Rudd presents a friendly face to China

China is already hugely important to Australia so this can only be good. Being myself Sinophilic, I am delighted that Australia will be so well-represented by our future Prime Minister. My only hope is that Rudd understands economics as well as he understands Mandarin. His Arts degree does not augur terribly well for that but former Labor PM Paul Keating developed a good understanding of economics despite no formal background in it so there is hope



MANDARIN-speaking Kevin Rudd stole the show from John Howard on the day Australia secured a $45 billion gas deal with China. The Labor leader stunned President Hu Jintao with a two-minute recounting of his personal history at an APEC lunch attended by a "who's who" of Australian business. Mr Rudd spoke of his life as a diplomat in China, his love for the booming country, and his family's close ties to the region. Just a day after Mr Howard tied his fortunes to George W. Bush and the US, Mr Rudd made it clear that the rising Asian superpower was the focus of his affection.

Speaking fluently to the Chinese leader in his own language, Mr Rudd upstaged Mr Howard's announcement of Australia's single biggest export contract. A former diplomat with many years' experience in Asia, Mr Rudd gave President Hu a personal history of his links to China, drawing on the experiences of his wife Therese, his daughter Jessica, and sons Nicholas and Marcus.

The speech began in English. Then, breaking into Mandarin, Mr Rudd said: "Together with my wife and little daughter, I went to work in Beijing in the 1980s. "My wife and I have a particular love for Beijing. We love the feeling of Beijing. We love the people of Beijing, and of course, its culture. "Twenty years later, the little girl that we took to Beijing this April married a young man from the Australian Chinese community. "My son has already been to Shanghai's Fundan University to study. I also have a little boy, our youngest, who is in his early years of high school. He is really, really naughty -- he doesn't like doing his homework. But he has already begun his study of Chinese."

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US relationship still at core for Australia, says Rudd

AUSTRALIA'S strategic relationship with the US would remain core despite the growing relationship with China, Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd said today. Mr Rudd, who met United States President George W. Bush yesterday and is to meet China's President Hu Jintao today, said today the relationships were important in different ways.

He said China was emerging as a key economic partner. "Our core strategic relationship will remain with the US. I am a life-long supporter of our alliance with America and that will continue into the future," he said on Southern Cross radio. "Our defence co-operation with the US is absolutely central to Australia's long-term national security. Intelligence sharing arrangements, defence procurement arrangements, joint exercising, combined with the fact that our respective defence forces have spent so many joint operations together over the years."

Mr Rudd said that at an economic level, China had been emerging over the last decade as a huge partner in Australia's future development. Both relationships could be managed well. "If we are elected to form the next government of Australia, I look forward to developing further not just a strong robust relationship with Washington but also to continue to expand our dealings with Beijing," he said.

Mr Rudd again declined to reveal the substance of his talks with the US president. But he made it clear Labor's policy for a staged withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq would not change and the relationship with the US would survive. "I am confident that our alliance with the US is old enough, broad enough and strong enough to sustain having disagreements from time to time," he said. Mr Rudd said he could work with Mr Bush and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice despite their friendships with John Howard. Mr Howard had been prime minister for 11 years and it would be surprising if he had not developed some personal friendships around the world. "If we are elected to form the next government of Australia then, of course, we would seek to develop relationships around at that personal level as well," he said. "I would look forward very much to working with the US administration, if I am elected, on a whole range of areas where we have common interests to pursue, particularly here in east Asia where there are continued challenges."

Mr Rudd said that included North Korea's nuclear weapons, China and Taiwan, tensions between China and Japan, and militant Islamism in South-East Asia. "These are all of great concern to Australia. They are areas where we would want to work in partnership with our American ally because I believe overwhelmingly that the US is a force for good and stability in the world," he said.

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China loves Kyoto -- new climate plan sunk

I wonder why?

CHINA has dashed John Howard's hopes for an APEC deal on climate change, saying any new pact should be based on the Kyoto Protocol. Australia refuses to sign the Kyoto Protocol. [Because Kyoto gives China free rein].

Chinese President Hu Jintao yesterday rejected John Howard's call for developing nations to shoulder tougher greenhouse emissions targets. "Climate change is an environmental issue. But, ultimately, it is a development issue," Mr Hu said. "We should, within the context of sustainable development, uphold the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol as the core mechanism and main avenue of co-operation." The Kyoto Protocol allowed developing countries greater leeway on emissions targets, placing a higher burden on developed nations.

Australia and the United States - the only major polluters not to ratify Kyoto - want developing nations to shoulder tougher emissions reduction targets. Climate change was the key subject in talks between Mr Howard and Mr Hu. The Prime Minister had hoped to make concrete progress on climate change at the Sydney summit, ahead of a federal election campaign. However Mr Hu said that he supported the differing responsibilities allowed under the Kyoto pact.

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer admitted it would be hard to bring China - one of the biggest polluters in the world - into a new emissions reduction system. "It's one of the great challenges of diplomacy; I'm not too pessimistic about it, I think we can at least make some progress here," he said.

The impasse means any APEC statement on climate change is likely to be a general statement of intent, rather than a detailed action plan. Mr Hu said he hoped the Sydney declaration would "send a clear signal to the international community to show their strong will and common resolve in tackling climate change".

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Totally dishonest "protesters" in Sydney

ARE these shouty protesters - and their sock puppets in the media - sure they've got the right guy in their sights? Let me check again what tomorrow's big Stop Bush 2007 rally outside Sydney's APEC meeting is demanding. Hmm. Foreign troops out. Defend workers' rights. Stop global warming.

And, indeed, at the APEC meeting is a president who really does occupy a foreign country, really does trample workers' rights and really does lead a country that now belches more greenhouse gases than any other. What's more, this president also runs a gulag, bans free speech, stacks courts, jails dissidents, executes crooks and leads a government even he admits is too corrupt. That's surely enough to tick the box of every protester in Sydney.

So here's the puzzle: why isn't tomorrow's protest called Stop Hu Jintao 2007 instead? Why do the protesters shout abuse at Bush, the elected president of democratic United States, but not boo Hu, the unelected president of communist China? Why did students this week stage a Walk Out on Bush, but stay at school for Hu? And why is the big-city media so savage against Bush, while writing headlines yesterday declaring "Hu is Australia's main man" and "Big welcome for China's leader"? None of it makes sense. What's Bush done that Hu hasn't done worse?

Under Bush, the US last year actually cut its greenhouse gases. Hu's China, though, is now the world leader, belching out more carbon dioxide every year, with no sign of slowing. Under Bush, US troops have liberated Iraq from a tyranny and are staying temporarily on the invitation of that country's elected government to keep that democracy safe.

Under Hu, China has just tightened its grip on occupied Tibet, this week demanding Beijing now approve all of Tibet's spiritual leaders. It has meanwhile propped up mad Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe and the genocidal one in Sudan and has threatened democratic Taiwan with war.

Bush isn't even a starter in any spot-the-tyrant game that includes Hu, whose country runs as many as 1000 forced labour camps, refuses to let even the Catholic Church operate openly, and last month even sent blogger He Weihua to a mental hospital for criticising local officials. So tough is Hu's regime on even foreign reporters that CNN's Beijing staff were last month stopped from reporting on media freedom in China. You'd think the media, at least, might conclude from this which of the two governments is its better friend.

Yet it's Bush, not Hu, who gets the mockery and open contempt of journalists and who is made out by protesters to be the Hitler of our times. Here's how weird is this cognitive dissonance. The Sydney Morning Herald, in its campaign to make Bush seem the nuisance who on his own whim forced a security shutdown of central Sydney, last week sought out the views even of the Communist Party of Australia. The CPA naturally obliged, huffing: "The APEC security fence that stretches through Sydney's CBD is a 'wall of shame' and undemocratic." That's brazen. You'd think anyone so upset by walls and keen on democracy would actually never have been a communist in the first place.

And you might also wonder why the Herald didn't at least note that this temporary fence to lock out violent protesters was being attacked by a party that once endorsed the Berlin Wall, built by a communist despot to lock up an entire population. But it's unfashionable even to mention "communism" as though it was a bad thing, or to note America was right to resist it then as it is right to resist Islamist fascism today.

That is a history that's erased from polite talk, and rarely taught to the children now wearing the bandannas of the Marxist Resistance group and chanting fierce slogans against capitalism and Bush. ("I pretty much disagree with everything that George Bush, like, represents," babbled one student on the ABC's PM show.)

Instead of holding old communists to account, our institutions honour them. Sydney University last year gave the CPA president, Hannah Middleton, a "community peace award" for working so hard to stop Australia from defending itself. Hu, too, is getting the warmest of welcomes. On his last visit, you'll recall, he got to address our Parliament in respectful silence, while Bush, in his own address the day before, was heckled by Greens leader Bob Brown. This time he has enjoyed a lavish dinner thrown for him by NSW Premier Morris Iemma and attended by every former Labor prime minister still alive. How grateful he was at being so honoured by the Left, saying: "I want to thank in particular Mr Whitlam, Mr Hawke and Mr Keating for attending tonight's dinner."

And how grateful he must be that journalists didn't feel such an aching desire to ridicule him that they inspected even his plate for something they could throw at his head. Contrast that with Bush having to watch his every mouthful at a barbecue held by the Prime Minister. The Sydney Morning Herald not only sent a snarky writer to check how he loaded his plate -- "I'll help you out, he told the reporter, "Here's your first sentence: 'The President takes a spoon. . .' " -- but got a health expert to whack him for eating so much meat. At a barbecue. Of all things.... so much of the rage against Bush is fundamentally insincere -- an affected hatred of much that the protesters actually would hate to go without. Like a teenager's rage against his parents.

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Rudd, Bush talk troop withdrawal

Labor leader Kevin Rudd has met US President George W Bush, who is in Sydney for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. Yesterday Mr Bush gave a hearty endorsement to Prime Minister John Howard and said he should not be counted out, despite trailing badly in the opinion polls. But Mr Rudd could be the prime minister soon, with an election due very shortly. Mr Rudd has made his case to Mr Bush about why he believes that Australian combat forces should be withdrawn in stages from Iraq.

