An Italian crook was running the West Australia police

West Australian Premier Alan Carpenter has sacked his former police minister John D'Orazio from the ALP, citing "serious misconduct" and "grossly inappropriate behaviour". The sacking came after Mr D'Orazio was exposed through phone taps and video surveillance discussing traffic infringement problems with Perth panel beater Pasquale Minniti. Mr Minniti is at the centre of a Corruption and Crime Commission probe into alleged abuses by police and others accused of having traffic infringements withdrawn.

Three months ago, Mr D'Orazio, the Labor member for the inner-city seat of Ballajura, was stripped of his police portfolio after crashing his ministerial car while driving without a licence. He became disability minister for a day but was forced to resign from the ministry amid a public outcry.

Mr D'Orazio said last night he would continue to serve the people of Ballajura as an independent MP. "The Premier has made a call and I have agreed to go along with that call," he said.

Mr Carpenter - who once labelled Mr D'Orazio a "rising star" and an "outstanding minister" - said his position was untenable. "Mr D'Orazio showed appalling judgment by agreeing to meet Mr Minniti and discuss his traffic problems, no matter what the outcome of those discussions," the Premier said. "Mr D'Orazio's subsequent phone call to a police officer referred to him by Mr Minniti was also grossly inappropriate. "His actions left him exposed and showed a complete disregard for the Government, the Labor Party and his colleagues." The Premier said Mr D'Orazio - still a minister at the time - should have rejected outright any approach from Mr Minniti.

Mr Carpenter was forced to defend his own judgment in backing Mr D'Orazio during his initial controversies, which included failing to pay superannuation to some employees at a pharmacy he owned. He said he had called Mr D'Orazio to his office late yesterday and asked him to resign from the Labor Party. He said there was a 15- to 20-minute discussion before Mr D'Orazio agreed.

Opposition Leader Paul Omodei said Mr D'Orazio should have departed long ago. He also called on the Premier to sack his former community development minister Sheila McHale for her refusal to act "while dozens of children died under her watch" - a reference to the scandal over the deaths of children in the care of Western Australia's Community Development Department.

At yesterday's Corruption and Crime Commission hearing, a clearly annoyed Mr D'Orazio described Mr Minniti as "one of those people that never leaves you alone". He said Mr Minniti, the husband of a long-time family friend, was a name-dropper who talked incessantly about his proposal to allow citizens to become "special constables". He liked to be called "Inspector Minniti". Mr D'Orazio said he agreed to meet Mr Minniti the day after he lost his police portfolio "because he was so insistent", not because Mr Minniti had told him: "Trust me, I've got something good up my sleeve, very good." Mr D'Orazio sighed and told the commission: "That Pasquale, he's always got something good."

In one phone call Mr Minniti made to Mr D'Orazio on May 10, the former police minister urged Mr Minniti not to interfere in his licensing woes. "Don't do anything," he told Mr Minniti. But when Mr Minniti claimed earlier in the conversation that he had asked a contact within the licensing section of the Department of Planning and Infrastructure to search for a missing document that could exonerate him, Mr D'Orazio expressed gratitude. "The thought that Pasquale could help me was stupid," he said. "I was trying to be nice."

According to a transcript of the taped conversation, Mr Minniti told Mr D'Orazio he had spoken to someone "high up in the licensing department and he's going to start looking for me so he can find it" to which Mr D'Orazio replied; "Okay, excellent." Mr D'Orazio told the inquiry he had no explanation for why he telephoned a senior sergeant Mr Minniti knew, except that he did so at Mr Minniti's request. "I remember making the phone call and thinking 'Why am I ringing this guy?'," Mr D'Orazio said. Counsel assisting the inquiry, Brett Tooker, said that Mr D'Orazio had been "sucked into the inquiry with all the collateral damage that that brings with it".

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Child welfare department negligence left little Wade to die



Almost four years ago, an unassuming but increasingly desperate Perth grandmother wrote to then West Australian premier Geoff Gallop, pleading for his help to protect her two grandchildren. Margaret Jakins told him the children were in danger. In the letter - dated November 20, 2002 - she said she was writing to him only after exhausting all other avenues. "I hope my fears for the two little ones are only that and that it does not end in tragedy," she wrote.

Ms Jakins's letter rang alarm bells about the safety of Wade Michael Scale and questioned the Department for Community Development's plan to return Wade's brother into the custody of the boys' drug-addicted mother, Angela Jakins, and her de facto husband, Kriston Scale, a known drug user and convicted child-basher.

