Another Greenie absurdity



MEET Queensland's first carbon farmer. Peter Allen, pictured, a third-generation farmer from Moura, has signed a $1 million deal for doing nothing at all. In a historic transaction, mining company Rio Tinto bought the rights to carbon dioxide stored in 3500ha of Mr Allen's heavily vegetated property, 575km northwest of Brisbane. Instead of clearing the land to run cattle, Mr Allen will preserve the trees for 120 years to ensure they soak up carbon dioxide.

When you hear talk of carbon offsets, this is where the money goes. Many of the state's farmers stand to reap multimillion-dollar incomes from selling carbon rights to large corporations or individuals wishing to become carbon neutral. "It's not like I have won the lotto or that I'm a tree-hugger. It was a purely financial decision," Mr Allen said. "We looked at the return on developing that land for grazing, compared to the return from the carbon rights. "We had to think hard before we decided to lock that land up for the next 120 years. "If it had been any less money, we wouldn't have done it."

This time last year, Mr Allen had eight bulldozers ready to knock down a swathe of trees on an investment property just outside Charleville. Under the State Government's moratorium on land clearing, farmers were given until December last year to enact one final clearing permit. Rio Tinto stepped in, offering Mr Allen and five other farmers money in exchange for their inaction. A total of 12,060ha was spared, the carbon rights secured under a legally binding contract. It is believed to be Australia's biggest carbon-trading deal.

The carbon industry is expected to boom after the Prime Minister's Task Group on Emissions Trading hands down its blueprint next Thursday. But as the carbon industry gears up, questions have been raised about the lack of regulation over the voluntary offset market - the system through which airline passengers, rock festival patrons and motorists can pay for their pollution. Green watchdogs say the voluntary market is open to exploitation, with no controls on who can sell carbon and no checks on the work carried out. Further questions have been raised about the effect of tree-planting, the popular method used by most carbon offsetters.

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Pauline is back

Former One Nation party founder Pauline Hanson has put her name to a new party which she hopes will help her win a Senate spot at the next election. More than a decade after she first entered federal Parliament, Ms Hanson has launched a new political party - Pauline's United Australia Party. The party structure will help the former fish and chip shop owner improve her chances of stealing a seat from the bigger parties. "I am standing as a Senate candidate for Queensland and it was essential for me to have a party structure so I can have my name placed above the line on the ballot paper," Ms Hanson said. As an independent, she would only get votes from people bothered with numbering their entire ballot paper.

Ms Hanson entered politics in 1996 when she won the federal Queensland seat of Oxley as an independent candidate after being dumped by the Liberals for her strong views. She shocked many when, in her maiden parliamentary speech, she warned Australia was in danger of being "swamped by Asians". Ms Hanson attacked the big parties as untrustworthy and indicated she retained her firm views on immigration.

"Labor's union thugs will bash up small business and the farmers, and we will all suffer. "Mr Howard has sold us out by not halting further Muslim immigration and dumping hapless refugees from Africa on us without any consultation. "Australia must withdraw ASAP from the 1951 UN Convention on refugees."

She warned Queenslanders of the threat they faced from Labor at both state and federal levels. "Queensland coalminers and their families and all those involved in the industry are under threat from Mr Rudd and his greenie mates while another Rudd mate Peter Beattie is creating havoc with council amalgamations and his inability to solve our water problems," Ms Hanson said.

Ms Hanson predicted she would be attacked for standing up for ordinary Australians. "I will be attacked by all the usual suspects but I am used to that," she said. "I intend standing up for all those ordinary Australians who have been ignored by the big party politicians for so long."

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Huge public hospital cutbacks in Tasmania

They're learning from Britain's shambling NHS -- trying to disguise cutbacks as specialization

A SWEEPING shake-up of Tasmania's health services was announced yesterday -- with Health Minister Lara Giddings declaring: "We don't have a choice here." Among major changes is a move to immediately turn the Mersey Hospital at Latrobe into an elective day surgery hospital designed to cut waiting lists around the state. In other major plans, more patients will need to travel to either the Royal Hobart Hospital or Launceston General Hospital for specialist surgery or to dedicated disease-treatment units. But a significant slice of the new reforms is also aimed at keeping Tasmanians out of hospitals, with a heightened focus on the prevention of chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes, both linked to ageing and lifestyle.

