Ditch the Greens

YOU have to feel for Julia Gillard, the grand negotiator. Saddled with a minority Government, she has to appease the Greens and accommodate the silky Bob Brown, while throwing a few bones to Nick Xenophon and Andrew Wilkie and buttering up the turncoat independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, mopping their brows when the heat gets too much. All the while she has to make sure she doesn't venture so far into Left-loony land that her own MPs revolt.

Can you imagine what a nightmare for the Prime Minister those daily cups of tea with the Greens and independents have become? She must just feel like picking up the Earl Grey and smashing it against a wall.

No wonder Bob Brown looks pleased with himself, striding around Canberra like the Deadly Mantis, dispensing his wisdom to all and sundry. He can't believe his luck, as Gillard cedes her power and authority. He smells total capitulation to his world view, with the shadowy shock troops of GetUp at his disposal.

It was his carbon tax that opened up the fault line Gillard is struggling to straddle now, as angry voters bombard Labor MPs' offices with emails complaining about the Green colonisation of Labor's soul.

They're the people who really count -- Labor's authentic base, the working families in suburban seats, the aspirational classes for whom soaring electricity and fuel costs aren't some theoretical exercise but a painful daily reality. Working people employed by BlueScope Steel are Labor's base, not inner-city greenies with protected salaries.

And nothing will alienate them quicker than Green demands that petrol be included in the carbon tax, no matter how Brown tries to sugarcoat it. As Graham Richardson told Gillard: include petrol and you're dead (memo to Tony Windsor: that's not a death threat).

So why doesn't Gillard just tell Bob Brown to go to hell? Stop the cups of tea. Call his bluff, for the sake of the nation. The Greens will never side with Tony Abbott, anyway. He is the anti-Christ to them.

The Greens are the party of punishers and straighteners, the wowsers of the 21st century, the fun police, the Malthusian pessimists, the pinched-faced moralists lecturing the rest of us on our sins. They are defined by what they are against: humans, mainly, and everything that makes life civilised, from cars and air-conditioning to industry and traditional families.

They have only one lousy vote out of 150 in the House of Representatives. Yet Brown already looks like the cat that swallowed the canary. He'll be insufferable come July 1 when the Greens hold the balance of power in the Senate.

Gillard was happy enough to break a promise to the Australian people that she'd never bring in a carbon tax. So why not break the pact with Brown she signed so memorably in that Ribbentrop-esque tableau last September? Why not take on the Greens, expose them, cost their policies, hold them up to the light?

She is making Brown look prime ministerial. And for what? There's no rule in politics that says you have to dance with the one who brought you. What is the worst Brown can do? Stamp his feet. He knows the Greens are vulnerable to the wrath of the people, just as the independents are.

In Ireland, which just about went broke under its coalition Green government, the Greens party has been wiped out, with all six Green MPs losing their seats in the general election.

In any case, why should Labor reward the Greens, when it was the Greens who put the wrecking ball through Kevin Rudd's government, refusing to endorse his ETS and setting in train the events that led to his downfall, and to Labor's close shave at the polls?

Look at how Ted Baillieu was rewarded in Victoria for his decision not to preference the Greens. Barry O'Farrell looks set to do the same in NSW in three weeks, billing the election as a referendum on a carbon tax. It is shaping up to be a bloodbath for Labor, with polls showing the Keneally Government has sunk to a 23 per cent primary vote.

Most people have figured out the tax will do nothing to stop global warming, since Australia accounts for only 1.4 per cent of global emissions. Internal Liberal polling in NSW marginal seats reportedly shows 75 per cent of voters don't see the tax as helping the environment; more than half regard it as a cost-of-living issue.

The backlash in NSW bodes ill for Windsor and Oakeshott too. Peter Besseling, Oakeshott's protege in Port Macquarie, is set for a wipeout. When Oakeshott announced he would campaign for three country independents, they must have been looking for a rock to slip under.

Tony Abbott quoted Macbeth in Parliament last week but King Lear is the most relevant of Shakespeare's tragedies today. Like Windsor and Oakeshott, who forgot they owed their position to their constituents, Lear offers his kingdom to whichever of his daughters shows him the most love. He chooses Goneril and Regan (Gillard and Swan), who flatter him most, a foolish decision for which he is driven mad with grief. It ends badly for everyone.

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Gay marriage stance could ruin PM

THERE are two key questions around the issue of gay marriage. One is the pretty straight-forward question of whether you support it or not, and the polls suggest it is line ball.

The other question is whether you support the idea of politicians keeping their promises. I haven't seen the polling on that but I would presume that no research firm has bothered to do any, as you would expect about 100 per cent of people to answer 'yes, politicians should obviously keep their promises, what a silly question to ask'.

Having gone to the last election saying there would be no carbon tax under a government she leads, Julia Gillard will now be introducing one on July 1 next year.

It's a serious breach of voter confidence and one which has done her serious political damage. As many have argued, when John Howard changed his mind on the GST, which he promised to never ever introduce, he at least had the decency to return to the polls in 1998 to let the voters re-elect or turf him on a clearly-stated platform of tax reform.

Gillard's promise not to introduce a carbon tax was almost as unequivocal as Howard's on the goods and services tax, yet she failed to give the voters a chance to accept or reject her change of heart. It may yet be the issue which costs her power at the next election.

At a time when the Prime Minister is struggling to maintain her credibility over the carbon tax backflip, it is truly bizarre that there are some within the Labor Party who are now trying to bludgeon her into a similar backflip over the question of gay marriage.

Despite her lengthy membership of Labor's Left Faction, which has long regarded gay marriage as a cause worth fighting for, Gillard has taken a clear and frequently-stated stance against same-sex unions. She spent much of the election campaign saying it is her view and the party's view that marriage is between a man and woman.

At the instigation of the Greens, and with the active support of several members of the Labor Left, Labor Caucus has now signed off on legislation which would prevent the Commonwealth from interfering if gay marriage were legalised in the territories.

The political issues are twofold. Hot on the heels of her nasty little fib over the carbon tax, it puts Julia Gillard at risk of looking like a liar all over again as a result of her oft-stated insistence that only heterosexual couples be allowed to marry.

More ominously, it emphasises the growing public view that this Labor Government is bright green on the inside, that Julia Gillard has one hand on the steering wheel and is sharing it with everyone from Bob Brown, Adam Bandt and Christine Milne to country independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor.

You could also throw in the question of priorities -- is this really such an important issue for the Government to busy itself with? Surely working out how a carbon tax can operate without belting household budgets is a more pressing task?

Julia Gillard went to the trouble this week of outlining the major policy differences between Labor and the Greens. The fact that she went to these lengths was a clear sign that she is worried that voters think it is not her but the likes of Bob Brown calling the shots.

Julia Gillard has very few arguments at her disposal to explain her U-turn on carbon.

If Labor's Left wants to force the Prime Minister to break another of her promises, it should do so in the knowledge that it is writing the script for the Coalition's negative advertisements for the next election campaign, depicting a government which has not one but several leaders and cannot be taken on its word.

None of those observations by the way have anything to do with the concept of gay marriage. I suspect many voters don't really care about the issue. It would be another broken promise, which would make the Greens look even more like the Government of the day, on an issue which many voters rank well down on the list of importance.

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Millions wasted on windmills and the like while Australia's roads go to pot

Public investment reached a peak of 6 per cent of gross domestic product in the 1960s as the population boomed and sparked a rush to clear a backlog of public works that had built up during the war years.

Since those halcyon days, government spending on social needs such as education, health and welfare has steadily snared a much bigger slice of the pie, leaving less to spend on so-called "hard infrastructure" such as roads and railways. It has left the country saddled with antiquated transport systems.

Infrastructure Australia calculates the nation has a $300 billion backlog - $13,287 for every man, woman and child - in infrastructure spending over the next decade. Some estimates are closer to $700 billion. Set up by Kevin Rudd to co-ordinate public and private investment, Infrastructure Australia has drawn up a "strategic blueprint" for the country's needs, which includes a long overdue upgrade to the Pacific Highway, road and rail building in Sydney and commuter transport in Melbourne. Industry lobby groups, too, have their own lengthy wish-list of projects.

But without money and political will, plans remain just that.

"It's a matter of money at the end of the day and there are many calls on the government purse," says Sir Rod Eddington, the chairman of Infrastructure Australia. "One of the reasons why we need to take a much more robust look at how the private sector can participate with infrastructure is [because] federal and state governments simply no longer have the cash to do all the things that are needed."

As motorists in the major cities sit in cars gridlocked on highways and commuters stew in packed trains, they cannot help but contemplate a sense of Australia falling behind. Doing nothing about traffic congestion in the capital cities is costing the economy $12.9 billion a year, according to the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics. With the population growing rapidly, this cost is set to rise to $20 billion a year by 2020.

Penny Bingham-Hall, a former strategy boss at the construction company Leighton, says Australia is lagging behind other nations in infrastructure construction because of its "chronic lack of investment and the short-termism of our political thinking".

"Australians like to think of their country as a modern developed nation and think of Asia as Third-World. But the world is changing," she says. "When I first started travelling to Asia 20 years ago that thinking may have been accurate but now Asia is boasting some of the best infrastructure in the world."

Japan has long had some of the best and most technologically advanced transport systems in the world. Across the East China Sea, an emerging superpower has been building infrastructure at an astonishing rate, laying thousands of kilometres of new rail lines. China is spending about 11 per cent of its gross domestic product on infrastructure.

In Beijing - whose population is about the same as Australia's - more than 150 kilometres of underground urban railway have been built over the last five years. "You just have to get on the metro system in Hong Kong or Singapore, or get a high-speed train in Japan or China, or attend a convention in Kuala Lumpur," Bingham-Hall says. "Sure, our cities are not as densely populated as Hong Kong or in Europe but we are a wealthy country."

