Australian Politics
Solar power realities
A comment by someone who knows from professional experience -- received via a reader. The report focuses on Tasmania, which is in roughly the equivalent latitude to Italy. So what is bad in Tasmania will be worse in Britain (for instance). As for Sweden or Canada, stop laughing!
I am one of those people who supply and maintain solar and wind power installations to power electronic systems at remote (unpowered) sites -- e.g. two way radios up on mountain tops.
Twenty plus years ago, a couple of us had a good look at the possibility of making a dollar or two out of flogging this emerging technology to the great unwashed. We didn't bother because it didn't stack up energy wise or financially. I admit the efficiency of the solar panels us mere mortals can afford has improved a bit since then (at least 8%) but the figures are still similar.
A loose look at the energy required to make the things verses the energy output of them during their average lifetime was not really surprising. The panel would return enough energy in the first year to smelt the aluminum in its frame and its mounting and transport the manufactured panel to us. We could not get energy figures for melting the silicon so the wafers could be grown and then cut up to make the semiconductors but overall it will be high so we guessed that it would take at least 100Kwh . This equates to 3 years output from the panel used up by the time it is delivered on site.
But it doesn't end there. Over the life of a set of panels the owner will probably need 3 or 4 sets of batteries. These are full of nice things like lead and acid and plastic and are very heavy. Then there is the magic box called the inverter. This is the box that converts the panel power up to the 230 volts mains power that we use. These are full of electronic things that take a lot of energy to make and have a reasonably short life span - say 10 years. You must include the energy costs for making and transporting these items to site in the overall energy that the solar panels must return during their lifetime. A battery pack of say 13kw h weighs in at approximately 500kg. So during the life of a set of panels you are going to have to transport 2 tons of them from (say) Sydney to Hobart and back again. Do the energy calculations on that one considering that the energy output per annum from each panel equates to about 4.5 litres of petrol.
I must qualify the above by saying that in our lovely clean green (work in the tourism industry or starve) state we don't get a lot of sun for large chunks of the year. When we are working out the energy budget for a solar site we allow an average of 3.5 hrs a day full output from the panels and have battery backup to allow for 14 - 28 days (site dependant) with no output. When the batteries are fully charged you can store no more so you effectively get no output from the panels. Therefore the extra output in summer is not usable unless you seriously upscale the battery capacity. Up in Queensland you can get away with less than half the number of panels for the same load. In drier climates panels seem to last a bit longer as well.
There are some interesting practical considerations that must be considered when using these things. It never ceases to amaze me how many people seem surprised to discover that a solar panel needs to get actual direct sunlight on it to give a worthwhile output. This can be a simple task of (wait for it - shock horror - sit down Rev. Bob in case you have a nasty turn) cutting down the trees to the height of the panels because the sun gets pretty close to the horizon down here in winter. Or if you have built your house on the southern side of a hill or taller building it is even simpler - you need to move the house or increase the number of panels to compensate. An extra $10k - $40k will usually suffice.
In Tasmania more than 50% of houses don't have a clear enough view north to make solar panels worthwhile and if you elevate them you begin to shadow the house to the south of you. This means you can never optimize the energy return from the panels. And what about our nice green leafy suburbs? When your northern neighbour's trees get high enough to shade your panels you lose output. Or if a leaf blows onto one of your panels the output goes down. (if you cover approximately 5% of the face of the panel the output will drop to almost zero.) The government will have to bring in draconian chain saw laws and you will have to have a photo license and a chainsaw safe to own one. Panels need to be cleaned regularly. Feathered airfoil excrement is especially effective in stopping them working.
Every time you need to have the system serviced the serviceman will use petrol in his van to get there. This will probably average using the equivalent energy output of one panel for a year for each trip and that does not count the energy required to make the van in the first place.
There is little doubt that in Tassie a solar installation as a collective item over its life is a net energy sink not a source. It is no different financially. My last electricity account for my workshop lists the cost as 18.5c per kwh or 21.4c including supply charge and for this my installation costs can be amortized over a 50 year life span. Over a 20 year life an $800 panel will return me 900kwh or $166.50 worth of electricity. Don't forget that out of the massive savings you have made there you must buy batteries, inverter, have it installed, pay the interest on the money you borrowed to buy the system and maintain it.
Note that this energy consumption would require 136 panels ($110,000.00), 14 day battery backup $13,500.00 (weight 1.6 tons, life 10 years), three phase inverter $15,000.00 (expected life 5 - 10 years). Interest alone would exceed $1,675.00 for the same period I paid the electricity authority $334.95. (Don't forget that if the batteries went flat and I had no electricity to run the workshop I would still have to pay my employees so a system failure could wipe me out. I would have to have a generating plant and/or duplicate equipment to allow for that. Even if you quadrupled the energy output from the panels the figures don't add up.
Maternity hospital shrinkage
Just what is needed now the birthrate has risen
EXPECTANT women in the Blue Mountains have been told that as of today they can no longer give birth at their local hospital because of staff shortages, and will have to travel to Nepean or Lithgow hospitals. This is despite the fact Nepean Hospital is struggling with midwifery shortages. A Sydney West Area Health Service spokeswoman has also confirmed Lithgow, with only low-risk maternity services, has just two postnatal beds. The Health Department did not start notifying women until the beginning of this month.
The recent Garling inquiry into public hospitals heard Blue Mountains Hospital in Katoomba - which can only take low-risk deliveries and has had no full-time obstetric service since August, 2004 - regularly sent women to Nepean Hospital or as far as Westmead Hospital to give birth. A Blue Mountains Hospital midwife, who did not want to be named, said that in the past few years not one woman had been sent to Lithgow to give birth. "We always send them to Nepean or Westmead. I know women [who need to be rebooked] will not go to Lithgow because there's no [comprehensive] maternity unit there and there's only a couple of beds," she said.
The Opposition health spokeswoman, Jillian Skinner, said the decision would put increased pressure on an already strained local ambulance and patient transport service. She said the Health Minister, Reba Meagher, and the member for Blue Mountains, Phil Koperberg, "must explain to Blue Mountains residents why staff shortages have been allowed to get so out of control . and when the birthing unit will be reopened," Mrs Skinner said. Birthing at Blue Mountains Hospital was shut in June 2002 due to staff shortages and resumed in April 2003.
A spokeswoman for Ms Meagher said there was a worldwide shortage of obstetricians and midwives. She said the Government had recently recruited obstetricians from Britain and Canada, and was also spending $46.4 million over the next four years on maternity services.
A local childbirth educator, Natalie Dash, said women were "shocked" by the decision and were planning a rally at the hospital today at 11am. "They're incredibly disappointed . if they wanted to birth in another hospital they would have booked in nine months ago," Ms Dash said. The hospital's general manager, Andrea Williams, said despite extensive recruitment efforts, there were still maternity service vacancies. "We've taken the decision to suspend birthing services to ensure the safety of mothers and babies," she said.
Source
Forgotten Iraqi Christians
Below are excerpts from an article by a minister in the present Australian government. The previous government had similar concerns
"Even casual observers of the international situation would be aware of the conflict between Sunni and Shiite communities in Iraq. But what has achieved less prominence in the national and international media is the fate of other Iraqi minorities: Assyrians, Chaldeans and Mandaeans.
Mandaeans, followers of John the Baptist, have non-violence as one of the tenets of their religion. Any form of violence, even in self-defence, is forbidden. They have thus been particularly vulnerable to attack. The much more numerous Assyrians and Chaldeans have also suffered significantly. This group are descendants of the ancient Assyrian empire, but no longer have a nation state to call their own. They predominantly live in Iraq's north and are Christians.
It is hard to pinpoint the numbers of these minorities in Iraq. However, credible estimates put Assyrians and Chaldeans as 4 per cent of the population of Iraq, while they have constituted 40 per cent of the refugees leaving Iraq. Jordan and Syria have 2 million Iraqi refugees living within their borders, and they are not allowed to work. They live, by and large, in squalor, and they often rely on their children to bring in a little income. Thousands of children are being turned to crime to support their family.
It is estimated that there were 1.5 million Assyrians and Chaldeans in Iraq before the war; 600,000 are left, at most. Two thousand Assyrians and Chaldeans are still leaving Iraq every day. Churches have been bombed, priests and bishops kidnapped and murdered. Hundreds of thousands of Assyrian and Chaldean refugees live in desperate circumstances in Syria and Jordan. It is simply too dangerous for them to return.
There are of course, many millions of people from different groups around the world who face diabolical human rights and humanitarian catastrophes, all of whom deserve greater attention. However, in all the public debate about Iraq over recent years the Assyrian and Chaldean minorities have received scant attention from both governments and the media. Their plight is one of the untold stories of the narrative of post-Saddam Iraq. Their situation as minorities in Iraq has substantially worsened since the war.
As others have pointed out, the exodus of refugees from Iraq has been greater than that after the Vietnam War. But because the exodus has occurred quietly and to other Middle Eastern countries, as opposed to by boat, the crisis has become largely invisible. There is no monopoly of suffering in Iraq. But the suffering of these minorities has received scant international attention.
Of course, as a relatively small country on the other side of the world we are limited in what we can do to help. However, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Stephen Smith, has recently met two delegations of Assyrians and Chaldeans to discuss what more can be done, and he raised the issue with the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq on his visit last month.
More here
Imprisoned illegals in Australia are floating high
Many of these have been imprisoned for years -- since before the Howard government's crackdown on "boat people". Others are visa overstayers and failed "refugee" claimants
Immigration officials are adamant there is no drug problem in immigration detention centres; there is, however, an abundance of "unidentified white powder", "green vegetable matter", "liquid with alcohol scents" and numerous "unidentified tablets".
Amid reports last week that immigration detention centres were hotbeds of drug and alcohol abuse, the Immigration Department has issued figures on the number of prohibited substances seized in centres in 2006-07.
The 31 prohibited substances confiscated in seven centres across the country included 10 quantities of liquid - believed to be alcohol - 14 unidentified tablets, four quantities of ``green vegetable matter'' and three unidentified powders.
The powders included two quantities of an unidentified white powder, both found in Melbourne's Maribyrnong detention centre, and one quantity of brown powder, which Immigration officals believe was kava.
Sydney's Villawood detention centre topped the list, with 19 seizures. Maribyrnong had four seizures; Brisbane had three; Perth's two facilities had two seizures; Darwin had one; and there was one seizure at one of Sydney's residential facilities.
An immigration spokesman said seized items were not tested or positively identified by detention centre staff. Instead, suspicious items were handed over to local police. A spokeswoman for NSW Police refused to comment on the drug claims, citing "operational'' reasons.
Refugee advocates have said drug use in immigration detention centres is common. Ngareta Rossell told The Australian the drug problem in Villawood was concentrated in the so-called "stage one'', or maximum security area, of the centre. "It's nothing new,'' she said. "It's been going on for years.''
Source
Monday, July 21, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Moronic response to overstretched hospitals
What about paring down the army of health bureaucrats and using the money saved to hire more medical staff? Does anyone NOT already know about GPs? People don't go to GPs because it is generally dearer and not available after hours
The New South Wales State Government has launched an advertising campaign aimed at reducing the pressure placed on hospital emergency departments. The Government says the initiative has been designed in consultation with emergency department staff.
They hope the program will encourage people to seek treatment from their GP, for non-urgent medical conditions, so hospitals can give priority to people needing emergency care. They have cited figures which show an 8 per cent rise in emergency department admissions with 2.3 million people attending emergency department in the past year. Only 34 per cent of those attending believed they really needed hospital care.
The Government hopes the initiative will help people consider how serious their condition is, and make the right decision about where to find treatment.
Source
Bungling bank abets thieves
What happened to signature checking?? I'm glad that I have no accounts with ANZ. Note that the customer had to get newspaper publicity to get the bank to exhibit some decency. The bank should be prosecuted for negligence
They're incredibly brazen, quick and heartless - a two-woman team that has stolen more than $1 million from patients in Sydney's biggest hospitals, aided and abetted by banks. In most cases, the pair targets maternity wards, preying on women who have just given birth. After stealing their wallets, they use their victims' credit and key cards to empty their accounts, thanks to incredibly lax security by tellers at Australia's major banks. A police strike force has been set up to catch the thieves, who have robbed almost 200 people across Sydney in the past year. The robbers have struck at the Westmead, Nepean, Bankstown, Royal North Shore, Royal Women's, Sydney Adventist and Mater hospitals.
Detective Sergeant Roland Winter believes there are two separate two-woman teams involved in the scam. He said they worked fast, netting as much as $30,000 from a victim's accounts in the space of 45 minutes. The women have also begun to target gyms and school staff rooms.
Among their victims is Mary-Louise Lacey, who was robbed of $22,500 two days after giving birth to her son Angus at the Mater Hospital, North Sydney. When the mother of three left her hospital room briefly on January 17, the thieves struck immediately. Seventeen minutes later, they were at the ANZ Bank in North Sydney, posing as Ms Lacey. "If you go into a bank and say you've forgotten your PIN, if you can produce enough ID, you can change the PIN on the spot, which is what these women did,'' Ms Lacey said.
They handed the teller identification from Ms Lacey's wallet, including an unaltered driver's licence. Despite the photograph not matching, the teller allowed them to change the PIN on the keycard, which gave them access to Ms Lacey's five accounts. They then visited two other ANZ branches, filled in withdrawal slips and stole a total of $22,500.
The ordeal was made more distressing for MsLacey because it took her six weeks to get the money reimbursed. Instead of enjoying her new baby, she spent countless hours on the phone to the bank. "I was in a hospital bed and they told me I would have to come into the bank to verify my identity, yet they allowed two strangers to walk in and clear out my bank accounts in 45 minutes,'' she said.
Ms Lacey cancelled direct debits from the account but they continued for three months, resulting in overdrafts and bank fees of $500 that she said the bank had refused to waive. "It was a very stressful time and I would hate anyone else to have to go through it,'' she said. Ms Lacey warned new mothers to watch their valuables while in hospital. An ANZ spokesman told The Sunday Telegraph the bank would review the fees charged for the overdrafts.
Source
Queensland Health turns lawyers on its staff
This organization is never out of trouble. It is clearly totally out of control. It should be abolished and started again with none of the old administrative staff rehired
QUEENSLAND Health is spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' dollars for law firms to fight complaints by hospital staff. State Government sources said high-powered barristers and solicitors were engaged in an attempt to get "intimidated and bullied" employees to back down. Some legal eagles cost up to $5000 a day to appear in courts and tribunals.
It was also revealed in Parliament last week that Queensland Health had spent more than $8 million on legal fees and settling claims made by staff and patients during the past two years. Another 274 claims were outstanding.
The department insider said staff who lodged complaints about minor matters, mainly related to pay and conditions, found themselves on the end of an expensive legal battle. Brisbane lawyer Susan Moriarty obtained documents under Freedom of Information that showed Queensland Health had paid almost $115,000 in legal fees in three recent cases. Ms Moriarty, who has represented several Royal Brisbane Hospital staff with claims or complaints, said Queensland Health was hiring private law firms to deal with complaints that should be dealt with by staff. "There are plaintive cries for more and more funding for hospitals, yet they have plenty of funding to go after their own employees," she said.
Leading law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth was paid $53,000 to represent Royal Brisbane Hospital Health Services District against a female hospital cleaner who was claiming $3500 in an impairment discrimination case. Ms Moriarty said the woman was seeking to cover the economic loss of losing weekend penalty shifts when she returned to work after surgery. After failed attempts at conciliation, the case was referred to the Anti-Discrimination Tribunal, before settling confidentially.
Another leading law firm, Clayton Utz, was paid $44,000 to investigate several allegations by a junior nurse who claimed she had been bullied by Royal Brisbane Hospital supervisors. Ms Moriarty said the woman's union advised her to lodge a complaint after she was asked to do work she was not trained to do. "Instead of conducting an internal investigation, they initiated an external investigation conducted by a private law firm," Ms Moriarty said. The six-week investigation ran to 18 months. Queensland Health eventually sacked the nurse.
In the third case, a Royal Brisbane Hospital cleaner, who had studied medicine overseas and had worked as a theatre wardsman interstate, claimed race and age discrimination after his applications for permanent theatre positions were rejected. Queensland Health has paid Corrs Chambers Westgarth $18,000 so far, with the matter still to be heard in the Anti-Discrimination Tribunal. "The big law firms have become nothing other than de facto human resources advisers to Queensland Health, at about $400 an hour," Ms Moriarty said.
Opposition health spokesman John-Paul Langbroek said he was aware of cases where Queensland Health had become heavy-handed with its own staff. "It's Big Brother . . . a lot of issues could be resolved by normal staff negotiations and relationships," he said.
Source
More crooked cops in Victoria
It must be getting hard to find any honest ones
A PROBE into possible criminal behaviour at a high level of Victoria Police has intensified with three reviews started. And in a radical bid to fix the corrupt culture, the force is trying to move part of the police IT section linked to irregular multi-million dollar blow-outs. Sources told the Sunday Herald Sun an internal corruption probe by the Ethical Standard Department was scrutinising all links to a corrupt senior police manager. The manager, who stepped down while under investigation, was recently convicted of obtaining a financial advantage by deception.
Senior sources said the corruption probe - which has been running for six months - could soon net more scalps. Victoria Police did not rule out further criminal charges.
A review of top management was in progress while Business Information Technology Services was under examination. Victoria Police was trying to separate and move the procurement division of BITS into a different part of the Flinders St headquarters. The move came after a police contract with IBM blew out by $85 million.
A Sunday Herald Sun investigation also found:
SOME police staff who were whistleblowers and informants in recent probes and audits felt victimised by colleagues and management.
TWO senior managerial positions for BITS section had recently been advertised.
THE restructure moves were rubbing staff the wrong way, with a potential industrial showdown looming.
Victoria Police spokeswoman Joanne Hammond confirmed an internal audit had identified "a range of matters around process". "The audit team is currently working with BITS management to rectify these issues," she said. In relation to criminal charges of police employees, Ms Hammond said the investigation was ongoing and would not comment further.
Victoria Police has been involved in scandals about IT contracts, computer fraud and database breaches. One senior manager was discovered with child porn links on his laptop, scores of mobile phones and other items were missing and financial record keeping was highly irregular. Workers with the police's technology partner IBM were also found with keys and security passes for police headquarters up to year after they left the company. Kickbacks to police employees from suppliers and embezzlement were also being investigated.
