Leftist leader rebuffs far-Leftist hatred of miners

Doug Cameron, the Scottish far-Left unionist leading the hatred, has been an envy-filled hater of business for many years. His contempt for those who do better in life than others is plainly visceral

KEVIN Rudd has rebuffed a push by left-wing unions for a Labor government to impose a new super-tax on mining company profits. And the Opposition Leader has attacked union chief Doug Cameron, who is likely to run for the Senate for the ALP this year, as "absolutely wrong" in his call for Labor to "muscle up" to the resources industry.

Mr Rudd told The Weekend Australian yesterday the union movement had to accept that Australia lived in a global economy and had to maintain tax competitiveness or risk losing foreign investment and jobs. "When Doug talks about muscling up to Australia's resources companies, his approach is absolutely wrong and belongs to a bygone industrial age," Mr Rudd said.

The Labor leader's rejection of the union position follows moves by five left-wing unions to use next month's ALP national conference to move the party to the Left. And it marks the latest step in his quest to convince voters Labor can be trusted with the economy - the issue that was the party's electoral Achilles heel in the 2004 election.

Despite concern within Labor that the party must steer a moderate course to defeat the Howard Government, the left-wing unions, including Mr Cameron's Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, want the ALP to oppose the signing of free trade agreements with other nations and to limit partnerships between governments and private enterprise on infrastructure projects. The unions - including the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union, the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, the Community and Public Sector Union and the Australian Education Union - want a Rudd government to scrap the Howard Government's budget tax cut on superannuation payouts.

Mr Cameron, who is seeking preselection for Labor's NSW Senate ticket, said this week it was time for Labor to muscle up to mining companies and ensure more of their profits were contributed to a better society. Mr Cameron proposed a special "super profits tax" and said mining companies should be required to develop communities around remote mines rather than flying workers in and out. Profits from the mining boom were being squandered for lack of long-term government vision. And a policy document for the union push, released last week, said that speaking the language of privatisation, free trade and deregulation was foolhardy.

But Mr Rudd told The Weekend Australian yesterday he would not accept attacks on the resources sector or a retreat from an open economy. "Doug needs to realise we now live in a modern market economy, and international taxation competitiveness is important," Mr Rudd said. "The Government needs to work on a co-operative basis with the resources industry on critical challenges such as climate change." This was why Labor had proposed spending on the development of clean coal and other means to cut greenhouse gases. "It's that co-operation model for dealing with big business which is what Australia needs for the future," he said. "Doug does a great job in speaking up for the interests of workers, and I respect his view. "But on this one he is absolutely wrong."

Mr Rudd said he would gladly accept John Howard's challenge to discuss future economic directions, and that he was not afraid to talk about interest rates. In the 2004 election, the Prime Minister hit Labor's economic credibility by warning it would repeat the high interest rates that marked its last period in office in the late 1980s and early '90s. "If Mr Howard wants to debate 17 per cent interest rates under Labor, I am equally delighted to debate the 22 per cent interest rates under his stewardship as treasurer, just as I am prepared to debate the amount of debt he left the Labor government," he said. Mr Howard's economic credibility was in doubt because he had failed to drive increases in productivity, Mr Rudd said. "The mining boom has masked the Government's economic policy lethargy over the past half-decade or more," he said. "They have no plan to build productivity once the mining boom ends, and end it will."

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Labor backs private schools

A big backdown from hate-filled class-warfare rhetoric of the recent past

FEDERAL Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd today promised not to cut government funding for private schools. His announcement reaffirms a decision by his predecessor Kim Beazley last year to dump a hit list of elite schools. Mr Rudd said a Labor government would support the rights of parents to choose which school to send their children.

"We will do that by funding all schools, whether they are government, non-government, religious or secular, based on need and fairness," Mr Rudd and Labor education spokesman Stephen Smith said. "A Rudd Labor government will be concerned about the quality of education rather than engaging in a government versus non-government schools debate. That is behind us," they said.

In 2004, then-leader Mark Latham unveiled a list of 67 elite private schools to lose government funding if he was elected. "Previous attitudes by federal Labor to a so-called hit list in non-government schools was wrong," Mr Rudd and Mr Smith said today. Labor's objective was to raise standards in all schools, they said. "We are about supporting schools rather than taking money away from them."

