Australia's government-sponsored immigration flood is totally irrational

By Andrew Bolt

EVEN on the day it was announced, the Rudd Government's plan to import a million extra people in just three years seemed stupid. Now, as stock markets melt and shares shrivel, it's positively dangerous. Question: Why is the Government running the biggest immigration program in our history just as the economy may be careening into a wall? Why does it plan in its first term to import the equivalent of the population of Adelaide when even Prime Minister Kevin Rudd concedes unemployment is about to climb?

Oh, sorry - you didn't know Rudd had so ramped up immigration? Don't blame yourself. He never mentioned in his campaign launch last year that he had any such intention. Shhh. So it came almost out of the blue when - after the election - he quietly opened the gates. Rudd's May Budget set a new target for permanent migrants for this financial year: 190,300 places, or 20 per cent more than last year. And it didn't stop there. Add to those migrants some 110,000 workers brought out each year now on temporary visas, or almost triple the number of just four years ago. Add also 13,500 refugees and asylum-seekers, and some 20,000 New Zealanders, and you can see we have an immigration plan that's about to smash into some nasty realities.

How could it be otherwise? That makes more than 330,000 people we'll import each year under Rudd, for a net intake each year close to Britain's 191,000, even though we have just a third of its population. This seemed even in the relative sunlight of May to be hugely ambitious, to put it kindly.

Fact is, almost all the other policies of the federal and state governments leave us totally unprepared to deal with an intake that huge. For a start, most states have got out of the habit of laying on the essential infrastructure we need for ourselves, let alone for migrants as well.

These are now green times, so they hate building dams. They despise building power stations. They shy at building city freeways. They resent releasing farmland for houses. They even want less irrigation of crops, and not more. Result? They can't even give those here already enough water. They can't unclog our roads or unjam our trains. They can't make new houses affordable or food cheaper, and soon they'll struggle even to generate enough electricity. So how are they going to offer land, water, power and transport to more than 500,000 permanent newcomers Rudd hopes to settle here permanently in just three years?

No wonder Premier John Brumby two months ago cried enough on immigration: "I think we are probably at the limits of growth." Sure, eager-to-please Rudd thought turbo-charging the intake of migrants and temporary workers would please big business. After all, importing workers thrills companies that want to keep down wages. Importing migrants puts a glint in the eye of house builders and car makers salivating to sell the new arrivals homes and wheels.

But, as the Productivity Commission warned just two years ago, for the rest of us immigration just means more competition and not much gain. Even with a modest rise in immigration of some 40,000 skilled workers each year, the commission said in Economic Impacts of Migration and Population Growth, "the impact of migration is very small compared with other drivers of per capita income growth".

Britain's House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs this year found the same was true there: "Our general conclusion is that the economic benefits of positive net immigration are small or insignificant."

In fact, thanks to the Rudd Government's manic belief in man-made global warming, a lot of migrants could actually make us a lot worse off. That's because every new migrant, with his eating, burping, driving, computering and light-switching, adds to the greenhouse gases we pump out - just when the Government is determined to bring an emissions trading scheme in 2010 to make us cut those gases. Or pay. That means the more migrants we bring in, the more the rest of us will have to cut our own emissions to make up for them and meet the cap the Government eventually sets. So importing migrants is importing carbon pain.

And remember: all this was clear even before our economy started to slide. How much dumber does it seem now to amp up immigration when we could be on the brink of mass lay-offs? Even Rudd last week conceded: "The global financial crisis is having a greater impact on economies around the world, including in Australia, and that will mean unemployment in Australia could now increase more than forecast earlier in the year." So the plan is to bring in even more migrants to compete for jobs with Australians who are now losing their own? I don't think so.

But I said Rudd's plan was not just dumb but now dangerous. Here's why. We may hate to admit it, but we today struggle to assimilate some groups of migrants as well as we once did -- especially those with poor skills and worse English. In NSW, for instance, Lebanese-born citizens are twice more likely as the rest of us to be jailed. In Melbourne, police battle ethnic gangs of African refugees. So it's important that future immigrants have the background and the skills to fit in, and especially the education they need to land good jobs and make their own way.

But the Rudd Government, crazily enough, has skewed its immigration policies to allow in more poorly skilled immigrants who may not even speak English. Only 70 per cent of the expanded immigration intake is reserved for skilled workers, and Immigration Minister Chris Evans says he wants to bring in even more migrants with minimal skills. He told The Australian in May he wanted a "great national debate" about bringing in more semi-skilled and unskilled migrants, and said his plan to import 2500 South Pacific guest workers to pick fruit was a "stalking horse" for much more of the (permanent) same. "The demand is often for truck drivers, store managers, below tradesman-level jobs in the mining industry," he said. What's more, the Government would relax tough and "clunky" rules that migrants be able to speak English, because they "actually stopped business operating".

But how are unskilled immigrants with bad English going to get on if our economy sinks into recession? Think again, Prime Minister. I love migrants, coming from a migrant family myself. But a million newcomers in three years seems much too much of a good thing in these bad times. Or even in good times, to be frank.

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Ambulance officers call for capsicum spray for violent patients

What depths Australia's socialized medicine system has fallen to!

PARAMEDICS want capsicum spray to protect themselves from violent patients, who are forced to wait for hours outside emergency departments. Ambulance union state organiser Jason Dutton said paramedics were increasingly at risk from angry and aggressive patients left waiting for hours outside crowded hospital emergency departments - a practice known as ramping. A patient assaulted an ambulance officer outside the Cairns Base Hospital's emergency department late last month.

"Paramedics are absolutely sick and tired of being used as punching bags," Mr Dutton said. "They need to be equipped appropriately. I'm not calling for ambulance officers to be allowed to carry guns, but capsicum spray could be incorporated into the training of paramedics and very clear guidelines could be used to assist them. "We're looking at arming paramedics with an appropriate tool so that when they are confronted ... they can look after themselves."

Mr Dutton, from the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union, which represents ambulance officers, said that paramedics sometimes found themselves in situations where they feared for their safety. But unlike police, ambulance officers were not issued with handcuffs, batons, guns and capsicum spray to protect themselves. "Paramedics are expected to treat people - who will often lash out violently at whoever is closest to hand - with no self-defence at all," Mr Dutton said. "We need to give our paramedics adequate protection from violent members of the public."

Mr Dutton said paramedics in some overseas countries were equipped with flak jackets or body armour.

A spokeswoman for Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts said supplying paramedics with capsicum spray came under the Weapons Exemptions Act, which was a matter for the Police Minister, Judy Spence.

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Australians 'bored' by climate change

AUSTRALIANS are becoming bored with the issue of climate change and many still doubt whether the phenomenon is actually happening, according to a new survey. Only 46 per cent of Australians said they would take action on climate change if they were in charge of making decisions for Australia, a dip from 55 per cent last year, according to the Ipos-Eureka Social Research Institute's third annual climate change survey. And almost one in 10 Australians (nine per cent) strongly agreed with the statement "I have serious doubts about whether climate change is occurring". A further 23 per cent agreed to some extent.

Ipos-Eureka director of Sustainable Communities and Environment Unit Jasmine Hoye believes Australians are becoming more concerned with other environmental issues that they can have more direct control over. "We believe the public is currently overwhelmed by other, more pressing environmental issues - namely water and river health - and sees climate change as something that is largely out of their control," she said. "However, there is a desire among many Australians to know how they can personally make a difference regarding climate change."

Aside from river and water health, other environmental issues of most concern to Australians included illegal waste dumping, renewable energy, litter, smoky vehicles and packaging.

But there were no real standout actions being taken by Australians to personally reduce their greenhouse emissions, said Ms Hoye. "Ipsos research has shown that recycling is a fairly generic activity that people tend to say they are doing to help the environment, and it is also something that many Australians were already doing before climate change came along," she said. "Thus, one could be justified in thinking this is a fairly glib response. "What really strikes me is that we still have so few Australians taking specific actions like substantially reducing their household energy use, driving and flying less, switching to green power, or even buying carbon offsets, especially given all of the media coverage on this critical issue," she added.

