartwich, a German-born economist

After Germany had convincingly demolished the Socceroos at the World Cup, I was not sure what to expect in the office, with me being German and all that. Quips about Per Mertesacker’s hand-ball in the German penalty box? Discussions about the harsh red card for Tim Cahill? Speculations that the new Adidas ball gave the Germans an unfair advantage?

As it turned out, I got none of that. Australians, or at least my dear colleagues, are far too nice for such unsportsmanlike conduct. Instead, they congratulated me on the German win. ‘You must be so happy,’ one of them said.

Well, actually, I wasn’t. My preferred result had been a draw as I feel an emotional attachment to both my native country and my new home. When the national anthems were played before the match, it was Advance Australia Fair that gave me goose bumps, not the German anthem. Although it’s quite a challenge to feel patriotic for any country at 4.30 am.

The match made me realise how easy it is to develop an emotional bond with Australia.

Perhaps it is even stronger for migrants like me than for the natives. When CIS received a Socceroos’ fan scarf as a promotional gift this week, I quickly volunteered to hang it up in my office. Nobody else had wanted it. Possibly that was a reaction to the 4-0 defeat, or maybe they just didn’t care about soccer?

Maybe there is a lesson in this for our current discussion about migration and population growth.

Many commentators assume that Australia’s character will change beyond recognition as more and more people arrive on these shores. They seem to believe implicitly that there is not much about Australia these migrants could love.

My own experience points to the very opposite. Australia is such a friendly, fascinating country that its emotional appeal to new arrivals couldn’t be greater. It’s a country you want to call home even before the ink on your visa has dried.

The social result of migration could be counter-intuitive: it may very well strengthen Australian patriotism, not undermine it. It may reinforce social cohesion, not destroy it.

The key to such integration are not strict limits on the number of migrants but finding the right migrants: migrants who not only bring their skills to this country but are also willing to become a part of it. This aspect is often missing in our population debate, which almost exclusively focuses on the number of migrants.

As for myself, I’ll try my best to become more Australian. Supporting the Socceroos is a start, but please allow me a few decades to understand cricket.

The above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated 18 June. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590.




Teen arrested over stabbing murder of Indian student

When the thug is white, we are told. See below. But there is never any mention if the thug is black. But that is information in its own way, of course. We don't normally find out that the thug is black until he is sentenced and his name is reported. African names are usually distinctive. In the case of younger offenders, however, even the name is usually suppressed

A HOUSEMATE of an Indian student whose fatal stabbing in January caused a diplomatic row between Australia and India has congratulated police for charging a 15-year-old boy with his friend's murder. Sandeep Sandeep lived with accounting graduate Nitin Garg, who was stabbed on his way to work at the Yarraville Hungry Jack's on a Saturday night, and described him as ''like a younger brother to me''.

Mr Garg was stabbed in Cruickshank Park, then staggered 300 metres to the restaurant. An ambulance was called but he died shortly after arriving at hospital. Mr Sandeep, who had spoken to Mr Garg's family in India, told The Age last night it was helpful someone had been charged.

Mr Sandeep and police said they did not believe the attack - widely described as racist by the Indian media and politicians - was racially motivated.

Mr Sandeep said it was upsetting to hear of the age of the boy accused of the murder. ''He's just a kid …'' The 15-year-old Yarraville boy, whose age prevents his name being released, appeared at a Melbourne Children's Court in a school uniform.

The boy, who is Caucasian, clutched a sheet of paper and looked around the courtroom and at his parents, seated in the front row. He did not attempt to communicate with them and replied ''OK'' when the magistrate explained the schedule of court dates for his case. His mother clutched a tissue, which she held close to her eyes.

Mr Sandeep criticised the immediate reaction of the Indian media and authorities to Mr Garg's death. Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna described it as a ''heinous crime on humanity'' that was an ''uncivilised brutal attack on innocent Indians''.

Premier John Brumby and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith both visited India after Mr Garg's killing, where they attempted to reassure the country that it was a safe place for Indians.

Mr Sandeep said Melbourne was safe for Indian students and it was impossible for politicians to know of their experiences in the city. ''That can happen anywhere in the world. It's not like it was a racial attack. We are safe here in Melbourne.''

Before yesterday's court appearance, Detective Inspector Bernie Edwards said ''at this stage, we don't believe it was racially motivated''. He would not reveal what police believed the motive was. Police are yet to find the weapon used to kill Mr Garg.

''Victoria Police are trying to get knives off the street and this may be one of those occasions where people can learn a lesson why they shouldn't be armed with knives,'' Detective Inspector Edwards said.

The investigation continues, and police are still to speak to other people, but they do not believe it to be gang-related.

More HERE





Tax tactics an insulting and destructive judgment on mining

By Leon Davis (Leon Davis AO was Rio Tinto's chief executive from 1997 to 2000 and Westpac chairman from 2000 to 2006)

NO company executive would dispute that their primary responsibility is to safeguard the interests of shareholders. But it is long-outmoded thinking to suppose that this inevitably sets up a conflict with the public interest. This should be kept in mind in the debate about the government's proposed mining tax.

Mining companies have long recognised the importance of maintaining the goodwill of the communities in which they operate. This is not just because it is the proper thing to do -- which it is -- but because it makes good business sense. The two are not mutually exclusive.

During my five decades in the minerals sector, Australia and the world confronted a number of serious policy challenges. The industry's engagement was deep, serious and directed at securing an outcome that had proper regard for the interests of all....

The government maintains that resource taxation is in urgent need of overhaul. Few would quibble with this -- the industry itself has been making this point for some time.

When, however, this argument is extended to the assertion that the industry has not been paying its fair share of tax and this claim is supported by some highly questionable statistics, rational debate becomes far more difficult. Further, the sole focus on tax ignores the wider contribution that mining makes to Australia.

If the system of revenue raising is not functioning well, the primary responsibility for initiating change lies with government.

That said, we have seen time and again in Australia that both policy design and the quality of the outcomes can be substantially improved by discussion with all stakeholders before the direction of change is finalised.

Those who remember the volatility in the Australian oil industry in the 1980s, the introduction of export parity pricing and the proliferation of a confusing array of excises will also remember how a significant policy innovation, the petroleum resource rent tax, was ultimately welcomed by the major players in the industry.

This occurred, in large part, because they had participated in an extended and comprehensive consultative process.

Perhaps the most egregious part of the government's proposal is that the new tax will apply to the large investments already made in Australia. Little wonder that the world is passing judgment on a country that changes the rules of the game after many billions of dollars of investment have been made. Students trying to find a definition of sovereign risk need to look no further than here.

Deeply worrying as all this is, there is nothing in the proposal that cannot be remedied. Unfortunately, the major mechanism and the best chance of securing a solution seems to have been rejected by the government's assertion that the industry is not worth talking to, only ever pursues its vested interest and is always crying wolf.

It appears to me that there is no desire on the part of the government to advance the debate or improve the policy.

It is distressing to see the level to which debate has sunk. The characterisation of the industry as dominated by vested interest and incapable of contributing to great national debates is one I find deeply and personally offensive.

What is at stake here is the future prosperity of Australia. Surely it deserves better than the name calling, misinformation, personal attacks and time wasting we have seen in recent weeks.

For the sake of our common future, let us stop belittling the contribution the Australian minerals sector makes to national life and offer it the opportunity to participate in finding practical and workable means of improving the system of resource taxation.

More HERE







Big Victoria police operation relied on a lying, murdering criminal

This was of course while Victora police were under the "leadership" of the politically correct but incompetent Christine Nixon. Affirmative action has a lot to answer for

ONE of the most expensive police investigations in Victorian history was founded on the word of a discredited killer and notorious liar. The criminal's own veteran lawyer also emphatically rejected one of his central allegations about police involvement in a murder.

The Weekend Australian can reveal that Operation Briars, which was strongly promoted from 2007 by the then deputy commissioner Simon Overland as a "show-stopper" to expose the leaks between corrupt police and Melbourne's gangland wars, relied heavily on the testimony of third-generation criminal "Jack Price".

This was despite Price's lawyer, Bernie Balmer, telling police that a key aspect of the convicted murder's story was nonsense. "He is a very charismatic fellow, he has the ability to get people loyal to him," said Mr Balmer, who has represented some of Australia's most notorious criminals.

"It is sad where we have reached a period of time where prosecuting persons believe what people are saying -- which affects good people's lives -- when they are saying it to obtain an advantage."

Two former police who were targets of Operation Briars, which was run by the Victorian Office of Police Integrity, spoke out yesterday, telling The Weekend Australian they had been victims of a murder investigation that had morphed into a political witch-hunt.

Peter Lalor, a long-serving detective sergeant when Briars detectives accused him of colluding with Price over the 2003 murder of male prostitute Shane Chartres-Abbott, said he was the victim of a political campaign to discredit Paul Mullett, the former secretary of the police association.

"Once Jack Price's first lie was exposed, they should have had grave concerns about the veracity of his account," Mr Lalor said. "Everything that Price has said, they have tried to corroborate. Every person who could have corroborated it has discredited the story. Give him the facts and he will give you a story."

Mr Lalor's co-accused, David Waters, was more blunt. "What they have done is a $20 million taxpayer exploration on the lies of Jack Price," he said.

Briars documents reveal that on September 12, 2007, Mr Overland, the current Chief Commissioner, was eager to lay charges against Mr Lalor and Mr Waters, despite the lead investigator warning there was not yet enough evidence.

Affidavits filed to the OPI show that Detective Sergeant Ron Iddles was not convinced there was as yet a solid case against Mr Lalor, a policeman for 32 years, and Mr Waters, a former cop who had faced and was cleared of criminal allegations.

Mr Overland's affidavits reveal he was eager to press for an earlier resolution, and made his feelings known at a meeting with the Briars team on September 12. "My expectation was that things were going to move a little bit quicker and I wanted to clarify that," he said. Mr Overland declined to comment yesterday.

Mr Waters told The Weekend Australian he was convinced Mr Overland was gunning for him and Mr Lalor in a bid to advance his prospects.

Despite Mr Overland's eagerness to press early charges in relation to Operation Briars, a three-year probe has failed to secure a conviction. Mr Lalor and Mr Waters have never been charged or cleared. According to Victoria Police, the investigation remains ongoing.

The tension between Mr Overland and Briars investigators about the strength of the case against Mr Lalor and Mr Waters follows revelations by The Australian that Mr Overland, by passing on covert information from telephone taps to his then media adviser, Stephen Linnell, in August 2007, may have started the chain of events that compromised the investigation.

The Victorian opposition has seized on further revelations that information about the police association's enterprise bargaining strategy might have been passed to the state government through non-permissible uses of telephone intercepts. "There is no doubt that an independent judicial investigation is urgently required into allegations the law was broken by leaks of intelligence information during the course of operations Diana and Briars," said opposition legal affairs spokesman Robert Clark.

SOURCE





Tugun desalination facility closed again

Lucky we no longer need the stupid thing. It was built in reponse to Warmist drought scares but it has been raining continually ever since so all the dams are pretty full. Does a Leftist government ever get anything right?

THE trouble-plagued Gold Coast desalination plant has again been shut down for repairs - this time for at least three months. What was supposed to be the showpiece of the State Government's $9 billion southeast Queensland water grid has been beset with problems including rusting pipes, cracking concrete and faulty valves, and has been shut down at least twice since being completed in 2008.

The Government has refused to accept handover of the $1.2 billion facility, designed to help drought-proof the state's southeast, until faults are fixed. They were due to be repaired by this month but the construction consortium, which includes contractors John Holland and French water giant Veolia, has failed to reach the deadline.

Now, a huge offshore barge which was used to build the desalination plant is being brought back to try to overcome the defects.

The $6 million barge, which resembles an offshore drilling platform, will be moored 1.2km off Tugun until August. "This is a massive piece of infrastructure and this (the repairs) is a normal part [What incredible rubbish!] of the commissioning period to get it right," a spokeswoman for Infrastructure Minister Stirling Hinchliffe said. "No breakdown of repair costs has been prepared as all works remain within budget at this time."

The repairs will include replacing more than 100m of rusting pipe with higher-grade stainless steel and repairs to cracks in the plant's huge saltwater intake shaft. There were fears that contaminants from the rubbish dump on which the plant was built could be leaching into the shaft.

However, Mr Hinchliffe's spokeswoman said ongoing monitoring had found no evidence of groundwater seepage.

In April, a former desalination plant contractor told The Courier-Mail that the two giant stainless steel tanks used to store desalinated water would probably have to be replaced because of corrosion, having already undergone more than $6 million in repairs. However, the Government said only a small permeate tank, used in the desalination process, was being replaced.

As well as the defects, the desalination plant has been blamed for serious subsidence around Tugun and its brine output has sparked environmental concerns.

LNP member for Currumbin and Opposition Public Works spokeswoman Jann Stuckey said the plant had been a lemon and there were "ominous signs" it would be an expensive burden on taxpayers when it was "rushed into" by Labor.

SOURCE





My Queensland Cops blog has had quite a few posts recently.





18 June, 2010

What Australia and North Korea have in common

The comments below are a well-justified view from America. Note however the two articles following the one below. One shows that the internet filtering scheme looks dead while the second covers an even greater threat to free speech and individual liberty from the same Leftist government

The concept of government-backed web censorship is usually associated with nations where human rights and freedom of speech are routinely curtailed. But if Canberra's plans for a mandatory Internet filter go ahead, Australia may soon become the first Western democracy to join the ranks of Iran, China and a handful of other nations where access to the Internet is restricted by the state.

Plans for a mandatory Internet filter have been a long-term subject of controversy since they were first announced by Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, in May 2008 as part of an $106 million "cybersafety plan." The plan's stated purpose is to protect children when they go online by preventing them from stumbling on illegal material like child pornography. To do this, Conroy's Ministry has recommended blacking out about 10,000 websites deemed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to be so offensive that they are categorized as 'RC,' or Refused Classification.

The government won't reveal an official list of the URLs on the current blacklist, but Conroy's office says it includes sites containing child sexual abuse imagery, bestiality, sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act. "Under Australia's existing [laws] this material is not available in news agencies, it is not on library shelves, you cannot watch it on a DVD or at the cinema and it is not shown on television," Conroy's office e-mailed in a statement. But in March 2009, when a 2,395-site blacklist was leaked to Wikileaks, an online clearinghouse for anonymous submissions, it seemed confusingly broad, containing, among others, the websites of a dentist from Queensland, a pet-care facility in Queensland, and a site belonging to a school cafeteria consultant.

At the time, Conroy told the Sydney Morning Herald that any Australians involved in the leak could face criminal charges. "No one interested in cyber safety would condone the leaking of this list," he said.

Since then, criticism of the proposed Internet filter has escalated. "Nobody likes it," says Scott Ludlam, a senator from the Australian Greens Party. "Everyone from the communications industry to child protection rights and online civil liberties groups think this idea is deeply flawed." Throughout 2009 GetUp!, an internet-based political activism organization, launched an advertising campaign to raise public awareness about the government's proposal. (That July, the advertisement the group made was banned from screenings on Qantas domestic flights into Canberra.) In February, Anonymous, a community of Internet users, which include hackers, shut down the Australian Parliament's web site in their second attack against the filter, which they called "Operation: Titstorm" - a reference to the sexual content that the filter will be blocking.

Save the Children has questioned the efficacy of the filter in protecting children, and in March, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders listed Australia as a country that's "under surveillance" in its annual "Internet Enemies" report, which rounds up the "worst violators of freedom of expression on the Net."

But the most high-profile criticism of the filter has so far been from net giants Google and Yahoo. In March, Google wrote to the Australian government with concerns that the scope of the filter was too wide. The search engine also warned it may slow down search speed. "Filtering may give a false sense of security to parents, it could damage Australia's international reputation, and it can be easily circumvented," the California company wrote in a submission to Conroy's Department of Broadband Communications and Digital Economy.

On June 6, the Australian government launched a police investigation into the activities of Google in Australia, accusing the company of collecting private information while taking photographs for their Street View Service, which offers a panoramic view of any catalogued street. In comments that he has denied were spurred by Google's complaints about his cybersafety program, Conroy has called Google's privacy policy "creepy," and described their collecting of unsecured private information as "the biggest single breach of privacy in history." Google has admitted to accidentally collecting fragments of data from unsecured wi-fi networks in its global operations. (See pictures of life at Google.)

Indeed, only a cluster of Christian groups and child safety advocates have come out as supporting the filter. In a June 5 poll conducted on the web site of the Sydney Morning Herald, 99% of the 88,645 people who responded to the survey said they were against the Internet filter. Nevertheless, Conroy told the Sun-Herald in May that the policy "will be going ahead." He also accused groups like GetUp! of deliberately misleading the public. 'We are still consulting on the final details of the scheme. But this policy has been approved by 85% of Australian internet service providers, who have said they would welcome the filter, including Telstra, Optus, iPrimus and iinet." Iinet have since denied that it ever approved the scheme.

Many say the biggest problem with the plan is that it simply won't work. "I don¹t see the point of blocking a site that no one would have come across, and making the criminals aware of the fact they are being watched. I am much more interested in seeing the Australian Federal Police work with international law enforcement agencies in tracking the site," Ludham of the Greens Party says. Jarrod Trevathan, a technology lecturer and researcher at James Cook University, agrees. "Once people know their site is being blocked they will just open up another URL, and then the filter will have to block that URL. Eventually the blocked list will contain countless URLs which will drastically slow down the speed of the Internet." In May, ABC reported Conroy might consider, as part of his program, allowing child pornography websites to be temporarily left online to catch people maintaining or using them.

Still, it's hard to see why the government is pressing ahead with a scheme that, in the view of many, will do more harm than good. "It's like trying to ban burglaries by banning pictures of crowbars," says Geordie Guy, vice chairman of Electronic Frontiers Australia, a non-profit national organization that has been vehemently opposed to the filter since it's conception. "You stop burglaries the same way you stop pedophilia - by catching the perpetrators. If the government closes these websites than the [Australian Federal Police] will find it harder to track the real criminals."

SOURCE






Net filter scheme 'shelved until after election'

Another stupid and unpopular policy bites the dust

The internet censorship policy has joined the government's list of "politically toxic subjects" and will almost certainly be shelved until after the federal election, Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam says.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd - already facing a voter backlash over several perceived policy failures - is expected to call the election before the end of the year and the feeling of many in Canberra is that next week will be the last sitting week of Parliament.

Parliament is not due to sit again until August 24, leaving little time to introduce the legislation and have it debated and passed in time for the election.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has said he expects legislation to enable his internet filtering policy, which will block a secret blacklist of "refused classification" (RC) websites for all Australians, to be tabled in the second half of the year.

He has said delays have been due to issues working out transparency and accountability measures.

Senator Ludlam said in a phone interview that these issues were only part of the reason for the delay, saying the policy was now "on the list of politically toxic subjects that you don't in your right mind run during an election campaign".

Senator Conroy's spokeswoman has repeatedly refused to deny claims that the legislation would be shelved until after the election, saying only that she did not yet know when the election would be.

The scheme has attracted immense opposition from Senator Conroy's political opponents, the internet industry including several ISPs, Yahoo and Google, academics, lobby groups, some childrens' welfare groups including Save The Children, the US government, Reporters Without Borders and even Labor MPs.

The opposition has failed to state a definitive position on the matter since Tony Abbott took over as Opposition Leader, and his communications spokesman, Tony Smith, has refused to comment despite several requests from this website.

However, it is likely the legislation would not be passed even if it was introduced in the near future, as the Greens are committed to opposing it and several Opposition heavyweights, including Joe Hockey, have criticised the net filtering policy in speeches.

"The industry are telling them that what they are intending to do is formidably difficult - the government won't be able to draft a bill saying 'OK ISPs, you go and make this happen', because the ISPs are pushing back telling the government 'No, you tell us how you think you can make it work,'" Senator Ludlam said.

"I don't believe he will be able to get the chamber time from his colleagues [before the election] unless he's fairly sure that he's going to be able to pass it; the government at the moment don't have time to burn a couple of days of chamber time only to have it voted down.

Senator Ludlam is on the newly formed cyber-safety committee but, in the round-table meetings, "nobody brought it [the filters] up because they're dealing with issues that are front and centre as far as child safety is concerned and the filter won't help them".

One of the main issues raised by critics of the filter is that it would impose mandatory internet censorship on all Australians and would inevitably catch content many regard as innocuous. Leaked versions of the blacklist have seen a Queensland dentist, pet-care facility and school cafeteria consultancy caught up among the child porn and sexual abuse sites.

Senator Conroy argues he is just porting censorship models applied to other mediums over to the internet but the key difference with offline mediums is that citizens know what is being blocked and why. Prominent critics feel the current policy will be the thin end of the wedge, with little stopping successive governments from expanding the scope of the filters.

Labor Senator Kate Lundy has been pushing Senator Conroy to scrap the mandatory aspect of the scheme and make it opt-in. She wrote in a blog post this month that she was working to change the policy "to better achieve the policy goals of protecting children through empowering and educating parents".

She is pushing for two key amendments:

1. Protect in legislation the availability of an unfiltered, open internet service.

2. Require all internet subscribers to make an active choice as to whether they want an unfiltered, RC filtered or additionally filtered internet service (with the latter being personally customisable at any time).

Senator Lundy said although she originally discussed making the filters opt-out, "it has become clear that the community has a preference for [an] opt-in approach, rather than an opt-out compromise".

Today, Senator Lundy said: "I have received a lot of support and constructive feedback both publicly and privately about the amendments I am proposing to this policy, and I look forward to presenting the federal Labor caucus with a constructive alternative approach that upholds the principles of open government, net neutrality, and empowers parents to take responsibility for the cybersafety of children in their care."

The filtering policy has attracted international criticism and ridicule, most recently in Time magazine, which covered the policy in detail and wrote: "Australia may soon become the first Western democracy to join the ranks of Iran, China and a handful of other nations where access to the internet is restricted by the state."

It has also been the subject of several spoof videos, including one dubbed "censordyne", created by the online activist group GetUp!. Much to the group's dismay, it was banned from being shown as an ad on domestic Qantas flights into Canberra, although it got a good run online.

SOURCE




Internet freedom in 2010 looks like 1984

Long story short, the Rudd government is crafting an Orwellian scheme that may well require Australian ISPs to log and retain details of all your online communications and Web browsing activity. The Attorney-General Robert McClelland – not one of the brightest stars in the firmament of federal cabinet – denied this week that "browsing histories would be stored", saying the government was only seeking to identify "parties to a communication", such as senders and receivers of emails and VoIP calls.

Even this limited scheme would be considered by most Australians to be entirely unacceptable, but because the government has imposed secrecy provisions on all the parties with which it is negotiating in this matter, the process remains completely opaque and we are being asked to agree to the imposition of a generalised surveillance regime with nothing but the vaguest reassurances about its scope, intent and the potential hazards of abuse, misuse, maladministration and outright oppression. (Well, actually, we're not being asked at all. It's just happening).

There is an excellent article by Fairfax's tech writer Asher Moses here, which you should read.

It makes clear the very real fears of the real people in the real telecommunications sector that something quite profoundly wrong and loathsome is being planned. It is a scheme on par with any number of other Rudd government initiatives - obsessed with image management and controlling activities over which it should rightly have no control.

It is more serious by an order of magnitude than Conroy's amateur hour efforts with the net filter and arguably more aggressive in its collection activities than the huge, but little known datamatching programs which run, day in, day out, without most people's knowledge.

Indeed, today's revelation that Rudd intends to link the information gathered from monitoring your internet activities to identifiers such as your passport number open up the real possibility of mashing together all of the personal information available in your data matching matrix to (your income, your tax history, you bank account details, your medical records for starters) to your online life - your tweets, your Facebook account, your email, your Chatroueltte history, your 4square tracking data, your blog entries, the link you clicked not realising it was taking you to a snuff porn site, the link you clicked knowing it was taking you to a celebrity porn site, the comments you leave here today, all of it.

That's why today's column is written without jokes or even sarcasm.

SOURCE





Kevin Rudd's health reform plan still on drawing board

Yet another failed initiative from the hot air man

KEVIN Rudd's $50 billion hospitals reform plan faces further changes and is unlikely to be debated in Parliament before the Federal election, sparking Opposition claims that the biggest rewrite of the national health system since Medicare is in disarray.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon yesterday conceded the Government faced "an enormously complex implementation strategy" and might have to make changes to its reforms as it fleshed out the detail of the policy.

But Opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton said it was "clear that the Government hasn't yet sorted out the detail" and was in disarray on health, The Australian reports.

The health plan, which will see the Commonwealth take 60 per cent funding control for hospitals in return for a 30 per cent GST clawback, is at the heart of Labor's reform agenda as it heads towards an election within months.

Ms Roxon also signalled the government would move to defuse its damaging health row with Western Australia - which has refused to sign the deal and to hand over 30 per cent of its GST - by directly injecting more than $350 million into the state's health system if the Barnett Government continued to refuse to sign on before July 1.

"If the Western Australian Government does not sign, we are already considering options for how we could spend that money in Western Australia so that it benefits the West Australian community," Ms Roxon said.

She said the Government was considering direct payments to hospitals or providing funds to the "private or non-government sector". The money, part of $650m in extra funds, had been earmarked to boost emergency departments, sub-acute care and elective surgery.

But West Australian Premier Colin Barnett dismissed Ms Roxon's plan, saying the state would still receive the money because it owned and ran the hospitals.

Mr Barnett stressed WA would still not sign up to the health plan and hand over more GST revenue when it already received only 68c in the dollar back while Queensland, NSW and Victoria received 90c or more back.

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Behind Closed Doors, Warmist Scientists Ponder Credibility Crisis, New PR Strategy

The only strategy they have is to say "trust us", which is a bit of a laugh in view of their compulsive secrecy about their data and the "adjustments" they make to it

Scientists and academics from some of Australia's top national institutions met in Sydney today to discuss how to improve public awareness of the science behind climate change. [Way to go! If they manage that NOBODY will believe in global warming! What will people say when they find that it is all based on very shaky guesswork?]

Representatives of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Bureau of Meteorology want to develop a "national communication charter" to win back public support for action on climate change.

The Australian government postponed its carbon trading scheme earlier this year until 2013 citing a lack of public and political support for reducing carbon emissions.

A number of recent polls have suggested that controversy over the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change data on Himalayan glaciers and the University of East Anglia leaked emails debacle have damaged public perception of climate science.

One poll by the Lowy Institute for International Policy showed that the number of Australians who wanted action on climate change immediately had dropped from 68 per cent in 2006 to 46 per cent this year.

Australia's chief scientist Penny Sackett addressed the conference, which was closed to the public.

Cathy Foley, president of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies, told the Melbourne Age that scientists wanted Australians to have better access to the latest climate change evidence.

"We want... the public and parliamentarians who are making decisions on what we have to do to manage or deal with climate change actually understand what the science is and are able to cut through the noise that's been coming about," she said.

Foley said a well organised and well funded movement of climate sceptics had increasingly captured the public's attention. "We are concerned the debate around climate change has become a left-wing versus right-wing debate, or a kind of religious argument, when it should really be about the strength of the scientific evidence," she added.

In March, the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology published a snap shot report on climate change showing Australia had warmed significantly in the past 50 years and warning that "climate change is real".

The government committed AU$30m (US$25.6m) for a national campaign to educate the public on climate change in the budget last month, and one of the aims of today's meeting was to develop a strategy to advise officials on how best to spend the money.

SOURCE



17 June, 2010

Number of desk officers grows 10 times faster than front-line police in Victoria

The cancer of bureaucracy is particularly virulent where the government is Left-run -- as it is in Victoria

THE number of desk-bound officers in Victoria has grown 10 times faster than front line police in the past two years. Figures released to the Herald Sun show half the extra non-operational officers have joined Chief Commissioner Simon Overland's office.

The revelation comes as the force spends thousands of dollars to fight access to police rosters in the Supreme Court.

Opposition crime spokesman Andrew McIntosh said the figures helped explain why the force appealed against a Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal order to release police rosters to the Opposition. Mr McIntosh said the rosters, which had been released under Freedom of Information in 2007 and 2008, would show the true staffing levels at police stations.

He also questioned the role of Police Minister Bob Cameron, who signed off on the appeal. It is the first time in almost a decade a government minister has personally lodged a gazetted appeal notice. "This constitutes unprecedented political interference by the minister in the actions of a supposedly independent agency," he said.

Between June 2008 and March this year, the number of police in Mr Overland's office doubled to 26, accounting for one in every six of the 82 extra sworn officers to join the force in that period. The extra 27 non-operational police took the total of office-bound officers to 493, a rise of almost 6 per cent. The 55 extra operational police took operation numbers to 10,512 - an increase of 0.5 per cent.

A police spokesman said the force was already working on plans to redeploy more than 250 police from desk jobs back to operational roles after promised Government financing. The increase in staff in Mr Overland's office was due largely to two continuing projects. The force also denied any accusations of political bias.

Mr Cameron's spokesman said the minister's involvement in the appeal was an administrative requirement.

Ombudsman George Brouwer has begun inquiries into an Opposition complaint against Victoria Police about its handling of FoI requests.

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Rudd corruption over political advertising

The Rudd Government is facing an inquiry into its broken promise on political advertising. 7News can reveal a public servant who recommended the advertising watchdog be dissolved is now being paid a small fortune to do the job himself.

Auditor-General Ian McPhee will front a Senate committee in Canberra tomorrow to publicly detail his concerns about Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's back flip.

Earlier this year Mr Rudd dumped a system which proposed advertising campaigns be scrutinised by the auditor-general independently. He has since passed the role onto a committee of former public servants, including advertising review author Dr Allan Hawke.

The way in which Mr McPhee was swept aside by Dr Hawke's review has guaranteed a new controversy. Dr Hawke is career bureaucrat and former chief-of-staff to Paul Keating. His review led to Mr McPhee being dumped from the independent role.

Dr Hawke took 18 days and was paid $60,000 to recommend a new panel to oversee government ads, which he now heads. He works four days a month for $175,000 a year.

The move came despite Mr Rudd's "100 per cent guarantee" promise before the 2007 election that government advertising would be independently reviewed.

In an explosive letter, copied to Mr Rudd, Mr McPhee said the government review "seriously misunderstands" his role. He said it contains "a number of inaccuracies" and "generally softens" the rules removing "rigour and discipline in this sensitive area."

Mr Rudd suggested Mr McPhee was uncomfortable being the umpire of government advertising. "The Auditor-General in fact wrote to me and indicated that he regarded this as potentially in conflict with his position," Mr Rudd said.

Other politicians, like Independent Senator Nick Xenophon, see it differently. "Make no mistake, the government has sacked the independent umpire on this," he said. "The Australian people have every right to think this stinks."

Greens Senator Bob Brown has a bill before parliament to reinstate the auditor-general's role, as the $38 million taxpayer-funded mining tax ad blitz continues to flood our screens. "It's again an example of the executive government simply changing the rules to benefit itself," Senator Brown said.

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400 frustrated people a week walk out of hospital emergency departments without being seen to

FOUR hundred people a week are walking out of emergency departments without being treated because they are frustrated with long waits. Almost 20,000 untreated people left South Australian emergency departments last year, about 3000 of those after medical staff warned them they should stay, latest statistics show.

Doctors say people often get assessed, then leave once they realise there is a long waiting time for treatment, but those people generally only have minor complaints and should not be in the emergency department anyway.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report Australian hospital statistics 2008-09, almost four in 10 people presenting to hospital are not seen within recommended times. The less urgent the case, the more likely they are to be waiting for extended amounts of time.

The Australian Medical Association says it is a frustrating situation for everyone. "We would like to think that people shouldn't have to wait," AMA state president Dr Andrew Lavender said. "But we also have to realise people attend emergency departments who do not necessarily need to.

"It is (frustrating). It creates stresses on not just medical and nursing staff when people are waiting a long time ... the more people that are there who don't need to be there, the longer everyone else has to wait. "If you are concerned (about a health issue), attend and you will be seen, but bear in mind that medical and nursing staff will prioritise patients ... even relatively significant complaints may have to wait a while."

The proportion of people walking out is 5.6 per cent in SA. The NT and the ACT have rates of about 10 per cent, while only 2.5 per cent of people walk out in WA.

The report shows 100 per cent of people needing resuscitation were seen on time, while 74 per cent of emergency cases were seen within recommended times. Overall, 63 per cent of people seeking care were seen on time, compared with 68 per cent nationally.

Australasian College of Emergency Medicine SA spokesman Associate Professor Bob Dunn said the people leaving were generally those with more minor complaints, and that it was "very, very rarely a deadly problem" because doctors would either convince those with serious issues to stay, or detain them if their reasoning was impaired. He said people might leave without treatment because they don't want to wait or because they are frightened at the idea of being admitted to hospital.

"The percentage (of people walking out without treatment) definitely does go up when departments are busy," he said. "It's an inconvenience that people haven't been treated when they'd like to be treated, but it rarely has a significant impact in terms of mortality."

The mean waiting time for elective surgery in public hospitals was 36 days, better than the 75-day wait in the ACT, but worse than the 27-day wait in Queensland. The national average was 34 days. The proportion of people waiting more than a year dropped from 3.9 per cent in 2007-08 to 2.7 per cent in 2008-09.

State Health Minister John Hill said there were other options for sick people. "Emergency departments are for medical emergencies only and people who go to EDs with more minor complaints can expect to wait until all the urgent cases have been dealt with first," he said. "If your condition is not urgent then it would be much better to see your GP or call healthdirect on 1800 022 222 for advice from a registered nurse."

Nationally, the report shows hospital admissions had risen 16 per cent since 2004-05 to over eight million, with admissions to public emergency departments the fastest-growing area.

AIHW Hospital Unit spokesman George Bodilsen said elective surgery admissions were also rising, with 1.8 million admissions last year. The median waiting time has stabilised and the proportion of people waiting longer than a year fell.

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Federal government is finally getting a bit realistic about so-called "refugees"

Prompted by strong public opinion against their previous "open door" policies. Since all the Afghans passed through several countries on their way to Australia, NONE of them were in fact seeking refuge. They had refuge as soon as they arrived in Pakistan

MORE than 40 per cent of Afghan asylum-seekers are being rejected as refugees, down sharply on the 95 per cent who were being waved through less than one year ago. Immigration Minister Chris Evans yesterday said more than 220 Afghans had been denied "in the last month or two". "They are now getting rejected at quite large rates," Senator Evans said. "The last percentage I saw was over 40 per cent."

Afghans comprise the biggest group of asylum-seekers who arrived at Christmas Island last year and so far this year.

Crowding on Christmas Island has prompted the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to look for mainland options to house detainees.

Senator Evans said offers were flowing in from organisations on the mainland wanting to house asylum-seekers from Christmas Island. Those making approaches included maverick West Australian MP Wilson Tuckey, who suggested asylum-seekers could live at a pub in the wheatbelt town of Southern Cross.

SOURCE



16 June, 2010

Bullied Catholic school student lost the will to live

Hmmmm ... The oddest thing about the report below is that the parents continued to send the kid to the school. It's a private school so they clearly had a choice. I sent my son to St. Joachim's Catholic school in Brisbane for his first 4 years of schooling but as soon as I learned that his teacher was scornful of him I sent him to the local State school instead -- where he did well. I wonder if the teacher concerned still feels that her scorn is justified now that he has a B.Sc. with a first in mathematics

A FORMER student of a prestigious girls' school has told court she was bullied for not wearing a bikini to swimming carnivals and mocked for years.

Jazmine Oyston, now 20, told the Supreme Court she was called "slut", "dog" and "pimple face," and pushed and elbowed regularly, by students at St Patrick's College when she attended from 2002 to 2005.

Despite complaining to four teachers, her year co-ordinator and the deputy principal, Ms Oyston said the bullying continued with no intervention from the school.

She said the bullying began in Year Seven when girls in the "popular group" called her names, but it progressed to physical shoving and elbowing in subsequent years.

She said one of her friends, a tall girl, was dubbed "Goliath" by her tormentors and another was called "freckle." At swimming carnivals, Ms Oyston said she was "mocked" for wearing a one-piece swimsuit instead of a bikini.

In his opening remarks, her barrister, Des Kennedy, SC, said there was a "culture and systemic problem of bullying" at the school and the staff did little to stop it. He said that as a result of her years of suffering, Ms Oysten had tried to commit suicide twice and had self-harmed by cutting her wrists with a compass.

The court heard she has since been diagnosed with depression, she has anxiety, panic attacks, is afraid of the dark and avoids crowds.

Ms Oysten said there were several times during high school when she felt she "didn't want to be alive." The personal assistant, who once aspired to be a lawyer or doctor, is suing St Patrick's College for damages including non-economic loss, wage loss and medical costs.

"The behaviour towards the plaintiff was cruel, spiteful and unrelenting," Mr Kennedy said. "It is likely that (her) life in the future will be seriously disrupted and that there will be a likely impairment to her learning capacity."

SOURCE




Queensland police given powers to prosecute non-crimes

Extraordinary

THOUSANDS of people could be slapped with fines for offences that would never have attracted police attention in the past under sweeping reforms to police powers. Experts fear swearing in public, with a fine of $100, will be a major money spinner and could become the weapon of choice for frustrated officers on the beat.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh announced the new powers for the state's police to issue on-the-spot notices for public nuisance offences. Ms Bligh said the move would increase efficiency, save time and fast-track more important matters in the courts by stopping minor public nuisance offenders from clogging the justice system.

She said the measures, targeting offences such as public urination, disorderly conduct and abusive language, would save the Government between $18 million and $30 million.

The power to issue on-the-spot fines of between $100 and $300 could result in public nuisance prosecutions soaring 20 per cent, based on figures from a 12-month trial in South Brisbane and Townsville. In 2008-2009 terms, that could see 5500 more people slapped with the offence across Queensland each year.

Ms Bligh said it was hard to estimate if the 20 per cent increase would hold true right across the state. She attributed it to police having more time "on the beat" because the on-the-spot powers saved hours compared to the time spent processing an arrest.

But an evaluation of the trial by Griffith University said evidence existed that, given on-the-spot powers, police were more likely to issue tickets in situations unlikely to be considered criminal before the courts.

The NSW Ombudsman said the problem particularly concerned police fining people for swearing, saying: "The words spoken would not be considered offensive if the matter was to be determined by a court."

Queensland Council of Civil Liberties president Michael Cope said the powers were a concern when it came to offensive language and would see public nuisance offence rates soar. "This will become the thing police just slap on someone whenever they aren't happy," Mr Cope said. "No one will fight them and ultimately people who are homeless or young will bear the brunt of this." Trial figures showed 1 per cent of those charged had appealed.

Police Minister Neil Roberts said inappropriate behaviour in public places was not acceptable and would not be tolerated.

The legislation will be introduced to Parliament later this year, with the new powers to take effect by 2011.

SOURCE





Bosses warn maternity leave scheme costs could hit women's jobs

EMPLOYERS are warning Australia's first national paid baby leave scheme could have hidden costs that make it harder for young women to find jobs. The fresh discrimination concerns come as the Rudd Government's $260 million taxpayer-funded paid parental leave plan could pass the Senate as early as tomorrow.

The Coalition has confirmed it will not block the landmark arrangements, which are set to deliver 18 weeks' leave at the Federal minimum wage, recently increased to $569.90.

But the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland have raised a red flag, arguing employers should not be made "paymasters" for the federally-funded scheme.

In a Senate submission, Queensland's peak employer group warns any hidden administrative burdens could turn bosses off hiring potential mums. Employers fear they will have to spend money on buying new software or chasing up late government payments to be able to pass on the cash.

The scheme is due to apply to babies born or adopted after January 1 and for the first six months the leave will be paid via the Government's Family Assistance Office. After that, bosses will have to pay the taxpayer-funded leave to staff after receiving the Government payments.

A spokeswoman for Families Minister Jenny Macklin said the leave would be paid through employers, similar to other work entitlements. "Following extensive consultations with employers, we have ensured that employers can receive advances of funds in as little as three instalments," she said. "Employers will only be required to pay an employee when they have received sufficient funds."

But CCIQ's general manager of policy Nick Behrens said Queensland businesses advocated a scheme that did not require employers to manage and administer payments on behalf of the Government. In the Senate submission on the plan, the CCIQ said companies could be hit with hidden costs by acting as "paymasters" for staff.

He said there could also be the "potential for discrimination in employing young people" and an "impact on the competitiveness and profitability of businesses in those industries that have a large number of female employees".

Mr Behrens also warned about the "potential for breakdowns in employee/employer relationships if the scheme does not work as planned".

Opposition spokeswoman for the Status of Women, Sharman Stone, said the plan would be an "administrative nightmare for businesses". "When we get in we will introduce a far better scheme which will be managed by the Family Assistance Office so businesses won't have paid parental leave going through their books," she said.

But big business has raised concerns about the Coalition's $2.7 billion alternative plan.

Meanwhile, the Australian Council of Trade Unions will today deliver a petition with 25,000 signatures calling on the Senate to pass the scheme this week.

SOURCE





NSW police cure mental illness with lead

EIGHT bullets??

DISTRAUGHT mum Elma Heath waited six hours for police to show up after her mentally ill son became violent toward her and lashed out. When officers arrived, one shot Michael Capel dead, hitting him five times with shots from a service pistol after he came at police with a knife.

Mr Capel, 43, died in the grounds of the Spinnakers Leisure Park in Lake Macquarie on October 10, 2008. A coronial inquest into his death began yesterday.

Ms Heath tried desperately for hours to get police help for her son, who suffered from schizophrenia and had not taken the medication that stabilised his condition, the inquest heard.

Attempts to get help from a specialist mental health team attached to Hunter New England Health also failed.

It was only after four calls to triple-0 and a visit to the local police station that Constables Sally Hogg and Jason Battle arrived on scene. Mrs Heath told the court she told the officers that her son had earlier attacked her and was in his caravan.

