New Roman Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane makes a mark

WHO knew that when the church, the state and the fourth estate gathered in a room lit by the setting sun so much frivolity, sobriety, wisdom and gossip would ensue?

The new Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, His Grace, The Most Reverend Mark Coleridge, was the star of the show: witty, cultured, with a kind of over-arching intelligence that saw him politely put his oar into a range of subjects that, by rights, he should know nothing about.

"Well, I'm no expert on economics," he said, before giving a pretty expert opinion.

Yes, people in Queensland are doing it hard according to the Archbishop but we should remember that, by world standards, we're rolling in clover. His Grace was as eager as the other new boys (and girl) to exchange cards, invitations to lunch and anecdotes about mutual acquaintances.

The new Racing Queensland champion, Kevin Dixon, revealed to the new Opera Queensland artistic director, Lindy Hume, that "in another life" he'd known actor and former artistic director of the Queensland Theatre Company Robyn Nevin pretty well.

Entering the News Queensland offices at Bowen Hills, the Archbishop - who appears not to have a pompous bone in his body - introduced himself to security as "Mark".

When Ms Hume arrived, they soon started chatting and before long His Grace was belting out  in a beautiful voice  the last lines of Bach's St Matthew Passion, part of Ms Hume's 2013 season.

"It's years of practice," he said as The Courier-Mail editor, Michael Crutcher, led everyone inside. In the first-floor Ayr Room, Premier Campbell Newman, accompanied by media minder Lee Anderson walked the walk, introducing himself to everyone, making sure he shook everyone's hand.

As the sun set and proceedings began, it was clear from the deference of every leader representing organisations dependent on State Government patronage or funding who was The Big Kahuna. The Premier might be half the size of the QCI's giant ex-Wallaby CEO Damien Frawley but he has twice the muscle.

What all the leaders shared was a sense of vocation. Mr Frawley, supposedly the dry, pragmatic head of a government-owned corporation, spoke poetically of the job he was "put on this earth to do".

Ms Hume spoke of the "sense of vision" that artistic directors need, and Mr Newman mentioned the "overwhelming" responsibility he feels about his job, which he doesn't think will ever wear off.

His Grace, as might be expected, talked of the central importance in life of the artistic and the spiritual.

He was the only one who seemed impervious to the Premier's clout.

"I'm not Superman and nor are you," he said at one point, nodding at the Premier. Later he gently highlighted the Premier's political problems: "You were always going to have trouble controlling your backbench, given how big it is!"

Everyone agreed that the Queensland of 2012 is a friendly, creative, exciting place to be.

Everyone also agreed that leading big, complicated structures with unpalatable problems - most notably the Catholic Church with its Truth, Justice and Healing Council aimed at dealing with systemic sexual abuse and the Queensland Government with its job cuts and reform agenda  was not easy.

The new Police Commissioner, Ian Stewart, spoke about trying to "find a better way of us (doing) our job on behalf of the community".

There was no doubting anyone's sincerity. There was no doubting either that there will be some long, convivial lunches ahead at the Archbishop's official residence in his historic New Farm house, Wynberg.. Perhaps he might even sing a line or two.

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Lovers of complusion attack freedom from Green mandates

People can still install all the rainwater tanks they like.  The only difference is that it is now voluntary

KATTER'S Australian Party leader Ray Hopper said scrapping mandatory water tanks was short-sighted and showed the government had no plan for the future.

Mr Hopper, who defected from the Liberal National Party government a few weeks ago, said drought, rather than flood, was Queensland's natural state.

Laws needed to reflect that reality, he said.  "At a time when water storages in Queensland remain full, we should be looking at ways to protect our scarce resources so that they last into the future," he said.  "This government should be saving for the rainy day. Instead, it is flushing water security down the drain."

Earlier today, a sustainable housing lobby group attacked the Queensland government for scrapping green measures for new homes.

The government last week announced it would dump laws requiring all new homes to have rainwater tanks and gas, solar or heat pump hot water systems.

Housing Minister Tim Mander says the cost of building a new home could be reduced by more than $5000, and the initiatives are an unnecessary drag on the construction industry.

But the Association of Building Sustainability Assessors (ABSA) said the government had put the state in reverse with its "bizarre" decision.

Chief executive Rodger Hills said home sustainability measures were about keeping living costs down in the long term.

"They are consumer protection measures which stop people being locked into pain ... with homes that are not efficient, future-proof, and don't cater to cyclic drought conditions or energy price hikes," he said in a statement on Monday.

He said the policy to drop the sustainability measures guaranteed the average Queensland homeowner would be worse off.

"If the Newman government wants to see the voters who got them into office paying more for power and water in new homes, then scrapping these sustainability measures is the way to do it."

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Queensland to pull workers out of union-friendly Federal system

THE Newman Government has taken the first step towards seizing back industrial power from Canberra by proposing to return 300,000 small business workers to state jurisdiction.

As unions quickly condemned the move warning it would leave workers "worse off", Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie said operators had raised concerns about the Federal Fair Work Act and there was "a push to refer power back to the state".

"In November 2009, the former Labor Government passed legislation to refer small business industrial relations matters to the Commonwealth," Mr Bleijie said.

"Small business operators have told us they are finding the current arrangements difficult.

"The Fair Work Act Review has also revealed concerns in the business community about the legislation's impact, particularly on workplace flexibility and productivity."

Mr Bleijie has released an issues paper giving business an opportunity to have a say with the deadline for submissions February 22, 2013.

"The Newman Government listens to business and we want to ensure the state is offering them the most effective industrial relations system," he said.

But the ACTU's President Ged Kearney warned the move would leave workers worse off.

Ms Kearney said the Newman Government had already shown its contempt for workers by moving to sack 14,000 public servants in its first year in office.

"Shifting hundreds of thousands of workers back into the Queensland IR system will leave them vulnerable to losing pay and conditions such as penalty rates," Ms Kearney said.

"The National Retail Association is already calling for the Queensland Government to reduce penalty rates and casual loadings as part of this change.

"The Newman Government could then rip apart the state award system to suit employers. When it comes to workers' penalty rates, Queenslanders should not trust the Liberal National Party."

She said Mr Bleijie had raised the plan three months ago, but it was dismissed by Premier Campbell Newman.

"It now appears this has been his government's plan all along."

The Queensland Council of Unions also warned the move would put penalty rates at risk and said the Newman Government could not be trusted.

"Shifting hundreds of thousands of workers back into the Queensland IR system will leave them vulnerable to losing pay and conditions such as penalty rates," said QCU president John Battams.

For example, if penalty rates were abolished a casual or permanent employee working a six-hour shift on Saturday or Sunday in a restaurant would receive $25 less for the Saturday work and $50 less for the Sunday, he said.

"Research shows most social, family interaction and recreational activity happens on weekend so people need some compensation for giving up these," Mr Battams said.

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Family to sue W.A. governhment hospital over girl's brain damage at birth

A PERTH family has won a year-long legal battle for the right to sue the West Australian government and medical staff at the city's largest maternity hospital over a birth that left their girl with severe brain damage.

The family of eight-year-old Tahlia Burns lodged a civil lawsuit in October last year, claiming damages against the state government, two midwives and a doctor at King Edward Memorial Hospital for negligence and breach of contract and statutory duty.

The writ claimed the management of Tahlia's birth in April 2004, as well as post-natal care and advice led to her suffering brain damage, visual impairment, cerebral palsy and epilepsy.

District Court commissioner Michael Gething had ruled that the claim for damages had taken too long to be lodged and therefore should not go ahead.

But the family appealed against that decision and WA's Supreme Court has ruled they do have the right to sue to the then-health minister, midwives Tracy Bingham and Rosemary Dale and Dr Steven Harding, who were involved in her birth.

After a complex legal ruling, Chief Justice Wayne Martin today ruled that the time for Tahlia's father David Burns to file the claim had not run out and it could now proceed.

``The commissioner erred by dismissing the appellant's application without considering the merits of the application,'' Justice Martin wrote.

``Leave to appeal should be granted, the appeal should be upheld and the commissioner's order should be set aside.''

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Qld. National parks to be unfrozen

Radical!  People will actually be able to use them!

THE State Government has stepped away from fundamental national park protection introduced by a conservative government more than 50 years ago.

It is set to ignore the cardinal principle, which determines that national parks have the highest protection of all land classes, by approving recreational activities and introducing 30-year leases for resort developments.

National Parks Association executive director Paul Donatiu said the cardinal principle was already being eroded by starting mountain biking in Conway National Park in north Queensland, quad bike tours in Woondum National Park on the Sunshine Coast and horse-riding in other parks.

This gave recreational enthusiasts free rein to damage parks, as had occurred with 4WD, horse and bike riders trashing Beenleigh's Plunkett Conservation Park.

Under the cardinal principle, introduced in 1959, outdoor recreation that is nature-based and ecologically sustainable is encouraged provided it does not conflict with or degrade other values such as the conservation of nature.

Mr Donatiu said the cardinal principle was embodied in the Queensland Biodiversity Strategy, the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service Master Plan and underpinned every management action.

"Queenslanders should be very concerned that anticipated changes to the Nature Conservation Act could remove, erode or lessen the application of this principle," he said.

Premier Campbell Newman did not respond to questions about the cardinal principle yesterday, saying the Government sought to encourage tourism.

"We want Queenslanders to enjoy national parks rather than be locked out," he said.

Mr Newman said the previous government's move to stop 4WDs using two small sections of Moreton Island beaches to allow safe pedestrian access was heavy-handed. "We are ending that sort of nonsense," he said.

