Brisbane flood was the work of a negligent bureaucracy

Had Brisbane's big flood-mitigation dam been operated with any semblance of thought, the flood would not have happened. And they ignored those who were thinking

A pioneer of the Brisbane Valley was asked to "call back tomorrow" when he made an urgent Sunday morning call to the Wivenhoe Dam's operator, SEQWater, to seek immediate action to mitigate a large flood he warned would soon occur from rainfall across the catchment.

Chris McConnel - whose family's history in recording and forecasting local flooding and rainfall goes back to the 1840s, when his great-grandfather settled the land - said yesterday he was "very angry" his warnings were not heeded by SEQWater on the crucial January weekend.

Mr McConnel wants the royal commission-style inquiry into the floods to examine the duty roster on the weekend of January 8 and 9 to establish the seniority and availability of staff making vital decisions on water releases as the dam filled with increasing inflows and rainfall.

He said that if asked to give evidence at the inquiry he would explain that at about 11am on Sunday, January 9, after measuring the river height and talking to local contacts about rainfall in their gauges, he rang SEQWater to warn of an imminent and "very large flood".

Mr McConnel said he knew then that it was imperative for the dam operator to immediately and significantly increase its rates of release of water to give the dam critical storage for floodwater. But he said after explaining the situation to SEQWater he was put on hold and then told he should "call back tomorrow" on the same 1800 telephone number to speak to the right people. "I said to him: 'That's going to be too bloody late. We're going to get a big flood and the dam needs to be releasing a lot more water to cope'," Mr McConnel told The Australian yesterday.

"The SEQWater guy said to me, 'Well, I can't add to what I've said. Please ring back tomorrow'."

Mr McConnel, a grazier who runs a heritage-listed property that has been in his family for 170 years, said he spoke to his local newspaper, the Brisbane Valley Sun, "to ensure this is not swept under the carpet".

Mr McConnel said that during previous floods he and other locals with extensive knowledge of conditions in the catchment area and its local creeks had found it impossible to reach the right people at SEQWater on weekends and public holidays to give them a warning. "Nature does not stop on weekends, and it doesn't adhere to an operating manual for a dam," Mr McConnel said. "I am very angry at the management of the dam and the operating manual. What has happened is just crazy."

SEQWater has strongly defended its operation of Wivenhoe Dam. But senior engineers and water experts have run calculations showing the flood in the Brisbane River would have been largely avoided if more water had been released sooner.

SEQWater is refusing to provide briefings or answer questions pending the public inquiry headed by Supreme Court judge Cate Holmes.

SEQWater emails leaked to The Australian show that on the morning of Friday, January 7, SEQWater knew from the Bureau of Meteorology to "expect heavy rainfall from Sunday to Tuesday".

The emails show that the strategy on Friday morning was to start releasing water from the dam's flood storage compartment at 3pm that day at a rate of 1200 cubic metres per second (cumecs) and to stay at that "for a couple of days and continue releasing until the end of the week". The next email on Saturday night, from an SEQWater engineering officer in contact with the flood operations centre in Brisbane, states: "Current releases from Wivenhoe Dam are 1250 cumecs. Forecast for the next four days is for significant rainfall across (southeast Queensland)."

The next email, which was sent about 24 hours later on Sunday night, states: "Current releases from Wivenhoe Dam are 1400 cumecs. However, please note that we are experiencing major flooding in our catchments. Inflows are approximately 5000 cumecs in the upper Brisbane River and 3000 cumecs in the Stanley River system, with rainfall continuing.

"The (bureau's) current severe weather warning predicts heavy rainfall until Tuesday. If these totals eventuate in the next 12 to 24 hours, higher releases from Wivenhoe Dam will be necessary."

By 6.50am on Tuesday - after heavy rain in the preceding 36 hours - the next email states: "We are entering conditions where dam safety overrides other concerns, although minimisation of urban flooding remains very important."

Senior engineers said SEQWater's strategy of making relatively small releases led to the dam's flood compartment almost filling up, and forced the operator to make huge releases late on Tuesday which led to most of the flooding in the Brisbane River.

Mr McConnel said many residents agreed dam policy and management were responsible for most of the flooding.

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Green/Left Bias at Australia's national broadcaster

Accompanied by a sweeping disregard for the facts, unsurprisingly

THE ABC's charter calls for balance and professionalism but it seems these values are no longer held by some of its staff. Don't believe me? Here's just one example.

In late November last year Sara Phillips, ABC's environment editor, posted an opinion piece about climate negotiations at Cancun to her taxpayer-funded blog. I left a comment suggesting she might be better off covering a recent paper published in the Journal of Climate co-authored by Steve McIntyre. This work refuted an earlier study published in Nature in the summer of 2009 and widely covered by the ABC which claimed there was unusual warming in west Antarctica due to man-made global warming. McIntyre and co-authors O'Donnell, Lewis and Condon proved the statistical methodology of the Nature study was flawed and the results erroneous. I directed Phillips to a post on the subject by McIntyre, at his Climate Audit website.

The following anonymous comment was posted to Phillips's blog shortly afterwards:

Annie : 03 Dec 2010 7:07:53pm

The denialist clowns return again . . . climateaudit.org . . . run by Stephen McIntyre a known climate denialist and extremist right-wing provocateur . . . you are a joke as are your answers . . . laughing hysterically.

On seeing the comment I alerted Phillips, suggesting the comment should be removed as it contravened ABC posting rules, namely, 4.4.1 defamatory, or otherwise unlawful or that it violates laws regarding harassment, discrimination, racial vilification, privacy or contempt; 4.4.2 intentionally false or misleading; 4.4.4 abusive, offensive or obscene; 4.4.5 inappropriate, off topic, repetitive or vexatious; 4.4.9 deliberate provocation of other community members.

After a day or so it was clear my request had been ignored, so I submitted a formal complaint to the ABC. This was turned down by the ABC's audience and consumer affairs. The reply I received on December 16 included the following rationale from Phillips:

"The moderator has explained this decision as follows: "Mr McIntyre is described by Annie as being an 'extremist right wing provocateur'. Mr McIntyre's views are seen by some as extreme. Annie clearly believes they are. He could reasonably be described as 'right wing' as a speaking member of the George C Marshall Institute, which is known for its right-leaning politically conservative views. 'Provocateur' is a name given to describe those whose thinking goes against that of the status quo, another label that could reasonably be given to Mr McIntyre. As such, the comments from Annie are not unfounded and therefore not defamatory."

I thought McIntyre might be interested in our national broadcaster's view of him so I passed on ABC's official response. These views perhaps account for the lack of coverage of McIntyre's ground-breaking work on climate change by the ABC. McIntyre responded to the ABC, in an email sent on December 17:

I am not a "member of the George Marshall Institute". This allegation on your part is untrue. I once spoke at a briefing session sponsored by George Marshall Institute, but that does not make me a "member" or imply any endorsement on my part of their views. I would have been delighted to make the same presentation at a session sponsored by the Pew Centre.

Nor is there any basis for characterising my political views as "extremist right wing". I have seldom expressed political opinions, though I once said that, in American terms, I would have been a Bill Clinton supporter. My only recent political contributions have been to a left-wing municipal politician in Toronto, Pam McConnell. I challenge you to provide any evidence that I hold "extremist right wing" political views. The comments by Annie are totally unfounded and defamatory.

Yours truly, Stephen McIntyre

On December 23 ABC advised that the offensive comments had been removed.

The level of bias and base ignorance inherent in the views of a senior ABC journalist, in supporting the defamatory comments, are truly astonishing.

The affair leaves one questioning the credibility and objectivity of ABC's environmental reporting, along with the independence and efficacy of ABC's system of self-regulation.

Why did it take so much effort to remove the offensive comment? How did Phillips obtain permission to run such a biased and unbalanced opinion page at the taxpayers' expense?

In an era where there are a multitude of opportunities for ABC staff to express their opinions by setting up their own blogs or personal web pages, how does Mark Scott justify the use of taxpayer funds to foot this bill?

As the government is looking for budget savings to fund flood and cyclone reconstruction I can't help but think that a few dollars could be saved by forcing ABC staff to fend for themselves in the blogosphere, rather than continue to sucker on our old Auntie's sagging teat.

It's not about shutting down the debate, it's about moving it to an appropriate venue. One where the taxpayer does not have to wear the cost, or bear the risks of paying out on defamation cases brought about by poor moderation.

With environmental activists posing as journalists at the ABC it's no wonder Maurice Newman's plea to end the Climate Groupthink has been ignored. And the ABC is yet to apologise to McIntyre, or provide any coverage of his important work.

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Government to dump Australia's most successful job training scheme

To prop up a failing scheme. McDonalds imparts precisely those habits and attitudes which are vital for success in any job -- but which are very poorly taught (if at all) by the schools. But McDonald's is a successful business, so is hated by the Left



Tens of millions of dollars in wage subsidies paid to McDonalds, KFC and other retail giants would be slashed as part of a radical plan to tackle skill shortages and boost apprenticeship numbers. In a bold blueprint to tackle an apprentice drop-out rate of 50 per cent, young workers in "traditional" trades such as plumbing and mechanics would be paid higher market-linked wages. They would also be able to fast-track their on-the-job training - qualifying much faster if they can prove they have the necessary skills.

But thousands of traineeship jobs in big retail stores, restaurants and fast-food chains are at risk, with a Government-appointed taskforce calling for major changes to $1.2 billion in annual subsidies.

