Australian Politics
COSTLY CLIMATE TOKENISM
Kevin Rudd has no policy ideas that might actually improve the lot of Australians generally so he constantly resorts to tokenism. And global warming is the BIG bit of tokenism for him. There is no pretence that his proposed climate policies will make any discernible difference to the climate so the only rationale is that Australia will be "setting an example" for India and China. That India and China are likely to be influenced by Australians cutting their own throats is laughable, however. The Indians and the Chinese will cetainly be laughing. Nonetheless, Don Quixote Rudd seems set on his nonsense so there is much discussion of the policies concerned. Three current articles below
Climate cure more costly than the disease
DEMOCRACY, as Arthur Balfour said, is government by explanation: but the explanations must be good ones. The Garnaut report was to explain the basis for the Government's climate change policy. Unfortunately it leaves open more questions than it answers. This is because the encyclopedia Garnaut and his team have produced does everything except what it was supposed to do: cost a target for greenhouse emissions reductions. That, we are told, will come later, with the delay being due to difficulties in the modelling of emissions reductions and their economic costs.
That a delay would occur is hardly implausible. But given that the primary purpose was to present those estimates, why didn't Garnaut simply delay the completion of his report? Surely the public, having ordered the steak, would hardly find it satisfactory to be served only the vegetables, with a promise that the steak would come with dessert?
The failure to present any estimates of the cost of emissions reductions is important because it makes the report unbalanced. Working on the principle that a risk perceived is a risk indeed, the damage climate change could cause is explained at length, but there is no corresponding discussion of the costs and risks involved in action to prevent climate change from occurring.
The absence of costings lets the report off the hook. Since it doesn't weigh up the probable costs and benefits to Australia of alternative policy options, it isn't forced to grapple either with the likelihood of effective international agreement actually being reached or with the consequences of implementing an ETS if it isn't. As these risks, and the costs of going ahead regardless, are not properly weighed in the balance, the report too often reads like a call to arms, rather than objective policy analysis.
This feature of the report is accentuated by its one-sided presentation of material. Nowhere is this clearer than in the report's discussion of the harm climate change could do the living standards of future generations of Australians. Estimating the extent of that harm is fraught with judgments and assumptions, and some will think the report understates the costs, while others will think the opposite.
But what is important about the report's estimate is the one thing the report never mentions: which is that it is hardly a huge number. If one accepts the report's estimates of the real income loss consequent on adverse climate change, then fully offsetting that income loss would require putting aside each year an amount that would be about 0.7 per cent of Australia's GDP in 2008, and which would decline to less than one-third of 1 per cent of GDP by mid century. This assumes a real global rate of return on investment globally of 6 per cent, which is reasonable by historical standards and consistent with the strong economic growth projections set out in the report.
Given a government committed to a budget surplus in the order of 1.5 per cent of GDP over the economic cycle, this level of saving could be achieved with little or no sacrifice to consumption. Indeed, one could readily double the report's estimate of the loss (say, to even more fully reflect non-monetary losses) without that conclusion being in any way undermined. This is important not only because it puts the issue in perspective, but especially because it sets a ceiling on the acceptable costs of an ETS.
Any ETS that costs us more than the precautionary savings set out above would be difficult to justify, as it would impose a larger sacrifice than needed to preserve future living standards. Indeed, given the risk that our own abatement efforts will have little consequence, and that global agreement will not be reached or will prove ineffective, the amount we should be willing to spend on an ETS ought to be even lower than that ceiling, thereby freeing up some income for the precautionary saving we will need should harmful climate change occur. The report could and should have explained this much, but it doesn't. Nor does it explain as directly as would have been desirable the consequences of its preferred approach to allocating permits globally, which is on a per-capita basis.
Australia will continue to have a very small share of world population and hence, under a per-capita allocation, would obtain a small share of global emissions permits. At the same time, our comparative advantage means that we should specialise in emissions-intensive industries, such as agriculture, minerals and energy. Given per-capita allocation of emissions permits, to do so we would have to buy permits from overseas, which would partly transfer to foreigners the gains from our resource endowment.
Perhaps this wealth transfer is desirable; but it is no less desirable for the public to understand that such a wealth transfer would occur, potentially on a very significant scale, were the report's recommendations accepted.
This tendency to understate problems with the preferred approach is also apparent in the report's treatment of the transition to an ETS. The report acknowledges that there may be a case for a "slow and low" start, with a capped emissions price being set for a two-year period. What it does not explain is why the uncertainties that make such a gradual start sensible would be materially reduced after merely two years. By the end of 2012, it will still not be clear whether an effective global regime will come into place; and even the response of the Australian economy to an ETS will remain highly uncertain, as the adjustment processes will take many years to work. In the meantime, new shocks will emerge, as the world economy itself continues to change.
All of these uncertainties are best dealt with by retaining a capped carbon price that reflects the benefits of abating later rather than now. Such a capped price would ensure that even after 2012 the costs of any abatement do not exceed the benefits, which especially in the near term, are likely to be very modest. Yet this too the report does not confront, other than by assuming that uncertainties will melt away.
Finally, there are the instances where there is at least the semblance of partisanship. Garnaut's response to calls from the Opposition for the fuel excise to be reduced should an ETS be imposed is a case in point. Any such reduction, he suggests, would send the wrong signal to developing countries, especially those which continue to heavily subsidise fuel consumption, and would in any event be economically unjustified.
However, there is no more virtue in unduly taxing a commodity than there is in unduly subsidising it: both distort relative prices and reduce efficiency. Fuel prices are already trebly taxed: by the excess mark-ups arising from the OPEC cartel, by the fuel excise and by the GST. Compounding the distortion by adding a fourth tax, without adjusting the others, would be both inefficient and inequitable.
In short, this is a report that costs the problem, but says little or nothing about the costs of its proposed solution. As for its proposed solution, it does not even seek to systematically compare it with alternatives: rather, it acts as if the only options were complete inaction on the one hand, or its version of an ETS on the other. And for all of its 500-plus pages, it is at times uncomfortably thin on analysis, appealing to fears and hopes rather than likelihoods and realities.
Yet the policy decisions the report calls for are of huge consequence: they cannot be made on the basis of romanticism and generous impulses. To claim those decisions must be made immediately is as reckless as it is nonsensical: rather, what is needed is a far more careful testing of the facts. That the Opposition has been debating these issues is therefore hardly worrying; what would be terrifying is if the Government were not to. For without such a full debate, the greatest threat to Australia's future prosperity will lie not in the climate, but in ourselves.
Source
A climate backdown of sorts
Top 1000 polluters only to need permits
Penny Wong has assured businesses they will not face a GST-style red tape tangle when the Rudd Government introduces its planned emissions trading scheme (ETS) to tackle climate change. The Climate Change Minister revealed yesterday only the 1000 biggest polluters of the business world - such as power companies - would have to purchase emissions permits under the system, The Australian reports. But she also insisted the ETS, the subject of a green paper to be released on Wednesday, would encompass the entire economy.
Senator Wong's comments came as the Make Poverty History movement called for the Government to create a new migration category for climate change refugees - Pacific Island residents whose homes are likely to be inundated by rising sea levels.
The Climate Institute think tank also released a report warning that Australia needed to do much more on energy efficiency to maximise its response to climate change.
Senator Wong's long-awaited green paper will give the first real indication of the detail of the Government's ETS plan and will come less than a fortnight after its climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, released a draft report recommending a comprehensive scheme to begin in 2010. Government sources said it would focus not only on emissions trading, but would cover a broader agenda as part of a carbon pollution reduction scheme.
Interviewed on ABC television yesterday, Senator Wong said the Government would put a limit on permitted carbon pollution and issue permits up to that limit to big polluters.
Source
Big labor union challenges Rudd on climate policy:
Keep energy and resource jobs in Australia to cut global greenhouse: AWU
Up to 15,000 Australian jobs could be under threat, Australia's biggest energy and resource union, the AWU warned today. Australian Workers' Union (AWU) National Secretary, Paul Howes, said that industry, government and unions need to look at ways we can 'green' our energy-intensive and export-oriented industries - so that we can keep good jobs here and not go to overseas markets, like China or Brazil or India.
AWU wants Regional Australia in Climate Change debate: The AWU leader warned that this national community debate cannot just be concentrated in the capital cities - but must also involve the regions. " Professor Garnaut undertook a national tour of Town Hall meetings to speak directly to the public after he released his Draft Report. " That was good. But all the meetings were in capital cities. Our economy today depends on the industries and jobs in Regional Australia - where the energy and resources sector is based. " The people in Regional Australia will suffer the hardest hit - especially if we are wrong-footed on climate change. The AWU is not prepared to abandon the regions. These jobs in Regional Australia are integral to the future well-being of our nation."
How AWU jobs can help in the battle against greenhouse gases: Paul Howes went to Geelong in Victoria to launch this major 32 page analysis the AWU commissioned from Per Capita, an independent think-tank committed to developing a progressive Australia. The Per Capita report, released today suggests ways that we can keep these good jobs here - and help these energy-intensive industries become more environmentally friendly.
" We know by keeping good jobs in industries like these smelters and refineries here in Australia we are actually helping in the battle against greenhouse gases," AWU National Secretary, Paul Howes, said.
"The Federal Government must help these industries to clean up their act, and bring in new technologies such as carbon capture and storage . If we do that then decent, well-paid, secure jobs will not be lost to Australia - and taken off-shore to countries like China, India and Brazil whose pollution levels are far-far higher than we have here in Australia.
" For every tonne of alumina made here in Australia we have 50 per cent less emissions than the same tonne made in China. So if this industry shifts to China because of Climate Change imposts we only worsen global pollution," Mr Howes said.
Report shows we can generate significant green job opportunities by keeping energy and resource industry alive: Key recommendations in the Per Capita report call for:
* Government to consider providing partial exemption for five years, or a temporary exclusion from ETS, or a discount on carbon market price.
* Aluminium industry aggressively investing in developing own carbon-neutral energy resources which would themselves generate significant job opportunities.
* Industry to meet future demand growth through efficiency gains.
* Government offers income tax credits to stimulate job creation.
Source
Another huge public hospital disgrace
W.A. hospital ignores teen with severed fingers. He should have gone into surgery immediately!
A TEENAGER whose fingers were severed in a workplace accident waited 28 hours for a bed at Royal Perth Hospital's emergency department. McKenneth Atkinson, 19, an apprentice mechanic from Pinjarra, was brought to RPH by ambulance about 3pm on Thursday. He waited in the emergency department with parts of his severed fingers on ice until Friday night. And after more than a day he was finally given a ward bed and prepared for surgery, only to have that delayed.
He was finally transferred to the Mount Hospital for surgery at about midday on Saturday. The teenager's father, Colin Atkinson, told The Sunday Times he was upset by the delay. "He had been waiting in emergency for about 28 hours before they shifted him into the hospital,'' Mr Atkinson said. "I couldn't believe how pathetic our public health system can be. He was taken down to theatre late Friday night and they had him all prepped and ready to go. "Then they had another trauma (victim) come in and he got pushed back into the ward.''
A spokesman for RPH apologised for the delay. "The hospital is sorry about Mr Atkinson's wait for a ward bed,'' he said. "The patient was not able to be moved to a ward sooner because the hospital was experiencing heavy demand for beds. [A heavy demand that happens EVERY WINTER!!! So there is no excuse for not being prepared] "On Thursday, we experienced a very high number of surgical cases at that time, but all the time he was with us in the emergency department his condition was monitored.''
On Thursday, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital was forced to make a similar apology when it was revealed a blind war veteran waited almost a day for a bed. Edward Webster, 80, waited more than 17 hours at the hospital despite having a letter from his GP saying he needed urgent treatment.
Australian Medical Association spokesman David Mountain was not surprised by reports of emergency patients waiting more than 24 hours for a bed. "It's symptomatic of how congested and overcrowded our departments are and how long people have to wait to get to a definitive bed,'' Dr Mountain said. "These sorts of cases, or very long delays, are extremely frequent in our departments now.'' Dr Mountain said emergency patient care was being jeopardised by the long delays.
Source
Monday, July 14, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Disastrous NSW ambulance management
After a distinguished 30-year career, which included bringing Kerry Packer back to life, Bill Taylor quit the NSW Ambulance Service in 2006, fed up with an entrenched culture of bullying and discrimination. He personally knew five officers who committed suicide and one who attempted suicide, and he had the grim task of arranging funerals for others.
Last week, as a NSW parliamentary inquiry into the strife-torn service got under way, Mr Taylor said of his fallen colleagues: "They see no other way out because of the lack of support by the persons appointed by the service who are supposed to look after its members. "I used to organise the funerals for officers who died in Sydney either from suicide or accidents. [The Ambulance Service] would make a show of caring by paying for the funeral and getting the band to play but then it's swept under the carpet."
The upper house inquiry, chaired by Liberal MLC Robyn Parker, has received more than 100 submissions from officers alleging bullying and harassment within the service. Some, citing victimisation by colleagues, have linked their personal mistreatment to forced stress leave, resignations, clinical depression and, in several cases, suicide attempts of their own. Almost without exception, the officers insist their complaints, warnings or cries for help fell on deaf ears or were swept under the carpet by senior management. "The majority are about terrible bullying and harassment that has gone on for years and is driving people to do terrible things. Their psychological health is damaged. For some their whole lives are damaged," Ms Parker said.
The inquiry heard Christine Hodder, 38, endured years of torment at her station in Cowra before she hanged herself in 2005. Her former supervisor, Phil Roxburgh, has accused management of being "grossly negligent and dismissive" of her plight, while the service's professional standards unit found no one accountable for her death. The Sun-Herald has learned that the officer sent to Cowra to replace Ms Hodder also complained of being bullied after he revealed the two had been high school mates in the state's north. He left work on stress leave in August, 2006 and remains on leave. Chris Pollard, the senior Newcastle officer posted to Cowra as Mr Roxburgh's replacement in January, 2006, lasted several months before he too moved on, allegedly after being subjected to intimidation.
Mr Taylor - who used a defibrillator to revive Mr Packer after he suffered a heart attack at a polo match in 1990 - made a submission to the inquiry. He said he was bullied from his first day of training at a station, with the older officers telling him, "We don't like you. We're going to fail you." The final straw was the incompetence and bullying by a male officer at Tanilba Bay, which contributed to two officers taking stress leave. "I would take sickies so I didn't have to work with him and then I decided I had to retire," Mr Taylor said.
The Health Services Union has backed the claims, pointing to widespread disaffection with the Ambulance Service's internal investigations, many of which it says are "prejudicial in nature, inconsistent in application and protracted in duration". It has also called for a comprehensive plan to make sure all ambulance workplaces are free of persecution.
At an openly hostile statewide meeting last September, 500 officers had expressed "absolutely no confidence" in senior management "and in particular, the current chief executive", union chief Michael Williamson said. Testifying before the inquiry, NSW Ambulance Service chief executive Greg Rochford acknowledged there had been strong criticism of the service's ability to resolve disputes and address workplace behaviour issues. He said much was being done to simplify and speed up procedures and improve interaction between managers and front-line staff.
NSW Director-General of Health Deborah Picone said the service had a zero-tolerance policy on bullying and harassment. More than 400 managers were expected to be retrained in its implementation by the end of next year and a taskforce had been set up.
Source
Patients to grow spare body parts
HEART disease patients could grow "spare body parts" with a radical technique being developed by Melbourne engineers. Swinburne University scientists are poised to put on trial world-first technology that may see entire organs cultivated from just a few human cells. First on the agenda are heart valves that Prof Yosry Morsi believes his team can grow - and have transplanted into humans - within five years. The breakthrough may help up to 6000 Australians a year, revolutionising the surgery that repaired Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's heart about 15 years ago.
Prof Morsi said he believed that the technique might make artificial valves and "tissue" versions from humans, pigs and cows redundant. "We are trying to copy nature," he said. "We'd be using a patient's own cells, so their body is not going to react it."
The key to the technique, which could be tested on animals within a year, is "scaffolding" modelled on a patient's real heart. A cell from the patient's heart is put into the scaffolding, which is left in a machine that simulates human heart conditions. Cells multiply, growing into a replica of the original within 12 weeks. "While we are creating this living tissue, we are subjecting it to exactly the sort of pressures it will be under (in the body), like the pressure of blood flow," Prof Morsi said.
Though other scientists around the world are also in the race to successfully "grow" human organs, it is Swinburne's techniques that put it on track for the big breakthrough.
Prof Frank Rosenfeldt, head of The Alfred's cardiac surgical research unit, said Prof Morsi's work could revolutionise the common but complicated operation. "If a human heart valve can be grown using the patient's tissues, this would be a great advantage," he said. "It would be a living tissue, which might even regenerate and repair itself."
Like Mr Rudd, Melbourne grandfather Bill Wade was given a tissue valve and is enjoying a new lease on life. He was transplanted with a pig's valve - Mr Rudd had a human donor - at The Alfred in February. "I'm happy with this, and they've said it will last 10 to 15 years before I need a replacement, maybe longer," said Mr Wade, from Sandringham. "But if I had the choice (to grow) my own valve, that would just be amazing."
Source
Safety warnings a new chapter for fairytales
TEACHERS are being urged to give children safety messages after reading them fairytales warning not to copy characters such as Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and Hansel and Gretel. A new child protection curriculum being implemented by the Education Department also requires teachers to refer to children's "sexual parts" and use their correct anatomical names with children as young as three.
Child development experts have backed the measures, but critics believe they are an example of political correctness overkill that could turn children into "little nervous wrecks".
Parents across SA are being briefed on the impact of the new curriculum, which aims to teach children from preschool upwards the early warning signs of being unsafe and recognising abuse.
Teachers have been trained to be wary of storybooks in which characters put themselves at risk - and to respond by offering safety messages. For example, children would be warned not to talk to people they don't know as Little Red Riding Hood did with the Big Bad Wolf; not to walk around unsupervised like Goldilocks; and not to enter unknown houses like Hansel and Gretel. Popular modern books would also face scrutiny. The picture book Pig in the Pond, in which a farmer strips off to have a swim on a hot day, would be followed by explaining that it would be inappropriate to undress in front of someone you did not know.
