Australian Politics
NSW government employs drones instead of doctors and nurses
New South Wales Health Minister Reba Meagher rejects claims the clean-up of Royal North Shore Hospital occurred specifically to coincide with a parliamentary inquiry into its performance. RNSH has enjoyed a major spruce-up, with a huge team of cleaners employed to do the job.
The Opposition has been critical of the timing but Health Minister Reba Meagher says she's just trying to improve the hospital. "The concerns about cleaning were raised directly by the nurses to the chief executive and the chief executive has responded to those claims," she said. Royal North Shore has been under siege of late, with patients left to miscarry in emergency and cases of serious misdiagnosis.
Meanwhile, it's claimed 250 nurses could be employed with the money spent on 159 health bureaucrats who are being paid even though they don't have a position. Almost half have had their role made redundant. New South Wales Treasurer Michael Costa has told 2GB's Ray Hadley there is a deadline for these people to find work within the public service. "They're in a different category because they tend to be not highly paid people," he said. "They're given an oppotunity - 12 months - to find an alternate employment opportunity within the public sector. If they fail to find they are given termination and they've got 12 months to get out of the system."
Source
An earlier version of the above article included the following:
The state government has been forced to defend the cost of keeping redundant health workers on the payroll on the same day the inquiry into Royal North Shore Hospital begins. Around $15 million is being spent on health bureaucrats who are without a permanent position but the government insists the workers are not sitting around doing nothing. Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell says the union-secured deal speaks volumes about the government. "The $45 million a year being paid to 600 people to sit around and do nothing would be better spent employing more teachers, nurses and police."
Big failure for Australian-designed cars
Attempts to beat the Japanese at industrial design are just crazy and a waste of time and money. Tariff protection for the Australian car industry has failed and should be cancelled forthwith
In A first for the Japanese car giant, Toyota has beaten the new monthly car sales of Holden [GM] and Ford combined as Australia's manufacturers struggle against a wave of imported vehicles. As the price of crude oil approaches $100 a barrel, new cars are selling at a record pace and sales are tipped to eclipse the milestone of 1 million new cars sold in a year by the end of the year. In Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries sales figures for October released yesterday, market leader Toyota sold 20,212 vehicles, whereas Holden and Ford sold a total 19,621. Significantly, Holden and Ford were among only seven of the 42 brands to not post a sales increase in October. New-car sales were up by 8.6 per cent so far this year, the figures showed.
It is the first time Toyota has held such a strong lead over Holden and Ford and the company is on track to post its fourth year in a row as Australia's most popular car brand. But Toyota wasn't popping champagne corks yesterday, saying it would rather have stronger competition. "The result is double-edged," said Toyota's executive director of sales and marketing, David Buttner. "While it's pleasing to have strong sales we're mindful of the strong industry."
Toyota's Yaris hatch outsold by more than two to one Holden's similarly sized Barina. And Toyota's Corolla outsold the Holden Astra and Ford Focus small cars also by more than two to one. Mr Buttner said Toyota's record sales were due in part to having a newer model line-up (most of its range has been updated or replaced in the past three years) and that Ford and Holden would bounce back as they updated their models.
Holden's Commodore remained Australia's biggest selling car, but sales of the Ford Falcon were down by 22 per cent in the first 10 months of this year compared with the same period in 2006. An updated Falcon is due in March. Contrary to perception, sales of four-wheel-drives have never been stronger. Sales of light cars are up by 9.2 per cent and small cars are up by 5.4 per cent, but sales of four-wheel-drives are up by 15 per cent. Toyota Australia's chairman emeritus, John Conomos, said he expected the new car market would reach the 1.04 million sales mark this year based on present trends.
Source
Bipartisan tax stupidity
The nation's leading universities yesterday called for the abolition of a tax that renders worthless scholarships for disadvantaged and rural students. Chairman of the Group of Eight elite universities Alan Robson said the scholarships were a way of improving those students' access to university but the bursaries were counted as income in the means test on the commonwealth's Youth Allowance. However, the commonwealth's own equity scholarships - about $8500 this year for new students - were exempt.
"It's a real disincentive for any university or donor to offer scholarships because if we do, the Government just cuts their Austudy payment," Professor Robson said. "This makes such scholarships almost worthless and was the reason behind the group's recent decision to discontinue its equity and merit scholarship scheme. "This tax anomaly is a crazy thing," he said.
Under the means test for the Youth Allowance, worth $348.10 a fortnight, students earning more than $236 a fortnight lose half their allowance. If their income rises above $316, they lose 60 per cent of the allowance.
Professor Robson - vice-chancellor of the University of Western Australia - said the proportion of students from low-income families attending university had not risen for more than 20 years. Yesterday, neither party would commit to the change, which would cost an estimated $26.5million a year.
Source
A discriminatory anti-discrimination body
Post below lifted from Leon Bertrand. See the original for links
As readers may be aware, we have exposed the inherent left wing bias of the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commission (ADCQ). This bias is systemic, and involves multiple breaches of the Public Service Code of Conduct. We have now added links to all our exposes on the sidebar on the left of our blog, for your reading pleasure.
ADCQ is obviously a disgrace, continually practicing the types of discrimination it was established to combat. It engages in left wing activism at public expense and forces parties to attend compulsory conciliations, even if the complaint the conciliation is in relation to does not relate to the Act it is supposed to administer. This is a government organization whose outlook is more discriminatory than Pauline Hanson's policies. Taken together, ADCQ is a big lump of left wing absurdity.
Is there anything that the ADCQ does which can be seen as making a difference in the community? Does anyone read or is anyone persuaded by their left press releases?
There is no doubt that Discrimination legislation should exist. Discrimination is a terrible thing, and remedies should generally be available when people are vilified or discriminated against. Discrimination cases can be litigated in court under the federal Acts, without recourse to the ADCQ and its authoritarian regime of compulsory conciliations. I honestly do not see how these mandatory conciliations benefit anyone. No doubt ADCQ would reply that they exist in order to help the parties reach agreement. This is code for the conciliator putting pressure on the parties to come to an agreement, despite their wishes, and no matter how unjust the terms of the agreement are. When agreement is reached through a compulsory process which would not be reached through a voluntary one, the agreement is almost inevitably the result of coercion.
What we are dealing with is a human rights bureaucracy imposing injustice, and not justice in discrimination cases. If parties want to negotiate or conciliate, they can arrange this to be done privately. If they want to litigate without first going through two conciliation sessions, that should be their right. Parties actually in a dispute are better placed to decide how the dispute should proceed, particularly when they have legal representation. Similarly, employers and employees are better situated to decide the pay and conditions of employment in a workplace. It is generally inappropriate that third parties are able to impose themselves without the consent of the two parties.
In relation to complaints involving smaller remedies than are usually sought in courts of law, perhaps the Small Claims Tribunal should be given jurisdiction to adjudicate such matters. The reason why it is not appropriate to have a specialist tribunal has been pointed out by the H.R. Nicholls Society:
The inevitable problem which arises in every specialist tribunal, unstated by Justice Guidice, is the composition of these tribunals. The type of people who seek appointment to antidiscrimination tribunals, and often succeed in getting appointed, are often women, homosexual, and sometimes disabled (the former head of the Victorian tribunal was a blind woman). They tend to be steeped in student revolutionary culture of the 1970s and are living specimens of an undergraduate time warp. For them, employers, large and small, are the drivers of capitalist oppression. In this time warp, white, middle-aged males harass, intimidate, fail to promote, fail to hire and terminate employees as part of a conspiracy against non-Anglo-Saxons and women. Profoundly ignorant of how markets work in a free economy, and guided by chattering-class perceptions of how and why hiring and firing occurs, they are determined to bring light to the unenlightened and to expose the evils of the market economy. These tribunes are not judges at all-but social engineers sitting on the bench-inspired by the example of Sir William Deane, Sir Anthony Mason and Sir Gerard Brennan.
When a matter needs to be resolved through arbitration or litigation, it is appropriate that the officials are politically impartial, unlike the Anti-Discrimination Commission. This is the fundamental reason why ADCQ and the Anti-Discrimination Tribunal both need to be abolished. Political bias is inappropriate in the public sector, as the Code of Conduct makes clear.
There would also be macroeconomic and microeconomic benefits associated with such a move. Firstly, it would force the socialist bureaucrats at ADCQ top go find real jobs. This would help alleviate the "capacity constraints" in the Australian economy that Wayne Swan keeps talking about. Suddenly there would be a few hundred more workers out there on the job market. Hopefully not all of them are completely useless, and their skills in coercing parties and pushing political agendas could be put to good use in the private sector, or in a left-wing party. Some could apply for jobs to work with Peter Russo, advocating in the political arena for terror suspects.
Secondly, if the Government were to save the money used for ADCQ, to be spent or given back to taxpayers at a later date, these savings would also help curb inflation through reduced government spending. The result would be that another interest rate rise would be less likely.
Some people may think that when I advocate for smaller government and lower taxes that I am advocating that essential services are not provided by the Government. The truth is that I am not extreme - I do realize that health, education, roads and law enforcement are essential services that require government funding. When I call for lower taxes, I mean that Government should stop spending money on stupid things like Anti-Discrimination Commissions, or rebates which do no more than give people back their tax moneys. The economy would function so much more efficiently if Governments stopped propping up left wing institutions and pork-barreling, and stuck to the essential services. In relation to ADCQ, Governments should not fund left wing activists to carry out their activism. Such activism should be done in their own time, and not at our expense.
For all the above stated reasons, ADCQ benefits no-one (except the left) and is a waste of everyone's money. It ought to be abolished. Now.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Monday, November 05, 2007
Suspend Muslim immigration, says Hanson
I will be voting for Pauline. She has long had a lot of popular support and the major parties do eventually move towards her views
Senate hopeful Pauline Hanson has accused the Federal Government of opening up the immigration floodgates to people "who have no intention of being Australian". Ms Hanson, who is running in the federal election under the banner of Pauline's United Australia Party, was campaigning on similar policies to those that won her international notoriety a decade ago, including calling for a moratorium on Muslim immigration.
Campaigning in NSW, the right-wing firebrand told website www.federalelection.com.au she was worried about the loss of Australian values, particularly as a result of Muslim immigration. "I've seen the destruction of our industry, manufacturing, our farmers, everything that is Aussie and to be proud of ... that's been lost," she said. "They've just opened up the floodgates to allow people here that have no intention of being Australian or being proud Australians. "I've actually now called for a moratorium on Muslim immigration because I believe it's not for reasons of religious or any other reason. "But I think it is a cultural difference to us as Australians and we must protect our own culture."
Ms Hanson, who co-founded the One Nation party, listed "Australian values" as the nation's culture, way of life and standard of living. She said if she held the balance of power in the Senate she would be willing to block legislation she did not agree with. "If it is not in the best interests of our country and the Australian people, yes I would," she said. "I wouldn't do deals and sell myself out or the people out for that. "I would fight to make the politicians accountable to us and that's what they haven't done and that's why I'm standing again and that's why people are getting behind me in the support. "They don't believe that there is true representation."
Ms Hanson's vote will be bolstered by the fact she has registered a party. When Ms Hanson ran for the Senate in 2004 she appeared under the line as an individual candidate - a position which historically attracts fewer votes.
Source
Australian troops upset at negative Iraq news
AN Australian army officer serving in Iraq says Diggers are disappointed with the media coverage of their positive work in the troubled nation. Major James Kerr said he and the rest of the 550 Australian soldiers in Overwatch Battlegroup West III had completed 34 projects since May, including rebuilding schools and orphanages, and training Iraqi police on how to handle militias. The group, based at the Tallil air base, had also provided irrigation systems and pedestrian bridges to help the Iraqi people.
"The boys get disappointed with what they see in the media. There's no focus on what we're achieving here, it's more of a focus on the political side and it's really upsetting for them," said Maj Kerr, a 33-year-old from Sydney. "They're out on the ground speaking to local Iraqis, training local Iraqis and helping them improve their skills so in time - and we don't know when - those guys will be able to take over and sort things out in Iraq. "If you spend your whole time in Iraq and then all you read in the paper is something a politician said about Iraq, it makes it really hard for the guys. "It's understandable that the media want to sell papers so they just focus on how many bombs went off in Baghdad. That's of interest to us but that doesn't affect what we're doing. "Here in the south I think we're having an excellent effect. And I think the guys have done very well to improve the life of the Iraqis in the area. "It's all stuff that is going to help Iraq sort itself out. All we hope is that message gets home. It's not a political issue, we just want people to know we're doing a good job."
With the November 24 federal election looming, the Iraq war is high on the agenda. If Labor wins power, Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has pledged to withdraw combat troops from Iraq, while Prime Minister John Howard has promised to review Australia's role there.
"It's a bit hard for us, we're always apolitical and whatever the Government decides we'll go with," Maj Kerr said. "But I think that the training we have done and the things we have put in place will help the Iraqis. If we stay we'll be able to do more but if we leave we'll at least have given them a start on what they need."
Source
Another disastrously mismanaged public hospital
This time in Victoria. Coverup included, of course
Victoria's leading hospital trauma centre has been in disarray for several years, with top surgeons refusing to operate with its director, Professor Thomas Kossmann. Since 2004, several surgeons working at The Alfred hospital have avoided operating with Professor Kossmann due to concerns about whether his treatment of some patients was excessive. They also complained about his billing arrangements with the Transport Accident Commission - which pays for medical treatment of road crash victims in Victoria.
The Age can reveal the medical department heads and senior managers at the hospital, which last month announced an external review into Professor Kossmann's clinical practices, have dismissed multiple complaints made by surgical staff over the past three years. Staff have told of a culture of fear and silence at the trauma centre, which treats most of the severe road crash victims in the state. Several surgeons who complained to department heads were told to keep quiet. One who confronted Professor Kossmann about his decision to operate on a patient, judged by other doctors to have such serious injuries that surgery was futile, did not get his contract renewed in 2005.
Professor Kossmann has stood down from surgery while the review takes place. He has declined requests to be interviewed, but in a brief statement through the hospital, he said: "I refute the allegations."
The Alfred has declined to release the review's terms of reference. It has also declined to answer questions and told The Age that it had only recently received complaints about Professor Kossmann, who was recruited from a Swiss hospital to head the trauma unit in 2001. However, an internal memo obtained by The Age suggests that problems in the trauma unit are longstanding. The memo, written in February 2005 by the then head of neurology, Professor Jeffrey Rosenfeld, orders surgeons to assist Professor Kossmann in theatre when requested. "It is expected that you will assist Professor Kossmann . in spinal surgery," it says. The memo was written after some surgeons refused to assist him. Several surgeons who still work at The Alfred continue to avoid operating with Professor Kossmann. "It's true. People have chosen not to participate in surgical procedures that he's been involved in," said a doctor with recent experience at The Alfred.
Over the past 12 months, The Alfred conducted a review of its trauma department with a focus on patient care. It is believed doctors raised concerns about Professor Kossmann during this review, which were not acted on. The Age has interviewed more than a dozen medical sources who tell a consistent story about concerns over Professor Kossmann's performance and the hospital's repeated failure to act.
One concern is about his treatment of TAC-funded patients. The commission pays for the medical care of every Victorian injured on the state's roads under the personal injury insurance scheme, paying doctors generous fees for procedures performed on victims. It is believed Professor Kossmann has a deal with the hospital that allows him to receive payments direct from the commission, with a percentage going to The Alfred. This contrasts with many other staff doctors, whose payments are pooled, with the money distributed equally.
It is believed the review into Professor Kossmann was ordered by Alfred chief executive Jennifer Williams after she was recently given a series of patient cases that doctors believed warranted scrutiny. Hospital insiders say Ms Williams is now taking the issue seriously and may not have been aware of all the previous complaints, with senior managers and department heads not passing them on.
Source
PC warriors serve up a slanted education
IN her address to her union's conference in 2005 the Australian Education Union president Pat Byrne openly acknowledged the ideological bias that dominates the school system. As she put it: "We have succeeded in influencing curriculum development in schools, education departments and universities. The conservatives have a lot of work to do to undo the progressive curriculum."
This bias is the consequence of historical factors originating in the politics of the 1960s that led to a domination of school curriculums by the ideology of the politically correct Left. Correspondingly, the majority of high school teachers appear to have many values compatible or consistent with this ideology. This ideological hegemony is one of the salient features of "progressive" education. This means that for the numerous students with non-Left views, the education system presents additional challenges.
Although many teachers are likeable people who generate a pleasant atmosphere in their classrooms, what pervades in the school system is a way of looking at the world characterised by the Left, an outlook presented not as ideological but as normal, correct, legitimate and just. More importantly, in terms of assessment, what also exists is a subtle un-stated pressure to ideologically conform if students want to succeed academically.
It should be noted that most of the teachers exerting this pressure would probably be unaware that they are doing so because they would be unaware of the bias affecting their assessment. From the teachers' perspective, they are simply sharing their enthusiasms with their classes and responding positively to what they prefer to see in students' work. Meanwhile, the politically incorrect arguments presented by some students in their essays would be assessed more severely because, from the teachers' perspective, they are genuinely seen to be flawed.
As a private tutor, what I have noticed by closely observing patterns of ticks and comments made in the assessment of students' papers, is that when students clearly indicate in the introduction of their essay that they share their teacher's politically correct beliefs, the teacher automatically clicks into what I describe as a non-critical frame of mind. Consequently, the teacher is less inclined to notice mistakes in grammar, argument or in the presentation of evidence. Meanwhile, if students cross the teacher's bias, the opposite happens. The teacher clicks into a critical frame of mind, finding every justification in the essay to deduct grades.
Due to the psychological subtlety of this behaviour, it is highly likely that the teachers displaying their bias would not recognise it as such, but rather see the grade solely as the product of their professional judgment. It is human nature to display an affinity for those who appear to be like-minded, and to favour them, and this is as true for the assessment of essays as it is in most human interactions. However, because so many teachers share an ideological disposition, the aggregate effect of this tendency is a politically correct bias that appears to be both systematic and widespread. In addition, this bias is so prevalent and so deep-seated that it has achieved a degree of normalcy or a taken-for-granted quality, thereby being virtually invisible to many involved with the system. This is much like the way we become more aware of the constant hum of an air conditioner when it is suddenly switched off than when it is running.
