Australian Politics
Mr Rudd, your misguided warming policies are killing millions
An open letter to Kevvy from The Right Honourable The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley below. Australian cartoonist ZEG has a fuller version up. Kevvy is too much of a Leftist to be bothered with facts and logic, however
YOU say I am one of "those who argue that climate change does not represent a global market failure". Yet it is only recently that opinion sufficient to constitute a market signal became apparent in the documents of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is, however, a political rather than a scientific entity. There has scarcely been time for a "market failure".
Besides, corporations are falling over themselves to cash in on the giant financial fraud against the little guy that carbon taxation and trading have already become in the goody-two-shoes EU, and will become in Australia if you get your way.
You say I was one of "those who argue that somehow the market will magically solve the problem". In fact I have never argued that, though in general the market is better at solving problems than the habitual but repeatedly failed dirigisme of the etatistes predominant in the classe politique today.
The questions I address are a) whether there is a climate problem at all; and b) even if there is one whether waiting and adapting, if necessary, is more cost-effective than attempting to mitigate the supposed problem by trying to reduce the carbon dioxide our industries and enterprises emit.
Let us pretend, solum ad argumentum, that a given proportionate increase in CO2 concentration causes the maximum warming imagined by the IPCC. By the end of this month, according to the Copenhagen Accord, all parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change are due to report what cuts in emissions they will make by 2020. Broadly speaking, the Annex 1 parties, who will account for about half of global emissions over the period, will commit to reducing current emissions by 30 per cent by 2020, or 15 per cent on average in the decade between now and 2020.
Thus, if every Annex 1 party to the Copenhagen Accord complies with its obligations to the full, today's emissions will be reduced by about half of that 15 per cent, namely 7.5 per cent, compared with business as usual. If the trend of the past decade continues, with business as usual we shall add 2 parts per million by volume/ year, or 20 ppmv over the decade. Now, 7.5 per cent of 20 ppmv is 1.5 ppmv. One-fiftieth of a Celsius degree of warming forestalled is all that complete, global compliance with the Copenhagen Accord for an entire decade would achieve. Yet the cost of achieving this result - an outcome so small that our instruments would not be able to measure it - would run into trillions of dollars.
You say "formal global and national economic modelling" shows "that the costs of inaction are greater than the costs of acting". Yet, every economic analysis except that of the now discredited Lord Stern, with its near-zero discount rate and its absurdly inflated warming rates, comes to the same ineluctable conclusion: adaptation to climate change, if necessary, is orders of magnitude more cost-effective than attempts at mitigation. In a long career in policy analysis in and out of government, I have never seen so cost-ineffective a proposed waste of taxpayers' money to stop the tide from coming in.
I have done this calculation on the basis that everyone complies with the Copenhagen Accord yet precedent does not look promising. The Kyoto Protocol has been in operation for more than a decade. So far, after billions spent, global CO2 emissions have risen.
Remember, too, that we have assumed the maximum warming that might occur in response to an increase in CO2 concentration. Yet even the IPCC's central estimate of CO2's warming effect, according to an increasing number of serious papers in the peer-reviewed literature, is a five-fold exaggeration. If those papers are right, warming forestalled may prove to be just one-thousandth of a degree.
You led a delegation of 114 people to Copenhagen to bring back a non-result. Half a dozen were all that was really necessary. If you and your officials are not willing to tighten your belts, why should the taxpayers tighten theirs?
You say that our aim, in daring to oppose the transient fashion for apocalypticism, is "to erode just enough of the political will that action becomes impossible". No. Our aim is to ensure that the truth is widely enough understood to prevent the squandering of precious resources on addressing the non-problem of anthropogenic "global warming". The correct policy response to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.
You say that I and others like me base our thinking on the notion that "the cost of not acting is nothing". Well, after a decade and a half with no statistically significant "global warming", and after three decades in which the mean warming rate has been well below the ever-falling predictions of the UN's climate panel, that notion has not been disproved in reality.
However, the question I address is whether the cost of taking action is many times greater than the cost of not acting? The answer is yes.
Millions are already dying of starvation in the world's poorest nations because world food prices have doubled in two years. That was caused by a sharp drop in world food production, caused by suddenly taking millions of acres of land out of growing food for people who need it, to grow biofuels for clunkers that don't. The policies that you advocate are killing people by the million. At a time when so many of the world's people are already short of food, the UN's right-to-food rapporteur, Herr Ziegler, has rightly condemned the biofuel scam as "a crime against humanity".
Yet this slaughter is founded upon a lie: the claim by the IPCC that it is 90 per cent certain that most of the "global warming" since 1950 is man-made. This claim - based not on science but on a show of hands among political representatives, with China wanting a lower figure and other nations wanting a higher figure - is demonstrably false. Peer-reviewed analyses of changes in cloud cover over recent decades - changes almost entirely unconnected with changes in CO2 concentration - show that it was this largely natural reduction in cloud cover from 1983-2001 and a consequent increase in the amount of short-wave and UV solar radiation reaching the Earth that accounted for five times as much warming as CO2 could have caused.
Nor is the IPCC's great lie the only lie in the official documents of the IPCC and in the speeches of its current chairman, who has made himself a multi-millionaire as a "global warming" profiteer.
It is also a fact that, while those of the UN's computer models that can be forced with an increase in sea-surface temperatures all predict a consequent fall in the flux of outgoing radiation at top of atmosphere, in observed reality there is an increase. In short, the radiation that is supposed to be trapped here in the troposphere to cause "global warming" is measured as escaping to space much as usual, so that it cannot be causing more than about one-fifth of the warming the IPCC predicts.
It would be kinder to your working people to wait another decade and see whether global temperatures even begin to respond as the IPCC has predicted? What is the worst that can happen if you wait? Just 0.02C of global warming that would not otherwise have occurred. It's a no-brainer.
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Victoria police resent being singled out for scrutiny
They don't consider that it is their own corrupt behaviour that has sparked the scrutiny
POLICE union boss Greg Davies says it is ridiculous his members are the only Victorian government staff who can be investigated by an anti-corruption body with royal commission powers. Sen-Sgt Davies vowed the powerful Police Association would this year step up its campaign to ensure all public employees are subjected to the same level of corruption probing as police.
The Office of Police Integrity investigates police corruption, but can't use its royal commission-type powers to examine politicians, public servants or other public officials, such as judges, magistrates and local government officers. "For anyone to consider that the Victoria Police force is the only part of public life in Victoria that could possibly have any corruption within it is as insulting as it is stupid," Sen-Sgt Davies said. "That's why there should be a broad-based, anti-corruption commission to deal right across the board, rather than singling out 11,000 police and saying they are the only people in Victoria who could possibly be corrupt."
Sen-Sgt Davies was responding to moves by the OPI's new deputy director, former Australian Federal Police agent Paul Jevtovic, to try to heal the long-standing rift between the OPI and the Police Association. The Herald Sun this week revealed Mr Jevtovic considered the OPI and the Police Association had a "mutual obligation" to try to make Victoria Police as corruption-free as possible.
Sen-Sgt Davies said he was happy to deal with Mr Jevtovic, but he would also be continuing the association's campaign for the OPI to be superseded by an independent, anti-corruption body to probe all public officials. "Now that doesn't mean stripping away the resources of the OPI and putting them all into something like the Independent Commission Against Corruption in NSW. "They have an ICAC and sitting under that is the Police Integrity Commission. That is the sort of model we could have had and probably should have had."
Premier John Brumby last year appointed former public service chief Elizabeth Proust to review the powers of all state integrity bodies, including the OPI, Ombudsman and Auditor-General.
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Greenie-inspired attacks on electricity usage spark fears of more deaths during heatwaves
SOARING power bills have sparked fears of more deaths during heatwaves as battlers turn off fans and air-conditioners. Welfare agencies want more financial aid for hundreds of thousands of Victoria's poorest households to cope with crippling price rises. Struggling pensioners, singles and families are telling emergency relief services they will have to cut back on food and children's education costs. Some households face being slugged $400 extra for electricity this year unless they shop around.
Even more financial pain is predicted amid proposed federal climate change policies and an industry push to upgrade electricity poles and wires.
A Victorian Council of Social Service report has called for a boost to winter energy concessions, as well as cash to help pay for the installation of new smart meters. "Prices are rising so dramatically that concession payments are simply not keeping energy affordable," VCOSS deputy director Carolyn Atkins said.
The Consumer Utilities Advocacy Centre fears the problem will get worse, with potentially deadly consequences, as companies switch to "time of use" billing in coming years. This method charges more for power used in peak periods. "We are concerned some people will dangerously resort to not using cooling or heating in their homes because of the impact on their budgets," CUAC chief Jo Benvenuti said.
Ms Atkins said the winter energy discount paid to 740,000 Victorian households should be lifted from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent. She said a rebate for smart meters was also needed.
A State Government spokeswoman said: "Organisations such as VCOSS regularly put forward suggestions for the coming Budget at this time of year, however we always make our Budget announcements in May. "Victoria is widely considered to have the most robust and comprehensive energy consumer protection regime in Australia."
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QANTAS again. Did I say this was getting to be a daily occurrence?
They should sell off the A380s (if they can). They are just too complex to work reliably. It was just QANTAS vanity that said they had to be one of the first to have the latest and greatest. What the A380s are greatest at is malfunctions. QANTAS should have stuck to more tried and tested planes. With all the malfunctions, there is going to be a critical one eventually and the A380 will be the new De Havilland Comet. And that could well be the final straw that breaks the airline. Think of the legal costs if you kill 500 passengers in one fell swoop. And all the prior malfunctions will be a good legal basis for saying that QANTAS breached its duty of care
A QANTAS A380 flight from the US had to be cancelled after it reportedly recorded the longest wait on Los Angeles International Airport's tarmac since 2007, in the latest blow for the airline.
The cancellation of the Sydney-bound flight on Sunday night, Los Angeles time, came after a computer glitch at global distribution system provider Amadeus caused chaos on Sunday, the Australian reported.
An A380 flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles was cancelled on Monday because of a faulty fuel indicator after 443 people spent more than four hours on the plane waiting for take-off.
The latest problem also involved an indicator light, this time on the braking system. Almost 400 passengers spent three-and-a-half hours on the plane before Qantas cancelled it for 24 hours. US sources said this was the longest stretch passengers have had to wait on the Los Angeles tarmac since a computer glitch in August 2007.
Authorities have moved to impose fines of up to $US27,500 for US carriers leaving passengers stuck on a plane for three hours or more. Flight QF93 from Melbourne to Los Angeles was initially delayed one-and-a-half hours because of a fuel gauge fault. It was taxiing when the problem recurred, forcing take-off to be aborted.
Passengers remained on board while maintenance crews examined the problem. They were not allowed to disembark because of heightened security procedures for US-bound flights that made re-screening passengers impractical. Qantas cancelled the flight altogether when it became apparent the crew would exceed their on-duty time limits. The Los Angeles-Sydney and Melbourne-Los Angeles flights have since departed.
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Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
QANTAS again -- this is getting to be almost daily
Passengers should have been transferred immediately to other flights so that they could arrive nearly on time -- but QANTAS wouldn't know how to put their passengers first. QANTAS are so bad that I have started a QANTAS blog just to keep track of how constantly they fail. I have taken it back only 6 months so far but there are still a LOT of troublesome incidents on it
Qantas passengers who sat on a defective A380 for five hours at Melbourne Airport yesterday finally departed for Los Angeles this afternoon, after yet another delay. Flight QF93, originally scheduled to take off yesterday at midday, was pushed back to 11am this morning. After another delay the flight finally left the terminal at 12.10pm, 24 hours late, and took off at 12.27pm.
A Qantas spokesman said engineers were this morning still working on the problem, in consultation with Airbus, that caused yesterday's delay. He said today's delay was due to the large volume of A380 passengers boarding at Melbourne Airport.
One passenger told Traveller that frustration boiled over during yesterday's delay and an "altercation" between another passenger and a Qantas representative was met by applause. After the flight left the gate, the problem reoccurred, forcing the superjumbo back to the terminal. Passengers were not allowed to disembark for more than five hours due to new security measures for US flights, which made it unfeasible to re-screen all 450 of them, they were told.
Business analyst Jeff Lobo said the delay had been "pretty horriffic." As a result of the flight postponement, he said he had missed hosting a clinical research workshop for over 20 people in North Carolina, a meeting difficult to re-convene. He said Qantas had been "ever apologetic, but decisions should have been taken much more quickly." "There was no depth to the explanations" offered by Qantas, which led to annoyance amongst those affected, he said.
After spending five hours on the grounded A380, "another couple of hours" were spent dealing with customs, which appeared ill-equipped to cope with the volume of affected commuters, Mr Lobo said. Mr Lobo did not get out of the airport until eight o'clock and stayed at the nearby Hilton Hotel overnight.
Another passenger, who wished to remain anonymous, said he had decided to go home rather than take up the Qantas offer of overnight accommodation, arriving home after 8pm last night. He said "there were issues, one after the other" all day yesterday. "There were different messages from different people (representing Qantas)," he said, over whether baggage should be left at the airport or taken with passsengers, and the availability of taxis.
Delayed travellers were told to go to the domestic taxi rank for transport, but rank marshals there were unaware of the arrangement, according to the passenger. "By seven o'clock there were a lot of angry people, a lot of tension" he said. There was an "altercation" between a frustrated passenger and a Qantas representative, which was received with loud applause.
The passenger heavily criticised the lack of "recovery effort" from Qantas following the delayed flight. Qantas said refreshments were served to passengers during the delay and that in-flight entertainment was available. The Qantas spokesman said overnight hotel accommodation would be provided to passengers who required it. "We sincerely regret any inconvenience that this has caused and we're doing everything we can to look after customers tonight," the spokesman said.
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And QANTAS subsidiary Jetstar is just as bad
A Christchurch woman who was left to worry about her teenage son's fate after a dispute with Jetstar says the airline has agreed to investigate the incident. Stephanie Kelly said she was told by Jetstar staff last week that her 18-year-old son, Jordan Kelly-Houston, did not board a flight from Sydney to Honolulu. However, the teenager was on the December 31 flight, and arrived safely in Honolulu.
Kelly said she spoke to Alexander Knigge, head of commercial services at Jetstar Airways, yesterday. She said the airline had agreed to reimburse her for the phone calls she made to Sydney and the United States in an attempt to find her son. "He's [Knigge] agreed to investigate the conversations that went on," Kelly said. "He has offered to compensate [me] for my phone calls around the world and the extra night's accommodation we had to book in Honolulu."
Kelly-Houston was due to leave Sydney on December 30, but that flight was delayed until New Year's Eve. He was travelling – via a stopover in Canada to visit family – to take up a tennis scholarship at Florida State University. On arrival in Honolulu, Kelly-Houston had to wait for a new connecting flight to Toronto at 10am the next day.
As the flight to Honolulu was delayed, Stephanie Kelly had to spend $900 on the new flight to Canada. Jetstar had not committed to reimbursing her for the connecting flight, she said.
Jetstar spokesman Simon Westaway confirmed the airline had been in contact with Kelly-Houston's family. "Today, a senior manager of our airline spoke directly with Jordan's mum," he said yesterday.
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Tony Abbott defends government private school subsidies and 6pc fee hike
OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott has defended the public subsidisation of elite private schools and said they have the right to increase fees. "Well in the end these are private institutions and it's up to them to decide what their fees should be,” he said in a radio interview today.
Mr Abbott was responding to a report in The Australian today showing wealthy private schools are increasing fees by an average of 6 per cent this year despite acknowleding parents are feeling the pinch.
The Opposition Leader also defended the introduction under the Howard Government of the SES funding model that is set to deliver non-government schools $28 billion in taxpayers' money between 2009 and 2012. “Every Australian child is entitled to government assistance towards his or her education,” he said.
“Now, whether people choose to utilise that assistance by going to a public school or whether they choose to go to a private school and receive a reduced level of support, but nevertheless a substantial level of support, that's up to the parents of the child, so we don't support these schools because we think they should be free or almost free we support these schools because every kid is entitled to get government support towards an education.
“Now, obviously it would be better if fees were lower and the increases were less but in the end it is up to these schools to make their own decision on”.
