Labor party making it up as they go along



Zeg's cartoon above features muffled versions of Peter Garrett and Julia Gillard, nominally party spokespersons on the environment and labor relations -- both of whom have at times been put back in their box by Rudd for saying unpopular things -- showing that even party spokespersons don't know what the party policy is

LABOR has scrambled to cover up damaging claims it has a massive hole in election costings, after ditching at least $2 billion in projected savings. Kevin Rudd on Monday was forced to make a snap decision to abandon savings initiatives, amid concerns they were too sensitive.

The sudden move caught some ministerial spokesmen off-guard, unaware savings moves were dropped. These included a plan to sell the Badgerys Creek airport site in western Sydney. Labor also dropped plans to reclaim $700 million in payments to the states. Deputy Labor leader Julia Gillard admitted some savings measures had been dropped because of their sensitivity. This included an earlier plan to increase tobacco excise by $630 million, a move which would have seen the price of cigarettes rise sharply. "We decided that they were not good ideas - they will not be proceeded with," Ms Gillard said.

Leaked documents also reveal that bigger saving measures, put forward by Labor finance spokesman Lindsay Tanner, also were rejected by the Opposition's razor gang. These included a range of small savings in education, while Labor also rejected plans to save money on new federal police resources.

Seeking to dent Labor's economic credibility, Finance Minister Nick Minchin said Mr Rudd would not be able to afford his election promises, after dumping the savings "hit list". "They've dumped those savings in a panic reaction to the release of this list and now find they can't afford their promises," he said. "So they've got some very big questions to ask - are they going to wind back their promises or are they going to find more savings? "And if they've got more savings, come clean on it. Don't have these secret, hidden lists floating around in ALP corridors."

Last night, Mr Tanner confirmed his earlier "hit list" of savings measures had changed, but promised Labor would be "fiscally responsible". It is expected the Opposition will announce further savings measures, building on the $3 billion it has already announced.

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Whitewash report for disaster hospital

It has been just over a month since Jana Horska miscarried in a toilet at Royal North Shore Hospital, and the State Government's handling of the tragedy has only deepened the pain for her and her husband. Mark Dreyer said yesterday he was shocked to hear from a journalist on Friday afternoon that a Government report into the incident had been released; he and Ms Horska they were still waiting to be interviewed for it. Mr Dreyer said the report was a rushed, inaccurate job that had "just added to our tragedy".

The inquiry into Ms Horska's miscarriage on September 25 found staff were not at fault and had followed protocol. The report said the couple had been invited to give their account "on several occasions but they declined". But Mr Dreyer said this was "an out and out lie". He said they were bypassed because they had wanted legal representation at the interview and this did not fit into the Government's October 26 deadline.

One of the authors, Professor Clifford Hughes, said yesterday Ms Horska and Mr Dreyer were telephoned by his co-author, Professor William Walters, on October 3 offering a meeting the next morning at their home so they could be interviewed. But Mr Dreyer said that after their lawyer faxed the professors on October 3 asking for a list of questions, they received a letter from Professor Walters the next day, October 4 - which twice misspelt his name as Draper - saying he and his colleague still wanted to speak with the couple but would have to interview hospital staff first, "given the need for us to progress the review".

He said he and Ms Horska did not hear from them again. He said he had sought legal advice because he did not trust the Government and he and his wife were too distressed to handle it. "That, of course, added time to the inquiry and, as it turned out, we never got to have a say and it angered me and my wife and this has just added to our tragedy," he said.

Professor Hughes said yesterday his inquiry team called the couple's lawyers on October 16 and 18 indicating they wanted to interview the couple. "We got no response to any of these attempts," Professor Hughes said. He said the door was still open. "It's not too late for us to hear their side of the story and if they were to show us other facts that were important . we would draw that to the attention of the director general [of NSW Health]."

The chief of staff of the embattled Health Minister, Reba Meagher, is looking to leave. Tom Forrest applied for a senior position in the Health Department in July, but his application was not successful.

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Grammar comeback in Queensland?

GRAMMAR will return to Queensland classrooms in Years 11 and 12 under a revised English syllabus requiring that students be taught grammar, spelling and punctuation. The Queensland Studies Authority, which is responsible for school curriculums, says a new senior English syllabus to be taught from 2009 will remove the "over-emphasis on critical literacy" used to analyse literature. Critical literacy is a theory used to analyse texts which holds that language is never neutral and should be dissected to reveal how the writer is manipulating the reader.

The changes are based on a report by the executive dean of arts at the University of Queensland, Richard Fotheringham, which recommends the syllabus be more specific about the novels, plays and poems that students should study. The report was commissioned last year by Queensland Education Minister Rod Welford, who has called for "plain English guidelines" and criticised the "post-modern mumbo jumbo" in the state's English syllabus.

