ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG is pretty incensed that the Rudd government knew of the failures and dangers of their madcap "home insulation" scheme months before they took any action over it





GREENIE ROUNDUP

Three current articles below

Australiagate: Now NASA caught in trick over Aussie climate data

In this article we look at the findings of two independent climate researchers who analyse climatic data used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to show warming of two degrees per century for Australia without explanation. We find that an earlier study by Willis Eschenbach in an article on What’s up with That (WUWT) is wholly substantiated by Kens Kingdom’slatest analysis of Ken Stewart at his ‘kenskingdom’ blog. As a consequence, absent any other justification from NASA, we must conclude that the NASA data has been fraudulently cooked.

GISS, based at Columbia University in New York City, has adjusted over a century’s worth of temperature records from the vast Queensland State (the Sunshine State) to reverse a cooling trend in one ground weather station and increase a warming trend in another to skew the overall data set.

Independent analysis by Aussie blogger Ken Stewart exposes a deplorable smoking gun of cynical manipulation of raw temperature data.

The process of adjusting raw data to create a “homogenised” final global temperature chart is standard practice by climatologists whose work is relied upon by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and world governments. This homogenisation process of temperature data has fallen into disrepute since the Climategate scandal where scientists were proven to have unlawfully used a “trick” to fake climate data and then destroyed their calculations rendering it impossible for independent auditors to examine and justify the methodologies used.

Ken Stewart has his own take on these latest findings from Down Under: “Wow- when they adjust, they don’t muck around!”

GISS combines GHCN data from all urban stations applying the same inexplicable two degree temperature increase as shown below to reveal the shocking disparity between ‘raw’ data and the ‘cooked’ GISS data:

Ken proves that the GISS homogenised older data to make the climate appear cooler a hundred years ago and then ramped up modern data to artificially make recent years appear warmer. Thus climate scientists have artificially created a steep trend line to falsely give an impression of a 2 degrees rise in Australian temperatures over a 100 year period. Ken found that if climatologists had stuck to the raw data the trendline would have been as low as 0.2 degrees per 100 years – thus the overall temperature rise has been magnified by a factor of ten for no apparent reason other than to cause alarm.

Ken explains how he undertook his research: "I decided to have a look at the temperature records of the weather stations closest to where I live, near Mackay in North Queensland. The Bureau of Meteorology lists 3 current stations: Mackay MO, Mackay Aero, and Te Kowai Exp Station, plus the closed station Mackay Post Office. GISS has a list of nearby stations… Te Kowai is an experimental farm for developing new varieties of sugar cane, run by scientists and technicians since 1889. It has a temperature record of over 100 years with only a couple of gaps. So in fact it’s an ideal rural station for referencing a nearby urban station, as it should have a similar climate."

Ken found that the “Mackay Sugar Mill Station” was far hotter in the 1920’s and 30’s but GISS “disappeared” this data. However, if we add the warming period back in we find that the warming trend almost disappears to become less then 0.2 degrees per 100 years! Ken concludes, “How can GISS justify their manipulation of the data, which they claim not to do?”

Upon closer examination of GISS methodology it appears that accidentally on purpose they used a “trick” whereby they turned “Mackay Sugar Mill Station” into a small town rather than a rural station even though it’s been nothing much more than cane fields for the last 130 years. There are different procedures applied to homogenising data between urban and rural weather stations.

I have examined Ken’s findings and can concur with him that there exists inexplicable anomalies that, without exception, appear concocted (homogenized) to create a warming trend when no evidence in changes in the local environmental conditions warrants any such manipulation. Moreover, GISS does not publish any explanations of why they chose to make cooler those temperatures in the first 40 years of their sample and then ramp up the temperatures for recent years. Absent any explanation from them, we may draw our own conclusions that the GISS lowered the older temperature records and raised the temperatures of recent years to create a fictitiously steeper homogenised warming slope to fit a pre-conceived warmist agenda.

Ken says this is fraud, “And it’s happening in my own backyard! I’m furious!”

This finding, when compared to those from other independent observers shows further attempts by government and government-funded agencies to fraudulent create a man made warming signal in Australia from natural events and data.

Ken’s findings tie in really well with the anomaly exposed by WUWT where Willis Eschenbach found similar dodgy data for Darwin, in the Northern Territory ( a vast Aussie state of 1,349,129 square kilometres (520,902 sq mi):

Here is Eschenbach’s comment on the data about Darwin: "YIKES! Before getting homogenized, temperatures in Darwin were falling at 0.7 Celcius per century … but after the homogenization, they were warming at 1.2 Celsius per century. And the adjustment that they made was over two degrees per century … when those guys “adjust”, they don’t mess around. And the adjustment is an odd shape, with the adjustment first going stepwise, then climbing roughly to stop at 2.4C."

The similarities in degree and extent of fakery found separately by Eschenbach and Stewart proves a consistent fraudulent objective: make older temperatures appear artificially cooler and exagerrate recent temperature data.

Climategate.com has built up a close affinity with Australian skeptics who have worked tirelessly to expose the climate scam still being brainlessly plugged by Aussie Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. Further similar contributions submitted to us for publication are most welcome. We intend to continue to expose such fraud relying on the technical and analytical skills of gifted amateur bloggers to fully expose the greatest scam in the history of science. Our aim is to bring forth criminal and civil proceedings against all those involved.

SOURCE

Top science body 'in denial' over policy debate

THE CSIRO and the Rudd government are in "a state of denial" if they believe science can be separated from public policy, says eminent economist Clive Spash. He's hit back at criticisms his controversial paper on emissions trading read like "weak polemical journalism" and that the quality of his writing was substandard.

Professor Spash resigned in December following a long-running and bitter dispute over his report - The Brave New World of Carbon Trading. In the paper, Prof Spash suggests emission trading schemes, like the one the federal government hopes to introduce, are not the answer to climate change. It could even exacerbate the problem of human-induced global warming.

But the CSIRO blocked the paper's publication, arguing employees are restricted from commenting on public policy. CSIRO boss Megan Clark told a Senate estimates committee today she stood by the company charter. "I make no apologies for maintaining the standards of the CSIRO." She again defended the CSIRO's treatment of Prof Spash, saying she made every effort to convince him to make changes and thereby ensure its publication.

But Prof Spash was quick to return fire, and in a long list of grievances accused the CSIRO of harassment, intimidation and censorship over the course of several months. He was also gagged from talking publicly about his situation, he said. "My co-author withdrew from the paper feeling their job was under threat and I myself was harassed," he said in an email to AAP.

"Inappropriate mention of disciplinary action and implied dismissal were cited. "I was promised senior management would work with me. "Instead, I was given a substantially altered document without any input on my part. "I was then given an ultimatum to accept the changes or have the paper banned."

Prof Spash, a leading ecological economist originally head-hunted by the CSIRO, resigned two weeks later. He savaged the new charter as an attempt to micromanage CSIRO researchers, leading to self-censorship and preventing them from having any personal views made public. That was an infringement on free speech.

The CSIRO was wrong to think science could remain separate from public policy, Prof Spash said. "Open debate amongst researchers and in society is required to inform public policy, not manipulation of results due to fear of annoying political paymasters. "New information changes society in unpredictable ways and requires open public debate. "Management seems to be in a state of denial as to (this) reality."

He also took aim at Science Minister Kim Carr, who referred the Senate committee to an external review which labelled the paper "weak polemical journalism". "As a former school teacher I really wondered whether or not this was the sort of thing we were employing people to write on behalf of the CSIRO," Senator Carr also said. "The quality was just not there."

But journal New Political Economy, which was prevented from publishing the report, agreed the CSIRO was trying to censor it. It was "clearly improper" for the CSIRO to browbeat employees into changes which alter its conclusions, an editor wrote to Senator Carr in November. The unamended report was released publicly two days later.

SOURCE

PM left alone and exposed as big business backs away from Warmist laws

THE Rudd government has lost the last fig leaf on an emissions trading scheme that starts ahead of the rest of the world: "business certainty". The Business Council of Australia no longer considers the introduction of an ETS as providing business certainty and has put a caveat on support for an Australian scheme that cannot be met.

Given the fiasco of Copenhagen, the BCA has urged the government to change its scheme "in line with other international responses". Further, it has demanded the unconditional target of cutting greenhouse gases by 5 per cent by 2020, the same target as the Coalition's, not be lifted "before we have clear and credible commitments, and actions, from both developed and developing countries that are verifiable and monitored". That's impossible for nations such as China and India to meet: the BCA may as well have urged an ETS be set up on the moon before Australia lifts its target.

For more than two years, Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong have argued that there needed to be an early start for an ETS in Australia -- not just because climate change was the greatest moral challenge of our time but also to give business certainty for planning. That's why Labor originally argued for a 2010 start date and pushed it back only one year. It's also why the Prime Minister argued passionately for ETS legislation to pass last year when the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme bill first went to parliament and why he said it had to be passed before the climate change conference in Copenhagen .

Yet business and industry were not united on this need for "certainty"; even Malcolm Turnbull, as a Liberal leader supporting an ETS, argued for Australia to wait until after the UN conference.

Rudd consistently quoted the BCA as supporting his position. While some individual members were alarmed at Labor's plan, the BCA continued to support the government's position. That support's no longer there: the infant ETS is exposed on a hillside.

SOURCE





Queensland public hospital complaints go unanswered

But the light of publicity suddenly gets some action!

A YOUNG mum who can't hold her baby because of a botched hospital birth is among more than 20 Queenslanders whose complaints have been ignored by the independent patient safety watchdog. The Health Quality and Complaints Commission yesterday admitted that 22 online complaints about public hospital incidents had sat unread for up to five months because of a computer glitch.

The commission, which legally has 90 days to act, issued a receipt to patients but the complaints sat in a computer system until inquiries by The Courier-Mail alerted the HQCC to the problem.

One of the complaints was from Toowoomba mother Dawn Kelly, 20, who nearly died from a flesh-eating infection after having a caesarean. Her family believes the infection was caused by sloppy surgery and poor monitoring. Ms Kelly, who is allergic to latex, was given an epidural with a latex catheter. She has required 14 operations to repair damage to her uterus and abdomen since delivering her first child, Tyler, last April.

Ms Kelly and a neighbour who was visiting her in hospital say the surgeon said: "That's the way the cookie crumbles and this time the crumbs landed on you."

Ms Kelly's mother, Julie Parsons, said she had lost $25,000 in income while taking care of her daughter and Tyler, while Mrs Parson's husband David was working four jobs. "We've been kept in the dark on so many issues. There's nobody taking responsibility for anything," Mrs Parsons said. She had asked the HQCC to investigate in October, but was later told her online complaint was lost.

After being contacted by The Courier-Mail, the HQCC claimed the complaint was one of 22 unopened after being received online. The Courier-Mail understands the HQCC averaged one email every two days before the online complaints were shut down in November. "We apologise for the technical issue and wish to assure these complainants that we will manage their cases as quickly as possible," an HQCC spokeswoman said. The Parsons said their daughter had acute pain several times a week.

