A child welfare system fails another little child

Social workers routinely leave even the most endangered children with feral parents. It's only middle-class parents that they train a beady eye on -- often on mere suspicion. Middle-class social workers simply ignore the underclass. The underclass are "too hard". So underclass children -- who are the ones most in need of help -- simply suffer and die with no help from the ones who are paid to help them

The simple question to be answered by an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the return of a toddler to her drug-addicted parents is why? Because of what appears to be bungling by the Department of Human Services, the four-year-old is now in hospital with serious injuries from a suspicious car crash.

The first indications point to a failure to monitor the behaviour of the parents. Had the department done so, it is difficult to believe they would have allowed the girl to be removed from a home where she lived with her grandparents. There were apparently no follow-up tests and the parents are believed to have slipped back into their drug habits.

The girl was in a car driven by her father when it hit a tree in a St Albans street at 5am. She was not wearing a seat belt and ended up jammed under the car's front seat. It is still not known whether she may have suffered a brain injury. The girl's mother was also seriously injured in the crash and is expected to take months to recover.

Whatever happens as a result of the investigation prompted by a Herald Sun report, it is to be hoped this child will grow up to live the life she deserves. In the meantime, the DHS has some serious questions to address.

Source. The appalling background details are here





Australian climate policy now more tokenistic than ever

Ross Garnaut has always had good political antennae so he has now picked up the need to let Rudd off the climate hook

The lofty ambitions of Ross Garnaut's draft report in July have come crashing back to earth under the sheer weight of economic modelling. Earlier rhetoric that Australia needed to lead global action has been diluted to more modest aspirations: a 5 per cent emissions cut by 2020 in the absence of a comprehensive global deal, a 10per cent cut if such a deal can be brokered.

The European Union has committed to a 20 per cent target over the same timeframe, although this translates to about 8 per cent when adjusted for the inclusion of Eastern European countries that are already below the target. That means, by inference, that Garnaut supports differential targets for developed countries in international negotiations and, according to Garnaut at the press club yesterday, so does Nicholas Stern.

Garnaut still fudges the numbers on how much this will cost. His proposed targets are only costed by reporting the rate of change in gross national product, which is gobbledygook to most. The real costs are measured in job losses, where will it hit hardest, what prices will change? These numbers are available in one of the three economic models used by Treasury, but curiously absent from Garnaut's report. He either forgot to ask for them, or maybe he didn't like what he saw.

Garnaut has also dropped his cavalier attitude to a national emissions trading scheme, previously calling for an aggressive approach, welcoming a higher world price on carbon. Now his starting point is considerably more constrained: a capped price of permits starting at $20 a tonne in 2010, and pretty much staying there until a global deal has been brokered. Garnaut is upbeat about this happening at climate change talks in Copenhagen at the end of next year. Few in the know share his optimism.

Unsurprisingly, environment groups are incandescent at the report. They know that if Garnaut cannot match his ambitions when faced with economic reality, the Rudd Government has no chance. Kevin Rudd is the big winner. Garnaut had become something of a liability for the Government since he found green religion and decided to set his own agenda. Serendipitously, Garnaut has now taken much of the heat from activists, and, faced with the data, is wheeling around to be much more in line with the Government's plans.

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Palin envy

It's not fair. The Americans have Sarah Palin. Why can't we have one of those? Mooseburgers may not be everyone's idea of the perfect feed, and some people might baulk at giving their kids names like Track or Trig or Bristol. Also, the Alaskan Governor holds some views so far to the Right that she risks toppling off the edge. As a friend of mine remarked on the day Palin accepted the Republican vice-presidential nomination: "It's interesting how the apparent contradiction of being simultaneously pro-gun and pro-life resolves itself through the great US institution of the shotgun marriage."

But, hey! The woman is interesting. She has personality. She's real. Could you say that about any of the current crop of Australian politicians? When you compare Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan, Brendan Nelson or Julie Bishop with John McCain's running mate, don't you envy the Yanks?

On Thursday, when Palin was wowing the Republican convention with a speech that kept a television audience of 20 million glued to their sets from go to whoa, what happened in the Australian Parliament? In Question Time, as the Prime Minister droned through a reply on economic management and the blocking of the luxury car tax rise in the Senate, Liberal frontbencher Joe Hockey protested: "He's boring Australia." A while later, as the answer went on and on, Tony Abbott echoed the complaint. "Mr Speaker, this is gold-medal boredom," he said.

Sure, Opposition MPs are going to do their best to disrupt proceedings and put the PM off his game. That goes without saying. But it doesn't mean they were wrong. If you could bottle some of Rudd's performances, you'd put the manufacturers of Mogadon out of business. He seems incapable of producing an original or interesting phrase. It's all pollie-speak and repetition. In interviews, he has a special fondness for the phrase: "What we've said is." In other words, this is old news so you can switch off.