Meanwhile Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile says he does not know whether Mr Bush's enthusiastic endorsement of Mr Howard will help the Government in the coming federal election. Mr Bush yesterday said he believed Mr Howard could come from behind to win the election. Mr Vaile says the impact of Mr Bush's endorsement will be different on different voters. "At the end of the day, that's a decision that voters will ultimately make, whether the relationship between our two countries and our two governments has been a good thing or a bad thing," he said.

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Tasmanian police sue Greenie protesters

FORESTRY Tasmania will continue to seek compensation from protesters who cost it money. Yesterday, the Government-owned company said there was nothing unusual or unprecedented about its claim for compensation from "Weld Angel" protester Allana Beltran for blocking access to the Tahune Airwalk. Forestry corporate relations general manager Ken Jeffreys said that, while the company had no specific policy to pursue costs, action had been taken before and, if necessary, would be taken again. "We retain our rights to use whatever redress is available to us. Who else is going to pay for it?" Mr Jeffreys said. "Nobody should be above the law; the law should apply equally whether you are a forest protester, a forest contractor or angelic artist."

In March, Ms Beltran blocked access to the Airwalk, sitting on a tripod in the road to protest against logging operations in the area. On Tuesday, Tasmania Police lodged an application for Ms Beltran to pay $2870 to compensate police for lost time spent at the protest. They also filed a claim for almost $6200 in lost revenue on behalf of Forestry Tasmania.

The Tasmanian Greens yesterday asked Police Minister David Llewellyn to explain why Tasmania Police were attempting to recover costs from Ms Beltran, but did not take such action against other offenders. "There are plenty of criminals who have been convicted of heinous crimes in Tasmania, yet have not been billed for police costs, while someone who did not harm a hair on anyone's head has been singled out, how can this be fair or reasonable?" Greens deputy leader Nick McKim said. "Can Tasmanian motorists who pay a speeding fine expect to receive a bill for police time, and if not, why should a forest defender?"

Mr Llewellyn said: "Prosecutions and claims of this nature are matters for the Commissioner of Police." Police prosecutor Insp Julian Whayman said all victims were eligible to claim for compensation for financial loss suffered as a consequence of the actions of a convicted criminal or offender. "There must, of course, be made a distinction between opportunistic crimes/offences, spur of the moment offences and offences caused by inadvertence/inattention by persons, as opposed to deliberate and planned offences designed to make a statement," he said. "It could be suggested that the person concerned was aware that significant wastage of financial and physical resources may result."

It was now up to the Police Commissioner to decide, he said. Police Commissioner Richard McCreadie declined to comment yesterday.

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Lazy cops again

They are "too busy" so often that they are of very little use in general. A pity someone has to die to draw attention to that

A TOP-LEVEL probe is under way into why police failed to respond to an emergency call from a Gold Coast home where a teenager allegedly later murdered his mother. The police Ethical Standards Command launched the investigation after the death of a woman, 36, at her Southport home late on Monday night following two violent arguments. It is believed her 16-year-old son telephoned three hours earlier threatening to kill his mother but police failed to respond - a failure Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson last night said was "of great concern".

A Queensland Police Service spokesman last night confirmed the police communications centre at Broadbeach received a call at 8.21pm on Monday, requesting that police attend the Southport address. "It is also clear that no police officers attended as a result of that call," the spokesman said in a statement. "A further call was subsequently made from the house at approximately 11.28pm and police attended soon after and located the deceased 36-year-old woman."

Mr Atkinson said the matter was being investigated by the Ethical Standards Command and would be monitored by the Crime and Misconduct Commission. "Appropriate action will be taken in due course and as soon as possible," he said. "The full circumstances of the Queensland Police Service lack of response will be made available at an appropriate time. However, those details are also likely to form part of the legal proceedings in this matter."

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Etiquette queen less than impressed

Men are misunderstood, women treat men badly, Germaine Greer is old and sad and we eat like animals. That's the word from etiquette queen June Dally-Watkins who told The Daily Telegraph basic manners were in "total, total decline".

Miss Dally-Watkins, who has four children and seven grandchildren, started her deportment school in 1950 after a successful modelling career took her from the state's northwest to mixing with the Hollywood A-list, including a romance with Gregory Peck in Rome. More than 300,000 Aussies have passed through her doors and undergone gruelling lessons in how to be a lady or a gentleman, including Channel 9's Catriona Rowntree and Seven's Sonia Kruger.

But Miss Dally-Watkins, aged in her early 80s, was yesterday scathing in her assessment of where we are heading. "There is a total, total decline in manners," she said. "It is a great sadness, we are back to the barbarian age. It is the 'me generation' which interestingly, is across all age groups." She said the rise of the working parent had contributed to the decline, with schools being left to pick up the slack and teach children the basic do's and don'ts in surviving elegantly in a modern world.

Acid-tongued feminist author Germaine Greer also copped a serve for giving women the idea they don't need a man to change a lightbulb or open the car door. "Women don't understand men are very sensitive and very deep," Miss Dally-Watkins said. "Women need to show more understanding to their men.

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Not letting facts disrupt the protest

APEC has made a great contribution to easing poverty

It has long been fashionable for otherwise well-educated and affluent people to exercise their liberal democratic right to protest at gatherings of world leaders, no matter how worthy the objectives of those attending the meeting may be. For some protesters, APEC represents little more than a resistance day picnic complete with water cannons, riot shields and a ring of steel that makes sure their activities have little hope of disrupting the people at whom they are directed. Proof that fashion dictates the nature of protest is clear from the fact that, prior to the arrival of US President George W. Bush last night, actions so far have centred on attempts by Greenpeace in Newcastle to demonise Australia's coal exports. This is despite the fact that as host nation of this year's APEC leaders' summit, Australia has put the quest for an international climate change response at the top of the conference agenda.

The war in Iraq will no doubt be another target for protest action but the last time we looked, Iraq was not located in the Asia-Pacific. In reality, Mr Bush's attendance is enough in itself for the noisy few to voice their well-known, anti-American beliefs. Targeting the US confirms that many who take part in protest actions are really interested only in continuing what is now a tired and old-fashioned campaign against capitalism per se. By using the rhetoric of defending the Third World's exploited poor, these protesters display their complete misunderstanding of the role played by globalisation in helping to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Nowhere is this trend-for-good through globalisation more evident than in the work of APEC.

Since it was founded by Australian prime minister Bob Hawke on a visit to Seoul in 1989 and upgraded to a leaders' forum by US president Bill Clinton in Seattle in 1993, APEC has been the key trade grouping in what is recognised as the frontline region for future world growth. The economic rise of APEC nations has given life to the rhetoric of the dawn of a Pacific century in which, over the decades ahead, nations in the Asia-Pacific will outpace the economic advances of Atlantic-centred nations that drove world prosperity through the industrial revolution and on to the 20th century. Together with the rise of India, the economic transformation of China that is now under way has the potential to lift more than two billion people out of poverty. In addition to the obvious environmental challenges this rapid growth presents, it has already delivered real advances in areas that those who protest loudest against the APEC gathering and globalisation claim to care about the most. In the first decade of APEC's existence, the United Nations Development Program's Human Development Index for lower income APEC economies improved by nearly 18 per cent. Poverty in East Asian APEC economies fell by one-third, representing 165 million people. Almost 200million new jobs were created, including 174 million in lower income economies. Infant mortality fell and life expectancy rose as sanitation improved and spending on public health and education grew.

APEC has played an undeniable role in helping to improve dialogue between nations and remove barriers to trade. For Australia, the economic dividend from APEC has been enormous. APEC member economies account for eight of Australia's top 10 export markets and 61 per cent of world growth between 1989 and 2003. APEC countries take 95 per cent of Australia's beef exports, 89 per cent of our medicinal/pharmaceutical product exports, 84 per cent of our petroleum exports, 82 per cent of our iron and steel exports, 77 per cent of our non-ferrous metal exports and 64 per cent of our coal exports. They represent eight of the top 10 sources of international visitors to Australia and provide more than 70 per cent of international students studying here.

Mutual prosperity through closer economic ties will always be APEC's core challenge. For this reason, the Howard Government must temper expectations that it can achieve a dramatic breakthrough on a new deal to combat climate change if it wants the Sydney gathering to be judged a success. And while a new bilateral security pact may be announced between Australia and the US during Mr Bush's visit, APEC is poorly equipped to deal with the detail of the complex bilateral security issues faced by member nations.

Outside the domestic political context in Australia, the Sydney APEC meeting will be judged by history on what it does to advance APEC's 1994 Bogor Declaration to achieve free and open trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific by 2010 for industrialised economies and 2020 for developing economies. This declaration recognises that economic liberalisation, not the end of capitalism, will always be the best way to deliver on the concerns being voiced by protest groups.

Ultimately, it remains a perverse feature of demonstrations that so many of those who take part have such little understanding of the detail of what they are complaining about. APEC is much more than an opportunity to whinge about disruptions to Sydney city traffic or the poor takings by local coffee shops because of heightened security. Such concerns only highlight the insular and parochial thinking of the comparatively well-off in regional terms. Just as unruly demonstrations predominantly highlight the prejudice and misunderstanding of those who take part.

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Special treatment for Muslims in Australia too

HALAL food and prayer rooms should be adopted at all universities to help Muslim students meet their religious and educational obligations, a conference heard yesterday. The religious needs of Muslim university students were addressed at an inaugural conference launched by the University of Western Sydney. UWS Director of Equity and Diversity Dr Sev Ozdowski said they wanted to develop national standards for Muslim students which could be incorporated by other universities.

The "Access, Inclusion and Success - Muslim students at Australian universities" two-day conference is covering issues relating to gender, discrimination and how to meet the fundamental religious needs of Muslim students. Dr Ozdowski told The Daily Telegraph the aim of the forum was to raise awareness and to find a way to make sure Muslim students can meet obligations to their religion as well as the university. UWS already has prayer rooms and halal food at a majority of its campuses for its 2000 Muslim students - the largest tertiary Muslim student population in Australia.