Consequently, if greater intellectual diversity was introduced into the education system, for example, to reflect the degree of diversity in the mainstream community, it would probably initially appear strange to many people, especially to many of those working in it.
Unfortunately, some teachers are not subtle in expressing their Left-wing bias, being quite militant in the expression of their views and intolerant of dissent. Although evidence of commendable attempts at broad-mindedness and fairness among teachers can be found, evidence of blatant bias is far from rare in the school system.
For example, a student came to me late in his Year 11 to receive early preparations for Year 12. Soon after I commenced helping him in English, he reported to me a recent incident when he suspected that he had experienced ideological bias in the assessment of an essay. He had written an informative piece that appeared to be broadly appreciative of the US in its victory in the Cold War, which the teacher had severely criticised. Concerned, he made an appointment to see his teacher to discuss the matter. Unfortunately, what resulted was a severe haranguing, with the teacher yielding no quarter and even boasting to the student that she was anti-American. To many of the politically correct, the US is perceived as an international villain for being a militaristic capitalist superpower.
When the student renewed his attempt to put his case, her convoluted and uncompromising argument worked its way towards a reference to Pearl Harbor. Initially stunned by this irrelevancy, the student soon realised that this was a cruel dig at his Japanese heritage. It did the trick. The student ceased putting his complaint. Coming to the teacher with what he felt was a legitimate grievance, he left feeling that his efforts were futile. He also found the experience somewhat humiliating.
Teachers responsible for scenes like this are probably likely to forget them minutes later. Unfortunately, the students involved are likely to remember them long afterwards. It is also highly likely that these teachers would not remotely see themselves as politically or ideologically oppressive, or as part of a system that creates an environment where free thought and expression can be compromised. The idea that the beliefs of the politically correct, which are seen by them as so noble and emancipating, especially when they were touted by radical students in the '60s, could have become a means for compromising the intellectual freedom of the young in the 21st century would be unimaginable to them.
As for the student who expressed those moderate pro-American views, upon appreciating the realities of the school system, he produced politically correct essays, perfectly tuned into his teachers' biases, to receive A grades that were (thank goodness) hassle-free. Like the characters Winston Smith and Julia in George Orwell's classic anti-totalitarian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, students with non-Left views need to learn to outwardly conform to inwardly remain free.
Prevailing educational practices suggest that the custodians of the education system, like the teachers' unions, have not realised that they are on the wrong side of a growing desire among Australians for greater intellectual diversity and freedom. There is a need for an education system that would better serve the young in terms of their need for knowledge and acceptance. However, as the president of the Australian Education Union recognised regarding the process of reform, there will be a lot of work to do.
Source
I will be voting for Pauline. She has long had a lot of popular support and the major parties do eventually move towards her views
Senate hopeful Pauline Hanson has accused the Federal Government of opening up the immigration floodgates to people "who have no intention of being Australian". Ms Hanson, who is running in the federal election under the banner of Pauline's United Australia Party, was campaigning on similar policies to those that won her international notoriety a decade ago, including calling for a moratorium on Muslim immigration.
Campaigning in NSW, the right-wing firebrand told website www.federalelection.com.au she was worried about the loss of Australian values, particularly as a result of Muslim immigration. "I've seen the destruction of our industry, manufacturing, our farmers, everything that is Aussie and to be proud of ... that's been lost," she said. "They've just opened up the floodgates to allow people here that have no intention of being Australian or being proud Australians. "I've actually now called for a moratorium on Muslim immigration because I believe it's not for reasons of religious or any other reason. "But I think it is a cultural difference to us as Australians and we must protect our own culture."
Ms Hanson, who co-founded the One Nation party, listed "Australian values" as the nation's culture, way of life and standard of living. She said if she held the balance of power in the Senate she would be willing to block legislation she did not agree with. "If it is not in the best interests of our country and the Australian people, yes I would," she said. "I wouldn't do deals and sell myself out or the people out for that. "I would fight to make the politicians accountable to us and that's what they haven't done and that's why I'm standing again and that's why people are getting behind me in the support. "They don't believe that there is true representation."
Ms Hanson's vote will be bolstered by the fact she has registered a party. When Ms Hanson ran for the Senate in 2004 she appeared under the line as an individual candidate - a position which historically attracts fewer votes.
Source
Australian troops upset at negative Iraq news
AN Australian army officer serving in Iraq says Diggers are disappointed with the media coverage of their positive work in the troubled nation. Major James Kerr said he and the rest of the 550 Australian soldiers in Overwatch Battlegroup West III had completed 34 projects since May, including rebuilding schools and orphanages, and training Iraqi police on how to handle militias. The group, based at the Tallil air base, had also provided irrigation systems and pedestrian bridges to help the Iraqi people.
"The boys get disappointed with what they see in the media. There's no focus on what we're achieving here, it's more of a focus on the political side and it's really upsetting for them," said Maj Kerr, a 33-year-old from Sydney. "They're out on the ground speaking to local Iraqis, training local Iraqis and helping them improve their skills so in time - and we don't know when - those guys will be able to take over and sort things out in Iraq. "If you spend your whole time in Iraq and then all you read in the paper is something a politician said about Iraq, it makes it really hard for the guys. "It's understandable that the media want to sell papers so they just focus on how many bombs went off in Baghdad. That's of interest to us but that doesn't affect what we're doing. "Here in the south I think we're having an excellent effect. And I think the guys have done very well to improve the life of the Iraqis in the area. "It's all stuff that is going to help Iraq sort itself out. All we hope is that message gets home. It's not a political issue, we just want people to know we're doing a good job."
With the November 24 federal election looming, the Iraq war is high on the agenda. If Labor wins power, Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has pledged to withdraw combat troops from Iraq, while Prime Minister John Howard has promised to review Australia's role there.
"It's a bit hard for us, we're always apolitical and whatever the Government decides we'll go with," Maj Kerr said. "But I think that the training we have done and the things we have put in place will help the Iraqis. If we stay we'll be able to do more but if we leave we'll at least have given them a start on what they need."
Source
Another disastrously mismanaged public hospital
This time in Victoria. Coverup included, of course
Victoria's leading hospital trauma centre has been in disarray for several years, with top surgeons refusing to operate with its director, Professor Thomas Kossmann. Since 2004, several surgeons working at The Alfred hospital have avoided operating with Professor Kossmann due to concerns about whether his treatment of some patients was excessive. They also complained about his billing arrangements with the Transport Accident Commission - which pays for medical treatment of road crash victims in Victoria.
The Age can reveal the medical department heads and senior managers at the hospital, which last month announced an external review into Professor Kossmann's clinical practices, have dismissed multiple complaints made by surgical staff over the past three years. Staff have told of a culture of fear and silence at the trauma centre, which treats most of the severe road crash victims in the state. Several surgeons who complained to department heads were told to keep quiet. One who confronted Professor Kossmann about his decision to operate on a patient, judged by other doctors to have such serious injuries that surgery was futile, did not get his contract renewed in 2005.
Professor Kossmann has stood down from surgery while the review takes place. He has declined requests to be interviewed, but in a brief statement through the hospital, he said: "I refute the allegations."
The Alfred has declined to release the review's terms of reference. It has also declined to answer questions and told The Age that it had only recently received complaints about Professor Kossmann, who was recruited from a Swiss hospital to head the trauma unit in 2001. However, an internal memo obtained by The Age suggests that problems in the trauma unit are longstanding. The memo, written in February 2005 by the then head of neurology, Professor Jeffrey Rosenfeld, orders surgeons to assist Professor Kossmann in theatre when requested. "It is expected that you will assist Professor Kossmann . in spinal surgery," it says. The memo was written after some surgeons refused to assist him. Several surgeons who still work at The Alfred continue to avoid operating with Professor Kossmann. "It's true. People have chosen not to participate in surgical procedures that he's been involved in," said a doctor with recent experience at The Alfred.
Over the past 12 months, The Alfred conducted a review of its trauma department with a focus on patient care. It is believed doctors raised concerns about Professor Kossmann during this review, which were not acted on. The Age has interviewed more than a dozen medical sources who tell a consistent story about concerns over Professor Kossmann's performance and the hospital's repeated failure to act.
One concern is about his treatment of TAC-funded patients. The commission pays for the medical care of every Victorian injured on the state's roads under the personal injury insurance scheme, paying doctors generous fees for procedures performed on victims. It is believed Professor Kossmann has a deal with the hospital that allows him to receive payments direct from the commission, with a percentage going to The Alfred. This contrasts with many other staff doctors, whose payments are pooled, with the money distributed equally.
It is believed the review into Professor Kossmann was ordered by Alfred chief executive Jennifer Williams after she was recently given a series of patient cases that doctors believed warranted scrutiny. Hospital insiders say Ms Williams is now taking the issue seriously and may not have been aware of all the previous complaints, with senior managers and department heads not passing them on.
Source
PC warriors serve up a slanted education
IN her address to her union's conference in 2005 the Australian Education Union president Pat Byrne openly acknowledged the ideological bias that dominates the school system. As she put it: "We have succeeded in influencing curriculum development in schools, education departments and universities. The conservatives have a lot of work to do to undo the progressive curriculum."
This bias is the consequence of historical factors originating in the politics of the 1960s that led to a domination of school curriculums by the ideology of the politically correct Left. Correspondingly, the majority of high school teachers appear to have many values compatible or consistent with this ideology. This ideological hegemony is one of the salient features of "progressive" education. This means that for the numerous students with non-Left views, the education system presents additional challenges.
Although many teachers are likeable people who generate a pleasant atmosphere in their classrooms, what pervades in the school system is a way of looking at the world characterised by the Left, an outlook presented not as ideological but as normal, correct, legitimate and just. More importantly, in terms of assessment, what also exists is a subtle un-stated pressure to ideologically conform if students want to succeed academically.
It should be noted that most of the teachers exerting this pressure would probably be unaware that they are doing so because they would be unaware of the bias affecting their assessment. From the teachers' perspective, they are simply sharing their enthusiasms with their classes and responding positively to what they prefer to see in students' work. Meanwhile, the politically incorrect arguments presented by some students in their essays would be assessed more severely because, from the teachers' perspective, they are genuinely seen to be flawed.
As a private tutor, what I have noticed by closely observing patterns of ticks and comments made in the assessment of students' papers, is that when students clearly indicate in the introduction of their essay that they share their teacher's politically correct beliefs, the teacher automatically clicks into what I describe as a non-critical frame of mind. Consequently, the teacher is less inclined to notice mistakes in grammar, argument or in the presentation of evidence. Meanwhile, if students cross the teacher's bias, the opposite happens. The teacher clicks into a critical frame of mind, finding every justification in the essay to deduct grades.
Due to the psychological subtlety of this behaviour, it is highly likely that the teachers displaying their bias would not recognise it as such, but rather see the grade solely as the product of their professional judgment. It is human nature to display an affinity for those who appear to be like-minded, and to favour them, and this is as true for the assessment of essays as it is in most human interactions. However, because so many teachers share an ideological disposition, the aggregate effect of this tendency is a politically correct bias that appears to be both systematic and widespread. In addition, this bias is so prevalent and so deep-seated that it has achieved a degree of normalcy or a taken-for-granted quality, thereby being virtually invisible to many involved with the system. This is much like the way we become more aware of the constant hum of an air conditioner when it is suddenly switched off than when it is running.
Consequently, if greater intellectual diversity was introduced into the education system, for example, to reflect the degree of diversity in the mainstream community, it would probably initially appear strange to many people, especially to many of those working in it.
Unfortunately, some teachers are not subtle in expressing their Left-wing bias, being quite militant in the expression of their views and intolerant of dissent. Although evidence of commendable attempts at broad-mindedness and fairness among teachers can be found, evidence of blatant bias is far from rare in the school system.
For example, a student came to me late in his Year 11 to receive early preparations for Year 12. Soon after I commenced helping him in English, he reported to me a recent incident when he suspected that he had experienced ideological bias in the assessment of an essay. He had written an informative piece that appeared to be broadly appreciative of the US in its victory in the Cold War, which the teacher had severely criticised. Concerned, he made an appointment to see his teacher to discuss the matter. Unfortunately, what resulted was a severe haranguing, with the teacher yielding no quarter and even boasting to the student that she was anti-American. To many of the politically correct, the US is perceived as an international villain for being a militaristic capitalist superpower.
When the student renewed his attempt to put his case, her convoluted and uncompromising argument worked its way towards a reference to Pearl Harbor. Initially stunned by this irrelevancy, the student soon realised that this was a cruel dig at his Japanese heritage. It did the trick. The student ceased putting his complaint. Coming to the teacher with what he felt was a legitimate grievance, he left feeling that his efforts were futile. He also found the experience somewhat humiliating.
Teachers responsible for scenes like this are probably likely to forget them minutes later. Unfortunately, the students involved are likely to remember them long afterwards. It is also highly likely that these teachers would not remotely see themselves as politically or ideologically oppressive, or as part of a system that creates an environment where free thought and expression can be compromised. The idea that the beliefs of the politically correct, which are seen by them as so noble and emancipating, especially when they were touted by radical students in the '60s, could have become a means for compromising the intellectual freedom of the young in the 21st century would be unimaginable to them.
As for the student who expressed those moderate pro-American views, upon appreciating the realities of the school system, he produced politically correct essays, perfectly tuned into his teachers' biases, to receive A grades that were (thank goodness) hassle-free. Like the characters Winston Smith and Julia in George Orwell's classic anti-totalitarian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, students with non-Left views need to learn to outwardly conform to inwardly remain free.
Prevailing educational practices suggest that the custodians of the education system, like the teachers' unions, have not realised that they are on the wrong side of a growing desire among Australians for greater intellectual diversity and freedom. There is a need for an education system that would better serve the young in terms of their need for knowledge and acceptance. However, as the president of the Australian Education Union recognised regarding the process of reform, there will be a lot of work to do.
Source
Sunday, November 04, 2007
African youths in frenzied attack on Melbourne motorists
This is their thanks for being taken in as refugees. It does go some way towards explaining the attitudes of Sudan's Arabs towards them
A GANG of African youths has attacked motorists in what police suspect was an attempted carjacking. Peak-hour drivers cowered in their cars on a Carlton North street as a driver, her male passenger and another motorist were set upon. Joy Bennett, 21, was waiting at lights in Rathdowne St when the gang began battering her late model Mitsubishi sedan with bricks, smashing its front and rear windscreens. The gang punched Ms Bennett's passenger, Josh Winnell, through his open window and threw a rock through another window.
The mob also turned on a driver who had pulled over to use his mobile phone. When the man refused to get out of his car, the group tried to smash the driver's side window.
Ms Bennett, of Montrose, said the men "came from nowhere". "We were on our way home and had pulled up to the lights. We were there for a matter of seconds when a group of guys surrounded the car," she said. "When the guy was at the window with the brick, I thought he was going to throw it and get me. I was scared they were going to get Josh out of the car. "I had no idea what was happening. I didn't know what they wanted. This doesn't happen, not in real life." Mr Winnell, 24, said: "I remember them trying to grab and punch me. I was in shock. I wanted to get out of there."
The attacks began on Rathdowne St, near Alexandra Pde, at 6.45pm on Friday. It was believed the gang might have been on an attempted car-jacking spree. Sen-Constable James Midgley said the three victims and witnesses had described the men as African. "It's a very random and brazen attack that's occurred at a major intersection at peak hour," he said. The incident is the latest of several involving Africans. Police came under siege recently in brawls involving about 200 youths that closed a suburban cinema and shops.
Those involved on Friday were described as in their late teens to early 20s. One wore a hooded black zip-up top with a white stripe. Police urged anyone who saw the attacks or had information about the men involved to phone Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Source
This is their thanks for being taken in as refugees. It does go some way towards explaining the attitudes of Sudan's Arabs towards them
A GANG of African youths has attacked motorists in what police suspect was an attempted carjacking. Peak-hour drivers cowered in their cars on a Carlton North street as a driver, her male passenger and another motorist were set upon. Joy Bennett, 21, was waiting at lights in Rathdowne St when the gang began battering her late model Mitsubishi sedan with bricks, smashing its front and rear windscreens. The gang punched Ms Bennett's passenger, Josh Winnell, through his open window and threw a rock through another window.
The mob also turned on a driver who had pulled over to use his mobile phone. When the man refused to get out of his car, the group tried to smash the driver's side window.
Ms Bennett, of Montrose, said the men "came from nowhere". "We were on our way home and had pulled up to the lights. We were there for a matter of seconds when a group of guys surrounded the car," she said. "When the guy was at the window with the brick, I thought he was going to throw it and get me. I was scared they were going to get Josh out of the car. "I had no idea what was happening. I didn't know what they wanted. This doesn't happen, not in real life." Mr Winnell, 24, said: "I remember them trying to grab and punch me. I was in shock. I wanted to get out of there."
The attacks began on Rathdowne St, near Alexandra Pde, at 6.45pm on Friday. It was believed the gang might have been on an attempted car-jacking spree. Sen-Constable James Midgley said the three victims and witnesses had described the men as African. "It's a very random and brazen attack that's occurred at a major intersection at peak hour," he said. The incident is the latest of several involving Africans. Police came under siege recently in brawls involving about 200 youths that closed a suburban cinema and shops.
Those involved on Friday were described as in their late teens to early 20s. One wore a hooded black zip-up top with a white stripe. Police urged anyone who saw the attacks or had information about the men involved to phone Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Source
Worrying honesty about Leftist hypocrisy
Labor frontbencher Peter Garrett [above] has been rocked by his second embarrassing gaffe in a week. Mr Garrett told high-profile Sydney radio identity Steve Price a Rudd Labor government would ditch its "me too" promises once it won power. "Once we get in we will change it all", Mr Garrett told Price at Melbourne airport yesterday. Mr Garrett later claimed his words were intended as a joke. "This was a short, casual conversation which was jocular in nature," Mr Garrett said.
