Ethnic strife

This is a joke but there is more point to it than you might think

Noel Cleal flies to Kabul to watch a young Afghan star in a local game of rugby played with an inflated goat''s bladder. He is suitably impressed, gets on the phone to Des Hasler, signs the boy for the Bulldogs on the spot and arranges for him to come over to Sydney.

Two weeks later The Doggies are 12 - 0 down to The Sea Eagles at home with only 20 minutes left - it?s been a hard day at the office. Hasler gives the young Afghani winger the nod, and on he goes.

The lad is a sensation, playing an absolute blinder. He scores 3 tries in 20 minutes, converts all of them himself from out wide and wins the game for Canterbury . The Belmore Oval fans are delighted, the players and the coach are delighted and the media love the new star of Rugby League.

When the player comes off the ground he phones his mum to tell her about his first day in the NRL.

'Hello mum, guess what?' he says 'I played for 20 minutes today, we were 12 - 0 down but I scored 3 tries - they call it a hat-trick - and we won. Everybody loves me, the fans, the press, they all love me - I'm so happy.'

'Just wonderful,' says his mum, 'Let me tell you about my day ?

.... Your father got shot in the street, your sister and I were ambushed and assaulted - she would have been raped but for a passing police vehicle. Your brother has joined a local gang of looters and set fire to some buildings and all while you tell me that you were having a great time!!'

The young lad is very upset. 'What can I say mum, but I'm really sorry.'

'Sorry?!!! Sorry?!!!' says his mum,

'It's your bloody fault we came to Bankstown in the first place!'





Qld.: Unions ready for war with Premier Campbell Newman over fair pay

I'm looking forward to it.  They'll find that they've got another Sir Joh on their hands -- and Sir Joh creamed them

UNIONS are preparing to go to war against Campbell Newman over fair pay, with multiple industrial battles brewing following the Premier's hardline stance.

Teachers are set to rally outside State Parliament today, core public servants are threatening to strike and firefighters have lodged notice of industrial action from August 1.

But in a strong indication the State Government may ditch its election promise not to force redundancies, Mr Newman yesterday said Labor had hired 20,000 too many public servants and they could no longer be afforded.

"We're not saying they're going to go, but when unions start to make pay cases and say they want more, well I'm afraid that makes it even harder to save those jobs," he said.

As the State Opposition accused the Government of throwing workers into uncertainty by muddling its job cuts figures, Queensland Council of Unions president John Battams warned slashing 20,000 public sector jobs would strip millions of dollars from already struggling regional economies.

The Government this week angered core public service workers with a 2.2 per cent pay offer without incremental increases - its lowest deal yet.

Together union secretary Alex Scott yesterday said its members would be better off not signing the agreement at all, saying they would effectively take a 1 to 2 per cent pay cut.

He said staff may take industrial action from August, while the United Firefighters' Union of Queensland has lodged notice of industrial action from August 1, angered by the proposed buyout of their allowances and overtime in return for a 2.7 per cent pay rise.

It came as some public servants set to lose their jobs on June 30 raised concerns huge chunks of their severance payments could be forfeited to the taxman because the State has refused to process payouts before July 1.

Thousands of Queensland bureaucrats employed for years on so-called "temporary contracts" are set for unemployment under a contract extension freeze.  Axed workers are entitled to two weeks' pay per year of service, capped at 52 weeks.

From July 1, federal tax changes mean workers whose overall income including payouts exceeds $180,000 will lose 45c of every dollar earned over that cap to the Commonwealth.

"Genuine redundancy" payments are excluded from the cap, so workers facing layoffs - such as Fairfax staff - would only pay tax rates of 15 per cent (for over-55s) or 30 per cent (for under-55s) on payouts of up to $175,000.  Their income would not be taken into account.

It is understood that expired contracts of Queensland's temporary employees would not be eligible for that exemption because their job losses are not considered redundancies.

Treasury was last night unable to say how many people would be affected or how much the payouts would cost the Government. One accountant, who is handling the finances of several public servants but did not wish to be named, said the Government was unfairly penalising workers by refusing to transfer cash before June 30.

"It's just lousy that they won't process the payments in double-quick time," he said.

Queensland nurses and midwives are also voting on a 3 per cent pay offer made before an interim audit report last Friday dramatically downgraded the state's financial position, but Nurses Union secretary Beth Mohle would not rule out future industrial action.

The Queensland Teachers Union is disputing a 2.7 per cent pay rise tied to changes in working conditions, which president Kevin Bates said "threatens the future of education in Queensland".

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Qld. government renames and amends Civil Partnerships Act in parliament

SAME-sex couples will no longer be able to enter into a "civil union" in Queensland - they will be known officially as registered relationships.

Under a further change to the previous government's controversial law, the Newman Government will rename the Civil Partnerships Act, the Registered Relationships Act.

The amended, and renamed Act, which was introduced to State Parliament tonight, does away with state-sanctioned ceremonies for people entering into registered relationships.

It also makes it easier for couples to "de-register" their relationship by removing the requirement they go through the District Court, and instead can apply to Births, Deaths and Marriages.

Despite outrage over the proposed scrapping of state-endorsed ceremonies, Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie insisted that the amendments did not "prohibit a couple from holding a private ceremony".  "The ceremony does not affect the legality of the registration process," he said.

Mr Bleijie told Parliament that the changes will see the process become "simplified" and "less onerous", and will "more accurately reflect the purpose and objectives of the act".

Premier Campbell Newman revealed last week that the changes were made to appease Christian churches who were "offended" by a marriage-type ceremony for same-sex couples.

The civil unions issue is believed to have divided the LNP after the party spoke of possibly repealing the legislation during the election campaign.

On Monday, Deputy Speaker Mark Robinson told ABC Radio he personally believed the LNP should have repealed Labor's law to reflect the concerns "of the large majority of Queenslanders".

Gay rights groups have expressed relief the Government did not overturn the legislation but criticised the abolition of state-sanctioned ceremonies.

Some turned to Twitter to suggest the watering down of the laws have made the process akin to registering a pet dog.  "I marry (or wed) my beloved. I register my dog," one wrote.  "Registered relationships ... next you get a little plastic tag to wear and an ear tattoo," wrote another.

Labor MP Jackie Trad used Twitter to describe Mr Bleijie's stance as "just unbelievably heartless".

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Qld. govt.  planning to change union donation laws

The Labor Party's campaign in next year's federal election has been dealt a serious financial blow in Queensland.

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman is changing electoral donation laws so that unions will no longer be able to give money to political parties unless the donation is approved by a secret ballot of members.

Mr Newman says he decided to act after he saw a media report that the ALP was considering increasing its union affiliation fees by 40 per cent.

"At a time when people are struggling to make ends meet, we think it is terrible that hard-working union members should have to be hit by a large increase in union fees to go to a particular political party," he said.

"What we are proposing is an arrangement where once a year they would put their proposals for the next 12 months to the membership, have a democratic secret ballot and to get that signed off by the members.  "Surely that is fair and reasonable?"

But the proposal has outraged Labor leader Annastacia Palaszczuk and the state secretary Anthony Chisholm, who says there are more than 20 affiliated unions.

"Sure, we mightn't have the money, but we'll have the people power on the ground, which is the traditional strength of the Labor Party," Mr Chisholm said.

"If you are going to go down this track you have to have a real good look at whether companies, without reference to their shareholders, should be able to donate money to political parties," he said.  "We need a level playing field."

Mr Newman acknowledged the argument.  "I think that's a fair point but all I say is that corporations do have to answer to shareholders at annual general meetings," he said.

"Frankly, what the unions are saying is a bit disingenuous and self-serving.  "We've seen terrible, terrible things going on, it is alleged, in the Health Services Union where money has been totally spent on all sorts of spurious things.  "I don't think the unions have a leg to stand on in making that comment."

Labor was considering increasing the affiliation fees as a way to raise funds ahead of next year's federal election, which will be fiercely contested in Queensland.

But Mr Newman says that was not his concern.  "This is not about the federal election or the next state election or council elections," he said.  "This is about the democratic rights of union members to actually have a say where their money is going and to not just automatically support a political party."

The Coalition government in New South Wales recently enacted donation laws which forbid unions and corporations from making any political donations, and only allow individuals to contribute a maximum of $2,000 a year.

Mr Newman would not reveal if he had plans to follow suit.  "I'm certainly not ruling out other reform to election funding arrangements in Queensland," he said.

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Gillard's shallow boasting irritates Europe

Can she get ANYTHING right?

FRANCE and Germany have joined a chorus of European leaders calling for other countries to stop lecturing them on how to fix their economic crisis.

The split between the Eurozone and the US and Australia deepened this morning at the G20 in Mexico with French President Francois Hollande saying it didn't need advice from others.

He was joined by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.  "We can have differing points of view ... but Mrs Merkel and I know that Europe must have its own response," he said as the final day of the summit began.  "It must not be given to us from the outside."

But a bullish letter from Ms Gillard in the lead up to the summit appeared to lecture Europe on what to do by saying it could learn lessons from Australia.

Yesterday European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said that he hadn't come to the G20, being held in the luxury seaside region. Of Los Cabos to be given "lessons" from anyone.

Ms Gillard's controversial foray into the G20 has set.tone for the final day of the meeting with Europe pushing back against political pressure from other countries to fix its problems.

During a meeting earlier between US Preaident Barak Obama, Ms Merkel appeared to soften to calls for greater integration of banks across Europe to help ease the debt crisis and re assure markets.

Ms Gillard has publicly pushed this line in a speech to a business leaders meeting of the G20 in which she repeated her claims that Europe could learn from Australia.

Ms Gillard will jet out of the resort region of Los Cabos this afternoon to Rio for a world meeting on sustainable development and climate change.

