BIG GREENIE ROUNDUP FIRST BELOW

Five current articles below

Zeg

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG draws our attention to a video by an Australian Liberal Party Senator Cory Bernardi that pisses all over proposed global warming laws

Open Letter to the Australian Prime Minister from Dr David Evans

The letter below appears on the site of Science Speak, a scientific modeling and mathematical research company. David Evans [david.evans@sciencespeak.com] has a background in mathematics, computing, and electrical engineering. He helped build the carbon accounting model for the Australian Government that tracks carbon in plants, debris, soils, and agricultural products

Dear Gullible Kevin

The banks want us to trade carbon. The big financial institutions saw you coming, didn't they? Make you feel all important and "progressive", save the planet, lead the move to save humanity from disaster. No you patsy, they are just taking Australia's sovereignty and locking in a profitable carbon trading scheme for themselves. A world "emissions" currency manufactured from thin air, world government, and worldwide wealth redistribution based on imaginary carbon "crimes". There will be no escape.

You are rushing to sign away our wealth and impoverish us, because you wouldn't take a couple of hours to understand the science of global warming and it's weak points. You never audited it did you? Just jumped into the scam feet first. "Oh, all those people said it was right", you smirk, "and those who don't believe are so.evil and inferior!"

That's the thing about scams Kevin, they always rush you so you don't have time to check it out properly, you just have to get in right away. All those admirers telling you how smart and compassionate you are, for swallowing an unaudited tale about wind and clouds, invisible trace gases, and will-o-the-wisps! Smartest man in the ALP, but you cannot understand what the "boneheads" in the National Party already know?

The alarmist theory is based on an assumption made in 1984, when there was insufficient data. The chronology is important. That assumption was disproved beyond reasonable doubt in 1999, after the IPCC had been set up, Kyoto was signed, a huge bureaucracy was in place to deal with carbon emissions, carbon trading plans were hatched, and the western climate establishment was lavishly spending billions looking to blame carbon dioxide for global warming. Too much at stake for the bureaucracy and government scientists to turn back. Hence the fracas.

Here's a clue Kev, find out about "feedbacks", especially those involving water-clouds, water vapor, humidity, evaporation, rain, and so on. How does the Earth respond when it is warmed a little by our carbon dioxide? Does the Earth amplify the warming, tripling it due to water feedbacks as the carbon dioxide theory claims? Or does it dampen the warming, as any stable system would do, as recent radiosonde and satellite data indicate? But the banks want carbon trading.

Carbon emissions will be the biggest "commodity" market soon, bigger than oil. Carbon traders will trade back and forth, creaming off a few percent on all those government issued permits created out of thin air, and the rest of us will be compelled to pay for them. Brilliant Kev! Why not a carbon tax if you just want to reduce carbon emissions? And it's no use asking shiny-pants over in the opposition, because he used to be head of Goldman Sachs in Australia. No wonder he wants carbon trading.

SOURCE

Warmist data manipulation shames science

Kevin Rudd went over the top last week in a speech to the Lowy institute, declaring it was "time to remove any polite veneer" from the climate change debate, which he claims is the "moral challenge of our generation". Then he launched an extraordinary tirade against "the climate change sceptics, the climate change deniers" who he claims are "powerful", "too dangerous to be ignored", "driven by vested interests … quite literally holding the world to ransom … Our children's fate - and our grandchildren's fate - will lie entirely with them."

If he had any shame, the Prime Minister would be mortified to be associated with such a hysterical, undergraduate piece of ad hominem hyperbole. History will record his embarrassment and the debasing of his office. But the speech shows Rudd's desperation in the week before his Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Emissions Trading Scheme) is debated in Parliament and less than a month before the Copenhagen climate summit at which he wants to parade a signed-off scheme. As the public cools towards this new energy tax, politicians, green groups and other alarmists with the real "vested interest" in this debate are stooping ever lower in their attempts to shun dissenters....

Against the apocalyptic rhetoric pushed by Rudd comes a cool-minded new book which unpicks the science underpinning the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's reports. Global Warming, False Alarm by Ralph Alexander, an Australian-born US scientist with a PhD in physics from Oxford, is subtitled ''The bad science behind the United Nations' assertion that man-made CO2 causes global warming". Alexander wrote the book, "because I'm a scientist. Because I'm offended that science has been perverted in the name of global warming."

He became a sceptic when he taught a course on physical science and found the textbook presented the "alarmist line on man-made global warming without question". "To me that made a mockery of the history of science presented in the course, which featured several examples of how mainstream scientific thinking has been wrong in the past."

The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change says the earth has effectively developed an allergy to CO2. The effect of a tiny amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is amplified by water vapour and clouds - in a positive feedback loop which enhances the climate's sensitivity to extra CO2 and causes "runaway global warming". That is the big Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change hypothesis. Alexander explains the three problems with the hypothesis.

* First, recent satellite observations show cloud feedback to be a negative loop, that is, clouds reduce global warming, rather than amplify it in a positive feedback loop, as the panel's models predict.

* Second, the panel has used flawed data. It "stooped to trickery and rewrote history" to make the temperature and CO2 records correlate over the past 2000 years, creating the notorious "hockey stick" graph that wiped out the well-documented Medieval Warm Period (a warm spell about the year 1000) and Little Ice Age (cool period in about 1650). The graph relied on data from a few tree rings to estimate historic temperatures, which have since been shown to be inaccurate.

* The third problem for the panel hypothesis is that CO2 lags behind temperature in the Ice Age era, which has been explained by the delayed release of stored CO2 from oceans, but the panel model has CO2 and temperature rising together since 1850. "Either temperature and CO2 go up and down at the same time or they don't … You can't have it one way during the ice ages and another way today."

Alexander says data manipulation has been the panel's main tool of deception. For instance, it has ignored the bias in the modern temperature record caused by the "urban heat island effect" that inflates warming near cities.

The panel has also ignored the bias in its temperature data caused by the shutting down of weather stations in cold parts of the world in the 1990s - from about 5000 to 2000 or so - most notably in the former Soviet Union. Again, this artificially increases the recent warming rate. Alexander says the panel has "cherry-picked" 19th century CO2 data to exaggerate the rise in CO2 levels since pre-industrial times, and has trivialised the sun's contribution to the present warming trend.

Don't get him started on computer climate models which he says are "full of unfounded assumptions". He points to the drop in the earth's temperature since 2001 which wasn't predicted by the models. Ultimately, "trillions of dollars could be wasted to fix a problem that doesn't exist''.

Alexander's book is a useful tool to make sense of climate change. As they did in the republic debate, regardless of elite consensus, Australians make up their own minds, and are probably turned off by official attempts to stifle dissent.

SOURCE

A footshot by the Federal "Greens" -- they block new Queensland dam to save fish, turtles etc.

So the "Green" Queensland State government now plans to meet water needs by building and running desalination plants at huge cost -- which will gobble up huge amounts of electricity -- while Federal "Green" policy is trying to REDUCE electricity use!

AFTER the emotion and relief that accompanied yesterday's no-go for the Traveston Dam comes the sobering reality. There are three major outcomes that flow from federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett's decision and none of them are especially pretty.

Australia's fastest growing region is welcoming thousands of new residents each week yet remains without a sustainable water supply adequate to meet its needs. The Bligh Government is now the biggest landowner in the Mary Valley, with 17,000ha it has no use for.

And water policy in southeast Queensland consists of a desalination plant that is rusting, a recycled water facility that is not being used properly and plans for a dam that will never get built.

The ad hocery that has afflicted the Government's approach to meeting the region's water needs was exposed for all to see yesterday. It has spent six years drawing up a regional water supply strategy and billions of dollars borrowed at the top of the market to arrive at a place where it still cannot guarantee it has the definitive answer to our water problems.

The Government now faces yet another fight to convince residents of the merits of more desalination plants at a time when Queensland needs to find ways to reduce its carbon footprint or pay dearly for its energy usage. One of those plants will have intake and outfall pipes traversing Mt Coolum National Park, hardly a good look for a Government desperate to be seen to be greener than green.

The proposed Marcoola desalination facility also could affect a major economic driver for the region, the Sunshine Coast Airport. But its biggest problem is likely to be cost. No matter where they are located, desalination plants are extremely energy intensive. The existing Tugun plant uses enough electricity to power every home in a town the size of Mt Isa. Think what another two plants of the same size mean for the region's electricity use. The abacus at Energex would have been working overtime yesterday.

Consultants Marsden Jacob estimated last year that, compared with building and operating Traveston Dam, the cost of a desalination plant would be up to $807 million more expensive over its life. That translates into ever higher power and water prices, which is what Anna Bligh was referring to when she said yesterday that axing Traveston meant people would pay more for water sooner.

But blaming Canberra entirely would be disingenuous. Ms Bligh painted herself into a corner last year when she declared purified recycled water would not be added to the drinking supply unless there was a repeat of the so-called millennium drought. The price to be paid for the region's explosive growth keeps getting greater and greater and this Government is beginning to show signs of being overwhelmed by the task before it.

SOURCE

And even the existing desalination plant is so troubled as to be virtually useless

Fortunately, the Good Lord took charge and sent down lots of rain, so the plant is not for the moment needed

FEARS the $1.2 billion Gold Coast desalination plant was rushed, compromising its quality, have been raised by officials overseeing the troubled project. The Tugun plant, meant to be a showpiece of the State Government's $9 billion water grid, has been plagued by problems including rusting pipes, cracking concrete, faulty valves and leaching of contaminants from a rubbish dump. The Government is refusing to take delivery of the facility until next June because of serious faults that have delayed the handover by 18 months.

