THE AUSTRALIAN CLIMATE DEBATE

Australian Prime Minister Kevin "Tokenism" Rudd is trying to do something significant for a change but he has no ideas of his own so has jumped on the Greenie bandwagon and wants to pass laws to stop global warming! The huge costs and total futility of what he proposes have however caused some people to sit up and take notice. In setting out detailed proposals for new laws, Rudd relies heavily on the "Garnaut Report" -- a piece of conventional Warmism that he commissioned from a tame economist. That report has been particularly criticized. Six current articles below

Garnaut climate report - Three Key Questions that were Ignored

An Australian Group of Global Warming Sceptics today claimed that the Garnaut Report had totally ignored the three key questions in the debate. The chairman of The Carbon Sense Coalition, Mr Viv Forbes, said that the major question is a scientific one: "Have man's emissions of CO2 caused unusual global warming or done harm to the world environment?" An increasing number of scientists all over the world are very clear on this and their answer is a resounding "NO". For starters see the Oregon Petition and the Manhattan Declaration

It is irresponsible for the government to get this far without having an independent enquiry on the science, a fundamental first step in a rational due diligence of this massive economic intervention.

"The second question not considered by the Garnaut Report is "What are the full costs and benefits likely to accrue to Australians if we embark on this course?" This major question is avoided by explanations of "no data" or "the modelling is not completed".

"Already we are seeing the costs associated with misguided policies designed to reduce Global Warming: a world shortage of food cause by diversion of land from food production to ethanol; power shortages and blackouts as power station construction is deferred; soaring prices for gas as people are coerced to convert from one carbon fuel to another; shortages of refined diesel and petrol as refinery construction is delayed; and instability and losses in financial markets concerned about the future cost of travel, transport, energy and food."

"But nowhere have we seen estimates of the total cost of all the taxes, disruptions, shortages, cost increases and unnecessary investments associated with all the emission permits, ration coupons, energy mandates, trading schemes, quotas, bureaucracy and approvals."

"The third key question not considered by Professor Garnaut, is "Is it politically likely that rest of the world will adopt these draconian mitigation policies, or will Australia and New Zealand be left hanging like dead dingos on a barbed wire fence?"

"No democracy will accept the costs and disruptions envisaged to achieve the fairy-land goals for cuts in carbon emissions. Therefore this whole mitigation scheme must fail and will eventually be abandoned, but only after causing huge costs."

"The rejection of green taxes in recent UK by-elections, the defeat of the Emissions Trading proposals by the US Senate, the revolt about electricity prices among German politicians, the worldwide food riots and the truckie blockades all over Europe should surely warn our worldly-wise PM that this decision is just too hard, even for him."

"Even if we faced more global warming, which is the better way to go - prepare to adapt, or try to change the world and its climate? Is adaptation or mitigation the sensible policy?"

"The climate is always changing and will continue to do so no matter what Professor Garnaut and Minister Wong say or do about it. Our ancestors have survived massive climate change - floods of Biblical dimensions, storms more violent than Katrina, volcanism to dwarf Krakatau, Saharan droughts, seas that evaporated and then flooded back and flourishing greenhouse forests followed by glacial ages of ice."

"Many species and individuals died in the periodic ages of chaos but our ancestors adapted and survived. They went on to thrive in the occasional warm, moist, calm periods like today. (Incidentally, polar bears also managed to adapt and survive periods warmer and colder than today.) The best we can do today is to make sure we have the financial and industrial resources to cope with whatever the climate has in store for us."

"And if Mother Nature has another Little Ice Age in store, that will cause more damage than any one of the 23 different computer generated global warming predictions from the Mis-fortune Tellers at the IPCC."

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Kevin Rudd faces climate revolt from state Labor governments

KEVIN Rudd has been warned against rushing ahead with a carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS), with a union boss saying workers should not lose their jobs just so the Prime Minister can keep his. Mr Rudd is facing a savage backlash from unions and state Labor over the timing of an ETS, which was the centrepiece of the Garnaut Review into how Australia should tackle climate change. The scheme would raise billions of dollars for the Government through the sale of pollution permits.

As the Prime Minister conceded yesterday that rising electricity, food and petrol prices were an inevitable consequence of the scheme, he pledged that the Government was mindful of the risks to family budgets and to jobs. But Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes has accused Mr Rudd of being "hell bent" on introducing the ETS by 2010 just to keep an election promise, despite the danger of forcing jobs offshore. "I would rather see that period of time dragged out a bit to ensure that there aren't any errors in the design," he said. "If we ensure that the adequate levels of compensation and recognition are given to industries so that they are given ... time to clean up their act ... then no job needs to be lost. In fact, jobs should be created."

The Federal Opposition has also said the ETS should be delayed to ensure it was done properly. Shadow Treasurer Malcolm Turnbull has said the scheme would be "half-cocked" if introduced on the government's timetable. Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson said today the environment would be no better off with a rushed scheme. "Mr Rudd is taking Australia way out in front of the rest of the world and in doing so places significant risk on the Australian economy ... for no environmental gain at all," he said on ABC radio. "The rest of the world, particularly the big emitters, will not yet be ready (by 2012)."

In his attack on the Garnaut report, NSW Treasurer Michael Costa has backed free permits for electricity generators, saying today in The Australian that "Chicken Little" warnings about the dangers of climate change are no substitute for a rigorous economic and scientific debate.

Mr Howes said an ETS would be little more than a trade tariff "against ourselves" if high-polluting countries such as China and Brazil were not taking similar measures.

In his draft report, released on Friday, Professor Ross Garnaut said Australia would be hit harder by climate change than other countries would be - and therefore needed to act now. But he also said the government should pressure other polluters to follow suit quickly.

Mr Costa warns that while the states support the implementation of an ETS, the risks to the economy are severe if the Rudd Government gets it wrong, citing the children's fable of the hen that thought the sky was falling after being hit on the head by an acorn. "Chicken Little arguments are no substitute for getting right the important details on issues of far reaching consequence, but Professor (Ross) Garnaut himself has said his detailed economic impact modelling won't be available until August," he writes. "For example, claims from some quarters that the Great Barrier Reef would be destroyed if Australia, which emits less than 2 per cent of global greenhouse gases, does not adopt an ETS are patent nonsense."

The Government also faces growing calls to offer free permits to polluters to stagger the impact of putting a price on carbon, or embrace the Howard government option of a safety valve system that would place an effective cap on the price of carbon, allowing polluters to pay a fine rather than buy more permits once a certain price for carbon was exceeded.

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Emissions Trading Scheme Will Kill Family Farms

Forget all the arguments about global warming being real or not. It's too late for that. What is real is that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is hell bent on introducing an Emissions Trading Scheme to prove to the world what a good global citizen Australia is, regardless of the consequences to our economy.

What the main stream media have missed in the flood of coverage is the potential devastation to rural Australia the emission trading scheme will be. Agriculture will not be a `covered' industry, you can back that in.

That is of little consequence. What it does mean is that an emission trading scheme will dramatically increase the cost of every farm input. Farmers unlike power stations and fuel refiners have zero ability to pass those costs on.

AgForce President Peter Kenny tells us that the modeling AgForce has done has shown that farm input costs will increase by 15-40% depending on the industry. Livestock producers are at the lower end of the scale with grain croppers and intensive industries at the high end.

This coming on top of a record year of AgFlation will be the death knell for many smaller farmers. New South Wales Farmers Federation President Jock Laurie recently told us that they believe AgFlation based on the 4 major farm inputs - chemical, fertiliser, diesel and interest rates is running somewhere between 60 and 80%. Jock said that they were waiting on modelling to be completed to come up with the final figure.

It is up to the National Farmers Federation as the peak farmer lobby to put farmers case before PM Rudd and his team. If they are not able to secure some relief for farmers from the burden of the emissions trading scheme we will see the greatest upheaval in rural Australia in our history. Family farms will be sold into large corporate farming ventures. Corporates with massive dollars behind them will be able to survive as they can operate under the efficiencies of sheer size & scale.

Corporate farming operations however do little or nothing for rural communities many of which will shrivel and eventually die under such a scenario. When a corporate operates a farming enterprise that was once operated by say 10 smaller family farms they do it with a skeleton permanent work force supplemented by `fly in' contractors. Infrastructure and services such as schools, hospitals, doctors, chemists and service businesses in these small communities depend on farming families. Without them these communities have no future.

So forget worrying about the 3 million people who may lose their jobs in the Energy sector, and power stations closing down. Those industries can pass their cost of emission permits onto consumers.

Be worried, very worried about yourselves and the 1,000's of other family farms that simply will not be viable as the manufacturers of every farm input, steel, timber, rubber, water, electricity, machinery, chemical, fertilizer, diesel, power etc pass those costs onto farmers who have no ability to pass them onto their customers.

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Garnaut scenario 'simply wrong'

CLIMATE change sceptics have attacked the Garnaut orthodoxy that without immediate action to slash greenhouse gas emissions, Australia will suffer "diabolical" consequences. Rejecting predictions that the Great Barrier Reef would be destroyed and rainfall patterns radically altered without immediate moves to cut carbon emissions, climatologist Stewart Franks said scenarios set out by Ross Garnaut were simply wrong. "The whole idea that you can say that by 2030 or 2040 rainfall will be a certain percentage less is a complete nonsense because it ignores the natural variability," he said.

Professor Franks, an expert in hydro-climatic variability at the University of Newcastle in NSW, said Australia's current drought had nothing to do with increased carbon emissions, but was instead caused by natural rainfall events. "We have these incredibly dry periods that can last for decades, and we then have these similar decades that are wetter than average. This is all due to El Nino and La Nina," he said.

Professor Franks said although Australia was very dry, it had more water per capita than any other country in the world. "It's a question of how we manage that water, and we've been particularly bad at managing the Murray-Darling Basin," he said. Professor Franks said an emissions trading scheme would achieve nothing. "The truth is that there will be a lot of pain for absolutely no gain," he said.

But even those who accept Professor Garnaut's predictions about the impact of current levels of greenhouse gas emissions are not convinced that an emissions trading scheme in 2010 is the best solution. Concept Economics executive director of analysis Brian Fisher said he did not question the science underlying Professor Garnaut's draft report, but it was futile "cutting the throats of the Australian export industry" unless the rest of the world also agreed to take action on their carbon output. "Having an emissions trading scheme in Australia will not save the Barrier Reef. What we need is full global co-operation," he said.