The PM has denied she was the intended subject of a retaliatory spray from European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso after a speech urging world leaders to follow the "Australian way" in managing their struggling economics put her at the centre of a global diplomatic spat at the G20 summit in Mexico yesterday.

Emerging from the first official meeting with leaders gathered at the luxury resort region of Los Cabos last night, Ms Gillard defended remarks in which she claimed Europe could learn "lessons" from Australia on how to manage an economy through a crisis.

In a day of backtracking and diplomatic shuffling, Ms Gillard toned down her language and said she had praised Europe for making progress.

The Opposition sided with the Europeans and labelled Ms Gillard an "embarrassment".

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said Labor lacked the credentials to be giving advice after delivering four budget deficits.

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Citizenship lure to aid Defence recruits

I'm being optimistic here.  The Brits are laying off a lot of very experienced troops.  Let's hope it is mainly them that we are getting.  They generally fit in seamlessly with our forces  -- similar language, culture, organization, doctrine etc.

THE Australian Defence Force will beef up the number of foreign recruits after parliament passed a law to allow family members to become citizens in just 90 days.
In the past the spouse and children of a foreign soldier, sailor or flyer joining the Australian military had to be permanent residents for four years before they could qualify for citizenship.

The government bill, introduced to parliament several days after a similar opposition bill was tabled, also allows dependent children with a disability who don't attend school and a dependent parent to be fast-tracked.

Defence Personnel Minister Warren Snowdon said the new law was the result of months of work.

In recent years the ADF has sent out tentacles to numerous countries to fill skilled technical jobs such as pilots, submariners, warfare officers and military police. Even a foreign padre has been recruited.

During the past three years it has hired 573 foreign troops who were accompanied by 603 family members.

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A shot across the bows for loan sharks?

Court cuts 96% interest rate to 7%

EASTERN Suburbs cash lender Adam Tilley is suing a Sydney artist for her Paddington home after she defaulted on a 96-per-cent-a-year loan -- 12 times higher than bank rates.

Tilley's company Big Kahuna Holdings took Joanna Kitas to the NSW Supreme Court after she defaulted on a $160,000 loan she took out for her brother - a bankrupt who owed $77 million, court documents said.

Socrates Kitas, also known as Scott Kitas, pressured his sister to take the loan and lodge her million-dollar property as security, the court was told.

He needed the money to put a deposit on a Vaucluse mansion selling for $2.8 million, court documents said. But he told his sister he needed a business loan, otherwise he would be "ruined" and he had "kids to think about", the court heard.

The loan was granted in February 2007 through Big Kahuna Holdings, the company run by Tilley and his wife Sally-Anne, the court heard.

Ms Kitas signed the documents "without reading them" or "obtaining independent legal advice", the court heard.

But when Ms Kitas, whose income is mostly from selling art, defaulted the rate blew out from 48 per cent to 96 per cent per year, the court heard.

When she did not pay that amount, Tilley launched legal action demanding her house, the $160,000 lent and unpaid interest. By the time the matter reached the court, Ms Kitas had fallen out with her brother.

Judge Lucy McCallum told the court the interest was "truly extortionate" and ordered it to be cut to 7 per cent.

A decision will be made in relation to the Paddington property when the matter returns to court on a later date.

Ms Kitas is well known in eastern suburbs art circles. In 2009 she entered a portrait of cricketer David Warner for the Archibald Prize.

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Some conservative  Concerns about the Limited Understanding Conveyed by Australia's Proposed National History Curriculum

Information without understanding?

One of my concerns is that culture is treated as a consequence, rather than a cause, of history. For example, the proposed Year 1 Content Item H1KU4 refers to considering: 'How the roles of individuals and groups have evolved over time to meet changing human needs".

The problem is that the curriculum does not seem at any stage to require considering how "roles of individuals and groups" (ie how people behave individually or corporately, as a consequence of their cultural assumptions) can affect history. For example, the ability of societies to change (socially, politically and economically) is a function of the "roles of individuals and groups" within the society, and an ability to change is in turn a major determinant a society's success or failure in terms of technological / economic advancement and influence relative to other societies (eg see Competing Civilizations). And the weak "role of individuals and groups" in dealing with change has apparently created major challenges that still need to be faced by Australians with indigenous ancestry (see The Challenge of Aboriginal Advancement).

A closely related concern is that the curriculum would not provide any depth of understanding of the way in which ideas have influenced history. The curriculum would certainly introduce various historical ideas - specifically those of: (a) Egypt or Greece or Rome (H7KU16); (b) China or India or Australasia (H7KU22); (c) Medieval Europe (H8KU13); (d) the Renaissance (H8KU19); and (e) radicals (H10KU4). However this would not lead to a coherent understanding of:

*    the particular ideas that have been the foundation of Australia's culture, institutions, society and economy. For example, a growing scientific understanding of the natural world could emerge in Europe at the time of the Renaissance and subsequently accelerate economic advancement, only because of Christendom's expectation that the natural world would be lawful. Many of the ideas that are needed to understand Australia's heritage seem unfortunately to be either absent from, or optional components in, the proposed curriculum;

*   the way in which different ideas (or the absence interest in abstract ideas) have led to different outcomes. For example, constraining the ideas that may be considered to those consistent with the world-view that Islamic scholars have elaborated around the Qu'ran arguably has significant (adverse) implications for Muslim dominated societies (see About Arabic Thought and Islamic Science). And the absence of Western societies' commitment to abstract ideas and universal values in some Asian societies (because they lack a classical Greek heritage) can lead to ways of doing things that are quite different ways to those Australians have any basis for understanding (eg see East Asia in Competing Civilizations).

Professor Stuart Macintyre, who spoke about the history component of the proposed curriculum in ACARA's Video Transcript ('Development and Consultation Overview: K–10 Draft Curriculum’, March 2010) emphasised: engaging those with diverse backgrounds; increasing understanding of Australia's regional context and of others; and promoting sustainability.

However there is a sense in which the proposed curriculum's worthy goal of encouraging acceptance of others as they are, conflicts with the need to understand what works and what doesn't work, and perhaps even the distinction between good and evil.

Moreover functionally-useful understanding of Australia's place in a region in which dominant societies lack the commitment to the abstract ideas and universal values that Western societies derived from the West's classical Greek heritage requires far more than brief references to Asia's history. Without much deeper understanding, cultural differences that are 'invisible' to those with 'Western' world views could put Australia's liberal and democratic traditions at risk (eg see Babes in the Asian Woods).

 Other observers perceived defects in the 'Asian' component of the proposed national history curriculum. For example:

*        there is a need for massive further funding to equip teachers if Asian component is introduced to curriculum - as teachers are not yet able to deliver on Asia literacy (according to Kathe Kirby - Asia Education Foundation). The draft curriculum was seen as very Eurocentric [1];

*       attempt to tell Australian story in Asia context was 'lame and impotent' according to Tony Milner (ANU) - as it fails to prepare Australians for the world they are moving into. WWII needs to focus not in Europe but on Japanese conquests in Asia. The curriculum focuses on rights / liberty / progress which does not have same impact in Asian societies [1].

A reasonable case can be made that many of the dysfunctions and conflicts that plague human societies are the unintended outcome of the failure of intellectuals to critically evaluate the consequences of differences in cultural assumptions (see Competing Civilizations) . It would not be constructive at this time to reflect this weakness in Australia's national school history curriculum.

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E-health records shambles about to befall us

The British experience of a similar scheme should be a warning.  The Brits have spent many years and billions of pounds on a similar scheme and still have not got it working properly.  And the British habit of "losing" masses of people's data is unlikely to be much different here.  Anybody with medical records that might embarrass them should avoid this thing like the plague.  I am going to register, however, just to see how it all goes.  I like a laugh

The national electronic health record database to be launched on July 1 has both medical and security experts calling for better e-health controls.

Australia has no co-ordinated approach to e-health safety and security – and with the national Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) just weeks away, the risk of a safety crisis is growing daily.

People who choose to register for a PCEHR from July 1 will have access to a range of their medical data from Medicare, and over time also doctor's summaries, pathology results, scans and prescriptions.

"I would rest more comfortably if DOHA [the Department of Health and Ageing] was more pragmatic about the risks involved in accessing personal health records," says Graham Ingram, who heads the information security emergency response centre AusCERT.

"At the moment DOHA is saying, don't worry, the transactions are secure. They are not highlighting the risks that are associated with accessing your information over the internet from a compromised machine."

Ingram wants DOHA to "drop the blanket assurance" that the PCEHR records are safe and says that the risk of identity theft is high, adding DOHA can't guarantee the security of records accessed on a private machine or through an internet café, for example.

A very public security breach occurred last month when DOHA's eHealth education website was defaced by a team of hackers known as 'LatinHackTeam' on May 17.

The hack involved a defacement to publiclearning.ehealth.gov.au. Defacements are the digital equivalent to a protest graffiti. In this case it included a homepage change with text celebrating it.

The changes were quickly removed from the DOHA site. A copy of the hack was documented on the Zone H defacements website.

IT security consultant Chris Gatford of HackLabs said the hack showed a critical security process, that should have blocked access to external editing of the site, wasn't followed.

Gatford said vulnerabilities could include a coding error, a software patch not applied or having no process to detect security vulnerabilities – all standard basic security processes that should be integral to such a major project.

Professor Enrico Coeira is the co-author of a paper published in the Medical Journal of Australia in April which calls for better clinical safety governance for e-health.

His collaborators on the paper include Dr Mukesh Haikerwal who heads Clinical Leadership, Engagement and Clinical Safety at the National E-health Transition Authority (NEHTA), which is spearheading the implementation of the PCEHR.

The writers call for the establishment of an independent, national, expert-based body to oversee e-health clinical safety governance, with the capacity "to investigate, analyse and act upon significant risks in the system."

The wide range of clinical software in existence throughout the health system is unregulated and unmonitored and the authors cite studies in e-health safety in Australia showing evidence of "past harms and future risks".