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South Australia: "We asked for help - but they took our kids"
Social workers are an arrogant lot worldwide -- mini-Hitlers. They wouldn't know the meaning of "help"
TRIGGER-HAPPY social workers are taking children from their homes and creating a new "stolen generation", a group of distraught mothers claim. The four women, with 26 children between them, say what started as cries for help became the catalyst that destroyed their families. They say care workers bullied and threatened them and coerced them to put their children into care. In some cases, the children were ripped from the arms of their parents outside court houses and schools without any warning.
The mums also say their children are now living in situations worse than the conditions they had at home. Some have unsupervised visits with fathers convicted of child neglect and other crimes, others are separated from siblings and children as young as three have run away from foster homes.
Recent FamiliesSA figures show that at the end of June last year, there were 2111 children under care and protection orders, an 8.6 per cent increase on the previous year's 1943. There are now about 1780 children in state care, the office of Families and Communities Minister Jennifer Rankine confirmed yesterday.
The minister's office provided reasons for FamiliesSA intervention in each of the cases of the four mothers, and emphasised it was the Youth Court that assesses the department's applications and makes the protection orders. But the mums argue they face no charges of neglect and believe they are good and capable mothers who were "tricked" into handing over their children to the state when they asked for help. The mothers say FamiliesSA social workers have been "jumpy" and "trigger-happy" since June, 2008 when 21 children were found living in squalid conditions at Parafield Gardens. Six people face child-neglect charges over that case.
All four mothers who approached The Advertiser to tell their stories say they have never been charged with any child neglect crimes.
MUM 1, a 21-year-old from the southern suburbs, has lost the neat, comfortable rental property she had secured to raise her two young children. She says FamiliesSA has not only "stolen" her children, but also her joy of being a mother. She first came to the attention of the service when she and her mother asked for help to deal with her six-week-old daughter. "They told me that they would help me to get on my feet, that the order would only be for six weeks and I would get her back," the mum said.
"Three months after she was born, I was pregnant. The order got extended to 14 months and throughout my pregnancy they threatened to take my baby away when he was born." Her daughter was returned to her care and she looked after both children until December, 2008, when her son, now aged three, was admitted to hospital with head injuries sustained while he was in the care of a babysitter. The mother claims her son was in the babysitter's care for just 15 minutes. No charges were laid over the incident but both children were taken from the mother and are now in the care of their father's parents.
The father lives in the home with the children but an order states he is not to have unsupervised access to the children, the mum says. The mother says she now lives with her parents and they would like to help her raise her children in that home. But they have only recently been allowed limited unsupervised access to the children.
She said she is required to undergo a psychological assessment before her case can progress and that the current guardians have taunted her, saying she would never get her children back because they are now accredited foster carers.
MUM 2 is a 26-year-old mother of six who was herself under the care of the state as a child. "I was under the guardianship of the state from 11 to 18 and I learnt what I know about being a mum from FamiliesSA," said the southern suburbs mum, who is pregnant. "When I needed help with my five-week-old twins, I had to turn to them for help . . . that's all I knew to do. "They said I would get my boys back, but I can't see that I will get my boys back and now they have taken my other four children. "I am pregnant and I am scared they will take my baby away, too."
The young mum said her infant twins were taken from her more than a year ago and her other four children - whom her current partner had helped care for - were placed under a protection order in November. She said she now only has supervised visits with her children, for a few hours twice a week, while the father of the four eldest children has unsupervised access despite having being jailed for child neglect of her eldest son.
"The three eldest kids were taken from school . . . We didn't even know it was happening," the woman's partner said. "We had our three-year-old daughter with us and they were forcibly removing our girl from my arms. I was distressed and they handcuffed me when they did it."
The mother said: "They are creating the new stolen generation. "I just want to be a mother. I want for my children to not have to go through what I went through as a child in the care of the state."
MUM 3 lives in the northern suburbs, has 11 children, and seven of them were living with her. In November, five children were taken from her outside the Youth Court under a protection order. She said the children who were put into care, aged 3-11, had all tried to run away from their foster home. These included a four year old and a five year old who had both tried to hitch-hike home. After a month in foster care, they were placed in the care of their grandmother.
The mother's lawyers wrote to the mother, saying the magistrate overseeing her case deemed the foster care home had not provided "superior care" to that which she had offered.
In May, the mother admitted in a TV interview to being a neglectful parent when she was evicted from a rental property because of the putrid environment she lived in. This week, she told The Advertiser she had done the best she could and had asked for help in a bid to adequately provide for her children. "This is the worst experience of my life," the mum said. "The minister . . . needs to come out here and talk to people like me to work out what's going on."
MUM 4 is the 32-year-old Frewville mother who had seven children removed from her care on Christmas Eve. She said she handed her children to social workers on the promise they would be kept together. She first visited the children briefly five days after they were removed and she says they are being cared for in four different homes.
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2009 Australia's second hottest year on record -- according to the BOM
But now we know how Australian temperature records are compiled, you would be gullible to believe them
THE past calendar year - 2009 - was the second warmest on record in Australia since 1910, the Australian government's Bureau of Meteorology reported today. The bureau said the high temperatures were driven by unusual or extreme heatwaves, with a temperature trend consistent with global warming, Dow Jones Newswires reported.
Australia's annual mean temperature for 2009 was 0.90 degrees Celsius above a 1961-90 average, making it the nation's second-warmest year since high-quality records began in 1910, the bureau reported in an annual climate statement. The warmest was 2005.
High temperatures were especially notable in the south-east during the second half of 2009, with Australia nationally and the states Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales independently all recording their warmest July-December periods on record.
Extreme heatwaves occurred across much of southern Australia during late January/early February, resulting in a new maximum temperature record in the Victorian capital Melbourne of 46.4 degrees and a new Victoria state maximum temperature record of 48.8 degrees.
An unusual winter-time heatwave occurred in August over large parts of the inland and resulted in Australia's warmest August on record, while a prolonged heatwave occurred during November across central and south-east Australia. "Based on the analysis of daily maximum and minimum temperature data...there are clear upward trends in the number of hot events and downward trends in the number of cold events over the period 1960 to date, consistent with global warming," the bureau reported, without citing a cause for global warming.
The end of 2009 also saw the end of Australia's warmest decade on record, with a decadal mean temperature anomaly of 0.48 degree above a 1961-90 average [Picking an arbitrary base-year for your averages is fun]. This meant that in Australia, each decade since the 1940s has been warmer than the preceding decade, it reported.
As for rainfall, the overall Australian mean rainfall total for 2009 was 453 millimeters, down a little from a long-term average (1961-90) of 464 mms, it reported. During July to October 2009, serious rainfall deficiencies were experienced over large areas of Queensland and isolated parts of New South Wales, consistent with the development of an El Nino event during this time.
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Passengers should have been transferred immediately to other flights so that they could arrive nearly on time -- but QANTAS wouldn't know how to put their passengers first. QANTAS are so bad that I have started a QANTAS blog just to keep track of how constantly they fail. I have taken it back only 6 months so far but there are still a LOT of troublesome incidents on it
Qantas passengers who sat on a defective A380 for five hours at Melbourne Airport yesterday finally departed for Los Angeles this afternoon, after yet another delay. Flight QF93, originally scheduled to take off yesterday at midday, was pushed back to 11am this morning. After another delay the flight finally left the terminal at 12.10pm, 24 hours late, and took off at 12.27pm.
A Qantas spokesman said engineers were this morning still working on the problem, in consultation with Airbus, that caused yesterday's delay. He said today's delay was due to the large volume of A380 passengers boarding at Melbourne Airport.
One passenger told Traveller that frustration boiled over during yesterday's delay and an "altercation" between another passenger and a Qantas representative was met by applause. After the flight left the gate, the problem reoccurred, forcing the superjumbo back to the terminal. Passengers were not allowed to disembark for more than five hours due to new security measures for US flights, which made it unfeasible to re-screen all 450 of them, they were told.
Business analyst Jeff Lobo said the delay had been "pretty horriffic." As a result of the flight postponement, he said he had missed hosting a clinical research workshop for over 20 people in North Carolina, a meeting difficult to re-convene. He said Qantas had been "ever apologetic, but decisions should have been taken much more quickly." "There was no depth to the explanations" offered by Qantas, which led to annoyance amongst those affected, he said.
After spending five hours on the grounded A380, "another couple of hours" were spent dealing with customs, which appeared ill-equipped to cope with the volume of affected commuters, Mr Lobo said. Mr Lobo did not get out of the airport until eight o'clock and stayed at the nearby Hilton Hotel overnight.
Another passenger, who wished to remain anonymous, said he had decided to go home rather than take up the Qantas offer of overnight accommodation, arriving home after 8pm last night. He said "there were issues, one after the other" all day yesterday. "There were different messages from different people (representing Qantas)," he said, over whether baggage should be left at the airport or taken with passsengers, and the availability of taxis.
Delayed travellers were told to go to the domestic taxi rank for transport, but rank marshals there were unaware of the arrangement, according to the passenger. "By seven o'clock there were a lot of angry people, a lot of tension" he said. There was an "altercation" between a frustrated passenger and a Qantas representative, which was received with loud applause.
The passenger heavily criticised the lack of "recovery effort" from Qantas following the delayed flight. Qantas said refreshments were served to passengers during the delay and that in-flight entertainment was available. The Qantas spokesman said overnight hotel accommodation would be provided to passengers who required it. "We sincerely regret any inconvenience that this has caused and we're doing everything we can to look after customers tonight," the spokesman said.
SOURCE
And QANTAS subsidiary Jetstar is just as bad
A Christchurch woman who was left to worry about her teenage son's fate after a dispute with Jetstar says the airline has agreed to investigate the incident. Stephanie Kelly said she was told by Jetstar staff last week that her 18-year-old son, Jordan Kelly-Houston, did not board a flight from Sydney to Honolulu. However, the teenager was on the December 31 flight, and arrived safely in Honolulu.
Kelly said she spoke to Alexander Knigge, head of commercial services at Jetstar Airways, yesterday. She said the airline had agreed to reimburse her for the phone calls she made to Sydney and the United States in an attempt to find her son. "He's [Knigge] agreed to investigate the conversations that went on," Kelly said. "He has offered to compensate [me] for my phone calls around the world and the extra night's accommodation we had to book in Honolulu."
Kelly-Houston was due to leave Sydney on December 30, but that flight was delayed until New Year's Eve. He was travelling – via a stopover in Canada to visit family – to take up a tennis scholarship at Florida State University. On arrival in Honolulu, Kelly-Houston had to wait for a new connecting flight to Toronto at 10am the next day.
As the flight to Honolulu was delayed, Stephanie Kelly had to spend $900 on the new flight to Canada. Jetstar had not committed to reimbursing her for the connecting flight, she said.
Jetstar spokesman Simon Westaway confirmed the airline had been in contact with Kelly-Houston's family. "Today, a senior manager of our airline spoke directly with Jordan's mum," he said yesterday.
SOURCE
Tony Abbott defends government private school subsidies and 6pc fee hike
OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott has defended the public subsidisation of elite private schools and said they have the right to increase fees. "Well in the end these are private institutions and it's up to them to decide what their fees should be,” he said in a radio interview today.
Mr Abbott was responding to a report in The Australian today showing wealthy private schools are increasing fees by an average of 6 per cent this year despite acknowleding parents are feeling the pinch.
The Opposition Leader also defended the introduction under the Howard Government of the SES funding model that is set to deliver non-government schools $28 billion in taxpayers' money between 2009 and 2012. “Every Australian child is entitled to government assistance towards his or her education,” he said.
“Now, whether people choose to utilise that assistance by going to a public school or whether they choose to go to a private school and receive a reduced level of support, but nevertheless a substantial level of support, that's up to the parents of the child, so we don't support these schools because we think they should be free or almost free we support these schools because every kid is entitled to get government support towards an education.
“Now, obviously it would be better if fees were lower and the increases were less but in the end it is up to these schools to make their own decision on”.
SOURCE
South Australia: "We asked for help - but they took our kids"
Social workers are an arrogant lot worldwide -- mini-Hitlers. They wouldn't know the meaning of "help"
TRIGGER-HAPPY social workers are taking children from their homes and creating a new "stolen generation", a group of distraught mothers claim. The four women, with 26 children between them, say what started as cries for help became the catalyst that destroyed their families. They say care workers bullied and threatened them and coerced them to put their children into care. In some cases, the children were ripped from the arms of their parents outside court houses and schools without any warning.
The mums also say their children are now living in situations worse than the conditions they had at home. Some have unsupervised visits with fathers convicted of child neglect and other crimes, others are separated from siblings and children as young as three have run away from foster homes.
Recent FamiliesSA figures show that at the end of June last year, there were 2111 children under care and protection orders, an 8.6 per cent increase on the previous year's 1943. There are now about 1780 children in state care, the office of Families and Communities Minister Jennifer Rankine confirmed yesterday.
The minister's office provided reasons for FamiliesSA intervention in each of the cases of the four mothers, and emphasised it was the Youth Court that assesses the department's applications and makes the protection orders. But the mums argue they face no charges of neglect and believe they are good and capable mothers who were "tricked" into handing over their children to the state when they asked for help. The mothers say FamiliesSA social workers have been "jumpy" and "trigger-happy" since June, 2008 when 21 children were found living in squalid conditions at Parafield Gardens. Six people face child-neglect charges over that case.
All four mothers who approached The Advertiser to tell their stories say they have never been charged with any child neglect crimes.
MUM 1, a 21-year-old from the southern suburbs, has lost the neat, comfortable rental property she had secured to raise her two young children. She says FamiliesSA has not only "stolen" her children, but also her joy of being a mother. She first came to the attention of the service when she and her mother asked for help to deal with her six-week-old daughter. "They told me that they would help me to get on my feet, that the order would only be for six weeks and I would get her back," the mum said.
"Three months after she was born, I was pregnant. The order got extended to 14 months and throughout my pregnancy they threatened to take my baby away when he was born." Her daughter was returned to her care and she looked after both children until December, 2008, when her son, now aged three, was admitted to hospital with head injuries sustained while he was in the care of a babysitter. The mother claims her son was in the babysitter's care for just 15 minutes. No charges were laid over the incident but both children were taken from the mother and are now in the care of their father's parents.
The father lives in the home with the children but an order states he is not to have unsupervised access to the children, the mum says. The mother says she now lives with her parents and they would like to help her raise her children in that home. But they have only recently been allowed limited unsupervised access to the children.
She said she is required to undergo a psychological assessment before her case can progress and that the current guardians have taunted her, saying she would never get her children back because they are now accredited foster carers.
MUM 2 is a 26-year-old mother of six who was herself under the care of the state as a child. "I was under the guardianship of the state from 11 to 18 and I learnt what I know about being a mum from FamiliesSA," said the southern suburbs mum, who is pregnant. "When I needed help with my five-week-old twins, I had to turn to them for help . . . that's all I knew to do. "They said I would get my boys back, but I can't see that I will get my boys back and now they have taken my other four children. "I am pregnant and I am scared they will take my baby away, too."
The young mum said her infant twins were taken from her more than a year ago and her other four children - whom her current partner had helped care for - were placed under a protection order in November. She said she now only has supervised visits with her children, for a few hours twice a week, while the father of the four eldest children has unsupervised access despite having being jailed for child neglect of her eldest son.
"The three eldest kids were taken from school . . . We didn't even know it was happening," the woman's partner said. "We had our three-year-old daughter with us and they were forcibly removing our girl from my arms. I was distressed and they handcuffed me when they did it."
The mother said: "They are creating the new stolen generation. "I just want to be a mother. I want for my children to not have to go through what I went through as a child in the care of the state."
MUM 3 lives in the northern suburbs, has 11 children, and seven of them were living with her. In November, five children were taken from her outside the Youth Court under a protection order. She said the children who were put into care, aged 3-11, had all tried to run away from their foster home. These included a four year old and a five year old who had both tried to hitch-hike home. After a month in foster care, they were placed in the care of their grandmother.
The mother's lawyers wrote to the mother, saying the magistrate overseeing her case deemed the foster care home had not provided "superior care" to that which she had offered.
In May, the mother admitted in a TV interview to being a neglectful parent when she was evicted from a rental property because of the putrid environment she lived in. This week, she told The Advertiser she had done the best she could and had asked for help in a bid to adequately provide for her children. "This is the worst experience of my life," the mum said. "The minister . . . needs to come out here and talk to people like me to work out what's going on."
MUM 4 is the 32-year-old Frewville mother who had seven children removed from her care on Christmas Eve. She said she handed her children to social workers on the promise they would be kept together. She first visited the children briefly five days after they were removed and she says they are being cared for in four different homes.
