NSW Health Minister to get tough on vaccination ignoramuses

Where taxpayer-subsidized childcare facilities are concerned, I would make a full vaccination record a condition of entry. Fanatical anti-vaccination parents can set up their own centres and infect one-another

UNVACCINATED children could be banned from childcare centres under changes to the law planned by Health Minister Jillian Skinner.

In what would be a significant victory for The Daily Telegraph's and Sunday Telegraph's "No Jab No Play" campaign, Ms Skinner revealed she was planning to act on unvaccinated children attending childcare.

"I have, for some time, been discussing with the NSW Chief Health Officer measures to deal with unvaccinated children accessing childcare services and expect to be able to introduce amending legislation in the near future," the minister said.

"No Jab, No Play" was launched this month to stop the rise in the number of children succumbing to preventable diseases because parents are failing to have them fully immunised.

Ms Skinner said any changes would allow parents with a "genuine objection" to be exempt. This would include medical reasons and "objection, on grounds such as religious beliefs".

Ms Skinner said she supported the public health benefits of vaccination.

"The truth is there is something to fear from not being vaccinated," she said.  "If you have ever seen a baby with whooping cough or a young child struggling with measles you will know vaccination is the way to go."

Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said a Coalition government would allow childcare centres to turn away unvaccinated children and review benefits paid to vaccine refusers.

Opposition Leader John Robertson will introduce legislation into parliament today to give preschools and childcare centres the right to ban children who are not immunised.  However, the government is unlikely to vote for changes drafted by the opposition.

Mr Robertson said the government should be protecting preschool-aged children from preventable diseases.

"This shouldn't be about the alternative wishes of parents who choose to ignore the advice of doctors; it has to be about the health of our children and young people," he said.

 NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell said he's prepared to amend the state's anti-discrimination laws to allow preschools and care centres to refuse children who haven't been vaccinated.

Mr O'Farrell said he hadn't seen Mr Robertson's bill but his government supported in principle the right for preschools to ban unvaccinated students.   ``We're happy to see what their legislation is but if we don't think their legislation reflects what we've decided, we'll introduce our own," he told reporters on Tuesday.

``We don't rule out amendments to the anti-discrimination legislation if they're necessary to uphold existing and long-standing public health practice and policies."

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Independent Schools unite to oppose Labor Party reforms

INDEPENDENT schools have struck out against the Gillard government's proposed Gonski education funding changes, declaring that the budget shows not only no additional money but a "significant reduction" for non-government schools.

The Independent Schools Council of Australia has warned Julia Gillard that, without funds to replace the budget cuts, "independent schools will not be in a position to adequately support their disadvantaged students".

The ISCA, like the National Catholic Education Commission, has complained to the Prime Minister about uncertainty arising from the budget's immediate education forecasts and challenged Labor's public claims about increased funding.

There is now a unified national front from the non-government school sector querying the benefits of the Gonski reforms, undermining the Prime Minister's campaign to get the remaining five premiers and two chief ministers to sign a national agreement by June 30.

Ms Gillard has been campaigning all week to get leaders to join NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell, claiming schools would be $16.2 billion worse off over 10 years if her reforms were not accepted and Tony Abbott were elected.

The Independent Education Union in NSW yesterday joined the NSW Catholic Education Commission in strongly objecting to the proposed funding changes and asking members to immediately lobby federal Labor MPs over the "little prospect of significant additional funding, to public, Catholic and independent schools in the short term".

"Catholic and independent employer associations continue to be frustrated by the lack of robustness and stability of the proposed models for funding distribution," the union said.

The letter to Ms Gillard from the Independent Schools Council of Australia, obtained by The Australian, said: "It is difficult to undertake a fully informed analysis of the budget papers due to the unusual circumstances of there being no information in the papers relating to school enrolment projections or information on growth factors beyond December 31, 2013."

Overall, the letter says, there is a "reduction in Australian government funding for schools rather than the increases to school funding that the government indicated would flow to disadvantaged students".

The council was having "difficulty reconciling" budget figures "with the government's public commitments".

Specifically, the independent schools complain about the redirection of National Plan for School Improvement funds and the loss of Targeted Programs, which appears to cut funding for the next two years.

"Without an appropriate level of replacement funding from these loadings for 2014 onwards, independent schools will not be in a position to adequately support their disadvantaged students," the letter says.

"This immediate loss of Targeted Programs means that any replacement funding is required from the first year of implementation in 2014, not phasing in to 2019 or beyond."

The National Catholic Education Commission has also "strongly expressed" its dissatisfaction to the Gillard government over "an unsatisfactory situation" on funding that "still drags on and now threatens to become a political football for several more months".

On Wednesday, the NSW head of the Catholic Education Commission, Bishop Anthony Fisher, said the process and calculations for non-government school funding for 2014 and beyond were uncertain, imprecise, extremely complex and annually variable.

Tony Abbott and the opposition education spokesman, Christopher Pyne, have accused the Gillard government of a "con" and a budget "fiddle" over the figures and rejected Labor's claims that $16.2bn will be lost to schools if the Gonski reforms are not implemented.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister said last night Ms Gillard had had "positive discussions" with independent schools since the letter was written. "Funding for independent schools will increase year on year - that is clear from the budget," the spokesman said.

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Good riddance to car manufacturing in Australia

Despite government directing billions of dollars in corporate welfare towards Australia’s car industry, Ford has upped stumps and will stop manufacturing cars in Australia in 2016.

While this is bad news for employees of Ford and its suppliers, it will hopefully mark the beginning of the end of wasteful government subsidies for Australia’s inefficient and expensive car industry. Check out the CIS’ press release on the Ford closures here.

To help employees in the car industry find new jobs, perhaps the government should abolish our outdated and redundant industrial award system to create a more flexible and productive labour market as outlined in a new report released today by CIS researcher Alexander Philipatos.

Unfortunately, the government probably won’t understand our recommendations, given that they are already struggling to understand their own referendum on recognising local government in the constitution.

In other news, the government is spending $2 million to prop up the ‘independent’ [Leftist] website The Conversation.  Independence from government cannot be guaranteed by government funding. That’s why the CIS has never accepted government money and never will.

Via email from CIS





Fast and loose talk about the ALP budget deficit

IT has been quite a week for economic pointy heads. First we had Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson deliver his normal post-budget speech. This year the title was "Budgeting in Challenging Times".

We then had the release of a working paper authored by a number of Treasury officials entitled "Estimating the Structural Budget Balance of the Australian Government: An Update".

And to confuse matters even more, the Parliamentary Budget Office released a report entitled "Estimates of the Structural Budget Balance of the Australian Government: 2001-02 to 2016-17".

If you are thinking it sounds like a high degree of overlap, you are not wrong.

So here is Parkinson's view of the world. "As the economy expands, government expenditure has tended to expand with it and thus the scope of government services per person has increased, albeit remaining roughly constant as a share of GDP. We also know that health and pension expenditure are set to increase further as the population ages and as changes in preferences and technology drive increased expenditure on health services."
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But here's the thing - as the economy expands and per capita income rises, we should expect the role of government to diminish, not expand. As a consequence of being wealthier, the welfare bill should decline, at least relatively, and an increasing proportion of the population should purchase services privately.

That this has not occurred thus far should not deter our top economic bureaucrat from drawing our attention to the fact that government services shouldn't be regarded as superior goods - the technical term for a good or service the demand for which rises more than proportionately with income.

This point links in with one of the key messages of the Treasury working paper and the PBO report: if it were not for those damned income tax cuts implemented through 2003-04 and 2008-09, all would be hunky dory. The PBO, for instance, attributes two-thirds of the structural budget deficits in the 10 years ending 2011-12 to the income tax cuts.

Are they kidding? Are we expected to believe that the government would not have spent those extra income tax receipts? Given that the Labor government was prepared to run down the negative net debt position it inherited, raid any trust funds hanging around and borrow to spend even more money, this assumption is heroic to say the least.

And can I be just a little bit picky here? The mother-of-all income tax cuts was actually implemented by the Rudd government, after the Ruddster decided to match the proposal for income tax cuts made by John Howard in the 2007 election campaign. This round of income tax cuts was estimated to "cost" more than $30 billion.

But where is the economic modelling telling us how the economic pie has grown as a result of these income tax cuts? And where is the obvious point that people value a dollar in their own pockets more highly than they value a dollar in the pockets of Canberra bureaucrats?

Take another howler in the PBO report - it removes the stimulus spending from its calculations of the structural budget balance. Because? Evidently the $67bn in expenditure identified as "stimulus spending" is somehow not real. Weirdly, the costs of servicing the accumulated debt are included.

By excluding the stimulus spending, the PBO estimates of the structural budget deficits during the terms of the Labor government are significantly reduced. And note that the estimates in the PBO report don't line up with the Treasury estimates for 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2011-12.

On this point it is hard to disagree with Parkinson: "Those that produce structural budget balance estimates should be transparent about their methodology, clear about their assumptions and open about how sensitive the estimates are to plausible changes in key parameters."

But one of the messages of the estimates of the structural budget balances produced by Treasury and the PBO this week cannot go unchallenged. This message is that the budgetary pickle we are in is really all the fault of Howard and Peter Costello.

