Australian Politics
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Typical Leftist government: Cut frontline services but NEVER cut the ever-growing bureaucracy
WA Police stripped of mobile phones while on the beat. The government could have got equivalent savings by firing just TWO "administrators"
FRONT-LINE police have been stripped of their mobile phones because of State Government cost-cutting. In a move the force says will save a meagre $200,000, it has axed 115 mobile phones from operational officers - 113 in the city and two in regional districts. And The Sunday Times understands that it will cut more phones, which are shared between patrol teams, from regional police districts.
Some officers must now solely rely on the radio network, but country police have expressed concerns with the botched regional system, which has broken down an average of 100 times a year in the past few years. The WA Police Union yesterday slammed the move, describing it as ``outrageous'' and akin to sending officers on the beat with no firearms, handcuffs or Taser stun guns.
It comes despite Police Minister Rob Johnson repeatedly insisting that the Government's 3 per cent ``efficiency cuts'' would not affect front-line police services.
``This is an absolutely pathetic indictment on this Government with the 3 per cent cut, which is going to affect operational police officers throughout the state,'' WA Police Union president Russell Armstrong said. ``A 3 per cent cut for police or any other emergency service is absolutely disgraceful. ``It's absolutely outrageous that police officers haven't got the modern communications in their vehicles of a mobile phone. It's 2009, not 1979.'' Mr Armstrong said while metropolitan and some regional officers had the secure digital radio network, TADIS, they still needed access to mobile phones. And many country areas were still forced to rely on the unreliable and non-secure old analogue system. The digital system covers stations from Dunsborough to Lancelin, leaving key towns such as Geraldton, Albany and Broome out of the loop.
Officers use the phones to contact victims of crime, complainants and liaise with hospitals and other agencies while on the road. Mr Armstrong said he was aware of cases where officers had been forced to ask complainants to use their phones for police business. He demanded the State Government order the phones be reinstated as a matter of urgency.
Deputy Commissioner Chris Dawson said the decision was part of the State Government's budget cuts. ``A decision was made to reduce the WA Police mobile phone bill by 20 per cent as part of the 3 per cent efficiency dividend,'' Mr Dawson said. ``(WA Police's) mobile phone bill is about $1 million a year.'' Mr Dawson said he had no concerns about the safety of front-line police. ``We don't believe it will impact on officers' safety or efficiency,'' he said.
Mr Johnson said with the introduction of TADIS there was less need for police to have mobile phones.
SOURCE
Barnaby takes Rudd down a peg or two over climate folly
KEVIN Rudd should take an ``ego pill'' when it comes to global climate change negotiations, Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce says. The major world powers do not care what Mr Rudd thinks about tackling climate change, he says. ``Mr Rudd has got to stop fooling himself that he is a mover and shaker on ... world environmental politics,'' Senator Joyce told Sky News today. ``He has got to support the main players, take an ego pill, and realise the main players are the United States and China and Europe and support their mechanisms for an outcome rather than believing he's actually going to be constructive. ``Away from the niceties, I don't think they really care what Mr Rudd says.''
Mr Rudd watched from the sidelines in L'Aquila, Italy, as the Group of Eight nations agreed on Wednesday that developed nations should cut emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. But a day later the 16-nation Major Economies Forum, made up of major and developing nations, failed to agree on an emissions target.
Mr Rudd was overheard telling his Danish counterpart Lars Lokke Rasmussen yesterday that world leaders would be unlikely to reach an agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions at UN climate change talks to be held at Copenhagen in December.
Senator Joyce said Mr Rudd's admission that Copenhagen was unlikely to produce results suggests the climate change forums in Italy were a flop.
SOURCE
Sex furore best left at sea
WHERE was Benny Hill when you needed him during the week? News that several seamen from the HMAS Success were called home for conspiring to have sex with female colleagues at sea was almost too good to be true for those who love a bit of schoolboy humour. With headlines such as "Probe into navy sex bet scandal", it was all too funny, except not many seemed to see the humour.
Heaven forbid, but some 20-something male sailors had put together a list of women to whom they assigned a value if they were able to have a sexual relationship with them. As a result of thinking about having sex, these sailors have now been questioned by many as to their suitability of possibly shooting people in defence of our country.
Melinda Tankard Reist [who seems to have become Australia's official wowser], of Woman's Forum Australia said: "I don't think these men should have a role in the navy. These are not the kind of men we want defending us."
What? I think too many people have been watching An Officer and a Gentleman too many times. Hello! Richard Gere is a movie character. So now you are not allowed to think about stupid and inappropriate things?
In the meantime, almost every publication (men's and women's) lists the desirability of people on a daily basis. During the week, the Herald Sun had a story referring to Federal Sports Minister Kate Ellis as "our sexiest MP".
Maybe it's time to bring back the eunuch. They were trusted men of old who were gelded to keep their minds on the job without fear of getting the urge, so to speak. Not only that, but we could get a great navy choir out of all this.
Yes, the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have called for action - or rather, for no action - from our navy boys. The sailors have been sent home to face the possibility of the sack rather than ending up in one. I'll make a wild guess and say that in offices all over the world, members of both sexes and all sexual persuasions have sized up the sexual form guide of those around them.
Surely all that was required was for the Rear Admiral or someone of a suitable rank to take the boys aside and tell them to pull their heads in? Did we really need the PM and the Deputy PM commenting on such things? Should we really be worrying about sex drive and an inappropriate sense of humour when judging suitability to be a sailor? If the navy finds that the now famous ledger had serious undertones or proof of any form of physical or mental abuse , then sack them. Otherwise, can we just leave these things to the ship's officer?
Being stupid is not a hanging offence - acting on such stupidity is. Knuckleheads have to constantly be reminded where a joke starts and ends - particularly in the armed forces, as a history of bullying would attest.
SOURCE
Compulsion to compromise in divorce preceedings leads to injustice and failure
Mediation or negotiation in family disputes, while attractive in principle, can often be ineffectual, and at worst, counterproductive. In the 1989 film, The War of the Roses, Barbara and Oliver Rose were in such extreme conflict over their dream house, they eventually killed each other. Only judicial intervention could have stopped the carnage.
The importance of dealing with divorce in the best possible way when one-third of Australian marriages fail is clearly crucial to the well-being of the community. Over the past 25 years, family disputes in Australia have been increasingly resolved through mediation and negotiation, rather than litigation. Since the mid-1990s, "Alternative Dispute Resolution" (ADR) has become the most common way to resolve family feuds.
In July 2007, the Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Act, took that one step further, heralding a major change in the way family mediation operates in this country. Today, nearly all divorcing couples with children are not just encouraged - but required - to take part in at least one session with a family mediator before an application for a parenting order can proceed in court.
This transition to compulsory ADR has been very fast when compared to the gradual changes normally characterising common law. Certainly a major factor for its rapid introduction has been the huge increase in the breakdown of family relationships, resulting in excessive workloads for courts.
But the major focus on the perceived benefits of ADR - its lower cost, speedier decisions and added control it offers disputants over disagreements and solutions - has come at the expense of recognising its problems. The rationale that parties who are initially unwilling to mediate will eventually settle is not only unsound, but does not deal with other goals in the civil justice system, such as truth, correctness, openness, transparency and accountability. The benefits of ADR are only valid so long as the procedure is truly voluntary.
In reality, parents often feel coerced into accepting shared parenting plans out of need, fear, ignorance, guilt or low expectations. Compelling parties to mediate fundamentally undermines both the fairness and effectiveness of the process to the point where it can be no longer legitimate. A good faith requirement exists in the 2007 amendment which includes the need for participants to make a ‘genuine effort' at resolving the dispute. Unless disputants are certified as making this ‘genuine effort,' they cannot proceed to a judicial decision.
But how do we measure the notion of ‘good faith' and ‘genuine effort'? And who has the responsibility for making such judgements? This is the most contentious aspect of the changes to Australian divorce laws. Some couples make very little effort to reach agreement, but are still issued with a certificate that allows them to proceed to court. They still want their ‘day in court' and only pay lip service to the need for ‘good faith' negotiations.
Family dispute mediators, for their part, aim to resolve a dispute, rather than assign blame. Some do not have the rigorous training and experience formerly held by court mediators. If they are to become family dispute resolution practitioners, weighing evidence and assigning blame, then they run the risk of duplicating the court system. Paradoxically, this leads to not only increased costs, but also to anger and resentment from the disputants, who have everything at stake.
True, there is provision to exempt certain cases from the compulsory nature of ADR, such as when domestic violence is alleged. But an informal exemption is not always sufficient to ensure that this never happens, especially as family violence is often kept secret. A survey conducted last year by the Australian Family of Studies found that a year after the amendment was introduced, many women with apprehended violence orders were forced into mediation with their partners, where further threats of abuse occurred.
What's more, anecdotal and preliminary statistics with family mediators suggests that the introduction of mandatory family mediation in Australia is counteracting one of its main objectives because we now have lower settlement rates than previously occurred. Once couples were compelled, rather than given a choice to mediate, only about 50% to 60% of them reached full settlement. That compares to around 80% when mediation was voluntary.
Recognising that the use of compulsory ADR in family mediation may need further consideration, a National Alternative Dispute Resolution Advisory Council will present a report to Attorney General Robert McClelland in September 2009 about the barriers and incentives of compulsory ADR as an alternative to civil proceedings.
The Government needs to be careful. Compulsory mediation is a contradiction in terms. As was the case with the fictitious Rose couple of Hollywood, certain cases can only be adequately resolved by judicial decision-making.
SOURCE. Further commentary here.
WA Police stripped of mobile phones while on the beat. The government could have got equivalent savings by firing just TWO "administrators"
FRONT-LINE police have been stripped of their mobile phones because of State Government cost-cutting. In a move the force says will save a meagre $200,000, it has axed 115 mobile phones from operational officers - 113 in the city and two in regional districts. And The Sunday Times understands that it will cut more phones, which are shared between patrol teams, from regional police districts.
Some officers must now solely rely on the radio network, but country police have expressed concerns with the botched regional system, which has broken down an average of 100 times a year in the past few years. The WA Police Union yesterday slammed the move, describing it as ``outrageous'' and akin to sending officers on the beat with no firearms, handcuffs or Taser stun guns.
It comes despite Police Minister Rob Johnson repeatedly insisting that the Government's 3 per cent ``efficiency cuts'' would not affect front-line police services.
``This is an absolutely pathetic indictment on this Government with the 3 per cent cut, which is going to affect operational police officers throughout the state,'' WA Police Union president Russell Armstrong said. ``A 3 per cent cut for police or any other emergency service is absolutely disgraceful. ``It's absolutely outrageous that police officers haven't got the modern communications in their vehicles of a mobile phone. It's 2009, not 1979.'' Mr Armstrong said while metropolitan and some regional officers had the secure digital radio network, TADIS, they still needed access to mobile phones. And many country areas were still forced to rely on the unreliable and non-secure old analogue system. The digital system covers stations from Dunsborough to Lancelin, leaving key towns such as Geraldton, Albany and Broome out of the loop.
Officers use the phones to contact victims of crime, complainants and liaise with hospitals and other agencies while on the road. Mr Armstrong said he was aware of cases where officers had been forced to ask complainants to use their phones for police business. He demanded the State Government order the phones be reinstated as a matter of urgency.
Deputy Commissioner Chris Dawson said the decision was part of the State Government's budget cuts. ``A decision was made to reduce the WA Police mobile phone bill by 20 per cent as part of the 3 per cent efficiency dividend,'' Mr Dawson said. ``(WA Police's) mobile phone bill is about $1 million a year.'' Mr Dawson said he had no concerns about the safety of front-line police. ``We don't believe it will impact on officers' safety or efficiency,'' he said.
Mr Johnson said with the introduction of TADIS there was less need for police to have mobile phones.
SOURCE
Barnaby takes Rudd down a peg or two over climate folly
KEVIN Rudd should take an ``ego pill'' when it comes to global climate change negotiations, Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce says. The major world powers do not care what Mr Rudd thinks about tackling climate change, he says. ``Mr Rudd has got to stop fooling himself that he is a mover and shaker on ... world environmental politics,'' Senator Joyce told Sky News today. ``He has got to support the main players, take an ego pill, and realise the main players are the United States and China and Europe and support their mechanisms for an outcome rather than believing he's actually going to be constructive. ``Away from the niceties, I don't think they really care what Mr Rudd says.''
Mr Rudd watched from the sidelines in L'Aquila, Italy, as the Group of Eight nations agreed on Wednesday that developed nations should cut emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. But a day later the 16-nation Major Economies Forum, made up of major and developing nations, failed to agree on an emissions target.
Mr Rudd was overheard telling his Danish counterpart Lars Lokke Rasmussen yesterday that world leaders would be unlikely to reach an agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions at UN climate change talks to be held at Copenhagen in December.
Senator Joyce said Mr Rudd's admission that Copenhagen was unlikely to produce results suggests the climate change forums in Italy were a flop.
SOURCE
Sex furore best left at sea
WHERE was Benny Hill when you needed him during the week? News that several seamen from the HMAS Success were called home for conspiring to have sex with female colleagues at sea was almost too good to be true for those who love a bit of schoolboy humour. With headlines such as "Probe into navy sex bet scandal", it was all too funny, except not many seemed to see the humour.
Heaven forbid, but some 20-something male sailors had put together a list of women to whom they assigned a value if they were able to have a sexual relationship with them. As a result of thinking about having sex, these sailors have now been questioned by many as to their suitability of possibly shooting people in defence of our country.
Melinda Tankard Reist [who seems to have become Australia's official wowser], of Woman's Forum Australia said: "I don't think these men should have a role in the navy. These are not the kind of men we want defending us."
What? I think too many people have been watching An Officer and a Gentleman too many times. Hello! Richard Gere is a movie character. So now you are not allowed to think about stupid and inappropriate things?
In the meantime, almost every publication (men's and women's) lists the desirability of people on a daily basis. During the week, the Herald Sun had a story referring to Federal Sports Minister Kate Ellis as "our sexiest MP".
Maybe it's time to bring back the eunuch. They were trusted men of old who were gelded to keep their minds on the job without fear of getting the urge, so to speak. Not only that, but we could get a great navy choir out of all this.
Yes, the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have called for action - or rather, for no action - from our navy boys. The sailors have been sent home to face the possibility of the sack rather than ending up in one. I'll make a wild guess and say that in offices all over the world, members of both sexes and all sexual persuasions have sized up the sexual form guide of those around them.
Surely all that was required was for the Rear Admiral or someone of a suitable rank to take the boys aside and tell them to pull their heads in? Did we really need the PM and the Deputy PM commenting on such things? Should we really be worrying about sex drive and an inappropriate sense of humour when judging suitability to be a sailor? If the navy finds that the now famous ledger had serious undertones or proof of any form of physical or mental abuse , then sack them. Otherwise, can we just leave these things to the ship's officer?
Being stupid is not a hanging offence - acting on such stupidity is. Knuckleheads have to constantly be reminded where a joke starts and ends - particularly in the armed forces, as a history of bullying would attest.
SOURCE
Compulsion to compromise in divorce preceedings leads to injustice and failure
Mediation or negotiation in family disputes, while attractive in principle, can often be ineffectual, and at worst, counterproductive. In the 1989 film, The War of the Roses, Barbara and Oliver Rose were in such extreme conflict over their dream house, they eventually killed each other. Only judicial intervention could have stopped the carnage.
The importance of dealing with divorce in the best possible way when one-third of Australian marriages fail is clearly crucial to the well-being of the community. Over the past 25 years, family disputes in Australia have been increasingly resolved through mediation and negotiation, rather than litigation. Since the mid-1990s, "Alternative Dispute Resolution" (ADR) has become the most common way to resolve family feuds.
In July 2007, the Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Act, took that one step further, heralding a major change in the way family mediation operates in this country. Today, nearly all divorcing couples with children are not just encouraged - but required - to take part in at least one session with a family mediator before an application for a parenting order can proceed in court.
This transition to compulsory ADR has been very fast when compared to the gradual changes normally characterising common law. Certainly a major factor for its rapid introduction has been the huge increase in the breakdown of family relationships, resulting in excessive workloads for courts.
But the major focus on the perceived benefits of ADR - its lower cost, speedier decisions and added control it offers disputants over disagreements and solutions - has come at the expense of recognising its problems. The rationale that parties who are initially unwilling to mediate will eventually settle is not only unsound, but does not deal with other goals in the civil justice system, such as truth, correctness, openness, transparency and accountability. The benefits of ADR are only valid so long as the procedure is truly voluntary.
In reality, parents often feel coerced into accepting shared parenting plans out of need, fear, ignorance, guilt or low expectations. Compelling parties to mediate fundamentally undermines both the fairness and effectiveness of the process to the point where it can be no longer legitimate. A good faith requirement exists in the 2007 amendment which includes the need for participants to make a ‘genuine effort' at resolving the dispute. Unless disputants are certified as making this ‘genuine effort,' they cannot proceed to a judicial decision.
But how do we measure the notion of ‘good faith' and ‘genuine effort'? And who has the responsibility for making such judgements? This is the most contentious aspect of the changes to Australian divorce laws. Some couples make very little effort to reach agreement, but are still issued with a certificate that allows them to proceed to court. They still want their ‘day in court' and only pay lip service to the need for ‘good faith' negotiations.
Family dispute mediators, for their part, aim to resolve a dispute, rather than assign blame. Some do not have the rigorous training and experience formerly held by court mediators. If they are to become family dispute resolution practitioners, weighing evidence and assigning blame, then they run the risk of duplicating the court system. Paradoxically, this leads to not only increased costs, but also to anger and resentment from the disputants, who have everything at stake.
True, there is provision to exempt certain cases from the compulsory nature of ADR, such as when domestic violence is alleged. But an informal exemption is not always sufficient to ensure that this never happens, especially as family violence is often kept secret. A survey conducted last year by the Australian Family of Studies found that a year after the amendment was introduced, many women with apprehended violence orders were forced into mediation with their partners, where further threats of abuse occurred.
What's more, anecdotal and preliminary statistics with family mediators suggests that the introduction of mandatory family mediation in Australia is counteracting one of its main objectives because we now have lower settlement rates than previously occurred. Once couples were compelled, rather than given a choice to mediate, only about 50% to 60% of them reached full settlement. That compares to around 80% when mediation was voluntary.
Recognising that the use of compulsory ADR in family mediation may need further consideration, a National Alternative Dispute Resolution Advisory Council will present a report to Attorney General Robert McClelland in September 2009 about the barriers and incentives of compulsory ADR as an alternative to civil proceedings.
The Government needs to be careful. Compulsory mediation is a contradiction in terms. As was the case with the fictitious Rose couple of Hollywood, certain cases can only be adequately resolved by judicial decision-making.
SOURCE. Further commentary here.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
More Britons are emigrating to Australia
More Britons are emigrating, and they don't have to be young and carefree to join the exodus. Consider the choices of Britons joining the 2.26 million jobless queue, with rain outside and peeling paint within. If they are of a generation that enjoyed the sun-kissed, carefree bliss of the backpacker trail, this increasingly is the moment to swap recession-hit Britain for balmy and relatively buoyant Australia. British unemployment has reached 7.2 per cent, a 12-year high, and thousands of people are preparing to follow the masses of Australians going home to an economy which has largely avoided recession.
There is nothing new about British immigration, of course. Tens of thousands arrived under the postwar £10 Poms scheme, encouraged by a labour-hungry Australia willing to subsidise their passage and determined to preserve Australian whiteness. But money frequently is no longer the guiding principle for today's crop of often comfortable departees from the old dart. Quality of life is the new holy grail; many can fall back on sizeable cash reserves accumulated during boom times.
Not everyone is invited to the party though. In a world where sophisticated immigration policies have been tailored to the needs of individual labour markets, the door is open only to a "migrant elite" with specified skills. Unlike earlier generations, large numbers have no intention of returning to Britain.
Typical are members of the Mercer family from the Wirral, north-western England, who are set to move to Australia this year. "My expectation is that Australia is a land of opportunities where hard work will be recognised in a way that I think is taken for granted here," says Tony Mercer, 31, whose property business went bust in the economic storm last year.
An aircraft engineer by trade, his skills did not meet the qualifying criteria because he had not used them for years. Instead, the Mercers secured the points needed to move to Australia because his hairdresser wife Jane's skills are in demand. With Samuel, 7, and Jessica, 4, the Mercers have chosen Adelaide. Aside from air fares, a family of four is likely to pay about $10,000 in the visa application process, a system the Mercers describe as "a minefield".
Unsurprisingly, inquiries have shot up at the Emigration Group, a British company employing former Australian immigration staff who help with visa applications. "More people are having serious concerns about the future of this country," says an Emigration Group director, Paul Arthur. Increasingly his customers are young, middle-class professionals citing high taxes, poor weather and poor services as reasons for emigrating. The vast majority are homeowners, although the stagnant property market has meant some are biding their time before they raise the capital needed.
Another option for those wanting to emigrate is to study overseas. One British company, Study Options, has taken on extra staff to place Britons in Australian and New Zealand universities. Co-founder Stefan Watts reports a surge in business from professionals wanting to ride out the recession by taking time to study. Mr Watts sees more clients who are older, in their late 20s or 30s, and time poor. Many look forward to returning to a country they once backpacked around and are unfazed at getting little or no support to pay fees such as the typical $17,000 for undergraduate degree courses.
Will Morrin, a 38-year-old from Glasgow who was made redundant last year from his job as a broker, is about to embark on a three-year radiography degree at Newcastle in NSW, even though he was accepted for a similar degree in Britain with no fees to pay. "I have savings and had been doing a bit of thinking so I sold the car and the house. Weighing it up, what's important is the quality of life," he says. "Weather is the No.1 draw and getting away from the rat race. Things in the UK will only get worse once interest rates kick in." Once qualified in a sought-after profession, he may stay for four years to qualify for Australian citizenship or move to Canada, another economic lifeboat of choice for many...
Traditionally Britons emigrated in good years and stayed put in uncertain economic times. The sign from this recession, however, is a bucking of those traditions. Immigration peaked in 2007 and began to decline early last year, but picked up again in the second half of 2008, according to the Office for National Statistics. More than 165,000 British nationals had emigrated in the first seven months of last year.
This year's yet-to-be published Brits Abroad report by the Institute for Public Policy Research will show most British migrants are highly skilled, although the net loss of such workers seems to be decreasing. Work, lifestyle and adventure are listed as the three main reasons for leaving. The big surprise, however, is in the flexibility afforded by technologies that promote and facilitate remote working. More people are having their cake and eating it, emigrating while retaining jobs back in Britain.
SOURCE
Australian conservatives wavering on climate bill
MALCOLM Turnbull will come under renewed pressure to try to block the Rudd government's climate change legislation in the Senate after warnings from a key Liberal frontbencher. Coalition emissions trading spokesman Andrew Robb said yesterday he was "even more convinced" of the need to delay Labor's climate change plans after learning first-hand about US legislation that could disadvantage Australia.
Mr Robb said the Rudd government wanted to impose punitive laws on high-emissions industries such as power generation while legislation that had passed in the US congress made almost all the gains from industry offsets. "Our bill is largely all stick, the US bill is carrot," Mr Robb said. He said he had identified eight key differences between the Australian and US legislation that meant it was foolish to pass new laws in isolation.
Speaking to The Weekend Australian after meetings with US industry and congressional figures in Washington, Mr Robb said the US proposals allowed much longer periods for adjustment, more assistance for business and big offsets under carbon trading.
The senior Liberal's position is in stark contrast to the warm reception President Barack Obama gave Kevin Rudd at the climate change forum of major economies in L'Aquila, Italy, as a climate change hero for advocating innovative carbon capture techniques. The Prime Minister has already used the US congress vote on the proposed Climate Change and Clean Energy Act to press the Opposition Leader into backing Labor's version of an emissions trading scheme in the Australian Senate after it passed in the House of Representatives.
Mr Turnbull, who says he wants to support an amended ETS scheme, is having difficulty with sceptics in the Coalition partyroom and has been accused by Mr Rudd of being a "permanent block" on climate change. Mr Rudd has revised the government's proposed scheme by delaying it until 2011, making more generous compensation for the heaviest polluters and reducing energy bills by pricing carbon at $10 a tonne for the first year.
But Mr Robb is not satisfied after comparing Labor's bill with the mammoth 1300-page US legislation, which is expected to be amended further when it goes before the US Senate. Mr Robb said the Rudd government needed to wait until at least October or November, when the final form of the US legislation may be passed. He said he was most concerned about US offsets for agriculture, built-environment and other areas of the economy. "In the US bill, there is major provision for industry to create carbon offsets, and there is only minor provision for that in the Australian bill," Mr Robb said. "It's a major difference -- it's that carrot and stick issue. Our bill is largely all stick, the US bill is carrot, and mostly the targets are going to be provided by the carrots, the offsets."
Mr Robb's Washington study follows a similar visit by Family First senator Stephen Fielding, now a climate change sceptic, who could vote against Labor's bill. Mr Robb said the US treatment of power generators was fundamentally different from Australian proposals: "Eighteen years adjustment period in the US, five years here. Three times more assistance in the US than here. "With energy-intensive trade-exposed industries, there is 100per cent free allocation of permits until the rest of the world has its schemes in place."