SOURCE
2009 Australia's second hottest year on record -- according to the BOM
But now we know how Australian temperature records are compiled, you would be gullible to believe them
THE past calendar year - 2009 - was the second warmest on record in Australia since 1910, the Australian government's Bureau of Meteorology reported today. The bureau said the high temperatures were driven by unusual or extreme heatwaves, with a temperature trend consistent with global warming, Dow Jones Newswires reported.
Australia's annual mean temperature for 2009 was 0.90 degrees Celsius above a 1961-90 average, making it the nation's second-warmest year since high-quality records began in 1910, the bureau reported in an annual climate statement. The warmest was 2005.
High temperatures were especially notable in the south-east during the second half of 2009, with Australia nationally and the states Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales independently all recording their warmest July-December periods on record.
Extreme heatwaves occurred across much of southern Australia during late January/early February, resulting in a new maximum temperature record in the Victorian capital Melbourne of 46.4 degrees and a new Victoria state maximum temperature record of 48.8 degrees.
An unusual winter-time heatwave occurred in August over large parts of the inland and resulted in Australia's warmest August on record, while a prolonged heatwave occurred during November across central and south-east Australia. "Based on the analysis of daily maximum and minimum temperature data...there are clear upward trends in the number of hot events and downward trends in the number of cold events over the period 1960 to date, consistent with global warming," the bureau reported, without citing a cause for global warming.
The end of 2009 also saw the end of Australia's warmest decade on record, with a decadal mean temperature anomaly of 0.48 degree above a 1961-90 average [Picking an arbitrary base-year for your averages is fun]. This meant that in Australia, each decade since the 1940s has been warmer than the preceding decade, it reported.
As for rainfall, the overall Australian mean rainfall total for 2009 was 453 millimeters, down a little from a long-term average (1961-90) of 464 mms, it reported. During July to October 2009, serious rainfall deficiencies were experienced over large areas of Queensland and isolated parts of New South Wales, consistent with the development of an El Nino event during this time.
SOURCE
Monday, January 04, 2010
Hundreds rally for hunger-striking farmer
More than 300 people have rallied outside Parliament House in Canberra in support of hunger-striking New South Wales farmer Peter Spencer. Mr Spencer has spent 43 days without food on top of a tower on his property at Shannons Flat near Cooma, in protest against state laws which stop him from clearing vegetation on his land. He wants the Commonwealth to compensate farmers whose land has been used as 'carbon sinks'.
Mr Spencer's daughter, Sarah Spencer, told the rally her father will not give up his hunger strike until he meets with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. "He has strong resolve. He will hold true to his word," she said. His son, Kahn Spencer, says his father has lost a lot of weight but he has not lost his mental resolve. "He's short of energy, he hasn't got as much energy as he normally has and things like that," he said. "But he appears to be hanging in there."
Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce also addressed the crowd, calling for a Royal Commission into vegetation laws. He said farmers across Australia have been unjustly divested of their land. "It might have been legally possible but it was totally unjust," he said.
Some of the protesting farmers are now travelling to Mr Spencer's property to offer their support.
SOURCE
Modern green romanticism is misanthropic
By John Cox
The start of the modern environmental movement is often taken as the publication in 1962 of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which described the excessive use of pesticides in the US. The first page of this book was dedicated to Albert Schweitzer and quoted his words: "Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth." Carson was very much influenced by Schweitzer's philosophy of "reverence for life", which has been described as Jesus Christ's ethic of love and compassion between humans widened to all living beings. There is a case, therefore, in arguing that Schweitzer was the father of the modern environmental movement.
If this is so then I must be counted as one of the first environmentalists in Australia, having been influenced during the late 1950s by this reverence-for-life philosophy in my university days. I immediately gave up my sporting life of hunting kangaroos, foxes and rabbits in the mid-north of South Australia and pledged, like Schweitzer, to work in developing countries.
Schweitzer and Carson were children of the Enlightenment, which emphasised the progress of civilisation through the primacy of reason. Schweitzer's philosophy was an attempt to find a rational ethical basis to lead Western civilisation away from the tragedies of the first half of the 20th century. Carson's book was a well-argued, scientific study of the effects of pesticides on various aspects of nature, particularly birds.
Today, however, I find myself nearly always opposed to the viewpoints taken by the modern greens who seem to trace their roots back to the 19th-century romantic period, which was a reaction against the scientific rationalism of the 18th century. Emotions, nature mysticism, intuition and a sense of the whole being more important than the parts were considered more important than a clear-cut view of nature's laws that could be analysed and used for human progress. This was evident in the music, literature and lifestyles of this romantic period and can be expressed best in the words of Goethe: "All theory is grey, dear friend; Green is the golden tree of life".
This romantic view of nature has lead to the pervasive influence of an ecocentric rather than an anthropocentric life view in today's world and was manifest in the Traveston Dam decision to put the possible effects of this dam on a few species ahead of the interests of hundreds of thousands of human beings. Other decisions such as this seem to be a radical wish to return to a primitive, animistic, anti-technology, Jean-Jacques Rousseau-inspired agrarian society so as to avoid any possible harm to nature.
Having worked for more than 20 years on transport projects in Southeast Asia to help raise human beings from their poverty, I find this ecocentric view to be immoral in many ways. I consider that India and China have been morally correct in their decisions to put present economic growth and the elimination of poverty ahead of possible future environmental benefits. In my transport field I find myself coming up against environmentalists who cannot see the economic and environmental benefits of putting more traffic on freeways that have 30 per cent less fuel and greenhouse emissions, 50 per cent less particulate emissions, 70 per cent fewer crash fatalities and 30 per cent lower economic vehicle operating costs than on stop-start arterial roads.
I also find myself up against public transport advocates who cannot admit that the motor car has given people the freedom to work, travel and live where they want. They cannot admit that the car is the most equitably distributed form of transport that Australia has seen and that it was a major instrument for the promotion of gender equity in the 20th century. It has allowed women to do what they want to do because they can now make chained trips to work, shop, drop children off to school and make social visits, trips which are not possible in any other form of transport.
It is also not well known that cars are a more sustainable form of transport than public transport as the cost of a car trip, including externalities, is lower than a public transport trip including government subsidies.
The anti-motor car ideologues remind me a little of the duke of Wellington who was opposed to the development of railways because they allowed "the masses to travel needlessly".
I also find myself in the camp of the sceptics with respect to anthropogenic global warning. Not, it must be said, in the right-wing camp but in the geological scientists' camp, having researched the formation and engineering properties of the deltaic clays in Southeast Asia. The rise in temperatures of more than 6C and the rise in sea level of 130m during the past 15,000 years, without any anthropogenic emissions, show me that the forces in our solar system are much larger than our puny efforts in affecting climate change.
It may be that humans are rebelling against a purely intellectual approach to life and are cleaving to a more emotional, romantic view of an organic, holistic world. Rationalism does not, however, have to kill what it dissects, and there are many of us who still cling to the concepts of rationalism, a web of being and reverence for life that still leave human beings as important members of this world.
SOURCE
Scepticism stems from a worthy spirit of inquiry
By Greg Melleuish
WE are truly living in a strange world when the word sceptic, as in the term climate sceptic, has come to be used as an insult. It used to be the case that there was something honourable about being a sceptic. It meant one did not merely take things on trust; that one insisted on a rigorous examination of both evidence and argument before exercising one's judgment on a particular matter.
Even then a good sceptic would recognise that this judgment was only provisional, as more evidence or a better explanation could emerge. Human beings are fallible creatures; none of us can claim to have a monopoly on truth. Be it physics, history or even climate science, there will always be competing explanations.
Attempts to impose a single model or explanation will always be doomed to failure. I recently read Ross Honeywell's Lamarck's Evolution, in which he discusses the career of Australian biologist Ted Steele. Steele has defied the Darwinian consensus and argues for a more Lamarckian view of evolution. Despite much opposition from within the scientific community, the evidence has emerged to support Steele's position.
A democratic society can only flourish if it allows a range of ideas and views to thrive. Some of these ideas will turn out to be wrong; the price of openness is to allow both the sensible and the ratbags to have their say. Open societies work. Failed ideas can be discarded and replaced by better ones rather than congealing into dogmas and ideologies. Scientific ideas, like historical interpretations, are never settled. There will always be challenges as new data comes to light.
What does it mean then when supporters of one interpretation of climate change claim that those who do not support them are deniers, not really scientists and therefore not worthy of a hearing? It can only mean one thing. One group of people has attempted to turn its particular interpretation into a dogma that is beyond challenge. It has become a form of absolute truth. This is not a form of scientific activity but a political act.
It can be quite difficult to move from the messy world of science, its provisional explanations and need for revisions, to that of public policy in which governments take action. Definite action requires certainty. The science cannot be open to question. There is a real conflict here between the provisional nature of scientific and academic activity and the need for governments to take clear-cut and definite action. They cannot be reconciled because those engaged in the world of ideas and science will always find qualifications and possible objections to any theory.
However, we now have a generation of scientists and academics with a desire to have an impact on the world. They are willing to create dogmas so governments will act according to their wishes. This represents the triumph of political over academic and scientific values.
I was struck recently by the similarity between the present debate on climate change and the referendum on the republic held in 1999. On that occasion I asked some of my academic colleagues their views on the effect of changing the wording of sections of the commonwealth Constitution. They told me they had not looked at the proposed changes. They would simply support the case for a republic on trust.
It seems to me that we are now in an analogous situation. Many people are supporting the case for climate change simply on trust. The scientists have spoken and they are happy to accept what they have said.
What is odd is that many of those who are willing to accept climate change dogma are well educated. They have been educated at universities that are supposedly devoted to encouraging rigorous analysis and respect for a diversity of intellectual views.
Why are climate change advocates so willing to accept so much on authority and not use their critical faculties? There is an obvious answer. Their education has taught them that the political is more important than the intellectual. Political action trumps rigorous intellectual investigation. This attitude is no longer confined to the humanities and the social sciences; as climate change dogma indicates, it has also infected the so-called hard sciences.
It is a sad state of affairs. For a democracy to flourish, it needs also to be an open society in which a variety of viewpoints can jostle for public attention. When the term sceptic becomes a term of abuse, and there is willingness by many to demonise those who do not agree with them, then one must be concerned about the future of our democracy.
What is particularly worrying is that those who are leading this drive away from discussion and debate towards a passive acceptance of climate change dogma are often very well educated. What has happened to their spirit of open inquiry?
SOURCE
Abbott takes aim at a PM all at sea
The Opposition Leader is steeling himself for a fight over the Prime Minister's flawed strategy on asylum seekers. PRACTICALLY the first thing Tony Abbott did upon snatching the Liberal leadership a little over a month ago was vow to lead an Opposition that would exist primarily to oppose rather than support the Government.
While this might have seemed like the bleeding obvious (isn't that, after all, what oppositions are supposed to do?) Abbott's statement was calibrated to send three very loud messages – to his party, to the public and to the Government.
First there was the heavily implied criticism that under his predecessors, the Liberals had ceded their identity by broadly supporting an emissions trading scheme. The criticism was aimed squarely at Malcolm Turnbull and to a lesser extent Brendan Nelson, both men whose moderate views had always rendered them somewhat confusing figures, lacking in political definition, among traditional Liberals. Abbott was effectively drawing the curtain on what many conservatives viewed as a “failed experiment” whereby politically ambiguous “outsiders” had been allowed to run the Liberal Party.
Second, Abbott wanted to scream from the rooftops that he was in town for a fight and that voters should pay attention – right now.
Finally, he wanted to immediately wrong-foot a Government which still believes that sections of the Liberal Party could support its legislation for a carbon pollution reduction scheme when it is introduced to Parliament for a third time in February.
Turnbull's demise and Abbott's rise blindsided Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, his deputy Julia Gillard and the Government's most senior political strategists. For they were convinced that Turnbull would secure sufficient amendments not only to win Senate support for their climate change legislation but also to remain leader at least until this year's election. Which is exactly how they wanted him. They were even willing to pay a hefty dividend for Turnbull's support on the carbon reduction scheme, having factored in that his authority – and thereby, perhaps his poll ratings – would be enhanced if he stared down the climate change sceptics in his party. Wrong.
It seems most unlikely at this stage that the Government will win sufficient support for the legislation when it is again presented to Parliament next month.
Between now and then Abbott must formulate a policy to reduce Australia's carbon production that is not based on the emissions trading model he so opposes. It's no easy task. He must convince voters that the Liberals under a big-C conservative leader such as himself can be genuine advocates for “green” measures to reduce our carbon output. Such green measures, of course, depend largely on heavy regulation – and government regulation is the enemy of both progressive and conservative Liberal-ism.
On human-made climate change – about which Abbott is something of an avowed sceptic – he is proposing what one Liberal colleague describes as “a type of progressive conservatism”. The Government will come out all guns blazing to discredit whatever policy he unveils as an alternative to the carbon reduction scheme come February. Abbott's climate change policy will, however, be primarily about contrasting himself with both Rudd and the Government.
Rudd's low public profile since Abbott took over and his calm and measured approach to a new adversary belies a distinct uneasiness within Labor about how Abbott should be dealt with. Labor tacticians recognise Abbott as an adversary who is capable of setting and running agendas and of determining the direction of public debate where his two immediate predecessors were not. This makes them distinctly uneasy because Rudd has set the agenda, first from opposition after he became Labor leader in late 2006, and then firmly as Prime Minister since November 2007.
While Rudd exercised his prime ministerial right to a spot of commentary from the box at the MCG on Boxing Day, Abbott has, true to his word, popped up in his electorate office and at home to niggle and oppose. On the last day of 2009, he aimed squarely at Rudd's most critical policy vulnerability – his deeply flawed strategy to deal with asylum seekers.
On his way to the prime minister-ship Rudd let it be known that he, like Howard, would be tough enough to turn away asylum seekers including by pointing their vessels back out to sea. In Government, amid a temporary decrease in asylum seeker numbers, Labor scrapped the contentious Pacific solution for off-shore refugee processing and the temporary protection visa program. The boats, predictably perhaps, began returning in great numbers.
In mid-October, the Prime Minister called Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. He asked the President to get his navy to intercept a boat, the Oceanic Viking, carrying 260 mainly Sri Lankan asylum seekers heading to Australia. At that point Rudd began talking tough on "illegal immigrants". "I make no apology whatsoever for adopting a hardline approach when it comes to illegal immigration activity," he vowed. "And I make no apology whatsoever having a hardline and humane approach to dealing with asylum seekers."
Hard line? Humane? What on earth was he talking about? If he knew, nobody else did. Nonetheless, as the crisis involving the Oceanic Viking deepened, the Prime Minister kept walking both sides of the street, promising that his Government would be both “tough” and “humane” in relation to asylum seekers. It was meaningless babble that highlighted the Prime Minister's absence of conviction on what is both a thorny moral and a practical security issue. It also highlighted the Government's absence of a well-formulated policy.
Bad policy makes for bad government. And as the Prime Minister floundered in Parliament with his confusing rhetoric while the Viking remained in Indonesian waters, he looked vulnerable for the first time since November 2007. Turnbull sensed this. But he lacked the authority to capitalise on Rudd's weakness. Meanwhile, Rudd's backbenchers – under continuing pressure from constituents to articulate a policy – remain deeply concerned about the Government's untidiness on this issue.
Abbott has now moved decisively to capitalise on Rudd's indecision and consequent vulnerability on asylum seekers. Having already highlighted Rudd's hypocrisy in purporting to be tough and humane when he has been neither, Abbott has vowed to turn refugee boats back out to sea if he becomes prime minister. On the last day of 2009, Abbott was quoted in The Australian: “If the circumstances permit it, you've got to be prepared to turn the boats around. John Howard was fiercely criticised for this. Nevertheless Kevin Rudd said he would be more than tough enough to turn boats around were he prime minister but he singularly failed to show any steel whatsoever since becoming our leader.”
Abbott has highlighted another point of great contrast with Rudd. While the proposition of sending asylum seekers back into dangerous seas may represent a return to the past that many voters will view as deeply distasteful, Abbott appears resolute compared with Rudd. Abbott said: “I think it has been a significant issue in terms of illustrating the comparative weakness of Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister.”
