Leftist cartoonist Leunig supports the Mufti:

Sarcastically






Leftist TV show bites the dust

Prime Minister John Howard says he didn't pressure the ABC to shelve popular comedy show The Glass House. The ABC yesterday axed the weekly panel show hosted by comedian Wil Anderson, which has been accused of anti-government bias.

"I have not axed the program," Mr Howard said on Adelaide radio 5AA today. "If it has been axed, then it has been axed by a decision of the ABC, I haven't asked that it be axed." Mr Howard said he occasionally watched the program, which also features comedians Dave Hughes and Corrine Grant, who is involved in the ACTU's workplace rights campaign. "I don't watch it - occasionally will flick it on but not very often," Mr Howard said. "I do not tell the ABC what programs it should run. I respect the independence of the ABC. "From time to time, if the ABC treats a news item in an unbalanced fashion I will say so, and I will say that in relation to other programs as well."

The ABC gave no explanation for their decision not to continue the satirical program apart from telling the cast and crew yesterday that not all shows could be renewed.

Anderson posted a blog last night promising to "go out with all guns a'blazing". "It's been a really fun five years," he said. Co-compere Hughes said axing the show made little sense. "We have had our best ratings ever," he said.

The show was at the centre of a storm of allegations of anti-Howard Government bias and there has been speculation it is the latest casualty in the "culture wars". It was axed just one day after Liberal NSW senator Connie Fierravanti-Wells said during a grilling of ABC executives that co-host Corrine Grant had been guilty of a serious conflict of interest because she was the public face of the ACTU's workplace relations campaign. And it follows revelations the ABC will pay a new chief censor $280,000 a year to investigate and monitor instances of bias on ABC programs.

The show had been achieving its highest ratings since it first went to air in 2001 - with average audiences of 728,000. The program regularly outrated commercial programs in the same time slot and this year won a peak audience of almost 860,000 viewers. Anderson, Hughes and Grant regularly make jokes about John Howard and US President George W. Bush, provoking critics to accuse them of bias. But during a recent show Anderson responded to criticism by saying if Mark Latham had been in power they would be having a great time.

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Australian economist Alan Wood says: Don't heed Stern warning

Australians are in danger in talking up climate change scares that may never come to pass

The Stern review on the economics of climate change is at least as much a political tool as an economic assessment. This is not necessarily a criticism, if you accept its conclusions. These conclusions are alarming and are being used to spread alarm. If you doubt that, then consider this one: "Our actions now and over the coming decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century. And it will be difficult or impossible to reverse these changes."

Or this: "Using the results from formal economic models, the review estimates that if we don't act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5 per cent of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, these estimates of damage could rise to 20 per cent of GDP."

Its author, Nicholas Stern, would no doubt say his aim is simply to bring home the gravity of the challenge climate change represents. That is a commendable aim if action is as urgent as he believes. His proposal for action is not modest. He wants annual global emissions of greenhouse gases ultimately reduced by more than 80 per cent below present levels. His interim aim is to stabilise greenhouse gas levels at between 450 and 550 parts per million of CO2 equivalent. He says this will require emissions to be at least 25 per cent below present levels by 2050, and perhaps much more. There is a carrot offered, as well as a stick. Act now and the costs could be about 1 per cent of global GDP annually, rather than 5 to 20 per cent. Not surprisingly, the headlines in the British press had a doomsday flavour, as did some here. But should we uncritically accept the findings of the Stern review?

Kim Beazley seems to think so. At a Canberra doorstop yesterday he made this sweeping assertion: "I am absolutely fair dinkum about dealing with the consequences of climate change. When we are elected to office, we will fix this." Well, thank God for that, but how? "How you fix it is you start by ratifying Kyoto."

Oh dear. Kyoto was never going to do anything significant about global warming, has fallen apart as key members can't meet its targets for emission reductions, and its associated carbon-trading scheme has turned into a bad joke. Oh, and it excludes the major emitters of greenhouse gases in the developing world, India and China, who have made it clear the Kyoto framework is totally unacceptable to them.

Beazley has no doubts about the Stern report. "Now, this bloke is a World Bank economist, or that's what he was, a World Bank economist. He knows what he's talking about." Not necessarily. When Stern was chief economist at the World Bank he got into an argument with the formidable former commonwealth statistician, Ian Castles, over the inappropriate use of statistics in the bank's development report (on emissions, as it happens), an argument Castles seems to have won.

However, it is simply not possible to comprehensively analyse a report of more than 600 pages within a 24-hour news cycle. It is sensible to wait and see how the Stern review stands up to critical analysis once economists and others have had time to look at it carefully. There are recommendations that make sense regardless of the credibility or otherwise of its economic modelling. For example, it is obviously sensible to focus on clean-coal technology given, as Stern acknowledges, the world is going to be overwhelmingly dependent on carbon-based energy for a long time yet.

However, it would be surprising if the economic modelling emerges unscathed. Bryce Wilkinson, a former senior official with the New Zealand Treasury and now a private consultant, raised some questions in a preliminary look yesterday. For example, he noted it is not clear who conducted the modelling work or whether enough time has elapsed for it to be subject to independent peer review, and commented "one suspects not: this appears to be a case of declaring an unequivocal finding by press release".

The history of economic modelling exercises of this sort, making long-term forecasts about future economic developments, is not encouraging. The Stern review itself sensibly cautions about the inevitable difficulties of all these models in extrapolating over very long periods of time, and warns against "over-literal" interpretation of the results. This caution, however, will be lost on the reader of its boldly stated headline conclusions.

But there is a more fundamental point. As Stern recognises, and John Howard keeps pointing out, there is no way of finding an acceptable method of dealing with emissions unless everybody is in, and we are a long way from that.

