Police furious at HIV 'cover-up'

Protecting homosexual criminals trumps all else for the Leftist government of Victoria

VICTORIA'S Department of Human Services called in the lawyers to try to stop police investigating three high-risk HIV carriers whose files were mistakenly given to police, Health Minister Bronwyn Pike confirmed yesterday. In the latest embarrassment for the department, Ms Pike admitted lawyers were called to try to retrieve the files after they had been given to the police who had a warrant to seize only a fourth man's file. The police discovery of the three other files led detectives to charge a second man with infecting a woman with HIV. Health officials were embarrassed by the mistake and called in taxpayer-funded lawyers to try to get the files back.

Police were infuriated by the department's actions, which have led to a shake-up of the public health unit and contributed to the sacking of chief health officer Dr Robert Hall.

Liberal leader Ted Baillieu asked Ms Pike in Parliament why government lawyers had been instructed to take action against the police to impede their investigations.

"More files were taken - well, handed over, taken - than the warrant required," Ms Pike said. "The Department of Human Services did seek to have those files returned."

The HIV scandal - sparked by the department's failure to detain Michael Neal, a man now accused of attempting to infect 16 people with the virus - has combined with the food poisoning deaths of five elderly people at a Camberwell nursing home to provide the biggest challenge to Ms Pike's career in the five years she has been Health Minister.

A doctor working in HIV-AIDS prevention and treatment, Jonathan Anderson, said yesterday he was concerned the growing scandal was impacting on people who were HIV positive. Dr Anderson, who operates a clinic at Carlton, said his patients were concerned that they would be targets, because of media reports of people having unprotected sex at sex-on-site venues in Melbourne, and of a subculture of people who sought to deliberately infect others with HIV. "Of all the patients I see, not one of them would want another person to have HIV," he said. "They are all very concerned that not one more person would become HIV positive. "Most [And what about those not included in "most"? We seem to have an admission there] new infections are associated with people who don't know their HIV status and pass it on to someone else before they are diagnosed."

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Weird U.S./Australia arrangement

A new way to get to America -- via Australia! A bad deal for both countries

The US denies it has a legally binding agreement with Australia to swap up to 200 refugees a year between the two countries. [Australian] Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews announced this week that an agreement had been signed with the US to "provide mutual assistance for the resettlement of people in need of international protection". Under the scheme, Australia would send asylum-seekers held in its offshore processing facilities to the US; in return it would take Cuban refugees held by the US at Guantanamo Bay.

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormick yesterday described the scheme struck between Washington and Canberra as a non-binding "informal arrangement for mutual assistance". "There is an informal arrangement for mutual assistance that provides that each will consider resettlement of people interdicted at sea and found to be in need of international protection," he said. "The arrangement does not create legal obligations."

The scheme was negotiated by Immigration Department secretary Andrew Metcalfe in Washington last week but the Government has refused to confirm which country initiated the deal. The Australian Government announced that 83 Sri Lankans and eight Burmese asylum-seekers detained on the Pacific island of Nauru were likely to be the first refugees to be resettled in the US under the scheme. In return, Australia is likely to resettle Cuban refugees picked up by the US Navy on their way to the US mainland.

A spokeswoman for Mr Andrews said the comments by the US State Department did not diminish the deal. "The comments by the US reflect the agreement as it stands," she said.

But Labor immigration spokesman Tony Burke said Mr McCormick's attempt to play down the deal was embarrassing for the Government. "Every way you look at it, this policy is in a shambles," Mr Burke told The Australian last night. "Logic tells us this could provide an incentive to people-smugglers and America seems to be telling us that the agreement is less iron-clad than John Howard had led us to believe."

But writing in The Australian today, Mr Andrews says potential resettlement in the US "will be a disincentive to those who seek to come to Australia illegally because they have friends here": "This is simply an additional option for the Australian Government to consider when resettling refugees and there is no guarantee that any person with a claim for asylum will be resettled in the US." Mr Andrews writes that it is important the Government does all in its power to prevent and deter the perpetrators of smuggling.

Mr McCormack, in his daily press briefing, said the scheme did not require the direct exchange of a refugee processed in Australia for one processed in the US, and that no referrals had yet been made. No one referred for resettlement in Australia would be forced to accept resettlement, he said. "In the spirit of our mutual humanitarian traditions and commitment to assist individuals in need of international protection, the US and Australia are willing to consider resettling up to 200 individuals in a calendar year referred by the other country under this arrangement," he said. "The US and Australia will each consider individuals for resettlement in accordance with our own regulations and procedures respectively."

A spokeswoman for the US embassy in Canberra said the US had agreements with several countries for the resettlement of refugees. "We want to deter dangerous and illegal migration and alien-smuggling that puts lives at risk, which is why when the US interdicts migrants at sea we don't bring them to the US," she said. Refugees accepted for resettlement from the US would be placed in the mainland Australian community.

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Education vouchers, all power to parents

Progress is painfully slow on much-needed reforms to break a culture of mediocrity in public schools

PARENTS of school-aged children can be forgiven for feeling punch-drunk after a week of big talk but little action towards making Australia's education system the best it can be. Parents really need only understand the following: first, they are no closer to getting a clear idea of how individual schools perform to enable an informed choice; second, education unions remain obsessed with class-war politics; third, the Labor state governments, held hostage by the education unions, refuse to even entertain federal Education Minister Julie Bishop's plan that teachers be paid for performance rather than length of service; and finally, the best that state governments could come up with on a national curriculum was yet another bureaucracy and a promise that it would not involve a "one size fits all" approach, which seems to defeat the point.