Mr Robb said US electricity price increases would be lower than for Australia. In the US, only 15 per cent of all the permits would need to be bought over the next 10 years, while in Australia, from year one, 70 per cent would be bought. "That means our scheme is far more punitive and will put us at a disadvantage," he said.
SOURCE
Teacher unions hold future to ransom
Michael Costa
EDUCATION Minister Julia Gillard has within her portfolio responsibilities the challenge of managing arguably the most ideological and militant section of Australia's union movement, the teachers unions. The negative impact of these unions on the national economy and the financial and psychological wellbeing of Australian citizens far outweighs the damage caused by the periodic outbreaks of criminality witnessed in the building and construction sector.
The disproportionate and hysterical campaign being run by teachers unions against the federal government's modest attempts to reform Australian education shows how unreasonable and reactionary teachers unions have become.
In any discussion of education policy and teachers unions it is important to draw up-front distinction between the ideological fashions of educational policy professionals, the restrictive work practices imposed by teachers unions and the day-to-day work of teachers. Teaching and teachers have been undervalued for many decades; however, recent adjustments in teachers' salaries have led to a significant real increase in their value.
Teaching, practised well, is one of the noble professions that provides direct and unquantifiable intangible benefits to teacher and student. I have encouraged my own children to view teaching as a worthwhile and enriching career. It is important to acknowledge these in many ways self-evident issues up-front because one of the tactics used by teachers unions is the claim that criticism of educational practice is synonymous with criticism of the commitment and professionalism of individual teachers. This is, of course, nonsense.
Much of the difficulty in getting a sensible debate on education reform rests on the presumption of educationalists and teachers unions that only they understand what is in the best interest of students. Much of this is a smokescreen for protecting outmoded work practices, but it would be wrong to assume that it's all a smokescreen. Some of it represents genuinely held, albeit erroneous, beliefs by educationalists that they do indeed know better than the customers of the system - students, parents and employers - what is in their best interest. The skirmishes in education policy revolve around three key issues: the structure of the national curriculum, transparency and management accountability at school level.
The desirability of a consistent national curriculum that focuses on quality outcomes in basic literacy and numeracy should not be controversial. From the point of view of students and their parents the minimum outcome one would expect from a properly functioning education system should be a proficiency in these basic skills. Employers and the taxpayers who generously fund the education system expect students to be able to enter the labour market and participate in the general community with the basic skills required to make a meaningful contribution.
As uncontentious as this may seem, it still raises concerns and criticism from the education unions. The concerns expose the ideological conflict at the heart of this debate. The Australian Education Union submission to the National Curriculum Board on the shape of the national curriculum argues, in general, support for the concept of a national curriculum but wants the ability to influence, if not control, its composition. The AEU rejects the notion that the national curriculum is simply a program of teaching modules; rather, it claims that it is "one of the most powerful forces in democracy". The curriculum for the AEU ideologues "is a tool of social justice because it both describes and unlocks social and economic power".
The national curriculum document, according to the union, "should contain a statement or preamble recognising the vital role of education as a vehicle to social equity and fairness". Government should reject the so-called "back to basics" movement, which relies on "a distorted sense of educational crisis" based on false claims that "modern teaching methods have led to a decline in literacy and numeracy levels in schools".
This view is more an insight into the thinking of education unionists than a sensible critique of the challenge of a national curriculum. Clearly, by their own admission, education unionists regard the curriculum as a political document to enhance a particular group's views on what constitutes social justice. As Friedrich Hayek pointed out many years ago, social justice framed this way is largely meaningless, contradictory and ultimately in the eye of the beholder.
A national curriculum that focuses on basic literacy and numeracy can comfortably coexist with curriculum flexibility to allow students to concentrate on a range of other subjects as part of a broader education. Equipped with good basic skills, students are provided with the opportunity to achieve success (social justice) in the marketplace and community. The real injustice is that the system at present doesn't deliver this for all.
Equally, much union criticism of so-called league tables misses the central issue: parents and taxpayers have a right to know how their children and their schools are performing. The unions claim the league tables "are unfair and simplistic" and they could "stigmatise schools and lead to unfair comparisons". Any statistical data can be misused. That is not an argument against collection of the data or publication of the data.
The hypocrisy of the Greens and the NSW Liberals on this issue is breathtaking. They regularly distort information received under Freedom of Information requests for political advantage. It would be interesting to see their reaction to a proposal to fine them $55,000 for publishing distorted or misleading statistical information.
Transparency and accountability are critical to improving education outcomes. Transparency and accountability are required in a sector that draws nearly 6 per cent of national wealth. Labor, before the 2007 federal election, made clear its intentions in these areas and has a mandate toprovide this fundamental educational data.
Concerns about the usage of the data could easily be dealt with by including in the rankings a clear measure of school performance through time. Clearly a school that has been performing well will have less scope for improvement than one that has performed poorly in the past. It can be argued that this is more unfair to the school that is consistently performing well than the school that has dramatic positive changes off a lower base.
A national curriculum and quality data about students at school performance are essential preconditions to improving education outcomes. However, without a significant realignment of responsibilities and accountability at the school level, this effort could be wasted. The local administrators, particularly principals, have to be allowed to manage their schools without undue interference from central bureaucracies and union-sanctioned work practices that undermine quality innovation in schools.
Principals need to have flexibility in how they allocate their budgets and how they manage their staff. Principals should not have to put up with poor performing teachers and they should have the ability to directly hire teachers who they believe will benefit the school. Parents need genuine input in their children's educational outcomes. Whether school vouchers or some other mechanism can provide this needs to be tested.
Gillard's quest for transparency and accountability needs to be vigorously supported as a preliminary stage in a process of education revitalisation. The real test of the government's commitment will require more than this preliminary first step.
SOURCE
Australian antisemitic publications
At its core the internet is an ideal. I can arrange an online chat with a political scientist in South Korea, create an email focus group amongst my constituents, even discuss Islamic revolutionary theory with a student in Iran. But as with any movement or agent of change, an ideal can be undermined by the ideology of its users. For me, a clear example is the partisan coverage of the Israeli Palestinian conflict by some online magazines. This years output of two of these online publications, Crikey.com and New Matilda.com, is profoundly disturbing.
Both have pretensions to non-partisan coverage. Crikey is run by a staff who claim journalistic credentials in its mission statement to be fair and open. New Matilda similarly claims to provide non-partisan information and takes contributions, as it describes, from "journalists, current and former politicians, lawyers, critical and creative thinkers, bloggers, policy-wonks and satirists". Which is just about everyone in this room - and a good percentage of those outside of it.
Whatever their stated aims, a careful analysis of their output over the first three months of this year shows that when it comes to the coverage of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, Crikey and New Matilda are in fact manifestly partisan. Both consistently adopt the Palestinian narrative, characterise Israel as an oppressor, and ignore Israeli's legitimate security concerns. It is their right to criticize the only free society in the Middle East but it is nonsense to claim they are not strongly biased.
Following the last Israeli elections, Crikey contributor Jeff Sparrow stated as fact that Israeli society had moved sharply to the right, at the same time that that the centre-left Kadima party secured the largest block vote and Likud's Netanyahu sought to broaden his coalition into a ruling government whose final makeup included longtime advocates of peace with the Palestinians. In another article the same contributor looked at the decision of the Israel's Central Elections Committee to ban the participation of two nationalist Arab political parties in the elections, drawing odious parallels with South Africa's apartheid regime - whilst ignoring the democratic Israeli institutions, not found elsewhere in the Middle East, that a few days later saw the Supreme Court reverse that bureaucratic decision. Similarly, New Matilda correspondent Ben White accuses Israel of apartheid control over the Palestinians. He condemns outright the erection of a security fence without reference whatsoever to it or the fact that it has lead to a 95% drop in homicide attacks on civilians in Israel or the fact that it acts as a defensive measure against repeated terrorist attacks, or that the fence's route has always been subject to negotiation and moderation by the Israeli Supreme Court as part of the peace process.
Another Crikey contributor, Guy Rundle, downplays the genocidal policies of Iran's President Ahmedinajab to little more than populism, dismissing outright Israel's authentic fears of a nuclear-armed Iran, not to mention the apprehension of moderate Arab regimes at the prospect of an Iranian regional hegemony.
New Matilda is even more strident in its partisanship. Of the 18 articles run by newmatilda.com in the fist three months of this year concerning the Israeli Palestinian conflict, 17 presented a hardline Palestinian narrative.
Some themes emerge. Polemicist Antony Lowewentein is but one of the correspondents to claim as fact that Israel refuses to consider a two-State solution, despite the evidence of numerous peace overtures, the consistent views of mainstream Israelis in favour of a consensus solution, and the unprecedented territorial concessions offered by Israel at the 2000 Camp David Summit and later at Taba, and indeed reoffered by Netanyahu's predecessor Ehud Olmert. Unmentioned is Hamas's refusal to recognise Israeli existence, as is the barrier presented to any unified proposal by the ongoing blood feud between the Fatah rulers of the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza.
Time and again these articles refer to Jews, or the Jewish State, but rarely Israel as a sovereign entity . Paradoxically New Matilda contributor Michael Brull then complains that most Australian Jewish groups do not identify themselves as pro -Israel but as simply Jewish. Clearly he has not read the pro-Israel platforms of the Executive Council for Australian Jewry or the Australian Union of Jewish students, two of the organisations he mentions, he appears unfamiliar with the view of Australian Jewry, which is similarly pro-Israel.
In May this year in Crikey, Lowenestein attacked the Executive Council for Australian Jewry , this time because it fails to condemn other forms of racism as readily as antisemitism. But it is this gem that highlights the author's real intent: "Anti-Muslim sentiment has often been proudly displayed since September 11 by the Zionist establishment. In their world view, only what they find offensive should be censored". Here we have it, a shadowy unnamed Zionist elite that has the impudence to speak out against antisemitism, as though a Jewish group is not entitled to focus on racial attacks against its own ethnicity! This is a rigged rhetorical game. It doesn't matter whether Jews defend themselves or not, or whether the focus of critics is on Israel as a Jewish State or Jewish groups in Australia, the charge is relentlessly the same.
Journalism can be a democratic bulwark, but in doing so we assume certain principles of journalistic professionalism, including the training and commitment to place opinion in a factual context. Yet the rise of the bologosphere is often characterised by its proponents as a triumph against the elitism or corporatisation of the established media. It is all well and good to allege that the Australian newspaper's foreign affairs commentator Greg Sheridan is an Israeli propagandist, as one New Matilda correspondent suggests, but Sheridan has thirty years experience as a senior journalist and is the author of five widely-published books on foreign issues. The New Matilda correspondent may not like his views, but Sheridan works in an environment where facts are checked and factual errors are corrected. As former New York Times standards editor,Al Siegal has said, the most overt concern with accuracy at a newspaper can be seen in the volume of corrections. This hardly seems to concern the editors of Crikey and New Matilda in their coverage of Israel.
An exchange of letters between the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission Chair Tony Levy and New Matilda editor Marni Cordell highlights this problem. In April Levy sent to Cordell a sober, detailed and careful analysis of the magazine's content in the first three months of this year, explaining the ADC's concerns over partisan opinion and the broad slabs of hate-speak that appear regularly in the comments sections attached to each article. In her brief reply, Cordell failed to address the evidence of partisanship, instead championing her publication's contribution to ‘diversity of opinion' i.e Brull, Lowenstein et al all whom have broadly similar views. This thinking is explained by her charge that the one sided ‘diversity of opinion' is to balance what she asserts is a biased media environment - of course, without corroborating this charge. She does not address at all the allegation of antisemitic comment, nor does she respond to the ADC's concern that the magazine chooses not to censor these comments, even though it expressly reserves the right to do so if the commentary is abusive or promotes hate.
Nevertheless, is this antisemitism, or just sloppy journalism? Former Soviet dissident and human rights activist Natan Schrasansky distinguished the two by his "3D Principles" - he warns to look for demonisation, delegitimation, and double standards.
Looking at the coverage in Crikey and New Matilda, we see Israel as a manipulator of world events, an apartheid State engaged in ethnic cleansing, and an initiator of wars that have no strategic or defensive foundation. That is demonisation.
Israel as deserving of the rocket attacks on its citizens, or not entitled to defend its sovereignty? That is deligitimisation. Israelis portrayed as arch war criminals, while scant attention is given in the same publications to human rights abuses in Burma, or Darfur, or Zimbabwe, or Tibet, or North Korea, or Chechnya, or the Congo? That is a double standard. Cordell's pathetic excuse for the obsession with denigrating the Israeli's and ignoring other conflicts where far more people's lives are at stake is ‘As I'm sure I don't need to remind you, the Israel/Palestine question is not a conflict on the same level as other regional problems that you mentioned. Problems in the Middle East, within which Israel/Palestine is a major issue, are something that play out in innumerable ways across the globe'
More HERE
More Britons are emigrating, and they don't have to be young and carefree to join the exodus. Consider the choices of Britons joining the 2.26 million jobless queue, with rain outside and peeling paint within. If they are of a generation that enjoyed the sun-kissed, carefree bliss of the backpacker trail, this increasingly is the moment to swap recession-hit Britain for balmy and relatively buoyant Australia. British unemployment has reached 7.2 per cent, a 12-year high, and thousands of people are preparing to follow the masses of Australians going home to an economy which has largely avoided recession.
There is nothing new about British immigration, of course. Tens of thousands arrived under the postwar £10 Poms scheme, encouraged by a labour-hungry Australia willing to subsidise their passage and determined to preserve Australian whiteness. But money frequently is no longer the guiding principle for today's crop of often comfortable departees from the old dart. Quality of life is the new holy grail; many can fall back on sizeable cash reserves accumulated during boom times.
Not everyone is invited to the party though. In a world where sophisticated immigration policies have been tailored to the needs of individual labour markets, the door is open only to a "migrant elite" with specified skills. Unlike earlier generations, large numbers have no intention of returning to Britain.
Typical are members of the Mercer family from the Wirral, north-western England, who are set to move to Australia this year. "My expectation is that Australia is a land of opportunities where hard work will be recognised in a way that I think is taken for granted here," says Tony Mercer, 31, whose property business went bust in the economic storm last year.
An aircraft engineer by trade, his skills did not meet the qualifying criteria because he had not used them for years. Instead, the Mercers secured the points needed to move to Australia because his hairdresser wife Jane's skills are in demand. With Samuel, 7, and Jessica, 4, the Mercers have chosen Adelaide. Aside from air fares, a family of four is likely to pay about $10,000 in the visa application process, a system the Mercers describe as "a minefield".
Unsurprisingly, inquiries have shot up at the Emigration Group, a British company employing former Australian immigration staff who help with visa applications. "More people are having serious concerns about the future of this country," says an Emigration Group director, Paul Arthur. Increasingly his customers are young, middle-class professionals citing high taxes, poor weather and poor services as reasons for emigrating. The vast majority are homeowners, although the stagnant property market has meant some are biding their time before they raise the capital needed.
Another option for those wanting to emigrate is to study overseas. One British company, Study Options, has taken on extra staff to place Britons in Australian and New Zealand universities. Co-founder Stefan Watts reports a surge in business from professionals wanting to ride out the recession by taking time to study. Mr Watts sees more clients who are older, in their late 20s or 30s, and time poor. Many look forward to returning to a country they once backpacked around and are unfazed at getting little or no support to pay fees such as the typical $17,000 for undergraduate degree courses.
Will Morrin, a 38-year-old from Glasgow who was made redundant last year from his job as a broker, is about to embark on a three-year radiography degree at Newcastle in NSW, even though he was accepted for a similar degree in Britain with no fees to pay. "I have savings and had been doing a bit of thinking so I sold the car and the house. Weighing it up, what's important is the quality of life," he says. "Weather is the No.1 draw and getting away from the rat race. Things in the UK will only get worse once interest rates kick in." Once qualified in a sought-after profession, he may stay for four years to qualify for Australian citizenship or move to Canada, another economic lifeboat of choice for many...
Traditionally Britons emigrated in good years and stayed put in uncertain economic times. The sign from this recession, however, is a bucking of those traditions. Immigration peaked in 2007 and began to decline early last year, but picked up again in the second half of 2008, according to the Office for National Statistics. More than 165,000 British nationals had emigrated in the first seven months of last year.
This year's yet-to-be published Brits Abroad report by the Institute for Public Policy Research will show most British migrants are highly skilled, although the net loss of such workers seems to be decreasing. Work, lifestyle and adventure are listed as the three main reasons for leaving. The big surprise, however, is in the flexibility afforded by technologies that promote and facilitate remote working. More people are having their cake and eating it, emigrating while retaining jobs back in Britain.
SOURCE
Australian conservatives wavering on climate bill
MALCOLM Turnbull will come under renewed pressure to try to block the Rudd government's climate change legislation in the Senate after warnings from a key Liberal frontbencher. Coalition emissions trading spokesman Andrew Robb said yesterday he was "even more convinced" of the need to delay Labor's climate change plans after learning first-hand about US legislation that could disadvantage Australia.
Mr Robb said the Rudd government wanted to impose punitive laws on high-emissions industries such as power generation while legislation that had passed in the US congress made almost all the gains from industry offsets. "Our bill is largely all stick, the US bill is carrot," Mr Robb said. He said he had identified eight key differences between the Australian and US legislation that meant it was foolish to pass new laws in isolation.
Speaking to The Weekend Australian after meetings with US industry and congressional figures in Washington, Mr Robb said the US proposals allowed much longer periods for adjustment, more assistance for business and big offsets under carbon trading.
The senior Liberal's position is in stark contrast to the warm reception President Barack Obama gave Kevin Rudd at the climate change forum of major economies in L'Aquila, Italy, as a climate change hero for advocating innovative carbon capture techniques. The Prime Minister has already used the US congress vote on the proposed Climate Change and Clean Energy Act to press the Opposition Leader into backing Labor's version of an emissions trading scheme in the Australian Senate after it passed in the House of Representatives.
Mr Turnbull, who says he wants to support an amended ETS scheme, is having difficulty with sceptics in the Coalition partyroom and has been accused by Mr Rudd of being a "permanent block" on climate change. Mr Rudd has revised the government's proposed scheme by delaying it until 2011, making more generous compensation for the heaviest polluters and reducing energy bills by pricing carbon at $10 a tonne for the first year.
But Mr Robb is not satisfied after comparing Labor's bill with the mammoth 1300-page US legislation, which is expected to be amended further when it goes before the US Senate. Mr Robb said the Rudd government needed to wait until at least October or November, when the final form of the US legislation may be passed. He said he was most concerned about US offsets for agriculture, built-environment and other areas of the economy. "In the US bill, there is major provision for industry to create carbon offsets, and there is only minor provision for that in the Australian bill," Mr Robb said. "It's a major difference -- it's that carrot and stick issue. Our bill is largely all stick, the US bill is carrot, and mostly the targets are going to be provided by the carrots, the offsets."
Mr Robb's Washington study follows a similar visit by Family First senator Stephen Fielding, now a climate change sceptic, who could vote against Labor's bill. Mr Robb said the US treatment of power generators was fundamentally different from Australian proposals: "Eighteen years adjustment period in the US, five years here. Three times more assistance in the US than here. "With energy-intensive trade-exposed industries, there is 100per cent free allocation of permits until the rest of the world has its schemes in place."
Mr Robb said US electricity price increases would be lower than for Australia. In the US, only 15 per cent of all the permits would need to be bought over the next 10 years, while in Australia, from year one, 70 per cent would be bought. "That means our scheme is far more punitive and will put us at a disadvantage," he said.
SOURCE
Teacher unions hold future to ransom
Michael Costa
EDUCATION Minister Julia Gillard has within her portfolio responsibilities the challenge of managing arguably the most ideological and militant section of Australia's union movement, the teachers unions. The negative impact of these unions on the national economy and the financial and psychological wellbeing of Australian citizens far outweighs the damage caused by the periodic outbreaks of criminality witnessed in the building and construction sector.
The disproportionate and hysterical campaign being run by teachers unions against the federal government's modest attempts to reform Australian education shows how unreasonable and reactionary teachers unions have become.
In any discussion of education policy and teachers unions it is important to draw up-front distinction between the ideological fashions of educational policy professionals, the restrictive work practices imposed by teachers unions and the day-to-day work of teachers. Teaching and teachers have been undervalued for many decades; however, recent adjustments in teachers' salaries have led to a significant real increase in their value.
Teaching, practised well, is one of the noble professions that provides direct and unquantifiable intangible benefits to teacher and student. I have encouraged my own children to view teaching as a worthwhile and enriching career. It is important to acknowledge these in many ways self-evident issues up-front because one of the tactics used by teachers unions is the claim that criticism of educational practice is synonymous with criticism of the commitment and professionalism of individual teachers. This is, of course, nonsense.
Much of the difficulty in getting a sensible debate on education reform rests on the presumption of educationalists and teachers unions that only they understand what is in the best interest of students. Much of this is a smokescreen for protecting outmoded work practices, but it would be wrong to assume that it's all a smokescreen. Some of it represents genuinely held, albeit erroneous, beliefs by educationalists that they do indeed know better than the customers of the system - students, parents and employers - what is in their best interest. The skirmishes in education policy revolve around three key issues: the structure of the national curriculum, transparency and management accountability at school level.
The desirability of a consistent national curriculum that focuses on quality outcomes in basic literacy and numeracy should not be controversial. From the point of view of students and their parents the minimum outcome one would expect from a properly functioning education system should be a proficiency in these basic skills. Employers and the taxpayers who generously fund the education system expect students to be able to enter the labour market and participate in the general community with the basic skills required to make a meaningful contribution.
As uncontentious as this may seem, it still raises concerns and criticism from the education unions. The concerns expose the ideological conflict at the heart of this debate. The Australian Education Union submission to the National Curriculum Board on the shape of the national curriculum argues, in general, support for the concept of a national curriculum but wants the ability to influence, if not control, its composition. The AEU rejects the notion that the national curriculum is simply a program of teaching modules; rather, it claims that it is "one of the most powerful forces in democracy". The curriculum for the AEU ideologues "is a tool of social justice because it both describes and unlocks social and economic power".
The national curriculum document, according to the union, "should contain a statement or preamble recognising the vital role of education as a vehicle to social equity and fairness". Government should reject the so-called "back to basics" movement, which relies on "a distorted sense of educational crisis" based on false claims that "modern teaching methods have led to a decline in literacy and numeracy levels in schools".
This view is more an insight into the thinking of education unionists than a sensible critique of the challenge of a national curriculum. Clearly, by their own admission, education unionists regard the curriculum as a political document to enhance a particular group's views on what constitutes social justice. As Friedrich Hayek pointed out many years ago, social justice framed this way is largely meaningless, contradictory and ultimately in the eye of the beholder.
A national curriculum that focuses on basic literacy and numeracy can comfortably coexist with curriculum flexibility to allow students to concentrate on a range of other subjects as part of a broader education. Equipped with good basic skills, students are provided with the opportunity to achieve success (social justice) in the marketplace and community. The real injustice is that the system at present doesn't deliver this for all.
Equally, much union criticism of so-called league tables misses the central issue: parents and taxpayers have a right to know how their children and their schools are performing. The unions claim the league tables "are unfair and simplistic" and they could "stigmatise schools and lead to unfair comparisons". Any statistical data can be misused. That is not an argument against collection of the data or publication of the data.
The hypocrisy of the Greens and the NSW Liberals on this issue is breathtaking. They regularly distort information received under Freedom of Information requests for political advantage. It would be interesting to see their reaction to a proposal to fine them $55,000 for publishing distorted or misleading statistical information.
Transparency and accountability are critical to improving education outcomes. Transparency and accountability are required in a sector that draws nearly 6 per cent of national wealth. Labor, before the 2007 federal election, made clear its intentions in these areas and has a mandate toprovide this fundamental educational data.
Concerns about the usage of the data could easily be dealt with by including in the rankings a clear measure of school performance through time. Clearly a school that has been performing well will have less scope for improvement than one that has performed poorly in the past. It can be argued that this is more unfair to the school that is consistently performing well than the school that has dramatic positive changes off a lower base.
A national curriculum and quality data about students at school performance are essential preconditions to improving education outcomes. However, without a significant realignment of responsibilities and accountability at the school level, this effort could be wasted. The local administrators, particularly principals, have to be allowed to manage their schools without undue interference from central bureaucracies and union-sanctioned work practices that undermine quality innovation in schools.
Principals need to have flexibility in how they allocate their budgets and how they manage their staff. Principals should not have to put up with poor performing teachers and they should have the ability to directly hire teachers who they believe will benefit the school. Parents need genuine input in their children's educational outcomes. Whether school vouchers or some other mechanism can provide this needs to be tested.
Gillard's quest for transparency and accountability needs to be vigorously supported as a preliminary stage in a process of education revitalisation. The real test of the government's commitment will require more than this preliminary first step.
