Crime epidemic coverup

The criminals are black, you see

AUTHORITIES are investigating the high turnover rate of single female teachers and nurses on some Torres Strait islands amid claims of a sex-crime cover up. Peeping toms, sexual harassment, stalking and even rape are among the reasons most listed by white female workers in requests for urgent "compassionate" evacuation and transfer, a source has revealed. One senior Torres Strait public servant yesterday told The Courier-Mail there was a direct link between a high turnover of staff and sex crimes.

Islands such as Saibai, Dauan, Mabuiag and Badu have a much higher turnover of outside staff than other island communities that offer two-year contracts. "Some of these young female workers are only lasting a few weeks to three months before they get transferred out," said the source, who asked not to be named. "We believe there is a cover-up between the rates of reported sex assaults and urgent transfer of female staff on certain islands. There is a direct link between the two that the Government does not want anyone to know."

As health officials met community leaders on Mabuiag yesterday over the bungled handling of the rape of a nurse on the island last month, it was confirmed the nurse had made repeated requests for upgraded security before the incident occurred. The single health worker on the island complained of broken locks on doors and windows, no curtains and no running water. She was refused permission for an urgent evacuation after she was raped and then had her pay docked when she fled on a flight paid for by her boyfriend. The nurse also claimed she previously spent three days with the decomposing body of a heart-attack victim before a helicopter took it to Thursday Island for post-mortem.

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Growing black population drives out whites

Meaning mostly that idle welfare dependants are driving out productive citizens

Nobody in the besieged Iemma Government should be surprised that white students are fleeing state schools, or that towns like Moree, Dubbo and Tamworth are being overwhelmed by the social demands of dispossessed, impoverished Aboriginal communities. Rural towns - even places like Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Kalgoorlie and Wadeye - are urban time bombs. Their fast-growing indigenous communities represent the biggest challenge facing policymakers in Canberra, Sydney and Darwin.

The Herald reported yesterday that a secret report by high school principals revealed that white students were fleeing public schools, leaving behind those of Aboriginal and Middle Eastern origin. The survey raises serious concerns about "white flight" undermining the public education system and threatening social cohesion.

The indigenous population is growing at three times the national average, and governments are failing to keep up with the increasing "ghettoisation" of rural communities as services fail to keep pace with demands for better housing, health care, education and policing. The problem appears to be so immense that policymakers seem utterly unprepared for the impact of the massive demographic change. And nowhere are the pressures being felt more than in schools, where record numbers of Aborigines are enrolling.

The crisis has been well documented by two of the nation's most experienced policymakers and researchers, Michael Dillon and Neil Westbury, in their recently released landmark book Beyond Humbug. It should be compulsory reading for every member of the Iemma cabinet. They discovered that the influx of Aborigines into rural towns has been matched by an exodus of non-indigenous Australians who have moved out, taking skills, wealth and in some cases businesses with them. In Broken Hill the non-indigenous population dropped 5.9 per cent. In South Australia's Port Augusta the decline was 6.8 per cent.

On the growth of the Aboriginal population, Westbury told the Herald: "It is a bedrock issue, without doubt one of the biggest issues facing government. For too long governments have adopted a one-size-fits-all approach which fails to account for individual community needs. We have towns doubling in size every generation, but they are still being funded like communities." Westbury worked with the former Northern Territory chief minister, Clare Martin, before disagreement over policy led to a falling out.

Dillon, an academic and former administrator, is senior policy adviser to the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin. Between them Westbury and Dillon have decades of experience in administration and policymaking. Westbury said housing and education presented the most profound challenges, and if swift action was not taken levels of dysfunction would only get worse. He said the present level of funding would be inadequate for what lay ahead.

He said the fast-growing indigenous population was presenting governments with a crisis far larger than that identified by the Howard government's emergency intervention, which was a response to endemic levels of abuse in Northern Territory remote communities.

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Defence: Bungle after bungle

Only half of Australia's submarine fleet can be sent to war, because of a critical shortage of qualified submariners. The crisis has left the Royal Australian Navy with only three full crews for its six Collins-class submarines, severely undermining the effectiveness of one of the nation's most vital and expensive defence assets. "It's becoming a ghost fleet," said one submariner, who asked not to be named. "We are losing our crews - it feels like the Mary Celeste." The Australian understands that the navy currently has a 37per cent shortfall in submarine crews - the highest on record for the $6 billion Collins-class fleet. The shortfall has forced the navy to slash the number of sailing days for the fleet for the third time in as many years.

Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon, who has inherited a recruitment crisis across the Australian Defence Force, has pledged that the issue will be a first-order priority for the Rudd Government. The submarine crew crisis comes at a time when the navy is unable to send its four FFG guided missile frigates to war because of a bungled $1.4 billion upgrade. Last week's decision by the Government to axe the troubled $1 billion Seasprite helicopter program has also left the navy's Anzac-class frigates without a vital capability designed to protect them from hostile ships and submarines.