Now, documents obtained by The Courier-Mail under Freedom to Information laws reveal serious concerns were raised about the pace of construction. Executives from what is now WaterSecure, the Government authority in charge of the water grid, held crisis talks in January this year after it became clear the technical problems would delay the plant from meeting its operational targets. Minutes from an executive meeting reveal at least 10 problems with the plant had been identified, including excessive vibration and rusting and leaking parts. "The EMT (executive management team) expressed concerns . . . about more issues and problems which may surface," the minutes stated.

The executives, including current WaterSecure chief Keith Davies, held "lengthy discussions" about construction time versus quality and cost. The mammoth plant was built in about two years by a consortium known as the Gold Coast Desalination Alliance, headed by French water giant Veolia and construction company John Holland. "The EMT believes that the GCD Alliance have focused on time as a priority, compromising quality . . . ," the meeting minutes said.

WaterSecure executives questioned whether Veolia and John Holland were liable for the faults and also sought legal advice. They also discussed withholding payments to the alliance. "VWA (Veolia Water Australia) and John Holland stand to gain a lot of money from gain share," the minutes said. "If WaterSecure decides to withhold money, this will be a major issue."

The minutes reveal WaterSecure officials held an emergency meeting in mid-January on the same day Deputy Premier Paul Lucas held a press conference at the plant to announce expected delays. Officially opened by Premier Anna Bligh last November, the desalination plant has been periodically shut down for weeks at a time and has failed to meet production targets.

Last month Mr Davies said the facility had been running at full capacity that month. But he said the faults were still being fixed and the Government was not expected to take ownership until next June.

SOURCE







Australia's Leftist government capitulates to illegals

They obviously want to set a precedent to say that anyone can come to Australia if they really want to

FORMER immigration minister Philip Ruddock has warned the Rudd government's offer of a special deal to get the Oceanic Viking 78 off the boat will create a "diabolical" precedent that will encourage more boats and more standoffs. And Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce has accused the government of “capitulation” in its offer to fast-track refugees' claims simply to get the asylum-seekers off the boat before Parliament returns next week.

Immigration Minister Chris Evans confirmed the offer of a special deal for the protesters today, saying he was “hopeful” of a breakthrough and conceding it was not humane for them to stay on the boat indefinitely. The deal could deliver the Oceanic Viking asylum-seekers resettlement in Australia faster than if they had been taken to processing on Christmas Island, which aims to process claims within three months.

Mr Ruddock told The Australian Online that the government's concessions and offer to fast-track processing and resettlement of the group after they refused to get off in Indonesia will feed perceptions that if you put the government “under duress you will get the outcome you are looking for”. “It's a diabolical situation of the government's own making. It's going to feed expectations that if you put the government under duress you will get the outcome you were looking for,” Mr Ruddock told The Australian Online. “It becomes a clear incentive and it is a clear indication that if you put the government under duress you will get what you want.

“You can't look at this issue in isolation. Of course people want to get them off the boat, I understand that. But we have always been faced with push factors in the past. What we have now is a series of pull factors that the government refuses to acknowledge exists. “What the Indonesians have been saying is code for, `what are you doing to encourage people to get on these boats?”'

Confirmation of the special deal for the asylum-seekers, who had warned they would rather die than get off the boat in Indonesia, comes just days after the Prime Minister would not negotiate with protesters threatening self harm. “When it comes to Australia's border protection policy, let me be absolutely clear that that policy of ours, in the Australian national interest, will not be changed in response to any protests, any threats, any threats of harm, any threats of self harm,” Mr Rudd said on Monday.

Mr Ruddock said using force or calling in the Australian Army was clearly a difficult option when you were under the jurisdiction of foreign government. Mr Ruddock said while it would not be appropriate to turn the boat back to Sri Lanka without offering the refugees a safe harbour, he had an open mind to such a tactic if asylum-seekers refused to disembark in a safe port, as the Oceanic Viking 78 had refused to do so. “But if you have given people the opportunity to disembark somewhere they are safe and they have chosen not to that's a different set of circumstances,” he said.

Senator Joyce said Mr Rudd had surrendered the sovereignty of Australia's immigration policy. “It is in summary capitulation. He has lost the fight and they are on their way to Australia. Bonza, beauty, but pathetic,” he told The Australian Online.. “The tactic is simple. Mr Rudd wants them off the boat before parliament sits next week. Our immigration policy has become determined by Parliamentary sittings. “You can't have people use an element of duress to determine your policy.”

SOURCE

Update:

THE 78 Sri Lankans aboard the Oceanic Viking have been offered resettlement in Australia in as little as a month, as well as homes, jobs and social security payments once in the country, in an unsuccessful effort to end the boatpeople standoff.

But the Sri Lankan Tamils rejected the offer because it would have required them to wait in an Indonesian detention centre, The Australian reports.

The written offer, made by Australian Government negotiators to the Sri Lankans on Sunday and Monday, included "lessons in the Australian way of life", help in tracking down family members and "assistance in . . . accommodation, medical help and advice, income benefits, English lessons and help with seeking employment".






Is this magistrate fit for his job?

Victims 'less important' than defendants, says magistrate

A MAGISTRATE has said that victims are less "important" than the defendants in court. Darwin-based Alasdair McGregor made the comments when considering whether to move a sexual offences case to Alice Springs, where the alleged offender lives, from Darwin, where the alleged offence occurred, The Northern Territory News reports.

The 33-year-old man is charged with having carnal knowledge of a seven-year-old boy in 1999. His lawyer Ambrith Abayasekara asked Mr McGregor to move the case because the man now lived in Alice Springs, and he would be able to go to court there.

Granting the application, Mr MrGregor said: "We seem to have developed a habit of putting cases down for where the victim lives," he said. "It's not the victim who's important, it's the defendant, who has to get to court. "Victims are bit players in this. They get the media attention," he said.

SOURCE





Breaking the law: the NSW exam results that the do-gooders do not want you to see



THE Herald is breaching state law today, risking a $55,000 fine by comparing the test results of three schools. After an announcement by the federal Education Minister, Julia Gillard, that she will publish test results from around Australia on a new website in January, the Herald has learnt that publishing the exam results of just two of the schools could result in a fine in NSW.

And half of that fine could be paid to the Teachers' Federation or any other complainant under the anti-league table laws introduced by the NSW Greens MP John Kaye in June and supported by the State Opposition.

The national literacy and numeracy test results published today were obtained from the schools' annual reports. They show the selective schools Sydney Girls and Hornsby Girls scored higher than Macarthur Girls High in Parramatta.

The legislation, which levies the fines on newspapers for the publication of school comparisons and league tables, has caused rifts in the Liberal Party. The Government initially backed it because it was part of a package of legislation which guaranteed federal funding of schools, but the Premier, Nathan Rees, tried to overturn it in September in a bid to wedge the Opposition Leader, Barry O'Farrell. He was defeated in the upper house by the Opposition and the Greens.

It states: ''A person must not, in a newspaper or other document that is publicly available in this state: (a) publish any ranking or other comparison of particular schools according to school results, except with the permission of the principals of the schools involved.'' Yesterday the Government confirmed that should a breach occur, action would be able to be taken in a court by a local community or the Teachers' Federation, and should a fine be levied half the proceeds would go to the plaintiff.

The act allows only for the publication of the rankings of the top 10 per cent of HSC schools. A Government spokesman confirmed yesterday that should the newspaper decide to publish the top 15 per cent instead, the newspaper would be subject to penalty. Mr Kaye defended his legislation yesterday, saying he is trying to protect poorer communities from being ''stigmatised''. ''It's no more draconian than the ban on naming minors in the criminal justice system, no more draconian than our laws on libel,'' he said.

The Opposition's education spokesman, Adrian Piccoli, said the Herald was welcome to publish information ''in alphabetical order'', as long as schools were not ranked. ''We think ranking schools simply on one result is unfair and provides no useful information to parents, does the school no justice, nor the students any justice.''

Bob Lipscombe, president of the NSW Teachers' Federation, said he was ''hopeful'' newspapers would not publish league tables but if they did the federation would ''make a decision at the time as to what action we would take''. Angelo Gavrielatos, president of the Australian Education Union, said the school reports would go live without vital information about school income that Ms Gillard had promised.

SOURCE

Individual responsibility upheld at long last

Blame for drunken folly falls on drinkers in High Court judgment

THE High Court has dramatically shifted the responsibility for drunken actions on to the individual, ruling that the nation's publicans have no general duty of care to protect patrons from the consequences of getting drunk.

Hailed as a victory for common sense, the country's highest court yesterday tilted responsibility for the safety of drunken patrons towards "the drinker, rather than the seller of drink". Without dissent, five judges overturned a decision of the full bench of Tasmania's Supreme Court that found a publican who returned motorcycle keys to a drunken patron, who then died in a crash, had failed in a duty of care.

Three of the judges opted to make a more detailed explanation of their decision to "avoid repetition" of such cases and to warn against "interfering paternalism". They ruled that outside exceptional cases, hotel owners and licensees "owe no general duty of care at common law to customers ... (requiring) them to monitor and minimise the service of alcohol or to protect customers from the consequences of the alcohol they choose to consume".

