Redfern Aborigines mark Keating speech, 20 years on

Leftists and Aboriginal activists love this speech because it blames everything on Whitey. And they attach great significance to the fact that old Slimebucket said so.  But Keating very rarely had a good word for anyone so it is no wonder that it was he who made these egregious accusations.  The full speech transcript is here. 

As for the idea that Keating's bloviation kicked off constructive change among Aborigines, see the article immediately following  --  which shows that Aboriginal conditions are WORSENING

The fact is that Aborigines have evolved abilities and attitudes which are superbly adapted to a hunter/gatherer life.  With their superb perceptual abilities, they are probably the pinnacle of human adaptation to that life.  But their specialized abilities and attitudes are very poorly adapted to modern Western civilization.  And evolution doesn't change overnight.

Take the Calabrians.  For many years they came to Australia barely literate and with no command of English yet have made a clear success of their lives  -- both economically and otherwise.  And they too faced prejudice.  My mother was told by her father that he would disown her if she married an Italian.  But the ancestors of the Calabrians were legionaries in the armies of the mighty civilization of Ancient Rome, so their evolutionary background is very different

Aboriginal elders gathered in Sydney to mark the 20th anniversary of Paul Keating's Redfern speech, considered one of the most important addresses in Australia's history.

Speaking to a crowd at Redfern Park on December 10, 1992, the then-prime minister acknowledged the impact of European settlement on Indigenous Australians.

The speech put reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians firmly on the political agenda, and some say it paved the way for the formal apology to Indigenous Australians.

"It was we who did the dispossessing; we took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life," Mr Keating said in the speech.

"We brought the diseases and the alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practiced discrimination and exclusion.

"It was our ignorance and our prejudice, and our failure to imagine that these things could be done to us."

Gail Mabo, the daughter of the late land rights activist Eddie Mabo, read extracts from the speech at a Sydney gallery on Saturday to mark the anniversary.

Speaking before the event, she told Saturday AM the speech kicked off change in Australia.  "It's one that people should actually look at and reflect on, because the words he was saying in that, it reflects that issue of change, but it's a thing of through small things, big things will happen," she said.

"But change will happen. It mightn't be right here, right now, but it's just changing people's attitudes, and that's what he was doing with this speech.  "He was trying to get into people's heads that it is time for change."

She says 20 years on, many things have changed for Indigenous Australians, but more can be done.

"I think baby steps have happened, but we still need to gain a bit more momentum and still recognise and appreciate the first peoples," she said.

"It's the understanding that Indigenous people were the first people here and you have to acknowledge that, and it's only through those little things."

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Abuse of Aboriginal children

The Northern Territory Children's Commissioner says rates of abuse among Aboriginal children have risen above the national average for the first time.

The commissioner's annual report also shows that while sexual exploitation rates have fallen, neglect and emotional abuse rates have increased.

It says there has been a major increase in child abuse notifications, but only half of these were investigated.

Commissioner Howard Bath says it also shows the number of Aboriginal children placed in out-of-home care is considerably lower in the Territory than other states.

"We have by far the lowest rates of placements in out of home care of any jurisdiction in the country, so we are identifying a lot of kids at risk but far fewer of those kids are placed into alternative secure placements," he said.

Mr Bath says this would be acceptable if there were adequate intervention measures available to vulnerable families.

"To assist parents with mental health problems, with substance abuse problems and to help them with parenting skills," he said.

"If we knew that were those services it doesn't matter if there aren't so many out of home care placements - the problem is that we know there are very few available preventative services."

The report also identified gaps in data and record keeping within the child protection system.

But Mr Bath says there have been some notable improvements within the child protection system.

"There had been a great improvement in the percentage of care plans that had been completed on the children in care, there was an improvement on the quality of those plans and there was improvement in the visiting of staff workers to kids in care and the frequency of those visits," he said.

"There was an improvement in the number of foster carers."

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Coalition labels voter law changes an attempted rort

THE Coalition has accused Labor of trying to "rort" the electoral roll to boost its standing at the next election on the back of law changes allowing automatic voter enrolment.

Manager of opposition business Christopher Pyne said it was “routine” for Labor to attempt to “tip the scales in their own favour if they can” when it came to elections and said eligible voters should be required to present identification to enrol and vote in elections.

“It's no surprise at all that Labor would try and find every trick in the book to increase their electoral clout,” Mr Pyne told Sky News.

“They are not supported in the electorate so they are trying to do things that they can to improve their chances with the electoral roll. The Greens are the same.

“Suddenly Labor thinks they are behind in the polls, why don't we do something to trick the voter, let's rort the roll, let's get an advantage over the Coalition, they've been doing it for decades and this is just their latest iteration.”

The Australian revealed today that several exclusive Newspoll surveys showed the Coalition's primary vote would drop by 1.5 percentage points as a result of changes to electoral laws that would automatically enrol eligible voters not yet on the electoral roll, many of whom are young people.

The Australian Electoral Commission estimates there are 1.5 million voters “missing” from the roll, which represents 9.5 per cent of eligible voters.

As many as a dozen Liberal and Nationals seats around the country could come into play if Labor and the Greens could mobilise the “youth vote” and overcome the political disengagement of those who have resisted enrolment in the past.

Mr Pyne said automatic enrolment would “undermine democracy hideously” and that eligible voters should be required to present identification at all points in the voting cycle.

“If there is to be confidence in the democracy, there has to be confidence in the result,” he said.

“If you know the people have used identification to enrol, used ID to vote, you can have every confidence that the result is a fair one. It undermines democracy hideously if we can't have confidence that the result actually reflects true voter opinion.”

He was backed by Liberal colleague Mitch Fifield, who said the changes to the electoral laws “undermine the integrity of our electoral rolls”.

Treasurer Wayne Swan dismissed Mr Pyne's suggestion that automatic enrolment would help Labor.

“Isn't it a good thing that all Australians who are eligible to vote are actually on the roll? I think the answer to that is yes,” he told reporters in Brisbane.

Mr Swan dismissed Mr Pyne's call for voters to be required to show ID.

“He's just interested in trying to sort of exclude people from the electoral roll and you'd have to ask him why that's his objective,” he said.

Labor MP Nick Champion also rejected the Coalition's stance and said there was no sign of electoral fraud.

“I don't think there is any electoral fraud of any significance in this country and I don't think anybody is trying to rort the roll as Christopher Pyne excitedly said,” Mr Champion told Sky News.

“All we are trying to do is make sure that people who are eligible to vote get the opportunity to vote and if one was going to be partisan then we might say it's been a feature of conservative politics, not just here but around the world, that what they want to do is cleanse the roll of people who don't vote for them.”

The new laws allow the AEC to directly enrol eligible voters or update the details of existing voters based on information from third parties, including motor registries, utilities and the tax office.

It is compulsory for Australians aged 18 and over to enrol and vote in federal elections.

The enrolment changes came after reviews of the 2007 and 2010 polls by a federal parliamentary joint standing committee.

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Fat is a working class problem

This is not exactly news but the fact that the obesity "war" is a class war is rarely acknowledged

OBESE Australians most in need of stomach-reduction surgery are missing out, new research shows.

A survey of almost 50,000 obese Australians found those living in socially disadvantaged areas on low incomes were less likely to have bariatric surgery than their higher earning, better-educated counterparts.

This was despite evidence that people from lower socioeconomic groups were more likely to be obese.

The research, published in the Medical Journal of Australia today, found obese people earning more than $70,000 a year were five times more likely to have bariatric surgery than those earning less than $20,000 per year.

Those living in the least disadvantaged areas were four times more likely to have surgery than those living in the most disadvantaged areas, the study by researchers from the Australian National University (ANU), University of NSW and the Sax Institute found.

Clinical guidelines recommend bariatric surgery only be carried out for those with a body mass index (BMI) over 40kg after other non-surgical options have failed.

ANU researcher Dr Rosemary Korda said it was the first study examining bariatric surgery in Australia according to socioeconomic status.

"We know that obesity is concentrated in socioeconomically disadvantaged groups but our research shows that those who need bariatric surgery the most are the least likely to receive it," Dr Korda said.

There was limited availability of bariatric surgery, which includes gastric banding and bypass procedures, in public hospitals, she said.

Meanwhile, Medicare subsidised the surgery for private patients, effectively restricting lapband surgery to patients who can afford private health insurance and large out-of-pocket costs.

Of the 49,364 participants in the study, 312 had bariatric surgery but only one of those was treated publicly.

Co-author Professor Emily Banks of the Sax Institute said the decision to have surgery should be between a patient and their doctor, based on medical need.

"If surgery was distributed among a wider range of patients, inequalities in obesity and health-related problems could decline," she said.

In 2009, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing recommended bariatric surgery be made more available in public hospitals because people who needed it most were missing out.