"There is no model or national standard to guide Australia's universities on how they can best address the varied cultural, ethnic and religious needs of their diverse student populations," Dr Ozdowski said. "It's important that all people, including those from Muslim backgrounds, have the ability to fully participate in higher education so they can gain good employment and strengthen their place in society. "We also need to address the practical realities that Muslim students face every day, such as providing prayer space and cafeteria food that is halal, to ensure university campuses are welcoming of all cultures and faiths," he said.

About 150 people are involved in the conference including representatives and speakers from universities and TAFE, the government and local muslim communities. Muslim student Najwa Hussein - who is completing her post graduate diploma in psychology at UWS - believes the conference is a positive step forward for Muslim students. "It is part of our obligations to fulfil these religious duties, to pray and to ensure we eat halal meat," the 21-year-old from Guildford said. "These small things are part of our daily life so if the universities adopt such facilities, that would be awesome," she said. The conference, held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Parramatta, concludes today with practical workshops.

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Workers can stay on old agreements: Gillard

JULIA Gillard has admitted that workers currently on the Howard Government's individual employment contracts could continue onthose conditions indefinitely under a Labor government. The Deputy Opposition Leader's comments will fuel union concerns that Labor plans to dump the Howard Government's Australian Workplace Agreements in name only - despite having claimed they disadvantage workers. But Ms Gillard told The Australian yesterday that Labor could guarantee no worker need be worse off under its industrial relations policy.

Following protests by Unions NSW chief John Robertson, Ms Gillard said that even workers who traded away award conditions in return for individual contracts offering increased hourly pay rates need not be disadvantaged. Under Labor's policy released last week, the Howard Government's AWAs would be abolished as part of plans to dump Work Choices. After a two-year transitional period, all workers would be employed on award conditions, collective agreements or individual contracts under common law. Workers would be guaranteed a legislated set of 10 minimum conditions, plus a further 10 conditions for award employees.

While common law contracts normally use awards to determine minimum conditions, Labor plans to exempt employees earning more than $100,000 a year in response to calls from employers for maximum flexibility.

Academics who have studied Labor's policy claim the party has abandoned a long-held commitment to collective bargaining and provided almost complete flexibility for employers to negotiate individually with award workers earning less than $100,000. Industrial lawyer Ron McCallum and workplace researcher John Buchanan say Labor has accepted the underlying philosophy of Work Choices laws by emphasising that employers would have the power to change conditions for individual workers using "flexibility clauses" in all awards. The pair said Labor's collective bargaining rules appeared weak, and employers would be given freedom to introduce "individual flexibility" within awards.

Ms Gillard confirmed Labor would introduce flexibility clauses, giving employers and employees flexibility to craft mutually acceptable work conditions, provided the workers were not disadvantaged when compared to the award.

Asked whether there was any chance of a worker being worse off under Labor, Ms Gillard agreed that some people on AWAs could face lower rates of pay under Labor's system. This might arise, she said, if an employer who used an AWA to eliminate award conditions in return for higher pay rates had to return to arrangements underpinned by award conditions. The prohibition under Labor would be the creation of new AWAs. "Beyond its (the AWA's) nominal expiry date it persists - that happens now," she said.

Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey yesterday attacked unions for backing Labor's flexibility clauses - accusing them of hypocrisy - despite last week accusing Labor of a policy that pandered to unions.

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That good ol' government "planning" again

With just three enrolments so far, a primary school will be ready to open next year in a housing estate that boasts just 30 homes. Financed with private investor funds, the development south of Wollongong is proving a growing embarrassment for the State Government. It is one of 10 schools the Government is building using public-private partnerships - and all are due to be opened by early 2009. The primary school being built at Tullimbar, west of Albion Park, can cater for 300 children, with facilities for up to 525 students. Children living further afield are now expected to be sent to the school by bus in in an attempt to boost enrolment numbers and meet the Government's contractual commitment to the investors in the school.

When Tullimbar was planned, it was to cater solely to children in the new housing estate, said Nicholas Cole, president of the Parents and Citizens Association at nearby Albion Park primary school, which is facing declining enrolments even before Tullimbar opens. "The department won't confirm now whether it is planning to transfer children from other areas to the school," Mr Cole said. "We already have an educational system working well in this area. We have five primary schools within a four-kilometre radius."

An organiser for the NSW Teachers Federation, Gary Zadkovich, said: "There has been a planning mistake. They've gone ahead with a property development and built a new school. At the very least their demographic analysis has got it wrong since the nearest primary school has declining enrolments." Under the same contract, using private investment funds, schools are planned for Rouse Hill, Hoxton Park South and at Ropes Crossing, in the former ADI site near St Marys. This estate has just 100 people living in it, raising concerns only a few children will attend the primary school which opens next year.

Miltonbrook, the developer of Tullimbar, says when the estate is completed in about 13 years it will have about 5000 residents. "Progress with the development has been a little slower than we anticipated," a spokeswoman said.

A spokesman for the Minister for Education, John Della Bosca, said the development of Tullimbar Village has been delayed by rising interest rates and the housing downturn. She said while it was not unusual for new schools to have very small initial student enrolments, it was estimated that delays in the housing development would mean lower than estimated enrolments for the first two to four years.

The NSW Opposition education spokesman, Andrew Stoner, said the Government should explain why it was opening schools where there was no community demand, while it was closing Macquarie Boys High in the growing Parramatta region. He said it should say how much it will pay private contractors to run schools for just a few students. Mr Zadkovich said: "If the Government wants to defend the Tullimbar development by saying it will remove demountables from Albion Park primary school, then why didn't it build the new classrooms where they are needed in the first place?"

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Aha! Rudd bows to the need for flexibility in workplace laws

A RUDD government would allow any worker to give up award conditions such as overtime, shift penalties and allowances in return for higher wages, drawing union accusations that Labor's policy is little different to WorkChoices. Its plan for trade-offs between employers and individual workers emerged yesterday but was slammed as a "sop to big business" by the Unions NSW secretary, John Roberston.

Mr Robertson, who was campaigning against WorkChoices in Bathurst yesterday, said the award flexibility plan made it much less clear that Labor opposed individual contracts. "I addressed a meeting of 60 prison officers this morning and they were raising questions about what is Labor's real position and how different is it from WorkChoices," he said.

A Newspoll out today shows Labor has increased its two-party preferred lead over the Coalition to 59-41. But the Minister for Workplace Relations, Joe Hockey, said Labor's industrial relation shift exposed its hypocrisy and would give employees less protection than the Government's legislation. There would be no umpire "checking to ensure that people get their full award entitlements. Under our laws you are guaranteed to get the award with full monetary compensation for any trade-offs."

The Deputy Opposition Leader, Julia Gillard, said last night such deals would provide flexibility for employers to pay more than the award but not make workers worse off. Her spokeswoman confirmed that flexibility clauses would allow "all up" pay rates to replace award conditions for workers on less than $100,000 a year. Conditions which could be traded off for pay under the mechanism for individual agreements include overtime; penalty rates for public holidays, weekends and unsociable hours; travel and tool allowances; the 17.5 per cent annual leave loading; meal and rest breaks and rostering rules. As revealed in the Herald yesterday, Ms Gillard confirmed that 10 planned legislated national employment standards - such as annual leave and sick leave - could not be negotiated away under the mechanism.

Labor's latest policy move comes despite an intensive political campaign by the ACTU against the use of individual workplace agreements under WorkChoices to negotiate changes to conditions such as overtime and penalty rates. But the ACTU president, Sharan Burrow, said there was still "a world of difference" between the individual negotiations allowed under WorkChoices and Labor's plans. "To the extent that there is a flexibility provided [by Labor] then it would have a genuine no-disadvantage test underpinning it," Ms Burrow said. "By contrast, you can drive a truck through the Government's fairness test."

But Mr Robertson said: "They need to be emphatic about saying we are not having individuals being expected to negotiate . with their employers. These sorts of things . create confusion in the minds of working people." The Housing Industry Association welcomed Labor's move. The flexibility clauses would be inserted into all awards. They would allow individual workers and employers to reach agreements on how to apply the award. A survey of small business has found that only 20 per cent believe they will be hurt by Labor's plans to reinstate protections against unfair dismissal. The Sensis Business Index, out today, found about 70 per cent thought reinstating the laws would have no effect on their business.

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"Protests" as hot air



The APEC juggernaut has finally hit Sydney. 21 world leaders and their entourages will descend on the harbour city, while protesters from various groups are determined to make their voices heard during the week-long summit. But is there a point to all these protests?

Sydneysiders are gearing up for traffic chaos and restricted movement as security measures such as a 5km fence, public transport shutdowns and clearways are implemented in the city for the conference.

According to Prime Minister John Howard, it is the potential for violent protests rather than the visiting world leaders that has led to these severe security actions. He has stepped up his rhetoric against the potential protesters, calling them hypocrites who undermine the very values they campaign for.

So what's it all for? Protest groups say that these demonstrations help to raise awareness for issues on climate change, the war in Iraq, the rights of workers - issues that they say APEC does not support. APEC delegates however, argue that these protests are pointless and do not make a real difference. Mr Howard called on protesters to "stop for a moment and consider that if they really are worried about issues such as poverty, security and climate change, then they should support APEC and not attack it".

The protesters undoubtedly add colour to these economic and political summits. Remember the 1999 protests in Seattle during the WTO summit, or the S11 demonstrations in Melbourne in 2000 when the World Economic Forum was held? What do you remember them for - the trade issues discussed or the demonstrations? Is it fair to make such a comparison when APEC comes across as a dour multilateral organisation that sets long-term aspirational targets rather than deadlines.

So the question remains - did these protests really make a difference? Did they at least create awareness among the general public on issues such as globalisation, war, poverty, climate change and the rights of workers? Or like the international summits that they campaign against, more a symbolic talking shop, all hot air and no real action?