SOURCE
Australian antisemitic publications
At its core the internet is an ideal. I can arrange an online chat with a political scientist in South Korea, create an email focus group amongst my constituents, even discuss Islamic revolutionary theory with a student in Iran. But as with any movement or agent of change, an ideal can be undermined by the ideology of its users. For me, a clear example is the partisan coverage of the Israeli Palestinian conflict by some online magazines. This years output of two of these online publications, Crikey.com and New Matilda.com, is profoundly disturbing.
Both have pretensions to non-partisan coverage. Crikey is run by a staff who claim journalistic credentials in its mission statement to be fair and open. New Matilda similarly claims to provide non-partisan information and takes contributions, as it describes, from "journalists, current and former politicians, lawyers, critical and creative thinkers, bloggers, policy-wonks and satirists". Which is just about everyone in this room - and a good percentage of those outside of it.
Whatever their stated aims, a careful analysis of their output over the first three months of this year shows that when it comes to the coverage of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, Crikey and New Matilda are in fact manifestly partisan. Both consistently adopt the Palestinian narrative, characterise Israel as an oppressor, and ignore Israeli's legitimate security concerns. It is their right to criticize the only free society in the Middle East but it is nonsense to claim they are not strongly biased.
Following the last Israeli elections, Crikey contributor Jeff Sparrow stated as fact that Israeli society had moved sharply to the right, at the same time that that the centre-left Kadima party secured the largest block vote and Likud's Netanyahu sought to broaden his coalition into a ruling government whose final makeup included longtime advocates of peace with the Palestinians. In another article the same contributor looked at the decision of the Israel's Central Elections Committee to ban the participation of two nationalist Arab political parties in the elections, drawing odious parallels with South Africa's apartheid regime - whilst ignoring the democratic Israeli institutions, not found elsewhere in the Middle East, that a few days later saw the Supreme Court reverse that bureaucratic decision. Similarly, New Matilda correspondent Ben White accuses Israel of apartheid control over the Palestinians. He condemns outright the erection of a security fence without reference whatsoever to it or the fact that it has lead to a 95% drop in homicide attacks on civilians in Israel or the fact that it acts as a defensive measure against repeated terrorist attacks, or that the fence's route has always been subject to negotiation and moderation by the Israeli Supreme Court as part of the peace process.
Another Crikey contributor, Guy Rundle, downplays the genocidal policies of Iran's President Ahmedinajab to little more than populism, dismissing outright Israel's authentic fears of a nuclear-armed Iran, not to mention the apprehension of moderate Arab regimes at the prospect of an Iranian regional hegemony.
New Matilda is even more strident in its partisanship. Of the 18 articles run by newmatilda.com in the fist three months of this year concerning the Israeli Palestinian conflict, 17 presented a hardline Palestinian narrative.
Some themes emerge. Polemicist Antony Lowewentein is but one of the correspondents to claim as fact that Israel refuses to consider a two-State solution, despite the evidence of numerous peace overtures, the consistent views of mainstream Israelis in favour of a consensus solution, and the unprecedented territorial concessions offered by Israel at the 2000 Camp David Summit and later at Taba, and indeed reoffered by Netanyahu's predecessor Ehud Olmert. Unmentioned is Hamas's refusal to recognise Israeli existence, as is the barrier presented to any unified proposal by the ongoing blood feud between the Fatah rulers of the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza.
Time and again these articles refer to Jews, or the Jewish State, but rarely Israel as a sovereign entity . Paradoxically New Matilda contributor Michael Brull then complains that most Australian Jewish groups do not identify themselves as pro -Israel but as simply Jewish. Clearly he has not read the pro-Israel platforms of the Executive Council for Australian Jewry or the Australian Union of Jewish students, two of the organisations he mentions, he appears unfamiliar with the view of Australian Jewry, which is similarly pro-Israel.
In May this year in Crikey, Lowenestein attacked the Executive Council for Australian Jewry , this time because it fails to condemn other forms of racism as readily as antisemitism. But it is this gem that highlights the author's real intent: "Anti-Muslim sentiment has often been proudly displayed since September 11 by the Zionist establishment. In their world view, only what they find offensive should be censored". Here we have it, a shadowy unnamed Zionist elite that has the impudence to speak out against antisemitism, as though a Jewish group is not entitled to focus on racial attacks against its own ethnicity! This is a rigged rhetorical game. It doesn't matter whether Jews defend themselves or not, or whether the focus of critics is on Israel as a Jewish State or Jewish groups in Australia, the charge is relentlessly the same.
Journalism can be a democratic bulwark, but in doing so we assume certain principles of journalistic professionalism, including the training and commitment to place opinion in a factual context. Yet the rise of the bologosphere is often characterised by its proponents as a triumph against the elitism or corporatisation of the established media. It is all well and good to allege that the Australian newspaper's foreign affairs commentator Greg Sheridan is an Israeli propagandist, as one New Matilda correspondent suggests, but Sheridan has thirty years experience as a senior journalist and is the author of five widely-published books on foreign issues. The New Matilda correspondent may not like his views, but Sheridan works in an environment where facts are checked and factual errors are corrected. As former New York Times standards editor,Al Siegal has said, the most overt concern with accuracy at a newspaper can be seen in the volume of corrections. This hardly seems to concern the editors of Crikey and New Matilda in their coverage of Israel.
An exchange of letters between the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission Chair Tony Levy and New Matilda editor Marni Cordell highlights this problem. In April Levy sent to Cordell a sober, detailed and careful analysis of the magazine's content in the first three months of this year, explaining the ADC's concerns over partisan opinion and the broad slabs of hate-speak that appear regularly in the comments sections attached to each article. In her brief reply, Cordell failed to address the evidence of partisanship, instead championing her publication's contribution to ‘diversity of opinion' i.e Brull, Lowenstein et al all whom have broadly similar views. This thinking is explained by her charge that the one sided ‘diversity of opinion' is to balance what she asserts is a biased media environment - of course, without corroborating this charge. She does not address at all the allegation of antisemitic comment, nor does she respond to the ADC's concern that the magazine chooses not to censor these comments, even though it expressly reserves the right to do so if the commentary is abusive or promotes hate.
Nevertheless, is this antisemitism, or just sloppy journalism? Former Soviet dissident and human rights activist Natan Schrasansky distinguished the two by his "3D Principles" - he warns to look for demonisation, delegitimation, and double standards.
Looking at the coverage in Crikey and New Matilda, we see Israel as a manipulator of world events, an apartheid State engaged in ethnic cleansing, and an initiator of wars that have no strategic or defensive foundation. That is demonisation.
Israel as deserving of the rocket attacks on its citizens, or not entitled to defend its sovereignty? That is deligitimisation. Israelis portrayed as arch war criminals, while scant attention is given in the same publications to human rights abuses in Burma, or Darfur, or Zimbabwe, or Tibet, or North Korea, or Chechnya, or the Congo? That is a double standard. Cordell's pathetic excuse for the obsession with denigrating the Israeli's and ignoring other conflicts where far more people's lives are at stake is ‘As I'm sure I don't need to remind you, the Israel/Palestine question is not a conflict on the same level as other regional problems that you mentioned. Problems in the Middle East, within which Israel/Palestine is a major issue, are something that play out in innumerable ways across the globe'
More HERE
Friday, July 10, 2009
QANTAS has really lost it
Two current reports below. First episode: Fed-up passengers revolt over 18 hour flight delay in Perth. What with incessant mechanical problems and contemptuous treatment of their passengers they have become Australia's Aeroflot (the old Soviet airline). They were a first class airline once but no more. I would fly Singapore airlines now. THEY understand courtesy and efficiency. Nobody seems to give a stuff at QANTAS any more. I think they need former boss Geoff Dixon back. Not all his decisions were good ones but at least he seemed to be in charge. Has anybody ever heard of Alan Joyce, the present boss? That he is a former planning executive at the failed Ansett airlines hardly recommends him. General Cosgrove is on the board. Maybe he should get more involved somehow. He definitely is the "take charge" type
POLICE have been called to Perth's domestic airport to calm outraged passengers stranded overnight after their Qantas flight failed to leave. One radio listener, John, told radio station 6PR the A330 that passengers were screaming and yelling and Qantas staff called police after ongoing delays.
He said the aircraft had been hit by lightning on its way to Perth from Sydney and had been grounded until engineering advice could be obtained from France. Qantas confirmed the aircraft had been subject to a lightning strike and was ruled unfit to fly.
Passengers claimed they were kept in the dark with no communication from Qantas, leading to frustration and anger. Channel 7 reporter John Taylor said all media had been cleared from the terminal by Australian Federal Police amid rowdy scenes. Just before 8am, after waiting all night, passengers were told the flight had been cancelled and advised to go home and book new flights after 10am.
"A mate of mine has been stuck overnight, being told every hour that it will be another hour until they leave,” one Perth Now reader said. "She has slept on the floor of the terminal, when she could have gone home and come back. 18 hour flight to Melbourne? No thanks.'' The passengers were angry that there was no provision for them to re-book their flights at the airport.
A Qantas aircraft has now been arranged to take the passengers to Melbourne via Sydney at 2.30pm, which will means the flight will have taken 18 hours. Qantas claims school holidays had meant there was a high demand on flights and it had been difficult to arrange alternatives.
SOURCE
Qantas Airbus A380 aborts landing at Heathrow Airport
A QANTAS Airbus A380 had to reportedly abort a landing at London's Heathrow Airport because of a problem with its front landing gear. According to The Aviation Herald website, Qantas flight QF-31 from Singapore aborted the approach last Saturday (July 4) due to a problem with the nose gear steering. A video posted on YouTube by a plane spotter appears to show the superjumbo performing a go-round at Heathrow before performing a safe landing on runway 27L.
But due to the jet’s to loss of steering, the A380 was unable to vacate the runway and had to be towed to Terminal 4, forcing airport operators to close the runway for about 30 minutes. The Aviation Herald said the A380 was repaired and headed back to Singapore after a delay of two hours.
The Airbus A380 is the largest passenger airliner in the world and made its maiden commercial flight from Singapore to Sydney on October 25 2007. The Airbus fleet has made headlines recently over a spate of incidents involving the Airbus A330 and A310 models...
Qantas said the incident was not linked to recent problems the Airbus fleet. [So was it a QANTAS maintenance problem?]
SOURCE
Consumer advocate goes all Bolshie
This smacks of Leftist hatred of success more than anything else. Coles and Woolworths are already cheaper than smaller stores and are popular because of that. If people want REALLY cheap goods (with reduced choice of brands) they can always go to Aldi. No surprise that this is the work of a former apparatchik for the British Labour Party. He will simply destroy his organization. People subscribe to their magazine because of the wide range of reviews that it has carried up until now. And sales of their magazine are a major source of their revenue
CONSUMER advocate Choice will take on the might of the big two supermarkets in a grassroots campaign aimed at bringing down Australia's grocery prices, which are among the highest in the developed world.
In an extraordinary move, the chief executive of Choice, Nick Stace, has ordered his policy and campaign teams to drop all other issues and shift their attention to the grocery sector, The Australian reports.
Mr Stace, a former spin doctor for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, said he hoped the new grassroots campaign would force Coles and Woolworths to lower prices. He has also called for Choice to be given "super-complainer powers", a device used in Britain to force the consumer watchdog to investigate certain issues.
The aggressive move comes after the Consumer Affairs Minister Craig Emerson made the shock decision to scrap the Grocery Choice website five days before its relaunch by Choice. The $13 million website was part of Kevin Rudd's election promise to ease cost-of-living pressures on working families and improve competition in the grocery sector.
More HERE
Tough school principal gets results in Queensland school
Where there's a will, there's a way, it seems. But good order in schools should not have to rely on one exceptional person
A QUEENSLAND high school principal says she makes "no apology" for handing out more than 600 suspensions in a zero tolerance approach to violent and unruly students. Leonie Kearney, of Tullawong State High School, said the tough stance had led to a dramatic improvement in student behaviour and safety since she started at the school in 2007, with suspensions acting as "a wake-up call".
"In 2007 behaviour management was one of the major stressors to our staff," Ms Kearney said. Students were swearing at teachers, bullying and assaulting others. So in 2008, 653 short-term suspensions were handed out, up from 78 in 2006. And seven of the 1321 students at the school were excluded.
Ms Kearney said behavioural expectations had been set high and students were now meeting them. "As a high school principal, I make no apology for taking strong disciplinary action for students who behave badly," she said. "Poor behaviour has no place in our school. "Our school is a place for learning. It is not a drop-in centre for those . . . hell-bent on the destruction of others. "We have the belief that every one of our students has the right to learn, our teachers the right to teach and all are able to participate in the teaching-learning process free from distraction and in safety."
Parents & Citizens Association president Andy Carl said behavioural problems had reversed, while respect had risen among students and their parents, who were now proud to be a part of the school. "I think you have just got to be tough with kids and I think a lot of schools aren't tough enough," Mr Carl said.
Queensland Association of State School Principals president Norm Hart said discipline crackdowns using suspensions and exclusions had been highly successful in improving student behaviour.
Ms Kearney said suspensions this year were down by a third. "I expect it to go down even more this semester," she said. The State Government is considering whether to grant school principals even stronger powers ito quell bad student behaviour.
SOURCE
Community anger over police station sell-off in NSW
It's hard enough as it is to get a police response to problems
THE New South Wales Government is offloading police stations in a fire sale of public land to fill dwindling coffers. Nine police stations and another 200 buildings and parcels of land, including the Sydney Fish Markets, are now under the control of the Government's real estate agent. Residents of Rockdale, Malabar, Mosman, Berowra and Brooklyn are angry they are being robbed of their police stations despite 20 murders in five years across those areas.
The Police Association said yesterday Earlwood, Canterbury, Mt Victoria and Blackheath were also in the sights of a Government desperate to sell $12 million worth of police stations.
Opposition finance spokesman Greg Pearce said it was the start of a massive $350 million sell-off of everything from schools and nursing homes to sports venues. "People are always concerned about police stations going," he said. "What they have here is cuts across the whole spectrum. When people realise what is being put on sale I think that will strike a chord as well."
He raised concerns over the State Property Authority - effectively the Government's real estate agent - acquiring 200 more properties from other departments, saying the move would make them easier to sell if the Government decides to do so.
Historic Strickland House, which has two beaches and overlooks the Harbour at Vaucluse, is one property with the authority. The body - which last year sold 63 government buildings, built three and returned a dividend to the Government of $32.5 million - last night denied the buildings and carparks would be sold. However there was no denying the sale of the police stations.
A group in Malabar called Save Our Station staged a rally on Sunday and collected 4400 signatures on a petition in a last-ditch bid to save their station. Domestic attacks are up 7.4 per cent in the area, there have been 10 murders in five years and ecstasy possession has soared from 14 offences five years ago to 83 last year. "We are currently dealing with vandalism, graffiti and anti-social behaviour. How can they sell this station?" group organiser Carlos Da Rocha said.
Paul Hannen, of the Police Association, said he expected the list of police stations being considered for sale to grow. He said officers at Brooklyn, where the station will be auctioned this month, and Berowra were as upset as the community. "The officers are not happy with the closure of Brooklyn," Mr Hannen said.
SOURCE
ZEG
In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG has some pointed comments about the sell-off of NSW police stations
Two current reports below. First episode: Fed-up passengers revolt over 18 hour flight delay in Perth. What with incessant mechanical problems and contemptuous treatment of their passengers they have become Australia's Aeroflot (the old Soviet airline). They were a first class airline once but no more. I would fly Singapore airlines now. THEY understand courtesy and efficiency. Nobody seems to give a stuff at QANTAS any more. I think they need former boss Geoff Dixon back. Not all his decisions were good ones but at least he seemed to be in charge. Has anybody ever heard of Alan Joyce, the present boss? That he is a former planning executive at the failed Ansett airlines hardly recommends him. General Cosgrove is on the board. Maybe he should get more involved somehow. He definitely is the "take charge" type
POLICE have been called to Perth's domestic airport to calm outraged passengers stranded overnight after their Qantas flight failed to leave. One radio listener, John, told radio station 6PR the A330 that passengers were screaming and yelling and Qantas staff called police after ongoing delays.
He said the aircraft had been hit by lightning on its way to Perth from Sydney and had been grounded until engineering advice could be obtained from France. Qantas confirmed the aircraft had been subject to a lightning strike and was ruled unfit to fly.
Passengers claimed they were kept in the dark with no communication from Qantas, leading to frustration and anger. Channel 7 reporter John Taylor said all media had been cleared from the terminal by Australian Federal Police amid rowdy scenes. Just before 8am, after waiting all night, passengers were told the flight had been cancelled and advised to go home and book new flights after 10am.
"A mate of mine has been stuck overnight, being told every hour that it will be another hour until they leave,” one Perth Now reader said. "She has slept on the floor of the terminal, when she could have gone home and come back. 18 hour flight to Melbourne? No thanks.'' The passengers were angry that there was no provision for them to re-book their flights at the airport.
A Qantas aircraft has now been arranged to take the passengers to Melbourne via Sydney at 2.30pm, which will means the flight will have taken 18 hours. Qantas claims school holidays had meant there was a high demand on flights and it had been difficult to arrange alternatives.
SOURCE
Qantas Airbus A380 aborts landing at Heathrow Airport
A QANTAS Airbus A380 had to reportedly abort a landing at London's Heathrow Airport because of a problem with its front landing gear. According to The Aviation Herald website, Qantas flight QF-31 from Singapore aborted the approach last Saturday (July 4) due to a problem with the nose gear steering. A video posted on YouTube by a plane spotter appears to show the superjumbo performing a go-round at Heathrow before performing a safe landing on runway 27L.
But due to the jet’s to loss of steering, the A380 was unable to vacate the runway and had to be towed to Terminal 4, forcing airport operators to close the runway for about 30 minutes. The Aviation Herald said the A380 was repaired and headed back to Singapore after a delay of two hours.
The Airbus A380 is the largest passenger airliner in the world and made its maiden commercial flight from Singapore to Sydney on October 25 2007. The Airbus fleet has made headlines recently over a spate of incidents involving the Airbus A330 and A310 models...
Qantas said the incident was not linked to recent problems the Airbus fleet. [So was it a QANTAS maintenance problem?]
SOURCE
Consumer advocate goes all Bolshie
This smacks of Leftist hatred of success more than anything else. Coles and Woolworths are already cheaper than smaller stores and are popular because of that. If people want REALLY cheap goods (with reduced choice of brands) they can always go to Aldi. No surprise that this is the work of a former apparatchik for the British Labour Party. He will simply destroy his organization. People subscribe to their magazine because of the wide range of reviews that it has carried up until now. And sales of their magazine are a major source of their revenue
CONSUMER advocate Choice will take on the might of the big two supermarkets in a grassroots campaign aimed at bringing down Australia's grocery prices, which are among the highest in the developed world.
In an extraordinary move, the chief executive of Choice, Nick Stace, has ordered his policy and campaign teams to drop all other issues and shift their attention to the grocery sector, The Australian reports.
Mr Stace, a former spin doctor for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, said he hoped the new grassroots campaign would force Coles and Woolworths to lower prices. He has also called for Choice to be given "super-complainer powers", a device used in Britain to force the consumer watchdog to investigate certain issues.
The aggressive move comes after the Consumer Affairs Minister Craig Emerson made the shock decision to scrap the Grocery Choice website five days before its relaunch by Choice. The $13 million website was part of Kevin Rudd's election promise to ease cost-of-living pressures on working families and improve competition in the grocery sector.
More HERE
Tough school principal gets results in Queensland school
Where there's a will, there's a way, it seems. But good order in schools should not have to rely on one exceptional person
A QUEENSLAND high school principal says she makes "no apology" for handing out more than 600 suspensions in a zero tolerance approach to violent and unruly students. Leonie Kearney, of Tullawong State High School, said the tough stance had led to a dramatic improvement in student behaviour and safety since she started at the school in 2007, with suspensions acting as "a wake-up call".
"In 2007 behaviour management was one of the major stressors to our staff," Ms Kearney said. Students were swearing at teachers, bullying and assaulting others. So in 2008, 653 short-term suspensions were handed out, up from 78 in 2006. And seven of the 1321 students at the school were excluded.
Ms Kearney said behavioural expectations had been set high and students were now meeting them. "As a high school principal, I make no apology for taking strong disciplinary action for students who behave badly," she said. "Poor behaviour has no place in our school. "Our school is a place for learning. It is not a drop-in centre for those . . . hell-bent on the destruction of others. "We have the belief that every one of our students has the right to learn, our teachers the right to teach and all are able to participate in the teaching-learning process free from distraction and in safety."
Parents & Citizens Association president Andy Carl said behavioural problems had reversed, while respect had risen among students and their parents, who were now proud to be a part of the school. "I think you have just got to be tough with kids and I think a lot of schools aren't tough enough," Mr Carl said.
Queensland Association of State School Principals president Norm Hart said discipline crackdowns using suspensions and exclusions had been highly successful in improving student behaviour.
Ms Kearney said suspensions this year were down by a third. "I expect it to go down even more this semester," she said. The State Government is considering whether to grant school principals even stronger powers ito quell bad student behaviour.
SOURCE
Community anger over police station sell-off in NSW
It's hard enough as it is to get a police response to problems
THE New South Wales Government is offloading police stations in a fire sale of public land to fill dwindling coffers. Nine police stations and another 200 buildings and parcels of land, including the Sydney Fish Markets, are now under the control of the Government's real estate agent. Residents of Rockdale, Malabar, Mosman, Berowra and Brooklyn are angry they are being robbed of their police stations despite 20 murders in five years across those areas.
The Police Association said yesterday Earlwood, Canterbury, Mt Victoria and Blackheath were also in the sights of a Government desperate to sell $12 million worth of police stations.
Opposition finance spokesman Greg Pearce said it was the start of a massive $350 million sell-off of everything from schools and nursing homes to sports venues. "People are always concerned about police stations going," he said. "What they have here is cuts across the whole spectrum. When people realise what is being put on sale I think that will strike a chord as well."
He raised concerns over the State Property Authority - effectively the Government's real estate agent - acquiring 200 more properties from other departments, saying the move would make them easier to sell if the Government decides to do so.
Historic Strickland House, which has two beaches and overlooks the Harbour at Vaucluse, is one property with the authority. The body - which last year sold 63 government buildings, built three and returned a dividend to the Government of $32.5 million - last night denied the buildings and carparks would be sold. However there was no denying the sale of the police stations.
A group in Malabar called Save Our Station staged a rally on Sunday and collected 4400 signatures on a petition in a last-ditch bid to save their station. Domestic attacks are up 7.4 per cent in the area, there have been 10 murders in five years and ecstasy possession has soared from 14 offences five years ago to 83 last year. "We are currently dealing with vandalism, graffiti and anti-social behaviour. How can they sell this station?" group organiser Carlos Da Rocha said.
Paul Hannen, of the Police Association, said he expected the list of police stations being considered for sale to grow. He said officers at Brooklyn, where the station will be auctioned this month, and Berowra were as upset as the community. "The officers are not happy with the closure of Brooklyn," Mr Hannen said.
SOURCE
ZEG
In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG has some pointed comments about the sell-off of NSW police stations
Thursday, July 09, 2009
New Green/Left policy: Keep those ordinary scum Australians off Ayers rock
Andrew Bolt
Whose rock is it anyway? And is this really about religion ... or power?
One reason to instinctively distrust this try-on is the claim that a ban is also for “visitor safety” and “environmental reasons”. Every visitor who climbs it knows full well from all the signs that it’s a challenge, and it’s clearly their own judgment that the climb is worth the risk, just as countless people judge that flying is worth the risk of deep vein thrombosis. By what right does Garrett insist it’s not? As for the “environmental reasons”, I rather suspect that a million more people may walk on this giant rock without grinding the thing into a pile of sand.
SOURCE
Violence rife in Qld. government schools
And nobody knows what to do about it because any real discipline would be labelled as "child abuse"
SHOCKING levels of student suspensions from Queensland's state schools have been revealed, with the Government admitting not enough has been done to combat violent behaviour. The Opposition has labelled the escalating violence "another crisis" the Government had been ignoring.
Education Minister Geoff Wilson yesterday took the unprecedented step of releasing school-by-school discipline data, acknowledging more needs to be done to quell increasing behavioural problems. The Government is now considering longer suspensions and the ability for principals to exclude their own students without departmental input, while asking schools to revise their behavioural plans.
It follows revelations in The Courier-Mail earlier this year of a 20 per cent hike in suspensions from state schools between 2006 and 2008, with more than 55,000 handed out last year.
State government figures released yesterday show total disciplinary actions rose from 47,847 in 2006 to 58,167 in 2008 in Queensland state schools. Nearly one-third of all suspensions in 2008 were for "physical misconduct". Others were for verbal and property misconduct, disruptive behaviour, absences and substance abuse. Dozens of schools had more than one suspension handed out for every three students while one – Normanton State School – issued more suspensions than they had pupils. Meanwhile, 10 state high schools excluded or cancelled the enrolments of 20 or more of their students last year alone.