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National Boondoggle Network rollout proving to be a costly failure

IN April 2009, the Rudd-Gillard government announced its plans to build the National Broadband Network.  The fibre-optic network is supposed to pass 12.2 million premises around Australia by 2021.

More than three years later, as at June 30, 2012, it had passed just 38,914 - less than one third of 1 per cent towards the finish line.

Yet NBN Co's corporate plan, issued in December 2010, promised to pass 317,000 premises by June 30, 2012. Another comparison: in 1994, Telstra announced it would build a national hybrid fibre coax network. By June 1997, three years on, the network passed 2.1 million homes.

NBN is doing equally badly on the number of services being delivered. There were 3867 fibre services in operation as at June 30, 2012; the corporate plan promised 137,000.

More recent disclosures at estimates hearings in October show little improvement. One component of the fibre rollout, brownfields, had risen from 29,000 in June to 32,295 and fibre services in operation were at 6400.

Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy and NBN Co have tried every trick in the book to disguise the poor performance. They abandoned the original corporate plan and issued a new one in August this year. The goal of 317,000 premises passed by June this year was changed to 39,000.

The goals for later years also dropped sharply. Originally the network was to pass 1.27 million premises by June 30 next year; that has fallen to 341,000.

Next, they made comparisons as difficult as possible. The original corporate plan gave target numbers for five different categories of premises: three types of fibre, wireless and satellite. The new plan, and the 2011-12 annual report released recently, now gives numbers for two types of fibre and a merged number for wireless and satellite.

Third, they tried to shift attention away from hard numbers by introducing a new statistic: premises where there is construction commenced or completed. NBN Co's March 2012 media release promised that by 2015 "construction of the fibre optic component of the network will be under way or completed in areas containing 3.5 million premises".

This statistic - which is not used by private sector telecommunications companies such as Telstra and Optus - is meaningless. They count a home as having construction commenced from the moment a contract instruction is issued to the contractor.

But several further steps are required, including the Telstra commencement notice and the final contract instruction. On average, it will be 12 months before the work is completed. A fourth trick is to quote total subscriber numbers across fibre, wireless and satellite.

At the October estimates hearing, NBN Co said it had 24,000 customers. But of these, 17,000 were on satellite - and more than half of them were customers of an existing government program, dating back to Howard government days, to subsidise satellite broadband in rural and remote areas.

The rollout is chewing up taxpayers' money at an alarming rate. By June 30 this year, $2.832 billion of taxpayers' money had been put into NBN as equity; of that more than $900 million had vapourised in three years of accumulated losses. (In 2011-12 alone, NBN Co lost $520m.)

Total equity contributions - entirely taxpayer funded - are projected to reach $30.4bn by 2021. This is almost $3bn more than the Rudd-Gillard government had previously disclosed.

NBN Co is splashing around money with abandon. It pays extremely generous salaries. Average remuneration cost per head was $172,000 in 2011-12, more than 50 per cent higher than the comparable figure at Telstra.

Yet it has barely any customers and barely any revenue. It earned less than $2m from providing telecommunications services in 2011-12.

As we have seen with the home insulation program, the school halls program and many others, the Rudd-Gillard government is hopeless at program delivery and financial management.

We are seeing the same pattern with the NBN. Anyone who wants to see Australia's broadband infrastructure upgraded in an efficient, cost-effective manner should be very alarmed.

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Students drop old uniforms to conform to political correctness

SCHOOLS are abandoning skirts and tunics for girls in favour of unisex shorts and skorts as part of an overhaul of the traditional student uniform.

The Parents and Citizens Association claims the move is being driven by Gen X and Y parents who want to remove gender bias from the playground.

The Department of Education claims the change is due to teachers wanting girls to be able to play freely in the playground.

However, not all parents are happy with the proposed new look with the many wanting schools to retain a uniform for girls.

A survey of schools by The Sunday Telegraph has found scores of schools preparing to adopt a unisex uniform in the next two years, with some having already made the changeover.

The majority are state public schools, with independent and Catholic schools sticking with the traditional attire.

Parents of students at Winston Hills Public School are being asked to comment on the proposed new look, which the school plans to make mandatory by 2014.

The proposed new uniform to be worn during the warmer months features a polo shirt and shorts for both sexes.

Sussex Inlet Public School on the south coast has also gone unisex with girls wearing culottes and skorts while Kanwal Public School and Wyong Public School are also offering alternate uniforms. The shift was being driven by parents who wanted to remove gender bias from the classroom P and C regional spokeswoman Sharryn Brownlee said.

"It is an incredibly divisive issue. Some parents still believe little girls should look like little girls," she said.

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Queensland too broke for NDIS deal: Newman

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman believes it will be at least two more years before his state can afford to pay its share of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

New South Wales yesterday became the first state to sign up to the full rollout of the scheme from 2018, in a deal that will involve the Commonwealth and NSW each contributing about $3 billion a year.

Arriving at Parliament House ahead of today's meeting between Prime Minister Julia Gillard and other state leaders, Mr Newman said he was "totally committed" to the NDIS but just does not have enough money at the moment.

"The problem for Queensland is that we don't have the money that the other states have - we were left a total financial disaster by Labor," Mr Newman told reporters.

"In about two years time, we believe we'll have far more financial leeway and we're prepared to put more money on the table.

"I'm ready at any time to do a deal with the Commonwealth on the NDIS, but it's got to be on terms that are practical to Queensland - terms that are practical in a financial sense."

In announcing yesterday's funding deal with NSW, Ms Gillard said it would act as a benchmark for other states, and noted that Queensland's current level of disability funding per capita was the lowest in the country.

The agreement with New South Wales is in addition to plans for five launch sites across the country, which are due to start mid-next year.

Ms Gillard hopes to finalise agreements for those sites at today's Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting in Canberra.
Power plans

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Gillard says still on track for surplus

Prime Minister Julia Gillard insists the Government is determined to deliver a budget surplus this year, despite lower than expected economic growth figures this week.

The Financial Review newspaper has reported that Labor could be prepared to ditch its promised surplus if economic growth falls below its long-term trend.

The paper says senior Government sources have pointed to the multiple statements from Government ministers that link the surplus to stronger levels of economic growth.

On Wednesday, the national accounts figures showed the economy grew by just 0.5 per cent during the September quarter, which was lower than what economists were expecting.

Ms Gillard says while there are pressures on the economy, the fundamentals remain healthy.

"Mining [is] still strong, but the prices we are getting for our mineral exports have come down a bit. Other sections of the economy are feeling pressure, particularly from the high Australian dollar," Ms Gillard told ABC local radio.

"Even with these pressures - commodity prices coming off, high Aussie dollar - our economy's fundamentals are still strong.

"Our last economic update had us at trend growth, and that's why the last economic update had us with a surplus.  "We are still determined to deliver the surplus."

The Government forecast a surplus of $1.1 billion for 2012-13 in its most recent budget update released in October, which was down from the $1.5 billion predicted in May.

Since then, it has emerged that the mining tax did not raise any revenue in its first three months of operation.

Following the release of the national accounts figures on Wednesday, Treasurer Wayne Swan conceded that falling government revenue would make it harder to deliver the surplus.

However he said the Government still remained committed to its promise.

"As I've said before, we'll always ensure our budget is appropriate for the economy and jobs and these figures don't change our consistent approach," Mr Swan said on Wednesday.

Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey believes the Government is "crab walking" away from its surplus promise, saying there would need to be a "miracle recovery" for the economy to grow at 3 per cent this year.

Ms Gillard is meeting state and territory leaders in Canberra today at a Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting.

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Sydney University 'peace centre' rebuffs Israeli teacher

Jake Lynch,  Director of the Centre, is a Pom and former BBC broadcaster. Hatred of Jews and Israel is endemic among the British intelligentsia (See the sidebar at EYE ON BRITAIN) so transplanting a bit of that to Australia was most  unfortunate

THE Sydney University's Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies [which should be renamed the Centre against Peace and for Conflict], which has thrown its support behind controversial Palestinian leaders, has cited its boycott of Israel for refusing to help an Israeli civics teacher who has designed programs for both Jewish and Arab children.

Hebrew University of Jerusalem academic Dan Avnon is credited with developing and implementing the only state program in civics written for joint Jewish-Arab high schools.

He approached the head of the Sydney University centre, Jake Lynch, for assistance with studying civics education in Australia under a fellowship agreement between the two institutions.

But Associate Professor Lynch rebuffed the request, citing the centre's support for the anti-Israeli Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

The centre helped establish the Sydney Peace Foundation, which awards the Sydney Peace Prize. Past recipients include the controversial Palestinian activist Hanan Ashrawi.

The centre's website says it "promotes interdisciplinary research and teaching on the causes of conflict and the conditions that affect conflict resolution and peace".

Professor Avnon contacted Associate Professor Lynch, expressing interest in spending time at the centre and meeting him.