"It's important not to confuse safety and security," says Coeira.

"E-health security is about stopping people inadvertently or deliberately having access to information they are not supposed to, whereas safety is about whether a person can be harmed because information is wrong, or not delivered, or delivered to the wrong person."

Coeria says safety and security issues stretch beyond the issue over the vulnerability of the PCEHR records.

"E-health in the form of clinical software is being used everywhere right now – by every GP, every pharmacist, and every hospital – and it is entirely unregulated," Coeira says.

He says that without strong standards in place, something as simple as a flawed clinical software update could change the medication information in the clinical health records of a number of patients, unintentionally risking widespread harm.

"We know from research in other countries, that things can go wrong and patients can get hurt. We are not saying the PCEHR is unsafe. We are saying, we don't have any idea. And there is no national approach to governing how it is done, monitoring what goes on, and recording and responding to any problems."

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HIV positive dentist claims Dental Board of Queensland 'contravened his human rights' by preventing him from conducting 'exposure prone dental' work

A human right to infect people with AIDS?  This is an offensive politically correct absurdity

A DENTIST who is HIV positive claims the Dental Board of Queensland has "contravened his human rights" by preventing him from conducting "exposure prone dental" work.

The Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, in a just published four page written decision, has given the green light to the dentist, know only as "M", to take action against the Board under the Anti-Discrimination Act 1991.

QCAT senior member Clare Endicott said she was satisfied M be given an opportunity to establish if his complaint was a "contravention of his human rights."

"M is a dentist who is HIV positive," she said.  "The Dental Board of Queensland has directed M not undertake exposure prone dental procedures in accordance with one of its policies.  "M contends that the application of that policy contravenes (the Act) and as a result constitutes unlawful discrimination.

"This case involves very grave matters with implications that could have wider consequences than those immediately affecting the parties."

QCAT has already ruled the conduct of the Board in this case did not constitute "unlawful indirect discrimination", but has yet to decide if it was "unlawful direct discrimination."

The Board had submitted the application by M was "vexatious, misconceived, lacking in substance and an abuse of process."

Ms Endicott said the Board conceded it had discriminated against M, but submitted it was exempt from consequences under sections of the Act.

She said M opposed the Board's application to bring an early end to proceedings, saying he wanted to adduce evidence to refute the reliance of the Board's "statutory defences".

"Both M and the Dental Board should have the opportunity to have their arguments about this complaint considered by the tribunal," Ms Endicott said.

"The implications (of this matter) have a bearing on how the instrumentalities of the State, including the respondent Board as well as this tribunal, conduct themselves when dealing with the rights of individuals."

"I am satisfied that M must be provided with the opportunity to have a just determination of his complaint which alleges a contravention of his human rights."

On March 12, Ms Endicott refused an application by the board to bring an early end to the proceedings.

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Coal hard light of day for dud Green/Left scheme

Kevin Rudd's decision to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on technology to capture and store carbon has failed to deliver.

They've conferenced in empire-style Parisian ballrooms and dined in Kyoto on food cooked by a genuine Iron Chef. But deeply disgruntled former staffers believe Australia's $300 million Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute has not achieved very much.

In 2008 the then prime minister Kevin Rudd decided a fledgling technology called carbon capture and storage was the key to two of his government's big aims: joining a successful international fight to reduce global warming and continuing to be the world's largest exporter of coal.

In his grandiloquent style, he promised $400 million to a new not-for-profit company, the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, which would get CCS up and running at home and also "lead the world".

The funding was pared back over time, but industry and government sources and former staff of the institute are frustrated that much of the $300 million spent on the institute has been "squandered".

Even the man appointed to haul it away from government hand-outs and into the world of commercial reality - Brad Page, the former head of the peak electricity industry body - concedes the original $100 million a year "seed funding" given to the institute was more that it knew how to spend.

"It's actually impossible to spend that amount of money responsibly," he tells The Sun-Herald.

But his predecessors tried, in lavish ways that raised the ire of senior bureaucrats and ministers. Since 2009, more than $235 million has been delivered to the institute, $122 million of it already spent and another $113 million in its bank account, beyond the reach of Treasury's razor, information provided at a Senate estimates hearing reveals.

Treasury managed to claw back more than $80 million of the promised $400 million before it was handed over. Only about $80 million remains to be paid over the next five years.

The institute has 78 staff, including nine permanent employees overseas - two in Washington, three in Tokyo and four in Paris. Former senior employees say its first chief executive, the British businessman Nick Otter, was paid well over $500,000 a year - more than the Prime Minister.

Page insists he has "no idea" what his predecessor was paid and his own salary is "nothing like that". The institute's five board members are paid from a budget of $400,000 a year and are entitled to first-class air travel.

The first members' meeting was in Canberra, where the institute is based, in early 2009. But its second, in November 2009, attended by more than 15 Australia-based staff, was in the luxurious ballroom of the InterContinental Hotel in Paris, opposite the Paris Opera and decorated in similar ornate style.

Both industry sources and former staff concede the jaw-dropping opulence sent "all the wrong messages" to the 180 members who attended.

"The spending was very difficult to justify," said one former employee.

And it did not end in Paris. In 2010 when they met in Kyoto, they enjoyed a dinner cooked by a celebrity Iron Chef ( the institute says his services were thrown in for no extra charge by the hotel).

Documents released under freedom of information show a staggering $54,257,000 was spent on "operational expenses" in the first two years.

The spending began before the institute even existed. Rudd - who decided at a G8 meeting in Japan in 2008 that the success of CCS was vital to Australia's interest - set it up on advice from Boston Consulting, rather than the public service, at a cost of $1.5 million. By September 2008, he summoned business leaders to Canberra for a 30-minute presentation unveiling his plan.

Many were nonplussed, unsure about its aims or how it would be different from the CO2 co-operative research centre set up under the Howard government ( with almost $50 million in federal funds), Dick Wells's National Low Emissions Coal Council ($400 million in federal funding) or another international body set up by the US, the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum.

"I still have no real idea how it will work or what it will do," one chief executive said at the time.

But the public service was already doling out $65 million to future institute "partners", including $21 million to the Asian Development Bank, almost $20 million to the International Energy Agency, $10 million to the Clinton Foundation headed by the former US president, and a grant to a body called the Climate Group to "advance" CCS. The Sun-Herald understands there is deep concern about what Australia is achieving from these contracts.

The institute was soon seeking global members and now boasts more than 300, including foreign governments, corporations, industry organisations and research bodies. There was no reason not to sign up. There is no joining fee.

In July 2009, the grand idea was paraded on the international stage, its reannouncement the key initiative at the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy. It was a heady moment for the Australian prime minister, who shared the podium with the US President, Barack Obama, the leaders of the developed world listening behind him.

At the time, Australia's $400 million was termed "seed funding" with hundreds of millions from other governments also anticipated. But it took years for the US government to come good with $1 million and the European Union has only this year contributed €3 million ($3.8 million) for the institute to take over work it had previously contracted elsewhere.

Its advisory panel included the world's best and brightest, among them former World Bank boss James Wolfensohn and influential climate economist Sir Nicholas Stern. Wolfensohn has since left.

Despite all its money, it took the institute some time to clarify exactly what it would do to meet its ambitious brief. At its inception, a spokesman for Rudd said the institute would not "actually fund demonstration projects overseas" but would "provide expertise … and research".

However, in its first report to the Minister for Resources, Martin Ferguson, revealed under freedom-of-information laws, the institute said it was planning to "make approximately $50 million per annum available to support a substantial portfolio of CCS projects around the world".

And in a letter to Ferguson in February 2010, institute chairman Russell Higgins wrote proudly that the initial offer to support international projects received an "extremely encouraging" response. The institute had received requests from overseas projects asking for a total of $500 million of Australia's money. So far, the institute has spent $37 million on projects, mostly overseas. Several have failed. Only about $6 million has been spent on projects in Australia.

A total of $8 million was spent on a single CCS plant proposed by the energy company Tenaska, in Texas. In a recent report, Tenaska conceded it was still unable to bridge a "financing gap" required before the project could proceed because the US government had not provided any assistance. Internationally, the only CCS projects working on power plants are where the injected carbon dioxide serves an additional revenue-raising purpose - helping to recover more oil deposits from underground.

"They thought they could purchase an acceleration of projects overseas, but it was clear from the start that even though we had a lot of money, doing that would cost a lot more money than we had," the former employee says.

Peter Cook, the former head of the research centre CO2CRC and a professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne, says Australia should have used its money to make sure at least one domestic carbon capture and storage project was built to prove to investors that the technology worked at commercial scale.

"Some of the other countries must think we are wonderfully generous, but I believe we could be getting a lot more bang for our buck," he said.

Page says the institute's function is now "knowledge sharing" - to make sure each new project around the world does not repeat the mistakes of the last. He says the money was initially paid to overseas projects to begin building up the institute's publicly available "knowledge bank", but from now on it will commission specific research and will no longer fund projects on the ground.

As the government funding runs out, Page's job over the next two years "is to develop a strategy for the future … where our services are attractive enough to be paid for by our customers." It will almost inevitably involve fewer staff and pared back operations.

But the main knowledge being "shared" is that, like all low-emission technologies, CCS is more expensive than coal, and therefore (unless it can make a revenue stream through enhanced oil recovery) it requires upfront capital assistance from governments, and ongoing subsidies while a carbon price remains low.

The institute itself came to this conclusion after its first global "audit", released in October 2009 and Page concedes this remains the reason for slow progress on CCS around the world.

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Is the easy ride finally over for Qld bureaucrats?

PREMIER Campbell Newman has given his strongest indication yet of the number of jobs that will be shed from the public service to save money.  Responding to a question from Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk in Parliament today, Campbell Newman said Labor had employed 20,000 more public servants than the State could afford.