"That conclusion is correct because the opposite view would create enormous difficulties ... relating to customer autonomy and coherence with legal norms," ruled justices Gummow, Heydon and Crennan. "Expressions like 'intoxication', 'inebriation' and 'drunkenness' are difficult to both define and to apply. "The fact that legislation compels publicans not to serve customers who are apparently drunk does not make the introduction of a civil duty of care defined by reference to those expressions any more workable or attractive."

Public health experts said the decision was "immensely worrying" and could undermine responsible service of alcohol.

The publican at the centre of the case, Michael Kirkpatrick, said he was "over the moon" at the decision. The Australian Hotels Association cautioned against patrons seeing the judgment as a green light to "get plastered" at licensed venues. But the AHA and individual publicans hailed the ruling as sending a strong warning to drinkers to take responsibility for their own actions.

Sydney University professor of public health Simon Chapman said yesterday's legal decisions "will effectively mean that publicans will seek to reduce costs and reduce security". "It reveals the whole pretence of responsible service of alcohol as farcical, to say the least," Professor Chapman said.

SOURCE






At last I've been singled out by the PM

By Andrew Bolt

I HAD no idea I was a corrupt, reckless, arrogant, dangerous and gutless conspirator who'd rather put my children in danger than help the Prime Minister stop global warming. But so Kevin Rudd has told the nation, naming me as one of just four Australians who've joined a global cabal plotting to stop him from saving you.

Never have I heard such a mad speech from a prime minister as the one Rudd gave on Friday at the Lowy Institute, when he exposed an alleged "legion of climate change sceptics" who were "active across the world" and had "tentacles" deep in the Opposition. These "deniers", now a "major force", "simply do not care" that "the clock is ticking for the planet" since "the vested interests at work are simply too great". So "well resourced" were we "political cowards" that we were "prepared to destroy our children's future".

And four times Rudd singled out the four villains at the heart of this plot, as in: "Malcolm, Barnaby, Andrew and Janet - stop gambling with our future." From the left, that's Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull (actually a climate change dupe), Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce, me and Australian columnist Janet Albrechtsen.

Has any past prime minister singled out just four people - two mere journalists - as part of a conspiracy to hurt the Australian way of life? It is grotesque, a misuse of Rudd's authority. But it also shows how fatally weak is Rudd's reason - or at least his reason for wanting to hit us with a colossal tax on our emissions that will shut power stations, throw thousands out of work and yet do nothing to lower the world's temperatures.

Rudd's speech also confirmed he had no answer to my challenge last week: to tell us how much he'll pay of the $7 billion a year the United Nations asks from us under the draft Copenhagen treaty he wants to sign next month.

Let me make a few things clear to Rudd. First, no one pays me a cent to be sceptical; in fact, my boss suggests I "give the planet the benefit of the doubt". Your claim that I argue from just a "vested interest" is a despicable lie.

Second, the real "vested interests" in this debate are behind the alarmists, not the sceptics, which is why your Government has just given a $90 million grant to a trial "green" energy plant whose shareholders include doom-preacher Tim Flannery - even though all three wells of the company's first geothermal plant have broken down.

Third, what threatens my children's future is not my scepticism but your mad plans to waste billions of dollars on a threat that seems not to exist.

Fourth, you deceive when you say "4000 scientists" wrote the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on which you base your claim man is heating the world to hell.

In fact, just 60 of those (actually fewer than 3000) scientists specifically endorsed that claim, and even they admitted they were just 90 per cent sure. Moreover, their finding has been rejected by petitions signed by thousands of other scientists.

Lastly, I'm in no conspiracy, and until a year ago fought almost alone here as a sceptic. The real "political cowards" are those of your own ministers who know your global warming plan is a hoax fix to a hoax scare, but dare not speak.

Now this, Prime Minister, is how to argue. By citing evidence. Checking predictions against reality. Your attempt to instead demonise me as a menace to even my own children proves nothing but that you have no facts to justify your megalomaniacal plan - and that you may be unworthy of your office.

SOURCE

Rudd's hysteria is certainly telling -- JR




Ban Tamil Tigers, Sri Lanka urges

OFFICIALS in Sri Lanka are urging Australia to ban the militant group the Tamil Tigers and strike a clear distinction between genuine refugees and economic opportunists. As Foreign Minister Stephen Smith flew to Singapore following talks with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his Foreign Minister, Rohitha Bogollagama, aimed at stopping the flow of boats, officials in Colombo told The Australian Sri Lankan people fleeing their country did not need protection.

Yesterday, Mr Smith announced Australia would provide $11 million in funding to Sri Lanka. Most of the money, $6m, will fund de-mining and rehabilitation in the nation's north after decades of violent conflict, while the rest will go towards housing, food and resettlement services. The two countries also signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at increasing joint anti-people-smuggling efforts and intelligence-sharing.

The talks follow a surge this year in the number of asylum-seeker boats leaving Sri Lanka for Australia. Senior Australian envoy Brian McCarthy and people-smuggling ambassador Peter Woolcott will stay on in Colombo for a series of meetings aimed at hammering out the details of the agreements.

Yesterday, Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry secretary Romesh Jayasinghe said there was a need for a clear distinction between genuine refugees and those not in need of protection. "The fact is that the (1951 Refugee Convention) provides for refuge in instances when there is a well-founded fear," Mr Jayasinghe said. "I would submit to you that there is no such situation in Sri Lanka."

Mr Jayasinghe said the legal status of the separatist Tamil Tigers, or LTTE - whose defeat in May by the Sri Lankan government triggered the massive internal displacement Labor says is behind the surge in boats - was also a significant issue for Colombo. "The LTTE in the form it was known is no more," Mr Jayasinghe said. "But there are sinister elements that are endeavouring to try to re-stoke the cinders of secessionism. It is necessary to be vigilant and prevent such attempts. "That's the position that was presented quite clearly by our side to our Australian guests."

At a press conference on Monday, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama explicitly linked the Tamil Tigers with people-smuggling: "Sri Lanka's stand has always remained, that people-smuggling has been part of terrorist activities - it has previously been associated with LTTE activities."

The Tamil Tigers are a banned terrorist organisation in the US and Europe but have never been proscribed in Australia.

Yesterday, the 78 Sri Lankans on board the Customs ship Oceanic Viking managed to communicate by hand signals that they remained unwilling to come ashore to a detention centre at Tanjung Pinang, on Indonesia's Bintan island. As another delegation of Australian officials boarded the vessel in a bid to break the deadlock, some of the Sri Lankans made crossed forearm gestures to demonstrate there was still no deal. The major sticking point remains the issue of where the asylum-seekers would be held if they agreed to go ashore, with many having already spent several years in Indonesian detention centres.

Australian claims that the Indonesian side is considering a request to house the Sri Lankans in community facilities has been met with bewilderment by senior officials, on and off the record.

SOURCE






The unreasoning fearmongers

By Janet Albrechtsen

And the prize for giving vacuous prizes goes to... the Left. Last week John Pilger delivered a speech after becoming the 2009 recipient of the Sydney Peace Prize. Predictably, he railed against the war in Afghanistan. There are no terrorist training grounds there, he said. No mention of Al Qaeda from Pilger. He railed against the suffering on the "besieged people of Gaza". No mention of the role of Hamas from Pilger.

And then he railed against Australia’s immigration policy and the "concentration camp on Christmas Island." No mention that the 78 Sri Lankans on board the Oceanic Viking are determined to take up residence on Christmas Island.

What Pilger has done for peace is not entirely clear. But the progressive mindset says that if you are expert enough at crafting emotional arguments that’s enough to deserve a prize. One need only look at the two big issues of the day – climate change and border protection - to realise the progressive predilection for emotion over reason and stealth over honesty. Some of them – mostly politicians - use emotion for calculated political purposes. Others – commentators and activists - seem to genuinely suffer from arrested development, frozen in perpetual adolescence where emotion trumps reason.

A few months ago, NSW Premier Nathan Rees labelled those sceptical about the climate change science as akin to Nazi appeasers in the 1930s. Last week at the Lowy Institute Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said that those same people are fear mongering, gambling with their children’s future. It’s a powerful allegation, full of emotion. It is also dishonest.

To be curious about the state of science, to ask questions of the orthodoxy, to suggest that we not rush ahead of other countries in a way that will punish the Australian economy is the antithesis of fear-mongering. It says let’s draw breath, put aside the wild hyperbole, ignore the growing group think, the cheap symbolism and think rationally about climate change. Those who predict the end of the world, those such as Al Gore who tell us sea levels will rise by six metres in by 2100, those such as Tim Flannery who say it’s now or never, telling us we have about 20 years to act on climate change or else place our future at risk of apocalyptic droughts, floods, war and famine. Here are the fear-mongers.

The emotional claims by Rees and Rudd do nothing to advance debate. That is not their intention. Their aim is to shutdown debate by shaming opponents into agreeing with them, or at the very least, just shutting up. Anyone who disagrees with the Left on a range of issues is invariably labelled as cold-hearted and lacking basic human compassion.

No issue highlights this more than border protection. Here, once again, the language used by the Left is replete with emotion. On Sunday morning on ABC1’s Insiders, journalist David Marr ABC1’s said that Australians – unlike any other people in the world – fear refugees. Fear is a strong word. It is full of emotion. It is also a dishonest way to describe the attitudes of Australian attitudes border control. Recent polls movements against the Rudd Government suggest that Australians remain concerned about border protection. But being concerned about border control is not the same as being fearful of refugees.

