ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG has some derisive words for Kevin Rudd's Copenhagen junket.





Public pressure forces some decency out of offensive QANTAS subsidiary

Too bad if you can't get a major newspaper to give big publicity to your complaint, though

Jetstar has suspended a gate attendant who allegedly abused a female passenger and had her thrown off a flight and apologised for the airline's "unacceptable" response to the woman's complaint.

Mesha Sendyk was removed from a Sydney to Gold Coast flight earlier this month for allegedly shouting at a gate attendant and getting on the plane without a boarding pass. Ms Sendyk, 42, complained to the airline, alleging she was abused by the staff member in front of her six-year-old daughter and had her boarding pass snatched away during a highly-charged exchange with the man.

The airline's customer care manager responded to Ms Sendyk's complaint with an offer to refund her airfare, an accusation she behaved in an "unruly, disruptive or violent" manner and a threat to ban the Byron Bay-based artist from all Jetstar services in future.

But two days after the incident came to light, a senior airline executive phoned Ms Sendyk to tell her the gate attendant had been stood down. "[Jetstar group general manager commercial David Koczka] apologised repeatedly about [the attendant's] behaviour and [customer care manager] Michael Mirabito's letter," Ms Sendyk said. "He said 'I think what happened was terrible for you and then when we responded to your attempt to reconcile, the response we gave was just unacceptable'."

A Jetstar spokesman confirmed the gate attendant had been suspended pending an internal investigation into the incident. "Senior management have taken this matter seriously," the spokesman said. [About time] "We've spoken directly to the customer and apologised for the incident that happened at the gate." "We have very good customer service, we've got very strong passenger growth - we're the fastest growing airline in the region. "We stand by the fact we're an organisation that's proactive and takes these things seriously." [Really?? Not much sign of it]

Ms Sendyk said she was tremendously hurt by the airline's initial response to her written complaint, as well as further accusations, levelled through the media, that she was at fault. "I can't say I'm happy with the whole thing but I think their assurance that he's no longer going to be in a position where he can victimise members of the public is good," she said. "It hasn't been pleasant but I'm happy with the response.

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Rudd's Super Clinics won't ease hospital emergency overload

Bed shortage is the major problem in the hospitals so how many beds do these clinics provide? ZERO

THE revelation that most of the Rudd government's GP super clinics will not be operating for at least another two years has brought opponents of this expensive program out into the open. The centrepiece of the government's health and hospital reform agenda is facing renewed criticism just as Tony Abbott has flagged Coalition support for a national referendum on a commonwealth takeover of hospital funding. It is worth remembering that then newly minted opposition leader Kevin Rudd made the same promise in the days of Kevin 07 and has backed away from it since.

Abbott's support for a referendum, however, could prove a policy game changer. The opposition is targeting the systemic problems that plague public hospitals run by giant state government bureaucracies. Direct federal funding of hospitals run by local boards is far superior to throwing taxpayers' dollars at so-called solutions to the hospital crisis, such as super clinics, that are more ideologically driven than evidence-based.

Under the $275 million super clinics program, the Rudd government is funding the start-up costs involved in bringing together general practitioners and allied health professionals, such as physiotherapists and podiatrists, who want to amalgamate their practices into one-stop shops. An initial 38 clinics have been announced in the past 18 months. General practitioners fear super clinics, generously subsidised by taxpayers, will compete unfairly and put established private practices out of business.

This follows the direct action taken by suburban GPs associated with the Doctors Action Group who in early November closed their surgeries in protest against the threat super clinics posed to the traditional family GP. GPs are legitimately worried about the long-term effect of large-scale and centralised super clinics on private general practice. The concern is that young doctors will not buy into an established practice, into which retiring doctors have invested large amounts of capital and years of service, when the alternative is to join a government-controlled super clinic for free with the capital costs paid for by taxpayers.

If private surgeries are crowded out and it becomes too costly and difficult to establish one from scratch, it is conceivable that a future federal government may force doctors to work in super clinics on a salaried basis. Super clinics are therefore a slippery slope that potentially could lead to the nationalisation of Australian general practice.

For the ideologues in the federal health bureaucracy opposed to private medicine, the end of fee-for-service GP care is a time-honoured objective. In fact, super clinics are a throwback to the Whitlam government's polyclinic model of the 1970s.

Publicly, at least, the Rudd government has consistently claimed that federally funded super clinics are designed to boost the provision of GP services and take the pressure off dangerously overcrowded public hospitals. The idea is that emergency departments will no longer be swamped by so-called GP-style patients with minor illnesses once a super clinic offering extended-hours services is established at a nearby location. Hence, Health Minister Nicola Roxon recently claimed the program already was helping to solve the hospital crisis, with a super clinic in Tasmania reportedly reducing by 13 per cent the number of people turning up at the nearby emergency department with minor illness.

This sounds impressive. But in reality this confirms how flawed the super clinics program is and how little pressure on hospitals they will relieve. Several studies have found patients with a cold or sore toe constitute only 10 per cent to 15 per cent of total emergency presentations. But because GP-style patients suffer uncomplicated conditions, they are in fact quick, easy and cheap to treat in emergency departments. They account for a mere fraction, 2 per cent to 3 per cent, of the total workload and for about just 7 per cent of total costs.

Locating extended-hours GP clinics near emergency departments has been found to produce, at best, "an average reduction in attendances of one patient every two hours while the clinics are open". Not surprisingly, studies have also shown it is far cheaper to treat the few GP-style patients in emergency rather than incur the huge capital overheads of establishing stand-alone GP facilities. The plan to divert GP-style patients into super clinics will therefore impose a huge cost on the federal budget, a cost that is difficult to justify given the insignificant effect super clinics will have on emergency workloads and costs.

But this isn't the half of it. Every credible study shows the critical national shortage of acute beds, not a lack of alternative GP services, is the real cause of the hospital crisis. Lack of beds - public beds have been cut by two-thirds since 1983 - is the reason more than one-third of emergency patients requiring unplanned admission are forced to queue on trolleys in hospital corridors for more than eight hours before being admitted to a bed.

Regardless of the facts, the government seems hell-bent on proceeding with a planned roll-out of a 300-strong national network of super clinics. Such waste of taxpayers' dollars on a non-solution for the hospital crisis is anything but an efficient and effective investment in sustainable and evidence-based health reform.

We are right, therefore, to suspect the ideological motives behind the super clinics program. As the health debate heats up ahead of next year's federal election, super clinics will look increasingly like the anachronism they are. Next year is shaping up as the year we finally get serious about structural reform of our public hospital system.

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Green dream is just alien

By Andrew Bolt

MOST people will date the death of the great global warming scare not from the Copenhagen fiasco - boring! - but from Avatar. It won't be the world's most expensive warmist conference but the world's most expensive movie that will stick in most memories as the precise point at which the green faith started to shrivel from sheer stupidity. Avatar, in fact, is the warmist dream filmed in 3D. Staring through your glasses at James Cameron's spectacular $400 million creation, you can finally see where this global warming cult was going. And you can see, too, everything that will now slowly pull it back to earth.

December 2009. Note it down. The beginning of the end, even as Avatar becomes possibly the biggest-grossing film in history. Cameron, whose last colossal hit was Titanic, has created a virtual new planet called Pandora, on which humans 150 years from now have formed a small settlement. They are there to mine a mineral so rare that it's called Unobtainium (groan), of which the greatest deposit sits right under the great sacred tree of the planet's dominant species, humanoid blue aliens called Na'vi.

If Tim Flannery, Al Gore and all the other Copenhagen delegates could at least agree to design a new kind of people, they'd wind up with something much like these 3m-tall gracelings. The Na'vi live in trees, at one with nature. They worship Mother Earth and, like Gaians today, talk meaningfully of "a network of energy that flows through all living things". They drink water that's pooled in giant leaves, and chant around a tree that whispers of their ancestors. They are also unusually non-sexist for a forest tribe, with the women just as free as men to hunt and choose their spouse. Naturally, like the most fashionable of Hollywood stars, they are also neo-Buddhist reincarnationists, who believe "all energy is borrowed and some day you have to give it back". And, of course, the Na'vi reject all technology that's more advanced than a bow and arrow, for "the wealth of the world is all around us".

Sent to talk dollars and sense into these blue New Agers and move them out of the way of the bulldozers is a former Marine, Jake Sully (played by Australian Sam Worthington), who drives the body of a Na'vi avatar to better gain their trust. (WARNING: Spoiler alert! Don't read on if you plan to see the movie.) But meeting such perfect beings, living such low-emission green lives, Sully realises instead how vile his own species is. Humans, he angrily declares, have already wrecked their own planet through their greed.

"There is no green" on their "dying world" because "they have killed their mother". Now we land-raping humans plan to wreck Pandora, too, with our "shock-and-awe" bombings, our war on "terror" and our genocidal plans to destroy the Na'vi and steal their lands.

So complete is Cameron's disgust with humans - and so convinced he is that his audience shares it - that he's made film history: he's created the first mass-market movie about a war between aliens and humans in which we're actually meant to barrack for the aliens.

(WARNING: Second spoiler alert!) In fact, so vomitous are humans that Sully, the hero, not only chooses to fight on the side of the aliens but to actually become an alien, too. He rejects not just humans but his own humanity.