To be blunt, this is just rubbish. Even if we assume that Howard and Costello overspent by not producing even bigger cash surpluses, this government has had plenty of time to reverse the tax cuts and institute spending restraint. It has done neither.

And to blame other factors, such as the decision to abandon the indexation of petroleum excise, is just bizarre. Get over it, I say. The decision was taken by the Howard government. If the Labor government didn't like it, indexation could have been reinstated.

Economic pointy heads aside, I can't believe anyone is taking any notice of this arcane discussion of the true state of the budget. And bear in mind, the forecast improvement to the structural budget balance is completely dependent on the forward projections in this year's budget being met. The government has a very poor record when it comes to budget projections coming true.

The real discussion we need to have is that lower taxes are good - they encourage work effort and create incentives for investment and saving - and government spending needs to be limited and restricted to those areas with the highest net social benefits.

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No global warming where I live

BRISBANE shivered through its coldest May day in 33 years yesterday.  The good news is that it will be warmer today

While city-slickers reached for their winter woollies the drought-hit west rejoiced as rain finally fell.

Trinidad, a property between Windorah and Charleville, recorded 44mm and Thargomindah had 43mm.

Brisbane recorded a maximum of just 17.6C, the coldest May day since 1980 and almost 7C below average.

Weather Bureau forecaster Matthew Bass said it was the city's coldest day since June 27 last year.

It was the coldest May day on record at Coolangatta, which recorded a high of just 16.5C.

"We had a clear night, then cloud moved over so that prevented any major heating," Mr Bass said.  "Then that combined with rain and a little evaporation cooled things down a bit."

Mr Bass said temperatures would remain 5C to 6C below average in the interior into the weekend.

Brisbane is expected to reach 23C today, 1C below average.

Isolated showers are expected over the southeast and southern interior tomorrow.  It will be fine and mostly sunny elsewhere.

Cool to cold conditions should continue for most of Queensland into next week.

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Rivals trying to spike Tom



Australia's biggest corporate bookmaker, Sportingbet, has backed calls for a complete ban on the spruiking of live odds in sports broadcasts and launched a withering attack on Tom Waterhouse.

Sportingbet joined market leader Tabcorp in voicing concern at the damage being done to the gambling industry by the growing public outrage at the intrusion of betting into football coverage.

Michael Sullivan, chief executive of Sportingbet, said he would support a full ban for the good of the industry, and accused Tom Waterhouse of "acting irresponsibly".

"What he's doing now is affecting all our businesses," said Mr Sullivan. "I'm the biggest consumer of rugby league in the world and it makes me sick in the guts when he comes on TV. The frequency of his appearances is what's also driving people mad and Channel Nine has a lot to answer for.

"Prohibition of advertising full-stop is going too far but there's some middle ground. If it means banning live odds on TV to sort this out then that's what should happen. I wouldn't have a problem with it."

Tabcorp, Australia's largest betting operator, has also gone public with its concern at the public outcry and a call for the Gillard government to step in with a national regulatory framework to replace state-based systems.

It is understood Tabcorp -which is the only other live odds provider alongside Mr Waterhouse on televised sport through its expert Glenn Munsie - would support a ban as long as the playing field was equal for all wagering operators.

In a statement, Tabcorp said: "Sports betting makes up a fraction of the gambling market but we acknowledge the extent and nature of the advertising is causing growing public concern. Tabcorp supports the introduction of further controls on sports betting advertising but if they're to be effective they need to be nationally applied and enforced."

Mr Sullivan told Fairfax Media from London that he had "held his tongue" on the Waterhouse issue for 12 months but had now had enough. "About 98 per cent of the gambling market has been doing the right thing for years. Tom represents probably 2 per cent of the market. He's trying to court this hype - perhaps with an eye to selling his business - and, quite frankly, I think he's acting irresponsibly," he said.

Mr Sullivan said Sportingbet had grown from a $500 million a year business to $3 billion through promotion - "and no one said a word", he said. "We've been there building our business for 12 years, as has Sportsbet, as has Tabcorp but this whole thing is about Tom. Quite frankly, it's gone too far."

Betfair said it would be comfortable with tighter controls. The company stepped back from paying for odds placement on TV three years ago as it became established in the market.

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One subbie refuses to be ground down

Getting paid is a major problem for subbies and large organizations often don't give a !@#$% about them

AN angry subcontractor on the $37.4 billion National Broadband Network has carried out a threat to rip equipment out of the ground after a dispute over pay, The Australian reports.

Barry Pringle, the director of Bench Excavation, last night ordered his crews to dig up pipes they laid six weeks ago in Adelaide's southern suburbs for Syntheo.

The Syntheo group is a joint venture between major companies Lend Lease and Service Stream, which is the biggest contractor handling the NBN rollout.

The Australian revealed on Tuesday that Mr Pringle had threatened Syntheo that he would reclaim his materials if it did not pay him about $12,500 by close of business yesterday.

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Patagonian toothfish launched on Australian market

IT'S Australia's most dangerous catch, a monster from the deep hauled out of our icy Antarctic waters more than 4000km from the mainland.

The journey to get to the grounds for the Patagonian toothfish takes more than a week and boats stay out for more than 70 days at a time.

Now, after battling pirate crews, government indifference and the logistics of fishing in such challenging conditions, Perth-based Austral Fisheries is taking on a new fight - convincing Australian consumers that their catch is ethically sound and delicious.

More than 10 years ago Patagonian toothfish was in the news when the Federal Government sent boats down to the ground near Heard Island and intercepted illegal fishers.

According to Austral Fisheries chief executive David Carter this has given the fish a bad name.

"It's like trying to convince people to eat pandas," Mr Carter said.

The company is licensed to take 2000 tonnes of the fish each year and has worked to gain Marine Stewardship Council certification for sustainability.

Up to now, however, most of the fish has been exported to the United States and Japan where it is highly prized.

"We've treated it as a bit of a commodity. But it's time to tell our story and connect the things we do with consumers," Mr Carter said.

This weekend, at the Noosa International Food and Wine Festival, the fish was launched on the Australian market with the Glacier 51 brand.

Leading chefs have taken little convincing. The fish has high oil content meaning its white, waxy flesh has a unique buttery texture and also can be frozen and transported without deteriorating.

"I've never been a fan of frozen fin fish," chef and restaurant entrepreneur Neil Perry said. "But because of its oil content it freezes well and has great flavour and texture.

"And it has a phenomenal story of sustainability and the long-term vision to make it work.

"Then there is the incredible hardship of fishing in Antarctic waters. What those guys go through is extraordinary."

Italo-Argentinian chef Mauro Colagreco agrees.  "Because it is fished so far under the sea where it is very cold, the meat is very white and fat and when you cook it slowly on the barbecue the taste is amazing," said the head chef at Mirazur in France, number 28 on the prestigious San Pellegrino Best Restaurants list.

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Money-hungry Gillard government grabs elderly people's savings

A QUEENSLAND pensioner emerged from a quintuple heart bypass only to find his bank had emptied his account, handing more than $22,000 to the Federal Government.

Legislative changes rushed through Parliament late last year mean money can now be identified as "unclaimed" after an account has been inactive for more than three years, instead of seven years.

Banks have already begun searching for inactive accounts that fit the new definition and transferring the cash to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, as required. ASIC then passes the money to the Commonwealth of Australia Consolidated Revenue Fund.

The Australian Bankers' Association has accused the Government of putting its "own financial circumstances" ahead of customers' needs, leaving them facing "months of delays trying to reclaim their own money".

ASIC says the money can be claimed "at any time by the rightful owner", but banks have pointed out the process can take as long as six weeks.

Toowong resident Adrian Duffy is now looking at a lengthy battle to have his savings restored.

The 75-year-old spent 21 days in hospital following quintuple heart bypass surgery and a second operation in April.

When he and his wife, 57-year-old Mary-Jane, went to check their Suncorp account, they discovered their balance had plummeted from $22,616 to zero. A note on the May 1 entry read: "Closing WDL Govt unclaimed monies."

The couple had saved for 14 years in preparation for major health-related costs.

The couple are working to recover the money, but say they were lucky to have other savings.

"If we didn't have the money elsewhere, we would now have to be paying for cardiologists, visits to surgeons, ECGs, x-rays, whatever is involved in the follow up," he said.

"We would have to find money to pay them, because those people aren't going to say to you, 'we'll wait six weeks'."

While many people believe they have until May 31 to act on their dormant accounts, banks in fact must finalise their lodgements by that date.

A Treasury spokesman said the reforms were designed to "help reunite Australians with their lost money sooner, and protect them from being eroded by fees, charges and inflation".

He said interest would be paid "at the rate of CPI inflation from 1 July 2013".

National Seniors Australia chief Michael O'Neill said the changes were more likely to hit older Queenslanders, adding

the NSA had received calls from people who were "quite disturbed" to discover the changes.

Tony Burke, acting chief executive of the Australian Bankers' Association, said he believed there was "no benefit for consumers from the changes".

State Member for Indooroopilly Scott Emerson said he was "really concerned about how easily the Federal Government is able to reach in and rip money from people's accounts".

"When this was brought to my attention I've realised how rushed this legislation has been and how badly this policy has been implemented and communicated," Mr Emerson said.

Westpac and Bank of Queensland said they had been contacting affected customers.