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Victorian schools to help working parents

Schools would open 10 hours a day under a radical proposal to help relieve the growing pressure on working parents. Victorian education leaders have backed a recommendation to keep schools open an extra four hours a day from 8am to 6pm. The proposal was put forward by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in a report released recently. The plan would essentially create a "one-stop shop" for parents, who would be able to use on-site before and after school hours care.

Victorian Principals Association president Fred Ackerman said the recommendation was about providing parents with a convenient service. "We are here to provide a service for the community, for parents and their kids," he said. But Mr Ackerman said appropriate facilities needed to be built as part of the State Government's $1.9 billion plan to build new schools and upgrade existing rundown ones. "This shouldn't be seen as an add-on without any additional resources and facilities," he said.

Australian Education Union Victorian president Mary Bluett said she supported the idea of schools having extended hours care on site if appropriate facilities and resources were available. "It makes enormous sense," she said.

A spokesman for Victorian Education Minister John Lenders said while the Government appreciated schools needed to cater for families, there were no plans to extend school operating hours to make on-site before and after hours care compulsory. Instead, the Federal Government needed to do more to help make workplaces family friendly to relieve the stress on working parents, he said.

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Sun's pulse a good predictor of weather outlook in Australia



Cough! Splutter! Choke! I live in an area of pretty average rainfall in Eastern Australia (Brisbane) and it rains nearly every second day here so do take the "DROUGHT-BREAKING rains across eastern Australia" below with a grain of salt. And I suppose it would be churlish of me to mention that there has recently been flooding right up and down the Eastern seaboard of Australia -- from North Queensland to Tasmania. Journalistic silliness does not however detract from the research reported below

DROUGHT-BREAKING rains across eastern Australia have been predicted in new modelling by a scientist who believes massive pulses in the sun's magnetic field are helping to drive the Earth's climate systems. If proven, the research will make the prediction of floods and droughts in Australia far more reliable and influence models projecting future climate change.

Robert Baker, from the University of New England, claims to have found a strong relationship between the rhythmic pulsing of the sun's magnetic field and weather systems, particularly in the southern hemisphere. The sun's magnetic emissions are known to peak every 11 years, a phenomenon demonstrated by increased sunspot activity. The sun also switches poles every 11 years. It last flipped in 2001. Associate Professor Baker said modelling of the sun's magnetic activity showed high rainfall during times of high activity and drought when the sun was stable. This suggested the fluctuations impacted on the upper atmosphere, which was in turn reflected in changes in the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), the measure of air pressure over the Pacific Ocean used as a reliable indicator of drought and flood.

Dr Baker said the most intense droughts in eastern Australia, including the Federation drought, tended to occur every 22 years, about a year after the southern pole of the sun flipped and became positively charged. In a paper, which has been submitted to the journal Solar Terrestrial Physics for peer review, he claims changes in solar magnetic fields can explain about 50 per cent of the variation in the SOI. The impact of solar magnetism is more noticeable in the southern hemisphere and in regions such as eastern Australia because more variable climate is driven by proximity to large oceans.

He said this relationship between the sun and climate required further research because it might help to explain an important but little understood natural cycle influencing the Earth's climate systems. "The sun drives the whole system," he said. "There is a natural impact that the sun has in terms of weather patterns maybe over a century." Dr Baker said the sun appeared to follow a longer-term magnetic cycle of about 80 years, meaning it might be possible to predict floods and droughts for the next 30 years based on historical records from the mid-1920s.

Dr Baker said the SOI was currently following a similar pattern to that recorded after 1924 when eastern Australia enjoyed heavy falls after a period of prolonged drought. Dr Baker's model puts a more scientific and transparent theory to the concepts first developed by long-range weather forecasters Lennox Walker and Inigo Jones. It also suggests there may be a longer 500-year solar cycle, which may help explain climate variability over the past centuries, including periods of unexplained climate variability such as the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age.

Dr Baker said he was concerned about the welfare of rural communities amid unfounded speculation the current drought might continue for decades.

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