Many Labor MPs would concur that Rudd has lacked “steel” on this issue. They do not, of course, want him to start turning the boats away. Rather, they want him to expend some of his considerable political capital on radically increasing the quotas of migrants it takes from the war-torn source countries that are producing so many asylum seekers willing to risk their lives to reach Australia informally. That, they say, would show genuine humanity and true leadership on one of the most vexing, not to mention morally and politically challenging, issues of our time.
Former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser presciently closed 2009 with his recollections about how Australia came to resettle 220,000 Vietnamese refugees. “One of the problems was a lot of the people fleeing Vietnam were doing so in boats that ... were totally unsuitable to survival at sea. Therefore it was essential to try to establish centres they could get to without making the journey longer than it had to be,” he recalled.
Fraser noted the obvious parallel between the Vietnamese refugee crisis and the problem Australia now faces. “Politicians would be surprised how much support a political party would get if it truly stated the case for asylum seekers and refugees and explained the circumstances from which they are fleeing. It shows a lot of courage to leave everything behind to try to get a better future for your family.”
Call it courage or call it steel. There's not much of it about in the Government on this issue. And Tony Abbott knows it.
SOURCE
More than 300 people have rallied outside Parliament House in Canberra in support of hunger-striking New South Wales farmer Peter Spencer. Mr Spencer has spent 43 days without food on top of a tower on his property at Shannons Flat near Cooma, in protest against state laws which stop him from clearing vegetation on his land. He wants the Commonwealth to compensate farmers whose land has been used as 'carbon sinks'.
Mr Spencer's daughter, Sarah Spencer, told the rally her father will not give up his hunger strike until he meets with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. "He has strong resolve. He will hold true to his word," she said. His son, Kahn Spencer, says his father has lost a lot of weight but he has not lost his mental resolve. "He's short of energy, he hasn't got as much energy as he normally has and things like that," he said. "But he appears to be hanging in there."
Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce also addressed the crowd, calling for a Royal Commission into vegetation laws. He said farmers across Australia have been unjustly divested of their land. "It might have been legally possible but it was totally unjust," he said.
Some of the protesting farmers are now travelling to Mr Spencer's property to offer their support.
SOURCE
Modern green romanticism is misanthropic
By John Cox
The start of the modern environmental movement is often taken as the publication in 1962 of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which described the excessive use of pesticides in the US. The first page of this book was dedicated to Albert Schweitzer and quoted his words: "Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth." Carson was very much influenced by Schweitzer's philosophy of "reverence for life", which has been described as Jesus Christ's ethic of love and compassion between humans widened to all living beings. There is a case, therefore, in arguing that Schweitzer was the father of the modern environmental movement.
If this is so then I must be counted as one of the first environmentalists in Australia, having been influenced during the late 1950s by this reverence-for-life philosophy in my university days. I immediately gave up my sporting life of hunting kangaroos, foxes and rabbits in the mid-north of South Australia and pledged, like Schweitzer, to work in developing countries.
Schweitzer and Carson were children of the Enlightenment, which emphasised the progress of civilisation through the primacy of reason. Schweitzer's philosophy was an attempt to find a rational ethical basis to lead Western civilisation away from the tragedies of the first half of the 20th century. Carson's book was a well-argued, scientific study of the effects of pesticides on various aspects of nature, particularly birds.
Today, however, I find myself nearly always opposed to the viewpoints taken by the modern greens who seem to trace their roots back to the 19th-century romantic period, which was a reaction against the scientific rationalism of the 18th century. Emotions, nature mysticism, intuition and a sense of the whole being more important than the parts were considered more important than a clear-cut view of nature's laws that could be analysed and used for human progress. This was evident in the music, literature and lifestyles of this romantic period and can be expressed best in the words of Goethe: "All theory is grey, dear friend; Green is the golden tree of life".
This romantic view of nature has lead to the pervasive influence of an ecocentric rather than an anthropocentric life view in today's world and was manifest in the Traveston Dam decision to put the possible effects of this dam on a few species ahead of the interests of hundreds of thousands of human beings. Other decisions such as this seem to be a radical wish to return to a primitive, animistic, anti-technology, Jean-Jacques Rousseau-inspired agrarian society so as to avoid any possible harm to nature.
Having worked for more than 20 years on transport projects in Southeast Asia to help raise human beings from their poverty, I find this ecocentric view to be immoral in many ways. I consider that India and China have been morally correct in their decisions to put present economic growth and the elimination of poverty ahead of possible future environmental benefits. In my transport field I find myself coming up against environmentalists who cannot see the economic and environmental benefits of putting more traffic on freeways that have 30 per cent less fuel and greenhouse emissions, 50 per cent less particulate emissions, 70 per cent fewer crash fatalities and 30 per cent lower economic vehicle operating costs than on stop-start arterial roads.
I also find myself up against public transport advocates who cannot admit that the motor car has given people the freedom to work, travel and live where they want. They cannot admit that the car is the most equitably distributed form of transport that Australia has seen and that it was a major instrument for the promotion of gender equity in the 20th century. It has allowed women to do what they want to do because they can now make chained trips to work, shop, drop children off to school and make social visits, trips which are not possible in any other form of transport.
It is also not well known that cars are a more sustainable form of transport than public transport as the cost of a car trip, including externalities, is lower than a public transport trip including government subsidies.
The anti-motor car ideologues remind me a little of the duke of Wellington who was opposed to the development of railways because they allowed "the masses to travel needlessly".
I also find myself in the camp of the sceptics with respect to anthropogenic global warning. Not, it must be said, in the right-wing camp but in the geological scientists' camp, having researched the formation and engineering properties of the deltaic clays in Southeast Asia. The rise in temperatures of more than 6C and the rise in sea level of 130m during the past 15,000 years, without any anthropogenic emissions, show me that the forces in our solar system are much larger than our puny efforts in affecting climate change.
It may be that humans are rebelling against a purely intellectual approach to life and are cleaving to a more emotional, romantic view of an organic, holistic world. Rationalism does not, however, have to kill what it dissects, and there are many of us who still cling to the concepts of rationalism, a web of being and reverence for life that still leave human beings as important members of this world.
SOURCE
Scepticism stems from a worthy spirit of inquiry
By Greg Melleuish
WE are truly living in a strange world when the word sceptic, as in the term climate sceptic, has come to be used as an insult. It used to be the case that there was something honourable about being a sceptic. It meant one did not merely take things on trust; that one insisted on a rigorous examination of both evidence and argument before exercising one's judgment on a particular matter.
Even then a good sceptic would recognise that this judgment was only provisional, as more evidence or a better explanation could emerge. Human beings are fallible creatures; none of us can claim to have a monopoly on truth. Be it physics, history or even climate science, there will always be competing explanations.
Attempts to impose a single model or explanation will always be doomed to failure. I recently read Ross Honeywell's Lamarck's Evolution, in which he discusses the career of Australian biologist Ted Steele. Steele has defied the Darwinian consensus and argues for a more Lamarckian view of evolution. Despite much opposition from within the scientific community, the evidence has emerged to support Steele's position.
A democratic society can only flourish if it allows a range of ideas and views to thrive. Some of these ideas will turn out to be wrong; the price of openness is to allow both the sensible and the ratbags to have their say. Open societies work. Failed ideas can be discarded and replaced by better ones rather than congealing into dogmas and ideologies. Scientific ideas, like historical interpretations, are never settled. There will always be challenges as new data comes to light.
What does it mean then when supporters of one interpretation of climate change claim that those who do not support them are deniers, not really scientists and therefore not worthy of a hearing? It can only mean one thing. One group of people has attempted to turn its particular interpretation into a dogma that is beyond challenge. It has become a form of absolute truth. This is not a form of scientific activity but a political act.
It can be quite difficult to move from the messy world of science, its provisional explanations and need for revisions, to that of public policy in which governments take action. Definite action requires certainty. The science cannot be open to question. There is a real conflict here between the provisional nature of scientific and academic activity and the need for governments to take clear-cut and definite action. They cannot be reconciled because those engaged in the world of ideas and science will always find qualifications and possible objections to any theory.
However, we now have a generation of scientists and academics with a desire to have an impact on the world. They are willing to create dogmas so governments will act according to their wishes. This represents the triumph of political over academic and scientific values.
I was struck recently by the similarity between the present debate on climate change and the referendum on the republic held in 1999. On that occasion I asked some of my academic colleagues their views on the effect of changing the wording of sections of the commonwealth Constitution. They told me they had not looked at the proposed changes. They would simply support the case for a republic on trust.
It seems to me that we are now in an analogous situation. Many people are supporting the case for climate change simply on trust. The scientists have spoken and they are happy to accept what they have said.
What is odd is that many of those who are willing to accept climate change dogma are well educated. They have been educated at universities that are supposedly devoted to encouraging rigorous analysis and respect for a diversity of intellectual views.
Why are climate change advocates so willing to accept so much on authority and not use their critical faculties? There is an obvious answer. Their education has taught them that the political is more important than the intellectual. Political action trumps rigorous intellectual investigation. This attitude is no longer confined to the humanities and the social sciences; as climate change dogma indicates, it has also infected the so-called hard sciences.
It is a sad state of affairs. For a democracy to flourish, it needs also to be an open society in which a variety of viewpoints can jostle for public attention. When the term sceptic becomes a term of abuse, and there is willingness by many to demonise those who do not agree with them, then one must be concerned about the future of our democracy.
What is particularly worrying is that those who are leading this drive away from discussion and debate towards a passive acceptance of climate change dogma are often very well educated. What has happened to their spirit of open inquiry?
SOURCE
Abbott takes aim at a PM all at sea
The Opposition Leader is steeling himself for a fight over the Prime Minister's flawed strategy on asylum seekers. PRACTICALLY the first thing Tony Abbott did upon snatching the Liberal leadership a little over a month ago was vow to lead an Opposition that would exist primarily to oppose rather than support the Government.
While this might have seemed like the bleeding obvious (isn't that, after all, what oppositions are supposed to do?) Abbott's statement was calibrated to send three very loud messages – to his party, to the public and to the Government.
First there was the heavily implied criticism that under his predecessors, the Liberals had ceded their identity by broadly supporting an emissions trading scheme. The criticism was aimed squarely at Malcolm Turnbull and to a lesser extent Brendan Nelson, both men whose moderate views had always rendered them somewhat confusing figures, lacking in political definition, among traditional Liberals. Abbott was effectively drawing the curtain on what many conservatives viewed as a “failed experiment” whereby politically ambiguous “outsiders” had been allowed to run the Liberal Party.
Second, Abbott wanted to scream from the rooftops that he was in town for a fight and that voters should pay attention – right now.
Finally, he wanted to immediately wrong-foot a Government which still believes that sections of the Liberal Party could support its legislation for a carbon pollution reduction scheme when it is introduced to Parliament for a third time in February.
Turnbull's demise and Abbott's rise blindsided Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, his deputy Julia Gillard and the Government's most senior political strategists. For they were convinced that Turnbull would secure sufficient amendments not only to win Senate support for their climate change legislation but also to remain leader at least until this year's election. Which is exactly how they wanted him. They were even willing to pay a hefty dividend for Turnbull's support on the carbon reduction scheme, having factored in that his authority – and thereby, perhaps his poll ratings – would be enhanced if he stared down the climate change sceptics in his party. Wrong.
It seems most unlikely at this stage that the Government will win sufficient support for the legislation when it is again presented to Parliament next month.
Between now and then Abbott must formulate a policy to reduce Australia's carbon production that is not based on the emissions trading model he so opposes. It's no easy task. He must convince voters that the Liberals under a big-C conservative leader such as himself can be genuine advocates for “green” measures to reduce our carbon output. Such green measures, of course, depend largely on heavy regulation – and government regulation is the enemy of both progressive and conservative Liberal-ism.
On human-made climate change – about which Abbott is something of an avowed sceptic – he is proposing what one Liberal colleague describes as “a type of progressive conservatism”. The Government will come out all guns blazing to discredit whatever policy he unveils as an alternative to the carbon reduction scheme come February. Abbott's climate change policy will, however, be primarily about contrasting himself with both Rudd and the Government.
Rudd's low public profile since Abbott took over and his calm and measured approach to a new adversary belies a distinct uneasiness within Labor about how Abbott should be dealt with. Labor tacticians recognise Abbott as an adversary who is capable of setting and running agendas and of determining the direction of public debate where his two immediate predecessors were not. This makes them distinctly uneasy because Rudd has set the agenda, first from opposition after he became Labor leader in late 2006, and then firmly as Prime Minister since November 2007.
While Rudd exercised his prime ministerial right to a spot of commentary from the box at the MCG on Boxing Day, Abbott has, true to his word, popped up in his electorate office and at home to niggle and oppose. On the last day of 2009, he aimed squarely at Rudd's most critical policy vulnerability – his deeply flawed strategy to deal with asylum seekers.
On his way to the prime minister-ship Rudd let it be known that he, like Howard, would be tough enough to turn away asylum seekers including by pointing their vessels back out to sea. In Government, amid a temporary decrease in asylum seeker numbers, Labor scrapped the contentious Pacific solution for off-shore refugee processing and the temporary protection visa program. The boats, predictably perhaps, began returning in great numbers.
In mid-October, the Prime Minister called Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. He asked the President to get his navy to intercept a boat, the Oceanic Viking, carrying 260 mainly Sri Lankan asylum seekers heading to Australia. At that point Rudd began talking tough on "illegal immigrants". "I make no apology whatsoever for adopting a hardline approach when it comes to illegal immigration activity," he vowed. "And I make no apology whatsoever having a hardline and humane approach to dealing with asylum seekers."
Hard line? Humane? What on earth was he talking about? If he knew, nobody else did. Nonetheless, as the crisis involving the Oceanic Viking deepened, the Prime Minister kept walking both sides of the street, promising that his Government would be both “tough” and “humane” in relation to asylum seekers. It was meaningless babble that highlighted the Prime Minister's absence of conviction on what is both a thorny moral and a practical security issue. It also highlighted the Government's absence of a well-formulated policy.
Bad policy makes for bad government. And as the Prime Minister floundered in Parliament with his confusing rhetoric while the Viking remained in Indonesian waters, he looked vulnerable for the first time since November 2007. Turnbull sensed this. But he lacked the authority to capitalise on Rudd's weakness. Meanwhile, Rudd's backbenchers – under continuing pressure from constituents to articulate a policy – remain deeply concerned about the Government's untidiness on this issue.
Abbott has now moved decisively to capitalise on Rudd's indecision and consequent vulnerability on asylum seekers. Having already highlighted Rudd's hypocrisy in purporting to be tough and humane when he has been neither, Abbott has vowed to turn refugee boats back out to sea if he becomes prime minister. On the last day of 2009, Abbott was quoted in The Australian: “If the circumstances permit it, you've got to be prepared to turn the boats around. John Howard was fiercely criticised for this. Nevertheless Kevin Rudd said he would be more than tough enough to turn boats around were he prime minister but he singularly failed to show any steel whatsoever since becoming our leader.”
Abbott has highlighted another point of great contrast with Rudd. While the proposition of sending asylum seekers back into dangerous seas may represent a return to the past that many voters will view as deeply distasteful, Abbott appears resolute compared with Rudd. Abbott said: “I think it has been a significant issue in terms of illustrating the comparative weakness of Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister.”
Many Labor MPs would concur that Rudd has lacked “steel” on this issue. They do not, of course, want him to start turning the boats away. Rather, they want him to expend some of his considerable political capital on radically increasing the quotas of migrants it takes from the war-torn source countries that are producing so many asylum seekers willing to risk their lives to reach Australia informally. That, they say, would show genuine humanity and true leadership on one of the most vexing, not to mention morally and politically challenging, issues of our time.
Former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser presciently closed 2009 with his recollections about how Australia came to resettle 220,000 Vietnamese refugees. “One of the problems was a lot of the people fleeing Vietnam were doing so in boats that ... were totally unsuitable to survival at sea. Therefore it was essential to try to establish centres they could get to without making the journey longer than it had to be,” he recalled.
Fraser noted the obvious parallel between the Vietnamese refugee crisis and the problem Australia now faces. “Politicians would be surprised how much support a political party would get if it truly stated the case for asylum seekers and refugees and explained the circumstances from which they are fleeing. It shows a lot of courage to leave everything behind to try to get a better future for your family.”
Call it courage or call it steel. There's not much of it about in the Government on this issue. And Tony Abbott knows it.