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Vegetation clearing restrictions eased in Qld.  One in the eye for Greenies

CONTROVERSIAL vegetation clearing laws which passed in parliament last night are bound to increase the rate of clearing, conservationists warn.

The Bill also included emergency amendments to allow drought-stricken cattle to graze in suitable National Parks by the end of this week.

It comes after Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke opposed the State's plans to temporarily open up the parks to graziers.

The amendments, winding back the previous Labor government's laws, marked a sad day for conservationists but were lauded by farmers.

A small group of protesters gathered outside Parliament House yesterday.

WWF director Nick Heath said it was disgraceful that Premier Campbell Newman would go back on a pre-election promise.  "'This is one of the most damaging environmental rollbacks in Australia's history," Mr Heath said.

"These amendments have stripped away protections for up to 2 million ha of bushland which is home to vulnerable native plants and animals, including koalas, cassowaries and quolls," he said.

"The green light for bulldozing of bushland will lead to an increased extinction risk for wildlife, cause soil erosion, water pollution and release millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide.

But Natural Resources Minister Andrew Cripps denied the changes would lead to widescale clearing, saying it would allow farmers who had been "punished" by the former government through layers of red tape.

"It is very concerning for land owners to be told when they have made such an investment that their plans have been thrown into disarray by a government for political reasons," he said.

"It is a nonsense to suggest that the clearing of vegetation is undertaken indiscriminately or without a reasoned expectation that the farm business will expand as a result."

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Poisonous Leftist broadcaster whines that a story did not treat him fairly

Since when has he ever been fair to people he disagrees with?

RAY Hadley has launched a broadside at arch enemy Mike Carlton, describing him as "the most hateful and vengeful broadcaster I've ever encountered".

"His disgraceful comments following the death of Stan Zemanek set him apart from any other broadcaster or person that I've ever encountered," he told news.com.au.

Hadley's comments come as Carlton criticised an Australian Story profile piece on Hadley, in which an interview with Carlton was heavily edited.

"Good taste dictates you don't speak ill of the dead," Mr Hadley said. "His bad taste knows no bounds."

Earlier, Carlton launched a tirade on his Twitter page citing the Hadley profile piece as: "Chocolate box crap, which must have been done by his PR team".

He added that airing the program on the ABC was "bizarre ... a 30-minute commercial for a rival broadcaster."

His anger stems from the final cut of an interview he did for the program, which Carlton says was distorted by "selective, unethical editing".

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Why schools are failing our boys

Boys will be boys, they tell us, but how many of us actually take this adage to heart and embrace it?

I am the mother of four boys, now all adults. If I think back to their childhoods and adolescence, it’s a whirlwind of movement and physicality, adventure and injury, rough and tumble play, of fart jokes and stinky sports shoes, short and to-the-point communication, and lots and lots of food and Milo. (Actually, it’s not so different when we all get together now.)

This description of life with boys won’t surprise most people – and yet why is it that the one place where children spend most of their time, school, is so stacked against meeting boys’ needs?

A recent survey in WA found that girls are starting to outperform boys in maths and science, which hasn’t been the case previously. Fantastic news for our girls – these fields badly need some gender balance, but it’s a shame if it’s at boys’ expense. We are also seeing disturbing numbers of boys in remedial classes and in behaviour management units in our schools across the country.

Boys are also more likely statistically (75% more likely than girls in fact) to die or be injured in an accident, to commit a crime, to be injured playing sport, to get cancer, to die at work, to go to prison, to be admitted to hospital and to fail school … well, boys will be boys right? But what does that mean for parents and teachers?

It’s long been acknowledged that the low number of male primary teachers is an issue and unless your son’s female teacher has brothers, how can we expect her to understand the boys in the class unless we actually talk about the differences between boys and girls, politically incorrect as that might be?

Neil Farmer in his book, Getting it Right for Boys, explains some key differences in how most boys’ and girls’ brains function and some of these are that girls have better ability for “cross talk” between their right and left hemispheres, better memory storage and are more verbal and better listeners.

These differences explain a lot of the angst that happens in our homes and schools where boys are mainly misunderstood by the opposite gender.

One of the most noticeable major differences (and yes there are always exceptions) between girls and boys in the classroom is that boys are more likely to learn through movement. Passivity numbs them to a degree.

Boys have been shown to develop their right brain before their left brain, whereas girls develop both at the same time and this partially explains why boys are often up to 18 months behind girls when they start school and why girls are more emotionally and verbally savvy.

The right brain is more about ‘doing’, creativity and intuitive processing (rather than logical) and spatial growth and awareness. This may be why most boys prefer the sandpit to drawing and painting. It may also explain why men are better at reverse parking, but hey you didn’t hear it from me.

Classrooms, especially those trying to get everyone up to scratch for the NAPLAN, aren’t really conducive to this.

The second major difference is that the amygdala is actually bigger in boys than girls so they are biologically driven to want to be warriors and superheroes and to take risks – often perceived as naughtiness.

The brain difference also explains why boys get confused around emotions. Many boys will take any emotional state – even sadness, confusion, frustration and hurt – and turn it into an anger response. So much aggression is often masking other emotional vulnerabilities.

Combine this with their extra testosterone and we have a situation where if we don’t provide our boys with plenty of opportunity to diffuse pent-up energy, it will manifest itself in disruptive, aggressive and even bullying behaviours.

It worries me that Australia’s “education revolution” is eroding critical playtime and the opportunity for physicality in our schools and the cost is high for all children but even more so for our boys – and perhaps their teachers who end up devoting more and more time to behaviour management. Boys have shorter attention spans and often need more stimulation to become engaged in activities that they perceive as ‘boring’ with little fun and lightness.

Most girls do not have the same huge need to discharge energy and can sit at desks much longer than boys without becoming restless and disruptive.

Another challenge is that boys only hear 70-75% of what girls do and that’s with eye contact. If a boy is absorbed in a play activity, or is facing away from his parent or teacher, he will generally not hear a thing being said. He also struggles with information overload – so making too many requests in one communication can create a glazed look as he fails to understand what is required of him.

We need to factor in these gender differences when we’re communicating with boys. They need all the help they can get to ensure they can thrive in our schools and in life, and reverse those scary statistics. They need boy champions to do this.

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Tom says "No" to the politicians

Good on him



TOM Waterhouse has snubbed a second invitation to front a parliamentary inquiry into gambling, outraging MPs who will now decide whether to summons him.

The high-profile bookmaker and son of trainer Gai Waterhouse was issued a formal request to attend a public hearing after refusing an earlier invitation because he was busy attending the spring racing carnival.

The joint selection committee into gambling reform earlier this month delayed its report into the issue and offered Waterhouse a private hearing, anticipating he could provide valuable evidence on in-game advertising.

Committee chairman, independent MP Andrew Wilkie, said the committee would now decide whether to invoke a rarely-used power and summons him.

"My personal view is he should be summonsed," Mr Wilkie told ABC Radio.  "I don't think it's good enough that someone with such profile, someone who could help the committee so much, thinks that he's above the parliament and he can say no."

Mr Wilkie said he and several other members were personally appalled by the decision.  "How dare he show such contempt for the parliament to not accept a formal request to attend," he said.

"I mean, maybe he's starting to believe some of the media hype about him being racing royalty and above the parliament."

Mr Wilkie said Waterhouse could have genuinely assisted the committee to understand the industry better.

"(He) could have helped the committee to better understand why the industry thinks it's okay to bombard viewers with (gambling) advertising at a time of the day when a lot of children are watching TV," he said.

Waterhouse has already provided a two-page letter to the committee saying he has never intentionally targeted children in gambling advertising.

In it, he defended his controversial on-air role with Channel Nine during NRL broadcasts.  "This type of arrangement by our company ... is vital in keeping TV a viable and relevant medium to promote business," he wrote, adding that TV needed advertisers to be able to afford broadcast rights.  "In the modern age, traditional advertising (commercial ad breaks) no longer always works effectively."

The NRL told the inquiry Waterhouse's role had blurred the line between a bookmaker and a commentator and it has since been changed.

His segments are now accompanied by a graphic stating he is a bookmaker and not a commentator and he no longer holds a microphone with Channel Nine markings.

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UPDATE: Tom wins another one: "TOM Waterhouse will be spared from facing a parliamentary inquiry on gambling he has twice snubbed, with Labor and Coalition MPs deciding not to summons the controversial bookmaker."



Poll says Senate looks good for Federal conservatives

AN Abbott government could end up controlling the Senate or have a sympathetic right-of-centre senator holding the balance of power, an opinion poll reveals.

This week's Nielsen poll, published in Fairfax newspapers, shows Labor stands to lose senators in every state and could be left with just 27 of the 76 places in the upper house.

The coalition could pick up 21 or more Senate seats at the September 14 election, giving it a total of at least 37 from July 2014 - just two short of an absolute majority.

On the cross benches would be the Greens and perhaps three independents - one from the Katter Australia Party (KAP), South Australian independent Nick Xenophon and John Madigan from the Democratic Labor Party.

Senator Madigan and the KAP senator are likely to side with the coalition on many issues.

Political scientist Nick Economou cautioned that it remained very difficult to predict Senate outcomes as the primary vote for major parties in the upper house race was usually less than in the House of Representatives.