Emeritus Professor of Child Development at UniSA, Professor Freda Briggs, who was consulted in the curriculum's development, supported the measures, calling for them to be implemented nationally. "This is about appropriately empowering the child," she said. "Kids are talking about sex at age five now. It's so in-your-face, I'm afraid that innocence is gone. They are sexualised younger and younger. "We need to use correct body terms because by giving children silly names or names that only the family understands, you're telling your child that you can't cope with talking about it. How does a child get help if nobody understands?"
But Australian Family Association spokesman Jerome Appleby said the measures - the first update to the child safety curriculum in more than 20 years - encroached on the domain of parents. Putting safety messages on fairytales risked frightening children unnecessarily. "You don't want to scare children too much and create an environment of fear," he said. "We don't want to create little nervous wrecks. "Parents are best placed to determine how much they need to tell their children and at what age."
Mr Appleby said teaching young children about the correct names for their "sexual parts" would contribute to the early sexualisation of children. "This will destroy the innocence of children too early," he said. "I don't think it's appropriate for very young children. They aren't ready for those sorts of adult concepts and it's a sad indictment on society."
Social commentator David Chalke said drawing modern morals from fairytales was fine, if stories or characters were not altered. "A lot of nursery tales are cautionary tales in their original sense, so I don't see a problem with making it relevant to today," he said. But Mr Chalke said it was "political correctness overkill" to introduce pre-schoolers to sexual concepts. "This is bureaucratic meddling; it's absurdity and it smacks of overkill," he said.
"To me, this is education bureaucracy getting above itself. "The heavy hand of the state is impinging on the parent-child relationship. They are saying that you must be correctly programmed from the age of three. We're talking about children who can neither read nor write. Leave the pre-schoolers alone."
Federation of Catholic School Parent Communities spokeswoman Ann Bliss said it was positive for pre-school teachers to incorporate safety messages into fairytales. "It's a good compromise. We're not throwing the fairytales out but we're engaging in conversations with our children, keeping them safe," she said.
In an emailed response, an Education Department spokesperson said: "There's no easy way to deliver a message about such a sensitive topic, and that is why the State Government enlisted the advice and assistance of local child protection experts in developing the program. The curriculum is taught in a way that is relevant and appropriate for each year level, and includes the use of anatomically correct and respectful language."
The Keeping Safe program was developed in conjunction with SA Police, Family and Community Services, the Australian Education Union, the National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect.
Source
Mathematics teaching dumbed down
STUDENTS are being taught maths at the most superficial level by teachers rushing to pass on the basic skills while shying away from complex ideas. In yet another example of children being failed by national school curriculums, a special report for the state leaders finds maths teaching is failing students by setting the bar too low.
The National Numeracy Review report, released to The Weekend Australian, criticises the national benchmarks in maths, which assess students against minimum standards rather than requiring a desirable proficiency. "The implication (is) that minimum standards are good enough, at least for some students," says the report on numeracy commissioned by the Council of Australian Governments. "All students and their families, however, have a right to expect high-quality - not minimum - numeracy outcomes from their schooling."
The review committee, chaired by the former head of the NSW Board of Studies Gordon Stanley, says the time spent teaching maths in classrooms has decreased over the past decade, yet students are expected to learn about a greater number of mathematical concepts. "Curriculum emphases and assessment regimes should be explicitly designed to discourage a reliance upon superficial and low-level proficiency," the report says. It recommends phasing out the streaming of students according to their ability, citing research that says it has little effect on achievement. "It does produce gains in attainment for higher-achieving students at the expense of lower-attaining students," it says.
The report recommends that all teachers, regardless of their intended speciality, be trained as numeracy teachers and maths be taught across all subjects. The report says primary school students should spend five hours a week and high school students four hours a week on maths and numeracy, including time spent learning maths in other subjects. The report also suggests introducing specialist maths teachers to work shoulder-to-shoulder with other teachers, particularly those without specialist training in maths teaching. It says students from the early years of school should be given complex maths problems and the language of maths should be explicitly taught.
The review was commissioned by the human capital working group of COAG to review international research about teaching maths and advise ways in which teaching standards could be improved. The report says literacy has received enormous attention and resources in recent years but numeracy provides a bigger challenge for schools. It uses the term numeracy, as opposed to maths, to describe the mathematical understanding required in today's workplace, defining numeracy as the capacity to bridge the gap between maths and the real world. "The mathematical knowledge, skill and understanding people need today, if they are to be truly numerate, involves considerably more than the acquisition of mathematical routines and algorithms," it says.
The report cites research that says Australia suffers from a "shallow teaching syndrome". Compared with other high-achieving countries in international maths tests, Australian schoolrooms have the highest percentage of repetitive problems and the highest percentage of problems of low complexity.
While the new national numeracy tests introduced this year will assess students against levels of proficiency, previously students were only judged against a benchmark set at the minimum level of knowledge required to progress through school. "They do not describe proficiency in numeracy or even the minimum standards that the community expects from Australian schools," it says.
The low standards expected of students are compounded by remedial programs targeting students failing to meet those minimum standards rather than aiming to assist all students to acquire some proficiency. "The rush to apparent proficiency at the expense of the sound conceptual development needed for sustained and ongoing mathematical proficiency must be rejected," it says. "From the earliest years, greater emphasis (should) be given to providing students with frequent exposure to higher-level mathematical problems rather than routine procedural tasks, in contexts of relevance to them."
Part of the problem facing schools is trying to teach more maths in less time, with some evidence suggesting the class time spent on maths has diminished over the years. One study estimates a Year 4 student in Australia spends about 250 minutes a week and a Year 8 student 210 minutes a week on maths. The report recommends primary school students spend 300 minutes a week and high school students 280 minutes a week on maths.
Source
After a distinguished 30-year career, which included bringing Kerry Packer back to life, Bill Taylor quit the NSW Ambulance Service in 2006, fed up with an entrenched culture of bullying and discrimination. He personally knew five officers who committed suicide and one who attempted suicide, and he had the grim task of arranging funerals for others.
Last week, as a NSW parliamentary inquiry into the strife-torn service got under way, Mr Taylor said of his fallen colleagues: "They see no other way out because of the lack of support by the persons appointed by the service who are supposed to look after its members. "I used to organise the funerals for officers who died in Sydney either from suicide or accidents. [The Ambulance Service] would make a show of caring by paying for the funeral and getting the band to play but then it's swept under the carpet."
The upper house inquiry, chaired by Liberal MLC Robyn Parker, has received more than 100 submissions from officers alleging bullying and harassment within the service. Some, citing victimisation by colleagues, have linked their personal mistreatment to forced stress leave, resignations, clinical depression and, in several cases, suicide attempts of their own. Almost without exception, the officers insist their complaints, warnings or cries for help fell on deaf ears or were swept under the carpet by senior management. "The majority are about terrible bullying and harassment that has gone on for years and is driving people to do terrible things. Their psychological health is damaged. For some their whole lives are damaged," Ms Parker said.
The inquiry heard Christine Hodder, 38, endured years of torment at her station in Cowra before she hanged herself in 2005. Her former supervisor, Phil Roxburgh, has accused management of being "grossly negligent and dismissive" of her plight, while the service's professional standards unit found no one accountable for her death. The Sun-Herald has learned that the officer sent to Cowra to replace Ms Hodder also complained of being bullied after he revealed the two had been high school mates in the state's north. He left work on stress leave in August, 2006 and remains on leave. Chris Pollard, the senior Newcastle officer posted to Cowra as Mr Roxburgh's replacement in January, 2006, lasted several months before he too moved on, allegedly after being subjected to intimidation.
Mr Taylor - who used a defibrillator to revive Mr Packer after he suffered a heart attack at a polo match in 1990 - made a submission to the inquiry. He said he was bullied from his first day of training at a station, with the older officers telling him, "We don't like you. We're going to fail you." The final straw was the incompetence and bullying by a male officer at Tanilba Bay, which contributed to two officers taking stress leave. "I would take sickies so I didn't have to work with him and then I decided I had to retire," Mr Taylor said.
The Health Services Union has backed the claims, pointing to widespread disaffection with the Ambulance Service's internal investigations, many of which it says are "prejudicial in nature, inconsistent in application and protracted in duration". It has also called for a comprehensive plan to make sure all ambulance workplaces are free of persecution.
At an openly hostile statewide meeting last September, 500 officers had expressed "absolutely no confidence" in senior management "and in particular, the current chief executive", union chief Michael Williamson said. Testifying before the inquiry, NSW Ambulance Service chief executive Greg Rochford acknowledged there had been strong criticism of the service's ability to resolve disputes and address workplace behaviour issues. He said much was being done to simplify and speed up procedures and improve interaction between managers and front-line staff.
NSW Director-General of Health Deborah Picone said the service had a zero-tolerance policy on bullying and harassment. More than 400 managers were expected to be retrained in its implementation by the end of next year and a taskforce had been set up.
Source
Patients to grow spare body parts
HEART disease patients could grow "spare body parts" with a radical technique being developed by Melbourne engineers. Swinburne University scientists are poised to put on trial world-first technology that may see entire organs cultivated from just a few human cells. First on the agenda are heart valves that Prof Yosry Morsi believes his team can grow - and have transplanted into humans - within five years. The breakthrough may help up to 6000 Australians a year, revolutionising the surgery that repaired Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's heart about 15 years ago.
Prof Morsi said he believed that the technique might make artificial valves and "tissue" versions from humans, pigs and cows redundant. "We are trying to copy nature," he said. "We'd be using a patient's own cells, so their body is not going to react it."
The key to the technique, which could be tested on animals within a year, is "scaffolding" modelled on a patient's real heart. A cell from the patient's heart is put into the scaffolding, which is left in a machine that simulates human heart conditions. Cells multiply, growing into a replica of the original within 12 weeks. "While we are creating this living tissue, we are subjecting it to exactly the sort of pressures it will be under (in the body), like the pressure of blood flow," Prof Morsi said.
Though other scientists around the world are also in the race to successfully "grow" human organs, it is Swinburne's techniques that put it on track for the big breakthrough.
Prof Frank Rosenfeldt, head of The Alfred's cardiac surgical research unit, said Prof Morsi's work could revolutionise the common but complicated operation. "If a human heart valve can be grown using the patient's tissues, this would be a great advantage," he said. "It would be a living tissue, which might even regenerate and repair itself."
Like Mr Rudd, Melbourne grandfather Bill Wade was given a tissue valve and is enjoying a new lease on life. He was transplanted with a pig's valve - Mr Rudd had a human donor - at The Alfred in February. "I'm happy with this, and they've said it will last 10 to 15 years before I need a replacement, maybe longer," said Mr Wade, from Sandringham. "But if I had the choice (to grow) my own valve, that would just be amazing."
Source
Safety warnings a new chapter for fairytales
TEACHERS are being urged to give children safety messages after reading them fairytales warning not to copy characters such as Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and Hansel and Gretel. A new child protection curriculum being implemented by the Education Department also requires teachers to refer to children's "sexual parts" and use their correct anatomical names with children as young as three.
Child development experts have backed the measures, but critics believe they are an example of political correctness overkill that could turn children into "little nervous wrecks".
Parents across SA are being briefed on the impact of the new curriculum, which aims to teach children from preschool upwards the early warning signs of being unsafe and recognising abuse.
Teachers have been trained to be wary of storybooks in which characters put themselves at risk - and to respond by offering safety messages. For example, children would be warned not to talk to people they don't know as Little Red Riding Hood did with the Big Bad Wolf; not to walk around unsupervised like Goldilocks; and not to enter unknown houses like Hansel and Gretel. Popular modern books would also face scrutiny. The picture book Pig in the Pond, in which a farmer strips off to have a swim on a hot day, would be followed by explaining that it would be inappropriate to undress in front of someone you did not know.
Emeritus Professor of Child Development at UniSA, Professor Freda Briggs, who was consulted in the curriculum's development, supported the measures, calling for them to be implemented nationally. "This is about appropriately empowering the child," she said. "Kids are talking about sex at age five now. It's so in-your-face, I'm afraid that innocence is gone. They are sexualised younger and younger. "We need to use correct body terms because by giving children silly names or names that only the family understands, you're telling your child that you can't cope with talking about it. How does a child get help if nobody understands?"
But Australian Family Association spokesman Jerome Appleby said the measures - the first update to the child safety curriculum in more than 20 years - encroached on the domain of parents. Putting safety messages on fairytales risked frightening children unnecessarily. "You don't want to scare children too much and create an environment of fear," he said. "We don't want to create little nervous wrecks. "Parents are best placed to determine how much they need to tell their children and at what age."
Mr Appleby said teaching young children about the correct names for their "sexual parts" would contribute to the early sexualisation of children. "This will destroy the innocence of children too early," he said. "I don't think it's appropriate for very young children. They aren't ready for those sorts of adult concepts and it's a sad indictment on society."
Social commentator David Chalke said drawing modern morals from fairytales was fine, if stories or characters were not altered. "A lot of nursery tales are cautionary tales in their original sense, so I don't see a problem with making it relevant to today," he said. But Mr Chalke said it was "political correctness overkill" to introduce pre-schoolers to sexual concepts. "This is bureaucratic meddling; it's absurdity and it smacks of overkill," he said.
"To me, this is education bureaucracy getting above itself. "The heavy hand of the state is impinging on the parent-child relationship. They are saying that you must be correctly programmed from the age of three. We're talking about children who can neither read nor write. Leave the pre-schoolers alone."
Federation of Catholic School Parent Communities spokeswoman Ann Bliss said it was positive for pre-school teachers to incorporate safety messages into fairytales. "It's a good compromise. We're not throwing the fairytales out but we're engaging in conversations with our children, keeping them safe," she said.
In an emailed response, an Education Department spokesperson said: "There's no easy way to deliver a message about such a sensitive topic, and that is why the State Government enlisted the advice and assistance of local child protection experts in developing the program. The curriculum is taught in a way that is relevant and appropriate for each year level, and includes the use of anatomically correct and respectful language."
The Keeping Safe program was developed in conjunction with SA Police, Family and Community Services, the Australian Education Union, the National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect.
Source
Mathematics teaching dumbed down
STUDENTS are being taught maths at the most superficial level by teachers rushing to pass on the basic skills while shying away from complex ideas. In yet another example of children being failed by national school curriculums, a special report for the state leaders finds maths teaching is failing students by setting the bar too low.
The National Numeracy Review report, released to The Weekend Australian, criticises the national benchmarks in maths, which assess students against minimum standards rather than requiring a desirable proficiency. "The implication (is) that minimum standards are good enough, at least for some students," says the report on numeracy commissioned by the Council of Australian Governments. "All students and their families, however, have a right to expect high-quality - not minimum - numeracy outcomes from their schooling."
The review committee, chaired by the former head of the NSW Board of Studies Gordon Stanley, says the time spent teaching maths in classrooms has decreased over the past decade, yet students are expected to learn about a greater number of mathematical concepts. "Curriculum emphases and assessment regimes should be explicitly designed to discourage a reliance upon superficial and low-level proficiency," the report says. It recommends phasing out the streaming of students according to their ability, citing research that says it has little effect on achievement. "It does produce gains in attainment for higher-achieving students at the expense of lower-attaining students," it says.
The report recommends that all teachers, regardless of their intended speciality, be trained as numeracy teachers and maths be taught across all subjects. The report says primary school students should spend five hours a week and high school students four hours a week on maths and numeracy, including time spent learning maths in other subjects. The report also suggests introducing specialist maths teachers to work shoulder-to-shoulder with other teachers, particularly those without specialist training in maths teaching. It says students from the early years of school should be given complex maths problems and the language of maths should be explicitly taught.
The review was commissioned by the human capital working group of COAG to review international research about teaching maths and advise ways in which teaching standards could be improved. The report says literacy has received enormous attention and resources in recent years but numeracy provides a bigger challenge for schools. It uses the term numeracy, as opposed to maths, to describe the mathematical understanding required in today's workplace, defining numeracy as the capacity to bridge the gap between maths and the real world. "The mathematical knowledge, skill and understanding people need today, if they are to be truly numerate, involves considerably more than the acquisition of mathematical routines and algorithms," it says.
The report cites research that says Australia suffers from a "shallow teaching syndrome". Compared with other high-achieving countries in international maths tests, Australian schoolrooms have the highest percentage of repetitive problems and the highest percentage of problems of low complexity.
While the new national numeracy tests introduced this year will assess students against levels of proficiency, previously students were only judged against a benchmark set at the minimum level of knowledge required to progress through school. "They do not describe proficiency in numeracy or even the minimum standards that the community expects from Australian schools," it says.
The low standards expected of students are compounded by remedial programs targeting students failing to meet those minimum standards rather than aiming to assist all students to acquire some proficiency. "The rush to apparent proficiency at the expense of the sound conceptual development needed for sustained and ongoing mathematical proficiency must be rejected," it says. "From the earliest years, greater emphasis (should) be given to providing students with frequent exposure to higher-level mathematical problems rather than routine procedural tasks, in contexts of relevance to them."
Part of the problem facing schools is trying to teach more maths in less time, with some evidence suggesting the class time spent on maths has diminished over the years. One study estimates a Year 4 student in Australia spends about 250 minutes a week and a Year 8 student 210 minutes a week on maths. The report recommends primary school students spend 300 minutes a week and high school students 280 minutes a week on maths.
Source
Saturday, July 12, 2008
The dreadful peril of salty sausages
What utter nonsense. Our blood is roughly as salty as seawater so any idea that salt is a problem for us is just do-gooder claptrap. If we can't handle salt, we can't handle anything. People on salt restricted diets in fact die SOONER!
The iconic Aussie sausage sanger has been hauled over the coals for its "extreme salt content" in a new review showing the bread and everything inside it blows sodium guidelines. The product review found that one single sausage sandwich at a barbecue contains an adult's daily recommended dose of salt, and double that suggested for a child.
Researchers reviewed almost 200 sausage, bread and sauce products found on supermarket shelves and found the vast majority exceed acceptable salt levels set in the UK. Just two per cent of 44 sausage and hotdog brands and 16 per cent of the 43 white bread products met the guidelines. There were huge content variations across products, with some sausages containing over three times as much salt as others, the researchers said. Dozens of tomato and barbecue sauce brands also were checked, with more than half failing to make the cut.