In an article in the QSA journal, director Kim Bannikoff said the revised syllabus would encourage teachers to use a range of approaches to texts. "The narrow focus on 'socio-critical elements' will be reframed so students are assessed on their evaluative thinking skills and decision-making in the reading and writing of texts," he says. Mr Bannikoff refused to elaborate, but a QSA spokesman said socio-critical elements were what developed students' ability to critique texts. "The narrow focus in the past refers to the over-emphasis on critical literacy," the spokesman said. Mr Bannikoff said the syllabus would ensure students studied a range of classic and contemporary novels, poems, plays, films and other works. Teachers can expect more specific advice about what to study and assess.

The QSA spokesman said the syllabus would specify the range and balance of texts to be studied rather than setting mandatory reading lists. The changes were greeted with suspicion by the English Teachers Association of Queensland, whose president, Gary Collins, said teachers would resist plans to remove critical literacy from the syllabus. "We certainly believe a critical literacy approach shouldn't dominate all teaching and assessment tasks," Mr Collins said. "But it would be a decidedly retrograde step if it were to be removed entirely."

A spokeswoman for Mr Welford said the minister was considering the report.

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Do-gooder knowalls fail again: Approach to problems with black youths backfires

Response? A coverup, of course

A $2 million State Government program for disadvantaged Redfern youth actually encouraged children to stay out on the street late at night and exacerbated tensions with local police, a secret report reveals. The Government has gone to great lengths to hide the embarrassing review of the Redfern Waterloo Street Team - a group of welfare workers parachuted into the suburb in late 2003 - by refusing to release the report under freedom of information laws.

The secret report slams the Government for establishing the street team "as a result of a cabinet minute, rather than through a planned response ... by determining the 'solution' to a perceived problem at a senior level, those charged with responsibility for implementing the model were constrained in their ability to develop a more flexible response to actual needs."

The street team, made up of workers from the Central Sydney Area Health Service, the Department of Community Services and non-government organisations, conducted late night walks to encourage young people to go home and referred cases to social services for follow up. A key program goal - guiding children on the street late at night home - ended up backfiring, with "staff suspecting they were encouraging many young people to be out later on the streets as they knew they could get a lift home from the [Redfern Waterloo Street Team]".

The review found administration took up too much time and resources and the street team worsened community relations with local police. Helen Campbell from the Redfern Legal Centre said the findings did not surprise her. "If they found you on the street at 11 at night, you would get a pizza and a free trip home. Why wouldn't you stay out later?" she said. "There is still no youth refuge in Redfern. If a kid is is out at night, one of the question you have to ask is, it it safe at home?"

Geoff Turnbull from the REDwatch community group warned that despite its failure, the Government had not learned any lessons from the street team experiment. "If they had started to change the way they operated in the area, I wouldn't be as concerned. But decisions continue to be made at a cabinet level and implemented without working with what is already happening in Redfern and Waterloo," he said. "The [Government's Redfern-Waterloo] Human Services Plan says that the stuff they are doing in terms of youth services is based on what they have learned out of the street team. That was the reason we wanted to see the evaluation. The future of what happens to services here is based on the street team."

A spokeswoman for the Minister for Redfern-Waterloo, Frank Sartor, said the minister dissolved the project shortly after inheriting it in 2005 and reallocated funding to other community projects. The Yaama Dhiyaan indigenous training college received $750,000, $500,000 went to a new Police Citizens Youth Club at the redeveloped former Redfern Public School, and leftover funds were diverted to South Sydney Youth Service and the Fact Tree youth service.

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It's offical: we're having a baby boom

AUSTRALIA is now in the middle of its biggest baby boom in more than three decades, official statistics have confirmed. More babies were born last year than in any since official records began, with the exception of 1971. And Australians are having their babies later in life - the median age of a first-time mum last year was almost 31, while the average dads were just over 33 years of age. These are the highest-ever median ages for new parents. The fertility rate - the number of children an average woman is expected to have in her lifetime - rose to 1.81 last year, up from 1.79 the previous year.

The Federal Government's baby bonus - introduced in 2004 and now worth $4000 per baby - has been widely credited with encouraging Australians to have more kids.

Figures released today showed 265,900 births were registered in 2006, the highest number since the 276,400 births reported 35 years previously. Women aged between 30 and 34 had the highest fertility rate in most of Australia, while in Tasmania and the Northern Territory it was women aged between 25 and 29. The average number of births also increased last year to 63.3 babies per 1,000 women aged between 35 and 39, which was the highest since 1961.

Of all the births in 2006, 67 per cent of new parents were married, compared to 83 per cent in 1986.

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