All of this preaching comes straight from what's left of Cameron's heart after five marriages and a professional reputation of on-set meanness. Avatar, he's said, tackles "our impact on the natural environment, wherever we go strip mining and putting up shopping malls", and it warns "we're going to find out the hard way if we don't wise up and start seeking a life that's in balance with the natural cycle on life on earth".

Mind you, most of this will be just wallpaper to the film's real audience, which won't be greenies in Rasta beanies or wearing save-the-whale T-shirts made in Guatemala. No, scoffing their popcorn as they wait impatiently for the inevitable big-bang shoot-'em-up after a fairground tour of some cool new planet will be the usual bag-laden crowd from the Christmas-choked megaplex - the kind of bug-eyed folk who thrill most to what Cameron claims to condemn, from the hi-tech to the militaristic.

Still, you can hardly blame them if they don't buy the message that Cameron's selling, since he doesn't really buy it himself. Here's Cameron condemning consumerism by spending almost half a billion dollars on a mass-market movie for the Christmas season complete with tie-in burger deals from McDonald's and Avatar toys from Mattel. Here's Cameron damning our love of technology by using the most advanced cinematographic technology to create his new green world. In fact, here's Cameron urging his audience to scorn material possessions and get close to nature, only to himself retire each night to the splendid comfort of his Malibu mansion.

Not even his own creations live up to the philosophy he has them preach. For all their talk of the connectedness of nature, the Na'vi still kill animals for food - although not before saying how sorry they are, of course, since we live in an age in which seeming sorry excuses every selfishness. Likewise, despite all their lectures on not exploiting nature, the Na'vi still come out top dog in the food chain. Even when they physically become at one with wild pterodactyls, by hooking up to them through some USB in their blue tails, they manage to convince their flying reptiles to act like their private jets.

Isn't this against the rules? I mean, in this caring and at-one-with-nature world, shouldn't a plugged-in pterodactyl just once in a while get to direct its human passenger instead - by either telling it to take a flying jump or to at least act like lunch?

In all of this, Avatar captures precisely - and to the point of satire - the creed of the Copenhagen faithful. Rewind what you've seen from those Copenhagen planet-savers in the past two weeks. There were the apocalyptic warnings of how we were killing the planet. There were the standing ovations the delegates gave last week to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's furious denunciations of capitalism, consumerism and the US military. There was Bolivian President Evo Morales' cry for a simpler life: "It's changing economic policies, ending luxury, consumerism ... living better is to exploit human beings."

THERE were great crowds of activists such as Australia's Professor Clive Hamilton, who, like Avatar's Jake Sully, sermonises on the need to embrace "Gaian earth in its ecological, cybernetic way, infused with some notion of mind or soul or chi". And there was the romanticising of the primitive by the demonstrators outside dressed as ferals and wild bears, as they banged tribal drums or chanted "Om" to Mother Earth.

Of course the Cameron-style have-it-both-ways hypocrites were there, too, luxuriating in the very lifestyles they condemned. Take Prince Charles, who flew in his private RAF jet to Copenhagen to deliver a lecture on how our careless use of resources had pushed the planet "to the brink". And then had his pilot fly him home to his palace.

But, yes, you are right. How can I say this great green faith is now toppling into the pit of ridicule, when Avatar seems sure to do colossal business? Won't a whole generation of the slack-jawed just catch this new green faith from the men in the blue costumes? That's a risk. But having the green faith made so alien and such fodder for the entertainment of the candybar crowds will rob it of all sanctimony and cool.

Would a Cate Blanchett really be flattered to now be likened to a naked Na'vi, running from a pack of wild dogs in a dark forest? Would an Al Gore really like to have millions of filmgoers see in 3D where his off-this-planet faith would lead them - up a tree, and without even a paddle? No, we can now see their green world, and can see, too, it's time to come home.

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Beware girls in bars, warns Australian government agency

And it's one government warning that deserves notice



THE following scenario is neither joke nor fantasy, but a travel tip provided by the Federal Government. An Australian man is travelling overseas and walks into a bar. He is beckoned by a woman, who requests a drink. He quickly obliges. What did he do wrong?

According to a travel bulletin titled "Partying Overseas", issued this week by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the bar-goer should have checked the prices before bestowing his largesse. Otherwise, the bill could end up larger than his ego.

"Large numbers of Australians get into trouble overseas as a direct result of partying too hard and forgetting about simple safety precautions," says the bulletin. "Parties and festivals like Full Moon Parties in Koh Phangan, Thailand, and Oktoberfest in Germany can be fun experiences, but drinking too much or taking drugs can put you in difficult and often dangerous situations far from home. Australians have had their drinks spiked, had their documents stolen, been assaulted, injured, arrested, imprisoned and even killed."

The department lists risks and pitfalls such as leaving drinks unattended or getting drunk while carrying passports and valuables. It warns people not to miss the last ferry from island parties, to beware of foreign drinks with higher-than-expected alcohol content, and to pre-pay or check prices for food. "Before entering or ordering services in a bar, restaurant or other establishment that you or your friends are not familiar with, check that it has readily available price lists for food, drinks and other services it may offer. "If you don't, you may find yourself with an unexpectedly large bill, which you might be forced to pay under duress before you can leave. Be aware that in some bars there is strong coercion to buy drinks for others, for example for bar girls, and these drinks may be very expensive."

A spokeswoman for the department said it was concerned about reports of Australian party-goers falling into trouble. The bulletin was a "response to the increasing number of consular cases and comments to our consular feedback inbox regarding drink spiking, assaults and robberies occurring at parties overseas".

The department lists examples of Australians getting into trouble, including two in Europe who were taken to a bar by a friendly taxi driver. They failed to check the prices and received a bill for thousands of dollars. "Security guards" held one person and escorted the other to a nearby teller machine.

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Barnaby becomes Labor's problem

Barnaby is a Queenslander and in good Queensland style is something of a populist. And populism has always played well in Queensland -- witness the long reign of Sir Johannes Bjelke-Peterson. And a rout in Queensland would tip Federal Labor out of power. From memory, the Whitlam Labor government retained only one out of 17 Queensland Federal seats in 1975 and that was the end of them. And that rout was largely the doing of the populist "Sir Joh"

THE Rudd government is clearly determined to create a media image of the opposition's finance spokesman, Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce, as totally compromised in his new frontbench role, the economic village idiot or a combination of both. Unfortunately for Labor this spin isn't working. In fact there are signs of growing public concern at the bully-boy tactics that Rudd and his cabinet colleagues have used to demonise anyone who dares to criticise the Prime Minister's policies.

Those who questioned the logic of Rudd's emissions trading scheme, and Joyce led this political assault, were denounced as climate change dinosaurs and economic vandals who should be cast into the wilderness because of their lack of support for Rudd's compassion over the future of the planet. But in immediate response to the Liberals' rejection of this scheme, after months of painful internal soul searching, the Liberal Party's stocks rose, as the last Newspoll showed.

The Liberals' decision to dump Malcolm Turnbull and support for the government's ETS, which he had fought tenaciously to preserve, vindicated the stand taken by Joyce. It also meant that the Rudd government had to carry its tattered ETS banner off to Copenhagen on its own. It can blame this humiliation more on Joyce than Abbott, who defeated Turnbull by the narrowest margin. So it is no wonder that when Joyce put his head up to raise the spectre of the US and some Australian states defaulting on their massive debt repayments, Rudd and his ministers tried to kick it off.

Joyce was variously condemned for shooting from the lip, advocating whacko economics and being an extremist. He also was attacked for urging a ban on investment in the resource sector by Chinese government-owned enterprises.

There is undeniable downside potential from the huge debts that have been run up by governments across the world in response to the global financial crisis. And there is considerable concern in Australia that the government is going out of its way to accommodate a resource-hungry China by softening foreign investment rules.

Nevertheless, Joyce seems to be well aware that he strayed into a minefield and, while not recanting his opinions, says he will now focus on his portfolio responsibilities. You only have to look at the wide area covered by Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner to see the potential for Joyce to shake up the government. To start with, he need go no further than the government's much vaunted national broadband network, where administrative responsibility is shared between Tanner and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.

This project has enormous financial implications for the whole country, including rural Australia, which will have to rely on satellite delivery for high-speed services instead of the fibre-optic cable the government plans to roll out into all homes and businesses in large cities and other high-density areas. Yet again the Nationals' rural constituency faces being relegated to second-class status in this latest attempt by government to create a communications superhighway. This assumes, of course, that the NBN gets off the ground.

But so far the taxpayer is being asked to take on trust the government's grand $43 billion scheme which, as yet, has no business plan. On a magic carpet ride of rhetoric recently, Rudd said the national broadband fibre-optic caravan, which is still to roll out of Tasmania, would create a platform for future innovation, drive new business efficiencies, support smart infrastructure, open new trade opportunities and contribute to productivity growth across the economy.

It also would address the challenge of greenhouse gas emissions, which it could reduce by 5 per cent, Rudd assured a government-organised forum designed to pump up the NBN's image. Part of this effect would come through the use of video-conferencing, reducing the need to travel for face-to-face meetings.

Clearly this option does not extend to the office of a Prime Minister who is highly sought after on the global diplomacy speaking circuit. Rudd's assessment of the NBN's positive effect on climate change ignores the increased energy demands that would be required to meet a substantial take-up of this high-speed service. Undaunted, Rudd says the NBN and the government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme go hand in glove in Labor's policy on climate change.

Now this is a worry, looking at how the ETS has blown up in the government's face. But what we are witnessing is an attempt by Rudd to wrap the NBN in the same blanket of political correctness he used to shield his ETS policy from its critics.

