New ambulance computer system still cactus

Maybe they did not oil it enough. See my second post of the day on 23rd for background

For the second time in a week Emergency Services' $6 million computer system has crashed, forcing operators to log jobs on a "big whiteboard". The Emergency Services Computer Aided Dispatch system failed without notice at 11:30am for no apparent reason. It was back online fairly quickly - unlike last week's 90 minute outage - which was blamed on a maintenance issue.

The expensive new computer system went "live" in Brisbane on May 1 despite the concerns of fire service communications operators. Officers who contacted The Courier Mail expressed fears problems experienced in the southwest region would be repeated in the busy metropolitan area with serious consequences. The problems included delays in the system and unexplained outages, like today's crash.

Emergency Services management has previously stated its complete confidence in the escad system which was initially delayed to provide officers with extra training.

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Rudd's high-cost global warming policy has already been tried -- and it achieves nothing

By Andrew Bolt

KEVIN Rudd has a plan to cut your emissions that won't work, will hurt and isn't needed. In fact, if the Prime Minister has any sense, he'll check the soaring prices for oil and coal and say his painful plan has been tried on you already, and has failed, failed, failed. Or does he want Labor to lose the next, unloseable election?

Rudd's plan is to cut our greenhouse gases - the ones he claims are heating the world to hell - by making power plants and businesses pay for tradeable licences that let them gas on. You emit, you pay. That means hitting the biggest sources of carbon dioxide the hardest - petrol and coal-fired power in particular - in the hope the pain of higher prices will force consumers (like you) to switch to something less gassy.

Your petrol prices will therefore soar, perhaps by 30 cents a litre, suggest the Liberals. So will your power bills, by as much as double, warn power generators, some of whom may actually be driven bankrupt. Prices of anything trucked or flown to you will also rise, of course, as well as anything made with lots of power, like steel or even food.

And to avoid this pain? Well, you'll need to, say, buy a brand new Prius. Walk to work. Build a smaller house and bunk up. Refit your home with the latest green gadgets, like a $20,000 solar heating system. Stuff that will hurt, unless you're as rich as Rudd.

All this will start just two years from now. In fact, those higher bills will start coming in in the middle of an election campaign, unless the increasingly nervous Government blinks. No wonder Rudd is jittery, repeatedly refusing to admit how much he'll make petrol prices rise and pleading with the Opposition on Wednesday to "consider their responsibilities" and not mount a "scare campaign on petrol".

I had to laugh at the hypocrite. Him, complaining about a scare campaign? This is the bloke who in the same breath went on to warn Parliament that without his grand plan 1400 Australians a year would drop dead of heat exhaustion, while plagues of dengue fever and malaria would ravage our land, and seas two metres higher would flood our towns. Yeah, right. The man should sell snake oil.

Even so, we're still sick with apocalyptis and many Australians still seem to think the pain of Rudd's plan is worth every pang if it manages to cut our greenhouse gases and avert doom. Indeed, there are so many such people that even the timid Liberals have been forced to say they, too, support an emissions trading scheme of the kind Rudd promises, but without yet endorsing his target of slashing gases by 60 per cent by 2050.

But the big question is: could Rudd's plan even work? Let's ignore the basic fact that the world hasn't actually warmed since 1998, according to the Hadley Centre. Ignore also that the seas have actually fallen for the past two years, according to Colorado University's Centre for Astrodynamics Research. Ignore even the 31,000 scientists who last month signed a petition warning there was actually no proof man was heating the world to dangerous levels. And, finally, ignore that Australia's emissions comprise just 1.5 per cent of the world's, and that we could shut off every light and machine and not change a thing, especially while China, the biggest emitter, refuses to take its foot off the gassy pedal.

As I say, ignore everything that screams we're fools for even wanting to slash our gases with an emissions trading scheme that even a too-cheery CSIRO report this week says will cost at least $8 billion a year. Let's focus instead on this: can Rudd's plan work? Will his emissions trading scheme slash our gases by anything close to what he wants? There are two reasons to say that it hasn't the slightest hope. That all Rudd will do is raise green taxes, not cut greenhouse gases.