Queensland Health acting district chief executive officer Dr Peter Bristow said staff at the hospital "were sorry for the pain and suffering Dawn Kelly has been through. I realise that Ms Kelly's health problems have had a huge impact". Queensland Health said it was arranging an appointment for Ms Kelly to see a pain management specialist at a private hospital and to get surgery to permanently mend her abdomen in the near future.

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You can’t debate immigration without being called a racist

by Scott Morrison, Australia's Federal opposition spokesman on immigration and citizenship

Last week I returned from a visit to Christmas Island to Parliament where the Labor Member MP, John Sullivan, from Longman in Brisbane, interjected during a speech and called me a racist. At the time, I was speaking to an Appropriations Bill that was seeking additional funds to make up for shortfalls in this year’s budget. Included in these shortfalls was $132 million for off shore processing of asylum seekers. We were supporting the Bill.

I noted that the 100 per cent plus blow out in costs demonstrated the Government had failed to appreciate the impact of their policy changes on the detention population on Christmas Island, that is now at unsustainable levels. Apparently, criticising the government’s poor budget management these days is also grounds for being called a racist by Labor MPs.

Reflecting on John’s classy contribution, it occurred to me just how lazy arguments against stronger border protection can become. Rather than engage in the debate, some self appropriate piety and indulge in moral hectoring as a substitute.

It would seem easier for some to think that those who don’t agree with them are simply evil racists and unable to comprehend, let alone share, their own self assessed high minded capacity for human compassion, than listen to what they have to say.

The pro-boats doctrine pedalled by some and adopted in practice by the Rudd Government has no monopoly on concern for the world’s dispossessed. To suggest otherwise is simply arrogant. Here are some things to think about.

There are reports that more than one hundred Afghans – men, women and children – perished at sea last year in their bid to come to Australia. Their families in Brisbane will probably never know what happened to them. They’re still waiting for the call.

Where are the public protests about the fate of these 105 Afghans and the policies that encouraged them to get on that boat? We have no idea how many others have died on vessels that never arrived. We do know that last November 12 people drowned after their boat sunk west of the Cocos Islands, and on Saturday afternoon 45 people were rescued after drifting for four days without food or water. And then there were five people who were killed when their boat, SIEV36, was set alight and dozens more injured, also in an attempt to gain entry to Australia.

In each case people smugglers profit. The ticket price is between $5,000 and $20,000 per passenger.

Some will say, but what about those who arrive by air? Well, when was the last time you heard of an asylum seeker drowning on board a 747?

Then there are those in refugee camps. Around 140,000 Burmese refugees are in nine camps along the Thai-Burma border. They began arriving there in the early eighties. Today people who were born in these camps are now raising their own children there, where rape, domestic violence and substance abuse are commonplace. During the past five years Australia has granted almost nine thousand off shore humanitarian visas to Burmese refugees. This enjoys bi partisan support. I have no issue with taking 13,500 people under our humanitarian programme each year.

Where we differ is allowing places in our humanitarian programme to be exhausted by those who pay for the services of people smugglers in preference to those offshore in camps. I believe it violates our sense of fairness.

While there are many other reasons, saving lives and helping those who will never be able to pay a people smugglers ransom to come to Australia, strike me as good reasons to stop the illegal arrival of boats coming to Australia.

Since the Rudd Government started rolling back the border protection regime inherited from the Coalition in August 2008, 79 boats have illegally arrived carrying more than 3,600 passengers. Not even the monsoon and the threat of cyclones have been able to overwhelm the magnetic impact of the Rudd Government’s failed border protection policies. This summer, 23 boats have illegally arrived in our waters, compared to just four during the same period last year.

Rather than take action, the Rudd Government has been content to blame the rest of the world and hope the problem will just go away. Worse still, they cynically hope we will just get used to it.

Faced with an overflowing Christmas Island, the Rudd Government has already rolled over and transferred people directly to the mainland from Christmas Island before assessment of their asylum claims has been completed. This not only sends the worst possible message to people smugglers, but it opens up murky legal ground regarding the status of individuals transferred. It only takes one judge in one court with jurisdiction to hear a case and the dominoes will fall.

And then there was the Government’s special deal for the Oceanic Viking. Mr Rudd guaranteed fast track processing, spent Australia’s diplomatic favours around the world to guarantee resettlement and most significantly compromised our national security by bringing four people rejected by our security agencies to Australian territory. This is simply unforgivable. Mr Rudd still maintains the Oceanic Viking arrangement was ‘non-extraordinary’. He should try telling that to the 200 plus people sitting in the port at Merak, the Indonesian Government who no longer trust us on these issues and, for that matter, the 140,000 refugees in Thailand. The Rudd Government blinked and have now lost control.

The Coalition had no such difficulty when it came to dealing decisively with these issues in Government. Our views and resolve have not changed. We will not compromise the off shore processing regime. While Nauru and Manus are closed, if necessary, other alternative options will be found. Boats will be turned back if circumstances allow, as Mr Rudd promised he would do. And we will begin the work of recalibrating the policy settings unravelled by Labor, starting with the creation of a new temporary safe haven visa.

Some will not like these policies, but people smugglers will understand them. You will also be spared the hypocrisy of the Rudd Government pretending to be one thing while failing to be another.

SOURCE





Victorian governor abuses his office



VICTORIAN Governor David de Kretser must give up his political activism ... or resign. On Sunday, this supposedly bipartisan official will launch a divisive "civil campaign" with radical green activists and Marxists. That campaign is explicitly political, with organisers declaring on their website they will be "targeting individuals, community organisations, business and government".

Has de Kretser forgotten he has a day job? For him to help whip up a political campaign against politicians is an astonishing breach of a governor's duty to stay above politics and remain a neutral "umpire". As former governor, Labor stalwart and judge Richard McGarvie wrote, a governor or governor-general must be a "respected person who remains entirely above partisan politics and exerts a unifying influence".

Yet de Kretser is listed as keynote speaker at a "mass convergence" at the Melbourne Town Hall organised by the Transition Decade Alliance, a collective of four far Left and radical green groups, including the Climate Emergency Network. The word "convergence" and the plethora of new and grand-sounding organisations behind it are in fact the calling cards of anti-capitalist groups behind such often violent demonstrations as the S11 blockade of the World Economic Forum in 2000 and the demonstrations against George Bush and George W. Bush. Their aim is to suck in more reputable groups in a "convergence" which they then try to take over.

And, indeed, the Climate Emergency Network's members include the usual Marxist and revolutionary Left parties, such as Resistance, Socialist Alliance, Socialist Alternative and Solidarity, as well as law-breaking green protest groups such as Greenpeace and Rising Tide, behind the illegal blockade of coal trains at Newcastle.

Nor is this the only sign that should have warned de Kretser he was being used to dignify a militantly political rally. Joining him at the microphone will be David Spratt, who speaks at conferences organised by Marxist groups and demands we switch to a "war-type economy" and spend "more than 30 per cent ... of the economy" to "save most humans and species from a global warming apocalypse". Another co-sponsor is Friends of the Earth, an anti-corporate green group that helped to organise the S11 blockade and insists "wealthier people need to consume less".

Still not enough warning for de Kretser? Then surely he noticed that neither Labor nor the Liberals had sent a speaker to the convergence? Surely he knew that the only politician billed to appear on the stage with him was Christine Milne, the most extreme Greens politician in Federal Parliament? Can't de Kretser see just from this alone how inappropriate it is that he be there? This "unifying" and "bipartisan" official will seem to be siding with the Greens against the big parties.

This is the most extraordinary breach of a governor's duty I've seen. Just ask yourself. Would you expect the Queen to turn up to such a rally, aimed at "targeting ... government"? Then what is the Queen's man in Government House doing there?

It's ludicrous I should have to remind de Kretser why a governor should keep out of politics. Yet clearly I must. Political meddling by an unelected governor is undemocratic, for a start.

Even more important is that the essential role of a governor is to make sure the constitution works as it should. Usually that's uncontroversial work. But as we saw with the sacking of the Whitlam government in 1975, or of NSW premier Jack Lang in 1932, sometimes a governor-general or governor must act in ways that can have us at each other's throats, screaming that democracy is dead. It will then be absolutely critical that no one can prove the Governor a partisan. It's even more vital he isn't.

It is obvious that de Kretser is passionate about the issue of global warming, and even preached on that subject - inappropriately, thought some guests - at his reception last month for Prince William. He's entitled to such opinions, but he is not entitled to abuse his position to advance them - especially not when they are highly divisive and intended to influence the biggest issue now in Australian politics.

If de Kretser wants to become active in politics, he's perfectly free to do so. But he must first quit as Governor, or be made to.

SOURCE





NOTE: My QANTAS/Jetstar blog is getting frequent updates.

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG thinks the wheels are coming off Rudd's global warming bandwagon





Victoria to ape failed British hospital reform

It leads either to "fudging" the figures or to hasty and inappropriate treatment -- causing death in some instances

WAITING times for patients at Victorian hospital emergency wards would be slashed by half to four hours as part of sweeping health reforms. Victoria is already testing a four-hour target for emergency departments in three Melbourne hospitals. The Brumby Government is closely monitoring the trial before deciding whether to roll out a four-hour benchmark across the state.

South Australian Premier Mike Rann - who faces a tough election fight on March 20 - is leading a national push for the four-hour target. He has been lobbying other premiers and Canberra to back the health plan - with mixed success. NSW is understood to be lukewarm, believing it would require thousands of extra hospital beds, but Victoria and Western Australia are proceeding with the target in a bid to clear emergency wards.

The plan comes as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is finishing a suite of reforms that he hopes the states will sign in the next few months. It is believed the PM is keen to offer the states extra money to speed up elective surgery waiting lists. He also supports a reform suggested by his Health and Hospitals Reform Commission to pay at least 40 per cent of the "efficient cost" of every public patient admission.

Mr Rudd, who has backed away from a threat to take over the public hospitals, yesterday raised the prospect of introducing hospital boards. This would give local communities greater control over their hospitals - but critics claim it would cost tens of millions of dollars in extra bureaucracy.

The Rudd Government has been working through options with the states ahead of a Council of Australian Governments summit, scheduled for March or April. But the states are far from united on the best way forward for health reform. The plan to introduce a four-hour target for emergency departments highlights the national split. Supporters point to the success of a four-hour target introduced by Britain in 2004. The target, along with extra cash, has produced a big [superficial] improvement at UK emergency departments.

Some concerns have been raised that hospital staff had compromised the level of patient care in order to meet the tougher benchmark. At present, patients who have been rushed to emergency departments have to wait up to eight hours to be treated and either discharged or admitted to a hospital bed.

Canberra appears lukewarm to requests from South Australia for extra money. Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the Rudd Government had increased health and hospital funding by 50 per cent to a record $64 billion.