Asked if National Parks Minister Steve Dickson would abandon the cardinal principle, a spokeswoman declined to answer but said the department was consulting with industry as part of a review of the Act.

"Part of this will include the option of 30-year leases for development of eco-tourism facilities," she said.

"For too long, eco-tourism has been choked by legislative red tape, while other naturally beautiful regions including Tasmania and New Zealand have forged ahead in creating multibillion-dollar industries."

Mr Donatiu said the comparison was incorrect because Queensland parks occupied less than 5 per cent of the state compared with Tasmania 24 per cent and NZ with 11.4 per cent.

Mr Donatiu said significant numbers of park-associated resorts had gone into receivership this year and many larger US parks were removing heavy tourism infrastructure.

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Aboriginal climate change

The entire premise of man made climate change is that we, mankind, because of our modern industrial lifestyle, have altered the natural order of the climate system and this is bad. It is so bad that mankind needs to do something to fix what we have done and stop what we are doing.

More and more however it seems that the climate change academia complex is undermining their own case for the very premise which is the foundation of their theory, not to mention their considerable tax payer funding. It is easy to see how this happens, academics knowing there is a honey pot of money for any research having to do with climate change combined with their undying faith in the reality of man made climate change conduct studies which to an objective observer actually undermines their case but to the academics it acts as another warning to the uniformed public..

The other day I pointed to a report of a study on how climate change had helped lead to the downfall of the Mayan Empire. The authors seemed not to realize that their findings went a long way towards undermining the "man made" ingredient of the entire theory. Everything that the alarmist community is trying to "sell" society is dependent on the idea that what we are experiencing or will experience is unprecedented and of course man made. So when they do studies which show that conditions in the past were as bad or worse than what we are experiencing or forecast to experience a reasonable person would ask how have we impacted the climate if the climate has always acted this way?

Again we have another example of a study disproving "man made" climate change out of the University of Queensland called Ancient culture affected by climate

Associate Professor Hamish McGowan from UQ's School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management said the studies in the north west Kimberley have shown there was a rapid change in climate around 5,500 years ago.

If there could be rapid change in climate 5,500 years ago in aboriginal Australia doesn't that sort of put a damper on the whole unprecedented not to mention man made claims of todays far less dramatic events? If you want to talk about some serious climate "disruption" consider this:

“Our research shows that the likely reason for the demise of the Gwion artists was a mega-drought spanning approximately 1,500 years,...."

A mega drought  lasting 1500 years without benefit of modern society's fossil fueled input? is that even possible? What would cause such a thing?

"...brought on by changing climate conditions that caused the collapse of the Australian summer monsoon,”

If naturally occurring changing climate conditions could cause such havoc, I would consider a 1500 year long drought severe, why are our modern day soothsayers so convinced that we are responsible for far less dramatic climate change?

Just another  example of pre-industrial severe climate change, far exceeding anything which sends the alarmist community into apocalyptic tizzydom.

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Stroke patients receiving 'substandard' care

The National Stroke Foundation says four out every 10 stroke patients receives substandard care in Australian hospitals.

The foundation is launching a national action plan which calls for a $198 million injection into stroke care and rehabilitation over the next three years.

The report says stroke is the second biggest killer in Australia, but there has never been federal budget funding for a comprehensive stroke strategy.

The foundation's chief executive, Erin Lalor, says more than half of the funding requested would be spent on bringing hospital care up to standard.

"We still have a number of large hospitals in Australia that don't have a stroke unit where they should, but in those hospitals where there was a stroke unit, we found many people still weren't able to get access," she said.

"In some instances it is bed management issues, in some instances they don't get transferred.

"They're still not getting the specialised stroke care that they need in those situations."

She says urgent attention is also needed to improve rehabilitation and community care programs offered to patients when they're discharged from hospital.

"We've seen more and more people surviving in the community after a stroke with no services there in a coordinated manner to support them," she said.

"You can only imagine suddenly facing life with a disability and emotional and psychological responses to stroke."

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No price on free speech

by LOUIS NOWRA, a prominent Australian playwright

AT first I thought it was a joke, but it turned out to be true. Two women decided to take me to the Human Rights Commission, complaining about a play I had written. Set in Sarajevo, it was based on a beauty pageant held during the siege in the Balkan conflict. I wrote it because I was tired of films and plays that depicted the misery of the events, always portraying the besieged as victims. I was more interested in the beauty contestants symbolising the resilience of the human spirit.

The two women had no connection to the siege or the ethnic groups involved. However, they had decided that I was pro-Serbian and the clincher was that one of the actresses in the Melbourne production had a Serb background. The women wanted royalties from previous productions confiscated and demanded the play be banned because it was a piece of Serbian propaganda.

Their interpretation of the play couldn't have been more wrong, so much so that I wondered just how bright they were. But if I thought the ludicrous nature of the complaint would be laughed off by the HRC, then I didn't understand its bureaucratic mission. For a year I had to deal with hundreds of pages pouring out of the commission and had to engage a lawyer. The complaint eventually was thrown out but, not to be denied, these two dolts found a loophole in the law and appealed again. It was nearly another year before this appeal was dismissed.
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During this time I didn't write a play. I found I was censoring myself. Just what could I write that wouldn't offend anybody, even if they took offence from a total misinterpretation of the play? What subjects would cause other people to take me to the HRC? What disturbed me above all was that there was no attempt to understand my side of the story. If the two women intended to creatively paralyse me then they couldn't have found a better bureaucratic vehicle.

During my career a Christian family tried for several years to have my play Summer of the Aliens banned from the school curriculum using newspapers and television to promote their cause. Film reviewer David Stratton considered a film I wrote to be racist and I found myself tabloid fodder. (He made the classic mistake of believing that if a character is racist then the writer and director must be.)

You'd think that left-wingers would defend freedom of speech but, as I was to discover, they may espouse liberal views but not when it concerns themselves. I wrote pieces on Germaine Greer, Bob Ellis and mentioned in passing the humourless Richard Flanagan, all with progressive attitudes, but the first response of all three was to threaten to sue. Not that academics are much better. Two female academics withdrew their subscriptions from the magazine that published the Greer article; the frightening thing was that they were proud of the fact they refused to even read the piece.

What truly bothered me was that some people said it was brave of me to have written the article and it confirmed just how conformist and insular are most of those who would describe themselves as liberal or left-leaning. It is not as if authors are any different. It seems many subscribe to the idea that novels must be of educational and moral value.

Writer and teacher Christopher Bantick recently wrote that Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera should not be taught to final-year high school students because it "says repeatedly that screwing a child for art's sake is excusable". In the novel the main character, an amoral Lothario, Florentino Ariza, has an affair with a 14-year-old girl when he is 76. Bantick doesn't see a complicated character and ambiguous morality working here; all he sees is child abuse.

I was once talking to some of Australia's best women writers and all loathed Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita, summing up the beautiful, morally complex story as "a pedophile's charter". In other words, these writers treat literature as a form of moral instruction and therefore their sensibilities are easily offended by authors such as Marquez and Nabokov.

But just what is offensive? Twitter's billions of tweets carry some of the most vile remarks one could read. Take, for example, Aboriginal academic and lawyer Larissa Behrendt. In one tweet she described watching bestiality on television as "less offensive than Bess Price", an Aboriginal woman in favour of the Northern Territory intervention. Behrendt blamed the comment on the TV show Deadwood which, she said, "seemed pretty offensive". The logic seemed simple: she was offended, so she was careless about offending someone whose views she didn't agree with. All it did was offend Price and reveal Behrendt's real thoughts, and they're not pretty (though the tweet did have a vividness missing from her banal novels).

Cartoonist Michael Leunig has been frequently criticised for his supposed anti-Semitic attitudes. Recently a cartoon of his in The Age equated the actions of Israel in Gaza to those of the Nazis, and for many Jews it seemed that Leunig was saying that the Jews were committing genocide against the Palestinians. The cartoonist justified his position as "all nations that throw their military weight around, occupying neighbouring lands and treating the residents with callous and humiliating disregard, are already sliding towards the dark possibilities in human nature." Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, criticised the cartoonist and wondered "how a survivor of the Holocaust would react when they came upon his cartoon". If one did, I am sure that he or she would be offended, but is offending one person a reason to ban a cartoon?

There are many cartoonists who view it as their job to take unpopular stances that many may judge as offensive. Frankly I found Bob Carr forcing the Prime Minister to change her support for Israel in the recent UN vote on Palestine more offensive than any cartoon. Carr took the action because NSW Right Labor MPs feared a no vote could offend Middle Eastern and Muslim communities in marginal southwestern Sydney seats before next year's federal election. Never mind that many Muslims, especially those of the Middle East, are anti-Semitic.

I may be offended by anti-Semitic comments but I believe that even Holocaust deniers have a right to free speech. Of course it's always nice when a denier such as historian David Irving gets his comeuppance, as happened when he brought an unsuccessful case against another historian, with the judge finding Irving was an anti-Semite, racist and associated with neo-Nazis.

Louis Theroux's recent documentary on a fundamentalist church in the US whose members turn up at the funerals of American servicemen with placards calling the dead men and their families "Fags" and "Dirty Jews" was shocking, yet I respect a nation that allows even these crazies the right to offend.

