Uranium: Another lurch Rightward from Australia's Left

Eat your heart out, Greenies!

QUEENSLAND Premier Beattie has reversed his strong opposition to uranium mining and now says he will support it in his state. A spokesman for the premier, who is on a trade mission to Africa, said Mr Beattie had backed away from his previous position after his government received a report showing uranium mining would not threaten Queensland's coal industry. Mr Beattie is now expected to support an end to Labor's no new mines policy at the ALP national conference next month on the condition that it is only sold to countries that have signed the non-proliferation treaty.

Queensland is estimated to have up to $3.2 billion in uranium deposits. Mr Beattie has been a staunch defender of Labor's policy not to allow more uranium mines because it would threaten the coal industry. The state government also recently introduced legislation banning nuclear facilities. But according to The Australian newspaper, a report commissioned by the government from the University of Queensland's Sustainable Minerals Institute has found uranium mining, and nuclear power, pale in comparison to the global demand for coal-fired electricity generation.

Green groups today expressed outrage at Mr Beattie's change of heart. The Wilderness Society's Lyndon Schneiders said it was a broken election promise. "Only a month ago Mr Beattie and his government indulged in a round of self-congratulation for legislating against the construction of nuclear power plants in Queensland," Mr Schneiders said. "If Mr Beattie accepts that nuclear power is unsafe ... why is he prepared to open the door to flood international markets with Queensland uranium?"

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Leftist leader warns far-Left on hatred of private schools



Kevin Rudd has broadened his campaign to move Labor to the political centre with an aggressive defence of his policy not to cut government funding to private schools, which he says is a fact of life. The Labor leader has used his own story - starting in public education and later moving to a private school and back again - to argue Labor must recognise that parents will move students between different types of schools according to needs and interests.

Mr Rudd and his education spokesman, Stephen Smith, promised this week that private schools would not lose money - a policy designed to bury Mark Latham's "hit list" of private schools in 2004 and Kim Beazley's freeze on funding of rich schools in 2001. The blunt message is one of a series of steps being taken by the Labor leader during the first half of the year to drag the party away from some of its historic left-wing pillars and create a less intimidating face for mainstream voters.

The next move will be on indigenous policy, with the ALP party conference in four weeks' time to debate a fundamental shift that will put economic development for Aboriginal people at its core. The same conference will be asked to junk opposition to the privatisation of Telstra - a critical part of delivering Mr Rudd's $4.7 billion broadband package - and to end the 25-year prohibition on new uranium mines.

The Left is set to come under further pressure over its opposition to Mr Rudd's move to scrap Labor's no-new-mines policy after Queensland Labor Premier Peter Beattie yesterday reversed his opposition to allow further uranium mining in his state. Mr Beattie relented after accepting advice that uranium mining would not threaten Queensland's coal industry. The move paves the way to open up $3.2 billion worth of uranium deposits. This leaves only the Labor states of Western Australia and NSW still opposed to new uranium mines.

Mr Rudd yesterday outlined his centrist credentials during a speech in support of Morris Iemma's bid to be re-elected as NSW Premier this weekend. "What we offer is a balance of fairness and flexibility," he said. "It's the Labor way. We know what it takes to grow businesses. We know what it takes to expand the economy. "We've been in this business for a long, long time. "But we are never prepared to sacrifice the interests of working families, as the Liberals seem to think is the only way ahead. "So the choices, friends, are stark. The choices are stark when it comes to the future provision of public services."

At a caucus meeting on Tuesday, several speakers responded to the education announcement by asking for a Labor focus on the public school sector. Former teacher and ACTU president Jenny George, and NSW colleagues Sharon Bird and Julia Irwin said Labor must be seen as a strong supporter of government schools. Mr Rudd is believed to have lectured the caucus, reminding MPs that Labor's endorsement of Robert Menzies's 1963 decision to give public funds to private and religious schools was made more than 30 years ago by Gough Whitlam.

Labor should forget about distinctions between the public and private sectors and instead talk in terms of equal opportunity. The party did not want two tiers of schools to develop, the leader argued. "He was almost spelling it out to them slowly and deliberately, 'Get used to it'," a Labor insider said.

The present ALP platform says Labor governments must give priority to the public sector, and that priority is seen as an important means to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Others at the meeting said they were worried that the coverage of education policy always ended up focused on private schools, presenting a false emphasis in voters' minds. However, the speakers did not directly attack the party policy announced by Mr Rudd and Mr Smith, which stipulates that private schools will not lose money. But sources said Mr Rudd regarded the demands from Labor members that he talk up the government schools as showing a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue.