Dr Fisher said the best way to combat global warming was to persist with multilateral negotiations. "None of these things happen in a day," he said. "I think, frankly, we've got another 10 hard years of negotiation before we make the sort of progress we need to have both the developed and developing countries on board."

Dr Fisher backed Professor Garnaut's view that Australia should invest heavily in clean technology. "But unless there can be proper account taken of the impact on competitiveness of trade-exposed industries, all we're going to do is reduce Australia's welfare, reduce jobs in Australia, and basically make little or no contribution to solving the problem," he said.

ITS Global principal Alan Oxley said Professor Garnaut was wrong to suggest the problem required urgent action. "The argument has no basis - we do have the luxury of time. It's a 100-year problem," he said. "This is something we should be beginning quite gingerly." Mr Oxley, a former Australian ambassador to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, said there was no point in Australia acting faster to cut its emissions than the rest of the world. "At this point, we should be somewhat experimental, and just see how it goes," he said.

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More BOM nonsense

Australia's Bureau of Meteorology are Warmist true believers. Predicting widespread drought as a result of warming shows how dishonest they are. Warmer seas evaporate more and lead to MORE rain

A DIRE new scientific report predicts severe droughts and a tenfold increase in the number of extremely hot days in Australia. The Federal Government, which commissioned the nation's top scientists to compile the report, described the predictions as "like a disaster novel". "Exceptionally hot years are likely to occur every one to two years on average over the period 2010 to 2040," it warns.

Released just days after the Garnaut report on climate change and emissions trading, the report predicts devastating consequences for farming and the environment. It suggests that in the next 20 to 30 years, droughts will be far more frequent and severe across Australia, with South Australia, the Murray-Darling Basin and Western Australia faring worst of all.

The conclusions cast yet more doubt on the slow pace of reform of water use in the Basin after governments last week refused to free up water trading between regions or to accelerate a 10-year water licence buy-back program. The report says a 10 per cent drop in mean annual rainfall across most of Australia is possible, leading to a tripling of the risk of "exceptionally" low rainfall in SA.

Independent scientists and climatologists at the CSRIO and the Bureau of Meteorology compiled the "Drought: Exceptional Circumstances report. Agriculture Minister Tony Burke yesterday released the report and said the outlook was extremely worrying. "While this is a scientific report, parts of those higher-end predictions read more like a disaster novel than a scientific report," he said. "When we talk about extreme temperature, the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology have found that events of extreme temperature that used to occur once every 20 to 25 years are now likely to occur once every one to two years, as we move towards the year 2030. "South Australia and the Murray-Darling Basin region are among the worst affected regions in Australia."

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd described the report as "very disturbing". "When it comes to exceptional or extreme drought, exceptionally high temperatures, the historical assumption that this occurred once every 20 years has now been revised down to between every one and two years," he said. "Now this is a serious revision of the impact of climate change on drought."

The study divided Australia's agricultural regions into seven areas. SA and the southern half of WA were treated as one giant region designated "SW WA". It found under more extreme scenarios, drought declaration - the first stage in securing emergency financial assistance for farmers - was likely to be necessary four times as often and across much bigger areas. "Declarations are likely to be triggered about twice as often (at least four times as often in SW WA) and over double the area (quadruple the area in SW WA)," the report concludes.

National Farmers' Federation chief executive Ben Fargher said it was clear from this study and Professor Garnaut's work more needed to be done to protect farmers. "Both reports highlight how exposed agriculture is to the risk of climate change," he told The Advertiser. "We agree there is a big risk, I mean we are working with the climate every day so no one feels more exposed to the risk than the people working in the climate."

He said the challenge now was to design policy to manage growing risks. This included dramatically increasing research and development in climate change, spending more on adaptation strategies, the use of drought-resistant species of plants to get "more crop from each drop", including greater use of genetically modified species.

The report's authors said the sheer frequency of drought and extreme temperature years effectively rendered useless the existing system of drought assistance. "In summary, this study suggests that the existing (emergency funding) trigger definition is not appropriate under a changing climate," they said. "Future drought policy may be better served by avoiding the need for a trigger at all."

The study follows the widely anticipated Garnaut draft report into the economic impact of climate change and the benefits of an emissions trading scheme. Professor Garnaut found the cost of doing nothing strongly outweighed the costs of establishing an ETS even if it meant petrol and electricity costs would rise. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong is due to release a Government discussion paper next week at the National Press Club in Canberra.

While Labor's criticism of the previous Howard Government was almost fanatical regarding taxpayer-funded advertising, Senator Wong yesterday hinted that a big advertising campaign could be in the offing to help sell an emissions trading scheme. "We do have to ensure that people understand what the emissions trading scheme will do, what climate change will mean," she said. "This is an enormous and complex policy challenge, so of course, the Government does have a responsibility to ensure the community is there."

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Garnaut failed on science and economics

By Piers Akerman

TAXPAYERS should ask Professor Ross Garnaut for their money back: his report is little more than a fearmongering document designed to bolster the age-old socialist agenda of wealth redistribution. It fails from the basis of science and it fails from the basis of economics but it will, however, warm the hearts of the anti-capitalist doom merchants of Europe and inner-urban branches of the Labor Party with its prognostications. Nostradamus would be proud.

Like all who have signed on to the view that humans are responsible for global warming, Professor Garnaut cites the IPCC's (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) projections on the rate of climate change as coming from a scientifically based consensus. This is complete rubbish. The only consensus was between bureaucrats who wanted to agree to a number, the energy-rich Saudis wanted a low number, the energy-deficient Europeans wanted a low number, and they struck a deal which is the basis of Professor Garnaut's consensus.

Starting with that humbug, he then segues to Australia and, with the arrogance of a Belinda Neal, proposes that Australia should be the global leader in a fight against climate change. King Canute could teach him a thing or two about humility but, then again, Professor Garnaut was handpicked for his task by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the master of agenda control.

The world is coming to an end, he says; Kakadu will be inundated, the Great Barrier Reef will die, the Murray-Darling river system will dry up unless we act now. Oh, sure. But where does he conjure up this fantasy from when the IPCC's own temperature projections are already falling over? Taken over the past 10 years, the trend line for temperature is flat. If taken from 2001, the trend shows global temperatures falling. It is as if he is suffering from some cognitive dissonance. Even the thousands of Argos robots which bob up and down through the ocean levels have measured no increases in temperatures as they sample at different depths.

Professor Garnaut's appearance at the National Press Club on Friday revealed him to be the bureaucrat's bureaucrat, which may be why our uber-bureaucrat Prime Minister fell for him in the first place. He is not, however, as polished as Sir Humphrey Appleby of Yes, Minister. Sir Humphrey would not, for example, have insinuated that the adoption of a new tax on industry would make rain fall on the Murray-Darling basin.

He would not have made the mistake of sending out a report which pointed to lower dam levels in the Perth region - which Professor Garnaut blamed on climate change - when those directly engaged in the West Australian water industry know that there is less run-off into Perth's dams now because of the regrowth in the once-cleared catchment area. Professor Garnaut and his team weren't able to model many important factors because of shaky data, yet he expects us to believe that his predictions of catastrophic consequence should be immediately acted upon.

A few weeks ago, Mr Rudd was congratulated by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for his support for multilateralism (the failed UN, that is), and Professor Garnaut is also a believer in such institutions, yet he believes that it is imperative that Australia take immediate action on climate change so our nation can be a role model for our neighbours. Who knows where they teach this stuff, but the notion of anyone of the failed states in the Pacific, or our great Indonesian neighbour to the north, deciding that we are role model in this or anything is so laughably arrogant that it defies description. Only a basket-weaving Balmain boy scout could possibly believe that other nations would willingly plunge into economic decline because Australia had set the lead.

The biggest environmental crisis facing us today is the collapse of the Murray-Darling system which has little to do with climate change and everything to do with bad political decisions on water use. The Rudd government and each of the Labor states put that in the too-hard basket last week and pushed it off for another committee meeting to decide what committee should decide on what action.

Senator Penny Wong, who has shown herself to be nothing more than a more eloquent version of her assistant minister, Peter Garrett, and just as useless, says Professor Garnaut's report demonstrates that Australia must act on the climate issue. Any reading of this irresponsible report would demand that any action be cautiously approached and taken only after exhaustive research, not Ruddite back-of-the-envelope modelling based on flawed inputs.

As for the haste, help me, what a joke. One bushfire, one volcano, one cyclone would destroy in seconds any efforts of a vastly greater magnitude than Australians could physically undertake over 50 years.

Perhaps Mr Rudd wants this report to artificially stampede Australians, to distract them from their more pressing economic problems - who knows? But it is worth recalling that the last major economic reform this nation underwent, the introduction of the GST (opposed by Labor and Mr Rudd in particular, until he won office), was sold to the public over 17 long years, by Labor Treasurer Paul Keating, Coalition Opposition leader John Hewson and Prime Minister John Howard. The public knew what it was getting.

Professor Garnaut throws up promises of disaster and hopes to generate a wave of fear which would force the Government to take some action. Forget it, and forget the notion that our near neighbours would line up to cut their economic throats just because we willingly plunged into recession to assuage the guilt of a gathering of gullible Gaia followers in Canberra.

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DANGEROUS FAD! Water and workouts to become compulsory for NSW toddlers

What a picnic for lawyers the first time a toddler gets seriously hurt as a result of this nonsense! It looks like the kids are to be given lots of water one way or another but THAT IS DANGEROUS EVEN IN ADULTS -- to the point of death. And quite small amounts of water given to children can lead to water intoxication, resulting in brain damage. See also here, where it speaks of an "epidemic" of water intoxication among U.S. children. Blasted know-nothing faddists!

Children as young as three will undergo compulsory exercise regimes of up to two hours every day in preschools. The New South Wales Government's anti-obesity program also phases out junkfood with kids now drinking watered down juices and low-fat milk and parents receiving a list of recommended foods for their children's lunchboxes. Star jumps, action-singing songs as well as catching, jumping and running are just some of the exercises included in the roll call of daily activities.

The Munch 'n' Move blueprint aims to bring down the rocketing rates of childhood obesity [Utter rubbish! Obesity peaked in the late 1990s] in NSW with one in five preschoolers now either overweight or obese.

Nearly 1000 preschools will implement the new healthy lifestyles policy within the next 18 months, with childhood teachers in 14 centres receiving their initial training this week. "We do music and movement every day but this program also encourages us to do more structured exercise outside where we are teaching children the finer points in jumping, running, hopping, galloping and fundamental movement skills," said educator Vicky Smith from Five Dock preschool, which is implementing the program.