"They said, 'We'll just go and talk to him' and I said, 'You're going to have trouble'," Mrs Heath said.

The inquest heard the two constables opened the door of Mr Capel's caravan and he came at them with a kitchen knife. Attempts to subdue him with capsicum spray failed, prompting Constable Battle to draw his pistol and fire eight rounds. Five hit Mr Capel and he fell to the ground.

Mrs Heath said she ran to the scene moments after the shooting and saw her son lying on the ground. "I said, 'Is he still alive'. A paramedic said, 'I think so'. I said, 'Why isn't anyone doing anything'. He just shrugged."

SOURCE



15 June, 2010

No integrity at Victoria's Office of Police Integrity

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

AS the much-trumpeted case against former Victoria Police assistant commissioner Noel Ashby collapsed in an embarrassing heap earlier this year after another bungle by the State's Office of Police Integrity, the increasingly bizarre interactions between the OPI and The Australian led its editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell to make a call.

The OPI had an abysmal track record with cases that fell over. Mitchell, who wanted someone from the paper with no connections to Victoria to look into the issues, asked Hedley Thomas to take it on from Queensland.

Mitchell's view of the OPI, now laid bare following this newspaper's decision to publish his letter of March 11 to the OPI and its federal counterpart, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, was that if the OPI could so readily distort the facts in its dealings with him over a matter in which the newspaper had been part of an investigation, its failure in other high-profile cases might not be a coincidence.

The Australian's battle with Victoria Police and its Chief Commissioner, Simon Overland, over the circumstances surrounding the publication of Cameron Stewart's scoop on the Australian Federal Police's terror raids on August 4 last year was still alive.

As is well known, Overland was critical of the paper's publication of the raids, in which a few early copies of the last edition with news of the raids made its way to some locations in Melbourne before the raids had taken place. Overland said this had endangered the lives of his officers. It set off a political firestorm and prompted an investigation by the OPI and ACLEI.

(The newspaper in turn stands by its decision, saying it abided by all the conditions set out for it in the publication of the story, holding off until the day of the raids as agreed with the authorities.)

But the OPI/ACLEI's initial report into how the paper gained advanced warning into the raid was "the greatest corruption of truth I have seen in an official document in 18 years as a daily newspaper editor and 37 years as a journalist", Mitchell wrote on March 11.

The newspaper sued in the Federal Court to have the report amended, arguing ultra vires, or beyond powers, challenging the OPI's power to make findings against the newspaper. The case was settled last Monday with what is understood to be a significantly changed report and following what is also understood to be a significant falling out between the OPI and the ACLEI over the direction of the investigation -- the ACLEI acknowledging the newspaper's concerns while the OPI continued to fight the case.

Much more HERE. See also here





More schools furious about "stimulus" waste

MORE schools are blowing the whistle on the wastage, shoddy construction and rorting of the Rudd government's $16.2 billion Building the Education Revolution program.

The schools have complained about overcharging -- including $23,044 in "landscaping fees" for 17 pot plants and four square metres of turf -- and substandard construction, in submissions to the NSW parliamentary inquiry into the BER.

Mary Brooksbank School, which caters for disabled students in Sydney, was given a $592,000 special purpose room with a door "not constructed to disability standards". Two covered learning areas were built at a cost of $235,000 without safety reinforcements, so their roofs had to removed for repairs. "We will not accept that faults, repairs, failure to comply with standards, incompetence should be paid for out of our BER funds," the school's P&C Association says in its submission.

Building costs at 10 schools have blown out by identical amounts totalling $4.5 million after the price of modular libraries soared from $850,000 to $1.3m. Each of the northern NSW schools, granted $850,000 last year for new libraries, has blown its budget by $453,505 -- bringing the total cost to $1.3m each.

Reed Constructions, the managing contractor for each of the projects, has been allocated a total of $73,000 in "incentive fees" for delivering on time and within budget -- on top of $494,000 in project management fees, according to costing breakdowns published on the NSW Education Department website.

Each of the public schools -- Scotts Head, Durrumbul, Leeville, Main Arm Upper, Green Hill, Caniaba, Tabulam, Tyalgum, Copmanhurst and Stroud -- has been charged $570,985 for modular building costs, $149,968 for design documentation and site management, $74,244 for "preliminaries", $210,263 for the superstructure, $90,363 for site works, $47,420 for site services and $50,000 for electricity upgrades.

A NSW Education spokeswoman yesterday said the schools were receiving "an entire new administration building on top of their allocation for a library". But the "extra" building came as news to the schools' P&Cs, which insisted yesterday that the libraries already included an administration section. "It was always one building -- half library, half administration, right from the very beginning," said Kylie Gorton, the P&C president of Stroud Public School, north of Newcastle.

Ms Gorton is furious the $1.3m building does not include the solar panels, water tank, covered walkways and airconditioning the school was promised. She said Reed Constructions had shown her paperwork at a site meeting a year ago putting the cost at $800,806, including GST. "We thought we'd have money left over," she said yesterday. "This is atrocious; I consider this an absolute waste."

Scotts Head P&C president Karen Woldring said her school's new building, incorporating a library and administration area, had initially been budgeted at $850,000 and the plans had not changed. She revealed that an official from federal Education Minister Julia Gillard's BER taskforce had visited the school two weeks ago. "We asked how it happened and he said that's what he would investigate," she said.

Tabulam P&C treasurer Sharon White said the school was "getting one building with the library and administration in it". Durrumbul P&C vice-president Abby Bliss said her school was receiving only the single building originally planned.

SOURCE





Costly "asylum seekers"

The good ol' generous Australian taxpayer again

ALMOST $200,000 a week is being spent on charter flights to ferry asylum seekers and federal staff to and from Christmas Island to ease pressure on the overcrowded off-shore detention centre.

New figures on the cost of the Government's border protection policy reveal it has been forced to double the number of charter flights on and off the island this year, to an average of one every five days. The cost of the aircraft has also more than trebled in just 10 months to $8.2 million, or $134,000 a flight. And it is forecast to keep rising, with the Government admitting it will cost an extra $8.1 million next year.

According to the latest figures - detailing the cost of flying asylum seekers from the island to 12 locations on the mainland, including Sydney - in the 10 months to April 30, 62 aircraft were chartered to carry 6500 people to and from Christmas Island. In the 2008-09 financial year 32 charter flights carrying 2500 people to and from the island cost $2.7 million - an average of $84,000 a flight.

But the latest figures do not include the recent transfer of 30 Sri Lankan, Afghan and Iranian family groups - 86 asylum seekers in total - from the island to the former mining camp in Leonora, in Western Australia. They also do not include the 189 single Afghan males who were flown from the island on two charter flights to the Curtin Airbase in the remote West Kimberley region of WA at the weekend, costing more than $250,000.

The cost blowout is expected to continue, with the Government also confirming at the weekend it was looking for more sites to house asylum seekers on the mainland, to cope with overcrowded facilities on Christmas Island.

There are already at least 11 detention centres, residential housing or transit accommodation facilities on the mainland at various sites including Sydney, Perth, remote Western Australia, Melbourne, Brisbane, Darwin and outback South Australia.

At a Senate Estimates hearing less than three weeks ago the Federal Opposition claimed the operating costs at Christmas Island were "increasing markedly".

Immigration Minister Chris Evans was sarcastic in his response. "You have discovered [an] awful truth, which is that as the number of detained [sic] on Christmas Island increases the cost of running Christmas Island increases," Senator Evans told the committee. "You have got us; we confess; the costs have increased. I know it is amazing, but the costs have increased . . ."

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was spending more time "running his own airline than stopping the boats".

SOURCE






Bus drivers ditch children in violation of rules

What does it take to get one of these b*stards fired? Government employees sure are a protected class

A 14-YEAR-OLD schoolboy has been left behind on a suburban road by a Brisbane bus because the driver refused to break a $20 note. The incident was the second serious case in a month for Brisbane Transport after a 10-year-old girl was left stranded in Mt Gravatt.

The boy's father, Nick Smith, told The Courier-Mail he had dropped his son Joshua off on Meadowlands Rd at Carina early last month, with a $20 note to pay for his week of bus trips to school. But the boy, who was dressed in school uniform, was told by the driver he would have to leave the bus because there was not enough spare change to break the note.

"He had a $20 note and then the driver said to him that he couldn't change the note and that he had to get off the bus," Mr Smith said. "I had to pick him up and then take him down to Cannon Hills bus terminal . . . but where he was on Meadowlands Rd there are no shops or things close to hand for him to get change.

"Being in full school uniform, showing his ID and being of a relatively minor age, I felt it was extremely disappointing that the decision was made not to let him on, given the problems that we have had in the past."

Both TransLink and Brisbane City Council have a "no child left behind" policy, which states that children of school-age or younger cannot be left behind by buses regardless of whether they are carrying the sufficient fare.

Mr Smith said his wife had rung TransLink to complain, and was told the driver had the right to refuse entry if passengers were not carrying the correct fare. "Initially when we complained, my wife actually rang them and they said, 'Look, passengers do have to tender the right change – there is a sign on the bus'," he said.

"If it was an adult, or if he was abusive or the behaviour was not appropriate you would understand but he did nothing wrong, he was very upset, very shaken and quite disappointed that he wasn't allowed to get on the bus."

A spokesman for TransLink said yesterday incidents of children being left behind were "very serious" and the driver had been disciplined but not sacked. "In this instance, following a thorough investigation by Brisbane Transport and TransLink, the driver involved has been disciplined and counselled and an apology has been issued to the child's parent," he said.

Public and Active Transport chair Jane Prentice said a memo had been sent to council drivers, reminding them of the "no child left behind policy". "I understand the latest incident was before we sent the alert but the bottom line is that it is not acceptable behaviour."

SOURCE



14 June, 2010

Muslims can do no wrong?

The man carrying a legal bomb into courtroom 11A in the NSW Supreme Court building on Friday morning did not look menacing and is not menacing under normal circumstances. But these were not normal circumstances. This was cultural war. The legal bomb was brought to court by the once leonine figure of Clive Evatt, a veteran defamation lawyer who now walks with the aid of a cane, on which his severely bent frame leans heavily.

As Evatt took his place at the plaintiff's bench, the man on whose instructions he was acting, Keysar Trad - a thickset, bearded man wearing a grey suit, blue shirt and tie - sat alone in the back row of the public gallery.

Trad is no stranger to litigation. Over many years he has expended untold hours making formal complaints to the NSW Supreme Court, the Administrative Decisions Tribunal, the Anti-Discrimination Board, the Human Rights Commission, the Press Council, other review bodies and, above all, the media, where he has operated as a quote-machine representing the Muslim community in Australia.

He was in court on Friday because of a disaster of his own making. After delivering a hostile tirade against Sydney's top-rated radio station, 2GB, during a "peace" rally in 2005, Trad was himself criticised the next day by a 2GB presenter, Jason Morrison, though not in the same language Trad had used at the rally where he claimed to speak on behalf of Muslims in Australia.

Trad sued for defamation. He was the star witness for his own case. The senior judge, Justice Peter McClellan, the chief judge of common law in the NSW Supreme Court, found against Trad, and found him to be a witness of little credibility, a man of extreme views and, in summary, "a disgraceful individual".

Such was Trad's performance under oath that on Friday the counsel for the defence, Richard McHugh, SC, delivered this devastating portrayal of his credibility under oath: "[Trad] attempted to evade responsibility for his statements by claiming he was misquoted, by claiming he was taken out of context, by claiming he had changed his mind, or by claiming he did not even know what he had said or written at the instant he said or wrote it. He was entirely disbelieved.

"[His] evidence that he did not know who was the author of Mein Kampf - and his feigned attempts at a thought process to recollect the author's name - were a low point in this trial. The transcript in this case can supply only a colourless picture of the evidence at trial."

Even before this appeal, Trad was facing legal costs exceeding $250,000. He decided to up his risk. On Friday morning, I counted 16 lawyers in the court. At this level, justice is neither fast nor cheap.

His appeal was based on several major grounds but the most prominent and contentious, made repeatedly in oral and written submissions, was that Justice McClellan had erred fundamentally by taking Trad's provocative comments over the years out of the context of the Muslim community. To quote Evatt: "His honour did not take into account that Australia is a multicultural society and the viewpoints of ethnic groups are recognised by the Australian community even though not all members of the community agree with them."

And this: "His honour did not refer to or even consider the likelihood the average citizen would recognise that the views expressed by [Trad] were similar to beliefs shared by Muslims throughout the world including Muslims in Australia." And this: "His honour appears to have given no weight to the fact that the speech was made to Muslims in a mosque and not in an address to the general community."

And this: "His honour overlooked the fact Sheikh Hilaly's speech [defended by Trad] was not made to members of the Australian community but to Muslims and others who attended the Sidon Mosque in Lebanon."

This is an explosive argument. It means this aspect of the appeal may rest on the argument that the Muslim community operates under different standards than the rest of society and cannot be judged using the same standards. Further, these standards, even if judged to be extreme by the rest of society, should be respected.

It is fair to say the bench became restive on Friday. There were plenty of tart exchanges from the three judges, justices Murray Tobias, Ruth McColl and John Basten. But this was nothing compared with the fire and brimstone from the defence.

This appeal was an attempt, McHugh argued, to turn the case into one about "freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and that the appellant has been unfairly branded as a racist, homophobic, terrorist-supporting, woman-hating bigot when all he was doing was expressing views consistent with his Islamic faith and his role as a prominent Australian Lebanese community spokesman … The question here is whether the deliberate peddling of grossly sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic filth is not dangerous and disgraceful and an incitement to violence and racist attitudes in Australia in 2010. The most extraordinary claim is that his extreme views are [a] 'Muslim view'. This ought not to be accepted."

If Trad does prevail in his appeal, this case, Trad v Harbour Radio, will be corrosive to the idea of mainstream Muslim moderation, and to the ideal that most Muslims are naturally part of a cohesive element in the weave of Australia's culture rather than functioning under de facto Islamic law while giving mere lip service to the Australian legal system and the values it upholds.

SOURCE






No sign of global warming on Australia's ski fields

Quite to the contrary. The slopes are open unusually early

VICTORIA'S ski-fields have enjoyed the best opening of the season in years, the resorts say, with enough snow and selected lifts operating for revellers to take to the slopes on skis and boards.

Snow began falling on the mountain resorts of Mount Buller and Mount Hotham in the past week, and both have bolstered coverage with man-made snow.

The sun was shining, the sky blue and the air crisp and dry at both resorts yesterday.

For the first time on the Queen's birthday opening weekend since 2003, three of the 13 ski lifts at Hotham were operating and three runs were open: Summit Trainer, Playground and the Big D, said resort spokeswoman Gina Woodward. "It hasn't got warmer than minus 3 for at least the last week," she said. "That's pretty cold for Australia - there's no sign of climate change around here right now."

Skiers had an average of 13 centimetres of snow under their skis on the runs. "Last night it dropped down to minus 6.3 and we made another 15,000 cubic metres of snow," Ms Woodward said. "Things are looking good for the coming weeks."

At Mount Buller, people were skiing on this opening weekend for the first time since 2007, said Buller Ski Lifts spokeswoman Rhylla Morgan. Snow depth ranged from 18 to 45 centimetres. Four of the 22 lifts were operating, with Bourke Street, Baldy and Shaky Knees runs open.

"It's been an absolutely amazing opening weekend … the mountain looks absolutely spectacular," Ms Morgan said. "We started grooming [the slopes] a few days ago. This morning, when the sun came up, the runs were completely smooth and looked like carpet."

Ms Rhyll said the temperature was expected to peak at about 3 degrees yesterday, and was expected to drop to about -5 or -6 overnight, which was ideal for making snow. "We had about 15 centimetres of natural snowfall just before the weekend," she said. "We have prime conditions for making snow … to give Mother Nature a hand. "To have this much of the mountain open and people skiing on the opening weekend is cause for celebration."

About 10,000 people were venturing to Mount Buller for the opening weekend, and in their hundreds to Mount Hotham, according to official estimates.

SOURCE





Appallingly negligent NSW cops

Parents not told after predator made abduction attempts at Sydney schools

A SUSPECTED paedophile made three attempts to grab children from elite Sydney private schools before police notified parents.

Police were called after the first attempted abduction outside Scots College at Bellevue Hill on Tuesday morning. They made the attack public at 4.30pm on Wednesday.

During that time the predator struck again at neighbouring Cranbrook School between 2.20 and 3.15pm on Wednesday, prompting police patrols around the schools and at bus stops.

Police also told the schools they were aware that a man fitting the same description had been spotted offering inducements to children at a park in nearby Vaucluse, yet there was no public announcement or warning.

All the abduction attempts were unsuccessful.

Schools and pre-schools in Rose Bay and Bellevue Hill have now, days after the first incident occurred, warned parents not to leave children in the car even while picking up or dropping off.

Cranbrook has put itself on "high alert" and a local pre-school has written to parents saying: "Please be sure you DO NOT leave any of your children in the car when you are picking up your child."

The lapse comes despite a directive from the NSW Government to police chiefs to notify the public of attempted child abductions as soon as possible.

Police caused outrage in almost identical circumstances in 2008 when two boys were almost snatched in Cambridge Park, in Sydney's west, a day after an attempted abduction on a girl that police did not inform parents about until 14 hours later.

A mother from Rose Bay, who asked not to be identified, said she was appalled to have found out so late.

"It gives me chills to think this bloke is out there at all but it's far worse to think we didn't know about it for days," she said. "We're a pretty close-knit, trusting community and we expect our kids will be safe around the neighbourhood. "Now I'm worried about letting my son out of my sight for a second with this guy still around - but even if they catch him I'll be worried about whether police will alert us to future dangers."

The man is caucasian, in his late 50s, with an average build, grey, short, unkempt hair and wearing clear-rimmed reading glasses. He drives an older model white Holden Commodore station wagon with a "Roosters" sticker on the left side of the tailgate.

There is no suggestion of any delay or impropriety from either school.

Police said they waited to interview the boys before releasing a statement.

SOURCE





Australian Federal Govt wants access to your emails, browsing history

The Fed Govt is considering forcing Australian ISPs to retain data on how Australian citizens are using the internet, such as their sent and received email and browsing history

The Federal Government has confirmed it is considering a policy requiring Australian internet providers to retain precise data on how their users are using the internet, with the potential to include information on emails sent and — reportedly — their web browsing history.

“The Attorney-General’s Department has been looking at the European Directive on Data Retention, to consider whether such a regime is appropriate within Australia’s law enforcement and security context,” a spokesperson for the department confirmed via email today. “It has consulted broadly with the telecommunications industry.”

The spokesperson’s confirmation was also contained in a report by ZDNet.com.au (which broke this story), which stated that ISP industry sources had flagged the potential for the new regime to require ISPs to record each internet address (also known as URL) that an internet user visited.

APC has contacted spokespeople from major ISPs such as Telstra, Optus, iiNet, Internode and Adam Internet to ask for a response on the matter, as well as the Internet Industry Association, a group which represents the ISPs. The office Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and the office of Attorney-General Robert McLelland have also been contacted for comment on the matter.

The European Directive on Data Retention (2006) requires communications providers to retain a number of categories of data relating to their users.

Broadly speaking, they must retain data necessary to trace and identify the source, destination, date, type, time and duration of communications — and even what communication equipment is being used by customers and the location of mobile transmissions.

According to the directive, where internet access is concerned, this means the ISPs must retain the user ID of users, email addresses of senders and recipients of email, the date and time that users logged on and off from a service, and their IP address — whether dynamic or static applied to their user ID.

For telephone conversations, this means the number from which calls were placed and the number that received the call, the owner of the telephone service and similar data such as the time and date of the call’s commencement and completion. For mobile phone numbers, geographic location data would also be included.

The EU directive requires that no data regarding the content of communications be included, however, and it has directives regarding privacy, including the fact that data would be retained for periods of not less than six months and not more than two years from the date of the communication.

Any data collected is to be destroyed at the end of that period.

SOURCE



13 June, 2010

A rage-filled Prime Minister

Quite normal for Leftists. Rudd's predecessor Mark Latham was the same and all conservative bloggers know how rage-filled are the emails and comments that they get from Leftists

Kevin Rudd is surrounded by c**** and everything is f*****. Let me explain. I don't mean the Prime Minister is making mistakes, or that his government is hopeless. I mean he has a potty mouth. He swears all the time, about everything, no matter whom he's addressing.

He likes the f-bomb almost as much as he loves the c-word. He's f****** sick of p***** saying he's just a nerdy f****** bureaucrat, all right? It's just bulls***! He's as tough as the next b******. Got it? Anyone who says otherwise can eat s***.

And he desperately wants us all to hear him loud and clear. In the past week, political geeks such as me have been chuckling over the revelation that the Prime Minister interrupted high-level climate-change negotiations at the Copenhagen summit last year to observe: "Those Chinese f****** are trying to rat-f*** us." Rudd spoke this sentence to a roomful of journalists, as part of a background briefing at the summit.

But none of them reported the line, because the understanding at such a briefing is that everything is off the record. When something is off the record, it means journalists are getting information that is useful for informing and enhancing their stories, in return for their tacit agreement that the source and exact wording of the supplied information will be kept secret.

A background arrangement such as this is useful for a leader such as Rudd, because it allows him to be frank in his assessments without having to deal with an outbreak of Rudd-effigy burnings across Beijing, or explain to the Australian dairy industry why China has decided to cancel 400 years' worth of advance import deals.

So the line stayed a secret until journalist David Marr published his fine new Quarterly Essay about the curious quirks of Captain Kevin. Marr also details how Rudd, during a long day of interviews, had an extraordinary explosion of temper when he realised Marr wasn't planning to write a particularly flattering piece.

Marr wrote that Rudd delivered "a dressing-down which registers about a 3.8 on his Richter scale". "He doesn't scream and bang the table as he does behind closed doors, (but) in his anger, Rudd becomes astonishingly eloquent. This is the most vivid version of himself I've encountered. "At last he is speaking from the heart, an angry heart."

Marr's thesis is that the real Kevin Rudd is this furious, self-righteous foot-stamper - a grown man who has tantrums just like those of a toddler. "He's a politician with rage at his core, impatient rage," Marr adds.

Oh, how I wish Marr had written exactly what the Prime Minister had said. I'm sure the air between them turned blue for a few moments, as Rudd questioned Marr's thesis, talent, intelligence, motivation and parentage. It would, if nothing else, be delightfully amusing to read.

But really, the words themselves are not as important as what they reveal: the Prime Minister's routine, casual and cynical use of the "off-the-record" convention as an opportunity to swear. He does it all the time, and he usually gets away with it....

Anyway, foul language is part of the Labor Party's genetic code. When modern lefties use a c-word to refer to one another, it's unlikely to be "comrade".

The phrase "rat-f***" has a long and proud Labor heritage. It's the sort of thing they say in Sussex St when the dim sims are running low. Now, Rudd has inadvertently brought it into the open. Bring it on, I say.

More HERE




Nurses on ramp duty outside Queensland's accident and emergency departments

This means that long waits for admission are now accepted as routine. It is an Australia-wide problem, however

NURSES are being assigned to ramp duty outside accident and emergency departments to check on patients waiting for up to four hours to get inside Queensland's "bed-blocked" public hospitals.

The Sunday Mail has learnt that at the Gold Coast and Logan hospitals during peak periods, patients either on the ramp to the A&E department or in a corridor leading to the emergency department would be given a unique record number and minor treatment as they waited for a bed to become available.

Senior nurses employed in A&E, while not placed on an official roster for the ramps, knew there was an "unwritten rule" that they must care for the patients waiting outside. "The reason it's an unwritten rule is Queensland Health is trying to cover its arse," a hospital source told The Sunday Mail. "Every nurse when in charge in stretches has to check on the patients. If they (patients) deteriorate and suffer complications, your registration is at risk."

At Logan their wait in the corridors can range from "30 minutes to four hours", with nurses refusing to let their patients remain on the ramp.

Ramping first surfaced as a problem about three years ago but has reached crisis point, and lines have been blurred about whether paramedics with the Queensland Ambulance Service or nurses had responsibility for patients.

Staff estimate Logan can treat about 180 new patients a day, about 10 less than the number through emergency at Gold Coast, yet the hospital has about 300 beds, which is half the number at Southport. "We don't want a 65-year-old with a broken hip out on the ramp in the open," the hospital source said. "We don't think that's a dignified way to treat people so we let QAS wait in the corridor."

But the practice of admitting patients to A&E from the ramps and corridors is causing a legal dilemma for nurses in terms of duty of care. Queensland Health management had deliberately not included ramp coverage as a staffing area on its rosters because it would be admitting the system was failing, the source said.

Liberal National Party Mudgeeraba MP Ros Bates, a registered nurse, asked whether patients were being admitted on the ramp on her recent tour of the Gold Coast Hospital. "I noticed the patients had ID bands on their wrists. I asked (senior management) if patients were admitted on the ramp and was told yes," Ms Bates said. "They're staying on the trolleys because they can't get them through A&E."

Ms Bates said she had spoken to hospital staffers concerned about their legal position regarding patient care. "You have patients on ambulance trolleys and legally the ambos are responsible for that, but the nurses are coming out on the ramps to do their observations, take bloods before they can get them off on a trolley," she said.

Documents obtained by the Opposition show the average waiting times for Code 1 patients - people facing a potentially life-threatening situation - at Logan Hospital was 50 minutes.

Nurses Union state secretary Gay Hawksworth said ramping was a major concern and would only get worse during the winter flu season. The Queensland Health payroll crisis had compounded the problem, because casual staffers had signed up to the private sector, she said.

"Once a nurse is involved with a patient, whether it's on a ramp, in an ambulance or in the corridor then the nurse has a responsibility," Ms Hawksworth said.

Health Minister Paul Lucas denied ambulance trolleys were being counted as beds and said patients were not being admitted on the ramp. "I am advised that if ramping occurs at an emergency department, clinical staff may triage the patients who are waiting to ensure they receive timely access to treatment if required. However, admission is a separate process which is done in the emergency department," he said.

Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union ambulance organiser Nigel Stamp said ramping was a daily frustration for paramedics.

SOURCE





Roseanne Catt is still fighting her frame-up

Getting justice where crooked police are involved is a long hard road

Roseanne Beckett was released from jail in 2001 after serving 10 years for conspiring to murder her husband. Seven of her nine charges were quashed. Now she is suing the state, writes Alicia Wood. Shes not afraid to name names.

Roseanne Beckett - formerly known as Roseanne Catt - is preparing a civil case against the state of NSW. She intends to reveal the individuals - including high-ranking police officers, Crown prosecutors, and a former MP - who she claims were involved in a conspiracy to have her arrested and jailed for a false crime.

The story of her alleged framing has all the elements of a John Grisham novel. In her statement of claim filed with the Supreme Court, Ms Beckett alleges former detective sergeant Peter Thomas led a malicious prosecution against her to create the belief that she was trying to murder her then husband, Barry Catt. She claims his actions included planting a gun in her house and leading a witness to give false evidence.

In 2007, Tracy Taylor, a witness in Ms Beckett's trial, signed an affidavit saying that she had given false evidence because she was frightened for her life. Ms Taylor's evidence supported the Crown's claim that Ms Beckett tried to poison Mr Catt. Yet despite now admitting that her evidence was a lie, Ms Taylor has never been asked to reappear in court.

Ms Beckett's conviction for that offence, along with six other charges, was quashed in 2005 by the Court of Appeal, which found the then sergeant Thomas had an "apparent hostility" towards her and an "apparent propensity to place improper pressure on witnesses".

Ms Beckett's challenge to convictions for wounding and assault of her husband was rejected. The Director of Public Prosecutions elected not to pursue a retrial of six of the seven quashed convictions.

"Everything I say is on public record, and that is what outrages me," Ms Beckett said. "It is already there, it is so well documented, and yet these people that did this are still walking around. It is hard for good-living Australian people to get their heads around that."

Ms Beckett first met Peter Thomas in 1983 when he investigated a fire at her delicatessen and charged her with arson. Those charges were dropped and Ms Beckett made several complaints to the Ombudsman and Police Internal Affairs department about alleged misconduct by Detective Thomas although none was upheld.

She married Barry Catt in 1987. In August 1989, Ms Beckett was arrested and charged with conspiring to murder her then husband.

The state claims malicious prosecution is the only allegation made that can now be heard, and that information gathered to arrest Ms Beckett was not solely gathered by Mr Thomas, but all investigators working on the case. The court has barred her other claims - including those for damages - because the limitation period on bringing the actions has expired.

Together with her staunch ally, Sister Claudette Palmer, Ms Beckett is calling for legislative reform to protect those who have been wrongly incarcerated. "There needs to be legislation for wrongly convicted people. You should have the right to compensation," Sister Palmer said.

It has now been 21 years. Asked why she does not let it go, Ms Beckett's voice quivers. "Closure. It is long overdue."

Ms Beckett's matter is before the Supreme Court on June 24.

SOURCE







West Australian police goons again

And it took a newspaper to "bring it to the attention" of police authorities. Too bad about the 99% of cases where newspapers don't get involved

POLICE have been filmed kicking and kneeing a man on the ground during a brutal arrest - sparking an internal police investigation and moves to have the officers charged. A spokesman for Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan confirmed on Friday that "an internal investigation (is) under way into this matter".

The Sunday Times alerted his office to the incident, which occurred in William St, City, in May last year but was only revealed by related court proceedings three months ago.

The spokesman said the Commissioner could not comment until the investigation finished "as he may have to adjudicate over any disciplinary proceedings that might arise from it".

Lawyer Shash Nigam said he was submitting evidence, including city council CCTV footage, to Mr O'Callaghan and the Corruption and Crime Commission because his client, ceramic tiler Richard Korculanic, 37, believed two officers should be charged with assault for the way they arrested him.

In March Magistrate Robert Black described one male officer's actions as "an assault" and raised concerns about police kicking people, during a hearing where he threw out the sole charge against Mr Korculanic of obstructing a public officer.

"It concerns me greatly that in the last two weeks I have heard matters whereby police officers have kicked people they are involved with," Mr Black said after acquitting Mr Korculanic in Perth Magistrates Court on March 2.

He said Mr Korculanic had not been threatening and the fact that he had asked why he was being handcuffed "does not enable a police officer to push someone vigorously in the manner that (the male officer) did". Mr Black said: "That's an assault."

About 11pm on May 24, 2009, in William St, police told Mr Korculanic and two friends, who were talking to several young people, to lean against a police car to be searched. In court, the officer claimed the trio were suspected of having stolen "cash cards" and money, but conceded that proved incorrect.

CCTV footage showed the male officer slamming Mr Korculanic against the car after he turned to speak to a female officer. Mr Korculanic said he was only asking why he was being cuffed. The film then showed the woman officer tackling him, the male officer holding him around the neck, then the woman kneeing him.

Footage also showed the male officer kicking him. The officer admitted in court he had "kicked him in the shoulder twice", claiming Mr Korculanic was moving towards hypodermic needles he had earlier placed on the ground. However, Mr Black said there was "absolutely no reason for that (the kicking) to occur".

Mr Korculanic wants publicity for his case because he is concerned about police getting more power with mandatory sentencing and proposed stop and search laws. Of the William St incident he said: "What did I assault? His shoes when he was kicking me in the head? Lucky there were cameras."

SOURCE



12 June, 2010

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG is critical of the arrogance of Kevvy waking up one fine morning and deciding all by his little self that he will impose a big new tax on one of Australia's most important employers and exporters -- the mining industry.




Muslim victimology

Muslim female makes demonstrably false accusations against police on a statutory declaration but that's OK -- and hushed up as well? Making a false statement on a statutory declaration is an offence that should lead to a prosecution. It seems that the NSW police force is just about as gutless about "minorities" as is the Victoria police. One would have thought that they would be very zealous to uphold their reputation where they can

As I was driving today I happened to listen to Jason Morrison’s ‘Drive’ show at around 3 pm. He mentioned the story of the Sydney policeman who happened to stop a veiled lady recently because he had a well founded suspicion that she was not driving well and that her ‘P’ plate sign was not affixed properly to the car. This policeman asked to see the lady’s license. Of course to check her license the policeman had to see the lady’s face and you know what that means for a Muslim feminista.

Instant outrage. This lady did what any oppressed victim who has been asked to show her driver’s license would do .She went straight to the media and complained that the policeman was a racist, shouted at her, grabbed her veil and wanted to pull it off. Not a shy little hyacinth, this lass went to Channel 7 and told her tearful story aided and abetted by her Muslim handlers.

Thing is, she forgot she is in a western country and that not all the media have lost their marbles. As Jason Morrison related, Channel 7 contacted the policeman in question after she gave her tearful opera buffa version of events. And guess what? The policeman had filmed the entire proceedings with the lachrimose lady. And then guess what the filming revealed? THE TRUTH. And the truth differed significantly from what the dodgy Muslim lady driver said.

First – it appears the policeman spoke very politely to the lady from beginning to end.

Second – it seems the would be abused victim had not been abused at all. The policeman did not touch or grab her veil. He simply asked her politely to show her face so he could do his job and identify her with the driver's photo on her driver's license.

Third. The lady has told untruths on a Statutory Declaration she made about the whole incident in her official complaint about this officer to the NSW Police Force. [woops]

With or without the veil it ain’t a pretty story. And in fact the lady might be wearing her veil now but the truth has been unveiled and is there for all to see.

Channel 7, having got hold of the ‘other side of the story’ from the policeman and having seen the footage, invited the lady to come back and ‘please explain’ what the footage showed. The Muslima prima donna, who thought she had it all sewn up with her first bellicose Ayatolla-like hissy fit, on realising such footage existed, suddenly declined to come in to be interviewed again. A little bit of the truth and reality mugging apparently had spoilt her day and shut her up.

Technology saved the day for this policeman. Imagine if he had NOT filmed the interview with the would be veiled victim? What would the story be out there in the media? And good on Channel 7 for getting the other side of the story. If only other media outlets did the same.

This Muslima wanted to con the world but she didn’t make it this time She should go for a holiday on a flotilla near Turkey – that’s where she belongs. However, as the Latma TV song goes ‘the truth will never find a way to your tv’ as the whole story has died in Sydney and it is hard to find any links which tell anything about it.

If not for Jason Morrison’s radio report, I would not have heard of it. Not only that, but as Jason has noted, there has been no public apology or public exoneration of the policeman in question who after all, was just doing his job. Several organisations including the Ethnic Affairs Commission and the NSW Police Force declined to comment on radio about the incident and there is hasty burying of the story going on.

SOURCE






Rudd in deep doo-doo over mining tax

LABOR figures and the mining industry have given Kevin Rudd two weeks to settle the damaging dispute over the resource super-profits tax as the ALP faces a call to dump the Prime Minister before the election.

Mr Rudd has rejected calls for an early settlement of the deep differences over the proposed $12 billion tax and warned that the fight could last for months, through to the election.

Former Queensland Labor treasurer Keith De Lacy has urged federal MPs to replace Mr Rudd as leader or risk being swept from power for a generation. Mr De Lacy savaged the Prime Minister as "an item of ridicule", as former party powerbroker Graham Richardson warned that Labor was "bleeding votes" because of the Prime Minister's planned 40 per cent tax on "super profits".

A Westpoll to be published in Western Australia today, after Mr Rudd and the cabinet spent two days in Perth and promised $2bn would be spent on infrastructure in the resources state, shows Labor's primary vote in the state at 26 per cent - the lowest ever - and the Coalition holding a two-party-preferred lead of 68 per cent to 32 per cent.

If such a result were duplicated at an election, Labor would not have a West Australian member of the House of Representatives.

Mr De Lacy, now a coalmining executive, who worked with Mr Rudd when the Prime Minister was Queensland's top bureaucrat under premier Wayne Goss, said: "Labor now run the risk of being out of power for a generation. "I regret to say there is no alternative but to change the leader - for someone who cares about Australia and cares about the long-term electability of the Labor Party. There are plenty of them around. But I reckon there is little time to waste."

Mr Richardson told Sky News that Mr Rudd must resolve the details of the proposed tax within a fortnight to stand a chance in the federal election, expected in September or October.

Mr Rudd's handling of political issues is even questioned by his brother, Greg, in an article in today's Weekend Australian. While Greg Rudd attacks the media for attempting to tear down his brother, he admits it is hard to say whether the Prime Minister has made Australia a better place because of the "smoky haze of self-lit spot fires of distraction".

Their comments came after The Australian revealed that Hawke government minister Peter Walsh had joined the critics of Mr Rudd's lack of consultation with the mining industry.

Mr Walsh, who as Resources Minister in 1984 introduced the petroleum resource rent tax on which the new levy is based, said the Rudd government should have followed the same consultation process before the PRRT was announced. "But there's an obstacle to that, and that obstacle is Kevin Rudd," Mr Walsh said.

The mining industry stepped up its demands for genuine negotiations with the government after expectations of a sudden breakthrough in Canberra were dashed yesterday and the Minerals Council of Australia expanded its advertising campaign against the new mining tax.

Xstrata Coal chief executive Peter Freyberg said last night that talks between miners and federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson in Canberra did not make progress. He said Mr Rudd needed to start genuine negotiations "as soon as possible".

SOURCE






The charming Victoria police again

Chef bashed in police cell gets almost $100,000 compensation

A CHEF who made a 000 emergency call from a police cell to police to complain he had been bashed by police has been awarded nearly $100,000 compensation by three appeal judges. They today overturned an earlier ruling by a County Court judge that three police sergeants used "reasonable and proportionate’’ force to subdue Grant Watkins.

The Court of Appeal said there was no doubt Mr Watkins was assaulted on five separate occasions at St Kilda police station and the issue was whether the officers had legal defences to their actions.

Sergeants Nathan Kaeser, Andrew Falconer and Richard Lewis said that after Mr Watkins was arrested for an alleged assault on his girlfriend he tried to avoid being fingerprinted by spitting blood and struggling violently. They said they only used reasonable force to subdue him and that their actions were in compliance with the Crimes Act.

After the incident on May 14, 2005, Mr Watkins made an emergency call using his mobile phone and asked the operator to send police because he was being held against his will and had been assaulted by police.

Appeal judges Justices David Ashley, Philip Mandie and David Beach said Mr Watkins claimed that during an attempt to fingerprint him his arms were held by Sgt Lewis and Sgt Falconer while Sgt Kaeser king-hit him. They ruled that none of the five alleged assaults were justified and the evidence could not be denied.

"We are bound to say, the (trial) judge made a number of findings about the conduct of Mr Watkins and the police defendants which cannot be sustained," they said. "The assaults were a serious invasion of the appellant's rights. They caused him significant physical and psychiatric injuries.

Mr Watkins, 28, of Briar Hill, sued the State Government and the three officers, claiming he was left with multiple grazes around his face, ears and head and suffered intense anxiety, pain and emotional distress.

He had no previous convictions and admitted he refused to give his fingerprints after being arrested over an argument with his blind and bi-polar girlfriend.

Watkins was awarded $98,000, with the compensation amount being ordered only against the State Government and Sgt Kaeser.

SOURCE





Victorian politicians who claim a right to remain silent

I wonder why?

LABOR MPs have tried to stop journalists knocking on the door of their Parliament offices. In the past month, the State Parliament's top enforcement officials have twice formally complained to the Herald Sun about MPs being approached to answer questions. Despite claims of an open and transparent government, the doors to some Labor MPs are off limits.

President of the Upper House Bob Smith and Labor backbencher Danielle Green are leading the charge to curb the media's access. Mr Smith is the undisputed king of the junkets with 10 trips in the past three years at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Last month he ordered the Herald Sun to leave his office and declined to answer questions about his trips.

Ms Green, unhappy with questions about being seen applying make-up in the chamber, immediately complained to the Speaker.

The Serjeant-at-Arms and the Usher of the Black Rod have since told Herald Sun reporters to seek permission before approaching MPs.

It comes after 13 Labor MPs in the most marginal seats in the state recently declined to answer questions on four key public policy questions.

Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu said the ban on journalists knocking on the doors of Labor MPs is an extension of the Brumby Government's attempt to gag its MPs. "Members of Parliament should be accountable and open to scrutiny by the media," he said.

The Speaker of the House and Labor MP Jenny Lindell yesterday called on members to adopt a more "professional manner" in dealing with the media.

Press gallery veteran Brendan Donohoe, from Channel 7, said MPs should have an open door policy with all Victorians.

SOURCE



11 June, 2010

A deadbeat Federal government?

It's probably just the usual bureaucratic lethargy. Supplying any Australian government with goods or services is to risk difficulty in getting your money, sad to say.

ELECTRICIANS who have inspected 23,000 homes with foil insulation for potentially deadly problems have not been paid by the Rudd government. They say Kevin Rudd has broken an election promise for the government to settle all small business bills in 30 days.

In October 2008, the Prime Minister said if any contract worth less than $1m was not paid within that time, businesses could charge the government penalty interest rates.

The inspection of less than half of the 50,300 homes fitted with foil insulation has so far revealed that about 3 per cent - or 690 roofs - had electrical safety problems that were caused by inept installers.

Electrician Stephen McCracken, from Sandgate in Brisbane's north, said he was owed $26,000 and had been forced to renegotiate his mortgage. "It has been absolutely disastrous for us," Mr McCracken said yesterday. "We've got at least half-a-dozen debt collectors chasing us for money owed to wholesalers, for the telephone, internet, credit cards, even the dog registration."

Mr McCracken said his situation was complicated by the fact his jobs were invoiced through a middle man, so government officials had refused to discuss the late payments with him.

Electrician Martin Miller, from Redcliffe, north of Brisbane, said he was owed $30,000 by the government for invoices dating back more than 90 days. Only one invoice worth $312 had been paid.

His wife, Janelle, who does the books for Mr Miller, said the delay had caused them financial stress. "Whatever reserves we had, we've had to draw on that and live on credit," she said. "It means late repayments back to our suppliers."