"That's an incredible salt overload on its own, let alone with everything else you eat in a day," said Dr Bruce Neal, research director at The George Institute for International Health in Sydney. "I know it's an icon of the Australian diet but if people knew what they were eating and what it's doing to their health they might well think twice about it."
Anecdotal evidence suggests the average Australian adult consumes about nine grams of salt a day, well above the six grams recommended for good health. The new review suggests the six-gram threshold would be met by one sandwich, bringing with it increased health risks. "There's very clear evidence that eating more salt pushes your blood pressure up and that increases your risk of stroke and heart attack," Dr Neal said. "You're obviously not going to fall dead as you bite into the sausage but you're going to pay for it down the track."
The study was released today as part of a national campaign to cut salt levels in food at home and in restaurants and supermarkets by 25 per cent over five years. The Australian Food and Grocery Council has lent support to the campaign, and several big brands like Coles, Kellogg and Unilever have begun efforts to reduce salt content in products. "The government now needs to make salt a national health priority and lead negotiations on maximum salt targets for different products," said Dr Neal, who chairs the Australian Division of World Action on Salt and Health.
Source
Australian schools ignoring the Holocaust
The Left has now reverted to its prewar antisemitism so this omission from Left-dominated curricula is no surprise
An obsession with Australian history in curriculums has left students able to leave school without knowing that the Holocaust occurred. In a speech to high school principals, NSW education department head Michael Coutts-Trotter regretted the omission of the Holocaust from the state's mandatory history course. "I discovered for the first time about a month ago that you can get through compulsory schooling in NSW and never know that the Holocaust, the destruction of Jews in Europe, actually happened," he said. "You will know a lot about Don Bradman, and that's terrific. But I think to live life, you need to know the Holocaust happened."
The only mention of the Holocaust in the NSW syllabus for Years 7-10 is in the beginning, with the rationale for the course starting with a quotation from a Holocaust survivor about the importance of learning history. Compulsory history or social studies courses for schools in the other states also fail to mention the Holocaust.
A spokeswoman for the NSW Board of Studies said the history course for Years 7-10 had a lot to cover and the board did not want to overcrowd the curriculum. "There are opportunities to study the Holocaust and its consequences in a number of ways in both mandatory and elective history," she said.
Asked about those opportunities, the board pointed to the website of the Sydney Jewish Museum, which highlighted links to NSW syllabuses. The museum suggests it could be the subject of a site visit, compulsory for Year 9 students, and for Year 10 students looking at post-war Australia to the 1970s, it suggests examining the contribution of Jewish migrants.
The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies said yesterday it had been concerned for some time about the omission of the Holocaust from school history, and was working with the education department and the board of studies on the issue. Board chief executive Vic Alhadeff said the Jewish community regarded as essential the signposting across the curriculum of issues relating to discrimination, racism and genocide, including the Holocaust. "It is indeed possible to complete 13 years of schooling in NSW without having studied the Holocaust," he said. "This is a matter of great concern to the Jewish community, which works towards social cohesion as a matter of principle."
Wollongong University professor of history and politics Gregory Melleuish said the nation had become increasingly obsessed with Australian history over the past 10 or 15 years. "So we tend to look at things like World War I and II as Australia's involvement rather than what was at stake, why did it occur and what was going on," Professor Melleuish said. "Part of the problem of doing it from the point of view of Australia is students get the perspective that Australia saves the world."
Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard said the Government had asked the National Curriculum Board to develop a rigorous world-class curriculum for all students in four initial areas, including history.
Opposition education spokesman Tony Smith said it should not be possible for a student to leave school without being taught key events such as the two world wars, the Holocaust and the Cold War.
Source
Infection alert as dangerous superbugs hit South Australian public hospital
SUPERBUGS are on the rise at Royal Adelaide Hospital and some patients are carrying two different strains. Fifteen patients are now colonised with vancomycin-resistant enterococci, three times as many as there were in May. Four more patients have two different strains of antibiotic-resistant bugs, VRE as well as MRSA or golden staph. VRE has forced ward closures interstate, while golden staph kills about one person in five. SA Health confirmed the cases yesterday.
The other main metropolitan hospitals have no recorded cases of VRE, except the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which has had one case. Communicable Disease Control Branch director Dr Ann Koehler said there were no ward closures in SA. "VRE and other bacteria such as MRSA are becoming more common causes of healthcare-associated infections in SA and other states across Australia," she said.
Dr Koehler said the department had infection control teams supporting hospital workers and patients, but emphasised visitors had a role to play in reducing infections. "We can't stress enough the importance of visitors to our hospitals to follow simple and effective hand hygiene steps to stop their spread," she said. SA Health has taken actions to control the infection spreading, such as:
DAILY meetings of a VRE response team, increased staff education and frequent communication with relevant staff.
ENHANCED cleaning in identified wards.
ENVIRONMENTAL monitoring and active surveillance of groups at risk of colonisation.
FOCUS on hand hygiene, and compliance with precautions such as single-use gloves and gowns.
VRE does not normally cause illness, so patients are said to be `colonised' rather than infected. It can be a risk to patients with compromised immune systems.
Source
Kevin Rudd's carbon war may be good politics for him
Both the following speakers are Australian politicians. One is announcing an increase in the war effort in World War II. The other is talking about climate change. Spot who's who.
"No longer can this nation rest upon the basis of the ordinary way of life, of conducting business in the way we did, of working the way to which we have been accustomed. The [current crisis] has put an end to that period in our history."
"The penalty clause for us not acting is almost unthinkable . This country is on the verge of cataclysmic times, such as the human collective experience has never known."
You can probably tell the difference because of the hysteria in the second quotation. Prime minister John Curtin and his generation did not do hysteria, at least not in public. Senator Bob Brown (in the second quotation, from his address to the National Press Club this week) and many of his colleagues don't only use hysteria, they get elected on its back.
The rhetoric surrounding global warming is drawing increasingly on notions of religion and war. As has been often noted, environmentalism in its more extreme forms is deeply appealing to those of us with a need to believe in something, but who have decided that science has killed off Christianity. Brown, with his apocalyptic talk of cataclysm, exemplifies this. Ross Garnaut's use of the term "diabolical" when presenting his report pressed the same button. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse certainly get a good gallop in the report, with predictions of war (geopolitical instability), famine (collapse of agricultural productivity), pestilence (dengue fever) and death (all the above, plus heat-related fatalities).
ABC TV's political editor, Chris Uhlmann, picked up on the religious element in the carbon crusade on Insiders last Sunday. Speaking, he said, as a former seminarian, "one of the things that strikes me most strongly about this debate is its theological nature - and that's essentially that we have sinned against the environment, that we are now being punished and the only way we can escape that punishment is to wear a hair shirt for the rest of our lives".
Uhlmann said that while he was willing to "sign up" to climate change, "I do not believe every proposition that's been put. When the weather department can tell me what the weather is going to be like next Friday with any certainty and Treasury can get within a million dollars of what the surplus is going to be next year, I'll believe an economic model that marries those two things and casts them out over 100 years. I'll make one prediction - that whatever number Garnaut puts on where we'll be in 2100, it will be at least a trillion dollars either way wrong."
Turning from religion to war, it's not hard to see why politicians might be attracted to the military connotations of a carbon crusade. Wars, after all, are usually good for democratic governments, who see their support go up in the early stages of the conflict because in the public mind the ruling party's interests have become the same (at least temporarily) as the nation's. This phenomenon has been widely noted, and forms the basis for the rather splendid novel American Hero by Larry Beinhart, and the 1997 film version, Wag the Dog.
Wars have proved so useful in attracting or maintaining voter support that the war model has been extended into non-military zones by politicians around the world, with inventions such as the "war on drugs" and the "war on obesity". But the war approach, whether military or not, presents dangers. John Howard in his "war on terror" took Australia into Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction that proved to be non-existent. Time will tell whether Kevin Rudd, in his "war on carbon", ends up harming another nation (in this case our own, by damaging the economy) in pursuit of another illusory danger.
Still, there will be lots of press releases and photo stops along the way, and Rudd will get the opportunity to talk at plenty of televised gatherings of international leaders, something he seems to enjoy very much. Already you can see the heads of powerful nations giving Rudd that nervous look Howard attracted at these gatherings. He, too, would approach them with one hand ready to pat them on the back, the other grasping theirs in a remorseless handshake for as long as the cameras were pointing the right way.
While it might be argued that Iraq got Howard in the end, it provided him with a lot of benefits along the way, and not just photo sessions with the American president. It made Australian politics and the thousands who earn their living from it (yes, including journalists and commentators) feel important. Another useful result was that many on the right felt it was inappropriate to criticise the government for other things (such as its betrayal of much of the liberal policy agenda) in a time of crisis. And the left became so excited they became obsessed by minor issues such as David Hicks, instead of domestic matters of substance.
The benefits of the Iraq war couldn't last for ever, of course. But they helped John Howard have one of the longest runs of any Australia prime minister. If carefully managed, the war on carbon could do the same for Kevin Rudd.
Source
What utter nonsense. Our blood is roughly as salty as seawater so any idea that salt is a problem for us is just do-gooder claptrap. If we can't handle salt, we can't handle anything. People on salt restricted diets in fact die SOONER!
The iconic Aussie sausage sanger has been hauled over the coals for its "extreme salt content" in a new review showing the bread and everything inside it blows sodium guidelines. The product review found that one single sausage sandwich at a barbecue contains an adult's daily recommended dose of salt, and double that suggested for a child.
Researchers reviewed almost 200 sausage, bread and sauce products found on supermarket shelves and found the vast majority exceed acceptable salt levels set in the UK. Just two per cent of 44 sausage and hotdog brands and 16 per cent of the 43 white bread products met the guidelines. There were huge content variations across products, with some sausages containing over three times as much salt as others, the researchers said. Dozens of tomato and barbecue sauce brands also were checked, with more than half failing to make the cut.
"That's an incredible salt overload on its own, let alone with everything else you eat in a day," said Dr Bruce Neal, research director at The George Institute for International Health in Sydney. "I know it's an icon of the Australian diet but if people knew what they were eating and what it's doing to their health they might well think twice about it."
Anecdotal evidence suggests the average Australian adult consumes about nine grams of salt a day, well above the six grams recommended for good health. The new review suggests the six-gram threshold would be met by one sandwich, bringing with it increased health risks. "There's very clear evidence that eating more salt pushes your blood pressure up and that increases your risk of stroke and heart attack," Dr Neal said. "You're obviously not going to fall dead as you bite into the sausage but you're going to pay for it down the track."
The study was released today as part of a national campaign to cut salt levels in food at home and in restaurants and supermarkets by 25 per cent over five years. The Australian Food and Grocery Council has lent support to the campaign, and several big brands like Coles, Kellogg and Unilever have begun efforts to reduce salt content in products. "The government now needs to make salt a national health priority and lead negotiations on maximum salt targets for different products," said Dr Neal, who chairs the Australian Division of World Action on Salt and Health.
Source
Australian schools ignoring the Holocaust
The Left has now reverted to its prewar antisemitism so this omission from Left-dominated curricula is no surprise
An obsession with Australian history in curriculums has left students able to leave school without knowing that the Holocaust occurred. In a speech to high school principals, NSW education department head Michael Coutts-Trotter regretted the omission of the Holocaust from the state's mandatory history course. "I discovered for the first time about a month ago that you can get through compulsory schooling in NSW and never know that the Holocaust, the destruction of Jews in Europe, actually happened," he said. "You will know a lot about Don Bradman, and that's terrific. But I think to live life, you need to know the Holocaust happened."
The only mention of the Holocaust in the NSW syllabus for Years 7-10 is in the beginning, with the rationale for the course starting with a quotation from a Holocaust survivor about the importance of learning history. Compulsory history or social studies courses for schools in the other states also fail to mention the Holocaust.
A spokeswoman for the NSW Board of Studies said the history course for Years 7-10 had a lot to cover and the board did not want to overcrowd the curriculum. "There are opportunities to study the Holocaust and its consequences in a number of ways in both mandatory and elective history," she said.
Asked about those opportunities, the board pointed to the website of the Sydney Jewish Museum, which highlighted links to NSW syllabuses. The museum suggests it could be the subject of a site visit, compulsory for Year 9 students, and for Year 10 students looking at post-war Australia to the 1970s, it suggests examining the contribution of Jewish migrants.
The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies said yesterday it had been concerned for some time about the omission of the Holocaust from school history, and was working with the education department and the board of studies on the issue. Board chief executive Vic Alhadeff said the Jewish community regarded as essential the signposting across the curriculum of issues relating to discrimination, racism and genocide, including the Holocaust. "It is indeed possible to complete 13 years of schooling in NSW without having studied the Holocaust," he said. "This is a matter of great concern to the Jewish community, which works towards social cohesion as a matter of principle."
Wollongong University professor of history and politics Gregory Melleuish said the nation had become increasingly obsessed with Australian history over the past 10 or 15 years. "So we tend to look at things like World War I and II as Australia's involvement rather than what was at stake, why did it occur and what was going on," Professor Melleuish said. "Part of the problem of doing it from the point of view of Australia is students get the perspective that Australia saves the world."
Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard said the Government had asked the National Curriculum Board to develop a rigorous world-class curriculum for all students in four initial areas, including history.
Opposition education spokesman Tony Smith said it should not be possible for a student to leave school without being taught key events such as the two world wars, the Holocaust and the Cold War.
Source
Infection alert as dangerous superbugs hit South Australian public hospital
SUPERBUGS are on the rise at Royal Adelaide Hospital and some patients are carrying two different strains. Fifteen patients are now colonised with vancomycin-resistant enterococci, three times as many as there were in May. Four more patients have two different strains of antibiotic-resistant bugs, VRE as well as MRSA or golden staph. VRE has forced ward closures interstate, while golden staph kills about one person in five. SA Health confirmed the cases yesterday.
The other main metropolitan hospitals have no recorded cases of VRE, except the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which has had one case. Communicable Disease Control Branch director Dr Ann Koehler said there were no ward closures in SA. "VRE and other bacteria such as MRSA are becoming more common causes of healthcare-associated infections in SA and other states across Australia," she said.
Dr Koehler said the department had infection control teams supporting hospital workers and patients, but emphasised visitors had a role to play in reducing infections. "We can't stress enough the importance of visitors to our hospitals to follow simple and effective hand hygiene steps to stop their spread," she said. SA Health has taken actions to control the infection spreading, such as:
DAILY meetings of a VRE response team, increased staff education and frequent communication with relevant staff.
ENHANCED cleaning in identified wards.
ENVIRONMENTAL monitoring and active surveillance of groups at risk of colonisation.
FOCUS on hand hygiene, and compliance with precautions such as single-use gloves and gowns.
VRE does not normally cause illness, so patients are said to be `colonised' rather than infected. It can be a risk to patients with compromised immune systems.
Source
Kevin Rudd's carbon war may be good politics for him
Both the following speakers are Australian politicians. One is announcing an increase in the war effort in World War II. The other is talking about climate change. Spot who's who.
"No longer can this nation rest upon the basis of the ordinary way of life, of conducting business in the way we did, of working the way to which we have been accustomed. The [current crisis] has put an end to that period in our history."
"The penalty clause for us not acting is almost unthinkable . This country is on the verge of cataclysmic times, such as the human collective experience has never known."
You can probably tell the difference because of the hysteria in the second quotation. Prime minister John Curtin and his generation did not do hysteria, at least not in public. Senator Bob Brown (in the second quotation, from his address to the National Press Club this week) and many of his colleagues don't only use hysteria, they get elected on its back.
The rhetoric surrounding global warming is drawing increasingly on notions of religion and war. As has been often noted, environmentalism in its more extreme forms is deeply appealing to those of us with a need to believe in something, but who have decided that science has killed off Christianity. Brown, with his apocalyptic talk of cataclysm, exemplifies this. Ross Garnaut's use of the term "diabolical" when presenting his report pressed the same button. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse certainly get a good gallop in the report, with predictions of war (geopolitical instability), famine (collapse of agricultural productivity), pestilence (dengue fever) and death (all the above, plus heat-related fatalities).
ABC TV's political editor, Chris Uhlmann, picked up on the religious element in the carbon crusade on Insiders last Sunday. Speaking, he said, as a former seminarian, "one of the things that strikes me most strongly about this debate is its theological nature - and that's essentially that we have sinned against the environment, that we are now being punished and the only way we can escape that punishment is to wear a hair shirt for the rest of our lives".
Uhlmann said that while he was willing to "sign up" to climate change, "I do not believe every proposition that's been put. When the weather department can tell me what the weather is going to be like next Friday with any certainty and Treasury can get within a million dollars of what the surplus is going to be next year, I'll believe an economic model that marries those two things and casts them out over 100 years. I'll make one prediction - that whatever number Garnaut puts on where we'll be in 2100, it will be at least a trillion dollars either way wrong."
Turning from religion to war, it's not hard to see why politicians might be attracted to the military connotations of a carbon crusade. Wars, after all, are usually good for democratic governments, who see their support go up in the early stages of the conflict because in the public mind the ruling party's interests have become the same (at least temporarily) as the nation's. This phenomenon has been widely noted, and forms the basis for the rather splendid novel American Hero by Larry Beinhart, and the 1997 film version, Wag the Dog.
Wars have proved so useful in attracting or maintaining voter support that the war model has been extended into non-military zones by politicians around the world, with inventions such as the "war on drugs" and the "war on obesity". But the war approach, whether military or not, presents dangers. John Howard in his "war on terror" took Australia into Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction that proved to be non-existent. Time will tell whether Kevin Rudd, in his "war on carbon", ends up harming another nation (in this case our own, by damaging the economy) in pursuit of another illusory danger.
Still, there will be lots of press releases and photo stops along the way, and Rudd will get the opportunity to talk at plenty of televised gatherings of international leaders, something he seems to enjoy very much. Already you can see the heads of powerful nations giving Rudd that nervous look Howard attracted at these gatherings. He, too, would approach them with one hand ready to pat them on the back, the other grasping theirs in a remorseless handshake for as long as the cameras were pointing the right way.