But Mr Wilson said higher disciplinary action numbers were just as likely to indicate a strict school acting for the benefit of all students. He described the rising levels of violence as "totally unacceptable" and said cyber bullying was the "new frontier of violent behaviour". Mr Wilson will now consult the Statewide Behaviour Committee to consider greater disciplinary powers for principals.
Queensland Association of State School Principals president Norm Hart said he would welcome stronger powers, especially the right to exclude students. Under the current system, principals can suspend students for up to five days, but the department must review any harsher penalties.
Opposition education spokesman Dr Bruce Flegg said the government response had came years too late and only after recent Opposition pressure. "It is emerging as another crisis for the Government that they have ignored over the years," he said.
Both Mr Wilson and Mr Hart urged the public to treat the suspension data cautiously, as one student could be suspended a number of times.
SOURCE
Australian banking system as good as it gets
The reactionary Left talking about going back to failed ideas: Many government banks failed late last century and the one that did not (CBA) only surged ahead after it was privatized
THE notion of a "people's bank" that would be set up to rival Australia's big four banks has not been contemplated, the Federal Government says. Six influential economists have written to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan calling on them to set up an inquiry into the nation's financial system, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. In the open letter, the economists have suggested the Government set up a "basic bank'' - managed by the Future Fund - that would allow Australians to deposit money through Australia Post, the report says.
Since the start of the economic downturn, the big four banks have increased their share of the mortgage market from 80 to 92 per cent, and have taken over St George and Bankwest.
The letter, from economists who have advised both sides of politics, expresses concern about the way the banks are using their privileged access to Government guarantees. The banks are reportedly rushing offshore to expand, even though the public is told they are "lucky not to have had substantial overseas exposures,'' the report says.
"We believe the banks in our economy have worked very well,'' Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor told Sky News. "That's not something that's been contemplated by the Government,'' he said, referring to the "basic bank'' idea. Australia's big four banks were in the top eight banks in the world, which provided confidence in the nation's financial system and ability to recover from the global recession, Mr O'Connor said. "So I don't think there's any particular need to look at the systemic review of our financial system, it's very sound.''
Opposition finance spokeswoman Helen Coonan said it was an "interesting idea''. "I think innovative ways with how consumers can be assisted with how they choose their financial products and how they actually run their finances should not be dismissed out of hand,'' she told Sky News. Senator Coonan said she wasn't "bashing the banks'' but if consumers could be given a better deal, it should be considered.
Small Business Minister Craig Emerson said he believed there was a reason Australia now had no state-owned banks, after having 11 in 1990. "They all sound like a good idea at the time but they all ended up going either belly up or into severe financial situations,'' Mr Emerson said. "I can understand why people are feeling this way, it's a concentration I suppose, with the global recession, we do have four major banks in this country.''
Mutual banking institutions, such as credit unions and building societies, already fill economists' calls for a new "people's bank'', a credit union industry body says. "Credit unions and mutual building societies exist for their members: being mutual organisations, their members own them,'' CEO of Abacus, Louise Petschler, said. "Instead of maximising external shareholder returns, credit unions and mutual building societies put their profits back into better rates, fairer fees, responsible lending,'' she said.
Instead of arguing for a "people's bank'', the economists should recognise the strong competitive alternative to the banks - credit unions and building societies - she said.
SOURCE
Libellous sensationalism costs TV station a bundle
One hopes that they might do some of that famous journalistic fact-checking in the future. They got the wrong person altogether. With legal costs, a few minutes of careless sensationalism will have cost them over a million
The Seven Network has been ordered to pay $240,000 in defamation damages to a mortgage broker falsely portrayed as having fleeced $1 million from a dementia patient. In awarding the damages to Peter Mahommed, Justice David Kirby said the elderly woman had not suffered from dementia and was a "practised fraudster".
Mr Mahommed, 53, sued Channel Seven in the NSW Supreme Court over a June 2004 Today Tonight program and two earlier promotional broadcasts screened throughout most of Australia. He had worked in the Newcastle area but since the show could not continue in the job. He moved house, grew a beard and wore a baseball cap so people would not recognise him. "In the five years that have elapsed since the program, Mr Mahommed has certainly aged and presented as a person much less confident than he appeared on the screen," the judge said.
In the first promotion, a voice-over said: "Stolen, stolen, stolen. The million dollar dementia patient rip-off. "She kept forgetting, so this mortgage broker took everything she had." Reporter David Richardson then asked: "Where's her money?"
The program featured Doreen Sylvia Smith, then 76, of Caves Beach south of Newcastle and her son Trevor Steele being interviewed by Mr Richardson.
In 2007, a jury found the material conveyed 12 defamatory meanings about Mr Mahommed including that he had ripped off $1 million from a dementia patient. At the second-stage hearing before Justice Kirby last month, Channel Seven did not put in a "truth" defence to 10 of the meanings - all of which the judge found were untrue and "devastating" to Mr Mahommed's previous excellent reputation.
The broadcaster argued two were true, that Mr Mahommed charged Ms Smith "outrageous fees" and that he was a dishonest financial adviser and mortgage broker. But Justice Kirby rejected those submissions. He noted that the Office of Fair Trading ultimately took no action on a 2004 complaint against Mr Mahommed made by Mr Steele in relation to the various loan dealings.
The judge said Ms Smith, who when married was known as Mrs Steele, had a "colourful past" and over the years had been convicted of dishonesty offences and had served time in jail. "I have the strong impression, at least during 2002, that Mr Mahommed was, to some extent, under the spell of Doreen Smith, a practised fraudster who, I infer, was very plausible," he said.
He said Mr Mahommed was "confronted by a powerful and successful woman" who had been bankrupt and yet survived with substantial assets. The judge noted that "well after these events", Ms Smith was charged with unrelated fraud offences. "In June 2008 she was given a six month suspended sentence after entering into a bond," he said. "She was ordered to pay compensation of $53,500."
He ordered Seven to pay Mr Mahommed's legal costs.
SOURCE
Andrew Bolt
Whose rock is it anyway? And is this really about religion ... or power?
The Northern Territory Labor government and the federal opposition are furious with a federal plan to close the climb to the top of Uluru, saying Peter Garrett is slamming the gate on a world famous tourism experience.
A 10-year draft management plan for Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, released yesterday, indicates the days of climbing the rock are coming to an end: “For visitor safety, cultural, and environmental reasons, the director and the board will work towards closure of the climb,” it says.
One reason to instinctively distrust this try-on is the claim that a ban is also for “visitor safety” and “environmental reasons”. Every visitor who climbs it knows full well from all the signs that it’s a challenge, and it’s clearly their own judgment that the climb is worth the risk, just as countless people judge that flying is worth the risk of deep vein thrombosis. By what right does Garrett insist it’s not? As for the “environmental reasons”, I rather suspect that a million more people may walk on this giant rock without grinding the thing into a pile of sand.
SOURCE
Violence rife in Qld. government schools
And nobody knows what to do about it because any real discipline would be labelled as "child abuse"
SHOCKING levels of student suspensions from Queensland's state schools have been revealed, with the Government admitting not enough has been done to combat violent behaviour. The Opposition has labelled the escalating violence "another crisis" the Government had been ignoring.
Education Minister Geoff Wilson yesterday took the unprecedented step of releasing school-by-school discipline data, acknowledging more needs to be done to quell increasing behavioural problems. The Government is now considering longer suspensions and the ability for principals to exclude their own students without departmental input, while asking schools to revise their behavioural plans.
It follows revelations in The Courier-Mail earlier this year of a 20 per cent hike in suspensions from state schools between 2006 and 2008, with more than 55,000 handed out last year.
State government figures released yesterday show total disciplinary actions rose from 47,847 in 2006 to 58,167 in 2008 in Queensland state schools. Nearly one-third of all suspensions in 2008 were for "physical misconduct". Others were for verbal and property misconduct, disruptive behaviour, absences and substance abuse. Dozens of schools had more than one suspension handed out for every three students while one – Normanton State School – issued more suspensions than they had pupils. Meanwhile, 10 state high schools excluded or cancelled the enrolments of 20 or more of their students last year alone.
But Mr Wilson said higher disciplinary action numbers were just as likely to indicate a strict school acting for the benefit of all students. He described the rising levels of violence as "totally unacceptable" and said cyber bullying was the "new frontier of violent behaviour". Mr Wilson will now consult the Statewide Behaviour Committee to consider greater disciplinary powers for principals.
Queensland Association of State School Principals president Norm Hart said he would welcome stronger powers, especially the right to exclude students. Under the current system, principals can suspend students for up to five days, but the department must review any harsher penalties.
Opposition education spokesman Dr Bruce Flegg said the government response had came years too late and only after recent Opposition pressure. "It is emerging as another crisis for the Government that they have ignored over the years," he said.
Both Mr Wilson and Mr Hart urged the public to treat the suspension data cautiously, as one student could be suspended a number of times.
SOURCE
Australian banking system as good as it gets
The reactionary Left talking about going back to failed ideas: Many government banks failed late last century and the one that did not (CBA) only surged ahead after it was privatized
THE notion of a "people's bank" that would be set up to rival Australia's big four banks has not been contemplated, the Federal Government says. Six influential economists have written to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan calling on them to set up an inquiry into the nation's financial system, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. In the open letter, the economists have suggested the Government set up a "basic bank'' - managed by the Future Fund - that would allow Australians to deposit money through Australia Post, the report says.
Since the start of the economic downturn, the big four banks have increased their share of the mortgage market from 80 to 92 per cent, and have taken over St George and Bankwest.
The letter, from economists who have advised both sides of politics, expresses concern about the way the banks are using their privileged access to Government guarantees. The banks are reportedly rushing offshore to expand, even though the public is told they are "lucky not to have had substantial overseas exposures,'' the report says.
"We believe the banks in our economy have worked very well,'' Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor told Sky News. "That's not something that's been contemplated by the Government,'' he said, referring to the "basic bank'' idea. Australia's big four banks were in the top eight banks in the world, which provided confidence in the nation's financial system and ability to recover from the global recession, Mr O'Connor said. "So I don't think there's any particular need to look at the systemic review of our financial system, it's very sound.''
Opposition finance spokeswoman Helen Coonan said it was an "interesting idea''. "I think innovative ways with how consumers can be assisted with how they choose their financial products and how they actually run their finances should not be dismissed out of hand,'' she told Sky News. Senator Coonan said she wasn't "bashing the banks'' but if consumers could be given a better deal, it should be considered.
Small Business Minister Craig Emerson said he believed there was a reason Australia now had no state-owned banks, after having 11 in 1990. "They all sound like a good idea at the time but they all ended up going either belly up or into severe financial situations,'' Mr Emerson said. "I can understand why people are feeling this way, it's a concentration I suppose, with the global recession, we do have four major banks in this country.''
Mutual banking institutions, such as credit unions and building societies, already fill economists' calls for a new "people's bank'', a credit union industry body says. "Credit unions and mutual building societies exist for their members: being mutual organisations, their members own them,'' CEO of Abacus, Louise Petschler, said. "Instead of maximising external shareholder returns, credit unions and mutual building societies put their profits back into better rates, fairer fees, responsible lending,'' she said.
Instead of arguing for a "people's bank'', the economists should recognise the strong competitive alternative to the banks - credit unions and building societies - she said.
SOURCE
Libellous sensationalism costs TV station a bundle
One hopes that they might do some of that famous journalistic fact-checking in the future. They got the wrong person altogether. With legal costs, a few minutes of careless sensationalism will have cost them over a million
The Seven Network has been ordered to pay $240,000 in defamation damages to a mortgage broker falsely portrayed as having fleeced $1 million from a dementia patient. In awarding the damages to Peter Mahommed, Justice David Kirby said the elderly woman had not suffered from dementia and was a "practised fraudster".
Mr Mahommed, 53, sued Channel Seven in the NSW Supreme Court over a June 2004 Today Tonight program and two earlier promotional broadcasts screened throughout most of Australia. He had worked in the Newcastle area but since the show could not continue in the job. He moved house, grew a beard and wore a baseball cap so people would not recognise him. "In the five years that have elapsed since the program, Mr Mahommed has certainly aged and presented as a person much less confident than he appeared on the screen," the judge said.
In the first promotion, a voice-over said: "Stolen, stolen, stolen. The million dollar dementia patient rip-off. "She kept forgetting, so this mortgage broker took everything she had." Reporter David Richardson then asked: "Where's her money?"
The program featured Doreen Sylvia Smith, then 76, of Caves Beach south of Newcastle and her son Trevor Steele being interviewed by Mr Richardson.
In 2007, a jury found the material conveyed 12 defamatory meanings about Mr Mahommed including that he had ripped off $1 million from a dementia patient. At the second-stage hearing before Justice Kirby last month, Channel Seven did not put in a "truth" defence to 10 of the meanings - all of which the judge found were untrue and "devastating" to Mr Mahommed's previous excellent reputation.
The broadcaster argued two were true, that Mr Mahommed charged Ms Smith "outrageous fees" and that he was a dishonest financial adviser and mortgage broker. But Justice Kirby rejected those submissions. He noted that the Office of Fair Trading ultimately took no action on a 2004 complaint against Mr Mahommed made by Mr Steele in relation to the various loan dealings.
The judge said Ms Smith, who when married was known as Mrs Steele, had a "colourful past" and over the years had been convicted of dishonesty offences and had served time in jail. "I have the strong impression, at least during 2002, that Mr Mahommed was, to some extent, under the spell of Doreen Smith, a practised fraudster who, I infer, was very plausible," he said.
He said Mr Mahommed was "confronted by a powerful and successful woman" who had been bankrupt and yet survived with substantial assets. The judge noted that "well after these events", Ms Smith was charged with unrelated fraud offences. "In June 2008 she was given a six month suspended sentence after entering into a bond," he said. "She was ordered to pay compensation of $53,500."
He ordered Seven to pay Mr Mahommed's legal costs.
SOURCE
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Urban planners are the biggest culprits in keeping grocery prices higher than they need to be
By Michael Costa
THE decision by Kevin Rudd and Consumer Affairs Minister Craig Emerson to scrap the federal government's ill-conceived Grocery Choice website has to be applauded. Grocery Choice was a political stunt that was inevitably bound to backfire on the government. The real problem with retail price increases is to be found in the archaic anti-market planning laws that deliver significant economic rents to those with the resources to establish monopolies over the limited key retail sites.
While it is appropriate to criticise the government for making its announcement on the day Michael Jackson died, so that it could minimise the political fallout from this significant political backflip, it should not be the main concern with the decision.
Emerson, having worked as an adviser to Bob Hawke, saw first-hand the importance of sensible market reform. Having inherited the portfolio from Chris Bowen, who with no doubt an eye to promotion, appears to have become enamoured with Rudd's anti-market rhetoric, Emerson would have realised the potential political disaster Grocery Choice was. The failure of Grocery Choice will, for political purposes, no doubt be blamed on the major supermarket chains. The reality is that with or without the co-operation of these supermarket chains, this was a ham-fisted way to address retail competition.
Despite the claims of Choice, the self-appointed friend of consumers, there was no chance of the website working properly or gaining broad community participation. The problem for consumers has never been information; it has been a real lack of competitive alternatives at the point of the actual retail spends. If Choice wants to bat on with Grocery Choice it should do it at its own expense, not with taxpayers' funds. A subscription-based service will prove whether there is a real public demand for this sort of information.
The July 2008 Australian Competition and Consumer Commission report into the competitiveness of retail prices for standard groceries concluded that while there was "little doubt that food prices have increased significantly in recent times in Australia", this was due to a number of domestic and international factors. Domestic factors such as the drought and international factors such as an increased global demand for food production resources have led to rising farm input costs such as fuel and fertiliser. On the basis of an examination of these factors and the gross margins of the major retail chains, the ACCC concluded that only "one-twentieth of the increase in food prices over the past five years could be directly attributable to the increase in gross margins" by the dominant duopoly.
This conclusion sits uncomfortably with other observations within the report that seemed to highlight the clear dominance of the majors in key retail sub-categories, such as dry groceries. The ACCC observed "that gross margins have experienced larger increases in categories where Coles and Woolworths have a relatively larger share of national sales". The report further observed that the more efficient of the two majors, Woolworths, has earning margins among the highest of all international grocery retailers. Whatever the degree of economic rent flowing to the majors because of the structure of the industry, it is clearly difficult to determine. Nevertheless there is a problem and a public perception that this is leading to higher grocery prices.
The real danger in the government's decision to walk away from its election commitment is not lack of consumer information but rather that the major underlying problem in retail competition, planning barriers to entry, will not be addressed effectively. Problems here are in jurisdictions normally outside the control of the federal government: state government planning departments and local councils. The ACCC correctly identified that state planning laws which contributed to a lack of suitable sites for new grocery retailers were a significant barrier to entry for competitors to the majors. Its recommendation that competition issues be taken into account when approvals are assessed for new supermarkets is laudatory but politically naive. State planning departments and local councils are structurally incapable of implementing this recommendation.
The issue is both ideological and political. Most state and local government planning agencies have been captured by planning zealots who are hostile to market-driven economic development. These planners believe the market is the fundamental problem in urban land use allocation. Rather than harnessing the power of the market to produce economically sensible land allocation outcomes they try to fit these decisions within the current cookie-cutter ideological fashion. The present fashion in urban planning focuses on what are called centres policies and urban villages. This fashion is dressed up in different language in different areas for local consumption but is essentially the same approach to urban planning and is not unique to Australia.
The policy results in the concentration of major retail activity in central locations and satellite local centres with much more limited retail opportunities. Urban planners don't seem to understand that by mandating that major retailers be concentrated in a limited urban footprint they are creating artificial scarcity, higher prices and monopoly opportunities. Retailers in the urban villages can't compete against the price advantages the large volume retailers have and they are limited in their consumer offerings. Eventually the areas become economically unviable and potentially urban crime zones.
This urban planning ideology creates an uncompetitive environment as new entrants cannot locate in the centres because these prime monopoly positions have already been secured by the major retail operators. The consequence of this type of planning approach as the ACCC noted is that it "significantly impedes the ability of competing supermarkets to access prime locations". This of course leads to higher retail prices for consumers.
There are many examples, as the ACCC acknowledges, where major retail operators, shopping centre providers and major supermarkets have used the planning laws to try to frustrate direct competition. In states such as NSW where local government areas haven't been properly reformed the problem is even greater for retail consumers, due to the greater influence of small community interest groups, who don't even support the restrictive centres policy and seek to eliminate all retail expansion, even within the designated centres.
Until there is a properly functioning competitive market for retail space it is impossible to gauge whether existing retail competition and retail margins are reflective of sound economic factors, or monopolistic rent seeking behaviour. The federal government needs to deal with urban planning and land use as part of its national competition reform agenda. The argument that this is a state and local government issue does not have credibility given the federal government intrusion through its environmental legislation into what were traditionally state and local government issues.
Surely the economy is still as important as the environment.
SOURCE
The Liberal Party must defend the Howard economic legacy
WHEN a long-lasting government is cast into electoral darkness, it can sometimes spend years reshaping itself back to relevance.
Kim Beazley, Simon Crean and Mark Latham seemingly never recovered from defeat, never quite working out what to keep and what to jettison of the Keating legacy. Not until Kevin Rudd repositioned Labor as economic realists did the ALP regain power.
On the “what to keep, what to scrap” issue, John Howard is increasingly concerned that the Liberal Party is not sufficiently defending an economic legacy that is one of the party’s biggest political strengths.
Howard chooses his words carefully, understanding that his era ended when the government lost office. Not for him the rambling, rumbling ruminations of a disgruntled former PM such as Paul Keating. Late last week, Howard told The Australian that “when I walk down the street now I am confronted by more spontaneous expressions of support from people for the economic record of the Howard government than I got six months ago”.
Howard’s point is that right now, in the midst of the global financial crisis, there is no more important time to defend the economic legacy of the Howard government. Not as some teary remembrance for lost times or things past. But as a straight directive to voters at the next election that the Liberal Party has a proud track record as economic managers.
Others said the same thing privately last week when opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey made an off-the-cuff remark that it was “reasonable criticism” to say that the Howard government spent too much on tax cuts and family benefits. As one senior Liberal MP said, in exasperation, to The Australian: “Which party is Hockey a member of?” To criticise the Howard government for cutting taxes too much is like the Greens now deciding it is bad policy to save too many trees.
The kindest, and perhaps likeliest, reading of Hockey’s comments about tax cuts is that it was a stuff-up. But it is the sort of lazy blunder that the Liberal Party can ill afford to make. On the contrary, it ought, as Howard is now suggesting, to be hammering the point that the Liberal Party has a proud record of paying off debt, building surpluses and growing the economy. If it fails to defend the legacy, the opposition plays into the hands of those who peddle the myth that Australia’s economic prosperity was due only to the mining boom.
The former foreign minister, Alexander Downer, also has plenty to say about the need to defend the legacy.
He told The Australian: “It’s not only intellectually important, it’s politically very important to defend the economic legacy of the Howard years because it demonstrates to Australians the virtues of voting for a Liberal government in terms of their living standards and the overall living standards of the country. If people start criticising the Howard government’s economic legacy that’s what Labor wants.”
Asked if he is comfortable that the opposition is sufficiently reminding people of the economic record of his government, he, too, is careful in his choice of words: “Look, they should never stop reminding people of the Howard government’s economic record. They have made very strong arguments about the size of the deficit and the growth of debt - and they have done that well - but they need to link that to saying: ‘Well, when we were in government we did all of those things (paying off debt, cutting taxes, etc).’ They should never criticise the legacy of the former government. The Labor Party never criticises its former governments. They don’t even criticise the Whitlam government, which was the worst government Australia has had since Federation, at least economically.”
More HERE
And this guy is an economist??
Population increase is going to lead to an increase in demand for housing -- and what does increased demand do in the face of a restricted amount of available housing land? It pushed UP the prices. Real estate values in desirable places ALWAYS increase over the long term. UWS should persuade him to shut up for the sake of their reputation
CONTROVERSIAL economist Steve Keen has refused to back down from his doomsday prediction that house prices in Australia will almost halve over a decade despite growing evidence to the contrary.
Nine months after his dire prediction that property prices will fall by 40 per cent over 10 years, fellow economists have pronounced Professor Keen - who was held up as one of the few commentators to see the global economic downturn coming - "spectacularly wrong" on his outlook for the housing market.
Professor Keen, an associate professor of economics and finance at the University of Western Sydney, was so convinced the bottom would fall out of the housing market that he sold his two-bedroom apartment in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Surry Hills in October last year to avoid financial pain from the predicted downturn.
But an analysis of price trends in Surry Hills suggests that had Professor Keen held on to the apartment, he would have realised a capital growth of about 7 per cent, The Australian reports. According to property data agency Residex, the apartment market in Surry Hills experienced an average capital growth rate of 7.08 per cent in the year to May.
But Professor Keen insisted yesterday that Australia was on the cusp of a prolonged depression "in which house prices will fall as collateral damage".
SOURCE
GREENIE ROUNDUP
Three articles below:
Great Barrier Reef will be gone in 20 years, says prophet
This B.S. about disappearing coral has been going on for decades but the reef is still there. The galah below "forgets" that "coral reefs were exposed throughout their geological history to higher temperatures and CO2 levels than at present and yet have persisted". See here
The Great Barrier Reef will be so degraded by warming waters that it will be unrecognisable within 20 years, an eminent marine scientist has said. Charlie Veron, former chief scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, told The Times: “There is no way out, no loopholes. The Great Barrier Reef will be over within 20 years or so.”
Once carbon dioxide had hit the levels predicted for between 2030 and 2060, all coral reefs were doomed to extinction, he said. “They would be the world’s first global ecosystem to collapse. I have the backing of every coral reef scientist, every research organisation. I’ve spoken to them all. This is critical. This is reality.”
Dr Veron’s comments came as the Institute of Zoology, the Royal Society and the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) held a crucial meeting on the future of coral reefs in London yesterday. In a joint statement they warned that by mid-century extinctions of coral reefs around the world would be inevitable.
Warming water causes coral polyps to eject the symbiotic algae that provide them with nutrients. These “bleaching events” were widespread during the El Niño of 1997-98, and localised occurrences are becoming more frequent. (During an El Niño, much of the tropical Pacific becomes unusually warm.) Reefs take decades to recover but by 2030 to 2050, depending on emissions and feedback effects, bleaching will be occurring annually or biannually.
Although surface sea temperatures are rising fastest in tropical regions the other big threat to coral reefs comes from the higher latitudes. The cold water there absorbs atmospheric carbon dioxide more readily than warm water and acidifies more easily. When carbon dioxide concentrations reach between 480 and 500 parts per million warm water is no barrier to acidification, and the pH in equatorial regions will have dropped so far, meaning higher acidity, that coral reef growth becomes impossible anywhere in the ocean. [In fact, ocean acidification is a scientific impossibility. Henry's Law mandates that warming oceans will outgas CO2 to the atmosphere (as the UN's own documents predict it will), making the oceans less acid. Also, more CO2 would increase calcification rates]
“Coral reefs are the most sensitive of marine ecosystems,” said Alex Rogers, scientific director of IPSO. “Increased temperature and decreased pH will have a double-whammy effect. Reefs were safe at CO2 levels of 350 parts per million. We are at 387ppm today. Beyond 450 the fate of corals is sealed.”
