Australian country life and a great little red-headed kid



AN eight-year-old boy has been hailed a hero after he hot-wired a two-way radio to call for help as his dad lay trapped in the wreckage of a horror truck rollover. Michael Bowron stripped the radio wires and connected them to a spare battery he found among the wreckage.

Yesterday, the Bonnie Rock youngster told The Sunday Times his fingers burned from sparks flying off the battery while he desperately called for help. "I was scared, but I was trying to be brave," Michael said. "My dad had heaps of blood on his face and heaps on his leg. "I had heaps on my leg too, but not as much as my dad."

Michael and his father, Justin, were driving home to the family farm in a prime mover truck on Saturday, October 10, when a tyre blew. "It blew on the left-hand side of the truck and the right-hand side swung around," Mr Bowron said. "The truck was heading straight into a bush and I tried to correct the steering wheel. "When I did that, it tipped over. The last thing I remember was the driver's side hitting the ground."

He regained consciousness minutes later to find himself wedged between the steering wheel and the dashboard. His leg was caught in the mangled truck, trapping him in the vehicle. Glass covered him and blood was pouring from his head.

"Diesel was leaking from the truck and the engine was still running," Mr Bowron said. "I was worried it was going to burst into flames. "I couldn't find my mobile phone and the two-way radio had been thrown out of the truck."

Michael, who had been sitting in the sleeper cabin, crawled out of the wreck through the windscreen and tried to free his dad with a tyre lever. When that didn't work, he rummaged for the radio. "It was pretty bunged up," Mr Bowron said. "It couldn't work because it wasn't connected to the truck anymore. "I told Michael he could get it going with the spare battery."

The spare battery had been thrown out of the truck. "I found the battery on the side of the road and dragged it over to my dad," Michael said. "He told me to strip the wires from the radio and put them on the red and blue parts of the battery." Under his father's guidance, Michael was able to get the radio working and call for help.

One of the first to respond was Michael's mother, Christine. She immediately organised family members and neighbours to go to the crash. "I was the first to arrive on the scene," Mrs Bowron said. "I didn't think it was going to be as bad as it was. "At the time I was just thinking, `How can I help?'. It wasn't until later that I thought about how I could have lost them both forever."

Mr Bowron was trapped for just over an hour before he was able to escape from the truck. It was another 45 minutes before the local ambulance service arrived at the scene. Local volunteer ambulance co-ordinator Peter Geraghty said Mr Bowron could have been trapped until night time if Michael had not been able to work the radio. "There's basically no traffic on that road," he said. "The trouble with farmers, too, is that they often don't come home until late at night so they don't get missed until 10 or 11 o'clock."

Mr Geraghty said Michael had shown courage beyond his age. "What he did was very impressive," he said. "We say he's too old for his age. "But a lot of country kids are like that. They know how to fend for themselves because often they is no one around to fend for them."

St John Ambulance spokes-woman Bianca McGougan said the volunteer ambulance crew played a big part in keeping Mr Bowron safe. The nearest hospital, about 50km away, was without a doctor because the sole medico recently retired. The on-call doctor at the Merredin Health Service could not be located. Mr Bowron was taken to Mukinbudin and treated by the town nurse. "Our closest available doctor was more than 200km away so we treated Justin for what we could and liaised with the Royal Flying Doctor Service," Mr Geraghty said. "The plane was in the air by about 4.55pm."

Michael had concussion, bruising and a black eye. Mr Bowron needed stitches in his arms and legs and doctors removed a lot of glass from him. His hip has not yet recovered and he is only walking with the help of a crutch.

Ms McGougan said Michael would be nominated for a bravery award. "He is an outstanding young West Australian whose quick-thinking actions and ability to stay calm in a highly stressful situation helped save his father's life," she said.

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Childhood policy straight out of fantasyland

Get up and Grow, the guidelines for healthy eating and exercise in early childhood, part of the Federal Government's anti-obesity drive, are nearing release. They recommend children should be banned from watching television until they turn two and from two to age five viewing should be limited to one hour a day. Such policy recommendations emanate from a fantasyland where officials never seem to learn from the past or understand the real world where most of us live.

Television is omnipresent and a powerful means of educating young children. It has always been true that one-third of children do two-thirds of the viewing and many of these heavy viewers are children who live in disadvantaged families. This fact of life provides educators with an opportunity.

There have been only two comprehensive educational experiments that have attempted to fundamentally change the focus of early childhood education through television. The first was Sesame Street developed 50 years ago to address disadvantage among American preschoolers; the second was Lift Off, developed in the '90s by the Australian Children's Television Foundation. In both cases the television program was the centre-piece for a nationwide community outreach program with support materials designed for families, carers and teachers.

Lift Off exemplified the way in which the media and the education system could work together with parents to create a valuable resource for the education of children. The process of collaboration worked, but the ABC, for its own political purposes, took the program off air and the project collapsed. As a concept, Lift Off was ahead of its time but that time has come again with the Government acknowledging the vital importance of early childhood education.

Education does not begin when children go to preschool or school for the first time. Eighty five per cent of brain development takes place in the first few years of life. Research has taught us that infants and toddlers' brains are voraciously active from birth and that disadvantage in society is born when young children's education is neglected.

The major influence on children's learning comes from the home, from parents, without a formal teacher, with no clear curriculum and with few conscious goals. Community, culture and place are important influences. So the starting point of all formal early childhood education has to be each child's unequal and diverse family and community background and an attempt to expand each child's horizons beyond what has already happened to them. That means working with parents as much as with children and ensuring the broader social environment – the neighbourhood playgrounds, shopping centres and mass media - supports and enriches the experiences of every child as they grow.

Former British education minister Alan Milburn, in his recent report Unleashing Aspiration, emphasised the central importance of "pushy parents". So did US President Barack Obama in his "no excuses" call to the underprivileged to improve their lot. But parents need government to help them make a difference. Some children are born into a world rich in resources and experiences while others are deprived from the start. And this is where the Government should focus its attention.

The kindergarten movement began as a philanthropic attempt to redress working-class disadvantage; the maternal and child health system was set up to ensure every parent had access to professional health care and sound advice on child development; child care was to ensure a safe environment for the children of employed parents; primary schools were made free and compulsory to help remove the disadvantages of the working poor. None of these reforms were meant simply to develop services for the already privileged.

So what of the new policy initiative from the Council of Australian Governments (COAG)? The first Early Years Learning Framework for Australia is intended to make sure all children from birth to five years and through the transition to school get off to a good start in life. It has recently been released for trial and comment. In the introduction, the document states that the Framework "has been designed for use by early childhood educators working in partnership with families, children's first and most influential educators". Following that acknowledgement the document has nothing further to say to parents but goes on to address, in professional jargon, only those educators working in formal child care and preschool settings.

The Learning Framework for birth-five skirts round the inequalities and disadvantages that exist for many children by addressing the general themes of "Belonging, Being and Becoming" — goals that remind teachers that every child needs to be included, to feel they belong, that they should not be pushed too quickly towards formally defined educational outcomes. The framework's five outcomes for children are listed as having a strong sense of identity; feeling connected with and able to contribute to their world; having a strong sense of wellbeing; being confident and involved learners; and being effective communicators.

These are worthy objectives but missing is the content and the means by which each of those objectives can be achieved for the diverse child population entering preschool. There is no notion of how child care or kindergarten teachers can overcome gaps in wellbeing or confidence or communication skills that derive from the home. The framework is not informed by a theory of intelligence or developing competence.

Apart from a list of desired outcomes there is no discourse on what sort of experiences the child-care centre or playgroup or kindergarten might provide to expand the horizons of children from disadvantaged homes, or on the effectiveness of praise for effort and process rather than results. The dominant philosophy is "play-based learning" with a nod in the direction of teacher-directed play and with few mentions of the need for teachers to use the ever-more potent media technologies at the disposal of most children.

This blinkered approach, which makes only passing mention of learning outside formal child care and kindergartens, will do nothing for the development of most toddlers in their vital formative years and leaves parents out in the cold without help and guidance at the same time as too many children are falling through the kindergarten gap.

Soon parents are to be informed they should ban their children from watching television as part of the Government's anti-obesity drive. The onus is to be thrown back on parents to cope, with government abdicating a role in ensuring the television programs available to children during these years provide educational and entertainment value appropriate for their rapidly expanding brain power.

The important early years at home are being ignored within our first national framework and the education revolution, which began with such a bang, is wandering along through assorted bureaucratic tunnels with no one looking at children's environment as a whole. A critically important opportunity for integrated child policy is being missed again.

The new Early Years Learning Framework for Australia is still in development. It presents an opportunity to reach parents, to use constructively the ubiquitous media and influence those who shape the wider social environment of Australian children, as well as teachers, with a comprehensive statement on early childhood education.

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Our Obama beats theirs

Australia's Obama does more than just sound good

By Janet Albrechtsen

WHY the surprise over Barack Obama - the first black US President and the Democrat who ousted George W. Bush - winning the Nobel Peace Prize? On one level, it’s a joke without a punchline. Yet, it also demonstrates the power of oratory. Whatever one thinks of Obama, he knows how to harness language to further his success....

Now let me put this proposition forward. Australia has its own Obama, only a much better one. One who has that final ingredient of being able to carry people with him, even those he skewers with his criticisms. Noel Pearson may not appreciate me saying this. But the Cape York indigenous leader has more than a touch of Obama about him, but with genuine substance.

It struck me one evening recently. When it’s on, the sound of the radio in my kitchen is usually lost to the evening clamour of dinner cooking. Not this time. Not when Pearson’s opening address to the Brisbane Writers Festival played on the ABC’s Radio National. His voice stops you in your tracks. When you listen to Pearson’s conviction and passion, the brain buzzes. He challenges you to think again, to think differently. This is oratory not wasted.

Oh, and Pearson’s 40-minute address, which deserved greater press coverage than it received, was delivered extempore. I know that because I asked Pearson for a copy of his address. It was off the cuff, he told me. No Obama-style teleprompters.

