Another crooked Muslim doctor

A Gold Coast doctor interrogated over his relationship with freed terror suspect Mohamed Haneef has been suspended for allegedly lying about his employment history. Queensland Health privately suspended Mohammed Asif Ali on full pay on Friday as the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions dropped charges against his former flatmate and colleague, Dr Haneef. The shock suspension of Dr Ali again raises questions about the vetting process implemented by the Beattie Government after the Jayant Patel scandal in 2005.

It is alleged that Dr Ali's resume included up to 12 months of hospital work in India that he never performed. The Courier-Mail has learned that at the time of his supposed employment, Dr Ali was attending to family problems and had taken time off. Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews, who revoked Dr Haneef's visa earlier this month on "bad character" grounds, was last night seeking advice about Dr Ali.

Queensland Police told Queensland Health last week that it had discovered discrepancies in Dr Ali's resume. His medical qualifications are not in doubt and he is still described as being a competent doctor. Dr Ali, who graduated from India's Mysore University in 2001, applied directly to the Gold Coast Hospital after meeting a doctor from the hospital in the United Kingdom last year. It is understood the Medical Board of Queensland checked Dr Ali's certificates from all his previous employers and focused on his qualifications and work history in the UK, which are not in dispute.

Dr Ali has received a show-cause notice from the Medical Board of Queensland and has 21 days to explain. His punishment could range from a warning to deregistration or prosecution, but it is highly unlikely Dr Ali will lose his job.

The State Government vowed vigorous checks on overseas-trained doctors after the Patel scandal. Patel, the former Bundaberg Base Hospital surgeon, was found to have operated outside his scope. An Indian-trained doctor, Patel is facing manslaughter charges in Queensland after performing complex oesophagectomies on patients who later died. Premier Peter Beattie told Parliament in 2005 that he would broaden "the grounds upon which the Queensland Medical Board can cancel a doctor's registration to cover the sorts of fraud that the Patel situation has brought to light". It included up to three years' jail for giving the Queensland Medical Board false information when applying for registration.

The Government also introduced the Medical Board (Administration) Bill in 2006 to deliver an election commitment to create a separate authority to focus solely on doctor registration issues. The Office of the Medical Board will come on line later this year.

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No time to lose our nerve

Janet Albrechtsen comments on the Dr Haneef detention

For all the bungling in the prosecution of Mohamed Haneef, one thing is clear. We had better get used to the detention of people with alleged links to terrorism. Our anti-terrorism laws are essential and they are working. The detention of the Indian doctor was right. His links with alleged terror suspects in Britain needed to be thoroughly investigated. That involved a serious, but necessary, incursion on Mr Haneef's civil liberties as the Australian Federal Police undertook the difficult task of checking the equivalent of 30,000 pages of material on his laptop.

We will have to accept further incursions in the future. More people will be detained. Some will be freed without charge. Some will be charged, then acquitted. While the AFP and prosecuting authorities have to lift their game, the mistakes made in Mr Haneef's case are irrelevant to the wider debate about terrorism laws. Nobody thought the laws on murder needed to be changed when Lindy Chamberlain was a charged but ultimately acquitted.

Nor do we want politicians, the police or prosecutors to lose their nerve about taking action for fear of getting it wrong or out of fear of criticism. Mistakes, and criticism of those mistakes will be made and will lead to improvements in practice. Indeed, we may have to accept longer detentions in the future if we are serious about confronting and beating the scourge of terrorism. That is the lesson from Britain where there have been 15 attempted terrorist attacks since 11 September 2001. As reported in The Guardian last week, six suspects have been detained for 28 days under UK laws. Two were charged in connection with the alleged plot to blow up planes across the Atlantic. Another was charged with attending a terrorist training camp in Pakistan. The other three were released without charge.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is considering the need to strengthen British terrorism laws by increasing detention to 58 days so that authorities have sufficient time to sift through evidence. That will lead to more hysteria from civil libertarians that democracy is doomed, that we have allowed terrorists to destroy our system of justice. But when jihadists are willing to blow up trains and buses and planes filled with scores of innocent people, such claims ring hollow. Protecting our right to catch a bus or a train or a plane without being blown up means impinging on the rights of those suspected of having links with terrorism. Some of those suspects will be innocent. But isn't it better that we detain them and investigate the evidence instead of sifting through the twisted metal of blown up trains and human remains after a terrorist attack if they turn out to be guilty?