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Now, should we destroy the economy?

Astute Australian financial analyst Terry McCrann looks at the Warmist numbers

BEAUTIFUL. The release of the Garnaut report could not have been better timed. It was dead, dead, dead, before it hit the table. The dark greens and all the climate carpetbaggers and main-chancers who have sprouted like weeds at the prospect of sharing in the 21st century theological rents will come to look back wistfully at his - original - modest emission reduction targets. Hopefully, from their humpies beneath those disused windmills which had yet to be dismantled. Apart from the ones kept as a record of a crazy religious cult that infected the world in the early years of the 21st century.

There is no way even the Rudd Government is going to embrace a policy to destroy the economy, in the wake of this week's disaster on Wall St and the Hill - the US House of Representatives. What, Rudd is going to get up and announce the wrecking of the economy starts now: barely 60 weeks away on January 1 2010? Before the next election? There is no way that China and the US are going to agree to slug their economies in recession with punitive policies to send them in even deeper.

If the Prime Minister persists with his ambition for a global agreement to reduce emission, he won't be preaching to the converted but an audience which will make the one he addressed in New York last week look like the MCG last Saturday. Further, it opens the door to victory at the next election not just to the Federal Opposition but to every state opposition facing increasingly nervous Labor governments.

At the national level, Malcolm Turnbull would have two choices. Simply to argue for postponement of any emissions scheme, or the more rational and also more opportunistic: to make any reductions by us at the very least conditional on US and Chinese delivered reductions. I would prefer him to take the emissions scheme off the table entirely. To go Churchillian and announce: he does not intend to become the Queens's first minister to preside (that's a word he might like) over the impoverishing of Australia.

The idea that we should lead is beyond absurd; that the world is 'waiting on us'. Oh yeah? Just like 'the world' flocked to hear the Prime Minister's inspiring words of wisdom at the UN last week.

At the state level, oppositions have to just promise to keep the lights on. Literally. To build new coal-fired and nuclear power stations. And provide emergency defibrilators to dark and even light greens. Or recycled paper bags to breathe into.

Is the average person going to vote to go back to a Dark Age future? Words chosen very particularly; both literally and figuratively. The Garnaut report remains like its predecessor, the British Stern report, an uneasy mix of religion married to dodgy economic and statistical analysis. Garnaut claimed yesterday that "the overall cost to the Australian economy of tackling climate change under both the 450ppm and 550pm scenarios was manageable and in the order of 0.1-0.2 per cent of annual economic growth to 2020".

Rubbish. Correction. Utter rubbish. On a whole series of levels. For starters, we can't 'tackle climate change'. Taking the 'science' as read for the purposes of discussion, it is completely out of our control. We reduce our emissions by 100 per cent, we have absolutely no impact on the climate. Not just the global climate but our local climate. We reduce our emissions by zero, or indeed double them, and on either scenario we have exactly the same impact on the climate. Zero.

OK. So we have to jointly cut emissions, with everyone else? Actually, no. The only, the only emitters that matter are the US and China, and perhaps India out a few years. Only they need to cut. And if it's so Garnaut-Stern like painless, why do we have to lead? They'll unilaterally embrace cuts. Again, they cut and what we do is utterly irrelevant to any climate outcome. They don't cut, and ditto.

Now this might suggest that we have to do something in unison. But the one thing that it absolutely does announce is the pointlessness of us cutting unilaterally. Sorry, not the pointlessness, but the sheer dopey stupidity. Which is exactly what Garnaut -- still -- recommends. Explicitly. That we cut even though the world refuses to agree a global process!

Our 'fair share' of cuts that would actually achieve something is to reduce emissions by 25 per cent by 2020 and by 90 per cent by 2050, according to Garnaut. Allowing for population growth, the bigger figure is to all intents and purposes 100 per cent. I'm surprised he didn't go the whole hog and suggest 130 per cent.

His original report had some shreds of analytical credibility compared with the disgraceful Stern report. This one has none, as Garnaut combines analytical idiocy with profound theological hubris. His entire report turns on 'assuming' the mother of all can-openers. An LA the economist who, washed up on a desert island with cans and cans of food - of the old fashioned, non-self-opening variety - first assumes a can-opener. We can turn off all our existing electricity and do away with petrol. Easy. Assume a replacement.

And, as a consequence, the cost will be marginal out to 2020? Sorry, it will destroy the economy. It will destroy the economy even if everyone cuts. It will destroy the economy if we go wandering off alone like Anabaptists, in Europe in the Middle Ages, seeking some sort of salvation.

Garnaut's modelling of the economic costs comes from the same guys and the same computers that predict the budget surplus each year. Last May they predicted it would be $10.6 billion in the 2007-08 year. It came in at $27 billion, after making the necessary adjustments for new initiatives. The difference is equivalent to 1.5 per cent of GDP. So Treasury can't get a figure about a process it actually has plenty of knowledge about within 1.5 per cent of GDP, one year out. And we are expected to believe that Garnaut can get accurate within 0.1 per cent of GDP changes out 12 years?

After the imposition of trauma never previously imposed on the economy, requiring unprecedented shifts in energy use, with consequences that have never previously been experienced. This demonstrates in the most specific way how Garnaut has 'got religion'. In comparison with his report, creationism is the very font of scientific objectivity.

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ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG comments on the Wall St bailout and the gradual destruction of America by Leftist policies.

Australia's new, "relaxed" illegal immigrant policy having the predictable effect already

The illegals have resumed coming. This is the second boatload in a week. The flood is resuming now that John Howard's conservative policies have been abandoned and replaced by incautious Leftist feelgood nonsense

A boatload of suspected Middle Eastern refugees has been discovered off Australia's north-western coast. A boat carrying 17 people pulled up alongside a floating gas facility and oil tanker owned by Australian Energy Development in the Timor Sea, about 200 kilometres off the Kimberley coast, about 10.30am yesterday.

The incident comes after 14 people, including nine Afghans, were intercepted by the Royal Australian Navy off the Kimberley coast last Thursday and has fuelled concerns that changes to immigration policy by the Rudd Government will trigger a wave of people smuggling.

The Immigration and Citizenship Minister, Chris Evans, said the people had been moved onto a navy vessel and would be taken to Christmas Island, where they would be placed in immigration detention and undergo health, security and identity checks. He said the nationalities of the group and the reason for the voyage was unknown at this stage. It is understood those on the vessel were mainly Afghans but included three Indonesian crew, a woman and a teenage boy.

Senator Evans said it was the second unauthorised boat arrival in Australian waters this year; there were five cases last year. But the Opposition immigration spokeswoman, Sharman Stone, said the Government's approach to abolish temporary protection visas had encouraged asylum seekers to "test the waters".

Yesterday's arrival came hours before the Red Cross warned that more than 200,000 people in the north of Afghanistan could be forced to flee their homes this winter because of drought, insecurity and rising food prices.

A crew member from the tanker, who did not wish to be named, said one of the Afghans said the boat had been at sea for 10 days. "They had a little flag which had 'help' written on it. They were in distress . they were very glad; they had smiles from ear to ear when they come alongside us." The crew member said the wooden boat was about 10 metres long with little room for everyone. It was leaking, and those on board were bailing water out he said.

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Another government computer system disaster

When will these stupid bureaucrats realize that they must buy software entirely "off the shelf" if they want it to work well. There are very few people in the world -- Bill Gates and a few others -- who can make a large computer program work. And "adapting" a program written by someone else is even harder

An internal spoof video made by Tasmania's besieged Motor Registry office has been made public on internet website YouTube, severely embarrassing the state Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources. The video, in song form, features all 15 staff at the Motor Registry office who worked on its new $20 million computer system bemoaning its defects and continuing problems in the rush to take the system "live" by late August.

