Homosexual marriage still barred in Australia

Incoming Attorney-General Robert McClelland has said that the Labor party is unlikely to block a re-developed proposal to introduce same-sex civil unions in the Australian Capital Territory. The news comes as Attorney-General for the ACT Simon Corbell is planning to submit an amended civil partnerships bill, which would give same-sex couples legal recognition.

In an interview published in the Herald on Friday, Mr McClelland reemphasized that Labor would not be giving full marriage rights to same-sex couples, but would support couples having the same legal rights as de facto heterosexual couples. "I will have a look at what Simon Corbell is proposing and get some advice on it," Mr McClelland said. "We would be prepared to look at it with good faith rather than with the intention of obstructing it. The Labor Party has already resolved not to agree to gay marriage but we are given to examining appropriate forms of registration of de facto relationships, including same-sex de facto relationships."

Previous attempts to introduce same-sex civil union partnerships in the ACT were overturned by the Howard government.

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Rudd rules out defence cuts

Australia's military deployments will be exempt from funding cuts planned by the new Labor government's razor gang. During the federal election campaign, Labor promised to take a "meat-axe" to commonwealth spending. But Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd has quashed fears that troops will be affected.

"Those who are at the cutting edge of Australia's military deployments around the world should not be subject to efficiency dividends being yielded through the administrative expenses of Canberra-based departments," Mr Rudd told ABC Radio today. "The military, I think, are under extraordinary pressure given the hot pace of operations in what they're engaged and I won't be party to any government decision which places any further financial pressure on the military."

But he said the civilian component of defence would not be exempt from spending cuts. "They would be subjected to the same disciplines as other administrative expenses of government departments, but there is a clear distinction between the civilian side of the operation and the administrative expenses associated with that on one hand, and the hard edge, the military edge of the defence portfolio on the other."

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Muslims tell Rudd to maintain hard line

MUSLIM leaders are urging the fledgling Rudd Government to maintain the hardline stance against extremists, fearing the end of the Howard era will embolden radicals. Sydney-based Muslim cleric Hersi Hilole warned the Rudd administration against being "light and lenient" on radicals. Sheik Hilole said radical Muslims could interpret John Howard's electoral loss as an opportunity to express their ideological beliefs openly and drum up their recruitment drive. "The extremists will try to take every advantage that they think will be possible and available for them and they will most probably try to spread their ideas and recruit more people for their cause," he told The Australian.

But Indonesian Muslim spiritual leader Amin Hady said the Rudd Government must embrace a more inclusive approach when dealing with the Islamic community and not sideline hardliners. He said the previous government's unwillingness to include Islamic hardliners such as Melbourne-based cleric Mohammed Omran on Mr Howard's Islamic reference board was counterproductive because it further distanced an element of the Muslim community that was most in need of integration.

Sheik Hady said Mr Rudd should work with mainstream Muslim leaders to help his Government gain better access into the minds of hardliners. "The Government should use mainstream leaders to approach them (hardliners) and to bring them in line with the rest of the community members," said the former member of Mr Howard's Islamic reference group. "Of course, we acknowledge that there are certain extremist groups in the Muslim society."

The Australian revealed in July that national security authorities were aware of at least 10 hardline clerics around the country, including Sheik Omran, who were propagating a Wahabi ideology espoused by al-Qa'ida leader Osama bin Laden. It was also revealed that Wahabi clerics were potentially radicalising up to 3000 young Sydneysiders alone.

A spokesman for Sheik Omran's fundamentalist Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jammah association said the group was optimistic the Rudd Government would be more interested in hearing about their views and community work. "We are all optimistic of the change of government," said Abu Yusuf. "It opens a new chapter in dialogue between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities."

Sheik Hilole - a respected Somali community figure who has repeatedly attacked Australian Muslims who have travelled overseas to fight jihad - said Mr Rudd needed to learn from Mr Howard's mistake and not "exaggerate" the potential threat of Islamic terrorism in Australia. "Hopefully, the Rudd Government will face the issue in a real way not an exaggerated way," he said. "The Howard Government failed to act on extremism appropriately ... because of the exaggeration and generalisation of the Muslim community and many mistakes that the national security (authorities) have done."

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Bias against ability and the rich fading in Australian medical school admissions

A pity about students who have already been discriminated against by these evil processes though. In a rational world admission interviews would have been tested for predictive power BEFORE they were introduced. But evidence did not drive their introduction. Class-hatred did

AUSTRALIA'S biggest medical school is scrapping interviews for student selection as "useless", saying they are too prone to bias and there is no evidence interviewers can pick which applicants will perform well during the course. The decision by the University of Queensland means the 400 students accepted into its medical course next year will be assessed on their academic record alone, without having to face an interview panel. The university expects other medical schools may follow suit -- and the move seems likely at least to reopen a debate about the merits of interviews, which attracted controversy last year over allegations of bias.

There has also been unease over the growth of expensive courses that coach students what to say in interviews to maximise their chances of being accepted. Some universities have already been scaling back the emphasis on interview performance. Adelaide University last year adjusted its assessment procedures to give equal consideration to a school-leaver's tertiary entrance rank and marks at interview, instead of giving most weight to the latter. Earlier in the year the university had been accused by its former deputy chancellor of "unwritten discrimination" against applicants from private schools and medical families -- charges the university strongly denied.

As a graduate-entry medical school, UQ's new arrangements mean applicants will be considered if they score more than five in their grade-point average, the summary of their academic work in their previous degree course. After passing that hurdle, those considered will be ranked for entry according to their marks in the Graduate Australian Medical School Admissions Test, or GAMSAT. Previously, the interview has been the third part of UQ's selection process.

Until this year the University of Sydney also chose students solely on the basis of performance at interview, but now gives equal weight to marks in the GAMSAT. Dean of medicine Bruce Robinson said the university was now conducting a review of the admission procedures, due to report in March.

UQ's decision, recently approved by the university's Senate, came after months of research to find out to what extent the interview scores of candidates were correlating with their subsequent performance during the medical course. "The answer was not very much," said David Wilkinson, head of UQ's school of medicine. The research showed that performance at interview predicted only 10 per cent of the variation in academic performance during the course.

The grade-point average was the best predictor of performance during the course. Although the GAMSAT correlated only slightly with how well students did later on, the fact that the same test was sat by all applicants meant it remained useful for ranking applicants, Professor Wilkinson said. "All the evidence shows that the interview is useless," he said. He said the potential bias of the interviewers was also a valid concern. "Even though we have had very rigorous training programs for interviewers, there's inevitably a level of subjectivity there, and there have been some questions raised about quality control, standardisation and fairness, and defensibility," he said.

Peter Brooks, executive dean of UQ's faculty of health sciences, said the change was "a big deal" and the university now had "data that it (the interview) doesn't really do all that much".

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