This debacle is what the Greenies wish on everybody



TRAIN commuters are being ferried on buses and in taxis for free because of a massive spike in the number of scheduled Citytrain services that never turn up. New figures have revealed there were more than 1500 unscheduled cancellations of Citytrain services in the first four months of this financial year - a five-fold increase in the overall rate of cancellations in the previous financial year.

A significant factor in the cancellation blowout has been Queensland Rail's failure to employ the additional drivers needed to operate new trains ordered several years ago. CityTrain's woes have added to the meltdown occurring in public transport services throughout southeast Queensland. Buses routinely leave passengers behind because they are full, while the system's co-ordinating authority, TransLink, is clueless about on-time performance.

Transport Minister John Mickel yesterday admitted the number of cancelled trains was "completely unacceptable", while the union said Queensland Rail could blame nothing but its own poor planning. Rail, Tram and Bus Union state president Bruce Mackie said there had been no increase in the number of drivers and guards as the amount of rolling stock grew and extra services were added. "There is simply more work to be done and the same amount of people to do it, so you eventually run out of people," Mr Mackie said.

Mr Mickel said he was dissatisfied and was doing something about it. He vowed train passengers would continue to receive free alternative transport, such as buses or taxis, if they were left at a station. ["Alternatives" that often add hours to journey times!]

The figures show cancellations peaked in July at 469.9 compared to 70.5 the previous year. The six-fold increase has previously been blamed on a flu outbreak in QR's ranks. However, there were more than 300 unscheduled cancellations in each of the following three months - twice as many more than occurred in any month in 2006-07. The figures do not include the planned cancellations cut from Citytrain's 800 scheduled services a day.

Coalition transport spokesman Tim Nicholls said the number of cancellations meant more than 5000 commuters a day were left behind. Mr Nicholls said there were experienced train crew in regional Queensland wanting to work on Citytrains but they were being forced to wait three years to be transferred. "This is just another example of Labor's failure to plan for growth in southeast Queensland," he said.

Mr Mickel confirmed new drivers had not been ready for the extra services but would not say when he expected the fast-tracking of additional staff to cut cancellations.

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More on the government response below: Tough talk but no action yet, even though the problem goes back a long way

STATE Transport Minister John Mickel has issued a blunt message to Queensland Rail: improve services and hire more staff. Mr Mickel says he has ordered Queensland Rail to speed up the employment of almost 100 extra train crew, including drivers and guards, to work on the Citytrain network in the state's south-east.

"I have been appalled by the number of trains either running late or being cancelled due to a shortage of guards," he said. "I have told QR that we need to deliver to the passengers travelling on the Citytrain network." He said 24 new drivers and 24 guards had now been employed to start work on Christmas Eve with an additional 48 to start early next year. Guards will also be diverted from low patronage services to peak services to improve reliability during busy times. Passengers pay for a service and they deserve to be getting the service they pay for," he said.

Mr Mickel said services needed to be improved for commuters to take public transport. "If we are going to get people out of their cars and on to public transport, it has to be reliable, accessible and affordable," he said. [He got that right!]

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The un-stolen "generation": There's nobody to apologise to

CONVENTIONAL wisdom now accepts that the Rudd Labor Government will make an apology to the so-called stolen generation and, indeed, demands are being made that this apology will also claim that the removal of Aboriginal children from their families was "evil" and "cruel". But who exactly will this apology be made to, given that just one member of the so-called stolen generation has been identified in any legal sense and, even then, his later emotional problems were more directly related to attempts to return him to his natural family than to any experience with his adoptive family?

Ten years after the highly emotive but legally unreliable Bringing Them Home report was launched amid a chorus of sobbing sympathisers, only Bruce Trevorrow, a 50-year-old South Australian, has been awarded any compensation, winning $525,000 from the SA Government when Supreme Court judge Thomas Gray found the state had breached its duty of care. Mr Trevorrow had been admitted to hospital suffering stomach pains as a "neglected child without parents" when he was 13 months old. The hospital's notes say he was suffering from "malnutrition" and "infective diarrhoea". They add: "The other two children are neglected. Mother has cleared out and father is boozing."

After two weeks treatment, he was fostered into the home of Martha and Frank Davies, a white couple with two children of their own. Young Trevorrow spent nearly 10 years with the Davies family but has little memory of those days. His foster sister Carole Malinda, who was 15 when her parents brought the young Aborigine home, remembers him as "one of the family". She has said: "He was just our brother. We were told that he had been abandoned, which was a lie but we didn't know that, of course. He was just a person who needed a home."