It is hard to convey the power of Pearson without listening to him. So listen. The link is below. Listen to how he describes himself as “completely promiscuous” when it comes to drawing on the three great schools of political philosophy: conservatism, socialism and liberalism.

But he is indignant about that “strange state of affairs” where the “progressive position is regressive”. Listen to how he attacks those who have told people that welfare is their right. “We in Cape York say no. We’ve got a better right than welfare. We have a right to take a real place in the economy, just like everybody else. “And so on numerous policy settings, we set the sails in a completely different position from the progressive prescription. And ... when I think why those sails are set in ways that could not be more calculated against our interests, against what is really in our interests, I shake my head as to how it is that a culture can produce currents that get oppressed peoples to accept their oppression ... to accept that they have a right to welfare.”

Compare Pearson with feminist Germaine Greer, who is no slouch with language either. Still charismatic, she knows how to use words to be noticed. But hers is oratory wasted. Her exhausted ideology - she justifies indigenous rage on the basis of invasion, genocide and stolen land - does nothing to further the cause of indigenous Australians.

Now listen to Pearson. There is plenty of anger there. It simmers underneath every sentence, drawing you in, daring you not to listen, distinguishing him from the milquetoast mob in Canberra. He directs his anger in productive ways: to stop people thinking of themselves as victims.

Most important, Pearson’s oratory delivers results. As The Australian reported this month, he is the driving force behind a four-year Cape York Welfare Reform Trial. At the halfway mark of this grassroots initiative, which links school attendance to welfare, school attendance rates in Aurukun, on the western coast of Cape York, have risen from 37 per cent to 62 per cent. Western Australia is considering using the same reforms to tackle rising truancy rates. This is the power of ideas.

Pearson’s latest battle is with the Queensland government’s Wild Rivers Act, which limits the ability of indigenous people to pursue economic development on their own land. Listen to how Pearson describes how: “The dignity of being responsible for looking after their country is now taken away from them” in favour of “16-year-olds who run around in koala suits”.

Listen to what he calls the final indignity of spending “10 years fighting the conservatives for the Wik decision, 10 years calling John Howard a racist scumbag, all for Anna Bligh to take it off me in five minutes. And all because she has a sacred (environmental) cause behind her. And not a word of support has been uttered by those who believe themselves to be in the cause of social justice. Not a word ...”

Comparisons never quite work, of course. Unlike Obama, Pearson is probably not made for politics because politics is not made for people like Pearson. More is the shame. Pearson’s address is here.

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In Victorian government schools, some "temporary" classrooms are over 40 years old!

Some would undoubtedly be closed down if they were part of a private school

THOUSANDS of Victorian state school students are being taught in old and shabby portable classrooms, including some believed to contain dangerous asbestos. Almost three-quarters of the 8070 portables spread throughout our schools are more than 20 years old, according to an Education Department audit seen by the Herald Sun.

Berwick Lodge primary school principal Henry Grossek said he was concerned about asbestos-lined ceilings among his 18 portable classrooms. "If you leave it there it's largely safe, but it can be dangerous if there's damage to the walls and ceilings," he said. "It costs a fortune to remove asbestos and if you need to do an upgrade it could blow a hole in the school budget." "Portables are not a good option for most schools."

Melton West primary and Wangaratta's Carraragarmungee primary have 48-year-old portables - the state's oldest, according to the audit released under Freedom of Information. They are among nearly 500 temporary classrooms that are more than 40 years old. A further 3000 portables are between 20 and 30 years old, and 2357 are aged between 30 and 40 years.

Liberal education spokesman Martin Dixon said that there was something very wrong when more than 70 per cent of portable classrooms were more than 20 years old. "It is conceivable that in some schools, three generations of one family could have been educated in the same portable, temporary classroom," he said.

Education Minister Bronwyn Pike said the Government had acted on a 2002 auditor-general's report that identified 1000 portables needing immediate replacement. Since 2005, the Government had spent $95 million rolling out 1000 modern portables, she said. "These newly-designed relocatable buildings contain two classrooms, providing schools with flexibility in a modern setting and replace older style relocatable classrooms," she said.

Parents Victoria spokeswoman Elaine Crowle said there were some pretty ordinary portables around, but a lot of good things were happening in education. "The Government deserves some credit for its building program and it is pretty much on track to phase out many of its old portables," she said.

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Australia's African Muslim "refugees" at work in Melbourne again

But they get extremely lenient sentences for their outrageous and explicitly racist crimes

A gang of racist youths nearly killed a man during an armed rampage in an Indian grocery store in Melbourne's west for the "sheer thrill" of the attack, a judge said today. Drunk and carrying wooden planks ripped up from a nearby bus stop seat, the seven youths raided the Impex shop in Sunshine yelling "are you Indian?" as they randomly struck their victims on December 1 last year, the County Court heard today.

Indian student Sukhraj Singh, 28, was in a coma for 15 days and will suffer the effects of a severe acquired brain injury for the rest of his life after being beaten during the assault. Eight men were punched and hit with the weapons and most suffered minor injuries but Mr Singh was beaten unconscious and spent months in hospital and rehabilitation after being struck three times to the head and body.

In sentencing one of the attackers, Zakarie Hussein, 21, of Braybrook, Judge Pamela Jenkins said today the group had deliberately targeted victims of Indian ethnicity in the "unprovoked rampage". The youths had been drinking beer in a park for about four hours before they went to the store in City Place just after 6.30pm where two of the teens began a racist argument with two customers, the court heard.

About five minutes later, the pair returned with their friends, most armed with wooden bars and one with a fluorescent light tube, and began smashing up the store and indiscriminately striking customers and staff as they yelled "are you Indian?" and "bloody Indians, f--- off". The shop's cash register was stolen and the loot divided up among the offenders. Hussein received about $15.

In a victim impact statement tendered to the court, Mr Singh said metal plates had been inserted into his face, he had shed up to 15 kilograms and been left with lumps and scars on his head from the assault. "I am lucky to be alive, all my friends and family thought I was going to die," Mr Singh said in the statement. He said he suffered from dizzy spells and had undergone counselling after being plagued by nightmares and flashbacks. The court heard his injuries had been potentially life-threatening and meant he had been unable to work for five months, may not be able to complete his studies and was too frightened to live alone.

Hussein had pleaded guilty to armed robbery, recklessly causing serious injury, and six counts of recklessly causing injury. Judge Jenkins said Hussein had not used his wooden weapon but had planned to before being knocked out of the way by a co-offender.

She said the victims had tried to cower from their attackers and had done nothing to provoke the attack. "Your victims presented no threat to you or your co-offenders whatsoever. They did not provoke you, they did not fight back and indeed they made every effort to escape from the assaults," she said. "Notwithstanding these circumstances the victims were beaten apparently for the sheer thrill, Mr Singh being subjected to a particularly savage beating with the terrible consequences for him."

Judge Jenkins said the assault was among a number of racist attacks that had rightly provoked international and local community outrage and should be condemned. "Short of becoming prisoners in their own homes, there is little potential victims can do to prevent such attacks," she said.

Judge Jenkins sentenced Hussein to four-and-a-half years' jail with a minimum non-parole period of two years. Hussein, dressed in a black suit and white shirt and supported in court by family, bit his nails throughout the hearing and stood with his hands clasped while he was sentenced to serve his time in an adult prison. The court heard he had migrated to Australia from Somalia, aged about six, with his older brother and mother, who were both later diagnosed with bipolar disorder. [Africans do have an unusually high incidence of psychotic illness and the psychoses do have a strong hereditary component]

Hussein had prior convictions including, for robbery, assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest.

Four of Hussein's co-offenders, aged between 14 and 17 at the time of the attack, had already received 12-month sentences in a youth detention centre and a fifth teen received a 12-month youth supervision order. The Director of Public Prosecutions Jeremy Rapke has appealed against the sentences, arguing they are "manifestly inadequate". The Court of Appeal is yet to hand down its judgment. A sixth offender, who has pleaded guilty in the Children's Court, will be sentenced following the result of the appeal.

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What rubbish! Police bravado blamed in death

Audrey ought to go home and mind her kids, if she's got any. I am an unrelenting critic of police thuggery but the cop in this case behaved entirely reasonably. What was the cop supposed to do? Ignore the nut? This is at best totally misguided sympathy for the mentally ill. A person behaving in an extremely dangerous way has to be stopped, mad or not. The cop is not in a position to put someone on a couch for half an hour before he decides how to repond to his behaviour

A VICTORIAN policeman is facing the prospect of criminal charges over a fatal shooting after a coronial investigation into the death of a man brandishing two samurai-style swords referred the case to the Director of Public Prosecutions. State Coroner Audrey Jamieson yesterday found Sergeant Samuel Cahir failed to take an appropriate level of care for his own health and safety, or that of his junior officer, when he approached and shot dead Gregory Biggs on Melbourne's Lygon Street in May 2004. She described the death of 27-year-old Biggs as "a poignant example of the tragic consequences when the police rely too heavily on bravado and spontaneity at the expense of policy".

Sergeant Cahir was driving with Senior Constable John Hawkins down Lygon Street, a popular restaurant and tourist strip just north of the CBD, when they saw Biggs wielding two samurai-like swords and damaging property. While Senior Constable Hawkins turned the car around, Sergeant Cahir jumped out of the passenger side and approached Biggs alone. Drawing his gun, Sergeant Cahir said: "Police, don't move. Drop the weapon."

Biggs, under the influence of a cocktail of drugs at the time, continued to advance, swinging his swords and smashing the rear window of the police car. Fearing for his safety, Sergeant Cahir discharged one shot into the man's torso.

Ms Jamieson concluded Biggs's death was preventable [How?] and that Sergeant Cahir may have committed an indictable offence under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. The Coroner's comments follow a scathing Office of Police Integrity report handed down in July on the use of force by Victoria Police.

Deputy Police Commissioner Kieran Walshe said the finding, to his knowledge, was unprecedented. "This is the first time that I am aware of that a coroner has had a finding such as this but again, we have to await the outcome of the DPP," he said.