Considering Joyce's successful strike rate against this flawed ETS policy, it is no wonder that Rudd is pulling out all stops to try to knock him off his perch before the campaign begins for the next federal election.

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Conservatives call for new estimate on cost of emissions trading scheme to families

KEVIN Rudd is under pressure to come clean on the likely cost-of-living impact of an emissions trading scheme if Australia goes it alone before other nations act.

The failure of the Copenhagen talks to deliver a binding treaty has prompted warnings from the opposition that the impact of an emissions trading scheme could now be greater on families. Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt said the government should commission modelling on the true impact of the scheme and whether it would go beyond original estimates of $1100 for families on average. “The real thing now is to release the impact on the cost of living of the ETS. Will the cost rise from $1100 to $1500 to $2000. Because his system was designed to fit in with an international scheme,” Mr Hunt said.

He said the existing Copenhagen Accord was a very weak document. “They've removed all the timeframes. The reason why the document has failed is because it was lower than the lower of expectations. I have to confess I was surprised at the result of the conference. That's because it removed all developed world commitments and therefore developing world,” he said. “In the draft document that was available in the hours before the so-called accord there were targets and timeframes for 2020 and 2050 - both of those disappeared in the final hours.”

Mr Hunt's call for modelling on the likely impact on families came after Climate Change Minister Penny Wong yesterday vowed to continue with the government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme bill in February.

The government's chief climate adviser, Ross Garnaut, has also warned that "deep cuts" in carbon emissions would be necessary to keep the Copenhagen aim of limiting a rise in global warming of 2C.

Greens' leader Bob Brown said the government's only option was to negotiate with the Greens in the Senate to get the ETS through in February.

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A government that cannot pay its hospital bills -- even tiny ones

It tells you a lot that it sends its own employees to a private hospital rather than one of its own public hospitals. You can see why when you note the waiting mentioned below

AN injured prison officer waited five hours for treatment in a public hospital after she was turned away from a private centre contracted by the Government because of overdue bills. The State Government has a long-standing agreement with the Wakefield Emergency Centre to treat public-sector workers.

On Saturday, a female officer from the Adelaide Women's Prison with minor head injuries was denied treatment because government bills from early October had not been paid. The bills, totalling $196, were paid yesterday.

"Sometimes the government lapses a bit and the only recourse we have is to do that (deny treatment)," Dr Wolianskyj said. "We make sure it's nothing life-threatening (but) if the accounts are more than two or three months late . . . then we basically suspend the service."

All government accounts are the responsibility of the shared services department. Public Service Association general secretary Jan McMahon said she was "appalled that an injured corrections officer was unable to receive medical treatment because the Government has not paid its bills".

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Political bias behind $15,000 funding cut to conservative magazine

THE conservative magazine Quadrant has accused the Australia Council of political bias after its annual grant for next year was cut by 30 per cent, from $50,000 to $35,000.

Quadrant's editor, the historian Keith Windschuttle, a key protagonist in the history wars who denies that the removal of Aboriginal children from their families was racist or deliberate policy, has written to subscribers saying the decision by the council's literature board was "patently political".

"Throughout the 11 years of the Howard government, its appointees never reduced the funding of overtly left-wing publications like Meanjin, Overland and Australian Book Review," Mr Windschuttle says in the letter. He says the entire Australia Council grant is used to pay writers and does not fund Quadrant's political commentary.

Grants to Meanjin ($50,000), Overland ($60,000) and the Australian Book Review ($115,000) are the same as they received this year.

Mr Windschuttle is appealing to readers to cover the $15,000 shortfall by renewing subscriptions or taking a premium $300 subscription which includes copies of Quadrant books such as his own new book, The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, volume 3, The Stolen Generations 1881-2008.

The Australia Council's director of literature, Susan Hayes, dismissed Mr Windschuttle's claims of bias as nonsense. "Politics simply doesn't come into it. It is all done on the literary merit, the skill of the editor and content." She said that this year Quadrant had received more generous funding because applications in another category had been substandard.

For next year funding had returned to its normal size but two new magazines, Griffith Review and Wet Ink, became eligible for funding and were successful. Griffith Review has been allocated $40,000 and the South Australian-based Wet Ink, which has the Nobel Laureate for literature J.M. Coetzee as an adviser, received $20,000.

Ms Hayes said that the board was also concerned that Quadrant and some other magazines were using too narrow a field of contributors, and it was not the only magazine to lose funding. "It is competitive and it's a small pot of money … There have been two chairs over the past two years and I have never seen a hint of political bias … One was a Howard government appointee and one was a Rudd Government appointee."

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DC4 gets new lease of life



It's served time in the US Navy, lay dormant for years in the Arizona desert and was even seized for alleged drug-running in the Bahamas. But after a 16-month restoration, a historic 1943 DC4 World War II transport plane which has been out of action for 10 years, made its triumphant take-off at Archerfield Airport in Brisbane yesterday.

The military machine will become a flying museum to educate future generations about how air travel used to be.

Twenty volunteers from the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society, led by project manager Mike De La Hunty spent 5000 hours on the overhaul. "Sixteen months of hard work is about to pay off," a very excited Mr De La Hunty said before boarding. HARS executive member Ben Morgan said the society was proud to be able to restore historic aircraft.

It landed at Illawarra regional airport yesterday where its restoration will be finalised. It will be exhibited at air shows and the airport museum.

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Weak Copenhagen outcome a boost for Australia's conservatives

Copenhagen's wishy-washy outcome is a boost for Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and a setback for the Prime Minister, as they look to an election year in which climate policy will be a core issue.

A strong agreement would have given Kevin Rudd backing for his decision to bring back rewritten emissions trading legislation in February. At a personal level, a successful conference would have been a diplomatic plus for Rudd, who was a "friend of the chair". Instead, the minimal progress, with eyes shifting to yet another conference some time next year, has made it easier for Abbott to maintain that other ways to cut emissions are better than a "great big new tax".

Rudd so hyped the need to get his scheme through before Copenhagen that, now the conference has ended with only a weak "accord", people will be inclined to say, "So what was the hurry? And why rush now?". The need for hastening the Australian legislation, which both Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull understood, was because of just what's happened. If Copenhagen delivered little, it was always going to be hard to get the wind back into the emissions trading sails here.

While Abbott is helped by Copenhagen, the climate issue will still be a slog for him. Possibly some voters will transfer their anger at lack of international progress on to those at home who have been sceptics or reluctant to do much. Climate will remain a significant issue, and if Abbott is to have credibility his alternative "direct action" policy will have to do enough and be properly costed.

Soon both Abbott and the Government will specify their targets for cutting emissions within Australia's currently declared range, announced for Copenhagen, of 5-25 per cent.

Rudd said at the weekend that "once we've put together all developed and developing countries' targets and commitments", Australia would determine its own target. Rudd is adamant that "Australia will do no less and no more than the rest of the world … That is why we'll wait 'til we see a pulling together of the aggregate commitments from the rest of the world."

The Opposition does not want an argument about the final target - that would complicate its challenge to the ETS. There will be timing issues - when the Opposition policy is released compared to when the Government sets the target. The Opposition will want to know the official target as soon as possible and its current aim would be to match that target, so it can argue it would do as much at less cost.

Abbott will be fighting not just Rudd but Turnbull. In a tough article in The Times, Turnbull has attacked Abbott, saying if he were "a leftist you could understand his reluctance for market-based mechanisms for putting a price on carbon". From now until the election Turnbull will be sitting on the backbench like a black crow, swooping from time to time to attack the man who deposed him over an issue that has become a passionate cause for the one-time environment minister.

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Police investigate police in corrupt Victoria

The Victoria police are notoriously trigger-happy. Shooting disturbed people is their bag. A bullet replaces patience and negotiation

VICTORIA's police watchdog does not have the capacity to take over an investigation into the shooting of a fifteen year old boy at the hands of police, a court has heard. In the first hearing of a coronial inquest into the death of Melbourne teenager Tyler Cassidy, who was shot by Victorian police officers at a skateboarding park last December, State Coroner Jennifer Coate said the Office of Police Integrity would not take over the homicide investigation despite a push by Tyler's family for them to do so.

Members of Tyler's family have written to the OPI, requesting it to take control of the investigation so as to prevent a conflict that might arise from police investigating the actions of other police. It is understood that Youthlaw and the Human Rights Law Resource Centre have also made submissions to the Coroner requesting the investigation be taken out of the hands of Victoria Police.

State Coroner Coate confirmed that she had received concerns, "about the inappropriateness of the sector of police investigating police, in a matter such as this." "It's been requested that the investigation be taken over by the OPI, you may be aware that I have had communication with the OPI and the answer to that is no. "That capacity to basically take over an investigation of this magnitude is not available from the OPI," State Coroner Coate said. Justice Coate said she will instead receive "something in the form of an assessment of the adequacy of the police investigation by an experienced officer from the OPI."

Tyler's family did not attend court this morning. Through their lawyer, Jane Dixon SC, they said their absence from the hearing was "in protest of what they consider an inadequate investigation into the death.” "They feel that nothing is happening with the things that they are concerned about," she said. Ms Dixon told the hearing that the family had not been informed by the appropriate authorities that they had a right to refuse to submit Tyler's body for autopsy. "They feel misinformed," Ms Dixon said.

The coronial inquest is not likely to begin until the second half of next year.