The least subtle illustration of the three-way campaign being waged in education between the federal and state governments and respective unions can be found in television advertisements launched this week by the Australian Education Union as part of a $1.3 million campaign ahead of the federal election. Ostensibly a campaign for greater funding for public schools, which are a state responsibility using commonwealth grants, the advertisement shows a class of children at a public school being ignored by a passing John Howard. The advertisements ignore the fact that, overall, government schools receive a higher level of government funding than private schools, with the 65 per cent of students in government schools receiving 75 per cent of total taxpayer funding. But most of all, it ignores the fact that a private school student can receive only up to 70 per cent of the funding given to a student in a public school, and possibly as low as 13.7 per cent. This leaves parents who send their children to private schools effectively paying twice -- once in taxes for the public system and then again in school fees.

The teachers union campaign perpetuates the great lie that Catholic and independent schools are populated only by the children of wealthy parents. At least Labor has had the good sense to ditch former leader Mark Latham's crazy scheme to punish a hit list of private schools. Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has articulated a forward-thinking agenda on education, favouring a national curriculum running from kindergarten through to Year 12 and setting literacy and numeracy benchmarks. Mr Rudd also has a track record of standing up to the teachers union in Queensland and speaking out against fashionable but less rigorous education trends such as Queensland's Studies of Society and Environment system.

At a federal level, the consensus has shifted on education towards a concern for outcomes and away from the politics of envy. The common ground for everyone except the left-wing unions is that a mix of public and private education is desirable both for parents and the state. The continued mischief by teacher unions that complain about standards, but encourage mediocrity by refusing to accept merit-based policies, is unhelpful. It is doubly disappointing that they continue to find support in state governments that have direct responsibility for funding public schools.

The Australian supports public education but also supports the right of parents to choose a private school if they wish. We acknowledge that many parents make a great financial sacrifice to provide a private school education for their children. We support merit-based pay to promote excellence in teaching and we support the provision of quality information that allows the ranking of one school against another, both public and private, to enable parents to make an informed decision. The present system encourages mediocrity and creates an effective black market where only privileged insiders know what is really going on. Parents deserve to be properly armed with knowledge and the power to make their decisions. As we have previously argued, the most equitable, transparent system for education is the allocation of vouchers that enable parents to spend their public education dollar at any institution they like. Such a system would encourage schools, whether private or independent, to perform in order to attract students. There would be an added incentive to reward good teachers properly and for schools to provide the sort of information parents need to make a decision. The Government and Labor should consider introducing a voucher system as policy for the next election. We believe it would be very attractive for parents.

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Police bullying coverup in Victoria

Police union chief Paul Mullett has refused to co-operate with a police investigation into bullying claims against him and has likened the inquiry to something out of Nazi Germany. The extraordinary comments from the powerful union boss, a serving police officer, came after Victorian Ombudsman George Brouwer handed down a damning report into a shoddy investigation conducted by WorkSafe into the bullying claims.

Mr Brouwer found that WorkSafe tried to avoid investigating the bullying claims relating to the former president of the association, Janet Mitchell, and failed to interview the two whistleblowers who had passed on the claim. "No one was interviewed in order to pursue obvious lines of inquiry. Rather, WorkSafe sought to argue that as the injured worker had not personally complained, they could not take the matter further," Mr Brouwer wrote. "No satisfactory reason was put to me for taking such a restrictive approach to defining complainants." He said WorkSafe investigators were improperly influenced by intense media scrutiny, a looming election and the prospect of a hard-fought pay claim involving the association.

Mr Brouwer said he had received other reports of WorkSafe failing to investigate workplace bullying and he would be examining those separately amid worries that bullied workers across the state were being let down by the agency. He has ordered Victoria Police and WorkSafe to conduct a renewed investigation into bullying claims against Mr Mullett.

Although he remains a senior sergeant with Victoria Police, Mr Mullett said he would not co-operate with investigating officers even though they have the power to demand an interview. "No. We may as well hand over the keys to the police association to the chief commissioner," Mr Mullett said. "We are living in Victoria in the year 2007 - we are not in Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany."

Consultants engaged by the association's executive to investigate the bullying claims heard allegations Mr Mullett had bullied workers and claims of threatening behaviour, people being grabbed, name calling and screaming.

Mr Brouwer said he had not formed a view as to whether the claims were true or not but he said allegations the executive director of WorkSafe was a friend of Mr Mullett and that several WorkSafe investigators were former colleagues of the association chief were false.

Mr Mullet denied he was a bully and said the claims were a myth concocted by disgruntled perpetrators of a failed plot to topple the association's leadership. He called on the state Government to examine Mr Brouwer's double role as ombudsman and director of the Office of Police Integrity.

A WorkSafe spokesman said the agency had dealt with the police association as it would any other bullying case. He said WorkSafe had changed some of its procedures in line with the Ombudsman's recommendations but bullying prosecutions were difficult to sustain because of the frequent lack of evidence that would hold up in court.

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