While it might be argued that Iraq got Howard in the end, it provided him with a lot of benefits along the way, and not just photo sessions with the American president. It made Australian politics and the thousands who earn their living from it (yes, including journalists and commentators) feel important. Another useful result was that many on the right felt it was inappropriate to criticise the government for other things (such as its betrayal of much of the liberal policy agenda) in a time of crisis. And the left became so excited they became obsessed by minor issues such as David Hicks, instead of domestic matters of substance.
The benefits of the Iraq war couldn't last for ever, of course. But they helped John Howard have one of the longest runs of any Australia prime minister. If carefully managed, the war on carbon could do the same for Kevin Rudd.
Source
Friday, July 11, 2008
ANOTHER DAY OF SOCIALIST MEDICAL MAYHEM
Three articles below: Just one day's worth
Nasty Leftist politician jealous of private PET scanner
Builders in the middle of installing a life-saving PET scanner were ordered to leave the Hobart Private Hospital or risk breaking the law. Health Minister Lara Giddings said the scanner did not have her approval. MIA Tasmania says it spent five years and several million dollars obtaining approvals and training specialists to use the Positron Emission Tomography scanner -- the only one in Tasmania. It has approval letters from the Department of Health's health physics unit and the Royal Hobart Hospital. The scanner is due to be ready for patients next month.
"On Monday we were told we had to get ministerial approval. The previous approval was retracted," said Mark Simpson, general manager of Regional Imaging which owns MIA Tasmania. He said Healthscope, which leases the building from the State Government, was forced to tell them to leave. "We intended this scanner for use for public and private patients statewide," Mr Simpson said.
Tasmania is the only state without a PET scanner -- which measures how far cancers have spread and helps determine whether to operate or not. Hundreds of Tasmanians each year travel to scanners interstate. PET can help diagnose Alzheimer's, epilepsy and heart disease. But the Federal Government promised late last year to buy a scanner for Tasmania -- right next door in the RHH. The public plan is expected to take three years or more.
However, Ms Giddings said the State Government had not approved the MIA scanner. "The Hospitals Act is designed to ensure the safety of patients is protected when additions or alterations are made in private medical establishments," she said. She told estimates hearings last month she had not issued the licence to MIA.
Mr Simpson said if such approval was required, it had not been so for all the other equipment they had brought in. PET is a sub-branch of nuclear medicine. MIA provides all the RHH's nuclear medicine reporting services.
"This move could deprive seriously ill Tasmanians of an important diagnostic tool and beggars belief," said Liberal health spokesman Brett Whiteley. Greens leader Nick McKim said Tasmanians needed access to PET scans sooner rather than later, something Ms Giddings should be facilitating.
Source
W.A.: Blind war vet, 80, 'waited 20 hours' for hospital bed
No capacity in the system for coping properly with upsurges in demand -- WHICH HAPPENS EVERY WINTER!
An 80-year-old war veteran was forced to wait nearly 20 hours overnight for a bed at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital emergency department, his wife claimed today. Edward Webster from Bedford was brought to SCGH emergency department by ambulance yesterday afternoon about 3pm for a bone marrow test. It was at the urging of his GP.
His wife, 76-year-old Helen, said she left him at the hospital at 9pm. At the time he was still waiting in a wheelchair. When Mrs Webster returned early this morning she found out he had still not been admitted to hospital for a bed. He was yet to be given a bed at 10.30am today, but is believed to have been admitted into a ward just before 11am.
Mr Webster suffers from a leukaemia-like blood disorder known as myelofibrosis. He is also blind. "He is still in emergency right now," Mrs Webster told Perthnow just after 10am. "He has not been admitted to hospital."
SCGH executive director Dr Amanda Ling refused to comment on Mr Webster'r ordeal, but conceded there were a "significant number of patients" in the hospital's emergency department yesterday afternoon. She said a high demand for inpatient beds had caused delays for some patients. "We do not comment on individual patients -- all patients have a right to medical confidentiality," Dr Ling said. "On Wednesday evening, there was a significant number of patients in the emergency department including three patients with life-threatening conditions which meant patients with less serious conditions waited to be seen by a doctor. "Every patient who presents to the emergency department is triaged by a senior nurse when they arrive. Patients with serious conditions are treated ahead of those with less serious conditions.
"If a patient needs to be admitted to hospital, they will be transferred to a ward as soon as a bed becomes available. Every patient in the emergency department is monitored closely throughout their stay. "We are currently experiencing high demand for inpatient beds which has caused delays for some patients. "Our staff work very hard to ensure every patient receives the very best care throughout their stay. We are more than happy to fully investigate any concerns patients or their families have about their care if they alert us."
A frustrated Mrs Webster rang 6PR talkback radio station this morning to report the situation concerning her husband. She said she had now been told by hospital staff that her husband would most likely be transferred to Hollywood Private Hospital. "I'm angry and very upset," Mrs Webster said. "I'm not angry with the hospital. I am angry with the Government. He's a war veteran. For him to be treated like this is just not right." Mr Webster served in the peace keeping corps in Japan following World War II.
Source
Health levy plan to `hurt poorest'
The Catholic Church -- the nation's biggest operator of hospitals after state governments -- has warned Kevin Rudd that his move to lift Medicare surcharge levy thresholds will hammer the battlers he wants to help by choking already stressed public wards and lengthening surgical waiting lists. In a devastating critique of one of the Prime Minister's main 2008-09 budget initiatives, Catholic Health Australia has used government data to warn the change will lump public hospitals with a $400 million burden of providing an extra 200,000 procedures in the next 12 months, The Australian reports.
CHA also predicts elderly people seeking hip and knee replacements will be among the hardest hit and that the changes will trigger an unavoidable 10 per cent increase in private health insurance premiums next year. "The CHA review has found specific impact on low- and middle-income earners -- the group the proposed threshold changes were in fact designed to assist,'' says a submission the organisation lodged yesterday with the office of Wayne Swan. "Patients in both public and private sectors will be adversely impacted by the likely fall in private health insurance membership, but it is low- and middle-income earners who will bear the brunt of the new pressure that will be placed on the public health system.''
But the Treasurer last night defended the changes, saying the increase in thresholds was designed to provide relief for families facing the tax, originally introduced by the Howard government to target high-income earners but never indexed. In the budget handed down in May, Mr Swan announced an increase in the income thresholds at which people without health insurance face an extra surcharge worth 1 per cent of their income.
The income threshold at which single people would be liable to pay the surcharge will rise from $50,000 a year to $100,000. Couples will face the surcharge if their combined income exceeds $150,000 -- up from $100,000. Treasury modelling suggests the change will encourage 485,000 people to abandon their health insurance because they will no longer face the penalty of the surcharge. Legislation enshrining the changes was sent to a Senate committee by the Coalition-controlled Senate last month and will be reconsidered next month.
Source
Australian Dire Climate Change Predictions Just a Fantasy?
Post below recycled from Agmates, an Australian rural publication
Last weekend Senior weather forecasters Predicted the best soaking rains for 2008.
Well this is where the rain fell.
The map above is from the Bureau of Meteorology from the 1st to 10th of July. Areas that received over 25mls (1 inch) are green. You can see for yourself how accurate these prediction were just a few days out. They were wrong - what a surprise.
Apparently the scientists can’t be accurate 3 days out, but 30 years from now they can. What a ridiculous assumption / conclusion that is.
Each day we hear of the dire predictions for our rainfall and temperature in 20-30 and 50 years time. We are expected to take this computer modeling seriously (and unbelievably State and Federal governments are) when they aren’t even remotely accurate just days ahead.
Climatologist Stewart Franks an expert in hydro-climatic variability at the University of Newcastle in NSW said scenarios set out by Ross Garnaut in his Emission Trading Scheme recommendations were simply wrong. He said
Read all that Stewart had to say in an article in this weeks Australian Newspaper. Garnaut scenario ’simply wrong’
New South Wales Treasurer Michael Costa caused a stir this week when he called parts of Professor Garnaut’s report “Chicken Little arguments” (You know -The Sky is falling”) In his column in the Australian he says:
Photo 2: Below is a BOM map showing the % of rainfall received across Australia for the last 2 years compared to the mean.
Federal agriculture minister Tony Burke (pictured below) earlier this month released a joint assessment by the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO. In particular, the study found exceptionally high temperatures would occur almost yearly, while low rainfall would almost double in frequency from current figures. He said:
Minister Burke even though he was being serious is quiet correct. It is just science fiction.
Finally, lets keep it all in a bit of perspective. Heres the BOM map showing the area of Australia that is in drought for the last 2 years. To paraphrase Stewart Franks - we have seen it all before and we’ll see it all again. The good seasons and the bad.
Three articles below: Just one day's worth
Nasty Leftist politician jealous of private PET scanner
Builders in the middle of installing a life-saving PET scanner were ordered to leave the Hobart Private Hospital or risk breaking the law. Health Minister Lara Giddings said the scanner did not have her approval. MIA Tasmania says it spent five years and several million dollars obtaining approvals and training specialists to use the Positron Emission Tomography scanner -- the only one in Tasmania. It has approval letters from the Department of Health's health physics unit and the Royal Hobart Hospital. The scanner is due to be ready for patients next month.
"On Monday we were told we had to get ministerial approval. The previous approval was retracted," said Mark Simpson, general manager of Regional Imaging which owns MIA Tasmania. He said Healthscope, which leases the building from the State Government, was forced to tell them to leave. "We intended this scanner for use for public and private patients statewide," Mr Simpson said.
Tasmania is the only state without a PET scanner -- which measures how far cancers have spread and helps determine whether to operate or not. Hundreds of Tasmanians each year travel to scanners interstate. PET can help diagnose Alzheimer's, epilepsy and heart disease. But the Federal Government promised late last year to buy a scanner for Tasmania -- right next door in the RHH. The public plan is expected to take three years or more.
However, Ms Giddings said the State Government had not approved the MIA scanner. "The Hospitals Act is designed to ensure the safety of patients is protected when additions or alterations are made in private medical establishments," she said. She told estimates hearings last month she had not issued the licence to MIA.
Mr Simpson said if such approval was required, it had not been so for all the other equipment they had brought in. PET is a sub-branch of nuclear medicine. MIA provides all the RHH's nuclear medicine reporting services.
"This move could deprive seriously ill Tasmanians of an important diagnostic tool and beggars belief," said Liberal health spokesman Brett Whiteley. Greens leader Nick McKim said Tasmanians needed access to PET scans sooner rather than later, something Ms Giddings should be facilitating.
Source
W.A.: Blind war vet, 80, 'waited 20 hours' for hospital bed
No capacity in the system for coping properly with upsurges in demand -- WHICH HAPPENS EVERY WINTER!
An 80-year-old war veteran was forced to wait nearly 20 hours overnight for a bed at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital emergency department, his wife claimed today. Edward Webster from Bedford was brought to SCGH emergency department by ambulance yesterday afternoon about 3pm for a bone marrow test. It was at the urging of his GP.
His wife, 76-year-old Helen, said she left him at the hospital at 9pm. At the time he was still waiting in a wheelchair. When Mrs Webster returned early this morning she found out he had still not been admitted to hospital for a bed. He was yet to be given a bed at 10.30am today, but is believed to have been admitted into a ward just before 11am.
Mr Webster suffers from a leukaemia-like blood disorder known as myelofibrosis. He is also blind. "He is still in emergency right now," Mrs Webster told Perthnow just after 10am. "He has not been admitted to hospital."
SCGH executive director Dr Amanda Ling refused to comment on Mr Webster'r ordeal, but conceded there were a "significant number of patients" in the hospital's emergency department yesterday afternoon. She said a high demand for inpatient beds had caused delays for some patients. "We do not comment on individual patients -- all patients have a right to medical confidentiality," Dr Ling said. "On Wednesday evening, there was a significant number of patients in the emergency department including three patients with life-threatening conditions which meant patients with less serious conditions waited to be seen by a doctor. "Every patient who presents to the emergency department is triaged by a senior nurse when they arrive. Patients with serious conditions are treated ahead of those with less serious conditions.
"If a patient needs to be admitted to hospital, they will be transferred to a ward as soon as a bed becomes available. Every patient in the emergency department is monitored closely throughout their stay. "We are currently experiencing high demand for inpatient beds which has caused delays for some patients. "Our staff work very hard to ensure every patient receives the very best care throughout their stay. We are more than happy to fully investigate any concerns patients or their families have about their care if they alert us."
A frustrated Mrs Webster rang 6PR talkback radio station this morning to report the situation concerning her husband. She said she had now been told by hospital staff that her husband would most likely be transferred to Hollywood Private Hospital. "I'm angry and very upset," Mrs Webster said. "I'm not angry with the hospital. I am angry with the Government. He's a war veteran. For him to be treated like this is just not right." Mr Webster served in the peace keeping corps in Japan following World War II.
Source
Health levy plan to `hurt poorest'
The Catholic Church -- the nation's biggest operator of hospitals after state governments -- has warned Kevin Rudd that his move to lift Medicare surcharge levy thresholds will hammer the battlers he wants to help by choking already stressed public wards and lengthening surgical waiting lists. In a devastating critique of one of the Prime Minister's main 2008-09 budget initiatives, Catholic Health Australia has used government data to warn the change will lump public hospitals with a $400 million burden of providing an extra 200,000 procedures in the next 12 months, The Australian reports.
CHA also predicts elderly people seeking hip and knee replacements will be among the hardest hit and that the changes will trigger an unavoidable 10 per cent increase in private health insurance premiums next year. "The CHA review has found specific impact on low- and middle-income earners -- the group the proposed threshold changes were in fact designed to assist,'' says a submission the organisation lodged yesterday with the office of Wayne Swan. "Patients in both public and private sectors will be adversely impacted by the likely fall in private health insurance membership, but it is low- and middle-income earners who will bear the brunt of the new pressure that will be placed on the public health system.''
But the Treasurer last night defended the changes, saying the increase in thresholds was designed to provide relief for families facing the tax, originally introduced by the Howard government to target high-income earners but never indexed. In the budget handed down in May, Mr Swan announced an increase in the income thresholds at which people without health insurance face an extra surcharge worth 1 per cent of their income.
The income threshold at which single people would be liable to pay the surcharge will rise from $50,000 a year to $100,000. Couples will face the surcharge if their combined income exceeds $150,000 -- up from $100,000. Treasury modelling suggests the change will encourage 485,000 people to abandon their health insurance because they will no longer face the penalty of the surcharge. Legislation enshrining the changes was sent to a Senate committee by the Coalition-controlled Senate last month and will be reconsidered next month.
Source
Australian Dire Climate Change Predictions Just a Fantasy?
Post below recycled from Agmates, an Australian rural publication
Last weekend Senior weather forecasters Predicted the best soaking rains for 2008.
"We've been watching several computer simulations for the past few days and they are indicating that some of the best rain for 2008 is likely next week, and this is forecast to fall over some of our worst drought affected areas," Mr Whitaker said in a statement.
"Widespread rainfall totals of 25 to 50mm are likely over large areas of western Queensland, western NSW, northern Victoria and South Australia from Monday to Friday.
Well this is where the rain fell.
The map above is from the Bureau of Meteorology from the 1st to 10th of July. Areas that received over 25mls (1 inch) are green. You can see for yourself how accurate these prediction were just a few days out. They were wrong - what a surprise.
Apparently the scientists can’t be accurate 3 days out, but 30 years from now they can. What a ridiculous assumption / conclusion that is.
Each day we hear of the dire predictions for our rainfall and temperature in 20-30 and 50 years time. We are expected to take this computer modeling seriously (and unbelievably State and Federal governments are) when they aren’t even remotely accurate just days ahead.
Climatologist Stewart Franks an expert in hydro-climatic variability at the University of Newcastle in NSW said scenarios set out by Ross Garnaut in his Emission Trading Scheme recommendations were simply wrong. He said
“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,”
Read all that Stewart had to say in an article in this weeks Australian Newspaper. Garnaut scenario ’simply wrong’
New South Wales Treasurer Michael Costa caused a stir this week when he called parts of Professor Garnaut’s report “Chicken Little arguments” (You know -The Sky is falling”) In his column in the Australian he says:
“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.
Chicken Little arguments are no substitute for getting right the important details on issues of far-reaching consequence.”
Photo 2: Below is a BOM map showing the % of rainfall received across Australia for the last 2 years compared to the mean.
Federal agriculture minister Tony Burke (pictured below) earlier this month released a joint assessment by the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO. In particular, the study found exceptionally high temperatures would occur almost yearly, while low rainfall would almost double in frequency from current figures. He said:
“While this is a scientific report, parts of these high level projections read more like a disaster novel than a scientific report.”
“What’s clear is that the cycle of drought is going to be more regular and deeper than ever.”
Minister Burke even though he was being serious is quiet correct. It is just science fiction.
Finally, lets keep it all in a bit of perspective. Heres the BOM map showing the area of Australia that is in drought for the last 2 years. To paraphrase Stewart Franks - we have seen it all before and we’ll see it all again. The good seasons and the bad.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
AUSTRALIA'S UNENDING GREENIE PROBLEM
Three current articles below
Greenie paradise not so good when you try to live there
The Daintree is a beautiful unspoilt jungle area that the Greenies love -- but Greenies want to have their cake and eat it too. They hate modernity until they have to do without any of it
Daintree resident Neil Hewett's family uses gas to cook and heat water and there is no airconditioning to beat the far north Queensland tropical heat. Electricity is used only to run small appliances and a TV. But Mr Hewett still faces a weekly fuel bill of $170 to run generators that supplement the solar and hydro power electricity produced on his property. And the refill price of a gas bottle is $150. All up, it cost him $70,000 to become power self-sufficient as required by the State Government, which refuses to send electricity north of the Daintree River.
About 675 residents live there in 450 homes, and every home generator is spewing carbon dioxide into the surrounding World Heritage-listed environment where development has been restricted to maintain its pristine state. Locals have to run diesel and petrol motors because, with 5.5 meters of rain a year and 265 cloudy days a year, solar generation is unreliable.