Launching the new Future Health blueprint, Ms Giddings said Tasmania's hospitals -- and the health budget -- would be swamped unless individuals and communities made better decisions about their lifestyles and health. She said it was not acceptable that Tasmanians did not live as long as other Australians, had higher rates of illness and disease, smoked more, exercised less and waited longer for health services. More worryingly, despite the health budget increasing by 78 per cent over the past eight years to more than $1.2 billion a year, the health status of Tasmanians and health service delivery indicators have remained worse than elsewhere. "If throwing money at the problem has not solved it, we have to ask what else needs to be done," Ms Giddings said. "The health system of the past has been a victim of politicking, ad-hoc decision-making and parochialism. We must change that (even though) I recognise some Tasmanians will be upset."

The response of the State Government, following advice from highly regarded Victorian health planner Dr Heather Wellington, has been to reform the entire structure and way Tasmanians will access health services and hospitals over the next 10 to 15 years. The Mersey Hospital will lose its crisis and acute care capabilities [REDUCING capabilities is a great way to increase already-scarce services???] to become a specialist elective day surgery hospital, with some added maternity and rehabilitation services. The North-West Regional Hospital at Burnie will become the only acute and emergency surgery hospital serving the North-West and West Coast.

However, the Mersey Hospital will keep open a 24-hour emergency reception area to stabilise or resuscitate patients needing urgent attention -- such as heart attack or stroke victims from Devonport or anyone involved in a serious car crash -- before they are sent to Burnie or Launceston by ambulance.

Australian Nursing Federation state secretary Neroli Ellis welcomed the plan but said it had severe implications for nurses, especially at the Mersey Hospital. She said many nurses, who have an average age of 51, would consider early retirement rather than stay for the transition of the Mersey to Tasmania's first dedicated elective surgery centre. "Retention is going to be a huge issue," she said, adding specialist nurses at Latrobe might not want to travel to Burnie or Launceston to continue their career paths.

In other major moves, Rosebery Hospital, in the centre of the West Coast mining district, will no longer be staffed by a doctor Another great improvement???] and nurse 24 hours a day. The small rural hospital at Ouse in the Upper Derwent Valley will no longer have a permanent doctor and will be turned into an aged and respite care and community health centre.

Ms Giddings denied the reforms were all about "cutting and gutting". "We don't have a choice here; we just don't have the staff, the people to keep the system going as it is," she said. To take pressure off the three large hospitals and to better integrate health services around the state, at least four major "one-stop" Integrated Care Centres will be built in central Hobart, in Sorell or on Hobart's Eastern Shore, at Kingston and in Launceston.

These new major community medical centres will provide health services that do not require hospitalisation or emergency treatment, such as dialysis, chemotherapy, some day-surgery procedures and regular wound dressing or medical treatments. But there is no new funding for the Government's bold Future Health plan or any new staff resources.

Ms Giddings believes that with less duplication of services, better clarity of roles and more co-operation within the health system, more staff will not be needed and that the number of locums can also be reduced. Timelines for the new changes are also vague, apart from the immediate downgrading of services at the Mersey Hospital......

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Another shocking example of the vast fraud that government "child protection" constitutes

Kids died after case book was closed

SIX chronically neglected children died after Victorian authorities prematurely closed their case files, abandoning the vulnerable children to carers who repeatedly failed to access support services. The case files were closed despite child protection authorities receiving an average of eight notifications for four of the chronically neglected children, the Victorian Child Death Review Committee found in its annual report tabled in state parliament yesterday. The report found that, of a total of 37,991 notifications to child protection authorities, only 11,526 investigations were launched and 7367 cases substantiated. Eighteen children known to authorities died last year, the report found, and six of those children had their cases recently closed.

