Australians socially mobile says OECD report

Social mobility has long been pretty good in Australia. My father was a lumberjack but I found no great trouble in becoming a university lecturer.

AUSTRALIA is a nation of social climbers - people who can pull themselves out of a poor upbringing to share in greater wealth and opportunity, an international report shows. But with doom and gloom on the economic horizon, some Australians are starting to fear the "lucky country's" good fortune is about to run out.

In Paris, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published a report which found that despite growing poverty, Australia remains an egalitarian land of the fair go. The 309-page study of equality across 30 OECD countries, Growing Unequal, found that Australia was one of the most socially mobile countries, The Australian reports. Public education, health and housing help to bridge the gap between rich and poor, the report says.

Unlike people in Italy, the US and Britain, Australians can climb out of poverty even if their parents are impoverished or poorly educated. "What your parents earned when you were a child has very little effect on your own earnings," the report says. "Similarly, the educational attainment of the parents affects the educational achievements of the child less than in most other countries."

The OECD report says income inequality - the gap between rich and poor - has fallen "quite sharply" in Australia since 2000, to below the OECD average for the first time. But the number of people in poverty - defined as living on less than half the median income - has risen slightly to 12 per cent this decade, above the OECD average.

The report may also reflect the favourable economic circumstances Australia has experienced over the last decade but an economic survey by Sydney newspaper The Daily Telegraph warns of a dramatic reversal of fortune. An online survey or readers found that gathering economic gloom has caused 14 per cent of those responding to cancel their Christmas holiday with 19 per cent indicating they would go somewhere cheaper or for a shorter time. The poll also found that:

* More than 63 per cent of people are concerned or very concerned about the economic outlook;

* More than 44 per cent feel less secure in their job than a year ago;

* Almost half believe Australia will be doing worse in a year's time than it is now;

* More than 42 per cent plan to put any spare cash on the mortgage or towards paying off debt; and

* A quarter believe Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has not done enough to combat the crisis.

The bleak findings are being borne out across Sydney with businesses reporting sales have plummeted by up to 50 per cent in the past few weeks and some saying they had been forced to sack staff as nervous consumers tightened their belts.

For those forced onto welfare the OECD report found that Australia spends less than most developed countries on cash payments such as unemployment and family benefits but the money is better targeted to help the most needy. "In a typical country, 22 per cent of total income is from the government in the form of such benefits, compared to 14 per cent in Australia," the report says.

"However, Australia targets these benefits much more tightly on low-income households than in any other country in the OECD. Forty per cent of total spending on cash benefits goes to the poorest 20 per cent of the population."

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The notorious Cairns Base hospital again

Cairns in a major international tourist destination. How to create a bad impression of Australia! The hospital serves an area roughly the size of England

An aged pensioner is appalled she was sent home from Cairns Base Hospital to cope alone with an undiagnosed broken pelvis. "They just dropped me in the gutter to wait for a taxi," Betty Rasmussen, 66, told The Cairns Post. She could not walk on crutches and had to be wheeled to the taxi rank outside the Emergency Department. "I kept saying I live on my own, but they didn't care," Ms Rasmussen said. "How heartless can you be?"

For the next few days, she had to sleep on a recliner chair at her Woree unit because she could not lower herself into her bed. The hospital's medical services executive director, Dr Kathy Atkinson, yesterday admitted doctors failed to diagnose Ms Rasmussen's injury in X-rays taken on October 3 and her office deeply regretted the pain and inconvenience this had caused. Ms Rasmussen's treatment and the way she was discharged were being reviewed and she would be given a detailed written response. The hospital has also reported the case for entry into Queensland Health's clinical incident management database.

Dr Atkinson said on receipt of Ms Rasmussen's complaint, the X-ray was magnified and the break detected. "We are very sorry that this was not picked up earlier," she said.

Ms Rasmussen said she was appalled a hospital could treat people in their senior years that way. "There was no follow-up, not even to arrange Meals on Wheels to come around," she said. "My family doctor said I should have been put into hospital for two or three days so that I had a monkey bar to lift myself up with and a bed that could be lowered up and down."

