Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Brisbane ahead of Great Barrier Reef campaign

The "threat" posed by coal mining is entirely imaginary.  Coal has been mined for decades with no link to the reef established.  Greenpeace just like mucking around in boats

THE new Rainbow Warrior docked in Brisbane's today, for the first time in 30 years, as Greenpeace prepares to launch its Queensland tour.

Berthed at Portside Wharf, the ship will be open to the public for tours later this week, as the environmental group readies for a new Great Barrier Reef campaign.

Greenpeace CEO David Ritter said its arrival has come at an important time as coal expansion threatens to destroy Queensland's reef and waterways.  "If we want to stop coal barons destroying the Great Barrier Reef and all the jobs associated with it, we need to act now," he said.

Mr Ritter invited Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke and Premier Campbell Newman to come aboard and discuss concerns for the sustainability of the reef.  "We are down here on the boat if Campbell Newman or Tony Burke would like to come down for a chat," he said.  "They need to know it is simply not okay to destroy and industrialise the Great Barrier Reef."

Greenpeace has expressed anger at the Queensland government's support of a revised expansion of the controversial New Acland coal mine in the state's southwest, after previously announcing the mine's third stage would not go ahead.

But despite renewed plans for coal expansion, Mr Ritter said it was never too late for action.  "I can't look my children in the eyes and say it's too late," he said.

"It's never too late. The decision is in the state and federal government's hands to say it's not too late to save the world, it's not too late to act."

Mr Ritter was tight lipped about plans to actively stop coal expansion in North Queensland but did not rule out any direct action as long as it was done so peacefully.

"Greenpeace always tries to directly prevent environmental harm. We don't shy away from that, but it is always done peacefully. It's hard wired into our team, peace is in our name," he said.

The Queensland campaign will kick off in Townsville on Friday when they rally support among local community members to put a stop to coal mining.

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Conservative leader forecasts job loss for prominent Warmist if the Coalition wins power at Federal Election

TONY Abbott has signalled he will sack Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery if he is elected as prime minister in September.

The Opposition Leader, who has vowed to dismantle the Climate Change department and merge it with the Environment Department in government, said he did not see the point of paying Professor Flannery around $180,000 a year for his views which were already public knowledge.

He said if elected as prime minister on September 14 and given the opportunity to revoke the carbon tax a whole range of climate change bureaucracies would also be axed.

"I suspect we might find the particular position you refer to might go with them," Mr Abbott told 2GB’s Ray Hadley when asked about Professor Flannery.

"It does sound like an unnecessary position given the gentlemen in question gives us the benefit of his views without needing taxpayer funding."

Professor Flannery, who penned the popular climate change book The Weather Makers, was appointed as Climate Commissioner in February 2011.

The 2007 Australian of The Year gets a salary of $180,000 for the three-day-a-week role.

Establishing the independent climate commission was a 2010 election commitment by Labor. It was originally slated to cost $5.6 million over four years.

Mr Abbott's comments come as Climate Change Minister Greg Combet says a new report warning Australia will soon face more extreme weather should serve as a warning to those who think action on cutting greenhouse gases can wait.

The report from the Climate Commission says climate change is already increasing the intensity and frequency of extreme weather like heatwaves, fires, cyclones, heavy rainfall and drought.

The report entitled Critical Decade: Extreme Weather, released on Wednesday, says the global climate system is warmer and moister than 50 years ago, with the extra heat making extreme weather events more frequent and severe.

[Note the carefully cherry-picked period.  Had they chosen 15 years ago or 80 years ago there would have been no change.  Warmists are SUCH frauds]

In response to the report, the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council warned that while they had experience combating extreme weather events, people cannot expect emergency crews to protect their communities from increasingly intense fires and floods.

Mr Combet said climate change was no longer a problem for future generations to solve, as the impacts were already being felt.

He said the scientific advice was that this was the critical decade to act, and effective policies now would determine the severity of climate change experience for years to come.

"Increasing greenhouse gas emissions is like loading the dice for more extreme weather events in the future," he said in a statement.

The past summer was Australia's hottest, capped by the longest and most extreme heatwave on record.