Mr Miller said he was furious the government was rolling out a new foil inspection program that involved rechecking all of the homes already inspected and would waste tens of millions of dollars on consultant fees.

Instead of contracting the electricians directly, the government has hired consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers, who have sub-contracted to major contractor United Group, which is engaging 760 electricians to do the work. "I'm angry my taxpayer dollars are being wasted by another two layers of bureaucracy," Mr Miller said yesterday.

The government has said its 30-day payment rule does not apply to the electricians because there are no formal contracts for the inspections. But Assistant Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said he wanted the payments made as soon as possible. He said the department aimed to pay all $9m worth of payments by June 30, and was paying 85 per cent of valid invoices within 30 business days.

The government was checking all claims to ensure they were legitimate, and there had been some delays due to the strong demand and large number of incomplete invoices.

SOURCE






Only the fatcats thriving on aid meant for blacks

An old, old story. See also here

INDIGENOUS housing in the Northern Territory is a bigger scandal than the Building the Education Revolution rorts. But because it is located in remote Aboriginal communities, almost no one (apart from readers of The Australian) is aware of what is going on.

For many months, Nicolas Rothwell and Natasha Robinson have reported on this scandal. There have been shocking cost overruns; in one case, $183 million of taxpayer money has gone missing. And despite the billions being spent, the only people with proper housing are bureaucrats. This is a truly sorry business.

In August 2006, the Northern Territory government appointed a Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse. Its report had dramatic consequences. On June 25, 2007, then prime minister John Howard intervened. He said the report "documents in sickening detail the human misery and dysfunction in many remote Aboriginal communities" and noted his emergency response was "radical, comprehensive and highly interventionist".

So, three years on, let me revisit the chapter on housing, which reads in part: The shortage of indigenous housing in remote, regional and urban parts of the Territory is nothing short of disastrous and desperate. The present level of overcrowding in houses has a direct impact on family and sexual violence, substance abuse and chronic illness.

The report estimated that the Territory needed "a further 4000 dwellings to adequately house its present population. Into the future, more than 400 houses will be needed each year for 20 years."

The response included emergency housing initiatives to try to ensure that every child in the Territory would have a safe place to sleep: "The Australian government is investing $813m in remote indigenous housing and infrastructure in the NT, including $793m over the next four years as part of a joint agreement with the NT government."

How this has changed. It was rolled back to $672m by the federal Labor government and the program was outsourced to the Territory government. The latter's record has been disastrous: cost overruns, missing funds, administrative chaos, ministerial resignations, minority government.

Read carefully: 11 houses have been built and 160 repaired in two years for more than $200m. But at the government's valuation of $450,000 for a new house (no land costs) and $75,000 for a refurbishment, the sum spent should be only $16.85m. The location of the missing $183m is not known.

New announcements have since been made to fund infrastructure and tenancy management separately from the National Partnership Agreement, a kind of informal top-up of the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program.

The five-year, $672m program has blown out to an estimated $1.67 billion, to be funded from the 10-year $1.7bn National Partnership Agreement. Indigenous employment should increase but most indigenous workers have switched jobs or are working for the dole with no salary, no holiday pay, no superannuation, no future.

Most of us understand the correlation between unemployment, boredom and substance abuse. It was an emergency in 2007 but now it is a normal situation for many indigenous Territorians.

The story doesn't end there. The Territory government recently admitted that it has plans between now and 2013 for only 480 dwellings, to be constructed in the Maningrida, Wadeye, Galiwin'ku, Gunbalanya, Angurugu/Umbakumba and Nguiu communities, plus 85 in Alice Springs town camps.

Note the change of language. They are not building houses any more but dwellings, including one-bedroom units and pensioners' apartments; only half will be as big as three bedrooms.

Although there are hundreds of indigenous communities, only six to 15 will get new dwellings. Many will get no housing services at all. Most communities in the Territory will not have any semblance of a housing solution for the protection of children.

One wonders how the Territory could get things so wrong. In most of the larger communities, Territory government employees account for more than 20 per cent of the homes.

No new homes will be built in Papunya, although it suffers widespread overcrowding, and the proportion of houses for government employees is 27 per cent; that doesn't include federal employees in federal accommodation.

How can it be that two tiers of Labor governments can spend billions on the intervention, yet the only people enjoying proper housing are bureaucrats?

The Territory's Indigenous Affairs Department is almost a government in terms of its health, housing, education, law and order and children's services.

Territorians have a deep-seated and passionate desire to help indigenous Territorians. There is support for spending taxpayers' dollars to protect the most vulnerable, especially children. But there is no support for corrupted or mismanaged programs that cost a lot and deliver nothing.

Ten years after the first Bridge Walk for Reconciliation, the intervention is long gone, taxpayer dollars are being wasted, structural reform is not occurring, there are no economies being built (if anything they are being extinguished) and, most worryingly, the increased protection of children through improvements of their homes is still a fantasy in all but a few communities.

Kevin Rudd said sorry when the world was watching. Who will say sorry now to those men, women and particularly children of the Territory who have seen no change and are sliding backwards; or to the old lady who lives in a humpy just off the Stuart Highway 200km north of Alice Springs?

SOURCE





Another death rattle from the NSW Labor government

They're clueless

A PLAN to to slash the rising costs of running NSW prisons by allowing offenders sentenced to less than two years to do their time at hom has drawn fire from victims, but advocates say it is a responsible approach.

Under the proposal every criminal sentenced in the Local Court to two years or less in jail, except for sex offenders, will be eligible to serve their sentences at home. The cost to the the Government is $46 a day for home supervision instead of $194 a day to keep them in jail.

Victims groups say they are outraged at Premier Kristina Keneally's proposed solution to the high cost of keeping prisoners in overcrowded jails reported The Daily Telegraph. "It doesn't make any sense, it takes the punishment aspect of the sentence away," victims advocate Peter Rolfe said. "It is appalling. "They are going to be able to spend their time in the comfort of their own home."

Peter and Tammy Matten's home near Newcastle was robbed earlier this year and Mrs Matten chased the robber while she was heavily pregnant with their daughter. Mr Matten said it wasn't a punishment to send people home to serve jail sentences. "It wouldn't deter them at all, they're still hanging out with their friends," he said.

"If you get someone that is a drug dealer, they can still sell drugs at home. I think if you do a crime and you're arrested you are supposed to be in jail. "The guys that robbed us had done it before, a lot of people in the area have been robbed in exactly the same circumstances."

The Government claims that it was still a "prison sentence", just administered differently. But it admitted some of the state's jails were 100 inmates over capacity and there were only 300 empty cells left.

Criminals who committed offences including drug related crimes, riot and affray, assault, fraud, vandalism and break and enter would be eligible for home detention. There would be just one corrective services officer for every 20 criminals at home and only a fraction would be electronically monitored or subject to curfews. The rest would be free to travel around NSW and their only conditions would be eight hours of community service a week and a rehabilitation or education program.

They would only be sent to jail if they committed another offence or breached their "intensive correction orders".

Ms Keneally said the legislation was "tough" while her spokesman admitted rehabilitation programs in jail or periodic detention were non-existent or had failed. "It will provide the judiciary with a new option," she said. "This is about helping offenders get themselves back on the straight and narrow but those who fail to comply with the program risk spending the duration of their order in jail."

Victims of Crimes Assistance League spokesman Howard Brown told the ABC the idea would help some offenders and was an improvement on weekend or periodic dentention. "We thought it was somewhat of a perversity that we would be supervising people for two days a week, and then for the rest of the time they could basically go and do whatever they wanted," he said. "One of the beauties of these intensive direction orders is that these people would be subject to supervision seven days a week."

SOURCE






Warmist can't take the heat

by Andrew Bolt

HMM. So how has Alarmist of the Year Tim Flannery got away with it for so long? Answer: because he seems nice.

Oh, and because journalists just won't hold our leading global warming spruiker to account for his litany of dud predictions, exaggerations, falsehoods and bizarre conflicts of interest.

But on Wednesday - and give him credit - he wandered into our studio at MTR 1377 for some reason best known to himself. Was it a false confidence, born of years of near unquestioned adulation? Was it that being named Australian of the Year in 2007 made him feel above any pesky but-but-butting from the few media sceptics?

Or was it - as the following transcript suggests - that Flannery, now head of the Rudd Government's Coast and Climate Change Council, has an eerie ability to forget inconvenient truths about his past finger-wagging?

Whatever. What we do know is that our chat this week was the first time I can recall that Flannery, the highly influential author of The Weather Makers and chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council, has been confronted at length.

Read on, to see how even this giant of warming alarmism dealt with it. You may well then wonder if the great warming scare of the past decade would ever have taken off had more journalists fact-checked the wilder claims and predictions of not just Flannery, but other professional scaremongers such as Al Gore, David Suzuki, Peter Garrett, Rob Gell and Bob Brown.

Flannery started our interview by paying out on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for walking away from what he'd sold as "the great moral and economic challenge of our time".

Flannery: I'm unlikely to vote for him because my trust has been eroded away. He promised to deliver an emissions trading scheme and he's then withdrawn that with very little justification.

Bolt: He said he wouldn't move now until the rest of the world did something, which is a direct repudiation of what he said before. But, Tim, part of the reason that he's backed down is that there's been a great swing in sentiment against this kind of thing. There's a rising tide of scepticism. How much are you to blame for some of that?

Flannery: There is some swing in sentiment. And I think it's very hard to maintain any issue with that sort of very high level of support for a long time ...

Bolt: But, Tim ... I'm wondering to what extent are you to blame for rising scepticism about some of the more alarming claims about global warming.

Flannery: Well, many of the things that scientists highlight may happen are very alarming. They're not alarmist but they are worrisome. Rises in sea level for instance are a significant issue.

Bolt: Well, let's go through some of your own claims. You said, for example, that Adelaide may run out of water by early 2009. Their reservoirs are half full now. You said Brisbane would probably run out of water by 2009. They are now 97 per cent full. And (you said) Sydney could be dry as early as 2007. Their reservoirs are also more than half full. How can you get away with all these claims?

Flannery: What I have said is that there is a water problem. They may run out of water.

Bolt: 100 per cent full, nearly!

Flannery: And thankfully, Andrew, governments have taken that to heart and been building some desalination capacity such as in Perth.

Bolt: Only in Perth.

Flannery: No, there's plans in every capital city ...

Bolt: No, no. You said Brisbane would run out of water possibly by as early as 2009. There's no desalination plant, there's no dam. It's now 100 per full.

Flannery: That's a lie, Andrew. I didn't say it would run out of water. I don't have a crystal ball in front of me. I said Brisbane has a water problem.

Bolt: I'll quote your own words (from the New Scientist June 16, 2007): "Water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months." That was, on the timeline you gave, by the beginning of 2009. Their reservoirs are now 97 per cent full.

Flannery: Yeah, sure. There's variability in rainfall. They still need a desal plant.

Bolt: You also warned that Perth would be the 21 century's first ghost metropolis.

Flannery: May ... Right? Because at that stage there had been no flows into that water catchment for a year and the water engineers were terrified.

Bolt: Have you seen the water catchment levels? Here, see, they're tracking above the five-year level ...

Flannery: You want to paint me as an alarmist.

Bolt: You are an alarmist.

Flannery: I'm a very practical person.

Bolt: You said (in The Guardian, August 9, 2008) the Arctic could be ice-free two years ago.

Flannery: No, I didn't ...

Bolt: I'm asking ... whether (you) repent from all these allegations about cities running out of water, cities turning into ghost cities, sea level rises up to an eight-storey-high building. Don't you think that is in part why people have got more sceptical?

Flannery: I don't, actually, because some of those things are possibilities in the future if we continue polluting as we do. And we've already seen impacts in southern Australia on all of those cities. Everyone remembers the water restrictions and so forth ...

Bolt: You warn about sea level rises up to an eight-storey building. How soon will that happen? Thousands of years?

Flannery: Could be thousands of years.

Bolt: Tens of thousands of years?

Flannery: Could be hundreds of years ... The thermodynamics of ice sheets are very, very difficult to predict.

Bolt: Should we ... have nuclear power plants (to cut our warming emissions)?

Flannery: In Australia, I don't think so. We've got such a great load of assets in the renewable area that I don't think there's an argument here that they are ever going to be economic.

Bolt: Four years ago you did. What changed your mind?

Flannery: No, I never did. I've always had the same argument.

Bolt: No, no, no. Here's your quote: "Over the next two decades Australians could use nuclear power to replace all our coal-fired power plants. We would then have a power infrastructure like France and in doing so we would have done something great for the world." That was your quote.

Flannery: I don't recall saying that at all.

Bolt: You wrote it. You wrote it in The Age (on May 30, 2006). There it is, highlighted.

Flannery: Well, very good.

Bolt: That's the point, you know, you make these claims and when people confront you, you walk away from them.

Flannery: But that was about "may" ... Australia may be able to do that. It's not what I recommend and I never have recommended it ... We are going to see a whole lot of other technologies and innovations which are now well under way which we could use instead of nuclear power.

Bolt: Such as?

Flannery: Such as concentrated PV technology, geothermal technology, wave power, wind power ...

Bolt: You're an investor in geothermal technology, aren't you?

Flannery: Yeah, I am. Indeed.

Bolt: How come you don't declare that (in most media interviews promoting geothermal power)?

Flannery: Well, I've just done it.

Bolt: You've invested in a (Geodynamics geothermal) plant in Innamincka and you said the technology was really easy. How come that plant ...

Flannery: Not really that easy.

Bolt: Well, yes. It's actually had technological difficulties and it's been delayed two years because it's not that easy, after all, is it?

And we could have gone on - to discuss the $90 million grant the Rudd Government last year gave to Flannery's Geodynamics.

Or to ask about the preferential treatment the Government also gave to Field Force, a "green loans" company Flannery spruiked for.

Or to ask how much Flannery profits from preaching doom.

Or to wonder how this green crusader could lend his name to Sir Richard Brazen's planned joy rides in space.

Or to ask him to explain his concession last year that, despite his great scares of rising heat, "there hasn't been a continuation of that warming trend" and "the computer modelling and the real world data disagrees".

Yes, you may think I'm just picking on details. But details are like pixels - put enough together and they form a picture.

Flannery's details, unquestioned, form a terrifying picture that has helped to panic millions of people into believing their gases could kill our world.

But, once challenged, those same details of Flannery form a very different picture - of self-serving scaremongering with not much more than hot air to sustain it.

SOURCE



10 June, 2010

Furious hatred of Israel hosted on "Your ABC"

It's written by a Leftist Jew. It takes a Leftist Jew to get really obscene about Israel. I run a few excerpts below. In his fury the writer has lost all touch with logic and reality. What, for instance, have greenhouses got to do with chlorinating water?

And it was the Palestinians who destroyed the greenhouses anyway. The Israelis Left them as a gift to the Arabs when Israel withdrew from Gaza but because they were provided by Israel, the Arabs promptly destroyed them all.

And note that the authorities he quotes for his claims are people who are as anti-Israel as he is -- from people aboard the flotilla itself to the thoroughly discredited Amnesty International. Even the Israeli newspaper "Ha Aretz" leans Left.

Why is this garbage on the ABC? That was a rhetorical question. We know how far Left the ABC is. That the stuff is part of the "ABC for kids" website makes it particularly objectionable, however

The global outrage in response to Israel's attack on the flotilla is fitting. But we should not lose sight of why it was so terrible. This was not just an attack on aid workers.

If it were just that, it would be bad enough. In itself it would be nothing new for Israel. However, putting the attack in context more fully reveals its moral obscenity.

Paul McGeough, who was on board the flotilla, wrote that the flotilla was bringing water filtration equipment to Gaza.

The reason it chose to do so was because there is virtually no clean drinking water in Gaza. Partially due to Israel's destruction of greenhouses during its attack on Gaza from 2008-2009, the Gaza water supply was reported to be on the verge of collapse in September last year. There was an urgent need to find clean drinking water, because, as Amnesty International pointed out, some 90-95 per cent of water in Gaza was not fit for drinking.

This would be bad enough, but, as Kate Allen, head of Amnesty International UK pointed out, "Israel's continuing blockade of Gaza is preventing the importation of urgently-needed materials to repair water and sewage treatments works."

As noted in the Ha'aretz report, the unclean drinking water caused respiratory and intestinal problems to babies in Gaza.

Victoria Brittain pleaded in the Guardian for "just one corner of the blockade" to be lifted "to let water works begin and to give infant lives a chance." All it would take was "Just one telephone call from the Israeli defence ministry". This phone call still hasn't come, and Palestinian babies continue to suffer, as the world continues to watch in silence, and as Western media continues to pass over this issue....

More HERE. Extra copy here




Ignorant American Premier belittles an Australian icon

I think it's the death-rattle of her government

A REMARK aimed at belittling her political rival has backfired on NSW Premier Kristina Keneally, leaving her under attack from the unlikely alliance of Diggers and a charity queen.

Ms Keneally yesterday mocked Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell for walking PNG's Kododa Track, saying, "Well, so did Miss Australia - so congratulations, Barry."

But the swipe by the American-born Premier only denigrates the honour of those who fought the Japanese there, the four Australians who died walking the 96km track last year and Miss World Australia 2007 Caroline Pemberton.

"Obviously she hasn't done the trek herself to be making those comments," said Ms Pemberton, who has also climbed Mt Everest and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity. "To bring up Kokoda in jest is not only offensive to our Diggers, it's offensive to all Australians. Probably because she's got an American background she doesn't know what it means to trek it."

The Kokoda Track was the scene of the some of the most desperate and vicious fighting for Australian troops during the the Second World War.

Although Australians managed to to prevent the Japanese from using PNG as a springboard for an attack on Australia, their success came at a cost. More than 625 Australians were killed and 1600 wounded. Casualties due to sickness exceeded 4000.

Ms Pemberton issued a challenge to Ms Keneally to walk the track. "Come and trek Kokoda, feel the blood, sweat and tears," she said.

Mr O'Farrell had raised his walking of the track in a radio interview this week when asked if he were strong. "I don't reckon I would have personally survived my Kokoda trek if I didn't have something inside me that kept me going," Mr O'Farrell said.

Mr O'Farrell walked the track with his son Tom in 2008, together with Ms Pemberton and Liberal Upper House MP Charlie Lynn. Mr Lynn is a Vietnam veteran who has walked the track 59 times. Yesterday Mr Lynn said the comments were "disappointing".

"Nobody who has done Kokoda refers to it in a flippant way," he said. "I've said for years you don't understand Kokoda until you've trekked Kokoda. "You can read about it, you can watch documentaries, you can watch the movies, but until you have walked the footsteps you'll never understand it."

And he praised Mr O'Farrell, saying: "Barry is a big unit. He put in a lot of work to get fit for Kokoda, he did it tough."

SOURCE





Degrees at RMIT 'dumbed down' for foreign students

Such complaints are familiar and undoubtedly true so one wonders if anything will ever be done about them. Graduating unqualified engineers etc. is of great concern

FOREIGN students are cheating and getting special treatment to ensure they get their degrees, according to evidence gathered in a secret investigation by the Ombudsman.

Victorian universities chasing a bigger slice of Australia's $17 billion a year foreign students industry have also been accused of pressuring staff to "dumb down" courses. Some international students who failed tests at Royal Melbourne Institite of Technology were allowed to keep sitting the same exams until they passed, the Ombudsman's investigators allegedly found.

RMIT's 26,000 international students bring in almost $204 million a year to the university.

An RMIT whistleblower sparked the Ombudsman's investigation early this year. Investigators have found evidence suggesting:

- A teacher allowed students to cheat in aerospace and aviation exams.

- At least one Middle Eastern student suspected of cheating spent months in a detention centre while intelligence agencies checked his background.

- An international student graduated from RMIT despite turning up drunk, missing lectures, failing exams, abusing staff and students, and sparking sex assault accusations.

The university, and the individuals accused of wrongdoing, will be able to respond to the allegations in the Ombudsman's draft report before the final report was tabled in State Parliament.

RMIT Vice-Chancellor Margaret Gardner said the Whistleblowers Protection Act prevented her from commenting on the allegations until after the report is tabled. She said she would be happy to answer questions when she was legally able to do so.

An RMIT teacher, who asked not to be named, said some staff were concerned foreign students were getting preferential treatment. "RMIT is falling over backwards to make sure these fee-paying international students don't fail," he said. "A big slice of RMIT's income is generated by international students and they don't want to jeopardise it."

Leading Monash University researcher Bob Birrell claimed some international students who got degrees didn't have enough English to to get a job in Australia in their chosen fields. Dr Birrell said he couldn't comment on the Ombudsman's report as he was not aware of its contents.

But he said competition between Victorian universities was so fierce that evidence suggested some were cutting corners as they desperately pursued the lucrative international student dollar. "In order to deal with the students who were being recruited, they had to dumb down the curriculum," he said.

Investigators from the Ombudsman's office are believed to have discovered the cheating during an investigation into other damaging claims against RMIT. They found evidence suggesting a long-serving teacher handed out an exam paper to a Middle Eastern aerospace student several days before the exam. The student allegedly allowed other Middle Eastern students to use the exam paper to cheat.

Telephone records of the teacher and several aerospace students allegedly reveal late-night contact in the days before a test on the stress on aeroplane components.

SOURCE





The rot never stops with the Victoria police

BEFORE joining Victoria Police and becoming Chief Commissioner, Simon Overland was subjected to scathing criticism by one of Australia's most senior judges for a "steadfast refusal to concede anything harmful to him" in a court case in which he was accused of lying.

Senior police sources told The Australian that Mr Overland's sensitivity to perceived criticism was well known to his colleagues -- and that his actions in using secret intelligence from a covert telephone tap to smother a potentially embarrassing story were evidence of a "glass jaw".

Mr Overland yesterday conceded, following revelations in The Australian, that he had passed on the secret intelligence to media-manage a story about him which he knew, as a result of a telephone tap in a murder probe, would be leaked to Melbourne Radio 3AW's Rumour File. The story concerned the truthful rumour of the Brumby government offering him an expensive executive management trip to Fontainebleau, near Paris, by the Brumby government when he was deputy commissioner and jockeying for Christine Nixon's job on her retirement.

Mr Overland insisted yesterday that he acted for operational reasons to ensure that neither he nor the undercover murder investigation would be undermined. However, senior lawyers and investigators said Mr Overland's action was "extraordinary" and appeared to be a breach of the Telecommunications (Intercept and Access) Act, which forbids unlawful disclosures from taps.

The Office of Police Integrity, which has been accused of acting "corruptly" in the case involving Mr Overland, is under increasing pressure to launch a new inquiry and demonstrate that it applies the law evenly.

The OPI said that "as presently advised", the OPI's view is that Mr Overland had not committed a breach with his disclosure.

Mr Overland's sensitivity to criticism was detailed in a judgment by the then Federal Court judge James Allsop, now President of the Court of Appeal in the NSW Supreme Court.

Justice Allsop's damning 2001 judgment about Mr Overland's evidence and his conduct as the then chief operating officer of the Australian Federal Police provide an insight into his responses under scrutiny that threatened to put him in an unfavourable light. The case concerned another AFP officer who was being disciplined by Mr Overland after sending a ribald email through the organisation's email system.

"I think this evidence of Mr Overland reflects less than well on Mr Overland," Justice Allsop found. "It can most charitably be characterised as a punctilious attendance to any nuance which might be seen as available to neutralise material otherwise harmful to his own case. Less charitably, I detected in his evidence a steadfast refusal to concede anything harmful to him . . ."

Justice Allsop found that a position adopted by Mr Overland during the case "did him little credit; at best it was carefully ambiguous".

He wrote in his judgment that he was "reluctant" to characterise another part of Mr Overland's evidence as a "lie", as put by counsel in the case, but he found that, "I think it reflects a determination not to make concessions wherever the resistance to making them can somehow, possibly, be justified from the material".

He found that a fair-minded person could have a reasonable apprehension or suspicion that Mr Overland "knew that he was misleading, and had deliberately misled" the fellow officer.

Justice Allsop said in the judgment that Mr Overland "had a view of the requirements of procedural fairness which was mechanical and formalistic".

"I think a fair minded observer would be led to have a reasonable apprehension or suspicion that Mr Overland would not bring to his task an impartiality and fairness which would be otherwise expected of him," he said, before adding, "I think it is very relevant to the question of costs that Mr Overland did not frankly and openly set out in his affidavit the process of the decision making in the respects disclosed in his evidence."

SOURCE

More from former Victorian assistant police commissioner Noel Ashby:

Noel Ashby says there is a stench about Victoria Police that can be cleared only when Chief Commissioner Simon Overland is subjected to the same scrutiny he faced for his alleged role in unwittingly derailing a murder investigation that Mr Overland yesterday conceded was compromised from the start.

Mr Ashby, who was an assistant commissioner and Mr Overland's rival for the top job when the murder investigation, Operation Briars, was launched, said Mr Overland's explanation for why he passed on information from telephone taps raised further questions about the ill-fated operation and subsequent inquiry by the Office of Police Integrity.

"Why did the OPI report of the investigation tendered into parliament identify us as the leaks when quite simply it was compromised many, many months before?" Mr Ashby said. "Clearly, Simon Overland doesn't want this investigated any further. He has been treated completely differently, and when you look at the chain of events, the whole thing stinks. I was dragged before public and private hearings. Simon Overland had none of that. The stench around the real reasons for this whole operation commencing needs to be cleared, and it needs to be cleared forthwith."

The Brumby government last night resisted calls for an independent inquiry into the Chief Commissioner's conduct.

Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland declined to comment but referred questions to a spokeswoman for his department, who said it was considering a request by another former OPI target, former police union head Paul Mullett, for an immediate judicial inquiry.

The demise of Operation Briars, which was established to probe links between serving or former police and the 2003 murder of male prostitute Shane Chartres-Abbott, spawned the OPI's Operation Diana, which resulted in criminal charges being laid against Mr Ashby and Mr Mullett. The charges were later dropped.

The OPI alleged that Mr Ashby and Mr Mullett passed on information that enabled the target of Operation Briars, then sergeant Peter Lalor (who strenuously denies any wrongdoing and has not faced any charges), to know his phone was being tapped. By his own admission in a sworn affidavit, Mr Overland also passed on sensitive information gained from the same telephone taps.

The Australian yesterday revealed that Mr Overland passed on the information to prevent a gossip item about his plans to accept a legitimate taxpayer-funded trip to France being run on Melbourne Radio 3AW's Rumour File. Mr Overland's argument that this was necessary to protect the integrity of Operation Briars was yesterday described as "unconvincing" by leading criminal barristers.

Mr Overland said he passed on the intercepted conversation between Mr Mullett and Mr Lalor discussing his plans to take a management course in Fontainebleau, south of Paris, to his then media adviser, Stephen Linnell, to counteract a "campaign to undermine and discredit" Operation Briars. Armed with the information, Mr Linnell alerted his mentor, Mr Ashby, that his telephone might be tapped. This started the flow of information that the OPI alleges resulted in Mr Lalor knowing his phone was "off".

Criminal barrister Phillip Priest QC, who represented Mr Ashby in the OPI hearings, said: "There is a significant possibility Mr Overland breached the Telecommunications Interceptions Act in much the same way it had been alleged others who faced an OPI inquiry had. I find his justification quite unconvincing."

Australian Lawyers Alliance director Greg Barns said the case was "worthy of a thorough examination" into whether Mr Overland had broken state or federal laws.

Mr Mullett, who was forced to resign from the police association as a result of Operation Briars and the subsequent OPI hearing but was last year cleared of wrongdoing, dismissed Mr Overland's argument as "nonsense".

Mr Overland continues to have the backing of Victorian Premier John Brumby, who said the allegations against his police chief had already been tested by the OPI. However, the state's top cop received only luke-warm support from Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu. "I don't have a problem with Simon Overland," he said. "Clearly, there have been issues raised and what I would detect from this morning is that Simon Overland himself seems to be uncomfortable about that situation."

Mr Overland refused to respond to questions from The Australian about how a gossip item about a planned trip to France was relevant to a murder investigation and whether he would welcome an independent inquiry.

When pressed by other reporters, he denied he passed on the information to spare himself embarrassment, or that his decision to tell Mr Linnell started a chain of information that made the targets of Operation Briars aware that their telephones were being tapped.

He said that Operation Briars was under "collateral attack" and gossip about his trip to France would fuel an "orchestrated campaign . . . to distract, derail, undermine (and) discredit," the investigation and the people running it.

"It was in that context that I had the conversation with Stephen Linnell, who was part of the reference group set up to manage exactly those issues. That is the relevance."

Mr Overland said The Australian's reporting of the story was part of a "concerted campaign against me since I dared criticise them for their reporting of a counter-terrorism operation last year".

SOURCE

The Queensland cops are just thugs and bludgers by comparison with the Victoria police. See my Queensland Police blog)



9 June, 2010

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd facing his Waterloo

Andrew Bolt

KEVIN Rudd is finished. Few voters now want to hear him, and fewer still believe him. They see through Rudd now and he can never recover. It's over.

Labor itself admitted this hard truth on Monday, after the Nielsen survey showed the Rudd Government heading for a landslide defeat, with just 47 per cent support to the Coalition's 53.

Rudd himself and half a dozen of his ministers all responded to this news with an identical and workshopped line - suggesting that however bad you thought Rudd, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott surely had to be worse.

Or as the Prime Minister put it: "If what we see in the polls today is reflected on election day, Mr Abbott would be the next Prime Minister of Australia ... I don't believe Australian families are prepared to risk their future with Tony Abbott."

This now is Labor's central election pitch, a last-ditch attempt to tear down Abbott with anything they can think of. He's Catholic. He's "phony Tony". He's the "mad monk". He wears lycra. He hates women. He'll take away your penalty rates.

That, I'm afraid, is all Labor has got left. It cannot sell Rudd, and must hope instead to destroy Abbott, which leaves the election to be decided essentially on how well Abbott can survive the battering.

Will he rise serenely above it, as then Labor leader Mark Latham managed to do - until finally blowing up only just before election day in 2004?

Will he calmly turn each attack back on to a panicky Government, as Rudd himself did with such success in 2007, deflecting criticism over his Scores nightclub escapes, or his ties to the disgraced lobbyist Brian Burke?

Abbott's character will be the issue, and the last remaining question for him to answer to become prime minister. The election is now for him to lose by over-reaching, stumbling, lashing out, thinking out aloud, or once more publicly indulging his private self-doubts, whether by confessing too much or asserting too little.

If he dared (and he should), his next move would be to make a show of transition to government, by, for instance, commissioning a report from a "triage committee" of management experts and former public service bosses to go through each of Rudd's programs to see which are too hopeless to save and which might yet be made to work.

But Rudd is finished, and if you think this too big a call, consider how he's lost all ability to sell himself or his policies. Just seven weeks ago he finally persuaded the states to sign up to what he sold as "the biggest health reform since Medicare" - a centrepiece of his case for re-election. He spent billions of your dollars bribing the premiers to sign up. He's since spent millions more on Government commercials to persuade you of his triumph.

Yet how many of you can recall what this "health reform" actually is?

What's more, like so many other Rudd schemes it's a dodgy recipe that's half-baked besides. Western Australia still hasn't agreed to the deal, which experts warn is little better than an underfinanced game of pass-the-buck, anyway.

Even the Government lost faith in the thing, and within days this "biggest health reform since Medicare" became yesterday's forgotten news, mere dust in Rudd's hands.

Indeed, everything Rudd touches seems to turn to muck. Expensive muck, too, with the Building the Education Revolution rorts, ceiling insulation disaster and boat people bungling alone wasting an estimated $8 billion.

Now Rudd is in a death struggle with miners over his "super profits" tax to raise the $9 billion a year he needs to wipe out the deficit he recklessly contracted to "save" us from a recession that didn't hit us as hard as he predicted and didn't stay as long as he predicted, either. And once again, he cannot sell his "reform", not even with the $38 million of your money he pinched for yet more advertising. The more he talks about his new tax, the less people believe in it.

Rudd's complete lack of authority now is astonishing. NEWSPOLL says it's never seen a prime minister lose so much credibility so fast, and merely mentioning his name on the last two episodes of the ABC's Q&A panel show had been enough to prompt howls of mocking laughter from an audience normally far to the Left.

Naturally, much of this is blamed on Rudd's Waterloo - his ditching of the emissions trading scheme he'd rashly sold as the urgent answer to global warming, "the great moral and economic issue of our times".

But doubts about Rudd now go not just to his character and honesty, but to his most basic competence in simply running a government. It cannot be mere coincidence that so many of Rudd's schemes have ended in failure or disappointment - FuelWatch, Grocery Watch, his Asia forum, emissions trading, free insulation, free solar hot water systems, green loans, more Aboriginal housing, the farcical Ideas Summit, a stop to whaling, a halving of homelessness, tackling boat people, and so much else.

It cannot be mere coincidence that Rudd has failed even in diplomacy, his one area of expertise, with relations with key allies such as Japan, India, Singapore, Israel and Indonesia all cooler. Unbelievably, this Mandarin-speaking Sinophile who once claimed he could be China's "intermediary" with the West even faces the fallout now of having called its already bemused leaders "f-----s" who were trying to "rat-f---" us.

In fact, so incompetent is Rudd's Government that it couldn't even be trusted to commission mugs to celebrate the visit of US President Barack Obama. Not only is the visit cancelled, but the official mugs commemorate a "Barrack". I repeat, this near-perfect record of bungling cannot be a coincidence.

And, indeed, the common thread to it is Rudd's fear - his fear of delegating, his fear of taking advice from smarter people, his fear of conceding flaws, his fear of letting his ministers have free rein, his fear of acknowledging any agendas other than his own, his fear of hiring advisers of adult age, his fear of not seeming across every irrelevant detail, his fear of not seeming great.

It's Rudd's deep insecurity that has killed his leadership, and which explains his often childish need to assert himself, whether by putting his boots on your coffee table, explaining he's "your Prime Minister" or hogging the microphone at his endless "community Cabinet meetings", at which busy ministers serve as props to his vanity.

THIS insecurity explains, too, his outbursts of anger, which Fairfax writer David Marr, in a widely discussed essay this week, wrongly claimed was the "core emotion" driving him. No, insecurity is Rudd's core emotion. Anger is just what you get when such an insecure man is threatened, thwarted or belittled.

Still, Marr's essay will confirm for many that the exterior Rudd - meticulous, churchy, cool - is a sham, and there's little real about a pious Prime Minister who is privately foul-mouthed, rude, inconsiderate and disliked by many who work with him.

So it's over. There's nothing Rudd can promise that voters haven't heard before from him, and bigger, only to see fail. There is no new guise he can assume that won't be judged as fake as the last.

And constructing a genuine Rudd is - I'd guess - tragically impossible, at least this side of an election. A brave party would ditch Rudd now, while it still can. Remember the price the Liberals paid for failing to blast out the spent John Howard?

But while Rudd is still there, Labor is forced to turn to its last, bitter hope - not selling Rudd but destroying Abbott. The question voters will be asked is: won't Abbott be worse? Labor's problem is: is worse even possible?

SOURCE





Crooked statistics from the Victoria police

Is anyone surprised? Police are failing to record thousands of violent crimes, analysis of Triple Zero assault reports show

Acting Assistant Commissioner Andrew Crisp denied police deliberately under-report crime after the Herald Sun today revealed the number of assaults reported to 000 in 2009 was almost double the number recorded by police.

Mr Crisp said he was concerned the figures may have caused unnecessary community concern about the accuracy of police crime statistics. "To be clear, we emphatically reject any notion that we are deliberately underreporting crime statistics," he said today. "We take our responsibility to provide accurate statistics to the community very seriously." But Mr Crisp refused to comment on an internal police investigation into the gap between 000 and police data.

Ombudsman George Brouwer reported in March last year that the police's own investigation found "under recording of crime by police - particularly in relation to assaults".

Mr Crisp also refused to comment directly on a change to police procedures in July 2008 which required that all criminal incidents reported to police must be recorded as offences unless there is credible evidence to suggest a crime has not occurred.

Mr Crisp said there were many reasons calls to 000 did not get entered as official crime statistics, including multiple calls for one incident and no crime being detected when police arrived at a scene.

However, the 000 figures quoted by the Herald Sun are not calls to 000 but the number of separate incidents where 000 call takers dispatch police.

"(000) data is very subjective," Mr Crisp said. "It's based on a victim's view of what they have seen - they may be stressed or in a crisis situation. "What they report may not be validated when police arrive and investigate. "We may find that there is no offence or a different offence has been committed.

Mr Crisp said police used their professional judgement in determining if offences had occurred. "If our police determine that an assault or any other crime has been committed it will be added to LEAP and contributes to our overall crime statistics."

Figures released to the Herald Sun exclusively reveal police were dispatched to attend 45,900 assaults in Melbourne and Geelong last year, almost double the 25,300 recorded by police.

The discrepancy has ignited fresh debate over the level of violence, police officer numbers, and the accuracy of official crime figures. The Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority received a million 000 police calls in Melbourne and Geelong last year.

Opposition spokesman Andrew McIntosh said the Government was deliberately hiding the true level of crime. "John Brumby's repeated claims that Victoria is the safest state are false, and have been falsely peddled by an increasingly desperate Premier," he said.

Police are meant to record all reported crimes, unless there is credible evidence that no offence has occurred.

The figures released to the Herald Sun are believed to be consistent with those in a report to State Parliament from Ombudsman George Brouwer, due this week. In March last year, he recommended greater use of 000 data to more accurately record crime.

Callers to 000:

REPORTED 11,115 brawls, 57,858 people causing trouble, 32,609 suspicious people loiterin, and 23,836 burglars, and sought intervention in 37,116 disputes between neighbours and 36,476 family fights.

CALLED for police help with more than 34,000 minor road accidents, 29,000 noise and 19,000 traffic problems.

COMPLAINED of 17,000 thefts, 19,000 case of wilful damage, and 9600 shoplifters.

A government spokesman said the police collection of crime data was under review but was a more reliable measure of crime than 000 figures. He said the Government did not interfere in the collection of crime statistics.

It had delivered almost 1900 extra police since coming to power, and would provide 1966 more over five years if re-elected. "Ted Baillieu and the Opposition shamefully prefer to talk down the work of Victoria Police rather than supporting them on driving crime down," he said.

Police spokeswoman Rebecca Fraser said the force recognised the Ombudsman's recommendation in relation to 000 data and was "reviewing its procedures". She said the ESTA dispatch system did not cover the entire state and was not a crime recording system; more accurate and reliable systems formed statistics.

UPDATE 1.15pm: POLICE have refused to discuss their own investigation of gaps between crimes reported to 000 and official police crime statistics.

SOURCE




Paramedics say pleas for intensive care specialists ignored

QUESTIONS have been raised over the deaths of up to eight people in South Gippsland by paramedics who say pleas for intensive care specialists have been ignored.

Outlining a horrifying dossier of patient deaths and near misses to their union, South Gippsland paramedics have highlighted 12 cases since January where they say patients did not receive appropriate care.

The list - seen by the Herald Sun - was prepared after the State Government announced last week that it was going to base a new dedicated MICA service in Morwell, which already has one.

The move has angered the South Gippsland paramedics, who had prepared a business case pleading for the specialised intensive care service to instead be located in Wonthaggi to cover the South Gippsland region, which has no dedicated MICA.

One angry senior paramedic has delivered a worrying dossier of 12 tragic cases in the region this year, warning the lack of MICA in South Gippsland is costing lives. "I believe that had there been a dedicated MICA resource based in South Gippsland, that most of the problems associated with these cases could have been averted," the paramedic said. The cases include:

ON Saturday the only duty MICA officer was on a non-urgent job when a 58-year-old man had a cardiac arrest in Cowes and needed MICA care. None was provided, and the man died.

A HORRIFYING January 4 head-on crash in which one man died and five were injured. Despite tens of thousands of holiday makers in the area no MICA paramedic was rostered on in South Gippsland.

A MOTORCYCLIST was critically injured in a crash at the Phillip Island MotoGP Circuit in March in which an ambulance crew requested MICA support, but it could not be provided. MICA paramedic assistance eventually arrived via helicopter an hour after the request but the man died.

Ambulance Employees Association general secretary Steve McGhie said there was a clear need for a dedicated MICA service in South Gippsland, but the Government ignored a business case prepared by local paramedics, and a letter and a Budget submission from the union. "Some of these people, particularly where people have died or have been seriously compromised, would have had far better outcomes if there had been dedicated MICA resources available," he said.

Ambulance Victoria Gippsland regional manager Mark Cooke said Morwell needed the extra MICA unit, and one being placed in Wonthaggi would be explored.

SOURCE





School building push to go ahead even on those earmarked for 'mothballing'

Quite insane

QUEENSLAND will press ahead with controversial building works on schools that could close despite the Federal Government saying yesterday they had been put on hold.

Confusion plagued the handling of the projects last night, raising further questions about the delivery of the controversial Building the Education Revolution program.

It comes after The Courier-Mail revealed yesterday 15 Queensland schools, all which have been allocated funding under BER, are now under review for mothballing.

Money allocated to the 15 schools has either been spent or is currently being spent on building projects, a spokesman for Education Minister Geoff Wilson said last night.

He said the projects would not be stopped because funds has been allocated last year, long before schools were placed on mothball review this month.

Schools that are mothballed shut their doors for a year before a decision is made whether to close them permanently.

But Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard told reporters yesterday BER was "not there to be invested in schools that are going to close".

"When a school community may face closure there's a process to work through and that process should be a consultative process . . . BER projects need to be put on hold whilst that happens. "The schools referred to in that article, the Building the Education Revolution projects, are on hold as the State Government works with local communities to determine the future of those schools."

The State Government was unaware of her comments until last night, with the Minister's spokesman saying the mothball review was about keeping schools open, rather than shutting them.

Last night a spokeswoman for Ms Gillard said some of the schools projects were completed so they were "on hold", while those still under way were under review.