The Coroner said the investigation into Biggs's death "raised issues regarding Victoria Police training and communication techniques, including dealing with people with mental illness, people (who are) drug-affected and the use of firearms." She said Victoria Police should review the amount of time given to officers so they could complete operational strategy and tactics training. Referring to the two officers involved in the shooting, Ms Jamieson said, "Their training appears to have played such a small part in their actions ... "The actions of Sergeant Cahir are difficult to reconcile with the fact that he had been a fully operational officer for some 13 years."

OPI director Michael Strong earlier this year recommended giving frontline officers "alternatives to a hands-on approach that is heavily reliant on tactical equipment such as capsicum spray or firearms". "Training must refocus ... on equipping police with the necessary skills to accurately assess situations and identify individuals who may have a mental health problem or are under the influence of alcohol and drugs," the OPI report found.

Police Association boss Greg Davies said the Coroner's findings sent a message to serving police members that, "they are damned if they do and they are damned if theydon't. "I think the use of the term bravado is a very unfortunate term. I think it is very easy, five years down the track in the clear light of day, to judge something as an act of bravado," Mr Davies said. He said the death of Biggs makes a compelling argument for the rollout of Taser stun guns for frontline police.

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Can a diet of cheese and dairy help you shed that unwanted fat?

This seems to be a reasonably strong study but I doubt that it will suit the food freaks. Cheese and dairy are popular and everything popular is wrong according to them. Cheese in particular has a lot of fat in it and fat is the original sin to food freaks. They are all still wedded to the counterfactual claim that fat gives you cancer, heart disease etc.



It has long been blamed for causing nightmares. But cheese may also give you a dream figure. A diet packed with cheese and other dairy products helps with weight loss, a study found. Australian slimmers were put on low-calorie diets which included varying amounts of cheese, yoghurt and low-fat milk.
Cheese

Those who increased their daily servings of dairy products from three to five lost the most weight. They also had lower blood pressure, the least tummy fat and 'significantly improved' their chances of avoiding heart disease and diabetes.

The researchers, from Curtin University of Technology in Perth, said that although dairy products are widely perceived as being fatty, they have a place in the slimmer's shopping basket.

Dieters, however, should still keep an eye on their fat and calorie intake. Cheese and other dairy products are high in protein, which helps us feel full quickly and speeds up the metabolism. Laura Wyness, of the British Nutrition Foundation, said dairy products were a good source of calcium and vitamins, as well as protein. However, she warned that cheeses can be high in salt and advised dieters to check labelling before buying.

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ROUNDUP OF AUSTRALIA'S NEVER-ENDING MEDICAL MAYHEM

Three current reports below

Unbelievable failure to learn at Queensland's Bundaberg Public Hospital

The deaths and injuries caused by an incompetent Indian doctor at the hospital became a national disgrace but the same casual disregard of qualifications is still happening there. And for all its legions of "administrators", Queensland Health has done nothing about standards at what is one of their own hospitals

A new report by Queensland's health watchdog reveals overseas-trained doctors continue to work at Bundaberg without their credentials being properly checked. And it accuses the hospital of attempting to cover up its credentialling errors.

The Health Quality and Complaints Commission quoted from a review by PricewaterhouseCoopers that said: "The report also found that retrospective granting of credentialling still occurs at Bundaberg Base Hospital. "That is, in some cases practitioners commence work before being formally authorised to do so by the district manager or CEO. "The report pertinently points out the legal and reputational risks involved."

The commission said in one case the hospital could not even find a doctor's employment application. In two other cases there was no evidence of referee checks and and in three cases there was no evidence of more than one referee check.

A second report critical of Bundaberg's emergency department says there are inadequate bays, inadequate staff, inadequate security, inadequate radiology services and inadequate training.

That report, released by Opposition health spokesman Mark McArdle, warns that most medical staff have never been involved in a performance appraisal and that only a quarter of the nurses have "post-basic" qualifications.

The report, by Dr Peter Brennan of Melbourne University, also warns the emergency department was not ideal for children. "The waiting area, triage area security room and reception are very small and cramped," Associate Professor Brennan said. "The environment is not conducive to calm behaviour. The physical layout has given rise to some shortcomings in triage. "There is no separate area for children or babies to wait. The reviewer witnessed toddlers being mixed up with verbally abusive patients."

Dr Brennan said the "failed implementation" of a discharge policy "is clearly an issue of leadership".

Mr McArdle said the State Government had broken its promise to fix Bundaberg Hospital and was attempting to hide problems from the public gaze. The commission was even more scathing of the hospital – and Queensland Health. Its report, by Dr Tim Smart and Dr Jill Newland, found "defects in a number of areas", including "incomplete documents and forms, inadequate database fields, incomplete, out of date, inconsistent and inaccurate database entries, incomplete filing, inadequate bring-up systems, inadequate resources". There was a "lack of clear accountability and active leadership for credentialling".

The Bundaberg Hospital claimed it had reviewed the credentialling process and that improvements had been implemented. "The Dr Smart and Dr Newland reports indicate this could not have been the case," said the commission's chief executive, Cheryl Herbert. In other words, Bundaberg was papering over the cracks.

Ms Herbert reserved some of her harshest criticisms for the department running the hospital. She said: "There is no evidence that Queensland Health assists its facilities by providing uniform and standard databases, training and resources for credentialling ... Further, the Health Quality and Complaints Commission is concerned that Queensland Health does not promote or support a leadership culture that insists on 100 per cent compliance with credentialling at Bundaberg Base Hospital."

Her report last month was ignored by the metropolitan media.

Ms Herbert's sharp words were followed this week by more bad news for the executives of Queensland Health. The Australian Medical Association's annual report card shows the State Government is failing to stem a decline in vital areas of service. There are long waits at emergency departments and intolerable waiting lists for patients waiting for even the most urgent of surgeries.

More than 180,000 Queenslanders are languishing on the so-called waiting list to get on a waiting list, which was exposed during the 2005 health crisis with a total of about 110,000 people waiting.

The AMA said so-called "access block" in emergency departments and bed occupancy levels above the recommended safe level compromised patient care. Again, it's all about the beds. Emergency rooms remain clogged with patients waiting to be admitted. Elective surgery is cancelled when accidents happen because there are not enough beds.

In private hospitals, surgeons start cutting at 7am and often don't finish until 11pm or midnight. In public hospitals, strangled by numbers and union regulations, operations are mostly restricted to nine to five.

Since July 2008, the total number of available beds statewide increased by only 76. This is despite a population growth of more than 1000 a week.

Health Minister Paul Lucas remains invisible. He has been warned the severe shortage of beds in Queensland's public hospitals has contributed to "access block" and hospital bypass, lengthy elective surgery and emergency department waiting times.

Clearly, our public hospitals don't have the capacity to cope. The result is that people are dying needlessly. Successive state governments have failed to repair the system.

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NSW bureaucrats think they know more about medical problems than the doctors do

A WOMAN was denied a late-term abortion at a leading Sydney hospital, forcing her to carry a severely deformed foetus with no chance of survival for an extra week, in a decision that has infuriated senior doctors. The doctors at the Royal Hospital for Women in Randwick are angry senior management vetoed their clinical decision and have called for clarification.

The hospital's termination review committee, made up of senior clinicians and hospital managers, considered the case of the woman who was 32 weeks' pregnant. The foetus had severe brain abnormalities and would have had no functional life, the Herald has been told. The abnormalities became evident late in the pregnancy and a termination was sought for the mother's wellbeing and safety.

The Herald understands the hospital's director, William Walters, and its medical superintendent, George Bearham, opposed the termination although others on the committee - including a psychiatrist, a pediatrician and an obstetrician - supported it. The Herald has been told clinicians at the hospital are concerned about the role of the managers in the decision.

NSW Health guidelines on terminations after 20 weeks' gestation call for an assessment to be made by a multi-disciplinary team "with a mix of skills and experience".

The Herald understands the decision was made within the past two weeks. The woman went into labour about a week later and the foetus was stillborn.

A spokeswoman for the South East Sydney Illawarra Health Service said the case was given the "most complete medical attention and consideration by a wide range of highly specialised medical, allied health and nursing professionals'', who collectively did not support the termination. However, the service did not respond to specific questions about whether the clinicians had been overruled.

Lachlan de Crespigny, the doctor at the centre of a late-term abortion controversy in 2000 in Victoria, said: "If this is the way women are treated, what does it say about the state's abortion laws?" He said it was wrong for a woman's life to be put on trial by an anonymous committee and that the decision should be left to the woman and her doctor.

Other specialists told the Herald they feared a clampdown on abortion within state public hospitals. The NSW Government was anxious to avoid a backlash from people opposed to abortion generally or to late-term procedures, they said.

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The huge and unproductive costs of Australia's Medicare

Huge explosion of bureaucracy following the introduction of a "public option" for health insurance

By Dr Jeremy Sammut

Under the rubric of stimulus and economic security, the role of government has been significantly expanded across a range of sectors, including education, banking and finance. This new era of regulation and micromanagement threatens to crowd out private enterprise and civil society for a generation.

It is therefore timely to ponder Australia’s last great leap backwards towards socialism in 1984, right at the start of the long period of economic reform of the ’80s, ’90s, and the 2000s. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Medicare. This year, the CIS has published a trilogy of papers cataloguing the damage Medicare has done to the Australian hospital system.

The short version of the story is that the era of ‘free’ public hospital care has led to the misallocation of huge amounts of taxpayer’s money to pay for massive and unnecessary growth in the size and cost of the health bureaucracy. The massive government expansion into the health sector has resulted in fewer and fewer health dollars out of ever-increasing hospital budgets reaching the frontline to pay for the health care the community wants and needs.

The decline of public hospitals into their present state of waste and inefficiency is proof, if further proof is needed, of what happens when dynamic and independent parts of our society become subject to the dead hand of statist domination and bureaucratic command-and-control.

We should remember the anniversary of Medicare when we calculate the cost of the GFC. The impact on the national bottom-line won’t only appear on the balance sheets for 2008–09. I fear we will be paying the price for the revenge of the political economy nerds for many years to come.