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IQ tests rediscovered in Australia

Although he was shy, overweight and pushing 40, Paul Potts somehow summoned the nerve to perform on the show Britain's Got Talent. He appeared on stage in a wrinkled shirt and cheap, ill-fitting jacket and trembling like a leaf. You could see the three judges looking at each other, wondering what this mobile phone salesman was doing there as he prepared to sing Puccini's Nessun Dorma. But he went on to win the competition and was signed by a record company. People who do not appear to have ability sometimes go on to achieve great things. We need a university entrance system which takes this into account.

Our tertiary admissions system is like a footrace. The first students to cross the finishing line - those with the highest entrance scores - gain entry to the most popular courses at the most prestigious universities; those who run a bit slower get to study less popular courses, and so on. It sounds fair, but is it? In most races, the runners begin at the same starting line, which is rarely true in life. Some students have the advantage of private schooling while others struggle in under-resourced schools; some help out their families by working part-time while others may use the time for extra tutoring.

A fair system should take unequal starting points into account. There are two ways to do this. One is to use special "access" schemes to allow students from deprived backgrounds to enter courses they would not get into under the competitive admissions system. Because these students may displace students with higher entry scores, access schemes face substantial political resistance from those with higher entry marks. In addition, many academics worry that students admitted just because they are socially or economically deprived may lack the necessary motivation or the academic potential to succeed.

This is where admissions tests, such as the one we intend to introduce at Macquarie University this year, can help to uncover hidden talent among educationally disadvantaged students. I expect that those who will be most interested in taking the test will be students whose entry mark has been adversely affected by illness, family problems or poor schooling. This test is already being used by the Australian National University and Monash. No test is perfect, but the UniTest, at least, makes no assumptions about schooling. For example, students may be asked to read and answer questions about a paragraph. All the necessary information is contained in the paragraph, so the test assesses only reasoning, not knowledge.

Tertiary admissions tests had their debut at Harvard University 60 years ago, when the university was the preserve of wealthy students whose families could afford to send them to the best preparatory schools. James Conant, the president of Harvard at the time, believed talented students were missing out because their poor schooling did not prepare them for the curriculum-based achievement tests that Harvard used to select students. He wanted selection to be based, at least in part, on a general "aptitude" test that was not linked to any particular school experience. In Conant's view, such a test would produce an even playing field in which working-class and middle-class students could compete in a contest of brains rather than bank accounts. The test he chose was the Scholastic Aptitude Test.

By the 1990s the test was producing revenue of about $US200 million a year. But critics questioned its status as a test of innate ability. Studies found that coaching improved performance, although how much was debatable, and certainly good schooling helped students achieve higher scores. This doesn't mean the Scholastic Aptitude Test is not useful. The test predicts first-year university performance - the reason it is still widely used to select students.

Although the admissions test may help make the system fairer, it is important to remember that no test can be guaranteed to uncover every Paul Potts. There is no perfectly objective selection device and there never will be. All examinations are influenced by social and economic factors and by life experiences. The best we can hope for is that universities will use test results as part of a holistic assessment. University admissions will always be more of an art than a science and the playing field may never be completely flat, but we can make admissions fairer by using admissions tests.

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Now dams cause global warming!

Between cow farts and dams, how will we ever survive? Greenies have always hated dams, of course. In the circumstances, it would seem in harmony with their beliefs to cut off the town-water supply to all Greenies. They might actually discover where town water comes from then: DAMS

THE world's dams are contributing millions of tonnes of harmful greenhouse gases and spurring on global warming, according to a US environmental agency. International Rivers Network executive director Patrick McCully today told Brisbane's Riversymposium that rotting vegetation and fish found in dams produced surprising amounts of methane - 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide.

"Often it's accepted that hydropower is a climate friendly technology but in fact probably all reservoirs around the world emit greenhouse gases and some of them, especially some of the ones in the tropics, emit very high quantities of greenhouse gases even comparable to, in some cases even much worse than, fossil fuels like coal and gas," Mr McCully said.

He said when water flow was stopped, vegetation and soil in the flooded area and from upstream was left to rot, as well as fish and other animals which died in the dam. They then released carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide into the air. "Basically they're factories for converting carbon into methane and methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas - it's less known than carbon dioxide but it's actually about 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide in terms of trapping heat in the atmosphere."

Mr McCully said global estimates blamed dams for about a third of all methane emissions worldwide. The Brazilian National Space Agency estimated that was about 104 million tonnes of methane each year, or 4 per cent of the human impact on global warming, he said.

Mr McCully said that was a lot for such a small sector. But he said it was an area that was under-researched so a clearer picture of how dams were contributing to global warming was not known. The only Australian research that had been done was on Tasmanian dams, which found emissions were around 30 per cent of a natural gas plant - a much higher reading than US dam emissions, Mr McCully said. Those readings would be higher in hotter parts of Australia, especially northern Queensland, he said. Mr McCully said greater energy efficiency needed to be researched to overcome the problem, including technology that could produce energy from the methane from dams.

The 10th annual Riversymposium, Australia's largest river management conference, brings around 500 delegates from 40 countries to Brisbane this week to discuss river health, damming practices, drought and climate change.

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Labor Party to restart illegal immigration?

Labor has already promised to close the detention centre on Nauru and has previously stated that if people smugglers make it to Christmas Island with their human cargo, then entry to the mainland is guaranteed. Even if they don't make it to Christmas Island, Rudd has promised to take them there in the first instance. On the Alan Jones show (July 12, 2007) Rudd said that under a Rudd Labor government illegal boat arrivals would be "processed in the normal way and probably taken to Christmas Island for processing purposes". Such an equivocal response demonstrates that Labor is unfit to protect Australia's borders and maintain the integrity of our immigration program. This will simply give the green light to people smugglers that their repugnant criminal activity will be tolerated by a Rudd Labor government.

More disturbingly, Rudd makes no distinction between illegal and legal migrants. Labor's policy of "come one, come all", is further evidence that it does not have any policy to deal with illegal arrivals.

There will always be criticism of the Government's tough stance on protecting our borders from illegal boat arrivals. Regardless of where this criticism comes from, it will not deter the Howard Government from implementing its policies and ensuring that they are a success, and by any reasonable measure they have been.

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'Crippled' Left wrecking hope: Pearson

INDIGENOUS leader Noel Pearson holds little hope for the future of indigenous culture unless the political Left and Right can work together to tackle communities' dependence on the welfare state. "We are so crippled in our thinking that I don't hold out a great deal of hope we are ever going to get there," he told a packed crowd at the Melbourne Writers Festival last night.

Mr Pearson, chairman of the Cape York Institute, lashed out at the political Left, demanding its supporters rethink their views on the welfare state as it relates to indigenous policies. "Unless leaders of the cultural Left pull their heads out, I think it's going to be very hard for leaders of the indigenous community to do so," he said. The Left had "been the greatest justifiers of this state of affairs and we have never counted the costs. We just believed these things needed to be done".

Referring to drug and alcohol abuse in many Aboriginal communities, he added, "the facts have plainly spoken otherwise". "Giving handouts at the very bottom of society is a horrible thing that produces serious dysfunction," he said. When the Left "insists the blackfellas hold up the bottom end", Mr Pearson said, there was little hope the cycle of dependency would change. "The huge infrastructure of government, the parasitic infrastructure of welfare, has grown ... The minute you intervene in a person's life, inevitably you displace someone else's responsibility," he said. "The individual's responsibility. The mums' and dads' responsibility. The community's responsibility."

Mr Pearson's model for withholding part of Aborigines' welfare payments to ensure it is spent on food, child-rearing and other essentials rather than alcohol and drugs has been adopted by the Howard Government as part of its emergency intervention in the Northern Territory.

Mr Pearson told the audience of nearly 1000 people that one of the reasons he had worked closely with the Government was to bring on board Australia's conservatives, and to help them understand the plight of Aboriginal people. "Speaking to cheering crowds in Glebe and Fitzroy and West End in Brisbane might make indigenous leaders feel good," Mr Pearson said. "But you've got to do the hard yards with the hard people." Finding common ground with people on the political Right was vital, he said, adding that there was a "fundamental decency" within everyone.

Mr Pearson said the optimism and success of the Jewish community to secure a future after the Holocaust had given him great insight. He said Melbourne's Jewish community had shown him it was possible "to be victimised but not to become a victim", adding that the Jews had never forgotten or denied their history but had been able to continue and to thrive despite it. "This is what we have to do, to wake up and realise we are the guarantors of our destiny."

He recalled meeting the late Ron Castan QC, a civil libertarian and prominent member of Melbourne's Jewish community who died in 1999. In 1998, Castan connected Mr Pearson with conservative and right-wing thinkers so there could be a greater understanding of Aboriginal issues. This allowed Mr Pearson an insight into the potential for compassion and action among the political Right. "The starting place must be ourselves," he said. "The history of indigenous families tells us that the whole history of Aboriginal survival is not a history of government handouts."

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Government schools not so "free"

STATE schools have been warned not to use debt collectors to recover "voluntary" fees from parents. Draft regulations, obtained by The Australian, say parents should not be harassed or children humiliated because of a failure to pay materials fees or make voluntary contributions. The Victorian government policy follows controversy over what parents are expected to pay at state schools. There have been claims of parents being forced to pay up to $1000 in subject charges and students being humiliated if their parents could not pay. Other instances included students not being allowed to take home finished artwork, students being banned from excursions and others being embarrassed because they were not allowed a school diary until fees were paid.

The draft policy states that the Government only provides funding for "free instruction -- which is defined as the resources, materials and teaching of the "standard curriculum program". It says schools may charge fees to parents for "goods and services provided by the school". This can include textbooks, excursions and extra materials that students "consume" or take home, such as artwork. The draft regulations state that a school can charge a "voluntary" contribution but parents are not to be forced to pay it. "Payments and contributions are to be obtained without coercion or harassment," the document states. "It is not acceptable to send repeated requests for voluntary contributions beyond the initial notice to all parents." The regulations replace a 2004 policy which also instructed schools not to use debt collectors, threaten parents or humiliate students.