First, of course, is the fact the European Union has the only such emissions trading scheme in the world - and it's a flop. The European Environment Agency this month reported that emissions from the 12,000 factories and plants covered by its trading scheme actually rose over the past two years. Europe's emissions overall fell just 0.3 per cent last year, thanks to a mild winter and higher petrol prices, and there is little sign it can cut its gases by anything like the 60 per cent it's promising. In fact, the only reason Europe's emissions are still 7.7 per cent below what they were in 1990 is that the old, gassy ex-Soviet industries of Eastern Europe and East Germany collapsed in the 1990s. For developed Europe, the emissions have simply kept rising - by 4 per cent over 1990 levels - and will keep rising still.

But we don't have to look simply to Europe to realise carbon trading is a false hope, richer in rorts than promise. Check the price on the petrol pump, already 40 cents a litre higher than it was just a year ago. Feel that pain? It's the de facto carbon tax that's already been levied on us, even before Rudd gets to work and slugs you even more through his emissions trading scheme. You see, all of our main sources of carbon dioxide emissions have already had huge price hikes imposed on them by the markets, thanks to an economic boom, especially in China and India. Since 2001, oil prices have gone up 700 per cent. Thermal coal, for power, has gone up 400 per cent. Coking coal, for making steel, has gone up 600 per cent.

These are astonishing rises, hitting consumers even harder than Rudd yet dreams of hitting with his emissions scheme. That's your carbon tax, right there. But have emissions fallen as a result? Not at all. World emissions since 2000 have instead risen faster than ever. Even these record prices for carbon-intensive sources of power cannot cut the world's greenhouse gases. Nor have they cut our own. Those top prices you now pay for petrol, air travel, power and the rest may hurt us plenty, but they still haven't hurt enough to make us switch en masse to greener alternatives -- most of which haven't yet been invented. Australia's emissions are instead booming, according to government figures released this week. Our gases are up 6 per cent on 1990 levels - or by 31 per cent once we exclude the largely one-off savings we got from halting land-clearing.

Bottom line: There is no chance any time soon that we can even stop our emissions rising, let alone slash them by Rudd's 60 per cent. So Rudd will hit us with a carbon emissions scheme that will lift prices still more, but do little more than raise him extra taxes - unless he's mad, and cranks up carbon prices so high that he shuts down entire industries.

So I'm not surprised voters are now growing wary of such green plans to "save" the planet from a threat that may well not exist, and which in any case would be best solved by technology - like nuclear power - and not taxes. Only last week, a Galaxy poll in Queensland found 71 per cent of voters were against an extra petrol tax to cut emissions, and that's even with most journalists and politicians still refusing to tell them the full truth about the great global warming swindle.

Such scepticism will only grow, especially while the planet refuses to keep warming - a fact now so unmissable that even The Age may report it this side of Christmas. Already the sweaty Government is thinking of ways to dodge the backlash to come, this week reportedly considering delaying any price rises until after the election (more fool you), or making them so low that you won't feel the pain - but won't cut your emissions, either.

What a farce. For once I'm hoping Rudd will be true to type and be all spin and no substance, giving us a green tax too low to work, but just high enough to make him seem he's Doing Something. A hypocrite is better than a wrecker, after all. Unless, of course, you really, really think another 40 cents at the pump will do for the planet what the last 40 cents couldn't. But then you'd be crazy enough to believe in catastrophic global warming, too, wouldn't you?

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Judges who think they can legislate

IF you want to understand the battle under way within the judiciary these days, the US is an ideal place to start. Here, activist judges have a secret weapon in their fight to remake the law in their preferred image without having to bother with getting changes through parliament: the law of large numbers. If enough of them do an end run around the legislature, the appellate courts and the politicians won't be able to keep up with them. The modus operandi was neatly summed up by Stephen Reinhardt from the Ninth Court Circuit of Appeals in San Francisco. Described as the "liberal bad boy of the federal judiciary", Reinhardt hears about 500 cases each year. Even though the US Supreme Court has a propensity to overturn his overtly activist decisions, Reinhardt boasts that "they can't catch 'em all".

In Australia, too, we have lower court judges who like to cook up the odd bit of new law. They chafe under the scrutiny of a High Court that in the past decade at least has generally accepted that new law should be made by parliaments, not courts. Enter Keith Mason. The former president of the NSW Court of Appeal used his recent retirement to spit the judicial dummy, demanding that the High Court stop being so critical of judges on lower courts who aim to improve and expand the law.

