Big floods no help to water supply because of inadequate dams

The Greenie influence in operation. It has long been known that existing dams are to an extent in the wrong place but huge opposition from environmentalists keeps preventing the building of new ones



Sydney water authorities are 40 years too late to build new dams that could have taken advantage of the flooding rains last weekend, a water expert said yesterday. Barry Thom from the Wentworth Group warned that it would require the flooding of the picturesque and now World Heritage-listed Colo and Grose valleys in the Blue Mountains to augment Sydney's depleted water storages.

He said that despite the scale of the flooding in the Hunter Valley over the weekend, the recent rain events were still relatively minor compared with the more extensive floods along the east coast of Australia in the 1950s and 70s. "It was still a very localised event," he said. "We didn't see floods all along the east coast, as we did in the 1970s or in 1955."

Professor Thom said state governments faced decadal shifts in rainfall patterns that have delivered predominantly dry conditions since the early 80s. Most of the network of urban dams in Australia was built during higher rainfall cycles around the 60s. "If we are going to provide adequate water supplies there needs to be a recognition that, as population grows, we have to be prepared to manage for these lower rainfall conditions," Professor Thom said.

Sydney's 15-dam network is still about one-third full, with 80per cent of the supply coming from the massive 9000sqkm Warragamba Dam catchment. It received 43mm of rain over the weekend. Sydney Catchment Authority bulk water manager Ian Tanner said Sydney's dams were located uphill from the city to allow gravity to supply the water and using natural geography to minimise evaporation. "Sydney has one of the highest per capita stored waters in the world," he said.

"Brisbane can tend to rely on its summer rains, Melbourne on its winter rains. We're caught in the middle. Our rains come whenever they feel like it." Water Services Association chief executive Ross Young said the biggest problem with existing dams was that rainfall patterns were shifting to more coastal rain, which delivered less rain into these inland catchments.

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Private schools fear ALP's funding plan

The Labor party is trying to walk both sides of the street again. Around 40% of Australian teenagers go to private schools so this is a big issue

IN a potential replay of Mark Latham's politically bruising fracas with the independent education sector in 2004, private schools have complained that Labor's stand on school funding could "take us back to the dark old days when parents were penalised for their financial contribution to their children's education".

In an internal circular, leaked to The Australian, Independent Schools Council of Australia chief Bill Daniels says he has written to Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith to express the organisation's concern that promises on funding by Mr Smith and Kevin Rudd are "inconsistent with some of the statements in the ALP national platform". Mr Daniels claims a clause in the platform that says "income from private sources" will be taken into account when deciding how much money a school will receive is at odds with promises by the Opposition Leader and Mr Smith that no private school will be worse off under Labor and that Mr Latham's "hit list" of well-off private schools is dead.

Mr Smith last night committed a federal Labor government to maintaining funding levels and existing indexation arrangements for all schools. This latest problem for Mr Rudd on the policy front follows weeks of controversy over Labor's "back to the future" workplace policies, which business groups claim would force them to bargain collectively with unions and impose a centralised umpire on the wages system.

Under the Howard Government, independent schools have been funded under a formula based on the socio-economic status of a school's parent cohort. There is no reduction in funding for schools that charge high fees or engage in active fundraising - a situation private schools fear could change if the Labor platform is implemented under a Rudd government. "The current funding arrangements do not take into account resources, including income from private sources, that are available to any school, government or non-government," Mr Daniels says in his letter to Mr Smith. "While the Australian Government's socio-economic status funding model is a measure of the capacity of parents to contribute to their child's education, it does not limit that contribution."

In his circular, which will be published in the ISCA newsletter today, Mr Daniels complains that "what we see injected into the schools funding debate is the idea that it is morally wrong for governments to fund non-government schools". "Worse is the notion that parents can spend their hard-earned money on anything they like except on the education of their children - and that once they do that they must be punished, in a funding sense," he writes.

"The 'hit list' may be gone but (Labor's) policy, if implemented, would take us back to the dark old days when parents were penalised for their financial contribution to their children's education. No matter what ideologies drive the education debate, it must be acknowledged that many parents are making significant sacrifices for their children's education. "As (Labor federal president) Warren Mundine said, 'congratulate and support, not punish and denigrate'."

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Staff crisis hits public hospital CT scans

MAJOR Queensland hospitals could be forced to sideline one of their key diagnostic tools because of chronic staff shortages. The Government's failure to retain and attract radiographers is impacting heavily on the ability of some hospitals to conduct CT scans on patients. The scanners, operated by radiographers, help doctors to diagnose ailments from cancers to the internal injuries of accident victims. A leaked email obtained by The Courier-Mail has exposed the dire situation faced by one of the state's biggest health facilities, Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital. In the email to Queensland Health's radiology steering committee, RBWH director of medical imaging Peter Scally warns the hospital is struggling to maintain CT scanning of patients. "We are experiencing difficulties keeping the CTs functioning because of the numbers of trained radiographers. Have lost two lately," he said.

A Queensland Health spokesman said options were being considered to ensure CT scans continued. "All urgent patients and inpatients will continue to take priority," he said. [Big deal! Don't they anyway?] The spokesman said the shortage of radiographers was not unique to RBWH or Queensland Health. The revelation comes after The Courier-Mail exposed how cancer victims are being forced to wait more than three times longer than recommended for radiation treatment.

Premier Peter Beattie yesterday said the Government was addressing the problems. Mr Beattie said millions of dollars was being invested in extra cancer-fighting equipment, a new pay deal was being negotiated and Queensland Health was "aggressively recruiting" new staff. "We are also recruiting within Australia and overseas for more doctors, nurses and medical radiation staff," he said.

But an internal Queensland Health document shows the so-called "Work for Us" campaign has attracted few new staff. By January 25, Queensland Health had received 5224 expressions of interest but appointed fewer than 300 new staff. Only two of these were medical imaging professionals. The QH spokesman said the internal report was misleading because it did not include radiographers appointed directly by each district.

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Your government will protect you -- again

GAPING security flaws have been exposed at Sydney Airport, with The Daily Telegraph able to gain easy and unfettered access to potential terror targets at Australia's largest airport. Access was granted to its most sensitive areas without any background checks or security searches. These included the airport's 30-million-litre jet fuel tanks, a number of 747 aircraft, refuelling stations, baggage cars, conveyor belts and customs areas.

With only photo ID, an airport contact and a cursory glance from contract security guards, we penetrated the inner sanctum of the international airport without scrutiny of identity or motive. There were no background and criminal history checks, no metal detectors, no bag or body searches, and no explosives or drugs dogs.

The Daily Telegraph exposed the risks in the wake of the foiled terror plot to blow up New York's JFK Airport and in the lead-up to APEC. All it took to obtain 24-hour access was to go to the airport's security office and have a holder of an Aviation Security Identification Card (ASIC) request a "visitor pass''. The only requirement was a driver's licence and the pass was issued in five minutes - no questions asked.

Entering the tarmac via one of dozens of "back door'' security gates, The Daily Telegraph spent more than an hour moving unhindered to and from potential terror targets. New airport staff members have the same access for a maximum three months on temporary passes until the police background checks, which take six to eight weeks, are conducted and an ASIC issued. The condition of entry for both temporary and visitor pass holders is that they are escorted by an ASIC holder, or face a fine of just $550. Once inside it was assumed that all personnel were there for lawful reasons and there were no further challenges to their legitimacy.

The security shortcomings leave the country's biggest airport vulnerable to terrorist attacks on a scale rivalling the recent attempt on New York's JFK Airport. Four Muslim radicals were charged with conspiring to attack JFK airport by blowing up jet fuel supply tanks, attempting to set off a chain reaction along the network of fuel pipelines that would have killed thousands of people and destroyed the airport. Sydney Airport's aviation fuel pipelines also run under the airport and along the tarmac. Even without access to the tarmac, the seven aviation fuel tanks situated off Airport Drive are set back only 30m from a wire fence.

A Sydney Airport spokesman said the visitor and staff passes complied with the Aviation Transport Security Regulations 2005. "The Australian Government and its expert security assessment agencies have determined these rules,'' the spokesman said. On two separate occasions, The Daily Telegraph walked around the tanks for about 30 minutes without being approached by security. The Transport Workers Union's Sam Crosby said flawed security put thousands of airport workers and passengers at risk.

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The Left needs to get real

By Janet Albrechtsen

SOME fights deserve a few more rounds. So let’s go another round with the one started so magnificently by The Australian (Reality bites the psychotic Left) challenging the psychotic Left to take a reality check.

Like a tired actor who plays the same role over and over again, hamming it up each time, the leitmotif of the Left lacks a certain sparkle. They line up like drones to tell us that debate has been stifled this past decade. Bookshelves in your local bookstore are groaning under the weight of tomes written on the subject. Perhaps these evangelical intellectuals on the Left think that if they say it often enough, it will become the received wisdom. They could not be more wrong. The more they say it, the more they remind us of their own irrelevance.

A few years ago, it was historian Stuart Macintyre in his book The History Wars moaning about the “weapons of mass destruction” employed by certain commentators and historians to challenge Australian history. Weapons such as careful research and a preference for facts over fiction. Imagine the audacity of Keith Windschuttle checking original sources and finding some academics had fudged facts. Meanwhile, Australian history moved on to a healthier debate where the politics of shame no longer dominated.

Then came Robert Manne’s Do Not Disturb where leftists claimed that conservative politics was cheapening our democracy and creating social and ethnic division. Were the conservatives not aware that multiculturalism and other sacred “isms” were not policies or ideas to be challenged so much as articles of faith?

We’ve had Silencing Dissent by Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison whose title says it all. And now there is more of the same from David Marr and his Quarterly Essay titled “His Master’s Voice - The Corruption of Public Debate under Howard”.

