An ostrich policy towards refugees

Cabinet documents from 1976 reveal then prime minister Malcolm Fraser ignored warnings about accepting Lebanese Muslim refugees deemed unlikely to have the qualities required for successful integration.

He was not the only PM to ignore such warnings. Paul Keating went against the advice of immigration minister Chris Hurford and over-ruled warnings from intelligence agencies to accommodate a request for permanent status for the controversial Sheik Taj el-Dene Elhilaly.

According to the Cabinet documents released yesterday, the Fraser cabinet was told that many of the Lebanese Muslim refugees were unskilled, illiterate and of questionable character. Those shortcomings are still reflected by a number of members of the community which has gathered around Hilaly at the Lakemba mosque and are highlighted by the statistics on employment and welfare and in the crime rates.

History has shown Fraser, who stood by as Indonesia consumed East Timor, to have been a rather hollow man.... Faced with the reality that the temporary relaxation of immigration standards opened the doors to a number of undesirables, he told The Australian he rejected such a conclusion and disingenuously blamed more recent governments for alienating modern Muslim youth by failing to help them integrate.

It might seem a no-brainer to suggest that Australia should only accept refugees willing to make an effort to integrate - that is surely what was needed then, and now. Most refugees are more than grateful to the nations which offer them shelter. For whatever reason, significant numbers of Lebanese Muslims feel they are entitled not to join the wider community while accepting the hospitality of those whose taxes funded their flights to safety. Prime Minister John Howard has recognised the problem, saying: "I do think there is this particular complication because there is a fragment which is utterly antagonistic to our kind of society and that is a difficulty."

However, in response to direct pleas from the UN High Commission for Refugees, Australia is now receiving members of another group who are showing a reluctance to integrate - from war-torn Somalia and the Sudan. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph last Friday, Mr Howard acknowledged that things were "hard" for African refugees because "the cultural differences are great". That's all well and good and, while most refugees acknowledge that they have some responsibilities and obligations to the nations which provide them with asylum, Australians have also learnt from tragic experience that there are some who don't feel any obligation to respect the culture and traditions of their hosts.

There is also an unhealthy fifth column in academia and legal circles which argues against Australian customs in favour of cultural statements antagonistic to our Anglo-European heritage. Thus we have seen it argued in our courts that young Muslim men are culturally averse to the equality of women. More recently, West Australian magistrate Colin Roberts was faced with an 18-year-old Sudanese man who police allegedly caught lighting fires. It was suggested to the magistrate that the alleged offender may be suffering a mental condition and he was remanded in custody.

Rightly so. But the previous week, The Australian reported that young African refugees may have become habituated to violence because of their experiences at home, and might find it difficult to accept that carrying weapons is unacceptable in Australia. True, but as we have seen from the violence wreaked by members of a minority within the Lebanese Muslim community, we have imported such problems in the past. What are we doing to ensure that we are not importing similar problems for the future? We should not have to wait another 30 years to set this matter right.

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Continued teacher resistance to grading

Morris Iemma made it personal when he said he couldn't understand his children's school reports. The NSW Premier strongly advocated the use of A to E grades in school reports on the ground that they would alert parents to any learning difficulties as early as possible. But it seems his Education Minister, Carmel Tebbutt, has not personally interfered with the reporting system at her child's school, which has ignored the Government's requirement for all reports to include the A to E scale.

Schools were originally told to grade subjects from A to E, but opposition from teachers forced Ms Tebbutt to soften her position and allow schools to use an equivalent five-point scale that describes grades as outstanding, high, sound, basic and limited. Schools using the alternative scale had to provide a key showing how the A to E grades matched up with the descriptive scale. "Schools who choose to grade students using word descriptors instead of A to E must explain on each report that the words equate to the A to E scale," Ms Tebbutt said at the time. But in its end-of-year reports, the school Ms Tebbutt's child attends used a descriptive scale without any reference to the A to E scale. The word "achieved" was used instead of "sound".

The Federation of Parents and Citizens' Associations of NSW said the C grade had caused confusion for many parents who had associated it with a poor performance. The president of the NSW Teachers Federation, Maree O'Halloran, said Ms Tebbutt's child's school had made a professional judgement about its report format. "I hope that the Government supports them, just as the Teachers Federation supports them in that choice," she said. Ms O'Halloran accused the Government of trying to put a positive spin on the new reports by commissioning a study of parent responses. "The focus group commissioned by the Government didn't really test parent opinion because the questions they asked were very narrow and the methodology they used was flawed," she said. "The Government is trying to put a positive spin on what has been for them a debacle."

The president of the Federation of P&C Associations, Dianne Giblin, said she had received mixed feedback from parents. A spokesperson for the minister said 80 per cent of public schools had adopted the five-point grading scale for their end-of-year student reports.

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Greenie dam-hatred now hits washing machines

Will we be told how often we can take a shower soon?