Peter Stopher, a professor of transport planning at the University of Sydney, agrees Australia is a "long way behind where it ought to be", especially in intercity motorways.

Stopher, who lived in the US for 32 years before coming to Australia, says America's superior interstate highway system stems from 1956, when the US government established the Highway Trust Fund. It redirected federal taxes on fuel to the construction of an extensive highway system.

He is quick to point out that the Highway Trust Fund is not necessarily the best model because it focused on building a motorway system that was arguably responsible for the US finding itself too reliant on the car.

It creates a quandary for governments facing ever-growing demands for health, education and welfare. Eddington, a former boss of British Airways and chairman of Ansett, believes state governments need to take a hard look at selling existing infrastructure to release capital for investment in other infrastructure.

"Governments have got less room to move than they used to have. One of the ways they can give themselves more room given the call on the public purse is to sell existing infrastructure," he says. "The more difficult question is whether the community would support deficit spending into infrastructure. This is a difficult issue because states and the federal government have been zealous in their attempts to ensure they run a viable entity. They don't want large chunks of debt hanging around their neck."

Eddington stresses that there is "no silver bullet". "If you build unwisely, then you will build infrastructure that doesn't resolve the infrastructure bottlenecks. It is a political challenge as well as an economic challenge."

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Erratic Gillard is no Thatcher

By Jeff Kennett, a former premier of Victoria

THE Prime Minister and her fragile Government fall short of what the electorate expects. The very future of the ALP hinges on Julia Gillard's wayward strategy.

JULIA Gillard is no Margaret Thatcher. She has always been ambitious. There is no greater example of that than last year, when although Kevin Rudd's "loyal deputy" she dumped him to pursue her own ambitions to lead the Labor Party and become Prime Minister.

The major reasons Gillard gave at the time were that the Labor Party had lost its way under Kevin Rudd, he had become a one-man show, and the majority of her colleagues had come to her, wanting her to lead the ALP.

That's history, but what's changed? My sources in the Labor Party at a federal level tell me nothing has changed. Instead of Rudd and his kitchen Cabinet of four - Rudd, Gillard, Swan and Tanner - the current leadership of the Government is equally void of internal consultations, and Cabinet and backbenchers read about government policy through media reports.

The frustration levels among federal Labor about its leadership have not been higher since 2007. Increasingly, policy is being made on the run, to placate the Greens or independents, and is being announced without any detailed consideration being given to the substance of the policy and how it will actually be implemented, let alone an appreciation of the costs involved.

Let's use the announcement of the Federal Government's carbon tax last week as a prime example of policy formulated on the run.

The policy was announced without any detail of substance, except:

WHATEVER funds were collected from the tax would be returned to lower-income households so the tax would not adversely affect such households. This is a stupid policy because it simply encourages such households to keep using the products generated from the use of carbon as there is no penalty not to do so. The more wasteful lower-income families might be, the more subsidies they will receive.

AUSTRALIAN households will pay a carbon tax but there will be no tax applied to the millions of tonnes of coal Australia exports to other countries, which will then use our cheap coal to pollute the atmosphere quicker than ever before. This is hypocritical policy.

NO DETAIL was given as to the application of the carbon tax. For example, would it be applied to petroleum products?

AUSTRALIA will be the first country in the world to introduce a carbon tax that will add huge costs to industry and some households, but will have less than 1 per cent impact on the world's carbon levels. In essence, we are putting at risk Australia's competitiveness with our trading partners.

THE POLICY position was announced by the Prime Minister and her Climate Change Minister, Greg Combet, on February 24. With them, nodding and smiling, were senators Bob Brown and Christine Milne of the Greens, and independents Tony Windsor and Bob Oakeshott. The clear perception is that the Greens and independents now drive government policy.

THE POLICY announcement was a betrayal of the community on the basis of a personal commitment from Gillard in the last week of the election campaign only seven months ago. Dishonest politics betrays community trust in the Prime Minister and the Government she leads.

The least the Prime Minister should have done, as John Howard did when he changed his position on the need for the introduction of a GST, was to take the issue back to the community at the next federal election, and let the electorate vote on the policies then on offer.

There are clearly two distinct issues here: the arguments for and against the introduction of a carbon tax and the Prime Minister's betrayal of trust. I suspect the latter will be resolved more quickly than the former.

Over the past few days Gillard has been compared with Baroness Margaret Thatcher, prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1979-1990. Be assured Gillard is no Thatcher.

The latter served 11 years as an MP before she became a minister in 1970 under prime minister Edward Heath. She became Opposition leader in 1975, and the first female prime minister in 1979. She was a highly experienced politician, with clear views and such a heightened level of consistency, that words she used about herself were often used by others to describe her: "This lady is not for turning."

Gillard has turned so often in the past 12 months, one has great trouble understanding what she or her Government stands for today, or whether a position communicated today will be acted on or reversed tomorrow. It is hardly the sort of environment in which individuals or businesses can be expected to plan and operate with confidence.

I am not opposed to an education program or even legislation that will have us - either as individuals or as industry - think and act more responsibly about the conduct of our affairs in order to reduce levels of manmade pollution.

Programs on road safety, smoking and even water use have all changed community and industry behaviour over time. The same should and could happen with polluting practices.

But such a policy should be clearly thought through, and all the various ramifications understood, before such a policy is publicly released, to ensure the public can have confidence in the new position. Certainly any fresh direction should not put Australia's fragile economy at risk.

I have a good personal relationship with Prime Minister Gillard, although maybe not after this honest assessment. But sometimes the truth, while no doubt hurting, can deliver better outcomes. I hope so in this case.

I had an excellent relationship with Paul Keating who, when prime minister, assisted my government to make the hard decisions necessary to rebuild Victoria's economy.

The underlying value of my relationship with Keating was based on the fact that once he gave his word, his commitment was absolutely ironclad. He never changed his mind and, as a result, we had that vital certainty on which to continue our policies to rebuild the state.

JULIA Gillard needs to take a lesson from Keating and for that matter Thatcher as well. My fear is that we have a Government in name but not in practice; we have a Prime Minister in name but not in practice. We might have a manager or a good number cruncher elevated to a leadership role who, sadly, is not a leader.

There is still time for this reality or perception to be changed. Short of a by-election that increases the Opposition's tally by one, and a change of government occurring, I believe this Government will serve its full term.

The independents, Oakeshott and Windsor in particular, will certainly do everything they can to support the Government as they will not want to face the wrath of their electorates, which they deserted when helping Labor form government. Neither will be re-elected, nor should they be, and their employment options beyond Parliament will be self-employment options.

Gillard and her Government need to take time out, review their behaviour over the past seven months and decide whether they are going to deliver more of the same, in which case God help us all and goodbye Labor; or whether the past seven months - in particular the past eight weeks - will be seen as a wake-up call, and make the necessary changes to provide thoughtful and consistent policy leadership.

Australia needs the latter, otherwise this period of prosperity, when we should be building on our strengths, will be lost for all time.

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Being fat rots your brain?

A remarkable insult to the large numbers of overweight people. Fortunately it is just epidemiological speculation. Let me offer an alternative explanation: Lower class people are more likely to be fat and lower class people are generally less healthy. So all we are seeing is another effect of social class, not an effect of obesity as such

MORE than 1000 Australians every week are diagnosed with dementia and for many the cause is not merely genetic bad luck but a result of being overweight in middle age.

A new analysis of long-term studies of the relationship between dementia and bodyweight has found that people who have been overweight or obese have two to three times the risk of suffering dementia in old age a few years later.

The Australian National University's Centre for Mental Health Research reached that conclusion after assessing the results of reputable studies from around the world involving a total of more than 25,000 people. Kaarin Anstey, a professor at the centre, said the risk of dementia for those aged over 60 rises with bodyweight in earlier middle life, between the ages of 40 and 60.

"This evidence suggests that, while the hormones present in body fat were previously believed to protect cognitive function, it now appears that excess fat in middle age may be extremely harmful over the long term," Professor Anstey said.

The analysis also found that there was a higher risk of dementia in old age among those who had been extremely underweight in middle age, but Professor Anstey said it was likely different processes were involved in triggering that phenomenon.

"Practitioners and policy-makers should be concerned, not just with the short-term effects obesity has on quality of life, but also about the long-term effects that obesity can have on the ageing process."

Professor Anstey said given the results covered people who were much less likely to have been overweight in their youth than today, the results were a warning bell for the future.

The findings underline the need for policy makers to treat dementia not just as a condition of old age but as a chronic disease which can be countered with improved healthcare and education, Glenn Rees, the chief executive of Alzheimer's Australia, said.

Mr Rees said health policies needed to promote the message that a healthy lifestyle not only reduced the risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer but also improved brain health.

There also remained difficulties in even ensuring the timely diagnosis of dementia, with sufferers in some cases taking up to three years to be diagnosed, raising the risk of falls and hospitalisation.

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Melanesian influx into Australia based on a failed legal claim

There are millions of them to Australia's immediate North who have a proven inability to get on with one-another so live in a very chaotic and poor society. Letting any of them into Australia would produce a flood of them. The Australian government is so far sending them all back, however

Australian immigration officials are advising a group of Papua New Guineans to scrap their plan to try to travel to Australia illegally in a few weeks' time. More than 100 Papuans will make the perilous journey to draw attention to their call to be granted Australian citizenship.

The trip's organiser says among them will be two fuzzy wuzzy angels who helped Australian soldiers during World War II.

Late last year, a similar flotilla, carrying a similar number of people, tried to cross the Torres Strait in small boats. Most of the dinghies were picked up by immigration officials or turned back to Papua New Guinea. One craft carrying 10 people managed to land on Cape York before those on board were arrested.