By any measure, if this is silence imposed by an authoritarian Howard Government, the Left need to go back to their dictionaries. While they are there, they may want to flick back to the “narcissism” word. If you had to sum up the state of thinking from left-wing intellectuals, this word does the job. Their unrestrained intellectual vanity leaves no room for debate. So self-absorbed are they in their own genius, so obvious is their own correctness, disagreement is not merely wrong but immoral. Those on the other side of the political divide are not just misguided. They are evil. They are, said Dennis Glover in his contribution to the debate, “right-wing thugs”.

These guys are bruised by two facts: there are now more people challenging left-wing orthodoxy (and they don’t like it one bit); and fewer people are listening to their left-wing diatribes (and they really hate that).

To be fair, Glover managed to pin down part of the Left’s problem. He said that too many progressive journalists ceded ground in the culture wars when they stopped writing about ordinary people. These progressives have taken up a field way off to the Left where they decry capitalism and affluence, ignoring what matters in mainstream debates.

But it goes further than that. They stopped writing about issues that affect ordinary people because they stopped thinking about those issues. Instead, they talk down to ordinary people. Marr’s latest fulmination is filled with depictions of Australians as too lazy to care about our political culture - “more subjects than citizens” - apparently living under some mesmerising hex imposed by Howard.

Unwilling or unable to confront the arguments from opponents, they claim some conservative conspiracy is tricking mainstream Australia and trying to keep the Left out of debates. It’s a neat way of avoiding one’s own intellectual irrelevance. When they start to acknowledge their own intellectual shortcomings and their disdain for “ordinary” Australians, perhaps debate will become richer.

The market for ideas - the West’s most precious achievement - works best when ideas are tested by worthy opponents. Each side keeps the other honest. Through that intellectual argy-bargy, good ideas triumph and silly ideas are sidelined. Neither side should be heard to whine that the other hits too hard. Unfortunately, the Left still seems to want the ring to itself. That kind of sums up the strength of their positions.

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Reality bites the psychotic Left

By refusing to face modern realities, the Australian Left has dealt itself out of the national debate. Lack of reality contact is the defining mark of psychosis

FOR evidence, if any more were needed, that the intellectual Left has become completely divorced from reality, turn to page 14 of the latest edition of The Monthly, where Clive Hamilton describes the therapeutic effect of bushfires at Christmas. "As the orgy of spending reaches a climax we begin to wonder whether we have become decadent," the Australia Institute executive director writes. "The firies who battle the elements on our behalf remind us of our 'true' selves."

Since Mr Hamilton and his neo-Arcadian cohorts contend that affluence is a bad thing, 13 years of consecutive economic growth must be driving them nuts. Indeed much of the work emanating from Mr Hamilton's left-wing think tank fits the dictionary definition of the word psychosis: "marked by distorted perceptions of reality". This is the institute after all that believes in a vast corporate conspiracy to stall action on climate change, accuses David Jones and Myers of "corporate pedophilia" and claims that Australia is becoming an increasingly authoritarian state where dissidents are silenced.

This last thesis, expounded at length in Silencing Dissent published earlier this year, would seem difficult to sustain at a time when the marketplace of ideas has never been so crowded. In newspaper opinion sections and magazines and on radio and televisions and increasingly online, Australians are engaged in intelligent conversation about the issues of the day great and small. Blogs and internet chat rooms have given everyone a seat at the debating table. Technology has lowered the barriers to publishing. A host of new periodicals online and in print including The Monthly, New Matilda and The Australian's own Australian Literary Review are providing new platforms for discussion while established journals such as Quadrant and the Griffith Review are reaching new readers and providing a home for new writers. The queues outside venues at this year's Sydney Writers Festival, record attendances at similar writers festivals around the country and new events such as next month's Adelaide Festival of Ideas are public expressions of a confident, mature democracy in which informed debate flourishes.

It is hard to reconcile these objective facts with the commentary taking place in the parallel universe inhabited by disaffected intellectuals who insist that critics are gagged in the gulag they like to call "John Howard's Australia". In his contribution to Silencing Dissent, Robert Manne claimed the nation was headed on "the increasingly authoritarian trajectory of the political culture" under Mr Howard.

The hallmark of the disaffected intellectuals is their hyperbole, as evidenced from the latest tract to appear from the "silenced" Left, David Marr's Quarterly Essay, His Masters Voice: The Corruption of Public Debate under Howard. As David Burchell pointed out in The Weekend Australian, Marr wants us to believe that Mr Howard's influence over the national psyche is so intense that just about every act of suppression in our public life is somehow attributable to the Prime Minister.

The silencing of dissent thesis tells us more about the current health of the cultural Left than it does about the health of the nation. While the Left is still fighting the intellectual battles of the 1970s, the rest of the world has moved on. Progressive only in their own, inflated self image, the commentariat finds itself stranded on the outer fringes of the national debate, stuck in an intellectual cul-de-sac without the courage or confidence to retrace its steps. Their voices have not been silenced, they have simply lost their relevance. While the mainstream debate is conducted elsewhere, the progressives are stuck in the corner, muttering darkly among themselves. Seventeen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, they are rebels without a cause still trapped in dialectical Marxist maze.

Irritatingly, the marginalisation of the self-styled progressives has only served to reinforce their unshakable belief in their own moral superiority. This conceit informs the kind of rigid political correctness that shuts down debate. To question multiculturalism is racist, to suggest that Aborigines would have a better future if they were participating in the mainstream economy is assimilationist. To challenge the precepts of political Islam is to demonise Muslims and to demonise any minority group is failure to recognise the superior virtue of the oppressed.

The only acceptable prejudice is anti-Americanism, which gives today's left-wingers some strange bedfellows from Cuba's Fidel Castro to the fanatical Islamists in the middle east. As Nick Cohen points out in his incisive book What's Left?, it used to be the conservatives who made excuses for fascism. "Now liberals and leftists are far more likely than conservatives to excuse fascistic governments and movements," he writes. "Give them a foreign far-right movement that is anti-Western and they treat it as at best a distraction and at worst an ally."

Closely related to their hatred of the US is their contempt for capitalism. The impact of the modern share-owning democracy has yet to dawn on them. Corporations no longer answer to the bourgeoisie, they answer to shareholders -- ordinary people who are now stakeholders, either directly or through the $1 trillion in superannuation. Karl Marx's dream has been fulfilled now that the workers truly do control the means of production.

On one of the burning topics of the day, climate change, this profound hatred of capitalism has led them down another philosophical dead end which advocates a romantic vision of suffering for a cause. Rather than objectively assess the realities of climate change and the practical task ahead they advocate symbolic, but ultimately futile, penance. By persisting with a misguided campaign to turn back the clock and demonise the Howard Government for not being harsh enough, once again, the debate has passed them by. Kyoto is giving way to a new global compact at which the US and Australia are at the centre. As research into clean coal technology for electricity generation looks set to become not just a reality but much quicker than even optimists had expected, those who advocate a return to dark nights and cold showers again look foolish.

In their retreat from modernity, the wrongly named progressives part company with Marxism which, despite its fatal flaws, was at least grounded in the spirit of the enlightenment, progress through scientific inquiry. Today's Left has allowed itself to become trapped in a parallel universe, out of touch and far removed from the mainstream where the real Australian discourse takes place. It is not just a geographical divide, though it is true the Left tends to be at its strongest in the latte belt and tertiary institutions. It is a class divide between an elite on one side and the mass of ordinary people on the other. It is not just Mr Howard they hate but Mr Average, as Marr's telling reference to Patrick White's return to Australia from Europe makes plain. White later recalled, "it was the exaltation of the average that made me panic most" and for Marr Mr Howard is "the exalter of the average". The Australian Left's reluctance to make the effort to understand Mr Howard's popular appeal is one of its most fundamental failings of the past 11 years. In the Left's narrative, Mr Howard has won four elections through a combination of luck and duplicity and on each occasion the electorate was too lazy or too stupid to make the right call. Only members of the intellectual elite are smart enough not to be fooled by Mr Howard's trickery. This threadbare analysis has helped consign the Labor Party to Opposition since 1996.

While the disconnection has certainly expanded over the past decade, all is not lost. There is a way back, a way to overcome the tyranny of distance between the Left's world and the real world. Left thinkers elsewhere in the world have moved on and cut themselves back into the cultural debate. In Britain the reformed Left has signed up to the Euston Manifesto, which aims to draw a line "between forces on the Left that remain true to its authentic values, and currents that have lately shown themselves rather too flexible about these values". In France, left-wing thinker Bernard Henri Levy has been bitterly critical of those who believe "that Islamism can be embraced and put in the service of the Left" while Medecins Sans Frontieres founder Bernard Kouchner, a fierce advocate of humanitarian intervention, has been appointed Foreign Minister under President Nicolas Sarkozy. The way forward for the Left in Australia is to acknowledge that the politics of the outsider is an adolescent phase and develop soundly based, intelligent arguments that will earn them a place at the table of national debate.

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Jobs are not just luck

Low unemployment is an inconvenient truth for unions (The ACTU is Australia's equivalent of Britain's TUC or America's AFL-CIO)

THE ACTU's ham-fisted attempts in discussions in the International Labour Organisation to silence Australian government official James Smythe revealed an inconvenient truth about the union movement. Trade unionists care more about their membership than they do about the unemployed.

Mr Smythe wanted to raise Australia's stellar jobs creation performance and unemployment levels that have reached a 33-year low. Unemployment has declined to 4.2 per cent and more than 90 per cent of the 358,700 new jobs created since Work Choices are full-time. The ACTU international representative at the ILO made the startling claim that jobs growth was not relevant to a discussion of Work Choices legislation.

But record low unemployment is not an accident, or as the ALP claims merely a reflection of the global boom times. If it were true that unemployment has nothing to do with government policies, then how to explain a country such as France, which has had chronically high unemployment since the 1970s. The French electorate is convinced that government policy has something to do with it and has given newly elected President Nicolas Sarkozy a convincing majority on a platform of tackling unemployment by trying to get rid of the arthritic rigidities of French labour laws. Australia's jobs creation record is one that France and many other highly regulated European economies can only dream of.

