A rational response to rising home prices at last

The Federal government has been pushing the States to do things like this for some time. Treating developers as a cash cow just leads to higher house prices for everyone

DEVELOPERS of land on Sydney's outskirts will no longer have to contribute towards the cost of hospitals, parks, schools and police stations after the NSW Government bowed to industry pressure to reduce taxes for building in unestablished suburbs. The Premier, Morris Iemma, yesterday announced the cost of building a new house in the growth areas of Sydney's north-west and south-west would be cut by about $25,000 after both council and state levies are cut. "It's part of what we are doing to get young families into their first home," Mr Iemmasaid.

But there was no guarantee, except for the impact of "market forces", that the property industry would pass on the savings to new home-buyers. Local government in so-called greenfield, or undeveloped, areas would be required by the State Government to spend infrastructure levies within seven years, rather than saving the money for when parks and libraries were needed down the track. But the peak council association questioned the ability of the Government to pay for new amenities without the taxes, accusing it of "pandering to developers". "Unless the Government guarantees it will pick up the funding shortfall, and puts in place strict guidelines requiring developers to pass on savings, we'll be faced with a situation where communities wait 20 or 30 years for basic infrastructure," said the president of the Local Government Association, Genia McCaffery.

The Treasurer, Michael Costa, said the decision was expected to cost $2 billion in the medium term but would not affect the state's AAA credit rating.

Developers had complained bitterly over the gradual rise of government charges on developers who built homes in the government's growth areas, where zoning has been fast-tracked by the Government's Growth Centres Commission. Developers have blamed the levies for the stagnation of markets on Sydney's fringe. The Government has maintained that interest rates were more to blame for the high cost of real estate.

The Planning Minister, Frank Sartor, said the changes were part of a "new philosophy" about what the council and the government could ask developers to help pay for. Instead of levying for future population growth, they would only be levied to develop the land in its current state. The changes would eventually apply across the board, prompting the Property Council of Australia to say it was unclear if the new regime would result in extending levies in established urban areas. "It's extremely unclear what the Government wants to do in that area," said the council's NSW executive director, Ken Morrison.

A spokesman for Mr Costa said the new approach was designed to avoid making developers "pay for everything". The criteria was whether the new amenity was enjoyed only by residents of a new development as opposed to the general population. Councils would gradually be banned from charging developers for the construction of libraries, parks and sports facilities. The Government also said it would take over the management of more than $750 million in unspent developers' levies in council coffers.

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Corrupt phone company

TELSTRA has handed its US mobile phone distributor Brightstar a multi-million-dollar windfall by paying it as much as three times the industry rate to provide handsets to its branded and third-party retailers as part of a deal worth $1 billion a year. Telstra also paid the Miami-based company a one-off fee of $6 million for a so-called implementation plan, according to a contract the companies signed in May last year. The contract, details of which have been obtained by The Australian, could result in profits of tens of millions of dollars for the Miami-based Brightstar.

Telstra is paying Brightstar, whose owner Marcelo Claure is a business partner of Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo, between $17 and $21 per handset, the contract shows.

Telstra has said it supplies more than 2.2 million handsets a year but the numbers are thought to have grown since it launched its Next G network last October. The going rate for handsets is about one-third of Brightstar's contracted rate, according to Roadhound, one of Brightstar's three main industry competitors. "That is a joke, that is over three times the market going price," Roadhound owner Ben Sharma said. "If I received that contract it would make me very rich, very quickly."

In September 2005 The Australian revealed that Telstra was in talks with Brightstar for the first of two deals the US company would sign with Telstra in 2005 and 2006. The first, handed to Brightstar with no tender, was for an exclusive arrangement to source at least 2 million handsets each year for Telstra. The second was for an outsourcing deal to warehouse and distribute mobile phones and accessories. As part of the deal, Telstra has forced its licensed shops and third-party dealers to refrain from buying phones from any company except Brightstar. This has cut the profits of hundreds of Australian small businesses and handed them to Telstra's US partner.

Telstra claims to have invited Brightstar rivals Brightpoint and Roadhound to tender, but Mr Sharma said all he received was a one-page document signed by Telstra executive Terry Trewin. "They didn't ask us to present any figures, they just asked for a capability. I don't think they wanted anything from us. I think they had already made up their mind who the contract was going to," Mr Sharma said.

According to the Brightstar contract, as well as handing over $6 million for an "implementation plan" to be completed within 60 days of signing the contract in May 2006, Telstra also handed over the keys to its main mobile phone warehouse and distribution facility in Sydney. Mr Sharma said he was not told any of this when he was asked to "submit a proposal to manage Telstra's full supply chain capability".

The Australian understands that Brightstar approached Telstra consumer chief David Moffatt in December 2004, only to be rebuffed, and it was not until Mr Trujillo arrived that serious discussions were resumed. Telstra has claimed that the deals with Brightstar will save it up to $150 million this year but it has refused to provide any detail on how these savings would be achieved, and Telstra's bottom line has shown little improvement since Mr Trujillo took over.

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AUSTRALIA'S PUBLIC HOSPITAL MADNESS CONTINUES

Four current articles below



Rage boils over at public hospital delays

Three days in great pain waiting for treatment becomes too much

TERRIFIED patients and staff were evacuated from the Gold Coast Hospital as an enraged bikie demanding immediate haemorrhoid surgery for his wife threatened to call in his gang to "trash the place", a court was told yesterday. "I'm the king of the Gold Coast and we don't wait in line for anyone," senior Finks bikie gang member Richard Savage told hospital staff. "I'm going to get 30 of my Finks mates and drink piss and party 'til my wife gets her operation."