The apprenticeships taskforce has also recommended a new "training levy" on employers to boost skilled workers and ensure the economy keeps ticking over. But the Minister for Skills and Workplace Relations, Chris Evans, has immediately stomped on the plan - putting him at odds with his own taskforce.

After a 12-month inquiry, the taskforce has warned Australia's 400,000-strong apprenticeship scheme needs "significant improvement" to make sure the economy has sufficient skilled labour. It wants a national apprenticeship "tsar" to oversee reform and recommends an army of "mentors" be used to ensure apprentices are getting proper training - and not being used as mere factory fodder.

In a controversial plan to cut a drop-out rate of 52 per cent, the Government has been told to slash tens of millions of dollars in traineeship subsidies paid to retailers, restaurants and fast-food outlets such as KFC and McDonalds.

In its final report "A Shared Responsibility - Apprenticeships for the 21st Century" the expert group - chaired by BAE Systems CEO, Jim McDowell - has slammed these subsidies as being little more than a "labour market program".

These amount to an "implicit wage subsidy to the employer of up to 20 per cent" but do little to boost overall skill levels, the panel has found. "We question whether the significant government funds currently being spent on employer incentives for these qualifications are providing any tangible benefit to the broader economy," the report - a copy of which has been obtained by The Daily Telegraph - says.

Senator Evans conceded the $1.2 billion paid by Canberra in annual subsidies for apprentice and traineeships had to change. "Clearly, we could target it better," the Minister told The Daily Telegraph.

But the Government will be picking a brawl with powerful employer groups and some of Australia's biggest companies - including Woolworths and Coles - if it cuts out millions of dollars paid in subsidies to these workers.

In a key finding, the taskforce said completion rates for apprenticeships "are unacceptably low" at about 48 per cent. "This represents a significant economic cost, given the time and resources provided for both on-the-job and off-the-job training," the panel said, in its report.

"There are a range of issues that commonly emerge from the research about reasons for non-completion, including: workplace or employer issues, lack of support, low wages and not liking the work."

It has called for the appointment of an apprentice "tsar" - a National Custodian - to drive these key reforms and take responsbilitiy for a system that is disjointed. Critically, the taskforce wants the Government's industrial umpire to consider linking apprentice wages with "going rates of pay" in particular industries.

This would mean that first-year apprentice - who is now paid $250-$300 a week - would receive higher wages on average, boosting their incentive to remain in the trade.

Senator Evans threw his weight behind the wages push. "We are going to have to make wages more attractive to encourage the best applicants for apprenticeships - because the alternatives (in work) are more attractive," he said.

The Government is also backing calls for a "competency-based" system that would allow apprentices to finish their training quicker. The Minister said he wanted to "drive quite a radical reform agenda" in apprenticeships, starting with the report's release today. And while he doesn't have a completion rate target in mind, the current completion rate "is a disgrace", he said.

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Boat children key part of racket, says former Australian immigration minister

Former immigration minister Philip Ruddock says children are being used to pave the way for entire families of refugees

FORMER immigration minister Philip Ruddock says children are being used to pave the way for entire families of refugees following a near-doubling of unaccompanied minors in detention.

As the Immigration Department prepares this week to fly nine-year-old Seena Akhlaqi Sheikhdost, whose parents died in the Christmas Island shipwreck, back to Sydney, figures show the number of unaccompanied minors in detention has increased by more than 40 per cent since November, The Australian reports.

Mr Ruddock said yesterday a "significant portion" of those unaccompanied minors had been sent with a view to paving the way for other family members, although he conceded that some might be seeking to avoid forced conscription or other forms of persecution.

"By the time you've got an unaccompanied minor and they've got a claim up, they would argue that under the Convention of the Rights of the Child they've got a right to bring over their parents," Mr Ruddock told The Australian.

"I would suspect that in the majority of cases, they would not be intent on living here alone without their families once they have succeeded . . . I suspect a significant proportion would have been sent for that purpose."

According to the department, the number of unaccompanied minors jumped from 266 at the beginning of November to 453 as of last Friday -- a 41 per cent increase. Unaccompanied minors account for slightly less than half the 1036 minors presently in detention.

Pamela Curr of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre dismissed the theory that families were sending their children ahead as a way of ensuring their own lawful passage through family reunion schemes. "I speak to asylum-seekers in detention and their stories don't bear that out,' she said.

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Killer hospital to be investigated at last

MORE than three years after the death of two-year-old Ryan Saunders in Rockhampton hospital, his family may finally get some answers. Queensland Coroner Michael Barnes has written to parents Donna and Terry Saunders advising them there will be an inquest.

The Emerald couple have never fully recovered since their son died painfully on September 26, 2007, after a five-day illness that went undiagnosed. "We are in limbo, waiting, just waiting for answers," Mrs Saunders said last week.

The Health Quality and Complaints Commission conducted a two-year investigation into the death but the report was never made public.

Premier Anna Bligh met with the Saunders in February 2008 promising the Government would do everything possible to learn the lessons from their son's death and "implement every recommendation".

The HQCC provided 21 recommendations following its investigation but not all have been followed up. The HQCC would give no detail to The Sunday Mail about which recommendations had been actioned and which were still waiting to be effected.

It was initially believed Ryan was suffering from a twisted bowel but he spent 24 hours in Emerald Hospital and another day at Rockhampton Base Hospital unable to be scanned because of a lack of staff.

Offered very little pain relief, he was in severe agony. It was discovered too late that Ryan was suffering from an infection and he died of toxic shock syndrome as he was about to be transferred to Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital.

"Mr and Mrs Saunders welcome the news of the coronial inquest and look forward to that process and the answers to come," their solicitor, Ian Brown, told The Sunday Mail. He said they would make no further comment as they were not coping and had been unable to come to terms with the loss of their little boy.

Recommendations relating to toxic shock were generically published on the commission's website late last year. "Most of these recommendations have been fully implemented, while others remain in progress as they require more time to fully implement," a HQCC spokeswoman said.

"Under the strict confidentiality provisions of the Health Quality and Complaints Commission Act 2006, we are unable to comment on the source of the recommendations posted on our website." She said recommendations were shared to improve care for septic shock in infants.

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

Vindictive and biased "regulators" in Queensland put public safety at risk

THE agency responsible for ensuring pub and club safety has been labelled a "basket case" after a series of investigations exposed gross mismanagement, unethical practices and constant errors.

Audits within the Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing, obtained under Right to Information laws, have raised concerns its liquor licensing division was a "boys club" harbouring "vindictive" officers.

The State Government says it is cracking down and yesterday defended dodgy dealings within the division but industry figures say nothing has changed since independent auditors revealed systemic failures in 2009.

In its 2009 report, auditors Knowledge Consulting said: "The OLGR (Office of Liquor Gaming and Racing) operates in a contentious client and stakeholder environment which contains a potentially volatile mix of commercial vested interests, regulatory bodies, community agencies and individuals who from time to time will be working to different agendas and priorities".

One issue involved a licensee being penalised for paper on the floor and flyscreen missing from a door. In stark contrast, The Courier-Mail revealed the department failed to issue the final disciplinary action to a venue where a man was fatally stabbed.

The negative report sparked several reviews in 2010, which revealed:

* Potentially thousands of wrong fines were issued.

* Private details of Queenslanders, including IDs, left unsecured.

* Missing hotel records and investigations.

* Hundreds of risk management plans left unmonitored.

* A chronic lack of staff and resources.

Several current and former liquor licensing officers, who wish to remain anonymous, this week claimed the problem came from the top because senior managers were the only ones able to enforce disciplinary action, and officers' recommendations were often ignored.

For example, not one Fortitude Valley venue was hit with a disciplinary action decision, the toughest penalty for liquor licensing breaches, in the past two years to November, despite the region being acknowledged as one of the state's three most dangerous party hot spots (along with Surfers Paradise and Townsville).

Another audit revealed more than one in 10 fines (13 per cent) issued by police were wrong.

Other issues included five boxes of confiscated IDs left unsecured on the Gold Coast and the department's failure to destroy them.

Before his resignation yesterday, former Liquor Licensing Minister Peter Lawlor defended dodgy dealings within the division, but acknowledged reports of "misconduct and suspension of officers". He took credit for the audits and said many of the issues had been addressed.

"I made it abundantly clear that something needed to be done immediately and that I would not tolerate this continuing," he said this week. "Significant reform, ongoing change, and restructuring have been, and are being, achieved. "Liquor Licensing is a different department today to what it was 18 months ago, but there is still more work to be done, and I'm confident it can be further improved over the next 12 months."

But licensees say the department continues to favour the industry's "big powers".

Individuals refused to comment for fear of retribution. The Queensland Hotels Association, Valley Liquor Accord and Brisbane City Licensees Association did not respond to questions.

But Cabarets Queensland chairman Sarosh Mehta acknowledged a "definite need for improvement". "There has also not been any significant shift in focusing on the individual offenders via stiffer penalties, which I fully support, versus continuing the practice of hammering the licensee," he said.

State Opposition Leader John-Paul Langbroek said the findings painted a picture of a state government agency that had become "an absolute basket case". "While drunken violent thugs need to take responsibility for their actions, enforcement also needs to be effective," he said. "If the law is broken, offenders must be punished not protected."

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Another Muslim pervert

A limousine driver who sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl he had been hired to pick up from a party at Bondi in 2008 has been jailed. Mohamed Sabra, 34, of Bexley, was sentenced to two years and nine months' jail in the Downing Centre District Court on February 11 for sexually assaulting the teen in his limousine.