Source
What about paring down the army of health bureaucrats and using the money saved to hire more medical staff? Does anyone NOT already know about GPs? People don't go to GPs because it is generally dearer and not available after hours
The New South Wales State Government has launched an advertising campaign aimed at reducing the pressure placed on hospital emergency departments. The Government says the initiative has been designed in consultation with emergency department staff.
They hope the program will encourage people to seek treatment from their GP, for non-urgent medical conditions, so hospitals can give priority to people needing emergency care. They have cited figures which show an 8 per cent rise in emergency department admissions with 2.3 million people attending emergency department in the past year. Only 34 per cent of those attending believed they really needed hospital care.
The Government hopes the initiative will help people consider how serious their condition is, and make the right decision about where to find treatment.
Source
Bungling bank abets thieves
What happened to signature checking?? I'm glad that I have no accounts with ANZ. Note that the customer had to get newspaper publicity to get the bank to exhibit some decency. The bank should be prosecuted for negligence
They're incredibly brazen, quick and heartless - a two-woman team that has stolen more than $1 million from patients in Sydney's biggest hospitals, aided and abetted by banks. In most cases, the pair targets maternity wards, preying on women who have just given birth. After stealing their wallets, they use their victims' credit and key cards to empty their accounts, thanks to incredibly lax security by tellers at Australia's major banks. A police strike force has been set up to catch the thieves, who have robbed almost 200 people across Sydney in the past year. The robbers have struck at the Westmead, Nepean, Bankstown, Royal North Shore, Royal Women's, Sydney Adventist and Mater hospitals.
Detective Sergeant Roland Winter believes there are two separate two-woman teams involved in the scam. He said they worked fast, netting as much as $30,000 from a victim's accounts in the space of 45 minutes. The women have also begun to target gyms and school staff rooms.
Among their victims is Mary-Louise Lacey, who was robbed of $22,500 two days after giving birth to her son Angus at the Mater Hospital, North Sydney. When the mother of three left her hospital room briefly on January 17, the thieves struck immediately. Seventeen minutes later, they were at the ANZ Bank in North Sydney, posing as Ms Lacey. "If you go into a bank and say you've forgotten your PIN, if you can produce enough ID, you can change the PIN on the spot, which is what these women did,'' Ms Lacey said.
They handed the teller identification from Ms Lacey's wallet, including an unaltered driver's licence. Despite the photograph not matching, the teller allowed them to change the PIN on the keycard, which gave them access to Ms Lacey's five accounts. They then visited two other ANZ branches, filled in withdrawal slips and stole a total of $22,500.
The ordeal was made more distressing for MsLacey because it took her six weeks to get the money reimbursed. Instead of enjoying her new baby, she spent countless hours on the phone to the bank. "I was in a hospital bed and they told me I would have to come into the bank to verify my identity, yet they allowed two strangers to walk in and clear out my bank accounts in 45 minutes,'' she said.
Ms Lacey cancelled direct debits from the account but they continued for three months, resulting in overdrafts and bank fees of $500 that she said the bank had refused to waive. "It was a very stressful time and I would hate anyone else to have to go through it,'' she said. Ms Lacey warned new mothers to watch their valuables while in hospital. An ANZ spokesman told The Sunday Telegraph the bank would review the fees charged for the overdrafts.
Source
Queensland Health turns lawyers on its staff
This organization is never out of trouble. It is clearly totally out of control. It should be abolished and started again with none of the old administrative staff rehired
QUEENSLAND Health is spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' dollars for law firms to fight complaints by hospital staff. State Government sources said high-powered barristers and solicitors were engaged in an attempt to get "intimidated and bullied" employees to back down. Some legal eagles cost up to $5000 a day to appear in courts and tribunals.
It was also revealed in Parliament last week that Queensland Health had spent more than $8 million on legal fees and settling claims made by staff and patients during the past two years. Another 274 claims were outstanding.
The department insider said staff who lodged complaints about minor matters, mainly related to pay and conditions, found themselves on the end of an expensive legal battle. Brisbane lawyer Susan Moriarty obtained documents under Freedom of Information that showed Queensland Health had paid almost $115,000 in legal fees in three recent cases. Ms Moriarty, who has represented several Royal Brisbane Hospital staff with claims or complaints, said Queensland Health was hiring private law firms to deal with complaints that should be dealt with by staff. "There are plaintive cries for more and more funding for hospitals, yet they have plenty of funding to go after their own employees," she said.
Leading law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth was paid $53,000 to represent Royal Brisbane Hospital Health Services District against a female hospital cleaner who was claiming $3500 in an impairment discrimination case. Ms Moriarty said the woman was seeking to cover the economic loss of losing weekend penalty shifts when she returned to work after surgery. After failed attempts at conciliation, the case was referred to the Anti-Discrimination Tribunal, before settling confidentially.
Another leading law firm, Clayton Utz, was paid $44,000 to investigate several allegations by a junior nurse who claimed she had been bullied by Royal Brisbane Hospital supervisors. Ms Moriarty said the woman's union advised her to lodge a complaint after she was asked to do work she was not trained to do. "Instead of conducting an internal investigation, they initiated an external investigation conducted by a private law firm," Ms Moriarty said. The six-week investigation ran to 18 months. Queensland Health eventually sacked the nurse.
In the third case, a Royal Brisbane Hospital cleaner, who had studied medicine overseas and had worked as a theatre wardsman interstate, claimed race and age discrimination after his applications for permanent theatre positions were rejected. Queensland Health has paid Corrs Chambers Westgarth $18,000 so far, with the matter still to be heard in the Anti-Discrimination Tribunal. "The big law firms have become nothing other than de facto human resources advisers to Queensland Health, at about $400 an hour," Ms Moriarty said.
Opposition health spokesman John-Paul Langbroek said he was aware of cases where Queensland Health had become heavy-handed with its own staff. "It's Big Brother . . . a lot of issues could be resolved by normal staff negotiations and relationships," he said.
Source
More crooked cops in Victoria
It must be getting hard to find any honest ones
A PROBE into possible criminal behaviour at a high level of Victoria Police has intensified with three reviews started. And in a radical bid to fix the corrupt culture, the force is trying to move part of the police IT section linked to irregular multi-million dollar blow-outs. Sources told the Sunday Herald Sun an internal corruption probe by the Ethical Standard Department was scrutinising all links to a corrupt senior police manager. The manager, who stepped down while under investigation, was recently convicted of obtaining a financial advantage by deception.
Senior sources said the corruption probe - which has been running for six months - could soon net more scalps. Victoria Police did not rule out further criminal charges.
A review of top management was in progress while Business Information Technology Services was under examination. Victoria Police was trying to separate and move the procurement division of BITS into a different part of the Flinders St headquarters. The move came after a police contract with IBM blew out by $85 million.
A Sunday Herald Sun investigation also found:
SOME police staff who were whistleblowers and informants in recent probes and audits felt victimised by colleagues and management.
TWO senior managerial positions for BITS section had recently been advertised.
THE restructure moves were rubbing staff the wrong way, with a potential industrial showdown looming.
Victoria Police spokeswoman Joanne Hammond confirmed an internal audit had identified "a range of matters around process". "The audit team is currently working with BITS management to rectify these issues," she said. In relation to criminal charges of police employees, Ms Hammond said the investigation was ongoing and would not comment further.
Victoria Police has been involved in scandals about IT contracts, computer fraud and database breaches. One senior manager was discovered with child porn links on his laptop, scores of mobile phones and other items were missing and financial record keeping was highly irregular. Workers with the police's technology partner IBM were also found with keys and security passes for police headquarters up to year after they left the company. Kickbacks to police employees from suppliers and embezzlement were also being investigated.
Source
Saturday, July 19, 2008
UK retains ancestral visas for Australians
Australians with a UK-born grandparent will retain the right to live and work in Britain but visa conditions may be changed. The British High Commission says the UK government has decided not to scrap ancestry visas as proposed earlier in the year. Under the existing rules, Commonwealth citizens aged 17 and over can be granted residency if they can prove that one of their grandparents was born in Britain. Those awarded visas are allowed to work and then apply for citizenship after five years of residence.
The British government in February called for a debate over whether the UK ancestry route should be abolished. British high commissioner to Australia Helen Liddell today said the visas would be retained as a route to UK citizenship. "Ancestry visas are a tangible sign of our close, shared history. They give Australians a glimpse of their heritage and a gateway to one of the world's most innovative economies," Ms Liddell said in a statement. "Full details on how ancestry visas will work in the future are yet to be announced. For the time being, the current rules apply."
Source
Schools in Australia and the USA compared
Australia and the United States have much in common--language, political institutions, the influence of British settlement, and, more recently, fighting together on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. They also have a lot in common in the field of education.
Books like Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, Dinesh D'Souza's Illiberal Education, and Diane Ravitch's The Language Police make clear how effective America's Left has been in its long march to take control of education, especially the curriculum, in an attempt to transform society. The Left has targeted education in Australia, too. Over the last 30 years or so, professional associations, teachers' unions, and academics in teacher-training institutions have consistently attacked more traditional, competitive curricula as elitist, socially unjust, and guilty of enforcing a Eurocentric, patriarchal, and privileged view of the world.
In 1983, Joan Kirner, who eventually became the state of Victoria's education minister and then its premier, argued that education had to be reshaped as "part of the socialist struggle for equality, participation and social change, rather than an instrument for the capitalist system." More recently, the editor o! f the journal for the Australian Association for the Teaching of English argued that the John Howard-led conservative government's victory in 2004 was a result of the nation's English teachers' failure to teach young people the proper (i.e., left-wing) way to vote.
Currently, eight Australian states and territories have the power to manage what is taught in their schools, but the recently elected, left-of-center national government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is trying to develop a national curriculum. Such is the Left's control of education that the effort is cause for concern: any federally imposed curriculum will likely be ideologically driven and politically correct. During the early and mid-nineties, for example, the Commonwealth of Australia's left-leaning government developed a national curriculum so politically correct and dumbed-down that, after public outcry led by conservatives and the media, it was eventually rejected at a meeting of state, territory, and commonwealth education ministers.
Like America, Australia has both public and private schools. (As the German researcher Ludger Woessmann notes, one characteristic of stronger-performing education systems, as measured by international tests, is a muscular private-school sector.) On the whole, Australian private schools are more academically minded than their public counterparts, especially at the high school level. Private schools also have a better chance of escaping destructive curriculum initiatives like the "whole language" approach to reading instruction, as well as feel-good assessment systems that refuse to tell students that they have failed.
One striking difference between the United States and Australia, however, is that the Land Down Under doesn't need a formal school-voucher system like those in some American localities. In Australia, students attending private schools automatically receive funding from state governments and the commonwealth, with the amount of taxpayers' money received per student varying according to each school community's socioeconomic profile. While the figure never fully covers the cost of educating students (the average cost of educating a state-school student is $10,000, while the average government subsidy to private-school students is $5,000), private schools have become increasingly popular. In 1997, approximately 30 percent of students attended private schools; by 2007, the figure had grown to approximately 34 percent. Surveys suggest that parents choose private schools because they have a strong academic focus, better reflect parental values, and promote excellence.
While private schools must register with the government and conform to regulations in areas like health and safety, teacher certification, and financial probity, they enjoy flexibility when it comes to curriculum and staffing. They have been particularly effective in more affluent, middle-class areas, where they have forced government schools to promote a more disciplined and academic environment.
The curriculum debate now revolves around questions of increased testing and accountability, teacher performance, and developing a national curriculum in order to become more internationally competitive. However, since we have left-of-center governments at all levels--state, territory, and commonwealth--I fear that future education policies will be premised on statism, instead of opening schools to the type of accountability, choice, and competition represented by the market. Further, the commonwealth's minister for education, Julia Gillard, defines the purpose of education in terms of its utilitarian value, by linking it to increasing productivity. No one disputes the importance of economic growth, of course. But it's vital that we don't lose sight of the broader cultural, spiritual, and ethical value of education as well.
Source
Teacher quality getting some attention
They'll be pissing into the wind until they do something effective about the discipline problem, though
TOP university graduates would be aggressively recruited and given financial incentives to work in some of the nation's toughest classrooms, under Federal Government plans to boost teaching quality and revive interest in the profession. Education Minister Julia Gillard is also examining ways to track students and give parents unprecedented information on school performances in what she described as a "new era of transparency" for the public and private education systems.
With a third of serving teachers aged over 50 and university entry scores for teaching courses as low as 60, Ms Gillard last night called for the "urgent" creation of a national scheme to recruit talented graduates - from any field of study - to work in the most challenging schools. "We need to re-establish in Australia something that the labour movement has long recognised: that there is no higher vocational calling than teaching," said Ms Gillard, speaking at a John Button lecture in Melbourne last night.
She said she wanted to examine two contentious but successful international programs: the Teach First initiative in Britain, and the Teach for America scheme in the US. Under these programs, graduates are aggressively recruited and offered financial incentives to teach in struggling schools. They get access to accelerated teacher training and intensive mentoring from business and community leaders, and sign on to work in the system for about two years.
State Education Minister Bronwyn Pike endorsed the idea last night, having signalled in December that she was considering the Teach First program for Victoria.
But teachers called for better wages to back the rhetoric. "We need to see the necessary respect and valuing of the profession . which doesn't happen with words alone," said Australian Education Union federal president Angelo Gavrielatos.
In a wide-ranging speech, Ms Gillard said she wanted more detailed school-by-school data showing the socio-economic make-up and numbers of disadvantaged children. The minister also:
* Said perceptions of teaching would improve if top teachers were rewarded, in comments interpreted by some as another example of the Government's shift towards performance pay in schools.
* Rejected suggestions that differences in student results could be explained solely by socio-economic status.
* Said it was wrong to believe the education system could be divided into two groups: disadvantaged public schools and highly resourced non-government schools. "There are schools that struggle with limited resources, trying to serve disadvantaged communities, in both groups," she said. "I specifically reject the proposition that the only way to debate differential need in our school system is through the prism of the public-private divide."
Australian Secondary Principals Association president Andrew Blair said he was "absolutely all for" collecting data on individual students to identify learning difficulties, but raised concerns about comparing schools. "We all know that you can't compare a Balwyn high school and a Broadmeadows high school because you have a completely different clientele," he said.
Shadow education minister Tony Smith said the Coalition's attempts, when in government, to reform the profession had been "consistently blocked by teachers' unions and state governments".
Source
Corruption in Australia's immigration representatives overseas
Employing local Muslim Arabs to represent Australia in the Middle East was certainly a "courageous" decision (Courageous in a "Yes Minister" sense). Australia's current Leftist administration doesn't care, though
Former immigration minister Kevin Andrews instructed his department to lift the intake of Christian refugees from the Middle East. Mr Andrew's instruction was in response to what he saw as a pro-Muslim bias created by corrupt local case officers.
The Weekend Australian says Mr Andrews was so concerned about the extent of corruption in Middle Eastern posts - despite the allegations being investigated and dismissed by his own department - that he wrote to then Prime Minister John Howard advocating a $200 million plan to replace local employees with Australian staff in 10 "sensitive" countries, including Jordan, Iran and Egypt. Opposition immigration spokesman Chris Ellison said yesterday this remains Coalition policy. "We do not want discrimination or bias occurring ... and that's why I believe it is appropriate that our sensitive overseas posts, such as those in the Middle East, are staffed by Australians," Senator Ellison said.
A Department of Immigration spokesman said there were no substantiated cases of anti-Christian discrimination in Australian embassies and no plans to replace "Islamic locally engaged staff" with Australian officials.
An investigation by The Weekend Australian has discovered Mr Andrews was petitioned by the Australian Christian Lobby to address alleged religious discrimination against Iraqis. Before losing office in the November 2007 election, he ordered the number of Christian Iraqi refugees to be increased by 1,400 for 2007-08, almost doubling the previous year's Iraqi total of 1,639. "Put it this way, it was made very clear to the immigration department that more Christian refugees were wanted," a Howard government source said.
In his letter to Mr Howard in August last year, Mr Andrews, a devout Catholic, proposed significant changes to the refugee selection process. In the letter, seen by The Weekend Australian, Mr Andrews accused the case workers in Australian embassies of fraud and bribery when processing migration applications. Such posts are predominantly staffed by local workers. He said this raised "considerable security risks".
Mr Andrews named 10 countries - Pakistan, India, United Arab Emirates, China, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Kenya, Russia and Egypt - in which the posts should be staffed exclusively with Australian departmental officers. The non-Muslim countries named by Mr Andrews are understood to be less riddled by religious discrimination and more so by corruption, a source told The Weekend Australian.
Source
Australians with a UK-born grandparent will retain the right to live and work in Britain but visa conditions may be changed. The British High Commission says the UK government has decided not to scrap ancestry visas as proposed earlier in the year. Under the existing rules, Commonwealth citizens aged 17 and over can be granted residency if they can prove that one of their grandparents was born in Britain. Those awarded visas are allowed to work and then apply for citizenship after five years of residence.
The British government in February called for a debate over whether the UK ancestry route should be abolished. British high commissioner to Australia Helen Liddell today said the visas would be retained as a route to UK citizenship. "Ancestry visas are a tangible sign of our close, shared history. They give Australians a glimpse of their heritage and a gateway to one of the world's most innovative economies," Ms Liddell said in a statement. "Full details on how ancestry visas will work in the future are yet to be announced. For the time being, the current rules apply."
Source
Schools in Australia and the USA compared
Australia and the United States have much in common--language, political institutions, the influence of British settlement, and, more recently, fighting together on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. They also have a lot in common in the field of education.
Books like Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, Dinesh D'Souza's Illiberal Education, and Diane Ravitch's The Language Police make clear how effective America's Left has been in its long march to take control of education, especially the curriculum, in an attempt to transform society. The Left has targeted education in Australia, too. Over the last 30 years or so, professional associations, teachers' unions, and academics in teacher-training institutions have consistently attacked more traditional, competitive curricula as elitist, socially unjust, and guilty of enforcing a Eurocentric, patriarchal, and privileged view of the world.
In 1983, Joan Kirner, who eventually became the state of Victoria's education minister and then its premier, argued that education had to be reshaped as "part of the socialist struggle for equality, participation and social change, rather than an instrument for the capitalist system." More recently, the editor o! f the journal for the Australian Association for the Teaching of English argued that the John Howard-led conservative government's victory in 2004 was a result of the nation's English teachers' failure to teach young people the proper (i.e., left-wing) way to vote.