Those on the left, such as Marr, pepper their language with emotion because their thinking is premised on the same. They cannot fathom that Australians have long expressed a rational preference for an orderly, controlled system of immigration and border protection. It’s nothing to do with fear, David. It’s to do with facts. And a simple compact.

As former Prime Minister, John Howard, reminded us in his weekend interview, the facts speak for themselves. Under Howard the boats stopped. And, as he said, "the consequence of our policy was that because we stopped the boats public support for a higher immigration rate to Australia rose—and public support for a humanitarian refugee program was maintained and even strengthened. "The Australian public will always support a reasonably high immigration program if they think it is properly managed and serves the interests of Australia."

Howard was not alone in understanding that and formulating policy to reflect that deal with the Australian people. As my colleague, Paul Kelly, sets out in his book, The March of Patriots, the politics of people movement grew from an enduring compact that began with the Chifley Government in 1945 when increased immigration became both a reality and a necessity in a globalised age.

It is, as Kelly writes, "the most powerful political compact in Australia’s history. Mass migration was presented to people, business, unions and churches on the condition that government would control who came to Australia in the interests of people." And that policy platform has been maintained by every Prime Minister from Chifley to Rudd.

How easy the Left forgets or deliberately ignores the facts underscoring that compact. Remember in the 1970s it was Gough Whitlam who said: "I’m not having hundreds of f.... Vietnamese Balts coming into this country with their political and religious hatreds." And Bob Hawke in 1990 who said: "Do not let any people… think that all they’ve got to do is break the rules, jump the queue, lob here and Bob’s your uncle. Bob is not your uncle on this issue. We’re not going to allow people to jump that queue."

And Paul Keating, who, as Prime Minister in 1992 introduced mandatory detention for unlawful arrivals.

How easily the Left forgets or deliberately ignores the success behind that compact. As Kelly records, from the 1940s Australia became a story of mass migration, accepting about seven million migrants, the highest per capita outside of Israel. By the time Howard left office, one in four Australians have been born overseas. The compact between the Australian people and the government of the day to support and sustain an orderly immigration program has been integral to Australia’s success as a country that has accepted millions of people from around the world.

Rudd understands the compact. But in his quest to be all things to all people, he now finds himself and his policy held to ransom by a group of savvy asylum seekers who are highly strategic in their actions and demands. Clearly, Rudd did not count on the resolve of the 78 Sri Lankans on board the Oceanic Viking. But as he figures out what to do, he can count on the resolve of the Australian people in expecting - not through fear, but through reason and proven success – that his government will keep his side of the compact on immigration policy. Better Rudd listen to history than the overblown and unthinking emotion of those on the Left.

SOURCE







A tribute to Quadrant magazine

By Rafe Champion

As we celebrate the Fall of the Wall 20 years ago we should remember the effort that was put in by the friends of freedom in the West during the Cold War. I am thinking of the worldwide network of groups which resisted the propaganda efforts of the communists and their fellow travellers. This was an uneasy alliance at times, involving a coalition of social democrats, social conservatives, classical liberals and others. Not surprisingly, the alliance did not long survive the Fall of the Wall. Robert Manne, who earned our gratitude for his principled stand on communism did not maintain alliance with the free traders, for example.

Quadrant magazine was the Australian organ of his effort, initially under the editorship of James McAuley. The early issues make interesting reading, especially for those of us who came to it years after when we had been told that it was a magazine of unbridled rightwing prejudice. For the most part, excepting a fiery editorial and mission statement from McAuley it was nothing of the kind. It hosted a wide range of opinions which were expressed with the utmost civility. This is Peter Coleman’s account of the McAuley Quadrants.

The first issue was far more literary than some of McAuley’s polemics had suggested it might be. He would not allow Quadrant, he had announced, "to exemplify that ideal of a completely colourless, odourless, tasteless, inert and neutral mind on all fundamental issues which some people mistake for liberalism." The first issue had poems by Rosemary Dobson, Judith Wright. A.D.Hope, Vincent Buckley and Roland Robinson. (They all were metrical and rhymed.) There were articles by Hope, Alan Villiers, George Molnar, and George Kardoss. There were reviews of Patrick White, David Campbell and Judith Wright.

The friends of communism had a windfall when it was found that the CIA contributed funds to the freedom movement, including Quadrant. As if this invalidated a single word that was printed in the magazine. The knockers of Quadrant have yet to understand or admit that in the Cold War the friends of Quadrant were on the correct side and the communists and fellow travellers were not.

Rest in honourable peace, James McAuley, Richard Krygier and other helpers.

SOURCE

Pervasive love of the Nanny State

Below is a circular from Greg Lindsay of the Centre for Independent Studies, dated November 9. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590. The idea that ANY Australian supermarket does not sell fresh produce is truly remarkable. A classical example of how simplistic theories trump facts among Leftists. The major supermarkets have a huge range of produce wherever they are and even mini-markets have some

Conversations at dinner parties often reflect the fashion and fads of the moment. House prices, schools, the GFC, climate change, and refugees—all have cropped up over the past few years. Lately, it’s the so-called 'obesity epidemic.'

No contemporary issue divides the people who believe in personal choice and responsibility from those who think government should be constantly at our elbows, as it were, nudging our hands away from the salt, butter, eggs, meat, etc.

A recent conversation I had with a dinner companion went something like this.

Dinner Companion: 'I accept that markets are the best way of supplying goods and services for people, but what about the less well-off people who are not eating properly?'

GL: 'What do you mean?'

DC: ‘Oh I don't mean people who live around here who have access to fruit and vegetables but those who live out in (suburb) X where the supermarkets don't stock fresh fruit and vegetables.'

GL: 'They don't?' DC: 'No, they don't.' GL: 'I don't believe you.' DC: 'It's true!'

And so on.

The serious but bizarre suggestion that followed was that the government should force retail outlets in less affluent areas to sell fresh fruit and vegetable and also compel the less well off to buy them ‘for their own good.’

So I checked with the supermarkets located in suburb X. And yes, they do stock plenty of fresh produce. So presumably enough people are buying fruit and vegetables, and no wonder. For as long as I can remember, taxpayer-funded health campaigns have been preaching the benefits of healthy diets.

If there is a legitimate role of government here, it may be to disseminate important public information so people can make informed decisions. But now this seems to be morphing into something altogether different. My dinner companion’s attitude to the Nanny State demonstrated the soft authoritarian streak that is pervading society.

It would appear that we can’t leave it up to individuals to make rational decisions about what is in their best interests. Indeed, it’s now the government’s job to treat us like infants in the high chair and make sure we eat our vegetables! Moreover, if there is a growing issue, such as obesity, overstating the case as my dinner companion did can trivialise it and the public loses interest. (Climate change alarmists for instance are increasingly guilty of this.)

The problem, of course, is that ultimately this attitude is self-defeating. Social theorists call the phenomena ‘learned helplessness.’ The more government does, the less responsible people need to be, and the less responsible they end up becoming. And ever-bigger becomes the role of governments in our lives.





Amazing political censorship attempt by the Rudd government

KEVIN Rudd's word police have banned the Opposition from describing his Government as disgraceful, inept and reckless under new printing entitlement regulations. The Opposition has cried foul as a team of "black marking" bureaucrats are voluntarily vetting letters, newsletters and Hansard in a bid to explain what words are in and what words are banned under the regulations.

Under the new regulations, MPs may not use their printing and communications allowance to disparage or denigrate another political party. Federal Liberal Gold Coast MP Steven Ciobo labelled the regulations as absurd, accusing the Rudd Government of censorship. The words Rudd's word police have banned:

Disgraceful
Dreadful
Inept
Mismanagement
Reckless
Recklessly
Incompetence
Incompetent
Irresponsible
Flawed
Unfairly
Disastrous
Neglect
Disregard

"These sets of rules only benefit the Labor Government (and) Queensland constituents should be very concerned about the mass political interference in the role of federal MPs," Mr Ciobo said. "These are rules that we would point at (within) China and say 'How disgusting'."

Special Minister of State Joe Ludwig hit out at the Opposition, but conceded some bureaucrats were being overzealous. "This is not about what parliamentarians can say, it is about what they can spend taxpayers' money on," Senator Ludwig said. "There is no doubt that the Department of Finance and Deregulation has been overzealous in its application of the rules, (and it's) an issue the Government is working closely with the department and a cross-party consultative group to address. "What is clear is that not one word in these regulations prevents policy criticism by any member of Parliament. "What it does is stop the taxpayer picking up the tab for personal attacks and denigration."

But Michael Ronaldson, the Opposition's spokesman on the contentious issue, accused the Government of taking too long to address the problem. "Unfortunately, the officials in the Department of Finance who are vetting the material have taken this to mean that any strong criticism of Labor policy is forbidden," Senator Ronaldson said.

"We all agreed with the Audit Office findings that the old entitlements system was open to abuse, lacked clarity and needed reform. "Unless we get changes which protect our freedom of speech, the Coalition will have no alternative but to disallow Labor's unfair regulations."

SOURCE






Illegals from New Guinea flooding into Australia's Northern islands

PAPUA New Guineans are pouring into islands in the Torres Strait, flouting immigration laws, running drugs, terrorising people and overwhelming local health and basic services. Community leaders, including the chairman of the federal government's Torres Strait Regional Authority, John Kris, have accused the Department of Immigration of turning a blind eye to the worsening problem north of Cape York, with the political debate instead focusing attention on boat arrivals in the Indian Ocean.

