His Eminence endorses conservative policies -- in both parties

AUSTRALIA'S most senior Catholic cleric has publicly endorsed Kevin Rudd's schools policy as a rejection of the ALP's old politics of division and class warfare. In a reversal of the Catholic Church's dramatic intervention in the 2004 election campaign to condemn Labor's "divisive" policy of stripping funding from rich private schools, George Pell has backed the Opposition Leader's new approach.

Cardinal Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, also endorsed both Mr Rudd and John Howard as "serious Christians" but noted their parties had adopted such similar policies that they were scarcely distinguishable.

In an interview with The Australian, Cardinal Pell conceded his endorsement was a shift in his position at the last election, during which he attacked the schools policy put forward by then labor leader Mark Latham. "I think the policy at that stage was calculated to divide the non-government sector and to divide the rich against the poor and possibly the Catholics against the non-Catholics," he said. "That would have been most unfortunate. I'm happy to endorse the new policy."

Cardinal Pell also touched on the controversy surrounding Labor's death penalty policy, saying he thought Mr Rudd would not lose votes on the issue. Mr Rudd this week repudiated his foreign affairs spokesman Robert McClelland, accusing him of being "insensitive" for expressing his opposition to the death penalty for prisioners across Asia in the anniversary week of the 2002 Bali bombings.

Cardinal Pell said he thought there was public support for the death penalty in Australia. "I think that this, capital punishment, is one of those issues ... where public opinion is quite at variance with elite opinion. "I suspect, and I might be wrong, that there is clear majority approval in Australia for capital punishment in certain circumstances."

The Australian revealed on Tuesday Labor would keep the socio-economic status model of funding private schools until December 2012. Although Mr Rudd has previously promised to abandon the "schools hit-list" policy promoted by Mr Latham, the ALP has until now retained the needs-based formula that underpinned it. Mr Rudd said the [conservative] SES model would be used as a $42billion "minimum starting point" for funding to be negotiated between a Labor government and the states and private schools.

The Independent Schools Council of Australia welcomed the policy yesterday. "The ALP's promise to retain the SES model and full indexation of schools funding, together with its repeated assurance that no indepedendent school would lose funding under a Labor government, is a welcome reflection of the key principles we believe should underpin government schools funding policies," ICSA executive director Bill Daniels said.

At the last election, Catholic and Anglican churches joined forces to savage the ALP's schools policy, accusing Labor of driving a religious wedge into the private school sector. Expressing deep concern over Labor's redistribution of funds from the richest private schools to struggling low-fee private schools, the churches argued the policy was setting faith against faith.

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Public hospital doctors revolt against NSW government lies

HEALTH Minister Reba Meagher's credibility is in tatters today as leading emergency doctors break their silence to condemn patient care at Royal North Shore Hospital. As the minister frantically downplayed The Daily Telegraph's revelation that a 91-year-old grandmother had been placed in a supply room, experts came forward to tell the truth about the RNS.

NSW chairman of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, RNS senior emergency doctor Tony Joseph, disputed the minister's claims that the rooms were used for "clinical" reasons. He confirmed it was hospital policy to shuttle patients into rooms not designed for patients when the emergency department overflowed. "They are unsafe and it is part of the over-crowding policy," Dr Joseph told The Daily Telegraph. "When emergency departments are bursting . . . they will put patients in these side rooms."

The "over-census" policy was even admitted to by one of Ms Meagher's hospital bureaucrats, who said the side rooms were used to deal with over-crowding. The 91-year-old's granddaughter yesterday said the family were unhappy with the treatment of their frail grandmother

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African refugees bash policeman

A GROUP of drunken youths assaulted a policeman in Melbourne's troubled suburb of Noble Park following a wake for murdered Sudanese teenager Liep Gony, police said. Det-Sen-Constable Scott D'Razario, 30, was driving along Isaac Road with his female police partner just after 2am when the pair stopped to speak to a group of 20 youths standing on the road. The detective asked the men, aged in their late teens to early 20s, to keep the noise down.