Associate Professor Lynch emailed in reply: "Your research sounds interesting and worthwhile. However, we are supporters of the campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, and that includes the call for an academic boycott of Israeli universities."

The BDS movement explicitly equates the Jewish state with apartheid-era South Africa. The campaign was started in 2005 by 171 Palestinian non-governmental organisations as a form of "non-violent punitive measures" against Israel until it "complies with the precepts of international law".

The BDS campaign has included protests outside the Max Brenner chain of coffee shops, which are Israeli-owned. The boycott was led in Australia by Greens council members in Sydney's inner-west, including former Marrickville mayor Fiona Byrne, whose council voted to support the boycott in 2010. It was dropped after widespread criticism from the federal and state governments, business leaders and the Jewish community.

In 2003 the awarding of the Sydney Peace Prize to Dr Ashrawi provoked fierce debate and protests, arising from her role as a Palestinian spokesperson in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli hard-liners loathe Dr Ashrawi, branding her a propagandist and an apologist for terrorism.

Professor Avnon - who has written on moving beyond the Jewish-Palestinian divide to develop a new sense of citizenship in Israel - said of the centre's decision: "I find it ironic that you promote a policy of boycott that does not distinguish one individual from another. It is ironic because, like myself, many (probably most) intellectuals and scholars in relevant fields are doing our best to effect change in Israeli political culture. We pay prices for going against the institutional grain. And then we turn around and meet such a 'blind to the person' policy."

Professor Avnon continued: "One common tendency that must be changed if we ever want to live sane lives is to debunk categorical and stereotypical thinking when dealing with human beings." He received no response from Associate Professor Lynch.

University of Sydney vice-chancellor Michael Spence rejected a call from Associate Professor Lynch in 2009 to cut links with the Hebrew University and a second Israeli institution, the Technion, in the city of Haifa. "I do not consider it appropriate for the university to boycott academic institutions in a country with which Australia has diplomatic relations," he wrote in response at the time. A spokesman for Dr Spence said his position had not changed.

The spokesman said Associate Professor Lynch was "entitled to express a public opinion where it falls under his area of expertise", but added, "on this particular matter he does not speak for the school, the faculty or for the university".

The Australian was unable to contact Associate Professor Lynch yesterday.

Professor Avnon said he had received "heart-warming, collegial and positive responses" from other staff at Sydney University. "I look forward to associating with them and learning from and through them about Australia's policies in civic education and other issues," he said.

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The world's most imcompetent immigration bureaucracy can't keep out the bad guys so kicks out a good one

AN Australian who suffered knife wounds while protecting an elderly women on a London bus has been refused the right to remain in the UK.

Tim Smits, 33, from Melbourne, was stabbed and punched when he stood up to thugs on a bus in September 2011, Britain's Evening Standard newspaper reported.

His actions earned him a local council citizenship award and an honour from the Carnegie Hero Trust Fund.

However, the UK Border Agency has rejected the graphic artist's application for a compassionate extension to his visa.

Mr Smits spent months recovering from the violent attack for which two men were jailed.

"What needs to happen before it's compelling and compassionate?" Mr Smits told the Standard on Thursday of his visa extension application.

"The refusal letter was a massive hammer blow - a kick in the balls I just didn't need. ... I had dealt with so much already.

"All the appreciation I have had from the community has really kept up my spirits, but the coldness of the Border Agency and lack of compassion has made me sick.

"It's made me question if I want to live in a country that wants to kick me out, even though I love it here. It doesn't give you much faith in humanity."

Mr Smits, who has appealed the rejection of his visa application, stood up to two 19-year-old men who began abusing fellow bus passengers on a suburban London route. He was knifed by one of the teens and punched by another.

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Unions on the rampage again

A SURGE in days lost to strikes in construction has lifted the level of industrial disputation in Australia to its highest level since 2004 as the Gillard government again blamed the conservative states for the rise.

The latest increase - which saw days lost to industrial action reach 301,800 in the year to September - has renewed attacks on Labor's Fair Work Act. Days lost to strikes are now more than double the level of the 2008/09 financial year - the year before the Fair Work Act took effect.

The Workplace Relations Minister, Bill Shorten, blamed state public sector disputes for the rise and also said the days lost to strikes were low by historical levels. "Working days lost under the Fair Work Act are around one third the rate of the Howard government," Mr Shorten said. "The recent examples of ongoing public sector disputes with state conservative governments show you can't trust the Liberals with IR."

But while state wage disputes were a factor, the Grocon confrontation in central Melbourne in August and September appears to have been even more significant with a five-fold rise in days lost in construction for the September quarter.

Master Builders Association of Victoria executive director, Brian Welch, said there was a "massive problem" in the industry and said the "white flag" was raised to unions when the powers of the Australian Building and Construction Commission were watered down.

The Grocon dispute shut down part of central Melbourne after the dispute flared over the appointment of shop stewards at Grocon and the right to display union paraphernalia on sites.

The opposition workplace relations spokesman, Eric Abetz, said the eight year highs in days lost to strikes showed there were "clear militancy problems that need to be addressed" but said Labor and Mr Shorten would "never turn against their trade union mates".

The Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary, Dave Oliver, said industrial action came in "peaks and troughs" affected by factors including the number of agreements up for renewal. Mr Oliver said one or two disputes can affect the figures.

"In this recent period, the disputes in the Victorian state school system and Queensland public service that are largely responsible, he said. "In each case the blame rests with a government that refuses to negotiate fairly and honour its promises."

The other sectors to record high numbers of days lost from strikes in the September quarter was education, healthcare and social assistance.

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University research towards  top end of world standard

These assessments all have a considerable element of subjectivity but it is interesting that Australia seems to show up well regardless of the methodology

When it comes to world-class research, more than half of Australian universities' overall performance is at or above world standards.

MORE than half Australian universities' overall research performance is at or above world standards, analysis by the federal government shows.

The Science and Research Minister, Chris Evans, said the number of disciplines in which Australian universities perform above the world standard had doubled.

At the same time the number of disciplines with research rated at or above the world standard has increased by 18 per cent, from 385 to 455, since the last analysis. Research outputs were up by 24 per cent.

He said the report "shows Australia is on track to have 10 universities in the world's top 100 by 2025" - the target set in the government's Australia in the Asian century white paper.

But in the fields of education and human society, economics, commerce and maths, and information and computing sciences, average research performance falls below international benchmarks.

The Australian National University scored the highest ratings overall. On a five-point scale, where one is well below the world standard, three is equal to the world standard and five is well above the world standard, the ANU scored an average of 4.3 for 62 disciplines. The universities of Sydney, Queensland and Melbourne ranked an equal second, with average scores of 4.1, followed by Monash University, the University of NSW and the University Western Australia, each with 3.9.

In NSW, the universities of Newcastle and Wollongong scored better on average than Macquarie University and the University of Technology, Sydney.

Although there were one-third more research discipline strengths in Victoria than NSW, the rankings give NSW four spots in the national top 10, but Victoria only two.

The Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) evaluation of research performance looked at the work of more than 60,000 university staff, $8.7 billion in external research funding and 413,000 publications and other research outputs between 2005 and 2010. Research active disciplines at each university were rated by expert panels.

The biological sciences, health and medical sciences, and language, communications and culture were the three strongest performing areas overall. Education, economics, and commerce management tourism and services - most of which have experienced big enrolment increases under the federal government's policies to widen access to universities - were comparatively low performers.

"There are some core fundamental disciplines where Australia is not shining as brightly as we might wish it to be," the deputy vice-chancellor of research at the University of NSW, Professor Les Field, said, nominating maths, chemistry, education and economics. The assessment "is probably pointing to the need for further investment and resources to be directed to these areas", he said.

The assessment is useful in providing a more solid base for strategic planning in research investment, said Emeritus Professor Frank Larkins of the University of Melbourne. He said the national averages masked pockets of true excellence, but the basis of the "world standard" benchmarks was not sufficiently clear.

Australia is "not a large enough country economically to invest in all disciplines at a high level in all 41 universities, therefore we do have to concentrate our resources to maximise performance against national needs and international benchmarks", he said.

A consultant and independent analyst of Australia's research system, Thomas Barlow, said the ERA confirmed other evidence "Australian research in the social sciences is weak relative to the top performing institutions internationally".

The federal government's target to have 10 per cent of the world's top 100 universities within 13 years was an "extraordinarily disproportionate" target for a small economy such as Australia's.

The chief executive of Universities Australia, Belinda Robinson, said: "With such significant amounts of funding stripped from research programs this year, a key question will be how long this strong research performance can be maintained." .

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Tasmanian magistrate is a criminal's best friend

Why can't they fire these galoots?

THE Supreme Court has upheld a sixth appeal in 12 months against the rulings of a Launceston magistrate, describing his decision to let a repeat driving offender walk free as "manifestly inadequate".

According to the published decisions of the Supreme Court, Magistrate Reg Marron has this year been the subject of more successful police appeals than all of the state's other magistrates combined.