As well, candidates were not known and neither were preference deals which would decide final Senate places in most states, he told the Australian Financial Review.

The coalition last won a Senate majority at the 2005 election, allowing former prime minister John Howard to push his controversial Work Choices legislation through parliament.

Senior Liberal George Brandis says the September election is about two houses of parliament, not one.

"People are sophisticated enough to understand that there's no point in voting to get rid of the carbon tax by voting for the coalition in the House of Representatives but leaving the Labor-Greens alliance in control in the Senate," he told Sky News.

Senator Brandis said voters were absolutely fed up with the hung parliament.

"The only way you can guarantee the next parliament won't be a hung parliament is to give the government elected in the House of Representatives a majority in the Senate as well," he said.

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Clear lead for conservatives in Tasmania poll


Young Hodgman

THE Liberal Party remain clearly Tasmania's favourites for the State election, new EMRS polling has revealed.

New voting intentions figures released today show Labor has seen a boost in the polls but is still miles behind Oppostion Leader Will Hodgman and his team.

But the Tasmanian Greens have taken a significant knock in their popularity with a decrease of four points to record its lowest level since the 2010 state election.

The new polling figures also show that there is an increased level of uncertainty in the electorate as voters weigh up the alternatives less than 12 months out from the state election.

EMRS chief operations director Samuel Paske said that the latest results indicated Tasmanians were less certain of how they intended to vote than they were in the previous poll, an unusual occurrence as we draw closer to the state election.

Of those surveyed 30 per cent indicated they were undecided as to what party to vote for.

"This is the highest level of undecided vote we have recorded in our quarterly poll for the last five years and is significantly higher than that recorded this time last year," Mr Paske said.

After excluding the increased number of undecided voters, the EMRS State Voting Intentions Poll shows little change for the Liberal Party since the last poll was conducted in February 2013.

The Labor Party has received an increase with a five percentage point rise.

"Support for the Liberal Party has remained relatively stable at 54 per cent, the Labor Party has recorded an encouraging increase up 5 points since February 2013 to its highest level of support since November 2010, while the level of support for the Greens and Nick McKim as preferred Premier has decreased," Mr Paske said.

"Preferred Premier results remained similar to those seen in the February 2013 poll.

"Will Hodgman continues to have the highest level of support, with 46 per cent of all respondents nominating him as their preferred Premier, with support for Premier Lara Giddings now standing at 25 per cent, and Nick McKim receiving support from 10 per cent of those surveyed."

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GREENIE ROUNDUP

Three current news reports below

Conservatives' plan to dismantle carbon laws

TONY Abbott would prepare for a double-dissolution election within five months of taking office if parliament blocked the repeal of the carbon tax, under a 12-month action blueprint to transform the nation's environmental laws.

A working draft of the plan, obtained by The Weekend Australian and confirmed by opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt, sets key dates to merge federal departments, introduce a direct action plan to offset or reduce carbon dioxide emissions and confirms details of a 35-year Great Barrier Reef protection strategy.

The timetable outlines how the Coalition's environment plans would be implemented. The federal environment department would be instructed on day one of an Abbott government to prepare legislation to scrap the carbon tax. The legislation would be introduced to parliament on day 30 and preparations would be made for a double-dissolution election after five months if parliament did not agree to repeal the carbon tax.

The government can seek a double dissolution of parliament, in which an election is held for both houses, when the House of Representatives and the Senate fail to agree on a bill twice in three months.

While double dissolutions are often threatened by governments struggling to have legislation pass a hostile Senate, there have only been six double dissolutions since federation, with the last in 1975 that led to the dismissal of the Whitlam government.

Mr Hunt said yesterday the federal election would be a referendum on the carbon tax and Labor must respect the views of the electorate and not block its removal if it lost the next election.

He challenged Climate Change Minister Greg Combet to commit to honouring any election mandate to scrap the carbon tax should the Coalition be elected.

Mr Hunt said it was the Coalition's preference for parliament to scrap the tax. But he said Coalition policy was to hold a double dissolution election within 12 months if legislation to repeal it was blocked.

Even if it won government, the Coalition would not have the numbers in the Senate to guarantee passage of legislation in the upper house until at least six months after the federal election when the new Senate numbers took effect.

Mr Hunt said advice to the Coalition was that a double dissolution could be forced after eight months and an Abbott government was committed to doing so within 12 months if parliament did not agree to scrap the tax.

"It is our preference for parliament to accept our legislation," he said.

The implementation timetable builds on the Coalition's election blueprint for Australia, "Hope, Reward and Opportunity", which nominates five key policy areas, economy, communities, environment, border security and national infrastructure.

Mr Hunt confirmed the timetable, which he said had been prepared for the business community late last year.

The Business Council of Australia has mounted a strong campaign to streamline environmental regulations to cut "green tape", which it said was adding to costs and jeopardising major projects.

Julia Gillard had supported the BCA push to delegate environmental powers to the states, but the federal government abruptly withdrew its support for an immediate handover of powers at COAG last November.

Mr Hunt said the federal opposition was having "very serious discussions" with all of the Coalition states to quickly implement one-stop-shop agreements for environmental approvals.

"Some matters would be reserved where the commonwealth would be the one-stop shop but overwhelmingly it would be the states," Mr Hunt said.

The areas where the federal government would retain ultimate control include offshore commonwealth waters, nuclear matters and projects for which the state was the proponent.

Mr Hunt said the reef strategy was still being finalised but would include funding for nutrient run-off reductions, a crown of thorns starfish eradication program and a dugong and turtle protection plan.

Environment groups were concerned about a lack of detail on port development.  They said projected sediment from dredging was many times greater than what would be saved from expensive onshore run-off programs.

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Survey finds a very "Green" public broadcaster

MORE than 40 per cent of ABC journalists who answered a survey question about their political attitudes are Greens supporters, four times the support the minor party enjoys in the wider population.

The journalism survey, the largest in 20 years, has found the profession is overwhelmingly left-leaning, with respondents from the ABC declaring double levels of support for the Greens compared with those from Fairfax Media and News Limited.

The survey of 605 journalists from around Australia found that just more than half described themselves as having left political views, while only 13 per cent said they were right of centre.

This tendency was most pronounced among the 34 ABC journalists who agreed to declare their voting intention, with 41 per cent of them saying they would vote for the Greens, 32 per cent declaring support for Labor and 14 per cent backing the Coalition.

In comparison, Greens voters represented 20 per cent of the 86 journalists who revealed their intentions both at News Limited, publisher of The Australian, and Fairfax. Labor was the most popular party at both major publishers, with 55 per cent support at Fairfax and 47 per cent at News Limited.

University of the Sunshine Coast senior journalism lecturer Folker Hanusch, who led the study, said the figures revealed a trend despite the small sample size.

"There is a statistically significant difference (from the ABC) to News Limited journalists and also Fairfax journalists, so we have a trend," Dr Hanusch said.

"Even though only a smaller number of journalists answered the voting intentions, which does increase the margin of error, it is still reasonable to conclude that there is a marked difference between the voting intentions of journalists at the three major media organisations. At least two-thirds of those journalists . . . would vote either Labor or the Greens. That's also interesting in terms of people accusing News Limited of a right-wing bias."

An ABC spokeswoman said the number of the broadcaster's journalists who responded to the survey was too small to draw any firm conclusions.

ABC radio presenter Mark Colvin described the result as "absolutely meaningless".

"Only a tiny proportion of ABC journalists were prepared to reveal their voting intentions," he said. "You don't know anything about the much larger percentage of ABC journalists who weren't prepared to reveal their voting intentions . . . it's absolutely ridiculous to draw conclusions from this survey on that subject."

About 61 per cents of all journalists surveyed agreed to disclose their voting habits, with 43 per cent saying they would give their first-preference vote to Labor, 30 per cent to the Coalition and 19 per cent to the Greens.

Among the 83 senior editors who took part in the survey, 43 per cent supported the Coalition, while 34 per cent backed Labor and 11 per cent supported the Greens. These figures closely matched the findings of last weekend's Newspoll, which put Coalition support in the wider population at 46 per cent, followed by Labor on 31 per cent and the Greens on 9 per cent.

Former Fairfax editor Michael Gawenda said the survey results mirrored his experience in journalism but could not be used as evidence of any bias in reporting.

Former Sydney Morning Herald editor-in-chief Peter Fray said it suggested a larger group of ABC staff might be willing to reveal themselves as Greens supporters. "That goes to questions around culture," Fray said. "I suppose for certain people it will confirm their views of the various positionings of the three main media organisations."

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Big floods not so bad after all

Greenies regularly hail floods and droughts as unmitigated disasters  -- ignoring their place in natural climate cycles.  One example of a positive outcome from an extreme weather event below

THE devastating 2011 floods have given farmers a huge boost with many drought-hit groundwater supplies completely refilled.

Queensland University of Technology researcher Matthias Raiber has found the Lockyer Valley, often referred to as Brisbane's food bowl, has benefited enormously with water supplies having recovered by an average 70 per cent.

Dr Raiber, from the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training, said water quality had improved markedly on pre-flood conditions which had seen such a grim situation that farmers were drawing water that was so salty it stopped production of some crops.

The Lockyer Valley produced $230 million in agricultural products in 2010-11. 