In the five mass extinction events in geological history, key was the carbon cycle, in which carbon dioxide is the primary currency. Its concentration in the atmosphere is higher than it has been for 20 million years. In the Permian extinction, as in all the big extinctions, tropical marine life was the hardest hit. Reef-building corals took more than ten million years to return.
The Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest and most diverse marine ecosystem, is worth $4.5 billion (£2.8 billion) a year to Australia. Worldwide, reefs are worth $300 billion. “But that is trivial compared with the costs if coral reefs fail,” Dr Veron said. “Then it won’t be a matter of no income, it will be a matter of damage to livelihoods, economies and ecosystems.”
Yesterday’s meeting renewed calls for networks of marine conservation zones to boost the resilience of reefs.
SOURCE
It's getting chilly but still not cool to be a sceptic
Andrew Bolt
NOW that it's so chilly, I can understand why Climate Change Minister Penny Wong wants us to stare at the sea, instead. Better that than have us stare at the latest satellite data showing the world has now cooled down to the average temperature of the past 30 years.
Last month Family First senator Steve Fielding asked Wong a question she could no longer ignore: what proof did she really have that man's gases were heating the world to hell? And what got her attention was Fielding's threat: if she didn't give a good answer, the Rudd Government would not get his crucial vote in the Senate for its plan to slash our emissions with huge new taxes.
Specifically, asked Fielding: "Is it the case that carbon dioxide increased by 5 per cent since 1998 while global temperature cooled over the same period? If so, why did the temperature not increase; and how can human emissions be to blame for dangerous levels of warming?" An excellent question, even if it's more accurate to say the world has cooled since 2001, despite a big increase in the gases we're told will make us fry.
So I thought the media might be interested in Wong's remarkable response a week later, given that she now said we'd all been wrong to fret about the air temperature. You see, "at time-scales of around a decade, natural variability can mask the atmospheric warming trend caused by the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases". Translated, that means, sure, it might be cooling now, which we still refuse to actually confirm, but one day it will warm again, just like we said. Just wait.
And then there was this appeal to start checking the seas instead: "(I)n terms of a single indicator of global warming, change in ocean heat content is most appropriate." So all that ominous talk about hotter temperatures at this city or that town? Just kidding. Meaningless.
Last weekend we could understand better why Wong is no longer keen on data on surface and atmospheric warming. NASA's Aqua satellite - one of the four main measurements of world temperature - found June had dropped back to just .001 degrees above the average for the past 30 years. That means we're back to "normal", even if "normal" now is slightly warmer than the average for last century, during which the planet came out of the Little Ice Age that ended 150 years ago.
Other land and satellite records agree the planet has cooled for most of the past decade, and while it's still too early to say global warming has stopped, rather than just paused, it's not too early to ask why there's less warming than most climate models predicted.
But what of Wong's claim that the true measure of global warming is the sea? Well, even Fielding's scientific advisers agree that's true, even if Wong never mentioned that before. But as world-ranked climate scientist Professor Roger Pielke Sr noted this week, three recent papers confirm that even the oceans seem to have stopped rising and warming since about 2004, or at least have slowed in doing so. "All of these analyses are consistent with no significant heating in the upper ocean and a flattening of sea level rise, and even more clearly, that these climate metrics are not 'progressing faster than was expected a few years ago'," he said.
I know the panic is on. I know almost no politician, other than Fielding, dares publicly confess that the science of global warming is not at all settled. But know this: the data shows less warming than the alarmists claimed, and no warming for several years. It may start warming again soon, but until then a sane person will keep his head -- and his doubts.
SOURCE
Climate change laws to "de-energize" poor Australians
POLITICALLY correct zealots penning new national energy laws have pulled the plug on the word "disconnection". The word is being replaced with the bizarre term "de-energisation". Angry consumer groups have accused the boffins behind the draft of making it easier for power companies to hide harsh treatment of customers struggling to pay their bills.
Consumer Action Law Centre policy director Nicole Rich said the bureaucrats were out of touch and should go back to the drawing board. "This is more than political correctness gone mad," she said. "It's worse, because it could have the effect of keeping the community in the dark about hardship problems by lumping in records of these disconnections with power being cut for maintenance and safety reasons."
The warning comes as households and businesses brace for higher electricity bills because of policies to combat climate change.
A team of state and territory bureaucrats wrote the draft of the National Energy Customer Framework, which notes: "De-energisation of premises means the deactivating or closing of a connection in order to prevent the flow of energy from a distribution system at the supply point".
Ms Rich said there was a distinct difference between power shutdowns for maintenance, or when customers moved house, and supply cuts to those battling with bills. Critics fear the national laws will also strip Victorians of protections such as bans on late payment fees, security deposit restrictions and compensation of $250 a day for wrongful disconnections. But the Herald Sun believes Victoria will not sign the laws unless key consumer protections are retained.
Ms Rich said the number of Victorians disconnected for not paying had dropped to the nation's lowest rate, about 6500 a year, since a renewed focus on repayment plans and hardship policies from 2004. Federal Energy Minister Martin Ferguson's office said the document was an early draft, and more consultations would be held.
SOURCE
By Michael Costa
THE decision by Kevin Rudd and Consumer Affairs Minister Craig Emerson to scrap the federal government's ill-conceived Grocery Choice website has to be applauded. Grocery Choice was a political stunt that was inevitably bound to backfire on the government. The real problem with retail price increases is to be found in the archaic anti-market planning laws that deliver significant economic rents to those with the resources to establish monopolies over the limited key retail sites.
While it is appropriate to criticise the government for making its announcement on the day Michael Jackson died, so that it could minimise the political fallout from this significant political backflip, it should not be the main concern with the decision.
Emerson, having worked as an adviser to Bob Hawke, saw first-hand the importance of sensible market reform. Having inherited the portfolio from Chris Bowen, who with no doubt an eye to promotion, appears to have become enamoured with Rudd's anti-market rhetoric, Emerson would have realised the potential political disaster Grocery Choice was. The failure of Grocery Choice will, for political purposes, no doubt be blamed on the major supermarket chains. The reality is that with or without the co-operation of these supermarket chains, this was a ham-fisted way to address retail competition.
Despite the claims of Choice, the self-appointed friend of consumers, there was no chance of the website working properly or gaining broad community participation. The problem for consumers has never been information; it has been a real lack of competitive alternatives at the point of the actual retail spends. If Choice wants to bat on with Grocery Choice it should do it at its own expense, not with taxpayers' funds. A subscription-based service will prove whether there is a real public demand for this sort of information.
The July 2008 Australian Competition and Consumer Commission report into the competitiveness of retail prices for standard groceries concluded that while there was "little doubt that food prices have increased significantly in recent times in Australia", this was due to a number of domestic and international factors. Domestic factors such as the drought and international factors such as an increased global demand for food production resources have led to rising farm input costs such as fuel and fertiliser. On the basis of an examination of these factors and the gross margins of the major retail chains, the ACCC concluded that only "one-twentieth of the increase in food prices over the past five years could be directly attributable to the increase in gross margins" by the dominant duopoly.
This conclusion sits uncomfortably with other observations within the report that seemed to highlight the clear dominance of the majors in key retail sub-categories, such as dry groceries. The ACCC observed "that gross margins have experienced larger increases in categories where Coles and Woolworths have a relatively larger share of national sales". The report further observed that the more efficient of the two majors, Woolworths, has earning margins among the highest of all international grocery retailers. Whatever the degree of economic rent flowing to the majors because of the structure of the industry, it is clearly difficult to determine. Nevertheless there is a problem and a public perception that this is leading to higher grocery prices.
The real danger in the government's decision to walk away from its election commitment is not lack of consumer information but rather that the major underlying problem in retail competition, planning barriers to entry, will not be addressed effectively. Problems here are in jurisdictions normally outside the control of the federal government: state government planning departments and local councils. The ACCC correctly identified that state planning laws which contributed to a lack of suitable sites for new grocery retailers were a significant barrier to entry for competitors to the majors. Its recommendation that competition issues be taken into account when approvals are assessed for new supermarkets is laudatory but politically naive. State planning departments and local councils are structurally incapable of implementing this recommendation.
The issue is both ideological and political. Most state and local government planning agencies have been captured by planning zealots who are hostile to market-driven economic development. These planners believe the market is the fundamental problem in urban land use allocation. Rather than harnessing the power of the market to produce economically sensible land allocation outcomes they try to fit these decisions within the current cookie-cutter ideological fashion. The present fashion in urban planning focuses on what are called centres policies and urban villages. This fashion is dressed up in different language in different areas for local consumption but is essentially the same approach to urban planning and is not unique to Australia.
The policy results in the concentration of major retail activity in central locations and satellite local centres with much more limited retail opportunities. Urban planners don't seem to understand that by mandating that major retailers be concentrated in a limited urban footprint they are creating artificial scarcity, higher prices and monopoly opportunities. Retailers in the urban villages can't compete against the price advantages the large volume retailers have and they are limited in their consumer offerings. Eventually the areas become economically unviable and potentially urban crime zones.
This urban planning ideology creates an uncompetitive environment as new entrants cannot locate in the centres because these prime monopoly positions have already been secured by the major retail operators. The consequence of this type of planning approach as the ACCC noted is that it "significantly impedes the ability of competing supermarkets to access prime locations". This of course leads to higher retail prices for consumers.
There are many examples, as the ACCC acknowledges, where major retail operators, shopping centre providers and major supermarkets have used the planning laws to try to frustrate direct competition. In states such as NSW where local government areas haven't been properly reformed the problem is even greater for retail consumers, due to the greater influence of small community interest groups, who don't even support the restrictive centres policy and seek to eliminate all retail expansion, even within the designated centres.
Until there is a properly functioning competitive market for retail space it is impossible to gauge whether existing retail competition and retail margins are reflective of sound economic factors, or monopolistic rent seeking behaviour. The federal government needs to deal with urban planning and land use as part of its national competition reform agenda. The argument that this is a state and local government issue does not have credibility given the federal government intrusion through its environmental legislation into what were traditionally state and local government issues.
Surely the economy is still as important as the environment.
SOURCE
The Liberal Party must defend the Howard economic legacy
WHEN a long-lasting government is cast into electoral darkness, it can sometimes spend years reshaping itself back to relevance.
Kim Beazley, Simon Crean and Mark Latham seemingly never recovered from defeat, never quite working out what to keep and what to jettison of the Keating legacy. Not until Kevin Rudd repositioned Labor as economic realists did the ALP regain power.
On the “what to keep, what to scrap” issue, John Howard is increasingly concerned that the Liberal Party is not sufficiently defending an economic legacy that is one of the party’s biggest political strengths.
Howard chooses his words carefully, understanding that his era ended when the government lost office. Not for him the rambling, rumbling ruminations of a disgruntled former PM such as Paul Keating. Late last week, Howard told The Australian that “when I walk down the street now I am confronted by more spontaneous expressions of support from people for the economic record of the Howard government than I got six months ago”.
Howard’s point is that right now, in the midst of the global financial crisis, there is no more important time to defend the economic legacy of the Howard government. Not as some teary remembrance for lost times or things past. But as a straight directive to voters at the next election that the Liberal Party has a proud track record as economic managers.
Others said the same thing privately last week when opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey made an off-the-cuff remark that it was “reasonable criticism” to say that the Howard government spent too much on tax cuts and family benefits. As one senior Liberal MP said, in exasperation, to The Australian: “Which party is Hockey a member of?” To criticise the Howard government for cutting taxes too much is like the Greens now deciding it is bad policy to save too many trees.
The kindest, and perhaps likeliest, reading of Hockey’s comments about tax cuts is that it was a stuff-up. But it is the sort of lazy blunder that the Liberal Party can ill afford to make. On the contrary, it ought, as Howard is now suggesting, to be hammering the point that the Liberal Party has a proud record of paying off debt, building surpluses and growing the economy. If it fails to defend the legacy, the opposition plays into the hands of those who peddle the myth that Australia’s economic prosperity was due only to the mining boom.
The former foreign minister, Alexander Downer, also has plenty to say about the need to defend the legacy.
He told The Australian: “It’s not only intellectually important, it’s politically very important to defend the economic legacy of the Howard years because it demonstrates to Australians the virtues of voting for a Liberal government in terms of their living standards and the overall living standards of the country. If people start criticising the Howard government’s economic legacy that’s what Labor wants.”
Asked if he is comfortable that the opposition is sufficiently reminding people of the economic record of his government, he, too, is careful in his choice of words: “Look, they should never stop reminding people of the Howard government’s economic record. They have made very strong arguments about the size of the deficit and the growth of debt - and they have done that well - but they need to link that to saying: ‘Well, when we were in government we did all of those things (paying off debt, cutting taxes, etc).’ They should never criticise the legacy of the former government. The Labor Party never criticises its former governments. They don’t even criticise the Whitlam government, which was the worst government Australia has had since Federation, at least economically.”
More HERE
And this guy is an economist??
Population increase is going to lead to an increase in demand for housing -- and what does increased demand do in the face of a restricted amount of available housing land? It pushed UP the prices. Real estate values in desirable places ALWAYS increase over the long term. UWS should persuade him to shut up for the sake of their reputation
CONTROVERSIAL economist Steve Keen has refused to back down from his doomsday prediction that house prices in Australia will almost halve over a decade despite growing evidence to the contrary.
Nine months after his dire prediction that property prices will fall by 40 per cent over 10 years, fellow economists have pronounced Professor Keen - who was held up as one of the few commentators to see the global economic downturn coming - "spectacularly wrong" on his outlook for the housing market.
Professor Keen, an associate professor of economics and finance at the University of Western Sydney, was so convinced the bottom would fall out of the housing market that he sold his two-bedroom apartment in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Surry Hills in October last year to avoid financial pain from the predicted downturn.
But an analysis of price trends in Surry Hills suggests that had Professor Keen held on to the apartment, he would have realised a capital growth of about 7 per cent, The Australian reports. According to property data agency Residex, the apartment market in Surry Hills experienced an average capital growth rate of 7.08 per cent in the year to May.
But Professor Keen insisted yesterday that Australia was on the cusp of a prolonged depression "in which house prices will fall as collateral damage".
SOURCE
GREENIE ROUNDUP
Three articles below:
Great Barrier Reef will be gone in 20 years, says prophet
This B.S. about disappearing coral has been going on for decades but the reef is still there. The galah below "forgets" that "coral reefs were exposed throughout their geological history to higher temperatures and CO2 levels than at present and yet have persisted". See here
The Great Barrier Reef will be so degraded by warming waters that it will be unrecognisable within 20 years, an eminent marine scientist has said. Charlie Veron, former chief scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, told The Times: “There is no way out, no loopholes. The Great Barrier Reef will be over within 20 years or so.”
Once carbon dioxide had hit the levels predicted for between 2030 and 2060, all coral reefs were doomed to extinction, he said. “They would be the world’s first global ecosystem to collapse. I have the backing of every coral reef scientist, every research organisation. I’ve spoken to them all. This is critical. This is reality.”
Dr Veron’s comments came as the Institute of Zoology, the Royal Society and the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) held a crucial meeting on the future of coral reefs in London yesterday. In a joint statement they warned that by mid-century extinctions of coral reefs around the world would be inevitable.
Warming water causes coral polyps to eject the symbiotic algae that provide them with nutrients. These “bleaching events” were widespread during the El Niño of 1997-98, and localised occurrences are becoming more frequent. (During an El Niño, much of the tropical Pacific becomes unusually warm.) Reefs take decades to recover but by 2030 to 2050, depending on emissions and feedback effects, bleaching will be occurring annually or biannually.
Although surface sea temperatures are rising fastest in tropical regions the other big threat to coral reefs comes from the higher latitudes. The cold water there absorbs atmospheric carbon dioxide more readily than warm water and acidifies more easily. When carbon dioxide concentrations reach between 480 and 500 parts per million warm water is no barrier to acidification, and the pH in equatorial regions will have dropped so far, meaning higher acidity, that coral reef growth becomes impossible anywhere in the ocean. [In fact, ocean acidification is a scientific impossibility. Henry's Law mandates that warming oceans will outgas CO2 to the atmosphere (as the UN's own documents predict it will), making the oceans less acid. Also, more CO2 would increase calcification rates]
“Coral reefs are the most sensitive of marine ecosystems,” said Alex Rogers, scientific director of IPSO. “Increased temperature and decreased pH will have a double-whammy effect. Reefs were safe at CO2 levels of 350 parts per million. We are at 387ppm today. Beyond 450 the fate of corals is sealed.”
In the five mass extinction events in geological history, key was the carbon cycle, in which carbon dioxide is the primary currency. Its concentration in the atmosphere is higher than it has been for 20 million years. In the Permian extinction, as in all the big extinctions, tropical marine life was the hardest hit. Reef-building corals took more than ten million years to return.
The Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest and most diverse marine ecosystem, is worth $4.5 billion (£2.8 billion) a year to Australia. Worldwide, reefs are worth $300 billion. “But that is trivial compared with the costs if coral reefs fail,” Dr Veron said. “Then it won’t be a matter of no income, it will be a matter of damage to livelihoods, economies and ecosystems.”
Yesterday’s meeting renewed calls for networks of marine conservation zones to boost the resilience of reefs.
SOURCE
It's getting chilly but still not cool to be a sceptic
Andrew Bolt
NOW that it's so chilly, I can understand why Climate Change Minister Penny Wong wants us to stare at the sea, instead. Better that than have us stare at the latest satellite data showing the world has now cooled down to the average temperature of the past 30 years.
Last month Family First senator Steve Fielding asked Wong a question she could no longer ignore: what proof did she really have that man's gases were heating the world to hell? And what got her attention was Fielding's threat: if she didn't give a good answer, the Rudd Government would not get his crucial vote in the Senate for its plan to slash our emissions with huge new taxes.
Specifically, asked Fielding: "Is it the case that carbon dioxide increased by 5 per cent since 1998 while global temperature cooled over the same period? If so, why did the temperature not increase; and how can human emissions be to blame for dangerous levels of warming?" An excellent question, even if it's more accurate to say the world has cooled since 2001, despite a big increase in the gases we're told will make us fry.
So I thought the media might be interested in Wong's remarkable response a week later, given that she now said we'd all been wrong to fret about the air temperature. You see, "at time-scales of around a decade, natural variability can mask the atmospheric warming trend caused by the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases". Translated, that means, sure, it might be cooling now, which we still refuse to actually confirm, but one day it will warm again, just like we said. Just wait.
And then there was this appeal to start checking the seas instead: "(I)n terms of a single indicator of global warming, change in ocean heat content is most appropriate." So all that ominous talk about hotter temperatures at this city or that town? Just kidding. Meaningless.
Last weekend we could understand better why Wong is no longer keen on data on surface and atmospheric warming. NASA's Aqua satellite - one of the four main measurements of world temperature - found June had dropped back to just .001 degrees above the average for the past 30 years. That means we're back to "normal", even if "normal" now is slightly warmer than the average for last century, during which the planet came out of the Little Ice Age that ended 150 years ago.
Other land and satellite records agree the planet has cooled for most of the past decade, and while it's still too early to say global warming has stopped, rather than just paused, it's not too early to ask why there's less warming than most climate models predicted.
But what of Wong's claim that the true measure of global warming is the sea? Well, even Fielding's scientific advisers agree that's true, even if Wong never mentioned that before. But as world-ranked climate scientist Professor Roger Pielke Sr noted this week, three recent papers confirm that even the oceans seem to have stopped rising and warming since about 2004, or at least have slowed in doing so. "All of these analyses are consistent with no significant heating in the upper ocean and a flattening of sea level rise, and even more clearly, that these climate metrics are not 'progressing faster than was expected a few years ago'," he said.
I know the panic is on. I know almost no politician, other than Fielding, dares publicly confess that the science of global warming is not at all settled. But know this: the data shows less warming than the alarmists claimed, and no warming for several years. It may start warming again soon, but until then a sane person will keep his head -- and his doubts.
SOURCE
Climate change laws to "de-energize" poor Australians
POLITICALLY correct zealots penning new national energy laws have pulled the plug on the word "disconnection". The word is being replaced with the bizarre term "de-energisation". Angry consumer groups have accused the boffins behind the draft of making it easier for power companies to hide harsh treatment of customers struggling to pay their bills.
Consumer Action Law Centre policy director Nicole Rich said the bureaucrats were out of touch and should go back to the drawing board. "This is more than political correctness gone mad," she said. "It's worse, because it could have the effect of keeping the community in the dark about hardship problems by lumping in records of these disconnections with power being cut for maintenance and safety reasons."
The warning comes as households and businesses brace for higher electricity bills because of policies to combat climate change.
A team of state and territory bureaucrats wrote the draft of the National Energy Customer Framework, which notes: "De-energisation of premises means the deactivating or closing of a connection in order to prevent the flow of energy from a distribution system at the supply point".
Ms Rich said there was a distinct difference between power shutdowns for maintenance, or when customers moved house, and supply cuts to those battling with bills. Critics fear the national laws will also strip Victorians of protections such as bans on late payment fees, security deposit restrictions and compensation of $250 a day for wrongful disconnections. But the Herald Sun believes Victoria will not sign the laws unless key consumer protections are retained.
Ms Rich said the number of Victorians disconnected for not paying had dropped to the nation's lowest rate, about 6500 a year, since a renewed focus on repayment plans and hardship policies from 2004. Federal Energy Minister Martin Ferguson's office said the document was an early draft, and more consultations would be held.
SOURCE
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
TODAY'S POLICE NEWS
Two more charming episodes reported below
Another rogue cop -- mentally still in the Middle Ages
A POLICEMAN has been stood down after being charged with trying to perform an exorcism on a teenager at a church youth camp in South Australia. Senior Constable Roger Sketchley, 28, has been charged with two other adults over an alleged incident at a camp run by the Lutheran Church in the Barossa Valley in April.
Sen-Const Sketchley and other adults allegedly restrained a boy, 15, after he complained of stomach pains in an incident that allegedly went for about 12 hours. Sen-Const Sketchley was charged with false imprisonment and aggravated assault.
An SA police spokesman yesterday confirmed Sen-Const Sketchley, who was off duty at the time, had been suspended pending the outcome of the charges. All three accused have been released on bail to appear in Adelaide Magistrates' Court on a date to be set.
The president of the Lutheran Church in SA and the Northern Territory, the Reverend Robert Voigt, yesterday distanced the church from such practices. "The Lutheran Church does not endorse or encourage any actions which are abusive or which results in the limitations or freedoms of any individual," he said.
Cases involving exorcism have rarely been brought before Australian courts, with one notable exception. In the early 1990s, three people were convicted of manslaughter in the Victorian Supreme Court for killing the wife of a pig farmer in a botched exorcism. Joan Vollmer, 49, died of a heart attack in January 1993 after her husband Ralph Vollmer and three other members of a breakaway Lutheran sect performed an exorcism at the couple's home at Antwerp, near Horsham.
SOURCE
Qld. cops arrest and charge woman for being in her own car
They had the facility to go online and check that the car was in her name but they didn't bother. They were good at telling lies afterwards, though. If they had any scrap of decency, they would have acknowledged their mistake, apologized, and not taken the matter to court. She was doing no wrong so her angry response was justified, if not wise. Even the court thought the goons handled the matter badly and gave the woman no punishment
A Brisbane woman seriously assaulted a police officer after he tried to arrest her for breaking into her own car, a court has heard. Jennifer Elizabeth Somers, 30, pleaded guilty to one count of serious assault, two counts of obstructing police and one count of public nuisance in the Brisbane District Court yesterday.
The court heard that in the early hours of a Sunday morning in November 2007, a heavily intoxicated Ms Somers was looking through her unlocked car for cigarettes. The court heard two police constables, Peter Lashford and Wendy Poon, responded to a call that a woman had broken into a car in the area. After some initial uncooperative behaviour and swearing, the court heard, Ms Somers gave the officers her full name, claiming she was the owner of the car, but could not produce identification.
The court heard a verbal disagreement between Constable Poon and Ms Somers broke out, before Const Poon tried to arrest Ms Somers as she did not believe she was the car's owner. Ms Somers resisted arrest and when placed in a headlock by Constable Lashford, she bit him on the biceps, the court heard.
Defence lawyer Harry Fong said Const Lashford then shouted out "I've been bitten, the b---- has bitten me". Const Lashford wrote in his victim impact statement to the court that the bite had drawn blood, although a Mater Hospital medical report said the skin had not been broken.
Mr Fong said his client was a charity worker and a single mother of two children, one of which was in need of constant attention. In his sentencing, Judge Terry Martin said that while the police officers involved could have handled the situation better, they had a tough job and deserved the support of the courts. Judge Martin also highlighted Ms Somers' criminal history, which contained several police obstruction and assault offences in 2002 and 2004. He sentenced Ms Somers to four months' imprisonment, but released her on parole immediately.