In the case of traditionalists v innovators, Mason believes he is on the side of innovating angels. He says he is no traditional black-letter lawyer who defers to precedent. He prefers a sexier judicial role. He is a legal innovator, as Chief Justice Jim Spigelman described Mason in his effusive praise at the Banco Court a few weeks ago. Innovator is code for judicial activist. Still smarting from a High Court case last year that overturned a decision of the NSW Court of Appeal, Mason - the judicial innovator - is incensed that the High Court snubbed his court's attempt to expand the law to his liking. Without boring you with the arcane details of restitution, Mason went on a frolic, trying to extend the scope of unjust enrichment. The High Court refused to join in, basically telling the NSW Court of Appeal to do the right judicial thing and apply precedent.

Behaving like a judicial version of a woman scorned, Mason attacked our most senior court for claiming a monopoly in the development of common law in Australia. "If lower courts are excluded from venturing contributions that may push the odd envelope, then the law will be poorer for it." By refusing Mason's attempt to enrich the law, the High Court was adhering to "blinkered methods". It had an "unduly inward-looking focus". It was "shutting off much of the oxygen of fresh ideas".

Let's tease out the claims of this malcontent. The High Court is the nation's final appellate court entrusted with declaring the law of the land. That aside, if every innovating judge attempts to push the envelope by creating new law, then it follows that precedent - quaintly known as the rule of law - counts for naught. The law becomes a moving, unknown beast. Unfortunately, such mundane matters as legal certainty don't much matter to judges who wish to immortalise themselves by creating law to suit their concept of justice.

Judicial kvetching reached even more ridiculous levels last year when Mason said the High Court was guilty of using personally offensive language when it graded an error by a lower court as serious. He is not alone in that complaint. Perhaps the aim is to have the High Court imitate the misguided teacher who won't tell a naughty kid he flunked a test in case it hurts his feelings and damages his self-esteem.

Toughen up, gentlemen. In the US, Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia fights the march of judicial imperialism with language that would make our precious Australian judges tremble. When Scalia disagrees, he tells you so. He said one majority judgment deserved a "prize for the court's most feeble effort".

Alas, some judges do make grave errors. Some deliberately ignore precedent and the judicial oath to do "justice according to the law". In other words, some judges get it wrong. Sometimes badly wrong. When they do, they deserve to be criticised. Sometimes strongly criticised. However, Reinhardt's law of large numbers is broadly correct. Final appellate courts cannot keep track of every maverick decision by politicking judges. There's just too many of them these days. That's why judicial decisions need constant scrutiny by the press and by parliament.

Take the Aurukun nine rape case that attracted worldwide media attention after The Australian revealed that Cairns District Court judge Sarah Bradley chose not to impose jail sentences on the nine males who raped a 10-year-old girl at the Cape York community of Aurukun. Public criticism exposed a serious judicial error, ultimately corrected on appeal. "These errors were so serious as to produce a clear miscarriage of justice," Queensland Chief Justice Paul de Jersey said. The Court of Appeal sentenced five men to jail for up to six years. The other four, who were juveniles at the time of the rape, will all serve a period of detention.

Consider the British judge at the Special Appeals Commission who last week decided to release from detention Jordanian-born cleric Abu Qatada, who appears to have impressive terrorist credentials. Terrorism experts describe Qatada as Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe. He was convicted in his absence in the Middle East for involvement in 1998 terrorist attacks. The British judge released Qatada on condition that he not hang out with bin Laden or drop into any mosque and that he wear an electronic tag. That must make Britons feel safe. The Conservatives correctly branded the decision as offensive. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said the Government would be appealing to have Qatada deported.

It's worth noting that the judges who are most vocal in their objections to criticism tend to be those innovating judges who prefer to mould the law to suit their conception of justice. Public outrage is rebuffed as populist nonsense. Critics in the media are described as bully boys. Attempts by parliament to hold them to account are ridiculed as an intrusive attack on their independence.

But the answer for these judges is obvious. If you want a quiet judicial life, stick to the more traditional judicial method. If you prefer to push the judicial envelope, don't be surprised if others will describe your judicial method and decisions as flawed. Even gravely flawed. This tiresome allergy to criticism will only intensify as the battle between innovators and traditionalists over the judicial role continues.