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Useless ankle bracelet system for Victorian criminals

Another "high" for Victorian law enforcement

A SEX fiend is accused of randomly attacking eight women while wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet. The freed inmate is believed to have been on a night curfew, so the tag would alert authorities only if he left home after dark. But it's understood the assaults occurred in daylight.

The case again calls into question the controversial program of Extended Supervision Orders, under which prisoners are freed on strict conditions and fitted with the bracelets to stop them re-offending.

The man, who can't be named, is accused of going on a two-month spree, indecently assaulting eight women, one of whom was holding her baby in the street. He is also charged with stalking, wilful and obscene exposure, and offensive behaviour.

The woman who was holding her baby could scarcely believe it when she was groped in a western suburbs street. "He didn't turn around; then he did look back, and kept walking as he looked back," she said. She felt "violated". "How do you rehabilitate someone like that?"

The man was arrested on September 25 and is on remand for crimes that occurred over the previous two months. He is expected to face court in February.

Police Association secretary Greg Davies said Corrections Victoria needed to monitor offenders more closely and not rely too heavily on the monitoring technology. "Talk about all care, no responsibility," Sen-Sgt Davies said. "What good's a bracelet on their foot? "It doesn't stop them attacking someone. How many times do you have to take these kind of offenders out of society?"

Corrections Victoria said it could not comment, as the case was before the courts. But a spokeswoman said laws to take effect soon could keep high-risk sex offenders behind bars even after the end of their jail terms. "Courts will have the power to detain sex offenders in prison, if they are deemed as so high-risk they cannot be managed in the community, for up to three years; though this could be extended indefinitely," she said.

In Victoria, 23 sex offenders are on ESOs, and another 22 are living in a compound outside Ararat Prison, in the state's west. In October, the State Government signalled a move towards putting convicted arsonists on ESOs during fire season. The ankle bracelets are linked to a central monitoring system that notifies a central server of any breaches.

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"Merry Christmas" makes a comeback after Parramatta Council dumps "Seasons Greetings" signs

COUNCILS have turned their backs on political correctness, reinstating the "Merry Christmas" greeting to its rightful place. Parramatta Council, in Sydney's west, has taken down its "season's greetings" banners in favour of posters wishing "Merry Christmas". The move came after the council produced Christmas cards and 50 banners for five years without mentioning Christmas once.

Councillors believe the politically correct banners reflected "a secular view of Christmas" instead of the "traditional Australian view of Christmas". "Our community is fed up with this erosion of the true meaning and essence of Christmas through this ridiculous pre-emptive surrender of the real Christmas on the basis it may offend someone," councillor Michael McDermott said. "All we do is offend the great majority of our residents by this politically correct nonsense and watering down of the historically accurate view of Christmas. "This is not some puerile statement, it is a debate that our communities need to have about the essence of Christmas and the manner in which political correctness is used to attack and erode it."

He put forward a move to reinstate the phrase "Merry Christmas" on banners, websites, booklets, leaflets, and for Christmas events, as well as to cover the words "season's greetings" on all banners within the Parramatta CBD with "Merry Christmas". Staff were asked to design a range of banners that illustrated "the traditional notion of Christmas, and the nativity version and traditional Christian notion of Christmas".

A council spokesman said four new "Merry Christmas" posters would be hung at selected sites and new Christmas banners would be made next year.

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Opposition Leader slams Rudd over Copenhagen 'failure'

THE Copenhagen conference on climate change has been a "comprehensive failure" for the prime minister, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says. After 13 days of tortuous talks the representatives of 192 nations have set a goal of limiting warming to 2C and earmarked $US10 billion ($A11.28 billion) in early funding for poor countries most at risk from climate change.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd threw his support behind the deal as "a significant global agreement on climate change action", but said much more remained to be done. "Some will be disappointed by the amount of progress, the alternative was frankly catastrophic collapse," he told reporters at the troubled summit.

However, Mr Abbott said the result was a rebuff to the prime minister. "Intentions are better than nothing, but Mr Rudd has failed his own test," Mr Abbott told Sky News today. "He said a few years ago that what we wanted to get were real targets against real time lines ... and certainly by that standard it's been a comprehensive failure."

He said such agreement as was reached by world leaders was too unspecific to be of value. "We can all say let's get temperature increases down, but they haven't said what they would do to bring that about ... They've said let's not let the temperature go up by more than two degrees but they haven't said how they're going to achieve it. "No country at Copenhagen has committed to any particular way forward. That's why I think it's very disappointing and that's why I think it's very hard for the prime minister, who always said real progress meant real targets against real time lines, it's very hard for him to claim any kind of a victory."

Mr Abbott added: "What this shows is that Kevin Rudd was very unwise to rush Australia into prematurely adopting a commitment in the absence of similar commitments from the rest of the world, and I think it certainly entirely vindicates the opposition's stance in rejecting Mr Rudd's great big new tax on everything when parliament was sitting earlier this month."

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Big spending, poor results

TREASURY Secretary Ken Henry observed in a recent speech to the Whitlam Institute that the Whitlam government was "responsible for an enduring increase in the size of government". No argument there. But he went on to suggest this expansion "has never been reversed and I think I can safely say that it never will be".

Not so fast Ken! It is true government spending has increased dramatically. In Australia, commonwealth government spending was pushing 20 per cent of gross domestic product before Gough Whitlam came to power. The Rudd government has taken the commonwealth's expenditure share to 27.8 per cent of GDP this financial year, following the biggest increase in federal spending since Whitlam. Spending by all levels of government in Australia was about 34 per cent of GDP in 2007-08, even before the federal government's stimulus. The Treasury's last Intergenerational Report projected a further 4.75 percentage point increase in the government spending share of GDP by 2046-47 in the absence of changes to government policy.

But how big should government be? According to Henry, "the optimal size of government is not a question that can be answered by a technical economic analysis".The issue, he says, "goes beyond aggregates to broader issues of wellbeing".

Under Henry, Treasury has adopted a "wellbeing framework". It identifies wellbeing with several criteria: the level of freedom and opportunity that people enjoy; aggregate consumption possibilities; the distribution of consumption possibilities; the level of risk that people bear; and the level of complexity people are required to deal with.

Yet no policymaker committed to improving the wellbeing of the Australian people based on this framework can be resigned to a permanent expansion in the size of government. On the contrary, there is abundant evidence that big government fails these criteria for promoting wellbeing.

The literature on the optimal size of government finds that beyond a certain size, government hinders rather than helps the private sector to capture gains from trade and to generate income and wealth. This results in a narrower tax base, so that government revenue and spending actually become smaller in absolute terms than if the government share of GDP remained capped at its optimal size. Limiting the size of government as a share of GDP not only expands aggregate consumption possibilities, it increases the scope for improved distribution of consumption possibilities through the tax system.

The threshold at which the government share of GDP begins to reduce rather than promote economic growth is necessarily imprecise. Gerald Scully calculated that the optimal size of government for the US and New Zealand was between 19 per cent and 23 per cent of GDP. It would be surprising if the optimal size of government were any larger in Australia. Remarkably, John Maynard Keynes took a similar view. Keynes agreed on 25 per cent as the maximum tolerable proportion of taxation.

We can look beyond the implications of big government for economic growth to consider its implications for other indicators in areas such as health, education and the environment. Economists Vito Tanzi and Ludger Schuknecht conducted a review of the effects of increased government spending on a range of non-economic indicators in their book Public Spending in the 20th Century: A Global Perspective.

They found growth in the size of government in the post-war period was associated with worse outcomes in almost every economic and social dimension. They concluded the optimal size of government is less than 30 per cent of GDP and that most governments in the developed world exceeded their optimal size between 1960 and 1980. Tanzi and Schuknecht argue the second half of the 20th century constituted a global experiment in the effects of the growth of government, which pointed to its failure to improve wellbeing as defined by Treasury. Yet Henry insists a "lack of evidence of a clear relationship between increased expenditure and better outcomes is not to say that more expenditure will not improve outcomes". This sounds like a triumph of hope over experience. What makes the expansion in the size of government so insidious is that the economic possibilities and improved wellbeing that are forgone as a consequence are never seen by the public. As someone interested in promoting the wellbeing of the Australian people, Henry should be challenging this complacency, rather than resigning us to it.

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Greenies think that libel is free speech -- when they do the libelling

A Greenie MP's costly outburst raises questions about free speech. Must we watch what we say in the tea room? Might we be taped? Note however that the offender is a notorious extremist

The politician who said too much will return to the scene of the crime tonight. There'll be music and comedians at a fund-raiser for Ian Cohen at the Suffolk Park Progress Association hall, just south of Byron Bay. "And I might walk around with a gag on," says Cohen, a NSW Greens upper house MP. "The less I say, the better."

It was in this same hall in April 2001 that Cohen now admits he was unwise to speak out about a local developer, Jerry Lee Bennette, during two benefit concerts for Bill Mackay, a school teacher. Bennette had been suing Mackay for defamation over a letter to a newspaper criticising an environmental award to the developer for his gated community. Cohen was helping to raise funds to cover Mackay's legal costs. Little did Cohen know that Bennette had sent in private investigators who secretly taped his address. As three courts have heard, Cohen called Bennette a thug and a bully who was suing to stop criticism and stifle public debate - a so-called SLAPP suit (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation).