SOURCE
Keep baby hope alive with IVF
As the father of an IVF son, I wholeheartedy endorse the views below. I took no notice of the money cost of my heroic wife going through 10 IVF treatment cycles in a private clinic and have no clue what that cost was, but not everyone can afford to take that attitude
WHY are we paying the $5000 baby bonus to anyone who can get themselves knocked up, but taking money away from those who really want a baby, but can't conceive naturally? That's right. The Federal Government is planning to restrict Medicare funding for IVF, which could put the fertility treatment out of the reach of ordinary Aussies.
Most IVF users are devoted couples who deserve what the rest of us take for granted - a baby. I have watched many of my friends struggle - sometimes for years - to become parents. I have shared with them the highs, the lows, the pain, and the joy of IVF and other fertility treatments. Most have got there eventually - sometimes naturally after years of invasive medical treatments.
Others have had cycle after cycle of IVF and conceived only when they were on the verge of giving up - a miracle of medicine that has turned a couple into a family, and made them feel whole. Just one kid is enough to allow them to enter the magical world of parenthood - the trips to the park, the school days, the Friday night family dinners, cheering at sports matches, the school soccials, the children and the grandchildren.
It's a reminder that although my kids get me down at times, I know I am very lucky to have them. With three kids in 5 1/2 years, our fertility is a family joke. But our kids are a blessing for which I am grateful every day, and I want others to have the same chance. Surely having a baby is a basic right worth fighting for?
Why, then, would we ever think of restricting access to IVF just to those who can afford it? I hope this message gets across loud and clear in this week's Senate hearings on the issue. Let's not forget what the Federal Government change is estimated to do - triple the price of IVF, and thus put it out of reach of most middle-income Aussies. According to IVF rights campaigner Sandra Dill, from Access Australia, out-of-pocket expenses per cycle could be $3000 - up from $1000 at the moment. When you consider most people need two or three cycles to become pregnant, it's just not affordable.
I don't think fertility treatment is something that should just be the preserve of the rich, and not the rest. We'd end up like the US where the rich pay hundreds of thousands to buy a baby, rent a womb or choose the sex of their offspring, and the rest can barely afford to see a GP, let alone a fertility expert.
Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon - herself a mother - says the Government is trying to crack down on doctors overcharging patients. But why not focus on the doctors rather than penalise the patients? We mustn't forget that IVF isn't just another medical procedure curing ingrown toenails or broken arms. And so we must fight for the right of 11,000 babies to be born every year to parents who desperately want to have kids, but can't for medical reasons.
After all, IVF is now mainstream - 3 per cent of all births are by assisted reproduction these days. Forget the Wacko Jackos and rent-a-womb Hollywood superstars. The "right to IVF" debate should instead be about the couple next door, and their right to have the baby they've always wanted.
SOURCE
Employers face new industrial relations laws on workplace bias in a travesty of justice
Guilty until proven innocent! It's designed to eliminate non-union workplaces but much more could come of it
THE Fair Work Ombudsman will use new powers to investigate companies for discriminating against workers, prompting employers to claim they risk being treated as "guilty until proven innocent". Employers said the inclusion of anti-discrimination provisions in the Fair Work Act was the "great unknown" in the legislation. The new laws carry a reverse onus of proof so an employer must show the alleged discrimination did not occur.
In his first interview since being appointed Fair Work Ombudsman, Nicholas Wilson confirmed he would be able to investigate allegations of discrimination in the workplace, and initiate legal proceedings on behalf of an employee. "It is a new part of the legislation, it's an Australian first," Mr Wilson told The Australian yesterday. "We see it as something which is an area we need to be cautious about," he said. "It's an adjunct to powers we have at the moment, but we're obviously very much aware of the kind of sensitivities that might be around the provisions. "For that reason, we'll tread carefully, but I think the point that should be made is we'll tread nonetheless in accordance with the obligations in the act."
The trade unions, which can initiate prosecutions, have indicated they see the new provisions as an opportunity to recruit new members. The ACTU is conducting courses for union organisers that offer to show them how to use the provisions of the law and "act on matters that have not been included in industrial legislation before". "Learn how to use discrimination and harassment in the workplace as an organising opportunity," the ACTU website advertisement says.
Unions said employers faced greater risk of action if they did discriminate against workers because the compliance regime was quicker than under the states' anti-discrimination laws, the ombudsman or the unions could initiate actions, and breaches would expose the employer to fines as well as compensation claims.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the anti-discrimination provisions were "probably the great unknown in the legislation". The chamber's workplace policy director, David Gregory, said it was "the first time that we have seen these type of anti-discrimination provisions included within industrial relations legislation, it's generally been confined to equal opportunity legislation". Mr Gregory said the reverse onus of proof provisions meant "an employer is guilty until proven innocent". "No one has really got any idea about the extent to which it's going to be utilised by union and employees," he said. "It certainly is a significant new area and one that is creating a fair degree of uncertainty."
Mr Wilson said he had established a small taskforce which had trained 18 staff on the discrimination provisions. He said he could understand employers being concerned and investigators would be quite cautious about proceeding with any investigation. Over recent years, there had been cases where women returned from maternity leave to find their job eliminated, or reduced in size or responsibility. Workplace inspectors had only been able to recommend the employee take action in a state anti-discrimination tribunal, or pursue an unlawful termination claim.
"That doesn't mean though that we are going to be heavy handed or adventurous about the matter, but it does mean when the complaint is brought to us we will inquire into it as best we can and where we're satisfied a wrongdoing has been done, there will be consequences for the parties involved," Mr Wilson said.
The ACTU said the provisions reinforced existing obligations under state and federal equal opportunity laws prohibiting discrimination against employees and prospective employees.
SOURCE
Tropics are on the move (?)
Below is an article summarizing a non-peer-reviewed and unpublished paper which was primarily written by a woman employed by an Australian university Department devoted to climate change (full details of that below). Despite its undistinguished origins, however, it has made the news so I think a few comments are in order.
For a start, she could well be right that the tropical climate zone expanded in recent years. That it might shrink again is her unexamined assumption, however. There WAS global warming in the '80s and '90s and that has more or less plateaued since then, though in the last two years we have seen what seem to be the first signs of a corrective downswing in temperature.
That really is all one needs to say but a couple of minor points just for fun: She characterizes the sub-tropical zone as dry. I live in that zone in Australia, so I wonder if she would like to explain the rain falling outside my window at the moment in what is normally the driest time of the year here (winter)? She seems not to consider that global warming might increase precipitation in ALL areas of the globe -- as it should in theory do (more warmth means more evaporation off the sea and hence more rainfall).
She also concedes that a tropical climate is best for biodiversity -- but seems to imply that that is a bad thing -- an unusual stance for a Greenie!
She also says that disease patterns of the tropics will spead more widely -- completely ignoring that cold weather is a lot more fatal than warm weather and that an expansion of the warm zone should therefore SAVE lives.
She also says that warming will cause more extreme rainfall events in the tropics, with the implication that that is a bad thing. I have news for her. I was born and bred in the middle of an area that CONSTANTLY had extreme rainfall events (Tully to Babinda) and we did quite well there. With around 7 yards of rain a year the crops certainly grew like mad.
I could go on but what is the point in arguing with a religion?
A review of scientific literature released today by James Cook University shows that the Earth’s tropical zone is expanding and with it the subtropical dry zone is extending into what have been humid temperate climate zones. The authors of the review concluded that the effects of a poleward expansion of the tropical and subtropical zones were immense, resulting in a variety of social, political, economic and environmental implications.
Conducted by Dr Joanne Isaac, Post-Doctoral Fellow at JCU’s Centre for Tropical Biodiversity and Climate Change, with Professor Steve Turton, from JCU’s School of Earth and Environment Sciences, the review looked at scientific findings from long-term satellite measurements, weather balloon data, climate models and sea surface temperature studies.
Professor Turton said that the review - Expansion of the Tropics: Evidence and Implications - encompassed about 70 peer-reviewed scientific papers and reports from scientists and institutions right around the world. The review found that of particular concern were regions which border the subtropics and currently experience a temperate Mediterranean climate. “Such areas include heavily populated regions of southern Australia, southern Africa, the southern Europe-Mediterranean-Middle East region, the south-western United States, northern Mexico, and southern South America – all of which are predicted to experience severe drying.
“If the dry subtropics expand into these regions, the consequences could be devastating for water resources, natural ecosystems and agriculture, with potentially cascading environmental, social and health implications.”
The survey reveals that scientific data suggests while these areas could experience an increased frequency of droughts, the expansion of the tropical zone could result in extreme rainfall events and floods to regions which have not previously been exposed to such conditions, and a poleward shift in the paths of extra-tropical and possibly tropical cyclones in the next 100 years.
“A further implication of the expansion of the tropical zone is the possible expansion of tropical associated diseases and pests.” The review looked at scientific findings in relation to dengue among other tropical diseases and reports that some models predict the greatest increase in the annual epidemic potential of dengue will be into the subtropical regions, including the southern United States, China and northern Africa in the northern hemisphere, and south America, southern Africa, and most of Australia in the southern hemisphere.
The tropical zone is commonly defined geometrically as the portion of the Earth’s surface that lies between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn at 23.5 degrees latitude north and south respectively.
Evidence accumulating: “In general, atmospheric scientists estimate the climatic boundaries of the tropics extend further from the equator to around 30 degrees latitude north and south,” the review reports. “In recent years a variety of independent studies, employing different methodologies have found evidence for the widening of the topical region, as defined by climate scientists.
“However, while evidence is accumulating for the widening of the tropical belt and shifts in other climatic events, there is still much uncertainty regarding the degree of the expansion and the mechanisms which are driving it. “For example, across the studies reviewed the estimates of the increase in the tropics vary from 2.0 to more than 5 degrees of latitude approximately every 25 years. That makes the minimum agreed expansion of the Topics zone equivalent to around 300 kilometres. “This variation of estimates makes predicting future shifts difficult. Estimates for the expansion of the tropical zone in next 25 years (assuming the rate of movement is the same as the past 25 years) range from approximately 222 kilometres to more than 533 kilometres depending on which estimate is used.”
The tropics currently occupy approximately 40 per cent of the Earth’s land surface and are home to almost half of the world’s human population and account for more than 80 per cent of the Earth’s biodiversity. The majority of the world’s endemic animals and plants, which are found nowhere else on earth, are found in the tropics and are adapted to the specific climatic conditions found there.
“Thus, the implications of a poleward expansion of the tropical and subtropical zones are immense and the effects could result in a variety of social, political, economic and environmental implications,” the review said.
SOURCE
Two more charming episodes reported below
Another rogue cop -- mentally still in the Middle Ages
A POLICEMAN has been stood down after being charged with trying to perform an exorcism on a teenager at a church youth camp in South Australia. Senior Constable Roger Sketchley, 28, has been charged with two other adults over an alleged incident at a camp run by the Lutheran Church in the Barossa Valley in April.
Sen-Const Sketchley and other adults allegedly restrained a boy, 15, after he complained of stomach pains in an incident that allegedly went for about 12 hours. Sen-Const Sketchley was charged with false imprisonment and aggravated assault.
An SA police spokesman yesterday confirmed Sen-Const Sketchley, who was off duty at the time, had been suspended pending the outcome of the charges. All three accused have been released on bail to appear in Adelaide Magistrates' Court on a date to be set.
The president of the Lutheran Church in SA and the Northern Territory, the Reverend Robert Voigt, yesterday distanced the church from such practices. "The Lutheran Church does not endorse or encourage any actions which are abusive or which results in the limitations or freedoms of any individual," he said.
Cases involving exorcism have rarely been brought before Australian courts, with one notable exception. In the early 1990s, three people were convicted of manslaughter in the Victorian Supreme Court for killing the wife of a pig farmer in a botched exorcism. Joan Vollmer, 49, died of a heart attack in January 1993 after her husband Ralph Vollmer and three other members of a breakaway Lutheran sect performed an exorcism at the couple's home at Antwerp, near Horsham.
SOURCE
Qld. cops arrest and charge woman for being in her own car
They had the facility to go online and check that the car was in her name but they didn't bother. They were good at telling lies afterwards, though. If they had any scrap of decency, they would have acknowledged their mistake, apologized, and not taken the matter to court. She was doing no wrong so her angry response was justified, if not wise. Even the court thought the goons handled the matter badly and gave the woman no punishment
A Brisbane woman seriously assaulted a police officer after he tried to arrest her for breaking into her own car, a court has heard. Jennifer Elizabeth Somers, 30, pleaded guilty to one count of serious assault, two counts of obstructing police and one count of public nuisance in the Brisbane District Court yesterday.
The court heard that in the early hours of a Sunday morning in November 2007, a heavily intoxicated Ms Somers was looking through her unlocked car for cigarettes. The court heard two police constables, Peter Lashford and Wendy Poon, responded to a call that a woman had broken into a car in the area. After some initial uncooperative behaviour and swearing, the court heard, Ms Somers gave the officers her full name, claiming she was the owner of the car, but could not produce identification.
The court heard a verbal disagreement between Constable Poon and Ms Somers broke out, before Const Poon tried to arrest Ms Somers as she did not believe she was the car's owner. Ms Somers resisted arrest and when placed in a headlock by Constable Lashford, she bit him on the biceps, the court heard.
Defence lawyer Harry Fong said Const Lashford then shouted out "I've been bitten, the b---- has bitten me". Const Lashford wrote in his victim impact statement to the court that the bite had drawn blood, although a Mater Hospital medical report said the skin had not been broken.
Mr Fong said his client was a charity worker and a single mother of two children, one of which was in need of constant attention. In his sentencing, Judge Terry Martin said that while the police officers involved could have handled the situation better, they had a tough job and deserved the support of the courts. Judge Martin also highlighted Ms Somers' criminal history, which contained several police obstruction and assault offences in 2002 and 2004. He sentenced Ms Somers to four months' imprisonment, but released her on parole immediately.
SOURCE
Keep baby hope alive with IVF
As the father of an IVF son, I wholeheartedy endorse the views below. I took no notice of the money cost of my heroic wife going through 10 IVF treatment cycles in a private clinic and have no clue what that cost was, but not everyone can afford to take that attitude
WHY are we paying the $5000 baby bonus to anyone who can get themselves knocked up, but taking money away from those who really want a baby, but can't conceive naturally? That's right. The Federal Government is planning to restrict Medicare funding for IVF, which could put the fertility treatment out of the reach of ordinary Aussies.
Most IVF users are devoted couples who deserve what the rest of us take for granted - a baby. I have watched many of my friends struggle - sometimes for years - to become parents. I have shared with them the highs, the lows, the pain, and the joy of IVF and other fertility treatments. Most have got there eventually - sometimes naturally after years of invasive medical treatments.
Others have had cycle after cycle of IVF and conceived only when they were on the verge of giving up - a miracle of medicine that has turned a couple into a family, and made them feel whole. Just one kid is enough to allow them to enter the magical world of parenthood - the trips to the park, the school days, the Friday night family dinners, cheering at sports matches, the school soccials, the children and the grandchildren.
It's a reminder that although my kids get me down at times, I know I am very lucky to have them. With three kids in 5 1/2 years, our fertility is a family joke. But our kids are a blessing for which I am grateful every day, and I want others to have the same chance. Surely having a baby is a basic right worth fighting for?
Why, then, would we ever think of restricting access to IVF just to those who can afford it? I hope this message gets across loud and clear in this week's Senate hearings on the issue. Let's not forget what the Federal Government change is estimated to do - triple the price of IVF, and thus put it out of reach of most middle-income Aussies. According to IVF rights campaigner Sandra Dill, from Access Australia, out-of-pocket expenses per cycle could be $3000 - up from $1000 at the moment. When you consider most people need two or three cycles to become pregnant, it's just not affordable.
I don't think fertility treatment is something that should just be the preserve of the rich, and not the rest. We'd end up like the US where the rich pay hundreds of thousands to buy a baby, rent a womb or choose the sex of their offspring, and the rest can barely afford to see a GP, let alone a fertility expert.
Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon - herself a mother - says the Government is trying to crack down on doctors overcharging patients. But why not focus on the doctors rather than penalise the patients? We mustn't forget that IVF isn't just another medical procedure curing ingrown toenails or broken arms. And so we must fight for the right of 11,000 babies to be born every year to parents who desperately want to have kids, but can't for medical reasons.
After all, IVF is now mainstream - 3 per cent of all births are by assisted reproduction these days. Forget the Wacko Jackos and rent-a-womb Hollywood superstars. The "right to IVF" debate should instead be about the couple next door, and their right to have the baby they've always wanted.
SOURCE
Employers face new industrial relations laws on workplace bias in a travesty of justice
Guilty until proven innocent! It's designed to eliminate non-union workplaces but much more could come of it
THE Fair Work Ombudsman will use new powers to investigate companies for discriminating against workers, prompting employers to claim they risk being treated as "guilty until proven innocent". Employers said the inclusion of anti-discrimination provisions in the Fair Work Act was the "great unknown" in the legislation. The new laws carry a reverse onus of proof so an employer must show the alleged discrimination did not occur.
In his first interview since being appointed Fair Work Ombudsman, Nicholas Wilson confirmed he would be able to investigate allegations of discrimination in the workplace, and initiate legal proceedings on behalf of an employee. "It is a new part of the legislation, it's an Australian first," Mr Wilson told The Australian yesterday. "We see it as something which is an area we need to be cautious about," he said. "It's an adjunct to powers we have at the moment, but we're obviously very much aware of the kind of sensitivities that might be around the provisions. "For that reason, we'll tread carefully, but I think the point that should be made is we'll tread nonetheless in accordance with the obligations in the act."
The trade unions, which can initiate prosecutions, have indicated they see the new provisions as an opportunity to recruit new members. The ACTU is conducting courses for union organisers that offer to show them how to use the provisions of the law and "act on matters that have not been included in industrial legislation before". "Learn how to use discrimination and harassment in the workplace as an organising opportunity," the ACTU website advertisement says.
Unions said employers faced greater risk of action if they did discriminate against workers because the compliance regime was quicker than under the states' anti-discrimination laws, the ombudsman or the unions could initiate actions, and breaches would expose the employer to fines as well as compensation claims.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the anti-discrimination provisions were "probably the great unknown in the legislation". The chamber's workplace policy director, David Gregory, said it was "the first time that we have seen these type of anti-discrimination provisions included within industrial relations legislation, it's generally been confined to equal opportunity legislation". Mr Gregory said the reverse onus of proof provisions meant "an employer is guilty until proven innocent". "No one has really got any idea about the extent to which it's going to be utilised by union and employees," he said. "It certainly is a significant new area and one that is creating a fair degree of uncertainty."
Mr Wilson said he had established a small taskforce which had trained 18 staff on the discrimination provisions. He said he could understand employers being concerned and investigators would be quite cautious about proceeding with any investigation. Over recent years, there had been cases where women returned from maternity leave to find their job eliminated, or reduced in size or responsibility. Workplace inspectors had only been able to recommend the employee take action in a state anti-discrimination tribunal, or pursue an unlawful termination claim.
"That doesn't mean though that we are going to be heavy handed or adventurous about the matter, but it does mean when the complaint is brought to us we will inquire into it as best we can and where we're satisfied a wrongdoing has been done, there will be consequences for the parties involved," Mr Wilson said.
The ACTU said the provisions reinforced existing obligations under state and federal equal opportunity laws prohibiting discrimination against employees and prospective employees.
SOURCE
Tropics are on the move (?)
Below is an article summarizing a non-peer-reviewed and unpublished paper which was primarily written by a woman employed by an Australian university Department devoted to climate change (full details of that below). Despite its undistinguished origins, however, it has made the news so I think a few comments are in order.
For a start, she could well be right that the tropical climate zone expanded in recent years. That it might shrink again is her unexamined assumption, however. There WAS global warming in the '80s and '90s and that has more or less plateaued since then, though in the last two years we have seen what seem to be the first signs of a corrective downswing in temperature.
That really is all one needs to say but a couple of minor points just for fun: She characterizes the sub-tropical zone as dry. I live in that zone in Australia, so I wonder if she would like to explain the rain falling outside my window at the moment in what is normally the driest time of the year here (winter)? She seems not to consider that global warming might increase precipitation in ALL areas of the globe -- as it should in theory do (more warmth means more evaporation off the sea and hence more rainfall).
She also concedes that a tropical climate is best for biodiversity -- but seems to imply that that is a bad thing -- an unusual stance for a Greenie!
She also says that disease patterns of the tropics will spead more widely -- completely ignoring that cold weather is a lot more fatal than warm weather and that an expansion of the warm zone should therefore SAVE lives.
She also says that warming will cause more extreme rainfall events in the tropics, with the implication that that is a bad thing. I have news for her. I was born and bred in the middle of an area that CONSTANTLY had extreme rainfall events (Tully to Babinda) and we did quite well there. With around 7 yards of rain a year the crops certainly grew like mad.
I could go on but what is the point in arguing with a religion?
A review of scientific literature released today by James Cook University shows that the Earth’s tropical zone is expanding and with it the subtropical dry zone is extending into what have been humid temperate climate zones. The authors of the review concluded that the effects of a poleward expansion of the tropical and subtropical zones were immense, resulting in a variety of social, political, economic and environmental implications.
Conducted by Dr Joanne Isaac, Post-Doctoral Fellow at JCU’s Centre for Tropical Biodiversity and Climate Change, with Professor Steve Turton, from JCU’s School of Earth and Environment Sciences, the review looked at scientific findings from long-term satellite measurements, weather balloon data, climate models and sea surface temperature studies.
Professor Turton said that the review - Expansion of the Tropics: Evidence and Implications - encompassed about 70 peer-reviewed scientific papers and reports from scientists and institutions right around the world. The review found that of particular concern were regions which border the subtropics and currently experience a temperate Mediterranean climate. “Such areas include heavily populated regions of southern Australia, southern Africa, the southern Europe-Mediterranean-Middle East region, the south-western United States, northern Mexico, and southern South America – all of which are predicted to experience severe drying.
“If the dry subtropics expand into these regions, the consequences could be devastating for water resources, natural ecosystems and agriculture, with potentially cascading environmental, social and health implications.”
The survey reveals that scientific data suggests while these areas could experience an increased frequency of droughts, the expansion of the tropical zone could result in extreme rainfall events and floods to regions which have not previously been exposed to such conditions, and a poleward shift in the paths of extra-tropical and possibly tropical cyclones in the next 100 years.
“A further implication of the expansion of the tropical zone is the possible expansion of tropical associated diseases and pests.” The review looked at scientific findings in relation to dengue among other tropical diseases and reports that some models predict the greatest increase in the annual epidemic potential of dengue will be into the subtropical regions, including the southern United States, China and northern Africa in the northern hemisphere, and south America, southern Africa, and most of Australia in the southern hemisphere.
The tropical zone is commonly defined geometrically as the portion of the Earth’s surface that lies between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn at 23.5 degrees latitude north and south respectively.
Evidence accumulating: “In general, atmospheric scientists estimate the climatic boundaries of the tropics extend further from the equator to around 30 degrees latitude north and south,” the review reports. “In recent years a variety of independent studies, employing different methodologies have found evidence for the widening of the topical region, as defined by climate scientists.
“However, while evidence is accumulating for the widening of the tropical belt and shifts in other climatic events, there is still much uncertainty regarding the degree of the expansion and the mechanisms which are driving it. “For example, across the studies reviewed the estimates of the increase in the tropics vary from 2.0 to more than 5 degrees of latitude approximately every 25 years. That makes the minimum agreed expansion of the Topics zone equivalent to around 300 kilometres. “This variation of estimates makes predicting future shifts difficult. Estimates for the expansion of the tropical zone in next 25 years (assuming the rate of movement is the same as the past 25 years) range from approximately 222 kilometres to more than 533 kilometres depending on which estimate is used.”
The tropics currently occupy approximately 40 per cent of the Earth’s land surface and are home to almost half of the world’s human population and account for more than 80 per cent of the Earth’s biodiversity. The majority of the world’s endemic animals and plants, which are found nowhere else on earth, are found in the tropics and are adapted to the specific climatic conditions found there.
“Thus, the implications of a poleward expansion of the tropical and subtropical zones are immense and the effects could result in a variety of social, political, economic and environmental implications,” the review said.
SOURCE
Monday, July 06, 2009
TODAY'S POLICE NEWS
Three articles below. All deplorable in different ways, as usual
Alleged bashing victims to sue Queensland Police Service
The Queensland Police Service is facing a million-dollar civil lawsuit over alleged brutality in the bashing of three tourists by a former officer. Families of the alleged victims plan to file a joint civil damages claim against the Queensland Police Service alleging excessive force and a breach in duty of care. Former Senior-Constable Benjamin Price, 32, has pleaded not guilty to the alleged assaults at Airlie Beach and is backed by the Queensland Police Union, which is footing his legal bill.
Video footage of two of the alleged assaults was shown in court ahead of the former officer being ordered on Friday to stand trial on six counts of assault on three holidaymakers. Magistrate Athol Kennedy ordered Price to stand trial after a four-day committal hearing heard evidence from the victims, witnesses, fellow officers, and a whistleblower who filed a misconduct complaint against her former partner. Price quit the police service last year.