Victorian Council of School Organisations president Jacinta Cashen said the new regulations were much more explicit about what fees could be charged. "But the concern for us is the policing side," she said. "We know that previously schools have flouted the guidelines ... and in the past some have used debt collectors." Ms Cashen said the Victorian Government had failed to address the key issue. "If schools don't legitimately have enough money for free instruction, we should put more pressure on the Government for more funding," she said.

Victorian Association of State School Principals president Brian Burgess said he was pleased there had been an attempt to clear up confusion about fees. "There has been some lack of clarity about some of the issues regarding school materials charges," he said. Victorian Principals Association president Fred Ackerman said schools struggled to provide everything for students. "The system isn't funded at a sufficient level not to have to ask for charges," he said. "The books won't balance without a co-contribution from parents."

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Muslim plot thwarted by their own stupidity

THEY bragged of "owning the world starting from Lakemba", but a gang of young men who police say plotted to bomb ATMs seemed most concerned with not blowing themselves up. The young men from Sydney's south-west have been refused bail on charges of conspiring to use nitroglycerine explosives to attack safes and cash machines. Fadi Bassil, 20, from Lakemba, Elias Taouk, 19, from Kingsgrove, and Badawi Nassour, 20, of Greenacre, faced Sydney's Central Local Court yesterday. Linley Desire Jose Anthony, 20, of Yagoona was refused bail in the same court on Tuesday.

The men sparked a counter-terrorism operation when one, calling himself "Freddie", allegedly ordered 23 litres of chemicals from the Northern Territory on August 10. Australian Federal Police forensic experts said the batch of three chemicals could have been used to make up to 40 kilograms of high-powered explosive. Tipped off to the unusual order, police substituted dummy chemicals and monitored the men's phone calls and internet use, the court heard yesterday.

Police allege the men "googled" bomb recipes and tips, including searches on "how to blow up ATM machines" and "how much money is kept in bank ATMs". Phone taps revealed the men's dreams of criminal infamy and how they would spend their loot, the police version of events revealed. Taouk had said he "couldn't wait to be on video" and "couldn't wait until he parked his Porsche in front of Roxy's [nightclub in Parramatta]", the court heard. Police said Bassil asked a girl what she would do if her rich husband told her his wealth had come from robbing banks. When she asked him why, he replied that he was "just wondering". A text message said the men would "own the world starting from Lakemba".

The court was told other discussions involved the delicate process of bomb-making. "The mix is very sensitive and decomposes, anything, dropping or drying, it may explode," one man said. Another advised using "bungers to light it up", but cautioned they would need to "run away, straight away". Police allege that when the fake consignment arrived on August 24, Bassil and Nassour took the chemicals to Anthony's house in Yagoona. Faced with a room full of "explosives", Anthony was unnerved, and was recorded saying he was too scared to turn on his heater in case the house blew up.

Soon after, Bassil was taped revving up another of the gang to try out their new purchase. Surveillance teams later saw two men carrying ice and an esky to a table in Bicentennial Park in Glebe. They were then followed to a park in Georges Hall where they left behind gloves, eye droppers and 15 used sparklers, police said.

The men were arrested in police raids on Tuesday. Refusing bail, Magistrate Paul Lyon cited the strength of the police case and the need to protect the community. The "sheer magnitude of the quantity of substance that was bought brings it into a very serious category", he said.

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Class war campaign comes unstuck

LABOR leader Kevin Rudd has been accused of running his own "dirt" campaign after a Labor advertisement wrongly targeted a Liberal candidate's "family home" as evidence of her wealth. Mr Rudd was forced to immediately withdraw the offending television advertisement. The ad, screened repeatedly on local TV in the Victorian seat of Ballarat, features pictures of the home of the Liberal candidate Samantha McIntosh. After pointing out that Ms McIntosh had defended the recent interest-rate rise, a voiceover says: "But I suppose when your own house is up for sale for $2.2 million, it's easy to lose touch." The ad shows the home's entrance, along with the verandas and furnishings, with the words: "McIntosh's mansion up for sale. Only $2.285 million. Liberals aren't in touch with working families. Makes you angry, doesn't it?" The ad also shows a Mercedes-Benz car, apparently parked in Ms McIntosh's driveway. But the "home" is a bed-and-breakfast business, and the car is not her vehicle.

Federal Liberal director Brian Loughnane said the advertisement confirmed Liberal Party fears that Labor and ACTU operatives in seats across the country were trawling the private affairs of Coalition candidates ahead of a negative election-campaign blitz. "I call on Mr Rudd to pull the advertisement and dismantle the dirt unit," Mr Loughnane said. Prime Minister John Howard's parliamentary secretary, Tony Smith, who visited Ballarat last week, said the McIntosh family's cars were a 1990s model Ford station wagon and a ute.

Ms McIntosh, a former nurse, bought the property with her husband when it was a disused psychiatric hospital. They carried out renovation themselves. Mr Smith told The Sunday Telegraph: "It's wrong to attack someone personally. But for (Labor candidate) Catherine King, it demonstrates mass hypocrisy. "If she really believes that, she's saying Kevin Rudd isn't fit to be in Parliament. "Kevin Rudd's a millionaire. Peter Garrett is a millionaire." Mr Rudd is wealthy, courtesy of his wife, Therese Rein. Her international employment placement business had a turnover of more than $160 million a year.

Mr Loughnane said the advertisement showed that, despite the "cosmetics" of Mr Rudd's leadership, the ALP hadn't changed its true colours: "They're still fundamentally driven by misplaced class envy and envy of people who set out in life to achieve something off their own initiative in small business." Mr Loughnane accused the ACTU of being complicit in a looming election "dirt" campaign, noting that the union movement had installed long-term campaigning officials in more than 20 marginal seats across the country.

Told of the advertisement by The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Rudd immediately ordered that it be scrapped. "Mr Rudd and his office had not been aware of this ad," a spokeswoman for the Opposition Leader said. "Mr Rudd's office today instructed Ms King the ad was to be withdrawn immediately. That has now occurred. "Mr Rudd does not tolerate in any way the class warfare that was once a feature of Australian politics."

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Western Australia: Trivial sentences for serious crime

CRIMINALS can expect to serve just two years in jail - sometimes less - for some of the most serious offences, latest figures show. The Department of Corrective Services data, released to The Sunday Times, shows the time spent in WA jails for crimes. In many cases, criminals serve as little as a fifth of the time they would have had maximum penalties been imposed. Sexual assault and robbery, for example, carry maximum terms of 14 years, but perpetrators served an average of just more than two years. Those convicted of assault walked free after a year. Extortionists served an average of two years, drug offenders one year and traffic offenders eight months.

On the whole, criminals are spending longer in jail, but the state Opposition says it is not good enough. Shadow attorney-general Sue Walker yesterday revealed she was preparing a Private Member's Bill to ensure longer sentences were served. She said the granting of parole and the fact judges slashed maximum terms by a third, in some cases, meant criminals were not locked up for anywhere near long enough.

"I feel that there is a general sense of lawlessness in WA. The community feels that,'' Ms Walker said. "People generally know that sentences imposed by the courts aren't as high as they should be. "People are sick and tired of criminals getting a slap on the wrist for serious crimes. "We need to ensure criminals serve the time they are meant to serve.''

But Attorney-General Jim McGinty said WA had the second highest rate of imprisonment in Australia. Nationally, the average daily imprisonment rate is 151 prisoners for each 100,000 adults. The Northern Territory has the highest rate with 521 prisoners for every 100,000 adults, followed by WA, with a rate of 201. "The figures tell me that we already have the toughest sentencing regime of any state in Australia,'' Mr McGinty said. "Sure, you can go down the American path and lock people up even more, but I don't think that's necessary. How much harsher can you be?''

Ms Walker said Mr McGinty had missed the point and his argument simply suggested we had more crime. "This is not about how many people are going to prison,'' she said. "This is about not having adequate penalties. "People are not frightened of committing crimes because they believe the penalties they receive will be minimal.''

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Greenie fiction about the planned Tasmanian pulp mill

HAS anyone bothered to ask Tasmanians if they really want to be "saved" by mainland "celebrities"? But what would Tasmanians know about their own island, right? That's why more than 100 kinda-famous people from nowhere near Tasmania have signed a petition to stop the island from building itself a $2 billion pulp mill in the Tamar Valley. Led by millionaire Sydney businessman Geoffrey Cousins, they are campaigning against another mainlander, Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull, warning that if he doesn't stop this satanic mill he could lose his Sydney seat.

Stop Tasmania's mill, demand playwright David Williamson from the Sunshine Coast; tennis star John Newcombe from Sydney; actor Rachel Ward from near Coffs Harbor; radio host Wendy Harmer from Sydney; Fairfax executive Mark Burrows from Sydney; TV chef Kylie Kwong from Sydney; film director Phillip Noyce from Hollywood; A-list ex-headmistress Rowena Danziger from Sydney and arts critic Leo Schofield from Sydney. Hear them cry from their concrete haunts: Stop those Tasmanians from building their forest-murdering, planet-choking, water-fouling, wine-tainting pulp mill in the Tamar Valley, that Garden of Eden, or face ruin by people who live nowhere near the place.

That's quite some bullying, and by people who have little on their side but more cash and cachet than the average voter. Certainly more cash and cachet than the workers who'll get a job at this planned mill, or a cut of the taxes on its earnings. It's odd that these far-away celebrities can so easily assume the right to block a project in Tasmania that's been backed by that state's Government, checked by its environment experts and approved by its parliament with the support of Labor, the Liberals and independents. What kind of patronising is this?

But out of this celebrity intervention comes both a lesson and laugh. The lesson is in the hazard of green dreamers making a cause of some project far away, of which you and they know little and thus imagine much. For instance, from all the hype and the soft-focus pictures, you will by now think - as these celebrities seem to think - that the Gunns pulp mill will be built in a valley as pristine and beautiful as the day Gaia made it.... see the lingering footage on the ABC's 7.30 Report this week of misty fields, babbling brooks and serene hills, all with a soundtrack of dreamy music - a vision of paradise soon to be torn to shreds and blackened by A STINKING LOUSY PULP MILL.