In contrast to the six appeals upheld against Mr Marron, the 13 other magistrates have been the subject of just four successful Supreme Court appeals between them.

The published rulings against the magistrate feature criticisms of overly lenient sentences, of critical prosecution evidence being overlooked and failures to provide adequate reasons for decisions.

In the Supreme Court's latest decision, Chief Justice Ewan Crawford overturned Magistrate Marron's decision to sentence Stacey Amanda Bessell to a suspended jail term and 63 hours' community service for two counts of driving while disqualified and failing to hand in her licence after being disqualified.

Bessell, 32, has a criminal record of 242 offences including driving matters, offences of violence and dishonesty and her latest crimes breached the conditions of a three-month suspended jail sentence.

Justice Crawford described the sentence imposed by Magistrate Marron as manifestly inadequate and his reasons for not activating the suspended sentence as vague.

Justice Crawford sentenced Bessell to four months' jail and ordered the three-month suspended sentence be served at the same time.

In October, the Supreme Court overturned a sentence Magistrate Marron imposed on hoon driver Sean Gregory Richardson, 21, of Newnham.

Earlier that month, the court rejected Mr Marron's decision to dismiss an assault conviction against Legana man John Abraham Mokomoko despite the evidence of two witnesses.

The Supreme Court overturned Mr Marron's sentence in another driving case in March, when he fined a man $200 and disqualified him from driving for two months for his fourth, fifth and sixth charges of driving without a licence.

Attorney-General Brian Wightman would not comment on the case.

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Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book Love In The Time of Cholera not fit for school reading list, teacher says

A NOVEL put on the reading list for high school students has been branded "pornographic" amid calls for it to be banned from the classroom.

The famous book, Love in the Time of Cholera, depicts the story of a 78-year-old man who has an incestuous sexual relationship with a 14-year-old who later commits suicide.

But despite the content the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority has placed it on next year's text list for VCE literature students.

Trinity Grammar School senior literature teacher Christopher Bantick today hit out at the decision, branding the book inappropriate for teenagers.

"It beggars belief that people would actually select the text for the course," Mr Bantick told radio 3AW's Neil Mitchell program.  "It beggars belief that someone thinks that this is an appropriate text.

"And it raises serious questions over who on earth selected it and their competence let alone their own maturity.

"I would be prepared to say this is a pornographic text.  "I don't think that's in any shape or form appropriate for 16-year-old girls or boys."

Author Gabriel Garcia Marquez's lack of accountability for the girl's suicide in his work was a particular concern and gave a "distorted view" of how society regarded young people.

"There is no way I would teach this text," Mr Bantick told 3AW.   "Absolutely no way.  "If this book was on the list I had to teach I would simply decline it."

The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority has been contacted for comment.

Marquez, a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, released the bestselling novel in 1985 to many rave reviews.

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NSW hospitals still failing to meet emergency deadlines

THE state's hospitals have failed to meet their targets for emergency departments for the third quarter in a row, meaning NSW will lose out on millions of dollars in federal funding.

In the July to September quarter, only 59 per cent of patients were treated, transferred or discharged from emergency departments within four hours, data released by the Bureau of Health Information shows.

Under a national health reform agreement implemented in January, NSW was set a benchmark of treating or referring 69 per cent of patients from emergency departments within four hours to qualify for $15.9 million in federal funding.

The office of the state Health Minister, Jillian Skinner, confirmed that even if everybody admitted for the rest of the year completed their stay within the recommended time frame, the target could still not be met.

The loss of reward funding comes after the state government announced in September that local health districts would be forced to cut $775 million from the health budget over four years.

The bureau data showed doctors treated an extra 21,000 emergency patients in the last quarter, with the greatest increase seen in patients with imminently life threatening conditions. But the number of patients requiring less urgent medical attention was 63,602, a drop of 14 per cent from the same time last year.

The vice-president of the Australian Medical Association in NSW, Saxon Smith, said it showed people were seeking out the appropriate type of care when they were sick or injured.

''This signals to me that the public are playing their part in improving waiting times by accessing the appropriate service, such as their GPs, when situations are not life-threatening'' Dr Smith said. ''But people are waiting too long in emergency departments and we are struggling to meet demand.''

The bureau also reported on the number on the elective surgery waiting list, with Mrs Skinner praising hospitals for meeting recommended times across all surgeries for the first time.

But the NSW president for the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, Sally McCarthy, said it was no good pointing out positives in elective surgery times when the state was failing to meet emergency targets.

''We are focusing on one area at the expense of the other,'' Dr McCarthy said.

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Compulsory superannuation is a rort

It puts your savings into the hands of government-controlled bunglers and risks confiscation via inflation

Speaking at this week’s annual Association of Superannuation Funds conference, Treasury Secretary Martin Parkinson noted that ‘the fiscal sustainability of all policies, including superannuation, will demand greater public scrutiny.’ In the lead-up to this year’s Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, there was also speculation that superannuation tax concessions would be curtailed.

This points to a major tension in the approach of Australian governments to retirement incomes policy. On the one hand, government wants to promote superannuation as a tax-advantaged saving vehicle to reduce future demands on the budget from an ageing population. On the other hand, governments are increasingly reluctant to forgo revenue today through superannuation tax concessions. How the government resolves this tension will be an important determinant of whether compulsory superannuation achieves its objectives.

Much of the tinkering with the taxation of superannuation – for example, the 1988 changes – has been motivated by a desire to bring forward revenue to meet recurrent expenditure and improve the budget balance at lower political cost relative to raising other taxes. It illustrates the vulnerability of what is a captive tax base to even greater depredations on the part of future governments. As the pool of superannuation assets grows, the temptation for politicians to increase taxes on earnings will also increase.

Superannuation could also become a vehicle for financial repression by spendthrift governments – for example, by forcing super funds to hold government bonds. Until 1981, Australian superannuation funds were forced to hold at least 30% of their assets as government bonds, so there is ample historical precedent for such directed lending to government. The taxation of super to meet demands for recurrent expenditure has been working at cross-purposes with the objectives of retirement incomes policy. Rather than reducing future demands on the federal budget, compulsory super may end up feeding current demands for government expenditure in the absence of reforms to make the taxation of super more transparent.

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"Racist" taxi driver refused singer

I was a taxi driver for a couple of years and never refused a fare, even though I operated out of Kings Cross in Sydney. 

I don't know if I would be the same if I were a Melbourne taxi driver these days however.  There are a lot of Indian taxi drivers these days and brutal attacks on Indians by African "refugees" have become  notorious in Melbourne.  Africans in Melbourne seem to have a particular loathing for Indians.  The guy below looks very black so the driver probably had not unreasonable fears for his own safety. 

The solution to the problem below is severe penalties for crimes of violence without either mitigation or a coverup on the grounds  of race.  It won't happen in my lifetime



A taxi driver locked his doors and refused a fare for indigenous musician Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu after a concert on Tuesday night, his manager claims.

Gurrumul's manager Mark Grose described the incident outside St Kilda's Palais Theatre to 774 ABC Melbourne on Wednesday morning.   "Gurrumul is on a tour with Missy Higgins and he did a concert at the Palais last night," Grose said.

He said that after the show he went outside and hailed a taxi for Gurrumul, who has been blind since birth.  "I got the taxi to pull up at the side of the stage and went inside to grab ... Gurrumul.

"[We] waited for ... Gurrumul to come outside with his girlfriend Bronwyn. He [the taxi driver] looked at Gurrumul, said 'No', locked the cab and drove off.  "He refused the fare."

When asked why he thought the driver had refused to take the fare, Honan said: "He just looked at the colour of his skin and said 'That's it'."

Grose said he wasn't sure which taxi company the driver worked for.

He said it wasn't the first time Gurrumul had encountered racism.   "Like most Aboriginal people we work with, he has experienced [racism] before.  "You are just absolutely heartbroken for them.   "It's happened a couple of times in Sydney and it's happened in Darwin.

Victorian taxi inquiry chair Professor Allan Fels said he was not surprised at the Victorian Taxi Directorate's claim that nothing could be done to locate this driver.  "The bigger message from this is that the system works very poorly," he told Radio 3AW.

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Another aggrieved Greek loses in the High Court

This reminds me of the Tsoukaris case in Sydney.  Such zeal to defend an allegation of crookedness does make one wonder, particularly as the recent crisis in Greece has revealed crookedness across the board in that country.  I have never met either Mr Tsoukaris or Mr Papaconstuntinos so can say nothing about them but I have seen a lot of Greeks in Australia and they do mostly seem to me to have similar moral standards to what we read about in Greece itself.  I have of course also met most honourable Greeks in Australia (the admirable and inimitable Taki Kokkinidis comes to mind) and it is possible that Mr Tsoukaris and Mr Papaconstuntinos fall into that category

A FORMER board member of the South Sydney Leagues Club has lost a High Court appeal over a failed defamation case he brought against businessman Peter Holmes a Court.