An internal affairs investigation obtained the dramatic CCTV footage from Airlie Beach police station. Graphic footage shows the uniformed officer allegedly punching, kicking and "nearly drowning" one of his victims, Timothy Steele, 24. Price is shown jamming a fire hose into the mouth of the handcuffed Steele as fellow police looked on.
In another incident, Sydney bartender Renee Toms, 22, was allegedly swung around by her hair by Price inside the police station. Ms Toms, who weighs 47kg, subsequently needed medical attention for a cut to the chin.
Sydney investment banker Nicholas Le Fevre, 32, alleged he was king-hit and beaten unconscious by Price and mocked by other police as he begged for help.
Four other officers have quit the QPS under the probe by internal affairs into alleged police brutality. Steele, 24, a plasterer from NSW, allegedly suffered a broken nose, black eyes, a head wound, hearing problems, and memory loss in his May 24 arrest last year.
Steele's parents have criticised the police union for their financial support of Price. "We are at a loss to understand why the Queensland Police Union is continuing to meet the considerable costs of Price's defence," they said.
Price allegedly handcuffed Steele after a scuffle outside a nightclub, before smashing his face into the side of the police car, knocking him out. He then allegedly dragged Steele from the car outside Airlie Beach watchhouse, repeatedly punched him and "kicked him with his boots" in the face, breaking his nose.
CCTV video footage from the police station shows a dazed, heavily bleeding Steele being dragged into an alley beside the watchhouse. It shows the handcuffed man being punched in the head before having a fire hose jammed into his mouth.
SOURCE
Tiny bureaucratic minds running the South Australian police
The offending blue cap can be seen above
A police officer, who rushed to the aid of colleagues during a violent rampage has been asked to explain why he wore a baseball-style cap instead of official uniform. And a senior officer, who sent an email to his superiors defending the officer involved, was counselled after his email was deemed "inappropriate". That email was forwarded to The Advertiser by a third party.
The junior officer was photographed by the newspaper after rushing to help colleagues in Snowtown, where a man allegedly went on a rampage, slashing the throat of an elderly woman, stabbing her daughter, running down one man and attempting to run down others.
But in the email to his superiors, the traffic policeman's senior officer said there was "no thanks, job well done ". "Can you imagine the disbelief when (the officer) is advised he has to submit a police report for why he was wearing the baseball cap. . .(the officer) is very upset and demotivated by this," he wrote. "And so he should be. (the officer) was dumbfounded and quite rightly so."
The Advertiser reports the junior officer was attached to the Northern Traffic Enforcement Section, predominantly motorcycle officers who are permitted to wear the baseball-style cap as part of their uniform. It understands his senior officer, who wrote the email and forwarded it to Assistant Commissioner Graeme Barton and the Northern Traffic Enforcement Section, was counselled after the action was deemed "inappropriate".
Other officers who contacted The Advertiser said bad management was adding to stress. "The road toll is through the roof and all management can do is have this officer type a report why he was wearing a baseball cap," one said.
SA Police spokeswoman Roberta Heather said: "As part of a review of that incident, where the officers were commended for their good work, an officer was reminded he was not authorised to wear a baseball cap."
SOURCE
Police wobble when asked to intervene against school bullies
The resultant police "action" was just talk: to "formally counsel them and issue cautions". No prosecution for assault despite undisputable evidence of it? It should surely have been up to a court to decide what punishment was appropriate
WA Police have for the first time taken action against a school student who encouraged bullying by recording it on a mobile phone. The Education Department has described the decision by police to refer the 14-year-old girl to the Juvenile Justice Team as a landmark development. Determined to get a grip on the troubling trend of students filming fights and bullying, education chiefs have backed principals who call in police.
In the past, the camera-wielding bullies -- who replay videos of their victims' torment to classmates or even upload them to the internet -- have been disciplined by schools. But calling in police means students face criminal charges.
Kiara police were called to investigate an assault on a schoolgirl at Lockridge Senior High School on June 25. The girl was assaulted by a 15-year-old classmate in the school toilets. A 14-year-old girl was a given a phone and took pictures of the incident. Police inquiries led to the two girls being referred to the Juvenile Justice Team, which formally counselled them and issued cautions. They escaped stronger action because of their age and clean records. One was referred for common assault, the other for inappropriate use of a mobile phone. They were also suspended from school.
Despite Government efforts to reduce school violence, latest figures obtained by The Sunday Times reveal that in the first semester of this school year there were 413 assaults in public schools _ little change from the previous semester. Of these, 132 were student-against-student assaults and 281 were student-against-staff assaults.
Education Minister Liz Constable said the case was a timely reminder to students and parents that police involvement was a possibility in bullying cases. "Kids have to understand that it is, in fact, a crime to assault someone,'' Dr Constable said. ``I don't think there is any one rule, but they do need to know that if they behave in this totally unacceptable, anti-social way, that one of the sanctions considered is police involvement.''
Education Department head Sharyn O'Neill also backed the police action against the LSHS student who held the mobile phone. ``I endorse the police taking action against both students, including the one who recorded the incident, as it sends a very strong message that this will not be tolerated both in and outside of school,'' she said. ``The fact that the police have taken action against the students shows just how serious the inappropriate use of mobile phones is and sends a very strong warning to anyone against being involved in this kind of behaviour.''
Ms O'Neill had written to every public school principal to ensure they had a mobile phone policy that was understood by staff, students and parents. This had to include a statement of the consequences students could expect for using mobiles inappropriately. ``Currently, every school must ban mobile phone use in the classroom, but some schools may take this further and ban their use anywhere on the school site if they feel this is necessary,'' Ms O'Neill said.
A Youth Poll survey released last year found that cyber bullying affected more than one in five young Australians. Latest Roy Morgan research shows 23 per cent of children aged six to 13 in Australia own a mobile phone. For 12 to 13 year olds, the figures are 55 per cent for boys and 65 per cent for girls. Text messaging is the most common form of cyber bullying and is used to deliver and spread death threats, insults and rumours.
SOURCE
Senator Barnaby Joyce dismisses climate nonsense
"The ETS is the Employment Termination Scheme"
Senator Barnaby Joyce has a good grasp of political issues and the ability to speak in a language the people understand. When Oppositions fail to do their job properly, an individual, a group or party faction inevitably steps forward to fill the power vacuum. In the case of the Rudd Government's proposed emissions trading scheme (ETS), Queensland Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce has moved to fill the space of a credible policy alternative by speaking out against a scheme which has the potential to devastate Australia's economy.
Rather than take a leadership stand on behalf of the Opposition, Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull has taken the soft option of calling for a delay in any government decision until after the United Nations climate talkfest in Copenhagen in December. Moreover, Mr Turnbull has also called for yet another inquiry - this time by the Productivity Commission. Presumably, Mr Turnbull is incapable of striking a balance between the Liberal Party's climate-change believers, such as Greg Hunt, and its sceptics, such as WA MP Dennis Jensen, and does not want to be "wedged" on the issue.
His position is one of agreement with the Rudd Government's steps to reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 to 20 per cent below 2000 levels. However, he wants to delay action for another few months. The Labor Party rightly criticises Mr Turnbull for continually moving the goalposts without offering a feasible alternative policy.
If Mr Turnbull's suggestion of a referral to the Productivity Commission is taken up, at least officials in that organisation will be familiar with the subject matter. The commission has already completed as many as a dozen separate reports on the economic effects of attempting to contain greenhouse gases, stretching back to 1991 before the issue was even fashionable. Most recently, the Productivity Commission produced yet another - a substantial 93-page submission to the Garnaut Climate Change Review, itself the landmark advice to the Rudd Government on moving the policy forward.
However, Senator Joyce is arguing that any Senate deferral of the ETS until after Copenhagen would be the equivalent to voting it down. "The ETS is the Employment Termination Scheme for working families in the coal-mining and farming belts of Australia," Senator Joyce wrote in a statement late in May. "It is undeniable that this scheme will put our major export at risk and also put us on the path to further exacerbate the loss of our food sovereignty. "You cannot take the major income-earner out of the house, then put more impediments on the food in the cupboard and expect the life in the house will go on as before. "The mining industry has clearly spelled out this will be a disaster. The farming sector has shown us that this could lead to a 20 per cent reduction in the economy of some regions. The ramifications will flow up every street, no matter where you live."
Senator Joyce argues that ETS basically is tokenism, an ineffective gesture when put against the vast quantity of emissions from overseas. In a typical turn-of-phrase he describes it as a sop to Labor's constituency at "the Mystical Monkey Coffee Shop in inner suburban Nirvanaville".
From his arrival in Canberra from Queensland in 2005 as an unpredictable maverick who was prepared to defy his party and Liberal colleagues to repeatedly cross the Senate floor on key issues, Senator Joyce has slowly graduated into the mainstream of political debate. He has a good grasp of issues and - that rare commodity in politics - the ability to speak in a language that people understand. He also understands that riding shotgun alongside the Liberal Party but without a gun, is as good as useless. In other words, the party has to stand for something or die.
In September last year, Joyce was elected without fanfare as Nationals leader in the Senate, but, critically, he refused to take an Opposition portfolio responsibility. This meant that, even though he was in the Coalition leadership group, he was not locked into a Coalition policy straightjacket and had the ability to continue to speak his mind.
Reluctantly, Nationals MPs are coming around to realising that Senator Joyce's aggressive, independent strategy is more effective in raising the Nationals brand name - particularly while in Opposition. Some Nationals MPs resent the publicity that Senator Joyce manages to attract, and they consider him an unpredictable upstart. But older and wiser hands, such as long-time Queensland Senator Ron Boswell, whose loyalty to the Coalition was never given the recognition it deserved, realise that a separate identity for the party is vital. Events are moving in a way whereby Nationals will soon be asking: is Senator Joyce a leader in the making?
SOURCE
Young men more likely to stay living at home
A lot of my generation left home at age 16! -- JR
AUSTRALIA is breeding a generation of mummies' boys - and young men in Sydney are among the hardest in the country to get out of the family home. The latest snapshot of our nation shows 27 per cent of men 20 to 34 in Sydney are still enjoying home-cooked meals and having their washing and cleaning done for them, often long after their sisters have flown the coop.
Echoing TV series Packed To The Rafters, the Australian Bureau of Statistics report shows the proportion of young men living at home rose from 24 per cent two decades ago, The Daily Telegraph reports. While they still have a way to go before they catch up, the number of young women staying at home is also increasing rapidly - from 13 per cent to 18 per cent over the same period.
Even when KIPPERS (Kids In Parents' Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings) do move out, many come back - with the probability that someone would return home at least once before turning 35 being almost one in two.
KPMG demographer Bernard Salt, an adviser on the SBS series The Nest, said men formed relationships later, so stayed home longer. "We're breeding a generation of mummies' boys," he said. "I think that's one of the greatest complaints many young women have." However, Mr Salt said other parts of the world were experiencing the same trend, which is known as "Hotel Mamma" in Italy.
Sydney and Melbourne parents were the least likely to get their children to leave, with 27 per cent still at home compared with 20 per cent in Brisbane, Hobart and Canberra.
SOURCE
"Denialists hiding behind ideology" (?)
Green/Left "projection" at work again. The post below is from the Warmist in Chief of a major Australian newspaper. He accuses "denialists" of being governed by ideology but look at what he says. There is NOT ONE scientific fact mentioned in what he writes. It is ALL ideology!
In ExxonMobil’s 2008 corporate citizenship report, the fossil fuel giant said this: "In recent years, we have discontinued contributions to several public policy research groups whose position on climate change diverted attention from the important discussion on how the world will secure the energy required for economic growth in an environmentally responsible manner."
If only it were true. This from the Sydney Morning Herald, via The Guardian: "Company records show ExxonMobil gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to such lobby groups last year. These include the National Centre for Policy Analysis in Dallas, which received $75,000, and the Heritage Foundation in Washington, which received $50,000."
Heritage was one of the groups which helped to fund the conference - mutual denialist back-slapping - which Senator Steve Fielding attended a few weeks ago before returning to Australia having swallowed their nonsense. From it’s title, you might think the NCPA was a genuine centre of repute. Not so. This from their website: "NCPA scholars believe that while the causes and consequences of the earth’s current warming trend is still unknown.."
Wow. These guys are scholars. Aren’t they supposed to read stuff? At least have a stab at a theory. Back in May, Professor Geoffrey Heal, professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School, told an audience at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the following"
"It is mainly politicians on the right, who champion the efficiency of free markets, that have tended to dispute both the science and economics of climate change. They have a problem because they believe that governments should not intervene in markets. But environmental problems, such as climate change, cannot be tackled without governments acting. In addition, there are many on the right in the United States who are hostile to science because of their beliefs, whether it is evolution or climate change."
And who’d have thunk it? So it’s not down to science after all - just a bunch of free-market ideologists and Christians desperately trying to justify their beliefs.
SOURCE
He also greatly misrepresents both what Exxon Mobil did and what it reported. They did in fact cease funding some "denialist" organizations and their contributions to "denialist" groups in total came to only 4% of what they gave to groups interested in the environment. See my third post down here. Warmists just wallow in deception. It's all they've got
Three articles below. All deplorable in different ways, as usual
Alleged bashing victims to sue Queensland Police Service
The Queensland Police Service is facing a million-dollar civil lawsuit over alleged brutality in the bashing of three tourists by a former officer. Families of the alleged victims plan to file a joint civil damages claim against the Queensland Police Service alleging excessive force and a breach in duty of care. Former Senior-Constable Benjamin Price, 32, has pleaded not guilty to the alleged assaults at Airlie Beach and is backed by the Queensland Police Union, which is footing his legal bill.
Video footage of two of the alleged assaults was shown in court ahead of the former officer being ordered on Friday to stand trial on six counts of assault on three holidaymakers. Magistrate Athol Kennedy ordered Price to stand trial after a four-day committal hearing heard evidence from the victims, witnesses, fellow officers, and a whistleblower who filed a misconduct complaint against her former partner. Price quit the police service last year.
An internal affairs investigation obtained the dramatic CCTV footage from Airlie Beach police station. Graphic footage shows the uniformed officer allegedly punching, kicking and "nearly drowning" one of his victims, Timothy Steele, 24. Price is shown jamming a fire hose into the mouth of the handcuffed Steele as fellow police looked on.
In another incident, Sydney bartender Renee Toms, 22, was allegedly swung around by her hair by Price inside the police station. Ms Toms, who weighs 47kg, subsequently needed medical attention for a cut to the chin.
Sydney investment banker Nicholas Le Fevre, 32, alleged he was king-hit and beaten unconscious by Price and mocked by other police as he begged for help.
Four other officers have quit the QPS under the probe by internal affairs into alleged police brutality. Steele, 24, a plasterer from NSW, allegedly suffered a broken nose, black eyes, a head wound, hearing problems, and memory loss in his May 24 arrest last year.
Steele's parents have criticised the police union for their financial support of Price. "We are at a loss to understand why the Queensland Police Union is continuing to meet the considerable costs of Price's defence," they said.
Price allegedly handcuffed Steele after a scuffle outside a nightclub, before smashing his face into the side of the police car, knocking him out. He then allegedly dragged Steele from the car outside Airlie Beach watchhouse, repeatedly punched him and "kicked him with his boots" in the face, breaking his nose.
CCTV video footage from the police station shows a dazed, heavily bleeding Steele being dragged into an alley beside the watchhouse. It shows the handcuffed man being punched in the head before having a fire hose jammed into his mouth.
SOURCE
Tiny bureaucratic minds running the South Australian police
The offending blue cap can be seen above
A police officer, who rushed to the aid of colleagues during a violent rampage has been asked to explain why he wore a baseball-style cap instead of official uniform. And a senior officer, who sent an email to his superiors defending the officer involved, was counselled after his email was deemed "inappropriate". That email was forwarded to The Advertiser by a third party.
The junior officer was photographed by the newspaper after rushing to help colleagues in Snowtown, where a man allegedly went on a rampage, slashing the throat of an elderly woman, stabbing her daughter, running down one man and attempting to run down others.
But in the email to his superiors, the traffic policeman's senior officer said there was "no thanks, job well done ". "Can you imagine the disbelief when (the officer) is advised he has to submit a police report for why he was wearing the baseball cap. . .(the officer) is very upset and demotivated by this," he wrote. "And so he should be. (the officer) was dumbfounded and quite rightly so."
The Advertiser reports the junior officer was attached to the Northern Traffic Enforcement Section, predominantly motorcycle officers who are permitted to wear the baseball-style cap as part of their uniform. It understands his senior officer, who wrote the email and forwarded it to Assistant Commissioner Graeme Barton and the Northern Traffic Enforcement Section, was counselled after the action was deemed "inappropriate".
Other officers who contacted The Advertiser said bad management was adding to stress. "The road toll is through the roof and all management can do is have this officer type a report why he was wearing a baseball cap," one said.
SA Police spokeswoman Roberta Heather said: "As part of a review of that incident, where the officers were commended for their good work, an officer was reminded he was not authorised to wear a baseball cap."
SOURCE
Police wobble when asked to intervene against school bullies
The resultant police "action" was just talk: to "formally counsel them and issue cautions". No prosecution for assault despite undisputable evidence of it? It should surely have been up to a court to decide what punishment was appropriate
WA Police have for the first time taken action against a school student who encouraged bullying by recording it on a mobile phone. The Education Department has described the decision by police to refer the 14-year-old girl to the Juvenile Justice Team as a landmark development. Determined to get a grip on the troubling trend of students filming fights and bullying, education chiefs have backed principals who call in police.
In the past, the camera-wielding bullies -- who replay videos of their victims' torment to classmates or even upload them to the internet -- have been disciplined by schools. But calling in police means students face criminal charges.
Kiara police were called to investigate an assault on a schoolgirl at Lockridge Senior High School on June 25. The girl was assaulted by a 15-year-old classmate in the school toilets. A 14-year-old girl was a given a phone and took pictures of the incident. Police inquiries led to the two girls being referred to the Juvenile Justice Team, which formally counselled them and issued cautions. They escaped stronger action because of their age and clean records. One was referred for common assault, the other for inappropriate use of a mobile phone. They were also suspended from school.
Despite Government efforts to reduce school violence, latest figures obtained by The Sunday Times reveal that in the first semester of this school year there were 413 assaults in public schools _ little change from the previous semester. Of these, 132 were student-against-student assaults and 281 were student-against-staff assaults.
Education Minister Liz Constable said the case was a timely reminder to students and parents that police involvement was a possibility in bullying cases. "Kids have to understand that it is, in fact, a crime to assault someone,'' Dr Constable said. ``I don't think there is any one rule, but they do need to know that if they behave in this totally unacceptable, anti-social way, that one of the sanctions considered is police involvement.''
Education Department head Sharyn O'Neill also backed the police action against the LSHS student who held the mobile phone. ``I endorse the police taking action against both students, including the one who recorded the incident, as it sends a very strong message that this will not be tolerated both in and outside of school,'' she said. ``The fact that the police have taken action against the students shows just how serious the inappropriate use of mobile phones is and sends a very strong warning to anyone against being involved in this kind of behaviour.''
Ms O'Neill had written to every public school principal to ensure they had a mobile phone policy that was understood by staff, students and parents. This had to include a statement of the consequences students could expect for using mobiles inappropriately. ``Currently, every school must ban mobile phone use in the classroom, but some schools may take this further and ban their use anywhere on the school site if they feel this is necessary,'' Ms O'Neill said.
A Youth Poll survey released last year found that cyber bullying affected more than one in five young Australians. Latest Roy Morgan research shows 23 per cent of children aged six to 13 in Australia own a mobile phone. For 12 to 13 year olds, the figures are 55 per cent for boys and 65 per cent for girls. Text messaging is the most common form of cyber bullying and is used to deliver and spread death threats, insults and rumours.
SOURCE
Senator Barnaby Joyce dismisses climate nonsense
"The ETS is the Employment Termination Scheme"
Senator Barnaby Joyce has a good grasp of political issues and the ability to speak in a language the people understand. When Oppositions fail to do their job properly, an individual, a group or party faction inevitably steps forward to fill the power vacuum. In the case of the Rudd Government's proposed emissions trading scheme (ETS), Queensland Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce has moved to fill the space of a credible policy alternative by speaking out against a scheme which has the potential to devastate Australia's economy.
Rather than take a leadership stand on behalf of the Opposition, Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull has taken the soft option of calling for a delay in any government decision until after the United Nations climate talkfest in Copenhagen in December. Moreover, Mr Turnbull has also called for yet another inquiry - this time by the Productivity Commission. Presumably, Mr Turnbull is incapable of striking a balance between the Liberal Party's climate-change believers, such as Greg Hunt, and its sceptics, such as WA MP Dennis Jensen, and does not want to be "wedged" on the issue.
His position is one of agreement with the Rudd Government's steps to reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 to 20 per cent below 2000 levels. However, he wants to delay action for another few months. The Labor Party rightly criticises Mr Turnbull for continually moving the goalposts without offering a feasible alternative policy.
If Mr Turnbull's suggestion of a referral to the Productivity Commission is taken up, at least officials in that organisation will be familiar with the subject matter. The commission has already completed as many as a dozen separate reports on the economic effects of attempting to contain greenhouse gases, stretching back to 1991 before the issue was even fashionable. Most recently, the Productivity Commission produced yet another - a substantial 93-page submission to the Garnaut Climate Change Review, itself the landmark advice to the Rudd Government on moving the policy forward.
However, Senator Joyce is arguing that any Senate deferral of the ETS until after Copenhagen would be the equivalent to voting it down. "The ETS is the Employment Termination Scheme for working families in the coal-mining and farming belts of Australia," Senator Joyce wrote in a statement late in May. "It is undeniable that this scheme will put our major export at risk and also put us on the path to further exacerbate the loss of our food sovereignty. "You cannot take the major income-earner out of the house, then put more impediments on the food in the cupboard and expect the life in the house will go on as before. "The mining industry has clearly spelled out this will be a disaster. The farming sector has shown us that this could lead to a 20 per cent reduction in the economy of some regions. The ramifications will flow up every street, no matter where you live."
Senator Joyce argues that ETS basically is tokenism, an ineffective gesture when put against the vast quantity of emissions from overseas. In a typical turn-of-phrase he describes it as a sop to Labor's constituency at "the Mystical Monkey Coffee Shop in inner suburban Nirvanaville".
From his arrival in Canberra from Queensland in 2005 as an unpredictable maverick who was prepared to defy his party and Liberal colleagues to repeatedly cross the Senate floor on key issues, Senator Joyce has slowly graduated into the mainstream of political debate. He has a good grasp of issues and - that rare commodity in politics - the ability to speak in a language that people understand. He also understands that riding shotgun alongside the Liberal Party but without a gun, is as good as useless. In other words, the party has to stand for something or die.
In September last year, Joyce was elected without fanfare as Nationals leader in the Senate, but, critically, he refused to take an Opposition portfolio responsibility. This meant that, even though he was in the Coalition leadership group, he was not locked into a Coalition policy straightjacket and had the ability to continue to speak his mind.
Reluctantly, Nationals MPs are coming around to realising that Senator Joyce's aggressive, independent strategy is more effective in raising the Nationals brand name - particularly while in Opposition. Some Nationals MPs resent the publicity that Senator Joyce manages to attract, and they consider him an unpredictable upstart. But older and wiser hands, such as long-time Queensland Senator Ron Boswell, whose loyalty to the Coalition was never given the recognition it deserved, realise that a separate identity for the party is vital. Events are moving in a way whereby Nationals will soon be asking: is Senator Joyce a leader in the making?
SOURCE
Young men more likely to stay living at home
A lot of my generation left home at age 16! -- JR
AUSTRALIA is breeding a generation of mummies' boys - and young men in Sydney are among the hardest in the country to get out of the family home. The latest snapshot of our nation shows 27 per cent of men 20 to 34 in Sydney are still enjoying home-cooked meals and having their washing and cleaning done for them, often long after their sisters have flown the coop.
Echoing TV series Packed To The Rafters, the Australian Bureau of Statistics report shows the proportion of young men living at home rose from 24 per cent two decades ago, The Daily Telegraph reports. While they still have a way to go before they catch up, the number of young women staying at home is also increasing rapidly - from 13 per cent to 18 per cent over the same period.
Even when KIPPERS (Kids In Parents' Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings) do move out, many come back - with the probability that someone would return home at least once before turning 35 being almost one in two.
KPMG demographer Bernard Salt, an adviser on the SBS series The Nest, said men formed relationships later, so stayed home longer. "We're breeding a generation of mummies' boys," he said. "I think that's one of the greatest complaints many young women have." However, Mr Salt said other parts of the world were experiencing the same trend, which is known as "Hotel Mamma" in Italy.
Sydney and Melbourne parents were the least likely to get their children to leave, with 27 per cent still at home compared with 20 per cent in Brisbane, Hobart and Canberra.
SOURCE
"Denialists hiding behind ideology" (?)