During that first week at home, struggling on crutches to care for herself, Ms Rasmussen said there were days when she cried in unbearable agony. "I felt like doing myself in," she said. "I'm a person who always has a smile on my face, nothing bloody worries me, so for me to get to a point where I want to end my life it's . just unbelievable how down you can be."

The first she knew she had a broken pelvis was almost two weeks later when her physiotherapist - worried about the pain she was in - ordered a second batch of X-rays.

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"Green" options are hugely costly

Below is one example. All the useless windmills are another

Queensland taxpayers have been slugged with a $277 million water tank bill for the equivalent of one day's supply of water for the southeast of the state. The State Government and Brisbane City Council have paid out $216 million and $61 million respectively to subsidise water tanks since 2006, which has given the region an extra capacity of 362 megalitres, or one day's supply.

Lord Mayor Campbell Newman admitted that the water projects were expensive because governments had to rush to solve the crisis. While the majority of tanks are still for garden use, the Government and council are now paying subsidies only if the tanks are connected to plumbing on properties and Cr Newman said that made them far more efficient and capable of capturing more water.

He said the $61 million tank rebate was comparable to the $70 million council had spent on its aquifer project, which supplies about 20 megalitres a day. Tanks supply about 18 megalitres. "Clearly, having these tanks will take pressure off the system," he said. "It's been a good exercise and it's part of an overall drought [Drought? It rains all the time in Brisbane. Hardly a week goes by without rain] strategy. "It's not out of the ball park and I think it was good expenditure. "All the water that has been obtained through the various projects has been expensive water because everything was done in such a hurry." He said on average a 5000-litre tank that was plumbed for household use was saving about $130 a year in water costs.

A Government spokesman said every litre in a tank was one less litre the state had to collect in dams. "It is also about everyone playing their part in water conservation," the spokesman said. "Apart from having some ownership over water conservation issues, people are less likely to leave taps running if they know it is coming from their own water tanks."

Liberal National Party water spokesman Andrew Cripps said an LNP government would hand out incentives to participate in an "eco home scheme", installing rainwater tanks integrated with innovative devices that maximised the capture of rainfall on rooftops and diverted the water directly into home plumbing systems.

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Torres Strait security for nurses still negligible

Black populations need a lot more policing than they get

Three terrified nurses and a child have been airlifted off remote Torres Strait islands in the latest security scares for health workers. Police were last night hunting for a man who allegedly made death threats against workers on Boigu Island. Boigu Island is the closest to Papua New Guinea and a hotspot for HIV-infected villagers seeking treatment. It is also a known jump-off point for illegal drug and people trafficking into Australia.

Last night, the State's Health Minister, Stephen Robertson, said services on the island had been shutdown indefinitely after a nurse abandoned the facility on Wednesday, along with a female health centre manager and her grandchild.

The Courier-Mail understands the Boigu Island nurse, in her 40s, had been fearing a powerfully-built islander for two weeks after intervening in a violent domestic dispute in the island's village. Boigu Island elder Vera Gibuma, a close friend of the nurse, said that the nurse had stopped a young islander from bashing his girlfriend in the main street and he responded by threatening her life. "He told her she "had the devil in her" and he was going to kill her," she said. "She was crying as she was leaving but they had to get her out before there was any serious trouble." Last night the man was thought to be hiding from police in crocodile-infested mangrove swamps.

The Boigu evacuation came just five days after another nurse on Mer Island left her post after waking to find a man inside her room at the health centre on October 17. In that case, the intruder fled but the nurse was too scared to continue. Queensland Health insists the facility was secure and the woman had left her bedroom door unlocked.

These two latest cases come amid a long-term investigation into failures by the department to provide secure staff accommodation after the alleged rape of a nurse on Mabuiag Island in February. The incident occured 16 months after a damning security report was ignored, sparking a week-long walkout from nurses in April.

Mr Robertson said accomodation security in the region had been addressed since the revelations earlier in the year. "Boigu remains closed until staff safety can be addressed with discussions underway with council and police," Mr Robertson said.

Queensland Nurses Union secretary Beth Mohle said the department had reacted well but more had to be done to protect staff. "We have a zero tolerance policy for violence," she said. "We've asked for higher level discussions with police with concerns about adequacy of protection of our staff."

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