Tony Papaconstuntinos had asked the court to overturn a decision by the NSW Court of Appeal which ruled Mr Holmes a Court was entitled to the common law defence of qualified privilege.

Initially, Mr Papaconstuntinos had been successful in the NSW Supreme Court when he claimed Mr Holmes a Court had defamed him in a letter to his employer, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU).  The court awarded him $25,000.

The defamation arose during a takeover bid of the famous Souths rugby league club by Mr Holmes a Court and actor Russell Crowe in 2005.  Mr Papaconstuntinos, then a director of the club, opposed the bid.

Two days before club members were due to vote on the bid in March 2006, Mr Holmes a Court faxed a letter to the state secretary of the CFMEU.

Mr Papaconstuntinos claimed the letter conveyed defamatory imputations including that he corruptly channelled club funds to the union and himself.

In his appeal to the High Court, Mr Papaconstuntinos argued Mr Holmes a Court could only use the defence of qualified privilege if he could show that there had been a "pressing need" for him to make the statements.

The High Court, by majority, rejected that contention, saying the defence of qualified privilege required the maker of a defamatory statement to demonstrate reciprocity of duty and interest.

There was no extra requirement of "pressing need" that arose in circumstances where a defamatory statement was made voluntarily and to protect personal interests.

SOURCE

UPDATE:  Greece has just been rated as the most corrupt country in Western Europe




Another Telstra horror

I have had difficulties with both Telstra and Optus, though Optus has undoubtedly been the worse.  I became an Optus customer in the year 2000 and have only very recently given up totally on them,  which could make me qualified as a hero of patience, I think.

What the guy below obviously didn't know is that talking to phone hotlines for either Optus or Telstra puts you in contact with some juvenile who knows nothing and cares less  -- that's if you can get to talk to a person at all. 

For real difficulties you have to write to the CEO of the company.  He doesn't care either but he does employ people to act as if they do.  I have had some success with that approach.

But that process is slow and the guy below obviously was moved by the amount involved to regard the matter as urgent.  I feel sorry for him.  It is obnoxious that he had to go to the media to get help but is very much what I would have expected.  Basically they just ignore you in the hope that you will go away.

The episode below also shows why I never now give anyone permission to debit my credit card. I always use prepaid services.  I am guessing that the guy below will be doing that henceforth as well

A man who lost his mobile phone, and told Telstra to cancel his account, still had $28,000 deducted from his credit card for calls he didn't make, after the telco delayed blocking his phone.

After months of trying to get a refund, Rayden Crawley finally got his money back from Telstra on Wednesday. But only after he recounted his experience to radio station 3AW earlier that day.

Mr Crawley was in Barcelona, Spain, in late September when he lost his mobile phone. He reported the loss to Spanish police and phoned and emailed Telstra later that day to request the lost phone be blocked.

But when he returned to Melbourne on October 15, bad news was waiting.

"I rang Telstra because I hadn't received the bill, and I nearly fell over when they told me it was a $28,000 bill," he said. The money was automatically debited from his American Express card, $27,385.16 of which was for calls made after he lost his phone.

"It wasn't chopped off for some reason until 36 hours later, despite it being confirmed by the Telstra centre in Melbourne East that they would have it barred," Mr Crawley told 3AW.

For the past two months, Mr Crawley engaged in "telephone tag" with Telstra trying to get a refund.

The Telstra complaints officer he was dealing with said "she was still looking into it" on the occasions he called. After a while, his calls just went to voicemail.

"I tried 20 times to get back to her to find out what was going on and there was no reply, just a recorded message," he said. "There was no correspondence back from Telstra whatsoever."

After going on talkback radio on Wednesday morning, however, the refund came through.

Telstra spokesman Jonathan Rose told Fairfax Media that all of the bill would be refunded.

"We have contacted Mr Crawley to apologise and advise that we will waive all charges on the account," Mr Rose said.

"We are most concerned about his experience and will review the case, including to determine why the payment was debited while the matter was still under investigation and a credit was in the process of being approved."

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Queensland households with solar panels likely to be hit with tariff to pay for 'poles and wires'

THOUSANDS of households with rooftop solar systems are set to be stung with significant fixed-tariff fees.

A report ordered by the Newman Government has recommended a special tariff for all solar households to force them to pay their share for the "poles and wires" network.

The tariff fees would be a bitter blow for households that shelled out thousands of dollar to fit solar systems to reduce their electricity bill.  However, households without solar are being forced to wear the cost of subsidising those with such systems, as well as pay for the over-priced power they produce.

Solar households still need the electricity network to be capable of meeting their demands when their panels don't produce power.

However, they mostly avoid contributing to network costs, which account for about 50 per cent of electricity prices, because they regularly don't access the common household tariff.

Recent modelling showed the 44-cent solar feed-in tariff, currently paid by distributors for the power produced by more than 200,000 households, would add an extra $240 to average power bills.

Power bills would also rise by a further $40 to recover network costs avoided by solar households.

In a draft report, the Queensland Competition Authority recommended fixed fees be applied to solar households.

"Network tariff reform is a further option to be considered as a means of more equitably sharing the costs of the scheme," the QCA said.  "Specifically, there may be scope for distribution businesses to establish new, cost-reflective network tariffs for PV customers which ensure that these customers are charged their full fixed-network costs, which are largely avoided under the present network tariff arrangements."

The QCA also recommended retailers, rather than state-owned distributors, pay for the power produced by solar households.

The report said the current system was so profitable for retailers that they were offering solar households up to 10 cents extra per kilowatt hour for the power they produce.

While the Government has committed to keep the 44-cent tariff for existing solar owners, the QCA said 6.8 cents per kWh was more realistic but prices should be unregulated in the southeast.

Queensland Greens Senate candidate Adam Stone said the QCA's reforms would take away the incentive for households to invest in solar.

"The recommended tariffs are solely based on the financial value of household solar to electricity retailers and do not even factor in the cooling effect household solar has on wholesale electricity prices," he said.

SOURCE

African gang violence in Qld too

African kills Islander in brawl

LOGAN ethnic community leaders are calling for calm after the tragic death of a 17-year-old during a brawl at a party on Saturday night.

Jordan Matehaere Tukaki, of Marsden, died after being hit by a car outside the party in Woodridge, south of Brisbane.

Police, African and Pacific Islander community leaders yesterday denied allegations the teen's death was the result of tensions between Logan City imitations of South Central Los Angeles gangs the Bloods and the Crips.

Outside court yesterday Kaya Taylor, 17, said her friend Mr Tukaki was not an official member of the Logan version of the Bloods, but supported them.

She said he was an aspiring rapper and was planning his 18th birthday party later this month.

"He just looked after everyone, he was as humble as can be," she said.

Ms Taylor said she was aware of revenge attacks being discussed on social media, but said it would not be what Mr Tukaki would have wanted.

"From what I've heard the Islanders want revenge on the Africans ... it's not worth it, it could be another brother's life on the line," Ms Taylor said.

She said racial tensions between all nationalities in Logan had been simmering prior to Saturday's incident.

"After this weekend's incident I think it's going to be a problem. People are angry, people are upset," Ms Taylor said.

At Logan police station yesterday, police met Logan's ethnic group leaders and Mr Tukaki's grandmother.  "Keep calm for my grandson Jordan, that's what he would want. He was a good boy and he would want everyone to stay calm," she said.

President of the Voice of the Samoan People in Logan John Pale said groups of Pacific Islanders or Africans could be misconceived as gangs.  "There is no gangs. A group of Pacific Islanders coming together it is not a gang and Africans are like that as well," Mr Pale said.

Queensland African Communities Council chairman in Logan Robert Mukombozi said community leaders were working to get the message of peace to young people on the streets.

A man, 21, is due to appear in the Beenleigh Magistrates Court on January 21. He was remanded in custody yesterday on one count each of murder, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle and callous disregard.

SOURCE





Africans in NSW soccer match brawl

FIVE people remained in hospital yesterday, one under police guard, after a mass brawl at a soccer match, during which knives, posts and a chisel were used as weapons.

Police said a young Sudanese woman was at the centre of the street fight in Willmot near Mt Druitt, western Sydney on Sunday afternoon.

Up to 30 people were involved in the incident, which left behind a crime scene spanning almost 2km along Palmyra Ave.

Police said it appeared the fight was sparked after a young woman attended a party the night before, which her male friends were excluded from.

"There was a ticketed party on the Saturday night which the girl was able to get into, but a group of men could not," Chief Inspector Bill Pearce said.

It is understood the woman met someone at that party, which upset her male friends or relatives, who tracked down people from the event.

"We are still interviewing people to piece it all together," he said.

Weapons including a football corner post, a chisel, a spanner and knife were seized by police.