The group's organiser, Johnathan Baure, says it is only a matter of weeks before the group makes another attempt. "We have already more dinghies and even canoes," he told Radio Australia's Asia Pacific program. "There were two other guys who are going to go on this trip now and they are fuzzy wuzzy angels."

The group is trying to draw attention to their fight to gain Australian citizenship. They claim they were not given the choice of Australian citizenship when Papua New Guinea gained independence from Australia in 1975. Two Australian High Court battles have been lost over the issue.

Mr Baure does not deny the dangerous of the trip across open sea. "Every member of our community, I ask them and I repeat to them clearly that there is risk involved. Each one of them make their stance, and some of them decide to take their children," he said. "Obviously that is their right to decide and I have no control over that area."

It cost Australia's Immigration Department at least $250,000 to process and return the group that came across last December.

Department spokesman Sandi Logan warned that making another attempt would be futile and dangerous, and the boats will be confiscated and people detained. Mr Logan says those who believe they are eligible to gain Australian citizenship should lodge formal applications. "In fact there are a few claims at the moment - around 40 or so claims from this group - as a result of their last endeavour. That is the correct channel," he said.

After the last trip, Papua New Guinean officials charged Mr Baure with fraud and immigration offences, allegations he refutes. He appeared in court on Thursday to face the charges.

Mr Baure said that during the hearing, the judge accused the prosecution of being unprepared and ordered it to provide relevant documentation to the court within a fortnight before the case can continue.

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GREENIE ROUNDUP

Three current articles below

Wind farms hurting rural communities

WIND turbines are closing in on four generations of the Quinn family who still live at Mt Bryan in South Australia's picturesque and productive Mt Lofty Ranges.

Rosemary Quinn, 74, says she spends her nights locked inside the 1900s stone house she has occupied for 55 years. She shuts the windows and sets the ceiling fan on high to cover the noise of the wind turbines 2km away.

Quinn's son Bill and his wife Jenny are about to gamble their 200ha property in a Federal Court challenge to the expansion plans of wind farm developer AGL.

Bill Quinn's daughter Deb, 32, who works for businesses that profit from the wind farm developments, is worried about the future of her daughter, Jacqueline, and what long-term exposure to nearby wind turbines may mean.

The Quinns are not alone.

They are part of an increasingly vocal army of people in rural settlements who believe they have become collateral damage in Australia's rush to embrace wind as an alternative energy to combat climate change.

Stories such as the Quinns', and much, much worse, are scattered through the more than 1000 submissions to a Senate inquiry into the effect of wind farm developments on rural communities.

The inquiry by the Senate community affairs committee has certainly received many submissions of support for wind-farm developments to meet the federal government's 20 per cent renewable energy target by 2020. Local community and sporting groups have praised the donations they have received.

But alongside the positive feedback are stories of gag orders, split communities, strongarm tactics and details of awful physical symptoms that people feel sure are the result of living in the auditory and sun-flicker shadow of wind turbine developments that are sweeping the rural landscape.

Family First senator Steve Fielding, who pushed for the Senate inquiry, says: "This is not a question about the viability of renewable technologies. It is to have a look at any adverse health effects for people living in close proximity."

He says the Senate committee has approached the inquiry with an open mind, but "certainly there are people whose health has deteriorated to the stage that they have had to move out at a complete loss to themselves".

Glenn Brew of Evansford in Victoria, near the controversial Waubra wind farm, has told the committee he was beginning to think he had a brain tumour until he discovered that other farmers in the area were experiencing headaches similar to his when they were close to the turbines.

Steven Hilary, 50, also of Waubra, has told the committee he is convinced the turbines pose a serious health risk.

"On April 22nd at 4am I suffered a heart attack and to date I have been continually suffering blood pressure issues, heart palpitations, headaches, dizziness, nausea, unbearable tinnitus and disrupted sleep patterns that led to numerous ambulance trips to hospital," he wrote.

The Senate inquiry clearly has opened a can of worms: affected rural residents believe city dwellers with a penchant for green power have been happy to ignore the situation. Despite what opponents may say, this is not a community backlash that can be dismissed as being rooted in climate change denial or greed.

When Rosemary Quinn first heard wind turbines were coming to her area she visited the already established wind farm developments at Yorke Peninsula and Cape Jervis to have a look. "I thought they were a terrific invention and we really needed to get all this green power," she says.

"People now just say I have got a set against them and if they passed us a lot of money it would be all right, but I had a sermon in church this morning that money doesn't matter. I don't want their money, I just want some peace and quiet in the last months of my life."

Sarah Laurie, a South Australian GP who has become a rallying point for people concerned about health effects from living near wind turbines, also cannot be written off as a stalking horse for big coal or the nuclear industry, as her detractors would suggest.

Laurie has worked among South Australia's Aboriginal communities on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands, where her husband still works as a travelling dentist.

She is a progressive with rooftop solar panels on her Crystal Brook property, and has alienated some friends by asking inconvenient questions about the green revolution. "I still am supportive of wind turbines in the right place," Laurie says. "I believe it is a siting issue primarily and we need to get the information in order to site the turbines safely.

"We have a window of opportunity now to get this right. If we don't I am concerned there is an unfolding public disaster. "This is not a NIMBY [not in my back yard] issue," Laurie says. "I don't think they should be in anybody's back yard."

All Laurie is requesting is that rigorous tests, independent of the industry or concerned residents, be carried out. Laurie knows her research, which catalogues a series of health effects among those living near wind turbines, will always be considered tainted by the fact there is a proposal for a wind farm near her own property. But her findings mirror the results of other research that has also struggled for official recognition from the wind industry and government agencies.

More HERE

Brown's green jobs to deindustrialise Australia

Dr Oliver Marc Hartwich

Politicians love ‘creating’ jobs, especially when these jobs serve a ‘greater good,’ such as fighting climate change. Greens leader Bob Brown recently praised Germany’s renewable energy policy.

Brown believes that investment in green technologies saved Germany’s economy from the global financial crisis. This in itself is a questionable assertion: the German GDP fell by 4.7% in 2009, and despite a 3.6% growth in 2010, output has not returned to pre-crisis levels.

Senator Brown also claims that ‘330,000 extra jobs have been created in Germany because of legislation moving to a clean, green energy future.’ If only.

The figure of 330,000 green energy jobs may well be true if you add up all employees working in industries such as wind energy, biomass and solar power. But were these ‘extra’ jobs ‘created’ as a result of green legislation? And at what cost?

First, it is necessary to count the costs of the alleged green jobs miracle. A study by the respected economic research institute RWI concluded that every single worker in these industries had been supported to the tune of €175,000 ($240,000). Given this enormous subsidy, it is remarkable how few jobs have been created.

In Germany, subsidies for renewable energies are paid for by energy users. Renewable energy suppliers can feed their production into the grid at guaranteed high prices; the additional cost of green electricity is passed on to private and business energy users.

As consumers have to pay more for power than they would have otherwise, they cannot spend the money elsewhere. Job losses then occur in other industries. In particular, high energy costs threaten energy-intensive industries such aluminium smelting, steel and cement.

The future of Germany’s largest aluminium smelter Rheinwerk, employing more than 600 people in the city of Neuss, hangs in the balance as high energy costs leave it uncompetitive. The weekly Die Zeit recently reported that Rheinwerk is only producing at 10% capacity despite a growing global demand for aluminium.

Aluminium is not an exception. According to the RWI study, net employment effects of green energies are minimal and may well be negative. Instead of creating ‘extra’ jobs, renewable energies are destroying jobs. These lost jobs are dispersed across the economy and not always easy to spot.

This week, EU Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger warned that high energy taxes had triggered a ‘creeping process of deindustrialisation’ in Germany. As regulatory elements accounted for more than 40% of energy costs, companies were moving their activities abroad, he said. Far from creating green industries, German eco-subsidies have led to industrial decline.

Maybe that is what Senator Brown would like to see in Australia as well.

The above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated 4 March Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590.

Carbon tax no climate cure-all: Lomborg

CARBON taxes can do little to change global warming, controversial Danish political scientist Bjørn Lomborg said in Australia this week, but it could fund a genuine solution. In Dr Lomborg's view, that solution lies in the ubiquitous availability of cheap green energy.

"The current solution is to make fossil fuels so expensive that nobody will want them," Dr Lomborg said, adding that this is "economically inefficient and politically impossible".

Instead, he thinks the world should be innovating "to make green energy so cheap that everyone will want it". "This is not about subsidies to green energy, it's about innovation."

Dr Lomborg, currently an adjunct professor at Copenhagen Business School, is the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool It. He is often branded a climate change skeptic, but his skepticism is these days directed more at the economic solutions proposed to address climate change.

"Global warming is real, it's a man-made problem, it's something we need to fix," he said on Tuesday. "Any economist would say that CO2 is bad and it should be taxed in principle."

However, he added, "The best economic analysis suggests that damage cost of CO2 is about $7 a tonne. So by all means (impose a tax) but it will reduce CO2 emissions very little." "Focusing on the tax is putting the cart before the horse. What we really need to do is focus on the innovation, and a carbon tax is a way to fund that innovation."

Citing Richard Tol, a climate economist who believes the potential effects of climate change are overplayed, Dr Lomborg poured cold economic water on the long-term benefits of a direct assault on fossil fuels. His assessment of the Kyoto Protocol is that it would cost about $180 billion per year by 2100, and reduce global temperatures by 0.00°C.

Dr Tol's modelling of the objective to reduce global temperatures by 2°C by 2100 came up with a bill of $40,000 billion per year, with each dollar spent avoiding only two cents of climate damage.

"We fail to remember that we don't burn fossil fuels to annoy Al Gore," Dr Lomborg observed. "We burn fossil fuels because they power virtually everything we like."

His solution, which he says stems from the work of several leading economists, including a handful of Nobel winners, is to direct 0.2 per cent of global GDP toward research and development of breakthrough green energy technologies. The cost would be about $100 billion a year ($1.6 billion for Australia), with a claimed return of $11 for each dollar invested.

