Australia less affected by financial turmoil

AUSTRALIA is less vulnerable than Britain to the unfolding financial turmoil, largely because of the resources boom. In a comparison of the financial vulnerability of Australia and Britain UBS analysts Scott Haslem and George Tharenou said in a note to clients that the antipodes were well insulated from the global credit crisis. "The unavoidable recession unfolding in the UK, heightened by broad-based financial stress and falling house prices, has led many to expect that the Australian economy too will soon suffer the same fate," they said. "But across sector output, jobs and wages, Australia is much less vulnerable, with a more diversified economy, partly due to the commodities boom."

While the availability of credit in Britain had been restricted by higher funding costs since mid-2007, credit conditions in Australia had only materially deteriorated over the past few months. "The sharp rise in commodity prices over recent years has stimulated a massive investment boom in Australia by the cashed-up mining sector, driven largely by investment in coal, iron ore and LNG gas," the analysts said. "Overall, Australia is exposed to the global credit crisis, but relatively less so than the UK."

The strength of investment in Australian mining and state governments' growing infrastructure outlays "more than" offsets the forecast weakness in residential investment, they said. "Investment growth in Australia is forecast to be strong, in contrast to Britain," they said. "In part also due to the strength of resources taxes paid over recent years, the Australian government's fiscal position (despite cutting taxes regularly) remains strong and in a position to underpin growth in the economy should conditions weaken more than expected. "The UK fiscal position looks less able to underpin growth."

The analysis came as DJ Carmichael's head of research, Paul Adams, warned that junior minerals explorers looking for capital faced potential takeovers from "predatory" Asian investors -- particularly sovereign wealth funds and aggressive funds -- as equity markets were further squeezed. "There is an emerging disconnect between project value and share price and this makes it a very dangerous time for small Australian explorers with reasonable assets but thin balance sheets," Mr Adams told the 2008 Paydirt Asia Down Under Conference in Perth.

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Most University students now need to be taught primary-school English

MONASH University will teach its first-year students grammar and punctuation after discovering that most arrive without basic English skills. Baden Eunson, lecturer at the university's School of English, Communications and Performance Studies, and convenor of the new course, said about 90 per cent of his first-year students could not identify a noun. "If you ask them to identify adjectives and other parts of a sentence, only about 1 per cent can manage," he said, according to The Australian. "It is not really a surprise as only about 20 per cent of English teachers understand basic grammar."

Mr Eunson described his remedial program as a US-style "freshman composition course, mainly covering material that should have been covered in school but wasn't". He pointed to a 2003 study by the Economic Society of Australia which found school leavers "are functionally illiterate because standards in Australian high schools have collapsed".

Mr Eunson said students' inadequacies emerged when they were asked to hand-write answers to test questions and without the aid of spell-checkers. "I think we'll see more and more of these university-level courses springing up to do the schools' work for them," he said.

His comments come after Monash colleague Caron Dann said the majority of her 500 students in communication were strangers to English grammar. "Marking essays, I discovered the majority had no idea how to use apostrophes, or any other punctuation for that matter; that random spelling was in and sentence construction out. About half thought plurals were formed by adding an apostrophe-s, as in apple's and banana's. "Marking the final exam, it emerged that few could write neatly: From bold childlike printing to spidery scribblings in upper case, it is obvious that handwriting is a dying art," she said.

Swinburne University has said it will test the literacy skills of domestic and international students next year because of concern about standards.

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Labor faces first test on asylum

The boatpeople intercepted by the navy near Ashmore Reef early on Monday will be the first test of the Rudd Government's softened approach to processing asylum claims. The 14 illegal arrivals will be given access to taxpayer-funded lawyers before lodging any asylum claim as well as the right of appeal, should their claims fail. Immigration Minister Chris Evans said yesterday the Government would fund the initial legal costs of the 14 people after they have been questioned by officials, should they decide to apply for asylum. "We are supporting the principle that people ought to be able to get proper advice before making a claim for asylum and we will facilitate that," Senator Evans said. "So we will make lawyers available to them."

The group of 14 -- two crew and 12 passengers -- were intercepted 320km off Australia's north-west coast. Senator Evans said it was highly unlikely the boat, which appeared to have departed from within the Indonesian archipelago, contained illegal fishermen. However, he said it would not be possible to positively identify the group until they arrived at Christmas Island for processing, expected some time tomorrow. He said the boatpeople appeared to be in reasonable health and that Australian authorities had no advance warning of the boat's arrival.

