Melbourne's charming African "refugees"

MELBOURNE'S Indian and Pakistani taxi drivers are being bashed and robbed by African youth gangs. And there are fears the number of attacks reported to Victoria Police is only the tip of the iceberg. The hot spot for inter-racial violence is Melbourne's inner north. This year between May 8 and August 2 there were 12 reported robberies on taxi drivers in Flemington, Moonee Ponds and Ascot Vale.

Police will not officially acknowledge any particular ethnic group is a target, or that any other group is carrying out the crimes. But in every case the victims told police their attackers were African and there was always more than one. Knives are the weapon in most taxi robberies reported to police, but meat cleavers and screw drivers have also been used. Ten of the 12 victims are from the Indian sub-continent, but police are not prepared to say Melbourne's foreign student taxi drivers have become targets.

Det Sgt Paul Lunt from the armed robbery taskforce said taxi drivers were being chosen because they were seen by some as soft targets. "I can't think of a time in the last five years when we've had a series of attacks like this on cab drivers," Det Sgt Lunt said. "If they commit one robbery it becomes easier to carry out the next one and the one after, and they do escalate in violence as they become a series. "What starts as a threat demanding money progresses into actual violence."

Liberal MP Bernie Finn, whose electorate covers the danger zone, said police had to start acknowledging they had a gang problem. "What we need to do is round up the ringleaders of these gangs and send them home," Mr Finn said. "We are more than capable of producing our own thugs and thieves without importing them. "The biggest hurdle we face is that we have a chief commissioner of police who refuses to accept that gangs exist. She won't even say the word gang."

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Another Australian climate skeptic

Dangerous human-caused warming can neither be demonstrated nor measured

By Physicist Dr. John Nicol, Chairman, Australia Climate Science Coalition, former Senior Lecturer of Physics at James Cook University, Townsville, Australia.

There is no evidence, neither empirical nor theoretical, that carbon dioxide emissions from industrial and other human activities can have any effect on global climate. In addition, the claims so often made that there is a consensus among climate scientists that global warming is the result of increased man-made emissions of CO2, has no basis in fact. The results of accurate measurements of global temperatures continue to be analysed by the international laboratories, now with 30 years experience in this process while a large number of scientists continue to perform high quality research. The results of these activities clearly demonstrate a wide range of errors in the IPCC projections.

Among the more obvious of these errors was the prediction of global warming expected by modelling of climate for the last three years. The actual measurements of global cooling in 2007/2008, flew directly in the face of these IPCC models. It would be difficult to find a more definitive illustration of an experimental error.

However, the claim of a consensus continues to be used in efforts to attract attention away from the lack of verifiable evidence, in a final desperate attempt to support the hypothesis that anthropogenic carbon dioxide is responsible for global warming. In the past, verifiable and reproducible evidence was required before acknowledgement of a scientific truth. In regard to global warming, this principle has been replaced by a process involving a majority vote.

The fundamental requirement of reproducible evidence, has been lost in the process of promulgating the messages regarding the output from the experimental computer models providing suggestions of global warming for the IPCC reports. No two of these 23 models provide the same values of temperature - the results are not reproducible.

That human-caused global climate change is so small that it cannot yet be differentiated from natural changes, has not been accepted. Rather our governments are being subjected to calls to provide policies based on unsubstantiated assertions of largely non-scientific executives of the IPCC, who ignore the uncertainties expressed in the main scientific reports of the International Panel. Evidence that no changes have been observed in Monsoonal activity, snow in the Himalayas, the rate of glacial retreat and the rise of sea level is conveniently ignored or presented as perceived evidence of "change". Alarming reports are presented of the many natural processes of glacial cracking, ponding of water in the Arctic Ice and the common and repetitive droughts in the drier continents of Australia, America and Africa while insufficient attention is given to the many benefits of increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, which forms the basis for plant growth through photosynthesis.

In summary, the future global and local climate is as uncertain as it has always been. Multi-decadal warming, cooling trends and abrupt changes, will continue to occur. Appropriate climate related policies are needed that, first, closely monitor change; and, secondly, respond and adapt to deleterious climatic events in the same way that we already approach hazardous natural events such as droughts, storms and earthquakes. Measures include appropriate mitigation of undesirable socio-economic effects and other economic stresses resulting from changes of the world's climate.

The best scientific advice available at present is to "Follow the Sun".