"I don't think we should focus on a particular issue—solar or wind. Some things won't come through. Those that do will power the rest of the 21st Century." "Fundamentally, it's a much cheaper way to do much more good."

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"We're gonna build it but we're not gonna use it"

That seems to be the intended and quite addled message behind the announcement below -- As Australia's Labor Party government tries to deny the total constipation of their "refugee" policy. Labor won't do what it needs to do in order to stop the "boat people" arriving but it won't give many of them residence permits either. So it just keeps locking more and more of them up! And that means ever more prisons keep being needed

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says that just because the government is establishing a new 1500-bed immigration detention centre in Darwin it doesn't mean it will necessarily be filled to capacity.

Mr Bowen says the first 500 places at the $9.2 million Wickham Point facility should be ready by mid-year. But, he says, the government can't say how many new asylum seekers it expects to have to house over the next few years. "It's very hard to predict exact numbers ... we don't make forecasts," he told ABC Radio.

"(But) it's well known that the number of boat arrivals has been high of recent times. It's well know that our detention network has been under pressure. "What we do do is prepare for foreseeable contingencies."

The immigration minister said the new centre would ensure against overcrowding but the 1500-bed facility "might not all be necessary or it might all be necessary".

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says there's only one way to stop overcrowding and "that's to stop the boats and the boats will just keep coming unless the government changes policy".

He said opening a new Darwin detention centre was "yet another broken promise" by Labor. "They said there'd be no more onshore detention centres when plainly there are," he told the Nine Network.

Asylum seekers arriving by boat will still be processed offshore at Christmas Island before being transferred to the mainland.

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Ethnic-based anger explodes at NSW High School

Lebanese Muslims tend to be very arrogant and aggressive -- as is shown by their readiness to defy and attack police in the story below. Ordinary Aussies on the other hand are some of the most easy-going people in the world. But they can be pushed too far and a lot of Lebanese Muslims are prone to such pushing -- which is where the Cronulla riots also came from

IT had been simmering for months, say students, and this is the moment school racism reached boiling point. A brawl that erupted between a student's relatives and police was the culmination of an R-rated slanging match on Facebook between "Leb" and "Aussie" students.

While education officials denied yesterday there was any ongoing violence at Hoxton Park High School in Hinchinbrook, south west Sydney, parents and students said tensions between students had escalated in the past few years.

A 14-year-old student said that she was "jumped" on Wednesday afternoon by "10 Australian girls" who punched, kicked, scratched and spat at her. "They were saying, 'f ... Arabs', 'you bitch', 'you slut' - everything. They said all Muslim mums with scarves can hang themselves with it," the student said. "I was very upset and very angry. [Other Muslim children] at school were very angry, too." The girl said she didn't know why she was singled out by her attackers.

Posts on social networking site Facebook claimed the attack on this girl was in response to a fight between her friends and the group who "jumped" her two weeks ago.

The girl said she called her relatives for help and by 3pm a large crowd of her family and friends had gathered at the front of the school. They allegedly clashed with police who used capsicum spray to subdue the crowd and arrested six men and women, aged between 26 and 50, who were later charged with offences including affray, intimidation, assaulting police, resisting arrest and offensive language.

Witness Zahra Elasmar, whose two children attend the school, said Wednesday's fight was a spillover from the racist slurs made on students' Facebook pages. Facebook images obtained by The Daily Telegraph show derogatory comments made about other students including "lebs are rats!" .

Mrs Elasmar said she wrote to the Department of Education and Training about racism at the school and, with other parents, met with DET representatives, school staff and police liaison last month.

She said she collected 50 signatures on a petition sent to officials, but that it had fallen on deaf ears. "The principal doesn't know how to deal with this," she said. "What we witnessed today is not right in a multicultural country. We don't want another Cronulla [riot] at Hoxton Park."

A Department of Education and Training spokesman said the School Education Director will meet with Mrs Elasmar "soon" and that students who engage in racist or other anti-social behaviour are "disciplined".

Another parent, who wished to remain anonymous, said his son was attacked last year by "Leb students". "He can protect himself, but I was worried," he said. It was this brawl which caused the subsequent near-riot at the Green Valley Police Station.

While a police media release claimed only 40 supporters of the six people arrested over the school fight congregated outside the station, a police incident report obtained by The Daily Telegraph shows worried officers called in backup from units from across the South-Western Sydney command.

The report said police estimated "between 80 to 100" people - predominately young men - surrounded the police station. When a breakaway group tried to storm the station, police found themselves "faced with a real danger and the possibility of a volatile and violent confrontation resulting in the urgent call for assistance". Police with the assistance of surrounding local area commands, the dog squad and highway patrol officers took two hours to bring the large and angry group under control.

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Militant unions fined for illegal action at Melbourne building sites

MILITANT unions and five of their officials have been fined $110,000 for disrupting concrete pours and engaging in other illegal action at Melbourne building sites.

The Federal Court yesterday imposed the penalties on unions opposed to a swipe card system introduced by builder Bovis Lend Lease at the Royal Children's Hospital and three Docklands sites in 2008.

Australian Building and Construction Commissioner Leigh Johns said the industrial action was unwarranted and caused delays to the completion of the new children's hospital. "The unlawful industrial action included work stoppages, a rally, and a human blockade created to prevent concrete pours from occurring at the ANZ project in the Docklands precinct," he said.

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union and three of its officials were fined a total of $66,250. The Communications Electrical and Plumbing Union and two of its officials were fined a total of $43,750. The penalties were agreed by the ABCC and the unions.

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Tax betrayal haunts Independent MPs Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott

TONY Windsor and Rob Oakeshott are trying to play the victim now but the country independents are simply reaping the whirlwind of the betrayal of their deeply conservative electorates after the August election.

They sold out their constituents in return for flattery and back slapping in Canberra, and now they're feigning shock when they get blowback. Give us a break.

Even though he tried to hide, everyone saw Windsor and his grinning, bearded mate Oakeshott standing there last week, with Julia Gillard, Bob Brown, Christine Milne and Greg Combet, at the press conference announcing the carbon tax that the Prime Minister expressly promised during the election campaign she would never impose.

And he'll be hiding up the back of that sovereign sextet the next time they announce another of Brown's pet policies - euthanasia, same-sex marriage and any number of wasteful crackpot green schemes that are anathema to conservatives.

Now Windsor is complaining about "shock jocks" and Coalition MPs and nefarious "others" who he claims are "involved in an orchestrated campaign" to inciting US-style violence against him. It's just another smokescreen to hide from the consequences of his actions.

He claimed on Radio National yesterday to have received death threats over the carbon tax, which were being "investigated", though when pressed by interviewer Fran Kelly, he became vague.

Tamworth police have no record of any complaints and the Australian Federal Police last night confirmed they were investigating a complaint lodged by Windsor yesterday, that is, after his 7.30am interview claiming there was an investigation.

As proof of his suffering, Windsor released a phone message he had received: "You're a f ... . . g dog Windsor," said the male caller. "You're a f ... . . g liar, a dog, a rat, a big f ... . . g MP dog doing damn nothing. You wait. You're not going to get voted in again. I hope you die."

Unseemly language aside, if that's the worst threat Windsor can drum up then all he's proved is that he's a tricky wuss.

Take out the swear words and the unpleasant hope that he dies and what you have left is a statement that reflects the feelings of much of Windsor's electorate of New England, which gave Labor just 8 per cent of its vote at the last election and the Greens a paltry 4 per cent.

A big MP who has delivered his constituents and the rest of this hapless nation into the hands of a Labor-Green Coalition Government and a carbon tax that will diminish their quality of life.

The big threat in that phone call was he won't get voted in again. Amen to that, say the two-thirds of Australians who don't support a carbon tax, judging by Coalition polling in NSW last weekend.

In the circumstances, Windsor's constituents have been restrained. He's lucky they are country folk, who tend to keep their own counsel and are not whiny inner-city Greens voters who scream bloody murder if they feel wronged, which is every minute of every day.

DESCRIPTIONS of Windsor as "dingo" and "traitor" are not unknown on Inverell radio station 2NZ either. It ran a phone-in on the carbon tax, and in 30 minutes fielded 111 calls against and only three calls for. Tamworth's Northern Daily Leader ran a poll that found 75 per cent of people were against a carbon price.

John "Wacka" Williams, a Nationals senator and farm machine supplier from Inverell, says New England locals are "very very angry" with Windsor, and worried about increased costs of electricity and fuel and job losses under a carbon tax, which will do nothing for the environment.

"I think people are getting very annoyed with Tony Windsor," he told ABC radio yesterday. "There is a survey Tony is undertaking now in New England on same-sex marriage, on euthanasia, on a tax summit. Will he do that as far as a carbon tax goes?

Will he ask the people of his electorate because he claims to be the people's representative but he clearly did not listen to his electorate when it came to a decision about who he would put into government after theAugust 21 election. Will he do the same again and disregard the wishes of his electorate?"

Excellent questions.

Rather than blaming Tony Abbott, and "shock jocks" who he imagines are involved in "a degree of orchestration" of the anger in his electorate, Windsor should face the reality that his constituents all by themselves have been burning with resentment ever since he sided with Labor after the election, and that his carbon tax betrayal is the last straw.

It's the same for Oakeshott, who has been playing a bizarre no-speakies with Abbott, because he is upset that Joe Hockey went to his electorate and told people that a vote for the independents is a vote for Labor.

Well, duh. Oakeshott is living proof of that. What does he have to complain about other than Hockey speaking the plain, unvarnished truth, a concept with which the independents seem unfamiliar.

