Holiest day of obligation for young and old at MCG

The abiding cricket religion in Melbourne. Many Indians will tell you that cricket is their religion but some Australians are not far behind. There are too many local and cricket allusions below for me to explain but readers from benighted non-cricket nations should still get most of it. Note that the great occasion was celebrated in India too. And there is a summary of what actually happened here and here and here



LIKE all pilgrims, the Boxing Day faithful streaming under a sky of brilliant blue toward the G [cricket ground] knew their creed's rites and wrongs. Things change, time moves on, Melbourne evolves, but in the city on the Yarra the articles of a Test crowd's faith never vary. There's the women who don't come, for starters, and how even blokes pushing retirement still relish a day off the leash.

"Nora and the girls, they're off shopping," said one as he emerged from the Crown car park and headed toward the G. "Mine too -- bloody women!" responded his companion of similar vintage with the daggy red shorts and sun-spotted, matchstick legs. "Reckon they'd get enough of spending money before Christmas!" "Too right," said the first, chuckling as they walked on the Southbank promenade, where their childhood memories would have been of factories and the old Fruit Tingle sign you could see from the platforms at Flinders St. Gone now, all gone.

In their place, the new Melbourne -- the sprawling pokies palace where they had left the car, chic bars, and the Eureka Tower's top-dollar pile of soaring glass. However the cricket, well, that is what they had come for, what they relished and recognised as constant and forever. The folks who run the game can drape its celebrants in trendy vestments, the multi-hued one-day uniforms that make the Indians and Windies look like licorice all-sorts, but in creams or colours the essence never changes.

On any Boxing Day in Melbourne, what we witness is as much a celebration of culture as it is of sharp eyes, razor reflexes and the slashing hook that lifts hearts higher than the flagpole while a red ball rockets toward the fence. It was that culture that converged yesterday from all points of the compass and reached a critical mass in Jolimont. A culture, mind you, that has inspired a deluge of school-marmish warnings over recent months and weeks. No racist comments. No mexican waves. No yobbish antics and, just to be sure, no return to the full-strength beer that might fuel the yobbish impulse.

The authorities would have professional eavesdroppers in the crowd, the cricket congregation was warned, so there would be no disparaging of subcontinentals with dismissive references to their dietary staples. Maybe the warnings worked, or perhaps they need not have been quite so stern, because yesterday, on a day when the stadium was packed, only a few dozen ratbags and ruffians needed to be shown the door.

And the rest? They followed the action and cheered and downed a few mid-strengths. And in quieter, conversational tones they put rough-hewn amiability ahead of acerbic nationalism. "F---in' Indians, there's nothing wrong with 'em," said a bloke with a zinc-creamed nose on the edge of Bay 13.

Two Australian wickets fell in short order, and if there was a moment for wringing the acid of racial contempt from raw disappointment, that was it. But no, it didn't happen, at least not in words that would offend anyone but the people who invented the game. "Indians, they're better than Poms!" joked another reveller. And so it went under an enchanted southern sky, the sport's sacramental moments observed and revered.

Outside the G, a trio of kids marked the lunch break with tennis ball, toy bat and a tree trunk for their wicket. "Owzat!" cried the bowler, who couldn't have been older than 13, as ball hit bark. There was no umpire and no argument from the batsman, who handed the yellow lump of plastic to his mate without protest and took up fielding. It was a classic moment. And 50 years from now, like the sixty-something pair from Crown carpark, those kids will be older and balder and maybe a little crotchety. But they'll be back for sure to watch the Boxing Day Test and to honour what is, in Melbourne, one of our holiest days of obligation.

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Tsunami aid money spent on Leftist politics

I give a lot of money away but I almost always give it direct to the intended beneficiary. The story below is one of many which shows why. Even though I am a former registered dog breeder, I do NOT intend to remember the local dog's home (RSPCA) in my will for fear that the money could fall into the hands of "animal lib" fanatics.

I used to donate to World Vision until they came out with one-sided criticisms of Israel. I tried to donate to World Vision on condition that the money go to a needy Jewish child in Israel but they would not take my money under such conditions. Because of her huge military burdens, Israel is still in many ways a poor country so there are many needy Jewish families there. I am afraid that ALL the well-known "aid" organizations must be regarded as very dubious conduits for actual aid. There are however Jewish charities which aim to help poor Israeli families and my negative remarks must not be taken as applying to them

THREE years after Australians donated $400 million to rebuild Asian lives devastated by the 2004 tsunami, aid groups are under attack for spending much of the money on social and political engineering. A survey by The Australian of the contributions by non-government organisations to the relief effort found the donations had been spent on politically correct projects promoting left-wing Western values over traditional Asian culture.

The activities - listed as tsunami relief - include a "travelling Oxfam gender justice show" in Indonesia to change rural male attitudes towards women. Another Oxfam project, reminiscent of the ACTU's Your Rights at Work campaign, instructs Thai workers in Australian-style industrial activism and encourages them to set up trade unions.