The southern part of the country - including key food-growing regions - is becoming more drought-prone while the northwest is getting wetter.

Chief climate commissioner Tim Flannery has warned that while one-off events do occur, record-breaking weather was becoming more common as the climate shifts.

The independent commission's report draws on the latest research and observations from bodies including the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and Australian and international universities.

Mr Combet said it was time for Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to "pull his head out of the sand" and listen to the advice of the experts.

It was time he was held accountable for his "reckless views" on climate change, and called on to explain how he'd propose tackling global warming.

"Australia needs responsible leadership and sound policies on climate change, not opportunistic scare campaigns and negative politicking," Mr Combet said, adding the coalition's Direct Action policy had been criticised by scientists, economists and business experts.

A survey released on Wednesday by the World Wildlife Foundation of nearly 1300 people nationwide showed 72 per cent believed humans were contributing to climate change.

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Incompetent government hospital kills baby

A THREE-month-old baby who contracted bacterial meningitis and later died should have received antibiotics much earlier, a Sydney inquest heard.

Elijah Slavkovic was admitted to Pambula Hospital, on the NSW south coast, on April 24, 2009 after his parents noticed he was feeling unwell.

It was the beginning of an ordeal in which he was transferred first to Bega Hospital then to hospitals in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne, where he succumbed to his illness six weeks later.Kenneth Maclean, a paediatrician and geneticist, told Parramatta Coroners Court he agreed with the decision to transfer Elijah, but antibiotics should have been administered at Pambula.

"There was a small window where antibiotics could and should have been administered, but even then that is no guarantee of success," Dr Maclean told the inquest yesterday.

He said the decision to transfer Elijah to Bega from Pambula created a delay in the management of his condition, which had then not yet been diagnosed.

"It creates a delay and in this instance it was not a transfer from a hospital to a specialist paediatrician. I consider it to be a transfer between two emergency departments."

Dr Maclean said, in his view, it was imperative a paediatrician be consulted at the earliest opportunity when a sick child presented with symptoms of sepsis.

He also said there was a reluctance among hospital staff to call for help.

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Ambos in trouble for putting patients first

The bureaucacy knows best, apparently

PARAMEDICS say they have been threatened with disciplinary action for taking critically ill patients to the nearest hospital rather than following orders to divert to other facilities.

Under new rules, hospitals can no longer go on bypass - where ambulances are forced to drive on when emergency departments are full.

The Queensland Ambulance Service communications centre is responsible for where the sick and injured are taken under a system called "load distribution".

Front-line paramedics say it is bypass by another name and some have opted to take critically ill patients to the closest hospital when they believed longer trips presented a threat to patient health.

In a letter to QAS Commissioner Russell Bowles, the Australian Paramedics Association complained that operations supervisors had reprimanded paramedics.

"We have had reports from members that after they have made a clinical decision to transport critically ill patients to the closest medical facility and been granted access by the hospital, these officers have been threatened with disciplinary action," the letter from secretary Craig Bindley states.

"We have advised them to lodge a grievance for conduct that can only be described as bullying."

The most recent case outlined was at the Prince Charles Hospital, where treating paramedics were allegedly told they did not have the right to transport a sick patient to the closest hospital if they had been directed to bypass.

In a reply to Mr Bindley, acting commissioner David Eeles said it was inappropriate to endorse and encourage members to not follow directions given to them as employees of QAS.

"Any deviation from MEDAI (Medical Emergency Department Access Initiative) or lawful and reasonable directions given to QAS staff may be dealt with by clinical review or disciplinary processes and accordingly your advice to staff would unnecessarily place them in the position of breaching the Code of Conduct," he said.

A QAS spokesman said there had been no recorded instances in which a paramedic had been reprimanded for ignoring the direction of the operations centre.

However, an incident report from an operations supervisor seen by The Courier-Mail shows the department is taking a hard line on breaches, with staff being officially warned in southeast Queensland.

The Courier-Mail on Saturday revealed inconsistent QAS front-line staffing.  It highlighted a case in which a man died after he had to treat himself for 15 minutes when ambulance dispatchers wrongly classified his injuries as non-life threatening.

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