ZEG

Conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG has just offered a cynical take on arctic oil and alleged space visitors




Drought threatens water supply of more than a million Australians

I guess this is why it rains nearly every day where I am -- even though winter is supposed to be the dry season. We've just had a shower as I write this, in fact. Dam levels throughout Australia are in fact rising. The only adverse thing happening is that too much water is being drawn off the Murray/Darling river system for long-term sustainability. In 1901 (Yes. 1901, not 2001) the Murray was just a chain of waterholes so it is very variable naturally. For a laugh, compare the report below with the one immediately following it

More than a million people in Australia could face drinking water shortages if the country's seven-year drought does not break soon, a government report has warned. The bleak report into the future of the Murray-Darling river system found the situation had become "critical".

The system, which runs from Queensland in the country's north east to Victoria in the south, irrigates Australia's vast food bowl and drinking water to more than a million people. However, due to rising temperatures and a desperate lack of rain, inflows to the basin are at their lowest ever recorded levels. Climate change minister Penny Wong yesterday said the Murray Darling was "in real trouble". "We've had very low inflows, we've had a very dry June and the focus absolutely has to be critical human needs, that is the needs of the million-plus people who rely on the basin for drinking water," she said. "It just reminds us, yet again, the way in which this country is particularly vulnerable to climate change."

Australia is in the grip of the worst drought in a century, with water restrictions in place in most major cities and a forecast for more dry weather. The report said the parched Murray-Darling system should provide enough drinking water until the middle of next year. But the document, compiled by senior federal and state government officials, warned there could be difficulties supplying drinking water after that if rains did not arrive. "Work is continuing on contingency planning in order to protect critical human needs for 2009-10 should inflows remain at or below record minimums through winter," it said. "Governments would also need to consider how they would set aside water early to protect critical human needs for 2009-10."

More than 40 per cent of Australia's food comes from the Murray-Darling Basin. It would take years of above-average rainfall to return water levels in the basin to normal, but "the long dry" is expected to continue. A recent report predicted a tenfold increase in the frequency of heat waves as climate change continues to push up temperatures on the continent.

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Brisbane's dams fill as the chill bites

(Brisbane is Australia's third-largest city)

WATER kept flowing into Brisbane's dams yesterday as the Somerset reservoir hit 89.19 per cent - the most it has held in the last seven years. Continuing showers and strong southwesterly winds brought chilly conditions to the southeast and border regions, with a minimum of 7C and a top of just 16C predicted for Brisbane today.

Minimum temperatures were below average over most of the state. Cooktown in the far north plummeted to 12C, which was six below normal, while Nambour on the Sunshine Coast was 6C (3C below average) and the Gold Coast dipped to 7C (5C below average). Queensland's coldest recorded temperature was at Stanthorpe, where temperatures dropped to -3C.

Weather Bureau forecaster Bryan Rolstone said it was difficult to say whether the cold snap would force temperatures to record-breaking levels. "But we're expecting strong blustery winds, showers, sleet and a possibility of small hail in some places which sounds more like Victorian than Queensland weather," Mr Rolstone said. Brisbane's record maximum low was 10.6C in 1938. Stanthorpe's coldest July day was in 1984 when the temperature managed only a maximum of 2.9C.

Weatherzone meteorologist Matt Pearce said there was a prospect of snow down to 900m in NSW and in Queensland's border regions. Rain was expected to clear early in the southeast today, although there remained the possibility of showers and thunder.

The aggregate water level in Somerset, North Pine and the huge Wivenhoe Dam was 40.53 per cent yesterday after five days of scattered falls. Dam managers hope it might hit 41 per cent by the end of the week. As with previous good flows, most of the water has come from the Stanley River catchment, part of which rises in the wet Sunshine Coast hinterland. SEQWater spokesman Mike Foster said North Pine was on 35.42 per cent and Wivenhoe 25.61 per cent. "It's not bad given this time last year we were on an aggregate 16.5 per cent," Mr Foster said.

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NSW Ambulance staff dread return of boss

Vicious "Health" bureaucrats at work again. They seem to be as bad in NSW as they are in Qld.

The former boss of an ambulance station in western NSW is being returned there as an officer despite an external investigation largely substantiating more than 50 allegations of bullying and harassment made against him over the past 10 years. Several former officers at Wellington station have either resigned, transferred or gone on stress leave, saying they could no longer work there while Rodney Althofer, 63, was manager. The Herald understands a six-month external investigation by Kamira Stacey Consulting found more than 50 allegations against him were mostly substantiated.