Oakeshott's conservative Lyne electorate in northern NSW voted just 13 per cent for Labor and 4 per cent for the Greens at the last election, so they are none too happy about his embrace of the Brown-Gillard pact, as shown by the latest polling. His personal approval rating has plunged from 63 per cent net positive support to negative 12 per cent, a 75-point turnaround. Ouch.

In the heart of his electorate, in Port Macquarie, the locals are "white hot" with anger against Oakeshott. Brett Pye, owner of Pye Providores in Port Macquarie, calls Oakeshott an "idiot" for "siding with such a cowboy outfit as this Labor Government". After last year's election he put up big signs on his front fence branding Oakeshott "Judas" and "You bloody sellout". He gets frequent compliments on the signs, he says, and not one complaint.

"The number of people that have said 'Good on you' is unbelievable," he says. "I deal with people who work for a living - they understand how hard it is to earn a dollar."

When even the ABC political program Insiders is labelling Oakeshott a "Big Sook", albeit with a question mark, you know his bid for the sympathy vote is falling flat. It's not the fault of Joe Hockey or Tony Abbott that his constituents have turned against him.

The other independent holding the country to ransom is Andrew Wilkie, the former Green who claims to stand for integrity in politics. Yet, instead of chiding Gillard for breaking her election-eve promise - "There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead" - he was busy in Parliament this week lambasting the "racist" Coalition because Cory Bernardi had said something unflattering about Islam.

As for Greens leader Bob Brown, now he's giving Wayne Swan public lectures on how to deal with the Opposition, and boasting about how the Government adopted his carbon tax platform. His cocky performance on Monday in the Senate shows hubris is coming early to the Greens. Mr 13 Per Cent is ruling the roost, a cuckoo in the Labor nest who has given Gillard a policy and philosophy framework she never had, and the nation a nightmare it never asked for.

This is the whirlwind that the independents have reaped.

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Gasp! Private schools spend more on their students than government schools do!

Did anyone expect otherwise? What do they think the parents pay for? A most unsurprising revelation. After the Latham debacle, the Labor party would be mad to use this as an excuse to attack private school funding -- but they are pretty mad. Witness their carbon tax and fibre broadband policies

The Coalition has warned the updated My School website will undermine government funding to independent schools while failing to help parents make better educational choices for their children.

Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne said the government had not made a convincing case for publishing independent schools' financial data. "The Coalition doesn't believe that information being made available will add anything to the educational outcomes of either government or non-government students," he told The Australian Online. "There can only be one reason to publish non-government financial data and that is to undermine government funding of non-government schools."

Schools Minister Peter Garrett launched My School 2.0 this morning at Telopea Park bilingual school in the Canberra suburb of Barton. He said the site was "game-changing" and would give parents "unparalleled data" on school finances.

Mr Garrett warned against parents removing their children from schools simply because of the updated data, instead saying they should read the website carefully and consult their school principals. "Have discussions as you feel are necessary with the school in question," he said. "Think carefully about what you read and what you get from the site and then make your own decisions."

Australian Education Union president Angelo Gavrielatos warned that the My School 2.0 website showed an alarming resources gap between government and private schools. "The gap is being fuelled by a central government funding system which is blind to the real needs of students," he said.

The union boss told The Australian Online the new financial information pointed to a need for a greater investment in the nation's government schools. But he said the information on the website remained limited, as it failed to include millions of dollars held in trust by private schools. "Literally millions of dollars in surpluses and millions held in trust foundations, assets and investment portfolios by private schools will not be shown on the My School website."

He said even on the financial information available, private schools were spending more than double what government schools were spending per student on capital expenditure and 25 per cent more in recurrent funding.

Queensland Education Minister Cameron Dick urged parents to use the revamped My School website with caution, saying he was concerned about the potential for unfair comparisons, given the complexity of the information. “The data could be used unfairly in relation to some schools; some schools have different needs, some communities have different needs ... that's appropriate that they would be funded to a different level,” he told reporters in Brisbane.

“Funding is affected by location, school programs, age and size of facilities, staffing, overall enrolment and the number of indigenous, international, non-English speaking students and students with disabilities.”

The Queensland Council of Parents and Citizens' Associations said it too was concerned with the publication of school finances. “Every school is unique and therefore not comparable,” state president Margaret Leary said in a statement. “The figures presented on the My School website are not a true and fair indicator.”

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Note: I have two other blogs covering Australian news. They are more specialized so are not updated daily but there are updates on both most weeks. See QANTAS/Jetstar for news on Qantas failings and Australian police news for news on police misbehaviour

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG ridicules the claims of "Independent" MP Tony Windsor




Julia Gillard hit by gay marriage rebellion

JULIA Gillard is facing a backbench rebellion over fears the government would support a Greens Bill that could enable gay marriage and legal euthanasia. Three senior MPs - Steve Hutchins, Don Farrell and John Hogg - confronted the Prime Minister yesterday to express concerns about the Greens' Bill.

Greens leader Bob Brown said his proposed law would make an Act of Parliament necessary for the Commonwealth to override legislation in the Northern Territory or the ACT. It would abolish ministerial vetoes.

The Herald Sun has been told the delegation, led by Mr Farrell, the so-called "Godfather" of the Labor Right, met Ms Gillard at 11.30am after the Greens claimed to have secured government support for the private member's Bill.

It is believed the PM said she had no knowledge of it and she would not back legal euthanasia. Treasurer Wayne Swan also told them he had no knowledge of the issue.

Angry Labor MPs yesterday said the issue had brought to a head amid growing concerns the Greens had too much influence on Government policy. "I just hope this is not a harbinger of what life will be like after July 1, when the Greens have control of the Senate," one concerned senior Labor MP said.

MPs also have privately criticised the PM's decision to introduce a carbon tax without consulting the full Labor caucus. Labor figures, particularly in outer city electorates, have been fielding "virulent" emails and phone calls from voters complaining of a "sellout" to the Greens. "People are really angry - they feel they've been deceived," a senior Labor MP said. "It's adding to a growing view out there that Labor is dominated by the Greens."

Labor MPs have also confessed to being "savaged" by irate voters over the carbon tax. Some said their offices had received abusive phone calls from people fearful over the impact of a carbon tax on family living costs. "One was pretty vicious," a Sydney MP said.

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No happy ending for carbon tax fairytale

LIKE Goldilocks and the three bears, Australia's climate change response relies on believing that temperature changes (and their timing) are not too hot, not too cold, but just right.

It relies on believing the world can slow its production of carbon dioxide sufficiently to hold the temperature below a level at which catastrophic climate change can be avoided. The emissions forgone will come just at the right time, all going well.

There's not a lot of economics in it. Ross Garnaut, the government's climate change economic adviser, has thought about this a great deal. But his advice to government is to stick with an abatement strategy first and an adaptation strategy second.

In the update to his 2008 Climate Change Review, Garnaut argues: "There is still a chance of achieving strong mitigation objectives, and at worst we are headed towards materially less damage from climate change than would have been the case with no international mitigation effort at all."

The assumption of a reasonably direct relationship between the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the temperature level and damage arising from temperature change is a big call. To suggest that the world is heading towards materially less damage than would have been the case on the basis of present abatement is frankly heroic.

In 2008, Garnaut argued that "mitigation will come too late to avoid substantial damage from climate change". In his 2011 update he argues that "without in any way underplaying the importance of a large, well-designed and well-resourced adaptation effort, my own judgment is that there is no evidence at this time nor any danger of over-investment in mitigation at the expense of investment in adaptation".

There is, however, a strong connection between mitigation and adaptation. For droughts we build dams, for floods we build levees, for cyclones we rebuild stronger houses and replant crops. We have no option but to do these things. Indeed, when non-climate tragedies occur, such as earthquakes, we have no option but to rebuild. All of these things require energy. All of these things become more difficult if the price of energy rises.

Then there is the economics (and the politics).

Julia Gillard's bald-faced lying to the electorate that she would not introduce a carbon tax - as the central plank of an abatement policy - and then doing so is one thing. Her announcement that a carbon tax is an "essential economic reform" is quite another.

For the carbon tax to work, the price of carbon emissions will need to continue to rise, which means future governments will have to raise the tax. This is unlikely to occur. Certainty cannot be delivered under these circumstances.

I sympathise with economists that a price on carbon emissions would deliver the electricity industry and their customers secure power generation.

These things are not going to happen with a pricing mechanism that requires future governments to change the tax or the cap. Even with a carbon tax and a successful transition to a cap and trade system and future lowering of the cap, the likely medium-term changes to the Australian economy will be one or two power plants fired by gas and the de-commissioning of one or two coal-fired plants. Some reform, some abatement.

I sympathise entirely with economists that a price would work best, in lieu of subsidies for renewables. Linking solar and wind generation to the grid is proving a real headache. But a pricing mechanism will not solve the inadequacy of these technologies.

Australia's mitigation strategy has no hope of doing other than lining the pockets of gas and nonrenewable energy producers and risking any number of Australia's internationally competitive producers. The impact on global temperature will be nil.

There are no benefits in adopting low-emission energy production early, because we can easily pick up on what others do at a later time.

Australians buy television sets and computers, we do not invent them. We reap the rewards of adopting them. As we are unlikely to invent the low-emission, low-cost energy sources, we will not reap those benefits. Besides, inventors do not rely on the price of carbon for their reward. The patent alone will make them as rich as Croesus.

Tony Abbott's promise to overturn a carbon tax means a price mechanism is no longer an option. Of course, it never was an option because for the tax and-or the cap and trade to work effectively future governments would have to continue to raise the price of carbon emissions, which is a bit like asking them to raise the GST on a regular basis. It simply will not happen.

It is a brew that Goldilocks would find too hot to handle.

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NSW as a police State

I've been thinking a great deal about the way NSW has taken on some of the flavour of a police state. The context is the run-up to the state election. I'm wondering what the Coalition will do about the police after it wins office on March 26. In NSW, we have the worst of both worlds, where the cops and the government are tough on hundreds of thousands of non-criminals going about their daily lives, while giving a free pass to real criminals.