Last week, Infrastructure Minister Graeme Sturges admitted the five-week-old car registration and licence renewal computer system was badly malfunctioning. More than 3000 duplicate driver's licences have been mailed out in error across Tasmania and Service Tasmania staff are experiencing difficulties and delays renewing car registrations. Police have also wrongly fined motorists for supposedly driving unregistered vehicles or when unlicensed, when their renewals have simply not been processed correctly.

The five-minute YouTube video features a motor registry team member, "Steve", who used to work as a contract specialist on the troubled computer system, singing a specially written song We Will Go Live to the tune of Gloria Gaynor's hit single I Will Survive. Pictured wearing pyjamas, the video details how the Motor Registry team had to delay the launch of the new computer system from June 10 to August 25 because of multiple defects in the software platform purchased and adapted from interstate......

The clip was posted on YouTube as a "tribute song" to the lengthy and troubled computer system testing process endured by the team. "The Tasmanian Motor Registry system has been under major redevelopment recently," writes "Steve" on his YouTube entry. "Most of us have been working 12-hour, seven-day weeks and while the new application was due to go live in June 2008 it was put back to August. "Here is my tribute to the testing process we endured - We Will Go Live."

Mr McIlfatrick said although he would have preferred the video had not appeared on YouTube, he did not feel it had embarrassed the department or Mr Sturges. He also assured Tasmanians the "teething problems" in the computer system were starting to be worked out. Staff have a good idea of where most of the 3000 duplicate licences were mailed, and have written to recipients asking for their return.

Source. See the video here






Parents concerned about literacy levels in South Australian schools

PARENTS are raising "serious questions" about school students' basic literacy levels because they say too many are failing simple national tests. The concerns have been raised after the state's peak school parent group viewed examples of tests given to students around the country earlier this year. Parents have described questions put to Year 9 students as "primary school standard" and want a review of the curriculum following South Australia's average results in the national literacy and numeracy tests. But primary principals want the curriculum further simplified while teachers and the Education Department have defended what is being taught in schools.

The South Australian Association of State School Organisations, which represents the parents of about 90 per cent of state school students, said the test results were more worrying in light of the "not challenging" questions. "If this is the level of question, you've got to wonder why anybody would fail to meet the minimum standard," Association director David Knuckey said. "Exactly where are the 20 per cent who have just met the minimum standards? "It raises serious questions about the basic literacy levels of our high school students (in particular)." Other parents Mr Knuckey spoke to said they remembered more difficult testing when they were at school.

The Australian Primary Principals Association wants guidelines for teachers simplified when a national curriculum is developed. President Leonie Trimper said the primary curriculum "is far too crowded".

In May, about 80,000 South Australian students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 took part in the first national uniform testing of school students. The results, released last month, show up to 10.5 per cent of students failed to meet the minimum national benchmarks and up to 21.8 per cent just made the grade. SA students recorded scores below the national average in 15 of 20 categories and the state also had the highest proportion of students allowed to miss the test.

South Australian English Teachers Association president Alison Robertson said the standardised tests covered "a very narrow part of the curriculum". Flinders University senior lecturer in education Lyn Wilkinson agreed "more is being taught than is being tested" and felt most children were challenged further in class. "This (test) is really where you expect all Year 9 and all Year 7 kids to be. If they're not then there's cause for concern," said the specialist in basic skills testing.

Education Department chief executive Chris Robinson disputed the bar was set too low. "We don't believe that it's the curriculum that's deficient," Mr Robinson said. "The tests are designed by experts to work out what students should be able to do at their year level. The parents, with all due respect, may not be in the best position to judge what the standard of the test is." Mr Robinson said the department continually reviewed the curriculum.

The federal Education Department said the national tests were devised by state and federal governments, the non-government sector and independent experts.

State Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith yesterday said she expected this group "will use feedback to improve the tests in future years". At the time the results were released, Dr Lomax-Smith promised a raft of initiatives including intervention plans for every student who did not meet the minimum standards and coaches for principals and teachers at 32 of the state's most disadvantaged schools as part of a federally funded, $4 million two-year trial.

Opposition Education spokesman David Pisoni expected more children to score better, considering the standard of testing. "I certainly wouldn't say they (the questions) were difficult, if you were an average child you would have got about 90 per cent (correct)," he said. "If there are children that didn't meet the national benchmark, especially at Year 7 and 9 level, we've got to ask questions of the education system."

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Proposed Warmist laws will cost a million Australian jobs

BIG business will put more pressure on the Rudd Government to delay its emissions trading scheme - predicting a million jobs may be lost if it goes ahead. The Australian Industry Group's formal response to the Government's green paper has recommended a "gentle start" to an emissions trading scheme, with low administration costs.

In a move that was likely to fuel Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull's assault on the Government's intention to start an ETS by 2010, the Ai Group warned that industries such as smelters, manufacturers and cement makers could be forced to move offshore. Its submission warned of dire consequences and comes just weeks after the Business Council of Australia predicted many businesses would go bankrupt and others would lose up to 63 per cent of their earnings under the proposed ETS.

"Ai Group believes the advantages of starting in 2010 are, as yet, ill-defined," the report said. "Ai Group's consultations suggest the benefits of taking an extra year to improve the design of the scheme could easily exceed the cost of delaying the start by a year. "Businesses accounting for well over 10 per cent of national production and around a million jobs will be affected by significant cost increases and will be at risk of carbon leakage (where companies move to countries without an ETS)." Ai Group also argued the Government shouldn't help motorists cope with rising petrol prices when an ETS started.

The Government has said it would cut the fuel excise for every cent it rose under an ETS. But the Ai Group has joined other critics who argued the burden should be shared across all sectors. "The proposal to reduce fuel excise ... should be withdrawn, and after providing appropriate additional funds for low-income households, the surplus funds should be channelled into more farsighted measures, including in support of abatement," it said.

It demanded the Government come clean about its ETS review and release the findings. The review has determined whether existing green incentives are complementary to an ETS or will cost consumers extra.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong meanwhile warned Australia's $2.1 billion commercial fishing industry was at risk from climate change. Her warnings came after the CSIRO released a report which found prawns, mud crabs and barramundi in Queensland and the Northern Territory could be affected by changing rainfall patterns.

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It's amazing what you can end up with as a medical specialist in an Australian public hospital

No wonder around 40% of Australians have private medical cover

Health authorities are investigating 10 serious complaints of medical negligence and sexual assault at a northern NSW hospital by an overseas-trained obstetrician and gynaecologist living in a homeless shelter in Surry Hills. Roman Hasil's NSW medical registration was suspended in February after a damning report by New Zealand health authorities found he had botched a quarter of female sterilisations in 2005 and 2006 and drank on the job.

But the Herald has learnt that 10 former patients at Lismore Base Hospital - where he worked from June 2001 to March 2005 - lodged complaints about him with the Health Care Complaints Commission between February and May this year. Police also confirmed this week that it investigated complaints from two former patients of alleged assault, which it referred to the NSW Medical Board.

The complaints commission confirmed this week that it was investigating that Dr Hasil, who trained in the Czech Republic but was registered here despite a history of alcohol abuse, and despite being jailed in Singapore for threatening his second wife, Rose Doyle, with a knife. His third wife, Sally Hasil, also alleged on NZ television last week that he bashed her several times and broke her ribs.

Dr Hasil failed the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists' assessments four times.

The Herald has also learnt that a New Zealand barrister, John Rowan, QC, is preparing legal action against Dr Hasil on behalf of up to 30 women for botched operations at Wanganui District Hospital. Dr Hasil, who is staying at Edward Eager Lodge, told the Herald he was unaware of any patient complaints against him from Lismore and denied assaulting anyone. "Of course it's not [true]. I became depressed. I can't work. I'm on medication and this must stop," he said.

A spokesman for North Coast Area Health Service said that after publicity on the NZ inquiry, 10 patients had "raised concerns regarding care provided by Dr Hasil at Lismore Base Hospital", which had been referred to the complaints commission and the medical board.