Australia is less tolerant because we are a very conformist society that dislikes whistleblowers, eccentrics and the unusual. We put up with the Defence Force and government treating us like dummies. The war in Afghanistan is reported to us through spin doctors. We see VC winners and rescued dogs but not the true nature of the conflict. If we want to know what is really happening then we must read the huge library of American and English journalists in the field. Julia Gillard talks as if we're winning there, even though the Pentagon has realised that the withdrawal of US forces will be a disaster for Afghanistan. The equation is easy in Australia: if you criticise the war then you must be criticising our brave troops. Few nations would put up with this codswallop.

If we allow anyone behavioural latitude, then it's towards the larrikin. Two such larrikins, DJs working for 2Day FM radio, made a hoax call to an English hospital where they tricked ward nurses into giving details about Kate Middleton, who was in the hospital at the time. The prank allegedly so devastated one of the nurses that she committed suicide. The result was that the two DJs were vilified by the media and those on the net, and their protective status as larrikins vanished in the media hysteria. Columnist Miranda Devine said of the prank that "we are witnessing the Boratisation of our culture, where decent people are deliberately offended".

But just who are the decent people? Devine herself? Quite simply, it's becoming very easy to offend.

Shock jock Alan Jones made a callous comment about Gillard's recently deceased father. The result was an uproar where those thousands who were offended ganged up on him and forced advertisers to withdraw from his talkback show. It was an example of what is becoming common - cyber lynching. Like those mindless mobs in the Wild West, they are driven by self-righteousness and lust for revenge. One has to ask where were these thousands of offended people when Jones called Sydney's Lebanese Muslims "vermin" who "infest our shores" and "rape" and "pillage" our nation. Jones's incitement was more than offensive; it was despicable.

Some people are easily offended, others are not; yet we have the Racial Discrimination Act that makes it unlawful to "offend" people. Attorney-General Nicola Roxon is preparing to consolidate present anti-discrimination laws from five acts into one planned overhaul of anti-discrimination laws. Her view of the Australian people is that of a private school headmistress announcing to her pupils that the new laws will "help everyone understand what behaviour is expected".

Exactly what behaviour is expected? Probably it will be based on her own middle-class, middlebrow values and attitudes.

This is part of an ongoing project by the Labor government to impose its morality and values on our culture. Part of its mission is to tame what it sees as an unruly populace and media. It used the British phone-hacking scandal to hold an inquiry into the Australian media. Really, this was the government wanting to get back at their critics, especially News Limited. The Finkelstein report proposed a News Media Council, which would have the legally enforceable power to adjudicate on journalist fairness and make the media answerable to the courts. A deadly and expensive combination of lawyers and academics would make up the panel.

The trouble with that is that many academics are not interested in free speech and are captives of groupthink. They may make token comments about liberal values but universities, as I found out as a student and later a teacher at Queensland University and Yale, are anything but bastions of free speech. They promote a culture where if you do not agree with the prevailing ideological orthodoxy then it's death to your career. The attitude is summed up by Wendy Bacon, who heads the journalism school at the University of Technology, Sydney. She saw the Finkelstein report as it really was - an attack on News Limited - and given she considered that organisation a threat to free speech, chose not to defend the concept. Like many of her ilk, she appears to loathe the tabloids and any organisation that disagrees with her left-wing values. The idea of competing ideas and diversity of opinions seems to be anathema to her.

After Ray Finkelstein handed in his report, Lord Justice Brian Leveson, head of Britain's media ethics inquiry, delivered his 2000-page report into what was morally reprehensible behaviour by some British journalists and editors. But it was interesting that only five paragraphs in the report were about the net and the issues it raises for media regulation. Like Finkelstein, Leveson viewed his job as neutering the press by the subtle threat of an independent board. What he didn't realise was that compared with the internet even the most feral tabloids are models of restraint. Rumours, gossip and hatred are part of the DNA of cyberspace. Newspapers obey court injunctions, but the embargo is broken by the net. It has been all too common to see on the net the news that someone has died, who hasn't, people named as pedophiles when they're not, and private photographs plastered on websites.

Some people point to WikiLeaks as something that could happen only on the internet. But Julian Assange is no journalist. He was able to funnel a huge amount of information given to him and release it on the net. He was just a facilitator. But it required newspapers to print the material for it to really matter in the wider world.

The net may provide photographs and information that journalists can't cover but newspapers are more essential than ever. It requires time, money and resources to undertake thorough investigations. If it weren't for journalists we wouldn't know the extent of corruption in NSW Labor politics and there wouldn't be the present Independent Commission Against Corruption investigation of the Obeid family and disgraced politician Ian Macdonald.

The net cannot offer anything like that. It's a medium that celebrates a short attention span. It glories in cyber-lynchings as if the foaming indignation is a sign that those taking part in it - and all you have to do is push a button - are morally right. Much of its vitriol is delivered by anonymous people; it's a medium for cowards.

What is of concern in the real world is that a small group of like-minded elites are determined to restrict free speech unless the speech agrees with their outlook on life and values. Instead of diversity and inclusiveness, these people want to determine our proper "behaviour", to use Roxon's term.

It's a sign that Australia is losing its larrikin personality and that those cultural and political elites want a tame society in their image. It's not unlike middle-class professionals shifting into the red-light district of Kings Cross and afterwards sanitising it, excluding and deriding everyone except clones of themselves.

An integral part of this push is the notion of offence. But really offence is hard to define. Yes, comments such as Behrendt's are offensive, but do they do deep harm? She suffered justified criticism and repented. Leunig's cartoon may offend a Holocaust survivor but it may have forced many readers to rethink their attitudes towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The notion of offensiveness is one that changes through the years. We once banned offensive novels such as Lolita and Ulysses; now they are studied. As we discover in the playground, sticks and stones do not hurt as much as words. But that is the nature of human beings; we can taunt and hurt with what we say. If there is one thing that shouldn't be condoned it is comments that go beyond offensive abuse to the incitement of hatred and physical violence.

There has been a slow and sinister attempt to control the old media and to modify our words and thoughts through legislation. The problem is that free speech is coming under attack from those who think it's their duty to morally correct us. Any time a government does that then it becomes certain that the laws they bring in will be used in the future to control us even more

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Government contribution to private hospital costs has declineed drastically

Because of the long wait times and unreliable service in government hospitals, just about anyone who can afford to goes private in Australia

THE Medicare rebate now covers as little as 16 per cent of the AMA recommended fee for common private hospital procedures - a key reason patients are being forced to sell their homes and raid their super to pay medical bills.

While AMA fees are adjusted for inflation and indexed annually, the rebate has only been increased at less than the rate of inflation or wages growth for decades.

And although health funds offer their members rebates to cover the gap, these rebates are capped - leaving many patients with hefty bills that can amount to thousands of dollars.

A News Limited investigation has found Medicare now covers less than 50 per cent of the AMA fee for ten of the most common procedures in a private hospital.

It covers only 16 per cent of the fee for cataract removal, and just 28 per cent of the fee for hip and knee replacements.

Medicare will cover only 18 per cent of the fee the AMA recommends for delivering a baby, only a third of the bill for bowel cancer surgery and just 28 per cent of the cost of repairing a fractured arm or leg.

As a result the gap fees that have to be met by health funds can be as high as $2,930 for cataract removal and $2,506 for a hip replacement.

So even after gap rebates members of our two largest health funds can be up to $527 out pocket for breast removal surgery, over $1,600 out of pocket for cataract surgery and $185 out of pocket for hip and knee surgery.

Twelve years ago a government commissioned study found Medicare rebates for a specialist visit needed to be increased by 66 per cent, rebates for delivering a baby needed to rise by 150 per cent and for a hip replacement by 30 per cent.  The recommendations were dismissed because they were too expensive.

Australian Medical Association president Dr Steve Hambleton says it is time for the adequacy of at least some Medicare rebates for eye surgery and hip and knee replacements to be re-examined.

"The two things that make a difference in life when a person is old is their mobility and their vision," he said.  "Even though people have been in health funds for 50 years I have to say to them: "Can you afford the gap if you need a hip replacement and if you can't why are you still in private insurance?"

Health Minister Tanya Plibersek says bulk-billing rates have never been as high and says the government has invested $2 billion to drive up the rates with incentives for general practice, pathology diagnostic imaging and telehealth services.

Consumers Health Forum chief Carol Bennett says we need to stop paying for surgical throughput and start paying for health outcomes.

"If the government caves in to the fees the AMA recommends our health system will go quickly broke, we need to refocus what we do and limit demand," she said.

While eight out of ten GP visits are bulk-billed at no charge to patients, only one in four specialist services and only 8 per cent of anaesthetists services are bulk-billed.

Mind the gap

WHEN it started in 1984 Medicare covered 68 per cent of the AMA's recommended fee for a GP visit

BY 2012 it covers just over 51 per cent

IN 1984, Medicare covered 72 percent of the AMA's recommended fee for a specialist visit

IT now covers only 46 per cent

IN 2011-12 financial year the average gap payment to see a specialist who didn't bulk-bill was $53.10, for an anaesthetist it was $103.60 and for a GP $26.97.

THE government's Private Health Insurance Administration Council calculates around 88 per cent of medical services provided in private hospitals have no gaps.

HEALTH fund members paid $630 million in out of pocket costs for over 3.4 million doctors services when they used their health insurance in the year to September 2012.

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It might be rude but it shouldn't be a crime

David Penberthy

RESEARCH is everything in journalism, so I am happy to be able to report that for this piece I spent a good half hour watching Rodney Rude videos on YouTube.

It was around 1983 when I last devoted that level of attention to the work of the Australian comedian.