NSW Health's Centre for Health Advancement director Liz Develin said once the preschools were completed the program would be rolled out in long-day care centres. She said that while some parents might question the need to force active three-year-olds into exercise, Ms Develin said recent research showed 89 per cent of children aged four to five spend more than two hours watching a screen every day. "A lot of three to five-year-olds have started these bad habits early," Ms Develin said. [PROVE that it's a bad habit!] "If children are well equipped in fundamental movement skills they are more likely to participate in physical activity and sport later - they'll have the basic skills of how to run, throw and jump rather than just running around erratically."

Early childhood teachers will receive a 188-page manual outlining the details of the new exercise and food program, which includes giving children water rather than fruit poppers and cordials so that kids don't develop a sweet tooth. It also recommends limiting giving juice to once a day and to the 100 per cent variety, which is then diluted by water by at least half, and suggests reduced-fat milk for children over two.

NSW Health Minister Reba Meagher said the program was devised to combat the growing number of overweight preschoolers as well as educate parents. "There is clear evidence that the number of people who are overweight or obese is increasing," she said. "By the time NSW children reach kindergarten nearly 18 per cent of them are either overweight or obese."

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MORE MEDICAL MAYHEM

Three current articles below:

NSW paramedics being worked to death

An inquiry into the New South Wales Ambulance Service has heard many paramedics feel so stressed and overwhelmed by their workloads they are contemplating suicide. The Upper House inquiry has heard Three in Four ambulance officers feel over worked in the job, while a number of submissions have raised serious concerns about bullying.

Phil Roxbrough, Ambulance station manager in Moruya on the NSW south coast, told the hearing bosses needed to do more to address the problems associated with stress. "I hear stories from so many people who have come so close to attempting suicide or have gone through some really horrific experiences and someone needs to be a voice for these people, to care for these people," he said.

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Tasmanian public hospital bed shortages

Ongoing pressures at the Royal Hobart Hospital have surfaced again with staff and patients reporting issues across a number of departments yesterday. Australian Nursing Federation state secretary Neroli Elis said up to five ambulances were ramped outside the Emergency Department yesterday because of a drastic shortage of staff and beds. She said one patient in emergency had arrived at 8pm on Thursday and had not received a bed by 4.30pm yesterday. It follows an emergency meeting between staff and management last weekend after complaints that emergency patients were being left to wait on trolleys in corridors for up to 36 hours before beds were found.

Ms Ellis said the hospital was admitting elective surgery patients in order to meet its Commonwealth targets while emergency patients were left in crowded waiting rooms.

RHH spokeswoman Pene Snashall said the emergency department had not been abnormally busy. "I cannot find any evidence to substantiate their claims," Ms Snashall said. "The individual patient they refer to is not in (the emergency department) -- not on a trolley -- she is actually in the short-stay facility of ED under the care of neurosurgery specialists. "It is mischievous to suggest this person waiting in a waiting room or sitting in a chair for that amount of time."

Meanwhile a pregnant woman rang the Mercury yesterday to complain of overcrowding in the antenatal ward. "There are some very tired ladies here with heavy bellies and children running around and there are no seats for anyone," the woman said. "Staff have said we can look forward to a wait of one to two hours."

Last week, RHH chief executive Craig White admitted conditions in the hospital's maternity outpatient clinic were unsatisfactory but said there were limited options for improvement because of space constraints in the ageing hospital.

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Bulgarian doctor repeatedly botched surgery

While the regulators sleepwalked about it

A doctor accused of wrongly operating on patients and lying about the mistaken removal of a woman's ovary has just re-registered to practise. Dr Ivan Lubenov Popov is alleged to have lied to patients and misled staff about his procedures in an attempt to cover-up botched and potentially illegal medical procedures.

Documents filed to the Health Practitioners Tribunal registrar reveal a string of women have suffered complications and heartache since December 2006 because of the alleged negligent practices of the obstetrician and gynaecologist, who worked at the Caboolture Hospital. In one case he allegedly removed a woman's ovary that was meant to be preserved during a hysterectomy, and while admitting the surgical mistake to his superiors, continued to lie to the woman about the reason for its removal.

Four other women suffered complications following "inappropriate" surgery, which the Medical Board of Queensland claims should not have been performed at a provincial hospital given the women's medical history and potential for the operations to be complicated. In another case he is alleged to have consented to a medical procedure on a pregnant woman which he knew would result in a termination of her pregnancy, which she had earlier told him was unwanted.

But the Medical Board of Queensland said a termination was outside Queensland Health guidelines and Dr Popov deliberately tried to obfuscate the intent to perform the termination and misled his superiors and colleagues in the case.

The obstetrician is accused of negligence in a seventh instance, when he left a woman in labour with twins under the supervision of junior staff only, after ordering the top-up of an epidural. Dr Popov was able to continue his alleged cowboy operations on patients until he left his practice in July last year. It took another 11 months for the Medical Board of Queensland to place restrictions on his practice. It has now lodged action in the Health Practitioners Tribunal to have disciplinary action taken against him.

Dr Popov has re-registered to practise as a doctor from July 1 this year. But Queensland Health said he was no longer working for them and under Medical Board of Queensland guidelines, he has not been able to practise privately since the middle of last month. Queensland Health has also referred the matter to the Crime and Misconduct Commission and the Health Quality and Complaints Commission.

Spokesmen for both Queensland Health and the Medical Board of Queensland said they were unable to provide any more information on the doctor, who is understood to have moved to South Africa. Lawyers listed as a contact for Dr Popov in a Medical Board of Queensland document last month said yesterday they no longer represented him and were unable to assist with any further information. Neighbours at his last known address at Redcliffe said Dr Popov packed up and moved to South Africa last week. Dr Popov received his Diploma of Medicine from a University in Varna, Bulgaria, in 1990.

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RUDD'S GREEN SUICIDE: DELAY CARBON TAX OR LOSE INVESTORS, ENERGY COMPANIES WARN

AUSTRALIA risked tarnishing its reputation with international investors if an emissions trading scheme was implemented too swiftly, destroying the value of existing power assets, TRUenergy managing director Richard McIndoe says. "Given that Australia is really going out on a point on this matter ... to introduce a high (carbon) tax immediately would be fraught with risk," Mr McIndoe said yesterday. "I think you'd see significantly less appetite from international investors in (energy) assets because they'd see a huge level of sovereign risk in investing in the electricity sector in Australia."

A discussion paper issued by Mr Garnaut in March sparked an outcry by recommending that all carbon permits be auctioned from the outset, without any free permits for trade-exposed and energy-intensive industries.

Australian lawmakers want to create a market-based emissions trading system that caps the amount of carbon dioxide that power generators can produce. If companies emit more than their cap allows, they would have to buy carbon permits from companies that have a surplus. The theory is that this so-called cap-and-trade system gives companies a financial incentive to clean up.

But for a generator and retailer like TRUenergy, a unit of Hong Kong-based CLP Holdings, the consequences of an emissions trading scheme could be dire. Mr McIndoe said brown coal generators in Victoria alone could see the value of their existing generation assets written down by as much as 90 per cent, or $12 billion, as an emissions trading scheme made them costlier to run than cleaner alternatives. "Clearly, if you have to write that off your balance sheet, it's going to cause some major financial impairment," he said.

More here

The good old ocean acidity scare gets another outing in Australia

The writers below DO NOT believe in global warming. They only say they do. Why? Because warmer oceans are capable of holding LESS CO2. Open a bottle of Coke when it is warm and see how the gas surges out if you doubt it. And if the oceans have less CO2 in them, they contain less of the carbonic acid that the CO2 becomes while in solution! So the oceans would have a REDUCED tendency towards acidity under warming. The fact that corals etc. have survived much warmer periods in the earth's past is also conveniently not mentioned.

Now that Ross Garnaut's draft report has been released, most of the climate change debate in Australia will focus on the economic effects of any emissions trading scheme. However, there's another carbon problem, which will profoundly affect our oceans, that has received scant attention beyond a small band of marine scientists and is largely independent of global warming. The public, aware of the role of carbon dioxide in climate change, doesn't know of its function in acidifying the oceans and the hundreds of years that would be required for recovery.

Ocean acidification refers to the natural process whereby carbon dioxide dissolves in the sea, forming a weak carbonic acid. The ocean is a major sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide and has absorbed about 48 per cent of the CO2 emitted by human activities since the pre-industrial age. A recent report from the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre claimed that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is at its highest level in 650,000 years, and possibly 23 million years, and half has been dissolved in the oceans, making them more acidic.

Australia has a direct stake in the ocean acidification problem: it will affect every part of our marine environment. And our offshore estate has just become a lot bigger. Three months ago the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, while not accepting all bids, recognised Australia's claim to the continental shelf where it extends beyond our exclusive 200 nautical mile economic zone. This is a vast oceanic area: 2.5 million square kilometres, or 10 times the size of New Zealand and 20 times the size of Britain.

Rising levels of acidity in the oceans surrounding Australia could have a profound impact on marine industries and dire consequences for many Pacific Island communities, presenting strategic and humanitarian challenges.

Mounting levels of CO2 in the Southern Ocean has caused deep concern among scientists studying the long-term productivity of the world's oceans. Under conditions of increasing acidification, parts of the oceans will deteriorate and progressively become uninhabitable for certain types of plankton, central to the ocean food chain, and coral structures. The Southern Ocean is particularly important because it is very efficient at absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere: it's here where the first effects are being felt.

Ocean acidification is likely to have a cascading effect, reaching parts of the food chain such as fish and shellfish. Marine researchers are saying that a business-as-usual scenario of CO2 production will ultimately result in destruction of marine life on an enormous scale. Some shell-forming species will struggle to maintain or reproduce their vital shell structures and skeletons, which will have a direct effect on the ocean food web. Some species will decline, others will be displaced or will disappear, and patterns of fisheries will change, potentially threatening the food security of millions in the Asia-Pacific and damaging Australian fisheries economically.

Another study identified ocean acidification as a primary causal factor in common reef fish getting lost at sea during a crucial stage of their development. And rising acidification could also interfere with the respiration of fish, the larval development of marine organisms and the ability of oceans to absorb nutrients and toxins.