Adaptation to climate change will not be aided by imprudent restructuring of the world's energy economy in pursuit of the mitigation of an alleged "dangerous human-caused warming" that can neither be demonstrated nor measured.

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How to get people out of their cars -- NOT

PUBLIC transport users in Victoria are more likely to be attacked than commuters in New York, London or Sydney. Police figures show that assaults, sex offences, robberies and thefts soared last year, the Herald Sun reports. While public transport crime was up 2.5 per cent, transit police insiders say transportsquad numbers have dropped to a new low of less than 200.

The shock figures come amid a fresh outbreak of violent crime on Melbourne's transit system. A woman was stabbed and sexually assaulted on a train between North Melbourne and Southern Cross Station yesterday afternoon. It was the latest in a spate of attacks on women over the past two months, including the bashing of a mentally handicapped woman on the Frankston line. And in the Supreme Court yesterday, a drug user was jailed for 22 years for the stabbing murder of a stranger on the Belgrave line in 2006.

While transit crime in Victoria went up last year, New York's subway crime rate went down by 13 per cent, and London Tube crime dropped 11 per cent. A Herald Sun investigation shows:

- Transit crime in Victoria was double that of NSW: 9559 incidents to 4766.

- New York's subway averages just 6.5 felonies a day, while 26 crimes are committed daily on Victorian public transport -- almost five a day involving violence.

- London's Underground, which carries more than double Victoria's passenger numbers, recorded a much lower rate of sex offences.

Public Transport Users Association president Daniel Bowen said transit police and station staff levels dictated the level of crime. Melbourne has 105 stations without staff, 73 fully staffed, and 31 manned for peak periods. "Both New York and London have a big police presence and a staff presence at all their stations, even at night," he said.

A spokesman for Public Transport Minister Lynne Kosky said seven more stations were being upgraded to "premium stations" this year, to be manned by staff from first to last train. But Mr Bowen said the changes were at "glacial pace". Connex has 350 authorised officers patrolling the system. But customer service general manager Geoff Young said they could not be expected to deal with the worst crimes. "My staff aren't police -- station staff and line staff are trained to calm situations without putting themselves in danger." Previously required by its contract with the Brumby Government to patrol a minimum number of kilometres after 7pm, Connex changed the arrangement in February so its officers share their time more evenly between carriages and platforms.

Mr Young said a new program focusing on crime hotspots was making an impact on safety, with suburban train crime down 30 per cent in the first six months of the new scheme. "The problems on Hurstbridge were due to a lot of rock throwing during the school holidays, which we were then able to target. It's a good indication of how quickly issues move and change," he said. He said another good example was the Lilydale line, where increased patrols from 3pm had reduced the number of crimes against school children. Crime reports on the line have dropped from 650 to 240 in the two six-month blocks to July. While some lines have improved, Mr Young said crime had increased on the Pakenham line, while the Frankston line jumped to second worst for crime.

Opposition public transport spokesman Terry Mulder said less than 200 transit police was not enough. "With Melbourne's train lines stretching for up to 58km from Flinders St, many of the 211 stations are lonely places," he said. "Women and senior citizens can feel threatened, even during the day, if gangs roam around unchecked." Frankston MP Inga Peulich said scores of locals had approached her office with concerns about crime on lonely platforms. She said unmanned stations, as well as delayed and cancelled trains forcing longer waiting times, meant people felt more vulnerable as crimes became more common.

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AUSTRALIA'S PUBLIC MEDICINE CHAOS CONTINUES

Two articles below

Doctor fatigue a problem in public hospitals, says coroner

A CORONER has slammed the Medical Board of Queensland for not stopping doctors working long hours, warning fatigue is a problem in many hospitals. Brisbane Coroner's Court was told yesterday that failures in the health system meant that a 10-year-old girl who had fallen from a bunk bed had very little chance of survival.

Elise Susannah Neville died on January 9, 2002, from an extensive extradural haematoma and a fracture to the left side of her skull after falling 1.4m from a top bunk bed with no guard rails in a Caloundra holiday unit two days earlier. She was taken by her parents to Caloundra Hospital but was sent home an hour later by a junior doctor who was in the 19th hour of a 24-hour shift. Elise was rushed back to hospital and then flown to Brisbane, where she later died, mainly because of delays in medical treatment, the Brisbane Coroner's Court found.