For that outburst, which was found to be untrue, Bennette sued Cohen, too. The MP now owes the developer more than $1 million, only $15,000 of which is the damages for the defamation. The rest is legal costs. "It is not as though he called him a pedophile or a wife-beater or something," Cohen's barrister, Clive Evatt, told the High Court last month. To no avail. Tonight's show will make a small dent in Cohen's bill. He is selling his Tamarama flat, which might cover half of it. He has raised another $45,000 in donations. He's been offered loans.

But this case is about much more than Ian Cohen, Evatt says. It has "very big" implications for freedom of speech, he claims. The barrister says the NSW Court of Appeal has significantly narrowed the common law defence of qualified privilege for defamation. Evatt warns this should alarm anyone inclined to speak their mind in a small forum, or anyone who dares to make robust comments about their boss or the strata manager.

"That's rubbish," says Bruce McClintock, SC, who represented Bennette. "The defence of qualified privilege has never protected gossip, backstabbing or abuse." McClintock says it has nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with a long-term malicious vendetta against his client by green groups in Byron Bay.

While a jury had found in 2007 that Cohen did indeed defame the developer, Justice Ian Harrison accepted Cohen's defence of qualified privilege. To rely on this defence, a person must have an interest or a duty - legal, social or moral - to make the statement to the people receiving it, and they must have a reciprocal interest or duty to hear it. Those who attended the hall had paid an entry fee in support of Bill Mackay. Justice Harrison suggested it was contrary to society's interest that people's rights should be hampered "by constant fear of actions for slander".

The judge ruled there was no malice in Cohen's remarks, at least in those inside the hall. But Justice Harrison said Cohen did demonstrate malice when, in November 1999, he called a local surf club and suggested, without foundation, that Bennette had assaulted a junior member.

The judge also said Bennette had been "prepared to dish it out when it suited him" and had "dedicated much of his life to putting people offside". He considered Bennette's 1996 conviction for assaulting the filmmaker David Bradbury, altercations with neighbours and an often "poisonous" relationship with Cohen. This included Bennette's apprehended violence order against Cohen, later dropped, in 2000. Bennette told the Herald he had been subjected to a malicious campaign, and he disputed Justice Harrison's remarks.

In March this year, the Court of Appeal overturned Justice Harrison's finding. Declaring Bennette was "a thug and a bully does not advance the cause of free speech, the environment or justice", Justice David Ipp said. The High Court refused Cohen leave to appeal last month.

McClintock said: "It is simply ridiculous to say that this case has any freedom of speech implications whatever. What sort of society would we live in if people could purvey … false gossip to their friends under the protection of the law?"

Cohen accepts the right to seek legal redress for defamation. After all, he sued Channel Seven and The Daily Telegraph. But he says there is a key difference: his own remarks, secretly taped, were never meant for wide consumption. Nevertheless, Cohen says: "The damages against me of $15,000 - I can cop that. But when you have a bill for costs from the plaintiff for $1,015,000, there's quite a discrepancy." He now self-censors his remarks.

"That is no good for democracy," says Bob Brown, the federal Greens leader, who believes others will be hushed. Brown was one of the so-called Gunns 20 - the 17 individuals and three organisations that the forestry company sued in 2004 for $6.4 million for activities ranging from protest to public statements. Five years and $2.8 million later, Gunns has dropped its case against 16 of the defendants, including Brown. Its claims against the remaining four amount to just $184,000.

The ACT has adopted the Greens' anti-SLAPP legislation. Brown wants the rest of Australia to follow its lead and that of some US states and introduce the legislation to ensure cases are thrown out if they are designed to prevent protest or debate.

But McClintock rejects the notion that Bennette's cases were SLAPP suits. They were "quite different from Gunns' misguided case … It was not started to shut Cohen up but to vindicate the plaintiff from a false (as the judge found), defamatory (as the jury found), public attack on him."

Cohen will retire in March 2011. Before he goes, he is considering a private member's bill seeking to ensure costs in such cases are commensurate with any damages.

The debate on freedom of speech is far from settled, but there are two certainties: a considerably poorer politician and an aggrieved small-time developer.

Cohen had been planning, in retirement, to do volunteer work in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. "I had big plans but they've been cast astray." He will have to see, but he is not crying poor. He has one property and a stake in another, both with mortgages, around Byron Bay. He knows others do it much tougher. He works with the disabled. Cohen recalls a Buddhist saying: "If they burn down your house, the better you can see the moon."

Jerry Lee Bennette is not so sanguine. "It is not possible to put into a few words the hurt to my family and myself caused by Mr Ian Cohen MP in what I regard as a malicious campaign to destroy my reputation and business."

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Dangerously sluggish government medical services again

After a stroke a 73-year-old man has to wait 35 mins for the ambulance

A 73-year-old man waited at least 35 minutes for an ambulance after suffering a stroke at the breakfast table. The ambulance service defended its response in the case of Craig Laird, whose family is upset help did not arrive faster. Paramedics were sent from Lara, outside Geelong, even though he lives near the city's heart.

Mr Laird's daughter Trish McClure said she arrived 15 minutes after her mother Priscilla called for help to find no ambulance at their home in Pleasant St, Newtown. "I pulled up and thought I'd missed it," she said. Mrs McClure said her mother phoned a second time while waiting because she was alarmed.

Ambulance Victoria said the call-out was logged as a code two rather than the top priority code one, because they had been told Mr Laird had had a heart attack but was conscious. A Geelong ambulance was en route to Pleasant St but was diverted to a code one job, so the Lara crew was sent.

AV's general manager of regional services Tony Walker said the code two assessment was based on a "robust process" and, had Mr Laird been unconscious, the ambulance would have been sent with lights and sirens. "We do apologise to the family," he said. Mr Walker said the crew arrived 35 minutes after the first call but Mr Laird's family said it was longer.

Mrs McClure said she did not believe the delay made any difference to her father's plight but he deserved quicker help. Mr Laird was believed to be in a stable condition in hospital last night. Opposition health spokesman David Davis said: "Stroke patients should not be left vulnerable by delayed ambulances."

The Herald Sun this week revealed that Yarrawonga woman Kim Broadbent was left impaled on a fence post for 47 minutes before ambulance help arrived. Former St Kilda footballer Laurie Stephenson was not seen by a paramedic until 38 minutes after he collapsed with a fatal heart attack.

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I am a lucky lad!

Why? Because I received a Christmas card from Kevin Rudd! I must admit that it is the first time I have received a Christmas card from a Prime Minister. I think it is because he is my local member or something like that. It is a rather small card so I suspect that there is a hierarchy of such things and more important people get better cards. Anyway, I am happy to be at the bottom of the ladder. Climbing ladders has never been my thing.

At least I think it is a Christmas card. The word "Christmas" does not appear anywhere on it -- unsurprisingly in these times. See below. The major motif seems to be an abstract impression of one of Brisbane's splendid "CityCats" (municipal catamaran ferries on the Brisbane river) going under a bridge. The writing on the trees etc is simply a collection of names of Brisbane suburbs, misspelled in one case. I guess they are the suburbs that are covered by the CityCat service.





Kevvy's signature is a bit surprising: Almost feminine. But I doubt that he signs his cheques that way. I wonder what a graphologist would make of it?




The charade of "child protection" by Australian government agencies

By Dr Jeremy Sammut

In 2009, Dantean images of child abuse and neglect have reminded us that child protection authorities continue to fail vulnerable children. Recall the seven year-old autistic girl starved to the death by her parents on the mid-north coast of NSW. When her body was discovered in the faeces-ridden bedroom she died a prisoner in, ‘Ebony’ weighted just 9 kg. Black vomit and bull ants ran from her mouth and nose.

Remember two-year old Dean Shillingsworth who longed to be nurtured by his violent mother. When Dean ‘clung’ to the woman who bore him, she responded not with a mother’s love but with murderous rage – she choked him to death, shoved his corpse into a suitcase, and threw it into a lake in South West Sydney.

Yet amid the darkness appears a slither of light and hope. The least horrific image (relatively speaking) is the most important; it reveals the truth of the child protection crisis.

In 2004, Dean’s elder sister was hit and kicked by her mother’s boyfriend. The girl, aged just three, walked more than a kilometre, unaccompanied, to the home of a relative.

Dean’s sister knew that her family situation was abnormal, that she was in danger, and that she needed a haven. This elemental tale of human instinct and survival (detailed in the NSW Ombudsman’s report into Dean’s death) is in its own way the modern-day equivalent of the story of the ‘Rabbit-Proof Fence.’ It tells us that even a three-year-old knows that the current approach to child protection in this country is fatally flawed.

In the last 40 years, removal of children has become a last resort. Standard practice in all states and territories is to leave at risk children with their parents and instead provide dysfunctional families with ‘appropriate’ support services.

Dean and Ebony’s parents had a long history of involvement with the NSW Department of Community Services. Despite numerous reports of risk of harm, DoCS did not adequately investigate, and Ebony and Dean were not even seen to check on their welfare. Therefore, no action was taken to remove either child from obviously unsafe environments. In Dean’s case, a taxpayer-funded charity did all it could to ensure his mother kept custody of the children she was unfit to care for.

Unless child protection authorities and their political masters face up to the harsh realities and responsibilities involved in effective child protection, the deaths of Ebony and Dean will have truly been in vain.

All reports of child abuse and neglect must be fully investigated, and many children need to be removed from their families to keep them safe. Unless we start rescuing more children, this won’t be the last Christmas haunted by memories of unwanted and unloved kids who should have been saved.

The above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated December 18. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590.