"They are not policing the border . . . . it is difficult to know how many people are coming across," Mr Kris told The Australian. "There has been too much focus put on the boat arrivals and not enough attention on the Torres Strait, where more people are moving into these waters."

Some communities have recently taken matters into their own hands by "closing the borders" to visitors - some of whom they claim roam islands armed with machetes and who are either not eligible for or have overstayed free movement provisions extended to some villages in the Western Province of PNG. The Torres Strait Treaty, signed 30 years ago, allows traditional activities to continue between specified villages on both sides of the border.

But documents obtained by The Australian early last year showed that the government was already aware that thousands of PNG citizens were illegally crossing the border. The Torres Strait Island Regional Council, which represents 14 islands, says little has been done, with some communities having "in excess of 500 PNG nationals turn up" without warning, draining the local water supply. "Immigration turns a blind eye to the fact that 'overstayers' are on the island; their inaction in dealing with the problem makes a mockery of the treaty," Mayor Fred Gela told a Senate inquiry. "Immigration must start to do their job."

Mr Gela told the Senate that PNG nationals were stealing, running drugs and sly-grogging, and had even been suspected of abducting local women. The Senate inquiry has also heard warnings of biodiversity and health risks to Australia, with some figures suggesting one in five PNG villagers who cross the Torres Strait have tuberculosis.

There were 59,000 recorded movements between the two countries last financial year.

Queensland Liberal senator Sue Boyce, who sits on the inquiry committee, last week wrote to Kevin Rudd, saying the federal and state governments were ignoring the problem. "Ignoring these Australians and leaving them to their fate is not an option and, in fact, it would be an international disgrace if no action was taken to secure their safety and protection," she wrote.

In its submission, the federal Department of Health said it was providing services to visitors on humanitarian grounds despite travel not being permitted for health purposes under the treaty.

SOURCE





GREENIE ROUNDUP

Three current articles below

Prime Minister Rudd's Chilling Speech

In Australia, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has given the most chilling speech (PDF here) with respect to open policy debate that I have ever heard from a leader of a democratic country. The focus of his speech is on "climate change deniers." Who are these people? They include people who are skeptical of climate change science, but remarkably, they also include people who believe that climate change is real and a problem, but disagree with the Prime Minister's preferred policy approach. Rudd states that "climate change deniers" fall into one of three categories:

· First, the climate science deniers.

· Second, those that pay lip service to the science and the need to act on climate change but oppose every practicable mechanism being proposed to bring about that action.

· Third, those in each country that believe their country should wait for others to act first.

He says of these groups: "As we approach the Copenhagen conference these groups of climate change deniers face a moment of truth, and the truth is this: we will need to work much harder to reach an agreement in Copenhagen because these advocates of inaction are holding back domestic commitments, and are in turn holding back global commitments on climate change."

Rudd uses extremely strong terms to characterize those who disagree with his policy prescriptions:

"Climate change deniers are small in number, but they are too dangerous to be ignored. They are well resourced and well represented by political conservatives in many, many countries.

And the danger they pose is this by collapsing political momentum towards national and global action on climate change, they collapse global political will to act at all. They are the stick that gets stuck in the wheel, that despite its size may yet bring the train to a complete stop.

And that is what they want, because they are driven by a narrowly defined self interest of the present and are utterly contemptuous towards our children's interest in the future.

This brigade of do nothing climate change skeptics are dangerous because if they succeed, then it is all of us who will suffer. Our children. And our grandchildren.

Rudd explains why it is that the Copenhagen meeting may fail:

If Copenhagen does not deliver the outcome we so urgently need, no individual climate change skeptic will be responsible, but each of them will have played their part.

Rudd explains that there is no place in government for people holding these views, a position seemingly reinforced this week when the CSIRO stands accused of censoring a paper critical of the Australian ETS:

Climate change skeptics in all their guises and disguises are not conservatives. They are radicals. They are reckless gamblers who are betting all our futures on their arrogant assumption that their intuitions should triumph over the evidence. The logic of these skeptics belongs in a casino, not a science lab, and not in the ranks of any responsible government.

Can witch trials and pogroms be far behind? What bothers me about the speech is not so much the criticism of people who reject mainstream science. Fine, criticism of them as rolling the dice on a minority view is fair and appropriate. What bothers me is the explicit equation of people who question a policy's effectiveness or desirability with the idea of being a "denier" and thus being "dangerous." Rudd is openly conflating views on science with views on politics. Not only does this further the politicization of science, but it also make a mockery of democratic governance. Imagine if George W. Bush had given this same speech in 2003 but about people who deny the merits of his desired policy of going to war in Iraq. There would have been national and international outrage, and rightfully so.

Rudd may be trying to set the stage for domestic failure of the CPRS and more generally that in Copenhagen. But he is doing so in a way that stomps on the notion of democracy and the fact that people have different values and perspectives that can only be reconciled through the democratic process. An observer at the Lowy Institute (where the speech was given) said afterward:

The implication was that these descriptions applied to anyone who opposed the Government's climate change agenda — the PM seemed to admit of no possibility that anyone of good will could be opposed to that agenda

That is a pretty good description of the climate debate. Demonizing one's opponents and calling their views "dangerous" is a first step down a path we don't want to go.

SOURCE

"Snouts in the Carbon Trough"

Mr Rudd accuses opponents of his Ration-N-Tax Scheme of “bowing to vested interests”. That is the pot calling the kettle black. The biggest vested interest is the ALP itself, hoping to harvest Green preference votes from their green posturing. Supporting the alarmists are the gaggle of green industries already reaping dividends from the Rudd subsidies and market protection rackets.

Mr Rudd also tells us that his big business mates want the “certainty” of Emissions Trading. A roll call of these people reveals domination by big firms of auditors and accountants, bankers and brokers, speculators and solicitors, touts and traders - all longing to get into the biggest trading lottery the world has ever seen - more snouts in the carbon trough. The rest of big business merely wants the “certainty” of free emission permits or other special exemptions denied to Joe the Plumber and Fred the Farmer.

Sceptics on the other hand do not have a mercenary army of academics, bureaucrats and publicists who can be bribed or bullied to produce scary climate forecasts or doomsdays ads on demand. Nor do sceptics have the power to silence or sack dissidents in their ranks. Nor do they have the pulpits and power of the UN which, having failed at “peace keeping”, sees “climate control” as its new business model.

The climate realists have only one big vested interest – the desire to live their lives free from the “certainty” of new taxes on everything they buy and new controls on everything they do. This is not about global pollution or global warming – it is about global energy taxes, global government and global redistribution.

SOURCE

Pervasive climate skepticism among Australian conservative politicians

LIBERAL Senate leader Nick Minchin's warning that a majority of the party does not believe in man-made climate change has emboldened Malcolm Turnbull's critics with fresh warnings today the partyroom may reject a deal on emissions trading.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong today challenged the Liberal leader to repudiate Senator Minchin's outspoken rejection of climate change science. She described Senator Minchin's comments as a “direct attack” on Mr Turnbull's leadership.

But today Liberal MP Bronwyn Bishop joined the attack, backing Senator Minchin's outspoken comments on last night's Four Corners program, suggesting it was he and not Mr Turnbull who was speaking for the party. “I thought Nick Minchin put the position of the partyroom very well,” she told Sky News. “There is a belief that when we voted the legislation down last time that was the right thing to do. This is a tax that does not address the climate change problem one iota.”

The climate change stoush comes amid fresh speculation Joe Hockey is positioning himself for the leadership with a speech on God and religion. But the opposition Treasury spokesman today denied this was the case. “The leadership is not vacant,” he told ABC Radio today. “Malcolm has my very, very strong support.” Mr Hockey sidestepped questions about whether he wanted to be Liberal leader down the track. “I went into politics to serve my country, my party and my community, and Lord knows where that will take me,” he said. “If one day an opportunity came up then it would be up to others to determine that, not up to me.”

Earlier, Senator Wong conceded getting a deal through will be difficult with many in the Liberal Party convinced climate change is some sort of left-wing “conspiracy”. “It will be difficult. There are too many people in the Coalition who are not fair dinkum on climate change,” she said. “I think the question most Australians would have is who is speaking for the Liberal Party.”

Senator Wong also conceded what world leaders have been saying for weeks that a political agreement with goals and aspirations rather than a binding treaty to replace the Kyoto agreement on climate change is the most likely outcome of talks in Copenhagen. “What we need at Copenhagen is that effective political agreement,” she said. “Not every detail of the treaty is going to be sorted out by Copenhagen.”

Mr Turnbull said today that “good faith” negotiations were continuing with the Rudd government on emissions trading legislation ahead of the talks. “We are in good faith negotiations with the government. I'm not going to be deflected from those negotiations. They will have an outcome. At the end of that we will then decide whether we as a shadow cabinet agree with the outcome and then we will either recommend its acceptance or not to the partyroom,” he said.

“Now the fact of the matter is the Australian people expect us to take a constructive approach to this and that is exactly what we're doing. I mean the Prime Minister's outburst last week was not consistent with those good faith negotiations. But I can assure you we will not be deflected by him and the negotiations are continuing and they will have a conclusion and then we will consider it.”

