ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG comments on the Wall St bailout and the pathetic attempts of Prime Minister Rudd to get involved





Palin derangement syndrome spreads to Australia

How the Left hate normal, happy people!

Just imagine what the sneering left intelligentsia, in the United States and elsewhere, would have said if a Republican vice-presidential candidate had told CBS News that "when the stockmarket crashed [in 1929], Franklin Roosevelt got on television" and informed Americans what had happened. No doubt scores of left-liberal types would have lined-up to say the Republican Herbert Hoover, and not the Democrat Roosevelt, was in the White House when the Great Depression began, and regular TV broadcasting did not occur in the US until about 1941.

Yet the Democrat Joe Biden made these howlers in an interview with Katie Couric. She did not correct the vice-presidential candidate. This is the same Couric who grilled Sarah Palin in an interview which aired a few days later. The line of this interrogation turned on the thesis that the Governor of Alaska is not well enough informed to hold the second-highest office in the US.

Biden and Palin go head-to-head in their only debate on Friday (Sydney time). Both are able performers so, in scoring parlance, a draw is the likely outcome. However, the constant criticism of Palin by large sections of the predominantly left-liberal mainstream media means Biden will go into this verbal contest as favourite. The real outcome will turn on what impact the candidates have on voters in such swing states as Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Palin has undergone fierce and sometimes personal criticism from the left-intelligentsia, primarily because she is a conservative, Christian, married mother of five from the small town of Wasilla in Alaska. The feminist Maureen Dowd has depicted Palin as "the glamorous Pioneer Woman, packing a gun, a baby and a Bible". Professor Wendy Doniger, of the University of Chicago, has gone further, declaring that Palin's "greatest hypocrisy is her pretence that she is a woman". And the NBC News commentator Andrea Mitchell has been reported as maintaining that "only the uneducated would vote for Mrs Palin".

For her part, Palin has responded as well as possible to this criticism. She pointed to her experience as mayor of Wasilla (population 7000) and, more recently, Governor of Alaska. For an Australian comparison, the position of Alaskan governor would equate with the Tasmania premiership. Tasmania is Australia's smallest state but those who become its premier are invariably politically skilled. The former prime minister Joe Lyons, who was once premier of Tasmania, comes to mind.

Moreover, Palin responded to the Couric putdown that she has travelled very little outside of the US with a matter-of-fact depiction of her life so far: "I'm not one of those who maybe come from a background, you know, kids who perhaps graduate [from] college and their parents give them a passport and give them a backpack and say go travel the world. No, I've worked all my life. In fact, I usually had two jobs until I had kids."

Unlike most media commentators, Bill Clinton has run successfully for public office. The former Democrat president had a different take on Palin when interviewed by CNN's Larry King last week. He said he could only judge Palin from how he believes she is going in his home state of Arkansas "where half the people live in communities of less than 2500 and there are people who are pro-choice and pro-life and more than half the people have a hunting or fishing licence". He added that "they like families that hang together, that deal with adversity, that are proud of all their members". Clinton described Palin as an "appealing person" and praised John McCain's political acumen for choosing her as his running mate.

The anti-Palin ethos prevalent among left-liberals in America can also be found in Australia, at differing levels of intensity. For example, on September 17, the 7.30 Report presenter Kerry O'Brien introduced a report on Palin with a reference to "the pro-gun, pro-life mother of five". For the record, O'Brien does not mention his own family arrangements on either the 7.30 Report website or in his Who's Who In Australia entry. In the subsequent report, Tracy Bowden referred to the Governor of Alaska as "the moose-hunting, evangelical mother of five". Yes, we know.

Meanwhile The Age's house leftist, Catherine Deveny, has gone overboard in her sneering. In a recent column, she described Palin as "the closest thing Republican strategists could find to a man without a vagina", a "white trash trophy wife wearing glasses so she looks intellectual" and a "white trash moron". No need for repetition here, we got the abusive message the first time.

Even so, Deveny repeated the line last week, describing Palin as "a dangerous, divisive moron". Deveny is the embodiment of that part of Australian inner-city professional left which despises those who live middle-class lives in the suburbs and regional centres. Writing on August 6, she could hardly disguise her contempt for suburban Australia: "I can't tell you how often I seriously wish I were living in some outer suburb, content with signed and framed football jumpers on the wall, no bookshelves and a coffee table covered in remote controls, happy to read romance novels over my Cup-a-Soup".

