Multiculturalism dumped

More than 30 years after the Whitlam government introduced Australians to multiculturalism, the term has been officially discarded by the Immigration Department. Prime Minister John Howard used yesterday's reshuffle to excise the word from Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. The department will now be known as the Department of Immigration and Citizenship in one of Mr Howard's more powerful gestures about the way we now view arrivals.

The PM denied his decision to dump the term was an attack on the concept. He said he believed "citizenship" adequately reflected the desires of the Australian people about the path of a newly arrived immigrant. "I don't think the term (multiculturalism) is defunct," he said. "I think the desired progression is for an immigrant to become an Australian. Simple as that."

Mr Howard said a vibrant immigration process was essentially about bringing newcomers into the fold. "I think the title of the new department expresses the desires and the aspirations (of the people) and that is that the people who come to this country become Australians," Mr Howard said.



Former [Leftist] immigration minister Al Grassby [above] gave Australia multiculturalism under the Whitlam government in the early 1970s. The word encapsulated a new approach to immigration, allowing individual cultures to flourish beside one another rather than forcing conformity to the accepted norm. Australian historian Professor Geoffrey Blainey began writing about the difficulties he saw engendered by the concept in the 1980s.

The Opposition said the new branding would not change the nature of the department. Labor's Immigration spokesman, Tony Burke, said the new minister, Kevin Andrews, would continue to do Mr Howard's bidding. "The real limitation on getting a fresh start is the policies that (former minister) Amanda Vanstone was pursuing were always the policies that John Howard wanted," Mr Burke said. "And if Kevin Andrews has shown anything with his record in the past, it's that he's willing to follow the precise scheme laid down by the Prime Minister."

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West Australia scraps most of proposed "postmodernist" education system

Far-Leftist education "experts" rebuffed after public protests

The Western Australian Government has essentially abandoned most of its controversial Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) system in a major overhaul. OBE faced strong opposition from teachers and parents last year but the Government refused to back down, insisting many elements of the system would be introduced this year. But today, new Education Minister Mark McGowan said teachers would be allowed to assess year 11 and 12 students using traditional marks and grades, rather than levels and bands.

Other changes include the introduction of compulsory exams for all year 12 students, except those doing trade certificates. Teacher juries will be established to review 50 new courses for senior school and a new syllabus will be created for kindergarten to year 10 by the end of the year. The new mathematics course will be deferred until 2009.

Mr McGowan is expecting overwhelming support from teachers. "I don't see that there has been a great deal of wastefulness," he said. "What we've done is listened to where there needs to be some change and we've made those changes... "The key aims of what I've taken to the Curriculum Council are to give teachers a greater say over courses because they know what works best in the classroom, and I have great faith in the capacity and ability of teachers."

Association of Independent Schools spokeswoman Audrey Jackson says the changes to the education system are sensible. "Although it sounds as though it's a wholesale change, it's not, in terms of the way that teachers will teach and what they will teach," she said. "That hasn't changed, so I don't see the timetable as being a problem."

Catholic Education Office spokesman Ron Dullard says the overhaul is a marked improvement and will reduces the strain on teachers, parents and students. "If the parents and the teachers aren't working together and happy with it, the students can't do the job that they need to do," he said. "So I certainly think that it's in everybody's interest that we do this."

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More false paternity accusations

When are we going to hear that the lawyer responsible for this has been fired?

A 79-year-old grandfather, a man who was impotent and a husband left with some explaining to do are the latest men falsely accused of being deadbeat dads. The mistakes follow revelations in yesterday's Herald Sun that Victoria Legal Aid's Child Support Service had accused Tyler Holden, 15, of fathering a child in 1994 when he was just three.

Legal Aid's managing director, Tony Parsons, said on Monday that Tyler Holden's case was a "one-off". But four more men, also named T. Holden, were accused of fathering the same child.

Yesterday, three of them and their families told of the distress caused by the bungling government agency's clumsy attempts to chase child support payments. Mr Parsons admitted that a junior lawyer sent heavy-handed letters to five men. The legal letters ordered the men to declare they were the child's father or send $550 for a DNA test to prove they weren't.