Nine of the child deaths last year were due to illness and congenital conditions, four were from accidents, one was from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and four have yet to be assessed by the coroner. But the figure may represent just a fraction of the total deaths because legislation limits the number of cases that are reviewed in the watchdog's annual report. All children who were clients of child protection authorities at the time of their death are placed on the state's Child Death Register for inquiry and review. Of those whose files are closed by the Department of Human Services' child protection service, only those who died within three months are investigated.

The Australian Childhood Foundation's chief executive, Joe Tucci, attacked the Victorian Government yesterday for being more concerned with "limiting liability" for its department rather than ensuring children were protected. "It is a fundamentally flawed system that really only is there to protect the department from criticism rather than getting to the bottom of how the system is functioning in any particular year," Dr Tucci said.

The Child Death Review Committee's chairwoman, Lisa Ward, told The Australian yesterday there had been a push from within the committee for the three-month time frame to be abolished. "Certainly the committee has discussed the issue of the time frame," Ms Ward said. "The committee would endorse a 12-month time frame."

A push last year from child welfare workers for a national approach to recording and analysing child deaths has not been realised. In addition to analysing deaths last year, the watchdog reviewed 13 deaths that occurred over a three-year period. Of the 13, six vulnerable children were left unmonitored after "incorrect assumptions" from child protection workers that families were in the hands of other support services. Most of the families had been subject to multiple notifications, and the department had failed to take into account their non-attendance at appointments with support services.

Ms Ward called for greater co-operation between agencies yesterday to ensure children did not slip through the net. "It's not enough for a family to be indicating that they will get some help before the case is closed," Ms Ward said. "Child protection and other services need to work with the family to make sure that they are getting that help." The watchdog made 22 recommendations in its report, including calling for greater co-ordination between disability and health services and child protection services. The watchdog also demanded that the DHS establish clear standards to justify why the cases of families which had been the subject of multiple notifications should be closed.

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Police goons facing lawsuit after bungled raid

Let's hope the outcome from this is better than in a recent similar case in California

POLICE face a six-figure civil suit payout after drug squad detectives allegedly injured a naked father-of-three during an illegal raid on the wrong house. Daryl Hurst, 39, a disability pensioner of South Townsville, claims to have suffered a broken nose and cuts to both lips when he resisted arrest during the bungled early morning swoop on his home two years ago. Police had the right number but the wrong street, the wrong house - and an innocent man.

Mr Hurst has filed a formal complaint with the Crime and Misconduct Commission after charges of common assault against him were dropped by the Crown. "They raided the wrong house," Mr Hurst said yesterday. "They came into my house like storm troopers out of a bad cop show. "I was in bed in the nude and woke up to find eight undercover police in my home. "Then they tried to throw me into handcuffs, it was a shock. "It was only natural that I retaliate and I kicked out at them, that is when they held me down and belted me three or four times in the head. "I got a gash in both my bottom and top lip and a broken nose from where they were belting me. "They owe my family an official apology, the way they humiliated my family, the way they spoke to my children, we need an apology."

Both the CMC and Police Ethical Standards Command are looking into the allegations of excessive force in the October 2005 raid. Queensland Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson declined to respond to questions about the matter yesterday, saying it was still under investigation. Officers had a search warrant to look for Mr Hurst's brother, Bruce Wayne Hurst, at another address, only a few metres around the corner.

"The drug squad should be embarrassed by their actions. They are just too in-your-face," Mr Hurst said. "It was like a home invasion. That is how it seemed."

Judge Stuart Durward, in his concluding remarks delivered in Townsville District Court yesterday, found the police to be "careless or reckless" in the execution of the search warrant. Judge Durward said it was an "unjustified and unlawful entry". "The police had no right to be in the residence nor to have entered it in the way that they did," he said. "The police conduct had serious consequences for all involved and particularly for the accused who was subsequently charged with three very serious offences arising out of the way in which he reacted to the entry by the police and their presence in the house, in what must have been a surprising and bewildering event."

The Crown dropped the charges, the jury was released without taking a verdict, and Mr Hurst was allowed to walk free. Defence lawyer Mark Stevenson said his client was now seeking a "six-figure" damages payout in a civil action. He said the matter was highly embarrassing for police.

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