In 2009, the CIS published Radical Surgery by Professor Wolfgang Kasper (February); Why Public Hospitals are Overcrowded by Dr Jeremy Sammut (August); and The Past is the Future for Public Hospitals by Dr John Graham (October).

The above is part of a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated October 23. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590. Telephone ph: +61 2 9438 4377 or fax: +61 2 9439 7310

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG is mourning the death of TV entertainer Don Lane




Clergy unite against human rights charter

THE nation's most powerful church leaders have united in a bid to scuttle efforts to create a national charter of human rights, warning the Rudd government it could curtail religious freedoms and give judges the power to shape laws on issues such as abortion and gay marriage. Catholic cardinal George Pell led a delegation of about 20 church leaders to Canberra to raise strong concerns about the impact of a charter on religious freedoms.

The leaders, representing major churches including the Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist and Pentecostal, warned that a charter of rights could restrict the ability to hire people of faith in churches, schools and welfare bodies. Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen did not attend the meeting with Attorney-General Robert McClelland on Wednesday because of a synod meeting but said he staunchly backed the delegation's views. "We strongly support human rights, but we don't think a charter such as this is necessary or even effective in protecting the rights of the most vulnerable people in our community. It may in all likelihood make things worse, particularly in the area of religious freedom," he said.

Cardinal Pell said there was no doubt a charter of rights would be used against religious schools, hospitals and charities by other people who did not like religious freedom and thought it should not be a human right. "If these protections are to be revised, it should be done by MPs answerable to the people, not by judges or human rights commissars," Cardinal Pell writes in The Australian today.

It is understood the Uniting Church was the only major church not to take part in the delegation because it did not support opposing a charter.

The meeting with Mr McClelland came after the government's hand-picked human rights committee led by Jesuit priest Frank Brennan recommended the government adopt a charter of human rights and give the High Court the power to declare laws incompatible.

Opposition legal affairs spokesman George Brandis warned if rights such as the right to found a family were enshrined in a charter, as recommended by the committee, this could allow the courts to shape laws on issues such as gay marriage and adoption. Senator Brandis, who also met the church leaders to hear their concerns, said such issues should be resolved directly by parliament and not via the "elliptical way" of expanding court powers. "The agenda of the human rights lobby in Australia is a secular agenda and that fact has been somewhat masked by the fact the chairman of the government's human rights consultation committee is himself a priest," Senator Brandis said. "It's a Trojan horse for the secular leftist human rights agenda."

A spokesman for Mr McClelland said the church leaders had raised a number of issues which the government would "give careful consideration to".

Australian Christian Lobby managing director Jim Wallace said church leaders had spent almost two years fighting the Victorian government's review of the church's exemptions from anti-discrimination laws, born out of the Victorian charter of rights and responsibilities. He said no measures could alleviate the church's concerns about a charter of rights. "We think it's a bad idea and the government should not go down that path," he said. He said the church was also adamant the government should not establish a human rights charter through the "back door", for example by changing the law so that courts were forced to interpret legislation with regard to specific human rights.

Australian Federation of Islamic Councils member and former senior legal adviser Haset Sali said he was concerned the nation was headed to receive a rights charter. "My concern is that statutes quite often reduce rights rather than add to them," he said. "Overall, I think we've got a pretty good situation in Australia at the current time."

The Great Synagogue of Sydney's Jeremy Lawrence said the Jewish community was passionately involved in the debate but did not have a consensus view. However, Rabbi Lawrence said: "I'm always hesitant to lock certain values in writing to the exclusion of others, thereby disadvantaging people whose core tenets become abrogated through omission."

Ambrose Centre for Religious Liberty chairman Rocco Mimmo said experience in Britain showed that a human rights charter could be used to limit religious freedoms.

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Ideology dressed up as social justice

By George Pell, Roman Catholic archbishop of Sydney. His Eminence recognizes an underhand attack on Christianity when he sees it

THE Christian churches strongly support human rights and their attendant responsibilities. But religious freedom should not be eroded by stealth.

The Brennan committee's report on human rights gives the government two options: an upfront charter of rights or a Trojan Horse version.

The upfront charter is the committee's proposal for a federal human rights act. Committee chairman Frank Brennan already has acknowledged that parts of this proposal are unviable and unworkable because the High Court of Australia probably won't be able to play the part the committee wants to assign it. But that's OK, the report says. The Australian Human Rights Commission, with increased powers, should be able to fill the gap.

In whatever form it comes, Brennan's charter of rights is a bad idea because it is a threat to some freedoms. The upfront version at least has the merit of being in plain sight. The Trojan Horse version is more difficult to come to grips with. It is contained in the recommendations the committee describes as "the primary options" the government should implement even if it rejects an upfront charter.

The keystone is a "definitive list" of rights, to be selected from the international treaties Australia has signed. The beauty of making up your own list of rights is that you don't have to include those you don't like. And if you do have to include some of them for appearance's sake, you can redefine them so they're not too much of a nuisance. The charters in Victoria, the ACT and Britain leave out the internationally acknowledged right of parents to choose the appropriate moral or religious education of their children.

The law on judicial review of administrative decisions will then be amended so that the definitive list of rights will have to be observed in every federal government decision. The law governing the interpretation of commonwealth legislation will also be amended so that all federal laws must be interpreted in a way consistent with the definitive list of rights.

Finally, every bill introduced to federal parliament will need a statement of compatibility with the definitive list of human rights.

The report's recommendations also include "a comprehensive framework" to educate everybody about the list of rights, and create a "human rights culture" in the public service. Sounds like imposing an ideology.

Strangely, the Brennan report is weak on defending human rights. Stranger still, it wants the Human Rights Commission to have more power to investigate breaches of the definitive list of rights. The commission is presently inquiring into whether religious freedom is compatible with human rights. It doesn't even understand that religious freedom is a fundamental human right.

There is no doubt that if Australia gets a charter of rights, upfront or by stealth, it will be used against religious schools, hospitals and charities by other people who don't like religious freedom and think it shouldn't be a human right. The target will be the protection in anti-discrimination laws that allow religious schools to exercise a preference in employment for people who share their faith.

If these protections are to be revised, it should be done by MPs answerable to the people, not by judges or human rights commissars.

Under the British Human Rights Act, religious freedom claims have almost never succeeded. The Victorian charter's protection of freedom of religion and conscience has been shown to mean nothing against the more important claim to a right to abortion. We can expect a similar hierarchy of rights under a federal charter, with religious freedom well and truly at the bottom.

Things in Australia are not too bad, but religious freedom is under pressure. The push for a charter of rights should be seen in a wider context that includes the attempt by the ACT government to force the sale of Calvary public hospital in Canberra, which is run by the Little Company of Mary. If it succeeds in this, other public hospitals run by religious organisations will be targeted next.

A charter of rights, upfront or by Trojan Horse, will politicise the judiciary and erode the separation of powers by transferring legislative power to the courts. Neither a charter nor the Human Rights Commission will protect religious freedom, which is why so many religious people oppose both. Other Australians should do the same.

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Conservative party leader (NSW) replies to his media opposition

The media don't criticize governments. They only criticise conservatives, in or out of government

While I hope Andrew Clennell is right to predict the community will elect a NSW Liberals & Nationals Government in March 2011, I know he's completely wrong about our approach - both in preparation for government and for government itself. Ultimately, the piece just falls for trite cliches and stereotypes – usually invented by our political opponents – to try and characterise the NSW Liberals & Nationals as anti-public sector, pro-privatisation, and lock-em-up and throw-away-the-key luddites.

The parties have been working hard on the prescriptions to the State's woes. We've already released more than 30 policies in areas ranging from economic growth, fiscal responsibility, public administration, health, transport, environment and others. Importantly we've applied the discipline of setting out our over-arching policy goals; the fundamentals that will guide our decision-making before and after government. They are available at www.barryofarrell.com.au - and some have even been reported in the pages of The Sydney Morning Herald!

We start with a desire to put the economy and economic growth back at the centre of government. We do so because of the opportunities it creates for people and the revenue it generates for government to provide the services people rely upon. Our commitment to lower taxes – highlighted by our payroll tax initiatives – recognises that to grow the State's economy we have to again be a competitive State for people to invest and do business in.

On public sector management, we've committed ourselves to reform. Our approach reflects our determination to restore focus onto the community, those who depend upon the services government provide. It's unashamedly about better performance, rewarding excellence and restoring integrity.

We understand that a professional, independent public service – providing frank and quality advice – will be critical in helping a NSW Liberals & Nationals Government restore the State's services and revive its economic fortunes. It's why we're committed to ending Labor's politicisation of the public service. We will establish a Public Service Commission to ensure jobs are advertised, appointments are made on merit and there is a full-time effort on lifting professionalism.

Mr Clennell continues to run his own privatisation agenda.

On DOCs he seems to have missed the fact that Justice Wood recommended, and both sides of politics supported, greater involvement of the non-for-profit sector in the provision of these critical services. It's an approach that the Coalition has always supported. On privatisation generally our position has been very clear: we support private sector involvement where it is in the public interest. We've also pointed out there are many ways the private sector can be involved from asset sales (like lotteries), public private partnerships and contracting out (as we have proposed for ferries). Given the media gave us a bollocking for our opposition to the sale of the State's electricity assets last year, it's surprising to be accused of simultaneously wanting to privatise everything and of running a small target strategy!

On law and order, we've very publicly called for an end to the auction. We mean it and we've stuck to it. We know the community understands that the repeated offer of simplistic approaches by NSW Labor hasn't improved public safety. Importantly, from their years as a prosecutor and police officer, so do my future Attorney General and Police Minister - and that's why they take an intelligent stance rather than try and repeat past mistakes. It's odd to be accused by Andrew of contemplating the opposite.

Why not throw in the usual tripe about North Shore and Anglo – and ignore the fact our most recently selected candidates have been a Vietnamese Australian and former ABC journalist, an Italian Australian, and a Lebanese Muslim Australian?