On December 2, 2002, the former premier replied to Jakins with a three-sentence note thanking her for bringing her concerns to his attention, and adding that he would pass them on to the minister responsible, Sheila McHale. Two weeks later, McHale sent a five-paragraph letter advising Jakins that the department "has been focusing on reunification for some time" and suggesting Jakins contact a case worker with her concerns.

The full extent of the horrors that faced baby Wade and his brother became known to the public only three weeks ago, when state Coroner Alastair Hope released a 24-page report on Wade's death, a chilling summary of the events that continue to defy explanation. On July 30, 2003, at 4.44pm, aged 11 months and 10 days, Wade was pronounced dead after frantic but futile efforts by ambulance officers and later hospital staff to revive him. He had drowned in a bath left filled from the previous evening. His body contained the adult prescription drug diazepam. Angela Jakins and Kriston Scale denied any knowledge of how he came to ingest it.

The coroner said the only explanation was that he was deliberately given it or was able to access it at a location within crawling distance, although a worrying feature of this was that both parents claimed not to have noticed any behavioural change in Wade over the preceding 24 hours. Angela Jakins denied leaving Wade alone for more than "a matter of minutes". The coroner found he had lain immersed in the water for at least 20 to 30 minutes. While these facts of Wade's death are sad and sordid, equally scandalous are the events that led up to his death.

The coroner's report reveals how Wade's grandmother and other relatives repeatedly tried to get help for Wade and his brother, contacting the department, the minister, the then premier, their local MP - anyone they could think of - in the months leading up to the tragedy, all to no avail. The coroner refers to evidence from Kriston Scale's brother, Glenn, about used syringes and baby bottles full of congealed milk in a cot left behind by Jakins and Scale when they moved house.

Glenn Scale and his wife, Clementina, were among the very small group of people the coroner praised. Following the tragedy, they now have custody of Wade's brother, who cannot be identified for legal reasons. There is absolutely no doubt the Department for Community Development knew the danger Wade and his brother were in. It was warned repeatedly by extended family members.The department knew Kriston Scale had an appalling history of violence. He was convicted and jailed in 1999 for three separate assaults on toddlers. Two of the victims were Wade's sisters. All were hospitalised with extensive bruising to the face and head. In one case, the child's eyes were so swollen he was unable to see. The department knew this, yet allowed Wade and his toddler brother to live with Kriston Scale. The department knew both parents were drug users. Urinalysis tests before and after Wade's birth tested positive for amphetamines and opiates.

A few months before his death, Wade was briefly removed from his parents but was quickly returned. The only explanation the public has received is a stumbling comment by Premier Alan Carpenter this week that Wade was returned "because the environment was, um ... err ... conducive to his return to his parents".

The report by Mr Hope shows that the department conducted its last home visit by a case worker three months before Wade died.

It arranged for Wesley Mission's family counselling arm, Wesley Hearth, to have continuing contact with the family but Angela Jakins often did not attend the planned sessions. The department was informed of each non-attendance. The evidence indicates that on July 22, after Jakins missed a session with Wesley Hearth, the department's team leader directed a case worker to undertake a home visit as a matter of urgency. The visit did not occur. This was followed up and the case worker was told to drop her other cases and do the visit. Again, it did not happen.

On July 23, Jakins missed another planned session with Wesley Hearth. The same day, Margaret Jakins wrote to the department again expressing her concerns that Angela Jakins was using drugs. "Unfortunately, this letter did not prompt a home visit or other positive action to protect the deceased," Mr Hope said. From July 24 to July 26, Jakins apparently went missing, with only Scale at the house caring for the children. On July 27, Glenn Scale's wife, Clementina, rang the department, adding her concerns about Jakins's drug use to the growing clamour raining down on the department. She was told it would be followed up. Nothing happened. On July 30, Wade died.

The coroner said the case highlighted worrying failures by the department to protect Wade and his brother. "The family history clearly indicated that drug abuse in the past had resulted in neglect and serious physical abuse to children," Mr Hope said. He said there was evidence the local branch office of the department was in crisis, seriously understaffed and lacking experience. He also said it was clear Wade's family was misled by the department, directly and indirectly, about the extent of supervision being provided. "Family members were given false comfort and led to believe there were management practices in place which were secure and intensive, whereas in fact the supervision was very limited," he said.