Sabra pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated sexual assault with a victim under the age of 16. An agreed set of facts, tendered at a sentencing submission hearing, said Sabra had been hired to pick up the girl and a group of friends. Sabra promised the girl she could ride to his next appointment, to pick up rap star Kanye West. But he said there would only be enough room for the girl, and not her friends, the facts said.

Sabra then drove the girl to central Sydney, where he poured her a drink of vodka and Red Bull. The girl then fell asleep on the back seat of the limousine and woke to find Sabra sexually assaulting her.

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Teachers reveal why they walked

PROBLEM students should face harsher penalties, including Saturday-morning detention and fines for their parents, say WA teachers who have walked away from the classroom.

A disproportionate number of public school teachers are also blaming increased workloads and stress for their decision to quit, new reports show.

The exit surveys of 260 teachers and other staff who resigned from the Education Department in the past year are outlined in two reports, which were released to The Sunday Times under Freedom of Information laws this week.

It is the first time such exit surveys have been publicly released and they give a rare insight into the challenges facing our state's 35,000 public school teachers and staff.

One teacher recommended "harsher penalties for disruptive students", including more frequent suspensions and exclusions for "lesser disruptive behaviour" to stem violent behaviour.

The teacher also called for after-school and Saturday morning detentions.

Another said: "Start making parents accountable for the actions of their children. Financial penalties for disruptive students."

A third teacher said: "I feel this may be a sign of the times, but the students seem to have more control than the teachers.

"I have been assaulted by a student in the past and due to inexperience I did not pursue it. The school at the time seemed to brush it under the carpet and the student went unpunished.

"It seems suspension or expulsion would look bad on their school record. Behaviour like that is a major concern for all teachers. Crowd control is used instead of teaching in some schools."The surveys, conducted by the Education Department between October 2009 and July 2010, reveal:

* About a third (87 people) of those who completed the survey said they would not consider returning to work for the Education Department in the future.

* More than one in 10 teachers and staff (30 people) identified family reasons as the main reason for leaving.

* Almost 8 per cent (20 people) of teachers and staff were retiring, while a further 8 per cent (20 people) quit to "pursue other interests".

* Eighteen people (7 per cent) said they walked away from teaching for a work-life balance.

* Ten people (almost 4 per cent) blamed their decision to quit on harassment, discrimination or workplace bullying.

* The number of teachers and staff who blamed workload and workplace pressure for their decision to quit was more than three times the benchmark average.

* The number of teachers and staff who cited work-life balance as their reason for leaving was up to seven times the benchmark average.

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Fibre network a dodo even before it is built

The USA is going for a mobile service instead: wireless

There's nothing very surprising about the public's ability to spot ill-conceived government programs. Apart from the fact that we end up paying for them, programs that turn out to be lemons tend to conform to a familiar pattern.

Their proponents always seem to fall for the temptation of promising more than the scheme can possibly deliver. Stephen Conroy's broadband proposal back in March 2007 already sounded like the modern-day equivalent of a cargo cult. It was going to sweep the continent into an unimaginable world of connectivity for a mere $4.7 billion. Fibre-to-the-node technology would give 12 megabits per second to 98 per cent of the country within five years.

Having unrealistically raised the expectations of the impressionable young and people in the backblocks accustomed to poor services or none at all, the Rudd government found itself in a bind in 2008. Maintaining the prime minister's unusually high approval ratings, which were his main claim to the office, began to depend as much on service delivery as on messianic gestures.

Telstra, led by Sol Trujillo, wasn't co-operating with Conroy, who was also having troubles with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. To make matters worse, Telstra's bid to participate in the scheme was judged to be non-compliant and a panel of experts found that none of the remaining telcos' bids constituted value for money.

Conroy, as Communications Minister, had another big problem. Rudd and his office had by then become so dysfunctional that the only way for most cabinet ministers to get face-time with the prime minister was to travel with him on his VIP jet. During a long and by now legendary flight across Australia in January 2009, Conroy won Rudd's approval for an upgraded scheme.

Whether Julia Gillard, Wayne Swan or Lindsay Tanner found him as persuasive is not known, but it's a question that will no doubt be answered in due course when the blame is being laid.

The new proposal launched in April 2009 had all the signs of a lemon. It was going to throw nearly 10 times as much money at the problem, with the expectation that $43bn would spellbind the public and reduce critics and the opposition to stunned silence. It conceded the previously preferred technology was clunky and would be replaced by fibre-to-the-home.

Among the millennial claims made at the time, this was going to mean that we'd be "future-proofed", as though such a thing were possible. Speeds of at least 100 megabits per second would connect 93 per cent of the country, with the prospect of speeds up to 10 times faster in the near future.

For those of us who believe in markets, the absence of a cost-benefit analysis and the fact that NBN Co was going to be a monopoly were telltale signs. The government's decision to back one technology with an awful lot of public money was another.

The embarrassingly low rate of take-up in Tasmania, which in terms of communications historically has been very poorly served, didn't augur well either.

When Australian governments of either persuasion start talking about nation-building, anyone who's ever written a press release or a ministerial speech knows it's the rhetorical equivalent of clutching at straws and that we're about to acquire another white elephant.

It was the US government, via President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech in late January, that best put our National Broadband Network into perspective. He said America was poised "to win the future", with the commitment to providing 98 per cent coverage with high-speed wireless digital communication.

There are plausible arguments that with the present state of the technology, for Australia it's not a case of either fibre or wireless but of them complementing one another in a mix yet to be determined and fibre is likely to be the best solution for backhaul. It's certainly too early to claim, as one commentator did the other day, that Obama's decision "will do for fibre optic what aviation did for rail travel" , but the preference for mobile services among a growing number of customers is clear.

One consequence of the US commitment to wireless is that it's bound to shift virtually all of the research and development dollars in one direction rather than the other.

Households that invested in Beta video systems in the 1980s will remember how it felt when, regardless of Beta's advantages, VHS's market domination rendered it obsolete.

On Tuesday, as Telstra prepared to unveil its upgraded mobile network, there were reports that a government-commissioned review had found the growing popularity of wireless internet was likely to have an adverse influence on the economics of the NBN.

Greenhill Caliburn's report described the risk in these terms: "Trends towards 'mobile-centric' broadband networks could have significant long-term implications for NBN Co's fibre offerings, to the extent that some customers may be willing to sacrifice higher speed transmissions for the convenience of mobile platforms."

On Wednesday, The Australian's Mitchell Bingemann and Annabel Hepworth reported that analysts and senior telco executives thought Greenhill Caliburn may have understated the case. Martin Mercer, chief executive of Vividwireless, said: "With iPads and tablets and smart phones driving this rich media experience for people anytime, anywhere, it's inevitable that many people will go mobile as their primary connection. We are assuming that the penetration of wireless-only homes will eventually get to the levels seen in the UK and US, where it's currently at about the 25 per cent mark."

According to Geoff Johnson, a Gartner analyst, wireless-only homes will plateau at 25 per cent within the next decade. By contrast, the NBN Co corporate plan assumes that although 13 per cent of residential premises are already wireless-only, that will only increase to 16.3 per cent by 2025.

However long it takes Australia to get to the 25 per cent mark, in the light of Obama's announcement it's plain that the wishful-thinking projection of 3.3 percentage point growth in wireless-only during the next 15 years will have to be revised. It will be fascinating to see an analysis of the expected effect if wireless-only were indeed to grow by 12 percentage points in the next 10 years and what, if anything, would be left of the notional business case.

As with the pink batts fiasco and the Building the Education Revolution scandal, the scale of Conroy's folly has taken a while to register in people's minds.

But there always seems to be a phase in the unravelling of a government program when it is simply overtaken by events. For NBN Co, it has been the past three weeks. It needs radical surgery and Conroy will have to be replaced.

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

A voice of hate

To the supercilious Mike Carlton it's all obvious and anyone who disagees with him is stupid and evil. See the highlights in red below. He would be struck dumb if you took his hate language away. In good Leftist style, rage and self-righteousness is all he's got. Most of his articles are like the one below but I thought that it was time for someone to point out what they are

Bruce Baird did 20 years as a Liberal MP, in Macquarie Street then Canberra. In 2007 he retired as the member for the federal seat of Cook, which takes in Cronulla and much of what the locals like to call The Shire. People will remember him as the NSW minister in charge of Sydney's 2000 Olympic bid. Baird was a voice of decency in the Liberal Party, one of the so-called gang of four (the others were Petro Georgiou, Russell Broadbent and Judy Moylan) who had the guts to take on John Howard in 2005 in the hope of moderating the cruelty of his asylum-seeker policies.

That did him no good. His successful ministerial career in Macquarie Street cut no ice with Howard, who viewed him as a trouble-making Costello supporter and kept him in the outer darkness of the backbench. Come the 2007 federal election, Baird found that Liberal Party branches in Cook had been stacked against him, with a sudden influx of 400 new members. He saw the writing on the wall and at the age of 65 finally pulled the pin.

What a shame that his successor in the seat has plunged into the sewer. Scott Morrison, Tony Abbott's feverishly ambitious spokesman on immigration, is the man who disgraced himself and his party this week by whipping up that furore on the cost of the asylum-seeker funerals.

It was filthy politics, initially supported by his leader, of course, although public disgust eventually forced the two into a backdown for going, in Abbott's weasel words, " a little bit too far".

But the stench lingers. As the Herald's national affairs correspondent, Lenore Taylor, revealed on Thursday, Morrison was pushing the Coalition shadow cabinet to adopt an anti-Islam line as long ago as December. And he has no shortage of support. Abbott's recent proposal to cut $448 million in funding to Islamic schools in Indonesia was another blast of racist dog-whistling.