Mr Price's question was prompted by yesterday's Herald Sun front-page which outlined 22 major Government policies in which Mr Rudd had either directly copied or had backed without question. Treasurer Peter Costello seized on Mr Garrett's conversation at the airport, arguing that it proved Labor's tactic of adopting similar policies to the Government was a "pretence". "I think Peter Garrett, in a moment of candour and truth, has really exploded Kevin Rudd's pretence," Mr Costello told Sky News. "Labor has no intention of actually implementing these things. "As Peter Garrett said: 'Once we get in, we will just change it all.' In other words, Labor is saying one thing but it intends to do a very different thing if it gets elected."
Mr Price said later he was certain Mr Garrett's response to his airport question was not spoken as a joke. "He wasn't laughing, it wasn't a joke," Mr Price said last night. He said his recollection of the conversation was that he tackled Mr Garrett directly on the question of Labor's "me too" policies. "I went up and introduced myself to him (Peter Garrett) . . . I had a copy of the Herald Sun in my hand," Mr Price told Southern Cross Radio yesterday. "He said that the "me too' tag will not matter if Labor wins the election because, quote, 'once we get in we'll just change it all'."
Mr Price said he was so surprised by Mr Garrett's frank admission that once the MP had left, he asked TV presenter Richard Wilkins, who was also present, if he had heard correctly. "And he (Mr Wilkins) said 'sure did, he said it all right'," Mr Price said.
But Mr Wilkins, Channel 9's entertainment presenter, said he thought the MP had responded with a "throwaway line" something like "we'll change that when we get in". Mr Wilkins said he was stunned the chat had been recounted on radio and catapulted into the election debate. "Something of that nature was said. It was very much said tongue-in-cheek . . . He didn't mean it to be taken verbatim," Mr Wilkins said. "In hindsight, Peter probably would have chosen his words differently had he known it was going to blow up like this."
Earlier this week, Mr Garrett backtracked on comments about a post-Kyoto protocol after saying Labor would not insist on major polluting nations such as China and India having binding targets. Labor leader Kevin Rudd over-ruled his environment spokesman, insisting that his government would not enter into an agreement which was not binding on all countries.
Source
Good conservative economic policies promised: Let's hope this does not get "all changed" too
LABOR'S aspiring treasurer, Wayne Swan, has outlined a tough conservative plan to run tight budgets and keep cutting tariffs, setting himself on a potential collision course with colleagues and unions if elected. In an interview with the Herald, Mr Swan said that as treasurer he would not intervene to freeze tariffs to protect industries suffering from the rampaging dollar, such as car makers. "We're not going back, we're going forward," he said. "We won't be going back to a tariff wall."
And he vowed to be "tough" with colleagues wanting to spend heavily to implement their agendas after a decade in the political wilderness. He said he would turn down his cabinet colleagues: "I'm absolutely prepared for it. I make no apologies for the fact that I will be tough. Keeping spending under control is critical." Labor would be ready to deliver its inaugural budget on time in May, he said. There would be two clear priorities for a first Labor budget: "We have a big agenda - with climate change and education there is a degree of urgency."
Spending on less urgent items would need to be cut. Labor, which has listed $3 billion in planned budget cuts already, would announce a second round of spending cuts before the election on November 24. Mr Swan attached less urgency to Labor's proposed national anti-poverty summit, which he endorsed in his 2005 book, Postcodes: The Splintering of a Nation. Yesterday he promised only a "social inclusion agenda". Where the Treasurer, Peter Costello, has criticised some executive pay packets as excessive and issued demands that the banks not raise their retail lending rates, Mr Swan adopted a laissez-faire stance on both issues. He said executive pay "is entirely a matter for the shareholders of the companies concerned". On bank lending rates, he said: "I'm not in the business of giving the banks advice one way or another."
On the sensitive issue of industry protection, Mr Swan said the dollar, at its highest in 23 years against the US currency, made it tough for some manufacturers. "We're dedicated to working with the sector to make sure we maximise our opportunities as we go up the value-added chain. "We'll be at the table with them, but we're not going back, we're going forward."
With fresh fears in world financial markets of a US recession, he said he remained an optimist on the economy. He had faith in Australia's regulators and "first class" Reserve Bank to steer the economy through difficult times. He rejected Mr Costello's prediction in a Herald interview last week that a "huge tsunami" would hit world markets when China floated its currency.
Labor's ambitious agenda on education and training, health, climate change and infrastructure would need to be balanced against the need to control inflation in an economy running out of spare resources. "This conjunction of an economy operating at the limits of its capacity and a new government with new priorities has several implications for the role of Treasury within government," Mr Swan said. Under Labor, the Department of Treasury would be re-engaged as a vital source of advice on "a new wave of micro-economic reform" aimed at enhancing the supply side of the economy and lifting workforce participation towards New Zealand levels of 70 per cent, from 65 per cent now.
Treasury would be consulted on all substantial new spending measures within the cabinet decision-making process. "The Treasury is the most talented group, I think, of individuals located in one central agency that you can point to in the federal bureaucracy," Mr Swan said. Labor was in regular phone contact with Treasury officials, he said, after a meeting with the Treasury Secretary, Ken Henry, and several division heads before the start of the campaign.
Mr Swan promised to unveil more budget savings before the election to offset its growing list of spending promises. "We're acutely aware of the need to be responsible in our approach to spending," he said. "The search for savings always goes on." He accused the Government of "dereliction of duty" in failing to invest in measures to expand the capacity of the economy, which had led to higher inflation than otherwise would have been the case. "I don't believe that they have provided the back up to the Reserve Bank that the Reserve Bank has required," he said.
On industrial relations, he promised to be merciless with rogue unionists: "We'll deal with thuggish behaviour . if and when it rears its ugly head." Mr Swan said Labor's industrial relations would be based firmly on enterprise bargaining, with pattern bargaining strictly forbidden.
Source
Rudd's conservative claim a 'con'
This story was written a few days ago but now seems prophetic
The story of Frank Abagnale jnr, immortalised in the movie Catch Me If You Can is an incredible tale of a con artist who successfully impersonated an airline pilot, doctor, lawyer and history professor, cashing phoney cheques all along the way. It was quite the swindle and not dissimilar to that being perpetrated by Labor leader Kevin Rudd, who has suddenly begun pretending to champion the economic conservative cause.
Within just weeks of his election to the leadership of the Labor Party, Rudd had already proven himself a spin-over-substance man, cutting a TV commercial claiming that a number of people had declared him as an economic conservative, which was a badge he wore with pride. Before that ad, I'd never heard Kevin Rudd described by anyone as an economic conservative and, in perhaps the biggest con of all, not even he himself had claimed to be one until he declared it on TV.
In fact there doesn't appear to be any evidence Kevin Rudd has ever claimed he was an economic conservative in the more than 300 speeches he's made in the Parliament - not even one mention in his maiden speech - which is usually used as an opportunity for new MPs to state what they believe in, what drives them and what their philosophies are. So much for him wearing the description as a "badge of pride". Over his years as a member of parliament, Rudd has continued to prove he is anything but economically conservative.
In 1999 he claimed tax reform would destroy jobs, growth and be "fundamentally unjust". And ever since he has consistently opposed measures to improve our economy, balance the budget and pay off Labor's $96 billion of debt, which has meant we can provide better services, lower taxes and record jobs growth. Only now, when Australia has become one of the strongest developed economies in the world, has Kevin Rudd has suddenly decided he wants in - attempting to con the Australian public that he now supports everything he has opposed since the day of his election to Parliament.
Becoming an economic conservative involves more than just saying a glib line in a TV commercial. Just saying it doesn't make it true - otherwise I'd be booking ads tomorrow claiming that "many people have described me as looking like Brad Pitt". We are no longer in the phoney election campaign; this time it's the real thing and two weeks in, the only policy Rudd can hold up as bearing any semblance to economic conservatism is a tax policy shamelessly plagiarised from the Coalition and cheaply rebadged as his own.
If he were prime minister who would he copy? Who would he impersonate? Unlike Frank Abagnale jnr, if the inexperienced, union-controlled Kevin Rudd were to become prime minister he would actually have to perform that role every single minute of every day - the only difference being, however, that the cheques he would be cashing in would be paid by us.
Source
Activist judiciary a looming menace for Australia
FRANKLY, there may be more to fear from Labor's lady lawyers than from the union blokes who run the Labor Party. Astute Labor lawyers in a future Rudd government, women such as Julia Gillard, Nicola Roxon and Penny Wong, will surely have their eyes on the real prize: leaving a legacy that will outlast a term or two in government. That legacy may be an activist judiciary. A Rudd government may come and go, but the judges it appoints are there to stay.
To be sure, appointing judges is the right of every government, and the decision rests ultimately with the prime minister. The Howard Government has stacked the High Court with stodgy conservative judges. You know the type. Judges who have that old-fashioned view about democracy under which politicians and the people make the laws and judges implement them. Under a Rudd government, Labor's lady lawyers may champion the need to fashion an entirely different system of justice by appointing judges who have little time for such democratic traditions, preferring a more adventurous role for judges. Whether a prime minister Kevin Rudd could withstand that push remains to be seen.
It's not such a zany prediction given the legal shenanigans in Victoria. Last week, Labor Attorney-General Rob Hulls announced that human rights advocate Lex Lasry will take up a seat on the state's Supreme Court and former ALP member and ACTU assistant secretary Iain Ross will head to the County Court. Hulls, who has apparently appointed more than half of the state's 214 judges since he became A-G in 1999, has been busily revolutionising the Victorian judiciary. Hulls says the judiciary must be more representative. But this representative revolution is not about returning power to the people. Quite the opposite. Hulls has been choosing judges that represent a certain Labor view of the world. Going by the more prominent appointments, we're talking about installing progressive judges who have staked out their preference for ambiguous human rights and international law. Outlandish?
Consider Chris Maxwell. Since 2005, the former civil libertarian president of Liberty Victoria, has presided over the Victorian Court of Appeal. Maxwell is rather keen on bringing nebulous notions of human rights and international law into his courtroom wherever possible. A future Ansett administration? Throw out your copy of the Corporations Law. According to Maxwell, the demise of Ansett demonstrated that "quintessential corporate law issues such as insolvency ... can throw up human rights issues". He has spoken about how his court will "encourage practitioners to develop human-rights based arguments".
Why? Well, let's just say that judges who draw upon international laws invariably use them to reach courtroom decisions that have more to do with their own grand personal preferences than the tedious rule of law and pesky domestic laws. Take former academic Marcia Neave, appointed to the Victorian Court of Appeal in 2006. As head of the Victorian Law Reform Commission, she advocated the courtroom as a change agent, suggesting that if you're looking for a quick way to change the law, go looking for a judge.
And Hulls has made sure there are plenty of judges ready and willing to serve as judicial law-makers. Judges such as Kevin Bell, appointed to the Victorian Supreme Court, who has demanded that judges be given "the necessary tools - you have to introduce a bill of rights". Happily for Bell, Victoria has just such a tool: its Charter of Rights. So let's not beat around the bush. Hulls has appointed those who share his human rights view of the world.
Now, prima facie, human rights are fine notions. But they are deliberately framed in airy language to disarm debate, to put them beyond reproach. Yet their vague nature means they can be twisted this way and that, depending on whether the result a judge wants is this or that. There is little predictability or certainty. The rule of law becomes no obstacle for significant social change.
Social change is a fine thing, too. But it comes down to who should be changing society: elected politicians or unelected judges. Hulls appears to prefer the latter. Call me old-fashioned but this is a fundamental change to the way we make laws. The whole purpose of elections is you get to choose politicians to represent you. If we don't like the laws, out goes the government. Why bother voting for politicians if unaccountable judges, appointed for life, get to make laws under the guise of international human rights law.
At the moment, this postmodern version of democracy is largely confined to the poor punters in Victoria. We need to hear from Rudd that this is not a precursor of similar change at a federal level under the ALP. Rudd says he is an economic conservative. He appears to be a social conservative, last week rejecting the idea of gay marriage. But where is he on the judiciary's role? There are plenty of Labor lawyers only too eager to push for more activist-minded judges.
Mention judicial activism and the usual refrain is that this is a meaningless term used by those who don't like the decisions of some judges. That's poppycock. It is a valid term if properly defined. Academic Greg Craven summed it up rather nicely a few years ago when he described judicial activists as those who believe "parliaments are untrustworthy, executives nasty and the people unreliable".
There will be plenty of opportunities for a judicial makeover, with HC justice Michael Kirby and Chief Justice Murray Gleeson soon to retire. If Labor is really impatient, they could simply legislate to increase the number of HC justices from seven to nine. There were murmurs about that before the 2004 election. And Labor has done it before.
As The Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia records, when one of the founding HC justices died in 1912, Labor attorney-general Billy Hughes quickly legislated to increase the HC by an additional two judges, allowing the government to make three appointments in the last few months of office.
Who might we see as our leading judges? Rumours swirling around include human rights silk Julian Burnside as a possible future chief justice of the Federal Court and Labor lawyer George Williams scoring a seat on the High Court. Some wags are even saying that Labor's favourite Sydney silk, Bret Walker, is quietly boasting that he has been assured a seat on the High Court. And here's the irony. In government, Labor may end up appointing judges who have nothing but disdain for politicians and parliament and, yes, the people. Let's hear from Rudd that this is not on the cards.
Source
THERE MAY BE NO POST-KYOTO DEAL AT ALL
Global cooling should be much more in evidence by then, anyway. So that will be a good excuse
THERE's one of two things happening out there on climate change. Either the Coalition and Labor are combining to pull the wool over our eyes on what we want from a Kyoto II global agreement - or they are positioning Australia yet again to walk out on a global deal. If you've been listening casually to this week's claims and counter-claims on climate change, you might well think that both sides have pledged that they will not sign up to any post-Kyoto agreement unless it requires developing countries to cut emissions. But it's not so simple. Listen closely to what they're saying, and it's far more vague than that.
Mr Rudd says Labor will insist on "commitments" by developing countries as part of Kyoto II. Mr Howard says developing countries must be "part of the agreement" so it "applies in an appropriate way to all the world's major emitters". A bit vague? Let's try their ministers. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says Kyoto II must "include obligations by developing countries". Fran Kelly on Tuesday on the ABC tried to get him to specify those obligations. "You have to take into consideration a number of factors here, but if everybody makes a reasonably equitable contribution to addressing the issue of greenhouse gas emissions - developing countries argue for a differentiated commitment - but if they all make a commitment nevertheless, then we should be able to get the balance right."
What did that mean? Kelly pressed on, and Downer kept fluttering away. "Well, there will be different approaches," he said. "The central point here is the challenge to get them to make a contribution ... We would not agree to an agreement where developing countries didn't make any contribution."
Why are they all so vague? Because they all know that the key developing countries are not going to agree to cut their greenhouse gas emissions for years, until they are approaching the levels the Western countries are at.
Look at the panel accompanying our news report. The US in 2004 pumped 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for each of its 300 million people. Australia pumped out 19.4 tonnes - yet China produced only 3.6 tonnes per head, Indonesia 1.4 tonnes (excluding forest fires), India one tonne and Bangladesh just 270 kilograms. Does anyone (apart from The Australian and the odd ABC interviewer) seriously think that China, India and Bangladesh are going to agree to reduce their emissions from these levels?
That's why their "commitments" will be token things. China's President Hu Jintao made that clear when he visited Australia for the recent APEC summit. China, he pointed out, has made commitments to reduce its energy intensity (the amount of energy used for each unit of output) by 20 per cent, to increase its use of renewable energy, to increase forest coverage to 20 per cent of its land mass, and so on.
That's all good if it happens. But as Professor Ross Garnaut has pointed out, China is growing so fast that it could reduce its energy intensity by 40 per cent by 2020 and its emissions would still more than double. Keep listening carefully, and hope that Howard and Rudd stay vague. Otherwise there will be no Kyoto II at all.
Source
Labor frontbencher Peter Garrett [above] has been rocked by his second embarrassing gaffe in a week. Mr Garrett told high-profile Sydney radio identity Steve Price a Rudd Labor government would ditch its "me too" promises once it won power. "Once we get in we will change it all", Mr Garrett told Price at Melbourne airport yesterday. Mr Garrett later claimed his words were intended as a joke. "This was a short, casual conversation which was jocular in nature," Mr Garrett said.
Mr Price's question was prompted by yesterday's Herald Sun front-page which outlined 22 major Government policies in which Mr Rudd had either directly copied or had backed without question. Treasurer Peter Costello seized on Mr Garrett's conversation at the airport, arguing that it proved Labor's tactic of adopting similar policies to the Government was a "pretence". "I think Peter Garrett, in a moment of candour and truth, has really exploded Kevin Rudd's pretence," Mr Costello told Sky News. "Labor has no intention of actually implementing these things. "As Peter Garrett said: 'Once we get in, we will just change it all.' In other words, Labor is saying one thing but it intends to do a very different thing if it gets elected."
Mr Price said later he was certain Mr Garrett's response to his airport question was not spoken as a joke. "He wasn't laughing, it wasn't a joke," Mr Price said last night. He said his recollection of the conversation was that he tackled Mr Garrett directly on the question of Labor's "me too" policies. "I went up and introduced myself to him (Peter Garrett) . . . I had a copy of the Herald Sun in my hand," Mr Price told Southern Cross Radio yesterday. "He said that the "me too' tag will not matter if Labor wins the election because, quote, 'once we get in we'll just change it all'."
Mr Price said he was so surprised by Mr Garrett's frank admission that once the MP had left, he asked TV presenter Richard Wilkins, who was also present, if he had heard correctly. "And he (Mr Wilkins) said 'sure did, he said it all right'," Mr Price said.
But Mr Wilkins, Channel 9's entertainment presenter, said he thought the MP had responded with a "throwaway line" something like "we'll change that when we get in". Mr Wilkins said he was stunned the chat had been recounted on radio and catapulted into the election debate. "Something of that nature was said. It was very much said tongue-in-cheek . . . He didn't mean it to be taken verbatim," Mr Wilkins said. "In hindsight, Peter probably would have chosen his words differently had he known it was going to blow up like this."