Currently, eight Australian states and territories have the power to manage what is taught in their schools, but the recently elected, left-of-center national government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is trying to develop a national curriculum. Such is the Left's control of education that the effort is cause for concern: any federally imposed curriculum will likely be ideologically driven and politically correct. During the early and mid-nineties, for example, the Commonwealth of Australia's left-leaning government developed a national curriculum so politically correct and dumbed-down that, after public outcry led by conservatives and the media, it was eventually rejected at a meeting of state, territory, and commonwealth education ministers.
Like America, Australia has both public and private schools. (As the German researcher Ludger Woessmann notes, one characteristic of stronger-performing education systems, as measured by international tests, is a muscular private-school sector.) On the whole, Australian private schools are more academically minded than their public counterparts, especially at the high school level. Private schools also have a better chance of escaping destructive curriculum initiatives like the "whole language" approach to reading instruction, as well as feel-good assessment systems that refuse to tell students that they have failed.
One striking difference between the United States and Australia, however, is that the Land Down Under doesn't need a formal school-voucher system like those in some American localities. In Australia, students attending private schools automatically receive funding from state governments and the commonwealth, with the amount of taxpayers' money received per student varying according to each school community's socioeconomic profile. While the figure never fully covers the cost of educating students (the average cost of educating a state-school student is $10,000, while the average government subsidy to private-school students is $5,000), private schools have become increasingly popular. In 1997, approximately 30 percent of students attended private schools; by 2007, the figure had grown to approximately 34 percent. Surveys suggest that parents choose private schools because they have a strong academic focus, better reflect parental values, and promote excellence.
While private schools must register with the government and conform to regulations in areas like health and safety, teacher certification, and financial probity, they enjoy flexibility when it comes to curriculum and staffing. They have been particularly effective in more affluent, middle-class areas, where they have forced government schools to promote a more disciplined and academic environment.
The curriculum debate now revolves around questions of increased testing and accountability, teacher performance, and developing a national curriculum in order to become more internationally competitive. However, since we have left-of-center governments at all levels--state, territory, and commonwealth--I fear that future education policies will be premised on statism, instead of opening schools to the type of accountability, choice, and competition represented by the market. Further, the commonwealth's minister for education, Julia Gillard, defines the purpose of education in terms of its utilitarian value, by linking it to increasing productivity. No one disputes the importance of economic growth, of course. But it's vital that we don't lose sight of the broader cultural, spiritual, and ethical value of education as well.
Source
Teacher quality getting some attention
They'll be pissing into the wind until they do something effective about the discipline problem, though
TOP university graduates would be aggressively recruited and given financial incentives to work in some of the nation's toughest classrooms, under Federal Government plans to boost teaching quality and revive interest in the profession. Education Minister Julia Gillard is also examining ways to track students and give parents unprecedented information on school performances in what she described as a "new era of transparency" for the public and private education systems.
With a third of serving teachers aged over 50 and university entry scores for teaching courses as low as 60, Ms Gillard last night called for the "urgent" creation of a national scheme to recruit talented graduates - from any field of study - to work in the most challenging schools. "We need to re-establish in Australia something that the labour movement has long recognised: that there is no higher vocational calling than teaching," said Ms Gillard, speaking at a John Button lecture in Melbourne last night.
She said she wanted to examine two contentious but successful international programs: the Teach First initiative in Britain, and the Teach for America scheme in the US. Under these programs, graduates are aggressively recruited and offered financial incentives to teach in struggling schools. They get access to accelerated teacher training and intensive mentoring from business and community leaders, and sign on to work in the system for about two years.
State Education Minister Bronwyn Pike endorsed the idea last night, having signalled in December that she was considering the Teach First program for Victoria.
But teachers called for better wages to back the rhetoric. "We need to see the necessary respect and valuing of the profession . which doesn't happen with words alone," said Australian Education Union federal president Angelo Gavrielatos.
In a wide-ranging speech, Ms Gillard said she wanted more detailed school-by-school data showing the socio-economic make-up and numbers of disadvantaged children. The minister also:
* Said perceptions of teaching would improve if top teachers were rewarded, in comments interpreted by some as another example of the Government's shift towards performance pay in schools.
* Rejected suggestions that differences in student results could be explained solely by socio-economic status.
* Said it was wrong to believe the education system could be divided into two groups: disadvantaged public schools and highly resourced non-government schools. "There are schools that struggle with limited resources, trying to serve disadvantaged communities, in both groups," she said. "I specifically reject the proposition that the only way to debate differential need in our school system is through the prism of the public-private divide."
Australian Secondary Principals Association president Andrew Blair said he was "absolutely all for" collecting data on individual students to identify learning difficulties, but raised concerns about comparing schools. "We all know that you can't compare a Balwyn high school and a Broadmeadows high school because you have a completely different clientele," he said.
Shadow education minister Tony Smith said the Coalition's attempts, when in government, to reform the profession had been "consistently blocked by teachers' unions and state governments".
Source
Corruption in Australia's immigration representatives overseas
Employing local Muslim Arabs to represent Australia in the Middle East was certainly a "courageous" decision (Courageous in a "Yes Minister" sense). Australia's current Leftist administration doesn't care, though
Former immigration minister Kevin Andrews instructed his department to lift the intake of Christian refugees from the Middle East. Mr Andrew's instruction was in response to what he saw as a pro-Muslim bias created by corrupt local case officers.
The Weekend Australian says Mr Andrews was so concerned about the extent of corruption in Middle Eastern posts - despite the allegations being investigated and dismissed by his own department - that he wrote to then Prime Minister John Howard advocating a $200 million plan to replace local employees with Australian staff in 10 "sensitive" countries, including Jordan, Iran and Egypt. Opposition immigration spokesman Chris Ellison said yesterday this remains Coalition policy. "We do not want discrimination or bias occurring ... and that's why I believe it is appropriate that our sensitive overseas posts, such as those in the Middle East, are staffed by Australians," Senator Ellison said.
A Department of Immigration spokesman said there were no substantiated cases of anti-Christian discrimination in Australian embassies and no plans to replace "Islamic locally engaged staff" with Australian officials.
An investigation by The Weekend Australian has discovered Mr Andrews was petitioned by the Australian Christian Lobby to address alleged religious discrimination against Iraqis. Before losing office in the November 2007 election, he ordered the number of Christian Iraqi refugees to be increased by 1,400 for 2007-08, almost doubling the previous year's Iraqi total of 1,639. "Put it this way, it was made very clear to the immigration department that more Christian refugees were wanted," a Howard government source said.
In his letter to Mr Howard in August last year, Mr Andrews, a devout Catholic, proposed significant changes to the refugee selection process. In the letter, seen by The Weekend Australian, Mr Andrews accused the case workers in Australian embassies of fraud and bribery when processing migration applications. Such posts are predominantly staffed by local workers. He said this raised "considerable security risks".
Mr Andrews named 10 countries - Pakistan, India, United Arab Emirates, China, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Kenya, Russia and Egypt - in which the posts should be staffed exclusively with Australian departmental officers. The non-Muslim countries named by Mr Andrews are understood to be less riddled by religious discrimination and more so by corruption, a source told The Weekend Australian.
Source
Friday, July 18, 2008
GREENHOUSE AUSTRALIA
Now that Australia's new centre-Left Prime Minister is has pushed climate policy to the top of the national agenda as a convenient mask for his lack of any new ideas, the debate over "Greenhouse" is very lively in Australia. And, thanks to the Murdoch press, skeptical viewpoints are occasionally getting a good airing. Two of the three articles on the subject reproduced below are particularly powerful
Top Australian Greenhouse expert now a skeptic
By David Evans
I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector. FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data. I've been following the global warming debate closely for years.
When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects. The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.
But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts:
1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it. Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever. If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.
When the signature was found to be missing in 2007 (after the latest IPCC report), alarmists objected that maybe the readings of the radiosonde thermometers might not be accurate and maybe the hot spot was there but had gone undetected. Yet hundreds of radiosondes have given the same answer, so statistically it is not possible that they missed the hot spot. Recently the alarmists have suggested we ignore the radiosonde thermometers, but instead take the radiosonde wind measurements, apply a theory about wind shear, and run the results through their computers to estimate the temperatures. They then say that the results show that we cannot rule out the presence of a hot spot. If you believe that you'd believe anything.
2. There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. There is plenty of evidence that global warming has occurred, and theory suggests that carbon emissions should raise temperatures (though by how much is hotly disputed) but there are no observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global warming.
3. The satellites that measure the world's temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980). Land-based temperature readings are corrupted by the "urban heat island" effect: urban areas encroaching on thermometer stations warm the micro-climate around the thermometer, due to vegetation changes, concrete, cars, houses. Satellite data is the only temperature data we can trust, but it only goes back to 1979. NASA reports only land-based data, and reports a modest warming trend and recent cooling. The other three global temperature records use a mix of satellite and land measurements, or satellite only, and they all show no warming since 2001 and a recent cooling.
4. The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect.
None of these points are controversial. The alarmist scientists agree with them, though they would dispute their relevance. The last point was known and past dispute by 2003, yet Al Gore made his movie in 2005 and presented the ice cores as the sole reason for believing that carbon emissions cause global warming. In any other political context our cynical and experienced press corps would surely have called this dishonest and widely questioned the politician's assertion.
Until now the global warming debate has merely been an academic matter of little interest. Now that it matters, we should debate the causes of global warming. So far that debate has just consisted of a simple sleight of hand: show evidence of global warming, and while the audience is stunned at the implications, simply assert that it is due to carbon emissions. In the minds of the audience, the evidence that global warming has occurred becomes conflated with the alleged cause, and the audience hasn't noticed that the cause was merely asserted, not proved. If there really was any evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming, don't you think we would have heard all about it ad nauseam by now?
The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming. Evidence consists of observations made by someone at some time that supports the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. Computer models and theoretical calculations are not evidence, they are just theory.
What is going to happen over the next decade as global temperatures continue not to rise? The Labor Government is about to deliberately wreck the economy in order to reduce carbon emissions. If the reasons later turn out to be bogus, the electorate is not going to re-elect a Labor government for a long time. When it comes to light that the carbon scare was known to be bogus in 2008, the ALP is going to be regarded as criminally negligent or ideologically stupid for not having seen through it. And if the Liberals support the general thrust of their actions, they will be seen likewise.
The onus should be on those who want to change things to provide evidence for why the changes are necessary. The Australian public is eventually going to have to be told the evidence anyway, so it might as well be told before wrecking the economy.
Source
Evidence doesn't bear out alarmist claims of global warming
Andrew Bolt tells Kevin Rudd stuff the Ruddy one does not want to hear. No Leftist wants to have their current best toy taken away from them
THESE are the seven graphs that should make the Rudd Government feel sick. These are the seven graphs that should make you ask: What? Has global warming now stopped? Look for yourself. They show that the world hasn't warmed for a decade, and has even cooled for several years.
Sea ice now isn't melting, but spreading. The seas have not just stopped rising, but started to fall. Nor is the weather getting wilder. Cyclones, as well as tornadoes and hurricanes, aren't increasing and the rain in Australia hasn't stopped falling. What's more, the slight warming we saw over the century until 1998 still makes the world no hotter today than it was 1000 years ago. In fact, it's even a bit cooler. So, dude, where's my global warming?
These graphs should in fact be good news for the Government and all the other warming preachers who warned we were doomed by our gases, which were heating the world to hell. Now Prime Minister Kevin Rudd can at last stop sweating about the warming terrors he told us were coming - the horrific droughts, the dengue fever, the malaria, the devastation to our land and economy. And he can announce that, hey, emergency over for now. His emissions trading scheme will go into deep freeze while he checks this good news.
As for his promise this week to make your power bills go up $200 a year to stop global warming? His promise to make even food more expensive? To put gassy companies out of business, and their workers out of a job? Cancel all that. As you were, soldier. Good news has come from the front.
But now you can see why these graphs terrify Rudd, who has never admitted to a single fact they contain. You think he dares admit he panicked you for no good reason? Wasted countless millions of dollars?
Yet the facts are stark: The world simply isn't warming as he and his pet scientists said. That's why 31,000 other scientists, including world figures such as physicist Prof Freeman Dyson, atmospheric physicist Prof Richard Lindzen and climate scientist Prof Fred Singer, issued a joint letter last month warning governments not to jump on board the global warming bandwagon. "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the earth's atmosphere and disruption of the earth's climate."
That's why Ivar Glaever, who won a Nobel Prize for Physics, this month declared "I am a sceptic", because "we don't really know what the actual effect on the climate is". And it's why the American Physical Society this month said "there is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution."
So let me go through my seven graphs that help to explain why even Nobel Prize winners question what Rudd keeps claiming -- that man is warming the world, and dangerously. The main graph is from the Hadley Centre of Britain's Meteorological Office and one of the four bodies measuring world temperature. As you see, since 1998 -- an unusually warm year thanks to the "El Nino" pool of warmer water in the Pacific -- the world's temperature dropped back to a steady plateau, followed by a few years of cooling.
The second graph confirms both the halt in warming, and then cooling. It's from another of those four bodies, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, which monitors the troposphere -- from the ground to 12km altitude. Only one of the four, in fact, claims temperatures are still rising. That's NASA, whose program is run by Dr James Hanson, Al Gore's global warming adviser and a controversial catastrophist whose team's reworking of data has been heavily criticised for exaggerating any heating.
But before I go on, a caveat: This recent cooling doesn't disprove the theory that man is warming the world. Ten years is too short to be sure of a trend. Natural factors may for now be countering the effect of our gases. Then again, the theory that man has warmed the world is based on a rise in temperature over a period that's not much longer -- from just 1975 to 1998. And the computer climate models that scientists use to predict catastrophic warming a century from now somehow never predicted a cooling that's happening right now. And these are the models Rudd is betting on with our jobs and cash.
The third graph shows another surprise those models never predicted: the seas have stopped rising. The waters have crept up for at least 150 years, since the world started to thaw from the Little Ice Age, and well before any likely man-made warming. But the climate models predicted that a big rise in emissions from all those cars, power plants and factories since World War II would cause an equally big rise in the seas, swelling them as much as 59cm by 2100. This wasn't scary enough for alarmists like Al Gore, though, who claimed whole cities could in fact be drowned under 6m of ocean.
But the satellites that have checked sea levels since 1992 find the seas have instead fallen over the past two years. Again, this could be a blip. But it isn't what the models predicted.
The fourth graph seems to confirm a cooling. Forget media scares about a melting North Pole; sea ice has grown so fast in the southern hemisphere there is now more ice in the world than is usual, says the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Graph five punctures another scare. No, global warming hasn't given us more cyclones - or more tornadoes or hurricanes anywhere. Nor is their proof that cyclones are getting worse, says the American Meteorological Society. And warming hasn't stopped our rain, either, despite media hype about a "one-in-a-100 year drought". See the Bureau of Meteorology records in graph six. It's just bad luck that the fickle rain now tends to fall where it's not needed most.
And, please, can we drop that old fiction that the world was never warmer? It's a false claim made popular by a 2001 report of the IPCC, the United Nations' climate group, which ran a graph, shaped like a hockey stick, claiming there was no warming for millennia until humans last century gassed up their world. In fact, that "hockey stick" is now discredited, and last year Dr Craig Loehle, of the US National Council for Air and Stream Improvement, argued that using tree rings to work out past temperatures was clearly unreliable. He instead produced a graph - No. 7 - of past temperatures using all other accepted proxies.
You see his results (which for statistical reasons stop at 1935): they show humans lived through a medieval period that was warmer than even today. This was a period that historical accounts confirm was so warm that Greenland farmers grew crops on land now under snow, and British ones grew grapes.
But I repeat: the world may yet warm again, and soon, although scientists at Leibnitz Institute and Max Planck Institute last month predicted it won't for at least another decade. If at all, say solar experts worried by a lack of sun spots.
But even if none of my graphs disproves the theory that man is causing dangerous warming, they should at least make you pause. They should at least make you open to other theories of climate change, like that of Dr Henrik Svensmark, head of Denmark's Centre for Sun-Climate Research, who thinks changes in cosmic rays, which affect clouds, may explain much of the recent warming. And now the cooling, too.
But, above all, when that man with the sandwich board comes tugging at your sleeve again, shouting, "Quick, help me save the world - or die", hang on to your wallet, friend. Give that urger my seven graphs instead, and ask him how many more years of no warming will it take before he admits it really is too soon to panic.
Source
Climate policy a blow to Australia's huge natural gas industry
MORE than $60 billion in planned LNG investments are likely to be shelved because the Rudd Government's emissions trading scheme is "backwards" and penalises exports of the clean gas, according to Woodside Petroleum chief Don Voelte. Mr Voelte told The Australian the carbon pollution reduction scheme, unveiled by the Government on Wednesday, would make it impossible for two $30billion West Australian offshore LNG projects to go ahead. "This emissions trading scheme will knock planned projects with relatively high CO2 emissions right off the block - you can start with (Chevron's) Gorgon (project) and (Woodside's) Browse (project) and keep on going," he said.
Mr Voelte said the $15 billion LNG export industry was unlikely to qualify for any free permits under the Government's compensation formula for trade-exposed industries, in part because of efforts the industry had already undertaken to reduce its carbon emissions. He said this outcome was "backwards" because LNG was part of the global solution to climate change, and replaced energy sources at least four times dirtier in the countries to which it was sold.
The LNG industry's concerns came as Kevin Rudd indicated he would try to sideline the Greens and would instead court Brendan Nelson for Senate backing for his carbon emissions trading scheme - dismissing Greens' demands for a phase-out of coal-fired power generation as unrealistic. Labor sources confirmed the Government saw little prospect of winning Greens support for its scheme, which includes plans for compensation for coal-fired power generators. As the Greens attacked the plan and demanded more public investment in renewable energy sources, the Prime Minister called on the Opposition to become "responsible partners" in addressing climate change.
In at least two of a series of interviews he conducted to explain the green paper released on Wednesday, Mr Rudd ignored direct questions about whether he could negotiate for Greens support in the Senate. Instead, he said he wanted Liberal Party backing, without which he would have to rely on the Greens, Family First and independent South Australian senator Nick Xenophon.
The Government has said it will allocate up to 30 per cent of emissions permits to industries with international competitors not exposed to a carbon price, identifying eligible industries through a formula that calculates tonnes of emissions per million dollars in revenue.