Coral reefs such as the Great Barrier Reef, which are hot spots of biodiversity, will suffer. Acidification will weaken coral structures and stunt coral growth, leading to a significant decline by the middle of this century. This will deprive parts of the Australian coastline of a natural protective barrier against the ocean, leading to greater threats from storm activity and cyclones.....

As the debate about who wins and who loses in the future Australian emissions trading regime intensifies, we should remember that with ocean acidification there will only be losers. Discovering the ecological effects of our souring oceans requires urgent action.

The authors above: Anthony Bergin is director of research programs at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Ross Allen is a research analyst at ASPI. The above are their personal views. It looks like both of them reply on others for a knowledge of chemistry and physics

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Victorian rapist stays anonymous

The identity of a rapist will remain a mystery to the community after a judge yesterday rejected an application for him to be identified. In May the Sunday Herald Sun launched legal action seeking to reveal the identity of the serial rapist and pedophile. In the County Court yesterday that action was refused after the judge ordered the rapist -- who can be referred to only as "the respondent" -- become the subject of a 15-year extended supervision order under new state legislation.

After a day of expert evidence on behalf of the rapist on Thursday, Judge Margaret Rizkalla yesterday deemed suppression of his identity and psychiatric reports would best serve the interests of the community. The judge said the public interest was "clearly balanced in favour of a suppression order, which would allow . . . the protection of the community [HOW??] and treatment and rehabilitation of the offender to be realised". The Herald & Weekly Times argued that any suppression orders were premature.

The judge said: "This submission, even if accepted, does not address the issue of any adverse emotional and psychological effect on the respondent [WHAT ABOUT THE EFFECT ON HIS VICTIMS??] if material is published, which in turn has the potential to affect the efficacy of treatment and rehabilitation -- which are the safeguards which the legislation relies upon for the protection of the community." [Relying on rehabilitation!! What a joke! That's the last thing you could rely on]

Crime Victims' Support Association president Noel McNamara scoffed at the suppression order. "People in the community are entitled to a fair go by having a fair idea who these people are and where people like this bloke are living at any given time," he said.

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Cairns: Australia's relaxed tropical resort city

No shock, horror about topless women just a few minutes' walk from the city centre



The topless sunbaking area at the Esplanade Lagoon is here to stay, despite fears it is drawing pervs and creeps into the city. As debate continues to rage over whether women walking around the city are increasingly being ogled, whistled at and subjected to lewd remarks, Lagoon regular Renny Dagostino said a stricter dress code at the popular swimming and sunbaking spot would help clear out many of the undesirables.

But Cairns Mayor Val Schier said while she understood there were objections to topless sunbaking at the Lagoon, she stood by previous mayor Kevin Byrne's decision five years ago to set aside the northern grassed area for that purpose. "I certainly have had feedback that some families and others don't frequent that area because they are not comfortable with nudity and it is certainly offensive to them," Cr Schier said. "But, at the same time, the majority of people do accept it these days. "We get very few complaints, maybe because most people have either accepted it or they just go elsewhere. "Personally, I'm relaxed about it."

Regarding complaints of sexual harassment of women on city streets, sparked by 24-year-old inner-city restaurant worker Karissa Harris's concerns in The Cairns Post on Tuesday about being constantly subjected to lewd remarks, Cr Schier said no form of rudeness should be tolerated. But as for wolf-whistling, she said she couldn't see the harm. "Despite my advanced age, I still do get some whistles now and then and generally it brings a smile to my face," said the 58-year-old. "Obviously, there is a point where you draw the line but if it's done in a friendly way, I don't take offence."

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Government protecting AIDS criminal

Victims charged $35,000 in HIV case

The South Australian State Government is demanding victims of alleged HIV sex predator Stuart McDonald pay up to $35,000 to access crucial information about him, court documents say. Lawyers for a man suing the state over his alleged HIV infection accused the Government of threatening victims with "financial ruin" to stop them pursuing compensation claims. They said demands of $35,000 just to inspect documents were "outrageous".

The Victorian man and another alleged victim have launched District Court claims. They argue authorities failed to properly supervise Mr McDonald when he was subject to a Health Department control order. Mr McDonald, 42, is alleged to have "deliberately and recklessly" infected eight men with the HIV virus between January, 2005, and mid-2006.

One claimant's lawyer, Leo Redden, wrote to the Crown Solicitor's office seeking access to documents from the Health Department and a Sexually Transmitted Diseases clinic relating to Mr McDonald's control order. A letter from the Crown Solicitor's office said there were "approximately 2000 documents potentially within the scope of your request." "This would amount to some 170 hours' work. The cost, therefore is likely to be in excess of $35,000," it said. "Could you please confirm your client is aware of this and is agreeable to pay the relevant costs."

In a strongly worded reply, Mr Redden accused the state of using threats against his client. "The suggestion that (my client) and others could each be liable to the State of South Australia for an amount of $35,000 is outrageous and appears to be nothing more than (a) ... threat, designed to dissuade our clients from pursuing their legal entitlements," he wrote. "It is aimed at allowing a powerful litigant such . . . to threaten financial ruin to members of the public."

The alleged victim, 31, who lives in Melbourne, claims to have been infected by Mr McDonald after they met on an internet dating site. Prosecutors have alleged Mr McDonald infected eight victims after meeting them through the Gaydar website - at the same time he was subject to the control order.

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Rudd's Fuel Botch

One result of rising global fuel prices has been the long list of bad policy ideas trotted out to try to ease the pain. Now Kevin Rudd is making his own humble contribution: FuelWatch. The Australian Prime Minister's proposal, currently under consideration in the Senate, would require service stations to set their prices only once every 24 hours. At 2 p.m. each day they would report their next day's price to the government, which would post the information on a Web site that afternoon. The price would take effect at 6 a.m. the next morning, and any change - up or down - would be forbidden until the next period.

Studies of a similar program in the state of Western Australia have found minimal benefits to consumers. Critics argue that prices don't fall as far under the system as they otherwise would during "soft" days in the retail market. Intraday price-setting is complex, involving factors as varied as changing traffic patterns, current supplies and the time of the next delivery. The Rudd plan would bar retailers from responding immediately to market signals. The danger is that retailers will set prices unduly high in the fear that if they mistakenly set a price too low they won't be able to fix their error for 24 hours.

As for the second component, the government information service, the private sector is already doing that anyway. Web sites, radio stations and newspapers all alert consumers to cheap petrol. FuelWatch would be more comprehensive, but it's not exactly filling a vacuum. Oh, and Australians are already showing signs of driving less and buying more efficient cars - another market response.

The problem in Australia, as elsewhere, is rising fuel prices. Meddling in an already complex market won't fix that, and carries a big risk of making things worse.

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Vin ordinaire comes to Australia and the wowsers are fuming



France has had very cheap rough red like this for centuries without degenerating into a mass of drunks so why is it a problem for Australia? The only difference is that the Australian drop is a lot less ordinaire. Dan Murphy's cleanskins are pretty good

Health advocates want the price of alcohol capped at a minimum with a major liquor chain now selling bottles of wine for just $2 a bottle. Liquor giant Dan Murphy's promotion means its cleanskins are selling for 25 cents per standard drink.

Health campaigners say grog discounting has gone too far and insist a government-imposed price minimum should be considered. The Australian Drug Foundation's alcohol director Geoff Munro said heavy drinkers consumed more as prices fell. "It's not appropriate to treat alcohol as though it belongs in a $2 shop,'' Mr Munro said. "It's now cheaper than water.'' "This indicates that goverments should explore introducing aminimum price for alcohol.''

Wine has a 13 per cent concentration while alcopops - which have been hit with a controversial new tax - have concentrations of between five and nine per cent.

Mr Munro said cheap drinks encourged excess consumption. "Heavy drinkers will drink more as the price comes down,'' he said. "To be selling bottles of wine for less than $2 is going to encourage heavy drinkers, and possibly underage people, to consume more.'' "The price will make wine much more attractive to young people and we need to monitor that situation given that alcopops have increased in price with the tax.''

In Britain, a major supermarket chain had called for a floor price on booze, saying it is the only way to stop competitive discounting among retailers. Scotland is planning a floor price per unit of alcohol, based on concentration, to beat its binge drinking problem.

Source.

NOTE for overseas readers: "Wowser" is a traditional Australian term for temperance campaigners and killjoys of all sorts. Their headquarters used to be the Methodist church but Australia wisely abolished that church a quarter of a century ago. Such people now seem to infest the Salvation Army





Climate scheme would cost plenty



Fuel prices would skyrocket under new plans to tackle climate change. However, poorer families would be cushioned from the full impact. The government's climate change guru, Professor Ross Garnaut has called for transport to be included in an emissions trading scheme, setting the stage for fuel prices to spiral far beyond those caused by the current oil crunch.

The distinguished economist today released a draft report he prepared for the federal and state Governments on climate change and the introductions of emissions trading. Prof Garnaut said low-income families should be compensated for higher fuel and power costs when the scheme was introduced. He also said the Government should make payments to emissions-intensive industries which could lose jobs overseas if they had to cope with higher costs.

Under emissions trading, a cap will be placed on the amount of carbon which can be emitted into the atmosphere. Companies will be able to purchase and trade permits which allow them to emit carbon gases. Prof Garnaut said as many industries should be included in the scheme as possible, including transport. He said the money the Government earned from the scheme should be spent on compensating low-income households and business.

``The direct price effects of the emissions trading scheme will be regressive,'' Prof Garnaut said. ``The effects will fall heavily on low-income households, so the credibility, stability, efficiency and longevity of the scheme require the correction of these regressive effects by other measures.'' Prof Garnaut said the coal industry should be given support to reduce carbon emissions and to develop technology which buried carbon gasses under ground.

He said international cooperation on fighting climate change was essential. ``The weight of scientific evidence tells us that Australians are facing risks of damaging climate change,'' Prof Garnaut said. ``The risk can be substantially reduced by strong and early action by all major economies. ``Without that action, it is probable that Australians, over the 21st century and beyond, will experience disruption in their prosperity and enjoyment of life, and to long-standing patterns in their lives.''

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Greenie laws harming agriculture

Brooke Milini is the third generation of his family to work at the Tully sugar mill and wants his children to have the opportunity to become the next generation. But as a worker and a union shop steward, he is worried about the impact of new laws to fight greenhouse gas emissions on his children's future jobs, his job and the jobs of fellow union members.

On the eve of the release of the Garnaut report on greenhouse gas emissions and as cabinet considers how to include agriculture in an emissions trading scheme, the threat to Mr Milini already exists. The National Farmers Federation warned yesterday that rigid and short-sighted greenhouse gas emissions rules could place agriculture "in serious jeopardy".