Earlier this week, Mr Garrett backtracked on comments about a post-Kyoto protocol after saying Labor would not insist on major polluting nations such as China and India having binding targets. Labor leader Kevin Rudd over-ruled his environment spokesman, insisting that his government would not enter into an agreement which was not binding on all countries.
Source
Good conservative economic policies promised: Let's hope this does not get "all changed" too
LABOR'S aspiring treasurer, Wayne Swan, has outlined a tough conservative plan to run tight budgets and keep cutting tariffs, setting himself on a potential collision course with colleagues and unions if elected. In an interview with the Herald, Mr Swan said that as treasurer he would not intervene to freeze tariffs to protect industries suffering from the rampaging dollar, such as car makers. "We're not going back, we're going forward," he said. "We won't be going back to a tariff wall."
And he vowed to be "tough" with colleagues wanting to spend heavily to implement their agendas after a decade in the political wilderness. He said he would turn down his cabinet colleagues: "I'm absolutely prepared for it. I make no apologies for the fact that I will be tough. Keeping spending under control is critical." Labor would be ready to deliver its inaugural budget on time in May, he said. There would be two clear priorities for a first Labor budget: "We have a big agenda - with climate change and education there is a degree of urgency."
Spending on less urgent items would need to be cut. Labor, which has listed $3 billion in planned budget cuts already, would announce a second round of spending cuts before the election on November 24. Mr Swan attached less urgency to Labor's proposed national anti-poverty summit, which he endorsed in his 2005 book, Postcodes: The Splintering of a Nation. Yesterday he promised only a "social inclusion agenda". Where the Treasurer, Peter Costello, has criticised some executive pay packets as excessive and issued demands that the banks not raise their retail lending rates, Mr Swan adopted a laissez-faire stance on both issues. He said executive pay "is entirely a matter for the shareholders of the companies concerned". On bank lending rates, he said: "I'm not in the business of giving the banks advice one way or another."
On the sensitive issue of industry protection, Mr Swan said the dollar, at its highest in 23 years against the US currency, made it tough for some manufacturers. "We're dedicated to working with the sector to make sure we maximise our opportunities as we go up the value-added chain. "We'll be at the table with them, but we're not going back, we're going forward."
With fresh fears in world financial markets of a US recession, he said he remained an optimist on the economy. He had faith in Australia's regulators and "first class" Reserve Bank to steer the economy through difficult times. He rejected Mr Costello's prediction in a Herald interview last week that a "huge tsunami" would hit world markets when China floated its currency.
Labor's ambitious agenda on education and training, health, climate change and infrastructure would need to be balanced against the need to control inflation in an economy running out of spare resources. "This conjunction of an economy operating at the limits of its capacity and a new government with new priorities has several implications for the role of Treasury within government," Mr Swan said. Under Labor, the Department of Treasury would be re-engaged as a vital source of advice on "a new wave of micro-economic reform" aimed at enhancing the supply side of the economy and lifting workforce participation towards New Zealand levels of 70 per cent, from 65 per cent now.
Treasury would be consulted on all substantial new spending measures within the cabinet decision-making process. "The Treasury is the most talented group, I think, of individuals located in one central agency that you can point to in the federal bureaucracy," Mr Swan said. Labor was in regular phone contact with Treasury officials, he said, after a meeting with the Treasury Secretary, Ken Henry, and several division heads before the start of the campaign.
Mr Swan promised to unveil more budget savings before the election to offset its growing list of spending promises. "We're acutely aware of the need to be responsible in our approach to spending," he said. "The search for savings always goes on." He accused the Government of "dereliction of duty" in failing to invest in measures to expand the capacity of the economy, which had led to higher inflation than otherwise would have been the case. "I don't believe that they have provided the back up to the Reserve Bank that the Reserve Bank has required," he said.
On industrial relations, he promised to be merciless with rogue unionists: "We'll deal with thuggish behaviour . if and when it rears its ugly head." Mr Swan said Labor's industrial relations would be based firmly on enterprise bargaining, with pattern bargaining strictly forbidden.
Source
Rudd's conservative claim a 'con'
This story was written a few days ago but now seems prophetic
The story of Frank Abagnale jnr, immortalised in the movie Catch Me If You Can is an incredible tale of a con artist who successfully impersonated an airline pilot, doctor, lawyer and history professor, cashing phoney cheques all along the way. It was quite the swindle and not dissimilar to that being perpetrated by Labor leader Kevin Rudd, who has suddenly begun pretending to champion the economic conservative cause.
Within just weeks of his election to the leadership of the Labor Party, Rudd had already proven himself a spin-over-substance man, cutting a TV commercial claiming that a number of people had declared him as an economic conservative, which was a badge he wore with pride. Before that ad, I'd never heard Kevin Rudd described by anyone as an economic conservative and, in perhaps the biggest con of all, not even he himself had claimed to be one until he declared it on TV.
In fact there doesn't appear to be any evidence Kevin Rudd has ever claimed he was an economic conservative in the more than 300 speeches he's made in the Parliament - not even one mention in his maiden speech - which is usually used as an opportunity for new MPs to state what they believe in, what drives them and what their philosophies are. So much for him wearing the description as a "badge of pride". Over his years as a member of parliament, Rudd has continued to prove he is anything but economically conservative.
In 1999 he claimed tax reform would destroy jobs, growth and be "fundamentally unjust". And ever since he has consistently opposed measures to improve our economy, balance the budget and pay off Labor's $96 billion of debt, which has meant we can provide better services, lower taxes and record jobs growth. Only now, when Australia has become one of the strongest developed economies in the world, has Kevin Rudd has suddenly decided he wants in - attempting to con the Australian public that he now supports everything he has opposed since the day of his election to Parliament.
Becoming an economic conservative involves more than just saying a glib line in a TV commercial. Just saying it doesn't make it true - otherwise I'd be booking ads tomorrow claiming that "many people have described me as looking like Brad Pitt". We are no longer in the phoney election campaign; this time it's the real thing and two weeks in, the only policy Rudd can hold up as bearing any semblance to economic conservatism is a tax policy shamelessly plagiarised from the Coalition and cheaply rebadged as his own.
If he were prime minister who would he copy? Who would he impersonate? Unlike Frank Abagnale jnr, if the inexperienced, union-controlled Kevin Rudd were to become prime minister he would actually have to perform that role every single minute of every day - the only difference being, however, that the cheques he would be cashing in would be paid by us.
Source
Activist judiciary a looming menace for Australia
FRANKLY, there may be more to fear from Labor's lady lawyers than from the union blokes who run the Labor Party. Astute Labor lawyers in a future Rudd government, women such as Julia Gillard, Nicola Roxon and Penny Wong, will surely have their eyes on the real prize: leaving a legacy that will outlast a term or two in government. That legacy may be an activist judiciary. A Rudd government may come and go, but the judges it appoints are there to stay.
To be sure, appointing judges is the right of every government, and the decision rests ultimately with the prime minister. The Howard Government has stacked the High Court with stodgy conservative judges. You know the type. Judges who have that old-fashioned view about democracy under which politicians and the people make the laws and judges implement them. Under a Rudd government, Labor's lady lawyers may champion the need to fashion an entirely different system of justice by appointing judges who have little time for such democratic traditions, preferring a more adventurous role for judges. Whether a prime minister Kevin Rudd could withstand that push remains to be seen.
It's not such a zany prediction given the legal shenanigans in Victoria. Last week, Labor Attorney-General Rob Hulls announced that human rights advocate Lex Lasry will take up a seat on the state's Supreme Court and former ALP member and ACTU assistant secretary Iain Ross will head to the County Court. Hulls, who has apparently appointed more than half of the state's 214 judges since he became A-G in 1999, has been busily revolutionising the Victorian judiciary. Hulls says the judiciary must be more representative. But this representative revolution is not about returning power to the people. Quite the opposite. Hulls has been choosing judges that represent a certain Labor view of the world. Going by the more prominent appointments, we're talking about installing progressive judges who have staked out their preference for ambiguous human rights and international law. Outlandish?
Consider Chris Maxwell. Since 2005, the former civil libertarian president of Liberty Victoria, has presided over the Victorian Court of Appeal. Maxwell is rather keen on bringing nebulous notions of human rights and international law into his courtroom wherever possible. A future Ansett administration? Throw out your copy of the Corporations Law. According to Maxwell, the demise of Ansett demonstrated that "quintessential corporate law issues such as insolvency ... can throw up human rights issues". He has spoken about how his court will "encourage practitioners to develop human-rights based arguments".
Why? Well, let's just say that judges who draw upon international laws invariably use them to reach courtroom decisions that have more to do with their own grand personal preferences than the tedious rule of law and pesky domestic laws. Take former academic Marcia Neave, appointed to the Victorian Court of Appeal in 2006. As head of the Victorian Law Reform Commission, she advocated the courtroom as a change agent, suggesting that if you're looking for a quick way to change the law, go looking for a judge.
And Hulls has made sure there are plenty of judges ready and willing to serve as judicial law-makers. Judges such as Kevin Bell, appointed to the Victorian Supreme Court, who has demanded that judges be given "the necessary tools - you have to introduce a bill of rights". Happily for Bell, Victoria has just such a tool: its Charter of Rights. So let's not beat around the bush. Hulls has appointed those who share his human rights view of the world.
Now, prima facie, human rights are fine notions. But they are deliberately framed in airy language to disarm debate, to put them beyond reproach. Yet their vague nature means they can be twisted this way and that, depending on whether the result a judge wants is this or that. There is little predictability or certainty. The rule of law becomes no obstacle for significant social change.
Social change is a fine thing, too. But it comes down to who should be changing society: elected politicians or unelected judges. Hulls appears to prefer the latter. Call me old-fashioned but this is a fundamental change to the way we make laws. The whole purpose of elections is you get to choose politicians to represent you. If we don't like the laws, out goes the government. Why bother voting for politicians if unaccountable judges, appointed for life, get to make laws under the guise of international human rights law.
At the moment, this postmodern version of democracy is largely confined to the poor punters in Victoria. We need to hear from Rudd that this is not a precursor of similar change at a federal level under the ALP. Rudd says he is an economic conservative. He appears to be a social conservative, last week rejecting the idea of gay marriage. But where is he on the judiciary's role? There are plenty of Labor lawyers only too eager to push for more activist-minded judges.
Mention judicial activism and the usual refrain is that this is a meaningless term used by those who don't like the decisions of some judges. That's poppycock. It is a valid term if properly defined. Academic Greg Craven summed it up rather nicely a few years ago when he described judicial activists as those who believe "parliaments are untrustworthy, executives nasty and the people unreliable".
There will be plenty of opportunities for a judicial makeover, with HC justice Michael Kirby and Chief Justice Murray Gleeson soon to retire. If Labor is really impatient, they could simply legislate to increase the number of HC justices from seven to nine. There were murmurs about that before the 2004 election. And Labor has done it before.
As The Oxford Companion to the High Court of Australia records, when one of the founding HC justices died in 1912, Labor attorney-general Billy Hughes quickly legislated to increase the HC by an additional two judges, allowing the government to make three appointments in the last few months of office.
Who might we see as our leading judges? Rumours swirling around include human rights silk Julian Burnside as a possible future chief justice of the Federal Court and Labor lawyer George Williams scoring a seat on the High Court. Some wags are even saying that Labor's favourite Sydney silk, Bret Walker, is quietly boasting that he has been assured a seat on the High Court. And here's the irony. In government, Labor may end up appointing judges who have nothing but disdain for politicians and parliament and, yes, the people. Let's hear from Rudd that this is not on the cards.
Source
THERE MAY BE NO POST-KYOTO DEAL AT ALL
Global cooling should be much more in evidence by then, anyway. So that will be a good excuse
THERE's one of two things happening out there on climate change. Either the Coalition and Labor are combining to pull the wool over our eyes on what we want from a Kyoto II global agreement - or they are positioning Australia yet again to walk out on a global deal. If you've been listening casually to this week's claims and counter-claims on climate change, you might well think that both sides have pledged that they will not sign up to any post-Kyoto agreement unless it requires developing countries to cut emissions. But it's not so simple. Listen closely to what they're saying, and it's far more vague than that.
Mr Rudd says Labor will insist on "commitments" by developing countries as part of Kyoto II. Mr Howard says developing countries must be "part of the agreement" so it "applies in an appropriate way to all the world's major emitters". A bit vague? Let's try their ministers. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says Kyoto II must "include obligations by developing countries". Fran Kelly on Tuesday on the ABC tried to get him to specify those obligations. "You have to take into consideration a number of factors here, but if everybody makes a reasonably equitable contribution to addressing the issue of greenhouse gas emissions - developing countries argue for a differentiated commitment - but if they all make a commitment nevertheless, then we should be able to get the balance right."
What did that mean? Kelly pressed on, and Downer kept fluttering away. "Well, there will be different approaches," he said. "The central point here is the challenge to get them to make a contribution ... We would not agree to an agreement where developing countries didn't make any contribution."
Why are they all so vague? Because they all know that the key developing countries are not going to agree to cut their greenhouse gas emissions for years, until they are approaching the levels the Western countries are at.
Look at the panel accompanying our news report. The US in 2004 pumped 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for each of its 300 million people. Australia pumped out 19.4 tonnes - yet China produced only 3.6 tonnes per head, Indonesia 1.4 tonnes (excluding forest fires), India one tonne and Bangladesh just 270 kilograms. Does anyone (apart from The Australian and the odd ABC interviewer) seriously think that China, India and Bangladesh are going to agree to reduce their emissions from these levels?
That's why their "commitments" will be token things. China's President Hu Jintao made that clear when he visited Australia for the recent APEC summit. China, he pointed out, has made commitments to reduce its energy intensity (the amount of energy used for each unit of output) by 20 per cent, to increase its use of renewable energy, to increase forest coverage to 20 per cent of its land mass, and so on.
That's all good if it happens. But as Professor Ross Garnaut has pointed out, China is growing so fast that it could reduce its energy intensity by 40 per cent by 2020 and its emissions would still more than double. Keep listening carefully, and hope that Howard and Rudd stay vague. Otherwise there will be no Kyoto II at all.
Source
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Has the ALP become the DLP?
You need to know Australian political history to get the force of the heading above. The DLP were a splinter party off the ALP principally comprised of conservative Catholics. Bob Santamaria was their guru -- though not formally their leader. ALP figures always loathed the DLP
Perhaps it is time for the ALP to grant the political activist B.A. Santamaria posthumous honorary membership. After all, Kevin Rudd and the Labor team in the 2007 election campaign have been keen to stress their social and economic conservatism along with their support for the Australian-American alliance. The principal difference between Labor and the John Howard-led Coalition turns on industrial relations. But this should not be a bar to Santamaria's ALP membership, since the Catholic activist always favoured regulated labour markets and supported trade unionism as an institution.
The public stance of leading ALP figures indicates how Labor has changed in order to get ready for government and make itself attractive to voters. During an interview with The Australian Financial Review on February 7, 2003, Rudd described himself as "an old-fashioned Christian socialist". Today, the Opposition Leader still proclaims his Christianity but he has junked the "s" word. Now Rudd declares that he is an "economic conservative". But there is more. The Labor leader's political heroes now include, wait for it, the Liberal Party founder Robert Menzies - who just happens to be one of Howard's heroes.
Rudd first declared himself for Menzies in an article published in The Monthly last November. He repeated the message in Parliament on December 5 last year - just after he became Opposition Leader. And he returned to this message in April when he told the Herald journalist Peter Hartcher that, unlike Howard, Menzies believed in a social contract that recognised a "set of obligations binding those who have power to those who have none".
Menzies was a fine democrat in his time. Yet his version of a social contract included the banning of the Communist Party during the time of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in the early days of World War II, an unsuccessful attempt to ban the Communist Party during the Korean War in 1951 and a lifelong advocacy of the White Australia policy. It's difficult to reconcile the real Menzies with the hero Rudd recalls.
As Rudd indicated in his article in the October 2006 issue of The Monthly, he is a great fan of the Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was murdered by the Nazis in April 1945. Yet, as with Menzies, it is not clear as to how far Rudd's admiration goes. The Labor leader's opposition to gay marriage, announced last week, would be consistent with the German pastor's position. But Bonhoeffer was also unequivocally opposed to abortion, a position which Rudd is yet to embrace publicly. Rudd does not regard a preoccupation with sexual morality as consistent with the spirit and content of the Gospels. But Bonhoeffer did.
Certainly Rudd has shown signs of economic and moral conservatism in the past. However, his deputy, Julia Gillard, appears to be a relatively recent convert to the cause of economic reform. Interviewed on Lateline on October 17, Gillard attempted to play down her one-time membership of the Melbourne-based Socialist Forum. She told the presenter, Tony Jones, that her connection with this organisation "occurred more than 20 years ago when I was in my 20s" and that her role merely involved "clerical and administrative work". Quizzed further on Meet the Press on October 20, Gillard acknowledged that her membership of the Socialist Forum "did continue for a period" beyond her student days but maintained that it was "a sort of debating society".
In fact, documents published in the Herald Sun reveal that the deputy Labor leader was on the organisation's management committee until 1994 and was a member until 2002, when it merged with the Fabian Society. The Socialist Forum was set up to facilitate the entry of former Communist Party members into the Victoria ALP. Around the same time, some supporters of Santamaria's National Civic Council were readmitted to the ALP.
In his book Crossing the Party Line, the former communist Bernie Taft described the Socialist Forum as an organisation of a broad range of people on the left who possessed a "socialist commitment". That was then. Now Gillard describes herself as "certainly a conservative person when it comes to government finances and accounting". Certainly Gillard was always a pragmatist but it was not until recently that she has presented herself as a conservative.
In her defence, Gillard has claimed that the Liberal Party deputy leader, Peter Costello, when he was a university student, was "hanging out in a group called the Social Democrats". Perhaps so. But the Social Democrats were just that - social democrats who opposed the communist, Trotskyist and socialist traditions within the labour movement. The right-wing Labor MP Michael Danby was president of the Social Democrats at the time. There is no evidence that Costello ever embraced socialism or any of the ideas of the extreme left.