Dr Raiber said the importance of groundwater was expected to increase in coming decades because rainfall patterns were tipped to become less predictable. He said this would impact on Australia's meagre surface supplies, which were stressed due to population growth, industry, agriculture and evaporation.

Researchers are trying to determine the extent of groundwater, which will help governments work out how much water can be drawn by irrigators.

Centre director Craig Simmons said most countries did not know how much groundwater they had or how long it took to recharge, which meant the resource could not be properly managed.

In other research, the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility has found that most people whose homes were impacted by the 2011 floods did not intend to make changes to reduce vulnerability to future floods.

Lead author Deanne Bird said many residents made general improvements, such as installing their dream kitchen, rather than making their home more flood resilient.

"We saw communities getting on with their lives and largely driving their recovery with stoic endurance.

"This does not necessarily translate to adaptation to future events but it does reflect strong resilience in the community," Dr Bird said.

Sue Gordon, who runs the Gordon Country camp ground and cabins, in the Goomburra Valley on the Darling Downs said her property was flooded in 2011 and then earlier again this year but there was little that could be done to flood proof it.

"We lost kilometres of fencing," she said. "We'd only just had it repaired and we were hit again. What can you do? We've got cattle."

Ms Gordon said tourism businesses were severely damaged post floods by customers' perceptions.  "We got almost no bookings due to the belief we were not operating due to damage," she said.

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Drop in doctors, rise in clerks in Tasmanian hospitals

Worldwide, hospital clerical and adminstrative staff would survive a nuclear winter

TASMANIAN hospitals are down by 120 doctors and 65 nurses but the number of clerks and administrators has gone up by 15, says health analyst Martyn Goddard.

Using Australian Institute of Health and Welfare statistics in the 12 months before and after extensive budget cuts, Mr Goddard said the health system's ability to deliver basic services has declined to place Tasmania second worst in the country, behind Canberra.

"This is the first comprehensive look at two years of data, before budget cuts and the year after them," he said.

Health Minister Michelle O'Byrne said Mr Goddard's argument was based on superseded data and ignored recent elective surgery expenditure.

"The number of doctors and nurses ... is actually increasing," Ms O'Byrne said.

Mr Goddard said it appeared a lot of doctors were employed bute they were only working one day a week, and nursing numbers were falsely boosted by the large amount of overtime they worked.

Tasmania was the worst on the main measure of a healthy hospital system -- the number of services for overnight patients -- which fell further behind in the period after the cuts, he said.

The number of overnight services per 1000 population fell in Tasmania from 92.2 to 89.7, while it rose nationally from 112 to 116.2.

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German newsmagazine trashes Australian climate survey

German flagship news magazine Spiegel Online today has an article authored by Axel Bojanowski which takes a close look at the recent John Cook survey. German alarmists like the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research hailed it as proof that climate science was settled and done.

But Spiegel draws a different a totally conclusion.

First Bojanowski describes how a large number of Americans have serious doubts when it comes to man-made climate change, and so surveys get conducted with the aim of trying to sway public opinion. The latest was carried out by John Cook of the University of Queensland in Australia, and the results were published in the journal of Environmental Research Letters: 97% of thousands of papers surveyed agree that climate change is man-made, it asserted.

But Bojanowski trashes the findings:

    "There’s an obvious discrepancy between the public perception and reality. The authors speak about ‘consensus on man-made climate change’ – and thus this threatens to further increase confusion within the public. The survey confirms only a banality: Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that man is responsible for at least a part of the climate warming. The important question of how big is man’s part in climate change remains hotly disputed.

    In the draft of the next UN report that will summarize climate science knowledge in September, it is stated: ‘It is extremely likely that human activity is responsible for more than half of the warming since the 1950s.’ The estimations from scientists on the exact extent vary vastly – here the consensus ends.”

Bojanowski then gives Spiegel readers the results produced by Cook: “About two thirds took no position on the subject – they remained on the sidelines. 97% of the rest supported man-made impact.

Also in an additional step, 35% of the authors who took no position were left out of the survey results altogether.

A new German survey produces similar results: no consensus!

Bojanowski then reports on another still unpublished German survey conducted by the University of Mainz in Germany. Senja Post told SPIEGEL ONLINE that “123 of 292 climate scientists asked participated in the study“. The result (warmists may want to sit down before reading):

    "Only 5% of those responding believed natural factors played the main role in the warming. However, Post then asked about the extent of the man-made warming. The result looked very different. Only 59% of the scientists said the ‘climate development of the last 50 years was mostly influenced by man’s activity. One quarter of those surveyed said that human and natural factors played an equal role’.”

Only 10% of German scientists say computer models are sufficiently accurate

Bojanowski then writes that skepticism is even far more widespread when it comes to the reliability of computer models. ”Only 10% said climate models are ‘sufficiently accurate’ and only 15% said that ‘climatic processes are understood enough’ to allow climate to be calculated.”

Bojanowski sums up: “There’s plenty of fodder there to continue the ideologically influenced debate about climate – no matter what is said about consensus.”

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Demand for private school places sees fees triple

40% of Australian teenagers now go to non-government schools

PRIVATE school fees have tripled in the past 20 years, as a surging demand for places has hit parents' hip pockets.

Education costs have also been blamed for skyrocketing fees at some of Victoria's elite private schools since the mid-1990s.

Independent Schools Victoria says the education CPI has increased 182 per cent in the past 20 years.

Chief executive Michelle Green said if parents stopped investing their own money in their children's schooling, taxpayers would have to foot a massive jump in the education bill.

The Herald Sun compared fees at 16 Victorian schools in 2013 with the cost of educating a student in 1995.

The fees, detailed in a 1996 Herald Sun article, increased by up to 222 per cent.

The average fee for Year 12 students is $24,081 this year; it was $8232 in 1995 - an average rise of 193 per cent.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows average weekly earnings have risen 119 per cent between 1995 and November 2012.

Australian Scholarships Group chief executive John Velegrinis said private schools did not fear the perception of being expensive.

He said they tried to invest more in modern, state-of-the-art facilities to protect their brand.

Mr Velegrinis said there was greater demand for private school spots, including from international students.

In January, the Herald Sun reported that since 2010 there had been a 1.6 per cent increase in enrolment at independent secondary schools while state high-school student numbers had fallen.

A University of Melbourne Department of Economics paper released last year concluded fees charged by independent schools were increasing at a very high rate, with more of the expense being borne by parents.

It found higher fees were charged at schools with more staff, better university entrance scores, more music and language offerings, were older, had more students from a higher socioeconomic background and fewer students from non-English speaking backgrounds.

The paper's researchers told the Herald Sun fees at low-socioeconomic status independent schools were not rising as fast as elite schools.

Victorian Parents Council executive officer Christine Delamore said the cost of providing schooling had risen at a much higher rate than CPI.

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Labor's nightmare without end

The ICAC hearings have exposed the dark belly of the ALP

'I said that in my CE," Ian Macdonald politely reminded Peter Braham, SC, on Thursday. The abbreviation is shorthand used among Independent Commission Against Corruption staff for "compulsory examination", such as the one he had been secretly hauled to a year ago. So intimate has Macdonald become with the workings of a corruption probe that he couldn't help but volunteer his help.

It seemed not to matter, finally, after years of allegations about his conduct in newspapers and in Parliament and at the ICAC, that Braham, counsel assisting, was calling him a liar. "You knew you were doing something quite improper," he said. "No," Macdonald said repeatedly, inching towards the end, surely, of the horror show.

The closure of Operation Acacia - ICAC's probe into a multimillion-dollar coal licence Macdonald gave to ex-union boss John Maitland - was expected to mark the end of the commission's public hearings.

For seven months, the public has been deluged with the secrets of its previous government: the gritty, unedifying detail of how deals are nudged together.

But the ALP could at least look forward to the end of David Ipp's marathon inquiry.

In its term, the state parliamentary wing of the party enjoyed successes; it built major infrastructure including tunnels across Sydney, it expanded protections for the state's natural heritage, and it reformed policy such as workers compensation laws. It had, for a time, real traction, and a benevolent electorate. But for much of the past 10 years, Labor's government steadily lost its purchase. From a cabinet and a caucus, to a rabble. Its trophies were submerged by a rising tide of sleaze and ineptitude. And it began before Bob Carr decamped to Macquarie Bank.

In 2005 his newly-appointed housing minister, Joe Tripodi, was forced to appear before ICAC (but later cleared) over the Orange Grove affair. The following year, after Carr's departure, Aboriginal affairs minister Milton Orkopoulos was charged with sexual offences involving minors, and accusations flew that the ALP had engaged in a cover-up. Gillian Sneddon, the staffer who blew the whistle, was sacked the day she began giving evidence at his trial.

From then, the government's internal decay leached to the surface. Labor was exposed for having placed a higher value on loyalty than most other things.

The Macquarie Fields MP Steven Chaytor was cut loose in 2007 after an alleged domestic violence incident about which he was later cleared. Paul Gibson was let go over a similar historical allegation which the police never prosecuted, just hours before he was due to be sworn in as a member of cabinet.

The next year was no kinder. Talk between Wollongong businessmen around a so-called "table of knowledge" outside a kebab shop engulfed the government. In the publicity that followed a corruption inquiry, the ALP's head office was seen to have installed a culture in which it was acceptable for developers to buy access to decision-makers.