At our cutting-edge public school, there was a tiny room you could hire called the audio visual centre which contained a single cassette player and many lunch hours in year 10 were spent with mates listening to our tape of the ground-breaking comedy LP Rodney Rude Live.

From memory, the album went No.1 in the charts. It was regarded as massively offensive by many people.

Rude was banned from performing in Queensland for swearing and would probably be regarded in today's more politically correct age as even more objectionable.

The album is filled with bizarre stream of consciousness anecdotes involving moments such as Rude's sexual encounter with a lesbian at a rock festival who subsequently challenged him to a farting competition and his description of how he went to school with a boy who was born without any arms or legs or anything, he was just a head and who sank to the bottom of the school pool on account of having a cramp.

Rude later released a single entitled I May Not Be a Wog (But I Look Like One) which did not fare as well as his debut LP.

He still pops up in the clubs from time to time with material which involves aberrant sexual banter, jokes about Japanese people, New Zealanders, Germans, albinos, the Pope, people with disabilities and himself, a general smorgasbord of filth and weirdness.

I am not holding Rude out as the greatest comic of all time, but there was a kind of charming and intense level of stupidity about him which endeared him to many Australians.

I write about him today because his largely squalid body of work forms a handy checklist for the types of sentiments which could soon be illegal. In the movie The People Versus Larry Flynt, the American pornographer and founder of Hustler magazine argued that anyone who believed in free speech should support his cause because "I'm the worst", and that as someone at the squalid outer limits of taste, he needed to win in the Supreme Court to affirm the sanctity of the First Amendment.

The weird thing about Australia right now is the types of laws which are being canvassed won't affect the most extreme, offensive and inflammatory sentiments or forms of behaviour, such as Larry Flynt's repellent concept of satire, but could actually snare behaviour which is quite mundane.

You could go through the once chart-topping LP by a largely harmless nut such as Rodney Rude and draw up a handy checklist of aggrieved groups who could have a humourless moan in a court of law under Canberra's beefed-up anti-discrimination laws.

The immediate past chief justice of NSW, Jim Spigelman, is such a level-headed and reasonable person that he is known in legal circles as Gentleman Jim.

Spigelman is now the ABC chairman and he gave a terrific speech this week looking at how, under the proposed changes, it will become unlawful to offend people.

"We would be pretty much on our own in declaring conduct which does no more than offend to be unlawful. The freedom to offend is an integral component of freedom of speech," Mr Spigelman said. "There is no right not to be offended.

"I am not aware of any international human rights instrument or national anti-discrimination statute in another liberal democracy that extends to conduct which is merely offensive."

If you think back over the life of this toxic and dysfunctional Parliament, where minority government has flushed out conduct on both sides which is way out of step with the way most people behave, the language of politics has become more heated than usual.

JULIA Gillard has been labelled JuLiar, called a witch, a crook, a feminazi; Tony Abbott has been labelled a misogynist, a negative, policy-free fraud, the Liberals accused of dealing with scumbags to pursue the AWU story, and so on.

I am not sure whether any of this language is desirable.

But I am convinced that none if it should be actionable, as all of it has the capacity to offend someone.

And the moment we start letting people try their luck in court because they have their precious feelings hurt, we are heading down a pretty disturbing path towards state-sanctioned limits on what passes for conversation.

There are already limits to what we can and cannot say through the common law, with defamation being a very popular and often lucrative way to take action if you feel you have been hard done by and can convince a judge or a jury of your peers of that fact.

One of the most inflammatory moments of this year was the absurd and violent protest by the ratty minority within Sydney's Lebanese Muslim community, who thought that belting cops was a reasonable response to the screening of a film overseas ridiculing their prophet. These blokes were clearly deeply offended. So much so that it was offensive to the rest of us.

We don't need our government treating us like those nuts in Martin Place, who clearly devote much of their time to being offended.

The long-standing advice to calm down, keep things in perspective, or lighten up should hold more value than any government-mandated attempts to make sure no one ever says anything offensive, ever.

SOURCE





Queensland farmers approved for lethal Damage Mitigation Permits to shoot and kill fruit bats

The creation of orchards has caused their numbers to explode

THE first shots against Queensland's flying fox population were fired this weekend with fed up farmers finally given the all clear to shoot to kill.

Queensland authorities have approved nine shoot-to-kill licences out of 17 applications for lethal damage mitigation permits to deter the night-time raids of flying foxes on fruit growers across the state.

From the apple orchards of Stanthorpe, to the citrus trees of Bundaberg, to the lychee plantations of the deep north, bat lovers claim a modern "yippee shoot" is the new battlefront in wildlife conservation.

Farmers retort: "Shooting is a last resort".  Mostly they use lights, noise, netting, electric shock, poison and hot chilli spray to ward off hungry hordes of bats - one colony of thousands of flying foxes can strip a $100,000 harvest bare in a few nights.

Successful applicants of lethal permits must have previously used "prescribed methods" such as netting or sound to deter flying foxes.

Lethal permit holders said yesterday how they did not want to be photographed for this story because they felt it would make them a target for "green hysteria".

"We don't want to end up in the cross hairs," said fruit producer Derek Foley, of Electra near Bundaberg.  "It'll be us with the bullseye on our heads.  "But we do believe in our right to farm, to feed the nation, and shoot the odd flying fox to protect our crop."  Mr Foley has 14,000-odd trees of lychee, avocado, mango and lemon.

Full canopy netting covers the trees, gas guns make a sound barrier, and six 18m high towers with 24 metal halide 2000-watt lights light up the farm "like the Sydney Cricket Ground".

Shooting is the final option to "take out scout bats" he said.

Under the permit, producers are strictly capped per motnh to take down: 30 black flying foxes; 30 little red flying foxes; 20 grey-headed flying foxes; and 15 spectacled flying foxes.

Conservationists believe the permits will still put some species at risk.

"This is barbaric," said Bat Conservation and Rescue Queensland president Louise Saunders.  "These permits are a sick joke. It is near impossible to get a clean shot on a bat at night," said the Brisbane-based animal carer.

She believes wounded and winged creatures will be left to die an agonising death in the forests.  "Bats are not some ravenous, rabid, violent monster out there to eat you. They are beautiful, clever, loving mammals.  "This'll be one big yippee shoot."

The Newman Government overturned a four-year ban on killing flying foxes earlier this year, opening the permit system in September. In the 1920s, organised hunts killed thousands of bats a night.

Alf Poefinger, 73, a lychee and mango grower of Mutarnee, north of Townsville, prefers to use hot chilli spray over the messy and expensive practice of shooting.

"Bats bite or lick the hot chilli on the fruit, it does not kill them, but they don't like it," said Mr Poefinger.

"It is definitely cheaper than netting and not as vicious as shooting them."

Fellow Mutarnee grower Martin Joyce was the first producer in Queensland to be granted a lethal permit.  He said when the bats come in their thousands they are very hard to control.  "Now, if we do get a great influx, we have the permit."

Environment Department Director Wildlife Rebecca Williams confirmed nine out of 17 applications for lethal DMPs had been approved.

But they were always willing to consider applications on non-lethal methods of managing flying foxes, she said.

SOURCE






OECD delivers snapshot of Aussie economy

A heavily Leftist report

The Federal Government should be prepared to delay returning the budget to surplus if economic conditions significantly worsen, according to an international analysis of Australia's economy.

A report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says the forecast surplus of $1.1 billion this financial year could turn into a deficit of 2-3 per cent of GDP if the terms of trade return to their longer-term average.

It says Australia weathered the global financial crisis well, through sound macroeconomic policy and strong demand from China.

But it suggests the Government should be flexible about its approach to the budget, saying: "Authorities should let automatic stabilisers work in case of a sharper-than-expected cyclical weakening, even if this postpones the return to a budgetary surplus".

The report adds to the growing calls for a possible delay to surplus, including from senior Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon.

If a new economic crisis were to break out, the OECD suggests the Government should be prepared to implement a new fiscal stimulus package, as it did during 2008-09.

Treasurer Wayne Swan says the report is another sign that Australia's economy has been well managed, and that the current policy mix is appropriate to sustain recovery.

"While we understand that not everyone is doing it easy, this OECD report today is another reminder that Australians have a lot to be proud of and confident about," he said in a statement.

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey has today continued his attack on the Government's economic credentials, saying: "It's not in the Labor party's DNA to run a surplus, to live within their means, and to start paying down $251 billion of debt".

More HERE

Pickering on Gillard

Well-known cartoonist Larry Pickering gives Julia both barrels.  He is very critical of her alleged past involvement in union rorts

Let me explain something to you, Ms Gillard, and I know you will read this:

I have been studying politicians since before you were born. I knew great and poor Prime Ministers personally, from Menzies to Howard.

I knew their traits, their foibles, their strengths and hidden weaknesses.

But each nurtured a common, unbroken thread; they all honoured their high Office. Each was respected if not liked. Each was Australian and decent in essence.

You, Ms Gillard, are different. You will never legitimately stand beside those who have gone before you.

If you worked at my corner store, if you didn’t aspire to be something you’re so obviously not, I might quite like you.

I know you won’t believe this Ms Gillard, but I wanted nothing more than to be proud of Australia’s first woman Prime Minister. You have destroyed that.

You simply don’t get it, do you Ms Gillard? This is not about policy or Left or Right... it’s not about sexism, misogyny or any other vile adjective you use. It’s about YOU!

You are emboldened by the fake infatuation of the minority who need you. You are deaf to the majority who don’t want you.