The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union shop steward agrees with the NFF that an over-emphasis on reforestation to combat greenhouse gases could lead to reduced food production just as the world faces shortages and rising commodity prices.

Tax breaks for forests grown as "carbon sinks" so that greenhouse gas emitters can buy credits to offset emissions are alienating agricultural land and have been blamed for reducing water flows into the Murray-Darling river system. "The forests are expanding because of tax breaks and there's less land now for growing cane," Mr Milini said yesterday. Investors could afford to pay high prices for land to grow forests because of the tax advantages and outbid cane farmers. "Other crops are affected around here, bananas and other food, but it's mainly a threat to cane growing," he said.

In the past 18 months, 12 per cent of the cane paddocks in the Cairns region have been lost to managed-investment forestry schemes. With new laws passed last week encouraging even more forestry investment, the alienation of arable land is a trend sugar millers and farmers fear will end their industry. It is estimated the new laws, proposed by the previous government as evidence of action on greenhouse gas emissions, would lead to 81,500ha being sown as new carbon sink forests by 2011 when the Howard ETS was to come into being. "I have three children and I'd like them to be able to think about getting a job in the mill, which supplies a lot of work for the locals," Mr Milini said. "I'm worried about them and my union members. It's something that's always in the back of your head."

Yesterday, the NFF warned that wider food production here could be threatened as agriculture is included in an ETS under the Kyoto Protocol provisions, which "emphasise reforestation as the primary tool for sequestering carbon". "As the need for food production grows expotentially, we must ensure farming is not hamstrung in the process," NFF president David Crombie said. "It is imperative the international rules dictating Australia's ETS - determining domestic climate change policy and carbon markets to ensure compliance with the international policy regime and a future global carbon market - take full and reasonable account of Australia's needs," hesaid.

Nationals senator Ron Boswell said yesterday the failed Howard government forestry proposals demonstrated the need to get an ETS right.

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Fantasizing woman meets reality

She was probably unattractive and sought an escape from that

Amid a chaotic swirl of people, car horns and dust, the donkey carrying Tanya Louise Smith slowly approached a place a world away - and civilisations apart - from anything she had experienced in the suburban calm of Sydney: the Gaza Strip. Almost three months pregnant and no doubt feeling the effects after her long journey from Yemen, Ms Smith, 20, was about to enter a place where few young Australians had ventured.

The Muslim convert's odyssey from Sydney had taken her to the ancient city of Sana'a, in Yemen, where she met and married a Palestinian from Gaza and immersed herself in Islamic studies along with a small group of similarly devout Australians. But when Gaza-based militants blew up the border wall with Egypt in mid-January, a door into another world was opened to foreigners for the first time in decades. Within hours of the border breach, tens of thousands of people were on the move across Arabia - Palestinians marooned outside the strip for years, would-be jihadis wanting to take up arms against neighbouring Israel, adventurers, MPs from other Arab states, and a lone Australian woman in search of her in-laws.

Ms Smith's husband, Ahmed, had sent her to his birthplace so his parents could support her during her pregnancy. He planned to join them two weeks later, after finishing his studies at the al-Imam University in Sana'a. But the border was sealed within days of being breached. Ahmed was locked out. Ms Smith was locked in.

For the next four months, she remained with her in-laws and their extended family in a modest Gaza district in the northern region of Sajaya. She maintained a puritanical lifestyle as a devout Salafist Muslim, moving from the bathroom to her bedroom behind vanity screens and mixing only with a handful of people outside the family home. "I saw her most days she was here," said her uncle, Abu Darwiche. "But I would not recognise her if I saw her in Australia, because I never once saw her face." Ms Smith's mother-in-law cannot say exactly when it was, but sometime around March their new family member became even more reserved, retreating to her room, from where she would usually emerge only to eat.

On March 1, Israeli forces launched a large offensive into northern Gaza, aiming to put an end to rocket fire into nearby Israeli communities. In three days of fighting, more than 110 Gazans were killed, many of them militants. Sajaya was only a few blocks back from the front line of the conflict, and the sound of battle reverberated through its streets.

In Sydney, the young Australian's mother, Louise Smith, was beside herself. "She called many times and Tanya used to lock herself in her room and talk on her computer," said her father-in-law, Abu Mohammed.

Abu Mohammed's sister Hayat added: "Whenever her mother called her, we would try and comfort her. We know how a mother feels in these sorts of situations. My father would kiss her on the head and he said to her, 'You are my daughter'." The family took the 20-year-old for regular check-ups and say they regularly took peaches and apricots to her room. But by early April, they were seeing even less of her in their living room.

On April 17, Abu Mohammed took a phone call from Tel Aviv. "A lady called saying she was from the Australian embassy," he said. "She spoke Arabic very well and said, 'We respect your traditions and customs; we would just like to make Tanya's stay in Gaza legal. Can you please bring her to the Erez crossing (the only passenger crossing into Israel) and we will sort out her paperwork'. "I took her there myself and kissed her on the forehead as sheleft. I waited there from 11.30am until 7pm. We never saw her again."

After four months in Gaza, Ms Smith was taken by an Australian embassy official to Ben Gurion airport, where she boarded an El Al flight to Sydney, her Arabian odyssey over. "We have tried to call her many times, but her family always says she is tired, or sick," Abu Mohammed said. The family she left behind is still asking why, while her husband, marooned in Yemen, is pining for the wife he barely knew and their unborn child.

"He tells us many times that we have destroyed his life," said Abu Mohammed. "He says we should never have let her go. Now how can he go to Australia and look after his child? "The main thing that is upsetting us is she is pregnant," added Hayat. "If she wasn't, we would say OK, this happens in life. But can you imagine her having a child in Australia by herself? "For a full month we were crying after she left. She wanted to live in the apartment alone. And culturally and Islamicly, we could not let her do that."

She said the family was very loyal to Ms Smith and treated her well. "Another reason we were so proud of her was she was Christian, then became a Muslim," she said. "We said to her: 'Your father has a farm and you are leaving Australia to come here. God will reward you for your sacrifices.' "We asked her: 'Would you like to go back?' She said: 'I really miss Australia, but it is a kafir (unbeliever) land.' "She had no family here and she was deprived of her husband so we wanted very much to make her feel comfortable. It was important that she have a good image of Islam and how Muslims treat people."

In December 2006, Ms Smith, from Winston Hills in Sydney's northwest, posted a note on an Australian newspaper's website explaining why she had converted to Islam. "To share and enjoy the life and love of a relationship that is not managed by fear and abuse, especially not abuse that is cloaked in the name of any religion," she wrote.

"As a Muslim woman I am free from any abuse because of my religion - Islam. It is because of my Islam that I don't live infear of a husband that comes back every night to bash me untilI'm black and blue, and then rape me." The posting went on to blame alcohol - banned in Islam - for most domestic violence. "It is because of Islam that I am empowered as a woman and not sexually exploited by man, I dress for God and not for man," she went on. Islam did not permit women to be used and abused to sell alcohol and bubblegum, she wrote. "That's why I am one of many converts to Islam and that's why Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world amongst women."

Ms Smith defended her religion on the newspaper website. "Islam liberated women 1500 years ago," she wrote. "We have enjoyed the freedoms and rights of keeping our last names as we are not the property of our husbands, we have had the right to vote before the women's liberation movement in the last century, the right to keep our own money, choose who I want to marry, have the right to inheritance, run a business, the right to be protected and maintained by our husbands regardless of how rich I am."

Yesterday, in a suburban street in western Sydney, Ms Smith's father refused to comment, preferring to first contact his daughter to decide on a response. Later, Clyde Smith telephoned to say: "Tanya would like to say that we have no comment to make regarding the alleged story."

It is understood the Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra was aware of Ms Smith's situation in Gaza, and that Australian diplomats made representations to Israel and Egypt on her behalf. The matter was resolved within 10 days and the department's file on her closed.

It all began a few years ago. Ms Smith first arrived in Yemen in October 2006, and quickly settled into a community of pious Islamic Australians studying Islam and Arabic in Sana'a. Among the expatriates were Mohammed bin Ayub and Abdullah bin Ayub, the sons of the alleged former leader of Jemaah Islamiah in Australia, Abdul Rahim Ayub. The two men were arrested along with a third Australian, Marek Samulski, as part of a broad anti-terror sweep by Yemeni and British authorities. The trio was held for more than two weeks, but were later released without charge and asked to leave Yemen with their families. Samulski is living in South Africa with his wife, while the Ayubs and their families are believed to have travelled to Dar-es-Salam and then to Lebanon.

Ms Smith's Palestinian in-laws say she converted to Islam four years ago, and she was awarded a certificate of Islam from the Yemeni Government last year.

Regardless of her travails in Gaza, Ms Smith has apparently remained committed to Islam since returning to Australia, and she has consulted a fundamentalist Salafi imam.

Source

Police goons again

A BRISBANE grandfather, whom police pinned to the ground when they arrested him, is at the centre of calls for Police Minister Judy Spence's sacking. Bruce Rowe, 67, was pinned to the ground and kneed when arrested for being a public nuisance. Now the case has sparked calls for Ms Spence to be stood down over the way police treated him.

The Queensland Court of Appeal last week quashed the conviction of Mr Rowe, whose arrest under the state's controversial "move-on" laws, attracted substantial public attention in 2006 after it was captured on video. The video showed four officers pinning the elderly man to the ground, one repeatedly kneeing him in the leg.

The incident arose after Mr Rowe objected to being asked to leave a public bathroom in the Queen Street Mall. He had gone to the bathroom to change into warm clothing to set up "camp" on the Goodwill Bridge for the night. However, the Queensland Court of Appeal last week overturned Mr Rowe's conviction and the case is being hailed by civil libertarians as proof police need to review how they use the so-called "move-on" powers.

Writing in today's Courier-Mail, Queensland Council for Civil Liberties vice-president Peter Applegarth has called for Premier Anna Bligh to sack Ms Spence for failing to act since Mr Rowe's case first came to light. "It is time for the Police Minister to take political responsibility for a system that trains and encourages police to use excessive force in arresting people like Mr Rowe," Mr Applegarth writes.

Mr Rowe, who became homeless after he "fell apart" following the death of his wife from breast cancer five years ago, said yesterday he would never again trust the police. "I lived so dangerously for so long on the streets and the only people that harmed me were the people meant to protect me," Mr Rowe said. He is now off the streets after a "kind" stranger provided him with free accommodation at Woolloongabba.