SOURCE






Political snobs risk turning Barnaby into a martyr

The usual leftist arrogance and reliance on abuse

Ahhh, now we get it. Lindsay Tanner is smarter than that “freak show” Barnaby Joyce. In case we didn’t get the message in parliament last week (we can be a bit slow sometimes) Mr Tanner spelled it out again on Meet the Press on the weekend. Not only is Senator Joyce “off the planet”, his team mate Joe Hockey is a “lightweight”.

Yesterday in parliament he repeated the lesson again for those who’d wagged the last one or drifted off while doodling on our pencil cases. Mr Hockey is “out to lunch”, and again he filled us in on Barnaby. According to Mr Tanner, Senator Joyce is evidence of “a very big question mark over the leader of the opposition’s judgment for appointing him in the first place.”

For someone who’s so much smarter than his counterpart, Mr Tanner seems to have skipped the chapter in Politics for Dummies called “Australians don’t like smug politicians who reckon they’re smarter than everyone else.”

A strong collective wisdom has formed in the commentary about the Coalition Finance spokesman that he’s a dolt. Take last week’s coverage of Senator Joyce’s comments about the foreign aid budget.

* The Age: Joyce loses the plot on international aid

* The Sydney Morning Herald: Barnaby Joyce in policy whacko-land. (They’re the same piece, different mastheads, different equally snotty headlines.)

* In Irate woman interrupts Liberal trip on news.com.au we read how Tony Abbott had “slapped down” his front bencher.

* And here on The Punch: Barnaby’s on his own with his comments on foreign aid.

Personally I think our foreign aid budget should be increased, not decreased, for two reasons: it’s the right thing to do, and the smart thing to do. But it is naive in the extreme to think that’s the only view out there. There’s not many people ringing talk back radio demanding we boost our funding to our troubled pacific neighbours or sling a few billion the way of Africa.

And was Saturday’s paper’s filled with people condemning Senator Joyce? No. Instead in the Daily Telegraph there were letters like:

* “Just how much longer do we have to put up with the childish antics of the Federal Labor Party who now resort to pathetic name-calling of Barnaby Joyce? It’s good to see Barnaby Joyce didn’t lower himself to their level,” wrote Gail Marsh of Riverstone.

* “Senator Barnaby Joyce is one of the few politicians who is making sense. His foreign aid comment made a lot of sense. We are billions in debt and borrowing more and more ... and we are still offering foreign aid. We should be looking after ourselves first,” wrote Bonny Nobrega of Earlwood.

* (Completely off track but worthy of sharing is this letter to the Tele from Susie Colvin of Bilgola Plateau: “All this talk about Tony Abbott wearing budgie smugglers is childish but I would like to say to his detractors that he at least appears to have a budgie to smuggle.”) [For overseas readers, she means that his manhood is evident. "Budgie Smugglers" is slang for a brief swimming costume]

I wonder how these people feel when Mr Tanner calls the man with whom their views accord a “freak show”? Or when commentators say his position makes him politically untenable? Pretty cheesed off I imagine.

The government’s “the opposition is stupid” theme was expanded during Question Time yesterday when Kevin Rudd called Tony Abbott “the straight talker from central casting.” Taking the piss out of people for speaking in coherent sentences is a high-risk political strategy, especially from the man who coined the phrase “programmatic specificity.”

I would have thought the left, and the more mainstream elements of the conservative side of politics would have learned how ineffective it is to write someone off as a half-wit when that strategy didn’t work with a certain red-headed fish and chip shop owner from Southern Queensland. You don’t have to agree with Barnaby Joyce but mocking him is going to have the effect of cementing his existing support base, and possibly giving him a leg up with some people who were undecided but don’t like smug bastards.

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Sydney bids to poach Indian students from "racist" Melbourne

SYDNEY is making a bid to poach Indian students from Melbourne with a campaign to promote NSW as a safe study destination. NSW Premier Kristina Keneally said some Indians were failing to differentiate between the two cities after claims in India of racist violence in Melbourne.

Premier John Brumby has repeatedly denied claims that Victoria is racist. He has called on the services of cricket king Shane Warne to try to smooth relations in India. Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu this week said Mr Brumby was burying his head in the sand about the problem, claims backed by Indian student leaders.

Ms Keneally said a minister would be sent to India to tell education representatives students would be helped into safe accommodation in NSW. "The difference between Sydney and Melbourne may be lost in the overseas market. We want to send a message NSW is a welcoming place for international students," Ms Keneally said.

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Australian bank the world's best for profits

A CAGEY interest rate strategy and lower bad debt charges have propelled Commonwealth Bank to a record first-half cash profit of $2.94 billion. The country's largest home lender and deposit-taker boosted the profitability of its lending operations by driving volumes through the Government's first-home-buyer grant and keeping a tight lid on costs. The bumper result, which puts the bank on track for a $6 billion full-year bottom line, was signalled to investors two weeks ago when CBA upgraded its earnings guidance. It establishes CBA as the world's most profitable retail bank with a return on equity of 18.5 per cent.

Chief executive Ralph Norris was upbeat about CBA's prospects as the Australian economy recovered from the global downturn. He defended CBA against claims it had gouged customers to achieve the stunning cash result, which was 54 per cent up on the previous first half. "There's nothing worse than a bank that can't make money," Mr Norris said.

"Over the last six months the outlook for the global and domestic economy has improved to the extent that Australia now appears to be on the road to a sustainable economic recovery. That is likely to bring with it a gradual improvement in demand for credit in the 2010 calendar year accompanied by continued upward pressure on our funding costs."

Mr Norris, now in his fifth year at the helm, said he wanted to continue as CEO. "I'm sticking around a for a while yet - although that's at the board's discretion," he said. He said the bad debt cycle, which eroded the performance of the banking sector in the past two years, had probably peaked after CBA's charge for impaired loans fell 29 per cent.

The recovery on global equities markets also fired the result, with investment activities generating a $142 million return compared with a loss of almost $200 million in the previous first half.

However, the bank can thank its depositors for helping to keep a lid on funding costs. CBA did not gouge most borrowers in the December half, relying instead on heavy volume growth to drive interest revenue. The interest take from home and personal borrowers actually fell. It was depositors who were forced to absorb the pain, with the bank delaying rate increases on leading deposit products until the end of the reporting period. The average interest paid by CBA to depositors with transaction accounts and fixed deposits fell to 3.48 per cent from 5.52 per cent a year earlier. The bank's interest margin rose because of this sharp decline in the cost of raising retail deposits.

SOURCE

Drought-gate

By Andrew Bolt

Melbourne University alarmist David Karoly once claimed a rise in the Murray Darling Basin’s temperatures was “likely due to the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from human acitivity” and: "This is the first drought in Australia where the impact of human-induced global warming can be clearly observed."

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd grabbed the scare and exploited it:

BRENDAN Nelson was yesterday accused of being “blissfully immune” to the effects of climate change after he said the crisis in the Murray-Darling Basin was not linked to global warming…

In parliament yesterday, Kevin Rudd attacked Dr Nelson, accusing him of ignoring scientific facts.

“You need to get with the science on this,” the Prime Minister said. “Look at the technical report put together by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology.”

But now comes the latest evidence that Rudd and Karoly were wrong: in fact, there’s no evidence in the Murray Darling drought of man-made warming, says a new study in Geophysical Research Letters:

Previous studies of the recent drought in the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) have noted that low rainfall totals have been accompanied by anomalously high air temperatures. Subsequent studies have interpreted an identified trend in the residual timeseries of non-rainfall related temperature variability as a signal of anthropogenic change, further speculating that increased air temperature has exacerbated the drought through increasing evapotranspiration rates. In this study, we explore an alternative explanation of the recent increases in air temperature. This study demonstrates that significant misunderstanding of known processes of land surface – atmosphere interactions has led to the incorrect attribution of the causes of the anomalous temperatures, as well as significant misunderstanding of their impact on evaporation within the Murray-Darling Basin…

However, to accept the correlation [between temperature and rainfall] as the sole basis for the attribution of cause to human emissions is to implicitly assume that the correlation represents an entirely correct model of the sole driver of maximum air temperature. This is clearly not the case.

What’s causing the evaporation and temperatures is not (man-made) warming. It’s kind of the other way around: more sunshine, through lack of cloud cover, and lack of rain and therefore evaporation is causing higher temperatures.

And guess which scandal-ridden and alarmist IPCC report relied on Karoly’s claims? Reader Baa Humbug:

Karoly was cited very extensively in the AR4 WG1 paper.e.g. Chapter 9 9.4.2.3 Studies Based on Indices of Temperature Change and Temperature-Precipitation Relationships."Studies based on indices of temperature change support the robust detection of human influence on continental-scale land areas. Observed trends in indices of North American continental scale temperature change, (including the regional mean, the mean land-ocean temperature contrast and the annual cycle) were found by Karoly et al. (2003) to be generally consistent with simulated trends under historical forcing from greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols during the second half of the 20th century. In contrast, they find only a small likelihood of agreement with trends driven by natural forcing only during this period.

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"High" standards at an Australian public hospital

And a government that refuses to do anything about it

A SENIOR nurse was undergoing emergency surgery last night after slipping in a puddle caused by a leaking vent at the decaying Hornsby hospital. Her fall came two months after orders were given to hide the crumbling, water-damaged ceiling by painting over it.

Last year angry doctors called the rundown hospital "offensive and mediaeval", and complained of possum urine on the walls, dangerous cables across floors, and ceilings collapsing from rain damage. They have run a campaign to have the hospital rebuilt and say they were stunned to see a tradesman painting over the water damage in December.

In the latest incident, Andrea Walters, 54, who said staff had been mopping up water from leaking ceilings in her ward for 16 years, was finishing her shift in the operating theatres on Sunday night when she slid in the puddle. She landed heavily on her side, shattering her right arm. Doctors fear she will need a partial joint reconstruction and a nerve graft. She is expected to be off work for at least three months.

The head of the hospital's medical staff council, Richard Harris, said yesterday: "We are very cranky and upset about this, particularly as the rain marks were painted over … We haven't seen any evidence the state government is taking this issue seriously, and we now demand action."

Dr Harris said the Health Minister, Carmel Tebbutt, was shown several buckets under the vent during a visit in October. They were put in place after Sydney received 27 millimetres of rain in two days. She had asked how staff managed to move patients from the operating theatres to wards through open corridors in bad weather. "She was told it was a nightmare," Dr Harris said, "but nothing was done."

On Sunday two garbage bins and eight towels were put under the vent to catch the rain. They were removed when the leaking subsided, but another downpour about 9pm flooded the floor and caught Ms Walters unaware. "This was totally avoidable," she said. "The [leak] has been placed in the too-hard basket, and it should have been fixed. I haven't got a little bruise, I've got a life-changing injury."

A clinical nurse specialist who has worked at the hospital for 23 years, Ms Walters said she now feared she could lose her house because nurses do not receive penalty rates - which make up a large portion of their income - while on worker's compensation.