When you were nine years old Ms Gillard we had another controversial Prime Minister called John Gorton.

I recall like yesterday, a Party room meeting on March 10, 1971. A motion of no confidence in Gorton's leadership was tied precariously at 33 all.

Realising his Party’s predicament he immediately gave his casting vote against himself, effectively removing himself from Office.

He realised the marginal satisfaction with his role as Prime Minister was potentially caustic and effectively handed the Prime Ministership to my good friend at the time, Bill McMahon.

He then voluntarily suffered the ignominy of accepting the position of Deputy PM to Bill.

That was the stuff of John Gorton. And that’s difference between a decent person and you, Ms Gillard. You would not have done that.

Don’t try to pretend you possess that high tier of honour. You simply don’t, I happen to know you don’t because your selfish ideological agenda are far more important to you than the station of Office.

Your barbs of misogyny completely miss me, Ms Gillard. I happen to love women and I always will.

You see Ms Gillard, it is not at all about gender nor any other of your nasty labels and no, I don’t give a damn if you are a crook.

But I do give a damn if you are a crook AND my Prime Minister.

SOURCE







New data on life expectancy worldwide

AUSTRALIANS are living longer but chronic diseases such as diabetes are taking a greater toll on our health, a global study shows.  The life expectancy for Australian men and women has improved over the past 20 years, the Global Burden of Disease 2010 study found.

Australians' life expectancy was now in the top five in the world, said Professor Alan Lopez, the head of the University of Queensland's School of Population Health, who co-authored the study.

The life expectancy of Australian men had improved by about six years to 79.2 since the last study in 1996, while women could be expected to live on average 83.8 years, up from 80 years two decades ago, he said.

Heart attacks and lung cancer were the biggest disease burdens in Australia and New Zealand, the research found.

However, Prof Lopez said the disease burden from tobacco products in Australia had lessened.  "Australia has been the global leader in reduction in mortality due to tobacco," he told AAP.  "There is still a significant burden in Australia related to tobacco causes but we've come back a long way."

However, he said there had been a dramatic rise in diabetes and related deaths.  Diabetes is now the 10th largest burden of disease, measured by years of life lost, in Australia and New Zealand, compared to 19th globally.

Both in Australia and worldwide, injuries - including suicide and self-harm - were still a major contributor to deaths.  "For some age groups in Australia we are seeing increases in mortality for suicide," Prof Lopez said.

But there had been dramatic declines in car accident deaths, which could be attributed to Australia's drink-driving legislation.

High blood pressure was the main risk factor for death and disability globally, with an estimated 9.4 million deaths in 2010 related to the condition.

Tobacco was the second biggest risk factor, responsible for 6.3 million deaths globally in 2010.

Meanwhile, child malnutrition has decreased, along with diseases caused by unsafe water and sanitation, indicating global health initiatives in these areas are making progress.

HIV and malaria-related deaths both increased between 1990 and 2010, despite efforts to tackle them.

Nearly two out of three deaths worldwide in 2010 were caused by non-communicable diseases, such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease, while heart attacks and stroke caused about one in four deaths.

The study, published on Friday in the medical journal, The Lancet, updates the inaugural 1996 study.

Commissioned by the World Bank, the study informed global health policies and the second instalment is expected to have a similar impact.

SOURCE.  The academic journal article is here.  It is very complex and does involve a lot of best guesses. 

The male life expectancy is 79 for Australia and Japan,  77 for the UK and 76 for the USA.  Iceland was tops at 80, followed by Andorra, Switzerland and Sweden.  Andorra is a small tax haven where a lot of rich people go to retire.  The figures for the USA include blacks and Hispanics so are not very enlightening about non-Hispanic whites.  There may be a separate figure for that somewhere but I could not see it at a quick look.

Australia again seems to be the lucky country, with a climate to suit everybody (from tropical to sub-Arctic) and a life expectancy very close to the maximum.  New Zealanders will be burnt up by the fact that their life expectancy slightly lags Australia's.






Forget the doom: coral reefs found to be much more robust and resilient than alarmists claim

Hoagy is astounded.  Has his life's work of alarmism just fallen apart?

A WIDESPREAD belief that the world's coral reefs face a calamitous future due to climate change is proving less resilient than the natural wonders themselves.

Rising sea temperatures, storm damage and ocean acidification have grabbed the headlines as looming threats to reef survival.

But as each concern is more thoroughly investigated, scientists are finding nature better equipped to cope than they had imagined.

The latest research, published in Nature: Climate Change today, blows away the theory that reefs were doomed due to rising ocean acidification caused by the higher take-up of carbon dioxide in the seas.

Researchers have found a common coralline algae that grows at the leading edge of coral reefs is not nearly as susceptible to changing ph levels as coral because it contains high levels of dolomite.  In fact, the dolomite-laden algae has a rate of dissolution six to 10 times lower than coral's.

The good news is that dolomite-rich coralline algae is common in shallow coral reefs across the world.  "Our research suggests it is likely they will continue to provide protection for coral reef frameworks as carbon dioxide rises," the paper says.

Lead author Merinda Nash, a PhD candidate with the Australian research school of physics and engineering, says the phenomenon has been overlooked because research to date has been on coral, not coralline algae. "It is not very sexy so it has not got a lot of attention," she said.

"What the research demonstrates is there is a lot we have yet to understand about coral reefs."

This is a sentiment echoed by James Brown of the Kimberley Coral Research Station, who believes the hot water corals of the Kimberley coast hold a treasure trove of answers for marine biologists.

Mr Brown has questioned why the Kimberley coral reefs were thriving in water temperatures and at acidification levels well outside of the limits that conventional science said should be inhospitable for their survival.

"Measurements of dissolved carbon dioxide have shown levels of up to 50 parts per million compared with the average of 28 parts per million," Mr Brown said.  "This is the outer limit of what scientists had believed would be habitable for corals.  Water temperatures are also at the top end of what coral biologists say it is possible for corals to survive in.

"The more we find out about the Kimberley, the more it rewrites the book on coral biology."

Further counter-intuitive results on coral survival have come from an extended project on the Great Barrier Reef to measure the health of deep corals.

The Catlin Seaview Survey has found the damage to coral reefs is literally skin deep, with corals located in deeper water below even the worst impacted sites thriving and in pristine condition. The findings raise the possibility that damaged corals may have an increased opportunity for recovery by recruiting new corals both from adjoining reefs and those located immediately below.

The early findings from the survey have astounded the scientists involved, including Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a leading global figure in raising concerns about crown of thorns starfish, coral bleaching and ocean acidification.

"The survey has shown that deeper reefs may be protected to an extent from some of the perils of climate-driven events such as mass coral bleaching and storms," he said. "These deeper corals may be important refuges if we get big changes in the shallows."

SOURCE






How freedom from information works

Most Western governments have FOI laws but governments stiil release only what they want to release

IT WAS the fake ferry exercise that made my heart sink. The high-speed link from Port Melbourne to Frankston, the presenter explained, was an imaginary election promise to ease congestion on our roads and trains.

But there were problems with the fictional plan. There were serious risks to a heritage-listed pier. Probity issues. Likely cost blow-outs because of bad departmental advice.

And all of it had been documented: a brief to the Transport Minister, a summary of the tender responses and an external consultant's report.

Our task, Victorian Government Solicitor's Office senior manager Joanne Kummrow outlined, was to find exemptions the department could claim to keep these "documents" from a journalist fishing around using Freedom of Information laws.

While the documents were fictitious, the response from the 40 or so people in the room - many of them FOI officers or legal advisers for councils or state government agencies - was all too real.

They took to the task of suppressing the information with alarming zeal.

I had spent the day alongside them learning about recent changes to Victoria's FOI regime at a Leo Cussen Centre For Law conference on November 30 - the eve of the amendments taking effect.

Feeling a little like a poacher-turned-gamekeeper, I'd handed over $520 and signed up under my real name. A tag revealed who I was and where I worked, but no one seemed to be bothered about curtailing their comments.

The lectures were helpful, but the real value of the day was the insight into the minds of the people who handle the dozens of applications for public information that Victorians file every day to government, councils and agencies.

Some presenters were at pains to reinforce that the FOI Act gives members of the Victorian public rights of access to official documents and to remind those in the room that the public deserved timely, consistent and complete responses to their FOI requests.

I cheered inwardly as one officer urged others to be open, active, helpful, efficient, collaborative and to think in the public interest.

But comments and questions from some other presenters and attendees left me agog. One, for example, bluntly admitted a tendency existed in some agencies to deliver "quick and dirty decisions", which could be "tidied up" if the applicant sought an internal reviews.

The depth of resistance to scrutiny emerged when the room split into four groups for a workshop to assess documents relating to the fake, failed ferry.

Mick Batskos, who runs a company called FOI Solutions and is regarded by many government departments and agencies as "a guru", volunteered as leader in my group.

When members showed signs of potentially agreeing to the release of information, he flexed his encyclopaedic knowledge of the exemptions, coaching on how to interpret the Act more broadly.

He explained, for example, that papers didn't actually have to go before the Cabinet to attract the powerful - and almost impossible to challenge - Cabinet Documents exemptions.

To their credit, some attendees dared ask if it might actually be in the public interest to release some of the information. They were quickly met with an array of excuses from others about why it was harmful or confusing for the public to know of the controversy surrounding the ferry debacle.

IT took only 20 minutes for the collective to apply a grab-bag of exemptions and arrive at what seemed to me a pretty warped version of "public interest".