However, Lismore hospital failed for five years to address the complaint of one woman, Connie Scholl. Her complaint, in September 2003, detailed shocking allegations of abuse at the hands of Dr Hasil while he stitched her after giving birth in 2002 at Lismore hospital, leaving her with "weeks of pain and a year of nightmares". In a statement to the complaints commission in May, Ms Scholl said Dr Hasil called her a "horse woman" after she kicked him in the face because he was stitching her vaginal and anal area without anaesthetic.

"As Dr Hasil was getting up off the ground I heard him say to the midwives, 'stirrup the bitch'. it was also at this time that Dr Hasil said to me, 'you Australian women don't know how to have babies'," the statement said. It alleged he forcefully put his hand on her vagina and said, "Who is the boss now?" Ms Scholl told the Herald this week she felt "tortured and traumatised" and took years to recover physically and emotionally. She made a formal statement to police in March.

In June the chief executive of the North Coast Area Health Service, Chris Crawford, sent a written apology to Ms Scholl that her 2003 complaint "was not properly investigated".

Another former patient, Tracey Robson, is considering suing Lismore Base Hospital after her daughter Chloe was born with cerebral palsy in August 2002, despite a normal pregnancy and heartbeat just hours before the birth. In a letter to the hospital last March Ms Robson described the caesarean delivery as "very rough". "A lot more pressure was used to deliver Chloe compared to the birth of my twins [also by caesarean]. I believe Dr Roman Hasil is responsible for Chloe having cerebral palsy," she wrote. Within 15 hours, Chloe was having seizures and was transferred to intensive care at Mater Mothers Hospital in Brisbane. Ms Robson said she decided to complain after reading a letter in The Northern Star in Lismore from another woman, Jodie Phillips, who said Dr Hasil had left her "traumatised and scarred for life".

The NZ Health and Disability Commissioner, Ron Paterson, said Dr Hasil had a "chequered history" in Australia from 1996 to 2005. His report also alleged he removed the ovaries of a woman without her knowledge.

Ms Doyle, who lives in Shanghai, told NZ television's One News last week that Dr Hasil left nooses on the bedside table and threatened her with a 30centimetre carving knife. "He said, 'I will kill you and cut you up into little pieces and nobody will find you and I will sell your ovaries on the blackmarket'. I was literally terrified for my life."

His third wife, Sally Hasil, with whom he later lived in Hobart for 12 years, told the TV station he repeatedly bashed her after drinking binges. "On one occasion I was left with four broken ribs. I had strangulation marks, I had a beaten face," she said. His ex-girlfriend, Sally Hock, said in the five months he lived with her in Ebenezer outside Sydney this year, she became frightened of him because he was "obsessed with knives" and went on drinking binges.

Queensland health authorities have reviewed the cases of the 17 patients Dr Hasil treated while working at Rockhampton Hospital for 3« weeks in December 2006 and January 2007 and found two had "an unexpected outcome or deviation from standard practice". It has referred them to the Queensland Medical Board.

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Vegemite produces billionth jar



The one billionth jar of Vegemite has gone down the production line, proving that Australians really do enjoy it for breakfast, lunch and tea. Since hitting Australian shelves in the 1920s, the salty yeast spread has been popular not only on sandwiches, toast and biscuits, but also in soups and casseroles.

Among the people who gathered at Kraft's manufacturing plant in Port Melbourne to mark the occasion of the one billionth jar were two of the girls from the original Happy Little Vegemites television commercial. When it first went to air in 1959, Margaret Hole and Trisha Cavanagh were just school-aged children. Nearly 50 years on, they still have fond memories of their first television advertisement. "It was very exciting for us as kids in the school holidays to be making an ad," said Ms Cavanagh. "Who would have thought that ad would still be popular today?"

Rodney Alsop, who is the grandson of Kraft Walker Cheese Company Australia founder, Fred Walker, said it was "amazing" that a billion jars had been produced. "Australians really love their Vegemite. Around the world they may not be so keen on it, but it is one of those things which is an Australian icon."

Christina Siciliano, who worked at Kraft for 31 years as a librarian, has studied the history of Vegemite closely. "It's part of the Australian ethos, the spirit of Australia, and that's what makes it special," she said.

Victorian Premier John Brumby said he woke up this morning to a slice of toast with honey, and another with Vegemite. "What began as a breakfast spread has become an international icon," [Not so sure about that!] Mr Brumby said. "It's a great Victorian and Australian success story."

According to Kraft, Australians spread about 1.2 billion serves of Vegemite on toast, bread or biscuits every year. A Vegemite jar, containing 22 and 18 carat gold, has been created to commemorate the event and will go on tour throughout the country.

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Hospital waiting list blows out

State Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg says the number of people waiting more than eight hours for a public hospital bed has doubled since 2003-04. Citing leaked data, Mr Springborg described it as a "phenomenal blow-out" in access block - the delay experienced by emergency room patients who need admission to an inpatient bed.

The Queensland Health Emergency Department Access Block tables, which the Opposition claims are unpublished, show that in 2003-04, 15 per cent of people had to wait more than eight hours for a bed. In 2007-08, the figure had blown out to 31 per cent.

The data on 21 major public hospitals suggests the problem is particularly bad in the central Queensland city of Rockhampton, where 31 per cent of patients experienced access block in 2007-08 compared to three per cent in 2003-04. At Nambour Hospital, on the Sunshine Coast, 42 per cent were affected in 2007-08, up from 16 per cent in 2003-04.

Mr Springborg said the Government was failing to keep pace with growth. "Since the Beattie/Bligh Government came to power in Queensland over 10 years ago, the number of public hospital beds in Queensland has actually reduced from 10,800 to about 10,300," he said. "There has been a reduction of almost 600 public hospital beds in Queensland despite the fact that the Queensland population has grown by almost one million in that time. "It should be of no surprise to anyone that people can't get through our emergency departments into a bed if the beds aren't there."

A recent study by the Australian College of Emergency Medicine showed a 20 to 30 per cent excess mortality rate caused by access block and emergency room overcrowding, Mr Springborg said. "By 2003 figures, this is 1,300 patients, on the figures which are available to us now, it may be as many as 1,700 Queenslanders, (who) are losing their lives unnecessarily each year because the state Labor government ... hasn't been able to provide proper care and attention in our emergency departments," he said.

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No mercy even for the littlies

Fat phobics want to harass 3-year-olds

COMPULSORY health checks at daycare centres will be considered to target Queensland's spiralling obesity epidemic, Health Minister Stephen Robertson says. The measure is one being considered by the State Government as it targets preventative lifestyle diseases - smoking, obesity, alcohol and sun exposure - which are clogging the state's health care system and costing almost $5 million in funding annually.

Mr Robertson said details on how such a plan would be carried out had not yet been discussed but it was hoped parents could be given information about warning signs of bad health in their children. "We haven't decided how we're going to provide for greater screening of our young people," he said today. "I want to look at a range of options but compulsion should always be the last measure that you look at. "Education is always preferred but I want to look at the best ways to get these messages through and change some unfortunate behaviours."

He said Queensland had some of the nation's highest rates of obesity, smoking and sun exposure and individuals had to start taking responsibility. The Government had set the target of making Queensland the healthiest state, he said. But it could not "sit down with families on a Friday night when they watch the footy and order the pizza".

Mr Robertson said it was "frightening" how many children were being affected by the avoidable and chronic disease Type 2 diabetes because of bad diets and inactive lifestyles. "That's a terrible indictment on us as a community and we need to take some drastic steps to turn that around," he said. But the Health Minister said he disagreed with another suggestion put forward of a user-pays health system for the obese.

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Stone the crows, 'posh' accents doomed

(For overseas readers, "Stone the crows" is an old-fashioned Australian expression of surprise and disappointment)

WITHIN a few decades, the "cultivated" Australian accent of politicians Alexander Downer and Julie Bishop will have vanished, according to a new book. The broad Australian accent is also on the way out, says its author, lexicographer Bruce Moore. Dr Moore, director of the Australian National Dictionary Centre, in Canberra, says the vast majority of Australians now speak with a "standard Australian" accent. That's because we have recovered from the cultural cringe that led some to ape English pronunciation.