A spokesman for the Northern Sydney Central Coast Area Health Service said theatre staff reported the leak on October 26 and the ceiling was repaired two days later. Aesthetic repairs, including painting, were done on December 17. Maintenance staff were working to fix the leak, but there were no plans to replace the roof, she said.

An independent review, the sixth in 30 years, this week found the hospital to be unsafe. The review, part of a redevelopment master plan, found the theatres were a fire risk, surgical and medical wards were cramped and did not allow for effective clinical supervision; and bathrooms, nursing stations and storage areas were too small. It said the hospital needed painting, asbestos removed and its roofs repaired.

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DNA backlog allows criminals to roam free

In a reasonable world there would be a 24 hour turnaround on this

Criminals are being left to roam the streets because of a backlog in DNA evidence waiting to be analysed, the NSW Auditor-General says. The demand for DNA analysis has increased by almost 40 per cent in the past five years, with little in the way of funding increases, a report by the Audit Office says. There is a backlog of 6400 cases waiting for the analysis of DNA evidence gathered - a backlog that would take a year to clear with current resources.

The Auditor-General, Peter Achterstraat, recommended that police should prioritise DNA samples to have the best evidence analysed first. He also suggested prioritising break-in and other property crimes and moving the most recent cases to the front of the queue to get criminals off the streets. Other states had overcome their DNA backlog with greater resources, he said.

"The safety of the people of NSW is of paramount importance. "Crimes need to be solved as quickly as possible and delays need to be eliminated. "The efficient use of forensic analysis is critical in the prevention of further crime and needs to be addressed immediately for the benefit of the public."

AAP reports: To reduce the backlog, Mr Achterstraat recommended a user-pays system for DNA analysis, and for police to better manage demand. "Firstly, we need a user-pays agreement for all DNA analysis," he said. "Secondly, police must manage demand by determining the best evidence in a case and analysing that first. "Thirdly, the great impact on reducing property crimes will be analysing DNA evidence for the most recent cases first by moving them to the front of the queue. This will give police a better chance of catching criminals and preventing further crimes."

Mr Achterstraat also recommended a review of the cost effectiveness of outsourced DNA analysis. While NSW Health's Division of Analytical Laboratories conducts the bulk of DNA testing, about 5500 cases a year have been outsourced to the private sector. Outsourced analysis costs $412 per item, almost twice as much as tests done by NSW Health, the report says.

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Bank boss warns Rudd government against major regulatory reform

He's self-evidently right. Australian banks continued to make good profits while overseas banks were falling like ninepins. Disclosure: I am a CBA shareholder -- JR

Commonwealth Bank of Australia chief executive Ralph Norris has warned the Rudd government the Australian banking system does not need widespread regulatory reform based on the "poor practices" of overseas banks which sparked the global financial crisis.

The warning came as the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) posted a cash net profit of $2.943 billion for the first half, up 54 per cent on the same time last year. The profit increase, which was slightly above the bank’s previous guidance, was attributed to a decline in bad debt and impairment charges and flat cost growth due to a wage freeze for senior executives. The bank declared an interim dividend of $1.20, up 6 per cent, which takes CBA’s payout ratio back to 63 per cent -- the same level as before the start of the financial crisis.

Mr Norris told analysts it was vital regulators in Australia did not duplicate the potential widespread regulatory changes that were under consideration for the global banking system. The CBA also warned that funding costs would remain high in the next year due to longer-term funding remaining expensive and competition in the market for retail deposits. "There are regulatory discussions covering a number of areas of capital, liquidity and provisioning," Mr Norris said.

"The view has been expressed that there is a need to address a major failure in the global banking system but in reality that failure was only in the US, the UK and parts of continental Europe. "Outside these markets, the banks have performed reasonably well but the flow-on effects are likely to be felt for some time. "The cost to banks to access wholesale funding will remain elevated. Australia has largely avoided the impact and the major banks are in a strong financial position."

Mr Norris said the government had to ensure the Australian banks were not "materially disadvantaged" by potential regulatory changes. The banks are concerned a proposed move to make them hold more capital and liquid assets would drive up their costs. "We must be careful that Australia, which has a healthy banking system, is not materially disadvantaged by changes driven by the poor practices of banks in the northern hemisphere," Mr Norris said.

"One of the reasons why the Australian economy has performed so well is that the banks have been able to support their customers. I don’t know of any strong economy that does not have a healthy banking system."

Mr Norris, who is also the chairman of the Australian Bankers' Association, said he had told the government and regulators that there was a risk of over-reacting and implementing too much regulation in Australia.

The CBA's chief financial officer David Craig said the bank's move to cut some fees had cost CBA $50million-$60 million in the first half, however, that could double in the second-half.

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Motorist anger as cyclists flout rules

Many cyclists are testosterone junkies who are incapable of considering other people

ROGUE cyclists are routinely running red lights and flouting road rules in Queensland, fuelling a growing backlash from motorists. Fed up with cyclists treating the rules with contempt, members of Queensland's peak motoring group are demanding the growing packs of riders get off busy roads.

Police images obtained by The Courier-Mail show cyclists blatantly running red lights and even breaking the speed limit. One red light camera at the intersection of Logan and Broadwater roads at Mt Gravatt captured four cyclists in the wrong on three occasions in November. Cyclists also have been snapped by speed cameras at Mt Coot-tha travelling up to 18km over the 60km/h limit. But lack of identification means police are often powerless to prosecute the offenders.

Penalties for cyclists caught breaking the law are substantially lower than for motorists who commit the same offence. Cyclists face a $100 fine for running a red light, compared with $300 and three demerit points for drivers. In a 10-month period last year, 168 cyclists were fined for disobeying a red light and 187 booked for riding without proper lights.

Growing numbers of cyclists on congested roads have been blamed for increasing friction with motorists. RACQ spokeswoman Lynda Schekoske said a recent survey found 85 per cent of its 1.2 million members wanted harsher penalties for cyclists who broke the rules. Its members also wanted separate facilities for cyclists, particularly on roads with high speed limits.

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NOTE: My Queensland police blog never seems to lack new reports lately.

“Understanding the Ruddy ETS”

The Carbon Sense Coalition today claimed that the Emissions Trading Scheme proposed for Australia and now before the Australian Parliament was far more than “A Great Big New Tax”. The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that PM Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme combined a Big New Tax with a War-Time Rationing scheme and an Income redistributing compensation scheme, all to be run by a regulatory army probably bigger than our real army.

He continued: “Let’s try to understand this Ruddy ETS. “To simplify things, let’s look at just the electricity industry.

“If Rudd’s ETS ever rules Australia, companies producing electricity from carbon fuels must beg, buy or borrow a permit to burn coal, gas or diesel. “They can beg a free permit from some mate in Canberra; they can buy a permit from some lucky sod who managed to get more permits than he needs; they can borrow a permit by entering into some tricky derivative trade with a speculator in Chicago; or they can pay carbon credit penance to a shifty land owner in some foreign land who promises solemnly not to clear his trees. “No matter which option is chosen, power costs will go up and companies must pass the extra cost (plus GST) onto their customers or go broke. “There will be no effect on climate.

“Now look at consumers. “The ETS must push up the cost of all goods and services using carbon fuel. It will boost the cost of electricity, food, transport and travel. When this happens, consumers will suddenly understand the ETS Tax and politicians who voted for it will feel their anger.

“But there is a plan: “Let’s compensate all those likely to vote for us”. “If these subsidies work properly, the lucky consumers will be in the same position as they were before ETS, except for the extra bureaucracy. For these consumers, there is no signal to reduce their consumption of carbon fuels. The ETS will do nothing except create a tangle of red tape which consumes and redistributes wealth.

“But for the un-subsidised consumers, the ETS is an extra tax on everything. “And for the power companies, the ETS will produce nothing except a heap of angry customers, and lots of red tape.

Mr Forbes claimed that Tony Abbott was wrong about the ETS. “It is not just a Great Big Tax. “It’s a Great Big Tax PLUS a mountain of Red Tape. “And it will have absolutely no effect on world climate.”

Press release from Carbon Sense above







Kevin Rudd under fire for 'broken' hospitals pledge

KEVIN Rudd's election pledge to fix the nation's hospitals is under fresh attack after the Prime Minister said he wanted a "compromise" with states. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott jumped on Mr Rudd's comments and accused him of "walking away" from his promise of a federal takeover of hospitals if the states disagreed with his reform plan. In a sustained attack, Mr Abbott accused the Prime Minister of a string of broken promises and labelled him deceptive, weak, tricky and a lifelong bureaucrat addicted to process in a foretaste of the Coalition's election campaign.

Opposition Treasury spokesman Joe Hockey said: "If the Prime Minister cannot keep his 2007 election commitments, how can he be trusted with his 2010 election commitments?"

Labor previewed its attack, repeatedly questioning the Coalition's economic credentials. Mr Rudd said Mr Abbott's attack was "distraction with a capital D" to deflect from former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull's climate change rebellion. Mr Turnbull confirmed he would cross the floor to support Labor's emissions trading scheme in an impassioned speech where he bucketed Mr Abbott's alternative plan. He said that schemes like Mr Abbott's – where "bureaucrats and politicians (would) pick technologies and winners, doling out billions of taxpayers dollars" – were neither economically efficient nor environmentally effective.

During a failed censure motion, Mr Abbott accused Mr Rudd of breaking several election promises, from fixing the the hospital system by mid-2009, to preventing homelessness and ensuring no worker would be worse off under Labor's workplace changes.

Opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton told The Courier-Mail: "This puts a big question mark on Kevin Rudd's integrity (and he's) had two years of wasted opportunity in health." He said Mr Rudd's willingness to compromise with the states was "confirmation he won't be able to fix hospitals".

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OECD queries cost of new broadband network

But it's Kevvy's own idea -- his only one -- so he's likely to stick to it

THE OECD has questioned Labor's $43 billion national broadband network as the Communications Minister Stephen Conroy fends off an Auditor-General's report that shows $30 million was lost after he ignored public service advice that his original scheme risked failure.

As the opposition yesterday seized on the Australian National Audit Office report's findings that the government had been given "clear advice" of the risks in implementing its NBN election commitment, the head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Australia desk, Claude Giorno, called on the Rudd government to apply more rigorous cost-benefit analysis to its infrastructure spending, including its $43 billion broadband network. Mr Giorno said "questions need to be answered" about Labor's broadband network because of the amount of spending involved and the apparent lack of any cost-benefit analysis.

The government's proposed fixed fibre technology network required "very careful assessment". "Maybe not everybody needs to have a very-high-speed broadband connection," he said. "Maybe it would be less costly to develop alternative technology depending on where you are geographically."

Taxpayers lost $17m and bidders about $13m. The government paid $604,918 to a panel of experts and $10.96m to consultants - including legal adviser Corrs Chambers Westgarth ($3.45m), investment, financial and commercial adviser KPMG ($2.85m) and regulatory adviser Frontier Economics ($1.31m). The experts panel, which assessed the original NBN bids, included: Tony Mitchell ($168,893.56); Rod Tucker ($161,476.63); Tony Shaw ($112,895.94); Reg Coutts ($128,892.49); and John Wylie ($32,759.49).