Warmist scientists 'crying wolf' over coral reefs

At last some logic and common-sense. I notice that alarmist Hoagy is not saying much these days after some of his own research showed great resilience in coral. It's just amazing how Warmists routinely ignore the fact that corals survived much warmer episodes in the prehistoric past



A SENIOR marine researcher has accused Australian scientists of "crying wolf" over the threat of climate change to the Great Barrier Reef, exposing deep division about its vulnerability.

Peter Ridd's rejection of the consensus position that the reef is doomed unless greenhouse emissions are checked comes as new research on the Keppel group, hugging Queensland's central coast, reveals its resilience after coral bleaching. Professor Ridd, a physicist with Townsville's James Cook University who has spent 25 years investigating the impact of coastal runoff and other problems for the reef, challenged the widely accepted notion that coral bleaching would wipe it out if climate change continued to increase sea surface temperatures. Instead of dying, the reef could expand south towards Brisbane as waters below it became warmer and more tolerable for corals, he said.

His suggestion is backed up by an Australian Institute of Marine Science research team headed by veteran reef scientist Ray Berkelmans, which has documented astonishing levels of recovery on the Keppel outcrops devastated by bleaching in 2006.

Professor Ridd said scientists who predicted corals would be mostly extinct by mid-century had a credibility problem because the Great Barrier Reef was in "bloody brilliant shape". He said the reef had defied predictions that it would be overwhelmed by crown of thorns starfish, smothered in sediment from river runoff or poisoned by sediment and chemicals washed on to corals from the mainland. He accepted that ocean acidification associated with climate change was a genuine danger because it could impede the process of coral calcification, destroying the reef's building block. Scientists responsible for "crying wolf" over lesser threats had done the research community a disservice, he said.

"Ten years ago, I was told that the coral was going to die from sediment, and we have proved that is complete rubbish," Professor Ridd told The Weekend Australian. "They are saying that pesticides are a problem, but when you look at the latest data, that is a load of rubbish. They are saying bleaching is the end of the world, but when you look into it, that is a highly dubious proposition. "So when something comes along like the calcification problem, you are sort of left with this wolf story . . . they are crying wolf all the time."

Leading scientists including former AIMS chief scientist Charlie Veron and reef research pioneer Ove Hoegh-Gulberg, who attended the Copenhagen talks on climate change, have warned that the Great Barrier Reef will be destroyed by the middle of the century if ocean temperatures continue to rise, unleashing more frequent and lethal bleaching. Mass bleaching was recorded on the Great Barrier Reef in 1998 and 2002, affecting up to 60 per cent of all corals. The last severe outbreak, in which stressed corals eject the symbiotic algae that provide them with nutrients, causing many to die, was localised on the Keppel reefs three years ago.

More than 95 per cent of the corals were affected, of which about a third died. The corals became stressed after the water temperature topped 28.5C and began to die when it hit 30C and stayed at that level for a week or more, with limited wind or cloud cover to ease the heating.

Scientists have found the tolerance level of corals varies. Reefs around Magnetic Island, off Townsville, can withstand water temperatures in the low 30s, while those off Yemen, at the foot of the Arabian peninsula, live in temperatures that can reach 34C.

As The Weekend Australian reports today, some of the corals on the Keppel outcrops are more thickly covered in coral than before bleaching in 2006, raising hope the living heart of the reef can acclimatise to spikes in water temperature through a remarkable process of algal shuffling. "That was a real surprise," Dr Berkelmans said, conducting us on an underwater tour of what he calls his "lab rat" reefs at the bottom of the Great Barrier Reef.

He said the findings made him more optimistic about the ability of corals to adapt to climate change, especially on inshore reefs such as those in the Keppels. "People say the reef is dying," Dr Berkelmans said. "The Great Barrier Reef is 2000km long, with 3000 reefs. Are you telling me all of it is going to die?

"I don't think so. There are some areas that are naturally more resilient than others, there are some areas that see warmer temperatures less frequently because of favourable oceanography or other factors . . . We might lose species, and we might lose them at many reefs. The Great Barrier Reef would look vastly different, but the reef would still be there."

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority chairman Russell Reichelt, a former AIMS scientist who worked on crown of thorns outbreaks, said Professor Ridd had cherrypicked data to support his thesis that the threat to the reef was exaggerated. "I would liken it to the medical debate around `Does smoking cause cancer?'," Dr Reichelt said. [No facts. Just abuse. Typical Warmist]

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Conservative leader says all children should be taught about the Bible

BIBLE classes should be compulsory so children have a fundamental understanding of Christianity on leaving school, federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says. "I think everyone should have some familiarity with the great texts that are at the core of our civilisation," Mr Abbott told the Herald Sun. "That includes, most importantly, the Bible.

"I think it would be impossible to have a good general education without at least some serious familiarity with the Bible and with the teachings of Christianity. "That doesn't mean that people have to be believers."

But former Howard government Islamic advisor Dr Ameer Ali, said Mr Abbott's remarks were "over the top". "It's one thing to say every child needs a good knowledge of history and geography or science," Dr Ali said. "But it is something else to say all children should have a knowledge of the Bible. That might hurt other people who have their own holy scriptures," he said.

And the Australian Education Union's federal president, Angelo Gavrielatos, said that religion was not a priority for schools. "There is a place for comparative studies of religion in the curriculum, but ultimately we consider it a private matter for parents and their children," he said.

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Australian students save on fees by studying in New Zealand

Some New Zealand universities (e.g. Victoria, Otago) have a very good name indeed so this is good thinking. I would go there myself if I were still a poor student

AUSTRALIAN students are gaining university degrees at half the price by heading across the Tasman to study in New Zealand. It's a chance to turn the tide on the Kiwi influx, because a little-known government deal means New Zealand taxpayers are subsidising more than 2000 Australians to study at NZ universities.

Unlike other international students, Australians qualify for domestic status meaning they pay the same fees as the locals, and they also qualify for the low-cost student loan HELP (formerly HECS) equivalent, Study Link, and also the Austudy equivalent for living allowances.

Year 12 school leavers around the country will soon find out if they managed to get into their desired universities. If they miss out, Renee Walker, head of marketing for Christchurch-based Canterbury University, suggests giving the land of the long white cloud a go. "Course costs are subsidised and generally cheaper than Australian universities, especially with the exchange rate. And on-campus accommodation is also very reasonable," she said. On-campus accommodation ranges from $NZ198 ($158) a week self-catered, to $NZ375 ($299) a week for all meals, electricity and phone.

Recent figures released by the Federal Government revealed 20 per cent of first-year university students in Australia drop out with financial hardship cited as a leading factor. Other students who complete their degrees leave with a HELP debt ranging from $15,000 to $40,000. Last year there were 1.3 million Australians with accumulated HELP debts of about $14.6 billion, according to the Australian Tax Office.

Sue Sundstrom of the NSW Careers Advisory Association said New Zealand was a viable alternative, especially for regional students who faced travel to a major metro university anyway. David Berridge, a career counsellor with a Sydney eastern suburbs school, said two of the school's year 12 students were thinking of studying business at Otago. "The UAI (Universities Admissions Index) is lower, 74-76, so if kids miss out here, it's certainly worth looking at," he said.

At Sydney University, an arts degree costs $5300 a year. At Monash in Victoria, it's about $6300 and $5400 at University of Queensland. At Canterbury University in New Zealand, the same degree will cost $NZ4500 ($3598) a year. Over the course of a three-year degree, that's $6000 to $9000 saved.

More expensive courses such as economics and engineering cost $7567 a year at Sydney University, $7300 at Monash and $8625 at UQ. Over the Tasman, the most expensive courses offered at Canterbury are $NZ5500 ($4398), again a saving of between $3000 and $4000 a year.

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More rapes by "refugee" Africans?

Ethnicity of offenders is zealously suppressed these days but the last sentence seems to give the game away. Lebanese Muslims are also known for callous pack rapes but Arabic interpreters should not be hard to find.

I like to do all I can towards defeating censorship. I have a whole blog specifically aimed at that, in fact. And if I get it wrong, the fault lies with the secrecy, not me.

A TEENAGE boy charged over the pack rape of two 15-year-old girls told police he'd done nothing wrong and the girls wanted it, a court heard today. The 16-year-old boy, one of two charged today with the pack rape involving up to 10 males in Melbourne in October, had shown no remorse, police informant Detective Dave Newman told a children's court.

"It seemed in the interview any girl outside at night and drinking alcohol is fair game and I have a major concern he could do this to other people," he told the court. "I am quite disturbed and have major concerns about that attitude being back on the streets and going straight back to reoffending with members of the public or witnesses."

The 16-year-old boy from Broadmeadows was charged with four counts of rape and a 17-year-old boy from Coolaroo has been charged with two counts of rape.

The court heard a graphic account of how the girls were raped repeatedly and taunted by up to 10 males. Someone close to the defendant had talked about burning the girls' house down while the defendant talked about "buying the girls" to get himself off, the court heard.

A lawyer for the boy told the magistrate he had no criminal history and should be granted bail as two other males involved in the case had been. A magistrate said she was concerned the boy was a risk and was convinced that the two girls were petrified and remanded him in custody until another hearing next month.

The 17-year-old will apply for bail next week and will spend the weekend behind bars after an interpreter could not be found to appear in court.