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, NSW Premier Nathan Rees and tennis player Lleyton Hewitt all speak with broad accents [Kevin Rudd is pretty broad too], but Dr Moore said they are "remnants" of a cultural distinction that arose in the late 19th century.

He traces the development of the "cultivated" accent to the 1880s trend in Britain for the association of "received pronunciation" with education. Australian educators and elocutionists set about eliminating the distinctive features of our speech, such as pronouncing "mate" more like "mite". The trend for elocution is dying - so there is no longer a need for "ocker" Australians to distinguish their speech with nasal intonation and sharp vowels, Dr Moore said. [There is still a noticeable difference between working-class and educated Australian pronunciation but it has few social implications -- unlike Britain]

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Maternity leave may need to wait -- says government

Good to see realism from the Left

A paid maternity leave scheme is a Federal Government priority, but it might not be affordable next year due to the global financial turmoil, says Treasurer Wayne Swan says. The Productivity Commission has released a draft report recommending the Commonwealth fund a 20-week parental leave scheme in which working parents receive up to $12,000 following the birth of a child. The proposal would cost the Commonwealth an extra $450m a year.

Mr Swan says Labor will consider the commission's final report in the context of next year's May Budget but "only do what is affordable''. "We think it's time the nation bit the bullet on paid maternity leave, but I can't tell you here and now that it would be affordable in terms of our next Budget,'' Mr Swan told Network Ten.

Maternity leave was a priority but lower down the list than the main game of responsible economic management, the treasurer said. "The bottom line here, particularly given the international circumstances in which we find ourselves, is responsible economic management,'' Mr Swan said. "There's no doubt that the slow-down in world growth, the impact of events on share markets, will certainly impact on the revenue but the extent of that is unclear.''

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Fatties to pay for own medical care

Obese people in Queensland may have to pay for their own healthcare under a State Government plan as the annual cost of treating preventable diseases hits $5 billion. Queensland's health system spends almost $5 billion a year treating preventable medical conditions caused by obesity, smoking, alcohol and sun exposure.

Alarming new Queensland Government figures reveal so-called "lifestyle diseases" also cost the Queensland economy a further $22 billion in lost productivity and social factors, including lost earnings and the cost to carers. The cost of treating these preventable conditions will wipe out 57 per cent of the state's record $8.35 billion health budget for 2008-2009.

The Government says enough is enough and it is time for individuals to take more responsibility for their health. Conservatives in the State Government have put forward a plan that includes a user-pays health system for the obese. Smokers are already targeted through a "Fit 4 Surgery" campaign, which requires them to quit the habit before being treated. It's also considering compulsory health checks for three and four-year-olds at childcare centres around the state.

The plan is to spot any signs of chronic disease early and provide advice to parents. "We're facing a tsunami of chronic disease in the coming years, thanks to lifestyle changes and our rapidly ageing population," Queensland Health Minister Stephen Robertson said.

"Queenslanders need to realise they face an increasing financial burden from preventable chronic diseases," Mr Robertson said. "If Queensland continues its current rates of population growth, economic growth and public health spending, by 2042 the entire state budget will be consumed by health," he said. "That's why we need to tackle this upsurge in chronic disease before it overwhelms us."

Mr Robertson said preventative health care was "absolutely" the responsibility of individuals, as much as government.

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Government-supported pedophilia?

Interesting to see who the teachers side with

PARENTS have expressed outrage over revelations that controversial artist Bill Henson was allowed into a primary school by its principal to search for models. Victorian Premier John Brumby said yesterday it was "completely inappropriate" that Henson was escorted onto a Melbourne school yard. The Victorian Education Department has launched an official investigation into the incident.

Federation of P&C Associations of NSW president Dianne Giblin said it had been a "betrayal of trust of parents". "Schools should not be a place to access for commercial purposes," Mrs Giblin said. "Any outside person or group coming into the school must do so for an educational purpose only and it supports our concerns of principals making these decisions and not having sectoral approval."

Henson was denounced by political leaders and his photographs seized by police and pulled from the Roslyn Oxley Gallery in Sydney in May following outrage over the picture of a naked 12-year-old girl on the invitation to his show. Fresh controversy has ensued following details from a new book, by Fairfax Media journalist David Marr, that Henson has been invited into the Melbourne primary school in his search for models.

Mr Brumby said: "Such activity taking place in a Victorian state school is completely inappropriate. "Like all parents, I have a deep concern about this sort of behaviour and I have asked the Education Minister for a full report from the department and the school on this matter."

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull expressed disgust and outrage yesterday. "I think parents would be revolted and horrified if this were true," Mr Rudd said. Mr Turnbull said: "There are very big issues here relating to the protection of children, their privacy and informed consent. The matters that have been described in the media are totally inappropriate and unacceptable and I share the outrage that has been expressed by many people at these events."

But Maree O'Halloran, the outgoing president of the NSW Teachers Federation, said it was a complex issue and there was a risk Henson could be unduly tarred. "There are very strict rules governing who can come into a school and principals and teachers follow those carefully," she said. "I think we do need to be careful not to tar someone as being a perpetrator of some sort of child abuse when we're talking about an artist. "We've got a person's reputation at stake here and a person who is a respected, professional artist."

However, Henson's supporters have rejected claims he was allowed to wander the grounds of the Melbourne primary school. Henson was accompanied by the principal at all times when he visited St Kilda Primary School looking for child models to pose for his artwork. He has lectured to school groups and his artwork is a part of the Victorian school curriculum. The artist declined to comment on the matter yesterday but it is understood he is horrified by claims he acted inappropriately.

His supporters are particularly upset by a cartoon that appeared in The Weekend Australian yesterday depicting the artist in a school playground while children hide behind bushes, saying: "Psst . maybe he's one of those arts bandits."

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Good ol' Hinch again

A law that puts the interests of pedophiles ahead of protecting the community is sheer madness

DERRYN Hinch was defiant after being told by police he would be charged for publicly identifying two sex offenders. The man known as the Human Headline expects to be charged with five counts of breaching a suppression order - three times on his website and twice at a crime victims' rally on the steps of Parliament in June. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of 12 months' jail and a $12,000 fine.

It is not the first time Hinch has faced the prospect of jail for naming sex monsters. In 1985, Hinch was jailed for identifying a pedophile priest on criminal charges. Hinch told the Herald Sun yesterday news of the latest charges came as no surprise. On air during his afternoon radio program, he went further, maintaining serious sex offenders should be named after their release from jail.

"Six months ago, I launched a campaign to have a law overturned. A law which thousands of people think is a bad law," he said. "It actually helps sex offenders hide their identities after they are released back into society. "There's a postscript concerning that law and my campaign to have it repealed. A short time ago, I was told by police I would be served a summons to appear in Melbourne Magistrates' Court on five criminal charges for allegedly breaching County Court suppression orders by identifying two offenders. "I've been asked did I think I was morally and legally in the right? My answer is I know I was morally right. Whether or not I was legally right is for the courts to decide."

In 1985, he was convicted of contempt of court for identifying pedophile priest Michael Charles Glennon, who was on criminal charges at the time. Hinch was jailed for 12 days and fined $15,000. "I felt I had a bigger responsibility to the community at large than I did to Father Glennon," Hinch said during that contempt hearing."

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Literacy, numeracy standards stuck at '70s levels

And much worse than the '50s, I'll warrant

TODAY'S students are no better at English or maths than those of the 1970s, despite the billions of dollars annually pumped into schools. Australian Council for Educational Research findings, presented in Brisbane recently, showed no improvement in young people's literacy and numeracy skills from 1975 to 1998. The most instructive study asked identical and similar questions of 14-year-olds across the country over the 23-year period. There was no increase in averaged scores. Boys' literacy dropped and girls' rose slightly.