SOURCE
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Coverup for crooked Queensland cops: No review after innocent man served four years for robbery
Queensland is the only State that has had to put a chief of police in jail
THE State Government has abandoned a review into the wrongful conviction and jailing of a north Queensland man for armed robbery. Terry Irving served more than half of an eight-year sentence for a hold-up at a Cairns bank in 1993. Then 39, the concreter protested his innocence, claiming a case of mistaken identity and a suspect investigation. The High Court quashed the conviction in 1997, saying it had "grave misgivings about the circumstances of this case", and cited concerns about the police evidence. Documents obtained by Mr Irving's legal team under Freedom of Information legislation revealed 19 instances where evidence had been falsified or withheld.
Mr Irving was hoping for a full inquiry, apology or compensation, which could have topped $1 million. But any favourable outcome was knocked on the head last week when Attorney-General Cameron Dick reneged on a previous government deal. Former Attorney-General Kerry Shine agreed in September 2007 to an independent review. He said he was impressed by evidence Mr Irving had presented to him at a Community Cabinet meeting in Bowen in June 2007.
In February 2008, Mr Shine appointed retired Supreme Court judge Martin Moynihan to review the case. But Mr Moynihan was then given another government assignment: a review of the criminal justice system. That task was completed by January 2009 and Mr Moynihan was expected to finish the Irving review by July. Then last month Mr Moynihan was appointed to replace Robert Needham as chairman of the Crime and Misconduct Commission for the next two years.
Mr Dick told Mr Irving's legal aid lawyer, Michael O'Keeffe, last week the Government had decided to abandon the judicial review. Mr Dick rejected a plea for an ex gratia payment and said Mr Irving would have to sue the Government if he wanted compensation. Mr Dick claimed that Mr Moynihan was not appointed to review the case and a review was never established. That is in direct contrast to comments made by Mr Shine to The Sunday Mail last year.
"The best way for Mr Irving to test evidence and call witnesses is for him to pursue the civil proceedings against the state that he started 10 years ago," Mr Dick said.
Mr O'Keeffe slammed the decision. "The appointment of a judicial review was a most serious matter and was taken by Kerry Shine only after the closest personal scrutiny of the actual evidence in Irving's case by Mr Shine himself. It was not done lightly at all," he said. "The abandonment of that review by Mr Dick without reasons and in such a cavalier, almost throwaway, manner must be deeply disturbing for most right-minded Queenslanders."
Mr Irving said he would still seek restitution for the almost five years he spent in prison after being wrongly convicted.
SOURCE
School policies on disruptive students 'not working'
The Leftist horror of physical punishment is anything but kind
A MOTHER whose nine-year-old son missed 53 days of school on suspension last year is appealing for Education Queensland to improve its policies on disruptive students. Brock Duchnicz will start year 5 at a new school this year unable to spell simple words like at, in or on.
In two years he has missed 63 days – almost 13 weeks – of school for offences such as swearing, class disruption and pushing chairs over. His mother Sarndra said EQ's policy of blocking her son from the classroom was not working. Ms Duchnicz said teachers were not equipped to deal with children like Brock and called on the Government to introduce specialised behaviour management training for all teachers.
"I feel as though these kids are just pushed to the back of the classroom in the too hard basket," she said. "There are so many more children coming up the line like this and if they (teachers) are not equipped they need more understanding and time put into them."
Ms Duchnicz said the more Brock was suspended from Eagleby State School, the more he misbehaved to get another day off. "He thinks if he's naughty he gets to go home. The little light bulb goes on 'if I'm naughty I get to go home'," said Ms Duchnicz. Brock was recently diagnosed with ADHD but Ms Duchnicz stopped his Ritalin medication because it had no effect. She plans to have him reassessed.
EQ's assistant director-general of education (student services) Patrea Walton said the department fully supported a principal's decision to take disciplinary action. "It is not in any school's interests to keep badly behaved students in the classroom disrupting the learning of others," Ms Walton said.
SOURCE
Workplace laws may backfire on mothers
PROVISIONS for two-year parental leave in new "family-friendly" workplace laws could work against career mums, feminist academics and business groups have warned. A new right for parents to request unpaid leave of two years, and for parents of young children to request flexible work arrangements, are "major legal changes that may lead to major social change", University of Sydney professor of employment relations Marian Baird said.
She said research showed men generally did not take unpaid parental leave, so women were more likely to request their 12-month maternity leave be extended by up to a year. But Professor Baird suspects the provision contained in the National Employment Standards - which came into force on Friday - will increase the silent discrimination against women who interrupt their careers to have children, even though it is illegal. "There is evidence that employers restructure after 12 months, making it harder for women to return to their role. Imagine what will happen after two years," she said.
In July, the Fair Work Ombudsman was given the power to investigate discrimination for the first time and expressed concern at the large number of women losing their jobs for taking maternity leave. Ombudsman Nick Wilson said his office had intervened repeatedly in cases where women's jobs were advertised or small employers refused to grant 12 months' maternity leave.
But NSW Business Chamber chief executive Stephen Cartwright said keeping a job open for two years would be difficult for small companies. The Government should fund a 12-month paid parental leave scheme instead of increasing employers' burdens, he said. "I understand paternity and maternity leave are a societal issue that needs to be supported. But the problem at the moment is it is only being supported by employers. I'm being realistic here. How do you keep a job open to anyone if at the end of 12 months they might say, 'thanks, but I'm not coming back'?"
Australian women take nine months of maternity leave on average and three-quarters return to part-time roles, Professor Baird said.
Among the 10 new employment standards, which cover all workers, is the right for new parents to request flexible working hours, patterns or location. Professor Baird said this would help women resume quality part-time careers after the birth of a child. "It sends a very strong signal about what the Federal Government expects."
ACTU president Sharan Burrow said it was a "crucial breakthrough" that allowed parents to negotiate job-sharing and change start and finishing times so they can pick up children from childcare, or work from home. Employers have to seriously consider a request and respond in writing. "A simple refusal is not sufficient," she said.
Mr Cartwright said employers were "confused and nervous" about flexibility requests. The chamber is advising companies they "don't have to agree to something that will put you out of business".
"Employers don't need to overreact," Professor Baird said. Britain introduced a similar law several years ago "and the sky hasn't fallen in".
Kate Sykes, founder of careermums.com.au - a recruitment website for parents returning to the workforce and wanting flexible hours - said Australian law was only catching up with society. She said the long-term skills shortage and an ageing workforce meant the increased provisions and flexibility would create "no downside for employers. We need to change the way we work."
SOURCE
QANTAS again
Huge queues at Brisbane Aiport as QANTAS computers crash. You would think it was a budget carrier from the way it is run. There seem to be no backup systems for when things go wrong. Will it be another PanAm? Seems like it
QANTAS flights have been impacted by a global crash of the airline's check-in system. Queues at the Brisbane Airport departures area this morning snaked right through to Jetstar as frustrated travellers were repeatedly told of the computer problems.
Issues with the baggage system compounded the delays but passengers were reassured their flights would not leave without them. The 7.55am flight to Melbourne eventually departed more than 40 minutes later and other flights were held up for as long as an hour.
Qantas apologised to passengers for the inconvenience, on one of the busiest flying days of the year. An airline spokesman confirmed the global crash of the Amadeus check-in system. The problem last arose on November 16, 2009, and took about six hours to rectify as check-in staff were forced to process passengers manually.
SOURCE
Queensland is the only State that has had to put a chief of police in jail
THE State Government has abandoned a review into the wrongful conviction and jailing of a north Queensland man for armed robbery. Terry Irving served more than half of an eight-year sentence for a hold-up at a Cairns bank in 1993. Then 39, the concreter protested his innocence, claiming a case of mistaken identity and a suspect investigation. The High Court quashed the conviction in 1997, saying it had "grave misgivings about the circumstances of this case", and cited concerns about the police evidence. Documents obtained by Mr Irving's legal team under Freedom of Information legislation revealed 19 instances where evidence had been falsified or withheld.
Mr Irving was hoping for a full inquiry, apology or compensation, which could have topped $1 million. But any favourable outcome was knocked on the head last week when Attorney-General Cameron Dick reneged on a previous government deal. Former Attorney-General Kerry Shine agreed in September 2007 to an independent review. He said he was impressed by evidence Mr Irving had presented to him at a Community Cabinet meeting in Bowen in June 2007.
In February 2008, Mr Shine appointed retired Supreme Court judge Martin Moynihan to review the case. But Mr Moynihan was then given another government assignment: a review of the criminal justice system. That task was completed by January 2009 and Mr Moynihan was expected to finish the Irving review by July. Then last month Mr Moynihan was appointed to replace Robert Needham as chairman of the Crime and Misconduct Commission for the next two years.
Mr Dick told Mr Irving's legal aid lawyer, Michael O'Keeffe, last week the Government had decided to abandon the judicial review. Mr Dick rejected a plea for an ex gratia payment and said Mr Irving would have to sue the Government if he wanted compensation. Mr Dick claimed that Mr Moynihan was not appointed to review the case and a review was never established. That is in direct contrast to comments made by Mr Shine to The Sunday Mail last year.
"The best way for Mr Irving to test evidence and call witnesses is for him to pursue the civil proceedings against the state that he started 10 years ago," Mr Dick said.
Mr O'Keeffe slammed the decision. "The appointment of a judicial review was a most serious matter and was taken by Kerry Shine only after the closest personal scrutiny of the actual evidence in Irving's case by Mr Shine himself. It was not done lightly at all," he said. "The abandonment of that review by Mr Dick without reasons and in such a cavalier, almost throwaway, manner must be deeply disturbing for most right-minded Queenslanders."
Mr Irving said he would still seek restitution for the almost five years he spent in prison after being wrongly convicted.
SOURCE
School policies on disruptive students 'not working'
The Leftist horror of physical punishment is anything but kind
A MOTHER whose nine-year-old son missed 53 days of school on suspension last year is appealing for Education Queensland to improve its policies on disruptive students. Brock Duchnicz will start year 5 at a new school this year unable to spell simple words like at, in or on.
In two years he has missed 63 days – almost 13 weeks – of school for offences such as swearing, class disruption and pushing chairs over. His mother Sarndra said EQ's policy of blocking her son from the classroom was not working. Ms Duchnicz said teachers were not equipped to deal with children like Brock and called on the Government to introduce specialised behaviour management training for all teachers.
"I feel as though these kids are just pushed to the back of the classroom in the too hard basket," she said. "There are so many more children coming up the line like this and if they (teachers) are not equipped they need more understanding and time put into them."
Ms Duchnicz said the more Brock was suspended from Eagleby State School, the more he misbehaved to get another day off. "He thinks if he's naughty he gets to go home. The little light bulb goes on 'if I'm naughty I get to go home'," said Ms Duchnicz. Brock was recently diagnosed with ADHD but Ms Duchnicz stopped his Ritalin medication because it had no effect. She plans to have him reassessed.
EQ's assistant director-general of education (student services) Patrea Walton said the department fully supported a principal's decision to take disciplinary action. "It is not in any school's interests to keep badly behaved students in the classroom disrupting the learning of others," Ms Walton said.
SOURCE
Workplace laws may backfire on mothers
PROVISIONS for two-year parental leave in new "family-friendly" workplace laws could work against career mums, feminist academics and business groups have warned. A new right for parents to request unpaid leave of two years, and for parents of young children to request flexible work arrangements, are "major legal changes that may lead to major social change", University of Sydney professor of employment relations Marian Baird said.
She said research showed men generally did not take unpaid parental leave, so women were more likely to request their 12-month maternity leave be extended by up to a year. But Professor Baird suspects the provision contained in the National Employment Standards - which came into force on Friday - will increase the silent discrimination against women who interrupt their careers to have children, even though it is illegal. "There is evidence that employers restructure after 12 months, making it harder for women to return to their role. Imagine what will happen after two years," she said.
In July, the Fair Work Ombudsman was given the power to investigate discrimination for the first time and expressed concern at the large number of women losing their jobs for taking maternity leave. Ombudsman Nick Wilson said his office had intervened repeatedly in cases where women's jobs were advertised or small employers refused to grant 12 months' maternity leave.
But NSW Business Chamber chief executive Stephen Cartwright said keeping a job open for two years would be difficult for small companies. The Government should fund a 12-month paid parental leave scheme instead of increasing employers' burdens, he said. "I understand paternity and maternity leave are a societal issue that needs to be supported. But the problem at the moment is it is only being supported by employers. I'm being realistic here. How do you keep a job open to anyone if at the end of 12 months they might say, 'thanks, but I'm not coming back'?"
Australian women take nine months of maternity leave on average and three-quarters return to part-time roles, Professor Baird said.
Among the 10 new employment standards, which cover all workers, is the right for new parents to request flexible working hours, patterns or location. Professor Baird said this would help women resume quality part-time careers after the birth of a child. "It sends a very strong signal about what the Federal Government expects."
ACTU president Sharan Burrow said it was a "crucial breakthrough" that allowed parents to negotiate job-sharing and change start and finishing times so they can pick up children from childcare, or work from home. Employers have to seriously consider a request and respond in writing. "A simple refusal is not sufficient," she said.
Mr Cartwright said employers were "confused and nervous" about flexibility requests. The chamber is advising companies they "don't have to agree to something that will put you out of business".
"Employers don't need to overreact," Professor Baird said. Britain introduced a similar law several years ago "and the sky hasn't fallen in".
Kate Sykes, founder of careermums.com.au - a recruitment website for parents returning to the workforce and wanting flexible hours - said Australian law was only catching up with society. She said the long-term skills shortage and an ageing workforce meant the increased provisions and flexibility would create "no downside for employers. We need to change the way we work."
SOURCE
QANTAS again
Huge queues at Brisbane Aiport as QANTAS computers crash. You would think it was a budget carrier from the way it is run. There seem to be no backup systems for when things go wrong. Will it be another PanAm? Seems like it
QANTAS flights have been impacted by a global crash of the airline's check-in system. Queues at the Brisbane Airport departures area this morning snaked right through to Jetstar as frustrated travellers were repeatedly told of the computer problems.
Issues with the baggage system compounded the delays but passengers were reassured their flights would not leave without them. The 7.55am flight to Melbourne eventually departed more than 40 minutes later and other flights were held up for as long as an hour.
Qantas apologised to passengers for the inconvenience, on one of the busiest flying days of the year. An airline spokesman confirmed the global crash of the Amadeus check-in system. The problem last arose on November 16, 2009, and took about six hours to rectify as check-in staff were forced to process passengers manually.
SOURCE
Saturday, January 02, 2010
Electricity prices set to double under Warmist laws
THE wholesale price of electricity will more than double within two years and triple in the next two decades under the Rudd Government's plans to tackle climate change. New modelling by the Government's energy market operator reveals the wholesale price of electricity will rise from $30 per megawatt hour in 2010 to about $100 by 2024. In a national transmission report released before Christmas, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) predicts the price will double to $60 per megawatt hour by 2012. The wholesale price makes up less than half of the final bill that reaches each customer, who also pays distribution costs.
The AEMO modelling is based on Treasury's carbon price estimates under the proposed emissions trading scheme, which from next year will force big polluters to pay for their emissions.
Opposition energy spokesman Nick Minchin yesterday accused the Rudd Government of trying to hide the real costs of tackling climate change. "I think Australians will be stunned to learn that their power bills could more than triple as a result of Mr Rudd's climate change policies," Senator Minchin said.
Earlier this week, the Rudd Government released its own Treasury modelling, which it said revealed low-income households would be $190-a-year better off under its proposed scheme. The Government said its measures to cut carbon emissions would cost low-income households $420 a year, but they would receive $610 in assistance from the Government to offset the higher prices.
The price shock comes as Queenslanders prepare for surging power bills next year with the latest draft proposal by the Queensland Competition Authority (QCA) estimated to add $250 to the average household bill. Households also face the prospect of paying more for their electricity during peak times, with State Cabinet due to consider a suite of proposed new tariffs as part of a QCA review early this year. Peak pricing measures are aimed at reducing power use at times during the day when electricity is more expensive to supply.
The Federal Government was also warned in October about the likely impact of its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme on energy costs in a report prepared by the Australian Energy Market Commission, an advisory body to energy ministers. "The underlying costs of supply might also become more volatile. This will translate to customers being exposed to higher prices, and potentially more frequent price changes," it said.