This dysfunction is exemplified in Kings Cross, where the NSW government is complicit in the heroin trade while, as a result of this complicity, the police have all but given up arresting junkies in the Cross.

Darlinghurst Road has become entrenched as a place where drug and alcohol abuse flourishes. Meanwhile, just down the hill, on busy New South Head Road, the police stop thousands of motorists who are causing no problems. At this checkpoint, the presumption is guilt, the selection process is random, and the probable cause is non-existent.

Checkpoints, random stops, speed cameras and speed traps. This is the real face of the NSW Police. The force has been turned into petty bureaucrats charged with gouging revenue from taxpayers, while looking the other way as the heroin traffic flourishes in plain sight. Our legal system and state bureaucracy have turned the thin blue line into a bleached corps of tax agents, social workers, stress-leave jockeys and second-job jugglers, leaving a few hard units to do hard investigations into hard crime.

Look at Kings Cross. It used to be one of Australia's most sophisticated, cosmopolitan and pleasant precincts. Now it is a bogan paradise, a cathedral to bad taste, a product of the power of the alcohol, heroin and poker machine industries that have enjoyed unprecedented power or tolerance for 16 years under the Labor patronage machine and pork factory.

In the Cross, the core of the rot is sponsored by the NSW government itself. It is the blandly named Medically Supervised Injecting Centre, conveniently located on Darlinghurst Road opposite the entrance to Kings Cross railway station. Never have so many lies been fed to the public in support of this policy quagmire.

The argument justifying the centre is that has cleaned up the drug trade and saved "hundreds" of lives. This is propaganda worthy of North Korea. The reality is the opposite. The centre is directly responsible for hundreds of drug overdoses. It has created an environment where the most reckless and self-indulgent people in society - junkies - know they will be bailed out of their own risks.

The result is stratospheric rates of drug overdoses and interventions, which are then counted as lives saved. This is the basis on which more than $25 million in public funding has been requested and justified by the drug-legalisation lobby. Anyone interested in the non-North Korean view of this social experiment can find a blistering, highly detailed counter-view on the website of Drug Free Australia .

One of the leading figures behind Drug Free Australia, Gary Christiansen, told me: "The number of overdoses in the [Kings Cross] facility have been a staggering 35 to 42 times higher than the rate of overdose experienced by clients [drug-users] before they registered to use the room. Testimony by former clients in the NSW Hansard indicates that the overdose numbers are so high because clients experiment with higher doses of heroin and poly-drug cocktails, using the safety of the room as a guarantee."

As for the wider matter of dysfunctional policing, the opposition has announced that it finds the use of speed traps to be overbearing, deceptive and intrusive. Yesterday it announced it would review the entire process if elected to government. This is encouraging.

Another telling benchmark will come after March 26, when the new government decides what to do about the tax-funded heroin honeypot in the heart of Sydney.

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Axemen advise O'Farrell

THE mastermind behind the sacking of more than 50,000 public servants during the Greiner and Fahey Liberal governments has been quietly advising Barry O'Farrell's team on how to streamline the public service when, as expected, the NSW Coalition takes power in a month.

Gary Sturgess now works for Serco, the multinational services company that runs Villawood detention centre and has recently replaced workers with robots in British hospitals. He has met shadow treasurer Mike Baird a number of times over the past 12 months.

Mr Sturgess engineered the dumping of 2000 teachers, 5000 school cleaners and more than 8000 rail workers within a year of Nick Greiner becoming premier in 1988.

The re-emergence of Mr Sturgess has heightened fears among the public service over what plans Mr O'Farrell might have for redundancies and the privatisation of government services. Mr O'Farrell is also being advised by Max "the axe" Moore-Wilton, John Howard's job-slashing department head.

Mr Sturgess confirmed he had met Mr Baird a number of times, the last time in November. "The message I've been giving them is there's an awful lot of interesting things happening in [Britain] . not just outsourcing, but some interesting private sector contracts where payment is dependent on outcome," Mr Sturgess said from London. "My job is to help explain how this stuff works so that government feels it can make voters and unions feel more comfortable about it."

Mr Sturgess was referring to the debt-mired British government, which recently revealed plans to open up virtually all public services to private companies. Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron will cut about 500,000 British public servants by 2015. Serco is at the forefront of outsourcing around the world, managing everything from satellites to prisons and traffic light systems. Greens MP John Kaye memorably described Serco as like a "living organism that has found a very rich payload of nutrients".

In August last year, Serco put robots into a Scottish hospital to move waste, linen and clinical supplies at the expense of human workers. "Should NSW have robots in its hospitals?" Mr Sturgess said. "It might be good but it can't put them into existing hospitals. Like the experience in [Britain], you have to have a government wanting the best possible way to contain disease and waste and prepared to allow the private sector to solve the problem."

He stressed he was not lobbying on behalf of Serco Australia, rather sharing his expertise from the Serco think tank. "Serco doesn't have a view about what services should be put to the private sector, it's not for us to decide should be put to the market. When government makes that decision it's for us to tell them how we think it can be done. I've known a lot of the [Liberal] guys for a very long time so it would be improper for me to be lobbying on behalf of Serco and I don't."

Mr Sturgess conceded Mr O'Farrell had been "coy" about revealing any plans that could involve job cuts. The Coalition is still scarred from its experience at the 2007 election when then leader Peter Debnam announced he would target 22,000 public servants before crashing in the polls.

Mr Baird confirmed he had met with Mr Sturgess. "I'm open to any ideas to save money."

The Public Service Association supports Mr O'Farrell's plan for a new public service commissioner to de-politicise appoints but is still fearful of deep cuts to workers. "We'd like Barry to put on the record before the election what he intends to do because right now the message is mixed," said its assistant general secretary Steve Turner.

Last week, Mr O'Farrell said: "We don't have a default position that says privatisation is in our DNA." But when speaking to The Australian Financial Review, he said: "The public sector doesn't have all the ideas. The public sector certainly won't have the money to fix the problems in this state."

Another company that will be interested in service contracts is Veolia Environmental Services, whose executives include Peter Shmigel, Mr O'Farrell's former chief of staff.

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Note: I have two other blogs covering Australian news. They are more specialized so are not updated daily but there are updates on both most weeks. See QANTAS/Jetstar for news on Qantas failings and Australian police news for news on police misbehaviour

MPs attack anti-Bible 'madness'

OPPOSITION MPs have strongly attacked the ban on Bibles and other holy books being handed out at citizenship ceremonies, with Tony Abbott describing it as outrageous.

Tasmanian Liberal senator Guy Barnett told the Coalition party room this was "political correctness gone mad. There should be freedom of religion, not freedom from religion."

Previously, local councils and community groups gave people at citizenship ceremonies Bibles, which they could keep. But under rules that the government says came in during the Howard years, people can bring their own Bibles or other holy books but they can't be handed out.

Senator Barnett last night described the ban as "an extremist US approach to the separation of church and state" and called for its overturn. Under the old practice, people were not obliged to accept the books, he said.

Nationals MP Paul Neville, from Queensland, told the Coalition meeting that Bibles were still used in courts and tribunals and the Bible was the centrepiece of the oath. But people no longer put their hand on the Bible at citizenship ceremonies.

Former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull said if people wanted to offer Bibles and other holy books they should be able to do so. Mr Abbott said the government was interfering with the long-established practice to offer holy books.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said the minister would look at the code's "appropriateness".

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Degree target aims too high

Who sets these arbitrary and absurd targets anyway? And based on what reasoning, if any?

THE government's target for 40 per cent of young Australians to be graduates by 2025 is not realistic, according to a leading demographer, Bob Birrell.

One scenario would require the number of domestic students completing degrees to rise 82 per cent between 2009 and 2025, Dr Birrell and colleagues say in a new paper in the journal People and Place. "Neither Australia's higher education sector nor the government departments that administer it appear to understand that their target will require such an enormous increase," they say.

But a spokesman for Tertiary Education Minister Chris Evans said the government was confident its demand-driven system would deliver the university places needed to meet the target.

Dr Birrell said more realistic targets, funding and campus building should be aimed at poorly serviced regional and outer suburban areas.

The target for 25 to 34-year-olds was seen as ambitious when floated by the Bradley review in 2008 and adopted in modified form the following year by the government.

But as statistics revealed dramatic growth in young degree holders between 2006 and 2009, some commentators said the 2025 target looked easy. "The government's 40 per cent target could be reached naturally, well before 2025, allowing for enrolment pipelines, and without accounting for the contribution of degree qualified immigrants," the Group of Eight universities said in 2010.

The Birrell paper says the Go8 and others have misread the 2006-09 growth spurt. Domestic graduates and migrants with professional qualifications together account for just half this growth, according to modelling done by Dr Birrell and his colleagues. Their modelling takes into account the number of graduates who enter and leave the 25 to 34 age group as time passes.

Migrant professionals tend to be older and leave the age group more quickly than domestic graduates, meaning that on present trends their net contribution to the target would be nil before 2025.

The Birrell analysis suggests "that the recent rapid rise in the proportion of 25 to 34-year-olds with degrees is not a precursor to an easy pathway to achievement of the 40 per cent target, as asserted by the Go8". The paper concludes that overseas students who have graduated or arrived with undergraduate degrees are the most likely reason for the remaining half of the growth seen in 2006-09.

The survey that revealed the 2006-09 growth covers people who were residents in Australia for at least 12 months, meaning it would also pick up overseas students on temporary visas such as the graduate skills visa.

The authors say the growth represented by overseas students "is about to come to an end given that the government has largely removed the carrot of permanent residence as an inducement to study in Australia".