Kevin Andrews, the dolt who brought you the Mohammed Haneef fiasco, was bleating the other day about "ethnic enclaves" in Australia. Last week the ACT Liberal senator Gary Humphries tabled a petition in Parliament calling for a 10-year moratorium on Muslim migration to Australia.

Then there is the South Australian Liberal senator Cory Bernardi, a persistent Muslim-baiter, with his demands to ban the burqa and a recent tirade against the halal slaughter of animals. "I, for one, don't want to eat meat butchered in the name of an ideology that is mired in sixth century brutality and is anathema to my own values," he said. (Bernardi will get a shock if he is ever invited to a bar mitzvah, where the kosher meats will have been prepared in exactly the same way.)

This is One Nation stuff with a Liberal Party blue ribbon wrapped around it. As Bruce Baird said when I called him on Thursday: "There's no doubt the party has shifted to the right. It seems like One Nation is calling the tune. They are going for the blue-collar, right-wing vote. Moderate views in the federal party have largely disappeared."

Not quite. Joe Hockey spoke up for decency on the asylum-seeker funerals but then, for his pains, found himself under savage attack from a blog run by a Bernardi staffer. Baird rang me back to assure me that Julie Bishop, too, is on the side of the angels. But that's about it. We now have a federal opposition so shamelessly unprincipled that it will play the card of racist fear and hatred to claw its way back to power.

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Druggie Muslims must not be arrested

A FORMER role-model for young Muslims who was arrested for cocaine supply yesterday won another court case, with the state failing in its bid to have her $18,000 payout for unlawful arrest overturned.

The State of NSW had appealed the payout awarded to Iktimal Hage-Ali in October 2009, arguing that the judge wrongly rejected the evidence of her arresting officers.

Judge Michael Elkaim originally found the arrest unlawful and officers wrong to have resorted to an arrest for such a small scale of supply when they knew Ms Hage-Ali was a person of good character with strong ties to the community.

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Background from 2008

Eight days before she accepted her award at the art gallery, police had knocked on the door of the Hage-Ali family home at Punchbowl. They had been tapping her phone calls for the past three months and had taped her coded conversations with her childhood friend and cocaine supplier, Mohammed "Bruce" Fahda.

For their part, the police will argue they had a reasonable apprehension from their phone taps that Hage-Ali was involved in drug trafficking, even if there turned out to be no such evidence. She had told Fahda that she needed more drugs to supply to others, but Hage-Ali argues this was a lie and they were all for herself.

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It seems to me that the police had ample reasons to arrest her and that the arrest was entirely proper -- JR





Islam's the problem, not Muslims, says conservative Australian Senator

TONY Abbott's official frontbench understudy has reignited immigration tensions by denouncing Islam as a "totalitarian, political and religious ideology".

Liberal parliamentary secretary Cory Bernardi revealed last night he had received death threats after making the comments.

While the immigration debate usually differentiates between the religion of Islam and extreme fundamentalist interpretations, Senator Bernardi confronted the issue head-on yesterday.

"Islam itself is the problem - it's not Muslims," he told radio station MTR. "Muslims are individuals that practise their faith in their own way, but Islam is a totalitarian, political and religious ideology. "It tells people everything about how they need to conduct themselves, who they're allowed to marry and how they're allowed to treat other people."

Senator Bernardi said Islam had "not moved on" since it was founded and that extremists wanted fundamentalist Islamic rule implemented in Australia.

The senator also inflamed the row over funeral expenses for asylum-seekers by declaring that it was "wrong" for taxpayers to foot the bill.

The remarks provoked a strong reaction from Ikebal Patel, president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, who said Senator Bernardi had "crossed the line" with his attack on Islam.

"These comments are more than offensive; they are bigoted," Mr Patel said. "Cory Bernardi needs to have a good read of the Bible if he is a practising Christian. "This is hardly the language of a religious person."

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen also slammed the senator's remarks. "The Liberal Party professes to have said this week it would not make political points out of race and religion, but here we have Tony Abbott's parliamentary secretary launching an attack on a religion," Mr Bowen said.

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Must not post pictures of drunken blacks?

For people in many areas of Australia, drunken Aborigines are a routine sight in the streets and parks -- even during the day. But you are not allowed to make any reference to that fact, apparently

THE Opposition has raised concerns about police officers using Facebook in light of revelations a senior constable posted photos of drunk Aboriginals in custody on the popular networking website.

Senior Constable John Trenouth is under investigation for allegedly posting the photographs on his Facebook profile on three occasions last year. He was only stood down from WA Police after the photos were exposed in the media. The pictures show the men intoxicated and barely conscious inside a police cell in the remote town of Wiluna in the Goldfields.

The caption on one photograph on Facebook reads: "I wonder if anyone will notice my spray-on tan?" The photographs were allegedly found on Snr Const Trenouth's "profile pictures" folder on his Facebook page.

Police internal affairs officers are investigating the allegations and have taken copies of the photographs, which appear to have been posted on August 11, August 16 and September 11 last year.

Opposition spokeswoman Margaret Quirk said that while the matter was under internal investigation, it was hard to contemplate any mitigating circumstances for the conduct.

Ms Quirk said she had raised her concerns about police officers using Facebook with senior police in the past. "As well as the issue of airing official information, the breach of privacy and ignoring official directives about the use of Facebook, this case involves even more startling clear racist overtones," she said.

"As part of recruitment training, police officers are given a four-day course on diversity and a component of that relates to Aboriginal culture.

"The senior constable's actions and attitude raise the question about whether he received this training and also suggests he was not suitable to work in remote Western Australia."
Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan said Snr Const Trenouth had been stood down from duty and a decision about his future would be made at the conclusion of the inquiry.

"I will not tolerate racist behaviours or statements by members of the Police and I will act decisively against anyone who is found acting in a racist manner," he said.

"Significant cultural awareness and EO training is mandatory for police officers and staff and must be repeated regularly throughout their careers."

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Australian Warmist "scientist" has a tanty

Warmism is speculation, not science. Science has no way of predicting the future of the world. And the tantrum shows that it is emotion, not dispassionate enquiry, that is driving her

The government's leading scientific adviser said she was standing down for personal and professional reasons, but declined to comment further. "This is not a decision that I have taken lightly or quickly," said Professor Sackett, in a statement released on her website yesterday afternoon. "Institutions, as well as individuals, grow and evolve and the time is now right for me to seek other ways to contribute," said the world-renowned astronomer.

Many in Australia's scientific community were surprised by Professor Sackett's sudden resignation. In the past she has been critical of the government's lack of action on climate change.

The Minister for Innovation, Kim Carr, thanked her for her contribution to the promotion of science and scientific research during her tenure as Australia's first full-time chief scientist.

Sources said she had a tense working relationship with Senator Carr, who came to regret appointing her to the role and over time increasingly looked to the CSIRO chief executive, Megan Clark, for science advice.

Sources said Senator Carr found Professor Sackett too outspoken and opinionated, and felt she did not give sufficient regard to Labor's agenda and the processes of government. A spokeswoman for Senator Carr denied those suggestions yesterday.

Professor Sackett was also understood to be frustrated about a lack of progress in government efforts to address climate change. She told the Herald last May she was concerned by the government's decision to delay its emissions trading legislation. "Any action that is delayed puts us at higher risk of dangerous climate change," she said.

The government has begun searching for a replacement. Professor Sackett finishes her appointment on March 4.

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ZEG

In his latest offering, conservative Australian cartoonist ZEG is critical of New Zealand apples. Julia does seem to have undermined Australian farmers with unseemly glee: No mention of the issues involved.




A moral tale: Australian booksellers are largely the authors of their own misfortune

They got the government to "protect" them. That meant that they could charge much more per book. So many Australians now buy their books more cheaply from Amazon. So instead of getting more money, the local guys got nil. Which serves them right for trying to rip off book buyers. I myself never bother walking into a bookstore any more. I just order online -- JR

Reading the news yesterday that the United States bookstore chain Border has gone into bankruptcy, I began to ask myself how long it could possibly be before a big Australian chain met the same fate. Unfortunately the wait wasn’t long.

A press release came out that afternoon announcing that REDGroup, who control Borders Australia, Angus and Robertson and Whitcoulls in New Zealand, were being placed into administration. This will affect 260 stores.

Really, it is a wonder this didn’t happen earlier given that Australian booksellers have been defying the laws of market theory that would have sent other businesses bust long ago. There are a few reasons why this was pretty inevitable. One involves parallel import laws and the other the internet, but the two are closely linked.

We pay more than we should for books in this country because of the parallel import laws that mean we can’t buy books also published in America or Europe if an Australian publisher wants to publish the book. In turn, the protected status of Australian publishing rights drives up the price we pay at the counter because of a lack of competition.

The laws are protectionism in an era when other tariffs have been all but abolished in other industries (perhaps with the exception of our nationalised car industry). The same arguments about the end of Australian music culture were made in relation to parallel imports of CDs, and they have been shown to be rubbish. If people are buying more non-Australian (especially American) music and books – this is a pretty out there theory – perhaps they just prefer it?

It’s also interesting how willing people are to jump down the throat of a whitegoods retailer when he moans about internet sales, but get a bunch of luvvies in a room to be addressed by celebrity authors making ostensibly similar arguments, and all that free market logic and concern for the consumer dissipates.

Anyway, the argument was made and lost in cabinet last year when Kevin Rudd came down on the side of the luvvies, despite some of his ministers siding with the Productivity Commission’s recommendation to lift the ban.