SOURCE
Ghetto coming to a suburb near you
High density housing for the poor will inevitably bring increased crime and disruption to otherwise quiet locations
SUBURBS across NSW are in danger of becoming "mini ghettos" as the State Government pushes on with an unpopular $2.9 billion plan to integrate public housing. An investigation by The Daily Telegraph has found residents are protesting against at least 48 projects stretching from Lake Macquarie in the north, through Sydney and down to Ulladulla on the Far South Coast.
Among the objections are what residents claim are an overload of units stacked on single blocks, not enough parking and significant overshadowing from two and three-storey apartment blocks on what have traditionally been streets of single-storey family homes.
Residents also claim they have been silenced by draconian laws enforced last year which block locals from appealing against public housing in their neighbourhoods.
More than 6000 units and townhouses are being built by NSW Housing across the state before a June 2012 deadline to qualify for the Federal Government's $1.9 billion Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan. A further $1 billion is being spent by the NSW Government to build another 3000 units and townhouses on 505 sites across the state.
Community groups in Lake Macquarie considered class action in the High Court and petitions are being drawn up and signed by thousands of residents against "substandard dog boxes" being built in their streets.
Parramatta Lord Mayor Paul Garrard said he had been inundated with community concerns over development and the spread of townhouses throughout western Sydney. "They are effectively taking government out of the hands of locals," Mr Garrard said.
The rights of citizens to appeal to council or the Land and Environment Court have been over-ruled by the Nation Building and Jobs Plan Act and the State Environmental Planning Policy for Affordable Housing. These allow "social housing providers to develop affordable housing in accessible locations without the need for rezoning". They can also build up to 20 dwellings or an 8.5m-tall building as long as they inform neighbours and the local council.
Residents have 21 days to lodge a complaint, however they can not appeal against a NSW Housing construction in any court. There are 39,000 people on waiting lists and 340,000 tenants already in public housing across the state.
NSW Housing Minister David Borger said: "NIMBYism is alive and well and many of the objections we receive are from people not wanting public housing near them." He said NSW Housing needed to take advantage of the stimulus package. "I accept that if we had more time there would be more consultation," Mr Borger said. "If we lodged everything through councils there is no way we would have received the $2 billion from the Federal Government."
SOURCE
THAT "DROUGHT" THAT THE WARMISTS KEPT PREDICTING FOR AUSTRALIA
If drought is a sign of global warming, what do the three current stories below show? The fact of the matter is that Australia has always had cycles of drought and flood -- something every farmer knows but which the Warmists ignored during the drought phase of the cycle. They are strangely silent now, however. They are also culturally and historically stunted. One of Australia's most famous poems rightly declared Australia to be a land of "Of drought and flooding rains" -- and that was written over a century ago.
Since the Greenies brought dam-building to a screeching halt, however, much of the rain is wasted. Given the cyclic nature of the rainfall, Australia badly needs dams to even out the water supply and more dams are needed in areas where the rain falls most heavily
Rains will flood NSW economy with money
RAINS that drenched inland NSW, flooding rivers and plains, could bring a boost worth billions of dollars to the rural economy, with farmers hopeful of two seasons of good crops and plentiful feed for livestock. The Darling River, drying before Christmas, is filled to its banks after a week of rain in the north of the state, with more falls predicted over coming days.
Rory Treweeke, the chair of the Western Catchment Management Authority, which covers the northwestern quarter of NSW, reckons the floods could be worth more than $100 million to his region alone. "For those of us who are floodplain croppers, once we have had a flood on our country, we can probably look forward to a couple of good years of crops," he said.
Farmers from the region, including Bourke Mayor Andrew Lewis, said the rains would bring certainty to both crop farmers and those who run livestock. "The irrigators know they can finish their summer crop and plant a winter crop now. Graziers know they can take their stock through, without having to sell them. "Before, you were starting to think about getting rid of stock or agisting or (supplementary) feeding," Mr Lewis said. He runs cattle and sheep on his property at Enngonia, north of Bourke, which has recorded more than 200mm of rain since Christmas. "It is fantastic. We were able to get our sheep off the low country before it rained, so we didn't have any trouble there."
He said the psychological value was beyond measure. "Most people have a smile on their faces, even if they do have a bit of trouble getting their stock out," Mr Lewis said. "They still know they are set up for the next six months or longer."
NSW Farmers Association president Charles Armstrong said the nation as a whole would benefit from the floods. He said agriculture earned $32 billion in export income last year and that if the floods brought a 10 per cent boost, "that produces another $3.2bn". "That plus a 10 per cent increase in prices due to a lower Australian dollar, and you are looking at a $6bn-plus figure, " he said. "The value of rain at any time is quite enormous for agriculture and the value of rain right now is advantageous."
The rain would result in quick summer pasture growth for livestock. "It is only another month and we will be starting to look at what crops we put in for winter. Follow- up rain is essential between now and Easter to make it possible," he said.
But he cautioned there were still parts of NSW, the most seriously drought-affected state, that had not received good rain. Mr Armstrong said many farmers would not receive any financial benefit from the rains until next December, after their winter crops had been harvested.
Most of the rain has fallen downstream of the dams, and most NSW dam levels are still too low to provide irrigation water. But the NSW Office of Water has temporarily allowed farmers to pump water from the lower Namoi and lower Macquarie.
Tony Wass, the chairman of Macquarie Food and Fibre, estimates the value of the water irrigators have been permitted to pump at $2 million. "Some of this water will get used on cotton, some will go into farm dams, maybe, as a start to storage for future crops, and some people are pre-irrigating fields to top up subsoil levels," Mr Wass said. "They could even plant a late summer crop."
The last year Macquarie River irrigators had a full water allocation was 2001. This year only about 10 per cent of their usual acreage has been planted to summer crops. But Mr Wass said the biggest benefit was psychological. "Not only have we seen a good rain across the whole area, we have actually seen some water run in the river," he said.
Manager of Bourke Shire Council, Geoff Wise, said the floodwaters would provide a good flush "right down the Darling, at least to Menindee. It is just invaluable for the communities downstream. Psychologically, it is invaluable." The NSW Office of Water estimates about 300 billion litres could flow into Menindee Lakes.
Economist and executive director of the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute Mike Young said the floods would also recharge groundwater. "There is a lot of groundwater use all through that area and recharging that groundwater is going to be salvation to them." Professor Young said the floods would bring "tremendous opportunities for both the irrigation and the grazing industries, but also the value for the environment is not to be underestimated".
SOURCE
Downpours in Victoria too
DROUGHT-stricken Victorians had another reason to celebrate as a new year's downpour drenched the state. Falls Creek in the alpine country had the most rain, receiving a whopping 131mm between 9am on New Year's Eve and 3pm yesterday. Falls Creek Resort Management spokesman Will Flamsteed said the rain was torrential. Organisers of today's Big Fella Festival, expected to attract about 1000 people, were hoping the rain would drain away in time, but would carry on anyway, Mr Flamsteed said.
Nearby Mt Hotham recorded 65.2mm, Warburton 44.2mm and the city 10.2mm while Viewbank in Melbourne's northeast had the most rain for the metropolitan area with 29.2mm. In Victoria's northwest, Swan Hill had 19mm.
Victorian Farmers Federation president Andrew Broad said the rain was welcome for summer pastures. But Mr Broad said the true test would come after late April when farmers needed good falls to plant and maintain winter crops. "This summer rain will be putting moisture in the soil profile," Mr Broad said. "But the real business end comes in autumn and spring."
Melbourne Water spokesman Nicolas McGay said water storages received an unexpected boost. The smaller Maroondah and O'Shannassy catchments received 30.8mm and 20mm respectively while the Upper Yarra catchment got 12mm and Thomson 10.2mm. Storages were steady at 37.5 per cent. "The rain is a bonus because it will keep storages steady at a time of year when we usually see them continue to drop," Mr McGay said. "It's a positive start to the year, but the flow-on effects of the rain will be short lived, and we're heading into the hottest months, so it's important to continue saving water."
Weather bureau senior forecaster Scott Williams said a trough of low pressure combined with sub-tropical moisture generated the thunderstorms responsible for the wet start to 2010. There were unconfirmed reports of hail as large as baseballs near Hamilton in Victoria's southwest. Mr Williams said the trough was weakening as it moved inland, but would bring more rain. A few showers and possible storms are predicted for Melbourne today before warm and fine conditions return tomorrow.
SOURCE
And its been raining heavily in Queensland too
Every now and again, I've stood at my front door and watched it pelting down. Report below from two days ago
AS up to 110mm of rain fell yesterday, Brisbane has recorded its wettest December in five years, but dams have largely missed out on the deluge. More than 160mm has been dumped on the city this month, as an upper low combined with a surface trough to bring torrential rain to the state's parched southeastern corner. Rain again pelted parts of Brisbane yesterday, with Hemmant recording 110mm in the 24 hours to 1pm, while Carindale received 75mm. Kelvin Grove, which has recorded more than 100mm in the past seven days caught another 21mm yesterday.
Meanwhile, flood watches remain in place for seven northwestern NSW rivers, with more rain expected across the state. Despite the big wet, experts say the NSW drought is far from broken. It has been the wettest December recorded in Brisbane since 2004, when more than 220mm was dropped on the region during a series of severe thunderstorms. Parts of the Granite Belt received the heaviest rainfall in the past few days, while some roads on the Gold Coast were inundated by flash flooding.
Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Michelle Berry said the rain had been fairly widespread, but dam regions had largely missed out on the falls. "Each day it has favoured a different area of Brisbane," she said. Brisbane's Wivenhoe catchment area only recorded 1.2mm in the 24 hours to 1pm, while North Pine and Somerset Dams only registered small totals, most soaked up by parched dam catchments. The combined levels of Wivenhoe, Somerset and North Pine dams are currently 70.9 per cent, increasing only 0.2 per cent since Christmas Eve.
Ms Berry said the rain is expected to weaken about the southeast over the next couple of days, but could still put a dampener on New Year's Eve celebrations. "There will be a possibility of another shower or two but nothing like we have seen in the past couple of days," she said.
In central western NSW, farmers in drought ravaged areas such as Coonamble and Dubbo have been celebrating several days of rain. However, more falls will be needed before farmers there can bid farewell to drought conditions. "Even if the drought was to finish today, it's going to take a few years to come out of it," drought-affected Coonamble Shire Mayor Tim Horan said. "It's definitely not drought-breaking, we need a lot of follow-up rain."
SOURCE
THE wholesale price of electricity will more than double within two years and triple in the next two decades under the Rudd Government's plans to tackle climate change. New modelling by the Government's energy market operator reveals the wholesale price of electricity will rise from $30 per megawatt hour in 2010 to about $100 by 2024. In a national transmission report released before Christmas, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) predicts the price will double to $60 per megawatt hour by 2012. The wholesale price makes up less than half of the final bill that reaches each customer, who also pays distribution costs.
The AEMO modelling is based on Treasury's carbon price estimates under the proposed emissions trading scheme, which from next year will force big polluters to pay for their emissions.
Opposition energy spokesman Nick Minchin yesterday accused the Rudd Government of trying to hide the real costs of tackling climate change. "I think Australians will be stunned to learn that their power bills could more than triple as a result of Mr Rudd's climate change policies," Senator Minchin said.
Earlier this week, the Rudd Government released its own Treasury modelling, which it said revealed low-income households would be $190-a-year better off under its proposed scheme. The Government said its measures to cut carbon emissions would cost low-income households $420 a year, but they would receive $610 in assistance from the Government to offset the higher prices.
The price shock comes as Queenslanders prepare for surging power bills next year with the latest draft proposal by the Queensland Competition Authority (QCA) estimated to add $250 to the average household bill. Households also face the prospect of paying more for their electricity during peak times, with State Cabinet due to consider a suite of proposed new tariffs as part of a QCA review early this year. Peak pricing measures are aimed at reducing power use at times during the day when electricity is more expensive to supply.
The Federal Government was also warned in October about the likely impact of its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme on energy costs in a report prepared by the Australian Energy Market Commission, an advisory body to energy ministers. "The underlying costs of supply might also become more volatile. This will translate to customers being exposed to higher prices, and potentially more frequent price changes," it said.
SOURCE
Ghetto coming to a suburb near you
High density housing for the poor will inevitably bring increased crime and disruption to otherwise quiet locations
SUBURBS across NSW are in danger of becoming "mini ghettos" as the State Government pushes on with an unpopular $2.9 billion plan to integrate public housing. An investigation by The Daily Telegraph has found residents are protesting against at least 48 projects stretching from Lake Macquarie in the north, through Sydney and down to Ulladulla on the Far South Coast.
Among the objections are what residents claim are an overload of units stacked on single blocks, not enough parking and significant overshadowing from two and three-storey apartment blocks on what have traditionally been streets of single-storey family homes.
Residents also claim they have been silenced by draconian laws enforced last year which block locals from appealing against public housing in their neighbourhoods.
More than 6000 units and townhouses are being built by NSW Housing across the state before a June 2012 deadline to qualify for the Federal Government's $1.9 billion Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan. A further $1 billion is being spent by the NSW Government to build another 3000 units and townhouses on 505 sites across the state.
Community groups in Lake Macquarie considered class action in the High Court and petitions are being drawn up and signed by thousands of residents against "substandard dog boxes" being built in their streets.
Parramatta Lord Mayor Paul Garrard said he had been inundated with community concerns over development and the spread of townhouses throughout western Sydney. "They are effectively taking government out of the hands of locals," Mr Garrard said.
The rights of citizens to appeal to council or the Land and Environment Court have been over-ruled by the Nation Building and Jobs Plan Act and the State Environmental Planning Policy for Affordable Housing. These allow "social housing providers to develop affordable housing in accessible locations without the need for rezoning". They can also build up to 20 dwellings or an 8.5m-tall building as long as they inform neighbours and the local council.
Residents have 21 days to lodge a complaint, however they can not appeal against a NSW Housing construction in any court. There are 39,000 people on waiting lists and 340,000 tenants already in public housing across the state.
NSW Housing Minister David Borger said: "NIMBYism is alive and well and many of the objections we receive are from people not wanting public housing near them." He said NSW Housing needed to take advantage of the stimulus package. "I accept that if we had more time there would be more consultation," Mr Borger said. "If we lodged everything through councils there is no way we would have received the $2 billion from the Federal Government."
SOURCE
THAT "DROUGHT" THAT THE WARMISTS KEPT PREDICTING FOR AUSTRALIA
If drought is a sign of global warming, what do the three current stories below show? The fact of the matter is that Australia has always had cycles of drought and flood -- something every farmer knows but which the Warmists ignored during the drought phase of the cycle. They are strangely silent now, however. They are also culturally and historically stunted. One of Australia's most famous poems rightly declared Australia to be a land of "Of drought and flooding rains" -- and that was written over a century ago.
Since the Greenies brought dam-building to a screeching halt, however, much of the rain is wasted. Given the cyclic nature of the rainfall, Australia badly needs dams to even out the water supply and more dams are needed in areas where the rain falls most heavily
Rains will flood NSW economy with money
RAINS that drenched inland NSW, flooding rivers and plains, could bring a boost worth billions of dollars to the rural economy, with farmers hopeful of two seasons of good crops and plentiful feed for livestock. The Darling River, drying before Christmas, is filled to its banks after a week of rain in the north of the state, with more falls predicted over coming days.
Rory Treweeke, the chair of the Western Catchment Management Authority, which covers the northwestern quarter of NSW, reckons the floods could be worth more than $100 million to his region alone. "For those of us who are floodplain croppers, once we have had a flood on our country, we can probably look forward to a couple of good years of crops," he said.
Farmers from the region, including Bourke Mayor Andrew Lewis, said the rains would bring certainty to both crop farmers and those who run livestock. "The irrigators know they can finish their summer crop and plant a winter crop now. Graziers know they can take their stock through, without having to sell them. "Before, you were starting to think about getting rid of stock or agisting or (supplementary) feeding," Mr Lewis said. He runs cattle and sheep on his property at Enngonia, north of Bourke, which has recorded more than 200mm of rain since Christmas. "It is fantastic. We were able to get our sheep off the low country before it rained, so we didn't have any trouble there."
He said the psychological value was beyond measure. "Most people have a smile on their faces, even if they do have a bit of trouble getting their stock out," Mr Lewis said. "They still know they are set up for the next six months or longer."
NSW Farmers Association president Charles Armstrong said the nation as a whole would benefit from the floods. He said agriculture earned $32 billion in export income last year and that if the floods brought a 10 per cent boost, "that produces another $3.2bn". "That plus a 10 per cent increase in prices due to a lower Australian dollar, and you are looking at a $6bn-plus figure, " he said. "The value of rain at any time is quite enormous for agriculture and the value of rain right now is advantageous."