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Photo crackdown hits parents' proud moments

ACCORDING to recent reports, parents have been forced to ask for permission to photograph their kids at some children's sporting clubs. Other clubs have prohibited the taking of snapshots altogether. Many parents are understandably distressed at the idea that they cannot provide themselves or their children with permanent and special images of their offspring's athletic accomplishments. But what do these extraordinary measures suggest about us as a society?

What point have we reached when we either have to ask permission or are prevented from doing what parents have done ever since the camera was invented: that is, create pictorial records of our children playing sport? What sort of hysteria is guiding these decisions? Suddenly, any adult with a camera within range of a child is looked at askance, and their motives are not only under suspicion but also their entire character is assassinated. Many adults with cameras at playing fields on weekends have reported being verbally abused, to the point where threats were made against them and accusations screamed, often in front of their own, shaken and confused, children.

Recent debates in the media and interest-group fuelled fears have ensured that no longer are these snap-happy grown-ups able to lovingly capture moments to place in the scrapbook of memories. No. Instead, innocent adult intentions are maligned and these people are branded pedophiles - loudly and publicly by other angry and frightened mothers and fathers.

Some people are attributing this extreme response to the recent Bill Henson photographic exhibition fiasco. But I'm afraid they're off the mark. This same excessive effect has occurred before, such as when bathing children at South Bank were surreptitiously photographed a couple of years ago.

While Henson's provocative images have allowed an important debate about children and sexualisation to continue, we also have to be sensible around these types of discussions and the outcomes they generate. But instead of moderation, we're allowing frenzied desperation, finger-pointing, ugly and unjust accusations, demonisation and panic to govern our responses.

We start to see "peds under beds" everywhere and construe the most benign and innocent of gestures as sexual; the most normal and natural of desires (such as wanting to photograph children) as sick and unnatural. In other words, we start to view other adults through a pedophile's lens.

There's no doubt that pedophiles and their perverted practices sicken most people. But the fact is that pedophiles sexualise children no matter what. They are aroused by images and ideas that bear little or no relation to what would be considered sexual by those with normal, healthy, adult appetites. They delight in the combination of innocence and provocation and seek out that kind of stimulus and generally, no matter what preventive measures we put in place, find or create it, even where none originally exists. They also hide their practices and are, generally, very successful at this - hence the huge police operations to uncover pedophile rings and the shock when one is unearthed.

The overwhelming majority of us are not pedophiles. It may come as a surprise considering the alarmist rhetoric out there, but most of us are decent and caring and appreciate young people and want the best for them. Sometimes, that means hugging them when they're upset or hurting, even when they're not our children. It can also mean taking photographs as significant mementos of childhood experiences. It also means setting reasonable and realistic boundaries around children and those who come into their orbit and organising and monitoring our children's exposure to age-appropriate material throughout their developmental years.

Being aware of and concerned about pedophiles does not and should not mean viewing every adult in a child's life with a jaundiced and unhealthy eye. As Professor of Media Studies at the University of New South Wales, Catherine Lumby, stated in a 60 Minutes segment on Sunday night, "we don't want to raise our children to believe that their bodies are dangerous" or "that they can somehow provoke child sexual abuse with what they wear or what they don't wear".

The one thing we must not do as a community is live our lives or constrict our children's because we're afraid of pedophiles. If we do that, then our children are already victims - and so are we. If we allow this misguided and now misdirected, panic-stricken fear of pedophiles to regulate our actions and reactions, then the pedophiles have already won. Our fear has managed to control us and our relationships, to our children's and everyone's detriment. To label someone a pedophile because they show a "normal" level of interest in children is ridiculous. It is also slander. To hurl abuse at them in public because we're suspicious and judgmental is highly dysfunctional and sad.

Soon, everyone will be a pedophile and we'll end up raising a generation of detached and lonely youngsters afraid of shadows we have created and ashamed of what their little bodies might potentially arouse in a person they will likely (thank goodness) never meet. It is so important that we continue to discuss issues around childhood protection, sexualisation and pedophiles, but not at the expense of those we're trying to shelter.

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