Analysis by the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association and by Deutsche Bank experts confirmed Mr Voelte's calculation that LNG would not qualify for permits under the Government's proposed formula. "We do not believe we will be included as an emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industry - that we will fall just below the cut-off, which will mean all the worst emitters will be given a free ride, and clean fuels like LNG will have to bear the whole burden," Mr Voelte said. "We spent hundreds of millions over recent years to clean up our plants, we won all these greenhouse challenge awards. and now we are thinking we should have just left ourselves dirty, because we're going to come in just under the curve. "This emissions trading scheme is going to get the wrong answer - it's going to hit our returns and stop our new projects going forward, when we are part of the global answer." Asked what he intended to do about the problem, Mr Voelte said: "We have booked a lot of plane tickets to Canberra."
APPEA chief executive Belinda Robinson echoed the warning, saying: "Unless LNG receives the treatment it must have, not only is the ability of the industry to grow and invest here ... affected, it will also affect our ability to assist the Asia-Pacific region reduce its greenhouse gas emissions for the longer term."
The Government is also at loggerheads with the Greens over the future of the coal industry in the nation's energy generation. It believes successful deployment of "clean coal" technology - which would ensure the coal industry's future - is vital, and has created a $500million clean coal research fund to commercialise the technology, which eliminates carbon emissions from burning coal by capturing the carbon and storing it underground. But Greens environment spokeswoman Christine Milne told The Australian yesterday her party opposed any public money being spent on clean coal research, and instead wanted investment in renewable energy sources such as solar power.
Senator Milne said average Australians backed her party's position ahead of that of "the greenhouse mafia, the Opposition and (Resources Minister) Martin Ferguson". "The coal industry is largely owned overseas and has made mega-profits from polluting the atmosphere through the commodities boom," Senator Milne said.
As Mr Rudd hit the airwaves yesterday, he made clear he saw little value in attempting to meet the Greens' demands. Asked whether he was prepared to talk to the Greens, he did not even refer to the party. "My appeal is directly to the Liberal Party to ... be responsible partners in the future economic direction of Australia," he told Sydney radio 2UE. "The Liberals have got some serious soul-searching to do on this question in terms of acting responsibly."
In an interview with Sky Television, the Prime Minister was asked about the Greens' criticism, and whether he would stick to his guns in the Senate. He again ignored the Greens, saying: "On the Senate, I think there's going to be a huge national spotlight trained on the Liberals. "Are you going to be responsible partners in this country's long-term economic future or are you just going to walk away and play opportunistic, short-term politics?"
Wayne Swan said government support for clean coal technologies was critical. "As an exporter of coal, we've got a huge interest in developing the technology that captures the carbon," the Treasurer said. The Coalition appeared to be open to negotiations, with Treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull stressing that the Opposition was not opposed to emissions trading, although it had differences with the Government on timing. "We have got to see what the measures are," he said. "There is a big issue here about getting it right. This is not an issue, a question, of who is more committed to the environment than anybody else."
However, Mr Turnbull described as absurd the Government's decision to delay the release of Treasury modelling on the ETS until after the date at which submissions closed for comment on the green paper. "You cannot seriously ask people to make submissions about options for an emissions trading scheme when they haven't got any of the financial modelling," he said.
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Huge public medicine failure: Children wait years for ear, nose and throat procedures
HUNDREDS of Queensland children are waiting up to four years for ear, nose and throat surgery, surgeons say. ENT specialists say the long wait puts them at serious risk of behavioural and learning problems. Specialists say the wait for an outpatient's appointment at Mater Children's and Royal Children's hospitals in Brisbane is about two years. Queensland Health's own figures show that as of April 1 this year, 400 children were waiting for category 3 ENT surgery at the two hospitals.
Research has found children who have untreated ear infections in their early years are at risk of becoming truants and doing badly at school. Yet they can be easily treated by inserting grommets - tiny tubes that give the middle ear a chance to recover from recurrent infection. Other children require operations to remove tonsils or adenoids to improve sleeping and concentration at school.
ENT surgeon Chris Perry conceded the State Government had started to make inroads into elective surgery waiting lists for children through its Surgery Connect program public operations performed in private hospitals. Queensland Health figures reveal Surgery Connect has cut the waiting list by about 10 per cent. The Government expects the program to be able to treat about 45 children with ENT problems each month.
However Associate Professor Perry said Surgery Connect was only a BandAid solution. "I don't want to embarrass the Government," he said. "I think they're trying to do something about it. "But we think Surgery Connect is counter-productive to the development of public hospitals. "They should be spending the money to fix up public hospitals."
Professor Perry said he had a "duty to help these kids" by operating on them via Surgery Connect but he hoped Queensland Health did not intend to make the program permanent. "It's work that needs to be done at night time, when everybody's tired, including surgeons, or on weekends, and that cuts into family time," he said. Surgeons would prefer to see the Government set up elective surgery theatres in public hospitals to "quarantine" non-urgent cases from emergencies. Because of the huge increase in demand on public hospital emergency departments, elective surgery lists are sometimes cancelled because of the more urgent cases.
Specialists raised the issue with Queensland Health Minister Stephen Robertson at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons' annual state meeting at Coolum, on the Sunshine Coast, at the weekend. Mr Robertson acknowledged the Government needed to do better by treating children in a more timely manner. "I want to see an improvement in wait times for children," he said. He said he would consider creating elective surgery only theatres for children but he said Surgery Connect was probably here to stay. "My personal view is that it would be irresponsible ... where we can identify capacity in the private sector, not to use that capacity if it means that we increase our throughput," Mr Robertson said.
Source
But there's plenty of money for the health bureaucracy
QUEENSLAND Health bureaucrats have spent more than $800,000 travelling the world over the past two years, a budget estimates committee heard. The hearing was today told non-clinical staff made 69 overseas trips in 2006-07 at a cost of $364,546, and 67 trips between July 1, 2007 and May 31, 2008, at a cost of $464,809. The trips included five senior bureaucrats taking an $80,000 two-week visit to US and UK hospitals in November 2006, and a $50,000 trip for two senior bureaucrats to join Health Minister Stephen Robertson on a tour of facilities in the US and Canada in August 2007.
Opposition health spokesman John-Paul Langbroek said Queenslanders on hospital waiting lists were entitled to ask why they didn't come first. "With such an urgent need for new hospital beds to be delivered and for waiting lists to be tackled, Queenslanders will be wondering why senior health bureaucrats are spending so much time touring hospitals in other countries," Mr Langbroek said in a statement.
Mr Robertson said overseas travel arrangements were under review to ensure taxpayers got value for money from health staff attending conferences and recruitment fairs. "I think it's appropriate every now and then to review that travel budget to ensure it is being used appropriately," he told reporters in Brisbane today. "I'm always worried when I see expenditure going into areas that don't have a direct effect on good patient outcomes. "Just as I look at travel every now and then, I look at other areas of administration to see if there are ways that we can save money and redirect those funds into front-end services."
Source
Extreme leniency towards extreme traffic offences
Why should anyone have any respect for the law if this is what the law is?
A magistrate has opted against recording a conviction against an unlicensed teenage hoon who led police on a high-speed chase in a defective car. Beenleigh magistrate Joan White yesterday fined Nikol Maksuti, 17, $1000 after he pleaded guilty to dangerous operation of a vehicle, unlicensed driving as a repeat offender and driving a defective, unregistered and uninsured car.
The magistrate's decision comes less than three weeks after her son, who has an appalling traffic history, received a $750 fine in the same court for a swag of traffic offences. On July 1, Jeffery White, 23, was fined $750 by Beenleigh magistrate Peter Webber for driving without due care while unlicensed, failing to wear a seatbelt or obey a stop sign and obstructing police. He also was disqualified from driving for six months.
And on Monday, acting Holland Park magistrate Chris Callaghan decided against disqualifying the licences of two hoons with appalling traffic histories after they took part in a slow "rolling blockade" before an alleged race on Brisbane's Pacific Highway.
The decisions come despite a crackdown by the State Government and police and the issue of hooning on Queensland's roads prompted calls by a senior surgeon for law-breaking motorists to be shocked into driving responsibly. Princess Alexandra Hospital surgical director Daryl Wall said hoons should be forced to watch their cars crushed in front of their eyes. "That would be a very powerful force," he told The Courier Mail.
Prosecutor Joanne Mills told the Beenleigh Magistrate's Court that Maksuti was caught driving at 110km/h in a 50km/h zone at Waterford West about 10.40pm on May 17. Senior-Constable Mills said Maksuti, who was driving a defective and unregistered car, had never held a driver's licence and twice tried to avoid arrest by speeding away from police. She said at one point Maksuti turned off the car's headlights and came to a skidding halt before fleeing.
Ms White told Maksuti he needed to understand it was a privilege to hold a driver's licence and to think himself lucky she did not record a conviction against him. She also disqualified him from driving for six months. [Since he hasn't got a licence anyway, what does that mean?]
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Now that Australia's new centre-Left Prime Minister is has pushed climate policy to the top of the national agenda as a convenient mask for his lack of any new ideas, the debate over "Greenhouse" is very lively in Australia. And, thanks to the Murdoch press, skeptical viewpoints are occasionally getting a good airing. Two of the three articles on the subject reproduced below are particularly powerful
Top Australian Greenhouse expert now a skeptic
By David Evans
I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector. FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data. I've been following the global warming debate closely for years.
When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects. The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.
But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts:
1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it. Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever. If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.
When the signature was found to be missing in 2007 (after the latest IPCC report), alarmists objected that maybe the readings of the radiosonde thermometers might not be accurate and maybe the hot spot was there but had gone undetected. Yet hundreds of radiosondes have given the same answer, so statistically it is not possible that they missed the hot spot. Recently the alarmists have suggested we ignore the radiosonde thermometers, but instead take the radiosonde wind measurements, apply a theory about wind shear, and run the results through their computers to estimate the temperatures. They then say that the results show that we cannot rule out the presence of a hot spot. If you believe that you'd believe anything.
2. There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. There is plenty of evidence that global warming has occurred, and theory suggests that carbon emissions should raise temperatures (though by how much is hotly disputed) but there are no observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global warming.
3. The satellites that measure the world's temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980). Land-based temperature readings are corrupted by the "urban heat island" effect: urban areas encroaching on thermometer stations warm the micro-climate around the thermometer, due to vegetation changes, concrete, cars, houses. Satellite data is the only temperature data we can trust, but it only goes back to 1979. NASA reports only land-based data, and reports a modest warming trend and recent cooling. The other three global temperature records use a mix of satellite and land measurements, or satellite only, and they all show no warming since 2001 and a recent cooling.
4. The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect.
None of these points are controversial. The alarmist scientists agree with them, though they would dispute their relevance. The last point was known and past dispute by 2003, yet Al Gore made his movie in 2005 and presented the ice cores as the sole reason for believing that carbon emissions cause global warming. In any other political context our cynical and experienced press corps would surely have called this dishonest and widely questioned the politician's assertion.
Until now the global warming debate has merely been an academic matter of little interest. Now that it matters, we should debate the causes of global warming. So far that debate has just consisted of a simple sleight of hand: show evidence of global warming, and while the audience is stunned at the implications, simply assert that it is due to carbon emissions. In the minds of the audience, the evidence that global warming has occurred becomes conflated with the alleged cause, and the audience hasn't noticed that the cause was merely asserted, not proved. If there really was any evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming, don't you think we would have heard all about it ad nauseam by now?
The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming. Evidence consists of observations made by someone at some time that supports the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. Computer models and theoretical calculations are not evidence, they are just theory.
What is going to happen over the next decade as global temperatures continue not to rise? The Labor Government is about to deliberately wreck the economy in order to reduce carbon emissions. If the reasons later turn out to be bogus, the electorate is not going to re-elect a Labor government for a long time. When it comes to light that the carbon scare was known to be bogus in 2008, the ALP is going to be regarded as criminally negligent or ideologically stupid for not having seen through it. And if the Liberals support the general thrust of their actions, they will be seen likewise.
The onus should be on those who want to change things to provide evidence for why the changes are necessary. The Australian public is eventually going to have to be told the evidence anyway, so it might as well be told before wrecking the economy.
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Evidence doesn't bear out alarmist claims of global warming
Andrew Bolt tells Kevin Rudd stuff the Ruddy one does not want to hear. No Leftist wants to have their current best toy taken away from them
THESE are the seven graphs that should make the Rudd Government feel sick. These are the seven graphs that should make you ask: What? Has global warming now stopped? Look for yourself. They show that the world hasn't warmed for a decade, and has even cooled for several years.
Sea ice now isn't melting, but spreading. The seas have not just stopped rising, but started to fall. Nor is the weather getting wilder. Cyclones, as well as tornadoes and hurricanes, aren't increasing and the rain in Australia hasn't stopped falling. What's more, the slight warming we saw over the century until 1998 still makes the world no hotter today than it was 1000 years ago. In fact, it's even a bit cooler. So, dude, where's my global warming?
These graphs should in fact be good news for the Government and all the other warming preachers who warned we were doomed by our gases, which were heating the world to hell. Now Prime Minister Kevin Rudd can at last stop sweating about the warming terrors he told us were coming - the horrific droughts, the dengue fever, the malaria, the devastation to our land and economy. And he can announce that, hey, emergency over for now. His emissions trading scheme will go into deep freeze while he checks this good news.
As for his promise this week to make your power bills go up $200 a year to stop global warming? His promise to make even food more expensive? To put gassy companies out of business, and their workers out of a job? Cancel all that. As you were, soldier. Good news has come from the front.
But now you can see why these graphs terrify Rudd, who has never admitted to a single fact they contain. You think he dares admit he panicked you for no good reason? Wasted countless millions of dollars?
Yet the facts are stark: The world simply isn't warming as he and his pet scientists said. That's why 31,000 other scientists, including world figures such as physicist Prof Freeman Dyson, atmospheric physicist Prof Richard Lindzen and climate scientist Prof Fred Singer, issued a joint letter last month warning governments not to jump on board the global warming bandwagon. "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the earth's atmosphere and disruption of the earth's climate."
That's why Ivar Glaever, who won a Nobel Prize for Physics, this month declared "I am a sceptic", because "we don't really know what the actual effect on the climate is". And it's why the American Physical Society this month said "there is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution."
So let me go through my seven graphs that help to explain why even Nobel Prize winners question what Rudd keeps claiming -- that man is warming the world, and dangerously. The main graph is from the Hadley Centre of Britain's Meteorological Office and one of the four bodies measuring world temperature. As you see, since 1998 -- an unusually warm year thanks to the "El Nino" pool of warmer water in the Pacific -- the world's temperature dropped back to a steady plateau, followed by a few years of cooling.
The second graph confirms both the halt in warming, and then cooling. It's from another of those four bodies, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, which monitors the troposphere -- from the ground to 12km altitude. Only one of the four, in fact, claims temperatures are still rising. That's NASA, whose program is run by Dr James Hanson, Al Gore's global warming adviser and a controversial catastrophist whose team's reworking of data has been heavily criticised for exaggerating any heating.
But before I go on, a caveat: This recent cooling doesn't disprove the theory that man is warming the world. Ten years is too short to be sure of a trend. Natural factors may for now be countering the effect of our gases. Then again, the theory that man has warmed the world is based on a rise in temperature over a period that's not much longer -- from just 1975 to 1998. And the computer climate models that scientists use to predict catastrophic warming a century from now somehow never predicted a cooling that's happening right now. And these are the models Rudd is betting on with our jobs and cash.
The third graph shows another surprise those models never predicted: the seas have stopped rising. The waters have crept up for at least 150 years, since the world started to thaw from the Little Ice Age, and well before any likely man-made warming. But the climate models predicted that a big rise in emissions from all those cars, power plants and factories since World War II would cause an equally big rise in the seas, swelling them as much as 59cm by 2100. This wasn't scary enough for alarmists like Al Gore, though, who claimed whole cities could in fact be drowned under 6m of ocean.
But the satellites that have checked sea levels since 1992 find the seas have instead fallen over the past two years. Again, this could be a blip. But it isn't what the models predicted.
The fourth graph seems to confirm a cooling. Forget media scares about a melting North Pole; sea ice has grown so fast in the southern hemisphere there is now more ice in the world than is usual, says the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Graph five punctures another scare. No, global warming hasn't given us more cyclones - or more tornadoes or hurricanes anywhere. Nor is their proof that cyclones are getting worse, says the American Meteorological Society. And warming hasn't stopped our rain, either, despite media hype about a "one-in-a-100 year drought". See the Bureau of Meteorology records in graph six. It's just bad luck that the fickle rain now tends to fall where it's not needed most.
And, please, can we drop that old fiction that the world was never warmer? It's a false claim made popular by a 2001 report of the IPCC, the United Nations' climate group, which ran a graph, shaped like a hockey stick, claiming there was no warming for millennia until humans last century gassed up their world. In fact, that "hockey stick" is now discredited, and last year Dr Craig Loehle, of the US National Council for Air and Stream Improvement, argued that using tree rings to work out past temperatures was clearly unreliable. He instead produced a graph - No. 7 - of past temperatures using all other accepted proxies.
You see his results (which for statistical reasons stop at 1935): they show humans lived through a medieval period that was warmer than even today. This was a period that historical accounts confirm was so warm that Greenland farmers grew crops on land now under snow, and British ones grew grapes.
But I repeat: the world may yet warm again, and soon, although scientists at Leibnitz Institute and Max Planck Institute last month predicted it won't for at least another decade. If at all, say solar experts worried by a lack of sun spots.
But even if none of my graphs disproves the theory that man is causing dangerous warming, they should at least make you pause. They should at least make you open to other theories of climate change, like that of Dr Henrik Svensmark, head of Denmark's Centre for Sun-Climate Research, who thinks changes in cosmic rays, which affect clouds, may explain much of the recent warming. And now the cooling, too.
But, above all, when that man with the sandwich board comes tugging at your sleeve again, shouting, "Quick, help me save the world - or die", hang on to your wallet, friend. Give that urger my seven graphs instead, and ask him how many more years of no warming will it take before he admits it really is too soon to panic.
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Climate policy a blow to Australia's huge natural gas industry
MORE than $60 billion in planned LNG investments are likely to be shelved because the Rudd Government's emissions trading scheme is "backwards" and penalises exports of the clean gas, according to Woodside Petroleum chief Don Voelte. Mr Voelte told The Australian the carbon pollution reduction scheme, unveiled by the Government on Wednesday, would make it impossible for two $30billion West Australian offshore LNG projects to go ahead. "This emissions trading scheme will knock planned projects with relatively high CO2 emissions right off the block - you can start with (Chevron's) Gorgon (project) and (Woodside's) Browse (project) and keep on going," he said.