Wollongong MP Noreen Hay and the police minister (of just four days), Matt Brown, were embarrassed by a budget night party in a parliamentary office. Brown was alleged, but denied, to have climbed on top of Hay in his underwear and cavorted around the room.

"Our credibility, my credibility, is back to square one," premier Nathan Rees said at the time. But for both him and his replacement Kristina Keneally, the government's credibility never recovered.

Tony Stewart was next, dumped over allegations he bullied a staffer. John Della Bosca and David Campbell resigned after each was caught enjoying extramarital sex. Paul McLeay had been surfing the internet for pornography from his Parliament House computer.

Ian Macdonald rorted his travel expenses and was spiked. Angela D'Amore and Karyn Paluzzano fiddled their parliamentary expenses, and Tony Kelly falsified a letter as planning minister - all three were found corrupt by the ICAC.

Labor was virtually eliminated in the March 2011 state election, but that was, in fact, only the beginning.

Nineteen months later ICAC opened its most high-profile operation since Nick Greiner's inquiry. Since November, a string of Labor luminaries have filed into the witness box. Collectively their evidence has disemboweled the party.

Some were caught in the crossfire: former premiers Morris Iemma and Nathan Rees, ex-planning minister Frank Sartor, and federal minister Greg Combet, among them. Others are now defending serious accusations of impropriety.

Powerbroker Eddie Obeid could face a corruption finding over a $100 million secret coal deal with Macdonald. Former treasurer Eric Roozendaal is being investigated over a cheap car arranged for him by the family of Obeid.

And Macdonald himself has a litany of likely bad news ahead of him over three separate ICAC investigations - one involving a lunch he arranged for accused murderer Ron Medich in exchange for a hotel room and a prostitute, and two others concerning coal licences bestowed by the government during his term as resources minister.

Numerous businessmen have benefited from the decisions. Most notably Eddie Obeid's sons, and the seven investors behind Cascade Coal, including Macdonald's friend and former ALP staffer Greg Jones, and coal tycoons John Kinghorn, Travers Duncan and Brian Flannery.

On Thursday, ICAC announced it was recalling three MPs to explore Obeid's claim that Macdonald had not been in his office in 20 years of political life. And its reports, likely to make sensational findings about corrupt conduct by the former government, will dribble out from July.

Then there are the inevitable legal appeals and potential criminal charges. The DPP will be under pressure to lay charges, and Obeid and Macdonald have signalled they will appeal any adverse findings.

Worst of all is the prospect of a further public inquiry into the business activities of the Obeids. ICAC is still investigating revelations in the Herald concerning three government leases at Circular Quay that Obeid secretly controlled, his relationship with the former NSW speaker Richard Torbay, and the secret investment the Obeids negotiated with Australian Water.

With the closure of the public hearings, is the nightmare over? The answer is clearly no.

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Not "discrimination" to ban prostitute from motel

THE owner of a country motel who won an appeal against a sex worker who took a discrimination case against her says she is "ecstatic" that her business reputation has been restored.

Drovers Rest Motel manager Joan Hartley, who in 2008 told the sex worker she could not come back and rent a room for prostitution, said the motel had become known as "the whorehouse of Moranbah".

"Now I just want it known as the Drovers Rest - the nice, quiet, homely, friendly place it's always been," Mrs Hartley, 67, said. "I'm not a prude. I believe there is a place for these people, but that place is not in my motel."

Mrs Hartley, who with husband Evan, 68, has been running the motel for 13 years, said it had been stressful fighting the discrimination case.

"We are ecstatic, not only for ourselves, but because we've been able to win a situation where every motel owner can say 'no' to these people because they can ruin their business reputation," Mrs Hartley said.

On Friday the Court of Appeal overturned an appeal decision in Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which the sex worker won last year.

The court heard that on June 28, 2010, the sex worker, who had stayed at the motel for prostitution purposes during the previous two years, was told she would have to stay elsewhere in future.

In 2011 the legal sex worker, who had been earning $2000 a day during sporadic visits to the Drovers Rest, lost the first round of her discrimination case against the motel, then won an appeal in QCAT.

The motel owners appealed and on Friday the Court of Appeal unanimously found in their favour.

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Horrible bureaucratic bastardry by Child safety officials

THE Department of Child Safety has launched an investigation into the suspected misconduct of its staff after they failed to disclose the sexual history of a child placed with a foster family, who then went on to sexually assault their eight-year-old son.

Despite this, they are still suing the mother for neglect.

In February this year, Ethical Standards investigator Gavin Gleeson wrote to the victim's mother and her lawyer advising of the need to interview them regarding the conduct of departmental employees who were involved in the placement.

"My duty is to investigate the conduct of the departmental staff during this process, their compliance with departmental policy, procedures and guidelines and the Code of Conduct for the Queensland Public Service and determine if there is sufficient evidence to substantiate or otherwise allegations of suspected official misconduct," Mr Gleeson wrote in an email on February 13.

The foster mother, who cannot be identified, sued Child Safety for failing to advise of her foster child's sexual history, but the State Government has filed a taxpayer-funded claim seeking the mum pay any court-ordered compensation because she was responsible for the foster child's "conduct and behaviour", and failed to maintain a "safe environment" for her own son.

McInnes Wilson Lawyers partner Jacqui Eager, who is representing the foster mother, said the State Government continued "to maintain that the actions of the Department were not negligent and that our client and her partner are at fault for the incident".

"We will continue to strongly defend the frivolous contribution claim that the state has made against our client and continue to fight to protect her rights and recover for her compensation which she is entitled to," she said.

The Courier-Mail revealed last year an internal Child Safety review into the incident and a transcript of a meeting with Child Safety officers showed the parents asked twice if the foster child, then 15, had any history of sexualised behaviour.

The mother said she had asked the department because it was rumoured the boy had been molested.

The review said a Child Safety officer told the parents, "it was not believed (the boy) had any current sexualised behaviour" and failed to tell them of reports of past sexual incidents.

The review found the parents were not given the full and frank information they were supposed to receive under the Child Protection Act and ordered staff undergo more training.

But Child Safety officers in southeast Queensland told the parents that their office could not be held accountable for a regional office failing to reveal the boy's history. The office put the onus on the parents by saying it was up to the family to write letters to the other office seeking answers.

The department of Child Safety declined to comment because the matter is before the court.

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Community never gave up on missing toddler



Australia is still a great place.  Australian police not so much

WHEN police scaled back their search for toddler Tyler Kennedy at nightfall on Friday, nearby residents refused to give up, turning out in droves to scour the thick bushland where he had disappeared.

With temperatures plunging to 6C, the community of Johns River, on the mid-north coast, feared two-year-old Tyler could die of exposure.

Last night police admitted: "In hindsight, an official search could have continued into the night," and Police Minister Mike Gallacher is demanding a police report explaining the decision to scale down the search.

Soon after the official search was scaled down at 5.30pm, more than 100 volunteers joined the only remaining police officer on the scene and the search was back on.

By 1.15am, a group of volunteers found Tyler in thick scrub just 150m from Wharf Rd, where he had wandered off from a mechanic's office about 15 hours earlier.Tyler, covered in scratches and bitterly cold, was reunited with his distraught mother Amanda Kennedy. "I was speechless when they said they had to call it off," Ms Kennedy, 21, said. "My heart stopped and I walked away. I couldn't handle it.

"We thought, 'OK, we'll call in our own search party and get everyone out there to find him'."

Her partner Tim Henson said there was no resentment towards the police who were "just following procedure"."Of course we were disappointed but it didn't stop everyone from searching," Mr Henson, 29, said.

Manning Great Lakes police commander Superintendent Peter Thurtell said the decision to scale back the search "was not made lightly".

"It came after a six-hour search of waterways and rugged bushland, which involved extensive resources from both local police and the SES," he said. "We are extremely pleased for Tyler's family that he was found safe."Supt Thurtell added: "In hindsight, an official search could have continued into the night."

Tyler wandered into the bush while his parents were getting a pink slip for their car. Police scoured the Johns River State Forest with a helicopter as local officers and SES volunteers were joined by the police dog squad before the search was suspended because of poor light.

Mr Henson said the volunteers, mobilised by phone, social media and word of mouth, arrived at the property from Port Macquarie, Kempsey and even Wollongong.

"The street was full of cars," he said. "People just kept turning up wanting to help."

Ms Kennedy said she was overwhelmed when she was finally reunited with her son.

"The first hug was amazing," she said. "It was like he was first born. It was the best hug we've had. I can't explain it. Knowing that he was out there cold and hadn't had a drink or anything to eat - it was just awful.

"I was so scared he might have tripped over and landed in water and every time I heard a train go by my heart stopped and I blocked my ears."

Just after 1am, Ms Kennedy said she thought "a fight had broken out" but it turned out to be celebration by the volunteers who found Tyler.

"Tim came running into the house yelling," she said.

"I went out and someone had him wrapped up in all these jackets and he was really really cold."

Tyler was released in good health from Port Macquarie hospital about 8.30am. He ate four Weet-Bix and a sandwich, Ms Kennedy said.