Opposition Senate leader Nick Minchin accused Senator Conroy of misleading the Senate on February 3 last year when he said the government's ambition was to sign a contract for the NBN by March. This was despite Senator Conroy having received a report from the expert panel on January 20 that none of the bids represented value for money.

Senator Conroy denied he had misled parliament, saying on February 3 that a range of policy options was still open to the government.

Opposition communications spokesman Tony Smith said taxpayers should be worried as Senator Conroy embarked on the new NBN proposal. "Taxpayers have every reason to be worried that the same master of this disaster is presiding over even more taxpayers' funds on the reckless NBN II proposal, which was announced without a cost-benefit analysis or a business plan."

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Western Australia: Gifted kids let down by system

THOUSANDS of potential child geniuses are going unrecognised in schools, leaving many in danger of never reaching their full potential. For some of WA's 35,000 gifted children, their overlooked "gifts" have become a burden, forcing them to turn to misbehaviour or switch off from lessons.

According to US child intelligence expert Deborah Ruf, the education system - particularly primary schools - is failing to get the most out of gifted children. Dr Ruf, who will be speaking at the University of WA this week, said schools spent more time focusing on struggling pupils. "The brightest children spend nearly the entirety of their school years being instructed far below their capacity to learn, with the result that we are losing them and what they could become," she told The Sunday Times.

"Many of these exceptionally bright children are living right now in homes and learning in classrooms where the adults responsible for them often don't know or don't fully understand their potential. "Some of them are mistakenly labelled as behaviour problems. Others flounder in classrooms designed to meet the needs of children who are far behind them in their learning."

Gifted and Talented Children's Association of WA spokeswoman Kriss Muskett said gifted children went unnoticed because teachers did not know how to identify them. She called for teachers to be trained "at an undergraduate level" to recognise different levels of giftedness and how to deal with those children.

The Education Department said gifted primary school pupils were given the opportunity to extend themselves through the Primary Extension and Challenge Program. The part-time program is available to students in Years 5, 6 and 7. There are also 16 secondary schools that offer selective programs.

David Axworthy, executive director of school support services, said WA was the only state to test every student in Year 4 to see if they needed to be challenged, and more than $7 million a year was spent on public school programs designed for gifted students. Education Minister Liz Constable said she was committed to the development of gifted children because she had completed her PhD in the area.

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Queensland Health a bureaucratic mess

ONE of the world's top medical experts has delivered a damning assessment of Queensland Health five years after the Bundaberg Hospital scandal. The unflattering report comes despite billions of dollars in extra funding being poured into the system after the Bundaberg fiasco. The top-level review, conducted by recently retired UK chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson, found the department and the independent watchdog set up following the 2005 health inquiries had little idea who was responsible for improving patient safety.

Obtained by The Courier-Mail, the August 2009 report said hospitals had overlapping and unclear safety standards, were too reliant on overseas-trained doctors while staff were burdened with duplication. There was also no strategy for remote and regional areas while the public was given a "weak voice" in the system.

In one of a raft of botched policies, Sir Liam identified an "ambiguity" between the roles of Queensland Health and the Health Quality and Complaints Commission. "(There is) no clear agreement on the respective roles of the (HQCC) and Queensland Health in quality improvement," the report said.

Sir Liam, who visited for a week last year focusing on clinical governance, said Queensland had made a "major commitment" to reform, including an impressive roll-out of programs, strong leadership and accountable services. But he also identified areas where policy was ill-defined or lacking, including unclear and varying reporting standards. "Some standards have strong clinical and managerial credibility, others are not valued," the report said.

Sir Liam, whose bill is expected to hit about $40,000, said recruitment was strengthened but that it took four to five months to hire doctors. "Many areas are still heavily dependent on locums (mainly international medical graduates)," the report said.

It also said that the role of the QH Patient Safety Board needed refocusing. "At the end of every meeting, the board should ask itself: 'Have we concentrated on the most important things?'," Sir Liam said.

Sir Liam noted patient safety was comparable to other countries but the PRIME incident reporting system was overburdening staff. "There is a clear sense of 'implementation fatigue' permeating the current system," Sir Liam said.

Predicting tensions, Sir Liam said QH should own responsibility for quality standards but said the HQCC was "ambitious" and wanted to be proactive in patient safety culture. "On the other hand, it is unlikely that Queensland Health's senior management would accept a wide-ranging quality improvement and cultural change role for the commission," he said.

Centre for Healthcare Improvement boss Tony O'Connell said it was moving in the right direction but admitted more work was required. "This is always a work in progress and we'd never say we'd completed all tasks," he said.

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Australia Tightens Immigration Rules

Foreign doctors, nurses and school teachers who speak good English and have jobs already organised will be Australia's top priority migrants under new immigration policy

Australian Immigration Minister Chris Evans announced Monday several reforms to his country's immigration policy, including several policy changes aimed at attracting more highly-skilled immigrants to the country.

Criticizing the ongoing trend for new immigrants to enroll for vocational courses for gaining residency, Evans said that Australia would change the current list of 106 skills in demand and review a points test based on qualifications, skills and proficiency in English currently used to assess migrants. He said that the present list will now be replaced by a "more targeted" Skilled Occupations List.

"We had tens of thousands of students studying cookery and accounting and hairdressing because that was on the list and that got them through to permanent residency," Evans told Australian radio, adding that such courses will no longer be an assured path to permanent residence.

"The current points test puts an overseas student with a short-term vocational qualification gained in Australia ahead of a Harvard-educated environmental scientist," Evans said.

"We want to make sure we're getting the high-end applicants," Evans said, stressing that the changes brought about by the new immigration policies would try to attract more health workers, including more doctors and nurses, as well more qualified professionals in the fields of engineering and mining.

"The new arrangements will give first priority to skilled migrants who have a job to go to with an Australian employer. For those who don't have an Australian employer willing to sponsor them, the bar is being raised," Evans said.

"If hospitals are crying out for and willing to sponsor nurses, then of course they should have priority over the 12,000 un-sponsored cooks who have applied and who, if they were all granted visas, would flood the domestic market," he added.

Evans also pointed out that some 170,000 people applied for living and working permanently in Australia last year alone, when there were just 108,000 vacancies available. He added that all lower-skilled applications lodged before 1st September 2007 would be withdrawn and application fees worth A$14 million ($12.15 million) refunded.

The reforms in Australia's immigration policy comes in wake of reports that thousands of students from overseas, mainly from Asia, were manipulating the existing system by providing fraud documents to enroll for vocational courses at private Australian colleges, purely to gain residency permits.

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Kevvy's true colours are beginning to show

KEVIN Rudd is turning Left and Tony Abbott is turning Right. This sets the context for the coming election battle. It means that ideology has returned strongly to Australian politics.

After two years of prevarication the Prime Minister's recent defiant speech promising a continuing splurge on infrastructure has now branded this as a big spending socialist government clearly in the mould of the Whitlam government. It includes the centralisation of power over the states and intervention in urban policies. Rudd has not learned the lessons of the Hawke and Keating governments, which were more adept at using market forces to achieve their policy objectives and much more in partnership with the private sector.

This trend will continue throughout the year, which already presents some key opportunities for more government intervention and attempts at redistribution of wealth.

The Henry tax review, the Cooper Report on superannuation and a tight budget will provoke a response from this government, which will see greater slugs on business, as too will the poorly designed Emissions Trading Scheme.

Higher income earners will also be targeted, especially through steeper means tests so beloved of Wayne Swan. The justification offered will be to offset the sequence of interest rate rises that are going to emanate from the Reserve Bank throughout 2010, because once again it will be the mortgage belts around the capital cities that will determine this coming election.

This is because the economy will return to centre stage as the election issue. Climate change will fade as an issue in the minds of voters in the aftermath of the Copenhagen debacle, recent lack of confidence in the scientific integrity of the UN Intergovernmental Panel and the weakening of expert international support for the kind of cap and trade schemes the Rudd government is so doggedly pursuing.

Indeed the unseemly speed with which the government tried to ram its legislation through last year was of great concern given that virtually no attempt was made to inform and educate the public on one of the most expensive and interventionist policies in Australian history.

Similar arguments are true of the ill-conceived, taxpayer-funded broadband scheme, which could just as easily be achieved through private sector funding and tweaked regulation.

The hidden agenda is in workplace relations where it is clear that the trade union movement has been promised further fulfilment of its aims in a second term of office to honour its key role in the election of the government . Just after becoming Liberal Leader, Tony Abbott made a monumental mistake in flagging a return to elements of the Howard government's Work Choices industrial relations regime as this will galvanise union support and funding for Labor in the coming election even from those unions that have been disenchanted with the tepid action from Julia Gillard on key planks of union policies during the first two years of office.

Abbott is taking the Coalition in many conservative directions on economic and social-ethical policy, which is cementing closer relations with the Nationals, and it is clear the public has warmed to the concept of an opposition that puts up a real fight to the government. But it is not clear that his missiles are guided ones. In modern politics all policy pronouncements need to be part of a carefully honed strategy, especially in an election year.

For this coming election will be close. The focus on opinion polling, which has the government well ahead, has taken attention away from the fact that it would take no more than a uniform swing of just over 2 per cent to topple the Rudd government. There are a string of marginal seats in NSW and Queensland; states in which Labor governments are performing very poorly. Recent experience shows us that a party's performance at state level does affect the support it receives at national elections. There are elections in South Australia and Victoria this year that will probably see Labor returned to office but the national government has few prospects of gains of marginal seats in those states.

This emphasis on states reminds voters of the enormous disappointment of the much touted Council of Australian Governments that, for the past two years has tinkered with, but produced no significant, reforms to the federation including the so-called "education revolution", which has proved such a damp squib.

But the key policy failure has been health. Here the best that COAG could come up with was a promise of a "decision-making framework", while ambulances are being turned away from emergency departments, patients lie in beds on hospital verandas, and people wait in vain for places in aged care accommodation rather than in hospital. The failure of the Rudd government to take over state hospitals stands as the most serious of its eight major broken promises from the previous election. Health is going to be a significant election issue.

Labor is going to lose some votes to the Greens at the coming election because of its compromise approach to climate change and it cannot be assured that these will all return to Labor in the form of preferences. And on this score there will be no double or triple dissolution on climate change. Labor cannot control the Senate through this tactic; it would just increase the number of Greens in the upper chamber, which would provide a headache, and climate change will fade as an issue. In the world of political reality a double dissolution is a desperate "crash or crash through" strategy, when all else has failed. There has been only one joint sitting of parliament, in far more dire circumstances than these. There is no need for a double dissolution. At present it looks like a bluff to try to divide the Coalition and maybe stockpile some other bills to keep the pressure on the opposition especially over industrial relations.