Mr Voelte said the $15 billion LNG export industry was unlikely to qualify for any free permits under the Government's compensation formula for trade-exposed industries, in part because of efforts the industry had already undertaken to reduce its carbon emissions. He said this outcome was "backwards" because LNG was part of the global solution to climate change, and replaced energy sources at least four times dirtier in the countries to which it was sold.
The LNG industry's concerns came as Kevin Rudd indicated he would try to sideline the Greens and would instead court Brendan Nelson for Senate backing for his carbon emissions trading scheme - dismissing Greens' demands for a phase-out of coal-fired power generation as unrealistic. Labor sources confirmed the Government saw little prospect of winning Greens support for its scheme, which includes plans for compensation for coal-fired power generators. As the Greens attacked the plan and demanded more public investment in renewable energy sources, the Prime Minister called on the Opposition to become "responsible partners" in addressing climate change.
In at least two of a series of interviews he conducted to explain the green paper released on Wednesday, Mr Rudd ignored direct questions about whether he could negotiate for Greens support in the Senate. Instead, he said he wanted Liberal Party backing, without which he would have to rely on the Greens, Family First and independent South Australian senator Nick Xenophon.
The Government has said it will allocate up to 30 per cent of emissions permits to industries with international competitors not exposed to a carbon price, identifying eligible industries through a formula that calculates tonnes of emissions per million dollars in revenue.
Analysis by the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association and by Deutsche Bank experts confirmed Mr Voelte's calculation that LNG would not qualify for permits under the Government's proposed formula. "We do not believe we will be included as an emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industry - that we will fall just below the cut-off, which will mean all the worst emitters will be given a free ride, and clean fuels like LNG will have to bear the whole burden," Mr Voelte said. "We spent hundreds of millions over recent years to clean up our plants, we won all these greenhouse challenge awards. and now we are thinking we should have just left ourselves dirty, because we're going to come in just under the curve. "This emissions trading scheme is going to get the wrong answer - it's going to hit our returns and stop our new projects going forward, when we are part of the global answer." Asked what he intended to do about the problem, Mr Voelte said: "We have booked a lot of plane tickets to Canberra."
APPEA chief executive Belinda Robinson echoed the warning, saying: "Unless LNG receives the treatment it must have, not only is the ability of the industry to grow and invest here ... affected, it will also affect our ability to assist the Asia-Pacific region reduce its greenhouse gas emissions for the longer term."
The Government is also at loggerheads with the Greens over the future of the coal industry in the nation's energy generation. It believes successful deployment of "clean coal" technology - which would ensure the coal industry's future - is vital, and has created a $500million clean coal research fund to commercialise the technology, which eliminates carbon emissions from burning coal by capturing the carbon and storing it underground. But Greens environment spokeswoman Christine Milne told The Australian yesterday her party opposed any public money being spent on clean coal research, and instead wanted investment in renewable energy sources such as solar power.
Senator Milne said average Australians backed her party's position ahead of that of "the greenhouse mafia, the Opposition and (Resources Minister) Martin Ferguson". "The coal industry is largely owned overseas and has made mega-profits from polluting the atmosphere through the commodities boom," Senator Milne said.
As Mr Rudd hit the airwaves yesterday, he made clear he saw little value in attempting to meet the Greens' demands. Asked whether he was prepared to talk to the Greens, he did not even refer to the party. "My appeal is directly to the Liberal Party to ... be responsible partners in the future economic direction of Australia," he told Sydney radio 2UE. "The Liberals have got some serious soul-searching to do on this question in terms of acting responsibly."
In an interview with Sky Television, the Prime Minister was asked about the Greens' criticism, and whether he would stick to his guns in the Senate. He again ignored the Greens, saying: "On the Senate, I think there's going to be a huge national spotlight trained on the Liberals. "Are you going to be responsible partners in this country's long-term economic future or are you just going to walk away and play opportunistic, short-term politics?"
Wayne Swan said government support for clean coal technologies was critical. "As an exporter of coal, we've got a huge interest in developing the technology that captures the carbon," the Treasurer said. The Coalition appeared to be open to negotiations, with Treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull stressing that the Opposition was not opposed to emissions trading, although it had differences with the Government on timing. "We have got to see what the measures are," he said. "There is a big issue here about getting it right. This is not an issue, a question, of who is more committed to the environment than anybody else."
However, Mr Turnbull described as absurd the Government's decision to delay the release of Treasury modelling on the ETS until after the date at which submissions closed for comment on the green paper. "You cannot seriously ask people to make submissions about options for an emissions trading scheme when they haven't got any of the financial modelling," he said.
Source
Huge public medicine failure: Children wait years for ear, nose and throat procedures
HUNDREDS of Queensland children are waiting up to four years for ear, nose and throat surgery, surgeons say. ENT specialists say the long wait puts them at serious risk of behavioural and learning problems. Specialists say the wait for an outpatient's appointment at Mater Children's and Royal Children's hospitals in Brisbane is about two years. Queensland Health's own figures show that as of April 1 this year, 400 children were waiting for category 3 ENT surgery at the two hospitals.
Research has found children who have untreated ear infections in their early years are at risk of becoming truants and doing badly at school. Yet they can be easily treated by inserting grommets - tiny tubes that give the middle ear a chance to recover from recurrent infection. Other children require operations to remove tonsils or adenoids to improve sleeping and concentration at school.
ENT surgeon Chris Perry conceded the State Government had started to make inroads into elective surgery waiting lists for children through its Surgery Connect program public operations performed in private hospitals. Queensland Health figures reveal Surgery Connect has cut the waiting list by about 10 per cent. The Government expects the program to be able to treat about 45 children with ENT problems each month.
However Associate Professor Perry said Surgery Connect was only a BandAid solution. "I don't want to embarrass the Government," he said. "I think they're trying to do something about it. "But we think Surgery Connect is counter-productive to the development of public hospitals. "They should be spending the money to fix up public hospitals."
Professor Perry said he had a "duty to help these kids" by operating on them via Surgery Connect but he hoped Queensland Health did not intend to make the program permanent. "It's work that needs to be done at night time, when everybody's tired, including surgeons, or on weekends, and that cuts into family time," he said. Surgeons would prefer to see the Government set up elective surgery theatres in public hospitals to "quarantine" non-urgent cases from emergencies. Because of the huge increase in demand on public hospital emergency departments, elective surgery lists are sometimes cancelled because of the more urgent cases.
Specialists raised the issue with Queensland Health Minister Stephen Robertson at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons' annual state meeting at Coolum, on the Sunshine Coast, at the weekend. Mr Robertson acknowledged the Government needed to do better by treating children in a more timely manner. "I want to see an improvement in wait times for children," he said. He said he would consider creating elective surgery only theatres for children but he said Surgery Connect was probably here to stay. "My personal view is that it would be irresponsible ... where we can identify capacity in the private sector, not to use that capacity if it means that we increase our throughput," Mr Robertson said.
Source
But there's plenty of money for the health bureaucracy
QUEENSLAND Health bureaucrats have spent more than $800,000 travelling the world over the past two years, a budget estimates committee heard. The hearing was today told non-clinical staff made 69 overseas trips in 2006-07 at a cost of $364,546, and 67 trips between July 1, 2007 and May 31, 2008, at a cost of $464,809. The trips included five senior bureaucrats taking an $80,000 two-week visit to US and UK hospitals in November 2006, and a $50,000 trip for two senior bureaucrats to join Health Minister Stephen Robertson on a tour of facilities in the US and Canada in August 2007.
Opposition health spokesman John-Paul Langbroek said Queenslanders on hospital waiting lists were entitled to ask why they didn't come first. "With such an urgent need for new hospital beds to be delivered and for waiting lists to be tackled, Queenslanders will be wondering why senior health bureaucrats are spending so much time touring hospitals in other countries," Mr Langbroek said in a statement.
Mr Robertson said overseas travel arrangements were under review to ensure taxpayers got value for money from health staff attending conferences and recruitment fairs. "I think it's appropriate every now and then to review that travel budget to ensure it is being used appropriately," he told reporters in Brisbane today. "I'm always worried when I see expenditure going into areas that don't have a direct effect on good patient outcomes. "Just as I look at travel every now and then, I look at other areas of administration to see if there are ways that we can save money and redirect those funds into front-end services."
Source
Extreme leniency towards extreme traffic offences
Why should anyone have any respect for the law if this is what the law is?
A magistrate has opted against recording a conviction against an unlicensed teenage hoon who led police on a high-speed chase in a defective car. Beenleigh magistrate Joan White yesterday fined Nikol Maksuti, 17, $1000 after he pleaded guilty to dangerous operation of a vehicle, unlicensed driving as a repeat offender and driving a defective, unregistered and uninsured car.
The magistrate's decision comes less than three weeks after her son, who has an appalling traffic history, received a $750 fine in the same court for a swag of traffic offences. On July 1, Jeffery White, 23, was fined $750 by Beenleigh magistrate Peter Webber for driving without due care while unlicensed, failing to wear a seatbelt or obey a stop sign and obstructing police. He also was disqualified from driving for six months.
And on Monday, acting Holland Park magistrate Chris Callaghan decided against disqualifying the licences of two hoons with appalling traffic histories after they took part in a slow "rolling blockade" before an alleged race on Brisbane's Pacific Highway.
The decisions come despite a crackdown by the State Government and police and the issue of hooning on Queensland's roads prompted calls by a senior surgeon for law-breaking motorists to be shocked into driving responsibly. Princess Alexandra Hospital surgical director Daryl Wall said hoons should be forced to watch their cars crushed in front of their eyes. "That would be a very powerful force," he told The Courier Mail.
Prosecutor Joanne Mills told the Beenleigh Magistrate's Court that Maksuti was caught driving at 110km/h in a 50km/h zone at Waterford West about 10.40pm on May 17. Senior-Constable Mills said Maksuti, who was driving a defective and unregistered car, had never held a driver's licence and twice tried to avoid arrest by speeding away from police. She said at one point Maksuti turned off the car's headlights and came to a skidding halt before fleeing.
Ms White told Maksuti he needed to understand it was a privilege to hold a driver's licence and to think himself lucky she did not record a conviction against him. She also disqualified him from driving for six months. [Since he hasn't got a licence anyway, what does that mean?]
Source
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Wow! Reformation Christianity still lives in Sydney
It's just sentimentality on my part (although my own background is Protestant fundamentalist, I am an atheist and brought my son up as a Catholic) but I must admit that I still do enjoy smelling a whiff of the old fire and brimstone in the article below by immensely-influential Sydney Anglican clergyman Phillip Jensen. Beliefs such as his have transformed the world
Roman Catholicism is a very diverse thing and what you see in the Philippines is not necessarily what you see in the streets of Sydney. It has a Protestant face in the Protestant world. Recently we've been getting into the Stations of the Cross here in Sydney with World Youth Day in 2008, but not all 14 Stations of the Cross are going to be done, only I think eight of the Stations of the Cross - I can't remember the exact number.
The ones that are going to be done are the ones that are in the Bible, but the extra ones, like Veronica, well they're not in the Bible. They're not going to be done in the streets of Sydney. Now in one sense it is because they haven't got time, space and energy to do all of them, and in one sense it is out of courtesy to Protestants that they choose to leave out the ones that are not in the Bible.
But if Martin Luther came into Sydney and saw Roman Catholicism and its Stations of the Cross, he'd say, "Ah, they've cleaned up their act." So there are certain aspects of Catholicism in the Protestant world which are much more acceptable to where Luther would have been.
But no. Things are actually worse than in Luther's day because since Luther's day the Roman Catholic Church not only calcified itself explicitly against justification by faith alone, or the authority of the scriptures alone, or salvation by grace alone, etcetera; not only calcified itself against that back at the Council of Trent but since then you've had the Vatican I Council in 1870, which clarified the idea that the Pope can speak infallibly.
A faithful Roman Catholic would say, "Well, they're just saying what we've always believed," but in fact it was not until 1870 that it was ever said that this is really what the belief is. Since then we're not too sure how often the Pope has spoken infallibly but the one occasion on which everyone agrees he did was in the 1950s when he declared that Mary had been bodily assumed from the grave. Well, that's not in the Bible anywhere. And why would she be bodily assumed from the grave? It's all part of the Maryology that has come in. It has also identified the immaculate conception of Mary; that is, that Mary was without sin. Well, that's nowhere in the Bible.
So since the Reformation we've had the infallibility of the Pope, the sinlessness of Mary, the bodily assumption of Mary. These things show you that Roman Catholicism has moved since the Reformation - but it has moved further away from us, not closer to us.
NOW in Vatican II there was an opening up - people were "separated brothers" and things like that - but with all due respect to the genuineness of their attempts to be more ecumenically open - and certainly I'm appreciative of the sense of which we can live in a tolerant acceptance of each other - it was only a year or two ago that the Pope made quite clear that the Anglican Church, Presbyterians, are sects, cults; we are not the true church.
So you can't get salvation through us; you are moved into fairly serious deviation. And so Protestants can be very warm and fuzzy towards Roman Catholicism but it's not actually reciprocal. We are not really seen as God's people in Christ Jesus because the Pope is seen as the vicar of Christ. Now from a Bible-believing point of view, that is an appalling blasphemy because the Holy Spirit is the vicar of Christ.
Source
No nonsense about Muslim taxicab drivers in Queensland
Company fires them if they object to dogs -- unlike the constipated proceedings in the USA
Some Muslim taxi drivers are refusing to carry blind and disabled passengers with guide dogs - because their religion tells them the animals are "unclean". Brisbane's Yellow Cab Company has been forced to sack drivers over their conduct towards passengers with assistance dogs. Bill Parker, general manager of the firm, said the behaviour would not be tolerated and penalties will be imposed if drivers disobeyed. The company has produced a booklet informing drivers of their duty towards blind and disabled customers with dogs.
Islamic Council of Queensland president Suliman Sabdia said dogs were considered a health risk for Muslims but "to use religion as a reason to refuse blind and disabled passengers is unjustified".
Source
"Into the Deep Green Yonder"
A response to the Rudd government's Green Paper on Climate Change by Viv Forbes, Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition:
The Government Green Paper completely ignores the main question - should Canberra try to control the weather, or is it better to foster a strong Australia able to cope with whatever climate change brings us? The Government also justifies the need for action on completely worthless long term forecasts of Australia's weather.
Not even the IPCC claims an ability to forecast the weather beyond a few days, but the CSIRO has sullied its reputation by pretending they can project temperature and rainfall 30 years into the future. Why have they not revealed the calculations for these predictions? In the corporate world, anyone making such wild unsubstantiated claims would be quickly disciplined by the regulators. Public figures who repeat and embellish these scaremongering prophecies lack common sense and should also be called to account. The only credible weather forecast for such a long period is "It will Fluctuate".
Minister Wong obviously believes that if we give her enough powers to tax and regulate, she can change the world's weather. This belief is as silly as the CSIRO weather forecasts out to 2040. Man has never been able to control the weather and there is no credible evidence that his activities have caused unusual weather. In fact, despite all the hot air about carbon emissions, the world has not warmed since 1998 and has been cooling for the last 6 years. Moreover, we have had extreme droughts, floods, ice ages and global warming long before man started using coal and oil.
Minister Wong should make sure Australia has the industrial ability and economic strength to cope with any adverse weather that occurs, be it floods, fires, droughts, snow, heat, cyclones or tsunamis. Poor people cannot cope with Climate Change and the Rudd/Garnaut/Wong carbon taxes will make every Australian poorer.
This Deep Green Paper should be recycled and replaced by an enlightened White Paper outlining how to make Australia strong and prosperous. This will provide the best insurance for our children against any climate change.
Source
Global warming not such a moral dilemma after all, it seems
One Wong doesn't make it right
HERE'S a question: what happened to the great moral dilemma of our time?
Scientists have been imploring us to take immediate action to mitigate the effects of climate change caused by human behaviour. Economists such as Ross Garnaut say the same. So does the Prime Minister. He has said any number of times that this is the great moral issue of our time. If that's right, then surely we have to change our behaviour, emit less carbon, and save the planet from global warming. Simple, really. Now, it turns out that when an emissions trading system is introduced, petrol excise will be cut on a cent for cent basis to spare drivers the indignity of higher petrol prices. In other words, we can keep driving our cars, pumping the carbon into the atmosphere that is warming the planet.
Surely a politician who genuinely believes that climate change is the great moral issue will have the honesty to say: we are so committed to the science of climate change that you, the people of Australia, including the working families, must change your driving habits and wear the costs of mitigating climate change? But no. Not yet. Political expediency trumps all.
The problem with collecting buckets of dollars from an emissions trading system and showering that cash over consumers and businesses (to spare consumers higher costs) is that it kind of defeats the purpose of an ETS. An ETS is meant to alter behaviour through price signals. There is every indication that the ETS proposed by the Rudd Government will blunt the signals to the point where we don't change our behaviour.
It's easy enough changing a carbon emitting light globe to a friendlier version. No one needs a price signal to do that. Just a clean, green conscience. But changing behaviour? Steady on. That's a different thing, it seems. Yet, if we are serious about climate change, isn't it about time the Rudd Government came clean on the need for people to bear the real cost burden so that they do start to alter their carbon emitting actions?
Of course, the reason you won't hear a politician tell us that we need higher fuel prices to convince us to drive less, or drive smarter cars, is that climate change is not the big moral dilemma of our generation. It's more like the great political dilemma as the Rudd Government tries to look serious about climate change without hurting voters too much before the next election. That was pretty obvious when the Government leaked some details before the official release of the Green Paper so that the first thing people would read in newspapers across the nation was the plan to cut petrol excise tax.
It's all in the timing, you'll notice. Even more importantly, a deliberately feeble version of an ETS will be up and running by 2010. July 2010, in reality. And even that start date is now carefully framed as an "aspiration". With many predicting that the Rudd Government will go to an early election - some are predicting as early as late 2009 - consumers won't feel the heat of an ETS until well into the next election. If carbon is priced at a nice low price - say $10 a tonne - consumers won't notice much at all. Come then next election, they will be lulled into thinking this ETS thing is not such a big deal. And Climate Change Minister Penny Wong is saying there is no unlimited promise on cutting fuel excise - but heck, the petrol cut will extend to 2013. Is that yet another election before an ETS is given any real teeth to change our behaviour?