One group sounded particularly pleased to report back that they'd found several "blanket ones we could go for" to stop the release of any information.

Wrapping up the exercise, Ms Kummrow noted - to much laughter - that it sounded like the pretend journalist wasn't going to get a lot of information.

(The chuckles quietened when fellow Victorian Government Solicitor's Office colleague Elsie Loh piped up to point out that just because an exemption exists doesn't mean you have to apply it.)

My fears that many in the room have a "restraint of information" mindset weren't helped by the day's final session, a mock VCAT hearing, with real counsel arguing a pretend FOI appeal before a real tribunal member.

Among the first things the barrister representing the agency asked for was a suppression on media coverage. Thankfully, it was rejected.

The mock hearing and the sham ferry exercise left me wondering about the all-too-real job ahead for Ted Baillieu's long-promised FOI commissioner, the key plank of his promise that accountability and transparency would be the principles that underpinned his Government.

Watchdog Lynne Bertolini finally started this month, with powers to conduct reviews and investigate complaints from the public.

She comes to office promising to educate FOI gatekeepers about their responsibilities and to ensure they have a clear understanding of the Act and the objectives of the legislation. Based on what I glimpsed, she'll have her work cut out.

Under new amendments, agencies must assist the commissioner when she's reviewing a case or assessing a complaint.

There was a telling query from the audience once that was explained: "What if an agency doesn't assist? What disciplinary powers does she have?"

While Ms Bertolini has been described as somewhat toothless, the agencies at the conference did seem to fear some of her powers - especially her ability to collect and publish the names of FOI officers who decline requests.

Unlike the fake ferry that sank without trace, let's hope this election promise succeeds and the commissioner can turn the tide on the flow of information.

SOURCE

Social class discrimination to be penalized?

THE planned extension of anti-discrimination laws to cover "social origin" could give legal weight to a class system and threaten Australia's egalitarian spirit, the chairman of the NSW Community Relations Commission warns.

Stepan Kerkyasharian has joined a chorus of concerns about the federal bill and its potential to curb freedom of speech by making it unlawful to "offend" or "insult" - not only on racial grounds but in any area of potential discrimination such as sex, age and disability.

But Dr Kerkyasharian went further on Wednesday while hosting a debate: "Is Sydney more racist than Melbourne?" He revealed he had raised his fears with the federal Attorney-General about the inclusion of social origin among grounds for discrimination in workplaces.

"Is it a backdoor way of introducing and codifying social standing, or a class system, or a social strata?" Dr Kerkyasharian said.

He worried it had no clear definition; nor did another of the grounds for work-place discrimination, political opinion. "We need to ensure any legislation [does not harm] our egalitarian society and our very harmonious multicultural society."

Racial harmony, or the lack of it, was the subject of the debate. Dr Kerkyasharian apologised to anyone offended by the implied city ranking of racism in the title. But he said: "I think it is sometimes good to be provocative." The short answer was, yes, Sydney was more racist than Melbourne, based on the Scanlon Foundation's 2012 report, Mapping Social Cohesion. The long answer was more nuanced.

Presenting his research, Professor Andrew Markus, from Monash University, noted that negative feelings about Muslims ran at 28.5 per cent in Sydney against 15.2 per cent in Melbourne. Very negative feelings about immigrants from Lebanon ran at 12.1 per cent in Sydney and 5 per cent in Melbourne.

Possible reasons: Sydney's immigrants were highly concentrated in the western suburbs while Melbourne's were spread throughout the city. This may have led to xenophobia and flight from areas such as Bankstown and Fairfield by older people whose families had been in Australia for three or more generations. The cost of doing nothing to address these tensions would be "huge", Professor Markus said.

Professor Ien Ang, from the University of Western Sydney, took a "glass half full" view of Sydney's cohesion. She found the debate's headline unhelpful,.

So did Professor Jock Collins, from the  University of Technology Sydney,  who said the cohesion glass was "80 per cent full".

His research with young Sydney people from immigrant families revealed they had strong aspirations and were positive about their future. Many identified not as Australians but as "global citizens," he said, and yet this was the new reality for many around the world. "We should be relaxed about that."

Professor Collins took a shot at Julia Gillard, saying that when the Prime Minister announced her first cabinet, nobody had responsibility for multiculturalism. "It dropped completely off the agenda."

SOURCE







Discrimination against men in car sales jobs OK?

A MAJOR car dealership plans to advertise specifically for female staff in an effort to draw more women to their male-dominated workforce.

A.P. Eagers, which employs about 3000 people in dealerships across the country, plans to run the advertisements for female sales and service staff with a disclaimer declaring it an "equal opportunity measure" after it was knocked back in its bid for a formal exemption from anti-discrimination laws in October.

A.P. Eagers group human resources manager Michael Raywood said the company wanted to even out the gender imbalance in their workforce at a time when more women were in the market for a car.

"In our business we have 80 per cent male and 20 per cent female staff so we're trying to take some positive measures to redress the balance," he said.

Mr Raywood said the company was not trying to be controversial, but just to make their workforce more representative of their customers.

"It's not about whether women are better than men or men are better than women," he said.  "If we had a 50/50 split of male and female then we wouldn't have to do this sort of thing."

Mr Raywood said the ads would run only where they were deemed necessary, and the company would talk to general managers about where the need was greatest.

In dismissing the company's application for exemption under the Anti-Discrimination Act 1991, Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal member Susan Gardiner said while an increase in female employees at the company was desirable and "good for business", it was not essential.

"Here, Eagers staff is of both genders and both can fulfil the roles in the sales and service area," she said.

But she said an advertisement targeting female applicants would not be unlawful if the company could establish it would promote equal opportunity for women, and recommended including a disclaimer to indicate the company's position and pre-empt complaints.

University of South Australia anti-discrimination law expert Associate Professor Sara Charlesworth said formal exemptions from anti-discrimination law were usually given to help disadvantaged groups rather than for business reasons.

"Exemptions are regularly given where maybe a women's refuge or a domestic violence service specifically says they want to have women," she said.

SOURCE








Non-urgent surgery postponed at major Brisbane hospitals

Gillard has set up a big new Federal Health bureaucracy and funded it by cutting money to employ doctors and nurses in State hospitals

A REDUCTION in elective surgery is imminent for public patients in Brisbane's south.

Metro South Health CEO Richard Ashby told ABC radio non-urgent surgeries would be postponed at the Princess Alexandra, Logan, Redland and QEII hospitals.  "We will be deferring non-urgent surgery," he said.

Dr Ashby blamed "fiscal constraints" for the downturn, particularly a recent mid-financial year cut to Metro South Health by the Federal Government of $19 million.

"New category three patients we will be deferring creating booking dates until we are certain about the time-frame in which we will be able to operate," he said.

Category 3 patients are the least urgent but are recommended to be operated on within 12 months of them being placed on the elective surgery list.

Dr Ashby said a new plan to combine all hospital waiting lists in the area would reduce wait times.  "We are going to amalgamate the waitlists for common conditions, it is not acceptable that a person should have to wait for two years or three years at the PA Hospital but be able to have that surgery done at the Logan in six weeks' time," he said.

Health Minister Lawrence Springborg has laid the blame for the elective surgery reduction in Metro South to a federal budget cut across all of the state's 17 health service districts of $103 million.

Mr Springborg told the ABC $41 million of that had already been paid, and was now coming directly out of hospital budgets starting last Wednesday.

"That's what's having this particular impact. We're seeing the practical manifestation (of that budget cut) by having an extended shutdown of elective surgery over Christmas," he said.

"It's an enormous impact.  "It's hard to adjust to these cuts being imposed by the Commonwealth."

SOURCE







Feds hitting Victorian hospitals too

Some hospitals may also be set to lose organ transplant services to other hospitals so the state can cut costs and streamline the system.

Some hospitals may also be set to lose organ transplant services to other hospitals so the state can cut costs and streamline the system. Photo: Glenn Hunt

ELECTIVE surgery waiting lists are likely to "explode" due to funding cuts at Victorian hospitals and no patient will be spared longer waits, including children and cancer patients, surgeons warn.

Some hospitals may also be set to lose organ transplant services to other hospitals so the state can cut costs and streamline the system.

The shake-up in coming months is likely to be controversial for specialists who pride themselves on working in centres of excellence, but it is unlikely to reduce the number of transplants being done.

The chair of the Victorian regional committee of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, Dr Robert Stunden, said although every health network would deal with budget cuts differently, previous experience showed the first thing to go was elective surgery.

The paediatric surgeon at several Melbourne public hospitals said semi-urgent or category two elective surgery lists could be cut in half over the next six months, meaning people who should be operated on within three months could expect their wait to at least double to six months.

Category two patients are defined as those with "some pain, dysfunction and disability" and include people waiting for hip or knee replacements and vascular surgery.

Dr Stunden said that although urgent surgery was likely to still be done on time, no surgical specialty, including cancer and paediatric care, would be immune from cuts, meaning many patients could expect to wait longer in pain.

"We are expecting to have major cutbacks in lists over the next six months … waiting lists will explode," he said, adding that it was "terrible" for patients. "The quicker we can manage these patients, the better it is for them."

Dr Stunden said some hospitals were considering delaying new programs in the new year while others were discussing the streamlining of "super-specialised services" such as transplant surgery, so instead of three hospitals doing liver transplants, for example, only one would. This would cut the cost of having three hospitals set up for the procedure.