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Old diggers hit by Gillard

A CRUCIAL in-home care service that provides meals for veterans and war widows has been axed by the Federal Government.

Despite a boost in defence spending of more than $5 billion in the next three years, the Commonwealth has withdrawn the funding for the Home and Community Care program.

The program provides assessment, co-ordination and home-care services tailored to the needs of ex-servicemen and women and war widows.

The move has been criticised by the RSL.

The State Government estimates more than 1500 Victorian veterans and widows will miss out on meals and more than 1500 recipients will no longer benefit from activities' groups when the funding runs dry next July.

State Health Minister David Davis has written to Veterans Affairs Minister Warren Snowdon, urging him to reconsider the cut.

Mr Davis said Victoria's war veterans deserved respect and dignity, and stripping them of these services was a slap in the face.

"This is a sad decision and it is the wrong decision," Mr Davis said.  "The purpose of this funding is to make sure we provide a high level of tailored support."

While many of the recipients will still be eligible to receive similar in-home care, Mr Davis said the veterans and war widows would be required to apply for the services through the general HACC program. That is expected to add further strain to the system.

The RSL's Victorian president, Major General David McLachlan, said the service was extremely important. He urged the Federal Government to continue to fund the program.  "Everyone wants to stay in their own home, but we need to offer these people support," he said.

"HACC has been able to assist these veterans and war widows by looking at their requirements and tailoring support to their needs."

Gen McLachlan said most of the recipients were World War II veterans or widows who had served Australia.  "You would think the Government could keep it going for the small number of veterans until they go to their final resting place," he said.

"It's providing care for the veterans that have given so much and who we can thank for the way we live life today."

The Government will save more than $25 million by axing the program. It says the money saved will be reallocated for veterans' mental health.

Mr Snowdon's spokeswoman, Lidija Ivanovski, said the Federal Budget had made no changes to the veterans' home-care program but the money had been reallocated.

"Veterans have the same right of access to Home and Community Care services as other Australians," she said. "This will not change."

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Welfare blowout coming

AUSTRALIA is facing a welfare and social security bill forecast to rise to $158 billion a year in 2016-17.

Former Liberal senator Nick Minchin, the finance minister in the Howard government, warned the cost, up from $132 billion this financial year, would result in a spending squeeze, higher taxes or eligibility tightening for the vulnerable in future.

Mr Minchin said the government "has already started down that track" with the Medicare Levy increase to fund the NDIS.

Family payments, including the Baby Bonus and a promised $300-$600 increase in Family Tax Benefit A, were also slashed in Tuesday's budget.

Increased demand for the Aged Pension and disability spending account for the largest increases by category of $15.3 billion and $8.6 billion respectively.

Disability spending includes the cost of the Disability Support Pension, which is continuing to rise despite government reforms which have slightly reduced the number of recipients from almost 832,000 people to just over 824,000 and dramatically decreased the grant rate.

Four years ago, the government forecast the DSP would cost $13.2 billion this financial year but the bill instead will be $14.8 billion, rising to $17.8 billion by 2016-17.

The jump between now and 2016-17 was blamed on higher payment rates due to indexation with the cost of the dole and assistance to the sick also set to jump from $8.5 billion to $9.8 billion.

"You will have to squeeze spending seriously in other areas of the budget in order to sustain these levels of spending or eligibility for a lot of these welfare measures will have to be tightened," Mr Minchin said.

"I suspect over the medium to long term it will be a combination of both."

Mission Australia chief Toby Hall said the growing bill would become unsustainable and he warned of the consequences of an unmanageable welfare billl in Europe where spending commitments became so large governments faced with financial crises slashed assistance.

"We have absolutely got to get in and deal with the welfare system, we have to have an environment where we are working with people on Newstart to get back into work," he said.

"We have to have an environment where we are working with people on the DSP, where possible, to get back to work."

Martin Wren, head of disability employment provider NOVA, said it was essential for people's welfare that where possible they be "turned into taxpayers" rather than languish on welfare.

A spokeswoman for Disability Reform Minister Jenny Macklin said: "We currently have a negative (DSP) growth rate of minus 0.8 per cent.

The grant rate has dropped from 63.3 per cent to 42.4 per cent since government reforms started in 2010

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"Prostitute" a forbidden word

I guess it sounds bad.  But what if it sounds bad because it is bad?

MISSY Higgins is locked in a bitter Twitter war with sex workers - because she used outdated language to describe a dream.

The popular Australian singer-songwriter posted on Twitter: "I dreamt I fell in love with a prostitute. She was young & I wanted to save her. Related to my thoughts about The Voice perhaps?"

But her seemingly innocent comment angered some in the sex industry.

A Twitter user with the handle WhoresEyeView snapped: "We don't need you to save us. Don't be so condescending. We are real people not extensions of ur ideals. Learn."

Missy replied: "It was a dream dude, chill out."

That sparked furious feedback.  One tweeted: "Cram the chill pill. If you bothered to learn the issues you'd understand why we can't chill."

Another fired: "If you had any idea how we hookers get treated you'd understand why I'm defensive. Grow some empathy."

After learning the term "prostitute" was offensive, Higgins later said: "I meant absolutely no disrespect by dreaming what I did. For the record, I do not, in reality, want to save any sex workers.

"I had no idea 'prostitute' is an offensive term, 'sex worker' being the preferred term by those in the field.  "Apologies to those I offended."

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ALP figures on Libs' 'black hole' don't add up

IT is high time that the government dropped the rhetoric about the Coalition having a "$70 billion black hole" in its funding commitments. The numbers do not support such an attack.

Apart from the hypocrisy of a government that has failed to deliver its surplus forecast continuing to engage in such rhetoric, the $70bn figure is based on outdated assumptions.

All the more so now that the budget has been handed down and Tony Abbott has intimated that Labor's "saves" will largely be adopted by the Coalition.

Initial reports about the Coalition's $70bn funding black hole claimed that the calculation related to four years' worth of forward estimates, based on leaked internal Coalition documents. In fact it was six years' worth.

There were three main areas that accounted for the so-called black hole: the lost revenue from abolishing the carbon tax ($35bn) and the mining tax ($29.5bn), and compensation that would need to be paid to companies that had purchased carbon credits ($24bn). The remainder was made up from shortfalls pertaining to the Coalition's Direct Action Plan and various tax cuts.
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But the document was never anything more than a worst-case scenario the finance team mapped out, in the event that it retained the spending attached to the carbon and mining taxes that it always planned to abolish. That hasn't eventuated.

The carbon tax has had its revenue raising potential significantly downgraded in this year's budget. Labor's initial forecast of $29 a tonne for international carbon pricing in 2015-16 has been lowered to $12.10.

Most experts predict it is more likely to end up around $5 to $6. But it matters not because the Coalition has made it clear that it won't retain most of the compensation attached to the carbon price if it wins office.

Abbott does, however, plan to retain the pension increases and some of the family payments and higher tax thresholds, understood to the tune of $4bn annually. That said, the downgrade in the carbon price is more Labor's problem than the Coalition's, although some of the compensation has already been scrapped by the government in this year's budget.

Given that Treasury has included some heroic assumptions of where the carbon price will go after it floats in 2015-16 - $18.60 the year after, hitting $38 in 2019-20 - if Labor finds a way to win re-election, thereby retaining the carbon price, the budget is likely to again be overly optimistic in its revenue assumptions. The Coalition will face no such problem if it scraps the carbon price.

The mining tax was initially projected to collect $22.5bn during its first four years of operation, before it was downgraded to $9.1bn in the most recent midyear economic and fiscal outlook. Instead it is now expected to collect just $3.3bn, according to Treasury. But even that estimate is rather bullish, given that it only collects $200 million this financial year. Despite the fact that both the terms of trade and the dollar are not expected to change very much, Treasury estimates still suggest that the mining tax will collect 1000 per cent more in the final year of the current forward estimates ($2.2bn) than it did this year.

The only spend Labor announced that was attached to the mining tax that the Coalition has said that it will retain is the superannuation increases. But they are largely paid for by business, not the government.

Over one-third of the supposed $70bn black hole in Coalition budget planning the government has sought to attack relates to a government assertion that Abbott will need to refund the big polluters for the carbon permits they would have bought. The refund may be required if the permits are considered a property right. But the Coalition rejects this will be necessary, pointing out that carbon permits won't have even been purchased by companies by the September 14 election day.

There will be some funding shortfalls that Joe Hockey and his team will need to plug.

The Direct Action scheme and various tax cuts do remain unfunded (the Coalition rejects this). And retaining pension and family payment increases, along with the upping of the tax threshold attached to the carbon price, won't come cheap.

But the total of such shortfalls is a fraction of the $70bn black hole figure that Labor has again been trotting out this week.

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Sir Lunchalot told ICAC he had a choice of either eat for free or starve



"I WOULD'VE gone broke very quickly" Ian Macdonald - aka "Sir Lunchalot" - told ICAC yesterday as he digested the prospect of paying for his own meals while a minister.

The conversation came up as ICAC asked why Mr Macdonald regularly had people seeking contracts with the government pick up the tab for meals and why the Department of Primary Industry paid for a dinner with union boss John Maitland where no departmental officials were present.