Today marks the final hearing day of a parliamentary inquiry into the NSW Ambulance Service, which has been inundated with submissions on bullying and harassment and complaints about poor handling of grievances. Investigators interviewed about a dozen officers who had worked at Wellington for the report, which was completed midway through last year. However, the service has kept that report secret and did not act on the matter until last week. The chief executive of the service, Greg Rochford, has also refused to release to staff the service's response to the report.

The Herald spoke to seven former and serving Wellington ambulance officers, as well as the partners of two others, all of whom alleged bullying by Mr Althofer. Three alleged that he told them not to bother buying property in the area because he would run them out of town. The officers described Mr Althofer, a warrant officer in the navy for 20 years, as a "military-style", micromanaging authoritarian who screamed at, and publicly humiliated, staff. They are also furious at management for failing to deal with the problem for so long.

They were devastated to learn at a staff meeting on Tuesday that Mr Althofer would be returning within two weeks - although as an ambulance officer and not in his original job as station manager. They were told an external mediator would be available to work through any problems. One ambulance officer immediately went on stress leave upon hearing the news and another is seeking a transfer. There are only six full-time ambulance officers at the station.

An email from a former western division officer, sent to the parliamentary inquiry last month, said it was "one of the most investigated and documented accounts of bullying and harassment that I have seen in my experience". The email, which has been seen by the Herald, said "[The manager] has previously been stood down for harassment of staff over the years and has also been sent to anger management courses, this you will find in the [Kamira] report". The Herald understands the Kamira investigation was prompted after the service received three formal complaints of bullying in one week in late 2006 - two from Wellington officers and one from a doctor at the local hospital.

A former officer, who worked there for 18 months until mid-2000, said he went on workers' compensation due to stress from being bullied by Mr Althofer. The final straw was when Mr Althofer "chased me across the road yelling at me . in the main street of Wellington", he said. "They found that he needed to attend an anger management course and he refused to do it." Another former Wellington officer said Mr Althofer would hide behind trees near the station on his days off and check what time staff turned up for work.

Mr Althofer denies any bullying and harassment of staff. "I've always tried to get ambulance officers to do what they are supposed to do and because of the culture of the ambulance service they simply don't do what they're supposed to do. "They breach the code of conduct on a daily basis and all I ever did was to try and get people to do what they're supposed to do," he told the Herald. He said he offered to return as an ambulance officer, and not the manager, because of "all the stress of trying to manage people who don't want to do their job". "I was bullied and harassed," Mr Althofer said.

The service would not comment except to confirm there had been an investigation at Wellington "involving interpersonal dealings between colleagues".

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Kevin Rudd fails as a nanny

He thought he could reduce the amount of alcohol young people drink! Ha!

AUSTRALIANS knocked back an extra shot of hard liquor for every man, woman and child the month after the alcopops tax was introduced. New figures showing an increase in hard liquor consumption following the tax are being used by the industry to demand the tax on ready-to-drink liquor be scrapped. Family First Senator Steve Fielding also claims the figures confirm his view the 70 per cent alcopops tax simply pushed drinkers into buying cheaper spirits.

The Liquor Merchant's Association of Australia, which collects sales data from across the nation, said between April (when the tax was introduced) and June there was a 46 per cent increase in the volume of alcohol sold in full-strength bottled spirits - the equivalent of an extra 48 million standard drinks. At the same time there was a reduction in ready-to-drink (RTD) alcopops to the tune of 27 million standard drinks. Australians had effectively consumed an extra 21 million shots of hard liquor in the wake of a tax designed to stop binge drinking, the association said.

Previous sales figures from April 2007 to June 2007 show there appears to be a seasonal uptake in harder spirits as the winter months come on. But the 2008 figures still show a dramatic increase in hard spirit consumption which Stephen Riden, information and research manager for the Distilled Spirits Industry Council of Australia, says are solid proof the RTD tax trial has failed. "It's just not working as a public health measure," he said. "The unintended and serious consequences of the tax are clear. "Far from reducing the amount of alcohol consumed, the tax has turned many RTD drinkers to drinking bottles of spirits at significantly higher alcohol content levels."

While Health Minister Nicola Roxon remains committed to the tax, Senator Fielding says the Government is clearly trying to dress up a revenue grab as a health measure, and it's not working. The Government's taskforce on binge drinking, the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy, now wants to wipe out numerous inconsistencies across Australian jurisdictions affecting minors and alcohol. In some states for example restrictions on supplying alcohol to minors relate only to licensed premises, or to public venues and state penalties vary from $550 to $20,000. But Ms Roxon said there were no plans to introduce a British-style ban on under-21s buying alcohol from liquor stores and supermarkets.

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