DOCS negligence yet AGAIN

If only the parents had been a respectable middle-class couple whom some idiot had accused of "witchcraft"! The "social workers" would have taken all their kids off THEM in double-quick time! Feral parents, however, must be treated with "respect" -- and too bad about the kids

New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma is being told to stop denying there aren't major problems within the Department of Community Services (DoCS), with a baby known to the department in hospital suffering cardiac arrest and severe head injuries. The 14-month-old had just been returned to her mother and partner who is on parole for murder.

Opposition leader Barry O'Farrell says the Premier has a lot to answer for. "Morris Iemma needs to explain how laws used last year allowing DoCS workers to bypass the courts and rescue children in serious risk of harm aren't being enforced." "These laws may have prevented death and injuries, and Morris Iemma needs to explain why they're not being used."

An ambulance was called to the little boy's Blacktown home early yesterday morning, there they found the 14-month-old in cardiac arrest with head injuries. He is being treated in Westmead Hospital where he remains on life support. It's believed the child had been in the care of his grandmother, and previously DoCS, before being given back to his 19-year- old mother just weeks ago. DoCS has confirmed it was aware of the child, and the fact that his mother's partner has just been released from prison after serving time for homicide.

Shadow Community Services Minister Katrina Hodgkinson says it's yet another tragedy. "Why are babies who are clearly at risk not looked after properly by the Department of Community Services, when there is obviously a need for that to be happening?"

It's the latest in a series of abuse cases involving children known to DoCS including two-year-old Dean Shillingsworth, found dead in a suitcase and seven- year-old Shellay Ward, who starved to death at Hawks Nest.

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Racial tensions behind 'turf wars' around Brisbane

RACIALLY motivated "turf wars" are happening regularly at shopping centres, in the city and at railway stations, a Brisbane City Council investigation has found. South Bank Parklands, the Queen Street Mall and the Chermside and Garden City shopping centres were all identified as hot spots for hostilities. City Hall says police, youth justice workers and council staff confirmed "inter-communal hostilities" happened regularly in Brisbane involving Pacific Islander, African, Vietnamese and Indigenous youths. The investigations formed part of council research into a strategy designed to prevent incidents like the 2005 Cronulla riots from occurring in Brisbane.

On Tuesday, City Hall endorsed a new draft plan, Rites of Passage: Social and Economic Pathways for Culturally Diverse Young People, that aims to create better social and employment opportunities for new arrivals and refugees.

Lord Mayor Campbell Newman this week acknowledged that conflicts occurred in the city but said multiculturalism was working well and Brisbane did not have the kind of racial problems experienced interstate. "There will be gangs, there will be young people of different backgrounds having a go at one another - that has happened in this city from the moment it was formed," he said. "But wholesale racial tensions, vilifications, are not something that we're prepared to allow to develop."

Cr Newman said council's strategy was designed to address unemployment and other root causes of potential conflicts by dealing, in particular, with young men from all cultural backgrounds. Labor's community services chair Cr Catherine Bermingham played down the talk of "turf wars", saying they were not new in Brisbane. "When I was growing up there were gangs, so to speak, and I remember my parents talking about gangs such as bodgies and widgies and all that sort of thing," she said. "There's always going to be some sort of youth conflict." Cr Bermingham said the Rites of Passage strategy would help to build inclusiveness and provide opportunities for young people from different backgrounds.

Cr Bermingham said some African members of her own East Brisbane ward had complained of being ostracised after comments like those by federal Liberal MP Gary Hardgrave, who last month said his Moreton electorate was "exhausted" by the intake of African refugees.

A spokeswoman for South Bank said there had been no increase in incidents within the parklands and the corporation was working with police to proactively address security. In a statement, the Queensland Police Service said it was not aware of any "turf wars" between culturally-specific groups. It acknowledged that groups of youths from different backgrounds frequented many public spaces in Brisbane.

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Rudd attacked by previous Leftist leader

"Biffo" runs true to form but what he says is mostly right for all that

Delighted Coalition ministers yesterday welcomed back former Labor leader Mark Latham, who emerged from self-imposed political exile to sneer at Kevin Rudd's campaign. Mr Latham called this the Seinfeld election - "a show about nothing" - and said Mr Rudd was a conservative like Prime Minister John Howard. He also undermined the core of Mr Rudd's campaign by questioning whether working families were in financial trouble, and praised the Australian health system as one of the best in the world.

The controversy he stirred took up a lot of campaign time Labor would have wanted to devote to other issues. "He's talking about his views of the world. That's a matter for him," said Mr Rudd, who had not read his former colleague's sharply-worded article in The Financial Review. "I'm about the future with fresh ideas for Australia." [That's a joke! Rudd's only ideas are "me too"s to what Howard says]

John Howard most certainly had read it and said: "I have broken the drought by mentioning Mr Latham." He said Mr Latham had confirmed a Rudd government would drop its conservative policies once elected. "Mark Latham said, 'We all expect, we all hope it will be a lot more . . . progressive if the Labor Party gets in'," Mr Howard said. "He uses the word progressive, I use the word radical."

