Victorian police told to respect prisoners, make them a nice cup of tea

This may not be as mad as it seems. From my reading, it applies to people held temporarily in police cells rather than to prisons. And many of those held will not subsequently be convicted of anything. So it is essentially protecting the rights of the innocent

POLICE have been told to show more respect to their prisoners: dim the lights at night, don't slam cell doors and serve tea, coffee or milk at least three times a day. New "soft cell" human rights guidelines from Victoria's Office of Police Integrity say cell blocks should be calm and relaxing, with light-shaded wall colours. Meals should be of good nutritional value and quantity, and second helpings should be available "on reasonable request".

The Police Association and a victims' lobby group claimed yesterday the OPI's standards for police cells treated prisoners better than many pensioners. Association secretary Sen-Sgt Greg Davies said the reaction of police would be "fits of hysterical laughter followed by justified outrage". "No doubt we'll have a queue of pensioners and victims of the financial crisis lined up to smash a window at a police station to be housed in such luxurious surroundings," Sen-Sgt Davies said.

Crime Victims Support Association president Noel McNamara said the OPI's custody standards were "absolutely astounding". "I wonder when we're going to see the introduction of mini-bars - that seems to be all that's lacking," he said.

The standards were released this week at the first Australasian Human Rights and Policing Conference. The guidelines also require prisoners to be provided with:

DAILY warm showers in clean conditions that allow privacy.

BOOKS and magazines, writing material and a tamper-proof TV in working order.

REASONABLE access to a telephone and visits from family or friends in clean, private rooms at least twice a week.

ACCESS to a sheltered outdoor exercise yard for at least an hour a day.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman said there were 66 prisoners in police cells last night. The force noted the OPI recommendations, and said much had already been done to improve cell conditions.

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Bankrupt advice on carbon emissions

By Paul Howes (Paul Howes is the national secretary of the Australian Workers Union. The AWU is a big union but not as Leftist as most. Its skeptical voice will certainly be heard loud and clear by Kevin Rudd)

The hypocrisy of big banks such as Westpac and National Australia Bank that signed up to a corporate communique on climate change calling for aggressive unilateral targets needs to be exposed. Having participated in what can be described only as a global stuff-up of our financial system, they now are trying to tell Australian corporations that operate in the real economy, and generate real wealth and real jobs, how to behave on climate change.

It's time their dishonest motivation was exposed. Now that the huge profits made out of shoring up risky mortgage markets and fancy financial products have unwound - devastating the lives of countless millions of ordinary citizens - the banks are looking to create a new source of revenue from carbon-trading markets.

I wonder how responsive they will be, safely wrapped in the cocoon of a government guarantee, when Australia's coal-fired power generators come knocking on the door for debt refinancing to help them cope with the new carbon-trading world.

The ANZ bank already has announced hundreds of job cuts, said to be more than 2per cent of its workforce. Employees at Westpac and elsewhere are steeling themselves for cuts. These bank workers, and the families they support, are the ones who will pay for the irresponsible management of financial regulation and poor loan practices of the past several years. Now the same people responsible for that debacle want to kill jobs in the real economy by calling for action far in excess of what Australia can realistically achieve without a comprehensive global agreement.

The Australian Workers Union has been active in the climate change debate because the future of our members depends on the design and implementation of a fair and balanced emissions trading scheme in Australia. Ross Garnaut rightly calls for abandoning differentiation of effort between developed and developing countries as a flawed model that will fail the world beyond the Kyoto Protocol. He is also right to call for a per capita-based reduction target that would deliver fair burden-sharing arrangements. Any successor agreement that does not include burden-sharing commitments by significant emitter countries, particularly China and India, will be harmful to the national economy and the global environment.

Leakage of investment and jobs to unregulated jurisdictions would be the direct consequence of any policy that sees Australia going it alone in the absence of global agreements. Growing energy intensity and dependence on coal in big developing nations - especially China - will render useless the efforts of developed countries to reduce emissions on their own, no matter how deep the cuts. Garnaut has called such an approach delusional because it denies reality on the causes of and solutions to increased CO2 emissions.

Industries in which my members work make things with their enterprise and skills. Paper-shuffling is not what my members are good at. Establishing an emissions trading scheme will guarantee a lot of paper shuffling and work for consultants, especially in the finance sector.