Australians tend to give new governments a second chance and the polling during the past two years would seem to suggest that the odds favour Labor this time round. But this coming election will be fought on ideological grounds, which has not occurred for some time and will at least give citizens a fresh chance to think seriously about the role of governments in their lives.

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Something's rotten in the state of NSW - comprehensive public schools

The comprehensive public school classroom is an unreformed rotten borough of public policy. The My School website represents the first significant, successful reform of the Rudd/Gillard era and a welcome departure from decades of union resistance to desperately needed educational change.

Education is a sector sufficiently charged with mythology and vested interests that it's virtually impossible for us to tell each other the truth. At the risk of unfairly disparaging a legion of inspirational teachers, I will now have a crack at that task.

Education in NSW is delivered in five distinct packages: state selective schools, elite private schools, other independent schools (Anglican, Muslim, other religious and non-religious), the Catholic parochial schools, and the state comprehensive schools. The competing power centres, in order of influence, are the NSW Department of Education, the education unions, the federal Ministry of Education (essentially a funding and testing body), principals, teachers and parents. Four out of five pistons are firing - all effort must now be concentrated on lifting the teaching and learning environment of the comprehensive public school.

From a "consumer value" perspective" the selective state school is at the top of the food chain. It costs little to attend, requires little parental involvement and is the most ruthlessly exclusive model. Almost all students attending these schools are the children of first-generation migrants, mainly from Asia and the subcontinent. The smart parents of these smart kids worked out quickly which side of the bread the butter was on. By spending a few thousand dollars on coaching in primary school they can avoid shelling out 50 times that amount to gain access to the quality of teaching and the peer group they want for their children. In terms of results, it's a subsidy worth paying. The Anglo Australians are either too dumb or too complacent to make the same commitment to their children's future.

The selective government school system was extended in the 1980s and '90s as a response to the growing tide of evacuation from public to private schools - worse in NSW than any other state. The NSW Department of Education widened the range of selectivity from academic and agricultural to include centres of excellence in sport, technology and the performing arts. The move was largely successful in fostering great public schools, by drawing on motivated teachers and creating a positive peer-pressure environment.

The problem for public schools generally had been a vacuum of culture. While the non-government schools could define themselves by some coherent religious (or Steiner or other) ethic and community, the public system, in the absence of selectivity, took refuge in concepts of inclusiveness and tolerance, which lacked the horsepower to inspire commitment from parents, teachers and students. The resulting vacuum has been filled by behaviourally challenged students and defensive, disengaged parents - a problem massively exacerbated after the state selective schools and the non-government sector hoovered up the most talented and motivated students.

The so called "comprehensive" school lost its student role models. One public high school principal confessed to me the difficulty he was facing in getting students to accept academic awards at speech day for fear of being mocked and bullied in the playground.

In that climate, the academic results and overall school discipline went into free fall. Many outer suburban "comprehensive" schools, with no effective means to discipline chronic misbehaviour, became a chapter out of the Lord of the Flies. There is a tipping point where the forces of bullying, abuse, high staff turnover and low common-room morale, vandalism and outright violence overwhelms the educational project. Teachers become mere child minders, enduring a job they hate, trying desperately to do something for the few kids who really want to learn. With limited government budgets and without a supportive school community, there is no money for new initiatives.

The comprehensive primary school often evidences a complete drought of male teachers. Low remuneration, low prospects of merit promotion, the risk of sexual allegations in a low-trust culture, and the militant feminism of the teacher unions, creates an intensely male-unfriendly environment. The absence of strong, sporty male teachers is a disaster for boys' education. Education unions, rightly sensing the odds were stacked against them, adopted a strategy of resisting any kind of accountability for teacher and school performance and resisting the empowerment of principals that might distinguish one school from another. Most have no ability to select their own staff or nurture their own ethic, instead suffering a revolving door of department-directed staff transfers.

The unions have worked to maintain a victim culture under which the answer to every question is "more funding", putting all their creative energy into political campaigns that are designed to provide cover for the abysmal performance of most (but not all) outer-suburban comprehensive public schools.

However, there is hope. All the research shows the strongest ballast against the forces of darkness is an inspiring principal. I have witnessed non-selective public schools, drawing heavily from housing department estates and low-income suburbs, that bristle with pride, energy, courtesy and learning - invariably revolving around an inspirational principal..

The My School website is an excellent first step towards parent empowerment and engagement. It allows high-performing public schools to receive the credit they richly deserve, and flushes out the complacent among the privileged private schools.

It should be expanded to include: the number of teacher absences, the turnover of teaching staff, the number of teachers on stress leave, the number of former teachers in litigation with the department, physical assaults, the ratio of male to female staff and some metric for the effectiveness of the school council and the P&C association. It must now be accompanied by genuine devolution of budget and policy autonomy from the department to principals, and opportunities for merit promotion and more money for the motivated teachers we so desperately need to retain.

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Coal is king -- despite the Greenies

The Greenies hate coal but they seem to have been steamrollered over this one. The Leftist State government loves the deal. No doubt the Greens will manage a few whines, though

MINING billionaire Clive Palmer has just announced the economic deal of the century -the creation of up to 70,000 new jobs. The Queensland entrepreneur has clinched a contract with one of China's biggest power companies to export $69 billion worth of thermal coal from new mines in central Queensland over 20 years. "This deal is Australia's biggest-ever export contract," he said proudly. "The best years of this state are yet to come." Mr Palmer said the deal would provide a massive boost to the state economy, and likely result in the restoration of Queensland's prized AAA credit rating.

Under the agreement, China Power International Development Limited will take more than 30 million tonnes of coal - worth over $3 billion - each year from six mines to be built near Alpha in the Galilee Basin, west of Emerald in central Queensland. The mines will be operated by China First, a subsidiary of Mr Palmer's massive privately owned company, Resourcehouse Ltd. He last week awarded an $8 million construction contract to Metallurgical Corporation of China, which built Beijing's Bird's Nest Olympic stadium. The project also involves construction of a 500km rail line linking the mine to a new coal ship terminal at Abbott Point, near Bowen.

The news was greeted enthusiastically by Premier Anna Bligh as "a massive shot in the arm for the Queensland economy". "I set out to create 100,000 jobs in this term of government. With the signing of this deal we take that target a huge leap forward," Ms Bligh said.

Standing side by side at the announcement, the irony of the LNP's biggest financial backer helping the Labor Premier achieve her election goal was not lost on either. Both said political differences - nor even an active defamation lawsuit by Mr Palmer against the Premier - would get in the way of creating jobs for Queenslanders.

The deal still has to clear the final hurdles of what the Premier described as "rigorous" environmental assessments. But if approved, work should begin later this year, with the mines fully operational by 2014. Mr Palmer said 7500 people would be employed directly, with 50,000-70,000 indirect jobs flowing on from the initiative.

This deal comes just seven months after Mr Palmer bought the threatened Yabulu nickel refinery in Townsville, saving 950 jobs.

Royalties from the coal exports will pump between $400 million and $700 million a year, depending on coal prices, into the Queensland Government's coffers - a welcome boost but not enough, says the Premier, to justify abandoning the sale of state assets. "This is great news for the Budget down the track," she said. "If everything goes to plan for the project, we will start to see significant mine royalties in 2014. "That's four years away. I'm not going to let the Queensland economy and Budget drift and lag in the meantime."

The deal cements the future of Alpha and the Galilee Basin as an economic powerhouse for the state into the future. With other mines also proposed, the region has the potential to produce 100 million tonnes of coal a year. In the long term, Mr Palmer said it could deliver more than the Bowen Basin, which fuelled much of Queensland's success over the past decade.

SOURCE





Time to scrap Rudd climate plan - academics

A COALITION of academics who doubt the science on the causes of climate change has called on the Rudd Government to dump plans for an emissions trading scheme and consider alternatives.

Their call comes as a Nielsen poll, published in Fairfax newspapers today, shows Australians prefer the federal coalition's climate action policy. Of those polled, 45 per cent favoured the Opposition's direct action emissions fund over the 39 per cent who backed Labor's carbon pollution reduction scheme.

The Australian Climate Science Coalition believes the Government is losing the political high ground on global warming. "The debacle in Copenhagen demonstrated the futility of Australia adopting a go-it-alone strategy,'' executive director Max Rheese said in a statement. Public faith in the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had been shaken following revelations about some of its information-gathering processes, he said.

SOURCE







The self-selected immigrants are flocking in to Australia

Just utter the magic word "asylum" and the door is open. Comments below by Scott Morrison, Australia's Federal opposition spokesman on immigration and citizenship

Christmas Island is overrun with asylum seekers to the point where the detention centre has become a visa factory for people smugglers. Ten days ago I stood on the shore at Flying Fish Cove on Christmas Island watching 30 Afghan asylum seekers transfer from HMAS Larrakia into the custody of immigration officials. Their boat was one of two that had been "intercepted" within 12 hours of each other the previous weekend. It's usually not too hard to find these boats, because they are usually looking for us. Getting intercepted is the point. Christmas Island is no longer a deterrent, it's the destination. The arrival of another boat is not a strange sight. It occurs twice a week these days. They're more predictable than Sydney ferries.

Immigration, Customs officials and police have the transfer process down to a fine art. They should, they've been getting plenty of practice. Since August 2008, 78 boats have illegally arrived in Australian waters, carrying almost 3600 people. Just this year, there have been 10 arrivals at an average rate of 100 passengers per week.

When I left the island I was told they had 1848 beds (including 200 in tents) and there was currently 1556 people in residence. While this represented a ten-fold increase in the detention population over the past year, it was clear, things were only getting worse. Since then another 320 people have been intercepted or transferred to the island, including one large vessel, carrying 181 passengers that motored straight into the harbour. Another was picked up on Thursday morning near the Ashmore Islands. During the same time, only 89 people left the island.

Despite its denials, operations at Christmas Island, under the government's failed border protection policies, are simply not sustainable. It is therefore no surprise that last week I was able to reveal in Parliament that the costs of running operations on Christmas Island had blown out by $132million this year, that's more than a 100per cent increase.

We are a generous nation and this is reflected in the way asylum seekers are being treated. In fact, if we looked after our first Australians in central Australia, where I visited last year, as well as we do those on Christmas Island, then there would be no gap to close. The key difference is that within 100 or so days, the vast majority of those on Christmas Island will be living on the Australian mainland with a permanent visa. Indigenous children have no such guarantee of ever being released from their desperate situation.

One of the more pleasing elements of the visit was to see that the many reforms introduced by the former Coalition government, such as case management, parallel processing, community detention for those at risk, separate facilities for families, women and children and a range of other improvements, are making a real difference.

In fact there is not one practical reform you can point to on Christmas Island that has been introduced as an initiative of the current government. Where they have made changes is to undermine the fundamentals of our border protection regime, by providing permanent visas to those arriving illegally, doing special deals for the Oceanic Viking passengers that traded away national security and being prepared to compromise offshore processing by taking people to the mainland before their asylum claims have been determined.