Brisbane coroner John Lock said Elise had died because Dr Andrew Doneman at the Caloundra Hospital failed to assess and diagnose the child's injuries correctly. Mr Lock yesterday also criticised the Medical Board of Queensland for failing to deliver its promised policy to regulate doctors' working hours in hospitals around the state, saying doctor fatigue was a significant problem. "The Medical Board of Queensland accepted responsibility to develop a standard or other policy alternative on doctors' working hours," he said. "It has not completed its work and should do so with priority."

He also criticised the Office of Fair Trading for dragging its feet on work to ensure all bunk beds in domestic and commercial settings were compliant with safety standards.

Outside court, Elise's parents, Gerard and Lorraine Neville, said they were relieved that the inquest was finally over and they were satisfied with most of the coroner's findings. "We believe the doctor should have been charged; the coroner doesn't feel there is evidence to support that," her father said.

But Mr Neville said he was staggered that Caloundra Hospital still would not be getting until August next year a CT scanner - which could have helped diagnose his daughter's injuries and save her life.

In 2004, Dr Doneman pleaded guilty to unsatisfactory professional conduct before Queensland's Health Practitioners Tribunal and he was ordered to be stringently supervised for one year.

Dr Lock said Queensland Health should review the capacity of rural or remote hospitals to perform emergency neurosurgical and vascular surgical procedures which may have saved Elise's life. Queensland Health director-general Michael Reid said Queensland Health had worked hard to address the issues raised by the inquest, with work still continuing.

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Public hospital coverup

Some cancer patients at the Royal Adelaide Hospital are believed to have had their lives shortened by up to two weeks because of a radiation treatment bungle. An independent report into the error warns of the possibility of "a reduction in survival of up to two weeks for (five) patients who were receiving radiotherapy for high-grade brain tumours". Health Minister John Hill has ordered a second investigation into the decision by the then RAH management "to not notify patients" or the Government.

The report, tabled in Parliament yesterday, labels the error "significant" and "serious" and states 869 patients were exposed to an under-dose of radiation treatment of about 5 per cent. "In terms of error, this incident is considered significant because of the volume of patients exposed to the error," the report states. "Although . . . the overall clinical impact might be small, an error such as this can provide significant warning for a potential more serious error in the future and should be considered serious."

A review panel led by NSW radiation oncologist Professor Geoff Delaney found the under-dose on a malfuctioning radiotherapy machine at the RAH between July 28, 2004, and July 21, 2006, would not have an impact on the "vast majority" of patients. However, the panel said its "educated estimate" was the under-dose had shortened the lives of a group of brain tumour sufferers by up to a fortnight. This was said to be a "best guess". The panel also said it was not able to study every individual case or assess individual risk because that would take months. Rather, the panel consulted international literature before generally reviewing patients' diagnosis and treatment.

They then identified seven patients in three different tumour groups who may have had a "small but real" clinical impact. Aside from the five brain tumour patients, there was one head and neck cancer patient who "may have had their cancer compromised" and another prostate cancer patient who requires follow-up care. Health Department chief executive Dr Tony Sherbon said he was trying to contact the seven patients yesterday. He said 14 other patients in high-risk categories had since died. "We are not in a position to say whether the under-dosing affected their survival," he said.

The Government has accepted the report's 14 recommendations, including to hire six more staff. When the error was discovered two years ago the dosage was rectified. But the then RAH general manager Virginia Deegan, currently employed by the University of Adelaide, and the hospital's director of cancer services, Professor Dorothy Keefe, decided it was not significant enough to alert the public, the department or the minister.

Dr Sherbon only found out about the error on July 16 this year, after a complaint. He took up his position as Health Department chief executive just weeks after hospital management found out about the error. "I would have liked to have been briefed on it, yes, I would have liked to have known," he said. Dr Sherbon said that in 2006, Ms Deegan was notified by Professor Keefe, who advised "the under-dosing was not signficant and the manager (Ms Deegan) took that advice".

Although he will await the outcome of a second inquiry, by former Premier's Department chief Ian Kowalick, into the hospital's handling of the matter, Dr Sherbon said he will take any action recommended against Professor Keefe. "Mr Kowalick will make reference to the standards of public sector management," he said.

But RAH medical staff society chair Dr James Moore last night warned Dr Sherbon not to "overstep the mark". "He runs a very real risk of making it impossible to attract people to come and work in this state," Dr Moore said. "If he believes that all problems are going to be reported now, he's living in cloud cuckoo land. "The Government had been warned a good 12 months before this emerged that there was a risk of something like this happening because of the staffing problems.

Opposition health spokeswoman Vickie Chapman said the investigation should be widened to include the department.

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