Now, with diesel approaching $2 a litre, locals want the Government to relax its ban on reticulated power. According to Mr Hewett, conditions set by the state and federal governments for eventual access to the equalised tariff system that applies to other Queenslanders have been met.
Ten years ago, in a bid to stop development between the Daintree and Cape Tribulation, authorities decided on a $41 million buyback of some of the land that had been bought for homes. Established houses at Cape Tribulation, Cow Bay, Diwan, Cooper Creek and Thornton Beach were exempt. According to the deal, the buyback would trigger provision of electricity. With the buyback successful and the area further protected by new government iconic estate legislation, locals want the ban lifted.
In October, Energy Minister Geoff Wilson said he would take the matter to Cabinet but nothing has eventuated. Mr Hewett, who operates a forest walking business, said the ban was originally intended to stop developers who wanted to exploit a "great treasure". "But that legitimacy no longer exists," he said. "The development issue has been resolved. It is time the Government did something special for the Daintree."
But Mr Wilson was unsympathetic, saying: "We are not about to bulldoze through ancient rainforest to put in powerlines north of the Daintree River. "We are talking about world-famous, World Heritage-listed rainforest and everyone would want it to stay that way."
Source
Jobs 'at risk' from climate plan
OIL giant Mobil could be forced to close its Melbourne refinery when the Rudd Government introduces a carbon emissions trading scheme. The closure of the refinery, which supplies half of Victoria's fuel needs, would cut competition and could push up petrol prices.
Company executives believe the refinery, which employs 350 people, could become unviable because of competition from overseas facilities that do not have to pay to emit greenhouse gases. Under emissions trading, ExxonMobil will have to buy permits allowing it to emit carbon gases.
ExxonMobil Australia chairman Mark Nolan said yesterday the company would struggle to deal with the extra costs. "If you put a carbon price on Australian petroleum refining we'd find it very difficult, if not impossible, to recoup any of those costs because the price of petroleum products in Australia reflects the regional market," Mr Nolan said. "What we've said to Prof Garnaut and others is that it would be very difficult for domestic refineries, such as our Altona plant, to compete on a level playing field unless government recognises that refining is an emissions-intensive, trade-exposed sector." Mr Nolan said an ETS might also make it more difficult for the company to develop new liquid natural gas projects.
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said yesterday the Government would consider industry concerns as it developed the trading scheme, due to start in 2010. "We understand there are various industries we have to be very mindful of, and obviously these issues will be canvassed in the Green Paper," Senator Wong said. "But what's important here is this: climate change is facing us, it is coming at us." [No sign of it for the last 10 byears but let's not quibble!]
Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes said companies subject to international competition, such as ExxonMobil, should get free carbon emission permits from the Government. "We're very keen to see a free allocation of permits for Australian producers to ensure that producers can make changes to their processes to lower their emissions, but also to produce goods Australia needs," Mr Howes said.
He said that there was no point in Australian refineries closing if they were replaced by facilities overseas that had lower environmental standards. [Logic for a change]
Source
Costly tokenism of climate scheme
When Garnaut said Australia had a diabolical problem he wasn't referring to rising sea levels or receding glaciers. Rather, it was the dilemma of needing to tax industry for carbon dioxide emissions when the emissions of this country alone can have no meaningful effect on the global problem of climate change.
The abject failure of the G8 this week to convince developing countries China and India to reduce their emissions is portent. Just as Australians can argue that their emissions have no material effect, developing countries contend, with great validity, that they didn't cause the problems in the first place - and in any event, their per capita emissions are far lower than the G8 averages!
Despite his swelling chorus of critics, Garnaut's work is substantial. There is nothing new in it, no blinding insights, but it is a solid assembly of all the critical issues and hypotheses on climate change. It spans the global effects and costs of droughts and floods to the economic impacts of a carbon trading scheme.
The Canberra professor already has his fierce critics. And the voices of dissent will rise further as industry and its vested interest groups gird their loins for the lobbying battle which lies ahead.
The most relevant criticism of the work is that it fudges on the notion that the consequences of climate change - from bleaching corals to melting icebergs _ somehow hinge on what Australia does to combat carbon emissions. What is it that Australia can do to reverse, or even slow emissions growth globally? Nothing of substance.
We are assuming here - notwithstanding what seem to be even more shrill cries of conspiracy from the climate change sceptics - that the overwhelming body of scientists and assorted experts have it right. That is, that human activity is warming the planet and something needs to be done about it. There is no swindle. Even assuming the flat-earthers have a prospect of being right, the risk of doing nothing would be too high.
Still, the argument that we urgently have to do something undermines the credibility of Garnaut, in a sense, as the effect of Australian activity has a negligible effect on global emissions. If we accept that the world has to do something urgently, that's fair enough, but even with no effort from Australia, the world could fight global warming quite nicely on its own.
Australia may dominate in cricket but not carbon emissions. Six countries and the European Union alone account for three-quarters of the world's emissions. Those are the US, China, Russia, Japan, India and Indonesia. Australia, contributing less than 2% to emissions, despite our high per capita carbon count, is not among them. We can only add another 100 million tonnes to the global 40 billion tonnes of carbon emissions assuming 2% growth over the next decade.
Does this mean it is useless for Australia to bother doing anything? This is where the debate gets philosophical. Is symbolic action worth the cost? Is there a case for Australia being a global champion of the climate cause? Would it not be a tad hypocritical, even under a new government, to hop up and move straight from the back of the classroom to the front row and start lecturing the teacher? Exaggerating our place in the global order at the expense of our own industry may be a mere vanity.
Let's not forget that one important aspect of the Rudd Government's victory at the polls last year was the Labor Party's pro-Kyoto stance. Rudd has a green mandate, a mandate to effect change, to make the hard decisions. Now the ramifications of this mandate are becoming disturbingly clear - and they are the high costs to industry of an ETS. This is where Kevin Rudd's other duties, to run the economy and look after workers, will come into sharp relief against his green mandate.
The overwhelming cost of the ETS will fall on coal, steel, power generation and mining sectors. Agriculture too, if not exempted. The rub is that these sectors not only deliver a disproportionate slice of the national income but also keep a lot of ''working families'' in work. What Garnaut recommends is a wholesale restructuring of our economy to respond to the climate change crisis. The impact of this, contend his detractors, would be destructive on local economies. In any case, India and China would still be pumping out the equivalent emissions while benefitting from the hole left by an Australian resources competitor. We will be hearing a lot of the ''if it's not us, it'll be somebody else'' logic.
Clearly, the line needs to be drawn between transforming Australia into a sustainable economy and not needlessly blowing up local economies and putting people out of work. This will be a nightmare for politicians who will blow up votes whatever policy or course of action they take....
More here
AUSTRALIA'S UNENDING PUBLIC MEDICINE PROBLEM
Two current articles below
NSW Ambulance bureaucracy indifferent to staff welfare
Not exactly a surprise
AMBULANCE management had been "grossly negligent and dismissive" in handling complaints by a female officer about bullying at Cowra before she eventually committed suicide, her former supervisor has told a parliamentary inquiry. The Herald has learnt that no women have been appointed to the Cowra ambulance station in the three years since the first and only female officer there, Christine Hodder, hanged herself in her backyard after allegedly enduring years of bullying and harassment by up to seven male colleagues.
An internal investigation by the NSW Ambulance Service after Mrs Hodder's death in 2005 recommended a male replace her and that no female be hired there for six months. There were 24 recommendations "to address better management of harassment and bullying" but no officer was disciplined after the investigation.
Mrs Hodder's former supervisor, Phil Roxburgh, said his complaints had fallen on deaf ears. He told the inquiry he was fed up with the "harassment, bullying, and intimidation which still continues unabated in the service, coupled with management's dysfunctional handling and empty posturing concerning these occurrences".
Yesterday Mr Roxburgh told the Herald he had received more than 100 emails of complaints after sending a group email in April expressing concern about bullying. "I couldn't do anything for Christine and myself - it's too late for that - but I'm hearing of people who have received some very bad outcomes from management," he said. "It's like water torture. You're left to hang and hang. I've got a couple of people who are on the verge of suiciding."
Mr Roxburgh had supported Mrs Hodder while she was at Cowra but he was also victimised and went on stress leave in October 2004, he told the inquiry. He said the professional standards and conduct unit "patently failed to respond in a timely and appropriate way" despite his warnings. He had also raised concerns with human resources, rehabilitation, and the state superintendent, and had even tried to speak to the CEO of the service, Greg Rochford, but "this fell on deaf ears". He accused the head of the conduct unit, Marion O'Connell, of being "very aggressive" when he criticised the internal investigation.
Mrs Hodder's mother-in-law, Carolynn Hodder, and Mr Roxburgh each told the inquiry that the then assistant operations manager leaked a complaint from Christine Hodder about a man whom she suspected had urinated "all over" her toilet. "Things at the station became explosive - [the accused person] became very verbally abusive towards her and he told Christine, 'See I told you. You have no chance seeking help from anyone above or the union as we will find out,' " Carolynn Hodder told the inquiry.
Mr Roxburgh told the inquiry the assistant operations manager had since been promoted. Christine Hodder had worked before as an ambulance officer at Canowindra and Grenfell and had got on well with her fellow officers. She had been an army medic for six years. Mr Roxburgh, who now works at Moruya ambulance station, said Mrs Hodder was victimised because she was a woman. "My colleague's problems were, first and foremost, that she was female and to exacerbate this she was intelligent, a good officer and her patients loved her," he wrote. "The constant harassment, bullying and intimidation by the staff, the callous indifference, inaction and abandonment by the service. all contributed to tipping the scales."
Source
Hospital urgent waiting list blows out
Gold Coast Liberal MP John-Paul Langbroek has blasted the State Government for not seeing the "sickest" patients first at the Gold Coast Hospital. Langbroek, member for Surfers Paradise, said Category One elective surgery patients, which are those requiring the most urgent attention on waiting lists, had almost doubled in the past 12 months. Figures released by Queensland Health indicate there were 25 people on the Category 1 waiting list last July and 58 in April this year.
"What this shows is our sickest patients are waiting far longer for treatment than they should be," Langbroek said. "The Gold Coast Hospital is struggling to cope with the demand." "As a result, our waiting lists are getting longer and patients are getting sicker as they are forced to wait for vital surgery."
However, a Government spokesman said the figures Langbroek was quoting were out of date and the latest figures, which will be released soon, show Gold Coast Hospital had only 23 patients on the Category 1 list. He did concede that numbers for Category 1 list at some hospital had risen. The figures show Category One patients almost doubled but there had been a decrease in categories 2 and 3. On July 1 2007, there were 205 Category 2 patients and 213 Category 3, while on April this year there were 176 and 168 respectively.
Langbroek said the Government was not making all categories a priority. "The bottom line is we shouldn't have to sacrifice one wait list for another, said Mr Langbroek. "The Government is spending record amounts on health. Patients should have no problem getting their surgery on time."
During the same period, Category 1 waiting lists numbers had increased at Bundaberg, Cairns Base, Caloundra General, Hervey Bay, Innisfail, Mackay Base, Maryborough Base, Nambour, Princess Alexandra, QEII, Rockhampton and Royal Children's hospitals.
Source
Three current articles below
Greenie paradise not so good when you try to live there
The Daintree is a beautiful unspoilt jungle area that the Greenies love -- but Greenies want to have their cake and eat it too. They hate modernity until they have to do without any of it
Daintree resident Neil Hewett's family uses gas to cook and heat water and there is no airconditioning to beat the far north Queensland tropical heat. Electricity is used only to run small appliances and a TV. But Mr Hewett still faces a weekly fuel bill of $170 to run generators that supplement the solar and hydro power electricity produced on his property. And the refill price of a gas bottle is $150. All up, it cost him $70,000 to become power self-sufficient as required by the State Government, which refuses to send electricity north of the Daintree River.
About 675 residents live there in 450 homes, and every home generator is spewing carbon dioxide into the surrounding World Heritage-listed environment where development has been restricted to maintain its pristine state. Locals have to run diesel and petrol motors because, with 5.5 meters of rain a year and 265 cloudy days a year, solar generation is unreliable.
Now, with diesel approaching $2 a litre, locals want the Government to relax its ban on reticulated power. According to Mr Hewett, conditions set by the state and federal governments for eventual access to the equalised tariff system that applies to other Queenslanders have been met.
Ten years ago, in a bid to stop development between the Daintree and Cape Tribulation, authorities decided on a $41 million buyback of some of the land that had been bought for homes. Established houses at Cape Tribulation, Cow Bay, Diwan, Cooper Creek and Thornton Beach were exempt. According to the deal, the buyback would trigger provision of electricity. With the buyback successful and the area further protected by new government iconic estate legislation, locals want the ban lifted.
In October, Energy Minister Geoff Wilson said he would take the matter to Cabinet but nothing has eventuated. Mr Hewett, who operates a forest walking business, said the ban was originally intended to stop developers who wanted to exploit a "great treasure". "But that legitimacy no longer exists," he said. "The development issue has been resolved. It is time the Government did something special for the Daintree."
But Mr Wilson was unsympathetic, saying: "We are not about to bulldoze through ancient rainforest to put in powerlines north of the Daintree River. "We are talking about world-famous, World Heritage-listed rainforest and everyone would want it to stay that way."
Source
Jobs 'at risk' from climate plan
OIL giant Mobil could be forced to close its Melbourne refinery when the Rudd Government introduces a carbon emissions trading scheme. The closure of the refinery, which supplies half of Victoria's fuel needs, would cut competition and could push up petrol prices.
Company executives believe the refinery, which employs 350 people, could become unviable because of competition from overseas facilities that do not have to pay to emit greenhouse gases. Under emissions trading, ExxonMobil will have to buy permits allowing it to emit carbon gases.
ExxonMobil Australia chairman Mark Nolan said yesterday the company would struggle to deal with the extra costs. "If you put a carbon price on Australian petroleum refining we'd find it very difficult, if not impossible, to recoup any of those costs because the price of petroleum products in Australia reflects the regional market," Mr Nolan said. "What we've said to Prof Garnaut and others is that it would be very difficult for domestic refineries, such as our Altona plant, to compete on a level playing field unless government recognises that refining is an emissions-intensive, trade-exposed sector." Mr Nolan said an ETS might also make it more difficult for the company to develop new liquid natural gas projects.
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said yesterday the Government would consider industry concerns as it developed the trading scheme, due to start in 2010. "We understand there are various industries we have to be very mindful of, and obviously these issues will be canvassed in the Green Paper," Senator Wong said. "But what's important here is this: climate change is facing us, it is coming at us." [No sign of it for the last 10 byears but let's not quibble!]
Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes said companies subject to international competition, such as ExxonMobil, should get free carbon emission permits from the Government. "We're very keen to see a free allocation of permits for Australian producers to ensure that producers can make changes to their processes to lower their emissions, but also to produce goods Australia needs," Mr Howes said.
He said that there was no point in Australian refineries closing if they were replaced by facilities overseas that had lower environmental standards. [Logic for a change]
Source
Costly tokenism of climate scheme
When Garnaut said Australia had a diabolical problem he wasn't referring to rising sea levels or receding glaciers. Rather, it was the dilemma of needing to tax industry for carbon dioxide emissions when the emissions of this country alone can have no meaningful effect on the global problem of climate change.
The abject failure of the G8 this week to convince developing countries China and India to reduce their emissions is portent. Just as Australians can argue that their emissions have no material effect, developing countries contend, with great validity, that they didn't cause the problems in the first place - and in any event, their per capita emissions are far lower than the G8 averages!
Despite his swelling chorus of critics, Garnaut's work is substantial. There is nothing new in it, no blinding insights, but it is a solid assembly of all the critical issues and hypotheses on climate change. It spans the global effects and costs of droughts and floods to the economic impacts of a carbon trading scheme.
The Canberra professor already has his fierce critics. And the voices of dissent will rise further as industry and its vested interest groups gird their loins for the lobbying battle which lies ahead.
The most relevant criticism of the work is that it fudges on the notion that the consequences of climate change - from bleaching corals to melting icebergs _ somehow hinge on what Australia does to combat carbon emissions. What is it that Australia can do to reverse, or even slow emissions growth globally? Nothing of substance.
We are assuming here - notwithstanding what seem to be even more shrill cries of conspiracy from the climate change sceptics - that the overwhelming body of scientists and assorted experts have it right. That is, that human activity is warming the planet and something needs to be done about it. There is no swindle. Even assuming the flat-earthers have a prospect of being right, the risk of doing nothing would be too high.
Still, the argument that we urgently have to do something undermines the credibility of Garnaut, in a sense, as the effect of Australian activity has a negligible effect on global emissions. If we accept that the world has to do something urgently, that's fair enough, but even with no effort from Australia, the world could fight global warming quite nicely on its own.
Australia may dominate in cricket but not carbon emissions. Six countries and the European Union alone account for three-quarters of the world's emissions. Those are the US, China, Russia, Japan, India and Indonesia. Australia, contributing less than 2% to emissions, despite our high per capita carbon count, is not among them. We can only add another 100 million tonnes to the global 40 billion tonnes of carbon emissions assuming 2% growth over the next decade.
Does this mean it is useless for Australia to bother doing anything? This is where the debate gets philosophical. Is symbolic action worth the cost? Is there a case for Australia being a global champion of the climate cause? Would it not be a tad hypocritical, even under a new government, to hop up and move straight from the back of the classroom to the front row and start lecturing the teacher? Exaggerating our place in the global order at the expense of our own industry may be a mere vanity.
Let's not forget that one important aspect of the Rudd Government's victory at the polls last year was the Labor Party's pro-Kyoto stance. Rudd has a green mandate, a mandate to effect change, to make the hard decisions. Now the ramifications of this mandate are becoming disturbingly clear - and they are the high costs to industry of an ETS. This is where Kevin Rudd's other duties, to run the economy and look after workers, will come into sharp relief against his green mandate.
The overwhelming cost of the ETS will fall on coal, steel, power generation and mining sectors. Agriculture too, if not exempted. The rub is that these sectors not only deliver a disproportionate slice of the national income but also keep a lot of ''working families'' in work. What Garnaut recommends is a wholesale restructuring of our economy to respond to the climate change crisis. The impact of this, contend his detractors, would be destructive on local economies. In any case, India and China would still be pumping out the equivalent emissions while benefitting from the hole left by an Australian resources competitor. We will be hearing a lot of the ''if it's not us, it'll be somebody else'' logic.