SOURCE

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG thinks that the crackdown on graffiti by the NSW Labor government is empty symbolism. Courts Australia-wide do indeed seem very reluctant to jail even the worst of the offenders concerned, despite the large costs they sometimes impose on others.




Incredible incompetence at government welfare agency

When I had some dealings with them many years ago, they made a very ill-informed ruling against me without talking to me about it either beforehand or afterwards. So it went to an appeals tribunal and was reversed. It seemed clear to me at the time that they behaved entirely arbitrarily, with zero effort to get the full facts. Just talking to me was obviously too hard for them, even though that would have saved a lot of bother. It seems to have got even worse since then, hard though that is to believe

CENTRELINK has been forced to overturn more than a third of its decisions because staff continually get facts and legal advice wrong. Complaints about Centrelink decisions surged 104 per cent in the last two years, making it the most complained about government agency in the country, the Welfare Rights Centre said. Appeals against Centrelink's decisions cost taxpayers more than $33 million a year. More than one-third, 34.5 per cent, of its decisions were overturned on appeal, The Daily Telegraph reports.

More than 6.5 million Australians receive some form of payment from Centrelink each year. In the 12 months to July 2009 there were 103,427 reviews of and complaints about Centrelink decisions. The number of internal Centrelink reviews of its own decisions more than doubled from 40,474 in 2006-07 to 82,774 in 2008-09.

There were 13,429 applications to the Social Security Appeals Tribunal in 2008-09, up 56 per cent in the last two years. In the same period the Ombudsman received 7224 approaches and complaints about Centrelink. The largest number of complaints to the Ombudsman were from people on Newstart Allowance, followed by Disability Support Pension, Family tax Benefit and the age pension.

The Social Security Appeals Tribunal annual report found that 33.1 per cent of Centrelink's decisions it overturned involved an error of fact, and 14.7 per cent involved an error of law.

"As a legal centre we are puzzled by the lack of public outrage or scrutiny of this result, but you have to remember that we are dealing with some of the most vulnerable people in the community," Welfare Rights director Maree O'Halloran said. "It is hard to reconcile the fact that over 30 per cent of decisions are found to be wrong, with Centrelink's own survey results which claim Centrelink has a payment correctness figure of 96 per cent."

The surge in complaints led to a 27 per cent - or $7 million increase - in the Social Security Appeals Tribunal's budget. The tribunal spent $33.2 million in 2008-09 and the average cost of each appeal against a Centrelink decision was $1992.

SOURCE






Cambridge University study finds children too young for school

What rubbish! It all depends on the IQ of the kid. Smart kids can not only handle the work better at an early age but tend to be more socially adept too -- typically playing with kids older than themselves. There should be minimal rules about age to start school. It should depend on an individual assessment of the kid. The present NSW laws seem about right

CHILDREN in New South Wales can start school as young as four but an international study says enrolment should be delayed until they are at least six years old. A Cambridge University study recommends children aged under six engage in a year of play-based learning before they start school. It found younger students are not emotionally, socially or developmentally prepared to tackle the rigours of a curriculum. The findings are at odds with other research which suggests four and five are the ideal ages to start school.

Children in NSW can enrol in the first year of school, called kindergarten or Year K, at four years and six months. They must be enrolled by the age of six. Kindergarten students are taught English and maths for at least 12 hours a week. Their lessons include reading, writing, spelling and counting as well as simple addition and subtraction. From next year, all public school kindergarten students will be tested in basic literacy and numeracy for the first time.

Most European children don't start school until they turn six and in Sweden, Poland and Finland, they begin at age seven.

Cambridge Primary Review co-author and chairwoman Gillian Pugh said forcing subject-based learning onto four-year-olds could dent their confidence. "They are not going to learn to read, write and add up if you have alienated children by the age of four and five,'' she said. "If they are already failing by age four-and-a-half or five, then it's going to be quite difficult to get them back into the system again.'' The authors call for a "full and open debate'' on the issue.

Child psychologist Dr John Irvine warned that accelerating children's learning could backfire. "Play is the way a child learns what no adult can teach them,'' he said. "But we're trying to cut short children's childhood to fast-forward them into this manic anxious state where they get learned early. "In time, the brain will turn off something it's not enjoying so they'll be at school in body, but missing in spirit.''

Primary curriculum officer at Sydney's Catholic Education Office Franceyn O'Connor said children should be assessed individually. "The idea that six, or any age, is the magic number when all children are ready to embark into the structured world of formal education does not make sense,'' she said.

National president of advocacy group Early Childhood Australia, Margaret Young, said children would be disadvantaged if the starting age changed. She said delaying the start of kindergarten worked in Europe because they had strong transitional early childhood education programs, something lacking here. "That's why we're reluctant to say `let's move on to this model'. It's really dangerous to impose one without the other,'' she said.

Western Sydney mother Monique Fenech held back her eldest son, Nicholas, who turns six next March, from school this year because she felt he wasn't ready. "The extra year has given him so many more skills. It means that when he starts school, he's going to enjoy it a lot more,'' she said.

An Education Department spokesman said the NSW Government had no plans to change its enrolment policy or lift the school-starting age.

SOURCE







Common sense has no place in our burgeoning bureaucracy

A group of altruistic young mothers has organised a school fete for next Sunday. They want to raise money to pay the salary of a remedial reading teacher at their state primary school. It's a noble purpose, but the mothers made a grave tactical mistake. They decided to hold the fete outside the school grounds, in a nearby park. This placed them at the mercy of the local bureaucracy, Woollahra Municipal Council, an institution not noted for mercy.

I have on my desk a 10-page document the council gave the mothers. It is 10 pages of legalistic, pedantic, pettifogging strictures, demands and obligations devoid of any sense of compassion or common purpose. Compliance with the council's demands has taken months and cost thousands of dollars. The council requires a $4000 deposit be lodged against the potential cost of any repairs to the park deemed necessary as a result of the fete. It required a development application and an environmental impact statement (cost $500). It required a traffic management assessment and scheme (cost $1000). It required liability insurance.

To convey the full flavour of the majestic repressiveness, I quote from the document: ''The applicant must provide a copy of a certificate of currency prior to each event showing public liability insurance to the value of $10,000,000 for each fete …'' That is not a misprint.

The council's thought police have also been busy. Stipulations have been made about what can be written on any promotional banners and where they can be displayed. The council has provided two pages of instructions about food service. It requires the hire of portable toilets. It also requires ''adequate security measures''. And so on.

This response is not singular to this fete, this school or this council. It is the way Australia's occupying army of 1.5 million federal, state and local bureaucrats and lawyers see the world - through a prism of risk and legal liability. Mercy? Flexibility? Community? The lower you go down the administrative chain the more inflexible and rule-driven the administrators behave. Last week I saw a parking inspector put a ticket on a neighbour's car that was parked in their own driveway. They had been packing the car for a trip. When I told this to the parking inspector, he replied stonily: ''It's illegal to park in your own driveway.''

Common sense suggested he cancel the ticket and place a warning sticker on the windscreen advising of the change to the law. But that's not how the system works. Once written, a parking ticket cannot be cancelled. Only formal administrative disputation can change the result.

Australians have this outdated idea of themselves as easy-going pragmatists, but we are becoming a nation of petty laws and fearful citizens, too gutless to confront this creeping, productivity-killing, initiative-destroying, community-sapping tide of compulsion and constriction, much of it driven by a corrosive ideology of the need for government control and intervention.

Look no further than the volunteer surf lifesaving movement, a totemic symbol of Australian culture and mateship. It is being progressively suffocated by local councils and their obsession with legal liabilities and micro-management. Instead of reforming our ponderous, expensive, dysfunctional, excessively technical legal system, it is the dysfunctional legal system that is colonising the rest of society. Laws pile upon laws, regulations upon regulations. Nothing is repealed, every rule is expanded.

But laws and compulsion do not create civil order. The real moral authority in society comes from community standards, peer pressure, communalism and a sense of natural justice, and all of these elements are under assault.

That's why transparency is crucial. Take the shocking conduct of the Office of the Board of Studies that affects the lives of the 67,000 students who sit for the HSC each year. In 2001, when a group of aggrieved students sought to see their raw marks, the board blocked them at every turn, even after the Ombudsman intervened on the students' behalf. The Ombudsman's office held 19 hearings into the matter and issued a report last month that found the board had engaged in an adversarial, obfuscating, legalistic war of attrition that was itself in breach of the law. No one at the Board of Studies resigned, because the board is a bureaucracy devoid of honour.

These are no more than a few fleeting examples of the oppressive cultural monolith we are building for ourselves, a monolith whose construction has sped up with the arrival of a genuinely Napoleonic prime minister in Kevin Rudd. All the trends towards the centralisation of control have accelerated and consolidated as the Federal Government seeks to spread its power over every aspect of society in ways the framers of the Commonwealth never intended.

This growing distance between the flexibility of localism and the rigidity of centralism took me back to a brilliant little book by a social visionary, the late Jane Jacobs, whose last work, Dark Age Ahead (2004), offered a warning. Among her many observations was this: ''Central planning, whether by leftists or conservatives, draws too little on local knowledge and creativity, stifles innovations, and is inefficient and costly because it is circuitous.''

Central planning does not come only from Canberra. It comes from every level of government, and the cost of the bureaucratisation of society is as enormous as it is insidious. As the mother who helped organise next Sunday's school fete told me: ''If I had known in March what I know now, there would never have been any thought of a fete.'' Multiply this by a million.