Stories have flowed during the inquiry of meals at Est, Prime and a $1800 dinner, complete with $500 magnum of pinot noir, at Catalina's in Rose Bay on December 15, 2008 as the Doyles Creek mine documents were signed.

Macdonald found himself defending one of Sydney's most famous eating establishments - Beppi's - during yesterday's evidence as he explained he did not want to meet Maitland there because it was too noisy. Perhaps it was the thought of no more prosciutto and watermelon that caused him to mount a defence.

"I shouldn't say this because Beppi's are an established old Australian firm ... but it was a noisy place when it was full," he said.

The former minister frontfooted the fact his daughter Sacha won a job through Mr Maitland in Mongolia, saying Sacha got "$29,000" for "20 months' work" and lived in one of the "most difficult places in the world, Ulan Bator". It was "not a reward".

Although there were plenty of hits in the Macdonald evidence, there was no killer blow. No sensational "ICAC loan" allegations and no sign of any payment to an offshore account or any other inducement for Mr Maitland winning a $15 million profit, other than a few fancy dinners and the job provided to Mr Macdonald's daughter.

At one point Macdonald, being criticised by Commissioner Ipp for accepting dinners, said: "Just like the current Premier going to a New Year's function on a boat on the Harbour owned by James Packer. I don't have any problem with him doing that."

By the end of the day, Mr O'Farrell had tweeted back: "Macca doesn't seem to understand lying to ICAC is an offence - I've never been on a Packer boat!" #diggingabiggerholeforhimself.

The Premier didn't reply to a question as to whose boat he was on New Years Eve. He has previously said it was with "family and friends".

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Leftist government says conservatives stand for hate speech

Everything that the Left disagrees with is hate speech

ATTORNEY-GENERAL Mark Dreyfus has accused the opposition of defending hate speech, not free speech, after his Coalition counterpart George Brandis's charge that the government was waging war against freedom of expression.

Yesterday The Australian previewed a speech Senator Brandis gave at the Sydney Institute last night.

"This government is engaged in a multi-front war against the traditional liberal conception of freedom of speech," he said, "sometimes by overt acts, but just as commonly by fostering a climate of opinion in which the centrality of the right to freedom of speech . . . is increasingly being questioned."

But ahead of the address Mr Dreyfus said the words were a disguise for "Tony Abbott's real plan to strip away laws in the Racial Discrimination Act that protect people from hate speech".

He described section 18C of the act -- which was used to silence columnist Andrew Bolt -- as an essential tool in stamping out vilification based on a person's race, colour or ethnic origin, saying: "When Mr Abbott and Senator Brandis claim that repealing these laws is in the interests of freedom of speech, they really mean freedom to commit virulent hate speech."

Senator Brandis dismissed the allegation. "I'm disappointed that a barrister of Mr Dreyfus's experience would make the beginner's error of commenting on a document he has not read," he said. "Nothing in my speech says what Mr Dreyfus asserts. Perhaps I am owed an apology."

Senator Brandis said last night the Australian Human Rights Commission was helping muzzle the right to freedom of expression. He cited comments by AHRC head Gillian Triggs to a Senate estimates committee about its activities during the press freedom debate.

"At a time when . . . freedom of speech . . . has been the subject of public discussion to an unprecedented degree, the response of the government's own human rights watchdog is to emphasise its limits."

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Prospects for NDIS blowout

The Centre for Independent Studies has played a leading role in the debate on the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the financial sustainability of the scheme into the future.

Many of these issues have finally received widespread coverage following the government’s announcement that it would break another promise and raise another tax by introducing an NDIS levy to help cover the cost of its budget deficit. The opposition quickly followed suit, announcing its support for the tax increase.

The CIS’ work on the NDIS has focused on the prospect of a financial blowout in the scheme, which is expected to provide lifetime care and support to around 441,000 people at a cost of $22 billion a year when it is fully operational in 2018–19.

These figures do not take into account the many additional financial and political risks that could affect the overall cost of the scheme.

In particular, there will be substantial political pressure to expand the scope of the scheme to the 500,000 disability pensioners who will not be eligible to receive NDIS supports. Another 600,000 people aged over 65 years who have a severe or profound disability will also be excluded from NDIS supports.

Despite an annual spend of around $22 billion, future governments will face substantial political pressure from more than 1 million people who have a vested interest in expanding the scheme even further. Disability sector workforce shortages have the potential to drive increases in the overall cost of the scheme as well.

Government expenditure on the NDIS is expected to grow at around 6% every year and has been budgeted accordingly. However, if the experiences of similar schemes like Medicare or New Zealand’s Accident Compensation Corporation are anything to go by, the NDIS could have average annual expenditure growth of around 8% per year, which would make the entire scheme financially unsustainable in the long run.

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China's hunger for Australian iron ore tipped to grow

Australia's economic fortunes have become increasingly tied to China's, and over the past decade the strength of Asia's economic giant has delivered considerable benefits to Australia.

But recent predictions from certain quarters suggest that China's growth might not be sustainable and that some large commodity exporters could be looking to take a hit in the near future.

However, enormous volumes of iron ore from the Pilbara continue to sail into Ningbo port, just south of Shanghai on China's wealthy south-eastern coastal strip.

Ningbo Port iron ore terminal general manager Han Weixu says as soon as the large ships now in port have left, others are waiting to take their berths.

He says they unload 300 iron ore ships a year – half of them from Australia.

"China needs to improve its steel production capacity for its economic development," he said.

"The iron ore we use mostly comes in from overseas and Australia is the most important import partner for us.

"In 2012, 47 million tonnes of iron ore came through this port, of which 24 million tonnes were from Australia.

"This iron ore goes to the steel factories along the Yangtze River as well as Hunan and Jiangxi provinces."

Australia's big miners are all expanding at the moment to deliver even more iron ore to China which has prompted some analysts to warn of an oversupply that could drive down prices and eat into profits.

There is also fear that steel overproduction in China could see iron ore demand fall away.

Yet Mr Han is in constant contact with China's steel companies and is well placed to hazard a guess at how much ore they will want this year and even into the future.

"In 2013, we predict we will handle 51.5 million tonnes and that Australian iron ore will increase to between 25 million and 26 million tonnes," he said.

"In 2014, we think the volume will reach 56 million tonnes and that Australian iron ore will reach 27 million to 28 million tonnes."

As China's drift to the cities goes on apace and probably still has decades to play out, what was once a country of farmers is being utterly urbanised requiring new subways, roads, bridges and the like.

Apart from the port, Ningbo is also an industrial hub which has attracted Ningbo Zhonglian Steel Structure Company - an Australian outfit building steel structures.

Chairman Sean McMonagle says the joint venture is between Queensland mining structure company Sun Engineering and partners from Canada, Britain and the United States, who have banded together to cash in on the production advantages that come with scale.

"I honestly thought I was going to come into factories where people would be in bare feet and welding with no helmets," he said.

"I went to a factory in Shanghai that had more technology than shops I'd seen in Australia had more social conscience than some shops that I'd seen in Australia.

"I thought to myself, 'if this is the competition at the price they're offering, we're doomed if we don't get on to this bandwagon'."

Because Australia avoided the worst of the global financial crisis it kept buying steel structures from the company, constructed using the same iron ore which Australia sent in the first place - much of it going back into the mining industry.

Mr McMonagle says it has experienced 20 per cent growth every year and he expects it will be better in the future.

However, he said one of the challenges - especially with as much as 95 per cent of it for export - is convincing the global market of the product's quality, so Sun Engineering tradesmen have been bought in to train local staff and ensure quality.

However, Mr McMonagle says confidence in China's immediate economic future does not only stem from the orders the company is getting.

"You look at some of the housing and building and infrastructure that's going on around us here and some of these high-rise accommodation complexes: you're talking 30, 40-storey buildings and you've got 15 of them in one development - that's just huge," he said.

"But not only have you got that you've got that happening 10 times just around this little city ... and you think this is happening all over China."

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New taxes 'flogging' mining industry: CME

The WA Chamber of Minerals and Energy says the removal of immediate tax deductions for the mining sector are "flogging" an industry that is supporting the Australia economy.

The chamber's economic and tax manager Shannon Burdeu says the changes to upfront tax benefits for exploration will add an additional burden on small and mid-cap miners.

In a move expected to save billions of dollars, the Federal Government has deferred a deduction that allows miners to claim exploration costs when they take over other mining companies.

Instead they will be able to claim the deduction over 15 years or the life of the mine.

Ms Burdeu says the measure will place further strain on an industry already struggling with high production costs.

"This is just an additional tax burden on the resources sector when ideally economic policy should be looking towards creating jobs and growing the economy rather than flogging the industry that really is supporting the economy with additional tax burdens," she said.

WA's Chamber of Commerce and Industry says the changes will constrain mining growth in WA.

The CCI's chief economist John Nicolaou says targeting exploration companies is a step in the wrong direction.

"All that will do is make it more difficult and constrain the ability for these companies to fund exploration and, in effect, create new opportunities through the development of mining operations," he said.

Mr Nicolaou says the move will exacerbate already tough conditions in the industry.

"This comes at a time when business conditions are as tough as they have been for many years," he said.

"And, if the government is to deliver on its rhetoric around supporting jobs and growth, its actions shouldn't be the reverse."

Exploration in greenfields areas are still eligible for an immediate tax deduction.

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