Government warned about butcher doctor but hired him anyway

A SENIOR NSW health department executive was warned that disgraced doctor Graeme Reeves was "not meant to do obstetrics" but agreed to hire him anyway. A NSW Greater Southern Area Health executive, involved in the hiring of Reeves, wrote a diary note in April, 2002 which reveals he was told of the obstetrics restriction during a phone call with one of Reeve's referees for a job at Bega and Pambula District Hospitals, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

The executive's handwritten notes detail his phone conversation with an unknown referee of Reeves on April 11, 2002. A transcript of the executive's notes describes Reeves as: "technically well trained ... had depression there was a catastrophe ... OK when normal and has apparently been normal ... last heard not meant to do obstetrics."

After a request by the NSW opposition, 23 documents about Reeves have been tabled in the NSW upper house including the referee check. Reeves is accused of botching procedures on hundreds of women and sexually assaulting women, including several during his time at NSW South Coast hospitals in 2002 and 2003.

The executive's notes also say Reeves has had "... few arguments with nursing staff and junior registrars". The documents reveal the only other background check done on Reeves in 2002 was a criminal history check that came back negative. Reeves beat two other applicants for the position and supplied three references with his resume.

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has deflected several calls for a national registration system for doctors, saying it does not prevent malpractice.

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Woman in labour left in public hospital storeroom

A WOMAN in labour spent several hours on the floor of a storeroom of Gold Coast Hospital because there were no beds in the maternity ward. Mitch and Erica, who asked for their surname not to be published, arrived at the hospital last Friday at 8am with Erica in labour, only to be told there were no beds available. "They said they were too busy and we would have to wait for a bed and we might have to have the baby in the foyer," said Erica. "The lady said 'We know how to do that and if you want to get more comfortable, get on your hands and knees'," she said. "I didn't feel like doing that with people walking past."

After waiting in the foyer for more than an hour, the couple were moved onto a mattress in a linen storeroom. The room had no airconditioning and Erica had to wait another 45 minutes to get a pillow. After three uncomfortable hours, Erica was finally moved into a bed where she gave birth to a boy.

Erica said that after the ordeal, and other bad experiences at hospitals, she did not want to have any more children. "I guess that I was pretty unlucky. Out of all labours and births that did happen that day that I was the one who had to spend a good part of my labour in a linen storeroom which did make the whole experience unpleasant and uncomfortable, and also a little bit degrading." Mitch said he was disgusted with Queensland Health. "If they can't cope with someone having a baby, how are they going to cope if there is a disaster?" he said. "Four hours to get into a bed is ridiculous. The Queensland Government need to pull their head in and give more resources to the hospital."

A Gold Coast Hospital spokeswoman said there had never been an instance where a woman in labour was not found a bed in time to deliver their baby. "There has been one instance last Friday where a woman was offered the option of undertaking part of her labour in a room not set up for delivery, in order to have direct regular access to her midwife, a toilet and shower facilities," said the spokeswoman. "It was acknowledged at the time and subsequently ... the physical surroundings were less than ideal."

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Stay-at-home mums furious at 'insult'

From Karl Marx on, the Left never have liked families, no matter how much they pretend when running for election

More than 40,000 families with earnings of more than $150,000 a year will be stripped of the $125.02 a fortnight Family Tax Benefit B on July 1. It is paid to stay-at-home mothers. But there was no means test imposed on the childcare tax rebate, which was increased by $3146 a child per year in the Budget and will still be paid to wealthy mothers.

Even feminists raised questions about the discriminatory means testing policy. National Foundation of Australian Women spokeswoman Marie Coleman said: "I'm a strong supporter of paid maternity leave, at the same time I'm a strong supporter of governments valuing parents as parents."

Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard yesterday defended the Government's decision not to means test taxpayer-funded childcare subsidies. "The childcare tax rebate is about supporting workforce participation, it's obviously in the national interest for us to be maximising the participation of working age adults in the labour force," she said. "One of the most reported reasons for women with children not being in the labour force is not because they don't want to work but because they can't access childcare."

When asked why the Government valued the workforce participation of wealthy working women through taxpayer subsidies but not their parenting contribution, Ms Gillard was unusually coy. "Well, that, obviously the Family Tax Benefit arrangements are technically questions for the Treasurer and Jenny Macklin in her capacity as the Families and Community Services Minister," she said.