Green/Left "projection" at work again. The post below is from the Warmist in Chief of a major Australian newspaper. He accuses "denialists" of being governed by ideology but look at what he says. There is NOT ONE scientific fact mentioned in what he writes. It is ALL ideology!
In ExxonMobil’s 2008 corporate citizenship report, the fossil fuel giant said this: "In recent years, we have discontinued contributions to several public policy research groups whose position on climate change diverted attention from the important discussion on how the world will secure the energy required for economic growth in an environmentally responsible manner."
If only it were true. This from the Sydney Morning Herald, via The Guardian: "Company records show ExxonMobil gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to such lobby groups last year. These include the National Centre for Policy Analysis in Dallas, which received $75,000, and the Heritage Foundation in Washington, which received $50,000."
Heritage was one of the groups which helped to fund the conference - mutual denialist back-slapping - which Senator Steve Fielding attended a few weeks ago before returning to Australia having swallowed their nonsense. From it’s title, you might think the NCPA was a genuine centre of repute. Not so. This from their website: "NCPA scholars believe that while the causes and consequences of the earth’s current warming trend is still unknown.."
Wow. These guys are scholars. Aren’t they supposed to read stuff? At least have a stab at a theory. Back in May, Professor Geoffrey Heal, professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School, told an audience at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the following"
"It is mainly politicians on the right, who champion the efficiency of free markets, that have tended to dispute both the science and economics of climate change. They have a problem because they believe that governments should not intervene in markets. But environmental problems, such as climate change, cannot be tackled without governments acting. In addition, there are many on the right in the United States who are hostile to science because of their beliefs, whether it is evolution or climate change."
And who’d have thunk it? So it’s not down to science after all - just a bunch of free-market ideologists and Christians desperately trying to justify their beliefs.
SOURCE
He also greatly misrepresents both what Exxon Mobil did and what it reported. They did in fact cease funding some "denialist" organizations and their contributions to "denialist" groups in total came to only 4% of what they gave to groups interested in the environment. See my third post down here. Warmists just wallow in deception. It's all they've got
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Are Australian pensioners really impoverished?
By Jessica Brown
(For American readers: "Pensioners" are government-supported retired people)
The OECD this week released a report that claimed that one in four Australian pensioners live in poverty. According to the report, pensioners in Australia face the fourth highest rate of poverty in the developed world. According to the report’s author, Edward Whitehouse, ‘Public pension spending is only 3.5% of national income in Australia, compared with an average of over 7% of GDP in OECD countries.’
While these claims seem shocking, closer scrutiny shows them to be almost meaningless. The ‘poverty line’ used by the OECD is half of median income. What this tells us is that a large group of pensioners have incomes lower than the average. What it doesn’t tell us is how this actually affects their standard of living.
Another, more in-depth report called ‘Growing Unequal’ released by the OECD last year looked beyond relative income poverty. It also examined material deprivation: whether people had adequate access to necessities such as housing, food, health care, heating, etc.
It found that while the overlap between relative income poverty and material deprivation was ‘far from perfect’ for the population as a whole, this was especially so for elderly people.
Despite having relatively low incomes, many elderly people own their homes or other assets. In Australia, they have access to extensive free health care and subsidised private health insurance, transport, and utilities. The report therefore concluded that ‘income poor older people are not necessarily experiencing material hardship.’
Claims that Australia’s level of spending on pensioners is miserly also fail to stand up to scrutiny. Australia spends a relatively small amount on pensions compared to the OECD average, not because we are tight-fisted but because we have a targeted and means-tested system. In contrast, many European countries have social insurance systems that provide universal pensions often more generous to high-income earners. This means that it’s possible for a country to spend large amounts on pensions but also have a high level of material deprivation amongst pensioners.
Measuring government spending on pensions alone also doesn’t take into account the effects of private retirement savings such as superannuation.
Measuring the standard of living of elderly Australians is a worthwhile endeavour. However, meaningless statistics and invalid comparisons do little to achieve this.
Above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated July 3rd.
"Green" investment options a flop
Real Greenies probably have no money left to invest after they have spent all their money on solar panels, water tanks and "organic" food etc.
A decade ago, a fresh wave of interest in sustainable investing broke out in Australia — and elsewhere — but things have not turned out quite as the sector's advocates expected. Howard government changes to allow a choice of super funds would let people dictate how their money was invested. This democratisation would translate into greener, more human financial markets.
Mainstream institutions such as Westpac, AMP and Perpetual launched funds into a niche market — call it ethical, socially responsible or sustainable investing — that had been held by principled specialists such as Australian Ethical Investment and Hunter Hall, who did nothing else. Real money was expected to flow into this niche, then worth about $1.4 billion. Big companies such as BHP may not have cared what a few tiny green fund managers did with their money, but failure to pass a sniff test backed by powerful financial institutions with billions to invest posed a different reputational risk.
After the Dow Jones Sustainability Index was launched in 1999, for example, everybody wanted to make the cut. But the fund managers had a dilemma: how to offer investment-grade sustainable funds that conformed with industry rules about diversification? Get too green and you limit your investment options and your chance of beating the market. No trustee or their consultant would endorse a fund likely to underperform. Not green enough and you get shot down for hypocrisy and lose your marketing edge — the offer of a true alternative — as well as any upside from green investing that might exist.
A crop of funds were launched that balanced performance against integrity to varying degrees. Slowly money trickled in, except most super fund members almost never chose the sustainability option offered by their fund. Most mandates were wholesale. By the end of last year, according to Super Ratings managing director Jeff Bresnahan, take-up of the sustainable options offered by super funds was "pitiful".
A recent Super Ratings survey, answered by 76 funds with 15 million members and $370 billion in assets, found that for 90 per cent of respondents, sustainable investments — now offered by almost two-thirds of funds — represented well under 5 per cent of net assets.
For example Vision Super, a $4 billion fund, had just $8.5 million invested in its sustainable options. The $28 billion Australian Super had just $29 million invested in its comparable green plan — that's only 0.1 per cent. "People just aren't voting with their feet with (these) options," Bresnahan says. "A lot of funds have done the research among their members, and it comes back with a resounding 'yes', but there's very little take-up."
It's not the performance that's a turn off. In fact there's nothing in it — sometimes they're ahead, sometimes behind, depending on the time period, asset allocation, research used, and so on. Super Ratings found that sustainable super options underperformed by a measly 33-38 basis points a year over the five years to the end of May, with the median option delivering annual returns of 4.37 per cent (balanced) or 6.72 per cent (shares) after tax and fees.
Morningstar data for retail (non-super) funds shows a similar underperformance of 45 basis points a year over the five years to May. That's also after fees, which is part of the explanation — the added research required to analyse sustainable investments costs fund members 1.81 per cent, or an extra 21 basis points, a year more than mainstream funds.
More HERE
Rudd’s confusion re abuse of indigenous children
And now for some political incorrectness on a sensitive subject ...
In the wake of a damning report that Aboriginal children are 6 times more likely to suffer sexual abuse than other Australian children (the figure is likely to be much higher because many cases from remote communities are not reported), state and territory leaders of the Commonwealth (COAG) are meeting in Darwin today to discuss, in Kevin Rudd's terms, "how to overcome indigenous disadvantage". Rudd's "root cause" rolls off the tongue and is accepted as a given but it neither withstands closer scrutiny nor allows us to address this terrible problem in any meaningful way.
There are many disadvantaged groups in society who do not routinely sexually abuse their children. To give just one example close to home, a significant proportion of our own local Jewish community arrived on these shores after WWII having suffered unspeakable emotional, material and ideological loss. Yet their relative "disadvantage" did not lead to their abusing their children. This is because sexual abuse has more to do with a lack of values than it does with a lack of opportunity or advantage. Those Jewish migrants, disadvantaged as they were, nevertheless carried timeless values which enabled them to take their place in and contribute to our society.
This confusion, shared by our Supreme Leader, stems, I think, from the common misconception about what multiculturalism is supposed to be. A multicultural society is one where there is no single distinct ethnicity or religion to which everyone must adhere to and where social cohesion is promoted by permitting distinct ethnic or religious groups to celebrate and maintain their different cultural identities. It is a modern experiment which has been spectacularly successful in many liberal democracies including, for example, the USA and Australia. But it only works where all groups submit to similar values....in the USA and Australia, that means Judeo-Christian values (which are largely reflected in our statutory and conventional laws).
Unfortunately, many think that multiculturalism means that all cultures are morally equal and that none is superior to another. To think otherwise is to be labeled bigoted and chauvinistic. That is a tragedy because different cultures are not necessarily morally equal. For example, a culture which promotes female circumcision is not moral, it is primitive and barbaric. A culture which promotes sati (the age-old practice on the sub-continent of perfectly healthy widows self-immolating on their husbands’ funeral pyres) is barbaric. So too is a society which celebrates honour killings (justifying the murder of rape victims by their own fathers and brothers) and teaches children Jihad (the list of examples is endless). Because the sexual abuse of Aboriginal children is unarguably rife, our leaders should perhaps view this unhappy fact from a different perspective.
Political correctness in this context - which I would describe as the institutionalised failure to recognise that diverse cultures are not necessarily morally equal in every respect – misdirects all our attempts to cure the problem. It explains why governments wanting to do good will typically address material matters only, while ignoring the fact that the real remedy lies in teaching/educating that certain practices are simply wrong and will not be tolerated. The closest attempts we have seen were the Howard government’s belated initiative in policing remote communities and, of course, the well-intentioned efforts of missionaries in the mid 20th century (the children involved, many of whom benefited greatly, being now referred to as the stolen generations).
Unfortunately, as Rudd has set incorrect parameters for the talkfest, don’t expect any significant improvement in the plight of indigenous children.
SOURCE
Top doctor in Western Australia claims that colleagues operated 'without proper qualifications'
And another bullying Health Dept. that tries to get back at whistleblowers
A top surgeon at WA's biggest hospital claims two doctors were conducting critical surgery without proper qualifications, The Sunday Times has discovered. Cardiothoracic surgeon John Manuel Alvarez has lodged an internal complaint in which he claims last year he warned bosses at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital that he feared two of his peers were underqualified for the major surgery they were performing. The Sunday Times understands that some of the concerns related to whether or not the two doctors had passed specialist examinations. Both doctors are no longer at the hospital. One has left WA.
Dr Alvarez himself is being investigated by the Health Department over misconduct allegations. The Health Department started investigating him in July last year after he raised doubts about the ability of the two doctors. The Sunday Times understands that Dr Alvarez believes the inquiry is a witch hunt and was not properly conducted.
Dr Alvarez filed a writ last week seeking to restrain the Health Department from continuing with an investigation and publishing or acting on its findings of misconduct against him. He also wants to stop any future investigation of him by the department. Dr Alvarez named WA Health Minister Kim Hames as the first defendant and Kenneth John Trainer as the second defendant in the action which was filed last Friday. Mr Trainer was the independent investigator hired by the Health Department. Dr Alvarez wants damages for breach of contract with the writ alleging the investigation breached his employment contract dated July 28, 2005.
A SCGH spokeswoman confirmed that Dr Alvarez had made complaints about the quality of some of his peers who were conducting critical surgery last year. She said the hospital was unable to comment specifically on the investigation into Dr Alvarez as the matter was before the courts.
SOURCE
More "stimulus" waste
Having bureaucrats spend money is a disaster. They don't give a stuff
A school with just one pupil for 2010 has been given a $140,000 government grant to build a covered playground - even though it already has a new one. Another $110,000 grant from the Rudd Government's $14.7 billion education stimulus package will be used for classroom refurbishment at tiny The Lagoon Public School, 20km from Bathurst in New South Wales central west.
But even locals say it is a shocking waste of money. The tiny rural school has one teacher and five pupils, two of whom go to high school next year. The mother of two girls there said she was considering transferring them to a larger school. That would leave just one pupil - the teacher's daughter - as the beneficiary of the federal funds.
The school is one of 1500 to receive Primary Schools for the 21st Century program funds. Government documents show it has been given $140,000 for a covered open learning area (COLA) and $110,000 for "upgraded classrooms".
But a neighbour told The Sunday Telegraph that the school had a new shaded learning area built just two years ago. "This school has been granted $250,000 for a COLA and classroom refurbishment - it already has a COLA, which was built over summer approximately two years ago," he said.
Monica Betts, whose daughters attend the school, said the funds could have been spent attracting more pupils. "It is a lot of money," she said. "They could have spent $50,000 trying to get more people here."
NSW Opposition education spokesman Adrian Piccoli said the program had been flawed. "Small schools need to be maintained, just like larger schools do, but it's the height of incompetence to spend borrowed money on unnecessary projects," he said.
The Opposition cited five new schools that received funding under the 21st Century scheme. One was John Palmer Public School, which got $546,000, despite opening only last year.
Australian Council of State School Organisations president Steve Carter said he was extremely frustrated by the scheme's inequitable allocation. "We would very much prefer a tighter, better thought out, needs-based allocation of funding, managed properly to give local school communities the resources they need," he said.
Arthur Phillip High School, in Parramatta, had sought money to repair its walls, floors, roofs and sewerage, but was rejected. Keira High School missed out on funds from the Science and Language Centres program, despite labs, built in the late 1960s, being below safety standards. Rooty Hill High also missed out, despite mould in its labs and cupboards falling off the wall.
Federal Education Minister Julie Gillard blamed the NSW Government for the funding decision and sought an urgent review of the school's eligibility. "The NSW Department of Education and Training (DET) must have assessed that it was in need of new or refurbished facilities," a spokesman said. "The Deputy Prime Minister has requested her department to hold immediate discussions with the NSW DET to investigate claims that this school may be non-viable in 2010".
SOURCE
By Jessica Brown
(For American readers: "Pensioners" are government-supported retired people)
The OECD this week released a report that claimed that one in four Australian pensioners live in poverty. According to the report, pensioners in Australia face the fourth highest rate of poverty in the developed world. According to the report’s author, Edward Whitehouse, ‘Public pension spending is only 3.5% of national income in Australia, compared with an average of over 7% of GDP in OECD countries.’
While these claims seem shocking, closer scrutiny shows them to be almost meaningless. The ‘poverty line’ used by the OECD is half of median income. What this tells us is that a large group of pensioners have incomes lower than the average. What it doesn’t tell us is how this actually affects their standard of living.
Another, more in-depth report called ‘Growing Unequal’ released by the OECD last year looked beyond relative income poverty. It also examined material deprivation: whether people had adequate access to necessities such as housing, food, health care, heating, etc.
It found that while the overlap between relative income poverty and material deprivation was ‘far from perfect’ for the population as a whole, this was especially so for elderly people.
Despite having relatively low incomes, many elderly people own their homes or other assets. In Australia, they have access to extensive free health care and subsidised private health insurance, transport, and utilities. The report therefore concluded that ‘income poor older people are not necessarily experiencing material hardship.’
Claims that Australia’s level of spending on pensioners is miserly also fail to stand up to scrutiny. Australia spends a relatively small amount on pensions compared to the OECD average, not because we are tight-fisted but because we have a targeted and means-tested system. In contrast, many European countries have social insurance systems that provide universal pensions often more generous to high-income earners. This means that it’s possible for a country to spend large amounts on pensions but also have a high level of material deprivation amongst pensioners.
Measuring government spending on pensions alone also doesn’t take into account the effects of private retirement savings such as superannuation.
Measuring the standard of living of elderly Australians is a worthwhile endeavour. However, meaningless statistics and invalid comparisons do little to achieve this.
Above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated July 3rd.
"Green" investment options a flop
Real Greenies probably have no money left to invest after they have spent all their money on solar panels, water tanks and "organic" food etc.
A decade ago, a fresh wave of interest in sustainable investing broke out in Australia — and elsewhere — but things have not turned out quite as the sector's advocates expected. Howard government changes to allow a choice of super funds would let people dictate how their money was invested. This democratisation would translate into greener, more human financial markets.
Mainstream institutions such as Westpac, AMP and Perpetual launched funds into a niche market — call it ethical, socially responsible or sustainable investing — that had been held by principled specialists such as Australian Ethical Investment and Hunter Hall, who did nothing else. Real money was expected to flow into this niche, then worth about $1.4 billion. Big companies such as BHP may not have cared what a few tiny green fund managers did with their money, but failure to pass a sniff test backed by powerful financial institutions with billions to invest posed a different reputational risk.
After the Dow Jones Sustainability Index was launched in 1999, for example, everybody wanted to make the cut. But the fund managers had a dilemma: how to offer investment-grade sustainable funds that conformed with industry rules about diversification? Get too green and you limit your investment options and your chance of beating the market. No trustee or their consultant would endorse a fund likely to underperform. Not green enough and you get shot down for hypocrisy and lose your marketing edge — the offer of a true alternative — as well as any upside from green investing that might exist.
A crop of funds were launched that balanced performance against integrity to varying degrees. Slowly money trickled in, except most super fund members almost never chose the sustainability option offered by their fund. Most mandates were wholesale. By the end of last year, according to Super Ratings managing director Jeff Bresnahan, take-up of the sustainable options offered by super funds was "pitiful".
A recent Super Ratings survey, answered by 76 funds with 15 million members and $370 billion in assets, found that for 90 per cent of respondents, sustainable investments — now offered by almost two-thirds of funds — represented well under 5 per cent of net assets.
For example Vision Super, a $4 billion fund, had just $8.5 million invested in its sustainable options. The $28 billion Australian Super had just $29 million invested in its comparable green plan — that's only 0.1 per cent. "People just aren't voting with their feet with (these) options," Bresnahan says. "A lot of funds have done the research among their members, and it comes back with a resounding 'yes', but there's very little take-up."
It's not the performance that's a turn off. In fact there's nothing in it — sometimes they're ahead, sometimes behind, depending on the time period, asset allocation, research used, and so on. Super Ratings found that sustainable super options underperformed by a measly 33-38 basis points a year over the five years to the end of May, with the median option delivering annual returns of 4.37 per cent (balanced) or 6.72 per cent (shares) after tax and fees.
Morningstar data for retail (non-super) funds shows a similar underperformance of 45 basis points a year over the five years to May. That's also after fees, which is part of the explanation — the added research required to analyse sustainable investments costs fund members 1.81 per cent, or an extra 21 basis points, a year more than mainstream funds.
More HERE
Rudd’s confusion re abuse of indigenous children
And now for some political incorrectness on a sensitive subject ...
In the wake of a damning report that Aboriginal children are 6 times more likely to suffer sexual abuse than other Australian children (the figure is likely to be much higher because many cases from remote communities are not reported), state and territory leaders of the Commonwealth (COAG) are meeting in Darwin today to discuss, in Kevin Rudd's terms, "how to overcome indigenous disadvantage". Rudd's "root cause" rolls off the tongue and is accepted as a given but it neither withstands closer scrutiny nor allows us to address this terrible problem in any meaningful way.
There are many disadvantaged groups in society who do not routinely sexually abuse their children. To give just one example close to home, a significant proportion of our own local Jewish community arrived on these shores after WWII having suffered unspeakable emotional, material and ideological loss. Yet their relative "disadvantage" did not lead to their abusing their children. This is because sexual abuse has more to do with a lack of values than it does with a lack of opportunity or advantage. Those Jewish migrants, disadvantaged as they were, nevertheless carried timeless values which enabled them to take their place in and contribute to our society.
This confusion, shared by our Supreme Leader, stems, I think, from the common misconception about what multiculturalism is supposed to be. A multicultural society is one where there is no single distinct ethnicity or religion to which everyone must adhere to and where social cohesion is promoted by permitting distinct ethnic or religious groups to celebrate and maintain their different cultural identities. It is a modern experiment which has been spectacularly successful in many liberal democracies including, for example, the USA and Australia. But it only works where all groups submit to similar values....in the USA and Australia, that means Judeo-Christian values (which are largely reflected in our statutory and conventional laws).
Unfortunately, many think that multiculturalism means that all cultures are morally equal and that none is superior to another. To think otherwise is to be labeled bigoted and chauvinistic. That is a tragedy because different cultures are not necessarily morally equal. For example, a culture which promotes female circumcision is not moral, it is primitive and barbaric. A culture which promotes sati (the age-old practice on the sub-continent of perfectly healthy widows self-immolating on their husbands’ funeral pyres) is barbaric. So too is a society which celebrates honour killings (justifying the murder of rape victims by their own fathers and brothers) and teaches children Jihad (the list of examples is endless). Because the sexual abuse of Aboriginal children is unarguably rife, our leaders should perhaps view this unhappy fact from a different perspective.
Political correctness in this context - which I would describe as the institutionalised failure to recognise that diverse cultures are not necessarily morally equal in every respect – misdirects all our attempts to cure the problem. It explains why governments wanting to do good will typically address material matters only, while ignoring the fact that the real remedy lies in teaching/educating that certain practices are simply wrong and will not be tolerated. The closest attempts we have seen were the Howard government’s belated initiative in policing remote communities and, of course, the well-intentioned efforts of missionaries in the mid 20th century (the children involved, many of whom benefited greatly, being now referred to as the stolen generations).
Unfortunately, as Rudd has set incorrect parameters for the talkfest, don’t expect any significant improvement in the plight of indigenous children.
SOURCE
Top doctor in Western Australia claims that colleagues operated 'without proper qualifications'
And another bullying Health Dept. that tries to get back at whistleblowers
A top surgeon at WA's biggest hospital claims two doctors were conducting critical surgery without proper qualifications, The Sunday Times has discovered. Cardiothoracic surgeon John Manuel Alvarez has lodged an internal complaint in which he claims last year he warned bosses at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital that he feared two of his peers were underqualified for the major surgery they were performing. The Sunday Times understands that some of the concerns related to whether or not the two doctors had passed specialist examinations. Both doctors are no longer at the hospital. One has left WA.
Dr Alvarez himself is being investigated by the Health Department over misconduct allegations. The Health Department started investigating him in July last year after he raised doubts about the ability of the two doctors. The Sunday Times understands that Dr Alvarez believes the inquiry is a witch hunt and was not properly conducted.
Dr Alvarez filed a writ last week seeking to restrain the Health Department from continuing with an investigation and publishing or acting on its findings of misconduct against him. He also wants to stop any future investigation of him by the department. Dr Alvarez named WA Health Minister Kim Hames as the first defendant and Kenneth John Trainer as the second defendant in the action which was filed last Friday. Mr Trainer was the independent investigator hired by the Health Department. Dr Alvarez wants damages for breach of contract with the writ alleging the investigation breached his employment contract dated July 28, 2005.
A SCGH spokeswoman confirmed that Dr Alvarez had made complaints about the quality of some of his peers who were conducting critical surgery last year. She said the hospital was unable to comment specifically on the investigation into Dr Alvarez as the matter was before the courts.
SOURCE
More "stimulus" waste
Having bureaucrats spend money is a disaster. They don't give a stuff
A school with just one pupil for 2010 has been given a $140,000 government grant to build a covered playground - even though it already has a new one. Another $110,000 grant from the Rudd Government's $14.7 billion education stimulus package will be used for classroom refurbishment at tiny The Lagoon Public School, 20km from Bathurst in New South Wales central west.
But even locals say it is a shocking waste of money. The tiny rural school has one teacher and five pupils, two of whom go to high school next year. The mother of two girls there said she was considering transferring them to a larger school. That would leave just one pupil - the teacher's daughter - as the beneficiary of the federal funds.
The school is one of 1500 to receive Primary Schools for the 21st Century program funds. Government documents show it has been given $140,000 for a covered open learning area (COLA) and $110,000 for "upgraded classrooms".
But a neighbour told The Sunday Telegraph that the school had a new shaded learning area built just two years ago. "This school has been granted $250,000 for a COLA and classroom refurbishment - it already has a COLA, which was built over summer approximately two years ago," he said.
Monica Betts, whose daughters attend the school, said the funds could have been spent attracting more pupils. "It is a lot of money," she said. "They could have spent $50,000 trying to get more people here."
NSW Opposition education spokesman Adrian Piccoli said the program had been flawed. "Small schools need to be maintained, just like larger schools do, but it's the height of incompetence to spend borrowed money on unnecessary projects," he said.
The Opposition cited five new schools that received funding under the 21st Century scheme. One was John Palmer Public School, which got $546,000, despite opening only last year.
Australian Council of State School Organisations president Steve Carter said he was extremely frustrated by the scheme's inequitable allocation. "We would very much prefer a tighter, better thought out, needs-based allocation of funding, managed properly to give local school communities the resources they need," he said.
Arthur Phillip High School, in Parramatta, had sought money to repair its walls, floors, roofs and sewerage, but was rejected. Keira High School missed out on funds from the Science and Language Centres program, despite labs, built in the late 1960s, being below safety standards. Rooty Hill High also missed out, despite mould in its labs and cupboards falling off the wall.
Federal Education Minister Julie Gillard blamed the NSW Government for the funding decision and sought an urgent review of the school's eligibility. "The NSW Department of Education and Training (DET) must have assessed that it was in need of new or refurbished facilities," a spokesman said. "The Deputy Prime Minister has requested her department to hold immediate discussions with the NSW DET to investigate claims that this school may be non-viable in 2010".
SOURCE