A World Vision tsunami relief project in the Indonesian province of Aceh includes a lobbying campaign to advance land reform to promote gender equity, as well as educating women in "democratic processes" and encouraging them to enter politics. Also in Aceh, the Catholic aid group Caritas funds an Islamic learning centre to promote "the importance of the Koran". This is seen as recognition of the importance of Islam in a province that has been the scene of a long-running and bloody independence struggle against the secular central Government.

The earthquake on December26, 2004, created the most powerful tsunami in 40 years, killing about 230,000 people in 12 Indian Ocean nations, just under half of them in Aceh. Critics say the aid agencies have exceeded the mandate provided to them by mum-and-dad donors from middle Australia who thought they were giving money to rebuild houses and lives shattered by the tsunami, rather than forcing the ideological views of the Australian Left on traditional Asians.

One critic, Don D'Cruz, wrote at the outset of the relief operation that Indonesian claims of "foreign interference" through Australian NGOs were too often brushed aside. Mr D'Cruz, then a research fellow with the right-wing think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, wrote "it would be a mistake to ignore the substance of these claims, especially when it comes to the activities of Western aid groups operating in Indonesia. The trend among aid organisations has been to become more involved in politics, although this activism has been largely masked." Going beyond humanitarian and development aid, he wrote, risked alienating Asian governments, which could deny access.

Looking through their websites, the aid groups ventured farbeyond standard aid and development. The Oxfam website describes how $18,690 of its tsunami relief fund is being spent on a theatre production to "help change attitudes toward women in Acehnese society". "In one scene, Apa Kaoy, who cannot cook, grumbles when his wife, exhausted from working in the rice field, has not prepared supper," Oxfam says of the play. "In another, he disapproves of his daughter's ambition to study at university. Instead, holding a newspaper upside down because he cannot read, Apa Kaoy tells his daughter it is important that she learn to cook, clean, marry and have children. "Eventually, though, his attitude towards women softens as other more enlightened men point out the error of his ways."

Oxfam Australia chief executive Andrew Hewett yesterday said his organisation initially concentrated on immediate humanitarian relief, including providing food, shelter and medicine to those affected by the tsunami. It had since then turned to reconstruction, and rebuilding the ability of those affected to earn a living. But Mr Hewett said Oxfam "did not shy away" from its concentration on those less well off and less empowered, including women, indigenous groups and the low caste, saying it was a practical issue of delivering aid for maximum effect. "Women, like it or not, fare least well when it comes to resources and political power, including within a village community, and those who are disadvantaged often suffer most when disaster hits," he said.

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Government hospital incompetence kills baby

MAREEBA'S model midwife maternity unit's reputation is being seriously questioned after the death of a baby that hospital staff have said "was likely to have been preventable". The death of the baby at the Mareeba Maternity Unit while a 19-year-old woman was in labour has been blamed on a culture of fear, lack of training and a breakdown in procedure by staff. The incident is being investigated by the Health Quality and Complaints Commission, after an internal investigation.

The Cairns Post has obtained copies of Queensland Health's internal reports and memorandums into the May 2007 death. It found the handling of the birth by staff may have "contributed to the baby not being born alive" and described the death as "likely to have been preventable".

The report is a damning assessment of the teenager's care. In it, the nurse unit manager reported that clinical decisions made throughout the episodes of care were a contributing factor and stated "something should have been done sooner". The report also cited an ill-defined model of care, a reluctance of non primary midwives to take responsibility and a lack of managerial leadership, collaboration and communication as a possible contributing factor to the death.

A source told The Cairns Post babies were dying and mothers were being damaged and placed at significant risk of dying with "full acknowledgement and support of Queensland Health management". The whistleblower said Queensland Health was ignoring the situation. "This unit is allowed to continue to function, despite significant safety concerns raised by the staff working at the Mareeba Maternity," they said. "There is a strong culture of bullying and harassment . midwives and other nursing staff who have raised concerns have not been supported or even listened to by management and have been bullied, encourage to leave, from the workplace. "There have been numerous cases of disasters or near disasters that have been brought to Queensland Health management attention with no interim safety measures put in place to protect this community and its mothers."

Cairns and Hinterland Health Service district manager Angela Beckett said a small number of complaints from staff about unsafe working practices formed part of the complaint made to the HQCC being investigated. "Regarding complaints of bullying and harassment, specialist staff from the Workforce Directorate and the Northern Area Health Service have been working with the staff of the Mareeba Maternity Unit to improve communication and relationships and to ensure that the culture within the unit is open and honest," she said. Mrs Beckett said an internal audit of clinical work practices at the maternity unit and the district found there were no concerns about patient safety. "If the district had any concerns about patient safety, the district would not have hesitated to close the unit down," she said.