The really strange thing about the parallel import debate is it ignores the fact people are already conducting their own parallel imports over the internet. You know when you buy a book from Amazon or the Book Depository for about half the price than you would in Australia? That is just a form of parallel importing, and obviously a lot of Australians have caught on.

Recently in a Borders store I asked about a book of essays from a very prominent UK author. I was told that they didn’t have it in stock but they could order it in. For the privilege of waiting a couple of weeks I would then pay $35 for the book.

Unimpressed, I went home and logged on to Amazon. It sold me the book I wanted and another book by the same guy for just over US$20 including delivery. This was the first time I’d used the internet to buy a book, previously labouring under the misapprehension that it was better to buy from bookstores. Bookstores are nice places, but not so nice that I feel the need to pay about at least 20 per cent extra for the privilege of entering them.

Of course US booksellers face similar pressures from the internet as well as struggling with the growth of e-books, but Australian publishers and retailers are further handicapped by the fact they charge more than their US counterparts and simply won’t be able to compete anymore. Even stranger, it’s a self-imposed handicap.

More HERE




Vilifying the mainstream Australian population was a dumb idea

A surprisingly realistic article below from an ABC writer. Chris Uhlmann is political editor for the ABC news channel, ABC News 24. He makes the point that sanctimonious Leftist preaching and contempt for Australia has generated a backlash among young Australians against all that, a backlash that is now in full swing.

But persuading people was probably not the highest priority of the the Left. Most of all, they needed to vent their spleen. That they have ignited nationalism where there was virtually none before is however an amusing demonstration of how hate can be self-defeating

Each Australia Day acres of newsprint is devoted to worrying about the apparent rising tide of aggressive nationalism.

Young Australians have embraced January 26 in a way their parents never did. Flags fly from cars, men and women sport Southern Cross tattoos and gather to party in public places.

There is an ugly side to this, a few are using national symbols to exclude other Australians and that is unpardonable. But maybe we should try harder to understand where this assertive nationalism comes from.

Let's imagine for a moment that there might be an explanation for this phenomenon beyond the reflexive chant of "racism". Perhaps these young Australians were schooled in a society that venerated multiculturalism and they understood it to mean they lived in a nation of tribes: "Italian-Australian", "Vietnamese-Australian" and so on. The hyphenated Australians had clearly defined identities, symbols and even national dress and foods that made them distinct. That difference was celebrated as the essence of what made Australia good.

And the perceived threat to a multicultural society, endlessly explored, was the assumed intractable racism of the host population. So government reports were commissioned which proved the desperate need for racial vilification laws.

If you listened to the rhetoric of some of the champions of multiculturalism in the 1970s and '80s, it was also routine to hear that pre-war Australia was a deeply racist backwater where the food was awful and the people dull. One common mantra then was that it "didn't have a culture". Only after the immigration boom did the country get some and get interesting.

Where did that leave the sons and daughters of the pre-Second World War immigrants? What was the place of the currency lads and lasses?

Is it possible they grew tired of the grim assessment of their past and went in search of a more appealing narrative? Is it surprising that some should seek their own identity, find their own symbols, write their own mythology and define their sacred places?

Tony Wright noted in his book "Turn Right at Istanbul" that growing numbers of young Australians were making pilgrimages to Gallipoli. Many of the ones he met were there searching for a connection to a story they could call their own. This was an utterly spontaneous movement and completely at odds with routine predictions of the demise of Anzac Day that began to surface in the 1960s and '70s.

I vividly remember a university lecturer mocking Gallipoli as "mythology" and I wondered what was wrong with a nation-building myth. No right-thinking person in the multicultural '80s would think of deriding the tapestry of mythologies that binds other cultures.

Yet looking back in anger at every aspect of settlement since 1788 was such a common feature of the '80s and early '90s that it paved the way for the history wars.

In the decades multiculturalism enjoyed bi-partisan support and it was that rarest of public policies, it was perfect. Any attempt to question it or the enormous lobby it spawned was shouted down as racist.

Multiculturalism fell from favour during the Howard years, but the word was never removed from the immigration portfolio. By late 2006, the Labor Party was falling out of love with the idea too. It introduced two new words to the shadow immigration portfolio "integration and citizenship" and flicked multiculturalism into a junior portfolio.

The then shadow minister Tony Burke's explanation for the change was "Integration is how you make a multicultural society work". It sounds perfectly reasonable but it is not a construction that would have passed muster in the mid-80s or early '90s. Then words like "integration" and "social cohesion" were lumped with the anathema that was "assimilation".

Multiculturalism was dumped from the Immigration Department's name when Labor took power in 2007 and it was not included in any of Labor's portfolios under either Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard.

Now it's being redeemed.

In a speech at the Sydney Institute the Immigration Minister Chris Bowen set out to resuscitate multiculturalism and to cast Australia's brand as unique. He sees it as very different from the experiment in Germany and Britain, where it is widely viewed as a divisive. Chancellor Angela Merkel says it has "utterly failed" and British prime minister David Cameron agrees.

Mr Bowen's opening gambit was that "our multiculturalism is underpinned by respect for traditional Australian values".

He pointed to a speech by former prime minister Paul Keating who said "the first loyalty of all Australians must be to Australia, that they must accept the basic principles of Australian society. These include the Constitution and the rule of law, parliamentary democracy, freedom of speech and religion, English as a national language, equality of the sexes and tolerance".

I'm sure that Mr Bowen would disagree, but, in practise, that was not the way multiculturalism was packaged here in the 1980s and 1990s. Then suggesting that there was any such thing as "Australian values" was an invitation to be abused by the multicultural industry. I know because I did and I was.

The dull, pre-war Australians, the ones who apparently got by without a culture, built those values. And despite Mr Keating's fine words the real failing of the last incarnation of multiculturalism was its acolytes almost never gave the host population any credit for creating the kind of society that could absorb mass immigration, largely without violence. That is an extraordinary achievement and one to be celebrated. But it rarely was. All too often the impression was that multiculturalism prospered in spite of the pre-war population, not because of it.

By 1996 so entrenched was the feeling that Labor had lost touch with its own people that the Coalition could win a landslide election victory by promising to govern "For All of Us".

So why is Labor re-birthing multiculturalism now? No doubt Mr Bowen believes it is the best policy for continuing to build a cohesive immigration-based nation.

But it is also a political strategy to help dig Labor out of the its border protection mess. It needs to shore up its left flank while it continues to run a hard line on boat people to neutralise the attack from the right.

Above all, it needs to head off any attempt by the Coalition to use shared values as a weapon in the immigration debate, because there is a deeply divisive issue simmering in the sub-plot of the immigration brawl.

What Ms Merkel and Mr Cameron were talking about when they dubbed multiculturalism a failure was a concern that Muslim immigrants in their countries are not integrating. Mr Cameron said that it was time to assert a "more active, muscular liberalism" where equal rights, the rule of law, freedom of speech and democracy are actively promoted to create a stronger national identity.

In short, when faced with a powerful set of alternative beliefs real border protection begins with clearly defining and defending your bedrock beliefs. No nation that doesn't do that can stand.

Here the problem is nowhere near as acute as it is in Europe. But that doesn't matter, what matters is perceptions. Both major parties know that the concerns expressed by Ms Merkel and Mr Cameron are shared by large parts the Australian community. It lies at the heart of the visceral reaction some people have to boat people. And the feeling is not confined to one ethnic group.

Until now this debate has been played out in code. But the game has just changed.

Now the Prime Minister is demanding that Opposition leader Tony Abbott distance himself from comments attributed to his immigration Scott Morrison that the Coalition go on the attack over Muslim immigration. Mr Morrison denies he made the comments in shadow cabinet. Tony Abbott has publicly recommitted the Coalition to a non-discriminatory immigration policy.

This is very dangerous water for both major parties and both would be well advised to tread carefully.

If Labor is to make a fist of its reunion with multiculturalism it must ensure that, this time, at its core, the policy loudly proclaims that that there are some bedrock principles that all Australians must share.

Alas, setting out to rebrand multiculturalism with yet another anti-racism strategy at its heart leads you to believe that Labor has learned little from the past. Once again the key message seems to be that the main problem with social cohesion is the insatiable racism of the host population. This dangerously misreads the public mood. There is an appetite for some muscular liberalism.

The problem with the Coalition is it seems to have yet to work out how it goes about governing for all of us.

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Second mother tells of miscarriage horror

TWO Frankston Hospital emergency department staff have been stood down "without prejudice" after a woman revealed she miscarried her baby in a toilet. The hospital's clinical director of emergency, Helen Hewitt, admitted it made a mistake and it was "profoundly sorry" for Tracey Lake and Darren Hall's ordeal.

An investigation was launched after it was revealed the 41-year-old, who was 10-12 weeks' pregnant, was forced to wait more than four hours before she saw a doctor.

A second mother came forward yesterday to express her distress over treatment following her miscarriage in January. Rebecca Wadey said she lost so much blood in the 24-hour ordeal she had to have a transfusion with four bags of blood. "The bleeding was so excessive there was blood over the toilet seat and on the floor," Mrs Wadey said.

She claimed she waited up to five hours at the hospital on the first night before going home. The next morning she said she still forced to wait up to two hours for a bed. The final indignity was when she secured a emergency bed and was examined. Staff discovered the overhead light would not work.

"I just can't believe it, women just shouldn't be left to wait or treated like this, I wouldn't wish that on the worst enemy," Mrs Wadey said.

A spokesman for Peninsula Health expressed regret that Mrs Wadey was unhappy but questioned the amount of time she had been forced to wait, saying she was treated in the appropriate time for a category three patient.