If so, then Wong and Rudd will have exposed the con of their great moral dilemma. Explaining their hypocrisy to voters is their real moral dilemma.
Source
It's just sentimentality on my part (although my own background is Protestant fundamentalist, I am an atheist and brought my son up as a Catholic) but I must admit that I still do enjoy smelling a whiff of the old fire and brimstone in the article below by immensely-influential Sydney Anglican clergyman Phillip Jensen. Beliefs such as his have transformed the world
Roman Catholicism is a very diverse thing and what you see in the Philippines is not necessarily what you see in the streets of Sydney. It has a Protestant face in the Protestant world. Recently we've been getting into the Stations of the Cross here in Sydney with World Youth Day in 2008, but not all 14 Stations of the Cross are going to be done, only I think eight of the Stations of the Cross - I can't remember the exact number.
The ones that are going to be done are the ones that are in the Bible, but the extra ones, like Veronica, well they're not in the Bible. They're not going to be done in the streets of Sydney. Now in one sense it is because they haven't got time, space and energy to do all of them, and in one sense it is out of courtesy to Protestants that they choose to leave out the ones that are not in the Bible.
But if Martin Luther came into Sydney and saw Roman Catholicism and its Stations of the Cross, he'd say, "Ah, they've cleaned up their act." So there are certain aspects of Catholicism in the Protestant world which are much more acceptable to where Luther would have been.
But no. Things are actually worse than in Luther's day because since Luther's day the Roman Catholic Church not only calcified itself explicitly against justification by faith alone, or the authority of the scriptures alone, or salvation by grace alone, etcetera; not only calcified itself against that back at the Council of Trent but since then you've had the Vatican I Council in 1870, which clarified the idea that the Pope can speak infallibly.
A faithful Roman Catholic would say, "Well, they're just saying what we've always believed," but in fact it was not until 1870 that it was ever said that this is really what the belief is. Since then we're not too sure how often the Pope has spoken infallibly but the one occasion on which everyone agrees he did was in the 1950s when he declared that Mary had been bodily assumed from the grave. Well, that's not in the Bible anywhere. And why would she be bodily assumed from the grave? It's all part of the Maryology that has come in. It has also identified the immaculate conception of Mary; that is, that Mary was without sin. Well, that's nowhere in the Bible.
So since the Reformation we've had the infallibility of the Pope, the sinlessness of Mary, the bodily assumption of Mary. These things show you that Roman Catholicism has moved since the Reformation - but it has moved further away from us, not closer to us.
NOW in Vatican II there was an opening up - people were "separated brothers" and things like that - but with all due respect to the genuineness of their attempts to be more ecumenically open - and certainly I'm appreciative of the sense of which we can live in a tolerant acceptance of each other - it was only a year or two ago that the Pope made quite clear that the Anglican Church, Presbyterians, are sects, cults; we are not the true church.
So you can't get salvation through us; you are moved into fairly serious deviation. And so Protestants can be very warm and fuzzy towards Roman Catholicism but it's not actually reciprocal. We are not really seen as God's people in Christ Jesus because the Pope is seen as the vicar of Christ. Now from a Bible-believing point of view, that is an appalling blasphemy because the Holy Spirit is the vicar of Christ.
Source
No nonsense about Muslim taxicab drivers in Queensland
Company fires them if they object to dogs -- unlike the constipated proceedings in the USA
Some Muslim taxi drivers are refusing to carry blind and disabled passengers with guide dogs - because their religion tells them the animals are "unclean". Brisbane's Yellow Cab Company has been forced to sack drivers over their conduct towards passengers with assistance dogs. Bill Parker, general manager of the firm, said the behaviour would not be tolerated and penalties will be imposed if drivers disobeyed. The company has produced a booklet informing drivers of their duty towards blind and disabled customers with dogs.
Islamic Council of Queensland president Suliman Sabdia said dogs were considered a health risk for Muslims but "to use religion as a reason to refuse blind and disabled passengers is unjustified".
Source
"Into the Deep Green Yonder"
A response to the Rudd government's Green Paper on Climate Change by Viv Forbes, Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition:
The Government Green Paper completely ignores the main question - should Canberra try to control the weather, or is it better to foster a strong Australia able to cope with whatever climate change brings us? The Government also justifies the need for action on completely worthless long term forecasts of Australia's weather.
Not even the IPCC claims an ability to forecast the weather beyond a few days, but the CSIRO has sullied its reputation by pretending they can project temperature and rainfall 30 years into the future. Why have they not revealed the calculations for these predictions? In the corporate world, anyone making such wild unsubstantiated claims would be quickly disciplined by the regulators. Public figures who repeat and embellish these scaremongering prophecies lack common sense and should also be called to account. The only credible weather forecast for such a long period is "It will Fluctuate".
Minister Wong obviously believes that if we give her enough powers to tax and regulate, she can change the world's weather. This belief is as silly as the CSIRO weather forecasts out to 2040. Man has never been able to control the weather and there is no credible evidence that his activities have caused unusual weather. In fact, despite all the hot air about carbon emissions, the world has not warmed since 1998 and has been cooling for the last 6 years. Moreover, we have had extreme droughts, floods, ice ages and global warming long before man started using coal and oil.
Minister Wong should make sure Australia has the industrial ability and economic strength to cope with any adverse weather that occurs, be it floods, fires, droughts, snow, heat, cyclones or tsunamis. Poor people cannot cope with Climate Change and the Rudd/Garnaut/Wong carbon taxes will make every Australian poorer.
This Deep Green Paper should be recycled and replaced by an enlightened White Paper outlining how to make Australia strong and prosperous. This will provide the best insurance for our children against any climate change.
Source
Global warming not such a moral dilemma after all, it seems
One Wong doesn't make it right
HERE'S a question: what happened to the great moral dilemma of our time?
Scientists have been imploring us to take immediate action to mitigate the effects of climate change caused by human behaviour. Economists such as Ross Garnaut say the same. So does the Prime Minister. He has said any number of times that this is the great moral issue of our time. If that's right, then surely we have to change our behaviour, emit less carbon, and save the planet from global warming. Simple, really. Now, it turns out that when an emissions trading system is introduced, petrol excise will be cut on a cent for cent basis to spare drivers the indignity of higher petrol prices. In other words, we can keep driving our cars, pumping the carbon into the atmosphere that is warming the planet.
Surely a politician who genuinely believes that climate change is the great moral issue will have the honesty to say: we are so committed to the science of climate change that you, the people of Australia, including the working families, must change your driving habits and wear the costs of mitigating climate change? But no. Not yet. Political expediency trumps all.
The problem with collecting buckets of dollars from an emissions trading system and showering that cash over consumers and businesses (to spare consumers higher costs) is that it kind of defeats the purpose of an ETS. An ETS is meant to alter behaviour through price signals. There is every indication that the ETS proposed by the Rudd Government will blunt the signals to the point where we don't change our behaviour.
It's easy enough changing a carbon emitting light globe to a friendlier version. No one needs a price signal to do that. Just a clean, green conscience. But changing behaviour? Steady on. That's a different thing, it seems. Yet, if we are serious about climate change, isn't it about time the Rudd Government came clean on the need for people to bear the real cost burden so that they do start to alter their carbon emitting actions?
Of course, the reason you won't hear a politician tell us that we need higher fuel prices to convince us to drive less, or drive smarter cars, is that climate change is not the big moral dilemma of our generation. It's more like the great political dilemma as the Rudd Government tries to look serious about climate change without hurting voters too much before the next election. That was pretty obvious when the Government leaked some details before the official release of the Green Paper so that the first thing people would read in newspapers across the nation was the plan to cut petrol excise tax.
It's all in the timing, you'll notice. Even more importantly, a deliberately feeble version of an ETS will be up and running by 2010. July 2010, in reality. And even that start date is now carefully framed as an "aspiration". With many predicting that the Rudd Government will go to an early election - some are predicting as early as late 2009 - consumers won't feel the heat of an ETS until well into the next election. If carbon is priced at a nice low price - say $10 a tonne - consumers won't notice much at all. Come then next election, they will be lulled into thinking this ETS thing is not such a big deal. And Climate Change Minister Penny Wong is saying there is no unlimited promise on cutting fuel excise - but heck, the petrol cut will extend to 2013. Is that yet another election before an ETS is given any real teeth to change our behaviour?
If so, then Wong and Rudd will have exposed the con of their great moral dilemma. Explaining their hypocrisy to voters is their real moral dilemma.
Source
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Nonsensical emissions trading scheme unveiled
Good ol' Rudd tokenism again: Large political compromises ensure that it will have negligible effect on carbon emissions. All it will do is generate another nice little bureaucracy to administer it
Motorists are guaranteed petrol price relief for just three years under an emissions trading scheme unlikely to have any short term effect on greenhouse gas emissions. The Rudd Government has opted for a softly, softly approach which will likely lead to an increase in the cost of living of less than one per cent. Its options paper on emissions, released in Canberra today, will see Australia ease into a relatively gentle scheme on July 1, 2010. This approach is good news for industry and means there will be a limited impact on household budgets - but it's not likely to lead to deep cuts to greenhouse emissions in the short-term.
The key points:
Scheme will probably add less than 1 per cent to the cost of living.
Petrol will be included, but there will be no net price increase because the fuel excise will be cut.
Pensioners, carers and seniors will have their payments increased to make up for price rises.
Other low-income earners will get tax breaks and increased allowances to make up for price rises.
Middle-income earners will get some financial assistance.
Scheme to start on July 1, 2010.
Free "permits to pollute" will be given to big polluters who export their goods; 90 per cent of their emissions will be for free.
Twenty per cent of the scheme's permits will be given out for free.
Coal-fired power stations will get cash payments to compensate for increased costs, and develop clean coal technology.
Petrol will be included in emissions trading, but the fuel excise will be cut so that there is no net increase in price. The decision to cut the petrol excise so that emissions trading does not push up prices - which was first proposed by the federal opposition - flies in the face of advice from the government's hand-picked climate change adviser Ross Garnaut. He urged against an excise cut last week, saying the price of petrol should rise to send a signal to the market to use less. The government says it will review the excise cut after three years. Fuel taxes on heavy vehicle road users will also be cut.
As expected, electricity is included in the scheme, as is throwing out rubbish to landfill, while agriculture is out until at least 2015. The options paper forecasts the cost of living will rise by 0.9 per cent due to emissions trading, meaning the average price for a basket of goods will rise by 0.9 per cent in the first year of the scheme.
Low-income earners will be given cash payments to make up for those price rises. Pensioners, carers and seniors will have their payments increased, and other low-income earners will get tax breaks and increased payments from the government. The scheme also aims to placate middle-income earners, who will get financial assistance.
Emissions trading seeks to tackle climate change by putting a price on carbon emissions. Big emitters have to buy "permits to pollute", which they can trade between them, so the market sets the price. The government has taken on board industry's concerns about the scheme, responding with a relatively generous support package. Big emitters who export much of their product - such as aluminium smelters - will be all-but exempted from emissions trading at the start. They will be given free "permits to pollute" to cover 90 per cent of their emissions. In all, 20 per cent of the scheme's permits will be given out for free, rising to 30 per cent once agriculture is included.
Coal-fired power plants will be compensated with direct payments from the government, including to develop clean coal technology. And there's a win for the forestry industry - companies who plant trees can qualify for carbon credits, but companies who chop down forests don't have to pay.
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong made reference to the gentleness of the scheme, saying it was not possible for Australia to lead the world on climate change. "After so many years of inaction, it is impossible for Australia to be in front of the world in tackling climate change," Senator Wong said today as the options paper was unveiled. "A greater risk is being left behind a world of emerging economic opportunities."
She stressed the importance of protecting the economy and the national interest. "In this green paper, the government has sought to strike the right balance, on the basis of economically responsible policy in the national interest." The government will release its final plan for emissions trading, along with draft laws to start the scheme, in December this year. The options paper does not include hard facts on the cost of emissions trading, but gives a big hint, basing key calculations on a carbon price of $20 a tonne.
Source
Sea of the young and devout swamps dormant Sydney dockland
(See Zeg's cartoon and commentary on the Leftist protests against the Pope here)
For five days it will stand as the biggest religious festival Australia has seen: 4000 priests, 418 bishops, 26 cardinals and more than 150,000 pilgrims celebrating mass together on the Sydney harbour foreshore. Catholics from around the world yesterday transformed a long-dormant section of Sydney's docks into a sea of waving national flags, cheering, singing and crying young pilgrims. They gathered to hear the leader of the Catholic Church in Australia, Cardinal George Pell, celebrate mass as the sun set on a magnificent winter's day.
Although record-breaking, their number will be dwarfed by the expected 500,000-strong congregation who will attend the papal mass on Sunday at Randwick racecourse, in Sydney's east.
Kevin Rudd welcomed the pilgrims in several languages, and with a broad Australian "G'day". "Too often in the history of the world, when young people travel in great number to other parts of the world, they do so in the cause of war, but you here today are here as pilgrims of peace," the Prime Minister said.
The Barangaroo site was full an hour before Cardinal Pell and a crowd of bishops took to the stage at 4.30pm and police were forced to turn thousands away. Following the greetings, and the welcoming ceremony by indigenous singers and dancers, a hush came over the crowd. Cardinal Pell welcomed the pilgrims to Sydney, speaking in French, German, Spanish, Italian and English before his homily. He said young Catholics should struggle against their "fat, relentless egos" and commit themselves to their fate. "Following Christ is not cost-free, not always easy, because it requires struggling against what St Paul called 'the flesh' - old, fat relentless egos,old-fashioned selfishness," he said. "It is always a battle, even for old people like me."
The mass combined the old and the new - a new musical setting, the Our Father said in Latin, a choir of 300 and an orchestra of 80 young people.
Rachel Karuana, 20, from Kenya, described the mass as one of the most emotional experiences of her life. She said the pilgrimage to Australia took her four days, four plane trips and many more bus rides. But being here among other young Catholics had made the journey worthwhile. "This is so big, I don't have words," she said. "Faith is something you need to make work and this is what I'm doing being here."
Standing nearby, with white ochre drying on his skin, Derek Lynch, 21, waited nervously to go on stage. The indigenous dancer from the Kurruru Youth Performing Arts Group in Adelaide said it was a once-in-a-lifetime event. "It's huge - something the entire world's going to be focusing on," Lynch said.
Eight pilgrims addressed the crowd, speaking of their experiences at previous World Youth Days, telling the crowd of their life-changing moments and encouraging their fellow pilgrims to be proud of their faith and to speak up for what they believe in. Katrina Alvir, a teacher from Sydney, told pilgrims that it wasn't always easy to be open about her Catholic faith. She said being a Catholic in Australia sometimes meant "keeping your mouth shut and keeping your love of God inside yourself".
Source
Eco-protest is powered by hypocrisy
Comment on a recent Greenpeace stunt at Swanbank power station
GREEN is the new black. If you're not totally environmentally cuddly by now, you may as well check your re-usable grocery bags at the door. You know the ones we're talking about: those thick plastic bags that allegedly replace the thin plastic bags, which is why every second bugger at the checkout queue has a box of plastic bin-liners secreted in the trolley among the dunny paper, cat food and instant noodles.
The sky is, after all, falling. We're running out of oil. But how did the Greenpeace "go solar" protesters get out to Swanbank? Did all 15 catch the train (which in Queensland runs on electricity generated by burning coal from places like Swanbank)? Maybe they drove in a car-share arrangement, consuming numerous litres of highly processed fossil fuel in the process. Or maybe the proverbial pushbikes the three Sydney protesters rode up on were taken for a canter.
If that were the case, then what a shame that those bikes are probably made of metal extracted from Australian iron-ore mines, plastics sourced from Bass Strait oil, and manufactured using coal-fired electrical power.
Another question for the go solar protesters: How many photo-voltaic cells (produced, by the way, in factories using coal-fired power and petrochemicals) do you have on the roofs of your homes? Or is that all a bit expensive?
Maybe that's a bit unfair. But given your passion to go solar perhaps you wouldn't even have electricity hooked up, just in case some fossil fuels might have suffered in the course of its production. After all, candles are perfectly good illumination in the lounge room while you sit on the treadle to power the dynamo that powers the television (produced with yet more dirty power and petrochemicals) so you can watch yourselves on the 6pm news.
And where do these galahs who were scaling the chimneys last week think the steel and hi-tech apparatus for their climbing equipment came from? It didn't grow on avocado trees. And, of course, being true believers in the cause, none of them would use computers (that requires electrical power and the bastards are made with nasty stuff like plastic) or mobile phones, would they? Mobile phones (more petrochemicals and metals and requiring transmission towers) are the devil's own tool.
Don't fear climate change, don't fear pollution, just retain a healthy cynicism when it comes to the crusaders. Hypocrisy and self-righteousness are the enemy.
Source
Synfuel is the solution Australia needs now
Synthetic fuel from coal and natural gas is already well-established and widely used in South Africa. Why not in Australia? Australia has huge amounts of coal and natural gas
The most critical problem we now confront is not global warming or how to tax emissions, but providing enough affordable fuel to avoid severe recession before alternative energy can become reality. The Lucky Country faces a choice between disaster and a unique opportunity.
Oil supply
Over the past two years climate all over the world has inexplicably begun a pronounced cooling. This is contrary to all expectations from global warming theory and growing other evidence is also indicating that the threat has been overestimated. However, the obsession with catastrophic climate change seems to have distracted attention from a much more certain and immanent danger. The oil supply vital to the entire economy is not keeping up with increasing demand while presently all focus is on renewable energy solutions that will require decades to develop and implement.
Consider just a few key facts about oil:
production is already in decline in some 50 nations; new discoveries have steadily declined for several decades and are far below depletion rates; oil exports are decreasing in most exporting nations as their own domestic demand increases; refining capacity has not kept pace with demand due to environmental restrictions and investment concerns over future supplies of crude; most existing refineries are designed for light sweet crude the supply of which is rapidly declining; future oil will increasingly be heavy sour crude which only a minority of existing refineries can use; the major producers have no reason for massive investment to increase production. The value of their remaining reserves is rapidly appreciating. Increased production would reduce prices and accelerate depletion. Expensive infrastructure for increased production would soon end up excessive to declining reserves.