This has not happened overnight. As former prime minister Paul Keating pointed out on ABC-TV's Lateline last Thursday, the transformation of the Australian labour market started with his reforms in 1993 and have continued up to the present day. The introduction of AWAs has given employers and employees a framework for direct, uncomplicated negotiations and the repeal of unfair dismissal laws has given employers, particularly in small business, the confidence to take on new staff, knowing that they will not be forced into costly legal proceedings if, for whatever reason, they need to reduce staff at some point in the future.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Business Council of Australia feel strongly enough about the damage Labor's proposed changes might do to the economy to pay for an advertising blitz. The ads paid for by the employer organisations will acknowledge reforms undertaken by both Mr Keating and John Howard. ALP parliamentarians and union activists were outraged that Australian businesses might pay for an advertising campaign and threatened business that there might be consequences. That position smacks of rank hypocrisy and thuggery. Why should unionists be privileged to put forward their viewpoint while employers hold their tongue?

Union advertising in Australia has focused on "your rights at work". But more fundamental than rights at work is the right to work at all and unions have a very poor record in protecting the rights of those who want to move from welfare to the workplace.

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State cancer care in crisis

SECRET waiting lists have revealed how Queensland Health consistently exposes cancer victims to deadly treatment delays. Internal hospital documents show hundreds of victims are routinely forced to wait more than three times longer than recommended for potentially life-saving radiation treatment. The "Report on Delay for Treatment" documents show there has been little or no improvement since The Courier-Mail obtained the same figures 10 months ago.

At the time, Health Minister Stephen Robertson downplayed the figures as a week-to-week prospect and insisted the Government was addressing the problem. There is now growing concern in Queensland's hospitals that efforts to address the radiation therapy waiting times have failed.

Coalition health spokesman John-Paul Langbroek yesterday said there was clearly an ongoing problem the Government must urgently address. "People are dying in our system because of these poor services," he said.

According to the figures for the Princess Alexandra, Mater and Townsville hospitals, priority-two patients, who have been diagnosed with aggressive cancers and internal bleeding, are now waiting up to 49 days for radiation treatment. Queensland Health's recommended maximum waiting time is 14 days to avoid "a significant adverse effect on outcomes". Priority-three patients, who predominantly suffer breast and prostate cancers, are waiting up to 69 days for treatment. The recommended maximum waiting time is 28 days. The Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital was the only cancer-treating facility in Queensland at or below recommended treatment times.

However, hospital sources said this was because of a shortage of oncologists to refer patients for treatment. A Queensland Health spokesman admitted therapy waiting times were yet to show improvement. "Despite an overall improvement in elective surgery waiting times through the $10 billion health action plan, radiation therapy waiting times continue to be exacerbated by a national shortage of specialist nursing staff and oncologists," he said. The spokesman said Queensland Health would continue to pursue radiation professionals to reduce waiting times.

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Political posturing about fuel prices in Australia too

THE only way the Government can cut the price of petrol is to reduce its tax and excise, the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria (RACV) says. Following last week's petrol spike, which saw the price in Sydney peak at to $1.43 cents a litre, Labor said it would establish a national petrol commission to monitor and investigate price gouging. Prime Minister John Howard has promised to meet the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission watchdog (ACCC) this week to offer it more powers.

RACV spokesman David Cumming dismissed both plans and said the only way fuel prices would drop would be to cut petrol tax and excise. "This is pure window-dressing, both parties are trying to avoid the fact that we are being ripped off by the Government," Mr Cumming said on ABC radio. "We are being ripped off by the tax on the tax and by the very high excise we pay in this country."

Mr Cumming said a price commissioner and the ACCC could not interfere on pricing because the fuel market was not regulated. "The ACCC already has the powers in relation to collusion," he said. "They can tighten up their powers on collusion if they wish to but if we are talking about the bottom-line which is the pump price ... what you do is you get rid of the tax on the tax and you look at bringing down the excise.

"You have to ask yourself why are we paying 38.1 cents per litre excise when only 8 cents of that money goes back into roads and the rest basically goes into the surplus of the Federal Government. "The only thing the Government or the Opposition can do is to look at the taxes, they don't want to talk about taxes."

NRMA president Alan Evans said he believed there had been collusion between fuel companies but in the form of an unwritten understanding to match prices. "The NRMA has been pursuing for over two years more power for the ACCC because we have seen what has been going on with oil prices. We know motorists are being ripped off," he said on ABC radio. "Finally, after two years of solid work we are getting some action from both the Government and the Opposition. Now we will make sure that both of them live up to their commitments."

Royal Automobile Club of Western Australia executive manager David Moir said he welcomed the ability for someone to lift the veil and look at the deals and arrangements and profit margins. "Then, hopefully, that will mean that people are charging normal profits but not getting into price gouging," he said on ABC radio.

ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel has urged the Government to introduce jail sentences for price-fixing. Mr Samuel said the process of introducing jail sentences for hardcore cartel activity was important. "It changes the cost-benefit analysis very significantly," Mr Samuel said. "If you get caught now you will face penalties and fines, not five years' jail."

Federal Labor leader Kevin Rudd yesterday proposed appointing a petrol commissioner within the ACCC to oversee petrol prices.

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Academic freedom under severe assault in Queensland

Conservatives are not allowed to criticize disgusting work emanating from Leftist colleagues???? The critique that was so "offensive" can be read here. On TONGUE-TIED I give more details of what this is about and what you can do about it

TWO QUT academics who objected publicly to a PhD thesis called Laughing At The Disabled have been suspended without pay for six months. Creative industries faculty senior lecturers John Hookham and Gary MacLennan criticised the thesis in a newspaper article in April. Late Friday afternoon they were suspended, had their work emails disconnected and were barred from the university premises. Six months salary effectively amounts to a fine of $35,000 to $40,000 each.

QUT vice-chancellor Professor Peter Coaldrake, said yesterday he was responsible for the penalty after a committee, chaired by former Industrial Relations commissioner Barry Nutter, unanimously upheld complaints made against the two men. These had come from thesis author Michael Noonan and two academics.

Professor Coaldrake said controversial research needed to be balanced with legal obligations and ethics. "Academic freedom is a great privilege and it should not be used to denigrate or ridicule people with vastly different ideas," he said.

UQ disability expert Lisa Bridle also criticised the thesis. Dr MacLennan and Dr Hookham were reluctant to speak publicly yesterday, other than to admit they had needed medical help to cope. "I'm gobsmacked at the level of brutality," said Dr MacLennan, 64.

Queensland Advocacy director Kevin Cocks said the penalty "seems quite severe for two people who have tried to express concerns around vulnerable people".

In their article in The Australian, the two academics objected to a film part of the thesis, which put two disabled men in social situations "in which they could only appear as inept".

Dr Bridle, the mother of a 12-year-old boy with Down syndrome, said it appeared the two men were used as "props". Dr Bridle and Mr Cocks wrote to Professor Coaldrake in April that they were alarmed by the project. "This project is a very ethically sensitive one and it should not proceed without external scrutiny," they wrote.

Mr Noonan confirmed yesterday that the name of the project had been changed to Laughing With the Disabled.

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High school "kit" just Leftist propaganda

A KIT for children explaining the Government's industrial relations laws is Labor Party propaganda, Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey says. The kit, designed for HSC students, was given to high school teachers and career advisers at a recent forum in Sydney.

The kit states its aim is to give students a better understanding of the laws but Mr Hockey said the lessons were pro-union. "They (the lessons) aren't serious about helping children understand their rights at work," Mr Hockey said. "This is part of the slick and tricky political campaign being run by the Labor Party and unions."

Mr Hockey said the kit should explain the WorkChoices legislation as it stands and cover protections like the fairness test. "The unions have found a despicable way of wiggling anti-government propaganda into our classrooms while (Opposition Leader) Kevin Rudd stands by in silence," he said. "The classroom is no place for Labor Party propaganda. The union movement is the heart and soul of the Labor party, from the campaign funds to their policies to their candidates.

Meanwhile, The Australian reported today that peak business groups will spend millions of dollars promoting the workplace laws through advertising. The Business Council of Australia and The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry had signed off on a joint advertising campaign. The advertisements, due to start within weeks, had been tested on focus groups and had the backing of the Master Builders Australia and the Minerals Council. They would focus on the Government's Workchoices policy and the shift to enterprise bargaining under the Keating government.

The new campaign comes as employers accuse the ACTU of trying to disable government attempts to defend the Workchoices laws. The Federal Government is also believed to be poised to begin another advertising campaign after the legislation for its fairness test passes through federal parliament.

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Dangerous loony repeatedly let loose

Eventually they had to kill him -- brilliant, Eh?

QUEENSLAND'S chief coroner has blasted the Department of Mental Health for returning a sex offender to an open ward days after he abused a patient. State Coroner Michael Barnes said the death of mental health patient Sparka Isarva "James" Huntington at the Logan Hospital on December 14, 2003, raised serious issues. Mr Barnes found the department had no policy at the time to properly detain patients such a Huntington, a forensic patient with an extensive history of serious sex and violence offences, who repeatedly abscond.

Huntington, 31, died of undetermined causes while being pinned down in the courtyard of the hospital's acute observation unit at Meadowbrook, 30km southeast of Brisbane. Mr Barnes's findings raise serious issues about his remaining in the community despite a Mental Health Tribunal order and ruling he posed a significant risk to the community.

The hearing was told Huntington arrived for treatment at the Logan Hospital on December 6, 2003, 10 weeks after his leave was revoked and nine after he escaped from the hospital upon being returned by police. After assessment, he was admitted to an open ward. "The next day it seems (Huntington) seriously sexually assaulted another patient and again absconded," Mr Barnes found. "When (he) was brought back to the hospital by police on 8 December he was again housed in a an open ward. Mr Huntington again absconded. "The serious error of judgment seems to have occurred because there was no policy in place to ensure that a patient on a forensic order who absconds is placed in a more secure ward when he is returned to a mental health service facility."