Abraham Ajok, chairman of the South Sudan Football Association of NSW, said the brawl had nothing to do with the club, but they were assisting police where possible.

"None of them were the players, the game was on while they were fighting," he said.

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Green/Left desalination plant to cost Victorians heavily

Desalination plants are the Greenie alternative to building dams, for which Australia still has plenty of sites.  But Greenies loathe dams with a passion.

MELBOURNE water chiefs have admitted they expect Victorians to struggle to meet the added cost to skyrocketing water bills caused by the Wonthaggi desalination plant.

Releasing details of water price reviews that will see the average household bill rise steeply, water retailers said they expected hardship claims to soar.

The heads of Melbourne Water, City West Water, Yarra Valley Water and South East Water all blamed the desal plant for major price rises forecast for customers from July 1 next year.

They said their hands were tied because of the contract requiring them to pay $650 million to the project's consortium, AquaSure.

But not one would say whether they thought the $3.5 billion plant was too big for Melbourne's water needs, as the French boss of the project revealed in yesterday's Herald Sun.

City West Water yesterday estimated an average annual water and sewerage bill for its residential customers would increase from $793 this financial year to $1060 in 2013-14.

The same bill would rise from $829 to $1118 for South East Water customers, from $910 to $1220 for Yarra Valley Water clients and from $956 to $1014 for Western Water users.

Melbourne Water managing director Shaun Cox said its prices were likely to rise by 60.4 per cent next year, with customers bearing the brunt of desalination plant costs.

Yarra Valley Water managing director Tony Kelly said hardship claims from Victorians unable to pay their bill had already increased from about 1700 five or six years ago to 3000.

"It is very difficult to predict how that number will increase, but we are expecting it to rise because of the significant price rise and we have spoken to a number of community groups about the best way to handle that," he said.

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Infamous Heiner coverup now at forefront of new inquiry into child protection in Queensland

A Labor party coverup

There were serious staffing problems inside the John Oxley Youth Detention Centre in the late 1980s before the establishment of the Heiner Inquiry - a now infamous probe which sparked one of Queensland's most enduring conspiracy theories.

The $9 million Carmody Inquiry into child protection this morning began hearing evidence related to allegations of accusations of mismanagement at John Oxley.

Commissioner Tim Carmody had devoted the next two weeks to examining the Heiner Affair, which is covered in his terms of reference.

They include a review of the adequacy of responses (and action taken) by government "to allegations including any allegation of criminal misconduct associated with government responses into historic child sexual abuse in youth detention centres."

The Heiner Affair began in the dying days of the National Party government headed by Russell Cooper, who appointed Magistrate Noel Heiner to examine allegations of mismanagement at John Oxley.

With the Cooper Government defeated in the December 1989 election and Labor elected under premier Wayne Goss, Crown Law advised that documents containing evidence taken by Mr Heiner should be destroyed, because the inquiry was not properly constituted.

Since then, revelations relating to John Oxley include the rape of a young girl and children being handcuffed to fences.

In 2010 the then 14-year-old rape victim, now aged around 40, received $120,000 in compensation.

Counsel Assisting Michael Copely told the inquiry this morning there were a range of complaints by staff at the centre in the late 1980s, including allegations of poor management and bullying by manager Peter Coyne.

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Patients speak out over deaths at government dialysis centre

Thirteen people being treated at a Sydney dialysis centre have died in the past year, leaving other patients fearing for their lives because of a lack of doctors on site.

A leading nephrologist from Prince of Wales Hospital, Bruce Pussell, said the number of deaths at the Penrith centre would be considered "unusually high" at the satellite centres linked to his hospital.

"Seriously ill dialysis patients are treated in hospitals where there is a ratio of one nurse to every three patients and not at satellite centres," Professor Pussell said.

"While I am not aware of the situation at the Penrith centre, I would say that in any hospital if you have a cluster of unusually high deaths among patients it would require investigation."
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Patients at the Penrith Satellite Dialysis Centre have signed a letter obtained by Fairfax Media claiming at least three patients have died in the past three months in circumstances they claim could have been avoided.

The 15 patients who signed the letter said there are no doctors at the centre and an inadequate number of nurses. They also said many of the patients who died were so chronically ill that they should have been treated in hospital rather than at the centre.

Patients whose conditions deteriorated had to wait up to 20 minutes for an ambulance to transfer them to Nepean Hospital, the letter said.

There had also been six "close calls", the patients said.

The local health district has confirmed 13 of the centre's patients died in the past year, but said the deaths were related to complications from their illnesses rather than inadequate care.

A patient who signed the letter, Melody Sherriff, said while nurses were able to call a doctor for advice, it was not the same as having a doctor on the ward.

About four months ago Ms Sherriff was receiving dialysis at the centre when she suffered pain in her abdomen and lost about 300 millilitres of blood when she went to the toilet.

Nursing staff called the doctor, who did not come into the centre but said Ms Sherriff could either go home or to hospital.

"Thankfully, I chose the hospital," she said.  "The doctors at Nepean ordered a scan and found I was bleeding to death from an artery in my large intestine, requiring an emergency operation.

"Situations like this are why we need a doctor present in the ward. We shouldn't have all these people on the ward who can go at any minute because they're at risk of co-morbidities like stroke if qualified staff aren't there to treat them."

Satellite dialysis centres were set up to treat stable and ambulatory patients, she said, but many of the patients attending the Penrith centre were seriously ill and should be receiving dialysis in hospital. Most major hospitals have at least one satellite dialysis centre to which they are linked.

The Western Renal Service nurse manager for the Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District, Christopher Gibb, agreed that patients receiving dialysis at satellite units should be medically stable.

He said the concerns raised in the letter were been taken seriously and the district was investigating.

"There have been no deaths related to the dialysis procedure, however 13 patients suffering from pre-existing illnesses have passed away as a result of their chronic illness over the past 12 months," he said.

The ration of one nurse to every five or six patients at the centre was consistent with the national average, he said.

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Party time for illegals given open door by Australia's Leftist government

ASYLUM seekers in Indonesia have swung into party mode and labelled Julia Gillard a "hero" after learning they will receive welfare payments and rent assistance should they make it to Australia by boat.

The wannabe citizens are ecstatic the government has conceded detention centres are beyond maximum capacity and that asylum seekers would need to be released into the community while their applications for refugee status were processed.

They would be given financial and housing support - as well as free basic health care - a massive boost from their current financial status in Indonesia where many are struggling to afford food.

However the asylum seekers, based in Puncak, 80km from Jakarta, said they feared Liberal leader Tony Abbott would be successful in his bid to become prime minister.

"Mr Abbott is not good for refugees and asylum seekers, he does not like us, he is not really a nice man," said Zia Haidari, a 25-year-old Afghanistan man who has attempted - unsuccessfully - to travel to Australia by boat seven times.  "Ms Gillard seems to understand how we feel and is trying her best.

"Abdulah Sulamani, 41, heaped praise on Ms Gillard: "She is a hero, you are lucky to have this woman for your country."

Solo mother Fatemeh Khavari, 30, told News Ltd she did not have enough money saved to travel by boat to Australia and had spent time living homeless and hungry in Indonesia with her six-month-old son.

Labor's announcement was music to her ears.  "If I can get this free money and house when I come to Australia this will make life very easy for me," Ms Khavari said.  "It is very hard right now for us, I cannot afford to buy milk formula, we are very hungry. Me and my child need the generosity of the Australian people.  "If that doesn't happen my baby may die."

Ms Khavari - whose reasons fleeing Iran were "private" - said the other factor to draw her towards Australia was free medical care.

"I cannot afford to have vaccinations for my baby so I can get this in Australia.

"The praise directed at the prime minister may be unwelcome by its recipient, with voters unlikely to be impressed with the notion asylum seekers think they are coming to a country with soft laws.

A new monthly record was set in November with 2443 people arriving on boats and Ms Gillard was asked yesterday if she would bring back temporary protection visas and tow boats back to Indonesia.

The government last month announced thousands of asylum seekers threatened with processing in Nauru and Manus Island would be released in the community in Australia on bridging visas with almost $440 a fortnight plus help to pay rent.

It is understood the government is aware large numbers of asylum seekers are rushing to get on boats in Indonesia before the monsoon season and are undeterred by the government's pledge to keep them waiting in the community for protection visas for up to five years under a "no advantage" test.

Ms Gillard said TPVs and tow backs were not policy options hours before the government announced 75 people on two boats had been rescued by the Navy off Christmas Island.

"This is a complicated issue for our nation, for nations around the world," Ms Gillard told Channel 10.

"Anybody who says that there is a simple fix to you is not telling you the truth. It takes a range of policies, and we are putting that range of policies in place."

The desperation in the voices of asylum seekers in Puncak is echoed right throughout the village, where many asylum seekers come prior to embarking on the sea journey to Australia.