Clearly, the line needs to be drawn between transforming Australia into a sustainable economy and not needlessly blowing up local economies and putting people out of work. This will be a nightmare for politicians who will blow up votes whatever policy or course of action they take....
More here
AUSTRALIA'S UNENDING PUBLIC MEDICINE PROBLEM
Two current articles below
NSW Ambulance bureaucracy indifferent to staff welfare
Not exactly a surprise
AMBULANCE management had been "grossly negligent and dismissive" in handling complaints by a female officer about bullying at Cowra before she eventually committed suicide, her former supervisor has told a parliamentary inquiry. The Herald has learnt that no women have been appointed to the Cowra ambulance station in the three years since the first and only female officer there, Christine Hodder, hanged herself in her backyard after allegedly enduring years of bullying and harassment by up to seven male colleagues.
An internal investigation by the NSW Ambulance Service after Mrs Hodder's death in 2005 recommended a male replace her and that no female be hired there for six months. There were 24 recommendations "to address better management of harassment and bullying" but no officer was disciplined after the investigation.
Mrs Hodder's former supervisor, Phil Roxburgh, said his complaints had fallen on deaf ears. He told the inquiry he was fed up with the "harassment, bullying, and intimidation which still continues unabated in the service, coupled with management's dysfunctional handling and empty posturing concerning these occurrences".
Yesterday Mr Roxburgh told the Herald he had received more than 100 emails of complaints after sending a group email in April expressing concern about bullying. "I couldn't do anything for Christine and myself - it's too late for that - but I'm hearing of people who have received some very bad outcomes from management," he said. "It's like water torture. You're left to hang and hang. I've got a couple of people who are on the verge of suiciding."
Mr Roxburgh had supported Mrs Hodder while she was at Cowra but he was also victimised and went on stress leave in October 2004, he told the inquiry. He said the professional standards and conduct unit "patently failed to respond in a timely and appropriate way" despite his warnings. He had also raised concerns with human resources, rehabilitation, and the state superintendent, and had even tried to speak to the CEO of the service, Greg Rochford, but "this fell on deaf ears". He accused the head of the conduct unit, Marion O'Connell, of being "very aggressive" when he criticised the internal investigation.
Mrs Hodder's mother-in-law, Carolynn Hodder, and Mr Roxburgh each told the inquiry that the then assistant operations manager leaked a complaint from Christine Hodder about a man whom she suspected had urinated "all over" her toilet. "Things at the station became explosive - [the accused person] became very verbally abusive towards her and he told Christine, 'See I told you. You have no chance seeking help from anyone above or the union as we will find out,' " Carolynn Hodder told the inquiry.
Mr Roxburgh told the inquiry the assistant operations manager had since been promoted. Christine Hodder had worked before as an ambulance officer at Canowindra and Grenfell and had got on well with her fellow officers. She had been an army medic for six years. Mr Roxburgh, who now works at Moruya ambulance station, said Mrs Hodder was victimised because she was a woman. "My colleague's problems were, first and foremost, that she was female and to exacerbate this she was intelligent, a good officer and her patients loved her," he wrote. "The constant harassment, bullying and intimidation by the staff, the callous indifference, inaction and abandonment by the service. all contributed to tipping the scales."
Source
Hospital urgent waiting list blows out
Gold Coast Liberal MP John-Paul Langbroek has blasted the State Government for not seeing the "sickest" patients first at the Gold Coast Hospital. Langbroek, member for Surfers Paradise, said Category One elective surgery patients, which are those requiring the most urgent attention on waiting lists, had almost doubled in the past 12 months. Figures released by Queensland Health indicate there were 25 people on the Category 1 waiting list last July and 58 in April this year.
"What this shows is our sickest patients are waiting far longer for treatment than they should be," Langbroek said. "The Gold Coast Hospital is struggling to cope with the demand." "As a result, our waiting lists are getting longer and patients are getting sicker as they are forced to wait for vital surgery."
However, a Government spokesman said the figures Langbroek was quoting were out of date and the latest figures, which will be released soon, show Gold Coast Hospital had only 23 patients on the Category 1 list. He did concede that numbers for Category 1 list at some hospital had risen. The figures show Category One patients almost doubled but there had been a decrease in categories 2 and 3. On July 1 2007, there were 205 Category 2 patients and 213 Category 3, while on April this year there were 176 and 168 respectively.
Langbroek said the Government was not making all categories a priority. "The bottom line is we shouldn't have to sacrifice one wait list for another, said Mr Langbroek. "The Government is spending record amounts on health. Patients should have no problem getting their surgery on time."
During the same period, Category 1 waiting lists numbers had increased at Bundaberg, Cairns Base, Caloundra General, Hervey Bay, Innisfail, Mackay Base, Maryborough Base, Nambour, Princess Alexandra, QEII, Rockhampton and Royal Children's hospitals.
Source
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Vin ordinaire report
After the fuss that the do-gooders kicked up about it, I thought I should try some of Dan Murphy's $2 wine. I bought a couple of bottles yesterday -- a shiraz and a chardonnay. Anne made us quite a nice moussaka for dinner (recipe here) so I opened the shiraz first. I am afraid that it was tres ordinaire -- with a definite barnyard taste. I tipped most of it down the sink.
So then I opened the chardonnay and was surprised to find it perfectly passable, with quite a pleasant fresh taste. I would not be embarrassed to serve it to guests. I don't plan to buy any more of it as I am rather fixated at the moment on Tyrrells verdelho and Taylors Promised Land unwooded chardonnay but if anybody is a bit short of the shekels these days, stocking up on the chardonnay would not be a bad decision -- though tastes do differ so try it for yourself first. Maybe I just got a rare good bottle.
Climate change delusion a real problem
By Andrew Bolt
PSYCHIATRISTS have detected the first case of "climate change delusion" - and they haven't even yet got to Kevin Rudd and his global warming guru. Writing in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Joshua Wolf and Robert Salo of our Royal Children's Hospital say this delusion was a "previously unreported phenomenon". "A 17-year-old man was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne with an eight-month history of depressed mood . . . He also . . . had visions of apocalyptic events."
(So have Alarmist of the Year Tim Flannery, Profit of Doom Al Gore and Sir Richard Brazen, but I digress.)
"The patient had also developed the belief that, due to climate change, his own water consumption could lead within days to the deaths of millions of people through exhaustion of water supplies."
But never mind the poor boy, who became too terrified even to drink. What's scarier is that people in charge of our Government seem to suffer from this "climate change delusion", too. Here is Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday, with his own apocalyptic vision: "If we do not begin reducing the nation's levels of carbon pollution, Australia's economy will face more frequent and severe droughts, less water, reduced food production and devastation of areas such as the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu wetlands."
And here is a senior Sydney Morning Herald journalist aghast at the horrors described in the report on global warming released on Friday by Rudd's guru, Professor Ross Garnaut: "Australians must pay more for petrol, food and energy or ultimately face a rising death toll . . ."
Wow. Pay more for food or die. Is that Rudd's next campaign slogan? Of course, we can laugh at this - and must - but the price for such folly may soon be your job, or at least your cash. Rudd and Garnaut want to scare you into backing their plan to force people who produce everything from petrol to coal-fired electricity, from steel to soft drinks, to pay for licences to emit carbon dioxide - the gas they think is heating the world to hell.
The cost of those licences, totalling in the billions, will then be passed on to you through higher bills for petrol, power, food, housing, air travel and anything else that uses lots of gassy power. In some countries they're even planning to tax farting cows, so there's no end to the ways you can be stung.
Rudd hopes this pain will make you switch to expensive but less gassy alternatives, and - hey presto - the world's temperature will then fall, just like it's actually done since the day Al Gore released An Inconvenient Truth.
But you'll have spotted already the big flaw in Rudd's mad plan - one that confirms he and Garnaut really do have delusions. The truth is Australia on its own emits less than 1.5 per cent of the world's carbon dioxide. Any savings we make will make no real difference, given that China (now the biggest emitter) and India (the fourth) are booming so fast that they alone will pump out 42 per cent of the world's greenhouse gases by 2030. Indeed, so fast are the world's emissions growing - by 3.1 per cent a year thanks mostly to these two giants - that the 20 per cent cuts Rudd demands of Australians by 2020 would be swallowed up in just 28 days. That's how little our multi-billions of dollars in sacrifices will matter.
And that's why Rudd's claim that we'll be ruined if we don't cut Australia's gases is a lie. To be blunt. Ask Rudd's guru. Garnaut on Friday admitted any cuts we make will be useless unless they inspire other countries to do the same - especially China and India: "Only a global agreement has any prospect of reducing risks of dangerous climate change to acceptable levels."
So almost everything depends on China and India copying us. But the chances of that? A big, round zero. A year ago China released its own global warming strategy - its own Garnaut report - which bluntly refused to cut its total emissions. Said Ma Kai, head of China's powerful State Council: "China does not commit to any quantified emissions-reduction commitments . . . our efforts to fight climate change must not come at the expense of economic growth."
In fact, we had to get used to more gas from China, not less: "It is quite inevitable that during this (industrialisation) stage, China's energy consumption and CO2 emissions will be quite high."
Last month, India likewise issued its National Action Plan on Climate Change, and also rejected Rudd-style cuts. The plan's authors, the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change, said India would rather save its people from poverty than global warming, and would not cut growth to cut gases. "It is obvious that India needs to substantially increase its per capita energy consumption to provide a minimally acceptable level of wellbeing to its people." The plan's only real promise was in fact a threat: "India is determined that its per capita greenhouse gas emissions will at no point exceed that of developed countries."
Gee, thanks. That, of course, means India won't stop its per capita emissions (now at 1.02 tonnes) from growing until they match those of countries such as the US (now 20 tonnes). Given it has one billion people, that's a promise to gas the world like it's never been gassed before.
So is this our death warrant? Should this news have you seeing apocalyptic visions, too? Well, no. What makes the Indian report so interesting is that unlike our Ross Garnaut, who just accepted the word of those scientists wailing we faced doom, the Indian experts went to the trouble to check what the climate was actually doing and why.
Their conclusion? They couldn't actually find anything bad in India that was caused by man-made warming: "No firm link between the documented (climate) changes described below and warming due to anthropogenic climate change has yet been established." In fact, they couldn't find much change in the climate at all.
Yes, India's surface temperature over a century had inched up by 0.4 degrees, but there had been no change in trends for large-scale droughts and floods, or rain: "The observed monsoon rainfall at the all-India level does not show any significant trend . . ."
It even dismissed the panic Al Gore helped to whip up about melting Himalayan glaciers: "While recession of some glaciers has occurred in some Himalayan regions in recent years, the trend is not consistent across the entire mountain chain. It is, accordingly, too early to establish long-term trends, or their causation, in respect of which there are several hypotheses."
Nor was that the only sign that India's Council on Climate Change had kept its cool while our Rudd and Garnaut lost theirs. For example, the Indians rightly insisted nuclear power had to be part of any real plan to cut emissions. Rudd and Garnaut won't even discuss it. The Indians also pointed out that no feasible technology to trap and bury the gasses of coal-fired power stations had yet been developed "and there are serious questions about the cost as well (as) permanence of the CO2 storage repositories".
Rudd and Garnaut, however, keep offering this dream to make us think our power stations can survive their emissions trading scheme, when state governments warn they may not.
In every case the Indians are pragmatic where Rudd and Garnaut are having delusions - delusions about an apocalypse, about cutting gases without going nuclear, about saving power stations they'll instead drive broke. And there's that delusion on which their whole plan is built - that India and China will follow our sacrifice by cutting their throats, too. So psychiatrists are treating a 17-year-old tipped over the edge by global warming fearmongers? Pray that their next patients will be two men whose own delusions threaten to drive our whole economy over the edge as well.
Source
Nutty Leftist "terror studies"
Why are these clowns funded when medical schools are greatly underfunded for the demand on them?
University departments dominated by so-called critical terror studies are consigning themselves to ever greater irrelevance, according to security analyst Carl Ungerer. Dr Ungerer, who left the University of Queensland in January to join the Canberra-based Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said security agencies were open to outside advice and "deeply interested in engaging with the academic community". But he said policymakers could see no value in critical terror studies, which in its hostility to sovereign states implied a moral equivalence between terror and counter-terror and even blamed open societies for the rise of religious extremists.
"So, the traditional policy analysis work is now being done by ASPI and the Lowy Institute and the Kokoda Foundation and others," Dr Ungerer said. "If any point comes across strongly since I've been here (in Canberra), it's the way in which the gap between academe and the policy community has widened, which is interesting because the Rudd Government is tapping a wide range of voices. "(But) in the security field they're just not interested in these critical theory ideas. It offers them absolutely nothing to be told that we need to rethink sovereignty or that (terror is) our fault."
In 2006 Dr Ungerer and UQ colleague David Martin Jones first spoke out against the rise of critical terror studies. They said the policy implication of this emerging discipline was "radical pacifism". This week Dr Ungerer described as "eyebrow raising" the February appointment of critical theorist Anthony Burke to the University of NSW at the Australian Defence Force Academy. "The lecturers at ADFA are teaching the next generation of military leaders," Dr Ungerer said.
Speaking from Israel, Dr Burke, the author of Beyond Security Ethics and Violence: War Against The Other, said he did not oppose "controlled and measured" use of military force. He said nation states were ambiguous since they could provide citizens with security as well as subject them to abuse. Some state actions -- such as Israel's approach in the "occupied territories" and possibly the sanctions against Saddam Hussein's Iraq -- were similar to terrorism in that they targeted civilians and sought to inflict suffering and fear for a political purpose, he said. Dr Burke said critical terror studies was a new discipline with lively internal debate. To say it dominated academe was "a neoconservative, highly culture wars-type argument".
Soon after the September 11 attacks, Dr Burke wrote: "These events have brought enormous levels of organised military violence -- intensifying Israeli Defence Force operations in Palestine, the war on Afghanistan and sabre-rattling against Iraq -- but also quasi-military, normalised patterns of violence and coercion in the form of domestic security, surveillance, and the 'deterrence' of asylum-seekers."
Source
Yet another DOCS meltdown
The Department of Community Services arranged for a 13-year-old to see a doctor for the pill after she spent three days living with an 18-year-old boy. While enabling Lauren Ryall to get birth control, the same department failed to file a missing persons report with police when it lost her two weeks ago because the department was not her "next of kin". DOCS staff had abandoned Lauren at Parramatta train station on June 23 with money to buy a ticket home to the South Coast but she instead fled to the home of a teenager in Cronulla.
A day after she was found by police, her case worker took her to a doctor at a women's health clinic in Wollongong where she was prescribed the pill, which required the permission of a guardian.
Lauren's outraged mother Judith Meredith, who suffers from a mental illness and volunteered her daughter into care, said she would never have granted Lauren permission for the pill because of her age. "The exact words were, 'We're placing Lauren on the pill' and then she (Lauren's DOCS case worker) asked how I felt about it," Ms Meredith said yesterday. "I said it is going to stop an unwanted pregnancy but it won't stop STDs . . . they are promoting promiscuity. They told me they were taking her for a medical. The decisions have been taken out of my hands. People need to know DOCS is a joke."
Medico Legal director for the Australian Medical Association Sarah Bennett confirmed a girl of Lauren's age would need the consent of a parent or guardian for a doctor to prescribe the pill. DOCS said Ms Meredith's permission had been obtained for the appointment and that the case worker stayed outside the consultation room. "When the teenager subsequently emerged, she had been prescribed a contraceptive pill," DOCS said.
A spokeswoman said the case worker had sought Ms Meredith's permission after Lauren was prescribed the pill. "Police have investigated an allegation that this teenager had underage sex and DOCS has referred subsequent allegations to police," DOCS said.
Source
Pop off, Popov
Answers wanted on suspect surgeon and lazy medical regulators
A patient whose surgery was allegedly botched by a doctor accused of a string of negligent operations has demanded to know why he was allowed to continue to practise. The woman said the operation by Ivan Lubenov Popov turned into her "worst nightmare".
The doctor has recently been referred by the Medical Board of Queensland to the Health Practitioners Tribunal over alleged professional negligence regarding surgery and medical procedures on seven women over 10 months. The obstetrician and gynaecologist, who worked at Caboolture Hospital and is believed to have moved to South Africa, is alleged to have lied to patients and misled staff about his procedures to cover up surgical mistakes and potentially illegal operations between July 2006 and May 2007.
One woman had an ovary removed by Dr Popov, who allegedly lied to her about the reason for the procedure. Another alleged victim, who asked not to be named because of possible legal action, demanded to know who was watching over Dr Popov when he was supposed to be watching over her. "I am devastated and disappointed with myself that I really didn't do anything earlier, but I was just too traumatised," the woman said. "It has taken me such a long time to recover. I still experience pain. "For a surgery that should have been a safe and pretty much problem- free surgery, it really did turn into my worst nightmare."
She said she felt betrayed and questioned Queensland's Health culpability. "I wonder why surgery was allowed to go ahead with me. Wasn't there someone that was senior to him, who would have checked my history?" she said. "Was it really just up to him - just one person? And that is scary if that is the case."
Queensland Health said in a statement that Dr Popov was referred to the Ethical Standards Unit in 2007. "Dr Popov resigned before Queensland Health's action was finalised," it said. Dr Popov left the hospital last July but did not resign until six weeks ago. "The Health Practitioners Tribunal will determine whether the significant adverse medical events which occurred were the result of inappropriate clinical practice or by circumstance beyond the doctor's control," the statement said.
Restrictions on Dr Popov were only imposed by the Medical Board of Queensland last month -- after he resigned and other investigations were completed. A tribunal date is yet to be set to hear Dr Popov's case.
Source
After the fuss that the do-gooders kicked up about it, I thought I should try some of Dan Murphy's $2 wine. I bought a couple of bottles yesterday -- a shiraz and a chardonnay. Anne made us quite a nice moussaka for dinner (recipe here) so I opened the shiraz first. I am afraid that it was tres ordinaire -- with a definite barnyard taste. I tipped most of it down the sink.