Because she's interesting, Palin will get people to listen to her, even if they don't necessarily agree with where she's coming from. The Rudd technique defies anyone to listen for long. McCain may have chosen Palin because of her opposition to abortion and her appeal to evangelical Christians and the gun lobby - the Republican Party's base. But I suspect she will have much wider appeal, partly because of her background. Americans love obscurity-to-greatness stories and this one is pure Hollywood. But more importantly, Palin does not talk or behave like a stereotypical politician. She has a down-to-earth manner that normal people are likely to relate to.

Funnily enough, for a while there Rudd enjoyed a similar advantage. When he was a regular - along with Hockey - on the Seven Network's Sunrise program, he did not come across as your usual pollie, either. He was relaxed, chatty, humorous and sometimes disarmingly frank. The audience related to him. Viewers meeting Rudd and Hockey would say to them: "You're real people, not politicians." This was one of Rudd's great strengths when he became Labor leader and took on John Howard. But he is rapidly losing it. An astute political observer remarked yesterday: "The more Rudd looks like a stereotypical suit, the more he damages his brand."

What is happening to Rudd illustrates a wider problem in Australian politics. The individuality is being squeezed out of our pollies. They no longer have the guts to be different, or even to be themselves. There are a few exceptions. Barnaby Joyce comes to mind. But for the most part Australian politicians play it safe, spout approved "talking points", and embrace cliches. The result is bland and boring. As a result, the pollies - almost all of them, not just Rudd - are losing the ability to communicate with the electorate. Voters cry out for some straight talking. Instead they get pap, pre-processed through focus groups.

Media training aggravates the situation. Highly paid "experts" tell their political pupils that, in interviews, they should "ignore the questions - just hammer your message". That leads to what I call "mantra politics" - repeating the same line over and over. Not only is it eye-glazing. It risks making a politician look like a dill.

An example was Wayne Swan's brief press conference the day the Coalition decided to try to block several Budget measures in the Senate. In his opening statement Swan said: "The Liberal Party has apparently decided to blow a multibillion-dollar hole in the Budget surplus at a time of international uncertainty. "This is dangerously irresponsible, to blow a hole in the Budget surplus at a time of international uncertainty. For the Liberal Party to blow a multibillion hole in the Budget surplus is the height of economic irresponsibility."

It was obviously a line Swan thought would make a good television sound bite, so he kept using it. Then, when he got a question, Swan had another rehearsed slogan to ram down the throats of the journalists and the electorate. "What we're seeing is short-term politics, we're not seeing the long-term national interest," he said. "The Liberal Party is choosing short-term politics over the long-term national interest. "What the Liberal Party has chosen is short-term politics and economic irresponsibility."

Now, Swan is an intelligent bloke and I happen to think he's not doing a bad job. But when he goes on like this he sounds like a parrot, not a Treasurer. Australia badly needs some home-grown Sarah Palins. Colourful, gutsy, outspoken, idiosyncratic politicians. Even if they do shoot mooses. (Or is it meese?)

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Australia's changing views

AUSTRALIANS have softened their views on abortion and capital punishment over the past few decades, but we are again growing sceptical about immigration. A study of changing social and political opinion also shows support for the decriminalisation of marijuana has fallen. But our social conscience may well be dictated by our hip pockets, researchers say.

In 1979, less than half the population believed abortion should be readily available, but that grew to 61 per cent of people by 2007.

Almost two-thirds of Australians wanted immigration slashed by the end of the Keating government in 1996, but support for this view fell to 35 per cent by 2001 following the Howard government's crackdown on migration rorts and a focus on skilled arrivals. Concern about high migration is on the rise again, with 40 per cent of those interviewed after the last election favouring a cut.

Society's changing views have been mapped with comprehensive surveys after federal elections. The report, Trends in Australian Political Opinion: Results from the Australian Election Study 1987-2007, was compiled by Australian National University researcher Prof Ian McAllister and Juliet Clark from Deakin University.

Dr Clark said it was hard to say whether Australians had become more liberal or conservative in the past two decades, but said opinions on immigration and other social issues were sometimes pegged to the economy. "It could be a case of the economy and things like rising interest rates because there's more competition for housing and people start to think about immigration," she said.

Dr Clark said she was surprised by people's attitudes towards unions, with more people now thinking big business had too much power, rather than unions.

The study also showed that on average people rated their social attitudes in the middle ground, although just to the right of the spectrum.

The study also found a trend favouring the legalisation of marijuana had turned around recently.

However, support for capital punishment has plummeted since 1987, when 60 per cent of Australians supported the death penalty's reintroduction. Today support is at 44 per cent.

And while the monarchy is losing relevance, it's not necessarily translating into support for a republic. In 1979, more than half of Australians believed the Queen was important, compared with 36 per cent in 2007. But support for a republic has remained at about 60 per cent during the past decade.

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