The rain would result in quick summer pasture growth for livestock. "It is only another month and we will be starting to look at what crops we put in for winter. Follow- up rain is essential between now and Easter to make it possible," he said.
But he cautioned there were still parts of NSW, the most seriously drought-affected state, that had not received good rain. Mr Armstrong said many farmers would not receive any financial benefit from the rains until next December, after their winter crops had been harvested.
Most of the rain has fallen downstream of the dams, and most NSW dam levels are still too low to provide irrigation water. But the NSW Office of Water has temporarily allowed farmers to pump water from the lower Namoi and lower Macquarie.
Tony Wass, the chairman of Macquarie Food and Fibre, estimates the value of the water irrigators have been permitted to pump at $2 million. "Some of this water will get used on cotton, some will go into farm dams, maybe, as a start to storage for future crops, and some people are pre-irrigating fields to top up subsoil levels," Mr Wass said. "They could even plant a late summer crop."
The last year Macquarie River irrigators had a full water allocation was 2001. This year only about 10 per cent of their usual acreage has been planted to summer crops. But Mr Wass said the biggest benefit was psychological. "Not only have we seen a good rain across the whole area, we have actually seen some water run in the river," he said.
Manager of Bourke Shire Council, Geoff Wise, said the floodwaters would provide a good flush "right down the Darling, at least to Menindee. It is just invaluable for the communities downstream. Psychologically, it is invaluable." The NSW Office of Water estimates about 300 billion litres could flow into Menindee Lakes.
Economist and executive director of the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute Mike Young said the floods would also recharge groundwater. "There is a lot of groundwater use all through that area and recharging that groundwater is going to be salvation to them." Professor Young said the floods would bring "tremendous opportunities for both the irrigation and the grazing industries, but also the value for the environment is not to be underestimated".
SOURCE
Downpours in Victoria too
DROUGHT-stricken Victorians had another reason to celebrate as a new year's downpour drenched the state. Falls Creek in the alpine country had the most rain, receiving a whopping 131mm between 9am on New Year's Eve and 3pm yesterday. Falls Creek Resort Management spokesman Will Flamsteed said the rain was torrential. Organisers of today's Big Fella Festival, expected to attract about 1000 people, were hoping the rain would drain away in time, but would carry on anyway, Mr Flamsteed said.
Nearby Mt Hotham recorded 65.2mm, Warburton 44.2mm and the city 10.2mm while Viewbank in Melbourne's northeast had the most rain for the metropolitan area with 29.2mm. In Victoria's northwest, Swan Hill had 19mm.
Victorian Farmers Federation president Andrew Broad said the rain was welcome for summer pastures. But Mr Broad said the true test would come after late April when farmers needed good falls to plant and maintain winter crops. "This summer rain will be putting moisture in the soil profile," Mr Broad said. "But the real business end comes in autumn and spring."
Melbourne Water spokesman Nicolas McGay said water storages received an unexpected boost. The smaller Maroondah and O'Shannassy catchments received 30.8mm and 20mm respectively while the Upper Yarra catchment got 12mm and Thomson 10.2mm. Storages were steady at 37.5 per cent. "The rain is a bonus because it will keep storages steady at a time of year when we usually see them continue to drop," Mr McGay said. "It's a positive start to the year, but the flow-on effects of the rain will be short lived, and we're heading into the hottest months, so it's important to continue saving water."
Weather bureau senior forecaster Scott Williams said a trough of low pressure combined with sub-tropical moisture generated the thunderstorms responsible for the wet start to 2010. There were unconfirmed reports of hail as large as baseballs near Hamilton in Victoria's southwest. Mr Williams said the trough was weakening as it moved inland, but would bring more rain. A few showers and possible storms are predicted for Melbourne today before warm and fine conditions return tomorrow.
SOURCE
And its been raining heavily in Queensland too
Every now and again, I've stood at my front door and watched it pelting down. Report below from two days ago
AS up to 110mm of rain fell yesterday, Brisbane has recorded its wettest December in five years, but dams have largely missed out on the deluge. More than 160mm has been dumped on the city this month, as an upper low combined with a surface trough to bring torrential rain to the state's parched southeastern corner. Rain again pelted parts of Brisbane yesterday, with Hemmant recording 110mm in the 24 hours to 1pm, while Carindale received 75mm. Kelvin Grove, which has recorded more than 100mm in the past seven days caught another 21mm yesterday.
Meanwhile, flood watches remain in place for seven northwestern NSW rivers, with more rain expected across the state. Despite the big wet, experts say the NSW drought is far from broken. It has been the wettest December recorded in Brisbane since 2004, when more than 220mm was dropped on the region during a series of severe thunderstorms. Parts of the Granite Belt received the heaviest rainfall in the past few days, while some roads on the Gold Coast were inundated by flash flooding.
Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Michelle Berry said the rain had been fairly widespread, but dam regions had largely missed out on the falls. "Each day it has favoured a different area of Brisbane," she said. Brisbane's Wivenhoe catchment area only recorded 1.2mm in the 24 hours to 1pm, while North Pine and Somerset Dams only registered small totals, most soaked up by parched dam catchments. The combined levels of Wivenhoe, Somerset and North Pine dams are currently 70.9 per cent, increasing only 0.2 per cent since Christmas Eve.
Ms Berry said the rain is expected to weaken about the southeast over the next couple of days, but could still put a dampener on New Year's Eve celebrations. "There will be a possibility of another shower or two but nothing like we have seen in the past couple of days," she said.
In central western NSW, farmers in drought ravaged areas such as Coonamble and Dubbo have been celebrating several days of rain. However, more falls will be needed before farmers there can bid farewell to drought conditions. "Even if the drought was to finish today, it's going to take a few years to come out of it," drought-affected Coonamble Shire Mayor Tim Horan said. "It's definitely not drought-breaking, we need a lot of follow-up rain."
SOURCE
Friday, January 01, 2010
ZEG
In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG has some New Year wishes up
Housing prices soar
That is seen as good news. And for existing housing owners it obviously is. And it is also evidence of recovery from the financial crisis. That is all very blinkered thinking, however, and ignores the plight of prospective first-time home buyers -- mostly young. Construction costs have risen little so what it shows is a shortage of land for building. And that is almost entirely due to government-imposed land-use restrictions -- many of which are Greenie-inspired. FALLING prices would be a sign of humane government policies
MELBOURNE house prices soared by 17 per cent in the first 11 months of 2009, outstripping growth in all other capital cities, new figures show. The latest RP Data index, compiled from Valuer-General's figures, indicates the Melbourne median house price hit a new record of about $580,000 in November.
The news came as the Australian sharemarket closed at its highest level for the year. The S&P/ASX 200 index finished yesterday at 4870.6, up 31 per cent for the year and 55 per cent from its trough.
Melbourne's 17 per cent house price jump eclipsed Darwin's 15 per cent, Hobart's 14 per cent and Sydney's 12 per cent. And the rise more than offset the 5 per cent slide in Melbourne prices that followed the global financial crisis. Melbourne's median apartment price increased even more strongly, up 19 per cent to $440,000.
RP Data cautioned that the November figures were preliminary and based on incomplete sales data. However, the inclusion of further sales figures would be unlikely to alter the strong upward trend.
CommSec economist Craig James said immigration was a key driver of prices, with Victoria receiving more than its proportional share. "With population growing at the fastest rate in 40 years boosting demand for homes, state and federal governments need to be focused on ways to get more homes built," Mr James said. "Barriers to housing investment need to be removed, and scrutiny needs to be applied to lifting land production and revising zoning laws."
House prices continued to rise in October and November despite successive interest rate rises in those months and the winding back of first home buyer grants. "First home buyers have been trending down since peaking in May," said RP Data research director Tim Lawless. "But the gap is being filled by upgraders and investors who are much less sensitive." Credit figures released yesterday showed borrowing for housing up a further 0.7 per cent in November and up 8 per cent over the year.
Mr James said the resilience of the housing market increased the chance of a further interest rate rise when the Reserve Bank board next meets in February. "The main worry is that home prices are rising at unsustainable rates in some capital cities such as Darwin, Hobart and Melbourne," he said. "The last thing anyone wants to see in 2010 is another boom-bust scenario."
Mr Lawless said he expected more modest house price growth in 2010 after an "exceptional and surprising" 2009. "We would expect conditions to moderate into 2010 as interest rates continue to move back to a neutral setting and the remainder of the stimulus is rolled back," he said. "But the primary driver of growth will continue to be an under-supply of housing coupled with extraordinary demand fuelled by population growth."
Yesterday's sharemarket peak of 4870.6 is still a long way from the pre-financial crisis high of 6851. And there is little joy for investors in The Age's half-yearly economic survey to be published tomorrow, with economists predicting a rise of just 5.4 per cent in share prices this year. With LUCY BATTERSBY
SOURCE
$30 million cheap at the price
Most "asylum seekers" are not remotely desperate and are certainly not penniless. They are just economic migrants making a good investment. Leftists however always highlight the cases who tell a good story
ASYLUM-seekers trying to get to Australia paid up to $30 million to people smugglers to make the perilous journey in 2009. In a growing problem for the Federal Government, almost 2700 asylum-seekers were intercepted on 59 unauthorised boats last year. Three boats arrived in just 48 hours this week. The year before, just 161 asylum-seekers arrived on seven boats.
The going rate to get to Australia from Afghanistan is up to $US10,000, or about $A11,000, sources said. Tamils fleeing war-torn Sri Lanka pay less because of the shorter distance.
Refugee advocate Pamela Curr said not all asylum-seekers paid their full travel costs up front; many took out loans. Those rejected as refugees often faced death threats from smugglers when they returned home, she said. Many families faced terrible choices about which family members to send on the journey.
"There was a man on Christmas Island with his daughter," she said. "He and his wife had five children but she was the one who had to go, the eldest girl, because she had been marked by the Taliban for a forced marriage."
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd branded people smugglers the "scum of the earth" last year after a deadly explosion on an unauthorised boat. As more boats arrived, he defended his border protection policies as "tough but humane".
Flagging a renewed assault on the issue this year, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said the Government lacked the "steel" to send the boats back. "An Australian government that doesn't have the option of turning boats back in the right circumstances is a government that is not doing enough," he said.
SOURCE
New anti-job laws now in force
Making life difficult for employers means that they will be slower to hire
AT the stroke of midnight, as the champagne corks popped heralding the New Year, doing business in Australia just got harder. Thanks to the federal government's fair work industrial relations laws, being an employer is more expensive and more regulated. Not many champagne corks are popping today in employer and small business land.
The government is planning a big pubic relations campaign next week to sell the IR laws. You can bet it will feature the word fairness. Even the legislation, the tribunal and workplace inspectors are called Fair Work something or other.
While parliament can and should set a safety net of standards, real fairness in the workplace depends on the behaviour of managers, employees and unions. Just like Work Choices, the government of the day claims it has the workplace formula right, but employers have learned to be wary. The pendulum looks like having swung too far back.
It is best that employers focus on what changes are happening today, not the political claims and counterclaims. Today, the second and final stage of the Rudd government's new IR laws come into operation. The first stage began six months ago. This second stage imposes new mandatory wage and employment standards on almost every employer in the country.
The government says it is restoring the safety net after Work Choices. In truth, the government is today imposing two safety nets. New employment regulation written directly by the parliament (called the national employment standards, or NES) and additionally, new employment regulation written by its new industrial tribunal, Fair Work Australia (called industrial awards). Two safety nets is a recipe for over-regulation; that is what parts of the fair work system deliver. Rather than just restoring the pre-Work Choices safety net of employment standards, the government has added to it.
Combined with last July's IR laws, today's changes complete a re-regulation of the labour market that will be a slow burn on the economy unless greater flexibility is introduced, and unions and tribunals limit claims and decisions to what is economically responsible.
To be fair to the government, none of this is unsurprising. For those in the know, the government has for a long time used its determination to get rid of the Work Choices laws to also change laws that existed until Work Choices.
It must be said not everything in the new laws is a backward step. A national set of laws is a good idea. But the government must account for some broken promises (such as that new awards would not increase labour costs) along with some extra regulation never promised (such as tribunal powers to arbitrate higher wage agreements than the new standards require).
The biggest problem is that the new standards are mostly one-size-fits-all. There is almost no flexibility for businesses of different types or different health to make changes. A lack of flexibility leads to unfairness.
Impacts of the new employment standards will differ between industries and between states. For some employers the changes will seem to be slight; for others, severe. In totality the new laws make the business of being an employer more tricky and often more costly. That amounts to a slow burn on the economy.
Some of these costs will build up over time. Some of the new wages and penalty rates in some industries will be phased in over years to soften the impact. Some of the new powers that unions and tribunals have will only be felt by an employer when a union official takes aim at that business.
Worryingly, today's standards are not the end of the story; they can be topped up by union activism and tribunal intervention. Early signs are that unions are already making more aggressive claims. Pre-Christmas strikes returned to the IR landscape, and the new tribunal is being asked to be more interventionist, with comparative wage justice claims dressed up as pay equity, equal remuneration and claims against lower-paid industries.
Even old unfair-dismissal laws, which ate away at employer confidence over many years, are back, in a slightly changed form. Those changes need to be given a go, but early experience has been mixed.
The government's PR will sound impressive. We will hear that the national employment standards include only 10 requirements. We will hear that the new awards only add another 10 conditions. We will hear that a massive deregulation has taken place with thousands of awards reduced to just over a hundred. We will hear that businesses operating across state boundaries will be more efficient because there will not be differences in employment conditions between locations. In each of these claims, there is an element of truth, but even bigger caveats.
For example, there are fewer awards, and that is commendable. But the content of those fewer awards for some large employing industries in some states, means that higher wages, reclassifications and higher penalty rates even though employees are working no different hours or duties. Not much is fair about that.
From next week individual employers should use the services of their employer organisation to find which of these new laws affect their business, and how. These changes are now law. They are non-negotiable. Ignore the laws, and you are a lawbreaker. Even the fines have gone up.
We all want 2010 to be the year that real economic growth returns to Australia. It still can, but these new IR laws make that task harder. Employers need to comply, not lose faith in employing people, and urge the government to make changes when experience shows the new IR system to be too inflexible or costly.
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Eucalypts promote bushfires
THE surge in severe bushfires over the past decade has prompted much agonised soul-searching. Last year's Victoria fires led to demands to reassess a number of established practices: the leave or stay-and-defend policy; the question of controlled burning and fuel-load reduction; and the green environmental policies that have encouraged and even mandated the planting of eucalypts in rural and semi-rural areas.
But if we really want to reduce the fire threat, perhaps we need to ask some even more basic questions. Is the eucalypt the right tree for rural dwellings, the urban fringe and semi-settled areas? Should we be planting more of them when climatic modelling predicts decreasing rainfall and more days of extreme weather conditions like those that whipped up infernos such as the Canberra firestorm of 2003 and the Kinglake-Marysville disaster? Should we consider planting less inflammable and more fire-resistant species instead?
Eucalypts are fire-adapted, lethally so, as they are full of volatile oils that vaporise in not-so-extreme heat and explode like a bomb. On top of that they drop masses of dry bark, leaves and twigs that burn just as furiously - hot enough to melt brass taps at several metres.
One lesson of history (1851, 1939, 1983 ) we seem to be taking a long time to learn is that a mature eucalypt forest is a gigantic bonfire waiting for a dry spell, a north wind and a spark. The downside of eucalypts' capacity to survive fire (or as with mountain ash their dependence on it to germinate seed) is that they also promote fires.
A few years after the Canberra firestorm we took a walk in the Blue Range, an area just west of the city and in the heart of the pine forest that supplied the fuel for the blaze of January 18, 2003. The terrain had been cleared, but the site of the former Sherwood homestead was easy to find because the trees that surrounded it were alive and green. The settlers had planted oaks and elms, and although their windward side had been scorched by the flames, they were still healthy and vigorous. The area within their perimeter was untouched: a little oasis that had been protected from the blaze by a barrier of green leaves.
It was a similar picture at Callignee, South Gippsland, where homesteads protected by oaks or elms survived February's fires. In contrast, many dwellings surrounded by bare lawns had been damaged or burnt by flying embers, while those near gums or pines had nearly all been destroyed.