But adopting a longer term view shows that losing industries from Australia is not good for business and that making the transition to a lower carbon economy cannot and should not occur overnight. We are making progress on sectoral agreements and we should be trying to use these as one way towards an internationally binding future agreement. The industries I represent, in mineral and metal processing including steel, alumina, aluminium, manganese, zinc, ceramics, cement, pulp and paper, plastics, oil refining, petrochemicals and liquefied natural gas, are valuable Australian assets accounting for a huge 65 per cent of Australia's total exports, and $550 billion worth of avoided imports a year.

My members and their wives, husbands and children are getting pretty tired of being told their jobs are dirty and polluting, particularly by bankers relentlessly pocketing their money and frittering away superannuation. They work for sophisticated companies that are at the leading edge of efficient technology, environmental management and workplace safety. They are proud of what they do, how they do it and the products they produce that help the rest of the world reduce their carbon footprint.

Industries such as LNG mean cleaner energy in Japan and China; aluminium can provide lighter cars. All of these jobs should be seen as part of a real green jobs solution for Australia's economy. Our members are at the core of a new green deal. I support Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong taking forward an inclusive and comprehensive new green deal.

While carbon trading may well assist in establishing new industries and opportunities, it is not necessary to lay waste to our existing world-class industries to achieve this. Policies that deny costs or view traditional industries as the problem are bound to create costs for us all. A sensible transition to carbon trading will see traditional industries becoming sustainable and growing stronger during the long term. The world will use more aluminium, steel, cement, coal, gas, timber and paper, plastics and chemicals - not less - and more transport.

If policy settings are balanced and fair, Australia's trade exposed, energy-intensive sector also will be part of the climate change solution by applying best practice know-how and leading the world by example as part of a joint global action plan.

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An "obese" baby??



Olivia Villella is a healthy, thriving baby girl, according to her mother and the experts. But staff at an ABC childcare centre have branded her "fat" and "obese". Now upset mum Belinda Moss-Villella, 32, has pulled the 10-month-old out of the centre, fearing staff won't feed her enough. Olivia, who weighs 9.3kg, comes within the healthy weight range on official charts used to measure babies' growth and development.

"She's no 'boomba'. She's just a baby," Ms Moss-Villella told the Herald Sun. "Yes, she's very chubby. Yes, she's got rolls on her arms and her legs and her tummy. But she's a baby. They're meant to have rolls." The curly-haired tot with the chubby cheeks is around the 75th percentile for weight and the 25th percentile for height (70cm) for her age - all within normal ranges.

Baby Olivia was given a big tick at a weigh-in with a council maternal and child health nurse last week. "The nurse has never, ever told me Olivia is too fat. "She did say last week, 'Belinda, she's certainly not lacking.' But too fat? Never," Ms Moss-Villella said. She said people often stopped her in the street or while shopping to comment on her daughter's curls, but none had mentioned her size.

The Dandenong North mum said she was stunned when her four-year-old son, Lucca, told her staff at the childcare centre called his baby sister a "fat beast". When she complained, a staff member explained Lucca had got it wrong - the words used were "fat and obese". "I couldn't believe it. It's not like I'm sitting here feeding her chips and McDonald's every day," the mother-of-four said. She said bottle-fed Olivia eats a normal diet - usually Weetbix for breakfast, mashed vegetables for lunch, and chicken for dinner, with fruit, cheese or yoghurt for snacks.

Olivia and Lucca attended the ABC Belvedere Learning Centre in Noble Park North three days a week, while Ms Moss-Villella studied. But she withdrew both children yesterday when told that the staff involved would continue to care for Olivia. "I'm just so worried that if they think she's too fat, they just won't give her enough to eat," she said. "I just can't believe the comments and after hearing them, I can't trust that my children are getting appropriate care there. "As a mum who loves my kids, I just can't subject them to that. "In my heart of hearts, my heart says don't do it. "They obviously have a lot to learn about babies."

A staff member at the Princes Highway centre refused to comment yesterday. But Kay Gibbons, head of nutrition at the Royal Children's Hospital, said Olivia appeared "perfectly normal". "At that age, they're meant to be chubby. If growth is regular and steady, there's nothing to worry about," she said. She said babies often slimmed down when they began crawling.

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Another candidate for father of the year

A teenager who stole Christmas lights from at least two homes in Palmerston [Northern Territory] was nabbed yesterday after his father heard one of the victims describe his son's car on the radio.