The hearing also heard Huntington was heavily and forcefully restrained by both medical and security staff in what Mr Barnes found "an uncoordinated, chaotic, prolonged struggle (which) only ended when the patient died". While finding no one responsible for his death, Mr Barnes said not enough had been done to train staff. At the time of the inquest, only 50 per cent of Logan Hospital mental health staff had taken a course Queensland Health introduced in 2003.

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New mufti a gentle soul, says Islamic Council

AUSTRALIA'S new mufti, Sheik Fehmi Naji El-Imam, is a gentle soul who will not be as high-profile as his predecessor, the director of the Islamic Council of Victoria says. Controversial Muslim leader Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilali yesterday declined to accept another term in the top Islamic post. Australia's imams elected 79-year-old Sheik Imam to the role of mufti instead.

Director of the Islamic Council of Victoria Waleed Aly says Sheik Imam was widely respected. "He is a very gentle soul," Mr Aly said on ABC radio. "He's been around as an imam in Australia for some 50 odd years, he has got an Order of Australia, he is very widely respected and highly regarded in Victoria. "He wants to ensure that Muslims and non-Muslim Australians are pulling in the same direction and that there's a convivial relationship between the two. "I think what you will find is someone who is slightly less high-profile in the role than previously."

Sheik Hilali sparked controversy last year when he likened immodestly dressed women to uncovered meat, during a Ramadan sermon in Sydney. Sheik Hilali has also praised jihadists for fighting against coalition forces, has been accused of mishandling charity money raised after last year's Israel-Hezbollah war and declared that Australian Muslims had greater citizenship rights than those with a convict heritage.

Mr Aly attributed some of the controversy to Sheik Hilali's role as mufti. "The real damage that had been done in the past wasn't merely because Hilali had given some sermons but that he had given some sermons with the title of Mufti of Australia." Mr Aly said people often assumed the role of mufti is equivalent to that of an archbishop. "Assume falsely, so at least now there is a better hope of putting any such controversy in context."

Source

Ambulance Service in crisis -- pleads for volunteers

As is so often the case with government "services", more funding simply leads to worse service -- with the extra money just going to an ever more obstructive bureaucracy. The Queensland Ambulance Service is a prime example -- perhaps even worse than Britain's "National Health". There was very little controversy about the ambulance service when it was funded by private subscription but since it was "socialized" a few years ago, the complaints have never stopped

The Queensland Ambulance Service desperately wants help. It is asking for volunteers to pull people out of car wrecks and drive them to hospital in an ambulance. The extraordinary plea came days after the State Government promised $50 million and 250 new paramedics for the trouble- plagued service. The ambulance volunteers also will be expected to do basic first aid. They will need no particular skills - but will receive training and uniforms.

Opposition Leader Jeff Seeney said the calls for emergency drivers made a mockery of Premier Peter Beattie's claim that the state had the world's best service. "It is clear the Premier's promise was as hollow as every other promise he's made on health, water, electricity and roads," he said.

Last month Sunday Mail reports revealed frontline anger at roster reform, excessive hours, lack of staff, vehicles and equipment, and lack of management support. As Emergency Services Minister Pat Purcell boasted of improved service, the officers in stations near Gladstone pleaded for help.

An advertisement in Wednesday's Calliope Shire newsletter read: "Wanted- Emergency Ambulance Drivers. The role includes emergency driving to hospital, extrication of patients from vehicles and residences..."

The above story by DARRELL GILES appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on June 10, 2007





Foreign doctors to learn Australian

It is a tremendous indictment of Australian medical education that Australia does not train enough of its own doctors -- despite the fact that there is great competition from young Australians to get into medical schools

FOREIGN doctors are having speech lessons in a bid to improve communication with Australian patients and avoid medical mishaps. A pilot program is aiming to make doctors whose first language is not English easier to understand for the average Australian. The 10-week course tackles pronunciation, understanding of slang or colloquial "ocker" expressions, language attitudes and speech patterns.

A growing number of overseas-trained doctors are filling hospital and GP positions in Australia amid a national shortage of medical workers. Many take jobs in rural or remote areas, where they are more likely to struggle with cultural and language barriers.

Gai Rollings, director of speech pathology at Toowoomba Base Hospital, has started the program with doctors from Africa, India and South America. "I don't think they have trouble understanding our accent but they might have trouble understanding some of our expressions," she said. "We are looking at how they are actually pronouncing their sounds and how they put stress on words." She said the doctors' speech would be rated by members of the public before and after the course. "If (a doctor) asks a nurse to help putting this solution into an IVF, that could be a really risky situation if the nurse doesn't understand what he is asking," Ms Rollings said.

Andrew Schwartz, president of the Australian Doctors Trained Overseas Association, said the program was "a fine idea" but would not achieve much in practical terms. "We have got a drastic shortage of doctors so Australian people are going to have to accept they have got to listen and make sure they are getting their message through at the same time."

The above story by CLAIR WEAVER appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on June 10, 2007






Global cooling?

Early snow in Southern Australia gets ski resorts off to good start. If melting snow and ice in some places proves global warming, surely extra heavy snowfalls in other places proves global cooling? Or am I missing something?



The timing could not have been better. As thousands of holidaymakers made their way yesterday to the NSW and Victorian ski fields for this weekend's opening of the season, that precious white stuff, which went missing for much of last winter, began to fall. With forecasters predicting a winter ofabove-average snowfall, it seems the disappointment of last season will quickly be forgotten.

The NSW town of Thredbo got off to a good start yesterday, with about 5cm of snow falling on the slopes. The resort will start operating lifts from this morning. Perisher Blue had two lifts running yesterday. In Victoria, Mount Hotham and Mount Buller had about 26cm of natural snow, with extra cover from snow-makers.....

Thredbo's businesses spent yesterday preparing for the arrival of the hordes of tourists who descend on the slopes for the opening weekend of the ski season. The town's population has already swelled with the arrival earlier this week of about 700 seasonal workers. Although the slopes open for skiers and snowboarders today, some took advantage of the empty slopes yesterday for more gentle activities. For the Fisher family, from Mackay in Queensland, the sight of snow was a novelty. At the urging of their four children, David and Julie Fisher made a special detour from their round-Australia trip for an afternoon of toboganning.

Source





The Keating recipe for Labor

Former Australian Labor Party Prime Minister and Treasurer Paul Keating has recently made swingeing criticisms of the present Labor Party leader. The irony is that Keating was a genuine and intelligent reformer who did much to make Australia more capitalist whereas the present leader offers no reforms other than to take Australia back to an era of all-powerful unions. So we have a pro-market reformer and a conservative reactionary from the same Leftist party at odds. Hard to get your head around. But the editorial from "The Australian" below tries to sort it out

THERE was something captivating yet preposterous in Paul Keating hectoring his party and the nation on ABC television's Lateline this week, wedding ring in view, carrying on like he had never made a mistake. In Keating's world, the pneumatic rams of reform introduced by the past two labor governments, his and Bob Hawke's, continued to massage the progress of an economic utopia for which he was responsible. Treasurer Peter Costello was merely the beneficiary of Hawke and Keating's brilliance and Labor, in a weak-kneed, bumbling fashion, was too scared, weak or stupid to embrace their heritage and claim the prize.

Beyond the extravagance of its delivery, there were some home truths for the Government and Labor in Mr Keating's spray, together with a few inaccuracies and glossed over disappointments. Contrary to those who characterise The Weekend Australian as a captive of conservative politics, we have long been making many of the points that Mr Keating has sought to highlight. Like Mr Keating, we have been a longstanding critic of the Howard Government's reform credentials. We believe the Howard Government has dropped the ball on micro-economic reform and its lack of vision has crimped the ability of the nation to capitalise fully on the boom fuelled by the rise of China.

The Weekend Australian has for many years lavished praise on the reform legacy of the Hawke and Keating years. The period from 1983 to 1996 transformed the way Australia does business. While not always responsible for devising the policy prescriptions, Hawke and Keating were brave enough to seize the reform initiatives identified but not implemented by their conservative predecessor. This included the floating of the Australian dollar and deregulating the banking sector. Keating can also claim credit for winding back import tariffs, opening the Australian economy to global competition, driving a wave of competition at a state level, introducing enterprise bargaining to boost productivity growth and introducing compulsory superannuation.

In Mr Keating's view, these reforms underpin Australia's contemporary prosperity and he can't understand why Labor does not want to claim the fruits as their own. We, too, have long believed that Labor has made a mistake in distancing itself from the Hawke and Keating reform legacy. While former Labor leader Mark Latham had promised to do so, he was persuaded against it. His error allowed Mr Howard to demolish Labor's chances with its interest-rate attack on Labor's economic credibility. The mistake has been compounded by the ALP's desire to embrace the ACTU's agenda to wind back industrial relations to the pre-reform days.

Labor in Opposition has handed the mantle of economic reform to Mr Howard, an oversight compounded by its decision to campaign against just about every economic change the Howard Government has implemented without putting forward any useful alternative plan. When it has put forward an alternative, Labor's plan has been to stake out the extreme position with Bob Brown's Greens or wind back the clock. On both IR and climate change, Labor has surrendered the centre ground to Mr Howard in favour of electoral risk.

In his Lateline appearance, Mr Keating was scathing of Labor's handling of its IR changes. He put forward a coherent alternative for the federal Government to use its newly acknowledged corporations powers to legislate a minimum wage and conditions against which all agreements, whether they be collective or individual, would be measured. Mr Keating said there should be neither positive nor negative discrimination for trade unions within the system. Unions, he said, were dying on the vine, lacked passion and were incompetent.

Keating's critique exaggerates the reality of the Howard Government's reforms against union membership but there is a lot of sense in what he says about Labor selling a simple message that includes a free market for wages with a safety net. But instead of the simplicity put forward by Mr Keating, deputy Labor leader Julia Gillard has allowed Labor to be dragged out on the fringe to support collective agreements and potentially pattern bargaining by the more militant unions. If Labor were to succeed in turning back the industrial clock, it would represent a break with Australia's post-war reform continuum. It would become the first government since World War II to wind back economic reform.