The government's changes have enhanced the product offered by people smugglers. They are now doing a roaring trade, but you can only come if you have the money. It is not uncommon, as I saw, for those arriving to have wads of cash in various currencies, in excess of $US1000 ($1140) at least. This is after paying up to $20,000 per person. Residence in Australia should not be driven by the highest bidder, where people smugglers ultimately decide who comes.

The government's changes have created a sea highway to Christmas Island that has become a visa factory for people smugglers. As long as these policies remain and the government continues in denial, people will continue to risk their lives on this journey. Also, places for those waiting five years in Indonesia and generations in camps, like those in Thailand, will be asked to wait even longer. These seem to me to be good reasons to change these policies and stop the boats.

SOURCE

Sea terrorists obstructing Japanese whalers again

For the sake of Australia's farmers, one must fervently hope that the Australian government keeps right out of this. It has taken decades to open up the Japanese market to some Australian farm products but if the Japanese consumer gets the idea that Australia is backing these hostile and dangerous publicity-seekers, that market would come to an abrupt dead end. Most countries have "country of origin" labelling laws for goods in their shops and the Japanese government would just have to step that up a bit for Japanese consumers to get all the signal they need

ANTI-WHALING activists have described how Japanese whaling ships circled their protest vessel "like sharks" before ramming it off Antarctica. Sea Shepherd founder, Captain Paul Watson, said the Japanese harpoon ship rammed the conservationists' ship the Bob Barker and tore a 90cm gash in the hull above the water line. The incident happened about 300 kilometres off Cape Darnley, in the Australian Antarctic Territory, about 3pm (AEDT) yesterday. No-one was injured in the incident.

Capt Watson said the collision was "entirely intentional" on the part of the Japanese. "Four Japanese ships circled the Bob Barker like sharks," he said. "Then one of them, the Yushin Maru 3, did a quick turn and rammed a three-foot gash in the hull. "Luckily, the waters are calm at the moment and we have a welding crew working to fix it."

The anti-whaling vessel was blocking the slipway of the Nisshin Maru, the Japanese whaling fleet's factory ship, when the collision occurred.

Japan's Fisheries Agency said however, the activist boat caused the collision by suddenly approaching the harpoon vessel to throw bottles containing butyric acid in an attempted attack on the Japanese ship. The Japanese agency accused Sea Shepherd of "committing an act of sabotage" on the Japanese expedition, noting that it is allowed under world whaling restrictions as a scientific expedition. "We will not tolerate the dangerous activity that threatens Japanese whaling ships and endangers the lives of their crew members," it said in a statement late yesterday.

Capt Watson called on the Australian government take action on illegal whaling. "The Japanese are violating Australian laws on whaling and nothing is being done to stop them," he said.

This is the second major clash between Japanese whalers and anti-whaling activists this year, after the Ady Gil sank following a collision with a Japanese whaling ship in the Southern Ocean on January 6.

SOURCE




West Australian police powers going the way of Nazi Germany

The W.A. wallopers already have a very poor reputation in their community and this is going to make it worse. NOTE: I have given up on posting here stories about the Queensland police. I now post such stories solely on my Qld. police blog -- and that is a very active blog -- with three separate stories just today. -- JR



TWO retired senior police officers have likened a proposal to give police unprecedented stop and search powers to Nazi Germany. Retired police superintendents Dave Parkinson and John Watson have spoken out against the proposal, which has been at the centre of controversy this week. They said the laws were draconian, similar to what would have been used in Nazi Germany. "This is becoming a police state," Mr Watson said. "It is wrong."

The pair claimed that removing the requirement of "reasonable suspicion" for a search to be conducted would affect innocent people, not the thugs it set out to target.

Their comments came after police representatives told a parliamentary committee this week that police did not request the extra powers and failed to guarantee they would reduce crime. But Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan has rejected the claims, saying he personally discussed the proposal with the former Labor government. Police Minister Rob Johnson has also stood by the proposal, saying it is needed to combat growing anti-social behaviour in night spots.

SOURCE Extended commentary here




Australia's immigration-fueled population growth too fast to be affordable

AUSTRALIANS must prepare for a fundamental shift in the way we live because the country cannot afford to cope with 36 million people. Economic modelling produced for the Herald by PricewaterhouseCoopers shows the task of building the new roads, houses, schools, supermarkets and recreation facilities needed by 2050 will be so great that the nation's current pool of savings will struggle to cover it, even with the help of foreign capital.

As a consequence Australians will have to make major lifestyle changes. These range from dramatic increases in housing density and an end to our reliance on the car, to the creation of self-sustaining urban communities capable of generating their own energy to avoid the need for new power stations.

Planning experts say we must also consider whether population increases will be accommodated in larger regional centres rather than allowing cities such as Sydney to grow. "The bottom line is 'prepare for change'," the PWC economics and policy team leader, Jeremy Thorpe, said. "The task of providing this infrastructure is a very significant one and at the moment we don't have the savings to cover it. Governments have to make a decision about what trade-offs they want to make to maintain a standard of living." Using figures from the government's intergenerational report, Mr Thorpe and his colleagues have calculated Australia will need 6.9 million more homes to cope with a population of 36 million by 2050. This represents 82 per cent of our existing housing stock.

Should Australians continue to rely on the car, the country will need 173,348 kilometres of new roads - a 51 per cent rise equivalent to the entire road network of Thailand. We would need 3254 new schools, 1370 new supermarkets and 1370 cinema screens.

In dollar terms, the amount spent by both government and the private sector on infrastructure would need to increase by approximately $2.5 billion every year until 2050.

The PWC economists say that while the government talks about increasing productivity, it makes no mention of the crucial role the national pool of savings plays in funding infrastructure. "The banks rely quite heavily on the savings of individual people to provide capital for investment in infrastructure. Because as a nation our savings are currently quite low, there is a real risk that there will be a significant shortage of credit."

As a result, both the private sector and government have come to rely heavily on foreign capital. But the global credit crunch has dramatically lifted the costs of overseas borrowing, requiring government and companies to take on extra debt.

The ageing population exacerbates this situation as older people contribute less to the savings pool, and tend to draw more from government coffers in the form of social security and healthcare.

But a spokesman for the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, dismissed the analysis. "Australia's reputation as one of the most attractive investment destinations in the world allows it to access large savings pools of foreign investors … to fund high levels of investment in our own economy," he said. "We are able to be a net importer of capital because foreign investors are confident we use their capital so well."

SOURCE






ANOTHER BIG GREENIE ROUNDUP

Four current articles below:

Reality dawns: The Greenest of the Greenies suddenly want factories -- but nice ones, of course

A factory owner would need to have a lot of heart to risk locating himself among such intolerant loonies

It's the Queensland town renowned for a postcard setting, caring community and laidback lifestyle ... but has Maleny become too green for its own good? As the children of a generation of tree-changers begin their working lives, Maleny is discovering that being green is no protection against that scourge of rural communities: youth unemployment. While other towns can rely on mining or agriculture to provide job opportunities, Maleny's young people are increasingly forced to desert the Sunshine Coast hinterland to find work, leaving behind an ageing population.

Community concern has become so acute that even local greenies are calling for drastic action and putting out the welcome mat for new industry. In the town that famously opposed Woolworths, business leaders, families and greenies are now united in their calls for a light industrial precinct to boost employment. Such a precinct could attract anything from brick making to glass fabrication but would have to meet local environmental guidelines. However, under existing council plans, there is no land set aside for industrial growth in Maleny.

Young job seekers currently have to compete for the few jobs at the town's biggest employers, Supa IGA and Woolworths, which both have workforces of about 100.

Latest census figures show Maleny has a median age of 42, compared to 36 for the whole of Queensland.

Hinterland Employment Service owner Jenny Jones said families who moved to Maleny in search of an idyllic lifestyle were often disappointed. "It's a great place to live and bring up children but when the kids leave school, there's just not a lot up here," she said.

Maleny Commerce president Stephen Dittmann said green activists had traditionally held sway in the town but there was now recognition that some development was necessary. "We need measured growth, we can't stand still," Mr Dittmann said.

Paul Gilmour-Walsh, president of local environmental group Green Hills, said even so-called greenies could see the need to grow the town. "There's definitely a need for an area, to put aside land for something like that up here," Mr Gilmour-Walsh said. "We need a balanced community so kids leaving school have somewhere to work; it's as simple as that."

David Schaumberg, 19, loves Maleny, his home since the family left Brisbane for a better lifestyle 16 years ago, but he cannot find a steady job. David recently worked for four months as a jackaroo in Kingaroy to earn some cash but is back in Maleny looking for a job. His friends are in the same situation, with many leaving town. "I actually think an industry precinct would be good for variety . . . as long as they do it the right way and not impact on the environment," he said.

Mother of five Maria Dodd said her eldest son Andrew, 19, held little hope of attaining his goal of a local electrical apprenticeship. The family moved from Brisbane about 10 years ago. "He keeps getting bit jobs. He's a hard worker but there's not much around," she said.

SOURCE

Costs of the greenhouse gas scheme remain a mystery to the party behind it

The Rudd government has failed its first GST-style test over the details of its emissions trading scheme and the compensation being offered to Australians for rising prices. Lulled into a sense of false security through Coalition support for an ETS last year and a largely sympathetic media, Kevin Rudd and his ministers have found themselves ill-equipped and under-prepared to answer basic questions people want answered, whether they are climate change believers or sceptics. After three years of Labor being formally committed to an ETS, ministers can't answer simple questions. The Prime Minister himself has conceded the government has failed to address the "complexity" of the ETS.

In parliamentary question time and in interviews, ministers, including Rudd, have blathered and blustered, dissembled and distracted when asked simple questions. Tony Abbott, once an adviser to John Hewson in his failed campaign to introduce a GST, knows how to run an aggressive retail political campaign on rising food and energy prices and to exploit complexity in policy.

As the treasurer who introduced a GST, Peter Costello rehearsed offsets and compensation for almost three years. He declared later it "scarred my life". But that drab work equipped Costello to answer the thousands of questions he received about the price of Coca-Cola and even the Hockey Bear pyjamas from Korea that Labor's Simon Crean produced in parliament one day, without falter.

This week in parliament, Rudd was unable to answer questions about what compensation a single person earning $45,000 a year would get or what a double-income couple on $65,000 each -- a NSW policeman and teacher -- would get.

Small Business Minister Craig Emerson blustered about the "most stupid question" he had heard when a dairy farmer's concerns were raised about electricity price rises from the introduction of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme being added to price rises everyone was already feeling now.

Aged Care Minister Justine Elliott could not address a concern that had been raised for months about pensioners in nursing homes facing increased living costs because of higher energy bills and not getting compensation. Some opposition frontbenchers actually won a bet that Elliott would read her set- piece answer to everything that didn't mention the ETS.

Yesterday, Assistant Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said "low- and middle-income earners are fully compensated" for prices rises passed on by power stations. In fact, half of all households will be "fully compensated".

When a government has not laid the groundwork for a major policy, when it can't explain it and makes mistakes about the costs to families it's on the back foot and in the wrong argument.