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Selective schools improve learning

SELECTIVE schools are helping students score an extra 10 marks in the Higher School Certificate. The NSW Department of Education has for the first time released official data which shows that students at selective schools have been achieving on average an additional two marks for each subject, based on their relative performance in year 10.

The department has a database that allows it to compare students' results as they progress from year 3 to year 12. Their marks in the basic skills test in years 3 and 5 are compared. The same is done for the literacy and numeracy tests in years 7 and 8. The department also tracks improvement in students' results between years 10 and 12. This measure is called value-added, and shows that students in selective schools are lifting their performance in year 12 beyond expectations. The value-added index can often be higher in comprehensive schools, which help poor-performing students reach their full potential. But selective school students often perform to their potential in year 10, which leaves little room for improvement.

A spokeswoman for the department said there was "truth to the idea that students in selective schools are close to the ceiling of performance and that it is more difficult for them to demonstrate consistent growth compared with average- or lower-achieving students". "The fact that students in selective schools demonstrate above-expected levels of achievement so consistently is a truly stunning outcome of the selective stream," she said.

Last year the average "value-added per student" for selective schools across the five School Certificate external tests ranged from 2.5 marks in science to 5.8 marks in mathematics. The School Certificate value-added is the number of marks a student obtains above or below what might be expected, based on relative performance in the year 5 basic skills test.

But the Greens MP and education spokesman, John Kaye, challenged the department's value-added data. "Most comparisons between schools are meaningless because of the wide variations in student performance and the spread of improvements within schools," he said.

The Minister for Education, John Della Bosca, said he would establish a working group to help determine which schools would receive the extra 600 selective school places announced before the election in March. He said the composition of the working group was expected to include representatives from parents' and citizens' associations, primary and secondary principals, the Department of Education, and teachers. "Some of the issues it will take into account will include the fair allocation of places in rural, regional and metropolitan areas and the impacts on surrounding school communities," he said. "Our overall objective is to ensure the places are allocated in an equitable and sensible way."

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Church says Australians are a mad lot -- so crazies should be trusted (??)

I rather suspect that the trendy Methodists who claim that are not too hot themselves. See the rubric below

Mental illness touches the lives of almost every Australian, according to a report that reveals the condition affects 85 per cent of the population either directly or through the suffering of a friend or relative. The major new report by Christian charity the Wesley Mission also suggests more people than previously thought - up to 36 per cent of the community - may also have direct experience of a mental health problem. Previous estimates had put the figure at 20 per cent.

Despite the higher prevalence, significant stigma continues to dog people with more serious mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia. The report released yesterday made 21 recommendations for improving understanding of mental illness and the lot of people experiencing mental problems. "Mental illness remains a taboo subject for many people, although it touches the lives of most Australians," said Wesley Mission superintendent Keith Garner. "Despite much public discussion and the advocacy of high-profile figures sharing their personal experiences ... there is still a clear reluctance in the community to trust individuals with a mental illness in decision-making roles or in roles where reliability is paramount." [That's a BAD thing??]

For the report, the result of a six-month research project, the authors surveyed 600 people in Sydney and Newcastle to find out more about public attitudes to mental illness. They found that only 46 per cent of people questioned would trust work done by someone with schizophrenia. Only 55 per cent would feel comfortable working alongside someone with the condition and only 23 per cent said they would feel comfortable if their child was sharing a flat with a schizophrenic patient. This is despite 77 per cent agreeing patients with schizophrenia would improve if treated. Attitudes towards people with anxiety disorders were far more benign: 81 per cent were happy to work alongside them and 67 per cent had confidence in the work they produced.

The report's recommendations included the introduction of tax and other incentives to encourage employers to take on people with mental problems, better integration of treatment services and more support for carers.

Ian Hickie, executive director of the Brain and Mind Research Centre in Sydney, who wrote a foreword to the report and attended yesterday's launch, said it was significant that there was continued public fear of people with conditions such as schizophrenia, which reflected the difficulty such patients had in getting adequate treatment.

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