Early in the presidential campaign, Barack Obama was reported at a private function as saying that small-town voters in the US were bitter and therefore took refuge in "guns or religion". He quickly learnt that contempt for suburban and rural America would not lead to political victory in November and he has not repeated such comments. It is most unlikely that Biden will run such a line against Palin in this week's debate. By the way, I will be watching and rooting for Palin.

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Professor "Think of a number"

It is clear that there is no science involved here -- just rather inept politics

The federal government's top climate change adviser Ross Garnaut has toughened his recommended greenhouse targets - but fears they won't come to pass. After infuriating green groups earlier this month by recommending a 10 per cent greenhouse target by 2020, he's now more open to a 25 per cent cut in emissions. He also aspires to a 90 per cent target by 2050, compared with the Federal Government's 60 per cent goal.

Professor Garnaut today released his long-awaited 620-page final report on what the nation should do about climate change. "Strong mitigation, with Australia playing its proportionate part, is in Australia's interests,'' the report says. ''(Australia) should express its willingness to reduce its own entitlements to emissions from 2000 levels by 25 per cent by 2020, and by 90 per cent by 2050 in the context of an international agreement.'' [The escape hatch]

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Dying man's wait for public hospital bed

A terminally ill man who spent 26 hours in the Caboolture Hospital's emergency department waiting for a bed does not want others to suffer the same fate. John Shea, from Bongaree, said he was admitted about 5pm on September 3 but it took until about 3pm the next day to find a bed in a public or private hospital.

Mr Shea, who has brain and lung cancers, said he spent another four hours waiting for an ambulance to take him to a private hospital in Brisbane. ``In four or six weeks I should be gone but I'd like to see other people be protected,'' Mr Shea said. ``They're understaffed and it's not good enough and I think we deserve something better from our politicians.''

Mr Shea contacted the Herald after reading last week's article on claims northside ambulance stations were understaffed. His wife Maureen said the Caboolture Hospital's emergency department was full when her husband was there. ``They had people coming and going everywhere,'' Mrs Shea said. ``It was just a bit chaotic.''

The Herald asked the Health Department to comment on the Sheas' claims but it did not respond before deadline. Earlier this month it said the Caboolture Hospital's usual occupancy rate was 90 percent.

Former local Australian Medical Association representative Dr Ray Huntley said the hospital had been running at close to capacity for three years and something should have been done to boost its capacity.

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The government-funded maternity leave proposal

THE battle over paid maternity leave is raging and this debate has it all. Stay-at-home versus working mums, feminism versus patriarchy, big business, big government, fertility and even super-sized mortgage repayments are all factors. But the real issue boils down to one simple question - who pays?

In yesterday recommending 18 weeks of parental leave for working mums, the Productivity Commission is trying to orchestrate a carefully balanced tightrope walk. On the one hand, fiscal conservatives argue that the world is in financial meltdown - do we really want to be spending more of our taxpayers' (quickly dwindling supplies of) money? On the other hand the unions, women's groups and assorted cheerleaders of big government spending are crying out for more taxpayer dollars. How can we continue to undervalue the needs of our children, they argue.

While the Productivity Commission report resists some of the more outlandish claims to pay women - including those on well-above average incomes - their full salaries for six to 12 months from the public purse, it still calls for an extra $450 million per year from taxpayers. Given that the Government signalled cutbacks on so-called "middle class welfare' in the May Budget by means testing the Baby Bonus and Family Tax Benefit B, this extra spending represents a contradiction in terms of both policy and principle.

The 18-week scheme will cost an extra $280 million when compared to the 14 weeks that the commission was expected to recommend. Of the report's additional spending, $61 million will fund two weeks of paternity leave, reserved specifically for dads on a "use it or lose it" basis. While it seems like a great idea to give mums extra support after the birth and to get dads more involved in child-rearing, the commission's report acknowledges that overseas versions of this policy haven't had the desired effect with the dads.

Is it really appropriate to use such a large sum of taxpayer dollars for what is essentially a feminist feel-good policy? It's a lot of our money to be spending on something that we know from the research overseas doesn't work.

On the positive side, the commission argues that 18 weeks of paid leave will allow most parents to take the six to nine months off work which child health experts say is optimal. This can be achieved through a combination of the paid leave component as well as parents using their own savings and other entitlements such as annual leave. It's positive because it gives mums a chance to breastfeed their babies and recover from childbirth. Parents will be able to provide one on one care at the most important time.