Then there is the case of the Opposition spokesman for the environment and the arts, Peter Garrett. In his 1987 book Political Blues, the then rock star and continuing conservationist railed against "the devouring jaws of capitalism", dismissed the quest for sustained economic growth as "one of the holy writs of society" and opposed the Australian-American alliance. If Labor is elected on November 24, Garrett will be a member of a government led by confessed economic conservatives who believe in economic growth and support the Australian-American alliance.
In Political Blues, Garrett was dismissive of the contribution made by the Australian Defence Force in international conflicts. But as a member of a Rudd government, he would support Labor's policy to continue the ADF's commitment in Afghanistan and to withdraw only a third of the ADF's current members in Iraq. In recent times, Garrett has acknowledged his embrace of pragmatism. It seems we're all conservatives now.
Source
Auditor lashes $2.1bn frigate upgrade
This sort of thing is absolutely routine for the defence forces not only in Australia but also in the USA and UK. People forget that the defence forces are huge bureaucracies -- with all the irresponsibility and bungling that implies. All army men have known about that forever, of course
The Australian National Audit Office has launched a scathing indictment of the navy's $2.1 billion frigate upgrade. The upgrade is four and a half years overdue and projected to run tens of millions of dollars over budget. In its annual report, the ANAO says long delays had resulted in the number of FFG frigates earmarked for an upgrade being reduced from six to four. Under the 1999 program - implemented by the now privatised Australian Defence Industries - the warships were to be equipped with new radar, sonar, weapons and combat systems. ANAO noted the upgrade contract had to be redrawn after the number of frigates to be refitted was reduced to four from six.
Work on the first warship HMAS Sydney, which was scheduled for completion by August 2003 and finished on April 2006, although the navy is still unsatisfied with the result. The fourth warship is not expected to be returned to service until 2009. ANAO noted that as of September, "HMAS Sydney was experiencing continuing delays in obtaining Initial Operational Release by Navy''. The problems relate to the vessel's underwater warfare and electronic support systems.
"If industry and DMO fail to deliver the specified capability to schedule, then invariably the ADF (Australian Defence Force) experiences delays in achieving the anticipated capability,'' it said. "In the FFG Upgrade Project's case, there is a four and a half year delay in the delivery of the final upgraded ship and an over five-year delay in the delivery of the upgraded Combat Team Training facility.''
As of mid-year, only 83 percent of the project's funds had been spent, it said. "The contract did not adequately provide for the project authority (Defence Materiel Organisation) to excercise the necessary degree of control required.''
The report made nonsense of the Howard Government's credentials on defence procurement, Labor's defence spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon told The Australian. He said the report showed the folly of the Government's attempt to "pump up ADI's value'' prior to its privatisation. "The upgrade of these guided missile frigates is now four and a half years late. "Despite a $275 million cost blowout, the navy is now only getting four upgrades for the price of six,'' Mr Fitzgibbon said. He said DMO cost blowouts and delays was now running to $13 billion including the navy's Seasprite helicopter, the army's M113 personnel carrier upgrade, the RAAF's Wedgetail surveillance planes and the Tiger reconaissance helicopter.
Source
NSW hospital woes spreading
The state's crumbling public health system is sliding further into crisis, with ambulance crews revealing patients on the Central Coast have died waiting for treatment. As embattled Health Minister Reba Meagher today meets with staff at the beleaguered Royal North Shore Hospital, The Daily Telegraph reports the crisis in our state's health system is engulfing more hospitals.
Paramedics are the latest health workers to speak out, revealing their forced queuing at public hospitals because of a lack of patient beds is costing people their lives. Their warning comes as paramedics on the Central Coast are losing up to 1000 hours a month on the road waiting outside clogged-up hospitals. Documents obtained by the NSW Opposition reveal the seven Central Coast ambulance stations have this year lost the equivalent of 170 days queuing outside Gosford and Wyong Hospitals' emergency departments because there are no beds. Leaked figures from log books show 138 "cases" had to wait more than two hours at both hospitals.
One source said up to 80 per cent of the area's 18 ambulance day crews were regularly off the road and unable to answer triple-0 calls because they were trapped at hospital emergency departments. An ambulance officer with more almost 30 years' experience told The Daily Telegraph jobs were going unanswered. "We sometimes have to get crews from Hornsby or St Ives to answer calls on the Coast because 80 per cent of us will be queuing at the hospital," he said.
Patricia Marshall knows the tragic consequences of our over-stretched public health system - her sister Lynette Salmon died after being forced to wait 20 minutes for an ambulance - despite living just two minutes from an ambulance station. Ms Salmon, 37, suffered an epileptic fit at her Blackwall home last year, dying on her way to hospital. Ms Marshall believes her sister would be alive today if an ambulance had arrived earlier. "What a waste of a life," Ms Marshall said.
Head of emergency services for the Central Coast Dr Kate Porges yesterday backed the paramedics' claims. "We see them (ambulances) queuing outside but there is nothing we can do," he said.
Opposition health spokesman Jillian Skinner said ambulance crews were contacting her daily about the problems. "Our hospitals, not just Royal North Shore, are struggling to cope with patients coming through emergency," she said.
Source
Fathers unpopular with the Left
By Bettina Arndt
IS Kevin Rudd interested in men? The answer, sadly, seems to be no. Unlike John Howard, the Opposition Leader rarely talks about issues affecting many of his own gender, such as family law, child support, fatherless families, boys' education. Indeed, this potential prime minister seems content to hand over the running on most social issues to female colleagues renowned for their anti-male bias. For anyone keen to ensure men and boys receive a fair go, the prospect of a Labor government is all bad news.
As a prime minister, John Howard has been most unusual in his passion for social issues, his famous "barbecue stoppers" and his willingness to stick his neck out and speak about the role of men. Remember the debate about single women's access to IVF? While most politicians were cowed by the wave of women's rights rhetoric, Howard voiced the concern of many suggesting it isn't in our society's interest to encourage more fatherless families. Picking up on community discontent about children losing contact with fathers after divorce, he set up a bipartisan committee to look into the "rebuttable presumption of joint custody", where parents share care unless good reasons preclude it. But Labor's Jennie George and Jenny Macklin dug in and the committee was forced to water down their recommendations.
A 2005 survey of parliamentarians by Fathers4Equality showed 62 Coalition members likely to support a shared parenting amendment compared with six from Labor. Yet, resulting changes to the Family Law Act have done much to ensure children's rights to contact with both parents.
Labor reluctantly supported the legislation, with Kevin Rudd expressing great concern about the changes. He deferred to his then shadow attorney-general, Nicola Roxon, who played up the fear that children would be forced to spend time with dangerous dads.
Roxon previously dismissed the custody inquiry as "dog whistle politics to men's groups aggrieved by the Family Court". Labor's disdain for such groups is consistently demonstrated as Labor shadow ministers refuse to meet even the most respected of these organisations, despite strenuous efforts by a sprinkling of Labor backbenchers to encourage their party to take interest.
Labor MP Roger Price spent years tearing his hair out over his party's failure to implement the recommendations of the inquiry into child support that he chaired in the early 1990s. It was the Howard Government that finally tackled this controversial issue, implementing far reaching changes recommended by an expert committee to make the scheme more equitable.
Yet, Labor's determination to cater to lone-mother lobby groups shows in their recent announcement that they are monitoring the scheme to ensure the primary carer is not disadvantaged. They have also expressed concern about Government efforts to help lone mothers make the transition from welfare to work. Both policies could well suffer rollbacks if Labor ends up in power.
Labor doesn't just have it in for men. The party has consistently favoured women in the workforce over mothers at home with young children. The last time Labor was in power, families relying on one income lost ground compared with other families, suffering an average 4 per cent drop between 1982 and 1995, according to the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling in Canberra. At the time, Joe De Bruyn, national chairman of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Union blamed Labor's "femocrat advisers" for consistently refusing to support women who stayed home, choosing instead to promote child care to encourage workforce participation.
With more than 75 per cent of all families relying on one income when they have infants, Howard moved to increase their support. Between 1996 and 2001, a single-income, two-child family on average weekly earnings gained 16 per cent in disposable income. Labor's more recent support for the babycare payment is a sign the feminist ideologues may be losing some of their grip on the party, but there are clear signs biases remain. One major reason Keating lost power was the perception that Labor governed for some rather than for all. The 750,000 non-resident parents in Australia are one group who should be wary that their interests have no place on a Labor agenda.
Source
Many liberties being lost
Governments are taking our liberty in the name of protecting our health, writes Chris Berg
Are we freer today than we were half a century ago? That question is surprisingly hard to answer. The state control over the economy that characterised Australia in the 20th century is quickly being replaced with nanny state controls. Barriers to trade have been mostly eliminated, and state monopolies eradicated. But accompanying that has been explosive growth in social and environmental regulations. There are now more pages of Commonwealth legislation introduced every year than were passed in the first 40 years of federation.
In our social lives, freedom has both advanced and retreated. For example, restrictions on the sale of alcohol have eased. But they have been replaced by nanny state measures such as smoking bans. In the future, cigar bars will be as distant a memory as the six o'clock swill. Since smoking bans were enacted this year in Victoria and NSW, sales growth in pubs has dropped significantly. Hotel patronage may return to former levels - international experience seems to indicate that it will - but when smokers return to the pub, they will be less free than they were in October last year.
Unquestionably, advocates of individual liberty and personal responsibility have lost the battle on smoking. That's not surprising - smoking is reviled by everybody who doesn't enjoy it. In a liberal state, that disagreement would be sorted out by negotiation; before the bans, many restaurants and hotels already enforced non-smoking areas or disallowed it entirely. But in a nanny state, such negotiations are replaced by force of law. Similar sentiments lie behind restrictions on poker machines. The gaming industry is a political football to be kicked around at every state election, while individuals who value their freedom to enjoy the pokies are ignored.
In a nanny state, the government morphs into an over-eager insurance company, assuming the role of risk-manager for its citizens. Any risky or unhealthy endeavour has to be eliminated - individuals cannot be trusted to assess the risks themselves.
The next target is food. Numerous proposals are on the table to tackle our expanding waistlines, including banning certain types of fats, banning junk food advertising, and even taxing fatty food. Earlier this year, the Labor Party hinted that it was considering banning the use of licensed characters such as Shrek in junk- food advertising, should it win government. Last week, the Cancer Council of Australia came out in support of a general ban on junk food ads aimed at children.
However, there is little evidence that such bans work. Both Quebec and Sweden have tried them, but neither have seen any reduction in childhood obesity. There are twice as many overweight children in Sweden as there were 15 years ago, even though the Scandinavian country has had a ban on all advertising aimed at children since 1991.
Furthermore, politicians hurrying to make political capital out of medical problems such as obesity and lung cancer rarely think through the unintended consequences of their policies. Swedish advertising bans have not reduced obesity, but they have had other results. Losing the revenue from the highest-paying advertising has reduced the quality and quantity of children's television programs. Similarly, restricting the advertising market has raised the cost of toys in Sweden to 50 per cent above the average European level.
The Australian Government's hard line on tobacco has had similar consequences. Smokeless tobacco products have been swept up as the nanny state tries to purge society of everything that meets its disapproval.
It is unfortunate that Australia lacks a strong intellectual history emphasising individual liberty and personal responsibility. Our "she'll be right mate" attitude is easily swamped by our calls for government to intervene in personal decisions. Laws are passed with little reference to how they will affect our freedom. As a result, individual liberty in Australia is slowly being eroded by neglect.
Source
You need to know Australian political history to get the force of the heading above. The DLP were a splinter party off the ALP principally comprised of conservative Catholics. Bob Santamaria was their guru -- though not formally their leader. ALP figures always loathed the DLP
Perhaps it is time for the ALP to grant the political activist B.A. Santamaria posthumous honorary membership. After all, Kevin Rudd and the Labor team in the 2007 election campaign have been keen to stress their social and economic conservatism along with their support for the Australian-American alliance. The principal difference between Labor and the John Howard-led Coalition turns on industrial relations. But this should not be a bar to Santamaria's ALP membership, since the Catholic activist always favoured regulated labour markets and supported trade unionism as an institution.
The public stance of leading ALP figures indicates how Labor has changed in order to get ready for government and make itself attractive to voters. During an interview with The Australian Financial Review on February 7, 2003, Rudd described himself as "an old-fashioned Christian socialist". Today, the Opposition Leader still proclaims his Christianity but he has junked the "s" word. Now Rudd declares that he is an "economic conservative". But there is more. The Labor leader's political heroes now include, wait for it, the Liberal Party founder Robert Menzies - who just happens to be one of Howard's heroes.
Rudd first declared himself for Menzies in an article published in The Monthly last November. He repeated the message in Parliament on December 5 last year - just after he became Opposition Leader. And he returned to this message in April when he told the Herald journalist Peter Hartcher that, unlike Howard, Menzies believed in a social contract that recognised a "set of obligations binding those who have power to those who have none".
Menzies was a fine democrat in his time. Yet his version of a social contract included the banning of the Communist Party during the time of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in the early days of World War II, an unsuccessful attempt to ban the Communist Party during the Korean War in 1951 and a lifelong advocacy of the White Australia policy. It's difficult to reconcile the real Menzies with the hero Rudd recalls.
As Rudd indicated in his article in the October 2006 issue of The Monthly, he is a great fan of the Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was murdered by the Nazis in April 1945. Yet, as with Menzies, it is not clear as to how far Rudd's admiration goes. The Labor leader's opposition to gay marriage, announced last week, would be consistent with the German pastor's position. But Bonhoeffer was also unequivocally opposed to abortion, a position which Rudd is yet to embrace publicly. Rudd does not regard a preoccupation with sexual morality as consistent with the spirit and content of the Gospels. But Bonhoeffer did.
Certainly Rudd has shown signs of economic and moral conservatism in the past. However, his deputy, Julia Gillard, appears to be a relatively recent convert to the cause of economic reform. Interviewed on Lateline on October 17, Gillard attempted to play down her one-time membership of the Melbourne-based Socialist Forum. She told the presenter, Tony Jones, that her connection with this organisation "occurred more than 20 years ago when I was in my 20s" and that her role merely involved "clerical and administrative work". Quizzed further on Meet the Press on October 20, Gillard acknowledged that her membership of the Socialist Forum "did continue for a period" beyond her student days but maintained that it was "a sort of debating society".
In fact, documents published in the Herald Sun reveal that the deputy Labor leader was on the organisation's management committee until 1994 and was a member until 2002, when it merged with the Fabian Society. The Socialist Forum was set up to facilitate the entry of former Communist Party members into the Victoria ALP. Around the same time, some supporters of Santamaria's National Civic Council were readmitted to the ALP.
In his book Crossing the Party Line, the former communist Bernie Taft described the Socialist Forum as an organisation of a broad range of people on the left who possessed a "socialist commitment". That was then. Now Gillard describes herself as "certainly a conservative person when it comes to government finances and accounting". Certainly Gillard was always a pragmatist but it was not until recently that she has presented herself as a conservative.
In her defence, Gillard has claimed that the Liberal Party deputy leader, Peter Costello, when he was a university student, was "hanging out in a group called the Social Democrats". Perhaps so. But the Social Democrats were just that - social democrats who opposed the communist, Trotskyist and socialist traditions within the labour movement. The right-wing Labor MP Michael Danby was president of the Social Democrats at the time. There is no evidence that Costello ever embraced socialism or any of the ideas of the extreme left.
Then there is the case of the Opposition spokesman for the environment and the arts, Peter Garrett. In his 1987 book Political Blues, the then rock star and continuing conservationist railed against "the devouring jaws of capitalism", dismissed the quest for sustained economic growth as "one of the holy writs of society" and opposed the Australian-American alliance. If Labor is elected on November 24, Garrett will be a member of a government led by confessed economic conservatives who believe in economic growth and support the Australian-American alliance.
In Political Blues, Garrett was dismissive of the contribution made by the Australian Defence Force in international conflicts. But as a member of a Rudd government, he would support Labor's policy to continue the ADF's commitment in Afghanistan and to withdraw only a third of the ADF's current members in Iraq. In recent times, Garrett has acknowledged his embrace of pragmatism. It seems we're all conservatives now.
Source
Auditor lashes $2.1bn frigate upgrade
This sort of thing is absolutely routine for the defence forces not only in Australia but also in the USA and UK. People forget that the defence forces are huge bureaucracies -- with all the irresponsibility and bungling that implies. All army men have known about that forever, of course
The Australian National Audit Office has launched a scathing indictment of the navy's $2.1 billion frigate upgrade. The upgrade is four and a half years overdue and projected to run tens of millions of dollars over budget. In its annual report, the ANAO says long delays had resulted in the number of FFG frigates earmarked for an upgrade being reduced from six to four. Under the 1999 program - implemented by the now privatised Australian Defence Industries - the warships were to be equipped with new radar, sonar, weapons and combat systems. ANAO noted the upgrade contract had to be redrawn after the number of frigates to be refitted was reduced to four from six.
Work on the first warship HMAS Sydney, which was scheduled for completion by August 2003 and finished on April 2006, although the navy is still unsatisfied with the result. The fourth warship is not expected to be returned to service until 2009. ANAO noted that as of September, "HMAS Sydney was experiencing continuing delays in obtaining Initial Operational Release by Navy''. The problems relate to the vessel's underwater warfare and electronic support systems.
"If industry and DMO fail to deliver the specified capability to schedule, then invariably the ADF (Australian Defence Force) experiences delays in achieving the anticipated capability,'' it said. "In the FFG Upgrade Project's case, there is a four and a half year delay in the delivery of the final upgraded ship and an over five-year delay in the delivery of the upgraded Combat Team Training facility.''
As of mid-year, only 83 percent of the project's funds had been spent, it said. "The contract did not adequately provide for the project authority (Defence Materiel Organisation) to excercise the necessary degree of control required.''
The report made nonsense of the Howard Government's credentials on defence procurement, Labor's defence spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon told The Australian. He said the report showed the folly of the Government's attempt to "pump up ADI's value'' prior to its privatisation. "The upgrade of these guided missile frigates is now four and a half years late. "Despite a $275 million cost blowout, the navy is now only getting four upgrades for the price of six,'' Mr Fitzgibbon said. He said DMO cost blowouts and delays was now running to $13 billion including the navy's Seasprite helicopter, the army's M113 personnel carrier upgrade, the RAAF's Wedgetail surveillance planes and the Tiger reconaissance helicopter.
