Electricity producers warn of danger from Greenie regulations

POWER generators have warned of blackouts and power price spikes if the Rudd Government moves too aggressively to put a price on greenhouse emissions. New modelling by the National Generators Forum has signalled the price on greenhouse emissions will need to rise from $20 a tonne in 2010 to $150 a tonne by 2050 if the Government is to deliver its promised cuts.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong yesterday reaffirmed that the Government would proceed with its mandatory renewable energy target of 20per cent of supply by 2020, despite sharp criticism of the proposal by the Government's leading economic think thank. The renewable energy industry yesterday backed the commitment, claiming a 20per cent target was the global standard for climate change policy.

In its submission to the Garnaut climate change review, the Productivity Commission said the emissions trading scheme on its own should be used to cut emissions, and added that a renewable target would only increase costs and not make deeper cuts in emissions. In their submission to the climate change review, energy generators have warned that big coal-fired power stations risk crashing out of the system, leaving huge supply gaps and price spikes if the transition is not carefully managed.

National Generators Forum director John Boshier said Victoria was likely to be the first state to face problems with price and reliability caused by the closure of giant brown-coal generators pushed out of the market by the rising price of emissions. "We want to make this transition," Mr Boshier told The Weekend Australian yesterday. "But we don't want to destroy these companies or damage their ability to reinvest in new low-emission generation capacity. "It's only by keeping them solvent will we be able to make the transition to a low-emission electricity system as quickly as possible."

The NGF submission said compensation to generators would offset losses, but would still not address the breakdown of the national electricity market triggered by the departure of major generators.

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Asylum review under attack from do-gooders

IMMIGRATION Minister Chris Evans yesterday announced the first results of the Government's efforts to speed up the processing of asylum-seekers, with those allowed to stay slightly outnumbering those being deported. The announcement drew criticism from asylum support groups, who fear for the fate of the thousands of people claiming to be political refugees.

Senator Evans recently reviewed the cases of 72 people in immigration detention for more than two years. Of those, 24 have or will be removed because Senator Evans believes they have "no valid reason to be in Australia". Five of the people have already been deported while steps are being taken to "fast-track" the removal of the remaining 19. Of the others whose cases were reviewed, 31 people were granted visas or considered for visa grants pending health and security checks. A further 17 people were subject to ongoing proceedings, meaning their cases could not be resolved now.

"I have personally reviewed all of these cases individually and sought to apply a range of measures to progress, if not resolve, their immigration status," Senator Evans said. "Underpinning my decisions in all of these cases are the principles that indefinite detention is not acceptable and that those people who have no right to be in Australia are to be removed promptly."

Government sources suggest Senator Evans, who is keen to promote skilled immigration to fulfil some acute labour needs, is also eager to show the Government is tough on those who claim asylum but cannot prove a valid case. A departmental spokesman said that as of last week, of the total protection visa applicants who had made an initial application for asylum, 58 were in detention. "An additional 26 people are in detention who have made an initial application for protection and are awaiting departmental decisions," spokesman Sandi Logan said. But Mr Logan said a further 2157 people who had lodged an initial protection visa were living in the community, many with the right to work.

Refugee groups yesterday called on Senator Evans to reconsider his decision to carry out further deportations of long-term detainees. "Forced deportations are not in line with a compassionate refugee policy," said Ian Rintoul, spokesman for the Refugee Action Coalition. "Australia has an obligation not to return asylum-seekers to danger."

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A nasty health bureaucracy



A paramedic cleared of sexually assaulting a drug-affected patient is shattered that Melbourne's ambulance service won't reinstate him. Simon Howe, 32, was found not guilty of digital rape and indecent assault by the County Court this week and now wants his job back. But the Metropolitan Ambulance Service yesterday claimed he was sacked for breaching his employment contract by not filling out an incident report. They said working for the MAS again was not an option.

Mr Howe yesterday said he had proved his innocence in court and was now being put through the added trauma of an unfair dismissal case. "I'm devastated, shattered, my life has been turned upside down," Mr Howe said yesterday. "As far as MAS is concerned I was guilty. I have had to pay for the right to prove my innocence and I still have to pay today."

Mr Howe said stricter security measures such as cameras were needed in ambulances to protect paramedics against false allegations or violence. He said he had held his head high since the complaint, cleared his name and now wanted to get back to work helping people. "Unfortunately there are more and more reasons for paramedics not to stay on the job," he said. "Ambulance paramedics are already cautious about which patients they take and have refused to take patients."

The Ambulance Employees union yesterday condemned the MAS for their refusal to reinstate Mr Howe and said he was being victimised and unfairly treated. They said a second paramedic in the ambulance at the time had not filled out an incident report either but was never disciplined or sacked. "It's appalling -- the court has found him to be innocent, yet MAS are still treating him like he is a criminal," Ambulance Employees Australia state secretary Steve McGhie said. "They should accept the jury's decision and reinstate him immediately."

Mr Howe was sacked by the MAS in February last year after a 22-year-old drug-affected patient claimed she was assaulted as she was being rushed to hospital at 6.19am on November 5, 2006. The MAS decided that Mr Howe failed to provide an adequate explanation of the allegations, failed to inform them what had occurred with the patient and did not lodge a report. A court heard that traces of the drugs ice and GHB were found in the woman's system. It was told Mr Howe was restraining the female patient because she was behaving erratically. It also heard her memory was scrambled by the drugs.

A MAS spokesman yesterday said they could not comment on the matter further as it was before the courts.

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States holding back schools, warns Federal minister

Sounds hopeful but a bit hard to follow.

The federal Government has effectively put the states and territories on notice over the reporting of school and student performance, saying they are hampering efforts to raise standards. Education Minister Julia Gillard has also announced an overhaul of the funding model for private schools, which is understood to include the controversial guarantees that keep funding for about 60 per cent of non-government schools at inflated levels.

In a speech to the Association of Independent Schools of NSW, Ms Gillard implicitly criticised states such as NSW, Queensland and South Australia, which are opposed to publicly releasing national test results. "It does not serve the interests of Australian students to have schooling policies delivered through structures and reporting systems which operate in parallel but allow no meaningful comparison or exchange between them," she said. "While different jurisdictions and authorities treat the use of data as part of a competition between themselves, they are short-changing the students and families who rely on them for a high-quality education."

Ms Gillard said she was not interested in establishing a crude form of league tables ranking schools according to raw test results. "(But) I believe there is an overwhelming public interest in developing a more comprehensive, more reliable and more open picture of school and student performance," she said.

Ms Gillard said the National Data Centre, announced last week in the budget, would act as an independent agency to validate and report on education statistics and that she expected the states and territories to contribute to its running costs. She said the centre would examine the results of national tests as well as other sources of data measuring the effect on education, such as socioeconomic status and early development. "I want to promote a more sophisticated understanding of what influences educational success," she said.

In the speech on Wednesday night, Ms Gillard said she expected a government review of the funding model for private schools to conclude in 2011 and new arrangements to start from 2013 that provide funding according to student needs as determined by socioeconomic status. The Government guaranteed existing funding levels for non-government schools until 2012 to defuse the issue during the election campaign last year. The "hit list" of private schools to lose money drawn up by previous Labor leader Mark Latham is credited with being a major factor in the ALP losing the 2004 election.

Ms Gillard described the schools funding system as "one of the most complex, most opaque and most confusing in the developed world" and she called for an end to the debate pitting public against private schools. [Stopping Leftist attacks on private school would be a good place to start]

As a first step to improving transparency, Ms Gillard will release the new socioeconomic status scores for all non-government schools, which will determine the amount of funding each school receives from next year to 2012. [Class-war Leftism again]

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