So Andrew, thanks for the viewpoint, but frankly it's just odd. It would be better to judge us on what we've actually said, done and become – which is a competent, mainstream and united team offering solutions - rather than an a dated depiction of what our side of politics is about.

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More official bungling during the Victorian bushfires

Sounds like they were too proud to admit that they needed help



AS BUSHFIRES consumed Victorian lives, forests, homes and townships in February, the Russian Government offered to send two of the world's biggest and most advanced waterbombers to the battle. Each of the giant Ilyushin-76 jets could drop in a single pass 42,000 litres of water or retardant on a fire - almost five times the maximum capacity of the ''Elvis'' skycrane helicopters.

However, the offer, which came from the highest levels of the Government of the Russian Federation, was rejected, according to the Russian embassy in Canberra.

The Russian offer seems to have been lost in the confusion engulfing federal and Victorian authorities as they tried to deal with the disastrous fires, which cost 173 lives. A spokesman for Emergency Management Australia, a division of the federal Attorney-General's Department, said: ''During a severe natural disaster such as the Victorian bushfires many offers of international assistance are provided. ''As states and territories have primary responsibility for dealing with natural disasters, all offers of international assistance are forwarded to relevant state and territory agencies for their assessment.''

However, a spokeswoman for the Victorian Government said that despite a search of all available material, no record of the Russian offer could be found. A spokesman for the Country Fire Authority said he also knew nothing of the proposal, but would make further inquiries.

A spokesman for the Russian embassy in Canberra, Yaroslav Eremin, told The Age that the aircraft - part of a purpose-built fleet on standby in Russia to fight fires anywhere in the world - could have been in Australia within two days. They were not being used, because the northern hemisphere was in winter while Victoria burnt. He said the offer was made through diplomatic channels directly from the Russian Government to the Australian Government. But the response from Australia, which he said ''took some time'' was that the planes were not required....

The IL-76 waterbombers were developed to fight wildfires in remote areas of Russia such as Siberia, but have been used to fight major fires in Greece, Portugal and Yugoslavia. Their two large water tanks are capable of being filled in 10 to 12 minutes and can be dumped in a single burst, producing a downpour akin to heavy rain over an area 550 metres long by 100 metres wide. If the tanks are emptied sequentially, the saturated area extends to 900 metres by 65 metres.

In a letter submitted to the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission last week, the Russian ambassador to Australia, Alexander Blokhin, said experts from the Russian Ministry of Emergencies estimated that two such aircraft ''would have been enough to cope with the firefighting task near Melbourne in February 2009''. He also stated that a smaller, Russian-built firefighting jet, the amphibian Beriev BE-200, which can scoop 9000 litres of water from the sea - even with waves of up to 1.5 metres running - could have stopped the East Kilmore fire ''in one or two hours if the firefighting operation started in due time''. The East Kilmore fire eventually consumed Kinglake.

More HERE







Corporate boredom to cost the shareholders $15m?

As an ANZ shareholder, I am mightily peeved by this. It might even motivate me to go to the next AGM!

It is just three elegantly curved blue shapes appended to 'ANZ', but chief executive Mike Smith believes it reflects a world of difference at his bank. ANZ Bank's new logo, proudly unveiled yesterday by Mr Smith at the group's new headquarters in Melbourne, will be backed by an initial $15 million marketing spend, The Herald Sun reports.

On Sunday ANZ will begin selling the new brand through a wide-ranging television, billboard and newspaper advertising campaign in Australia, New Zealand and Asia. The global brand-building comes after 18 months of research in which customers, staff and advisers from M&C Saatchi concluded the bank needed to streamline its brand as it widened its push into Asian markets such as Cambodia, Vietnam and China. The strap-line of the brand will be: "We live in your world". [So who doesn't?]

"In recent years, the ANZ brand has become fragmented," Mr Smith said. "To deliver on its growth strategy and regional aspirations, ANZ has to look like one bank and provide a consistent experience for our customers and our people wherever they come into contact with the bank." The three shapes in the new signage reflect ANZ's three core markets - Australia, New Zealand and Asia Pacific - while the central human shape represents customers and staff.

Mr Smith, who took over the reins of the country's fourth largest bank two years ago, said the rebranding was driven by the company's values which put people at the centre of the organisation. [I don't know whether to yawn or groan at that]

Banks in developed economies are now trying to reposition their brands to head off public anger flowing from the global financial crisis. While the level of home loan defaults has been relatively small in Australia, Mr Smith said ANZ was prepared to sacrifice market share to protect its reputation as a responsible lender.

He cast doubt on the wisdom of some other lenders that grew their home lending this year on the backs of borrowers who received first homebuyer grants from the government. "I feel that with an interest rate environment likely to rise it's just a recipe for disaster to lower your loan to value ratios," he said. "We tightened lending criteria earlier this year and haven't relaxed them . . . we have a responsibility to our customers, I think."

The image overhaul will be phased in over two years because Mr Smith said a gradual change was less costly than an overnight makeover. The bank will spend $15 million on the signage overhaul in 2010, with further spending planned in 2011.

Mr Smith said ANZ was now "almost running" with its growth plans in the wake of the global financial crisis and the Opes Prime securities lending scandal. He said the bank had exited its problematic businesses in private equity and securities lending following big losses in his first year at the helm. "I think we're in a stage now where we are almost running with our strategy and all the remedial work on discontinued businesses is behind us."

SOURCE

These busybody ignoramuses will be ignored, fortunately

"Evidence-based", my foot! There is certain to be plenty of epidemiological speculation but I know of NO double blind studies in support of any of the crap below. It is all just the popular "wisdom" of the day, wisdom that can be and often is dangerously wrong. Look at the official backflip over peanuts, where the official advice of the past produced an epidemic of peanut allergies. And I don't suppose I should mention the joint problems (hip and knee) now being suffered by devotees of the '80s jogging craze

CHILDREN should not be forced to clear their plates at meal times under new parenting guidelines released by the Federal Government. The Get Up And Grow guides, available free to every parent and childcare centre, recommends toddlers under two be banned from watching TV or using computers altogether, The Daily Telegraph reports. And children aged between two and five should spend less than an hour a day in front of the television and computer and get at least three hours exercise a day.

The booklet advises parents about correct daily portion sizes of healthy food that should be fed to children, a serve of milk for a child aged under five is just 100ml, a serve of cheese is just 15g and a meat portion should be just 45g. "If your child refuses to eat at any meal or snack do not force them to eat," parents are advised.

The guide provides healthy eating and exercise prescriptions for babies and children aged up to five developed by experts at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. "New parents are bombarded with information and knowing what advice to take can often be difficult and stressful," Health Minister Nicola Roxon said yesterday. "These guidelines are an evidence-based, easy to read resource parents can rely on when raising baby."

Children aged five and under need three meals and two snacks per day and should eat chocolate, fruit juice, soft drinks, flavoured milk and takeaway very rarely. Babies should be exercised and from the age of one should do at least three hours of active play a day. Restraining children for more than one hour at a time in car seats, prams or high chairs is also frowned on because it limits a child's development and learning time.

The Australian Communication and Media Authority said four-month-old babies watch an average of 44 minutes of TV daily, while under-fours spend at least three hours a day in front of the screen. But the new government guidelines state this is too much. "Screen time is not recommended for babies and children less than two years of age, because it may reduce the amount of time they have for active play, social contact with others and chances for language development."

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Boat was scuttled by "asylum-seekers" to force a rescue

A BOAT carrying 78 asylum-seekers whose case was personally taken up by Kevin Rudd with the Indonesian President was rescued by the Australian navy only after those on board deliberately sabotaged it.

As Indonesian officials yesterday expressed irritation at the face-saving deal struck by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Kevin Rudd, Border Protection Command intercepted another boat in Australian waters carrying 24 people. The boat with 22 passengers and two crew was stopped 10 nautical miles north of Ashmore Reef. The interception was the 34th this year.

The debate over asylum-seekers continued to gather heat yesterday, with the Uniting Church writing to the Prime Minister urging Australia to lead on the issue. The intervention of the church into the already charged debate came as sources told The Australian those on board the vessel rescued off the coast of Sumatra on Sunday sabotaged the boat. Sources said the boat had been deliberately disabled, by punching or drilling holes into the hull, effectively forcing the navy to take the passengers on board.

The revelation gives credence to claims by the opposition's immigration spokeswoman, Sharman Stone, that asylum-seekers were manipulating Australian goodwill to ensure their passage to Australia, a suggestion angrily rejected by a succession of Rudd government ministers.

On Tuesday, SBY announced Indonesia would take the asylum-seekers after Mr Rudd personally raised their plight. It followed an hour-long meeting between the two leaders at the presidential palace on Tuesday night after Dr Yudhoyono's inauguration, and was a historic first step in a new Canberra-driven "Indonesia solution" to the boatpeople crisis. Mr Rudd confirmed Australia and Indonesia would work together to resolve the issue. "That will mean providing additional assistance to our friends in Indonesia to help with the resettlement task," he said. "There is nothing remarkable in that."

While Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and presidential spokesman Dino Patti Djalal talked up the resolution as a "humanitarian" one based on the poor health of a girl on board the Customs vessel the Oceanic Viking somewhere off Sumatra, there was little urgency in Jakarta or Merak yesterday about receiving the group. "The news is still extremely unclear," a senior operations officer in the Indonesian navy's western fleet said. "If it was Australia that helped (the asylum-seekers), Australia that answered the distress call, why should they be brought to Indonesia? It's strange." The navy colonel, who asked not to be identified, pointed out that his role in any operation to transport the Sri Lankans to the port at Merak would be a major one. "But so far I have been given no information from headquarters," he said.

Immigration Minister Chris Evans said he had not been privy to discussions between Mr Rudd and SBY. "I think it's just a sign of the broadening regional co-operation with Indonesia, Malaysia and other partners," Senator Evans said of the deal.

But international law experts said Indonesia was obliged to allow the asylum-seekers to land anyway. International law expert Don Rothwell of the Australian National University said once it was clear that HMAS Armidale had rescued the 78 Sri Lankans from a vessel in distress in the Sunda Strait, international law permitted them to land at the nearest port.