One of the men, Trevor Holden, said the threatening letter drove a wedge between him and his partner, Sue. Trevor was away with their young children when the letter arrived, so Sue opened it. She was so devastated she couldn't speak to him, instead confiding in her sister, who called the shocked man. Trevor said the letter created a huge problem for his family. He said a medical condition had made it impossible for him to father children in the early 90s. "I was a hyperdialysis patient at the time and not everything was working until I had a transplant. But that was only eight years ago and this kid is 12," he said. "Sue said, 'I want to know what is going on. I want to know the truth about what you have done'. "She had second thoughts about me, and it was made worse because 20 years ago I used to go out with a girl of the same name as the mother."

Another Trevor Holden and his wife Dianne said their recent anniversary was ruined by doubts about his fidelity caused by the letter. "After 25 years of marriage, it did not do us any good," the Mooroolbark man said. "I work out in the field a lot, so to make her believe me was pretty difficult."

A 79-year-old T. Holden got a letter, and his wife opened it. She said she never suspected her husband of infidelity. "He is 79, so I knew it was not his child. But he was not very happy about it and I think it is absolutely disgusting," she said.

Four of the five men received apologies after yesterday's Herald Sun article, but Legal Aid has been unable to contact the fifth. "It was a one-off in the sense that it was a one-off stuff-up by my organisation and this lawyer," Mr Parsons said. "It involved five letters, but it is the only time it has happened in my time here." The lawyer who sent the letters was being "counselled in the strongest possible terms" and the agency was reviewing its processes, Mr Parsons said. He said in most cases a mother knows the name and address of the father and identification is not an issue. Staff were trained to search phone books and electoral rolls when identity was in doubt, but never to call the person. The agency also uses private investigators, but asks the mother to make the first contact to ensure they have the correct person. "All of those things broke down," Mr Parsons said. "Just occasionally we have to send a letter when we are in some doubt. But we don't send the type of letter we sent to T. Holden."

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Mother gives birth in toilet

Another great example of "Don't care" public hospitals



A mother says her baby daughter was born in a hospital toilet bowl and had to be rescued after staff ignored her screams for help. Kay, 24, was in the final stages of labour when she was rushed by ambulance to Monash Medical Centre on Tuesday last week. In a statement to the Herald Sun yesterday, the hospital said it regretted "the birth did not go according to plan".

At the hospital, the Mt Waverley mother of two was told to wait in a standard share room instead of being directed to a birthing suite, despite having contractions fewer than two minutes apart. "A midwife saw me when I came in and pressed on my stomach once. Nobody checked if I was dilated. I didn't even get offered a Panadol," Kay said. An hour after arriving, distressed and screaming in agony, she went to the toilet, where she gave birth to a girl.

Her husband Michael, who had become frantic, had hit an emergency buzzer in panic to try to get help, but he said none came in time so he kicked down the locked door and ran in, pulling the infant from the toilet bowl. Kay said she was terrified her daughter could have died, and described the ordeal as horrific. "I thought she could have been seriously hurt, or worse. If it wasn't for Michael coming to my aid, I don't know what the result would have been," Kay said. "It was the most traumatic thing we have had to go through. I would have thought it would have been one of the happiest times of our lives, but it was terrible."

Kay said Michael pressed the emergency buzzer three times, but no one responded until after a nearby caterer alerted medical staff. "When someone finally came, Michael asked why it took so long and they told him the buzzer didn't work," Kay said. "I was completely shocked. It is an emergency buzzer. This was an emergency."

But the director of nursing at Monash Medical Centre, Kym Forrest, said in a statement to the Herald Sun: "The buzzers were checked and both were working. The obstetrician and midwives were in fact alerted to the baby's arrival by the buzzer being sounded from Kay's room." Ms Forrest also denied the door had been kicked in. "It is a dual lock which can be opened from both sides and this was the way access was achieved," she said.

But Kay said the toilet cubicle, complete with broken door, "looked like a murder scene". "There was blood everywhere. I was screaming. It was just horrible," she said.

The couple are seeking a formal apology, but Ms Forrest said they had not lodged a formal complaint with the hospital. "We regret that Kay did not have the birth experience our midwives strive to provide to all the mums in their care," Ms Forrest said. "We are as disappointed as Kay and Michael that the birth of their second child did not go according to plan, but babies have a mind of their own sometimes."

Opposition health spokeswoman Helen Shardey called for the Government to investigate: "It is just lucky the baby was not seriously injured in this fiasco." A spokeswoman for Health Minister Bronwyn Pike said it was an operational matter for the hospital to deal with.

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