Then the state changed its policy on removed children, and he began to visit his natural mother Thora Lampard (she had remarried), finally returning to her for good. His adoptive family found his departure wrenching. "We weren't told he was going away, so it was quite traumatic," Ms Malinda has said. "My mother cried her eyes out. She had lost her son and we didn't know why. He wasn't allowed to take any of his things ... He actually tried to walk home, back to us."

In fact, Mr Trevorrow found he no longer fitted into his natural family (his mother bashed him) and soon he went into institutional care. In hindsight, he might have been served better had the authorities let him remain with his adoptive family.

To publicly state such a thing is heresy to those who champion the sorry business and the apology, but it is a fact that Mr Trevorrow is the only person out of the hundreds of thousands claimed to have been "stolen" to have succeeded in any manner in any court. Mrs Lowitja (formerly Lois) O'Donoghue, a patron of the Stolen Generations Alliance (along with former prime minister Malcolm Fraser) was not stolen and nor was the late Charles Perkins, who was also hailed as a representative of this near mythical group. Ms O'Donoghue used to claim she had been stolen but admitted to my colleague Andrew Bolt six years ago that her white father had dumped first his eldest two children, Eileen and Geoff, at a missionary-run home for abandoned and sick Aboriginal children in Quorn, South Australia, and come back years later with three more, including Lois, who never saw him again. "He wanted to move on," Ms O'Donoghue told Bolt. Only the youngest of the six children stayed with their Aboriginal mother, who'd agreed to send the others away, and she has lived a harsh life.

The late Mr Perkins told me his mother had placed him with missionaries hoping he would get an education and greater opportunities and he rose to the challenge, attending university and rising within the federal public service to become head of the Aboriginal Affairs Department.

Ms O'Donoghue has warned the Rudd Government's Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin that not only must an apology harshly condemn the removal policies of state governments, but the apology would be meaningless without compensation. The figure she has in mind is $1 billion or the apology "won't settle anything", according to a report in The Australian.

Ms O'Donoghue should reconsider her position. While most Australians feel a sense of despair at the plight of disadvantaged Aboriginals, they would prefer that something practical be done to ensure that those condemned to live in dysfunctional remote communities or fringe settlements by generations of misguided left-wing policy makers are offered an opportunity to improve their lot through genuine programs, not just a series of hand-outs demanded by a group making dubious claims that don't meet any legal tests.

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Statutory rape OK again

Whatever has happened to the age of consent?

A SEX abuse victim is shattered after a judge ruled he had consented to his own assault as a 13-year-old. The deaf victim, who summoned the courage to face his abuser in court, has now had his faith in the justice system destroyed, his family says. The victim's stepfather today joined condemnation of a judge for summing up the sexual assault by a 24-year-old man as adolescent "experimentation" and releasing him on a suspended sentence.

Yesterday, Judge Michael Kelly said the the 13-year-old deaf boy consented to his own sexual abuse and described the sexual assault by a 24-year-old man as adolescent experimentation before releasing him on a suspended sentence. Judge Kelly said the young teenager and his attacker -- the only deaf people in their country community -- were both victims of "experimental lust". "There was not the difference in their levels of maturity that their physical age would suggest," Judge Kelly said.

The young victim's stepfather today said the refusal to jail the abuser was an insult that had angered, upset and bewildered the victim. "I don't know how he will cope with it ... this could haunt him for 40 years," the stepfather said. "I just know that he was very, very, upset last night. "I just know that he's lost faith in the court system," he said on Southern Cross radio.

The stepfather said he was horrified when the abuse came to his attention. His stepson had spent four years going through the legal system and bravely opted to face his abuser in court rather than by video link, only to be dealt a cruel blow. "He wanted to confront this guy and show him he wasn't beaten," the man said.

The stepfather said his stepson's life had not been the same since the assault. He had lost two jobs and was now considering leaving another.

Australian Childhood Foundation chief Dr Joe Tucci said the judge's comments were offensive. "It is indefensible and . . . continuing to perpetrate a misunderstanding of how children cannot give consent and cannot in any way be responsible for their own sexual abuse," he said. "He actually has minimised the violence against this young boy and he has also, I think, given voice to those who think sexually abusing 13-year-olds is OK." "He is not discharging his responsibilities as a community leader . . . the Government should move immediately to suspend him or force his retirement."