"Labor was paying those 20,000 by borrowing, by incurring debt," said Mr Newman.  "We're going to fight as hard as we can to save those jobs (but) we've got a terrible job ahead of us to get the State's finances back on track."

His revelation comes after threats of strike action by public service union Together Queensland, in response to the government's new pay offer to core public servants of a 2.2 per cent rise and a freeze on promotions.

Together secretary Alex Scott said the "outrageous offer" was the lowest the Newman Government had made to public servants since taking office on March 24.

Just days after the sobering Commission of Audit report, the State's 60,000 public servants have been offered 2.2 per cent annual pay rises and the prospect of no extra cash for promotion in the next three years.

The offer also removes from the public service award "any provisions impeding managerial prerogative", a move the union says will "abolish consultation in the workforce and silence workers".

Alex Scott from Together Queensland, which represents more than 38,000 public servants, said it was an "outrageous offer" that would leave most workers financially worse off.

If an agreement cannot be reached, the public servants can take the matter to the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission, which last year granted police a substantially higher rise than they were originally offered.

But the Newman Government has legislated to try to prevent that happening again, requiring the independent umpire to take into account the State's financial position in wage cases.

The law changes have prompted criticism of the Government from unions, which claim the amendments water down the commission's independence.

Although public servants cannot take industrial action until the current agreement ends on July 31, Mr Scott said it was an avenue they would explore.  "We're working through the mechanisms and clearly the feedback from our members is that they're insulted by this offer," he said.

"It seems to be designed to inflame the public sector and makes a mockery of Campbell Newman's assurances prior to the election, that the public service had nothing to fear from an LNP government."

Mr Scott said it was clear the timing of the offer, just days after the Costello Commission of Audit report, was intended to "scare workers into accepting".  "Nurses got 3 per cent, teachers have been offered 2.7 per cent, medical officers 2.5 per cent and now public servants 2.2 per cent," Mr Scott said. "They're using the Commission of Audit report to try to bully and intimidate workers."

The report found the public sector had grown to represent 4.5 per cent of the population in June last year, compared with 4.1 per cent in June 2000.

"If the size of the public sector had remained at the same per cent of the population, employee numbers would be around 18,500 lower and expenses around $1.5 billion lower," the report noted.

Minister assisting the Premier Glen Elmes said based on the report's findings, it was clear everyone had a part to play in tightening the belt.

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A homosexual nobody criticizes the Salvation Army

When homosexuals have done one thousandfth of the good works that the Salvos have done I might listen to them

THE Salvation Army is facing a backlash after its online anti-homosexuality and gay marriage stance sparked a social media boycott campaign.

Gay pop star Darren Hayes - the face of '90s hit machine Savage Garden and a mentor on The Voice - has called for the boycott.

The Salvos responded last night by pointing out they helped Australia's most marginalised and needy, including gay and transgender people.

After spotting the Salvos' online statement on homosexuality, Hayes tweeted to his 60,748 followers: "Important for gay people to know the true position of the Salvation Army when considering who to donate to. Sad." He said asking people to control their sexuality was like asking someone to change their eye colour.

Salvation Army spokesman Major Bruce Harmer said most of Australia's faith-based charities would be excluded from receiving donations if judged purely on Hayes' criteria.

"TSA would suggest a more appropriate measure for people to use is to look at how an organisation treats and deals with members of the community who are marginalised, vulnerable, experiencing disadvantage or oppression," he said. "On that measure, TSA is one of the most compassionate and non-discriminatory in the way it works with people who are marginalised in our community, including many who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender."

He said gay people could be officers of the church if they vowed to be celibate as well as unmarried heterosexuals. Major Harmer said a statement on its website, which described homosexuality as "unacceptable" to God and that it should be "restrained" with willpower, was its current position.

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Prime Minister Julia Gillard's talking up the economy glosses over grassroots fears

By Mike O'Connor (Mike is normally a humorous writer but the lies and deceptions of the illegitimate Gillard government seem to have strained his good humour to the limit)

ASKED how they expected their family's finances to fare for the rest of the year, a third of those surveyed recently said they expected matters to get worse.

The poll, conducted by Westpac and the Melbourne Institute, found that this was the most negative outlook recorded in 22 years.

Meanwhile, at the business leaders' forum held in Brisbane, organised by Prime Minister Julia Gillard and to which only a handful of Queensland's business leaders were invited, the Prime Minister urged the "suits" to talk up the economy.

It seems it is their fault that people feel so glum about their futures.

All that is needed is for everyone to hold hands and sing Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life and we'll be fine.

As a result of this summit, the Prime Minister now knows that the business community is not happy about the carbon tax.

If it took a summit conference for her to establish this, we're in more trouble than most of us thought.

The conference was symptomatic of the reason so many of us feel let down, for in the end it was a stage erected for the Prime Minister's podium, one from which she could attempt to gain the support of the business community by telling them that she was listening and that a cut in company tax was back on the agenda.

Was this the same tax cut promised in Treasurer Wayne Swan's Budget, an assurance as easily broken as it was made?

Well, yes, it was but this time it will be different.  Saying it was now an "absolute priority", the Prime Minister promised the cut.

But there was a slight catch.  Someone would have to work out a way for it to somehow pay for itself so it would not affect the Budget's bottom line.

This was the equivalent of telling every wage-earner in Australia that they could have a $100-a-week pay increase as long as they could find a way that it would not cost their employer any money.

The speeches made, nothing decided and nothing gained, the stage was then dismantled and the Prime Minister and her entourage scuttled back to Canberra, leaving the rest of us sitting by the flickering light of a candle trying to read our latest electricity bill, one in which the decimal point seemed to have moved one place to the right since the same time last year.

Shielding the candle against the wind, I shuffled out to the post box to see if my household assistance grant, otherwise known as The Don't Mention The Carbon Tax Handout, had arrived.

Then I remembered that our household had been judged to be fantastically wealthy and therefore ineligible for any help in coping with the impost of the Prime Minister's carbon dioxide tax.

The only mail, however, was from my superannuation fund telling me that all the money I'd put in over the past year had disappeared.

This meant that I would have been better off taking my weekly super contribution to Eagle Farm or Doomben every Saturday and putting it on the favourite in the feature race.

Please stop telling me that Australia is the envy of the world when my retirement savings are being trashed, and don't tell me I will be cushioned against rising prices caused by the carbon tax when every rational element in my being tells me that this will not happen.

Please stop trying to buy votes by handing out bucketloads of cash to people for having babies, buying new homes or simply not earning as much money as other people when the nation plainly can't afford it, and please stop trying to split us by attempting to paint everyone who earns more than $80,000 a year as a filthy capitalist pig.  It is, believe me, extremely irritating.

Look after the abjectly poor and dispossessed but please stop institutionalising a system that in many instances penalises people who have worked hard throughout their lives while rewarding those who have done as little as possible.

Oh, yes, and a word about hypocrisy.

Last week, Treasurer Swan blasted European leaders for lacking political guts. "Put simply, what is required is some basic political courage," thundered the Treasurer.

Was this the same Swan who took one look at the Henry review into our taxation system, one which urged the Government to undertake sweeping reforms, and quickly filed it under Too Hard?

Still, one must look on the bright side. Now that Treasurer Swan has branded the euro leaders as cowards from the incredibly brave distance of 20,000km, there's little doubt they'll lift their game and solve the whole mess by the end of the week.

It was left to Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens to urge the Government to take direction from the Productivity Commission.

Is this the same commission the Government ignores because it says that the mountains of money spent by the Gillard Government as a sop to the unions in propping up doomed industries such as the car industry are an absolute waste? The same.

As Bank of America Merrill Lynch Australia's chief economist told The Financial Review: "When it (the Government) doesn't want the opinions it thinks the commission will give, it doesn't ask them."

What was it that Swan said the Europeans were lacking?  Ah, yes. That's right.  Courage. Basic political courage.

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Testing reveals some surprisingly good schools in poor areas

Sitting in the parliamentary press gallery in Canberra, waiting with the other vultures for Craig Thomson to make his statement to Parliament on May 21, I was surprised by the venom already being directed in the chamber. It had nothing to do with Thomson. Dr Sharman Stone, a Liberal MP, was on her feet blasting away:

"We all know that NAPLAN is a farce - it is not a sensible way to measure your children's increasing knowledge across the nation - but we already have NAPLAN indicating that there is a substantial drop in literacy, numeracy and people being able to interpret literature."

Stone's loathing of the one-size-fits-all measurements imposed on the nation's schools by the Gillard government was echoed in an open letter signed by 100 academics last month which condemned the NAPLAN tests wholesale:

"As a group we are appalled at the way in which the Commonwealth government has moved to a high stakes testing regime in the form of NAPLAN, despite international evidence that such approaches do not improve children's learning outcomes."

Farce. Appalled. These are strong terms. Then last week came a report from the Australian National Audit Office which found that the $322 million spent by the government over the past three years to lift national literacy and numeracy standards had barely made a dent.

All this raises the question: is the NAPLAN scheme just another Labor bureaucratic white elephant like the pink batts scheme, the gold-plated school building program and the billion-dollar-a-year asylum-seekers debacle?

The jury is out. Whatever flaws the NAPLAN data may have, it does tell a great deal. It confirms private schools generally outperform non-selective public schools of comparable socio-economic rank. It confirms girls schools outperform boys schools. It confirms that a school's socio-economic catchment area has a huge bearing on school performance.

Everyone already knew that - except for the NSW Teachers Federation, which prefers ideology over reality - but now the figures say it. What those NAPLAN scores and ICSEA (Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage) indexes also reveal - and this is their point - is that the hero schools can rise above their socio-economic limitations and deliver superior academic performance that breaks the iron grip of wealth.

You don't have to be wealthy to get a good education. I've gone through the data and ranked schools by their ICSEA socio-economic scores, then cross-referenced these with their NAPLAN scores rank. I found a dozen schools which rank at least 200 places in NAPLAN results above their socio-economic rank.