SOURCE







Majority of Australians think government doing a 'bad job' of managing illegals

KEVIN Rudd is doing a "bad job" on managing asylum-seekers, according to a majority of voters, while almost half think he is "too soft" on the issue. A Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Australian reveals 53 per cent think the Government is doing a bad job of handling the large influx of asylum-seeker boats this year, while only 31 per cent of voters are happy with the Prime Minister's performance on the issue.

Labor voters are increasingly concerned about Mr Rudd's stance, with the number of supporters who believe he is doing a good job on asylum-seekers falling from 53 per cent in April to 44 per cent.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith is due to arrive in Colombo today for emergency talks on the large number of Sri Lankans seeking asylum in Australia. The Sri Lankan Government said yesterday Australia was considering a special "joint mechanism" to boost maritime and border control security, aimed at stopping boatpeople from leaving the region.

As Mr Rudd attempts to find a diplomatic breakthrough to the standoff that has left 78 asylum-seekers in limbo on Australian Customs vessel the Oceanic Viking for three weeks, only 21 per cent of voters believe Labor is the best party to best handle the asylum-seeker issue.

Newspoll also found 46 per cent thought the Government was "too soft" while only 16 per cent believed the government's policies were "too hard". But voters are also unimpressed with the Opposition, with just 22 per cent convinced that the Coalition would better handle the issue if it were in government. Voters have lost faith with both parties on the issue since April, but the Government - down from 27 per cent to 21 per cent - has fallen further than the Coalition - down from 26 per cent to 22 per cent.

SOURCE





Howard unleashes on Rudd over immigration

Former prime minister John Howard has lashed out at Kevin Rudd's handling of asylum seekers and accused his Government of wasting the nation's cash. Mr Rudd's approval rating dropped considerably last week as the impasse continues over what to do with hundreds of Australia-bound asylum seekers who remain in limbo.

Mr Howard used an interview with The Sunday Telegraph to attack the Federal Government's so-called Indonesian solution and defended his own record on immigration. "We stopped the boats coming. The facts speak for themselves. The Indonesian solution? Well, there doesn't seem to be one," he said. "The current handling of the 78 people aboard the Customs ship? I'll refrain from comment on that ... but speaking robustly in defence of our policy - we stopped the boats.

"People knew where we stood. We didn't try and be all things to all men. The net result was support for immigration and a humanitarian refugee program increased.''

Mr Howard also claims the Government has achieved very little since defeating him in 2007 and took credit for Australia keeping its head above water during the global financial crisis. "I can't think of a major thing it has done, except spend the bank balance that Costello and I left behind. Nothing else," he said....

"Mr Rudd will say he had the global financial crisis to handle. Well, courtesy of us he was well endowed with money in the bank."

SOURCE

Another doomster who got it expensively wrong

University of Western Sydney academic Steve Keen made a name for himself with forecasts of economic doom, predicting a 40% decline in Australian house prices. Keen put his money where his mouth is, selling his unit in Surry Hills in October last year for $526,000.

In November last year, Macquarie Bank’s Rory Robertson raised the stakes, proposing the following wager: "On the maybe 1% chance that he is right, and capital-city home prices do indeed fall by 40% within the next five years—starting from Q2 2008, and as measured by the ABS—I will walk from Canberra to the to the top of Mt Kosciusko. If Dr Keen turns out to be less than half right, as I expect, and home prices drop by (much) less than 20%, he will take that long walk. Moreover, the loser must wear a tee-shirt saying: ‘I was hopelessly wrong on home prices! Ask me how."

Following this week’s release of ABS data showing capital city house prices up 6.2% for the year-ended in September, Keen conceded defeat and will be putting on his hiking boots and tee-shirt.

What does Keen say when we ask him how? ‘I didn’t know the government was going to be stupid enough to bring in the first home buyer’s boost.’ The increased first homeowner’s grant has certainly inflated house prices, transferring wealth from taxpayers to incumbent property owners, but it would be a gross exaggeration to say this prevented a decline in house prices of 40%.

So where did Keen go wrong? For a start, he neglected the supply-side of the housing market and the growing shortage of dwelling units that is putting upward pressure on prices. More seriously, Keen made the mistake of assuming that he knew something that everyone else didn’t. The efficient market hypothesis tells us that this is unlikely and we cannot reliably predict future movement in asset prices. Keen inadvertently demonstrated the veracity of the idea that asset prices are informationally efficient. Rory Robertson made the more reasonable assumption that house prices reflect fundamentals and was vindicated.

According to RP Data-Rismark, the median Sydney unit price rose 8.3% in the year-ended September. With a little help from Treasurer Swan, Keen’s bet against the market has so far cost him nearly $44,000 in forgone capital gains on his former unit.

The above is part of a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated November 6. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590. Telephone ph: +61 2 9438 4377 or fax: +61 2 9439 7310





Rudd just lucky so far; real challenge ahead

Spending taxpayers' money is easy. Saving is hard. The Rudd Government was exceptionally lucky to inherit government with no net debt and with a $19.7 billion surplus in the federal budget. It was lucky, first, because it meant that Australia was almost unique among the rich countries of the world in being so strongly financed. It was lucky, second, because it was not any national inevitability but a whim of personalities that allowed it to happen.

The Howard government was strongly tempted not to stockpile any surpluses at all. John Howard wanted to spend as much of the national revenue as possible. Peter Costello told me in an interview last year that "I had big fights with Howard, all the time" over budget policy. "Politically, [Howard] always wanted to err on the side of further expenditures." And Howard confirmed this: "Part of the job of treasurer is to resist any additional expenditure, and it's part of the job of the prime minister to insist on it,'' he told me.

Costello managed to put some money aside, unspent, as surpluses. If there had been a less assertive treasurer, or a less prudent one, Australia would have had a very different national fate.

Why was there pressure within the Howard government against the concept of surpluses? "Our worst nightmare," explained Howard's longtime chief of staff, Arthur Sinodinos, "was you might sit on these surpluses, get lambasted by the public [for not spending them], and then have Labor or someone else come in and spend them anyway." That nightmare came true. It was Australia's good fortune that it did.

This was the third way in which Australia was exceptionally lucky. Because when the global recession hit, we were one of the very few countries in the world with enough cash in the bank for the Government to be able to use it decisively as a recession-buster. Almost uniquely among the advanced economies, Australia was not constrained by debt worries. Proportionately, the Rudd Government spent more to fend off recession than any of the rich countries in the Group of 20.

Britain and Germany spent the equivalent of 1.6 per cent of their total economic output, or GDP, on stimulus this year, a comparison of stimulus spending published this week by the International Monetary Fund shows, while Canada spent 1.9 per cent, the US spent 2 per cent and Japan 2.4 per cent. Australia? We outspent them all, outlaying 2.9 per cent of GDP for 2009. Canberra's spending is fully half as much again as the average for the rich countries in the G20.

Rudd and Wayne Swan get credit for taking "early and decisive" action, as they like to remind us. Australia avoided recession and is recovering strongly, partly as a result.

For the Rudd Government, that was the easy part. The hard part is upon it: to rebuild the budget, to rebuild a surplus, and not to piss away the national future on populist spending to get re-elected. But which lesson will they learn? Will Rudd and Swan learn the narrow political lesson of the Howard "nightmare" and try to spend as much as they can get away with? Or will they learn the bigger lesson, the lesson of the national interest, and put rigour into the national budget?

We have to hope that they care more about Australia than they do about Labor, because Australia is going to be put to the test, and rather severely. Not by the downturn but by the upturn. In recent days, in a pair of speeches Australia's two most important economic technocrats have set out troubling visions of Australia's national future. While Swan and Rudd still like to theatrically wring their hands and furrow their brows about the short-term economic recovery, the Reserve Bank governor, Glenn Stevens, said plainly on Thursday: "The issue before us now is not, in fact, how to get onto the road to recovery: we are already on it. The question, rather, is how to make sure that the road to recovery will connect to the road to prosperity."

In his speech, Stevens foresaw the same big looming problem that the Secretary to the Treasury, Ken Henry, sketched in a speech two weeks earlier. It's this: as China and India continue their historical return to the front ranks of the world's rich nations, their demand for Australian minerals will create a mining boom without parallel in Australian history, longer and stronger than anything we have imagined, a boom powerful enough to transform the country. The commodities boom that Australia experienced from 2003 to last year is already resuming.

How can this be troubling? As Ken Henry put it, "this has conferred on Australia a large boost to its real wealth but, at the same time, set up a set of structural adjustments that will challenge policy makers for decades". The term "structural adjustments" is an economist's euphemism for wrenching change. In this case, he's talking about the advent of the so-called Dutch disease.

As Australian commodities exports boom, this drives up the value of the Australian dollar. And this is OK for the mining sector because China and India will pay almost any price for the essential ingredients to their economic modernisation. But what about manufacturing? What about tourism? What about every other Australian export industry? A booming Australian dollar, now at about US90c but conceivably rising to $US1.90 over the years ahead, could easily price them out of existence. In stark layman's terms, Australia faces the prospect of returning to our industrial structure of a century ago - as a quarry and a farm.