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A victory for the right to express an opinion

Owners of defunct Sydney restaurant lose defamation case against food critic. Sadly, such cases are not always won by the critic

THE owners of a now defunct Sydney restaurant have lost their defamation case over a food critic's bad review. Aleksandra Gacic, her sister Ljiljana Gacic and Branislav Ciric sued publisher John Fairfax and critic Matthew Evans over the review of their restaurant Coco Roco at Sydney's King Street Wharf.

In September 2003, the Sydney Morning Herald published a review referring to "unpalatable'' dishes, describing the restaurant's overall value as "a shocker'' and scoring it 9/20 - in the "stay home'' category. The restaurant went into administration in March 2004.

The article was found to have conveyed three defamatory meanings. Firstly, that it sold some unpalatable food, secondly, that it provided some bad service, and thirdly, that the trio were incompetent restaurant owners because they employed a chef who made poor quality food.

In the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, Justice Ian Harrison delivered a verdict for the publisher and Mr Evans, ordering the trio to pay their legal costs. He found the defence of comment had been established in relation to the three meanings. He also found the defence of truth had been established in relation to some bad service.

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Net filters 'thin end of the wedge': Kirby

I don't agree with Justice Kirby often but I do on this one

Former High Court judge Michael Kirby has criticised the Federal Government's internet censorship agenda, saying it could stop the "Berlin Walls of the future" from being knocked down.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, announced he would introduce legislation before next year's elections forcing ISPs to block a secret blacklist of "refused classification" (RC) websites for all Australian internet users. Most experts agree that Conroy's policy will not result in any meaningful dent in the availability of harmful internet content, will create significant freedom of speech issues and will be prone to abuse by politicians.

Almost 20,000 people have voted in a Fairfax Media poll on internet censorship and 96 per cent of respondents oppose the filters, which the Government itself has admitted could be easily bypassed and do not cover peer-to-peer, instant messaging or other communications protocols. Nearly 120,000 Australians signed a petition against internet censorship by online activist group GetUp.

In an interview with Fairfax Radio this morning, Kirby said some circles feared the controversial policy would be "the thin end of the wedge of the Government moving in to regulating the actual internet itself". "Once you start doing that you get into the situation of Burma and Iran where the Government is taking control of what people hear and what information they get," he said, adding that Australia's approach hadn't been attempted anywhere else in the world.

Google has also entered the debate, saying yesterday the scope of the content to be filtered went too far beyond child pornography and that the "heavy handed" approach would restrict freedom of expression. "Refused Classification (or RC) is a broad category of content that includes not just child sexual abuse material but also socially and politically controversial material - for example, educational content on safer drug use - as well as the grey realms of material instructing in any crime, including politically controversial crimes such as euthanasia," Google Australia's head of policy, Iarla Flynn, said. "This type of content may be unpleasant and unpalatable but we believe that government should not have the right to block information which can inform debate of controversial issues."

Kirby and Google's concerns mirror that of Sydney University Associate Professor Bjorn Landfeldt, who said yesterday that there was no clear definition of "refused classification" and the goalposts dictating what content is prohibited could be substantially widened in future. Already, the refused classification category includes a significant proportion of legal material such as regular gay and straight porn sites, fetish sites, euthanasia material and innocuous sites that have been mistakenly prohibited.

"It was through 'public complaints mechanisms' like the one Conroy is proposing, that classic literature such as The Catcher in the Rye, Ulysses and The Story of the Kelly Gang were once banned in Australia," GetUp said.

Landfeldt also criticised the pilot trial report used by the Government to justify the policy, saying the trials were designed to succeed from the outset, presented no new information and were now being used by the Government to further its political agenda.

The Government has said 15 other Western democracies have implemented the same filtering plan but most of the other countries have made the scheme voluntary for ISPs and the blacklisted content is limited to child pornography. "Australia's proposed regime would uniquely combine a mandatory framework and a much wider scope of content, the first of its kind in the democratic world," Flynn said.

In a phone interview, Flynn said it was too early to say what effect the filters would have on Google's services but "if you were to look at YouTube today and ask: 'Is there material on YouTube which could be considered refused classification?', the answer would have to be 'yes' ".

Conroy's policy has attracted significant ridicule from international commentators and media, with news headlines such as "Australia plans Chinese-style internet filtering" and "Joining China and Iran, Australia to filter internet" appearing on the Telegraph.co.uk and FOXNews websites.

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Corporate watchdog bites the dust yet again

They're absolutely brainless. Can't they find something useful to do?

WESTPAC has thwarted the corporate watchdog's attempt to stop it issuing 900,000 new debit cards to customers who did not ask for one. The Federal Court yesterday declared the bank had acted lawfully when it began sending customers unsolicited Mastercard debit cards to replace their existing Handycard debit cards, The Australian reports.

Westpac stopped the rollout in May after the Australian Securities & Investments Commission expressed concern that the bank's actions contravened the ASIC Act. The case hinged on whether Westpac had breached section 12DL of the act, which says a person may not be sent an unsolicited credit or debit card unless the card is a replacement for "a card of the same kind".

It was the first time that section of the act had been considered by a court and opens the way for other banks to follow Westpac's lead. ASIC argued in court that the new debit card was not the same kind of card under the meaning of the act because it could be used more freely. In particular, the debit card, unlike the Handycard, did not require a PIN and could be used over the phone or internet.

But judge Steven Rares found withdrawing funds from a customer's account was the defining characteristic of both cards. "It was not the intention of the act to constrain the relationship between an issuer of a card and its customer by preventing the issuer updating the particular kind of card with the latest version of that kind of card," he wrote in his judgment.

ASIC said yesterday it was considering the judgment and whether to appeal. A Westpac spokeswoman said most customers sent the replacement card were happy with the extra features.

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School principals win right to expel problem students

PRINCIPALS will be given new powers to expel problem students following hundreds of violent attacks in Queensland classrooms in the past year. The details of the incidents, including sex acts, alcohol and drug abuse, bomb threats and arson, have been obtained by The Courier-Mail under Right to Information laws. A special needs student was tied up and dragged around by the feet, some students were knocked unconscious, threatened with knives and a suspected gun, pushed out of windows or bashed with chairs. A teacher was bitten by a student and left bleeding.

Education Minister Geoff Wilson said that, from next year, principals would be able to expel students instead of having to get permission from an Education Queensland district boss. "I'm appalled by the behaviour that's been reported to me," he said. "The rights of students . . . to a positive learning environment must come ahead of the right of any individual student."

Mr Wilson said exclusions were increasing and that he supported "tough action against unacceptable behaviour". More than 1200 students were up for expulsion or cancellation of enrolment in the past financial year.

Queensland Council of Parents and Citizens' Associations president Margaret Black said greater principal powers needed to be combined with discipline at home to fully address increasing violence "across the board".

Students as young as six are up for expulsion from state schools for violent, illegal or inappropriate behaviour. Queensland Government figures show five of more than 800 recommendations for exclusion in the past year related to year 1 students. It was recommended another 383 students have their enrolments cancelled, which can only occur if they are at least 16 years old. Year 9 and 10 students accounted for more than half of the 864 incidents, which resulted in an attempt by the principal to have them permanently removed.

Education Queensland documents released to The Courier-Mail under Right to Information laws revealed a three-month snapshot of violent, illegal and immoral behaviour at state schools where more than 120 students faced expulsion. The majority of cases, which occurred between July 13 and September 14 this year, related to physical misconduct, including several assaults on teachers where they or their property has been damaged.

In one incident, a teacher was bitten and left bleeding after intervening in a student assault. "I saw (name omitted) holding another student in a headlock," the teacher said. "I instructed him to let go . . . when (he) let go (he) appeared very aggressive. "I stood in front of (him) and advised that he could not go anywhere until he calmed down. "At this point (he) bit my arm in an attempt to escape."

In a statement, Assistant Director-General of students services Patrea Walton said Education Queensland had hired bullying expert Dr Ken Rigby to investigate strategies to address the problem. "The increase in the number of students suspended or recommended for exclusion from Queensland state schools reflects Education Queensland's tough stance on unacceptable behaviour," she said. "It is not in any school's interests to keep badly behaved students in the classroom disrupting the learning of others."

Queensland Teachers Union president Steve Ryan said increased violence was a reflection of society. "In terms of general assaults, that's on the increase in the community as well – schools are dealing with that and generally speaking that's why the numbers are increasing in terms of schools taking action," he said.

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Barnaby blasts official art



Most Australians will agree with him. It's mainly an arty-farty "elite" who go in for such crap

POLITICIAN Barnaby Joyce has turned art critic, saying sculptures at Canberra's Parliament House look like they were created by a couple of drunken men. The Queenslander, who was recently appointed as Opposition finance spokesman, ridiculed some sculptures as nothing more than a curiosity for "durrie munchers", and described one as an aerial and another as Mr Squiggle's last stand.

He said he had "no problem" with some sculptures but said there was one in every corner. "There's one (sculpture in the building), a piece of steel with a chain that looks like it could have been welded together by a few blokes from Taroom on the turps," Senator Joyce said. "Some of the stuff looks like it's been put together by my three-year-old daughter."

But Senator Joyce's art appraisal has angered Arts Minister Peter Garrett. "As with most things, thankfully not all of it has to appeal to Barnaby to earn its artistic credentials," Mr Garrett said. "Senator Joyce is morphing into the Sir Les Patterson of modern day politics, only without the satirical edge. "Not content being the extremist in chief on climate change we now have Barnaby Joyce appointing himself the nation's cultural attache.