Senator Evans was also forced to defend Mr Rudd over his use of the term "illegal" migrants in relation to asylum seekers. "The PM is a very effective communicator," Senator Evans told the ABC. "He was very keen to send a strong message about our attitude to border security and he did that."

Senator Evans's remarks came in the wake of growing criticism of Mr Rudd's rhetoric on asylum seekers, with the Australian Workers Union, the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, and Victorian Labor MP Michael Danby rebuking the Prime Minister for his language. Yesterday, the Uniting Church president Alistair Macrae added the church's voice to those concerned about Mr Rudd's toughened stance. "While we acknowledge the importance of appropriate national security policies, we do not believe these should adversely affect the fulfilment of our international obligations to people in genuine need of our protection from persecution," he said. "As a stable and wealthy country in the region, Australia has a responsibility to lead by example in providing protection to refugees."

Senator Evans also lashed out at suggestions by Dr Stone that the rescue on Sunday represented a new tactic by people-smugglers. "I think the opposition was suggesting yesterday somehow that we shouldn't respond to these crises," he said. "I think that's just reprehensible."

Yesterday, a spokesman for Mr Rudd denied the Indonesians had been offered any inducements to take the 78 asylum-seekers, who according to Senator Evans were expected to arrive in Merak today....

SOURCE







Immigrants 'who can't adapt should leave'

A MAN harassed by anti-war mail after his son was killed in Afghanistan says immigrants who can't adapt to Australian life and values should live elsewhere. Private Gregory Michael Sher, 30, was killed in a rocket attack in Oruzgan Province, in southern Afghanistan, in January. He was the eighth Australian Defence Force soldier to be killed in Afghanistan since 2002, but the first to die as a result of indirect fire.

Mr Sher's father Felix received a phone call and letters, allegedly from self-styled Muslim cleric Sheikh Haron, just before his son's funeral. "I feel bad that you have lost your son but I don't feel bad that a murderer of innocent civilians has lost his life," a line in one of the letters reportedly said. Other Australian families of men killed in Afghanistan have allegedly received similar letters in the past two years.

On Tuesday Sheikh Haron was charged with seven counts of "using a postal service or similar service to menace, harass, or cause offence". He was granted bail to appear in court on November 10.

Mr Sher says he's now waiting for justice to take its course. "There is no point in getting angry or upset, nothing is going to be achieved by it," he told Fairfax Radio Network today.

Asked if he had something to say to Sheikh Haron, Mr Sher called on immigrants whose values were not in line with the general community to live elsewhere. "What I would like to say (is) that when people immigrate to Australia, when they actually do so with the intention of integrating with the general community and living in peace and harmony, rather than confronting it, and causing tension and conflict, and irrespective of what one's religious beliefs are, one can still live happily with the community but not dissolve," he said. "If people don't like what's happening in Australia, live elsewhere."

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Lebanese Muslim gangsters again

THE sister of nightclub owner John Ibrahim has appeared briefly in court charged over a stash of nearly $3 million found in a ceiling of a western Sydney home. Maha Sayour, 39, is also the sister of Fadi Ibrahim, who was shot five times in June as he was sitting in his car outside his home in the northern Sydney suburb of Castle Cove.

Detectives from Strike Force Bellwood, set up to investigate the shooting and related matters, found $2.86 million in the roof of a home in Pearson St, Wentworthville, in a raid on April 29.

Ms Sayour was charged with recklessly dealing with the proceeds of a crime last month. At a very brief appearance at Fairfield Local Court today, Ms Sayour's lawyer Stephen Alexander requested a brief be ordered and the matter put over to a later date.

The matter has been adjourned to Liverpool Local Court on December 9, when Ms Sayour will not be required to appear, with a brief to be served on December 2. Ms Sayour's bail conditions have been continued. She refused to say anything to waiting media as she left the court.

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Nanny state helps to drown us in our own stupidity

Here's another triumph of the NSW Government: tough new legislation against pool owners. Under proposed changes to the Swimming Pools Act of 1992, council officers will have the right to invade private property and slap the state's 300,000 pool owners with fines of $5500 apiece if they do not lock up their pools more tightly.

This latest attack by the nanny state on the humble property owner is a kneejerk reaction to a spate of child drownings last summer. No matter that almost all child drownings in backyard pools are the result of inadequate adult supervision, it's the fences that are the focus of government energies. It's just too hard to tell parents the bleeding obvious, which is that if their children are near a large body of water, fence or no fence, then there is no alternative but to watch them like a hawk; and it's not a task that can be outsourced or shared. Children will always find ways of getting around fences and no barrier is a substitute for human vigilance.

But every time there is a terrible accident involving a child, there are calls for fences around dams, wharves and rivers, safety barriers at train stations or draconian new laws, no matter how impractical or futile. Whether it is a toddler falling to his death out of an open third-floor window, as happened this week in Kogarah, or a pram rolling off a train platform into the path of a train, as happened in Melbourne last week, with the six-month-old baby escaping injury, or two babies drowning in Adelaide in two separate incidents after their prams rolled down riverbanks, there are calls on authorities to "do something".

It is part of a cultural paradigm in which any tragedy that befalls us is not just the result of bad luck or carelessness or simple human error but is the fault of inadequate regulation. There is this fantasy that with enough government intervention we can create a safety utopia.

Of course, many lives have been saved and injuries prevented by good laws - the original Swimming Pool Act requiring pools be fenced was one and compulsory seatbelts and random breath tests were two more. It may have been safety standards for prams that saved a life on that Melbourne train platform last week.

But flushed with success, the nanny staters went too far, and governments became hooked on the idea that they could fix the world with the stroke of a pen and win plaudits into the bargain.

The phrase nanny state is a cliche but that is because government intrusion in our lives is so pervasive we barely protest. From the ugly, low-carbon, high-mercury light bulbs we have to use, to the time at which we are allowed to water our gardens, we are like frogs in boiling water, unaware of our predicament.

The worst thing about nanny statism is that even in the most resourceful person it induces a state of learned helplessness and complacency, in which, for instance, a mother no longer keeps alert to dangers in her child's environment because she thinks ''they'' will do it for her. The problem is that human stupidity is infinite and ''they'' aren't on the railway platform with you at the moment you turn the pram around so its wheels point towards the tracks and then you take your hands off the pram handles to hitch up your trousers.

Eventually, nanny statism removes the imperative of common sense, just as satellite navigation devices in cars give you a partial lobotomy, since you never bother registering where, in a navigational sense, you are going any more, as the machine does all the work.

Lulling people into a false sense of security potentially endangers more lives as parents and carers lose the commonsense skills needed to monitor and identify potential dangers. The result is behaviour that can only be described as stupid, even from those who probably are not.

The Melbourne pram incident, which made headlines around the world, is part of an increasingly familiar pattern of inexplicably careless behaviour. Only one day earlier, Connex, the company that runs Melbourne's trains, had begun a campaign to warn parents of the dangers of prams on platforms.

An accompanying video had a sequence eerily like the real thing, with a women letting go of her child's pram, which heads towards the edge of the platform for several seconds before she manages to haul it back. Connex said at the time that it was compelled to issue a "red alert" over an "alarming number of potentially serious incidents involving children and babies in prams travelling on our trains. In recent weeks there had been several incidents including: unrestrained babies spilling from prams falling between the train and platform, runaway prams in high winds after being left with their brakes off, pram front swivel wheels getting caught in the gap between train and platform."

There is some sort of increasing disconnect between action and real-life consequences so that, for instance, jaywalking is also on the rise. Oxford Street has become a jaywalker-killing alley in the wee hours as revellers wander across the road, seemingly oblivious to the fact the cars braking and swerving around them could cause them serious injury.

Perhaps the mass decline of common sense is the inevitable result of what Susan Greenfield, a British neuroscientist, says is the altered brain architecture of a couple of generations of people reared on technology rather than real-life experience.

If common sense is the accumulation of millions of real world experiences and the amalgamated sensory input from our environment, then no wonder people habituated to a two-dimensional virtual world without physical consequences seem increasingly to be so clueless.

SOURCE

ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG wonders why it is only the conservatives that the media are scrutinizing over the proposed Warmist laws






Coverup of official injustice to Australian Navy sailors -- with whistleblower penalized

The navy has trouble enough as it is in recruiting enough highly-skilled men. Do they think this is going to help? How dumb can you get? And the top brass are such *holes that they have still to apologize for their precipitate actions. It doesn't say much for the leadership of the Australian navy. Isn't there anyone at the top with some decency?

THE navy knew within days that claims crewmen on the supply ship HMAS Success ran a competition on how many female sailors they could sleep with were false but did nothing to set the record straight, the federal Opposition says. The three men were removed from their ship in Singapore in May because of the allegations and have not been posted back to sea since.

The Opposition defence spokesman, David Johnson, said last night the navy's treatment of the men was ''shoddy'' and their careers may have been irreparably damaged. Senator Johnson said the claims were fabricated by an aggrieved shipmate. He said they were told they were to be sent home in disgrace and were given 30 minutes to pack their gear and get off the ship. HMAS Success's commander told the crew a ''rotten core'' had been removed.

Senator Johnson also said a Navy lawyer appointed to represent the men raised concerns about why they were ''landed'' before the allegations were investigated and the navy ignored his requests for information for months. The legal officer was also called aside by his superiors and told that he worked for the navy command and should not consider the men to be his ''clients''. The officer was so concerned that he wrote a report to his superiors setting out his concerns about the way the episode was handled, Senator Johnson said. That officer had since been posted to Western Australia even through his wife worked in NSW.

After the initial media reports in July, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said what was claimed was ''disturbing'' and the Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, said the claim should be investigated and such behaviour could discourage women from joining the defence force. The claims were widely published around the world.

Senator Johnson said the Navy's investigation report was due out soon. He said it became very clear to ADF investigators from the start that the claim about sailors keeping a ledger on how many female colleagues could be ''bedded'' was blatantly untrue. Senator Johnson said the Navy had over-reacted because of the intense media and political pressure that followed the initial claims run on commercial television.