Savage pleaded guilty yesterday in Southport District Court to threatening violence and wilful damage. The charges stemmed from a fracas on July 8, 2005, when Savage's wife was in the Gold Coast Hospital awaiting haemmorrhoid surgery. Crown prosecutor Bob Falconer said Savage became aggressive as the wait for surgery continued. Mr Falconer said Savage snapped after being told by staff that operating theatres were full and it was doubtful his wife would be operated on that day. He punched a hole in the wall and told staff: "You better call the police because my mates are on the way. "We're going to trash this place. My wife has been waiting for surgery for three days and I'm sick of waiting."

Mr Falconer said frightened and tearful patients, some of whom had just had surgery, had to be evacuated from the ward, along with staff. He said while the Crown accepted that Savage's wife was in "terrible pain" and he was frustrated, his behaviour was unacceptable. Barrister Tony Glynn, for Savage, said his client had been under great stress but accepted his actions went "well beyond what was a proper and measured reaction to that sort of stress". Mr Glynn said Savage had completed an anger management course and was so impressed he referred two associates.

Judge Fleur Kingham said she accepted that Savage's wife was in extreme pain and had been for some days. But she said he had "simply lost control" and reacted in a way which was "firstly out of proportion and, secondly, entirely unacceptable". "In seeking to alleviate the pain and distress your wife was in, you also caused a great deal of distress, including to patients who had already undergone surgery," Judge Kingham told Savage. She accepted Crown and defence submissions for a wholly suspended 12-month jail sentence for Savage.

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Hospital doctor shortage getting worse, not better

SYDNEY's emergency departments are in crisis with one in five senior doctor positions vacant and no recruitment program in place, leaving burnt-out staff angry and ready to quit. More than 22 specialist positions in 24 metropolitan emergency departments had been vacant for several months, despite pleas from doctors who were working overtime to cover the shortfall, the executive director of the Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation, Dr Sim Mead, said yesterday. "The health department is denying there is a freeze on recruitment, so why are they not advertising these positions? It is completely baffling and I can only draw the conclusion that the longer they take to fill the positions, the more money they save, but it is at the expense of the doctors trying to hold the system up." Dr Mead said advertisements for some positions were later cancelled when it was discovered all the applicants were from other Sydney emergency departments "It's moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic."

The NSW chairman of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, Dr Tony Joseph, said emergency specialists could earn up to $100,000 a year more in Queensland and many younger doctors were tempted to leave. "When you spend all day cajoling and arguing with people about moving patients out of the emergency department and into wards, the registrars see that and they don't want it for the rest of their lives." Dr Joseph said the Health Department needed to address overcrowding in hospitals, employ adequate numbers of senior doctors and start listening to staff on the frontline.

One emergency medicine registrar, Dr Claire Skinner, said several doctors were reducing their hours because they felt burnt-out and unable to cope: "The intensity of the work is incredible and has definitely increased. It is stressful and emotionally intense and there is no recovery. We cannot provide the quality of care that we should be able to and that is making us all very stressed. People are leaving and there is a massive risk that we won't be able to train the next generation." She said 43 per cent of emergency department registrars were trained in Australia, with the balance made up of overseas-trained doctors and locums, costing the State Government an extra $35 million a year. "Some are great and some are disasters. Most locums are not familiar with the environment, and emergency departments are quite chaotic at the best of times. It is also erosive for morale when permanent staff are overseeing locums who are earning three times as much as they are."

A survey in May by the University of Sydney's Workplace Research Centre found that almost half of the 140 emergency doctors surveyed said they did not have the time to take a toilet break as soon as they needed. About 66 per cent of the doctors had reported rarely or never completing clinical support activities in rostered time. The Health Department said yesterday it was advertising in Britain and that it had increased the number of staff specialists by 13 per cent and junior staff by 10 per cent in the past three years.

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Stupid penny-pinching by hospital bureaucrats

Firing just one of their many "administrators" would have done a whole lot more good but bureaucrats are sacrosanct, of course

A SURGEON says removing cracker biscuits from Royal Hobart Hospital operating theatres to save money is exhausting staff and putting patients' lives at risk. Senior surgeon Stephen Wilkinson said low blood sugar interfered with doctors' ability to make life and death decisions during overnight emergency surgery that often ran into the morning. "It's administration gone mad," said Dr Wilkinson, who was doing emergency surgery into the early hours yesterday. "Morale is already at an all-time low, with surgeons close to walking out. All we want is the Salada biscuits and Vegemite reinstated. It might sound petty but it makes a big difference. "We get hypoglycemic, a headache and we're trying to think clearly so you can make difficult decisions on the run. People's lives are relying on it."

He said the hardest work was at night. "That's when you get the car accidents, bowel obstructions, perforated ulcers," he said. "We need to get our concentration back and sugars up. "It's a stressful environment already. I think it's unsafe." The operating suite tearoom had long had "simple crackers and biscuits", but now had only teabags and instant coffee.

Dr Wilkinson was so angry he rang chief executive officer Craig White during the early hours of yesterday. The hospital said it had stopped providing food and snack items to maximise resources for direct patient care. "The RHH is experiencing significant budget pressure and identified the provision of food and snack items to doctors' lounges and staff tea rooms as an expenditure that would be redirected to patient care," spokeswoman Pene Snashall said.

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And we trust Indian doctors?

There is no way these doctors can have received anything like Western-standard medical training

A COUPLE has been charged with the murder of one of their sons after they tried to transfuse his blood into his elder brother to make him smarter. The elder boy is fighting for his life. The Indian Express said the couple were both doctors and the mother had a dream in which a guru advised blood transfusion to make their elder son do better at his studies. Police said the couple initially claimed the boy, 11, was killed in an attack but later confessed.

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