Here are those schools, from modest, low socio-economic areas. Half are public and half are private:

1. Pal College Sydney School of Mathematics and Science, Cabramatta (NAPLAN scores rank 161)

2. Taree Christian College (321)

3. Moriah College, Queens Park (87)

4. Sefton High (42)

5. Barellan Central (134)

6. Tempe High (116)

7. Macquarie Fields High (86)

8. Cabramatta High (481)

9. Freeman Catholic College, Bonnyrigg (140)

10. Malek Fahd Islamic, Greenacre (48)

11. James Sheahan Catholic High, Orange (303)

12. St Ursula's College, Kingsgrove (110)

Two schools have the advantage of being partially selective, Sefton High and Tempe High, while two other state schools, Barellan Central and Macquarie Fields High, belong to centre-of-excellence programs. But all draw students from modest socio-economic areas.

Why rate a school like Cabramatta High so highly when it ranks only 481 on the NAPLAN scores? Because it ranks 758 among the 783 high schools in NSW in the ICSEA socio-economic measure. Thus it is a comprehensive school in one of the 30 poorest areas in the state but its scores ranked it 277 places above its socio-economic ranking. This is exceptional.

Another school in Cabramatta did even better, topping my list. Pal College Sydney School of Mathematics and Science is a small private school which, like Cabramatta High, has more than 90 per cent of its students from non-English-speaking backgrounds. Despite a low socio-economic score of 925, Pal College ranked 161 in NAPLAN scores, by my calculation a phenomenal 510 places above its ICSEA socio-economic rank.

Seven of these 12 schools have students who are predominantly from non-English-speaking backgrounds while an eighth, St Ursula's, has a small NESB majority, mainly Chinese. These schools - Pal College, Sefton High, Tempe High, Macquarie Fields High, Cabramatta High, Freeman Catholic, Malek Fahd and St Ursula's - are engine rooms of upward social mobility for immigrant families.

The three schools in regional NSW on this list, Taree Christian, Barellan Central, and James Sheahan Catholic, have almost no students from non-English-speaking backgrounds.

The six private schools, Christian, Jewish and Muslim, would be selected by parents with a heavy investment in their children's education, as would non-denominational Pal College.

Overall, good religious schools deliver the highest economic pay-off in delivering above-average performance. Although state selective schools, being free, are the great bargains of the education system, even they tend to match the high correlation between superior test scores and superior socio-economic ranking.

The sheer diversity of these 12 schools points to common advantage: they must all have high-quality leadership. Thus the move to give greater autonomy for headmasters at state schools, to match that of private schools, should be buttressed by the NAPLAN data because it shows schools can rise above modest circumstances.

The chairman of the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, Barry McGaw, says: "Opponents of NAPLAN would deny parents and students information that sits in a bigger picture than the local school. They would deny the schools the chance to identify others from which they might usefully learn."

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Australia's  'how-to guide' for people smugglers

THE Immigration Department has been accused of running a "marketing department" for people smugglers after publishing an online guide to asylum-seeker processing and fact sheets detailing free legal assistance available to arrivals.

A new section of the department's website explains the journey irregular maritime arrivals take when their boat is intercepted in Australia.

The site also explains the appeals process for rejected claims and the visa process for successful applications.

"This website contains general information for you if you arrived in Australia by boat without a visa," the department tells visitors.

The government yesterday said it was best to be proactive and distribute the facts rather than let asylum seekers be fooled by people smugglers.

But opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison dubbed it a "how-to guide".   "The only thing missing from this website is a hotline to the people smugglers that they can call and an introductory video from Captain Emad," he said. "You can effectively call this 'captainemad.com'."

Some of the information has been available on the department's website for months, but was compiled into an easy-to-use resource in recent days.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Bowen yesterday said the information was important to counter the false promises people smugglers peddled.

"Scott Morrison would rather asylum seekers get the myths from people smugglers; these are simply the facts," the spokesman said.

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21yo Aussie woman jailed in Thailand over false rape  claim

What stupid woman!  The Thais have been extraordinarily lenient in sentencing her to only 15 days.  Even in Britain she would probably have got years

A 21-year-old Sydney woman has been sentenced to 15 days jail in Phuket for falsely accusing a local taxi driver of assaulting her.

The woman, whose name has not been released, told Thai police she was the victim of an assault early on Sunday on the resort island and that two other Thai men restrained her during the attack.

The report, confirmed by Phuket Provincial Court sources, said the woman initially told the officers she become separated from her boyfriend in a nightclub area of Patong early on Sunday morning.

She said she was taking a taxi back to her resort when the driver picked up two other men.  She alleged he then drove to a secluded area and assaulted her while the other men held her down. Afterwards, they took her passport and cash.

However, Phuket police said they interviewed the women over two days before she confessed to fabricating the story after security camera footage revealed she had been safely taken back to her resort by a motor bike taxi driver.  After confessing to giving false evidence the woman was detained and held in a local cell.

Deputy Superintendent of the Phuket Kathu district Police station, Colonel Sermphan Sirikong, told a local newspaper the allegations had the potential to harm Phuket's reputation as a holiday destination.  "It's sad that tourists have to lie about this kind of thing," Col Sermphan said. "It could damage Phuket's tourism industry."

The woman faced the court today in the company of Australian consular officials.

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Australia and Asia:  Belated intellectual realization of what is already well underway

Something not mentioned below is the fact that Australia's population is now something like 5% of Han Chinese origin.  I still sometimes get a bit of a start when someone of unmistakeable Han  appearance addresses me in broad Australian!  And the number of tall Australian men I see with a little Asian lady on their arm is so frequent as to be amusing.  The Asian ladies know what they want  -- big men  --  and get it.  My own big blond 6' tall son always seems to have an amiable Asian lady in his company

Sam Roggeveen, editor of the Lowy Institute’s blog The Interpreter, recently suggested that coming to grips with the Asian Century may represent a ‘great national project’ for Australia. Embracing Asia ‘goes to the core of our national identity’ and cannot be done without political leadership, he added.

The Asian Century is not a pithy turn of phrase. It points to one of the most important geo-strategic shifts in world history. After approximately 500 years of European and American pre-eminence, power is rapidly moving back to Asian capitals and centres of commerce.

As profound as the changes heralded by the dawn of the Asian Century might be, it does not require a great nation-building response from Australia. We are already deep in an Asian embrace.

The rise of Asia is nothing new for Australia in the economic arena. From the resources sector to higher education, the Australian economy is already tied to Asia’s growing economies.

The top five destinations for Australian exports are China, Japan, Korea, India and Taiwan, and we are negotiating free trade agreements with China, Japan, Korea, India and Indonesia.

The Australian tourism industry is emblematic of the shift to Asia. While North Atlantic economies are depressed by ongoing financial meltdowns and paltry growth figures (around 2% in the United States and 0% in the Eurozone), Australia is increasingly drawing tourists from the rapidly expanding Asian middle classes.

Last year, Australia welcomed 542,000 Chinese visitors, and Tourism Australia projects that Chinese tourists could inject as much as $7 billion-9 billion annually into the Australian economy by 2020. With more than 2 billion newly prosperous Indian and Chinese middle-class consumers expected by mid-century, the importance of Asian markets will only grow.

Appreciation of the significance of Asia’s rise is not restricted to corporate boardrooms or elite defence and foreign policy circles. The latest Lowy Institute poll shows that Australians are aware of Asia’s importance to our prosperity and security: 68% of respondents said it was very important for Australia to be seen in a positive light by countries in our region.

Australia’s view of Asia is also becoming increasingly optimistic. Positive feelings towards Japan are at an all-time high, and China is increasingly viewed in a positive light.

Australia’s integration into Asia need not be a national project. It is already underway and will continue apace.

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Illegals  abuse law to overstay in Australia

FAILED asylum seekers, foreign students overstaying their visas and others facing deportation admit to rorting the immigration system to stay in Australia, according to an official report.

The Immigration Department study revealed unsuccessful visa applicants had a "dig in and resist" mentality, believing they had a "personal entitlement" to stay in Australia and could beat the system with persistence. It found some refugee advocates, migration agents and religious groups misled asylum seekers by raising expectations and false hopes about their chances of staying in Australia.

Based on interviews with people facing removal from Australia and immigration officers, the report revealed the department was besieged by those with a "stay-at-all-cost" mindset.

It found people used every means to extend their stay and many saw marrying an Australian as a viable way to remain permanently, with the aim of later bringing out family. "Most respondents displayed a 'dig in and resist to the end' mentality (and) they had a strong sense of personal entitlement to stay in Australia," the report said.

"They believed the system was there to be exploited and no decision was seen as final."

Among those surveyed were Afghan, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, UK and New Zealand nationals. Most had been in Australia between two and 10 years - some for decades.

The report said, while many claimed to fear persecution in their home countries, they strongly believed they had a right to stay based on their social and economic contribution to Australia.

"(There was also) a sense of shame around returning to the country of origin having nothing to show for their stay in Australia," it said.

The report said many surveyed asylum seekers were drug addicts and had mental health problems, and they had a general attitude that the department lacked credibility and was "just trying to get rid of people". The Management Of Enforced Removals In Australia: A Client Perspective report was done for the department by consultants Hall & Partners/Open Mind.

It recommended the department improve "messaging" so clients better understood the migration process and were given alternatives to remaining in Australia.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan police have arrested 53 people who were trying to leave the island illegally in a boat believed to be heading for Australia. The trawler was stopped by the navy off the island's southeastern coast on Tuesday and the men were handed over to police, who arrested a further 26 people on shore, including 21 Afghans and five Pakistanis suspected of using Sri Lanka as a transit point.