Ah, the advantages of a little local knowledge, rather than some long-distance Dreaming. Attention: the mill is not going to be built in Eden, or in any of the 40 per cent of Tasmania that's now national parks and reserves, but in the Bell Bay industrial precinct. Its neighbours there will not be fauns and woodsprites, but heavy industries of the kind that have been in this zone for many, many years - a steel smelter, an aluminium smelter, a wood chip mill, a fibreboard plant, a power station, a fuel depot, and a few other factories of a kind to give a green believer the vapors. Shocking, I know, that such grunting, clanking, sweating businesses are allowed to exist, even with their emissions cut to negligible - as the emissions of the pulp mill most certainly will be.

But I have a newsflash for the denizens of Sydney's smartest cafes: man cannot live on green fundraising calendars alone. It's in fact industries such as these that give Tasmanians the cash that allows them, too, to enjoy the shows a Schofield recommends, the films a Noyce directs, the dinners a Kwong cooks, the private schools a Danziger runs, the plays a Williamson writes, and the health cookies of the nearby bakery which Cousins part-owns. Who knows, they might even choose to spend their dirty dollars on the high-minded paper that Burrows publishes.

Oh, did I mention paper? That reminds me of the laugh in this campaign to stop a mill that pulps wood for paper. How are the celebrities fighting this plant? Not just by running ads in a newspaper published in Turnbull's electorate. Cousins is also stuffing 50,000 letterboxes in Sydney with copies of the endless and emotive essay of author Richard Flanagan, which he says inspired him to go on his crusade. Wow - 50,000 copies of this booklet? That's quite some paper these anti-mill campaigners are using. Tasmania will need a new pulp mill to cope.

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Little recourse against bad teachers

Jim Taylor is not the name of the primary school principal who approached me after a recent column, but it will have to do because he's not supposed to talk to the media. I'd written that it was easier to dismiss poor teachers from the state system these days and he was on the phone to tell me that it's still far too difficult. Since then I've talked to other principals and teachers about this, because it's an issue of concern to many parents, including some of those who transfer their children from the public to the private system. I don't claim to have the final word on the situation, but in at least some places it's a festering issue.

In state schools, teachers' performance is reviewed annually by their principal or a senior teacher. The review cannot include any observation of the teacher in the classroom unless the teacher agrees. In Taylor's experience, most underperforming teachers don't. Therefore the review is usually a paper exercise, conducted with different degrees of rigour in different schools. What this means is that teachers, once they finish their probationary period, can go through their careers without ever being observed and assessed in the classroom by a senior person. Some principals and teachers who talked to me say the annual performance review was a joke and poor teachers could easily make themselves look adequate on paper. One teacher says her principal doesn't even do the review, but just signs the forms and sends them off.

If a teacher is doing a really poor job this will eventually be noticed by colleagues. Her or his pupils might start to display behavioural problems in the playground and the low standard of their work will be apparent to the unlucky teacher who takes them next year. Once this is brought to the principal's attention, he or she usually tries to help the teacher informally. If this fails, the Department of Education and Training is informed and the teacher is put on a 10-week formal support program. This can be extended by six weeks if considered necessary. At the end of the program, the teacher is dismissed if there is inadequate improvement. According to the department, 600 teachers have been put on programs in the past five years, with 270 failing to meet the necessary standards and leaving the department. That's fewer than 60 a year out of 50,000 teachers in primary and secondary schools and the interesting question is whether it's enough.

Taylor believes we need a public debate on the current procedures, because they don't work all that well. He says the teachers involved nearly always take stress leave, which can be paid by WorkCover, so it doesn't affect the teacher's accumulated sick leave entitlement. He says that when the teachers he's put on a program returned from stress leave, the department told him the 10-week period had to recommence, dragging the process out for much longer. (Other principals I talked to had received different advice on this point.) As well as stress leave, teachers can claim they are being victimised or harassed by the principal, which can trigger a messy mediation procedure. In some cases the teacher will be transferred to another school during the program, which then lapses.

One senior teacher said to me: "The process gets extended and then it gets complicated and sometimes it falls over for various reasons. It drags in other staff members, even parents, for and against the principal. In a really bad case some teachers stop coming to the staff room for lunch and the school becomes a factionalised place where you just don't want to work." I have been told of some principals who retired because of the stress created by this process. Others won't initiate support programs in order to avoid the problems they bring on themselves and the school. "You can sympathise with them to a point," one teacher says. "But the other teachers can get resentful about carrying a colleague who's just coasting, and that affects staff morale. It just takes a bit longer to happen."

The present system is an improvement on the past. Geoff Scott, the president of the NSW Primary Principals Association, says: "There used to be two 10-week programs plus a five-week review. It's much shorter now and I think we've got it pretty right." Jim McAlpine, the president of the NSW Secondary Principals Council, is also generally happy with the present system, although he would like to see the program always finish in 10 weeks. "At the moment," he says, "it's often drawn out when the teacher involved takes leave for stress or other reasons."

Angelo Gavrielatos, the deputy president of the NSW Teachers Federation, acknowledges the need for the procedures and says: "They have been in existence for a long time. They're the result of negotiations between the department and the federation, with the exception of the withdrawal of some appeal rights last year, which we opposed." He is concerned that "focusing on this issue detracts from the fact that the overwhelming majority of teachers exhibit a very high level of professionalism every day". I'm sure this is true. But anyone who's talked to many parents about this knows that, far more in public schools than private ones, there's a smattering of poor teachers who stay in their jobs year after year. After talking to Jim Taylor, I can understand why.

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Bills of rights do not protect freedoms

By Andrew Bolt

As American judge Learned Hand said: "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it."

Just when it seemed safe to be openly proud of Australia, the cultural cringers are at it again. This time we need to be ashamed of ourselves because Australia does not have a bill of rights. Forget the fact Australia is one of the world's oldest and most successful liberal democracies. Forget the fact bills of rights did nothing for enslaved African Americans or those persecuted in Stalinist Russia. No, we need a bill of rights to "keep up" with the rest of the world. The cringers are the same activists, lobbyists and lawyers unable to secure political objectives at the ballot box. Some Labor states, and the Labor Party's national organisation wing, are in on this as well.

Now there is a new voice in the chorus: Geoffrey Robertson, QC. Fresh off the plane he argues that Australia needs a bill of rights for two reasons: first so that we can become an "advanced" democracy; and secondly so that our High Court and other judges can make more of an international contribution than they do now. According to Mr Robertson, the High Court has lost some of its standing because a few overseas human rights lawyers tend not to quote its reasons for judgment. I think that says more about the human rights lawyers than it says about our own court.

The High Court of Australia is a formidable institution, of which all Australians should be proud. Current members of the High Court enjoy a very high international standing. From among the current justices two had enormous international and local practices as barristers (one was acknowledged as the best advocate in the common law world since Barwick); one was a law professor at 30, the youngest dean of an Australian law school and is an undisputed academic powerhouse; and all have studied, practised or lectured overseas.

The truth is that Australia is one of the most advanced democracies there is. Our constitutional order came about, not through war or other violence, but as a result of various popular processes in Australia in the 1890s. Even those who did not have the vote back then were often involved informally. Since federation, Australians have been at liberty to amend the constitution, and we have done so from time to time.

Bills of rights do not protect essential freedoms - all they do is present the very real risk of having judges imposing personal opinions as law, leaving everyone to guess about what the law might be. In Canada, for example, without direction from the parliament, judges have decided that all asylum seekers are entitled to an oral hearing, that there should be gay marriage, that persons awaiting trial must be released after eight months on remand, no matter how serious the crimes involved (this position was later reversed), and that tobacco advertising is free speech.

In Britain last year a suspected car thief climbed onto the roof of a home and threw bricks and tiles at police. Officers provided him with Kentucky Fried Chicken and cigarettes, just to be sure that his "human right" to sustenance while being "detained" could not be called into question. In 2001 the European Court of Human Rights held that certain tenants who were behind in their rental payments could not be evicted because of their "right" to "their" home. In 2006 the House of Lords followed and applied that decision.

I doubt that many Australians would welcome these outcomes. I would also doubt that many Australians would want our High Court to reduce itself to this kind of decision making. In a proper democracy, it should be the people's elected representatives, not an unelected elite, who make these kinds of social and economic decisions. I have no doubt that if there were a national bill of rights, Australian judges would approach questions relating to rights in good faith. However, they would become involved - even if unintentionally - in making policy.

I suspect that those advocating a bill of rights in Australia have a different view from the Australian Government on difficult issues such as responding to terrorism and people smuggling. I also suspect that they do not have the courage of their convictions to put this to the electorate. As one activist in the United States was quoted as saying, "We have to look to the courts to create new rights that we won't be able to get from the legislature." That is anything but democratic.

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A Bill of Rights for Australia?

Tim Blair has some more facetious comments

Posh lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC - previously prominent during the Republican debate when he argued in favour of severing ties with the British, using a British accent acquired during many decades living in Britain - believes Australia needs a Bill of Rights. "Australia is the only country without a Bill of Rights," Robertson said this week, Britishly. "We are alone among advanced liberal democracies in not having a Bill of Rights which has a presumption in favour of freedom of expression."

A fine idea, Geoffo. But who would compose such a Bill? Ideally we'd be able to go back 150 years or so, grab four or five normal middle-class citizens and put them to work: "Pay attention. You've got 30 minutes to come up with a list of rights held by all Australians. You there, top hat - take notes."

A sensible charter would result. Trouble is, in 2007 any Bill of Rights project would be captured by panic lobbyists and grievance shriekers and other types generally confined to asylums in enlightened 1857. You'd end up with a legal document enshrining the rights of bisexual SBS employees to state-funded vegan heroin, or something that allows people to vote via YouTube. Full human status might be granted to sugar gliders. Or Greens senators.

No. That won't do. As one of the few mid-19th century throwbacks currently employed in the Australian media - you may recognise us by our monocles and refusal to recognise any post-partition maps of India - the responsibility for an Australian Bill of Rights clearly falls to me. So, let our rights now be upheld:

1. Australia shall have a free press. That is to say, it shall not have a press funded without the consent of taxpayers, who otherwise might be compelled to hand over some $750 million every year for a load of commie bull on the ABC.