Caught in the middle are parents and P&C committees desperate to keep their schools open.

At Moresby State School, just south of Innisfail in north Queensland, it is the second time in three years they have been under review, despite growing enrolments and a passionate school community. The 16-student school spent their $50,000 National School Pride money on repainting and refurbishing. Meanwhile, work is under way on a multipurpose court.

Melissa Setter, who has one child at the school and two others soon to be enrolled, said it seemed "crazy" the department would consider closing the "lovely little school" which had great facilities and staff.

SOURCE



8 June, 2010

Sleazy Peter is another Israel-hating Jew

He looks good and has a nice voice and sounds vaguely reasonable at first -- but his words of praise for that great hater -- Karl Marx -- tell you all you need to know. And his other heroes are of a similar ilk. Systematic distortion of reality is the typical game of Leftist haters like Peter. Excerpt only below

The Mavi Marmara victims are the most visible of many unarmed international solidarity workers and Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli military forces at peaceful demonstrations. Charges that Israel's lethal commando assault violated international law are far from the most serious it faces, after wars on Lebanon in 1982 and 2006, and Gaza in 2008-09. The lame official excuses for the assault invite the question: what does it take for "supporters" of Israel to protest that enough is enough?

Jewish leaders and their community follow Israeli official script: the raid on the unarmed civilians of the flotilla was in self-defence, just as pasta, coriander and children's toys entering Gaza pose an existential threat to the Jewish state. The collective punishment of Gaza is merely putting them "on a diet". George Orwell would have been impressed by such Newspeak in "defence of the indefensible".

Apologists claim international outrage towards Israel is evidence of global anti-Semitism, seeking to "delegitimise" the Jewish state. The slur has caused non-Jewish commentators and individuals to avoid public criticism. The Jewish establishment has even sought to discredit human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, though the same criticisms may be found in reports of Israel's own B'Tselem.

For such reasons, in a recent article in the New York Review of Books, Peter Beinart has charged the diaspora Jewish establishment with being detached from reality, failing to recognise "Israel is becoming (has become) a right-wing, ultra-nationalist country" being abandoned by younger liberal and progressive Jews. As early as 1948, an open letter published in The New York Times signed by Hannah Arendt, Einstein and others warned against the fatal combination of "ultra-nationalism, religious mysticism and a propaganda of racial superiority".

The question of Jewish identity and responsibility has been posed acutely by some Jews themselves, those who break ranks - those referred to in Isaac Deutscher's essay as ''The Non-Jewish Jew''. Among these, Baruch Spinoza (1634-77) is described by Bertrand Russell as "the noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers". For his heresies, he was given the severest punishment, Cherem - permanent excommunication from the 17th century Amsterdam Jewish community.

He notes the paradox that Jewish heretics who transcend Jewry belong to a characteristically Jewish tradition, among the great revolutionaries of modern thought, including Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. To Deutscher's list we may add Hannah Arendt, the late renegade American historian Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, all reviled by their communities....

In view of the brutal occupation of the West Bank, inhumane blockade of Gaza, continuing dispossession, injustice and suffering of the Palestinians, Jews might heed Einstein's prophetic warning in 1955: ''The attitude we adopt towards the Arab minority will provide the real test of our moral standards as a people.''

More HERE. The author above is Peter Slezak, senior lecturer at the University of NSW's school of history and philosophy of science.





The usual Leftist stupidity about minimum wages

Yet another proof that Leftist policies are much more motivated by hatred for business than by concern for the worker

THE first minimum wage increase from Julia Gillard's rebadged industrial relations commission claims to restore "fairness" to low-paid workers. In fact this labour market re-regulation will hurt low-skilled jobseekers. It's all about restoring the "bite" of the old industrial award system, even for well-paid workers. It serves to extend Labor's political war against John Howard's Work Choices and to reward its industrial wing.

Under economist Ian Harper, Howard's Fair Pay Commission highlighted two key insights into the minimum wage.

First, it is not a good instrument for helping disadvantaged workers and jobseekers. Most minimum-wage workers are not poor; they are often students or secondary earners in middle or even high-income families.

For most low-wage earners, minimum-wage jobs are a stepping stone entry point into the job market. Lifting the minimum-wage floor risks pricing disadvantaged workers out of a job, entrenching more rather than less poverty. Second, low-wage worker incomes also depend, particularly for families with children, on the tax and transfer system. Minimum-wage workers won't pocket anything like Fair Work Australia's $26 a week rise because much of it will be clawed back through tax and reduced government benefits.

Before being abolished, Harper's FPC maintained or slightly increased the real or after-inflation value of Australia's mandated minimum wage. This reduced the "bite" of the minimum wage as it fell from just under 58 per cent to 54 per cent of the faster-growing median wages set in the marketplace.

Even then, Australia's wage floor was higher than in any developed economy after France, New Zealand and perhaps Ireland.

Low-income workers did not lose out because tax and transfer improvements helped boost their real disposable household incomes by between 8 per cent and 14 per cent during the past five years. Household incomes for low-wage earners were protected even when Harper's FPC froze the minimum wage in response to last year's global financial crisis. And the new approach underpinned both the pre-crisis fall in the jobless rate to generational lows of 4 per cent and the limited jobless rise from the crisis itself.

But this is all heresy to Australia's industrial relations tradition. Stretching back to the "living wage" of the old Arbitration Court's 1904 Harvester case, this tradition suggests that a judicial tribunal can divine a "fair" or "just" price for labour.

After the requisite bowing, FWA president and former Australian Industrial Relations Commission president Geoff Giudice last week read out the minimum wage decision and left. Unlike Harper, he was not available to explain it to the unwashed.

The rebadged tribunal's institutional DNA naturally suits the task of restoring the primacy of the regulated wage system. Its primary objective is to maintain a "fair" safety net of minimum wages, reinforced by new legislative criteria such as "social inclusion" and gender equality.

The more important weapon against poverty - job growth - is relegated to a subsidiary "economic factor". This made it pretty easy for Giudice to hand down last week's 4.8 per cent catch-up increase to $15 an hour, or just under $30,000 a year. This restored the real value of the minimum wage following Harper's last-gasp emergency freeze. The new outbreak of global financial instability hardly rated a mention.

More telling was the back-to-the-future indication that FWA would soon seek to significantly increase the minimum wage in real terms. Minimum-wage earners "have only shared to a very limited extent in the benefits of productivity growth", it found. And holding the real value of award wages steady would not "adequately maintain relative living standards" for the lower paid.

Yet disadvantaged workers did share in national prosperity under Harper's FPC, as more of them got jobs and tax cuts, and as transfer benefits boosted their incomes.

And the FWA's pay activism extends well above the wage floor. Last week's decision was widely reported as applying only to low-paid workers. In fact, the $26 a week "safety net" rise extends to the 1.5 million workers on award rates all the way up the pay scale, including tradesmen, technical staff and professionals.

Harper's FPC aimed to encourage these higher-paid workers to secure wage gains through enterprise bargaining, rather than quasi-judicial fiat, by limiting the minimum wage flow-on up the award pay scale.

But FWA objects to the resulting compression of the award pay structure as minimum award rates for skilled workers have not kept up with inflation. It says there is a "strong case" for award pay rises to be in percentage - rather than flat dollar - terms, to restore wage relativities. The award safety net must remain "relevant" for all award-reliant workers, it argues, even biting for those earning well above average wages.

Harper doesn't buy the FWA argument that business will have less incentive to bargain "if the gap between award wages and earnings is too big". Surely skilled workers don't need an award safety net. Surely the more the minimum wage pay rise is automatically extended to skilled workers, the less scope they will have to bargain with their employers.

Importantly, the new minimum wage regime comes as FWA's separate award "modernisation" exercise ropes the entire workforce into a reinforced national award system. The prescriptive minimum pay, penalty rate and loading rules will hit many of the same service sector businesses whose wages bill will be increased most by last week's minimum pay rise.

The result is the first significant reversal of the generation of pro-market policy reforms that have produced Australia's low inflation and low unemployment prosperity. The labour market flexibility that has underpinned this will become even more important in dealing with the adjustment pressures from the China-fuelled mining boom.

Wage flexibility is needed to allow industries and regions facing labour shortages to bid for workers without feeding overall wage inflation. The costs of reducing this flexibility in the name of fairness will fall on the Reserve Bank's monetary policy, and on the same disadvantaged Australians Gillard and her FWA claim to be helping.

SOURCE






Infantile Australian climate professor pronounces debate as "infantile"

The Age — formerly a decent newspaper — never fails to take an opportunity to parrot PR for Team AGW. Last week they gave a free shot to Will Steffen, Executive Director, ANU Climate Change Institute.

A SCIENCE adviser to the federal government has described the debate in the media over the basics of climate change science as ”almost infantile”, equating it to an argument about the existence of gravity.

It takes a tax-payer funded Professor to equate AGW to gravity. It must have taken years of education to be able to issue pronouncements like this eh? If Australian taxpayers were hoping to get a bit more than just bluster and name-calling from certain public servants, they’re bound to be asking for their money back soon.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the existence of gravity is proven each day you don’t get flung off the planet when you get out of bed. We can measure gravity to twelve significant digits, but our value for climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide varies from 0 to 10. Pick a number. We can’t even get one significant digit fixed. Quantifying gravity involves dropping a rock with a clock and a ruler. Quantifying carbon’s effect on climate change involves understanding cloud-formation, ice sheet changes, evaporation, humidity levels in air 8000 m above Singapore, and ocean currents at the bottom of the endless abyss that we can’t even measure.

Speaking at a Melbourne summit on the green economy, Professor Will Steffen criticised the media for treating climate change science as a political issue in which two sides should be given a voice.

Is it political? Heck No. It’s not about managing our economy, assessing risks, choosing between different courses of action… err… it’s pure science. Prof Steffen has modeled our future, there’s no need to involve the economists-consumers-engineers-investors-medical-experts-or those pesky kids we’re supposedly saving-the-planet-for. Managing the country is pure science now; free speech and democracy-babble, who needs it!

This censorship of speech, and appeal to authority is the antithesis of science, and Steffen simplifies things ad absurdium. In Australia, he appears to have been appointed Carbon-King-of-Bluster. Find me a sentence where he substantiates a claim with something that amounts to more than “…it’s true because I say so”.

It’s a no-brainer. If you go over the last couple of decades you see tens of thousands of papers in the peer-reviewed literature, and you have less than 10 that challenge the fundamentals – and they have been disproved,” Professor Steffen said after an address at the Australian Davos Connection’s Future Summit.

“Tens of Thousands” of papers eh? So why doesn’t he dig out a few and help his colleague Dr Andrew Glikson who is at least honest enough to engage in a debate and try to answer the question: Can you name any paper that supports the claim that positive feedback occurs and will double or triple the direct effect of carbon dioxide? Without that amplification the big scare campaign is all over (and so is much of the funding that feeds the associated junkets, conferences, grants, Institutes, and certain “science advisers” to the government ).

And which 10 papers exactly have been disproved? Steffen can’t name them, won’t try, and helpfully leaves things vague as a one-size-fits-all whitewash. Pure bluster. Adam Morton dutifully prints all that without checking, as if it’s a pronouncement from the Mount and one of the ten commandments.

Don’t give me the excuse that he’s written giant documents with thousands of references, so the evidence is there “somewhere”. It only takes a few minutes to name and explain one paper. Waving vaguely at tomes is part of the shell game. If he wants rational discourse, this is where it starts, with details.

Right now, this almost infantile debate about whether ‘is it real or isn’t it real?’, it’s like saying, ‘Is the Earth round or is it flat?’

Actually, the only one trying to debate whether “it’s” real or the world is flat is him. No one else wants to reduce public conversation to meaningless descriptors as much as he does. What “it” is he talking about? Does he mean “climate change”? He’d sure like us to debate that, because he’d be on safe preschool-climate-science terms where he could win: Yes Esmeralda, the climate does change! But the rest of us keep asking him to debate the real issue instead of his fake-o-strawman-substitute.

[Climate change] is a hugely important question and yet we are not having a rational discourse in the media in Australia on this question. That is my biggest frustration.

This is quite funny really. (I laughed). So Steffen is frustrated that the discourse is irrational? This is the man who uses his academic authority to mock opponents (that he won’t debate) with strawman arguments that are irrelevant. He claims he wants rational discourse, but works hard to stifle any discussion that doesn’t agree with him. He actively contributes to the nightmare of government spin and irrationality.

Asked about the scepticism of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, he said scientists respected leaders from both sides of politics who showed respect for scientific expertise.

“Respect for expertise” is code for argument from authority: Trust me I’m an expert. It’s the cop-out.

Real scientists don’t have any respect for the fawning servants of bureaucracy or fame. We admire those who can reason, and not those who pour confusion on conversations with confounding pomposities. The ingratiates who take our money but call us names, while they dodge debates and hail vainglorious victories over points we never raised: these we mock

SOURCE





Many cancer patients denied surgery in NSW public hospitals

But it makes the statistics look good!

HUNDREDS of patients in Sydney, many needing spine and cancer surgery, have been left off hospital waiting lists for up to a year because overworked staff did not file the paperwork.

The mistake, which doctors say has affected more than 800 people, some in acute pain, has forced the health department to order a blitz on the centralised surgery bookings system in western Sydney. But angry surgeons claim some patients have already deteriorated as a result of the fiasco.

The error has also made politically sensitive hospital performance figures - much vaunted by the health department - look better than they are.

A spokeswoman for the Sydney West Area Health Service said about 200 forms were still waiting to be processed but denied 800 people had been affected. She said 93 per cent of patients needing urgent elective surgery had been treated within the required 30-day time frame.

While most urgent cases were being seen, surgeons said at least 300 patients at Westmead and another 300 at Mt Druitt and Blacktown - some needing surgery for bladder or skin cancer - were never allocated to the list so the performance figures were false. The remaining 200 forms belonged to patients from other hospitals in western Sydney.

The number of cases missing from the lists was the tip of an iceberg, said the chairman of Westmead's medical staff council, Peter Klineberg. "Most surgeons stopped even trying to put patients forward because they refused to tolerate them getting lost in the system. "There is a lot of frustration over this, a lot of ill will. This might have seemed like a good idea at the time but it discounted the human factors," he said.

Donald MacLellan, the health department's program director of surgery, has been called in to audit the bookings and close the centralised office. But it could take at least six months to resolve the crisis. Hospitals will be ordered to revert to booking their own patients. "It's a crazy situation but we're just grateful at long last something is being done," the chairman of the division of surgery at Westmead Hospital, John Fletcher, said yesterday.

Since March last year, surgeons in western Sydney were told to submit booking forms to a central office in Blacktown, regardless of which hospital would perform the surgery. The system was put in place by the former chief executive of Sydney West Area Health Service, Steven Boyages. But a statewide freeze on employing non-clinical staff meant bookings, which should have been entered into the computer system within three days, mounted and were ignored.

Professor Fletcher said surgeons had pleaded with the department to acknowledge the system's failure, but their calls had fallen on deaf ears. "In some cases, we even had patients allocated to lists but they were not notified, so we had theatre staff standing around expecting them," he said.

The introduction on March 1 of the state trauma plan, whereby Westmead received a greater proportion of severely injured patients, would also make it difficult for surgeons to clear the backlog, but staff had been given a guarantee the new bookings office would be adequately staffed and resourced.

SOURCE





We think we are great - and so does everyone else

Australia ranks behind only Canada and Switzerland in positive self-image, an opinion the world shares.

PUT your tall poppy back and delete any cultural cringe. (That is not a yoga position.) Australian self-deprecation could now be history. A survey, interviewing 40,000 people globally, by the Reputation Institute in New York, reveals Australians have the highest opinion of themselves compared with most countries in the world, ranking behind only Canada and Switzerland in positive self-image.

The good news is that our tremendous opinion of ourselves is matched by what the world thinks of us: "Switzerland places first [in world respect] with Canada and Australia a close second and third. Russia, China, and Ukraine make up the bottom three."

This survey result may signal the emergence of a positive Oz generation and the end of the old-school Aussie glorification of the ocker, drongo, ratbag and loser. (We had many words for it.) Apparently we really like ourselves now and, even better, our international reputation is excellent. Success may now be regarded as good and not unsavoury. Of course, a percentage of the population will still revel in acting like pre-respected Australians. These people still buy things so they contribute to the economy. But the era of idealising an Aussie low IQ to sell cigarettes and other stuff is statistically over.

So what is an "Australian" now? Notwithstanding a few controversial moments such as the Anzacs raising the flag of Zion with the Union Jack over Jerusalem in World War I, the sometimes painful side of loyalty that led to involvement in the Vietnam debacle and decreasing property values in Baghdad, we are generally liked in various cultures. Yes, we have a good reputation.

Historically it really starts with the accent. Personally I think people mainly like us because we are not South African, British or American. I instantly recognise Australians anywhere in the world when I hear that accent. Sometimes it's very subtle – like Errol Flynn talking, when he played Robin Hood. (As a kid I thought Robin Hood was Australian, a thought strengthened by the sight of gum trees in Hollywood's version of Sherwood Forest. Eucalyptus trees had been introduced into California from Victoria in the 1860s.)

My mate George Gittoes, gonzo artist and adventurer, has experienced many war zones recording that terrifying landscape. His best advice for survival is that when shooting starts, or chaos erupts, head for the nearest UN soldiers with Australian accents.

If you haven't been back to Australia for a while and board a Qantas plane halfway across the world, and a steward says, "Would you like a beer before take-off, mate?," well, that can bring tears to a grown man's eyes.

Of course, surveys can be wrong – and why are the Swiss respected so much? To quote Orson Welles as Harry Lime in The Third Man: "In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Yes, we are respected but also remember what Groucho Marx remarked, "I just don't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member." I'm getting nostalgic for larrikinism already.

SOURCE



14 June, 2010

Current mass culture is dangerously deluding women into thinking they deserve to have everything

Comment from Britain

Brought up in an age where self-help mantras have replaced old-fashioned concepts such as duty or self- sacrifice, and where, according to Oprah Winfrey, lack of self-esteem is 'the root of all the problems in the world,' it's no wonder we now believe we deserve the very best from life.

Once, the pinnacles of achievement were a good job or a happy home life. Now, we're encouraged to believe we're entitled to everything we want, the moment we crave it, 'because we're worth it.' Want a £300 designer bag you can't afford? Go on - you deserve it. Or that New york mini-break with the girls? Treat yourself - you're fabulous.

Married women even admit to indulging in affairs, simply because: 'I wasn't getting what I needed at home.' Perhaps once, they'd have stuck it out, or sought counselling - but now, a 'cougar' affair between an older woman and a hot younger man is simply their reward for staying married to the old dullard.

Surrounded by images of celebrities from ordinary backgrounds who have 'made it', we're increasingly convinced that we're no different from them. We may not be hosting the breakfast news or singing to a packed O2 arena - but we work just as hard as they do, we tell ourselves, and we're just as talented.

It's easy to assume that 'good self-esteem' is the passport to a happy, successful life. But compelling research proves quite the reverse. A major study from the London School of Economics found that excessively high self-esteem can be even more damaging than low self-worth. Social psychologist Professor Nicholas Emler found that people with high self-esteem are more likely to hold racist attitudes, reject advice from friends and take risks such as drink-driving, as they believe they won't be caught.

'It's worth remembering that high self-esteem is very far from being an unconditional benefit,' warns Professor Emler. 'Our language contains many unflattering words to describe people with high self-esteem, such as "boastful", "arrogant", "smug", "self-satisfied" and "conceited".

'Perhaps we should be more willing to accept that very high self-esteem is as much a problem in need of treatment as exceptionally low self-esteem and be more open-minded about the benefits of moderation.'

Yet culturally, we're constantly encouraged to assume that, as the song says, 'If I can dream it, I can be it'. Once, a truthful friend might have pointed out that it's called 'a dream' for a reason. But now, simply 'having a dream' is considered to be as valid as having a business plan and start-up funding.

TV shows overflow with ordinary folk who may possess a modicum of talent at cooking or singing, yet vibrate with evangelical zeal as they explain: 'I want this so badly, I know I can win.' Self-awareness has been replaced by mindless self-belief, regardless of the evidence.

'We have fallen for a filtered-down pop psychology message that says: "If you believe it, it's true," ' says psychotherapist Rachel Morris, who specialises in women's issues. 'Best-selling books such as The Secret basically say that if you want something badly enough, you can have it, and that's a very seductive promise.

It's basic, Californian-style positive thinking - but we're now in danger of believing that high self-esteem is equivalent to talent, opportunity and ambition. 'Surely we only have to watch the deluded contestants on The X Factor, or Britain's Got Talent, announcing, "Watch this space Simon Cowell, I'll be back!" to realise that the "I'm worth it" culture is out of hand?'

She adds: 'We're constantly told by advertising, movies and the media that we, too, can "live the dream" however ordinary we may be."

Being challenged, as people are on these shows, means you're forced to question everything you believe about yourself - and it's easier to stay in a state of denial than face reality.'
Sex and the City

This denial may also explain why women are still amassing mountainous debts. Recent research from the Post Office revealed that more than a fifth of us lie to partners about the amount of debt we're in. On average, we owe £9,700, (outside of mortgages) and 45 per cent of women explained their debt has been accrued by 'buying expensive fashions'. Despite the recession, we're still 'treating ourselves' simply because we feel we deserve it, regardless of whether we can afford it or need it.

'Deserving' is quite an immature notion,' observes Rachel Morris. 'Believing that because you've had a tough day, you should have a reward, is based on a childish concept of having a pay-off for eating your greens.'

Genuine, fulfilling reward could be as simple as a cuddle from your child or a walk in the sunshine - but we've been conditioned to believe that excitement, or material goods, are superior.

Having high self-esteem also means you're more prepared to take risks - you'll splash £400 on the shoes you can't afford because you assume you'll get away with it. Deep down, you believe you can not only have it all, but you deserve it all, too.

Maybe that's why more married women than ever before are having affairs - and happily justifying them. With excessively high self-esteem, concepts such as shame are no longer valid. Instead, an affair is considered an appropriate response to ' not being appreciated' in your relationship.

A recent women's magazine survey found that 70 per cent of women regularly lie to their partners. A fifth have had a long-term affair while married, while 30 per cent have had an affair with a married man. In the past, most women were too embarrassed to admit to this type of behaviour. Now, the prevailing attitude is, 'so what? I wanted to'....

Nowadays, we're not obese; we simply need to learn to 'love our curves'. And a man didn't leave because we were dull; he just 'didn't appreciate our inner beauty'.

Asking tough questions of oneself, a tenet of traditional psychotherapy - and religion - has been abandoned in favour of an all-encompassing philosophy of 'love yourself and be who you want to be'. 'The media often promotes the rise of the individual rather than the benefits of being part of a community,' explains Surrey-based women's therapist Evelyn Nathanson. 'As the world has got smaller, our role has become inward looking. 'We look less to each other for support and more to ourselves to promote
feelings of self worth.' Basically, we've learnt to take urselves at our own, skyhigh, estimation.

Perhaps high self-esteem wouldn't be so bad if it didn't impact on others. But affairs, debt and choices that put you first and your partner and children languishing somewhere down the list after a Mulberry bag and spa weekend can only harm your chances of long-term fulfilment.

And, worse still, we're now raising a new generation to believe that attention adulation are the keys to happiness. A recent survey for found that children under the age of ten believe being a celebrity is 'the best thing in the world', swiftly followed by 'good looks' and 'being rich.' ...

Surely it's time to wake up, and realise our sense of entitlement is just that - a sense, not a reality. And that true fulfilment requires hard work, self-awareness, and a realistic appraisal of our own flaws.

'High self-esteem is more akin to vanity,' says Rachel Morris. 'I don't believe someone with a realistic sense of their own worth feels the need to buy things they can't afford or put their family's happiness at risk. There's a genuine value in being loved the way you want, feeling safe in your home, being able to provide what your children need. But achieving that is far harder than buying a bottle of expensive perfume.'

The truth is, none of us is automatically entitled to anything - we can achieve it, through hard work, being loveable, making the most of what we have. But the world doesn't owe us a thing.

More HERE







Rise of the Jewish Republicans?

Of all the people to whom President Obama has given hope in the past year and a half, perhaps the most surprising is the Republican Jewish Coalition.

Even though American Jews have been stalwart Democrats since the days of FDR, candidate Barack Obama was expected to win a lower majority of the Jewish vote than past Democratic nominees. He defied expectations, however,winning a commanding 78 percent of the Jewish vote, despite a lack of a strong history with the Jewish community and his own Muslim father and stepfather.

It looks as if those earlier expectations might have been right after all -- just a little later than predicted.

At the annual RJC Summer Bash in LA this weekend, attendance was more than double than last year's, from 300 to an at-capacity of almost 700. Not only was the room packed, but it was buzzing. A number of people this journalist met proudly stated that this was their first time at an RJC event -- and each person, unprovoked, said Obama was the main reason.

As one participant joked, "Thanks to Obama, being a Republican Jew is no longer like wearing a scarlet letter."

Expanding the GOP's reach in the Jewish community has never been an easy feat, yet the RJC has done an admirable job given all the hurdles it has faced over the years. But many longtime RJC members observed that this may be the first time that the terrain has been this fertile.

"The more Obama does, from his dangerous Middle East policy to his wildly unpopular health care bill, the more people in the Jewish community are looking at breaking a lifetime tradition and becoming Republican," explained RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks, who has been with the group since its inception.

Several polls in recent months have indicated trouble for Obama among Jews, including the annual American Jewish Committee survey conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, in which the President received only a 57 percent approval mark, a significant drop from his 78 percent share of the Jewish vote.

In the end result, of course, the GOP would be tickled to win 30 percent of the Jewish vote -- and downright thrilled to hit 35%. But with Jews accounting for just over 2 percent of the population, the real victory would be winning the support of hyper-energetic Jewish donors and activists.

In the simplest terms, Jews are disproportionately engaged in political activism and political contributions. It's a cultural phenomenon familiar to most Jews. Political discussion starts in the home -- and continues with friends and in community settings.

And it's a safe bet that the most enthusiastic Jewish donors and activists care strongly about the U.S. support for Israel, meaning that the GOP has a great issue on which to base much of its Jewish outreach.

More HERE







Long overdue review of Britain's health and safety culture

David Cameron last night announced plans to tear up a decade of health and safety rules that have been blamed for crippling business and stifling the British way of life.

The Prime Minister unveiled a wide-ranging review of Labour's safety laws as well as the country's 'compensation culture', led by former Cabinet minister Lord Young.

The 78-year-old, who served under Margaret Thatcher, has described current legislation as a 'joke' and will be asked to help the Government drive through reform after completing his review.

David Cameron has unveiled a wide-ranging review of safety laws as well as the country's 'compensation culture', led by former Cabinet minister Lord Young, right

Mr Cameron said: 'The rise of the compensation culture over the last ten years is a real concern, as is the way health and safety rules are sometimes applied.

'We need a sensible new approach that makes clear these laws are intended to protect people, not overwhelm businesses with red tape.'

He held out the prospect of wide-ranging reforms saying he was determined to see Lord Young's recommendations put 'into effect'.

Lord Young was commissioned to advise Mr Cameron on health and safety laws last year and his work will become a full-scale review with civil service support.

The former trade secretary said the once serious issue of health and safety had become a 'music hall joke' under Labour, with schools banning children from playing conkers, restaurants barring tooth picks and one swimming pool declaring a pair of goggles unsafe.

And he argued the change in culture could even be counterproductive, putting people in more danger in certain circumstances.

He said: 'Teachers have to fill in so many forms if they want to take children on a field trip, there have been three instances where police have stood by and let people drown as a result of health and safety and we have offices subjected to health and safety laws that were meant for heavy industry. It has gone too far.'

Lord Young also wants to curb the compensation culture fuelled by the rapid growth in no-win, no fee agreements.

He said the NHS alone had paid out more than £8billion over the last five years in personal injury claims, of which two-thirds went to lawyers. 'That is four or five billion pounds that could and should have gone into healthcare,' he added.

Although much of Britain's health and safety legislation now comes from Brussels, Lord Young said government departments had a tendency to 'gold-plate' it and make it even more onerous than it need be.

He added: 'Health and safety regulation is essential in many industries but may well have been applied too generally and have become an unnecessary burden on firms, but also community organisations and public services.

Lord Young will deliver initial findings next month before taking up an advisory role in Whitehall.

SOURCE





Australia: Muslims can do no wrong?

The man carrying a legal bomb into courtroom 11A in the NSW Supreme Court building on Friday morning did not look menacing and is not menacing under normal circumstances. But these were not normal circumstances. This was cultural war. The legal bomb was brought to court by the once leonine figure of Clive Evatt, a veteran defamation lawyer who now walks with the aid of a cane, on which his severely bent frame leans heavily.

As Evatt took his place at the plaintiff's bench, the man on whose instructions he was acting, Keysar Trad - a thickset, bearded man wearing a grey suit, blue shirt and tie - sat alone in the back row of the public gallery.

Trad is no stranger to litigation. Over many years he has expended untold hours making formal complaints to the NSW Supreme Court, the Administrative Decisions Tribunal, the Anti-Discrimination Board, the Human Rights Commission, the Press Council, other review bodies and, above all, the media, where he has operated as a quote-machine representing the Muslim community in Australia.

He was in court on Friday because of a disaster of his own making. After delivering a hostile tirade against Sydney's top-rated radio station, 2GB, during a "peace" rally in 2005, Trad was himself criticised the next day by a 2GB presenter, Jason Morrison, though not in the same language Trad had used at the rally where he claimed to speak on behalf of Muslims in Australia.

Trad sued for defamation. He was the star witness for his own case. The senior judge, Justice Peter McClellan, the chief judge of common law in the NSW Supreme Court, found against Trad, and found him to be a witness of little credibility, a man of extreme views and, in summary, "a disgraceful individual".

Such was Trad's performance under oath that on Friday the counsel for the defence, Richard McHugh, SC, delivered this devastating portrayal of his credibility under oath: "[Trad] attempted to evade responsibility for his statements by claiming he was misquoted, by claiming he was taken out of context, by claiming he had changed his mind, or by claiming he did not even know what he had said or written at the instant he said or wrote it. He was entirely disbelieved.

"[His] evidence that he did not know who was the author of Mein Kampf - and his feigned attempts at a thought process to recollect the author's name - were a low point in this trial. The transcript in this case can supply only a colourless picture of the evidence at trial."

Even before this appeal, Trad was facing legal costs exceeding $250,000. He decided to up his risk. On Friday morning, I counted 16 lawyers in the court. At this level, justice is neither fast nor cheap.

His appeal was based on several major grounds but the most prominent and contentious, made repeatedly in oral and written submissions, was that Justice McClellan had erred fundamentally by taking Trad's provocative comments over the years out of the context of the Muslim community. To quote Evatt: "His honour did not take into account that Australia is a multicultural society and the viewpoints of ethnic groups are recognised by the Australian community even though not all members of the community agree with them."

And this: "His honour did not refer to or even consider the likelihood the average citizen would recognise that the views expressed by [Trad] were similar to beliefs shared by Muslims throughout the world including Muslims in Australia." And this: "His honour appears to have given no weight to the fact that the speech was made to Muslims in a mosque and not in an address to the general community."

And this: "His honour overlooked the fact Sheikh Hilaly's speech [defended by Trad] was not made to members of the Australian community but to Muslims and others who attended the Sidon Mosque in Lebanon."

This is an explosive argument. It means this aspect of the appeal may rest on the argument that the Muslim community operates under different standards than the rest of society and cannot be judged using the same standards. Further, these standards, even if judged to be extreme by the rest of society, should be respected.

It is fair to say the bench became restive on Friday. There were plenty of tart exchanges from the three judges, justices Murray Tobias, Ruth McColl and John Basten. But this was nothing compared with the fire and brimstone from the defence.

This appeal was an attempt, McHugh argued, to turn the case into one about "freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and that the appellant has been unfairly branded as a racist, homophobic, terrorist-supporting, woman-hating bigot when all he was doing was expressing views consistent with his Islamic faith and his role as a prominent Australian Lebanese community spokesman … The question here is whether the deliberate peddling of grossly sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic filth is not dangerous and disgraceful and an incitement to violence and racist attitudes in Australia in 2010. The most extraordinary claim is that his extreme views are [a] 'Muslim view'. This ought not to be accepted."

If Trad does prevail in his appeal, this case, Trad v Harbour Radio, will be corrosive to the idea of mainstream Muslim moderation, and to the ideal that most Muslims are naturally part of a cohesive element in the weave of Australia's culture rather than functioning under de facto Islamic law while giving mere lip service to the Australian legal system and the values it upholds.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine). My Home Pages are here or here or here or Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

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13 June, 2010

Halt, or the PM’s guard will fire her baby gun

Feminism trumps safety

MEMBERS of Scotland Yard’s elite bodyguard unit are being armed with smaller, lighter “baby” guns as part of a drive to attract more female officers.

The move is aimed at recruiting bodyguards with smaller hands. However, critics fear that it could hamper close protection officers who guard the Queen, David Cameron and other VIPs if they have to fend off an attack from terrorists or a lone gunman. “It’s a disadvantage because the smaller guns have less firepower and are less accurate,” said a police firearms expert.

Supporters deny the Yard is putting political correctness before security. They say the change is part of a legitimate attempt by Metropolitan police bosses better to reflect the community.

Others believe the move underlines the explosion of a “diversity agenda” that began in the 1990s and was led by a new breed of chiefs who thought traditional policing was too male-orientated.

The trend to recruit more women was reinforced last week when David Cameron, the prime minister, was seen jogging with a female protection officer.

Historically, the standard-issue weapon of the Met’s specialist and royalty protection units is the Glock 17, a semiautomatic pistol fed by 17 rounds of ammunition. The self-loading gun has a magazine that is “double stacked” in a zigzag formation and so requires a wide butt. The replacement weapon for women officers and those with smaller hands is believed to be the “subcompact” version, the Glock 26.

Marketed by its Austrian manufacturer as the “Baby Glock”, the gun has a single magazine with just 10 bullets and therefore requires a smaller butt.

The Glock 26’s barrel is just under 3.5in long, more than an inch shorter than the Glock 17. This makes it a less accurate weapon, particularly at longer range. In a firefight, officers using the “Baby Glock” would have to stop shooting and reload their weapon more frequently that those with the bigger handgun.

Details of the introduction of a smaller gun were disclosed by John Bunn, a senior detective in the Yard’s counter-terrorism command, to the Metropolitan Police Authority, the force’s watchdog.

Noting “considerable improvements” in the work of SO1, the specialist protection unit, Bunn wrote in a report: “A diversity forum and work strands following best Metropolitan police service practice have been established, for example changing the type of firearm used to accommodate smaller hands, changes in recruit[ment] advertising, female-only insight days and mentoring under-represented groups expressing an interest in SO1.”

Professor Peter Waddington, an expert in police firearms tactics, said the new weapons delivered less firepower but denied it was likely to be driven by political correctness. “People with smaller hands find it difficult to grasp the butt of a regular-size self-loading pistol,” he said. “The double-stacked magazine is broader, and ... women find this more than a handful. They cannot grip the weapon properly and therefore fix their aim. So they can’t shoot ... like a big man is able to.”

Patrick Mercer, former chairman of the Commons sub-committee on counterterrorism, said: “I hope the judgment has been made on effectiveness and not on some contorted view of equality.”

Scotland Yard said it never discussed details of weapons used by its officers, but stated: “We are committed to recruiting a workforce that reflects the community we serve, and this includes specialist areas such as protection.”

SOURCE






Mother of twins mauled by fox is threatened by animal rights activists

People haters again

The parents of the children mauled by a fox are receiving police protection amid concern over threats from animal rights activists. Officers have been assigned to guard the family home and police liaison officers are in contact with Pauline and Nicolas Koupparis.

Their nine-month-old twins Lola and Isabella suffered ‘life-changing injuries’ when they were savaged in their cots in Hackney, East London, a week ago.

Scotland Yard said it was not aware of a specific threat against the family but admitted that there was ‘concern’ over inflammatory postings on social networking sites.

Yesterday a woman phoned the Radio 4 programme Any Answers to say she had heard from friends and relatives in Hackney that Mr and Mrs Koupparis were being ‘harangued and besieged’ by animal rights activists. The caller also said there were messages on internet sites, allegedly accusing the family of seeking publicity after their ordeal.

One anti-foxhunting group set up a Facebook page called ‘Pauline Koupparis is a lying b****’. The page has since been taken down.

Another group, calling itself ‘Urban Fox Defenders’, has attracted more than 500 members. One, who gave her name as Alison Smith, wrote: ‘I really can’t see how a fox could be SO brazen as to go into a house, up the stairs, past adults, and go for two children... 'There is something here that simply does not add up!’

Lola left hospital on Friday and Mrs Koupparis, 41, said: ‘We’ve gone through every emotion imaginable.’

Isabella, who was the more badly hurt of the pair, has been transferred from Great Ormond Street children’s hospital to the Royal London, which is nearer her home.

A police spokesman said: ‘There has been some concern about things that have been said on social networking sites. ‘There is no tangible threat but we are keeping in touch with the family.’

SOURCE






Yet another false rape claim in Britain

They never stop -- as women try to get back at men or cover up decisions they regret

A mother of three who falsely accused a police officer of rape after he rejected her advances following a one-night stand was today jailed for two years.

Melissa Anne-Marie Carter, 46, took revenge on Pc Matthew Tarrant when he failed to reply to her text messages begging to see him again after they met on a dating website.

Carter, a single mum, who has three sons by two different men, continued her lies for four months during police investigations. She only admitted the truth after officers confronted her with the text messages she had sent to the long-serving police constable, blaming her actions on ‘stress’.

Carter was today sentenced to two years at Oxford Crown Court after she pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice by making a false rape allegation. Judge Julian Hall blasted Carter saying she had ‘betrayed the sisterhood’ and accused her of making it easier for real rapists to be acquitted. He added: ‘The offence you committed has effects on all sorts of levels. ‘It is difficult to imagine a worse situation for a serving police officer than to be accused of rape. In his victim statement he talks about losing weight and taking time off work.

‘What you did also had a much wider impact. Government ministers and social commentators talk about the very low conviction rate [for rape]. ‘These people also talk as if false complaints of rape are frequently made but they are able to say this because people like you occasionally do. ‘Some people who commit rape are acquitted because people like you make false allegations.

‘To put this a little dramatically you have betrayed the sisterhood. You kept Mr Tarrant hanging on not knowing what his fate would be for three months.’

The court heard Carter met Pc Tarrant on a dating website and invited him to meet her at her home in Banbury, Oxfordshire, which she shares with her three sons, aged 17, 15 and seven.

On October 24 2009, Pc Tarrant went to her home where they had sex and the next day he left for his job in London. Carter sent him a text message which read: ‘Perhaps we can meet again next Wednesday.’ When he failed to reply she sent another text saying: ‘Are you ok?’

Four days later, Carter went to her local police station and claimed she had been raped by Pc Tarrant.

Paul Harrison, prosecuting, said: ‘Miss Carter met Mr Tarrant on a dating website. There had been some to-ing-and-fro-ing in messages between the two. ‘Miss Carter invited Mr Tarrant to her home on October 24 where they met for the first time face-to-face. ‘Sexual contact took place during that evening and they had full sexual intercourse. Miss Carter sent Mr Tarrant text messages which were completely inconsistent with her allegations.

‘Mr Tarrant did not reply to the text messages as it seemed he would. The prosecution maintains this led her to make a spiteful allegation against him.’

Pc Tarrant was arrested wearing full uniform at 5pm October 29 at the police station where he worked and was quizzed by officers for 6 hours before he was released at 11pm. The court heard Pc Tarrant was not suspended but was moved to desk role and banned from having contact with the public.

Carter made repeated phone calls to the police station to enquire about how the investigation was going and what had happened to PC Tarrant.

Despite repeated interviews with police, Carter maintained she had been raped and only admitted it was a lie on February 4 when officers confronted her with the text messages she had sent to PC Tarrant.

But even when confronted with the truth Carter blamed her actions on ‘stress’. She told officers: ‘There is no excuse for what I have done. It was a very stressful time with my family.’

Judge Hall said the false rape allegation had caused PC Tarrant, a long serving officer with the Met Police, ‘extraordinary distress’.

Mr Harrison added ‘He has been on sick leave, he was humiliated. It was an awful experience.’

Carter, who had no previous convictions, will serve 12 months in prison before being released on licence for the remainder of her sentence.

Lucy Tapper, mitigating, said: ‘In cases like these there are only ever losers. She will suffer the stigma for what she has done and will be vilified and perhaps deservedly so.’

SOURCE






Update on Belgium

Dutch Belgians close to getting rid of the socialist parasites in the French-speaking South

Belgium's 6.5 million Dutch and four million French-speakers are locked in an unhappy, quarrelsome union, and voters in a general election on Sunday might well proscribe a political divorce.

A mainstream Flemish party that is expected to do well is invoking the concept of irreconcilable differences to seek a separation and, in time, take the country's Dutch-speaking Flanders region into the European Union as a separate country.

This is a nightmare scenario for poorer Wallonia, Belgium's Francophone south, which greatly depends on Flemish funds.

Early elections were called after Premier Yves Leterme's five-party coalition fell apart April 26 in a dispute over a bilingual voting district.

That issue has pushed the New Flemish Alliance - a tiny, centrist party only a few years ago - into pole position: it is forecast to win a quarter of the vote in Flanders.

Its leader - and perhaps Belgium's next premier - Bart de Wever, 39, wants an orderly breakup of Belgium by shifting the national government's last remaining powers, notably justice, health and social security, to Flanders and Wallonia. That would complete 30 years of ever greater self-rule for the two regions.

The new Flemish alliance wants Flanders to join the EU. There are no comparable separatist sentiments in Wallonia.