Source
NSW hospital woes spreading
The state's crumbling public health system is sliding further into crisis, with ambulance crews revealing patients on the Central Coast have died waiting for treatment. As embattled Health Minister Reba Meagher today meets with staff at the beleaguered Royal North Shore Hospital, The Daily Telegraph reports the crisis in our state's health system is engulfing more hospitals.
Paramedics are the latest health workers to speak out, revealing their forced queuing at public hospitals because of a lack of patient beds is costing people their lives. Their warning comes as paramedics on the Central Coast are losing up to 1000 hours a month on the road waiting outside clogged-up hospitals. Documents obtained by the NSW Opposition reveal the seven Central Coast ambulance stations have this year lost the equivalent of 170 days queuing outside Gosford and Wyong Hospitals' emergency departments because there are no beds. Leaked figures from log books show 138 "cases" had to wait more than two hours at both hospitals.
One source said up to 80 per cent of the area's 18 ambulance day crews were regularly off the road and unable to answer triple-0 calls because they were trapped at hospital emergency departments. An ambulance officer with more almost 30 years' experience told The Daily Telegraph jobs were going unanswered. "We sometimes have to get crews from Hornsby or St Ives to answer calls on the Coast because 80 per cent of us will be queuing at the hospital," he said.
Patricia Marshall knows the tragic consequences of our over-stretched public health system - her sister Lynette Salmon died after being forced to wait 20 minutes for an ambulance - despite living just two minutes from an ambulance station. Ms Salmon, 37, suffered an epileptic fit at her Blackwall home last year, dying on her way to hospital. Ms Marshall believes her sister would be alive today if an ambulance had arrived earlier. "What a waste of a life," Ms Marshall said.
Head of emergency services for the Central Coast Dr Kate Porges yesterday backed the paramedics' claims. "We see them (ambulances) queuing outside but there is nothing we can do," he said.
Opposition health spokesman Jillian Skinner said ambulance crews were contacting her daily about the problems. "Our hospitals, not just Royal North Shore, are struggling to cope with patients coming through emergency," she said.
Source
Fathers unpopular with the Left
By Bettina Arndt
IS Kevin Rudd interested in men? The answer, sadly, seems to be no. Unlike John Howard, the Opposition Leader rarely talks about issues affecting many of his own gender, such as family law, child support, fatherless families, boys' education. Indeed, this potential prime minister seems content to hand over the running on most social issues to female colleagues renowned for their anti-male bias. For anyone keen to ensure men and boys receive a fair go, the prospect of a Labor government is all bad news.
As a prime minister, John Howard has been most unusual in his passion for social issues, his famous "barbecue stoppers" and his willingness to stick his neck out and speak about the role of men. Remember the debate about single women's access to IVF? While most politicians were cowed by the wave of women's rights rhetoric, Howard voiced the concern of many suggesting it isn't in our society's interest to encourage more fatherless families. Picking up on community discontent about children losing contact with fathers after divorce, he set up a bipartisan committee to look into the "rebuttable presumption of joint custody", where parents share care unless good reasons preclude it. But Labor's Jennie George and Jenny Macklin dug in and the committee was forced to water down their recommendations.
A 2005 survey of parliamentarians by Fathers4Equality showed 62 Coalition members likely to support a shared parenting amendment compared with six from Labor. Yet, resulting changes to the Family Law Act have done much to ensure children's rights to contact with both parents.
Labor reluctantly supported the legislation, with Kevin Rudd expressing great concern about the changes. He deferred to his then shadow attorney-general, Nicola Roxon, who played up the fear that children would be forced to spend time with dangerous dads.
Roxon previously dismissed the custody inquiry as "dog whistle politics to men's groups aggrieved by the Family Court". Labor's disdain for such groups is consistently demonstrated as Labor shadow ministers refuse to meet even the most respected of these organisations, despite strenuous efforts by a sprinkling of Labor backbenchers to encourage their party to take interest.
Labor MP Roger Price spent years tearing his hair out over his party's failure to implement the recommendations of the inquiry into child support that he chaired in the early 1990s. It was the Howard Government that finally tackled this controversial issue, implementing far reaching changes recommended by an expert committee to make the scheme more equitable.
Yet, Labor's determination to cater to lone-mother lobby groups shows in their recent announcement that they are monitoring the scheme to ensure the primary carer is not disadvantaged. They have also expressed concern about Government efforts to help lone mothers make the transition from welfare to work. Both policies could well suffer rollbacks if Labor ends up in power.
Labor doesn't just have it in for men. The party has consistently favoured women in the workforce over mothers at home with young children. The last time Labor was in power, families relying on one income lost ground compared with other families, suffering an average 4 per cent drop between 1982 and 1995, according to the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling in Canberra. At the time, Joe De Bruyn, national chairman of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Union blamed Labor's "femocrat advisers" for consistently refusing to support women who stayed home, choosing instead to promote child care to encourage workforce participation.
With more than 75 per cent of all families relying on one income when they have infants, Howard moved to increase their support. Between 1996 and 2001, a single-income, two-child family on average weekly earnings gained 16 per cent in disposable income. Labor's more recent support for the babycare payment is a sign the feminist ideologues may be losing some of their grip on the party, but there are clear signs biases remain. One major reason Keating lost power was the perception that Labor governed for some rather than for all. The 750,000 non-resident parents in Australia are one group who should be wary that their interests have no place on a Labor agenda.
Source
Many liberties being lost
Governments are taking our liberty in the name of protecting our health, writes Chris Berg
Are we freer today than we were half a century ago? That question is surprisingly hard to answer. The state control over the economy that characterised Australia in the 20th century is quickly being replaced with nanny state controls. Barriers to trade have been mostly eliminated, and state monopolies eradicated. But accompanying that has been explosive growth in social and environmental regulations. There are now more pages of Commonwealth legislation introduced every year than were passed in the first 40 years of federation.
In our social lives, freedom has both advanced and retreated. For example, restrictions on the sale of alcohol have eased. But they have been replaced by nanny state measures such as smoking bans. In the future, cigar bars will be as distant a memory as the six o'clock swill. Since smoking bans were enacted this year in Victoria and NSW, sales growth in pubs has dropped significantly. Hotel patronage may return to former levels - international experience seems to indicate that it will - but when smokers return to the pub, they will be less free than they were in October last year.
Unquestionably, advocates of individual liberty and personal responsibility have lost the battle on smoking. That's not surprising - smoking is reviled by everybody who doesn't enjoy it. In a liberal state, that disagreement would be sorted out by negotiation; before the bans, many restaurants and hotels already enforced non-smoking areas or disallowed it entirely. But in a nanny state, such negotiations are replaced by force of law. Similar sentiments lie behind restrictions on poker machines. The gaming industry is a political football to be kicked around at every state election, while individuals who value their freedom to enjoy the pokies are ignored.
In a nanny state, the government morphs into an over-eager insurance company, assuming the role of risk-manager for its citizens. Any risky or unhealthy endeavour has to be eliminated - individuals cannot be trusted to assess the risks themselves.
The next target is food. Numerous proposals are on the table to tackle our expanding waistlines, including banning certain types of fats, banning junk food advertising, and even taxing fatty food. Earlier this year, the Labor Party hinted that it was considering banning the use of licensed characters such as Shrek in junk- food advertising, should it win government. Last week, the Cancer Council of Australia came out in support of a general ban on junk food ads aimed at children.
However, there is little evidence that such bans work. Both Quebec and Sweden have tried them, but neither have seen any reduction in childhood obesity. There are twice as many overweight children in Sweden as there were 15 years ago, even though the Scandinavian country has had a ban on all advertising aimed at children since 1991.
Furthermore, politicians hurrying to make political capital out of medical problems such as obesity and lung cancer rarely think through the unintended consequences of their policies. Swedish advertising bans have not reduced obesity, but they have had other results. Losing the revenue from the highest-paying advertising has reduced the quality and quantity of children's television programs. Similarly, restricting the advertising market has raised the cost of toys in Sweden to 50 per cent above the average European level.
The Australian Government's hard line on tobacco has had similar consequences. Smokeless tobacco products have been swept up as the nanny state tries to purge society of everything that meets its disapproval.
It is unfortunate that Australia lacks a strong intellectual history emphasising individual liberty and personal responsibility. Our "she'll be right mate" attitude is easily swamped by our calls for government to intervene in personal decisions. Laws are passed with little reference to how they will affect our freedom. As a result, individual liberty in Australia is slowly being eroded by neglect.
Source
Friday, November 02, 2007
Forgotten history: The disasters of the previous Labor government
IF 38 per cent of people polled this week by The Daily Telegraph thought the Kyoto Protocol was the treaty which ended WWII, who do they think Bob Hawke [former Labor Party Prime Minister] is when they see the Silver Bodgie sashaying through the local RSL in his white slip-ons? An Antipodean Colonel Sanders? Mick Dundee's older brother? Or a Gold Coast real estate baron?
The gravel-voiced Hawke and his vaudevillian successor, former treasurer and prime minister Paul Keating, have emerged as a sideshow act in Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd's travelling dog-and-pony show. But it's doubtful whether those in the adoring throng can remember or ever knew what actually took place during their reign.
While Prime Minister John Howard and Treasurer Peter Costello have been careful to pay due attention to the reforms of the Hawke-Keating era, the ALP's ageing but resilient duo have been more reticent to pay tribute to the groundwork laid by Howard in his days as treasurer. They've also been less than flattering about the Howard-Costello team.
Last year, however, former Reserve Bank governor Ian Macfarlane noted that the introduction of the tender system for the sale of Treasury notes and Treasury bonds "was second only in importance to the float of the Australian dollar in 1983". As columnist Gerard Henderson reminded readers recently, "these changes were introduced in 1979 and 1982 respectively, when Howard was treasurer". Readers young and old might also be unaware that Howard also called for the Campbell Commission report which recommended many of the reforms for which the ALP now claims credit, or that the Coalition supported the Hawke-Keating reforms when they were introduced into Parliament. The Howard Government proceeded with the reform process and Australia today has an economy which is the envy of the developed world. But its reforms were opposed every inch of the way by Labor's successors to Hawke-Keating.
Until recently, Rudd described himself as a Christian socialist. The socialist label has disappeared during Rudd's remake. His deputy Julia Gillard has told outright porkies [lies] about her socialist connections, claiming variously that she dabbled in left-wing politics as a student and that she later only helped with the typing.
Our old stagers however have left a paper trail which should be put before the Generation Y voters before they are permitted within 100m of a polling booth and distributed around the nursing homes targeted by the ALP's answers to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Flicking through the files, it is impossible not to be assaulted by the headlines which Hawke and Keating created, such as "Home rates may hit 18 per cent", above the byline of doughty Fairfax veteran Michelle Grattan, in The Age of May 29, 1989. What a cold winter that was.
Or "Apology on recession" from The Herald Sun, above a photograph featuring a smiling Hawke on March 6, 1998, when he admitted his government had misread the economic situation surrounding the 1987 which delivered Keating's recession "we had to have". The corrective action, said Hawke, was too late to avoid soaring interest rates, unemployment and inflation.
Speaking of unemployment, which under the Coalition is at record lows, what about this headline from The Financial Review of July 10, 1992: "Unemployment rate at highest level since 1930s". That was when youth unemployment reached 35.8 per cent. And how about this one, from The Sydney Morning Herald of November 11, 1992: "Worst job figures for 60 years". Unemployment had by then reached 11.3 per cent with a record 979,000 out of work. It got worse, of course, and a year later when the number of unemployed had climbed all the way to 1,017,600 the left-leaning Geoffrey Barker wrote in The Age: "Paul Keating will wear yesterday's unemployment figures like a crown of thorns."
Barker reminded his small audience that Keating had vowed seven years earlier that he would make Howard wear his Liberal leadership like a crown of thorns and do everything he could to obliterate him from leadership. Keating might need to be reminded of those numbers as he stumps around the backblocks now, occasionally emerging from relative obscurity to attend musicals about himself or rewrite history.
And if you thought shadow treasurer Wayne Swan's helpful hints to shoppers were a joke, how about Hawkie's advice to punters on November 9, 1985, in which he advised that the community would have to learn to live with higher interest rates. The overnight cash interest rate at the time was 16.5 per cent, with pressure on the banks to lift their prime rates to 19 or 19.5 per cent. Home mortgages were still capped at 13.5 per cent - but that was soon to change. By June 4, 1989, The Sun-Herald was able to run with "Home-loan rates highest in the world", a barbecue stopper if there ever was one.
The government responsible for this debacle blamed the problem on "the expectation that we who live in the Lucky Country should be able to own our homes". Silly people, silly people, wanting their own homes. But it got worse as The Daily Telegraph headline "18 per cent home loans soar again" announced on July 1, 1999. So, if you happen to see this Down Under version of the Glimmer Twins on one of their outings, remind them again how bad the good old days actually were and ask them how exactly their protege plans to do things differently.
Source
Homeschooling growing in Australia
As government schools deteriorate both behaviourally and educationally
THOUSANDS of students are being pulled out of Queensland state and private schools to be educated at home by their parents. The home schooling revolution is being driven by parents looking to shield their children from bullying and undesirable teenage peers. Home education is a "lawful alternative" for students of a compulsory school age, but Education Queensland sets out strict guidelines. Those wishing to go to university have to sit a special tertiary admissions test.
Homeschooling Association of Queensland president Robert Osmak estimates more than 22,000 children are now being home schooled in the state. This is double the figures obtained through a government working reference group in 2002. "I'd say the majority of parents are moving to home schooling out of despair," Mr Osmak said. "Their children have been terribly brutalised. They've been beaten up in the school yard on a regular basis."
Mr Osmak said the mother of a teenage Brisbane student had contacted him this week after her son was hit from behind, pushed to the ground and had his head smashed against the concrete at a state school. "The thug was only suspended for three days. Nothing is being done to protect the children who are being hurt," he said. Mr Osmak said he had written to Education Minister Rod Welford seeking a meeting to discuss some of the complaints by parents to him and streamline access to home schooling.
Mr Welford declined to meet with Mr Osmak, but indicated Education Queensland was providing information to the families and recognised home schooling was a "legitimate option" which parents could apply for on behalf of their children. In a lengthy letter to Mr Osmak, Mr Welford wrote: "Please be assured that my department takes issues of bullying, harassment, violence and discrimination seriously. Schools have codes of student behaviour and behaviour management programs for developing respect and safety towards others."
Mr Osmak, a former teacher with 23 years' experience in the state and private system in Queensland and overseas, has home schooled his nine children. "Two of them are in business, one of boys is employed and three of the girls are at TAFE. The two youngest are still being schooled," he said.
Valma Cronau, who heads a Gold Coast support group, said hundreds of home schooling families met regularly for social functions. She said one of the reasons for home schooling her children was to teach them Christian values. Other factors included removing them from peer pressure, and contact with drugs and "political correctness". To ensure students are being taught properly, EQ requires parents to apply for home schooling on behalf of their children and be granted registration. For continued registration, a parent is required to provide an annual report.
Source
Another "overconfident" surgeon still operating
How many more people will he hurt before they get around to de-registering him?
One of Australia's leading cosmetic surgeons is under investigation for allegedly performing unlicensed operations following the emergency admission to hospital and surgery on a woman who had undergone an extensive makeover in his inner-city clinic. Millionaire doctor, television personality and former president of the Cosmetic Physicians Society of Australia Simon Rosenbaum has been slapped with restrictions on his practice in Queensland and Victoria after medical authorities alleged he posed a "serious potential risk" to "vulnerable persons".
The Brisbane surgery of Dr Rosenbaum, who is under investigation by two state health watchdogs, as well as Medicare, was raided earlier this year as part of the investigation that may soon widen to other cosmetic physicians. Dr Rosenbaum - a 20-year veteran of the cosmetic surgery explosion in Australia - has performed thousands of operations in his clinics in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, and South Yarra, Melbourne. The procedures are touted as being cheaper than those performed in hospitals because of the lower fixed costs in the clinics.
But for almost a year, authorities have been investigating his practice following post-surgical complications to the woman in Brisbane which required emergency surgery to stop internal bleeding and to drain half a litre of blood. The woman, who worked as a nurse in Queensland, underwent a breast augmentation, mini-abdominoplasty and liposuction in a three-hour operation conducted by Dr Rosenbaum last October in his Australian Clinic for Cosmetic Surgery in Brisbane. The operation cost $20,000.
It is alleged Dr Rosenbaum - a regular guest of the Good Medicine television program - has been "performing complex procedures" in a clinic not licensed to do so and on patients under general anaesthetic, also without an appropriate licence for his clinic. According to documents obtained by The Australian, the woman returned to a hotel room after her operation and soon felt "very unwell and clammy", had a rapid pulse and was unable to remain standing. She called Dr Rosenbaum, who examined her that night, before telling her to visit his clinic the next day where she was put under observation. The Medical Board of Queensland also alleged Dr Rosenbaum put her under observation at his clinic the next day for eight hours - despite "clinical indications that immediate referral to hospital was appropriate" - before taking her to a Brisbane hospital.
In letters to medical authorities, Dr Rosenbaum said he was "not aware of the regulations affecting the administration of anesthesia". [Spare us!] Yesterday, he denied any patient had been put under general anesthesia in his clinics and that his rate of complications was "10 times" better than the average. "The reason I have been singled out is because of professional jealousy by the plastic surgeons," he said. "They ... are very successful in getting government bodies to do their dirty work."
Source
THE QUEENSLAND SEX-OFFENDER SCANDAL
Three articles below:
Your government will protect you -- NOT!
Corrective Services officials wanted to house serial sex fiend Robert John Fardon in a street with more than 23 children and near to a man convicted of a sex offence. The revelation came as controversy raged yesterday about what to do with convicted child rapist Fardon, who was released from jail on Tuesday after serving time for a parole breach. Police and Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence admitted it had been a mistake to attempt housing Fardon in the North Ipswich street. She said that, in future, Corrective Services would consult residents about placing serious sex offenders.