2. Should a person decide to open an establishment in which citizens are welcome to enjoy a cigarette with their drink, no law may prevent this.

3. Were a person to advocate a Australian population limit of between six and 12 million, as Tim Flannery did in 1995, Tim Flannery shall be prevented from having children. Of which he has two, the ridiculous hypocrite.

4. If an intruder unlawfully enters a house and is confronted by an armed homeowner, all bets are off.

5. Those who sneer at tabloid newspapers, because news printed on smaller pages is somehow inferior to news published on larger pages, shall retain the right to admit at any time that owners of massive plasma televisions receive higher-quality news than owners of smaller televisions.

6. Artists may attack Islam with the same vigour they attack Christianity. Please, go ahead. Try it right now. Good luck with all those changes of address.

7. Any wealthy environmentalist living in a coastal property shall place said property on the market at half its estimated worth the moment they make public any fears that Australia is threatened by rising oceans.

8. The right of singers, actors, dancers, cartoonists, sculptors and other practitioners of the emotional arts to proclaim on serious social, scientific or military matters shall be balanced by the right of audiences to mock them to the point of breakdown.

9. Any opponent of nuclear power shall be granted the right to never visit France, the US, Japan, the UK, or any nation where nuclear power is used. This right will also extend to a ban on them buying or consuming any goods sourced from those nations.

10. Protesters at events such as APEC will retain the right to be treated gently by police, as has become customary, despite incendiary provocation. Except for one event per year, not to be indicated in advance, during which police may respond as they wish with absolutely no fear of prosecution.

11. Any Australian citizen may at any time write a book, present a play, make a film, or complete an art work of any type, entirely free of any government intrusion. Including intrusion in the form of grants.

12. Upon the death of any Australian listed among our National Living Treasures (especially Phillip Adams, Julian Burnside, Peter Garrett, Jennie George, Marcus Einfeld, Bob Brown, Tim Costello, Robyn Williams, Pat O'Shane and Michael Leunig), citizens may help themselves to all their stuff.

13. The right - no, the responsibility - shall exist for media commentators who complain about the gap between rich and poor to immediately request a substantial pay cut.

14. To preserve the right of Australians to be protected from toxic waste, radioactive metals, noxious gases and deadly biological agents, all such materials should be stored in Adelaide, where they will have the incidental side-effect of boosting property values.

There. That's enough for Robertson QC to chew on during his next series of Hypotheticals. By the way, do you think Robbo's author wife Kathy Lette speaks at home in the same pun-swamped manner we see in her books? If so, all mockery is withdrawn. The poor bloke has suffered enough.

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Addle-headed literature curricula

By Imre Salusinszky

Last month's Australian Literature in Education Roundtable, organised by the Australia Council for the Arts, came up with many suggestions for raising the profile of our national literature, past and present, within the education system. And on the eve of the roundtable, federal Education Minister Julie Bishop took one great leap for mankind by announcing the Howard Government would endow a new chair in Australian literature at whichever university put forward the best proposal. At a stroke Bishop increased the number of such chairs by 50 per cent.

But while the state of Oz lit received a decent airing, there was much said at the roundtable that applied to the teaching in our schools of literature generally. As university specialists have ceased to be included on the state boards of studies, which shape curriculums and reading lists, two related developments have occurred. First, the cart seems to have overtaken the horse, with assessment and outcomes assuming precedence over content. Second, curriculums have come to be couched in a formidable bureaucratic jargon, an edu-babble that is inaccessible to mere mortals including, I suspect, most teachers. Here is a passage from the introduction to senior English in the South Australian curriculum:

"Through the study of English, children and students learn that language transmits cultural perspectives, including gender, ethnicity and class; and who or what is or is not important as they think, imagine, challenge, remember, create and narrate.

"They learn how language shapes meaning and reality, what this means for issues of identity and interdependence, and how it is used for a range of purposes in different contexts. Learners need to know how language is constructed and how it is used by different groups in society to shape power relations."

And this, from Western Australia's senior literature curriculum:

"In the literature course students develop skills and understandings of textual production and reception through reading practices that foster the close analysis and interrogation of textual languages and constructions. In addition to expanding their imaginative and intellectual experience, students develop and extend their social, cultural and textual knowledge through a greater comprehension of cultural meaning-making systems.

"Through critical engagement with a range of text types and cultural and historical contexts, students develop their understanding of different approaches to reading texts. This enables them to ask questions about the nature of literary text and how literature is defined by, and functions within Western cultural history.

"Such questions include the reasons why cultural value is assigned to one kind of text and not another; the changing nature of what is valued as literature at different times and in different historical and cultural contexts; and the ways particular social groups are given or denied the power to define what is 'literary' and what is 'not literary'."

It would appear, to put it bluntly, that senior-level courses in English expect students to be able to theorise the process of reading before they have done any. The sorts of inquiries outlined in these documents are perfectly appropriate to the graduate seminar room, but to place them at the beginning of a literary education is like starting arithmetic with advanced calculus.

It seems a particular style of literary theory that enjoyed its historical moment in universities in the 1970s and '80s has returned as farce in the curriculum prescriptions of the Australian states and territories. I am reminded of the way the Finnish system of dexterity training known as Sloyd got taken up in Victorian state schools in the '50s and ended up being plain old woodwork.

There are a couple of significant verbal giveaways in the documents quoted above. One is the use of interrogation, a word that spread through the humanities in the '80s and '90s like privet. When you interrogate a text you are apparently doing something far more important that simply reading or analysing or asking questions about it: you are standing in the middle of the road of ideas, raising your hand as some benighted Western cultural juggernaut rolls towards you, and announcing: "No further!"

The other giveaway is the grammatical slippage evident in "the nature of literary text". It suddenly appears as if literature has become indivisible, like milk. The view implied is that the particularities of author, style and imaginative vision, which arguably distinguish literary texts from each other, are secondary to an ideological impulse that unites and transforms them into an undifferentiated porridge.

The first point to be made about these kinds of curriculum statements is that they are, in all likelihood, harmless. I have little doubt teachers in high schools largely ignore such guff and simply get on with introducing their students to set texts without too much cultural theory clogging the gears.

However, it is the extent to which the texts are chosen to illustrate the frequently tendentious statements in the syllabuses that is a worry. As my friend Peter Holbrook asked in The Australian last month, would there be a glaring lack in a syllabus that simply declared students would be "introduced to some of the most rewarding and influential writing of the 19th and 20th centuries in English"? Such a syllabus would generate a reading list based on notions of quality, or at least canonicity, rather than illustration of appropriate contexts. My fear is that we have become so devoted to interrogation that we are embarrassed by concepts - sorry, constructs - such as genius or greatness.

Senior secondary studies in English enjoy an advantage right now that is unprecedented and may not last: the reading bonanza among younger children being driven by their enchantment with Harry Potter. We will not leverage this advantage by making disenchantment the object of high school literature courses.

What should that object be? Quite simply, literary experience, for its own sake. Until students have undergone at least the beginnings of an inductive survey of poems and stories, they are substantially under-prepared for the deductive assertions of literary theory that await them at university. And only such a survey can form the beginning of an appreciation of specifically literary attributes such as style, structure and influence.

By beefing up the literary content of secondary English courses and elbowing some of the more noisy curriculums out of the way, we would leave students and teachers freer to go wherever a dialogue with the text - which is very different from an interrogation - may lead.

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Moderate Muslim says not to appease the radicals

UNIVERSITIES must resist politicised Muslim groups seeking special treatment on campus, a commentator has warned. Tanveer Ahmed, a psychiatric registrar and a graduate of the University of Sydney, said it was now clear that British universities had inadvertently lent support to the growth of home-grown radicalism by giving in to this kind of campus pressure. "(These groups) are very assertive, very quick to cry racism, they've taken advantage of the impression among some academics that they're a marginalised, victimised minority,'' Dr Ahmed said.

On Monday he will address the first national conference on Muslim university students, being held at the University of Western Sydney. He said overseas Muslim students, appreciating the freedoms of Australia, often become less religious. But local Muslim students, who had suffered "social deprivation'' tended to be attracted to an Islamic identity of opposition to the wider culture. "University is often the beginning of their path to greater religiosity and at times radicalism too,'' he said. Politicised Muslim groups might seek to build their profile by pressuring a university to allow a certain speaker on campus, for example.

Dr Ahmed said another pattern was for these Muslim groups and leftists to ally themselves. "I remember going to a protest (in Sydney during the recent Hezbollah-Israel conflict in Lebanon) and seeing environmental groups going Allah Akhbar (God is great) in harmony with some Lebanese groups,'' Dr Ahmend said. "The God is great line wasn't about religion, it was about social protest.''

Also on Monday Hass Dellal, executive director of the Australian Multicultural Foundation, will report on a series of Muslim youth summits held around the country. About 200 university students were among those involved. Mr Dellal said feelings of isolation and not belonging were common among the students. "But a lot of these young people didn't want to bury their heads and say, poor me. They wanted to get out there and do things -- one of the ways was by volunteering,'' he said.

He said Muslim students overseas sometimes felt they were not welcomed even by their own communities within Australia while local Muslims were troubled by the anti-terror laws. "They didn't understand what these laws meant,'' Mr Dellal said. "They were worried they were going to get locked up for saying something or doing something or looking like something.'' He said students also expressed their anger and frustration at the violent actions of extremist Muslims overseas and felt they had done everything they could to demonstrate their loyalty to Australia.

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Sacked hardline Muslim preacher forces his way back

A HARDLINE Islamic cleric who was sacked by moderate Muslims for praising jihadists has forced his way back into Canberra's only mosque to preach anti-western messages. Mohammed Swaiti used his predominantly Palestinian and Jordanian support base to topple the Islamic leadership in charge of Abu Bakr Mosque, allowing him to continue preaching Wahabbism -- a fundamentalist strand of Islam espoused by Osama bin Laden.