And in a final kick, he recommended the department review its practices to ensure future advice to the minister and correspondence provided in response to family concerns was reliable and accurate. The almost unbelievable display of incompetence, blunders, negligence and disregard that preceded Wade's death has snared two premiers, one minister, backbenchers, bureaucrats and an entire department. Mr Hope's report not only reveals the department's disastrous failings, it also exposes the then minister, Sheila McHale, who has since moved to the Indigenous Affairs portfolio, as a minister who was at best badly advised.

Margaret Jakins, the grandmother who tried so hard to save Wade, told The Weekend Australian "a hundred different people were at fault, it was never one. I would have welcomed any help but that's not what happened". She now just wants to be left alone to care for Wade's two sisters.

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Incitement to terrorism ignored

NSW Premier Morris Iemma has urged Islamic extremists behind Sydney pamphlets calling for a holy war to destroy Israel to leave that sort of hatred overseas. A radical group with alleged links to the London bombings is reportedly distributing pamphlets through suburban Sydney calling for a holy war. The leaflets, from the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahir, call for a jihad to destroy Israel and use key dates in the Muslim calendar to signal the coming destruction of the Jewish state, News Limited newspapers report.

Mr Iemma said legitimate debate, free speech and opinions were welcome in Australia. "However, the sort of inflammatory language about conflicts in wars overseas, leave them behind. "Leave the conflicts, the old wars and the hatred behind."

The group is banned in Germany and British Prime Minister Tony Blair has called for Hizb ut-Tahir, which has alleged links to last year's London terrorist attacks, to be outlawed in the UK. But it remains legal in Australia despite calls for it to be banned. Security agencies here are "very aware" of the pamphlets, a spokesman for Attorney-General Philip Ruddock's office said.

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Another incompetent foreign doctor in a government hospital

Up to six people might have died because a pathologist in northern New South Wales misdiagnosed their tests, the state government said today. NSW Health Minister John Hatzistergos and the chief executive of Hunter New England Health, Terry Clout, today announced the results of a review of 7350 anatomical pathology tests taken by Dr Farid Zaer. The review was conducted in March this year after concerns that Dr Zaer, who worked at Tamworth Hospital from 1999 to 2001, may have failed to correctly analyse tests for diseases, including cancer.

Mr Clout said that of the 7432 tests re-examined, 38 cases had significant variations which would have a serious impact on patient care. Of these, he said, five or six people had since died. "It may or it may not have been the case (that the misdiagnosis caused death) and because we don't have a parallel universe we will never know," Mr Clout said.

Mr Hatzistergos said he would willingingly refer the matter to further authorities if the families of the deceased wanted him to. "Obviously this is a dreadful thing to have happened," Mr Hatzistergos said. "I am very concerned by the results that have been revealed."

Three independent pathology laboratories conducted the review and advised the government that 97 per cent of Dr Zaer's tests were accurate. Of 217 people who were found to have had variations, Mr Clout said all but four had been contacted. "Those doctors have confirmed that in 179 of those cases there was no impact on the care provided to the patients," he said. "But that does regrettably leave some 38 patients where the significant variation in the test has meant that there was a less than desirable treatment provided." As a result of the misdiagnosis, the patients had either been over-treated or under-treated, including a small number who underwent unnecessary surgery. "We have undertaken a few operations that were not necessary, I have been quite clear about that," Mr Clout said. "Regrettably there have been cases where there appears to have been an error in the original diagnosis, (that) if known at the time, might have meant the patient received different care." But he refused to say if patients had lost arms, legs or breasts as part of the procedures, saying he did not want to identify people in a small rural community who "have already gone through anxiety in relation to this issue".

Dr Zaer, who was trained in India, has been banned from practising as a pathologist in NSW. Mr Hatzistergos said Dr Zaer was no longer working in that field, but was believed to be working in Queensland, possibly as a general practitioner.

Mr Clout said there was no way of knowing if the five or six people who had died in the past seven years had done so because they had been "significantly misdiagnosed". "We can't draw conclusions from that," he said. "Just because two things happen in the same window of time does not mean that one is a causal link to the other." But Mr Hatzistergos said he would refer the matter to the coroner for further investigation. "I am happy to refer anything to any further authority if required to," he said. Asked if he anticipated action by distressed family members, he replied: "We neither expect nor rule it out, it's obviously a matter for the families to make a decision in relation to that."

Concerns about the quality of Dr Zaer's work first surfaced in 2004 while he was working at the Illawarra Health Service. Despite this, thousands of patients were not tested until this year. Mr Hatzistergos said he was disappointed it had taken so long to get the results. "The only thing I do regret is that it has taken as long as it has," he said.

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