Fardon was driven to a house at Lowry St - where more than 23 children live, including a 17-year-old girl next door. It is opposite the home of David Sant, who had been in the same block as Fardon at the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre. Mr Sant admitted he had been convicted of indecently dealing with a minor in 1988. Corrective Services has strict rules on who can live in housing for sex offenders released into the community under supervision orders. However, the rules do not mention children living in nearby homes and the department does not check the criminal records of neighbours.
The Fardon saga has the Government frantically attempting to find legislative solutions to prevent up to 100 serious sex offenders from being released over coming years. There are also plans to fast-track restoration of houses on prison property and identify other possible sites on Corrective Services land where accommodation could be built.
Parents in Lowry St said they had fears for their children living next door to Fardon. Mother-of-four Justine Jarvis said Ipswich was targeted as an area for sex offenders to live. "I think it's a bit wrong, they always bring molesters into Ipswich," she said. "I'm worried. I used to let my kids play on the path, but I won't now and there's a lot of kids in the street who play out there."
Neighbour Mr Sant said his conviction for indecent dealing was not what it seemed. "It was when I was into witchcraft. I was in a satanic cult and I was having sex with my fiancee in a caravan," he said. "There was meant to be a girl in the cupboard. She used to come around and talk to my fiancee."
Attorney-General Kerry Shine has ruled out introducing minimum sentences. His spokesman said such a move would prevent judges from crafting penalties based on individual situations. Under existing legislation, people face conviction if they warn others or tip off media to an offender's whereabouts
Source
Would you trust him near your own children, Minister?
Comment by Melbourne writer Andrew Bolt:
Ipswich parents have stopped pedophile Robert John Fardon from moving into their suburb:
That's too bland a description of what he did, so read this court finding to better understand the parents' fear.
Yet the parents get the usual tut-tutting:
Here's three "somewheres" that occur to me:
1. In jail.
2. In Ms Spence's street.
3. In the street of the judge who stopped attempts to keep Fardon locked up.
The last two options might concentrate minds wonderfully.
Source
Irresponsible government has a rethink
Government at long last realizes that secrecy just encourages abuses
QUEENSLAND Police Minister Judy Spence has warned that anyone who passes on information about the location of sex offenders released into the community risks jail. The Government yesterday decided to inform people when a sex offender was going to be moved to their neighbourhood.
It came after the bungled placement of notorious sex offender Robert John Fardon in Ipswich, west of Brisbane. A camera crew from the Seven Network greeted Fardon at the location, alerting residents to his presence. They reacted angrily, forcing corrective services to move him to a house on the Wacol prison precinct, where the 59-year-old will now live.
In state parliament today, Ms Spence said police would prosecute residents who relayed information about the relocation of an offender. The maximum penalty is two years' imprisonment, or a $7500 fine, she said. Opposition Leader Jeff Seeney yesterday told reporters he would tip off others if he were in that situation. Ms Spence said a campaign organised by a UK tabloid showed what could happen when information about sex offenders was spread throughout the community. "Five families were incorrectly identified as harbouring sex offenders," she said. "Police also had to protect a 55-year-old south London man after 500 leaflets were wrongly distributed, accusing him of being a child abuser." In the past 12 months, a north Queensland woman was bashed by a group of men while out walking, because she was the mother of a man accused of sex offences, Ms Spence said.
She urged people to cooperate with police in relation to offenders, and leave it to them if they stepped out of line. "It is totally irresponsible for the media and the opposition leader to encourage community members to out sex offenders," Ms Spence said. "If vigilante activity is encouraged, there will be law-abiding people harmed and criminalised."
Source
IF 38 per cent of people polled this week by The Daily Telegraph thought the Kyoto Protocol was the treaty which ended WWII, who do they think Bob Hawke [former Labor Party Prime Minister] is when they see the Silver Bodgie sashaying through the local RSL in his white slip-ons? An Antipodean Colonel Sanders? Mick Dundee's older brother? Or a Gold Coast real estate baron?
The gravel-voiced Hawke and his vaudevillian successor, former treasurer and prime minister Paul Keating, have emerged as a sideshow act in Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd's travelling dog-and-pony show. But it's doubtful whether those in the adoring throng can remember or ever knew what actually took place during their reign.
While Prime Minister John Howard and Treasurer Peter Costello have been careful to pay due attention to the reforms of the Hawke-Keating era, the ALP's ageing but resilient duo have been more reticent to pay tribute to the groundwork laid by Howard in his days as treasurer. They've also been less than flattering about the Howard-Costello team.
Last year, however, former Reserve Bank governor Ian Macfarlane noted that the introduction of the tender system for the sale of Treasury notes and Treasury bonds "was second only in importance to the float of the Australian dollar in 1983". As columnist Gerard Henderson reminded readers recently, "these changes were introduced in 1979 and 1982 respectively, when Howard was treasurer". Readers young and old might also be unaware that Howard also called for the Campbell Commission report which recommended many of the reforms for which the ALP now claims credit, or that the Coalition supported the Hawke-Keating reforms when they were introduced into Parliament. The Howard Government proceeded with the reform process and Australia today has an economy which is the envy of the developed world. But its reforms were opposed every inch of the way by Labor's successors to Hawke-Keating.
Until recently, Rudd described himself as a Christian socialist. The socialist label has disappeared during Rudd's remake. His deputy Julia Gillard has told outright porkies [lies] about her socialist connections, claiming variously that she dabbled in left-wing politics as a student and that she later only helped with the typing.
Our old stagers however have left a paper trail which should be put before the Generation Y voters before they are permitted within 100m of a polling booth and distributed around the nursing homes targeted by the ALP's answers to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Flicking through the files, it is impossible not to be assaulted by the headlines which Hawke and Keating created, such as "Home rates may hit 18 per cent", above the byline of doughty Fairfax veteran Michelle Grattan, in The Age of May 29, 1989. What a cold winter that was.
Or "Apology on recession" from The Herald Sun, above a photograph featuring a smiling Hawke on March 6, 1998, when he admitted his government had misread the economic situation surrounding the 1987 which delivered Keating's recession "we had to have". The corrective action, said Hawke, was too late to avoid soaring interest rates, unemployment and inflation.
Speaking of unemployment, which under the Coalition is at record lows, what about this headline from The Financial Review of July 10, 1992: "Unemployment rate at highest level since 1930s". That was when youth unemployment reached 35.8 per cent. And how about this one, from The Sydney Morning Herald of November 11, 1992: "Worst job figures for 60 years". Unemployment had by then reached 11.3 per cent with a record 979,000 out of work. It got worse, of course, and a year later when the number of unemployed had climbed all the way to 1,017,600 the left-leaning Geoffrey Barker wrote in The Age: "Paul Keating will wear yesterday's unemployment figures like a crown of thorns."
Barker reminded his small audience that Keating had vowed seven years earlier that he would make Howard wear his Liberal leadership like a crown of thorns and do everything he could to obliterate him from leadership. Keating might need to be reminded of those numbers as he stumps around the backblocks now, occasionally emerging from relative obscurity to attend musicals about himself or rewrite history.
And if you thought shadow treasurer Wayne Swan's helpful hints to shoppers were a joke, how about Hawkie's advice to punters on November 9, 1985, in which he advised that the community would have to learn to live with higher interest rates. The overnight cash interest rate at the time was 16.5 per cent, with pressure on the banks to lift their prime rates to 19 or 19.5 per cent. Home mortgages were still capped at 13.5 per cent - but that was soon to change. By June 4, 1989, The Sun-Herald was able to run with "Home-loan rates highest in the world", a barbecue stopper if there ever was one.
The government responsible for this debacle blamed the problem on "the expectation that we who live in the Lucky Country should be able to own our homes". Silly people, silly people, wanting their own homes. But it got worse as The Daily Telegraph headline "18 per cent home loans soar again" announced on July 1, 1999. So, if you happen to see this Down Under version of the Glimmer Twins on one of their outings, remind them again how bad the good old days actually were and ask them how exactly their protege plans to do things differently.
Source
Homeschooling growing in Australia
As government schools deteriorate both behaviourally and educationally
THOUSANDS of students are being pulled out of Queensland state and private schools to be educated at home by their parents. The home schooling revolution is being driven by parents looking to shield their children from bullying and undesirable teenage peers. Home education is a "lawful alternative" for students of a compulsory school age, but Education Queensland sets out strict guidelines. Those wishing to go to university have to sit a special tertiary admissions test.
Homeschooling Association of Queensland president Robert Osmak estimates more than 22,000 children are now being home schooled in the state. This is double the figures obtained through a government working reference group in 2002. "I'd say the majority of parents are moving to home schooling out of despair," Mr Osmak said. "Their children have been terribly brutalised. They've been beaten up in the school yard on a regular basis."
Mr Osmak said the mother of a teenage Brisbane student had contacted him this week after her son was hit from behind, pushed to the ground and had his head smashed against the concrete at a state school. "The thug was only suspended for three days. Nothing is being done to protect the children who are being hurt," he said. Mr Osmak said he had written to Education Minister Rod Welford seeking a meeting to discuss some of the complaints by parents to him and streamline access to home schooling.
Mr Welford declined to meet with Mr Osmak, but indicated Education Queensland was providing information to the families and recognised home schooling was a "legitimate option" which parents could apply for on behalf of their children. In a lengthy letter to Mr Osmak, Mr Welford wrote: "Please be assured that my department takes issues of bullying, harassment, violence and discrimination seriously. Schools have codes of student behaviour and behaviour management programs for developing respect and safety towards others."
Mr Osmak, a former teacher with 23 years' experience in the state and private system in Queensland and overseas, has home schooled his nine children. "Two of them are in business, one of boys is employed and three of the girls are at TAFE. The two youngest are still being schooled," he said.
Valma Cronau, who heads a Gold Coast support group, said hundreds of home schooling families met regularly for social functions. She said one of the reasons for home schooling her children was to teach them Christian values. Other factors included removing them from peer pressure, and contact with drugs and "political correctness". To ensure students are being taught properly, EQ requires parents to apply for home schooling on behalf of their children and be granted registration. For continued registration, a parent is required to provide an annual report.
Source
Another "overconfident" surgeon still operating
How many more people will he hurt before they get around to de-registering him?
One of Australia's leading cosmetic surgeons is under investigation for allegedly performing unlicensed operations following the emergency admission to hospital and surgery on a woman who had undergone an extensive makeover in his inner-city clinic. Millionaire doctor, television personality and former president of the Cosmetic Physicians Society of Australia Simon Rosenbaum has been slapped with restrictions on his practice in Queensland and Victoria after medical authorities alleged he posed a "serious potential risk" to "vulnerable persons".
The Brisbane surgery of Dr Rosenbaum, who is under investigation by two state health watchdogs, as well as Medicare, was raided earlier this year as part of the investigation that may soon widen to other cosmetic physicians. Dr Rosenbaum - a 20-year veteran of the cosmetic surgery explosion in Australia - has performed thousands of operations in his clinics in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, and South Yarra, Melbourne. The procedures are touted as being cheaper than those performed in hospitals because of the lower fixed costs in the clinics.
But for almost a year, authorities have been investigating his practice following post-surgical complications to the woman in Brisbane which required emergency surgery to stop internal bleeding and to drain half a litre of blood. The woman, who worked as a nurse in Queensland, underwent a breast augmentation, mini-abdominoplasty and liposuction in a three-hour operation conducted by Dr Rosenbaum last October in his Australian Clinic for Cosmetic Surgery in Brisbane. The operation cost $20,000.
It is alleged Dr Rosenbaum - a regular guest of the Good Medicine television program - has been "performing complex procedures" in a clinic not licensed to do so and on patients under general anaesthetic, also without an appropriate licence for his clinic. According to documents obtained by The Australian, the woman returned to a hotel room after her operation and soon felt "very unwell and clammy", had a rapid pulse and was unable to remain standing. She called Dr Rosenbaum, who examined her that night, before telling her to visit his clinic the next day where she was put under observation. The Medical Board of Queensland also alleged Dr Rosenbaum put her under observation at his clinic the next day for eight hours - despite "clinical indications that immediate referral to hospital was appropriate" - before taking her to a Brisbane hospital.
In letters to medical authorities, Dr Rosenbaum said he was "not aware of the regulations affecting the administration of anesthesia". [Spare us!] Yesterday, he denied any patient had been put under general anesthesia in his clinics and that his rate of complications was "10 times" better than the average. "The reason I have been singled out is because of professional jealousy by the plastic surgeons," he said. "They ... are very successful in getting government bodies to do their dirty work."
Source
THE QUEENSLAND SEX-OFFENDER SCANDAL
Three articles below:
Your government will protect you -- NOT!
Corrective Services officials wanted to house serial sex fiend Robert John Fardon in a street with more than 23 children and near to a man convicted of a sex offence. The revelation came as controversy raged yesterday about what to do with convicted child rapist Fardon, who was released from jail on Tuesday after serving time for a parole breach. Police and Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence admitted it had been a mistake to attempt housing Fardon in the North Ipswich street. She said that, in future, Corrective Services would consult residents about placing serious sex offenders.
Fardon was driven to a house at Lowry St - where more than 23 children live, including a 17-year-old girl next door. It is opposite the home of David Sant, who had been in the same block as Fardon at the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre. Mr Sant admitted he had been convicted of indecently dealing with a minor in 1988. Corrective Services has strict rules on who can live in housing for sex offenders released into the community under supervision orders. However, the rules do not mention children living in nearby homes and the department does not check the criminal records of neighbours.
The Fardon saga has the Government frantically attempting to find legislative solutions to prevent up to 100 serious sex offenders from being released over coming years. There are also plans to fast-track restoration of houses on prison property and identify other possible sites on Corrective Services land where accommodation could be built.
Parents in Lowry St said they had fears for their children living next door to Fardon. Mother-of-four Justine Jarvis said Ipswich was targeted as an area for sex offenders to live. "I think it's a bit wrong, they always bring molesters into Ipswich," she said. "I'm worried. I used to let my kids play on the path, but I won't now and there's a lot of kids in the street who play out there."
Neighbour Mr Sant said his conviction for indecent dealing was not what it seemed. "It was when I was into witchcraft. I was in a satanic cult and I was having sex with my fiancee in a caravan," he said. "There was meant to be a girl in the cupboard. She used to come around and talk to my fiancee."
Attorney-General Kerry Shine has ruled out introducing minimum sentences. His spokesman said such a move would prevent judges from crafting penalties based on individual situations. Under existing legislation, people face conviction if they warn others or tip off media to an offender's whereabouts
Source
Would you trust him near your own children, Minister?
Comment by Melbourne writer Andrew Bolt:
Ipswich parents have stopped pedophile Robert John Fardon from moving into their suburb:
The outraged North Ipswich locals discovered the serial rapist and pedophile was headed for their neighbourhood when a television camera crew met him at his new address. The street is five blocks from a school and close to parks. Fardon has been in custody since late July after breaching his supervision order by violating his curfew and being in the company of fellow multiple sex offender Trevor Toms. He had previously served 27 years for violent sexual crimes, including the rape of a 12-year-old girl and the sexual assault of her 15-year-old sister.
That's too bland a description of what he did, so read this court finding to better understand the parents' fear.
The circumstances of the offences, to which reference will be made below, made the rape and the sodomy, for which sentences of 14 years were imposed, serious sexual offences within the meaning of the Act. It may be noted that on 8 October 1980 the respondent pleaded guilty to raping a 12 year old girl, indecently dealing with her and unlawfully wounding her 15 year old sister. He was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment for the rape and lesser concurrent terms of imprisonment for the other offences. The respondent was released on parole after serving 8 years of that sentence and within 20 days had committed the offences for which he was sentenced on 30 June 1989. The respondent, who was born on 6 October 1948, has an extensive criminal history, principally for stealing, disorderly behaviour and weapons offences. Of some relevance to this application is his plea of guilty in 1967 in NSW to attempted carnal knowledge of a girl under the age of 10 years.
Yet the parents get the usual tut-tutting:
Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence earlier yesterday called for people to show restraint in exposing Fardon's new address. "I am sure people will want to expose Mr Fardon's whereabouts, but I want people to bear in mind that the man has to live somewhere," Ms Spence told Parliament.
Here's three "somewheres" that occur to me:
1. In jail.
2. In Ms Spence's street.
3. In the street of the judge who stopped attempts to keep Fardon locked up.
The last two options might concentrate minds wonderfully.
Source
Irresponsible government has a rethink
Government at long last realizes that secrecy just encourages abuses
QUEENSLAND Police Minister Judy Spence has warned that anyone who passes on information about the location of sex offenders released into the community risks jail. The Government yesterday decided to inform people when a sex offender was going to be moved to their neighbourhood.
It came after the bungled placement of notorious sex offender Robert John Fardon in Ipswich, west of Brisbane. A camera crew from the Seven Network greeted Fardon at the location, alerting residents to his presence. They reacted angrily, forcing corrective services to move him to a house on the Wacol prison precinct, where the 59-year-old will now live.
In state parliament today, Ms Spence said police would prosecute residents who relayed information about the relocation of an offender. The maximum penalty is two years' imprisonment, or a $7500 fine, she said. Opposition Leader Jeff Seeney yesterday told reporters he would tip off others if he were in that situation. Ms Spence said a campaign organised by a UK tabloid showed what could happen when information about sex offenders was spread throughout the community. "Five families were incorrectly identified as harbouring sex offenders," she said. "Police also had to protect a 55-year-old south London man after 500 leaflets were wrongly distributed, accusing him of being a child abuser." In the past 12 months, a north Queensland woman was bashed by a group of men while out walking, because she was the mother of a man accused of sex offences, Ms Spence said.
She urged people to cooperate with police in relation to offenders, and leave it to them if they stepped out of line. "It is totally irresponsible for the media and the opposition leader to encourage community members to out sex offenders," Ms Spence said. "If vigilante activity is encouraged, there will be law-abiding people harmed and criminalised."