Other, more recent, findings collated by the Australian National University confirmed the trend in classrooms around the country has continued since 2000, in particular a decline in reading skills. The results make Queensland's second last placing among the states and territories at this year's first national tests even more alarming.

Education agitator Kevin Donnelly, who wrote Dumbing Down and Why Our Schools Are Failing, slammed Queensland's education establishment for its lack of progress. Dr Donnelly said the Queensland Studies Authority, and successive education ministers and departments, had failed for 20 years by adopting "pretty new-age" methods. "Kids just aren't being taught formal grammar," he said. "Ministers come and go, governments come and go but bureaucrats don't change. The minister jumps up and down for a week but the people given the job to fix it are the same people who created the mess."

Dr Andrew Leigh, an ANU economist and author of the report, said Australian governments proved it was easy to waste money on education. A report by Dr Leigh and Chris Ryan showed government spending per student in Australia had more than doubled between 1964 and 2003. "The real question is why we've increased school funding so dramatically yet seen no improvement in literacy and numeracy," Dr Leigh said.

Education Minister Rod Welford refused to comment yesterday, two weeks after admitting his department's entrenched funding practices had failed to improve results in low socio-economic areas.

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Australian federal government's climate change modelling 'flawed, outdated'

This shows how vulnerable models are to the guesses fed into them. They are just Potemkin facades with nothing solid behind them

The Greens have rubbished the Federal Government's highly anticipated economic modelling on climate change. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong and Treasurer Wayne Swan yesterday released some of the Treasury Department's modelling. The figures include population, technology and trade estimates.

Greens leader Bob Brown says base load solar power is ignored in favour of carbon capture and storage technology which is not yet available. "Treasury is too locked into old mould of what it thinks will be cheap oil and clean coal and neither of those are solidly foreseeable options," he said. "This is modelling is bias towards the old polluting fossil fuel industries. "If the Government's policy response is based on this Treasury modelling, it's going to be not only outdated, but deeply flawed."

In the documents, the Treasury says it has judged the estimates to be plausible. But its the modelling's productivity figures that concerns the Opposition's environment spokesman Greg Hunt. He is concerned they show slowing. "It's absolutely clear they've let the cat out of the bag on their national productivity," he said. The Opposition is eagerly awaiting the full set of Treasury modelling to be released later this month.

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Court rules Police have 'no power' to enter land

This South Australian case would be a pretty strong precedent in other States too

POLICE were trespassing on a man's property when they arrested him for failing to provide his name and address over a speeding offence, the state's highest court has found. Three Supreme Court justices have ruled that unless police planned to arrest a person, they had "no special powers" to remain on a property if asked to leave.

Police charged Alexander Nick Dafov after clocking him at 78km/h in a 60km/h zone at Hendon in October 2006. Two officers followed Dafov's Toyota Land Cruiser to his nearby home and approached him in his driveway. Dafov demanded the police leave his property and refused to give the officers his name and address. Dafov was arrested and charged with failing to provide his details and for resisting police.

But those charges were thrown out by a magistrate because the officers were not originally planning to arrest Dafov for the speeding offence - and therefore had no power to remain on the property. Dafov was convicted and fined for the speeding charge. Supreme Court judge Michael David rejected an SA Police appeal of the decision to throw out the other charges. The Full Court of the Supreme Court has now also quashed the appeal.

"Except in cases provided for by Common Law or statute, the police have no special rights to enter land," Justice Tom Gray found. Justice Gray found that under Section 42 of the Road Traffic Act, police did not have the right to enter or remain on private property when expressed permission had been denied. Justice Gray, Justice Ann Vanstone and Justice Richard White unanimously dismissed the appeal.

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The useless Queensland police don't come even when a fellow-cop calls them!

A police officer caught in a bikie gunfight on the Gold Coast is suing the Queensland Government for more than $1 million after he allegedly waited 20 to 30 minutes for armed back-up, fearing for his life and those of others. A claim filed in the Supreme Court of Queensland registry states Andrew Leslie Paul, who retired from the force last month, may never be able to work again because of trauma he suffered after the infamous fight between the Hells Angels and Finks on the Gold Coast. Three men were shot and three more stabbed when a fight broke out between the rival gangs at a kickboxing event at the Royal Pines Resort, where Mr Paul and another officer were providing crowd control on March 18, 2006.

The claim states: "The plaintiff's co-worker called for urgent police back-up when the gun battle started but armed assistance did not arrive for at least 20 to 30 minutes following this request by which time the battle was over . . ." "During the gun battle, the plaintiff and his co-worker feared for their lives and those of the public who they were there at the event to protect, as they just did not have sufficient police resources to properly control the situation or to protect themselves or the public."

The State of Queensland is accused of failing to pass on intelligence that bikie gangs, which had the potential to spark violence, could be at the event, to either the Broadbeach Police Division officer-in-charge or an 18-officer contingent at a nearby Carrara football event. It is also accused of failing to adhere to its own Queensland Police Service planning policy, which states there should be six officers for every 1000 members of the public at an event, with the claim estimating at least 3000 people were in attendance at the kickboxing tournament.

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37,529 on surgery waiting lists in Victoria

MORE than 37,500 Victorians are languishing on elective surgery waiting lists according to a new report, but the Government says treatment times are improving. In the annual report card on Victoria's public hospitals, released today, 37,529 patients were waiting for elective surgery in June this year. Health Minister Daniel Andrews said this was 2000 fewer than six months ago and record health funding was having an impact.

The Your Hospitals report found state hospitals failed five out of nine key performance targets in the last year. Failures included emergency care, with 33 per cent of patients attending emergency departments waiting more than eight hours for a bed.

Mr Andrews said more patients were being treated within benchmark times despite record demand for health services. "Victorian hospitals have either met their target or improved their performance in eight out of nine key performance indicators, despite treating more than 19,300 extra patients in the past six months," he said.

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Soviet mentality lives on in teachers' unions

HASN'T the belief that private equals evil and public equals good long passed its use-by date? Apparently not for the troglodytes in the teachers unions who are still entrenched in a class war that no longer interests the rest of thecommunity. At the September 12 meeting of the TAFE Teachers Association council, some union warriors requested "as a matter of urgency" that an important issue be resolved. Is it acceptable, they asked, for a union representative to send their children to a private school or to a private provider competing with TAFE? Is it acceptable for a union representative to have once taught in a private school or worked for a private provider that competes with TAFE? You get the gist. If you have come in contact with private education, you have been tainted with evil.

Fortunately, the general-secretary of the NSW Teachers Federation, John Irving, is not interested in these archaic union battles. The point man for policy in the NSW Teachers Federation told The Australian on Friday that he is "not interested in vetting people" on the basis of which school their children attend.

Instead of drafting a policy precluding people who send their children to private schools, Irving is thinking about asking those who seek positions within the NSW teachers union to sign a declaration that they have actively demonstrated a commitment to public education. If that comes to pass, many of those who sign such a declaration will be committing perjury if they sign. Why? Because many within the teachers unions have worked tirelessly to obstruct reform and improvement within public education. And the irony is that the obstinacy of these white-collar educational diehards against reform of public education will lead only to a greater exodus of students from public schools to private schools.

Consider the union reaction to the Rudd Government's education revolution outlined last month by the Prime Minister and his deputy, Education Minister Julia Gillard. Reforms to make education more transparent by mandatory reporting of student results, allowing parents to compare school performance? Opposed by unions. Transparency and accountability reforms that will enable the most disadvantaged schools to be identified and receive extra funding of $500,000 for your average school so that they may improve? Opposed by unions. Moves to give greater autonomy and flexibility for principals to hire staff? Opposed by unions. Moves to introduce performance-based pay for teachers to encourage better teachers? Opposed by unions. Moves to introduce a national curriculum so that students moving between states and territories can access a seamless education system? Opposed by unions. Queensland Teachers Union boss Steve Ryan summed up the reforms as "beyond insulting".

