PM's $5bn green gamble against Treasury advice

By Piers Akerman

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd is set to announce a controversial $5 billion scheme to slash carbon emissions. The plan, which will call for carbon to be captured and stored in forests and oceans, will be outlined in the Government's discussion paper on its planned emissions trading scheme to be released tomorrow, Treasury sources said. But the same sources said the Rudd Government would be going against Treasury advice if the expensive scheme to store carbon in the seabed or in deeply submerged subterranean strata went ahead.

They said Treasury had warned against announcing such a proposal because the carbon sequestration technology was largely untried. "This is another theoretical approach to a problem," one source said. "Not only is it very costly, no one knows whether it is a realistic storage solution for carbon emissions. "The Rudd Government appears determined to proceed, however, even though Treasury asked that, at the minimum, it refrain from taking such action until after next year's UN summit on climate change in the Danish capital Copenhagen meeting, when it will be seen what measures other developed nations may take." The use of so-called "carbon sinks" can take the form of storing carbon in plants and soils, oceans or buried in deep rock deposits.

Resources Minister Martin Ferguson is on the record as saying there are good arguments for implementing carbon sequestration. Mr Ferguson said sequestration would encourage investment and commercialisation of the technology, which was a safe way to allow continued carbon-based power generation with reduced environmental impact. His draft sequestration legislation sets up a framework for access to Commonwealth waters, defined as beginning three nautical miles offshore, as well as multiple-use agreements allowing the continuation of other commercial activities such as fishing and oil drilling. He said Commonwealth body Geoscience Australia had identified numerous sites where greenhouse gases could be stored. And he nominated high-carbon emission areas of Victoria, Western Australia and southern and central Queensland as having "adequate storage capacity nearby".

The carbon storage row comes after Mr Rudd previously ignored Treasury advice, and that of three other ministries, when he pushed ahead with the Government's FuelWatch program. In Opposition, he was critical of the Howard Government for ignoring Treasury and pledged that his government would be more receptive to advice from its bureaucrats.

Treasury is not the only body concerned at the possible effects of the Government's Green Paper on climate change. Australia's largest trade union, the Australian Workers Union, has released a report that predicts 15,000 jobs could be lost in the aluminium sector alone if the penalties contained in the ETS drive the industry offshore. AWU national secretary Paul Howes said regional communities and economies would be crippled at a potential cost of up to $1.12 billion. "We know, by keeping good jobs in industries like aluminium smelters and refineries here in Australia, we are actually helping in the battle against greenhouse gases," he said.

Environmentalists, however, say that Australians would not suffer if the aluminium sector closed and the industry went offshore to more modern plants. Climate Institute chief John Connor told the ABC yesterday that many foreign aluminium smelters were more efficient.

Farmers also expressed their concern that the discussion paper might pick an "arbitrary" date for the inclusion of agriculture in an ETS.

Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson will cut short his week-long holiday to lead the Opposition's response to the Government's climate change Green Paper.

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Insane hours: One in three medicos risks patients' lives

ONE in three doctors admits they have put patients at risk by working exhaustive hours to prop up Victoria's ailing health system. And more than 80 per cent say medicos in general work too many hours and are under so much stress that the safety of patients and doctors is being compromised. A Herald Sun survey of Victorian doctors also revealed half had considered quitting due mainly to stress, long hours and excessive workloads.

Almost 90 per cent of doctors said there were not enough of them to adequately care for the health needs of Victorians. "We are dangerously tired, overworked and stressed, and patients are suffering and dying from errors borne of pure exhaustion," one doctor said. Another said: "Hours are ridiculous. Working 12 days straight is idiotic and guarantees serious medical errors with fatal consequences." The findings are based on the responses of 1787 doctors who took part in the Herald Sun poll.

The survey also revealed:

MOST doctors believe hospital emergency departments are in crisis.

MORE than 90 per cent say it is unacceptable that more than 45,000 patients were left waiting on hospital trolleys for more than eight hours during the last six months of 2007.

ABOUT 80 per cent say already swollen hospital waiting lists for elective surgery will get longer before they get shorter.

SEVEN out of 10 doctors say patients are losing faith in the public health system.

MORE than 80 per cent say public hospitals will continue to fail their performance targets unless they receive a massive injection of cash from the Government.

The poll showed 47 per cent of Victorian doctors work more than 50 hours a week and 8 per cent work more than 70 hours. Thirty-one per cent of doctors admit they have compromised the care and safety of patients by working excessive hours. And 47 per cent of doctors who work more than 70 hours a week admit to putting their patients at risk.

The strain drove one doctor to write: "I constantly reconsider my options. You asked whether I have considered leaving the medical profession in the last three years - of course. Daily. And unless things change soon, I most likely will."

About 40 per cent of doctors seeking counselling from the Victorian Doctors Health Program are struggling with issues of stress and fatigue. "When you are fatigued, you can't see the wood for the trees to make decisions," director Dr Kym Jenkins said. "I know a significant proportion of the people I see here who are stressed are worried they might have made a mistake. "When people feel they might be compromising patient care it can be anything from not having done their paperwork before the knock-off, to being worried about a major incident."