Through the accord and enterprise bargaining, the Hawke-Keating years delivered on workplace flexibility and, with Labor's links to the trade union movement, were able to encourage workers to sacrifice wages growth to compensate for the adjustment made necessary by the floating of the currency. While attempts to reform the waterfront were mostly unsuccessful, it was under the Hawke and Keating governments that iron ore producers started to tackle the inflexible work practices that restrained productivity. Labor delivered what The Weekend Australian's Paul Kelly has documented as the end of certainty.

While Mr Keating feels poorly done by in the recognition he has received from Labor, his foray into the campaign being mounted by Kevin Rudd is fraught with danger. Labor certainly has been poorly served by the small-target, defensive strategy adopted at the past three elections. But many of Mr Keating's criticisms are as personal as they are perceptive. It would be unwise to sheet Labor's failings entirely to Gary Gray or David Epstein.

Nonetheless, The Weekend Australian encourages Mr Rudd to take stock of Mr Keating's appeal to the brave. We had hoped at the beginning of this year that Mr Rudd would grab the reform nettle that Mr Howard and Mr Costello have been reluctant to embrace. This included a proper reform of federal and state relations in the areas of health and education. Labor's reform substance remains to be seen. It would indeed be unfortunate if Labor's election momentum were to be derailed by internal and petty squabbling. Or if the ALP's agenda again becomes inward-looking and driven by focus groups. In truth, while Mr Keating remains keen to take the credit, the reality is that the economy remains the Government's big story, an electoral appeal. For Labor, denial of this reality, or the historic role it has played, is no recipe for success.

Source

Unionists already lurking in parliament

By Imre Salusinszky

KEVIN Rudd knows he has to distance himself from the ugly face of unionism - as showcased this week by ranter Dean Mighell -- if he expects to win the election due later this year. But a survey of his own troops, especially in the Senate, confirms Labor's umbilical tie to the union movement. On the Labor side, the upper house resembles an elephant burial ground for "bruvvers". More than two-thirds of Labor's 28 senators have trade union backgrounds, with some having held more than half a dozen union jobs. Yet the vast majority of them are hiding their lights under bushels, with only two occupying frontline shadow portfolios -- legal affairs spokesman Joe Ludwig and communications spokesman Stephen Conroy. In Victoria, two of the three spots on the Senate ticket have been allocated to union-aligned candidates. Second spot on the NSW ticket has been given to Australian Manufacturing Workers Union chief Doug Cameron.

The above story appeared in "The Australian" on June 2, 2007





Downpours not enough to counteract disastrous Greenie limits on water storage

The rain keeps pelting down and causing widespread floods but with no dams built for many years little of it was caught and stored



The rain that has drenched eastern Australia this week is unlikely to ease suburban water restrictions or bring relief for farmers facing zero water allocations for the coming year. Snow will fall in the NSW alps for the opening of the ski season this weekend, but heavy rain is unlikely to reach the southern tablelands or Canberra, according to forecasters. Rain fell across the entire Sydney water catchment yesterday, including 10.9mm over Warragamba, which supplies Sydney's water, in the 24 hours to 1.30pm and 54.8mm over the Blue Mountains catchment. Most of it, however, just wet the dry earth. [Some of the "dry earth" can be seen in the pictures above. I am guessing that the car owners concerned would be wishing that the rain really HAD just soaked into the earth]

Combined dam levels were at 36.9 per cent of capacity -- 0.4 percentage points lower than this time last week. But the Sydney Catchment Authority is hopeful the forecast for more rain overnight and today will create much-needed run-off. The largest dumps occurred in the Hunter Valley, north of Sydney, where one station at Tocal received more than 100mm in two hours. Wyong received 75mm in one hour and Kangy Angy had 66mm in an hour. A number of areas along the Hunter coast received more than 200mm over the past three days. Wind gusts reached 106km/h yesterday near Newcastle, north of Sydney, and Fort Denison on Sydney Harbour.

The rain started in southeast Queensland and the north of NSW and has been slowly moving south. Forecasters expected the centre of the rain system to move to Sydney overnight and the Illawarra, south of Sydney, today. It should move east tomorrow. Queensland's dump of rain -- 30-70mm fell in 48 hours over most of the state's east, south and southeast -- has led to a slight increase in dam levels. The biggest falls were in the southeast, where Brisbane's catchments are situated. The falls were the best two days of rain since October 2005. South East Queensland Water storages rose from 18.22 per cent to 18.38 per cent, providing an extra seven to eight days' supply.

There may be more shower activity in the state's south later next week but by then weather in the catchment will again be dry and large run-offs are not expected. It is unlikely that the rain will have any impact on the need for tight water restrictions in NSW and Queensland.

Queensland households are on tough level-five water restrictions prohibiting sprinklers, hosing gardens and washing cars. In July, towns in the Murray-Darling Basin could be banned from outside water use. Prime Minister John Howard warned Murray-Darling Basin farmers in April they would receive no water allocations for the coming year unless substantial rain fell. Experts believe the downpours will not be enough to change the prognosis for farmers who rely on water from the basin.

Source. See also here and here





Vouchers are the way to go for Australian schools

They are the logical next step in improving education outcomes and would be a winner for the politicians who back them, writes Kevin Donnelly

WHAT is the best way to strengthen schools, raise standards and, in an increasingly competitive and challenging international environment, ensure that more Australian students perform at the top of the league table?

One approach, favoured by those with a vested interest in preserving the status quo, such as the Australian Education Union and the educrats responsible for the present parlous state of Australian education, is centralised and bureaucratic. Schools, especially government schools, are forced to conform to a top-down and inflexible system of command and control management where there is little, if any, room for autonomy at the local level, or flexibility in curriculum and developing more effective ways to meet the demands of parents and the marketplace.

The alternative, based on research identifying the characteristics of "world's best" education systems (as measured by international tests) and overseas innovations such as vouchers and charter schools, is to free schools from provider capture and to increase parental choice. Vouchers involve parents receiving an agreed amount of funding from government that they can then use to send their children to either government or non-government schools. The money follows the child and, as a result, good schools prosper and grow while underperforming schools face the consequences of falling enrolments and reduced demand.

Related to school choice is the need to ensure that how well schools perform, or underperform, is made public. When school effectiveness is clouded in secrecy, it is impossible for parents to make informed decisions about where their children go to school. At the minimum, all schools should be made to release details about educational performance, staff morale, absenteeism, student behaviour and, where relevant, indicators such as Year 12 results and post-school destinations.

Compare this to the present situation in Australia where, notwithstanding the rhetoric about identifying and turning around underperforming government schools, there are few, if any, consequences for failure and, as a result, thousands of students receive a substandard education.

Vouchers can either be universal or targeted at particular disadvantaged groups, such as children with disabilities or children educationally at risk because of their socioeconomic background. Vouchers can also either provide the full cost of educating a child, measured by the per-student cost of educating a child in a government school (about $10,000), or they can be set as a percentage, for example, by being means tested.

However, increasing educational choice by giving parents the right to choose where their children go to school is ineffectual if all schools, government and non-government, are forced to follow the same industrial-age management regime and dumbed-down, politically correct curriculum. The other side of the voucher equation is what in the US are termed charter schools. If schools are to be in a position to respond to community expectations, they need the autonomy and flexibility to meet parental demands. Charter schools, within general guidelines, fashion their own management style and curriculum, freed from the constraints of an intrusive and insensitive government-controlled bureaucracy.

As outlined in a 2006 paper prepared by the Australia Institute, titled School Vouchers: An Evaluation of their Impact on Education Outcomes, those associated with the cultural Left side of politics are staunch critics of freeing up schools and increased parental choice. The authors of the paper argue there is no evidence increased competition and autonomy improve educational outcomes.

An argument is also put that Australian society will become less cohesive as vouchers will lead to "greater segregation on the basis of race, religion, academic ability and socialeconomic status" and, based on the assumption that choice will lead to more parents choosing non-government schools, that state schools will be seen as second-rate and the least preferred option.

As might be expected, given that its continued survival depends on a centrally controlled, compliant state system of education, the AEU is also opposed to vouchers and the existence of non-government schools more generally. After criticising the federal Government's introduction of literacy vouchers, the AEU, at its 2005 federal conference, attacked opening schools to market forces by stating "the introduction of the voucher system of funding ... will ensure that much-needed government funding is directed away from those public schools with the greatest need into private pockets without any accountability requirements whatsoever". According to Pat Byrne, the AEU president, the Howard Government's policy of supporting parental choice is a ruse to destroy the state system.

It's ironic that supporters of state schools, such as the AEU, spend thousands of dollars on campaigns talking up government schools, under slogans such as "state schools are great schools", while arguing that introducing vouchers will lead to increasing numbers of parents fleeing the state system. Logic suggests that if state schools are as successful as their advocates make out, despite the introduction of vouchers many parents will still prefer state schools. The popularity of selective government schools in NSW and the fact that Victorian parents, if they can afford the real estate, are buying into areas with highly regarded state schools, proves that given a choice, parents will not necessarily "flee" the government system.

In his book Education Matters: Government, Markets and New Zealand Schools, Canberra-based economist Mark Harrison, in opposition to arguments about lack of effectiveness, details research showing that voucher-related choice and competition improve educational outcomes. Common sense also suggests this would be the case. If nothing else, the collapse of communism and the success of capitalism proves that the old days of statism have long since died and the most effective approach to government policy is to allow responsibility and decision-making to rest in the hands of those most affected, ie, at the local level. Harrison cites research undertaken at Harvard University into voucher schemes implemented in Washington and New York as concluding that "the academic achievement of voucher students who attended private schools grew faster than the similar students who did not receive a voucher and attended public schools".

Research evaluating the Milwaukee scheme arrives at a similar conclusion about the benefits of vouchers; instead of lowering standards or creating social fragmentation, there is evidence that not only are students' test scores improved, in addition, as Harrison states, "parents are highly satisfied, there was no creaming, parental involvement increased, the program targeted disadvantaged students successfully and reduced segregation".