Islamic Society of ACT president Sabrija Poskovic, whose organisation is in charge of the mosque at Yarralumla, said yesterday he was forced out after receiving threats from Sheik Swaiti's followers. He told The Weekend Australian that the imam and his admirers would see his return as a win for extremist Islam in Australia. "They took over the mosque by force, by argument, by screaming, by calling us names," said Mr Poskovic. "There is no point arguing and fighting with him and his supporters any more."

Canberra's Muslim leadership fears the return of Sheik Swaiti -- who is being investigated by the tax office for allegedly failing to pay tax on thousands of dollars in clerical allowances he is accused of receiving from the Saudi Government -- would further divide the local community and threaten to radicalise more young followers of Islam. Mr Poskovic was planning to set up a prayer hall that would be used as an alternative to the mosque by moderate Muslims ideologically opposed to the Palestinian-born Sheik Swaiti.

A prominent figure in Canberra's Muslim community, Mohammed Berjaoui, yesterday attacked national security authorities for overlooking Sheik Swaiti's anti-western sermons and ignoring his supporters' violent actions, which allegedly led to the bashing of the Islamic society's secretary, Kurt Kennedy, in May. Mr Kennedy resigned from his position last month. "They used violence and force ... to control a mosque, which is something that normally happens in the Middle East," Mr Berjaoui said. "It gives the message that they used force and violence to control the society and police and authorities did not stop them. They can do whatever they want and get away with it."

The Weekend Australian revealed in April that Sheik Swaiti, who also works for the tax office, was regularly praising mujahideen in his Friday sermons. While he translated his sermon into English for non-Arabic-speaking audience members, the imam omitted praise for Islamic jihadists in the English version. Sheik Swaiti delivered yesterday's sermon at Abu Bakr Mosque.

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"Green" building goes brown

A YEAR after it was launched amid much green fanfare, the building touted as Australia's best environmental performer has come under fire because several of its environmental features do not yet work. Teething problems at CH2 - Melbourne City Council's new state-of-the-art offices - include a sewage recycling system not yet operating, extra lighting having been installed after staff complained it was too dark, rooftop turbines not performing to expectations, and problems with plumbing leaving unpleasant odours. There were concerns about "shower towers" mounted on the building's side, designed to provide an air-conditioning alternative. They are functioning now, but were shut in February after legionella was found in the building's cooling system.

When asked about the building's environmental performance, Lord Mayor John So said yesterday CH2 was producing 80 per cent fewer emissions than comparable office buildings. But his response is at odds with his own council's report two months ago, which conceded there was no data on the building's environmental performance because it had not yet been assessed.

Green building expert Peter Szental, the man responsible for Australia's first refurbished office building to get a six-star Green Star rating, commended the council on its vision, but said many of CH2's environmental initiatives did not yet work. "There's no chance they would get a six-star rating if they were audited," Mr Szental said. "If you're going to the cutting edge, obviously some things are not going to work. But we really need to know what works and what doesn't." Mr Szental also questioned council claims that productivity would increase by 4.9 per cent.

Staff in the building have complained about noise levels in the open-plan offices. And an overwhelming stench from waterless urinals has been another source of consternation.

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Does Monash University have different standards for Muslims?

We are entitled to expect that those who lecture at our universities are appropriately qualified. Otherwise, we would be misleading the students that the university is supposed to serve. So for instance, if I have a degree in psychology, I would not be qualified to teach law. If I have a degree in law, I would presumably not be considered for a post in politics.

It used to be, and I hope is still, the case that if one wanted to even tutor at Monash University, the minimum requirement was achievement of a Class 2A Honours.

If one was to be considered for employment as a lecturer; the minimum requirement would probably be at least a PhD, or significant completion thereof, or perhaps a substantial portfolio of works published in refereed journals in the field that the candidate is to lecture in.

What then does one make of the recent appointment of Mr Waleed Aly, of the Islamic Council of Victoria, formerly a lawyer, as a lecturer in Politics at Monash's School of Political and Social Inquiry, Faculty of Arts? Mr Aly graduated in 2002 from Melbourne University with degrees in Engineering and Law.

He obtained a Class 2B Honours in completing the LLB, finishing 8th from the bottom of the list of H2B recipients. He is best known for his newspaper articles, and a recent book, People Like Us, How Arrogance is dividing Islam and the West (Picador Australia). Otherwise he is best known for being the public face of the Islamic Council of Victoria in ICV v Catch The Fire Ministries, a matter heard under Victoria's religious vilification laws.

How the above qualify him to be an academic in the field of politics is a question which is not likely to be answered by Monash VC Richard Larkins. Larkins has yet to provide any answers as to how/why the Monash Asia Institute hired one Zulfikar Shariff, a known supporter of Osama bin Laden, as a research fellow despite the Shariff not having any academic qualifications at all.

Located at adm.monash.edu.au are advertisements for the various positions, including that of lecturer within the Arts Faculty, Monash University, which includes the School of Politics. Readers can see for themselves that the minimum requirement is a PhD or equivalent.

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Life among Australia's "noble savages"

It was nine in the morning when the teacher set out by car to round up the usual suspects, children hopeful of spending their day playing in the dust of their Cape York community rather than endure hours confined to a classroom. Something caught his eye. Stepping out of his car, the teacher walked slowly into the yard of a property where debris from a drunken party held the previous night radiated from a large, deep pit of ashes. And on the edge of the ashes was a naked baby girl, about six months old.

"It was the most traumatic thing I have ever seen," the teacher told The Weekend Australian yesterday. "She was not able to crawl, and she was past crying. She was all grey from the ashes of the fire -- just the moisture of her mouth and eyes were different. She was near death. "I picked her up and screamed out, who's baby was she, and people were walking past and just turning their heads away. They didn't want to know. "I ran to the car and put the bub on the front seat and drove to the hospital where they immediately cleaned the ash from her mouth, nose and ears, and put a drip into her arm. "She lived. It was not until about 10 that night that her parents turned up at the hospital and said they understood their baby was there," the teacher said. "It was reported to the Department of Child Safety and they spoke to the parents, but the child stayed with the family.

"This is all about grog and showed me once and for all just how stupid it is. How could a mother, or other family members for that matter, just forget they put a baby down in the ashes of a fire and leave her there?"

The incident, which occurred several months ago, speaks volumes on the task facing the teams spearheading the federal Government's intervention into indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. It also brings into question their tactics, as they prepare to impose restrictions on alcohol. John Howard is likely to get a first-hand look at the problem of alcohol abuse this week when he tours several communities in the Territory that will be affected by his emergency intervention package.

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has been critical of the federal Government's approach of applying blanket alcohol bans, arguing that Queensland's alcohol management plan was a much better approach. "We will look at the Prime Minister's plan," Mr Beattie said in June, "but banning alcohol won't work. "You have to progressively bring in change. We need (alcohol management) plans that are stable and sensible, not a gimmick for a federal election."

Such restrictions have been in place in Cape York for years yet they did nothing to prevent a six-month-old baby being abandoned in the ashes of a fire. Many in Cape York doubt the effectiveness of such measures and are demanding a complete ban on grog. For the Cape York teacher confronted with the reality of a community's spiral into hopelessness, there is no debate: "The alcohol restrictions on these communities don't go far enough -- there should be no grog allowed at all until people learn to handle it with some responsibility."

Yet in Brisbane yesterday, Communities Minister Warren Pitt revealed that alcohol management plans in all Cape York communities were under review. The state's clampdown on grog followed a report -- commissioned by the Beattie Government in 2001 -- by Tony Fitzgerald QC. He was tasked with investigating justice issues in remote indigenous communities and making recommendations to curb violence and child abuse.

In 2002, the state Government introduced the first AMP in Aurukun, on western Cape York. The community is the home of the powerful Wik people of native title fame. If reforms were to succeed in Cape York, it was imperative that Aurukun be a partner, not an enemy. Trading hours at the community's hotel were restricted to between 3pm to 7pm, Monday to Friday, with only light and mid-strength beer allowed, and no takeaways. Yet the restrictions have begun to slip. Saturday trading between 10am and 2pm has been allowed on occasion, sparking anger among some who say it destroys any hope of a decent weekend spent with parents and children.

Restrictions in other communities are even tighter, with no wet canteen in Doomadgee in the Gulf, and Hopevale, on eastern Cape York. In an echo of the policy about to be imposed in the Territory, locals are each allowed to bring in a carton of low- or mid-strength beer, but there are certain public places where it cannot be consumed. No wine or spirits are allowed. Fines apply if the rules are broken, with the most severe penalties being $75,000 and-or 18 months' imprisonment. But in many instances, locals view the rules as a challenge to be overcome. Sly-grogging is rife, particularly at night when the over-worked police are not on duty.

At a time when locals are busy beating the restrictions, Mr Pitt yesterday said that aspects of the alcohol management policy were wrong. "For instance, I intend to address the issue of the provision of rehabilitation and detoxification centres for people from the communities." He said he would look, on a case-by-case basis, at each community to see how the AMP should be altered -- with enormous pressure being applied for relaxation of the takeaway policy. The Government is also under pressure from public servants in the communities to allow them to have alcohol for private consumption. With the approval of the locals, Mr Pitt released a 66-page evaluation of an AMP from an unnamed Cape community, where children in one in five households were at risk of abuse.

The report tells a different story from what is normally presented -- the review team was told the alcohol restrictions had done little to reduce crime and violence, although the assaults that occurred were not as serious as previously. "The director of nursing estimates that around 20 per cent of households in the community present an environment where there is a significant risk of child abuse and-or neglect," the report states. "The director confirmed reports that the majority of the notifications for child abuse and neglect made last year derived from a relatively small section of the community. Significantly, among these notifications were a small but critical number for suspected sexual abuse of children under six years of age."

Yet statistics compiled for the community appear to give lie to what was told to the review team. According to the statistics, reports of serious assaults fell 12.3per cent in the first year of the AMP, from 81 to 71, and in the second year, there was a further reduction to 58 -- a 28.4per cent drop over the two years. The report also raises doubts about the reduction in alcohol consumption: "The review team was told underage drinking has increased, particularly among young women and girls."

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