A spokesman for Treasurer Wayne Swan said if the Government means tested the childcare rebate there would be no incentive for parents with young children to return to work. "They could be paying all their earnings, or even more than they earned, on childcare," he said. "Then you are in a situation when they are not in the workforce, they don't end up paying tax," he said.

The childcare rebate was progressive, with lower-income earners getting 85 per cent of their costs covered and those earning over $150,000 a year had only 50 per cent of their childcare costs covered, he said. "If we didn't have it, parents would be working for nothing or going backwards," he said.

Opposition childcare spokesman Tony Abbott said yesterday he could understand why stay-at-home mothers were angry. "If the Government has decided that all payments are needs-based and therefore have to be means tested they've got to be consistent," he said. "At the moment it looks like they are taking money away from one-income families and giving the assistance to two-income families."

Australian Family Association spokeswoman Angela Conway said the childcare rebate was pouring millions of dollars a day into the corporate profits of operators like ABC Learning.

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Iranian leader Ahmadinejad taken to court by Australia!

Hard to see this as anything but a feelgood stunt -- one likely to cause no more than amusement in Iran

THE Rudd Government is preparing a case to take Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the International Court of Justice for "inciting genocide" and denying the Jewish Holocaust. Australia is the only nation pursuing Iran's despotic leader, who has threatened to "wipe Israel off the map", through international laws.

The Australian revealed last October that Kevin Rudd, then the Opposition leader, promised the Jewish community before last year's election he would take legal proceedings in the ICJ against Mr Ahmadinejad. The Labor leader said it was "strongly arguable" that Mr Ahmadinejad's conduct - statements about wiping Israel off the map, questioning whether Zionists were human beings and a conference that he convened on the veracity of the Holocaust - amounted to incitement to genocide, which was criminalised under the 1948 genocide convention.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland, who pushed the campaign against Mr Ahmadinejad when he was Labor's foreign affairs spokesman, confirmed yesterday the Government was seeking legal advice on taking Mr Ahmadinejad to the ICJ. "The Government considers the comments made by Iranian President Ahmadinejad, calling for the destruction of Israel and questioning the existence of the Holocaust, to be repugnant and offensive," Mr McClelland told The Australian yesterday. "The Government is currently taking advice on this matter."

Mr McClelland had argued that taking legal action was better than other alternatives. "The alternative to not using these international legal mechanisms is considering wholesale invasion of countries, which itself involves, obviously, expense but more relevantly, ofcourse, the potential for significant loss of life," Mr McClelland said.

An Iranian government spokesman was unavailable for comment when contacted by The Australian yesterday. International pressure on Iran has grown exponentially recently with estimates that the Ahmadinejad Government could have nuclear capability within 18 months. At the remembrance ceremony in Israel for the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state, Israeli leaders linked the horrors of the Nazi holocaust with the fears of a nuclear-armed anti-Israeli state.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: "Sixty-three years have passed since the Satanic factories of death of the Nazis and their collaborators ceased to operate, yet with the passing of time, the dimensions of the Holocaust still remain beyond comprehension, unfathomably shocking, unacceptably chilling. "Who would have believed that 63 years later, hatred of Jews and Israelis would rear its ugly head in so many different places around the globe, provocatively and venomously, inciting hatred?" Trade Minister Shaul Mofaz claimed Iran could have the technology to make a bomb this year. Earlier intelligence-based assessments suggested Iranian scientists need at least 18months to produce a bomb.

When Mr Rudd committed a Labor government to pursuing Mr Ahmadinejad through international laws, the Coalition government labelled the promise a "stunt" that would fail. Brendan Nelson, then defence minister, said Mr Rudd was raising expectations that "cannot be achieved". The Opposition Leader said the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court - the body that hears cases against individuals, as opposed to the ICJ, which hears cases against countries - had found it would fail. Individuals of countries that don't recognise the ICC, such as Iran, can be charged if the UN Security Council agrees.

Alexander Downer, then the foreign minister, said Mr Ahmadinejad would have to be taken before the ICC, and only on the agreement of the five permanent members of the Security Council. Mr Downer accused Mr Rudd of knowingly misleading the Australian public and the Jewish community with a "ghastly stunt" that he knew could not be carried out and would only undermine Australia's diplomatic standing. International prosecutors have previously warned of difficulties with such a proposal, adding they only wish to start cases that would lead to a successful conviction.

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