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When Australian military "justice" a sham and a joke

A coverup to protect an erring  female officer

A SENIOR Defence Force investigator who "came down hard" on Diggers caught drinking in the Middle East was cleared of a boozing charge after her hearing was conducted without witnesses.

Two former investigators and key prosecution witnesses, whose accounts of her drinking at the Hilton Hotel in Dubai led to her facing charges, only found out about the hearing several weeks after it was over. Military personnel are banned from consuming alcohol in the Middle East.

Investigator Flight Lieutenant Tricia Hill, who was officer-in-command of the Australian Defence Force Investigative Service contingent in 2011, was a key figure in prosecuting soldiers caught drinking in Dubai and Afghanistan. A total of 160 troops were disciplined for drinking during 2010 and 2011.

In one case a corporal was fined $5000 and demoted for drinking in Dubai.

According to a whistleblower, who was drinking with the officer in Dubai and in Jordan in 2011, she consumed at least six drinks in Dubai and "copious" amounts over several days by the pool in Jordan.

The charge against her was moved to Canberra, because the witnesses were back in Australia. When the case was heard without them the charge was dismissed. One of the whistleblowers described the failure to ensure witnesses were present as "perverting the course of justice".

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Horrors!  Grass grows in some parts of Antarctica

The Greenies sure have a lot to worry about

ANTARCTIC scientists are making plans to defend the continent against green alien pests.  Believe it or not, green grass does grow on the Antarctic continent and scientists are calling it an alien invasion.

Paddock grasses such as poa annua, or bluegrass, are encroaching on areas that do not have permanent ice and snow cover. And alien flies have been spotted buzzing around.

Australian Antarctic Division Terrestrial biologist Aleks Terauds said such infestations had only been there a few years.  Dr Terauds, speaking yesterday at a Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research forum in Hobart, said they along with unwanted micro organisms had been ferried in on the boots and equipment of scientists and tourists.

A team led by Dr Terauds yesterday announced that they had divided the vulnerable areas those with no permanent snow cover, adding up to about two thirds of the size of Tasmania into 15 distinct regions based on location, climate, flora and fauna and geology.

"While quarantine procedures are already in place for intercontinental travel, such as cleaning clothing and equipment before arriving in Antarctica, there are less biosecurity measures for intra-continental movement," Dr Terauds said.

He added that scientists had not ruled out bids to eradicate existing alien populations that could run rampant with global warming.

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Australian radio commentator Alan Jones officially censured over perfectly reasonable global warming comments

Since the % of CO2 in the air is in any case tiny and there have always been large natural causes of it,  what Jones said was a perfectly reasonable ballpark estimate.  ALL estimates involve a large element of guesswork and assumption anyway

In a separate investigation, ACMA also looked into remarks made by Jones on March 15 last year when he told listeners on his breakfast show that "Human beings produce .001 per cent of carbon dioxide in the air."

ACMA found Jones had breached the code of practice when he made no effort to check his claims and 2GB needed to improve its processes for fact-checking or face a licence condition.

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ADF brutality report: Senior officers suspected of carrying out horrific abuse

These allegations are undoubtedly true but it would be a mistake to apply civilian standards to them.  "Bastardization" is routine in most armed forces -- to toughen up recruits and to reveal those who would crack under harsh pressure if captured.  A line has to be drawn but only a Royal Commission would have a reasonable chance of doing so

DEFENCE Minister Stephen Smith denies there's been any attempt to cover-up the extent of physical and sexual abuse in the Australian Defence Force over the last 60 years.

The executive summary of a government-initiated review into Defence abuse was released yesterday, more than three months after Mr Smith made public extracts only.

The summary of the review conducted by law firm DLA Piper was released following a freedom of information request by the ABC.

It states "it is certain" that many boys, young men and young women were subjected to serious physical and sexual assault while they were in the ADF from the 1950s "at least into the 21st century".

The summary says previous report findings and Defence files show very little evidence perpetrators had been called to account.

"(And) there is a risk that those perpetrators now hold middle and senior management position within the ADF and there is a risk that those that witnessed abuse and did not report what they witnessed now hold middle and senior management positions within the ADF," the 25-page document states.

Mr Smith denied releasing extracts from the summary in early March was part of a cover-up.  "I released enough material to make the point that these were very serious allegations and very concerning matters," he told ABC TV.

"The materials released today simply serve to further underline the seriousness of the matters I've been dealing with for some considerably time."

The Defence Minister said he didn't know if any perpetrators of abuse were still serving in the ADF.  "If you want to get down to individual allegations to determine whether people are still in the system ... you've got to go through a proper fair process," he said, adding people had a right to respond to accusations.

The Piper review includes allegations from 775 people. It suggests the overwhelming majority are "plausible allegations of abuse".

Mr Smith said investigating so many claims over a 50-year period was "complex and complicated".  "It can't be done overnight and it couldn't be done as a job lot."

However, the Minister said the fact the Government hadn't ruled a Royal Commission proved it was serious about tackling the issue.

"That may be the most effective way of dealing with these matters," Mr Smith said, adding the Government wasn't too far away from announcing what action it would take.

The review canvasses a range of options including compensation, a public apology, meetings between perpetrators and victims and a Royal Commission.

The Government launched the review following the so-called ADFA Skype scandal in April 2011 when footage of a male cadet engaging in consensual sex with a female cadet was streamed via Skype without her knowledge to a group of cadets in another room.

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Huge Australian marine reserve under fire

THE Coalition has promised to review the world's largest single marine reserve off the Queensland coast and warned it would cost Labor seats at the next election.

The Federal Government's 3.1 million sq km national marine reserve, stretching from the tip of Cape York to near Bundaberg, was yesterday welcomed by the tourism industry and environmentalists but slammed by fishing groups.

Nationals Senator Ron Boswell said the reserves would cost Labor marginal seats and the Coalition would review the network, which including about one million sq km of the Coral Sea off Queensland.

But federal Environment Minister Tony Burke said Labor was confident the issue would not prove political poison.

He said virtually all concerns of amateur fishers had been met by providing a large area outside the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park for fishing.

Conceding long-line fishers would be the worst affected, Mr Burke said boundaries had been drawn to follow the shape of reefs - a bonus for charter boats and divers, although it would affect spear fishers.  About $100 million would be needed to pay out fishermen nationally.

The proposal has angered commercial fishermen, who have warned the decision will shut down business and cost Australians more to buy their favourite seafood imported from China or Vietnam.

The Australian Marine Alliance released a cost-benefit analysis saying it would devastate the country's coastal communities at a $4.35 billion cost and hit 36,000 jobs for "little if any environmental benefit".

In Cairns alone, charter boat operators, game boats, aquarium collectors, spearfishing tours and commercial fisherman estimate it will cost them up to $60 million.

Skipper Graham Johnstone, who headlined the infamous Marlin Wars of the late 1970s, declared the industry would be "back on the warpath".  "They think we are a soft touch," said Mr Johnston, one of the pioneers of the north's promotion as an international mecca for black marlin fishing.  "We are looking into an abyss and we will not accept them meddling in our affairs."

Daniel McCarthy, president of the Cairns Professional Gamefishing Association, said members felt hijacked by the green lobby in Canberra.  "What are we protecting it from?" Mr McCarthy said.  "It is not about protection but about exclusion.  "It'll end up a huge fattening paddock for poachers."

Queensland Tourism Industry Council chief executive Daniel Gschwind said most concerns on better protection of reefs, dive sites and game boat access had been met and this was welcome.

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Greater autonomy for schools leads to better academic results

Kevin Donnelly

The NSW Teachers Federation and public school advocates such as Trevor Cobbold argue that there is little, if any, evidence to support the benefits of increased school autonomy.

If true, their claims undermine the argument that choice and diversity in education, represented by autonomous government and non-government schools, is a good thing and suggest that moves around Australia to empower schools at the local level are misdirected.

But there is increasing international evidence that freeing schools from centralised and bureaucratic control is beneficial.

A 2007 paper commissioned by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development analysing the characteristics of stronger performing education systems argues that school autonomy is an important factor.

The paper's authors say: "Various forms of school accountability, autonomy and choice policies combine to lift student achievement to substantially higher levels."

They clearly argue autonomy is beneficial when they say: "Students perform significantly better in schools that have autonomy in process and personnel decisions."

The 2007 OECD paper also puts the lie to claims that autonomy exacerbates disadvantage, concluding that "there is not a single case where a policy designed to introduce accountability, autonomy, or choice in schooling benefits high-SES students to the detriment of low-SES students, ie, where the former gain but the latter suffer". (SES refers to a student's socioeconomic status.)

A second paper, written by Eric Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann and commissioned by the US National Bureau of Economic Research, also argues that autonomy helps to strengthen education. "Students perform significantly better in schools that have autonomy," the authors write.

A third paper, involving researchers at Britain's University of Buckingham and published in 2008, also argues that one of the reasons non-government schools achieve such strong results is because decisions are made at a local level. The authors argue non-government schools generally outperform government schools because such schools enjoy "more autonomy than do those in state schools".

Such is the growing consensus that school autonomy leads to stronger results that a 2008 Australian budget paper, Statement 4, Boosting Australia's Productive Capacity: the Role of Infrastructure and Skills, argues school autonomy is "likely to have significant positive impacts on student performance".

The benefits of freeing schools from centralised control are also endorsed in Britain's The Importance of Teaching: The Schools White Paper 2010. "Across the world," it argues, "the case for the benefits of school autonomy has been established beyond doubt."

While not directly addressing the impact of autonomy, Gary Marks from the Australian Council for Educational Research has also argued that non-government schools consistently outperform government schools in literacy and numeracy tests and year 12 results - even after adjusting for a student's socioeconomic status.

Implied in this is that school autonomy is beneficial since Catholic and independent schools, unlike government schools, have greater freedom over areas such as staffing, curriculum focus and academic environment.

