Hooray for Rudd!

What he says below sounds heartfelt, as it should be. He really is a patriot, whatever else his failings may be. And he shows a proper appreciation of the military, something rare among Leftists. I think the fact that he is a Queenslander has helped ensure that he has some good old-fashioned attitudes. Keating is just the bag of hate that he usually is. He seems to spend most of his life snarling at anything and everything. He must be a very unhappy man

Kevin Rudd says former Labor prime minister Paul Keating is wrong to reject the popular view that Australia was redeemed at Gallipoli. The Prime Minister said he believed Gallipoli was fundamental to the Australian national identity. "I think Paul is completely wrong on that, completely and utterly, absolutely 100 per cent wrong," he said on Fairfax radio in Sydney.

Speaking at a book launch in Sydney yesterday, Mr Keating said he had never visited Gallipoli and never would, and those who visited on Anzac day were misguided. He said he was disappointed some Australians still held the view that Australia was redeemed at Gallipoli. "An utter and complete nonsense," Mr Keating said. "Without seeking to simplify the then bonds of the empire and the implicit sense of obligation, or to diminish the bravery of our own men, we still go on as though the nation was born again or even was redeemed there."

Today Mr Rudd said Gallipoli was a searing national experience in which thousands and thousands of brave Australians lost their lives. "That is part of our national consciousness. It's part of our national psyche, it is part of our national identity," he said. "I, for one, as Prime Minister of the country, am absolutely proud of it."

Mr Rudd said the bottom line was that Australian men and women in uniform, whether on the shores of Gallipoli, on the western front, in the jungle at Kokoda, Milne Bay, Buna or Gona, right through to those now serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, gave us enormous pride. "The reason is they are engaged in ultimately a selfless act, putting their lives on the line for the rest of us," he said. "We may quibble as politicians and as the political community about some of the decisions which led to particular military engagements." But that was a matter for politicians, he said.

"The sheer naked act of courage of Australian men and women in uniform putting their lives on the line on behalf of all of us, that is the core to the shaping of the Australian national identity for more than 100 years," he said.

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Feeling cold, thinking hot

Comment by Andrew Bolt

Treasurer Wayne Swan had to get out of his woollies yesterday before telling us the world really was warming - and we must pay. You see, just days before he stood in Canberra, waving a Treasury document he claimed would help stop us heating to hell, his own family had shivered through a day that should make him finally wonder if there really is any global warming. Brisbane, his home town, had just endured its coldest October morning in 32 years, yet here was Swan telling us to spend billions in the belief the planet was cooking instead.

It's not only here that global warming believers are feeling a chill they never expected. In London on Tuesday, British politicians overwhelmingly passed amendments to a Climate Change Bill that promises huge spending to stop a catastrophic global warming they say is caused by our gases. Yet, even as they voted, snow began to fall on Parliament House - the first October snow in London in 74 years.

Yes, this is weather, not climate - something to remember the next time some headline shrieks "global warming" at just another hot day. But the fact is, as satellite measurements show, the planet hasn't warmed since 1998, and temperatures have now fallen for six years or more. The small warming we had from the 1970s on has paused, if not stopped, and more scientists now suggest we may be in for decades of cold.

But in these mad times, cognitive dissonance rules. People feel cold but think hot. Warming preachers demand carbon sacrifices, but fly first class. In fact, cognitive dissonance is becoming government policy. Take the Government's Drought Policy Review Expert Social Panel, which last week said the word "drought" made farmers feel bad, and we should say "dryness" instead. That would also make us think the drought was actually global warming.

Likewise, Swan yesterday sold the Government's planned tax on coal-fired power and all things gassy, from steel to burping cows, as something to help, not hurt, the economy. And, of course, the Government is spending $164,000 a day on ads to persuade us that this recent cooling should be called "climate change" - and proof of warming instead. Weird, yet it works. Cooling is warming, and not even snow can persuade politicians they're not frying.

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All IVF patients are suspected criminals??

The government of Victoria thinks so

Australia's National Infertility Network has blasted the Government's proposed overhaul of existing laws, saying imposing criminal checks on women and their partners was a breach of human rights. And the network claims that the Government would face legal action if the legislation passed the Upper House and became law.

ACCESS Australia spokesman Dr Railton Hill said the proposed criminal and child protection order checks under the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Bill were discriminatory. There would be a backlash at the next election if the legislation passed the Upper House, with the Government discriminating against people on the basis of a medical disability, he said. "All of us are being degraded and regarded as second-class citizens with this proposal," he said. "It's a further imposition when you're already in a stressed situation."