"Australian artists produce an enormous variety of work across a range of mediums [The plural is "media", Peter. Mediums hold seances], to great acclaim both at home and abroad and many are featured in the nation's Parliament for staff, MPs and visitors to share and experience."

Senator Joyce's no-nonsense attack comes as Canberra's Parliamentary Services Department cuts back on the amount of shrubs and plants it hires to adorn the building, in a bid to save taxpayers $120,000 a year. Senator Joyce said the money forked out for art could be spent on repairing a leaking roof at Parliament House or keeping some of the hired trees and shrubs from being sent back to contractors. He said if they were desperate they should sell some of the art.

Greenery has been hired since Parliament House opened in 1988.

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Impaled woman has long wait for government ambulance

"Ambulance Victoria (AV) will make sure you receive the best possible care", they say. Tell that to the woman below

A WOMAN was impaled on a steel fence for an agonising 47 minutes waiting for an ambulance. The 34-year-old received no pain relief while her body was supported by volunteer emergency services workers during the ordeal at Yarrawonga, in Victoria's north.

Ambulance Victoria has launched an investigation into the delay. It was contacted at 9.42pm on Tuesday and told Kim Broadbent had been impaled through the groin in a fall. A crew did not arrive until 10.29pm. There was no paramedic available in the border town that night and sources said a graduate officer was refused permission to attend.

A crew was sent from Wangaratta, 55km away, but was not cleared to travel over the speed limit or with lights and sirens. By then, Ms Broadbent had spent more than 47 minutes seriously injured, lapsing in and out of consciousness. There is widespread disgust in Yarrawonga at the delay.

Ms Broadbent travelled to Melbourne by air ambulance with a section of fence still lodged inside her. She did not arrive at The Alfred hospital until about three hours after the first call. She was stable last night.

Her mother, Heather Broadbent, attended the scene and said those waiting for the ambulance were supporting her daughter and afraid to move her for fear of doing more damage. Mrs Broadbent said Wangaratta seemed too far away for an emergency job in Yarrawonga.

AV regional general manager Garry Cook said all parts of the case were being examined. Ambulance Employees Australia acting general secretary Phil Cavanagh said the review needed to address a key point: "Yarrawonga had no ambulance. Why?"

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Copenhagen 'a big gravy train', says Abbott

Nice to hear it called for exactly what it is

OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott says the climate change summit in Copenhagen is turning into a gravy train for some countries. Wealthy nations in Copenhagen have so far pledged some $US22 billion ($24.43 billion) to bankroll the war on global warming. Australia was one of six developed countries that promised to set up a fund to fight the loss of forests in neighbouring countries - a leading source for rising temperatures.

Mr Abbott told a gathering of Liberal Party members in the seat of Deakin in Melbourne's east that the coalition would be bringing out its own climate change policy in a few weeks.

He fears that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who is in Copenhagen, will do a deal that will hurt the Australian economy while not doing much to advance world environment. "My problem is, why does Mr Rudd think the best way to save the environment is to increase your cost of living?" Mr Abbott said. "Why does he give us a tax policy and tell us it's an environment policy?" He said the Coalition policy on the environment would be one that tackles the problem and not one that pretends to fix the environment.

"My worry is that the more we see of Copenhagen, the more it looks like a great big gravy train for people whose objective is not so much the environment but it is to get more for them by leaping on the climate change bandwagon."

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No website crash, says fire service, just 'service interruptions'

Typical bureaucracy. But this bureaucracy can be a killer. Its bungles have killed in the past



The Country Fire Authority has refused to admit its website crashed today despite Victorians being unable to view crucial warnings during the high fire danger day. Despite the denial, the CFA has promised an investigation into why browsers were unable to find crucial information on a day posing an extreme fire threat to parts of the state.

The website was beset by technical glitches this morning as the state faced its hottest day since Black Saturday and emergency services warned residents to prepare for fires. It was then completely unable to show warnings or a summary map of current fires in Victoria for a number of hours.

Angry readers contacted The Age, frustrated that on a day of extreme heat and high winds they were unable to check the website. "This is not good enough! I am sick of the excuses," one reader wrote. "The CFA receptionist told me it was being looked at by IT and that I should try connecting again in an hour or so! What??? Ok sure... I could have smoke approaching my house and I should try checking the site in an hour or so!"

CFA chief executive officer Mick Bourke said the website had experienced technical faults and was now again showing fire warnings. "A full investigation into the causes of the service interruptions is being instituted by CFA to ensure that they do not reoccur," he said. "The CFA website has been functioning all day, the site has not ‘crashed’ but the feed of warning messages was interrupted. "Emergency reponse and community safety was not affected."

At 3.35pm in Melbourne, the temperature had hit 38 degrees, with the forecast maximum of 39 expected to be reached between 4pm and 5pm. The bushfire danger rating will be severe and very high for much of the rest of the state.

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Queensland council avoids naughty word: "Christmas"

Sunshine Coast Council has defended its decision to exclude the word "Christmas" from its 2009 corporate Christmas cards. Mailed and emailed cards wish their recipients "seasons greetings" and "all the best for the festive season and the New Year", but no reference to Christmas.

Defending its generic message, council initially said it had no policy to remove Christmas but was "mindful of people’s different backgrounds and beliefs". A further statement added: "Council’s vision is to be Australia’s most sustainable region vibrant, green, diverse. With diversity of belief and cultural background in mind council seeks to promote goodwill and peace during the festive season."

Noosa Christian Outreach Centre pastor Michael Clift said he was baffled as to why council would choose not to acknowledge the very season that provided the reason for it to mail cards. "I’d also then ask why they are sponsoring our Christmas carols concert?" Pastor Clift said. "Dear me, at the end of the day why sponsor that event as they do every year when we will be giving Christmas one heck of a belting?"

He said anyone offended by use of the word Christmas should not take a holiday on December 25. "Rock up to work on Friday the 25th and, for goodness sake, don’t have the following Monday off as that would really be hypocritical," he said.

"If the ethos is to avoid offending people then they’ve already done it. "I’m offended they’ve not had the courage to encourage Christmas."

Noosa District Catholic Parish Father Mark Franklin was similarly perplexed. "It sounds a little crazy if you ask me," he said. "I cannot see the sense in sending cards to wish people a happy or merry anything unless it is about Christmas, seeing that is why we have a holiday. "I know that lots of people from our church would find this strange."

Rev Scott Ballment of Tewantin and Sunrise Beach Uniting Churches said it was a shame Council had taken the stance it had, but he added that it would not stop his congregation celebrating Christmas. "It does seem strange that if you’re sending out Christmas cards to only use season’s greetings," he said. "It’s certainly somewhat odd. It’s a shame they’ve removed it but we will still be celebrating in full force."

A former Noosa Council staffer told The Noosa Journal the old council had no policy against use of the word Christmas and had used the word on cards in previous years.

University of the Sunshine Coast lecturer in public relations Dr Amalia Matheson said companies and councils ran the risk of being "bland" in their corporate messages in a bid to try to please all sections of the community with their choice of words. "At least they have not gone for the American `happy holidays’," she said.

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International deal to resettle 78 Tamils in several countries

Australia is on the verge of clinching a deal with New Zealand, Canada, Norway and possibly the US to help resettle the 78 Tamil asylum-seekers rescued by the Australian Customs vessel the Oceanic Viking. The Australian understands a number of countries have indicated a willingness to take some of the Sri Lankans, who were rescued in October after their boat foundered. However, while sources say "a significant" number of the Sri Lankans are expected to be resettled in third countries, Australia is still set to take the majority.

News of the expected breakthrough came as a boat carrying 55 people was intercepted off Ashmore Reef on Tuesday night. The interception -- the 54th this year -- will push the immigration detention centre on Christmas Island to a boatload from breaking point. According to an Immigration Department spokesman, there are currently 1443 detainees on the island. But when the 55 intercepted on Tuesday arrive the number will jump to 1498, just 62 shy of the centre's current capacity of 1560.

There is a growing expectation the government will begin transferring asylum-seekers to detention centres on the mainland, possibly as early as next week. At least three countries -- New Zealand, Canada and Norway -- are believed to have indicated to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees a willingness to take some of the 78 Tamils. The US is also understood to be interested, although it is not clear if a formal offer has been made.

New Zealand's involvement would represent an about-face a month after Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman refused to help resettle the Tamils, issuing a pointed rebuff to the Rudd government over its "ad hoc" handling of the incident. A spokeswoman for Dr Coleman could not be contacted for comment yesterday.

Nor would Mr Rudd's office comment on the claims. A spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Chris Evans would say only that Australia was in discussions "with other countries around the world which also have resettlement programs".

Yesterday, The Australian reported all 78 of the asylum-seekers had been designated genuine refugees by the UNHCR, increasing the pressure on Canberra to find the Sri Lankans a home. It is not clear how many of the 78 will be resettled in third countries, although it is understood more than half will end up in Australia. One source said the numbers were still the subject of discussion, but that "a significant number" were expected to go to third countries.

Much will depend on whether Indonesia chooses to strictly enforce the timeframes for resettlement. In exchange for leaving the Oceanic Viking, Australia promised successful refugees would be resettled to a third country within four to 12 weeks. But the agreement also involved Indonesia, making continued goodwill from Jakarta essential.

Organising access to the asylum-seekers is also understood to be a potential barrier, with other resettlement countries expected to want see the 78 in order to conduct their own checks.

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