Finance Minister Didier Reynders, a Francophone Liberal, says the question facing Belgians is: "Do we still want to live together?"

Others favor no breakup either. "We did a study of 10,000 people and found 84 percent want the country reformed, but not broken apart," says Marianne Thyssen, a Dutch-speaking Christian Democrat.

Yet in Belgium just about everything - from political parties to broadcasters to boy scouts and voting ballots - already comes in Dutch- and French-speaking versions. Even charities like the Red Cross and Amnesty International have separate chapters.

Pierre Verjans, a University of Liege political scientist, says he feels "a sense of mourning going on. French-speakers now fear a Belgium without Dutch-speakers."

Breakup talk was long the realm of Flemish extremists.

De Wever's surprise high rating follows three years of utter stalemate. As governments worldwide tried to tame a financial crisis and recession, the four that led Belgium since 2007 struggled with linguistic spats while the national debt ballooned.

Nothing illustrates the impasse more than the bilingual voting district comprising Brussels and 35 Flemish towns bordering it. The high court ruled it illegal in 2003 as only Dutch is the official language in Flanders. Over the years, Francophones from Brussels have moved in large numbers to the city's leafy Flemish suburbs, where they are accused of refusing to learn Dutch and integrate.

Since the 1970s, the two camps have been given self-rule in urban development, environment, agriculture, employment, energy, culture, sports and research and other areas. Today, Dutch speakers want autonomy in justice, health, taxation and labour matters.

The divide goes beyond language.

Flanders tends to be conservative and free-trade minded. Wallonia's long-dominant Socialists have a record of corruption and poor governance. Flanders has half the unemployment of Wallonia and a 25 percent higher per-capita income, and Dutch-speakers have long complained that they are subsidising their Francophone neighbours.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine). My Home Pages are here or here or here or Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

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12 June, 2010

Muslim lies in Britain

At least the Brits prosecuted this guy -- unlike the Australian authorities in the story following

A Muslim community leader who falsely claimed he had been kidnapped by members of the British National Party was exposed last night as a suspected benefits cheat who was in this country illegally.

Noor Ramjanally, 36, told police that racist thugs had abducted him at knifepoint and threatened him with violence. But his account was exposed as a lie by cameras fitted secretly outside his flat after earlier claims that he had received racist hate mail and that the family's home had been firebombed.

Footage revealed that on the day of the alleged kidnapping Ramjanally had left home by himself, and police established that he wandered around a branch of Homebase before dialling 999.

Yesterday he was given a two-year jail term after being convicted of perverting the course of justice.

However he was not in court - he had fled back to his native Mauritius after admitting he was in this country illegally, staying on after his tourist visa expired.

Before his trial at Chelmsford Crown Court, he sent police a taunting email from the Indian Ocean island, telling them: 'I am enjoying the sun.' The authorities will now decide whether to seek his extradition to Britain to serve his sentence.

It also emerged that both Ramjanally and his wife, Soulma Nusrally, are being investigated on suspicion of benefit fraud.

The court heard that Ramjanally ran Muslim prayer sessions at a hall in Loughton, Essex, at a time when the BNP was targeting the area with leaflets, increasing local tensions.

In July and August last year he claimed to have received racist hate mail warning him to stop hosting the group and to have suffered an arson attack at the home where he lived with his wife and son. Unknown to Ramjanally, police installed two covert CCTV cameras outside his block of flats.

On August 24 he rang 999 claiming he had been abducted, later saying two BNP supporters had seized him at knifepoint and bundled him into the back of a vehicle. He said they told him: 'We don't want Loughton Islamic Group in Loughton' before releasing him on the edge of Epping Forest.

However camera footage showed him getting into a taxi at the time of the alleged kidnap. He had also been caught on camera at the local Homebase, and he was arrested.

Ramjanally was bailed to await his trial and in February he fled to Mauritius, from where he originally came to Britain on a six-month tourist visa in 1999. When officials from the UK Border Agency raided his flat they discovered fake passports and other ID documents.

Passing sentence, Judge Karen Walden-Smith said it was impossible to say whether Ramjanally concocted his story to increase tension in the community, for his own vanity, or a bit of both.

Last night it emerged that Ramjanally is being investigated for falsely claiming benefits and allegedly stealing money from a mosque. His wife is also being investigated for allegedly stating that she was a single mother to claim benefits including income support and housing benefit.

SOURCE





Muslim lies in Australia

Muslim female makes demonstrably false accusations against police on a statutory declaration but that's OK -- and hushed up as well? Making a false statement on a statutory declaration is an offence that should lead to a prosecution. It seems that the NSW police force is just about as gutless about "minorities" as is the Victoria police. One would have thought that they would be very zealous to uphold their reputation where they can

As I was driving today I happened to listen to Jason Morrison’s ‘Drive’ show at around 3 pm. He mentioned the story of the Sydney policeman who happened to stop a veiled lady recently because he had a well founded suspicion that she was not driving well and that her ‘P’ plate sign was not affixed properly to the car. This policeman asked to see the lady’s license. Of course to check her license the policeman had to see the lady’s face and you know what that means for a Muslim feminista.

Instant outrage. This lady did what any oppressed victim who has been asked to show her driver’s license would do .She went straight to the media and complained that the policeman was a racist, shouted at her, grabbed her veil and wanted to pull it off. Not a shy little hyacinth, this lass went to Channel 7 and told her tearful story aided and abetted by her Muslim handlers.

Thing is, she forgot she is in a western country and that not all the media have lost their marbles. As Jason Morrison related, Channel 7 contacted the policeman in question after she gave her tearful opera buffa version of events. And guess what? The policeman had filmed the entire proceedings with the lachrimose lady. And then guess what the filming revealed? THE TRUTH. And the truth differed significantly from what the dodgy Muslim lady driver said.

First – it appears the policeman spoke very politely to the lady from beginning to end.

Second – it seems the would be abused victim had not been abused at all. The policeman did not touch or grab her veil. He simply asked her politely to show her face so he could do his job and identify her with the driver's photo on her driver's license.

Third. The lady has told untruths on a Statutory Declaration she made about the whole incident in her official complaint about this officer to the NSW Police Force. [woops]

With or without the veil it ain’t a pretty story. And in fact the lady might be wearing her veil now but the truth has been unveiled and is there for all to see.

Channel 7, having got hold of the ‘other side of the story’ from the policeman and having seen the footage, invited the lady to come back and ‘please explain’ what the footage showed. The Muslima prima donna, who thought she had it all sewn up with her first bellicose Ayatolla-like hissy fit, on realising such footage existed, suddenly declined to come in to be interviewed again. A little bit of the truth and reality mugging apparently had spoilt her day and shut her up.

Technology saved the day for this policeman. Imagine if he had NOT filmed the interview with the would be veiled victim? What would the story be out there in the media? And good on Channel 7 for getting the other side of the story. If only other media outlets did the same.

This Muslima wanted to con the world but she didn’t make it this time She should go for a holiday on a flotilla near Turkey – that’s where she belongs. However, as the Latma TV song goes ‘the truth will never find a way to your tv’ as the whole story has died in Sydney and it is hard to find any links which tell anything about it.

If not for Jason Morrison’s radio report, I would not have heard of it. Not only that, but as Jason has noted, there has been no public apology or public exoneration of the policeman in question who after all, was just doing his job. Several organisations including the Ethnic Affairs Commission and the NSW Police Force declined to comment on radio about the incident and there is hasty burying of the story going on.

SOURCE




The left’s strange hostility to Hirsi Ali

MARK STEYN: Nicholas Kristof is just the latest great thinker to talk himself into a rosy view of Islam

Despite being a bit of an old showbiz queen, I’m not much for the huggy-kissy photo wall of me sharing a joke with various luvvies. I make an exception on the bureau behind my desk for a shot of yours truly and a beautiful woman, Somali by birth, Dutch by citizenship, at a beachfront bar in Malibu at sunset. I like the picture because, while I look rather bleary with a few too many chins, my companion is bright-eyed with a huge smile on her face and having a grand old time—grand, that is, because of its very normality: a crappy bar, drinks with cocktail umbrellas, a roomful of blithely ignorant California hedonists who’ll all be going back home at the end of the evening to Dancing With the Stars or Conan O’Brien or some other amusement.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali can’t lead that life. She lives under armed guard and was forced to abandon the Netherlands because quite a lot of people want to kill her. And not in the desultory behead-the-enemies-of-Islam you-will-die-infidel pro forma death-threats-R-us way that many of us have perforce gotten used to in recent years: her great friend and professional collaborator was murdered in the streets of Amsterdam by a man who shot him eight times, attempted to decapitate him, and then drove into his chest two knives, pinning to what was left of him a five-page note pledging to do the same to her.

What would you do in those circumstances? Ayaan and I had repaired to that third-rate bar after a day-long conference on Islam, jihad, free speech and whatnot. That’s usually where I run into her, whether in Malibu or at the Carlton Club in London or at a less illustrious venue. Would you be doing that with a price on your head? Or would you duck out of sight, lie low, change your name, move to New Zealand, and hope one day to get your life back?

After the threats against the Comedy Central show South Park the other week, Ms. Hirsi Ali turned up on CNN to say that the best defence against Islamic intimidation is for us all to stand together and thereby “share the risk.” But, around the world, every single translator of her books has insisted on total anonymity. When push comes to shove, very few are willing to share the risk. The British historian Andrew Roberts calls her “the bravest woman I know.” I would say she is not only the bravest but also, given her circumstances, the most optimistic. I have an unbounded admiration for her personally, but a not insignificant difference philosophically, of which more momentarily.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s great cause is women’s liberation. Unfortunately for her, the women she wants to liberate are Muslim, so she gets minimal support and indeed a ton of hostility from Western feminists who have reconciled themselves, consciously or otherwise, to the two-tier sisterhood: when it comes to clitoridectomies, forced marriages, honour killings, etc., multiculturalism trumps feminism.

Liberal men are, if anything, even more opposed. She long ago got used to the hectoring TV interviewer, from Avi Lewis on the CBC a while back to Tavis Smiley on PBS just the other day, insisting that say what you like about Islam but everyone knows that Christians are just as backward and violent, if not more so. The media left spends endless hours and most of its interminable awards ceremonies congratulating itself on its courage, on “speaking truth to power,” the bravery of dissent and all the rest, but faced with a pro-gay secular black feminist who actually lives it they frost up in nothing flat.

The latest is Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times. Reviewing Ayaan’s new book Nomad, he begins:

“She has managed to outrage more people—in some cases to the point that they want to assassinate her—in more languages in more countries on more continents than almost any writer in the world today. Now Hirsi Ali is working on antagonizing even more people in yet another memoir.”

That’s his opening pitch: if there are those who wish to kill her, it’s her fault because she’s a provocateuse who’s found a lucrative shtick in “working on antagonizing” people. The Times headlines Kristof’s review “The Gadfly,” as if she’s a less raddled and corpulent Gore Vidal. In fact, she wrote a screenplay for a film; Muslim belligerents threatened to kill her and her director; they made good on one half of that threat. This isn’t shtick.

But Kristof decides to up the condescension. Of the author’s estrangement from her Somali relatives, he writes: “I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps Hirsi Ali’s family is dysfunctional simply because its members never learned to bite their tongues and just say to one another: ‘I love you.’ ”
Awwwww. Group hug! Works every time.

But maybe not so much in Somalia. This isn’t a family where they bite their tongues but where they puncture their clitorises. At the age of five, Ayaan was forced to undergo “FGM” (female genital mutilation), or, in the new non-judgmental PC euphemism, “cutting.” When she had her first period, her mother beat her. When she was 22, her father arranged for her to marry a cousin in Canada. While in Germany awaiting the visa for her wedded bliss in Her Majesty’s multicultural utopia, she decided to skip out, and fled to the Netherlands.

All she wanted was a chance to do what Nicholas Kristof takes for granted—to live her own life. What difference would saying “I love you” in a Lifestyle Channel soft-focus blur accompanied by saccharine strings make? As they see it, the perpetrators of “honour killings” love their daughters: that’s why they kill ’em.

Would Kristof wish to swap his options for the set menu served up to Muslim women? How would he like it if, just as he was getting ready to head to Oxford on his Rhodes Scholarship, his dad had announced that he’d arranged for him to marry a cousin? Oh, and in Canada.

Which brings me to my big philosophical difference with Ms. Hirsi Ali: in 2006, she was one of a dozen intellectuals to publish a manifesto against radical Islam and in defence of “secular values for all.” Often in her speeches, she’ll do a heartwarming pitch to all of us—“black, white, gay, straight”—to stand firm for secular humanism.

My problem with this is that, in Europe and elsewhere, liberal secularism is not the solution to the problem but the vacuum in which a resurgent globalized Islam has incubated. The post-Christian, post-modern multicultural society is too vapid to have any purchase on large numbers of the citizenry. So they look elsewhere. The Times of London recently interviewed a few of Britain’s many female converts to Islam, such as Catherine Huntley, 21, of Bournemouth (“I’ve always been quite a spiritual person”) and Sukina Douglas, 28, of London (“Islam didn’t oppress women; people did”).

In a way, the Western left’s hostility to Ayaan Hirsi Ali makes my point for me. In Terror and Liberalism, Paul Berman wrote that suicide bombings “produced a philosophical crisis, among everyone around the world who wanted to believe that a rational logic governs the world.” In other words, it has to be about “poverty” or “social justice” because the alternative—that they want to kill us merely because we are the other—undermines the hyper-rationalist’s entire world view.

Thus, every pro-gay, pro-feminist, pro-black Western liberal’s determination to blame Ayaan Hirsi Ali for the fact that a large number of benighted thuggish halfwits want to kill her. Deploring what he regards as her simplistic view of Islam, Nicholas Kristof rhapsodizes about its many fine qualities—“There is also the warm hospitality toward guests, including Christians and Jews.”

Oh, for crying out loud. In the Muslim world, Christians and Jews have been on the receiving end of a remorseless ethno-religious cleansing for decades. Christian churches get burned, along with their congregations, from Nigeria to Pakistan. Egypt is considering stripping men who marry Jewesses of their citizenship. Saudi Arabia won’t let ’em in the country. In the 1920s, Baghdad was 40 per cent Jewish. Gee, I wonder where they all went. Maybe that non-stop “warm hospitality” wears you down after a while....

As Paul Mirengoff of the Power Line blog observes, traditionally when useful idiots shill for illiberal ideologies it requires at least “the illusion of progressivism” to bring them on board. Islam can’t provide that, but that’s no obstacle to getting the bien pensants to sign up.

As much as anyone, secular leftists want meaning in their lives. But Communism went belly up; the postwar welfare state is bankrupt; environmentalism has taken a hit in recent months; and Christianity gives them the vapours. Nicholas Kristof will not be the first great thinker to talk himself into a view of Islam as this season’s version of Richard Gere Buddhism.

At a superficial level, the Islamo-leftist alliance makes no sense: gay feminist secular hedonists making common cause with homophobic misogynist proscriptive theocrats. From Islam’s point of view, it’s an alliance of convenience. But I would bet that more than a few lefties will wind up embracing Islam to one degree or another before we’re done.

SOURCE




How man risked his life to nail the drug dealer next door while the lazy British police just yawned

He should have gone onto the street and shouted, "All queers should be stoned to death". That would have brought the cops running. They are far more interested in speech crimes than in real crimes

Charlie Skinner has always been the sort of man to step in when people are behaving badly. The kind who will remonstrate with litterbugs, or who intervenes when a hapless tourist is being taken advantage of by a slick London con artist. He’s done both in recent months, each time earning himself a foul-mouthed tirade for his trouble, and a certain amount of eye-rolling from his wife, Sian.

Married to him for 15 years, she’s had time to get used to her husband’s ‘get stuck in’ attitude, even though she has, on occasions, worried that it will land him in hot water.

And in March this year, that’s exactly what happened. On this occasion, Mr Skinner decided to try to tackle a problem that was rather closer to home, in fact, right on the doorstep of his beautiful South London townhouse.

The family’s neighbour was a 26-year-old illegal immigrant from China, called Xiao-Po He. He had for weeks been openly selling Class A drugs to a stream of customers coming in and out of his front door. A call to the police from a worried Mr Skinner resulted only in the instruction to ‘keep a log’ and, when it became clear that nothing would be done anytime soon, 47-year-old Mr Skinner chose to take the law into his own hands.

‘I have three children, who are 13, 11 and eight — if the police weren’t going to do anything to protect them from this, I knew I had no choice,’ he explains. So, posing as a customer to gain access to the next- door house, he confronted his neighbour, fighting off two of his henchmen before chasing him down the street and making a citizen’s arrest.

Such was the volume of the deadly drug crystal meth in Po He’s possession that this week he was jailed for six years after a hearing in which Mr Skinner’s behaviour won praise from the trial judge.

His story is, on one level, a heroic tale. But it is also a depressing one. Many readers will wonder why it took a mild-mannered father of three to put such a man behind bars — especially when the local police station is only a stone’s throw away.

Moreover, Mr Skinner was horrified to discover after the trial that Po He was already on bail for previous drugs offences. Despite this, he was still able to set up shop next door and start dealing drugs all over again.

‘I didn’t really think about what I was doing, I just got on with it. But it seems ironic that with a police station just a few minutes’ walk away, it took me — his neighbour — to actually intervene. You have to ask yourself what their priorities are.’

Much more HERE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine). My Home Pages are here or here or here or Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

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11 June, 2010

Dutch voters give anti-Islamic party a big boost

THE anti-Islamic MP Geert Wilders has made big gains in the Dutch general election, more than doubling his party's seats in parliament and overtaking the incumbent Christian Democrats.

Mr Wilders's Party for Freedom took third place in a close-fought election, with the right-wing liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the centre-left Labour Party neck-and-neck for the lead. With 88 per cent of Wednesday's vote counted, the VVD was one seat ahead of Labour yesterday.

Mr Wilders, who is due to appear in court later this year to face charges of inciting racism, campaigned for a halt to Muslim immigration and mosque construction, and a tax on Islamic head gear. He increased his party's seats from nine to 24.

Partial results yesterday had the VVD holding 31 seats and Labour with 30 in the 150-seat lower house of parliament.

The Prime Minister, Jan-Peter Balkenende, leader of the Christian Democrats, who have dominated for decades, was the big loser. His party's claim on seat was halved, from 41 to 21.

Mr Balkenende promptly resigned the party leadership and said he would not take his seat in parliament after leading the Christian Democrats to a historic low in the lower house.

The election was called a year early, after the Balkenende coalition government collapsed in February over disputes about Dutch participation in the war in Afghanistan.

The partial results left the shape of future government unclear, but it appeared that a four-party coalition would be needed to assemble a majority.

Mr Wilders is a potential kingmaker, with both the VVD and the Christian Democrats not ruling him out as a coalition partner. But the three parties together would barely muster half the seats, not a stable majority in a parliament which is split almost equally between right and left.

Pundits predicted the core of a government would be a coalition between the two winners, the VVD, led by Mark Rutte, and Labour, under the new leadership of Job Cohen, who was the mayor of Amsterdam until earlier this year.

The government is scheduled to present next year's budget on September 21 and Mr Rutte said during the election campaign that he wanted a new cabinet in place by July 1.

That was a "hilarious expectation, considering the Dutch history of taking months for a new government to be established", the analyst Sep van de Voort, from SNS Securities NV in Amsterdam, said in a note to investors.

It has taken an average of almost three months to form any coalition since World War II. The longest period was 208 days in 1977.

Mr Wilders hailed his result as "magnificent", although his focus on immigration and the flaws of traditional Dutch multiculturalism failed to catch fire with voters preoccupied by tax and spending issues. But many more voted for his Freedom party than predicted by all recent opinion polls.

"The impossible has happened," he told a party gathering. "We are the biggest winner today. The Netherlands chose more security, less crime, less immigration and less Islam."

SOURCE





Leftist Australian State government sets new low for being soft on crime

A PLAN to to slash the rising costs of running NSW prisons by allowing offenders sentenced to less than two years to do their time at hom has drawn fire from victims, but advocates say it is a responsible approach.

Under the proposal every criminal sentenced in the Local Court to two years or less in jail, except for sex offenders, will be eligible to serve their sentences at home. The cost to the the Government is $46 a day for home supervision instead of $194 a day to keep them in jail.

Victims groups say they are outraged at Premier Kristina Keneally's proposed solution to the high cost of keeping prisoners in overcrowded jails reported The Daily Telegraph. "It doesn't make any sense, it takes the punishment aspect of the sentence away," victims advocate Peter Rolfe said. "It is appalling. "They are going to be able to spend their time in the comfort of their own home."

Peter and Tammy Matten's home near Newcastle was robbed earlier this year and Mrs Matten chased the robber while she was heavily pregnant with their daughter. Mr Matten said it wasn't a punishment to send people home to serve jail sentences. "It wouldn't deter them at all, they're still hanging out with their friends," he said.

"If you get someone that is a drug dealer, they can still sell drugs at home. I think if you do a crime and you're arrested you are supposed to be in jail. "The guys that robbed us had done it before, a lot of people in the area have been robbed in exactly the same circumstances."

The Government claims that it was still a "prison sentence", just administered differently. But it admitted some of the state's jails were 100 inmates over capacity and there were only 300 empty cells left.

Criminals who committed offences including drug related crimes, riot and affray, assault, fraud, vandalism and break and enter would be eligible for home detention. There would be just one corrective services officer for every 20 criminals at home and only a fraction would be electronically monitored or subject to curfews. The rest would be free to travel around NSW and their only conditions would be eight hours of community service a week and a rehabilitation or education program.

They would only be sent to jail if they committed another offence or breached their "intensive correction orders".

Ms Keneally said the legislation was "tough" while her spokesman admitted rehabilitation programs in jail or periodic detention were non-existent or had failed. "It will provide the judiciary with a new option," she said. "This is about helping offenders get themselves back on the straight and narrow but those who fail to comply with the program risk spending the duration of their order in jail."

Victims of Crimes Assistance League spokesman Howard Brown told the ABC the idea would help some offenders and was an improvement on weekend or periodic dentention. "We thought it was somewhat of a perversity that we would be supervising people for two days a week, and then for the rest of the time they could basically go and do whatever they wanted," he said. "One of the beauties of these intensive direction orders is that these people would be subject to supervision seven days a week."

SOURCE





Australia: Only the fatcats thriving on aid meant for blacks

An old, old story. See also here

INDIGENOUS housing in the Northern Territory is a bigger scandal than the Building the Education Revolution rorts. But because it is located in remote Aboriginal communities, almost no one (apart from readers of The Australian) is aware of what is going on.

For many months, Nicolas Rothwell and Natasha Robinson have reported on this scandal. There have been shocking cost overruns; in one case, $183 million of taxpayer money has gone missing. And despite the billions being spent, the only people with proper housing are bureaucrats. This is a truly sorry business.

In August 2006, the Northern Territory government appointed a Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse. Its report had dramatic consequences. On June 25, 2007, then prime minister John Howard intervened. He said the report "documents in sickening detail the human misery and dysfunction in many remote Aboriginal communities" and noted his emergency response was "radical, comprehensive and highly interventionist".

So, three years on, let me revisit the chapter on housing, which reads in part: The shortage of indigenous housing in remote, regional and urban parts of the Territory is nothing short of disastrous and desperate. The present level of overcrowding in houses has a direct impact on family and sexual violence, substance abuse and chronic illness.

The report estimated that the Territory needed "a further 4000 dwellings to adequately house its present population. Into the future, more than 400 houses will be needed each year for 20 years."

The response included emergency housing initiatives to try to ensure that every child in the Territory would have a safe place to sleep: "The Australian government is investing $813m in remote indigenous housing and infrastructure in the NT, including $793m over the next four years as part of a joint agreement with the NT government."

How this has changed. It was rolled back to $672m by the federal Labor government and the program was outsourced to the Territory government. The latter's record has been disastrous: cost overruns, missing funds, administrative chaos, ministerial resignations, minority government.

Read carefully: 11 houses have been built and 160 repaired in two years for more than $200m. But at the government's valuation of $450,000 for a new house (no land costs) and $75,000 for a refurbishment, the sum spent should be only $16.85m. The location of the missing $183m is not known.

New announcements have since been made to fund infrastructure and tenancy management separately from the National Partnership Agreement, a kind of informal top-up of the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program.

The five-year, $672m program has blown out to an estimated $1.67 billion, to be funded from the 10-year $1.7bn National Partnership Agreement. Indigenous employment should increase but most indigenous workers have switched jobs or are working for the dole with no salary, no holiday pay, no superannuation, no future.

Most of us understand the correlation between unemployment, boredom and substance abuse. It was an emergency in 2007 but now it is a normal situation for many indigenous Territorians.

The story doesn't end there. The Territory government recently admitted that it has plans between now and 2013 for only 480 dwellings, to be constructed in the Maningrida, Wadeye, Galiwin'ku, Gunbalanya, Angurugu/Umbakumba and Nguiu communities, plus 85 in Alice Springs town camps.

Note the change of language. They are not building houses any more but dwellings, including one-bedroom units and pensioners' apartments; only half will be as big as three bedrooms.

Although there are hundreds of indigenous communities, only six to 15 will get new dwellings. Many will get no housing services at all. Most communities in the Territory will not have any semblance of a housing solution for the protection of children.

One wonders how the Territory could get things so wrong. In most of the larger communities, Territory government employees account for more than 20 per cent of the homes.

No new homes will be built in Papunya, although it suffers widespread overcrowding, and the proportion of houses for government employees is 27 per cent; that doesn't include federal employees in federal accommodation.

How can it be that two tiers of Labor governments can spend billions on the intervention, yet the only people enjoying proper housing are bureaucrats?

The Territory's Indigenous Affairs Department is almost a government in terms of its health, housing, education, law and order and children's services.

Territorians have a deep-seated and passionate desire to help indigenous Territorians. There is support for spending taxpayers' dollars to protect the most vulnerable, especially children. But there is no support for corrupted or mismanaged programs that cost a lot and deliver nothing.

Ten years after the first Bridge Walk for Reconciliation, the intervention is long gone, taxpayer dollars are being wasted, structural reform is not occurring, there are no economies being built (if anything they are being extinguished) and, most worryingly, the increased protection of children through improvements of their homes is still a fantasy in all but a few communities.

Kevin Rudd said sorry when the world was watching. Who will say sorry now to those men, women and particularly children of the Territory who have seen no change and are sliding backwards; or to the old lady who lives in a humpy just off the Stuart Highway 200km north of Alice Springs?

SOURCE




Furious hatred of Israel hosted on the site of Australia's public broadcaster

It's written by a Leftist Jew. It takes a Leftist Jew to get really obscene about Israel. I run a few excerpts below. In his fury the writer has lost all touch with logic and reality. What, for instance, have greenhouses got to do with chlorinating water?

And it was the Palestinians who destroyed the greenhouses anyway. The Israelis Left them as a gift to the Arabs when Israel withdrew from Gaza but because they were provided by Israel, the Arabs promptly destroyed them all.

And note that the authorities he quotes for his claims are people who are as anti-Israel as he is -- from people aboard the flotilla itself to the thoroughly discredited Amnesty International. Even the Israeli newspaper "Ha Aretz" leans Left.

Why is this garbage on the ABC? That was a rhetorical question. We know how far Left the ABC is. That the stuff is part of the "ABC for kids" website makes it particularly objectionable, however

The global outrage in response to Israel's attack on the flotilla is fitting. But we should not lose sight of why it was so terrible. This was not just an attack on aid workers.

If it were just that, it would be bad enough. In itself it would be nothing new for Israel. However, putting the attack in context more fully reveals its moral obscenity.

Paul McGeough, who was on board the flotilla, wrote that the flotilla was bringing water filtration equipment to Gaza.

The reason it chose to do so was because there is virtually no clean drinking water in Gaza. Partially due to Israel's destruction of greenhouses during its attack on Gaza from 2008-2009, the Gaza water supply was reported to be on the verge of collapse in September last year. There was an urgent need to find clean drinking water, because, as Amnesty International pointed out, some 90-95 per cent of water in Gaza was not fit for drinking.

This would be bad enough, but, as Kate Allen, head of Amnesty International UK pointed out, "Israel's continuing blockade of Gaza is preventing the importation of urgently-needed materials to repair water and sewage treatments works."

As noted in the Ha'aretz report, the unclean drinking water caused respiratory and intestinal problems to babies in Gaza.

Victoria Brittain pleaded in the Guardian for "just one corner of the blockade" to be lifted "to let water works begin and to give infant lives a chance." All it would take was "Just one telephone call from the Israeli defence ministry". This phone call still hasn't come, and Palestinian babies continue to suffer, as the world continues to watch in silence, and as Western media continues to pass over this issue....

More HERE. Extra copy here

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine). My Home Pages are here or here or here or Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

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10 June, 2010

English patriotism now respectable again in England

So far only in connection with football matches, however

Every white van seems to have sprouted one and many houses as well. Now Downing Street has announced that it too will fly the flag of St George above No10 to show support for England's footballers during the World Cup.

David Cameron said he was sure that people the length and breadth of the United Kingdom would be cheering: 'Come on England.'

The Government has also written to councils urging them not to be health and safety 'spoilsports', and to allow council staff and local businesses to fly the flag.

As the residence of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Downing Street usually flies the Union Flag. But no other home nation has qualified for the tournament in South Africa, which kicks off tomorrow.

In an apparently planted question at Prime Minister's Questions yesterday, new Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi said: 'I ask you to do a great thing for the people of England and cut through the bureaucracy and nonsense and fly the flag of England over Downing Street for the duration of the World Cup.'

To cheers from MPs, Mr Cameron replied: 'There was some question that this was going to have a cost impact but I've managed to cut through that and I can say that at no additional cost to the taxpayer the flag of St George will fly above Downing Street during the World Cup.

'For the purposes of this I'm looking at all the benches here and I'm sure that everyone in this House, no matter what part of the United Kingdom they come from, will be cheering "come on England".' ...

Mr Cameron has previously vowed to 'reclaim' the English flag from the British National Party.

Meanwhile local government minister Grant Shapps has urged councils to take a 'common sense' approach to flying the flag. It follows cases in which councils have asked for flags to be taken down on health and safety grounds.

SOURCE





British bureaucratic stupidity on display yet again

You might as well talk to a post as talk to a British bureaucrat



To mow a grass verge containing one of Britain's rarest orchids once may be regarded as misfortune. To repeat the blunder the following year starts to look like carelessness. But to chop down the same patch of endangered wild flowers three years in a row takes a particular type of bureaucratic clothheadedness.

Yesterday, council bosses admitted they have once again massacred one of the last remaining habitats of the narrow-leaved helleborine - a highly distinctive white wild flower.

The mistake has left conservationists and wildlife enthusiasts astonished and angry. They believe the orchids may never recover at the site.

The orchids are officially classed as one of the world's most 'vulnerable' flowers - meaning they are at high risk of extinction in the wild. They are found at fewer than 80 sites in the UK but most locations do not have enough flowers to ensure their survival.

For more than 50 years, the orchids have grown on a road verge at Mascoombe Bottom in the Meon Valley, Hampshire. The open conditions and south-facing slope make it ideal for the plants, which flower between May and July.

But three years ago Hampshire County Council changed its roadside mowing routine and cut down the flowers before they could set seed - putting the population at risk. The charity Plantlife contacted the council and was given a guarantee the mistake would not happen again.

But the error was repeated last year and this year by the council's contractors, despite more complaints.

Dominic Price, Plantlife's species recovery officer, said: 'When I found out last week that for the third year running the few remaining orchids had been cut before they could flower I was absolutely speechless. 'This is nothing short of a massacre of one of the UK's rarest species.'

The council was unable to say how the mistake occurred. But councillor Mel Kendal, executive member for environment, said he 'will be ensuring the council's procedure is changed so that all the designated verges of ecological importance, among the 4,000 miles of rural verges we cut, are individually assessed to protect rare species of plantlife.'

SOURCE






The plain truth about Israel -- some enlightening history

By CAROLINE B. GLICK

In other times, Hearst Newspapers White House Correspondent Helen Thomas's demand that the Jews "get the hell out of Palestine," and go back to Poland, Germany and America would have been front page news in every newspaper in the US the day after the story broke.

In other times, had the dean of the White House Correspondents Association expressed such hatred for the Jews, the White House would have immediately removed her accreditation rather than wait three days to criticize her.

In other times, the White House Correspondents Association would have expelled her. In other times, her employer - Hearst Newspapers - would have fired her.

But in our times, it took days for anyone other than Jews and conservatives to condemn Thomas's vile statements to Rabbi David Nesenoff. And she was not fired. She was allowed to retire.

Our times are times of Jew hatred. Our times are times when hatred breeds strategic madness. Our times are times when we need to recall basic truths about Israel and the Jewish people. Specifically, we must remember that the US is privileged to count Israel as an ally – whether Americans like Jews and our state or hate us.

THIS WEEK, Anthony Cordesman from the respected Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies joined the bandwagon of Israel bashers. In an article titled, “Israel as a Strategic Liability?” Cordesman asserted that Israel “is a tertiary US strategic interest.” And given its alleged insignificance, Israel must “become far more careful about the extent to which it test[s] the limits of US patience and exploits the support of American Jews.”

Cordesman argued that Israel is only an asset to the US when it is giving its land away to its neighbors. He calls for Israel to constrain its military actions and demands that it “not conduct a high-risk attack on Iran in the face of the clear US ‘red light’ from both the Bush and Obama administrations.” The fact that Cordesman’s article reflects an increasingly popular school of thought in the US is not testimony to its accuracy. Indeed, his arguments are completely wrong.

The plain truth is that Israel is the US’s greatest strategic asset in the Middle East. Indeed, given the strategic importance of the Middle East to US national security, Israel is arguably its greatest strategic asset outside the US military.

Cordesman allows that “Israel is a democracy that shares virtually all of the same values as the United States.” But he fails to recognize the strategic implications of that statement. As a democracy, unlike every Arab state, the US does not need to worry a change in leadership in Jerusalem will cause it to abandon its alliance with the US. This of course is what happened in Iran, which until 1979 was the US’s most important ally in the Persian Gulf. As Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak ages, the US faces the prospect of a post-Mubarak Egypt led by the Muslim Brotherhood similarly abandoning its alliance with America.

The fact that the US and Israel share the same foundational values also guarantees that the alliance is stable. No government in Jerusalem will ever sway the Israeli people away from America as has happened in Turkey since the Islamist Erdogan government took office in 2002.

Cordesman grudgingly allows that Israel provides intelligence to the US. But he refuses to acknowledge how important that intelligence has been. Since September 11, 2001, US military and intelligence officials have repeatedly admitted that Israeli intelligence has been worth its weight in gold for US security operations in the region and around the world.

Cordesman also notes that Israeli technology has contributed to US defense, but again, undervalues its significance. The very fact that pilotless aircraft – first developed by Israel – are the lead force in the campaign in Afghanistan and Pakistan gives lie to his tepid admission of Israel’s technological contribution to US security.

LIKE MANY on the Left, Cordesman ignores the fact that Israel’s enemies are the US’s enemies.

But his failure to note that the same people who call for Israel to be destroyed also call for the US to be destroyed does not make this fact any less true. And since the US and Israel share the same foes, when Israel is called on to fight its enemies, its successes redound to the US’s benefit.

In many ways, Israel – which has never asked the US to fight its wars – has been the catalyst for the US’s greatest triumphs. It was the Mossad that smuggled out Nikita Khrushchev’s secret speech acknowledging Stalin’s crimes at the 20th Communist Party Conference in 1956. The publication of Khrushchev’s speech in the West was the first turning point in the Cold War.

So too, Israel’s June 1982 destruction of Syria’s Soviet-made anti-aircraft batteries and the Syrian air force was the first clear demonstration of the absolute superiority of US military technology over Soviet military technology. Many have argued that it was this demonstration of Soviet technological inferiority that convinced the Reagan administration it was possible to win the Cold War.

Beyond politics and ideology, beyond friendship and values, the US has three permanent national security interests in the Middle East:

• Ensuring the smooth flow of affordable petroleum products from the region

• Preventing the most radical regimes, substate and non-state actors from acquiring the means to cause catastrophic harm

• Maintaining its capacity to project its power in the region

A strong Israel is the best guarantor of all of these interests. Indeed, the stronger it is, the more secure these primary American interests are. Three permanent and unique aspects to Israel’s regional position dictate this state of affairs.

First, as the first target of the most radical regimes and radical substate actors in the region, it has a permanent, existential interest in preventing these regimes and substate actors from acquiring the means to cause catastrophic harm.

The 1981 IAF strike that destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor prevented Iraq from acquiring nuclear weapons. Despite US condemnation at the time, the US later acknowledged that the strike was a necessary precondition to the success of Operation Desert Storm 10 years later. As Richard Cheney has noted, if Iraq had been a nuclear power in 1991, the US would have been hard pressed to eject Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait and so block his regime from asserting control over oil supplies in the Persian Gulf.

Second, Israel is a non-expansionist state and its neighbors know it. In its 62 year history, Israel has only controlled territory vital for its national security and territory that was legally allotted to it in the 1922 League of Nations Mandate which has never been abrogated or superseded.

Israel’s strength, which it has used only in self-defense, is inherently nonthreatening. Far from destabilizing the region, a strong Israel stabilizes it by deterring the most radical actors from attacking.

In 1970, Israel blocked Syria’s bid to use the PLO to overthrow the Hashemite regime in Jordan. Its threat to attack Syria not only saved the Hashemites then, it has deterred Syria from attempting to overthrow the Jordanian regime ever since.

Similarly, Israel’s neighbors understand that its purported nuclear arsenal is a weapon of national survival and hence they view it as nonthreatening. This is the reason the alleged nuclear arsenal has never spurred a regional nuclear arms race.

In stark contrast, if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, a regional nuclear arms race will ensue immediately. Indeed, it has already begun. Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other states have all signed contracts to develop nuclear installations.

Although they will never admit it, Israel’s non-radical neighbors feel more secure when it is strong. On the other hand, the region’s most radical regimes and non-state actors will always seek to emasculate Israel.

Finally, since as the Jewish state Israel is the regional bogeyman, no Arab state will agree to form an open alliance with it. Hence, it will never be in a position to join forces with another nation against a third nation.

In contrast, the Egyptian-Syrian United Arab Republic of the 1960s was formed to attack Israel. Today, the Syrian-Iranian-Turkish alliance is an inherently aggressive alliance against Israel and the non-radical Arab states. Recognizing the stabilizing force of a strong Israel, the moderate states of the region prefer Israel to remain strong.

More HERE





Obama and Hamas

Pres Obama is not letting the flotilla crisis go to waste. He is using it as a springboard to change US policy regarding Hamas. In his words, uttered in a recent interview by Larry King, ‘Time to move forward and break out of the impasse’ and “the status quo is unsustainable.” Totally aside from whether it is really unsustainable, one need not wonder how he intends to break out of the impass. He will bring Hamas in from the cold.

It was recently disclosed by Aaron Klein that:

“The group behind the Gaza flotilla that engaged in deadly clashes with Israeli commandos today counts among its top supporters the friends and associates of President Barack Obama, namely the founders of the Weather Underground terrorist organization, William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, as well as Jodie Evans, the leader of the radical activist organization Code Pink.”

Barack Obama should be included in this cast of characters.

Jerome Corsi went so far as to report:

“A top adviser to President Obama, (John O Brennan), is the contact person within the White House for communications with the Free Gaza Movement over plans to challenge Israel’s blockade of the terrorist Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, according to a reputable source close to the Netanyahu government.

The anti blockade movement was promoted by a Turkish “charity” IHH which has been designated as a supporter of Hamas by both Israel and the US. One of the backers of this “charity” is Tariq Ramadan who had been banned from entering the US due to his financial support of Hamas. Yet Obama believes that “Turkey can have a positive voice in this whole process.”

In April of this year, Obama’s administration lifted the ban on Ramadan. A week ago, the Guardian reported “Hamas leader says American envoys making contact, but not openly.” And this was before the crises. But the Obama-Hamas connection goes way back. Two years ago:

“From BizzyBlog comes evidence that Obama’s church not only has anti-white, anti-American feelings, but may also have a pro-Hamas bias. The July 22, 2007 Trinity United Church of Christ bulletin reprinted an article written by Mousa Abu Marzook, deputy of the political bureau of Hamas. Originally printed in the LA Times as “Hamas’ stand“, Pastor Wright added a new title, “A Fresh View of the Palestinian Struggle”. The Times was criticized for giving a “Platform To Genocidal Terrorist.” Where does that leave Obama’s church? Marzook is a known terrorist and created an extensive Hamas network in the United States.”

Indeed, where does that leave Obama himself? During Obama’s election campaign he was aided by Hamas-controlled Palestinians manning a phone bank from Gaza. Al Jazeera reported on the story.

Seven days later, on January 27/09, Obama allocated $20.3 million for Palestinian migration and refugee assistance. Quite a reward. Why was he bringing Hamas terrorists to the US?

But his gratitude didn’t end there. One month later, in the middle of a great economic crunch, Obama sent $900 million to Gazans or should I say Hamas.

So how does Obama intend to end the impass? An indication may be in Pres Carter’s written initiative, which he delivered to Hamas a year ago. In it, he proposed talks between the Islamist group and the U.S. without Hamas having to accept all conditions previously laid out for dialogue by the American government.

After the Hamas take over of Gaza three years ago, the US and Israel decided to impose a blockade on Gaza to bring Hamas down. Hamas started firing rockets at Israel over the next few years to force a change in this policy. This resulted in Cast Lead in which the IDF attacked Hamas and delivered a major blow. Israel shocked everyone by ending the operation before Hamas was annihilated. It was reported that she did so at the request of President-elect Obama who was about to be inaugurated.