Glenn Stevens's euphemism was that our "trade patterns could end up being less diversified". He went on: "Such concentration would not be unprecedented and may well be worth accepting if the returns from doing so were high enough, as it appears they might be. "But we might also think about how to manage the risks associated with any concentration. The emergence of China and India is a benefit to Australia, but we stand to have a heightened exposure to anything going seriously wrong in those countries. How then to manage an income flow that is higher on average, over a long period, but potentially more volatile?"

Other countries have faced this challenge and met it. When Norway discovered oil, it set up a fund in the 1960s to save the windfall revenues against the day when the oil would run out. The fund today has some $US400 billion. When Chile ran into the commodities boom of this decade, as Australia did, it set up two reserve funds in 2006 to accumulate the windfall revenues from a soaring copper price. Those funds today hold about $US17 billion.

Australia needs to do the same, urges Professor Warwick McKibbin, a leading economist and a member of the Reserve Bank board. David Hale, the prominent US economist and adviser to the Commonwealth Bank, concurs: "Chile is a good example for Australia to follow. Chile's finance minister had to fight off others who wanted to spend the money immediately, as there always are, and he prevailed. It's given Chile the autonomy to deal with the downturn."

The closest in Australian experience was Costello's successful struggle against Howard to pay down debt and stockpile surpluses. Now the Reserve's governor and the Treasury Secretary have clearly spelled out the huge challenge looming for Australia, Rudd and Swan have no excuse. They have to stop pretending to be worried about the economic recovery as a pretext for continuing excessive levels of spending. And they need to start worrying about the next phase - a resurgent mining boom strong enough to blow the national economy apart unless it is prudently managed. Rudd and Swan need to demonstrate rigorous credentials in saving, not just spending. When they do, even their own staff might take them seriously.

SOURCE






Bottlenecks choking recovery

THE return of infrastructure bottlenecks is threatening to push up inflation and interest rates, and so choke off the Reserve Bank's forecasts of a quick recovery from the global crisis. Rather than being at our export ports, however, the new bottlenecks are gripping first in our big cities in the form of rising home prices and rents, as a rapidly growing population competes for a limited supply of new housing.

"A huge chasm is opening up between the demand and supply for housing," Westpac chief economist Bill Evans yesterday told the Road to Recovery conference presented by The Australian and the Melbourne Institute.

Evans said this had pushed up housing prices at an annualised rate of 20 per cent over the past six months and was one of the reasons the Reserve Bank had "decided to move as fast as they did" on starting to lift interest rates.

Urban infrastructure bottlenecks in major cities, including road congestion and housing supply, are becoming the first new capacity constraint on the economy as it shrugs off the global crisis. By pushing up inflation and interest rates, these urban chokepoints have much the same supply-side economic impact as the lengthening shipping queues off the east coast coal ports during the pre-crisis resources boom.

Failures to deal with the new housing chokepoint were highlighted by a string of speakers at the Road to Recovery conference over the past two days, led by Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens and Productivity Commission chairman Gary Banks.

Conference speakers blamed an increase in housing demand from the faster population growth since the 1960s; extra artificial demand generated by the Rudd government's boost to first-home buyers grants; entrenched poor urban transport planning; deep-seated failures by state and local government to release affordable land for housing development; and a lingering credit crunch hitting finance for apartment building. The Reserve Bank's upgraded forecasts that the economy's growth recovery will accelerate to 3.25 per cent by this time next year yesterday came with a warning that increased China-driven investment in mining development could spill over into the rest of the economy and lead to "capacity pressures re-emerging in the near term".

The central bank's monetary policy statement warned prices for houses and apartments had increased 6 to 8 per cent over the past year due to lower interest rates, the economy's resilience and the stimulus-related increases in first-home buyer subsidies.

And it warned of "ongoing pressures in the housing market over the next few years" because of a "general underbuild in dwellings".

"Addressing this will require further steps to improve the supply side of the housing market," the Reserve Bank said.

The signs of inflationary housing shortages jarred against Kevin Rudd's claim to a Master Builders conference on the Gold Coast yesterday that the government's fiscal stimulus was financing 49,000 "major construction projects across Australia", including 10,500 for schools.

The Prime Minister said the government was committed to the "development of strategic planning frameworks for our largest cities" to cope with a forecast 35 million population by 2049. Lower interest rates and the government increase in first-home buyer's grants had " helped thousands of Australians realise their dream of home ownership" while creating jobs for builders and tradespeople.

But Mr Banks said told The Road to Recovery conference that the increased first-home buyer subsidy "seems to have contributed to a boom in house prices at the lower end of the market; an unusual phenomenon in recessionary times which will have tended to offset the affordability gains from historically low interest rates".

Mr Stevens told the conference that, while alleviating skilled labour shortages, strong population growth was putting pressure on urban housing and infrastructure.

Though the credit crunch on apartment finance was temporary, he pointed to structural problems in "land supply, zoning and approval" that meant increased housing demand was not fully flowing through to increased housing construction.

"It's a question of how is it, in a country this big in area and this small in numbers of people, we can't manage to make the marginal price of a dwelling lower than it is," Mr Stevens said.

"It seems to me quite high."

Opposition housing spokesman Scott Morrison said housing supply bottlenecks were making Australia's cities unaffordable and was now playing out in "retail politics".

"It's the big rock in the jar for housing affordability," he said.

SOURCE






Kevvy is all at sea over the "boat people"

A COUPLE of days ago, I found myself shouting at the radio. "For God's sake, answer the bloody question!" I suspect there were many such cries of frustration in households around the nation. Kevin Rudd was being interviewed - one of the 14 or so radio and TV appearances in his much-publicised media blitz on the asylum seeker issue. And he had nothing to tell us. No answers. Just platitudes, slogans and spin.

The Prime Minister's minders would have done better to keep him locked up in The Lodge and away from the phone. What is the point of a media blitz when you have nothing to say? All Rudd achieved was to deepen suspicion that he hasn't a clue about how to deal with the problem. He resembled a headless chook running around in circles.

Tuesday's dramatic Newspoll - Labor down seven points and an 18-point two-party preferred lead slashed to just four - shocked Rudd. And his response to the poll shocked quite a few in the Labor caucus. As one of them said: "It doesn't matter if this is a rogue poll. It doesn't matter if the swing against us is seven points or five or three. What matters is the way the PM and those around him reacted."

Under real pressure for the first time since he became Labor leader three years ago, Rudd found himself without a message and without a position. He was wrong-footed by a bad poll and a difficult issue. And now a growing group of critics in the party are pointing the finger at structures Rudd has set up around himself and the Government. It is no exaggeration to say there is a degree of panic among Labor MPs as the crisis over asylum seekers worsens.

The panic has deepened with every day that the Customs ship Oceanic Viking remains off the coast of Indonesia with its cargo of rescued Sri Lankans refusing to go ashore. The group, with its "take us to Australia or else" demand, in effect hijacked the vessel. They have made Rudd - who claims to have tough policies - look weak and indecisive.

According to caucus sources, as a result of Rudd's dominance of the party and the way his office is set up, he is isolated from the kind of advice that might help to deal with the situation. The older, more experienced hands originally on Rudd's staff have left. And, to quote one of Labor's longest-serving parliamentary operators: "We no longer have powerful people in caucus who can walk in and offer a frank view. "That's because they're all, in one way or another, clients of Kevin's."

In short, there is no way wiser heads can get a message of sense into Rudd's office, and that's a serious problem. Even Labor MPs who simply want to register their concern at the extent of anti-boat people sentiment in their electorates have to be very careful. One of them explains: "If you give Kevin or his staff a hard message, they just cut you off."

The Government has not been inactive. During the week, the PM belatedly got around to phoning the Sri Lankan President in a bid to ease the pressure on Tamils to flee that country. And Australian officials aboard the Oceanic Viking went to great lengths, with offers of rapid processing of claims, to tempt the 78 asylum seekers to leave the ship. But the perception is that it has all been ineffectual.

No one suggests there is any easy solution to the situation Rudd faces. It's as complex a political problem as an Australian leader is likely to encounter. John Howard handled a lot of difficult situations and experienced some horrific opinion poll slumps. At times - in 1998, 2001 and early 2004 - pundits were just about ready to write him off. But I can't recall Howard looking as though he didn't have a handle on a problem - except at the very end.

In tough times, a political leader needs a machine to help him fight his way through. Rudd - pretty much by choice - has no such machine. If he is now forced to order the Oceanic Viking to take the stubborn Sri Lankans to Christmas Island, it will be a humiliating backdown, and caucus criticism will become more vocal.

Rudd may be close to over-reaching himself in his cavalier disregard for party feeling. ALP anger stirred up by the appointment of Peter Costello to a cushy post on the Board of Guardians of the Future Fund - coinciding with the concern over asylum seeker policy - should be a warning to him. It provoked muttering not just among Labor MPs, but among Government staffers as well. Labor, after all, had spent years painting Costello as economically incompetent. Front benchers - including Treasurer Wayne Swan - had repeatedly accused him of dishonesty. And now the Labor Government praises his expertise and gives him a key economic job. It demonstrates the hypocrisy that causes politics to be held in great odium by the public.

When, three days later, Costello announced that he would become managing director of a new investment and corporate advisory firm, the muttering increased. In the words of a prominent MP: "Think of the credibility it gives to the CEO of a new merchant bank to also be on the board of one of the world's biggest sovereign funds." Paul Keating's bitter denunciation of the appointment was far closer to rank and file Labor thinking than Rudd's justification of jobs for the (Coalition) boys.

SOURCE