But when another police van pulled up, one of the youths king hit the detective and others began to kick him. Several other members of the group joined in the attack, kicking the detective a number of times before fleeing. "I've got some chipped teeth and I've injured my knee," said Det-Sen-Constable D'Razario afterwards. He also described the incident as "painful", adding that he "wouldn't want to be in the same position again." He was taken to Dandenong Hospital suffering facial injuries and cut hands and was later released.

Up to 12 police cars and 22 officers were called to the scene and it took up to 40 minutes to clear the area. The incident occurred during a tense time in the suburb following the recent fatal attack on Mr Gony and his funeral yesterday. "What happened last night was two experienced detectives on patrol, they were night shift, they came across a group, coincidentally, of about 20 young Sudanese men, drunk, some of them were known to these detectives and they struck up a conversation," said Assistant Commissioner Paul Evans, who heads the police region.

"At the same time one of our divvy vans pulled up, because we have significant patrols around at the moment, and then for no apparent reason one person has king hit one of my detectives." Mr Evans said of the situation:"It's hugely dangerous and hugely tense." .... Mr Evans said in Sudanese culture boys were taught to be men from a young age and not back off from a fight. "That is part of their cultural upbringing, and this is what we're seeing and this is why we have had some injuries with police and some confrontations, because they don't back away," he said.

Yesterday, up to 300 people attended a funeral and wake for Liep Gony, who died after being bashed in what is believed to have been a racially motivated attack two weeks ago near the Noble Park railway station. Two men, aged 19 and 21, have since been charged with his murder.

Mr Evans said there had been increased patrols in the area because of the wake, but until this incident there had been no problems. "There had been no problems at all, but there had been this breakaway group of young men who had gone away and unfortunately, timing's everything, and our CI (crime investigation) unit pulled up because they were known to them and they were a bit untidy, a bit unruly, so that's when the confrontation occurred," he said.

Mr Evans said the Noble Park community was afraid and the police were attempting to restore confidence through increased patrols. He said most Sudanese were good people, but a small group caused problems. Police are interviewing an 18-year-old Dandenong man who was arrested nearby. "He was involved but there were others involved as well," a senior officer said.

Police Association Victorian secretary Paul Mullett said a police "softly softly'' approach had failed to combat youth group violence. "Let's get away from the slowly, slowly, hang back, warm fuzzy style and back to a good, practical, strong visible police presence,'' Mr Mullett said. "Policing should be proactive and preventative, and we should let them do their job and core function properly supported by a proper level of resources. "Our members are accountable and the blue uniform is sacrosanct and should not be touched.''

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Howard hits out at 'jihad' Muslims

JOHN Howard has strongly criticised aspects of Muslim culture, warning they pose an unprecedented challenge for Australia's immigration program. While he remained confident that the overwhelming majority of Muslims would be successfully integrated, the Prime Minister said there were two unique problems that previous intakes of migrants from Europe and Asia did not have. "I do think there is this particular complication because there is a fragment which is utterly antagonistic to our kind of society, and that is a difficulty," Mr Howard told The Australian. "You can't find any equivalent in Italian, or Greek, or Lebanese, or Chinese or Baltic immigration to Australia. There is no equivalent of raving on about jihad, but that is the major problem."

The Prime Minister also expressed concern about Muslim attitudes to women. "I think some of the associated attitudes towards women (are) a problem," he said. "For all the conservatism towards women and so forth within some of the Mediterranean cultures, it's as nothing compared with some of the more extreme attitudes. "The second one of those things is a broader problem, but to be fair to them, it's an attitude that is changing with the younger ones."

The comments are contained in a new book to mark the 10th anniversary of Mr Howard's rise to power. Written by The Australian's team of journalists and commentators, The Howard Factor -- a decade that changed the nation will be published on February 27 and launched by the Prime Minister on March 2. Mr Howard gave a series of interviews for the book on December 9, the final sitting day of the parliamentary year for 2005. This happened to be just two days before the race riots in the Sydney beachside suburb of Cronulla.

The Prime Minister did not specify which Muslim source nations he was concerned about. By placing Lebanese immigrants in the same integrated category as the Italian, Greek, Chinese and Baltic, he appears to have been referring to the Christian rather than the Muslim intake from the Middle East.