For the time being, the rockets being fired by Hamas are few and far between perhaps because Hamas has a friend in the White House. Instead, Hamas has been planning, along with friends of Obama above mentioned and Brennan, deputy national security adviser for homeland security and counterterrorism, to break the siege with a flotilla. And to make sure to create a sufficient crises to enable Obama to chart another course more favorable to them, they planned a violent confrontation.

“Ending the impass”, means lifting the blockade. Netanyahu in a recent speech gave Israel’s bottom line saying, “Israel cannot permit Iran to establish a Mediterranean port a few dozen kilometers from Tel Aviv and from Jerusalem”. The same, I am sure, goes for an airport in Gaza.

Let’s see how Obama squares the circle. No doubt he will propose some international inspection of cargo, certainly arriving from the Mediterranean and possibly from Egypt. But Israel need look no farther than UNSC Res 1701 which ended Lebanon War II. That resolution was to put a stop to the rearming of Hezbollah. It failed miserably. Why should better results be expected in Gaza.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine). My Home Pages are here or here or here or Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

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9 June, 2010

Claudia Schiffer sparks race row after posing in afro for Karl Lagerfeld shoot



Supermodel Claudia Schiffer has been accused of being racially insensitive after she posed as a black woman, complete with afro, for the cover of a magazine. Schiffer's skin was covered in dark foundation for the shots, which were taken by celebrated fashion designer and photographer Karl Lagerfeld.

The images, which were taken in 2007 for a Dom Perignon advertising campaign, were among six shots of Miss Schiffer used by German fashion bible Stern Fotografie to celebrate its 60th anniversary. Another one of the photographs shows Schiffer, 39, made up to resemble an Asian woman.

While some fashion and photography critics have hailed the monochrome photographs as creative and clever, the image of Schiffer "blacking up" has also been branded insensitive and offensive.

Shevelle Rhule, fashion editor at black lifestyle magazine Pride, said the images were tasteless.

She told the Daily Mail: "It shows poor taste and it's offensive.

"There are not enough women of colour featured in mainstream magazines. This just suggests you can counteract the problem by using white models.

"I don't believe they deliberately set out to offend, they obviously see it as being arty and feel that they are pushing boundaries.

"But clearly no thought has been given to the history behind what they have done and the comparisons it draws with minstrel shows."

Representatives of the model claim the pictures are intended to show the model as a variety of fantasy figures and were "taken out of context".

SOURCE





The ‘Costs’ of Free Speech

Last year the Obama administration updated Washington’s official position on what forms of expression are legal. “Whether a given category of speech enjoys First Amendment protection,” Solicitor General Elena Kagan argued in U.S. v. Stevens, “depends upon a categorical balancing of the value of the speech against its societal costs.”

In April the Supreme Court treated this cost-benefit approach to the Bill of Rights’ very first proscription on federal power with the derision it deserved. Writing for an 8-to-1 majority that overturned a 1999 law restricting depictions of animal cruelty, Chief Justice John Roberts called Kagan’s argument “startling and dangerous.” The First Amendment, he explained, “does not extend only to categories of speech that survive an ad hoc balancing of relative social costs and benefits. The First Amendment itself reflects a judgment by the American people that the benefits of its restrictions on the Government outweigh the costs.”

Kagan’s claim was a timely reminder that government, everywhere and always, seeks to balance controversial speech against various counterweights: national security, concerns about the influence of money in politics, the desire to protect society from the coarsening effects of obscenity. And if a child plays any role in the cost-benefit calculation—when school safety is supposedly at issue, or in a custody battle—the counterweight is deemed very heavy indeed.

Many, perhaps most, restrictions on speech are popular when they’re enacted. The reasons aren’t hard to understand. When your overriding goal is to prevent something most decent people find abhorrent (child pornography, corporate malfeasance, terrorism), and when distasteful speech is seen to obstruct that goal, that’s when people start to say, “Normally, I’m a First Amendment absolutist, but…”

So it was that the putative free speech champions on the New York Times editorial board praised the Supreme Court’s “respectful treatment of the First Amendment” in the Stevens case but in the very same editorial pilloried the Court’s 5-to-4 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, which rejected federal censorship of a political documentary produced by a conservative group organized as a nonprofit corporation. Why the support for crush videos but not for corporate-sponsored political speech? Because legalizing the latter “opened the floodgates for big business and special-interest dollars to overwhelm American politics.” And catastrophic floods are no time for arcane constitutional debates.

Fortunately, the Framers understood that political passion too often trumps principle and that the natural reflex of people with power is to accumulate more. That is why the courts’ enforcement of constitutional restrictions is so important.

If you read one article about the Supreme Court this summer, make it Associate Editor Damon W. Root’s cover story, "Conservatives v. Libertarians." While the mainstream press continues to shoehorn all legal philosophies into a right-left spectrum, Root explores an underappreciated but equally important fault line: the split between conservatives who champion “judicial restraint” and libertarians willing to toss out even decades-old precedents if they flout the Constitution.

As Root’s article details, the tensions between these two tendencies can be found not only between established wings of the conservative legal movement but even within the minds of individual justices, especially Antonin Scalia. How those struggles play out on the Roberts court—including the unsettled question of Roberts’ own appetite and justification for overturning precedent—will go a long way in determining legal safeguards at a time of enormous government expansion.

This battle has repercussions far outside the courtroom, with echoes every time someone offers a consequentialist argument for limiting our freedom of expression. The patron saint of conservative judicial restraint, Robert Bork, shares an important trait with The New York Times and other censorious voices on the left: a belief that citizens are powerless to protect themselves from the consequences of unpleasant speech.

“Liberty in America can be enhanced by reinstating, legislatively, restraints upon the direction of our culture and morality,” Bork wrote in National Review in 2005. “Censorship as an enhancement of liberty may seem paradoxical. Yet it should be obvious, to all but dogmatic First Amendment absolutists, that people forced to live in an increasingly brutalized culture are, in a very real sense, not wholly free.”

Seeing individuals as powerless in the face of choice, or as empty vessels too easily overwhelmed by nefarious content, is a key component of paternalism. This view denies citizens their basic agency and autonomy, reinforcing the long-discredited but still popular notion that mass behavior is dictated from the top down.

“What we are facing,” President Barack Obama hyperbolized about Citizens United in early May, “is no less than a potential corporate takeover of our elections. What is at stake is no less than the integrity of our democracy.” It was a gross if common overestimation of corporate influence on our minds, and a grosser underestimation of the American people’s ability to think for themselves. Such a mindset explains how MSNBC blowhard Keith Olbermann could say something as profoundly stupid as his comment that Citizens United “might actually have more dire implications than Dred Scott v. Sandford.”

A similar note has been repeatedly sounded during the last two years of liberal anxiety over Tea Parties and allegedly resurgent right-wing violence. In April, on the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, former President Bill Clinton wrote a New York Times op-ed that echoed his unforgivably cynical reaction to the bombing when it transpired. Then as now, he linked the murderous act with the words of nonviolent political commentators.

The bombers, Clinton wrote, “took to the ultimate extreme an idea advocated in the months and years before the bombing by an increasingly vocal minority: the belief that the greatest threat to American freedom is our government, and that public servants do not protect our freedoms, but abuse them.…As we exercise the right to advocate our views, and as we animate our supporters, we must all assume responsibility for our words and actions before they enter a vast echo chamber and reach those both serious and delirious, connected and unhinged.”

Such talk doesn’t just serve the partisan purpose of marginalizing political opponents. It reflects an unseemly condescension to the consumers of political media, and it suggests a path toward censorship. Time’s Joe Klein has accused several critics of Obama—including Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Fox News in general—not just of “hate speech” but of the more legally serious “borderline sedition.” After Coburn warned that some citizens might be saying, “‘I give up on my government,’ and rightly so,” Klein charged that the senator’s statement “comes dangerously close to incitement to violence.” Needless to say, Klein wasn’t talking about criminalizing dissent back in the Bush-Cheney years.

More HERE





'A Living Icon of Journalism'

The Society of Professional Journalists honors Helen Thomas. Still!

By JAMES TARANTO

Among her many honors, Helen Thomas, who "retired" yesterday as a columnist for Hearst Newspapers, in 2000 received the Helen Thomas Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Society of Professional Journalists. As the SPJ's website explains:

The Award is named after longtime White House correspondent Helen Thomas, a living icon of journalism for her dogged pursuit of the truth in a career that has spanned almost 60 years.

We've been calling Thomas "American journalism's crazy old aunt in the attic" for years, and the events of the past few days should have laid to rest any question of which description is more accurate, ours or the SPJ's. We wondered, then, whether SPJ planned to continue giving out the Helen Thomas Award, and last night we emailed Lauren Rochester, the society's awards coordinator, to ask.

"I'm going to refer [you] to Kevin Smith, SPJ national president," she replied first thing this morning, helpfully supplying us with an email and two phone numbers. We emailed Smith this morning and left messages on both numbers just after noon Eastern time. We have not heard from him.

Smith did, however, find time yesterday to talk with David Weigel of the Washington Post, who reported that the society "may rename" the award:

Kevin Smith, the president of the SPJ, tells me that members of the executive board have been in touch with one another over "whether we need to consider this."

"I'm not personally inclined to advocate for this," Smith said. "Helen Thomas has been a member and supporter of SPJ for a very long time, and do we throw all that away for this last transgression? On the other hand, if you were Jewish and given this award, would you go up and accept it? Without taking a knee-jerk approach, you need to consider other perspectives."

Smith told me that the SPJ's board will meet in late July to discuss other issues, and that's when the subject of renaming the award--which was first given to Thomas in 2000--could come up. "But if this thing escalates," Smith said, "we won't wait until then."

And after all, these guys are only professional journalists. It's not as if they're in a business in which they routinely have to deal with fast-breaking information.

OK, we couldn't resist, but that was a cheap shot. Kevin Smith teaches at West Virginia's Fairmont State University. He's a professor of journalism, which sounds a lot like "professional journalist," but there's a huge difference--trust us.

The really appalling thing about Smith's interview with Weigel is this line: "On the other hand, if you were Jewish and given this award, would you go up and accept it?" How about if you were a decent human being? (There are at least a few among the ranks of professional journalists--trust us.) The notion that only Jews would take exception to Thomas's call for ethnic cleansing--or to the SPJ's crediting her with "dogged pursuit of the truth"--is obtuse, to say the least.

Nine journalists other than Helen Thomas have accepted the Helen Thomas Award, perhaps because they were unfamiliar with her work. Now, though, no one has such an excuse--which means that if the SPJ decides to keep the award going, it may have trouble finding someone willing to collect it. But we can help:

The obvious choice for this year's honor is Patrick Buchanan, a syndicated columnist and commentator for MSNBC and "The McLaughlin Group," who has a long history of practicing journalism in the spirit of Helen Thomas. And he's definitely not Jewish!

But we'd like to suggest a dark-horse contender: Paul Craig Roberts, also a syndicated columnist (and late-1970s veteran of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page). In September 2002 Roberts put forward this proposal, in a column you can still find at VDare.com, a usually anti-immigration website:

Terminate the Middle Eastern conflict by inviting the 5 million Jews in Israel to settle in the U.S.

The entire population of Israel amounts to no more than two years of illegal Mexican immigration. The Jews can function here, if they wish, as an autonomous ethnic enclave just like all the other enclaves created by our shortsighted immigration policy. . . .

Trying to create a small Jewish state in a sea of Muslims was a 20th century mistake. Trying to reconstruct the Middle East would be a bigger mistake.

Why not recognize the mistake, evacuate the Jews, leave the Muslims to themselves, and focus on saving our own country?

Meanwhile, MLive.com reports that Michigan's Wayne State University, from which Thomas graduated in 1942, may remove her name from the Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity Awards reception. But Ben Burns of the Wayne State journalism school, went "on to say the university will continue to offer a Helen Thomas journalism scholarship." Something tells us they'll have to pay some kid to take that off their hands.

SOURCE







Gaza flotilla: invasion of the moral armada

Everyone talks about the siege of Gaza, but a more profound problem today is the intellectual, moral siege of Israel by the Respectable World

Many people are understandably concerned about the siege of Gaza by Israel. But the flotilla incident this week confirms that there’s a more pressing, profound and almost completely unquestioned problem today: the intellectual, moral siege of Israel by the Respectable World. There is nothing remotely progressive, far less radical, in the transformation of Israel into the whipping boy of a motley crew of Western moral entrepreneurs, radical Islamists and momentum-seeking left-wing activists. In fact it is fuelled by a quite intense hypocrisy and political opportunism, and it is warping the political dynamic in the Middle East, making life worse for Israelis and Palestinians.

Of course the invasion of the flotilla by the Israel Defense Forces, during which at least nine people were killed, was a deplorable and foolish act of violence. But few people have asked what is the real purpose of this ‘humanitarian flotilla’. The activists claim they’re only interested in delivering essentials to beleaguered Gazans. Critics describe the flotilla as an ‘armada of hate’, which is delivering materials, and possibly even weaponry, to Hamas. Both sides are wrong. These boats, which have been sailing to Gaza for the past two years, are best understood as a pompous, moralistic armada, fuelled by the self-righteousness of Western and Islamist activists keen to advertise their superiority over the new pariah state of the chattering classes: Israel.

The moralistic armada is a physical manifestation of the shallow Israel-bashing that has become utterly unexceptional and uniform in respectable Western circles in recent years. These ships combine the narcissism, self-promotion, pro-interventionism and, ultimately, the pro-imperialist bent to the anti-Zionism that is now widespread in polite society. The narcissism is captured in the fact that one of the ships is called the MV Rachel Corrie, named after the 23-year-old American activist who became a hero of the Western liberal media after she was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer during a Palestinian-pity trip to the West Bank in 2003.

The self-promotion is captured in the fact that some of the great and the good have sailed on these boats, including writers, thinkers and Nobel Peace Prize Laureates. Bizarrely, Swedish writer Henning Mankell, creator of the popular Wallander detective series, was on the flotilla invaded by the IDF. So was a Swedish MP. There were 28 Britons on board the ships. Earlier ships have featured such luminaries as Lauren Booth (who built a career in journalism on the back of being the sister-in-law of Tony Blair), European MPs and a former US colonel. Does Gaza really need writers and celebs to offload food at its ports? This is naked self-promotion, the cynical depiction of oneself as a superior, humane, international-law-abiding citizen by standing, Kate Winslet-style, on the deck of a ship that is Against Israel. (The respectability of contemporary anti-Israel rage is demonstrated by the fact that the flotilla violence means Mankell will now miss his appointment to discuss the ‘Palestinian humanitarian odyssey’ with Jon Snow at the Guardian Hay Festival.)

And the pro-Western, pro-militaristic thirst behind modern-day anti-Israel sentiment is clear from the fact that many of the flotilla activists and their supporters are now calling for the ‘international community’ to punish Israel. Because Israel has crossed a ‘boundary of civilisation’, says one writer, it must have sanctions imposed upon it by the United Nations. Others are calling for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be put on trial for committing a ‘war crime’. A Guardian editorial says NATO should be sent to Israel.

These demands that the powerful institutions of the West reprimand, isolate and possibly even attack Israel give the lie to the idea that anti-Israel sentiment is a form of peace activism. It is better understood as a ramshackle, informal campaign for the assertion of Western might over a disobedient state, where no weapon in the ‘international community’s’ armoury – from sanctions to military invasion – is considered beyond the pale in the need to punish the Israelis. The response to the flotilla incident shows that some are extremely keen that their fashionable disgust with Israel be backed up by brute sanction or physical force. They are effectively demanding the punishment of Israel to satisfy their own puffed-up moral outrage against what they have decreed to be the World’s No.1 Pariah State.

The fact that the flotilla to Gaza, with its weird mix of hippy, Islamist and imperialist sentiment, was powered by an underlying desire for Western punishment of Israel does not, of course, justify the IDF’s reckless actions. But it does help to explain why Israel did what it did. These are fundamentally hostile boats – no, not because they purportedly harbour weaponry for Hamas or are packed with wannabe suicide bombers (though some on the boats have expressed their desire for martyrdom), but because they represent, fundamentally, the existential anti-Israel outlook that has manifested itself in the West in recent years. There is no nation on Earth that would not be at least concerned about the arrival of an intervention-demanding force near its shores.

The flotilla incident confirms that for many bereft and confused politicians and activists over here, supporting Palestinians has become a shortcut to discovering a sense of urgent purpose and moral meaning. Palestinians are turned into the playthings of moral charlatans, some of whom even wear the keffiyeh, in a PC version of blacking up, or go to live with Palestinians and act as ‘human shields’. In Europe in particular, shallow pro-Palestinian pity / anti-Israel sentiment is widespread, for various but always self-serving reasons. It unites the far left and the far right, with the left hoping to conjure up some profound feeling of anti-imperialist rage and the right trotting out the usual old rubbish about ‘evil Jews’. It unites radical Islamists and mainstream politicians, where Islamists sustain virtually their entire off-the-peg victim identity by pointing to Israel’s ‘genocide’ of a section of the ummah and politicians can score some easy points, especially with the influential liberal classes, by denouncing Israel.

And, as demonstrated by the UN’s unusually speedy condemnation of the flotilla incident and the Lib-Con government’s expressions of outrage, anti-Israel sentiment is extremely useful for Western governments and international bodies, too. It allows them to take the moral highground on the international stage at a time when, post-Iraq, it is increasingly difficult for them to do so. It allows them to brush over their own acts of aggression, both in the past and in the present, by going along with the idea that Israel is a uniquely colonialist, belligerent nation whom they, being whiter than white, have the right to lecture and hector. When Israel is continually said to have crossed a ‘boundary of civilisation’, governments can conveniently pose as civilised by posturing against it. This opportunity to recover some Western authority, to rehabilitate the say-so of powerful governments over ‘pariah states’, has been handed to the international community by the supposed peace activists of the anti-Israel lobby.

I don’t support Israel. I think Palestinians ought to enjoy full national independence. But I want nothing to do with the orgy of moralism directed at Israel today by a mish-mash of dinner-party liberals, radical Islamists and clapped-out left-wingers. Most dangerously of all, this rise of respectable anti-Zionism is having a detrimental impact on the ground in the Middle East, causing Israel to become increasingly isolated and its relations with surrounding Palestinian territories to become increasingly tense. When you treat a state as a pariah, it is more likely to think and act like one, to become insecure, unpredictable, to lash out violently.

These flotilla activists fancy themselves as a modern-day version of the individuals who went to Spain during the Civil War to join international brigades in fighting for a Spanish republic. Yet those individuals were driven by a thirst for freedom, by positive visions of the future, by a willingness to take serious personal risks, and above all by a belief that people alone – and not powerful, self-serving institutions – could change mankind’s destiny for the better. Not a single one of those admirable traits was present on the ship of fools sailing to Gaza.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine). My Home Pages are here or here or here or Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

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8 June, 2010

Norway: Brainwashed Science on TV Creates Storm

The heat is generated by Harald Eia, a TV-comedian turned science reporter, who is exposing social scientists and gender researchers in a not very flattering manner in a TV series called «Brainwashed». The uproar started already last summer, more than half a year before the series was ready. Some social scientists who had been interviewed by Eia, went out in the press to say they felt they had been fooled, tricked to expose themselves by «dubious» tactics.

What Eia had done, was to first interview the Norwegian social scientists on issues like sexual orientation, gender roles, violence, education and race, which are heavily politicized in the Norwegian science community. Then he translated the interviews into English and took them to well-known British and American scientists like Robert Plomin, Steven Pinker, Anne Campbell, Simon Baron-Cohen, Richard Lippa, David Buss, and others, and got their comments. To say that the American and British scientists were surprised by what they heard, is an understatement.

SCIENCES DOMINATED BY IDEOLOGY

In Norway, the social sciences have been more dominated by ideology and fear of biology than in perhaps any other country. This has a long history starting in the 60s. Social science became very much bound up with the ideology of the Social Democrats, who put pride in the fact that Norway was the most egalitarian country in the world. And with the new wealth from the North Sea oil, it became possible to create a society with very little poverty. Which of course has been good for most Norwegians.

MONEY CORRUPTS SCIENCE

But science started to suffer. With so much easy money, few wanted to study the hard sciences. And the social sciences suffered in another way: The ties with the government became too tight, and created a culture where controversial issues, and tough discussions were avoided. Too critical, and you could risk getting no more money.

It was in this culture Harald Eia started his studies, in sociology, early in the nineties. He made it as far as becoming a junior researcher, but then dropped off, and started a career as a comedian instead. He has said that he suddenly, after reading some books which not were on the syllabus, discovered that he had been cheated. What he was taught in his sociology classes was not up-to-date with international research, and more based on ideology than science.

One of the problems, which has prevailed until now, is that the social sciences in Norway not at all will consider biological (evolutionary, genetical) factors in their analyses of human behavior. Even gender roles and sexual identity are explained as 100 percent determined by culture. The theory is that boys and girls are created equal – at least in their heads. All talk about possible inborn differences in interests or capabilities was taboo. Because Norwegians wanted everybody to be equal, it was considered threatening to even ask if there might be some inherited differences. Not only between the sexes, but between people generally.

... And in Norway this became a big problem because there are few scientists, and most research is sponsored by one source, the Norwegian Research Council, which has strong links with the government.

NO CRITICAL DISCUSSIONS

The situation was such that until recently, there has been no critical discussion of the basic dogmas about sex and gender, about criminality and about the Norwegian school system. Some questions were asked when Norway joined international school tests, and we discovered that we had fallen behind, to a level with much poorer countries. And there was some discussion why the most egalitarian country in the world had bigger differences in choice of education and careers between the sexes, than any other developed country.

This has been called the «gender equality paradox», and nobody could explain it. The common reaction was that we just had to work harder to reach our egalitarian goals. But of course, this «paradox» is easily explained if one takes evolutionary psychology into consideration: Because Norway has such a high living standard that you can live a decent life also with «female» jobs such as nursing, the women now choose careers that suit their psychological needs. But to say such things aloud, was like putting yourself in the gauntlet.

If Eia had presented the series five years ago, he also would have had to try the (media) gauntlet. But even in Norway, the outside world is creeping in, and last year he felt that the time was ripe for this project. He was maybe a bit optimistic, and some of the interviews created such storm, long before the series was aired, that there was a possibility that the project has to be abandoned. Some scientists even threatened to sue him.

But his standing as the most popular TV-comedian in Norway, made it difficult for NRK (the national broadcaster) to back off, and after some delay and bitter dicussions in the media, the series went on air on March 1. It immediately became one of the most watched series on Norwegian TV, and the most watched program on internet-TV.

LOOKS NAIVE, BUT IS WELL PREPARED

For many people, it was difficult to see Eia in his new role as an investigative science reporter (a kind of science journalism’s Michael Moore), but he was well prepared. He could look naive, but he often knew more about the subjects than the scientists he interviewed, which made some of them look like arrogant ignorants. One of them fled the country, declaring that Eia had «ruined her life».

Eia's methods have been critisised as being unfair to the Norwegian scientists, but they were given a chance to defend themselves, and his ways of interviewing people are not worse than most politicians or business people are used to. One problem is maybe that the Norwegian scientists had not met any critical journalists before.

But the main problem, which Eia has exposed so brilliantly, is that much of Norwegian social science, and gender science in particular, is built on very shaky ground. Most studies have been done without even considering factors like heredity: The reason why some people turned criminals, or did badly in school, was always explained by social and cultural factors. To even mention heredity as a possible factor, was met with condescending laughter or irritation.

METHODS CRITISIED, RESULTS JUSTIFIED

Before the series, most of the social science community was very skeptical, but now even established scientists have admitted that the critical light had been justified. Another effect of the series has been that scientists you almost never heard from in the public: psychologists, biologists and other natural scientists, have started to write in newspapers and participating in debates.

So even if Eia’s methods have been critisised, there is now a general agreement that the result of this project has been good for both the sciences and society as a whole. For the first time, science is really being discussed. Even if many strange things have been said and written, this has been (and still is) a unique educational process for both the general public and the scientific community.

SOURCE





If Israel Is Not Evil, the World Is in Big Trouble

With the exception of the United States, nearly all the world's nations; newspapers, radio and TV news stations; the United Nations; and the world's Leftist academics and organizations have condemned Israel over the Gaza flotilla incident. The characterizations of the Jewish state range from a society so evil that it should not be allowed to exist to a villainous nation that is responsible for a) the suffering of millions of innocent Palestinian men, women and children; b) the lack of Mideast peace; therefore c) the Muslim world's anger at the West; and therefore d) Islamic terrorism itself.

Let's hope the world is right.

Israel is almost totally isolated. A visitor from another planet would have every reason to report back home that the greatest problem on planet earth was this planet's Jewish state. Though Israel is the size of the American state of New Jersey and smaller than El Salvador, and though its population is smaller than that of Sweden, Burundi and Bolivia, it is the most censured country in United Nations history.

Let's hope the world is right.

Though Israel is a thriving liberal democracy for all its citizens, including the one out of five that is Arab (83 percent of whom are Muslim), with an independent judiciary and press; though it signed an agreement establishing an independent Palestinian state; though it returned to Egypt every inch of the Sinai Peninsula, a land mass larger than Israel itself with major oil reserves -- the world deems Israel a villain.

Let's hope the world is right.

Though Hamas runs a theocratic police state based on torture and terror, with no freedom of speech, no freedom for any religious expression outside of radical Islam, seeks to annihilate the Jewish state, and its state-controlled media depict Israelis and Jews as worthy of death, the world sees Israel, not Hamas, as the villain.

Let's hope the world is right.

Here is a random sampling of world reactions:

"The EU condemns the use of violence that has produced a high number of victims among the members of the flotilla ..."

"The President of (France) expresses his profound emotion in the face of the tragic consequences of the Israeli military operation," Sarkozy's office said. "He condemns the disproportionate use of force ..."

"Spain unequivocally condemns the Israeli attack on the humanitarian flotilla and it does so as a country and as the acting president of the EU Council."

"Swedish Port Workers Union spokesman Peter Annerback says workers will refuse to handle Israeli goods and ships ..."

"The Swedish Football Association said it was to ask European football's highest body, UEFA, to rule if the qualifier scheduled for Friday in Tel Aviv should go ahead or not, citing the 'strong reactions in Sweden and around the world.'"

"Norway's military says it has cancelled a special operations seminar because the Defence Ministry objected to the inclusion of an Israeli army officer in the program ... Norway calls for boycott on arms to Israel."

South Africa recalled its ambassador to Israel, Ismail Coovadia, "to show our strongest condemnation of the attack."

India announced that "There can be no justification for such indiscriminate use of force, which we condemn."

"The Argentine Government expressed on Monday its condemnation of Israel's naval attack to an (sic) humanitarian six-ship flotilla."

The Brazilian Foreign Ministry in a statement said that "Brazil strongly condemns the Israeli attack, because there was no justification ..."

Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini: "I deplore in the strongest terms the killing of civilians. This is certainly a grave act."

The News, the leading Pakistani English daily: "This monstrous outrage has caught the world's attention and once again put the spotlight on the activities of a state that has been a law unto itself for most of its life."

China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu: "We were shocked by the Israeli attack which led to severe casualties and condemn it."

Let's hope that the European Union, France, Spain, Sweden, Norway, South Africa, India, Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Pakistan, China and nearly all other nations are right.

And not just nations, of course. According to Amnesty International, "It is imperative that Israel lifts the blockade of Gaza without delay, as it is a form of collective punishment ... Israel should invite the relevant UN experts to carry out an investigation ... It begs credibility that the level of lethal force used by Israeli troops could have been justified. It appears to have been out of all proportion to any threat posed."

To restate AI's positions:

1) Since blockades are "collective punishment," presumably Amnesty International deems all blockades as immoral. 2) The U.N. is fair regarding Israel, so Israel should support a U.N. investigation. 3) And the Israeli soldiers should have allowed themselves to be beaten to death rather than throw away their paintball guns and use real ones.

Let's hope Amnesty International is right.

Now, some representative views in American newspaper editorials:

The Los Angeles Times, in its editorial, posed some deep questions. Here are three:

"Were the boats ferrying novelists and Nobel Peace Prize winners and elderly Holocaust survivors, as news accounts have suggested, or seething Israel haters, as defenders of the raid would have us believe?"

Apparently, the Los Angeles Times believes that novelists, Nobel Peace Prize winners and elderly Holocaust survivors cannot be "seething Israel-haters."

"Was the goal to bring 10,000 tons of aid to needy Gazans in an act of peaceful civil disobedience, or to provoke Israel into just this sort of violent response? ..."

I did not make this up in order to embarrass the LATimes. They really posed this question.

"We agree with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that the blockade '... hurts forces of moderation and empowers extremists.'"

Unlike the Times, many of us thought that Palestinian extremists were more powerful than the "forces of moderation" prior to the blockade.

Let's hope the Los Angeles Times is right.

And now, The New York Times editorial:

"There can be no excuse for the way that Israel completely mishandled the incident ... It has damaged Israel's ties with Turkey, once its closest ally in the Muslim world."

"No excuse?" Being beaten to death by "peace activists" while carrying paintball guns is "no excuse"? And why wasn't it Turkey's sponsorship of an Islamist organization labeled a terrorist group by the American government that damaged Turkey's relations with Israel? Why is it not Turkey's cooperation with Iran's Holocaust-denying, Holocaust-planning Ahmadinejad that has damaged Turkish-Israeli relations?

Let's hope The New York Times is right.

The reason mankind has to hope that the world, its leaders, its newspapers, its so-called human rights organizations and the United Nations are right about Israel is quite simple: If Israel is the decent party in its war with the Palestinian Authority and Hamas -- and nearly all the world's countries, nearly all the world's media and the United Nations are morally wrong -- what hope is there for humanity? If the world's moral compass is that broken, are we not sailing into a dark age?

SOURCE





UK prisoners convert to Islam to get jail privileges

How crazy can you get?

INMATES in the UK are converting to Islam in order to gain perks and the protection of powerful Muslim gangs, Britain's Chief Inspector of Prisons warns today. Dame Ann Owers says that some convicted criminals are taking up the religion in jail to receive benefits only available to practising Muslims.

The number of Muslim prisoners has risen dramatically since the mid-1990s - from 2,513 in 1994, or 5 per cent of the population, to 9,795 in 2008, or 11 per cent. Staff at top-security prisons and youth jails have also raised concerns about the intimidation of non-Muslim inmates and possible forced conversions.

Dame Anne's report, Muslim Prisoners' Experiences, published today, says that, although several high-profile terrorists have been jailed recently, fewer than 1 in 100 Muslim inmates have been convicted of terrorism.

She says that prison staff are suspicious about those practising or converting to the faith and warns that treating Muslim inmates as potential or actual extremists risks radicalising them.

The report says: "Many Muslim prisoners stressed the positive and rehabilitative role that Islam played in their lives, and the calm that religious observance could induce in a stressed prison environment. "This was in marked contrast to the suspicion that religious observance, and particularly conversion or reversion, tended to produce among staff. Converts did, however, have mixed motives, which could include perceived dietary benefits, or protection within a group."

All prisons offer a halal menu for Muslim prisoners, which some inmates see as better than the usual choices. The group are also excused from work and education while attending Friday prayers. Some converts, who are known as "convenience Muslims", admitted that they had changed faith because they received better food and more time out of the cells because of the requirement to attend Friday prayers. One quoted in the report said: "Food good too, initially this is what converted me."

In some of the most secure jails, the size of the Muslim population is well above average. Two years ago, Muslim inmates accounted for a third of prisoners in Whitemoor, Cambridgeshire and a quarter of inmates in Long Lartin in Worcestershire.

The report says that inmates converted after learning about Islam from other inmates or their family, to obtain support and protection in a group with a powerful identity and for material advantages. One inmate quoted in the report said: "I've got loads of close brothers here. They share with you, we look out for each other."

Tom Robson, vice-chairman of the Prison Officers' Association, admitted that prisoners feared that guards would not be able to protect them on the wings. He said that some vulnerable and impressionable prisoners were converting because they wanted status and protection from other inmates. "What we have got at the moment is an upward trend," he said. "It is worrying."

Phil Wheatley, director-general of the National Offender Management Service, defended the way in which the service treated Muslim inmates. "Our clear policy is that all prisoners are treated with respect and decency, recognising the diverse needs of a complex prison population, and that the legitimate practice of faith in prison is supported."

Dame Anne's study is based on 85 jail inspection reports and in-depth interviews with 164 Muslim prisoners in eight jails. It follows reports of Muslim inmates seeking to assert their authority on the wings of prisons.

SOURCE






Sleazy Peter is another Israel-hating Jew

He looks good and has a nice voice and sounds vaguely reasonable at first -- but his words of praise for that great hater -- Karl Marx -- tell you all you need to know. And his other heroes are of a similar ilk. Systematic distortion of reality is the typical game of Leftist haters like Peter. Excerpt only below

The Mavi Marmara victims are the most visible of many unarmed international solidarity workers and Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli military forces at peaceful demonstrations. Charges that Israel's lethal commando assault violated international law are far from the most serious it faces, after wars on Lebanon in 1982 and 2006, and Gaza in 2008-09. The lame official excuses for the assault invite the question: what does it take for "supporters" of Israel to protest that enough is enough?

Jewish leaders and their community follow Israeli official script: the raid on the unarmed civilians of the flotilla was in self-defence, just as pasta, coriander and children's toys entering Gaza pose an existential threat to the Jewish state. The collective punishment of Gaza is merely putting them "on a diet". George Orwell would have been impressed by such Newspeak in "defence of the indefensible".

Apologists claim international outrage towards Israel is evidence of global anti-Semitism, seeking to "delegitimise" the Jewish state. The slur has caused non-Jewish commentators and individuals to avoid public criticism. The Jewish establishment has even sought to discredit human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, though the same criticisms may be found in reports of Israel's own B'Tselem.

For such reasons, in a recent article in the New York Review of Books, Peter Beinart has charged the diaspora Jewish establishment with being detached from reality, failing to recognise "Israel is becoming (has become) a right-wing, ultra-nationalist country" being abandoned by younger liberal and progressive Jews. As early as 1948, an open letter published in The New York Times signed by Hannah Arendt, Einstein and others warned against the fatal combination of "ultra-nationalism, religious mysticism and a propaganda of racial superiority".

The question of Jewish identity and responsibility has been posed acutely by some Jews themselves, those who break ranks - those referred to in Isaac Deutscher's essay as ''The Non-Jewish Jew''. Among these, Baruch Spinoza (1634-77) is described by Bertrand Russell as "the noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers". For his heresies, he was given the severest punishment, Cherem - permanent excommunication from the 17th century Amsterdam Jewish community.

He notes the paradox that Jewish heretics who transcend Jewry belong to a characteristically Jewish tradition, among the great revolutionaries of modern thought, including Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. To Deutscher's list we may add Hannah Arendt, the late renegade American historian Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, all reviled by their communities....

In view of the brutal occupation of the West Bank, inhumane blockade of Gaza, continuing dispossession, injustice and suffering of the Palestinians, Jews might heed Einstein's prophetic warning in 1955: ''The attitude we adopt towards the Arab minority will provide the real test of our moral standards as a people.''

More HERE. The author above is Peter Slezak, senior lecturer at the University of NSW's school of history and philosophy of science (Australia).

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine). My Home Pages are here or here or here or Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

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7 June, 2010

Polls say Coalition would defeat Labor in next election over mining tax

Mining is Australia's No. 1 export industry so the traditional Leftist hatred of it is disastrous

THE results of two new polls show the Federal Government will lose the next election, with voter dissatisfaction over the proposed $12 billion mining super profits tax a key issue.

A Newspoll survey, commissioned by the mining industry, shows 48 per cent of those polled are against the new tax and 28 per cent support it, but marginal seats in Western Australia and Queensland would swing the vote to the Opposition, The Australian reports.

The poll of 1800 voters was taken between Monday and Thursday last week in the Labor marginal seats of Dawson, Flynn and Longman in Queensland, Wakefield, Hindmarsh and Kingston in South Australia, and Perth, Brand and Hasluck in WA.

The Australian says if even half of those voters shift to the Coalition at the election, which is expected by October, Labor will lose the 10 seats it needs to hold government -- at least eight marginal seats in Queensland and three in Western Australia.

Voter are showing discontent against the mining tax, with only 13 per cent believing the tax should go through unchanged.

Many believe the tax will make them worse off financially, with 78 per cent of those polled wanting the Federal Government to either negotiate a tax "more acceptable to the mining industry" or to drop the tax.

One in three people who said they voted Labor at the last election - 33 per cent - said they were against the tax while 42 per cent supported it.

Meanwhile, The Sydney Morning Herald say the Coalition has achieved a clear election-winning lead in the latest Nielsen poll.

The Coalition's 53-47 lead in the poll was down from an even 50-50 split a month ago. The two-party preferred result translates to a six per cent swing if an election had been held over the weekend, and would result in the ALP losing 29 seats, handing the majority to Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has hit back at the polls, saying better explaining his plans for Australia will be the key to stopping Tony Abbott from snatching his job. "The truth is, if these polls were reflected on election day, Mr Abbott would become the prime minister," he said. "The challenge for me, and for the government, is to work harder into the future. "We've got a huge amount of work to do, to explain my plans, as opposed to Mr Abbott's plans."

SOURCE






Leftist educators still trying to dodge phonics

There is something in their addled brains which makes them hate the fact that it is the best way to teach literacy. They seem to see it as "too teacher-centred", or some such bulldust

THE place in the national curriculum for teaching letter-sound relationships to students learning to read is "submerged in a sea of competing strategies" that confuses teachers and students, say leading researchers.

In a submission on the national English curriculum, some of the nation's most respected scientists in reading research are concerned that while the requirement to teach phonics is included in the curriculum, it fails to clearly state the best way to teach it as shown by research.

The submission says the curriculum "makes reference" to sound-letter correspondences but it lacks a statement clearly specifying that all sound-letter correspondences be taught intensively and systematically. It also fails to specify the teaching of the skills of blending sounds for reading and of segmenting sounds for spelling, and that decoding skills be taught "to the level of fluency".

The signatories to the submission include Macquarie University professors Max Coltheart and Kevin Wheldall, who developed MULTILIT (Making Up for Lost Time In Literacy), a phonics-based remedial reading program that is being trialled in NSW schools this year. It is the first direct comparison in Australia between phonics-based and other teaching strategies for reading.

The submission argues that the curriculum continues to give emphasis to a discredited system for teaching reading, known as the three cues, which includes phonics as one part, but not the first step, in reading, alongside the syntax of the sentence and the shape of the word.

"The three-cueing system is a seriously flawed conception of the processes involved in skilled reading, and the practices flowing from its misconception may have contributed to the problems experienced by an unacceptably large number of students," the submission says.

"The Australian curriculum is unclear about which skills are crucial in learning to read. This leads to confusion between the processes involved in learning to read (decoding text) and the processes involved in understanding what has been read."

The dominant strategy for teaching reading in Australia since the late 1970s has been the "whole language" approach, which assumed children learned to read in the same way they learned to speak through exposure to books and reading.

Its proponents contend that children were taught to look at the picture on the page, the shape of the word, the initial letter and guess the word given its place in the sentence.

The submission quotes British studies of eye movement and brain research that have shown that, when reading takes place, decoding or sounding out always takes place before the understanding of words or sentences.

SOURCE






Most Australians prefer tougher approach to illegal immigration, poll finds

ALMOST two-thirds of voters support the Coalition's decision to reintroduce the Howard government's "Pacific solution" for dealing with asylum seekers who arrive by boat.

The latest Herald/Nielsen poll also finds the Coalition the preferred party overall to deal with asylum seekers which is looming as a central issue in this year's federal election.

The poll of 1400 voters, taken between Thursday and Saturday, came after the announcement by Tony Abbott that a Coalition government would once more detain asylum seekers indefinitely in locations such as Nauru. The Coalition would also reintroduce the controversial temporary protection visas which Labor abolished on humanitarian grounds.

The poll found 62 per cent of voters supported "the Howard government's policy of processing asylum seekers in countries outside Australia". A minority of 33 per cent opposed the policy.

Asked which party had the best asylum-seeker policy, 35 per cent nominated the Coalition while support for Labor and the Greens was 19 per cent and 18 per cent respectively. "A majority of Australians are likely to support policies presented as tough and uncompromising and are less likely to support policies perceived as soft," said a Nielsen pollster, John Stirton.

So far this year 133 boats have arrived in Australian waters and Labor MPs reported to caucus last week the arrivals were becoming a dominant concern among voters.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said he would not engage in a policy race to the bottom with Mr Abbott but promised to explain the facts more often to offset some of the myths and fears being perpetrated. For example, Australia took about 13,000 refugees a year, whether they arrived by boat or air. If boat arrivals increased, the net intake would not, he said.

The Opposition claims the government has lost control of the borders. It said the arrival of four boats in two days over the weekend showed the three-month and six-month processing freeze the Rudd government placed on Sri Lankans and Afghans respectively had failed to deter asylum seekers.

Asylum seekers found on the most recent boats were intercepted north of Ashmore Island and Scott Reef. They are en route to Christmas Island where 2436 people are detained in facilities with space for 2500.

The government has budgeted for the arrival of 2000 asylum seekers by boat in the year to June 30 next year. This is a drop on the year before but costs will double as more people fight their deportation and spend longer in detention to do so. The rates of rejection are increasing, with almost half of the 480 who arrived last year rejected as refugees by the Immigration Department in the past two months.

As the government postponed the transfer of about 30 families to the remote mining town of Leonora yesterday, it prepared the detention centre in Curtin to receive hundreds of asylum seekers affected by the April 9 suspension.

"The policy has been as ineffective as it is discriminatory," the opposition immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, said. The first transfer of 90 people to Leonora, scheduled for yesterday, was cancelled.