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Australia/Britain ties still strong

Article below by Greg Sheridan, Foreign editor of "The Australian". He notes strong ties at the military level between Australian and Britain. One reason is that there are many British-born people in Australia's armed forces and even some Australians in the British armed forces

IT was good to see Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Afghanistan and Iraq with the Aussie troops just before Christmas. That is the right place for a leader to be. Rudd bolstered the troops' morale, showing them that we all care about them. The trip also had geo-strategic purposes. In Iraq, Rudd is withdrawing our combat troops, but he underlined Canberra's continuing commitment to help Iraq, not least through military assets, and indeed help the US project in Iraq. In Afghanistan, Rudd said Australia was committed "for the long haul" to fighting the Taliban.

These are admirable and important statements. They indicate clearly that, contrary to the wishes of some commentators, Rudd is not withdrawing from Australia's global engagement in security matters, including involvement in the Middle East. It also means the US-Australia intimacy of recent years, especially the military intimacy and its all-important intelligence aspect, will continue. It was not an aberration born of the unique circumstances of Iraq but a natural evolution. Although Rudd will rightly put heavy emphasis on Asia, he also cites the US alliance as another of the three pillars of his foreign policy. (The third is the UN.) He also has close British connections and spoke to Gordon Brown soon after his victory.

Last year I wrote a book on the US-Australia alliance called The Partnership. In researching it I was astonished at just how intimate the US-Australian military and intelligence relationships have become. But the most surprising thing I discovered while writing the book did not directly concern the Americans at all. Rather, it was the astonishing, continuing, political, military and intelligence closeness between Australia and Britain. This was surprising in part because we are not big players in Britain's primary sphere of concern, Europe. And London's direct security interests in our part of the world are limited. But we are global players and so is Britain, even more so. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the G8 and NATO, and with renowned armed forces, London doesn't have to punch above its weight to be highly influential. It merely has to punch at its weight.

Everywhere I went in the US-Australia alliance, I found the Brits. Our special forces train with theirs, as we do with the Americans. Our troops on exchange with the Brits can deploy into military operations with them, an extremely rare practice, but something we also do with the Yanks. Australian liaison officers attend the most sensitive British intelligence meetings and vice versa, in arrangements of such intimacy that they are equalled only in our relationship with the US.

Then another thing struck me: that while this was all entirely to the good as we share so much in values and history with the Brits (and I say this an Irish Australian), this was really all happening without any overarching structure to inform the public or even to give top level policy guidance. It was organic.

Now here, dear reader, I have to confess, for the sake of the historical record, an episode of direct personal activism. I have never had any problems with journalistic activism so long as this activism consists primarily of advocating a policy and so long as this advocacy is carried out primarily in print. But in this particular case events moved more swiftly than I could get into print and I also faced some question about the status, in terms of on or off-the-record, of certain conversations. In any event, now that all the politicians involved at the time are retired, here is the story, for what it'sworth.

When then British prime minister Tony Blair visited Australia I was invited to participate in an Australia-UK Dialogue held in Canberra. Given the chance to put in my two bobs' worth, I argued that the two nations were military allies in effect, but there was no formal framework for this alliance and, while economic, cultural and sporting links were well celebrated and understood, there should be some agreement, pact or structure that carried the security relationship. Most attendees at this function were business types and the idea didn't seem to grab them.

That night, there was a reception for Blair at the Lodge in Canberra and those of us who had attended the day's meeting were invited along. Howard introduced Blair around the room and I had a few minutes' conversation with him. Determined not to waste this opportunity, I put my idea to Blair. Blair was quite euphoric about Australia, where he was getting a very friendly reception, but gently joked about my idea, saying (with full irony and no intent to be taken seriously) that perhaps Britain and Australia could team up against China.

Howard reacted politely enough to the idea but had that uneasy quality of the politician cornered by the mad voter from Gulargambone who wants him to turn the rivers back. But if you have a mad policy idea, you mustn't be deterred by mere indifference at the highest level. Around the Lodge that night I buttonholed various senior defence, foreign affairs and intelligence bureaucrats and put the idea to them as well. None had any argument against it, but all were similarly noncommittal. Finally I found Alexander Downer and put the idea to him. He, too, was noncommittal, but he pointed out that Iraq and Afghanistan had intensified Australian-British military and intelligence co-operation from an admittedly already high base. He seemed to chew the idea over.

I was planning to write a column in a few days making the argument in print that I'd been making verbally. But the next day Blair attended an Australian cabinet meeting. In the middle of the meeting, without any preparatory staff work, Downer suggested a new Australian-British body of foreign and defence ministers meeting annually, along the lines of the AUSMIN meetings Australia has annually with the US. Downer apologised to Howard for not having raised it in advance privately. Blair, without consulting his advisers, was generous and enthusiastic in his response. He thought it was a great idea.

Thus was born AUKMIN, which is now the highest level formal strategic consultation we have with the Brits. I felt weirdly constrained about writing about this, as I presumed the Lodge conversations were more or less off the record. Bureaucrats in both countries were taken wholly by surprise, despite what they might tell you. Rudd was also at the Lodge that night. His splendid words in Afghanistan suggest he will make full and intelligent use of AUKMIN, as sound an institution as has ever been created with so little bureaucratic preparation.

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