Australian Medical Association state president Dr Doug Travis said the Herald Sun survey brought to the public's attention the every-day realities encountered by doctors. "We do not have the capacity in our public health-care system to give Victorians the care they need right now, today. That is beds, nurses, doctors and emergency departments," he said.

Health Minister Daniel Andrews said the Government was negotiating a new enterprise bargaining agreement with the AMA to balance increased doctors' pay while leaving enough money to improve the health system. "We value the feedback of our hospital doctors and recognise the vital work they do in making the state's public health system one of the world's best," he said.

Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu said the Government must confront issues raised by the survey. "The huge pressure on our doctors is further proof that Labor has abandoned Victorian public hospitals," he said.

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Jewish obesity under attack

Having seen the snacking ladies at Rose Bay, I think I know what this is all about

Kosher food can stack on the kilos. So says the rabbi who has launched a diet challenge to Australian Jews: lose 1000 kilograms in 12 weeks. Rabbi Mendel Kastel is publishing a diet online this month that comes with kosher recipes, a kosher conversion guide, personalised menus, exercise plans and tools to set goals and track weight. "Bagels, chopped liver, matzo balls, schmaltz herrings - there are things in a kosher diet that make us put on weight," he said. "Rather than a white bagel, try a wholemeal one."

As head of the Rabbinical Council of NSW, Rabbi Kastel has sent a message out to rabbis across Australia to challenge their communities. Corporate sponsorship in the form of a dollar for every kilogram lost will be directed to the Jewish House, a crisis housing agency. "We aim to lose about a kilo a week. So we're looking for 100 people to lose 10 kilos each. And the more, the better," he said.

Rabbi Kastel said he did not know if Jews were fatter than other Australians, but he said they needed to be aware of the importance of eating well, drinking moderately and getting regular exercise. The rabbi has been road-testing the program for the past five weeks and said he has shed six kilograms. "Just 20 kilograms to go."

Under Jewish law people should eat only kosher food. Meat, for instance, must come only from animals that chew the cud and have cloven hoofs, such as cows. And they must be killed in a particular way, removing as much blood as possible.

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Bullying in Australia's government schools forces many families into home schooling

PARENTS of both bullying victims and expelled bullies are turning to home schooling in a bid to salvage an education for their children. There are now an estimated 22,000 students learning from home in Queensland, double the number counted by a government working group in 2002.

The bullying epidemic in the state's schools is behind the increase, according to the Home Education Association. Association spokeswoman Colleen Strange said it had become the last resort for both the bullied and their bullies. "It's disturbing. I even have teenagers contacting me saying, 'Please talk to my mother and tell her what she has to do because I can't spend another minute in that school'," Ms Strange said. "I even have people who have been excluded from school for bullying contacting me. They have no choice, they have to be educated somewhere."

Home education is a "lawful alternative" for students of a compulsory school age, but Education Queensland sets out strict guidelines. Those wishing to go to university have to sit a special tertiary admissions test.

Last week's Sunday Mail investigation into bullying in Queensland schools sparked a huge response from readers. One Brisbane mother was driven to release details of a diary she kept of the daily trauma suffered by her disabled son at the hands of classmates. She was one of hundreds of readers who contacted The Sunday Mail following our report, which found up to one in six Queensland schoolchildren were victims of schoolyard abuse and 70 students, some as young as five, were suspended every day for assault.

The mother said her 14-year-old - who has autistic spectrum disorder, which affects his social and communication skills - had been subjected to a decade of physical and mental attacks, which left him reclusive and on anti-depressant drugs. "It started from Day One, they didn't give him a chance, they didn't give him a go," the mother said "His disorder means he can't socialise properly, anyway, and now almost every single day he comes home crying. He has no self-esteem. "He says, 'Mum I can't take it any more, I just can't do it any more'. And that is heartbreaking, really heartbreaking."

For the past 18 months the mother - whose identity has been withheld to protect her son - has kept a diary of every incident involving her son. She said "there is not one single day where something hasn't happened". The abuse began with name-calling and escalated to him being grabbed around the throat and choked, beaten with a mallet in manual arts, punched in the genitals and hit with a rock.

The mother said she had pleaded with school authorities and even confronted her son's bullies, and now had no choice but to join thousands of other Queensland families who were rejecting mainstream education in favour of home schooling. "If he stays where he is it will be devastating," she said.

Parents and children who contacted The Sunday Mail said they felt powerless to deal with the situation. "I now believe that the only way to stop the bullying is for my son to stand up to them, but the problem is that he doesn't know how to be physically violent. Oh, and by the way, he is only nine years old," one email revealed.

Another parent said her daughter had attempted suicide: "Four years onwards, many counselling sessions later, two suicide attempts, my daughter is barely living. She was a bright, caring, talented musician. This is sadly the cost to families left to deal with the effect of senseless degrading of a human being."

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