It is interesting that when a suggestion was floated for taxes on motorists and air travel in response to Stern there was an immediate and hostile reaction from two British newspapers as different as London's The Sun and The Daily Telegraph. The Sun huffed that "the Government's plans to hammer motorists and holidaymakers with extra taxes to halt global warming are simply not good enough. Our readers are already among the world's most heavily taxed people." The Telegraph said bluntly that green taxes were not the solution to a better world. British business didn't like it either.

Even with the scary scenarios painted by Stern, convincing electorates the pain is worth the gain won't be easy once the costs become transparent. Let's hope the Stern report proves no more reliable than earlier exercises in forecasting the future of the world.

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Vicious Aboriginal magistrate finally to face the music

Her hostility to police evidence is also legendary



Magistrate Pat O'Shane is facing the most serious challenge to her future on the bench after she had a man appearing before her in a civil case locked up in the cells. The NSW Judicial Commission has ruled the complaint is serious enough to take the rare step of referring Ms O'Shane to its conduct division. Only two cases have been referred to the division in the past four years, the last involving the sleeping District Court judge Ian Dodd, who resigned before the hearing. The other involved magistrate Ronald Day, who resigned in 2002 in the middle of the hearing into claims he engaged in conduct designed to influence a criminal case before him.

If substantiated, the next step is for the commission to report to the Attorney-General. Parliament would then decide if Ms O'Shane should be sacked from her $211,720-a-year job. Senior counsel have been briefed by the Crown Solicitor's Office to present the case before the conduct division, made up of three of the state's senior judges. Judicial Commission chief executive officer Ernie Schmatt refused to comment yesterday. He would not confirm whether the hearing would be heard in public.

Ms O'Shane is being investigated for her actions in the case of Paul Makucha, described by the Court of Appeal as "wholly inappropriate". Mr Makucha was sued for not paying surveying fees for work he claimed was defective. During the first hearing Ms O'Shane asked Mr Makucha's lawyer to take him outside court and "have a little chat to him" to which Mr Makucha said: "I'm not a boy."

At the second hearing, Mr Makucha represented himself and sought to have Ms O'Shane removed on the basis she was biased. She said she could not make that decision without a full submission, which Mr Makucha said he had been unable to prepare because he had been waiting three weeks for a transcript of the first hearing.

Ms O'Shane pressed on with the case despite Mr Makucha arguing he was being denied natural justice. The transcript records their heated argument during which Mr Makucha asked the magistrate: "My behaviour being what, what have I done?" Ms O'Shane replied: "So far you haven't done anything, that is the problem." She called the sheriff's officers and had Mr Makucha locked up in the cells at Downing Centre, citing contempt of court, heard the case in his absence, and found against him. A spokesman for Ms O'Shane said yesterday that she had no comment.

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Public hospitals frequently evoke anger

Glided over below is the aggressive response evoked from patients and their relatives after they have not been seen to even after many hours of waiting. Only the phrase "and their families" gives the game away

Public hospital staff have been forced to call for help to deal with aggressive and violent patients almost 4500 times in the past year. State Government figures show there were 4427 "Code Black" calls for emergency response teams across the state's public hospitals in 2005-06. This was 201 more than in 2004-05.

Responding to the figures, Health Minister John Hill will launch a public appeal for South Australians to treat doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers with respect. Code Black is a staff call for help when a patient's actions threaten their safety or that of others. A team, including a doctor, nurse and security guard, responds to each call. Mr Hill said the Health Department was setting up a taskforce to study hospital violence and develop strategies to deal with patients whose conditions caused dangerous behaviour. He said the number of Code Blacks represented less than 0.3 per cent of the total patient contacts, and that most inappropriate behaviour was caused by illness and not deliberate aggression towards staff. This included patients affected by drugs or alcohol, older patients with dementia, patients with organic brain syndrome and patients confused or upset after surgery.

While some incidents related to violence, Code Blacks were often called to prevent an incident which could cause injury from occurring or escalating.... Mr Hill said he was determined to make hospitals safe for staff and patients and their families. "Our health professionals are well regarded in the community, but sometimes we forget to say 'thanks' for a job well done," he said. "And when families and friends are anxious about the health of their loved ones, sometimes there are harsh words directed to the well-meaning nurses, doctors or volunteers who are nearby. "I want people to think about their actions towards health workers in our public hospitals, medical clinics and surgeries, and remember to treat them respectfully. "Working in hospitals is a vocation which asks for a very high level of commitment and care. These people are very special and valued." Mr Hill said incidents where a member of the public or a patient was deliberately aggressive to a health worker were uncommon, but acknowledged they happened.

He urged family members "who are aware that their loved ones sometimes react with anxiety or aggression in a hospital setting to let the nurses and doctors know as soon as they arrive at a medical facility or hospital". "If staff are made aware of the potential for sudden changes in a patient's behaviour, they may be better prepared and there may be less potential for injury to the patient, staff or family." The taskforce would include consultation with the Australian Medical Association and the Australian Nursing Federation. It would also look at strategies to address an ageing population and increased incidences of mental illness.

Australian Medical Association state president Dr Chris Cain said doctors and nurses were sometimes confronted with difficult situations and that Code Black was "one way to ensure these problems are dealt with through a system that indicates the nature of the problem and response required". RAH enrolled nurse Tammy Bornhoeft, 29, has been pinched and scratched by patients in her care and said staff in the general medical ward referred to a Code Black response team at least once a week. "I have nearly been punched out and it can feel very threatening," she said. "I deal with many patients with dementia and alcohol withdrawal and they can become aggressive and kick, verbally abuse you . . ."

Australian Nursing Federation state branch secretary Lee Thomas said nurses and doctors needed increased protection "against a range of different behaviours from patients and their families". "Aggressive behaviour is blamed on alcohol, drugs, grief and illness," she said.

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