Neil Forsyth called Mix104.9 in the morning to warn others that brazen vandals were stealing people's outdoor Christmas decorations. He said he had about $200 worth of lights, as well as a blow-up Santa, nicked from his front yard on Whitington Circuit in Gunn about 10.30pm on Monday. And when he raced outside he saw the thugs take off down the road in a red Mitsubishi Lancer with shiny mag wheels. His story saw many other people ring up saying they had also been victims.

But the most surprising call was from a man, who did not want to be named, admitting it was his 17-year-old son who committed the crime. The father did not wish to talk about it on the radio but said off air that he had punished his son by taking his car keys off him and would make him apologise. He also forced him to buy replacement Christmas decorations.

And, to Mr Forsyth's surprise, about 11am, he opened his door to the young, remorseful boy. "I didn't expect this at all," he told the Northern Territory News. "He was shaking like a leaf at my doorstep apologising." "I was taken aback and congratulated him for having the courage to come around and apologise. And my hats off to the dad, too." "It was just terrific his dad laid down the law." "To be so honest and go out of his way to make his son do this was fantastic - it shows that there are still some decent people out there."

He said he thinks the teen has learnt a valuable lesson and was not going to take any further action against the culprits.

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Problems with Bills of Rights

By Helen Irving (Helen Irving is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney)

Australia may be closer to getting a bill of rights. The Federal Government looks likely to begin a nationwide consultation process this week, to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the United Nations. Proposals for an Australian bill of rights are nothing new. On and off for decades there have been attempts to incorporate rights into the constitution or in comprehensive legislation, often following lengthy inquiries and detailed reports. None has succeeded. Is anything new this time round?

As proponents like to remind us, all other comparable countries, including Britain, New Zealand and Canada, have adopted a bill or charter of rights. Two Australian jurisdictions, the ACT and Victoria, have recently joined them. Now the pressure is on for Australia to fall in line.

If it is to be so, the issue must be how to make a bill compatible with Australian democracy. Australia's constitutional democracy is built on representative government and the separation of powers. In principle, the legislature makes the laws and the courts enforce them. A bill of rights changes this. Unelected courts gain the power to frustrate elected governments if they hold a law to be in breach of rights.

This may sound fine, even desirable. But many rights are in fact political. They rest on controversial propositions, matters open to reasonable disagreement, issues that should properly be debated in the public arena. We hear, for example, of the "right to die with dignity". This is not a natural right, or a settled matter. It is deeply, and essentially, contentious.

Another example: the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities includes a provision giving a person of "a particular cultural . background" the "right, in community with other persons of that background, to enjoy his or her culture". To determine whether a person has a "particular" background, and whether its enjoyment has been denied, requires detailed knowledge of cultural practices and expectations, both in "particular" and mainstream cultures. These are sociological and historical issues, not questions for the courts.

The socio-economic rights that are favoured by many have major resource implications. Good health, education and housing are all worthy goals, but they are costly. To turn these into legal rights is to deprive governments of the power to make decisions about available resources, budget priorities and future plans.

But not all rights are political. Legal process rights - the rights that surround the arrest, charge, trial and detention of persons suspected of having committed an offence - belong properly to the judicial arm of government. They concern the judicial process. They are essential protections against arbitrary power, elements of the rule of law on which our constitutional democracy also rests.

Questions about legislative encroachment on these rights are appropriately answered in the courts. If the claims made by proponents of a bill were confined to legal process rights, then agreement might be secured among those who are otherwise sceptical.

Leading advocates now accept that a proposed constitutional bill of rights is unlikely to survive a referendum. They propose, instead, a statutory bill, passed by parliament and open to repeal or amendment. The powers of the courts, they also suggest, should be limited to making declarations of incompatibility between laws and rights, and not extend to striking down such laws. This is the model followed in the ACT and Victoria, and it is said to respect the separation of powers, allowing the parliament to decide what to do with "incompatible" laws.

These are many merits in such proposals. But there are concerns, too. Although a statutory bill is repealable in principle, the experience in other countries is that such bills quickly become "constitutionalised". The rights they include become fixed, and difficult to adjust to changing circumstances. Paradoxically, the very attempt to protect parliament by empowering the courts to make "declarations" may itself prove unconstitutional. The commonwealth constitution prevents the High Court from giving advisory opinions. The court may only rule on actual legal disputes. This hurdle may prove fatal. It will require close attention by the government.

If Australia is on the path to a bill of rights, let's have a genuine consultation process. Let us ask ourselves which rights are best protected by the courts, and why we believe Australia to be deficient compared to other countries. Let us also consider how advocates and opponents might find common ground. Given the long history of failure, this may be the decisive question.

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