However, the article said the opposite. Mr Latham had suggested there was a hope a Rudd administration would drop conservative policies, but he expected it would become even more conservative. That didn't stop ministers gleefully spreading the misreading. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Labor's environment spokesman Peter Garrett had said last week that Mr Rudd would "change it all" in government, and Mr Latham had confirmed this. "Mr Latham is a former leader of the Labor Party and whatever people in the Labor Party try to say about him, he knows people in the Labor Party, he's talking to them constantly and Mr Latham has confirmed what Mr Garrett said last weekend," Mr Downer said. "Mr Latham and Mr Garrett together have demonstrated precisely where Labor really stands, which is cheat our way into office by pretending we're like the Government and then we can begin our radical agenda."

In fact Mr Latham had written that nothing would change regardless of who won the election because Australian public life had reached the "zenith of policy convergence". "The dominant ethos is greed, not generosity. I expect a Labor administration to be even more timid, more conservative," he wrote.

Taking aim at Labor's campaign on housing affordability, he said there was no crisis - "just the manufactured hysteria of the political class". "There is no crisis for the hundreds of thousands of families that have put themselves into debt and built large new homes, the so-called McMansions, across the country," he wrote.

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A crooked senior cop again

Reminiscent of having the police chief sent to jail -- as happened a few years ago in Queensland

ASPIRING chief commissioner Noel Ashby was yesterday forced to quit Victoria Police in disgrace. Former assistant commissioner Ashby faces jail for allegedly lying to a corruption inquiry and trying to pervert the course of justice. His ambition for the top job came crashing down after damning evidence against him was aired at an Office of Police Integrity hearing.

A shattered Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon said yesterday she felt betrayed by Mr Ashby, a 30-year veteran of the force, and her media director, Steve Linnell, who she said could both face charges. "I want to say to the community how disappointed I am by this whole episode," she said. In another day of stunning evidence, the OPI hearing was told:

POLICE Association secretary Paul Mullett asked Mr Ashby to personally handle a serious disciplinary case against union delegate Jenny McDonald in the hope she would be treated leniently.

BUGGED phone calls revealed Mr Ashby told Sen-Sgt Mullett he would try to get her case reassigned to him.

DEPUTY Commissioner Simon Overland was part of an OPI sting to catch media director Steve Linnell leaking to Mr Ashby.

THE OPI got Mr Overland to ring Mr Linnell and provide him with confidential information to see if he would leak it to Mr Ashby -- he did so 11 seconds later.

MR ASHBY tried to stop Insp Brett Curran being appointed chief of staff to Police Minister Bob Cameron and enlisted Sen-Sgt Mullett's aid.

SEN-SGT MULLETT told Mr Ashby that his (Mr Ashby's) stocks were rising significantly with Premier John Brumby, and Mr Ashby replied "watch this space" in an apparent reference to his being appointed Chief Commissioner.

OPI bugs repeatedly caught Mr Linnell and Mr Ashby being crudely critical of Ms Nixon, Mr Overland and various assistant commissioners, with Mr Ashby calling them "the shiftiest bunch of c---s". Mr Ashby admitted he was jealous Mr Overland was being sent on a study trip to France, and that he and Sen-Sgt Mullett tried to stop it.

Counsel assisting the OPI, Dr Greg Lyon, SC, has accused Mr Ashby and Mr Linnell of leaking confidential information relating to the 2003 murder of gigolo vampire Shane Chartres-Abbott. Dr Lyon said that information was relayed to Sen-Sgt Mullett and Police Association president Brian Rix. He said that one of the targets of the murder investigation, Police Association delegate Det-Sgt Peter Lalor, was tipped off soon afterwards. Mr Linnell was taped telling Mr Ashby it would be difficult to convict Det-Sgt Lalor because "cops get off". Mr Ashby immediately responded, "yeah, yeah, but might get Docket". Docket is the nickname of former Victoria Police detective David Waters.

Mr Waters and Det-Sgt Lalor are both targets of Victoria Police taskforce Operation Briars, which is investigating the Chartres-Abbott murder. Operation Briars is probing allegations that Det-Sgt Lalor passed Chartres-Abbott's address to the hitman hired to kill him. It is also investigating claims Mr Waters was at a meeting where plans to kill Chartres-Abbott were hatched.

Ms Nixon said the OPI told her in September that Mr Ashby and Mr Linnell were being investigated in relation to the Chartres-Abbott matter. "It's been a very difficult time to know people who were close to you were being accused of these matters," she said. "Now, as we have heard, the evidence has confirmed the real concerns (the OPI) had."

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