Growth in demand, shortages and further price rises will slow the global economy for the foreseeable future. Fuel intensive sectors such as primary production, transport and travel will be hit especially hard.
Synfuel
Viable alternative energy is still decades away. Using commercially proven technology synthetic fuel from coal and gas could supply all our needs here in Australia at much less than the current price of fuel from oil. Only emission restrictions on CO2 stand in the way. "Clean" renewable technology is decades from becoming commercial.
The Australian economy is in a vulnerable position. Manufacturing is in decline and, at 13 per cent of GDP, is among the lowest in the developed world. The trade balance remains in chronic deficit even with the mineral boom. In April it became positive for the first time in six years but in May it was in deficit again, chiefly because of rising oil prices. Foreign debt is growing at twice the rate of the economy. It is now about 60 per cent of GDP, the highest in the developed world.
High commodity prices normally last only a few years before increased production, spurred by high prices, brings them down again. An end to the boom will result in a fall in the exchange rate of the Australian dollar, an even worse trade deficit and a crippling increase in the cost of foreign debt. An economy not dependent on imported oil would be a huge advantage.
Australia's portion of global CO2 emissions is about 1.4 per cent or just six months' growth in China's emissions. Natural uptakes of CO2 over Australia's land and Exclusive Economic Area of surrounding ocean absorb much more than this. Our net contribution to global CO2 emissions is already negative. Whatever we do or don't do will be trivial to the global situation, either in quantity or even as an example. Why cripple the economy for an increasingly doubtful theory?
The opportunity
Global warming is a distant and uncertain possibility of a problem that most likely does not even exist, at least in the catastrophic form being predicted. It can only be meaningfully addressed by developments that will require decades to become effective and which, in any event, must be undertaken even without the threat of warming.
Severe economic hardship because of fuel costs and shortages, however, is an imminent probability. This could be greatly alleviated if not avoided altogether by development of our own liquid-fuel supplies. It would be far easier to do this now in a time of prosperity than trying to do it in a recession. Having such capacity already in place might well even avert a recession here altogether. Being energy independent would be a huge competitive advantage in a time of high energy costs and shortages everywhere else.
Although precaution in the face of uncertainty is sensible, the realm of hypothetical risk is limitless. Many perceived risks turn out to have no reality. Remember the Y2K millennium bug scare? We cannot build fortresses against every shadow of doubt. Precaution too is not without its own attendant risk. Any proposed precautionary measure must be weighed against alternatives as well as consideration of its own consequences.
Obsessing over distant uncertain risks, while ignoring immediate consequences, is poor precaution. For Australia, drastic cuts in carbon emissions to prevent global-warming is to climate what anorexia is to obesity.
The proposed carbon taxes will achieve only a vast new windfall for government, large cost/price increases and economic recession with little or no actual reduction in emissions beyond what is effected by economic decline. Emission trading is set to become a huge new non-productive industry of wealth redistribution with a negative net outcome.
The world is headed for an energy crisis with consequences we have not even begun to appreciate. Australia is better positioned to cope than any other nation. For us synfuel is eminently practical and regardless of the ultimate reality of climate change will have negligible effect on the global outcome. The only thing holding us back is blind adherence to an ill-founded belief that daily becomes more hysterical, in denial of conflicting evidence, contrary to sound science and detached from climate itself.
The choice is unambiguous. We can either adhere to the dogma of the eco-cult and suffer immense self-inflicted hardship or take a clear path to future prosperity. Seldom is the way forward so obvious. One way takes a detour through Jonestown the other goes down Easy Street. The political leaders who recognise this and present it to the electorate will be the next government.
Source
Good ol' Rudd tokenism again: Large political compromises ensure that it will have negligible effect on carbon emissions. All it will do is generate another nice little bureaucracy to administer it
Motorists are guaranteed petrol price relief for just three years under an emissions trading scheme unlikely to have any short term effect on greenhouse gas emissions. The Rudd Government has opted for a softly, softly approach which will likely lead to an increase in the cost of living of less than one per cent. Its options paper on emissions, released in Canberra today, will see Australia ease into a relatively gentle scheme on July 1, 2010. This approach is good news for industry and means there will be a limited impact on household budgets - but it's not likely to lead to deep cuts to greenhouse emissions in the short-term.
The key points:
Scheme will probably add less than 1 per cent to the cost of living.
Petrol will be included, but there will be no net price increase because the fuel excise will be cut.
Pensioners, carers and seniors will have their payments increased to make up for price rises.
Other low-income earners will get tax breaks and increased allowances to make up for price rises.
Middle-income earners will get some financial assistance.
Scheme to start on July 1, 2010.
Free "permits to pollute" will be given to big polluters who export their goods; 90 per cent of their emissions will be for free.
Twenty per cent of the scheme's permits will be given out for free.
Coal-fired power stations will get cash payments to compensate for increased costs, and develop clean coal technology.
Petrol will be included in emissions trading, but the fuel excise will be cut so that there is no net increase in price. The decision to cut the petrol excise so that emissions trading does not push up prices - which was first proposed by the federal opposition - flies in the face of advice from the government's hand-picked climate change adviser Ross Garnaut. He urged against an excise cut last week, saying the price of petrol should rise to send a signal to the market to use less. The government says it will review the excise cut after three years. Fuel taxes on heavy vehicle road users will also be cut.
As expected, electricity is included in the scheme, as is throwing out rubbish to landfill, while agriculture is out until at least 2015. The options paper forecasts the cost of living will rise by 0.9 per cent due to emissions trading, meaning the average price for a basket of goods will rise by 0.9 per cent in the first year of the scheme.
Low-income earners will be given cash payments to make up for those price rises. Pensioners, carers and seniors will have their payments increased, and other low-income earners will get tax breaks and increased payments from the government. The scheme also aims to placate middle-income earners, who will get financial assistance.
Emissions trading seeks to tackle climate change by putting a price on carbon emissions. Big emitters have to buy "permits to pollute", which they can trade between them, so the market sets the price. The government has taken on board industry's concerns about the scheme, responding with a relatively generous support package. Big emitters who export much of their product - such as aluminium smelters - will be all-but exempted from emissions trading at the start. They will be given free "permits to pollute" to cover 90 per cent of their emissions. In all, 20 per cent of the scheme's permits will be given out for free, rising to 30 per cent once agriculture is included.
Coal-fired power plants will be compensated with direct payments from the government, including to develop clean coal technology. And there's a win for the forestry industry - companies who plant trees can qualify for carbon credits, but companies who chop down forests don't have to pay.
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong made reference to the gentleness of the scheme, saying it was not possible for Australia to lead the world on climate change. "After so many years of inaction, it is impossible for Australia to be in front of the world in tackling climate change," Senator Wong said today as the options paper was unveiled. "A greater risk is being left behind a world of emerging economic opportunities."
She stressed the importance of protecting the economy and the national interest. "In this green paper, the government has sought to strike the right balance, on the basis of economically responsible policy in the national interest." The government will release its final plan for emissions trading, along with draft laws to start the scheme, in December this year. The options paper does not include hard facts on the cost of emissions trading, but gives a big hint, basing key calculations on a carbon price of $20 a tonne.
Source
Sea of the young and devout swamps dormant Sydney dockland
(See Zeg's cartoon and commentary on the Leftist protests against the Pope here)
For five days it will stand as the biggest religious festival Australia has seen: 4000 priests, 418 bishops, 26 cardinals and more than 150,000 pilgrims celebrating mass together on the Sydney harbour foreshore. Catholics from around the world yesterday transformed a long-dormant section of Sydney's docks into a sea of waving national flags, cheering, singing and crying young pilgrims. They gathered to hear the leader of the Catholic Church in Australia, Cardinal George Pell, celebrate mass as the sun set on a magnificent winter's day.
Although record-breaking, their number will be dwarfed by the expected 500,000-strong congregation who will attend the papal mass on Sunday at Randwick racecourse, in Sydney's east.
Kevin Rudd welcomed the pilgrims in several languages, and with a broad Australian "G'day". "Too often in the history of the world, when young people travel in great number to other parts of the world, they do so in the cause of war, but you here today are here as pilgrims of peace," the Prime Minister said.
The Barangaroo site was full an hour before Cardinal Pell and a crowd of bishops took to the stage at 4.30pm and police were forced to turn thousands away. Following the greetings, and the welcoming ceremony by indigenous singers and dancers, a hush came over the crowd. Cardinal Pell welcomed the pilgrims to Sydney, speaking in French, German, Spanish, Italian and English before his homily. He said young Catholics should struggle against their "fat, relentless egos" and commit themselves to their fate. "Following Christ is not cost-free, not always easy, because it requires struggling against what St Paul called 'the flesh' - old, fat relentless egos,old-fashioned selfishness," he said. "It is always a battle, even for old people like me."
The mass combined the old and the new - a new musical setting, the Our Father said in Latin, a choir of 300 and an orchestra of 80 young people.
Rachel Karuana, 20, from Kenya, described the mass as one of the most emotional experiences of her life. She said the pilgrimage to Australia took her four days, four plane trips and many more bus rides. But being here among other young Catholics had made the journey worthwhile. "This is so big, I don't have words," she said. "Faith is something you need to make work and this is what I'm doing being here."
Standing nearby, with white ochre drying on his skin, Derek Lynch, 21, waited nervously to go on stage. The indigenous dancer from the Kurruru Youth Performing Arts Group in Adelaide said it was a once-in-a-lifetime event. "It's huge - something the entire world's going to be focusing on," Lynch said.
Eight pilgrims addressed the crowd, speaking of their experiences at previous World Youth Days, telling the crowd of their life-changing moments and encouraging their fellow pilgrims to be proud of their faith and to speak up for what they believe in. Katrina Alvir, a teacher from Sydney, told pilgrims that it wasn't always easy to be open about her Catholic faith. She said being a Catholic in Australia sometimes meant "keeping your mouth shut and keeping your love of God inside yourself".
Source
Eco-protest is powered by hypocrisy
Comment on a recent Greenpeace stunt at Swanbank power station
GREEN is the new black. If you're not totally environmentally cuddly by now, you may as well check your re-usable grocery bags at the door. You know the ones we're talking about: those thick plastic bags that allegedly replace the thin plastic bags, which is why every second bugger at the checkout queue has a box of plastic bin-liners secreted in the trolley among the dunny paper, cat food and instant noodles.
The sky is, after all, falling. We're running out of oil. But how did the Greenpeace "go solar" protesters get out to Swanbank? Did all 15 catch the train (which in Queensland runs on electricity generated by burning coal from places like Swanbank)? Maybe they drove in a car-share arrangement, consuming numerous litres of highly processed fossil fuel in the process. Or maybe the proverbial pushbikes the three Sydney protesters rode up on were taken for a canter.
If that were the case, then what a shame that those bikes are probably made of metal extracted from Australian iron-ore mines, plastics sourced from Bass Strait oil, and manufactured using coal-fired electrical power.
Another question for the go solar protesters: How many photo-voltaic cells (produced, by the way, in factories using coal-fired power and petrochemicals) do you have on the roofs of your homes? Or is that all a bit expensive?
Maybe that's a bit unfair. But given your passion to go solar perhaps you wouldn't even have electricity hooked up, just in case some fossil fuels might have suffered in the course of its production. After all, candles are perfectly good illumination in the lounge room while you sit on the treadle to power the dynamo that powers the television (produced with yet more dirty power and petrochemicals) so you can watch yourselves on the 6pm news.
And where do these galahs who were scaling the chimneys last week think the steel and hi-tech apparatus for their climbing equipment came from? It didn't grow on avocado trees. And, of course, being true believers in the cause, none of them would use computers (that requires electrical power and the bastards are made with nasty stuff like plastic) or mobile phones, would they? Mobile phones (more petrochemicals and metals and requiring transmission towers) are the devil's own tool.
Don't fear climate change, don't fear pollution, just retain a healthy cynicism when it comes to the crusaders. Hypocrisy and self-righteousness are the enemy.
Source
Synfuel is the solution Australia needs now
Synthetic fuel from coal and natural gas is already well-established and widely used in South Africa. Why not in Australia? Australia has huge amounts of coal and natural gas
The most critical problem we now confront is not global warming or how to tax emissions, but providing enough affordable fuel to avoid severe recession before alternative energy can become reality. The Lucky Country faces a choice between disaster and a unique opportunity.
Oil supply
Over the past two years climate all over the world has inexplicably begun a pronounced cooling. This is contrary to all expectations from global warming theory and growing other evidence is also indicating that the threat has been overestimated. However, the obsession with catastrophic climate change seems to have distracted attention from a much more certain and immanent danger. The oil supply vital to the entire economy is not keeping up with increasing demand while presently all focus is on renewable energy solutions that will require decades to develop and implement.
Consider just a few key facts about oil:
production is already in decline in some 50 nations; new discoveries have steadily declined for several decades and are far below depletion rates; oil exports are decreasing in most exporting nations as their own domestic demand increases; refining capacity has not kept pace with demand due to environmental restrictions and investment concerns over future supplies of crude; most existing refineries are designed for light sweet crude the supply of which is rapidly declining; future oil will increasingly be heavy sour crude which only a minority of existing refineries can use; the major producers have no reason for massive investment to increase production. The value of their remaining reserves is rapidly appreciating. Increased production would reduce prices and accelerate depletion. Expensive infrastructure for increased production would soon end up excessive to declining reserves.
Growth in demand, shortages and further price rises will slow the global economy for the foreseeable future. Fuel intensive sectors such as primary production, transport and travel will be hit especially hard.
Synfuel
Viable alternative energy is still decades away. Using commercially proven technology synthetic fuel from coal and gas could supply all our needs here in Australia at much less than the current price of fuel from oil. Only emission restrictions on CO2 stand in the way. "Clean" renewable technology is decades from becoming commercial.
The Australian economy is in a vulnerable position. Manufacturing is in decline and, at 13 per cent of GDP, is among the lowest in the developed world. The trade balance remains in chronic deficit even with the mineral boom. In April it became positive for the first time in six years but in May it was in deficit again, chiefly because of rising oil prices. Foreign debt is growing at twice the rate of the economy. It is now about 60 per cent of GDP, the highest in the developed world.
High commodity prices normally last only a few years before increased production, spurred by high prices, brings them down again. An end to the boom will result in a fall in the exchange rate of the Australian dollar, an even worse trade deficit and a crippling increase in the cost of foreign debt. An economy not dependent on imported oil would be a huge advantage.
Australia's portion of global CO2 emissions is about 1.4 per cent or just six months' growth in China's emissions. Natural uptakes of CO2 over Australia's land and Exclusive Economic Area of surrounding ocean absorb much more than this. Our net contribution to global CO2 emissions is already negative. Whatever we do or don't do will be trivial to the global situation, either in quantity or even as an example. Why cripple the economy for an increasingly doubtful theory?
The opportunity
Global warming is a distant and uncertain possibility of a problem that most likely does not even exist, at least in the catastrophic form being predicted. It can only be meaningfully addressed by developments that will require decades to become effective and which, in any event, must be undertaken even without the threat of warming.
Severe economic hardship because of fuel costs and shortages, however, is an imminent probability. This could be greatly alleviated if not avoided altogether by development of our own liquid-fuel supplies. It would be far easier to do this now in a time of prosperity than trying to do it in a recession. Having such capacity already in place might well even avert a recession here altogether. Being energy independent would be a huge competitive advantage in a time of high energy costs and shortages everywhere else.
Although precaution in the face of uncertainty is sensible, the realm of hypothetical risk is limitless. Many perceived risks turn out to have no reality. Remember the Y2K millennium bug scare? We cannot build fortresses against every shadow of doubt. Precaution too is not without its own attendant risk. Any proposed precautionary measure must be weighed against alternatives as well as consideration of its own consequences.
Obsessing over distant uncertain risks, while ignoring immediate consequences, is poor precaution. For Australia, drastic cuts in carbon emissions to prevent global-warming is to climate what anorexia is to obesity.
The proposed carbon taxes will achieve only a vast new windfall for government, large cost/price increases and economic recession with little or no actual reduction in emissions beyond what is effected by economic decline. Emission trading is set to become a huge new non-productive industry of wealth redistribution with a negative net outcome.
The world is headed for an energy crisis with consequences we have not even begun to appreciate. Australia is better positioned to cope than any other nation. For us synfuel is eminently practical and regardless of the ultimate reality of climate change will have negligible effect on the global outcome. The only thing holding us back is blind adherence to an ill-founded belief that daily becomes more hysterical, in denial of conflicting evidence, contrary to sound science and detached from climate itself.
The choice is unambiguous. We can either adhere to the dogma of the eco-cult and suffer immense self-inflicted hardship or take a clear path to future prosperity. Seldom is the way forward so obvious. One way takes a detour through Jonestown the other goes down Easy Street. The political leaders who recognise this and present it to the electorate will be the next government.
Source
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
PM's $5bn green gamble against Treasury advice
By Piers Akerman
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd is set to announce a controversial $5 billion scheme to slash carbon emissions. The plan, which will call for carbon to be captured and stored in forests and oceans, will be outlined in the Government's discussion paper on its planned emissions trading scheme to be released tomorrow, Treasury sources said. But the same sources said the Rudd Government would be going against Treasury advice if the expensive scheme to store carbon in the seabed or in deeply submerged subterranean strata went ahead.
They said Treasury had warned against announcing such a proposal because the carbon sequestration technology was largely untried. "This is another theoretical approach to a problem," one source said. "Not only is it very costly, no one knows whether it is a realistic storage solution for carbon emissions. "The Rudd Government appears determined to proceed, however, even though Treasury asked that, at the minimum, it refrain from taking such action until after next year's UN summit on climate change in the Danish capital Copenhagen meeting, when it will be seen what measures other developed nations may take." The use of so-called "carbon sinks" can take the form of storing carbon in plants and soils, oceans or buried in deep rock deposits.
Resources Minister Martin Ferguson is on the record as saying there are good arguments for implementing carbon sequestration. Mr Ferguson said sequestration would encourage investment and commercialisation of the technology, which was a safe way to allow continued carbon-based power generation with reduced environmental impact. His draft sequestration legislation sets up a framework for access to Commonwealth waters, defined as beginning three nautical miles offshore, as well as multiple-use agreements allowing the continuation of other commercial activities such as fishing and oil drilling. He said Commonwealth body Geoscience Australia had identified numerous sites where greenhouse gases could be stored. And he nominated high-carbon emission areas of Victoria, Western Australia and southern and central Queensland as having "adequate storage capacity nearby".