Caroline Hoxby, a US-based academic and author of School Choice: The Three Essential Elements and Several Policy Options, on examining the results of the Milwaukee scheme, also argues that increasing choice and competition lead to improved results, as measured by improvements in students' mathematics scores.

Those supporting vouchers also make the point that improved standards are not restricted to schools enrolling students with vouchers; nearby government schools, given the reality of competition and the consequent incentive to improve, also register stronger results.

On identifying the characteristics of those education systems that achieve the best results in international mathematics, science and reading tests, Ludger Woessmann, from the University of Munich, reinforces the importance of choice and competition, especially as the result of a strong private school sector and decentralisation of management. Woessmann argues the market provides strong incentives for schools, as institutions, to provide a better service by meeting the expectations of parents and raising standards. If parents are not satisfied, they go elsewhere, and there are clear consequences and rewards for performance. While acknowledging the central role individual teachers play in successful learning, Woessmann also makes the point that those education systems suffering from provider capture, especially where teacher unions have an undue influence, underperform in terms of international test results.

While critics of vouchers, such as the AEU, emphasise that increased diversity and competition will only benefit so-called wealthy, elite, non-government schools, it is significant that American voucher schemes focus on supporting disadvantaged groups such as Hispanics and African-Americans. Such is the success of these schemes in addressing educational disadvantage, as noted by Terry Moe, a researcher at the Hoover Institution, that "in poll after poll, the strongest supporters of publicly financed vouchers are blacks, Hispanics and the poor, especially in urban areas".

As the 30 to 40per cent of Australian parents who send their children to non-government schools are well aware, debates about vouchers are of more than academic interest. Not only do these parents pay taxes for a system they do not use, thus saving state and federal governments millions of dollars each year, hard-earned cash has to be found to pay school fees. The reality is that parents who, as a result of the perceived shortcomings in government schools, choose non-government schools are financially penalised. While state and federal governments support such choice by partially funding students attending non-government schools, the amounts provided are well short of the costs involved and the system lacks the preconditions necessary for an effective voucher system.

On the grounds of equity and social justice, it makes sense if more parents, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, are able to choose between government and non-government schools. Ideally, such a voucher would be set at $10,000 and the money would follow the child. Vouchers and charter schools, reflecting a commitment to choice, competition and accountability, present new territory in the education debate. At first glance, such initiatives are a natural fit for the Howard Coalition Government and, given the cultural Left's antagonism, something traditionally opposed by the ALP. As such, vouchers and charter schools provide one policy area where there are clear differences between the two parties and fertile ground for public debate.

Source




Vouchers are the way to go for Australian Universities too

Comment by Steven Schwartz, the vice-chancellor of Macquarie University

The Group of Eight universities has launched a far-reaching higher education policy statement and, again, educational vouchers have been thrust into the spotlight. Ever since the Nobel economics laureate Milton Friedman suggested funding education with vouchers in 1955, the idea has surfaced periodically in Australia only to be met with howls of rage from education unions and yawns of apathy from everyone else.

There are three reasons this time could be different. First, educational vouchers can no longer be dismissed as impractical. School voucher systems operate successfully in several countries and a university voucher system has been introduced in Colorado. Second, both sides of politics are committed to a diverse system of higher education. By forcing universities to find a competitive niche, vouchers foster diversity more effectively, and certainly more efficiently, than the present system of centralised formula funding. Third, it has previously been taken for granted that vouchers would be politically unpopular because they would have to be rationed. It was feared that promising everyone a voucher would lead many extra students to enrol, thereby causing a budget blowout. But times have changed. There is no longer any need to worry about hoards of frustrated students queuing for vouchers because, the Government says, there is no longer any unmet demand.

Everyone who wants to attend university is already being admitted. Unless it decides to be uncharacteristically generous, a universal voucher entitlement would cost the Government no more than the block grant system. Vouchers would overcome anomalies inherent in the present funding arrangements by introducing rudimentary market forces into a system that operates according to Government fiat. At present, universities have little ability to respond to student demand. The quota of Government-subsidised student places at any university each year is determined by history: universities get about the same number they received the previous year, with small adjustments.

We know that students prefer some universities to others. However, even if they wanted to, popular universities are prohibited from expanding their intake to meet student demand. Indeed, like plant managers in the old Soviet Union, university managers are punished if they enrol "too many" students. As a result of quotas, many qualified students are turned away from their university of first choice. They are forced to try their second, third or even fourth choice, until they finally find a university that will admit them. By limiting the number of places in any university, the Government makes it impossible for universities to expand their intake in response to student demand. It is a way to protect less popular institutions whose students might go elsewhere if given the chance.

Giving funding to students in the form of vouchers and eliminating quotas would allow universities to adjust supply to meet demand. But vouchers would not be enough. To ensure the highest levels of excellence, they would need to be combined with the deregulation of university fees.

At present, the amount students pay through the Higher Education Contribution Scheme is largely determined by the Government; universities have limited leeway to charge more. Yet, they are in competition with generously funded competitors from around the world. If we want to compete in the premier league, we have to direct resources to those institutions that achieve the highest standards of excellence. Lifting the cap on student contributions would allow our best universities to raise their fees; this would bring them the additional resources they require to compete with the world's best. To ensure that access to elite higher education institutions is not limited to the rich, universities that raise their fees should be required to spend some of their new wealth on income support for needy students.

In reality, however, only a small number of institutions would be able to charge premium fees and provide exceptional services. Many would go for low price and high volume. Other models would also develop. Some universities would offer vocational and technical types of education. Others would focus on distance learning. Some would deliberately focus on a small number of programs that met student needs.

Under a voucher system, universities would have to be attractive to students because that is the only way they would receive any resources. Students would benefit because they would control the purse strings and would therefore be able to influence what was taught, by whom and when. Institutions would benefit by being able to adjust their offerings to meet student demand. Most of all, Australia would benefit from having stronger world-class universities to produce the graduates we will need to ensure social and economic progress.

Source





His Eminence upholds Catholic orthodoxy without fear or favour

He is wise to do so. It is the wishy-washy churches that have empty pews



Comment below by Christopher Pearson

It should have come as no surprise to anyone last week when George Pell announced he would ask principals in Sydney's Catholic schools and teachers in charge of religious instruction in his diocese to affirm their loyalty to Catholic doctrine. He wants them to swear an oath of fidelity to what the church teaches, with specific reference to various issues of sexual morality and an exclusively male priesthood. But the theological modernists who've long ruled the roost in Sydney were appalled at the idea of a bishop taking orthodoxy seriously and expecting the people responsible for the formation of young Catholics to do likewise.

They voiced their indignation in the secular media and fringe Catholic magazines, as modernists and ultra-liberals have been doing since the Second Vatican Council. However, on this issue the boat-rocking exercises met with limited success. I expect most non-Catholics don't much care one way or the other and there's also a matter-of-fact general acceptance that every club has its rules and members in good standing abide by them.

Later in the week, Pell put himself in the line of fire a second time by issuing a statement about embryonic stem cell research, on behalf of the Catholic bishops of NSW. It was essentially a collegial response to contentious legislation rushed into the NSW parliament. But it was also another pretext for the cardinal's clerical detractors, The Sydney Morning Herald and the ABC to brand him as an authoritarian zealot.

Sydney's Anglican Archbishop Phillip Jensen condemned the bill just as forcefully as Pell did. The research the bill was designed to give licence to was compared to the unethical developments of Nazi scientific experiments. He also warned that, if passed, the bill would "enshrine in law the corrupt view that the embryos used are not morally significant or important". Despite that, Jensen was left unscathed, on this occasion at least, and almost all the media attention was on the cardinal.

The statement Pell had issued was unobjectionable. "No Catholic politician, indeed no Christian or person with respect for human life, who has properly informed his conscience about the facts and ethics in this area, should vote in favour of this immoral legislation."

One of the main responsibilities of bishops is to teach their people precisely so they can develop their individual consciences, informed by sound doctrine rather than in a moral vacuum. There is an even weightier responsibility when telling Catholic politicians, who have to vote on contentious moral issues, what the church's position is. This is especially the case, as was obvious last week, when they are ignorant and not very observant Catholics, indifferent to the church's teachings when they are politically inconvenient.

No Catholic theologian of any consequence has argued in favour of human embryo cloning, or creating embryos with three or more genetic parents, or creating human-animal hybrids for testing purposes. Although these procedures raise new issues, in the sense the science itself is new, they are experiments that contravene fundamental tenets regarding human procreation. No consequentialist argument, based on possible miracle cures down the track, could trump first principles.

Pell tells me that when The Sydney Morning Herald's Linda Morris attended his press conference, she had given advance notice of two questions on the subject of excommunication. He told the press, as she duly reported the next day, that he wasn't threatening Catholic politicians who chose to support the bill with excommunication. But he did say there would be "consequences in the life of the church" for those who voted for the legislation.

Consequences short of excommunication were once widely understood, both by Catholics and most religiously literate adults. They ranged from the risk of disapproval from other people in the pew and earnest entreaties to think things over by the clergy to stern words from your confessor, if you availed yourself of the sacrament of penance. He might withhold absolution until there was some sign of contrition or even advise against going to communion until you had acknowledged the error of your ways. Such consequences, which these days would perhaps weigh only on a delicate conscience but still reflect the seriousness of the offence, fall a long way short of medieval declarations of anathema, with bell, book and candle, as the saying goes.

There has recently been a lot of (mostly ill-informed) media hype on the issue of excommunication. Raymond Burke, Archbishop of St Louis in the US, caused a great stir when he said he would refuse the sacrament to Catholic pro-choice Democratic candidate John Kerry in the lead-up to the previous presidential election.

On the plane to Brazil, Pope Benedict XVI told an interviewer that, in some cases where people were directly involved in assisting at an abortion, they automatically excommunicated themselves. This was the case in a technical sense, known as latae sententiae, whether or not the church formalised the matter by announcing it.