Hetty Johnston, founder of child advocacy group Bravehearts, said the judge was an absolute disgrace. "We have to get rid of these dinosaurs from our benches," she said. Calling for an appeal, Ms Johnston said community standards were not being upheld and victims needed to be respected. "It takes away the power of all victims everywhere."

Ms Johnston and Dr Tucci both called for the abolition of suspended sentences in underage sex assault cases and clearer standards in sentencing. Judge Kelly was rebuked by a senior prosecutor last month during the offender's plea hearing when he said the victim impact statement was a "waste of time". The victim "wouldn't have done well in a British public school in the '30s", Judge Kelly said at the time. "The majority of people who suffer this kind of incident at some stage in their life simply get over it and think no more of it."

Addressing those comments yesterday, Judge Kelly said he'd fallen into legal error and hoped the victim's despairing predictions for the future proved false. But he went on to say: "The complainant . . . gives a horrific account of his perception of the effect upon him and his life of the crimes committed upon him by the prisoner, notwithstanding that he consented to the whole of the conduct and that it appears to be common ground that he initiated it."

The County Court heard that in March 2001 the older man began a relationship with the young teenager while on a camp for people with hearing disabilities. They had been long-time friends and shared a close bond because of hearing problems. The sexual relationship continued until October 2003 when the victim's brother caught them in bed. The man pleaded guilty to four counts of sexual penetration and one of an indecent act with a child under 16.

The court heard the man was pathologically lonely and lived in a silent world because none of his family had learned sign language. A psychologist gave evidence that the man's inability to properly communicate had left him socially starved and naive.

Judge Kelly said: "I accept the view that this offending grew out of friendship, curiosity and immaturity, was an isolated exercise of very poor judgment, and is much regretted," he said. The man was sentenced to two years and nine months' jail, wholly suspended for three years.

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100,000 patients on hold in South Australia

MORE than 100,000 patients were not seen on time in the state's emergency departments last year, the latest Health Department figures show. Almost 18,000 more people sought emergency treatment last financial year compared to the year before, putting pressure on overloaded staff. Only about two in three people were seen within the ideal waiting times. While almost all patients requiring resuscitation were seen to immediately, emergency departments are still failing to meet targets for other urgent cases.

Health Minister John Hill said waiting times were improving despite the "enormous extra workload". "The most significant insight from these figures is that despite the massive increase in the number of people going to EDs, our hospitals are improving in terms of waiting times - not going backwards," he said. "But we know there is more work to do and that's why the Government launched SA's $2.2 billion Health Care Plan this year, designed to reform the health system and make it work better for patients and expand capacity at our hospitals."

Opposition health spokeswoman Michelle Lensink said the health care reforms were the "worst decision" the Government had made. "The fact they want to centralise everything into the new Marjorie Jackson-Nelson Hospital will make things much worse for people who live in areas like the west or the north-east because there's an increase in ambulance transit times," she said.

Mr Hill, who wrote to his federal counterpart, Nicola Roxon, yesterday with proposals to increase elective surgery numbers, said besides opening 250 beds and expanding emergency departments in the hospital system, the Government was working to keep people out of hospital through its GP Plus Health Care Centres and hospital at home programs. "Importantly people should be reassured that if they are suffering a life-threatening condition they will get immediate treatment in our hospitals," he said.

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Teachers 'bullied more' in public schools

TEACHERS at government schools are bullied more frequently than their colleagues in the independent and Catholic sectors, with a survey suggesting the problem is rife in Western Australia and Queensland. Preliminary findings from a national survey conducted by the University of New England found government teachers were commonly criticised for their work, excluded from decision-making, threatened, intimidated, shoved and sexually harassed.

The voluntary internet survey attracted more than 800 responses, with 99.8 per cent reporting they had been bullied at school by fellow teachers, principals or parents. Senior lecturer in business, economics and public policy at UNE, Dan Riley, said the results showed that a disturbing proportion of teachers were being bullied regularly. "Government schools are not very attentive to bullying," he said. "Claims made (by bullied teachers) often take a long time to be investigated or are ignored altogether."

The survey found bullying was less common in Catholic and independent schools. The most common instance reported at independent schools was insulting emails. Most complaints were made by teachers in NSW, about 40 per cent, but teachers in Western Australia and Queensland were over-represented in the survey.

The acting federal president of the Australian Education Union, Angelo Gavrielatos, stressed that the survey was voluntary. "It needs to be recognised that the respondents had self-selected to participate in the survey ... although the issue of bullying is of concern in any workplace, and this is no exception," he said.

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