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The unending disaster that is Australia's European-sourced submarines: Will they EVER work properly?

Coupled with the constant problems and groundings of the A380 Airbuses, one has to wonder if welfare-cushioned Europeans now have the fire needed to make advanced projects work. The computer program that runs the boats eventually had to be scrapped and replaced with an American one. It might end up that way for the diesel motors too. The Australian workforce that maintains the boats also seems to be heavily bureaucratized and hence idle

The navy's $6 billion Collins-class submarines face serious operational restrictions after being hit by a run of crippling mechanical problems and troubling maintenance issues. Some senior engineering experts now contend that the Swedish-supplied Hedemora diesel engines may have to be replaced - a major design and engineering job that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take years to complete. So serious are the problems that the Defence Materiel Organisation has put the Collins boats at the top of its list of "projects of concern" - the key equipment issues troubling Australia's Defence leaders.

The Australian understands that in recent times only a single Collins-class boat has been available for operational duties but it is unclear whether this involves more than extended training missions.

Senior Defence leaders are also vitally concerned about the productivity and efficiency of ASC, the Adelaide-based wholly government-owned builder and maintainer of the Collins class. One senior Defence source characterises the level of concern in senior government ranks about the availability of the Collins submarines as "extreme".

In the recent defence white paper, Kevin Rudd announced that the government would double the size of the RAN's submarine fleet from six to 12 when it came to replacing the Collins-class boats from 2025. "If you can't do this right, how do you do the next one," observed one senior Defence source last night. "We spend a lot of money on this core defence capability and they aren't working properly."

Defence Minister John Faulkner and Defence Materiel Minister Greg Combet have now demanded monthly updates from the navy and Defence about the operational state of the Collins-class vessels. ASC, the Adelaide-based builder and maintainer of the Collins class, is now working through a range of mechanical issues affecting the performance of the six submarines with the state of the diesel engines a fundamental concern. The trouble-plagued diesel engines are expected to last at least another 15 to 20 years before they are progressively replaced by the planned next-generation submarine from 2025.

While ASC believes they can still last the expected life-of-type and has called in a Swiss consultant to advise on a long-term remediation plan, other external experts believe there may be no option but to start planning for their eventual replacement. The Hedemora diesel engines have never functioned well from the start and there are now real doubts that they are robust enough to see out the life of the Collins boats. Other mechanical issues include the performance of the electric motors, batteries and generators but ASC sources are confident that these glitches are being satisfactorily resolved.

HMAS Collins is undergoing repairs on its diesel engines and there are temporary restrictions on two other boats while the bands on their electric motors are fixed. But ASC remains confident that four "operational" boats will be available to the navy early in 2010 while HMAS Rankin and HMAS Sheean enter ASC's Adelaide yard to undergo a "full-cycle docking" - a major refit and overhaul.

ASC has the maintenance contract for the Collins boats worth nearly $200 million and this year is budgeted to spend $330m on maintaining and upgrading the submarines, including the combat system. But Defence leaders are concerned about the company's ability to efficiently manage the regular full-cycle dockings (FCD) and other lengthy maintenance periods that the Collins boats require. Defence wants to cut the average time taken for a FCD from three to two years, saving at least $60-70m a year, which would be ploughed back into supporting the Collins capability.

ASC has a $3bn long-term through-life support contract for the Collins boats with the DMO which is due to be renegotiated by next March. Senior Defence sources say there will be three key performance indicators that they expect from the new contract with ASC including an increased availability of boats for operations and a reduced cost of ownership to the commonwealth. "We are concerned with the amount of availability of the boats and the cost of doing the maintenance as well as some of the technical outcomes being achieved," DMO chief Stephen Gumley told The Australian. "We are working with the company to improve in each of those areas.

We hope to have a new through-life support contract for the Collins by Easter next year, which would commence in the financial year starting on July 1, 2010," Dr Gumley said. "Like any complex asset, there is a series of technical challenges. "We are working with ASC and external consultants to evaluate some of the challenges that we have."

A recent external consultant's study of workforce productivity on the Collins boats at ASC's Adelaide yard suggests room for significant improvement. According to documents obtained by The Australian, the study showed that some mechanical tradesmen working on the Collins boats were idle for much of their time on the shop floor. One electrical tradesman was present for the entire day but his only role was to insert and remove the fuses for a pressure test. This test took 10 minutes and was held mid-afternoon. Another electrical tradesman was clocked to have spent three hours and 12 minutes of productive work in a day. "The average efficiency observed (using generous definitions of productive work) was 30 per cent. Over 15 days of tradesperson time across multiple disciplines was observed, and nobody has suggested that theperiod of time we studied was not representative," the consultant report found. "We believe that an efficiency of 80 per cent should be considered world-class in this environment. This would be a 167 per cent increase in the work output of the current workforce or opportunity for a dramatic cost reduction," the report said.

Ever since they were launched, the Collins boats have been plagued by mechanical problems. As early as June 1999, a report to the Howard government found a range of serious technical defects in the Collins boats, three of which had been delivered to the navy by that time. These included problems with the diesel engines as well as noise propagation and the performance of propellers, periscopes, masts and the combat system. By far the most expensive fix was the the [computerized] combat system. The original system never worked and was eventually replaced [by an American one] at a cost of close to $1 billion.

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Warming harms mental health

Warmists are certainly disturbing a lot of people (That's their aim) but there is no evidence that warming is, just assertions. The stuff below is just health academics trying to clamber aboard the global warming bandwagon

The negative impact on mental health worldwide may be one of the most severe effects of climate change, with children at greatest risk, according to experts. ["Experts" say that something "may" happen. Not much more persuasive than "My old Mommy told me"]

As climate change causes extreme weather events, drought, financial strain and changes in work and migration patterns, people will be at increasing risk from mental health issues such as post traumatic stress disorder and depression, said Dr Helen Berry from the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University (ANU). Despite the risk, this is an area that has received little attention, she added.

She spoke at an Australian Science Media Centre online briefing on 16 October alongside Professor Brian Kelly, Director of the Centre for Rural and Remote Health at the University of Newcastle, and Dr Lyndall Strazdins, a Fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health and the ANU. "Mental health problems aren't just collateral damage from climate change, they could well be one of the most profound effects," said Dr Berry.

According to Dr Berry, scientists, health services and governments need to work together to stop the damage to mental health at a regional level before it becomes a serious problem. "It's becoming apparent that we're experience the IPCC's worst case scenario of climate change - or even worse," said Berry. "We need to address the impact that this will have on mental health, now."

Climate change can affect people in a number of different ways, according to Dr Berry. It can act directly on mental health through trauma exposure, for example a cyclone caused by increasing temperatures, or it can act indirectly via disease and community changes. "All of these factors interact and could result in a great increase in severe mental health problems," she added.

Currently half of all Australians will suffer mental illness at some point in their life, and this number is set to increase, according to the Dr Strazdins. "Mental health problems are already the second largest burden of disease in Australia, and by 2020 this is predicted to be the case worldwide," said Dr Strazdins. "Climate change amplifies the existing risks, particularly for children," she added.

According to Dr Strazdins, the mental health impacts of climate change will be more severe for children because they will be exposed to climate change for longer over their lifetime. Children are also less mentally prepared to deal with the stress from climate change related trauma, such as bushfires, which are set to increase by up to 75 per cent by 2050, said Dr Strazdins. A study on children whose school burnt down during the Canberra 2003 fires found that at least 40 per cent were suffering mild to moderate post traumatic stress disorder.

The impact that climate change has on others, such as financial strain put on parents, will also affect children, Dr Strazdins added. "A number of studies have revealed that children are already anxious and fearful about climate change. They need to be at the centre of the debate - yet the impact of climate change on children and the costs to future generations is not being discussed," said Dr Strazdins.

According to Professor Kelly, in order to minimise the problem we need to predict how people will adapt to and cope with climate change, and provide services that will help them to 'bounce back' more easily. "The people most at risk are those that are in isolated regions. In order to reach them, health services need to work very closely with organisations that respond to other impacts of climate change, such as financial counsellors, vets and local banks. "The aim is to try to see mental health as part of an overall strategy that deals with climate change impact," he said.

Despite their warnings, it's not all bad news - Dr Berry added that there could be a positive side effect to communities facing the risks of climate change. "Climate change could motivate collective action, which is the number one thing to protect mental health," she said.

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ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION ROUNDUP

The constant and ever-growing influx of "boat people" taking advantage of the Rudd government's eagerness to class almost anyone as a "refugee" has drawn a lot of public attention in Australia, as Rudd is clearly going against what the great majority of Australians want. Three current articles below

'Humanitarian' boatpeople deal breaks deadlock

KEVIN Rudd and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last night resolved their standoff, with Jakarta agreeing to accept 78 asylum-seekers rescued by Australia at the weekend, citing the plight of a sick child on board. As the 78 Sri Lankans prepared to spend their third night aboard the Australian Customs vessel the Oceanic Viking, Indonesia agreed the asylum-seekers rescued by HMAS Armidale in the Sunda Strait on Sunday would be brought to shore as soon as possible.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and Dr Yudhoyono's spokesman cited the sick child as a factor in the "humanitarian" decision. "President Yudhoyono has advised for humanitarian reasons and safety-at-sea reasons the Oceanic Viking will come to the port of Merak where the 78 on board will be put in temporary accommodation until international agencies have had the opportunity to process them," Mr Smith told ABC TV last night. "We had a young girl on board who was unwell. "That's a very good humanitarian result. It's a very good example of co-operation between Australia and Indonesia."

After high-level talks about how to stem the flow of asylum boats to Australia, Dr Yudhoyono's spokesman, Dino Patti Djalal, said the Sri Lankans' claims for refugee status would be dealt with as soon as possible by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. "Basically, it is because there is a sick child on board and the President is quite concerned about the health of the child," he said. "We need a clear framework for how to deal with this in the future so that we don't deal with these sorts of situations on an ad hoc basis."