Importantly, this move also sets out a principle of shared responsibility. Sure, it's helpful for the community to ease the burden on new parents through taxpayer subsidies but it also makes it clear to parents that the ultimately responsibility lies with them. Paid parental leave is about supporting healthy babies and women's employment - not about subsidising mega-mortgage repayments or the infamous Baby Bonus plasma TV.

If new parents want to keep the same standard of living, they'll need to plan and save for it themselves. It also helps the Government to resist the inevitable push which will come for longer periods of paid leave.

Australia already spends well over the OECD average on families, and any push for a bigger slice of government funding than that recommended by the Productivity Commission will be extremely hard to justify. In terms of financial support from the Government, Australian parents aren't exactly doing it tough. If longer periods of parental leave are demanded, a fair solution is to help parents fund it themselves.

It's called income smoothing: making sure that money you have had in the past, or will have in the future, is available when you really need it - such as when you're on parental leave. For most Australians, the concept isn't new. We already do it with HECS, mortgages, superannuation and insurance. Why not for parental leave too? Parental Leave Saver Accounts could allow parents to save for their parental leave, rolling unused savings into super or another asset.

The infrastructure for this system already exists, evident in First Home Saver Accounts and superannuation. If families had not saved, or if their savings ran out, they could apply for an income-contingent loan. Repayments would increase as family income increases, ensuring that loan repayments did not have a significant negative impact on household budgets.

The concept of both the community and individual parents meeting the cost of having a child is fair, but we need to keep in mind that Australian families already get it pretty good. While some families will benefit from the new parental leave scheme, everyone will have to pay.

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A small smack is not child abuse

The article below is in part a response to this story of official bloody-mindedness

The NSW Department of Community Services thinks the children would be better in foster care than with a family member who smacks the bottoms of naughty children. Has the world gone mad or am I am missing something here?

While I was reading this shocking story, my kids were in a frenzy over some altercation that had quickly snowballed out of control, the way only kids can. On and on it went, until I heard myself shouting at the top of my voice for some peace and common sense. And that's all we can do, isn't it? Shout like a maniac until someone listens, though you have to wonder whether this traumatises both parent and child to a greater degree.

Of course, it was different in our day. Certainly, it was different in the days when the grandmother in the newspaper was a child. Spare the rod and spoil the child was the mantra back then.

I feel terribly sorry for this woman. She has cared for her four grandkids on and off for the last six years as their mother battled drug addiction. Surely she deserves some sympathy, not public humiliation. But some experts say what she allegedly did was unacceptable. I say to them, walk a mile in her shoes.

Bringing up happy, healthy, polite and caring children has never been easy, but it is getting more difficult because of the push for parenting to be so politically correct that there is no room for common sense and gut instinct.

I admire the work of Australian Childhood Foundation chief executive Joe Tucci, but I do not support his push for a national ban on smacking. He has pushed for it since a 2006 foundation survey found most people thought smacking was acceptable. Mr Tucci wanted the Government to legislate against parents doing it. But the Australian Family Association argued that laws which meant the Government decided who was and was not a good parent would go too far.

Former Queensland premier Peter Beattie dismissed it, saying that a smack on the bum never hurt anybody. And I think that is the belief of many of my generation.

Mr Tucci worries that when adults use physical punishment, it's usually because they're frustrated. He believes there's a risk of hurting the child because you're not in control of yourself. Of course there are derelict parents who lash out at their kids, but let's not confuse them with the 99 per cent who only wish to impose some boundaries.

When I was growing up in the 1960s, kids knew that if they behaved badly there would be consequences. Yes, often it was a smack on the bottom. But in all honesty it did us no permanent damage.

I wonder if the same is true of yelling. Verbal abuse is as destructive as physical abuse. And, yes, in a perfect world parents wouldn't yell or smack, and all children would be little angels. It doesn't work that way. I am with John Morrissey on this. The Australian Family Association spokesman says there is a big difference between a small smack and hurting or abusing a child.

In April, there was a push in Tasmania for a ban on smacking. Children's Commissioner Paul Mason told the ABC that corporal punishment taught children not to get caught and that violence was acceptable in resolving conflict. But doesn't it also teach kids not to repeat the same offence? Doesn't it impose on the child a sense that they've gone over the boundary and need to rein in their behaviour?

Of course, I am not supporting child abuse in any form, but there is a profound difference between a reproaching smack and an out-of-control slap or something worse. Most parents understand that, and surely our authorities should as well.

Flexibility and common sense are traits of good parents. It's about time the "experts" and the authorities displayed the same attributes.

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