Angel Babies Foundation, which provides to support to women after miscarriages, said even though not usually life-threatening the protocols for dealing with miscarriages needed to be changed urgently.

Executive director Maree Davenport said the loss of a baby in a toilet is "all too common" and the grief is exacerbated by a lack of training in accident and emergency departments. "We need to ensure women are provided privacy, their dignity is respected and the extremely confronting emotional situation is managed in a compassionate way," Ms Davenport said.

Health Services Commissioner Beth Wilson said Victoria had a charter of human rights, which meant patients should be treated with respect and dignity.

Australasian College for Emergency Medicine's Victorian member Simon Judkins said unless capacity problems were addressed these issues could continue to happen.

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Another bungled "green" scheme

THOUSANDS of people who have made their homes more energy efficient have been forced to wait as long as eight months to receive a promised solar hot water rebate worth up to $1000 from the Federal Government.

The Herald Sun can reveal the total value of the delayed payments could reach $7.8 million for 8695 people.

The embarrassing delay comes after the Government has been besieged by a series of bungles and poor management of climate-friendly schemes such as the roof batts fiasco. It has also axed the green loans scheme, cut the green car initiative, dumped its proposed citizens' assembly and abolished the cash-for-clunkers plan.

The Government blamed a new computer system for the solar hot water delays and said six extra public servants had been rushed in to help clear the backlog by the end of March. The parliamentary secretary for climate change and energy efficiency, Victorian MP Mark Dreyfus, said he regretted the delay.

A significant number of people have been waiting up to 19 weeks longer than the standard eight-week processing period and some as long as eight months.

Opposition spokesperson Sophie Mirabella said the Government's excuses were not good enough for people who were relying on rebates for the scheme. "People believed Labor and again they have been misled by a hopeless government that is drowning in its own ineptitude. Hard working Australians who do the right thing deserve better," she said.

The scheme started in the dying days of the Howard government and expanded under the Rudd government. Households can receive between $600 and $1000 for replacing electric storage hot water systems with a solar hot water system.

"We regret that as part of the move to a new, more efficient IT processing system [The typical Leftist talent for turning reality on its head] some people have had to wait longer than anticipated for their rebates," Mr Dreyfus said. "But these delays have been necessary to ensure applications are rigorously assessed and taxpayer money is appropriately spent."

The Government yesterday reversed plans to cut $100 million from its solar flagships program to pay for the clean up of summer floods in a deal to secure the Greens vote for its controversial $1.8 billion flood levy. It also promised to restore $264 million to the national rental affordability scheme. The Government was not able to say exactly how it would plug the Budget holes.

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

Australia out of step on Muslim immigration

Germany, France and Britain are critical but both major Australian parties are resisting the reality of Muslim difference -- and too bad what the public thinks: They can be "educated"

Scott Morrison's predecessor in the immigration portfolio has condemned as "un-Liberal" suggestions the party should capitalise on Australian fears about Muslim migrants.

Leading Victorian moderate Sharman Stone, who lost her portfolio to Mr Morrison when Tony Abbott replaced Malcolm Turnbull as Liberal leader, said such a move would be unpalatable. “That approach would be most un-Liberal and it is totally contrary to Liberal values and beliefs. Our values and beliefs are non discriminatory,” she told The Australian Online. “It was the Liberal Party that began the breakdown of the White Australia policy in the early 1960s. The Liberal Party has a proud record of being colour blind.”

Dr Stone's comments come after reports that Mr Morrison told a meeting of shadow ministers in December the Coalition should make political capital out of Australians' concern about multiculturalism and fears about Muslim immigration.

Senior Liberals Julie Bishop and Philip Ruddock are reported to have rejected Mr Morrison's suggestion at the time.

The growing debate in Liberal ranks about how to approach immigration and multiculturalism comes as Immigration Minister Chris Bowen offered an impassioned defence of Australian multiculturalism yesterday - rejecting a rising tide of criticism directed at the policy by European leaders - as he unveiled a new multicultural strategy.

Dr Stone emphasised that no-one in the party had sounded her out about taking a tougher line on Muslim migration. “My electorate of Murray is possibly the most multicultural outside the capital cities, we have a 70-year-old mosque here, our Muslims in our community are no different to other faith groups in the contributions they make, in their philanthropy, they are the same as other Australians,” she said.

Coalition frontbencher Greg Hunt denied the opposition was seeking to exploit religion for electoral advantage. “Our position is very clear. That we are completely colour blind, race blind, religion blind on the issue of immigration,” he told ABC radio. “Where we do have a difference with the government is where people are being lured with policies to travel in dangerous leaky boats, then we think that is a great risk to common humanity.”

Mr Hunt said Mr Morrison was a compassionate man. “Unfortunately I wasn't at the meeting, but I know Scott, and his style is deep compassion, he is deeply compassionate, he agonises around the issues of protecting people who are being lured to their deaths,” he said.

Labor senator Doug Cameron says the report shows Mr Morrison urged his colleagues to capitalise on anti-Muslim sentiment. “(Scott) Morrison should be sacked immediately ... (and) join One Nation,” he told Sky News.

Liberal backbencher Steve Ciobo queried the accuracy of the reports that Mr Morrison had called for the Liberals to capitalise about concerns over immigration. “It's great for a headline but I doubt that was actually what was said,” he said.

SOURCE

And the Labor party doubles down on Muslim immigration

And opposition to it is "racist". Not a whisper about the many Australians who died in Bali at the hands of Muslim fanatics. In the flexble worldview of the Left, that did not happen

The Gillard Government will beef up a campaign supporting multiculturalism in the face of what is seen as growing resistance to new arrivals. Immigration Minister Chris Bowen tonight revealed the campaign would salute what he called "the genius of Australian multiculturalism".

The Government will create a new independent organisation, the Australian Multicultural Council, and ACT senator Kate Lundy will be made parliamentary secretary in charge of managing multicultural programs.

The fresh emphasis on the policy comes amid growing public hostility towards asylum seekers, and against significant population growth through immigration.

There also is apprehension that the increasing number of Muslim migrants will produce big cultural changes, and even the introduction of Islamic-based legal codes.

"Australian governments do not defend cultural practices and ideas that are inconsistent with our values and ideals of democracy, justice, equality and tolerance. Nor should we be expected to," Mr Bowen told the Sydney Institute tonight.

"For those fleeing persecution, terror and hatred, they come to Australia in search of peace, justice and harmony. "For many others, they come in the hope of creating, in this new land, a new life for themselves and their loved ones for prosperity and in the knowledge that, in Australia, their children will not be discriminated against for their colour or creed.

"For these men and women, the last thing they want is Australia to change, to become less free, to become less democratic, to become less equal." [Has he listened to any Muslims lately?]

Mr Bowen said multiculturalism was under attack in France, Germany and Britain, but that Australia had a different and successful system. "But it is a unique, Australian multiculturalism, built differently to other models around the world," he said.

He said Australia had social unity, and a requirement that people become citizens to enjoy the full benefits of living here. "In my view, this is the most beautiful citizenship pledge in the world," said Mr Bowen.

He said: "English is the national language here, its use in our public and private institutions is to be respected, and the learning of English is to be encouraged.

"Ours is a citizenship-based multiculturalism. To enjoy the full benefits of Australian society, it is necessary to take a pledge of commitment as a citizen."

The minister said the new multiculturalism council would "act as a champion for multiculturalism in the community, will advise the Government on multicultural affairs and will help ensure Australian Government services respond to the needs of migrant and refugee communities". "We will also establish a National Anti-Racism Partnership and Strategy to design and deliver an anti-racism strategy."

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Give bosses right to fire and they'll hire

Former Labor party politician Gary Johns talks some sense. He is an economist and a former Assistant Minister for Industrial Relations

If I owned a business, I would fear losing a good worker. But I would want an unfettered right to dismiss an employee I no longer wanted to employ. Apparently, this is a tad radical. Instead, I can only sack someone fairly.

Sacking someone is never pleasant. Benign terms such as "let someone go" are in vogue. When an employer is not free to let someone go the likely unintended consequence is that they are less likely to employ another.

Unfortunately, the unfair dismissal laws harden the arteries of the labour market. They are unhealthy for those who have to work with bad or "surplus to requirement" employees and those who cannot find a job.

Defining fair and unfair has opened an entire industry in the conciliation and arbitration of unfair dismissal claims. An unfair dismissal can occur where a dismissal is "harsh, unjust or unreasonable", is not a "genuine redundancy" or is not consistent with the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code, under which the employee was employed by a small business.

These broad concepts encourage speculative claims. For example, an employee is caught stealing televisions from an aged-care facility. The employee's union refuses to take the case but a law firm does, on a no-win no-pay basis. A violent and abusive employee is sacked for being drunk at work and starting a fight. He convinces his friend (also an employee) to resign due to "stress". A law firm is taking both cases.

Applying for unfair dismissal is simple. The employee fills out a three-page form on the internet, pays a $50 filing fee and spends two hours on a phone conference. Conciliators push hard for a settlement. They rarely test the evidence or the merits of the case, inevitably starting with the employee's top ask, settling when the employer throws up their hands exasperated. As one employer advocate has stated during a conciliation: "This is Fair Work Australia, not the casino."

The most common outcome is a settlement of "go away money" of anywhere between $5,000 and $30,000, of which the lawyer takes half. It is easy money for the applicant and their lawyer. In private, law firms have expressed delight at this new lucrative income stream. In addition to "go away money", the legislation encourages reinstatement. It is the equivalent of a marriage law that would have marriages reinstated. The cost of an employment reinstatement does not go away; it spreads to other workers.