They eat their basic evening meals with rusty utensils scattered around. Their tiny bedrooms contain no blankets and sleep up to eight people. The days are dull with no ability to work as work visas from Indonesian officials are non-existent for the travellers.

It is this harsh reality of life in villages like Punchak combined with the arrival of news about Labor's policy backflip that is bringing about party fever and the desire to come to Australia as soon as possible.

Seventeen-year-old Adres, who does not have a surname listed on his passport, said when he arrived on Indonesian soil three weeks ago he planned to apply for refugee status through UNHCR.

But upon learning of the over-filled detention centres in Australia he was determined to travel by sea.

"This is good news for us, if we stay here and apply for status we might not be allowed into Australia, but if we come on boat we get the money and house," Adres said.

"This is a great thing and I am very thanking to the government in your country."

The Afghanistan teenager, whose father was killed in Pakistan, made the journey to Indonesia by plane. He saved for the journey and would use his money to engage people smugglers.  "It is a dangerous risk but worth it to get a new country with opportunities.  "This is party time."

SOURCE





Vicious Qld. child protection dept. blames the victims for their bungles

Question for the minister: Why is your department partly blaming the child victims of sex crimes, and their parents, for the incidents?

THIS is the question that Child Safety Minister Tracy Davis refuses to directly answer.

Instead, Ms Davis's office issued a statement in which she claimed the Newman Government wanted "to make Queensland's child safety system the best it possibly can be".

But child-protection advocates have taken on Ms Davis and the State Government after The Courier-Mail revealed Child Safety's practice of using legal action to pressure traumatised families badly let down by the department.

CASE 1: Mum blamed for foster child raping her eight-year-old son

In the first case, Crown Law sought a contribution claim from a mother, arguing she was to blame after her eight-year-old was allegedly raped by a foster child in her care. The department has said the mother should have better supervised the children even though the family had not been fully told about the foster child's history of sexual behaviour.

In the second case, three sisters who were repeatedly sexually abused by a foster child, also with a past not fully disclosed, have been told by the Child Safety department they also share the blame for failing to lock their bedroom doors.

CASE 2: Three sisters blamed for sexual abuse for not locking their bedroom doors

Taxpayers are funding the action against the families in a bid to make the parents partly responsible for any compensation payout to the children.

"These people are traumatised," Bravehearts founder Hetty Johnston said. "They (the department) wear them down. They wear out all (the families') financial resources until there is nothing left and then they throw them a pittance.

"These children had clear histories in sexualised behaviours. You don't place children with sexualised behaviours against other children, with children. (They) need to be placed in very specific care situations."

Child-protection body PeakCare Qld's executive director Lindsay Wegener urged the department to change its legal tactics.

"Under no circumstances should children ever be blamed or seen as contributing to a sexual assault that's been perpetrated against them," Mr Wegener said. "If it is that the department itself is hamstrung by legal process then those legal processes need to change.

"We cannot have legal processes that do not put the safety and wellbeing of children first."

Council of Civil Liberties president Michael Cope said the move to force families to contribute to any compensation could deter people from bringing claims.

"It's a harsh decision," Mr Cope said. "The Government isn't a commercial entity and all it is going to do is deprive the children of funds unless the parents themselves have an insurance policy."

Yesterday, Ms Davis's office replied to The Courier-Mail's question: "While the law prevents the Government from discussing individual child-safety cases, the Newman Government is determined to make Queensland's child-safety system the best it possibly can be and that's why we've established the Commission of Inquiry. We look forward to receiving the Inquiry's recommendations in April for revitalising the child-protection system."

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Another "Green" business collapses

A FIRM that touted itself as one of Australia's most established solar supply and installation companies has gone under owing more than $3 million.

Solagex Australia Pty Ltd ceased trading in early September and went into liquidation on October 29.

Customers and businesses from Queensland, Victoria, NSW and South Australia - including many who paid deposits between $500 and $5000 - never received systems.

Solagex was a national company, with its Queensland headquarters in Southport.

A creditor list compiled by liquidator David Ross, of Hall Chadwick, outlined 179 parties owed a total of $3.129 million.

Leading wholesale distributor Conergy Pty Ltd is out of pocket $2.5m, while other creditors include the Australian Taxation Office, AAPT, Workcover Queensland and the Office of State Revenue.

Mr Ross told The Courier-Mail that another company, Freetricity, had bought the business and was working with deposit holders to try to complete installations.

Noosa builder Peter Collins is among those waiting to see if they will recoup deposits

handed to Solagex before it hit hard times in a market that went into overdrive in the dying days of the State Government's 44 cents solar feed-in tariff, which ended on July 9.

Mr Collins said he paid $1210 last March but approached the firm a few months later to get his deposit back after having second thoughts.

"I had a big holiday planned so I asked for my money back. They stalled me and said that's no worries, we will delay your job until after you come home," he said.  "Now they've gone belly up and I'm not real hopeful of recouping my money.

"I've had two in my life - where companies have gone broke owing me money - and never seen a cent."

"Pro-solar" Chinchilla mum Joanna Embry said she decided to sign with Solagex in June before the government incentives were reduced.

She paid a 10 per cent deposit of $1531.20 and was annoyed to learn the firm had gone into liquidation.

"It could have been worse as they wanted a much bigger deposit than I agreed to.  "I paid by credit card and have checked with the bank to see if there is anything they can do. They have asked for more information and we'll just have to see what happens."

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Newman Government will hear plan to give serial indigenous offenders work and education 'sentences' instead of jail time

This is a laugh.  Aborigines can repeat word for word what do-gooders tell them but it doesn't alter their behaviour

VIOLENT and serial indigenous offenders would no longer be jailed but given a work and education "sentence" under a plan to be taken to the Newman Government.

Indigenous leader Warren Mundine will meet with Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie next month to talk about his controversial proposal, which has been bankrolled by some of Australia's richest people.

Mr Mundine, speaking exclusively to The Courier-Mail, warned that the growing indigenous jail population was a "ticking time bomb" and "we are setting up a future in 10-15 years where there will be a large criminal (indigenous) element operating".

The boss of Queensland's jails, Marlene Morison said the number of non-indigenous prisoners had fallen from 4130 in 2006 to 3988 in 2011, but the number of indigenous prisoners has crept from 1519 to 1666 in the same period.

"It's our only growth area, while all our other numbers are coming off."

Mr Mundine is the chief executive officer of GenerationOne, which is funded by mining magnate Andrew Forrest, casino-king James Packer, media mogul Kerry Stokes, supermarket entrepreneur Frank Lowy and trucking legend Lindsay Fox. It aims to swap detention for jobs and education.

Under Mr Mundine's blueprint, a magistrate would have the option of sending an indigenous offender to work, linked with educational outcomes, and if they failed to turn-up, then they would be sent to jail.

"Criminal records have been identified as a barrier to employment. GenerationOne is now looking at juvenile justice, and how employment and education should be a viable alternative to youth incarceration," Mr Mundine said.

"I'm not a touchy, feely, bang the bongo drums and sing songs around the camp fire person . . . (and) that's why I don't have a problem with boot camps, it's about discipline.

"We're living in the 21st century and people have got to work. Jobs - some of them couldn't spell it let alone anything else."

Mr Mundine said he hadn't seen any evidence that showed locking up kids resolved youth offending.

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War on Christmas comes to NT

A TERRITORY primary school has been accused of stopping its children from making Christmas cards this year in a bid to respect non-Christian students.

The order has outraged parents. One mother said: "It makes me feel sad, very sad."

The revelation came a day after the  NT News reported Stuart Park Primary School had banned students from giving each other lollies for the festivities.

Several parents told the newspaper some Year 1 and 2 classes at Howard Springs Primary School were not allowed to make Christmas cards because they had students from non-Christian backgrounds.

And the Education Department failed to confirm whether certain classes had banned some Christmas activities...

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Greedy politicians trying to close down essential hospital

Why?  Because the land it sits on is probably the most valuable bit of real estate in Australia.  But what about the health needs of the people around it?  Below is the case for the people

Sydney got the quinella during Tuesday morning peak hour: multiple bus breakdowns causing gridlocked roads and a crane collapsing and bursting into flames at the University of Technology.

Which leads me to pose the question: how prepared is this city for a disaster? Terrorism is not the only threat to our nation's safety. Buildings collapse, fires break out, earthquakes, tsunamis and viral pandemics can all strike in a matter of moments. Our elite members of the state and federal police forces, ASIO, Emergency Management Australia and the NSW Fire Brigade spend a lot of time planning how they would cope with either a man-made or a natural disaster in the central business district of our city. But what would you - the commuter - do in the case of a September 11 in Sydney? More importantly, how would you fare?

In 1980, Sydney Hospital, the only hospital within easy reach for people in the city or, in a crisis the only hospital reachable at all, was a 400-bed teaching hospital. In the mid 1980s, the Wran government imposed senseless and drastic cuts to this icon of health care. Today, Sydney Hospital has just 100 beds of which 50 are dedicated to the world-renowned Sydney Eye Hospital.