It is true that some studies are equivocal about the benefits of school autonomy, as Cobbold noted in the Herald this week. A 2010 paper titled Markets in Education notes that while there are some positive effects related to a more market driven approach to education, they "are very modest in size".

But what Cobbold fails to acknowledge is that the same paper suggests one of the reasons the evidence is less than clear is because schools, as a result of government micromanagement, are not truly autonomous.

"Complicating the ability to give a clear answer is the fact that many policies attempting to introduce market mechanisms in education do so simultaneously with increased accountability," it says.

Australian schools are being micromanaged in this way and all roads lead to Canberra - best illustrated by the Rudd/Gillard education revolution, where schools are forced to follow government dictates in national curriculum, national testing and teacher standards, even though the rhetoric is about autonomy.

Positive student outcomes are not just related to test results. Pioneering work in the US by James Coleman argues that empowering schools at a local level leads to increased social cohesion and stability too.

In the Catholic school system, it is known as subsidiarity - where decisions are made at the level of those most affected by them. Subsidiarity strengthens community ties and values such as reciprocity and a commitment to the common good.

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REAL public service cuts may be coming in Qld.

Mostly they end up as tokenism

There’s a very cold winter coming for the Queensland public service. Premier Campbell Newman’s shock-and-awe strategy is about more than just cutting job numbers and costs. It’s all about reshaping and redefining what the public service looks like, how it operates, and what services it will actually deliver in the future.

Most of the $186.5 million in savings do not come from cutting budgets for tea, coffee, sandwiches and plants. The savings are being generated by the sacking of "temporary" employees.

Directors-general currently have a weekly meeting with the public service commissioner where they are required to provide an update on their progress. And this is the first wave. Some staff have been given an assurance that they have a job until September but there are no guarantees after that.

The Public Service Commission has prepared a three-stage strategy to move "unwanted'' public servants out of the system.

Stage one is to try and find another position, which seems unlikely at a time of job shedding.

Stage two is to offer a voluntary redundancy package. If you don’t take that, then there is stage three which is retrenchment.

Senior public servants are now saying that the government is looking at shedding not hundreds of jobs but thousands – not temporary positions but permanent positions. The government has been setting the platform for deep job cuts under the umbrella of the audit report, with the interim findings due out today.

On top of the job shedding, departments have also been told that they have to come up with a range of innovative cost cutting proposals – for that read what services can be out sourced (commonly known as privatisation) - and what services can be scrapped or wound back.  So long as it does not fall within the definition of a "frontline service", no service is off the table and no department is immune.

When he won last year's New South Wales election, new premier Barry O’Farrell ordered his own commission of audit into the state’s finances, which found the public sector was dealing with cumbersome structures, unnecessary barriers, poor data, unclear reporting lines and ineffective systems.

Since then, he has cut 5000 jobs through the voluntary redundancy program and another 10,000 jobs are earmarked to go in the next four years to produce the projected saving of $2.2 billion. Those that are left have been told they will simply have to work harder.  It’s not too big of a stretch to suggest the Queensland commission of audit will find something similar and the rhetoric and savings will not be lost on Newman’s cost cutting team.

The government has already given itself a range of extra weapons for a looming battle with the public service. Significant changes to the public sector industrial relations environment were crashed through parliament as a priority before its “urgent” Cost of Living Bill. Given the Liberal National Party holds 78 of the 89 seats in Parliament, the current joke in George Street is that Newman faces more opposition from die-hard Nationals than he does from the ALP and independents in Parliament.

The amendments brings about two significant changes – firstly it allows a minister to terminate industrial action if he or she is satisfied that the action is threatening the safety and welfare of the community or is threatening to damage the economy. Secondly it means that the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission must consider the state’s financial position and fiscal strategy when determining wage negotiations. All useful weapons to have in your political arsenal when you are faced with an audit report which will tell you the state is broke and you are facing 25 enterprise bargaining agreements.

The drive to renovate and reshape the public service will be by the newly formed Office of Public Sector Renewal set-up to “achieve a renewed, refocussed and more efficient public service, realise significant savings and drive cultural change” – which is a nice way of saying cutting jobs, making departments smaller and controlling their staffing and privatising anything that can be pushed out to the private sector. It’s being headed by Amanda Pafumi who has been brought in from the Brisbane City Council.

The Queensland Premier is not the first politician to be drawn to the rhetoric promising to make government and public services more customer-focused. It has attracted public sector reformers around the world from all across the political spectrum. For many it was just a mantra – but Newman has come at a time when the public sector has been hit with a perfect storm for change.

Firstly, it has been overwhelmed by escalating community expectations that are now accustomed to convenient, accessible and tailored services from the private sector and are demanding – not unreasonably – the same from the public sector. They want to see clever use of technology as part of the citizen focus – an area that has been a failure for past Queensland governments.

Secondly, taxpayers are sick and tired of seeing the administrative requirements of the bureaucracy being more important than the needs of the long suffering taxpayer.

Thirdly, in the post-GFC world, there is a desire to embrace changes that might lead to lower costs.

Fourthly, it comes at a time when the long suffering taxpayer has had a gutful of the fiascos in health – there are only so many Doctor Deaths; payroll screw ups; fake princes and a missing $16 million that the public will tolerate.  None of these were of the LNP’s making but, ironically they stand to benefit. The circumstances will give the government the carte blanche to cut and reshape the public sector in its mould of small government is good government.

A range of changes coming though the Public Service Commission will allow the government to directly control staffing levels and costs. There is an audit of frontline and non-frontline staffing which will be completed by June 30. This will be followed by public sector renewal reviews to look at staffing levels within the budgets. What this means is that directors-general will be told what their staffing establishment will be (that is: how many executives; how many front line staff; how many support staff they can have) and a budget and told to make it work.

On top of that the Public Service Commission is preparing a directive, sweetly named - management of employees requiring placement – due out in mid June – which will give them the power to direct agencies and displaced workers to an agency or position. Neither will be able to refuse a “reasonable” offer.

But there is a big difference between slicing off a number of jobs and changing the way services are delivered. The messaging coming out of the government is defining a two-class workforce. This suits the short-term political agenda but you have to wonder how much damage will be wrought before the rebuilding process starts.

SOURCE





Surgery wait deaths grow in Tasmania

NEW figures show 125 people died while waiting for elective surgery in Tasmania in the financial year to May, up from 107 last year.

A Government response to questions raised in Budget Estimates hearings reveals the Royal Hobart Hospital is the state's worst performer when to comes to elective surgery, with just 67 per cent of category one patients seen within the clinically recommended timeframes, compared with 88 per cent at the Launceston General Hospital and 77 per cent at the North-West Regional Hospital.

Just 50 per cent of Category two patients were seen within the timeframes, with 561 waiting for operations at the Royal for more than 12 months, while for the least-urgent category three patients, performance was slightly better with 55 per cent of patients seen in time and 474 on the waiting list.

One category three patient has been waiting more than 10 years for their operation.

Figures show 16558 people were removed from waiting lists last year, 85 per cent because they had received their operation.

Liberal health spokesman Jeremy Rockliff said Tasmania was performing worse than other states by a large margin in every category of elective surgery.

"The Government has no one else to blame but itself for our appalling elective surgery waiting lists," Mr Rockliff said.

"This shows that the biggest problem with the health system in Tasmania is this Government.

"The Government has had over a decade to deliver on its promises to cut elective surgery waiting lists, but they've failed."

Health minister Michelle O'Byrne said the Liberal party had adopted the Government's health savings as part of its own alternative budget.

"So while they feign concern, the fact is that by their own position, they accept the need for health spending to be managed, and would have needed to make exactly the same decisions around elective surgery in order to meet that target," she said.

SOURCE

I am DEEPLY suspicious of this prosecution

If you are unlucky enough  to be in the vicinity when a murder is committed,  the Qld. cops are likely to say you did it.  The thoroughly reprehensible prosecutions  of the unfortunate Barry Mannix and Graham Stafford  are evidence enough of that.  And the crooked cops who fitted up both men have never been punished

And it's sheer laziness behind such practices.  I have twice supplied police with precise ID for people who have committed offences against me but no discernible action was taken in either case.  In one case the ID was simply thrown into the bin on the apparent grounds that car thefts are too minor to be taken seriously. 

And I don't mind naming the irresponsible police constable who "lost" the ID concerned.  It was the Virgin Turgeon of Dutton Park cop shop,  who still works there but who has since been promoted.  If she sues me for defamation,  I would be overjoyed to air the whole matter in court.  And I have the means to do so.

And the Baden-Clay case fits the laziness mould.  He was the husband of the deceased so suspicion automatically fell on him.  The fact that they could find nothing to pin on him for months and the fact that the forensic science results turned  up nothing show how weak the case is

And although he is a man of known good character with only the normal quantum of human weaknessess, that apparently did not count either. 

The chief thing that made him "suspicious" appears  to be that he appeared insufficiently emotional about his wife's death.  Those  who know anything about Australian judicial history will however recall that as being the chief charge against  Lindy Chamberlain  -- and we all know how that turned out.  Hollywood even made a movie out of it

GERARD Baden-Clay spent last night behind bars after being charged with the murder of his wife Allison.

Nearly two months after phoning police to say the woman he called his "angel" had disappeared, he was taken into police custody on Wednesday and charged with causing her death.  He was also charged with unlawfully interfering with a corpse.

The real estate agent arrived at Indooroopilly police station yesterday afternoon where he met head of homicide Detective Superintendent Brian Wilkins and the top cop in charge of the drawn-out investigation, Detective Superintendent Mark Ainsworth.

The detectives left the station at about 5.20pm, refusing to comment.

It is understood Baden-Clay was in the police station for several hours before his lawyer Darren Mahony arrived.  On his way in, Mr Mahony confirmed his client was inside. About an hour later he emerged and said his client was about to be charged.  "Police have indicated the intention to charge my client with murder," Mr Mahony said. "He's devastated."