It's not news that teachers unions remain the single biggest hurdle to improving public education in Australia. They are wedded to an archaic public system that has long protected teachers, not promoted the interests of students. What is news is a federal Labor government is apparently willing to tackle the union influence that has long infected state and federal politics. The Howard government talked about reforming public education but achieved very little.

So it was powerful symbolism and pragmatic politics for Gillard, from Labor's left faction, to pose the killer question to union critics: "I cannot understand why public institutions such as schools should not be accountable to the community that funds their salaries and running costs." If any other group, drawing on the public purse, were exempt from disclosure and accountability, union activists would be the first to cry foul, demanding to know what was being hidden from the taxpaying public.

But reason cannot compete with union ideology. Neither can evidence that Australia ranks 23rd among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development industrialised countries for students who finish Year 12 or a trade equivalent and talking about the consequences of this long-tail educational underachievement for 25 per cent of Australian students. Nor will union diehards such as Ryan or his friends at the Australian Education Union be swayed by Gillard's laudable interest in school accountability reforms undertaken by New York's schools chancellor Joel Klein that have lifted student performance. If student achievement mattered, unions would have sided with these sorts of reforms long ago.

Left-wing union types like to wear their commitment to compassion and disadvantage on their sleeves. But it is fraudulent rhetoric when used by teachers unions that are patently not fighting for disadvantaged students. Opposing Rudd's reform condemns those who cannot afford to escape the worst aspects of public education to disadvantage for life.

In truth, the unions are fighting for their own vested interests. They oppose transparency and accountability because it would weed out the substandard schools and second-rate teachers. They oppose greater flexibility for principals because it would remove union leaders from teacher selection processes. They oppose private education because the competition it brings challenges the public school system to lift its performance.

It's no surprise that teachers unions would protect their interests. That's what the more militant unions do. The challenge is for Rudd to prove the Labor Government is serious about its education revolution by exposing the anti-reform union agenda. Archaic union leaders who refuse to budge on these reforms need to named and shamed as obstructionists who care little about students and more about ancient class warfare. They then can be replaced by more sensible union leaders genuinely committed to student achievement within the public education system.

The real challenge is for the PM's new federalism. The Rudd Government failed to garner agreement on plastic bags from state governments. How will it wangle agreement on education reform from state Labor governments beholden to teachers unions? When the West Australian teachers union won pay increases of 21.7 per cent earlier this year, union boss Anne Gisborne boasted that "one of the strongest elements behind this has been the political campaigning that our members have had on track for eight to 10 weeks". With an election looming, union influence prevailed. Outside education, it's the same in other states. Unions rolled attempts by the NSW Iemma government to reform the electricity industry.

Keen to stand apart from union influence, the Prime Minister will have many chances to prove his mettle. On three critical fronts - industrial relations, the Australian Building and Construction Commission and education - the hostility to Rudd's reforms will come less from the federal Opposition and more from Labor's traditional brother in arms: the unions. Aggressive union campaigns and behind-the-scenes union powerbroking aimed at derailing Rudd's reforms are already under way. If Rudd and Gillard fail to stand up to unions early on, they will suffer the same ignoble fate as craven state governments where brute union power has snuffed out critical reforms.

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Congress is no green house

There are two great myths perpetuated by Kevin Rudd and Climate Change Minister Penny Wong as a foundation for Australia introducing an emissions trading scheme. Both are deceitful and misleading the public about the cost of anETS. The first myth appears in Wong's green paper, which argues Australia is "acting with the rest of the world" because other countries are supporting an ETS, in particular the US, where "both presidential candidates are committed to introducing schemes".

Wong is correct that Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, support the introduction of a cap-and-trade system. But their support doesn't guarantee anything and the $US700 billion ($895 billion) financial bailout package demonstrates why. The bailout is one of the grandest bipartisan political measures taken in US history. It was supported by Republicans President George W. Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and McCain, and the Democrats' house Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate majority leader Harry Reid and Obama. Yet the bill failed in the House ofRepresentatives.

A bill may yet pass, but it has nothing to do with bipartisan support. There isn't similar party discipline as in Australia and therefore bipartisan support doesn't mean success. Members of the House of Representatives are elected every two years and are highly accountable to their electorates. Their allegiance is to their electorate first and their party second. And US voters are very sensitive to thegovernment voting for legislation that will simply take money from their back pockets. The present 110th Democrat-controlled Congress provides ample evidence. To date there have been eight bills introduced to establish a cap-and-trade system. None have passed. Bush didn't even need to pull out his veto pen.

These failed bills are merely following in the footsteps of the Kyoto Protocol, which was voted down in the Senate 95-0. Similarly, in 2003 McCain and then Democratic senator Joseph Lieberman proposed the Climate Stewardship Act. The bill was defeated 55-43. Both senators then proposed an amended version in 2005 that was defeated by an even wider margin. Ultimately, the reason for each bill's demise has been the cost it would impose on American consumers and industry without corresponding costs on competitor nations. The fallout from the financial crisis is just going to make negotiating an ETS harder.

And that leads to the second myth: Australia needs to develop an ETS to participate in the forthcoming international trading scheme. But there will not be a comprehensive international trading scheme. Establishing one requires every major emitting country to participate. At the G-8 meeting in Japan earlier this year Chinese President Hu Jintao reiterated what has long been the mantra of the Chinese Government: "China's central task now is to develop the economy and make life better for the people." The attitude of the Chinese Government is that "developed countries should make explicit commitments to continue to take the lead in emissions reduction".

China is not alone. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said to the 63rd session of the UN General Assembly: "The outcome must be fair and equitable ... we are committed to our per-capita emissions of greenhouse gases not exceeding those of the developed countries." In short, India may only slow the growth of its emissions to correspond with developed country levels.

For the US to participate requires developing countries to take proportionate emissions cuts. For developing countries to participate, developed countries need to shoulder most of the burden. In this scenario the developed and developing world are caught in a game of climate chicken. But outside Australia and the European Union no one appears interested in playing.

The final Garnaut report points out: "The only realistic chance of achieving the depth, speed and breadth of action now required from all major emitters is allocation of internationally tradeable emissions rights across countries." But it is simply not going to happen. The likeliest outcome will be a voluntary international trading scheme. Countries that participate will be guinea pigs. Their role will be to iron out problems, such as developing an accounting system for an industry's carbon footprint, the equivalence of permits and how to respond to the nightmarish impacts on trade.

If we keep heading down this path, the myths will become clear, and it won't take long before Australians start to ask why we are harming our economy while achieving virtually no reduction in emissions. It is an answer Rudd and Wong should think long and hard about.

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NSW government subsidizes homosexuality

Maybe this will inspire the New Zealand government to subsidize sheep-shaggers! How about a sheep 'n shagger Mardi Gras? Should be good for the NZ lamb industry.

TAXPAYERS will for the first time be forced to fund the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras after the State Government last night came to the financial aid of the debt-plagued event. Mardi Gras organisers and new government body Events NSW confirmed the deal last night after it was leaked to the gay media yesterday. A major Sydney attraction, it is claimed the new funding deal would boost the $30 million the parade injects into the state each year.

"This is really a tactical investment to allow them to build a platform that they haven't been able to build in the past, to drive more money into the state," Events NSW CEO Geoff Parmenter said last night. "We're investing in the development of the plan that will allow them to develop more visitors and more investment than the event's able to do now." Until now the Mardi Gras has struggled on the volatile income of fundraising and membership fees to stay afloat. Government support has included help with policing and public transport, and financial exemptions.

The new funding arrangement, which follows months of negotiations, will involve taxpayer dollars going directly into the colourful parade for the first time. The extent of the financial lifeline was not revealed last night. Terms of the deal were kept secret but the parties confirmed the Government would put up a portion of the several hundred thousand dollars it costs to hold the parade each year.

"It is injecting a considerable and significant level of support with reference to the Mardi Gras parade which is going to enable us to sustain and grow, increase production values and creativity, and to assist us in bringing more tourism into the state," New Mardi Gras chair David Imrie said. "It is now going to be self-sustaining and grow. We are going to see higher production values now. "It's really exciting because we're going into the 31st year now and it enables us to start a new generation with a strong foothold."