Between 2006 and 2009 the share of 25 to 34-year-olds with at least an undergraduate degree rose from 29.2 per cent to 34.6 per cent but another 410,000 graduates were needed to meet the 2025 target.

Even a 35 per cent increase in immigration would deliver only an extra 124,000 graduates over the period, the authors say. Relying on local students would require an 82 per cent increase from 98,732 domestic graduations in 2009 to 179,600 in 2025.

Senator Evans's spokesman said updated 2010 estimates suggested the demand-driven system would deliver an extra 195,000 domestic undergraduate places between 2010 and 2013.

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CARBON TAX ROUNDUP

Three current articles below

Dirty little lie on carbon tax

By economics professor Sinclair Davidson

THE government has announced its carbon tax will commence in July 2012. Consumers and taxpayers should be very concerned about this new tax.

The announcement is even vaguer than either of the mining taxes announced last year. All we know is that a new and complex tax will be introduced next year. So far, we can't even be sure how much revenue it will raise, except that it will be budget neutral; not even revenue neutral.

This should not inspire confidence. The government has shown itself capable of spending more than the revenue it already raises, and now it is promising to spend all the revenue from the new tax.

There is a dirty little lie at the centre of the government's plan to introduce a carbon price. That is the notion that carbon isn't already priced. The government must be hoping nobody has noticed the plethora of programs that have contributed to rising living costs while minimally reducing carbon emissions.

Some of these programs have enjoyed a high profile. For example the home insulation scheme, which resulted in numerous house fires and four deaths. Solar panel rebate schemes have proven as expensive as they are popular, while others, such as the Green Car Innovation Fund were probably just old-style protectionism.

The fact is the Australian government has introduced several expensive carbon prices. The best that can be said for the proposal to introduce a fixed carbon price is that it will be cheaper than many existing programs.

The test the government faces is in abandoning the more expensive programs. In the presence of a well-defined, well-designed carbon tax all those other schemes simply become corporate welfare. Keeping them in place is a double hit on consumers. That means mandated renewal energy targets, and windmills, and all those boondoggles so beloved by politicians will have to go.

The whole argument for a carbon tax is that it represents the most efficient way to achieve a given outcome. If that is true, then it should substitute for all existing programs.

But that is not what the government seems to have in mind. The carbon price mechanism announced last week makes no mention of substitution; in fact the mechanism does not preclude other measures. In other words, this price is not a substitute for other higher, yet less effective, prices, it is an additional price to those already in place.

How often will consumers have to pay for the same carbon? Not often enough it seems.

There is another problem with this scheme. It has the potential to generate vast streams of revenue to the government. Governments quickly become addicted to easy money. The whole idea of a carbon price is, over time, that revenue should decline. But the government has spending plans. It is going to be very difficult to increase spending when the funding source is expected to decline.

Making the tax budget neutral invites future deficits as revenues decline. Conversely it gives government the incentive to stymie carbon substitution in order to maintain revenues. In short the vagueness of the proposal introduces sovereign risk.

The vagueness of the proposal also means that its effects have not been modelled. The government cannot know what impact it'll have on the economy and as such cannot have designed any compensation packages.

In their Shitstorm: Inside Labor's Darkest Days, Lenore Taylor and David Uren recount how then climate change minister Penny Wong came to the conclusion that business was quite serious about the adverse impact the emission trading scheme would have had on the economy.

There is nothing in last week's announcement to suggest any of those problems have been addressed or resolved. If anything a less developed proposal has been announced to commence next year. The community is being asked to pay its money and await developments.

The challenge this government faces is that it has no track record in delivery of programs. Its 2007 promises are yet to be achieved from healthcare reform through to the rather simple task of delivering computers to schools. It has failed at every turn. The community is now being invited to trust that they can successfully introduce a tax on every aspect of the Australian economy from a standing start to implementation in less than 16 months.

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Carbon tax is poll poison for NSW

VOTERS have rejected Julia Gillard's carbon tax, Coalition polling across NSW state seats found, with almost two thirds of people against it. In a sign of the battle ahead for Julia Gillard in selling the new tax to voters, only 18 per cent of NSW voters said they were in favour of a tax. About the same number said they had not yet made up their mind. But 62 per cent said they were firmly against it. The remainder claimed to have no knowledge of it.

The polling was conducted in NSW as part of the Coalition's campaign for the state election on March 26. It polled 1200 people at the weekend, just days after Julia Gillard announced she would seek to introduce a carbon price in July 2012 before a market-based emissions trading scheme by as early as 2015.

The decision by the State Opposition to poll on carbon tax revealed Liberal leader Barry O'Farrell's plans to use it as a key weapon against Labor in the election.

"A carbon tax will lead to higher power bills, but a carbon tax will also threaten jobs - whether your company is selling into the Australian market against imports, or whether it is trying to sell overseas against countries that don't have a carbon tax," Mr O'Farrell said yesterday. The sentiment was supported by some federal Labor MPs in marginal seats.

Several of Ms Gillard's caucus said the carbon tax would hurt them locally and they were concerned federal Labor's strategy of recapturing its left-wing base through climate change policy would cost them middle-class Australian votes. "If petrol is included, it will kill us," one NSW Federal MP said yesterday. "It really is a divided issue and anyone in a marginal seat in NSW will be in trouble."

Carbon tax dominated Federal Parliament yesterday, with Opposition Leader Tony Abbott continuing his attack on Ms Gillard's broken election promise.

Ms Gillard said Mr Abbott's threats of winding back the tax would cripple the Australian economy. She tried to inflame divisions within the Coalition over climate change, following admissions by Liberal MP and former leader Malcolm Turnbull that he still supported the idea of a carbon tax and an emissions trading scheme.

"If this fear campaign fails and we price carbon on July 1, 2012, as I intend to do, then [Abbott] will go to the next election with a plan to wreck the Australian economy with economic vandalism," Ms Gillard said.

Federal Climate Change Minister Greg Combet say Australian households would be poorer by an average of $720 a year under the coalition's direct action plan. "The new figures demonstrate that direct action is so environmentally ineffective that it will deliver only 25 per cent of carbon pollution abatement required for the Coalition to meet the bipartisan target of minus five per cent (by 2020)," Mr Combet said in a statement today.

"This means that the Coalition would need to purchase 75 per cent of the required abatement from international permits at a cost of over $20 billion - which currently has no funding allocated." The cost of the Opposition's plan would eventually leave a $30 billion Budget shortfall by 2020, Mr Combet said.

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Nationals polling shows Rob Oakeshott's support is shot

He is a traitor to his voters: A Green/Leftist who got elected by pretending to be a conservative

VOTER support for Rob Oakeshott has fallen through the floor according to confidential polling conducted for the NSW Nationals since the independent MP pledged his support for Julia Gillard's carbon tax.

Mr Oakeshott has lapsed into net negative approval, according to the poll, details of which have been revealed exclusively to The Australian.

Anger towards Mr Oakeshott and his fellow independent NSW MP Tony Windsor, who also backs the minority Labor government and the Prime Minister's carbon tax, is now threatening the viability of several state independent MPs at the March 26 election.

The telephone poll of 400 voters in the state seat of Port Macquarie, which lies inside Mr Oakeshott's federal seat of Lyne on the NSW mid-north coast, was conducted last week and found 40 per cent of voters viewed Mr Oakeshott favourably, while 52 per cent viewed him unfavourably. A further 7 per cent of voters were neutral, while 1 per cent had never heard of him. The 12 per cent net negative approval for Mr Oakeshott is in stark contrast to his earlier popularity with voters, which catapulted him from the seat of Port Macquarie into Lyne at a by-election in September 2008.

Polling by the Nationals three months before the by-election showed Mr Oakeshott was regarded favourably by 71 per cent of voters, and unfavourably by 8 per cent, yielding net positive support of 63 per cent.

The 75-point turnaround follows the decision of Mr Oakeshott to back a minority Labor government last year, and his role in Ms Gillard's carbon tax backflip last month.

Directly in the firing line as a result is Port Macquarie MP Peter Besseling, a protege of Mr Oakeshott who advised him during his negotiations over minority government six months ago.

Senior Nationals sources have claimed the blowback will also hurt the chances of independent MP Peter Draper in Tamworth, which lies within Mr Windsor's New England electorate.

Dozens of voters in Port Macquarie have told The Australian they will be less likely to vote for Mr Besseling as a result of Mr Oakeshott's support for Ms Gillard and her program.

Nationals candidate for Port Macquarie Leslie Williams said Mr Oakeshott's growing unpopularity would "absolutely" hurt Mr Besseling's chances at the election. "I do lots of doorknocking out in the electorate and certainly the feeling is pretty strong out there," she said. "They're not happy with Rob and they make it quite clear, time and again. This isn't a Labor seat and so they're still quite miffed about why Rob would have taken that path rather than go down the conservative path."

A senior NSW Nationals source said Mr Oakeshott's relationship with Mr Besseling, who succeeded him in the state seat, was so strong that "there is going to be some blowback".

Another state independent, Dubbo MP Dawn Fardell, has been distancing herself from Mr Oakeshott and Mr Windsor as she struggles to fight off a concerted challenge from the Nationals on March 26. "I was very disappointed in Windsor and Oakeshott," Ms Fardell said. "If they want things for their community, you can do those things along the way and lobby. I've done no deals with the (state) Labor government."

Mr Draper's margin over the Nationals is 4.8 per cent, Mr Besseling's is 4.5 per cent, and Ms Fardell's is just 0.9 per cent.

SOURCE

Note: I have two other blogs covering Australian news. They are more specialized so are not updated daily but there are updates on both most weeks. See QANTAS/Jetstar for news on Qantas failings and Australian police news for news on police misbehaviour. New posts on both today

New authoritarian law from the NSW Left

What is wrong with an arrangement that both parties concerned are happy with? As usual, this is self-chosen "elites", mostly on the Left, treating adults like children and presuming to make very personal decisions for them. Fortunately, because of federalism, people can just move to another state or territory and get on with their lives without such interference

NICK BONE would give anything for his son. But from today, giving him a brother or sister could land him in jail.