The Defence Department maintains that despite the "significant shortfall" in submarine crews, it still has enough to "meet operational requirements" for the submarines. But Defence does not say if these operational tasks have been reduced in line with declining crew numbers. Defence sources say the exodus of submariners - mostly to better-paid jobs in Western Australia's booming mining sector - has been stemmed in recent months, raising hopes that the worst may be over. However, there is no sign of any recovery in crew numbers from current historical lows.

The navy requires about 45 sailors to crew a Collins-class submarine, but about 50 per cent of these need to be qualified technicians - the same skill sets required by cashed-up mining companies. Despite offering a range of incentives to recruit and retain submariners - including substantially higher pay than other military personnel - the navy has struggled to retain its crews. One or two of the six Collins submarines are in dock for maintenance at any one time, but the navy needs at least five full crews to give it the flexibility it requires to respond to a military crisis. Three submarines - HMAS Dechaineux, HMAS Farncomb and HMAS Sheean - are undergoing maintenance, but even if they were ready for duty there would be no crews for them.

Defence experts have warned that the reduction in time spent at sea will mean crews get less exposure to operational experience and the basic war training they require. Former defence minister Kim Beazley, who commissioned the Collins-class fleet in the 1980s, said the navy would want at least four crews, and preferably six, available at any one time. "I am sure the navy would want four crews available at any point in time and in a perfect world they would want to be ableto adequately crew all thesubmarines," he told The Australian. "Good economic times always make it tough for recruitment. One of the major tasks confronting the Government will be how to sustain and retain recruitment for the submarines."

The navy has tried to lure submariners by increasing pay and bonuses, giving submariners starting salaries in excess of $80,000. But the unusual lifestyle of submariners has had it hard to attract Generations X and Y to the so-called silent service. The Collins-class submarines cruise silently beneath the surface, often for months at a time, eavesdropping and collecting intelligence on key targets. Sailing schedules are top secret and crews are forbidden to speak with outsiders about their work. Days are broken up into four shifts of six hours on and then six hours off around the clock seven days a week. "The types of people we are looking for are what we call extroverted introverts," the Navy says on its website. "People who get along with others but at the same time are mentally able to occupy their 'own space', even though others surround them."

The Australian revealed in December that Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon had ordered planning to begin on the next generation of submarines to replace the six Collins-class boats when they are retired in 2025. The 17-year submarine replacement plan will be the longest and most expensive defence project undertaken in Australia, potentially costing up to $25 billion. It comes at a time when regional navies such as Indonesia's, China's and India's are seeking to drastically expand their submarine fleets, potentially altering the balance of naval power.

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Huge costs to Australia of heeding the dubious warming claims

HUNDREDS of prominent scientists this week attended a conference in New York hosted by the US Heartland Institute. The scientists rejected claims that we are seeing catastrophic human-induced global warming. They concluded that the earth may be undergoing a period of modest warming but that it and cooling are constant features of the earth's climate. There was agreement that present global temperatures are not abnormal.

The debate on global warming has displaced the struggle about whether socialism or capitalism was the best approach to running an economy. Radicals once sought to replace private enterprise with state control. Now they want the removal of coal, oil and gas to justify a new and more comprehensive form of state control. As with the march of socialism, even politicians sceptical about the claims of an impending catastrophe are being forced to go along with measures promoted by the radicals. Taxes and regulations to reduce carbon emissions are being steadily introduced while governments pray that their effect will be minor.

The all-embracing of measures being touted, for example in the Garnaut report, involve everyone in the world being allocated the same amount of carbon dioxide and this being steadily reduced. For Australia, average emissions would be reduced to a fifth of their existing levels, from around 16 tonnes per person of carbon dioxide equivalent to less than 3 tonnes. Victorians would be particularly badly placed because of our reliance on the Latrobe Valley's fabulous deposits of brown coal for cheap electricity generation.

Nobody knows how an economy could operate with standards of living like Australia's while adopting the sorts of measures proposed. Carbon dioxide emissions are the automatic outcome of driving cars, generating electricity, smelting metals, making concrete and just about every other activity. To reduce carbon dioxide emissions to a fifth of present levels would require, at the very least, replacement of coal by nuclear - something the present government has refused even to contemplate. It would require an almost complete ban on car use. It would certainly be the end of any holidays overseas or on the Gold Coast - and air-conditioning and central heating too.

Victorians have pioneered the use of low-quality brown coal as feedstock for power stations that produce some of the cheapest electricity in the world. This has been the backbone of our economy and it is impossible to envisage how we could be competitive with the rest of the world without it. Not only would the emission control proposals cause a trebling of electricity costs to households - especially without nuclear - but Victoria would lose its low-cost energy advantage. We would see the departure of aluminium smelting, metal production, the chemical industry, and car manufacturing. Costs of services like retailing would rise considerably.

Before further dangerous excursions into energy-control policies, governments need to take note of the grave doubts of so many of the world's eminent scientists at the Heartland Institute conference.

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