The president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Ameer Ali, said the conservative Muslims about whom Mr Howard was talking represented only a "tiny fraction". "There is (also) a tiny fraction of Australians who believe in white supremacy," said Dr Ali, who chairs Mr Howard's Muslim advisory group. "I think he (Mr Howard) understands that the large majority of Muslims are like everyone else. "In any society there are immigrants who try to hold on to their traditions, and it takes time to change. My faith is in the following generation -- the next generation will be more adaptive."

In the interview, Mr Howard was upbeat about the immigration program. Australia crossed two immigrant thresholds in 2003-04, which is the latest year for which Bureau of Statistics tables are available. The overseas-born population rose to 24per cent -- its highest proportion since the 1890s. And the European share of the immigrant total fell below 50 per cent for the first time. The previous Labor government of Paul Keating had the overseas-born at 23 per cent of the population, and the European component was 57 per cent. Mr Howard seemed genuinely pleased when the numbers were read out to him. "Really? I think what it demonstrates is that we have run a truly non-discriminatory immigration policy."

After slashing immigration in his first term between 1996 and 1998, Mr Howard has steadily ratcheted up the intake to levels that now exceed those under Labor's Bob Hawke in the 1980s. As Opposition leader in 1988, Mr Howard attacked Asian immigration. He later apologised and conceded the move cost him his job at the time. His comment in August that year was: "I wouldn't like to see it (the rate of Asian immigration) greater. I'm not in favour of going back to a White Australia policy. I do believe that if it is -- in the eyes of some in the community -- that it's too great, it would be in our immediate-term interest and supporting of social cohesion if it were slowed down a little, so the capacity of the community to absorb it was greater."

Mr Howard's latest observations on Muslim culture are not in the same category, because they do not suggest the rate of Muslim immigration should be slowed down in the interests of social cohesion. "The public sometimes mixes up attitudes to immigration with attitudes to our identity and our history," he told The Australian. "I think one of the reasons why people have been accepting of all of this is that they feel they have a Government and a Prime Minister that is in favour of what I might call a slightly less zealous multiculturalism than was practised by my predecessor. "Not a return to assimilation so much, but somewhere in between, which is what people want. "What resonates most with people, I find, is they don't mind where new people come from, as long as they've got skills, and as long as they become Australians when they arrive. "But that doesn't mean they should forget where they were born."

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A most well-deserved award

Barry Humphries collects honour from Queen -- in his usual good form



SIR Les Patterson and Dame Edna Everage have long treasured their royal titles, and now their creator Barry Humphries has collected a CBE from the Queen. While Humphries might have missed out on a knighthood and the chance to add "sir" to his name like his badly behaved alter ego, he described the honour as "extraordinary". "This is the highlight - the first of many," the Australian comedian, dressed in top hat and tails, said after the ceremony at Buckingham Palace. "It felt extraordinary. I had my back to the audience. It felt very unnatural. It was a little disconcerting. "Someone else who was getting a CBE said I suppose this is the end of the road. "I thought perhaps I should ask the Queen if she had any future plans for me, but I forgot."

Humphries, who is celebrating 50 years on the stage, picked up his honour for services to entertainment after being named a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen's Birthday Honours list in June.

Also receiving honours today were English cricket star Ian Botham, who was knighted, and author Barbara Taylor Bradford, who picked up an OBE.

Humphries refrained from mentioning to the Queen anything about either Sir Les or Dame Edna, who famously dubbed her majesty the "jubilee girl" when introducing her at celebrations marking her Golden Jubilee in 2002. Instead, Humphries chatted to the Queen about renowned horseman, Monty Roberts, whom he was due to meet later today. "She's a huge fan and said 'Please give him my very best'," he said.

Born in Melbourne, 73-year-old Humphries moved to Britain in 1959 and launched his showbiz career in musicals including Sweeney Todd on stages in London's famous West End. Seventeen years later, he introduced Dame Edna to the world in her own show Housewife Superstar!, which later led to her hosting her own TV shows. Humphries has also enjoyed success in the US, with his Dame Edna shows appearing twice on Broadway - Dame Edna: The Royal Tour in 1999 and 2005's Dame Edna: Back With a Vengeance.

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