Long-awaited laws that come into force today giving recognition to parents of children born through surrogacy also have imposed penalties designed to protect overseas women from exploitation by families seeking commercial surrogacy. Penalties include up to two years' imprisonment and fines of $275,000 for parents who have children through overseas commercial surrogacy arrangements.

The changes would force desperate would-be parents into "underground" arrangements, said speakers at a forum last night organised by the group Australian Families Through Gestational Surrogacy.

But Mr Bone's biggest worry right now is what his 10-month-old son, Otis, will think when he discovers he was born through an arrangement the state has since decided is wrong. "I never wanted to lie to him about anything, but how will he feel knowing that when he is growing up?" Mr Bone asked.

He did not believe Otis's birth mother was exploited, as he had developed a relationship with her, talking regularly during the pregnancy, and had seen the benefits his money had provided.

The Greens MP David Shoebridge said the ban was a "last-minute amendment", introduced and voted on within 48 hours despite the rest of the legislation being crafted from years of community consultation. It would leave distraught families in its wake.

The original bill banned commercial surrogacy in NSW, but Mr Shoebridge said the Greens had supported it because it was in line with community standards. However, he believed the issue was open for debate in the future.

Jenni Millbank, a law professor at the University of Technology, Sydney, said some people would still use overseas commercial surrogacy, either illegally or by moving to another state.

She believed the law was implemented without proper consultation, and was unlikely to achieve its goal. A transnational accreditation system for surrogacy providers would be a better way of protecting birth mothers, she said.

A spokesman for the Attorney-General, John Hatzistergos, said it was important the ban on commercial surrogacy was not undermined or circumvented.

Commercial arrangements had "been roundly rejected by the National Health and Medical Research Council as well as lawmakers around Australia via the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General", the spokesman said.

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Men banned from dance event at Town Hall

A WOMEN-only dance party has seen a suburban council accused of being segregationist. The Dance Sister Dance at Brunswick Town Hall in Victoria has won a VCAT exemption from equal opportunity laws. The Moreland City Council dance is designed for cultural groups whose women would not take part if it involved men.

But Ratepayers Victoria president Jack Davis said Moreland was supporting segregation. "We have segregation in swimming pools, now we have segregation for dancing. Will the next step be buses only for various nationalities," Mr Davis said. Similar exemptions have been granted for councils to offer female-only swimming sessions at public pools.

VCAT member Anna Dea said the dance party was justified because Moreland council research showed many women and girls preferred to be active in a female-only environment. [What say I prefer to be active in a "whites only" environment? Would that be OK?]

"In addition, many newly arrived communities find it culturally inappropriate for young women to participate in physical activity with males present," Ms Dea's decision said. "Young women tend to be less confident dancing at mixed events and it is hoped this event will build confidence, raise self-esteem and develop skills."

The City of Moreland, which stretches from Fitzroy North to Glenroy, has a large migrant population, with about 8 per cent of residents Muslim. It offers a women's only program at the Brunswick City Baths.

Mayor Oscar Yildiz said it was important for the council to offer activities in appropriate settings. "This event encourages women and girls from all cultural backgrounds to become familiar with dancing and raise their skill and confidence," Cr Yildiz said.

John Roskam, head of free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, said the dance party issue wasn't as clear cut as women-only swimming sessions. "If it's encouraging people to participate in the community then that would have to be a good thing, " Mr Roskam said. "But the thing is, we can't be making a habit of it. "We want the genders to be mixing in society."

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Personal responsibility upheld

This may help cut back the fashion for blaming everyone except the person responsible for mishaps

A man left a quadriplegic when he dived into a riverbed has lost a $5 million lawsuit against local authorities. Timothy Felhaber was aged 17 in September 2002 when he and friends were using a rope swing attached to a tree to propel themselves into the Fitzroy River at a recreational area known as the Ski Gardens, near Rockhampton.

On his last swing he dived headfirst into the water, struck his head on the river bed and broke his neck. Mr Felhaber claimed Rockhampton City Council was responsible, at least in part, for his injury. He claimed authorities should have erected signs warning of the dangers of diving into the water.

At a trial in the Rockhampton Supreme Court earlier this month, he sought $5 million in damages.

He claimed the council was in breach of its duty of care to him by failing to remove the branch of the tree from which the rope was slung, removing the rope swing.

He also said the council failed to put up a sign warning people that the depth of the river may change and that diving was prohibited.

However the council argued Mr Felhaber had failed to prove any duty of care owed to him had been breached.

In a judgment published last week, Judge Duncan McMeekin found in favour of the council, ruling:

* the activity on which the plaintiff was engaged was a voluntary recreational activity

* the risks inherent in the activity were obvious and the exercise of care by members of the public could be expected to keep them safe

* the council were not armed with any special knowledge relating to the risks inherent in carrying out the activity

* the council in no way "required or invited or encouraged" entrants to the area to engage in the activity

"The plaintiff made a mistake in his dive," he said in the 22-page-long judgment. "I suspect that his swing took him not so far out as was usual and his chosen method of dismount brought him a little closer to the bank than he expected. It was not a deliberate action of courting a risk but a negligent failure to ensure he kept a safe distance away from the bank."

In 2004 the council erected a sign at the Ski Gardens warning of diving dangers and of crocodiles in the water.

Judge McMeekin said it was unreasonable for the council to remove every tree from which a rope could be attached.

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Privacy decrees gone mad

No privacy for the little guy

YOU KNOW what really gets my back up? It's privacy laws. I know, they are meant to keep our affairs private. But why do they work only one way? When my telecom "provider" makes an unsolicited call to "help me get a cheaper plan" the first thing they want to know is my date of birth. Why? For privacy reasons, we must ensure we are talking to you, I am told.

Well, they rang me, I didn't ring them, so how do I know it is them, not some devious schemer trying to steal my identity? Reasoning on this level doesn't compute. I have tried suggesting they tell me my date of birth, and if correct, I would continue the discussion. No, I am told. We are unable to disclose that information - privacy laws, you know!

I went looking for a cheaper green slip for my rego. No problem, said the smiling customer service officer at a big bank. What is your full name? What is your date of birth? What is your address? What is the rego number of the car in question? Etc etc. I replied that I only wanted the price on a green slip for a 2005 popular make of car, that I was under 75 and over 25, lived outside the metropolitan area, and had no demerit points, surely that was all she needed to know to give me a price. "No - the computer has to have all that information to give a quote," I was assured. My full name? My exact address? My exact date of birth? The rego number of my particular car? What for? What about my privacy? Does the process of getting comparative quotes have to put me at the mercy of every junk mail distributor in the world?

Our local paper recently ran a notice, inserted by a city funeral director, announcing the funeral of a former resident who left our district 50 years ago, leaving behind many friends, most of whom are dead. In recognition of the fact that this lady was a good friend of my parents, now both dead, I rang the funeral director for her family's address in order to send a sympathy card on behalf of my family. "No, privacy laws forbid us releasing the family's address. We will forward any card you wish to send."

Well, did they think that this old lady did something dastardly to my family half a century ago, and that I have been waiting ever since for just such an opportunity to even the score with her bereaved family? What absolute rot. Why do we have to accept such mindless and senseless nonsense?

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Some very welcome legal immigrants to Australia



It was drizzling and 8C in County Meath yesterday but Irish carpenter Conor Foley was far from home, drinking very cold beer in a West Australian heatwave.

The 25-year-old and his girlfriend, Aisling Mooney, a beauty therapist, have been granted 457 work visas to stay in Australia for four years. It is news that has made them the envy of friends back in Ireland where a new wave of emigration is under way. "We have loads of friends who want to leave Ireland for economic reasons," said Ms Mooney. "For us, it's the lifestyle as well. Perth is just so outdoorsy and we have changed our whole way of living."

The latest exodus from Ireland coincided with the recession in 2008 that saw unemployment reach 13 per cent. It is predicted that the number of people leaving Ireland over the next two years will reach 100,000, more than twice the number that left in 2009 and last year.

In Friday's Irish election, ruling party Fianna Fail appears to have been dumped over the economic malaise that led to the IMF-EU bailout of $116 billion last year. The centre-right Fine Gael is expected to look to the centre-left Labour Party to form a coalition government.

Ms Mooney and Mr Foley are taking a keen interest in the result, but say Perth is a more optimistic place with better opportunities. They will stay regardless of what happens at home. "We want to become permanent residents, that is our next goal, and buy a house," said Ms Mooney.

Mr Foley's visa was sponsored by the large construction company he works for. His skills in building maintenance are in high demand as Western Australia's next round of resource projects looms. Ms Mooney is entitled to a visa because she is the partner of a skilled worker, but she has found her skills are sought after and has been in full-time work since their visas were issued.

The state Chamber of Commerce and Industry predicts Western Australia will need almost 500,00 extra workers over the next decade. State Training and Workplace Development Minister Peter Collier has said that attracting overseas workers would be critical.

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Another prison bungle

NEW prison uniforms under fire for "camouflaging" inmates are now being labelled a fire risk.

Prison officers have claimed the new uniforms introduced last June were being reviewed because they were highly flammable.

This comes after The Courier-Mail revealed last week that Queensland Corrective Services had "camouflaged" the majority of its more than 5600 inmates with the "new-look" green, khaki and denim uniforms, making prisoners hard to spot in rural areas if they escaped.

The new prison-issue T-shirt, singlet and shorts were being made from a cotton-polyester blend, which could easily ignite and would burn rapidly.

But QCS Commissioner Kelvin Anderson hosed down claims the uniforms were unsafe. Mr Anderson said there were no plans to change them.

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