The financial turnaround was already underway before the deal, with New Mardi Gras reporting a $500,000 profit this year. Despite its massive popularity, organisers of the festival faced debts of $700,000 in 2002 after a voluntary administrator found they had been trading while insolvent. New Mardi Gras emerged from its ashes and now the financially healthy - and government-backed - event, which started as a protest in 1978, draws an estimated 500,000 spectators each year. Mr Parmenter said the decision to fund the parade was the result of studying existing successful events and "seeing where we can assist to get them to work a bit harder".

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Childhood obesity a myth, say Australian food advertisers

How pesky of them to look at the evidence for popular claims!

The advertising industry has denied there is any link between food advertising and childhood obesity. At a federal Parliamentary inquiry into obesity in Australia held in Brisbane today, MPs were also told that advertising standards prohibited food being advertised as healthy in Australia. Australian Association of National Advertisers executive director Collin Segelov claimed CSIRO research, yet to be released, would show no significant increase in childhood obesity since the last study in 1995. "I'm not only arguing that advertising is not the cause of a childhood obesity epidemic, but that there is no epidemic," Mr Segelov said.

"The incidence of obesity amongst schoolchildren in Australia has shown no significant increase since 1995 [The findings in the USA are similar]. "This makes the notion of an obesity epidemic, as continually put forward by academic activists and others - quite irresponsibly in my opinion - quite misleading, if not an utter nonsense." Mr Segelov said food advertisers remained committed to a broader, more holistic approach to obesity.

Foundation for Advertising Research founder Glen Wiggs said an Australian food standard specifically forbade the use of the word "healthy" in food product advertising. Professor Wiggs said the repeal of the standard had been delayed again and again, but was now scheduled for April next year. He told AAP that research from England indicated advertising only affected food choices by children in a modest way, and their parents held far more sway. Advertising was an easy and cheap research target for authorities, but very little research was undertaken into how the home affected food choices, he said. "Children tend to imitate their parents," Prof Wiggs said.

Mr Segelov told the committee that once the food standard that currently prohibits the labelling of a Tasmanian apple as healthy was dropped, it would be imperative for advertisers to promote healthy products. He said television advertising bans would not work because advertisers would merely switch platforms, and children were already moving from television to other forms of "screen time" - the internet and pay TV.

Comment is being sought from the federal Department of Health and Ageing on the latest nutrition survey.

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Hey! Kevvy's not such a Leftist powder-puff after all!

Kevin Rudd calls Bali bombers cowards who deserve 'what's coming'

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd says the convicted Bali bombers are mass murderers and cowards who deserve what's coming to them. Three convicted bombers Amrozi, his brother Mukhlas and Imam Samudra, face execution for their role in the october 2002 Bali terror bombings which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians. Yesterday, they were allowed out of their cells at their island prison off Central Java to mark the Islamic holiday Idul Fitri, with Amrozi telling reporters others would take revenge if they were executed.

Mr Rudd said the bombers could make whatever threats of retribution they liked. "The Bali bombers describe themselves as holy warriors. I say the Bali bombers are cowards and murderers pure and simple and frankly they can make whatever threats they like," he told Fairfax Radio in Perth. "They deserve the justice that will be delivered to them. "They are murderers, they are mass murderers and they are also cowards."

The Bali bombers were associated with terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah, which conducted a series of terror attacks across Indonesia. JI has been hard hit by Indonesian counter-terrorist forces and conducted no significant attack since October 2005.

Mr Rudd said his government and its predecessor had ensured anti-terrorism policies were in robust order. "That means cooperating very closely with the Indonesian authorities on every matter concerning terrorism," he said. "It means also cooperating very closely with all of our intelligence agencies to make sure we have the best information out there on travel advisories for Australian tourists."

Mr Rudd said anyone travelling anywhere in the world should keep track of travel warnings. "Things can change quite quickly and I would urge everyone to go quickly to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website and to check the most recent and up to date travel advisory. It is very important," he said.

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Australia doing well economically

Trade surplus hits 11-year high. A good support for capital inflow

Australia posted its highest trade surplus in more than 11 years in August, as coal exports rose and imports fell. The trade surplus was $1.36 billion compared with a revised deficit of $697 million in July, the Bureau of Statistics said. The median estimate of 22 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for a $200 million surplus. The surplus is the highest since the $1.54 billion recorded in June 1997.

The second trade surplus this year supports the central bank's assessment that exports will help offset falling household spending, which prompted Governor Glenn Stevens to cut borrowing costs last month for the first time in seven years. Exports are being boosted by demand for coal and the currency's 9% decline against the US dollar this year.

''The huge leap in coal and iron ore prices'' has helped restore the trade balance to surplus after a record $3 billion deficit in February, said John Kyriakopoulos, an economist at National Australia Bank.

The Australian dollar increased to 79.37 US cents shortly before midday from 79.13 cents before the report was released. The two-year government bond yield was little changed at 5.10%. Exports rose 6% to $24.6 billion in August, the report showed. Coal shipments surged 26% and farm goods gained 4%. Iron ore jumped 5%. Imports declined 2% to $23.2 billion. Electrical goods tumbled 23%.

China's demand for iron ore is helping Australia's $1 trillion economy outpace other developed nations, which are being buffeted by the global credit squeeze. The economy expanded 2.7% in the second quarter from a year earlier, a report showed last month. That compares with 2.1% growth in the US, 1.5% in the UK and 1.7% in Germany. Australia's terms of trade, a measure of export income, surged 13.1% in the three months through June 30, the most in 35 years, according to a September 3 government report.

The trade boom, which has helped push unemployment close to the lowest in more than three decades, is helping offset a slump in consumer spending that has cut imports this year. Household spending dropped 0.1 percent in the second quarter, the first decline since 1993. BHP Billiton, the world's largest mining company, in August posted a 30% gain in second-half profit. [I have shares in them so I am looking forward to my dividend!]

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Plague of student suspensions hits Queensland schools

The fruit of negligible discipline

An alarming spike in student suspensions for being aggressive, disobedient, taking drugs and wagging school is plaguing the state's classrooms. Education Queensland statistics show suspensions were up 25 per cent at Gold Coast and Ipswich region public schools in the past three years and 22 per cent at Townsville schools. Other public school region reports, including Brisbane, are expected this week.

The initial snapshot has prompted child psychologists to call for family and community strategies to improve the behaviour of disrespectful students. The state Opposition has called for teachers to be equipped with more comprehensive behaviour management resources. [Like "the cane"]

Last financial year, 16,036 suspensions and 274 expulsions were slapped on students in the Gold Coast and Ipswich regions. In the Townsville region over the same period, there were 4068 suspensions and 48 expulsions. The information was contained in an answer to a parliamentary question on notice by LNP Member for Robina Ray Stevens.

Education Minister Rod Welford refused yesterday to comment on the reports or the implications. However, he did preface the reports by linking the rise to a stricter disciplinary approach from schools when the Code of School Behaviour was introduced in 2006.

Opposition education spokesman John-Paul Langbroek said the results indicated a larger behavioural problem both in and out of the classroom. "The Government will say they're being tougher (on students) but I think it reflects kids are more aggressive and we have to focus on behaviour management," Mr Langbroek said. "Just suspending them doesn't fix the problem." [It's a holiday for them, in fact]

Pathways Health and Research Centre's Professor Paula Barrett, a child psychologist, said the Government should consider making suspended students do community service, such as visiting nursing homes, hospitals or the RSPCA. She said most of the children suspended probably suffered from learning, emotional or social difficulties, in part because families now spent less time guiding and having fun with their young . "It's a two-way street. You give them quality time, you get respect," she said.

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Australia less affected by financial turmoil

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Labor faces first test on asylum

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

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

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

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

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

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Recycler warns of job cuts from Global Warming laws

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

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

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

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

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

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Cairns paramedic assaulted after public hospital treatment delay

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

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

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

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

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