Ms Spence said yesterday she had asked police for a report on the Court of Appeal ruling and whether there were any implications for training and procedures.

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Fixed plane had 60 defects - union

Unions are inclined to exaggerate but this one does sound bad

A plane returned from overseas maintenance last week with 60 defects that should have been fixed, including a galley that was not bolted in, a senate inquiry into aviation safety has been told. The inquiry is assessing the effectiveness of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority's (CASA) management and regulations and ways in which its rules could be tightened.

The Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA), which represents the industrial, technical and professional interests of engineers and other maintenance workers, told senators the quality of overseas work was not up to standard. It cited the example of an aircraft that returned from overseas last week with 60 defects that should have been fixed. "That aircraft has had faults such as earth wires not being connected which caused an electric shock to flight attendants in the galley," ALAEA senior industrial officer Gary Norris said. The work had been signed off by the airline, which had implemented a customer inspection requirement in its commercial contract, he said.

"Upon further investigation we were advised by our members, and we haven't had the documentation to verify it but we had been advised that, effectively, the securing bolts for the actual galley assembly may not have been secured," he told the inquiry. "And we're looking at a mass of approximately 300 kilos in an aircraft that hasn't been secured properly.

"This is a major concern in that the paper system that, in fact, the airlines rely on to ensure the work's done, is not making the link to the practical application of that paperwork." ALAEA spokesman Stephen Re, who gave evidence on behalf of engineers, said it highlighted concerns with the accreditation of overseas facilities. Mr Re said evidence suggested there was no process for the aviation authority to go to look at a plane being worked on in an overseas facility.

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Australians in Britain returning home

They are the boomerang migrants. Thousands of Australians who settled here are returning down under to escape the UK's economic slowdown and its spiralling cost of living. The Australian authorities have seen a 50% jump in the number of their citizens returning home from Britain since the credit crunch last summer.

Experts say that rising numbers of migrants from Poland, India and Nigeria are also quitting the UK for better jobs and the hope of a higher standard of living back home. Analysis this weekend has shown that the cost of running a family has grown by more in Britain than in any other country in the western world.

The exodus of foreign workers is already harming the building industry and causing alarm in the Square Mile. According to figures kept by the Australian government, 2,600 of their citizens have been returning home each month since last June. That compares with 1,750 a month between 2000 and 2005. Many Australians have been enticed back to their homeland by job opportunities created by a punchy economy that has grown by 3.6% over the past year.

The impact is likely to be much more serious than in previous decades when many Australian migrants to Britain were young travellers content to pull pints. The majority of Australians working in the UK are now employed in financial services and other professions, according to TNT, the magazine for Australians working in Britain.

Jason Cartwright, a director of Link Recruitment, an international employment agency, said the UK was already suffering a "brain drain" of Australian workers from the City. "In the UK's financial services sector, hiring freezes are increasingly common - but opportunities abound in the Australian market," he said. "There is also a belief that Australia is a safer bet while the credit crunch runs its course."

By contrast, City firms in London are expected to shed 6,500 jobs this year, with the economy predicted to grow by 1.7% - its lowest rate since 1992. On Friday, official figures showed that economic growth halved to 0.3% in the first quarter of this year. The Australian dollar hit an 11-year high against the pound in May, meaning Australians' sterling earnings have fallen by 21%in dollar terms over the past year.

Wiriaya Plukavec, 31, came to London from Sydney two years ago to work as a credit controller in the City. She plans to return home in the next few weeks. "I was going to stay another year but just got fed up with the cost of everything going up - bills, food, toiletries, rent, going out - everything," Plukavec said. "Life will just be a whole lot cheaper back in Sydney . . . and the weather will be better."

Chris Hurd, an Australian film-maker, returned to Sydney three months ago after a decade in Brighton. Hurd, 45, and his wife found new jobs easy to find. "We could never have raised a family in London - the cost is prohibitive," he said. "You can't get a rudimentary education in England without paying a fortune."

Nicola Brennan, 35, moved back to Melbourne earlier this year after 10 years working as an accountant for an investment bank. "My husband and I decided to return to Australia because we felt it was a much better place to start a family," she said.

Research published this weekend by the Economic Research Institute think tank shows that the annual housing, food, travel and other costs of a typical middle-class family of three in London has soared to 38,880 pounds - an increase of 2,160 in four months, a bigger rise than in any other main western city. The same standard of living now cost 32,706 in Sydney and 28,664 in Los Angeles.

There are no precise data on the number and nationality of migrants who have left over the past year; however, the Institute for Public Policy Research, the left-leaning think tank, has surveyed hundreds of migrants of all nationalities about their plans to leave. It calculates that half of the estimated 1m Polish plumbers, builders and other labourers who have arrived in Britain over the past four years have now returned home.

Britain's worsening economic climate is expected to drive more migrant workers back to their homelands. The cost of all foods have risen by an average of 6% this year, but the price of staples such as milk, butter, eggs, pasta and bread have risen by as much as 60%. Petrol prices have risen by 22%.

Government figures published on Friday showed that British savers tucked away 2.6 billion in the first quarter of this year - down from 7 billion on the final three months of last year.

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Victorian government ignores Greenie hysteria

New $750 million coal-burning power station

Just two days before the Garnaut report on climate change is handed down, the Victorian Government has given the go-ahead to a new brown-coal power station in Latrobe Valley. Environmental campaigners said it was "complete madness" to approve the $750 million plant, but the Government said the station would use new technology that would slash greenhouse gas emissions.

The project is a joint venture between consortium HRL and Chinese power giant Harbin Power, and will receive funding of $100 million from the Federal Government and $50 million from the Victorian Government. Expected to begin operating in 2012/13, it will aim to boost Victoria's power capacity by just under 5 per cent.

"The $750 million HRL plant will use technology which has been developed right here in Victoria and is part of the new generation of clean coal power stations designed to slash greenhouse gas emissions," said the Energy Minister, Peter Batchelor. "The project uses a process called integrated drying gasification combined cycle (IDGCC) which can reduce emissions of CO2 from brown coal-fired power generation by 30 per cent and reduce water consumption by 50 per cent, compared to current best practice for brown coal power generation in the Latrobe Valley."

Greenpeace energy campaigner Simon Roz said investing in coal-fired power at this time was "complete madness" and a step back for Victoria. "It shows we have a long way to go before governments take the issue of climate change seriously," he said.

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The latest school tyranny: Obsessive Principal tries to impose his hangups on little kids

Little children do have a faint but distinctive smell. You can smell it if you walk into any primary school. This principal obviously doesn't like it. The school's website makes a point of not giving the Principal's name but the Education Dept. advises that it is Mr Keith Graham. He should get a job where he does not come in contact with those pesky kids. Kids are harassed enough already with "obesity" campaigns etc without adding this latest hatred of normality to their burdens

Children as young as five have been told to wear deodorant to school -- and re-apply once a day. The edict was in Chatswood Hills State School's June 13 newsletter under the title "personal hygiene".

"Please remind your children that, although it is winter. it is still necessary to apply deodorant in the morning and reapply once during the school-day," the newsletter read. "Aerosols are not permitted but rollon brands are encouraged."

The Albert & Logan News spoke to parents, who found the request "odd" and 'weird", while Queensland University of Technology child psychology lecturer Dr Marilyn Campbell said it was "laughable". Dr Campbell, a teacher for 20 years, was shocked. "I haven't heard of such rubbish in my life," she said. "You have to be joking, asking them to reapply during the day. "I don't need to do that and I doubt children would."

Dr Campbell said she had concerns about anxieties such a request could bring. "Will this lead to pretend shaving for the boys, or make-up for the girls?" she said. "I don't think it is right; totally unnecessary. "It's making (pupils) super clean, restricting them from their normal experience."

An Education Queensland spokeswoman said in a statement that the health and wellbeing of staff and students at all Queensland state schools was the department's priority at all times. "Students wearing deodorant is a parental decision and Education Queensland has no policy enforcing its use," she said. "Schools may become involved if there is an issue related to student hygiene or if the issue is impacting on students' social and emotional development, but this is done at a local level, as the need arises." She said schools may also offer reminders to deal with the issue "holistically and sensitively", so individuals were not singled out.

What did Chatswood Hills State School parents think of the statement requesting them to make sure their children wore deodorant? The Albert & Logan News asked 20 parents if they were "comfortable" or "uncomfortable" with the edict. Fourteen said they were uncomfortable, while six said they were comfortable. Only a few of the parents polled were willing to comment publicly. Mother Ali Richards said she agreed with the advice in the newsletter, but thought the school could have worded it better. "It makes it sound like every kid is smelly -- it is generalising every kid," Ms Richards said. "It is up to the parents to teach kids that stuff, not the school." She said she would not instruct her child to reapply during the day, leaving the decision up to the child.

Parent Mitko Kostovski said he thought the school's request was a "bit weird" "If they (children) do wear it, they won't reapply -- they are too busy playing," Mr Kostovski said. One mother, Jaimie Byrne, said she supported the idea and had no problems with the Chatswood Hills school's request. "It is a good thing I think," Ms Byrne said. "I think it could help the kids to stop some getting bullied if they do have body odour." Ms Byrne said her child, who was in Year 5, was given a hygiene talk, which she understood was more for the comfort of the class.

The article above by DANIEL TANG appeared in the "Albert & Logan News" of Friday, June 27, 2008






Amazing: Global warming questioned on popular TV show

Channel 9s "Sunday" show. Video links at the source given below

The theory of anthropogenic, or man-made, global warming has become an unchallengeable fact, a piece of black letter law almost unique in the world of science.

Proponents of the theory say the time for scientific debate is over. It would irresponsible to fund any further research into counter views on the relationship between elevated levels of carbon dioxide and a rise in temperatures since the mid-1970s.

It's regarded as career suicide for scientists to advocate any counter view of the causes of global warming, let alone deny the orthodox consensus view as adopted by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

However, there is a school of thought that our knowledge of climate systems is as yet insufficient to be so conclusive on the causes of global warming.

Today Sunday examines the political consensus building that has portrayed global warming as the most urgent crisis humankind has ever faced.

Skeptics point to the gaps in the knowledge base and the flaws in the measurement of vital climate and weather data upon which the consensus is based.

Social researchers also highlight the dangers of conducting science as a form of religion, divided into believers and deniers.