Eucalypts have been implicated in the increasing incidence and severity of wildfires in Spain, where they have been extensively planted in reafforestation projects and to provide pulp for paper production. Spanish authorities point out that the native holm oak (Quercus ilex) is fire-resistant.
There are many northern hemisphere and some Australian trees that would have an equally fire-retardant effect, such as liquidambars, plane trees and poplars. Among hundreds of species of oaks, particularly those from the Mediterranean and arid regions of North America, there are several that tolerate hot, dry conditions and would thrive in many parts of southern and inland Australia. The three plantations of cork oaks on the western edge of Canberra not only survived the firestorm, but checked its advance; the stand on the northwest corner of Curtin slowed the fire and protected the homes behind, not one of which was damaged. Further up the hill, where eucalypts took over, several houses were burnt.
The ACT Department of Municipal Services notes that, unlike gum trees, "Cork oak is essentially fire resistant and the foliage results in a relatively non-flammable, low-level ground fuel".
As well as oaks, there are many trees originating in dry areas of the Middle East and southern Asia that would do the job - quinces, pistachios, pears and apricots, for example, and the ubiquitous peppercorn tree, once an inevitable feature of every rural homestead. Suitable native species include the kurrajong and several varieties of wattle and casuarina.
Non-eucalypts offer other advantages. A plantation of wet-leaf trees is more effective as a firebreak than a strip of cleared or burnt ground, since their foliage blocks flying embers. During the Canberra fire large manchurian pears in Morehead Street, Curtin, stopped flaming embers from reaching several houses.
Unlike eucalypts, whose roots release acids that limit the growth of rival plants, and whose dead leaves lie around until consumed in the next fire, leaf litter from deciduous trees rots down into compost and enriches the soil.
They also moderate air temperature and increase humidity through transpiration, keeping the ground cooler and less fire-prone, and they do not desiccate soils to the same degree as thirsty gums. As the early settlers complained, gum trees are so heat-adapted they turn the edges of their leaves to the sun and give very little shade.
Non-eucalypts may also offer advantages in terms of increased net carbon absorption. When calculating the effectiveness of a eucalypt plantation as a carbon sink, it is necessary to compare the quantity of carbon it absorbs during its years of growth with the quantity it releases when it burns - as, inevitably, it eventually will.
We don't want to give the impression that we are advocating anything like the program of the 19th-century acclimatisation societies, which sought the wholesale replacement of native ecosystems with English trees, shrubs and fauna - though it should be that recognised Aboriginal "fire-stick farming" radically transformed the botanical profile of the continent, assisting fire-loving species to become dominant. It would be absurd to clear stretches of mountain forest and replant it with oaks.
All we are suggesting is that tree-planting programs, particularly on the urban fringe and in areas where there is substantial settlement in gum forests and woodlands, consideration be given to varying the species mix by the addition of non-eucalypt varieties known for their fire-resistant properties.
Local governments should particularly encourage the planting of such species on the edge of towns and around dwellings. A belt of oaks or pistachios instead of eucalypts could mean the difference between life and death in the climatic conditions that lie ahead.
SOURCE
In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG has some New Year wishes up
Housing prices soar
That is seen as good news. And for existing housing owners it obviously is. And it is also evidence of recovery from the financial crisis. That is all very blinkered thinking, however, and ignores the plight of prospective first-time home buyers -- mostly young. Construction costs have risen little so what it shows is a shortage of land for building. And that is almost entirely due to government-imposed land-use restrictions -- many of which are Greenie-inspired. FALLING prices would be a sign of humane government policies
MELBOURNE house prices soared by 17 per cent in the first 11 months of 2009, outstripping growth in all other capital cities, new figures show. The latest RP Data index, compiled from Valuer-General's figures, indicates the Melbourne median house price hit a new record of about $580,000 in November.
The news came as the Australian sharemarket closed at its highest level for the year. The S&P/ASX 200 index finished yesterday at 4870.6, up 31 per cent for the year and 55 per cent from its trough.
Melbourne's 17 per cent house price jump eclipsed Darwin's 15 per cent, Hobart's 14 per cent and Sydney's 12 per cent. And the rise more than offset the 5 per cent slide in Melbourne prices that followed the global financial crisis. Melbourne's median apartment price increased even more strongly, up 19 per cent to $440,000.
RP Data cautioned that the November figures were preliminary and based on incomplete sales data. However, the inclusion of further sales figures would be unlikely to alter the strong upward trend.
CommSec economist Craig James said immigration was a key driver of prices, with Victoria receiving more than its proportional share. "With population growing at the fastest rate in 40 years boosting demand for homes, state and federal governments need to be focused on ways to get more homes built," Mr James said. "Barriers to housing investment need to be removed, and scrutiny needs to be applied to lifting land production and revising zoning laws."
House prices continued to rise in October and November despite successive interest rate rises in those months and the winding back of first home buyer grants. "First home buyers have been trending down since peaking in May," said RP Data research director Tim Lawless. "But the gap is being filled by upgraders and investors who are much less sensitive." Credit figures released yesterday showed borrowing for housing up a further 0.7 per cent in November and up 8 per cent over the year.
Mr James said the resilience of the housing market increased the chance of a further interest rate rise when the Reserve Bank board next meets in February. "The main worry is that home prices are rising at unsustainable rates in some capital cities such as Darwin, Hobart and Melbourne," he said. "The last thing anyone wants to see in 2010 is another boom-bust scenario."
Mr Lawless said he expected more modest house price growth in 2010 after an "exceptional and surprising" 2009. "We would expect conditions to moderate into 2010 as interest rates continue to move back to a neutral setting and the remainder of the stimulus is rolled back," he said. "But the primary driver of growth will continue to be an under-supply of housing coupled with extraordinary demand fuelled by population growth."
Yesterday's sharemarket peak of 4870.6 is still a long way from the pre-financial crisis high of 6851. And there is little joy for investors in The Age's half-yearly economic survey to be published tomorrow, with economists predicting a rise of just 5.4 per cent in share prices this year. With LUCY BATTERSBY
SOURCE
$30 million cheap at the price
Most "asylum seekers" are not remotely desperate and are certainly not penniless. They are just economic migrants making a good investment. Leftists however always highlight the cases who tell a good story
ASYLUM-seekers trying to get to Australia paid up to $30 million to people smugglers to make the perilous journey in 2009. In a growing problem for the Federal Government, almost 2700 asylum-seekers were intercepted on 59 unauthorised boats last year. Three boats arrived in just 48 hours this week. The year before, just 161 asylum-seekers arrived on seven boats.
The going rate to get to Australia from Afghanistan is up to $US10,000, or about $A11,000, sources said. Tamils fleeing war-torn Sri Lanka pay less because of the shorter distance.
Refugee advocate Pamela Curr said not all asylum-seekers paid their full travel costs up front; many took out loans. Those rejected as refugees often faced death threats from smugglers when they returned home, she said. Many families faced terrible choices about which family members to send on the journey.
"There was a man on Christmas Island with his daughter," she said. "He and his wife had five children but she was the one who had to go, the eldest girl, because she had been marked by the Taliban for a forced marriage."
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd branded people smugglers the "scum of the earth" last year after a deadly explosion on an unauthorised boat. As more boats arrived, he defended his border protection policies as "tough but humane".
Flagging a renewed assault on the issue this year, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said the Government lacked the "steel" to send the boats back. "An Australian government that doesn't have the option of turning boats back in the right circumstances is a government that is not doing enough," he said.
SOURCE
New anti-job laws now in force
Making life difficult for employers means that they will be slower to hire
AT the stroke of midnight, as the champagne corks popped heralding the New Year, doing business in Australia just got harder. Thanks to the federal government's fair work industrial relations laws, being an employer is more expensive and more regulated. Not many champagne corks are popping today in employer and small business land.
The government is planning a big pubic relations campaign next week to sell the IR laws. You can bet it will feature the word fairness. Even the legislation, the tribunal and workplace inspectors are called Fair Work something or other.
While parliament can and should set a safety net of standards, real fairness in the workplace depends on the behaviour of managers, employees and unions. Just like Work Choices, the government of the day claims it has the workplace formula right, but employers have learned to be wary. The pendulum looks like having swung too far back.
It is best that employers focus on what changes are happening today, not the political claims and counterclaims. Today, the second and final stage of the Rudd government's new IR laws come into operation. The first stage began six months ago. This second stage imposes new mandatory wage and employment standards on almost every employer in the country.
The government says it is restoring the safety net after Work Choices. In truth, the government is today imposing two safety nets. New employment regulation written directly by the parliament (called the national employment standards, or NES) and additionally, new employment regulation written by its new industrial tribunal, Fair Work Australia (called industrial awards). Two safety nets is a recipe for over-regulation; that is what parts of the fair work system deliver. Rather than just restoring the pre-Work Choices safety net of employment standards, the government has added to it.
Combined with last July's IR laws, today's changes complete a re-regulation of the labour market that will be a slow burn on the economy unless greater flexibility is introduced, and unions and tribunals limit claims and decisions to what is economically responsible.
To be fair to the government, none of this is unsurprising. For those in the know, the government has for a long time used its determination to get rid of the Work Choices laws to also change laws that existed until Work Choices.
It must be said not everything in the new laws is a backward step. A national set of laws is a good idea. But the government must account for some broken promises (such as that new awards would not increase labour costs) along with some extra regulation never promised (such as tribunal powers to arbitrate higher wage agreements than the new standards require).
The biggest problem is that the new standards are mostly one-size-fits-all. There is almost no flexibility for businesses of different types or different health to make changes. A lack of flexibility leads to unfairness.
Impacts of the new employment standards will differ between industries and between states. For some employers the changes will seem to be slight; for others, severe. In totality the new laws make the business of being an employer more tricky and often more costly. That amounts to a slow burn on the economy.
Some of these costs will build up over time. Some of the new wages and penalty rates in some industries will be phased in over years to soften the impact. Some of the new powers that unions and tribunals have will only be felt by an employer when a union official takes aim at that business.
Worryingly, today's standards are not the end of the story; they can be topped up by union activism and tribunal intervention. Early signs are that unions are already making more aggressive claims. Pre-Christmas strikes returned to the IR landscape, and the new tribunal is being asked to be more interventionist, with comparative wage justice claims dressed up as pay equity, equal remuneration and claims against lower-paid industries.
Even old unfair-dismissal laws, which ate away at employer confidence over many years, are back, in a slightly changed form. Those changes need to be given a go, but early experience has been mixed.
The government's PR will sound impressive. We will hear that the national employment standards include only 10 requirements. We will hear that the new awards only add another 10 conditions. We will hear that a massive deregulation has taken place with thousands of awards reduced to just over a hundred. We will hear that businesses operating across state boundaries will be more efficient because there will not be differences in employment conditions between locations. In each of these claims, there is an element of truth, but even bigger caveats.
For example, there are fewer awards, and that is commendable. But the content of those fewer awards for some large employing industries in some states, means that higher wages, reclassifications and higher penalty rates even though employees are working no different hours or duties. Not much is fair about that.
From next week individual employers should use the services of their employer organisation to find which of these new laws affect their business, and how. These changes are now law. They are non-negotiable. Ignore the laws, and you are a lawbreaker. Even the fines have gone up.
We all want 2010 to be the year that real economic growth returns to Australia. It still can, but these new IR laws make that task harder. Employers need to comply, not lose faith in employing people, and urge the government to make changes when experience shows the new IR system to be too inflexible or costly.
SOURCE
Eucalypts promote bushfires
THE surge in severe bushfires over the past decade has prompted much agonised soul-searching. Last year's Victoria fires led to demands to reassess a number of established practices: the leave or stay-and-defend policy; the question of controlled burning and fuel-load reduction; and the green environmental policies that have encouraged and even mandated the planting of eucalypts in rural and semi-rural areas.
But if we really want to reduce the fire threat, perhaps we need to ask some even more basic questions. Is the eucalypt the right tree for rural dwellings, the urban fringe and semi-settled areas? Should we be planting more of them when climatic modelling predicts decreasing rainfall and more days of extreme weather conditions like those that whipped up infernos such as the Canberra firestorm of 2003 and the Kinglake-Marysville disaster? Should we consider planting less inflammable and more fire-resistant species instead?
Eucalypts are fire-adapted, lethally so, as they are full of volatile oils that vaporise in not-so-extreme heat and explode like a bomb. On top of that they drop masses of dry bark, leaves and twigs that burn just as furiously - hot enough to melt brass taps at several metres.
One lesson of history (1851, 1939, 1983 ) we seem to be taking a long time to learn is that a mature eucalypt forest is a gigantic bonfire waiting for a dry spell, a north wind and a spark. The downside of eucalypts' capacity to survive fire (or as with mountain ash their dependence on it to germinate seed) is that they also promote fires.
A few years after the Canberra firestorm we took a walk in the Blue Range, an area just west of the city and in the heart of the pine forest that supplied the fuel for the blaze of January 18, 2003. The terrain had been cleared, but the site of the former Sherwood homestead was easy to find because the trees that surrounded it were alive and green. The settlers had planted oaks and elms, and although their windward side had been scorched by the flames, they were still healthy and vigorous. The area within their perimeter was untouched: a little oasis that had been protected from the blaze by a barrier of green leaves.
It was a similar picture at Callignee, South Gippsland, where homesteads protected by oaks or elms survived February's fires. In contrast, many dwellings surrounded by bare lawns had been damaged or burnt by flying embers, while those near gums or pines had nearly all been destroyed.
Eucalypts have been implicated in the increasing incidence and severity of wildfires in Spain, where they have been extensively planted in reafforestation projects and to provide pulp for paper production. Spanish authorities point out that the native holm oak (Quercus ilex) is fire-resistant.
There are many northern hemisphere and some Australian trees that would have an equally fire-retardant effect, such as liquidambars, plane trees and poplars. Among hundreds of species of oaks, particularly those from the Mediterranean and arid regions of North America, there are several that tolerate hot, dry conditions and would thrive in many parts of southern and inland Australia. The three plantations of cork oaks on the western edge of Canberra not only survived the firestorm, but checked its advance; the stand on the northwest corner of Curtin slowed the fire and protected the homes behind, not one of which was damaged. Further up the hill, where eucalypts took over, several houses were burnt.
The ACT Department of Municipal Services notes that, unlike gum trees, "Cork oak is essentially fire resistant and the foliage results in a relatively non-flammable, low-level ground fuel".
As well as oaks, there are many trees originating in dry areas of the Middle East and southern Asia that would do the job - quinces, pistachios, pears and apricots, for example, and the ubiquitous peppercorn tree, once an inevitable feature of every rural homestead. Suitable native species include the kurrajong and several varieties of wattle and casuarina.
Non-eucalypts offer other advantages. A plantation of wet-leaf trees is more effective as a firebreak than a strip of cleared or burnt ground, since their foliage blocks flying embers. During the Canberra fire large manchurian pears in Morehead Street, Curtin, stopped flaming embers from reaching several houses.
Unlike eucalypts, whose roots release acids that limit the growth of rival plants, and whose dead leaves lie around until consumed in the next fire, leaf litter from deciduous trees rots down into compost and enriches the soil.
They also moderate air temperature and increase humidity through transpiration, keeping the ground cooler and less fire-prone, and they do not desiccate soils to the same degree as thirsty gums. As the early settlers complained, gum trees are so heat-adapted they turn the edges of their leaves to the sun and give very little shade.
Non-eucalypts may also offer advantages in terms of increased net carbon absorption. When calculating the effectiveness of a eucalypt plantation as a carbon sink, it is necessary to compare the quantity of carbon it absorbs during its years of growth with the quantity it releases when it burns - as, inevitably, it eventually will.
We don't want to give the impression that we are advocating anything like the program of the 19th-century acclimatisation societies, which sought the wholesale replacement of native ecosystems with English trees, shrubs and fauna - though it should be that recognised Aboriginal "fire-stick farming" radically transformed the botanical profile of the continent, assisting fire-loving species to become dominant. It would be absurd to clear stretches of mountain forest and replant it with oaks.
All we are suggesting is that tree-planting programs, particularly on the urban fringe and in areas where there is substantial settlement in gum forests and woodlands, consideration be given to varying the species mix by the addition of non-eucalypt varieties known for their fire-resistant properties.
Local governments should particularly encourage the planting of such species on the edge of towns and around dwellings. A belt of oaks or pistachios instead of eucalypts could mean the difference between life and death in the climatic conditions that lie ahead.
SOURCE
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