The IVF Directors Group has rejected the Government's claim that the early stages of fertility treatment would be exempt from the condition for a criminal and child protection order check. A spokeswoman for Attorney-General Rob Hulls said this week the checks would be required only when a woman was seeking to become pregnant and not at the stage of harvesting eggs. "The requirement for a criminal record check applies to women undergoing a treatment procedure that seeks to procure a pregnancy, such as artificial insemination or IVF", spokeswoman Meaghan Shaw said.

Rick Forbes of the IVF Directors Group said the claim was misleading and the group's legal advice found it was incorrect. "We can't commence any ART, (Assisted Reproductive Treatment) and that means we can't harvest eggs, until those checks are in place," he said. "The moment we inject a woman with hormones to harvest her eggs we have started the process of IVF."

Debate on the Bill was adjourned in the Upper House yesterday after only a handful of Liberal MPs chose to speak on the legislation. A vote is not expected until November 11 when Parliament resumes. It's believed a handful of Labor MPs may vote against the Government's Bill, which would defeat the legislation.

Premier John Brumby said he still predicted the vote in the Upper House, likely in mid-November, would be close. "I thought it would always be very close in the Upper House, I thought the Bill would pass the Lower House but it would be very close in the Upper House so I'm not in a position to make a judgment about that, it is a conscience vote but will be very close," he said. "But there won't be a vote on this for a couple of weeks so we'll wait and see."

He tried to dismiss suggestions it would take four to six weeks for a person to get a criminal and child protection order check. The Herald Sun this week revealed up to 7000 women seeking fertility treatment every year would have to undergo criminal and child protection order checks if the landmark legislation were passed in State Parliament.

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Victoria: Systematic bashings by police squad

But only a slap on the wrist as punishment

A high-level probe has found many former members of the armed offenders squad believed bashing criminals was a "community service". The Office of Police Integrity director, Michael Strong, said members of the scrapped squad had a disproportionate number of complaints compared with all other Victoria Police squads.

In a report tabled in State Parliament today, Mr Strong also said some squad members believed they were a "force within the force" and that they considered themselves above the law. "The armed offenders squad should be regarded as a cultural relic within Victoria Police," he said. "Too many of its members believed that 'the end justified the means' and that bashing a 'crook', was a community service. "The squad, through a lack of appropriate monitoring and accountability within Victoria Police, was allowed to develop its own culture, out of step with the organisation's direction. "Its members drew comfort from the strong support they received from the Police Association."

The OPI secretly bugged an armed offenders squad interview room in 2006 and filmed squad members committing assaults. Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon scrapped the elite squad within weeks of a July 2007 OPI raid on the squad. Disgraced ex-squad members Robert Dabb, Mark Butterfield and Matthew Franc initially denied it was them caught on the secret OPI camera bashing a suspect. But each of the former detectives this year pleaded guilty to assault and misleading the OPI director. They were sentenced to intensive corrections orders involving community work, education and training of between 17 weeks and 22 weeks.

Mr Strong said the OPI's investigation into the armed offenders squad exposed wider problems than just the assaults committed by three members. "Lack of a stable and strong middle management clearly contributed to the fact that an unhealthy squad culture was able to continue unchecked," he said. "The absence of a stable leadership and lack of diligent supervisors gave squad members 'free rein' to use whatever policing methods they liked. "There are indications that the informal squad culture had gained such strength and impenetrability that the chain of command was effectively reversed, to the point where some squad members considered themselves immune from managerial accountability or authority."

Mr Strong said the OPI investigation exposed a flagrant disregard by some squad members for suspects' rights. "Covert audiovisual footage obtained in the course of the investigation depicts a brutal and sustained physical assault by three former members of Victoria Police as well as a purported welfare check by a squad inspector that failed to protect the suspect," he said.

"The report explores how the absence of effective management can create an environment where some police feel justified in acting outside the law in a so-called 'noble cause', to get a 'result'. "It highlights the alarming willingness of some police to lie on oath or turn a blind eye to protect themselves or colleagues.

"Victoria Police acted swiftly to disband the armed offenders squad once evidence that appeared to substantiate allegations of assault emerged. "Replacing the squad with a task force model has produced positive outcomes. "Not only has there been a significant reduction in complaints against detectives working in the area, but arrest and conviction rates have also improved."

The OPI report reveals the old armed offenders squad only solved 47 per cent of cases between July 2003 and September 2006 whereas the new armed crime task force has a clean-up rate of 80 per cent. There were 31 complaints lodged against armed offenders squad detectives in that 39-month period, compared with only two against task force detectives in the 18 months from September 2006.

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