Voting in support of cloning is a serious matter, although not in the same grave category as participating in an abortion. Still, it is hard to imagine how any of the notionally Catholic MPs, of whatever party, who voted in favour of the bill could imagine themselves as being in good standing in their membership of the church. For all that, press speculation about possible excommunication combined with Pell's warning of lesser consequences had them waxing righteously indignant about threats and "bully-boy tactics".

NSW Premier Morris Iemma said he "wouldn't take kindly to being denied communion", as though it were a simple matter of entitlement. His deputy John Watkins said he was "a bit mystified by the authoritarian view" put by the cardinal. Frank Sartor, the NSW Planning Minister, went one better and described Pell's comments as "reminiscent of the Dark Ages".

Federal Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey decided to buy into the argument, even though it was a state issue. He offered, for all the world as though he'd given the matter great thought, the line: "I don't object to Pell expressing that opinion, but I do object to any suggestion that there are consequences."

As the cardinal noted in an article on Friday in The Sydney Morning Herald, actions do have consequences, as any politician who crosses the floor soon finds out. I was heartened to see NSW Liberal leader Barry O'Farrell undertook to consider what Pell had said and refrained from grandstanding. The Nationals' Adrian Piccoli couldn't resist boasting: "I would like to see them try and stop me taking communion."

NSW Emergency Services Minister Nathan Rees made the silliest contribution so far from a serving politician. He objected to what he called Pell's "emotional blackmail", saying: "The hypocrisy is world class. No government would seek to influence church teaching when providing taxpayer funds for the refurbishment of St Mary's Cathedral or the education of Catholic school children or to subsidise rates exemptions for churches." He also raised the possibility of referring the cardinal's remarks to the house's privileges committee: "I consider Cardinal Pell's incursion a clear and arguably contemptuous incursion into deliberations of the elected members of the parliament."

The debate hasn't reflected much credit on many of the Catholic politicians in the NSW parliament. Nor does it show the quality of instruction they received in church or in Catholic schools in a flattering light. It's clear many of them don't know the first thing about what their church teaches on life issues and don't regard themselves as being under any obligation to take notice when it's pointed out to them. They have a convenient and strangely Protestant notion of the sovereignty of conscience - shared, it seems, by Jesuit priest and academic Frank Brennan - and somehow imagine "everyone's entitled to their own opinion" in matters of faith and morals. There is a theological term for this. It's called "a condition of invincible ignorance".

When I spoke with Pell in the middle of the brouhaha, he sounded a bit saddened but not at all surprised by the turn the debate had taken. "All this talk of excommunication is a distraction from the main issues. No amount of political bluster will change the fact that this bill is an assault on human life, for gains which are so far nonexistent. Everyone claims to believe in the sanctity of human life. We really mean it."

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Lazy NSW police unrepentant

What do you expect of public servants? Get a gun!

POLICE Commissioner Ken Moroney has thumbed his nose at public opinion, defying calls for tougher action against street crime. His defiance came after The Daily Telegraph struggled to have a crime investigated by police despite having photographic evidence of a mugging in Sydney. Last night the victim, a 16-year-old TAFE student, revealed his fear over the attack on Tuesday night near Central railway station. His mother, Margaret Short, said her husband tried to report the crime to police but was "fobbed off".

"When my husband Don rang Central (Police Station) they wouldn't even take a statement, insisting it must come from our son. They just fobbed him off. "They said the victim has to report the crime and because our son didn't want to, they couldn't record it for him. But our son was too scared to do that." The boy told the Daily Telegraph last night: "The police said they know who it is, or have an idea, but can't guarantee anything. "I didn't want to go to police because I thought if (the culprits) found out who I was, I could get bashed or some of their mates would find me and make trouble." The boy, who last night revealed he was menaced with a knife in the attack, subsequently visited Surry Hills police yesterday.

Victims of crime said yesterday that they had given up expecting police to do anything about it. However, Mr Moroney insists his officers are doing the best they can. Figures reveal that hundreds of thousands of citizens who have been robbed, assaulted or who have had their homes invaded are not bothering to report it.

The Commissioner yesterday chose to dodge the issue by citing the state's falling crime rates. With hundreds of angry citizens inundating the Daily Telegraph website with reports of lazy police, Mr Moroney said last night it would be "unrealistic" to expect everyone to be happy. He said police internal research indicated that confidence in the police was high and that the community felt safe - but he refused to release the figures so the public can make up its own mind.

"I expect all my officers to do their best at all times. "They have an oath of office and that is their pact with the people of NSW. "Police are not perfect human beings. "Figures show the majority of crime categories are either falling or are steady. {Because people no longer to report stuff] "Does that mean that every individual who looks to police for assistance will be 100 per cent happy 100 per cent of the time? "That would be unrealistic, but I hope the public understands that we do have a committed police force who are doing the best possible job they can."

The annual Australian Bureau of Statistics survey of victims of crime for the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research for 2006 - the latest figures available - show 127,500 victims of assault did not report it in 2006, 22,800 people did not report that they had been robbed, 26,300 people did not tell police their house had been broken into and another 63,100 people did report an attempted burglary.

"The most common reasons why people don't report crime are that people don't think the police could or would do anything about it, the offence was too trivial, or nothing was stolen," BOSCAR director Dr Don Weatherburn said. Victims of Crime Assistance League executive director Robyn Cotterell-Jones said it was because they were sick of being given the brush-off. "Police are making a decision about whether a case is going to make it to prosecution and if not, they are simply not bothering to do anything with it," she said.

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Australia's PM negative on homosexual adoption

PRIME Minister John Howard says he is opposed to gay couples adopting children and heterosexual adoption is a benchmark society should maintain. But he said that didn't mean gay and lesbian people had no affection for children.

The Victorian Law Reform Commission has recommended to the Victorian Parliament that gay couples be allowed to adopt and lesbians have access to IVF treatment. Mr Howard said today he believed children should ideally have a mother and a father. "It gives children the best opportunity in life," he said on Southern Cross radio. "I know for some that sounds harsh, I don't think it's harsh, I think it's something that most people believe is the desired, the ideal outcome. "I'm not saying that gay and lesbian people don't display enormous affection to children."

The Prime Minister said limiting adoption to heterosexual couples was a benchmark Australian society should maintain. On IVF for lesbians and single women without partners, he said: "In the past we have objected to that."

The Victorian Law Reform Commission report, tabled in state parliament yesterday, said the Government should change the law to allow lesbians to access reproductive treatment, even if they are not medically infertile. "An appropriate test is whether a woman is 'in the circumstances in which she finds herself unlikely to become pregnant other than by a treatment procedure'," the report says. A court decision in 2000 found it was discriminatory to deny treatment to a woman based on whether or not she was in a relationship with a man.

Gay couples currently are unable to adopt in Victoria, but the commission says they should be able to. "The commission believes it is important the widest possible pool of people is available to help these children," the report says. "Research shows that a parent's sexuality is not a predictor of harm to children."

Felicity Marlowe, 33, said she looked forward to the changes being endorsed, as she had no legal status in the lives of 11-month-old twin boys Rafi and Callum, born to her partner of seven years, Sarah Marlowe. "It would mean a great deal to me to be able to receive that legal recognition, and in terms of the future rights of my children it is important too," said Ms Marlowe, a member of the Rainbow Families council. "The discriminatory laws that currently exist don't stop people from creating families, but they do undermine the rights ... of the children."

But Australian Families Association spokeswoman Angela Conway said the changes pandered to the gay agenda without considering the best interests of children.

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Family group slams $2.5m anti-smack campaign

A hardy perennial resurfaces in Australia

A NEW $2.5 million campaign urging parents not to smack their children has upset a family group that supports smacking. It is not illegal for parents to smack their children, but the Federal Government's "Every Child is Important" campaign argues against it. The kits in 16 languages will be available soon in various community, health and education centres.

"Hitting a child does not teach acceptable ways to behave," project material says. "Instead it may result in a repeat of the misbehaviour. "Often children are so upset or angry after being hit, they forget why they are being punished."

Family Council of Victoria secretary Bill Muehlenberg said it was wrong to use taxpayers' money to push an anti-smacking line most parents would disagree with. Mr Muehlenberg, who smacked his three boys, said in some cases with small children it was the only option. "It's usually done as a last resort, done in love, done with moderation, self-control," he said. "In other words it's not the same as abuse, which we already have laws on the books about."

But Dr Joe Tucci, CEO of the Australian Childhood Foundation that compiled the "Every Child is Important" campaign, is opposed to smacking. He says parents should work out why their child is misbehaving and address the cause. "You don't have to hit your children to teach them right from wrong," he said.

Sunrise presenter and father of four David Koch is a high-profile smacking advocate. "Smacking is very different to being abusive," he told the Herald-Sun. Koch said it was wrong to smack when you were emotional, but an out-of-control child may need it.

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Parents told to make up for school failures

PARENTS have been urged to "do the times table" with their children after almost one in four Queensland Year 7 students failed to meet the national benchmark for numeracy. Education Minister Rod Welford conceded yesterday that numeracy standards in Queensland schools weren't good enough and parents could help to address the problem. "Parents can help by doing tables with their children at home. Nine-year-olds should be learning their tables," he said.

Figures released in this week's State Budget showed just 76.2 per cent of students met the benchmark last year, down from 80.3 per cent the previous year and well short of the 82 per cent target forecast in last year's Budget. The tests, each August, also measure literacy. More than 95 per cent of Year 7 students met the national writing benchmark and 83 per cent met the reading benchmark.

The Australian Council for Educational Research's Ken Rowe said the benchmarks were minimum standards. "You can't get much lower than those benchmarks and in reality, somewhere between 40 and 60 per cent of students entering high school from government, Catholic and independent schools lack sufficient skills to engage with the secondary curriculum," Dr Rowe said. "Our priority must be teaching the teachers to teach."