He indicated that officials from both countries would be working over the coming weeks to establish such a framework. Mr Rudd and Dr Yudhoyono would discuss the matter in Singapore in November at the APEC leaders conference. The agreement came as the Prime Minister held bilateral talks with Dr Yudhoyono and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak aimed at stopping the boat surge.

Before the deal was struck in Jakarta last night, there were further indications of an emerging schism in Labor ranks over the Prime Minister's toughened rhetoric on boats. Last night, Labor MP Michael Danby [who is Jewish] rebuked Mr Rudd over his use of the term "illegal immigration", pointedly noting he preferred Immigration Minister Chris Evans's "non-hysterical" approach. "I don't like expressions like illegal immigration," Mr Danby told the ABC.

Last night, Mr Rudd was on his way home from the Indonesian capital, where he had been attending the inauguration of Dr Yudhoyono with Mr Smith and Defence Chief Angus Houston. While in Jakarta, Mr Rudd also held talks with Singapore's Lee Hsien Loong, with people-smuggling high on the agenda.

Mr Rudd's absence from Australia saw no let-up in hostilities between the government and the opposition, with the issue of boatpeople provoking a series of bitter skirmishes in parliament. As Mr Rudd was meeting regional leaders, a Senate estimates committee hearing in Canberra degenerated into a shouting match between Senator Evans and Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, who demanded to know what the Rudd government was doing to address the surge.

"We abolished the Pacific Solution. I'm absolutely proud of that. It was a blight on Australia and a blight on our international reputation," Senator Evans said. "But you, senator, you've got a choice, you either argue for it coming back, or you don't."

Malcolm Turnbull attacked the government for "unpicking" the tapestry of measures stitched together by the Howard government, while acknowledging they had been controversial. He defended reviving John Howard's declaration that Australians should decide "who comes to this country". "The previous prime minister, Mr Howard, was criticised for saying that, but the fact is, that is what every Australian expects of their government," said Mr Turnbull.

The 78 asylum-seekers transferred from their boat to the Oceanic Viking after issuing a distress call in the Indonesian search and rescue zone, includes at least five women and five young children. At Indonesia's request, Australia sent the patrol boat HMAS Armidale to the scene. "This is not an area or a matter where Australia is saying to Indonesia, 'It's your problem'," Mr Smith said last night. "This is where Australia is saying to Indonesia, and Indonesia is saying to Australia: 'We need to work together to address a very difficult problem'. It's a very good example of Australia discharging its safety-at-sea obligations. My understanding and my advice is that there's no legal obligation on the part of Indonesia to take them, and that was not a point or a view put to Indonesia by Australia."

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Dangerous to let asylum seekers jump the queue

Susan Hocking

THE current debate about how best to handle the boatloads of refugees, illegal immigrants or call them what you will, arriving on Australia's doorstep has taken me back to a time when I was all-consumed with the lot of people trying to get into Australia, people who were failing miserably. I was a chairperson of the Australian Immigration Review Panel – a body that heard the appeals of would-be migrants to this country, people who had applied and been rejected. The panel was their last chance at entry and with that knowledge of what was at stake, it was the sort of role that gave me many a sleepless night. It was a responsibility not to be taken lightly. And it wasn't.

It was, however, a humbling, eye-opening and frequently very sad experience. I suspect that many people born to Australian citizenship, born to peace and relative prosperity and the assumption of all kinds of freedoms, do not always easily grasp what it is that would make people rally their families and head off on a plane, often to the other side of the world, leaving behind friends and loved ones, perhaps a familiar language, culture, a whole way of life.

When that same decision is made by people who jump on leaky boats captained by people who are little more than traffickers in human flesh for dangerous and sometimes futile voyages, our confusion and disbelief are even greater. As is our suspicion and our resentment at those who appear, like uninvited strangers.

And therein lies the stumbling point for me with the waves of boat people heading this way. The people on the leaky boats, no matter how brave they may be, no matter how determined or desperate, raise my concerns because they are unknown entities. And they are jumping the queue. In doing so – and by us accepting them – they are, inadvertently or not, making a mockery of our immigration policy and our refugee programs and of the very patient people spread all over the world – be they living in townhouses in London or squalid refugee camps in Kenya – who are adhering to all the myriad, time-consuming requirements we have of those we invite in.

Those requirements enable us to know who exactly is coming to live among us, what sort of people they are and with what sort of personal histories; to know, as far as humanly possible, what they have to offer us and what we can offer them. Fulfilling those requirements – from the masses of paperwork through to the personal qualities – is not easy and the process is usually slow. But sure. It takes patience and commitment on everybody's part. But ultimately we can rest pretty well assured that in the midst of a world on the move, we have opened the doors to people that we can be comfortable sharing our communities with.

While it behoves us to show compassion and understanding to people knocking to come in, to treat the homeless, albeit uninvited, stranger as we would a person in need knocking on the door of our own home, we have every right to wariness. We would be foolish and we would be risking the wellbeing of our own family if we simply threw that door open willy-nilly. We owe it to ourselves and to our children to think long and hard about who comes to live among us. That does not make us an unwelcoming, uncaring nation. It makes us vigilant, prudent stewards of the Australian "family".

Furthermore, we should be wary of making assumptions about degrees of despair. In a world racked with war and poverty and upheaval, we shouldn't assume that the people on the boats have any greater depth of loss or desperation than the Somali family, for example, or the Cambodians, or the Zimbabweans, all living in camps, waiting it out, counting the days, all their forms painstakingly filled in, doing it by the book, playing by the rules. Patient and with their hearts full of hope.

We shouldn't assume that the boat people have the right to jump the queue because of the sheer audacity of their voyage, any more than we should expect the patient, waiting, would-be migrant to be bumped back further and further down the line because they chose to do things by the book. And to resign themselves to a quiet acceptance of that.

I have read too many immigration applications from too many patient and deserving souls to buy into the business of queue jumping. In many ways, the process of biding time, of compiling the papers and the signatories and producing the certificates and the records – of satisfying the needs of our Immigration Department – is every bit as gruelling as hitting the high seas, bound for Australia by boat. It just doesn't grab the headlines or tug so hard at the heartstrings.

All that said, personally, if the boat people pass muster once they arrive here – if, when all the thorough checks are done, they do qualify as genuine asylum seekers, fleeing persecution and with no other safe place to go – I would not have a problem with them staying on. But please, only if it is not at the expense of those would-be Australians languishing somewhere right now, with very little to sustain them but the knowledge they have already played by our rules; the patient people.

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Mainstream Australian concerns about immigration are muzzled

Thirteen years after Pauline Hanson struck a chord with mainstream Australia, the vacuum she left when she departed the political scene remains unfilled.

Civil rights apologists try to bottle up public concern about illegal arrivals, militant Islamism, ethnic gangs, drugs and the murderous danger zones that our CBDs have become, but from time to time the outrage erupts on talkback radio and in the letters to the editor columns. A caller from Bathurst, NSW, recently said the threat of Pacific Islander gangs in western Sydney made him pack up and leave, and he is not alone. A woman who was flying her Australian flag during the Cronulla riots had her house pelted with eggs. Police told her to take down the flag as it was inciting the Muslims.

These are today's forgotten people, Australians of all generations who know their history and are embittered as they see their heritage, values, institutions and way of life devalued. Under Labor, the rapid-fire arrival of boatloads of illegals has, until recently, failed to generate the banner headlines of the past, no doubt heart-warming for those Greens, Laborites and Liberal marshmallows who favour the madness of some sort of open borders policy. Ex-Liberal MP Bruce Baird, now holding a Labor job, told the Ten Network's Meet the Press Labor's policy changes on dealing with people-smugglers had nothing whatsoever to do with the recent surge in arrivals.

As Christmas Island readies to put up the no-vacancy sign, the hitherto silent Libs have broken out, led by Philip Ruddock and Kevin Andrews, and already the polls have spiked substantially in their favour, no doubt creating more grief for Malcolm Turnbull, who is handcuffed to the usual suspects in Wentworth and whose only comment to date has been a limp-wristed call for an independent inquiry.

The chief objective of the illegals and their criminal co-conspirators, the people-smugglers, is to be allowed to come ashore on the mainland and that will surely happen soon.

Still disconnected from the mainstream, there is hardly a mumble from the Liberals as our immigration rates accelerate.

A new Australia is in the making, where our ethnic minorities will become majorities, aided by people running Malcolm Fraser's line that we need a population of 50 million plus, no doubt to be fed by the spring of taxpayer-funded multiculturalism.

In 1976 the Fraser government was warned by the Immigration Department that too many Lebanese Muslim refugees were unskilled, illiterate and had questionable character and health standards. Cabinet documents released in 2007 revealed how Australia's decision to accept thousands of Lebanese Muslims escaping Lebanon's 1976 civil war led to a temporary suspension of normal eligibility standards.

With hindsight we know where Fraser stood on such matters, his sense of guilt over the Vietnam War resulting in 56,000 Vietnamese refugees coming to Australia plus 2000 or so boatpeople, culminating in him establishing the Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs with his protege Petro Georgiou as its director.

Fraser has stubbornly rejected any criticism that he was responsible for sowing the seeds of unrest in Sydney's west, instead blaming schools and communities and forgetting that at no time have the views of the Australian community been honestly and properly considered on immigration and refugee issues by any government.

It is not just multiculturalism that is fuelling anger. Included in the ranks of the forgotten people are the self-funded retirees who have seen their hard-earned super and share portfolios head south during the global financial crisis, while some MPs debate and defend their salaries and maladministration allows $82 million worth of stimulus to go offshore to Australians, many of them citizens ofconvenience.

Sadly, these mainstream Australians have no one with the courage to become their flag-bearer in these challenging times. The fear of violent reprisal and being ostracised by the political elite is a reality that tarnishes and denigrates the sacrifices of past generations. Despite this, the talkback lines hum, as this form of protest is more rewarding than contacting a Coalition office.

Fearless journalism is required to expose the many unpleasant truths and maybe, just maybe, a resurgent Nationals with a Barnaby Joyce-type at the helm could strike out on its own, embracing and claiming a large and powerful constituency that has been neglected for far too long.

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