SOURCE

More Greenie-inflicted costs on the whole Australian community

ALL Australian homes will soon have to undergo a mandatory energy-efficiency assessment costing up to $1500 per property. The assessment has to be done before any property can be sold or rented under new laws to tackle carbon emissions.

The mandatory assessment - being drafted into law by the federal and state governments - will rate homes by an energy efficiency star system, similar to the ratings given to fridges and washing machines. It will apply to all commercial properties from later this year and to all residential properties from May 2011, Adelaide Now reports.

A spokesman for State Energy Minister Pat Conlon said the ratings would inform prospective owners or tenants of a building's energy use, so they could factor it in to their buying or rental decision. The spokesman said details of the "Mandatory Disclosure" scheme - including who would carry out the assessments and how much they would cost - were yet to be decided.

Energy efficiency expert Arthur Grammatopoulos, of Helica Architecture, said rating properties could cost up to $1500 per house. "I think this is a positive move for the industry but the question has to be asked, will there be enough experts to cope with demand when the law is introduced?" he said. A similar scheme with a six-star rating has been operating in the Australian Capital Territory's property market for several years.

Queensland's State Government introduced a mandatory Sustainability Declaration form on January 1, requiring homeowners to declare their property's green credentials to prospective buyers or risk a $2000 fine.

Mandatory disclosure has been criticised by property experts as an unwarranted expense that will not influence purchasing decisions or cut household pollution. The Real Estate Institute of SA said governments were playing environmentally "popular politics" by introducing a law that they say will simply add to the cost of selling and renting a home. "I think they are patronising people who are making the biggest purchase decision of their life by thinking a rating system will influence that decision," REISA chief executive Greg Troughton said. "It's already hard enough to buy and sell a home and this is just another financial impost that also has the potential to delay the sale of a property."

While Mr Troughton said vendors would bear the cost of having their home rated by a licensed expert, independent SA MLC and former Valuer-General John Darley said landlords would look to pass the cost on to tenants. "This will be an extra cost to working families who have to rent because they can't afford a mortgage," he said. "And we need this like a hole in the head unless the governments can convince us there is a definite benefit, like a reduction in household pollution."

The Council of Australian Government's National Strategy on Energy Efficiency says Mandatory Disclosure will "help households and businesses prepare for the introduction of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme".

SOURCE

A professor of baseless insults

(Professor Andrew Pitman is Co-Director, Climate Change Research Centre (CCRC) at the University of NSW)

Last week a paid public servant spoke untruths, but instead of being exposed by the media, he was aided by our taxpayer-funded public broadcast network. Andy Pitman spoke about the socio-economic position of a group he avoids, and let down UNSW, abused the title “Professor”, and misled the public.

The journalists allowed the baseless smears to be broadcast without question, not just once, but twice. Professor Andy Pitman on ABC Radio: Sarah Clark interviews Andy Pitman on glaciers. Robin Williams thought it was so “useful” he rebroadcast the same factually incorrect, irrelevant material on his “science” show. Oops. It’s hard to cram more anti-truths into one declaration:

“My personal view is that climate scientists are losing the fight with climate sceptics. That the sceptics are so well funded, so well organized, have nothing else to do, they kind of don’t have day jobs, they can put all of their efforts into misinforming and miscommunicating climate science to the public, whereas the climate scientists have day jobs and this isn’t one of them. All of the efforts you do in an IPCC report is done out of hours, voluntarily, for no funding and no pay, whereas the sceptics are being funded to put out full scale misinformation campaigns…”

Let’s correct the six seven-delusion paragraph

1. Skeptics are well funded?

Let’s put a perspective on just how spectacularly wrong these claims on ABC radio are. ExxonMobil paid all of $23 million to skeptics worldwide in total, over ten years. In the same period, the US government alone was spending around $2 billion a year on climate scientists. And if you include other climate industry players, from 1989-2009, the total funding is $79 billion dollars. Hence believers of the big-scare could dip into a pot that was at least 3,500 times as large as anything the skeptics of the same scare could draw from. (All this info comes from my Climate Money paper).

If there was any equivalent funding for skeptics, Greenpeace would have found that paper trail and the scare-friendly press would have told you all about it. Big-Oil could hardly hide $79 billion now could they?

Andy Pitman earns far more from his beliefs than this skeptical advocate and infinitely more than most skeptics (who earn nothing) while he postulates on things he has done no research on and misleads the public. (Take me to court Andy. I don’t mind discovery of documents, but I don’t pander to bullies’ requests in public.) Most skeptical scientists are those no longer in the pay of government or other alarmist organizations, free to speak up without losing their jobs. They are mainly retired.

In reality it can cost money to be an active skeptic. To print out handouts, to organize speeches at local community halls, to do mail outs to our representatives, or to pay for transcripts of interviews that misrepresent the science. It says a lot that there are so many people willing to put themselves out, money and time-wise, in order to save us from the scare with no evidence.

Pitman has received over $6 million in grants – obviously not paid to him personally, but paid into accounts he controls–for research he directs. Presumably he also earns at least the base salary of a UNSW Professor, I gather, $190,000 a year. For a science PhD that’s not bad, especially if you throw in multiple overseas trips with all expenses paid, and the odd-rock-star-radio interview with no hard questions. It’s a wicket worth defending.

2. Skeptics are “well” organized?

Organized how exactly? With no PR department, no union, no association, no office, no UN agency, usually no budget, and … though you can see how we fund national multi-million dollar televised Ad campaigns like “Think Climate, Think Fraud”, oh that’s right … that was Kevin Rudd: “Think Climate, Think Change” (give us your money). That cost Australian taxpayers $13.9 million dollars.

Pitman cries poor while his scare campaign team includes the major western governments, the UN, the banks, big oil (they always funded alarmism more, and now don’t fund skeptics), the green movement, the alternative energy suppliers, the reinsurance industry, and many businesses. About all the skeptics have is donors on blogs and a few dedicated organizations of like minded people, such as the indefatigable Heartland (which is in turn funded mostly by private donations, with no more than 5% from any single corporation). Skeptics are tiny voices against vast machines.

Pitman wouldn’t recognize a genuine grassroots movement if it mowed him down.

3. Skeptics are misleading the public?

Misleading? You mean like climate scientists who are using tricks to “hide the decline”, removing data from 75% of worldwide temperature stations, ignoring the best ocean temperature network data, colluding to keep contrary papers out of publication, avoiding FOI requests, abusing statistics to make scary hockey sticks no matter what data you feed them, and ignoring the masses of data and analysis (much of it peer-reviewed) that undermines the carbon dioxide theory of global warming? Or, how about putting most “official” thermometers next to airport-tarmac or air conditioner outlets, or pretending that one tree in far north Russia can measure global temperatures?

Strangely, it’s not skeptics who howl that “only peer review counts” while at the same time pretending that speculative information from the WWF, Greenpeace and a student’s paper of mountaineering anecdotes were peer-reviewed research by hundreds of experts.

4. “Explaining science is not my job”.

According to the UNSW Guidelines, it is. It’s what Professors are paid to do: to foster leadership and excellence in their academic area within the university and the community. As it happens, over the last 18 months, I’ve asked Pitman in writing to publicly name any misleading points from the Skeptics Handbook. He has refused.

5. I, Andy Pitman, volunteer to help the IPCC

As Andrew Bolt so aptly pointed out, Andy Pitman’s grants list includes around $60,000 in funding “for costs incurred as lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change”. That’s not most people’s idea of volunteer work.

6. Skeptics don’t have day jobs

Pitman, contradicting himself suddenly, claims many “fully funded” climate skeptics don’t have day jobs, and for once he’s half-right, but scores an own goal by using the truth. Most active skeptics don’t have day jobs, precisely because there aren’t any paid climate skeptic positions to have. Many skeptics are retired, because no one else has time to audit the IPCC “for fun”.

As far as I know (correct me if I’m wrong), total ARC grants specifically available for research aiming to disprove the theory of AGW in 2010 are exactly $0.00, as has been the case since time began. (That’s another scandal, for another day.)

Who should be protecting Australia from paying reparations based on bogus science? When the bogus science is climate science, Andy Pitman ought be high on that list. Instead, he helps to sell out the nation that supports him to a corrupt unaudited foreign committee whose recommendations will mainly end up profiting large financial houses.

7. An ad hominem attack is “scientific”?

Notice how we’re not talking about climate science? Why, on a planet that goes around the sun, is a professor of science launching ad hominem attacks? A science undergraduate should grovel with embarrassment for making this mistake. High school debaters have stronger reasoning skills. Yet, the science reporters on the ABC don’t even blink.

So what if I was paid, oh, let’s say, $190,000 a year, by… an oil sheik (I’m not). But if I was, how would that change the satellite recordings that I write about from Universities on the other side of the world from me? What kind of conspiracy theory do you have to hold in your head to nullify the evidence with any information about funding? I’m a commentator forgoodnesssake, I don’t even collect, hold or publish results from the sediments, corals, ice cores, pollen, diatoms, boreholes, or tree rings that I talk about.

Aren’t we all grown up enough now to attack the ball and not the man? (Which goes for Penny Sackett too, our Chief Scientist, who said that exact thing tonight on The 7.30 Report. Where was Sackett last week? Did she miss the chance to admonish Pitman for attacking skeptical scientists?)

Look Mum. No logical errors here: Lest anyone think I’m committing the same logical error as Pitman by pointing at his vested interests, let’s put a razor fine point on it. He claims we are winning the debate because we have so much funding. We claim he’s losing because he has no evidence. At no point have I ever said his science is wrong because he is paid. So why post about his funding?

One: To show that he’s not only illogical, but spectacularly wrong as well. It’s a baseless smear campaign.

Two: The $6 million in research grants vs the $0 in skeptical grants tells us nothing about the atmospheric climate, but shows that there is a Gravy Train, and he is on it. And he’s the one who suggested that people’s opinions were affected by funding. Go soak in that irony.

Three: If people are going to try to bully and smear us, it helps to make it painful for them, by pouring the truth right back at them.

Since he effectively said “follow the money”, I just said, “ok”. And did I mention that the carbon market was worth $130 billion last year?

Speaking of money, who is paid to audit the IPCC? Officially, no one is. No agency, no institution, no government department. Information from that UN conglomerate committee controls global markets, and yet answers to no elected government, no ASIC, no SEC, no ACCC. Nothing. There ought to be teams of skeptical scientists paid to check on the alarmists, but no one at all is checking, except a few unpaid scientists and bloggers.

The bottom line: Pitman peddles misinformation about science and misinformation about skeptics. He could start by apologizing to the Australian people who pay his salary. Then he could say thanks to the Australian scientists working pro bono to do part of his job for him.

What a sad week for Australian science, a dismal day for Australian universities, and a low point for the ABC. It’s not so hot for taxpayers either, we’re funding someone who throws baseless speculation and insults back at the same Australian citizens he’s supposed to serve.

SOURCE (See the original for links)