Only one submarine left to defend Australia

This is what happens when Australian bureaucrats think they can commission "innovative" technology. They are incapable of it. They have been trying for a decade to get these subs to work and are still failing. Australia should ALWAYS buy defence systems "off the shelf" -- i.e systems that are already working well.

SUBMARINE woes have hit a new low with just one of six Collins Class craft fit for service. Experts differ on the security risk this poses for the nation, but they agree that having just one boat available to defend the nation is a terrible return on a $10 billion taxpayer investment. With HMAS Waller tied up at the Henderson shipyard south of Perth for urgent battery repairs, the only seaworthy sub is HMAS Farncomb. The other four boats are either out of active service (HMAS Collins) or out of the water for major maintenance known as full cycle docking (HMAS Sheehan, Rankin and Dechaineux).

The latest submarine crisis comes just a month after the navy released a damning report into the management of the submarine force and its overworked crews with a solemn promise to fix the problems. It also coincides with a $20 billion-plus push to equip the navy with 12 new generation submarines over the next 20 years. [Spare us!]

Despite having just one operational vessel, the navy has promised the Government the subs will be available for an extra 160 days of duty next year. Documents released with the Federal Budget show that the navy plans to increase the number of "unit ready days" for the fleet next year from 762 to 914 or more than 300 days each for three boats. "There is less docking maintenance scheduled for FY09/10 hence the URD forecast is higher," it said.

Military expert at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute Andrew Davies said many issues needed to be sorted out before the nation invested $20 billion in a new submarine fleet. "Do we spend more time thinking about buying new things than we do looking after what we have got?" he asked.

When they are working the Collins boats are the Australian Defence Force's most important strategic weapon. However, the subs have been dogged by major technical problems including leaky welds, excessive noise, and unworkable combat systems. Waller's battery problem, the second inside a year, is reportedly so serious it could cost more than $3 million and take months to fix.

The navy denies any problem with Waller and says the maintenance stop was "scheduled".

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African problems in Brisbane too

An example of the thanks Australia gets for taking them in as refugees. There are of course much more frequent such examples in Sydney and Melbourne

FOUR Sudanese nationals seriously injured two senior off-duty police officers at a Brisbane football club after having first threatened to rape their wives and children, a jury has been told. A Brisbane District Court jury was told the four also allegedly assaulted the manager of the Southern Districts Rugby Union Club at Annerley about 12.30am on November 24, 2007. Magid Santino Agwaig, 25, Marier Majur Amour, 22, and brothers Doctor Martin and Hakuma Martin Mirich-Teny, 21 and 25, all yesterday pleaded not guilty to two counts each of grievous bodily harm and one of common assault.

Prosecutor Catherine Birkett said off-duty officers Senior-Sergeant David Ewgarde and Inspector Stephen Munro, who is also the football club's president, were at a Christmas party on the evening of November 23. Ms Birkett said the officers and manager Donald Godfrey had been standing on the clubhouse veranda when they heard loud banging sounds nearby. The court was told Godfrey and Munro went to investigate and found a group of men kicking metal signs.

Ms Birkett said Godfrey and Munro asked the group to desist and move on, but were then subjected to a string of loud expletives and racial slurs. The jury said members of the group made comments such as "you white pieces of s***", "get back on the boat" and "go back to England". Ms Birkett said one comment heard was: "We are going to rape your children."

She said when Godfrey tried to entice them to leave he had liquid, possibly cheap wine, thrown in his eye and was then repeatedly hit. The jury was told both Ewgarde and Munro were then assaulted by one or more of the group. Ms Birkett said Munro later required surgery for several fractures to his eye-socket, while Ewgarde required dental treatment to remove teeth smashed in the alleged attack.

Munro testified he was "king-hit" when he tried to move the youths off the club's grounds. "The next thing (I know) I am king-hit straight into my right eye," he said. Munro said he later required 13 stitches for three lacerations around his left eye and required surgery to correct his eye-socket fractures.

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Welfare changes 'will hurt rural students'

The National Party says country students will be disadvantaged by changes to the Youth Allowance. In its Budget, the Government lifted the amount of hours young people must work to qualify for an independent allowance. The move is designed to stop young people from wealthy families qualifying for the allowance by deferring university and working for a year.

Mr Truss says many country students need a gap year to save up the money required to study in the city. "Surely they could have devised a system that kept in place necessary support for country students, and not just provide additional benefits for those who live in the cities," he said. "The new arrangements requiring 30 hours of work per week for 18 months will essentially mean that people will have to take a gap two years not a gap one year. "For many they will simply not bother with a university education at all." [That might not be such a bad thing]

The Greens say they will refer the Youth Allowance changes to a Senate inquiry. South Australian Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says the Government's changes will make it harder for students to qualify for the payment. Ms Hanson-Young says the payments are vital for full-time students who are currently living below the poverty line. "The changes to the eligibility criteria, the lack of increase in financial support for young people who are studying, all of these things are inconsistent with the Government's rhetoric about an education message," she said.

"We know that the best way of pulling Australia and the world out of the global financial crisis is to retrain, re-skill and prepare ourselves for the new type of economy, and the best way of doing that is investing in education."

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"Progressive" school syllabuses in the firing line in NSW

THE incoming head of the nation's most influential school curriculum body has declared the days of the vague curriculum over, saying syllabuses have to specify precisely the knowledge students should be taught. The newly appointed president of the NSW Board of Studies, Tom Alegounarias, said yesterday having explicit syllabuses setting out mandatory knowledge in a systematic course of study was the only way to ensure all students, regardless of their family background, had the same opportunities for learning.

In an interview with The Australian, Mr Alegounarias, who is the NSW Government's representative on the National Curriculum Board, said a specific syllabus enshrining the essentials all students should know would set a common reference point for all teachers, ensuring all students were offered the same curriculum. "I don't believe in a separate curriculum for groups of students, and I don't think we have been as clear as we should in the past about making sure it doesn't happen," he said. "The syllabus should set out in a systematic way the fundamentals to be taught that allow for further learning that enfranchises all students and gives them an opportunity to participate in a range of learning."

Mr Alegounarias -- a former high school economics teacher, education policy-maker and bureaucrat in the NSW Education Department -- was the founding head of the NSW Institute of Teachers, where he developed the nation's first and most comprehensive system of professional accreditation.

The appointment of a board president from outside a university education faculty or the mainstream teaching ranks -- and ahead of candidates with doctorates or professorial chairs -- is viewed as a sign the NSW Government intends to curb some of the progressivist excesses in some state and education circles.

Mr Alegounarias's reputation is for supporting rigour and quality in education, often aligned with more traditional teaching approaches. While the education debate has been characterised by often-heated disputes over what should be included in school curriculums, Mr Alegounarias believed teachers' views were more closely aligned with those of the wider community than the public debate suggested.

Intimating professional associations purporting to represent classroom teachers take a more extreme view than the majority of the profession, Mr Alegounarias said the disputes were a reaction to a perceived dichotomy. "When you get to the fundamentals of what should be in the curriculum, I think you'll find consensus," he said. "In my experience, when teachers are left to ponder questions of what is essential, their views don't depart from the general community."

On the topic of one of the most heated education debates -- the subject of English -- Mr Alegounarias favours a commonsense approach, that traditional grammar is the inalienable starting point for teaching students how to write. On the question of literature versus other types of texts such as websites, Mr Alegounarias said the starting point was written and oral language. "I don't agree that in English you study forms that aren't literature or language-related. It's not to say you don't study them at all, but not in English," he said.

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