The carbon storage row comes after Mr Rudd previously ignored Treasury advice, and that of three other ministries, when he pushed ahead with the Government's FuelWatch program. In Opposition, he was critical of the Howard Government for ignoring Treasury and pledged that his government would be more receptive to advice from its bureaucrats.
Treasury is not the only body concerned at the possible effects of the Government's Green Paper on climate change. Australia's largest trade union, the Australian Workers Union, has released a report that predicts 15,000 jobs could be lost in the aluminium sector alone if the penalties contained in the ETS drive the industry offshore. AWU national secretary Paul Howes said regional communities and economies would be crippled at a potential cost of up to $1.12 billion. "We know, by keeping good jobs in industries like aluminium smelters and refineries here in Australia, we are actually helping in the battle against greenhouse gases," he said.
Environmentalists, however, say that Australians would not suffer if the aluminium sector closed and the industry went offshore to more modern plants. Climate Institute chief John Connor told the ABC yesterday that many foreign aluminium smelters were more efficient.
Farmers also expressed their concern that the discussion paper might pick an "arbitrary" date for the inclusion of agriculture in an ETS.
Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson will cut short his week-long holiday to lead the Opposition's response to the Government's climate change Green Paper.
Source
Insane hours: One in three medicos risks patients' lives
ONE in three doctors admits they have put patients at risk by working exhaustive hours to prop up Victoria's ailing health system. And more than 80 per cent say medicos in general work too many hours and are under so much stress that the safety of patients and doctors is being compromised. A Herald Sun survey of Victorian doctors also revealed half had considered quitting due mainly to stress, long hours and excessive workloads.
Almost 90 per cent of doctors said there were not enough of them to adequately care for the health needs of Victorians. "We are dangerously tired, overworked and stressed, and patients are suffering and dying from errors borne of pure exhaustion," one doctor said. Another said: "Hours are ridiculous. Working 12 days straight is idiotic and guarantees serious medical errors with fatal consequences." The findings are based on the responses of 1787 doctors who took part in the Herald Sun poll.
The survey also revealed:
MOST doctors believe hospital emergency departments are in crisis.
MORE than 90 per cent say it is unacceptable that more than 45,000 patients were left waiting on hospital trolleys for more than eight hours during the last six months of 2007.
ABOUT 80 per cent say already swollen hospital waiting lists for elective surgery will get longer before they get shorter.
SEVEN out of 10 doctors say patients are losing faith in the public health system.
MORE than 80 per cent say public hospitals will continue to fail their performance targets unless they receive a massive injection of cash from the Government.
The poll showed 47 per cent of Victorian doctors work more than 50 hours a week and 8 per cent work more than 70 hours. Thirty-one per cent of doctors admit they have compromised the care and safety of patients by working excessive hours. And 47 per cent of doctors who work more than 70 hours a week admit to putting their patients at risk.
The strain drove one doctor to write: "I constantly reconsider my options. You asked whether I have considered leaving the medical profession in the last three years - of course. Daily. And unless things change soon, I most likely will."
About 40 per cent of doctors seeking counselling from the Victorian Doctors Health Program are struggling with issues of stress and fatigue. "When you are fatigued, you can't see the wood for the trees to make decisions," director Dr Kym Jenkins said. "I know a significant proportion of the people I see here who are stressed are worried they might have made a mistake. "When people feel they might be compromising patient care it can be anything from not having done their paperwork before the knock-off, to being worried about a major incident."
Australian Medical Association state president Dr Doug Travis said the Herald Sun survey brought to the public's attention the every-day realities encountered by doctors. "We do not have the capacity in our public health-care system to give Victorians the care they need right now, today. That is beds, nurses, doctors and emergency departments," he said.
Health Minister Daniel Andrews said the Government was negotiating a new enterprise bargaining agreement with the AMA to balance increased doctors' pay while leaving enough money to improve the health system. "We value the feedback of our hospital doctors and recognise the vital work they do in making the state's public health system one of the world's best," he said.
Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu said the Government must confront issues raised by the survey. "The huge pressure on our doctors is further proof that Labor has abandoned Victorian public hospitals," he said.
Source
Jewish obesity under attack
Having seen the snacking ladies at Rose Bay, I think I know what this is all about
Kosher food can stack on the kilos. So says the rabbi who has launched a diet challenge to Australian Jews: lose 1000 kilograms in 12 weeks. Rabbi Mendel Kastel is publishing a diet online this month that comes with kosher recipes, a kosher conversion guide, personalised menus, exercise plans and tools to set goals and track weight. "Bagels, chopped liver, matzo balls, schmaltz herrings - there are things in a kosher diet that make us put on weight," he said. "Rather than a white bagel, try a wholemeal one."
As head of the Rabbinical Council of NSW, Rabbi Kastel has sent a message out to rabbis across Australia to challenge their communities. Corporate sponsorship in the form of a dollar for every kilogram lost will be directed to the Jewish House, a crisis housing agency. "We aim to lose about a kilo a week. So we're looking for 100 people to lose 10 kilos each. And the more, the better," he said.
Rabbi Kastel said he did not know if Jews were fatter than other Australians, but he said they needed to be aware of the importance of eating well, drinking moderately and getting regular exercise. The rabbi has been road-testing the program for the past five weeks and said he has shed six kilograms. "Just 20 kilograms to go."
Under Jewish law people should eat only kosher food. Meat, for instance, must come only from animals that chew the cud and have cloven hoofs, such as cows. And they must be killed in a particular way, removing as much blood as possible.
Source
Bullying in Australia's government schools forces many families into home schooling
PARENTS of both bullying victims and expelled bullies are turning to home schooling in a bid to salvage an education for their children. There are now an estimated 22,000 students learning from home in Queensland, double the number counted by a government working group in 2002.
The bullying epidemic in the state's schools is behind the increase, according to the Home Education Association. Association spokeswoman Colleen Strange said it had become the last resort for both the bullied and their bullies. "It's disturbing. I even have teenagers contacting me saying, 'Please talk to my mother and tell her what she has to do because I can't spend another minute in that school'," Ms Strange said. "I even have people who have been excluded from school for bullying contacting me. They have no choice, they have to be educated somewhere."
Home education is a "lawful alternative" for students of a compulsory school age, but Education Queensland sets out strict guidelines. Those wishing to go to university have to sit a special tertiary admissions test.
Last week's Sunday Mail investigation into bullying in Queensland schools sparked a huge response from readers. One Brisbane mother was driven to release details of a diary she kept of the daily trauma suffered by her disabled son at the hands of classmates. She was one of hundreds of readers who contacted The Sunday Mail following our report, which found up to one in six Queensland schoolchildren were victims of schoolyard abuse and 70 students, some as young as five, were suspended every day for assault.
The mother said her 14-year-old - who has autistic spectrum disorder, which affects his social and communication skills - had been subjected to a decade of physical and mental attacks, which left him reclusive and on anti-depressant drugs. "It started from Day One, they didn't give him a chance, they didn't give him a go," the mother said "His disorder means he can't socialise properly, anyway, and now almost every single day he comes home crying. He has no self-esteem. "He says, 'Mum I can't take it any more, I just can't do it any more'. And that is heartbreaking, really heartbreaking."
For the past 18 months the mother - whose identity has been withheld to protect her son - has kept a diary of every incident involving her son. She said "there is not one single day where something hasn't happened". The abuse began with name-calling and escalated to him being grabbed around the throat and choked, beaten with a mallet in manual arts, punched in the genitals and hit with a rock.
The mother said she had pleaded with school authorities and even confronted her son's bullies, and now had no choice but to join thousands of other Queensland families who were rejecting mainstream education in favour of home schooling. "If he stays where he is it will be devastating," she said.
Parents and children who contacted The Sunday Mail said they felt powerless to deal with the situation. "I now believe that the only way to stop the bullying is for my son to stand up to them, but the problem is that he doesn't know how to be physically violent. Oh, and by the way, he is only nine years old," one email revealed.
Another parent said her daughter had attempted suicide: "Four years onwards, many counselling sessions later, two suicide attempts, my daughter is barely living. She was a bright, caring, talented musician. This is sadly the cost to families left to deal with the effect of senseless degrading of a human being."
Source
By Piers Akerman
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd is set to announce a controversial $5 billion scheme to slash carbon emissions. The plan, which will call for carbon to be captured and stored in forests and oceans, will be outlined in the Government's discussion paper on its planned emissions trading scheme to be released tomorrow, Treasury sources said. But the same sources said the Rudd Government would be going against Treasury advice if the expensive scheme to store carbon in the seabed or in deeply submerged subterranean strata went ahead.
They said Treasury had warned against announcing such a proposal because the carbon sequestration technology was largely untried. "This is another theoretical approach to a problem," one source said. "Not only is it very costly, no one knows whether it is a realistic storage solution for carbon emissions. "The Rudd Government appears determined to proceed, however, even though Treasury asked that, at the minimum, it refrain from taking such action until after next year's UN summit on climate change in the Danish capital Copenhagen meeting, when it will be seen what measures other developed nations may take." The use of so-called "carbon sinks" can take the form of storing carbon in plants and soils, oceans or buried in deep rock deposits.
Resources Minister Martin Ferguson is on the record as saying there are good arguments for implementing carbon sequestration. Mr Ferguson said sequestration would encourage investment and commercialisation of the technology, which was a safe way to allow continued carbon-based power generation with reduced environmental impact. His draft sequestration legislation sets up a framework for access to Commonwealth waters, defined as beginning three nautical miles offshore, as well as multiple-use agreements allowing the continuation of other commercial activities such as fishing and oil drilling. He said Commonwealth body Geoscience Australia had identified numerous sites where greenhouse gases could be stored. And he nominated high-carbon emission areas of Victoria, Western Australia and southern and central Queensland as having "adequate storage capacity nearby".
The carbon storage row comes after Mr Rudd previously ignored Treasury advice, and that of three other ministries, when he pushed ahead with the Government's FuelWatch program. In Opposition, he was critical of the Howard Government for ignoring Treasury and pledged that his government would be more receptive to advice from its bureaucrats.
Treasury is not the only body concerned at the possible effects of the Government's Green Paper on climate change. Australia's largest trade union, the Australian Workers Union, has released a report that predicts 15,000 jobs could be lost in the aluminium sector alone if the penalties contained in the ETS drive the industry offshore. AWU national secretary Paul Howes said regional communities and economies would be crippled at a potential cost of up to $1.12 billion. "We know, by keeping good jobs in industries like aluminium smelters and refineries here in Australia, we are actually helping in the battle against greenhouse gases," he said.
Environmentalists, however, say that Australians would not suffer if the aluminium sector closed and the industry went offshore to more modern plants. Climate Institute chief John Connor told the ABC yesterday that many foreign aluminium smelters were more efficient.
Farmers also expressed their concern that the discussion paper might pick an "arbitrary" date for the inclusion of agriculture in an ETS.
Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson will cut short his week-long holiday to lead the Opposition's response to the Government's climate change Green Paper.
Source
Insane hours: One in three medicos risks patients' lives
ONE in three doctors admits they have put patients at risk by working exhaustive hours to prop up Victoria's ailing health system. And more than 80 per cent say medicos in general work too many hours and are under so much stress that the safety of patients and doctors is being compromised. A Herald Sun survey of Victorian doctors also revealed half had considered quitting due mainly to stress, long hours and excessive workloads.
Almost 90 per cent of doctors said there were not enough of them to adequately care for the health needs of Victorians. "We are dangerously tired, overworked and stressed, and patients are suffering and dying from errors borne of pure exhaustion," one doctor said. Another said: "Hours are ridiculous. Working 12 days straight is idiotic and guarantees serious medical errors with fatal consequences." The findings are based on the responses of 1787 doctors who took part in the Herald Sun poll.
The survey also revealed:
MOST doctors believe hospital emergency departments are in crisis.
MORE than 90 per cent say it is unacceptable that more than 45,000 patients were left waiting on hospital trolleys for more than eight hours during the last six months of 2007.
ABOUT 80 per cent say already swollen hospital waiting lists for elective surgery will get longer before they get shorter.
SEVEN out of 10 doctors say patients are losing faith in the public health system.
MORE than 80 per cent say public hospitals will continue to fail their performance targets unless they receive a massive injection of cash from the Government.
The poll showed 47 per cent of Victorian doctors work more than 50 hours a week and 8 per cent work more than 70 hours. Thirty-one per cent of doctors admit they have compromised the care and safety of patients by working excessive hours. And 47 per cent of doctors who work more than 70 hours a week admit to putting their patients at risk.
The strain drove one doctor to write: "I constantly reconsider my options. You asked whether I have considered leaving the medical profession in the last three years - of course. Daily. And unless things change soon, I most likely will."
About 40 per cent of doctors seeking counselling from the Victorian Doctors Health Program are struggling with issues of stress and fatigue. "When you are fatigued, you can't see the wood for the trees to make decisions," director Dr Kym Jenkins said. "I know a significant proportion of the people I see here who are stressed are worried they might have made a mistake. "When people feel they might be compromising patient care it can be anything from not having done their paperwork before the knock-off, to being worried about a major incident."
Australian Medical Association state president Dr Doug Travis said the Herald Sun survey brought to the public's attention the every-day realities encountered by doctors. "We do not have the capacity in our public health-care system to give Victorians the care they need right now, today. That is beds, nurses, doctors and emergency departments," he said.
Health Minister Daniel Andrews said the Government was negotiating a new enterprise bargaining agreement with the AMA to balance increased doctors' pay while leaving enough money to improve the health system. "We value the feedback of our hospital doctors and recognise the vital work they do in making the state's public health system one of the world's best," he said.
Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu said the Government must confront issues raised by the survey. "The huge pressure on our doctors is further proof that Labor has abandoned Victorian public hospitals," he said.
Source
Jewish obesity under attack
Having seen the snacking ladies at Rose Bay, I think I know what this is all about
Kosher food can stack on the kilos. So says the rabbi who has launched a diet challenge to Australian Jews: lose 1000 kilograms in 12 weeks. Rabbi Mendel Kastel is publishing a diet online this month that comes with kosher recipes, a kosher conversion guide, personalised menus, exercise plans and tools to set goals and track weight. "Bagels, chopped liver, matzo balls, schmaltz herrings - there are things in a kosher diet that make us put on weight," he said. "Rather than a white bagel, try a wholemeal one."
As head of the Rabbinical Council of NSW, Rabbi Kastel has sent a message out to rabbis across Australia to challenge their communities. Corporate sponsorship in the form of a dollar for every kilogram lost will be directed to the Jewish House, a crisis housing agency. "We aim to lose about a kilo a week. So we're looking for 100 people to lose 10 kilos each. And the more, the better," he said.
Rabbi Kastel said he did not know if Jews were fatter than other Australians, but he said they needed to be aware of the importance of eating well, drinking moderately and getting regular exercise. The rabbi has been road-testing the program for the past five weeks and said he has shed six kilograms. "Just 20 kilograms to go."
Under Jewish law people should eat only kosher food. Meat, for instance, must come only from animals that chew the cud and have cloven hoofs, such as cows. And they must be killed in a particular way, removing as much blood as possible.
Source
Bullying in Australia's government schools forces many families into home schooling
PARENTS of both bullying victims and expelled bullies are turning to home schooling in a bid to salvage an education for their children. There are now an estimated 22,000 students learning from home in Queensland, double the number counted by a government working group in 2002.
The bullying epidemic in the state's schools is behind the increase, according to the Home Education Association. Association spokeswoman Colleen Strange said it had become the last resort for both the bullied and their bullies. "It's disturbing. I even have teenagers contacting me saying, 'Please talk to my mother and tell her what she has to do because I can't spend another minute in that school'," Ms Strange said. "I even have people who have been excluded from school for bullying contacting me. They have no choice, they have to be educated somewhere."
Home education is a "lawful alternative" for students of a compulsory school age, but Education Queensland sets out strict guidelines. Those wishing to go to university have to sit a special tertiary admissions test.
Last week's Sunday Mail investigation into bullying in Queensland schools sparked a huge response from readers. One Brisbane mother was driven to release details of a diary she kept of the daily trauma suffered by her disabled son at the hands of classmates. She was one of hundreds of readers who contacted The Sunday Mail following our report, which found up to one in six Queensland schoolchildren were victims of schoolyard abuse and 70 students, some as young as five, were suspended every day for assault.
The mother said her 14-year-old - who has autistic spectrum disorder, which affects his social and communication skills - had been subjected to a decade of physical and mental attacks, which left him reclusive and on anti-depressant drugs. "It started from Day One, they didn't give him a chance, they didn't give him a go," the mother said "His disorder means he can't socialise properly, anyway, and now almost every single day he comes home crying. He has no self-esteem. "He says, 'Mum I can't take it any more, I just can't do it any more'. And that is heartbreaking, really heartbreaking."
For the past 18 months the mother - whose identity has been withheld to protect her son - has kept a diary of every incident involving her son. She said "there is not one single day where something hasn't happened". The abuse began with name-calling and escalated to him being grabbed around the throat and choked, beaten with a mallet in manual arts, punched in the genitals and hit with a rock.
The mother said she had pleaded with school authorities and even confronted her son's bullies, and now had no choice but to join thousands of other Queensland families who were rejecting mainstream education in favour of home schooling. "If he stays where he is it will be devastating," she said.
Parents and children who contacted The Sunday Mail said they felt powerless to deal with the situation. "I now believe that the only way to stop the bullying is for my son to stand up to them, but the problem is that he doesn't know how to be physically violent. Oh, and by the way, he is only nine years old," one email revealed.
Another parent said her daughter had attempted suicide: "Four years onwards, many counselling sessions later, two suicide attempts, my daughter is barely living. She was a bright, caring, talented musician. This is sadly the cost to families left to deal with the effect of senseless degrading of a human being."
Source
New cartoon blog from Sydney
The work of conservative Sydney cartoonist "Zeg" is little known so far.
I think his drawing is so brilliant, though, that I have started a new blog to record his cartoons as he does them -- with his permission, of course.
See here
Let's all hope he cracks a job at one of the big papers soon.
The work of conservative Sydney cartoonist "Zeg" is little known so far.
I think his drawing is so brilliant, though, that I have started a new blog to record his cartoons as he does them -- with his permission, of course.
See here
Let's all hope he cracks a job at one of the big papers soon.
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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