They warn that as governments prepare to make expensive policy decisions, such as carbon emissions trading schemes, this consensus may not reflect the best science.

Source. Andrew Bolt comments here




CLIMATE POLICY SPLITS FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

PRESSURE over a new greenhouse gas regime and the looming Garnaut report on emissions trading is fuelling the deepest cabinet divisions over policy and politics since the election of the Rudd Government. Concerns are being aired about the possibility of the Government missing its starting deadline of 2010 for the emissions trading scheme and political backlash over rising costs and compensation for people and businesses affected by the scheme.

As part of the cabinet discussions, consideration is being given to subjecting Australia's entire food production industry - including cattle, sheep, pig and grain growing - to the fulleffects of the new carbon pricing system.

Cabinet and its climate change subcommittee have been sitting every day this week, sometimes almost to midnight, to decide how greenhouse gas producers, including the petrol and agriculture sectors, should be hit with a new carbon price. The cabinet has also been concerned with whether the extremely complex legislation to start an emissions trading scheme can be introduced, as promised in the election, from the middle of 2010.

And as US audiences at the annual Australian American Leadership Dialogue in Washington were told that the Rudd Government could become a "oncer" because of the impact of an emissions trading scheme, cabinet is becoming more pre-occupied with the political backlash over climate change measures. The Australian reported yesterday that union leader Paul Howes and former NSW Labor premier Bob Carr told the Washington meeting that Australia should consider nuclear energy as an option to cut greenhouse gases in 10 to 20 years' time.

Cabinet met again yesterday - after several meetings since last week - to discuss the ETS. Cabinet discussed whether price relief for petrol should be provided through an excise cut and when to include agriculture in the greenhouse gas reduction system. Under an ETS, industries that cannot meet greenhouse gas reduction targets will be forced to buy carbon permits, with the costs likely to be passed on to customers in the form of higher bills for services such as petrol and electricity. For every industry that is made exempt - or is given free carbon credits to continue polluting - the burden for cutting emissions is likely tofall more heavily on other industries.

Parliament has been divided this week over whether petrol should be included in an ETS, with Labor and Coalition accusing each other of internal confusion over the issue.

Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan and Climate Change Minister Penny Wong have this week reiterated the Government's determination to set up the ETS in 2010 - before the next election. But as complexities of technical measurement - such as livestock emissions - and the political ramifications for industry exemptions and compensation for consumers grow, there is concern the deadline may not be achievable. Yesterday, the Prime Minister was personally confronted on talkback radio with demands to explain the ETS and to take action on petrol prices.

The Opposition continued to concentrate on the impact on petrol prices of an ETS, which will set a price for carbon that will push up costs for energy-intensive industries, such as coal-fired electricity generation and aluminium, and transport if petrol is included.

Mr Rudd, the Treasurer and Senator Wong all refused yesterday to give any detail on the design of the ETS and all distanced themselves from the greenhouse gas emissions report the Government has commissioned from Ross Garnaut, which will be released next Friday. Senior government ministers fear the Garnaut report will adopt far more extreme proposals on cutting greenhouse gas emissions than the Government intends to publish in its own interim "green" paper in three weeks' time, inflaming public concern about threats to jobs and higher costs.

On petrol prices, Mr Rudd told the radio station 3AW that "if you act on climate change and you act on the price of carbon through an emissions-trading scheme, it does effect the price of energy and the price of oil". "The key question is, on the way through, how do you best support and compensate working families, working Australians, pensioners, carers, to deal with any price adjustment," the Prime Minister said. He said petrol costs were being considered, but would not say how relief would be delivered to motorists.

Senator Wong said the ETS would be introduced in 2010 because it was an election commitment. But it would not be introduced "regardless of cost". Part of the Government's task was to convince people that higher prices caused by the introduction of a carbon price would mean lower costs in the long term. "Taking early and responsible action will be more cost effective in the long run for Australia," she said. The minister said Professor Garnaut was "an important contributor to government thinking" and "an esteemed economist with a strong history of reform" but he was independent. "Just as he's independent so too the Government has to make its decisions," she said. "This is hard economic reform."

Some of the cabinet discussions concerned the issue of which agricultural sectors should be included in the ETS, and whether they should be put into the first or second phase of the new system. Mr Swan refused to talk about details of the cabinet discussions on the ETS, and said there would be a discussion of all issues related to an emissions-trading system. The Treasurer ruled out calls from Mr Howes, the Australian Workers Union national secretary, and Mr Carr to consider nuclear energy. Asked yesterday about the possibility of Labor embracing nuclear power, Mr Swan said: "No, a capital N-O".

Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson said yesterday the Coalition continued to support a 5c cut in petrol excise. The Coalition's environment spokesman Greg Hunt said the Opposition had set out to establish a petrol price policy in relation to an ETS that meant there was "no net rise in new petrol taxes".

Source




"Innovative" ambulance computer system fails yet again

We were orginally told it just needed oiling (or some such)

THE statewide rollout of the Emergency Services computer system has been put on hold after it went offline for a fourth time. Again ambulance and fire officers were forced to write incoming jobs on a whiteboard.

Yesterday morning's crash was the worst to date. All but two ambulance and fire communication centres were left without their computers for more than two hours, from before 3am until after 5am. Three previous system failures were put down to human error and the Department of Emergency Services said "early advice" was that human error was again to blame.

However Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts said the system's rollout to the remaining Central and South-eastern regions would be "put on hold" pending advice from the system's American supplier, who had been asked to analyse yesterday's outage. "I am advised that triple zero telephone and emergency services radio communications were not affected by this incident. Communication centre staff dispatched ambulance and fire crews using a manual back-up system," Mr Roberts said.

Fire officers have been highly critical of the new system, which they say has only been "half implemented" by the department making it ineffective. "The system is meant to locate the closest vehicle to an incident and dispatch that vehicle. But they're yet to install the automatic vehicle locaters in our trucks so it can do this," an officer said.

He said vehicles from two or three stations away were being sent to jobs instead and even driving past these manned stations on the way. "The most ridiculous example we had was when the computer tried to dispatch a vehicle from Capalaba station to a job on the Sunshine Coast," the officer said.

Fire communications centre staff have also raised concerns about screen freezes in the new system which can take valuable seconds off a job. "You're trying to talk to a coms centre operator and they're like, `Oh, wait a minute, the screen's frozen'. It happens every time," the officer said.

Mr Roberts said the "state of the art" computer-aided dispatch system was in use in communication centres across the world, including Australia and all of New Zealand's emergency services. "DES remains confident that its full implementation will result in improved response to calls for service from the community," he said.

Source





Through other eyes

UNLV basketball player Kendall Wallace is providing occasional postcards from the team's six-game tour of Australia. An installment below. His comment about prices being much higher in Australia than in the USA echoes my own experiences. The official exchange rate for the US and Australian dollar is about 1 to 1 so that is not the problem. Taxes, import duties and labour laws are probably the main problem. And Australia does not have cheap Hispanic labour -- JR

On Thursday, we went to the Sydney Opera House, which may be the most famous structure in the world. There was an architectural contest to see who could come up with the best design. The man who won pushed the limits of architecture. The plan originally was supposed to cost $2 million, but the project ended up costing more than $100 million.

To raise the extra money, the city of Sydney had a lottery, which raised it easily. The tour we took was informative and interesting.

The basketball games finally have started, and, after getting that first game out of the way, our team has beaten a solid team from Illawarra (on Friday), and (Saturday) we beat a professional team from West Sydney called the Razorbacks. They had only one person under 6 feet 5 inches. It was a tough comeback win.

Over the last couple of days, there has not been anything planned for the team, so we have been at some of the cool places around the town.

We found a cool bowling alley and ultra-lounge in a place called Darling Harbour. We went over there for a couple of hours and had some competitive games of bowling, with a whole lot of trash talking.

One thing about being in Australia is that nothing is cheap here, and you will not find a meal under $7. Not even at McDonald's, which seems to be popular here. McDonald's doesn't have a "dollar menu" here. In the U.S., you can get a double cheeseburger for a dollar; in Australia, a double cheeseburger is $3.75. I have tried to save my money, but I've realized that isn't possible here.

Source

A law firm to keep away from

A senior solicitor with Keddies Lawyers charged three clients from the same family almost $600 to travel less than two kilometres between Redfern and the CBD for a conference.

Mohammed Tariq, who received head, neck and back injuries in a collision near his western Sydney home on the night of January 11 last year, was also separately billed $60 for a welcome letter from the firm after he decided to sue for compensation. His lawyer, Philip Scroope, who bills in 10, six-minute units at $490 an hour as one of the firm's accredited personal injury specialists, also charged $49 to read an electronic "thank you" e-card Mr Tariq had sent him. A further $49 was charged for an email Mr Scroope had sent colleagues seeking an Indonesian translator and $49 more went on the bill for the email advising the Indian-born Mr Tariq, an accredited interpreter in Urdu, Punjabi and Hindi, of Mr Scroope's coming holiday.

Liability for Mr Tariq's injuries was admitted early in his 12-month involvement as a client of the state's largest firm specialising in personal injury cases. He had claimed against NRMA, the insurer of a car driven by a P-plate driver that collided with him. On February 21 this year, the day his case settled at a conference at Keddies's Civic Tower office in Goulburn Street, the firm charged more than $8000 for work on the cases of Mr Tariq, and the separate claims for nervous shock of his wife and daughter - who declined to be named.

Included in that amount were separate billings of $490 for a pre-conference meeting at the firm's Redfern Office, $98 each for Mr Scroope's 1.9-kilometre journey to the southern part of the CBD, $490 each for the conference at which all three cases were settled, another triple $98 charge for the trip back to Redfern and $245 charged to each for a post-conference meeting held with all three present.

Mr Tariq's wife and daughter - who did not attend the settlement conference - were also billed $98 each for a call Mr Tariq made to them from his own mobile phone during which they agreed to offers of $45,000 and $75,000 respectively, in settlement of their nervous shock claims.

The Tariqs have complained to the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner about overcharging. They are determined to claw back some of the more than $117,000 charged in total for their legal costs and other expenses.

Keddies has been the subject of allegations from former clients, some of whom have received reimbursements totalling more than $500,000 after complaining formally about alleged overcharging. The firm has repeatedly denied allegations of overcharging, stating its confidence that all complaints before the legal regulator will be dismissed.

Since a Herald investigation into claims against the firm, published last month, revealed a group of more than 25 clients had made formal complaints over the past 18 months, some have been dismissed. During the past two weeks it is understood that more complaints have been lodged with the commission.