While this would upset some doctors in the field, Dr Stunden said it did not mean the number of procedures would be cut back.

"There will have to be some give and take in the major institutions for the benefit of the community as a whole," he said.

Most transplants are currently done at Monash Medical Centre and the Alfred, Austin and Royal Melbourne hospitals.

Victorian Health Minister David Davis last week told hospitals to plan for multimillion-dollar budget cuts over the next seven months. He blamed the federal government for refusing to back down on plans to slash $106.7 million from Victorian hospital budgets this financial year.

Mr Davis said the federal government's recalculations of its funding were based on flawed population data. However, the federal government disputes this and says funding to the state is still increasing compared to last year.

On Tuesday, the Australian Medical Association and the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine condemned the budget cuts, saying public hospitals were already overwhelmed.

"The cuts must stop - the public hospital system has nothing more to give," said AMA president Steve Hambleton.

Elective surgery waiting lists have increased in Victoria over the past two years. At the end of June, 46,131 people were waiting for surgery - up from 37,194 in June 2010.

SOURCE







Attorney General announces Queensland senior lawyers to return to Queen's Counsel title

IN a move expected to spark a national trend, Queensland's senior lawyers will return to the title "Queen's Counsel".

Attorney General Jarrod Bleijie is announcing the move, flagged several months ago in The Courier-Mail, at the Supreme Court’s annual Christmas Greetings event in Brisbane on Wednesday morning.

Mr Bleijie said replacing Senior Counsel (SC) with Queen’s Counsel (QC) would eliminate confusion.

"The feedback I have received raised concerns that SC was often mistaken for the term Special Counsel, which many law firms have taken to using for solicitors," Mr Bleijie said.

While the Newman Government move will be seen as supportive of the Monarchy in the dying days of the Queen's Golden Jubilee year, Mr Bleijie says there are also commercial considerations at play.

“QC is also more widely known and understood by the public as a mark of professional distinction at the Bar and this move will make the distinction much clearer," he said.

“It is important that Queensland silks are competitive internationally particularly in Singapore and Hong Kong where the use of QCs is preferred."

Mr Bleijie said Asian countries employed QCs from as far as the United Kingdom.

He said the change would give Queensland leverage over other Australian states, which maintain the SC title, competing for a share of this market.

Current Senior Counsel will be invited to have their title amended should they wish and all new appointments will now be given the title of Queen’s Counsel.

The Newman Government has received widespread support from the Queensland Bar Association and the legal profession to revert to the traditional title.

“I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Jenny Hogan, Philip Looney and Dean Morzone who were recently selected for appointment as Senior Counsel," Mr Bleijie said.

Mr Bleijie will be writing to all current Senior Counsel shortly to invite them to make an election if they wish to be commissioned as a QC.

Those who do not apply to have their title changed will remain as Senior Counsel and their seniority will not be affected.

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'I wish Gillard was dead': AFP raid home after string of emails

There's clearly a free speech defence here.  Opinions are not threats  -- not outside Communist countries, anyway

A Sunshine Coast man whose home was raided by at least 12 federal police yesterday denies he is a terrorist or has links to outlaw bikies.

Glenn Dirix admitted he regularly sent confronting emails to federal and state MPs, including one where he apparently wrote "I wish (Prime Minister) Julia Gillard was dead", but he said he did not believe he was a security threat.

Mr Dirix considers himself a blogger who merely makes comments about Australian politics. He sends the emails using his own name to the public email accounts of the politicians.

He said among the emails, for example, were pictures of politicians with clown hats on, a picture that described Treasurer Wayne Swan as an "economics illiterate", and a picture of Ms Gillard and Mr Swan in a parody of Custer's last stand, a commentary on the 2013 federal election.

Mr Dirix has been charged with seven counts of using a carriage service to "menace, harass or cause offence" and one charge of assaulting police.

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Deaf woman wants to be on a jury

There is a culture of denial among many deaf people which denies that they are handicapped

A DEAF woman claims she was subjected to unlawful discrimination when she was unwillingly excused from jury duty because of her hearing disability.

Gaye Prudence Lyons has made a complaint against the Queensland Government under the Anti-Discrimination Act 1991 for failing to provide an interpreter during her stint as member of an Ipswich jury panel.

Details of the action were revealed in a recent Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal decision to consider Ms Lyons' request for an order forcing the Deputy Registrar and Sheriff of the Ipswich District Court to supply a range of documents.

QCAT senior member Clare Endicott, in a recently published four page ruling, dismissed Mr Lyons' application for the tribunal to issue a notice of production, but does give a small insight into the hearing impaired woman's complaint.

"Ms Lyons has referred to QCAT a complaint that she has been unlawfully discriminated against by the State of Queensland when she was excused from jury duty because she is deaf and required an Auslan interpreter in order to perform jury duty," Ms Endicott said.

"Ms Lyons complains that she has been unlawfully discriminated against on the basis of an impairment in the provision of services to her and by the administration of State laws and programs contrary to the Anti-Discrimination Act 1991."

The tribunal was told Ms Lyons, in preparation of her case, applied for a notice to be issued by the tribunal to obtain a range of documents, including any policy, guideline, direction or other document relating to deaf people and jury duty in operation between January 1 and October 9 this year.

Ms Lyons' application was opposed by the state government on the grounds it was an abuse of process.

"(Ms Lyons) has explained that access to the requested documents is reasonably necessary for (her) to reply to the contentions of the state," Ms Endicott said.

Ms Endicott, in dismissing Mr Lyons application, said she expected the state government would make reasonable attempts to ascertain if the documents requested actually existed before the matter was heard.

"If documents within the categories do exist, and if the State objects to providing copies to Ms Lyons of all or any of the ascertained documents, then the parties can at that stage seek a direction for QCAT for the release of copies of the actual documents in dispute to Ms Lyons."

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Greenies using lies about Great Barrier Reef to attack industry

REEF experts believe the loss of half the coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef is a "national crisis" worthy of a rescue package similar to the $12 billion plan to save the Murray Darling Basin.

They blame Queensland's biggest industries, coal and sugar cane, for the rapid decline and question the fate of the $5 billion tourism icon given mining, farming and port developments.

But leading tourism identities warn the state's tourist trade and international reputation is being damaged as scientists send a "skewed" and "misleading" message that the Reef "is half-dead".

Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke and Industry Minister Martin Ferguson met with state counterparts Andrew Powell and Andrew Cripps to discuss the Reef in Brisbane yesterday.

Professor Terry Hughes, director of the Townsville-based ARC Centre of Excellence Coral Reef Studies, said the talks failed to reveal how officials would handle the show-cause notice by UNESCO on the Reef becoming an "at risk" World Heritage site.

Prof Hughes said authorities had to impose a cap on dredging and stop farm run-off.

"It is a national crisis and it needs a rescue package response equivalent to that in the Murray Darling Basin," he said. "We need to ask: 'Do we need to have a sugar industry or a coal industry?' "

Mike Ball, a veteran dive industry figure, said much of the outer and northern Reef system was still pristine and figures from coastal reefs sent a skewed message overseas.

Canegrowers chief executive Steve Greenwood said it was irresponsible for scientists to suggest the end of the state's $2 billion sugar industry.

Mr Powell said: "Our target is to see a 50 per cent reduction in nutrients run-off by 2013 and a 20 per cent reduction in sediment by 2020."

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ABARES report confirms that Australian fisheries stocks are sustainable

The release of the ABARES wild fish stocks report today confirms what marine scientists such as Professor Robert Kearney have been saying consistently: that Australian fishing practices are some of the best in the world, Senator Boswell said today.

The ABARES report comes just one month after the Federal Minister for the Environment Tony Burke declared new marine reserves that will cover 2.3 million square kilometres around Australia -- banning commercial and recreational fishers from vast areas.

“Tony Burke has never explained why these areas needed to be locked up and what our oceans needed protection from. He has never established the case for declaring these marine parks -- and sadly Australian fishermen will bear the brunt of this flawed Government policy,” Senator Boswell said.

“This has never been about marine protection. Australia has a proud record of sustainable fishing practices. We extract less than 30 kilograms of marine catch per square kilometre compared to Thailand who extract almost 6000 kilograms of marine catch from their oceans.

“This Labor Government policy has been driven by a coalition of local and international green groups financed by the American PEW Foundation. The latest network of Marine Reserves will lock up sustainable, productive and valuable fishing grounds and will devastate coastal communities.

“Australians will be denied a vital source. We currently import 72 per cent of our seafood from overseas from countries with a less than enviable environmental record.

“The impact will be the greatest in Queensland with the Coral Sea marine park covering over 989,842 square kilometres, an area that is more than half the size of Queensland.

“The government’s own figures show that the planned fishing bans would have a substantial impact on Mooloolaba, Cairns and Karumba. “Cairns based fishers will lose catch valued at $3.6 million a year and Mooloolaba-based fishers will lose catch valued at $1.5 million a year.

“The declaration of marine reserves has been all about placating the Greens; meanwhile, commercial fishermen will be denied a living and face a compensation package that is woefully inadequate.

“Today’s report confirms what we have known from the beginning: these marine reserves are not about marine science but are all about Greens preferences at the next Federal election,” Senator Boswell said.

Press release from Qld. Nationals Senator Ron Boswell

A brief note on the hospital call prank

by D.J. Webb

We have probably all listened to the hoax call to Edward VII Hospital in which an Australian radio show phoned the hospital pretending to be the Queen in the hope of obtaining information about Kate Mountbatten née Middleton’s confinement. While, of course, I do not celebrate the fact that a nurse is believed to have committed suicide, I cannot join in the condemnation of the phonecall.