Source
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Labor party making it up as they go along
Zeg's cartoon above features muffled versions of Peter Garrett and Julia Gillard, nominally party spokespersons on the environment and labor relations -- both of whom have at times been put back in their box by Rudd for saying unpopular things -- showing that even party spokespersons don't know what the party policy is
LABOR has scrambled to cover up damaging claims it has a massive hole in election costings, after ditching at least $2 billion in projected savings. Kevin Rudd on Monday was forced to make a snap decision to abandon savings initiatives, amid concerns they were too sensitive.
The sudden move caught some ministerial spokesmen off-guard, unaware savings moves were dropped. These included a plan to sell the Badgerys Creek airport site in western Sydney. Labor also dropped plans to reclaim $700 million in payments to the states. Deputy Labor leader Julia Gillard admitted some savings measures had been dropped because of their sensitivity. This included an earlier plan to increase tobacco excise by $630 million, a move which would have seen the price of cigarettes rise sharply. "We decided that they were not good ideas - they will not be proceeded with," Ms Gillard said.
Leaked documents also reveal that bigger saving measures, put forward by Labor finance spokesman Lindsay Tanner, also were rejected by the Opposition's razor gang. These included a range of small savings in education, while Labor also rejected plans to save money on new federal police resources.
Seeking to dent Labor's economic credibility, Finance Minister Nick Minchin said Mr Rudd would not be able to afford his election promises, after dumping the savings "hit list". "They've dumped those savings in a panic reaction to the release of this list and now find they can't afford their promises," he said. "So they've got some very big questions to ask - are they going to wind back their promises or are they going to find more savings? "And if they've got more savings, come clean on it. Don't have these secret, hidden lists floating around in ALP corridors."
Last night, Mr Tanner confirmed his earlier "hit list" of savings measures had changed, but promised Labor would be "fiscally responsible". It is expected the Opposition will announce further savings measures, building on the $3 billion it has already announced.
Source
Whitewash report for disaster hospital
It has been just over a month since Jana Horska miscarried in a toilet at Royal North Shore Hospital, and the State Government's handling of the tragedy has only deepened the pain for her and her husband. Mark Dreyer said yesterday he was shocked to hear from a journalist on Friday afternoon that a Government report into the incident had been released; he and Ms Horska they were still waiting to be interviewed for it. Mr Dreyer said the report was a rushed, inaccurate job that had "just added to our tragedy".
The inquiry into Ms Horska's miscarriage on September 25 found staff were not at fault and had followed protocol. The report said the couple had been invited to give their account "on several occasions but they declined". But Mr Dreyer said this was "an out and out lie". He said they were bypassed because they had wanted legal representation at the interview and this did not fit into the Government's October 26 deadline.
One of the authors, Professor Clifford Hughes, said yesterday Ms Horska and Mr Dreyer were telephoned by his co-author, Professor William Walters, on October 3 offering a meeting the next morning at their home so they could be interviewed. But Mr Dreyer said that after their lawyer faxed the professors on October 3 asking for a list of questions, they received a letter from Professor Walters the next day, October 4 - which twice misspelt his name as Draper - saying he and his colleague still wanted to speak with the couple but would have to interview hospital staff first, "given the need for us to progress the review".
He said he and Ms Horska did not hear from them again. He said he had sought legal advice because he did not trust the Government and he and his wife were too distressed to handle it. "That, of course, added time to the inquiry and, as it turned out, we never got to have a say and it angered me and my wife and this has just added to our tragedy," he said.
Professor Hughes said yesterday his inquiry team called the couple's lawyers on October 16 and 18 indicating they wanted to interview the couple. "We got no response to any of these attempts," Professor Hughes said. He said the door was still open. "It's not too late for us to hear their side of the story and if they were to show us other facts that were important . we would draw that to the attention of the director general [of NSW Health]."
The chief of staff of the embattled Health Minister, Reba Meagher, is looking to leave. Tom Forrest applied for a senior position in the Health Department in July, but his application was not successful.
Source
Grammar comeback in Queensland?
GRAMMAR will return to Queensland classrooms in Years 11 and 12 under a revised English syllabus requiring that students be taught grammar, spelling and punctuation. The Queensland Studies Authority, which is responsible for school curriculums, says a new senior English syllabus to be taught from 2009 will remove the "over-emphasis on critical literacy" used to analyse literature. Critical literacy is a theory used to analyse texts which holds that language is never neutral and should be dissected to reveal how the writer is manipulating the reader.
The changes are based on a report by the executive dean of arts at the University of Queensland, Richard Fotheringham, which recommends the syllabus be more specific about the novels, plays and poems that students should study. The report was commissioned last year by Queensland Education Minister Rod Welford, who has called for "plain English guidelines" and criticised the "post-modern mumbo jumbo" in the state's English syllabus.
In an article in the QSA journal, director Kim Bannikoff said the revised syllabus would encourage teachers to use a range of approaches to texts. "The narrow focus on 'socio-critical elements' will be reframed so students are assessed on their evaluative thinking skills and decision-making in the reading and writing of texts," he says. Mr Bannikoff refused to elaborate, but a QSA spokesman said socio-critical elements were what developed students' ability to critique texts. "The narrow focus in the past refers to the over-emphasis on critical literacy," the spokesman said. Mr Bannikoff said the syllabus would ensure students studied a range of classic and contemporary novels, poems, plays, films and other works. Teachers can expect more specific advice about what to study and assess.
The QSA spokesman said the syllabus would specify the range and balance of texts to be studied rather than setting mandatory reading lists. The changes were greeted with suspicion by the English Teachers Association of Queensland, whose president, Gary Collins, said teachers would resist plans to remove critical literacy from the syllabus. "We certainly believe a critical literacy approach shouldn't dominate all teaching and assessment tasks," Mr Collins said. "But it would be a decidedly retrograde step if it were to be removed entirely."
A spokeswoman for Mr Welford said the minister was considering the report.
Source
Do-gooder knowalls fail again: Approach to problems with black youths backfires
Response? A coverup, of course
A $2 million State Government program for disadvantaged Redfern youth actually encouraged children to stay out on the street late at night and exacerbated tensions with local police, a secret report reveals. The Government has gone to great lengths to hide the embarrassing review of the Redfern Waterloo Street Team - a group of welfare workers parachuted into the suburb in late 2003 - by refusing to release the report under freedom of information laws.
The secret report slams the Government for establishing the street team "as a result of a cabinet minute, rather than through a planned response ... by determining the 'solution' to a perceived problem at a senior level, those charged with responsibility for implementing the model were constrained in their ability to develop a more flexible response to actual needs."
The street team, made up of workers from the Central Sydney Area Health Service, the Department of Community Services and non-government organisations, conducted late night walks to encourage young people to go home and referred cases to social services for follow up. A key program goal - guiding children on the street late at night home - ended up backfiring, with "staff suspecting they were encouraging many young people to be out later on the streets as they knew they could get a lift home from the [Redfern Waterloo Street Team]".
The review found administration took up too much time and resources and the street team worsened community relations with local police. Helen Campbell from the Redfern Legal Centre said the findings did not surprise her. "If they found you on the street at 11 at night, you would get a pizza and a free trip home. Why wouldn't you stay out later?" she said. "There is still no youth refuge in Redfern. If a kid is is out at night, one of the question you have to ask is, it it safe at home?"
Geoff Turnbull from the REDwatch community group warned that despite its failure, the Government had not learned any lessons from the street team experiment. "If they had started to change the way they operated in the area, I wouldn't be as concerned. But decisions continue to be made at a cabinet level and implemented without working with what is already happening in Redfern and Waterloo," he said. "The [Government's Redfern-Waterloo] Human Services Plan says that the stuff they are doing in terms of youth services is based on what they have learned out of the street team. That was the reason we wanted to see the evaluation. The future of what happens to services here is based on the street team."
A spokeswoman for the Minister for Redfern-Waterloo, Frank Sartor, said the minister dissolved the project shortly after inheriting it in 2005 and reallocated funding to other community projects. The Yaama Dhiyaan indigenous training college received $750,000, $500,000 went to a new Police Citizens Youth Club at the redeveloped former Redfern Public School, and leftover funds were diverted to South Sydney Youth Service and the Fact Tree youth service.
Source
It's offical: we're having a baby boom
AUSTRALIA is now in the middle of its biggest baby boom in more than three decades, official statistics have confirmed. More babies were born last year than in any since official records began, with the exception of 1971. And Australians are having their babies later in life - the median age of a first-time mum last year was almost 31, while the average dads were just over 33 years of age. These are the highest-ever median ages for new parents. The fertility rate - the number of children an average woman is expected to have in her lifetime - rose to 1.81 last year, up from 1.79 the previous year.
The Federal Government's baby bonus - introduced in 2004 and now worth $4000 per baby - has been widely credited with encouraging Australians to have more kids.
Figures released today showed 265,900 births were registered in 2006, the highest number since the 276,400 births reported 35 years previously. Women aged between 30 and 34 had the highest fertility rate in most of Australia, while in Tasmania and the Northern Territory it was women aged between 25 and 29. The average number of births also increased last year to 63.3 babies per 1,000 women aged between 35 and 39, which was the highest since 1961.
Of all the births in 2006, 67 per cent of new parents were married, compared to 83 per cent in 1986.
Source
Zeg's cartoon above features muffled versions of Peter Garrett and Julia Gillard, nominally party spokespersons on the environment and labor relations -- both of whom have at times been put back in their box by Rudd for saying unpopular things -- showing that even party spokespersons don't know what the party policy is
LABOR has scrambled to cover up damaging claims it has a massive hole in election costings, after ditching at least $2 billion in projected savings. Kevin Rudd on Monday was forced to make a snap decision to abandon savings initiatives, amid concerns they were too sensitive.
The sudden move caught some ministerial spokesmen off-guard, unaware savings moves were dropped. These included a plan to sell the Badgerys Creek airport site in western Sydney. Labor also dropped plans to reclaim $700 million in payments to the states. Deputy Labor leader Julia Gillard admitted some savings measures had been dropped because of their sensitivity. This included an earlier plan to increase tobacco excise by $630 million, a move which would have seen the price of cigarettes rise sharply. "We decided that they were not good ideas - they will not be proceeded with," Ms Gillard said.
Leaked documents also reveal that bigger saving measures, put forward by Labor finance spokesman Lindsay Tanner, also were rejected by the Opposition's razor gang. These included a range of small savings in education, while Labor also rejected plans to save money on new federal police resources.
Seeking to dent Labor's economic credibility, Finance Minister Nick Minchin said Mr Rudd would not be able to afford his election promises, after dumping the savings "hit list". "They've dumped those savings in a panic reaction to the release of this list and now find they can't afford their promises," he said. "So they've got some very big questions to ask - are they going to wind back their promises or are they going to find more savings? "And if they've got more savings, come clean on it. Don't have these secret, hidden lists floating around in ALP corridors."
Last night, Mr Tanner confirmed his earlier "hit list" of savings measures had changed, but promised Labor would be "fiscally responsible". It is expected the Opposition will announce further savings measures, building on the $3 billion it has already announced.
Source
Whitewash report for disaster hospital
It has been just over a month since Jana Horska miscarried in a toilet at Royal North Shore Hospital, and the State Government's handling of the tragedy has only deepened the pain for her and her husband. Mark Dreyer said yesterday he was shocked to hear from a journalist on Friday afternoon that a Government report into the incident had been released; he and Ms Horska they were still waiting to be interviewed for it. Mr Dreyer said the report was a rushed, inaccurate job that had "just added to our tragedy".
The inquiry into Ms Horska's miscarriage on September 25 found staff were not at fault and had followed protocol. The report said the couple had been invited to give their account "on several occasions but they declined". But Mr Dreyer said this was "an out and out lie". He said they were bypassed because they had wanted legal representation at the interview and this did not fit into the Government's October 26 deadline.
One of the authors, Professor Clifford Hughes, said yesterday Ms Horska and Mr Dreyer were telephoned by his co-author, Professor William Walters, on October 3 offering a meeting the next morning at their home so they could be interviewed. But Mr Dreyer said that after their lawyer faxed the professors on October 3 asking for a list of questions, they received a letter from Professor Walters the next day, October 4 - which twice misspelt his name as Draper - saying he and his colleague still wanted to speak with the couple but would have to interview hospital staff first, "given the need for us to progress the review".
He said he and Ms Horska did not hear from them again. He said he had sought legal advice because he did not trust the Government and he and his wife were too distressed to handle it. "That, of course, added time to the inquiry and, as it turned out, we never got to have a say and it angered me and my wife and this has just added to our tragedy," he said.
Professor Hughes said yesterday his inquiry team called the couple's lawyers on October 16 and 18 indicating they wanted to interview the couple. "We got no response to any of these attempts," Professor Hughes said. He said the door was still open. "It's not too late for us to hear their side of the story and if they were to show us other facts that were important . we would draw that to the attention of the director general [of NSW Health]."
The chief of staff of the embattled Health Minister, Reba Meagher, is looking to leave. Tom Forrest applied for a senior position in the Health Department in July, but his application was not successful.
Source
Grammar comeback in Queensland?
GRAMMAR will return to Queensland classrooms in Years 11 and 12 under a revised English syllabus requiring that students be taught grammar, spelling and punctuation. The Queensland Studies Authority, which is responsible for school curriculums, says a new senior English syllabus to be taught from 2009 will remove the "over-emphasis on critical literacy" used to analyse literature. Critical literacy is a theory used to analyse texts which holds that language is never neutral and should be dissected to reveal how the writer is manipulating the reader.
The changes are based on a report by the executive dean of arts at the University of Queensland, Richard Fotheringham, which recommends the syllabus be more specific about the novels, plays and poems that students should study. The report was commissioned last year by Queensland Education Minister Rod Welford, who has called for "plain English guidelines" and criticised the "post-modern mumbo jumbo" in the state's English syllabus.
In an article in the QSA journal, director Kim Bannikoff said the revised syllabus would encourage teachers to use a range of approaches to texts. "The narrow focus on 'socio-critical elements' will be reframed so students are assessed on their evaluative thinking skills and decision-making in the reading and writing of texts," he says. Mr Bannikoff refused to elaborate, but a QSA spokesman said socio-critical elements were what developed students' ability to critique texts. "The narrow focus in the past refers to the over-emphasis on critical literacy," the spokesman said. Mr Bannikoff said the syllabus would ensure students studied a range of classic and contemporary novels, poems, plays, films and other works. Teachers can expect more specific advice about what to study and assess.
The QSA spokesman said the syllabus would specify the range and balance of texts to be studied rather than setting mandatory reading lists. The changes were greeted with suspicion by the English Teachers Association of Queensland, whose president, Gary Collins, said teachers would resist plans to remove critical literacy from the syllabus. "We certainly believe a critical literacy approach shouldn't dominate all teaching and assessment tasks," Mr Collins said. "But it would be a decidedly retrograde step if it were to be removed entirely."
A spokeswoman for Mr Welford said the minister was considering the report.
Source
Do-gooder knowalls fail again: Approach to problems with black youths backfires
Response? A coverup, of course
A $2 million State Government program for disadvantaged Redfern youth actually encouraged children to stay out on the street late at night and exacerbated tensions with local police, a secret report reveals. The Government has gone to great lengths to hide the embarrassing review of the Redfern Waterloo Street Team - a group of welfare workers parachuted into the suburb in late 2003 - by refusing to release the report under freedom of information laws.
The secret report slams the Government for establishing the street team "as a result of a cabinet minute, rather than through a planned response ... by determining the 'solution' to a perceived problem at a senior level, those charged with responsibility for implementing the model were constrained in their ability to develop a more flexible response to actual needs."
The street team, made up of workers from the Central Sydney Area Health Service, the Department of Community Services and non-government organisations, conducted late night walks to encourage young people to go home and referred cases to social services for follow up. A key program goal - guiding children on the street late at night home - ended up backfiring, with "staff suspecting they were encouraging many young people to be out later on the streets as they knew they could get a lift home from the [Redfern Waterloo Street Team]".
The review found administration took up too much time and resources and the street team worsened community relations with local police. Helen Campbell from the Redfern Legal Centre said the findings did not surprise her. "If they found you on the street at 11 at night, you would get a pizza and a free trip home. Why wouldn't you stay out later?" she said. "There is still no youth refuge in Redfern. If a kid is is out at night, one of the question you have to ask is, it it safe at home?"
Geoff Turnbull from the REDwatch community group warned that despite its failure, the Government had not learned any lessons from the street team experiment. "If they had started to change the way they operated in the area, I wouldn't be as concerned. But decisions continue to be made at a cabinet level and implemented without working with what is already happening in Redfern and Waterloo," he said. "The [Government's Redfern-Waterloo] Human Services Plan says that the stuff they are doing in terms of youth services is based on what they have learned out of the street team. That was the reason we wanted to see the evaluation. The future of what happens to services here is based on the street team."
A spokeswoman for the Minister for Redfern-Waterloo, Frank Sartor, said the minister dissolved the project shortly after inheriting it in 2005 and reallocated funding to other community projects. The Yaama Dhiyaan indigenous training college received $750,000, $500,000 went to a new Police Citizens Youth Club at the redeveloped former Redfern Public School, and leftover funds were diverted to South Sydney Youth Service and the Fact Tree youth service.
Source
It's offical: we're having a baby boom
AUSTRALIA is now in the middle of its biggest baby boom in more than three decades, official statistics have confirmed. More babies were born last year than in any since official records began, with the exception of 1971. And Australians are having their babies later in life - the median age of a first-time mum last year was almost 31, while the average dads were just over 33 years of age. These are the highest-ever median ages for new parents. The fertility rate - the number of children an average woman is expected to have in her lifetime - rose to 1.81 last year, up from 1.79 the previous year.
The Federal Government's baby bonus - introduced in 2004 and now worth $4000 per baby - has been widely credited with encouraging Australians to have more kids.
Figures released today showed 265,900 births were registered in 2006, the highest number since the 276,400 births reported 35 years previously. Women aged between 30 and 34 had the highest fertility rate in most of Australia, while in Tasmania and the Northern Territory it was women aged between 25 and 29. The average number of births also increased last year to 63.3 babies per 1,000 women aged between 35 and 39, which was the highest since 1961.
Of all the births in 2006, 67 per cent of new parents were married, compared to 83 per cent in 1986.
Source
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
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My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