There is a better way, whereby employers can regain the right to keep the best workforce and employees can receive some protection. Grace Collier, an industrial relations consultant, has recently suggested the concept of "no fault" dismissal. Collier makes the analogous point that no-fault divorce accepts the inevitability that some adult relationships end. Employment is one such relationship.

Governments no longer determine whether a divorce is fair or unfair. As she argues, "The notion that the government could forcibly 'reinstate' a marital relationship is laughable."

The Collier no-fault dismissal system includes a reasonable paid notice period, an assistance package and job transition support. The system would remove the legal argument over whether it is fair, unfair, a redundancy, a dismissal or constructive dismissal and the costs of mounting these arguments.

The premise of the no-fault system is the fundamental right of both parties to dissolve the employment relationship. No reason for the decision should be required. At present, it is becoming common for an employee to resign because they are unhappy with the workplace and by taking up an unfair dismissal action seek to gain more than their fair notice contained in the award or contract.

The process of employment separation has become far too legal. The government does not scrutinise the methods of an employee resignation; there is no reason it should scrutinise the methods of an employee dismissal. The system should oblige both parties to accept any decision of either party to end the employment relationship.

Both parties could be required to provide a reasonable notice period, with the employer having the option of paying out the notice period or the employee forfeiting statutory entitlements in lieu of notice.

By taking the pain out of the process of sacking, employers are much likelier to hire new workers. By ensuring employees have certain rights to notice and some transitional assistance (much of which is already available), the labour market can perform better.

Legislation already obliges employers who are about to dismiss more than 15 workers to inform Centrelink of the impending dismissals. Modern awards provide employees undergoing disciplinary processes with rights to representation and support.

Australians are entitled to free mediation services to assist in community disputes and counselling is available at low cost to people who need it. Medical attention is free for many and mental health can be treated for those who require it. It would be a simple enough to consolidate and extend the delivery of these rights and services to those about to undergo an employment separation.

Government intrusion could be limited to providing assistance and support to employees to help them recover from the hurt, to identify and treat any deficiencies that led to the event and helping them move into more suitable employment.

A no-fault dismissal system could provide for dignity in dismissal by allowing people to focus on managing departure with some financial security. This is the system the best employers use and is also the way Australia has determined to manage the breakdown of the marital relationship. Our political leaders should give this proposal serious consideration.

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Woman tells of miscarriage neglect in a Victorian hospital

A PREGNANT woman was made to wait nearly two hours at a Melbourne hospital emergency department before she miscarried her baby in a toilet. And it was more than four hours before Tracey Lake - who was 10 to 12 weeks pregnant - even saw a doctor at Frankston Hospital, her family says.

Health Minister David Davis has ordered an immediate investigation. Frankston Hospital has apologised to Ms Lake, 41, and is reviewing the case.

Her horror unfolded after she visited a GP in pain and bleeding, and was sent to the nearby hospital emergency department for urgent care on February 9.

Her partner, Darren Hall, said the GP rang ahead to the emergency department to let them know of their arrival, and sent a letter with them, explaining she had a "threatened and incomplete miscarriage".

Ms Lake waited at the emergency department for more than an hour before a nurse took her blood pressure, and despite asking for painkillers she was given none. Two hours later she left the waiting room to go to the toilet because her bleeding was getting worse.

"I felt it come out ... I knew I had lost my baby," Ms Lake said. "I started crying, I didn't know what to do, I was pretty upset. "I would have thought, if someone was miscarrying, they would send you straight through. "I don't believe anybody should sit there and lose their baby waiting to be seen to."

When the distressed couple told the triage nurse they had lost their baby down the toilet, the nurse failed to recognise them and started recording their details as if they were new patients. She then told them to sit in the waiting room again, and minutes later the same nurse approached Ms Lake asking for a urine sample, only for the couple to repeat that they had lost their baby, so it was too late.

Ms Lake was then given a bed, and finally saw a doctor at 2.30am, nearly five hours after arriving at the emergency department. She was told her blood pressure was low, and if she lost any more blood she would need a transfusion. Ms Lake had a curette at 4.30am and was discharged later that morning.

Mr Hall admitted the couple may have still lost their baby had Ms Lake been cared for immediately, but he said she did not need to suffer the distress and indignity of losing it in a hospital toilet. "I am angry and disgusted this could happen in this day and age in the health system we are supposed to have," he said.

The referring GP declined to comment.

Hospital executive director Brendon Gardner said the hospital, and especially the emergency department team, "deeply regret" what happened. The nurse unit manager had apologised to Ms Lake, and staff were being interviewed as part of a thorough review of the case, he said. "Processes and procedures at triage will be changed if necessary to prevent such an incident from occurring again," he said.

Health Minister David Davis said he was distressed to learn of the case and his thoughts were with Ms Lake and Mr Hall. "I have ordered my department to ensure that Peninsula Health leaves no stone unturned in an immediate investigation into what happened," he said.

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Inquiry call as Building the Education Revolution firms crash

Kevvy's carelessly administered "stimulus" goes from bad to worse

THE nation's most powerful building union has called for a federal government inquiry into a string of corporate collapses on Building the Education Revolution projects, which have left 300 sub-contractors with about 1000 employees owed about $20 million.

The Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union is stepping up pressure on Julia Gillard to launch a public inquiry into the collapse of three construction companies contracted by Bovis Lend Lease on 22 NSW school sites and three NSW public housing projects.

The calls came amid complaints to police over alleged false statutory declarations and threats by Coffs Harbour sub-contractors to launch a class action to recover the money they are owed.

A spokesman for Workplace Relations Minister Chris Evans said he would refer the complaints to Brad Orgill's BER Implementation taskforce. But the NSW government had responsibility for BER projects and Senator Evans was working with NSW to resolve the issue.

Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne said the reference to the Orgill inquiry was "not good enough". "What the minister needs to do is not hide behind yet another government-appointed filter, he needs to take real action to ensure sub-contractors are protected from inept management of the program," Mr Pyne said.

Angry sub-contractors will meet in Sydney today as creditors for Maintek Projects Pty Ltd, owed up to $6m, will meet to discuss the liquidation of the company, which collapsed last week.

CFMEU NSW organiser Andrew Quirk told The Australian yesterday Bovis Lend Lease's administration of the contracts needed to be investigated by the federal government amid suggestions the company failed to act on complaints from sub-contractors that the builders were having problems making payments. "One's an accident, two is embarrassing, but three is an emerging pattern," Mr Quirk said.

"In each case, Bovis have said they will take the concerns on board but nothing has actually happened. And the net result is now $15m and climbing of money owed to small business across NSW, from Coffs Harbour to the Illawarra region.

"It's unconscionable that decent, hard-working small businesses are placed in a position of being unable to meet their obligations to their workers and to their suppliers because Bovis has, at the very least, incompetently managed these contracts.

"Quite frankly, the Australian taxpayer is entitled to expect that a company of this experience and size should conduct itself in accordance with the reputation it has and not carry on like some backyard shonk building a four-storey walk-up in the suburbs."

Last night, a Bovis Lend Lease spokesman defended the company's management of the BER projects, saying all work had been done in accordance with government procurement requirements and that a sub-contractor pre-qualification process was in place across all projects. "This includes independent financial assessments and evaluating experience and capacity to deliver the required works," the spokesman said.

He said the company required builders to submit regular reports that they were paying their sub-contractors in accordance with contractual obligations and would seek to assist the workers. "Where possible, we will seek to have existing sub-contractor deliver the remainder of works," the spokesman said.

Bovis had completed projects in 90 per cent of schools it had been engaged on and only nine schools had been affected by builders entering administration.

Maintek, which had been working on 10 BER projects in Sydney's northern suburbs, became the third builder to collapse in as many months after being contracted by Bovis Lend Lease.

It joined Project Kendall, which collapsed in December leaving four Sydney Catholic schools in limbo, and Perle Constructions, which collapsed last month after failing to pay sub-contractors on two BER schools projects and three NSW housing projects.

The NSW Housing Minister Frank Terenzini told The Australian last night he had referred to police allegations that Perle Constructions directors had signed false declarations asserting that sub-contractors had been paid in order to receive up to $1.6m in progress payments.

The liquidator for Project Kendall, which collapsed owing $4m, is investigating whether similar false declarations were signed to obtain government funded progress payments.

The creditors committee for Project Kendall will meet tomorrow, hours before its principal director, Aaron Kendall, is due to be examined by the liquidator, Mark Franklin, of Worrells Solvency and Forensic Accountants.

Creditors of Perle Constructions, which collapsed owing as much as $10m, will vote today on a deed of arrangement which would return them 27c in the dollar.

However, The Australian understands that Perle administrator Geoff Reidy, of Rodgers Reidy, will recommend against the deed but warn that a liquidation could return as little as 5c in the dollar to creditors.

NSW National Party MP for Coffs Harbour Andrew Fraser backed the calls for an inquiry and said Bovis should be joined to any class action being considered by sub-contractors who were not paid for work on NSW housing jobs in the district.

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

That good ol' government childcare again

TOGETHER they suffered unspeakable cruelty - years of severe sexual, physical and emotional abuse at the hands of the very people there to protect them. But 30 years on from their ordeals, 15 former child residents of a state-funded foster home are fighting back.

A multi-million-dollar class action has started against the State of NSW, lawyers working pro bono in a bid to help the 14 women and one man get the closure they need.