So then I opened the chardonnay and was surprised to find it perfectly passable, with quite a pleasant fresh taste. I would not be embarrassed to serve it to guests. I don't plan to buy any more of it as I am rather fixated at the moment on Tyrrells verdelho and Taylors Promised Land unwooded chardonnay but if anybody is a bit short of the shekels these days, stocking up on the chardonnay would not be a bad decision -- though tastes do differ so try it for yourself first. Maybe I just got a rare good bottle.
Climate change delusion a real problem
By Andrew Bolt
PSYCHIATRISTS have detected the first case of "climate change delusion" - and they haven't even yet got to Kevin Rudd and his global warming guru. Writing in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Joshua Wolf and Robert Salo of our Royal Children's Hospital say this delusion was a "previously unreported phenomenon". "A 17-year-old man was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne with an eight-month history of depressed mood . . . He also . . . had visions of apocalyptic events."
(So have Alarmist of the Year Tim Flannery, Profit of Doom Al Gore and Sir Richard Brazen, but I digress.)
"The patient had also developed the belief that, due to climate change, his own water consumption could lead within days to the deaths of millions of people through exhaustion of water supplies."
But never mind the poor boy, who became too terrified even to drink. What's scarier is that people in charge of our Government seem to suffer from this "climate change delusion", too. Here is Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday, with his own apocalyptic vision: "If we do not begin reducing the nation's levels of carbon pollution, Australia's economy will face more frequent and severe droughts, less water, reduced food production and devastation of areas such as the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu wetlands."
And here is a senior Sydney Morning Herald journalist aghast at the horrors described in the report on global warming released on Friday by Rudd's guru, Professor Ross Garnaut: "Australians must pay more for petrol, food and energy or ultimately face a rising death toll . . ."
Wow. Pay more for food or die. Is that Rudd's next campaign slogan? Of course, we can laugh at this - and must - but the price for such folly may soon be your job, or at least your cash. Rudd and Garnaut want to scare you into backing their plan to force people who produce everything from petrol to coal-fired electricity, from steel to soft drinks, to pay for licences to emit carbon dioxide - the gas they think is heating the world to hell.
The cost of those licences, totalling in the billions, will then be passed on to you through higher bills for petrol, power, food, housing, air travel and anything else that uses lots of gassy power. In some countries they're even planning to tax farting cows, so there's no end to the ways you can be stung.
Rudd hopes this pain will make you switch to expensive but less gassy alternatives, and - hey presto - the world's temperature will then fall, just like it's actually done since the day Al Gore released An Inconvenient Truth.
But you'll have spotted already the big flaw in Rudd's mad plan - one that confirms he and Garnaut really do have delusions. The truth is Australia on its own emits less than 1.5 per cent of the world's carbon dioxide. Any savings we make will make no real difference, given that China (now the biggest emitter) and India (the fourth) are booming so fast that they alone will pump out 42 per cent of the world's greenhouse gases by 2030. Indeed, so fast are the world's emissions growing - by 3.1 per cent a year thanks mostly to these two giants - that the 20 per cent cuts Rudd demands of Australians by 2020 would be swallowed up in just 28 days. That's how little our multi-billions of dollars in sacrifices will matter.
And that's why Rudd's claim that we'll be ruined if we don't cut Australia's gases is a lie. To be blunt. Ask Rudd's guru. Garnaut on Friday admitted any cuts we make will be useless unless they inspire other countries to do the same - especially China and India: "Only a global agreement has any prospect of reducing risks of dangerous climate change to acceptable levels."
So almost everything depends on China and India copying us. But the chances of that? A big, round zero. A year ago China released its own global warming strategy - its own Garnaut report - which bluntly refused to cut its total emissions. Said Ma Kai, head of China's powerful State Council: "China does not commit to any quantified emissions-reduction commitments . . . our efforts to fight climate change must not come at the expense of economic growth."
In fact, we had to get used to more gas from China, not less: "It is quite inevitable that during this (industrialisation) stage, China's energy consumption and CO2 emissions will be quite high."
Last month, India likewise issued its National Action Plan on Climate Change, and also rejected Rudd-style cuts. The plan's authors, the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change, said India would rather save its people from poverty than global warming, and would not cut growth to cut gases. "It is obvious that India needs to substantially increase its per capita energy consumption to provide a minimally acceptable level of wellbeing to its people." The plan's only real promise was in fact a threat: "India is determined that its per capita greenhouse gas emissions will at no point exceed that of developed countries."
Gee, thanks. That, of course, means India won't stop its per capita emissions (now at 1.02 tonnes) from growing until they match those of countries such as the US (now 20 tonnes). Given it has one billion people, that's a promise to gas the world like it's never been gassed before.
So is this our death warrant? Should this news have you seeing apocalyptic visions, too? Well, no. What makes the Indian report so interesting is that unlike our Ross Garnaut, who just accepted the word of those scientists wailing we faced doom, the Indian experts went to the trouble to check what the climate was actually doing and why.
Their conclusion? They couldn't actually find anything bad in India that was caused by man-made warming: "No firm link between the documented (climate) changes described below and warming due to anthropogenic climate change has yet been established." In fact, they couldn't find much change in the climate at all.
Yes, India's surface temperature over a century had inched up by 0.4 degrees, but there had been no change in trends for large-scale droughts and floods, or rain: "The observed monsoon rainfall at the all-India level does not show any significant trend . . ."
It even dismissed the panic Al Gore helped to whip up about melting Himalayan glaciers: "While recession of some glaciers has occurred in some Himalayan regions in recent years, the trend is not consistent across the entire mountain chain. It is, accordingly, too early to establish long-term trends, or their causation, in respect of which there are several hypotheses."
Nor was that the only sign that India's Council on Climate Change had kept its cool while our Rudd and Garnaut lost theirs. For example, the Indians rightly insisted nuclear power had to be part of any real plan to cut emissions. Rudd and Garnaut won't even discuss it. The Indians also pointed out that no feasible technology to trap and bury the gasses of coal-fired power stations had yet been developed "and there are serious questions about the cost as well (as) permanence of the CO2 storage repositories".
Rudd and Garnaut, however, keep offering this dream to make us think our power stations can survive their emissions trading scheme, when state governments warn they may not.
In every case the Indians are pragmatic where Rudd and Garnaut are having delusions - delusions about an apocalypse, about cutting gases without going nuclear, about saving power stations they'll instead drive broke. And there's that delusion on which their whole plan is built - that India and China will follow our sacrifice by cutting their throats, too. So psychiatrists are treating a 17-year-old tipped over the edge by global warming fearmongers? Pray that their next patients will be two men whose own delusions threaten to drive our whole economy over the edge as well.
Source
Nutty Leftist "terror studies"
Why are these clowns funded when medical schools are greatly underfunded for the demand on them?
University departments dominated by so-called critical terror studies are consigning themselves to ever greater irrelevance, according to security analyst Carl Ungerer. Dr Ungerer, who left the University of Queensland in January to join the Canberra-based Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said security agencies were open to outside advice and "deeply interested in engaging with the academic community". But he said policymakers could see no value in critical terror studies, which in its hostility to sovereign states implied a moral equivalence between terror and counter-terror and even blamed open societies for the rise of religious extremists.
"So, the traditional policy analysis work is now being done by ASPI and the Lowy Institute and the Kokoda Foundation and others," Dr Ungerer said. "If any point comes across strongly since I've been here (in Canberra), it's the way in which the gap between academe and the policy community has widened, which is interesting because the Rudd Government is tapping a wide range of voices. "(But) in the security field they're just not interested in these critical theory ideas. It offers them absolutely nothing to be told that we need to rethink sovereignty or that (terror is) our fault."
In 2006 Dr Ungerer and UQ colleague David Martin Jones first spoke out against the rise of critical terror studies. They said the policy implication of this emerging discipline was "radical pacifism". This week Dr Ungerer described as "eyebrow raising" the February appointment of critical theorist Anthony Burke to the University of NSW at the Australian Defence Force Academy. "The lecturers at ADFA are teaching the next generation of military leaders," Dr Ungerer said.
Speaking from Israel, Dr Burke, the author of Beyond Security Ethics and Violence: War Against The Other, said he did not oppose "controlled and measured" use of military force. He said nation states were ambiguous since they could provide citizens with security as well as subject them to abuse. Some state actions -- such as Israel's approach in the "occupied territories" and possibly the sanctions against Saddam Hussein's Iraq -- were similar to terrorism in that they targeted civilians and sought to inflict suffering and fear for a political purpose, he said. Dr Burke said critical terror studies was a new discipline with lively internal debate. To say it dominated academe was "a neoconservative, highly culture wars-type argument".
Soon after the September 11 attacks, Dr Burke wrote: "These events have brought enormous levels of organised military violence -- intensifying Israeli Defence Force operations in Palestine, the war on Afghanistan and sabre-rattling against Iraq -- but also quasi-military, normalised patterns of violence and coercion in the form of domestic security, surveillance, and the 'deterrence' of asylum-seekers."
Source
Yet another DOCS meltdown
The Department of Community Services arranged for a 13-year-old to see a doctor for the pill after she spent three days living with an 18-year-old boy. While enabling Lauren Ryall to get birth control, the same department failed to file a missing persons report with police when it lost her two weeks ago because the department was not her "next of kin". DOCS staff had abandoned Lauren at Parramatta train station on June 23 with money to buy a ticket home to the South Coast but she instead fled to the home of a teenager in Cronulla.
A day after she was found by police, her case worker took her to a doctor at a women's health clinic in Wollongong where she was prescribed the pill, which required the permission of a guardian.
Lauren's outraged mother Judith Meredith, who suffers from a mental illness and volunteered her daughter into care, said she would never have granted Lauren permission for the pill because of her age. "The exact words were, 'We're placing Lauren on the pill' and then she (Lauren's DOCS case worker) asked how I felt about it," Ms Meredith said yesterday. "I said it is going to stop an unwanted pregnancy but it won't stop STDs . . . they are promoting promiscuity. They told me they were taking her for a medical. The decisions have been taken out of my hands. People need to know DOCS is a joke."
Medico Legal director for the Australian Medical Association Sarah Bennett confirmed a girl of Lauren's age would need the consent of a parent or guardian for a doctor to prescribe the pill. DOCS said Ms Meredith's permission had been obtained for the appointment and that the case worker stayed outside the consultation room. "When the teenager subsequently emerged, she had been prescribed a contraceptive pill," DOCS said.
A spokeswoman said the case worker had sought Ms Meredith's permission after Lauren was prescribed the pill. "Police have investigated an allegation that this teenager had underage sex and DOCS has referred subsequent allegations to police," DOCS said.
Source
Pop off, Popov
Answers wanted on suspect surgeon and lazy medical regulators
A patient whose surgery was allegedly botched by a doctor accused of a string of negligent operations has demanded to know why he was allowed to continue to practise. The woman said the operation by Ivan Lubenov Popov turned into her "worst nightmare".
The doctor has recently been referred by the Medical Board of Queensland to the Health Practitioners Tribunal over alleged professional negligence regarding surgery and medical procedures on seven women over 10 months. The obstetrician and gynaecologist, who worked at Caboolture Hospital and is believed to have moved to South Africa, is alleged to have lied to patients and misled staff about his procedures to cover up surgical mistakes and potentially illegal operations between July 2006 and May 2007.
One woman had an ovary removed by Dr Popov, who allegedly lied to her about the reason for the procedure. Another alleged victim, who asked not to be named because of possible legal action, demanded to know who was watching over Dr Popov when he was supposed to be watching over her. "I am devastated and disappointed with myself that I really didn't do anything earlier, but I was just too traumatised," the woman said. "It has taken me such a long time to recover. I still experience pain. "For a surgery that should have been a safe and pretty much problem- free surgery, it really did turn into my worst nightmare."
She said she felt betrayed and questioned Queensland's Health culpability. "I wonder why surgery was allowed to go ahead with me. Wasn't there someone that was senior to him, who would have checked my history?" she said. "Was it really just up to him - just one person? And that is scary if that is the case."
Queensland Health said in a statement that Dr Popov was referred to the Ethical Standards Unit in 2007. "Dr Popov resigned before Queensland Health's action was finalised," it said. Dr Popov left the hospital last July but did not resign until six weeks ago. "The Health Practitioners Tribunal will determine whether the significant adverse medical events which occurred were the result of inappropriate clinical practice or by circumstance beyond the doctor's control," the statement said.
Restrictions on Dr Popov were only imposed by the Medical Board of Queensland last month -- after he resigned and other investigations were completed. A tribunal date is yet to be set to hear Dr Popov's case.
Source
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Australians unhappy?
I don't suppose many people take seriously reports such as the one below but in case they do, perhaps I should say that I don't believe the results at all. All the Australians I meet seem to be cheerful and friendly folk whereas the British are a chronically gloomy lot. Yet the survey below would have you believe the opposite. I suspect poor sampling. It was probably phone polling. With Australia's benign climate and strong outdoors orientation, maybe it was mainly gloomy losers who were at home to answer the phone in Australia. And maybe it was only rich and happy people who could afford a phone in Puerto Rico and Columbia
AUSTRALIA is 22nd in a survey of the world's happiest nations - one place below Britain and seven behind New Zealand. Denmark, with its strong welfare system and social equality, was the happiest country, University of Michigan researchers found.
Zimbabwe, torn by political and social strife, was the least happy, while the world's richest nation, the US, ranked 16th. Puerto Rico and Colombia came after Denmark, followed by Northern Ireland, Iceland and Switzerland.
Overall, the world was getting happier, the survey found. Increased happiness from 1981 to last year was detected in 45 of 52 countries analysed.
Source
Leftist puritans rife in the Australian government
From which circle of hell did all these finger-waggers spring? Never have I seen so many preachers so keen to bully others for their own "good". Last week it was Health Minister Nicola Roxon (again) in her Sass and Bide hairshirt, this time warning smokers they may soon need a permit to puff. A licence for cigarettes, Roxon says, is "one of the types of things" her health taskforce may tell her to impose.
Have these people gone mad? Strained a tolerance muscle in their Pilates class? For the first time I feel the temptation to light up a cancer-stick. Indeed, I couldn't think of many nobler causes for which to lay down my wheezing life.
A new breed of puritans is upon us and growing far too puffed up themselves. It's increasingly urgent they be resisted. Consider what plans they've already unveiled to cramp your life and set it to their stern order. Sprinklers on your garden? Banned now for years - to "save" country rivers from the new dams that these concrete greens find hideous, or would if they ever drove out to see one.
Mockery of someone's faith? Also banned, under hate-speech laws - to "save" the too-tender ears of tolerance tut-tutters too intolerant to show tolerance themselves.
Plastic bags to lug home your shopping? To be fined with a 25 cent levy - to "save" the planet from a plastic that smug green baggers find capitalistically crass.
Pre-mixed drinks? Hit with a new alcopop tax - to "save" teenagers from a drink that these pinot preachers find sick-makingly sweet.
Petrol? To be made dearer by an emissions trading scheme - to "save" the planet from a warming that these car-haters and salvation-seekers won't admit halted a decade ago.
Cramp, crimp, crush, ban. Designer sackcloth for everyone. Good heavens, so drunk on bans are these people - drunker than any alcopopper - that a forum of St Kilda residents last week even suggested locals be made to wear ankle bracelets so that visitors could be detected after dark and thrown out. Yes, true, I'm afraid. What next: microchip owners of airconditioners?
Judge the censorious mood from this homely planet-saving advice in last month' edition of the Rural Women's Network Newsletter: "At Easter, we avoid foil-wrapped chocolate eggs by having our kids paint hard-boiled eggs and stones . . . For my daughter's sixth birthday last year we took a tribe of children on a nearby bushwalk and had a rubbish-collecting competitions." Stones for Easter eggs? Rubbish collecting for a little girl's party? This isn't meant to save a planet but to impose someone's joy-killing morality.
It's not just a madness confined to Australia, of course. The Left in every English-speaking land is now indulging its inner totalitarian. How mad is the mood? Here's another measure: America's Democratic Party says its national convention to endorse Barack Obama as its presidential candidate must be the "greenest convention in the history of the planet". So it's not only banned fried food and insisted on organic, but ordered that every meal served to delegates be nutritiously vibrant, including "at least three of the following colours: red, green, yellow, blue-purple, and white". When strangers hover over your plate, demanding you eat not only your greens but your purples, yellows and whites, both of you have a problem.
Actually, everyone does. I mean, if that's the bossing that Democrats inflict on each other, what might they do to everyone else once in power? Good question, and in Australia we already have the scary answer to what our own elite would do to us.
Finger-waggers, as you know, are most commonly found among the "intelligentsia" - famous for producing mega-theories to excuse sticking its nose into other people's business. Think, say, of communism, fascism and now global warming. Ever since the French Revolution we've known that such people are best kept well away from power. But, alas, earlier this year 1000 of the "best and brightest" of this very class, plus a few token conservatives, were instead summoned by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to come to Canberra and tell him how to run the country.
I knew this would end in tears. Read these people's final report, released a month ago, and tremble. Or laugh. It's a Mein Kampf for meddlers - a defence of for-your-own-good bullying that is startling in its contempt for our right to decide for ourselves not just how to live, but even what to eat. What? People deciding for themselves? Buying their own stuff? "We don't realise how insidious this individualism is," chorused our "best and brightest". "Individuality trumps community at every turn" when we really "need to move from individualism to community focus".
Even what people eat should be seen as a decision best made not just by individual diners, but with "the emphasis on collective responsibility". Of course, some party pooper at Rudd's summit must have coughed nervously, because the report goes on: "A view was put forward that this type of approach to policy and program implementation would risk the notion of a 'nanny state' and overrestriction of behaviour . . ." But damn it: "It was felt . . . that health promotion must not succumb to these pressures."
Why not is not explained. It is enough that our "best and brightest" disapprove of what you do. So, having given themselves licence even to dash the chips from your mouth and the slurpee from your hand, off they go, thinking up fresh ways to bully you into living the life of their jackbooted dreams.