SOURCE






Climate fraud in the Australian scientific establishment

A very fresh example is a document published in March 2010 as a joint effort between the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology called “State of the Climate”. In the preamble to the document, this statement is made: 

The Bureau of Meteorology has been observing and reporting on weather in Australia for over 100 years, and CSIRO has been conducting atmospheric and marine research for over 60 years

Now the CSIRO might be forgiven for not having a corporate memory more than 60 years long, but why did they and the Bureau of Meteorology only use 50 years of data to produce the following graph when they had more than 100 years of data they could have used? 


Figure 71: Dubious graph from CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology document

Well the reason they did not use a longer time period is that it would not have shown the warming trend that they needed to portray. They started their graph in the 1970s cooling period despite having a data record more than twice as long. 

Evidence of how low these institutions have fallen is on the back page of the State of the Climate document, on which it is stated: 
Australia will be hotter in coming decades

"Australian average temperatures are projected to rise by 0.6 to 1.5 ºC by 2030. If global greenhouse gas emissions continue at current levels, warming is projected to be in the range of 2.2 to 5.0 ºC by 2070. Warming is projected to be lower near the coast and in Tasmania and higher in central and north-western Australia. These changes will be felt through an increase in the number of hot days."

It is very likely that human activities have caused most of the global warming observed since 1950  

"There is greater than 90% certainty that increases in greenhouse gas emissions have caused most of the global warming since the mid-20th century. International research shows that it is extremely unlikely that the observed warming could be explained by natural causes alone. Evidence of human influence has been detected in ocean warming, sea-level rise, continental-average temperatures, temperature extremes and wind patterns. CSIRO research has shown that higher greenhouse gas levels are likely to have caused about half of the winter rainfall reduction in south-west Western Australia."

"Our observations clearly demonstrate that climate change is real. CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology will continue to provide observations and research so that Australia’s responses are underpinned by science of the highest quality."

Consider the claim above that, "CSIRO research has shown that higher greenhouse gas levels are likely to have caused about half of the winter rainfall reduction in south-west Western Australia.” in the light of Figure 8 in this book showing that all the warming in the Perth temperature record in the last 100 years occurred in one year, 1976. These once-worthy institutions are relying upon a credulous public to swallow their absurd claims without question. 

The CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology management and research staff will eventually claim that they were relying upon IPCC research. But as one of the Climategate conspirators, Tom Wigley, said in an email dated 25^th November, 1997: 

"No scientist who wishes to maintain respect in the community should ever endorse any statement unless they have examined the issue fully themselves."

On the subject of scientists not making statements unless they have examined the issue fully themselves, consider this one quoting Australia’s Chief Scientist, Professor Penny Sackett on 4^th December, 2009: 

The planet has just five years to avoid disastrous global warming, says the Federal Government’s chief scientist. Professor Penny Sackett yesterday urged all Australians to reduce their carbon footprint.

The Chief Scientist’s statement is idiotic and patently false, more worthy of a Chief Shaman. There is no physical evidence anywhere on the planet that “disastrous global warming” will start by 2014, or any time at all. The position of Chief Scientist should be the last line of defence of the Australian public from the depredations of any rent-seekers and carpetbaggers. Instead she has joined the chorus that wants to condemn the Australian nation to penury. The Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO have failed the Australian public dismally. That is putting it mildly. In truth, they have conspired against the Australian nation. 

Professor Sackett’s most credible defence for making that idiotic statement might be that she has never associated with any climate scientists. Someone who did, Professor James Lovelock, is quoted by the Guardian newspaper on 29^th March, 2010 as saying: 

"The great climate science centres around the world are more than well aware how weak their science is. If you talk to them privately they’re scared stiff of the fact that they don’t really know what the clouds and the aerosols are doing. They could be absolutely running the show. We haven’t got the physics worked out yet.

I have seen this happen before, of course. We should have been warned by the CFC/ozone affair because the corruption of science in that was so bad that something like 80% of the measurements being made during that time were either faked, or incompetently done."


Figure 72: Global Historical Climate Network raw and adjusted temperatures, Darwin Airport

Back on the subject of alarmist scientists fraudulently concocting data, Figure 72 above shows the manipulation applied to Darwin’s temperature record in order to manufacture a warming trend. The blue line is the original raw data which shows a significant cooling trend of 0.7°C per century. The red line is the adjusted data used to promote global warming alarmism. The black line shows the adjustment applied – a total of 2.2°C in sixty years! We can see that professionals did this job, because they added a little bit of cooling in the 1920s to make the uptrend seem more significant.


Figure 73: Data manipulation applied to the Prague, Czech Republic temperature record

Similar to Darwin, the warming scientists added over 2.2°C to the beginning of the Prague record to change an inconvenient cooling trend into a supportive warming one. 

The corruption of the world’s temperature data sets by this sort of manipulation prompted the UK Met Office to announce on 25^th February, 2010 that it is going to re-examine more than 150 years of global temperature records. The Met Office expects to take three years to complete the task, giving an indication of how corrupted the data set has become. 

More HERE



6 June, 2010

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG is appalled by the lies and deceit that flow from Prime Minister Rudd. The truth is of course a very low priority for Leftists generally. "Only when it suits me" is their system.





What price a Premier who breaks the laws she is supposed to be in charge of enforcing?

No surprise from a Leftist. "There is no such thing as right and wrong" is the Leftist mantra, after all. But it is odious nonetheless. Chicago-esque, one might say. Obama would understand

PREMIER Kristina Keneally is under investigation by the NSW Ombudsman over alleged breaches of the State's whistleblower laws. The Sunday Telegraph can reveal the watchdog has begun an inquiry into claims Ms Keneally and her office compiled a "dirt file" on a whistleblower who exposed corruption by Penrith MP Karyn Paluzzano.

The news is yet another blow to the the Government after three ministerial resignations in two weeks.

Yesterday, Governor Marie Bashir signed off on the Labor Government's 169th ministerial change since the 2007 election, swearing in the ministers who will assume the duties of Ian Macdonald and Graham West. With 293 days to go to the March 26 election, the Premier looked tired as she accompanied Treasurer Eric Roozendaal, John Robertson, Kevin Greene, Paul McLeay and Barbara Perry - who will split the departed ministers' responsibilities - to Government House.

The inquiry by the Ombudsman's Office focuses on statements made by Ms Keneally's office following revelations a staffer in Ms Paluzzano's office had made a complaint about her to the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). Tim Horan, Ms Paluzzano's former campaign manager, told the corruption watchdog that he believed his boss had been rorting her entitlements by falsifying the pay records of her staff. His complaint followed Ms Paluzzano raising issues about his work with the clerk of the Legislative Assembly, Russell Grove.

News of Mr Horan's complaint in early February sent Ms Keneally's office into damage-control mode, with journalists being told Mr Horan himself had been the subject of a workplace misconduct allegation. Ms Keneally issued a statement: "I understand that the person who made these claims to ICAC is the subject of an independent investigation by the NSW Parliament." The Premier suggested at the time the complaint by Mr Horan was "vexatious" in nature.

A month later, Ms Paluzzano resigned from Parliament after admitting to misusing public funds and lying to ICAC when formally interviewed about the allegations. A by-election for her seat will be held in a fortnight.

The Ombudsman's Office is examining whether Ms Keneally's office sought to undermine Mr Horan through the media. It is also examining whether her office was in possession of a dirt file on Mr Horan. Under the State's Protected Disclosures Act, it is illegal to persecute whistleblowers.

The office states the legislation is designed to encourage people who work within the NSW public sector to report maladministration, serious waste and wrong conduct. Where a whistleblower suffers as a result of making a complaint, the Office can recommend the perpetrator to be prosecuted.

A spokesman for Ms Keneally said: "On February 16, the ICAC found in a public finding that no one had breached the State's protected disclosure laws in relation to this matter."

SOURCE





More boats, and Rudd sacks the gatekeepers

By Andrew Bolt

Rudd’s border protection policies are leaking worse than ever:

A boat carrying 39 suspected asylum seekers was intercepted northwest of Ashmore Islands on Saturday morning.

It comes after a boat with 54 asylum seekers was stopped on Thursday night, just 25 hours after a vessel with 28 people was intercepted in the same area.

Oops - a fourth boat in 48 hours:

In the afternoon, a Customs boat responded to calls for help from another vessel that had engine problems north of Scott Reef. It is believed there were 46 passengers and three crew onboard the second ship.

What on earth made these people think Rudd was soft? Well, perhaps one clue is the sacking last week of many of the tougher members of the Refugee Review Tribunal, which now has on its selection panel the president of the Refugee Council of Australia.

Former RRT member Peter Katsambanis describes what has happened:

In his press release, the Minister makes no mention at all that 21 members were not reappointed. Now 2 or 3 of the 21 did not reapply as they were retiring but the rest were dumped. 46 members were up for reappointment - 25 were reappointed and 21 were not. This includes a number of very senior, very experienced members who have worked on the Tribunals for over 10 years.

Why gut the Tribunal in this way of you are not looking for a softer, more facilitative approach? The sacked members were highly competent individuals who did their jobs well without fear or favour. If it really was a merit-based selection process the only reason you would sack over 40% of the members due for appointment is because of lack of competence. If these people were incompetent then our federal courts would be full of appeals that would succeed. They are not.

No matter how the government dresses this up, it is simply another element of its softer approach on asylum seekers. The people smugglers will be celebrating all over south east Asia.

I’ve looked up just a few of the new appointments to the RRT, and think Katsambanis is not exaggerating at all:

Charlie Powles - Solicitor for RILC (Refugee and Immigration Law Centre) in Melbourne

Anthony Krone - Melbourne barrister who proclaims that he has appeared for hundreds of asylum seekers in Australia and who used to work for the Refugee Advice and Casework Service.

Clyde Cosentino - director of the Brisbane Catholic Archdiocese’s Centre for Multicultural Pastoral Care

Vanessa Moss - Solicitor for SCALES Community Legal Centre (Southern Communities Advocacy Legal Education Service), one of the leading refugee advocacy groups in WA.

Rowena Irish - solicitor for the Immigration Advice and Rights Centre Inc in Sydney

I’m sure these new people will decide each case on the facts - as did those they replace. Yet it seems beyond doubt to me that the message has gone out to be quicker to let in asylum seekers. I’ve already interviewed several serving and former RRT members who say they are in no doubt of this, and work in a “culture of fear”. And that was before this latest news of the appointment of new RRT members who have been previously worked to break down the doors for their clients.

Something stinks.

SOURCE






Train rampage leaves man seriously injured

How odd that no identifying information about the "youths" has been released. Want to bet that they were Africans? Silence is eloquent where the Victoria police are concerned

A man has undergone surgery for serious head injuries after a group of youths attacked a trainload of passengers in Melbourne overnight.

Police say that between seven and ten youths boarded the Frankston-bound train at 11pm and began harassing passengers, including threats with a broken bottle.

Some of the youths jumped onto the tracks at McKinnon station and threw rocks and other material at the windows, smashing the glass. A piece of ballast was thrown at a passenger, leaving him with life-threatening head injuries.

The group scattered when police arrived, but a 17-year-old man was arrested at the scene. He was interviewed by police and remanded in custody in relation to another matter.

The 29-year-old Frankston South man underwent surgery at The Alfred this morning.

Police are appealing for witnesses to the assault, in particular the 40-50 passengers who alighted at McKinnon station and were waiting on the platform.

SOURCE






Black educational achievement can be greatly improved -- by strict drill, not by woolly-headed Leftist methods

By Miranda Devine

When the Cape York Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson was in year 5 at Hopevale primary school, in the mid-1970s, a fill-in teacher arrived to take his class. She was an older woman, but he can't remember her name. He can remember names of more charismatic teachers.

He just remembers a "long, torrid" year with this nameless teacher, who had once taught high-school English and who drilled the children in literacy so intensively it felt "like doing football practice day in and day out".

That was the year of his "literacy breakthrough", he remembers, and when he went away to boarding school in Brisbane at the Lutheran St Peter's, he outshone most of his contemporaries in English. He continued to do so at Sydney University where he took his history and law degrees.

It was in this teacher's classroom that the seeds were sown for the high-stakes education revolution he has launched on Cape York, to erase a generation's dysfunction and lost opportunity.

It was there that Pearson came to understand that the "essence of the good teacher is above all the quality of their instruction", as he wrote last year. This led him eventually to the door of a 78-year-old professor at the University of Oregon last year.

Pearson remembers his old teacher used a boxed set of cards for the literacy exercises, which the children called "SRA cards" because they were published by the mysterious sounding Science Research Associates. Thirty-five years later he discovered the SRA and its cards had been part of a teaching method known as Direct Instruction, designed by Professor Siegfried Engelmann.

The discovery came via Bernadine Denigan, the inspirational chief executive of Cape York Partnerships, who went to the US on a Churchill fellowship two years ago and discovered the startling successes Direct Instruction was having in similarly disadvantaged schools in places as diverse as Harlem and Nebraska.

As Pearson wrote in a brilliant article entitled Radical Hope in Quarterly Essay last year, Engelmann's contribution is "the most profound of any education theorist in the modern era and yet he labours in near complete-obscurity".

The American adman turned education professor designed the teacher-proof program that allows children, particularly those from disadvantaged background, to excel. The teacher reads exercises to children from a set script, with clear examples, consistent working and explicit phonics, delivered with high energy and at a fast pace. Children are placed in classes according to ability and only progress when they have mastered every lesson in the workbook. Like phonics, it is unfashionable in the "pupil-directed learning" milieu. Pearson had to fight to get the $7 million, three-year trial off the ground at Coen and Aurukun schools this year.

Undermined by elements of the Queensland education bureaucracy, he had to replace both principals this year and a number of teachers.

But he expects the program to work better than what he calls the Groundhog Day of "shameful failure" in which Aboriginal children are two to four years behind their non-indigenous counterparts.

At Aurukun school last week, where I saw the program in action, Lizzie Fuller, a 25-year-old from Orange, says Direct Instruction just "makes sense. It takes all the guesswork out of teaching. You thrive on the results and the kids thrive on the lessons."

She tells of the student who was moved into a higher ability group who came to her at the end of the day and said: "Miss, I am just so proud of myself."

This is real self-esteem, says Pearson, the kind that comes from achievement rather than the illusory sort that comes from people offering you false praise.

Last week, a year 4 girl, Imani Tamwoy, became the first child to catch up to her grade level in reading, a significant achievement in Aurukun.

Colleen Page, a 24-year-old teacher from the Sunshine Coast, in her third year at the school, says her students revel so much in synonyms they now will say, "Miss, I'm feeling indolent today" rather than "lazy".

Another teacher, Patricia Thompson, has also noticed "a big change in my kids - there's been a big improvement in behaviour because they've learned to read … We [teachers] love it."

At Coen School, where Pearson's cousin Cheryl Canon, from Hopevale, is the new principal, results are similarly pleasing after just 18 weeks.

Visiting the school last Friday, Pearson is delighted at what he sees in Majella Peter's class. A tall, elegant Coen local, she is not a trained teacher but a tutor who completed an 18-month traineeship at the school in 2006, and had a four-week crash course in Direct Instruction this year. With her script in front of her she briskly moves her small class through the morning's work. "Is this food?" she says in the instructor's bright, energetic voice. "What kind of food is it?"

"This food is a carrot."

Her pupils sit in rapt attention, calling out answers in unison.

Pearson says it was NAPLAN testing in 2008, showing abysmal scores for Aurukun, Coen and other Cape York schools, that prompted concerns by parents. For all the sophisticated explanations from teachers' unions about why NAPLAN rankings are a disaster for our children's education, there is a countervailing story out in the real Australia.

On Cape York, in the nation's most disadvantaged schools, the NAPLAN tests of 2008 actually empowered parents to demand a better education for their children. When they saw how far below the national average their schools had scored in the 2008 test, they demanded answers.

At Aurukun, test results were at least 70 per cent below the national benchmark in reading, writing, numeracy, spelling, grammar and punctuation. The precipitous step on a bar chart of comparative results says it all.

At Coen School, Pearson's Cape York Institute has been running a successful phonics-based remedial literacy program MULTILIT with Macquarie University. The results were more encouraging, with all year 7 students at or above the national minimum standard in writing, spelling and numeracy.

But having made the commitment to send their children to school - and with attendance rates climbing - Cape York parents felt the schools were letting them down on their side of the bargain.

It was welcome criticism for Pearson, who has spent years drumming up parental involvement in education and has introduced a suite of radical social reforms, including student trust accounts to pay for future education expenses. Education is the crucible around which his plans for Cape York revolve - for welfare reform and economic self-sufficiency to end the cycle of despair that comes from passive welfare dependency.

The next NAPLAN results in 2012 are expected to bear the fruits of his work.

SOURCE






ABC's stitch-up of Bjorn Lomborg

Interview? More like an ambush, as Robyn "100 metres" Williams on ABC's Science Show devotes a long segment of the programme to Howard Friel, who has been embraced by the warmists for having written a book criticising Bjorn Lomborg's book Cool It. Before we even start, you kind of know people are really desperate when they have to write an entire book just to for that purpose. But anyway, we'll let that pass.

Firstly, however, and I'm sorry to ask . but just who the hell is Howard Friel? I cannot find anything about him other than he is an "author". Take a look at his Wikipedia entry - blink and you'll miss it. He has no history of writing about climate, no knowledge of climate science that I can find, no qualifications whatsoever in fact to write such a book. Ah, hang on a minute - qualifications only matter if you're a sceptic, right? That must be it - Al Gore gets a free pass to say whatever he likes - but every utterance of a sceptic is scrutinised to the last letter, including his qualifications. So I think we'll do the same, just for balance: where are yours?

Williams gives him a completely free ride to plug his book and dump on Lomborg - fully two-thirds of the interview is devoted to Friel, with barely a third given over to Lomborg in the middle - nice touch that, because Friel can have another go at him at the end. Why should this surprise us? Williams is a paid up climate change believer, and will obviously skew interviews to fit his own biased agenda. To start with however, we have a full-blown Denier Alert:

Friel: I think he would be fairly classified as a climate denier. He takes almost every climate related issue from polar bears to melting glaciers to rising sea levels, and in my view very problematically downplays the significance of the impact of global warming on these areas. So people would classify him as a sceptic that is one notch above a denier, but I would not do that, I think he's close to being a climate denier based on his actual work.

Phew, well at least we've got the inevitable ad hominem out of the way. Friel then goes on to quote unfavourable reviews of Lomborg's earlier book The Sceptical Environmentalist by scientists such as, wait for it, Stephen Schneider [no giggling at the back, please], and Obama warming-fruitcake and Paul-Erlich-bet-participator-and-loser John Holdren (see here). Quelle surprise! Then we move on to the (also inevitable) topic of polar bears where Friel claims that polar bears are a "threatened species" in the Arctic and that there is no way that the polar bears could survive if the Arctic sea ice disappeared. This is despite the fact that polar bear populations are actually thriving (as the Canadian Inuit people, who actually live there and can observe first hand, have recently confirmed), and survived through the 1930s and 1940s when there was less sea ice than today (and during plenty of other even warmer periods in the past).

Friel then claims the Little Ice Age was a "North Atlantic phenomenon" and claims that the "cryosphere is melting". Clearly Friel hasn't looked at the Antarctic ice records for the past 30 years.

When Lomborg finally gets the opportunity to put a word in edgeways, he explains that:

[Friel] didn't try to contact me or anything before he wrote the book.

Of course he didn't - if he'd actually discussed any of this with Lomborg, and given him the opportunity to respond before it was published, it would have sunk the whole project. Lomborg is rightly irritated with the manner in which Friel attacks the book:

In many ways it seems like a hit job, it seems almost insistent on not understanding what I am saying.
[It] seemed more like he was just intent on finding fault anywhere, even where there is no fault to be found.

Well, mate, that's exactly why he's doing it. His mind is made up on climate change. I think we know who the real denier is in all this. Williams then taunts Lomborg with the line:

[Friel's] got some very good reviews of his book, hasn't he?

One of which was by Newsweek warm-monger Sharon Begley - again, quelle surprise. The really funny thing about all this is that Lomborg is the last target the warmists should focus on - he is really a believer in serious man-made warming, but merely thinks that there are better ways of spending taxpayers' money to deal with it than by attempting to limit CO2 emissions.

Then Friel is wheeled back on for the final assault, and whines that he doesn't know where Lomborg got a copy of his book so early, and says that's "a question which maybe I would like to have some answers about"! Gee, maybe he stole it! Call the police! But Williams leaves the best (worst) bit until last:

Robyn Williams: One thing you don't say in your book is that he's in any way linked to a pressure group, a lobby group or anything like that, and that's the sort of thing that one would want to know, because suddenly this young man comes from nowhere, from Denmark, an economist, talking about environmental science. What's behind the Lomborg phenomenon?

Howard Friel: That's a very good question. I chose not to address it, as you say. Let me say this about that though, I find it very interesting that Lomborg's main plank which he repeats over and over again which has been completely consistent over the course of almost a decade now, that he is opposed to cuts in CO2 emissions. If you look at who that benefits that would be the coal and oil industries. I have no evidence that he's being paid by the coal and oil industries, I don't know one way or the other, but I do know that based on my research that his argument that it would be better for the Earth to forgo cuts in CO2 are ridiculous and absurd and reckless, and one would have to wonder why he is making this claim, especially since over and over again he cannot support the particulars of his claim with his own scholarship, even with his own footnoted sources.

He doesn't know, he just hints at it with innuendo, helpfully prompted by Williams. But in the case of a sceptic, that's good enough. Big Oil. That's the only motivation for anyone ever to question the hysterical alarmism of the IPCC, the ABC and Williams. And the hypocrisy of billions of dollars of government funding globally for climate alarmism encouraged by deep green environmental groups completely escapes them! Says it all, really.
Your ABC - Banging the drum for climate alarmism, even when it's half-baked alarmism from somebody nobody has ever heard of, who knows nothing whatsoever about climate.

You can read it and listen to it here, and see Lomborg's rebuttal here (there's also a lengthy PDF as well).

UPDATE: Howard Friel responds personally to this post in the comments section (see here)

SOURCE



5 June, 2010

Queensland looks set to turf Rudd out over mining tax

Queensland is a key swing state. If he loses in Queensland he will almost certainly go down overall -- and Queensland is heavily dependant on mining

A BACKLASH against Labor's super mining tax in Kevin Rudd's home state could make him a one-term Prime Minister. A Galaxy Poll - conducted exclusively for The Courier-Mail - warns that, if an election were held today, Mr Rudd would lose in his own backyard.

On the crucial two-party preferred vote, the poll has Labor in Queensland on 48 per cent to the Coalition's 52 per cent. A battleground state, Queensland delivered Mr Rudd victory in 2007 but is home to eight marginal Labor seats.

Galaxy found the proposed super profits tax was fuelling dissatisfaction and the political fallout in Queensland is knocking the sheen off Mr Rudd's once stratospheric personal popularity. It also revealed Mr Rudd is in a virtual dead heat as preferred prime minister with Tony Abbott, and that Labor now trails the Coalition on the question of who would be the better economic manager.

The poll found a majority of Queenslanders opposed the mining tax, including one-third who were strongly against it. Half of all Labor voters polled and two-thirds of Queenslanders thought Mr Rudd and his team had done a bad job explaining how the $9 billion revenue-raiser works.

The mining industry's campaign to scuttle the tax has forced Labor on to the back foot and the fallout over Xstrata's decision to suspend two Queensland projects continues.

The poll shows 80 per cent of Queenslanders – as well as two-thirds of Labor voters – disapprove of taxpayer funds being used to pay for the Government's $38 million advertising campaign to sell the tax.

Galaxy chief executive David Briggs said support for Labor had plummeted in Queensland because of the resources super profits tax: "Not only do the majority of voters oppose this new tax but attempts to rectify the situation through taxpayer-funded advertising is attracting criticism which could make the whole exercise counter-productive."

The poll revealed Labor's primary vote had dropped four points since February, to just 35 per cent, compared to 42.9 per cent at the federal election. If preferences were allocated as per the last election, Labor would lose 2.4 per cent off its two-party preferred vote. Mr Briggs said that, if this swing was repeated across Queensland, the Government would lose many of the seats it picked up three years ago.

The Government - which shepherded Australia through the global economic crisis - is also no longer considered the best party to handle the economy. Labor fell to 42 per cent on this measure, compared to 50 per cent for the Coalition.

Mr Rudd's personal brand also took a hit. Only 39 per cent of voters now think Mr Rudd is in touch with everyday issues, a staggering fall of seven points in the past four months. Fifty-two per cent of those polled said he was more talk than action, up three points.

SOURCE






Rudd between a lot of rocks and some very hard places

Andrew Bolt summarizes some of the latest reactions to Rudd's mining tax

I don’t think the Rudd Government’s tax - or even the government itself - is going to survive this backlash:

Australia’s resource super profits tax (RSPT) should be redesigned or abandoned, according to Future Fund chairman David Murray...

“Investors are becoming a little bit concerned whether governments will become more desperate and impose things that might...that they might not otherwise have done,” he said.

“For Australia to do this now is not good timing.”

And:

ANZ Banking Corporation Ltd chief executive Mike Smith says the federal government’s proposed resources super profit tax (RSPT) risks sending international investment away from Australia as investors review their assessment of sovereign risk...

And:

ANGLO-SWISS miner Xstrata has shelved spending on two Queensland projects expected to cost a combined $6.6 billion and employ 3250 workers, claiming the Rudd government’s proposed mining tax threatens the survival of all of its North Queensland operations, acquired in the 2004 takeover of MIM Holdings.

And:

Cloncurry Mayor Andrew Daniels says 60 contractors in his town have lost their jobs with Xstrata’s announcement…

Mount Isa chamber of commerce president Brett Peterson says there could be more pain to come.

“I don’t think this will be the last we see of this and the impact is going to be greater and greater for these businesses,” he said.

And:

BHP Billiton is considering tripling the capacity of a revived Indonesian coking coal project that could overtake Queensland projects if the Rudd government’s planned resource super-profits tax goes ahead, Citi analysts say.

And:

ONE of the world’s biggest resource fund managers has sold down a quarter of his BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto holdings because of Kevin Rudd’s proposed 40 per cent tax on mining profits, which he described as a “wake up call"…

“I’m sorry to say we’ve reduced our Australian exposure,” (JPMorgan Chase’s Ian) Mr Henderson told Bloomberg. “It’s been a wake-up call, frankly. I had not thought that the changes in Australia would be quite as drastic as they are proposed to be.”

Anna Bligh turns on Rudd - and his disastrous decision to effectively embezzle $38 million of your money to run Labor ads defending his plan:

...the Queensland Premier stopped short of opposing the mining tax but called on Mr Rudd to urgently negotiate with miners to rework the details of the plan.

“Fighting about a tax system may all be very well in the political sphere, but for those people who got job termination notices today this is no longer a war of words, this is causing real pain to Queensland families,” Ms Bligh said.

“I would urge both the Federal Government and the mining companies to get around the table, to put down the baseball bats, to stop the advertising and get on with solving it.”

And gagging Bob Katter’s attempt to debate the Xstrata decision will hurt Rudd in Queensland:

THE Rudd Government yesterday gagged debate on the suspension of $586 million worth of mining development work in Queensland six times - twice to defeat motions to bring the issue on for discussion and four times to shut up members wanting to argue the point.

Then the Speaker threw out Queensland Independent Bob Katter, who represents a district affected by one of the projects in question.It’s never an attractive look when ministers close down debate.

When it is to argue about mooted losses of 3250 jobs and the shelving of $6.6 billion of potential mining projects, it’s particularly ugly.

Tim Blair is curious: the Rudd Government says it is so urgent to get out its message on its mining tax that it must spend $38 million of your money on advertising. Yet given the chance to get out its message for free in Parliament, it shuts down the debate.

UPDATE

Reader Anthony:

When Rudd said he would stop the boats, he didn’t say he meant bulk-ore carriers.

UPDATE 2

Bryan Firth says Rudd is ignorant to suggest Xstrata is just bluffing:

Rudd initially dismissed the Xstrata statement as “part and parcel” of a tense debate between the mining industry and the government over the RSPT and that he had always expected there would be claims made by miners, including threats of project closure and threats to freeze projects.

If Rudd believes what he said then he is in denial. Xstrata is acting, not just threatening to do so; development work on Wandoan and the Ernest Henry underground projects has ceased.

But Rudd went further… Rudd went on to suggest that other issues may have delayed the development of the project. “It is our understanding that there are a number of other existing issues impacting on this particular development (Wandoan) including rail access, port infrastructure and power supply”.

He seems to be suggesting that Xstrata is not telling the truth or that it was telling half-truths, and therefore is misleading, by omitting to give the full reason. If so that’s a serious accusation and he should be prepared to back it up.

Xstrata’s statement was released to the London Stock Exchange, its home exchange, and was signed off by the auditors and approved by the board. Companies generally take great care in releasing statements to stock exchanges because investors act upon the information disclosed and the directors can be held liable if the information is untrue or misleading.

SOURCE





Terry McCrann on wind power

Terry McCrann is a veteran Australian financial analyst

Could any rational person—indeed, even gutless half-rational politician—build our energy supply on the total unreliability of so-called wind power.

This is what our total wind `power’ industry across southeastern Australia—NSW, Victoria and South Australia—delivered in one week in May. To all intents and effective purposes: ZERO power…

When the wind don’t blow the power don’t flow. Further, often the wind don’t blow at the same time, right across southeastern Australia… Further wind can go from very high power deliverability to very little in very short time spans.

So you don’t only need installed back-up power almost equivalent to the wind industry, to pick up the slack when it comes, but you need to keep it running, rendering utterly pointless having the wind power anyway.

Despite all the starry-eyed and empty-headed gazing at the power of the sun, wind is the only `practical’ alternative `renewable’ energy `source’ anytime soon.

Almost all our politicians are committed to 20 per cent alternative/renewable energy by 2020. It means a commitment to blackouts and brownouts—quite apart from unnecessarily higher power charges.

SOURCE






Treasury and CSIRO both have breached trust with climate fraud and tax ignorance, says Terry McCrann

More "hiding the decline" from CSIRO and the supposedly impartial public servant heading up the Treasury Dept. is a political hack

FEDERAL Treasury and the CSIRO are supposed to be among the most trusted institutions in Australia. They are both supposed to be founded in objective rationalism.

The Treasury building in Canberra houses the greatest collection of economic analytical and policymaking brainpower in Australia. The same, in the fields of science, goes for the CSIRO in Melbourne. Together they should form the rock-solid foundation of policymaking in Australia.

We need to be able to trust Treasury to advise the government based on the best possible economic analysis. Arguably its most important task is to deploy its economic heft against usually well-intentioned "good ideas at the time", or failing that to at least limit their damage.

From the CSIRO we need, very simply, good science. As its own strategic plan puts it: "We are committed to scientific excellence and working ethically and with integrity in everything we do."

Both have, in their separate ways, breached that trust. This is a very serious matter for the governance of Australia. If we can't trust Treasury to give us rational economics and we can't trust the CSIRO to give us good, or even just honest, science -- as in both cases they have generally done for a good three-quarters of a century or more -- we are adrift in a sea of irrationalism.

For that, indeed, is what links the two failures: in each case an apparent triumph of theology over reason. First the CSIRO.

In March, it joined with the Bureau of Meteorology to produce a "snapshot of the state of the climate to update Australians about how their climate has changed and what it means". Although the pamphlet had a neutral title, "State of the Climate", it was clearly designed to bring the great weight of the apparent credibility of these two organisations to bear against, and hopefully crush, those pesky climate change sceptics.

But as one of the peskier of them, Tom Quirk -- our version of Canada's even peskier Stephen McIntyre -- discovered, there was a very curious omission in one of the CSIRO graphs. It showed the rise and rise of concentrations in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and its fellow greenhouse gas methane. It was an almost perfect replica of the infamous (Michael) Mann Hockey Stick. After being virtually stable for 900 years, concentrations of both CO2 and methane went almost vertical through the 20th century. But as the eagle-eyed Quirk noticed and wrote about on Quadrant Online, methane was plotted only up to 1990, while the plots for CO2 continued to 2000.Why so, when the CSIRO measures methane concentrations and has data up to last year?

Did the answer lie in the inconvenient truth that methane concentrations have plateaued since the mid-1990s? Yet here is the CSIRO, the organisation dedicated to scientific truth, pretending -- even stating -- that they're still going up, Climategate style. This is bad enough, but just as with Treasury, real policies are built on this sort of "analysis". The first version of the so-called carbon pollution reduction scheme included farming to address the methane question. But as Quirk has shown in a peer-reviewed paper, atmospheric methane is driven by a combination of volcanos, El Ninos and pipeline (mostly dodgy old Soviet) leakage.

A second curious, and even dodgier, thing happened after Quirk's Quadrant report. CSIRO "updated" its main graph to include the more recent methane data. No admission was made and the graph's scale made it all but invisible and did not show the plateauing. Further, the CSIRO published a more detailed second graph showing what has happened in the past 30 years, as opposed to the first graph's 1000 years. But only for CO2, despite the fact that it had exactly the same data for methane.

In short, the CSIRO is a fully signed-up member of the climate change club. It wanted to project the horror story of continually rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. So it simply disappeared inconvenient evidence to the contrary, in the process announcing it cannot be trusted ever again to deliver objective scientific evidence.

Exactly the same theological, as opposed to ideological, beliefs underpin Treasury's modelling of the government's proposed emissions trading scheme, but it is the proposed resource tax that brings all the troubling elements of a debased Treasury together.

The main criticism of the tax is its total disconnection from reality: that you can scoop away 40 per cent of any profit above the long-term bond rate and it would have no effect on resources investment. That speaks to the bigger problem: the very person who should be bringing a cool, rational analysis to bear on the question has, in the words of the saying, a dog in the fight. Indeed, the dog, because this is not the government's tax; or some external good idea at the time, it is (Treasury head Ken) Henry's tax. His post-budget speech was eyebrow-raising enough, but his performance before Senate estimates was positively CSIRO-like.

Explaining, even defending up to a point, the tax had to be expected, but his diversion into ridiculing the claim that the mining industry had helped the nation avoid recession was disturbing and revealing.

As CommSec's Craig James showed yesterday, he was just plain wrong. According to James, Bureau of Statistics analysis showed that "Industry value added by all industries grew by 6.7 per cent in 2008-09. Had it not been for the growth in the mining sector, value added would have risen just 2.3 per cent in nominal terms: that is, fallen slightly in real terms."

Yet there was Henry, waspishly saying that if every industry had cut labour, as the mining industry had in the first half of last year, our unemployment rate would have increased from 4.6 per cent to 19 per cent in six months.

Does he really not understand that such an extrapolation is meaningless? Does he really not understand how resource export income contributes to the overall economy?

In short and in sum, our two pre-eminent centres of knowledge and public policy analysis across the social and hard sciences spectrum are now literally unbelievable. It is not an attractive or an appropriate state of affairs.

SOURCE





Sir Lunchalot resigns from NSW government



KRISTINA Keneally lost two ministers in the space of just six hours yesterday as her Government descended into full-blown crisis.

Major Events Minister Ian Macdonald [Sir Lunchalot] resigned from the frontbench after he misled Parliament and the Premier regarding an overseas trip, part of which was a delayed honeymoon. The minister had taken leave, but the taxpayer footed some of the bill.

And Juvenile Justice Minister Graham West stepped down yesterday after he failed to get funding for his portfolio - a slap in the face to the Premier as she marked six months in the job.

Mr Macdonald had told the Premier and the Upper House that he had privately paid for a $2800 airfare to Dubai and Italy but the Opposition came forward with revelations the fare was taxpayer-funded.

Mr Macdonald last night said he was quitting because he had become a "liability" for the Government amid a continuing campaign against him. The minister revealed the trip was his delayed honeymoon, but he had worked for several days in Italy while on leave.

Ms Keneally said last night he had resigned because he had admitted to spending taxpayers funds on his trip to Dubai "without authorisation". She said she was awaiting a report from the director-general of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, due next Wednesday, before she would reveal any details of the unauthor- ised spending. She also said she was "angry" at Mr Macdonald.

Government sources said the inquiry was also looking at accommodation and dinners around the trip - and whether they may have been incorrectly claimed. The question was being asked as to whether dinners were "official" or involved "friends" the source said.

A spokesman for Ms Keneally said the Premier's office had received information on Wednesday "in relation to the minister's trip that made allegations about a third party - not the minister". "It was referred to ICAC that day by the office of the Premier," the spokesman said.

Mr Macdonald claimed last night that he had been hounded out of the job, including by sources within the Labor Party who had leaked details about him to the Opposition. He said he had made a mistake by declaring his $2800 airfare was paid for privately. He said he genuinely believed he had paid for it and also said he had worked for several days in Italy when he was on leave. "I just felt for the Government that it's better that I get out of the way," he said.

He said Ms Keneally had never encouraged him to stand down and it was his own decision. "I think there's no doubt some people have been aiding and abetting the Opposition and keeping up a consistent and incessant attack on me," he said.

Earlier yesterday, Mr West broke down during his speech in Parliament as he expressed frustration at being unable to achieve reforms he wanted.

His resignation came six weeks after he lost a battle in the Cabinet budget committee to get an extra $400 million for his small juvenile justice portfolio for early intervention programs for youth. Sources said Mr West had been monstered at Cabinet budget committee meetings by Treasurer Eric Roozendaal and this had driven him out.

He said he felt he could do more outside the world of "partisan politics" and would vacate his seat of Campbelltown at the March state election. He almost broke down again as he mentioned time he'd had away from his three children. "I want to stay involved in politics but not in the parliamentary system," he said later.

The resignations are badly timed for the Premier - less than a week before the budget. The Cabinet vacancies will be shared among current ministers. Paul McLeay will take on the forestry and mineral resources portfolio.

Mr Roozendaal takes state and regional development and Kevin Greene major events, Barbara Perry juvenile justice and John Robertson is Minister for the Central Coast.

SOURCE



4 June, 2010

Cargo-cult economics endangers the Golden Goose

By Greg Lindsay

Being situated in the South Pacific, close to the market of Asia, has proved a god-send for Australia. A culture of hard work, good institutions, and probably some luck have helped us dodge the worst of the Global Financial Crisis better than most. However another less admirable cultural feature of the South Pacific seems to have infected thinking at the national level in Australia.

The Rudd government’s Resources Super Profits Tax (RSPT) confirms what Ronald Reagan said about politicians and their view of the economy: ‘If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.’

There is no doubt that Australia’s mining industry is moving fast. So fast, in fact, that the ‘golden goose’, as the resources sector has been dubbed, has helped pull the rest of the economy through the challenges of the GFC. Other countries would kill for a sector like this. The world’s leading mining companies are generating profits, jobs and tax revenue for all Australians.

The temptation for politicians to squeeze even more money out of the mining industry is easy to understand. They are acting precisely as Ronald Reagan predicted. But they are ignoring another bon mot about taxes, this one coined by former French finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert: ‘The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing.’

There has been a lot of hissing following the announcement of the RSPT. That miners do not look forward to paying higher taxes is only be to be expected. Nobody does. But what is far more damaging to the long-term national interest is what this episode says about the cargo-cultist direction of economic policy in this country.

The Prime Minister has argued that mineral, oil, and gas reserves ‘belong to all Australians’. But why stop there? If you apply the same rules, sunshine and our beaches belong to all Australians, but the government hasn’t (yet?) proposed an extra sun and surf tax for agriculture and tourism.

The government claims the RSPT is a special case since it will mainly apply to foreign-owned companies. This is a very dubious and short-sighted rationale given the millions of Australians who have mining shares in their superannuation portfolios. What is even worse is the economically destructive message sent to the international business community: ‘Beware Australia and its unpredictable and punitive taxes!’

Improvements to the taxation regime for resources sector is an important policy goal. But the RSPT is bad policy for all sorts of reasons including the political predisposition it reveals for higher taxes and economic nationalism. But perhaps the most irritating feature is the disrespect on display for entrepreneurship, risk-taking and property rights. In short, we are being led right back to the kind of dirigiste policy settlement overcome by the reforms of the Hawke, Keating and Howard governments.

Regardless of the political justifications trotted out by politicians and their technocratic advisers, temporary budget fixes like the RSPT is not the path to national prosperity. My fear is that we are starting to resemble the villager of the South Pacific isles of cargo cult infamy, who stared into the sky in expectation of untold riches. Waiting around for the golden goose to land is no substitute for hard work, risk, and investment.

PS. I despair. The Treasurer now says the tax is essential for the future prosperity of Australia. Where do I start . . . . ?

The above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated June 3. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590.






Paid parental leave policy is missing actual leave

Interesting comment from a Greenie politician excerpted below. Greens tend to be further Left than the Labor Party. For once, I think the Rudd government has struck the right balance on this. If the government makes employing women disruptive to business, some businesses are going to stop hiring women

The Government needs to come clean on what its Paid Parental Leave Scheme really means for working families, starting with its name. It’s a great irony that an initiative called Paid Parental Leave does not actually give anyone an actual right to time off work after birth. In fact, if an employee has been working for less than 12 months, they have no guarantee they can return to their job if they take leave.

All the Government’s scheme does is entitle employees to a payment (18 weeks at the minimum wage) even if their employer won’t give them their job back.

A payment, but no leave? That sounds suspiciously like the baby bonus, by a different name. Like so much of the Rudd Government’s ‘reform’ agenda, to quote Keating on Costello, this scheme is “all tip and no iceberg.”

Let’s not forget Paid Parental Leave has been on the agenda for women’s groups and unionists for more than thirty years. Recognition of Paid Parental Leave as a workplace entitlement has been at the heart of this movement. Yet, it’s missing from the Government’s plan.

Given the unpaid parental leave provisions (52 weeks) are protected by the Fair Work Act, why is it that the Paid Parental Leave provisions do not have this status? The Government is basically saying to working Mums and Dads, “she’ll be right, the boss’ll look after you.” Bizarrely, ACTU President Sharon Burrow has bought this line and is encouraging the Senate to pass the legislation without amendment....