Mr Tariq, who told the Herald he was stressed and confused when settling his compensation claim on February 21, admits to outbursts of emotion, frequent anger and threats of violence as part of an ongoing accident-related psychiatric condition following his brain injury and his strong medication for mood stabilisation and pain relief. He has written to his state parliamentarian, Diane Beamer, the Attorney-General, John Hatzistergos and the shadow attorney-general, Greg Smith, about his Keddies experience.

Letters of complaint were also sent last week to the NSW Police Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, and the Law Society of NSW. Mr Tariq now intends to apply for a Supreme Court costs assessment of the three bills for which the Keddies professional costs alone totalled more than $100,000.

When the Herald asked to put some of Mr Tariq's claims about his family's bills to Mr Scroope, a spokesman for the firm said it would leave them to the legal regulator and costs assessor "to examine and pass judgment on with the benefit of all of the material that will be before them".

An "extremely angry and disappointed" Mr Tariq has known Mr Scroope for more than a decade and said he had a panic attack when, after compulsory payments were deducted from his $400,000 gross settlement, he found that legal costs and expenses were nearly $86,000 (reduced from more than $100,000). He agreed that they were within the range estimated in his signed costs agreement with the firm.

Keddies organised for him to take out a loan to cover his initial medical costs. He repaid the $13,445.22 owed on his loan from his settlement money, but Keddies deducted $1200 more for treatment expenses. Unable to work since the accident, Mr Tariq was left with just over $250,000 for treatment for the rest of his life. After protesting - shirtless - outside the Keddies Lawyers Redfern office in March, he received two refunds totalling $11,987.62. Half of this amount was described on his bill as a refund from the loan company.

His daughter, on whose behalf he had complained, was also reimbursed $4488.61 in addition to the $46,000 she received net after compulsory deductions, legal costs and medical and other expenses were taken out of her $75,000 settlement. Mr Tariq's wife paid more than $15,000 in legal costs and expenses from her $45,000 total settlement.

"I am not going to stop until justice is done," Mr Tariq said yesterday, vowing to continue his protests outside Keddies's offices in Redfern, Ashfield and Liverpool as well as their new Wollongong and Brisbane offices.

Source










Beware green zealots

A fanatic, George Santayana famously said, is someone who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim. With July shaping up as climate change policy month, a good dose of fanaticism seems likely to come our way. Nowhere is the fanatic's touch more apparent than in the confused notion of an emissions reduction budget, the idea that there is a fixed quantum of emissions reduction we should achieve by a given date, with the result that if we reduce a bit less in one area, we will have to reduce by more elsewhere.

Reducing Australia's greenhouse emissions is not a goal in its own right; it is merely a way of trying to deal with the risks of potentially harmful climate change. How much we should devote to that goal depends on the costs and benefits involved. If the costs increase relative to the benefits, only the fanatic redoubles his efforts.

The fallacy involved is manifest in the debate about how trade exposed, emissions-intensive activities should be dealt with. It has become increasingly evident that if Australia, acting unilaterally, imposes a carbon tax on these activities, global emissions will not be reduced. Rather, they will simply shift to other countries, decreasing our welfare (as we have a comparative advantage in those activities) and welfare worldwide. As a result, without an international framework that would prevent emissions flight, putting a carbon tax on trade exposed, emissions-intensive activities serves no useful purpose.

Now, a rational person, faced with that fact, adjusts the target to reflect the greater cost of achieving it. If the target that would have been set in a world where emissions flight could not occur were to reduce emissions by, say, 20 per cent through a period of years, that person, faced with the reality of an emissions flight risk, would discount that target to some lower level.

In contrast the fanatic, acting as if the target had come from God, leaves the target unchanged and, if anything is conceded to the activities that could most readily move elsewhere, inflicts greater punishment on those that have the least scope to escape their clutches. This response is doubly perverse. To begin with, the economic cost of achieving any given emissions reduction target increases more than proportionately with the severity of the reduction being sought: doubling the target inflicts more than twice the cost. As a result, increasing the extent of the reduction sought from those activities that are least footloose makes the cost of any overall reduction all the greater. These added costs then are compounded by an increased distortion in resource allocation between the activities that are exempt and the now more heavily taxed ones that are not.

There is an additional, deeper reason the fanatic's response is perverse. The problem of emissions flight merely highlights the absence of an effective and comprehensive regime for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In the absence of such a regime, abatement in Australia, no matter how great, will have no direct impact on the risk of harmful climate change. The only reason for undertaking that abatement is the possibility that it will assist such a regime to come into place. However, whether abatement in Australia would have a "demonstration effect" internationally, and if so to what extent, is highly uncertain. Even if such an effect did exist, there is little reason to think the effect will be much greater if we pursue abatement at home with greater intensity.

As a result, a rational decision-maker would give the possibility of such an effect a low weight and one that justified an abatement effort that was, at most, modest.

This is all the more so as increasing the extent of present abatement reduces our ability to respond should an effective international regime not come into place. In that event, if those concerned about climate change are correct, we would have to invest in ways of living that are less vulnerable to unfavourable climatic conditions. Our capacity to undertake those investments without painful reductions in consumption depends on our wealth.

As a result, if there is a likelihood that harmful climate change will nonetheless occur, we should be responding not by reducing our incomes but by increasing them and accumulating precautionary savings. In that scenario, bearing greater abatement costs now will not reduce costs in the future but merely increase the future pain.

The desirability of focusing on raising our capacity to adjust by increasing incomes is made greater by the distribution of the costs and benefits of the various options.

At best, pursuing "demonstration effects" makes the world as a whole better off if it succeeds; but if it fails, its only consequence is to make Australians poorer.

In contrast, increasing our wealth so as to increase our capacity to innovate and adjust, should such adjustment be needed, seems highly likely to make Australians better off regardless of the ultimate outcome.

The case for abatement beyond a very modest level, consistent with a low carbon tax, therefore seems economically untenable. Moreover, anything that makes the marginal costs of abating now higher, or the community's willingness to bear those costs now lower, should induce us to reduce our overall abatement effort rather than sticking by some inherently arbitrary target.

Consequently, a heavy burden of proof should be placed on those who advocate ambitious fixed targets to be pursued with the ferocity of latter-day Savonarolas.

Reducing emissions is not an act in a morality play but a decision that has to be made by trading off benefits and sacrifices. Moreover, the community must be given a full opportunity to assess those benefits and sacrifices and decide whether they are worth bearing.

As a result, whatever recommendations are made by the Garnaut review or the Government's green paper must be backed by estimates of those recommendations' costs, and the modelling underpinning those estimates needs to be fully disclosed. If all we get is moralising waffle, the community will legitimately conclude that this particular emperor has no clothes. Should that occur, the Government will have no one to blame but itself when its proposals run into strong and sustained opposition.

Source






Public hospitals slower to see patients

Public hospital emergency departments are seeing a smaller proportion of patients within the recommended time than they did eight years ago - and the federal Government has admitted that "much work lies ahead" to fix the system. More than 6.7 million people sought treatment at Australia's emergency departments in 2006-07 - the equivalent of one-third of the population - and 30 per cent of these patients were not seen within the minimum recommended times laid down by the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine.

The figures, contained in the latest annual State of Our Public Hospitals report released by the federal Government, have prompted a chorus of protests from health organisations who say it shows the system has been starved of funds, even though overall spending on hospitals hasnearly doubled over the past decade.

Releasing the report yesterday, federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon said it illustrated "11 years of Liberal neglect". She said all states and territories except NSW were seeing a smaller proportion of emergency patients punctually in 2006-07 than they were eight years previously, in 1998-99. Over the same time frame, the number of people presenting to emergency departments rose by 34 per cent, up from five million in 1998-99.

The report showed there were 4.7 million admissions to public hospitals in 2006-07. Ms Roxon said the latest report showed admissions were growing by about 3 per cent a year - more than double the rate of population growth - and hospitals were "under severe strain". "While it will take time to turn around a decade of neglect, the Rudd Government is determined to deliver dramatic improvements in healthcare," she said.

The proportion of elective surgery patients seen within recommended times in 2006-07 ranged from 68.6 per cent in the Northern Territory, and 67.6 per cent in Tasmania, to 85.9 per cent in NSW. Longest waits are for knee replacement (162-day median wait), a type of nasal surgery called septoplasty (113 days) and hip replacement (106 days).

Between 1998-99 and 2005-06, the amount of commonwealth money provided for state hospitals rose from $6.1 billion to $9.2 billion. But over the same period, that money as a proportion of the total spending on state-run hospitals fell from 48.1 per cent to 42.7 per cent.

Yesterday's report also showed continuing increases in some states in the proportion of same-day procedures, and decreases in average lengths of stay. Both are techniques hospitals can use to cope with an ever-growing stream of patients needing treatment.

Australian Medical Association president Rosanna Capolingua said the report was "a wake-up call to the governments of Australia" and that doctors and regular patients "have known for a long time that our public hospitals are at breaking point".

Prue Power, executive director of the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association, called on the Government to increase its share of total hospital funding from its current level of 42 per cent. The annual indexation also needed to be raised from the "inadequate" current rate of 1.7per cent.

Source







Modern kids happiest in history - report

They may be fatter, glummer and living under clouds of global terrorism and climate change, but children today are more emotionally stable than 20 years ago. Despite rising rates of childhood obesity and depression and more older, working and single mothers, there's no evidence Australian children have more problems than they did in the 1980s.

Parallel studies by the Australian Institute of Family Studies reveal that two decades ago, children were less sociable, less persistent and more intense than those today. Two studies comparing temperament and behavioural issues among toddlers and young primary schoolers, then and now, show children growing up with hip-hop and computer games in the new millennium are probably better socially adjusted than those raised watching Madonna on MTV and riding bikes around neighborhood streets unbothered by stranger danger.

The twin studies, of almost 2500 children from 1983-1990 and about 10,000 children since 2004, found many more two to three-year-olds had trouble falling asleep 20 years ago, and showed greater signs of aggression and destructiveness. And although behavioural problems among six to seven-year-olds were very low in both eras, significantly more kids of the '80s suffered from worries and fears as well as conduct problems such as restlessness, fidgeting, fighting and disobedience.

Children's school report cards revealed the biggest generational differences. Anecdotal evidence from experienced teachers suggested children behave worse at school now than they did 20 years ago. [The erosion of discipline is the main susppect there]

Source