And so there are just 50 beds set aside by government to look after about 500,000 citizens by day and 70,000 by night. Even worse, Sydney Hospital has been denied an intensive care unit since the early 1990s.

Then in 2005, just three months after the London terrorist bombings had occurred, NSW Health took away the general and orthopaedic surgeons from Sydney Hospital. These are the very two categories of specialists who would be most needed at any hospital having to manage the victims of a catastrophic event.

The inevitable gridlock on Sydney's roads, which follows even the most minor traffic hiccough, would make other nearby hospitals unreachable in the so-called crucial "golden hour" following any CBD catastrophe.

Although the police, fire and ambulance services know how best to interact in a disaster, the CBD public hospitals around Australia - and possibly even the defence forces - have been less involved in preparing for co-ordinated responses to emergencies.

In the face of massive casualties arising from World War II, the federal government reacted sensibly by creating Repatriation General Hospitals where injured survivors of war could be treated and where universities could foster teaching and research. Essentially, one Repat hospital was developed for each capital city. In Sydney it was at Concord.

The world has moved on according to most experts. But there is an urgent need for Australia to prepare its capital cities to handle potential disasters, with an approach that parallels the earlier Repat hospital system.

The national security rebranding of a public hospital in the CBD of each capital city would dramatically improve the capacity to deal with potential disasters.

Such a hospital does not need to be an "aircraft carrier" but it would need to be a rapidly responsive, high technology "frigate", with a specially trained crew and critical liaison with all the other essential disaster services, including the ABC (the national disaster broadcaster).

In Sydney it would be Sydney Hospital. In Melbourne it would probably be St Vincent's.

These national security hospitals would also need to coordinate with each other as potential disasters in any one city could easily necessitate the involvement of services at many interstate, even off-shore, hospitals.

Of all Australia's capital cities, Sydney is in the worst plight.

The NSW Minister for Health, Jillian Skinner, has told us the $300 million redevelopment of Blacktown and Mount Druitt hospitals was needed because of the growing population in those parts of Sydney. But central Sydney is growing, too. In the CBD, the resident population has risen from about 5000 in 1980 to about 70,000 today. These figures are additional to the half million people who populate the CBD every working day.

If the NSW government was to spend just two-thirds of the $300 million it has recently given to Blacktown and Mount Druitt, it could restore Sydney Hospital to a 200-bed hospital with 12 operating theatres and an intensive care unit. The restoration of general surgery and orthopaedics would let it easily and capably resume its proper functioning as the primary district hospital for the Sydney CBD, whilst also enabling a national security role in any disaster scenario.

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The happiness that only children can bring

One very determined couple



THE most famous big family in Queensland is expanding again.  Dale and Darren Chalk, already parents to 11 young children, are expecting another baby - a single child due in March.

The couple, from Strathpine, on Brisbane's northern outskirts, are overjoyed.

"We're thrilled to be pregnant again," Mrs Chalk, 34, said. "It's always exciting to find out you're pregnant. It's just something inside that you know when you are done (having children) and when you're not."

The Chalks' latest baby will expand their brood to 12, a sibling to Shelby, 9, quads Emma, Ellie, Samuel and Joseph, 8, quads Sarah, Alice and Matthew, 7 (a fourth baby Milly died at 21 weeks' gestation), Tiger Lily, 5, and twins Grace and Jackie, 3.

Mrs Chalk said they had been trying to conceive this much-wanted child since Grace and Jackie were about six months old.

"We've got to the stage where if it (a pregnancy) happened, it happened. We didn't try every month to fall pregnant, and I was fine if we never had another baby again, but if it did happen, then great," she said.

"I've been feeling really good. The kids were all very excited when we told them. They want to pick out names already."

Mrs Chalk said she is constantly mistaken for a "family daycare mum" but she couldn't be happier.  "We live for our kids," she said.  "We feel extremely lucky to have all these kids. It's a blessing. We have a happy family. They (the kids) get everything they need, not everything they want."

Mrs Chalk said she did seven loads of washing a day and spent up to $900 a week on groceries.  The family, who have a five-bedroom home, hope to upgrade their 12-seater transit vehicle to a 30-seater bus.

Mr Chalk works as an ambulance driver and supplements the household income driving taxis.

The Chalks have been making headlines ever since Mrs Chalk gave birth to her first set of quads in 2004, making them parents to five children under the age of two.

The quads and their eldest child, Shelby, were conceived with the aid of a fertility clinic and artificial insemination of donor sperm because Mr Chalk has a rare condition in which he produces no live sperm.

But the couple's real notoriety came when Mrs Chalk, then 26, fell pregnant with a second set of quads. Her conception of consecutive sets of quads was believed to be a world first.

It also set off heated debate among medical experts who said her assisted reproductive treatment was irresponsible, given the risks of premature delivery and abnormalities in multiple births.

Her first quads were born precariously early, at 27 weeks, and remained in hospital for almost three months.  The second set of quads was also premature.

But the family was undeterred and their ninth child, "singleton" Tiger Lily, born in 2007, was conceived thanks to the same donor as all her other siblings.

When the Chalks wanted more, the fertility clinic declined to help.  However, the couple found a sperm donor online and using self insemination, twins Grace and Jackie were created.  This latest pregnancy was conceived using the same donor.

Mrs Chalk's mother Sue Thompson, 64, who retired from her nursing job when the first quads were born, lives a few blocks away and helps out daily.

"It makes me feel really angry when I hear criticism of them," she said.

"They are great parents. They love those kids. You can see every one is wanted whether they come in multiples or singles. They are beautiful kids and they are doing really well at school. They are all at the top ends of their classes.

"I'm one of 10 so this isn't really strange to me. It's normal. I don't understand what all the fuss is to be honest."

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Leftist Jew defends antisemitic cartoon

His defence is all waffle but it has to be as the cartoon is so blatantly biased.  I append at the bottom of this post a toon that gets a lot closer to reality



ON NOVEMBER 21, The Age published a cartoon by Michael Leunig which commented on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The device Leunig used was a parody of the famous poem by Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller about the need to be vocal when one sees a wrong - even if not directly affected by it.

First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.

There are variations to the poem and it seems it was first used in speeches Niemoller gave in 1946. In Leunig's cartoon there are four frames to match the four stanzas of the original poem. There is an almost universal view in the leadership of the Victorian Jewish community that Leunig's cartoon is anti-Semitic. The media release from the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission quoted chairman Dr Dvir Abramovich presenting the following arguments to support that claim.

"'First they came …' introduces a celebrated statement attributed to German pastor Martin Niemoller about the apathy of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and their gradual elimination of certain groups. 'They' of course referred to the Nazis. In Leunig's cartoon, however, it is the Israelis who are the Nazis.

"And Leunig's second anti-Semitic theme? That anyone who supports the Palestinians will immediately be besieged by the all-powerful Jewish lobby, similarly jackbooted, treading on all who oppose them, closing doors in their faces, spiteful, hateful and bitter. In Leunig's black-and-white world, Palestinian/Arab/Muslim lobby groups are muzzled and The Age would never dare to publish an article (or cartoon) critical of Israel."

My reaction to the cartoon was very different. The power of a cartoon is in the many ways in which it can be interpreted. Once the cartoon is in the public domain it lives its own life - as indeed does Niemoller's poem. My comments should therefore be understood to reflect a personal view.

That Leunig comes to his cartoon with the perspective of a Palestinian supporter merely sets the scene. The baseline of the cartoon is that Palestinians are always the victims. We know this isn't a universal truth, but the cartoon isn't a balanced dissertation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - it's a cartoon. It uses exaggeration to tell us something.

The parody of Niemoller's language is playful: "First they came for the Palestinians … Then they came for more … " And in this respect Leunig can be criticised - or maybe he is being self-critical. Is he being too playful about the plight of the Palestinians in complaining overtly about silence as a form of tacit acceptance and covertly that publicly criticising Israeli treatment of Palestinians will be met with anger - from "the all-powerful Jewish lobby", to quote Dr Abramovich?

However the cartoon is also clever, because the reaction of the Jewish community as articulated in the Anti-Defamation Commission media release is in fact encapsulated within the cartoon. As Leunig said, "bitterness and spiteful condemnations would follow", duly obliged by Dr Abramovich in his comments.

And so the Jewish community has been wedged. A more thoughtful response might have been to silently reflect on the sometimes appalling and disgraceful level of the debate about the conflict - and not just from one side. However, the genuinely held perception of anti-Semitism mandated a public response.

The Jewish community is a wonderful community, but sometimes I wish it was a little less weighed down by its collective memory and a little more informed by it. Sigh.

Perhaps, in the end, we might ask whether the cartoon is really about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or in fact about the conflict between the Jewish community and Leunig. It's all a question of perception and interpretation - the power of the cartoon.

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