Here's just some of the bans and new by-laws their 2020 report urges on Rudd: "A junk-food tax"; "a 2.5 cent increased tax on each cigarette"; "abolishing cigarettes and alcohol brought into the country duty-free"; "more stairs in workplaces to encourage people to avoid using the escalators"; "price foods according to their carbon costs"; and "educating the 'white' population on indigenous culture".
Making people suffer is actually good: "Cities should become car-unfriendly." Making them go without is the whole idea: "Don't just buy green, buy less." And having to force them to obey is no problem: "We need . . . accountability mechanisms to reduce their consumption", plus "levers" such as "taxation, incentives (positive and negative) and regulation". You can hear them drooling over that, no?
Here are bullies who dream of interfering even with your right to buy musical instruments, demanding we "move from buying to hiring", and adding: "Examples are pianos . . ." Pianos, but not didgeridoos, of course.
It's hard to believe our allegedly finest minds could still think like this not two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Somehow, these are people who must have read George Orwell's grim 1984 as not a warning but an inspiration. When Orwell wrote of his poor hero being forced "to join in compulsory exercises following the instructions given by a woman from the telescreen", our intelligentsia must have thought: "Great idea! Let's tell Rudd!" And, sure enough, the report recommends that "half an hour of physical activity (be) built into sedentary jobs". Oh, what a kick, to force millions to run on the spot.
Who unleashed these salon Stalinists? These health fascists? These warming commissars? Who let them loose to flog us sinners into living lives more holy, by their grim creed?
Source
No strings school funding 'a failure'
GIVING disadvantaged schools extra money without tying it to specific interventions fails to lift the performance of students from poorer backgrounds. A review of funding programs designed to overcome social disadvantage says current arrangements are failing to reduce or neutralise the effects of a child's background on their achievement at school.
The study by University of Melbourne researchers contains a lesson for the federal Government in pursuing its education revolution, and its commitment to fund schools according to the needs of their students. Education Minister Julia Gillard has proposed a new funding agreement with the states and territories to fund schools according to the socio-economic status of their students. The study underlines the importance of funding being tied to programs designed to tackle problems identified by the school. One of the review's authors, Stephen Lamb from the university's Centre for Post-compulsory Education and Lifelong Learning, said merely allocating resources to schools without a clear idea on how they would or should be spent, fails to improve student performance. "It's an ongoing problem around the world," he said. "It's no use just handing over money to schools; in fact, you could be putting out good money after bad. We need to work out what works and fund that."
The review was conducted into the equity programs run by the NSW Government that are intended to close the gap in achievement between students from low and high socioeconomic backgrounds. Among the programs reviewed was the general equity program, called the Priority Schools Funding Program, which targets 21per cent of the most socially disadvantaged students, giving extra resources to about 25per cent of the state's schools.
The PSFP received about $20 million of commonwealth funding in 2004, with the state Government providing an additional 280 teachers to those schools. The review also analysed a pilot program called the Priority Action Schools Program, which gave 74 disadvantaged schools between $100,000 and $400,000 each. The PSFP hands money to the schools to spend how they see fit, with all schools receiving the same amount regardless of the level of disadvantage. But schools received funding under the PASP only after identifying strategies to address specific problems in their schools, linking the money to programs that then had to be monitored and evaluated for their effectiveness.
Comparing the results in literacy and numeracy tests and the Year 10 School Certificate between disadvantaged schools on the different programs, the review found that non-PASP schools tended to experience falls in the mean levels of student achievement in literacy and numeracy tests. In contrast, PASP schools tended to experience gains, and in some cases the change in achievement was statistically significant.
The report says the main approach to addressing social inequality in public schools in NSW in the past is largely based on fiscal compensation. "The assumption is that money is necessary and sufficient to improve the quality of schooling in disadvantaged areas," it says. "This leads to a situation in which there is little accountability from schools, and little control over how schools use the funds and whether or not they are employed to develop programs that target the needs of the students."
Source
Overstretched doctors turning away 'chronic' patients
When there are heaps of people wanting to get into medical schools, a doctor shortage is just plain government negligence. Why is money being spent on useless "postmodern" courses when funds for medical education are so limited?
STATE capitals are feeling the brunt of the nation's doctor shortage, with GPs in these previously well-served areas shutting their doors to new patients due to overwhelming demand. In some cases, patients are having to travel 20-30km from their homes to find a doctor who can see them. Some GPs are using fees to dampen demand, charging as much as $100 for an in-surgery consultation after 6pm.
Although governments for years deemed the doctor shortage to be a largely rural phenomenon, an analysis of GP statistics shows doctor headcounts are falling hardest in metropolitan areas, which have so far been largely overlooked by medical recruitment incentive programs. Workforce data for Australia's 115 locally based divisions of general practice shows that in at least parts of all mainland state capitals, the number of GPs and the number of services they provide annually have both fallen between 1995-96 and 2005-06.
At the same time, there has in almost all cases been a huge jump in the proportion of GPs in each division aged over 55, raising the prospect that the doctor shortages in the affected areas will worsen when large numbers of GPs start to retire.
In the Central Sydney division, the GP headcount fell from 680 in 1995-96 to 590 nine years later, while the population grew. The number of services provided by GPs in those years also fell, from 2.7 million to 2.4 million. Similar patterns were seen in at least six other Sydney divisions, while headcounts in many rural NSW divisions rose. Headcount falls were also seen in the ACT, at least eight divisions in Melbourne, two in Brisbane, four in Adelaide and three in Perth.
The real impact on the workforce would be bigger, because the trend towards more women qualifying as doctors has led to a reduction in the overall numbers of hours worked, as women are more likely to work part-time.
Perth GP Tim Lipscombe closed his books to new patients seven months ago, as have about half the doctors in his nine-GP practice. "I wasn't able to service my own patients and I was being inundated by patients with relatively complex chronic diseases who were coming from other practices that had closed," Dr Lipscombe said. "There are a lot of doctors around here near retirement age, who I have heard on the grapevine will be retiring soon. I'm not sure what's going to happen - it's pretty scary."
A practice in Indooroopilly, Brisbane, said some patients came from as far away as Ipswich or after ringing "six other centres and are unable to get in". "I know a couple of practices whose standard consultation is about $65 - and certainly out of hours, anything after 6pm is a lot dearer, around $100," said the reception supervisor, who asked not to be named.
Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the shortage of GPs was "a real issue right around Australia". "This is an issue we're determined to tackle," she said. "The increasing number of doctors coming on-line over the next few years should make a difference, but we need to do more."
Source
I don't suppose many people take seriously reports such as the one below but in case they do, perhaps I should say that I don't believe the results at all. All the Australians I meet seem to be cheerful and friendly folk whereas the British are a chronically gloomy lot. Yet the survey below would have you believe the opposite. I suspect poor sampling. It was probably phone polling. With Australia's benign climate and strong outdoors orientation, maybe it was mainly gloomy losers who were at home to answer the phone in Australia. And maybe it was only rich and happy people who could afford a phone in Puerto Rico and Columbia
AUSTRALIA is 22nd in a survey of the world's happiest nations - one place below Britain and seven behind New Zealand. Denmark, with its strong welfare system and social equality, was the happiest country, University of Michigan researchers found.
Zimbabwe, torn by political and social strife, was the least happy, while the world's richest nation, the US, ranked 16th. Puerto Rico and Colombia came after Denmark, followed by Northern Ireland, Iceland and Switzerland.
Overall, the world was getting happier, the survey found. Increased happiness from 1981 to last year was detected in 45 of 52 countries analysed.
Source
Leftist puritans rife in the Australian government
From which circle of hell did all these finger-waggers spring? Never have I seen so many preachers so keen to bully others for their own "good". Last week it was Health Minister Nicola Roxon (again) in her Sass and Bide hairshirt, this time warning smokers they may soon need a permit to puff. A licence for cigarettes, Roxon says, is "one of the types of things" her health taskforce may tell her to impose.
Have these people gone mad? Strained a tolerance muscle in their Pilates class? For the first time I feel the temptation to light up a cancer-stick. Indeed, I couldn't think of many nobler causes for which to lay down my wheezing life.
A new breed of puritans is upon us and growing far too puffed up themselves. It's increasingly urgent they be resisted. Consider what plans they've already unveiled to cramp your life and set it to their stern order. Sprinklers on your garden? Banned now for years - to "save" country rivers from the new dams that these concrete greens find hideous, or would if they ever drove out to see one.
Mockery of someone's faith? Also banned, under hate-speech laws - to "save" the too-tender ears of tolerance tut-tutters too intolerant to show tolerance themselves.
Plastic bags to lug home your shopping? To be fined with a 25 cent levy - to "save" the planet from a plastic that smug green baggers find capitalistically crass.
Pre-mixed drinks? Hit with a new alcopop tax - to "save" teenagers from a drink that these pinot preachers find sick-makingly sweet.
Petrol? To be made dearer by an emissions trading scheme - to "save" the planet from a warming that these car-haters and salvation-seekers won't admit halted a decade ago.
Cramp, crimp, crush, ban. Designer sackcloth for everyone. Good heavens, so drunk on bans are these people - drunker than any alcopopper - that a forum of St Kilda residents last week even suggested locals be made to wear ankle bracelets so that visitors could be detected after dark and thrown out. Yes, true, I'm afraid. What next: microchip owners of airconditioners?
Judge the censorious mood from this homely planet-saving advice in last month' edition of the Rural Women's Network Newsletter: "At Easter, we avoid foil-wrapped chocolate eggs by having our kids paint hard-boiled eggs and stones . . . For my daughter's sixth birthday last year we took a tribe of children on a nearby bushwalk and had a rubbish-collecting competitions." Stones for Easter eggs? Rubbish collecting for a little girl's party? This isn't meant to save a planet but to impose someone's joy-killing morality.
It's not just a madness confined to Australia, of course. The Left in every English-speaking land is now indulging its inner totalitarian. How mad is the mood? Here's another measure: America's Democratic Party says its national convention to endorse Barack Obama as its presidential candidate must be the "greenest convention in the history of the planet". So it's not only banned fried food and insisted on organic, but ordered that every meal served to delegates be nutritiously vibrant, including "at least three of the following colours: red, green, yellow, blue-purple, and white". When strangers hover over your plate, demanding you eat not only your greens but your purples, yellows and whites, both of you have a problem.
Actually, everyone does. I mean, if that's the bossing that Democrats inflict on each other, what might they do to everyone else once in power? Good question, and in Australia we already have the scary answer to what our own elite would do to us.
Finger-waggers, as you know, are most commonly found among the "intelligentsia" - famous for producing mega-theories to excuse sticking its nose into other people's business. Think, say, of communism, fascism and now global warming. Ever since the French Revolution we've known that such people are best kept well away from power. But, alas, earlier this year 1000 of the "best and brightest" of this very class, plus a few token conservatives, were instead summoned by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to come to Canberra and tell him how to run the country.
I knew this would end in tears. Read these people's final report, released a month ago, and tremble. Or laugh. It's a Mein Kampf for meddlers - a defence of for-your-own-good bullying that is startling in its contempt for our right to decide for ourselves not just how to live, but even what to eat. What? People deciding for themselves? Buying their own stuff? "We don't realise how insidious this individualism is," chorused our "best and brightest". "Individuality trumps community at every turn" when we really "need to move from individualism to community focus".
Even what people eat should be seen as a decision best made not just by individual diners, but with "the emphasis on collective responsibility". Of course, some party pooper at Rudd's summit must have coughed nervously, because the report goes on: "A view was put forward that this type of approach to policy and program implementation would risk the notion of a 'nanny state' and overrestriction of behaviour . . ." But damn it: "It was felt . . . that health promotion must not succumb to these pressures."
Why not is not explained. It is enough that our "best and brightest" disapprove of what you do. So, having given themselves licence even to dash the chips from your mouth and the slurpee from your hand, off they go, thinking up fresh ways to bully you into living the life of their jackbooted dreams.
Here's just some of the bans and new by-laws their 2020 report urges on Rudd: "A junk-food tax"; "a 2.5 cent increased tax on each cigarette"; "abolishing cigarettes and alcohol brought into the country duty-free"; "more stairs in workplaces to encourage people to avoid using the escalators"; "price foods according to their carbon costs"; and "educating the 'white' population on indigenous culture".
Making people suffer is actually good: "Cities should become car-unfriendly." Making them go without is the whole idea: "Don't just buy green, buy less." And having to force them to obey is no problem: "We need . . . accountability mechanisms to reduce their consumption", plus "levers" such as "taxation, incentives (positive and negative) and regulation". You can hear them drooling over that, no?
Here are bullies who dream of interfering even with your right to buy musical instruments, demanding we "move from buying to hiring", and adding: "Examples are pianos . . ." Pianos, but not didgeridoos, of course.
It's hard to believe our allegedly finest minds could still think like this not two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Somehow, these are people who must have read George Orwell's grim 1984 as not a warning but an inspiration. When Orwell wrote of his poor hero being forced "to join in compulsory exercises following the instructions given by a woman from the telescreen", our intelligentsia must have thought: "Great idea! Let's tell Rudd!" And, sure enough, the report recommends that "half an hour of physical activity (be) built into sedentary jobs". Oh, what a kick, to force millions to run on the spot.
Who unleashed these salon Stalinists? These health fascists? These warming commissars? Who let them loose to flog us sinners into living lives more holy, by their grim creed?
Source
No strings school funding 'a failure'
GIVING disadvantaged schools extra money without tying it to specific interventions fails to lift the performance of students from poorer backgrounds. A review of funding programs designed to overcome social disadvantage says current arrangements are failing to reduce or neutralise the effects of a child's background on their achievement at school.
The study by University of Melbourne researchers contains a lesson for the federal Government in pursuing its education revolution, and its commitment to fund schools according to the needs of their students. Education Minister Julia Gillard has proposed a new funding agreement with the states and territories to fund schools according to the socio-economic status of their students. The study underlines the importance of funding being tied to programs designed to tackle problems identified by the school. One of the review's authors, Stephen Lamb from the university's Centre for Post-compulsory Education and Lifelong Learning, said merely allocating resources to schools without a clear idea on how they would or should be spent, fails to improve student performance. "It's an ongoing problem around the world," he said. "It's no use just handing over money to schools; in fact, you could be putting out good money after bad. We need to work out what works and fund that."
The review was conducted into the equity programs run by the NSW Government that are intended to close the gap in achievement between students from low and high socioeconomic backgrounds. Among the programs reviewed was the general equity program, called the Priority Schools Funding Program, which targets 21per cent of the most socially disadvantaged students, giving extra resources to about 25per cent of the state's schools.
The PSFP received about $20 million of commonwealth funding in 2004, with the state Government providing an additional 280 teachers to those schools. The review also analysed a pilot program called the Priority Action Schools Program, which gave 74 disadvantaged schools between $100,000 and $400,000 each. The PSFP hands money to the schools to spend how they see fit, with all schools receiving the same amount regardless of the level of disadvantage. But schools received funding under the PASP only after identifying strategies to address specific problems in their schools, linking the money to programs that then had to be monitored and evaluated for their effectiveness.
Comparing the results in literacy and numeracy tests and the Year 10 School Certificate between disadvantaged schools on the different programs, the review found that non-PASP schools tended to experience falls in the mean levels of student achievement in literacy and numeracy tests. In contrast, PASP schools tended to experience gains, and in some cases the change in achievement was statistically significant.
The report says the main approach to addressing social inequality in public schools in NSW in the past is largely based on fiscal compensation. "The assumption is that money is necessary and sufficient to improve the quality of schooling in disadvantaged areas," it says. "This leads to a situation in which there is little accountability from schools, and little control over how schools use the funds and whether or not they are employed to develop programs that target the needs of the students."
Source
Overstretched doctors turning away 'chronic' patients
When there are heaps of people wanting to get into medical schools, a doctor shortage is just plain government negligence. Why is money being spent on useless "postmodern" courses when funds for medical education are so limited?
STATE capitals are feeling the brunt of the nation's doctor shortage, with GPs in these previously well-served areas shutting their doors to new patients due to overwhelming demand. In some cases, patients are having to travel 20-30km from their homes to find a doctor who can see them. Some GPs are using fees to dampen demand, charging as much as $100 for an in-surgery consultation after 6pm.
Although governments for years deemed the doctor shortage to be a largely rural phenomenon, an analysis of GP statistics shows doctor headcounts are falling hardest in metropolitan areas, which have so far been largely overlooked by medical recruitment incentive programs. Workforce data for Australia's 115 locally based divisions of general practice shows that in at least parts of all mainland state capitals, the number of GPs and the number of services they provide annually have both fallen between 1995-96 and 2005-06.
At the same time, there has in almost all cases been a huge jump in the proportion of GPs in each division aged over 55, raising the prospect that the doctor shortages in the affected areas will worsen when large numbers of GPs start to retire.
In the Central Sydney division, the GP headcount fell from 680 in 1995-96 to 590 nine years later, while the population grew. The number of services provided by GPs in those years also fell, from 2.7 million to 2.4 million. Similar patterns were seen in at least six other Sydney divisions, while headcounts in many rural NSW divisions rose. Headcount falls were also seen in the ACT, at least eight divisions in Melbourne, two in Brisbane, four in Adelaide and three in Perth.
The real impact on the workforce would be bigger, because the trend towards more women qualifying as doctors has led to a reduction in the overall numbers of hours worked, as women are more likely to work part-time.
Perth GP Tim Lipscombe closed his books to new patients seven months ago, as have about half the doctors in his nine-GP practice. "I wasn't able to service my own patients and I was being inundated by patients with relatively complex chronic diseases who were coming from other practices that had closed," Dr Lipscombe said. "There are a lot of doctors around here near retirement age, who I have heard on the grapevine will be retiring soon. I'm not sure what's going to happen - it's pretty scary."
A practice in Indooroopilly, Brisbane, said some patients came from as far away as Ipswich or after ringing "six other centres and are unable to get in". "I know a couple of practices whose standard consultation is about $65 - and certainly out of hours, anything after 6pm is a lot dearer, around $100," said the reception supervisor, who asked not to be named.
Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the shortage of GPs was "a real issue right around Australia". "This is an issue we're determined to tackle," she said. "The increasing number of doctors coming on-line over the next few years should make a difference, but we need to do more."
Source
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