The phonecall was funny, lighthearted in intent, and transparently not from the Queen. The accents were extraordinarily phoney, and the call was littered with humorous comments about the Queen having to go and feed the corgis, etc. The male presenter also attempted to imitate the yapping of corgis at one point. The call was just “high jinx” — a joke. They could not have known that the nurse would commit suicide — and such a reaction is by no means a logical consequence of having been the “victim” of such a prank. There must be more to this story. Was the nurse already suffering from depression? How did the hospital management regard her failing to observe protocol and put this call through? This is a top private hospital, after all, and it can be expected that the management of such facilities do have words with members of staff who do not protect the privacy of their patients.

Whatever the background, the radio station making the prank call is not responsible for the suicide. It was not “quality journalism” — there is nothing ‘Reithian’ about this radio programme – but it was not highly objectionable either. Now, to my dismay, the two radio presenters involved have been disciplined, and their show may be permanently cancelled. I would not like to see two promising careers ended over this incident, as the extreme reaction of the nurse could not have been foreseen. This could feed into calls for more controls on the press, including arrangements for the protection of privacy. Most of such laws and proposed laws go too far – and the Royal family are about the most legitimate targets of an intrusive media in Britain today.

You could argue that ordinary people should not be subject to scurrilous media attention, but the Royal family have courted the attention of the Press when it has suited them. We should always err on the side of press freedom, although that does mean that silly prank calls will take place in a free country.

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Note that the hospital bears a considerable responsibility also.  If they had employed a native speaker of English in the reception role, she would have been highly likely to have detected the amateurish hoax immediately.  All men (and women) are not equal






Free speech tripped up by offensive line

BY: JAMES SPIGELMAN

I WISH to discuss the boundary between hate speech, a significant factor in social inclusion, and free speech, perhaps the most fundamental human right underpinning participation in public life.

This issue has been controversial in Australia in recent years, in the context of the racial vilification provision in section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, which is proposed to be re-enacted as section 51 of the new omnibus legislation, the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012.

There may now have elapsed sufficient time for us to debate the issue dispassionately, and not on the basis of whether you like Andrew Bolt. The focus of that debate was not on the existence of a racial vilification provision but on the breadth of the conduct to which section 18C extends: namely, conduct "reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person".

The key criticism was directed to the fact the section made speech that merely "offends" unlawful. A similar, but less powerful objection, can be made to the reference to "insult".

These matters have long concerned me, but my thoughts have crystallised after reading a book by Jeremy Waldron, one of the foremost jurisprudential scholars of our time, with joint appointments to Oxford University and New York University law school.

From the perspective of society, Waldron emphasises inclusiveness as a public good, providing an assurance and sense of security to all members of the society that they can live their lives without facing hostility, violence, discrimination or exclusion.

From the other perspective, of those who are meant to benefit from this assurance, the fundamental human right that is affirmed is the right to dignity. Hate speech undermines the sense of assurance and denies the dignity of individuals.

The section of Waldron's hate speech book that is of particular significance for our debate is the chapter he devotes to establishing the proposition that protection of dignity does not require protection from being offended. As he puts it:

"Laws restricting hate speech should aim to protect people's dignity against assault. Dignity in that sense may need protection against attack, particularly against group-directed attacks. However, I do not believe that it should be the aim of these laws to prevent people from being offended. Protecting people's feelings against offence is not an appropriate objective for the law."

I agree with Waldron. His detailed analysis supports the proposition that declaring conduct, relevantly speech, to be unlawful because it causes offence goes too far. The freedom to offend is an integral component of freedom of speech. There is no right not to be offended.

I am not aware of any international human rights instrument, or national anti-discrimination statute in another liberal democracy, that extends to conduct that is merely offensive.

Section 19(2)(b) of the proposed Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012 introduces "offending" into the definition of discrimination for all purposes, not just for racial vilification. The new S19 defines, for the first time, discrimination by unfavourable treatment to include "conduct that offends, insults or intimidates" another person. Significantly, unlike existing S18C (or its replacement by the new S51), there is no element of objectivity, as presently found in the words "reasonably likely to offend". It appears to me the new bill contains a subjective test of being offended.

There are 18 "protected attributes" set out in section 17 of the draft bill, seven of which apply only in the employment context. These are wide ranging and, in some respects, novel.

The inclusion of religion as a "protected attribute" in the workplace appears to me, in effect, to make blasphemy unlawful at work but not elsewhere. The controversial Danish cartoons could be published but not taken to work.

Similar anomalies could arise with other workplace-protected attributes, such as political opinion, social origin and nationality.

Further, each of the four existing commonwealth anti-discrimination acts proscribe publication of an advertisement or notice that indicates an intention to engage in discriminatory conduct. Section 53 of the new omnibus bill goes further into freedom of speech territory by extending this proscription beyond advertisements to any publication.

The new bill proposes a significant redrawing of the line between permissible and unlawful speech. A freedom that is contingent on proving, after the event, that it was exercised reasonably or on some other exculpatory basis is a much reduced freedom.

Further, as is well known, the chilling effect of the mere possibility of legal processes will prevent speech that could have satisfied an exception.

When rights conflict, drawing the line too far in favour of one degrades the other right. Words such as "offend" and "insult" impinge on freedom of speech in a way that words such as "humiliate", "denigrate," "intimidate", "incite hostility" or "hatred" or "contempt", do not. To go beyond language of the latter character, in my opinion, goes too far.

We should take care not to put ourselves in a position where others could reasonably assert that we are in breach of our international treaty obligations to protect freedom of speech.

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$1m to help education workers feel good despite Baillieu Government job cuts

No word on whether there was any evident benefit

EDUCATION workers have undergone "emotional intelligence" sessions on coping with change under the Baillieu Government.

The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, which is axing more than 400 jobs to meet savings under the Government's "sustainable government initiative", has spent more than $1 million on workshops and training sessions since March last year.

About 25 per cent of the money was spent on 103 workshops, seminars and training dealing with change, documents released under Freedom of Information reveal.

The courses included Recognising and Managing Stressed Employees, Managing Change and Building Resilience, Leading Through Change, Coping with and Managing Through Change and Understanding and Coping With Change.

In October the department paid $56,000 for career support seminars to help staff manage their careers and apply for jobs.

It also spent $62,700 on a two-day workshop titled Managing With Emotional Intelligence.

Shadow parliamentary secretary for education Colin Brooks said running workshops on managing with emotional intelligence at the same time as cutting the education system and sacking hundreds of staff seemed ludicrous.

"The hundreds of education staff losing their jobs won't feel like holding hands and singing Kumbayah at one of these workshops," he said.

Public Sector Union state secretary Karen Batt said sending people on the courses "just shows complete insensitivity".

A spokesman for Education Minister Martin Dixon said: "Professional development is central to building a world-leading education system."

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Climate Skeptics in Australian politics still skeptical

THE most prominent political climate sceptics see no reason to change their minds, despite the welter of studies over the past fortnight showing forecasts of global warming were correct or underestimates.

Many of the climate sceptics, influential in elevating Tony Abbott to Coalition leader, say they see nothing to convince them that human activity is causing the climate to change.

The Global Carbon Project has released forecasts that the planet could warm by between 4 degrees and 6 degrees by the end of the century and Nature Climate Change on Monday published a study finding that warming is consistent with 1990 scientific forecasts.

South Australian senator Cory Bernardi, formerly Mr Abbott's parliamentary secretary, said: "I do not think human activity causes climate change and I haven't seen anything that changes my view. I remain very sceptical about the alarmists' claims."

Queensland senator Barnaby Joyce said the whole debate about whether humans were causing the climate to change was "indulgent and irrelevant".

"It is an indulgent and irrelevant debate because, even if climate change turns out to exist one day, we will have absolutely no impact on it whatsoever … we really should have bigger fish to fry than this one," Senator Joyce said.

West Australian backbencher Dennis Jensen, who had read the recent scientific literature, said he interpreted the findings in different ways and believed climate scepticism within the Coalition was increasing.

"The scientific papers saying it is as bad as we thought, or worse, are talking about concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere - and concentrations are indeed increasing - but global temperatures have not gone up in a decade," he said.

"It's the impact of the increased concentrations of CO2 that is in dispute and I agree with [US professor] Richard Lindzen that it is more likely to be 0.4 degrees than 4 to 6 degrees … the doomsday prophesies do not stand up to reason."

Mr Abbott now says he accepts "we have only one planet and we should tread lightly upon it".

Questioned about climate science last year, Mr Abbott said: "I think that climate change is real, mankind does make a contribution and we should have strong and effective policies to deal with it. As far as I am concerned, the debate is not over climate change as such. The debate is over the best way of dealing with it."

He has never repeated his 2009 comment that the "settled" science of climate change was "absolute crap".

His $10.2 billion "Direct Action" climate policy was deliberately crafted to straddle the deep divisions over climate science within his party.

To qualify for grants from the Coalition's proposed emissions reduction fund, a proposal must "deliver additional practical environmental benefits" as well as reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Mr Jensen said it was this proviso that allowed him to back the Coalition plan.  "At least we will be doing things that make sense for other, practical reasons," he said.

Tasmania senator David Bushby said he remained a true "sceptic".  "I know eminent scientists have one view but I know other eminent scientists - usually ones who have retired and are no longer reliant on government grants - have a totally different view," he said.

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