Tucked away in Brewarrina in the state's northwest in the 1970s and '80s was the BethCar facility, a foster home for poor, disadvantaged Aboriginal children who had nowhere else to go.

BethCar was run by a husband and wife team, Burt and Edith Gordon, but the place was certainly no sanctuary for its young residents.

Instead, the plaintiffs - none of whom spoke about what happened there until recent years - were subjected to sexual abuse by Burt, their "father", as young as four years old, with their "mother" Edith beating them if they failed to do what he asked.

In the '80s their son-in-law took over the running of BethCar, but that was no respite for the youths, and he has recently been jailed for two aggravated sexual assaults committed at the home.

One of the plaintiffs, now aged 40, said she had tolerated enough by her early teens. "I actually spoke out when I was 14, and my foster mother, she beat me," she said. "I kept my mouth shut, and eventually ran away."

Other victims will tell the District Court of being forced to endure endless molestation in darkened rooms, while on other nights they hid under beds, terrified, to avoid being the next in line.

Cruelly, their late "father" was held up as a model member of society, an ABC documentary once calling him the region's Father of the Year.

A victim said the legal process, which began three years ago, was like being mistreated all over again. Lawyers have been working for nothing since the case was first lodged in 2008. The statement of claim contends the State was negligent, but the defendant said a variety of agencies funded the facility.

SOURCE






Teachers tied up in red tape

THE just-released National Professional Standards for Teachers, detailing the characteristics of successful teachers and what constitutes quality teaching, apparently, is at the "leading edge of international practice" and is "fundamental to improving educational outcomes for young people".

How do we know? Because Tony Mackay, the chairman of the body responsible for the teaching standards, the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, told us so (The Australian, February 10).

In the cliches much loved by Australia's educrats, Mackay boasts that the standards "make explicit the elements of high-quality, effective teaching in 21st century schools", will ensure that "good teachers" become "great teachers" and that the new standards will "enable teachers to constantly strive for excellence".

Mackay also claims the new standards are not about "simple measurement or ticking a box" and that the "standards unambiguously define what is expected of the new teacher and a more experienced teacher".

Not so. The seven standards and accompanying 37 focus areas and 148 descriptors, much like a corporate-inspired, performance management model for staff appraisal, impose a bureaucratic, time consuming and checklist mentality.

The result? Teachers wanting certification or promotion, instead of focusing their time and energy on being effective and inspirational classroom teachers, will have to spend most of their time collecting reams of evidence, attending fruitless in-service programs and genuflecting to education fads such as personalised learning, open classrooms and treating children as knowledge navigators.

Descriptors requiring graduate teachers to "include a range of teaching strategies in teaching", and "Demonstrate the capacity to organise classroom activities and provide clear directions" and "Understand the relevant and appropriate sources of professional learning for teachers" are also vague and generalised.

Most of the descriptors in the AITSL document are motherhood statements reinforcing progressive educational orthodoxy, and the reader searches in vain for any mention of the need for teachers to be judged on how effective they are in raising standards and improving students' results. While testing and examinations should never be the sole measure to judge teachers, students, parents and the wider community have every right to expect that an important aspect of any teacher's employment is to get students to succeed in their studies.

Worse still, the new national standards document, approved by all Australian education ministers last December, fails to detail what evidence will be used to prove that teachers have met the various standards or to ensure that the assessment regime for teachers is rigorous and credible.

The fact that little thought has been given to what evidence will be used to demonstrate whether teachers are effective or not is made worse by the reality that teacher promotion, at least for the first eight to nine years across the different states and territories, appears to be automatic.

Under the present situation, as noted in an Australian Council for Educational Research paper titled Research on Performance Pay for Teachers, "it is rare for increments to be withheld" and it "is difficult to find systematically gathered evidence about underperforming teachers in most school systems".

Much of the Rudd/Gillard inspired education revolution is imported from Britain and the underlying rationale is for increased government intervention and control via bureaucracies and quangos. Copying Britain is understandable given Tony Mackay's involvement with prime minister Tony Blair's favourite think tank Demos and the fact that Tom Bentley, now a senior adviser to Julia Gillard and also with her when she was minister for education, was also involved with Demos as director.

State and territory schools, both government and non-government, are being forced to abide by the dictates of Canberra and ALP-appointed education apparatchiks whether we are talking about the Building the Education Revolution infrastructure program, the national curriculum, national testing or the My School website.

The establishment of AITSL and publication of the National Professional Standards for Teachers are no exception.

Yet there is an alternative. Instead of enforcing a one size-fits-all command and control model, give schools the autonomy and flexibility to design and implement their own approaches to teacher certification and evaluation.

While the Australian Education Union, given its self-interest, opposes giving schools the power to hire, fire and reward teachers, there is increasing evidence that such policies lead to stronger outcomes.

Such freedom explains why Catholic and independent schools, even after adjusting for the socioeconomic profile of students, do so well academically.

Significantly, the British Secretary of Education, Michael Gove, is adopting such an approach in order to rectify the mistakes of the Blair years.

In an interview with Britain's The Guardian, Gove repeated his promise to abolish quangos such as the General Teaching Council for England and the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency on the basis that: "There are too many quangos that take up a school's time without leading to any real benefits to standards.

"Teachers tell us that they have to spend hours outside the classroom going to meetings and filling in forms because of bureaucratic requirements. It takes time away from the core purpose of improving learning".

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A much ignored petition in Australia

Political correctness trumps the voice of the people

The controversial petition calling for a ban on Muslim immigration has been tabled 48 times in Parliament, The Canberra Times can reveal.

ACT Liberal senator Gary Humphries angered the Muslim community when he tabled a petition on behalf of three Sydney residents last week, calling for a 10-year moratorium on Muslim migration to Australia. Several other senators had declined to do so.

However, an analysis of the history of the petition which appears to originate with the Christian Democrat Party reveals it is not the first time Senator Humphries has tabled it. Another 35 politicians 19 Liberals, six Nationals, eight Labor MPs and senators and two Independents have also tabled it since 2007, several more than once.

The petition calls for Christians to be given priority in immigration and for a 10-year ban on Muslims coming to Australia "so an assessment can be made on the social and political disharmony currently occurring in the Netherlands, France and the UK".

Senator Humphries said yesterday he would have tabled it the first time for the same reasons as last week. Although he disagreed with its sentiments, he had a responsibility to allow people's views to be presented to Parliament.

He was "not anxious to become the patron saint of ... extreme points of view" and sorry the publicity had given some people the chance to express bigoted or racist views, but stood by his decision to table it.

"I would do so, and in fact I will do so, again, because this situation is bound to recur in some form or another; not necessarily this issue, but something else that people consider to be controversial," he said.

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More of that wonderful background checking from Queensland Health

Basically zero

Queensland's most wanted man spent most of his 15 years on the run working for Queensland Health.

Convicted killer Luke Andrew Hunter, 42, escaped from Borallon Correctional Centre near Ipswich in February 1996 by cutting through a fence. About 18 months later, he was given a job at Herberton Hospital in north Queensland where he worked closely with patients, the Courier-Mail reported.

Hunter, who in the late 1990s was Queensland's most wanted man and No.4 on Australia's most wanted list, was arrested on Sunday morning in a home at Herberton on the Atherton Tableland.

When Hunter made his escape, he had served just five years of a 21-year sentence for the murder of his lover's husband at Newcastle, New South Wales.

While the whereabouts of the fair-skinned and red-haired murderer remained a mystery to Queensland police, he became a familiar face to the patients and staff of Herberton Hospital as he tended gardens and strolled the wards.

Until his recapture, Hunter worked as a wardsman and groundsman for about $1000 a week under the alias Ashban Cadmiel. He is believed to have got the job with the assistance of the Jesus Group, a religious cult now being investigated for allegedly harbouring Hunter. Most of his duties in the wards involved moving patients and bodies and serving meals.

Hunter was initially employed part time but his position became full time in 2002 as an operational services officer. His wage was between $49,108 and $54,018, with superannuation and allowances taking his package to about $64,000. He started on November 24, 1997, and in the 13 years he was in the job, he may have earned as much as $650,000 of taxpayers' money and accrued significant holiday leave entitlements.

A hospital source said the man they knew as Ashban was a good worker who created a beautiful garden for patients and staff. He also assisted inside the hospital, carrying out wardsman duties involving the lifting and movement of patients around the building.

Police contacted the director of nursing at the hospital last week, after a tip-off, and searched his locker and the hospital's garden shed.

Although the State Government introduced criminal history checks for employees in August 2006, there were no retrospective checks for staff already employed.

A statement issued by Deputy Premier and Health Minister Paul Lucas yesterday said Hunter's employment at Herberton Hospital was "a serious matter and we are taking it seriously". "This person was employed in 1997 when criminal checks were not routinely undertaken prior to Queensland Health employment, as they are now," Mr Lucas said. "Even if there had been criminal checks at the time, this person had assumed a false identity."

Mr Lucas said he "made no criticism of the minister at the time, (the LNP's ) Mike Horan, as the only method of checking that would have established his true identity was finger-printing, which is not routinely undertaken for Queensland Health staff or most other public servants".

"No system is foolproof, but if proper background checks were done at the time, perhaps further queries would have been raised and his past brought to light," Mr Lucas said.

Queensland Health was last exposed in 2005 for failing to conduct adequate checks when it was revealed overseas-trained doctor Jayant Patel was employed at Bundaberg Hospital without so much as a Google search on his name. In June last year, Patel was convicted of the manslaughter of three patients and the grievous bodily harm of another.

Hunter is being held in maximum security at Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre ahead of his next court appearance in March.

SOURCE




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