Senator Evans said the first step would be to ascertain who the arrivals were, where they had come from and to run health checks. He said that as part of the new approach to dealing with asylum claims, the group would also be able to appeal any unsuccessful asylum claims. Under the old arrangements, asylum-seekers who made unsuccessful claims on Christmas Island would have had no recourse to Australian authorities as the island has been excised by the Howard government from the migration zone. Despite the changes the group will still be unable to appeal any unsuccessful claims in Australian courts.

In May, the Government announced the abolition of temporary protection visas for successful asylum-seekers. In late July, Senator Evans announced a "risk-based" approach to managing asylum claims, allowing claimaints greater appeal rights and using detention facilities only as a last resort.

Yesterday, Opposition Immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone said the Coalition was concerned the arrival of Monday's boat was a sign people smugglers were "testing the waters", in light of these changes. "The message has been this is a new regime and we're going to have a different attitude to border protection. Now, you never quite know how that translates in Indonesia," Dr Stone told The Australian. "I'm concerned that the message has got through to those operators that, "look, new regime, it's a simpler business now, give it a go."

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Recycler warns of job cuts from Global Warming laws

RECYCLING giant Visy has warned that the Government's proposed emissions trading scheme would force it to immediately close two recycling and paper manufacturing facilities with the direct loss of 160 jobs. Visy, renowned as one of the nation's greenest companies, has slammed the proposed scheme's cost of $20 on a tonne of emissions, in its response to the Government's emissions trading green paper.

Its submission states that a $20 a tonne carbon price would damage Visy's "corporate engine", Visy Pulp & Paper, jeopardising at least $1billion in planned investment. "Visy's first-mover status in environmental performance puts it at a disadvantage compared with other Australian industries, including its competitors," the submission says. "The CPRS (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) does not recognise the carbon benefits from recycling, leading to severe collateral impacts on Australia's domestic recycling/remanufacturing industries. "Full action of permits will unnecessarily damage the economy and constrain businesses' capacity to invest in reducing emissions."

The submission says there should be a full transition of benefit flows from existing greenhouse gas abatement schemes, as the current ETS design places current programs in jeopardy. It adds: "The proposed EITE (emissions-intensive trade-exposed industries) compensation does not protect against carbon leakage, carbon magnification and loss of jobs and investment."

The Government's climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, will present his final report on climate change to the Prime Minister tomorrow. Opposition emissions trading spokesman Andrew Robb warned that the Government's 2010 ETS start date and the global economic situation were causing concern. "The whole purpose of an ETS is to give businesses an incentive to introduce new emissions-reducing technologies," he told The Australian. "Visy has been an activist for climate change. They've done some really outstanding things, but because they've moved early they are below the compensation threshold. They will get zero compensation yet they have to sell their products on world markets."

Mr Robb said the ETS was starting to erode confidence and affect business decisions. "Professor Garnaut has been able to put out a green paper of his own, do modelling and is about to issue a final report. The Government has achieved very little of that," he said. "It will undermine investment confidence and business decisions at a critical time when we've got the world financial markets in meltdown."

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Cairns paramedic assaulted after public hospital treatment delay

HOSPITAL overcrowding has been blamed for a patient assaulting a paramedic while waiting to be admitted to the Cairns Base Hospital emergency department. Queensland Ambulance union state organiser Jason Dutton said a frustrated patient kicked and punched a paramedic in the head and back as he waited to be treated by emergency specialists. He said the patient, who had been picked up by paramedics at a nightclub, had been waiting outside the hospital in an ambulance before attacking the officer in the early hours of last Thursday morning. The man was seeking treatment for non-life threatening injuries after being involved in a fight.

Bob Lackey, regional delegate for the Liquor Hospitality Miscellaneous Union, which represents ambulance officers, said hospital staff sent security guards to help ambulance officers restrain the man but it was two and a half hours before the patient was finally admitted to the emergency department. "They've got secure areas inside the hospital where they can put patients like that until they calm down," he said. "As a union, we're pretty disgusted. The man was already aggressive. Waiting to get into the accident and emergency department didn't help."

Mr Dutton said Queensland Health needed to address hospital overcrowding to limit aggression aimed at paramedics. Ambulances are frequently forced to wait outside the busiest hospital emergency departments for hours before they can offload patients - a practice known as ramping. "Our members are in the firing line when it comes to people's frustrations and anger," Mr Dutton said. "A lot of our members have been getting verbal aggression but this is the first time that I've been told, as a direct result of ramping, that an officer has been assaulted. "That's unacceptable."

Mr Roberts said the Queensland Ambulance Service continued to work proactively with Queensland Health to minimise delays in handing over patients to emergency department staff.

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