The education move has parallels with the decision to dump Labor's opposition to privatising Telstra. That change allowed the party on Wednesday to propose a $4.7billion rollout of advanced broadband services, paid for in part with money drawn from the Future Fund, which holds billions of dollars worth of Telstra shares.

Both strategies give Mr Rudd a way of developing a new centrist policy while pushing the Howard Government further to the Right. "We say there's a role for government," Mr Rudd said yesterday in reference to the funding approach for broadband. "They (the Coalition) say there is no role. The choice is as stark as that. "We come from a different set of ideas, which says public services are a normal part of the fabric of Australian life and we are the party which delivers it. They are the party which gets rid of them. That's the choice."

Labor insiders fear the decision to take money from the Future Fund has left Mr Rudd vulnerable to attacks by Peter Costello on the Opposition's economic credentials. But the Treasurer's assault in regards to raids on the Future Fund will be blunted by a new Treasury report revealing the ageing of the population is becoming far less menacing.

Ms George and Ms Bird did not comment yesterday on the caucus meeting, but Mrs Irwin said she was happy to hear Mr Rudd say he wanted to create a world-class education system for all. Labor's policy, which is to create a needs-based formula but also to continue indexation of grants for wealthy schools, has been welcomed by the Independent Schools Association and the Independent Education Union. The Australian Education Union, which represents government schools, believes there is still an imbalance in the present funding arrangements, under which public schools receive about 35 per cent of the federal funds while educating about 70 per cent of the students. Private schools receive little taxpayer support from state governments.

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Mixed-sex wards fury in Australia too

It's a big issue in British government hospitals



QUEENSLAND Health has been accused of robbing patients of their dignity by forcing men and women to share hospital wards. Doctors say the practice has become widespread across the state because of the chronic bed shortage in public hospitals. The state has fewer beds than it did 10 years ago - even though its population has grown by one million.

One nurse who protested over the opening of a mixed-sex unit at her regional hospital said: "The patients don't like it, but many of them are elderly and don't like to complain. "Vulnerable patients rely on us for care but the system has no respect for them. "It astounds me that anyone could ever think this was acceptable."

A 45-year-old female patient said she was appalled to be placed with two men in a four-bed bay when she was admitted to the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital. "A friend of mine had discharged herself when she was put in a mixed ward," she said. "I thought it couldn't be that bad - until I was put in one myself. One of the men had dementia and kept getting out of bed and undressing in front of me. "It was embarrassing for me and demeaning for him. "I'm no prude, but mixed-sex wards cannot be justified."

Dr Ross Cartmill, a urologist at Brisbane's Princess Alexandra Hospital and a spokesman for the Australian Medical Association, said: "The problem occurs at every hospital with a bed shortage - which is most hospitals. "Patients growl about it, but most think it's just better to have a bed than none at all."

Opposition health spokesman John-Paul Langbroek warned that mixed-sex wards could open patients to allegations of voyeurism and inappropriate behaviour. Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said it was more efficient to place patients in mixed wards if they required specialist treatment, such as cardiac and neurological care. "All hospitals understand the need to be sensitive to their patients whilst being flexible, so that they can provide a bed for every individual who needs one," Dr Young said.

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Government faces up to illiteracy among older kids



READING and writing coaching will be offered to Years 6 and 7 after students fell below accepted standards. Education Minister Rod Welford said yesterday that Education Queensland would pay teachers $54 an hour, the supply teaching rate, to conduct the intensive coaching after school. "We will be alerting parents that their students have fallen below Year 5 benchmarks and that we can give them this assistance," Mr Welford said. "It is absolutely essential that they improve their skills before they reach secondary school or they will be unable to handle secondary subjects."

The most recently released National Report on Schooling in Australia showed that Queensland children are the nation's best readers in Year 3, but by Year 5 they descend to being almost the worst, second only to Northern Territory children. In Year 3, when Queensland children are younger than many of their southern counterparts, 97 per cent achieved the national reading benchmark. However, by Year 5 only 83 per cent of Queensland children reached the benchmark. The latest set of assessments is due out next week.

Mr Welford said international data showed that Queensland's best primary school readers and writers were on a par with children in Finland, which was the best performing nation in the world on literacy. "However, we have a very long tail of students who are not making the grade, a very wide gap between the most able and least able students," Mr Welford said.

The move was welcomed yesterday by Ken Rowe, research director of the Learning Processes research program at the Australian Council for Educational Research. "It's never too late," Dr Rowe said. He said experience in Melbourne had shown that an hour of weekly expert coaching could make a real difference to students' ability to read and therefore to learn all subjects. "It is the foundation," he said. However, Dr Rowe, who chaired the Federal Government's 2005 National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy, said intervention should ideally start with some students as early as Year 3, as soon as problems were identified.

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