Mr Welford said the "results clearly are not good enough". He said students who failed to master basic numeracy at primary school were more likely to have problems in secondary maths and he wanted the annual tests moved forwards to May to give teachers more time to help children rectify problems. "These tests should also be passed on to the students' secondary schools so that process continues," he said.

This week's Budget included a new $1.5 million numeracy initiative aimed at boosting the results. Mr Welford said the initiative aimed to "help build teacher capacity through professional development programs and the development of teacher resources and training packages".

Opposition Education spokesman Stuart Copeland said the school curriculum was "too overcrowded" for many children who needed more time on the basics. "I am also concerned that we are starting to see the effects of falling OP scores for entry to the teaching profession," Mr Copeland said. "If teachers are not being well-prepared to teach literacy and numeracy this is a damning indictment of the universities."

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Police indifference to crime

I had a similar experience to that below when my car was stolen. I was able to hand the Queensland police written ID for one of the thieves but they were not interested

IT wasn't the most lethal crime committed in an Australian city this week, but by chance it was caught on camera - and despite having the pictures in front of them, the police blatantly refused to investigate. The refusal of Sydney police to even pretend to investigate the crime captured by The Daily Telegraph photographer will anger anyone who has been told that "petty" crimes such as minor theft, vandalism and harassment aren't worth the bother.

The Daily Telegraph saw a random mugging of a young man for his money and Nike trainers late on Tuesday. Photographer Noel Kessell witnessed the brazen robbery by a gang of five youths outside Central Station at peak hour. At the notorious crime blackspot on the corner of Eddy Ave and Elizabeth St at 6.30pm the men cornered their victim and ordered him to empty his pockets and remove his shoes. Kessell captured on camera two of the youths fleeing across Elizabeth St, clutching the stolen shoes.

But at Surry Hills Police Station Inspector Karen Myers could not muster any enthusiasm. "I bet you thought, 'You beauty', you've got a story, but sorry, I'm not making a comment. These pictures don't mean anything," said the inspector when The Daily Telegraph offered the images to assist police. "These pictures could mean anything. It could just be a bloke running down the street with some shoes in his arms. "Without a victim there is no crime," she said with an attitude that has angered victims.

Kessell said the victim ran off before he could tell him he had witnessed the robbery. The young man may have reported it to another police station, but Inspector Myers would never know because she made no notes of the crime report to cross-reference it on the police computer system. Describing it as an "old crime", she was not interested in passing the photos to detectives, who may have recognised the thieves.

Dr Michael Kennedy, senior lecturer in policing at the University of Western Sydney, said: "This is not an isolated incident." Dr Kennedy, a former detective with 18 years service, said it was an example of policing being run as a business with performance bonuses for commissioned officers. "Success is measured in terms of data," Dr Kennedy said. "This is an indication of the lack of experience and maturity of commissioned officers."

Victims of Crime Assistance League executive director Robyn Cotterell-Jones said she was not surprised by the inaction. "Lots of victims are saying, 'What's the point of reporting a crime if the police won't listen to you'," she said.

Kessell was in a taxi when he saw the mugging. "It happened so fast. A group of about five young men gathered around another male, ordered him to go through his pockets and then told him to take his shoes off," he said.

It was only when The Daily Telegraph called the office of NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney that the police acted. Last night, Kessell made a statement to police and handed over his photos. Acting Surry Hills Commander Detective Inspector David Egan-Lee said street crime was a major focus for police in the Central Metropolitan region. "While the police response at the time may not have been optimal, we have assigned a team to examine the incident and with the help of The Daily Telegraph hope to apprehend the offenders," he said.

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A wise woman

A TASMANIAN mother has refused to agree to bail for her teenage son in a desperate bid to end his life of crime. And she has called on other parents of young lawbreakers to stop backing their children. "The police do the best they can, I think it's time these parents woke up to themselves," the woman said. The Bridgewater woman took the radical step after her son was arrested over a series of alleged offences last week. She has also refused to take her son's phone calls from the Hobart remand centre.

She does not want to reveal her identity for fear of reprisals. "At the moment I am the worst mum in Bridgewater because I am not standing by his case . . . but I want my son off the streets while he's a thief before he becomes a murderer," she said.

She spoke out yesterday in the hope that other parents would take the same stand. The woman said the parents of young lawbreakers had a lot to answer for, with many supporting or encouraging their children's actions by buying stolen goods from them and hiding them from police. She said she was disgusted by a recent incident in Bridgewater in which toddlers stood by watching while police were pelted with rocks when trying to make arrests. "What kind of example is that for the younger generation?" she asked.

Last Friday three teenagers hurled rocks at police from the roof of a Bridgewater house in a three-hour stand-off after police approached the house during an investigation into car thefts. More than 50 police attended the confrontation at Hobden Place. Three police vehicles were damaged and the incident attracted 100 spectators. The teenagers were later charged with assaulting police, damage to property, recklessly discharging missiles, motor vehicle stealing and creating a common nuisance.

Speaking to the Mercury yesterday, the Bridgewater woman said a few years ago her teenage son had been a normal, happy young man about to embark on a promising sporting career. But within months of "falling in with the wrong crowd" he was locked up in Ashley Detention Centre for theft. In the years since he has been in and out of the centre numerous times and has pushed his mother to the limit. "I have never once tried to hide him," she said. "I have actually been out at night looking for my son and calling the cops to where I thought he was. "We all love him and want him to be the person he was."

The woman said she did not believe Bridgewater, an area often stigmatised as having a high crime rate, was any worse than other suburbs. "I think it's our society, there is just no authority over kids," she said. Her worst fear was that her son would be involved in a crime that went wrong and led to a person's injury or death.

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Professor slams leftist curriculum "plan"

A Rudd Labor government risks creating a "noodle federation" as states sign up to different pieces of its education policy rather than developing a cohesive national framework. University of Queensland professor Kenneth Wiltshire described Kevin Rudd's self-described education revolution as "about six dot points in search of a rationale", containing little detail of how the measures would be implemented.

Speaking after giving evidence to the Senate inquiry on the academic standards of school education, Professor Wiltshire said the ALP policy lacked coherence and the only plan for implementation was an assertion that the states would co-operate "by some magical mechanism". "There's no guarantee whatsoever just because the state governments are the same political party Mr Rudd is going to get their co-operation," Professor Wiltshire said. "Public policy by definition should have content, its rationale, the tool of implementation. "But the 'education revolution' has no costing, no delivery mechanism; it needs to be spelt out in far more detail. "I fear Mr Rudd's creating a noodle federation, with some states referring powers to the commonwealth and some states not."

Professor Wiltshire, the JD Story professor of public administration at the university, chaired the review of the Queensland school curriculum under the Goss Labor government. He served as a special adviser to the Australian National Training Authority and was Australia's representative on the executive board of UNESCO, the UN education body, until 2005.

In evidence to the inquiry, Professor Wiltshire described the Queensland education system as the worst in the country. He said the school system forced subject specialisation on students at too young an age, requiring them to choose between being literate or numerate - between the humanities and the sciences - at 12 or 13, and to decide on an academic or vocational pathway at 14 or 15. "We're forcing these choices on kids at far too young an age," he said. "We should be keeping options open and giving them a generalist education for as long as possible."

In his evidence, Professor Wiltshire also highlighted the lack of careers guidance in schools and called for "root and branch" reform of the TAFE system, arguing for the introduction of a HECS-style scheme. Professor Wiltshire said the only improvements in educational standards over the past decade had occurred as a result of intervention by the federal Government. He said reforms over the past 10 years - including better reporting on students, greater choice for parents, and moves to a national curriculum - would not have occurred if the federal Government had not taken a stronger role in education. 'State governments obviously haven't been able to properly deliver what people want," he said.

Professor Wiltshire called on the inquiry to recommend a federal-led approach to curriculum, a strong national board for curriculum reintroducing syllabus specifying content, and strong national performance standards and assessment.

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His Eminence shocks atheists: Archbishop Pell lobbies hard for his faith

ACCORDING to Fairfax newspapers, Cardinal George Pell has, for the second time this week, sparked a terrible controversy. Before anyone panics, Pell has not denied the existence of God or cast doubt on the resurrection of Jesus. That really would be controversial.

No, in the first apparent outrage, Dr Pell said he would ask Catholic school principals to swear an oath of fidelity to their partners and to not use birth control. In other words, he expects Catholic teachers to abide by Catholic teachings. The second so-called "controversy" concerns Dr Pell's decision, earlier this week, to warn Catholic MPs in the NSW parliament to vote against a bill that would allow for stem cell research, saying experimentation was grotesque.

Dr Pell did not say that Catholics who voted for the bill would be excommunicated or that they would suffer eternal damnation. He did say there would be "consequences" for their place in the life of the church but did not make it clear what these consequences might be. It has been suggested that some priests may refuse holy communion to MPs who voted for the bill.

Some commentators have criticised Dr Pell for mixing affairs of the church with the state. In fact, Dr Pell is doing no more than his job. As Cardinal, it is his responsibility to explain and uphold Catholic principles, to remind Australian Catholics of the rules that apply to their lives, if lived as Catholics. In other words, Dr Pell is engaged in the thoroughly modern practice of lobbying elected representatives in the same way as some feminist groups lobby for a woman's right to have an abortion; and some providers of pornography lobby for X-rated videos to be available at the corner store. It would be quite strange if Dr Pell had told Catholic MPs to vote either for or against the bill without first examining their conscience. It is his business to bring conscience to the fore.

In any case, it is clear that Catholics regard Dr Pell's advice as exactly that: advice, to either be heeded or ignored. NSW Premier Morris Iemma, who is Catholic, said he would vote for research; so too did his Catholic deputy, John Watkins.

The real controversy here is the one that has existed since scientists discovered that stem cells may hold within them great promise, in the form of treatment for many different diseases. But how much experimentation should be allowed? This newspaper has always spoken in favour of science and technology - indeed, in favour of hope for humankind, and the possible end of some suffering. But each and every decision involving a human embryo takes place within an ethical framework and Dr Pell does well to remind our community to at least think carefully before we take steps down uncertain paths.

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