Victoria will lead a national push to have the sale of water-guzzling washing machines and shower heads banned. The crackdown comes as Melbourne had its first day of stage 3 restrictions and the state struggled to get on top of the water crisis, which has seen water storages drop to record lows. Acting Premier and Water Minister John Thwaites said the Government would turn its focus from outdoor water restrictions to indoor water savings, with 80 per cent of household water used indoors. "We can't do it alone, they're (the appliances) manufactured all over the country," Mr Thwaites said. He would approach all of Australia's state and federal water ministers to have all inefficient washing machine models and shower heads phased out.

And the Government hasn't ruled out expanding its rebate program to help Victorians cover the cost of replacing old washing machines with more efficient machines. "We are encouraging people to use low-water-use dishwashers and washing machines but we're not forcing it at this point because most people are choosing to use low-water devices," Mr Thwaites said. "But we will have to move to more severe regulation if that doesn't work."

Mr Thwaites was spruiking the Government's $1000 rebate for large water tanks yesterday, and reminded the public about rebates for people who replaced their old shower heads with low-flow heads. Melbourne has been on stage 3 restrictions for just a day, but it appears likely the city will go to unprecedented stage 4 restrictions, which ban all water use outside the home, by mid-April.



South East Water's 140 inspectors have the power to hand out on-the-spot fines for repeat offenders who breach water restrictions - and even to cut water supplies to a trickle to punish the worst offenders. The powers came into effect yesterday but South East Water refused to say how many people, if any, had been fined or had their supplies restricted. Until December 31, the government-owned water authority had warned 2000 people, but issued no fines against those who breached water restrictions, despite the Government's tough talk. South East Water managing director Dennis Cavagna said the authority believed education was the best way to address water restrictions. "We are keen to make sure people do comply and if they do flout them we will come down hard on them," he said. Mr Cavagna said the restrictions were equivalent to severe restrictions that were implemented in Melbourne in 1982 and 1983.

Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu maintained the need for a dam on the Maribyrnong, and said restrictions such as those in Melbourne didn't work. "We have barely been saving at all," he said. He said Melbourne should have been on stage 4 restrictions already. "The Government has left it all too late. They have done stuff-all," he said.

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Oh dear! 2006 only 11th hottest year

How pesky for the Greenies. All that extra CO2 in the atmosphere and nothing to show for it! Hot one year and cold the next despite steadily rising CO2. Much fast-talking needed

Melbourne has had its driest year in almost 40 years and Australia had its 11th hottest year since reliable records began in 1910. Temperatures around Australia were almost half a degree above average last year and October was the warmest it had ever been. The Bureau of Meteorology's climate statement tomorrow is expected to say the nation's mean day and night temperature for the past 12 months was about 0.42C above average. While 2005 was the hottest ever (1.09C above average), the result for 2006 is still in line with trends towards higher temperatures.

Parliamentary secretary for the environment Greg Hunt said the pattern of warming was linked to the drought with higher rainfall in the north of the country and lower in the south. [That sounds pretty pesky too] "What this shows is that there is an overwhelming need for water recycling to end the massive waste of water occurring not just in Melbourne but in east coast cities of Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast," Mr Hunt said. "It is almost unthinkable that we are wasting hundreds of billions of litres a year of recyclable water at a time both of drought and a longer-term trend to drying in the south."

Tomorrow's weather bureau statement will say Australian temperatures have risen, on average, about 1C since the middle of last century. Rainfall patterns have also changed with more rain in the northwest over the past 50 years and less in the east and southeast. Melbourne had its eighth driest year since records began in 1855. Just 437mm of rain fell in 2006, well below the annual average of 637mm. Regional centres were also well down with many registering their lowest rainfall. Shepparton, Albury-Wodonga, Sale and Ballarat all recorded record lows. A sprinkling of just 0.6mm in Melbourne on New Year's Eve brought the annual total to the lowest since 1967, when just 332mm of rain fell.

Weather bureau senior forecaster Scott Williams said Melbourne had not received above-average rainfall since 1996, when 777mm was recorded. "That was also the last time our water storages were above 80 per cent," he said. Melbourne's water levels stand at 38.9 per cent. Regional centres were even drier last year. Shepparton recorded a record low of just 183mm -- about a third of the 563mm annual average. In Albury-Wodonga, 290mm of rain fell in 2006 -- not even half the 737mm average. Ballarat, too, registered its lowest total with a mere 302mm, Bendigo had just 326mm. Other towns to have record lows include Nhill, Nathalia, Dookie, Benalla, Dargo, Drouin and Bonnie Doon. But yesterday brought fresh hope with scattered storms across the state. Maryborough had 11mm and Lake Eildon 4mm in the six hours to 3pm. And Licola, the tiny alpine town in the line of bushfires last month, enjoyed a New Year's Eve downpour of 28mm.

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