He said Baden-Clay would "defend the charge vigorously".

Members of the public watched as media waited for Baden-Clay's departure. Shortly after, the 41-year-old was bundled, handcuffed, into a police car and driven to the Brisbane watchhouse by detectives.  Upon arrival at the watchhouse, Baden-Clay looked shocked but just stared straight ahead.

Allison Baden-Clay was reported missing by her husband at 7.30am on April 20 when he told police she had left the house the previous night and not returned.

Her disappearance sparked a massive search, with police turning up on their days off to join dozens of investigators and State Emergency Services volunteers to scour the bush around the family's Brookfield home.

Search crews checked dams and abandoned mine shafts in the densely wooded suburb, pleading with locals to conduct searches of their own properties.

Her body was found 10 days later by a kayaker on the banks of the Kholo Creek at Anstead. At the same time, homicide detectives and scientific investigators arrived at Baden-Clay's Brookfield Rd home.

Police asked The Courier-Mail to move back and blocked the driveway with their cars while investigators scoured the property with torches.

Yesterday, the couple's three daughters, aged 10, 8 and 5, were taken into police care at a separate station before being collected by Allison's parents, Geoff and Priscilla Dickie.

Baden-Clay's parents, Nigel and Elaine, made no comment to media when they arrived at their Kenmore home yesterday evening.

Allison Baden-Clay was an accomplished ballerina who travelled Australia and the UK as a girl with the Australian Youth ballet.

As an adult, she spoke six languages and rose through the ranks from a Flight Centre sales assistant to the company's national human resources manager.

It was while working at Flight Centre that she met Gerard Baden-Clay. She left her career behind to care for her family of three daughters.

Her husband's great-grandfather, Lord Baden-Powell, started the scouting movement, a fact Baden-Clay mentioned often in his online business profiles.

He was regularly quoted in media reports about the real estate market.  "In business, it's simple: never lie," he said in 2008. "For starters, it's the wrong thing to do but secondly you will always get caught out and usually when you least expect it.  "There are just too many people, too many personalities, too many trails ... and too much to lose."

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Bureaucratic obtuseness defeated for once

Immigration bureaucracies worldwide are mini-Kremlins

THE Immigration Minister has ordered his department to allow British policeman Peter Threlfall and his family into Australia.

Chris Bowen's intervention followed revelations in The Advertiser yesterday that the family had been denied visas because Mr Threlfall's 25-year-old step-daughter, Sarah, has autism.

Mr Threlfall last night likened the backflip to winning the lottery.

He said SA Police had told him his original job offer as a constable in Ceduna would be honoured, and he hoped to be in Australia by September. "This is unbelievable. I just can't get over it," Mr Threlfall said from London.

"I knew it was achievable, it was just getting the right person to overturn this bad decision, but it was so hard to get to that person. My wife is in tears - we are so happy."

The Threlfalls were originally denied visas because an Immigration Department medical officer deemed Sarah's condition would place a burden on health- care and community services in Australia.

This was despite the fact Sarah has two jobs and plans to study as a hairdresser in Australia. Disability advocates last night applauded Mr Bowen's intervention, but demanded the immediate scrapping of the "discriminatory" policy behind the original decision.

Intellectual Disability Association of SA chairman David Holst and Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young both called on the Government to bring immigration policies into line with a 2010 parliamentary report on the issue.

"This case, like similar ones in recent years show why there must be reforms to the health waiver requirement," Ms Hanson-Young said.

"The Greens call on the Government to fulfil the recommendations from the Enabling Australia 2010 parliamentary inquiry report, particularly raising the 'cost threshold' of the health requirement and those criteria affecting family migration."

Opposition immigration spokesman Mitch Fifield said there needed to be greater flexibility in cases such as that of the Threlfalls.

Mr Threlfall hoped his case would help ensure policy change after the Immigration Department deemed Sarah could be a $500,000 burden on Australian healthcare and social services, despite assurances she was employed, largely self-reliant and rarely sought medical assistance in London.

"You can't adopt a hypothetical situation without taking into account any positives," he said.

A spokesman for Mr Bowen said after learning about the case he had asked the department to "facilitate entry for the family".

Migration Institute of Australia state president Mark Glazbrook said cases such as this were too common.

"There is this general assumption that certain conditions will have a high cost and because of that the visa will be refused, even when you can get strong evidence to say there shouldn't be a high cost," he said.

The Threlfall family received a deluge of support from readers of AdelaideNOW and The Advertiser's Facebook page yesterday.

"That's disgusting! Let them in and stop the discrimination against disability," one reader commented.

Autism Advisory and Support Service president Grace Fava applauded the decision, saying people should not have to live with a label.

SA Police Assistant Commissioner Bryan Fahy said SAPOL would honour its original employment offer.

SOURCE





Careless public hospital kills toddler

Bacterial meningitis is such a swift killer that precautions against it should always be top priority

A MAJOR Perth hospital has launched an investigation into the death of a 17-month-old baby girl who passed away after being given the all clear to go home.

Baby Hayley, from Parmelia, was rushed to Swan District Hospital by her mum Pamilla on Monday, Ten News reported tonight.  The toddler, who had a rash and was vomiting, was admitted to hospital with symptoms of meningococcal infection.

A nurse at the hospital said it was unclear what Hayley’s condition was, giving her Nurofen and water.

Pamilla was told at 7am the next morning that she could take her daughter home by a doctor but refused to leave when she realised Hayley’s rash had spread across her body.  About two hours later, Hayley passed away.

"I've done everything I can to make sure my girls are happy and my kids are healthy and what for, " mother Pamilla said.  "When you have to bury your own child for something that could have been prevented, it's horrible.  "I can't cope right now - I've got a three-year-old that I've got to try and explain that her sister's not coming back anymore. I want answers."

A spokesperson from the North Metropolitan Area Health Service said: “We express our condolences to the family for the tragic loss of their daughter.  "We are in the process of conducting a full investigation of the case.

"Due to patient confidentiality we cannot comment on specific patient details at this time.  "As the matter has now been referred to the Coroner it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.”

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It's ok to swear at the boss, says Labor party lapdog

FAIR Work Australia has ordered the reinstatement of an employee who was sacked for telling his boss to "get f ... ed".

Security guard Craig Symes was sacked from Linfox Armaguard last year after he told his manager to get f ... ed, complained about the "f ... ing roster" and then aggressively poked a notice board - all while carrying a loaded gun.

Symes, who had worked with the Brisbane firm since 2000, cracked during a monthly meeting last December after having a fight with his wife before work. "He was frustrated with his wife and, in hindsight, should not have come (to the meeting)," FWA heard.

He abused manager Aryn Hala after being assigned to a faulty armoured van and stormed out.  Symes later apologised in writing but was sacked the next day.

FWA ruled Symes' behaviour amounted to misconduct but found his dismissal was harsh.

While finding swearing at a person was "of a different character" to swearing at an object, or as an adjective, FWA Commissioner Helen Cargill said it was "also relevant to consider the evidence that the respondent's workplace is one in which bad language is commonly used and in which ... employees may have received mixed messages about such use".

She said the swearing was not "overheard by other employees which could have undermined Mr Halas' authority".

Ms Cargill ordered the company reinstate Symes with back pay - less six weeks pay as a penalty.

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Prime Minister Julia Gillard says company tax rate should be lowered to help businesses compete with Asian rivals

Fine talk but she's said it all before  -- with no resultant action

AUSTRALIA'S company tax rate should be lowered to help businesses compete with Asian rivals, Julia Gillard says.  The Prime Minister also wants State property taxes to be cut to encourage people to move to find work.

Ms Gillard floated these ideas in a speech to business leaders in Brisbane last night, saying she wanted her economic forum to focus on making Australia more competitive and creating a more mobile workforce.

But she faced demands from business groups taking part in the forum to cut the $23-a-tonne carbon tax and water-down workplace laws - measures she has ruled out.

As she opened the two-day summit, Ms Gillard urged businesses, unions and community groups to talk up Australia's economy to help boost confidence. She said any tax cuts would need to be revenue-neutral, meaning the money must be generated elsewhere without hurting the Government's tax base.

"We all need investment to flow, we all need jobs to grow, we all need consumers to spend," Ms Gillard told the forum.  "The facts speak up for Australia - but I will say to you, they don't just speak for themselves."  "So speak up, because we are strong today, and we do have a chance now to build that strength for the future."

In a upbeat speech, Ms Gillard told the 130 guests that Australia was in a strong economic position compared to the rest of the world.  But, she said, Australians could not rest on their laurels, saying they had to make our own luck.

Ms Gillard claimed credit for last week's national accounts figures, saying they showed the Government had "got the macro policy settings right" and that consumers were spending again.

Treasurer Wayne Swan told the forum Australian companies needed to build stronger ties with China, as the participants were presented with an update on the Government's "Asian Century" white paper.

Mr Swan called for bipartisan political support for helping businesses break into Asian markets and announced he would lead a delegation of business people to Hong Kong and Beijing next month.

He also called for a "mature" debate about Australia's flagging productivity levels, saying we should aim to increase our performance from about the top dozen countries to within the top ten.

Reserve Bank of Australia governor Glenn Stevens will address the forum this morning before sessions led by key ministers on the impact of the high dollar, innovation, infrastructure, skills and cutting red tape.

Business leaders taking part in the talks include Rio Tinto managing director David Peever, GM Holden chairman Mike Devereux, QR National chief executive Lance Hockridge and ASX chief executive Elmer Funke Kupper.

Premier Campbell Newman has shunned the forum, along with the NSW and WA premiers, but Victorian Liberal Premier Ted Baillieu is attending with other Labor leaders.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott dismissed the forum as a "carefully stage-managed, choreographed event which is just about trying to conscript people into supporting policies they don't agree with".

 SOURCE