It’s clear the Government is approaching this as a social welfare payment, rather than a workplace entitlement. Evidence from the Senate Inquiry, given by Government bureaucrats, clearly stated it was a payment scheme with no commitment to leave entitlement.

Labor’s Bill for a mere 18 weeks sets Australia apart from other countries with Paid Parental Leave. While Sweden’s scheme offers 47 weeks, New Zealand offers 28 weeks, Finland offers 32 weeks and even Spain offers 27 weeks, the best our Government can offer, after decades of public debate, is four months.

The Government has a unique opportunity to provide a scheme that is aligned with the World Health Organisation’s standard (minimum 6 months), that is universal and integrated into Australia’s industrial relations regime. This is why working parents need six months plus super. Unfortunately, the Government’s plan doesn’t come even close.

Despite the deficiencies in the Bill, the Senate is being asked to simply roll over and give the Government’s plan the tick of approval, without any attempt to improve it. To simply surrender this opportunity to get the right scheme in place, would be to squander the legacy of all those who have been fighting for this issue, for so long.

The Senate owes it to those dedicated women and men to produce the best legislation possible. Most importantly, Australian parents and babies need a better scheme.

SOURCE






Climatologist is a true believer

The idiot below doesn't seem to realize that his findings make a mockery of Warmism. Saying that "greenhouse" gases are rising at a great rate while at the same time there is actually no warming going on is not the best way of supporting your theory. Note that he doesn't mention any facts about temperatures

It is windy, cold and isolated. Cape Grim is at the most north-west point in Tasmania. It is also home to some of the cleanest air on the planet and for that reason, it is the most important air measuring station in the southern hemisphere.

The Cape Grim research station, perched on the cliffs overlooking the Southern Ocean, is recording the most precise account of the earth's changing atmosphere.

But it is not all good news - over the last 12 months scientists have identified two potent greenhouse gases that are accelerating rapidly. Paul Fraser from the CSIRO has been coming to the station since it opened in 1976 and he says that over the last 30 years, carbon dioxide levels have increased by 15 per cent. "Almost entirely that increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is due to fossil fuels and that's entirely man-made," he said.

In fact, 40 different types of greenhouse gases are measured at Cape Grim. But it is two new gases recently identified that are accelerating rapidly. One, nitrogen trifluoride, is used in the manufacture of plasma televisions. The other is sulphuryl fluoride, a fumigant used on crops.

Mr Fraser says in the long-term, the two gases will have climate-warming potential. "I think they're rising at between 5 and 10 per cent per year so they're jumping up quite rapidly from virtually zero concentrations not long ago," he said.

SOURCE






'Life ruined' by Customs porn confiscation

What's the point of this stupid policy? You can download anything and everything off the net anyway

A Melbourne man says his life has been ruined after Customs officers took his hard drive from him because it contained pornography. Customs has recently started asking incoming travellers if they are carrying pornography in a bid to block illegal pornographic material entering the country.

Ross Mansfield had his hard drive confiscated a fortnight ago when he was coming home from a holiday in the Philippines.

"They said I had some suspicious material on there. "I said 'I forgot to remove any porn because my friends in the Philippines, they download it, they're mutual friends'."

Mr Mansfield says despite the suspicious film was nothing more than standard porn. "They (Customs) are violating my rights," he told AAP. Despite defending the contents of the hard drive, Mr Mansfield admitted to not having seen the film and said "I don't know what it is".

Other movies included Adult Pretty Woman, Real Female Orgasm, Asian Babe Moans, My Friend's Hot Mum and Sexy Blond. "They're all over 18. "It's nothing underage." The hard drive also contains about 5000 holiday photos and 30,000 songs.

Mr Mansfield threatened to sue Customs if any of the material was deleted. "I've got my livelihood on there. "I'm more worried about the fact that they try and wipe out what's on my hard drive. "If they touch my stuff I would find a lawyer ... I would be after suing them."

SOURCE



3 June, 2010

Third world hospital care in Australia

Hungry RPA patient Malcolm Jorgensen sent out for own food



A PATIENT at one of Sydney's biggest teaching hospitals was told that it had run out of food and he should walk to the 7-Eleven or McDonald's if he wanted to eat. Malcolm Jorgensen, who was being treated at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital for a serious staph infection, was sent out by nurses in the rain with a needle and cannula in his arm at 11pm.

The Sydney University PhD student put on his coat and walked 200m to the 7-Eleven, but was unable to find a meal. He then walked more than 500m in the rain to a fast food shop in King St, Newtown, and bought a kebab before returning, drenched, to the hospital.

"It wasn't the nurse's fault," Mr Jorgensen, 27, said yesterday. "She said 'I'm sorry they ran out of food, it has been a busy night'. "There's no point arguing, I got dressed and went out. I didn't have an umbrella with me. "I was pretty shocked. When they sent me off down the road I had the cannula in my arm.

"I was feeling crook. I had had the staph infection for a few days so one arm was infected and the other arm had the cannula. "I was restricted in what I could do. I went to the 7-Eleven, they only had pies so I went the other direction to King St, Newtown and I got a kebab."

Mr Jorgensen was discharged yesterday after spending two nights in hospital when a cut became infected.

A hospital representative called Mr Jorgensen late yesterday to apologise for his treatment on Monday night, telling him the system for distributing food to patients would be reviewed.

Mr Jorgensen arrived at hospital at 6pm on Monday after a doctor at Sydney University sent him there for urgent antibiotic treatment. It took several hours before he reached the ward.

A Royal Prince Alfred spokeswoman said there were systems in place to provide meals after hours. When Mr Jorgensen arrived at the hospital an order should have been filled for a hospital meal but it was not. There should also have been meal packs available for patients who arrived late.

"Unfortunately, these systems were not followed," the spokeswoman said. "We have contacted the patient and apologised for this unusual lapse in process." Staff could also have had access to the kitchen, the spokeswoman said.

Despite Mr Jorgensen being told there was no food in the kitchen, the hospital spokeswoman would only admit that their systems had failed. It was unclear last night how many patients were affected by the food shortage.

SOURCE






Father who bashed pedophile cleared

Since the pedophile was let off, any other verdict would have been grossly offensive

A JURY has taken 40 minutes to find a father not guilty of bashing a pedophile who molested his son after watching State of Origin at his home.

The man, who cannot be named, had pleaded not guilty in the Beenleigh District Court to a charge of assault causing grievous bodily harm - which carries a maximum penalty of 14 years' jail.

He was alleged to have attacked Shayne Thomas Davidson, 43, at Eagleby on June 11, 2008 after learning about the assault on his son in his bed.

Davidson pleaded guilty last year to indecently assaulting the boy but was spared a jail sentence.

He had been invited over to watch the State of Origin game with his old childhood friend with whom he had recently become re-acquainted.

The court was told that after the game, Davidson told the father and two neighbours he was going to bed on a mattress made up on the lounge-room floor.

But he instead he went into the boy's bedroom and massaged his genitals telling him he was a "pretty boy" and they would be "best pals forever".

When the upset and teary 10-year-old told his father, he is alleged to have dragged Davidson outside and bashed him almost unconscious.

But a jury today took just 40 minutes to return a not guilty verdict after magistrate Walter Tutt told them they must "consider if what the defendant did were the actions of an ordinary resonable person given the circumstances".

SOURCE






A university that can't balance its books

I'm not surprised. I taught there for 12 years and most of my colleagues were mediocrities, to be polite about it. One can hardly therefore expect better of its administrators

THE University of NSW has written off $5.35 million in debts owed by students, reflecting a history of poor financial control. The 2009 annual report, tabled in NSW Parliament yesterday, shows a $2.9m write-off, following a $2.45m write-off the previous year.

The problem goes back to the 1990s when the university could not reconcile two key financial systems and nobody had clear, ultimate responsibility for student debt, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A university spokeswoman said: "We now have very effective checks and balances in place and student debt provisions are being steadily reduced. "Our priority had to be to ensure students were not disadvantaged by our administrative problems. "So where there was inconsistency we preferred to write off the debt."

UNSW started 2008 with $7.68m owed by students and $6.67m of this was classified as "impaired" or unlikely to be recovered, according to notes to the financial statements. "Students were allowed to enrol, sit exams and even graduate without paying their fees," the HES source said.

"The [student debt hole in UNSW finances] means that the money needs to come from somewhere else and that means the taxpayers are funding it."

The 2009 report shows student debt reduced to $1.49m and that $621,000 of this was judged unlikely to be paid. UNSW recovered $221,000 in 2009 and $473,000 in 2008.

The source said UNSW had a problematic history of student creditors as well as debtors. By the middle of the 1990s, UNSW owed some 10,000 people about $2m in total, most being students mistakenly charged GST on a $35 fee in 2000, he said. He said the Australian Taxation Office had told UNSW to return the money.

The NSW Auditor-General raised concerns about the student money issue in five consecutive annual reports, the most recent being last year's.

The UNSW spokeswoman said a review of money owing to students was finished in 2009. She said $1.6m was refunded to students over an 18-month period from late 2008. In early 2009, UNSW handed over $468,000 to the NSW Office of State Revenue, the home for ownerless money.

The source said that between 1999 and 2006, the UNSW student and financial systems were giving inconsistent figures for student fees. Human error was the cause.

SOURCE





So how is Rudd “kinder”?

Here we go again, needlessly revisiting the suffering and the moral blackmail that John Howard ended but Kevin Rudd has revived:

ASYLUM seekers are once again resorting to self-harm in detention centres amid overcrowding and stalled refugee claims.

The Herald Sun has learned at least 17 immigration detainees injured themselves or attempted suicide in the past 11 months - almost twice the number of incidents of the previous year…

Self-harm by detainees sparked concerns over mandatory detention under the Howard government, and Kevin Rudd’s pledge to be “tough but humane” in his own treatment of asylum seekers.

Catholic priest Jim Carty, who recently returned from nine weeks on Christmas Island, said he knew of at least one detainee who tried to hang himself there… The Herald Sun has also heard of detainees cutting themselves, and of a man destined for deportation who drank bleach and shampoo.

SOURCE





Green-eyed monster sets his sights on balance of power

Bob Brown looked as animated as we have ever seen him this week, basking in the opinion poll ratings he has worked hard at stoking over many years, successfully presenting himself as the trustworthy, likeable and moderate face of a movement that is anything but.

While the Greens leader acknowledges the electorate is "volatile" he has his eyes on holding the balance of power in the Senate, after this week's Newspoll showed the Greens have more than doubled in popularity since the 2007 election to 16 per cent.

As people become increasingly disillusioned with the government (down to a 35 per cent primary vote) and wary of the opposition (on 41 per cent), there is now a real prospect of serious power in the hands of the unaccountable, job-killing ideologues of the green movement.

We can see their handiwork across the country, and they've barely warmed up. It's not just the unbuilt dams, or the green tape preventing proper fire management of bushland. In Cape York, the "sleazy deal", as Noel Pearson calls it, between the Queensland government and the Wilderness Society to take over Aboriginal land as part of the so-called "Wild Rivers" deal, threatens indigenous people's fledgling economic base for no environmental benefit. Pearson says the greens want to keep them in passive welfare dependency, only now "the welfare cheque will be on recycled paper".

On the other side of the country, the Kimberley Land Council's executive director, Wayne Bergmann, accuses the green movement of treating indigenous people like "museum pieces" and attempting to sabotage their pursuit of economic development.

The tyrannical tactics of various eco-socialist groups, which often combine to play good cop/bad cop in relentless pursuit of a goal, are unopposed by a lily-livered, increasingly complicit corporate Australia.

Out front, all we see is the clever pitching of the political wing of the green movement as safe, sensible and decent. Brown and his colleague Christine Milne present a plausible set of clean hands as the political process turns ugly en route to an election.

The end result is an electorate on the move has at least "parked" some of its votes with the Greens, while they wait for Tony Abbott to prove his suitability for the highest office.

The bleeding of support from Kevin Rudd has been breathtakingly fast and sustained now for two months. Ploys such as the resources super profit tax on mining to prop up the budget have played badly, despite Rudd's airy dismissal of criticism as "a load of balderdash, what a load of absolute bunkum".

The rally outside Parliament House yesterday of parent groups, with a tiny makeshift school canteen, protesting at waste in the Building the Education Revolution program, even as the latest victims of roof insulation fires - a Holocaust survivor and an immigrant Iranian family - hit the headlines, give an insight into the depth and breadth of the government's troubles as an election nears.

As the Lowy Institute poll, released on Monday, showed, even on Rudd's preferred strengths, foreign policy and the handling of the global financial crisis, the electorate has marked the Prime Minister poorly. For "Responding to the Global Economic Crisis", Rudd's big selling point in the upcoming election, the government scored just six out of 10. The same lacklustre score came for "promoting good relations with China", despite Rudd's Mandarin-speaking promise.

On combating climate change (the "greatest moral challenge of our time"), the government scored just 5/10, and on Japanese whaling and asylum seekers it failed, with 4/10. Only on maintaining a strong alliance with the US" came its highest mark of 7/10.

In a panel discussion after the poll's release at Lowy headquarters in Bligh Street on Monday, the former Labor powerbroker, and chairman of the Committee for Sydney, Stephen Loosley, found it hard to maintain his usually urbane imperturbability, dismissing criticism of "Kevin 747" as "Tea Party populism".

That morning's bombshell radio interview by the former premier Morris Iemma and Michael Costa only added to Loosley's concerns. Iemma has revealed in a new book by political writer Simon Benson the role Rudd had in his downfall, reneging on a promise to help him fight the unions over electricity privatisation. Iemma said Rudd asked him to delay the privatisation bid until after the 2007 federal election and in return "when the time comes, we can f--- [the unions] together".

But when the time came, Rudd told him: "It's a state issue, I can't get involved." The privatisation which was to have funded transport infrastructure collapsed, and so did Iemma's career, and health. Iemma told 2GB: "I had a commitment, a deal with the Prime Minister and it should have been honoured."

His former treasurer Costa was even more scathing: "I speak to Labor people and I'm not talking about conservative voters here. I'm talking about dyed-in-the-wool Labor people that have really turned off this bloke [Rudd]. That car radio test is the test that you apply - if a bloke comes on and you hear him speak for a couple of seconds and you turn off your radio you know he's lost the public and I think this bloke's lost the public."

With such hatred of Rudd from within the NSW Labor Right, Loosley could only shake his head grimly, and continue on the panel valiantly to praise the Prime Minister for foreign policy work such as the G20.

The understatement of the morning came from fellow panellist Arthur Sinodinos, the former Howard adviser turned banker, regarded as the pre-eminent tactical guru in Liberal circles. He described Rudd's problems as a "lack of tactical agility".

That is not a label you could ever apply to the Greens.

SOURCE



2 June, 2010

More on Big Mal

Malcolm Fraser was in his younger days known as very Right-wing and as a fan of Ayn Rand but in office he did very little to introduce market-oriented reforms. These days he is best remembered for losing his trousers on a hot night in Memphis, Tennessee! Courtesy of Michael Darby, I once met Big Mal for a brief chat and it was a great struggle to keep the word "trousers" out of the conversation, I can tell you!

I agree that the Fraser years (1975-1983) were "lost years" as far as most market reforms were concerned but Fraser does have some reasonably good conservative credentials nonetheless. It is often forgotten that he was ahead of Margaret Thatcher in rolling back socialism -- in that he started de-nationalizing Australian health-care in 1976 (though the present dual system was not fully in place until 1981). Margaret Thatcher, of course, first came to office in 1979. And Fraser was a strong supporter of the United States and its policies -- and he also cut back government spending, which is more than G.W. Bush can claim.

And doing nothing whilst in office is not an entirely inappropriate thing for a conservative Prime Minister to do anyway. It beats constant government meddling and multiplication of laws! Australia's most revered conservative Prime Minister -- Sir Robert Menzies -- is also remembered for the paucity of his "initiatives" and the stability of Australian life during his long term in office.

On anything to do with race and ethnicity, however, Big Mal rivals the Left for "correctness" -- and he bears some responsibility for the installation of the ghastly Robert Mugabe as ruler of the unfortunate people of Zimbabwe. The reason behind that, however, seems never to be mentioned.

Fraser is technically Jewish. Although his own religion is nominal Protestant, his mother was Jewish -- which makes Fraser Jewish under Jewish law. And Jews are of course understandably hypersensitive about matters to do with race. It is however remarkable testimony to the very low level of antisemitism in Australia that a man can become Prime Minister of Australia without his Jewishness ever even being mentioned.

I think it also shows how "racist" Australian conservatives are that they chose Fraser to lead them -- rather like those "racist" British conservatives who chose Benjamin Disraeli to lead them in the 19th century and Michael Howard to lead them (unsuccessfully) in the 21st. -- JR





An ABC cleansing of conservatives

By Andrew Bolt

Jon Faine has done a little of that “cleansing” of conservatives he once urged on the Herald Sun:

Between 2007 and 2009 Andrew McIntyre occupied the right wing chair in the 774 ABC Melbourne studio for Friday’s Weekly Wrap segment on Jon Faine’s morning radio show. Liberty Sanger, Labor lawyer and wife of ALP Senator David Feeney, represented the Left…

However, last December you could almost hear the pencils snap at the ABC when he strongly criticised Clive Hamilton during a segment on the Higgins byelection.

McIntyre’s Hamilton critique might have been the final straw. The ABC withdrew the welcome mat for 2010 and replaced McIntyre with the decidedly milder Nick Maher of Gavin Anderson.

Before his gig on the Weekly Wrap, McIntyre was a regular co-host on Faine’s Conversation Hour; and in that role also he was never backward in debunking leftist dogma. He returned to co-host one Conversation Hour this year, but hasn’t been heard on the station since.

SOURCE





When vanity hits political reality

By Janet Albrechtsen

THE resource super-profits tax is yet another chapter in a short history of the Rudd government crying out to be written: When Vanity Collides with Reality.

Kevin Rudd's mining tax is a poor policy concocted by those with pasty hands and clean fingernails, oblivious to the workings of the mining business. Only a dirty dose of reality will make the policy workable. Add it to the growing list of policies dreamed up in sterile Canberra offices by Rudd ministers completely disconnected from the real world.

How remarkable and disheartening that the Prime Minister appears to learn so little from his government's previous blunders. Again and again, dangerous policy overreactions have been driven by overblown rhetoric and then deflated by the forces of reality. This amateurish way of conducting government reeks of hubris or insecurity. Either way, Rudd's ledger of political and policy misjudgments will not make for a pretty read.

Early chapters were written long ago. When the Rudd government announced its botched tax changes to employee share schemes last year, you didn't need to be a market whiz to predict the consequences. Share schemes were immediately shut down. And the changes threatened to kill off schemes completely. More hubris - or insecurity - will be recorded when Rudd overreacted to the global financial crisis with inflated rhetoric and funding the $16.2 billion schools building program. A basic understanding of supply and demand was all you needed to foresee the outcome: taxpayers footing the bill for a sorry story of cost blow-outs, pumped-up prices, unwanted buildings and lack of consultation with schools.

A chapter will be devoted to the home insulation debacle, of course. It will trace how the government, using the modish lingo of green politics to pump a few more billion dollars into the economy, refused to accept reality even when it was laid out on a platter in the form of advice from state governments, law firms and other highly paid advisers.

House fires and deaths will be recorded as the high cost of the Rudd government's vanity that it knew better.

Another chapter will document the government's politically motivated dumping of what it claimed as "the great moral issue of our time". While Rudd ministers point the finger of blame at the opposition and the Greens for opposing the emissions trading system, the Prime Minister could take the same policy to the coming election for voter approval. He won't. Rudd's rhetoric, this time about climate change, has been defeated by more reality. This year, fewer and fewer Australians - especially the working families that Rudd won over in 2007 - believe his hype.

And May will provide yet another chapter. Let's call it: Reality bites. Again. More puffed-up language about "fair share" with winks to a class war to slug big mining companies, especially foreign companies, with a new tax. It's another policy hatched in the nation's capital that bears no relationship to reality beyond its grassy knoll. This time Rudd's moral vanity collided with multiple realities: moral hazard, human nature, sovereign risk and so on.

"Miners are gamblers: it is the nature of the beast." How different things might have been if the Rudd government and the bookishly clever Canberra bureaucrats, had read just the opening line of The Big Fella: The Rise and Rise of BHP Billiton. This year's winner of the Blake Dawson prize for business literature begins with a fascinating account of the spirit of adventure and risk-taking that started on a "baking hot day in 1883 when Charles Rasp pegged his claim on the broken-backed hill near the NSW-South Australian border".

The Rudd government's 40 per cent mining tax - devised with a government promise to pick up 40 per cent of "reasonable costs" - is the trade-off no one in the mining industry seems to want. Not big mining companies. Or even small ones. Why? Because miners are still gamblers, driven by optimism, exciting finds, big returns. They don't expect government safety nets if they fail. New Rio Tinto chairman Jan du Plessis described it best. Small miners want to "hit a home run", he said last week. They don't want mop-up costs for failure. It's called human nature in the mining industry, he said.

Instead of applauding the mining spirit that has fuelled Australian prosperity, filling government coffers to finance government programs since the 1880s, Rudd knew better.

But when you start promising to subsidise costs in an industry, you can expect to see more shonky operators taking even greater risks. It's called moral hazard. Ever heard of the home insulation scheme, Prime Minister?

And do Australian taxpayers want to mop up the costs? Remember it's all sunshine and roses from the super-profits tax when the economy is booming. But when the economy slides and the government has to start paying up, imagine the uproar when mining companies put their hands out for billions, and we are talking billions of taxpayer dollars to reimburse shareholder losses. You can see why mining companies - and the banks - are dubious about the government keeping its side of the bargain against a voter backlash.

That's called sovereign risk. While Trade Minister Simon Crean is out there selling the Australian Unlimited brand in a competitive global world, the Prime Minister is destroying it.

In fact, Rudd's moral vanity over mining delivered him a double whammy: poor policy and political miscalculation. He rejected important details laid out, even by his trusted Treasury boss Ken Henry: a 25 per cent company tax rate that would coincide with the new mining tax.

And he refused the suggested lengthy consultation period for a big new tax. Again, Rudd knew better. When voters proved to be smarter than Rudd, baulking at the economic costs of the mining tax, Rudd started his $38 million advertising campaign, breaking another promise made in 2007 that he would never, ever allow the cancer of government advertising to continue.

Capriciousness will feature large in any Rudd government history. There is no political conviction that cannot be turned on its head; no policy that cannot be dumped when reality strikes. Inevitably, when Rudd is long gone and his history is being written, Rudd ministers - and the media - will lay the blame at Rudd's feet. But let the record also show there were plenty of others within Rudd's kitchen cabinet - Education Minister Julia Gillard, Wayne Swan and Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner - who share the blame. So rework this for the first page: someone close to me liked to say the difference between monkeys and men is men learn from their mistakes. The Rudd government was led by a barrel of interlinking monkeys.

SOURCE





Dumbing down English teaching

UNDER the new national schools curriculum students studying English as a Second Language will apparently study more literature than those studying Essential English.

The bulk of our students will encounter only a smattering of literature texts in something described as "functional English", while the true enjoyment of reading literature will be the preserve of just an elite few. This is hardly in line with true educational principles or Australia's egalitarian foundations.

It simply reveals how Barry McGaw, chairman of the curriculum developers, and his misguided team have botched such an important exercise. Every other civilised nation in the world ensures its future generations have the opportunity to study and appreciate the nation's key prose, poetry and drama. Literature as taught through text is the central feature of a nation's culture and enlightenment, as well as its knowledge and awareness.

Australia will now be the only developed country which places little importance on literature in the education of its young.

After an interminable waiting time, it has now become clear that these curriculum developers have been mugged as they conducted their task. They have dumbed down the English curriculum as they have been progressively captured by a number of forces.

They have fallen prey to the propaganda of the Left that literature is too hard for most students to understand, whereas the fact is that any good teacher can instill a love of all literature in all students no matter what their social background or capacity. Throughout history the study of literature has been a key element of social progression for young people who might otherwise have been trapped in the travails of their socio-economic circumstances.

The curriculum talks of analysing and dissecting authors' motives in literature, with little mention of enjoying, appreciating, and learning from literature: its vocabulary, flow, style, characterisation, and richness of language and expression. The authors have clearly fallen prey to the loony nihilistic deconstructionists.

They also make the dangerous and erroneous assertion that film, digital, and video modalities are equal to the written text, and so McGaw and his colleagues have surrendered to the current cohort of teachers and their union bosses, most of whom have never read a good novel themselves and would rather push a button or click a mouse than turn a page.

They have no appreciation of the significance and richness of literature text and the proper means of teaching it. It is not possible to curl up in bed with a good modem. Film makers are never true to the literature which they plunder, manipulate, and exploit.

How does the Rudd government square all of this with its controversial decision earlier this year to act contrary to the findings of the Productivity Commission on the importation of books? The government says it acted to protect the interests of Australian authors but what is the point if no schoolchildren will be reading them? All our Australian authors churning out all those books for a population incapable of reading and enjoying them.

There is also an extremely dangerous indication in these documents that in English, and other subjects of the proposed national curriculum, state governments will be able to determine assessment methods. Thus there will be no truly "national" curriculum and we are headed for continued lack of uniformity and consistency in school education systems across Australia. Another Rudd government promise broken.

The blame game will continue and any families moving interstate will face all the strangling complexities on their children's education which they suffer at the moment. McGaw has certainly been mugged by vested interests in state Labor governments.

As recently revealed in The Australian the nation's history scholars are already demolishing the curriculum development process for its lack of balance, despite all the promises from McGaw after his release of the earlier, biased, original discussion papers which he commissioned from so-called "experts".

The so-called national schools curriculum is shaping up as another Rudd-Gillard policy bungle and waste of public money, morphing into a broken election promise. The only solution seems to be to start again and cobble together the best of the NSW and Victorian curriculums as an interim measure, while a proper professional process is established. This issue is far more important than mining, taxation, infrastructure, emissions, or any of the matters that dominate our daily lives: the whole wellbeing of our youth is at stake; in other words the future of our nation.

SOURCE



1 June, 2010

Federal government sees no problems with wasteful school spending

Extraordinary complacency about well-documented waste of taxpayer funds. This is a refusal to stop an ongoing disaster. But Leftists always are destructive. It seems to be in their DNA

JULIA Gillard will push ahead with the troubled $16.2 billion schools stimulus scheme after claiming an investigative taskforce had not yet uncovered any evidence of problems.

The Education Minister said the government expected to commit the final $5.5bn of Building the Education Revolution funds next month as planned, because the taskforce, headed by former merchant banker Brad Orgill, had not recommended otherwise. "I have met with Mr Orgill (and) I will continue to meet with him regularly," she said. "At this stage, I am not in possession of any recommendations from Mr Orgill that would relate to the third tranche of funds. We are obviously all ears for his recommendations."

The BER taskforce is set to deliver its first report in August, but Ms Gillard has said it can provide recommendations earlier.

Ms Gillard's statements yesterday appear to be a move by the government to shift greater responsibility for the remaining $5.5bn yet to be spent on to Mr Orgill, whose $14 million taskforce has just ended its first month of investigations. Mr Orgill did not return calls from The Australian yesterday.

As revealed by The Australian, the BER scheme has been beset by widespread waste of taxpayer money, with overdesigned building templates, onerous documentation requirements and enormous fees, causing public schools to pay up to double the amount they should for buildings.

In NSW, Catholic schools are paying $2541 per square metre for school halls and $2451 per square metre for libraries under the BER - which is in line with industry standards. By contrast, the NSW Education Department is paying $6135/sq m for the standard "7 Core" school hall and $4005/sq m for the standard "14 Core" school library.

In NSW, seven managing contractors - who are receiving fees of more than $400 million to manage the scheme - are charging $850,000-plus for 189 prefabricated classrooms, which are manufactured and delivered to schools by other companies at a cost of up to $339,000.

If the federal government commits the $5.5bn of BER funds next month as planned, a further $1bn-plus will be wasted in overcharging for the delivery of public school buildings. The federal and NSW governments have been unable to explain why public schools are paying double industry rates and double the rates being paid by non-government schools.

A spokeswoman for NSW Education Minister Verity Firth said the government would push ahead and spend the remaining 40 per cent of BER funds under the current model, despite the revelations of public schools receiving poor value for money.

The NSW government also admitted it had no mechanism for ensuring public schools received value for money other than a "benchmark" test, whereby the government approves all buildings that are within 105 per cent of values it has set. As revealed by The Australian, those benchmark values are vastly inflated and average about double industry standard rates.

Ms Gillard said yesterday the government was "all ears" to hear Mr Orgill's recommendations and that there was still time to implement those recommendations. "This is a program that will run for almost two years from where we are now so there is time to implement recommendations from Mr Orgill's implementation taskforce," Ms Gillard said.

However, once contracts are signed between state governments and managing contractors, it becomes extremely difficult to recover funds.

SOURCE








Cockeyed maternal leave scheme

It's high income mothers who are least likely to have babies and who are therefore in most need of encouragement to do so. But, predictably for a Leftist scheme, it does the opposite

HALF of Australia's mothers will not qualify for the new paid parental leave scheme next year because they earn too much. Many other women who have their children more than mid-way through the financial year will be better off claiming the $5185 baby bonus rather than $7342 paid parental leave.

This was because the paid parental leave payment will be taxed at a woman's marginal tax rate and tax clawbacks could eat into the new payment, which begins in January.

Mothers whose babies are due in February would be better off with the baby bonus, while those expecting in July would get the most from the new scheme, retired State Bank executive Peter Apps, who has studied the tax effect, said.

A war has broken out between working and non-working mothers over the fact working mums will get $2000 more when they have babies. Only mothers who work for a day a week in 10 of the 13 months before the birth will qualify for the payment.

FamilyVoice Australia, which wants stay at home mothers and working mothers paid the same amount of money, has told a Senate committee the Government's scheme discriminated against more than half of Australia's families.

It said the Government's own budget projections showed 148,000 mothers would qualify for paid parental leave while 158,000 mothers would get the baby bonus.

"The Paid Parental Leave scheme would therefore favour a minority (48 per cent) of Australian families by giving them nearly $2000 ($1890) more than the majority (52 per cent) of Australian families following the birth of a child," their submission said.

There are about 296,600 babies born each year and parents who adopt a child will also qualify for the leave scheme. A small number of families will miss out on any government help after they have a baby because their family income exceeded the $150,000 means test.

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick wants the scheme to cover a mother's superannuation payments and pay for a small amount of paternity leave.

SOURCE






Wadalba Community School is literally a place of hard knocks

This report comes after a particularly vicious bashing reported yesterday

DISTRESSED mum Rachelle Mawbey pulled her daughter out of Wadalba Community School amid fears she wouldn't survive, let alone graduate.

Appalled by the bullying and violence, Ms Mawbey decided to withdraw daughter Taylor Clarke-Pepper halfway through Year 8 three years ago.

"It was not uncommon for there to be lock-downs at least once a month, [playground] fights and stories coming home that a student had brought knives or guns to school," she said, claiming that teachers also openly admitted "giving up" on students and that 20-day suspensions "were the norm".

"They said they'd just keep suspending them until they left," Ms Mawbey said. "The school says it has an anti-bullying policy but it is just lip service: Violence is ongoing."

Another mother also pulled her then 12-year-old son out of Year 7 in 2005 after he was badly bullied. At the time she said he'd been pushed down stairs and beaten with sticks. The last straw was when she claimed teachers warned they couldn't guarantee his safety.

But an education department spokesman said: "Since 2007 there has been a significant fall in the suspension rate, [now] putting the school well within the regional average."

SOURCE





'Inept' public hospital doctors fail to save critically ill boy

LITTLE Isaraelu "Elu" Pele was a handsome and athletic eight-year-old boy who should not have died. Instead he wasted away in front of doctors who were too "ignorant" and "inept" to realise he was slowly dying of bacterial meningitis. For four agonising days doctors believed Elu's suffering was the result of eating a hamburger.

Yesterday Deputy State Coroner Hugh Dillon handed down a scathing report on Elu's treatment by doctors at Bankstown Hospital and The Children's Hospital, at Westmead in Sydney. Their failure in not carrying out blood tests and a lumbar puncture - a definitive test for meningitis - led to Elu suffering a heart attack and dying on June 18, 2007.

The coroner recommended an overhaul of how meningitis is diagnosed in emergency departments, as well as the way emergency doctors treat children with high fevers.

"This was a lost opportunity to save Elu's life," Mr Dillon said. "Instead, the diagnosis reached was that he was suffering from a relatively benign viral gastroenteritis."

Elu had been vomiting and had a fever since June 14, a day after he had eaten a hamburger, when his parents took him to the Primary Health Care Medical Centre, at Bankstown. The doctor there did not bother to take his temperature because the thermometer was broken.

The litany of missed opportunities to diagnose Elu continued over the course of two more visits to the GP and two presentations to both hospitals' emergency departments.

Yet despite his parents Fai and Lila's concerns that something was seriously wrong with their little boy, doctors continued to treat him with Panadol for a stomach bug.

It was four days later, after suffering high fevers, lethargy, headaches, vomiting and low alertness - all signs of meningitis - that Elu was taken back to Bankstown Hospital, where he died.

Health Minister Carmel Tebbutt apologised to the family and said she would consider the coroner's findings. "Mr and Mrs Pele have been through hell and back, they have my heartfelt apology, they have my heartfelt sympathy, and we will work hard to take on board what the coroner has recommended . . . to make sure that this doesn't happen again," she said yesterday.

"There have already been some changes made since Isaraelu's tragic death including at Westmead Children's Hospital where, if a child presents twice within 48 hours, senior advice is sought and admission is considered."

Fai Pele told Mr Dillon she could not describe the horror of losing Elu: "There is nothing worse than carrying your baby, caring and guarding it so jealously and dreaming of its future, only to have it ripped away from you. "The pain of losing a child is so incomprehensible . . ."

SOURCE







Hatred of Israel among Australian far-Leftists

by Philip Mendes

Historically, the international Left has incorporated a wide spectrum of views on Zionism and Israel ranging from unequivocal support for Israel to even-handedness to hardline support for Palestinian positions. The contemporary Australian Left also lacks any consensus on this issue.

Nevertheless, it is fair to say that a wide majority on the Left support a two-state solution which encapsulates recognition of both Israeli and Palestinian national rights. It is also fair to say that those anti-Zionist fundamentalists who advocate the elimination of Israel and its replacement by an Arab State of Greater Palestine represent a small if vocal, minority.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, this minority group attempted to censor and exclude any Left voices in favour of the continued existence of the State of Israel. For example, the assorted Trotskyists and Maoists in the far Left Australian Union of Students (AUS), and Bill Hartley’s extreme Left faction of the Victorian ALP hurled abuse and vitriol at any Jewish-identifying leftists who didn’t identify unconditionally with the abolish Israel aims of the PLO.

Political scientist Dennis Altman – himself Jewish, non-Zionist and sceptical of both extreme Zionist and anti-Zionist perspectives – famously wrote at the time that this anti-Zionist fundamentalism had become a new symbol of ideological purity in the radical Left. In the UK, a significant number of student unions even disaffiliated Jewish student societies on the prejudiced grounds that they were Zionist and hence allegedly racist.

This fanatical intolerance for moderate two-state views went on the backburner during the years of the Oslo Accord, but returned with a vengeance as the fundamentalists were reinvigorated by the blood and guts of the Second Intifada. Recent debates suggest that this vocal, but still small, pro-Palestinian lobby is enjoying some success in excluding and censoring the majority of Left voices.

For example, the proponents of an academic boycott of Israel essentialise Israeli Jews by claiming that left and right-wing Israelis are no different, and that they are all racist oppressors of the Palestinians. They argue that the rights of the oppressed Palestinians – who they also collectively essentialise as being uniquely innocent and deserving victims – should always take precedence over the rights of Israeli Jews.

The fundamentalists also attack all Jewish supporters of Israel’s existence as apologists for oppression, irrespective of whether they are supporters of two states, or alternatively advocates of a Greater Israel. They reserve particular hate for the so-called “left Zionists” who oppose the West Bank occupation and settlements whilst also critiquing Palestinian violence and extremism. These moderates are constructed as little more than the equivalent of left-wing Nazis. And then they use the old Soviet trick of highlighting the views of a few Jewish “Uncle Toms” who are willing to exploit their own religious and cultural origins in order to vilify their own people. That malevolent game was used in the 1950s to defend Stalinist anti-Semitism. Now it is employed to misrepresent the historical and political context of the creation and development of the State of Israel.

The crude political objective is the exclusion of all Jewish-identifying leftists from Left debates on Zionism and Israel. And any means are justified to achieve this outcome including the ad-hominem abuse of individual Jewish activists, and a horrific lowering of intellectual and scholarly standards. The pro-Palestinian lobbyists are willing to throw out the most basic academic conventions regarding accurate presentation of evidence and correct citations and referencing if they don’t serve the interests of the Palestinian cause.

Two recent examples that come to mind are those of Overland and Arena Magazine. Some will say that these journals have a small readership within the Left elite and do not matter. Yet both journals are read widely by students and intellectuals, and have an influence far beyond their formal subscription figures. They are not the equivalent of party propaganda sheets such as Green Left Weekly, and that is precisely why they should incorporate a diversity (rather than narrow uniformity) of Left voices on Israel/Palestine. For the record, I have regularly contributed to both journals in the past on a range of issues, and continue to respect their broader political projects despite their current adherence to a particularly fanatical form of pro-Palestinian orthodoxy.

Overland

The case of Overland is particularly disturbing. This Melbourne-based quarterly journal was formed by ex-communist Stephen Murray-Smith in 1954 to promote progressive and democratic debate. Overland is best known for its publication of local poets and short story writers, and its powerful cultural presentation of Australian progressive politics. Although Murray-Smith published a powerful critique of Soviet anti-Semitism in issue 32 (1965), it has rarely covered Jewish-related issues. To the best of my knowledge, it rarely if ever published material on Israel until 2007.

Under the editorship of Jeff Sparrow, the pro-Palestinian lobby has captured Overland’s agenda. This is particularly reflected in the four recent articles that appeared in issues 184 by Ned Curthoys, 187 by Ned Curthoys, 193 by Antony Loewenstein, and 198 by Michael Brull. As a combination, they form a mad hatter’s picnic of fanatical attacks on Israel and supporters of Israel followed by more fanatical attacks of the same ilk.

Curthoys, who co-ordinates the two person Committee for the Dismantling of Zionism with his father John Docker, is a serial hater of Israel and Zionism. In Issue 184, he provides not surprisingly a positive review of Antony Loewenstein’s anti-Israel text, My Israel Question. He also cannot resist promoting his favourite obsession concerning the campaign for a cultural, economic and academic boycott of Israel based on the racial stereotyping of all Israeli Jews as oppressors.

But in Issue 187, he firmly criticises the founding statement of Loewenstein’s Independent Australian Jewish Voices group for being too moderate, and specifically for accepting Israel’s right to exist. Instead, Curthoys returns to his theme of the necessity of an economic and cultural boycott of Israel, and particularly targets Left Zionism as inherently racist. He proposes the elimination of Israel, and its replacement by an Arab majority state.

Arena Magazine

The case of Arena is equally disappointing. This intellectual journal of “Left political, social and cultural commentary” was formed by dissident party and non-party Communist intellectuals in 1963. Originally informed by Marxist ideology, it published a useful critique of Soviet anti-Semitism by Jewish leader Isi Leibler in the mid 1960s, and some views to the contrary. In recent decades, it has been increasingly influenced by a wider range of ideologies including particularly post-modernism.

For example, the August-September (Issue no. 85) 2006 issue published three contributions from Antony Loewenstein, Jeremy Salt and John Hinkson which all presented a parochial Palestinian narrative instead of a balanced internationalist perspective. Worse was to come. The February-March 2009 issue on the Gaza war contained no less than three pro-Palestinian articles by Jeremy Salt, Les Rosenblatt, and the Docker/Curthoys tag team backed up by four biased photo montages from anti-war demonstrations in Israel. The contribution from Docker/Curthoys of the Committee for the Dismantling of Zionism was uniquely fanatical, contesting the legitimacy of Israel’s creation in 1948, and advocating an unconditional return of 1948 Palestinian refugees to Israel which would mean the immediate end of Israel as a Jewish state.

More HERE






Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.


For overseas readers: The "ALP" is the Australian Labor Party -- Australia's major Leftist party. The "Liberal" party is Australia's major conservative political party.


Again for overseas readers: Like the USA, Germany and India, Australia has State governments as well as the Federal government. So it may be useful to know the usual abbreviations for the Australian States: QLD (Queensland), NSW (New South Wales), WA (Western Australia), VIC (Victoria), TAS (Tasmania), SA (South Australia).


For American readers: A "pensioner" is a retired person living on Social Security


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


On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.


I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!


I am an army man. Although my service in the Australian army was chiefly noted for its un-notability, I DID join voluntarily in the Vietnam era, I DID reach the rank of Sergeant, and I DID volunteer for a posting in Vietnam. So I think I may be forgiven for saying something that most army men think but which most don't say because they think it is too obvious: The profession of arms is the noblest profession of all because it is the only profession where you offer to lay down your life in performing your duties. Our men fought so that people could say and think what they like but I myself always treat military men with great respect -- respect which in my view is simply their due.


The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody. And I have NO investments in oil companies, mining companies or "Big Pharma"


UPDATE: Despite my (statistical) aversion to mining stocks, I have recently bought a few shares in BHP -- the world's biggest miner, I gather. I run the grave risk of becoming a speaker of famous last words for saying this but I suspect that BHP is now so big as to be largely immune from the risks that plague most mining companies. I also know of no issue affecting BHP where my writings would have any relevance. The Left seem to have a visceral hatred of miners. I have never quite figured out why.


Although I have been an atheist for all my adult life, I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament. And my Scripture blog will show that I know whereof I speak.